The Lord is Risen!

He is Risen indeed, Alleluia

The Marys were in shock. The scripture says “they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy.” What a mixture – fear and great joy. Something was terribly wrong yet maybe, just maybe, something was terribly right and good. They had been distraught since Friday and now they were finally able to go to the tomb where the remains of their beloved Jesus were… and they’re not there. But there’s an angel. An angel who says that he has been raised. And as they run to tell the other disciples, there he is. Jesus. Alive.

Centuries after that first Easter morning, the world still does not recognize the risen Jesus or understand the empty tomb. It does not recognize the truth that Jesus brought. The truth that violence is not the way forward. That only love conquers violence and ends the cycle of retaliation.
That is the message of Easter.

Jesus died, because of his message of non-violent resistance to oppression of every kind, because of his message of deep love. He was really executed, really dead. And yet, because of the love of God which animates all things he was raised to life again, a new life, a resurrected life.

Love is greater than violence of any kind. Perhaps we do not always remember the power of love because we think of it in terms of close human relationship. We think of the excitement of romantic love or the close bond of parent and child. Yet love is much more than that; it is not a mushy sentimental Hallmark kind of thing but a clear-seeing intentional will-to-good. The deep love that Jesus showed is the love that conquers all things.

But the Marys didn’t know that. They didn’t know it was Easter. They knew great fear, and joy. All the disciples knew was that their lives had been turned upside down. The unthinkable had happened.
Resurrection is not resuscitation. Resurrection does not mean that things go back to the way they were. In fact, it means quite the opposite. Resurrection means that things change. Jesus is changed. We are changed. In the resurrections of our personal lives, in the resurrections of our social and political lives, things change. And it’s often not comfortable.
 
Butterflies are a symbol of resurrection. The caterpillar eats and eats and grows and grows until one day it stops, goes still and apparently dies. Inside the cocoon it auto-digests itself, until it is nothing but green goo. Then, amazingly, its DNA rereads itself and transforms it into an adult butterfly. I can’t imagine what happens to the consciousness of the creature in this process. When it is just protected goo, does it know that it is goo? Does it go into a suspended state of consciousness? Or does it hover somewhere waiting until the goo resolves itself and then re-enters its body?

I have no idea. But what I do know is that we humans do something rather similar. When we are transformed, when disaster hits, when grief happens, we are reduced to a state of goo. Nothing is stable, it’s all like jello. Yet out of the goo comes resurrection.

We don’t know what happened to Jesus after he was placed in the tomb and before the Marys saw him that first Easter morning. Our ancestors believed that he went to hades, perhaps to bring back those who were there, or perhaps to look for his friend Judas. Perhaps Jesus found himself in a state of goo. After the horror and agony of his death, was he ready to just get up and go, already completely the resurrected Christ? Or did he, human as he was, require a time of change, a time of protection in the cave of the tomb, while he transformed and adjusted to his new resurrection body?

Our God is a God of resurrection. After disaster there is always resurrection, if we choose it. But it is rarely immediate, and we often do not recognize it when it comes. In the middle of our pain and confusion, we don’t know that it’s Easter. When we are reduced to goo, we don’t realize that we are being transformed. When we are in great fear we cannot easily find the joy.

It is difficult to look at our world, at the environmental disaster, the devastation of Iran, Lebanon and Gaza, the ongoing war in Ukraine, the millions starving in Sudan, the plight of immigrants amid politics of hate: it is almost impossible to look at all that and see in it resurrection.

But we are an Easter people and we are called to see, not with rose-tinted glasses but with the perspective of that deep love that Jesus showed us. We must do all we can to alleviate suffering, but we can also know that out of this too, God will bring resurrection. God is already at work in the goo, bringing resurrection.

It doesn’t look that way. It looks as if the tomb is empty and God has deserted God’s people. It looks like a mess from which there will be no deliverance. But we are given hope. We are the Marys coming to the tomb; we can see the stone rolled away and intuit the presence of the angels. We are the ones who know that love conquers; that even when human love fails and we revert to our violent ways, God’s love still triumphs.

For Jesus’ resurrection shows that even when humans do their very worst, even when they betray and lie and torture and kill, God still loves. God still keeps coming back offering a different way. In the middle of the goo we don’t recognize Easter, but it is there, it is here. God is transforming us and the whole of Creation.

And we are called to be a part of it. We are called to keep faith. To know that the resurrected and ascended Christ will one day put all things right. That is part of the movement of Creation – that all will be reconciled with God. Our task is to continue to hold that resurrection hope, to continue to look for the things that God is doing and to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in doing them.

We are a resurrection people, and we serve an Easter God.
Alleluia!

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 

Yesterday across the country an estimated 8 million people joined in a protest declaring “No Kings” and this morning we remember the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey fulfilling the prophecy that Zion’s king would come mounted on a donkey. The whole of Jerusalem was in turmoil wondering if he was going to overcome the Romans; and today we also remember that less than a week later, Jesus the Christ hung on a cross with a sign over his head saying “The King of the Jews.”

Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor did not live in Jerusalem. He lived in Caesarea about 50 miles away. Historians think that he may have been in Jerusalem for the Passover because it was a time when the city filled with thousands of people and so it was important for the Roman occupying force to be very present. It would have taken a couple of days to get there and Pilate would have traveled with a military entourage. So when he arrived in Jerusalem he would have been seated on a war horse – probably a white stallion – and there would have been a lot of pageantry and symbols of military might.

