Sermon from "Racism and the Legal System" and Holy Trinity, Lancaster, PA

Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ from my family, myself and my congregation, Holy Spirit, in the city of Reading. I am grateful for your hospitality and Pastor Mentzer’s gracious invitation to preach in this place, especially to be a part of speaking about the racism, and bias, in the legal system while also holding up the call of the gospel.

I serve in a city with a population with 65% Latino ethnicity, as well as a significant African American community, along with Caribbean Africans, and many multi ethnic people. Many kids and families are served by the Doves Nest, our afterschool program for as many as 80 kids three days a week each school year. Crafts, music, fitness, games and food. But most importantly, education. Education, I believe is the key to life.  All our kids fall below the poverty line, and 90% are people of color. Yet I have a hard time using those labels because to me they are just my neighbors.

But I’m not perfect in that, none of us are. Nor are the systems we create, and I sadly see firsthand the effects of racism and bias as I have worked with offenders and victims. There are immediate and broader victims in a society where insecurity runs high. The effect on our kids and families starts long before adulthood and lasts in ways that are profound. The neighborhood is also a vibrant historic district with many young couples moving in and renovating old Victorian houses, and events like garden tours take place. But there can be such a stark contrast between the world some of my neighbors and I live in, and the world many of my neighbors confront as a part of their normal.  

Lately, at the recommendation of the young adults in my house, I’ve been watching the series on Netflix called “Orange is the New Black.” It’s the story of Piper Chapman, a mid-30’s white WASP-y sort from New York whose life goal is to get upscale stores to sell her handmade soaps. But her past catches up and she’s arrested for once being the money runner for her drug cartel girlfriend.

She ends up in prison much to the shock and dismay of her fiancé, Larry. The series is based upon the 2010 memoir of a woman whose life the series chronicles across a 15 month stay in a federal minimum security prison where she discovers 2/3 of the population are African American or Latina, and where the inmates all look at her like someone who truly is befuddled by a world that has become their normal. Some are serving longer sentences for similar or lesser crimes, and their lives keep them stuck behind ever slamming doors.

One of them is a prisoner named Tasha Jefferson. Her nickname is “Taystee.” She becomes eligible for parole. Taystee is bright and funny and works as a prison librarian. On the day of her parole she’s hustled early in the morning out of the prison. The staff give her little time to say goodbye, shouting, “Let’s Go, Let’s Go!” But she gets to the open door and it’s like a dream.

It’s how I imagine the last part of our passage from Isaiah- you walk out of the door first thing in the morning and you’re immediately greeted by all of nature bursting into song, and the trees are clapping, almost grabbing you by the hand to say “Let’s Go!” There’s a whole world of life! She stops, closes her eyes and stretches out her arms and looks up with a smile and a deep joy as it seems like a whole new life really is possible. It’s like resurrection- leaving that prison as the door slams behind you. She’s going to get a job, and settle in and maybe go to school and be something!

But she gets to the apartment a friend arranged, and the friend is gone, and the other tenants don’t want her, and she struggles to find work, much less eat and pay fines and costs. And one by one the doors are slamming-this time in her face. She ends up shoplifting and back in prison. In prison she’s a librarian. Outside, she’s just another black woman with problems. And her consequences are, and always have been, graver than those of white girl, Piper. And it’s kind of predictable because the systems we have put in place to provide for health and welfare and orderly society though intended for good, are in some places, busted.

Those who feel this the most are the ones we call “minorities.” Yet where I live, clearly I am the minority.

Watching the show, I was reminded of my experiences as a young lawyer, like when 23 years ago, as a part time public defender, I was assigned a “simple” case-young man charged with possession of drugs with the intention of delivering to others- but for this young Latino, the circumstances of his arrest still shock me. He was a passenger in a car pulled over by police on a state highway in NW Lancaster County. Pulled over for driving BELOW the speed limit. Driving a little slow at dusk. Nothing else.

The officer testified that the reason he pulled the car over was there had been a bunch of robberies in the area. This slow driving car full of people looked suspicious because- they were Mexicans and “only white people live here. You can’t be too careful.” No traffic citations. They were all ordered out of the car, and since they might be dangerous, he did a pat down of all of them spread-eagled on the car. He found one marijuana joint- in my guy’s pocket. But since we have a war on drugs, he was charged with a higher offense. It took three months to get through the system that got him out of jail.

Don’t drive too fast, or too slow.

Last year, in the aftermath of the killing of Trayvon Martin, a NY Times columnist who is African American lamented that he used to tell his sons not to run down the street because they might draw suspicion. But Trayvon was walking- “What do I tell my boys now?” Don’t run? Don’t walk?

African American women speak of feeling vulnerable and worried for the men in their lives. Angela Glover Blackwell noted, “I want to be in the world wishing them the best, but I know that if I stand for them, I am not safe.” Speak up? Be quiet?

It’s like so many slamming doors. And for people of non-Caucasian ethnicities and races, even just walking out the door is different.

Too often, our systems perceive them as dangerous, aggressive, people to be watched.

When we reach the point where too fast and too slow are both bad, too loud and too quiet might mean trouble, there is a loss of life. The sin of racism and bias have corrupted the very things we rely upon to provide life for all of us.

