In Love there is No Judgment
Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year B)
6th May 2012
Homily Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church by the Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson
Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. Spoken Mass; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Acts 8:26 – 40; Psalm 22:25 – 31 ; 1 John 4:7 – 21 ; John 15:1 – 8

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

“God is love.” People often quote this striking line from today’s epistle (1 John 4:16). But they rarely quote the great insight about human nature that immediately follows:

God is Love
and the person who lives in love
lives in God and God lives in that person.
It is in this way that our love has reached perfection.
As a result we are open and confident on Judgment Day
because already in this world we are like Christ.
Love has no room for fear;
Rather, perfect love drives out fear,
for fear involves punishment.
Love has not reached perfection in one who is still afraid.
But as for us, we love because He loved us first. (1 John 4:16-19)

The logic of the passage depends on this insight: “In love, there is no judgment.”

As people who love and are loved, most love we experience is flawed. It is distorted by our demands and by the conditions we place on it. And so it is often rejected, or turns toxic.

When our daughter was at college, she went through a rough time. She stopped communicating with us. Through a lot of hard work, she got back on track. She came home for a holiday and we reconnected. At a joyful moment in private, we reassured her of our love, and said how proud we were of her.

Her body suddenly stiffened; her face went taut. Then she said caustically, “Mom and Dad, I’m glad I meet your approval.”

We were only trying to express love, but all she felt was our appraising her progress, measuring her performance. We loved her, and couldn’t help but want “the best” for her. So our love was mixed necessarily with our judgment of what was best for her, and this judgment of ours provoked fear in her. Things are much better now. But the experience is common, and tells us about love.

Think of times when you have loved or been loved. Think of any kind of love you have experienced—that of a friend, a sibling, a parent, a child, a romantic lover, or even just that of a fellow human being.

When was that love at its best? Wasn’t it always when the love was there simply because of love itself, not because of some need met, some desire realized, or some standard fulfilled?

Think of when love went horribly wrong. Maybe it turned to hatred or loathing, or became abusive in some way. Wasn’t the problem always at root some kind of judgment, condemnation, or criticism?

How many of us have heard the following words where once there had been only words of joyful love? “Stop judging me.” “She is always trying to change me.” “I wish you would take me just as I am.” “Why do you always have to be so critical?” “I love you, but I can’t be with you. It’s just too painful.”

When Saint Paul said, “Love never fails” (1 Cor. 12:8), he was describing love as it ought to be, not as it appears in these harsh words.

We seem to be made in such a way that so far as our emotional selves are concerned, love is incompatible with judgment and fear. If mixed, love is rejected or corrupted. Even a whiff of evaluation will turn an expression of love and approval sour through fear of not measuring up.

That’s why one of the basic principles of counseling is to listen without judging. You cannot build trust as a counselor if you judge.

It’s why most conscious efforts at “tough love” generally only alienate their object.

It’s why Jesus taught us to love, and not to judge.

But wait a minute: Isn’t Jesus going to be our judge? He loves us. How can there be no judgment in love?

Even when we talk about God and Christ, there is no room in love for judgment. At least, that’s how it feels.

When I was a student at the Catholic University of America, I prayed regularly in the nearby National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The main nave is cavernous. On the ceiling above the high altar is an immense mosaic of Christ on the Day of Judgment. As you look up, he peers down at you accusingly, eyes ablaze in anger.

Looking up at that mosaic, I always felt condemned, and bound for hell. I always retreated to the crypt church in the basement for prayer. That mosaic was just too threatening. I just couldn’t pray to Jesus for mercy in the nave.

The Day of Judgment is an important part of the Church’s teaching about justice and moral responsibility. But these doctrines do not require us to take the image of God’s wrath more literally than we take the image of God’s love.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “If anyone hears me and doesn’t obey me, I don’t judge and condemn him. For I have come to save the world and not to judge it.” On the last day, it will not be me doing the judging, he says, “it will be the truth I have spoken that will judge all who reject me and my message” (John 12: 47-48).

C.S. Lewis describes this by saying that in the end, there will be only two kinds of people, those who have said to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God must finally say, “Alright, have it your own way.”

The Day of Judgment does not mean that God’s love, like human love, is corrupted by judgment and bound to produce fear. When we say “Christ will come again to be our judge” in the creed, we affirm God’s love and mercy, not God’s harsh judgment.

But wait—in this life we have to judge. What if the person we love is doing really bad things? Aren’t we obliged to help? And doesn’t this include recognition of standards?

There are non-judgmental ways of responding to real problems. We don’t accuse or say “you are wrong here.” We talk about how the person’s behavior affects us. We are honest about our feelings, but we don’t try to apply labels. Couples and family counselors regularly teach people how to address real problems fairly. Usually it involves use of the formula: “I feel [fill in the emotion] when you [fill in the behavior] because [fill in how the person’s behavior causes your feeling.]

