Sermon for Epiphany 2, Year A

Jan van Eyck, Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, 1432
(Click on image for larger view)

John 1:29-42

About thirty years ago, on a road trip in Belgium, we stopped in the city of Ghent—on the highway from Brussels to Bruges—for the express purpose of going into Saint Bavo’s Cathedral and seeing the treasure of late medieval religious art known as the Ghent Altarpiece.

Designed by Hubert van Eyck, the Altarpiece displays twenty panels painted by his younger brother Jan van Eyck between 1430 and 1432. (It was stolen and returned to Ghent twice in the twentieth century, once each during the two World Wars, but that’s another story.)

The largest and best-known panel is called the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. By any estimation it’s a magnificent painting. It’s also significant in art history not only for its unprecedented realism and attention to detail, but also for being one of the earliest Western European paintings executed in oils rather than egg tempera.

At the center of the painting an altar stands in a verdant meadow bordered by lush foliage. On the altar stands a Lamb. From a wound in his breast a stream of blood pours into a chalice, also on the altar. Yet the Lamb is serene, showing no signs of pain or suffering.

Above the altar, at the top of the painting, the Holy Spirit hovers in the form of a dove, radiating beams of supernatural light that illuminate the entire landscape without casting any shadows. In the foreground, at the bottom of the painting, stands the well of the water of life. Visible on the horizon are the towers and spires of the heavenly Jerusalem.

A group of angels surrounds the altar, worshiping the Lamb. Two are swinging censers; others bear the instruments of the Lord’s Passion: the Cross, the Crown of Thorns, the spear that pierced his side, and the pillar where he was scourged.

Four groups of human worshipers approach the altar from different directions: in the foreground, contemporary monks and bishops to the right, Old Testament prophets and virtuous pagans to the left; in the background, virgin martyrs and holy women to the right, and martyrs and saints of past centuries to the left.

An inscription on the altar identifies the painting as a visual commentary on the words of John the Baptist in today’s Gospel: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” It also has a mystical visionary quality, affording a glimpse of worship in heaven as described in the Book of Revelation, where the Risen and Ascended Christ appears as a Lamb who has been slain and yet lives.

The first part of today’s Gospel reading from John comprises John the Baptist’s reflections on the Baptism of Christ, which we commemorated last Sunday. Here John speaks of what appears to be a mystical vision that he himself experienced at the Baptism of Jesus: “I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven and it remained on him.”

Interestingly enough, in the parallel passages in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it is not John but Jesus who sees the Spirit descending in the form of a dove and alighting on him. But just before that, the Synoptics include another detail missing from John’s account: “[Jesus] saw the heavens opened...”

It’s easy to skip over that little detail: he saw the heavens opened. But that’s the stuff of mystical visions. At the risk of doing what we were told in seminary never to do—namely, conflating John’s Gospel with the Synoptics—we may well ask: did John the Baptist also see the heavens opened? And, if so, what did he see?

Following this line of questioning, theologian and preacher Aidan Nichols OP speculates that at the Baptism both Jesus and John the Baptist received a glimpse into heaven, where Jesus saw himself, and John saw Jesus, as the Lamb of God on the heavenly altar. This is admittedly just speculation, but if true it would definitely account for John’s subsequent identification of Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

This motif of seeing the heavens opened recurs in the New Testament. Almost immediately after the events related in today’s Gospel, Jesus himself declares to Nathanael, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” And at the moment of his martyrdom, our patron, Saint Stephen, gazes into heaven and testifies to his accusers, “Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.”

The image of the Lamb in the Old Testament is multilayered. It could refer to the lambs sacrificed twice daily in the Jerusalem Temple, morning and evening, or to the lambs that individual Israelites could bring to the Temple to offer as sacrifices for their sins. It could refer to the Passover Lamb, sacrificed every year to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt when the blood of the lamb on the Israelites’ doorposts caused the angel of death to pass over their houses. And it could refer to the Suffering Servant in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, who “opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter …"

Another possible meaning is the Apocalyptic Lamb. In certain Jewish writings dating to between the Old and New Testaments, the figure of a lamb represents Israel’s Messiah, opposed by an array of ferocious wild beasts representing the nations of the earth. Against all odds, the lamb defeats and subdues these wild beasts, inaugurating the arrival of God’s kingdom and the messianic age.

Some scholars have thus argued that when John the Baptist proclaims that Jesus is the Lamb of God, his meaning is simply that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, God’s anointed one. It seems to me, however, that when John adds that this Lamb takes away the sin of the world, he is signifying something more: namely that Jesus has come to shed his blood in a sacrificial offering that will reconcile a fallen world to God.

At every Mass, we sing or say the threefold hymn Agnus Dei: “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.” Then the priest shows the consecrated host and chalice to the people, repeating the words of John the Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God; behold him that taketh away the sins of the world.”

These words invite us to look beneath surface appearances, and see into the heart of a deeper reality. Visual artists like Jan van Eyck communicate something of this reality in their paintings. Music can also be its vehicle, as can various forms of prayer, meditation, and silent contemplation. Whatever the vehicle, if we’re faithful, persistent, and attentive, it just may be granted us also to see the heavens opened, and the Lamb standing at the throne of God.

Sermon for Solemn Mass of the Nativity

Giotto di Bondone, 1304-1306

Saturday 24 December 2016

From early childhood, many of us grew up to associate Christmas with the giving and receiving of presents. In my parents’ secular household, the miracle of Christmas was the nocturnal visit of Santa Claus to leave all sorts of delightful toys and games under the tree to be discovered and unwrapped, opened and assembled, in the first light of morning.

It wasn’t until I started attending church as a young adult that I came to think of Christmas primarily in religious terms as the occasion of Midnight Mass to celebrate the Lord’s Nativity. But that’s another story.

From my childhood, well into my teenage years, the question, “What would you like for Christmas?” was of momentous importance. In school, my classmates and I would excitedly tell one another what we were hoping to get for Christmas this year. In high school, this topic of conversation prompted one of my friends, who was a semi-competent artist, to submit to the student newspaper a cartoon showing a child sitting under the Christmas tree ripping the wrappings off a mountain of presents, with the caption, “Tis the season to be greedy!”

This cartoon caused indignation among the more literal-minded types in the student body who, not realizing that it was satire, thought my friend was purposely overthrowing the religious and spiritual meaning of Christmas. The truth was the opposite; he was in fact a practicing Episcopalian who wanted to lambast the day’s commercialism and materialism.

