Sermon for 5.22.11

Scriptures for today are Here.

Well, I see you’re all still here too. Either the Rapture didn’t happen yesterday, or else none of us made the cut. Which is fine with me, because I’m not ready to leave yet. As far as I can tell, there is still plenty of work for Christians to do right here.

Our scriptures today tell us something about how Christians live right here. The question these scriptures ask is: how do we live in the in-between time? To show you what I mean by the in-between time, I have the Story Stick. The children know that when I bring out the Story Stick, it usually means I have a story for the children. And I do want to ask the children to help me with something in a minute, but first let me explain the Story Stick. It has pictures on it that explain all of salvation history, from the creation of the world at the very bottom, on up through Noah’s Flood and Moses and the building of the Jerusalem Temple, to right here, where Jesus is born. Then it has pictures of a lot of things that Jesus did, like feeding 5,000 people with a few loaves and fishes, then it has his death and resurrection. Then up here at the very top is what hasn’t happened yet – the moment when each of us will stand in front of Jesus and see him face-to-face. That moment will come someday, but in the meantime, each one of us lives our entire life in the in-between time – between Jesus’ life, death and resurrection down here, and the moment of his Second Coming, up here. And the question for today is, how do we live in the in-between time?

Well, our scriptures tell us something about that today. Our Acts lesson is about a new path to salvation arising: Stephen is the first Christian martyr, and our scripture lesson for today doesn’t include the whole story. Basically, Stephen is stoned to death for declaring that the Temple is no longer necessary; that Christ offers salvation through a new kind of Temple – Jesus Christ. Stephen is talking about the dawning of a new era through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and it costs him his life.

Our Gospel lesson talks about what is to come, way up on the top of the Story Stick: on the night before he dies, Jesus tells his disciples not to be worried about what is coming, because he will come again and will take us to himself – Jesus is preparing a spiritual home for us. The way I read this, we don’t have to get anxious or troubled about heaven, the Rapture, the Second Coming or anything else – whatever God has in store for us, we can count on it, we can put our trust in Jesus – his promises are rock solid, he will show us the way. Salvation is the free gift to us through Jesus Christ, and we don’t have to do a thing to earn it – it is already ours.

But here’s the question: how do we live in the in-between time? In between the life, death, resurrection of Jesus, and the time we will stand before Jesus, and see him face-to-face. Because honestly, this is the most vital question of our lives – we will all live our entire lives in this in-between time. Christ has risen, and Christ will one day take us home. But in between, God has given us the gift of this world, and this life; the gift of love and family, the gift of church, the gift of work and service, the gift of a calling to live in the light of the Resurrection. And how do we live in the in-between time? This is what 1 Peter addresses – and to look at 1 Peter, I’d like to invite the children to come forward and help me.

So right here, children, I have some Duplo blocks. We are going to build a building together. To build a building, you have to have a foundation, something solid to build it on so it doesn’t fall down. So I’m going to put this yellow thing here as a foundation. Now here are some blocks, and we’re going to call them stones, and I’m going to give them to you. Here’s a Jaclyn stone, and an Alec stone, and a Charlotte stone, and an Evie stone. Now can you put those four stones right here, as four corners of a building? I have a whole tub full of stones, and I want all the children to take one and build a church building right here. (Children build building.)

Thank you, children. What the Bible says in the lesson from 1 Peter that we read today, is that we are like a building – you and me. The church is like a building that is built on the foundation of Jesus, who is a solid foundation who will never fall down. And every person here is a living stone, which is built on that foundation. And all of us together make the church. The church is built out of stones like us – a Jaclyn stone, and a Virginia stone, and a Bob stone, and a Susan stone. The church is not a building – it is a group of people like us who build our lives on Jesus. Thank you children, you can go sit down now and I’m going to talk to the adults.

You all know that we are going to be building a church building, and that the foundation of any church is Jesus Christ – as we sang in our opening hymn – Christ is made the sure foundation, Christ the head and cornerstone. But when Peter wrote his epistle that we read this morning, and talked about building a spiritual house, with a solid foundation, built of living stones, he was not talking about building a church building. Peter was talking about us, the community of faith, as the true church. He is talking about how God is building new Temple not made of human hands. You and I form the walls of a spiritual house that will be the living sign to all the world that God is offering salvation to the world through Jesus Christ.

