Author: Rosemary Lovelace

Sixth Sunday of Easter – Year C – Byron Tindall

This section of John’s Gospel is a portion of what is called the final discourses. Among other things, Jesus is preparing his disciples for what is about to take place in Jerusalem. He is also getting them ready to take over his ministry after he is gone.

In 2 weeks, on June 8, we celebrate our yearly remembrance of the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. To me, it’s the birthday of the church. Jesus’s work on earth is done. He has returned to his Father in Heaven, wherever that is.

This is the arrival of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, about which Jesus discusses with his disciples in the Gospel lesson from John appointed to be read today.

The spoken word and action-teaching of Jesus is rapidly coming to an abrupt halt with his arrest, death, resurrection and ascension. But fear not, Jesus tells his followers. The Counselor, The Spirit of Truth, the Holy Ghost, and there are other names applied to her, is going to help the disciples, AND US, understand what Jesus was trying to teach them and us all along. Unlike the disciples, we don’t have to wait for that arrival.

“Peace, I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives,” Jesus told his followers. When you stop and think about the peace of Rome, it was fantastic, if you happened to be a Roman citizen. The people to whom Jesus was talking were not Roman citizens. They were the conquered, down-trodden, enslaved people whose land had been overrun and occupied by Rome.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you,’” Jesus continued.

At first glance, this is a little bit confusing. But 50 days after the resurrection came the ascension, which we remember Thursday of this week. And shortly after that, we celebrate the arrival of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Councilor, the Spirit of Truth.

“If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I,” Jesus continued. Now talk about some apparent double talk. The only way I can wrap my head around this, and some other statements recorded in the Gospels as well, is to climb out on the limb of possible heresy and to theorize that the man Jesus did not have complete and full “access” to the Christ, who we call the son, 100 percent of the time. This is hair splitting, I know, but it helps me and hopefully some of you as well.

“And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe,” is a statement to assist the followers through the troubling times which were immediately ahead.

I have intentionally avoided the opening part of the Gospel lesson for today from John, saving it for last.

In the lesson from Acts today, St. Paul knew he had to take off to Macedonia. I, too, feel I have to say a few words about the first portion of the Gospel lesson for today.

“Jesus said to Judas (not Iscariot), ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. I have said these things to you while I am still with you….”’

If we love Jesus, we must love as He loved. If we follow Jesus, we must go into the world and fight injustice and the abuse of any and all of the creation. We must stand up against everything that doesn’t “respect the dignity of every human being.”

We must fight for the rights of those who society have pushed out of the way and marginalized. Then there’s educational opportunities, and don’t forget health care.

Unless we happen to be Native Americans, we must realize that our ancestors were immigrants at one time or another. The Old Testament is pretty specific on how the sojourners are to be treated.

Our Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev Sean Rowe, put it this way. “As Christians, we must be guided not by political vagaries, but by the sure and certain knowledge that the kingdom of God is revealed to us in the struggles of those on the margins.”

Richard Rohr’s daily meditation for May 21 quoted Center for Action and Contemplation faculty member Randy Woodley. “…Scripture is one the of tools we have to understand the right way to live. I appreciate it, not as a rule book, but as stories that align with creation. The teachings and creation align with our hearts and align with good solid communities whose values are soaked in love and caring. When I see something in Scripture that looks like the opposite of that, then I have to say, ‘Well, I’m supposed to learn something about that. I’m supposed to learn how not to do that or not to act that way.’” “Those who love me will keep my word…” The choice is ours to make.

Fifth Sunday of Easter – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the DayAlmighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 13:31-35

At the last supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now, I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Good morning! And welcome to Holy Family on this 5^th Sunday of Easter. If you are visiting us this morning, welcome, and please let us get to know you!

Several years ago, Vicky and I attended a clinical conference in San Francisco, and visited Grace Episcopal Cathedral for the early morning service. We were entranced by this remarkable place of worship high atop a hill overlooking the city. Inside, we explored its various chapels, a labyrinth, lovely murals depicting the history of the city, and stunningly beautiful windows. One is invited to enter this holy space, and to allow one’s spiritual imagination to come alive. The last available window space has recently been filled with an incredible stained-glass piece, depicting a spiral nebula—a lovely galaxy much like our own milky way, spinning deep in outer space. I was reminded again of the words of Eucharistic Prayer C, “the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.” Somehow the depth and expansiveness of the cathedral seemed to contain a hint of all that, and more, a kind of mysterious engagement with the holy, as if the Spirit blew gently, constantly, lovingly through the cool depths of the very soul of the building holding us in its embrace.     

After the celebration of the Eucharist, we emerged into the brilliant northern California sunlight on a cool April morning. On a plaza just below the doors of the Cathedral is an outdoor labyrinth, encircled by Japanese Maples only now in full leaf, and they luminous in the morning light. On the perimeter of the labyrinth nine or ten Cantonese women engaged in their morning ritual of Tai Chi, the lovely, synchronous form of worship, exercise, and meditation. We stood for a long while at the top of the steps, entranced by this rich, resonant synchronicity of worship and culture: our own celebration of the Eucharist, this labyrinth of ancient Celtic origins, just like our own, and the deeply moving ritual of Tai Chi, all brought together by the grace-filled welcoming embrace of one of our Cathedrals. It was a moment of, well, grace, in every sense of the word.

My primary feeling was that of gratitude, a deep, abiding appreciation for the moment of Kairos we experienced. A moment when Spirit seemed so present, so close, so available. And that Spirit-time, that Kairos, points us to something that lies in the very heart and soul of who we are and who we aspire to be as a parish. It’s the very force that emanates from God and gives life to us all. This morning—in this light-filled space—we hear the remarkably poignant words spoken by Jesus; “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Put simply, Jesus’ incarnation of the ancient ideal was to become the pattern of how the disciples, and that includes us, were to be known to one another, the pattern, that is, of how we ought live our lives. St. Augustine once observed that Jesus loved each person he ever met as if there were no other in the entire world to love. He radically individualized and made incarnate the affection he acted out toward others. I was reminded on the steps of Grace Cathedral that morning that we are all made in the image of that extraordinary love—all of us—and this Holy space was an outward and visible sign, if you will, of the love which led Jesus to say that he would take us into himself. And yes, sometimes we all fall short of this ideal, core virtue of love and compassion, and one of the reasons for returning here, and to all of the sacred places in our lives, is to be reminded of this, and restored, and nourished to go back out into the world as the Body of Christ.

