The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

April 22, 2012

Sesquicentennial-Central Moravian-Nativity in History

“We Welcome you, because your fathers joined hands with us around the Cross; because in principles and practice we have many things in common; because we both desire the same high and holy end.”

The Rev. Edmund deSchweinitz, Good Friday 1865

These words spoken by the Pastor of Central Moravian in a joint service held here in this space (smaller space then) on Good Friday were words of welcome as a fledgling congregation of Episcopalians were crossing the threshold of a holy dream of a new congregation into what would become a Cathedral of God’s imagination.  These words, spoken by Mr. deSchweinitz, were repeated to us, just an hour ago, by Pastor Carol Reifinger, of Central Moravian Church, and she standing on the shoulders of those who have come before, send us now with yet again a blessing, a blessing that bids us welcome to cross again and anew the threshold’s in our lives and emerge as a blessed people of faith who gather in this Cathedral of God’s imagination.

John O’Donahue in his book, “To Bless the Space Between us: A Book of Blessings”,  suggests  that the culture of business in which we live challenges our sense of community and connectedness. He says, “while our culture is all gloss and pace on the outside, within it is too often haunted and lost. The commercial edge of so called “progress” has cut away a huge region of human tissue and webbing that held us in communion with one another. We are at rise of falling out of belonging. Consequently, we stand before crucial thresholds in our lives, we have no rituals to protect, encourage, and guide us as we cross into the unknown.”

A blessing, he reminds us is that which evokes a sense of warmth and protection, a reminder that no life is lived alone; that each life is clothed in raiment of spirit that secretly links it to everything else. That through all things, there is an inner light of providence that can never be quenched because we are a blessed people connected to one another.

My dear friends: I invite you this day to cross again as our forbears did the thresholds of our lives into this Cathedral of Imagination. I invite you to stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before and have found the words, rituals, the poetry, the songs to connect them And to Be a people of Blessing!

This time is our time and it is a time of new beginnings. It is a time of new beginnings because we are a people of new beginnings. This is our story, its an Easter story. New beginnings at every turn. Let us go as Blessed into the Cathedral of God’s imagination.

In our of the way places of the heart, Where your thoughts never think to wander,

This beginning has been quietly forming, Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire, Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,

Noticing how you willed yourself on, Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety, And the gray promises of sameness whispered,

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent, Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled, And you stepped onto new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream, A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning; This is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit of adventure;

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon you will be home in  a new rhythym,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday: The Sunday of Passion
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity
Bethlehem, PA
Sunday April 1, 2012
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
　
Our lives are lived in a fickle world. Our lives themselves may be seen as such sometimes, fickle. In one moment of time our enthusiasm, belief, trust, and confidence might find a perfect repository for its investment. In a person, a situation, a place. In the next moment of time our doubt, skepticism, mistrust, and insecurity might find itself in a darker place, even an uglier place. Weeds of darkness then choking off even to death, the fruit of a previous investment.
How fickle is this story of the human experience we tell on this day, this week. A triumphal entry it is described as, for Jesus of Nazareth into Jerusalem. This ancient city whose streets are lined with the diversity and complexity of humanity. So many there in that city on pilgrimage to bring their humanity to the holiness of Jerusalem. Some in that crowd depositing their enthusiasm, belief, trust, and confidence in the hope of what they believe this Jesus represents for their lives.
How quickly our story turns; how fickle is the human experience, as these songs of praise turn to shouts that call us to the darkness of death. How diminished and darkened are the hopes and dreams for some, how dark becomes the day when the poison of skepticism, threat, and mistrust shows its ugliest hand.
How quickly the story we tell this week turns from light to darkness and soon then again, from darkness to light: From Hosanna! To Crucify Him! From Crucify Him to He is Risen! As we ponder our own human experience, is this not a truth filled pattern for the human condition? Light and darkness, darkness and light?
We dare to call this week holy. We do so even as we enter it in the fickle contrast of the human experience of light to darkness; darkness to light.
Our story has us pondering the darkness of Jesus’ crucifixion and suffering; which of us has not suffered one way or another? We've all had our crucifixions, where God seems to be absent and light seems to disappear, and the world is dark and terrifying. Anybody with faith or without faith has had somehow to live through that kind of a time. The question is what comes out of that time?
We've all known our dark times; we've all felt abandoned by God or felt there was no such thing as God to abandon us -- just the emptiness, the craziness of the world. Yet, equally crazy, out of this, it seems faith can often come.
It seems to me that there is an intersection of this light and darkness; darkness and light. A place where our enthusiasm, belief, trust, and confidence intersect with our doubt, mistrust, skepticism, and insecurity. This day, this week, we follow Jesus to the cross, and there find this intersection, a cross if you will. We are invited with courage to raise our eyes and gaze upon it; for it seems to be that very intersection there may be a crucible where a mature faith is to be discovered.
When we follow Jesus to the cross we find the great trial of humanity, its fickle nature, the light and the darkness, and somehow if we gaze upon it we find there is an opportunity to discover an unrealized courage, an unimaginable hope for life. A fierceness to stand and look in the eye the ugliest of scenes so that we may conquer them; A stamina discovered to journey an extra mile down the roughest of roads; a resilience to fight back with voice and heart when life kicks us hard even as our eyes struggle in the haze of darkness to embrace the light of a new day dawning.
In a weeks time we will wake in the darkness of the morning, having travelled with Jesus through the darkest of times. It will be dark and our eyes will be fuzzy and worn from the journey of heart and soul. Yet we will raise our eyes to the horizon and await a dawning of a new day. Our question: What will we see? What will we see?
This sermon was inspired by an interview of The Rev. Fred Buechner which took place on PBS in 2008.

