Saturday, March 31, 2018

Sermon for the Easter Vigil. Mark 16:1-8 “Broken[Open]Heart”


The social worker moved slowly, unlike her normal crisp trot through the hospital ward. The mother of the dead baby sat in a corner, looking like she had been scourged – what other way is there to look, when your son has died? The baby, born with a myriad of health problems, now lay even more still than he had in life, when he was tethered to whirring machines that pumped and breathed and vibrated through him. Now all was quiet.

And the social worker slowly, reverently made plaster casts of the tiny feet and hands to remember the baby by, so the mother could recall that this was not a dream, that it was real, that he was dead, but he had been hers, growing within her and then drifting away from life just a few days after his birth.

And then the social worker softly lifted the tiny feet and made inked footprints, and asked the mother if she wanted to hold her son, her tiny, still, dead son, in her arms for a picture. Oftentimes, in the feverish clutch of loss, mothers forget what their little ones looked like…and so, now that all the tubes and lines and cords were gone, the mother could hold her boy and a picture could be taken, all that mother’s love evident in her caress of his arm, in the kiss on the top of his head, in the gentle rearranging of the smallest hospital gown you can imagine, in the stillness of the moment, before his body would be taken away from her forever. It was a moment of ritual and it was a comfort and a reminder of holiness in the midst of pain.

One of the things we learn about death, about loss, is that it is too much to bear in the moment, and to help carry us through those first hours and days, rituals can be a gift. When the reality is crushing, ritual can structure our space and time enough so that we can survive. We can make some small meaning of what is happening by following ancient patterns of behavior that distract us from the pain for a moment, so we can catch our breath.

We need ritual in the face of death, so that we can live.

That is one of the reasons why ritual plays such an important role in the church, because we are always in the midst of deaths of one kind or another. Sometimes it’s the death of a beloved. Sometimes it’s the death of a dream, either our own dream, or the dream of a parish, or the dream of a nation. Sometimes we dream of a return to a past, happier time, then wake up and discover that we are in the here and now. And so we structure ways of dealing with those deaths to comfort us, to help us face the harsh reality, to begin to turn toward the future. We structure rituals to remind us we are still alive.

In this poignant reading from the Gospel of Mark, a ritual is playing out. The women who were a part of the community of disciples had been unable to attend to the rituals of death properly immediately after Jesus was laid in the tomb and the stone was rolled to close him in – such a finality to that! – but they decided they would go the next day to anoint him, to prepare his beloved body as had been ritually done for centuries, to comfort themselves even if they could not comfort him anymore. They arrived with the water to wash him, with the oils to rub into his skin, with the cloth to wind around him, with the spices that would be tucked into the folds of the cloth. They could hardly believe what had happened in all its brutality and viciousness. They could hardly believe what their eyes had told them, that their beloved, their rabbi, their Lord, had been killed, but they knew it was done. And yet there was one last thing they could do for him, for themselves, so that they might touch his skin one last time, so that they could honor him…to carry out the rituals of burial, so that they could live.

We can picture them walking in the early morning half-light, with the materials they needed slung in carrying-cloths over their shoulders, walking to the cave in which Jesus’ body was buried. Perhaps they walked briskly at the start of their journey, and slowed up, hesitating as they approached the tomb, wondering if they could manage to roll the stone away, wondering if they could bear it to see his broken body, wondering if they were strong enough for this holy and heart-rending work, but relying on the rhythm of it, a rhythm that what so familiar that they could do it with their eyes closed if need be, the rhythm of ritual that would help them face the death of one who meant so much to them.

And then they looked up from the path –they had been watching where they stepped on the uneven ground – and saw the stone had been rolled away. Did they wonder about that? Did they think that some of the men among them had come ahead, knowing they would need this? Did they think that perhaps someone had not rolled it into place the night before? But the cave was gaping open, and they bent and peered in. It should have been hard to see, but there was some source of light there, and a young man sitting there. Who was he? They shouldn’t talk to a stranger, and what was he doing in there? This was a tomb, Jesus’ tomb, but the body of their Lord wasn’t there. They were caught in that strange land between death and life and an interloper had interposed himself between them and their ritual work…

…and then he spoke. "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you."

Incomprehensible. He has been raised? What did that mean? They were braced to see him in death. Now he wasn’t here and this stranger was telling them that he would meet them in Galilee.

There was no ritual structure to address this situation. Jesus had been dead but now, apparently, he wasn’t dead. They had been prepared to address his death with rituals that were prayer and comfort. It seemed that was no longer required, and there was no substitute to face this new understanding of what was happening.

The ritual had been broken open, cracked into a thousand pieces, since death was no longer the dominating presence in the tomb, in their lives…Jesus lived.

No, more than that: Jesus lives.