That is the place he prepares for us. Jesus’ love for us was not just a radically incarnate, individual love. It was also universal love, and it includes this planet earth, our island home, and everything in it, including Grace Cathedral, and all of our moments and glimpses of grace, and this sacred space, and each of us, who are called to be earthen vessels of that love. The eyes with which he looked upon the world were never filled with disdain or contempt. We must never forget that the opposite of love is not anger, but rather indifference. We all get angry, and sometimes that anger is instructive because it can remind us of what is most dearly, deeply important to us. Jesus loved each of us as if we were the only ones in the world, and he loved all as he loved each. And this speaks to the wisdom of C.S. Lewis, who made a distinction between what he called “need love” and “gift love.” Need love, says Lewis, is always born of emptiness, a kind of possessive acquisitiveness that is the relational, spiritual equivalent of a vacuum, like a black hole in outer space, sucking everything into its dark center. Lewis acknowledges that many times when we humans say, “I love you,” what we really mean is “I need you, I want you…you have value to me that I desire to make my own, regardless of the consequences to you.” Lewis contends that another form of love is radically, ontologically different. It is what he calls “gift love.” Rather than being born of emptiness, or impoverishment, and the needs to which they point, this form of loving is one of fullness, and grace, and gratitude. Its goal is to enrich and enhance the beloved rather than extract value. Gift love moves out to bless and increase—to enliven, nurture, and sustain the other. It is more like an ever- flowing spring than a needful vacuum. Lewis concludes by saying that the uniqueness of the biblical vision of reality is that God’s love is “gift love,” not “need love.” He reminds us that, “we humans are made in the image of such everlasting and unconditional love,” we are created Imago Dei—in the image of God. Not only are we loved by God in this way, we can choose to live our lives this way. We are most likely to fall into “need love” when we are feeling scared, or vulnerable in some way—when faced with new situations or people who are different in one way or another. But even then, amid our uncertainty, we can choose, with God’s grace, to grow into the wonder of “gift love.” CS Lewis reminds us that “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

I am so very grateful for this past year among you, and although my time is coming to a close—and it now seems I will be here a bit longer than we thought—the moments of grace we have experienced together will remain with me and have become a part of who I am, and who I am still becoming. I am so very proud of you all. Over the past year we have together done so much, loved so much, given so much. I am especially grateful for the example of my colleagues Katharine and Byron, whose steadfast faithfulness has been the essence of Gift Love. Katharine went into and came out of retirement during our time of need and gives so much of herself, blessing, nurturing, sustaining with her grace-filled pastoral heart, often behind the scenes and without recognition. Katharine, thank you so much for your compassionate love for us all and for so many at the prison, and elsewhere. Byron has been a faithful and steadfast colleague, showing up week in and week out, with good humor, wise counsel, and insightful pastoral care. Thanks to Byron, as he and Ann journey to Washington this weekend. And our colleague Ted Hackett, despite ongoing health challenges, has gracefully shown up as he has been able, giving so much to this parish, and beyond, over the years. And I want to thank all of you. I have had the graceful privilege of watching this parish flourish, thanks to so many who have stepped up and found gifts and graces you may not have imagined you had. Our newly formed Parish Life committee, yes, lay led, clergy supported, has transformed this congregation in many ways. Thank you! Along with each of the guilds and committees, from pastoral care to our vestry and nominating committee; from hospitality to our vergers and EM’s, from our Digital Ministry without which we would not be Holy Family to the wider world to our Grounds Committee, flower and altar guilds, DOK, and all those who assist the worship committee in its work, thank you! And a deep bow of gratitude to our able, talented, and steadfast parish administrator Christie who gracefully puts up with all our comings and goings, and John and our amazing choir, who have also grown and proven resilient, and open to new ideas! All these examples of selfless gift love have placed us in a good position to face the future in a time when the church—ours and all mainline Protestantism—is undergoing rapid change, and to welcome our new rector whom we are holding in our prayers. Let’s remember another moment of Gift Love, on a summer day in 1998 when more than 300 PBS stations across the nation aired a very special of Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood that featured KoKo, the sign-language using gorilla. Mr. Rogers’ visit to KoKo’s home at The Gorilla Foundation helped launch a week of programming entitled “You and I Together” which addressed the confusion and fears of young children when confronted with new situations or people who are different. The weeklong theme of “inclusion” featured KoKo and helpful talks about feeling included, no matter the nature of one’s disability, infirmity, skin color, race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. Turned out that “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” was one of KoKo’s very favorite TV shows. And when this gentle Presbyterian pastor, beloved by so many, entered KoKo’s room, she immediately embraced him in a gentle gorilla hug, and in sign language said, “Love you, neighbor, KoKo love.” KoKo then bent down to help Mr. Rogers remove his shoes, as she had seen him do every day, for so many years, on his show. She then helped him remove his sweater. So, you see, gift love is available to us all and can come from unexpected sources. And with the grace of God, we can choose to embrace that love, just as KoKo embraced Mr. Rogers. Let’s be bearers of light, of grace, and of hope, shall we, no matter what the future may bring! As Leonard Cohen sang,

“Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.”

And let the people of God say, Amen

Fourth Sunday of Easter – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day

O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 10:22-30

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all. Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this 4^th Sunday of Easter and, of course, today we also celebrate Mother’s Day. The texts for today are full of rich images of green pastures, sheep and their shepherds, and deep, still waters. They are comforting images, for the most part. Sheepfolds, for example which form the context for this section of John’s Gospel, were located just inside or barely outside the village. Each evening all the sheep of the village would be herded into the common area, and their shepherds would take turns guarding the gate. When night fell and all was quiet and secure, the shepherd would lie down to rest at the opening of the sheepfold, becoming, as it were, the human gate for the sheep. Getting to the sheep required getting past the Shepherd. For all its limitations the metaphor of the Good Shepherd works in this sense. For like the shepherd, parents, grandparents, godparents, teachers, mentors, priests, and friends have “tended” us. Indeed, the word tend comes from the same Latin root—attendere—that gives us the word attend, and it means to pay attention, to care for, to minister, to “stretch out.” Think for a moment of those along the way who have “stretched out”—a wonderful term—to and for you. We all have such people in our lives. They have loved and taught and led and comforted and mentored us. They have tended to us by paying attention to us, by implication telling us that we matter. They have sought to prepare us for life. They demonstrated what Carl Jung would call maternal or feminine archetypes, though not all of them have been our biological mothers. And since this Sunday is also Mother’s Day, which we use as occasion to give thanks to God for all the women in our church, all those who have mothered and parented us. Understood metaphorically, not all of them have even been women. But all of them have provided for us what my colleagues in my clinical work call a “holding environment” out of which our true selves—the Divine spark given to each of us—can emerge. And in this safe context—not unlike a sheepfold—we internalize this care in such a way as to make it part of our narrative—our story. Teachers and professors, friends, coaches, colleagues …my maternal grandmother, my wife and sons, all have shepherded me, and all have helped me see the compassion and love at the heart of faith. In this context of care we discover, as Gerard Manley Hopkins said, our true voice “acting in God’s eye who in God’s eye we are.”

This is a life-long journey, one we share with the people of Israel who, after all, struggled for a home that they were always trying to find and get to, hold onto or get back to. They struggled for peace, for food, and for their faith in God. Psalm 23 was a cherished hymn for the Hebrews precisely because of the highs and lows of Israel’s history, their insatiable thirst on long desert journey’s, and their frequent rush down more manageable paths towards more manageable gods, which always led them into unmanageable trouble and lamentation. Then they would return to worship, and the story—the narrative—of their true selves as a people, would be told and retold. In a sense then, context is everything in relation both to the 23^rd Psalm and the Gospel text for today. Many people I see in my clinical practice have no trouble finding green pastures. The problem is that next the pasture over so often seems so much greener, and they are scared of missing it. We are drawn to overflowing waters in our culture of abundance, yet we so often wander thirsty, as one country music writer put it, in all this rain. It is not surprising that so many of the psalms describe the disruptive experience of being lost and found, judged and forgiven, sent away, and brought back. It is all part of the pathos of a people who got scared and lost their way, and the high drama of a God who searches to find his lost sheep.