IV Lent

The Fourth Sunday of Lent
March 18, 2012
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
Good morning!
In a dried up coal town, some thirty years after coal had gone bust, a nine-year old boy made his way to church one morning excited as can be. This plump little child and his three older brothers journeyed down that hill to the church in which their mother had taken them since their birth. Headed down the hill that day, that nine-year old plumpy little boy, mindful that things were brewing in his household, had taken note that his father had stopped coming home. “Working”, his mother said. There would be weeks between visits from his father. Nine-year old going on ten aware and perhaps appreciating a little more the stress on his mother’s face day by day, living a life in that dried-up coal town, trying to find his way in the world, his place in his church, his place as any nine soon to be ten-year old would. This day, he made his way down to that church with a little bit of hop in his step because it would be the first time that he would be allowed to acolyte. After church that day, his Uncle Bill, a retired man of , a captain in the Army, and the acolyte master would load this nine-year old boy and his three brothers in the back of his old Chevy, and he would drive them up the hill. Thank God! As he made his way around the route that took him by the river on that cold wintery day, this nine-year old boy looked out upon the river and watched as a mist rose off of that river. In that moment of time, he was transported. Again, aware of the storm that was brewing in his household, at least sensing it, perhaps not understanding it, but certainly sensing it, and watching those vapors mystify in the air, he became acutely aware in the backseat of that old Chevy, that God was with him. It was God and him. He knew in that moment that he was not alone and that he would never be alone again. He knew in that moment acutely and uniquely and because of some transfer of grace that he was loved. Even in the midst of storms that were brewing. He was lost in the pure bliss in the affirmation of having been able to do what he felt called to do. And, in that midst that rose off that river, his imagination was set free with a sense of affirmation and love beyond understanding. That sixty-second drive along that river that day may easily have been as long as a lifetime and as short as a breath, for he was lost in God’s embrace and aware of a genesis of something that was beginning, something that was becoming.
It is in my adult life that I have words to describe that experience of mine. Words to describe that beautiful relationship that I suddenly became aware of eternal life; I believe at least that is what the scripture calls it. Salvation offered freely, John calls it. This is my story. What is yours?
The Reverend Dr. Margaret Ehmer , Associate Professor of New Testament, speaks this way of our scriptures this day. The Lectionary passage for this week begins in John with that strange image of Jesus lifted up as a serpent in the wilderness. She writes in reference to the story in the Book of Numbers. In this story Moses creates an image of a serpent that when gazed upon heals his people from death by a snake bite. She writes, “The snakes are a response of God to the rebellion of God’s people. The invocation in John’s Gospel is that belief in Jesus will heal and bring life to those who are dying, just as the image of the serpent did. Notice the open invitation. Anyone who believes will find this life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Eternal life and salvation -- those are the words you and I throw around from the scriptures, they are theological words.
Hear in my story, I beg you that a promise of eternal life is real! I know, because I have experienced a piece of it. Eternal life, as one scholar has written, is like when you have fallen so deeply in love that you are lost in an experience of something you love and you have such little time, such little sense of the passage of time, and such a full, full sense of a good good time. Like a nine-year old boy in the back seat of a car, and a sixty-second ride that could have been as long as a life time or short as a breath, lost in God’s loving embrace even as the storms of life were brewing in his home.
Salvation you say? Save me from what? Fred Buechner describes Salvation as when you lose yourself so completely, that you find that you are more full of yourself, so potentially full of God’s love than you ever dreamed. Like a nine-year old boy sitting in the backseat of an old Chevy, who suddenly knew that there was a genesis brewing. That’s my story. What is yours?
I have a story about a group of people who meet once a month on a Thursday night.I know a group of people who sit and they pray, and they study once a month, and they talk about the renewing spirit of God’s life for this congregation. In that spirit and in that prayer, one came to a meeting and said I have a word to share. And what’s that word we said? And the word he said is natinvitation. We all looked at him like he was crazy. Natinvitation we said? Natinvitation! He said what if we dare to share our stories with folks who have yet come through that door. There are seven or eight of us here and what if each one of us went and told our story to three people? To three people who don’t normally come to this place and we invited them to come to hear our stories? What if we invited them to share their stories with us? That is Natinvitation.
As we our Lenten journey begins to turn and invite us to dare to look with joy to the paschal feast in a few short weeks, I ask you these questions. What if we just dare to tell our story? Our story of our experience of a God who loves us, who embraces us, who dares for us to lose ourselves in his love only to find a beginning of who we are?. A story of new life, of eternal life and it’s salvation.
So, I ask you, what if seven of us invited three others? Or what if ten of us invited three others in that season of Easter just in our horizon? Or what would happen if every member of the Vestry would invite three people? Or what would happen if every member of the Altar Guild would invite three people? Or what would happen if every member in the forum today would invite three people? What would happen?
A young boy, in the back of an old Chevy, blue it was, found eternal life and salvation and I know that you have too! Where did these st0ries get shared, if not here? Natinvitation! Amen!

