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EARTH DAY

4/25/2021

Genesis 1:1-5; 29-31   (The Message)

First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.   God spoke: “Light!” and light appeared.   God saw that light was good and separated light from dark. God named the light Day, he named the dark Night. It was evening, it was morning—Day One    . . . . .

Then God said, “I’ve given you every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth and every kind of fruit-bearing tree, given them to you for food. To all animals and all birds, everything that moves and breathes, I give whatever grows out of the ground for food.”   And there it was. God looked over everything he had made; it was good, so very good!  It was evening, it was morning—Day Six.

Several years ago, a small business for which I was working at that time was having an internal conversation about mindful recycling and how we could be more environmentally responsible in our business practices. A young woman who also worked there spoke up quite firmly and announced that her adult Sunday School teacher had told them that we didn’t need to bother with all this kind of stuff because Jesus was coming back for us soon and after that earth would be destroyed. There was no point in taking any special care for it now since it was all going to be trashed soon anyway.

I think I was too stunned at the time to respond but I suspect this is a fairly commonly held belief still today among many of the more conservative churches. She was taught, in church, that humanity was given the earth to ‘use’ – period. Not to care for, not to respect – just use.

I object, quite strenuously, to this belief. We are clearly told in Psalm 24 that “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” For the sake of time and space, I only read aloud today from Day One of Creation and from the ending of Day Six, but earlier on Day Six, humanity is told we are created to be responsible for every other thing that God created for this earth. Responsible. Not greedy, not trashy, but responsible, caring for what God has made.

Earth Day wias a couple of days ago, but I’m taking today out of our post-Easter readings to remind us all that the earth we walk on, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the very air we breathe all belong to God. They all come from God. They were created in love and beauty by God. Where did we ever get the idea that it is all ours to destroy? To use and then toss away?

Earlier cultures respected, even feared the natural world because they knew they were dependent on it for their very existence and that they were helpless against it when it showed its strength and power. We today, who like to call ourselves “advanced” seem to believe we can control nature and bend it to our will, using it as we choose, and discarding it when we are finished.

The translation I love best for reading from the Creation story is "The Message" translation. If you don’t have a copy of this version, you can go to biblegateway.com. It’s free to use – you just enter the scripture you want – in this case, Genesis 1 – and choose from their list of 2 or 3 dozen translations – “The Message” is there. And then just read the first chapter of Genesis in this version. It is impossible to read it here without hearing the love and the creative pride God takes in creating our world out of nothing.

And yes, this applies whether you are reading it from a literal point of view or seeing it as a poetic metaphor for what we know took billions of years of history. The pride, the creative excitement is there either way.

Look at the world we live in and see the wonders. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t believe it’s possible for the God who created giraffes to not have done so out of love and joy. Giraffes are delightful. Surely, some other arrangement could have filled the same environmental role, but I’m glad God chose this one. Or, tell me, what ecological niche do peacocks fill that could not have been covered by something much less flamboyant than a male peacock showing off? Why so much over-the-top glamour? Read again the line that says: God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good!

Or maybe, just go out in your own backyard and really look at the minute perfection of detail to be found in the smallest weed or the tiniest insect. The endless varieties. This ridiculous abundance of possibilities is one of the things I love most about God.

This is a creation that God loves. And so should we. It is time to shift our focus from all our “modern marvels” and start again to notice the ones God has given us from the very beginning – and long past time for us to begin to cherish them again.

The Christian Church DOC has two different initiatives that deal with environ-mental issues — The Green Chalice, and Blue Theology. Those are only two, but there are so many reasons to pay attention to our environment, beyond its beauty, that I’m thinking it might be interesting to explore them further this summer – after Pentecost -- to see where we might fit in preserving the health and goodness of God’s beautiful world — and of all that lives on and in it — including ourselves. Think about it.

Amen.

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DO YOU LOVE ME?

4/18/2021

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John 21:4-7, 15-17

Jesus called to them from the shore (they did not know it was Jesus), “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he grabbed his clothes, and jumped into the sea .....

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him a third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him a third time, “Feed my sheep.

This gospel reading is, perhaps my favorite in all of the gospels. I’ve shortened it here to a couple of smaller pericopes from the whole, but I was sorely tempted to read from the entire chapter. The whole of the 21st chapter of the Gospel according to John is simply a beautiful story. A story full of love and joy. After so much grief and loss, the disciples are once again with Jesus, and there is nowhere else they want to be. It’s a chapter that can easily bring me – at least -- to tears. I urge you to read the whole chapter for yourself. It’s not really that long.

