Saint Brendan Anglican Church
Archive for March, 2008
The Easter Sermon of John Chrysostom
Friday, March 21st, 2008
Pastor of Constantinople (~400 AD)Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!
Is there anyone who is a grateful servant?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!
Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!
If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.
For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
as well as to him that toiled from the first.
To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.
Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!
First and last alike receive your reward;
rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!
You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!
Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!
Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.
Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He destroyed Hades when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he said,
“You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below.”
Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?
Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!
Saint Patrick’s Day - March 17
Thursday, March 13th, 2008
St. Patrick’s Day this year–March 17, falls during Holy Week and so St. Paddy’s day disappears from the Church calendar. Maybe you might want to celebrate his memory anyway — reading this excerpt from Patrick’s Confession would be a fitting way to honor this spiritual giant.
Through me many peoples have been reborn in God
I give unceasing thanks to my God, who kept me faithful in the day of my testing. Today I can offer him sacrifice with confidence, giving myself as a living victim to Christ, my Lord, who kept me safe through all my trials. I can say now: Who am I, Lord, and what is my calling, that you worked through me with such divine power? You did all this so that today among the Gentiles I might constantly rejoice and glorify your name wherever I may be, both in prosperity and in adversity. You did it so that, whatever happened to me, I might accept good and evil equally, always giving thanks to God. God is never to be doubted. He answered my prayer in such a way that in the last days, ignorant though I am, I might be bold enough to take up so holy and so wonderful a task, and imitate in some degree those whom the Lord had so long ago foretold as heralds of his Gospel, bearing witness to all nations.
How did I get this wisdom, that was not mine before? I did not know the number of my days, or have knowledge of God. How did so great and salutary a gift come to me, the gift of knowing and loving God, though at the cost of homeland and family? I came to the Irish peoples to preach the Gospel and endure the taunts of unbelievers, putting up with reproaches about my earthly pilgrimage, suffering many persecutions, even bondage, and losing my birthright of freedom for the benefit of others.
If I am worthy, I am ready also to give up my life, without hesitation and most willingly, for his name. I want to spend myself in that country, even in death, if the Lord should grant me this favor. I am deeply in his debt, for he gave me the great grace that through me many peoples should be reborn in God, and then made perfect by confirmation and everywhere among them clergy ordained for a people so recently coming to believe, one people gathered by the Lord from the ends of the earth. As God had prophesied of old through the prophets: The nations shall come to you from the ends of the earth, and say: “How false are the idols made by our fathers: they are useless.” In another prophecy he said: I have set you as a light among the nations, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.
It is among that people that I want to wait for the promise made by him, who assuredly never tells a lie. He makes this promise in the Gospel: They shall come from the east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is our faith: believers are to come from the whole world.
Holy Week
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
Holy Week
- Palm Sunday - Liturgy of the Palms & Holy Eucharist - March 16, 10 am - On Palm Sunday we re-enact Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem with the waving of palm branches. The Gospel takes us through the events leading up to Jesus’s crucifixion and we end in a somber tone as we enter Holy Week
- Maundy Thursday - Holy Eucharist with Footwashing - March 20, 7 pm - The name Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin word mandatum (mandate) and refers to John 13:34: “a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.” The liturgy commemorates the Last Supper. Two distinct features of the liturgy are 1) the shared ministry of foot washing, recalling the ministry of Jesus to his disciples on the eve of his death, and 2) the ceremonial stripping of the altar, preparing for the barrenness of Good Friday. It is our tradition at St. Brendan’s to share our bounty with others who are suffering during Holy Week. The Maundy Thursday plate income and designated checks will go to Hands on Housing.
- Prayer Vigil - follows Maundy Thursday service. The Maundy Thursday “watch” is a tradition of prayer based on the story in which Jesus, having asked his disciples to “stay awake with me” in the Garden of Gethsemane, finds them sleeping. In Matthew’s gospel, we are told that after finding them, “Jesus said to Peter, ‘So, could you not stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’” Our watch extends from the end of the Maundy Thursday service until the Good Friday service for any who wish to share in this opportunity for prayer and reflection. Sign up is not necessary; the chapel will be open for you to keep watch for an hour.
- Good Friday - Good Friday Liturgy - March 21, 7 pm - This Liturgy is a continuation of Maundy Thursday, continuing the commemoration as we re-enact and participate in the drama, culminating in death, which Christ endured in Jerusalem. The mood of the Church during this time is somber, repentant, and desolate.
- Easter Sunday - A festive Eucharist celebrates the Resurrection on March 23 at Sunrise - 6 am
Hands on Housing Project - April 26
Monday, March 10th, 2008
On April 26, the members of St. Brendan’s will minister to the needy by our participation in the renovation of another home here in greater Austin.
Smaller mission parishes have something in common, and that something is often a feeling of not being big enough, not having enough resources to make a difference in ministry to a community. We have found a way to overcome that sense (or excuse) of being too small to make a difference.
