A New Heart

Easter Day 2016; Luke 24:1-12; St. Paul’s Smithfield, 3/27/2016

Jim Melnyk: “A New Heart”

Hear, then, a parable of the kingdom of heaven: The kingdom of heaven is as if a person had a heart that had slowly turned to stone over the years – hard, sharp and flinty, with barely a perceptible beat deeply within.  To affect a cure the surgeon stops the heart’s feeble beating, and takes away the person’s own breath, using a machine to do that vital work.  Taking a scalpel, the surgeon then cuts open the body and removes the heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh – a heart that feels, that cares, and that loves.  Then the surgeon tenderly sows the person’s flesh together and causes the new heart to beat, and returns the patient’s breath to its own body.

Again: The kingdom of God is like a grave where the newly dead has been buried and a great stone rolled across the opening.  Morning comes.  The stone is rolled away.  And the grave is empty.

I wonder what’s more improbable.  Is it that human beings have figured out a way to stop a person’s diseased heart and remove it from the chest cavity – all the while keeping that person “alive” on a machine – and then replace that broken, wounded heart with another heart, one donated by someone who has also just died?  Or is it that the God of all creation – the God who brought all things into being – can somehow reach deeply within us and somehow turn a broken and wounded heart of stone into a living, beating heart of flesh?

I wonder what’s more improbable.  Is it that human beings have figured out how to take a person who has literally died to this world and jump start us back to life?  Or is it that the God of all creation – the God who said “Let there be light” – the God who jump started the whole of creation and said “This is good, this is very good!” –is it that this God can raise from the dead the One whose life and teachings could somehow make broken hearts sing, could make ruined bodies dance, and make shattered spirits soar?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which of these scenarios seem most probable to most 21^st century sojourners.  As Christians we are called to live with a “post-resurrection” mindset – hearing the stories of Easter Day and the days that follow as “folks in-the-know” – as people who have heard and claimed these stories as our own.  But many Christians today live with what Anglican priest Brian McGowan calls a “past-resurrection” mindset.  That is, the idea that it’s time we all move past that kind of a resurrection belief – the belief that something very real and very much experiential happened then, and happens still – in that Easter moment.             

           

And I wonder if it’s possible for 21^st century westerners to breach that modern day taboo against seeing resurrection as real – as only seeing it as fable or fairy tale?  Can we open our imaginations to the possibility that God just might have done something incredibly unique – something incredibly mind-boggling and beyond the ordinary – something uniquely extraordinary in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus then – and therefore in our lives today as well?

In many ways we’ve lost the wonder and power of Easter.  Author Lauren Winner writes: “The shocking claim of resurrection has, of course, been domesticated.  Easter,” she writes, “is too often allegorized into meaninglessness, with seasonal greeting cards, and even sermons that emphasize renewal or hope or rejuvenation.  But,” she concludes, “as Fleming Rutledge once asked, would the disciples really have ‘trembled with [terror and] amazement’ because the flowers bloomed again?” (Sojourners Online, Preaching the Word, 4/12/2009)  The truth is Easter cannot be domesticated and still be Easter.  Easter is a proclamation of life, but it is a dangerous proclamation!  There is nothing tame, or sweet, or sappy about Easter outside the contents of our children’s Easter baskets.

“What the poetry of Isaiah anticipates – [that weary old heaven, jaded old earth, and conflicted old Jerusalem all will be broken open by the power of God to new, healthy possibility] – the early church confesses” (Walter Brueggemann, Sojourners Online, Preaching the Word, 3/27/2016).  The Easter narrative of Luke 24provides us with a heavenly vision and a question that bears consideration to this day: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”  The unasked question to the women hangs in the air: “When will your hearts let your minds believe what you have come to know all along – what Jesus has told you so many times before?”

We spend a great deal of our lives looking for the living among the dead.  No, we don’t hang out in cemeteries peeking under the lids of crypts, but so much of what is dead or dying in this world captures our attention and hijacks our agendas.  God has come among us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth – the risen Christ of God – and we cannot seem to fix our focus on the new heavens and the new earth that God is creating.  Our imaginations – and sometimes even our hearts – are held in thrall by that which is dead or dying – because our 21^st century mindset tells us that something as incredible as resurrection can’t be real – it must be a metaphor.  And who in their right mind gives up status, or power, or wealth, for a metaphor?

