Pentecost a healthy antidote for the illness of functional atheism

It can be easy to slip into "functional atheism"...Pentecost is a reminder that we are not in charge, nor do we have to do all the work.

Do all the good you can! ~ John Wesley

A wonderful quote by John Wesley, posted on the "Another Best Day" blog and facebook page.

Check them out!

http://www.anotherbestday.com/
https://www.facebook.com/AnotherBestDay

Spring is Christ

Everyone has eaten and fallen asleep.

The house is empty.

We walk out to the garden to let the apple

meet the peach, to carry messages

between rose and jasmine.

Spring is Christ,

raising martyred plants from their shrouds.

A leaf trembles. I tremble

in the wind-beauty like silk from Turkestan.

The censer fans into flame.

This wind is the Holy Spirit.

The trees are Mary.

Watch how husband and wife play subtle games

with their hands. Strings of cloudy pearls

are thrown across the lovers,

as is the marriage custom.

We talk about this and that. There is no rest

except on these branching moments.

~Rumi

Chris Hadfield sings Bowie's "Space Oddity" from Space!

Wow!  This video has 6 million hits since Sunday!  Amazing!

12 May 2013 Sermon ~ The Rev. Peter M. Carey ~ Easter 7

The Rev. Peter  M. Carey

12 May 2013 – Sermon - St. Paul's Memorial Church, Charlottesville

8am Holy Eucharist 

O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

In today’s reading from Acts, we have an amazing description of the overwhelming and abundant power of God to overtake the ways of the world. It is exactly this kind of power that you and I have perhaps prayed for in our darkest moments, in our saddest times, and in those days when we cannot see any way forward or any route out of our present circumstances.  It is hard, at time, to believe that God’s power can actually come into our lives as it does to Paul and Silas, jailed and beaten, but then set free through the miraculous power of God.  In our rational and logical world we are like Spock on the U.S.S. Enterprise in Star Trek, arguing that logic does not allow for such things as the hear, or for emotion, or for anything that is beyond our understanding.  However, we all have some notion of the peace which passes all understanding or we would not be here today, waking up early on a glorious morning and skipping out on our coffee or tea, on our New York Times crossword, or our NPR weekend edition, or on our Sportscenter, or on our beach reading which arrived from Amazon.com just yesterday. 

What brings us here, I would hazard a guess, is that we do believe, we do have some notion that the power of God is really beyond our understanding, and to this I say Alleluia!  Alleluia!  We live and breathe and make our way in this world, and in this time of Easter we do proclaim that Christ is Risen, he is risen indeed – even though we may have a hard time describing just what this might mean to the logic-centric mind of Spock, or to our friend who wonder why we need to schedule a later tee time so that we can go to church.  The reality is that we yearn for what God provides, we yearn for the walls of our own jails to be broken open, we yearn for an earthquake or a thunderstorm to crash in on our small and limited lives, on our locked in/restricted existence.  We yearn for the peace which does pass our understanding, we yearn for the peace which  may come, even when disappointment hits, even when our five year plan explodes after a few months, even when some of our dreams have to be set aside because of the vicissitudes of life.

In some ways, the peace which passes our understanding is going to shake us up in ways that we cannot control, that we cannot predict, and  in ways that may, at the time seem to be nothing like grace, and perhaps even nothing like peace.  God can be like that in our lives.  We make plans and they get jettisoned, we embark on journeys and then we swerve, we sit down and chart out the future, and then we realize that we are more servant than master, more follower than leader, more rider than driver. 

Who Makes These Changes

Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
and end up in prison
I dig pits to trap others
and fall in.

I should be suspicious
of what I want.

~Jelaluddin Rumi

However, God may be breaking us open for some new delight, even when the unexpected happen.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

Some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crows of sorrows,

Who violently sweep your house

Empty of its furniture,

Still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

For some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

Meet them at the door laughing,

And invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

Because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond

He may be clearing us out for some new delight!

And, so in this last week of Easter, we affirm that the peace which God sends is beyond our understanding, and this may be scary, this may fill us with holy fear, with awe (awe-some) (awe-ful), however, think of Paul and Silas in the jail, and think of the jailer.  God was at work, in a most incredible and dramatic way and god is also at work today, even for folks like us who cling to our “spock-ness”, our logic, our focus on rationality, our skepticism.  Leave these aside, and see who may be knocking at the door, perhaps, indeed, it is the living God.  Perhaps we need our spiritual houses swept clean of its furniture, perhaps we need to be cleared out for some new delight.