And to a community that is asking the question – how do we live in the in-between time – between Christ’s resurrection and his coming again? To that question Peter answers, let yourselves be built up into a spiritual house that will live lives sacred to God. At our baptism, he says, we become spiritual infants, ready to be nourished with God’s living word and sacraments (spiritual milk), which is what we do here in church. And we must receive a steady diet of this spiritual milk in order to grow up into the salvation Christ has freely offered, to become the Christian Temple God has called us to become – the spiritual diet we receive as part of a church community. As living stones of God’s new Temple, we are rooted in God’s salvation, the foundation or cornerstone that is Jesus Christ. And we are also rooted in God’s creation, this world where we live our lives. Our purpose in this world, this world that God loves, in this in-between time, is to become “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

In other words, we are not just here to enjoy Christ’s promise of salvation ourselves. We are here to proclaim it to others, through our words and our actions. We are here to offer spiritual sacrifices – a word that means setting something apart, making it sacred, consecrating it to God – we make our lives sacred. And so we, as the spiritual Temple of God, offer ourselves and the community around us to God, working for healing, justice and peace; feeding and helping the poor, hungry and homeless; bringing up children in the knowledge of Jesus Christ; forming disciples by nourishing them with the spiritual milk that is God’s Word and Sacrament. That’s what the church does, and that’s what makes it a Temple of Christ’s salvation – not walls and windows and rooms; not even an altar.

If we ask why we are building a church building, it is not because a church building is the house where God lives. God lives in a house not made of human hands; God lives in us, because we are the Body of Christ. We are the Temple God offers to the world as a sign of Christ’s salvation. We are the ministers – the children, the youth, the adults, the musicians, the builders of houses through Habitat for Humanity, the proclaimers of God’s Word – we are the holy priesthood God has sent to the world God loves. The church we are building will be the home for those ministries, the tool God uses to empower the ministries of the real church, which is the Temple not built out of human hands, the Temple built on the one true and lasting foundation: Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Alleluia!

Sermon for May 8, 2011

Scriptures for today are Here.

This been a week of grand events – from the royal high of Prince William’s marriage to Kate Middleton, full of pageantry and glamour, to the stunning defeat of Osama bin Laden. It’s been a week in which our thoughts have moved from the joy of watching two people make life promises to each other to the deepest questions of life and death, revenge and justice, war and peace.

Into a week of grand international concerns comes the small, domestic festival of Mother’s Day. Not a religious festival, not a commemoration of any grand historical event, not a day that changes the course of nations. Just a quiet, thoughtful day in which we celebrate the ministry of motherhood.

As a mother myself, I often think this day is superfluous – I don’t need to be thanked or honored for being a mother – I need to thank God for the honor and privilege that I got to experience motherhood. Becoming a mother changed me, from the inside out – from a person focused on my own goals and priorities to a person who would give anything for her children. Parenthood opens you up, it makes you vulnerable in a way you never imagined, because a part of your heart is out there walking around on its own. This is nothing unusual, it happens to most mothers I know, and fathers too. The very fact of being given the gift of relationship and love with another person changes you, in a very deep way that it’s hard to describe. And I think that it’s just possible that these ordinary, common relationships – motherhood, fatherhood, childhood, marriage, friendship – these are the places where we come to experience Christ most deeply, these are the places Christ does his most transforming work, not in the great events of nations. Because as we give our hearts to other people, we encounter the self-giving love which is in the heart of Christ. The Christian writer Kathleen Norris reminds us that “to believe” is not a matter of the mind, but a matter of the heart. For what we “believe” is what we “give our heart to.”

Giving our hearts is what these scriptures for 3^rd Easter are about: as Presbyterian pastor Susan Andrews noted, they are about “pounding hearts, wounded hearts and burning hearts. And they invite us to encounter the living Christ in the heart of who we are.” Two disciples are on the road home from Jerusalem – Cleopas and someone else not identified, but let’s assume it’s his wife, since John’s gospel tells us that the wife of Cleopas was at the foot of the cross as Jesus died. We’re not told why they’re leaving Jerusalem, but they are heartbroken because Jesus has died.

What is so interesting about this is they have already heard the news of Easter. When an unrecognized stranger comes along and begins to walk with them, they tell him the sad story of their rabbi who was crucified, and of their hopes which had been so high, and were now dead along with him. And they say these things even though the women at the tomb have already reported to them the fact that the tomb was empty and angels appeared and said that he is risen. They have heard the news of Easter, and yet they are still living in Good Friday. Easter has produced no transformation, their hearts have not responded to the good news – they don’t recognize Jesus when he is walking alongside them!

No wonder Jesus says, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!” Belief is a matter, not of hearing facts and agreeing to them, but of allowing one’s heart to be broken open by a relationship with the one who loves us. These two disciples had heard about the resurrection, but mere head knowledge had not produced a faith that changed their lives. What changes their lives is what happens next: and pay attention, because what happens is the same thing we do in church every Sunday.

Jesus begins to interpret the scriptures to them – helps their minds to begin to understand how God has prepared their hearts for his presence – and as their minds are opened, their hearts begin to burn – which is exactly how we start each Eucharist, by reading and interpreting the scriptures. They offer him hospitality, invite him to stay, which is what we do in the Eucharistic Prayer. He takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them, just as we do in Communion. And in this simple act, an act they had seen him do many times before - in the feeding of the 5,000, in countless dinners with sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, disciples, in the heart-rending dinner the night before he died, when he told them to do this always in remembrance of him; in that one, characteristic act, their eyes are opened and their hearts are transformed. And they go rushing back to Jerusalem to tell the others the good news.

