Sermon on April 4, 2010
Sermon for the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist, Capitola,
given by Rev. Steve Ellis
The Episcopal Church of Saint John the Baptist welcomes all to worship God and to share Christ's love in the world. We are a parish family committed to provide liturgy, Bible study, music, counseling, and Christian education for children, youth, and adults, and to equip all our members for life and for service to others.
Old Testament Lesson
Hear the commandments of life, O Israel;
give ear, and learn wisdom!
Why is it, O Israel, why is it that you are in the land of your enemies,
that you are growing old in a foreign country,
that you are defiled with the dead,
that you are counted among those in Hades?
You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom.
If you had walked in the way of God,
you would be living in peace for ever.
Learn where there is wisdom,
where there is strength,
where there is understanding,
so that you may at the same time discern
where there is length of days, and life,
where there is light for the eyes, and peace.
Who has found her place?
And who has entered her storehouses?
But the one who knows all things knows her,
he found her by his understanding.
The one who prepared the earth for all time
filled it with four-footed creatures;
the one who sends forth the light, and it goes;
he called it, and it obeyed him, trembling;
the stars shone in their watches, and were glad;
he called them, and they said, "Here we are!"
They shone with gladness for him who made them.
This is our God;
no other can be compared to him.
He found the whole way to knowledge,
and gave her to his servant Jacob
and to Israel, whom he loved.
Afterwards she appeared on earth
and lived with humankind.
She is the book of the commandments of God,
the law that endures for ever.
All who hold her fast will live,
and those who forsake her will die.
Turn, O Jacob, and take her;
walk towards the shining of her light.
Do not give your glory to another,
or your advantages to an alien people.
Happy are we, O Israel,
for we know what is pleasing to God.
Baruch 3:9-15, 3:32-4:4
The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "O Lord GOD, you know." Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD."
So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
Then he said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.' Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act," says the LORD.
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm
1 When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, *
then were we like those who dream.
2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, *
and our tongue with shouts of joy.
3 Then they said among the nations, *
"The LORD has done great things for them."
4 The LORD has done great things for us, *
and we are glad indeed.
5 Restore our fortunes, O LORD, *
like the watercourses of the Negev.
6 Those who sowed with tears *
will reap with songs of joy.
7 Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed,
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.
Psalm 126 Page 782, BCP
New Testament Lesson
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:3-11
Gospel
On the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
Luke 24:1-12
Sermon: With a Love Not My Own
Every year the wonderful readings from Scripture for Easter morning are the same. Today, I want to talk about the lessons from the Great Vigil of Easter. They are different, more fun for me. I hope for you, too.
One of them is the Exodus from Egypt, the escape through the Red Sea from the armies of Egypt. Easter is always about Exodus – getting free from what makes us slaves, whether to some Pharoah or to substances or to our passions or to our pride. We need to be sprung from those jails, brought out from that slavery to a new life with God.
Another is from Baruch, a book of the Apocrapha. It celebrates Holy Wisdom, personified as a woman with incredible gifts to give humankind, unattainable, but for the gift of God. God gave this wisdom in the covenant that came down through Jacob and for a long time they rejoiced in it, but in the time of this story called Baruch, they spurned it, relied on themselves, forgot they were God’s people, and the resulting corruption made them easy prey for the Babylonians, who crushed their self-government and carried them off to foreign lands and a new slavery, where they could wonder what had gone wrong and remember the God they had forgotten.
Yet another is Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones. If you saw such a sight you’d be, like Ezekiel, overcome with grief. Is this what my people have come to? Is this what our faith has come to? Nothing but skeletons as far as the eye can see. You don’t thank someone when they show you a vision like this, even if it is a truth you need to see. Ezekiel is speechless. God asks him what he sees, whether he believes that his people can be restored. Ezekiel can’t bear to say what he fears, so he takes the easy way and says, “O Lord, you know.” But God wants the hip-bone to be connected to the thigh bone by living sinews, and wants flesh on them and healthy skin. And God wants breath in them, which in Hebrew also means spirit. He wants them to have physical life and strength, but also the spirit to live and relate to God. Yet God does not command these things, but tells Ezekiel, his prophet, to speak for him and command it. And the word of God, spoken by the prophet in this vision, restores the nation to a living community of faith. Ezekiel had to participate, even though it was only the power of God that could bring all this about.
