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Sermon at Saint Patrick's |
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In today’s gospel, Jesus said: "These are my words
that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that
everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the
psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to
understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written,
that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third
day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in
his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of
these things.” Several weeks ago as Ann and I were preparing for our trip to the Holy Land, Tinh asked me if, after we got back, I would preach a sermon about the trip. At the time, I thought that would be relatively easy; and, I said “Yes!” without giving it a lot of thought. But now we’re back; and I’m filled with so many different thoughts and impressions that it isn’t easy to coherently pull it all together. Thinking about my trip to the Holy Land while listening to this morning’s gospel reading, three things cause me to stop and take notice. The first is that Jesus had to open “their minds to understand the scriptures…” In the verses that precede today’s gospel lesson, we learn that Jesus is talking to his disciples and their companions. He is not talking to strangers. He’s talking to those he loved, to those who loved him. They were with him throughout his ministry; they saw the miracles; they heard him teach, they heard him preach. They knew him well. Jesus wasn’t trying to teach them something new. He said “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you…;” even at this point in time, after he had already suffered, died and risen from the dead, the disciples still needed to have their minds opened in order for them to understand. Now if this was true for the disciples and their companions, I suspect it is also true for most of us. Listening to the words of today’s gospel, I ask myself, what needs to happen in my life in order for Christ to open my mind that I might understand? What must happen for our eyes, our ears, our minds, and our hearts to be opened? The second thing that causes me to stop and think is that Jesus said “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” War after war has been and continues to be fought in the Middle East. In the Holy Land itself, tensions are high. How can it be that in this, the holiest place on earth for Jews, Muslims and Christians, peace still seems to be such a long way off? And yet Jesus said that “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. At the end of this piece of scripture, Christ reminds his disciples that they have been “witnesses of these things.” Christ reminds the disciples that they have been blessed by the opportunity to experience his ministry first hand; and he infers that with this blessing comes responsibility. The last time Mark Waldo+ was here he mentioned his trip to the Holy Land in his sermon, and he suggested that although you might meet God in the Holy Land, that opportunities for meeting God abound right here at home as well. No matter where we go, no matter where our journey of faith takes us, the questions are the same: · What must we do for our hearts and our minds to be opened? · How do we reconcile the conflicting thoughts and ideas we experience? · And, perhaps most importantly, what new responsibilities are ours at the end of the journey? Even now, a couple of weeks after returning home, my understanding of the trip and what it meant—what it continues to mean to me—is still changing and evolving. My heart and my mind continue to be opened, just a little at a time, as I reflect upon the experiences that I had there. The trip was full of contradictions… Most of the places we visited were peaceful and serene. In Capernaum where Jesus made his home during the early years of his ministry, we saw the ruins of an ancient synagogue. This synagogue was built on the foundations of another older synagogue dating back to the time of Jesus. Standing in the center of that ancient ruin, you can stand where Christ stood as he preached in that place. The leader of our group, a pastor from a church in Jacksonville, Florida, told us how much it meant to him to stand in that very place and pray. After most of our group had moved on and, I must admit when I thought no one was looking, I too stood alone and quiet in the center of the synagogue, in the very place where Jesus once stood. In a few places we witnessed moments of anger and violence. Jericho is where Zacchaeus, the hated chief tax-collector, climbed up into a sycamore tree so that he could see Jesus. A 2,000 year old Sycamore tree still stands on the main street in Jericho. Jericho is in an area under Palestinian control. There’s only one way in and out of the city, through an Israeli check point. As we were leaving Jericho, young men from the city were demonstrating, protesting a killing that had occurred there the night before. Rocks and burning material blocked the street. And armed with rocks and a sling shot, they were in a stand-off against Israeli soldiers armed with machine guns. Some of the most holy places we visited didn’t seem holy at all. And yet there were unanticipated holy moments that were very meaningful and very holy. In Bethlehem, two churches are built over the cave where Jesus is believed to have been born—one is a very ornate Greek Orthodox Church, the other is the Catholic Church from which midnight mass is broadcast around the world each Christmas Eve. Close to the spot that is believed