Looking Ahead to May 4, 2025 -- 3rd Sunday of Easter

 

This is the second of three weeks when we are hearing stories of the Risen Christ appearing to his disciples. This week we walk along the Emmaus road as told in Luke 24:13-31. As it is the first Sunday of the month we will also be gathering together at the table of faith.

The Sermon title Seeing Christ At Table

Source

Early Thoughts: From the beginning people have known that gathering at table is one of the places we meet Christ. Which makes sense when we remember that one of the accusations levelled at Jesus in the Gospels has to do with his habit of eating with sinners and tax-collectors.

In one of his books, (I think it was Resurrection: Myth or Reality) the late John Spong talks about a few of the things he believed about Easter. One was that it did not happen all at once, that it was a series of experiences not a single event that first morning. One was that it happened in Galilee (in ore than one Gospel the women at the tomb are told to go to Galilee "where they will see him"). Another was that experiencing resurrection involved the gathering at table.

Indeed we can tell the link between Easter/experiencing the Risen Christ and the table was strong by the fact that from the beginning one of the things followers of Jesus would do as the gathered together was share a meal.

So anyway, we have this story of the Emmaus Road. This is the first time the Risen Christ, the Resurrected Jesus, appears in Luke's Gospel. The story of Easter morning contains an empty tomb and a heavenly messenger but no Jesus. Later that day (as the text tells us) a stranger joins a couple along the road and they start to chat. The stranger proceeds to remind them what Jesus had taught and to give a Bible Study along the way, showing how the Hebrew Scriptures could be applied to what has happened that weekend. Then only when they stop for the night and gather at the table do the travelers realize who has been walking with them all day.

One of the things that jumps out is that the first step is reminding and remembering. This hearkens back to the empty tomb when the messenger reminded the women of Jesus' words and then they remembered. One of the ways we experience the Risen Christ is by being reminded and by remembering. And so we continue to remind each other, to help each other remember.

Another thing is that it is not words that really wake the travelers up. In is an action -- the breaking and giving of the bread. Within Christian circles this is a clear memory of another table in an upper room (so I think we can assume Cleopas and his companion had been at that table). But to me it also reminds me that humans are visual creatures, that actions and rituals can add to our words. That action opens their eyes and gives meaning to the words shared along the road. Sometimes I recognize that our Western culture has become very word-focused and maybe we need to lift up visuals, actions, and rituals as a way to bring meaning (but I am a real word guy so that is where I always go first).

Then there is the response of Jesus. In none of our post Easter appearance stories does Jesus condemn people for not understanding, for doubting, for taking time to come to believe. Jesus meets people where they are and leads them to a new place (much as Jesus did in his pre-crucifixion ministry). Unlike the Dark Lord of the Sith, Jesus does not appear disturbed by a lack of faith. 

If, as I suggested last week, one of our key roles as a faith community is to lead people to an encounter with the Risen Christ what can we learn from this story?

• WE have to remind and remember, we have to tell the story, to explain the meaning we find in it. We need to invite people to explore the story for themselves, to see what meaning they find in it as they remember
• WE need actions and rituals that help us remember. Gathering at table together has many levels of meaning. It reminds us that all are welcome at the table, it reminds us of Jesus who ate with tax-collectors and sinners, it pushes us to ask who might not feel welcome at our table. It is my belief that one of the signs of God's Reign breaking into the world is a great Banquet. Maybe it is  a communion table, or a picnic table, or a hospital food tray -- something special can happen when we remember and break bread together.
• WE need to meet people where they are in their doubts and questions and disbelief. We don't invite people into an experience of and relationship with the risen Christ by judging or condemning them. They may be at a different place than we are. Their journey may be taking a different path than ours. That is fine, meet each other where we are and go from there.

Easter is a time of stories. Easter is a time when people's worlds were changing. It came in a variety of ways. How do we see Easter in our lives? What meaning does it have to break bread as we remember the story?

May the 4th be with you!

--Gord

Looking Ahead to April 27, 2025 -- 2nd Sunday of Easter

 

For the next three Sundays we will be reflecting on stories of Jesus' post-Resurrections appearances. This week we look at the story of Thomas (often called Doubting Thomas) as told in John 20:19-29.

The Sermon title is I Want to See Jesus.

Reunion -- Thomas and Christ

Early Thoughts: Poor Thomas, forever saddled with the title of "Doubter" because of this story. Thomas who back in chapter 11 said "Let us go with him so that we may die with him", who is obviously committed to The Way of Jesus gets saddled with a title because he happens to be the last of the group to experience the Risen Christ.

After all, it is only in seeing evidence of Resurrection, be it the empty tomb or a divine messenger or the Risen Christ himself that anybody in the Gospel accounts believes what has happened. Thomas does not doubt any more than anyone else does. He just happened to be absent (maybe he went out to buy food? maybe he was the only one brave enough to leave the room where they were gathered?) on that day when Jesus shows up.

I would argue that Thomas makes a very clear, simple request. He wants to see Jesus. He wants to see for himself. So, I think, do we.