I’ve chosen these two shorter pieces of the whole chapter today because they each have a piece of the longer story to tell, a piece that tells its own mini-story of love.

The first of the two stories tells of the disciples out fishing -- they apparently did their fishing at night. This may well have been their first night out since Jesus’ crucifixion and reappearance, but as we begin, they are just coming in to shore in the morning, having had no luck, no fish.

And at this point a stranger on shore calls out to them and shows them where to cast their nets, and when they do so, they are overwhelmed with fish – too many to haul in. Their nets are straining with fish.

The “disciple Jesus loved,” (remember, this is John’s gospel) tells Peter “It is the Lord!” and Peter, overcome with love and excitement, just can’t wait a moment longer and he jumps straight into the water to splash his way to shore and to Jesus, not even waiting to help beach the boat. That’s love. A desire, so deep, to be with the one loved that there is no denying it.

The rest of the disciples beach the boat and run to Jesus as well, and, in the part I left out of the reading today, they share a meal of bread and fish. This is the third time they saw the risen Jesus before his ascension.

After this impromptu meal, the second short piece of story that I read tells of Jesus asking Peter if he loves him — he asks three times — and after being assured by Peter that, yes, he does love him – again, three times – Jesus instructs him to take care of his sheep.

Peter apparently is a little frustrated that Jesus keeps asking him the same question, and the third time, he responds with “Lord, you know everything. You know I love you,” and I suspect there is an unspoken, so why do you keep asking me this?

I think Jesus just wanted Peter to hear it three times. He wanted Peter to hear – three times -- the trust that Jesus is showing publicly here, the responsibility he is giving Peter. His faith that Peter will not fail him – that he will do what Jesus asks of him.

And then there is a second, even more important reason. By asking three times if Peter loves him, Jesus is giving Peter three chances to publicly negate his three-times denial of Jesus before the crucifixion. Three times to let Peter know he is forgiven. Three times to show him that he is loved and trusted. That's love.

This would be the last time they would see Jesus before his ascension. None of the disciples knew what all was waiting in front of them. There would be struggles, imprisonment, persecution from without and internecine battles from within the new Jesus movement. Tradition tells us that Peter, himself, would one day be crucified like Jesus – only upside down.

But for the moment there is just this day on the shore of the sea. There is sunshine and freshly caught fish in plenty to eat – and they are all together again. Only the betrayer Judas is missing. But for today, Jesus is here with them, and that is all that matters.

Amen.

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PEACE BE WITH YOU

4/11/2021

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John 20:19-22
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

The gospel reading for today as given in the lectionary is really much longer than these four verses. In its entirety this reading goes on to include the saga of Doubting Thomas, who was not present for Jesus’ initial post-resurrection visit, and who famously asserted that he would not believe it until he touched the Lord’s wounds for himself.

There are times, however, when the best-known story, is so well-known that it blocks out any quieter, yet just as important points that get completely lost in the telling. There is one of those points in this reading, and that’s what I actually want to speak on today.

The very first verse of this reading goes like this: “It was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews.” Before we go any further I do think It’s important to emphasize that when it says “the Jews” anywhere in the gospels it is not referring to any and all Jewish people – the disciples after all were all Jewish. Jesus was Jewish. It is almost always referring to the Temple crowd – the Pharisees, the lawyers, the priests – the ones who wrote and enforced the “rules” – the very ones, in fact, who had just crucified Jesus, even if they had to use the Romans to do it for them.

So – the disciples are locked in a room, and they are afraid. In John’s version of things, the disciples have by this time seen the empty tomb, but they have not yet seen Jesus himself. Mary claims to have seen him and spoken with him (but she’s just a woman, after all). They don’t know who or what to believe right now. They want to believe that Jesus has risen, but it’s such an outlandish idea that they can’t fully embrace or accept it. And so, they cower behind locked doors, in fear of the known and the unknown. Their faith is just a little too shaky to take out in public right now.

My question for today is, how many locked doors do we put between our hopes and dreams and the world? How much of the faith that we claim as our own is hidden away behind locks because, as much as we want to believe, we are still too troubled by doubt and uncertainty to take them out in public? What is it that we fear might happen if we trust our beliefs?