In contrast Jesus rode in on a donkey. He not only fulfilled an ancient prophecy that Zion’s king would come riding a donkey but he also set up a significant contrast with Pilate on his stallion. It is as if he were saying, “Choose you this day whom you shall serve – the kingdom of human power, prestige and violence or the kingdom of God in gentle humility?”

And that is still the question before us today.

Jesus chose to continue his course of non-violent resistance. In the week between our two gospel readings he stood in the temple precinct, the very center of religious authority and preached against the religious leaders, he drove out those who were buying and selling and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and he healed the blind and the lame who came to him. Even though he knew he was in danger he publicly resisted the powers of empire.

When we hear the passion gospel and remember we hear how badly this all turned out, it’s like we have our fingers crossed behind our back, because we know Easter is coming. The disciples didn’t know that. When we resist the powers of empire, the dark powers that seek to turn our world into a place of hatred and retribution and power for the less than 1%, then like the disciples, we don’t know how it’s going to turn out in the short term. It is risky.

But it is following the path of Christ. It is following our calling as the people of God.

Our New Testament reading this morning from Philippians is perhaps the key to the reign of God, the kingdom of heaven, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.

Let us have the courage to resist the kings, the powers of this world whose paths bring death and destruction and have the same mind as Christ Jesus who brought healing, peace, justice and new resurrection life.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall

What amazing readings we have this morning! First, Ezekiel’s wonderful vision of the valley of dry bones who came back to life and then the long and detailed account of Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life.  It’s all about new life in the Spirit, the Good News of transformation and resurrection.

For those of us who identify as LGBTQ this gospel reading has always held a special place in our hearts as Jesus cries with a loud voice, “Lazarus, Come Out”!

Coming out is rarely an easy process. Coming out means first acknowledging to oneself that one’s inner self is in some significant way different from the dominant culture. This inner difference may be deeply felt but take a long time to identify and name.

For many years I struggled with my own sense of self and my sexual orientation. The few gay people I saw around me were extravagantly gay men who were not attractive – I didn’t want to be like them – and were not Christian – which I wanted to be. But much as I prayed to be heterosexual It didn’t happen, and I began to feel like a hypocrite because when I went to church everyone thought I was a ‘nice’ Christian girl, they didn’t realize that hidden inside me was a lesbian waiting to come out. And so I stopped going to church. The dissonance between who I knew myself to be and who others expected me to be had become too great and it was yet too dangerous to come out.

And so I was unable to fully live. I was in a real sense dead and bound like Lazarus. The scripture tells us that when he came out “his hands and feet [were] bound with strips of cloth, and his face [was] wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”  It was not enough for Lazarus to come out, he also needed to be unbound by his community. LGBTQ people need not just to be accepted but to be seen, celebrated and encouraged by their community before we can be fully free to be the unique people God created us to be.

And it’s not just gay people.

My fifty year old nephew came out last year. Not as gay but as neuro-diverse. For fifty years he tried to fit in, copied the behavior of neuro-normative people. For fifty years he felt trapped in a tomb of normative behavior. Finally, he sought a professional diagnosis and came out as high functioning autistic. This identity has given him new life and new confidence.

There are many things that keep us stuck in the tomb needing to come out and be unbound and find new life.

It is in the interests of the powers of this world to keep us in the closet or in the tomb because the life of the Spirit is a direct threat to the status quo. The life that Jesus offers, the life that Jesus calls us to, the life that Jesus lived led him into direct conflict with the powers of his time. And those powers are very similar to the powers of this 21st century world.

We are caught up in a world where the rich get richer and the poor can’t get ahead. Where the priorities of those in power reduce the power of the rest of us. We have seen immigration raids which entrap and have even killed people who are not criminals, ordinary people who are living their lives and trying to look out for their families the best they can;  we have watched the administration push through the so called Big Beautiful Bill which reduces the ability of as many as 10 million people to afford and access healthcare and which may lead to the closure of as many as 300 rural hospitals[i]; and in the last two weeks the industrial-military complex has led to a war which has killed many people including children in the Middle East, especially in Iran and Lebanon, has cost this country about $22billionand counting, and has released 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – that’s as much as Iceland emits in a whole year[ii].

These are the powers that lead not to human and planetary flourishing but to a society where people are enslaved by the sin matrix and unable to free themselves. And the same powers lead us to feeling powerless, so we turn away and focus on the everyday things of our privileged lives, and we are kept bound in the tomb.

But Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” [And Lazarus heard him] and the dead man came out.

I don’t know what it is that is keeping you in your tomb – it may be fear, it may be grief, it may be past trauma – whatever it is, Jesus is calling you to come out, Jesus is calling you to allow yourself to be healed, to come out into the love and resurrection life of God.

Just like those dry bones.

Ezekiel’s vision came after the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and the conquered people of Judah were exiled. It is a vision of hope, of the renewal of the spirit in a people rendered lifeless and powerless. The story of Lazarus gives us hope as individuals that we can be freed from what holds us back; the valley of the dry bones gives us hope as a community.

St. Peter’s is at a possible turning point. In the year I have been with you we have lost people, some who have died, some who are no longer able to get to church because of health issues and some who have simply stopped coming. There have been few local visitors and those who have come have not returned more than a few times.

We are like a valley of dry bones. We remember vibrant times in the past and it is tempting to think if it could only be like that again everything would be better. But the past is past, and if we allow ourselves to revel in nostalgia we will miss the movement of the Spirit into the future.

