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GIVE AND LIVE

 The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Third Sunday of Easter
April 14, 2024

Jesus stood among the disciples and said to them, “Peace be with you.”  They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  (Luke 24:36-37)

 Have you ever caught someone trying to swindle you?  I have.  Soon after graduating from college I set out to buy a car that would be my own.  I’d been driving the old family smasher for years at that point, compliments of my parents.  It was a 1969 Chrysler Newport that could seat about twenty.  It was time for something newer and smaller.  So I began saving money as I’d never saved it before.  I remember taking every paycheck to the bank and watching the numbers grow in my passbook savings account.  In fact, sometimes I would open up the savings book and just look at it: cradling it in my hands, pondering how far I’d come, and how far I still had to go. 

When I thought I’d saved enough for a good used car, I began checking the newspapers and shopping the lots.  One day I came across a car with a price on it that seemed too good to be true.  It was a late 1970’s model Chevy Impala – still the size of a yacht, but small and sporty compared to the old Chrysler.  “She just came in this morning,” said the salesman walking up to me in his plaid, polyester suit (it wasn’t long after the disco era).  “Why don’t you take ‘er out for a spin?” he added.  This I did, and drove the car to pick up a friend who came back to the lot with me. 

We began examining the car.  It was silver in color with no apparent scratches, dents, or rust.  Then we noticed some odd fixtures on the roof.  My friend said that these looked like what would hold a siren in place.  The Chevy was likely a former police car, driven hard and now prone to break down.  Not a good buy.  “No,” said the salesman with an absolutely straight face.  “This car has had only one owner, and that was a little old lady.”  We scratched our heads and continued examining the car.  Eventually we looked in the glove box and found there some papers belonging to the police department of a neighboring town.  A police car, indeed.  So we hopped in my Chrysler.  It was as big as a whale, and it was about to set sail.  The dishonest salesman tried to show me something else, but I would do no business with such a scoundrel.  I felt rather proud not to be so easily swindled out of my precious bank account.

This week as I read through the 24th chapter of Luke, I recalled my experience on the used car lot.  The disciples of Jesus, on some deep level, must have felt swindled.  For three years they had given their all to following Jesus.  Their commitment to him had been the highest priority in their lives, overshadowing the pursuit of their livelihoods, the enjoyment of other friends, even their commitment to family.  I think we tend to underestimate how costly it must have been for them to break ranks with the cultural and religious expectations of their time and place and follow in the footsteps of Jesus.  To heed the call of an itinerant preacher to the extent that they did was to gamble not only with their integrity as persons, but also with their ultimate loves and loyalties.  How would I have responded to Jesus, had I been in the disciples’ shoes.  How much of myself would I have been willing to give?  True, most of us have placed our faith Jesus.  I suspect, however, that most of us also have hedged our faith to a lesser or larger extent.  Not the disciples: they’d risked it all.

We find the disciples today presumably late in the evening of the first Easter Day, probably in the same upper room where they’d eaten the Passover meal a few nights earlier.  Since three-o’clock the previous Friday afternoon, they must have been thinking that their three-year venture with Jesus had been a foolish gamble.  They’d put down everything they had, and they’d driven off the lot with a lemon.  Jesus had been publicly and shamefully executed, leaving them with nothing but dashed hopes, empty pockets, and a movement that was going nowhere.  It was all over.  Since that morning they’d been hearing reports from some women that the tomb of Jesus was empty, and that an angel of the Lord had said he was risen from the dead.  But Luke reports that the disciples regarded this as an “idle tale.”  In other words, file that one under “fat chance,” in the same folder as the mythical little old lady who owned the police car.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  They were not going to be swindled again. 

So I ask you again: have you ever caught someone trying to swindle you?  My guess is you have.  You’ve learned to beware of swindlers.  They are everywhere.  Just this week I received a truly eye-popping email of the sort that I didn’t think made the rounds anymore: the old Nigerian government-official scam.  The sender claimed he was trying to transfer $75,500,000 out of his country, but needed a foreign account to make it happen.  Might we allow him to park the money in a Grace Church account?  If so, all I had to do was provide him with some baking details, and he’d cut us in for twenty-percent of the loot.  Who needs a capital campaign?  What could possibly go wrong, except – oh – everything?  What surprised me about this email is that its continued circulation indicates that it works.  Some poor souls are still falling for it. 

The world is also full of swindlers: financial swindlers and emotional swindlers.  The world is full of people and organizations who, if you let them, will drain you of faith, hope, love, and joy.  Family and friends, politicians, faith traditions, even professional sports teams can let you down.  Some years ago a lifelong fan and season ticket holder of the Cleveland Browns was dying prematurely from cancer.  He decided to write his own obituary, and his one request was that six players from the Browns serve as pallbearers at his funeral, and lower his casket into the grave.  Why?  So that the Browns could “let him down one last time.”  New Yorkers know the feeling.  Two NFL teams that play in the Meadowlands of New Jersey, and an MLB team in Queens are especially adept at tearing out your heart and letting you down.  So beware of emotional swindlers who will let you down, and financial swindlers who will leave you stranded by the side of the road.  Be on your guard at all times.  It’s no wonder why so many people are angry these days, and glare at the world with clenched fists.  Swindlers are everywhere, scheming night and day to take what you have. 

I have to wonder if the disciples were suffering from buyer’s remorse after the death of Jesus.  How could they not have felt drained and disillusioned?  Just before today’s Gospel reading, Luke reports that two travelers from the road to Emmaus had joined the disciples in the room where they were hiding.  The travelers brought with them another report of an encounter with Jesus alive.  It was as they were all trying to sort this out when today’s reading from Luke begins.  Jesus himself stood among them.  A logistical question immediately comes to mind.  How did Jesus get all the way there from Emmaus?  Not in a Chrysler.  Not in a Chevy.  On foot, trailing the two travelers?  No, in a new resurrection body, the likes of which confused the disciples.  They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  They were frightened, they doubted.  The most positive thing Luke has to say about them is that they disbelieved for joy.  Another reputable translation of the phrase is it seemed too good to be true.  If you’ve been around the block a few times you know that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.  Well, these disciples had been around the block.  In fact, all of the gospel writers testify to how guarded they were in those early days after the resurrection of Jesus.  How slow of heart they were to believe.  Fool me once: shame on you.  Fool me twice: shame on me! 

Luke describes how Jesus himself had a difficult time convincing the disciples that he was alive.  First he showed them his hands and his feet, presumably so they could see the wounds of his crucifixion.  He was no impostor standing before them.  Then he invited their touch.  If they didn’t believe their eyes, they could touch him and feel his bones and flesh.  Then he asked if they had anything to eat, and when they had given him a piece of broiled fish, he ate it in their presence.  Next he sat down with them for what must have been the most interesting Bible study class ever in history.  He opened their minds to understand the scriptures.  He showed them how Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalmist we not snake oil salesmen.  They had all pointed to the death and resurrection of Jesus, and it had happened.  They had told the truth.  The disciples weren’t being swindled.  God really had raised Jesus from the dead.  They could trust again. 

