 By Rev. Heather J. Blais, Rector
This month while we are getting ready for holiday fairs, thanksgiving, and the incarnation at Christmas, the gospel lessons assigned to the lectionary take place during the week of Jesus’ death. It can be helpful to spend some time recalling that week. Today’s gospel lesson from Luke takes place during the week of Jesus’ passion. Jesus has made a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding on a colt. People laid down their cloaks before him, as a way of conveying their understanding that Jesus was an entirely different kind of leader. One who proclaimed a vision of God’s kin-dom, whose values were in stark contrast to that of the Roman Empire. Most leaders within the religious establishment would have found this display deeply alarming. So much so that by week’s end, Jesus was arrested, tried, and executed by the state as a criminal. Some of the Pharisees in the crowd spoke out to Jesus: “...order your disciples to stop”(19:39). Yet Jesus responds to their demand by saying: “...if these were silent, the stones would shout out” (19:40). It’s fitting then, that as Jesus continues into the city, he begins to weep. He wept over the city with sorrow, disappointment, and grief. Those in religious leadership had so misunderstood him, so misunderstood God’s message, that further sorrow and pain awaited them, “...because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God”(19:44b). The pain and sorrow they would face was not a condemnation. Rather it was the natural result of their lack of curiosity, or even openness, that God might be amongst them, in and through Jesus. While in this state of grief, Jesus walks into the outer part of the temple, where a marketplace is set up. Some elements of that marketplace were standard protocol, as they needed to ensure that the animals being sacrificed were unblemished. Yet some sort of misuse or abuse was taking place in that sacred space. The injustice and disrespect of it shifted Jesus from sorrow to anger, and he began to drive those sellers out of the marketplace. It is worth noting - if we ever doubt Jesus’ capacity to fully understand our experience of sorrow, disappointment, grief, anger, injustice, and the isolation of these feelings, we need to take a closer read of the gospels. Jesus experiences each of these feelings with a fullness that reminds us we are never truly alone in our sorrow, anger, or any other experience. These are the feelings Jesus would have been carrying with him, as he began to teach in the temple in the coming days. A tenderness right beneath the surface. During this time, some leaders within the different sects of religious leadership engaged Jesus in oral arguments. They hoped to discredit or disrupt his movement, as they perceived him as a false prophet. First were the Pharisees, who asked questions like:
Each time Jesus would answer their question, by turning the question on its head, and getting to the heart of the matter. After no real luck, some Sadducees took a turn. They told a story of a man who had died, leaving behind a childless widow. According to the law, the deceased man’s brother would marry the widow to protect her, and to preserve his brother’s name, estate, and lineage (Deut 25:5-19). The hope is the widow would become pregnant, and the child would be considered the direct heir of the widow’s deceased husband. In the Sadducees story, the deceased man’s brothers keep dying, leaving his widow childless, until finally she has married all 7 brothers without producing an heir for her first husband. Then they ask, in the resurrection, “...whose wife will the woman be?” (20:33). This question is highly irritating. First and foremost, there is no pastoral heart shown for the woman. She has buried seven husbands, and grappled with the pain, isolation, and grief of infertility. And in this story, the concern is whose property is she in the afterlife. The question becomes more irritating when we recognize these leaders are not seeking a serious answer. Unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees do not believe in resurrection. The question is asked with the hope Jesus might misstep in his answer. Commentator Kendra A. Mohn writes,“The Sadducees seek to force Jesus to expose how ludicrous the idea of resurrection is. In his rebuke, Jesus demonstrates how it is, in fact, ludicrous to try to understand the resurrection in terms of this life. He asserts that the rules we put in place to navigate this world are not important, or even relevant, in the next one, because it is so fundamentally different from what we normally experience.”* We try to understand eternal life with our orderly way of thinking and being. Except the things that matter here, do not matter in the same way in eternal life. We cannot fully comprehend resurrection life. A place where there is no more death or dying; where there is always enough; where all are welcome and everyone is inherently valued. In resurrection life, we stop being somebody’s property or agenda and the isolation we know at times in this life is gone forevermore. It is so radically different, we cannot fully understand it. Jesus responds to the question in an unexpected way. In the verses following our lesson, the text says, “ …they no longer dared to ask him another question.” (20:40). As onlookers, we can notice Jesus seems to be preparing for his own death. In doing so, he is teaching us how to live our lives without fear of death. Because, our God, “...is God