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“How was your Easter?” he asked.  “Glorious!” I replied.  “Bells, brass quartet, full -throated congregation…”  “No, what I meant is, What’s Different?   Is the church excited about a Holy Mystery; or are they still fussing about the logic of bodily death?”  Can Easter happen without fourteen hypotheses about suspended animation, earth temperatures and bodily fluids?  Doubting Thomas has spoken for us all.

The third chapter of Acts has a marvelous story about Peter & John’s encounter with a lame man at the Temple.  The man can now walk normally,  which impresses the crowd.  “When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, ‘You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?'” (v.12)  Just as in today’s culture, a few individuals may have quietly believed, but the greater community wouldn’t accept the wonder.  This verse could be heard in every generation  between then & now:  the greater community resists the resurrection.

The First Letter ascribed to John has this hopeful verse, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” (3:2a)  The author sees himself in a bi-polar world, with a small number understanding themselves as “children of God”–and the rest of the “world” which is basically lawless.  Sometimes it seems as if we are aliens; other times I can deal with being a change-agent, “yeast in the flour”.   After all this hard work, even to death, why do they still resist the resurrection?

Luke’s Gospel reports that on the evening after the resurrection, Jesus suddenly was among the gathered believers. (24:36-42)  They thought they were seeing a ghost!  (I can relate to that.)  The Lord told them, “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.” (v.39)  To further his proof, he ate a piece of broiled fish; it didn’t fall on the floor, so he must have been human!  Well, who would have expected this?  Even his close companions tended to resist the resurrection!

I’m done whining about this:  the post-modern Christian movement really works best as a lean and committed minority.  Throughout holy-history the greatest and most effective results have been realized when the Church has been a small enclave of monks in The Dark Ages…or underground cells meeting in the catacombs…or bleary-eyed scholars illegally translating holy writ into the language of their people…   By God, the revolution has survived!   There’re always a few who haven’t resisted the resurrection!!

God Bless Us, Every One           Horace Brown King

Wasn’t Easter grand?!!  At the church where we worship, Central United Methodist of Endicott NY, we had a superb brass quartet plus bell choir added to organ and piano….  Glorious!!  I hated to come home….  The trite hymn whines that “I’d stay in the garden with Him tho’ the night around me be falling.”  Truly, it’s more comforting to remain in Easter’s amazement than to accept Easter’s challenge.

Readings for this Low Sunday–the lesser of the Sundays within the eight days of the Easter cycle–call disciples into the next phase of the spirit-journey.  During these several Sundays, we’ll read from Volume II of “The Christians’ Handbook”, aka “The Acts of the Apostles”.  In Chapter 4:32-35, we hear about the apostles pooling their resources and holding their belongings in common.  They were attempting to live alternatively, having seen the Risen Christ.  Things just weren’t The Same….

The First Letter of John deals with the expectation that the Believer will stand in the Light.  “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” (1:5)  A closer reading of the word “sin(s)”–1:9-2:2– might be “brokenness”: a relational gap between Creator and Creation,  between parts of the Church, between our home castles and the free air of community life.  Now that the Lord is risen, things just aren’t The Same…

The Gospel is traditionally the confession of Doubting Thomas, John 20:19-31.  The preacher/study leader could analyze Thomas’ inner fears (“why wasn’t he there the first time?”)  and assign Thomas to the role of EveryMan (“someone has to ask the silly questions”).  Be kind to Thomas: he’s my alter ego!  Were I preaching, this Sunday, I think I’d lift up the verses (19,26) about Jesus appearing even though the doors were locked–what doors have we closed against God, what closets are off-limits to the Holy Spirit?