Finally, Jesus did something that alone should have awakened the disciples’ recognition: he sent them on a mission.  He sent them out to proclaim the possibility of repentance, and the promise of forgiveness.  Throughout the three years they had spent with Jesus, he never blessed them merely for their own comfort and enjoyment.  He’d never taught them merely for their own wisdom and fulfillment.  He’d never empowered them merely to pursue their own success.  Rather, he sent them out to spread the message of the kingdom of God.  He was always sending them out into this world of swindlers to give of themselves.  That trademark commissioning is exactly what he did again.  The risen Jesus took all this time and effort to reveal himself to the disciples not merely to assuage their grief, not merely to dry their tears, but so that all people might share in the new ride of his resurrected life.  Imagine: after all the disciples had been through, Jesus sent them out again to be witnesses of the resurrection. 

How about us?  Are we ready to hear the call of the risen Jesus, who sends us out to give of ourselves, even into this world of swindlers?  To say yes is to be risen with Christ, to share in his eternal priesthood, and participate in his work to make all things new.  Surely, you saw that one coming!  For the second sermon in a row, I’ve made a clever pivot from the Biblical message to the business of a capital campaign.  In my mind, however, it’s not a pivot at all to move between heaven and earth.  Spirit and substance are both part of God’s creation, and to be concerned about the former is to act in the latter.  To share in the risen life of Christ is to give of ourselves, and work to make all things new in this life, on this earth, at this time. 

Today we launch the public phase of our campaign.  Today, we hear the trademark call of Jesus to ready ourselves for a mission, and restore Grace Church for service in the kingdom of God.  As you consider your own participation, let me leave you with a parable I once heard that originates from the land where Jesus walked.  It’s called Two Kinds of Seas, Two Kinds of People, and it goes like this:

In Israel there are two seas.  One is fresh and abounding in fish.  Fields of green adorn its banks and children play along its shores.  Men and women build their houses near it and birds their nests.  Life is happier because it is there.  Further south there is another sea.  Here there is no splash of fish, no song of birds, no children’s laughter.  The air hangs heavy above its waters, and neither man nor beast will drink from it.  What makes the difference between these two seas?  Not the River Jordan which empties the same sparkling water into both.  Not the soil in which they lie.  Not the country that surrounds the two seas.  The difference is this: the Sea of Galilee receives but does not keep the Jordan.  For every drop that flows into it another drop flows out at the other end and continues down the Jordan to the other sea.  The other sea hordes its incoming waters jealously; it keeps every drop it gets.  The Sea of Galilee gives and lives.  The other sea gives nothing.  The other sea is called the Dead Sea.  There are two kinds of seas in Israel.  There are two kinds of people in this world. 

Here’s a secret that the world has always been slow of heart to believe: to give is to live.  It’s true.  He is risen.  We are witnesses of these things. 

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JESUS THE GARDENER DUDE

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
Easter Day + March 31, 2024

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom do you seek?  Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”  (John 20:15) 

Every spring, the magnificent magnolia tree in the rectory garden blooms so beautifully that people want to come through the gate and be near it.  Sometimes, interesting conversations with tourists and neighbors ensue.  One Saturday my family and I had driven to a big-box store in New Jersey to pick up gardening supplies for the backyard.  Stacie had wanted to fill some planters with flowers, so among our purchases were many heavy bags of potting soil.  Our sons were little at the time, so one by one I was hauling the bags atop my shoulder from the car at the curb, through the front door of the rectory, and out to the back.  At one point, straining under the weight of a forty-pound bag, I had to step past a small group of tourists who were admiring the flowering tree and blooming bulbs.  Supposing me to be the gardener, the young man among them said, “Beautiful garden, dude.  Nice work.”  All I could say was, “Thank you very much.”  You see, it’s not everyday that I get mistaken for Jesus. 

Another time I was working in my office late in the evening.  I was trying to get to the bottom of my email inbox when, from out on the lawn there arose such a clatter that I looked to my left to see what was the matter.  Actually, it wasn’t really a clatter.  It was more of a rustling and a moaning.  It took my eyes a moment to focus on the sight.  My mind was slow to process what I was seeing.  What was I seeing?  Cover the children’s ears, now!  There on the lawn was a young couple, very much in the mode of Adam and Eve in the garden.  Like Adam and Eve, they were mostly naked and not ashamed.  I went to the front door and yelled, “Hey, take it someplace else!”  No doubt, I shouted some other choice words that I can’t remember.  But I’m certain that even if I could remember, I would not be able to repeat them from the pulpit on Easter Day, or any other day. 

Whatever I said must have made an impression.  The passionate pair quickly reassembled themselves and scampered to the Broadway fence.  As they were climbing over it, the young man called back to me these immortal words: “It’s a house of God.  He understands.  Why can’t you?”  I closed the door, shook my head, and muttered to myself, “Everyone’s a theologian these days.” 

Easter Day is the highest feast of the Christian year.  For us, no other day compares.  Without Easter, the disciples of Jesus would have remained scattered after his crucifixion.  Without Easter, no one would have recorded anything about his life.  His birth, his teachings, his ministry in Galilee all would have been lost in the sands of time within a few short years.  But the disciples did not remain scattered.  The fact is, Jesus wasn’t the only Messiah figure with followers whom the Romans crucified.  In every other instance, the followers either dispersed forever, or latched onto to another reformer.  Why?  Because their original leader was dead and stayed that way.  Only the followers of Jesus remained true to their leader.  Why?  Because their leader strangely, miraculously, wondrously did not stay dead.  Within days of Jesus’ death on a cross, the disciples had regrouped and were proclaiming that he had risen, that they had seen the Lord, that he lived.  How do you explain it?  Well, everyone needs to be a theologian, or at least an historian. 

If you are looking for the earliest summaries of the Easter message, turn to the letters of St. Paul.  Most Biblical scholars date Paul’s writings to be just a few decades after the events in question.  In today’s reading from 1^st Corinthians (15:1-11), he reminds his readers of something they already should have known: that Easter is no metaphor.  It really happened in history.  Jesus really did die.  His body was buried.  He was raised on the third day.  He began appearing to multiple witnesses: Cephas, James, the twelve, some five-hundred people at one time, and finally to Paul himself on the road to Damascus.

Moreover, we read in all four Gospels that some women arriving at the tomb early on Sunday morning found that the great stone sealing the entrance had been rolled away.  When they looked inside the tomb, which would have been akin to a small cave, they discovered the body to be missing.  Neither the missing body (or, the empty tomb, as it’s called) nor the appearances alone would be sufficient to explain the dawn of the church, but both were necessary conditions to account for the proclamation that Jesus lived.[1]  Both had to occur to plant us in our pews today.  When you put them together, the empty tomb plus the appearances make the only sufficient case to explain the history that ensured.  Jesus had indeed risen from the dead. 

