3 Easter B

Here is a sermon I preached a little over a week ago. I describes God as a grandparent and how God takes delight in each and every one of us.

3 Easter

April 19, 2015

St Paul’s Episcopal Church, Tustin CA

The Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Luke 24:36b-48

1 John 3:1-7

Today, the third Sunday of Easter, used to be called Jubilate Sunday. Last week, was Thomas Sunday because we always read the story of Thomas’ doubt on the Sunday after Easter. The third Sunday was called Jubilate Sunday because we used to read the Psalm that began in Latin with Jubilate Deo. Jubilate means shout for joy. Today is the day when we shout for joy over the resurrection of our Lord.

Now joy is an emotion that needs to be embodied. We shout for joy. We jump for joy. If someone tells you that they are feeling lots of joy with a still body and not much affect on their face you would be pretty sure they were not as joyous as they said. Instead, joy makes us want to move, to shout, to jump.

We express our joy during the Easter season with the word Alleluia. Alleluia means praise the Lord, with a big explanation point. When we say alleluia we are expressing Joy in the resurrection. It needs to be embodied. I once learned the American Sign Language sign for Alleluia. It goes like this (demonstrate two claps and then raising the arms in a curly motion). Try it. Alleluia (leading sign language expression of it.)

This is Jubilate Sunday when we shout for joy because the resurrection is really good news. The kind of news that is so good it is hard to believe. It is like sitting at home and having the doorbell ring. When you answer the door you see cameras and microphones and a person standing with a giant check for a million dollars. That is really good news, but we might find it hard to believe. We would be wondering who set up this joke. This couldn’t be true. I never win anything.

This is what it means in the Gospel today where it says that the disciples the disciples as in joy and disbelieving. This disbelieving is not like the doubt of Thomas. It is not so much that they doubt what they are experiencing, but that it is just too good to be true.

And it is good news, good news that is hard for us to take in. It is more than just that Jesus was alive again, it meant that all he taught and the radical new relationship with God that he talked about was true.

The Good News is best summed up in John’s letter today that says, “See what love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God.” We are beloved children of God.

I’d like you to think about someone in your life when you were a child who really loved you. Who was delighted by your very existence. We all had someone who loved us deeply or we would not have grown up to be function human beings able to get ourselves to church on a Sunday. Who was it for you? It could have been parent or a grandparent. It might have been and aunt or an uncle. Perhaps a cousin or a neighbor, or a Sunday School teacher or a coach. Think about that person who really loved you as a child. What was that like?

For me, it was my grandfather. I remember when I was very little, probably under four, and we would go on adventures. My grandmother would make fudge (the best fudge I have ever tasted) and then put two big pieces in a small lunchbox that I was able to carry. My Grandfather would take my hand and we would set out on our adventure, which just meant walking half way around the block and finding a shady spot to sit and eat our fudge then walking home. But those adventures were important to me because I could see that my grandfather enjoyed the as much as I did. He took delight in me, even though I was his youngest grandchild. He still was delighted by y existence. He enjoyed just being in my presence and we took mutual delight in each other.

I’ve been thinking about my grandfather a lot since becoming a grandparent. There is something wonderful about being a grandparent. I took delight in my grandchildren even before they were born. Once I knew they were coming, I was delighted by their existence. They don’t have to do anything, or be anything special. Just by their existence I take great delight in them.

Being a grandparent is different than being a parent. Parents love their children and would do anything for them, but they also have a lot of responsibilities. They need to be sure they eat healthy foods and that they get enough sleep. They are also responsible for domesticating them. They have to be sure they learn where to go to the bathroom, not to hurt other people or themselves, to wear clothes, to develop manners and to share. Parents have to set limits and deal with resistance. All grandparents have to do is love the child, to take delight in them. For example, my granddaughter is 16 months old now and has learned the concept of NO. She doesn’t use the word yet, but it is real clear when she shakes her head, waves her arms in front of her face (make actions) that she does not want the food that she is being offered. For her parents this is frustrating. They want her to eat, and eat a healthy balanced diet. And it is hard for them to not take in personally, like she is rejecting them, for as a grandparent I can remember each of my own children going through that stage, smile and think about how she learning preferences and developing such a good strong will.

