The 3rd Sunday of Pentecost

The Ven. Richard I Cluett

June 21, 2009

It is my observation that one of the favorite occupations of human beings is to think back fondly on the “good old days”, those days way back when, when things seemed so much better. To remember things that way, especially when we get to a certain age and are confirmed in our certainty that things were really so much, much better “way back when…”

This week I was reminding myself of how it really was “back then” in the good old 1900’s. I remembered there was the First World War, followed by the Great Depression, followed by the Second World War, followed by the Korean War, followed by the Vietnam War, which was followed immediately by a deep, deep recession, followed by a period of extraordinary greed, consumption, experimentation and personal excess, and then finally we moved into the 21^st century.

People were so beaten down or exhausted or confused or anxious that a new theology arose in the second half of the last century. The main tenet of this theology was that God was so fed up with us and the life, the world, we had made for ourselves; fed up with what we hade done with the goodness of creation; so fed up with us, that God had left.

The evidence was clear that God was bored, absent, asleep, or dead. The theology became known was “the Death of God” movement. And make no mistake, it was a very serious attempt to understand what was going on in the world, to understand why things were the way they were.

The power of God, the presence of God, the security of God, the comfort of God were nowhere to be found. So, God was nowhere to be found.

Very many folks, I think, feel some of that today. Things are so bad, so bad with wars and recession, so bad with the greed of individuals and corporations and institutions, so bad with man’s inhumanity to man, so bad with the demands and stresses of daily living, things are so bad that the question begs to be asked, “Where is God in all this?” Where are the signs of God’s presence, power, purpose, design?

An ancient theolog­ical term might be useful here. The term is Tohu Bohu, which means topsy-turvy or Chaos. It was out of the tohu bohu, out of chaos, that God created.

It may also be helpful to remember that the nature of the kingdom of God is that it is up side down from what the world, what we would normally expect. Jesus turned the na­ture of reality up side down.

And so we come to today’s gospel story. In a time of extreme, poverty, brutality, oppression and chaos comes Jesus of Nazareth proclaiming the presence of God, the reign of God, the power of God in the world and in the lives God’s people. And not only did he proclaim, but he also demonstrated the presence of God and the power of God in the here and now of people’s lives.

When Jesus quiets the forces that threaten chaos, when he makes the unclean clean, and when he restores the unacceptable to wholeness, these acts upend our cherished assumptions about order, security, autonomy, and fairness.

Jesus shows God at work in the world and in the lives of people, and he says over and over again, “Do not be afraid.” But the disciples were, and we are, too, so often afraid.

This story that was important enough to be included in all four Gospels is at the heart of the Good News for us, today and every day, and in every storm that makes us anxious.

One writer put it this way: “Time and time again in Scripture the word is, 'Do not be afraid.' It is, you might say, the first and the last word of the gospel. It is the word the angels speak to the terrified shepherds and the word spoken at the tomb when the women discover it empty: ‘Do not be afraid.’

Do not be afraid, “not because there are not fearsome things on the sea of our days, not because there are no storms, fierce winds, or waves, but rather, (do not be afraid) because God is with us… even though there are real and fearsome things in this life, they need not paralyze us; they need not have dominion over us; they need not own us, because we are not alone in the boat.”

A small boat in a stormy sea is a good metaphor for life, a good metaphor for faith. There’s nothing like a good, perfect storm to put our personal and human power into perspective. Perhaps I should say, to put the puny nature of our personal and human power into perspective.

I have been on a lake about the size of the Sea of Galilee when a storm came up with a mighty and erratic wind and capsized my small sailing boat and threw me into the chaotic, raging waters more than a mile from shore.

There is good reason for the Sailor’s Prayer to be, “O Lord, watch over me for the sea is so great and my boat is so small.

Frederick Buechner writes, “Christ sleeps in the deepest selves of all of us, and we can call on him, as the fishermen did in their boat, to come awake within us and to give us courage, to give us hope, to show us our way through. May he be with us especially when the winds go mad and the waves run wild, as they will for all of us before we're done, so that even in their midst we may find peace, we may find him.”

