Easter 2

Readings: Acts 5:12-16; Rev 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19; John 20:19-31

Video

When Jesus rises from the dead
he does not rise 
in a body smooth and whole,
but a body wounded, 
a body dehumanized by torture, 
a body that bears the marks of human hatred.
The resurrection, of course, restores that body to life—
indeed, it transforms and glorifies that body,
giving it a life that shares in God’s own eternity—
but it does not erase the marks of outrage.
It does not erase the wounds inflicted
by the religious leaders who rejected him,
by the crowd that cried “crucify him, crucify him,”
by Pontius Pilate whose cowardice condemned him,
by the Roman soldiers who drove the nails into his flesh,
by the disciples who abandoned him and fled in fear.

The resurrection does not erase those marks of betrayal
because it is only by his wounds that we know
that it is truly Jesus who appears before us.
It is by his wounds that we know
that the one who once was dead
is now the one who lives,
that he who was crucified in time
is alive forever, 
the first and the last.

The wounds, however, do not simply attest 
to the fact of the resurrection;
rather they show us 
what the resurrection means for us.
They show that the resurrection is not simply
a miracle that God works 
in order to rescue Jesus from death,
but is the great saving act of God
by which we are rescued;
the wounds show us that the resurrection
is not just good news for Jesus
but for us as well—
we who are flawed and frail,
sinful and sorrowful,
mortal and mournful.

In the resurrection, 
Jesus does not “put the past behind him”
but rather offers up that past 
at the altar of God’s eternal temple.
Jesus does not abandon the sad story of the passion,
but brings with him into risen glory
all that he suffered in his mortal life,
which he live for us and for our salvation:
the wounds not erased, but redeemed;
the betrayals not forgotten, but forgiven;
the malice not ignored, but met with mercy.
The risen Jesus retains his wounds 
for they are the sign of his great love for us:
“No one has greater love than this, 
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

And in doing this,
Jesus sets the pattern for our own risen life.
It is a longstanding Christian belief
that even in God’s kingdom 
the martyrs will retain 
the marks of their martyrdom,
by which they bore witness to Jesus Christ.
St. Augustine writes,
“this will not be a deformity, 
but a badge of honor, 
and the beauty of their virtue—
a beauty which is in the body, 
but not of the body— 
will shine forth in it” (Civ. Dei 22.19). 
The wounds of the martyrs are not erased
but glorified and transformed,
for their scars bear witness to their love.

And so too for all of us:
everything we have suffered 
for the sake of love—
whether physically or spiritually—
will be taken up in glory,
healed but not erased.
Because it is the things we have suffered for love 
that have made us who we are.
The struggles of marriage and parenthood,
the rejections we endure for our commitment to truth,
the sacrifices we make to aid those who have less,
the betrayals and malice that we forgive,
the illnesses we endure trusting in God’s goodness—
all of these, embraced out of love of God,
become the glorious wounds of our witness,
the beauty of the virtue that God pours into us
over the course of a lifetime lived in faith.
The scars borne by our bodies and souls
are the letters with which 
the stories of our lives have been written,
and those stories are not forgotten in eternity
but are remembered and raised up and transformed 
in ways that we can only begin to imagine.

The good news of Easter is not 
that past suffering is simply left behind.
The body that is tortured on the cross
is the same body that emerges from the tomb
still bearing the marks of torment.
We remember in every Eucharist
the suffering Christ endured for love of us
even as we receive the living Christ in communion.
We ourselves, who have been raised with Christ in baptism,
daily experience the pain to which love leaves us vulnerable.
But Easter places the story of our suffering
within the larger story of Jesus’ triumph over death
and the mercy that he shows to all who suffer,
and in doing so the scars we bear 
are transformed, not erased.
It is this hope of transformation that sustains us
even as the story of our lives continue to be written:
sometimes in sorrow,
sometimes in joy,
but at all times enclosed 
in the merciful love
of Jesus Christ, 
wounded and risen.

 

Holy Thursday

Readings: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15

Preached at Corpus Christi Church, Baltimore.