We gather here at this table, and we remember  and re-member the remarkable last days of Jesus Christ on Earth, of Emmanuel, God With Us, and we pray that God would send His Holy Spirit, even today, even in this place, even in the midst of those of us who are morecomfortable with logic, reason and skepticism.  Here in this place, we call up on the living God to be in our midst, just as when Paul and Silas were singing and praying in that place.  Are we ready for God to enter, are we ready for the peace (and the clearing out!) which may pass our understanding.  I pray that we are, because God does have plans for us.

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does any-one have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.

Teaching a Stone to Talk, Harper & Row, 1982

Acts 16

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here." The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

This is the table

A Celtic Prayer of welcome to the Holy Table

This is the table, not of the Church, but of the Lord,
it is make ready for those who love Him
and those who want to love Him more.

So, come, you have much faith and you who have little,
you who have been here often and you who have not been here long,
you who have tried to follow and you who have failed.
Come because God invites you, and it is His will
that you should meet him here.

Take notice of the wonder!

To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live....

Amidst the meditation of mountains, the humility of flowers wiser than all alphabets--clouds that die constantly for the sake of God's glory--we are hating, hunting, hurting. Suddenly we feel ashamed of our clashes and complaints in the face of the tacit glory in nature. 

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The Lord is my shepherd

Psalm 23 King James Version

The LORD is my shepherd; *
I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; *
he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul; *
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his
Name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil; *
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of
mine enemies; *
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life, *
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Keep watch dear Lord

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. 

Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

Abide in God's love

Jesus prays to the Father in John 17:20-26, and gives us a model of how we might also pray to God.  The theme, as I see it, in this prayer is of love and oneness.  Just as Jesus and the Father are one, so also we should be one, of one mind, of one heart, not so separated and alienated from each other, but one.  And the basis of this oneness is love, just as God the Father loves God the Son, so also God's love pours out into us, and we have only to look to the deep wells within us to find the love that God has placed within our very souls.  Jesus prays to the Father, and asks that we might all be one, and be united through God's love.  So, shouldn't love be the litmus test of what we do, of what we are, and of what we desire?  Shouldn't we not "sweat the small stuff" unless it comes to the living out a life of love towards one another?  Abide in God, abide in Christ, look deep to the wells of love that have been placed within us!

~The Rev. Peter M. Carey

John 17:20-26 (NRSV)

20 "I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

25 "Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

"Faith" is a fine invention ... April is poetry month

"Faith" is a fine invention...

"Faith" is a fine invention

When Gentleman can see—

But Microscopes are prudent

In an Emergency.

by Emily Dickinson, public domain

A wonderfully joyful "Joyful Noise" service at St. Paul's Yesterday!!

We had a wonderfully joyful "Joyful Noise" service yesterday, led by our Associate Rector Heather Warren as well as John Frazee and Betsy Daniel...assisted by our Senior Associate Rector (and photographer!), Peter Carey...

Tuesday in Easter Week

John 20:11-18

Mary Magdalene stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" 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." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, `I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Easter Monday

Matthew 28:9-15

Suddenly Jesus met Mary Magdalene and the other Mary and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, "You must say, `His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.' If this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.

An Easter Sermon, by St. John Chrysostom

An Easter Sermon

by St. John Chrysostom (347-407)

  If anyone is devout and a lover of God, let them enjoy this beautiful and radiant festival.

        If anyone is a grateful servant, let them, rejoicing, enter into the joy of his Lord.

            If anyone has wearied themselves in fasting, let them now receive recompense.

    If anyone has labored from the first hour, let them today receive the just reward.

        If anyone has come at the third hour, with thanksgiving let them feast.

            If anyone has arrived at the sixth hour, let them have no misgivings; for they shall suffer no loss.

                If anyone has delayed until the ninth hour, let them draw near without hesitation.

                    If anyone has arrived even at the eleventh hour, let them not fear on account of tardiness.

    For the Master is gracious and receives the last even as the first; he gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, just as to him who has labored from the first.

        He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first; to the one he gives, and to the other he is gracious.

            He both honors the work and praises the intention.