In Austin, the Hands on Housing ministry is overseen by Austin Area Interreligious Ministries. Hands on Housing is dedicated to providing essential volunteer-based home repair services to the marginalized in our society - the elderly, the poor, the disadvantaged, the disabled. This ministry is the largest volunteer home repair effort in Austin. We repair and revitalize homes for homeowners that cannot afford to do needed repairs and thus enable them to remain in their own homes.
The typical client served is over 70 years old living on less than $10,000 per year in a home he/she owns and loves but cannot maintain. The clients are often approached to sell their homes but they do not want to leave the home they love and have lived in for often well over 20 years. Our repair efforts enable them to remain in their homes in safety and dignity.
While making such repairs, we help build relationships across social and geographic boundaries. Working with others, we help our neighbors in need. It is wonderfully satisfying to be united with other faith communities to foster respect, partnership and transformation in service of the common good. We, the small, are called to be, and can be instruments of His transforming love.
An Holy Week and Easter Blessing
Monday, March 10th, 2008
May you find in Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, a companion for your journey, a sure ground for your hopes, the peace that passes understanding and the joy that life is eternal.
Fifth Sunday in Lent Sermon (March 9)
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
Our text for today is a lengthy section dealing with the raising of Lazarus from the dead. It is filled with many possibilities for sermon and for discussion, but I am struck by two aspects of our text –– waiting and weeping.
First, the waiting.
The story begins with the message sent by Lazarus’ sisters, “Lord, the one whom you love is ill.” They didn’t even have to say who it was. They were such close friends that they knew Jesus would know who they were talking about. But this closeness makes what happens next very hard to understand.
Jesus waits. He doesn’t seem to be moved at all by the information that his good friend is ill. He downplays the importance of the message. He says,
“This illness will not lead to death,
instead it is for God’s glory,
so that the Son of God will be glorified because of it.”
That’s not the kind of message that would make Lazarus feel any better. The idea that Lazarus’ sickness would merely provide a sermon illustration for Jesus must have blown Mary and Martha away. It was as if Jesus said, “Lazarus is sick. So what, it’s no big deal. It’s just something that God will use for his own glory.” And Jesus waits for two full days before beginning the two day journey to Bethany.
This is really puzzling behavior. How can Jesus be so calloused? How can he jump into philosophy and theology about the illness of his beloved friend? Why in the world does he wait? I must confess to you that I don’t have ready answers for those hard questions.
When we look closely at this text in John, we find no real explanation for why Jesus waited. Theologians have speculated and supposed, but in the end, we must simply conclude that John does NOT say why Jesus waited.
Whatever the reasons were for waiting, we can readily see that the sisters of Lazarus didn’t appreciate Jesus’ attitude. They were looking for Jesus to be the kind of friend who drops everything to come stand with them in their pain. They didn’t want a lecture, they wanted someone to suffer with them –– to help them.
But Jesus didn’t drop what he was doing. Jesus didn’t respond to the emergency note. He didn’t rush to the bedside of the sick man or to the aid of the concerned sisters. John says, “After having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”
Each sister in turn took Jesus to task for his tardiness. They wanted to be kind to Jesus whom they loved, but they just couldn’t help themselves. They both blurted out the identical words, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Surely, they had both rehearsed what they were going to say when Jesus did finally appear. Martha says exactly the same words in verse 20 that Mary says in verse 32.
While I can’t explain the waiting of Jesus, I can certainly identify with the waiting of Martha and Mary. Can’t you? How many times have we waited just like they did? “Why isn’t Jesus here when we need him?” “Why doesn’t God hurry up and do something?” “Where were you, Jesus?” “Where was God on September 11?”
We hear their pain, and we share it because in too many of our homes Lazarus has died. For some it is not the literal death of a loved one. It may be the death of a dream, the death of an ideal, or the death of hope. Where has Lazarus died in your heart or your home? Where has Jesus disappointed you? You’ve prayed, but no answers have come. You’ve pleaded, but God has delayed. You’ve waited, but he hasn’t arrived. You’ve held the funeral, but he didn’t attend. Or so it seemed. Where are you waiting for God to show up and be God for you?
We don’t know why Jesus waits, and we don’t know why God waits. No amount of theologizing and explaining can satisfy us while we wait. And wait we do.
My only conclusion is that something critically important happens to us while we are waiting. Life is lived while we wait. Faith is proved while we wait. Hope is tested while we wait.
Mary and Martha were not the last to wait for Jesus. And neither will we be the last.
And now comes the weeping.
When Mary broke down in tears before him, Jesus asked, “Where have you laid him?” And when he stood in front of the tomb, according to the King James version, “Jesus wept.” He must have wept out loud and long, and those who saw it were moved to say, “See how much he loved him.”
We knew immediately why Martha and Mary were weeping. Their brother had been dead for four days now. Theirs were tears of grief. Those tears we all understand. We, too, have stood by the graveside and poured out our heart in great tears. We have cried because we can’t help but cry. Our emotions seem to take over our bodies, and the tear ducts open and the waters flow.
But what about that shortest verse in the Bible –– “Jesus wept.” Why? Why did he cry?
There is no shortage of answers to this question. I believe your answer to this question says a lot about your Christology, your theology of Jesus as Christ.
