Day1 Weekly Radio Broadcast - Day1 Feeds

My first funeral sermon 16 years ago flopped. "It didn't sound like you knew him at all," a worshipper told me on the way out of the funeral home chapel. "Uh, I didn't know him at all," I replied. I was just a student. I didn't know then - they don't warn you in seminary - that most lay people consider it the mark of a good funeral sermon when the preacher sounds like he knows the deceased. When it comes to funerals, lay people don't usually judge whether I've proclaimed the Gospel or done a good job unpacking the scripture text or pointing to the promise of Cross and Resurrection. For services of death and resurrection, it's a good sermon only if the gathered can shake my hand at the door and say, "It sounded like you really knew her." or "You really captured him." Whenever one of the flock is lost, most people don't care whether or not I speak of the Shepherd or proclaim that the Shepherd is good. Whenever one of the flock is lost, most people want to hear about the one lost sheep not the singular Shepherd. They want to be assured that I know the person whom they've lost. They don't think they need to be reassured that the lost member of the flock is known by the Shepherd. I don't know you, whoever you are listening on the other side of this speaker, but I suspect if you're enough of a church nerd to be watching a sermon on the screen of your tablet or iPhone, then you've heard these lines about thy rod and thy staff recited or prayed or sung so many times in worship you no longer hear the oddity of Psalm 23 or the offensiveness of it.

  It was the third month since we'd last spoken or seen each other, leaving the most recent wounds to fester and scar. I was on the road, heading towards Richmond. And as I drove with the radio low, I tried to work out just what had happened, why things had gone the way they did, how this was neither what we'd hoped for nor every expected. I talked all of it out aloud, as though there were someone alongside next to me in the car. I stopped on the way even though there was no need. I just sat there, still, working over every slight like something stuck in the teeth. I'd only been given an address, no name or destination. "It's just off 95," she'd typed, "so it will be convenient for us both." The slightly nagging voice in my GPS told me to get off at Exit 89 in one mile, and after announcing my obedience every few hundred yards, she told me my destination would be on the left. Even in the most litigious, operatic of families, there comes a point where  the juice is no longer worth the squeeze and you stop arguing. But since fighting is all you know how to do, you stop talking altogether. That's the place my mon and I were at. It was going on the third month when she sent me a message, "Let's meet for dinner somewhere." I know I'm the "reverend." I'm the professional Christian. I'm the one with the Bible Knowledge in my head and the Holy Spirit in my heart. But the meal wasn't my initiative. The invitation came from her, not me. I replied back to her, "Sure" and I suggested a couple dates and asked for a destination. She sent back only an address, A seemingly random place along the road. I didn't even try to find it on a map. I replied, "Okay." And then with much sarcasm and equal parts cynicism, I entered the date in my iPhone Calendar along with the title: "Reconciliation Dinner."

  John the Evangelist, the writer of the gospel, begins the story today with these words...It was on that day. You know, THAT day. Do you have a THAT day? The day that comes to mind when you think of the day that changed the course of your life. Maybe it's your wedding day. Your graduation day. The day you saw the love of your life across the room. The day you realized you were miserable in your job and decided to make a change. You know, THAT day. The day that changed everything. It was THAT day. And the disciples were hiding. They were scared. They thought that the Jews were after them. They were huddled together like a bunch of wounded animals, talking quietly and just stalling from life. Nothing was eventful about THAT day at all until Jesus came. And then everything changed. Jesus just showed up. He appeared from out of nowhere. There he was, changing everything. He was alive and their world was turned upside down. And Jesus said something really important when he appeared in the gospel of John. In fact, he repeats the same phrase three times. And if Jesus repeats something three times, you know it must be important because he didn't repeat himself much at all. Most of the time, he says things only once and you have to hang onto his every word. But this time, Jesus says that same greeting three times. Twice in this one appearance and again when he appears to the group with Thomas present. He says, "Peace be with you."