This past week a young African American high school student came looking for community service to work off 2 citations. The first was for fighting, and he owns that he made bad choices and wants to move in a different way. The second was for leaving school to attend his court hearing without the right paper. Stopped on the street, when perhaps another might not have been, while attending to what he needed to. And given a new citation for not having the paper. Having talked to him I know he wants to go to college and his favorite artist is Louie Armstrong. And I wonder whether doors will open for him, or slam shut.

So imagine after each set of statistics, another door slams.

Statistically, 1 in 17 white men face the likelihood of imprisonment. For blacks 1 in 3 and Latinos 1-6.

The “War on Drugs” has sentenced many- 2/3 are persons of color according to the Sentencing Project.

While heroin is a drug with white victims and a problem to be solved, crack is a drug violation by blacks and Latinos.  

While 17% of the population are African American youth, 31% of arrested youth are African American and a slightly lower but growing number are Latino.

As troubling as statistics are among males, among women the statistics are just as skewed.

In 2010, of the 500,000 placed young women, 67% were African American or Latina. And often girls are placed for offenses of lower levels than boys, so called Status offenses, such as loitering, curfew violation, disorderly conduct. Young women have fewer rehabilitative resources and are more likely to be re-arrested for running away or truancy, things for whom adults would not even be charged, and with no one asking why they run.

In our education system, 32-40% of suspensions and expulsions, 27% of all law enforcement referrals and 31% of all school based arrests, involve black students. And so, the very education promised to kids evades them. Out of school suspensions under Zero Tolerance policies shunt kids off the path to well-being and into for-pay corporate run Alternative Schools. And later into corporate run prisons- mass incarceration is big money in this country.

For those who needing residential placement for behavioral juvenile offenses, local kids are sent far away rather than treated close by. Not because of risk, but insurance. Place a youth 5 hours from family and the ability of the family to help with any plan, or successfully reintegrate suffers dramatically.

The goal of protecting children has pushed many away, out of schools, and support systems into what is now commonly known as the “School to Prison pipeline.” This pattern fails to provide vocation or real support. With limited mental health assistance and a 50% decline in federal funding of juvenile facilities in the last 10 years, the doors just keep slamming.

But perhaps the most chilling statistic is that of the out of school suspension rate for preschoolers. Yes, preschoolers. Almost half of all out of school suspensions for pre-K and Kindergarten were black students. For infractions as small as wearing the wrong socks. Students of color are suspended or expelled at a rate 3 times higher than their peers.

The later in life costs are profound- 49% of all black men enter the job market with a record and 44% of Latinos. Yet 60% of youth detained are there for offenses not deemed a threat to society.

And while the rates of offending are higher for people of color, so are the rates of victimization. And yet, it often to fails to make the news- with people saying that crimes where they are victims are just “between them.” There is a shockingly disparate treatment of victims, where often it feels that the victim is on trial. Remember we don’t call it the George Zimmerman case, but the Trayvon case. Last year, two blocks from my house, a teenage boy had his throat slit as he was on the way to play basketball at the playground. His death barely made the newspaper, being overwhelmed by some big news about Taylor Swift who’s originally from the Reading area. A 14 year old bled out on the street and died, and it took days for any information about his family or situation to even surface. And initial comments ranged from whether it involved drugs, or the fact he was Latino must mean he was in a gang. A JROTC student with a good academic record on his way to teach kids basketball, murdered by a man who got away was hardly of note. In a place where some people used to call our afterschool program “Future Felons of America.” Victims are victimized.

And often notices of important stages in cases are communicated to victims of color at a substantially lower percentage-from hearing dates, and plea bargains to release dates. There are so many slamming doors- including ones people feel they need to hide behind. How desolate. And if you do get out from behind them- you find- Schools don’t want you, employers don’t either, and you just don’t fit. No wonder the rates for re-offending or self help is so high.

Years ago I was taught not to hammer people so hard with the law they are too tired to hear the gospel. But today maybe we should feel that tiredness others feel. The system is broken in profound places. And I wonder in the year just past the 50th Anniversary of that great “I Have A Dream” speech- if we have a dream as God’s people, where do we find it?

The gospel breaks in to open the doors that racism and bias slam.

Eugene Peterson’s translation of Romans in the Message Bible is masterful. “With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, those who enter into Christ’s “being here for us” no longer have to live under a continuous low lying dark cloud. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing us from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. In Jesus, God personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity- in order to set it right once and for all.”

“The law code, weakened as it always was, by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law has always ended up being used as a Band Aid on sin instead of the deep healing of it…And now what the law asked for but couldn’t deliver is accomplished- as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.” Instead of redoubling our efforts. More prisons and more regulations are not the answer.

Simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in you.

In the face of slamming doors you here at Trinity, have already embraced the Spirit with your mission to Break Down Barriers and Build Community- your commitment to criminal justice system participants, the homeless, and to schools is already established and provides the gospel in the lives of so many. You already stand with our sisters and brothers in the African American community in scholarships, assistance at Crispus Attucks and Arbor Mix and honoring the legacy of Dr. King.  You provide positive outlets through Shop with a Cop, and the Bike repair ministry. Doors are being  opened-Thanks be to God!