I like to think of God not so much as a parent, but as a grandparent. I see God taking delight in each and every one of us. And when we are being a bit obstinate God sees that as a stage we are going through, developing a sense of will, perhaps. And I am sure that God took delight in each and every one of us before we were born, as we are a manifestation of God’s love.

Think about that; let it in, God delights in YOU! God sees you with eyes of delight. God sees you and delights in you the way that special person of your childhood delighted in you.

That is such Good News! That is Great New! That should make us dance of Joy. To shout Alleluia! To shout out in joy!

And it is hard to let in. It is such good news that we find ourselves resisting in. We think of how unworthy we are, but God’s delight in us has nothing to do with worthiness. Of course we are unworthy, but love is not about being worthy. It just is

God delights in each and every one of us, like a grandparent delights in a grandchild. Like that special person delighted in you as a child.

One of the best moments of the past year was when I got to my son’s house and walked down the hall to where he was with my granddaughter. When my granddaughter saw me he face lit up and I could see that she was delighted to see me. And I was delighted to see her. That moment of mutual delight was magnificent. I wonder if that is how God is with us. That when we notice God’s presence and take delight in it, perhaps in a sunset or a church service or a piece of music, God experiences delight in our delight of God.

Since we were created for God’s good pleasure, do we bring pleasure to God when we remember to check in through prayer, when we delight in creation, when we love other people, when we take time to sit quietly in God’s presence.

This is such good news it is hard to believe. It is also such good news that it is hard not to share

Christ is risen, Alleluia!

5 Easter B

Here's a sermon that reflects upon the nature of a grape vine and the importance of the root system for the branches.

5 Easter B

Transcribed from a sermon given on May 6, 2012

At St. Barnabas, Arroyo Grande CA

By The Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

John 15:1-8

1John 4:7-21

The image that Jesus uses in the Gospel today of the grape vine would have been very familiar to his listeners. Back in Jesus’ time, much like in the Central Coast today, the growing of grapes for wine was one of the major cash crops - maybe the major cash crop for that area. So whether they were farmers or not everyone would have been familiar with the grape vine and on how grapes on grew on a vine. Just like around here.

I imagine most of us have seen a grape vine or at least gone wine tasting at a vineyard and saw them out through the window, right? The vine is the foundation of the grape plant. The grape vine is the root system that is larger than the vine itself. The roots travel out and down, and the bigger the roots, the deeper the roots, the healthier the vine is. And in fact for some of the grape vines the foundations of them the roots system are ten, fifteen, twenty years old because the longer they have been there the more secure and deeper they are. Sometimes when they are growing grapes they will take one kind of grape as the root system and take another kind of grape and attach that to those roots because the roots bring a certain kind of strength and certain types of wine are better with a different root system So we have the roots that bring up the moisture and with the water all the nutrients that the vine needs.

Then we have the branches and usually if you see a grape vine that has been around for a while you see a few really thick branches Those are the ones that haven’t gotten pruned back and then it has little ones that are coming off of it. Good pruning of grape vine is really important to keep it healthy. You have the branches that come off of this sort of like a tree. It’s like a trunk and branches and you have the little branches that come off.

Now in order for those branches to survive they have to get the water they need and the nutrients they need by the water that is brought up by the roots and then through the trunk and then goes out to the branches. So if something happens to one of those branches, if it gets broken off from the vine, we know what happens. You can watch it when there is a wind storm and a branch falls down and it withers and within a few days all the leaves turn brown and it dies. Because it needs that moisture, it needs those nutrients, or you may have seen a large tree, sometimes there is a big windstorm and a large branch will break off and it has fallen down and it hasn’t completely separated. There is just a little bit that is still attached. Such a branch might live for a while because it is still getting a little bit of nutrients by that connection, but it is not getting the full amount, and it will, over time, get weaker and weaker. The same goes if you are going to take a new branch and put it on to an existing vine, when you do that it is really important that the connection is secure, that it is done right, so that all the moisture in the vine can get into the branch. Without that the branch may survive, but not be healthy, and it won’t bear fruit.