The Third Sunday in Lent

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

Listen. God is ready to speak. We don’t hear it today but the way God prepares to speak is truly awesome, awe-inspiring. Thunder rolled. Lightening flashed, the earth shook, and the bush burned but was not consumed. Not the still, small voice that Elijah heard. And Moses stands before God. And God speaks. These are the words God speaks, "I am the Lord your God…"

And God begins to reveal what it means to “walk in the light of the Lord God.” One of the central convictions of Jewish and Christian faith is that human life is to be lived before God and that such life has an order and structure, constituted by God’s commandments.

And lest there be any doubt about it, read Matthew 5:17 where Jesus tells us, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” The true meaning, the true power, the true impact of living within a God ordered life is made known to us in Jesus of Nazareth. He is the light of the world.

As the hymn goes, if you want to “walk as a child of the light, if you want to follow Jesus”, this is how you do it. You order your life according to the Word God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai. That’s what Jesus did. And he changed the nature of life. And when we do, it changes the nature of our lives.

The teacher Walter Brueggemann writes. “These commands might be taken not as a series of rules, but as a proclamation in God’s own mouth of who God is and how God shall be ‘practiced’ by this community of liberated slaves.”

“I am the Lord your God…” that’s who God is, and the next three commandments are about how live in relationship with God. The next have to do with living before God in relationship with those around us – our neighbors, our families, our people, and even those we do not consider as “our people.”

Reformer, John Calvin, described “three uses for the Ten Commandments. First, in showing us how we are to live before God and with neighbor, they expose our sin, cutting through our self-deception that we really are ‘good’ people and revealing some of the many ways in which our lives are not what they could be.

Ahhh. And that brings us to Lent – this season of repentance and reformation, our own reforming into being and living more like the one created and called by the Lord your God.

Second, Calvin says, “the Commandments serve an important civic function in that they restrain sin, which is never simply individual but always corporate, social, and institutional.”

What street scene of violence or distress or illness did you walk by, keeping on your way? Who did you NOT phone? Who did you NOT visit? Who did you show NO care or compassion? Corporately, socially, institutionally, why are we a people conditioned and trained to “walk on by’?

Finally, “the Commandments are our guide as we journey in our life before God and our life with our neighbors.”

They don’t show us what we must do or how we must live in order to receive God’s grace. They light our way and show us how we could live as people who have already been freely given God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

What happened to Jesus in our gospel reading today? Why did he get so riled up? The gospel of John today gives us a view of Jesus so clear that any portrait of a "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" smacks up against this Jesus: Jesus as an enraged, whip-wielding zealot.