to be Jesus’ birthplace, behind a padlocked grate, is a stone manger believed to be the manger in which the infant Jesus slept. At first, this most holy place with its ornate decoration and padlocked grate didn’t seem very holy to me at all. And then as we started to sing a Christmas carol, an Italian woman and her daughter joined us. They sang in a different language. There we stood—people from different cultures and different languages unable to communicate with one another, joined together in worship and song. In that moment the place felt very holy. Our trip to Ein Gedi, an oasis in the wilderness was all the more special, all the more holy, because we had studied first Samuel with Jane and those of you who attend Wednesday evening Bible Study. To see that oasis in the middle of the Wilderness, to see the wild mountain goats and the caves in the hills surrounding the oasis brought to life the Old Testament story of Saul and David; and I gave thanks for Jane, for our Bible Study together, and for Saint Patrick’s. The Church of the Pater Noster commemorates the spot where Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer. The prayer is written in more than 100 languages on plaques on the walls of the church and the surrounding garden. We found the Vietnamese version of the Lord’s Prayer on a wall inside the main chapel and the English version in the walkway just outside. Again we gave thanks for Saint Patrick’s and the special bonds we have with each of you. Israel is a very small country. It is much smaller than Vietnam, and it is much smaller than Virginia. It is a little bit smaller than New Jersey. In length and breadth, it’s more like the size of Lake Michigan. In addition to being small, a substantial portion of Israel is an uninhabitable wilderness. It is no wonder that people fight over even the smallest area of the land in such a place. In the Old City of Jerusalem two very different peoples, of two very different religions, claim the exact same very small piece of real estate. For each, the religious fervor is intense. Located in what Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary and what which Jews and Christians call the Temple Mount — it is a place sacred to all Christians, Jews and Muslims. Muslims believe that the rock in the center of the dome is the spot from which Muhammad ascended to heaven, accompanied by the angel Gabriel, to God, where he consulted with Moses and was given the Islamic prayers before returning to earth. Jews and Christians believe that this place is Mount Moriah, where Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac at the command of God, where Jacob saw the ladder to heaven, and where the innermost chamber of the Jewish Temple once stood. Two very sacred places share a common wall and common piece of land in this place; and, located in the Christian quarter of Old Jerusalem, just a very short walk away, is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the holiest of all Christian sites. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher contains a curious conglomeration of altars, chapels, and architectural styles; it is a dark and almost gloomy place filled with the noise and confusion of hundreds of pilgrims. This place was once a bald and rocky hill, outside the walls of Jerusalem where our Lord Jesus was crucified and then buried in the tomb of a wealthy Jew, Joseph of Arimathea. It is the place where he rose victorious just three days later; however, I struggled to feel God’s presence there. There are approximately 7 million people in Israel, compared with approximately 85 million in Vietnam or 300 million in the United States. Approximately 77% are Jewish, 16% are Muslim, and only 2% are Christian. Most people speak English, and in most places you can spend American money. We met the Episcopal priest of the Holy Family Episcopal Church just outside of Nazareth. We had tea and pastries with Susan, his wife; and she told us of joint efforts among Christian, Muslim and Jewish women to Build Bridges and to promote peace. That place was filled with the presence of God. A Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem was our guide. We attended a Sunday morning service in Arabic and English at the Anglican Cathedral of Saint George in Jerusalem. We met more people praising God and seeking peace. No matter where each one of us goes, no matter where our journey of faith takes us, we seek to have our hearts and our minds opened, to reconcile the conflicting thoughts and ideas we experience; and to discover, at the end of the journey, what new responsibilities God has in store for us. I can’t claim to have accomplished these things, but I do believe that as we each pursue our own journey of faith, as we struggle to understand, as we try to comprehend, Christ opens our hearts and our minds not all at once, but a little bit at a time. The confusion, the chaos, and the contradictions are part of the journey. I believe we are meant to embrace them, not to avoid them or to use them as excuses for our lack of faith. And most importantly, as we catch a glimmer of understanding, as the chaos and confusion of our lives diminishes, even for a moment, we must seek to discover what it is that God is calling us to be. T.S. Eliot, a modern American poet wrote: “We shall not cease from exploration And the end of our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.” We are Christ’s disciples; we too are blessed witnesses of these things. We too are called, as we arrive back where we started, to look around and to see with different eyes, perhaps for the first time, the place where we began. Amen |