Easter Sunday
April 4, 2010
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

One of the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, a 19th-century British Jesuit, was “The Wreck of the Deutchland.” It includes the verse “Let him Easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us.” Here, the word Easter is not a noun; it is a verb. “Let him Easter in us.” 

The earliest Christians understood this. On the one hand, they knew that Easter was a noun, an event, an historical thing that had happened to their friend Jesus. You could paint a picture of it. But much more importantly, they also knew that Easter was happening in them, in the here and now. Easter was a verb. And that’s how they portrayed themselves when they wrote the New Testament. 

Bishop N.T. Wright once said that the resurrection stories in the gospels do not say Jesus is raised; therefore we’re going to heaven. They say Jesus is raised; therefore, God’s new creation has begun and we’ve got a job to do. 

During his brief 3 years of ministry, Jesus tried to teach his friends about one thing more than anything else: the kingdom of God. Jesus not only talked about it; he showed it to them by how he lived, all the time. 

For Jesus, the kingdom of God was an alternate, parallel reality, which anyone can step into at any time. In this reality, the God of love is close at hand, ready to understand and guide, ready to give peace to anyone who turns to him in faith. It is a reality where we are all equal as God’s children, and we treat each other that way; the last become first and the first become last. It is a reality where there is no shame about the past and no fear of the future, for God fills both with love. 

Most people think that because everyone doesn’t behave this way, that they cannot live in this way in the world. It’s unrealistic. They relegate it to the paradise of heaven. In the sweet by-and-by, we might live in harmony, peace, and love, but in this world, we slog through the mud with blood, sweat, and tears. 

But all along, Jesus said that the kingdom of God begins now, if you want it to, and it extends into the next life. It’s a matter of how we choose to live, how we choose to view things. And he not only talked about it: he showed people what he was talking about; he gave them an experience of it by creating this kind of community around him. He reached from earth into heaven, attempting to tear down the barrier between them. 

But Jesus’ disciples still didn’t get it. They said “yes, but…” and held themselves back from the invitation, choosing to trust more in the kingdom of this world than the kingdom of God. In the end they denied, betrayed, and deserted him. 

But then the end came, which turned out to be a beginning. That’s when the lid blew off. On Good Friday, Jesus was killed and buried, and was dead for 3 days. He then came back again from the afterlife, crossing the boundary again. But because he crossed it from the other direction, this time he really got their attention. 

It finally dawned on them: this is what he’s been talking about! There is no barrier between this world and the next. Paradise is not limited to heaven. The kingdom of God is a hidden dimension of this life, extending into the next. It begins now, if we want it. 

He had Eastered in them. They said Jesus is raised; therefore, God’s new creation has begun and we’ve got a job to do. The resurrection turbo-charged the movement. These new citizens of God’s kingdom began to change how they lived, and they began to change the world around them. 

They stopped worrying about money and security and status and power, and paid a lot more attention to the God of love, healing, and wonder who they now knew to be so close at hand. They shared freely with those in need, holding on to nothing in this life. They worshiped and partied with clean and unclean, rich and poor, slave and free. They lived without shame or fear, and refused to judge others. And ever since, those who have allowed Christ to Easter in them have done the same. 

What might it be like for Christ to Easter in you, and how might you let it happen? 

It begins, I believe, with a genuine need to look for the kingdom of God in our midst, for a different perspective. We may be caught up in the kingdom of this world; we may feel trapped by our preoccupation with it; and yet we know there must be more. 

Some of you have been deeply affected by the economic recession. There have been real consequences to your sense of security. It has caused you no small amount of anxiety. You have little control over your future, and that is disturbing. 

Some others of you, no doubt, are carrying a worry about someone you love. Will they get well, will they figure out how to stop being so self-defeating, will they overcome their avoidance of deep relationships? 

For still others, the stress of your work and your lifestyle is just getting to be too much. How can you change the sense that you’re wasting your life on a treadmill? 

