• Only Matthew tells us about the Magi who come to worship Jesus (Matthew 2)
• Only Matthew remembers that Jesus told us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit those in prison for “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:31-46)
• Only Matthew includes Jesus’ Great Commission — “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

“I always thought we needed to change people’s attitudes, or people’s thinking,” one member of Ascension said this past Sunday at our Invite Welcome Connect Forum, continuing: “and then people’s behaviors would change.  I guess it can work the other way around, too.”

“Fake it ’till you make it,” chimed in another, citing the old adage.

Twenty or so of us were enjoying sandwiches, those of us sticking around for a two-hour Forum after church, and we had just finished watching Mary Foster Parmer’s excellent video, an opportunity to hear from the founder of Invite Welcome Connect.  I had prepared a worksheet to help participants through the video, and we walked through the points she raised, step by step.  I noted that she puts a lot of emphasis on practices and behaviors.

It is true, I suppose, that trying on new behaviors, new practices can lead to new attitudes.  It’s in keeping with a saying The Episcopal Church used throughout the liturgical expansion and experimentation of the mid-20th century, citing something Prosper of Aquitaine wrote in one of his books, the Latin phrase “lex orandi, lex credendi,” or: “the way we pray shapes the way we believe.” Praying shapes believing, practices shape minds.

The gift of Invite Welcome Connect is that it helps us look at behaviors and assumptions we hold close.  Sometimes, we’re not always so aware that we’re holding things as closely as we do.  More often than not, we’re unaware that some practices can be off-putting to first-time guests or church visitors.  Invite Welcome Connect is a great assessment tool to help us look more critically at ourselves.  It’s about setting the church up for success.  Invite Welcome Connect helps us look at assumptions, behaviors, and attitudes, and it helps us re-think some of them.

Invite Welcome Connect is not, however, the total strategy or the solution, unto itself.  It’s something on the way toward a strategic goal, but it is not, itself, a strategic plan or goal.  I hope I’m explaining it well enough, because one of the criticisms of Invite Welcome Connect is that it doesn’t begin with a particular church’s particularly identified mission and vision.  Therefore, the criticism goes, isn’t it just directionless?

I don’t think so.

I think The Episcopal Church has been in such decline for so many years for a lot of reasons, too many to list or talk about here.  But one of the causes of our decline is that we can’t seem to agree to do something, anything … to get going and get outside of ourselves.  We’ve been in “analysis paralysis” for decades.  Invite Welcome Connect is a great tool to at least get us to try new things, see things a (slightly) different way, try to lead with changed behaviors and customs and practices … and maybe, along the way, lay all this before God to also change hearts and minds.

I’ll close with a story.

I’m sitting at Ascension in the early afternoon hours, writing this.  I had a string of morning meetings, all of which fell under the theme of strengthening our community partnerships and building coalitions.  That’s what Ascension is really good at, one of the many things Ascension is gifted at and known for in our community — partnerships, coalitions.

Just as I was done with one meeting, getting ready to leave for another, a local pastor popped in.  I had wanted to meet this young, outgoing pastor for a while now, as he and his new congregation have been offering food and intercessory prayer in Ascension’s lower parking lot for a few months.  He talks like a church planter, indeed, he is  a church planter — he’s walking the streets, meeting the people, going into tent camps, feeding the hungry, talking about Jesus, on the ground.  It was really inspiring to be with him, and now that we’ve spent some time in fellowship I pray that a renewed (and shared?) commitment to our common Kingdom mission will emerge from our relationship.

But he’s hungry, he’s fired up, he’s eager — I could just feel it.  His energy was infectious.  At the same time, he’s tired, so tired, he said, of people staking their claims and defending their turf and not doing something, not doing anything, he said.

I’m ready to do something.  Following up from our Invite Welcome Connect Forum this past Sunday, I can honestly say that Ascension is also ready to do something.  St. George’s Forum is coming up the weekend after this, and I know the vast majority of the folks who worship regularly in Valley Lee are also ready to do something.

Just do it.  That’d work for a pretty good church slogan right about now, too!

On Friday, April 2, 1613, John Donne was, we believe, leaving Polesworth, Warwickshire, after having visited with Sir Henry Goodere, and travelling to Montgomery Castle in Wales, on his way to an Easter visit with Sir Edward Herbert.  Donne has become known, to us, as a brilliant preacher, gifted poet, and master of the English language — even a daringly erotic poet in his day.