But yet… I dare to come to open another door-for you to ponder with the Spirit. To begin to address the effects of zero tolerance and the school to prison pipeline before the doors are all slammed shut for students of color. It’s called Youth Court and is a part of an initiative of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and Project PEACE. Youth Court is a student run alternative to the juvenile justice and school disciplinary process. Students are trained by lawyers and professionals to perform all court functions (judge, bailiff, jurors, etc.).  Positive peer pressure helps offenders reflect on their behavior, recognize that actions have consequences, and accept responsibility, and to gain skills to cope with their environment.  Without these resources, and the openness to other ways of interacting, students fall behind, and schools and courts become trapped in a wilderness cycle. Across the state many places have begun and seen the promise fulfilled of another path.

Youth court participation improves life outcomes for these youth and helps educate the next generation of social justice leaders. Participants report its transformative impact in ways they will use the rest of their lives. One student profiled credits his encounter with youth court as being pivotal in changing direction and achieving a 3.9 average.

Offenders get to tell their story to their peers and view youth courts as more fair. They experience restorative justice, and instead of being suspended they stay in school, and are less likely to re-offend.[1]  They become engaged and empowered and many former offenders become leaders. They all gain knowledge and a positive attitude towards the legal system and themselves. They see the value of collaborating to restore community and in being vulnerable to the life and experience of each other.

What a wonderful alternative! For the sake of the gospel I encourage you to support efforts to engage this resource here in Lancaster. It’s not only an opportunity, but I believe it is a moral imperative of the gospel.

 

Just imagine those doors opening! And the cheering and rejoicing as what seemed like hopeless wilderness is reborn. And the best part is that it’s not just wilderness reborn for an offender- but for all of us. We are all in the wilderness in need of restoring our vision and living.  

Where we stop seeing labels and start seeing people, and continue to work as those with the Spirit of Christ we blow open the doors of the kingdom for all God’s children.

And we can cease laboring under systems that fail to bring life. We can stop reaching for Band Aids and start the deep healing process.

And you know, we might have to work harder to pull open some doors than others, but we actually get a great job as God’s people-being door openers.  We get to be God’s door openers- being those who work with and then who cheer on the ones whose wilderness and desolation can end when we work together in Christ.

We get to open the door to resurrection!

Eugene Peterson writes-“This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike question, ‘What’s next, Papa?’”

May you embrace that Spirit and keep being God’s door openers!

 

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[1] (Urban Institute, 2002; Hamilton Fish, 2008)

Other resources include Pennsylvania Bar Association resources, Tufts University, La Raza, Bill Moyers, ALCU, NAACP. Links to Youth Court can be found through www.pabar.org

When Empty is Good

They go the tomb and it is empty. Empty. Things that are empty are not usually positive- the empty gastank, the empty bank account, the empty refrigerator. Empty is a place of fear, of not enough- that its not enough, or we’re not enough. Empty just by watching your faces tells me feels like doubt, or fears. They go to the tomb and hear- not here. And whether “not here” is like that voicemail message when we wanted help or that spot where someone used to be, “not here” tells of feeling alone, and of loss and sadness. Empty and not here- often means what we don’t see. The women come desperate for meaning and first encounter empty and “not here.”

But then they are rocked with something more. And encounter what happens when empty turns out to be a good thing. It’s mystifying and not fully there. They don’t get to see Jesus but they hear one thing.

But they hear he has risen and to go and tell.

And somehow it is enough

To leave the tomb and move forward instead of remaining paralyzed like the guards. No amount of words can fully capture what that glimpse and truth would mean.

They leave with that and a promise they will learn more on the way.

It’s not everything but it’s good news. And they don’t leave just with the same ration of fear and sadness, they leave with fear AND joy. Both.

Sometimes people tell us that to be a believer means that when we face the unknown or mystifying we just need to have faith.

Not so says the resurrection story.  

Having fear is not the absence of faith. Instead God sent a messenger to help us see the difference between stunned and stuck. Even when we feel like we’re moving but we’re not sure how.

Somehow some of the fear has been left behind in that tomb with the old grave clothes and yesterday.

And it’s replaced with a seed of faith and joy

That there really is new life in this story

There really is more than we see.

Because God has acted and Christ is risen and though we don’t understand all of it, we really will be given what we need on the way.

And as the story is shared, and other things are seen and heard, each who encounters will come to faith, but differently. Just like us. That somehow we see that what seems empty is good.

Recently there was another moment where empty is good- it was last Sunday when we had our first Sunday as one unified worshipping flock. And at the end of communion, the napkin the holds the bread was empty! There were enough of us here that I got the last little tiny bite. Empty! Praise God! I think that moment was one where we gathered in fear and joy and wondered if it would all be OK. And God delighted us with more to strengthen our faith together. That bread napkin was empty! And it was good.

There’s a third time that empty is good. It’s when this place is empty. When we who have been forgiven fed and filled, leave. Because the sharing of the gospel is happening out there along the way. I hope and believe and am filled with joy as I continue to see new faces here- young and old, from everywhere. And I don’t think they’re here because they suspect we have it all together. I think it’s because we are willing to share how we have encountered the good news and invite people to come and see with us on the way.

