Triduum 2010, part III: Easter Vigil

Holy Saturday is a nebulous festival in the eyes of many people. It's that random little day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, where presumably God is doing stuff, but we don't really know what to do.

And isn't it actually the case that we are impatient people, especially when we are waiting for others do something?

Consider for a moment that God is indeed working, actually always at work, in your life, my life, and all the other lives. So take a day to reflect on that, to remember your baptism, where God poured out the Holy Spirit on your form. Reflect on God's work today, even though you may not be seeing it now, for the effects are long lasting.

Triduum 2010, part II: Good Friday

Go to dark Gethsemane, ye that feel the tempter’s power;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see, watch with Him one bitter hour,
Turn not from His griefs away; learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

See Him at the judgment hall, beaten, bound, reviled, arraigned;
O the wormwood and the gall! O the pangs His soul sustained!
Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; learn of Christ to bear the cross.

Calvary’s mournful mountain climb; there, adoring at His feet,
Mark that miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete.
“It is finished!” hear Him cry; learn of Jesus Christ to die.

Early hasten to the tomb where they laid His breathless clay;
All is solitude and gloom. Who has taken Him away?
Christ is risen! He meets our eyes; Savior, teach us so to rise.

Triduum 2010, part I: Holy Thursday Sermon

In 1582, Charles IX changed the calendar. Previously, the new year was celebrated the last week of March, culminating in a celebration on the first of April. Charles IX adopted the Gregorian Calendar, which, among other changes, moved the start of the year from April first to January first. Because of the lack of continuity in communications at the time, the word of the change took years to reach some places, and even then, there were some who refused to change the date of the new year, and would continue to celebrate on the first of April. According to tradition, these confused folks were called April Fools, and would find themselves recipients of pranks, including invited to nonexistent “new year’s” parties. This April Fools Day tradition is believed to have evolved into the prank playing festival that delights children and adults even today.

[Pause]

As we enter into the end of this Holy Week, the culmination of our Lenten journey, does any of this start to sound like an elaborate April Fools joke? This person who had no hope of ever meeting us, at least not physically, died for us.  And, to make it even better, this person is GOD. This is Jesus, God’s own self made human, kneeling before us, washing our feet, feeding us the ultimate food. [looking around] April Fools?

I wonder how confused the disciples were that day. They may have been used to things like, "Go into town and follow the man with the water and ask the owner if we can stay there." But then, in the middle of the meal, after such an exciting entry into the city earlier in the week, while maybe expecting Jesus to start teaching as usual, things take a turn.  “This is my body given for you.” “This is the new covenant in my blood.”

Say what, Jesus?

Perhaps we are foolish ones. We eat bread and drink wine and call it the body and blood of God. We go through our mortal lives, living in the world, suffering the sufferings of the world, believing in a God who has done the same.

In First Corinthians, just a few chapters before our reading today, Paul writes, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” [pause] Now, Paul was writing specifically to a church whose default secular position was that Jesus was a wimp for serving others and being killed, and that any god who would become human and suffer was surely also wimpy. But Paul’s message holds true still today. The message of salvation in the cross has power for us who “are being saved.”

Consider that phrase. “We who are being saved.” [In the Greek, that verb is a present passive participle and translating would be a lot easier without it. But our lives would be nothing without this grammatical construction.] We are not people who were once saved, or people who will be saved, or who might be saved IF we do “our part.” We are people who are being saved. Right now. Being saved. [pause] That makes this meal we celebrate and share something quite different than a foolish celebration of things past and a God who once was with us. This is the meal of the God who is  being  with  us.

The foolishness is the world’s view, not ours. The world teaches us that we look out for ourselves. IF we do this, IF we do that, IF we just show up, push forward, reach the goal, get the work done, check off our list of things to do, THEN we will be successful,  justified,  righteous.