But at this particular point in his life, in 1613, John Donne was not yet ordained in the Church of England — that wouldn’t happen until two years later.  This particular Friday — April 2 — was Good Friday that year.  We know or, that is, we suspect we know Donne’s plans for Good Friday that year because of his poem, “Good Friday, 1613.  Riding Westward.”  It’s tempting, though not always proper, to project a poem’s words onto the poet, himself.  Nevertheless, as Daniel Starza Smith writes in a fine essay, “it is certainly suggestive that this 42-line poem, conceived as Donne entered his 42nd year, was written at exactly the time Donne made his decision to take orders, in spring 1613. (After overcoming many ‘distractions or diversions’ cast in his path, he was eventually ordained in 1615.) The poem was probably composed on a journey.  Following his return he announced his ‘resolution of a new course of life and new profession’ – divinity.”

It’s a lovely poem, and haunting all the same.  I share it, here, on this Good Friday — April 19, 2019.  I’m taking advantage of this time after our noonday Stations of the Cross and before the 7 o’clock Solemn Collects & Holy Communion.  The afternoon rain they’d promised has begun to fall — not only beating down some of the raging pollen but also setting a perfect poetic mood.  I’ll paste the full text of the poem, all 42 lines, below, and invite you to reflection, I hope, aided by some summary observations on my part.

1. Our patterns and lives are set.  We are not, ourselves, the master of our own destiny.  The poem begins with lines that sound like they were lifted from a 17th century discussion of Aristotelian physics — we read of “spheares,” “foreign [sic] motions,” and a “first mover.”  Like the planets in their courses, my soul is a sphere — a determined shape, with rules that govern it (me).  And yet it is round, too, and capable of (as we would say) coming ’round full circle.
2. The poet is aware that he’s doing things the wrong way; literally, he’s headed in the wrong direction.  He’s travelling westward on a day when Christ was crucified in the east — Jerusalem.  Not only that, but his body is moving in one direction whereas his soul, literally the life-force within him, is bending, stretching in the other.  “Hence is’t, that I am carried towards the West / This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.” (Lines 9-10)  This is a perfect description of internal conflict.
3. And yet God is in control of the forces of nature, even the elementary forces that play out in in our own life.  Just as Easter Day surely follows Good Friday, so too does God bring new life out of everything, including death.  Donne may be travelling in the direction of the setting sun, but he is aware that God, in setting (dying being the very point of Good Friday), becomes an eternal rising: “an endlesse day.” “There I should see a Sunne, by rising set, / And by that setting endless day beget;” (Lines 11-12)
4. Were it up to us, the poet suggests, were it left to the powers in our own “spheares,”  we’d be stuck in eternal darkness.  “But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall, / Sinne had eternally benighted us all.” (Lines 13-14)
5. Which is why the poet is suddenly “glad.” (line 15) He is glad he’s  travelling the wrong direction because he is all too aware of his destructive tendencies.  He is all too aware that if it were up to us, we would have crucified Christ and made certain that he stayed dead.  Indeed, the whole point of Holy Week and Good Friday, in particular, is that we come to a piercing, internal realization that the Cross is not merely a coincidental prelude to Easter.  Good Friday is a startling recognition of the darkness in the world, the deep darkness in us, the very darkness that wanted nothing more than to destroy the Lord of all life.  “What a death were it then to see God dye?” (Line 17)
6. “Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye, / They’are present yet unto memory,” (lines 33-34) The poet knows how his life, his “spheare” has turned away from God, and yet God has not turned away from him: “For that looks towards them; and thou look’st toward mee / O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree;” (Lines 35-36)
7. And if all things are spherical, and if God is the Lord of all creation — indeed trampling down death by death, bringing life to those in the tombs — then God has the power, God will bring us ’round full circle, back to our proper selves, back to God.  This will burn a bit; after all, we’re being disciplined — “corrected” is the poem’s term.  “I turne my backe to thee, but to receive / Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave. / O think mee worth thine anger, punish mee, / Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,” (Lines 37-39)
8. Resurrection is not so much a new gift as it is a restoration of the original.  We, however, are not able to behold the original until we have been known, again, by God, turned by God back to God.  I can’t think of a more profound set of Easter images than the poem’s closing lines: “Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace, / That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face.”  (Lines 41-42)

Isn’t that the end, I mean the hoped-for goal of life?  Who among us doesn’t want to be restored — restored to your very best self?  restored to one another?  restored to love?  Who among us doesn’t wish to be known, once again, by God, as you may have felt you were when you were a little child?  Who among us doesn’t want to turn toward life, and turn away from death?