And we get so scared, do we not, when we are afraid there will not be “enough,” even when we aren’t quite sure what enough would look like, or even what it is we are afraid we will not have enough of. Each of us has been scared. Perhaps it took the form of an illness, a call from the Drs office or a loved one, a plummeting stock market, or a call from the police late at night. Perhaps it was a letter on the kitchen counter that said, “I’m not coming back,” or a pink slip one Friday afternoon. The shadow of the valley, like the Good Friday losses of our lives, can take infinite forms. I bear witness to them in my clinical practice, and in my own life, just as you have done so in yours. In his book “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life,” David Brooks says that he has observed two kinds of people, and for both types, as he writes, for the first type…:

…Life had thrown them into the valley, as it throws most of us into the valley at one point or another. They were suffering and adrift…Some people are broken by this kind of pain and grief. They seem to get smaller and more afraid, and never recover. They get angry, resentful and tribal….But other people are broken open. The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that suffering upends the normal patterns of life and reminds you that you are not who you thought you were. The basement of your soul is much deeper than you knew. Some people look into the hidden depths of themselves and they realize that success won’t fill those spaces. Only a spiritual life and unconditional love from family and friends will do. They realize how lucky they are. They are down in the valley, but their health is O.K.; they’re not financially destroyed; they’re about to be dragged on an adventure that will leave them transformed.

In the Gospel for today we have a description not only of how Jesus relates to us, but how we are to relate to one another. In coming to one another Jesus is to be the way: In this same passage from John, Jesus says I have come to the sheep that they might have life and have it more abundantly. We are called to be in relation to one another as Jesus is in relation to us. This is how those who cared for us remain with us: we hold their voices inside us, and we remember that we have been seen, that others have “stretched out” for us. The shepherd could lead because the sheep could hear his voice, could see him moving steadily ahead of them, and they trusted him. Ultimately, of course, we are all called to be Shepherds, all called to create together a safe sheepfold—or holding environment—within which we are nurtured, sustained, and nourished. As David Brooks writes:

Joy involves the transcendence of self. When you’re on the second mountain, you realize we aim too low. We compete to get near a little sunlamp, but if we lived differently, we could feel the glow of real sunshine. On the second mountain you see that happiness is good, but joy is better.

Each semester for many years of teaching at Columbia and in the doctoral program we shared with Emory and ITC, we covered topics such as addiction, mental illness, psychology and religion, and family systems theory. Through each module the abiding image was that of the pastoral caregiver as a shepherd, and of staying in relationship in the service of a transcendence of self in commitment to the common good. We studied, and learned together, in order to remember that it is more important to be in right relationship than it is to be right, and we can love completely without complete understanding. As Richard Rohr has said so well;

There is no other form for the Christian life except a common one. Until and unless Christ is experienced as a living relationship between people, the Gospel remains largely an abstraction. Until Christ is passed on personally through faithfulness and forgiveness, through concrete bonds of union, I doubt whether he is passed on by words, sermons, institutions, or ideas.

This past week we observed the Feast Day of Julian of Norwich, whom our weekly women’s spirituality class has also been reading. She too, was a shepherd of a kind, helping us to re-imagine our images of God, just as one of my primary images of God is informed by my own maternal grandmother. To Julian of Norwich, feminine depictions of God were not radical, subversive, or rebellious. They were obvious, inevitable, and clear. She didn’t feel the need to defend her words, she simply wrote what was revealed to her in the visions: God has masculine qualities and God has feminine qualities. Both are important, and this is a non-dualistic opening of our relationship to the Living God.

Unfortunately, it’s not so easy for most of us. We are constantly filtering our theology through what we consider to be permissible. Unlike Dame Julian, we tend to defer to precedent rather than follow the nudging’s of our own souls. We sometimes trust those in authority more than we trust ourselves if, indeed, we are even given the opportunity to explore these narratives. But the witness of Julian of Norwich asks us to be brave; to dig deep within and experience God in our guts, not just in our churches; to engage our spiritual imaginations in the pursuit of a salvation that sets us free today—not just after we are gone from this world.

Engaging with the feminine face of God does not mean discarding the masculine one. Not only is there room for both in our spiritual imaginations but Julian of Norwich would argue that there’s room for both at the same time. Dame Julian approached gender binaries playfully, with a refreshing absence of precision. She repeatedly wrote things like “Jesus births,” “he mothers,” and “Jesus as both Son and Mother.” Amid our own discomfort and hesitancies, Julian of Norwich offers an ease, a gentle reassurance, that God is much larger than our finite brains can comprehend. This God we know and love—this God we have experienced—is big enough to hold it all. The question is, can we put aside our fears and prejudices and get on board with that? Can we allow Julian, and other good shepherds, to encourage us to use our imaginations to become, in the process, more fully alive.

Yes, bearing witness, stretching out, attending, feeding, sustaining, healing, guiding, making our voices be heard. These are the tasks to which we are called in community. As the Apostle John has written, we are children of God, made in God’s image, growing as we move on in faith. We do not know what wonders God has in store for us, but we do know we are called to listen, to hear God’s voice and follow God’s lead. So let us now come to the Table of Grace with hopeful hearts as we live into the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and let all the people of God say, AMEN. 

Third Sunday of Easter – Bill Harkins

The Collect

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in

the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him

in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

The Gospel: John 21:1-19

Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing…This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead…Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all. Amen. 

Good morning and welcome to Holy Family on this 3^rd Sunday of Easter! I’m so glad you are joining us today. In this chapter of our lives at Holy Family, I find myself empathizing with the Disciples in ways perhaps new for me. Maybe you do so as well. We know they have been scared, and in the reading for today, they don’t recognize Jesus at first when he appears. Begging the question, when we are in a season of uncertainty and transition, can we recognize Christ in the face of the other, our sisters and brothers, and can we remain relatively non-anxious enough to lead with wisdom, and resilience, even when we may disagree with one another? And, let’s remember we have only recently emerged from an unprecedented time of social distancing and quarantine, and we’ve all been on a post-pandemic journey of sorts. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, we had our own mini version of a pandemic here at Holy Family and I am so very proud of how we responded. I’m so glad to have been on this journey with you all, and I am grateful for those serving on our vestry and search committees. I am aware that my time among you is ending. About this time last year, I was walking out to the car with Andy Edwards after services. Now, Andy and Melinda were here many years ago, back when I was a Postulant at Holy Family, over 20 years ago, and he said “Well, your priesthood has come full circle from here to the Cathedral, and now back again.” And so it has. My first thought was one of deep gratitude for this parish, and for all it has meant to me and my family. Truth told we are, many of us, in a new role at Holy Family, and I am only one among many here asked to step up in this season. As our beloved Katharine Armentrout said so well last year, lay leadership will be—for many reasons, increasingly important in the coming chapter. We’re not alone in this. As I said many times over the past year, in many contexts of our denomination, and our sister denominations in mainline Protestantism, a new mission statement in “Lay Led…Clergy Supported”. My friend and running buddy, the Bishop of New Hampshire, has told me that 80% of their parishes can no longer afford a full-time priest. We will each have to discover in ourselves opportunities for leadership, and this may mean facing fears, uncertainty, and leaving our comfort zone to be an integral part of the Body of Christ. We each have an opportunity to grow in new ways. When I decided to retire from full time teaching and focus on clinical practice, and Vicky and I made the decision to move to Jasper, I did not know what lay ahead, and I certainly did not anticipate becoming the interim here. Like the disciples in the Gospel for today, we are each walking, talking with one another about what has happened, finding some meaning in what we’ve been through, and trusting that God is listening to us and bearing witness to our concerns and fears. Carl Jung once said that the soul rejoices in saying out loud what we feel inside, just as our Psalms of both joy and lament teach us to do, even when it is hard to do so. As the disciples experienced in this Gospel, Jesus is available to hear both, and we are called to do likewise.

