3 Easter A - Mother's Day

The disciples journeying to Emmaus did not recognize Christ. How often do we fail to see Christ in the people around us?

The Third Sunday of Easter

Transcribed from a sermon given

May 8, 2011 - Mother’s Day

at

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By Rev. Valerie Hart

Once upon a time there was a king and the king decided that he wanted to honor the greatest citizen of his country. He wanted to give an award to that one person who best manifested all that was good. So he sent out his advisors to scour through the country, talk to people, ask and find out who it is deserving of that honor. A few months later they came back to the king and they had four nominees. It was up to the king to choose which one of these four would get this great honor. The first on came in. He was a successful business man who had made a fortune but who continued to live quite simply and gave his money away. He was a wonderful philanthropist who had helped thousands of people by sharing all of his resources. Ah, indeed, someone worthy of the award.

They brought in the next person. The next person was a doctor. He had spent his life serving the poor. He would share his gifts of healing with anyone, regardless of whether they could pay. And while he had been doing that he had also been studying and learning and finding new ways to heal people. He had touched thousands of lives. Ah, indeed, someone worthy of the award.

The third one was brought in, and this was the main judge of the country. This was a judge that was respected by all. Anyone who came before him knew that they would receive justice, that they would be listened to, that they would be heard. He had a wisdom and dignity and integrity that everyone respected. Some people compared him to Solomon, which he, of course, in his humility, said that was not at all true. Ah, indeed, another worthy person.

And then the king said, would you bring me the fourth. They brought in the fourth. This was an older woman, dressed simply, humble but carrying herself with dignity. He had never seen her before and he asked, “What is it about her that you would think that she would be deserving of this reward?” Then his advisors said to him, “Well, sir, she was the teacher of the other three.”

Sometimes we don’t recognize Christ when Christ is with us. That’s the message of the journey to Emmaus. And sometimes we don’t recognize greatness when it stands among us, especially, when it comes in the form of someone who nurtures, like a mother, or a teacher, or a Sunday School teacher, or a nurse, or a friend or a sponsor, or someone else who helps us, who teaches us, opens up the world to us in ways we couldn’t have imagined. We sometimes don’t notice them, don’t acknowledge them, don’t realize how incredibly important they are in the world. Sometimes we don’t recognize Christ in other people.

The story of the journey to Emmaus is one of my favorites and it is the favorite of many people. And the reason it stands out so strongly is because it is really the story of all Christians. It is our story, not just those two disciples.

Those two disciples were leaving Jerusalem. Jerusalem was seen as the place you encountered God. They were walking away from God. And they were unhappy. The were going through a dark time. They had seen someone that they had hoped was going to be the salvation of their country arrested and crucified. They had lost hope. They were grieving. They were confused. You might have said they had bottomed out.

It is those times when we are broken and grieving and hurting and confused that we are most likely to be open to hearing about hope and love. So as they walked along suddenly there was a stranger with them. Now the stranger doesn’t preach at them, didn’t tell them what they were supposed to believe, instead it says that he opened up the scriptures to them. He spoke to them in a way that they began to understand for themselves another truth. They began to suspect, to realize, that there was much more going on then they had every imagined.

That’s what happens on our spiritual journey. Someone, something, comes into our lives and we begin to say, “Maybe things aren’t exactly the way we thought they were.” Maybe there is hope. Maybe God is real. Maybe there is something more.

They demonstrated their hunger for more by inviting the stranger to stay with them when he went to leave. They wanted to learn more. What they got was the next step on the spiritual journey. That is when we open up to the possibility that there is hope, to the possibility that God works in amazing ways. Then we have that moment when our eyes are opened and we experience the presence of the risen Christ.

It can happen in a lot of different ways. We can experience the presence of the risen Christ when we are reading scripture, or when we are on a mountain top, or when we are deep in loss and praying at the hospital. But one of the ways that the church has constantly remembered and reflected on the presence of the risen Christ in the breaking of the bread.

That’s how I came to know. That’s how I came to have no doubt. When I went to college I got away from the church for about 15 years. I was just beginning to start to go back a little bit, exploring, you know, tentatively putting my toe in but not committing kind of thing. Then one day at church, when it got to the Eucharist and priest broke the bread, all of a sudden I was surrounded by love and the love was profound and around me, and in me, and through me. It was one of those mystical experiences that I will never forget. I knew the presence of the risen Christ. No one will ever convince me that Christ is not with us, because of that one experience in the breaking of the bread.