The students to whom I teach Dante's Divine Comedy
are often surprised that in the lowest depth of Hell
Dante places, not those who committed sexual sins
(which is what they expect from someone 
who lived in the prudish Middle Ages),
nor those who committed crimes of violence
(which is who most of them think deserve
the most serious punishment),
but rather those guilty of betrayal.
For Dante, betrayal is the act that ends you up 
in the deepest, coldest circle of Hell
because it is springs, not simply from 
a failure of reason to properly direct our desires,
the ways that sins of lust and violence do,
but from an abuse of the love and trust
that others bear toward us.
You can only betray someone who trusts you,
and to betray such trust is to exploit
the most precious gift one person can give to another.
It is the action that makes us most unlike God,
for God is eternally faithful in love toward us,
and asks for nothing but faithful love in return.
And because it makes us most unlike God
it places us at the farthest distance from God.

We all know the experience of betrayal
because we live in a world marked by betrayal.
In the Biblical story of humanity’s fall
we find not only the disobeying of God’s command
not to eat from the tree in the garden
but also a primal act of betrayal:
“it is her fault; she made me do it.”
We all know betrayal,
and we know it from both sides:
we have had our trust betrayed
but we have also betrayed the trust of others.
Perhaps it is a seemingly trivial betrayal—
a small promise made but not kept—
or perhaps it is a life-shattering breach of trust:
a deceptive co-worker,
a devious friend,
a disloyal spouse.

And the betrayal that pervades our world operates
not just on an interpersonal level
but on an institutional level.
Many today feel betrayed by our government,
by our educational and medical establishments,
by our Church.
Some, faced with crushing disappointments in life,
may even feel betrayed by God
We feel that there were 
promises made
that were not kept,
hopes held out 
that were not fulfilled,
trust engendered
that was not deserved.
We may be tempted to adopt the view 

that trust is for suckers,
and the only way to avoid betrayal
is to hold yourself back 
from trusting anyone or anything,
to protect yourself by sealing up your heart.

Tonight puts us into the middle
of the story of history’s greatest betrayal:
the betrayal of the God who took flesh
for us and for our salvation,
and whom we handed over 
to suffering and death.
In every celebration of the Eucharist
we recall this night with these words:
“For on the night he was betrayed…”
Jesus is betrayed by Judas with a kiss,
for thirty pieces of silver.
Jesus is betrayed by Peter and the other disciples,
who had said that they would die with him,
but then flee and hide and deny that they knew him.
Jesus is betrayed by religious and political authorities,
who claim to rule in the name of piety and justice,
but show themselves instead to be ruled by fear
and by the desire for domination.
Jesus is betrayed by the crowd,
which had rapturously greeted him 
as he entered Jerusalem,
only to call for his crucifixion a few days later.
It seemed to some, even, 
that he has been betrayed by God:
“He trusts in God; 
let God deliver him now, if he wants to” (Mt 27:43).

In this midst of this scene of betrayal, however,

Jesus does not hold himself back from trust,
but rather leans into it,
knowing that the one whom he calls Father
remains faithful in his promises.
He does not protect himself by sealing up his heart
but opens his heart to us in love
so that water and blood might flow forth—
the water that washes our sins away,
the blood that becomes our food and drink.
For on the night he is betrayed,
the night he is handed over by a friend
and abandoned by his followers,
he takes bread and wine 
and, giving thanks, hands himself over to us
in an act of loving self-abandonment:
“This is my body that is for you….
this…is the new covenant in my blood.” 
He offers his own blood as the sign of covenant,
the sign of promise in which we can trust, 
even in the midst of betrayal.
In the night that lies at the center
of the long, sad history of human betrayals,
Jesus shows us that betrayal must be answered with love.
He is not telling us to turn a blind eye to betrayal,
to ignore it or pretend it doesn’t happen.
Jesus knows Judas will betray him,
and lets him know that he knows.
But still he washes his feet,
for he also knows that if betrayals make us bitter
it is we who are defeated, not our betrayers.
The only way to defeat betrayal
is through the reconciling power of love—
not our paltry human love,
which falters so in the face of betrayal,
but the love that pour itself out
into our hearts to wash away our bitterness,
the fullness of charity and life
that becomes our food and drink 
in this banquet of Christ’s love. 

In this night that he is betrayed,
Jesus hands himself over to us
so that the power of divine love
that carried him from betrayal 
through the cross
to the resurrection
might come to dwell in us as well.
Even in the midst of betrayal he invites us,
come to the feast of love.

