Words of Peace and Grace: A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter

Preached at St. Margaret of Scotland Anglican Church, Diocese of Toronto, Barrie, Ontario.  The Second Sunday of Easter, 28 April, 2019

Acts 5: 27-32; Psalm 150; Revelation 1: 4-8; John 20: 19-31 

19 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."

Today I want to talk about a particular aspect of our liturgy, the Sharing of the Peace, and about how that action in the middle of our service becomes hugely meaningful in light of today’s gospel reading from St. John.   The risen Jesus appearing to his disciples, his threefold greeting “Peace be with you”, and the grace, forgiveness, and affirmation inherent in this greeting to these disciples who abandoned and betrayed Jesus before his death, all help us understand the special greeting that we exchange right in the middle of our Sunday service.

The Peace as an action, that moment when we move around and deliberately greet one another, is  is a relatively new in Anglican worship.    Some of you will remember that in the old Book of Common Prayer, there was a formal exchange between the priest and people just after the Prayer of Consecration:

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

People.  And also with you.  (p. 83)

Then with the Book of Alternative Services, the Peace moved to a place just after the confession and absolution.  The words were the same as the BCP, but the BAS liturgy encouraged the people to “greet one another in the name of the Lord”.

It seems like The Peace is different in every parish.   I’ve been in grand stone cathedrals where people sat as far apart from one another as they could, and exchanged brief glances and slight nods at one another during the Peace.   Other parishes, like us at St. Margaret’s, are much more exuberant.   People shake hands, hug, chat, seek out and welcome strangers, and it often takes a long time to call you back to order.

Not everyone shares the Peace in the same way.   It’s one of those moments where our extrovert and introvert personalities are clearly on display, and as Father Simon likes to say, that’s perfectly fine.   It’s alright to be a hugger (if people want to be hugged) or to stay in your pew and smile at others.   The important thing is what we _say_ during the Peace.

Most of us say something like “God’s peace be with you”  or “The peace of Christ” or just “peace”.   Why do we use these words rather than a phrase that we might say if we greeted one another on the street, like “It’s nice to see you” or “how are you” or “how’s it going?”

Surely the answer to this question lies in the link between our liturgy and today’s gospel.   What happens between the risen Christ and his disciples in that room makes it possible for us to say these words to one another.  The fact that Christ says “peace be with you” to these people huddled behind a locked door allows them to let go of their fear and guilt and start the process of  becoming the church.    Christ’s saying “peace be with you” gives the disciples, and us, a way to imagine our own identities as church, as an Easter people.  So the words “Peace be with you” in our greetings during the liturgy are important because peace is Christ’s great gift to the disciples in John 20, and to us today.

Let’s take a moment to remember the context of today’s gospel, to better see how powerful Jesus’ words of peace are to the disciples.   In the first half of John 20, Mary Magdalene has seen Jesus in the garden, outside his tomb, and has told the disciples about her meeting him. We would think that they might have been filled with hope and joy by Mary’s report, and that they might be out searching for the risen Christ, but to the contrary they are barricaded behind locked doors.  We are told that the disciples are fearful for their lives; certainly the detail that it is nighttime, when they would be most fearful is relevant.  

So in the middle of the night, into their fear, shock, grief, and mourning, comes Jesus.    He passes through the locked door as if to say that their fear and self-protectiveness don’t matter.   He comes to confirm the words of Mary Magdalene and the hope which the disciples don’t seem to allow themselves to believe.  He comes despite his own death, in his physical body with the wounds still on him, and he says “Peace be with you” and when he says these words, he says let go of your fear, for fear and grief and mourning and the dark of night have lost their power over me and over you.

So the first thing we can say about our sharing of the peace is that our action in the liturgy takes its meaning because of the resurrection of Christ.  We share the Peace in a place where there may be memories and even ghosts for some of us.   We can look around this church and say … there’s where Ron sat and ran the overhead presentation, and there’s where Bert sat, and Kay, and Randy … but when we say “Peace be with you”, we are reminding one anther that we are an Easter people, following the same Christ who rose from the grave and who undid the power of death.  We are reminding ourselves to let go of our fears, of our concerns for the seemingly unforgiving power of age and mortality over our bodies, and to remind one another that as the Lord is risen, so those we love and mourn are safe in his keeping, and that we will see them again on the day of resurrection.   By saying “Peace be with you”, we say, “May life, and hope, and joy, and promise, be with you”.

The second thing that connects our sharing of the Peace with the words of Jesus in the locked room is the context of forgiveness and reconciliation.   We know from the passion stories of the other gospels that the disciples have let Jesus down in many ways.  They could not stay awake in the garden when he asked them to keep watch with him, they deserted him when he was arrested, and Peter, who swore that he would never abandon Jesus, denied knowing Jesus three times.   Presumably the disciples, particularly Peter, are feeling guilt and remorse as well as grief, and yet when Jesus comes he does not accuse or reproach them.   His words “Peace be with you”  are words of forgiveness - he gives the disciples peace from guilt and self-loathing.