But the giving and receiving of material gifts in no way contradicts the Christian understanding and observance of Christmas. In 1923, the noted writer and Catholic apologist G.K. Chesterton published an essay on Christmas presents. He began by saying that he’d recently seen a statement by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, that while she had no objection to Christmas presents per se, she herself didn’t give presents in any “gross, sensuous, terrestrial sense, but sat still and thought about Truth and Purity until all her friends were much better for it.”

This plan, Chesterton commented, was not necessarily impossible or superstitious, and it had a certain economic charm. But, he continued, it was definitely un-Christian. “I do not know,” he wrote, “if there is any Scriptural text or Church Council that condemns Mrs. Eddy’s theory of Christmas presents, but Christianity [itself] condemns it, [just] as soldiering condemns running away.”

He went on: “The idea of embodying goodwill—that is, of putting it into a body—is the huge and primal idea of the Incarnation. A gift of God that can be seen and touched is the whole point of the … Creed. Christ himself was a Christmas present.”

It occurred to me as I read these words that Chesterton effectively demolishes the proverbial adage that it doesn’t matter what you give someone because “it’s the thought that counts.” No, says Chesterton, the thought by itself doesn’t count, and cannot count, until it somehow becomes embodied and tangible, because we are embodied creatures living in a material creation that God saw was very good.

It’s true that material presents fall short when given as substitutes for loving care and attention, or as attempted compensation for neglect or worse. But, conversely, the act of thinking good thoughts about those dear to us also falls short unless those thoughts become incarnate in gifts that effectively let the recipients know that we’re thinking of them.

I recall reading somewhere that if you’re invited to dinner at someone’s home in France, it’s customary to take along some such gift as a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates, much as here in the United States. But one needs to be careful to choose a gift of high quality and good taste because, unlike in this country, the idea that “it’s the thought that counts” just doesn’t fly over there. More precisely, the quality of the gift given communicates more than we might realize the extent of our respect, esteem, and affection for the recipient.

In any case, Chesterton’s main point is that even among those for whom Christmas has become a secular cultural holiday rather than a solemn religious observance, the practice of giving gifts preserves a vestigial memory of the Christian teaching that Jesus Christ is God’s greatest gift of all: a Christmas present of infinite quality expressing infinite love because it’s the gift of God himself present among us.

About a month ago, in my capacity as Superior of the American Region of the Society of Mary, I was pondering what to do about the situation in one of our Wards in Texas. The Ward Secretary was retiring after 24 years of dedicated service, and her last meeting in that capacity would be on the first Saturday in December. I wondered whether I should phone, write a letter, send a gift, or some combination of all three.

Finally, I realized that whatever else I did, the best gift I could offer by far would be to fly down there, attend the meeting, and greet her in person. And so I did—taking along a letter of commendation and the gift of a little statue as well. As every priest learns in the exercise of the pastoral ministry, sometimes on critical occasions there’s just no substitute for showing up in the flesh. But that is the incarnational principle of Christianity.

God himself sets the pattern. Contrary to Mrs. Eddy’s theory, when the human race had fallen and become subject to sin and death, God did not just sit in heaven thinking thoughts of Truth and Purity until we were all the better for it. On the contrary, God came down from heaven in person—in the Person of his Son—to share in our created human life so that we in turn might share in his uncreated divine life. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. That’s the good news that the Church proclaims and celebrates every year on the Feast of the Lord’s Nativity.

So there we have what we might call the Catholic doctrine of Christmas presents. By cheerfully giving them, we grow in the virtues of generosity and unselfishness. And by gratefully receiving them, we remind ourselves that all the truly valuable and worthwhile things that we have in this life are not those that we can take or earn for ourselves, but those that come to us from God as gifts freely given, beginning with our very existence, and ending with heaven itself. The practice of giving and receiving gifts, not only at Christmas but also throughout the year, thus becomes a spiritual discipline, a means of growth in grace and holiness.

And when we kneel at the crèche and gaze at the infant Christ, we behold the first and best Christmas present of all: the gift of God himself in the flesh. The wrapping is swaddling clothes, and the box is a manger. So we give thanks to God for such a wondrous gift, and adore.

Acknowedgments

Some key ideas for this sermon came from Aidan Nichols, OP, Year of the Lord's Favour: A Homilary for the Roman Liturgy, Volume 2, pp. 60-61. Excerpts from the Chesterton essay are here.

Sermon for Proper 18, Year C

The Apostle Onesimus
St. Petka Chapel, Belgrade

Philemon 1-21

Over the past several years, the historical issue of slavery has regained currency as a topic of discussion in American society in general and in Rhode Island in particular. The film Traces of the Trade documents how the fortunes of many prominent Rhode Islanders depended on the slave trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Mindful of this painful legacy, the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island has undertaken the project of establishing a Center of Reconciliation to be housed at the now disused Cathedral, including exhibits on the state’s historic connections with slavery.

In light of this conversation in our wider community, it seems appropriate to comment today on our Epistle reading, Saint Paul’s Letter to Philemon. It’s one of the few places in the New Testament where the Apostle Paul explicitly engages with the practice of slavery in the Roman Empire of his day. So it may have something to teach us about the implications of the Christian Gospel for this still sensitive and sometimes contentious issue.

In his letters, Paul’s attitude to slavery is somewhat ambiguous. On one hand, he writes in Ephesians 6:5, “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters …”; in Colossians 4:1, “Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters …”; in I Timothy 6:1, “Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor …”; and in Titus 2:9 “Bid slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to be refractory.”

On the other hand, writing of the Church Paul says in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”; and again in Colossians 3:11, “Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.”

In the nineteenth century, both slaveholders and abolitionists quoted these various passages, as well as the Letter to Philemon, to bolster their positions. More recently, some critics have faulted Paul for not having taken a clearer stand against slavery, suggesting that his apparent acceptance of the institution led to its persistence many centuries longer than it might otherwise have survived. Others rightly point out, however, that opponents of slavery and the slave trade were almost all Christians – such as the Anglican Evangelicals William Wilberforce and John Newton – who derived their abolitionist principles from Scripture. (John Newton, by the way, was the captain of a slave ship who was converted to Christian faith and became a leader in the movement to abolish the slave trade; we know him today primarily as the author of the text of the hymn “Amazing Grace.”)

With that background in mind, then, we turn to Paul’s Letter to Philemon. Just 25 verses long, Philemon is the shortest of all Paul’s letters preserved in the New Testament. Unlike most of his other letters, which he wrote for entire church communities, or for even wider circulation, it has the form of a personal note to an individual.

