Sermon (Fr Cunningham) April 1, 2018

            In popular culture Easter is the other holiday that Christians celebrate.  And it is in many ways considered a lesser holiday, which I think is largely because it does not have quite the marketing team that Christmas has.  Oversized egg hiding bunnies and Peeps marshmallow candies hardly compete with Christmas Trees, Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman.  If you want further proof of this popular culture glut ask yourself if you have ever heard of a radio station in the run up to Easter dedicating an entire month to nothing but “popular” Easter songs.  In fact, I will lower the bar even more and ask if you can simply name two “popular” Easter songs (and I will even spot you Here Comes Peter Cottontail).  If Christmas is the Elephant in the room, Easter is more of the house fern in the room.  There is nothing wrong with it, but no one pays it much attention.  And I can’t decide if this is good or bad.  Every Christmas going back to at least 1965 when Charlie Brown lamented the commercialization of Christmas, someone has expressed their disappointment in what Christmas has become believing that its current incarnation makes us miss out on the real point of it all; and that is very much true.  However, by Christmas occupying such a large place in the popular mindset it can make it seem like Easter is not very important.  It sort of gets viewed in the same way as Flag Day is in comparison to the Fourth of July – cute but not really necessary.  However, for the early Church and for much of Christian history Easter was the big day and Christmas was the lesser event.  And while I have to confess that I tend to get much more excited about Christmas than I do about Easter – Easter is really the most important event on the Christian Calendar.  So let’s take a few moments and examine why today is such a big deal.

            This morning we hear of two disciples running to the tomb after Mary Magdalene has told them that the body of Jesus was missing.  We read, “Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”  I find this passage a little bit mysterious for it says that the disciples believed, but concurrent with that it says that they did not understand.  Which I think in some ways may encapsulate the PR difficulty with Easter – it is not easy to understand.  The disciples believe that Jesus had risen from the dead but they do not understand what it all meant – Jesus did not leave behind any tracts with names like “What Really Happened on Easter Day.”   And honestly, I am not sure any of us fully understand what happened on Easter Day.  Theologians have thought about it for centuries and still do not have a single theory.  If you would like some theological terms to describe what happened, here are just a few of the ways that people have set about to explain the death and resurrection of Jesus:  There is substitutionary atonement, Christus Victor theory, Satisfaction Theory, Recapitulation theory, Moral Influence Theory, Ransom Theory and so on.  Babies being born in Mangers are relatively easy to understand whereas death and resurrection are not.  However, while theologians may debate the “how”, I think we can fairly safely get to the “what” of today’s events.    

            C.S. Lewis writing in 1950 had this to say when describing the events of today and it is a little long, but its worth listening to for it gets to the “what” of today’s events.  He says, “Something perfectly new in the history of the Universe had happened. Christ had defeated death. The door which had always been locked had for the very first time been forced open. This is something quite distinct from mere ghost-survival. I don’t mean that they disbelieved in ghost-survival. On the contrary, they believed in it so firmly that, on more than one occasion, Christ had had to assure them that He was not a ghost. The point is that while believing in survival they yet regarded the Resurrection as something totally different and new. The Resurrection narratives are not a picture of survival after death; they record how a totally new mode of being has arisen in the universe. Something new had appeared in the universe: as new as the first coming of organic life. This Man, after death, does not get divided into ‘ghost’ and ‘corpse’. A new mode of being has arisen. That is the story. What are we going to make of it?”

            This new mode of being as Lewis describes it helps to explain the difficulty that Mary Magdalene had in recognizing Jesus.  Jesus did not look like he had a few days earlier.  He was not his old self with a few more cuts and bruises (even though those were there), but was rather a being that had passed through death and come back to show not only that it was possible but what this form of life was like.  Easter tells us something very different than what a lot of people think.  It tells us that we who believe in Jesus Christ will also one day pass through death and emerge as something the same and yet different.  We will not be ghosts, nor will we be eternal versions of our current selves, but we will be physical and spiritual beings like we currently are, but glorified and made new.  Today is an assurance that we have been made right with God and that death is not the final word.  And it also serves as a preview of what comes after death. 

