Sermons

The day before his assassination, the Catholic archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero, said in his sermon: “Easter is a shout of victory. No one can extinguish that life which Christ revived. Not even death and hatred against him and against his Church will be able to overcome it. Lent is a call to celebrate our redemption in that difficult complex of cross and victory.” (Oscar Romero, sermon of March 23, 1980) Our story from today’s gospel comes as the culmination of our faith and sits at the end of the drama of Lent and Holy Week, which started last Sunday with Jesus's triumphant entry into Jerusalem. On Maundy Thursday, after his last supper with his friends, the joy and hope turned to fear as we heard how Jesus was arrested for his message of liberation and the free gift of God’s love. On the ironically named Good Friday, we heard how Jesus was judged illegally by a court in the middle of the night, and then watched as he was led out to be judicially murdered on the cross. All through holy Saturday, Jesus passes through the land of death, through hell, more on that later.

The authorities are closing in, and Jesus knows he is getting close to his arrest, so on his way to Jerusalem, he comes to see some of his best friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Lazarus's whose death Jesus weeps over. Lazarus, whom Jesus then raised from the dead. A resurrection so popular that it convinced the religious leaders in Jerusalem that they needed to kill Jesus, before his growing reputation could threaten them. Martha, as is her practice, is in the kitchen making good food for all, and Mary, as so often before, is at the table with Jesus, the disciples, and her brother. Their joy together is made greater by the memory of the overcome sorrow that they had shared.

Everyone needs perspective on their life. To help get this, I think everyone should at least once walk across the road from their house, up the neighbor's drive to their front door, turn around, and look back at your own home from the perspective others see it from. If this provokes some curious questions from your neighbors, feel free to blame me and invite them to share the experience by coming to your doorstep and seeing their home from a new angle. Traveling a little further than over the road, can show you unexpected things about your life. One thing I noticed last time I traveled to the UK was the difference in the airport bookshops. I’m always drawn to bookshops and libraries, even if I really don’t need any more books. The bookshop at Birmingham airport in the UK reflects English reading tastes, with lots of history, novels, and fluffy murder mysteries set in large, stately Victorian houses. Logan Airport in Boston boasted lots of biographies, novels, and gritty murder mysteries set in New York City. While they are different, what is clear is that wherever in the world people learn to speak English, they all like a good story.

“It’s not fair, they had done nothing wrong!” Lent is a time of foreshadowing, a literary technique by which we start to see what is coming, and the drama is built up to the main event, which will both shock and surprise us but somehow also seem inevitable. All four biblical gospels build up to the great events of Easter, the heart of our faith's story. Today we get to meet one of the villains of that story with a prequel of what’s to come. Pilot, the second-rate petty tyrant of a governor who will execute Jesus, yes it’s that Pilot, has murdered a group of pilgrims from Galilee! Like the modern 24-hour news channels some gossip can’t want to tell Jesus all about this latest horror. Social media is not the first time humans have taken delight in trying to outrage each other with the worst possible stories. These folks come to Jesus as he walks the same road the Galileen Pilgrims had taken to Jerusalem.

Recently the price of eggs has become a topic for political debates and a barometer of inflation. They are a strange sign of the changing economic times in which we live. When we talk of eggs, we are mostly talking about chicken eggs. Hens are very strange creatures. They are smarter and braver than you might expect. They are also very vulnerable. I have chickens, and we have to keep topping up my flock every year because we yearly lose a chicken or two to foxes, coyotes, and dogs. One spring we decided that rather than buying chicks we would let our smallest hen Belladona, hatch out some eggs. She was super broody and spent the whole spring guiding her little chicks around the yard.

Today is the first Sunday of Lent, it is also Refugee Sunday. A day churches are encouraged to consider the plight of refugees. The UN defines refugees as: “...people who have fled their countries to escape conflict, violence, or persecution and have sought safety in another country.” Refugees are immigrants against their will, internationally displaced persons who can’t safely return home. People fleeing conflict either within a country or outside of a country is not new. My grandmother was evacuated from London as a child to escape the blitz, the bombing of the city by the Nazis. Further back in my family history, I have Huguenot, French Protestant ancestors who fled the wars of religion in the 16th century. I am sure many of you have ancestors with similar stories. Moving to another place to escape violence is as old as humanity.