Just trying not to judge or not to get angry because Jesus taught us this simply won’t do. We end up doing both anyway, and usually alienate ourselves from our own emotional lives to the degree that we disengage from others. That is not love. That is emotional death.

In today’s epistle reading, John doesn’t say simply that love is incompatible with fear and judgment. He says that perfect love drives out fear. It heals the hurt caused by judgment and in its stead gives openness, frankness, and confidence.

In today’s epistle, it is only as we seek to love, and remain in love, that we live in God and God lives in us. He gives us his spirit. As a result, our love is made more and more complete. In the end, our love ends up being like God’s, even here and now.

Paul calls this process “sanctification.”

Today’s gospel describes it in the image of Christ as the true vine and believers as his branches.

The reading today from Acts describes one of the historical effects of this—greater and greater inclusion of others. Although the Law said the Ethiopian Eunuch was unclean and beyond the pale, and though he probably made Philip uneasy, Philip does not judge. In light of gratitude and grace, in the presence of Love that does not judge, there is no impediment. “Here is water, what is to prevent me from being baptized?” indeed….

Such practice in love must start in love. If it starts through a sense of obligation because of fear of condemnation, it won’t last. That is just going through the motions of love. This is better than not going through the motions. But unless it finds it can root itself in love, even this effort at imitating Christ is bound to corrupt itself and end in contempt and cynicism.

Gratitude for perfect love freely given is the only sure beginning point. Just as the human heart cannot feel love and judgment at the same time, it cannot be full of gratitude at the same time as judgment and resentment.
In this week’s mid-week message, I talked about transformative Love, and how important it is to know that God is crazy about us, and to bask in the love of God. I got a great response to the message; clearly I had touched a nerve. Many of us feel God is disappointed in us, or is angry with us, that God is judging us.

But Jesus teaches us that God is our loving Father, better than any parent we have ever known. Knowledge of this produces gratitude in our hearts, not a sense of not measuring up.

Trying to build love on anything other than gratitude is like my mother telling me and my brother as little boys to hug, forgive each other, and make up after a particularly nasty fight. We would sullenly go through the motions, and spit out the words. She would say “Now do it again and MEAN it.” Love cannot come from being commanded. It can only come from the gratitude from being loved first.

John describes this: “In this, then, does love consist: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent his son as a means to drive away our failings.” (1 John 4:10).

Friends, God is Love. Our love is imperfect, corrupted by fear and judgment, and often fails. But God’s love is perfect. He has loved us, pathetic creatures that we are, through coming to us in the person of Jesus. And Jesus did not come to judge us. He came to save us. May we be grateful for this, and be transformed by our gratitude. May we let him perfect our love and drive away our fear.

In the name of God, Amen.

Crazy About You

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message May 2, 2012

As we continue our path through the great Fifty Days of Easter, we are reading many passages in the Eucharistic Lectionary as well as the Daily Office Lectionary about our new identities in Christ.

You may have noticed that instead of “Glory to God in the Highest” as our Gathering Song of Praise, each Sunday in Easter we have been singing the Canticle Pascha Nostrum, a stringing together of several of Paul’s poetic descriptions of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 5:7-8; Romans 6:9-11; and 1 Corinthians 15:20-22):

Alleluia.
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us;
therefore let us keep the feast,

Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Alleluia.

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again;
death no longer has dominion over him.

The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all;
but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So also consider yourselves dead to sin,
and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Alleluia.

Christ has been raised from the dead,
the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For since by a man came death,
by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die,
so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Alleluia.

The idea is that we have died to our old selves and now are alive, and have new identities in the Resurrected Lord.

When it comes to identities, whether old or new, it is important to ask ourselves who exactly we think we are and what we think others think of us. Note in this regard the comments by Psychologist David Benner in his book Surrender to Love about what God thinks of us:

“Imagine God thinking about you. What do you assume God feels when you come to mind? When I ask people to do this, a surprising number of people say that the first thing they assume God feels is disappointment. Others assume that God feels anger. In both cases, these people are convinced that it is their sin that first catches God’s attention. I think they are wrong- and I think the consequences of such a view of God are enormous. …

“Regardless of what you have come to believe about God based on your life experience, the truth is that when God thinks of you, love swells in his heart and a smile comes to his face. God bursts with love for humans. He is far from being emotionally uninvolved with his creation. God’s bias toward us is strong, persistent and positive. The Christian God chooses to be known as Love, and that love pervades every aspect of God’s relationship with us. …

“If you assume God looks at you with disgust, disappointment, frustration or anger, the central feature of any spiritual response to such a God will be an effort to earn his approval. … How could anyone expect to feel safe enough to relax in the presence of a God who is preoccupied with their shortcomings and failures? …

“Genuinely encountering Love is not the same as inviting Jesus into your heart, joining or attending a church, or doing what Jesus commands. It is the experience of love that is transformational. You simply cannot bask in divine love and not be affected.”