The mysterious reality is that God’s love and presence and power are with us in every circumstance of life. We can have faith that this power at the heart of the universe, at the heart of all reality, at the very heart of creation, this power that dwells within each of us, in the end will allow all things to unfold in justice and in peace, making all things right, including our own small, but, in the eyes of God, immeasurably precious lives.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

The 2nd Sunday of Pentecost

The Rev. Mariclair Partee

I have planted a small vegetable garden this year. After three years of city life and two years after that with no yard to speak of, I was very excited when I found my house here in Bethlehem with its small backyard, and started planning out my beds and flowers in January, all on paper since I wasn’t even sure exactly what my yard would look like once the snow melted!

I joined the throngs of folks nationwide, inspired by the gardening efforts of our first lady, and bought all sorts of seeds. Heirloom, Old fashioned, hybrid- you name it, I bought it, even some seeds for vegetables I’d never seen before, like neon colored swiss chard, and radishes that were purple on the inside and white on the outside. I started clearing a patch of grass as soon as I moved in in late-March, and chomping at the bit I started seeds in baking dishes inside, so I could plant them as soon as the last frost passed (around late-May in these parts). Patience isn’t a virtue I was blessed with.

Finally the time came to plant seedlings and some seeds in the actual ground, and now, a month or so later, I have a pleasant little patch of sunflowers and green beans and tomatoes and those inside-out radishes and lots of other things, all squeezed into a corner of my yard. I’ve even started thinking about what I’m going to do with my bounty when it comes, and have been watching instructional videos on canning and pickling on YouTube, though I guess I shouldn’t count my green beans before they have hatched, as it were.

Gardening for me is more than a hobby and a fun way to put food on my table. It is a way of encountering Do in my life. When I was growing up, every year I would help my mom dig her big garden. She always had a large garden and grew corn and squash, peas, and zuchinni, and she actually made it to the canning and freezing part, so that my family would eat green beans and stuffed peppers all winter that Mom and Dad had harvested from our own backyard. When I was 5 or 6 years old, I got to grow my own little row of crops. I was given cherry tomatoes to plant.

My mom knew that it is almost impossible to fail with cherry tomatoes, and so she shook out the shrivelled tiny seeds into my hands, helped me space them evenly in my row, and patted the dirt back over them. Within a week or two, tiny sprouts appeared, and after that the sprouts developed ragged leaves, and in the blink of an eye, it seemed, those tiny seeds had turned into bushes, absolutely covered in small round red fruit. I did not know how this was possible, but I knew God was present in the miracle of growing things, and I felt joy in him.

My cherry tomato bounty of that summer is a family legend, as there are only so many things one can do with these tiny tomatoes, and after a few weeks we were giving them away by the bucketful to neighbors and relatives and anyone who would have them. It actually took me about ten years to eat tomatoes again, but the lesson that I learned was that, from the tiniest, least likely beginning, God brings forth miracles. Now, as I remember digging my bare toes into the rich dirt of that garden, looking on the wonders God had created with my help, “[my] Spirit sings: the bottom drops out of my soul”, to borrow the words of Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and poet.


All of the readings today seem to share in this experience, as they are filled with images of growing things, cedars and mustard plants, things green and succulent, cradling birds and all manner of living things in wide branches, offering shelter and shade to the world.

Is it any wonder that the writers of these texts, trying thousands of years ago to explain the mystery of God’s relationship with each one of us, could only use language of the mightiness of nature?

A cedar tree was not only a source of wood and fuel in ancient times, but the tallest thing most people would encounter in their lives, reaching far into the sky, beyond a person’s imagining- mighty, like our God.

And grain or seed, scattered on the ground, became wheat- a staple of a family’s diet, and the mystery of its growth was a sort of magic that kept that family alive, secure in its daily bread, for one more season- sustaining, like our God.

And a mustard seed, like my cherry tomato seeds, grew from a tiny speck into a giant shrub, offering a bounty so out of scale with its beginnings and what is put into it thatit confounds reason- transforming, like Jesus Christ.