The letter is addressed to Philemon, whom we know from some of Paul’s other letters as a leader in the Church at Colossae, which Paul founded. At the time of writing, Paul is in prison, but we don’t know where, since he suffered several imprisonments in his missionary journeys. The subject of the letter is Onesimus, a slave of Philemon, who’s been with Paul for a time, but whom Paul is now sending back to Philemon, possibly as the bearer of the letter.

Two theories offer competing interpretations of why Onesimus has been with Paul. The majority interpretation, which goes back to some of the early Church fathers, is that Onesimus has run away from Philemon and has taken refuge with Paul. The minority interpretation suggests instead that Philemon has sent Onesimus to serve Paul in his imprisonment for a certain period of time, which is now coming to an end—perhaps because Philemon has requested him back—so that Paul is returning him to his owner. (It seems to me that the text can bear either interpretation.)

Either way, something remarkable has happened. Paul writes that in his imprisonment he has become Onesimus’s father. In early Christian language this almost certainly means that Onesimus has become a Christian and that Paul has baptized him. Therefore, Paul writes, he is sending Onesimus back to Philemon “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother.” And he exhorts Philemon, “if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.”

The letter is a masterpiece of rhetorical understatement, calling for a good deal of reading between the lines. Paul writes that while he’s bold enough to command Philemon to do what’s required, yet for love’s sake he prefers to appeal to him. (But he does not say what it is that is required.) Instead of keeping Onesimus with him, Paul is sending him back so that Philemon’s goodness might not be from compulsion but of his own free will. (But he does not say what this goodness is to consist of.) And he concludes, “Confident of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say.” (But he does not say that this “something more” is.) Here Paul is clearly hinting at some good deed that he wants from Philemon—and it’s not too much of a stretch to suppose that this is granting Onesimus his freedom so that he can return to Paul and assist him in his work.

(Incidentally, one tradition holds that Philemon did emancipate Onesimus who went on to become a bishop in the Church. About a half-century later, in the year 110, Saint Ignatius of Antioch addressed a letter to the Church at Ephesus in the person of Onesimus, their bishop. We don’t know if it’s the same Onesimus, but it very well could be.)

As I mentioned, some contemporary writers criticize Paul for his failure to condemn slavery outright. Others suggest that since Paul expected Christ’s return and the end of the world any day now, he probably regarded slavery as just another corrupt social institution that was soon to pass away, so there was no point in opposing it in the present age.

My own hunch is that the question of whether slavery should be perpetuated or abolished simply never occurred to Paul, and it’s anachronistic to suppose that it could have. Slavery was simply there, a given, an integral component of the world in which Paul lived, and neither he nor his contemporaries could imagine that world without it. (The world to come would be another matter.)

However that may be, in his Letter to Philemon, whether he knows it or not, Paul articulates a principle that spells the ultimate doom of slavery and all other forms of social oppression and exploitation. In Christ Onesimus is no longer a slave but a beloved brother; Philemon is to receive him as he would receive Paul himself. The Gospel sets before us this ideal of the equal worth and dignity of all human beings in God’s eyes; and it remains no less relevant and compelling in our own day than it was in Paul’s.

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY, 2015

 

T. Noyes Lewis, The Place of Meeting. C. 1920.

The Armistice that took effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918, concluded the bloodiest war the world had ever yet seen. The loss of life in the trench warfare on the Western Front was unimaginably horrendous. For example, on July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British Army suffered the loss of approximately 20,000 soldiers: the most deaths it sustained in the field on any one day of battle before or since.

Observances commemorating the fallen on November 11^th, or the Sunday closest, began just after the Great War itself. In 1919, Pope Benedict XV granted an indult to the English Catholic Church, permitting a Requiem on Remembrance Sunday in addition to the Mass of the day.

Every year on this day in London, at an outdoor service of Remembrance, the Queen lays a wreath of poppies at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. A cenotaph, incidentally, represents an empty tomb, erected in honor of a person or persons whose mortal remains lie elsewhere. In that sense, it’s similar to the catafalque we have here in the church today, which represents the bier on which the coffin or casket would normally rest at a funeral.

On Monday, All Souls Day, we offered a Sung Requiem Mass for All Faithful Departed. Throughout the year, here at S. Stephen’s, we offer weekday Requiems for the departed of this parish, generally on the first Monday of the month. At our daily Masses we remember by name those of the parish whose anniversaries fall during the current week, as well as those who’ve died recently.

This privilege of being able to pray for our beloved dead has a deep historical connection to our annual commemoration of Remembrance Sunday, which comes from the Church of England. Before World War I, only a few extreme Anglo-Catholic parishes in England offered prayers and Masses for the dead. The Anglican mainstream regarded the practice with deep suspicion as subversive of the principles of the English Reformation.

The dominant Protestant theology held that as soon as you died, you were consigned immediately either to heaven or to hell. Those in heaven didn’t need our prayers; those in hell were beyond all help. So, as you lay dying in Victorian or Edwardian England, your religiously minded relatives and friends might gather round your deathbed, anxiously awaiting some pious word indicating that you had the faith necessary to get into heaven. Nothing less would suffice as comfort for the bereaved.

The Great War of 1914 to 1918 changed all that. Anglican chaplains who went to the front discovered that the majority of enlisted men had no Church upbringing and professed no explicit Christian faith. In the previous centuries of industrialization and urbanization, the active churchgoing population of England had become a minority of the nation. Here they were, dying daily in the trenches by the hundreds and thousands. Yet the lives and deaths of these un-churched soldiers nonetheless often exemplified what seemed basic Christian virtues of generosity, camaraderie, bravery, and self-sacrifice.

These observations engendered a crisis in traditional Anglican patterns of belief about death and judgment, heaven and hell. According to the received criteria, these fallen soldiers were unqualified, by their lack of an explicitly professed religious faith, to enter heaven; yet, because of their heroism and self-sacrifice, it seemed neither credible nor fair that they should be consigned eternally to hell.

This conundrum led to new openness among mainstream Anglicans to the traditional Catholic doctrine of an intermediate state, where the souls of the departed are purified and purged of their sins, and so made ready for heaven. In that case, there might be some point to praying for the dead after all. The prayers of the living might indeed assist the dead in their continuing journey into the fullness of God’s presence.

The practice of praying for the dead also addressed a profound psychological and spiritual need among the bereaved. The loss of almost an entire generation had a deeply traumatic effect on British society. According to historian David Nash, the survivors collectively experienced an overwhelming desire for some kind of continuing relationship with the fallen. This was especially the case when the government decided out of necessity to stop repatriating the bodies of the dead and began burying them in vast cemeteries near the battlefields.

