Detail of an 11th century mosaic of St. Mark in St. Sophia Cathedral, Kiev, Ukraine, via Wikimedia Common St. Mark the Evangelist
April 25, 2017 The first sentence of Mark’s Gospel as appointed for today declares, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Indeed, we know that the word “gospel” means “good news.” We call Mark “the evangelist,” or, “good news bearer.” To be bearers of the Good News of Jesus is the responsibility of every Christian person. In one sense the very person of Jesus of Nazareth is the Good News. We see in his humanity a reconciled, whole person who lives in perfect union with God, himself and the creation. It is good news because what we see in Jesus is God’s desire for all of us. Of course Jesus was not merely telling us that we are to imitate him in some way. He was and is, in the power of the Spirit, proclaiming that God is bringing about the transformation of the entire creation in us and through us. Along the way you and I are made a new creation too. This promise of God is sacramentalized in our baptism and renewed in confirmation. I am keenly aware that as I lay hands on someone and am holding her or him in prayer, that there standing before me is also God’s good news. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s declaration that the new creation is assured and happening even now as we walk the earth, right in the midst of humanity’s behavior that too often seeks to thwart and frustrate that vision of a reconciled world. Jesus’ life shows us that the wonder and beauty of God is working in a myriad of ways that we can never make happen left to our own devices. Some of these ways are delightfully subtle. I was listening to a deacon of the church describe her ministry to the inmates of a jail. Need I note that in some way we are all inmates, imprisoned by something, captive to something? She said that one of the incarcerated said to her one day that she often uses a word that has become very important to him. My mind went to words like, “love, forgiveness, hope.” Much to my surprise his word was “when.” He noted that when she spoke to the imprisoned she never said, “If you get out of here one day.” She always said “When you get out of here.” For him that was good news. She was the bearer of the Good News of Jesus breaking through in an unexpected way through the simple word “when.” It happens because she shows up. The entire cosmos awaits a word of God’s victory over everything that deals death to the creation, you and me. We are the watchmen of Isaiah 52, guarding the ruins of our own Jerusalem’s as we long to sing for joy at the sight of the one whose feet brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of salvation…who says, “Your God reigns.” In Jesus we are liberated in his promise of “when,” not “if.” Bishop Skip Easter Day: April 16, 2017
Church of the Messiah, Myrtle Beach Perhaps some of you will recognize the words of the prophet Marvin Gaye, Motown musician from 1971, when he asked, “What’s Goin’ On”: “Mother, mother There’s too many of you crying Brother, brother, brother There’s too many of you dying You know we’ve got to find a way To bring some lovin’ here today Father, father We don’t need to escalate You see, war is not the answer For only love can conquer hate You know we’ve got to find a way To bring some lovin’ here today” What’s goin’ on is this: Our world is starving. For what you might ask? It is starving for a more transcendent vision of itself that is able to see beyond politics, policies, the latest gadget to entertain us, ideologies, violence, better business practices, or even stock market fluctuations. The transcendent vision for which our world longs is about a new heart, a transformed consciousness. Our world is longing, right in the midst of the horrors and absurdities in Syria, Egypt, North Korea, or right down the street for that matter, to see human beings being fully alive, fully awakened to our humanity in the highest and best sense of what it means to be truly human. It was Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon who said way back in the 2nd century: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” It’s about finding “a way to bring some lovin’ here today.” This is what our Easter celebration announces and calls us to do. It is our main work in Christian community, that is, to become a people who embody ever more fully and radiate ever more clearly in our lives that pure, unbounded love that is God. It is that love that could not be contained in the death of the tomb and has erupted into the universe. The first century Church received this invitation recorded in the Book of Acts and now we of the 21st century Church are invited to the same: “We are chosen by God as witnesses, we who eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.” And so we gather at this Table—to become what we eat. It is the