Some of you have come this day brimming with good news in your lives, and some have come hoping to hear Alleluias that maybe will start to feel true. Still others may wonder if the experience will match the greatness of expectations, or fear that you won’t pull off the perfect Easter day.

Each time we gather and share the story of Christ and share in resurrection, we share those glimpses we see on the way that strengthen us all. Those messages that allow us to look into that tomb and leave behind some of the fears.

And in place of that spot, the emptiness is filled with joy, and with faith. And that’s why I want to invite and encourage each one of you here to keep walking on the way, keep coming again to speak of things that looked empty but led to new life. Of the mysterious power and love of a God that wants to fill our empty places and replace our fears with joy.

God wants to help as us see in the way Brian McClaren has stated it-“that it is enough to faithfully and simply tell the story- of women at dawn, of men running half believing, of rolled stones and folded grave clothes. Of a supposed gardener saying the name of a crying woman, and sad walkers encountering a stranger on the road home. Of an empty tomb and overflowing hearts….(and) God comes to give us wisdom to know that the best we can do is stand in awe. Christ’s work on the cross and that empty tomb surpass all our flowers and flourishes on this day of mysterious hope beyond all words.

May we be less conscious of achieving the perfect decorations, or the finest music or wondering if our emptiness shows. May we instead be drawn more deeply into the confidence in in the Risen Christ whose presence here trumps it all.  God is a God of new life and never-ending possibility. Forgiveness and grace and love for us.

May we this day be surpassed by the simple but undeniable joy of standing together and daring to proclaim the good news- Risen Indeed! Alleluia! That death is not the last word. Violence, hate, condemnation, betrayal and failure are not the last word.

No. Each of them are left behind like rags at that tomb. And from that tomb arises Christ- Alive! For us! Forever!

 

The Grinch, the Temple and Jesus

Today I read from the Message translation of Luke 21- the whole chapter. And then…

So, today I am thinking about Christmas, after all everyone else is. Especially with Thanksgiving just around the corner. And the Reading holiday Parade and Christmas tree lighting are next weekend, even before Thanksgiving. My neighbors are putting up Christmas lights and there are snarky “don’t hate me decorating” posts on Facebook. No worries, friends. I am thinking about Christmas but more specifically about “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas”, a now classic Dr. Seuss tale that has been a TV special and a movie. I was significantly depressed to learn that it was first broadcast in 1966 and that I was alive. Well, you might wonder what The Grinch Who Stole Christmas has to do with Jesus and the Temple of the people of Israel. In the Grinch story, the Grinch is a very unhappy creature who can’t stand the happiness and celebrating of the Whos in Whoville, especially at Christmas. They wake up and open presents and then all come outside and stand around the big Christmas tree and sing and then there is feasting on the Who Roast Beast. It seem this is the center of life. The Grinch finds it all so irritating and can’t stand how this galvanizes people and gives them joy. So, he sets about bringing it to an end. He devises a plan believing that if he takes away all the trappings of the day, there will be nothing to celebrate. Because it’s about the stuff.

In Jesus’ day, the temple was the center of it all- It was huge and stunning. The outer court alone could hold 400,000 people, and at festival times, like for those gathering in Luke, it frequently held crowds nearly that large. It was intended to honor God, but it was not breathtakingly beautiful because the people made it so. It had been Herod, a Roman ruler who wanted to be powerful who spent massive amounts of money making it beautiful.  Taking the Temple intended to testify to God’s unique majesty, and making it beautiful to bring glory to himself. The place intended to reflect where God touched the earth and held it still and safe had become something very different to many. So in all those people and all that beauty, one insignificant woman, faithful but widowed could be impoverished and unnoticed, as she has thrown her whole life away to preserve God’s house. Because others are so bedazzled by the beauty of the building. Its beauty and not holiness, had become the center.

Jesus, who has already been poking sticks at religious leaders, speaks prophetically of it all being leveled. Not one stone on another on the eve of the big festival. Scandalous talk that the beautiful temple was temporary. That even something so concretely placed in people’s minds could be gone. What would life mean? How would life go on?

For those hearing the Gospel of Luke for the first time, this was reality. The temple had in fact been brought down about 30 years before, by the Romans determined to leave no stone standing. Just like the Grinch in his efforts to take away all of Christmas from the Whos in Whoville. In a calculated way to guarantee that everything that shapes their identity will be gone. The Romans didn’t quite succeed. One wall is left, which we now call the Western wall, or the Wailing Wall.

Suzanne Richardson, whose work can be found online at Edge of Enclosure writes that while reflecting upon Jesus prediction of the destruction of the Second Temple, the Grinch comes to mind. Particularly the scene involving the moment the Grinch pauses to hear the moaning of the Whos in Whoville after he has stolen everything related to the village Christmas celebration. "That's a noise," grinned the Grinch, "That I simply must hear!" So he paused. And the Grinch put a hand to his ear. “And he did hear a sound rising over the snow. It started out low. Then it started to grow... But the sound wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded merry! It couldn't be so! But it WAS merry! VERY! He stared down at Who-ville! The Grinch popped his eyes! Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise! Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small, Was singing!