So what happens when rituals are broken apart, when presence and possibility collide and that which breaks our hearts open shifts and bends, and presents us with a wildly beautiful new reality? What happens when the finality of death emerges into the glorious infinitude of eternal life? What happens when the tomb cannot contain death, because life triumphs over it?

Perhaps a new ritual is called for in these rare moments when our hearts have been broken open and new life has flooded in…when resurrection – incomprehensible, mysterious, transcendent – supplants death.

In orthodox icons of Jesus transcending death, he stands atop the cross. He lifts the dead from slumber. He conquers what attempted to end him, but could not.

This night, this Easter vigil, is the ritual that takes our broken hearts – broken at the darkness of the world, at corruption and sin and oppression and pain – and shows what has been born out of that brokenness. This ritual is the retelling of the story of God’s love for us all through generations upon generation, through our repeated failures to honor the covenant that God made with us, through God finally sending someone who walked with us and looked like us and talked like us, through humanity killing that one who was sent to save us, to this one end: Jesus’ death is not the end of the story. The burial ritual is not the closing of a door.

This is the ritual that reminds us that Jesus’ death is the START of the story. Resurrection is not just possible – it is PROMISED. It is promised in that long and somewhat repetitive story of God’s persistent love. We live into our understanding of the joy of the resurrection in this ritual because we have experienced the power of ritual when we were in pain. Our hearts are broken open so that the light can come in. And we learn this night, above all other nights,that our ritual is not merely comfort, it is promise. Jesus conquers death tonight and all nights. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!

Amen.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Sermon for Sunday, March 11, 2018 Numbers 21:4-9



Good morning! I’m Mary Thorpe, Director of Transition Ministry for the Diocese of Virginia, and I’m here to celebrate with you – your time in-between is just about over.
Next week you will welcome your new rector as he begins your ministry among you. I’d like to reflect on how this time of transition has been for you all, and where God has been in the midst of it…because God is always in the midst of it.
Let’s consider the Old Testament reading. We are with the people of Israel as they are guided toward the Promised Land by God. Here’s the thrust of what’s going on here. They don’t really remember how bad things were when they were enslaved in Egypt, and how God used Moses to get them out from under the thumb of pharaoh. They don’t really remember how hungry they were and how God provided them with miraculous food, fresh every single day, in the form of manna and quail. You know, you go to a high-end restaurant downtown and you get served roasted quail, you know it’s going to cost you $30 for that entrĂ©e, but God’s delivering it for free. But the people forget, and complain. They don’t really remember the provision for their care by God and they respond with something that feels like “Yeah, well, what have you done for us lately?”

