The Fourth Sunday of Easter: No Other Name

Today, we hear a Scripture often cited as a proof text.  Some Christians seem pretty sure they know what it means.   It comes at the end of Peter’s sermon in the fourth chapter of Acts:

There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name given among mortals by which we must be saved.

Now, I imagine that many people—most of our neighbors--take this to imply that anyone who does not accept Christ as Lord and Savior will be punished forever.   In theological circles, that’s called “exclusivism,” but I prefer to call it “turn or burn.”   

Now, just to be clear, this isn’t my position at all, nor is it the prevailing one among Episcopalians—though here, as elsewhere, we are free to disagree.  But, as a rule, we don’t tend to think this way.  To be sure, God demands justice and reconciliation, but why would we think God needs to punish?

 God won’t force us to be saved, however.  It’s possible we’ll all be saved.  But what about free will? Perhaps some of us are spiteful enough to refuse grace and keep on hating and hurting each other for good.   So far as it depends on Jesus, though, he is the Savior, not just of Christians, but the whole world.  We are God’s good creatures, but we have fallen from grace and mortgaged our futures.   We fall short of the glory for which God made us—and God sent Jesus to make us whole.

 If we are to be made right with God and each other, we need his forgiveness and mercy.   This is borne out not just by Acts 4:12, but the entire New Testament.  In all of the Gospels, for example, Jesus equates our decision about him with our decision for or against God’s Kingdom.  Or, in Paul, we discover that we are set free only by participating in the death and resurrection of Christ. In other words, Jesus is God’s definitive offer of mercy for the whole world, and it matters how we respond.

And yet, it’s far more complicated than that.   It’s not so simple as “turn or burn.”   There may be more than one way to accept the mercy Jesus brings.   For my part, I wonder what those who hold a more narrow view make of the prophet Isaiah, when he says that “all flesh” will see the salvation of God.   Or what about this Sunday’s Gospel, where Jesus speaks of his “other sheep, not of this fold”?  Or Matthew 25, where he says we will be judged how we treat those who are poor and suffering?  In the end, it may not be what we believe but how we love that matters to God.   Or what about that ancient image, beloved of our ancestors and still preserved in the Eastern Orthodox liturgy, where the risen Christ shatters the gates of hell and leads Adam and Eve into paradise with the whole human race in tow?

And what do we make—really—of our friends and neighbors who profess a non-Christian faith--or no particular faith at all?  They love their friends and family like we do; they contribute to the common good.  Are they really doomed to eternal fire?   I suspect that many Christians struggle with this.  And, even if they end up mouthing the “turn or burn” party line of their particular churches, in their hearts, they suspect it’s not true.   

None of this is to deny the truth of the Gospel.  It’s just to accept the complicated historical and social reality in which the Gospel is heard and received.  What would it mean for a Hindu to hear and receive the Gospel, which came to India with British colonialism?   What about Gandhi, who learned from Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount and then used what he learned in the fight for independence?  Who indeed played a major role in teaching the Gospel to Christians like Martin Luther King.   Although he denied he was a Christian, Gandhi seems to have been a close follower of Jesus—closer indeed than many of us.

That brings me to some words from the Archbishop of Canterbury. In a book he published back in 1982, he reflects on the meaning of the preaching of the apostles in the Book of Acts, including the sermon we heard from Peter this morning.  He observes that these sermons are addressed to people directly involved in the crucifixion.   And that one central message of the earliest Christian preaching is that salvation is only to be had by turning to our own victims for forgiveness.  

By being the absolute victim—the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, and is raised to life to judge the world --Jesus puts the whole cycle of violence to an end.   “The primary stage in preaching the resurrection” writes a young Rowan Williams, is “to recognize one’s victim as one’s hope.  The crucified is God’s chosen:  it is with the victim, the condemned, that God identifies, and it is in the company of the victim…that God is found and nowhere else.”

In a world still rife with religious violence--and every kind of human oppression—this is the great message of the Gospel.   It is a word of peace for all families, tribes, and nations.   It’s why Christ is the Savior of the world, despite the violence in which we, his Church, are implicated.  Gandhi knew it; so did Dr. King.  At the heart of the Gospel, we find that non-violent love is far, far stronger than the things we think are strong.   Truly, in Christ, there is salvation for us all--for the oppressed, first and foremost, but also for the oppressor.   Christ crucified is the one true judge—the one Lord we can trust completely.  For he rises from the dead, not for vengeance but for mercy.  

He is the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep.   And he will lead us—always--to good pasture through the valley of the shadow of death.    