All four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – have different ways of telling the Easter story.  While they largely agree on the basics, they vary in certain details.  Today we’ve heard John’s account (20:1-18).  Only John pays attention to the linen burial wrappings.  Earlier in the story John made note that Joseph of Arimathea had wrapped the body of Jesus before placing it in the tomb (19:40).  Now he points to the linens again, lying on the shelf where the body of Jesus had been, as if they were a deflated balloon.  The risen Jesus had vanished from within the wrappings.  Jesus had left behind his clothes, implying that he emerged from the tomb (cover the children’s ears again, please) naked and not ashamed.  What could it mean?  Over the centuries, Biblical scholars, preachers, and theologians have offered many theories.  Perhaps the best is that John meant to suggest Jesus is the new Adam.  One of the hymns in our hymnal speaks of Jesus as “a second Adam to the fight.”  So of course, the risen Jesus would appear as Adam had been in the garden before he sinned, before the fall from grace, wearing not so much as a fig leaf. 

Really?  Personally, I don’t think appearing in all his glory was the big reveal that Jesus had in mind for the first Easter.  The whole scene makes me wonder what Jesus was doing in the first moments after coming out of the tomb.  Was he hiding behind the rolled away stone out of modesty?  Or consider this possibility: he was scrounging through the gardener’s shed, where he found whatever a first-century gardener would wear: a pair of overalls, a straw hat, and a spare rake to complete the look.  I’m simply taking the Scriptures at their word.  Remember, Mary Magdalen supposed him to be the gardener.  He must have looked like one.  When she turned and saw Jesus, it took her eyes a moment to focus on the sight.  Her mind was slow to process what she was seeing.  When she finally regained her wits, the conversation could have gone something like this, and here I will paraphrase.  Mary said, “Beautiful garden, dude.  But where have you put the body of Jesus?”  Mary wanted to know what had happened to the body of Jesus.  What had happened was resurrection.  Jesus had emerged from the tomb not as a resuscitated corpse, but as a new creation, with a new kind of life, the kind of life that God had always meant for humanity to enjoy.  As such, people struggled to recognize him, and didn’t know how to describe what they were seeing. 

In the very early days of the church, Patristic theologians like Gregory the Great and Jerome loved the notion of Jesus the gardener.  They wrote that when Mary supposed Jesus to be the gardener, she was mistaken on one level, but deeply right on another level.  The first Adam tilled the soils of Eden.  The second Adam tills the souls of humanity, plants the seeds of virtue in us, and shares his own resurrected life, saying, “This is my body; this is my blood.”  Jesus the gardener is involved in the creation.  Jesus gets his fingernails dirty.  Jesus works to make all things new. 

As you may have surmised, I just made a clever pivot from the pure, spiritual message of Easter to the messy business of a church capital campaign.  A few weeks ago, when the colorful campaign brochures came rolling off the presses, I said to our consultant, “You know, we’ll have a full church on Easter Day.  These things aren’t doing anyone any good boxed up in the parish office.  Let’s put them in the pews for Easter.”  The consultant agreed, but cautioned us to do it tastefully.  “We would not want to detract from the pure, spiritual message of Easter,” he added.  Everyone’s a theologian, I muttered to myself.  It seems to me that any pure, spiritual message of Easter scampered out of the garden the moment I told you about the lovebirds on the rectory lawn. 

Dear People of God: This is the twentieth Easter sermon I have preached from this pulpit.  You can be sure that I am not abandoning the pure, spiritual message of today.  So the next thing I am about to say will be the pure, spiritual message of Easter.  Here it comes.  Ready?  Through the resurrection of Jesus, God has opened unto us the gate of everlasting life.  Trust God.  Trust Jesus.  Trust the Holy Spirit.  You don’t need to worry about life after death.  It is accomplished.  However, what you might want to worry about in this troubled world is life before death.  This life.  This earth.  This time.  When Jesus appeared to a multitude of witnesses after his resurrection, he was not seated on a cloud, plucking a harp, and saying, “It’s great up here.  Hurry up and join me in heaven.”  No, Jesus returned to his life.  Jesus, the gardener dude, wants to get his fingernails dirty, and he wants us to join him in making all things new in this life, on this earth, at this time.  Restoring Grace Church is just one small piece of it.  Feeding the hungry, rebuilding houses in Queens, assisting communities near and far in recovering from floods, and other things we have done over the years are all part of the same work of making all things new. 

This week, in thinking about Jesus the gardener, I recalled a passage by the author E.B. White, who wrote a touching tribute to his wife Katharine in the introduction to her book on gardening.  Onward and Upward in the Garden, by Katharine S. White is a minor classic in its genre, I’m told.  This is what E.B. White had to say about the great day every year when his wife would plant the bulb garden:

As the years went by and age overtook her, there was something comical yet touching in her bedraggled appearance on this awesome occasion – the small, hunched-over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be yet another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection.[2] 

Calmly plotting the resurrection.  With one phrase E.B. White beautifully captures the mission of the church.  What should we be doing in this life before death?  Calmly plotting the resurrection.  Neither you nor I need to have much of a green thumb in order to join in with Jesus the gardener.  As for me, I am much more of a mule, good for carrying bags of potting soil, than I am a horticulturist.  But we can all be part of calmly plotting the resurrection.  Think of it this way: no one remembers who planted the magnificent magnolia tree in the rectory garden, but whoever it was, he or she calmly plotted the resurrection.  Look at it today, declaring the fair beauty of the Lord, and awakening awe and wonder in all who behold it.  Someone calmly plotted the resurrection. 

Suppose that we join in with Jesus the gardener, and do the same.  Suppose that we so join our mission and ministry with Jesus that the world actually mistakes us for him.  Suppose that we let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by Jesus Christ, our Lord. 

Where is the body of Christ?  We are the body of Christ.  He is risen.  He lives.  He has opened to us the gate of everlasting life.  By the power of the Spirit, he is with us who gather in his name – from this time forth, even for ever.  Alleluia. 

[1] N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God.  Fortress Press, 2003, Chapter 18.

[2] Katharine S. White, Onward and Upward in the Garden.  Beacon Press, 1997, p. xix.

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ALL IN THE FAMILY

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
Good Friday + March 29, 2024
The Seven Last Words of Christ: The Third Word

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son!”  Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!”  (John 19:26-27)

In 1988 I was a seminary student here in New York City.  My father was the rector of an Episcopal church in Michigan.  Dad’s father – my grandfather – lived in Upper Montclair, New Jersey.  Grandpa Waring had always been a big part of our lives, and was especially close with my father.  But by the time I started seminary, he had slipped deep into dementia.  Thus, I remember Dad’s frequent trips to visit him, to help oversee his care, and to check in with me.  Then one day the call came that Grandpa had died in his 87^th year.  Dad and his two brothers made the arrangements, which would include a viewing at the funeral home, and a service at the church the next day. 