  Whenever I prepare an Easter sermon, I always think way too hard about what it is I'm going to say. And today was no different. As my mind went in many different directions, I began to wonder just how our minds work anyway. Our minds are so complex and mysterious. For many of us, Christianity, our faith, even the person of Jesus himself, is really a heady exercise. We think very hard about faith, and perhaps sometimes, our minds can get in the way. What we think we see in the world is only really what our brains allow us to perceive. Our brains are trained from an early age to make assumptions about the world, to perceive the world in particular ways, like shorthand that allows us to function at efficient and productive levels. When we encounter something new, something we don't understand, we often find ourselves a bit confused. And when an entirely new way of being is presented to us, it's difficult to understand that new world at all. When I was in college, I remember learning about a small island in Micronesia, northeast of Australia, named Pingelap. Although every indigenous group is unique, the people on this tiny island of Pingelap are exceptional because so many of them are colorblind. By some estimates, only one in every 40,000 people around the world are colorblind, but on this tiny island of Pingelap, one in ten are colorblind. Imagine what it would be like to live without the breadth of color most of us experience. The world would look like a very different place. Rather than seeing the shocking differences between muted pastels and bright fluorescents, we would see very subtle shifts in tones and textures. And, as scientists discovered, when enough colorblind people shared life together, such as those on Pingelap, a new visual culture actually developed. Scientists discovered that those who are colorblind created their own artistic culture, and in some cases, they were able to create patterns on canvas and with cloth that only they could see. In other words, this group of people cannot see what we take for granted - the vibrancy of colors all around us. Yet because of their colorblindness, they saw beauty in new and creative ways - ways in which those of us who see color cannot appreciate.[i]

  For many churches, today is not only Palm Sunday but Passion Sunday as well. Although I am certainly no expert on liturgical history, I do know that if people attend church, most people only attend church on Sundays. Even on weeks such as the one we enter, the holiest of weeks, most people will only attend worship services today and next Sunday. So, I agree that the experience of those who only worship on Sundays is enhanced and deepened by hearing the passion story today, before we hear the resurrection story next week. Yet for me, I believe we lose an incredibly valuable moment if we do not focus on the palm part of this Sunday. Most preachers will be preaching on the incredibly rich passion story today, but back in Dallas at my home parish of Saint Michael and All Angels, we will be celebrating Palm Sunday alone, with the all festivities of a real, glorious, sacred parade. We will save the blessed story of Jesus' passion for Holy Week. So, today I'll be focusing on the story we just heard - the story of the palms - and I'll just trust that you will go to church at least once more this week. To begin, I want to put this story into context, not only the biblical story of Jesus' life, but in the importance of this moment to early Christ-followers. The story of the palm procession that we just heard is one of the only stories of Jesus that can be found in all four gospels. That fact alone should perk us up, calling our attention to the important nature of this story.

  Today we need to start out by talking about Philip. Not Philip the Apostle - we'll get to him in a minute - but that great conquering hero, Philip of Macedon. When he was made king in the 4th century B. C., Philip took the beleaguered and bedraggled Macedonians, and he carved an empire for them out of the Greek world that his son, Alexander the Great, would expand east and west from India to Egypt. Philip and Alexander created the imperial footprint on which the Romans would later build their own empire. Philip and Alexander created the Hellenistic world - the Greek world - that Jesus was born into. Philip and Alexander were conquering heroes - they were people who redeemed the world for their followers - and so it's no wonder that in the centuries after they ruled, people and places would be given their names. This is why Paul wrote one of his letters to a group of Christians known as Philippians. This is why Jesus could travel to a region of Galilee known as Caesarea Philippi.[i] This is why, to arrive at today's text, there were people in Israel who bore that unmistakably Greek name, "Philip." The Apostle Philip shows up time and again in John's gospel. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke we only meet Philip in the rolls of the Twelve, but in John it's different. Philip plays a central role in a number of Johannine stories, just like he does in this one, and by John's telling this story is the climax of Jesus' ministry: "Now my hour has come," Jesus proclaims to the crowds...and all because a couple of Greeks introduce themselves to Philip and tell him that they wish to see his Lord.