In his essay, Daniel Starza Smith quotes author and professor, Kirsten Starling, who asserts that Donne’s poem is a “collision of the liturgy with the ego.”  After a heartfelt journey through Holy Week’s disciplines, I find that I have “collided,” to use that term, into a lot of things I didn’t expect to visit, let alone deal with.  The whole Christian season of Lent, beginning with the comprehensive litany of my sins and sinfulness on Ash Wednesday, and culminating in Holy Week and these Three Great Days always, always makes me confront all kinds of things in my heart and life, my mind and relationships.  I am left beholding the dignity of my life and God’s blessings.  I am also invited to deal with the brokenness and the scars I have carried.  A “collision of the liturgy with the ego” is a great way to describe John Donne’s masterful poem but, more importantly, the careful work of the church in setting forth these days, these liturgies, these prayers, these disciplines.

I hope you can find a lot in this poem, but my (not-so-secret) hope is that you will realize, like I have once again, how much you will find in Christ, being turned by Him toward Him once more.

There’s a moment in the midst of Eucharistic Prayer D (BCP p.372-376), a prayer, Marion Hatchett writes, adapted from the fourth-century Liturgy of St. Basil, that always catches me.  Without question, it’s the Prayer Book’s longest eucharistic prayer in Rite II and, unlike contemporary trends, Prayer D sees no good reason to worry about the economy of language.  It goes on and on, developing layers upon layers of stunning, moving praise and thanksgiving.

I get easily lost in this prayer, perhaps one of the reasons I love it so much.

But then, right at that moment when a liturgical action is specifically required — one of only two manual acts stipulated in the rubrics — the prayer goes back to layers upon layers, on and on.  It’s at the Words of Institution for the bread, and it catches me every time: “When the hour had come for him to be glorified by you, his heavenly Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end; at supper with them he took bread, and when he had given you thanks …”

If this were edited today I’m sure someone would take out all that ‘superfluous’ language.  Take out the bit about “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end…”  Get to the point: “He took bread, gave you thanks, and said…”

Perhaps that’s why I love this prayer so much.  It’s not pared down, not edited for economy and focus.  It’s not slim, not worried about time and timeliness.  On the contrary: this prayer takes its time; it dwells with the Word and, indeed, it lets the Word (Logos) dwell with us.  It’s a prayer in the same spirit of that “disciple whom Jesus loved,” the one we find at the Last Supper “reclining next to [Jesus]” (Jn. 13:23), the same one who was a faster runner than Simon Peter and arrived at the empty tomb first — but waited, “bent down to look in and saw…” (Jn.20:5)

This phrase, this unnecessary, un-economical phrase — “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (Jn. 13:1) — is part of the appointed gospel for Thursday in Holy Week, Maundy Thursday.  That’s how Thursday’s gospel passage begins, already giving an indication that this is not just a story about a meal and a supper and washing of feet.  This is an invitation into a moment.  Slow down, therefore; enter carefully, don’t rush in like Simon Peter will soon do, stumbling unawares into an empty tomb.

“He loved them to the end…”  In Greek, “to the end,” eis telos is literally the limit, the extent, but also “that by which a thing is finished, its close,” and “the end to which all things relate, the aim, purpose.”  Christ loved them, and us “to the end,” or: Christ loved us to finished perfection.  And: Christ loved us to our ultimate purpose and aim.

This is not a run-on sentence.  This is the depth and power, the inherent nature of Christ’s love.

Remember, if you will, that the context is the last meal Christ will have with his followers and friends.  Danger lurks outside, and he knows that someone is going to betray him.  The drumbeat which began with his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and mounting suspicion by the religious authorities is getting more and more intense.  You can hear the noise, and feel the anxiety outside that upper room.

And, yet, Jesus does Jesus.  He loves slowly, methodically, fully, and well.

Look at the ways Christ shows his love.  I’m so fixated on Jesus’ words throughout these chapters in John’s gospel, perhaps because they are such memorable words, but take away the words and look at his actions.  Look at how slowly, carefully, methodically he moves:

• And during supper Jesus got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself.  Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. (Jn.13:3-5)
• After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them… (13:12)
• After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit… (13:21)
• So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. (13:26)

“No one has greater love than this,” Jesus said, “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn. 15:13)  Not only did he say this; he embodied it.  Look how often in his last few moments he showed deep love.

