Easter 2018: Rising

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Happy Easter

As I leave my apartment, people are lined up around the block waiting for the early Easter service at First Corinthian Baptist. At the Jay street station, I see women in fancy "bonnets" heading to the 5th Avenue Parade. I'm on my way to Beverley. It's Easter. 

Here's what's on my mind this Easter Sunday:


All the years I lived  in Pittsburgh, my neighbor Greek Orthodox priest, throughout the fifty days of Easter, would greet me with Alleuia! Christ is risen! and I would  respond  with Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!....and so today, we begin Easter...
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!  

Easter....so many memories...for twenty years Easter began for me in Central Park, at the foundation stones of All Angels Church in Seneca Village, the buried, forgotten community of African-Americans and Irish and later German immigrants whose story is rising again....because it represented a multi cultural church, because if you try to silence people the  very stones will cry out and because you cannot bury the truth forever...sooner or later it will come out...that's how my Easter began...

Memories of Easter go deeper...later this afternoon, my boys and I will go to Trenton to have Easter with my sister and my mother...they..and their cousins...are all adults now....but how can I forget the many years my sister took over for my mom and created the magical backyard wide  Easter egg hunt to find all the hidden plastic Easter eggs filled with treats....from Berlin my son calls me and says, tell your grandson his chocolate eggs are for dessert...

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

I believe Mark is my favorite version of the Easter story...it ends with the words... they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.....in fact, in the Greek, its a dangling preposition...they were afraid for...for what?  and why? Man, there is so much space to explore there....

#Emptytomb
#Hesnothere
#Whatnow

and right now there is so much fear...as I was  quoted  last week's West Side Spirit and Our Town about fear:
Yes, there are, and the Rev. Robert Brashear, pastor of the West-Park Presbyterian Church on West 86th Street since 1995, ticked off a few of them, citing, “Fear of the other, fear of people who are different, fear of people who look different, fear of people who come from different places.” (http://www.westsidespirit.com/local-news/20180327/a-season-of-faith/2)

Yes a lot of us are afraid...and we need to speak to that...but EASTER....
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Let's get something straight...this holiday is not nor never has been about trying to prove that something extraordinary happened 2000 years or so ago. Can't be done.  No cell phone shots, instagram posts, snapchat posts or tweets. No external verifications. None.

#wheredhego
#whereshenow

Even the earliest gospel just leaves us with an empty tomb and questions. 

The earliest biblical witness is in Paul,1 Corinthians 15: 1-11....and the bottom line here is that we're right there with Paul, ok? We encounter Jesus just as Paul did no more...and get this ....NO LESS....

at the  end of the day, if you  want proof that Jesus is risen, look around you... it's you and me ...we're here...Christ is in us...and Christ is risen....

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Except wait a minute.  Back to fear.  As long as there is fear, the  risenness is not yet complete.  Jesus is still in the state of rising....and we need to be rising with him ......

And there are signs...

Central Park West

I give you just one...last week over 100 presbyterians gathered at Rutgers Presbyterian Church and we marched together to join with the march for our lives....

Leaving Rutgers

.by the time we reached Central Park West there were100s of thousands...j

oining in with the young people to say #neveragain to say #enough....

Students demand

They don't accept that they are too young, that it's too hard, that there's nothing to be done...they're telling us they're disappointed in us and that something can be done...they give us hope....

With Steve Phelps

Look...I get why the gospel ends with "Afraid"....resurrection is scary...
the easy part is to say, ok, it's over we lost, get over it...the disciples returned to their old jobs as fishers, John says...the scary part is to say no, the tomb is empty...the struggle continues...we are in the process of rising...that's what it is my friends, the process of rising...let us continue to rise together....

And we shared communion together. More friends and family than usual gathered. Even a baby, which always brings smiles and hope. And Geraldine shared her music. And then the traditional community meal in the fellowship hall.

And then, to the train. To meet my boys. Family. Easter.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!










Second Reading 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

1Now I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you — unless you have come to believe in vain.

3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them — though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.


MARK
 the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were

The Third Sunday in Lent: Commandments for Life

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After church Sunday dinner

After a week in Florida, I'm back with my friends at Beverley Church in Brooklyn. Here's this week’s reflection. 

SO it is the third Sunday of Lent.

So I'm just back from Florida. The other day I was sitting on my friend's patio, having a conversation. It was 78' and sunny in Florida. And I looked and noticed it was 36' with mixed rain and snow in New York City. Mmmmm. Well, at least the sun was shining yesterday.

I was staying with a rabbi friend and on Friday night, I helped him do his service. After the service, we sat and talked awhile. He's got a pretty hard and fast rule about never putting politics into his sermons. That things are so hard for  most of us out there, that we all need jut san hour's peace once a week. A time to be together praising God  and feeling the healing wings of God embracing us and resting in the peace of the Lord. 

My tradition and experience takes me to a somewhat different place, but I profoundly respect where he's coming from on that point and I always want to make sure that when  we're together, we experience some of that peace and renewal. And I expect  our conversation will go on for  as long as we're friends because there are so many angles  to that conversation.