But, this is the world’s view. We are, at every moment, by God’s boundless grace, being saved. And we know this misalignment between these two views. We are aware of our situation from the world’s view and we see it, too. We question the foolishness, we continually ask “What does this mean?” as Martin Luther does in the Small Catechism. And we question for ourselves the rationale behind bread and wine, because that is our nature as worldly creatures.

[pause]

So what does this mean, this shared meal that the world finds incomprehensible? What does it mean living in the world and finding things a little odd from time to time ourselves? Do we see the foolishness, or do we ignore the world’s promptings? What does it mean to proclaim the “powerful message of the cross”?

[pause]

It means that we are sinners! We cannot simultaneously proclaim that Christ died for us, and take on the world’s view that we are not in need of salvation, or that we can get salvation done on our own. We fail. There is no such thing as “good enough” for God, except through God’s own marvelous gift of grace, through God’s incarnation, through God’s sharing of this meal with us.

We sin. We are April Fools. We fail to recognize the God in front of us. No, I take that back. We cannot stand the God in front of us. We plot to kill the God in front of us.

[PAUSE]

So here we are, Holy Thursday again, only a few more days until the Easter rush: baskets, candy, family, feasting. And we know what's coming next. Tomorrow’s Good Friday, then there’s Saturday and then Sunday, Easter, when we celebrate. We know the routine by now. Death, then resurrection. Death, then resurrection.

Do we still not see our own foolishness? To believe, year after year, that though we DIE to sin, we come BACK TO LIFE because of Christ's sacrifice? Is this not the most foolish of foolishnesses?

And Yet. This IS the God that we worship. This is what we celebrate, Sunday after Sunday, year after year, foolish though it may be to the world, because within its very foolishness, the cross brings all forgiveness and redemption. In a few moments we will share together the Lord's Supper, the most foolish meal of them all on this day that we remember especially the first Last Supper. We will receive, into our very physical beings, Christ, who died for us.

Right here, we heard it just a few minutes ago: He says "This is my body given for you." For you. YOU. And you can't tell in the English, but that's a plural YOU. In Greek class we translate it “y’all.” This is given for y’all. You ALL. Not just the people next to you, not just those who do “enough” or help out the most or sit in the front, not just the ones who pray the hardest, read the Bible the most, smile the best and most often. For each and every single one of us.

[pause] And we find ourselves asking, “What does this mean?” [pause]

It means we are forgiven!

We who continually turn away, who can never DO enough, who KILL the God in front of us, are forgiven, by that very God’s grace. Not because we do anything but because that is what God does through Christ. God. Loves. Us. God Forgives. Us.

This is not mere foolishness, it is the foolishness that comes with a grace that only God can give, a grace that surpasses all human understanding, a grace that we do nothing to deserve, a grace that we celebrate, a grace that we eat.

Because we are April Fools. The world tells us that we are stuck in foolishness, that the calendar has changed: Christmas is toys, Easter is rabbits laying rainbow eggs, salvation is success and the things we do. But the cross says NO! to the world and that method of redemption and so we embrace that which the world calls foolish: a God made human, dying for us on the cross. And we eat of bread and wine that is God’s Word, Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Post Christmas Sermon

December 27, 2009
Lessons and Carols Service

First Reading: Isaiah 60:1-6 (The Epiphany Prophecy)
Carol: The First Noel, vs. 1,3, and 5

Second Reading: Matthew 2:1-12 (The Visit of the Wise Men)
Carol: We Three Kings of Orient Are

Third Reading: Luke 2:22-40 (The Presentation in the Temple)
Carol: I Wonder as I Wander

Fourth Reading: Colossians 3:12-17 (The New Life in Christ)
Carol: Infant Holy, Infant Lowly

Fifth Reading: Luke 2:41-53 (The Boy Jesus At Jerusalem)

Carol: Hark the Herald Angels Sing

In the front of the sanctuary of the chapel at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia there is a commanding stained glass window depicting the scene from our last reading today. In the foreground is a young Jesus, conversing with several authoritative adults. In the background are Mary and Joseph, worried expressions on their faces, rushing through the door from their three day search for the boy. It is an interesting choice of scene for an educational environment, and many a professor has preached on the various layers of meaning that this window has for our community.