The church every week gathers together to open up the possibility for people to experience the risen Christ in the community of the believers, the risen Christ in scripture, and the risen Christ in the breaking of the bread. And that makes all the difference. As the letter from Peter says that once you’ve decided that there is a reality there, once you have committed to God the father of Jesus, once you have come into that community, then you have a responsibility. You have a responsibility to love one another to love as Christ loves. To love and be an instrument of the risen Christ. To be Christ for one another. Christ comes to us in many different forms. Most of the time we don’t recognize him, but every now and then our eyes are opened. Sometimes we experience Christ through nature, sometimes we experience Christ through a book, or a movie. Sometimes our eyes are opened by a song or a friend, or a teacher, or a mother.

Maundy Thursday Sermon

At the last supper Jesus followed in the prophetic tradition of doing surprising, even outrageous things in order to present a memorable teaching. Jesus did this in a very incarnation way with bread, and wine, water, a basin and a towel.

Maundy Thursday

Transcribed from a sermon given

In 2011

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Do you have anyone that you knew who died that you remember the last thing they said to you? Or the last conversation you had? Or the last evening with them? I can still remember thirty years later my father and what we talked about the last time I saw him. There is something about that last conversation, the last time we are with someone, even if we don’t know that they are going to die, that when we think back we remember vividly what happened. We remember where we were, what they said, how they said it. Even if it was an insignificant conversation it takes on a great significant when it is the last conversation that we have had with someone. And of course if the person we are with knew that they were going to die it takes on even greater significance. Think of a parent wanting to tell one more thing to their children, of wanting to give a little advice, a little bit of information, a little bit of wisdom before they die. Or perhaps one last chance to say I love you.

So for the disciples this last meal with Jesus stood out in their memories. They rehearsed it in their minds over and over again. They remembered every detail of who said what, and when, and how. We have the story in all four Gospels of this last dinner together. Oh yes, they are not identical, because each person remembers different specific things. Certainly if you had sat with two of your siblings when one of your parents died you would all remember it slightly differently, and yet all of you would be sure that you remember exactly the way that it happened.

The story is there in the scriptures, and it is very clear that that last supper was important. Of course Jesus knew that it was going to be his last time to eat with his disciples. He knew that. He was a teacher, and he realized that this was going to be his last opportunity to teach. The last class. The last chance to get through the thick heads of those disciples exactly what it was he had been trying to teach them

Jesus came from the prophetic tradition. If you read the prophets in the Old Testament often they punctuate their teachings by doing outrageous things. Jeremiah at one point takes a brand new pair of pants, wears them once and them fold them up and sticks them in a crevice in a rock. Six months later he takes them out and they are full of holes. Then he says that God says this is the Judean people, full of holes in their relationship with God. Another prophet had the king fire an arrow through a window and then says this is how you are going to conquer Syria. Another one went up to the future king and took his cloak and ripped it into twelve pieces and threw the pieces in all different directions to show that the tribes of Abraham were going to be scattered. The prophets did this because they knew that people remembered those kind of dramatic actions. And Jesus wanted people to remember his last meal and what he was teaching. So he did some dramatic actions.

He could have had the last meal and he could have talked intellectually. He could have sat with his disciples and say, “Okay, I want you to get the theology correct. This is the exact nature of God and it is important that you believe this correctly.” But he didn’t do that.

And he could have talked about spiritual things. He could have talked about the things that were kind of hard to understand. About heaven and abstract things. But he didn’t.

Instead that last supper was very incarnational. It was all about the world, being here, now. It was about bread and wine and water and a basin and a towel. Concrete things. Simple things. Nothing expensive. Nothing fancy. Things that were in every Jewish household. Bread and wine water, a basin and a towel.

He took these things and he used them to teach. First he took the bread. Now the bread that he picked up had great meaning, if it was indeed a Passover feast. The bread represented the flight from Egypt, the hurry to get out of slavery into freedom. The bread represented freedom. It also represented the manna that God gave people when they were in the wilderness. Bread represents survival, sustenance, the basic foundation of living. It nurtures and feeds. It is very rich in meaning. And he picked it up and he blessed it. Then he broke it and said “This is my body, broken for you.” He gave bread a whole new meaning, a whole new level of meaning.

And then he picked up the chalice of wine. The one cup that would be passed around and they all would drink from. Like at a Passover supper where they blessed the wine.

Now wine also is rich in meaning. Wine. We call alcohol spirits for a reason. Wine was considered to have spirit to it. To have spirit in it. And at the time of Jesus there were worshipers of the God Dionysus or as the romans called him Bacchus. The God of wine. Wine was considered to have a spiritual aspect. Wine was one the things that was offered at the temple and poured onto the altar. Wine was rich in significance and meaning.