invitation to allow the mind of Jesus, his divine consciousness, his way of thinking and feeling and perceiving, his way of responding to life out of pure love to be fully integrated into our being and consciousness. Then we are to live it in our own Judea’s and Jerusalem’s, to be the living Body of Christ in the midst of the world’s death. I wonder if you remember the story of “The Rabbi’s Gift?” In it a mystical rabbi tells a struggling and dying community of elderly monks, wondering if they had a future at all, that one of them is the Messiah. Nothing seemed to be more impossible. But this vision captivated them as their curiosity heightened and the brothers wondered who it could be. “The Messiah? Really? Here? One of us? Nah.” It can’t be they think. But fascinated they still wonder, “Could it be Cuthbert? He has great compassion. Could it be the Abbott? He is wise. Maybe Cyril. He is devout and prayerful, although he can be a bit crotchety at times. But who? Could it be? Could it…?” Slowly, over time, a new spirit began to arise among the community. A gentleness and deep strength, a sweetness, began to be recognized as a profound charism recognized by strangers who came upon them as they became eager to experience this life-giving spirit. Over time they found themselves mysteriously touched and reassured, inspired and freed, empowered and strengthened – mysteriously transformed – so much so that new life sprang up all around their mountain valley and everyone heard a new song coming from their midst. This is the story of resurrection. The Messiah, the Christ, is risen among us. The Christ is risen within us. The Christ is one of us. The Christ is all of us. Too often, we, and the world around us, suffers from a profound lack of imagination about ourselves. We are confined, trapped, perhaps even imprisoned by assumptions of what reality is and get carried away all too easily by the inertia of the familiar, of what we think we already know, by fear and anxiety, and we get stuck. We are held captive by seeing too narrowly, thinking too small-mindedly, loving with limitations, even as we long for something more transcendent, more grand that occasions wild and self-abandoned dancing and celebration. When will we ever understand that our life in Christian community is not about the maintenance of an institution, nor about the management of an organization, nor about the packaging and marketing of a commodity called “god.” It is about the profound and challenging transformation of our very selves by God’s grace into the mystery of divine love. If that is not our life’s work, if we do not immerse ourselves in the spiritual disciplines of prayer and worship, study and reflection, fellowship and sacrament and silence; if we do not reach out our hands and feet and hearts into the neighborhood and touch the suffering of the world with love AND allow it to teach us; if we are not willing to give ourselves over to the gift of being divinely transformed by Love into Love, then we have nothing to offer to this world. This day is the great invitation to invest once again in God’s great vision for the creation as found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is no idle tale. Wherever we can bring mercy, justice, release and reconciliation, there Christ is risen. It is then that we live out the pattern of Jesus’ own giving of himself. For what was his purpose? It was love, nothing else but love. Go now into the world. Look for the living among the living. The risen Jesus awaits you, present in God’s people. It is there you will see him and discover, “What’s Goin’ On.” The Great Vigil of Easter, April 15, 2017
Let’s play a game. I’m thinking of a number between one and 300,000,000. Any guesses? How about 299,792,458 (meters/sec/sec)? Does that specific number ring any bells for anyone? (Hints: warp drive, deep space, meters/sec). What was God the Creator thinking or doing – if those categories even make sense here – when the universe was put together with that scientific principle at its core? Now lay that next to tombs, death, a great earthquake, angels, appearance like lightning, shaking/trembling guards, an empty tomb. And then! The one executed as a criminal is found to be alive while offering greetings, amidst admonitions not to be afraid (yea right), and directions to go and tell. See you a little later in Galilee. Matthew the Gospel writer wants us to see something here, and his intent is that in these events we are to discover the intersection of heaven and earth. That’s the confluence that happens for me when I gaze into a clear night sky and feel very small. That’s what happens for me when I look at points of light from stars and realize that they are so far away that even the speed of the light coming from them at 299,792,458 meters/second may have come from a star that no longer exists, having burnt out its