Jesus victory over evil and death on Easter changes the game for all of us. That is why Paul says “even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Do you believe in a God that loves you, that is crazy about you? Is the God you imagine in your heart as overwhelmingly bursting with kind feelings, loving concern, and affection for you as the one suggested by Jesus in the parable of the Loving Father (the one with the Prodigal Son)? If this idea is difficult for you to feel and accept in your heart, whether because of some theological habit or personal burden, that means something is amiss. I stand ready to talk with you in private about it, share experience and listen to yours, and pray with you.

With the spring now here, and warmer weather, many of us are wearing shorter clothes and taking time to bask in the sunshine. As part of your spiritual discipline this week, take time this week to simply bask in God’s love for a few minutes as well.

–Fr. Tony+

[Thanks to the Rev. Jemma Allen and the Rev. Andrew Coyle for bringing this passage from Benner to my attention.]

One Flock, One Shepherd
Easter 4B
29 April 2012; 8:00 a.m. Said Mass and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Homily Delivered by the Rev. Dr. Anthony A. Hutchinson
at Trinity Episcopal Church
Ashland, Oregon
Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18

“The day after they had arrested Peter and John for teaching about Jesus and the resurrection, the rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’ There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:5-12)

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh. Amen

We have been having a lot of funerals here at Trinity in the last weeks. At a couple of them we have used as the Gospel reading the passage from John 14, where Jesus says that in his Father’s House there are many way stations. The passage is warm, reassuring, and comforting. It ends with Jesus saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father, except by me” (John14: 6). One of the deacons asked me somewhat abashedly if she could read the Gospel but end the reading before that last half-verse, “no one comes to the Father except by me.” “It might be offensive to some of the visiting bereaved, who might not be Christians.”

She asked as if she were afraid my response might be “But this is the BIBLE we are talking about here, and I’ll not have a verse of GOD’S WORD edited out because it might be offensive to those who are going to destruction anyway!” But she asked it anyway, because she knew that I am no fundamentalist, and believe that in order to be understood, God’s word on occasion needs to be reframed or even rephrased.

Today’s Gospel reading, shares the same problem. “I am the Good Shepherd” Jesus says, not “a good shepherd.” And he adds, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Likewise, in the Acts reading, St. Peter ends his short speech on Christ being the stone once rejected but now made head cornerstone by saying, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”

We here at Trinity Church glory in the fact that we are inclusive. One of our core values is hospitality. We believe that inclusiveness and hospitality are what God calls us to. We believe that because of what scripture teaches us.

During the life of Jesus, everyone knew that one of the great images of the Hebrew scripture for God’s saving act at the end of time was that of a great banquet. Even though there were plenty of passages that said, like Isaiah 25:7, that this banquet would be for people of all nations, many of the religious teachers around Jesus taught that this would be an exclusive event limited to a few of God’s chosen only.

Jesus replies to such a stingy image of God with parables. He points to the weather and says that God gives his rain and sunshine to both good and bad people alike (Matt. 5:45). He says this tells us about God’s love for all and should be a model for us in how we treat others. Jesus points to families and notes that when children ask for bread to eat, parents do not give them stones, or when they ask for an egg to eat, do not give them a scorpion. “If even average parents try to give their children good things, how much more generous will God be?” (Matt. 7:9-10; Luke 11:11-13)

Jesus’ actions matched his words. He regularly ate and drank with people that his religion told him would make him unclean. He had dinner parties with drunkards and prostitutes, much to the horror of Jesus’ “righteous” opponents. “It is the sick who need a doctor,” he would say, “not healthy people.” (Matt. 9:12)

But not everyone wanted a God as generous as the one Jesus described. They would quote scriptures that “proved” God was picky and exclusive. Jesus would reply by quoting other scriptures, where God looked more loving.

Jesus reserved his deepest anger for people he accused of “refusing to enter God’s door, and also barring the way to others” (Matt 23:13). He told other parables to explain why it was that despite God’s overwhelming goodness and generosity, some people were right with God and others were not. The ones who were not truly thankful for God’s generosity, and were not likewise generous to others, were the butt of such parables (Luke 18:10-14).

When Jesus described what he believed the dividing line on the Last Day will be between those who stand and dwell with God and those who do not, he said that it was whether people had been hospitable, and whether they had cared for the marginalized (Matthew 5: 35-40).

So inclusiveness and hospitality are core to the Gospel, not just affectations of Trinity Ashland.

What, then, are we to make of the verses of the New Testament that seem exclusionary?