And so, we are told, these wonders of the created world were given to us as a gift, by God, so that we might delight in God’s love for us, and in creation. For we can always find shelter in God’s expansive embrace, and solace in God’s branches. Comfort is offered to us, and delight, from a tiny speck of a mustard seed, which can grow into a whole world.

Trinity Sunday

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

There is a standing “inside skinny” to days such as these, that is days in which we celebrate Trinity. Trinity Sunday is the day that senior pastors or rectors often invite a guest to preach, perhaps someone with more academic acumen, or if such a person cannot be secured, a guest preacher from another discipline or even denomination. If this fails, perhaps the newest minted priest would be in line, or if one is fortunate enough to grab one, how about a seminarian? This, of course, is more in the camp of tongue and cheek humor about a day on the church calendar when we explore the fullness of God’s expression in that very familiar, but often confounding, concept of the Trinity.

Today I promise I won’t try to deliver an exposition on an ancient doctrine agreed upon some 300 or more years ago into the experience of the Christian church, an agreement of faith, if you will, designed for proclamation and unity of communities of faith scattered around the Roman World, a world of varied cultures, tongues, practices, and experiences. Instead perhaps you and I can explore the path of our delightful invitation to discover the fullness of God’s presence in our lives, as we explore a bit of the tangled dance of Nicodemus.

We stand today in the shadow of the Pentecost experience, the experience of varied tongues and cultures gathered in a holy waiting as the promised ADVOCATE of power came rushing like wind and fire. A holy moment was fashioned when lives were lit up and languages and cultures joined in one perfect union with God, each understanding fully those they could not understand before.

When I was young, my cousin and I played together daily. We were fortunate to have joined each others’ families for vacations or trips. We especially enjoyed trips to Philadelphia and Washington, DC. On those trips to more metropolitan areas we discovered that people were diverse in colors, creeds, and languages. We took to making adventures of our own, pretending we were from other places, countries, pretending to speak a foreign language with one another so that others would think we were different. One day, while strolling through the Smithsonian Institution, we were speaking our made-up tongue, of course not understanding a bit of what we were saying to each other, but giving one another direction. When in the fluid tongue my cousin responded to a direction and leaned over into an exhibit, touching a piece of it, an alarm suddenly sounded. We looked at each other surprised, confounded, and suddenly realized it was us – the alarm was about us. Our dialogue of misunderstanding had led us into unchartered waters.

Nicodemus stands today in an engagement of opportunity to explore and experience the fullness of what is standing before him which is God’s fullness of love and mercy. The problem in this interaction, of course, is that he and Jesus are speaking different languages. The educated “professor” and teacher of holy things has come near to try to grasp who and what this Jesus person is, and he seems to be struggling. Jesus tells this curious professor that to grasp the fullness of God’s revelation, one must be “born from above.” This is a metaphor for an invitation into the deep mystery of God’s person, the mystery that changes human lives, that shows old men and women they can still dance and dream, that invites beings whose eyes have grown tired and dark that new possibilities for sight are at the end of their noses. The mystery of God’s person that invites the human heart to change in such a powerful way that prisoners, repentant and changed, are teaching Sunday school, alcoholics and drug-addicted humans are extending a hand of hope for sobriety to others, warriors are sitting at tables of peace. All of this is because their being has entered into the fullness of God’s hopeful experience for their lives.

Instead of hearing a metaphor of invitation into this mystery, Nicodemus hears an improbable mechanism of biology. The Greek translation “one must be born from above” also translates “one must be born again.” For Nicodemus, an old man who has seen much, to be born again, to be born over again, just doesn’t make sense and it just can’t happen. Nicodemus cannot proof text what it is that Jesus invites him into; it just doesn’t add up. But the truth of the matter for Nicodemus and for you and me is that WE are invited into the fullness of God.

We are invited to dance as the music calls us together to dance. We are invited to speak a language of love that unites us in our understanding of one another. We are invited to know a God who creates us to delight in us, who desires to live with us in a way that touches us, heals us, redeems us, who desires to live in us a life force that brings light to the dimmest of eyes and bounce to the slowest of steps.