• He went out with his disciples to a garden to pray. John 18:1
• He made sure the imperial guards arrested only him, not his friends.  18:8
• He stepped into the brawl between Simon Peter and the guards.  18:10-11
• From the cross, he made certain that his mother would be cared for. 19:26-27
• He spoke the words to fulfill scripture, knowing that “all was now finished.” 19:28-30
• He bowed his head.  19:30
• He gave up his spirit.  19:30

“He loved them to the end…”  Christ loved them, and us eis telos — literally to the absolute fullest extent of the most perfect version of the completeness of love.  That’s how much Christ loved them.  That’s how much Christ loves us.  Christ takes his time to move in our direction, to “pour himself out” or “empty himself,” as we read in that famous hymn Paul preserves in his letter to the Philippians (Philippians 2:5-11).

Would that we also love in this way.  Would that we also love in some measurable fraction of this way!

Elaine Pagels is a scholar of early Christianity, perhaps best known for her book, The Gnostic Gospels — an exploration of theological diversity in the New Testament world and, indeed, among early strains of Christianity.

Along the way, she’s also explored the development of ideas around sin and evil and, specifically, Satan.  When, for instance, we meet the character called Satan in Job he’s a court prosecutor — the satan, Hebrew ha-satan, or “the accuser.” (Job 1:6)  Pagel’s book, The Origin of Satan, looks at how the figure of Satan changed from a member of the heavenly tribunal (Job), and a rather insignificant character throughout most of the Hebrew Bible, to a predominant force in early Christianity.  This development, she asserts, began in the time between the Old and New Testaments, the time that gave rise to much of the worldview that informed Christianity.  As she said in an interview,

“[W]hen you look at groups that became followers of Jesus of Nazareth, or the people who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, these are Jewish sects who saw themselves as separate from the majority of the Jewish community.  And so instead of saying, ‘we’re all following God,’ they began to say, ‘the supernatural world is split between Satan and God, and right down here on Earth, we’re God’s people and they’re Satan’s people.’  That became a way of talking about divided communities.”

The Origins of Satan moves from early Christianity’s Hellenistic context to connect the dots as to why we have deep-seated animosity toward those who differ from us.  We have been trained, Pagels asserts, to want to eliminate those who differ from us because we have been taught that differences of opinions are actually manifestations of a fundamental split in the supernatural world.

I’ll leave her assertions there.  Mostly, I want to look at one element she puts forward as a unique development in Judeo-Christian thought.  In the gospel appointed for Wednesday in Holy Week (John 13:21-32), we encounter the character, Satan (v.27).  The setting is the Last Supper which, in John’s gospel, features foot washing.  Jesus tells the disciples that one of them will betray him.  He dips a piece of bread in a dish (v.26), hands it to Judas and then: “After [Judas] had received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him.” (v.27)

I recognize in John’s gospel, specifically this thirteenth chapter, Pagel’s suggestion that by the time of John’s writing a nascent but nonetheless distinct Christian understanding of sin, evil, temptation and – yes – Satan has emerged.  There is much we can learn here.

Have you ever asked: Why do bad things happen in this world?  Has someone ever asked you: Why do people die unexpectedly?  Why do bad things happen to good people? (Rabbi Harold Kushner popularized that question.)  Heck, why do bad things happen to bad people?  People ask these questions all the time.  What they’re circling around are larger questions of theodicy — the working term for theories about the existence of evil and what God has to do with it, if God has anything to do with evil at all.

Our New Testament writers and, indeed, theologians (the gospel writer, John, is certainly a sophisticated theologian) lay some solid foundations for what has become a distinct Christian theodicy.  If, as Pagels asserts, Christianity is built on a worldview that sees brokenness as a manifestation of the fractured nature of God’s kingdom, then the presence of Satan in (John’s) Passion narrative is no casual addition.  It’s a clear indication that this betrayal and trial, Jesus’ crucifixion and death was not supposed to happen.  This is a truly bad thing, and it doesn’t matter that it happens to a good person (Jesus).  Bad things happen all the time.  That’s what it means to live in a fractured, broken, anxious world.

Temptation and sin are always around us.  We know that firsthand as human creatures, and part of our Christian response is that this is necessarily (yet sadly) the case, especially given the fundamental break in the supernatural order beyond our control.  We are never removed from brokenness.  This frightens us, and it moves us to do stupid things.

“Before man fell the devil fell,” wrote my go-to thinker on questions such as these, one of the 20th century’s most impactful Christian theologians — Reinhold Neibuhr: “To believe that there is a devil is to believe that there is a principle of force of evil antecedent to any evil human action.” (Nature and Destiny of Man, vol.1, p.180)  Everything we do, Neibuhr wrote, is “infected with the sin of pride.  Man’s pride and will-to-power disturb the harmony of creation.” (Ibid., p.179)  Neibuhr knew that there is an individual element to sin, but what primarily concerned him were sin’s social dimensions — how a moral man lives in an immoral society, to use the title of his best-known contribution.