So this is the imagery that Jesus uses to describe himself.  That he is the vine. And that imagery of the vine and the vineyard is something that comes up many times in the Old Testament. You will find in the Psalms and some of the prophets the idea that the people of Israel are God’s vineyard; God has planted them in the land. And God tends them and cares for them. So this image is something that would be meaningful to the people listening.

So let’s think about this imagery. What is Jesus saying? He is saying that he is the vine and that his roots go deep, they go deep into God. And what is that moisture, that water and nutrients that the vine pulls up and brings to the branches. Well it is pretty clear in the letter from John that we read today that it is love. That it is all about love. John writes, “God is love.” And he adds that you abide in love, and are called to express that love to others.

So we can imagine Jesus as having deep roots in the love of God and that he takes that love of God and brings it up through him and gives it to us as the branches. That we are nurtured by that love, that we are strengthened by that love, that we are given the power and the strength and everything we need to become that which God intends for us to become. We have all the nutrients, all the love, all the strength that we need. And not just to grow into a healthy branch and have leaves, but to have buds and flowers and eventually to bear fruit.

The wonderful things about fruit is that fruit feeds people - fruit feeds others. So what is the fruit of all this energy and power and love that Christ gives us? Well if you read Paul, he talks about the fruits of the spirit, but he always at the end says, “And the greatest of these is love.” So the fruit that we are to bear is love. This is agape love. It’s not about nice pleasant emotional feelings, its not about any kind of abstract sense, it is a sense of love in which we care for one another.

If you cannot love your neighbor that you see, you can’t love your brother of sister that you see, how can you say you love God that you can’t see? And so the fruit that Christ is looking for is the fruit of love. Love expressed in giving to others, and caring for our brothers and sister.

The take away for me of this is twofold. One is a reminder of the incredible abundance of love that Christ gives us. That we are richly fed with everything that we need in order to be whole and healthy and spiritually true and that abundance, like rain on us, comes through Christ. Secondly it is a reminder that we need to be grafted well onto Christ because if we are just barely connected we can’t get the nurturance, we can’t get what we need in order to thrive. We might survive, but not to thrive. So the more we abide in Christ, the more connected we are to the vine, the more fully we can live our lives and express God’s love in the world and be that instrument of God’s love for others.

4 Easter B

Transcribed from a sermon given on

April 29, 2012

By Rev. Valerie Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Psalm 23

1 John 3:16-24

John 10:11-18

The 23^rd psalm is very meaningful for me. as I know it is for many people. It is very meaningful for me especially because I remember when I was going through a very difficult time in my life it was so reassuring to hear that the shepherd walks with me. There was one point when I was in the hospital and I was on so many different medications that I couldn’t read. I was just totally out of it, but every time anyone would come and visit I would say, “Read me the 23^rd Psalm.” I wanted to hear it, to be reminded that the shepherd walks with me through that deep dark valley that I was in at that time and would lead me through it and to a better life - to green pastures, still waters, that are such wonderful images of care and love. And I know many of the rest of you have that sort of feeling about the 23^rd psalm.

So today is “Good Shepherd Sunday.” We read from John’s Gospel Jesus describing himself as the Good Shepherd. He is the shepherd that doesn’t run away but is willing to die for the sheep. It is that same love and caring about the sheep that we get in the 23^rd Psalm.

One of the things about the 23^rd Psalm is that it feels very personal. The Lord is my shepherd. I will not be in want. When you are really in a time of struggle you need to know that the shepherd is there for you as an individual. But I have never seen a shepherd have only one sheep. There is always a flock; there is always a group of sheep that the shepherd is taking care of. And the shepherd loves each and every one of those sheep the way it is expressed in the 23^rd psalm.

Also in this reading from John is one of the most inclusive scriptures, because Jesus says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

Now there has been debate about whom he was referring to. Many people say that he was refereeing to the gentiles. That he didn’t come just for the Jewish people but also to the gentiles who would become Christians. But was it more inclusive than that? Who are those sheep that he wants to include in that one great flock. He doesn’t set any limits to it. He doesn’t say who is in and who is out. It sounds like everybody; he wants everybody in this flock.