Here in post-modern America, with its wide diversity of religious and non-religious traditions, it is always a temptation to simply ignore these verses or deny that they hold any truth or value. In a landscape of radical diversity, all religious options seem equally valid, valuable, and true, with the exception of views that exclude or subordinate others, or claim unique truth or authenticity. This often finds expression in a consumer’s approach to religious belief: pick and choose those things of religion—any religion—that appeal to you, that suit you, and moosh them all together into your particular faith. “I’m spiritual but not religious” is a common tag line of such boutique faith. A little bit of Christianity, of Buddhism, of mystic Islam or Judaism, stripped of their authoritative claims or difficult doctrines, of their craziness, and you can arrive at a pleasant blend all your own, like some customized pipe tobacco or drug stash.

To those who might find boutique religion attractive, it is important to remember wise words from the Dalai Lama. He says that if you take a little of this faith and mix it with a little of that one, you have neither the one nor the other and cannot be properly formed by either. You never will sink your roots deeply enough into a single tradition to truly grow and mature spiritually. It is only when you sink your roots deep, with an open heart and mind, and acquire some spiritual maturity that you can “branch out” and truly enjoy the fruits of another tradition. “If you are Christian it is better to develop spiritually within your religion and be a genuine, good Christian. If you are a Buddhist, be a genuine Buddhist.” (H.H. the Dalai Lama, The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus, p. 46).

Historically, the Church has read these verses and taught that Christ is the sole savior. This usually entails claims that other faiths are deficient, and are only true or valid in the degree that they copy or agree with elements of Christian faith. The most exclusionary form of this for the Roman Church has been the doctrine of extra ecclesiam nulla salus (“outside of the Church, there is no salvation”). Protestants have their own form of the doctrine, based on Romans 10:9. Paul’s “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” in this view becomes, “unless you declare this with your mouth and believe this in your heart, you will not be saved.

But this exclusionary doctrine has undergone a great shift in the last 40 years, primarily due to the work of Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner, who developed the doctrine of the Anonymous Christian. The idea is that a person can live in God’s grace and attain salvation through Jesus even outside explicitly constituted or stated Christianity. If a person, say a Buddhist nun or a Muslim imam, tries to do the right thing, be right with whatever God they conceive of, and follow his or her conscience, that person might be considered an anonymous Christian and be saved through Jesus’ victory over death and sin. They would not have to explicitly accept Jesus or Christianity, or might even, because of circumstances and constraints, have rejected these explicitly. But God’s universal salvific will and the greatness of God’s grace would save them too.

The idea of the Anonymous Christian was promulgated as official Roman Catholic doctrine in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

The idea is also found among Protestants. The final book of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, has the character Emeth, a Calormene prince who had fought against Aslan and Narnia and served his own god, Tash. He has done his best to live uprightly within the traditions he as raised in. In the end, Aslan receives him as one of his own with these words, “I and [Tash] are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him.”

The doctrine is also found in our Prayer Book, where we pray, “Remember all who died in the peace of Christ, and those whose faith is known to you alone; bring them into the place of eternal joy and light” (p. 375).

Some have criticized this effort at Christian inclusivity saying that it is condescending. “I’m Jewish, thank you very much, and do not want to become Christian, even anonymously” expresses the idea. These critics say that a tradition is truly inclusive only when it recognizes that other traditions have truly separate paths and confesses that these too are valid, without need for any “anonymous” adoption into our tradition.

There is, however, a prior issue here. The verses that Christians use to endorse exclusivist claims, when examined carefully, don’t actually teach the doctrine of exclusive, brand-conscious religious truth. They are concerned, rather, with something else. Remember that Paul in Romans did not write, “if you don’t confess and believe, you won’t be saved.”

Take also the verse at the end of today’s Acts reading: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” That phrasing should strike you as odd if indeed what Peter had meant to say was “there is no other name by which we can be saved.” The problem is starker in the Greek of the passage, which says “by which it is necessary for us to be saved.” The context of the verse provides the clue necessary for us to see what it is actually trying to say: Peter is answering the authorities’ question of how, or under whose authority (“by whose name”) he has performed a miracle. In verse 9, Peter says he is explaining “how this man has been healed.” The word healed translates the verb sosthenai, “to be saved,” the same verb he uses when he says “there is only one name given under heaven by which we must be saved.” The logic of the argument in the passage requires that the verses in question mean something like this: It is through Jesus’ name that we healed this man. Such healing does not come from just anywhere. For Jesus is the only one God has ever raised from the dead. Thus, if you use his name, you just have to be healed. You can’t say that about any other name that I know of.”

Similarly, when Jesus in John says “I am the Good Shepherd, … and there will be one flock and one shepherd,” this is more an affirmation of the reliability of Jesus and an exuberant expression of how good this is, not how deficient others might be. Though the text contrasts this model shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep with other “hireling” false shepherds, it chooses the Greek word for “one” that means “one among many” (heis) rather than the Greek word for “one and only one” (monos).

