Easter Vigil 2013
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Easter/CEasVigil_RCL.html
Most people I know are more familiar with Good Friday than Easter. I am too.
Good Friday is where our very human lives, just as they are, meet the pain and unfairness of the world. Good Friday is the tears at loss and death. Good Friday is the deep sigh we draw when, once again, humanity lives up to our darkest and most pessimistic expectations. Good Friday is when the doctor comes in the consultation room with our test results and closes the door before pulling a chair close to ours. Good Friday is our parents aging, the innocent suffering, the homeless poor going on being homeless and mentally ill and living right where they are.
We know Good Friday. We know what to do, we know how to manage unmanageable pain. We know our place.
Tonight we come to a place that we have not known before.
The women who came to the tomb knew who they were and what they have come to do. They have seen the violent death of their teacher and friend and, although they were heart-broken, they were probably not surprised. Like women in all poor places, those places now optimistically called “the developing world”, these women knew abuse, sorrow, and loss. In traditional cultures men die violently and children die young. In such cultures women absorb abuse and have their loved ones torn from them and it is they who have to bind up wounds, feed everyone who is left, and arrange the dead decently for burial. This they know.
They knew where they had left Jesus. They expected to find him right where they left him. Their only worry was “who will roll away the stone?”
From there on, things got interesting. And the women found that none of their reasons for coming to the tomb made any sense any more. It is strange how an utter and complete surprise, a surprise that reverses everything you thought you knew about your life and the lives of others and your world and your reality—how that is terrifying, even if the news really is good. Even animals in the woods will circle suspiciously around unexpected food, suspecting a trap.
An empty tomb. A missing Jesus. Young men who seems to know what is going on. “He is not here.”
I think anyone in their right mind would be confused, or afraid, or run away terrified.
And that is the experience of resurrection according to the Gospel. That shock, that amazement, that feeling of blundering through a doorway into a large and unexpected room filled with light.
No Easter is just another Easter. Each proclamation calls forth new shock, new surprise, new amazement and awe. And so now, what do we do? What is it to be Easter people?
Thomas Merton said, “The risen life is not easy…It is also a dying life.” We walked through Lent admitting once more that we need to learn to walk with the Master. This past week we walked with him to Jerusalem, to the lonely garden, to Calvary. And now, where do we go?
Easter faith is embodied in those word, “He is not here…He has gone before you.”
Merton thought that many Christians hold a faith not of the living and risen Christ but of the dead Christ, the object of a cult, treating Christ as a “holy thing, a theological relic.” We know where we left Jesus, said Merton, and our only anxiety is how to roll away the stone so we can get to where we last left him. We do the same when we make our religion and our customs and our ideas something to hold on to with a death-grip. This grip does not allow the Spirit to say new things to us, to lead us in new directions, to animate us to new mission, to open our minds to new insights even when those insights are startling and strange. We know how to rustle the dry bones of Ezekiel. We do not know what to do when Christ puts new flesh on those bones and fills them with life.
Easter-faith is the faith of a people on the move, a pilgrim people. An Easter person is committed to allowing Christ to set him or her free, to dissolve any chains holding us to oppression or sadness or despair, to lead us into new and surprising life. An Easter church is a community that asks “Where is Christ leading us now?” and dares to listen for Christ to answer. And once we hear the answer, then we get up and move. “He has gone before you…”
Tonight allow wonder and awe to break into sadness and gloom. Tonight allow the astounding news to dispel sadness and despair. Tonight allow the strangeness of Easter news and Easter hope and Easter joy to break open the closed places of our hearts. We do not need any more practice handling the expected sadness and struggle of our lives. We need our prison-houses broken into, our weary expectations shattered, our darkness dispelled. We need to have every gloom and shadow whirl away like dingy startled pigeons.
archived musings and preachments
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Monday, March 11, 2013
Mad mercy
4 Advent C 2013
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Lent/CLent4_RCL.html
After a rainstorm and some flooding, a man walked along a riverbank to see the damage done. Rounding a bend in the river, he came upon an old man who had waded out chest-deep into the current. The old man was reaching out over and over to try and rescue a scorpion that was stranded on some snagged branches in the stream. Over and over the old man reached out his hand, and each time he did the half-drowned scorpion stung him. Watching this for a few moments, seeing the old man’s hand and arm turning blue from the venom, the man finally shouted, “Why do you keep trying? Leave that ungrateful insect alone!”