One result was an upsurge of spiritualism. Bereaved parents, brothers, sisters, and lovers attempted to make contact with the fallen by means of séances conducted by mediums. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame wrote a book commending spiritualism as a means of receiving communications from the dead.

In line with traditional Christian teaching, the Church of England rightly discouraged these practices. The more liberal clergy condemned spiritualism as superstitious nonsense by which unscrupulous charlatans took advantage of people at their most vulnerable; the more traditional clergy warned that fooling with the occult can open the door to malign spiritual presences that are indeed real but best avoided and left alone. The deeper question, however, was what alternative the Church had to offer.

The answer was the traditional Catholic belief in the Communion of Saints: the unbroken spiritual fellowship of the Church Triumphant in heaven, the Church Expectant in purgatory, and the Church Militant on earth. Integral to this doctrine was the conviction that just as the saints in heaven pray for us, so we have the privilege of praying for the souls of those whom we love but see no longer.

Historian Alan Wilkinson writes, “In 1914 public prayer for the dead was uncommon in the Church of England; by the end of the war it had become widespread.” In a sermon in Westminster Abbey on All Saints Day, 1919, William Temple, the future Archbishop of York and Archbishop of Canterbury, exhorted the congregation: “Let us pray for those whom we know and love who have passed to the other life …” Death does not settle everything irrevocably. Growth continues beyond the grave. We do not pray for the dead because we believe that God will otherwise neglect them but because “we claim the privilege of uniting our love for them with God’s.”

On Christmas Eve, 1918, King’s College Cambridge offered its Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols for the first time. The concluding petition of the well-known Bidding Prayer written by Eric Milner-White reads: "Lastly, let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore, and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom in the Lord Jesus we are for ever one." What must those words have meant to the vast majority in the congregation who had almost certainly lost close friends and family in the war that had ended only the previous month!

Anglo-Catholics of course welcomed this recognition of a practice they had long commended and they gladly offered prayers and Requiems for the fallen. Holy cards were issued depicting a priest celebrating a Requiem; above the altar was a cloud containing the figures of the soldiers for whom the Requiem was being offered. The painting on those cards was “The Place of Meeting” by T. Noyes Lewis, reproduced on the cover of today’s Kalendar.

Today, we continue the same tradition in another place, in another country, in another time. War is a horrible thing. As Christians we’re called to be peacemakers, to work and pray always for peace. Yet on at least some occasions the horrors of war have served as the catalyst for the Church’s rediscovery and re-appropriation of the riches of its own spiritual tradition. For that we may be thankful, much as we deplore war having to be the occasion of such a blessing. This morning, then, we commend to Almighty God the souls of all the fallen, trusting that Christ will bring them, and us with them, to the fullness of eternal life.

Acknowledgments

Key background for this sermon came from Alan Wilkinson, The Church of England and the First World War (Cambridge, UK: Lutterworth, 2014, originally published 1978), and David Nash, Christian Ideals in British Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 19, Year B)

Unknown Artist, The Last Judgment
Church of the Most Holy Mother of God of Kazan

Mark 8:38

In today’s Gospel, Our Lord concludes his teaching about taking up the cross and following him with what may seem a curious saying: Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

Interesting choice of words: What does it mean to be “ashamed” of our Lord? And what will it mean for him to be “ashamed” of us when he comes in the glory of his Father?

We’re actually dealing with two related words with similar but distinct meanings. “To shame” someone means to dishonor, disgrace, humiliate, or embarrass that person. “To be ashamed” has a slightly different meaning: more subjective and personal. A quick online dictionary lookup yields this definition: “[to feel] embarrassed or guilty because of one’s actions, characteristics, or associations.”

One of the most potentially wounding things we can ever say to another person is, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” Conversely, one of the most reassuring things we can ever say person is, “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

The assumption in New Testament times was that anybody found guilty of a crime and condemned to punishment had something to be ashamed of. So the punishment was a form of shame in itself, in the sense of public disgrace, humiliation, and dishonor.

But in today’s Gospel our Lord is saying that even though he will suffer the shame of death by crucifixion, he has nothing to be ashamed of. If his followers remain unashamed of him despite his shameful death, then at his coming again he will be unashamed of them of them even if they suffer the shame of persecution and martyrdom for his sake. Conversely, however, he will be ashamed of those who in this life are ashamed of him and of his words.

Notice that according to this definition we can be ashamed not only of our actions, in a moral sense, but also of our characteristics or associations, in a completely non-moral sense. In other words, being ashamed may involve embarrassment rather than guilt; and sometimes the things we’re ashamed about can be quite irrational. Some people are ashamed of their height, or their weight, or of not knowing how to drive, or to cook, or to speak any foreign languages. Some people are ashamed of their families, their social origins, or their regional or ethnic backgrounds – and go to great lengths to try to cover them up.

One of my relatives from Northern Ireland moved to England round about the beginning of the Troubles in the late 1960s. After some particularly horrible atrocity, one of her English colleagues said to her, “The way your people are behaving is disgraceful! Doesn’t it make you ashamed to be Irish?” (I don’t know what she said in response, but I know what I would have said!) That was a particularly egregious instance of an attempt to shame someone, to make someone feel ashamed of her ethnic and cultural identity.

I mention this because I think that as Christians we face a similar type of challenge today. We’ve come under enormous cultural pressure to be ashamed of Christianity, the Church, and certain individuals and groups among our fellow Christians. The worst part of it is that some of our fellow-Christians seem to be doing their best to make us ashamed to be associated with them.

For example, when Kim Davis in Kentucky refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on the basis of what she declares to be her Christian principles, some applaud her, but others cringe with embarrassment, ashamed to be known as Christians if this is how Christianity is representing itself to the wider society.

Speaking personally, what I find particularly disturbing is the spectacle of politicians describing people as Christian martyrs simply because they have to pay a fine or spend a night in jail. That type of political capitalizing debases the language of martyrdom precisely at a point in history when we need to be aware of and concerned about the real martyrs in places like Iraq, Syria, and Libya, being put to death for their faith by the hundreds.

So, how do we respond to this pressure to be ashamed of our Christian identity and heritage when our fellow Christians say and do things that we find scandalous, embarrassing, or outrageous? Let me offer three suggestions.

First, we need to be aware that we also may be guilty of speech and behavior that gives our religion a bad name. We need to examine our own words and deeds, asking God for the grace to avoid giving our fellow Christians cause to be ashamed of us. Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus said something about attending to the log in our own eye before attending to the splinter in our neighbor’s eye.