We are hopeful that when Rev. Ollie comes, he will prophesy to the bones and new life will come to St. Peter’s. Yet in Ezekiel’s vision, the bones themselves came together and developed sinews and flesh and skin. Yes they were inspired by the prophesy, but they also acted. Inspired by the Spirit of God, they found new life. They found new bodies and new bodies lead to new ways. The Jewish people were never the same after the Babylonian exile.

The church of tomorrow will not be the same as the church of today. We don’t know what it will look like but as long as we cling to our memories of the past we will not be ready to move forward and welcome the breath of the Spirit offering us new life and new possibilities.

Next Sunday we will be entering Holy Week when we walk with Jesus through those dark days before his final confrontation with the powers of this world. But even as we acknowledge the darkness we also know the truth – that Jesus resurrected – that the powers of darkness did not win and will not win – that new life and new hope and new possibility flourish in the reign of God. No doubt the disciples longed for things to be as they had been in the past, but in those few days everything changed. But we know that Easter is coming.

Even in the darkness of these times when the powers of the world seem to be winning, we know that Jesus the Christ is the true light of the world and the darkness cannot overcome the light.

So let us open our ears to hear the cry of Jesus “Come Out!” and let us have the courage to leave behind the tomb of the past and step into the future of the Spirit.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
 
 


https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-truth-about-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-acts-cuts-to-medicaid-and-medicare/

[ii] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/21/middle-east-iran-conflict-environment-climate

For many of us today’s gospel reading contains familiar and beloved verses. Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, comes to Jesus at night and we get to eavesdrop on their conversation. It is from this encounter that we get the famous verse John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” A text made particularly familiar by the 19th century composer John Stainer, though as a child I sang a version of it to “O Danny Boy”, and perhaps you did too.

Building on this verse, theologian Marcus Borg says that the passion of God is to love the world -the cosmos – for God so loved the cosmos that he sent his only Son. “And God did not send the Son into the cosmos to condemn the world, but in order that the cosmos might be saved through him.” According to Borg, our mission as the church, our calling, is to love the world – the whole of Creation - with the same fierce and passionate love that God has.

But there’s a lot more to unpack in this reading. Nicodemus does not understand when Jesus tells him that in order to see the reign of God he must be born from above. Another translation is to be “born again”.

When I was a teenager, I knew many things with great certainty and unlike Nicodemus I knew exactly what it meant to be “born again.” Clearly it meant to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I put a lot of energy into persuading my peers and others, including one evening, a bunch of drunk old men sitting on a park bench, to say that they accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and I fondly imagined that once they said those words they were born again and no longer headed for hell.

Fifty plus years and a seminary education later and I am much less sure what it’s all about.
So I am wondering what being ‘born again’ or being ‘born from above’ means to you. Is it something that is important? Is it something you have experienced?  What do you think Jesus is talking about?
Please find someone to talk to and reflect with – what is Jesus talking about – what does it mean to be born again?
…
Let’s share our wisdom with each other…
…
I wonder what Nicodemus was wanting from Jesus. If we assume that Jesus was able to discern the need of Nicodemus’ heart rather than his words, perhaps his real question was “how do I see the reign of God?” or maybe, “How do you, Jesus, see the reign of God?”

And Jesus’ answer is that we need to be twice-born, not just physically born but in some way spiritually as well. I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all simple recipe for how that happens. I suspect that just as every physical birth is unique, so is every spiritual birth.

Spiritual experience is subjective. Yours will be different from mine. There are those of us who see visions, who are aware of angels; there are those of us who feel the love of God at a deep level; and there are those of us who don’t. Some of us have had times of feeling at one with God and all creation; others haven’t. Some of us have spoken in tongues; others haven’t. Some of us know exactly when we were “born again’; others don’t. It doesn’t matter. Whatever experience you have or don’t have is just fine.

Because God’s grace does not depend on our feelings. God’s grace does not depend on human constructs like being ‘born again’. God so loved and so loves the cosmos – which includes you and me – whether or not we feel it. God’s grace is dependent on God not on us.

As Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” We cannot control our spiritual experiences. We may notice the Spirit blowing through us or around us but we cannot control her.

What we can do is turn towards God. We can, like the psalmist, lift up our eyes and turn our intention and our attention to God. We can ask to have the eyes of our hearts opened so that we can see the reign of God and so we can see the grace of God at work in our world.

And we can trust. We can trust in the One who loved the world so passionately that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. We can trust because God’s love is totally dependable. Because, remember, God did not send the Son into the cosmos to condemn creation, but in order that all creation might be saved through him.
And that includes you and me.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 

Today’s readings take us back to the issue of sin. I know some of you don’t want to talk about it and frankly I think sin gets far too much attention in some versions of Christianity, but it is so fundamental to Christian thinking that we can’t just ignore it. We need to take sin seriously in all its forms.

The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Christian narratives which don’t acknowledge the importance of sin “cheap grace”. Cheap grace preaches forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without formation, and communion without confession. Bonhoeffer himself described this as "grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ". One of its characteristics he said is treating God's love as a superficial cover-up for sins, allowing people to continue living as they wish.

In contrast, Bonhoeffer called the obedience of following Jesus, the discipleship of ‘costly grace’. Costly grace acknowledges the need to take up our cross and follow Jesus the non-violent Savior into the desert, into his confrontation with the ease of compromise with empire, into his life-giving ministry and ultimately his death. Costly grace is not about coming to church to feel good, to enjoy the music and the liturgy and each other’s company. Costly grace is about the transformation of our lives, it is about resistance to all that masquerades as life-giving but which sucks the very life away from us.