This Trinity Sunday we join to speak the truth of the fullness of God in whom we live and move and have our being, as the Prayer Book is want to say. We speak a truth that is not a proof text of something that exists or a formula of something that “works,” but rather an experience of authenticity. God is speaking authentically to our lives, and our lives are answering back to one another in the same. It is a truth called “holy authenticity.” Born from above, we are one with the fullness of God and we dare to let our life speak! If our life oozes compassion, then compassion is the truth we speak. If our lives ooze justice, then justice is the truth we speak. If our lives ooze forgiveness, then forgiveness is the truth we speak. If gentleness, then we cannot help but live gently authentically. If healing, we cannot help but live authentically as a person of healing.

To enter the Kingdom of God, one must be born from above. Amen.

John 17:6-9

The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

In the year 1885 a meeting was called by Mrs. M. J. Franklin, a member of the Church of the Resurrection in New York City. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss with other women who the felt need to grow deeper in faith and prayer, and to ask God’s guidance. The spring of 1885 would bear fruit in the form of a bible class entitled “Daughters of the King.” This bible class at the Church of the Resurrection would grow into a communal experience for women built on the following premises: (1) To do God’s work, one must pray to God for the blessing of the Holy Spirit, and (2) Members of this communal experience would be devoted to prayer so that God’s Kingdom might be furthered. In other words, be devoted to prayer and service. These were the humble beginnings of what has grown today to be the “Order of the Daughters of the King,” an order of women throughout the Episcopal Church and beyond, dedicated to living in community with one another and with God, devoted to a discipline of prayer and service, a community of women devoted to prayer so that God’s Kingdom might be furthered. It is with gratitude that we institute a chapter of the Daughters of the King here in this Cathedral, this day.

How appropriate, too, it is that in today’s Gospel reading we find Jesus in the midst of a prayer of proclamation and thanksgiving at the conclusion of what we know as his “farewell address” to his disciples. In his prayer to his Father in heaven he makes the case for what he knows will be necessary for his disciples to “live in the world,” as the embodied presence of the Kingdom he proclaims. Above all things, if they are to further God’s Kingdom, this community must be united with one another and with Jesus and, therefore, with God. Prayer and service! Jesus in his prayer says, “I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.” Jesus’ hope for the community of faith He leaves behind is complete joy. Whether living in community as a “daughter” committed to prayer and service, or living as the broader community of faith living our baptismal covenant, we seek joy made complete so that we may be the community of the Kingdom that Jesus prays for us to be. We are a people of faith whose life attitude is to expect joy, but what is this joy Jesus speaks of in his “farewell address” and in his prayer just before his disciples would witness his greatest agony?

Joy, it seems to me, as Jesus speaks of it, is not to be confused with happiness or even delight, but joy is an experience of complete unity with God, an integration of sorts. Joy is the “magic,” if you will, of knowing your connection to God and to one another in a way that brings your heart to a full awareness that each breath you take in life is a holy one. Joy is like taking a path covered with thistle and brush that gives way to the most beautiful view of God’s grandiose creation. Joy is like being in the thicket of relationship with a loved one and coming to an awareness that you are so blessed by what is in your life you feel paralyzed by the weight of it, and so thrilled you could fly. Joy is like being in the deepest, darkest forest and knowing that you are not lost, but on the brink of discovering something thrilling. Joy is like stepping on water expecting to skip to another shore. The “magic” of Christian community is that we expect joy. The alternative just may give us a sinking feeling.

A community of faith expecting joy, it seems, is worth our joining Jesus in prayer. A community of women forming to ask God’s direction in their lives to help further the Kingdom, it seems, is worth our joining them in prayer.

I leave you with this prayer, the Daughter’s motto:

For His Sake, I am but one,
I cannot do everything, but I can do something,
What I can do, I ought to do
What I ought to do, by the Grace of God I will do,
Lord Christ, what will you have me do?
Amen.

May 17, 2009

The 6th Sunday of Easter

The Rev. Mariclair Partee

For the last few days I have been experiencing something that I understand many transplants to the Lehigh Valley experience, a sort of hazing for new residents. Despite growing up in the pollen capital of the south, with no adverse reactions, I seem to have come down with that local brand of hay fever that many have called: the Lehigh Valley crud.