The vision of heavenly messengers is enough for the women who come to the tomb – for Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some others – who knows how many women were in that group?  But we know there weren’t any men.  It’s the men, still hiding back in the upper room, who will take some convincing.  And then when Peter finally goes to the tomb and sees that it’s empty – what does he do?  He goes home!  Grabs a cup of coffee and the NY Times…he certainly doesn’t go out and tell anyone the way the women did.

Three nights ago, in an upper room while breaking bread with his friends, Jesus shared with them his last will and testament.  To each of them, Jesus said, “This night I give you my love: this is my body…this is my blood.  This night I give you a new commandment – that you love one another as I have loved you.”  And today the risen Christ continues to say to each of us, “This is my body, this is my blood.  Love one another as I have loved you.”  On that first Easter Day, Jesus took from his friends their broken, hardened, scared and scarred hearts, and gave to them hearts of flesh with which to follow and love. 

We live in a world filled with people who have had their hearts broken – probably most of us have had that happen to us at least once, and a world filled with people who blindly – and many times not so blindly – break people’s hearts – sometimes even in the name of religion – and perhaps we’ve done this ourselves, as well.  The Baptismal Covenant we will proclaim in just a few moments should be our prayer that God will use us to bring healing to this world.  On this Easter Day, the risen Christ will take from us whatever is broken, hardened, scared or scarred, and give to us hearts of flesh – hearts with which to follow and love – hearts which give us the strength to live and to proclaim God’s love.

Attached to God, Part Two

Good Friday 2016; John. 18:1-19:42, St. Paul's, NC; 3/25/16

Jim Melnyk: “Attached to God, Part Two”

The Rev. Lorraine Ljunggren of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Raleigh writes, “How did we get here?  How is it we come to be gathered here in a church in the 21^st century, so long removed from the Jesus story of the first century?  What causes us to stop whatever we are doing to drive or ride here by noon before the Sabbath begins?

Our first answer may be we've been headed here since Ash Wednesday.  That's true enough since our Lenten journey began that day in February.  We might say we've been headed here since the Season of Advent led us to Christmas and the Nativity of Jesus.  That's true enough.  We may also respond that we are continuing a journey outlined by the first Jesus followers formed what we call the church and started remembering what happened on that first Good Friday.

But, more to the point, we must arrive here because we decide, or have decided, at some level to follow Jesus of Nazareth ourselves.  What does it mean that in the following we end up here?  And are absolutely positive we're ready to follow when this service ends?”

As twenty-first century Jesus-followers we have an edge that those first disciples did not on this terrible day.  True, they had Jesus with them – fully present in the most tangible of ways – yet they also had the uncertainty of the day.  They knew the power of Rome. They knew public opinion of Jesus, and therefore of them, had taken a horrible turn.  And even having received the encouragement and promise of Jesus that God had something so much greater in the works, they couldn’t begin to conceive of Easter Day in their hearts.  We know the story.  We’ve been on this journey since long before Advent and Christmas – we’ve been on this journey since the first moment we felt the waters of Holy Baptism move across our brows.

And still we struggle with what it means to follow Jesus.  Still we struggle with what it means to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength – to be as Edward Hays describes it, fully attached to God, and to God’s design for the perfection of the world.  Still we struggle with what it means to love Jesus – to be fully attached to Jesus and his vision of the new Reign of God – the kingdom of God – now, on earth, as it is in heaven.  Still we struggle with what it means to love our neighbor, and to love the sojourner – the stranger – the alien, who lives among us and with us – to be fully attached to one another in a way that seeks and serves Christ in all persons and honors the dignity of every human being (Edward Hays, The Lenten Labyrinth, p. 110).

We struggle with what it means to be in love with God, Jesus, and one another – to be fully attached to one another and to God – we struggle because we know that the cross is all too real – and we know what happens to people who stand for the Good News of God in the ways that Jesus stood – before Caiaphas – before Pilate – before an angry mob.

Which brings us finally to this place today – this place with dried, discarded palm branches in a space devoid of all Sunday splendor.  We come knowing that Good Friday is real – as real today as it was two thousand years ago.  We come, I hope, seeking God’s hope – God’s promise for us – for our lives.  We come with perhaps a bit of fear and anxiety over what it truly means to be a Jesus-follower – and perhaps with a glimmer of hope that with God’s help we can pull it off.  With a glimmer of hope that God’s final word of love will finally prevail in a world that doesn’t seem too attached to love.