solar furnace of hydrogen thousands even millions of years ago. It’s mystical. It is a place where earthly things, heavenly things, godly things, come together and intertwine. Perhaps all of us are familiar with the phrase “all hell broke loose.” Usually not a good thing. Why is it that we don’t say more often, “all heaven broke loose?” That’s what happens when the two Mary’s approach the sealed tomb. An earthquake occurs, not as a means of opening the tomb but as a result of the angel of the Lord breaking in on the scene, rolling back the stone that separated Jesus from the life he lived, and sitting upon it in an obvious sign of divine triumph. All of the action here, including the reaction of the guards and the appearance of the angel like lightning and clothing as white as snow, is Matthew’s way of asserting that God is erupting into the world in a new and decisive manner. God’s new reign, even with evidence to the contrary, is now established and changes the Creation’s trajectory from death to life, brokenness to wholeness, despair to joy, hatred to love. This is the trajectory on which we are placing Abigail, Casey and Reese this night as they are baptized. Our response, and perhaps our most appropriate response if we are paying attention, is like that of the guards who are shocked into a frozen state of amazement. Matthew’s core point then is that there is no naturalistic way of speaking of the resurrection. It is not about human capacities or possibilities any more than the speed of light is about the human possibility to create it. It is entirely about God’s capacity and determination. If death is the final conclusion to even the most beautifully lived life, and if death is to be defeated, it is not just because human goodness somehow just lives on. It is not merely an episode of Star Wars where human good triumphs over evil, as fun as that is. Jesus’ resurrection is God acting at the boundary of life we call death and God doing something altogether new. Angels and earthquakes, references to lightning and snow, fear and tombs and yes new life are the only ways Matthew can make clear that we are being confronted by God’s possibilities and not merely our own. God can restore ANYTHING. We see this in the Matthew account when the angel tells the women not to be afraid. They were looking for their fallen leader and the reason they need not fear according to the angel is because “he is not here, for he has been raised as he said.” To drive the point home the angel says almost offhandedly, “Come. See the place where he lay.” The tomb is empty! This is important so that we humans don’t again think everything in life hinges upon you and me getting it right and that somehow human goodness, on its own, will triumph. The empty tomb says that notwithstanding all the sad evidence in the history of the human story that manifests hurt and harm, God has acted to overcome the hurt and harm to Jesus, which is of course our hurt and harm. That first Easter and this celebration of Easter is a promise that in the divine reign fully realized, the same is true for all of us and the entire creation. Because “he is not here” there is deep hope for the world. The baptism of Abigail, Casey and Reese is a sign of this truth and hope. Because Jesus is raised, they are raised with him, to new hope, new possibility, and new love. Parents and Godparents are saying that they will do everything in their power to help these three precious children know that and God’s love for them. You cannot go anywhere that God is not. Just as Jesus goes ahead of the disciples into Galilee, he calls us to our own Galilees, the places where we live, with the families we have, our workplaces, our country, our world. This is where we meet and see the Christ. It is done and accomplished in community, in the midst of the mission God has inaugurated and pursues even now. He invites us to join. 299,792,458 meters/sec/sec. The Light is among us. The Light is showing the way. The Risen One, who is Resurrection Light, is our hope. Bishop Ski Myrrhbearers on Christ's Grave, fresco c. 1235 in the Mileševa monastery, Serbia. Via Wikipedia Easter Day
April 16, 2017 Easter Day always brings to mind fond memories from childhood. One that sticks in my mind, perhaps just for the simplicity of the event, is of my two sisters and me in new Easter clothes standing in our front yard in northeast Baltimore. All the while my Mom and Dad are attempting to get us to hold still long enough to get pictures of us in our fresh regalia. This was a big deal. Even as a child I realized that the cost of the new clothes had a significant impact on the family budget. We knew something special was going on. We knew not only because of the new clothes, but also because such a fuss was being made over us. We also knew something was happening at our home parish, The Church of the Messiah, which was