Holy Thursday

Readings: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; 1 Corinthians11:23-26; John 13:1-15

Preached at Corpus Christi Church, Baltimore.

So here we are,
embarking on these three
most holy of days.
As disciples of Jesus Christ
we gather with him once again,
just as his first disciples did 
on the night before 
he was handed over
to suffering and to death.
We gather with him once again
in an anxious hour of uncertainty.
We gather with him once again
to eat a meal like those in flight
into an unknown future.
We gather with him once again
in a moment when memory 
reaches back into the past
to retrieve hope 
in God’s power to save.

But what if memory is not enough?
Our human memory 
is prone to fading and forgetting,
and to nostalgia and confabulation,
and even when we remember well
we can never remember well enough
to stop the flow of time,
to make our lives secure from the future 
that bears down upon us.
For those first disciples,
the memory of God’s salvation
of their ancestors
could not forestall what was to come,
could not forestall betrayal and denial
and scattering and cross and tomb.
Our memory is not enough.

But thanks be to God 
that tonight is not about our memory
but about God’s memory,
not about how we remember Jesus
but about how Jesus remembers us.
It is true that in our Eucharist 
we remember God’s saving work
and the night of Jesus’ handing over.
But more than that,
we ask God to remember us:
to remember the Church throughout the world,
to remember us who gather in this place,
to remember those who have died,
those who once gathered with us 
but who have now passed beyond our sight:
Sr. Marge, Frank Callahan, Larry and Mary Alma Lears, 
Vince Gomes, Tom Ward, John and Mary Jane O’Brien,
Henry Tom, Frank Hodges, Kathy Hoskins, 
Shirley Allen, Irene Van Sant and Jim Curran,
and so many more.
Tonight, as in every Eucharist, 
Christ re-member us,
makes us his members once again:
he gathers us from our scatteredness 
and knits us once more into his body—
Corpus Christi.

“He loved his own in the world.” 
Because Jesus remembers each one of us, 
he holds us together in his heart,
and in that heart we find a refuge
from an anxious, unknown future.
He treasures us in his heart,
which like our hearts suffers human pain
but which also burns with the love of God,
burns with the primal love 
that called the cosmos out of nothingness,
burns with the eternal love
that knows no shadow of change.
We are his most beloved possession
and he will not let us go.

“He loved his own in the world 
and he loved them to the end.”
Though in that anxious, uncertain hour
his disciples did not know what was coming,
they must have sensed that the end was near.
But this is the Good News
of these three days:
the end is not the end 
if he loves us.
And he does love us.
The whole meaning 
of these most holy of days
that we are celebrating
is that the end is not the end.
Beyond the tomb there lies
the risen glory of the lamb once slain,
a glory that we cannot imagine,
and in our moments of deepest distress
can scarcely believe.
But believe we do.
We believe that beyond the end
we will find the fire of that love, 
human and divine,
that burns without end
within the heart of Jesus.
We believe that beyond the end 
there lies new life,
a new life we live already 
through the sacramental signs
that Jesus gives to us this night.
We believe that beyond the end
there lies the day of the Lord,
the day of resurrection,
the day whose sun knows no setting.

Jesus loved them to the end
and Jesus loved them through the end.
Held within the heart of Jesus,
he carried them with him 
through the end that would seem 
to have shattered their communion 
with him and with each other
to call them once again
into the adventure of discipleship,
the adventure of life with him, 
of life in him and with each other.

St. John wrote, “Beloved, 
we are God’s children now; 
what we shall be 
has not yet been revealed.”
We cannot see beyond the end.
But though we cannot see we can still believe,
and we do believe that because he loves us—
to the end and through the end—
the end is not the end,
but simply one more step
in the adventure of life 
with God and with each other.
And so we pray,
all good thieves together,
“Jesus, remember us
when you come into your kingdom.”

Lent 5 (Third Scrutiny)

Readings: Ezekiel 37:12-14; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

VIDEO

With the story of the raising of Lazarus,
we find ourselves arrived 
in our Lenten pilgrimage
at the edge of the mystery.
We find ourselves confronted 
with a final sign
pointing us toward 
our destination and our destiny:
the incomprehensible love of God
poured out into the world
in the cross and resurrection of Jesus,
and the promise of sharing 
in God’s own deathless life.
We find ourselves at the place 
where the one who is 
resurrection and life
stands at the place of death 
and cries, “come out!”

This is the time, 
this is the place
where the promise of God 
heard in our first reading
resounds once again in our ears:
“O my people, I will open your graves 
and have you rise from them 
and bring you back to the land of Israel.”
I will open your graves—
graves of sin,
graves of sorrow,
graves of doubt—
and bring you back to the land of promise.
In calling us to holiness and joy and trust,
Christ calls us not to some unknown destination
but back to our true homeland.
For we are made for holiness and for joy, 
we are made for trust and for life with God,
yet we, like the prodigal son,
have wandered from the Father’s house
and found ourselves in a land of exile,
found ourselves in a tomb of our own fashioning.
But now we stand in a time and in a place
where Jesus can be heard calling to us:
“come out!”

We celebrate today the third and final scrutiny
with those who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil.
These catechumens,
along with the candidates for reception
into the full communion of the Catholic Church,
have been journeying for many months:
studying the scriptures and traditions of the Church,
and learning the discipline of prayer,
journeying with each other
and journeying with Jesus
to this place and this time.
They each have a unique story 
of their journey:
they are young and old,
men and women,
with various occupations and interests;
some are complete newcomers to Christianity,
some have been coming to Mass for years
(in one case, for decades).
But it is the one Spirit of the Father 
who raised Jesus from the dead 
that has called them
to this place and time.