And all of us, watching the news – the spectacle of immature politics, violent tribalism, and the impenetrable resistance to change – we sometimes despair that this world is beyond hope. 

This, we tell ourselves, is the world we live in: insecurity, friends in trouble, life under pressure, and a world that may be on a path of self-destruction. This is reality. 

But we also live in another world, at the same time. There is another reality, and it is the kingdom of God. And if we look for it, if we seek, we will find it. Right here. There is no need to wait for heaven. It begins now, if you want it to. 

The sun always comes up in the morning and makes the leaves on the bush outside your window sparkle. Your breath goes in and out, and with it, the Spirit of God. You and all of your loved ones are held in the palm of God, no matter what happens. You can always love others for no reason at all, whether or not they deserve it or return it. The world is filled with much more kindness and beauty than it is with ugliness and pain. None of this can be taken away from you.

It is in our power to choose which reality we will live in. It is in our power to let heaven break into earth, even now. 

You’ve probably heard the Native American story of the boy talking to his grandfather about two wolves living inside him. One was good, harmless, in harmony with others; the other was angry, fearful, aggressive. The two wolves fought for the soul of the boy. In great consternation, he asked “Which one will win?” His grandfather replied “The one that you feed.” 

If we want to live in the kingdom of God, we must feed it. We must place our trust in it, by believing what we believe. We must live as if it is true. 

This is what the earliest Christians did after the resurrection. In the risen Christ they glimpsed the power and love of God that cannot be stopped by anything that this world dishes out. But they did more than glimpse it in a transcendent moment of glory that happened to Jesus. They placed their trust in it and began to live as if it were the truest, the most real thing for them, and this changed everything. 

Today Christ wants to Easter in you. God’s new creation has begun, and you’ve got a job to do. 

Good Friday  Year C
St. Michael and All Angels, Albuquerque, NM
The Rev. Carolyn W. Metzler+
John 18:1-17

             At the risk of sounding irreverent, the first part of today’s Gospel reads like a very bad play that can’t quite get off the ground.  After all the build-up, the Last Supper, the foot washing, the new commandment, Jesus’ high priestly prayer, we arrive in the Garden where the greatest betrayal in history is about to take place, but they just can’t quite get it together.  It is a familiar place, where Jesus and his disciples had gathered before at happier times.  It was a place of intimacy, where friendship had been celebrated.  They’d certainly picnicked here, enjoyed conversation, maybe napped under the trees on when the air was still on hot afternoons.   It was a reasonable place to go now.  And everybody shows up.  Judas, with his battalion of soldiers, the temple police, the Pharisees—all who had been plotting and scheming for this moment for a long time.  They couldn’t WAIT to get their hands on him.  Jesus had the opening line.  “For whom are you looking?”  They all answered in rehearsed union: “Jesus of Nazareth.”  Jesus replied, “I am he.”  Literally, his words are “I, I AM,” the name of God.  That’s when it all went wrong—perhaps some realized they were in the wrong play, or playing the wrong part.  They fell back, some to the ground.  Hey wait a minute—we’re supposed to be the good guys!   The director yelled “CUT!” and they started again.  “For whom are you looking?”  “Jesus of Nazareth.”  “I told you, I am he.  I, I AM. You’ve got me.  Let’s these men go.”  And then Simon, always the one to act before thinking, grabbed his sword and sliced off the ear of Malchus.  I tried to imagine this when Judith read it last night.  Do you realize how hard it is to cut off an ear with a sword?  That wasn’t in the script, either.  It was one bungled beginning.

            There is only one person in this whole fiasco of an arrest who is calm, and in control, and that is Jesus.  His own time of temptation had passed, his time of doubt, his terrible dread.  He had come through it.  He was clear, focused, and not about to abandon course at this point.  If love was the goal, love was also the way there, and that way led to the cross.  Once Jesus was taken into custody, his had no more control over events.  Control, the ability to affect the outcome of things, had been surrendered by him.  He was without control.  But he was not without power.