At the funeral home, I remember Dad’s looking at the open casket, beholding the body of his father, and saying to me, “Thank God for the resurrection.  Without the resurrection, this would be the end.”  It struck me there that Dad’s Christian faith had triumphed over grief, and this was a good thing.  I mean, who wants to be an emotional wreck?  Dad didn’t.  I don’t, and neither do you.  The next day at the church the funeral began with the hymn, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.”  True to form, Dad sang the first verse with a clear and steady voice.  Strangely, he did not join in for the second verse, and when I looked at him next to me in the pew, he had dissolved in tears, something I had never before seen him do.  Resurrection faith could not hold back grief.  That day I beheld my father in a new way. 

Dad probably would not have appreciated my telling the story of his grief.  He would want you to believe that he stood strong in the Lord, and always looked on the bright side of life.  So turn about is fair play.  Three years ago my mother was in her final days.  When I arrived at her hospital bedside for what would be our last conversation, she apologized that we had driven all the way to see her, and she wouldn’t be able to go out to dinner.  She confessed to being weary.  She made me promise that we’d bury her with her parents in New Jersey, and transfer Dad’s ashes there from Michigan.  I assured Mom that we had it all under control.  If she was ready to let go, she could depart in peace.  We would miss her more than words could express, but we’d all be fine.  I, especially, would be fine.  “Mom, I got this.” 

Overnight, Mom took a decided turn for the worse, so much so that by the morning it was not possible to communicate with her.  She began a final, long ordeal.  The extended family gathered at her bedside after we had begged, bribed, and sneaked past the Covid police.  I, the priest, would lead the Ministration at the Time of Death in a clear and steady voice.  Right!  Guess which son turned out to be not-so fine when he beheld his mother, lying in great weakness.  Just a few lines into the Prayer Book liturgy, the tears overwhelmed me like a tidal wave hitting a sandcastle.  I was an emotional wreck.  So much for resurrection faith helping me to keep grief in check. 

In the Gospel of John we read that at some point in Jesus’ final, long ordeal, he looked and saw a circle of people whom he deeply loved keeping vigil: Mary his mother; his mother’s sister who would be the aunt of Jesus, named Salome; Mary the wife of Clopas; and Mary Magdalene.  Also with the four women was the enigmatic, unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved.”  So it was these five who were there.  As John the Gospel writer reports, When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son!”  Then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!”  And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. 

At first glance it seems perfectly obvious what Jesus meant by his “third word” from the cross.  When he bid Mary and the Beloved Disciple to look upon each other as mother and son, he was simply seeing to it that Mary would have a secure place in a loving home after his death.  The identity of the Beloved Disciple has always been a mystery, and to offer the pros and cons of all the theories would keep us here well past 3:00 pm today.  Nevertheless, the most likely hypothesis, put forth by the late Biblical scholar Raymond Brown, is that the Beloved Disciple is John, the brother of James, the son of Zebedee and Salome.  If indeed John’s mother was Salome, the sister of Mary, this would mean that John and Jesus were first cousins.  Thus, when Jesus entrusted Mary into the care of John, it was a perfectly natural way to reach out to his mother and secure her continued place in the family for the remainder of her years.  It was all in the family. 

Throughout the centuries, however, preachers and commentators have not been satisfied to leave well enough alone.  The straightforward interpretation of the words that Jesus spoke to Mary and John just won’t do.  Those who plum for deeper, mystical, theological truth in the third word from the cross remind us of the multilayered, mystical nature of the Gospel in which it occurs.  In the Fourth Gospel every word and deed of Jesus is symbolic.  What he says on one level has its true and intended meaning on a deeper level.  They tell us that the writer of John would not be concerned with such mundane matters as a son reaching out to his mother.  Rather, we must understand how Mary herself represents far more than merely the mother of Jesus.  She is the mother of God, Theotokos, and Co-Redemptrix.  We are to see her as the new Eve, the universal mother of the redeemed and regenerated humanity. 

Another popular interpretation puts less emphasis on Mary but reaches essentially the same conclusion.  With these words to Mary and John, Jesus was actually calling into existence the first church – the redeemed community of people gathered in his name.  They would be new creatures, a new society free from the old obvious distinctions of male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free, Hatfield and McCoy. 

My problem with these lines of thinking is that they conspire to clean up the raw emotions of the moment.  Personally, I struggle with the notion that Jesus, having been awake all the previous night, arrested and unjustly tried, beaten and mocked, flogged and crucified, would be finding here an opportunity to draw a theological connection between a conversation he had with Mary at Cana, and his conversation with Mary now at Calvary.  It’s not to say the connection isn’t there, but I have my doubts it was on Jesus’ mind when he spoke to Mary from the cross.  With his flayed-open back rubbing against the splintery wood of the cross, with nails the size of railroad spikes hammered through his wrists and ankles, Jesus looked and saw his mother.  Was he really using Mary and the moment to score a few more theological points? 

Likewise, Mary.  Let us behold his mother.  Was she really at the foot of the cross basking in some kind of strange glory, knowing that Jesus’ hour had finally come?  I’m sorry, but I just don’t subscribe to this point of view.  I can’t imagine that Mary was anything but overwhelmed by grief and tears.  The Gospels give us only fleeting glimpses of Mary.  But we see enough of her to conclude that she remained connected to Jesus throughout his adult life, and that their relationship was always difficult.  Jesus had been a handful!  In fact, when he said, “Woman, behold your son,” Mary could well have replied, “Thank you, very much; thank you, very much.  That’s the nicest thing that Jesus has ever said to me.”  We don’t have time to go through them all, but every other recorded word that Jesus spoke to Mary is not what a mother would want to hear.  Jesus had been headstrong, passionate about his mission and ministry.  Along the way, Jesus’ five brothers, two sisters, and Mary did not understand.  Now at the foot of the cross, Mary could not possibly have understood the crucifixion of her first-born son as meaning his hour had come.  Rather, it meant his hour would never come.  This was the end. 

As you and I well know, the cross was not the end.  I don’t mean to be jumping ahead of where we are supposed to be on Good Friday, but the Gospel of John actually gives us permission to do so.  John invites us to imagine Mary’s life after the cross when he writes, And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.  Why would Jesus not commend Mary to James, his younger brother next in line?  We’ll never know for sure.  It may be as simple as James’ not being present at the foot of the cross.  In any case, the call came to John.  Mary would live in the home of her nephew, John, which, by the way, was also the home of her sister, Salome, and brother-in-law Zebedee. 

What transpired in all the years ahead?  Again, we just don’t know, but I think we’d be on safe ground to imagine a bustling fisherman’s household with perhaps three generations under one small roof.  Over many meals they would tell and retell the stories of their life with Jesus, and the transformative effect he had upon them.  He was her son, his cousin, their nephew.  They would remember the words he spoke, and the prayers they overheard him pray.  They would recall his miracles, and especially, the last week of his mortal life in Jerusalem.  They would break the bread and pass the cup, as Jesus commanded them to do, and there he would be in the midst of them.  They would remember his death, and marvel over his resurrection.  I imagine it would take them many years to process it all.  The ongoing reflecting and remembering would be all in the family.  The only hard evidence we have of they life they might have lived is the Gospel of John itself.  The authorship of John’s Gospel has always been an open question.  But the premise that the Beloved Disciple played a major role in its compilation, if not wrote it himself, is the most plausible of all the theories. 