He was

• Mad at the temple being turned into a marketplace.
• Mad at the money-changers who had turned a holy obligation into a lucrative profession.
• Mad at the Passover pilgrims, who saw the temple as a place to transact a business deal, not to remember God's holy works and feel God's holy presence.
• Mad at the priests, who had let their love of law and ritual take precedence over their love for God.
• Mad at all the pointless sacrifices that caused the temple mount to swim with the innocent blood of dead animals instead of shine with the living Spirit of God.

He was mad because he saw that the temple had been made profane. The worship of God was perverted; God’s people were cheated. God’s creation was violated. God’s people were not honored. God was neither being honored, nor God’s way being lived. And Jesus got mad. And Jesus cleaned house.

The Word of God on Mount Sinai tells God’s people the way to honor God and God’s people and God’s creation. And it does so for us today as well.

Some good Lenten questions for us raised by the scriptures today:

Do you have the ability, the faith, to get whip-cracking mad for God's sake? What do you have to see or to know or to feel to get you to act, to move, to take action, and to do the work needed to be done so that the one who tells us, "I am the Lord your God…" is honored in your life and in the life of the world? What needs to be cleaned out of our selves, our churches, our institutions, and our society in order to once again let God’s Holy Spirit blow free and breathe its Life into all life?

I commend to you the work of Lent. Listen. Hear what God’s Spirit is saying to the Church. Hear what God’s Spirit is saying to you today. Don’t just walk on by.

Welcome to the Waters of Lent

Lent 1 (Genesis 9:8-17, Mark 1:9-15)
February 26, 2012
Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem PA
The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch


Welcome to the waters. Welcome to the waters of Lent. Not the Lenten greeting you expected? You thought I was going to talk about entering the desert, right? Well, stay with me. Before Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness, before the Israelites spent 40 years wandering in the desert, long before, there was another 40 and another wilderness. You remember when it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. You remember the story of Noah and the Ark.

God calls Noah. Noah builds the ark and gathers all the creatures, two of each, one female and one male. Why two? Because the ark carries not only life, but also the expectation of new life. The rain comes and cleanses the earth. It also overwhelms the earth and the Ark is surrounded by a watery wilderness. Like any desert, this water is dangerous, desolate and unrelenting. But in that watery wilderness the ark keeps life safe and when all is done, the animals and people all emerge. God set the bow, the rainbow, in the sky and makes a covenant with all creatures. This new life will thrive.

The ark came safely through the water. Babies in the womb are surrounded and protected by water. In baptism we come safely through the water. New life comes through the water. In the Jordan River, Jesus is baptized and comes safely out of the water…and the Spirit immediately drives him out into the wilderness.

We have just entered the wilderness of Lent and this year I invite you to think of it as a watery journey. In this watery wilderness the church is a ship. We are all in Noah’s ark for the next 40 days. We are headed for new life and we travel with the rainbow promise. But the wilderness, even watery wilderness, can be tricky to cross. To help us along I’ve brought some guidelines. These come from Peter Mazar, who was a noted liturgist, writer, and editor of Christian Education materials.

Shipboard Rules for the Next Forty Days

1. No matter how hungry you get, don’t eat each other. Lent is a time for fasting.
For turtles, fasting might be easy, but for lions, it will be difficult. Help each other fast. If you get grouchy, make an effort to be cheerful. Keep meals plain and simple. Try to eat together. Enjoy your meals and help others enjoy them.
Put only good things into your body: what you eat, watch, and listen to. Give your attention to what’s really interesting: people, the things they do and make, nature. Be content with less. Stay busy, but keep the noise down.

2. Share what you have. Lent is a time of charity.
Some have more than others, but everyone has something to share. Bees can give honey. Cows can give milk. Canaries can sing for us and crickets can chirp.
On this ark there’s nothing to waste. Don’t throw anything overboard. Recycle. Fix what’s broken. Clean up after yourself. Be ready to lend a hand, and don’t wait to be asked.

3. Keep in touch with God. Lent is a time of prayer.
Even if the ark manages to stay afloat, we will need God’s help to reach safe harbor. Sing praises everyday. Pray for yourself, but also remind God about each other. Make this a good habit.
(Forty Days and Forty Nights: A Lenten Ark Moving Toward Easter, text by Peter Mazar, art by Judy Jarret. Liturgy Training Publications 1994.)

We are all in this together. It is not always comfortable, here in our ark, but it’s what we have. We don’t always get along, but you don’t always get to choose your shipmates…and we each have gifts to share.

Welcome to the waters of Lent. Fast. Give. Pray. New life is on the way.