I was thinking how one of the things  I say about the job of being a pastor is that we are to help with the ongoing  exegesis of the lived lives of the people of God. That is, we're supposed to help you all make sense of what's going on around you theologically and spiritually. And man, I have no idea as to how to even begin to keep up with what's going on around us now. There's just too much every day. 

So I wanted to get into the 10 commandments today. And the thought struck me that once you move beyond one person, you're into politics.  I guess it's all in how you define the term. And by the way, I'm still amazed at Billy Graham lying in state in the capitol rotunda. Its very clear that for all of his public eschewing of politics, he was a very political person. Even as far as  giving to Nixon a bombing plan for Vietnam that if carried out would have killed over a million people. Although it is true that the focus of his public preaching was individual salvation...what it takes to get me into heaven. 

And that's a good entree into the Ten Commandments (and if you're older than a certain age, how do you even say that and not think about Charlton Heston?) Because the 10 commandments are not a personal guide book to get you into heaven. They have a very different purpose.A political purpose if you will. 

Note they're from Exodus. From the part of the Bible story where the Hebrew people exit from Egypt and then have to spend 40 years in the desert learning how we live together as a community.. before entering the  promised land. These commandments are at the base of that. 

(Those who  want to put them in our courthouses have the right instincts, as to their basic importance.   They are the root of our legal justice system. But living in an inclusive society is more complicated. Besides ...are you aware there are protestant, jewish and catholic ways of dividing the commandments? )

The first sounds like its simply religious. But inspiring our friends  in the Confessing Church in the writing of the Barmen Declaration in the midst of Nazi Germany and the so-called 'German Christian" movement. 

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans." On the contrary, the Declaration proclaims that the Church "is solely Christ's property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance." (8.17) Rejecting domestication of the Word in the Church, the Declaration points to the inalienable lordship of Jesus Christ by the Spirit and to the external character of church unity which "can come only from the Word of God in faith through the Holy Spirit. Thus alone is the Church renewed" (8.01).

But by claiming primary allegiance to Christ in Nazi Germany, they were making a profoundly (and dangerous) political statement as well.  All authority in Christ, which leaves no room for Hitler. 

We could do a sermon about each of these.  The first four seem to  about our relationships with God and the last five with each other with a day of rest in between..which makes it central...even for slaves and animals...this was the inspiration of the 40 hour week, the end of Child labor, Sunday school...if only we could get back to a sense of sabbath...

And have we ever had more of a need for a commandment about truth?

But here's the main point I want to make about the commandments. The first pretty much says it all. We shall have no other Gods before us...and every one of the other commandments is about giving something else god like importance in our lives before God. Every time we break a commandment, we are placing another concern before God. 

Maybe as a Lenten discipline this week, you could ask yourself at the end of each day what commandments did you break today? Or simply think about  when we made something else more important than God. Or reflect on a commandment a day. And think about metaphors. Remember Jimmy Carter's "Adultery of the spirit?"

Our God will be faithful to the 1000th generation. Thanks be to God!

I had promised the people that I would play for them today.  So following communion, as the offering was being collected, I played my setting of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."And like I did last Friday at Sarasota, the last time through I stopped and said,
"I've been watching these high school children from South Florida blow us away and you know what? Maybe its too east to say the answer is blowin in the wind.  Maybe we need to sing the answer is the answer my friend is not blowin' in the wind, the answer is in our in hands.  And that's exactly what we did.

And when it was over, went downstairs for dinner. And conversation.  We broke bread together.

First Reading Exodus 20:1-17

1Then God spoke all these words:

2I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3you shall have no other gods before me.

4You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

8Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9For six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work — you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

12Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

13You shall not murder.

14You shall not commit adultery.

15You shall not steal.

16You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Holding on to Christmas, or The other side of Christmas

1/7

Geraldine's family is growing.....

On a freezing cold day, i make my way through the ever worsening subway system and somehow get to Beverley Church.


We could've gone  one of  two ways today..either the Baptism of Jesus or Three Kings...We'll have time to look at Jesus' baptism again in Lent...so I wanted to go with the Three Kings...it's like we need them to finish our Christmas. And I'm a believer in holding onto Christmas as long as we can.  In our house, we always wait until the last week before Christmas to put up our tree and then leave it up until January  6th...Epiphany....And for our friends in the Orthodox Churches, this  is their Christmas, old Christmas, Eastern Christmas. When I was growing up, our local paper always had an op ed honoring their celebration. So we today have one final day of Christmas.

Especially since the secular commercial Christmas begins right after Halloween, I want to keep the spiritual, Christmas of faith on its own...all twelve days...

And at West Park Church, when we were a fully bilingual congregation, this was a very special day for us, Three Kings Day, el dia de los tres reyes magos. That  was the day of our Christmas pageant and procession.  And our Latino members always had special gifts for everyone..and we had rosca de reyes...a special Mexican bread for the day...with a little baby Jesus inside..and whoever had the baby Jesus had to host a party.....usually with traditional tamales...so today we will welcome and honor the kings.