Jesus warned any who would come after him that family life can always be a bit idolatrous.  Families can be idolatrous when God is merely a means to preserving the natural order of mother, father, daughter, son.  But families also can be sacramental.  Families are sacramental when fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters open up windows to God for one another.  I give thanks every day for my parents and grandparents.  They all, in their own way, shined the light of Christ on me.  I imagine that the household of John, Mary, Salome, and Zebedee functioned in a similar or even greater way.  They were sacraments to each other.  Were they the new community of the redeemed?  I suppose, if that’s what you want to call them.  Were they still ordered along the traditional roles of a household of their time?  Probably.  Someone had to catch the fish, cook the meals, take out the garbage, and feed the dog. 

“Woman, behold your son.  Behold your mother.”  When I survey the wondrous cross, and hear these words of Jesus, I discern the call of Christ: that by the grace of God and the power of the Spirit, we all be sacraments to each other.  Don’t make it any more complicated than it needs to be. 

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TIMELY AND TIMELESS

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
Palm Sunday + March 24, 2024

Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  (Mark 11:9) 

On Palm Sunday we celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.  This year, as I’ve pondered the meaning and message of today, I’ve been struck by the parallels between Jesus, and another figure much in the news: Alexei Navalny, the longtime thorn in the side of the Russian dictator, and now war criminal, Vladimir Putin.  In the early 2000s Navalny was a lawyer and politician, holding various offices and essentially working within the system.  Such experiences, however, exposed him to the corruption at every level of Russian civic life – from local elections to the highest reaches of the Kremlin.  By 2011 he had seen enough, and began rallying the Russian people to oppose Putin.  Navalny galvanized public demonstrations where tens of thousands of people were calling for Putin to be voted out in a fair and legitimate election, unlike the sham that occurred last weekend. 

Putin, predictably, didn’t take kindly to Navalny or his demonstrations, and therefore worked to make the reformer’s life as difficult as possible.  Multiple times Navalny was falsely accused, arrested, tried, and imprisoned.  Always in and out of the authority’s clutches, he started his own political party, ran for Mayor of Moscow, and even President of the country.  Navalny’s influence was growing, and Putin knew it.  So at every step, Putin’s machine would be ready with new trumped-up charges, new arrests, and more jail time.  Finally, the attempts on Navalny’s life commenced, the most serious of which was a deadly poisoning in August of 2020.  Navalny’s supporters evacuated him to Berlin, where he could recover in a hospital equipped to treat him.  From there he continued his social-media campaign against Putin. 

Navalny’s supporters warned him against ever returning to Russia.  He could carry on the resistance from exile, and live a long and happy life with his family.  But Navalny vowed to go back to the country and people he loved.  How could he reform Russia from outside of Russia?  Thus, on January 17, 2021, he boarded a commercial flight for Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport.  Word spread that he was coming.  Crowds gathered to greet the arriving hero, and shout praise to the reformer who came in the name of peace, but would not back down from the evil powers of this world.  It promised to be a moment not unlike Palm Sunday, the day we celebrate today. 

The reason I’ve been talking about Alexei Navalny’s return to Russia is to help us gain a fresh understanding of Palm Sunday.  It is to strip away the centuries of assumptions so that we can see how real, and raw, and dangerous it was for Jesus to enter Jerusalem.  The fact is, we don’t really know much at all about the life of Jesus.  Two of the four Gospels give us some stories about his birth.  We have one story about his being in the temple at the age of twelve.  Then, beginning when he was about thirty, we have the more detailed accounts of his public ministry.  But even these are hardly exhaustive of what we estimate to be a period of three years.  What is clear, however, is that due to his words and deeds, Jesus rapidly gained a large following.  He was as close to being a celebrity as one could be in first-century Palestine.  Crowds followed him everywhere he went.  Thousands at a time pressed in close to touch his garments and hear what he had to say. 

In addition to admirers, Jesus also had detractors.  He developed enemies in powerful places who were threatened by his teachings about the kingdom of God.  Because he taught dangerous and destabilizing things about God, he drew the attention of the religious authorities.  The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, and the chief priests predictably didn’t take kindly to being called hypocrites and blind guides.  In one parable (Matthew 21:33-41) he compared these clerics to wicked tenants who murdered the vineyard owner’s messengers.  Matthew writes in his Gospel that when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard the parable, they perceived that he was speaking about them (21:45).  Oh, they were clever – those chief priests and Pharisees.  You couldn’t get one past them!  They resolved then and there to have Jesus arrested.  Jesus would have to travel the countryside by stealth to avoid them. 

Because Jesus talked about a kingdom, he drew the attention of the political authorities also, particularly the Roman occupiers.  Rome would consider anyone proclaiming a rival kingdom to be an insurrectionist, worthy of the death penalty.  They had no king but Caesar.  For a time, the scribes and chief priests tried to bait Jesus into making a political blunder, but he always passed through the midst of them, because, as he said, his hour had not yet come.  We don’t know for sure when the attempts on his life began, but Matthew writes his Gospel as if to suggest that powerful people were trying to kill Jesus from the time of his infancy.  Mary and Joseph had to take the child and flee to Egypt to escape Herod the Great’s murderous rage.  Many years later, Herod’s son, Antipas, would continue his father’s vendetta.  Not all the Pharisees were against Jesus.  At one point, some of them came to warn him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you (Luke 13:31).” 

Such was the danger that always seemed to be one step behind Jesus.  But Jesus was determined to make his royal claim according to the prophecies he’d heard in Isaiah, Zechariah, and the Psalms.  His calling was to enter Jerusalem on a colt, not a war horse and chariot.  Today we’ve heard how the Gospel writer, Mark, describes the scene.  Using a complex series of passwords given to inside supporters, Jesus’ disciples obtained just the right humble beast for Jesus to ride into the city.  As he approached the gate, the ever-present crowds preceded and followed him, waving palm branches, spreading their cloaks in his path, and shouting, “Hosanna!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  It was the perfect time.  The Passover was at hand, and Jerusalem would be bursting at the seams with pilgrims from far and wide.  Many of them believed or at least hoped that Jesus was the Messiah, and that the great campaign to establish the kingdom of God had begun.  Palm Sunday was a success for Jesus. 

Fast forward, now, two-thousand years.  Sadly, for Alexei Navalny, things did not go as well as they initially seemed to be going for Jesus.  In January of 2021, when the Kremlin learned of the crowds gathering at Vnukovo, they diverted Navalny’s flight to another airport, where the authorities arrested him the moment he stepped into the terminal.  Navalny would never again know freedom.  He was imprisoned in a Siberian facility designed to bruise and crush the spirits of its inmates.  There, last month, he died under mysterious circumstances, despite appearing well the day before.  Why did he return at all?  Was his a suicide mission?  No, Navalny did not want to die, even though he knew it was a strong possibility.  He wanted to reform the corrupt Russian system from within, and perhaps be elected President himself, in the mode of the South African reformer, Nelson Mandela.  Alas, it was not to be.  Navalny’s death was a great tragedy, perhaps a crippling blow to his movement. 

