Alleluia.  Christ is Risen.

It is good to point out that the Church’s  Easter Acclamation and greeting is always in the present tense.  We say that Christ is risen and not Christ has risen.  Jesus is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and giving life to those in the tomb.

Easter abides!

Nevertheless, by now, much of the world has left Easter in the rearview mirror and moved on with the business of the grave.  Most grievously this is more often than not business as usual for our world:  war, personal interest over concern for others, power, prejudice, and the pursuit of some form of greatness that is defined less by Christ’s triumph over death and more like the perceived strength of crucifixion over life.

But Easter IS and remains God’s final word, God’s judgment, on this world’s ways of death.  As the Psalmist sings:  “You show me the path of life.”  Easter is that path.  There is no power or pursuit on this earth greater than the life and hope that is revealed in Easter.

That is the path, the present and abiding path, that we are called to pursue.  To proclaim Easter is to embrace with hope Easter’s path of life and to become a living witness through word and deed that all manner of death in this world is being trampled down under the feet of our risen Lord’s victory over the grave.

The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia

The cross is empty.  The tomb is empty.  The self-serving cult of human greed, judgment, and death has been emptied of its perceived power.  Jesus has risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and to those in the tombs granting life!

Easter is about life, and not just life after physical death, Easter is the life that tramples down all forms of death in this world.   Easter is God’s victory over the human cult of crucifixion and death, a cult that worships cruelty, judgment, greed, nationality, hate, indifference, and all sinful desires that draw human hearts from the love of God–a love that shows no partiality.

Easter is the promise that God’s impartial and transforming love is life itself.  And that life is for the whole world.  It is not earned, merited, or offered quid pro quo–for those are the ways of death and the tomb.  Easter life is given to all freely, joyfully, and fully.

May that life be our hope in this world, and may it be our calling.  With the risen Lord, may we, being transformed by Easter life, walk away from the empty tomb to take the hand of all who live under the shadow of death in the world so that everyone might know the transforming power of Easter life.

The Lord is Risen indeed.  Alleluia.

Happy Easter!

As liturgical seasons go, Lent is as predictable as they come:  5 Sundays then Palm Sunday followed by Holy Week.   Our patterns of Lent practice are also somewhat predictable—they trace the journey of Jesus to the cross.

No surprises

But this year I find myself taken by surprise.  How is it possible that this Sunday is Palm Sunday?  Did someone shorten the season of Lent?

Being surprised by Palm Sunday seems a bit like encountering the Messiah, the King of all creation, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey without fanfare or pomp.  Humble.

A surprising symbol of the power of hope in the chaos and noise of life.

Our world is screaming with the noise of human sin, the selfish struggles and strivings for power and wealth, and the roar of injustice and war.   It all can be so disorienting.

“Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous, and having salvation; lowly, and riding on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

A surprising image, an unexpected message.  May we be surprised by hope.  A hope that has the strength to break through the chaos.

It’s a miracle!  Jesus gives sight to a man born blind.  Miracle causes quite a stir.

If that reads like a headline, it is because I am imagining the story of Jesus giving sight to the man born blind appearing above the fold in the “Jerusalem Star Tribune” (I think I just aged myself).  This gospel story from John, appointed for this coming Fourth Sunday in Lent, paints quite a picture.  For a story about blindness the description is vivid.  Spit, mud, washing in the pool of Siloam, disbelief, crowds gathering, interrogation, intrigue, even the man’s parents appear on the stage.   So many details color this story.

But are we able to see these details, or, more subtly, are we able to see through them?

The details are important.  This is not a healing miracle–that’s an important detail.  This is not a restoration of sight.  No, this is something entirely new.  The man was born blind–he had never seen.   Jesus didn’t heal him; what Jesus did was to give him sight.

“One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

His sight, the only sight he has ever had, is through the eyes of Jesus.  It is a sight that has seen no other light than the light of Christ–a whole new way of seeing.

Of course, the people who represent the systems and structures, the authorized way of seeing–the “normal” way of seeing, see this “miracle” in a different way.  Their vision is focused by judgment–their judgment of sin, of right and wrong.  Their vision is distorted by status and judgments based on power and authority.  In their eyes, they see things clearly.  “Surely we are not blind, are we?”   Am I?