    Enter all of you, therefore, into the joy of our Lord, and, whether first or last, receive your reward.

        O rich and poor, one with another, dance for joy!

            O you ascetics and you negligent, celebrate the day!

    You that have fasted and you that have disregarded the fast, rejoice today!

        The table is rich-laden; feast royally, all of you!

            The calf is fatted; let no one go forth hungry!

    Let all partake of the feast of faith. Let all receive the riches of goodness.

        Let no one lament their poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

            Let no one mourn their transgressions, for pardon has dawned from the grave.

                Let no one fear death, for the Saviour's death has set us free.

    He that was taken by death has annihilated it!

        He descended into Hades and took Hades captive!

            He embittered it when it tasted his flesh! And anticipating this Isaiah exclaimed: "Hades was embittered when it encountered thee in the lower regions."

    It was embittered, for it was abolished!

        It was embittered, for it was mocked!

            It was embittered, for it was purged!

                It was embittered, for it was despoiled!

                    It was embittered, for it was bound in chains!

    It took a body and came upon God!

        It took earth and encountered heaven!

            It took what it saw but crumbled before what it had not seen!

O death, where is thy sting?

O Hades, where is thy victory?

   

  Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!

        Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!

            Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!

                Christ is risen, and life reigns!

                    Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!

    For Christ, being raised from the dead,

has become the first-fruits of them that slept.

                        To him be glory and might unto ages of ages. Amen.

Easter Vigil

Almighty God, who for our redemption gave your only- begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. or this O God, who made this most holy night to shine with the glory of the Lord's resurrection: Stir up in your Church that Spirit of adoption which is given to us in Baptism, that we, being renewed both in body and mind, may worship you in sincerity and truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Holy Saturday

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

"he descended to the dead"

"he descended to the dead"

Good Friday

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Good Friday Reflection by The Rev. Peter M. Carey

Here is my reflection on Good Friday, which is also posted at our church's Lenten Reflection Blog

Good Friday

Psalm 22 • Isaiah 52:13–53:12 • Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 • John 18:1–19:42

Last night Jesus asked his disciples to sit with him and pray. As difficult as that was, the moments of Good Friday are even more difficult, but also offer blessings as well. Can we sit with Jesus on this day? This day is a day to remember, reflect, pray, and yes, even grieve. As we know, grieving is a part of the process of life. Even though much of life is growth and abundance and hope, we also know there are so many necessary losses in life. To allow ourselves to grieve is essential for living abundant lives.

When Jesus said in John 10:10 that “I have come, so that you may have life, and have it abundantly,” he did not promise that it would all be tiptoeing through the tulips. As we find ourselves here, in this holy time of Good Friday, we are offered the opportunity to bring our grief, disappointment, fear, and pain to the cross.

We are offered the opportunity to unload our burdens here, and we are offered the opportunity to grieve our losses and sadness. We are offered the opportunity to grieve for those whom we carry in our hearts and minds.

On this day, this Good Friday, Jesus has taken up our grieving, has carried our pain, and has transformed it. Jesus takes it ALL up with him. The cross is the bridge from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, and Jesus carries the burden of suffering and death. While it may seem impossible, it is not. What is impossible for humankind is possible for God. The story might have ended here, but God had another end in mind. A glorious end. But the road to that end passes through this place, and this time, this cross—even as unbelievable as that may seem to much of the world! “What others meant for evil, God turned into good.”

The Rev. Peter Carey

Last Supper Images ~ Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday

Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, gives his thoughts on Holy Week.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, gives his thoughts on Holy Week.

"Holy Week is 'a week when we discover in a way we don't at any other time just we are and just who God is'."

Wednesday in Holy Week

Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Peter Abelard’s prayer during Holy Week

Walking alone, Lord, you go to your sacrifice,
victim of death, and our death’s mighty conqueror.
What can we say to you, knowing our poverty,
you, who have freed us from sin and from slavery?

Ours are the sins, Lord, and we are the guilty ones,
you, in your innocence, take on our punishment;
grant that our spirits may share in your suffering,
may our compassion respond to your pardoning.

Three sacred days are the time of our sorrowing,
as we endure now the night of our heaviness,
until the morning restores to us joyfulness;
Christ, newly risen, brings gladness for tearfulness.

Grant us, O Lord, to take part in your suffering,
that we may share in your heavenly victory;
through these sad days living humbly and patiently,
may we at Eastertide see you smile graciously.

