Failure and Forgiveness

Peter loved Jesus. He loved him so much that he could not be separated from Him. He followed him everywhere and when Jesus escaped alone to a mountain to pray, Peter and the disciples would go searching for Jesus. When they found him, they would scold Jesus for worrying them, like some kind of neurotic mother of an adult son. He simply could not let Jesus out of his sight.


So it is hard to believe that Peter said these words,


"I do not know the man."


In the night before Jesus' crucifixion, when all seemed lost and the soldiers had come to take Jesus away, Peter denied him. Not just once, but three times. Peter was afraid and Peter failed. He failed miserably. After all his devotion and time and worries and questions, when the rubber hit the road, he ran and hid. He left his master alone to die.


I cannot imagine the agony he went through after his denial. The Scripture says that he broke down and wept. I can just picture it, a burly fisherman falling to his knees in the dark courtyard in Jerusalem, crying his eyes out. Crying because he failed.


What worse thing could you do than deny the one you love? Peter ruined his life.


Judas also failed Jesus by selling his friendship for gold and leading the soldiers to capture Jesus. But there is one crucial difference between Peter and Judas. When Peter failed, he did not despair. He waited. He stayed in his pain and in his failure.  Whereas Judas despaired and took his own life.


I have always believed that Jesus would have forgiven Judas, that even now, Jesus waits an eternity to break bread with Judas.  But Judas could not trust that forgiveness, not in this life.


I went to Oklahoma to speak this weekend. The Bishop told us a story about his childhood. When he was a very little boy, his mother would become violently ill.  The Bishop did not say what kind of illness took her, but he said that there were times, more than once, when his mother had to be rushed to the hospital. And the women of their small Episcopal church would come to his house, in the middle of the night, and they would care for him and his brother, fix them something to eat, tell them that everything was going to be OK, tuck them in bed. 


When the world felt like it was caving in, these women would come. And they would fill the emptiness and fear with their love. It is no wonder that when he grew up, he devoted his life to the church.


When everything fell apart for Peter, Jesus still loved him. Jesus loved Peter, even when he failed to stay. Even when he denied everything, Jesus still loved him and came back to him. For the Good Shepherd will always love the sheep, no matter how stupid we are. We can always turn around and come back to Him.


It was Jesus' forgiveness that changed Peter forever. Because once you realize that you have nothing to be afraid of, once you have realized that you already made your biggest mistake and God still loves you, then, well, then you are a force to be reckoned with.


Failure is not something to be afraid of. No, failure can be a great instrument of resurrection and forgiveness, especially if the one who fails speaks the truth and admits their mistakes.  Failure is not the adversary of Resurrection. Rather, the antithesis of Resurrection is despair.


If God can forgive and live eternally, then there is no reason for us to ever despair. And no decisions should ever be made when you are feeling bleak or hopeless. Instead, wait. Give it time and wait for the dawn.


When Peter saw Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, when he saw his Shepherd, he leaps into the water with courage and purpose, and from that moment on, he does not fail.


Listen to the Peter that we hear about in the Book of Acts. He is another person from the Peter of the Gospels. He is confident. He is faithful. He seems to have no questions but rather answers the questions of others. He even performs miracles in the name of Jesus.  He is changed forever by the power of forgiveness.


It really is that good, to be loved by God. There is nothing that God will not forgive. The Good Shepherd will go to the ends of the earth for the sheep. And once you know that, there is nothing to be afraid of.

Touch

 


Hundreds of years ago, a man lived a wild life. He loved women and enjoyed good wine. He relished parties and the good life. And his mother kept praying that he would find God. She told him whenever she saw him, "I am praying for you to find God." Most of the time, he shrugged her off, or just downright pretended that he hadn't heard her.

His mother grew ill and it became clear that she was going to die. Aware that she might not be with him much longer, her son started to listen to her.  She told him of how she was not afraid to die, that she actually looked forward to seeing the face of God.  She told him that the one thing she wanted was to see him come to believe.  So he began to really question her.  Did she really believe in heaven? Did she really face death without fear? What did she think it would be like?

Her son decided to be baptized. After his baptism, they went on a trip together. They were staying at a small inn, looking out the window to a beautiful garden, when something happened.  The man would later write about the experience and admit that it defied all words.  They were discussing heaven. His mother was saying how she longed to see God and he began to long too. They were talking about how beautiful it would be when, together, they touched it.  "It was as if we reached out and touched heaven," he would later say. Together, they touched the presence of God.