Epiphany 4
January 29, 2012
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
Good morning!
Today if ever there was a time for me to remind and invite you into living into the story, that is the gospel. In the gospels what we receive is a masterful telling of a story with an enfolding theme. A story designed to lead up and enrich; to captivate and invite us to a thrilling conclusion, much like a good novel. I invite you this day to join me as we look at this story the gospel, the Gospel of Mark.
Today, however we will start with Aristotle. I know that Aristotle is not in the Gospel of Mark. Just for the record. Today we start with Aristotle. There is not one among us who would argue with Aristotle’s greatness or with the authority and respect of Aristotle’s teaching. Aristotle was the authority of his day and his imagination and intellect and his worldview pervaded all those who would know and live and learn from him for thousands of years. I remind you that it was Aristotle who taught many that when you climb into a height if you took a ten-pound object and a two-pound object and dropped them from a similar height that, of course, the ten-pound object would arrive on the earth sooner. That was what Aristotle taught. Aristotle was the authority of his time and day and that teaching became woven into the world view for generations and generations. And, I remind you that a couple of thousands of years later—not quite a couple of thousands but a thousand or so years later, that this interesting guy named Galileo decided to challenge the conventional wisdom. And it was Galileo who ascended on top of a height, and I don’t know if it was ten pounds or two pounds but an object heavier and a lighter object and dropped them to see, of course, that gravity would pull them to the earth at the same pace. You see Aristotle was the authority of his day and for generations the truth of what he taught was woven into people’s belief system. Galileo, so many years later, would challenge that. And even those who would witness the truth of Galileo’s example would reject it. They didn’t believe him. As a matter of fact they were threatened by him. You see in Galileo’s experiment he was unweaving and unpacking the very essence of what people believed was true about the world in which they lived. That, as we know by our own experience can just be downright scary. We living in the 21st century can relate, can’t we? It seems many of the “truths” we once held of the world seem a bit upside down.
I offer this experience as a way to enter into the gospel lesson today, as a way to understand Jesus entering into the synagogue to begin teaching. It is Jesus who would enter into the synagogue and he would begin to teach as the scripture says, with authority. That is to say that what Jesus began to teach was very different than the established worldview of that community there. It was enough to grab people’s attention. Jesus is teaching differently. Not as the scribes teach. That’s not to say that the scribes didn’t teach with authority. It says that the way Jesus was teaching in authority was different than that of the scribes. The scribes, I remind you, were the certificate holders. They were the ones who had some theological training. They were the ones who had the certificate letters behind their names—M.Div. perhaps. I’ll only pick on myself at this service. But Jesus is teaching differently than those who are credentialed to do the teaching. He’s doing so in a room full of interesting people. In fact, Jesus teaching with authority gained some interesting attention. First, by the regular attenders who know enough that the status quo is not what is happening before their very eyes. As a matter of fact, they seem not to be really quite sure what’s happening. They just know that it’s different. As then also, Jesus is accompanied by the most unlikely of audiences. It seems that there are demons present—possessing one by-stander. And it seems that in our story today in the Gospel of Mark, that invitation to draw us in there in the very beginning verses of the first chapter. It seems to be the demons that have the clearest picture of what’s going on here or to be clear for Mark in his wonderful story and his wonderful story telling of enticing us and entrapping us, the demons are not asking what the others are asking. The others are asking what is going on here. The demons are asking who is going on here. And this, I submit to you, is where the meat in our story lies.
You see Jesus’s authority does not come through his credentials as it would the scribes in the synagogue. Jesus’s authority comes from who he is and the truth of what it means to know him, and to get to know him. It is here that the reader of Mark finds a portal to enter into this poignant story. We consider this wonderful introduction of Mark to follow his story as a way of knowing Jesus. Jesus’s teaching is with authority. A definition of authority is recognizing a power in which we seek to vest our trust. Shall I say that again? A definition of authority is seeking a power in which to vest our trust. Jesus is teaching with authority, his credentials are who he is.