What if we could see through your eyes, Lord?

And here is the miracle–the part of the story where the paradox of Jesus’ words becomes clear.  Jesus offers blindness AND sight.  He offers us blindness to the world’s way of seeing, blindness to vision through the darkness of self-serving judgment of others in order to maintain the status quo and uphold the power and authority of the “seeing.”   He calls us to blindness to  this vision–this way of seeing this world,  then offers NEW sight to those who are blind.

Here is the astonishing thing:  Once your eyes are blind to vision focused by human judgment, prejudice, worldly power, and selfish human designs Jesus offers sight  Not the healing or restoration of old ways of seeing and judging, but the gift of a brand new way of seeing.   Jesus offers sight through His eyes: a vision that judges the world through a lens focused by His love, illuminated by the light of His mercy, His justice, His Grace, and His forgiveness.

Once we see our blindness, Jesus gives us sight.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Matthew 5:41-48

It is hard to be perfect. In fact, I’m pretty certain I have never achieved perfection in anything, and certainly not the perfection of God.  Therefore, I am grateful to have Jesus’ love, forgiveness, and example to turn to when it comes to my failure to achieve Godly perfection.

As the Gospel of John proclaims: “Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.”  No one comes to God’s perfection except through Him–his example; his forgiveness; and his love.  As Christians, called by His name, our full devotion and allegiance, therefore, must be to the Kingdom of God that Jesus manifests–The perfect Kingdom of God.

It is hard to be perfect as God is perfect, as the Kingdom God is perfect.  It is even harder to be perfect in times of war. There is no denying that while we are citizens of the Kingdom of God we are also citizens of an earthly nation. This, too, comes with responsibilities and obligations.  But our primary allegiance, our first citizenship, is in heaven (Phil 3:20).  Our responsibilities and our devotion must always be to the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, mercy, reconciling justice, accountability in divine love, and peace.

Our earthly nation is now at war (or any other descriptors being used that are just really just distinctions without a difference).  In times of conflict it can become even more difficult to hold onto our primary allegiance to the Kingdom of God; our devotion to the perfect way of Jesus will be challenged.  As citizens of an earthly nation at war we will be challenged to accept that the leaders of this world define what is moral–what is right.  We will be called to show unity, patriotism, and support for actions that are contrary to the perfection of the Kingdom of God and antithetical to the teachings and way of Jesus.  Fear and shame will likely rise to meet the Kingdom’s resistance to the false claims and authority of this world.

But our faith and our hope is on Jesus Christ alone. May we endure in his way of love and persist in our resistance to the ways of this world by striving always for the Kingdom of God.   As St. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, we know that faith and hope and love abide all things.  Let them rise in you to meet the challenges of this world and to guide you and keep you in the perfect way of God’s Kingdom where no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness (BCP prayer 4 “For Peace”).

As we strive to be perfect in the Kingdom of God, let us be fervent in prayer.  Praying for Peace (BCP page 815 #4).  Praying for our Enemies (BCP page 816 #6).  For our Country and those in authority (BCP pages 820-21 #s 18,19,20, etc.).   And praying for those in the Armed Forces of our Country (BCP page 823 #25)*.

*Our prayers for those who serve in the Armed Forces are particularly important.  Especially as war exacts moral wounds on soldiers that form scars that are often carried silently long after the end of active conflict.  As Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Theological Ethics at Duke Divinity School stated so well in a recent article in The Christian Century:

“So we pray. But we pray differently. We pray as people who lament this war and the stories told to justify it. We pray for those who have died and those who will die. We pray for soldiers, not with amorphous calls for safety, but with genuine concern for their hearts and their spiritual health. And we pray for the church—that it would be a place where truth can be told, where wounds can be named, and where the peace of Christ is not just a word but a way of life.

This doesn’t mean we, as the church, blame soldiers. It’s quite the opposite. As one Christian body, we walk with them, we listen to them, we learn from them. We love them enough to tell the truth. We don’t expect them to carry the weight of our silence. We expect the church to carry the weight of their healing.”

when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”. Isaiah 58: 6-7

Lent is a season of fasting and penitence. But, as the prophet Isaiah reminds us, fasting and penitence is less about what we are willing to “give-up” as an expression of our personal piety, and more about realigning ourselves and our lives with God’s purpose, mercy, justice and love as reflected in the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Lent is about growing more deeply and practicing more sincerely the gospel life of Baptism.