The old man turned and answered, “Don’t blame the scorpion. It is in its nature to sting. It is also in my nature to keep trying to save it.”
It is the mad nature of the merciful God that astounds us today.
We have heard today’s parable over and over. The story has many names. The most famous is “the prodigal son”, making the younger son, the party-boy, the center of the tale. He would love that. Others call it the parable of the loving father, whose parenting style is not exactly tough-love. Others call it the “resentful older son”, who often disappears in his younger brother’s shadow as, once again, the trouble child gets all the attention.
All these titles are possible. Here’s one more: the parable of the mad mercy of God.
All three of the characters are as helpless as the scorpion and the old man before their own natures. And all three are overwhelmed by the mad mercy of God.
One question to ask is, “Where am I in this story?”
Odds are that we have been the younger son at some moment in our lives. We have found ourselves far from home, or distanced from those who love us, or waking up in the middle of a mess that we ourselves have created. We “come to ourselves” as it were, come to terms with the mess we have made, and pluck up the courage to come back to where we hope we are still welcome. On the way, we rehearse the story we’ll tell anyone who will ask where we have been.
Or we have been the father, who might today be called co-dependent. We have been wounded and left behind, we have felt loss and grief and anger, but when we see the one or ones we still love, we are overwhelmed and we cast aside our resentment and our pain. Churches can be the father when we welcome someone back who has left us. We rush out, again and again, simply relieved that the one we love is still here and we can still be with them.
Or we have been the resentful older son. We have done the right thing as well as we could manage. We have shown up again and again. We have made countless meals, we have been there for partners and children and aged parents and siblings with whom we will never get along, we have dragged ourselves to work over and over on days when we wanted to be anywhere else. This is the son especially familiar to us who are faithful church-people: we’ve paid our pledges, we’ve shown up over and over, we’ve done the heavy lifting and kept things going year after year, only to see attention go to new people and new things. Where’s the justice, what’s my return?
All three characters are true to their natures. All three are caught up in the plot of this parable, which is the mad mercy of God.
The younger son does not even get to stammer out his excuses. He is caught up in the wild chaos of love beyond reason, love undeserved and unearned. I imagine him lying on his bed that night, wondering just what had happened and whether he could live with the abundant mercy he had been shown. What will life be like the morning after?
The father is left with the discomfort and the unresolvedness of his love poured out, the question of what happens the next day unanswered, and the irony that love shown one son kindles resentment in another.
The elder son is left with an array of questions and choices. Was his long faithfulness actually faithfulness to the real story, the story of the mad mercy of God? Did he ever really understand what kind of home in which he had lived all those years? Can he live with this new reality, or this new insight, that love is not earned, that his familiar home is a place of radical welcome and of care for the outcast, that quietly he too had found his own invisible pigpen built not of wasting money on wild parties but of his own assumptions about his father and his entitlement and of the limits of the mercy of love?
The plot of our own story is the mad mercy of God. This mercy is not a warm fuzzy feeling or mere personal assurance. To live the mad mercy of God is a daily discipline and a deliberate act of imagination. On this 4th Sunday in Lent, we are invited to recognize our world, as if for the first time, as the world of the God who is merciful beyond measure, whose nature is mercy. We are caught up in that mad mercy and asked how this will re-shape our lives, sharpen our sight, and change our church and our world.
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Lent/CLent4_RCL.html
After a rainstorm and some flooding, a man walked along a riverbank to see the damage done. Rounding a bend in the river, he came upon an old man who had waded out chest-deep into the current. The old man was reaching out over and over to try and rescue a scorpion that was stranded on some snagged branches in the stream. Over and over the old man reached out his hand, and each time he did the half-drowned scorpion stung him. Watching this for a few moments, seeing the old man’s hand and arm turning blue from the venom, the man finally shouted, “Why do you keep trying? Leave that ungrateful insect alone!”
The old man turned and answered, “Don’t blame the scorpion. It is in its nature to sting. It is also in my nature to keep trying to save it.”
It is the mad nature of the merciful God that astounds us today.
