Easter 7 Sermon Year B - Testimony

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26, Psalm 1, 1 John 5:9-13, John 17:6-19, Leonard Cohen

Testimony, testify… When I hear these words I think of courtrooms where lawyers try to convince a jury of guilt or innocence. Before someone testifies, they swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Then they are cross examined to make sure that their story stays the same… to make sure they are telling the truth as a witness.

Testimony, testify… When I hear these words I think of personal stories of faith being shared. A friend sharing about how they have experienced God in their lives. Or the knock at your door, when you answer you are greeted by someone wearing a name tag asking if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

At the heart of testimony is truth; truth that is questioned, truth that is convincing, and truth that is personal. This is what our reading from the First Letter of John is all about; the truth that God gives us is eternal life through his Son. This is the truth that we celebrate every week when we meet in this place and share a meal at this table.  Each of us has taken a different road to arrive at this truth; a different pathway that led us here today.  For me it began with questioning the truth that was instilled in me since birth.

Easter 5 Sermon Year B - Singing the Blues for Easter

Psalm 22:24-30, 1 John 4:7-21, John 15:1-8, Blues Music

There is a temptation to think that if you have Jesus then you don’t need the blues.  Indeed, there is a certain guilty conscience that can develop among Christians, especially around Easter, that says, theologically, don’t worry, be happy.  Jesus died and rose again.  No more death, no more pain. 

But I think if you were painting the resurrection, you would paint it in hues of blue, rather than pink.  The Eucharist we celebrate, the happy meal of the church, is one that is predicated on aching sadness and suffering, born of oppression, betrayal and even police brutality.  Police brutality that got its orders from religious as much as civic leaders.

Tonight we have the blues coming to us when a world is steeped in wounds of earthquakes and riots; unimaginable suffering in Nepal and for me as a white woman, the hard to grasp fear, rage and powerlessness in Baltimore.  The blues, with its articulation of loss and despair, is definitely the right genre to sing here tonight.  It feels like it is being called from our lips with every bit of news we hear.

But does it really fit the scriptures?  Does blues really fit our Easter season?  Or are we just to think our happy thoughts about Christ risen from the grave and deny the world around us? 

Good Friday Seven Last Words Sermon - "I am thirsty."

Downtown Ministrium Seven Last Words of Christ

5^th Reflection – I am thirsty

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.”– John 19:28

I preach on one of the shortest sayings of Jesus on the cross. It is the simplest and most needy thing he says. It forms the basis of the mockery that passers by saw him as, while he was dying. When we visit the dying, they are almost always thirsty.

It is very tempting for us to shy away from the difficulty of today. We are tempted to gloss over the suffering of Jesus, the absence of most of the disciples, and his death. We are tempted to ignore these facts and jump to the amazingness of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter. We are tempted, but we cannot give into that temptation. This is something that I struggle with every year because I don't like to think of the pain he endured, so I am saying this as much to myself as I am to all of you... today we must sit in this space which is visually bare and scripturally painful before we can enjoy the great days that are to come.

 

At the time John’s gospel was written, Christianity had become a distinct group within the multi-religious context of the Roman Empire.  Though not legally recognized, Christianity was quickly growing in numbers. In the Hellenistic world in which Christianity was born, some believed that Jesus had not really come in flesh and blood, much less died a gruesome physical death on the cross.  At that time it was believed that flesh was of the evil realm, and could never be holy, which is why philosophers of that time sought to transcend the earthly body and reach towards the lofty aspirations of the spirit and knowledge.  Only the spirit was capable of the divine.  In other words, they believed that Jesus did not really die he only appeared to.  

But that was not true. Jesus did die on the cross and the theology of the Gospel of John seeks to defend this even at the very beginning of the gospel in the scandal we call Christmas when John tells us that the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”