Jesus invited the disciples tell about their anxieties and pains; he let them grieve and mourn. Jesus listened to them, as they poured out their fear, uncertainty, sadness and grief. Jesus patiently guided the disciples “from hopelessness and sadness to celebration, to hope, to relationship restored and renewed; in short, to resurrection.”  I suspect the disciples felt much the same as we do now, a kind of “not knowing” with the sense of dislocation that sometime attends it. They were fishing for literal fish, yes, but also for answers about what would happen after the resurrection.

The author Rachel Naomi Remen has suggested that “The way we deal with loss shapes our capacity to be present to life more than anything else,” she says. And when we tell each other stories of hope and resilience, they tell us about who we are, what is possible for us, what and who we might call upon. They also remind us that we’re not alone with whatever faces us and that there are resources available to us. But we must each be committed to hope, compassion, and grace. As Goethe said, “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth…the moment one definitely commits oneself, the Providence moves too.” The Disciples believe Jesus to be a stranger, and their eyes were opened in the breaking of the bread, and in the boat and on the shore of Tiberius. In this text and related passages, this is a common theme. What does it mean to really see? How often do we miss what is right in front of us and how often do we miss the face of Christ in the stranger whom we encounter on the road? In the Gospel story for today we have a signpost of sort through uncertainty in this sea of transition at Holy Family. Indeed, this Gospel text was read at my own ordination at the Cathedral of St. Philip many years ago and, truth told, I was scared when I heard these words: “Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”

Last summer a friend and I were hiking and trail running high in the mountains of Northern Colorado, and at certain points above the tree line where the trails can become diffuse, cairns, towers of rock guiding the way, were so very helpful. “Inuksuk”—or little people—as the Inuit tribes call these signposts, can be like lighthouses on a distant shore, guiding us along. Jesus is just such a guide in the Gospel for today, and as such he helps the disciples move from grief and loss and despair to hope, and to compassion.

A year ago, in this parish hall, our consultant gave us a list of things we must do together as we seek our new rector—and this list included coming to terms with our history; acknowledging the past; being honest about the DNA in that past… and dealing with both grief—letting go—and moving forward together…holding on; beginning to discover a new identity; allowing for and empowering new leaders among us; strengthening relationships and enriching hospitality; asking ourselves where we have been, and where we are going, and what kind of leadership is needed in this new chapter…and we are called to love one another with grace, and compassion. And with love. These goals continue to be salient. And leadership requires transparency, facing our fears and old narratives with courage, and having agency amid uncertainty. If we trust God, and if we do not give in to fear or lethargy which keep us stuck in old patterns, we may discover who, and whose we are.

In the spring of 1977, I lamented the end of my tenure as a collegiate 400-meter runner and thus, my running career. Or so I thought. Mark, a wonderful distance runner at Rhodes, would not hear about it. “We are running Peachtree together, and I will be your coach,” he said. “In your dreams,” I responded. To which he said, “Exactly…and my dreams are about to become reality.” And so, they did. Mark trained with me, and together we ran Peachtree in 1977, starting at the old Sears building in Buckhead, and finishing downtown in the fountains at Central City (now Woodruff) Park. We continued to run Peachtree each year, and Mark helped me train for the first of my 12 marathons, the most recent of which was on the Biltmore Trails in Asheville. In February of 1992, a malignant lymph node was removed from under Mark’s left arm. In April of that year, having qualified in Memphis the December before with a 2:38:00 marathon, Mark ran his final Boston Marathon. He had been waiting faithfully at the finish line for an hour when I finally arrived on Boylston Street in Copley Square. My friend had developed melanoma, and despite entering an aggressive treatment protocol at the National Institutes of Health, by late December of 1992, just before New Year’s, he died in his beloved Memphis. Calvary Episcopal Church was filled for his funeral, including runners from all over the south. He was a wonderful scholar athlete, who lost no intensity in his transition from gridiron running back to harrier, a history we shared. Mark was a courageous, beautiful, and fiercely competitive runner. And he was my dear friend. In early December of 1992, in a final conversation at one of our favorite places, Jagger’s Pizza in Emory Village, Mark asked me to keep running Peachtree for both of us. And so, I have. God willing, this year will be my 49^th consecutive Peachtree Road Race. I run mostly trail races these days, and delight in running with my friends, and with my sons. Each run is a new adventure in what the wonderful poet Mary Oliver referred to as “this one wild and precious life.” Donald Winnicott, the British psychoanalyst, and pediatrician, believed that imagination and passion contribute to a sense of aliveness—both mental and physical. “O God,” he once wrote, “my prayer is that I will be fully alive when I die.” For me, and for many whom I love, running is one way of being fully alive. As an Episcopal priest, professor, and pastoral counselor, it is my deep hope that we each find ways to flourish in this way, as I believe God intended. My friend said to me “Bill, I have had so much love.” I said “Yes, there are many who love you, and I am among them.” “That may be, “he replied, “but what I mean is that there are so many whom I have loved. I have so much gratitude for the love God has enabled me to give away.” Dear ones, we are given by God the freedom to love—and this requires release from any fears and the bondage of unnamed grief and old narratives that would keep us in bondage to fear, and the need to be in control amid uncertainty, and prevent us from leading with love. It requires the peace of God, breathed on the disciples and each of us. We are rightly suspicious when we are called only to joy. Yes, and even amidst our struggle with various forms of loss and uncertainty, we can find life-giving possibilities, in conversation with each other, widening the circle of care, and guided by love. And remember, as Jesus taught us, that wholeness includes all our wounds, just as it included all his. It includes all our vulnerabilities and fears, including fears of repeating the past. This is the way we connect to one another. Our shared humanity allows us to be available to one another with transparency and true courage. In sharing his wounds, and in the breaking of the bread, Jesus was known to the disciples, and to us. This led to abundance, rather than scarcity. Let’s go and do likewise no matter what the future may bring. Amen.

Second Sunday of Easter – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Judeans, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained…”

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe”. What powerful, mysterious words these are; made all the more remarkable when we think about Jesus’ disciples who, after Jesus was betrayed, scattered, afraid for their own lives. They watched the events unfold, but always from a distance, blending into the crowd of spectators. And even as they learn that crucifixion hadn’t been the end of it, in the Gospel lesson for today we find them behind locked doors, hiding together in fear in the upper room. No doubt the words of the women at the tomb were ringing in their ears, only worsening their isolation and fear: “They have taken away our Lord and we do not know where they have taken him.” Suddenly Jesus appears, and speaks those remarkable words; “Peace be with you”. And he breathes upon them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” But where was Thomas? Perhaps he needed to be alone. Maybe he went to that place we all go, in the midst of deep grief, where we may believe that nothing or no one can reach us, even if it is not true.  It’s easy to be drawn to Thomas because he seems so human. After all, it was Thomas who asked Jesus how they could know the way. Jesus replied “I am the way, the truth, and the life”. But Thomas needed proof. There was an uncompromising honesty about him. He would never respond to the anxiety of his own doubts by pretending they did not exist.