Peter Abelard’s prayer during Holy Week

Tuesday in Holy Week

O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

From a poem for the Monday before Easter, by John Keble

From a poem for the Monday before Easter, by John Keble:

“Father to me Thou art, and Mother dear,

And Brother too, kind Husband of my heart!”

So speaks Andromache in boding fear,

Ere from her last embrace her hero part—

So evermore, by Faith’s undying glow,

We own the Crucified in weal or woe.

Strange to our ears the church-bells of our home,

The fragrance of our old paternal fields 

May be forgotten; and the time may come

When the babe’s kiss no sense of pleasure yields

Even to the doting mother: but Thine own

Thou never canst forget, nor leave alone.

There are who sigh that no fond heart is theirs,

None loves them best—O vain and selfish sigh!

Out of the bosom of His love He spares—

The Father spares the Son, for thee to Die:

For thee He died—for thee He lives again:

O’er thee He watches in His boundless reign.

Thou art as much His care, as if beside

Nor man nor angel lived in Heaven or earth:

Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide

To light up worlds, or wake an insect’s mirth:

They shine and shine with unexhausted store—

Thou art thy Saviour’s darling—seek no more.

From a poem for the Monday before Easter, in The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays Throughout the Year by John Keble (London: Suttaby and Co., 1883)

Monday in Holy Week

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Palm Sunday at St. Paul's Memorial Church, Charlottesville

Palm Sunday Sermon ~ The Rev. Peter M. Carey ~ 24 March 2013

The Rev. Peter M. Carey

Palm Sunday Sermon ~ 24 March 2013

St. Paul’s Memorial Church, Charlottesville, VA

Enter the scene

Write your creed

There is no denying it, today’s gospel is difficult to read, and difficult to hear.  For us, and for Jesus’ disciples, the story reaches a high-pitched dramatic point this week, this week we call Holy, which, for me, on the surface seems anything but Holy.  Just as Good Friday seems, on the surface, to be anything but Good.  Today’s gospel, along with the story of this final week of Jesus’ week seems to be tempting us to deny it all.  Of course, we could rush beyond these 6 days and embrace the glory of the Easter Vigil and the hope of the Resurrection.  Of course we could, but somehow, we have chosen to be here, to hear the story, and in some ways to enter into this strangely Holy Week, culminating in the strangely Good of this Friday. 

Several weeks ago, on Ash Wednesday, we offered an invitation for you to observe a Holy Lent.  Today, I will invite us all to enter the great story of Holy Week. 

Enter into the story.  This week has deep riches to offer us, however, these riches, like most precious gems, are buried deep.  To find them, we must enter into the story, find an entry point so that we can experience this story anew.  The details of the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, and these final days are specific and rich.  The gospels themselves slow down to a nearly excruciating pace and we are offered the difficult opportunity to enter the story anew.  This year, in our cycle of readings, we focus our lens upon Luke, however, all four gospels have gems to offer to us. 

Will you enter this story by focusing upon one character in the drama of the week?  What about a member of the crowd who on Jesus’ entry into baptism shouted “Hail,” but by the end of the week was shouting “crucify him”? 

What about entering the story as one of the women followers of Jesus who followed faithfully, who cared for him, who became disciples and apostles, even if the Gospels give them little air time?  What must have the week been like for them, as they prayed with Jesus, as they gathered with him, as they ate with him, and finally, as they witnessed the terrible crucifixion? [and later found the tomb empty]

And what about Peter, the one who seemed at many points to be the leader of this merry band, while at other points seemed to be about as clueless as one could be.  To focus the lens upon him this week, we see his humanity, his fear, and his denial of all of the love and teaching that Jesus had shown him.  Peter, who would be offered up as a central leader of the fledgling church after the Resurrection, is seen here in all of his failings, all of his humanity.  For a church that just last week enthroned a Pope in the Roman Catholic Tradition, and the Archbishop of Canterbury in our own Communion, Peter is seen as the patriarch of our church.  However, the Peter of Holy Week surely reminds us of the ways that the church is made up of faulty, flawed humans, and that God is the true Rock of the Church.

