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Easter Sermon

4/12/2020

Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." Mathew 28:9 & 10

It is Sunday! It is Easter Sunday! As the shadows cast by the images on the cross at Good Friday recedes it reveal something truly amazing! New life and new hope is the shout of the day. Already we are hearing the news of the flattening of the curve as the plague of Covid-19 collides with the force of the communal power of the human spirit. Already much discussions are occurring about the reopening of our economy. Already much like in the days of Jesus, leaders are looking to return to previous lifestyles. Yet, there is a caution in the wind that boldly declares life will never be the same.
Mathew in his gospel narrative seems to capture a bold spirit of hope and renewal. Life will never be the same! The empty tomb has rocked the world of the powerful to its very core. This amazing truth is discovered not by those sitting in rooms of fear but those journeying to Jesus. This life changing truth did not come via the mouths of male oriented societal leaders, but voiceless women of courage. My friends, only those with overcoming faith, can discover the powerful presence of Jesus.
Jesus encounters the resurrection witnesses while they were on their way. “Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.” (Mathew 28:9.) There is much to be discovered while journeying through life after the resurrection. If Good Friday locked us into a drama which revealed the sinful divisive side of humanity, Easter now reveals something remarkably different. It reveals we can discover amazing things when we are willing to journey together. “Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. (Acts 10:34&35)
Journeying together after Resurrection, the disciples of Jesus discovered the fulfillment of the prophetic words of Jesus “I am the way the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Jesus shapes his disciples while on their way to Galilee. The commonality of faith overpowers the demons of divisiveness. That’s what makes the church such a powerful entity. Along the way to Jesus, hope overcame fear. The fear of death no longer had a grip on their hearts for now their minds were set on Jesus. It is the journey not the destination that shapes us.
My friends in Christ, Jesus’ love empowers our willingness to journey with each other in spite our differences. The bonds of love hold us together and we truly become our brother’s and sister’s keeper. If Good Friday and the Covid-19 virus revealed all that is wrong with our world then Easter proclaims God’s redeeming love. God has not lost hope in His world. God has not given up on us!
One can never ignore or wish away Good Friday, nor can we fail to grieve for the many souls that were lost and still being lost due the Covid-19 virus. At Easter we encounter Jesus with the scars and wounds of His crucifixion. These are not like tattoos we choose to wear but living proof of the depth of God’s love for us. “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24) That’s the way God reveals His love for His whole world. Resurrection points us forward to a new way of living and a new way of loving. We are all in this together!
Easter reveals that which is honorable and worthy in us. Easter reveals that we can live and love in new and exciting ways. We witness who were cowering in fear become bold gospel carriers. Resurrection power provides renewal and hope. Overcoming faith defeats despair, grief restoring hope. It replaces anger and the desire for revenge with love and forgiveness. It seems as Jesus was not the only one being resurrected for now his followers were also being bought out of their tombs into the light of a new day. That’s resurrection power!
Already there is much to celebrate as Covid-19 revealed so much good in us that we previously ignored. We can live like families after all! We can work together as a diocese and a faith community after all! We can embrace technology within our church both in terms of worship and financial support after all! We can find leadership in our Bishops and priests after all! I wish to acknowledge the tremendous leadership of Bishop Chip Stokes that held our diocese together in bold and innovative ways, It really augers well for us. We can value our health care providers after all! We can see the need to provide health care to the vulnerable after all! The poor and the disposed can be loved into becoming essential partners and no longer worthless loafers after all! We are no longer prisoners in cloistered buildings as we are now willing to journey to the Galilees in our communities seeking to bring the Good News to the broken and the lost after all! O yes, the genie is now out of the bottle, Jesus’ spirit is now free to roam the earth
My friends Easter invites us to journey with Jesus. It is the journey that shapes us not the destination! Let us journey together with Jesus as our guide and savior. Let us journey together as if our very lives depend on it for in many ways it really does! Let us discover the presence of Jesus in each other. He is Risen! He is risen! He is risen in our hearts, minds and souls not to rebuild that which was broken down but restore God’s loving act of creation. A new world is being born and by our hands and feet we become builders of God’s new creation! He is risen! He is risen!

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Good Friday Message

4/9/2020

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John 19:16-18 Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.