We often lose the point of the image of the model shepherd: shepherds, to be effective, need to establish a caring relationship with their sheep, being attentive to their various wanderings, bad choice of plants to eat, and the first signs of sickness. It is the quality of the relationship with Jesus experienced by the believer that is at heart of the Good Shepherd image, and lies behind all the passages that might be construed as exclusionary.

This is why we should not ignore these verses or believe they have nothing to teach us.

We who have experienced the joy and sweetness of being shepherded by Jesus are bound by the quality of that experience of faith to share it with others. But this is sharing, not sales promotion or brow beating, and must be based in the joy of our experience and our love for others, not some silly and misdirected fear that somehow they won’t be saved or blessed by God if they aren’t like us. And this joyful sharing to which our experience and God calls us can only be cheapened if it is linked to a looking down our noses at the experience and faith of others as deficient or inadequate.

Bishop and theologian Krister Stendahl once said that Christ calls us Christians to be the kind of people that others want to be around, not to constantly harp at others to become like us. We must so show the joy of the good news that others will wonder at and want what we have, whether in their own tradition or by adopting ours.

St. Francis said that we should preach the Gospel at all times and in all places, and only occasionally open our mouths to do so.

That is why I told the deacon to go ahead and not use that half verse.  “I am the way, the life and the truth” was sufficient for our purposes at the funerals, and “no one comes to the Father except by me” raised far too many questions with little time to answer them. I happen to agree that it is almost inconceivable to experience God as Father in as an intensely personal way as Christians do apart from a faith in Christ as the Son of God.  But that does not mean that God is not at work in other faiths.

May the love of the Good Shepherd, the power of this Jesus who calls us into relationship both with him and with those who differ from us, help us be the more respectful of others, and more intent listeners when their stories diverge from ours.

In the name of Christ, Amen.

Memorial Service for Dean Ritchie will be Saturday, April 28 at 4 p.m.

Sunday forum Series   End Game: The Book of Living and Dying continues this Sunday at 9:00 a.m. This is session three of five successive Sunday forums.  Today’s forum will be “A Christian Perspective on Living and Dying” led by Fr. Tony.

Evening Prayer Sunday night at 5:00 p.m.

The Outreach Funding Committee will be receiving presentations from direct service providers requesting donations from Trinity Church, on Saturday, May 12th from 9:00 a.m. to noon. Parishioners are invited to contact their favorite charities to let them know of this request for proposals and to advise them to contact Becky Snow at 541-708-5155 for details and to arrange a place on the schedule at one of these meetings. Parishioners may also make a presentation on behalf of their favorite charity. The committee is particularly looking for entities that provide direct services to those in need and are 501(c)(3) corporations.

Tickets for the Trinity Choir’s Spring Follies, “Bonnie Scotland” will be on sale this Sunday after both the 8:00 a.m. and 10 a.m. services. The event is Saturday, May 19th, 2012 at 4:30 p.m. Join the choir and guest musicians for afternoon tea with shortbread plus a varied and enjoyable program of Scottish music. Tickets are $20 each, with proceeds helping to fund special music at Trinity.

Saturday, May 5^th The Massed Handbell Choirs of the Siskiyou Summit Handbell Conference along with the Rogue Valley Peace Choir present an evening of music organized around a peace theme.  The Peace Choir will join the massed bell choirs on Song of Peace and present a set of songs on their own.  Also featured is Low Ding Zone, a Handbell Ensemble that plays arrangements of music on the Low Bass Bells, an experience not to be missed.  The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Ashland Middle School Large Gym (100 Walker Ave, Ashland). Admission is Free. Donations Accepted.

Additional Drivers Needed for Food and Friends  For years many Trinitarians have delivered meals to those who need our assistance. Their devotion to this important Outreach project is much appreciated, but we are always looking for additional drivers. Trinitarians deliver meals on Mondays from 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. every month of the year. This program is provided to those who are 60 years and over and homebound. Most clients have a long-term need for the meals but some are recuperating from a hospital stay or a bout of bad health and require the service for a few weeks. The hot meals are picked up at the Senior Center near Walker School and delivered by volunteer drivers from Trinity on Monday mornings throughout the year.  The schedule is posted in the Parish Hall next to the Library door and drivers are needed for June through December. Speak to those who have been driving and discover how easy and rewarding it is to provide this service to our community. Contact Stewart and Anne McCollom (482-3356) or Maggie and Tim McCartney (488-5276) if you have any questions. Thank you!

 Empty Bowls Supper – Enjoy a Simple Meal – Feed your Family and Others

Friday, May 11  5-7 p.m.