            A little over twelve years ago, I attended an execution in South Carolina.   I was the companioning chaplain for Andy Smith, a man I had befriended 16 years earlier, a man I had come to love and respect.  We had talked about this event, and how he could approach a death over which he had no control.  Every moment of that night of horror, Andy maintained unwavering grace, dignity, and presence.  The guards, with whom he had developed a friendship, clearly did not want to do what they had to do.  They apologized as they prepared him for death.  I’ll spare you the details.  Executions are horrifying, especially when they are supposedly humane.  But strapped to the gurney, Andy forgave them.  The scene was not too dissimilar from our first Gospel.  I watched them lash him down and was overwhelmed with rage.  I hold the rank of brown belt in karate and had a momentary impulse to take down about three of the guards, stomp on the needles, and halt the appalling chain of events which were coursing down the single trajectory of death.  That action would have succeeded in getting me thrown out in disgrace and never permitted to set foot in a prison again; it would have delayed his execution by about five minutes and he would have died without the presence of a single person who loved him.  I had no control over these events.  But I was not without power.  I could pray, and I prayed mightily.  I could sing, and I sang the Trisagion loudly enough that it was picked up by the Associated Press reporters in the witness booth.  I could love, and love him I did.  In that place of incarnate evil, I could bring love and song and prayer, even if I couldn’t stop the execution.  Those three actions were far more subversive than impulsive violence.

            Throughout the crucifixion narrative, Jesus is a man of power.   I came to understand Good Friday quite differently this year while I was preparing a sermon on the Transfiguration.  There Jesus was on the holy mount, speaking with Moses and Elijah, and he was “talking with them about his departure which he would accomplish in Jerusalem.”  I thought “departure” was an odd word to use for “death,” or “crucifixion.”  It sounds like he’s headed for the airport, not for Golgotha.   So I looked up the original word which we translate “departure,” and what do you know—it’s “exodus.”  Like early sun breaking over a canyon wall flooding the valley with dazzling light, Good Friday was transformed for me.  Jesus is not a victim, powerless and helpless against his tormenters.  With that one little word, Jesus is the new Moses, leading all God’s people out of slavery to death and the endless cycles of revenge and retribution.   This “exodus” is something which he was to accomplish.   It was an achievement reached because no torturer, no execution team, no temple police, no religious authorities could take away who he was and what he was about.  Shortly before he died, Andy had told me of all the humiliations he had suffered in a cruel attempt to dehumanize him.  I asked him how he could remain so cheerful in the face of it all.  He gave me this great smile, spread his big hands across the glass separating us and said, “They can’t take nothin’ from me that I don’t choose to give ‘em.”  Andy also knew the difference between having no control, and having no power.

            The Mystery of it all for me is that this power that Jesus maintained throughout his torturous death came precisely because he “emptied himself,” in the words of Paul in Philippians.   “Though he was in the form of God, he did not equate equality with God as something to be grasped, but he emptied himself; he poured himself out and became obedient unto death, even death on the cross.”  We read it last Sunday.   Godly power is not something to be grasped, earned, manipulated, or honed through workshops and seminars.  Jesus had power simply because he let everything go except love.  What he was called, what he wore, what he was thought of by others simply didn’t matter.  All the things that make for false ego, Jesus could let go like so much chaff in the wind.  What gave him power to lead us Like Moses through the wilderness that day was not what he had, but what he released.  Only love remained, for his executioners, for his absent disciples, for the terrified Peter, for the slave of the high priest with the bleeding ear.  It was love that gave him the power to accomplish what no amount of control could ever fulfill.  