Bonhoeffer was extremely critical of the German church of his time which he saw compromising its values. Instead of standing up to the Nazi authorities, church leaders tried to maintain a "viable" position: one that would conform to Christian doctrine, prevent the Church from dividing into opposing factions, and avoid antagonizing the Nazi authorities. Their public statements seem to have been a painstaking attempt to say neither too much nor too little about what is happening around them. Needless to say, this ruled out any real opposition to the Nazi persecution of Jews and others.[1]

For Bonhoeffer this lack of courage was “cheap grace” – preaching and receiving the love of God without the consequent responsibility of taking up the cross – which in his time meant standing up for those being killed and persecuted.

There are of course, many parallels to our own time. We have a federal administration which is centralizing power into its own hands, and seems willing to ignore systems of honor, ethics and even legality. We are seeing people rounded up in their places of works and in the streets because they look like they might be illegal immigrants. And in the process legal, passport holding Americans are shot and killed and then labelled domestic terrorists.

And it is tempting to do nothing. It is tempting to believe the propaganda that these people are all violent criminals. It is tempting to turn away from the injustices and ill-treatment being carried out in detention centers. It is tempting for us to sing and talk about the love of God without confronting the realities of sin.

But that’s not what Jesus did.

Those forty days in the wilderness Jesus confronted cheap grace. He was tempted to do it the easy way. Don’t worry about fasting – you’re hungry just order take out – a nice loaf of bread? or how about pizza? Want people to notice you? Take the easy way and jump off the top of the temple – you know the angels will catch you. Nah it’s really all about power isn’t it – take the easy way and let the empire handle all the details – don’t worry about ethics or honor or other people – don’t worry about the rich getting richer or the poor getting trampled on, join in with the rich and famous and everything will be yours.

Yet we know that Jesus said no. He didn’t take the easy way. He carried his cross to Calvary.
Y’all have been listening to me on or off for a year now and you know that I fully believe that God’s love is unconditional and embraces all of us. That’s grace. Grace is that we are totally accepted by God with all our warts and all our imperfections. We don’t have to be someone else in order to deserve God’s love.

Sometimes I worry that I am preaching cheap grace. So I hope I also talk enough about how our response to God’s love is to be transformed into the image of God, or perhaps back into the image of God as we were before we started to take the easy way. Before our ancestors took the easy way and ate the nice-looking fruit even though they knew it wasn’t right. No I don’t believe literally in the story of the fall but it is a myth that speaks to us again and again of how we are almost programmed to take the easy way, the way that brings us the greatest gain with the least effort, at least in the short term.

As our second reading this morning emphasizes, grace is free. Our reconciliation with God is not through anything we do or anything we earn, like points on a cosmic scoreboard - but it is the free gift of God, given to us through Jesus. Death is walking apart from God; life is walking with God.
This is the good news. We are given life. We are given the opportunity to walk with God. A little further on in the ancient story we hear, “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”” The Lord God called, “Where are you?” God is calling for us in the cool of the day, ready to relax and hang out with us. Will we say ‘here I am Lord” or will we hide with shame because we took the easy way and never turned back?

Costly grace is not an easy path – we only have to look at Jesus’ life to see that. But it is the path of life. It is the path that brings life and hope not only to ourselves but to the stranger in our midst and to the whole of Creation.

Sin is much more than telling a few white lies or envying our neighbor their new car or their expensive landscaping. Sin is writ large in our faces every day. It is the way society rolls. Tax breaks for the wealthy and reductions in food stamps for the poor. The unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for true Americans who are not black, brown, Muslim or Hindu. We are enmeshed in a system which is sinful, I call it the sin matrix, that privileges some people and not others. And you and I my friends are among the privileged. You and I are offered the easy path.

But Jesus calls us to the path of the wilderness. The path of the cross. The path of pouring ourselves out for the good of the world. The path of costly grace. The path of Lent.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 


[1] https://www.adl.org/resources/news/role-churches-nazi-germany

Today is the last Sunday in Epiphany and as always, however long Epiphany is, we started the season with Jesus being baptized and now we end with him being transfigured. The baptism and transfiguration act like bookends for this season of revelation, the season when Jesus is revealed to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and his disciples recognize and follow him. It is a season with two main questions – who do you say that Jesus is? And will you follow him?

During both the baptism and transfiguration, a voice from the heavens answers the first of those questions. In Matthew’s account of the baptism, “when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” And in today’s reading, ‘suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”’

We can see these two events as initiations for Jesus – his baptism starts his ministry and perhaps the transfiguration marks the beginning of his journey toward the cross.

Yet the transfiguration event does more than that. It puts Jesus firmly in the Jewish tradition of Moses and Elijah. If you had any doubt that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah this should make it clear. Moses went up a mountain and spent time with God. During that time he received the basis of the law – the ten commandments – and when he came back down his face was glowing. In fact it was so bright that he had to wear a veil so that he didn’t hurt everyone’s eyes.

Now Jesus also goes up a mountain and not only his face but his whole person becomes dazzling white, and wait, wait there’s more…Moses the embodiment of the law, and Elijah the archetype of the prophets appear there with him. You can’t get better credentials than that.

And then there’s The Voice.

It’s not surprising that Peter wanted the moment to last forever. But we are human and those moments of sudden revelation, those moments when we realize that there is no separation, are only fleeting.