Likewise, Jesus.  Was his a suicide mission?  No, Jesus did not want to die, even though he knew it was his destiny to offer his life.  Jesus was following in the mode of no earthly ruler or reformer.  Rather, his principal guide seems to be the prophet Isaiah, who foretold of a suffering servant of the Lord, whom we heard about in today’s reading (52:13 – 53:12).  The servant would bear the griefs and carry the sorrows of God’s people.  He would be wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for their iniquities.  He would lay down his life as an offering for their sins, and by his stripes, they would be healed.  As an observant Jew, Jesus would have read from Isaiah his whole life, and he perceived that the prophet was talking about him.  As much as Jesus may have wanted to sidestep his mission, what consumed him instead was a burning passion to be obedient to God’s will.  He would enter Jerusalem, confront the ruling religious and political authorities, and lay down his life on the inevitable cross, a perfect offering for the sins of the whole world.  The way Jesus read the prophets, his death would be integral to his mission, not an unfortunate tragedy. 

Ride on, ride on in majesty!
The angel armies of the sky
look down with sad and wondering eyes
to see the approaching sacrifice.

Many of you know that I teach 5^th Grade Bible over at Grace Church School.  My task is to give the New Testament to a roomful of 10 and 11-years olds across a semester.  It’s a weekly class, which amounts to anywhere from 15-17 sessions, depending on fire drills, holidays, and the whims of school administrators.  In one of the first sessions I ask the students to call out the names of famous people, and I write the names on the board.  Entertainers, athletes, politicians, even notoriously evil people from history usually round out the list.  Then we try to figure out who among them is timely, and who is timeless.  Timely people may be widely known in their own day, but history will move on and largely forget them.  For example, much to the dismay of the 5^th graders, I suggest that Taylor Swift is timely.  You can’t escape her image or music today, but in 100 years, to say nothing of 200 years, the world will make little note of her.  All of the Swifties will have dispersed.  I may be completely wrong, but that’s my prophecy, and I’m sticking to it. 

Timeless people, on the other hand, are those whom the world continues to wonder about, and puzzle over long after their careers and even their lives are finished.  They broke some mold, or blazed some trail – for good or for ill – that was unforgettable.  You can be a timeless person for all the wrong reasons, such as Pontius Pilate.  Or, you can become a timeless person for all the right reasons, such as Rosa Parks.  Sometimes the choice is not yours.  Sometimes you are simply in the right or the wrong place at a pivotal moment, and what you do determines your legacy. 

What of Alexei Navalny?  Is he timely or timeless?  One could argue that he went where he did not have to go, and laid down his life for others, in the hope that oppressed people might live in a free society.  If his movement continues, and Russia remarkably is reformed, then Navalny will be timeless.  History will be the judge. 

What about Jesus?  The question I put to the 5^th graders is the one I now put to us in our different context.  Why are we still talking about Jesus not 100, not 200, but 2,000 years after he entered Jerusalem and died on a cross?  Why has his movement continued?  Why have his followers not dispersed? 

As you know, what comes next in the story raises Jesus into the realm of timelessness.  What comes next is that God highly exalts him, and bestows on him the name that is above every name (Philippians 2:9).  Fear not that I am jumping the gun, and racing out ahead of where we ought to be on this first day of Holy Week.  God’s timelessness is not like our own.  God inhabits eternity, yet for his own loving purposes deigns to visit us, dwellers all in time and space. 

Thus, for God, every day is an eternal now.  For God, every day is Easter.  God makes all things new every day.  For God, every day is Good Friday.  God in Christ forgives the sins of the whole world every day.  For God, every day is Palm Sunday.  God arrives at the fortress around your heart every day, seeking an entrance.  Which is why on any day, but especially today, we gather to greet him, and dare to shout, “Hosanna!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” 

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DENY YOURSELF

 The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Second Sunday in Lent
February 25, 2024

Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their crosses and follow me.  (Mark 8:34)

 When I was a growing up my father was the rector of an Episcopal church over in East Orange, NJ.  One of the parishioners was a gracious, elderly woman named Miss Sally Lea.  She had never married, and had lived in her same well-kept house since the day she was born.  Sally Lea would often invite us over to dinner.  These evenings were always a mixed blessing because while our hostess was a great lady, she was not a great cook.  Her signature dish, boiled chicken, was practically inedible, especially if you were a 10-year old.  One evening while we were all sitting around her table I excused myself to find the facilities.  Not wanting to waste the precious moment of reprieve from the chicken, I took a rather round-about route to the bathroom.  On the way I came across a small table near the front door, and on this table were three shining golden coins. 

Almost immediately I felt an irresistible urge to have one of the coins.  I really didn’t know why.  It just seemed that life would be better for whoever possessed such a treasure.  You know the feeling – the feeling you get when you conclude that having a thing will solve your problems.  What thing?  You fill in the blank: a new apartment with more square footage, a country house, the dream job, the perfect relationship.  The solution for life and happiness is right there.  How easy it would have been for me to pocket one of those coins.  Besides, I reasoned, Miss Lea wouldn’t even miss it.  She had two others, and if memory serves, her eyesight was failing.  So there it was for the taking. 

Here was one of those moments when it seems as though on one shoulder you have a little angel saying: “avert your eyes!  Walk away!  Be a good Christian!”  And on your other shoulder is a little devil whispering in your ear: “take it!  In fact, take them all!  You deserve them.”  This was my chance.  Alas, I didn’t act soon enough.  I heard a chair pull out from the dining room table, and footsteps coming my way.  Before I could act one of my brothers, who also wanted to escape the chicken, was at the door telling me to hurry up.  I knew that I had missed a golden opportunity.  The angel on my shoulder had won by default.  I walked away without the coin, “tempted and yet undefiled.” 

Today’s readings from Scripture all teach what is certainly not a new message, but one that we tend to disbelieve and therefore resist learning.  The message is this: Real life – the life for which all of us yearn, and hope to achieve, and strive to attain – such real life cannot be found in all the gold coins and glittering images that the world lays before us.  In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark (8:31-38) we hear Jesus rather sternly instructing his disciple Peter along these lines.  Peter was following Jesus because he believed that Jesus was the One sent from God to give the Jews all the good things God had been promising them.  But at length Jesus began saying some things that were definitely casting doubts on his ability to deliver the goods: He began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 

Peter had understandable concerns about the agenda Jesus was putting forth, particularly the part about suffering and death – nice though the rising after three days sounded.  Thus he took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him.  But Peter made no headway with Jesus.  In fact, Jesus accused Peter of being the devil on his shoulder: Get behind me, Satan!  Then Jesus told Peter again that most unpopular message, and here I will paraphrase: What will it profit you if you gain the whole world and forfeit your life?  If all you want is to save your life, then you are going to lose it.  But if you want to lose your life for my sake, then you will find it.  Deny yourself.  Take up your cross and follow me. 