Lets think a little about how a flock of sheep functions. The shepherd’s concern is for the welfare of all of the sheep. And like Jesus said, if one got lost he’d leave the others to take care of that one because he cares about each one of them, but normally, in a flock of sheep, they are either all healthy or they are all in trouble. But sometimes, sometimes there will be a couple of sheep who are a little bigger than all the rest so when they get to that still water they push the others out of the way and get that nice green grass that is growing near the edge of the water. And want to keep it all for themselves. They don’t let any of the other sheep there. And if that goes on for too long, those overly assertive sheep can get nice and fat. Maybe even too fat, because they are just eating up all the good grass while the other sheep get thin and mal nourished. You have to know that is not what the shepherd had in mind. The shepherd would not stand by and watch a few sheep thrive at the cost of the rest of the flock. A good shepherd would be in there and move those fat ones out a little bit. Make sure everyone got a chance. Make sure that all the sheep had a chance for the green grass. And that’s what Jesus is trying to represent.

He talks about himself as the good shepherd, but another for Christ that we work with a lot during the Easter season is the idea of Christ the King - that the resurrection of Christ was the breaking forth into the world of the kingdom of God. Christ’s resurrection is the beginning of the coming of the Kingdom of God with the promise that death is overcome and God’s reign is on the way. That reign of God that we pray for every day, whenever we say the Lord’s Prayer. “Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” That sense that the reign of God, of what God really wants, will come on earth. If you’ve read through Revelations the last book of the Bible you find that at the end we have the heavenly Jerusalem coming and merging with the earthly Jerusalem. Where the kingdom of God in heaven becomes one with the kingdom of God on earth.

So what does the kingdom of God look like? What does the reign of God look like? It doesn’t look like a kingdom where you have a rich king with lots of fancy jewels and a lot of poor peasants trying to pay for that. The kingdom of God looks like a shepherd with the king caring for the people, caring for the sheep. And so with Christ bringing forth that kingdom of God what does that look like and what’s our role in it?

Well this wonderful passage from the first letter of John has a very powerful sentence in it. That says, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” We who define ourselves as Christians we who take upon ourselves the responsibilities to be a disciple of Christ have taken on the role of being assistant shepherds. We are here to help the shepherd. We are here to help the shepherd care for all the sheep - for that one flock. And it is our responsibility to follow the command of Christ to love one another, to care for one another, not just in speech but in action because each one of us through our baptism is called to help to bring in the reign of God, to help with this wonderful way of being that Christ initiated with his resurrection that is coming. And we are part of making it manifest. So we are all called to love one another as Christ, as the Good Shepherd, loves us.

2 Easter sermon

Have you ever wondered why it was so important in John's Gospel that the risen Christ showed the disciples and Thomas his scars?

2 Easter B

Transcribed from a sermon given

April 15, 2012

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

On this second Sunday of Easter season, the Sunday after we celebrate Easter, the readings are an interesting combination of looking forward and acknowledging the resurrection. There is a clear sense when you look at them that the resurrection was not an end in itself, but a new beginning. It begins with the collect for the day, the prayer for the day, which usually sets up the main themes of the readings. If you read it you will see that it prays for all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s body that they may show forth in their lives what they profess in their faith. In other words, it is a prayer for the church, for the people of God.

Then we have this first reading from Acts, which describes in idyllic terms what the early church looked like. Everyone was of one mind and there was complete unity. People sold what they had and gave it to the disciples. Then the disciples gave to the ones who needed it. I do find it kind of interesting that very rarely do I hear this passage talked about by those who say that they want the United States to be a Christian nation. But that’s all right, because it didn’t last for long.

Next we have the psalm that continues the theme of how good it is for people to be in unity. Once again reaffirming how important it is for the church, the whole body of Christ, to be one.

Then follows the reading from the first letter of John in which he states, “We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” There is this sense of passing on his experience, his experiences with Christ, to the gathered community so that they can know the joy of the resurrected Christ, and to serve as the community of believers.