First United Methodist Church

Wesley Hall

175 North Main at Laurel Street

A Benefit for Food Angels, Uncle Foods Diner

and ACCESS

 You are invited to a supper of delicious soup, fun, conversation AND to take home a lovely handmade bowl crafted by a local potter. The bowl goes home as a gift as well as an unspoken reminder that somewhere someone’s bowl is empty. Cost is $25.00 with children under 12 FREE. Buy tickets on line at www.peacehouse.net/empty-bowls or at Paddington Station and Northwest Nature Shop. Prepaid ticket holders have access to the event early from 4:00-5:00 p.m. to ensure the best bowl selection. Door ticket sales begin at 5 p.m. Entertainment by guitarist Ty Austin. Surprise Celebrity Waiters and Servers. If you would like to donate bowls or volunteer, please contact Peace House at info@peacehouse.net

THIS WEEK

Luke 24:36b-48

Trinity Church, Ashland

April 22, 2012

The Reverend Tom Murphy

I know what you’re thinking!!  You’re thinking, “Didn’t we just have a lolapalooza new ministry celebration a couple days ago for our new Rector – so what’s this guy doing here?!!  Well, calm down – I want to assure you that Fr. Tony is not sloughing off or just taking it easy  -  although after what’s been going on around here in the past several weeks, who could blame him for wanting to!!  He is, in fact, performing a crucial part of his ministry of Christian formation, in that he is at St. Mark’s Parish in Medford this morning presenting a lovely young woman, Elizabeth Boggess, to Bishop Hanley for confirmation.  Fr. Tony has been giving Elizabeth instruction these past several weeks to prepare her to receive this sacrament of Baptismal re-affirmation and Christian commitment – and today’s the day – so Fr. Tony is doing an incredibly important piece of work! – and he asked me to take today’s liturgies here at Trinity, which, of course, I am delighted and honored to do!!  It’s wonderful and encouraging for all of us to see – as we have this Easter at Trinity – adults presenting themselves for the sacraments of Christian initiation and re-affirmation  -  it’s happening at St. Mark’s, too, I’m pleased to report  -  folks in their full maturity saying “yes!” to the call of Christian discipleship – and in the strengthening knowledge that it has been the life and worship and prayer and love of the people of God in the community of faith that has been instrumental in bringing these marvelous folks to moments of life-changing decision  -  and their decisions can be an incentive for the renewal of Christian discipleship commitment for all of us  -  in this season of renewed life in the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord  -  a celebration which is not just one day – but goes on for 50 days, although in perhaps a more subdued, but hopefully still quietly exultant way  – ( and for me, as I suspect for many of you, it’s the music of Easter that does it.)

What a scene it must have been in that upper room  that first Easter!!  People falling all over each other trying to tell their experience of seeing the Risen Christ, when, all of  sudden, there He was!!  Wasn’t just a story, a report, somebody else’s words  anymore  -  there He was  -  they could see Him and hear Him and touch Him and watch Him eat a piece of fish!!  -  and it was too much for them  -  they just couldn’t at first believe it  -  and who can criticize them for that?!!  The King James version of this event catches it perfectly in the stunning phrase – “they believed not, for joy!!”  Spiritual whiplash of the most profound kind!  To go, in an instant, from the depths of despair and sorrow and loss, to the unimaginable heights of ecstasy and joy!!  The thing that couldn’t happen in a million years, was happening right before their overwhelmed sight!!  How I wish we could recapture even a tiny vestige of that exultation in our Easter worship of today  -  and maybe we do, perhaps just for a precious moment!!

Those first Christian forebears of ours in that upper room had a physical, sensible experience of the risen Jesus – they could see him, and touch him, and hear him with their bodies -and they had to have that, or else they would have been lost – there was no other way for them to come to believe that He was really alive – no memory, no concept, no idea, no doctrine would have been in any way powerful enough to raise them out of their guilt-ridden despond, and their terrible fear that the Romans might be coming to get them next!  No, they had to have a physical, sensible, bodily experience of the risen Christ  -   and – so do we!!   No memories, no concepts, no doctrines, no recollections, no ideas – Him – physical,  bodily contact with Him – is what we need, and, hopefully, want.  How do we do that?! How do we know that Jesus is really alive, really here, really with us – and that all he said, and did, and was and is true – and, moreover, that 2000 years of Christian testimony about what He means for all of life is true and not just a idle tale!?  I don’t know about you, but that’s the ultimate question for me.  Maybe you’re not like this – and if you’re not, you’re probably lucky!  but I am burdened with the curse of specificity, particularity and functionality  -  I want to know the nuts and bolts – how it works – what difference, if any, it makes.  How do I – how do we – experience the real, physical presence of the risen Christ?!