            Throughout history death has always been the great unknown.  Egyptian Pharaohs topped off their tombs with worldly treasure to take on what they saw as their final journey.  This treasure was there in order to ensure a smooth transition to the afterlife. Vikings had to be buried or burned with the right kinds of goods so that they could enter the afterlife in the same status as they had had in their previous life and today we have various scientists trying to find the right formula to ensure immortality to those able to pay for it.   Everyone across history has tried to figure out what happens when we die and how to guard against something going wrong, but today we are told how it goes down.  We are told that death is not the end and that through Christ’s death and resurrection we can participate in that.  The price of admission is pretty low, we don’t have to be wealthy or of a certain class, we just have to believe in Jesus as Lord and call upon his name.  Easter is about us being with God forever and we will be with God forever in resurrected bodies, like the one Jesus shows to us today.

            Christmas certainly looks nicer and has snazzier TV specials, but as far as answering the question that has occupied humanity for at least as long as we have records, Easter is without peer.  It answers the big question of what happens.  That is what happens after we die.  Easter solves the great mystery of life.  I could certainly offer theories about why people don’t seem to care that much about it, but most of those would be fairly cynical and Easter is a day of great joy, so let’s not spoil the mood.  Instead, let’s rejoice in the fact that we worship a God who sent his Son to save us from ourselves and has given us a pathway to eternal life.  Today boldly announces to the world that the thing that has been the most feared across the ages is not something to fear, because as the Prophet Isaiah predicted God has swallowed up death forever.  Yes Christ the Lord has risen indeed and through that we may be his both now and forevermore.       

Sermon (Fr Peay) April 1, 2018

St. John Chrysostom Episcopal Church – Delafield, Wisconsin

Easter Sunday -- April 1, 2018

V. Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.

[texts: Acts 10:34-43/1 Corinthians 15:19-26/John 20:1-18]

            Years ago I had occasion to travel to England for a meeting. My plane arrived late at night in London and I got off feeling rather alone. A colleague, a clergy person who lived there, said she would arrange for me to have a place to stay, but other than that assurance, there will be a place for you, I was a stranger in a strange land and feeling it.

            I walked through customs and past people greeting friends and relatives, wondering how I would find my contact person. Lost in my thoughts of “what will I do and where will I sleep,” I was startled into consciousness by hearing my name called: “Dr. Peay. . . Dr. Steven Peay!” I turned and I was greeted by a gentleman holding a picture of me. He was my contact and his family offered me gracious hospitality -- I was no longer a stranger, I was recognized.

            Oh, I suppose it’s a reach to compare my arrival at Heathrow Airport with Mary Magdalene at the tomb. However, as I read the Gospel again I couldn’t get away from how wonderful it was to be recognized and then called by name, especially by a stranger. It is at once jarring, but also very comforting. Had Robert, for that was his name, not recognized me and called me by name, I would never have known who he was. Had Mary not heard her name called by Jesus she would have never known that He was the One she was seeking – in hearing her name, she recognized the Lord.

            Mary Magdalene was lost in her grief to begin with and now there’s no body to mourn over, no body to honor with the ointments and spices. She had come to the tomb, found it open and the body gone. Immediately she went to Peter and John with the news. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” All of Jesus’ teaching about how he would suffer, die, and then rise again didn’t even enter her mind. She had lost her teacher, her friend, the one who loved her when no one else would, and now someone had robbed the grave. It was more than one could take.

            So she followed Peter and John back to the tomb; I wonder if she tried to run along with them? They each entered and came to believe that the Lord had indeed risen from the dead, though they hadn’t yet caught the full meaning of what had happened. Mary, however, lingered outside and continued to linger even after Peter and John had hurried off. Eventually she came back to the tomb and peered in, only to discover two strangers sitting in the tomb.

            John’s Gospel tells us that they were ‘angels,’ messengers, but Mary wasn’t amazed at these white-robed strangers. When they asked her why she was weeping, she told them what’d told the disciples. This time, however, it wasn’t “we,” but “I don’t know where they have laid him.” Her grief and disappointment were still so great that she couldn’t comprehend the empty tomb. She was so caught up in herself, that she couldn’t see the wonder of what was happening all around her.

            Still lost in her grief, she turned and saw yet another stranger. The Gospel tells us that she assumed he was the gardener and, by her question to him, she thought he might know where Jesus’ body had been taken. Then it happened, the mysterious stranger spoke her name: “Mary.” Here Jesus fulfils the word he had spoken earlier in John chapter ten. There he had said, “I am the Good Shepherd, I know mine and mine know me . . . the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” Mary heard the voice and responded, “Master,” recognizing Jesus and then thinking that things were the same as always. They weren’t, and as Jesus talked with her she understood more and more, came to a new recognition, if you will, that she was truly in the presence of the Risen One.