The Bible defines sin in both religious and moral terms.  The religious dimension of sin is man’s rebellion against God, his effort to usurp the place of God.  The moral and social dimension of sin is injustice.  The ego which falsely makes itself the centre of existence in its pride and will-to-power inevitably subordinates other life to its will and thus does injustice to other life.

Nature and Destiny of Man, vol. 1, p.179

“Man is insecure,” Neibuhr asserted.  Even though this insecurity makes us deeply anxious and frightened, and even though our fears can make us do stupid things, it is not at all stupid to search for meaning.  It is in fact wise, Neibuhr would assert, if that search leads us to a right mind and proper relationship with God; if that search leads us to act for justice, even if such actions might appear to bend black-and-white moral distinctions.

This is where I’ve often found Neibuhr most helpful in dealing with questions around evil, sin, and God.  Some critics have argued that Neibuhr is nothing more than a political philosopher who uses theology as a backstop.  I can see how someone would come to that conclusion, but only if they don’t know how Neibuhr works theologically.  It’s true: he does not believe that you and I are bright enough, inspired enough, creative enough, godly enough to come up with great solutions on our own.  In fact, our own attempts to believe are, at times, what deceive.  Neibuhr recognizes that evil very much exists in this world.  Even more boldly (surprisingly?), he contends that God is not victorious over evil in history.  Evil has not been defeated.  So Neibuhr:

The perfect love which [Christ’s] life and death exemplify is defeated, rather than triumphant, in the actual course of history.  Thus, according to the Christian belief, history remains morally ambiguous to the end. … Suffering innocence, which reveals the problem of moral ambiguity in history, becomes in the Christian faith the answer to the problem at the point when it is seen as the revelation of a divine suffering.

Neibuhr, Faith and History (1949), p.135

But, Neibuhr says, we do know the a decisive difference between good and bad, right and wrong.  Nothing is merely relative.  We will often lose when we stand up to evil, but that is not sufficient reason to give up or grow discouraged.  Nor should our losing (or winning) be measured on our scale, and for our sake.  The value of the things we seek after is already revealed by God in Christ, even if that revelation looks upside-down and wrong-headed, such as Satan entering Judas at the Last Supper, or the Lord of all Creation hanging to die on a tree.

And this, I suppose, helps me explain why I don’t hear faithful, church-going Christian women and men ask the question all that often: Why do bad things happen?  Sure, everyone asks it, but I don’t hear it asked as much from faithful followers of Jesus so much as I hear it from others.  Frankly, most of the time it’s tossed out as a philosophical objection to believing anything, generally uttered from someone who once believed something, or wants good cause not to believe anything.  What I’m trying to say is that the question of evil need not bother Christian people.  I say this not because it’s a categorically bad question (I actually believe it’s important), but because the answer only inevitably turns back to me and my relationship with God in Christ.

And thus it’s really a question about we live in this world — a broken and, yet, sometimes downright beautiful world.  How do we live questions around temptation, sin, brokenness and evil?  How do we live these questions in such a way that the questions don’t fundamentally bother us?  This, to me, is the far more interesting pursuit.  This, to me, looks like what Frederick Buechner wrote in his beautiful little book, Beyond Words:

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. …Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don’t be afraid.  I am with you.  Nothing can ever separate us.  It’s for you I created the universe.  I love you.  There’s only one catch.  Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it.  Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.

Near the end of his gospel, John ‘breaks the fourth wall,’ so to speak, and addresses his readers:

Now Jesus did many other sings in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:30-31

Jesus did a total of seven signs in this gospel, ‘signs’ being John’s word for what the other gospel writers call ‘miracles.’  (But that’s a distinction for another blog post.)   Very likely, you remember Jesus’ first sign.  He turned water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. (Jn.2:1-11)  Do you remember what the gospel author wrote at the conclusion of that story?

Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

John 2:11

Jesus’ signs reveal Jesus’ glory.  They show he has real power.  He has power over disease.  He can heal sick people — healing the royal official’s son (sign 2) Jn. 4:46-54; healing the paralytic at Bethesda (sign 3) Jn. 5:1-15; and healing the man blind from birth (sign 6) Jn. 6:16-24.  He has power over nature.  He can walk on water, as he did in Jn. 6:16-24 (sign 5).  He can multiply some fish and a few barley loaves and feed a multitude; John 6:5-14 (sign 6).  Speaking of the feeding of the 5,000, it’s fascinating that John’s gospel doesn’t give us a Last Supper with bread and wine, but what this gospel does is expand our understanding of God’s sacramental presence in the world.  After all, Jesus’ first sign is wine (Jn. 2) and his fourth sign is bread (Jn. 6).  The whole of Jesus’ life, and our whole life in Jesus, is a great big, never-ending eucharistic fellowship.  Lastly, Jesus even has power over death.  His seventh, and final sign is when he brings back to life his friend Lazarus (Jn. 11:1-45).

Jesus’ signs reveal Jesus’ glory.  At first glimpse, Jesus’ glory sounds like our dictionary definition.  glo-ry: High renown or honor won by notable achievements.

But that’s all going to change.

We hear about glory in the gospel appointed for Tuesday in Holy Week, John 12:20-36.  This time it’s on Jesus’ lips: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” Jesus said. (Jn.12:23)  Given that you’ve already read about glory in this gospel, you may be thinking that Jesus must be preparing to do something amazing — show his power, reveal his strength, overcome an obstacle, knock down barriers.  But then he says a weird, counter-intuitive thing about seeds and death: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,” Jesus said, “it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (Jn.12:24)  Wait? What?!  Wasn’t your glory just shown to conquer death?  Why are you talking about death?

As it turns out, glory and glorification, in the gospel, are not about things we define as ‘might’ and ‘strength.’  Glory, for God, is not about great achievements and notable praise.  Glory, for God, is about love — sacrificial, abundant love at that.

New Testament scholars have traditionally broken John’s gospel into two books — the Book of Signs (1:19-12:50) and the Book of Glory (13:1-20:31).  With our Holy Week gospel, we’re at a transition point between those books, the threshold in which we’re leaving one and entering another.  We don’t know what we’re preparing to enter.  We do know that something has changed.  We caught a glimpse — the meaning of ‘glory’ alone just changed — but we don’t fully know what is different, what is new, and why everything feels like it’s turned over, upside down.  That’s part of the anxiety of reading this gospel.  Indeed, that’s part of the anxiety of living this life.

Stick with it, however, and we soon learn why everything changed.

A few chapters later, we have the opportunity to pray alongside Jesus.  John 17 is one long prayer: “After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said…” (Jn. 17:1).  In this prayer, we finally learn what glory, God’s glory is all about.

First, glory is the power of the Ultimate Source of life.  Jesus prays that He may glorify the Father (17:1).  Jesus rejoices that He has brought God’s people more closely to God’s heart.  In 7:4, Jesus says: “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.”  Glory is God’s power, and when all things are restored to God all is well, all is right, all if glorified.

Second, glory is living as though we are already redeemed, already God’s own.  Glory is God’s power, and it is a further point of God’s nature that God imparts what is God’s own. Thus Jesus said: I am asking “on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.” (17:9)  And 17:22: “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.”  Did you hear that? We are given God’s glory.

What a gift, that God would give us God’s glory!  But in order to receive it, we must first understand it.  And, thus, one of the greatest gifts of John’s gospel, taken from beginning to end, is that we understand that, and understand why the word ‘glory‘ changes.  This is a lesson we also learn (or need to learn) from life.

We start off thinking in elementary terms.  At first, we think that glory is about amazing deeds of power, high renown, notable achievements.  But at some point we face difficulties and challenges, not only in John’s gospel but in life.  That’s the moment we start to disbelieve everything we were once told: “Phooey!” we say, “That’s just bible talk. Jesus might’ve walked on water back then, but he can’t save me now.”  Perhaps we forget that God’s glory is manifested most clearly on the Cross.  Perhaps we just don’t want to look for God in the suffering and pain, the anxiety.

Cross-shaped moments are precisely those in our lives in which Jesus is most present.

We just don’t want to look for him there.  We hardly want to recognize it ourselves.

Turns out, that the problem was our own heart, our own stubbornness and refusal.  All along, we wanted life to be carefree, and we didn’t know there was anything on the other side of pain or challenge.

Stick with Jesus through John’s story and, like a sign itself, glory changes for you!  Like a sacramental transformation, glory changes.  Not only does the meaning of the word change right before your very eyes, but you change.  You grow into God’s glory — which is more than we could ever ask or imagine.

I read once that Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, traveled very lightly.  She carried her breviary and a can of instant coffee.  That’s it.  Even though she said on more than one occasion, “Don’t call me a saint; I don’t want to be dismissed that easily,” she’s on her way to sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church, the church in which she found a spiritual home, at times an uneasy home, but a home nevertheless.