the reason for the dress up. Everything felt new. It was in the excitement of the air. The day itself seemed new. There was a freshness and aliveness among the people as at no other time. I didn’t know why, but this young boy felt new as well. In fact, I knew I was new! Something was happening. Now I know more clearly that something was happening because something had happened on that first Easter Day. It was not the resurrection of an idea, or a belief system, or a feeling, but of Jesus of Nazareth. Something happened to Jesus himself. The Scriptures are clear about this. “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised: he is not here” (Mark 16:6). And because something happened to Jesus, something is happening amongst his people. We may not be able to explain it all, nor do we need to. Even the Scriptures don’t explain it, they proclaim it – Christ is Risen. So we too gather in a community of worshipful attention and intention to proclaim that something happened to Jesus. By proclaiming that truth, we look for and expect that something is happening among us. At Easter we gather to shout God’s victory, not our own. We are raised because Jesus is raised. Out of that hope we are invited to live a life in thanksgiving for that gift with hearts bursting with joy, and thereby bring God’s transforming love to bear in all that we do. This new life takes shape as we witness for God’s peace, God’s justice, God’s embrace, and the defeat of anything that keeps anyone in the bondage of not knowing the freedom of God’s hope for her or him. It is precisely within this life that the proclamation of hope to those in need and pain takes place. Jesus’ resurrection is a radical affirmation that it is right now where eternal life becomes real in us as a people of healing for the world. The great liturgical theologian Aidan Kavanagh said, “The Jesus of our faith died, rose, and became a people.” So we gather as a community to worship the One who is hope. As Christ is alive among us we are given the assurance that nothing can snuff out the life in us that Jesus has resurrected. Nowhere is it clearer to me than in the simple truth of God’s people struggling along with me to embrace our own gifted humanity. We discover along the way that God’s new life is right in the midst of us. We are alive and new once again. Something is happening! Bishop Skip Good Friday 2017
Estill Federal Correctional Institution “Carried our sorrows…Wounded for our transgressions…Healed by his bruises” Isaiah 52:13-53:12 On this day, one cannot find a better outline for the passion narratives of Jesus’ death than this fourth Servant Song of Isaiah. One does wonder if Jesus himself had this servant figure in mind as he reflected upon his own ministry and what God was calling forth from him. And certainly, the early Church and the Church right up to the present, view Jesus the Christ as the appropriate figure to be described by this Servant Song, regardless of what the Servant’s original identity may have been. The accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion are imbedded with descriptions of this servant. Listen: “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering…He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth…They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich.” The Gospel writers surely had the Servant Songs beside them as they composed their narratives, and why wouldn’t they? They had before them what was their Scriptures – those of the Jewish people which became our Scriptures also. After all, they were Jews writing about the extraordinary life, death and resurrection of another Jew – Jesus. What could have been more natural, or faithful, or inspired, than to use their own Scriptures to help them describe those awe-full, degrading and miraculous events of Good Friday and Easter? We are forever bound up in an inextricable link with our Jewish sisters and brothers, who themselves are celebrating Passover this week, even as we now celebrate the Christian Passover of Jesus’ death and Resurrection. So it is that the Christian Church has appropriated this passage as a description of the life, ministry and work of Jesus of Nazareth whom the Church confesses as the suffering servant of God. The uniqueness of the passage is that the Servant himself carries or bears the “iniquity of us all” when “all we like sheep have gone astray.” He was “wounded for our transgressions…upon him was the punishment that made us whole.” Suffering becomes the means by which Jesus accomplished his work, and thereby was effective in the rescue, or salvation, of others. There are three foci of this Isaiah passage that stand out if we apply them to Jesus as the Servant. Each one is intended to be life-changing for God’s people, you and me, and give us a reasonable hope for living on this troubled earth and in our sometimes troubled lives.