 

Lent 5

Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11

Video

We are told that the woman 
was brought to Jesus as a test.
The dilemma is whether or not to stone her,
which was commanded in the Law of Moses
as the penalty for adultery,
but which violated the Roman ban
on the Jews carrying out death sentences,
a privilege they reserved for themselves.
If Jesus said to stone the woman,
he would be speaking contrary to Roman law,
but if he said not to stone her
he would be speaking contrary to the Law of Moses.
So it is a test, a trap, a trick
designed either to discredit Jesus 
in the eyes of his fellow Jews
by showing his disregard for Jewish Law,
or to mark him out in the eyes of the Romans
as one who flouted the laws of Rome.

But what of the woman?
To those who bring her before Jesus
she is merely a means to test Jesus,
a tool they can use to trap and trick him.
They do not care about the terror on her face.
They do not care about her public humiliation.
They do not even care how Jesus decides her fate,
for whichever way he decides 
they will have caught him in their trap.
She is simply a pawn to be sacrificed
in the game they are playing.
It is as if they do not see her.

But Jesus sees her.
He sees her fear and her shame.
He sees the deep pain of the wound
that sin has inflicted on her soul.
He sees her accusers as well.
He sees that they seek to trap him
because they too are afraid,
afraid of Jesus and the threat he poses
to their all-too-complacent picture
of themselves as people of virtue,
people with whom God must be well-pleased.
He sees that they too bear the wound
that sin has inflicted on their souls.

Some say that when Jesus bends down
to write in the sand
he is writing the sins of the woman’s accusers.
But perhaps he is simply pausing
to create a space in which they can begin 
to examine their own consciences,
a pause in the frenzy of accusation
for a moment of self-awareness.
And when the accusers persist,
Jesus says “Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her,”
and then resumes his writing,
letting them realize to their shame that they
have been caught in their own trap.
He keeps his eyes on his writing,
giving them a chance to drift away
unseen by the one who has already 
seen into their hearts.

St. Augustine paints a striking picture 
of that moment when the crowd has melted away
and the woman is left standing before Jesus.
He writes, “The two of them alone remained: 
mercy with misery” (On the Gospel of John 33.5).
Augustine is playing on the connection between
the Latin word for misery—miseria—
and the Latin word for mercy—misericordia,
which combines the word miseria
with the word cordia, which means “heart.”
To have mercy on someone, 
to have misericordia,
is to take that person’s misery 
into one’s own heart,
to know within oneself another’s suffering
and to act accordingly.
To have mercy on someone, 
we must see them,
see the beloved creature of God
whom fear and shame afflicts.
Jesus sees the woman for who she is,
both her glory as God’s creature
and her sinful, shameful misery,
and in his heart that misery 
is washed away in a flood of mercy.
“Go, and sin no more.”
The voice of God speaks:
“Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!”

In this holy season of Lent
the Church asks us to prepare 
to celebrate the Pascal Mystery
through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
We usually think of almsgiving 
in terms of monetary giving and material support.
But our word “alms” 
comes from the Greek word eleemosyne,
which in turn comes from the word eleos,
which means “mercy,”
as in the phrase Kyrie eleison—“Lord have mercy.”
The call to give alms in Lent
is at its root a call to plunge into the heart of mercy.

It is a call to seek mercy for ourselves 
through the sacrament of penance,
in which we allow Christ to see us 
as he saw the woman caught in adultery: 
God’s beloved creature afflicted by misery.
But it is above all a call 
to open our own hearts to the misery of others—
the misery of human suffering
that our material support can alleviate,
but also the misery of sinners, 
especially those who have sinned against us.
These are the alms we often find most difficult to give:
the alms of forgiveness to those who have hurt us,
the alms of seeing enemies as God’s beloved children,
burdened with fear and shame;
the alms of opening our hearts to them in mercy,
so that the mercy we have received from God
might flow forth from us into the world,
like “water in the desert
and rivers in the wasteland.”

The days of Lent are growing short,
but it is never too late to seek mercy—
to receive mercy and to give mercy
so that misery and mercy might meet.
May God who is rich in mercy
have mercy on us all.