It hasn’t been so bad, just some sneezing and coughing and dripping, and the whole experience has almost been worth it to hear Lulu, my beagle who also is apparently susceptible to exotic pollens, sneezing her way around the house. But all of this is an elaborate backstory to explain why I found myself, last night, spread out on the couch with a box of tissues in one hand and the remote in the other, watching the only thing I could find on the television, which was a Billy Graham Crusade from 1986.

I don’t think this is a clergy habit that I am exposing to the world, we don’t all spend our Saturday nights studying evangelism of the highest style, or if we do we don’t talk about it to each other, but I have seen this particular program before, a collection of classic footage of Graham’s arena-filling crusades from throughout his extensive career, always ending with an altar call as the thousand member choir sings “Just As I Am”.

Last night’s episode didn’t fail me- June Carter and Johnny Cash made an appearance, and that enormous choir sang a few other hymns I love from my youth before swelling into the strains of “Just As I Am, Without One Plea, But That Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.” The altar call began, and hundreds of folks swarmed the field of the stadium, seeking Jesus.

And watching this program last night, I was struck by how often Graham talks about Heaven in his preaching. Heaven is a topic we just don’t hear about that much these days, yet it was something with which this preacher was both intimate and confident- and he seemed to define heaven as God’s eternal reward for a life lived to his glory here on earth.

I know for myself that my earliest thoughts of heaven were informed primarily by cartoons- fluffy clouds, angel wings, harps, that kind of thing. I’m not sure that it ever really matured much from there, and, as is true with most things, seminary left me with more questions than answers about what heaven meant for us as Christians and as Episcopalians.

However, I think that a true idea of what heaven looks like is given to us in the readings today. In the Gospel from John, Jesus says to us: “Abide in my love.” If we love God and each other as Jesus has loved us, we are told, our joy will be made complete.
And so that, I believe, is the closest we will get to a picture of heaven- the Kingdom of Heaven/ Kingdom of God on earth is when, in serving each other for the love of Christ, we become mirrors for God’s love. And as we reflect that divine love to each other, a community of love is born.

This past week the clergy of the Cathedral attended a clergy day at Good Shepherd, Scranton, and our speaker was The Rev. Dr. Courtney Cowart. Her ministry has primarily been one of disaster response. She was serving at St. Paul’s Chapel when the events of September 11 occurred, and she described looking around the historical chapel, days after the towers fell as it became the headquarters for rescue workers, and seeing letters of thanks and prayers from children all over the world, covering the walls (and the recent hundred thousand dollar paint job) to fifteen feet high. She saw Buddhists creating peace mandalas in front of the altar, and monks chanting psalms, and volunteers treating the ragged, rubble-injured feet of searchers in the “holiest of holies”- George Washington’s family pew. In that moment she saw the Holy Spirit working in this group of strangers suddenly made family- in the words from Acts, “the Holy Spirit truly fell upon all who heard the words, they gathered in places of tragedy and pain, and sowed love- without borders, even the Gentiles!” In that instant, that chapel was transformed into the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Dr. Cowart was also a part of the relief efforts in the Diocese of Louisiana immediately following Hurricane Katrina, and again, as residents reached out to one another and volunteers created a human flood of hope from around the country into the Ninth Ward and other devastated parts of the city of New Orleans, heaven became a reality, and the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand in the love shown by one stranger for another.

How do we live into this kingdom of God that we are called to in our everyday lives? How do we become a member of this Kingdom of God on earth, outside of the catharsis and superhuman intensity of tragedy? It is as simple as saying, “Have me, Lord- “Just As I am, o Lord, I come.”

The Fifth Sunday of Easter

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

May 10, 2009

Acts 8:26-40, 1 John 4:7-21, John 15:1-8

In the Book of Acts today, we are privileged to eavesdrop on an encounter between Philip and an Ethiopian. Philip was one of the apostles. He knew Jesus, saw Jesus, heard Jesus, touched Jesus, and he believed! And he shared his first hand experience of Jesus with this other person who in turn heard and believed.