One Easter, while serving the Montrose PA United Methodist congregation, I had our resident computer guru print out a banner which said, “NOW WHAT??”; and it was hung above the main exit from the sanctuary.  After Easter,  things just aren’t The Same…

God has blessed us, every one!       Horace Brown King

Easter!  Again!  By this point, many preachers, teachers and church workers are exhausted from Lent and its intense activities.  What, then, shall we present to the Easter crowd–many of whom we see only occasionally, when they need some good news?  Most of us, myself included, search for some clever twist that we haven’t used before.  This, we feel, may put some new life into our dusty tradition of the years ‘n’ years of telling the Resurrection Story.  Help me, Lord, to remember that today’s faithful have come especially to hear the old story of new life, and thus to become stabilized on their journey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Long before Eternal Life became a goal for holy living, Isaiah of Jerusalem made a quantum leap in prophecy:  he announced that God is holding a summit meeting, and has drawn together all nations in sacred covenant!  “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines….And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.” (25:6-8a)  We read “ALL peoples/nations/faces” five times in verses 6-9!  “Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation!”

The Centurion Cornelius called St. Peter to have him explain a bit about Christianity.  Peter had just been wrestling with the issue of including non-Jewish believers, and had received a vision of God’s OK-ing animals which were considered “unclean”.  His Easter message began, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” (Acts 10:34-35)   The traditional Church needs to make this invitation to participate in the Resurrection!  The exiles and disenfranchised are the ones most appreciative of Easter….

This year, the Gospel story is from John, chapter 20.  The story seems to have two parts, divided along gender lines:  we guys relate to the sprinting (but clueless) disciples, whereas the ladies groove out on the romantic encounter of Jesus & Mary Magdalene while the dew is still on the roses.  Be as it may, “I have seen the Lord!” is the core of the Christian experience.

The explosiveness of Easter is that which has re-created the universe.  If any power can undo exploitation and fear, anger and greed, it is this knowledge that God has arranged for life to overcome death.  Reuben P. Job has offered, “To live in a world where evil holds no fear and death holds no threat requires a radical shift in understanding and attitude.  Such a world is no longer under the dominant control of darkness but is already showing signs of the healing and life-giving presence of light.”  (A GUIDE TO PRAYER FOR ALL WHO SEEK GOD, page 169)  Every morning is Easter morning from now on!

God (has) blessed us, every one!      Horace Brown King

Palm Sunday is one of those irregular services which in recent years has been somewhat usurped by including the Passion Story within it. The premise is that few Believers will attend services on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, and so the lessons about Jesus’ crucifixion are read the week before. This is too bad, since Palm Sunday is quite important: here we learn about Jesus as the Alternative King, the One who comes In the Name of the Lord (as opposed to many who’d like to come in the name of Microsoft or General Electric…)

The central scriptures of the day are but two: the Gospel account of the Triumphal (?) Entry–and this section of the Psalms, Psalm 118:19ff. This psalm seems to teach us that our whole lives are set in the context of HESED, God’s Faithfulness. Was the psalmist prophesying about the Messiah, from almost a thousand years before? Certainly this passage was familiar to the Jews of Jesus’ time, since they readily sang, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” From our preaching standpoint, we might say that the author is speaking about the Righteous Community as opposed to “the nations” or business as usual. Palm Sunday then is opportunity to celebrate the uniqueness of What God Does with the stones that were considered by some to be an ill-fit.

The Gospel this year is that of Mark, who is amazed that Jesus knew about the waiting “colt”! Then he describes the motley parade, a parody of that which a military hero would stage, in which the rabble themselves were the song: ”
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” The authorities were uncomfortable, knowing somehow that they were being tweaked. A Palm Sunday sermon/study needs to include this sense of the holy deflating the puffed-up. The arrogant persecution of Good Friday is thus set up as the battle lines were drawn. Charles L. Campbell says, “In his ‘triumphal entry’ Jesus lampoons the ‘powers-that-be’ and their pretentions to glory and dominion, and he enacts an alternative to their way of domination.

The One who comes in the name of the Lord comes to the navel of th spiritual world to confront the idolatry of pomp and circumstance. Participants in this liturgy need look beyond the merely historical to appreciate the radical difference being announced–and to become immersed in a difficult yet enduring arrangement of the Holy Life.