Second, we need to understand that one of the reasons we feel ashamed of our fellow Christians is precisely that they are our fellow Christians. In other words, it’s a dispute within the family. The great temptation is to want to repudiate and disown them. Nonetheless, as strongly as we may disagree with them, however repugnant we may find their attitudes and statements, however much we may rightly want to dissociate ourselves from their positions, we still need to remember that our common baptism and our shared faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is a deeper bond than anything that divides us.

Third, we need to remember that even when our fellow Christians do give us cause to be ashamed, as indeed they will from time to time, nonetheless today’s Gospel warns us against ever being ashamed of Christ. Frankly, there is much to be ashamed of in the Church, in Christianity, among our fellow Christians, and indeed within ourselves. Apart from the grace of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are all too human, prone in our fallen nature to all kinds of errors and misdeeds.

But Saint Paul points us in the right direction when he writes: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel; it is the power of salvation to everyone who has faith …” Whatever else we may be ashamed of in this world, we need never be ashamed of our Lord or his words. Even though he underwent the shame of crucifixion, God his Father has vindicated him; and if we remain unashamed of him, even at the cost of shame and suffering in this life, he will declare himself unashamed of us in the next.

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost

The Mustard Seed, by Khazakstani artist Nelly Bube

PROPER 6, YEAR B

Ezekiel 17:22-24
Mark 4:26-34

On this Second Sunday after Pentecost, we return to what is sometimes called the “green season,” variously known in the 1979 Prayer Book as the Sundays after Pentecost, in the 1928 Prayer Book as the Sundays after Trinity, and in the contemporary Roman Missal as the Sundays of Ordinary Time. In the Western Church, green vestments are worn during this season.

The standard interpretation – I don’t know whether it’s the actual reason or an after-the-fact rationalization – is that green symbolizes life and growth. It’s the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere; and the green vestments inside the church match the leafy trees, green grass, and bushes outside. How appropriate it is, then, that two of today’s readings feature vivid images of trees and plants: Ezekiel’s oracle of the cedar tree, and our Lord’s parables of the growing harvest and the mustard seed.

The passage from Ezekiel about the cedar tree requires a bit of interpretation. Ezekiel is writing when the Babylonians have conquered Judah, destroyed Jerusalem, and taken the king, nobility, and leading citizens of the land into exile in Babylon. It is a time of despair, when all hope for the future seems lost.

In the passage from which today’s Old Testament reading is taken, the prophet presents an allegory. An eagle with long wings and great pinions swoops down and breaks off the top branches of a great cedar of Lebanon. The eagle carries the branches off and plants them in a place beside abundant waters. But instead of growing into another cedar, the branches become a low spreading vine. In the interpretation that follows, the prophet explains that the cedar is the house of Israel, the eagle is King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and the broken off branches are the exiles, transplanted to the great city beside the River Euphrates.

Then, in today’s reading, God himself declares that he will take a sprig from the top of the cedar and plant it on the mountain height of Israel. It will sprout branches, bear fruit, and grow into a noble cedar; under it the beasts of the field will dwell and in the shade of its branches birds of every sort will make their nests. The prophecy’s meaning is fairly transparent. God is promising that from among the exiles in Babylon he will bring back to Jerusalem – the “mountain height” – a royal heir to the throne of David to reign over a restored kingdom of unprecedented power and glory. It is a message of hope in gloomy times. Even though the house of Israel has been reduced to a creeping vine by the waters of Babylon, God will yet make it a noble cedar towering over all the trees of the earth.

In today’s Gospel, our Lord draws on this tradition of Old Testament prophecy to tell two parables of the Kingdom of God. Jesus uses this phrase, the Kingdom of God, to signify that future state of affairs where, in the words of the Lord’s Prayer, God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven – which is manifestly not the case in the present age. It means God’s final triumph over the powers of evil, and the consummation of his reign over all creation.

In the first parable, Jesus likens the Kingdom of God to a farmer scattering seed upon the ground. The days and weeks pass; the farmer continues his routines of sleeping and rising, night and day. By a mysterious process the farmer does not understand, the seed sprouts and grows, producing first the blade, then the ear, and then the grain. Finally, when the grain is ripe, the farmer puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.

In the second parable, Jesus likens the Kingdom of God to a grain of mustard seed: the smallest of all seeds when sown; and yet the greatest of all shrubs when grown, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. That last detail is an obvious allusion to the Ezekiel prophecy in the Old Testament reading. Mustard plants are apparently common around the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and can grow to a height of six to nine feet. By itself, the detail about birds building nests in their shade may be a bit of hyperbole, but it makes perfect sense in relation to the Ezekiel prophecy.

Taken together, the parables emphasize two features of the Kingdom of God. First is the contrast between small beginnings and enormous endings. The abundance of the harvest contrasts with the scattering of seeds from which it grows; ditto for the great mustard bush which grows from the smallest of all seeds. Second, while we wait for the harvest, the planted seeds are growing towards maturity by a process that is largely hidden from human sight and understanding.

Our Lord’s message is, like Ezekiel’s, one of hope. Even though we live in a world that seems very far from the Kingdom of God, nonetheless the Kingdom is already present in our midst as seed. Just as the planted seed has its own inner dynamism and power of growth that is finally revealed at the harvest, so too does the Kingdom of God, which will be finally revealed on the Last Day.

Indeed, it may not be too much of a stretch to suggest a Christological interpretation in which the seed of the Kingdom is Jesus himself, planted by his Father in this world at his Incarnation in the womb of the Virgin Mary. In his earthly life his divine power and glory remain largely hidden, and seem utterly absent on the cross, but will be revealed in fullness when he returns at the end of the age.

The message of Ezekiel’s oracle and our Lord’s parables is good news for us today whenever we’re tempted to despair. We live in an age of growing secularization, loss of faith, and declining church attendance. But today’s readings show that this is nothing new; in many different forms, God’s people have faced far worse situations in the past. God is still at work in his proverbially mysterious ways; his kingdom is living and growing. At odd moments we catch glimpses of its beauty; much of the time it remains hidden from us. So we keep faith and persevere, trusting in God’s promises that when the harvest comes his Kingdom will be revealed in all its power and glory as having been present with us, and in us, all along.

Sermon for Corpus Christi

To be posted soon

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

Holy Trinity, Antonio de Pereda, c. 1611-1678

Isaiah 6:1-8

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory.” The mysterious angelic beings known as the seraphim call out these words in the prophet Isaiah’s vision of the Lord seated upon his throne.

The word “holy” occurs frequently in the Bible: in Hebrew qadosh, in Greek hagios, in Latin sanctus. Yet although we often hear it in church, perhaps we don't give much thought to its meaning. So, on this Trinity Sunday, it seems appropriate to reflect on holiness. What does it mean to say that something or someone is holy?