In today’s Gospel text, I think Jesus is reminding Thomas, and by extension all of us, that it is relationship that heals. He reaches out to Thomas in his isolation and doubt and offers the hand of friendship and reconciliation.  It is not our doubts, my friends, that is the enemy. Rather, it is responding to that doubt by cutting ourselves off from others, from relationships that can heal us and sustain us—which is most risky. And we are most likely to do this when, like the disciples, we are scared, sad, angry, and lost, and we hide ourselves behind closed doors. And often what locks us in are our fears, insecurities, illnesses, compulsions or addictions, past hurts we have experienced and the hurts we have caused. And I wonder if we have more of this separation and disconnection these days. The social scientist Brene’ Brown has said that faith communities who hope to be safe containers for beloved community, must create safe spaces for honest, authentic transparency in relation to those things that would keep us in the bondage of disconnection borne of shame. Jesus gives us an alternative to being cut off from ourselves, and others, and from God. And I have seen this kind of community in action in chapters of the Community of Hope lay pastoral care efforts, which we are working on establishing here at Holy Family, and elsewhere too!

Some time ago, I attended the “birthday” of a friend who was celebrating his 9^th year of sobriety. I first met him in 1978 when we worked together on the adolescent psychiatric unit at Peachford Hospital, and we became friends. Just out of college, searching for direction and purpose, I learned so much from my colleagues, and the patients and families with whom we worked.  My life and that of my friend took different paths, but we kept in touch. I knew he had struggled with alcohol, but until I heard his story, I did not realize the depth of his addiction. And so, on a cold and rainy night some 35 years after we met, I drove up to Cherokee County as he picked up his 9-year chip. I walked into a room filled to capacity—maybe 70-80 souls, a good number of whom were members of a local motorcycle group in recovery. They eyed me, dressed like the professor I had been all day long, and I them, dressed like, well, a motorcycle gang. Finally, one of them came up to me, shook my hand, smiled, and said welcome, we are glad you are here. Let’s find you a seat.” That night, I heard the testimony of those who knew and loved my friend, and stories of life—his and theirs—before and after sobriety. I was deeply moved by the openness, shared vulnerability, and honesty in the room. I heard my friend tell the moving story of how drinking almost killed him, and how he had said to those gathered in that very room, some nine years earlier, “I am lost. Tell me what to do; and if you tell me, I will do it.” And then he said, through tears of one who has come back from the edge of the abyss, “You saved my life, you know… I asked, and you gave, and you told me to work each step, and that you would be there with me each step of the way. And you were. I was among the living dead, and I slowly came back to life. I am here tonight, standing up here talking to you, because you people saved my life.” And this story was indeed a perfect example of a man whose life had in many ways ended…who was no longer fully alive, and who had come back to life. And so it was that those gathered that night were “practicing resurrection” as Wendell Berry asks us to do, and as the life of Jesus embodies…that Paschal Mystery available in each, sacred moment of our lives. And you see, dear one’s, those souls had chosen not to remain trapped behind the locked doors of their addictions—a living death cut off from relationship. They had chosen to be in the community, out in the open. And to do this, they had to face with brutal honesty—a searching, fearless, and unrelenting moral inventory— the truth of what had kept them imprisoned. I found myself moved and inspired by this connection of relationships, and I understood my friend better too…and I understood the power of the Paschal Mystery of Easter a bit more clearly: that in the phrase “one day at a time” we see the truth of that new life. It was as if we placed our hands in the wounded brokenness of my friend’s soul, and we believed. In Christ, darkness and death has been overcome—is overcome—one day, one moment at a time, here and now. And, we overcome not just any darkness, but the darkness that finds us hidden from ourselves and from relationship with others…the infinite Good Friday deaths of the bondage of addiction, our shadow selves wanted only to be made whole again. Life is a journey, Thomas’ journey and ours. And it is seldom a straight line. In his novel Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry has his protagonist say:

“If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line – starting, say, in the Dark Wood of Error, and proceeding by logical steps through Hell and Purgatory and into Heaven. Or you could take the King’s Highway past the appropriately named dangers, toils, and snares, and finally cross the River of Death and enter the Celestial City. But that is not the way I have done it, so far. I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circling or a doubling back. I have been in the Dark Wood of Error any number of times. I have known something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but not always in that order. The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led – make of that what you will.”  

Jesus felt the deep pain of suffering—his and ours—and through his resulting scars and resurrection, we too can find redemption. We can feel hope, and renewal. Jesus wanted the disciples to see his wounds so that they could understand the resurrection hope those scars represented. To be vulnerable and to tell the bold truth about our lives, including our scars—is uncomfortable and risky, but it is the antidote to the prison of shame and the isolation it breeds. The Good News is that, like Thomas and his brothers and sisters, we too are called to move from times of doubt to moments of grace. And if we have been honest in our doubt, despite the vulnerability of being lost, our decisions of faith will be more honest and clearer and committed as we move along our journeys. To give of ourselves, we must know ourselves—that’s the fearless moral inventory. Yes, “Practice Resurrection,” that wonderful writer Wendell Berry says to us, and every time we choose to do this, the grace-filled Easter story continues. The Nashville alt-country singer songwriter Jason Isbell, whose work I enjoy, has been on his journey in recovery now for several years. In a recent song, his lyrics remind me of Jesus after the resurrection, promising Mary Magdalene, the disciples, and Thomas too, that no matter what, he will never leave us. When I hear these words, I imagine Jesus saying that no matter the doors behind which we may be hiding, he will find us:

I love you like the morning loves the afternoon

Like the prairies love the plains

If you leave me now, I’ll just come running after you

I’ll be the wind behind the rain

When I got home that night, I sent my old friend a message thanking him for the gift of his story, and for inviting me into that sacred space. He sent a text message that read: “Life; Chaos; Recovery; Gratitude.” And I realized that is almost like…I would say it is exactly like the Holy Spirit had been breathed upon us in that locked room, the doors of which had been flung open by the grace of my friend’s story. And when that happens, because we have asked for it, we can co-participate in the compassionate beloved community of God, one day at a time. Amen

Easter Sunday – Bill Harkins

The Gospel: John 20:1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself…

Birds flying high, you know how I feel

Sun in the sky, you know how I feel

Breeze driftin’ on by, you know how I feel

It’s a new dawn

It’s a new day

It’s a new life for me, yeah

It’s a new dawn

It’s a new day

It’s a new life for me, oohAnd I’m feeling good

Good morning, and welcome to this glorious day of the Resurrection! In the Gospel reading for today, we heard one of two Resurrection stories within scripture. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the images are quite similar. In the Gospel of John, the story is in some ways quite different, though the theology they share—the central message of these Gospel texts—is essentially the same; we, too, have been raised with Christ. I want to say a word this morning about both versions and the implications of each for our lives together.

In the Gospel of Luke, we hear what the women at the tomb learn at about this time of day—Jesus is already gone. And since we, too, have been raised with Christ, the question then becomes whether we will miss our resurrection; for it is at the tomb that we discover the truth about ourselves, questions that have occupied our thoughts this season of Lent. At the sight of the empty tomb, we find all these questions coming together as one. To become what we practice, as Jesus teaches on Ash Wednesday, is to become new.     

To recognize the prophetic nature of what it means to follow the prophet Jesus, as we discover at the Transfiguration, is to begin to act differently. To understand, as the farmer did about the fig tree, that life is about slow, untimely and unlikely growth—and not about perfection—is to think in new ways about the nature of our spiritual lives and the potential for redemption in each moment. To love those who are sometimes unlovable, in reckless ways, as does the prodigal parent, is to travel through life with life-giving insight.

Like the women who go to the sepulcher on Easter morning to bless the body, because their lives had been changed, we have been preparing together for six weeks, in various ways, to answer this last, momentous question: Will we ourselves, touched by Jesus, now rise and live life differently? And what is the essence of that difference? It is living into the Christian life as a journey of transformation. Hence, Jesus’ question, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Like the women who went to the tomb expecting to find the grave blocked, we must not allow our fear of grieving our losses blind us to the possibilities, and to silence our hearts. The resurrection to which Easter calls us—our own—asks of us that we prepare to find God where God is by opening ourselves to the world around us with a listening ear, a compassionate heart, a spirit of wonder. This means that we must prepare to be surprised by God in strange places—sometimes in ways that make us uncomfortable. We must allow others to open our hearts to things we do not want to hear. It presumes that we will reach out to the other—stranger though they may be—and seek out Christ in the face of the stranger, especially those relegated to the margins.

Lent is not, therefore, my sisters and brothers, a series of behaviors, but rather a series of questions. Easter is not simply a day of celebration, but a day of decision. In the Resurrection story from the Gospel of John, we see this emphasis on decision borne out in a remarkable way. Faitful, steadfast, resilient Mary Magdalene wants Jesus back as she remembers him, which is so human of course; failing that, she wants his body in a definite place, she wants a grave she can tend. Jesus appears to her in what Rowan Williams, our former Archbishop of Canterbury, calls one of the most moving moments of the whole Bible—and her first instinct is to think yes, he is back as she remembers, yes, she has hold of him after all. He has not disappeared; he has not been taken away to an unknown destination. But Jesus warns Mary: he is being taken away to a destination more unknown than she could imagine. “Do not cling to me,” he tells her. From now on, there will be no truthful way of speaking or thinking of him except as the one who lives alongside the source of all things. These simple words already contain all the mysteries we celebrate when we say the creeds, and when we break the bread of Holy Communion.

Resurrection is not so much a matter of believing things about Jesus as about believing in Jesus. Believing, in this sense, does not consist of giving one’s mental assent to something, but giving one’s heart at a much deeper level. It involves a transformation from having heard about Jesus with the hearing of one’s ear to being in relationship to the spirit of the Living Christ. For ultimately, Resurrection means that Jesus is not a figure of the past: hence the Gospel texts say, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” and “Do not cling to me.” Rather, Jesus is with us, among us, is us, in the form of the church that is the resurrected Body of Christ. This means we cannot have Jesus just on our terms. After the resurrection, with its demonstration that Jesus’ life is as indestructible as God’s life, we simply cannot go back to the Jesus who is humanly familiar, as Mary had wished. And clearly, we can’t have Jesus as a warm memory, a dearly departed whose grave we can visit. Easter asks us to consider where and how we might want to cling, what we are unwilling to grieve, and where we might want to turn away from the journey, what we might be refusing to hear or to see. The Gaelic say that there are ‘thin places’ between heaven and earth. Perhaps it is so that the very young and the very old or the very ill among us recognize this best of all. If we have walked alongside those who are dying, we have watched and listened as visions are experienced and conversations are held with others who have long since died, as though they were gathering right there themselves. Those of us who are still so very bound to this earth cannot see or hear them, but we find ourselves convinced that there is something more in the room than what we can possibly comprehend. And spend time with children, and one soon realizes they notice things we sometimes miss, often, the sacred in the mundane. As the poet David Whyte has written:

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the

conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterablythemselves.

Everything is waiting for you

And yes, there are other times and places, too, when we sense the ‘holy’ in extraordinary ways. When I’m cooking, I feel the presence of my grandmother, who taught me to cook. Every year at the Peachtree Road Race I feel my dear friend Mark, who died of melanoma at age 39 and encouraged me to keep running for us both, running alongside me. Occasionally, running on the trails, I feel the presence of our beloved dog Sadie, whom we lost two years ago, and who loved to run…and on and on, the mystery of those thin spaces in our lives, just as Mary experienced in the garden. Could there have been a place more ‘thin,’ than that first Easter Day when the women made their way to the tomb to find it empty? Although they could hardly believe it and no doubt struggled to find words for it, mustn’t they have known that they were standing in a ‘thin place’ when they were reminded that it was foolish to look for the living among the dead? It is no surprise, of course, that Peter and the other apostles could not take in what the women hurried back to share, even as we shook our heads so long ago to hear the youngest among us point to something so wondrous. And yet, one must believe that they knew there was something more afoot as in Luke’s account, Peter ran to the tomb himself and left somehow changed – amazed at what he had seen.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep.

And so I wonder now, on this Easter Day as we gather in song and praise surrounded by the fragrance of spring and the sounds of beloved hymns, how it is that we will experience these places, our lives now, as ‘thin.’ I wonder how and where heaven will meet earth this year. It is all a mystery, of course. The sort of mystery that words perhaps cannot quite capture. And yet we seek to speak to them still. Like the women at the tomb to so long ago, we, too, have been captured by this mystery and though our words may stumble, how can we not speak of it? And in the speaking? By God’s own doing, perhaps others will find themselves in a ‘thin place’ as well. Oh yes, maybe through our words, heaven will be brought just a little bit closer to earth. Indeed, maybe in the telling, others will sense the presence of the Risen Christ as well. It is so that birth and death, living and dying is fraught with mystery. And how much more mysterious is that which we are called to proclaim on Easter! For you, what words, what stories best capture and convey this mystery? This Gospel text is filled, dear one’s, with abundance from the smallest of things, miraculous transformations, and images of choices that ask of us nothing less than that we exercise our responsibility to choose God’s way—the pearl of great price—which may take us on our own distinctively sacred pilgrimage. Look around you, friends, at the purple coneflower on the trail, the raven tending her nest, the homeless man on the corner, the light in the eyes of your loved ones. Look at your grandmother’s quilts, waving in the breezes of your memory, and use your imagination—that God-given, sacred, imagination, which is the power to creatively engage this world in faith, and considering the Good News. Then pay attention to the nearness of the kingdom of heaven, here, now, and your place in it, the pearl of great price, the treasure in the field. “The Incarnate word is with us,” Wendell Berry wrote, “is still speaking is present, always, yet leaves no sign, but everything that is.”  And ultimately, dear ones, this means that we are the Body of Christ. The incarnation did not end after 33 years. The word did not just momentarily become flesh and dwell among us—it became flesh and continues to dwell among us.

I want to invite us all, in this coming Eastertide and on into Pentecost, to be a good friend to others. As Joan Chittister remindws us, “Mary Magdalene is the woman whom scripture calls by name in a time when women were seldom named in public documents at all. She is, in fact, named fourteen times—more than any other woman in the New Testament except Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus, herself. She is clearly a very important, and apparently a very wealthy woman. Most of all, she understood who Jesus was long before anyone else did and she supported him in his wild, free ranging, revolutionary approach to life and state and synagogue. She was, it seems, the leader of a group of women who “supported Jesus out of their own resources.” And she never left his side for the rest of his life. She was there at the beginning of the ministry. And she was there at the end. She was there when they were following him in cheering throngs. And she was there when they were taking his entire life, dashing it against the stone of synagogue and state, turning on him, jeering at him, shouting for his death, standing by while soldiers poked and prodded him to ignominy. She tended his grave and shouted his dying glory and clung to his soul. She knew him and she did not flinch from the knowing. The “Magdalene factor” as Chittester calls it, especially in friendship, is the ability to know everything there is to know about a person, to celebrate their fortunes, to weather their straits, to chance their enemies, to accompany them in their pain and to be faithful to the end, whatever its glory, whatever its grief. The Magdalene factor is intimacy, that unshakeable immersion in the life of the other to the peak of ecstasy, to the depths of hell. Let’s be that kind of friend, here, to one another, and to those we meet in our work as the Body of Christ in the world…“Practice Resurrection,” our wonderful poet Wendell Berry says. And in the words of Teresa of Avila, “Christ has no body now but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion must look out on the world. Yours are the feet withwhich He is to go about doing good in the world. Yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now. Alleluia, Amen.”

