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Saturday 12/24 5pm: Christmas Eve early service Saturday 12/24 10:30pm: Choral & Instrumental Prelude of Christmas Music Saturday 12/24 11pm: Christmas Eve Festival Eucharist with Choir, Organ, and Brass Sunday 12/25 9am: Christmas Day service Sunday 1/1 8am and 9:30am: New Year's Day/The Holy Name Holy Eucharist Join the church's e-mail list to receive the most up to date information!
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Sermons Sermon for Easter Sunday [Texts: Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; John 20:1-18] Alleluia! The Lord is risen!! This is an amazing affirmation. How is it we go from the death of Jesus, the shame of all the betrayals, and the scandal of the cross on Friday to the event of Jesus’s resurrection, to his triumph over the power of death today? The exsultet that begins the Easter Vigil our deacon chanted last night is radiant with this great rejoicing: “Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels, and let your trumpets shout Salvation for the victory of our mighty King.” But tell that to the Jewish authorities. Tell that to the average citizen of Jerusalem of the time or today, tell that to many citizens of Pemberton, and I suspect it would be met with indifference. Tell that to a person living with the aftereffects of years of abuse during childhood and adolescence and you might be met with hostility and rage, a predictable response for someone who has been shamed and abandoned. Our presiding bishop in her Easter letter describes her conversation with the Bishop of Haiti right before Lent began – he told her that his people would have to practice saying Alleluia so that by the time Easter came they might actually be able to say it with joy. For whatever reason, Jesus appeared following his death to a small number of disciples and commissioned them, having promised them that he would send the Holy Spirit, to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. In the Acts of the Apostles we see this expansion, this evangelism, in process: Peter tells Cornelius and the other Gentiles about Jesus: “We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” In this way, by God’s choosing of us who are here today, we are destined to participate in the continuing revelation of God. We have a noble calling that the world regards as folly—this is our call to share in the priesthood of Christ through our baptisms, to be bearers of the holy and to be agents of hope for others, and to be joyful in Christ. This calling to some and not all is, of course, a mystery, just as why the Hebrew people were chosen by God is a mystery – a mystery by any standards except, of course, those of love. The accounts of the Resurrection in our scriptures are scanty, perhaps in deference to what the writers and those they rely on have witnessed and experienced. Perhaps in the decades following the event they are still trying to understand something that is incomprehensible to mortals like themselves. Their language does not describe the glory, the victory in such clear terms. I think it takes an embodied community in Christ to glimpse it. It’s only as the miracle continues to unfold, it’s only as people encounter the risen Christ and ponder with others who he is that they remember – remember his presence after his death, remember his promises, and are empowered to live them in hope and confidence that they are true as they encounter him again and again, as he promised, as they gather in his name. In our gospel for today, it was Mary, in grief over the seeming theft of Jesus’ body, who first encounters Jesus. Simon Peter and the other disciple come to investigate after she runs to them with her news. The two men arrive and see the linen wrappings lying there and the cloth that had surrounded Jesus’s head. The two men have apparently seen the same thing – one is recorded as having some sort of belief that something has happened and Peter not yet. They return to their homes. Mary stays there weeping, sees the angels in the tomb, and tells them of her despair – “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.” It is only then that she encounters Jesus behind her, mistaking him for a gardener until her calls her by name. In this gospel, a weeping woman filled with grief is the first to testify: “I have seen the Lord.” Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the
Episcopal Church, writes in her Easter message: “In the midst of grief and
darkness, it can be exceedingly difficult to believe that resurrection is a
possibility….We are not born with the ability to insist on resurrection
everywhere we turn. It takes the discipline and repetition that forms an
athlete – in this case, a spiritually fit Christian. We practice our faith
because we must – it withers and atrophies unless it’s stretched. We must
continue to give evidence of the faith that is within us. Easter prods and
provokes us with an immense stretching exercise. God has renewed a life given
to the evil of this world on behalf of those with no other helper. That
earth-shattering and tomb-shattering rebirth has planted the seeds of hope in
each one of us. Yet those seeds do not produce fruit without struggle. The
people of Haiti are finding new life in the midst of death and struggle. As a nation
and a people they have repeatedly practiced resurrection through centuries of
slavery, oppression, invasion, corruption, and privation. ..They know, deep in
their cultural DNA, that God is continually bringing new life out of death. Yet
each person must discover and nurture that hope. It is made far easier in