In John's first letter, John, who was an apostle, someone who saw Jesus, knew Jesus, heard Jesus, touched Jesus, is teaching what he learned from Jesus and about Jesus to the early church and any others who would hear so that they in turn might believe.

In the Gospel, we have Jesus himself speaking to his disciples; saying that if they are faithful, God will continue to be present with them in a way that will guide, encourage, sup­port, strengthen and help them know, appreciate, and live the truth of the Gospel.

He uses the old-fashioned word “abide.” “Abide in me as I abide in you.” We don’t use that word much anymore. It has to do with persevering, continuing, lasting, staying with it. “Stick with me and I will stick with you.”

The three lessons describe encounters with God in Jesus; they describe what its like to be close to God. They speak of pow­erful, direct first-hand meetings with the reality of God – who is Jesus, and they speak of the promise of this kind of intimate expe­rience.

These lessons don't deal with ideas about God, images of God, symbols for God; rather they deal with first-hand, "up-close and personal" encounters with God - in Jesus, in scripture, in one person telling another where they have found love, security, meaning, direction, purpose, future; one person saying to another, “Come see what I have found.”

When I asked Patricia to marry me, now over some 40 years ago, as you might imagine, it was with fear and trembling, as it often is. When I asked her to marry me, I did not say “Will you come and abide with me?” I said “Will you marry me and come live with me?” But what I meant was, “Will you abide with me?” Will you know me so well, love me so deeply, be with me in good times and bad, build a future with me, let me count on you to be there?

That’s what Jesus means when he says, “Abide in me as I abide in you. Live in me as I live in you. Know that I will be there with you day in and day out, encouraging, supporting, guiding, healing, forgiving. Live in that, because I live in you. Choose that, chose to abide with me.”

We live in a disposable age. We dispose of items when we are through using them. We dispose of products, we dispose of relationships, we move on. Someone has said, “No wonder the term, abide, is rare. What it means is rare, in our time.”

But that is what God wants for us, that is what Jesus offers us, and that is what we are asked to offer others in the name of God, on behalf of Jesus. The chance to abide in the love, grace, and mercy of God, constantly being called and nurtured to be our best selves.

In the early church it was not enough to say the gospel was for all, because all meant all Jews, but not Gentiles. So when the Word of God in that time was heard, those Christians had to be sure to specify that the gospel was not only for Jews but also for the Greeks. Paul's letters are full of other specific designations for whom the gospel was meant; slaves gentiles, and more. We have not yet fulfilled the meaning of “the gospel is for all.”

Being part of a welcoming community places upon us a responsibility to share the experiences we have come to value; helping to bring others to the experience we have come to know. It has been said that evangelism is "one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread."

By the grace of God, we have found bread here. We can abide here with God and with one another. That places upon us an obligation to share the good news with others. We are to become, with Paul, "… all things to all people, that we might by all means save some."

The love of Christ in which we abide, that we have known in our lives, that we cherish in the very core of our being, that has made us a new cre­ation – that love of Christ is the love in which we are to abide and we are to share.

The Love of Christ is not for private consumption. It is given, to be given away. It is part of our life, that we might share life. It is generative, welling up, erupting into life through lives to bring life.

His Love is not a possession to be garnered, gained, grasped and kept for oneself – it is to be spread abroad with powerful abandon so all may have the opportunity to abide in that love.

It is important to remember that this love in Christ is not ex­clusively spiritual transfor­mation, although it is that. It is also a liberation that touches every dimension of human existence. Healing, empow­ering, exorcising, befriending, bringing the lost, the oppressed, the dis­enfranchised, the outcasts back into the light and the life for which God created them. Using the power of God's love to heal and rec­oncile, save and forgive, restore and renew.

Today’s readings invite us to open ourselves to the power and presence of God in our lives - in this very life that we live every day, and to dwell there, abide there, and to tell others what we have found. By the Grace of God, thanks be to God. Amen.