We do all this in church every Sunday, but do we recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread, or do we believe that we’re just doing a series of pleasant but empty rituals? A friend of mine, Corky Carlisle, a priest in Alabama, tells this story: in a small parish he served, he had an associate priest, who at the breaking of the bread would break the bread and hold it up for what seemed to Corky like an inordinately long period. After a few weeks of this, Corky started to notice that every time this happened, a 4-year-old boy in congregation would start making noise. Corky assumed the boy was protesting the boredom of the long silence. Finally, one Sunday he asked the boy’s mother what was happening. She said, you have to ask him, I can’t describe it. So Corky bent down in all his vestments and finery and asked the boy why he made all that noise each Sunday. And the boy answered: in the space between the two halves of the bread, every time the bread was broken, he saw the face of Jesus.

In the breaking of the bread, He is here. He is here, he is risen, he is inviting us to let our hearts be transformed. And we may come here just like those two disciples walking the road to Emmaus. We’ve heard the news of Easter but we’re still downhearted, we still have lost our hope, we’re still not sure where Jesus is for us or how he transforms us. And our hearts may not be burning, our eyes may not recognize him, our minds may not believe that our relationship with him is one that will change us from the inside out, will break our hearts open as we learn to give ourselves to others in love.

We may not know these things because we don’t always recognize him as he walks beside us – but nevertheless, he is here. He is here as we do all the things those two disciples did on road to Emmaus: interpreting the scriptures, inviting him to stay, taking bread, blessing it, breaking it, and giving it away. And he is here as we do what the disciples did, leave the place where they saw him and go out to tell the good news to others. Because the climax of this story is not the moment when the disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread. The climax is the moment when they leave the house and run back to Jerusalem and tell the other disciples what had happened. They have been transformed from sad storytellers to joyous proclaimers of the good news of Christ. And the question for us is also: how are we transformed by what we do here? How are we broken open and given as bread for the world? Because the fact is, the Body of Christ is not just this bread on this altar. We are the Body of Christ, and we too are taken, blessed, broken, and given away as bread for the world.

Sara Miles was a woman living in San Francisco, an atheist, an intellectual, someone who scorned all thought of Christianity or Christian doctrine. Yet one Sunday she wandered into St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church. The story of what happened next is in her book, Take This Bread. She wrote:

“The mysterious sacrament turned out to be not a symbolic wafer at all, but actual food — indeed, the bread of life. In that shocking moment of communion, filled with a deep desire to reach for and become part of a body, I realized what I'd been doing with my life all along was what I was meant to do: feed people. 

And so I did. I took communion, I passed the bread to others, and then I kept going, compelled to find new ways to share what I'd experienced. I started a food pantry and gave away literally tons of fruit and vegetables and cereal around the same altar where I'd first received the body of Christ. I organized new pantries all over my city to provide hundreds and hundreds of hungry families with free groceries each week…. My new vocation didn't turn out to be as simple as going to church on Sundays, folding my hands in the pews and declaring myself 'saved.' … I had to trudge in the rain through housing projects, sit on the curb wiping the runny nose of a psychotic man, take the firing pin out of a battered woman's .357 Magnum, then stick the gun in a cookie tin in the trunk of my car…. I met thieves, child abusers, millionaires, day laborers, politicians… gangsters and bishops, all blown into my life through the restless power of a call to feed people, widening what I thought of as my 'community' in ways that were exhilarating, confusing, often scary.”

As Sara Miles learned to recognize Jesus in the breaking of bread, she learned also that she herself could be broken bread, the Body of Christ, bread broken and given for the world. In the breaking of the bread together, we too can learn – sometimes in a moment, like Sara Miles and the disciples on the road to Emmaus – and sometimes over a lifetime of allowing Jesus to feed us – to recognize the one whose heart was broken open for us. And we can be transformed into the Body of Christ too.

On this Mother’s Day, consider how you are broken bread and poured-out wine for others. Consider those places where your heart is burning within you, for those who are hurting or hungry or lonely, or for your own family, given to you to love. Ask God to bless you as the Body of Christ, given for world he has made. And leave this place rejoicing, ready to share with others the nourishment that Christ has given us.

Because for most of us, it is not in the grand events of nations and history that God calls us to live out our faith. It is in the relationships of our daily lives, motherhood and fatherhood, childhood, marriage, friendship, freely offered to God’s beloved ones. It is in the relationships in which we give ourselves as bread, and receive God’s love in return, that we can let our own hearts be taken, blessed, broken, and given away as God’s love for the world.