Without any presents at all! He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME! Somehow or other, it came just the same!” There stand the Whos in a circle around where the tree had been. They lift their heads and now instead was a glowing star rising over them-light for the world. They live anew! Transformed. They don’t just endure, they live anew. Because it’s not about the tree or the presents or even the Roast Beast.

Our gospel reading at first sounds more like what the Grinch expects-destruction, chaos, rejection, family-shattering, betrayals. And Richard Swanson suggests, it might seem that what we take from this is that the calm individual is the center of the world, (and) that Christian endurance is the point of Jesus’ message. It’s actually greater than that-its’ not just about endurance but survival.” And by survival, I don’t mean “hunker down.” I mean continued new life. That's the question we all ask when something happens that rips the very fabric of our existence apart, or the roadmap we’ve been using is gone. When divorce comes out of nowhere, when illness changes everything, when addiction tramples and terrorizes, when family strife breaks out. Or when church doesn’t look like it used to. When the universe is shaken to the core, how will we live?

Even in world-destroying catastrophe, Jesus says, God’s faithful people should lift their heads and expect resurrection, redemption, and rescue. Life.

It takes life together looking for God at work. And moving beyond what stymies the Grinch. The Whos find a way to live and share joy that is not at all about stuff. For us, that living doesn’t come from this sanctuary as a beautiful place as it is. These windows, the memorial gifts are not the source for living.

It comes from the God we encounter in the midst of them. God who enters the world, in the flesh, and rises beyond everything we imagine. Coming into a world waiting for life to be what it should be, bringing resurrection and faithful hope. To people just like us.

And this is why I say thank God it’s not about a building. 

But here then are deeper questions that I hope empower our living here.

Do we recognize this place as one where we sense and connect with God? When we are here, is it holy?

Do we sense that we are in the presence of the Divine?  

Do we glimpse Jesus present in our midst?

Do we feel Christ literally taken into us in communion, dwelling in us?

Do we notice that power- that we bear this sacred and holy into a suffering world-

where people don’t see beauty or joy or new life?

Are we raising our heads to look for resurrection?

Or do we just see people and stuff?

All our words in worship are centered around helping us experience resurrection.

We can't explain it but that's the power of God in this place.

Luke goes on to tell of faithful rising day after day to listen to Jesus. Words heard by people who only see the charred remnants of a ruin and disappointment. Trying to lift up their heads and look for the promised resurrection in the midst of what seems like anything but.

That is what our life as Christians often feels like- trying to see and point to God’s life in what seems like anything but.

This is why we are here to be God’s people- together.

To encounter resurrection and to show it to others in the kingdom.

Because we know-in our world, endurance is just not enough, not even close.

When it really matters, and everything feels like its falling away

only resurrection will do.

But to steal the phrase from Dr. Seuss-
“they can’t stop Jesus from coming.
Somehow or other, he comes just the same!”

Thanks be to God. AMEN

Entering the Larger Life of God

Today the Sadducees are getting a bad rap in the gospel. It’s the first thing we hear-they don’t believe in the resurrection! But I got to wondering, how about us?

What do WE mean when we say we believe in resurrection? I asked a lot of people this week.

One friend says it simply means God promises life after death. Another said-life never ends, even if it seems like it from a human viewpoint. God's life-giving power will always be more powerful than death and destruction. The crucified and risen Christ is the ultimate promise of redemption and new life for all of creation.

Someone else said-It means that the fundamental character of God is to bring life from death. We receive that promise through Christ and we can depend on it throughout our life and beyond. It doesn't mean that life doesn't pass away. It means that we can depend on God's character to bring life from death…and it's a promise that all can trust in. As a Christian it means that I've been given the Spirit in order to participate in God's action.

Another friend shared-God is constantly creating and recreating. Now. And in the future. We see new life everywhere. Isn’t that resurrection?

Then I talked to our afterschool kids who told me that God's new life comes in how God gives us blessings in this life and promises more to come. Probably with lots of gold and fluffy clouds. "After all Pastor, the Bible says there's a lot of gold!"

And others told me about pets in the afterlife, and I starting imagining My Little Pony. But who’s to say?

I was struck though-all of the answers I got focused upon Life more than death. While many adults focused on the life to come, our kids whose lives are just as complicated think it matters where God is giving life now, even as some of them are still actively mourning the killing in our neighborhood of their friend Wilberto a few months ago.

My seminary President chimed in on Facebook and shared that he has a friend who is an Episcopal priest who always announced a death saying, "Jane/John has moved on into the larger life of God." I love that image! But I would expand it- it’s not only about the great hereafter. We gather here and say that gathered in the name of Christ we can experience this earthy and earthly life as a foretaste of the feast to come. Moments where the larger life of God come to us now. Resurrection starts now and resurrection extends beyond our horizon. But you know, I am also struck by the notion in the gospel today that as much as God desires us to live in this altered reality, God is not making us believe in resurrection. The Sadducees weren’t buying it.