 

The Second Sunday of Easter 2009

The Rev. Mariclair Partee

When I first started seminary, not that long ago, I was confused to hear my professors and other learned church folks describe all things Christian as being “Easter-centered”.

As followers of Christ we are Easter People, defined by Christ’s empty tomb on Easter morning. Our 30 year old “new” prayer book is an Easter Prayer Book, as it intentionally re-centers our worshipping life around the resurrection of Jesus, both on the micro-level of sharing in the Eucharistic Feast at every Sunday service, and the macro-level of focusing on the promise of resurrection in every major event in our lives as a church- our holiest days, our ordinations, weddings, baptisms, even funerals where the color of vestments the priests wear was shifted from solemn black to Easter white, all to remind us that we were given life when Jesus triumphed over death.

I quickly added this to my own glossary of church speak, and on this second Sunday of Easter it resonates even stronger. This is the golden time of our liturgical year, the solemnity of Lent has been survived, and the relentless schedule of Holy Week has been completed and the lilies and brass bands and general hustle and bustle of Easter Sunday came off without a hitch and now we can sit back and relax enough to bask in the glow of what we just experienced and say:

Alleluia, alleluia Christ is Risen!

Today we are given a glimpse into what it really means to be an Easter People as Christians- literally in John’s Gospel as we hear of the life of the apostles in the days immediately following Christ’s resurrection, and more metaphorically in the message from Acts and in the Psalms, describing what it looks like to have heaven on earth, how the earliest Christian communities embraced Easter in their daily lives, as brethren lived together in unity, and no one was needy, and no one had more or less than they needed.

And in it all, we have the shadow of Thomas, and his doubt. We’ve all heard so much about Thomas that when I realized I would be preaching about him this week I mentally yawned, because what is there to say about Thomas that hasn’t already been said? In a way I feel bad for him, I see him as that stock foot-in-mouth character from tv shows and movies who has the very bad luck of having the exact person he was talking about standing right behind him. But as I sat with this story this week, I started to see more in Thomas than the blustering oaf who didn’t have enough faith, and I actually started to be very thankful that Thomas wasn’t in the room that first day when Jesus appeared to the other disciples, so that he could say, when he heard about it, that he simply couldn’t believe such a thing to be true without proof. In that moment Thomas let us all off the hook for our very human-ness, stated flat out that this risen Lord thing is a very difficult concept and he would like to ask a few more questions before he bought it, in short- he made it okay for us to be faithful and also admit that we don’t really have all the answers.

Facebook story: I recently reconnected with someone I went to high school with via that most astounding of unifiers- Facebook. After the initial round of “how’s your mama and daddy” and “you are a what?” sort of catching up, he told me that lately he had begun to have questions about the things he had been taught in church, and that he was deeply unsettled by this. He was afraid that after an entire life of unshakeable faith, he was no longer able to believe in God.

I don’t think I am breaking his confidence by discussing our online conversation from the pulpit, not just because you could never pick him out of the 500 folks I graduated with, all of whom seem to be on facebook, but because I realize that, in the unorthodox setting of an online networking community, I was given the opportunity to help someone address the questions that I know I have had and I bet everyone in this room has had at some point, the really basic ones like “How can God allow suffering and evil in the world?” and “How can a God of love condemn those who have never had a chance to learn about Jesus?” and “Is there a hell?”.

I didn’t have any easy answers for my friend, and I don’t have any for us here today. He is growing out of a particular denomination’s answers and searching, like we all have to eventually, for answers he must come up with on his own. But I was thankful for the luxury of talking about these basic parts of our faith, which too often I think we just don’t let ourselves question, afraid to ask about for fear of our ignorance being exposed, for our selves to be exposed as doubters. It is a lot easier to develop strongly held opinions about the esoteric things like incense or architecture or who really owns the church property, and avoid the shame of being a fraud.

Jesus wouldn’t let Thomas off the hook so easily- he offered up the marks of the nails in his hands to be touched and the wound in his side for inspection, and by doing so he let Thomas know that he could have all the physical proof in the world, but without faith in his heart, none of it mattered. All the proof Thomas needed, that any of us need, of God’s existence can be found in the way each of us chooses to live Easter everyday- to love God above all else, and our neighbors as ourselves, because we were shown in sacrifice and an empty tomb the triumph of a life lived not to our own glory, but to the glory of God.