I guess, in the first place, I choose to believe that the Apostolic witness – such as we hear on these Easter Sundays – is true – to believe that, in spite of the disturbing variations in the several accounts of the resurrection, and the challenge to belief they present, and despite the blitzkrieg of modern contemptuous skepticism that is leveled against them – I choose to believe that what they saw and experienced – though it causes me a certain amount of spiritual whip-lash! – that what they say is true and real.  When I begin every sermon with a variation of the collect for St. Bartholomew’s Day, and pray that the Church may love what the Apostles believed, and preach what they taught – it’s a cry of desperation for me!!

Some time ago I read a little blurb in the Christian Century – it’s a center-left journal of modern religious life – it reported the comment of some observer of the contemporary religious scene who said that it had come to be his view that the reason the Protestant churches were not doing too well, and were not growing, was that they had abandoned the idea of transubstantiation!!  and this guy was not a Roman Catholic – well, I was quite astonished when I read that, and impacted, too, I must admit – though I don’t believe the answer for us is a reversion to some outmoded medieval sacramental theology that smacks of magic  -  I think our own tradition is perfectly adequate – a sacramental tradition that assures us simply, humbly, reverently -  in a way that is full of mystery and miracle, but never magic -

assures us that when the People of God gather and the Apostolic witness is read and cherished – and the bread is broken and the wine is blessed – and while it is the voice of the priest who may be the leader, it is in fact the whole assembly who break and bless and offer – the community is the celebrant, not just the officiant – when that is done – we are taught to believe – when that is done  -  He is there in the midst  – really, truly, actually, physically, mysteriously, inexplicably but really there, really h e r e  - not because we are so clever, or so virtuous, or so smart, or so perfect – or because we say just the right words and make just the right gestures  -  but simply because He loves us so much and wants so eagerly to be with us -  and give us and fill us and change us into His divine life for this world and the world to come.

I hope we might have the courage and the bravery, in an age of ambiguity, vagueness, relativism and uncertainty – an age and a culture which seems to have pushed God to the edges – that we might have the courage to affirm these realities of God’s drawing near – and do it without belligerence or arrogance!

I go back for strength in these things to the Mothers and Fathers of the early Church whose words and thoughts and experiences and expressions and even arguments made Christianity what it is and formed and fashioned our Holy Faith, whose words bless us down to this present hour and who are with us now, and who – as the writer to the Hebrews so powerfully proclaims – surround us like a cloud of witnesses.  In the middle of the 4th century, in a treatise on the Trinity, Blessed Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers in what is now France made this amazing statement,  “We believe that the Word became flesh and that we receive his flesh in the Lord’s Supper.  How then can we fail to believe that he really dwells within us?  In the sacrament of his body he actually gives us his own flesh, which he has united to his divinity.”  A hundred years later, Bl. Leo the Great, the Bp. of Rome in a homily on the Ascension, makes this at once utterly ordinary and at the same time, to me, astonishing statement.  Leo says, “And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments!”  Without explanation or definition, and content to dwell in divine mystery, we believe that Christ is really here, and that we really touch him!!

A contemporary of Hilary’s was a man named Cyril.   He was the Bishop of Jerusalem in the late 4th century.  Cyril is the one who invented the Holy Week and Easter liturgies, which eventually spread throughout the whole Church.  When we observe those liturgies, as we have only recently done here, we honor Cyril and we continue what he started.  In one of his instructions to those who had been Baptized at the Great Vigil of Easter – mostly adults – Cyril makes this remarkable statement – “Having been ‘baptized into Christ’ . . . being therefore made ‘partakers of Christ’ , you are properly called Christs, . . . now you were made Christs, by receiving the emblem of the Holy Spirit. . .”

So finally, and with equal mystery and aspect of the miraculous – if you want also to know how to touch Christ – where Christ’s real body in this world is  -  look in the mirror!  Touch one another – appropriately, of course!!  The real presence of Christ is surely in the Sacrament of the altar – the real presence of Christ is just as surely living in the sacramental presence of those who gather around the altar – again, solely because He has willed it to be so!

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, . . . .”

Memorial Service for Dean Ritchie will be Saturday, April 28 at 4:00 p.m.

Sunday forum Series   End Game: The Book of Living and Dying will begin this Sunday at 9:00 a.m. The series will be five successive Sunday forums.  The April 22^nd forum will be the film “Consider the Conversation”.  John Sanders will lead the forum.

Evening Prayer Sunday, April 22^nd  at 5:00 p.m.

The Other Trinity Book Group will meet on April 26th at 5:30 p.m. in the Library to conclude our discussion of Richard Rohr’s book The Naked Now: Seeing as the Mystics See. We will focus on the last part of the book and hopefully will have a discussion with people from the Congregational Church who have also been reading this book. Even if you have not read the book completely, come for the discussion.