Why did Jesus cry? Here are some of the reasons offered by various theologians:
1) Some argued that Jesus was crying for the crowd because of their lack of faith. He looked deep into their hearts and realized that they did not understand him or his mission. They didn’t understand the matters about life and death the way he did. They didn’t understand that he had the power to bring Lazarus back to life. He was weeping for the crowd because they didn’t believe in him.
2) Some say Jesus was weeping because he hated to bring Lazarus back from heaven. He knew that heaven was a wonderful place, and he was crying because he had to bring him back to earth to show his glory.
3) Others say Jesus was weeping tears of rage at the evil of death and sin. He grieved because of the sinfulness of humans and the death that followed that sin into the world.
4) Many say that Jesus was weeping for himself. He was crying in anticipation of his own death. He knew that the miracle he was about do perform would inflame the situation in Jerusalem and turn the Pharisees against him. And, in fact, John says that’s exactly what happened after this miracle. He was weeping because he was thinking about his own coming death on the cross.
All of these are suggestions, and we must remember that they are only suggestions because John does NOT make clear why Jesus wept. Certainly any of these could be the very reason that Jesus cried. But I want you to notice that all of these suggestions rely heavily on the divine nature of Jesus. They all assume that Jesus had special knowledge of the future, of heaven, or of the inner thoughts of the crowd.
Personally, I reject all of these proposed reasons. I reject them because no human being would ever cry for any of those reasons. If he cried for any of those reasons, then none of us mere mortals can really understand or identify with the tears of Jesus. I will never cry because I can see the future. I will never cry because I understand all about heaven. I will never cry because I can read other people’s thoughts. If that’s why Jesus was crying, then he is far, far from being like me. He is not a high priest with whom I can identify.
Do you picture Jesus as human like us or divine like God? I think it is impossible for our tiny minds to perfectly balance the creedal statement that Jesus was fully human and fully divine. Our little brains automatically tilt to one side or the other. We make Jesus a little more divine or a little more human. I think the Gospel of John tilts toward the divine side much more than do Matthew, Mark and Luke. Personally, I prefer the views of Jesus that I find in the synoptic gospels. That’s because I prefer to think of Jesus’ humanity.
I want to believe that Jesus experienced this life as much like me as possible. Hebrews says,
“We do not have a High Priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but we have one who has been tempted in every way,
just as we are ––
yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).
I lean heavily on Philippians 2 for my Christology. There Paul writes of
“Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness” (Philippians 2:5-7)
5) That’s why I believe he cried for a fifth reason. I believe he cried because he cared. He cried for the same reason that we cry at funerals. He grieved with Mary and Martha. Jesus loved them and Lazarus. He grieved that Lazarus had died. He identified with their pain and he understood their tears. That’s what friends do. They cry when you cry.
And I can take great comfort in this reason for Jesus’ tears. It tells me that God still identifies with people who are hurting. When we cry, God cries too.
There’s a story of a little girl who came home late from school one day. Her mother was furious and went on and on for about five minutes ranting and raving at the girl. Finally she stopped and asked, “Why were you late anyway?”
To which the girl replied, “I was helping another girl in trouble.”
“What did you do for her?” asked the mother.
“Oh, I just sat down beside her and helped her cry.”
I believe those simple words, “Jesus wept,” reveal as much about Jesus as all the other words ever said about him. He weeps for all who pray for God to come and nothing happens. He weeps for all who face the tragic experiences of this life and thrust their painful, “Why?” toward heaven. He weeps for those who have hard questions. He weeps for those who do not walk quietly to death’s dark door. He weeps for those who ask for a miracle and do not get it.
Here is not a picture of a god who is immutable, immovable, unemotional or uninvolved. Here is a God with a weeping heart. Here is the Lord of the universe with tears in his eyes.
For me, it is important to believe that Jesus understands what life is like for me. He knows my temptations. He knows what it was like to be fully human just like me, yet he did it without sin. He knows my suffering, my disappointments, my problems, my questions. And more importantly, he not only knows, he understands. He has literally walked in my shoes. And because Jesus knows and cares, then I know that God knows and cares.
Suffering has a way of isolating us. When we cry, we cannot help but think that we are the only ones to ever experience such pain, and we feel alone. We think no one else feels our pain or knows our grief.
But Jesus tears tell us that there is someone we can lean on for strength, for wisdom, for comfort. In our confusion, Jesus is there for us. While we wait, he waits with us. In our sorrow, he will hold us.
Across the street from the bombed out Federal Building in Oklahoma City, where 168 people died needlessly and senselessly, there stands a memorial. At the heart of that memorial is a nine foot statue of Jesus. But this statue is not one of a stony Jesus with arms out wide like you may have seen in the Ozarks or in Brazil. No, this is a nine foot statue of Jesus with his face in his hands, turned slightly away from where the acts of terror took place, and the plaque reads, “And Jesus Wept.”
For thousands and thousands of mourners and survivors that image of Jesus has brought resurrection and hope and new life. It is a pillar of comfort for all who pass by.
What does God do for us? He sits down beside us and helps us cry. And sometimes that’s all we really need.