Good Friday presents a huge challenge each year for many of us as the title can be quite a dichotomy. How can it be good with all the cruelty of humanity at its very worst is described in gory detail? How can it be good when we are witnesses to the haste of many apologists and bystanders to claim and postulate their innocence in the face of silent culpability and acquiescence? This year it is even greater for us as we struggle with the effects of a raging epidemic. We are now challenged to find new ways to express good in the face of evil, fear and death.

How can we speak of goodness when the news of the racial disparities of the effects of the corona virus is surfacing? Our urban communities are facing even greater risks than others and the experts provide reasons such as preexisting conditions, service jobs, and misinformation. They are now ‘discovering’ what we as urban prophets have been preaching relentlessly to the angst of the many who don’t want to listen. In our City of Elizabeth, we have one of the highest number of cases and fatalities in the State of New Jersey. In Union and Essex counties, which are our catchment areas as a church, the numbers of the infected and deaths combined, paint a horrible picture.

The Covid-19 virus has ripped away the veneer of racial progress espoused by many in this State and in the Episcopal Church. No longer can one genuinely believe enough resources have been provided from either handouts or from the results of fiercely fought battles. No longer can our leaders sit in the comforts of their wealth and self-satisfaction and espouse equality as some liberal agenda but now need to understand that equity is a life-saving act. This is no time for handouts, but investment in the salvation of the whole community.

On the first Good Friday, lying in the shadows of Jesus are two dying men whose death can easily be overlooked until Jesus draws them into the light of His saving act. Today, we can easily replace them with an African American man and a Hispanic woman who are dying due to neglect and racism. They can easily be replaced by the black woman who understands daily the trials of systemic medical racism. They can easily be replaced by the Hispanic husband and father languishing in an immigration prison.

It is Good Friday for it lays bare all the superficial notions of benevolence and greed over which the powerful lacks self-control. The Covid-19 virus reveals, in spite all the claims of the U.S health care system; a system for only those who can afford it, a nation is as healthy as the most unhealthy citizen. A church is as wealthy as its poorest congregation. As Jesus shared “as much as you did it for the least of these you did it for me. ” or even worse “whatever you did not do for the least of these you did not do for me”( Mathew 25:40-45) The covid-19 virus is revealing who inhabits the realm of “the least” has not changed in spite all Papier-mâché efforts.

Good Friday allows us to look to Jesus and the two in his shadow dying in the midst of human fear. Fear united a community then as it has done today. There was fear all around. Even the leaders sought ways out of the situation, but there was no getting around it. Human reckless and fragile power that abused the hungry, poor needed to be faced, and needs to be faced today. A society built upon might, and frail divisions of race, creed or class must die. Human relationships built upon the shifting sands of expediency must die. Jesus will be the rock upon which a new world order will be built. In this new world, the poor will be cared for in humane and loving ways.

Isn’t amazing how, in the face of the Covid 19 virus, governments all over the world can now find money to care for the poor and unemployed? Even the church, which Jesus invited to share in His ministry, is now discovering that it can support churches in crisis now that the crisis no longer comes with a color? Isn’t it amazing that we can now enjoy our local parks in ways we used to save for Disney? Isn’t amazing we now discover doctors, nurses and health care workers, from the simplest cleaner to the top surgeon, are now more valuable that sports stars? Is not amazing that we now discover our teachers are more valuable than The Housewives of New Jersey?

It is Good Friday because through His death, Jesus is about to bring forth something new. Yet, even as we await that which is being born, our joy is that He refused to leave behind those who shared in his experience of death on a cross. For those living in the shadow cast by the sin of racism and racial injustice, Jesus has not forgotten you even as the world has neglected you. Jesus, in his dying gasp, uttered the Good News, “Today you will be with me.” Good Friday is built on the Christmas incarnation shout “Emmanuel” God is with us!

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Palm Sunday

4/5/2020

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Mathew 21:10 & 11 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?" The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee."

On the first Palm Sunday there was much turmoil in Jerusalem. Today, as it was when Jesus road his donkey into Jerusalem, there is great turmoil as the world seeks to grapple with an unseen enemy. This week was quite difficult for all of us as the impact of the virus seems to be drawing even closer, and nothing seems to be able to hold back its onslaught. No person seems outside of its reach, and we sit cowering in our corners in deep fear.