            You see, each year we celebrate Easter and it’s a great festival for the church, the family, and the candy makers, too. We are all reassured with the news of the Risen Lord and the empty tomb, but does it make a difference when we go through the doors of the church and back to the everyday tasks that face all of us? For many of us I don’t think it does; since, like Mary Magdalene, we keep looking for something other than what is really there. We can’t recognize Jesus because we’re looking for a ‘dead’ Christ, a Christ of history, or a Christ of principle. What he taught and did touches and moves us, so we look for him, but he isn’t here. However, it isn’t this Jesus of History who waits to meet us, but the Risen Christ. He waits outside the tombs of our self-absorption and self-centeredness ready to walk with us and ready to love us into freedom through every day of our lives.

            Just so you know, ministers and theologians have to come to realize this as well. I am humbled and inspired every time I think of R. W. Dale, the brilliant nineteenth century British Congregational theologian, minister, and first principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. Late in his career as he was preparing an Easter sermon,

. . .the thought of the risen Lord broke in upon him as it had never done before. “Christ is alive,” I said to myself; “alive” and then I paused; -- “alive!” and then I paused again; “alive!” Can that really be true? Living as really as I myself am? I got up and walked about repeating “Christ is living!” “Christ is living!”. . . It was to me a new discovery. I thought that all along I had believed it; but not until that moment did I feel sure about it. I then said, “My people shall know it; I shall preach about it again and again until they believe it as I do now.” . . .Then began the custom of singing in Carr’s Lane every Sunday Morning an Easter hymn.

[A. W. W. Dale Life of R.W.Dale, p. 642]

This distinguished theologian hadn’t really comprehended that Christ is alive until that day when, as it were, he heard his name, recognized the Risen Lord and responded.

            All of us need to have our own personal Easters where, like Mary Magdalene and R.W. Dale, we hear our names and recognize the Lord’s voice. The Risen Lord wants us to come to this experience so that we can rise from all the little deaths that we know. The Resurrection, I believe, isn’t just about the end of time, the great “getting-up morning.” Rather, it speaks to us where we are and brings us to life right here and right now.

            We may be buried in the tomb of self-centeredness. We may be dying the death of self-doubt or the lack of self-worth. We may be sunk in the grief mourning the loss of a loved one or a relationship gone sour. Whatever the little death we’re experiencing, the Risen Christ stands outside our tombs and today, everyday reminds us that they are empty. Death is defeated and life reigns -- if we listen for the voice of the Risen One calling out our name.

            The key here is that we respond. Someone can call our name again and again and, though we may be annoyed, it does nothing unless we respond. We are free to remain sunk in the myriad little graves, the little deaths, lost in our own self-imposed grief, but we don’t have to be. The Risen Christ stands, speaking our name, inviting us to know that we are one with God, that we are loved, and life holds so much more for us.

            The response is going to take different forms for each of us. It may happen today or months down the road, but if we listen we will hear. Once we respond in recognition, like Mary Magdalene, we will leave the tomb a renewed, a different person. We will seek to live unselfishly, loving as we have been loved: unconditionally. We will make a difference just by being who we are, because people feel God’s love, God’s care, God’s light flowing through us, all because Christ is alive.

            Whether in a crowded airport, or a shopping mall, or a church, or even the quiet of your home, listen for the voice. You may not hear it with your ear, but you will most certainly hear it with what the spiritual masters call the ear of your heart. At that moment you will know that Christ is alive; and for the first time, you will know what it really means to be alive. We are called by name and Christ is alive!

            Christ is Risen! He is Risen

Sermon (Fr Peay) March 31, 2018

Lake Country Joint Easter Vigil – Noble Victory Chapel – SJNW Academy,

 Delafield, Wisconsin/March 31, 2018

The V. Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.

            Christ is Risen!

            There’s a story some would say is beyond belief: Christ IS risen!

            Now, let’s see if we can amplify it a bit. Let me begin by telling you a story that I heard from Elie Wiesel. It is one of my favorite stories about four of the great Hasidic rabbis and it goes like this:

When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.

Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Magid of Mezeritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: “Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer.” And again the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sassov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: “I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient.” It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.

Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhin to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: “I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient.” And it was sufficient.

God made man because he loves stories. [The Gates of the Forest]

It’s true. God does love stories, and God loves us, which is what the story is all about. What is more, we love stories, too.