What about the more minor characters of Holy Week, what about the one who owned the donkey on whom Jesus rode, what about the ones who prepared the upper room, what about the Romans who nailed Jesus to the Cross, what about Ciaphas’s underlings who went along with his terrible verdicts.  Perhaps one way into this story is to place ourselves with these more minor characters, who are probably most like us, bit parts in the play, non-speaking roles who merely know when we enter and are somewhat confused about the larger drama.

A few years ago, the former Dean of Duke Chapel, Sam Wells wrote a marvelous book, “Power and Passion,” in which he explored several characters of Holy Week that we rarely explore in our Bible Studies or our Preaching.  These are the characters who enter the stage for a bit, who perhaps have a line or two, but then leave the scene, but who are particularly interesting .  Especially Joseph of Arimathea and Mrs. Pilate.  These characters seem to be followers of Jesus, but don’t quite embrace it fully.  Perhaps like many of us, not dramatically denying Christ or trying to protect Christ with the sword, but merely becoming half-way followers of Christ. 

Pontius Pilate, Barabbas, Joseph of Arimathea, Mrs. Pilate, Peter, Mary Magdalene

Wells explores the ways that some of these characters try to be followers of Jesus, “by night” and “privately,” but when the daylight comes, they are tentative at best, and the reader still wonders if they are followers at all. 

This week, we walk the way of Jesus, and even as we walk through the everyday lives of our week, we can also experience and enter into the drama of Holy Week.

This week, of course, is a week that dominates our Gospels, 8 chapters of Mark are devoted to Jesus’s turning to Jerusalem through the crucifixion, Matthews gospel, Luke’s gospel, John’s gospel.  This is a central story, the central story of the Christian faith.

And, of course we have stories in the church, stories from our Jewish heritage from the Old Testament; this is why we want our members of all ages to know the stories from the Bible.  The stories inform us.

Passover story…questions posed by youngest child…why do we know these stories.  And this story of Passover is one that many many people around the world find to be particularly hopeful.  Oppression is overcome.  … Liberation Theology …

For Jews:

The Shema is an affirmation of Judaism and a declaration of faith in one God. The obligation to recite the Shema is separate from the obligation to pray and a Jew is obligated to say Shema in the morning and at night (Deut. 6:7).

The first line of the Shema, "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One" (Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad) (Deuteronomy 6:4) is repeated throughout the prayer services. It is said in the morning blessings, in the musaf Amidah of Shabbat and holidays, when the Torah is taken out of the Ark on Shabbat and holidays, as a bedtime prayer, as part of the deathbed confessional, and at various other times. (Shira Schoenberg, The Shema)

How well do you know the story?  Could you tell the story?  We are called to be disciples, to be apostles..apostolo … being sent into all the world.  What are we proclaiming by word an example?  How will you tell the story of this week.  How will you visualize and embody this story. 

How do you tell the story of your faith.  How do you speak about your faith?  How would you summarize your faith. 

The Maasai Creed is a creed composed in about 1960 by Western Christian missionaries for the Maasai, an indigenous African tribe of semi-nomadic people located primarily in Kenya and northern Tanzania. The creed attempts to express the essentials of the Christian faith within the Maasai culture.

We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth. We have known this High God in the darkness, and now we know him in the light. God promised in the book of his word, the Bible, that he would save the world and all nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing that the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He was buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, he rose from that grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love, and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.  (From “The Need for Creeds” – “On Faith”)

New Zealand Prayer Book Creed

You, O God, are supreme and holy.

You create our world and give us life.

Your purpose overarches everything we do.

You have always been with us.

You are God.

You, O God, are infinitely generous,

good beyond all measure.

You came to us before we came to you.

You have revealed and proved

Your love for us in Jesus Christ,

Who lived and died and rose again.

You are God.

You, O God, are Holy Spirit.

You empower us to be your gospel in the world.

You reconcile and heal; you overcome death.

You are our God. We worship You.

Amen.

This week, we are offered the opportunity to enter the story, this difficult but wonderful story.  We are offered and invitation to enter in this strangely Holy Week.  We are offered the gift, strange as it is, to be a follower of Jesus, even as he enters Jerusalem in glory, only to be denied and put on the cross.  Enter the story, and reflect upon your own understanding of this week, and of our faith in general. 

Enter the story, consider the story of this week, and then tell that story. 

“You, O God, are supreme and holy.

You create our world and give us life.

Your purpose overarches everything we do.

You have always been with us.

You are God.”