One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen was a moment of perfect illumination. It happened in Pilton. Pilton is a large council estate, the British equivalent of the inner city projects, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. I was waiting at a bus stop after attending a youth group I helped to lead and the sun was setting. From my spot on a metal bench surrounded by cigarette butts, I could see a row of the gray tower blocks that make up the estate, reaching up into the clouds. Just at that moment, I looked up and the sun came out from under the clouds behind me, bathing the back of my neck with warmth and painting the whole scene in glorious pinks and golds. It was stunning and so surprising because a moment before it had been so drab and bleak. I have seen similar effects in Maine when the sunlight reaches underneath the black winter trees only to be reflected up onto them from the blue glowing snow. So unexpected and perfect.

Christmas is the time when we return once again to the familiar stories at the beginning of the gospel books. We read the narrative accounts of Jesus' birth and the start of his ministry. The nativity is not the start of the story of God’s engagement with the world, nor are the gospels the end of that story. But they are at the center, which is why they are in the middle of our bible. The gospels are the pinch point in the hourglass for us Christians. They are stories through which all our understanding of what comes before and after Jesus is to pass, and through which the whole bible is to be interpreted. There are four gospels and every year on Sunday we read from one of the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, or Luke. And every year we also read a bit of John.

Today we continue in a season of beginnings. This is the beginning of a journey for us together. Today is a start for me personally and for you as a congregation. It also continues as a part of a whole season of starts. The start of the new year and the start of a new presidential administration. New starts all around. Liturgically we traveled with Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem and met the new baby Jesus at Christmas. In the past two Sundays, we have started Jesus' adult ministry, twice, first with John at the wedding in Cana, then with Jesus preaching in his hometown with Luke, and now, we are back into yet another new start that is somehow also a conclusion as well. So many starts because how you start matters for how you will go on, and God loves to offer do-overs and restarts, which is good because I don’t feel in a good starting place this week.

And Jesus, fresh from choosing his 12 apostles, came down and joined the gathered crowd of people who had come from far and wide. They have come to hear his teaching but also to receive healing from sickness and unclean spirits because power came out from him and healed all of them. Not only the power to heal in the body and mind but also in the lifestyle and way of being in the world. Like Moses, who had also come down from a mountain bringing a rule for life, the Ten Commandments, Jesus comes down from the mountain bringing rules for a changed way of living. We call these teachings that Jesus brings the beatitudes, Latin for blessings. But Luke sets up the start of Jesus' teaching, what scholars call the sermon on the plane, with four pairs of blessings and woes. We like to remember the blessings and to forget about the woes. For Luke, these teachings are core ideas that Jesus will spin out and elaborate on later in the Gospel. Jesus is setting up a position of self-deprecating love, of putting the needs of others before oneself that will define and underpin his ministry and lead to his death.

“I say to you listen”. This often repeated refrain of Luke's gospel frames a moment of teaching. Jesus has his disciples around him and he needs their focus because his message can change who they are if only they have ears to listen. Listen to what Jesus says; “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” We think of love as a feeling, an emotion found in romcoms and family photos but for Jesus love is an action word. I’m reminded of the opening lyrics from Massive Attack’s 1998 song Teardrop, which say: Love, love is a verb, love is a doing word. For Jesus love is something that happens in action not in feelings. You don’t have to like someone to be able to act with love towards them. The Hebrew scriptures with which Jesus was so familiar include many examples of how to live love.

Today the rubber hits the road. John has been arrested, Jesus comes to Galilee and he begins to proclaim the gospel. We are in the year of Mark and Mark is going to move fast, no time for reflection, no time for theological discourse. Jesus comes right out the gate proclaiming the good news. He calls out saying; “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe”. Time is fulfilled like it’s here, happening now. The baby Jesus has grown has become a man, and is bringing God’s message to the world. What is this news? It is the news of a kingdom that is coming into being through the very action of its proclamation. Jesus called out to people inviting them, inviting them personally, by name, to join him. And amazingly they responded. First Simon and then Andrew then James and John, they all hear Jesus Calling to them and they all respond by following.

For those of you who don’t know yet, my name is Ben Cooke and I’m a priest of the Episcopal Church. It's a great joy to join you today for the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, and I’m deeply appreciative of the shortness of our readings this morning! They may be short but they are powerful. We are just outside the stable doors of the Christmas season, out past the nativity and the gifts of the magi to the infant Jesus. We are at the start of our new liturgical year's journey with the adult Jesus. Each year on Sundays we read from one of the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. With a little sprinkling of John. Each of the synoptics has its own flavor, this year we are in Year C, which means we are going to be journeying with Luke. Luke tells us of how Jesus comes alongside the poor, with a radical, spicy gospel of social justice. Jesus blazes a trail of change for the oppressed and it is this striving for the poor that puts Jesus at odds with the temple authorities and eventually leads to his death.