  Endless complaining. It starts from the very beginning and it never seems to end. Here we are in the book of Numbers, near enough to the promised land that we might expect the Israelites to have pulled themselves together, figured out how to live, or at least to have discontinued their relentless complaint. No. That's not how we work, is it? That's not how we're built. For us the grass is always greener; the whole garden is never enough, not when there's one tree smack in the middle that we aren't allowed to touch. If I just had that one tree, just one bite at the apple, then I know I'd be satisfied." Ever felt that way before? Can we be satisfied? Can anything ever be enough? After all, here we are in the Book of Numbers, decades into their desert wandering, after the dramatic escape from Egypt. And what were they running from? The endless toil of Pharaoh, the relentless striving of more bricks, even when there is no straw. There was never enough for Pharaoh. They were slaves to Pharaoh's "never enough." He always wants more - more pyramids for more grain for more security. Ever heard of anyone who's a slave to their stuff, to their bills? Do you know anybody who is a slave to security, to feeling safe? They tend to take it out on the people around them, don't they? And these Israelites were rescued from all that by a God who commanded them to rest. Rescued from all that by a God who knew that Sabbath is the only means of satisfaction. Because God made the world with nothing, and so nothing could ever really be a threat. If nothing, just a black and empty void, was plenty to make all that is, then there is enough. All around us there is enough.

  The first lectionary reading given us for this third Sunday in Lent is the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. These Big Ten were given to Israel by Moses at Mt. Sinai just after they had left Egyptian slavery. The Ten Commandments are rules by which to maintain their recent emancipation from Egypt. As you know, the Ten Commandments begin with the identification of the God who liberated Israel from Egypt: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt... The word "Egypt" refers to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh is the abusive, brutalizing king of Egypt who practiced and exploited a concentration of power and wealth. You will notice that we do not know Pharaoh's name and that is because Pharaoh keeps turning up in our history time after time. So, Pharaoh is the right name for every brutalizing concentration of wealth and power that acts in violence against vulnerable people. The Exodus is the powerful acknowledgement of that brutalizing domain of human history from which we have been emancipated. At the outset, the Ten Commandments named this emancipatory God:             I am the Lord your God.             I am the Lord of the Exodus.             I am the God who emancipated you.

  Rebecca had a baby girl just as the Nazis invaded Poland. As the soldiers marched into Warsaw, she clutched her baby girl to her chest in desperation. Rebecca was Jewish. Her husband was a professor. They were too smart for their own good and they were reading the signs. She and her family knew that the Nazis hated them. As tensions arose, Rebecca and her husband began to make plans for her baby girl. Her best friend from grammar school was a Christian. She had recently married and they had not yet had children. Rebecca went by night out of the Jewish ghetto with her baby to visit her friend and to ask her the most important question of her life. "Will you take my baby girl? Will you raise her as your own? I am afraid for my life and the life of my people. I am afraid that she will be taken from me. Will you be her mother? The conversation lasted long into the night. Her friend did not believe that this was necessary. It was not that she did not want the baby, she did, but she was afraid that Rebecca would later regret her decision. Rebecca was adamant and she finally convinced her friend. And so, it came to be that a woman handed over her child so that the child might live. Rebecca's baby girl survived the Holocaust disguised as a Christian and she still lives today. When Abram was asked to follow God, he was asked to give up life as he knew it. He had to give up his name. He had to leave his country. He had to abandon his ancestors and their gods; and he had to walk out into a new life, trusting that God would provide for him. Have you ever tried to get an elderly person to move houses, let alone move to another neighborhood? The old don't like change and Abram was old.

