All we have

Holy Cross/”Capacity Crowd” Sunday 2011
Isaiah 45:21-25; 
Psalm 98:1-4; 
Gal 6: 14-18; John 12:31-36a


Years ago in Chicago, Diane and I hung out with a large network of renegade Mennonites and recovering evangelicals. Since I was somewhere in the process of becoming an ex-Roman Catholic, we fit in well. We’d meet in bars and other places and talk faith and God and doubt and life. Once one of our friends named Liz asked me, “Why do you stick with the Christian thing, anyway? What’s so compelling about Christianity?”

I thought hard and, after a long silence, replied “Because I think that the crucified Christ is at the heart of the world and at the heart of all reality.”

“What does that mean?” Liz persisted.

I think I stammered, and I must not have said anything memorable since I cannot remember what I said.

I do not think I can explain myself any better today. But I would still answer Liz’s question the same way. I believe that at the heart of the world, at the heart of all reality, is the crucified Christ.

Today’s feast is a six-month warm-up for Holy Week. But it is not like Good Friday with darkness and grief. Holy Cross Day is a shout of joy born from the heart of God. Today we remember our spiritual hungers and our questions of mind and soul. Today we re-kindle our wonder as we gaze upon the One whose arms are flung wide on the hard wood of the cross. There may not be many answers available today. But there is a re-kindling of passion in the soul, and there is aching, aching gratitude. Today we know that we are known, we are loved, that God has reached across the divide of sin and sorrow and pain and emptiness with one extravagant, passionate gesture. Jesus Christ is with us and for us, now and completely and always. All our seeking, all our searching, all our longing, all our sorrows and emptiness as well as our joy and our peace are found in this one figure, the one who, “when lifted up, draws all people to himself.” We look up from our modern desert to the One on the Cross for healing, for meaning, for hope, for peace, for new life.

And we do not just look up. We pray that “we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and follow him.”

That’s what catches me. I am not interested in proving a doctrine or an idea about God or Jesus. I am not interested in putting my questions or even my doubts to sleep with easy answers. I am interested in exploring how God’s astounding action in Jesus points out a way of life and meaning and transformation. I am interested in living this astounding, ancient, but always brand-new vision with others who have also been drawn and fascinated and set on fire.

If we wish to embrace Jesus, then we need to follow Jesus. If we wish to know Jesus, then we must discover and live what Jesus taught and loved. If we wish to be transformed, then we must travel with the ragged band of pilgrims who have been called and fascinated and healed and set on fire. That’s what a church is—those who have been marked and claimed by the Crucified One who lives.

The Holy Cross and the Crucified One sets their seal on us as we start another season of serving and seeking.

Just as I did not have any explanations beyond the crucified Christ years ago, I do not have many explanations or many detailed plans for us today. I used to approach this time of year with an invisible clipboard in hand, ready to map out the year’s cruise activities. Instead, I have Jesus Christ and him crucified. I trust him to open our ears and our hearts and to kindle hope.

We have every reason to be confident and hopeful. Look around and see the fellow-pilgrims that Jesus has called together. We are God’s gifts to one another, to comfort and to challenge one another.

We are a community which has been blessed with rich traditions of faith, be they Anglo-Catholic or Celtic or Hispanic or just plain ol’ Episcopal with our different backgrounds added. There is richness and gift in all of these traditions. What matters is to be together in faith before the Crucified Jesus and to listen for his voice. He is enough, and he will tell us what we need to do and to be.

Here are my hopes for this year…

First, I hope that we join in prayer that God in Jesus will speak to us and to renew us in the way that he wills. I hope that we gather in prayer, whether privately or in community, and ask God to work the divine will and joy in us.

I hope that we seek ways to grow in the practices that help us follow Jesus. I hope we find ways that make sense for us in our changing world and our demanding, time-challenged lives to do that. The conversation this Tuesday evening at Tamara’s is part of exploring that. I hope that we can be a congregation that teaches and supports people in the practices that make following Jesus real.

I hope that we gather more. I understand that we all consider ourselves time-poor, that work and family make fierce demands on us. I understand that we face many challenges, be they health or finance or other concerns. I also understand that our surrounding culture is not sympathetic with Sunday as a day to practice regular worship. Life in “Portlandia” tells us that our individual lives are private projects and that weekends are precious personal time. It is counter-cultural to regularly gather with others for weekly worship—your friends may describe you as “really into church.” But it is needful to simply gather in order to live a strong and supple Christian life. After ten years of martial arts, I understand Sunday gathering as spiritual exercise class. When one goes to exercise class rarely or not at all, one’s practice gets awkward and one is always starting from the beginning. And like a martial arts class, the class is better if there are more students gathered for mutual support and to challenge us to be the best we can be. We are stronger when we are together.

I hope we learn again how blessed our lives are and how everything we are and have are pure gift and how, if we give gladly and joyously, we are set free and come that much closer to the One who gave us his very self. “All things come of Thee, O Lord, and of Thine own have we given Thee.” We shall sing and say this all through this Fall, ancient words, words first spoken by King David when faced with building a temple and a kingdom. We are building a life, a rich life in Christ.

In an age when everything is changing for organized church, when we are faced with so many challenges, when the struggles of the church are matched by the struggles of our own lives and those of our neighbors, I have few answers. I only offer what the feast and the Scripture give us today. We have the Crucified One who lives with us and for us, and who is at the heart of all that is.