How did Jesus come to understand his mission and ministry in these terms of self-denial and even losing one’s life?  I think it’s safe to say that in the Gospel of Mark, when Jesus announced his immanent suffering and death, he was breaking character with all the popular Jewish expectations of how the Messiah should go about the business of saving the people.  In truth, the people had a variety of expectations.  Some thought the Messiah would be a military conqueror who would oust the Romans through force of might.  Others thought the Messiah’s focus would be more political.  He would be a great king on the order of David.  Others thought he would be more of a mystic who would lead people apart from society, out to the desert, for a pure spiritual revival.  Clearly, Jesus was following a script that was different from all of these.  Jesus had in mind the mysterious Suffering Servant foretold in the book of the Prophet Isaiah.  Isaiah described a figure who would save the people through his own suffering and self-offering.  Jesus understood his mission and ministry to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecies.  He was claiming to be the Suffering Servant. 

Peter didn’t want to hear it.  Peter and the Jews wanted an immediate, interventionist Messiah who in short order would snatch the gold from Rome or whoever was holding it, and never let go of it again.  If, in fact, the Jews were the chosen people of God, they wanted to show it off in front of the other nations.  They wanted to taste and see their special status, and they wanted the neighboring peoples to envy them.  Israel was to shine.  By contrast, the life of self-denial, the life that Christians would later call the way of the cross was suddenly sounding like no fun at all.

So here we are on the Second Sunday in Lent, and at this point it might be fair to look you squarely in the eyes and ask: how’s it going?  It could be that this year you vowed Lent would be different.  Back on Ash Wednesday you declared that you would deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus.  Anything that stood between you and God would have to go, be it booze, beef, bacon, sweets, social media, or all of it.  For forty days and forty nights, the sorrow of Jesus you would share.  From worldly joys you would abstain.  Come Easter you would emerge a victor in the wilderness, but for now you recognize that all the vain things that charm us most don’t deliver the life they promise.  In fact, they may even deal death when we indulge in them without discipline.  So it’s time to give them up and save ourselves.  It’s time to toughen up and exercise some will power.  So you thought on Ash Wednesday.  Now, just a week and a half into Lent, your zeal for the Lord of Hosts may be flagging.  Self denial and sacrifice is all rather grim and joyless. 

What is more, you may even harbor sophisticated theological concerns about trying to save yourself through the hard work of Lent.  The fact is, having a successful Lent when you personally slay your own demons can lead to the bigger sin of pride, which is the delusion that you save yourself.  The good news of grace is that we don’t save ourselves.  God saves us through Jesus, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offenses.  Thus, you reason, it might be a spiritually good thing for you to break your Lenten fast.  Doing so will keep you humble and save you from pride.  That bag of chips, that bacon double cheeseburger, that glass of Texas Bourbon: “take it,” says the angel on your shoulder.  Or is that the devil on your shoulder?  Indeed, it can all be a muddle.  But think of Lent this way: the hard work of Lent can be the hard and holy work of grace.  We are trying to learn a hard and holy lesson – a lesson our natural self resists learning.  We are training ourselves to recognize what gives life and what does not. 

Ultimately, it’s in devotion to God where true joys are to be found.  God is the one, true giver of life.  Indeed, you can clothe yourself in purple and fine linen.  You can feast sumptuously with family every day, and in the end wind up not having life.  You have worshipped the gift, and not the Giver.  In today’s reading from Romans (4:13-25), we’ve heard St. Paul reflect on the complex story of Abraham.  St. Paul writes that God promised Abraham that he would inherit the world.  Imagine: Abraham was to inherit the world, but not through his own moral effort or merit, not through the usual means of saving oneself.  Rather, the hard work for Abraham was learning to worship the Giver, not the gift.  Abraham would indeed become “the father of many nations,” but first he had to put his faith and trust in God.  At one point Abraham even believed that God was requiring him to give his only son, Isaac, back.  How was Abraham to be the father of many nations if he committed the awful deed of sacrificing his only son and heir?  How could Abraham walk away from Mt. Moriah without his son?  Abraham never wavered, writes Paul.  Abraham trusted God and had faith in the goodness of God.  What was the result?  Not only did God spare Isaac, God made Abraham the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 

Even still, we tend to trust our things more than faith in God as the likelier path to joy, and we take the message of self-denial with an intellectual grain of salt.  So at this point I want to do two things: first I’m going to tell you something, then I’m going to show you something.  First, what I will tell you is that countless millions of people have found over the centuries that denying themselves, loving God, and following Jesus is not a joyless life full of gloom, doom, and threats.  Rather, it is to experience a peace that passes all understanding.  It is a joy that the world cannot give.  St. Paul said that the surpassing worth of knowing Christ was better than anything else this world could offer (Philippians 3:8), and that the sufferings of his present time were not even worth comparing with what it meant for him to know Christ (Romans 8:18).  Even the Suffering Servant in Isaiah found that God gave him the strength to endure, that God would never desert him, that God would always be present to him.  Jesus said, “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  Such has been the experience of countless millions of people who have followed Christ.  They have found that the life that lives beyond the grave can begin on this side of the grave. 

But how are we ever going to gain life by losing it?  Here we arrive at the mystery and the paradox of the kingdom of God, and I want to show you something that might help to illustrate.  It’s show-and-tell time.  I want to show you this:

Here the preacher shall display the golden coin.

This is one of the three golden coins from Sally Lea’s table.  She never saw it again after that evening some fifty years ago.  You remember that the table was near the front door.  On the way out we passed by the coins.  If you are thinking that I slipped one into my pocket, you’re right.  You bet I did!  But I only did so after Miss Lea had first gathered them in her hand and said to my two brothers and me, “Boys I’ve been meaning to give you these as a little gift.”  Then, one by one, she place them in our eager hands as if they were Communion wafers. 

All along she had been planning to give us the coins.  Imagine if I had stolen one of them earlier in the evening.  What would have been the profit?  What would I have gained?  What does it profit you to gain the whole world and forfeit your life?  This coin, to me, is a window into the mystery of the kingdom of God.  It’s only a token.  It’s of no earthly value by itself.  But on another level, it conveys all the riches of God’s grace. 

Jesus said at another time, Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom (Luke 12:32).  Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, God has been meaning to give us a little gift: the resurrected life of Christ.  So seek first the kingdom of God, and all good things shall be yours as well.  Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus. 

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DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?

 The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
Ash Wednesday + February 14, 2024

Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”  (Matthew 6:19-20)

Lately, I’ve been reading about a man who wants to live forever.  What is more, he thinks it’s possible, and he’s working a plan to make it so.  Bryan Johnson is a 46-year old billionaire who made his money acquiring a little start-up called Venmo, and then selling it.  But today, he is an anti-aging guru who devotes his time to an endeavor he calls Project Blueprint.  His goal is to take ongoing, meticulous measurements, or blueprints, of every biological function in his body that is possible to track.  At the same time he subjects himself to a scrupulously healthy lifestyle in terms of diet, sleep, and exercise.  He believes he has the science to show that he is turning back the clock.  He has the maximum heart rate of a 37-year old, the gum inflammation of a 17-year old, and the facial wrinkles of a 10-year old.[1]  Do you see what I mean about meticulous measurements? 