On Ash Wednesday, ICE agents in Soldotna arrested and deported a woman and her three children, the youngest of her children is 5 years old and attends Kindergarten.

While these cases are often complex, those of us who seek to practice and witness to the life and way of Jesus, and who would look for our society to reflect the higher moral principles of mercy, love of neighbor, and gospel justice, must be prepared and willing to hold ourselves and our leaders accountable to our Lenten fast taken in justice, mercy, and Godly love.

I also encourage all of us to be renewed in hope and faith. Remember that God has poured into our lives an abundance of strength and love in our communities–“our own flesh and blood.” Nourish your relationships and strengthen the bonds of your community. Together we are stronger, and in our shared faith, prayers, service and love for one another in Christ, we can do all things and have nothing to fear.

An Open Letter to the People of Alaska and to Our Elected Leaders

Interested in Advocacy Resources for More Information about Immigration?

Contact Episcopal Migration Ministries

www.episcopalmigrationministries.org

EMM offers a variety of know your rights and family preparedness information available. Additionally, the EMM team can also connect directly with local parishes to provide family preparedness or other information and support so please feel free to share our contact them.

Wednesday, February 18, is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Of course, the primary liturgical and spiritual act for the day is having ashes smudged on your forehead as a reminder of your mortality and penitence. What I have always found curious is that the Liturgy of Ash Wednesday doesn’t require the imposition of ashes–it is optional. Look on page 265 of your Book of Common Prayer and read the rubrics (the italicized directions) and you will note that the words are “If ashes are to be imposed.”  “If ” means optional.

Can you imagine an Ash Wednesday without ashes smudged on your face? What would be the point?

Ash Wednesday is not about what we do with ashes, Ash Wednesday is about what God does with ashes and dust. Out of the dust of the earth, out of ashes, God creates life. The dust of the earth and God’s creative and loving will connect all life. We are a community of common origin with the whole earth, and the life we have been given finds its purpose, its meaning, in God. And God’s purpose for the dust of the earth we share as God’s children is life–the gracious gift of everlasting life in Jesus Christ.

That’s what God does with ashes and dust.

Ash Wednesday is about life–the life God has given to the whole earth–the life of ashes and dust. Our purpose on Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent is to remember and discern how we might live more fully and more consistently in the way of Jesus–the complete and perfect expression of God’s will for the life of ashes and dust.

So maybe Ash Wednesday is about what we do with ashes and dust–the ashes and dust that has been given life in us, in our neighbor, and, indeed, the whole creation.

Happy Ash Wednesday.

You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”  Matthew 5:13-16

Jesus said you ARE salt and light.  By contrast, he did not say you should BE salt and light as if saltiness and light were things we could earn, or qualities only present through our effort.  Saltiness and light are not acts of the human will, they are gifts we have been given by the will of God.

You ARE salt and light because that is God’s will.

Things go poorly, however, when we do exercise our will in ways that are contrary to the saltiness and light God intended us to be.  You are salt, but get too caught-up in the way of self-service–the way of this world rather than the way of the Kingdom of God, and your salt loses its saltiness.  You are light, but hide that light under a basket of greed, division, selfishness, or mercilessness–the power we see more and more celebrated in our world and on our streets, and you find yourself surrounded by darkness.

We are salt and light.  What Jesus calls us to do as salt and light he has already revealed:  be meek; be poor in spirit; be righteous; be merciful; be peacemakers; be pure in heart.  In other words, submit to God’s will and exercise no other power than the power of God’s love which is the fulfillment of God’s law.

Oh, and I think that is also how salt gets its saltiness back.

When Jesus preached that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near, he was not only proclaiming but fulfilling the very message he preached.   Jesus is the Kingdom of Heaven.  His presence, His way, His divine plan of justice, His way of peace, love, humility, mercy, and healing made the Kingdom of Heaven near;  and not just near, but truly present

The Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus preached was not some remote place in the sky where faithful and hopeful people might get to experience after death, but, instead, the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus preached IS a present reality manifest wherever and whenever Jesus is present.   The Kingdom of Heaven WAS there by the Sea of Galilee when Jesus walked along the shore, and the Kingdom of Heaven is here even now wherever and whenever Jesus is made present by the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of faithful people–the body of Christ, when they manifest the reign of Jesus and bear the fruits of God’s divine plan for all creation through the works of Jesus’ righteousness, love, justice, mercy, self-sacrifice, and service.