On Wednesday night when we talked about this week’s gospel and right away the question was-just who were those Sadducees?  They were a small group within Judaism in Jesus’ day who had a particular view. Just like lots of people claim to be Christians but the message can be different, so too in Jesus’ day there were different viewpoints in Judaism. The Sadducees believed that even though there were more scrolls others considered to to the Hebrew Scripture, for them,only the first five books mattered- Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Numbers and Leviticus. That’s it. Most others felt God had more to say; they did not. The rest of the words on the scrolls were helping many develop a belief in life after death by the power of God-resurrection. But not the Sadducees. They also only believed that God was in the one temple in Jerusalem- and that’s where they were, so much so it kind of felt like “their” house. So when Jesus has come to Jerusalem and gone straight to the temple and set up shop day after day, it’s like he has occupied “Their” house. They’re miffed. So they come and ask him the question we hear today about an idea they don’t even believe in-resurrection. They can’t imagine even if there is more after this life, that it will look any different than their expectation. Instread they think the way you live on is that your name is carried on by your children- literally your seed lives. That’s why all those barren women matter. People are only children of our earthly creators. Even if there was an afterlife, for that poor woman, afterlife would mean continuing to try to produce that child-hardly paradise. Then Jesus shakes them up by quoting about Moses back to them- God is bringing life out of what seems like death, and the barrenness of the childless but it’s a whole different world. Larger than their vision.

It’s larger but we don’t know much. What will resurrection of the body and that next life be like? Over time this has generated tons of questions. During the Crusades and times of war when people lost hands or feet or heads and whole bodies could not be returned, people worried about how their body would be resurrected if not all of it had been buried. Some people literally went around worried about fingernails! Others worried about what if the ashes blew away, how would that work? How could God fix that? In our data gathering world, if we can’t have proof, we aren’t so sure. Perhaps a modern day version of what we will accept versus not. It’s why books about what heaven will be like are popular. It’s only natural we want to know. And for those missing dear departed saints we just named last week, it’s fresh. How will we know them? What will we look like? Us, only better? Or what it will look like- our favorite time? Who will be there? What about people we don’t want there, who we don’t want to see? We hope Jesus knows how to arrange our next house when he says that there are many dwelling places. When we say we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting week after week what do we know? Whatever the concern, we all worry how God will do it, or sometimes wonder if God even can.

Kind of like the Sadducees- we can fall victim to relying only on our vision, not trusting in the larger life of God. The God who says- you see all this? I created it. You can trust in what seems beyond your full vision. For the Sadducees, life came to a dramatic halt when their temple was destroyed 70 AD- since that was the only place God was, and it was gone, they just couldn’t go on. If, like the Sadducees, we limit our vision to imagine God’s love or power, that smaller view will not bring life for us either. It’s true we don’t know much, but we know God is powerful, God keeps promises and we will be with Jesus.

Now I come back again to what words people shared about resurrection- here’s what I see-all those responses were not so much about death but life. Life! That’s the mysterious good news. God who gave us life, gives life. And the promise that more lies beyond this life.  And in the meantime, we live in this life, and we should live! And it’s life with God! God who is in our beginnings and endings is in all of the in between as well, both the glorious and the frightening. Inviting us to live as those given promises, and power-resurrection now. This is the larger life of God. Where is it found? In all those new life moments-when we remember we are already God’s children claimed in baptism at this font. When we hear that we are freed from our failures and struggles to live anew each Sunday to start worship. When we hear that Jesus Christ is love and food and healing for us each time we gather at this table. When we get that second chance in relationships, or that new lease on life in some part of our lives. Moments of peace we didn’t expect that helps us carry on-resurrection. Given by a God who even more than life is love. That’s this cross for us. God loving us into life after all the kinds of death we experience.

In the end, this is what all the words we say when we gather remind us of-  In Christ, this life and love proclaim we are children of God forever. Children again this day invited even deeper into the larger life of God.

Amen

Living Saints

One of our youth attending Catholic school lamented having to read a book called “The Lives of the Saints.” Seemingly a boring book about old dead people. It would seem to me however, that such a book is one that is still being written. When I was in seminary I was blessed during internship to meet a saint named Julius. A fascinating man who was the black sheep of the family because in the midst of generations of sainted pastors, he cut loose and became a lawyer instead. I met him in the hospital and his situation was grave. After I chatted awhile with him and his family, they stepped out so Julius could speak to me the things he needed to say. Thus began a series of conversations about life and death and life eternal, reminding ourselves that God’s promises of resurrection and new life are true. Because it’s all theory until those moments we have to try to believe. Then sometimes we need help to live faith and say resurrection is a word we can believe. Julius didn’t seem long for this life, but he pulled through. Several times I visited him and Louise in their apartment crammed full of art collected in world travels, all of Julius’ books, and tangled up walkers and oxygen lines. Our conversations about faith and culture left me feeling I was far richer than they were by our encounters. But then Louise became ill and rather suddenly died. I was blessed to share in her service of resurrection victory, but when we arrived with family at the nursing home chapel, we learned Julius had himself taken a turn for the worse. We may in fact lose him that very day. How hard to finish that service wondering his fate. I wondered how hard it was for Jesus hearing of Lazarus.