Now we won't likely have the same experience as Thomas. But we want to see Jesus. The way to believing in the power of Jesus' resurrection is to 'see' or experience it some how. I suggest that our primary job as a church  is to help people see Jesus. I am not sure we always do it well. 

How do we help people see Jesus, the Risen Christ, in the world, in their lives?
How could we do it better?

--Gord

Looking Ahead to April 20, 2025 -- Easter Sunday

This year we will hear some words of  hope and promise from Isaiah and the Easter morning story as told by Luke:

• Isaiah 65:17-25
• Luke 24:1-12

The Sermon title is Victory, Idle Tale, or Wishful Thinking?

Early Thoughts: The story is not over. I am sure that for many of Jesus' friends it felt like it was over on that cross on the hillside but the story is not over...

The new world had yet to be born, the kingdom that Jesus spent his ministry talking about had yet to be born. Would it ever happen now that Jesus was gone?  

Each of the Gospels has something unique in how they tell the story of Easter morning. The piece that often jumps out at me when I read Luke's version is the line in verse 11 where we are told that people dismissed the story told by the women as an idle tale. An idle tale is not worth believing. An idle tale is maybe born out of wishful thinking. An idle tale doesn't change the world.

But what if the surprising good news is not merely an idle tale? What if reports of "Jesus is Risen" don't come from wishful thinking (in the throes of fresh grief it is not unheard of to believe that your loved one is still alive somehow) but of actual experience?  Maybe it is then the sign that the world is being changed, that the powers that thought they had one on Friday have actually been defeated?

The women we meet at the tomb in Luke's story don't actually see the Risen Christ, they just hear the good news from a pair of strangers. Peter goes to see the empty tomb but also does not see Christ himself. Those stories come later (and in fact over the next few weeks we will look at a variety of stories in Luke and John where people see and interact with the Risen Christ) but here we meet people who believe and understand with little actual evidence. No wonder the rest dismissed it as an idle tale. 2000 years later we continue to wonder what happened, or how it happened. Do we still see it as an idle tale?

In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth something new was happening, A Revolution had begun. The world was being transformed into the Reign of God, the Peaceable Kingdom envisioned in Isaiah 11 and again in Isaiah 65. With the Resurrection of Christ the victory was declared, death had been defeated.

Now I am not an idiot. It is impossible to say that the victory declared with the empty tomb was a final victory. The powers of death and sinfulness obviously still have yet to admit defeat. In fact sometimes it seems they are getting stronger. Sometimes it seems like wishful thinking to say that the Reign of God is here among us even as we wait for it to come to full flower. We, the people who follow the Resurrected One, have done a rather poor job of living into the new world, living into our calling as image bearers of God helping to birth the new world. But that does not erase the victory of Easter. 

It was not an idle tale that first Easter morning. It was not just wishful thinking. It is not now an idle tale or fable or fairy tale. It is not now wishful thinking. Resurrection has happened, the Living Christ is still with us (to the end of the age as he promises in Matthew's Gospel). The victory has been one, at least in part, and the eventual full victory is coming. Which is why we can sing (as we will on Sunday) "Thine is the glory, risen conquering Son, endless is the victory thou o'er death hast won".
--Gord

Looking Ahead to April 18, 2025 -- Good Friday

This year we will be hearing the Passion story as told in Luke 22:39-53, 66-23:56

The Sermon title is Sacrifice? Revolution? Bait?

Early Thoughts: What do we do with this story? What meaning is there to be found in this tale of betrayal, injustice, torture and death? Why do we tell it every year?

Good questions. And ones I have wrestled with for many years without finding a wholly satisfying set of answers.

Of course we tell it every year because it is a crucial part of the narrative. We tell it to remind ourselves that the path to a renewed world is not without obstacles. But where is the meaning? Why is the cross needed?

From a purely practical viewpoint it can be pointed out that Jesus dies on a cross because he was deemed a political threat to the so-called pax Romana. When one challenges empire empire tends to strike back. The Romans and their Judean puppet leaders corked together to end the threat. But surely there is more than that...

Shortly after that first Easter Christians started to search for answers to the why questions. They started to ask what the cross could possibly have accomplished. As N.T. Wright asks in his book The Day the Revolution Began, what was accomplished by six o'clock in the afternoon on that day of execution?

Wright's book suggests that Good Friday is the day the revolution not only began but was victorious. I tend to disagree on both those specific points because I think the revolution began with incarnation and the victory comes with resurrection (although the final victory has yet to really come). But I do agree that Good Friday marks a significant event in the process of the revolution.

From the earliest days Christians have understood (though only with eyes that had seen resurrection, nobody believed this as Jesus was nailed to the cross) that somehow Christ's death was tied in to the ending of the power of sin. Various understandings of how exactly that happens have been offered over the centuries. So there is that, a major step in the revolution, the remaking of the world, is to break the power of sin (I tend to agree with Wright that the basis of that power is idolatry in some form or another). 

Some point to Jesus' death as some sort of sacrificial sin offering, as stepping in to take the punishment (which is not how the sin offerings at the Temple were actually understood in Jewish law). Others point to it as a form of bait, where Jesus allows the powers to think they have one only for the trap to be sprung and the victory revealed with resurrection. Others see it a s sign of commitment, that Jesus' passion for God's Reign was so strong that he was willing to die for the cause. There are lots of possible  understandings of Good Friday, lots of attempts to determine what had been accomplished when Jesus says "it is finished".