The Trappist monk and mystic, Thomas Merton, had a moment like that. He wrote,

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.

I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun….

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…. [i]

Just as on the mountain top it was as though a veil lifted and for a moment Jesus was visibly the Son of God, so for Merton that day in Louisville, the veil lifted and ‘it was as if [he] suddenly saw the secret beauty of [people’s] hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time.”

Our baptismal covenant calls us ‘to seek and serve Christ in all persons.’ What if the Christ in all of us is shining like the sun, but we cannot see the light of the Christ because we have learned to see the human? What if we could learn to see the Christ as well?

Take a moment to look around the church and imagine all the people sitting here shining like the sun…

now in your mind’s eye (it may help to close your eyes) imagine yourself as you really are - the beloved of God, marked as Christ’s own for ever, and shining like the sun…

now imagine someone you love and see them too shining with the light of Christ…

and now think of an acquaintance, someone you don’t know well and imagine them shining with the light of God…

And finally, think of someone you don’t like and try to see the person they are in God’s eyes and see them also shining with the light of the Christ…
 
Any quick reflections on how that was for you? ( It is an adaptation of the Buddhist kindness practice called metta.)

In this morning’s second reading, from one of the letters of Peter, the writer talking about the transfiguration as a confirmation of prophecy says, ‘You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.’

A couple of days ago I was feeling a bit down. I had received some unwelcome news and was having trouble integrating it. I was fetching something from the sacristy and as I walked back past the font I instinctively put my fingers in and made the sign of the cross on my forehead. As I did so I remembered the commitment of my baptism – “marked as Christ’s own for ever” and I remembered that nothing can take that away and that, like you, whatever happens I am God’s beloved. I walked out of here with a lighter step.

My friends, we are God’s beloved daughters and sons.

As Merton saw, we are all walking around shining like the sun.

And as the epistle says, ‘You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.’

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
 
 
 
 
 


[i] https://ancientanswers.org/words-to-live-by/thomas-merton/at-the-corner-of-fourth-and-walnut-in-louisville/

​ Matthew 5:13-20

When we think of someone who we see as having a special goodness about them, we might describe them as “salt of the earth.” We mean that without these people, life would lose some of its flavor. Such people help remind us of what is important. They’re like sounding rods that keep us grounded in what’s real in life. Life is richer because of their presence.
 
We have heard that we are, as Jesus says during his Sermon on the Mount, “the salt of the earth” and “light of the world.” He often used metaphorical language to help point us to deeper truth. But why is he talking about salt and light today and in what context?
 
The people of the first century would have known about salt. It was common for instance, for guests gathered for a meal to be seated in relation to the position of the saltcellar – or what today we call the saltshaker. The more honored guests were seated “above the salt,” meaning that they were located closer to the host. Those seated “below the salt” were considered to be of less importance. In Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper, Judas Iscariot is portrayed with an overturned saltcellar in front of him. It’s an ominous visual of things to come. The Romans considered it a bad sign to spill salt and thought they could avert disaster by talking a pinch of salt and tossing over their left shoulder.
 
In the days of the Roman Empire, salt was nearly as valuable as gold. Its uses varied from enhancing the flavor of food to being used as a preservative or even a healing agent. A soldier was paid in part with salt which came to be known as salariu, from which the word salary is derived. A soldier’s salary was cut if he was not “worth his salt,” a phrase that came into use because the Greeks and Romans often bought slaves with salt.
 
Salt was often used in Jewish purification rites, and it was the custom to rub salt on a newborn infant. From this came the Christian practice in some places to add salt to the baptismal water. When I was confirmed by bishop Tom Shaw – a monk in the Society of Saint John the Evangelist and the bishop of Massachusetts  – I and the others confirmed that day were given a small vile of salt and a small candle as a reminder of Jesus’ claim that we are Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World.
 
Salt was meant to enhance, to heal, to preserve, and to purify. Salt was an extremely valuable commodity considered to be of great worth. So, what did Jesus mean that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world? How do we ourselves enhance, heal, preserve, and purify the world around us? And what does it mean to lose our flavor – to lose our saltiness?
 
It helps to consider the context from which these words come, and we don’t have to look far. Jesus speaks to us from The Sermon on the Mount, and his claim that we are Salt of the Earth and Light of the World immediately follows the beatitudes where he outlines the characteristic qualities of one who is deeply committed to the love of God and of neighbor. So, it’s as uncomplicated as that. To be Salt of the Earth means that we are humble, meek, and merciful. We are to strive for righteousness and purity of heart and as children of God we are to be the peacemakers in the world. That sounds like salt of the earth stuff to me.
 
Although the qualities outlined in the beatitudes may seem extraordinary and a bit beyond us and where we are in our lives, they are not. These qualities are counter cultural – for sure – but they are not beyond our reach, and they are not beyond the expectations that Jesus has for all of us. These salt of the earth qualities are profound spiritual concepts for ordinary living that help bring about the kingdom of heaven right here on earth. It is the extraordinary living of the ordinary lives of God’s salt of the earth people like you and me.
 
Being salt of the earth people means that we live our lives within the knowledge of God’s abundant blessing upon all our humanness. It means that we can shake away superficial phoniness and move toward becoming pure, whole, and authentic persons that stand for values and beliefs that we know are worth dying for – and better yet, worth living for. We live in a way that enhances those around us, inspiring all people to be the best they can be, regardless of cultural, religious, or denominational stripes. It means that we promote unity, not division; peace, not violence; love, not hatred. We bring healing and purification into places that are wounded and hurting, and all the while losing ourselves as we point to the one true God of life.
 