Jesus picked up the wine and he blessed it. Then he said, “This is my blood which is shed for you.” This is my blood? This is my blood! Imagine, imagine the reactions of the disciples who were all good Jews. Jews never, ever, ever drink blood. When an animal who is killed for Kosher food all the blood is drained out it. Blood was considered to carry the life force of the animal or the human being. That blood, that life force was only to be offered to God. The idea that the disciples would drink blood? That got their attention!

Then he said “Do this to remember me.” Well you can be pretty sure that the disciples weren’t going to forget that.

And if that wasn’t enough, the next thing he did was he took off his outer cloak and got down to his basic underwear, a simple garment much like the albs the clergy and acolytes wear. He was now dressed much like a servant might be dressed. Then he took a towel and a basin and a pitcher of water and he began to wash the disciples’ feet. Having one’s feet washed was something that a host might offer to guests.

It is not like today. When you come here and know we are having foot washing you want to make sure you took a shower beforehand. You don’t want your feet to be dirty when you come up to have your feet washed. Back then they were wearing sandals, and they were walking on the dirt streets that the chariots and donkeys and camels all walked down. There was the mud, and grim and all the stuff that you would not want to have between your toes. That’s what they were walking through on the way to dinner. So, when you came to a person’s house, if you had been traveling, to have your feet cleaned was a great gift. But it was never done by the host. If the host was rich one of the slaves would do it, but it had to be one of the slaves that wasn’t Jewish because according to the Torah, you couldn’t make a Jewish slave wash someone’s feet. It was beneath them. So it would have to be a non-Jewish slave that would wash your feet. The bottom of the bottom. If you didn’t have slaves, then if you were a good host you provided a pitcher of water and a nice clean towel and a basin where a person could wash their own feet. But never, ever would the host wash someone’s feet.

Yet here was Jesus, their Lord and their teacher, down on his knees washing their feet. No wonder Peter said, “don’t do this.”

After Jesus was finish and had done all these dramatic things, much like in the prophetic tradition, came the teaching that all of that was leading up to.

Jesus said, “You know what I have done for you.” Then he said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Love one another as I have loved you.  

How did Jesus love them? Jesus loved them in the material world. Jesus fed them. Offers his body and his blood for them. Jesus gets down on his knees and washes their feet. Like a servant. That is how they are to love one another.

When Jesus says love one another as I have loved you, he is not saying have a nice warm feeling about everybody, because that is not how Jesus loved people. And he wasn’t saying love in a sort of abstract sense of well I love everybody in the world, because that is not the way Jesus loved. The way Jesus loved was material, and real, and right here and in depth. It involved bread and wine and water, a basin and a towel. It meant being the servant. It meant touching with love. It meant offering his life. It meant dying for them.

That was his final teaching. That is what he wanted the disciples to remember. That was the summation of all his teaching and all his ministry. Love one another as I have loved you.

Palm/Passion Sunday year A

We start the service with shouts of Hosanna and minutes later are shouting "Crucify him!" We get to experience the power of the crowd, especially in its desire for blood, for a sacrifice, for someone to blame. This sermon I gave in 1996 is just as relevant today as it reflects on our desire to find a powerless someone to blame.

Palm Sunday – A

Transcribed from a sermon given

3/31/96

At St. Alban’s Brentwood

By Rev. Valerie A Hart

         This service on Palm/Passion Sunday is such an emotional roller coaster. We begin in celebration. Rejoicing, as did the people of Jerusalem with the arrival of Jesus. We say and sing “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” We play out the role the crowd that acknowledged Jesus as the Christ.

         And then, only a few minutes later, we participate in reading the Passion Narrative. We the congregation once again play the role of the crowd, but this time, instead of “Hosanna” we shout “Crucify him!” “Crucify him!”

         How could the crowd have changed it’s mind so quickly? In less then a week they went from celebrating Jesus as the savior to calling for his death. There were such high expectations on his arrival. Somehow he let them down. Or was it a different crowd that clamored for his death? But if so, what happened to the people who had so loved him? Did they just stay home that fateful Friday?

         How is it that the crowd that was there would call for an innocent man’s death? Why would they be so blood thirsty? It seems so heartless, so foreign to us, as civilized people. But is it really so foreign?