The simple meaning of the word is “set apart.” The Bible uses the word “holy” in two ways: first, as an attribute of God; and second, as an attribute of certain people, places, and things. Throughout the Bible, God is repeatedly described by such phrases as “the Holy One of Israel.” But what does it mean to say that God is holy?

The answer, I think, is that holiness or “set-apartness” is an attribute of something that lies completely outside the normal range of empirical human knowledge. To call something holy is to say that it has a quality that is not of this world. Used in this sense, the term applies above all to God, who stands entirely above and beyond this world. To call God holy is to point to his infinite perfection, goodness, power, and beauty.

Yet, in the biblical record, God chooses to enter into this world in such a way as to reveal himself and make his presence known and felt. When we human beings experience the holy one present in our midst, our typical reaction is one of amazement, awe, fear, trembling, and often a profound sense of unworthiness. The prophet Isaiah’s immediate reaction to his vision is to cry out, “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of Hosts!”

Such a reaction is the natural human response to what the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth called the infinite qualitative gulf that separates God from his creatures. Yet God himself bridges the gulf by speaking a word of reassurance and forgiveness. In Isaiah’s case, this word comes when one of the seraphim takes a burning coal from the altar and touches it to the prophet’s lips, saying, “Behold … your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.”

In relation to God, then, the term holiness signifies the divine transcendence, otherness, goodness, purity, and perfection—the experience of which evokes human reactions of awe, fascination, fear, trembling, and unworthiness. But the word is also used of people, places, and things. We speak of people as holy when their relationship with God has become so close that they begin to reflect something of God’s holiness. We speak of places as holy either because they’ve been consecrated to the worship of God, like this church building, or on account of extraordinary manifestations of God’s presence and power that have occurred in those places, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, or the Grotto at Lourdes. Again, we speak of certain objects as holy because they’ve been set apart for God’s service—examples include holy water, the sacred vestments worn at Mass, or the sacred vessels of the altar.

But people, places, and things are holy only in a secondary and derivative sense. They’re holy not in and of themselves but on account of their association with God, who alone is holy in and of himself.

The words of Isaiah’s seraphim—holy, holy, holy—are well familiar to us as the opening line of the Sanctus, said or sung during every Mass just before the Eucharistic Prayer: “Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory, glory be to thee, O Lord most high!”

Isaiah saw his vision in the context of worship in the Temple. Here at S. Stephen’s, we conduct our worship with all possible reverence and beauty, partly to dispose ourselves to be receptive to the experience of God’s holiness. We cannot manufacture such experiences by our own efforts because they lie beyond our human capabilities and can only be received as gifts from God. But clearly our Anglo-Catholic worship here on earth closely resembles the pattern of the angelic worship in heaven as described in various places in Scripture. Who knows when we might catch an echo of the seraphim singing the Sanctus along with the choir? Who knows when we might even catch a glimpse of the Lord’s train enveloping the temple as the house fills with smoke?

Now, the Sanctus shares with Isaiah’s song of the seraphim the same threefold acclamation—holy, holy, holy. Is this threefold repetition merely a rhetorical device that serves to emphasize God’s holiness, or does it point to some essential characteristic of God himself? The classical Christian answer is that it points to the threefold character of God who has revealed himself to us as one God in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In sermons on Trinity Sunday in other years, I’ve emphasized that the Church’s doctrine of the Trinity does not really require explanation because it is itself the explanation. The early Christians experienced God as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; the doctrine of the Trinity articulates this experience in a way that makes clear, on one hand, that we do not worship three Gods but one God (we are not tritheists but monotheists); but, on the other hand, that our threefold experience of God corresponds to the deepest reality of God’s own inner nature and being. God does not merely appear to us in the guises of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—that would be the heresy of modalism—but rather at the deepest level of his being really is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

As worked out at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople in the fourth century, the doctrine of the Trinity shows how this can be so by distinguishing between God’s divine nature, which is one, and his divine Persons, who are three. Thus God is simultaneously three-in-one and one-in-three: three divine Persons sharing the same divine nature, consubstantial, co-eternal, and co-equal.

This year, I want to emphasize that the Holy Trinity is not so much an intellectual puzzle to be solved, as a mystery to be worshiped and adored. Throughout the year, at every Mass, whenever we join in saying or singing the Sanctus, or whenever we hear it sung by the choir, the threefold repetition of "holy, holy, holy" reminds us that we worship a God who is not only the Holy One, but also the thrice holy: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To him be glory, worship, adoration, and praise, now and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter

Duccio di Buoninsegna,
 Jesus Appears to his Disciples behind Locked Doors, c. 1308-1311

April 19, 2015

Acts 3:12-19
I John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48

An interesting thought experiment consists of grouping friends and acquaintances into different categories according to how one would handle invitations to dinner with them. Offhand, I can identify four such categories among the people I know.

The first category consists of those who really are no more than passing acquaintances, not very close, who I don’t imagine would ever have occasion to invite me to dinner, nor I them. Not that we necessarily have anything against one another, it just wouldn’t occur to us. That could always change, of course, if we got to know each other better or discovered some interest in common.

The second category consists of somewhat closer acquaintances who might invite me to dinner, or whom I might invite to dinner, but all rather formally, issuing an invitation and setting the date weeks in advance. The meal itself might be rather elaborate, with wine, candlelight, and a carefully chosen menu.

The third category consists of friends with whom I feel so comfortable that if we were doing something together during the day, I might say, “Hey, come on back to my place and we’ll send out for pizza.” Or, if I had stopped by their house for some reason, they might issue the invitation on the spur of the moment: “Won’t you stay and join us for supper? It’ll be ready in half an hour.”

The fourth and final category consists of those very close friends and relatives with whom I would think nothing of showing up at their house and announcing, “I’m hungry. What have you got here to eat?” Or indeed, who would think nothing of showing up at my house and saying the same thing. I don’t know about you, but I can count those people on the fingers of one hand, which is probably just as well.

Before we dismiss the fourth category as the epitome of bad manners and rude behavior, notice that it’s precisely what the risen Christ does in today’s Gospel: “And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.”

Have you ever tried to imagine what Jesus would say if he appeared to you? Many spiritual directors recommend such an exercise as a stimulus to prayer and meditation. When I imagine him appearing to me, I must admit that I don’t usually visualize him walking into my kitchen, opening my refrigerator, and saying, “What have you got here to eat?” But that’s only the deficiency of my own imagination, for Our Lord says almost these exact words when he appears to the apostles.