His mothers prayers were answered.  The young man would later become a bishop.  His mother would die with peace in her heart. Her son would go on to become one of the greatest theologians and teachers in all of Christianity. He would be known a St. Augustine.

Augustine and his mother touched heaven.  They did not explain it or analyze it. They touched it.

When Jesus appears to his disciples in the gospel of Luke, he startles them. They are in the middle of a conversation and he simply pops in. They are so scared that Jesus has to reassure then.

"Don't be scared," he says. "Touch me." 

Jesus does not answer questions like we have to do to verify our identity when log on to the computer.  He does not try to explain to them where he has been or what it was like to die and rise again.  He seems to know that these things are too far beyond the disciples.  Even if Jesus had tried to explain, they could not have taken it in. The Resurrection cannot be explained, but it can be touched.

"Touch me," he says.

Then Jesus does another strange thing.  He says, "Do you guys have anything to eat?"

They give him a piece of fish and he downs it, right then and there. He gobbles it up.

When they walked and ate on the Sea of Galilee, guess what they ate most of the time? Fish!  So, for Jesus and his disciples, this was the equivalent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was comfort food.

When I am just plain hungry and tired, I make myself a PB&J. It makes me feel better. I don't know how, it just does.

Jesus told them to touch him and then he asked them for food and he ate it right in front of them.  Food that they all knew was good. Comfort food.

I went to Dallas this week to meet for the first time with some really incredible priests. I was invited to become part of a group called Urban/Suburban. The group was founded by some of the leading Rectors and Deans in the country during the Civil Rights Movement.  They gathered to support and strengthen each other in a time in which they believed that it was crucial for their churches to take a stand. They needed to know how to lead their congregations towards racial equality so they gathered alone to share each others pain. 

This was the first year that I have been invited. The Retiring Dean of the National Cathedral was there. Deans of the Cathedrals in Houston, Atlanta, San Antonio, Portland and Indianapolis were there, alongside Rectors of the largest churches in the nation.  We cried together and hugged each other and ate good food and debated things. It was really good, except for one part.

A visiting Biblical scholar came to speak to us.  He was combing through the resurrection accounts, talking about their similarities and differences, and he mentioned a woman that he had met who believed that she would get to bowl with her grandmother in heaven. (Evidently, her grandmother was quite the bowler.)  The Biblical scholar mentioned this woman and he laughed at her.

I could feel my blood beginning to boil. This man thought that her picture of heaven was inadequate, that it was child-like.  I said to him, "Do you really think that this woman was so ridiculous? Is your idea of heaven any more adequate than hers?"

Needless to say, I probably embarrassed the man, but I wonder sometimes if we intellectuals make things more complex than they need to be.  The fact is that we cannot know what heaven will be like. We only have visions from Scripture like the book of Revelation.  Jesus doesn't even try to describe heaven beyond very simple images like sitting down to a meal or walking through many rooms of a house.  Instead of trying to describe what is beyond us, he just tells us not to be afraid.  And to touch him.

Every single Sunday, when you come here to worship, you make your way down this aisle and you kneel in front of this altar.  Father Perry and I then place a small wafer in your hand.  Take this, we say.  Touch it. Taste it. We cannot explain heaven to you, but we can show it to you.  You can reach out and touch it. Open your hearts and wait for the presence of the Lord, a presence that passes all understanding, to reach out and touch you.  You will not feel that presence every time, but occasionally, when you least expect it, God will just show up.

When a tiny baby is frightened in the night, the best way to comfort the child is to hold it and feed it. Hold the child in your arms, touch the little one.  Then put something in its mouth. That way, the child will know that it is loved. No explanations can do what one small touch can do.

And when I go to the hospital, I always hold the persons hand. It is that touch that speaks more profoundly than all the words I could come up with. So simple and yet so profound.

When it comes to dying, we are like little babies in the face of the unknown. Maybe we will go bowling with our grandmothers, maybe it will be something else entirely. The truth is that we do not know and we cannot know the fullness of eternal life. Not with out limited minds, not with just our brains. 

So God has the priest touch our hands and God puts something in our mouths.

