April 17th, 2022 (Easter Sunday)

Christ is risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

Let’s stop for a minute and think about how we feel when we say those words.

Whatever else we bring to the Easter table, these words have a clear joy about them.

They are celebration. And at the same time, a cheer of optimism. After the dark

contemplation of Lent, they suggest that the time for quiet whispers is over. That we are

free to shout -- these words feel like spring. As if the sun has suddenly come out after a

long winter.

And yet, our gospel asks us to linger another moment in the shadow of that winter, on

the burial day of Jesus. Jesus has been taken down from the cross and laid to rest in a

tomb. The followers – the women who stood by him until the end – have gone to check

on him, to prepare for the next stage of their funeral ritual. And they discover him gone.

Mary runs to tell the disciples, who also come to check it out. And yes, they agree,

Jesus has disappeared. It all has a bit of a surreal, almost comedic sensibility to it. It’s

also more than a little depressing.

So how do we reconcile this with our feeling of joy and relief at Easter, on this morning?

Our music is joyful. The snow is melting, the days are lengthening. It feels as if

everyone is waking up. There is the promise of better times in the wind, a chance to

look forward. Do we really need to go there – back to the tomb?

Actually, we do.

The Easter story is complicated: perhaps more so than most other events in the Bible, it

asks us, as Christians, to believe in something truly miraculous. The resurrection of

Jesus Christ. And that may not be easy, especially these days. But how we interpret the

Easter story, how we reach our own personal truth of the events that day, how it

translates into our faith narratives, is not the most important part of the story. We can

argue about the details; about what happened when and who was there – this is good

practice. The gospel sends us forth as seekers of truth. But the lesson of Easter is that

there is also power to be found in that which is unknowable. There can be purpose in

what we can’t explain, strength in uncertainty. 

Easter is one of those times. Easter is one of those perplexing events that make no

sense, that seem unreal, that feel miraculous. And that’s just the point: it feels

miraculous. Easter is a day for feeling our faith just as we might lift our faces to the sun

or smell an Easter lily. It is the day when we bask, even if for a moment, in the comfort

that the world is turning, and things are taken care of. That God has got it handled. 

Easter is a breather. Savour it.

Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

But hold on, there is still the business of the tomb, and Mary and the disciples running

back and forth, as if they aren’t sure what to do next. Easter wasn’t much of a breather

for them, travelling from grief to shock to joy, when they finally realize what’s happened,

when Jesus appears to them and explains. It all sounds exhausting.

But let’s call it the Easter small print. If we sit here feeling the joy of the morning, it

should be like people getting fuelled up for what’s to come next. That feeling of joy has

to go somewhere. For Mary and the disciples, the path was soon set. They didn’t hide

away and grieve over the death of Jesus. They didn’t party for weeks over his

resurrection. They were fired up to do what came next.

There is a reason why we stall for so long in the shadow of Lent. Ideally, we ask

ourselves some big questions: What do we stand for? How are we living? What are the

priorities we are setting? Are we on the right path? Those answers don’t come

overnight; they take thought and contemplation. And chances are we never really reach

satisfactory answers. Chances are those questions just lead to new questions.

But then Easter comes along. Easter is the moment when God says: enough. You have

gone through it – the march to Jerusalem with the awareness of what was going to

happen, or for us, as modern Christians, perhaps, you have reached the understanding

that some parts of life aren’t easily fixed, and some priorities aren’t easily changed. 

Maybe you had – during Lent or at another time – a Good Friday moment, when

everything went horribly wrong, and when you really hit rock bottom. This, then, is your

Easter, too: the moment when God says: Enough. Enough contemplation. Enough

pondering. Enough stewing. Now you will lift your head and look around at the spring

that’s coming. You will experience the resurrection. You will hear the Alleluia.

Because ultimately, the story of Easter is about a group of people lifted out of despair,

given the gift of a miracle, told to rejoice in the love of God and one another, and then

sent out. After a time of looking inward, we are now called to look outward. To act upon

the parts in us that are hypocritical – that side of ourselves that recites the words of the

gospel and then acts in a completely opposite way. To choose not to be bystanders. To

look up and act – in the name of the gospel.

It is impossible to be an effective messenger of the gospel without being thoughtful.

Faith without questions, without debate, without intellectual challenge is an empty

vessel. But Easter is the day when we free ourselves up to feel. It is like a divine energy

drink.