            When we are invited to “take up our cross and follow him,” the centrality of love is at the heart of that also.  Taking up our cross is not about petty Lenten disciplines, certainly not about giving up chocolate (sorry!), not how noble we are because we put up with someone obnoxious.  Taking up our cross is not even about coping with cancer or a difficult parent.  Taking up our cross is not some unexpected hardship that comes our way.  Taking up our cross is about knowing where the real source of our power is—and is not.  It is not in our competence, or our wealth, or our education.  Real power is not even in how holy we are.  It rests only and completely in our openness to the self-emptying God who goes all the way to the cross—and beyond it—to demonstrate God’s limitless love.  Real power has nothing to do with how much we control events or other people.  It has everything to do with our on-going, evolving surrender to the God who emptied Godself completely to become us; to be born with our birth, live our life, and die our death.  Real power is about knowing that we live God’s life, and opening ourselves as fully as we can to that grace.  God lived our life, so we can live God’s life.

            What began as a bumbled scene in a Garden became a passionate drama where all the forces of life, death, authority, fear, forgiveness and love are played out to their fullest.   In life, Jesus’ arms opened wide to embrace all who would follow him.  In death, Jesus’ arms opened even wider, embracing those who knew not what they did, embracing those disciples who abandoned him.  Beyond the cross his arms continually open wider and wider to embrace us with all our failings and all our betrayals, our bad choices, our ego-driven obsessions.  He is the Lover of all he has created, drawing us into that embrace.  It is there, in that embrace from the Cross that we find his love has freed us and made us whole.  And that, brothers and sisters, is why we call this Friday “Good.”    Amen. 

Good Friday
April 2, 2010
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

Everywhere there are crosses: on church steeples like ours, as tattoos, on billboards, and along the roadside, marking the sites of fatal accidents. The image has become so common that we almost cease to see it anymore. The comedian Dick Gregory said once that if we really wanted to convey the meaning of the cross, we would wear as jewelry  tiny gold electric chairs around our necks. 

Recently I read that the psychologist Carl Jung said that the image of a naked man hanging on a cross has to be one of the most potent symbols of human life. But the question is, what does this symbol communicate? 

For me, it says three things. The cross tells us that in martyrdom, the powerless become powerful. It tells us that suffering can be redemptive. And it tells us about how we find fulfillment, paradoxically, in self-denial. 

I have been to the site of several martyrdoms: the Gandhi Smriti in New Delhi, where he was assassinated by a separatist; a church rectory in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, where a Franciscan priest who gave voice to the poor was killed by a military death squad; the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Martin Luther King was shot by a sniper; and, of course, Jerusalem, where Jesus was martyred. 

In all of these locations, I stood on the very site where the death took place. In each site, at first I felt sickened, terribly sad. But then I became aware of a palpable sense of spiritual power. A kind of hush falls over everyone when they approach, for we know that we are entering holy ground. This hush is not grief or anger; it’s awe. At the site of a martyrdom, it’s as if this small world suddenly becomes vast; time and space open up; and we see God at work in history, in this death. What is it that causes this feeling in us? 

I think it is the knowledge that the injustice committed is made small and petty compared to the sacrifice made by the martyr. The separatist assassin, the death squad, the racist, the Roman soldiers – they all become powerless and insignificant when compared to the person they try to destroy. And the one who is killed, however great in life, becomes, in death, even greater: filled with God’s light and power. It’s as if, right when the world tries to do its worst, it is unmasked as impotent. It is a kind of victory over the things we are all afraid of: cruelty, random violence, and unfairness. What a liberating feeling. 

This is not just a truth about famous martyrs. It is a truth about us, too. Whenever we are victims of the unfairness of life, we can become larger, too. We can also see our enemies as impotent, and we can see God at work in life. 

Now I’m a person of privilege: a white, educated American male. And so I haven’t been on the receiving end of much prejudice in my life. But because I’ve sided with gay and lesbian people, I’ve tasted a little bit of the contempt that they, and that every misunderstood minority receives. And I can tell you – it has resulted not in beating me down and making me smaller, but connecting me to a larger thing, to the work of God in this world. My opponents become like so many gnats. 