It is into this Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus called Peter, Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee to fish for people.

I have seen and shared countless memes and jests about odd meanings of fishing for people.   It does seem a rather humorous vocation.  But fishing for people reveals an important reality about the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus brings near:  it is FOR people and grows through people witnessing and serving the Jesus revealed in the Gospels.

We are living in very disturbing times.   Our political lives are in turmoil, and people of faith are often left to struggle with concerns about mixing faith and politics.  It is common in troubled times to hear that “politics has no place in faith (or the Church, or the pulpit).  While I agree that partisan politics should be eschewed, fishing for the Kingdom of heaven calls us to witness to the righteousness and love of Jesus as the life and light for all people.

This is by nature a political act, for it concerns us with how power is used or abused by people in this world against people in this world.  For those who strive for the Kingdom of God, all power must be held to the Light of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Fishing for people is how we hold this world to that Light.

Happy Epiphanytide!

The Epiphany is celebrated January 6 and is sometimes referred to by the title “the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles”   Manifest means something is readily perceived by the senses or easily understood or obvious.    The Epiphany, therefore, is the celebration that Jesus is obviously and readily understood to be the Christ–God’s anointed, the Messiah, God’s chosen King and Savior who is anointed by the Holy Spirit.

The Epiphany, therefore, is all about the obviousness of God’s love, mercy, justice, and purpose for humankind in Jesus–the manifestation of Jesus as the light and life of the world.  The obviousness of Jesus as the Christ is revealed in his teaching to love God and love neighbor; his ethic of self-sacrifice for the well-being of others, his call to serve the marginalized and care for the poor and hungry; his practice and guidance in humility, reconciliation, and peace-making.  The obviousness of Jesus as the Christ is also, and perhaps most fully, realized in his willingness to suffer death even for those who despised his message of love, and his glorious resurrection where he overcame death even for those who rejected his way of love.

This is Jesus Christ, and this Jesus Christ should be obvious, manifest, to the world.

These days, however, the obviousness of ‘this‘ Jesus as the Christ and the manifestation of His example as the Light and Life of the World has become obscured.   Jesus of the Epiphany has become the victim of identity theft; and what is “manifest” as “Christ”– often by the very people who claim the title Christian, is completely unrecognizable as Jesus the good shepherd; the suffering servant; the Word of God; the way, the truth and the life of the world.

The Epiphany is often overlooked as a season in our Church year.  Some would even argue that it is no season at all, but a period of ordinary time following Christmas and carrying us to Lent.   But these days I believe the Epiphany is even more important.  Epiphany is OUR season, our time, and our calling to manifest the Jesus of the Gospels as the Christ.    This is our season to make obvious that it is the way of Jesus who came to serve and not be served, to give and hold no accounts; to welcome and care for the lost, the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the outcast; to heal the sick, feed the hungry, give rest to the overburdened; it is THIS Jesus who revealed and makes near the true Kingdom of God for all people.  This is our season to make Jesus Christ Manifest–Obvious–and revealed in us.

This Epiphanytide let us be intentional in how our witness to Jesus shines like that first Christmas Star.  Let our light shine in the darkness of this world–a darkness that seeks to obscure the true light, doesn’t even recognize the true light, with the radiance of Jesus Christ–the Jesus Christ we meet in the Gospels.  The True Light has come into the world.  In that light let us manifest God’s love.

Let us manifest Jesus Christ.

*This Epiphany Season, I invite you to a practice of prayer and reflection centered on making Jesus Christ manifest in your life.   My practice will be to light a candle at a convenient time in the evening, in my case as part of my practice of Evening Prayer, but you may choose some other context.  I invite you to join me in lighting a candle and taking a few minutes of reflection on how you have witnessed and expressed the Light of Jesus Christ and His way of love in your day.   How might you manifest Jesus as Christ more fully in your life?  How have you seen or experienced the Light of Jesus Christ obscured or darkened?   What might you do to break through that darkness?   No hard fast rules, though, the important thing is to be present to the Light of Christ, and to seek His manifestation.