Jesus reminds us that we are the light of the world and that we must let that light shine. We are to move in ways that illumine darkness. We must bring the light of Christ into the shadowy corners of the world. So, what does that look like and how exactly are we to do that? If we read further into the Gospel according to Matthew, we see it. Jesus states it clearly. We are to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, take care of the sick and visit those in prison. When we do these things for our brothers and sisters in the world we are doing it for Jesus. It really couldn’t be any clearer. It’s not rocket science. It’s salt of the earth.
 
And we shouldn’t waste time admiring our work and patting ourselves on the back because first of all, it’s what we should be doing anyway. And secondly, it’s not about us, it’s about God. Jesus said we are the light, he did not say we should be in the spotlight or limelight. We simply love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly with God. No big headlines, just real salt of the earth stuff. Otherwise, we risk losing our salty flavor.
 
We live in a wonderful and magnificent world. Beauty is all around us. But we also live in a world that is filled with suffering. It is a world that is constantly at war and in great need of peacemakers; a world that is all too often driven by greed and consumerism in great need of a true sense of healthy priorities. We live in a world that diminishes the dignity of too many of our human family.
 
Being Salt of the Earth is the antidote to the domination systems that practice power over the people. Salt of the earth is about power with and for the people.
 
A sure way to claim or re-claim ourselves as salt of the earth people is to reach out and touch the hurting places in our world. Jesus puts high value on rubbing elbows with the most marginalized and disenfranchised among us. When we do that, empathy and compassion are sure to follow, and we just might experience God’s tears falling from our eyes. And when those tears run down our face and touch our lips we will taste who we are. We will taste salt. And so it is with people like us.
 
Brother Dennis

I don’t usually spend much time thinking about sin but this week I have been thinking about it. As in, what is it? And why is it?

In the Wednesday morning conversation, we heard theologian Marcus Borg talk about salvation. He said that the idea that Jesus saved us by dying for our sins is only one perspective, and that he sees salvation as being about transformation in the here and now, not about where we go after we die.

Which led us into an interesting conversation about sin.

There are many things that we may have been taught about sin. Some people say sin is an archery term which means missing the mark. Some people say it is part of our essential nature which shows that we are not divine. Some people say it becomes an essential part of each of us at conception. Some people say it is basically an issue of morality, and living a good life is all that is necessary. Other people think that we can only approach God by admitting that we are miserable sinners. The first letter to John says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.    1 John 1:8,9”

Much of the teaching in the Old Testament points to the sin of human society. We are caught up in a sinful system – I call it the sin matrix – which has very little to do with my action but everything to do with our action. It seems as though pretty much everything we do as humans however well-intentioned has a dark side. For example, I drive an electric car in order to reduce my negative impact on the environment. But the motor probably uses rare earths and recycling the battery when it reaches the end of its life will take energy, both of which have significant negative impacts. And the clothes I wear were probably made by people in other countries earning hardly enough to live on… and then there’s the coffee I drink, and so on…  We are so bound up with one another that those of us in the rich countries can hardly get out of bed without causing oppression somewhere else. So sin is not just a personal individual thing, it’s also social.

So now it’s your turn. How do you understand sin? What have you been taught?
I encourage you to find someone else, even if it means getting up and moving around, to share your ideas with.
…
One of the questions I’ve been asking myself is where is personal sin in my life?

And what is the difference between sin and cultural expectation? That’s been a big question for me as a gay woman – is living and loving as a gay person a sin? It has been seen that way for hundreds of years but is that God’s opinion or just a human cultural understanding? Since I am standing here this morning wearing a backwards collar you will know that I have become convinced, together with The Episcopal Church, that God does not see LGBTQ people as sinners any more or less than straight people are sinners.

I think my besetting sins are irritability and procrastination. But how do I define those as sins? They are not in the Ten Commandments and Jesus never talked about them. I think of them as sins because they are not Christ-like. As far as we know, Jesus did not procrastinate and was not irritable on a daily basis.

But there are many other things I feel guilty about. Are they sins?

My front yard is a good example. It is a mess. And every day I feel bad about it and I think, “I’ll get to this tomorrow when I have time.” And I don’t. But is it sinful to have a front yard full of weeds or just an eyesore?
 
Today we have two readings which do not define sin but rather tell us how we should live in Christ, and I think focusing on how we should live is better than worrying about how we shouldn’t. Because God’s deep and abiding love for us is much, much greater than our limitations and failings. And keeping our eye on the goal is more helpful than getting stuck in the weeds.

In Matthew’s gospel there are five blocks of teaching. Scholars think that maybe he arranged things like that as an homage to the five books of the Torah. If that is so, maybe he thought of the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, as a corollary to the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments mainly describe behavior. In contrast the Beatitudes talk about attitude. They describe how our inner lives would be if they mirrored Christ.

We would be humble, meek, not afraid of grief, longing for righteousness – both personal and societal, we would be merciful and compassionate; our hearts would be pure – filled with the Spirit of God; we would be peacemakers, working for peace and justice and reconciliation; and yet we would be courageous in the face of persecution and violence.

That’s a lot isn’t it? If that’s the goal, I know I miss the mark quite often.

This is not just about being a good person. This is not just about being a solid citizen. This is something quite different. This is about being Christ-like. None of us are naturally like that. It requires a process of transformation.