 Do not be afraid, Jesus says. Hold out your hands. Touch this wafer. Put it in your mouth.

 Don't be afraid. I am right here beside you. Just touch me.

For Kim

When we moved to Jacksonville, I was convinced that God was calling me to be the Dean of the Cathedral. This was all about me.

We moved into a rental home for the first six months here. As we were unpacking boxes, a woman came over with her grandson. They lived next door.  I introduced her to my three sons, including our youngest, Max, who was five.  This is what she said.

"My daughter, Kim, was diagnosed with aggressive cancer when her little boy was just a baby.  She is fighting for her life.  Ryan cannot have brothers or sisters. 

When I heard that the house next door was coming up for rent, I got down on my knees and I prayed to God. I asked God for a five-year-old boy to move in next door."

And there was Max, standing in our kitchen, exactly five years old.  

He and Ryan became best friends.

As the years passed, I watched from a distance as Ryan's mom, Kim, fought for her life. She and her dad would travel to Texas for the best treatments available. She would pick up her son whenever she could, plan great excursions for him even if she could not come. She was always bright and chipper on the phone. 

I later found out that she had been given six months to live when Ryan was a baby.

She died just three days ago.  Ryan is seven. And he will never forget his mom.

I have never seen love quite like hers before, a love so powerful as to defy the worst kind of disease for years. Her love is that of a mother, and it is huge.

When I found out that she died, I went for a run and cried hard. I cried for how unfair it is that she should die when I can run. I cried for her son and her parents and her husband. And as I cried, this feeling of fierce joy and love overcame me. I realized that Kim's love has grown and it continues to grow.

So she is my saint now, this woman who loves her son.  Ryan has the most beautiful voice. It seems to come straight from God. I have never heard anything like it in a child. It is as if the Holy Spirit pours out of him.

He was singing to her when she died.

And now, with all my heart, I believe that Kim lives. And she loves, forever.

Perfection

I finally broke down and bought the book, The Hunger Games. It is simply written, fast-paced and incredibly violent. But I must say, I was captivated to the end. And it was the end that fascinated me the most.

The story is about the future, when a demented government has taken over this country and divided it into twelve districts.  In order to keep control of the districts, the government enforces and once-a-year tribute called The Hunger Games. One boy and one girl, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, are chosen from each of the twelve districts. They are dressed up and paraded before the cameras like celebrities, then they are helicoptered to an amphitheater where the world watches as they are forced to battle to the death.  Young people are killing each other for sport.

The boy and girl from district 12 fall for each other and the crowds love it. When the two of them are left,  they decide to commit suicide together rather than have one of them die. And the government relents, letting both of them live.

Then the most interesting thing happens. The boy and girl are drugged and brought to a kind of treatment facility. By the time that the games are over, they are scarred and bloody. The boy has a gash so deep in his leg, he does not know if he will ever walk again. The girl has a huge cut on her forehead and multiple bruises and burns. But in this treatment facility, all their wounds are treated until they completely disappear. By the time they are released, their skin is picture perfect, like a newborn baby. They are paraded in front of the cameras as if they were not hurt by any of it. They are made perfect, as if nothing had happened at all.

Did you know that, when you look at a picture of a celebrity or movie star, more often than not, you are looking at a mirage? The stars are airbrushed, colored over by impressive computer technology. They are made to look perfect: no wrinkles, no cellulite, no blemishes or bruises, just perfect and flawless. That is what we all want to look like, right? So why not help the stars out a bit, after all, they have to do this for a living. Let's help them be beautiful.

When Jesus appeared in the resurrected form, he came to us with scars.  I find that strange, don't you? God could raise a person from death to life, surely God
could have fixed up all those messy wounds. So it must have been intentional, for Jesus to return to us with scars.  Why?

When Jesus appears, he is recognized by his wounds. It is not his face that the disciples look at, or his voice that they hear.  Jesus is identified by his scars.

When Thomas misses the first appearance, he tells his friends that he will not believe that Jesus has returned until he touches his wounds, until his puts his finger in the cuts and feels them, with his own hands. He does not say that he needs to look at Jesus' face or hear his voice, no he must touch the scars.  That is how he will know that Christ is alive.

So God kept Jesus' wounds. Because they were necessary so that people could know him.  It is our wounds that make us who we are.

