Reenacting Creation

A Sermon preached on March 31^st 2018, Great Vigil of Easter, at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Let’s talk about traditions. This is the last of the Triduum or three holy days: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Day. Yes, I know it’s still Saturday, but in the Jewish tradition we started a new day at sundown. At each service we reenacted an event in that last week: The Last Supper in both the synoptic, i.e. focusing on the meal and Johannine traditions, i.e. with the foot washing at the center. The Crucifixion followed by a day of emptiness. And tonight – well tonight we reenact nothing less than creation! The first light is here – we lit the Paschal candle and from it all your candles. But it is still dark, there are still shadows. We have just heard six lessons about God’s mighty acts, starting with the story of creation, and through many acts of salvation. Soon, in the second half of the service we will hear – in the Gospel – of the mighty act of Christ’s resurrection – our new creation and there will be even more light as we celebrate the light of the world.

In the early Church, this was the traditional service for Baptism at the end of a long period of preparation during the season of Lent. We don’t have a Baptism tonight, but instead we will renew our Baptismal vows. Baptism is a symbolic death. As we will hear in just a moment in his letter to the Romans (6:3) , Paul writes: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” But Baptism is also an act of renewal and a reminder of the new and life that Jesus promises and of which his own resurrection is what we call a first fruit or foretaste. And so immediately following the renewal of vows we will hear the Easter Proclamation and there will be light and a joyful sound! For tonight we celebrate God’s mightiest work, the beginning of a new creation in the resurrection of Christ Jesus. 

As part of that celebration, and in keeping with another tradition, of the Eastern Orthodox churches, I am going to read the Easter sermon of John Chrysostom (circa 400 AD). He wasn’t called golden tongue for nothing! 

Are there any who are devout lovers of God?

Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!

Are there any who are grateful servants?

Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?

Let them now receive their wages!

If any have toiled from the first hour,

let them receive their due reward;

If any have come after the third hour,

let him with gratitude join in the Feast!

And he that arrived after the sixth hour,

let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.

And if any delayed until the ninth hour,

let him not hesitate; but let him come too.

And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,

let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.

For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.

He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,

as well as to him that toiled from the first.

To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.

He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.

The deed He honors and the intention He commends.

Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!

First and last alike receive your reward;

rich and poor, rejoice together!

Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,

rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!

Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.

Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.

Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,

for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;

for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.

He has destroyed it by enduring it.

He destroyed Hell when He descended into it.

He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.

Isaiah foretold this when he said,

"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.

It was in an uproar because it is mocked.

It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.

It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.

It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God.

It took earth, and encountered Heaven.

It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting?

O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!

Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!

Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;

for Christ having risen from the dead,

is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

An act of love

A Sermon preached on March 29, Maundy Thursday, at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Exodus 12:1-14, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:1-17, 31b-35

I recently heard about a church that has replaced foot washing with shoe polishing. As polishing someone else’s shoes on the street was for a long time and activity exclusive to African Americans – often still treated as slaves in all but name – it is not entirely inappropriate. The activity of foot washing was also something that slaves were responsible for. When comparing himself to Jesus, John the Baptist ranks himself lower than a slave when says that “I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal,” (John 1:27) something you had to do before washing anyone’s feet. On the other hand, polishing shoes is not as intimate as foot washing, when we touch another person, and gently hold their foot in our hand. Intimacy is important, because the foot washing is not primarily about service. It is an act of love.

This becomes clear if you read the passages around this text. “He loved them to the end.” (John 13:1) “Love another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) The foot washing is about Jesus’ love and his willingness to show that love, even if it means taking on a slave’s role and washing his disciples’ dirty feet. Even if it means an arrest and a trial before Pilate. Even if it means death by execution on a Roman cross. The foot washing is the acting out of the new Commandment that we heard today: “Love one another as I have loved you.” 

And yet the disciples, especially Peter, struggled to receive love in this form: “You will never wash my feet,” (13:8) Peter says. For how can God wash feet? Peter struggled too when Jesus foretold his death, “God forbid it Lord! This must never happen to you.” (Matthew 16:22) For how can the Messiah, God’s anointed die on a cross? We don’t always understand what God is doing. Yet is simple. God asks us to trust, to be vulnerable, to believe that God loves us intimately, and to receive God’s love – mind, heart, soul, and body. The foot washing, an act of vulnerability, humility and love is about the nature of God and what it means to be loved by God.

That is why it is much more than just a call to service. Before we can give, we must receive. As Jesus says, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” (13:8) We cannot love others as God loves us, without fully experiencing God’s love first. The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) is mostly interpreted as love given from an unexpected quarter, a tale with a twist in which the enemy turns out to be the better neighbor. But it is also a parable about receiving love, at a most vulnerable moment and from the wrong person.  The Jewish listeners will have recoiled at the idea of a Samaritan being the one who picked up, touched, healed and cared for one of their own. How dare he … well he dares because he loves. 

If and when you come forward to have your feet washed tonight after this sermon, please forget me. I’m just an actor in the divine drama that liturgy is, especially the liturgies of Holy Week. Put yourself into the disciples’ shoes [or not because they weren’t wearing any!] Imagine you are in that room when the one who had come from God and was going to God got up from the table, poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet. Imagine how you would feel.

I think my first reaction would be shame: I should be doing that to him. Then I would feel humbled: God is doing that to me. Then I would know and feel that I was loved: At this moment, just before his death, Jesus wants us to literally feel his love in an intimate act of humble service. Finally, I would understand that I have been empowered: Jesus says “I have set you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. You should love one another, as I have loved you.” (John 13:15, 34) Now he says, having seen and felt this, now go about your lives as people who know they are loved. Glorify the Son and glorify God in your lives and in your love.

This is more than a Bible story about what Jesus did in the last day before his crucifixion. The foot washing I tells us who Jesus is and what the God is like who sent him. And the foot washing is also meant as an experience that allows us to feel who we are, and why we are to love one another. We are who we are because Jesus loved his own who were in the world, because he loved us – intensely – to the very end, and because that end was never the end, certainly not for Jesus’ love for the whole world. It was not the end but the beginning of his call to be gradually transformed into his likeness and to love the world in his name. “If you know these things,” Jesus says, “you are blessed if you do them.” (13:17) So come and know and feel them, be blessed and become a blessing.

Amen.