Stained glass windows have long been used as teaching devices in the Church. The educational tradition surrounding these windows is believed to have begun as a tool to educate a mostly illiterate population. While no longer serving this goal, church windows still depict everything from Biblical scenes to abstract moral concepts to historical moments, scenes important for the worshipping community to pass on to future generations.

The cathedral at Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, which contains nearly sixty-five hundred square feet of stained class, portrays over a thousand figures from the Bible. The nearby Chartres Cathedral, with 21,000 square feet of glass, contains images from the lives of the saints, as well as large windows illustrating such scenes as Noah and the flood, the Life of Christ, and the passion. Just down the road at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, stained glass windows immortalize various and diverse events from the life of Mary the Mother of Jesus and the last judgment to Maryland state heritage, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the lives of two Civil War generals, Robert E Lee and James “Stonewall“ Jackson, to humanity’s landing on the moon complete with an actual piece of moon rock.

Here at St John’s we have our own scene-filled windows. Not only aesthetically pleasing, their images, from the Christmas story to Luther translating the Bible to the building of the first American Lutheran church in 1646, educate parishioners and visitors alike of the events that are important to this congregation. These are snapshots from scripture and history that tell of the journey that has led to this place.

And that is what we have here in our readings today. Snapshots of Jesus’ early life. And this is pretty much all we have, this conglomeration of events from different Gospels that is put together to form our story.

It begins before His birth with the prophecy found in Isaiah. Like a sonogram picture, this snapshot is the promise of things to come, and, like some sonograms, it’s a little blurry, indistinct, and can be difficult to comprehend.

In some ways, Isaiah’s prophecy sounds a lot like the modern view of the Christmas season: “your children shall come from far away… the abundance of the seas shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.” Is Christmas not often celebrated today with families coming together and gifts being brought from around the world? But if we look closer, the deeper Christmas message is shouting itself from these words as well. The message of the coming of the light and the glory of the Lord. The message of the promise of light shining through the darkness, the gifts of gold and frankincense, all proclaiming of the praises of the Lord.

And the searching, the Christmas searching for the Christ child. How many generations have been hearing these words of Isaiah, hearing the promise in this snapshot, and searching, and hoping? And how do we today, hearing these words and this promise, search and hope for His return?

[PAUSE]

But let us turn to our next picture. The wise men. Here we have the traditional snapshot of the visitors that come to see the new baby bringing gifts and praises.

These visitors, however, are not your typical group of friends and family that may gather around the latest familial addition. These are scholars-- strangers from far away, carrying the prophesied gifts of gold and frankincense, searching for the king. The king who has been foretold of as a shepherding ruler, from a little town called Bethlehem, much like King David, the celebrated shepherd monarch of Israel. So they looked for him, following his star, to honor him.

And does this not sound so similar to our own searching? Our own quest for the “overwhelming joy” of finding the Christ Child, our own faith journeys, our own inquiries of others on how to find the way? Our own efforts to please the king and to praise him?

[PAUSE]

Our third picture: Jesus being presented in the Temple. Here we hear not only of an important religious milestone in young Jesus’ life, but of two devoted believers, who had been waiting for the Messiah. First, Simeon, a man who had been promised to see the Christ before his death. Second, Anna, herself a prophet, who praises God and spreads the word about Jesus to fellow seekers. The pronouncements here are prophecies of a similar strain to those in our earlier Isaiah reading. Except that now these prophecies have a being, a person, this young child.

Anna and Simeon are both typically portrayed as being elderly, although in our text only Anna is given a specific age. These two waited lifetimes to see the Savior. Lifetimes. In today’s rushed society, with commercial breaks every fifteen minutes encouraging shorter and shorter attention spans, in these days how long do we wait? We have been given a promise no less sincere, no less inspired, no less revelatory than Simeon’s. How long will we search?