God Bless Us, Every One        Horace Brown King

Maybe it’s the weather.  Or maybe Lent.  Sometimes I weary of being “prophetic”, of trying to speak and live an ethic of Christian Discipleship.  My contributions to conversation are usually greeted with blank stares and crinkled brow; is there room for integrity and sharing and humility anywhere?  In my morning devotions I read from the First Letter of John, “…the [spirit] who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”  I hope so…yet I wonder.

Readings for this Fifth Sunday in Lent deal with the quest for God’s presence.  We begin with Jeremiah 31:31-34 — the announcement of a New Covenant written on the hearts of those of the faith community.  “I will be their God, and they shall be my people…I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”  Had the houses of Israel and Judah given up on this promise, in those six centuries until Jesus?  Through occupations by foreign armies and cultural multi-national infiltration, did they also pray, “Where, O Where?”

Later Hebrews hedged about the divine origin of Jesus, “who learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Hebrews 5:8-9)   ‘Way too adoptionist for me: I believe Jesus was the Christ at birth, not as a result of suffering/purification.  Yet the phrase “the source of eternal salvation” speaks to our craving for the tangency of both Temporal and Holy to be experienced daily.

John 12:20-33 is one of those passages needing study from any number of acrobatic positions.  For me, it’s better to take it one or two verses at a time, perhaps ignoring any sense of continuity.  Our purposes here would focus on the Gentile seekers (asking “Where, O Where?”) who came to Philip saying, “We wish to see Jesus.”  I suppose they wanted a one-on-one interview…yet there’s a longing there expressed by men and women of all ages who–at one point or another– realize that there must be Something More.

Paul McCartney’s song advises the world to “Live and Let Die”, a tragic surrender to the Devil of the Noon-Day Sun whose mantra is “Whatever”.  I won’t criticize, for I cannot.  Another song says, “The sun’ll come out tomorrow; betcher’ bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun.”  Where?  O Where?

God Help Us, Every One            Horace Brown King

Lucy The Cat stands half-way out the door with her head back and eyes slitted, sniffing the air  that’s much fresher than that of our winter-locked house.  She’s checking to see which of her friends–or not–have traversed her back porch, perhaps leaving messages there.  She’s much better than I or other humans at using this sense to evaluate the nearby environment.  This weekend’s scripture readings have a certain atmosphere about them:  is there something new in the air?

Numbers, a book rarely visited, tells about the complaints of the Exodus People struggling through the wilderness: “it was better in Egypt!”   They didn’t like the bitter water, so Yahweh showed Moses how to sweeten it.  They complained about no bread, so Yahweh sent manna.  Dying of thirst, Yahweh showed Moses where to strike the rock.  Complaining of a rigid diet, Yahweh sent them quails.  In the 21st chapter we read, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?  For there is no food and no water,  and we detest this miserable food!” (v.5)  Then the Lord sent poisonous snakes… (“You wanna complain?  I’ll give you something to complain about!!”)   So Moses made a serpent of bronze, by Yahweh’s direction, and set it on a high pole.  “Whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.”  Look…up in the sky…it’s a serpent!

Paul didn’t like snakes any more than I do, which is minimal.  But he wrote to the Ephesians about the contrast in their lives between Then and Now.  “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air…” (2:1-2)  Like the aforementioned Lucy, he was remarking on the contrast in their lives, a Breath of Fresh Air in Christ.  Here again we welcome Grace, extended in kindness to save us from the wilderness.

John’s Gospel introduces Nicodemus as a leader of the Old Way, and Chapter Three clears the air about the person of Jesus.  We often fixate on verse 16 without landing on the preceding verses:  “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  As Jesus is lifted up on the cross AND lifted to heaven –a continuous process in this Gospel–those who see him (even though snake-bitten) will live.  Is there something new in the air, Nicodemus?

The season of Lent confronts us with the appreciation of a new atmosphere.  Although hope for Spring springs eternal in our feline’s heart, the time of renewal doesn’t lurk yet behind the door!  We have wintry days to live out, and still are nipped by frosty serpents.  BUT a richer air is gonna come, I believe it!