God wants to give freedom. God wants to give wisdom. God wants to give flesh and spirit and strength. On an Easter Day when we are rejoicing in the mystery of how far God will go to rescue us from ourselves, when we are rejoicing in the multitude of spiritual gifts that have been won for us in Christ, when we are just enjoying our common life and giving thanks, it occurs to me that I am asking, “Why?”
Why is God like this? Why is the universe that created us not indifferent to us? Why is it not content when we fail to be what we could be? Why does it not turn its back in disgust and try another experiment, one that has more potential for success than humanity, one that doesn’t seem so perverse, so determined to squander all the gifts God has lavished on us.
I’m asking this on an Easter morning when we have gathered to celebrate the riches we have in Christ. Be glad! We have such opportunities in Christ. Cleansing from the guilts of our past; a way forward to healing, the forgiveness of sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit to authorize us to stand in and courageously live for the good. We have prayer. We have spiritual friendships. We have a community of worship with whom to ponder the mystery and constantly re-focus our lives on true center. We have the good example and support of many around us in Christian community. We have built-in lifelong learning in a mystery that will always have more for us, always dazzle and challenge us. In all this, the body of Christ, we see Christ coming to us, healing us, authorizing us to heal others and walk with them in wholesome fellowship.
When gang killings are becoming more frequent in all our communities, when people are losing their jobs and their homes, when inequity between rich and poor is steadily growing and the middle class is falling out of the middle class, when our civil discourse is disrespectul, when those who cause economic crises take no responsiblity and continue clueless, in such times, where are people around us putting their trust? In a world where going to Church is thought of as either quaint or dangerous, and so many parents don’t have a faith to teach their children, or even a knowledge of Jesus’ teachings to pass on to them, in such a world, where are people putting their trust? Do the children need faith? And don’t parents need God more, with all their cares and responsibilities?
Generation after generation, God hangs in, redeeming those who open their eyes and their ears and their hearts and their hands, and making them agents of peace. Why? An old Christmas hymn puts the question well:
I wonder, as I wander out under the sky,
why Jesus, my savior, did come for to die,
for poor ornery people like you and like I?
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.
Well, of course, I don’t know. But I want to tell you about a sculpture and a religious experience that has been happening to me for some thirty years now. It began the first time I attended the College of Preachers, an Episcopal institution on the grounds of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. One night I was out walking around the city, and on returning, walking around the grounds of the cathedral, and I was transfixed by the central sculpture of the triptych that dominates the entrance. That panel is probably 20' x 15' and the relief is four feet deep. It looks like a turbulent whirlpool in which eight people are trapped and being spun about. No, maybe not, it is a whirlpool, but maybe they aren’t drowning. You know, they are all very beautiful, whirling around there. This isn’t like the modern sculpture I’ve seen. There’s nothing disjointed, nothing horrible or twisted about them. They look innocent, why? Oh, their eyes aren’t open. Come to think of it, the parts of them that are out of the water are very distinct, very precise. But as you get closer to the water, they are less distinct, is that foam, mist? No, it looks like they are just part of the water. I think they’re in the process of being formed, just emerging from chaos into being human. Maybe their eyes aren’t open because they aren’t even finished yet, not yet conscious. They really are innocent. This is the instant of creation, a glimpse of God’s purpose in humankind. They look so beautiful. So full of possibility. They look - loved.
What I found is that I loved them, and of course, the people they represent. I love them with a love that is not mine. That love has taught me a lot about why God has gone to such lengths to restore us to gospel life.