Maundy Thursday, 2007 Homily "A Matter of Integrity"

There are moments in life when the actions we take, the engagement of our lives with the world around us become self-defining. We can talk all day about who we are and what we believe – but there’s nothing more revealing or indicting than action.

Maundy Thursday is one such day. It reveals through action the character of the One who draws us into this worship space tonight.

It is action that drives us, defines us – makes our liturgical words have meaning. For without action to match the gospel that at once comforts and confronts, affirms and afflicts, inspires and indicts, then we are doing little more than playing mind games and even Karl Marx isn’t right because if religion, in his understanding, is little more than an “opiate for the masses” then I feel gypped because half the time the buzz ain’t that good anyway!

So, action, these actions give meaning to what Jesus has taught. They give meaning to what we believe. They make all this Jesus business real – incarnate.

On this night we focus on an action of Jesus found only in the 4th gospel. Synoptics don’t have it. John, historically considered the last of the canonical gospels written, has a particular agenda – the writer has a bias, (which should surprise no one, don't we all have a bias in whatever point we're seeking to make?) one too often criticized and discounted when placed alongside the synoptic gospels. After all, Matthew, Mark and Luke have particular parallels. John at times, seems out there on his own, and he is.

Only he tells us of the wedding at Cana, the woman at the well, we know of Nicodemus’ visit by night, a story from which we have the verse Martin Luther called, “the gospel in miniature.” On he tells us of the “I am” sayings of Jesus – good shepherd, vine, door, light of the world, bread, way, truth and life. Only in John is Lazarus raised.

And only John has this text – Jesus, at Passover, after sharing table fellowship, takes upon himself an action that will be self-defining from hereon, as it will be for all of us who carry his name.

He, the one called, teacher, Lord, Messiah, Christ – comes now to assume the role of the menial laborer – the literal dirty work

To do so was not a choice absent other options or other considerations – it was a matter of integrity. He did this thing, both in the upper room with his disciples, as well as walk the Via Dolorosa because that’s who he is.

To have done anything other than to be a servant, than to identify with the suffering of humankind by embracing the cross, would have been to have missed his moment – the moment when his action told the truth of who he was.

In his book “Let Your Life Speak” Parker Palmer talks about integrity – he says:

.. We would be wise to listen intentionally to the voice of our own lives and to discern what our very soul is saying to us in the depths of our being, there where truth abides. As we listen to ourselves, we can become ourselves.

Jesus did what he did because it was in keeping with who he was. It was whole, it had integrity – in this moment of self-giving, Jesus was not conflicted, neither was he divided. He was who he was – and his actions bespoke that reality.

Rarely in your observance of Christian liturgy will you find something so profoundly intimate as the washing of feet. Maybe that’s why it’s not a sacrament (which it should be), there’s really no way to observe this liturgy with integrity without literally touching someone.

And maybe that’s what all this dramatic fuss is about this Holy Thursday night and there following into the Great Three Days. If nothing else, we observe integrity at work. That’s an awe inspiring thing. For to live with integrity is joyful, because in it we are complete. We are fully what we’ve been created to become.

Don’t forget, though, that just because we live with integrity, even joyfully, does not mean our work is pleasant, or that we’re giddy about it.

Ministry is hard. Giving yourself away is hard. If it were easy, wouldn’t more folks be doing it? Instead, too many of us live that numbed (“I just love Jesus”) religious life giving credence to Marx’s critique, and that’s a sad thing - it perpetuates the body divided, if not fractured. And it's a choice - I've really come to believe that to live with integrity or not is far more in our control that we'd care to admit.

Child of God, companion of Jesus – this is the life that we are called to follow – “Listen to your life,” and go where that takes you - you will not know integrity, yourself, God - to the full, until you do.

Child of God, Will You Put on Christ? Will You - Follow?

Last word of this six week progression -

Nothing pithy from me. Nothing profound.

Just the question - Child of God, will you put on Christ?

Will you follow?

In our sanctuary at Saint John's - we have little banners that surround the nave with each of the words we've lived with during Lent. The word "Follow" completes the circle and is right there at the foot of the cross.