I also believe that God was trying to tell us something. God was trying to tell us that resurrection is very different from perfection.

We Americans find perfection beautiful. To be without blemish, without wrinkle or scar, this is beautiful. But God does not see us this way. No, for God, it is precisely our wounds which make us beautiful. They are signs of the pain and suffering that we have had to endure, they mark our greatest lessons in life, they shape us until we are marked as Christ's own forever.

Did you really think that God found perfection beautiful? Perfection is incomplete.  No, Jesus shows us that the Resurrected Christ was marked by his wounds. His wounds marked his identity. They were good.

When you look in the mirror, consider the fact that God may find you more and more beautiful the more marked and wrinkled and scarred you are by life. Look at yourself. Your scars make you who you are, and God finds them beautiful.

Staying Me

Most of us are afraid to die. What scares us the most is oblivion, I think. We are afraid that we will simply cease to be. Many Christians who profess belief in eternal life have another fear.  We fear that we will somehow be absorbed by God, that we will live with God forever but that we will no longer be ourselves. We will become so perfected, so much a part of God that we will no longer be truly ourselves.

The answer to both of these fears is contained in the story that we will hear in just a few moments. This story addresses all of our fears. It is a story about the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus.

Mary Magdalene became a disciple the day that Jesus healed her. She was tormented by eleven demons. Her mind was not her own. She could not lead a normal life but was plagued by misery, depression and some sort of mental incapacitation. She was imprisoned in her own mind. She was in darkness. And then he came.

We do not know how Jesus cured her, whether he touched her face or spat on the ground, but I do believe that he spoke her name. He said, Mary. That is how you call someone away from their demons, from who they are not. You call them back to their true selves. So he must have spoken her God-given name, Mary.

She was born at that moment, the moment that she became free from her demons. Her life began on that day. And she wanted nothing more than to follow Jesus.

Mary was the only disciple who is present in all four of the gospel accounts at the foot of the cross. She would not leave him.  There is no disputing the fact that Mary Magdalene did not leave Jesus, not even when he was a bloody mess. She just would not leave.

When he died, she must have felt that part of her heart was extracted.  Deep grief is like that.  When your beloved dies, you feel that only a fraction of yourself remains.  Mary was encased in darkness once more. 

Early in the morning on the third day, she came to the tomb. The sun was just beginning to rise.  She came because she could not be without him, her Master.  She was drawn like a magnet.  Whether consciously or not, she thought maybe she could find a piece of herself amidst the tomb, that just being close to his body might help her feel alive again. She could not stay away.

But the tomb was wrong. The stone had been rolled away.  His body was gone.  Mary fell down weeping.  When a gardener asked her what was wrong, she said, "They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have left him."  She is grieving all over again.  Her Lord's body has even been taken away. There is nothing left.

At that moment, Jesus speaks her name: "Mary," he says.

 "Mary."

At that moment, she recognizes him.  And everything has changed.

Often people ask me, 

"Will I be myself in heaven?"

 Notice that it is when Jesus speaks Mary's name that she recognizes him. He doesn't identify himself, he identifies her. Mary. Just like when he healed her of her demons, Jesus restores her to her true self with her name.  His resurrection restores her to herself.

We are going to baptize five beautiful women, both tiny and grown, this morning.  As the sun rises, we will wash them pure and mark them as Christ's own forever.  I will say 

You are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's own forever. 

Sealed.  Marked.  Forever.  As yourself.  You are God's and you are yourself. Forever.

Once you are baptized, you will never lose yourself. You will be in a relationship with Jesus that will seal you as your true self forever.

We believe in a radical thing.  We believe that at the moment of their baptisms, these five will begin a life with God.  From this moment on, they will be alive in God, possessing a kind of eternal life that will seal them as themselves and mark them as Christ's forever.  What happens on this Easter morning can never be taken away from them.  Not even death can separate them from God and from themselves.

You will be you, perfected and in your body.  You will be you when you die.  This life is just the introduction.  We are getting ready here.  Your eternal life begins now.  Jesus rises from the tomb and he says your name.  He says your name.

The Shift

Year after up year, since I was a young child, I have lived through this Sunday, Palm Sunday, and yet I am no closer to understanding it than I was as a child. 