Thus, the second thing we can say about our sharing of the peace is that it is connected to the church’s work of forgiveness and reconciliation.   When Jesus says to the disciples,  “If you forgive the sins of man, they are forgiven them if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:23) he is also speaking to us.    Our act of sharing the Peace comes after the confession and absolution.   The knowledge that we as imperfect people are forgiven our sins allows us to face on another and to remind us that we all enjoy that same grace and love.    All of the frictions that are part of church life - our ways of stepping on one another’s toes, saying unkind or impatient words, our foolish rivalries over our roles and ministries - these all must be set aside if we are truly to receive the Peace that Christ gives us from our own sin and guilt.    By saying “Peace be with you”, we say “I’m sorry for what I’ve done, and I forgive you for what you have done.”

The third thing that connects our sharing of the Peace with the words of Jesus in the locked room is the context of doubt and imperfect belief.    Thomas is the one disciple who cannot believe, despite the testimony of Mary Magdalene who saw Jesus in the garden and the disciples who saw him previously in the locked room.   He has essentially called his friends liars, or at best, deluded.   And so when Jesus says “Peace be with you” the third time, it seems directed specifically to Thomas and to his scepticism.  His words “Peace be with you” are again words of forgiveness, but also words of hope and encouragement, as if to say, “Thomas, you will believe”, and they lead to Thomas making the most fulsome profession of faith of anyone in the gospels, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28).

Thus, the third thing we can say about our sharing of the peace is that it is connected to our doubts as much as to our faith.   We may call ourselves a people of faith, but our faith is not uniform.  Not all of us may believe as readily, or as completely, as do those around us, and again, as Simon would say, “that’s ok”.    When we say “Peace be with you”, we are saying that it’s ok to be where you are in you own journey of faith.   The exchange of “Peace be with you” removes our temptation to apply some sort of  faith test and to want to think that we have to be some sort of super-believer.   The words “Peace be with you” gives those who need it permission to be a Thomas.  For those who are doubtful, to hear and receive the words “Peace be with you” is to be told that it’s ok to be doubtful, that lack of faith is not a sin, but rather is merely human.  At the same time, the words “Peace be with you” opens the possibility that the work of the Holy Spirit will bring a person to also say, with Thomas, “my Lord and my God”, and for the doubtful this may be exactly the sort of encouragement they one day need.

There are of course other scriptural lenses through which we can view and better understand this important part of the liturgy.  Jesus’ breathing on the disciples and his words “Receive the holy spirit”remind us of the vision of the valley of the dry bones in Ezekiel (37:1-14), or of the story of Pentecost (Acts 2), which speak to the Holy Spirit’s work of revival and unification which make the church possible.   Sharing the peace can draw us out of isolation and into community, it brings us together regardless of age or race or class, and makes us one.    But in the light of John 20, we see the Sharing of the Peace as what it is, a sign of grace from the God who loves us, forgives us, gathers us together and empowers us to go on - and these are things that we can do for one another when we turn to them, extend a hand, and say “Peace be with you”.

Some Happy News

It's been a while in the making, but the lovely Joy Packham and I are getting married on June 9, Pentecost Sunday, at our parish church, St. Margaret of Scotland, in Barrie. Our wedding will be part of the normal Sunday 10am liturgy, and we are delighted that we will be surrounded by the community that held us in prayer and support during our spouses' illnesses and after their passings. There won't be any invitations and none of the usual wedding-y suff, but there will be delish church sandwiches afterwards, so please join us if you are able.

 

Drink Or Die: A Sermon For the Third Sunday of Lent

Preached at St. Margaret of Scotland Anglican Church, Diocese of Toronto, Barrie, ON, 24 March, 2019.

Texts:  Isaiah 55:1-9, Psalm 63:1-8, 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Luke 13:1-9

Verse:

1 O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Let’s start by talking about two kinds of thirst - physical and spiritual thirst.  Let’s start with physical thirst.

Have you ever been so thirsty that getting a drink of water was all you could think about?     

Ten years ago I went climbing in the Alberta Rockies, and after six hours on the mountain, and with three to go on the way down, I ran out of water,  just as we were getting out of the thin air and wind and back into the summer heat.    

During those last hours, all I could think about was water.  I felt my field of vision getting more narrow, my feet started to stumble, and I fell way behind the rest of my group.   Water was all I could think about.  I remember vividly how good a bottle of water tasted when I got back to the car, and how quickly I drank it.

Besides physical thirst, I suspect most of us have also known times of spiritual thirst.   I think of spiritual thirst as those moments when I felt disconnected from God. I’ve had moments in my life when I was spiritually dry, when I couldn’t pray, didn’t want to go to church, and just generally felt dead inside.   I don’t care to remember those moments much.  I’m sorry for the things I did, and sorry that I didn’t come back to God earlier, but mostly I try to focus on how good it is not to be spiritually thirsty anymore.