Perhaps this is what Marcus Borg meant when he talked about salvation as transformation. God offers us the possibility of becoming like Godself. And Jesus is our model. It’s more than being kind, it’s more than being loving, it is a complete change. A different way of  being human.

Paul puts it like this in his letter to the Philippians:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death--
        even death on a cross!   (Phil 2:3-8)

That is the goal, my friends. To have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. That’s going to take a lot of transformation, but it is the possibility, the hope, that we have as followers of Jesus – to become like him.

God does not require that we make sacrifices for sin or abase ourselves in order to gain his love. God’s all-encompassing love is totally available to us in every moment. In humility we confess our personal sins and our participation in the sin-matrix, but we don’t need to grovel.

I love the last few verses of our first reading from Micah.

“With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
And then there’s a silent NO.
No. He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
 
It makes it seem so simple doesn’t it: What does the Lord require of us but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God?

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 
 
 
 
 

In the early eighties, an Indian guru, Sathya Sai Baba, became very popular among young spiritually inclined people. As well as being a spiritual teacher, Sai Baba had some unusual abilities. He could produce candy, watches and other trinkets, and more importantly an unusual scented holy ash called Vibhuti from his fingertips. Many of my friends in Scotland started to become his devotees. He appeared to them in their dreams, and his photos manifested small piles of Vibhuti.

Sai Baba did not come to me in my dreams. He did not call me to be his devotee, his disciple. He did not send me Vibhuti. I felt left out and a little unwanted. I longed to have a spiritual teacher who could teach me how to be deeply spiritual myself.

Of course what I didn’t understand, and probably didn’t want to know because it wasn’t glamorous, was that I had a spiritual teacher already - Jesus the Christ, with the Holy Spirit and our Creator.

In today’s reading from Matthew we hear Jesus at the beginning of his ministry calling some of his disciples. “he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.”

We are here this morning because Jesus has called us to be his disciples. And on some level, whether immediately like Simon and Andrew or rather reluctantly and slowly, like me, we have heard his call.

What does it mean to be Jesus’ disciple today?

In our conversation on Wednesday morning, theologian Marcus Borg, said that Jesus had two focuses in his teaching – the Way and the Kingdom. The Way is the spiritual path of deepening our walk with God, being devotees of Jesus and being transformed more and more into Christ-like beings. The Kingdom is our work of bringing the reign of God into manifestation in this world, as we pray in the prayer Jesus taught us, “thy kingdom, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven.” It is living the values of the reign of God here and now and working for social justice, working for the Great Shalom, where all beings live in peace, justice and dignity.

Which is very different from the world we are living in, and the one Jesus lived in. The fighting, beatings and the death of protestors we are seeing in Minnesota today would have been familiar to him, living under Roman rule in a brutal society which hit first and asked questions later, if ever.

The essence of Jesus’ life, teaching and death shows that a system based on blaming others, a system based on violence, does not bring life or human flourishing. Jesus conquered death. Jesus came back. Yet he did not blame or shame – he was the perfect self-giving victim – the one who was blamed for the unrest in Jerusalem. The one who was blamed, not just by the Roman authorities but by his very own people. Just like those who have been killed in Minneapolis Jesus was described as a ‘domestic terrorist.’

None of us wants to be blamed. None of us wants to be scapegoated. But it is part of human nature. In order to feel better about ourselves we humans gang up on others, belittling them and excluding them. Yet this is not the way of the Kingdom. in the reign of God people forgive one another, not holding grudges and making negative judgments against each other. In the reign of God power is in self-giving love, not in belittling, in violence and victimizing.

It seems that we have entered a time when the rule of law is questioned, when blaming and retribution are commonplace, where might is right. Which requires us as disciples of Jesus to be ever vigilant and refuse to be drawn into it. To resist the dominant language, the dominant mindset, of our culture.

It is hard. But discipleship is hard.

The culture around us is like a great river and it is easy for us to get swept along in the current. Then as we are pulled down the river it is easy to get caught up the detritus which is flowing down – the negativity and divisiveness; the self-aggrandizement and desire to take care of number one, the willingness to lie and to accept lies in the place of truth. Turning around and swimming upstream is difficult and that is for us the cost of discipleship.

Jesus’ disciples were living with him to learn from him, just as Sai Baba’s devotees flocked to his ashram in India to be close to him. We have the privilege of the Holy Spirit living with us to teach us in every moment. And one of the ways that the Holy Spirit works is through each other, which is why faith communities such as St Peters are so very important. One of the functions of faith community is to help us stay conscious. To help us remember our values. To help us remember the Jesus we follow.

I am deeply grateful for this community of faith. I am grateful to each one of you who shares your life, your glimpsings of God, your ideas and your inspirations.

There are many false prophets today who teach a Christianity which is not based on the teachings of Jesus. They argue that America was founded as a Christian country and should return to its roots but they forget that Jesus ate with prostitutes and sinners, they forget that he talked to women, to Samaritans and foreigners. They forget that Jesus never called anyone scum, that Jesus preached love and inclusivity and that he was a rabbi grounded in the Hebrew scriptures which repeatedly call for care for the stranger and the foreigner.

The great light which Isaiah foretold is in the gospel of Jesus – the non-violent Savior – who did not blame or shame but who triumphed over the evils of this world – the evils of victimization and violence. The gospel of Jesus the Christ who emptied himself in his human life and in his death on the cross.

This is the Jesus we follow, this is the Jesus we seek to imitate. This is the one who leads us in the Way and in the Kingdom.