The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day

Almighty and ever living God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

IN the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all…Amen. Grace to you and peace, and greetings on this Palm Sunday. If you are visiting us on this lovely Palm Sunday morning, I bid you welcome. We are glad you are here. As my time among you comes to a close, I am so very grateful for this season among you all. It has been a rich and lovely year, and I will miss you all when I take my leave. As I ran on the trails yesterday, I recalled so many moments for which I am grateful, from a wedding in Espanol, to so many wonderful healing services, and all the richness of our liturgical year, now come full circle. There are many reasons for us to celebrate and give thanks for the past year. And as the poet Szymborska has said of what it means to have a soul, what it means, that is, to be human: Joy and sorrow aren’t two different feelings for it. It attends us only when the two are joined.  And this is the essence of Palm Sunday too isn’t it…the journey from a parade to sorrow. There have also been several funerals this past year, including the service for Palmer Temple, my dear friend, mentor, and colleague. And in our tradition, these services are outward and visible signs of Resurrection. We are, after all, Easter people. There is rejoicing, and yet it is so very hard when we lose someone dear to us. And, as I told my students for many years, much pastoral care takes place in Holy Saturday time and space, where we hold in tension the losses and transitions of the infinite Good Friday experiences of our lives and the hope and promise of Easter. And Palm Sunday and the journey to Jerusalem prepare us for the narrative of the Triduum. We must be prepared to sit in the uncertainty and ambiguity of Holy Saturday, to be there, to be present to all that is calls forth in us. And we cannot do this by skipping from Palm Sunday to Easter. The journey to Easter begins here, and now. What we need is here. And we have Mary Magdalene as one among our guides. All four gospels bear witness to Mary Magdalene as the premier witness to the resurrection – alone or in a group, but in all cases named by name. . . All four gospels insist that when the other disciples are fleeing, Mary Magdalene stands firm. As Cynthia Bourgeault as said, “she does not run, she does not betray or lie about her commitment, she witnesses.” But why, one wonders, do the Holy Week liturgies tell and re-tell Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus, while the steady, unwavering witness of Magdalene is not even noticed? How would our understanding of the Paschal Mystery change if the role of Magdalene was acknowledged? What if, instead of emphasizing that Jesus died alone and rejected, we reinforced that one stood by him and did not leave? For surely, this other story is as deeply and truly there in the scripture as is the first. How would this change the emotional timbre of the day? How would it affect our feelings about ourselves? About the place of women in the church? About the nature of redemptive love?”

Some have used the term “glittering sadness” to describe Palm Sunday. There is such unbearable beauty, and such pain, today. Jesus is hailed as king, and winds up as a slave; he will empty himself, accepting torture and execution at the hands of humans with total forgiveness. He will love us to the end. As the hymn says: See, from his head, his hands, his feet; sorrow and love flow mingled down…Sitting with my student and his family at Columbia Presbyterian last week, I understood in a new way how sorrow and love flow mingled down.  Palm Sunday reveals the passion, the sorrow and the love intermingled at the heart of all our lives. It forces us to choose how we will arrive at the cross: bearing that pain together, or using it to separate ourselves from others. Richard Rohr has suggested that the road to Jerusalem leads to a “bright sadness.”There is darkness, he says, but as we go through Holy Week there is now a changed capacity to hold it with less anxiety. It is what John of the Cross called “luminous darkness,” and it explains the simultaneous coexistence of deep suffering and intense joy that we see in the saints, which is hard for most of us to imagine. Palm Sunday helps us learn that after we take this journey, now we are just here, and here is enough. Such “hereness,” however, has its own heft, authority, and influence. As a result of this journey, one’s growing sense of infinity and spaciousness is no longer found just “out there” but most especially “in here,” in our heart, because Christ has become a part of who we are, too. The inner and the outer become one. As St. Augustine put it in his Confessions: You were within, but I was without. You were with me, but I was not with you. So you called, you shouted, you broke through my deafness, you flared, blazed, and banished my blindness, you lavished your fragrance, and I gasped.

The great poet W.H. Auden was asked once why he was a Christian, since all religions share similar ethical values. And Auden said, “Because nothing in the figure of Buddha or Confucius fills me with the overwhelming desire to scream, “’crucify him’.”  The desire to crucify is the way of the crowd. A crowd has the power to make people feel less alone in the face of death. This is why crowds are always at the heart of the violence done by religions and rulers. It is the shadow side of each of us.

Sigmund Freud knew how very seductive the mentality of the group, or the crowd can be: it makes and shapes our worldly identities, often through violence, casting-out and separation—relegating people to the status of the “other.” It lets us say, as Jesus’ own disciples will soon say: “That man? I don’t know him; he’s not one of us.” The crowd helps frightened, isolated individuals identify with the power of Caesar, the power of the temple, the nation, the tribe….the power, as my colleague Walter Brueggemann has said, of empire. The crowd allows prideful humans even to attempt to take the place of God: deciding who to judge, who to punish, who to scapegoat, who to cast out, who to punish out of a need for retribution. And so often we go to the cross, isolated in our pain. But we do not have to walk to the cross alone, we do not have to suffer alone, and this is what Palm Sunday is about. Look, Jesus says: this is how you do it. And so, in this glittering, bright sadness, we take up our cross, and follow him. I invite us all into a journey rich in story, ours, and His. Holy Week is a week of stories. It is a week during which we walk – liturgically, spiritually, communally, personally – on the road to Jerusalem, and on through the last days of Jesus. From the triumphal palm-laid path into Jerusalem we observe today, to the moon-lit agony of Gethsemane, to the sharp betrayal of friends, to the poignant washing of feet, to the arrest and execution of a beloved teacher and leader, this story needs no embellishment. It is an invitation to us. And so I invite you to do as Mary Oliver suggests, to pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it. And as Wendell Berry says, “We pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear. What we need is here.” Amen.

Fifth Sunday in Lent – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day – Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 12:1-8  Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

In the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all…Amen. Good morning and welcome to Holy Family on this Fifth Sunday in Lent as we near the end of our 40-day sojourn toward Easter. Thank you for being here today, and if you’re visiting us, welcome!

One day in early summer, many years ago, I was home from college and visiting my grandparents at their small farm in North Georgia. Their small house was perched on a hill beneath a lovely grove of ancient oak trees, with an open field off the front porch, and gardens to either side. My grandfather hung a hammock between two of the oak trees, and it was among my favorite places. On this day I recall dozing in the hammock after lunch, afloat on a sea of summer breezes and dappled oak leaf shadows, and smells from the garden, sung to sleep by the birds that my grandparents faithfully fed. As I awoke, the first image I saw was my grandmother’s handmade quilts, 5 or 6 of them, hanging on the clothesline nearby, airing out in the dear, sweet summer freshness of the country air. Although I had grown up with her lovingly crafted quilts, had slept beneath them on long winter nights, it was as if in that instant I saw them for the first time. Created from scraps of old ties, shirts, patches on patches on pants, and even the occasional vivid scrap of discarded dishcloth, they were ablaze with color and design, and appeared on fire in the summer morning sun, reflecting back a light that seemed to generate from each individual design, each carefully chosen, yet lovingly random addition to the whole cloth. These works of art, and I now realize that is what they are, were created of the ordinary bits and pieces of their lives—everyday scraps of common experience—and woven into a delightful, Incarnational narrative, a tapestry of care, and love.