He is the world’s true hope…………..…And, in him, we can be saved.

The Third Sunday of Easter: In the flesh

Today's Gospel has the distinction of having provided the text for the only sermon of mine anybody’s ever walked out on.   And today, I’m finding myself tempted to preach it to you.  That’s because I'm STUBBORN--and because I’m convinced that what I said three years ago was true.  For the record, Tracey says she finds it hard to tell the difference.  In my defense, I can only plead that I don't yet know most of you well enough to realize whom I’ll be offending—and that the parish profile specifically called for thought-provoking sermons.  You'll have to judge for yourselves whether I've provoked you in ways that are helpful.   I encourage you to speak up and talk back--don’t be shy!  I believe that sermons, like tax returns, are only our first offer.  Any sermon of mine is meant to plant seeds for a conversation, hopefully one grounded in the lessons appointed.

Anyway, today's Gospel is meant to be Luke's version of the doubting Thomas story.  But, unlike what we heard last week from John, the point is not "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."  Rather, as Luke tells the story, he means to rub our noses in the flesh of Christ.  Touch me and see, says the risen Lord—then shows us his hands and his feet.  He even eats a piece of broiled fish before our eyes.  

The point is that Jesus still has a body.  He may be able to walk through walls, but he’s not merely a vision.  He’s certainly no ghost.  Indeed, Easter is all about God's intention to keep dwelling with us in the flesh.  Easter is about the victory of the Emmanuel sign that gives our parish its name.  Not even the cross and grave can thwart God’s will to be with us in the flesh.  Christ’s mission among us cannot be defeated or annulled by our sin.

Jesus came in the flesh, was crucified in the flesh, and rose again in the flesh.  This is the Gospel message--not just according to Luke but also according to the other New Testament witnesses.  The Easter Gospel is not disembodied and spiritual, but utterly fleshy and worldly.  Indeed, William Temple, the great Archbishop of Canterbury, once called Christianity the “most materialistic” of the world religions.  For us water, bread, wine, and oil—to say nothing of the neighbors we have from God—are vehicles of the divine mercy that now saturates our world.

Now for the provocative part.  In recent years, it’s become fashionable to rehabilitate ancient heresies under the rubric of “alternative Christianities.”   Needless to say, the Church has at times committed sins of violence and repression against religious outsiders, and we need to repent of persecution and study the past in all its rich variety.  We also need to be far more open to dissent in the present.  That’s why we embrace and celebrate our differences here at Emmanuel.

Nevertheless, it seems unfair to cast Gnostics and others as freethinkers persecuted by an imperious religious elite.  For one thing, they were just as eager to persecute the orthodox as the other way around.   Moreover, there were reasons—good reasons--why Irenaeus and other Church fathers rejected their teachings.  

The Gnostics were dualistic—both anti-flesh and anti-matter—and they alternated between extreme bodily discipline and libertine excess.   They denied the goodness of creation—and believed the creator was in fact a different god from the Father of Jesus.   Seen in this light, Gnostics aren’t the best allies if we seek a world-affirming and prophetic faith to address the very real crises facing the earth and its people today.

On a related note, some forms of contemporary New Age spirituality (I won’t presume to speak for them all) seem to be a kind of mirror image of escapist fantasies about the end-times and the rapture that have captured the imagination of some Christians.  Both forms of religious identity are all-too-happy to accommodate themselves to the powers that be.  After all, they look for redemption in the next world rather than the transformation of this one.   At its heart, though, Christianity is as this-worldly as our daily bread. It’s about God’s commitment to the world and the flesh-and-blood neighbors under our noses.   

Many contemporary evangelicals, under the influence of missionaries and Mennonites, and those two great Anglican priests, John and Charles Wesley (to say nothing of Jesus himself), are rediscovering the importance of embodied practices of sacrament and discipleship. At the same time, many mainline Christians, especially youth and young adults, are rediscovering our profound need for the same. We hunger and thirst for the Word of God made visible and tangible among us. We yearn to connect the liturgy with a fleshy, this-worldly love.  

The situation we face today calls us to something deeper and meatier than the poor fare offered in today’s marketplace of ideas.   We are being called to authentic Christianity, rooted in our own tradition but open to the experience of all sorts of people, with whom we make common cause.  We are being invited into a living relationship with Jesus Christ and practices of discipleship that put flesh and bones on his Gospel. Jesus is calling us to become what we eat—to become his Body, broken and shared for the life of the world.

So touch him and see. Taste him and see.  And FOLLOW HIM in the flesh.