Bryan Johnson claims to have slowed his speed of aging to that of a child, and he wants to share the secrets to his fountain of youth with others.  He has become a social media sensation, and a whole movement has sprung up around him.  “Don’t die” is the mantra of his followers.  They gather for what they call “Don’t die meet-ups,” where they wear black T-shirts with letters across the chest that read – you guessed it – “Don’t Die.”  They take “Don’t die hikes,” and purchase Project Blueprint products: special olive oil, battery-powered hats to stimulate hair growth with red light, vitamin pills, and vegan recipes that reverse the cycle of aging.  Moth and rust shall not corrupt youthfulness.  Time and gravity will not break in and steal vitality. 

Some people have accused Bryan Johnson of starting a religion, not a fitness regimen.  He agrees with them.  “Every religion has been trying to offer a solution to ‘Don’t die.’  That’s the product they’ve generated,” he says.  He goes even further, comparing himself favorably to Jesus.  “Jesus fed people bread and alcohol, impairing and aging them.  I will feed you nutrients that awake and create life.” 

Friends, I hope I’m not the first today to wish you a “Happy Valentine’s Day.”  I promise that Valentine’s Day will have no further bearing on the sermon.  But how could I let the coinciding of Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday pass without comment?  Besides, I can’t really wish you a happy Ash Wednesday.  Happy Ash Wednesday doesn’t sound right at all.  You see, Ash Wednesday is a rather grim day.  Today Christians gather to stare unflinchingly at an uncomfortable truth.  We are all going to die.  Today you have not stumbled into a “Don’t die meet-up.”  Oh my, no.  Quite the contrary.  It wouldn’t be a stretch to call today’s liturgy a “We are all going to die meet-up.”  When you come forward to receive the imposition of ashes, you will be taking a “We are all going to die hike.”  When you leave the church, your identifying garment will not be a T-shirt that says “Don’t die.”  Rather, it will be a cross-shaped mark of ashes on your forehead that says to the world, “We are all going to die.”  We are mortal, formed of the earth, and unto earth shall we return, states the Prayer Book liturgy for the burial of the dead. 

We are all future dead people: you, me, every fitness guru, and all anti-aging actors who want to prolong biological life.  I’m told that in an old New England cemetery, a particular headstone reads as follows:

Remember, friends, as you pass by,
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, you too shall be.
Prepare yourself to follow me.

Why would we want to remind ourselves of our mortality?  Isn’t the world – filled as it is with violence, hate, and war – a gloomy enough place already?  I don’t mean to disparage Bryan Johnson and his movement (except the part when he compares himself to Jesus).  I don’t mean to discourage anyone’s effort to lead a healthy lifestyle.  I myself strive to avoid in-between meal treats, and the FitBit in my pocket counts my every step.  So why the solemn warnings of today?  I’ll tell you why.  We’re being honest.  We’re being honest about our mortality, and our utter dependence on God if anything is to follow the ashes that we too shall be.  We have little control over our mortal destinies. 

Ulysses S. Grant was a great Civil War general and later the 18^th President of the United States.  In his highly acclaimed Personal Memoirs, Grant writes of a fellow officer with whom he served in the Mexican-American War in the 1840s.  Thomas L. Hamer was “less than 50 years old, and possessed an admirable physique that promised long life.”  Before the war he had been a member of Congress, and he was an able politician as well as a soldier.  In fact, Grant believed that Hamer was on the fast track to becoming the President of United States one day.  Then, just like that, Hamer took ill before a battle and died within a few days.  Grants tells the story to show how little we control our own destiny. 

If you are looking for an easier read with the same message, you may recall a book of dark fiction from 2013 entitled This Is How You Die.  The story centers around a device called “The Machine of Death.”  For those who wish to know the means of their own demise, the infallible contraption will provide the information for twenty-five cents.  I suppose a way to exercise at least a little control over your inevitable death is to know how it’s going to happen.  The chapters of the book have been made into video shorts that you can watch online.  One young woman out for a jog comes across the machine, inserts the coin, and the card she receives reads Old Age.  She smiles, reinserts her earbuds, steps into the street to continue her jog, and is promptly run over by an elderly driver.  Old age got her, just not the way she thought it would.  In another video, a young man’s card reads Parachute Failure.  He looks puzzled.  We assume he’s not a parachutist.  It doesn’t matter.  The next day on the tennis court he’s flattened by someone else whose parachute had failed.  The point of the stories is that we don’t control our own destiny.  We are all going to die. 

By now you may be wondering if I have anything to offer besides existential despair.  Cheer up, friends.  I do!  Bryan Johnson is right insofar as he says that religions all try to solve the problem of “don’t die.”  So what is the Christian response to death?  You know what it is.  It is Easter.  We follow the risen Jesus, the only person in history to have gone through death and come out the other side.  When God raised Jesus on the third day after he died, his new life was not a resuscitation.  It was a resurrection.  God clothed Jesus with an imperishable body, a new body, a resurrection body (1 Corinthians 15).  What is more, St. Paul writes that God shared with him a mystery – the mystery that we too shall be changed: in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  Death will be swallowed up in victory.  God will save us not from death, but in and through death. 

Later on, when you come forward to receive the ashes, note the shape of the mark: a cross.  Today we receive a visible sign of the cross.  As you know, the cross is the place where Jesus willingly stretched out his arms and died for us, a perfect offering for the sins of the whole world.  If the cross means anything at all, it is that God forgives you.  The cross says that God will go to any length to save you – not from the ashes, but through the ashes.  Again, not from death but through death.  He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not also freely give us all things?  Of course he will.  So we put our hope in Christ and his cross.  Note the shape of the mark of ashes: a cross. 

Note the location of the cross: the ashes mark our foreheads in precisely the spot where in baptism we were sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked as Christ’s own forever.  So the ashes remind us not only of our mortality, but also of the great Christian hope that we belong to the One who raised us out of the dust.  Nothing in all of creation – not even death itself – can separate us from his love.  For those who belong to Jesus, death is no longer an end, but a beginning: the beginning of larger life in the closer company of God.  Note the location of the ashes.  Let them remind you of the waters of Baptism, in which you were buried with Christ in his death, and by which you share in his resurrection. 

Finally, note that these things which we do on this day include the Eucharist.  Yes, bread and wine – not to impair our senses and make us unhealthy.  Rather, bread and wine to fill us with God’s grace and heavenly benediction, and make us one body with Jesus, so that he may dwell in us and we in him.  “This is my body.  This is my blood,” said Jesus on the night before he died.  This is the true bread which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world. 

Do you want to live forever?  If so, then “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”  Eat this bread.  Drink this cup.  Come to Jesus and never be hungry.  Trust in him, and you will not thirst. 

[1] “A Quixotic Quest for Longevity Adds a Sales Pitch.”  Christopher Beam, The New York Times, January 14, 2024.