Because the message of Easter should be the most moving one of our faith lives: God

loved us so much that Jesus walked among us, and lived with us, and bravely taught

us, knowing the danger that this meant, knowing the price that he would pay. And the

people who knew Jesus, who had been taught by him, who had walked with him, who

had followed him and even failed him, were, nonetheless, strong enough to rise out of

shame and grief and loss to carry on his teachings so that we might be sitting here

today, listening to the Easter story. However you tell it, it’s a story that proves the value

of human life and the power of the human spirit, and the role of divine mystery weaving

through it all. What Easter teaches is that we all have value. We all may be powerful.  

That’s the joy of Easter day, the optimism of the resurrection. It’s not that it happened to

me, or it happened to you. Easter solidifies our collective responsibility to one another. It

articulates our duty to tend to and care for the gospel as if it were a living thing, a seed

that we fling as far as we can. But because of Easter we are freed from the bitterness of

sacrifices that are made out of guilt. Because of Easter, our duty is not a burden but an

opportunity.

Feel the joy of this Easter day. Feel the optimism of a new beginning. Feel the fresh

start of the Resurrection. Then look up and act – in the name of the gospel. Christ is

risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

April 10th, 2022

What a party! You can tell they were having a really good time on the streets of Jerusalem that day. After all, everyone loves a parade. And for most of the people in Jerusalem, life was pretty bare bones – subsistence living, really. They were more than eager to stand at the side of the road, waving palms and cheering, hoping for a glimpse of the celebrity everyone had been gossiping about. “Hosanna!” they shout. “Hosanna!” We can imagine them craning their necks, hoisting their children on their shoulders, hoping for a peek so they could say, later, that they had been there. We all know, however, that there were shadows looming over that parade. Any wise person standing in the crowd would have understood this, even as they applauded from the sidelines. Certainly, Jesus knew. And the disciples, much as they prayed otherwise, knew it, too: this could not end well. It’s an old story in human history: the people’s king – the popular leader – who goes up against the establishment. The ones who succeed – who topple the reigning power, usually lose something of themselves in the process, with their strategizing and forced alliances. The ones who run head long, without guise or subtlety, who stand up to be counted: well, history has proven that lesson as well. More often than not, when the dust has settled, the establishment is still very much established. And Jesus, as we know, was not aiming for subtlety: he was walking righteous steps toward his destiny. Not that he wasn't a showman as well: the donkey - that was a pretty smart move. But he was trying to change the game - not play the same old one. It would take much more than a party at the city gates. The thing about Palm Sunday is that the whole celebration in Jerusalem feels off - like an event staged for social media. Perhaps this is foresight - we know what is to happen. We already know there are whisperers in the seemingly joyful crowd, spreading hate like a cancer. But aren’t we, too, just like the mob? A party is so much easier. Let someone else worry about the clean up the next day. We could also say the same about society in general. Until the pandemic knocked us down and forced a wake-up call. But this week, we learned from UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the fight to keep global heating under 1.5 degrees had reached an immediate now-or-never stage. This is not a surprise - scientists have been warning us for years and years. And yet we continued to party - buying stuff insatiably, driving bigger cars, wanting bigger houses, and not pushing back against the interest-driven profit over the environment. Now here we are with the world’s fossil fuel energy supply threatened by war and the pandemic shaking us all out of our revelry. Now here, even with Covid cases creeping steadily up again, we are so keen to abandon rules and mandates - so eager to party - more voices are beginning to ask whether we are on right path. Perhaps, like the people of Jerusalem, we hope for a saviour - someone sure and steady - to step in and set things right - even though, as Christians, we already had that saviour, someone reminding us to take careful, conscious steps in the world. A party is so much easier. Let someone else worry about the clean-up the next day. Perhaps, in the end, this is why the mob turned so quickly against Jesus in the days that followed. They were disappointed: he, who was called a King and the Son of God, had not, with a wave of his hand, fixed their problems. In that doubtful space, a seed could be planted by leaders nervous about the crowd’s loving this Jesus a little too much: perhaps he was a charlatan? Perhaps he’d come not to give power to them but to take it for himself. Perhaps he was not who he said he was at all. And so the narrative cycles on repeat: a masterful act of disinformation and conspiracy. Who does this guy think he is, anyway? Perhaps, in the end, this is why the mob turned: deep down, they were the angriest with themselves. What if, instead of waiting, instead of partying, they had laid the groundwork for the arrival of Jesus? Taking their own challenges to the corrupt leaders of the city. Asking their own questions about unfair laws. They missed their chance: Jesus, who might have helped them get there at last, became the scapegoat for their own failures. They missed their chance – and that is where Palm Sunday leaves us, heading into the darkest day of our faith lives – our most horrible of failures. We have made some grave errors – and we have not been helpless puppets in the making of them. Palm Sunday is a day to wave palm branches and shout Hosanna. It is the day that marks Jesus’s arrival in the city, and that indeed was a celebration. But the party of Palm Sunday is not the lesson - the party was only concealing what was already underfoot. - what everyone should have been able to see. What was warned of repeatedly on the journey to Jerusalem? What are we also missing? There is one more week of Lent – and it should be the hardest week of all. If we don’t own up to our mistakes, if we don’t see the world as it is, and not just as we wish it were - as the people of Jerusalem would soon have no choice to do – then we go right back to partying, while the shadows gather. This is the week – this is the time in our communities, and in our country – to see the shadows for what they are. And to get ready for the next step. The people of Jerusalem got their wake-up call – a hero, a saviour they loved, was left to die on a cross. How long will we stay awake? Amen