[PAUSE]

Which brings us to our final picture. An annual family trip to Jerusalem, and a literal, physical search for a boy gone missing. The snapshot we are given is brief, and does little to describe the fervor with which his parents must have been searching. For three days they searched. Three days. And when they found him with the temple teachers, listening with understanding, not just answering questions, but asking them as well, when they found him their astonishment was echoed by his own: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

Church father and writer Origen of Alexandria reflects on this scene with the following:

“Not for nothing was it written: Your father and I have been looking for you anxiously. The search for Jesus must be nether careless nor indifferent, nor must it be only a transitory affair. Those who seek in this manner will never find him.

We must truly be able to say: We have been looking for you anxiously; if we can say this then he will reply to our wearing and anxious soul in the words: did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

So. Do we search anxiously, or do we allow each Christmas to pass, with celebration and joy, but no search, no quest for the Messiah, no anxiety. Christmas season comes each year, December the twenty-fifth will be there, right between the twenty-fourth and the twenty-sixth as it always is. So what do we search for, and how? And how does Jesus respond to our astonishment at discovery?

You may have noticed that our last two snapshots ended with similar phrases: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” These may be all we have, but they are short stories, brief scenes from Jesus’ early life, and they don’t tell the whole story. They try, by filling in the time with a few phrases about growing and becoming strong, finding favor with God and being obedient to his parents. Eventually the words stop, though. But the story goes on.

The story goes on as our searching goes on. The stories don’t end with the end of our reading; no snapshot captures the whole picture. Ever notice that on Easter morning we say “Christ is risen”? Not “Christ was risen,” or “Christ was raised,” but “Christ is risen.” The story, the search goes on because we search for what we already have, what we continue to have, yet we cannot see it. We struggle to “lift up our eyes and look around” as Isaiah encourages us to do. But though we feel we are in darkness, Isaiah promises that “the Lord will arise upon [us] and his glory will appear over [us].”

As Isaiah’s hearers have been searching for the Messiah, as the wise men journeyed to the king, as Anna and Simeon waited lifetimes to see the promised one, and as Mary and Joseph scoured the city for their lost child, so do we search and journey and wait for the Christ, who is indeed in his Father’s house, whose story cannot be confined to the edges of a stained glass window or a selection of words on a page.

The story, the search, doesn’t end here, it didn’t end this past Friday night, it doesn’t end on Good Friday, it doesn’t end on Easter morning or on Pentecost. The story continues. Through the conversion of Paul on the window here in the front, the conversion of Constantine one down, throughout the Reformation events portrayed in the windows on the other side. The story continues. Through the invention of the Gutenberg Bible by the side door, through the building of the first American Lutheran Church across the aisle, through the formation of St John’s Lutheran church in 1920, second window from the back, through you and through me, through Christmas year after year, through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and through, as Paul writes in our reading from Colossians today, through teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom… through all this, and through all else, the search goes on, the story continues. Amen.

Johannine Creed

For John, I have taken a bit of a different approach. Following are two scanned images of what I turned in. First, is the creed itself, in the form of a flow chart, with illustrations. Second, is a reduced copy of the flow chart, with explainations of the illustrations. Enjoy! (And remember that you can click on the images to see a larger view.)

essay + hat = essat

How to Write an Essay in the Style of Knitting a Hat

With smaller needles, CO 100 stitches
This is your thesis. You are establishing size and scope of your essat. If your essat will use multiple colors, you CO with your main color. Use a provisional CO so that you can come back and add a fancy border to your thesis if desired.

Join to begin working in the round, being careful not to twist.
This is where your essat truly begins. Your CO is all well and good, but it needs to relate to itself. Be careful not to twist, or you’ll end up with a useless essat, and when it comes time to decrease for the top, you’ll be in a world of hurt.