Finally we read from John’s Gospel the description of Christ’s appearance to the disciples. Right there in that first resurrection appearance to the disciples he breathes on them and says to them, “As the father has sent me so I send you.” There was not even a week off after Easter. After all the trauma of the crucifixion, they experience the risen Christ and immediately they are sent. They have work to do. This is a new beginning.

We always read his particular Gospel on the first Sunday after Easter. This Sunday is often called Thomas Sunday because we always read about Thomas’ doubt. And that is important because I think every single one of us here, every Christian in the world, has at some point in their lives had some doubt. If you haven’t had some doubt at some point about the resurrection than you really haven’t taken it on as your own or really struggled with this amazing and highly improbable thing that happened. But what strikes me today was not so much Thomas and his doubt, but how Jesus became known to the disciples through the scars on his hands and on his side. The scars are not important in other resurrection appearances in the other Gospels. On the journey to Emmaus with a couple of disciples he becomes known in the breaking of the bread. For Mary Magdalene in the garden outside the tomb Christ made himself known by speaking her name. But here in the Gospel attributed to John, Christ makes himself known through his scars. This is the only place where it is so important. And it is obviously very important to John. Not only does Jesus say peace be with you the first time he appears, but he then shows his hands and his side. It is only after they have seen his scars that the disciples rejoice. And to make sure that nobody misses the importance of the scars, Thomas says I’m not going to believe unless I touch the nail holes in his hand and put my hand in his side.

For some reason the writer of John’s Gospel felt it was very important that the risen Christ still had the scars, and that is what jumped out at me this week as I was thinking about this sermon. Why would that be? Especially since John’s Gospel is the one that starts out by saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” It has a very high Christology, this sense of Jesus being the Christ and also being one with God. And yet, when it comes to the resurrection the focus is on the scars. A very incarnate aspect of who the Christ was.

Now I don’t claim to have a final theological interpretation of this, I am sure that lots has been written on it, but I couldn’t find any this week. But I had to wonder why it was so important to John that there be the scars? One of the reasons might have been that one of the primary controversies in the very early church was a debate between the Gnostics and the people who later became the orthodox Christians. Some of the Gnostics claimed that God, Jesus, couldn’t have actually died on the cross but he was watching it, and that whatever it was that was nailed to the cross wasn’t really Jesus. Not another person but some kind of representation because the Christ, the risen one, couldn’t have suffered on the cross.

It is kind of like the problem that the Muslims have with Christianity because they say, understandably, that God could not have suffered. God could not have died on a cross and you are claiming that. And yes we do. We claim that God suffered and died on a cross.

So at the time of the writing of John’s Gospel there was a debate about that. About what was, who was this risen Christ. Was it the man Jesus that died on the cross? Was it an angel? Was it his spiritual essence, but not his body? Who was this? And it is a question we ask today. Who is this risen Christ? For the writer of the Gospel of John it was important to say that this risen Christ still had the marks on his hands.  This risen Christ is the same one that was nailed to the cross. This is the one who suffered. This is the one who died.

So what difference does that make? Well to me it makes a lot of difference. When I pray, when talk to Christ, when I walk with Christ, I find great solace in the fact that it is the one who has suffered. That I walk with the one who was crucified. That through his pain and his suffering there is a connection as a human being. It is meaningful to me that the one I relate to fully experienced all of what it meant to be human, including the pain, and the suffering and the wounds.

And I think this is important when we think about the Church as I was talking about at the beginning of the sermon. The Church, the community of all believers, is the body of Christ in the world. We are part of the body of Christ. And in spite of that first idealized description of them all being together in unity and giving up everything, we know that didn’t last for very long. If you read just a little bit further in Acts you’ll discover that there was one family that didn’t give everything they got for selling their house and there were some repercussions. I’ll let you read that for yourself. It is a very interesting story.

And we know from Paul’s letters that the churches that he began that started out with such unity and joy began to fray around the edges and to not always treat people equally. And we know when we look around the church in the world today that it is far from perfect. It has a lot of wounds, a lot of scars, like the body of the risen Christ. The body of the risen Christ had holes in his hands and his side. And the body of Christ as the Church is also wounded. We have scars. Each one of us has our own personal scars. Each church community has its own community scars. But that is part of what we have to offer. That is part of what we have to give to others - our woundedness. Many of us have read about the concept of the wounded healer. The idea that for the therapist or the doctor or the nurse it is often their own wounds, their own suffering, their own scars that gives them the power to help others and to heal them. And for us as a church community one of the most precious things that we offer to one another is our scars and our woundedness, to walk with one another through our pain and our suffering.