not of the dead, but of the living”(20:38). While our physical bodies and our time on this earth is fleeting; our souls live onward in resurrection life. Commentator Mohn goes on to ask: If through Jesus, we are all children of resurrection, how does that free us? What is it like to live without fear of death? I quite love this question about fear. What is it like to live without fear of death? I’m not sure we can fully grasp what it is like to live without fear of death, but I love the idea of striving to live that way. As followers of Christ, we trust and share a collective hope in a vision of bringing about God’s dream for this world, here and now, while also trusting in the fullness of resurrection life. We believe in living our lives with a radical hope and love that lets us abandon beliefs and practices that lead to judgment, exclusion, and scarcity. We chose love and action. We choose full inclusion and welcome. We choose abundance, gratitude, and community. The way in which we most clearly take that leap of faith, and strive to live without fear of death, is in our baptism. Today we will renew the promises of our baptism alongside Rena, in anticipation of her baptism, and next Sunday, we will do the same alongside Chloe in anticipation of her baptism. We have been discussing these promises in our Teen Confirmation class, as well as, in our Episcopal 101 and Newcomers Group. The challenge of really living into these promises if we take them as seriously as we are called to do is quite overwhelming. We explored how it's more about our intention of striving to live into them, than about doing so perfectly. If we long to live into the promises of our baptism. An easier way in, may be picking one of the promises we make today, and really striving to live into that promise very well. Reflecting on how we are doing with it each day, and finding new ways to embody the promise that make sense for this chapter in our life. If that peaks your curiosity, I would encourage you to reflect on which of these promises you most need to be living more intentionally as we seek to grow in our faith. Then over the course of the next month or so, spend time reflecting on how we are doing living in that promise. While the hope is we strive to live into all of them, some seasons of life require us to focus more on one. Knowing and trusting that as a community, we are collectively living into these promises, as we help one another to keep growing in our faith. To keep trusting in the promise of resurrection life, so we might live a life without fear of death, and in so doing, empowering us to live a life of love. As we prepare to head back into the world this week, I invite us to further reflection: What baptismal promise is God calling us to tend to, especially now? Amen. Lectionary Haggai 1:15b-2:9 Psalm 145:1-5, 18-22 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 Luke 20:27-38 *https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-3/commentary-on-luke-2027-38-6  By Julie Carew, Lay Preacher
God, we thank you today for those in this faithful community, both present now and departed from us, and for our intersecting lives and the way you move in and through them. AMEN. We see a few descriptions in our readings today of what the kingdom of God does or will look like. In Daniel, “..the Holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever - for ever and ever.” Psalm 149 references a “congregation of the faithful”. In Ephesians 1 the author is writing to those who heard, believed and “were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit… and references “the pledge of our inheritance as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory”. In the last section of today’s Gospel from Luke, Jesus talks to “you that listen” giving guidelines for how his followers should live. I think most of us would agree that the communion of saints will be vast, that there will be far more people than we can possibly know in our lifetimes. And it also seems clear in these readings that it is now, and will be in the future, a community. I imagine it as a myriad of circles of people coming together, realizing a common purpose, a common belief and a common love. Today, on this All Saints Day, we have the opportunity to hold close the people in our own circles who are no longer with us. I want to take a moment first to recognize that we lose people in different ways. Some to death, some to distance, some to circumstances or boundaries that need to be set. These are all losses, they all leave spaces in our circles and I think it would be best to give ourselves the chance to remember and reflect on all of them. So, who do we remember today? Those who formed us, Those who are part of us, Those who shared their lives and love with us, Those who touched our lives just briefly, Those whose stories moved us, ALL those we don’t want to forget. Why do we remember? Honestly, sometimes it feels easier not to. Remembering can be a significant emotional lift, but what if we could find a way to keep our beloved ones present enough that we can easily access those memories, those lessons learned, and experiences shared, in little pieces all throughout our lives? Our lives are so much richer having known all those we want to remember- having heard their stories, experienced their presence, shared in their lives and they in ours. How do we remember? Giving ourselves space and time is essential. We have days for remembering- like today- also birthdays, holidays, as