We have heard today’s parable over and over. The story has many names. The most famous is “the prodigal son”, making the younger son, the party-boy, the center of the tale. He would love that. Others call it the parable of the loving father, whose parenting style is not exactly tough-love. Others call it the “resentful older son”, who often disappears in his younger brother’s shadow as, once again, the trouble child gets all the attention.
All these titles are possible. Here’s one more: the parable of the mad mercy of God.
All three of the characters are as helpless as the scorpion and the old man before their own natures. And all three are overwhelmed by the mad mercy of God.
One question to ask is, “Where am I in this story?”
Odds are that we have been the younger son at some moment in our lives. We have found ourselves far from home, or distanced from those who love us, or waking up in the middle of a mess that we ourselves have created. We “come to ourselves” as it were, come to terms with the mess we have made, and pluck up the courage to come back to where we hope we are still welcome. On the way, we rehearse the story we’ll tell anyone who will ask where we have been.
Or we have been the father, who might today be called co-dependent. We have been wounded and left behind, we have felt loss and grief and anger, but when we see the one or ones we still love, we are overwhelmed and we cast aside our resentment and our pain. Churches can be the father when we welcome someone back who has left us. We rush out, again and again, simply relieved that the one we love is still here and we can still be with them.
Or we have been the resentful older son. We have done the right thing as well as we could manage. We have shown up again and again. We have made countless meals, we have been there for partners and children and aged parents and siblings with whom we will never get along, we have dragged ourselves to work over and over on days when we wanted to be anywhere else. This is the son especially familiar to us who are faithful church-people: we’ve paid our pledges, we’ve shown up over and over, we’ve done the heavy lifting and kept things going year after year, only to see attention go to new people and new things. Where’s the justice, what’s my return?
All three characters are true to their natures. All three are caught up in the plot of this parable, which is the mad mercy of God.
The younger son does not even get to stammer out his excuses. He is caught up in the wild chaos of love beyond reason, love undeserved and unearned. I imagine him lying on his bed that night, wondering just what had happened and whether he could live with the abundant mercy he had been shown. What will life be like the morning after?
The father is left with the discomfort and the unresolvedness of his love poured out, the question of what happens the next day unanswered, and the irony that love shown one son kindles resentment in another.
The elder son is left with an array of questions and choices. Was his long faithfulness actually faithfulness to the real story, the story of the mad mercy of God? Did he ever really understand what kind of home in which he had lived all those years? Can he live with this new reality, or this new insight, that love is not earned, that his familiar home is a place of radical welcome and of care for the outcast, that quietly he too had found his own invisible pigpen built not of wasting money on wild parties but of his own assumptions about his father and his entitlement and of the limits of the mercy of love?
The plot of our own story is the mad mercy of God. This mercy is not a warm fuzzy feeling or mere personal assurance. To live the mad mercy of God is a daily discipline and a deliberate act of imagination. On this 4th Sunday in Lent, we are invited to recognize our world, as if for the first time, as the world of the God who is merciful beyond measure, whose nature is mercy. We are caught up in that mad mercy and asked how this will re-shape our lives, sharpen our sight, and change our church and our world.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Just as in debt as my own kids
(I was honored to give this testimony before a State Subcommittee on "Tuition Equity" for under-documented youth. Good start to Lent--kn+)
I am Kurt Neilson, Episcopal priest and Rector or pastor of Saints Peter and Paul Parish on Portland’s East Side. For six years this coming October we have offered a Sunday Mass in Spanish, and that community has grown to nearly equal in size the English-speaking portion of our congregation. I wish to speak to you from these years of experience working for and with Latino congregants of widely varied immigration status.
An essential part of our work involves us with high-school aged young women preparing for their Quinceaneras, a popular celebration of “coming of age.” In addition to a church service usually followed by a dance, we meet with the young women and their families for “platicas” or conversations helping all involved to make this moment one of meaning and maturation.
You need to know how astounding these young women are. Some are standouts at their high schools, 4.0 students involved in community service and student government and sports. Some are average kids, decent-enough grades with parents who care enough to guide them and involve themselves in their kids’ lives. Most are somewhere in between, hard-working students who keep themselves on the straight road amidst many temptations with parents who work nights and work several jobs and who consider themselves lucky to have the kind of back-straining, foot-aching work that you may have done when you were just getting started but now do no more.