AMEN.

Great Vigil of Easter

The Rev. Mariclair Partee

This is the night.

This is the night- as we heard in the ancient hymn of praise called the Exsultet just moments ago- when we rejoice with choirs of angels and all the company of heaven that Jesus Christ has risen, and lives again. This is the night when two Marys travelled to a tomb with spices and oils to anoint the body of their crucified Lord, and found instead an angel with news of resurrection. This is the night when our faith was formed in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, and we form it again every Triduum as we kindle the new flame out of the darkness, and watch as that single flame grows into a flood of light and we are reminded, once again, that though Christians preach Christ crucified, we are defined by Christ resurrected.

In talking with a wise friend about what I should preach tonight, he said, “Say nothing! On this of all nights the symbols do all the preaching that is needed!”

And it is tempting, to bask in the silence after that beautiful chanting and drama, and appreciate the hard work of the altar and flower guilds and all the other guilds that made tonight’s splendor possible, and say nothing for fear of spoiling the message!

However, as the newest priest on staff, I figure I should earn my keep, so let me say this:

Historically the newest members of the Christian faith were inducted on this night, so that they could begin their new life as Christians as all Christians re-lived the mystery of Christ’s resurrection that gave birth to our religion. Anyone who has ever worked diligently through a confirmation class will feel they got off easy when they hear that these earliest catechumens spent three years in preparation and classes. For three years, they were led out of the church after the liturgy of the word, denied sharing in the Eucharistic feast, until they were deemed ready by their teachers.

We have a first hand account of the process from Egeria, a 4th century pilgrim to Jerusalem:
“On the first day of Lent, the candidates [who have been prepared] are led forward in such a way that the men come with their godfathers and the women with their godmothers. Then the bishop questions individually the neighbors of the one who has come up, inquiring: "Does he lead a good life? Does he obey his parents? Is he a drunkard or a liar?" And he seeks out in the man other vices which are more serious. If the person proves to be guiltless in all these matters . . . the bishop . . . notes down the man's name with his own hand. If, however, he is accused of anything, the bishop orders him to go out and says: "Let him amend his life, and when he has done so let him then approach the baptismal font."”

Those who are deemed proper candidates for baptism then spend the entirety of Holy Week reading the Scriptures and thinking on holy things, so that their minds and bodies are ready for the transformation that is coming.

Other historical documents have allowed us to piece together what happened on the night of the vigil itself, when these initiates were asked questions much like we just were in our renewal of our baptismal vows, then stripped of their clothing to enter the darkened baptistry, stepping one by one down the steps into a pool- not a font like we have here, but a pool large enough for an adult to be submerged in. With each step the water would rise higher on the candidate’s body, until it covered the head. At this point the candidate would probably feel like he or she was drowning, with no sense of the direction to the steps and safety in the darkness. At some point in this confusion and panic, the priest would offer a hand and pronounce the words: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”, and the new Christian would be anointed with holy oil and led from the pool- reborn into a new life in Christ. Then she or he would be wrapped in a new, pristine garment of white cloth, and led into the blinding light of the church, illuminated by hundreds of candles, to participate in the Lord’s supper for the first time.

You can imagine the joy of the new Christian, half-drowned but safe, and clean, and dry, and surrounded by warmth of candlelight and community, warmed inside by the presence of the Lord.

It is no coincidence that this moment in the life of our church happens as the Earth around us is waking from the deep sleep of winter, and the sun is warming the ground so that the grass greens up, the daffodils and tulips and hyacinths spring from the dirt in a riot of color and scent, and nature begins to come to life again. That in itself is the richest sort of symbolism- the whole earth is welcoming the resurrection of Jesus Christ by reminding us of the Loving Creator who made it. And so again we are reminded of that Creator’s love for us, in the sacrifice and resurrection of his son, our Lord on this night-


For tonight our Risen Lord has conquered sin and death, and assured us of everlasting life in him!