The church, the community of Christ, the Body of Christ in the world, is in many ways broken and wounded and scared because it is made up of people who are broken, and wounded and scared, but Christ’s resurrection was known to his disciples through his scars. Let us be the body of Christ in the world.

Amen

Good Friday Sermon

Good Friday 2010

Transcribed from a sermon given at

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

I don’t know for sure what makes it so hard to hear The Passion.  Is it the suffering of Jesus or is it the incredible cruelty of which humanity is capable?  When we read The Passion, like we did tonight, and people read different parts, you begin to realize that very few people in this story come out with anything positive about them.  Instead, what you run into is betrayal, cowardice, self-centeredness, fear, power, and manipulation - all the things that make us human, at least all the negative things that make us human.

Everything that’s cruel about humanity is part of this story, even the word crucify.  The Romans tried to control people when they conquered them.  They didn’t worry about making them their friends.  They decided the best way of doing it was fear.  And so over time they developed different ways to punish people that would elicit fear. 

Crucifixion was the most elegant of them all because with crucifixion it was not just the fact that the person was nailed up on a tree or a wall or even tied so it would take longer.  It was designed to maximize the pain so that they would live as long as possible.  Then the bodies just hung there. 

Crucifixions were always done in public places so when people were going back and forth down the street to go get their groceries, they might see a person or five or a hundred hanging on a wall or up on a hill.  They might be dying, they might be dead, they might have the birds eating their flesh.  It was unbelievably cruel.

It’s hard to imagine how a culture could be that cruel.  Yet, when we read this story we hear echoes of ourselves.  We have all had times in our lives when we have been afraid and acted out of fear.  We have all had times when we have denied somebody else, kept quiet when we could have spoken up. 

I sometimes try to imagine who I would have been in the story.  I think the person that I would have been is one of the ones who was cheering Jesus as he came down into the city a week ago, but once He got arrested, I didn’t want anything to do with it, and I stayed home, and I stayed away.

I doubt I would have been there yelling “Crucify Him.”  It’s not my style.  But I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been there protesting.  I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been speaking up and saying, “Not Him” because I know how many times I see injustice in the world and I stay quiet. 

Each one of you, where would you be in this story?  I’d like to think I’d be standing at the cross.  Jesus’ friend who stood by his mother.  I doubt it.  I doubt it.  I know myself too well.  Nobody comes out very good from this story except his mother and John.  And even Joseph of Arimathea, who offers his grave, had been silent because he was afraid.  He was a secret follower of Jesus. 

When Bishop Mary was in Paso on Wednesday night, she said that there is a tradition of theological reflection that goes way back of people wondering what it was Jesus did in that part of the Apostles Creed where it says, “He descended into hell.”  What was he doing during that time in hell?  She said that one of the theories is that He was looking for Judas.  He was looking for the one who betrayed Him to get an opportunity to forgive Him. 

Because, you see, in the Matthew version of The Passion, Judas, when he sees that Jesus is going to be killed, realizes what he did.  He repented of it, but he was so disturbed, he went and killed himself.  It also says that Jesus didn’t lose any one of them.  So I could imagine Jesus looking for His friend Judas to tell him he was forgiven.  Just like Jesus comes looking for us who have all let him down in one way or another in our lives.  He comes looking for each one of us, each one of his friends, so He can tell us that we’re forgiven, that we’re loved, that it’s all going to be okay. 

In fact, it’s going to be more than okay.  Out of the sadness of our lives, out of the tragedy of our lives, out of the things we do wrong in our lives, Jesus can come and take that part of us that is dead and He can transform it, forgive it, love it, and resurrect it.  This was a bad Friday for most of the people in the story, but we know that it’s not the end of the story.  And that’s why we call it Good Friday.

Amen.