The Second Sunday of Easter: Christ will not leave us alone

About twenty years ago, a man named Greg Brown wrote and recorded what I can only describe as a postmodern Gospel song.   In it, the narrator manages to be haunted by the figure of Jesus and the grace and redemption he brings, while remaining ambivalent in his commitments.  I first came across the song on a Dar Williams album.   And though, so far as I know he never recorded it, I always hear it in my head sung by Johnny Cash.   It goes like this.

Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart

among the rags and the bones and the dirt.

There's piles of lies, the love gone from her eyes,

and old moving boxes full of hurt.

Pull up a chair by the trouble and care.

I got whiskey, you're welcome to some.

Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart,

but I don't reckon you're gonna come.

I've tried to fix up the place, I know it's a disgrace,

you get used to it after a while -

with the flood and the drought and old pals hanging out

with their IOU's and their smiles.

bare naked women keep coming in

and they dance like you would not believe.

Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart,

so take a good look - and then leave.

Oh Lord, why does the Fall get colder each year?

Lord, why can't I learn to love?

Lord, if you made me, it's easy to see

that y’all make mistakes up above.

But if I open the door, you’ll know that I'm poor

and my secrets are all that I own.

Oh Lord, I have made you a place in my heart

and I hope that you leave it alone.

What a troubled soul it takes to sing a song like that.   But not that different from you and me, especially when we feel used up, broken, and ashamed.   Even if our low places are a bit higher than his, most of us can connect with his feelings.  If the Lord really saw us as we are, we suppose, he would take a good look and then leave.

And yet, the last verse of the song betrays a nagging doubt.  The man may hope the Lord will leave him alone, but he isn’t sure he’ll be so lucky.  He is afraid, frankly, that the Lord will NOT abandon him.   Like many of us, at least some of the time, this man is in love with the things that are killing him.   The thought of breaking free is more frightening than patterns of sin that are well-worn and familiar.   It’s a bit like the children of Israel, who longed for Egypt when Moses brought them out into the wilderness.   They came to prefer slavery with three meals a day to the struggles and dangers that stood between them and the promised land.

Something similar’s at stake in today’s Gospel.   Despite the report that the tomb is empty—and the rumor that Magdalene has seen the Lord—the disciples have locked themselves away for fear.   They are huddled in the Upper Room, afraid they’ll meet the same fate as Jesus himself.   What’s more, they are ashamed, since they ran away when he needed them most.  Only a handful of women (and, by some accounts, John) stood by Jesus to the bitter end.  So, there they sit with the doors barred, deep in the grip of grief and fear.

But suddenly, Jesus himself is standing among them—ALIVE!   “Peace be with you,” he says, and by announcing peace he gives it.   “Peace be with you,” he says, and their fear turns to GREAT JOY.   

Then, he shows them his wounds.  Even though God has set his body free from the limitations of time and space, so that Jesus can show himself whenever and however he wants to, this is the same body that suffered and died.  It is the same body marked by the nails and the spear—the very same body, in which our own wounds are taken into the heart of God.

It’s no accident this Gospel is sometimes appointed for Pentecost.    Just as God breathed the breath of life into Adam, so Jesus breathes his very own Spirit into us.   Jesus sets the Spirit of love loose in the world—to make all things new.

In the power of this Spirit, Jesus sends us on a mission.    As Father has sent me, he says, so I send you.   He gives us a share in his very own work, inviting us to go and do likewise—to show mercy and forgive sins wherever we happen to be.   Jesus sends us from the Upper Room, with its illusions of safety, out into our neighborhoods, schools, and places of work.

Jesus shows us that the walls we build to keep him out—like our futile efforts to control him—pose no barrier to his presence or his love.   He comes right through these walls--then sends us from familiar places out into the public square, to share his love with others.

Jesus plunges us—always--into the risky work of this-worldly love.   And, God knows, it isn’t safe.   Certainly not if, like Jesus, we don’t divide the world up into enemies and friends.   If we share in his mission, we will put our flesh on the line with everyone we meet—and we will acquire wounds of our own.   

No, it isn’t easy, and it can be scary.   But two things are certain.

First of all, Jesus loves our wounds, because they make us more like him.  Indeed, we have only begun to get our heads around the Gospel when we begin to accept our own humanity in light of his infinite mercy.  

The second thing is this: Jesus loves us too much—he loves us all too much—to ever leave us alone.