How could the same people who cheered for Jesus and waved palms as he rode into Jerusalem scream for his murder just a few days later? Was anyone thinking straight? How could they justify those words in their minds when they screamed, "Crucify Him!" How could they speak such hatred? How could they shout Hosanna one moment and Crucify the next?

Jesus went from being adored to being hated in a matter of days. And Jesus did not change. Jesus did nothing but speak the truth. He did nothing.

There is a shift that happened in the minds of Judas Iscariot and the Pharisees. A similar shift happened in the minds of the common people.  All of these rational people were able to move mentally from tolerance to pure hatred. What caused this shift in their minds? What brought them to the brink of insanity, to the point of justifying the murder of an innocent man? And how can we resist such a shift in our own minds?

In the garden of Eden, when we lived in harmony with God, we felt no pain or fear or anger.  But once we fell from God's grace and we faced death, fear and anger became necessary for our survival.  They are part of our broken world. But, if we are not careful, fear can turn to desperation, anger to rage, competition to revenge. Emotions that can help us survive can shift in us until our actions are misdirected and evil. But how does this shift occur?

Judas was Jesus' friend. He was a disciple.  He had followed Jesus for years. He had given up life as he knew it to follow Jesus. He loved Jesus.  And yet, when Jesus failed to take up arms against Rome, something in Judas seemed to crack. His devotion turned to hatred, scorning his Master, he handed him over to the authorities. Did Judas know that Jesus would die? We do not know. But we do know that in a matter of about three days, a disciple turned into a traitor. And the only reason for his betrayal was his deep disappointment in his Master. So for Judas, the shift came when he felt betrayed himself, when he was disappointed and his disappointment turned to rage. There is a danger for all of us, when we feel hurt or betrayed, that we do not let these feelings justify vengeance.

The Pharisees had always been threatened by Jesus. They had always hated him.  But they were religious men, men who had been taught to abhor violence, so they waited for the moment when someone else would do their dirty work.  And why did they hate Jesus? Because he did things differently and he threatened their very way of life.  Jesus told them that they were not as holy as they thought. And when a man is used to respect, he cannot stand the sting of a reprimand. The shift to murder happened for the Pharisees at the moment when they discovered that someone else would do it for them, at the moment when they discovered how Jesus could be killed without tarnishing their reputations. So we too must beware not to think too highly of ourselves.

As for the crowd, the best explanation that I have ever come across as to their shift comes from the great theologian Reinhold Neibuhr.  In his book, Moral Man, Immoral Society, Neibuhr observes how people who are good individuals can get carried away in a crowd and stop thinking.  Thus crowds are capable of much greater atrocities than the average person. The people who gathered and screamed, "Crucify!" were carried away in the exultation of a crowd.  They were angry from being oppressed for so long. They needed someone to die to appease their anger.  Someone needed to die. It was pure emotion that carried them forward, not reason. And yet, if you took each one of them individually alone to a private place and questioned them, I believe that they would not have called for Jesus' execution.  The power of a mob is like a tidal wave and they all got carried away in its power.  The shift happened because no one stopped to think. Not one single person stopped to think.

Thus the greatest injustice of all history was carried out because hundreds, perhaps even thousands of men and women shifted from adoration to violence.  And we murdered the Son of God.  We killed the best thing that ever happened to us. 

So what can we do, today? What can we do to prevent this shift from happening inside our own minds?  How can we stay aware and awake to injustice?

There are moments in all of our lives when emotions run high and injustice seems to have come upon us. It is in these crucial moments that we must stay awake, pause and pray.  The greatest defense against the shift is awareness, time and prayer. Just stay awake, pause and pray.

Awaken to the complexity of this world.  Black and white answers are often not the truth.  Simple solutions often neglect part of the problem.  Hear all the facts, look around you, give thanks for your life, and remember to breathe.

Pause because the God who moves mountains will often take decades to right a wrong. Because quick actions often involve less thought and lead to violence.  Pause because it never hurts to take a moment to just be.

And pray.  Not just with words, but try to listen to God. When people shift to sudden violence, it is often because they sense an urgency and feel that they must act now. Ask for God's guidance and ask yourself, why must I rush? 

I pray that you and I may have the strength and courage to never make our decisions based on the rashness of emotion or the rage of a crowd.  I pray that you and I will have the courage to stop, to ask questions, and to take time.