She wasn’t an entirely likeable person.  She had one daughter, Tamar, and their relationship wasn’t the easiest.  Dorothy wasn’t warm and cuddly; she was tough and formidable.  She struggled deeply with the inherent brokenness of this world.  She extended hospitality and yet she wasn’t a friendly Christian do-gooder.  “There are two things you should know about the poor,” she wrote: “they tend to smell, and they are ungrateful.”  She knew what it was to call Christ ‘Savior’ and she found him not only her Lord and Master but also her friend.  Interestingly, when she went to write her story she titled it, The Long Loneliness.   

I was lonely, deadly lonely. And I was to find out then, as I found out so many times, over and over again, that women especially are social beings, who are not content with just husband and family, but must have a community, a group, an exchange with others. Young and old, even in the busiest years of our lives, we women especially are victims of the long loneliness.

There are some brilliant moments in which I can viscerally feel her holding a candle against the darkness, daring the darkness to try, just try to overcome the light (Jn. 1:5):

We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.

I treasure these images of Dorothy Day — bold, visionary, faithful, fierce.  It’s not easy to love the poor, especially because it feels never-ending.  We can’t ‘fix’ them, and the system is so broken that even if we helped them get a job (which most of the poor in our country have, by the way) or help them “get back on their feet” (how many times have we heard that?) we wouldn’t be able to set most up for long-term success.  One of the leaders of the food pantry at Ascension, Lexington Park, said: “If you’re going to be in this mission business, you can’t look at the cars they drive, nor the shoes on their feet.”  I take his words to mean that you can’t judge those who come into a food pantry looking for food.  If they say they’re hungry, feed them.  By way of initial responses, compassion and hospitality make for good beginnings.

The gospels tell us that the poor teach us how to seek and serve Christ. On Monday in Holy Week, we remember the sorry in which Mary annoints Jesus’ feet in Bethany. (John 12:1-11) Jesus teaches about the end that is to come, his end.  That’s what Holy Week invites us to pay attention to, but what it really asks us is to come to terms with our faith in the here and now.

Even though Jesus is no longer here, physically, he gave a very clear teaching about how we are to shape our lives and ministries.  The poor, He said, must be at the center of our common life, the literal heart of any ministry done in His name.  But sadly this teaching has been misunderstood.  Here, I’m specifically thinking of John 12:8 — what my NRSV translates as, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

The shorthand interpretation has sounded something like a treatise on global economics.  Poverty will always be around, it goes; there’s nothing anyone can do about it.  In fact, Jesus himself said as much.  Be nice to poor people, but there’s nothing you can do to change poverty. 

Even worse is suggesting that Jesus asked us to make a choice: pay attention to Him, on the one hand, or do the works of the social gospel, on the other.

I’ve come to appreciate another way to read John 12:8.  Let’s look at the language more closely.

First, the Greek for “have” (“you always have the poor…” and “you do not always have me…”) is echete, which is used throughout the New Testament to talk about ‘having’ or ‘holding’ something. It can mean holding something in the hand, but it also has a deeper sense of “holding one’s self to a thing,” or “being closely joined to a person or thing.”  It’s not just about possession.  The word choice implies a relationship.

Second, even though echete appears to be the present indicative form of the verb (“you have“), the construction for the present imperative is exactly the same. It could also be a command, as in: “you should have”  or “you must have…” According to this compelling sermon, John 12:8 could mean so much more:

The verb “exete” meaning “you have” used in this passage is in an imperative form and not in the future tense. It is, therefore, a command, not a prediction. I am inclined to interpret this command as Jesus instructing the listeners to hitch themselves – throw their lot in – with the poor. In John 12:8, Jesus says “Here! Have the poor with you! In everything you do, keep in mind the poor!” And then the parallel of “Because you do not have me always” reminds us that the poor are the stand-in group for Jesus. Because Jesus is saying he is not going to be physically present forever, here is a group that is Jesus. To remember Jesus is to remember the poor.

Jesus may be issuing a command: “Keep the poor with you.”  Keep the poor with you because you will not always have me.  Because you won’t always have me, Jesus says, the very least you must do is keep the poor near you, near your heart, near the life-blood of your ministries every moment of every day.

Third, even the conjunction could change.  The NRSV puts a “but” in there — “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”  This “but” is the Greek de, a common conjunction which can mean “however” or “but,” but can also mean “and” or “moreover.”  For instance, it’s “and” throughout Matthew’s genealogy: “Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah …” (Mt. 1:2)  Likewise, de is effectively translated “moreover” in passages like this one between Jesus and John the Baptizer (Mt. 3:14-15):

3:14 – Moreover (de), John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?