At one level, this detail of the resurrection narratives tells us how close Jesus was to the apostles, and indeed how close he wants to be to each of us. He wants to be that kind of familiar companion, our friend and brother, so much a part of the family that he can show up at our house, go into the kitchen, and make himself a sandwich.

At another level, this detail tells us something profound about the nature of the Resurrection itself. Our Lord’s risen body definitely has some mysterious properties. He’s able to come and go through closed doors, appearing and disappearing at will. When he first shows up, people sometimes don’t recognize him. Or else, as in today’s Gospel, they think that they’re seeing a ghost. But he’s neither a ghost nor a resuscitated corpse. Instead, he’s entered into a new and wonderful dimension of existence. He hasn’t merely “come back” from the dead; it’s more as though he’s gone through death and come out the other side, more truly and fully alive than he or anyone else has ever been before.

At the same time, his risen body is clearly the same body that was wounded and died on the cross. “And he said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.’” And then he eats the piece of broiled fish almost as if in order to demonstrate the sheer materiality, physicality, corporeality of his risen body.

It’s precisely this encounter that establishes the apostles as witnesses to the Resurrection and qualifies them to preach the Gospel to all nations. “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’”

In today’s first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, we see Peter dramatically beginning to fulfill that very commission as he stands before the people proclaiming the crucified and risen Christ as the Savior of the world.

We observe a certain logical sequence. Seeing, hearing, touching, and indeed eating with the risen Christ make the apostles witnesses to the Resurrection, commissioned to go forth and proclaim the good news to all nations and peoples. The result of that proclamation is, in turn, the gathering of people into fellowship with Christ, the apostles, and one another in Christ’s Body, the Church.

And so we come full circle. For the community into which the proclamation of the Gospel invites us is none other than the Eucharistic fellowship of those who eat and drink together. Again and again, the apostles encounter the risen Christ at moments when they’re gathered to break bread, just as we continue to encounter him Sunday by Sunday in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.

In the end, then, the important question is not what we would give Jesus to eat if he showed up in our living room and said, “I’m hungry; what have you got here to eat?” – interesting as that question undoubtedly is – but rather, whether we will allow him to feed us and draw us ever closer into the fellowship of those who eat and drink together in his name.

Sermon for Easter Day

Resurrection Mosaic,
St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church, NY.
Photo: Mark J. Teleha; Lorain County Photographer's Blog
http://www.locophotogblog.com/?p=589

The Resurrection of Christ is the heart of the Christian faith. The good news that Christians are called to believe, teach, proclaim, and celebrate is none other than that “Christ is risen.”

This point needs to be made without compromise. Many people today find it difficult to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. For a number of years, when I was a teenager and young adult, I did not believe it myself. If you find yourself in a place of honest doubt and questioning, then I know where you’re coming from.

But still, regardless of what you or I believe personally, the Church must insist: without the Resurrection, Christian faith becomes something less than Christian faith; Christianity becomes something less than Christianity; Jesus becomes another ancient teacher of spiritual wisdom, whose sayings we can take or leave according to how helpful we find them. But no: Christian faith in the true and full sense of the word presupposes the truth of Christ’s Resurrection. Nothing less will do.

There are two essential elements of the New Testament witness to the Resurrection. First, on Easter morning, the tomb of Jesus was found empty. His body was gone. Second, shortly after this discovery, Jesus started appearing to his followers. He was neither a ghost nor a resuscitated corpse. His hands, feet, and side still bore the wounds of his crucifixion, but rather than having come back from the dead, it was more like he’d passed to a new and glorious state of existence on the other side of death – indeed, he was more fully alive than ever before.

Now, you’re either able to believe that or you aren’t. For my part, I think that faith is a gift that only God can give. If you’re unable to believe in Christ’s Resurrection, but would like to, then the only remedy is to ask God to give you that faith. And if you don’t believe in God but would like to, then your prayer might take something like the form it took for me for some years, “God, I don’t know if you exist, but if you do, then please reveal to me your Truth.”

In any case, I can do nothing standing up here in this pulpit to persuade you of the truth of Christ’s Resurrection by means of empirical proof or logical demonstration. The gift of faith is inherently mysterious; it comes to different people at different times and in different places according to God’s hidden purposes. What I can attempt to do, however, is help prepare the ground for this gift – like a gardener tilling the soil for the seed – by showing the reasonableness, credibility, and plausibility of what the Church believes and teaches.

The late Arthur Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1961 to 1974, addresses this question in a wonderful essay entitled “Preaching Jesus Today.” In presenting Jesus to our contemporaries, he writes, we should start with those facts about him that very few would deny.

First, he proposes, Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet and a teacher, did exist. Second, this same Jesus died by crucifixion. Third – and I quote – “as a result of the career of Jesus of Nazareth there came into history the phenomenon of Christianity, the new movement with its society, its teaching, its rites, its doctrine, its ethics, its impact on the world for better or for worse. This is again indisputable, whatever significance is ascribed to it and in whatever way the causal connection between Jesus and the Church is traced.”

Having established these three historical points, Ramsey proceeds to make some observations about the peculiar character of the Christian movement. “Within this new phenomenon of Christianity,” he writes, “there is a strikingly new valuation of suffering. … The ignominious death by crucifixion … meted out to Jesus is not shame and disgrace: it is ‘good news’, it is of God, it has a victorious character. And for the Christians to suffer is not defeat or tragedy; it has a like victorious character.”

This new valuation of suffering, Ramsey continues, is not a cult of martyrdom or a kind of masochism that values suffering for its own sake. Rather, “it goes with a belief in a divine use of suffering which links it creatively with sacrificial love and with a self-fulfillment within it and beyond it.”

Now, Ramsey asks, what happened to bring such a new valuation about? True, Jesus taught his disciples much about the meaning of his coming suffering and death, but before his death this teaching was lost on them. They didn’t get it. So, something must have happened to create for the disciples the doctrine of Jesus’ death as meaningful and victorious. And this something that happened, Ramsey proposes, was none other than the Resurrection.

The Resurrection, Ramsey argues, transformed the disciples’ valuation of death precisely because it was the Resurrection of the crucified one; the Jesus who came back to his disciples was the same Jesus who had died and who still bore the marks of his sufferings.

“Here then,” Ramsey writes, “is the central point of the history of Jesus. He was not a forgotten crucified teacher. His impact survived, and Christianity came into existence because the Resurrection happened and because it was the Resurrection of the crucified. And … the Death and Resurrection are the events which characterize the nature of Christianity. It is a gospel of life through death, of losing life so as to find it. Thus the Christian’s act of allegiance to the risen Lord Jesus was, and still is, an act of acceptance of the way of the cross.”