This is the Good News of Good Friday, why we call it Good. Today is the counter-narrative to the world’s tired old narrative that might makes right, and those who live by the sword will really live. Not so, says the Lord of Hosts; not so says God the Creator; not so says Jesus; and he says it not merely in his words, but in a deed. It is the event of the Cross. It is God’s yes to the world’s no. Our hope then is found in God’s yes. It is the Yes of the Cross. Bishop Skip Golgotha by Bertalan Székely (1835-1910), via Wikimedia Common Good Friday
April 14, 2017 What do we do with a dead Savior? Why do we focus our attention today on suffering and a torturous execution at the hands of a corrupt religious institution, a fearful politician, an erratic and deceptive local government complete with crowd hysteria, all in the midst of one of the most glorious and sophisticated empires the world has ever known? It was Mahatma Gandhi who said, “A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.” Jesus’ self-offering was just that, a willing oblation, as he was lifted up on the tree where the whole world might see the way of perfect peace, justice and love. He did so as a gift to every human being that ever lived and ever would live. I was never more convinced of this truth than when I was washing the clothes and bed linens of people brought into the dying and destitute home in downtown Calcutta, India. Many had horrible diseases such as cholera, dysentery, AIDS or leprosy. Most came in with lice. The cast off clothes and bed sheets that came to me were not pretty. One day, while scrubbing, pouring into the tub before me adequate amounts of disinfectant and breaking loose what had been trapped in the folds of the cloth, I felt something in my hand below the surface of the darkened water. I could not see even inches below the surface. When I brought the object to the light of day, there before me in the palm of my hand, out of the muck of Calcutta’s suffering poor, was a cheap plastic rosary. Still wet with the water of the washtub was the cross and Jesus on it, crucified. To this very day I do not know from where what happened next came, but I know I heard someone sing “Alleluia” as that image of Christ on the cross was lifted by my hand through the water’s meniscus to be gazed upon by my own eyes. I remember turning to seek the source of the sound. I would find it difficult to believe in a God who stands aloof and indifferent to the suffering of the world. On the cross, we see that God in Christ has come right into the midst of it. On the cross, we see the sorrow of all humanity, every victim, everyone abused, every injustice committed, every betrayal. We also see every act of love, every act of forgiveness and reconciliation, every desire for peace, every justice accomplished, every truth uttered. Jesus is at the center of it all. On the cross we see in him nothing but pure, embracing compassion. Hope hangs there, exposed for all to see. It appeared on that cross that all he proclaimed and stood for died with him. The Gospel, the Good News itself, was nailed there. In the death of Jesus it seemed that not only the medium, but the message too had been exposed as fraudulent. Yet John’s Gospel is clear that when Jesus proclaims, “It is finished,” it does not only mean that Jesus has done what he came to do, that is die. It is also an expression of victory. It means God has triumphed. We ourselves turn the mockery of the cross on its head when we dare to call this day, “Good.” Bishop Skip Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet, fresco by Giotto c. 1305, via WikiArt.org Maundy Thursday
April 13, 2017 Just for the fun of it we’ll begin with a little Latin. The liturgical name for today is taken from the first antiphon of the ceremony of the washing of the feet, “mandatum novum,” John 13:34. It is obvious from where the English words “mandate” and “command” derive. We find in the scriptures appointed for this day three mandates. In Exodus, concerning the Passover, the Israelites are told “You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord.” In I Corinthians, Paul, recounting the events of the meal on the night Jesus was betrayed, passes on Jesus’ words, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Then in John’s Gospel we hear from Jesus directly a new commandment following his washing of the disciple’s feet, “Love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” There are no “may” rubrics here that give permission to opt out – declarative statements all around. All of the events referenced, the Passover, the Lord’s Supper and the Foot Washing, are living sermons. Each one is about love; God’s active love for us and our love for each other which is a way of loving God. These great expressions of love are portrayed in the simple yet intimate acts of feeding and washing. Is it not in moments of such service, diakonia, when we often are able to show our love in the offering of oneself to another? Paul is saying there cannot even be a Eucharist in a community whose members do not love one another. I think immediately of when my children were small and the delight, usually, of the high chair ceremony. This was high church. We got our positions, the vested bib was in place, and a jar of food was warmed in the special bowl for this mealtime alone, adorned with the family children’s spoon. Tradition is important. In this case the washing followed the eating, but bath time was also a highly ritualized event. I am reminded too of such moments on the other end of life. Times when my parents were ill and dying and once again vested in bibs and gowns, feeding and washing, intimate moments of connection through the love of eye contact and being close in deeply held thanksgiving that did not need words. The gratitude was thick in the air and it went both ways. Lots of remembering occurred. One could argue that it was all sacramental in that each tender moment was an expression of the love that goes beyond oneself and is directed toward another. Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the ways in which we remember him and one another, hold this entire cycle of life from birth to death. It gives life to all, the giver and the receiver, and transforms the relationship. A bond is forged that is indelible, never to be forgotten, and in such moments not a single morsel is lost because there time has no meaning. Eternal life is made present. It is the sacrament of the moment. It is cosmic. So it is with the pattern of the life of faith. Such acts of Gospel love epitomize the paradox of the Gospel where at a table or wash basin the offerings of hospitality usually attributed to a common servant become revolutionary. The three days initiated today, in their unity, invite us to this revolution of love. Bishop Skip “Alleluia. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
Therefore let us keep the feast. Alleluia.” Dear Friends of The Episcopal Church in South Carolina, Holy Week and Easter greetings to all of you. The sacred time and space of the Triduum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter is a unified proclamation of the central event of Christian faith and life. It is a grand opportunity to make the good news of Christ known and experienced through story and song with all the senses engaged. I know many of you have been working hard to prepare and I trust you will enter into this most holy time with the utmost seriousness it deserves as well as with the joy-filled privilege it presents. This week especially I hold all of the liturgical participants in prayer, clergy and lay leaders, for faithful preaching and faithful planning. For the Feast of the Resurrection I will be at Grace Church Cathedral for the Easter Vigil as celebrant and preacher, and then on Easter morning at the Church of the Messiah, Myrtle Beach. Even as I will be present in those particular places, all of you will be on my mind and heart. The verse above is known as the Pascha Nostrum. It offers us a vision for how we might participate in the Easter event. Keeping the feast is a response, the “therefore,” to the passion event of Jesus’ death and resurrection. One way to keep the feast is Eucharist. There is also, however, the feast of our life to which God calls us in faithful discipleship. So the “therefore” continues as we are sent out to continue the feast through our own humanity and as we engage one another. How does your life become more clearly a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, to use St. Paul’s words? Do you seek the possibility that all you do may be a proclamation of God’s good news of being set free? Is your life a response to grace as you become a window to the Easter promise of a transformed humanity and world? Can your life become a means of invitation to the feast of God’s mission of justice for the entire creation? Feast well dear friends as Christ bids you to the table – the table of the altar and the table of the world. Blessings in the Risen One, Bishop Skip The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday
April 9, 2017 “Hosanna.” Is it a cheer or is it a prayer? Is it a proclamation or a plea? I had a strange experience some years ago when I walked into a store the week before Palm Sunday. I was in clerical garb. The clerk at the register said hello. We had met before and in fact had had several conversations. Then, all of a sudden, as if my priestly dress triggered something in him, he exclaimed, “Oh no, we have that long service this Sunday. That whole dang Passion Gospel gets read.” “Dang” was not the word he used. All kinds of thoughts and feelings whirled around inside of me. Many were rather judgmental of him and I was working real hard not to come off that way in my response. But I was so surprised and caught off guard I wasn’t sure of what to say. So all that came out was, “Robert! (not his name) What is all of that about?” To which he replied, “I’ve heard that thing 50 or more times in my life. I know what it says.” Still taken aback, all I could reply was, “Think how many times I have heard it and read it. I always feel like I need to hear it again.” The response from him this time was, “Maybe that’s why you do what you do and I do what I do.” At those words some others walked into the store and our conversation ended. Yet the conversation continues in my head and heart and I am full of questions. Where is Robert in his life of faith? After all, I am glad he even goes to church. How might I have responded differently or more helpfully? Where was God in that exchange? What does God expect me to do with it? Was God trying to teach me something? Am I to have another conversation with Robert that follows up on this one? One of my imaginary tapes plays it back in my head with the response, “Robert, maybe the reason the reading of the Passion feels like drudgery to you, an unnecessary lengthening of the service, is that even though you say you’ve heard it 50 times before, in fact you’ve never really heard it, at least not deeply.” Would that be too confrontational? Perhaps I’d be wrong. I do remember, however, a time in a nursing home celebrating the Eucharist. When it came time to administer communion I came to an elderly woman in a wheel