Let’s follow the story and let this truth wash over us. Mark begins his wonderful story if you recall with John the Baptist. John the Baptist, this is how Mark’s story begins—with John the Baptist telling people to repent, that is, turn yourselves away from whatever is pulling you away from the truth—from God’s truth. “Repent”, John says, that is turn your heart toward that Truth. If there is anything scattered in the path that makes it crooked, clear it out so that you have a straight line. Make the path straight so you can get to it as quickly as possible. Then Jesus appears in the story. And Jesus does what? That’s right he gets baptized! Very good! Baptized by John. Jesus enters that water and appears back out from underneath the depth of that water and a voice comes from heaven and the voice says “This is my son, my beloved with whom I am well pleased.” We are told in Mark’s Gospel who this Jesus is. God’s son . . . with whom God is well pleased. Jesus exits that water and Jesus immediately does what? That’s right, Jesus goes into the desert and what does Jesus do in the desert? He is tempted in the desert. And what he is tempted about? That’s right he is tempted to doubt or betray the very essence of who he is. That’s what Jesus is tempted about. Who are you Jesus? Satan wants to know. Satan knows who he is. This is the great flirtation of Mark, because the demons and Satan get it from the beginning. Who is it? Who are you Jesus? Are you the son of God who’s come into the world to reveal the truth about God’s heart and God’s kingdom that must turn this world upside down?
Satan says to Jesus, how bout a case of amnesia Jesus. Forget who you are, how about being just part of the world—like the rest of them. Here Jesus, look at it all. You can have that! You can have all the possessions, kingdoms, treasurers of the world, You just can’t be who you are. So take it Jesus. Take all the world has to offer you.
That’s what’s going on in that desert. But as Mrs. Iannelli has rightly pointed out Jesus emerges from that experience and we are revealed by Mark’s Gospel in to who he is—the son of God, in flesh in the kingdom. And what does Jesus do next? That’s right! He begins to recruit some help—in the unlikeliest of people. A couple of common folks, some fishermen. He begins to call them and say to them, you don’t know me yet, but follow me and I’ll show you a little bit more about your trade than you ever dreamed or imagined. So, come along! Jesus collects himself some help. And then Jesus begins to preach, and to teach, and to heal, and to cast out demons. And the rest of Mark’s story, this wonderfully written story, a story designed to entice and to entrap and to convict us, and I mean convict in the best sense of that word.
The rest of that story will be about who gets it, who doesn’t and who might. Who gets it in that first chapter of Mark?
This is fantastic! Who wouldn’t stick around for the rest of the story? Who gets it? God the Father in heaven gets it. John the Baptist gets it. The demons get it. And, Satan gets it. Who doesn’t get it? The authorities of the day don’t get it. The folks with the certificates don’t get it. And who might get it? Who might get it? The disciples might get it. Ray Arcario might get it. Mrs. Iannelli, if she keeps teaching that class, she might get it. We might get it.
Did you know that the Gospel of Mark has two endings? Did you know that? The first ending of Mark ends with Jesus’s resurrection. It ends with the disciples witnessing an empty tomb. The disciples, who I remind you, followed him around for three years. Who ate and drank and bathed with him. Who witnessed him heal the sick, cure the lame, cast out demons and proclaim a new day for the poor and the broken hearted. It is his disciples, who at the tomb are seized as Mark tells us with trembling and bewilderment, saying nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Well who wouldn’t be. For they were afraid. That’s the first ending of the Gospel of Mark. The beautiful story as he tells it, of course, leaves us, the reader, with that question: Who might get it? And then the story hit the editor’s table. And the editor decided maybe we should help them a little more. The second ending has Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene because clearly they understood if they really wanted to get the point across they needed some help from the women folk—because the disciples were seized with fear. And then Jesus also appears to two disciples on the road. And between Mary Magdalene and the disciples, they go back and tell the others and just like Galileo dropping the truth in his experiment, guess what, they didn’t believe them. It just couldn’t be! It isn’t so! We’re so afraid. We’re seized. We’re inactive. We’re unable to respond. So the editor continues.
So Jesus finally goes and appears to the eleven, all of them together. And in lines he whips them into shape. (snapping fingers) okay . . . This is like this. Our relationship is like this. You’ve been trying to figure this out. You might get it. That might getting part it is good news for us, believe me. But Jesus whips them into shape. He reminds them who he is and the Kingdom that is part of every atom in his body. He tells them it’s on them now. It’s on you now. So get up! Get out! Proclaim the gospel that you know because of me. Baptize in my name. And proclaim that gospel, by the way, to every creature. Mark’s words, Every creature!
Who gets it? Who doesn’t? Who might? Two weeks ago I asked the question of you as we began a new year, I asked the simple question. Is God finished with you yet? Or, does God have something yet more for you to know about him and to respond to him in your life, in this new year? And today I leave you with this question. In whom and in what do you vest your trust? Think about it. Amen.