In the church service, these parents stand up shyly and say in Spanish how proud they are of their daughter, how their daughter gives light to their lives, and how they hope and pray that their daughter stays to their path with whatever good example they themselves have had the energy and presence of mind to set for her. The young woman promises the same, with the help of God.
All these young women hope and pray for is a chance to continue to study, to grow, so they too can work hard and care for their aging parents and encourage their brothers and sisters and have a career where they can serve. It is an old story really—is it sentimental to call this the “American dream”, the vision that hard work and basic values shape the lives of each new group of people in this nation of immigrants? In the end, these are Americans. Over and over, immigrants have prayed for and waited for and struggled for their chance to simply participate. Mine did, and the Irish of turn-of-the-century New York bore the marks of this struggle. Your ancestors did too, unless your blood is truly Native American.
Tuition equity is no handout. These young women and young men too only want to be as in debt to Sallie Mae as my kids are. They expect nothing free.
If we establish tuition equity, there are abundant reasons from the standpoint of justice or compassion or faith-tradition to do so. I say that, if for no other reason, let’s do this out of enlightened self-interest. The young women with whom I have worked are rich in gifts and ambition and a desire to serve. Today many of their parents are laborers. In the blink of an eye, they will be the obstetrician delivering your granddaughter’s baby. They will be the elementary school teacher helping that child learn to read. They will be the lawyer assisting in the execution of your estate. They will be the clergy administering Saints Peter and Paul when good ol’ Father Kurt is just a couple of stories that the old-timers tell. They will be seated here listening to testimony from others who also seek equality. Already they are all that and more in many places. They are strong, and they are here, and they are a gift. If we help them now, we can say that we have truly helped ourselves.
I am Kurt Neilson, Episcopal priest and Rector or pastor of Saints Peter and Paul Parish on Portland’s East Side. For six years this coming October we have offered a Sunday Mass in Spanish, and that community has grown to nearly equal in size the English-speaking portion of our congregation. I wish to speak to you from these years of experience working for and with Latino congregants of widely varied immigration status.
An essential part of our work involves us with high-school aged young women preparing for their Quinceaneras, a popular celebration of “coming of age.” In addition to a church service usually followed by a dance, we meet with the young women and their families for “platicas” or conversations helping all involved to make this moment one of meaning and maturation.
You need to know how astounding these young women are. Some are standouts at their high schools, 4.0 students involved in community service and student government and sports. Some are average kids, decent-enough grades with parents who care enough to guide them and involve themselves in their kids’ lives. Most are somewhere in between, hard-working students who keep themselves on the straight road amidst many temptations with parents who work nights and work several jobs and who consider themselves lucky to have the kind of back-straining, foot-aching work that you may have done when you were just getting started but now do no more.
In the church service, these parents stand up shyly and say in Spanish how proud they are of their daughter, how their daughter gives light to their lives, and how they hope and pray that their daughter stays to their path with whatever good example they themselves have had the energy and presence of mind to set for her. The young woman promises the same, with the help of God.
All these young women hope and pray for is a chance to continue to study, to grow, so they too can work hard and care for their aging parents and encourage their brothers and sisters and have a career where they can serve. It is an old story really—is it sentimental to call this the “American dream”, the vision that hard work and basic values shape the lives of each new group of people in this nation of immigrants? In the end, these are Americans. Over and over, immigrants have prayed for and waited for and struggled for their chance to simply participate. Mine did, and the Irish of turn-of-the-century New York bore the marks of this struggle. Your ancestors did too, unless your blood is truly Native American.
Tuition equity is no handout. These young women and young men too only want to be as in debt to Sallie Mae as my kids are. They expect nothing free.
If we establish tuition equity, there are abundant reasons from the standpoint of justice or compassion or faith-tradition to do so. I say that, if for no other reason, let’s do this out of enlightened self-interest. The young women with whom I have worked are rich in gifts and ambition and a desire to serve. Today many of their parents are laborers. In the blink of an eye, they will be the obstetrician delivering your granddaughter’s baby. They will be the elementary school teacher helping that child learn to read. They will be the lawyer assisting in the execution of your estate. They will be the clergy administering Saints Peter and Paul when good ol’ Father Kurt is just a couple of stories that the old-timers tell. They will be seated here listening to testimony from others who also seek equality. Already they are all that and more in many places. They are strong, and they are here, and they are a gift. If we help them now, we can say that we have truly helped ourselves.
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