How often do we find ourselves struggling to trust the things we say we believe in, but still having to deal with those locked gates?

In response to all these questions I’ve been asking, let’s read the second part of that opening sentence – what took place while they were hiding behind those locks: “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’” Peace. That thing that Jesus always offers us in place of our fears. In place of our struggles. Just ... peace. If we are concentrating on our fears and uncertainties then we leave no room for peace.

If we are allowing ourselves to be frantic and distracted, peace is going to have a much more difficult time finding a way in. As St. Paul put it in his letter to the people of the Greek city of Philippi, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable...keep your mind on these things,” and surely the words spoken by Jesus himself should fit in that category of things commendable. Then peace will be able to enter in and make its home in you. And when peace is at home in you, then you can freely pass on peace to all those around you...in words, in prayer, in acts of kindness.

There is a saying that I love. It’s attributed to St. Francis, but who knows? It goes like this. “Preach the gospel at all times. And, if necessary, use words.”

Peace be with you always. Breathe in Peace. Breathe out love. In the love of God there is no fear... Peace.

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FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT: EASTER SUNDAY

4/4/2021

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Mark 16:1-6

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.

As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.”

Each of the four Gospels tells an Easter story. Some are longer, some are shorter. It’s all the same information, but each gospel writer puts it together a little differently. This one Is from Mark’s gospel, and it’s one of my favorite versions. It paints such a vivid word-picture for me.

It is “very early” when the sun is just beginning to rise and the darkness hasn’t entirely relinquished its hold on the world. Can you picture that? I am not an early morning person by nature, so I have to admit that I don’t willingly witness a whole lot of sunrises, but occasionally life gives me a reason to be up and about in that not-quite-dark, not-quite-light time, and I am always mesmerized by the feeling of being caught between two worlds – that liminal space which is neither night nor day.

And here, in this liminal light, the women come. They are here for their, surely, unpleasant task of cleansing and preparing Jesus’ broken body for proper burial. They are doing it for love of him, of course, and also because this seems to be what women do, but still, it couldn’t have been pleasant for them. But even with all that, they are caught up in the purely human worry as to how they’re going to get into the tomb, closed, as it is, by a massive stone.

It is such clear picture for me. I can almost feel as if I am there, witnessing it.

This is not the reading for Easter morning, by the way. It is the reading for the Easter Vigil, that traditional liturgy that begins at midnight on Holy Saturday and, in the oldest versions, at least, continues through the dark hours until dawn ushers in Easter morning. I can remember midnight masses from my childhood. They would begin in darkness (because Jesus was still in the tomb) at a little before midnight, with the formal procession of the cross into the darkened church, accompanied by chants and a capella hymns. I sang in the choir, so my memories are always viewed from above and behind, since the choir loft was at the back of the church and over everything — we always had the best view in the house.

There was this sense of waiting, and then, at the stroke of midnight, the organ would blast out, the choir would sing, the bells would ring, and every candle in the church would be lit. You could feel the difference between the dark and waiting of Lent and the glory of Easter – it was an entirely visceral feeling in your bones and blood. That “feel” has always mattered to me — has always mattered -- that something momentous has happened — something has changed in the very fabric of the world. Changed from the inside out.

In an interview published last winter, late-night host Stephen Colbert recalled a conversation he had with then-presidential candidate Joe Biden where at one point they were discussing death and loss. At this point, Colbert made a statement that struck me as one of the most cogent statements on Easter I had ever heard. He said, "The message of Christ isn't that you can't kill me. The message of Christ is you can kill me and that's not death." *

And, that, I believe, is exactly what Easter is about. That is what has happened. Jesus died. He was taken by the powers around him and killed but he is not dead. He lives! He lives and will always live in us! There was death – and now there is life. Death failed to have the final word.

The world has changed. And because the world has changed, we have been changed. Forever. Our dreams, our hopes, our very fears – all changed, because one man who walked among us, one soul we never really understood at the time -- that one died and rose again to live again, in and with us.

Christ is Risen, Alleluia! He is Risen, indeed, Alleluia! Alleluia!

*Joe Hogan, "In Colbert We Trust," Vanity Fair, holiday issue 2020/2021

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EARTH DAY

DO YOU LOVE ME?

PEACE BE WITH YOU

FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT: EASTER SUNDAY

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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