“How did we get here?” asks Lorraine Ljunggren.  “We got here by way of love; a life-giving for all – liberating for all – love.  The love of God we experience in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Amen.

Attached to God

Maundy Thursday 2016; John 13:1-17, 31b-35; St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC 3/24/2016

Jim Melnyk: “Attached to God”

I would like to share with you a passage from Edward Hay’s book, Lenten Labyrinth.  Speaking about what he refers to as Holy Thursday – what we call Maundy Thursday – Hays writes, “Love is a word that evokes images of great affection, but to those of the Near Eastern world of Jesus it had less a connotation of passionate affection than of attachment.  To love God with all your heart, mind and body was to be totally attached to God – and to God’s design for the perfection of the world.  To love Jesus is to be likewise attached to him and his vision of the new Reign of God – [the Kingdom of Heaven,] a global community of unity, peace and justice.  To love one another means being attached – with great depth and devotion – to your brothers and sister of the family of Christ” – to which I’ll add, attached with great devotion to those beyond the Body of Christ – to everyone who bears the image of God engraved within.

That night at supper, Jesus took a loaf of bread – just like at any other Jewish meal – gave thanks to God, broke it, and passed it to his friends.  But he added something to his prayer.  “This is my body – take and eat this in remembrance of me.”  After supper he took the traditional cup of blessing.  But he added something to his prayer.  “This is my blood which is poured out on behalf of the world – drink it in remembrance of me.”

The word remembrance means so much more than simply recalling something – like where we placed our keys.  It means “to make present with us.”  At the Passover Seder Jews in every generation recall themselves as a part of the first Passover and the exodus that followed.  “When we – not our ancestors – when we were slaves in Egypt….”  When we break bread together we are present with Jesus and his followers in the upper room that night.  And Jesus is here with us in this holy place.  We do indeed receive the body and blood of Jesus.  It may still be bread and wine to all our senses, but the truth that is at its center – the underlying reality of what we take into ourselves – is truly the very presence of Christ.

As we break bread together we remember “[How we are] bound together by feasting at the Lord's table. ... In this shared meal, [we] become sisters and brothers in Christ. In this moment, they venture out from behind the scenes of privacy and solitude, out of the fragmentation that characterizes their lives. The Eucharist is the great Christian equalizer. All come hungry, yearning to be fed of God; all leave filled, fed on God's love” (Ellen T. Charry).

But as Christians we are bound together – attached to one another and to God – in more than this holy meal.

As that holy meal came to a close, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come, got up from the table….

When Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, when he washed his betrayer’s feet, he was doing so much more – he was washing humanity’s feet.  He was washing your feet.  He was washing my feet.  He was washing our feet.  He washed the feet of every single human being who ever was, who now is, and who is yet to come. 

And I cannot help but think, knowing the fullness of humanity’s struggle to love one another and to love God, I can’t help but think that as Jesus knelt at his disciples’ feet, his tears mixed with the water he used to loving wash them.  He wept, I believe, not just out of fear of what was soon to come – and not simply out of sorrow for the world’s brokenness – but out of deep love for all humanity – out of deep love for us.

When we wash one another’s feet, just as when we break bread together in Christ’s name, it’s an act of anamnesis: we are made present with Jesus and his followers in an upper room on that important night.  And Christ is made present with us in this holy space tonight.

Through the sacramental acts of washing feet and breaking bread we begin to find ourselves totally attached to one another and to God.  To receive the body and blood of Christ, this night and always, we begin to find ourselves totally attached to Jesus and his vision of the kingdom.

These Sacramental acts are indeed Jesus’ Last Will and Testament” to us – his commandment for us to love one another as he loves us.

On Easter Day we will renew our Baptismal Covenant once again. We will promise that when we sin, we will repent and return to the Lord.  We will promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves, we will promise to work for justice and peace for all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.  My hope – my prayer – is that we learn to pray the words rather than simply recite them.

None of these words – “love one another, do this in remembrance of me, respect the dignity of every human being,” none of these words are new for us.  But remembering those words, and acting them out – how we love one another – how we love God – how we love the sojourner, the stranger, among us – living these things can and will make us new.