In the end I suspect that there are strands of truth in many of those understandings. I don't think there is one single meaning for the story we tell this day. Maybe part of how we answer the question is shaped by what we need (or think we need) it to mean to help lead us into the new and abundant life promised by Jesus?

What does the cross mean to you? What does the cross say to us in the disrupted world of 2025 (war in Ukraine and Gaza, mass deportations with no due process in the US, a Canadian election getting grittier, a trade/tariff war)?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to April 17, 2025 -- Maundy Thursday

We will be gathering at 7:00 this Thursday for a brief (about half an hour) service to mark Maundy Thursday.  Communion will be celebrated.

The Scripture readings for this service are:

• John 13:1-9, 34-35
• Luke 22:24-27

The Reflection is titled Love and Serve

Early Thoughts: Maundy Thursday is a day when we remember the Last Supper, and so it is a day we traditionally gather at the table of faith. But the name "Maundy" has little to do with the table....

Source

There is another story traditionally read on Maundy Thursday. It is from John's Gospel and it tells of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, over the strenuous objections offered by Simon Peter. [There is a tradition in Rome where  the Pope washes the feet of inmates to remember this story, Pope Francis has made news over his reign by including Muslims and women in those events. I wonder if he will be able to take part in this tradition this year given his health challenges.]  A few verses later John recounts Jesus giving a "new" commandment to his disciples -- they are to love each other as they have been loved. This in fact is where the title Maundy comes from, it is related to the Latin mandatum which means commandment.

In fact I think this is the most important thing to remember as we head into Holy Weekend. The commandment to love each other given in the context of Jesus modelling how to serve each other. In Kingdom/Gospel logic the world is routinely turned upside down. The last shall be first, the least shall be greatest, the poor lifted up and the rich sent away empty. To love each other as Jesus loves his disciples is to serve each other, to be willing to be servant and friend instead of master.

This is what our passage from Luke reminds us (a passage that appears immediately after Luke recounts the words of institution, where Jesus tells us to break bread, share cup and remember him) of this call to love through service. 

AS I look at the world today in the midst of tariff/trade wars, and a Canadian election and all the news about Trump-ordered deportations I say we need a big reminder. We need to remind ourselves, our neighbours, our leaders that the highest calling to to love and serve. Jesus proclaimed the coming of God's Reign. One of the markers of that Reign is servanthood and love. What better way to prepare for the world-changing event of Easter than to remind ourselves how we are called to be in the world?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to April 13, 2025 -- Palm Sunday

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• John 11:16, 45-53
• Luke 19:28-40

The Sermon title is Jesus Turns Up the Heat

Early Thoughts:  What was he thinking? Why would he take such a risk? Did he know what they were thinking/planning/scheming?

As Luke has structured his Gospel, back in chapter 9, just after foretelling his own betrayal and death, Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem. From that point on we are headed toward that city. Along the way (in chapter 13) Jesus has been warned that there are those who want him dead. Just one chapter ago, in chapter 18 Jesus reminds his disciples and friends that his death is coming, that it will happen when they get to Jerusalem.

Now, as Passover looms, we find Jesus on the last stage of that journey to Jerusalem. And he has no plan to just slip into the city unnoticed. It seems he has made arrangements for a piece of street theatre. He has arranged (or someone has arranged) for a colt to be available. I suspect there are people planted in the crowd to start building a pathway with their cloaks (no palm branches in Luke's telling of the story) and begin the cheering/proclamation that accompanies his journey -- and then it takes on a life of its own.

It seems pretty intentional. Jesus knows the risks and seems to go ahead and amplify them. Is he trying to challenge those in power to act?

I think so.

I think Jesus is intentionally turning up the heat to confront not just the Roman Empire and its puppets in Judea but the powers of evil that stand in the way of God's Reign, I think Jesus is forcing the issue. And I think he is doing it with full knowledge of what the extra heat and pressure will lead to.

It is far more than cheerfully waving palm branches and singing bouncy songs. It is a reminder of what Jesus is all about. This is not just a party along the roadside.

Jesus knows what the stakes are. The people along the roadside don't understand (or have chosen not to hear) what he has said the stakes are. The leadership knows what the stakes are, and I think they are a little bit afraid.  Afraid of the people and afraid of the Romans, caught between the two, they tell Jesus to quiet his followers. As Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber put it: "Tell the rabble to be quiet, we anticipate a riot". The stakes are high and Jesus is upping the ante.

Will we have the courage of Thomas, willing to risk death with Jesus for the sake of God's Kingdom?  Can we live into the true implications of naming Jesus as the one who comes in the name of the Lord? Can we shout for the world that is about to be changed? Can we join in the revolution?

Or will we be quiet and force the earth (or at least the stones) itself to shout on our behalf? Is the increased heat too hot for us?

Hosanna! SAve us! From the powers of the world and maybe even from ourselves.
--Gord