Psalm for Sunday of the Passion 5 April 2020

Psalm 31:9-16

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in trouble;

   my eye wastes away from grief,

   my soul and body also. 

For my life is spent with sorrow,

   and my years with sighing;

my strength fails because of my misery,

   and my bones waste away. 

I am the scorn of all my adversaries,

   a horror to my neighbours,

an object of dread to my acquaintances;

   those who see me in the street flee from me. 

I have passed out of mind like one who is dead;

   I have become like a broken vessel. 

For I hear the whispering of many—

   terror all around!—

as they scheme together against me,

   as they plot to take my life. 

But I trust in you, O Lord;

   I say, ‘You are my God.’ 

My times are in your hand;

   deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors. 

Let your face shine upon your servant;

   save me in your steadfast love.

Reflection       What makes you feel safe? A security system and camera on your doorbell? a face mask? a gun? What makes you feel secure?  A job? A good balance of stocks and bonds in your portfolio? A pantry bulging with garbanzo beans and toilet paper? What is your place of refuge? Your office? Your garden? Your addiction to food, alcohol, shopping, drugs, sex, gambling? 

In moments such as we face today our habitual strategies for safety, security and refuge  prove supremely insufficient to thwart the path of the dangerous interloper, Covid-19. Much as misinformation is spread by clandestine adversaries through social media gone viral, coronaviruses invade us through proteins on the surface of cells in our throat, lungs and intestinal tract. Once the hidden virus sneaks its genetic material into  a cell, as the geneticist Dr. Mendenhall writes, “the cell is duped into becoming a slave to the virus.”* 

A question we face today is “How have we been duped into becoming slaves to our personal strategies for safety, security and refuge?”

No amount of bleach, toilet paper or money can inoculate us against the ravages of life. We are fragile, vulnerable and intimately interconnected. When even a well intended handshake can deliver a deadly virus, we cannot comprehend the countless ways our mere presence on this planet can harm one another. 

What then will we do?

Will we go to our well stocked and electronically protected abodes, perseverate on the news, lick our wounds and look for someone or something to blame? Or will we take this time to pause and join our psalmist calling out to God, ““Have mercy on us, O Lord, for we are in trouble; * our eyes are consumed with sorrow, and also our throat and belly?” We are sick. We are dying. We are infected by mass marketing hype and poisoned by media’s misinformation. We have put our faith in consumptive strategies for safety, security and refuge and they are killing us.”

“O God, have mercy on us, for we are in trouble. Let our lives not be consumed by stuff that does not matter. Purify our hearts so that our neighbors will cease crossing the street to avoid us.  Rescue us from our toxic strategies for safety, security and refuge. Help us to make our sanctuary in you, our rock and our foundation.”

No amount of bleach, toilet paper or money can inoculate us against the ravages of life. We are fragile, vulnerable, intimately interconnected and utterly dependent on God and one another.  Let us put our times of social distancing and quarentine in the hands of our God and all of our faith in God’s faithfulness.

*https://www.uah.edu/news/items/ok-we-are-dealing-with-covid-19-but-whats-a-virus-in-the-first-place

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Gospel text for 3rd Sunday of Easter 15 April 2018

Luke 24:36b-48        Jesus himself stood among the disciples and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

Reflection       The risen Christ stands among us, indeed, in and of and with each of us, saying “Peace be with you.” What better place than in Church to practice passing on the peace, the peace that dwells within each of us? the peace for which we all long? The risen Christ stands among the disciples who betrayed and abandoned him, who ran away when he was arrested, who hid when he was beaten, humiliated and died. The message is irrefutable, God’s peace of  wholeness and completeness, well being and security is present and available to everyone, no matter what.

When we stop think about it, the act of passing the peace is an act of radical resistance to everything within us and around us that promotes division and distrust, doubt and disillusion. As we pass the peace we are standing up against the forces of hatred in our world. We are looking into one another’s eyes and affirming a truth that is beyond our understanding. No matter what appears to be going on, God’s peace, God’s wholeness, completeness, well-being and security IS with us. 

Here I must make a confession. Something about our liturgical usage of the words “Peace BE with you,” has always left me unsatisfied. The risen Christ has already come and stood among us,  has already breathed on us ”the peace that is beyond understanding.” (Phil 4.7) The blessing of peace; of wholeness, completeness, well being and security IS already with us. In the gospel according to John we read Jesus’ words, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives…. (John 14. 27).   In other words, peace IS with us. We do not receive the gift of peace contingent upon who we are, where we come from, what we believe, who we vote for, or anything that we have done or that we have left undone. God’s peace is present and available to everyone, right now, no matter what. 

This is startling, this is terrifying, this raises doubts in our hearts. Much like the disciples,  we want to feel joy but we cannot believe it and we wonder, how can this be? We look for peace and instead we see brutality and bloodshed. In lieu of completeness we suffer patronage and partiality. Loss and disadvantage supplant our sense of well being. Confusion, suspicion and mistrust overthrow our security.  Peace? What peace is there for us? 

Jesus himself stood among the disciples and said to them, “Peace be with you.”… “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” “And he opened their minds to understand.” The peace of the Lord IS always with you. This is good news indeed. 

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Gospel text for 2nd Advent - Sunday, 7 December 2014

Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,  "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: `Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'"

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Reflection    What does this have to say to us, many of whom were baptized as infants? Isn’t baptism a done deal? Not according to John. “This is the beginnning of the good news, ” news that always we begin again. There is no shortage of opportunities for each of us to pause, listen to the words of the prophet, examine our lives for vestigages of sin asking; To what am I clinging for my safety and security? How do I use alcohol, drugs, food, shopping, sex, work, video games, people or the internet for comfort or esteem? What means do I employ to acquire and exert power and control? What if I found my safety, security, affection, esteem, power and control in relationship with God instead?

Now let me be crystal clear. I am not suggesting that the things of earth or creation are evil. That would be a heresy.  It is our attachment to things as sources of that which is of God that is sin. Just another way of saying, we have a tendency to turn things into idols - golden calves, golden parachutes.  When we decide to repent, to change our minds, to let go of our idols, our habits, attachments and addictions, we are ready for something new. This is how we prepare the way for the one who is and is to come. This is our work for the Advent season; preparing the way for the Christ to be born again in each of us. 

Surely preparing the way for something new is as natural as new families making countless trips to Babies R Us as they prepare for the coming of a child ? Aunties buy cribs and friends cuddly blankets. Parents search the web for advice, install baby monitors and socket guards. With nothing but the best of intentions boatloads of things are gathered to welcome the child into a world of safety, security, affection, esteem, power and control. This is as it should be - and - immediately the writer of Mark’s gospel invites us to put that child in God’s hands, drenched in the water of baptism to die to a life constrained by things and rise into a life of safety, security, affection, esteem, power and control born in the hands of God. We prepare the way to give our children away to God in baptism.

At the other end of the spectrum linger those of us in later seasons of life faced with the burden of scores of physical stuff, habitual stuff,  stuff we no longer have the energy to sustain. Mountains of possessions possess us. Decades of habitual behaviors and reactions stand between us and freedom like barbed wire prision walls. Are we not like the people of the Judean countryside and Jerusalem compelled by a sense of desperation and desire for something more than old stuff and the empty promises of city, state, empire? How many of us long to walk into the wilderness, throw all the things that possess us into the Jordan river, watch them sink to the watery depths and experience the lightness of being born anew in the hands of God? “This is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God….” Do you dare to prepare the way of the Lord?   

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