Luke has the shepherds and the stable, Matthew the kings, and if you look close, (2:11), they went into a house..that's where the tradition came from that they actually arrived about a year later. We like to mash them up all these scenes together, like with the live camels and the procession at Radio City Music Hall...

And it doesn't say three, though there are three gifts...and they got the gifts ...and camels from Isaiah, but Matthew adds myrrh.....as a foretaste of what will come...


This is  a nativity for adults. My friend Pastor Heidi Neumark of Trinity Lutheran wants us to keep Herod in Christmas.  Driven by fear, Herod winds up murdering all the children under two...there is of course no external verification of thi story....but this was so common or Herod .that a relatively small massacre in a small  hill country    town would not be making the news...Herod was so afraid of losing power he even murdered his own son...so the deaths of these poor people in Bethlehem wouldn't be noticed.

Pastor Heidi says:
We Christians like to talk about putting Christ back into Christmas, but let's not forget to put Herod back into Christmas. Herod represents the dark side of the gospel. He reminds us that Jesus didn't enter a world of sparkly Christmas cards or a world of warm spiritual sentiment. Jesus enters a world of real pain, of serious dysfunction, a world of brokenness and political oppression. Jesus was born an outcast, a homeless person, a refugee, and finally he becomes a victim to the powers that be. Jesus is the perfect savior for outcasts, refugees, and nobodies. That's how the church is described in scripture time and time again - not as the best and the brightest - but those who in their weakness become a sign for the world of the wisdom and power of God. from Joy Carroll Wallis

This kind  of violence is certainly part                                                                                             of our own history. Last week I saw the new movie"Hostiles" . it takes place in the waning days of the US government conflict with Native Americans. Christian Bale  a longtime "Indian fighter" who is assigned to accompany an Indian leader (Wes Studie)back to his home  in Montana. Along the way, old enemies have to find way to live together, work together in order to survive. Along the way they  come to  respect each others integrity. Importantly, it is not the liberals, eastern journalists,etc.. who never actually   encountered one another  but those who truly engaged with ine another, vs "hostiles" ...who show the way towards reconciliation.


So....Free people see Rome for what it is... There is enough love to drive out fear..

God is in and with all the characters..in these stories. A light glimmers on the horizon and the darkness has not overcome it

And so the Holy family flees to to Egypt...as refugees...many traditions grew up around their time there...they'll even show you where they stayed.....One of my youth group advisors suggested they used the gifts      to pay for the trip to Egypt.        ,                                                                                                                              

So what do we make  of  all this?

God places God's child in the hands  of fallible human beings...just like us.  Herod, the powerful one, is afraid.
Joseph, who has nothing but a dream, is not.
Ready to start as journey into a new year. Much to frighten us. We're called upon to face our own Herods.  And go home by another way?  Once you've come to know Jesus,you just can't go back the same way. It's got to be. new.  What's our new way home look like? You tell me....

Here is James Taylor's song, "Home by another way":

Home by another way . James Taylor
Those magic men the Magi
Some people call them wise
Or Oriental, even kings
Well anyway, those guys
They visited with Jesus
They sure enjoyed their stay
Then warned in a dream of King Herod's scheme
They went home by another way

Yes they went home by another way
Home by another way
Maybe me and you can be wise guys too
And go home by another way
We can make it another way
Safe home as they used to say
Keep a weather eye to the chart on high
And go home another way

Steer clear of royal welcomes
Avoid a big to-do
A king who would slaughter the innocents
Will not cut a deal for you
He really, really wants those presents
He'll comb your camel's fur
Until his boys announce they've found trace amounts
Of your frankincense, gold and myrrh

Time to go home by another way
Home by another way
You have to figure the Gods saying play the odds
And go home by another way
We can make it another way
Safe home as they used to say
Keep a weather eye to the chart on high
And go home another way

Home is where they want you now
You can more or less assume that you'll be welcome in the end
Mustn't let King Herod haunt you so
Or fantasize his features when you're looking at a friend

Well it pleasures me to be here
And to sing this song tonight
They tell me that life is a miracle
And I figured that they're right
But Herod's always out there
He's got our cards on file
It's a lead pipe cinch, if we give an inch
Old Herod likes to take a mile

It's best to go home by another way
Home by another way
We got this far to a lucky star
But tomorrow is another day
We can make it another way
Safe home as they used to say
Keep a weather eye to the chart on high
And go home another way

So as God entrusts God's children to fallible human belongs, God entrusts us to each  other. And we will walk with each other as we find our way home.  

And so we share our communion.  And a hot cup of coffee. And unavoidably back out into the cold. 
(Like -14 degrees Centigrade!)

Happy New Year!

Matthew 2: 1-12
[1] Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, 
[2] "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him." 
[3] When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 
[4] and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 
[5] They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: 
[6] `And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who will govern my people Israel.'"
[7] Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared; 
[8] and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him." 
[9] When they had heard the king they went their way; and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was. 
[10] When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy; 
[11] and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.