Happy Easter

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

Happy Easter.

Has the Easter Bunny been good to everybody?

Great!

You might have thought I would talk about the resurrection today; about who Jesus Christ is to us and why today is so important.

Nope.  Today I’m going to talk about that great Christian symbol, the Easter Bunny.

I think the Easter Bunny is a little bit like that stone that the builders rejected.  There is something distinctly wrong with it but God uses it anyway.  Not only does he use it, but he identifies the most important Holy Day in the Christian calendar with it.  He made it our chief advertiser.  Right up there with Santa Claus.  There are lots of people who know very little, if anything, about what Christ teaches us.  I doubt there are many who don’t know what the Easter Bunny does.

Well, that’s a good start.  The Easter Bunny advertises the name of the core of our faith. … So what. … How does that tell anyone about what Christianity is actually about?

What does the Easter Bunny do? … First of all, it is a bunny.  Like most other bunnies, it emerges in the spring.  Every year at the end of lent it springs up again.  Like other bunnies, once it gets out it spreads everywhere.  You see the first chocolate bunny in the stores and suddenly there are hundreds … thousands … they are everywhere.

The message (or chocolate) of the Easter Bunny is easy to spread and impossible to stop.  It is almost like it is spread by the wind, or in Hebrew, ruach.  It is almost like it is reborn every year about this time; appearing here and there to its disciples, the children, and then vanishing again, leaving behind miraculous gifts of eggs comprised mostly or entirely of chocolate.  Each one a message saying “you are loved.”

The Easter Bunny also describes Christianity in how it is different from other bunnies.

How does the Easter Bunny know when Easter is anyway?  I don’t know any other bunny that can figure out which day is the first Sunday after the first full moon after spring equinox.  He must be inspired by something.

There is something distinctly different about this bunny.  He is not like the other bunnies.  He lays eggs!  He turns the world of biology upside down.  This should not be possible.  This is a very important message.  He shows us that the world is not always what we expect it to be.  He shows us that those who are different from everyone else are worthy of our love.  He shows us that those who are different from everyone else can love us too.

The Easter Bunny is also a bit different from Santa Claus.  The Easter Bunny does not keep a list of who is naughty and who is nice.  The Easter Bunny doesn’t care.  He loves us all equally.

It doesn’t matter if you are poor or rich … the Easter Bunny loves you.

It doesn’t matter if you are bad or good … the Easter Bunny loves you.

It doesn’t matter what race you are … the Easter Bunny loves you.

It doesn’t matter if you are male or female … the Easter Bunny loves you.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter … the Easter Bunny loves you.

Thanks be to God.

A Journey Through the Passion

Wait for the Lord whose day is near.  Wait for the lord.  Be strong.  Take heart.  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

All through lent we’ve been waiting for the Lord.  What are we waiting for and how long do we have to wait?

Today we are going to take our own journey through the Passion.  We come with questions.  We will leave with questions.  I pray that we will learn something along the way.

Today we celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  Jesus, the King of the Jews, the Messiah, the Chosen one or the Anointed enters into Jerusalem at the time of the Passover.  At the same time, directly across the city, Pilate and his entourage would have been entering the city.  The Romans kept a strong military presence in Jerusalem when the Jews celebrated their release from bondage, when they remembered throwing off the chains of their oppressors and fled to freedom.  The Romans did not like this holiday.  Jesus walks into this and stirs it all up.

(Wait for the Lord, whose day is here.  Wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart.)

Whom shall we release … Jesus Bar Adam or Jesus Bar Abas: Jesus Son of Man or Jesus son of the father?  Even in moments of truth, the answers are never perfectly clear.  How can we know which to chose?  How do we recognize the Messiah?  Where do we look for the Messiah?

Today we celebrate the Passion of Christ.  We celebrate his walk to Golgotha: the place of the skull.  On the way, he meets Simon of Cyrene.  Simon would probably have been a Jew who made his pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover.  Cyrene was in North Africa and was home to many displaced Jews.  Simon was compelled to carry the cross for Jesus and was healed by it.  The same words which are translated as “they laid the cross on him” are used at other times to speak of laying healing hands on someone.  Simon came to Golgotha and found salvation in a man on his way to die.

(Wait for the Lord, whose day is here.  Wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart.)

Even as he died on the cross, Jesus faced the tempter.  Jesus faces the same fears, the same pains, the same trials as us.  When tempted to save himself from death, Jesus instead turns and pardons the sins of one who repents.  When choosing between earthly life and eternal life, he chooses eternal life.  At the moment of death this may be an easy choice for us, or at least easier, but sitting here in this place, firmly earthbound, this choice is close to impossible.  How do we find the strength to choose eternal life when earthly life is so tempting?