The teachings of Jesus - as much as they inspire and instruct - ultimately, they challenge us to live on the edge of who we thought we ever could be, but not for self - for "the other."

The call to follow Jesus, even to the cross, is among the asks us and to be motivated by nothing else than this - love and grace.

Of all the reasons, all the excuses we employ to be anything but faithful, to do anything but follow, I cannot help but be reminded of the words of Jesus from Gethsemane, who, in his moment of ontological angst, in the end, was crystal clear - "not my will God, but yours."

Child of God, Will You Put on Christ? Will You Testify?

I've seen enough "Law & Order" in my day to know what it means to testify. Someone takes the stand, and at either the coaching or cajoling of the attorneys (depending on which side is trying to announce one's truth or discredit it), the witness recounts for all to hear the story they have to tell.

As a person of the church, I know what it means to testify. I've seen it happen when someone wants to give their "testimony." Someone wants to tell you, if not convince you of the work of God in their lives, and it's usually some unique and awesome way, and that, if you'd just accept Jesus, God might operate in such profound ways in your life, too.

I've always been suspect of those who seem to have an access point to God that to me seems so far removed from my experience and or imagination.

Those testimonies just seem a little over the top, too spectacular, and isolating in their own way the sense that someone ordinary like me could every know God and been known by God on such terms and with such seeming intensity.

Sadly, it is our tendency to dismiss out of hand those spiritual practices, if not disciplines, that might do us some good, because we've seen them mishandled and used as devices to manipulate a certain response. Testifying is one of those things, and this Lent, Child of God, it's time to reclaim it and live it.

To testify, as a child of God, is not to manufacture a contrived Holy meaning to the events of one's day. I also believe that to testify is not to announce how good God is to YOU.

Rather, our testimony is to announce the reality that God is. And if we're careful, and just a little bit attentive, the profound miracle of grace is not the any of us have unique access to the Divine, but that we all do!

All we have to do is work on being attentive to what is universally offered.

Our testimony, then, is not about how blessed we are, or, how special we are, but that, through the dailyness of our being, despite how we feel, or what we think, we are not alone.

And then there's one more character to testimony worth mentioning. Not only do we bear witness to the truth that God is, but we are charged as Christ's own to announce who God is.

Isn't' that what Jesus did, even to the end? His life was not about himself, but a living testimony of the nature of the One who sent him.

And who is One for whom we testify?

The One, who, through Jesus

• announces release of the captives
• recovering of sight to the blind
• sets at liberty those who are oppressed
• announces the year of the Lord's favor as being right here, right now
• finds life and meaning with those whom the religious establishment marginalizes and judges
• declares forgiveness and reconciliation
• confronts the principalities and powers of the world, and does so without fear

So, will ya - will you tell not only that God is, but who God is?

Child of God, will you testify?

Child of God, Will You Put on Christ? Will You...Forgive?

If confession is hard, forgiveness is harder – but as we put on Christ to the full, each takes residence in our being as the norm of how we relate to God as expressed in our actions with each other.

And on this point we must be clear – it is far too easy to say, “if you are a Christian, then you confess and forgive.” Any statement that includes “if” and “then” is a conditional. Think of the many ways we use conditionals in our conversations. Conditionals are bargaining tools, they are leverage points to keep an advantage. Conditionals are not self-giving. They are not expressive of the agape’ love we know in God through Jesus of Nazareth.

To forgive, as hard as it is to accept, cannot be based upon conditionals. It just is.

“How many times do I forgive,” Peter asks Jesus. “Seven times?” – as if that ought to be plenty. “No, seventy times seven,” or, until you can no longer keep count.

See, there’s much at work in an act of forgiveness, and most of it reflects on the one being asked to forgive. Imagine you’ve been wronged – the power to forgive resides completely with you. You have to decide whether or not you’ll accept someone’s request for forgiveness. You have to decide if there are terms in order for forgiveness to be granted (here come the conditionals again). And you have to decide if you like the power you have over someone who is asking to be forgiven is greater than being grace-full.