In his autobiography Samuel Clemens, the beloved humorist known as Mark Twain, wrote words akin to the Gospel of Mark's briefest description of Jesus' forty days and nights in the wilderness: With the going down of the sun my faith failed and the clammy fears gathered about my heart. Those were awful nights, nights of despair, nights charged with the bitterness of death. In my age as in my youth, night brings me many a deep remorse. None of us is ever quite sane in the night. Sometimes our faith fails. The clammy fears gather about our hearts. Despair descends. It is into this primitive night of the soul that Jesus enters when Mark describes Jesus' wilderness temptation with one line: "He was with the wild beasts, and angels ministered to him." In Mark's Gospel, there is none of the later Gospel's three temptations. There is only this perplexing description. "He was with the wild beasts..." Jesus enters that frightening solitude Gerard Manley Hopkins described as a miserable soul "gnawing and feeding on its own miserable self." The wild beasts of Mark and of Hebrew Scripture are symbolic figures representing the violence and arrogance of nations and empires: the lion that threatened David's sheep; the lion with wings and a bear gnawing insanely on its own ribs in Daniel's dream; a leopard and a dragon with great iron teeth destroying everything in its way. The beasts of Daniel and Hebrew Scripture symbolize the deepest threats, threats to human wellbeing and existence itself. In Daniel's dream, when the Ancient of Days takes his judgment seat and gathers the nations (the wild beasts), they are as nothing before him, but "of his kingdom there shall be no end." Like Samuel Clemens, with the going down of the sun [our] faith fails and the clammy fears gather about our hearts.

  Have you ever been to Disney World? Or Disneyland? There's a pretty good chance that you at least know somebody who has been there. And there's an even better chance that you've seen advertisements or photos from what they like to call the happiest place on earth. I went a couple times as a kid and once as an adult. And now, I've got a three-year old and he can't wait to go...maybe in the not-to-distant future. We'll just have to see about that. It's a very popular destination. Apparently last year, over 130 million people visited a Disney park. That's like half the population of the United States. And you can understand why. It's quite the experience - an amazing feat of showmanship - no matter how you feel about Disney as this big mega corporation. You enter through the gates of the park, into the Magic Kingdom, and you're on Main Street USA, this perfect little turn-of-the-century town complete with a barber shop and a town hall and a fire station and horse-drawn trolleys. But look closely. This is a small town with absolutely no dirt or grime or trash. Any piece of litter gets swiped up almost immediately. The bathrooms are spotless. No "problems" here to worry about (well, unless you've got a screaming toddler, but we won't go there). There's not a single frown among the townspeople. Everyone is so friendly and nice and helpful. And it's been like that since the day the park opened - picture perfect, magical even.

  Providing healing and hope to children and families. This is something that I think and speak a lot about in the work I do through the ministry of Saint Francis Community Services. Healing and hope are the cornerstones of the mission of Saint Francis and one of the ways we offer healing and hope is through work that takes place in our psychiatric residential treatment facility. This facility focuses on the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of children who have experienced severe trauma. Children who are admitted to the facility bring with them everything that is adversely impacting their lives. The demons that some of them have known, and continue to know, are very real. Last Fall, a 17-year-old boy, whom I will call Daniel, was referred to our staff at the facility. When the process of evaluating Daniel for admission began, the Saint Francis team discovered that Daniel had significant intellectual disabilities and was unable to speak. At 17, Daniel was functioning at the level of a six-month old child. Because of the kind of neglect, he experienced growing up, Daniel had never been to a doctor, and had never received any dental care. It was also reported that Daniel only slept a few hours each week, which contributed to him being easily over stimulated and stressed. He required assistance with everything, including bathing and brushing his teeth. He also needed help eating, because Daniel still did not know how to use utensils.