Today in our gospel reading from Luke, we heard Jesus saying “repent, or you will perish”.   Unless there was any doubt, he says it twice.  “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did” (Lk 13:3,5).  Sometimes I think we hear this passage and we think that it is about punishment - that Jesus is saying that people died because they did bad things.   But Jesus doesn’t actually talk about cause and effect.   He says, very simply, if you don’t repent, then you will be just as dead as these other people are.

The word “repentance” is important to Jesus - he uses frequently, and in ways that suggest he sees it as the key to his ministry, as when he says elsewhere in Luke that “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Lk 5:32).

My main point today is about how we understand repentance.    Too often, I think, we tend to think about repentance in terms of saying sorry for bad things that we did.    We think of it as being sorry for the time we cut someone off in traffic, or for the time we shared in gossip, or when we had to put a looney in the swear jar at work.   Repentance thus becomes a reflex, like saying sorry when you bump someone’s shopping cart at the store.  If “sorry” is that oh-so Canadian way of getting along with our neighbours, then repentance is the way we get through the day or the week with God.

What if we rethought repentance as being about the moment when we recognize that we are spiritually thirsty?     What if repentance is the moment when we understand that the things we crave - another Amazon package on the doorstep, another pound lost, another like on Facebook — will not quench our spiritual thirst.    Isaiah speaks to this misdirected priorities when he asks, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” (Isa 55:2).

What if repentance was the realization that we need God to overcome the things that keep us up at night - whatever fear, shame, dark past or heavy burden keeps us from being fully alive?  What if the repentance was coming to understand, as the Psalm today tells us, that we have reached the point where our soul thirsts for God “as in a dry and weary land where there is no water”?

We all know what happens to us if we get too thirsty.   It becomes harder and harder to do the simplest things, we shut down, and we die.   Spiritual thirst can be more subtle, but its effects are sever - we have difficulty looking after ourselves or caring for others, we are prone to indifference, despair, addiction, indifference.  Sometimes the line between spiritual death and physical death is a very fine one.

What happens to us when our spirits drink and we are no longer spiritually thirsty?  Isaiah says “everyone who thirsts, come to the waters” (Isa 55:1).   Think of how a wilting plant revives after you water it.   The same is true of us.   When we are connected to God and to God’s people, we regain the capacity to live authentically.   We can see the needs and care for the needs of others, we become less inwardly-focused and more self-aware.   We gain the ability to forgive and seek forgiveness, to value healing, to let go of the shame and guilt that debilitates us.

I think the idea of spiritually flourishing is behind Jesus’ little parable of the fig tree at the end of today’s gospel.  Once again, it should not be understood as a threat.  Jesus isn’t saying, “you better be good or I’ll destroy you”.   Rather, I think the parable tells us that unless we are connected to the gardener, Jesus, if our souls are not watered and fed, then we will wither and die.    God doesn’t want that for us.   The image of the free feast in Isaiah, offered by a God who will “abundantly pardon”, reminds us that God only wants us to flourish.

As a closing thought, what does life look life when we are no longer spiritually thirsty?   Well, I would say that life is found in the church as a healthy community that is rooted in an active fed and watered spiritually so that it is able to flourish in its mission to the world.   I said earlier that there is a fine line between spiritual and physical death, and I think the same is true of physical and spiritual life.  The whole point of Christ’s incarnation is to remind us we aren’t just spiritual beings - that God wants to know and save the physical beings that God created.

A flourishing church will make a difference to a thirsty world.   As an example, let me tell you briefly about an Anglican church in Cuba, St. Luke’s.   According to one visitor, if you go looking for it and ask locals where is St. Luke’s, you won’t find it, but if you tell people that you are looking for the church “that provides support to the elderly, that which distributes clean water in the community, [and] that … has lots of young people”.

St. Luke’s is one of many Anglican (Episcopal) parishes in Cuba that actively care for their communities in a very poor country.   

“This [caring] is especially exemplified by a one middle-aged woman known as Martha at Holy Trinity Church. Martha wakes up every morning at 6.00 am and goes to collect empty containers from the elderly members of the community, fills them with purified water at the purification plant behind the Church and have them delivered back to owners. Martha also ensures that the responsible local government department delivers water to the purification plant on time.”

By a godly coincidence, last Friday, 22 March, was World Water Day, a UN-sponsored event designed to help us think about the importance of water to our planet and to over 660 million people who lack access to sanitary water.  These parishes in Cuba understand the connection between physical and spiritual thirst.   They understand that spiritual care goes hand in hand with physical care.

Today we have considered repentance not as an act of saying “I’m sorry” but as a recognition of our spiritual thirst and of our dependance on God for our flourishing as created humans.   My prayer for us, and for St. Margaret’s, is that we always be a community rooted in and watered by Christ, so that our flourishing may be a blessing for those around us.