Easter Day: Death Itself Has Passed Away

I don't know how many of you caught the article in the News-Star last week about the little girl who had a surprise reunion with her daddy at school. He's been serving in Iraq, and though she'd been told he was coming home “sometime soon,” they left the precise timing a surprise. It's a deeply moving picture of a family reunited after a season of absence and worry. This same kind of reunion has happened thousands of times before. But it never stops being joyful, because things don't always end well when a loved one leaves for war.

There must have been a moment, however briefly, when the girl didn't recognize her father. And then, the shock of recognition and tears of joy streaming down her face.

I mention this little girl today, because her story bears a certain resemblance to many versions of the Easter story. At first, Jesus appears to his disciples as a mysterious stranger, until—in one way or another—their eyes are opened and they recognize him. On the road to Emmaus, for example, he is known to them in the breaking the bread. Or, on the Sea of Galilee, when they’ve gone back to fishing, it is the beloved disciple, with the special insight born of love, who must tell the others that the stranger on the beach is Jesus himself. Or today, Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles and the first to see and touch the Lord, recognizes Jesus when he calls her by name.

But the shock of recognition is where the similarity ends. Because, unlike the little girl in the paper, Mary doesn’t expect to see her beloved again. On the contrary, she’s seen him killed in action before her very eyes. Mary arrives at the end of her rope, disconsolate and numb with grief, after a long, dark night spent weeping. She’s come in the wee hours of the morning to care for Jesus--to do what she can for his body. But she has no hope--NONE--of meeting him alive. What's more, even the small comfort of caring for his body is denied her. She finds the tomb empty, and supposes grave robbers (or perhaps the gardener) have taken his body away.

We can hear her anguish as she explains to the angels why she's weeping. They have taken away my Lord, she says, and I do not know where they have laid him.

And then, a little later, she says to the stranger who approaches, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him.

Imagine her surprise when Jesus calls her by name. Mary, he says, and her heart is set on fire. Imagine when she looks him in the face and sees who he is. But it’s far, far more than merely the shock of seeing him alive. When Mary turns to face the Lord, more is involved than mere bodily movement. This is conversion—the reorientation of her entire being, from the inside out. By the movement of the Spirit within her, Mary’s mind, will, and affections are turning to God. Mary is turning from fear and despair to great and boundless joy. Earlier in the Gospel, Jesus spoke of the hour when the dead would hear his voice and live. When Mary does so, she passes from death to life—and with her so have WE.

Easter means more than reuniting lost loved ones. Easter means more than eternal life, though it is that as well. Easter means more even than the fact that Jesus who died is now alive, though that is certainly true.

Easter is the beginning of God’s new creation. It is the eruption of the Lord of life in the midst of history, bursting every form of scarcity and every limit posed by the present age, so that Christ the Lord might reign.

Easter is the Lord’s victory over all that enslaves us—first and foremost, sin and death. Like Mary, we come to the tomb bearing many burdens. We come weighed down by various forms of grief and sin and shame. We come bound by poverty, violence, and oppression of one kind or another. We come burdened by various forms of struggle and resentment—by illness and addiction and an uncertain future. By broken promises and broken relationships, some of which we can't make right no matter what we do. We come bound by the chains of memory and regret and the many, many ways we diminish one another. But in Christ, these bonds are burst asunder. In Christ, we lay these burdens down.

Now, it isn’t magic. These things are real, and none of them simply disappears. And yet, in Christ, they lose their power over us, so that our growth in holiness might begin--not in anxious fear about our salvation but in gratitude for life abundant—and a victory already won. For Christ is the Living One, who has flung wide the gates of heaven—and who has conquered, once for all, the fallen powers of sin and death and hell.

Most of us come to Easter with our doubts-- who doesn’t? And yet, in our heart of hearts, we know the story is true. More is given here than we could ever receive. Here we are confronted by God’s wide-open mercy and a love without condition or price. Here the Lord himself meets us, breaking down the walls that imprison us and leading us into freedom.

Since we come face to face with God’s mystery in the Lamb that was slain, we approach Easter best in symbol and story. Like the cross we are flowering this morning, the glorious liturgy we are celebrating, and the jumbled, eyewitness accounts we hear of an empty tomb and of Jesus alive. We meet Jesus, wherever fear is conquered, forgiveness offered, or neighbors served in love. We meet Jesus in quiet moments when he comes and calls us each by name. We meet Jesus in the hope and freedom this day brings—and in the Spirit who now burns in our hearts. We meet Jesus whenever his body is broken and blood poured out. We meet him in the New Community that gathers in his Name. We meet him in our feasting and raucous hymns of joy.

For Christ is risen from the dead—trampling down death by death—and giving life to those in the tomb.

Alleluia. Christ is risen.

And death itself has passed away.