community. The shared hope of a community is essential.” She continues: “The Christian community is about shared hope in resurrection….The Christian community is meant to be a mutual hope society, with each one offering courage to another whose hope has waned, insisting that even in the darkest of night, new life is being prepared. That work is constant – it will not end until the end of all things. And still the community persists, year in and year out, in time of earthquake and war and flood, in time of joy and new birth and discovery. Together we can shout, ‘Alleluia, he is risen! Indeed, he is risen, Alleluia!’ even when some among us are not quite so confident as others. For indeed, the body of Christ is rising and risen when even a small part of it can rejoice and insist that God is renewing the face of the earth and light has dawned upon us. Alleluia! Keep practicing that joyful shout. Someone needs to hear its truth. Alleluia!” As we gather around our tables for our Easter dinners today, let us dispense as best we can with what the world gives us for Easter that would undermine its mystery and joy. Let us focus instead at the amazing love of God in sending us a Son to be God with us and to promise us everlasting life. Let us ponder the amazing story of our faith in Jesus Christ and the hope with which we live. In and through Christ, let us rejoice and proclaim for ourselves and for others who do not yet know Christ “Alleluia. The Lord is risen, indeed. “ Amen. © 4 April 2010 by Jane Tanaskovic Brady Sermon for 21st Sunday after Pentecost [Texts: Psalm 34:1-8; Mark 10:46-52] We had a delightful toddler with us for part of our flea market yesterday. To my surprise, he seemed fascinated with me. Maybe it was simply the Turkish scarf I was wearing, but I like to think that on some level he sensed the deep resonance I felt with him. Like him, I was a shy child, the sort who watches others quietly, taking in rather than putting out, sometimes making judgments. To be honest, I should also confess that an early experience of being shamed as a toddler after unacceptable behavior on my part also led me to spend a good part of my early years in a sort of hiding. Most early photos show me averting my gaze from the camera, hiding behind others, slouching, unable to claim and occupy fully my physical space. I was reminded of this when the mother of a friend who had not seen me in over 30 years startled me with her observation about some photos I had sent her from my ordination to the priesthood. She said that I looked very much as I had in college, except that I was no longer hiding behind my hair. I don’t think this is simply because it’s a couple of feet shorter. So, the psalm for today describes a central portion of my spiritual journey in its fifth verse: “Look upon him and be radiant, and let not your faces be ashamed.” It was the one I chose to be read at my previous ordination in the Presbyterian Church. Over the
years I worked hard on overcoming this and what I regarded as other serious
deficiencies or handicaps, whether obvious or hidden. I volunteered as a DJ at
two FM radio stations in But I don’t believe that anyone, including myself, could have predicted that I would have a profession that involves public speaking and chanting or that I would become so glib in my speech at times. Perhaps glib speech is not huge when you consider the problems of the world. Dishonest or untruthful speech, of course, is, whether it’s related to international crises or political elections. But every once in a while I am taken up short by an encounter with a person, one whose speech comes from a far deeper and soulful place than too many of my own words, and whose face is radiant with the light of God. Maybe it’s happened to you, as well. You suddenly encounter a person—such as our bishop, in my experience-- who is seeing you from the depth of his or her soul, listening from such a centered place, and inviting you to respond. Jewish theologian Martin Buber describes two modes of speech in his classic I-Thou. One is “I-Thou” a relation of subject-to-subject in which humans are aware of each other as being deeply related. The other is “I-It,” a relation of expedience, of subject-to-object. In the “I-Thou” relationship, human beings do not perceive each other as consisting of specific, isolated qualities, but engage in a dialogue involving each other's whole being in holy interactions. At times, I have found myself virtually speechless, as I struggle to adjust to such an amazing invitation from another to be myself, to be the person God has created me to be, the person God loves simply as I am. Through these individuals, I have an inkling of the kind of holy speech that Christians are called to and the stillness and love and lack of ego out of which their words are formed. When I live in this awareness, I begin to understand why Christ is called the Word of God. In our story of Jesus and Bartimaeus, we find precisely this I-Thou relationship at work. It’s not so different today than in the time of the bible, as people are described by what limits and isolates and even shames them (e.g. the blind, the lame), as opposed to what binds all of us together as children of God in a mystical unity. Jesus sees Bartimaeus, described simply as a blind beggar and presumably someone he does not know, as the complete person that he is. While his blindness may be as obvious to Jesus as to everyone else, Jesus doesn’t assume that this is his main problem or identity. He asks him the very same question he asked two of his closest disciples: “What do you want me to do for you?” And Bartimaeus is given the grace to not be silenced by those who would make him ashamed as they speak sternly to him, as if this blind beggar has no right to speak to Jesus. He speaks even more loudly, shouting out boldly. When Jesus responds to him, he spring up, throwing off his cloak, a garment perhaps that hid him in the past, as he reaches toward the light of Christ and then begins the way of following Jesus, now a new man. As the psalmist writes: “Look upon him and be radiant, and let not your faces be ashamed.” Let us pray: Loving God, your will for us and for all creation is to be healed. Give us the courage to throw off whatever binds us in shame and doubt, whatever causes us to see ourselves and others as diminished rather than your beloved children. Help us reach toward your light – not for ourselves alone, but to give glory to you and to honor all whom you have made in love. Amen. 25 October 2009 by Jane Tanaskovic Brady |