And now as they continue to proceed through the desert, they’ve got a problem – they keep getting bitten by snakes. Not a surprise – it’s the desert, after all, and any creatures that can survive there are going to be tough and nasty. Snakes. And God once again provides, when he guides Moses to create of a talisman of sorts, a bronze snake that encircles his walking stick, and whenever someone gets bitten by a snake, if they look upon that talisman, they survive the snakebite. Great stuff! God keeps on providing even though these people of his are whiny complainers who seem to forget what has already been provided for their journey about fourteen seconds after they’ve received it. Before they get to the Promised Land, there will be a lot more of this, and they will keep complaining. But God continues to walk with them, because that’s what God does. God so desires to be in relationship with God’s people that God doesn’t step away, doesn’t refuse their cries for help, doesn’t abandon them, even when they abandon God.
I raised five teenagers. Five. Now those of you who have survived raising teens knows that when you are in relationship with someone you have created, made in your genetic image, they don’t always appreciate what you’re trying to do for them, and they sometimes treat you less than lovingly, but you still love them, and you still do not turn your back on them, even though they may have frayed your last nerve, because you love them, and these teens are going through their own journey to maturity, and it’s hard and there are poisonous snakes out there that threaten them at every turn. You love them through it all, even the most difficult moments. I wonder if God feels that sometimes, too, with us human beings.
This parish’s journey to get to this day has been a complicated one, marked by pain but also marked by grace. You wondered if you could survive the departure of a beloved rector who was, for some of you, the only priest you ever knew. How would you be spiritually fed? Who would comfort you? Who would inspire you to follow Christ?
God provided. You had two wonderful associate priests who remained. Thank you, God, for V. Thank you, God, for M.  You had  professional staff and lay leadership who were asked to take a larger leadership role, more in line with the way we now know that churches function best, in collaboration with the clergy. Thank you, God for the professional staff and the Vestries! Remember that, because it will be important in the future.
In addition, you had a gifted interim who came and did the difficult work of helping you to imagine how you might be church in a fresh way. It is a fact of life that there is always a need to examine the way a church functions, administratively, pastorally, spiritually, when there is a transition. Implementing best practices as they are now conceived, helping staff work together effectively, making the hard calls when change needs to occur: all of these are the work of the interim. Those priests who do this work know that they will probably step on some toes and skewer sacred cows – they do not do this work to win your hearts, they do it to prepare this fertile soil for the seeds of a new relationship with the next rector. And it is true that some of you didn’t much care for some of L’s decisions. But he did precisely what he was supposed to do – to reorient, to open hearts, to shift the manner of conversation between ordained leadership and lay leadership, to till the soil of this wonderful parish.
It did not always go smoothly, and here I’m going to name some hard truths that might make you a little uncomfortable.
The tension over the dismissal of an employee was not surprising – termination of employment in faith communities is never easy, but this was truly necessary. But I would point out one important thing to attend to: if your former rector had done the firing, there would have been no push-back, because he was R and you trusted his professional judgment. But it wasn’t R who did this, it was L. And you had not had the time to build up the trust relationship that would have allowed you to give permission to L to do what he was ordained and called to do. So there was tension. Remember that, because it’s important when we talk about what’s coming next.  But thank you, God, for L!
What happened in this time of change wasn’t forty years in the wilderness, and L would be the first to say that he isn’t Moses, but here’s the next thing I want you to remember: J isn’t Jesus.
For those who are happy that the interim is gone, and who think that J is the magic priest who will make all sorts of magical things happen, remember that. J is a priest who serves Jesus and Jesus’s people. He is not Jesus. He cannot do the work alone. If you have discovered anything during this journey, you have discovered that you are strong, capable, resilient people of faith who can imagine and plan and implement the next chapter of the story in this place and this time. You don’t get to forget that when J arrives. You don’t get to say “the priest is here now, I can go back to just sitting in the pew and listening.” You are the church. Each and every one of you, beloved children of God, created in God’s image, gifted, capable, loving…you are the church and you are all workers in the vineyard.
Here’s the secret you’ve discovered as a result of this time: priests come and priests go – we are all temporary companions on your journey – but the church is still the church, and you are this church. Priests have a particular role in the church, sacramentally, pastorally, as educators, as vision casters, but the church is the people, each and every one of you, which means you all have your roles as well. Thank God for each of you!
So what does this mean for you on the eve of the arrival of your new rector?
First of all, what joy and blessing to have reached this point! Your Discernment Committee did brilliant, prayerful, spirit-led work that matched the deep discernment work that J did, and that evolved into continued discernment between J and your wonderful Vestry.
…and I remind you that this was and continues to be a process of MUTUAL DISCERNMENT. If you’re still thinking of this as hiring an executive, let that notion go. The relationship between priest and parish is covenantal. This is someone who will walk with you on your most joyful journeys and in your darkest hours. This is someone who will be a part of a team who will be available in emergencies 24/7/365. This is someone who will be the keeper of your secret pain and the guide to your joy in Jesus Christ. You can’t write an employment contract that delineates that kind of relationship…
…which leads me to my second point: mutual expectations. In some ways, the relationship between priest and parish is closer to a marriage than employment. My husband is a therapist who does a lot of work with couples, and he often reflects on the fact that if one partner doesn’t tell the other what their expectations, their hopes, their dreams, their worries are, it’s a recipe for problems. If I don’t know what you think I’m going to deliver, I may offend you without even knowing that I’ve done so. And if you punish me for that offense, especially if you say something like “you should KNOW what you did wrong,” it’s not going to get better.
So what might the mutual expectations look like? I’d like to suggest that a way of approaching expectations runs something like this:
We love God and God loves us. We look for God in each other, and we treat each other with dignity and respect.
We share our hopes and dreams and listen for others’ hopes and dreams. Every voice has value and should be heard, but not every dream can be fulfilled.
It’s about God and God’s will for this place.
Priests are human. They occasionally make mistakes. Parishioners are human. They occasionally make mistakes. We show each other grace, offer forgiveness, and try to repair breaches.
We do not assume why things happen or are done in a particular way, and we do not ascribe motives to actions. We simply ask each other respectfully,”can you explain that to me?”
There is only one judge, and that’s Jesus Christ.
When it’s about winning, it’s not about God. We strive to fulfill God’s will, not win an argument.
Do think about what kind of covenant of mutual expectations you and J might share it’s a recipe for living as God wants us to live.
One last thought: God has sent you J. He has gifts, skills, experience. He is unique. If you start your time together looking backward to compare him with your prior rector, you deny yourself the possibility of looking forward to what God has in mind for you. You might miss what God is planning…and I have no doubt that God has great plans for you, and that with J as your spiritual leader, you can fulfill those plans.
The time-in-between is over. Put on a fresh pair of walking shoes, because the next part of the journey, the beginning of your work together, awaits. God bless this parish, God bless you for what has gone before and what will come to pass, and God bless your new rector!
Amen.