My friends, as we begin Holy week, we are challenged more than ever to resist romanticizing of the events leading to Jesus’ horrible torture, crucifixion and eventual death. This myth of a superhero beyond the reach of pain, shame, brokenness and eventual death, is just that, a myth. This is not a story of a suicide bomber; a terrorist with a death-wish or an angry mentally ill person who seeks a suicide-by-cop. This is a living story of human betrayal, power hungry political egoists, and religious fanaticism all mixed together with an oppressed people seeking cheap entertainment; like a WWE filled stadium. It is into that cauldron of emotions and needs steps a Jesus who sought to offer humanity another way of thinking and a deeper level of loving. And, like a lamb heading toward its slaughter, he entered Jerusalem.

Palm Sunday is not about a triumphant entry of a movie star encountering a paparazzi crowd, but a day in which the center of power is about to be shifted in such a significant manner, it can never be reset. God was about to establish his power, not in those who the world had already anointed, but in those who the world had rejected. Power was being shifted from might to love, from revenge to forgiveness, from hapless dejection to overpowering hope. Yet, for this to be achieved, Jesus had to enter the very hallways of power, and like Samson, hold onto its pillars, stand and destroy the evil edifice even if it cost Him His very life.

Palm Sunday without palm branches or crosses demands we ask ourselves, “What do we carry as a symbol of Jesus undying love?”. What do we hang in our cars and homes when we have nothing tangible for others to see? How can we express the love of Jesus who boldly rode into the face of danger and declared God’s powerful presence?

Palm Sunday now takes on a whole new meaning, for now we must rely more heavily on the testimony of our faith and our acts of love. The power of love of Jesus is now activated in us. We must walk boldly and faithfully into the prevailing turmoil and declare the powerful presence of God. Holy week for me has always been linked to the creation narrative in which for six days God spoke to the darkness, the chaos, the uninhabited and a lifeless lump of clay and declared light, order, and life. Then He rested! Now in our time of rest, more than ever, we are called to be Christians. We are called to be co-creators with God as He recreates His world in the face of this daunting atmosphere of death.

Palm Sunday is about our willingness never to lose hope in the face of overwhelming fear. “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10. At Christmas we joyfully sang, “Fear not said He for mighty dread had fall upon them” Now we understand the depth of the challenge to look at fear in its face and declare our faith in God. It is what our health workers are doing every single day.

On Palm Sunday, we look to Jesus who was not blinded by the accolades of the crowd. The fear was as thick as mud or the stifling summer humidity. There was fear all around. Even the leaders, who felt the fear, sought ways out of the situation, but there was no getting around this palpable fear. The human recklessness and fragile power that abused the hungry and the poor must be condemned. A society built upon might, and frail divisions of race, creed or class will die. Human relationships built upon the shifting sands of expediency must die. Jesus was the rock on which a new world was built.

Now the down-trodden must be cared for in humane ways. Isn’t it amazing how in the face of the Covid 19 virus, governments all over the world can now find money to care for the poor and unemployed? Isn’t it amazing we can now enjoy our local parks in ways we used to save for Disney? Isn’t it amazing we now discover doctors, nurses, healthcare workers from the simplest cleaner to the top surgeon are more valuable than sports stars? Isn’t amazing we now discover our teachers are more valuable than The Housewives of New Jersey? Is it not amazing that even those within our church who resisted technology in favor of traditions and buildings are now upset that they cannot zoom? Even the church, which resisted efforts to assist urban parishes that have been struggling with limited resources can now be willing to provide grace periods. “Where was this grace before?”, we ask.

My friends, this week I have been busy supporting the faith and hopes of members of our church in the medical field. They are the people inspired by the donkey-riding Jesus who, with little or no armor or protective gear, walks into the turmoil with a burning desire to bring life to those in the throes of death. Let this Palm Sunday without Palms be a reminder of their daily ride into hospitals and nursing homes not immune from the deadly virus, seeing colleagues falling in the battle but ploughing ahead because Jesus is with them. Ride on doctors, nurses and all health care workers. Your Jesus is riding with you. Ride or die now takes on a new meaning. Believe you me, when they enter in rooms, patients in their hearts and with weak lips are saying, “Blessed are those who come in the name of the Lord”.

Our role is to be a genuine PALM Sunday crowd and through our daily prayers provide hope and strength. Our cry is “Ride on Jesus Ride on to die because by your death new life will come into the world. You died so we may live.” When you look in your cars and don’t see you Palm cross, know my friends you are wearing it in your heart. Wear it well. Wear it with hope. Wear it in truth. Wear it with joy. Now, go and take the name of Jesus with you!

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