            We tell stories all the time. Holidays, like Easter, give us the opportunities to tell them. Sometimes the stories help us understand customs that we have as a part of our family life. I heard one that made that point come home to me. It was about the family that always began preparations for the Easter feast by cutting the ends off the ham. They had done this as long as anyone could remember; it was simply part of the Easter ritual. Finally, as children are wont to do, one of the little ones piped up and asked, “Why do we cut the ends off the ham?” Her mother didn’t know, she just had seen her mother do it. So she suggested that they ask grandma, which they did. Her answer? “I don’t know. Mama always did it. Let’s ask her.” So when great-grandma came they asked her . . . and she began to laugh. “Well. I know why I did it, but you know I’ve never understood why you girls have done it all these years.” Pressed for the answer, through her laughter, she told them, “Darlings, I cut the ends off the ham because the pan I had was too small to hold it when grandpa and I were first married and I liked the pan.” Ask some questions this Easter – find out about those customs. Listen to the stories.

            The power of stories was made fresh to me not long ago when I heard from several friends I’d not had contact with in years. Within minutes of finishing the obligatory catch-up stuff, we were telling stories. And as we told those stories the years melted away and it was as though we had never lost touch with one another. Stories draw us together as people. Stories help identify us and define the world in which we live.

            The essence of our Christian faith revolves around the story of one person’s life. At Christmas time we tell the story of Jesus’ birth and during Holy Week and Easter we tell the story of his passion, death and resurrection. Christian doctrine may seem pretty abstract or esoteric and, sometimes, Christian worship can be formalistic, but neither need be the case, because at root they are stories. In fact, the best definition of Christian worship I have ever heard goes like this: Gather the folk. Tell the story. Break the bread. Go out to love and serve. So, this evening we’ve gathered the folk and we’re telling the story. We are telling it by words and music and actions. We’re telling it because it makes us who we are – to be ‘Christian’ is, really, to be identified as a “follower of Jesus Christ,” a teller of the story.

            So, what is the story? We heard it a bit ago in the great narratives of the Old Testament that told us of our creation, our rebellion and the actions God took to draw us to become people of a new heart, dry bones reanimated, people gathered by God, with fortunes restored. We heard it in Paul’s words to the Church at Rome, reminding them, and us, that we are ourselves risen from the death of sin to the wonder of unselfish life. We heard it in the familiar words of Mark’s Gospel, the witness of three caring women and the testimony of an empty tomb. We will hear it – and witness it – again in the Baptismal rite as we are joined with Christ’s dying and rising with Eloise Claire Kramer.

             When the early church proclaimed its faith in the Risen Christ, it did so because people had a life-changing encounter with the one they thought dead, whom they discovered alive. As they thought about this reality it was more to them than just an intellectual proposition to which they gave their assent. As they understood the resurrection, this story touched the deepest point of the human experience and offered a new sense of self and a new sense of belonging, both to God and to the whole of humanity. We so often get wrapped up in trying to ‘prove’ the intellectual proposition that we miss the point. The resurrection is the climax, the fulfillment of God’s identification with humanity. The resurrection is the triumph of ‘Emmanuel’ – God-with-us.

            Irenaeus celebrated that triumph back in the second century by teaching, “God became man so that man might become god.” This is the point of the story – God shares all of life with us, even to the point that death is swallowed up in the Author of Life. God IS with us and with us at every point of our life’s journey and we become “partakers of Divine nature.”

I guess it’s a story beyond belief, though it comes right into the center of our life, because it is beyond words. This story is not “once upon a time” because it is about a present reality. When we greet one another – as I greeted you at the beginning of the sermon – we say, “Christ IS risen!” We are not talking about the past, but the present. The Lord IS risen – now, today, this very moment.

            The Lord IS risen and the story continues to be told as each of us encounters the Risen One in the midst of life and sees who it is speaking to us. And, for each of us, there is the joy, the wonder, and the possibility of life renewed and transformed as we, ourselves, rise to a life centered in God and in others. The resurrection is present-tense. It happens when we hear our names, see the Lord, and approach life here-and-now in a new way.

            The Resurrection, the Easter story, is a story beyond belief because it is a story that never gets over-told. You know stories like that; where we ask Uncle Stanley to tell the story about grandma and grandpa when they were young again. We want to hear the story again and again, because it is part of us, part of who we are, part of what makes us family. The Resurrection, the Easter story, is a story like that. The story we tell today affirms life and all of its possibilities. The story we tell today says that God loves us very much and that we, in turn, should love others in the same way. It’s a story that we can tell because it is our story, too. So, tell the story yourself today, for it is sufficient and, as you do, hear your own story; for Christ IS risen, in you, today!

Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!