Like the Gospel text for today, those quilts, even now as I hold them in my mind’s eye, remind me of the abundance of God’s love, into which we live during this season of Lent. Before that summer day I had never noticed—never really seen—those quilts for what they were, the carefully, compassionately crafted and redeemed tapestries of my grandmother’s love of life, and her love for us, a reflection of her ability to create outward and visible signs of her imaginative gifts and graces to warm us, and delight us. So it is with Mary in today’s Gospel. Every time she appears in each of the gospels, her compassion opens Jesus’ heart, and the texts are informed by her gracious abundance. I am the father of two sons of whom I am so very proud, and now four grandchildren, two of whom are girls. I am so grateful for the men who have mentored, guided, and shaped me; teachers and professors, football and track coaches, priests and colleagues who served as guides on the journey. But I have also been profoundly formed by the lavish, abundant love of maternal compassion, the cardinal virtue of pastoral care, by women like my grandmother who have loved and cared for me. Compassion, the Latin root of which means “womb-ish” or “womb-like,” is a powerful image in today’s Gospel text. And I believe that God’s abundant love is like the nurture and care of the womb, where we are sustained and nourished, and from which loving embrace we are given life. So, Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, with whom she shares a home, embodies that generous, extravagant compassion in this story. We know that on at least two occasions, Jesus comes here for dinner, including today’s story. The Last supper will ultimately be held here, too. And Jesus appears on Easter to the disciples in Mary’s home. There is no other place in which Jesus appears as often as he does in this sacred space.     

But even more remarkable is the complexity of the relationship he shares with Mary, how he so clearly cares for her, and in relation to whose actions he finds meaning and solace. She sits at his feet among the men to be near him, and to learn from him. Her sister Martha complains Mary is neglecting the work of serving food and drink to their guests. Jesus defends her, saying she has chosen the good portion and it will not be taken away from her. Nor, it seems, will she be taken away from him. When her brother Lazarus is desperately ill, Jesus, hears the news from his disciples, and takes the time to journey to their home. Lazarus dies before he arrives. Martha goes to him in the road with words of regret, even reproach, but also, resignation. Mary, though, runs to him and falls at his feet, bathed in tears, her sobs breaking his heart. And he, too, weeps – his tears brought forth by her compassion. His heart wells up in response to Mary, and for her, he rushes to Lazarus’ grave, calling him with such spiritual power to “Come Out,” that Lazarus does just that. Now we read the tale of Jesus’ arrival at their home six days before Passover. He will be their guest for a week. They throw a feast in his honor. Lazarus is there, resurrected just days earlier. Mary brings out a jar of costly perfume, made with pure nard, we are told, and anoints his head, his hair, and then, using her own hair, his feet. All in the room are joined in an embrace of fragrance. And, we hear that Judas is angry and, as he says, the extravagance of the gesture bothers him. He declares the perfume could have been sold for a large sum and used to feed the poor.

Jesus protects and defends her. “Leave her alone!,” Jesus says to Judas; “You will always have the poor, but you will not always have me.”

There is no one else in the gospels for whom Jesus feels so tender, is so responsive, speaks so protectively, and with whom he chooses to be a frequent guest. We know the most astonishing of his miracles, the raising of Lazarus, for which miracle John says the authorities chose to kill him, was done for love of her. And according to Luke, Jesus declared she would be remembered always, for doing a beautiful thing for him, for anointing his hair and feet with her perfume. In today’s gospel, we are treated to two different ways of being in the world; two examples of how one might confront scarcity. And as is so often true of the Bible, it contains wisdom for the ages. We humans are consistent down through history, and we see this in both the Pharisees – and eventually, the Roman authorities – who feel their fiefdoms threatened, and in the face of loss of control they choose to tighten their grip. God save us from those things we choose to do based on our need to control, especially when we are afraid. And, of course, women are so often victims of this. By plotting to kill Jesus, they hope to stop their sense of helplessness in its very tracks by asserting what control they can. Mary, on the other hand, has a different approach. We don’t know exactly what she is feeling when she slips from the table and kneels at Jesus’ feet with a pound of expensive perfumed oil. However, her silence says all that is needed. In gratitude for her brother’s life, in grief for her friend’s life, perhaps in fear for what might happen in the near future, she is silent. So, instead of speaking, she lavishes Jesus with an absurdly abundant gift: perfume that would cost as much as a year’s total wages. This is a profound gesture of abundance. John tells us that the whole room filled with fragrance as Mary anointed Jesus. In this little story, we see that there are at least two ways of dealing with ours fears born of scarcity: we can seek control in ways that ultimately keep us in bondage, or we can give all we’ve got.

I confess that in some ways I understand Judas and his theology of scarcity. Many of us have probably been here before. We have found ourselves uncomfortable in the face of generosity, and criticized it in order to limit its power. We’ve also probably stood alongside Mary. We have allowed ourselves to give to our heart’s content – to lavish our love on someone or something else – only to have our motives questioned. When this happens, we can become afraid to risk it happening again. Sometimes our culture – and perhaps our human nature – pressures us to only take measured risks, and of course, in many ways this is wise. But God calls us to love without counting the cost. As George Herbert, poet and priest, has said:

“Lord I have invited all,

And I shall

Still invite, still call to thee:

For it seems but just and right

In my sight,…

Where there is all, there all should be.”

It could be a brave new Lenten discipline to engage the final days of this season as Mary would: to love generously, because we can; to give life our impulse to give abundantly, just as God gives abundantly. This Gospel text is in fact, my friends, Jesus’ anointing and preparation for death, the anointing for his burial.  So here in this moment John is giving us a glimpse into what our relationship towards gratitude might be as informed by the faith of Mary. I am so very grateful for the example of my grandmother, whose quilts were outward and visible signs of her abiding love for her family. They covered us in times of joy and sadness, and the love they represented lives on in my heart—and I am sharing that with all of you, right now. It helps me to understand the extravagance of Mary’s love for Jesus and, in turn, his love for us all. In her quiet and devoted imaginative quilting, my grandmother pointed to something larger than herself, just as Mary, in anointing Jesus, draws our attention to the one whom she anoints. I am so grateful for Mary’s example too, for the gift of her extravagant and life-giving example of compassion, and generosity. She reminds us that Jesus is God’s gift to each of us, right here, right now. It seems, dear one’s, that in so many ways we are in a time of perceived scarcity and fear, and surrounded by the behavior to which these give birth. And yet, Mary’s gestures here, and throughout scripture, gathered together like the redeemed and resurrected scraps of fabric in my grandmother’s quilts, are an invitation to go and do likewise. I think back across the years to that summer morning, and I know that my Grandmother’s love lives in my heart and continues to expand like the universe we inhabit, God’s gift to us all. Just as our Eucharistic table is a place of grace, and compassion where even Judas would be welcome—and remember that he, too, stayed for dinner —we find extravagant gifts of compassion and grace. Mary does not say a word in this text beyond her actions, which speak volumes. Her gift is the anointing of Jesus, and this says so much more than any words could. As another Mary, another of my maternal teachers and mentors has said so well:

Lord, I will learn also to kneel down

Into the world of the invisible,

The inscrutable, and the everlasting.

Then I will move no more than the leaves of a tree

On a day of no wind,

Bathed in light

Like the wanderer who has come home at last

And kneels in peace, done with all unnecessary things;

Every motion; even words. Amen.