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Sermon
Synopses - April 2007
Sermons
at Trinity are usually ex tempore, that is done without
notes...Please enjoy our "Sermon Synopses" or
short summaries of sermons preached at Trinity.
Link
to Sermons
Synopses for additional summaries available from
this year.
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April 8, 2007 - Sermon for
Easter Day
When an organization or a
group is at a crossroads in its life, it is useful to bring
in an outside consultant to help the group see with fresh
eyes its identity, to see the assets it has been given,
and to help it re-focus its mission. Here at Trinity,
we are at a crossroads: we have had a new rector,
and here on Easter, this feast of Feasts, today of all
days is a day of resurrection and re-birth. In a
moment we will rev up our time machine and bring in an
outside consultant; but first, let me digress.
The unseasonably cold weather
we have been having has me “California dreaming.” I
am remembering with fondness a beach just a few hundred
yards from where we used to live in Santa Barbara, along
a stretch of the California coast that is south facing
and where, because of the configuration of the mountain
ridges and the bays along the coast, you can actually watch,
on the West Coast, the sun rise over the water. The
beach is a great surf spot, and I remember my friends and
I rising early in the morning, pulling on our wetsuits,
heading down to the beach well before sunrise to beat the
crowds, and shivering in the cold half light of pre-dawn,
waiting for the sun to rise so that it would be light enough
to surf. The beach is unusual for that part of the
county because it is not developed. Sandwiched between
the trophy homes of our upper classes is a small patch
of land sacred to the Chumash Indian tribe. According
to Chumash cosmogony, it is along this stretch of coast
that the Ancestors came to the land, crossing a bridge
over the waters from the Spirit world into this world. This
beach is for them a site of the birth for their people. And
if you walk among the tall grasses and brambles of the
shore there, you can see the many mounds where they are
buried. Here, next to the water, in the place of
the rising sun, in the place where their people have been
born, they have chosen to bury their dead. And here
they lie, night after night, in the cold half-light of
the pre-dawn, waiting for the sun to rise.
It is from here, as we plug
in our time machine and set the dial to 1,000 years ago,
that we bring in our consultant. As soon as our consultant
comes in, she feels right at home -- “I know what
this place is; I know what you are doing.” Here,
in our cave of stone, she sees the shamans wearing their
special clothing; she sees the torches and the smoking
fire pot; she hears us read from our sacred stories and
sing our ancient incantations. “This is a place
of creation,” she says. “It is here where
your tribe gathers to remember who they are as a people,
what their purpose is (the meaning of their lives), and
where they are given power to live those lives.”
I ask our consultant to help us clarify our identity. Our
consultant’s eye is accustomed to the language of
sign and symbol, and as she looks around the church, she
sees the baptismal font. “Ah, I see that you,
too, are a people of the water.” And,noticing
the font’s placement by the entrance to the church,
she guesses correctly that the water has to do with our
tribe’s initiation rites. “So, you are
a group of initiates,” she says. “That
means you have been chosen, set apart by the gods to carry
out a special task on behalf of the greater community.” “Tell
me,” she says, “In your initiations rites,
do you cross over the water? Go around it? Drink
it?” “Actually, we go through it.” “So,” she
says, “It is a place of drowning – death – and
then birth. If one wants to become a member of your
tribe, they must die to old ways of living, and be born
to new.” And so, she gives her verdict about
who we are: “You are a chosen people, set apart
by the gods to carry out a special task on behalf of the
wider community. This task is so important that in
order to carry it out, you must first die to your old ways
of life and be born anew into this community.”
I then ask her to help us
more clearly see what our assets are, our gifts. Our
consultant points to the altar. “So,” she
says, “You are a community that deals in the crossing
over from life to death. You are not afraid of death.” Then
she asks, “What do you sacrifice there? Animals? People?” “Well,
actually we remember and re-enact that God once sacrificed
God’s son for us.” “Your god sacrificed
a son for you?! This god considers you very important
indeed, and believes that you play a crucial role in the
unfolding of the world.” “What do you
do with the sacrifice? Burn it? Bury it? Hang
it up as a trophy?” “We eat it.” “You
eat it? When somebody eats something that has been
sacrificed, it means that the person wants to have the
power of the one who was sacrificed. You must believe
that you have something of the power of this god’s
son in you.” And so our consultant gives her
estimation of the assets that our organization has: “You
have a god who considers you extremely important and regards
you as crucial players in the divine ‘story.’ You
have a community who is not afraid of death or life, and
you gather weekly to make the power of your god’s
son your own.”
I ask our consultant to help
us clarify our mission. When our consultant hears
the Easter Gospel we just read, about the women who, “in
the early dawn, came to the tomb,” I see a flash
of recognition in her face. I imagine that she is
thinking of the tombs at the edge of the water, standing
in the half-light of the pre-dawn, waiting for the light
to come. And as she hears the part of how they found “the
stone rolled away from the tomb,” and how, when they
went in, they did not find the body but instead were met
by two divine messengers who asked why the women were looking
for the living among the dead, she says, “I’m
getting the picture now.”
“You are a tribe of
people who have been chosen and set apart by your god to
do a special task on behalf of the greater community. This
task is so important that you must first die and be ‘born’ anew
as a member of your people. Your God has given you
great gifts: You have a God who considers you important
enough to die for, you have a community that is not afraid
of death, and you have a sacred rite that gives you the
power of your god’s son. And your mission – your
mission is to take your god’s power and go out into
the greater community to look for the ‘tombs.’” (I
know she would have a hey-day with the children’s
Easter egg hunt after the service.) “And when
you find them, you are to be people of the dawn, watching
and waiting for the rising sun. And you are to keep
on watching and waiting there until, one day, when the
sun rises, you notice that the stones have been rolled
away and the tombs are empty, and a divine messengers asks, ‘Why
do you look for the living among the dead?’”
“And if you want my ‘two bits’ of advice, I will tell you
that if you don’t want to forget who you are, you must never stray too
far from the edge of your water and the place of the rising sun; for you are
people of the water, and people of the dawn. And if you want to have
the power to bring your god’s resurrection to the places of death around
us, you must keep gathering here to eat.”
It is difficult to remember
who we are, to see the gifts that we have been given, and
to hold on with clarity to our mission in the world. If
we wish to remember who we are – set apart by God
for a special role; to see the gifts we have been given – God,
community, rites with power – and to keep focused
on our mission: to bring Christ’s resurrection power
to the “tombs” around us – we must keep
gathering. We must keep gathering here on the edge
of the water, here in the place of the dawn, here where
we are given resurrection power and sent out to be lights
in a world darkness.
I invite you to keep gathering – in
this place of stone, with its shamans, torches, sacred
texts, ancient incantations, sacred pool and altar – so
that you can remember who we are, so that you can see what
we have been given, and that you may know our mission and
how critically important it is for our world. I invite
you to keep gathering; and I hope that you will accept.
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April 6, 2007, Good Friday
Todd spoke to two things: 1) Making
sense of what we just heard (Passion gospel) and sung (“Were
you there when they crucified my Lord?”), and 2) the
tradition of the veneration of the cross.
First: Todd said that
Christian theologians and writers have for centuries been
trying to make sense of Jesus suffering and death. While
there is agreement that Jesus’ death is for our benefit,
there is no consensus on exactly how Jesus’ death
is for our benefit. Jesus’ suffering and death
defies our attempts to make it neat and tidy. Perhaps
it’s just fine that we can’t make sense of
Jesus’ suffering and death, for Christians are called
less to make sense of Jesus’ suffering and death
than they are called to appropriate Jesus’ suffering
and death. Paul in Philippians speaks of “sharing
in Christ’s suffering” and “becoming
like him in his death,” so that he may “attain
resurrection from the dead.” Todd talked about
how he had just been to a Passover Seder. The purpose
of the Seder is not so much to make sense of the Passover
as it is to simply tell the story. The Haggadah (“liturgy” for
the Passover meal) literally means “the telling.” Faithful
Jews every year tell the story of the Passover again and
again, making it their own. Likewise we Christians
are to keep hearing and singing about Jesus’ suffering
and death, making it our own, so that, as we share more
fully in Christ’s death, so we might share more fully
in his resurrection.
Second: Todd spoke about
the ancient tradition (from the early centuries of the
Church) of the veneration of the cross, which we were about
to do. He introduced it by telling of a ritual done
by Newton North High School seniors at their last performance
in the drama department: At the end of their last
performance at Newton North, they kneel down and kiss the
stage. “They kneel down and kiss the place
that gave them an opportunity to try on new clothing, to
take on new personas, and to speak a language they otherwise
would not speak. Likewise, the cross is that
which has given us an opportunity to put on other clothing
(Paul’s “putting on Christ”), where we
try on another persona (child of God and heir of the Kingdom),
and that has given us the chance to speak a language we
might not otherwise speak (praise and thanksgiving to God).” Todd
invited us all to come forward and kneel and/or kiss the
cross, if we wished. (Almost everybody did – and
many were visibly moved.)
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April 1, 2007, The Sunday
of the Passion: Palm Sunday
Todd spoke of his last summer’s
trip to Iceland, a volcanic island that is a thin place
in the earth’s crust with fissures connecting the
earth’s molten core to the surface. In Iceland – with
its volcanoes, geysers and geothermal steam vents – Todd
realized that he was walking atop a great power source. The
Icelanders harness the power to produce geothermal energy.
Holy Week is a “thin place” in the Church’s
year. Holy Week is the point of convergence for all
the “tectonic plates” of the Church’s
stories and symbols – the center of the Christian
year – and where there are fissures to a greater
reality that lies just beneath the surface. Holy
Week helps us realize that we sit only a thin “crust” away
from a vast core of grace, forgiveness, love, hope and
new life. Like Icelanders harness geothermal
power to produce electricity, we Christians are called
to harness the great power of Holy Week and Christ’s
resurrection and put it to use for living changed lives.
We harness this power by doing
three things:
- Not running away. It is not strange
that we should fear the power of Holy Week – the
power we celebrate here can completely turn our lives
upside-down. Resist the urge to run away, and come
to the power source. Todd spoke of several examples
of fear during the Holy Week scriptures: Pilate
afraid of the crowds; Peter afraid of admitting he knew
Jesus; the disciples meeting behind locked doors out
of fear.
- Worship. Come to the Holy Week
services. Those who fully participate in Holy Week
often say what a powerful, transforming experience it
was. Worship harnesses the power.
- Pray. Even if you have not taken
up a Lenten discipline, take one up now! Pray,
if only for 15 – even ten – minutes per day. Think
of the top three things on your “front page” that
concern you right now. Let God read that “front
page,” and see what happens. Pray can put
you in touch with the “molten core” of God’s
love.
Todd asked us to please walk with him during
these Holy days. See the wonders of the strange,
wonderful landscape that is Holy Week. See the evidence
of a powerful new reality lurking just beneath the surface. Let
yourself peer into the fissures of grace, forgiveness and
love, and do not fear to have your life transformed. If
we are faithful to keeping Holy Week, when we next meet,
we will meet as changed people.
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