In his room, Julius was pale and weak. We cried with him as he wondered how life could go on. And I made the sign of the cross on his head, commending him into the hands of his Savior expecting full well the imminent outcome. Amazingly he recuperated, but was weakened. But my last Sunday at the church, he insisted his son come and help him get up and bring him to worship. This blessed 95 year old saint put on a suit, held onto his walker, and came to hear God’s words and be revived. Since then I’ve heard from Julius three times. The most recent was this past week. The day after the hurricane came through. I’d come to the church with no power or heat, water in the basement and alarm systems screeching, wondering how long it would be like that and how hard it would be to recover. There at the church office, still wet from the day before was the mail. For a moment I paused and thought about our postal carrier Sandy and her faithful witness to be out when most of us had packed it in. Looking through the mail, I came across a letter, hand addressed, from Julius. In it he noted it’d been about a year since we’d last been in touch, and that he’s been praying for our ministry. Then he went on to say he wants to give me his father’s stole. What a blessing to be connected not only to Saint Julius but to a saint who shaped his life. At 98 years of age, Julius is still busy saint-ing. Helping others grow in faith and be strengthened as disciples, as those who believe in the resurrection AND in the life. That letter revived me.

Today we gather to praise God and to give thanks for the saints we’ve known, and the saints of every age. To linger over names spoken and ponder their faithful witness. And it’s perhaps a time of tears and thoughts of loss. Maybe even hard to say “I believe” to Jesus’s words, “I am the resurrection and the life.”  Surely we long for the beautiful words from Isaiah, echoed again in Revelation- a time without tears, when a new creation with God will come. Sometimes these words can seem like it’s just about remembering the past and waiting for the future.  But there is more. All Saints Day is about connecting to God’s story in the lives of saints departed and living, and helping each other try to live those words “I believe.”

 

Today we hear the story of Jesus and Lazarus and Mary. Before it though was the one about Jesus and Lazarus and Martha. Jesus learned Lazarus is ill and by the time he arrives, Martha meets him and tells him he’s too late. It’s all passed. To which Jesus asks-do you believe in resurrection? Martha responds with the theory about the future. Jesus then tells her resurrection and life are real in him. Now. He meets her and helps her say again, “I believe.” But when Jesus encounters Mary, she responds in different way. She cries. Rather than lecture her, Jesus cries with her and then instead of telling her about resurrection, he does it. Telling Lazarus to get up and keep living. Jesus not only offers a future, he restores their present. We are Marys and Marthas and Lazaruses.  Sometimes we need to talk and be reminded to believe, and sometimes we just want to cry, and sometimes we need to hear, “get up.” Jesus is present in all these moments, through saints living and past who show us resurrections start in this life. There will be losses and challenges, but yet God’s desire is that we be freed, and lifted up in this life. God uses us and fellow saints to show us this. Sometimes to help us believe, sometimes to comfort and sometimes to encourage us to get up and keep living.

For Mary and Martha and Lazarus, Jesus changed it all. But there would be many more moments of joy, fear and sadness where they probably took turns telling the story, walking together, pointing to Christ together. In their ordinary lives telling of the extra-ordinary power of Christ and trying to believe. We too are the very ordinary people God makes to be saints who take turns hearing and speaking across the ages as we all try to hold onto “I believe.” We have moments when we want to cry and when we hope to see. And moments when we need someone to unravel what is holding us down and help us get up. The saints across time were people with doubts, who needed to overcome sadness, who struggled. People whose lives had really lovely parts and a lot of other bits too. They were flawed, yet called saints and people of resurrection and life because Jesus said so. And this is also true for us, fellow saints. This is our common bond.

This is a place full of saints this day-as we are connected with the saints of every time through Christ, not only for a future day but so that we can live THIS life. Julius and I have taken turns reminding each other of this- Jesus is the resurrection- the promise of life eternal; and Jesus is the life-the power of resurrection starts now. And God continues to speak to, and to walk with, and to lift up to new life all of us, as people who by God’s hand, can “saint” others, and speak resurrection and new life together in God's story.

Let us give thanks for all who have blessed us, and share the rich story that God’s resurrection and life are words we can believe not only for the day when we will join the throng around the throne, but for today as we help each other live the words “I believe.”  

 

Christ is Risen- Get Off my Porch!

My Easter sermon- on the amazing day where 161 people worshipped where last year there were 90 and where we had three baptisms of neighborhood kids. And where we are one week after a tragic shooting death in our neighborhood.

On the way to the tomb, the women remembered the story way back when it all began. It was supposed to be good news. But now they trudge to the grave- numb. Stumbling in the early morning light, forcing themselves to go. Perhaps along the way, re-telling the stories-of things that’d been, the man they now missed. Trying to recapture it. Going through the motions of what was expected. They’re worn out, just coming to do what needed to be done. All the others had fallen away or were hunkered down in fear. The women, they had hung on to hope the hardest, tried to keep the faith. But then nothing happened, and it seemed pretty definite this was the way it would be. They had let to it sink in- it really must be true. He was dead, there was nothing more to expect.