Set-Up Rows
Here you are getting ready. In the essat, this is commonly referred to as the “introduction” or "brim" or "hem." You are not to add anything to the thesis during this time. That would make your essat pucker at the beginning. You are to ensure that all aspects of the thesis are mentioned. Dropping stitches also troubles your essat.

Body: Switch to larger needles.
You are now working on the main part of your essat. Ideally, your essat will have three sections, as alluded to in your CO and set-up. In this case, and especially if your sections are based on changing colors or viewpoints, make sure your transitions between sections are smooth, and no puckering occurs when a new color or pattern section begins. You want a smooth line between all sections of the essat. Make sure to use all your stitches, although occasionally, for the sake of the pattern, it may be useful to slip a stitch until the next round.

Crown shaping:
This is where it all comes together. Ensuring that you are still maintaining the pattern set forth in the set-up rows, begin to bring your main points together. Ensure that, in decreasing, you are still paying mind to your thesis, and do not decrease unevenly around the essat.

Break yarn and draw through remaining stitches. Pull tight.
These are your final few sentences. What are you going to say that will tie it all together, so the whole piece doesn’t unravel, yet is still made from the material of the essat?

Weave in ends. 
Go over your essat, checking for any loose threads or pulled stitches. If you used a provisional cast on, go back and put a tidy edging on. Tuck everything in, make it neat and tidy.

Preparing for Preparation

Ever notice that you're never ready for Advent? You get your wreath out, you change your paraments (if you have paraments, or a blog that dresses according to the season), you begin to think of shopping and holiday travel, relatives and when you'll get the tree.

But these pre-Advent thoughts differ from the thoughts that happen during Advent. During Advent you think about the look on their faces as they open the perfect gift. You wonder if there'll be snow, and hope there won't be ice. If you're a student, you calculate how many pages you have left to write before Christmas. If you're a parent, you calculate how many times you'll hear questions about Santa, how many times they'll request to hear the same Christmas song again, how soon is too soon to put fresh sheet on your student's bed before they come home.

Today starts Advent, and, as usual, it hits with surprise. Even though we prepare for it, we are never really prepared for it. You show up for church in the morning and Boom! everything's blue (Lutherans use blue for Advent), the readings are from a different Gospel (each of the liturgical years follow a different Gospel: the year we just began is Luke), and suddenly we're singing Christmas songs and "People, Look East," and where did the time go? Now all those Advent questions have to be thought on. When will you get a tree and where will you put it? Who's coming over and when and what will they eat? And it's not just Christmas to prepare for, but winter. (Unless you're somewhere *cough*Iowa*cough* that already is wintered.) Do you have salt or sand in all the cars? What about emergency hats and gloves and such? If you get snowed in, do you have enough yarn?

Advent is my favorite season because it is the season that most reflects our lives. (Us being Christians.) We live in expectation that Christ will come again. In Advent we celebrate that expectation by remembering and celebrating the fulfillment of hope that was the first Christmas, and we look forward even more fervently to Christ's return. That's why so often in the lectionary the Advent readings are preparation-heavy. We "look east" and talk about John the Baptist advising us to prepare the way.

This Advent is a new adventure for me because I'm in a new preparation phase of life. We are all so often preparing for things. We spend the first 18 years of our lives "preparing" by going to school, learning social customs, language, and behavior. And we continue: we prepare for new family members, we prepare for the next holiday, we get dressed in the morning (prepare for the day), we prepare for the next big meeting, the next paper, the next performance, the next product update, the next big thing.

This is my first Advent while officially preparing for my career, and, as it's a career related to Advent, it's interesting to think about the connections between Advent and seminary.

But Advent's just starting, so they're young reflections and connections. Because the joy of Advent is that it isn't just four-ish weeks of preparation for Christmas, it's four-ish weeks of reminding us to prepare, daily, not just for who we want to be, but who we already are as children of God.