I’m sure you have experienced unfairness and misunderstanding, perhaps even prejudice. Can you let these small martyrdoms be a source of life, rather than death? Can you see that in injustice, the perpetrator is unmasked as impotent, and that your goodness can never be taken away from you? This is powerful; it is liberating. 

The cross also tells us how suffering can become redemptive. The naked man, a poor peasant from Galilee strung up to die in the big city of Jerusalem, suffers. During those 3 hours, he died a slow, tortuous death. And we call it good, for his suffering brings forth good. The evil of Jesus’ suffering is redeemed, because it draws people to God. 

I don’t want to romanticize the suffering of others, but I can say that I have heard the voice of Anne Frank, who said that “in spite of everything, I still believe that people are basically good.” I have heard those who have suffered years of painful chemotherapy say that their ordeal set them free, that it helped them become the person that God created them to be. I have seen the dignity and overcoming beauty rising up out of the suffering of the poor in places like Haiti. I’ve seen that suffering can be redeemed. 

My own suffering in life has been minimal, especially compared to these other examples. The worst of it is that at times, I have felt mildly depressed, alienated, temporarily without meaning, motivation, or direction. But it is in those periods that I have grown the most. They took me to a deep place inside that I could not have reached without suffering, and in that place, I found God at work, making me more real, more at peace. 

Some of you have suffered greatly; others, like me, not so much. But we’re all somewhere on the continuum, for, as the Buddha said, life is suffering. For a person of faith, life is suffering redeemed. In our darkest times, it is possible for us to hit a kind of bottom, to sit on the ground and discover that we are not alone, and this is not the end. It is, in fact, a beginning. Out of that place God helps us to become more free, more true. And we wouldn’t have become so without that dark place. 

Finally, the cross tells us about fulfillment found in self-denial. Jesus knew what was coming. He knew that there were plots to take his life. He could have gone back to a quiet carpenter’s life in Nazareth. But he didn’t. He kept on going. In spite of the cost, he kept on speaking out against the powerful; he kept on gathering and loving and healing the outcast; he kept on being true to God. He laid down his life for his cause. He denied himself – he denied his natural, human desire for self-preservation – to remain true to God and so that his message would reach more people. 

There are people who give up much in order to serve others: Franciscans who live among the poor; people in Catholic Worker communities living in ghettos and serving soup to the homeless; those who take literally Jesus’ words to “sell all you have, give the money to the poor, and come, follow me.” 

But we’re not all called to this kind of obvious, material self-denial. My version of self-denial is not dramatic. It has been the quiet self-denial of holding my tongue because a parishioner needed my acceptance more than he needed my disagreement. It has been the self-denial of occasional long hours of work that will really benefit other people, instead of staying home, where sometimes I’d rather be. It has been the self-denial of tithing a portion of my income every month, just giving away money that I could have used on travel or savings or something fun. 

You exercise self-denial, too. Whenever you temporarily put aside your own preferences and serve the greater good, you walk the way of the cross. 

But the amazing thing is that while self-denial may feel like deprivation in the moment, it can lead us to a fuller sense of self. For a life that is focused only on the fulfillment of its own desires and preferences is small. A life that seeks continual expansion and blossoming for itself alone becomes empty. A life that is, on the other hand, sometimes pruned, held back, and denied, becomes healthier, thicker, more beautiful. 

This is because self-denial connects us to people and things outside of ourselves. In giving away our time, money, and energy, we are more than ourselves. We are part of the world around us. And our actions go out, creating a ripple of good. 

This Friday is a time to take in the potent image of a man hanging on a cross, and reflect on why that image affects us so. It is a time to remember how injustice reveals the impotence of evil and the potency of good. It is a time to seek the freedom and integrity that can come out of suffering. And it is a time to see in self-denial the potential for a much larger self. 

This Friday is powerful, and it is good. 

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