But then they got there and thought they must be dreaming-The stone was rolled away! Out of the darkness came a message in the light, proclaiming that God and not death has the last word! The stone was rolled away! They heard Jesus had risen and had a message for his followers-Go tell!! What Jesus said would happen- has! But...they were speechless. Why does the gospel end like this? Shouldn’t there be more? It's perhaps why there was a later addition that fixes the ending in Mark. Because there should be dancing and excitement, people doing the right thing, all the loose ends wrapped up with a happy ending. Not like this-the stone is rolled away, but the most faithful followers, the ones expected to do as they were commanded- Don’t. They DON’T go and tell. They run away-afraid. And it seems their faith away ran with them.  I even imagine that as they run, they are looking back over their shoulders, still expecting to see that stone. Running, wondering, but apparently not believing.  If we were there, would we? They don’t tell because their faith falls away. What about us? Do WE tell even now? Maybe there IS more to this story. We too can find it easy to get busy dwelling on the stone, whatever that represents in our lives- big heavy things, cold and dark places, things we just can’t move. Sometime there are so many obstacles. Can WE really believe God moves obstacles, much less believe the message of the empty tomb? Or …are some of us here today because we’re supposed to be? Maybe someone expects us to be here. Maybe WE expect ourselves to be here, but some of us may not be sure why. And even if we DO get it, are WE gonna go and tell, or just go home?  

Good thing God’s power is bigger. The stone WAS rolled away but if it was up to us for the rest of the story-the disciples, the women at the tomb or you and me- we probably wouldn’t achieve it. In fairness, maybe we fear we’re not the best messengers. We don’t feel all that pulled together or all that changed- what could WE really tell anyone anyway? And we haven’t been the best followers. And yet- knowing who the disciples will be, God’s message for those doubting, scared and worn out followers isn’t Jesus saying “Hey I’ve risen and why did you deny me?” or “I was strong enough to defy death- Why isn’t your faith stronger?” The message was - “Go and Tell!! Jesus is risen and is moving forward. And he’s waiting for you. So stop looking back! GO!” And this is true whether the women tell or not. Because the God who cannot be contained by that stone, or the power of death can’t be contained by us either. God isn’t waiting for us to validate that Jesus is risen- it is so! But God is still looking for us. The story we hear this day isn’t one with a weird ending, but a glorious new beginning.

Even when we deny, fall away, or get stuck in fear, God still seeks us to be a part of the ongoing vision of grace, love and forgiveness. Saying no obstacle in our lives is too big for the power of God. God wants us to leave the weight of the stone and the fear of the darkness behind. The real reason the messenger met the women and meets us isn’t to test our resolve, but to reassure-that in all the anxiety and disappointments of life, God wants to offer something new. Stop focusing on the stone you can scarcely move, and let your fear be turned into faith.

This is especially important for us here in the aftermath of news on Palm Sunday of a man was shot dead in our neighborhood- caught in the crossfire of someone else’s battle-an event that makes fear easier to embrace than faith. I was talking with many of the neighbors that day as the police were at work. Mass had just let out at St Margaret’s. Lots of people were coming down Spring Street with large crosses, elaborately decorated with palms, while neighbors were all out, and the police were stringing up the Yellow DO NOT CROSS tape on both sides of the street.  It was pretty chaotic. I spoke to one man, who was confused by my clerical collar. He was pretty sure I wasn’t Catholic, but the word “Lutheran” didn’t connect. By process of elimination, he asked if I was Pentecostal, and then with a worried look, asked if I was with “Los Testigos.” The Spanish term for testifiers, or witnesses- he wanted to know if I was a Jehovah’s Witness. When I said “no”, relieved, he told me how the day before Los Testigos had come through the neighborhood. A man asked him if he really believed that Jesus died for him? He said that he did. The person asking told him-“NO! Jesus is dead and Jesus did NOT die for you.”

The man said- “That’s not true! Jesus did die for me and Jesus is alive! I believe this. Now- GET OFF MY PORCH!"

Today we today celebrate what God in Christ Jesus has done and IS doing now-for you, for me, for all. And WE are the testifiers and witnesses to this truth. A truth that continues to strengthen us in the face of those in the world who try to tell us that all we have is a stone, fear and death. We celebrate this good news and the remind ourselves we all share in the ongoing new life in Christ, as we witness and celebrate the baptism of C.J. and Gabby and Giovanni. Baptism is a living reminder that we die in Christ AND share in his resurrection and are given faith. This is what we proclaim and celebrate we make the sign of the cross- symbol not of death but of victory. This is what we see anew as we light a candle that brightens our world's darkness. This is what we experience as water washes us clean and restores us. Ways we're given strength to tell the story.

While Easter and baptisms are times for looking back and sharing stories and pictures,  I hope, I REALLY hope, we’ll do more than just talk about Easter outfits, and stories of “remember when.” Because neither our baptisms  nor the resurrection are just history. They’re events opening up a whole new reality in God’s world, of a story we are in, that’s still unfolding. A story we’re still called to tell. Let’s first tell ourselves- let it sink in- it’s really true! The stone has been rolled away. God has overcome sin and death for us, and in spite of us, out of love for us and he waits for us. It is this good news that empowers us to tell evil wherever we see it- get off our porch. get off our streets, and get out of our world- because Christ IS risen indeed! Alleluia!!!   Amen