The basic thrust of Ramsey’s argument is that the Resurrection of Jesus as reported in the Gospels provides the simplest and most plausible way of accounting for the phenomenon of Christianity in general and for the remarkable and virtually complete transformation of the disciples in particular. The same argument can be made in other ways.

A week ago, on Palm Sunday, I pointed out that the disciples were so afraid at the time of Jesus’ arrest that they forsook him and fled. But then, in the months and years following, their attitudes and behavior underwent a complete reversal. Now, they were speaking out boldly, preaching in the public squares, and bravely facing persecution for doing so. Rather than simply returning to their farms, fishing boats, and trades, many of them undertook dangerous missionary journeys to distant lands where they ended up dying as martyrs for the Gospel they proclaimed. Again, the Resurrection of Jesus is the simplest and best explanation of this wholesale transformation of the disciples’ outlook and worldview.

It follows that the best way of bearing witness to the truth of the Resurrection today is by living lives that testify to the creative power of self-sacrificial love in community. When our life together in this or any other parish visibly embodies the values of death-to-self and service to others, then we begin to show the world not only that Christ is risen but also that he is alive in our midst. And on that basis we invite others to join us and share in this faith, this life, and this love.

Sermon for Good Friday

Henry Thomas Bodset (d. 1934), Jesus before his Crucifixion

During the Trial of Jesus in the Saint John Passion that we’ve just heard, Pontius Pilate declares not once but three times, “I find no fault in him.” (The Authorized Version (AV) says “fault,” but a better translation might be “guilt” or “crime” (RSV), or even “I find no case against him” (NRSV), or “I find no basis for a charge against him” (NIV).)

In John’s narrative, Pilate initially questions Jesus, asking whether he is King of the Jews. Jesus responds that his kingship is not of this world; otherwise his servants would fight, and that his mission is to bear witness to the truth.

Pilate then goes out to the crowd and declares the first time that he finds no crime in Jesus. He offers to release Jesus according to the custom of releasing a prisoner at the time of Passover. But the crowd insists, “No, not this man, but Barabbas.”

Pilate then has Jesus scourged, and the soldiers place on him the crown of thorns and the purple robe. He brings Jesus out before the crowd and declares, “See I am bringing him out to you, that you may know that I find no crime in him.” That’s the second time he says this. But on seeing Jesus, the crowd cries out, “Crucify him, crucify him!”

Pilate responds, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him.” That’s the third time. Pilate wants to find a way to release Jesus, and questions him once more. But when the chief priests implicitly threaten to report Pilate to Caesar, he finally relents and turns Jesus over to be crucified.

In the Jewish law of the time, to declare something three times was to make it irrevocable and binding – like swearing an oath. Some contemporary biblical scholars have argued that John and the other Gospel writers craft their accounts of the trial so as to exonerate the Romans for the death of Jesus and shift the blame to the Jews. But John’s account of Pilate’s actions is fairly damning. Pilate three times declares Jesus innocent, and then hands him over for crucifixion anyway. He thus perverts justice by openly condemning an innocent man to death.

This account of the trial highlights the point that Jesus suffers and dies on the cross as an innocent victim. As a corollary: those who conspire to gather evidence and bring charges against him, and who work to secure his condemnation first by the Sanhedrin and then by Pilate, are not administering justice but rather conspiring to commit a grave injustice. Whatever else the figure of Jesus on the cross represents, then, it depicts first and foremost the unjust suffering of an innocent victim.

The problem of unjust and undeserved suffering remains always with us. For example, when we witness the wholesale slaughter and maiming of civilian men, women, and children in war, our inmost selves cry out to heaven in protest: “Why, O Lord, why?” It’s bad enough that combatants should have to suffer and die in war, and no-one’s suggesting that they deserve it either, but nonetheless something about the unjust suffering of the innocent particularly scandalizes and outrages our consciences.

Down through the centuries, second-rate philosophers and religious teachers have proposed facile solutions to this problem. While we don’t like it at the time, they say, suffering is good for us. It strengthens our character and makes us better people.

But that’s a myth. During the Second World War, the British pacifist Vera Brittain wrote that far from strengthening character and ennobling people, most unjust suffering has precisely the opposite effect. It brutalizes and dehumanizes its victims, creating a legacy of bitterness, resentment, hatred, and thirst for revenge.

The one exception, she wrote – and much more the exception than the rule – is when such suffering is freely accepted by its victim and offered up sacrificially in the service of a higher cause or principle. In that case alone, unjust suffering has the potential to become redemptive and transformative. But very few people have any natural capability for such sacrificial self-offering.

The Gospel that we proclaim today, on Good Friday, is that Jesus Christ, as the Incarnate Son of God, fully human and fully divine, is the one and only innocent victim who ever accepts his unjust suffering and death with such perfect humility and resignation that his offering of himself on the cross constitutes, to quote the Prayer Book, the “one, full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.”

We don’t need to go into the various theologies describing the mechanisms by which the Atonement is thought to work. The Universal Church has never defined as dogma any of the many competing theories of precisely how and in what way Jesus’ death on the cross accomplishes the forgiveness of sins and the reconciliation of a fallen world to God. It just does, and that’s all we really need to know.

Two consequences follow for us, however, in our calling to live the Christian life. First, in this life at least, following Jesus means walking in the way of the cross. We must never seek suffering for its own sake. But if and when we find ourselves facing some injury, disease, or other calamity that entails pain and loss, we can accept it as a way of being close to Jesus. This acceptance comes to us not naturally but by divine grace, as a gift of the Holy Spirit. So long as we stay close to Jesus, we can bear anything for his sake – and in that case our pain and suffering do have the potential to become redemptive.

Secondly, however, while we may freely accept this path for ourselves, we never have any right to impose it on others. There is something particularly cruel and wicked about telling those in pain to accept their suffering because it will make them better people. And it’s downright blasphemous to inflict pain and suffering on the same pretext, that it’s somehow good for the victims.

No. Down through the centuries the Church’s best wisdom has derived precisely the opposite conclusion from the suffering of Christ on the cross. Our obligation as Christians is to do everything we can to prevent, stop, and relieve the unjust suffering of innocent victims whenever and wherever we encounter it in the world around us. Our mission is one of healing, reconciliation, restoration, and justice.

At this time in our history, in particular, we have an obligation to work to end the systemic injustice that disproportionately victimizes the poor and members of racial and ethnic minorities. The shooting of unarmed black teenagers is but one example. Yet we have the assurance that whenever innocent victims suffer unjustly, Jesus suffers with them. And when we minister to such innocent victims with compassion and love, we minister to Christ himself.