When Jesus dies on the cross, two very important things happen.  “The sun’s light failed.”  The light of the world left the world.  “The curtain of the temple was torn in two.”  The curtain which divided the main area of the temple from the sanctuary was destroyed.  The laity were no longer barred from direct contact with God.  They no longer had to pass their prayers and sacrifices to God through the priests.  These two are the same event.  The light had not left the world but it had changed.

(Wait for the Lord, whose day is here.  Wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart.)

What are we waiting for?  The Kingdom of God.  How long do we have to wait?  We can get glimpses every day.  When we forgive or are forgiven we see, just for a moment, the Kingdom of God.  When we see Christ in ourselves or in others, we see the Kingdom of God.  In a little while we will celebrate the Eucharist, our own remembrance of the Passover, when Jesus died to heal us all, to free us all from eternal death, we glimpse the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God is here already but there is much work to be done for it to be here fully.  In the Kingdom of God, the choice is clear.  In the Kingdom of God, we are tempted by salvation.  In the Kingdom of God, the only choice is eternal life.

(Wait for the Lord, whose day is here.  Wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart.)

Today is the day of the Lord.  His day is near.  Be strong.  Take heart.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

Are you Martha, Mary or Lazarus?

Each one of them is loved by Jesus.  Each one is the friend of Jesus.  They are all very different.

Martha – hardworking, detail oriented, knows what needs to be done and does it.  Many people believe that Martha represents the organizers of the early church.  She is the one who provided the space, gathered the people, and made it possible for worship to happen.  Martha exemplifies the leader of a house-church or small worshiping community that met in someone’s home.  She is the combination of the ACW, Altar Guild, Lay Reader, communion administrator, warden, and landlord all rolled into one efficient package.  She either has a rich husband or comes from a rich family.  She would need this backing because her house-church is a full time job plus some.

This very tiring picture is the up-side of Martha.  The downside is that she is so busy that she has forgotten why she’s doing it all.  She never takes time to just sit back and think about the big picture.

Mary is a visionary.  Mary is consumed with the big picture.  She looks around her and just knows what is important.  She knows ahead of time that Jesus is going to die, either because she understood what he was saying (which pretty much no-one did) or maybe because she was a prophet.  We don’t really know why Mary knew, but she did.  Mary, to me, represents the response of the church.  She sees a need and takes action, regardless of the cost.  She knows that our response needs to be one of generosity.  She is the why of the church.  She shows us were we should be going.

Mary also has her down-side.  Mary is response oriented.  If the church were run by her, very little would get done.  It would be all outreach with no fundraising to back it up.  Nothing would ever be set up in time for worship.  People would never know when to be there.  There would be no organization.

Lazarus seems to have the easy job.  He doesn’t have to do much.  He just has to be there.  I see him as the average church goer (which doesn’t actually exist).  He is consistent.  He provides support for both Martha and Mary.  He listens to what they have to say and adds his own input.  Without him, neither Martha nor Mary have anything to do.  Martha has no congregation to prepare for, no meetings to organize, no books to keep, no meals to prepare.  Without him Mary has no resources to respond to needs, no one to listen to her when she describes her understanding of God and God’s call.

Oh – and Lazarus has to give up his life for Christ.  Lazarus has to be so devoted to his calling that he is willing to die so that Jesus can show the world that death no longer has any power.

Together, these three people make up a healthy church.  If any one of them is missing the church is in trouble.

But there is more to it than that.  Each of these people is a reflection of the trinity of the Christian brand.

Martha is stewardship.  She manages and takes care of God’s gifts.  She uses what she needs and is very conscious of her responsibility for it all.  She lives simply.

Lazarus is humanity.  He is called to be alive, to live as Christ teaches him.  He simply lives.

Mary helps others to live as Christ teaches us.  She observes her world and responds to any need that she sees.

I believe that every one of us is a mix of all three.  Each of us has our strengths and our weaknesses, but they are all there.

I know that I have a large portion of Mary in me.  My weak side is Martha.  I have to work very hard at the organization, at making sure that all of the work gets done.  I am easily distracted when I see a need, any need.  I get caught up in responding when I need to be planning or preparing.

I think that it is important for us to know ourselves.  To know where our strengths lie, where our weaknesses are.  To make the best use of our strengths and to work on our weaknesses.  To become more complete as human beings.

When we know our own strengths, we can recognize them in others.  We can seek out people with complementary strengths and work together.  We can help each other with our weaknesses.

This is the good news today.  This is the grace of God.  Individually, we are incomplete, imperfect, not capable, or unworthy as our translations say.  Together, we are complete.  Together we are, as our Bible says, perfect.

Thanks be to God.