  What do you believe are some of the turning points of history? Was it the season of conquest by the Church states? The industrial revolution? Hitler's romp toward power and a Holocaust that threatened to extinguish a people? Some would point to the emergence of an information-based economy. Surely a World War might have been a turning point. All these are but a few of the moments we can look to and suggest that the world has not been the same since. In fact, the responses would vary as much as the people we might ask this question. Would you count among those, then, the season in which Jesus walked along the shore enlisting disciples, and then began his teaching ministry? Probably not. But, esteemed New Testament professor Jaroslav Pelikan would. In his book, Jesus Through the Centuries, chapter two begins with exactly these narratives from Mark 1. The chapter is entitled, "The Turning Point of History." For Jesus' ministry of healing, his demonstrative senses of ethic and justice, his teachings on the coming Kingdom of Heaven - they all formed a faith that has driven the Church in its best moments all the way up until today. In this section of Mark's gospel, we hear a bold assessment: that in Jesus' arrival the time had been fulfilled for God to bring the kingdom of heaven near. In fact, our Lord said as much in his teachings during these early days. Our story begins by noting that Jesus quickly formed a custom by going to the synagogue on Sabbaths to teach. The newly chosen disciples accompanied him there, and were listening intently, it seems. They were astonished at his teaching. His authority stood out in comparison to the apparently bland offering the people were used to. Have we become so casual in our faith, so used to hearing the Gospel, that we are rarely astonished at anything we hear these days?

  What is the strangest thing anyone has ever asked you to do? What is the deepest commitment someone has asked you to make? Those are the kinds of questions that arise so naturally as we listen to this story from Mark's gospel today. There are other questions though. Why did Jesus use the words that He did? And, what exactly was He calling them to? A ministry was beginning in Galilee. Actually, it took Jesus coming back in from the wilderness to even start His kingdom work in a place as unremarkable as Nazareth of Galilee. Mark's gospel begins with a Spartan account - all business and no flourish. No heart-warming birth story here. No shepherds or angels. Not even a genealogy to give us background. In fact, Jesus is already an adult as Mark picks up the story...with John. John is at work, a living fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy of the "voice of one crying in the wilderness." We overlook the movement that had begun, as people were traveling outside the city to hear this one and some of them were being baptized. Jesus had come out and presented himself to John for that baptism, and immediately God's spoken blessing settled over them in the form of the Spirit. Now, the spotlight turns to Jesus and takes us into today's text. For the Christ has gone further out after his baptism, so far that this was called a wilderness. His long retreat is broken by the news that John has been arrested. Jesus takes up John's message and begins preaching.

  Riverside Methodist Church in Occoquan has a black Jesus. Pastor Harley Camden noticed it the first time he walked into the small sanctuary and looked up at the stained-glass window at the front of the church. At first, he thought that the glass was simply dirty, but as he moved closer, he realized that the window had been designed that way, with Jesus looking more like a Palestinian Jew than an English Methodist. Then he looked closer and saw the date on the lower right corner of the window: 1885. The dark-skinned Jesus had been installed in an era when most stained-glass images were as white and as blond as Norwegians. But this Jesus was definitely a person of color. Not truly black, but certainly not white. And then Harley realized why this was so: the church had been founded by a pastor named Bailey, a former slave, and for over a century it had been an African-American congregation called Emanuel Baptist Church. Harley visited the church on his first trip to Occoquan, a small river town in Virginia. He knew that it had become Riverside Methodist after the Baptist congregation outgrew its building and moved to a larger structure. As the new pastor of Riverside, Harley walked between the neat rows of oak pews and tried to imagine himself leading worship in the creaky old Sanctuary. Something was stirring within him - an emotion very different from the anger that had been burning him up since the deaths of his wife and daughter a year earlier. He couldn't quite identify it, but it was calming instead of corrosive. Running his fingers along the backs of the pews, he imagined that the space had been the site of countless milestones: baptisms, weddings, funerals. Anguished prayers had been said there, rousing sermons had been preached, lives had been changed. Generations of African Americans, in particular, had looked up at the Jesus in the stained glass and found strength to live with faith and dignity in a segregated society. A trickle of tenderness was beginning to flow into the dry canyon that was Harley's heart.