Despite what the name might suggest,
the scrutinies do not involve any sort of quiz,
where we examine our catechumens 
to see if they have learned 
enough about Catholicism
to be worthy to join our ranks.
Let’s be honest:
how well would most of us do
if we had to take such a quiz?
In any case, this is not a matter
of knowing a bunch of information,
but of knowing themselves
and knowing Jesus.

The scrutinies are an invitation,
not just to the catechumens but to all of us,
to look deep into our hearts—
hearts that have been hardened by sin,
hearts that have become tombs in which
holiness and joy and trust lie buried.
They are an invitation to listen in the silence
for the voice of Jesus
piercing though the stony walls 
of our hardened hearts,
calling to us, “Come out!”

Our tombs may be deep 
and their walls may be thick,
built of stones of sin and sorrow and doubt,
but it is the one who is himself 
resurrection and life
who calls to us.
Listen.
He is calling:
Lazarus, come out!
Tom, come out!
Lamar, come out!
Madison, come out!
Jackson, come out!
Shawn, come out!
All you who are sinful, 
sorrowful, 
doubtful,
come out!

Today we are standing with them 
at the edge of the mystery:
the mystery of Christ’s passing over
from death to life,
the mystery of our passing over
from death to life.
And in that mystery,
the call to come out 
becomes a call to come in.
Come out from the place of exile,
come into your true homeland;
come out from a life of shadows,
come into the clear light of eternity;
come out from the tomb 
of your own hardened heart,
come into a life 
of holiness and joy and trust.
Enter the wedding feast 
of the Lamb once slain
and now gloriously reigning,
the banquet of abundant life
that has been prepared for you
from before the foundation of the world.
Come out.
Come in.
Feast.
Rejoice.

Lent 3

Readings: Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25

VIDEO

Christianity is weird.
And if you take it seriously,
it will make you seriously weird as well.
This is the good news.

Of course, 
this might not sound like good news.
After all, most of us
(even here in Baltimore)
don’t want to be weird;
we just want to fit in and get along.
We never really outgrow 
that fear that lodges in us
around the time we enter Middle School—
the fear of being mocked as a weirdo:
not liking the right things,
not wearing the right clothes,
not listening to the right music.
Despite our culture’s strong emphasis
on individuality and authenticity,
at the end of the day 
we are remarkably conformist:
we tend to follow
paths that will win for us 
the approval and admiration 
of those around us. 

St. Paul tells us that
“Jews demand signs 
and Greeks look for wisdom.”
We all want signs that confirm 
that we are on the proper path
toward strength and security;
we all want wisdom that will enable us
to navigate the world as it is.
What we don’t want is a sign
that becomes an obstacle we stumble over
and which makes us change our path;
what we don’t want is a wisdom
that suggests that the world as it is
might not be the world 
that we should be striving for.
But this is the sign and this is the wisdom
that Jesus offers us,
because what he offers us is the cross:
“a stumbling block to Jews 
and foolishness to Gentiles”—
something so counter 
to the desires and expectations of the world
that to those who seek signs of power
it looks like weakness,
and to those who seek words of wisdom
it sounds like folly,
and to those of us who just want to fit in,
who want to like the right things,
and wear the right clothes 
and listen to the right music,
who just want to get along 
without being thought weird,
is seems like a recipe 
for an extremely unhappy life.

Of course, over the centuries 
we have found ways to tone down 
the weirdness of Christianity,
to cover over the cross,
to accommodate the Gospel 
to worldly understandings
of power and wisdom.
We have turned the law of God 
into common sense advice
that will ensure a healthy and happy life
and the smooth running of society,
rather than the commanding voice of the Lord
calling us to offer our entire selves 
as a living sacrifice to God.
We have turned Jesus into a teacher 
of sensible moral lessons,
or a savior who has suffered 
so that we won’t have to,
rather than the disruptive prophet
who interrupts religious business as usual
and offers his body, crucified and risen,
as the true temple that we must enter
if we wish to worship God in Spirit and in truth.
We have made Christianity into a force of stability
that guarantees happy marriages and strong nations
and all the other things that we consider normal desires.

But the Gospel is not so easily normalized.
The figure of Jesus 
discovered in the pages of Scripture,
the life of the Spirit manifested
in that collection of oddballs we call
the communion of saints,
the peculiar practices of the Church,
which week by week invites 
those who have died in Christ
to feast on his flesh and blood—
all of this makes it hard to deny 
just how weird Christianity is.

We might think of Lent 
as our annual invitation
to turn from the world’s power and wisdom
and rediscover and re-embrace 
the weirdness of the Gospel.
We begin by smearing ashes on our heads
and being told that we must die; 
and we conclude by lighting candles in the dark
as we spend hours listening to old stories
about a universe being built from nothing,
a son nearly sacrificed at God’s behest,
an army drowned by miraculous waters,
and a tomb found empty
and a dead body mysteriously missing.
And in between we strive 
by fasting, prayer, and works of charity
to wean ourselves away 
from the world’s normality
so that we might enter into that weird world
where weakness is strength
and foolishness is wisdom,
where the dead don’t stay dead
and faith, hope, and love abide.

Christianity is weird, 
and if you take it seriously
it will make you seriously weird as well.
It will make you love like Christ loved
by placing on your shoulders the cross,
the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light
because it is the weight of love 
pressing down upon us
even as it bears us upward to God.
It will make you weak and foolish
with the power and wisdom of God.
In these days of Lent,
may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.