chair as tears were quietly running down her cheeks. As she sat there, hands extended, I asked, “Are you okay?” She said, “Yes, I am fine. It’s just that after all these years, I think I just heard the words for the first time.” So I know – that’s one reason why we need to rehearse the events of this most holy of weeks over and over again. It is not that it is merely a story that we hear year after year and have all the facts and events clear in our brain. It is so that we would hear the invitation to enter the story ourselves and know, perhaps anew, that it is OUR story, and God’s story in us. Because we are different each year and bring different realities of our own life to God’s table, the story changes every time we encounter it. We can discover with Andrew of Crete, writing in the 8th century: “It is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not our coats or lifeless branches of palm, matter which wastes away. But we have been clothed with Christ’s grace. He rides into Jerusalem for us, so let us spread ourselves under his feet.” Thus we shout, “Hosanna,” which means by the way, “Save us, we beg of you!” We do so stating our own willingness to follow Jesus through the suffering and death of his Passion. It is the very meaning of our baptism into Christ: To be united with him in a death like his in order to be united with him in a resurrection like his (Romans 6). Is there any one of us who cannot appreciate the whole scene played out before Jesus as he moves toward execution: the buzz of the crowd; the excitement of the people who hope beyond hope that he would save them from the oppression of the Roman political system; the violent methods of control and economic poverty that worked to keep people captive? And after the shouts of “Hosanna” have stopped, perhaps the last human voices on earth he would hear to express their hope in him and his way of love and mercy, it all gives way not long after to the starkly different shout of “Crucify him, crucify him.” Get rid of him by the method of the government’s cruelest means of torture to dissuade any others to dare and raise their voice in opposition. We dare to gaze at him on the Cross, which is part of our Holy Week invitation, to be confronted by his loneliness, to recognize deeply his suffering, because there we witness our own suffering and pain: the loss of a stricken family member or a broken relationship; the horrors of Syria and her children; the ravages of poverty and hopelessness in our cities; the wanton disregard of all those who we as a culture sometimes choose not to see or cast aside even as we try and better our own plot in life; the patterns of racism that remain imbedded in every part of our society; and dare I say it – words of violence cavalierly thrown about in our political arena. And what does Christ do in return? From the Cross he offers nothing but love and makes it the means of new life for all. This week we make the journey from self-absorption to surrender and in so doing become a passionate people in love with a passionate God. If we dare to face life with the One who hangs on that Cross, we face it, in the end, with hope. Lent, you see, even this day of Christ’s Passion, is not about feeling bad. It is about rejoicing in the gift that the cross of death has become the tree of life. Thus we shout, “Hosanna,” appealing to the One who is hope. Of course I know now, at least in part, what was going on in that store. Oh yes, it was God all right. But God wasn’t calling on me to be concerned about Robert. God’s invitation was to Skip and likewise all of you. Will you merely read my Passion one more time, one of many gone by, one of many yet to come? Or will you today, one more time let me give you my life, and ask you to give me your life? Today, it is also God’s invitation to you. “Hosanna!” Save us O God, we beg of you. Bishop Skip The Inauguration and Investiture of Dr. W. Franklin Evans
Voorhees College April 7, 2017 Having spoken just a couple of weeks ago with Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, I bring you his greetings on this great day in the life of Voorhees College. He prays his blessing upon you and gives thanks for the presence of Voorhees in the life of the Episcopal Church. I am grateful for your presence here today and the honor of being the preacher on this grand occasion and share a word that I hope and trust is of God’s Spirit. Perhaps you have heard this story, reported to me as true even as names have been changed. It seems that a young entrepreneur’s business had become so successful that it had outgrown the building in which she started. So, in the hope of future success she moved this little enterprise to a new and much larger facility. On the first day of business in the new spot, the young woman came to work excited and scared, optimistic yet with some concerns. The first thing she found in her new spot was a lovely flower arrangement. The note said, “We were so terribly sorry to hear of your loss. Please accept our deepest condolences.” It was from someone she thought she recognized as a customer, but as you might imagine she was a bit confused and wondered if it was some kind of omen. About an hour later she got a frantic call from the florist. He said, “Ms. Jones, I am so sorry. The Smiths ordered two arrangements—one for you and one to go to a funeral home. My delivery boy got the two mixed up.” Ms. Jones laughed and said, “Oh that’s okay. I’m a small business owner. I make mistakes like that too. But can you remember what the note on my arrangement said?” The florist said, “Well, that’s the really embarrassing part. The arrangement that you were supposed to get is at the funeral. It has a big ribbon on it that says, ‘Congratulations on your new location.’ ” Dr. Evans, welcome to your new location at Voorhees. We are delighted you are here. And because you are here we are all in a new location, as this particular constellation of human beings has never before come together on planet earth. It is a day of thanksgiving to God for all who have gone before us, from the original visionary, Ms. Elizabeth Evelyn Wright in April of 1897, on to all who have made it possible to be Voorhees College in 2017. We also give thanks for what will yet be, in anticipation of a future held by God’s goodness and love, in order to move into all that God is yet calling Voorhees to be through your leadership and the leadership of all who serve and study here in this historic place. So I ask, what might the scriptures say to us about who God calls us to be, together with you in your new location, and particularly this college as an Historically Black College affiliated with the Episcopal Church? In Psalm 78, as it rehearses the history of Israel, a significant question is asked. “Can God set a table in the wilderness?” I would say, as a person of faith, that not only can God do so, God has done so and is even now seeking to do so, through us. It prompts me to ask the question: Can Voorhees be an altar, that is, a sacred table set by God around which God’s good people are gathered, as an instrument of God’s vision “on earth, as it is in heaven?” To use the Presiding Bishop’s language, can Voorhees be a part of the Jesus movement in this time and place, in the wilderness of the culture in which we live? It is the hope of Isaiah’s prophetic vision of Israel’s restoration in today’s lesson, where the poor are invited to the joyful banquet. For Isaiah it is desacralized, if you will, from mere temple ritual and placed right into the daily life of real people. It is taking this altar and figuratively setting it up wherever God’s people find themselves. For Isaiah it was a movement away from sanctuary to the wilderness of the street: your street; a dorm room; a street in Denmark; the parking lot of the grocery store; a place of business; a classroom or laboratory, or even, the college president’s office. I hear echoing in my mind a line from a song by the Doobie Brothers, “taking it to the streets.” Isaiah’s vision is to be our vision. The purpose of education is not merely exporting facts and concepts, as important as they are. It is about formation of the human spirit to be a more mature, informed and transparent instrument of God’s justice for the world. Indeed a part of the Voorhees mission statement is “to educate the minds, hearts and spirits…” I wonder if we remember that the early Christian community, when gathering for Eucharist, the very thing we are doing here right now, did not first see the image of the Last Supper as its primary Eucharistic imagery. Their first image was of the various feeding stories of the four or five thousand, one of which was read today as the Gospel. The Eucharist was seen more as an anticipation of the full reign of God where all are fed, there is perfect equity and justice, all barriers that separate us are removed, and all have access to God’s bounty. Why? For in this way we are more clearly the icon of God’s community of love, justice and thanksgiving. We see in the Gospel of Luke today as it plays out in the five loaves and two fish Jesus’ Kingdom mission – feeding the hungry creation as ALL ate and were filled with an abundance of leftovers. If I may be so presumptuous to say, can this be a primary purpose of how people are prepared and empowered at Voorhees, for the sake of one another and for the sake of a whole, reconciled and healed world? There would be a “Re-imagined Voorhees, a different school of thought.” Let me make what I think is a bold statement. Every one of us here today is called by God, in some way, to be setting up God’s table in the wilderness of life, to live a life of gratefulness, sometimes setting the table yourself and sometimes having it set for you. It is an altar that, if true to God, challenges everything of our world that works contrary to that vision and dares to challenge what needs to be different in any structure or institution that robs God’s people of dignity and hope. The bread and wine we hold up here belongs not to us, it belongs to God and therefore it belongs to the world. This altar, the altars in our churches, only have integrity if they become the altars we set out there, or better, the altars or holy tables God is setting for us out there. We are asked to show up. Dr. Evans, help us through your ministry as president of Voorhees College to be table setters, to cooperate with God in God’s dream for God’s people. The life of faith is not to be merely prudent, sensible or safe. No, too often such attitudes lead to a stale, stagnant and passionless Christianity. It leaves us unchanged and the world remains very hungry. Perhaps the call here, the reason God has brought you together as president, professors, staff, students and community, is to be the new table God is setting here at Voorhees, a table where all are welcome, a table where all are fed, a table where justice rises up to be heard, seen and fulfilled. Let us practice it here, make it so here, so that we can live it out there. Bishop Skip |
Bishop Skip AdamsThe Right Reverend Gladstone B. Adams III was elected and invested as our Bishop on September 10, 2016. Read more about him here. Archives
December 2019
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