3:15 – Moreover (de), Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

A simple re-translation of the conjunction in John 12:8 tends to release the verse from misunderstanding.  Try this – “You always have the poor with you, and you do not always have me.” Or: “You always have the poor with you; moreover you do not always have me.”  We’re not being asked to make a choice between Christ and serving the poor; in fact, they are one and the same: the One we adore as He is made known in scripture and the breaking of bread, and the ones we hold close when our Lord and Master has ascended at God’s right hand.

Keep the poor with you always.  In fact, keep all kinds of poverty with you — in your heart, in the ways you see and experience the world.  There is poverty everywhere.  We must keep the poor with us always.

Like Dorothy Day in her time we, too, are surrounded by so many levels of poverty.  The challenge is to figure out how to relate to poverty, and especially how to relate to those who are poor.  Dorothy Day showed us a truly Christ-like way to respond, even though she wasn’t always so sweet and kind.  Don’t pretend it’s not there, she taught us.  Don’t try to push poverty and the poor away.  Recognize brokenness. Recognize those persons who have been broken.  Hold poverty and, especially, hold the poor close to your heart, Jesus teaches: Keep the poor with you always, He says, for you do not always have me.

Why?

Because it’s entirely possible to go through life giving without loving.  But it’s absolutely impossible to love without giving.

I don’t know much about astronomy, although I often wish I could recognize constellations and recall specific names of various ‘goings on’ in the night sky. I don’t know much, but I know just enough to know that something’s different, that I should notice something.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the moon these past several nights has been fascinating from our vantage point. Only a few days ago, I don’t remember seeing it at all. Then a crescent in the night sky, but only the tiniest sliver. Then a bit more. Then last night, while walking home, it was even brighter and reflecting even more light our way — but not taking away from the other stars around — all while promising to wax even more.

We’re on our way to a full moon — April 19, www.moongiant.com tells me. Perhaps you know that Easter Day is connected with the lunar cycle. “Easter Day is always the Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox on March 21,” says our Book of Common Prayer, p.880. And if you’re especially adventurous there’s a fairly convoluted “Table and Rules for Finding the Date of Easter Day” in the Prayer Book, pages 880-881, but you have to find ‘The Golden Number’ and know ‘The Sunday Letter.’ Ancient monks and astronomers were a lot smarter than I am!

Turn the page, instead, and the BCP gives us the date of Easter all the way to the year 2089. Whew!

All of this, in a weird sort of way, is a beautiful reminder of the importance of what we’re preparing to do — enter our holiest week and prepare for Easter joy. What we, as Christian people, are preparing to do is something like being aware, being made aware that something has changed, something is showing up that we need to pay attention to, something we need to notice.

We’re not always aware of what God is doing in our life and in our world. We’re not always aware, for instance, that normal, everyday dinner-table companionship is nothing short of a sacrament, a gift, given by God. Sometimes we forget to pray. Sometimes we hurry through our meal, forsaking companionship, joy, blessing. Nor are we always aware that a particular challenge, say, is like Good Friday, a day when our God, also, felt pain, felt abandoned. We’re not always aware, not always.

That’s when seasons shift — phases of the moon, for one — giving moments which heighten our awareness, help us pause and remember, return, renew. Years ago, Charlie Price and Louis Weil, two great liturgical scholars of the mid-20th century, wrote: “Our life regularly makes contact with Word and Sacrament as time runs through its recurring cycles.” Liturgy for Living, p.220.

My life, and your life regularly makes contact with Word and Sacrament. It’s just that I’m not always so aware. Nor are you. We get busy or, better, we keep ourselves busy so as not to be bothered. We think we’re in charge. We don’t think we need God or the traditions or worship patterns of the church, or, if we say we do, we don’t always act like it. We actually behave like nothing bad will befall us — no Good Friday challenges here; no abandonment issues in this life; no blessings for which I need to give thanks.

Holy Week, the Christian season which starts with Palm Sunday this weekend, is an excellent interruption to those lies we tell ourselves, the deceptions that make us think we’re in charge and we’re all good. Holy Week asks you to stop, take notice, return, re-orient, be renewed. Holy Week calls you to move your relationship with God and your true self back to the center — back to the place where you keep shoving it off. Holy Week is a time of spiritual introspection and growth. It is God’s gift of a holy interruption.

Take it. You need it. We all do.

I look forward to seeing you in church!