April 3rd, 2022

Generosity is good for us. Giving social support to other people is associated with better health, higher quality of life, and less loneliness. Spending money on other people makes us happier than spending it on ourselves, although we don’t always realize it. As a species, we have no doubt evolved to be generous – I help you, you help me. Altruism developed, some researchers suggest, as a way to keep communities working together. But giving and helping another person also gives our lives meaning and purpose, and that’s good for our mental health. Where and how we choose to be generous tends to follow patterns. We are more likely to help a specific person than an anonymous one. We prefer to help individuals rather than groups. We tend to be more generous with people who are like us. If we have only so much to give in our day, we like to know it is well spent. If someone notices, all the better; we like our generous acts to be witnessed. At the heart of the gospel this morning is a dissertation on generosity. Who should receive? What kind of generosity matters most? What should it look like? Especially, if there is only so much to go around. In our gospel, we find Jesus at the home of his friend Lazarus. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem with the disciples, including Judas, who is just days away from betraying Jesus to the authorities. Martha serves dinner. But when Mary uses some expensive perfume to anoint his feet, Judas protests angrily. That perfume should have been sold and spent on the poor. To which Jesus says quite firmly, leave her alone. “You will always have the poor, but you will not always have me.” There is a lot to unpack here. First of all, Judas, who is a few days away from betraying Jesus, is the last disciple we’d expect to be standing up for being selfless with the poor. We might more likely suspect that he wants the coin for himself. Right away, then, we get the signal that his objecting is wrong. It’s a kind of virtue-signalling we see all the time in society, a kind of surface generosity for show. Judas wants to be seen as generous, but he is only play-acting at it. Let’s consider, more importantly, the response of Jesus, which is, on the surface at least, a bit confusing. These lines have even been used to justify a certain ambivalence about poverty – if it is always with us, what can we do about it anyway? And is Jesus, a minimalist by every account, justifying an extravagant expense? Let’s start with the line – “You will always have the poor.” In fact, Jesus is quoting a line from Deuteronomy in the Old Testament. It’s the second part of that sentence that changes its meaning entirely: That is why I am giving you this order, 'You must open your hand to your poor and needy brother in your land.' In other words, if there will always be need, we must be constantly generous. And yet, Jesus goes on, there is space for different kinds of generosity. If we see poverty as a larger issue that needs to be addressed, we may also be generous on an individual level, just as Mary was doing for Jesus. Compassion is meant to be boundless, not restricted. It comes in many forms; Mary, knowing the path he was on, was doing him a kindness, one showing how much he was loved and valued. Perhaps this act of generosity helped bolster him to keep going; perhaps it showed him that his ministry had made a difference, and that he had a community. Given that it was also to be used in his burial, as Jesus himself says, it also reinforced that he would be remembered when he was gone. Surely, Jesus, in all his humanness, would need to hear this. In that respect, then, Mary’s generosity is a powerful act of love. What’s more, it likely made Mary feel better, as all that research has found. We shouldn’t feel badly when generosity makes us feel good – it is no less reason to do it. The positive emotion we receive when we are giving to people should only reinforce that it is the right thing to do, that the gospel is speaking through us when we act generously. Mary’s giving to Jesus was her response to his ministry. And when we actively respond to the gospel, we give our faith, and our lives, meaning. As it happens, though, that line from Jesus, is not entirely correct. We do not always have to have the poor with us; we do not have to accept poverty as a reality we cannot change. Some cities, such as Medicine Hat in Alberta, and countries, such as Finland, have been extremely successful in eliminating homelessness. They have done so using a Housing First model, which finds homes for people first, and then offers them supports as individuals. Isn’t that the wide definition of generosity that Jesus is describing in the gospel? We must try to solve the larger problems, but also see the individual opportunities to provide comfort and care. In this way we become the fully generous people that Jesus envisioned: people who see not only the big picture of the larger world, but also the unique stories of each person, and respond with generosity. Amen