Palm Sunday
April 9th, 2006
St. Edmund's Episcopal Church, San Marino
The Rev. Rob FisherWhen I was a seminary student, one of the highlights of every week was our community Eucharist. The Episcopal seminary within Yale Divinity School is called Berkeley Divinity School. We Episcopalians comprised about one third of the Yale Divinity School population. We were a community within a community.
The Berkeley Center was housed in a grand old red brick house, down the hill from the main Divinity School quad. The dean lived on the second floor, and there were a few students who lived in rooms on the third floor. The first floor, which retained the charm of an old home, was used for meetings and classes. The dining room had been converted many years ago for use as a cozy little chapel. Wooden chairs were placed facing a center aisle. The altar was at the top of the aisle, and a small, real organ resided behind the last row of chairs all the way on the left side of the room. When the sermons were boring, we would stare at the beautiful and ornate ceiling, or out the windows where we could see the colors of the trees changing with the New England seasons.
While it was no shining example of Anglican liturgical space, our chapel suited us well. And most importantly, it was the place where the community gathered. Like the early Christians who gathered in homes, the community gathered there at least once a week, every Wednesday night, and broke bread together.
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Also on Wednesday nights we had the experience of meeting the various personalities who came to visit us as guest preachers.
The most high profile guest that we had while I was there was the newly consecrated bishop of New Hampshire.
Surely if you follow the news, you already know that he is at the center of great worldwide turmoil for Anglicans, and it is because he is an openly gay man, who does not see his sexuality as something to be ashamed of, or as something to cause him to be a lesser Christian.
Bishop Robinson has heard shouts of "Hosanna" from many who see the church's affirmation of his calling as a sign of hope and a symbol of inclusiveness. Likewise, he has had to have police security surround him because of the many death threats that he has received these death threats coming mostly from disapproving Christians.
Knowing the great controversy surrounding this individual, I was eager to meet him and hear him preach. I wasn't sure what exactly to expect.
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When I first saw him, I was surprised at how small he was. He was very slight and short in stature, and, unlike many of the bishops who visited us at Berkeley, he seemed highly accessible.
He made eye contact with you, and listened as you spoke to him. He exuded a calmness and a warmth. He seemed to me as the still center in the eye of a hurricane.
When he preached, he talked a bit about what it was like for him to be at the center of all this attention. He related the fear that he had when he started receiving death threats, some of them violently graphic. He spoke of the love that he experienced from God, too, and that this was the single thing that kept him going in spite of the pressure he had to face. He exuded joy when he spoke of these things. Being in his presence it was clear to me that he was one of the more spiritually alive people I had ever met.
The image that stayed with me most of all was when he spoke of the people who hate him and do not accept him. He put his arms out and he said that regardless of how they feel about him, he still would like to call them his brothers and sisters. He doesn't feel the need to return hate for hate. His arms remain open, regardless.
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This morning we began the service by shouting "Hosanna!" to hail Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Then, soon after we read account of his passion, and the words that lead to his death "Crucify him!"
It is a sharp turn-around. It feels very strange to utter both sentiments, one right after the other.
But the shouting of "Hosanna!" at the beginning of the service doesn't elevate us. And likewise, the crying of "Crucify him!" doesn't damn us.
The power is not from what we say, but it is in how Jesus responds.
No matter what we say His response is with loving arms opened wide.
This response of Christ boggles our mind.
We live in the world, and the way of the world is that if someone strikes you you strike back. If someone attacks your reputation you attack theirs!
This escalates to where killings breed greater killings, until everyone has blood on their hands both the blood of their enemies' and their own.
But when Jesus said, when someone strikes you on the face, turn and offer the other cheek, these were not empty words.
The last moments of Christ's mortal life lived out this radical lesson.
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Holy Week is now upon us. We will have services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and by attending them you will have the opportunity to meditate on the journey leading to Christ's profound gift to us on the cross. And even if you aren't able to attend the services, I invite you to take time this week for prayer and contemplation on your own.
At the end of this journey is the Gift.
Giving this gift is not a choice by God. It's who God is. God in Christ turns to the world for whom He is to die, and opens His arms wide.
Miroslav Volf has just written a book about God's identity as a giver. The book was commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury to be the Lent Book of 2006. Volf was a professor of mine, and he is a Croatian-American. Coming from the former Yugoslavia, he has had first-hand experience of what comes of human struggle and violence. When he speaks of forgiveness, he does not do so lightly.
Volf writes that God is a giver "more the way that ducks are quackers than in the way I'm a biker." To be a giver is who God is. And the only way for us to truly give, and likewise to truly forgive, is to allow God to be in us and to work through us. We can be like the prayer of St. Francis, we can be instruments of God's work in the world. This is our hope and our calling.
And Volf writes about Christ's ultimate gift to us on the cross: "Christ stands before the closed door of a grace-resistant heart and knocks gently with a nail-pierced hand." Amen.
© St. Edmund's Church