         Jesus’s death was a religiously and politically motivated sacrificial death. Even the high priest had acknowledged that it was better for one to die to save the whole nation. This practice of sacrifice has been part of most religious observances throughout human history. The Aztecs were not the only society that sacrificed their fellow humans. The story of Abraham and his almost sacrifice of his son Isaac, and God’s intervention to substitute an animal represented how Judaism would be different from the cultures around it. Throughout the Old Testament the prophets refer to the practice of offering children to the fire.

         One writer, René Girard, suggests that the use of human sacrifice was important in maintaining the cohesion of society. In the sacrificial rituals for which we have information, we almost always see a unanimous act of the crowd. When the society is under pressure, when there is drought, or pestilence, or epidemics, or general economic and political upheaval, in other words when the people feel that things are out of control, what appears to be the automatic solution is to control the situation by agreeing to kill somebody who can absorb the blame for the crisis. We find a sense of bonding, cohesion, by having a common enemy. And we find a sense of power and control by destroying that enemy.

         Who becomes the victim? Sometimes it is chosen at random but mostly it is someone at the fringe of society - usually the most powerless, such as children or captives from a neighboring tribe. It was someone whose full humanity could be denied. Jesus was from Galilee, Jesus was seen as powerless because his was not a power of this world, Jesus was seen as expendable. What a rush it was for the crowd, to stand together, putting all their frustration with Rome, with their life, onto that weak looking, helpless man. They had a sense of unity with the leadership of their nation, a sense of belonging to the community that was united in getting rid of this blasphemous outrage. They enjoyed mocking him. They felt powerful to see him so weak.

         Of course the social and psychological drives that lead a community to find a sacrificial person did not go away with Christ’s awful death. The history of Christianity is full of finding an enemy to blame and then destroy. There were the heretics of the early church who were sometimes stoned by the crowds. The crowds cheered as the powerless old women accused of being witches burned. And when Christianity came to the New World, the Native Americans were the other, the sacrificial victims of “progress.”

         Our century has seen it’s sacrificial deaths. The lynchings of blacks brought cohesion and a sense of power to the economically outcast white community of the south. The crowds cheered Hitler as he laid the blame on the Jews and looked for a final solution.

         But we are different now, right? Who could get joy from watching someone die, yet every time there is an execution, the crowd outside the prison is mostly there to cheer, not to protest. And the families of the victims of the crime are allowed to watch, with some sense that seeing a person die will take the blame and the pain away.

         And our community, our “crowd” still looks for someone to blame. Someone who we can see as the reason for our problems. Someone we can get rid of. And the illegal alien fits that role so well. They are powerless, they are different, they can be seen as less that human. It is not the big companies that have laid us off from work, it is not the rich CEO’s, it is not the economic system, it is not our own poor training or unwillingness to work, it is THEM who are the source of our problem. If we just got rid of THEM we would be fine. The crowd no longer gathers in front of the Pilate to yell crucify him, it gathers in front of radios, and calls in with anger and blame.

         Our society continues to seek for cohesion by finding someone to blame. We still look to dehumanize people so that we can get rid of them.

         But each year we remember the crucifixion of Jesus. Each year we contemplate the agony of this victim’s death. And as we remember we are called to compassion. Compassion for his suffering, for the pain of the innocent victim. We feel the grief that anyone could have done this to him. But Jesus calls us to remember that whatever we do for “the least of these” we have done for him. Our compassion for Jesus must expand to compassion for all victims. To realize that we cannot, we must not, dehumanize anyone, for all are children of the one loving God. No one is expendable.

         When we join the crowd, when we feel that rush of being part of the community that has focused its anger and frustration on a sacrificial victim, we are yelling “crucify him” and we are hammering another painful nail into Christ’s precious flesh.

         But you may say to yourself, I don’t join in that kind of thing. I deplore that sort of hatred.

         I’ve often tried to imagine what I would have been doing had I lived in Jerusalem at the time of Christ. I might have cheered his entry, but I can’t imagine myself yelling for anyone to be crucified. I think I would probably have stayed at home that day, not wanting to become involved. I would not have yelled “crucify him” but I also would not have been there to say “No this is wrong.” I would have assented by my absence, by my silence.

         Most German’s did not actively participate in the holocaust, most just were silent. Most Southerners did not join in the lynch mobs. They stayed safe in their homes. Most of us do not get involved in the anger and hate spoken today. We don’t get involved, and we assent by our silence.

         Today we spoke the words “crucify him.” to remind ourselves of our own complicity in Christ’s death. Let us also remember the complicity of those who are silent and let the crowd destroy another victim.