Being the disciples of Jesus does not reward us with holy ash or with candy and trinkets. It rewards us with a deeper and deeper knowledge of the God who is life itself. We follow the greatest spiritual teacher of them all who makes himself known to us in creation, in scripture, in the eucharist and in the community of his beloved, the church.

Let us resist the swirling current of our culture of increasing violence and return again and again to following the one who is the Prince of Peace.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall
 

Who remembers the sermon I preached on the 4th Sunday in Easter last year. Anyone?  No – I had to look it up myself. I remembered that we had talked about Jesus as the Lamb of God and I didn’t want to repeat myself, though one of the fun things about having this whole year together is that we have the opportunity to delve deeper into things so some important themes come up more than once.

Back in Eastertide we read about Jesus the Lamb in the Book of Revelation and we approached the Lamb from that perspective. Today we heard the only time in the gospels where Jesus is called the Lamb of God. Scholars think that the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation were written about the same time so I think we can assume that “Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” was an important theme in the church around Greece and Turkey sometime between the years 90 and 100 CE.

But what does it mean to us today?

I know from our conversations that most of us experience God as primarily loving, rather than judgmental or violent, and that certainly goes along with Jesus’ teaching and with the epistles of John which boldly declare, God is Love.

Yet the idea of Jesus dying for our sins is often interpreted in a way which seems less than loving on God’s part. We have been told that the wages of sin is death and that as a result of our sin, God requires the death penalty. Jesus’ death on the cross paid our penalty and so we get to have eternal life. Thus Jesus took away the sins of the world.

I am not alone in having difficulty reconciling a loving God with the God who requires death as a penalty for sin, even though everyone of us is prone to sin. Surely a loving God would find another way to reconcile us to Godself without anyone having to be killed. Remember the story of Abraham taking Isaac up a mountain to offer a sacrifice? Abraham thought he would need to kill Isaac, but instead God provided a ram who was caught in the thicket. If God can provide Abraham with a sacrificial ram on the top of a mountain, surely God can work out a way not to kill his own Son!

I am hoping that during Lent we can go more deeply into the ways that Christians have understood the work of Christ on the cross. So you might consider this discussion today to be a preview of a coming attraction!

Let us assume for now that God is Love, and that consequently God is not violent and does not condone or demand child sacrifice. How then are we to understand “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”? Isn’t the lamb led to the slaughter, the one who is to be sacrificed, killed to appease God?

What if we rephrase it as “God’s Lamb who takes away the sin of the world”? That changes things for me. In every situation of sacrifice in ancient religions, it is humanity who provides the animals for the sacrifice. The effect of the sacrifice may be to appease a god or to thank a god or even to be reconciled with a god, but in every case it is the humans who bring the sacrifice. The sacrifice is usually a blood-sacrifice in that someone living is killed and their blood released, then the meat is cooked and eaten by the gods involved and by their priests and sometimes by everyone. Often it is the blood – the life of the creature - which is seen as the powerful agent of healing.

This gift of a creature to a god is totally turned around in our Eucharist. Certainly it is the humans of the altar guild who faithfully bring the bread and the wine, but in some way, it becomes for us the Body and Blood of Jesus, God’s Lamb. In this ritual of reconciliation, of becoming more and more God, it is God who provides the real, spiritual food. Let me repeat that. It is God who provides the real, Spiritual food.

So this is unlike anything that went before. God provides the sacrificial Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, not us.

Now listen up because this is a bit of mind-bender.  Jesus did not die on the cross because God is violent but because we are. Jesus did not die because God required a sacrifice. Jesus did not die because it was the only way to reconcile us to God. Jesus did not die to get rid of our sin, but because of our sin. It was human violence, human anger which led Jesus the Christ to his death. And God allowed it to happen. God allowed Jesus to become the sacrifice for the sacred meal, for our reconciliation and ultimately the reconciliation of all Creation to God.

Yesterday on NPR I heard an interview with a woman who has been part of the protests in Iran. She said, “We are empty-handed, standing in front of the bullets.” That made me cry. And I wondered if I would have the courage to protest non-violently, there or even in Minnesota today.

Yet that’s what Jesus did. He stood empty handed in front of the bullets of hatred and the pain of the nails. He took the worst that humankind could do in its violence and allowed himself to be killed.

But that wasn’t the end.

And that is why we are here today. It wasn’t the end because God brought Jesus back from death and the grave. And we are here today because Jesus shows us that God takes the worst of our violence and comes back up loving us.

As disciples of Jesus, we too are called to live non-violently.  We are called to live “empty-handed, standing in front of the bullets.” Because Jesus did not retaliate and Jesus told us to pray for our enemies. And that transforms the world, soul by soul, from one based on violence to one based on love.

This was the genius of the civil rights movement, that they chose to follow the path of Jesus, to love those opposing them and to stand empty-handed in front of the bullets. And we know that many, including Martin Luther King Jr. were killed. We also know that their work is not complete. We do not yet live in a world where skin color doesn’t matter.

In this country, Black men are imprisoned at six times the rate of white men, and Black women twice as often. And Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. Since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, at least 31 states have passed 115 restrictive voting laws. 

The work of the Civil Rights movement is not yet complete, and neither is the work of the Lamb of God. Today as we gather at the table for eucharist, let us continue the work of the Lamb as we accept the free gift of God, reconciliation and healing through the life of God’s Lamb, not just for comfort but also for strength. Strength to stand empty-handed in front of the bullets.

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall