Holy Cross Day 2015

Holy Cross Day 2015 (John 12:31-36)

“If I be lifted up.”

Jesus is God the Father’s Plan of Salvation.

Most people perceive salvation in terms of what we must do to gain God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. We create Law based, belief based and knowledge based forms of religion to earn salvation. We asset our right to eternal life based on our beliefs and behaviors.

Jesus reminds us that salvation is not about rewards and punishments. Salvation is not even about lists of beliefs and behaviors. No human being can claim a right to divine favor. God is universal unconditional love. God loves everyone already because that is who God is. You have no right to salvation. Salvation is a gift God offers everyone in Jesus Christ. The problem Jesus addresses is not defined by placating divine judgement, condemnation and wrath. The problem lies within the human soul. The problem, with all of its manifold consequences in our lives and societies, is the choice we as a species made to separate from God.

The Plan of salvation is first the reunification of humanity and divinity. At the Annunciation, the archangel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will conceive a unique child. He will be fully human. And, he will be fully divine. Reunification begins with the Incarnation. The incarnation begins when all human life begins. It begins at conception.

Jesus is the second Adam. Jesus resets the original pattern of humanity to unfold in the categories of love, holiness and compassion. The incarnation is the first part of salvation that makes the second part possible.

The second part is the cross.

Jesus dies on the cross falsely accused of blasphemy and treason. The religious court convicts him of blasphemy for claiming to be God. He wasn’t condemned for his actions or his teachings. He was condemned for acknowledging his true identity. The religious establishment of the time would not and could not accept this truth. To do so would have meant acknowledging they were fundamentally wrong about the nature of God, the nature of humanity and the role of religion. Religious pride sent Jesus to the cross.

Pontus Pilate condemned Jesus to death for treason against the state. Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent. But, he would not and could not accept the consequences of releasing Jesus. Pilate embraced a convenient lie to remove an inconvenient truth. Pilate’s fear killed Jesus.

Human created religion and politics are designed by the lost to perpetuate separation from God. Through pride the lost refuse to receive the gift of God. Through fear, the lost accept a lie to avoid the truth. Through the assertion of the human will to power the lost slander, condemn and kill to preserve their separation.

Why?

Moses gave the answer millennial ago. The answer is power. Our species chose separation in order to become like God. But, we identified the divine nature with only two of God’s many attributes. We separated from God in order to acquire the supposed secret knowledge of God and the ruling  power of God.

Jesus reminds us that God is love. In our self-indulgent and sentimental culture that statement seems very benign. Benign but largely meaningless. The various cultures of Jesus’ day heard this claim from a very different perspective. Unlike modern people, they did not pay lip service to the truth Jesus proclaimed. They rejected it outright through pride, fear and self-will. Jesus knew this would happen. It was the only way he could deal with the problem of separation.

On the cross Jesus offered himself as the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for sin. Since he was fully human he could experience sin and death on the cross. He could enter into that place of separation which is the abomination of desolation and for three hours fulfill the law of cause and effect by taking upon himself the consequences of separation.

Because Jesus is fully divine he could stand in the place of desolation, embrace the sin and death of every human being who has ever lived and will ever live, and in the infinite ocean of divine love transform separation back into reunification for all of us and for each of us. He took into himself all of our petty sins and transformed them back into their original virtues. He experienced the death of every human being and swallowed up death to transform death back into life by the real presence of his own eternal life.

Since Jesus died on the cross and rose again there are now two ways of being human. There is the way of Adam and Eve which is the way of separation. And, there is the way of Jesus, the second Adam, who resets human nature by his transformative sacrifice on the cross.

There are now also two ways for you to be you. You can follow the way of Adam through pride, self-will and fear. You can wander with the lost who do not want to be found. You can hide from the inconvenient truth of Jesus Christ in a multitude of convenient lies. Or, you can make the one real choice Jesus won for us on the cross.

Before Jesus died on the cross there was only one way to be human- the way of separation, sin and death. Since Jesus died and rose again we have a choice. We, collectively as a species, have a second chance to say “yes” to God, “yes” to universal unconditional love.

There are now two patterns you can use to create your personal identity. There are now two paths for you to follow through this universe of matter, energy, time and space. There are now two yous waiting to unfold in this world and in the next world.

The choice is yours. Jesus did all of the hard work on the cross. Jesus offers the new pattern in the resurrection sacraments of baptism and holy communion as gifts.

Heaven is not a reward. Hell is not a punishment. Salvation is a gift we can chose to receive in Jesus Christ. That choice enters into the world of cause and effect and begins to produce a result.

If we choose to ignore or reject Jesus we chose to remain lost in separation. That choice enters into the world of cause and effect. The consequences are all around us in conflicts, condemnation, pride and despair.

If we choose to receive the gift of reunification in Jesus we suddenly discover that where we were lost we are now found. It is not that God has been hiding from us. It is not that we have in any meaningful way been searching for a God who does not want to be found. We are the ones who are lost. Jesus is the one who finds us.

As we allow ourselves to be found in Jesus we begin to grow into the new way of being human and the new way of being the unique person God designed you to become.

On the cross, Jesus drew the fullness of the human species into himself. On the cross Jesus embraced the Adamic nature of separation, sin and death. On the cross, Jesus met and held every human being in our unique fears and despair. On the cross, Jesus allowed the lost to cast him out, torture him and lift him up to die. And, as he we was lifted up to die Jesus embraced death, both universally and personally, for each of us and all of us.

In the sacrament of resurrection here at the altar of sacrificial love, Jesus offers us and all who heed the call to worship, the gift of a new life and a new way of living. It is the way of reunification and transformation in universal unconditional love.

Pentecost 15

Pentecost 15 (Mark 7:24-37)   “He has done everything well.”

Jesus reveals that God is universal unconditional love.

This was not what people believed in the first century.

People then believed that God had a favored nation and a favored segment of that population. The favored nation were the descendants of Abraham through Isaac, Jacob and Judah. The substance of divine favor is the perceived promise that Israel would rule the world under the leadership of a divinely anointed descendant of David.

Within the favored nation were the righteous elite. They were the ones who by their beliefs and behaviors earned divine reward, avoided divine judgment and had the right to judge, condemn, exclude and if necessary destroy the unrighteous. By definition Gentiles were unrighteous. They were not part of the covenant, the legal contract, God made with the favored people. They lacked the law. They embraced the wrong set of beliefs and practiced the wrong behaviors. The righteous frequently referred to the Gentiles as dogs- unfit to enter the house of God and fit only to serve as a slave.

This is the context for the conversation Jesus had with the Syro-Phonecian woman. The conversation was a process for Jesus’ disciples and for the woman and her famil, and for us. He quotes the accepted belief that the Gentiles do not deserve God’s favor in any way. At this point in the conversation the disciples are shaking their heads in agreement. They are feeling good that Jesus is reinforcing what they know to be true. They want Jesus to judge, condemn, exclude and deny healing to the woman and her daughter. They are sinners and even to speak with a sinner is an affront to the righteous.

Jesus breaks custom by speaking with the woman. He knows the xenophobia of his nation and his disciples. He grew up in a society where the righteous avoid and exclude the unrighteous lest they themselves become contaminated by sin.

Jesus also knows that the Greek woman is aware of this. He leads her through a process of spiritual discovery that deals with the power and pride of separation. He knows she is desperate. He knows she is willing to humiliate herself and grovel as a slave before him if that is what it takes to heal her daughter. She is motivated by love. It is that love that helps her to overcome her own fear and distrust of a Jewish Messiah. And, it is that love Jesus uses to re-educate his disciples about who God is and who they themselves  are.

The love produces an attitude of humility that empowers her faith. It is the love, the humility and the faith Jesus seeks to elicit from her. As in so many other instances of healing, the faith opens the way for grace through love.

This is not the way the religious people then thought God worked. They thought that right belief plus right behavior were both necessary conditions to earn God’s favor. Love had little to nothing to do with righteousness. Obedience, submission and condemnation were the elements of righteous attitude and action.

Lest we miss the point, Mark then tells the story of how Jesus heals another Gentile. This one is deaf and has a speech impediment. His physical disability symbolizes the spiritual disability of the disciples.  They are deaf to the clear and explicit word of God. In the prophet Isaiah God makes the scandalous statement that the Messiah will be a light to enlighten the Gentiles. A bruised reed he will not break. A dimly burning wick he will not quench.

The people of Isaiah’s generation rejected this teaching as did the people in Jesus’ generation. They wanted the judgment. They demanded the wrath. They expected the condemnation. They received the love.

This was too much for many who witnessed Jesus and listened carefully to what he taught. They could not accept that for their entire lives they had been so wrong. The fact that Jesus was actually fulfilling what Moses and the Prophets wrote made it only worse.

The righteous elites reacted to Jesus with anger and fear. The disciples were astonished and bewildered. But, those who the elites defined as unrighteous responded to the love of God in Jesus with a love that produced faith. They were the ones who exclaimed: behold, he has done all things well.

Religion without love perpetuates original separation from God. Religion that subordinates scripture to xenophobia subverts the Plan of Salvation. Jesus shows us the language of false religion in the first part of his conversation with the Greek woman. It is the language of judgment, exclusion and condemnation. Jesus engages the woman to help us hear the language of grace. It is the language of humility and unconditional universal love.

God is love.

Those who choose to remain aloof in their own perceived righteousness are missing their moment of grace. They are deaf to the word of God. Their tongues are tied and incapable of proclaiming the Good News of God. Yet, Jesus loves them, too. Jesus can heal them and set them free to receive the blessing of divine grace. All they need to is to make a choice to take their eyes off of their own perceived righteousness and look to Jesus. Listen to him. Open the mind to be taught by him. Open the heart to his own sacred heart of compassion. Surrender self-will by grace through faith in love.

There is no one whom God does not love. There is no one whom God authorizes us to judge, condemn and exclude. There is only and preeminently Jesus seeking the lost- those lost in sin as well as those lost in righteousness- with healing and transformation.

Pentecost 14

Pentecost 14 (Mark 7:1-23) “For from within….”

Moses and the Prophets are very clear. The Law has no power to save.

The Apostle Paul clarifies that the Law is holy and good. It is in fact so holy and so good it can only reveal to us our own separation from God and rebellion against God. It can only help us understand that we need a savior.

Jesus, and only Jesus, can fulfill the Law. Because only Jesus can fulfill the Law only Jesus can save us from the condemnation embedded in the Law. The condemnation emerges in the function of the Law to serve as a perfect mirror to the soul. The holiness of the Law reveals to us our own willful rejection of the law.

No one in Jesus’ day believed this. Everyone believed that God gave the Law through Moses so that people could exercise their free will to earn God’s favor and avoid God’s wrath. They taught that right behavior plus right belief produced a spiritual state of righteousness that God was obligated to reward.

Of course, once you buy into this belief system you need to know exactly what the right behaviors and right beliefs are. And, therein lies the problem. No one then and no one since then have ever been able to agree on the right lists of beliefs and behaviors. People then and now are left with a Gordian Knot of religious, non-religious and anti-religious teachings that are mutually exclusive and mutually hostile.

The great problem in the ancient world as in our world is how do we know and what must we do?

The various sects within ancient Judaism developed a detailed and complex set of lists. Those lists, unlike the Law of Moses, attempted to define every aspect of our daily lives. These lists spiritualized the mundane and made even simple ordinary acts like washing your hands a matter of supreme importance, a test of loyalty, and a condition for salvation. Jesus fulfilled the Law of  Moses but he frequently ignored the religious, cultural and political lists of belief and behavior that the religious elites of his time called the sacred tradition.

Jesus pointed out that the commentaries on the scriptures had taken the place of the scriptures. Jesus taught that human created traditions are not necessarily bad unless they take the place of a personal transforming relationship with God.

Of course, by and large people did not listen to what Jesus was saying. In their pride they could not accept a different understanding of righteousness. In their will to power they refused to change their beliefs and behaviors. In their fear they decided Jesus was a false prophet, an agent of Satan, who had come to lead people away from the Law and into rebellion against God.

Jesus understood all of this. Jesus knew the source of these fear based accusations and slanders. The source is separation from God. That separation lies at the core of the human soul. Jesus revealed to all who would listen to him that sin is a result of separation. The solution to separation is reunification.  More law cannot accomplish this. Less Law cannot accomplish this. People then and now were trapped in a false belief that it is up to us to earn God’s favor through righteous acts and righteous deeds.

When Jesus taught that God is love the people were confused. When Jesus invoked the message of the prophets that our relationship to God is similar to a marriage the people were scandalized. When Jesus defined grace as universal unconditional love people would not and could not hear him. It made no sense to them. They all knew that God demanded unquestioning belief and unconditional submission to the Law as administered by the religious courts and enforced by the religious police.

Jesus reminded them, as he reminds us, that who we are, what we are becoming and where we are going proceeds from within the depths of own souls. Jesus clarifies the choice before us: choose reunification with the Father through the Son. Choose inner transformation of the soul by the real presence of the Holy Spirit. Or, choose to remain separate. You can remain separate in list based religion. You can remain separate in self-indulgent entitlement secularism.

Jesus is the unification of humanity and divinity, Salvation is an organic union. Salvation first touches the depth of the soul and then slowly and meticulously works its way outward to change our perceptions, our beliefs and our behaviors.

If you start with the Law you will fail. You will fail to earn salvation. You will fail to change your innermost nature.

If you start with Jesus you will succeed. You will receive salvation as a gift of universal unconditional love. You will begin to grow in grace from the inside out. One day in that process you will wake up and no longer desire that sin of belief or behavior you held onto so tightly. The Holy Spirit will have given you a new desire. He will have given you a vision of how a particular sin is merely a distorted and diminished version of a pure and perfect virtue. He will help you to delight in the way of right relationship that eventually changes our desires and transforms particular sin into original virtue.

A list based righteousness perpetuates pride, self-will and fear. A list based righteousness maintains separation. A list based righteous kills.

A Jesus based righteousness gives new life. A Jesus based righteousness is a new and personal relationship with universal unconditional love. A Jesus based right relationship gradually and incrementally changes our desires so we can delight in the beauty of holiness the law invites us to experience in Jesus Christ. In Jesus, you lose nothing. In Jesus you gain everything.

Pentecost 11 (2015)

Pentecost 11 (John 6:35,41-51)

“I have come down from heaven.”

Who is Jesus Christ?

How do people define Jesus? Who did Jesus claim to be?

The people Jesus met in his three year public ministry held many beliefs about Jesus. Some believed he was a prophet. Some believed he was a rabbi. Some believed he was just an ordinary carpenter will aspirations to power. The political and religious leadership In Jerusalem believed he was a threat.

They believed he was a threat because he could perform miracles. That was an undisputed fact even they admitted. They could not dispute the works so they attempted to discredit Jesus by saying he performed miracles by the power of Satan.

They believed he was a threat because he knew the scriptures, taught the scriptures and lived the scriptures. They could not dispute his commitment to the sacred writings of Moses and the Prophets. Instead, they asserted he only invoked the Scriptures to subvert the Law. It was in fact a bold faced lie. Perhaps they convinced themselves it was true. Jesus made a distinction between the words of Moses and the Prophets and the traditions and interpretations and the commentaries religious scholars had developed over the centuries.

They believed Jesus was a threat because his followers wanted to make him king….by force if necessary. This was the key to the fear the religious and political authorities felt when they looked at Jesus. Perhaps Jesus really was reluctant to assume power. But, his followers were not. Things could get out of control quickly.

The ruling elites calculated that the kinds of people who followed Jesus, the largely uneducated working poor, might just try to make him king. But, they would fail. They lacked the knowledge, the organization and the resources they would need to succeed. They would try and they would fail and many would die in the process.

Jesus was very clear about his person and his plan. In a series of “I am” statements he very clearly and explicitly claims to be God. In those “I am” statements he draws on the observations, experiences and writings of Moses and the Prophets to help the people understand who he is and therefor who God is.

Jesus said: I am the bread, the bread of life that came down from heaven. Jesus is life because God is life. God is not judgment, condemnation, or exclusion. Jesus came to seek the lost who do not want to be found. Jesus came to set free the enslaved who embrace their chains. Jesus came to reunite what people want to keep separate. Jesus came to bring the blessing of divine love and compassionate service  to a people who wanted the power to judge, condemn and rule.

Sadly and tragically, the lost cannot and will not listen to the reality of God. The lost live from the place of pride that says: my will be done. Jesus lived from the place of faith that prays: heavenly Father not my will but Thy will be done.

The lost live from the place of self-will (the will to power) that says: do it my way. I want what I want and I want it now. Jesus lived from the place of charitable love that says: how may I help?

The lost live with a deeply seated fear of scarcity, threat and anxiety. They fear that God may not exist. They fear that if God exists he is distant and demanding and filled with wrath. They fear other people will take from them or hurt them or impose their own will on them. They fear they can’t hold meaning and purpose in their souls and so live on the thin edge of anger, cynicism and despair.

Jesus offers a new life and a new way of living. It is the life he himself has brought from the source of life. it is a new way of living formed by faith, hope and charity.

The last reason the elites in Jerusalem feared Jesus is truth. What if Jesus is who he says he is? What if all of these centuries we have been wrong about God, other people and ourselves? What if God is not the power and the glory of righteous rule and dominance? What if we are indeed our brother’s keeper and not his ruler.

Many people today, both secular and religious, make the assertion that Jesus himself never claimed to be God. The people of Jesus’ day thought differently. The people who knew Jesus and heard him and observed his actions understood very well that Jesus claimed to be God.

They knew this and they rejected this. They did not want the God Jesus revealed. They wanted a God who stayed in heaven and delegated his authority to the religious professionals and political elites.

They could not and would not acknowledge that they were wrong about God, religion or government.

It is one thing to have a set of beliefs about God. It is acceptable to speculate about God. It is common to have debates about whether God exists and who or what God is if God does exist. It is totally shocking and unacceptable for God to show up one day and quietly announce: here I am.

That is exactly what God did and continues to do in Jesus Christ. To the religious of all religions he says: have you been looking for me? Here I am. To the secular in all nations he says. Have I got a surprise for you. Here I am. To the angry, cynical and despondent he says. Come. Let’s talk. Walk with me. Share your griefs and burdens and fears with me. I am here for you just as you are.

Jesus tells us, shows us and helps us to understand that God is real and God is love. God the Father created all of us and each of us by the power of the Holy Spirit to be the forever friends of the co-eternal Son, the Beloved, Jesus Christ.

There is an old song that says; looking for love in all the wrong places. God the Holy Spirit reveals to us that humanity has been and continues to look for God in all the wrong places. Jesus reminds us that we are lost in that search for God. Jesus assures us that God finds us. He finds all of us and each of us in Jesus.

Jesus says; I have come down from heaven. I am God with you. I am God for you.  Here I am.