God Bless Us, Every One              Horace Brown King

John Wesley once said that Christians are a “peculiar people”.  Some of us are more peculiar than others!  From our inception as God’s People traveling through the Sinai wilderness, the folks who follow The Lord are advertized as marching to a different drummer, living an alternative life-style.  What ethic separates us from the Rest of the World?  What understanding creates a set-aside from the prevailing common sense?  This week’s Holy Readings remind us during Lent of Why We Act So Strange.

We begin in  the Twentieth Chapter of Exodus, the Ten Commandments, controversial four thousand years ago as they are today.  With only a passing nod to Hollywood, we skip the logistics of an extended mountain survival and the lack of written language to get to the meat of the message:  this is how we understand our God and God’s people to act.  Four of the Commandments explore how God deals with the People; the remaining six deal with how the People deal with themselves/the  “neighbor”.  The bottom line is the development of Respect and Loving Concern within the faith-community in order to survive and prosper.  This is really unique in a me-first, grab-what-you-can culture!

St. Paul pulls no punches in his first Letter to the Church at Corinth.  “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1:18)  He continues to say that our worship and discipleship of the crucified Christ is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks (Gentiles), Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  Community members who attempt to live in the ethic of self-giving and sublimation to the Greater Good will indeed be considered Strange by those who haven’t yet caught the Divine Vision.

The Gospel is John’s account of Jesus driving the purveyors of commerce from the Jerusalem Temple (2:13-22).  John places it near the beginning of the narrative to announce that from henceforthThe Lord is taking a violent stand against business-as-usual, is publicly adopting an alternative core value which contrasts to the prevailing ho-hum attitude.  Is this the same teacher who later allowed healing and eating on the Sabbath?  The bottom line here is: How secular can the Church afford to be without losing itself??   My generation of clergy has embraced the mission of giving the Church visibility within the MarketPlace:  have we gone too far?  Have we diluted Holiness?

No doubt about it, we ARE a peculiar people!  An ancient saint named Mathetes noted that we live within a greater culture, and yet “display [our] wonderful and confessedly striking method of life….They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives….they are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all…” (from “Epistle to Diogenetus”)  What is the central ethic driving our daily attitude and behavior?  May Lent be rich with new and expanded awareness!  They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love…..

God Bless Us, Every One                    Horace Brown King

It was a cross-roads church in a rural area.  The preacher wound up his eloquent sermon with a question:  “Now–are you standin’ on the PROMISES…or are you sittin’ on the PREMISES??”  This Second Sunday of Lent involves the question of What’s Beyond?,

or what are our ongoing hopes and dreams as we realize that we shall be Easter People?

Abraham and his faith figure greatly in this discussion of Holy Covenant.  You remember, of course, that a Contract is an agreement where one party will do such-‘n’-such IF the other party will do theirs.  But a Covenant is not dependent on The Other:  each party expects to play their part IRREGARDLESS of the behavior of the Other.  So it is in Genesis 17:1-7–God promises Abram/Abraham to be “exceediingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.”  This Covenant extends to all of Abraham’s offspring: we believe ourselves to be such, even though adopted by Christ’s love!

St. Paul picks up this thread in his Letter to the Romans (4:13-25).  The Apostle reminds us that this promise of Divine Inheritance comes not through the Law (“I’m good; or at least, correct”) but through Faith (” I believe, help my moments of doubting”).  Abraham hoped against hope that he would become “the father of many nations”–although he was 99 years old!  “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God…” (v.20)  He was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”

Mark’s concise Gospel includes this Promise of Jesus:  “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” (8:35)   Often described as a paradox, it’s more than double-speak from a mystic.  This promise sorts out those who’re content with their own kingdom from the fewer who deny themselves–getting off their ego-trip–to pick up “their cross”.  This “cross” isn’t just the endurance of a trying situation or the bad hand dealt by Fate.  The “cross” is a mission deliberately chosen, painful or deadly as it may be.