well as physical locations, and experiences we have shared. We can set up places for remembering- a display of photos, keepsakes, letters- or maybe visiting a special place, a physical location, where we can sit with our memories of them. Where do we see their footprints in our lives? Where do we feel their presence? Can we find a place where the gratitude for having loved them feels greater than the sorrow of having lost them? What about remembering them in a way that encourages us and those around us, living their legacy into our own lives and into those of others? Can we use a memory of their resilience to build us up when things are difficult? Can we remember how deeply and truly they knew us when we feel alone? Can we share something they taught us in helping someone else feel known or understood? Can we let the way they shared their lives with us challenge us to invest in someone else? I am grateful, and I hope you are too, for the space today to think about how we remember those we have lost, and maybe discover a new way of doing so. Let us also consider- what is the legacy that we will leave, how will we be remembered? We have some pretty clear guidelines about how we should live our lives given to us here in Luke: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat, do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.” When I think back to the memories I have of those I have lost, the moments that stand out to me the most are those that were unexpected- a response that was the opposite of what I would have guessed- an especially tender moment with someone I hadn’t experienced that with before which made me aware of a deeper love and connection, a joke in a dark moment, an unforeseen generosity, an outburst of levity in a moment where we really needed it. These unexpected moments reveal the heart of someone, they show us that someone has let down their guard, let go of what is “supposed” to happen- of who they are “supposed” to be- and given us a window into who they are. These actions Jesus is describing are exactly that. Do we have (and if not, will we make) space in our lives for that freedom? Moving through life with enough openness to receive a prompting from God that is unexpected and maybe not our first reaction, but to be able to hear it and act on it? This is true generosity, to shift our focus from holding on to giving away, from reserving to giving all that we can in a moment in which it is truly needed, from worrying about the evenness, the fairness of things, to acting in a way that truly meets someone in their need in that moment. And that last sentence, “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” That is the most beautiful part to me- what an awesome way God helps ensure that “others”, (meaning all of us, right?) who love in all kinds of different ways have opportunities to receive love in just as many different ways. In our deepest knowing of ourselves, how do we wish others would treat us? What is it that you wish someone would do for you? I know I feel most loved and cared for when I feel like someone has really gotten to know me, sees me for who I am and responds to me in a way that makes me feel both of those things in a very real way. So we can do that for those we are close to, knowing that we have the gift of being a person in their life who can know and love them in the way they most need. And also, I am filled with a special kind of joy when the act or response of someone I hardly know is exactly what I need in that moment. That always feels to me like an unexpected gift from God. If each of us goes out and treats others the way that we want to be treated, surely there will be some commonalities there. And hopefully we all will recognize and embrace at least some of that love as exactly what we needed when it was given to us. What an amazing plan of allowing for all different kinds of love to be given and received in abundance! As we go out from this All Saints Day service, let us make space throughout our lives to remember, to lift our faces to the sky and allow ourselves to be touched by the memories of those we have loved and those who have loved us. Let us share who we are, who God made us to be in this world, with those in our lives. Let us share stories of our faith and God’s faithfulness with those who will listen. Let us be open to all possibilities and act when we can help be what is needed for someone else along this journey of life. Let us all help make this, our part of the congregation, the community of the faithful, be one that we value and live into in this life, for what it is to all of us now and in the hope of what it will be in the life to come. Amen. |
Mission
We believe God is calling us to cultivate a community of love, joy, hope, and healing. Jesus is our model for a life of faith, compassion, hospitality, and service. We strive to be affirming and accessible, welcoming and inclusive; we seek to promote reconciliation, exercise responsible stewardship, and embrace ancient traditions for modern lives.
Office HoursTuesday 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Thursday 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Friday 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Closed holidays Our gardens and grounds are open from dawn to dusk for the community to pray, rest, be. Please help us take care of this sacred space by following the outdoor ethic & principle of “leave no trace.” |
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