If left to our own devices, sure enough, time and again we’ll dictate terms for forgiveness – and when we do, grace has nothing to do with it. That’s why putting on Christ matters so much – forgiveness is not based upon conditions – it just is.

Child of God, Will You Put on Christ? Will You...Confess?

How many of you like to confess?

How many of you like to tell the person you’ve wronged, by what you said or did, or, by what you failed to do or say?

My guess is that the number is comparatively low when juxtaposed to those of us who prefer to think that they're just fine and making significant contributions to Kingdom. But putting on confession is a central part of this Lenten journey.

It, in many ways, defines us.

For Protestants, we have so vitiated the character of confession as a over reaction to do anything other than what our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers have done, that what we end up making a mockery of this spiritual discipline.

“I don’t need to confess to a priest to have my sins forgiven,” we say, “I just need to confess to God.”

What a sad theological perspective to adopt.

And, what a convenient excuse to keep us from being honest with ourselves and accountable to anyone else that we have the capacity, and sometimes the will, to do or say the most hellish things.

So, we'll just keep it between God and us.

Confession should never be perfunctory, but it should be.

And while an intermediary is not required for absolution, it is a crucial part of "coming clean."

Confession to God, to one another, to a trusted guide, pastor, friend, or confidant. There is something about being able to say out loud what only inwardly we’d dare ponder about our actions that brings us one step closer to healing.

Our sisters and brothers who are working the 12 steps know this better than most church folks. While that's to their credit and ultimately their healing and sobriety - our inability and unwillingness to confess unless on our own self-protective terms is to our detriment.

And why? Because we don't really believe we can be forgiven. That's the only true conclusion that we can draw.

Granted, it's a radical thing to forgive. In fact, is was the thing that drew the ire of the religious leaders of Jesus' time because he announced it was a reality in and through him.

One last word.

Confession isn’t only about admitting what we’ve done.

Confession is also admitting who we are – what is the stuff of our soul. It is an unveiling of our hearts for others to see. In American Sign Language, the sign for “confess” look like someone literally unveiling their hearts to let others look in at the truth of who they are.

As Christians, we are called to confess not only what we’ve done, but who we are.

And who are, will you admit it?

We are children of God who have put on this Jesus of Nazareth - he "who in the fullness of God was pleased to dwell."

Child of God - Will You Put on Christ? PRAY

When you pray, for what do you pray?

For whom?

What is the “stuff” of your heart that matters so much to you that you write it down, utter it aloud, or let it rise from the recesses of those places in you that are “too deep for words.”

During this Lent, Children of God, will you put on Christ as you pray?

What does that mean, exactly? Think of it this way - as God’s sons and daughters, and, as Christians, it is the mind of Christ that you seek beyond all others, then should not the petitions of our hearts reflect the cares and concerns of the very one to whom we are praying?

Think of when you read about Jesus praying – the only prayer that could even begin to sound self-interested was from Gethsemane’s Garden, and even then, it is framed in a manner of supplication yielding to willingness to serve - “If there’s any way for all this to happen any other way, now’s the time, but, in the end, what you desire matters most.” (a Jeffords paraphrase). All other prayers by Jesus invoke the power and presence of God in the situations of pain, distress, death, and places where forgiveness needs to granted most. The most notable of these must be uttered by Jesus on the cross for the sake of those who had just nailed him to it – “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Child of God, will you put on Christ this Lent – will you Listen? Will you Pray?

Child of God - Will You Put on Christ? LISTEN

The forty days of this Lenten journey is often spent giving too much time and effort to our “doing.”

What will I give up, what behaviors will I not undertake for these forty days only to jump back in head first once Easter has come and gone?

At Saint John’s, this Lent we ask the question of one another, “Child of God - Will You Put on Christ?” And if you will, what are ways we do - that? For this Sunday, Lent 1, as we begin, we LISTEN to the God who has spoken and still speaks in extraordinary ways and in that still, small voice.

We LISTEN for the voice of God that comes to us through Scripture, a convergence of events in our lives, or the winds that blow. For Lent, will you LISTEN?