Holy Promises are born out in so many personal ways.  These weeks of Lent are our annual invitation to consider the richness of our lives despite our stumbling in the dark.  God’s steadfast love continues to beckon us to God’s hospitality and table, prepared for the Children of Abraham and not revoked.  When “all other ground is sinking sand” it’s good to have somewhere to stand…

What’s gonna happen when all this snow melts? The river & creeks are already jammed with ice. Hopefully, the thaw will be incremental, and lowland flooding will be minimal. Water, both frozen & liquid, can be powerful, life-changing and relentless. Land-loving Israelites feared the chaos-monster of Ocean, and the Leviathan which swims in it. Taking the plunge of Baptism demanded an active faith!

“When are we gonna get off this smelly ark? Forty days, Lord, forty days! As much and more as my fingers and toes TWICE! And will you be angry again, enough for another Flood??” No, said the Lord, and the rainbow will be the sign of the covenant: “When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you land every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flo0od to destroy all flesh.” (Genesis 9:14-15) So Grace comes AFTER the Flood, a New Beginning made holy as the water receded.

The Letters of St. Peter always seem to ramble; where’s he going with this? Sunday’s reading (I,3:18-22) has to do (I think) with God’s providential sparing of Noah & Family from a watery doom…and that our Baptism is our own deliverance from the Flood. This is a stretch, but does tie in with the New Beginning beyond the water of ritual death. Again, Grace.

Mark’s account of Jesus’ Baptism and what followed is much more concise than those of either Luke or Matthew. (1:9-15) Yet in this brevity we can capture the flow of Grace which happened after: forty days where the wild things are (not the ark, but like it), and then a proclamation of the immediacy of the kingdom of God. God continues to provide, even (and especially) After the Flood.

Floods are terrible. Mud and mold in every nook & cranny, and total destruction of furniture and appliances. A loss of pictures and memories. We who’ve been flooded feel invaded, victims of unstoppable natural forces. Angry, we feel as though trust and stability will never come again. Our readings for the beginning of Lent acknowledge our frailty–and also remind us that Grace happens After the Flood.

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King

Charlie Brown and Linus are lying on a sunny knoll, watching the clouds. “I see the
Battle of Waterloo,” says Linus. “There are the British regulars and grenadiers, over there is the French cavalry. What do YOU see, Charlie Brown?” Charlie Brown replies, “I see a clown; and a ducky.” More recently, I’ve learned that my words and data all live forever in The Cloud, somewhere in cyber-space. Early mystics spoke of the Cloud of Unknowing, a fogged-in spiritual condition where the only choice for safe passage is to put your hand in God’s. “I really don’t know clouds at all.”

On this upcoming Ultimate Sunday of “Aha!” we remember the Transfiguration of Christ. We’re to remember that Jesus is God as well as Human, and thus to watch for the Holy in our daily living. The Old Testament reading recalls the story of Elijah being swept up into heaven in a fiery chariot, II Kings 2:1-12. EliSHA, Elijah’s apprentice prophet, walked “across the Jordan” with him. “Elisha said, ‘Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.’ He responded,’…if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted.'” Elisha kept watching, and saw Elijah ascending into the clouds.

St. Paul speaks of similar sight which is more than our eyes can bear. He says that the god of this world (greed, anger, intolerance) “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (II Corinthians 4:4) But God the Creator of Light shines “in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” We see Jesus from both sides now.

Jesus took his closest friends, Peter & James & John, to a high mountain; and it seemed to them as if his clothes became “whiter than white”. “There appeared to them Elijah [the Prophets] and Moses [the Law], who were talking with Jesus.” (Mark 9:2-4) “Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” (v.7) Remarkable! Watch for the Holy in our daily living…

“Transfiguration”, then, has something to do with Being Changed. The question becomes, “What then changes, the seer or that which has been seen?” Beyond debate, we experience those timeless moments when our vision changes from merely that of our eyes to our inner being. As the Season of Epiphany concludes, we can say that we’ve looked at Jesus from both sides now. What visions of rapture are yet to burst on our sight?

God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King