The Outreach Funding Committee will be receiving presentations from direct service providers requesting donations from Trinity Church, on Wednesday, April 25^th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., and on Saturday, May 12 from 9:00 a.m. to noon. Parishioners are invited to contact their favorite charities to let them know of this request for proposals and to advise them to contact Becky Snow at 541-708-5155 for details and to arrange a place on the schedule at one of these meetings. Parishioners may also make a presentation on behalf of their favorite charity. The committee is particularly looking for entities that provide direct services to those in need and are 501(c)(3) corporations.

Ashland Elks will use the Trinity Parish Hall on Friday morning, April 27^th as one of the locations for their State Convention.  Also the Elks parking lot will be restricted parking for convention delegates only from Wednesday through Saturday.

Additional Drivers Needed for Food and Friends.  For years many Trinitarians have delivered meals to those who need our assistance. Their devotion to this important Outreach project is much appreciated, but we are always looking for additional drivers. Trinitarians deliver meals on Mondays from 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. every month of the year. This program is provided to those who are 60 years and over and homebound. Most clients have a long-term need for the meals but some are recuperating from a hospital stay or a bout of bad health and require the service for a few weeks. The hot meals are picked up at the Senior Center near Walker School and delivered by volunteer drivers from Trinity on Monday mornings throughout the year.  The schedule is posted in the Parish Hall next to the Library door and drivers are needed for June through December. Speak to those who have been driving and discover how easy and rewarding it is to provide this service to our community. .Contact Stewart and Anne McCollom (482-3356) or Maggie and Tim McCartney (488-5276) if you have any questions. Thank you!

 Empty Bowls Supper – Enjoy a Simple Meal – Feed your Family and Others

Friday, May 11  5:00-7:00 p.m.   

First United Methodist Church     Wesley Hall               

 175 North Main at Laurel Street

A Benefit for Food Angels, Uncle Foods

Diner and ACCESS

 You are invited to a supper of delicious soup, fun, conversation AND to take home a lovely handmade bowl crafted by a local potter. The bowl goes home as a gift as well as an unspoken reminder that somewhere someone’s bowl is empty. Cost is $25.00 with children under 12 FREE. Buy tickets on line at www.peacehouse.net/empty-bowls or at Paddington Station and Northwest Nature Shop. Prepaid ticket holders have access to the event early from 4-5 p.m. to ensure the best bowl selection. Door ticket sales begin at 5:00 p.m. Entertainment by guitarist Ty Austin. Surprise Celebrity Waiters and Servers. If you would like to donate bowls or volunteer, please contact Peace House.

 THIS WEEK

Apr 22	9:00a		Forum
Apr 24	8:30a		Sewing Group in Parish Hall
Apr 24	11:00a		Parish Nurse Office Hours
Apr 25	8:00a		Trinity Trekkers
Apr 25	6:30p		Outreach Funding Presentations
Apr 26	9:30a		Parish Nurse Office Hours
Apr 26	10:30a		Bible Study
Apr 26	Noon		Holy Eucharist and Healing
Apr 26	7:00p		Choir Rehearsal
Apr 28	4:00p		Funeral for Dean Ritchie

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message
April 19, 2012

On the occasion of my institution as Rector, I wanted to share one of my favorite prayers.

A Song of Christ’s Goodness
Anselm of Canterbury

Jesus, as a mother you gather your people to you; *
you are gentle with us as a mother with her children.
Often you weep over our sins and our pride, *
tenderly you draw us from hatred and judgment.
You comfort us in sorrow and bind up our wounds, *
in sickness you nurse us and with pure milk you feed us.
Jesus, by your dying, we are born to new life; *
by your anguish and labor we come forth in joy.
Despair turns to hope through your sweet goodness; *
through your gentleness, we find comfort in fear.
Your warmth gives life to the dead, *
your touch makes sinners righteous.
Lord Jesus, in your mercy, heal us; *
in your love and tenderness, remake us.
In your compassion, bring grace and forgiveness, *
for the beauty of heaven, may your love prepare us.

Peace and Grace,

–Fr. Tony+

It is wonderful to be asked to preach on such an auspicious occasion as tonight. My thanks, therefore, to your new rector, the Reverend Doctor Anthony Hutchinson, for the privilege of taking my place in this pulpit before you this evening. It is, indeed, an honor and a delight.

We who are gathered here this evening are participating in what is technically known as “The Celebration of a New Ministry”… and, lest we miss the point, it’s not just one person’s ministry, but the celebration of a ministry shared among all the people of God in this place. We’re in this together, none of us ever completely alone. And the readings chosen for our consideration this evening make the point in varied and memorable ways.

In particular, I just LOVE the first reading we heard this evening, those verses from the opening chapter of the Book of Ruth. Now, in case you didn’t know, this is NOT one of the passages typically chosen for such an occasion as this, but it is such an inspired choice.

In that reading, of course, we hear the powerful, poignant moment when Ruth chooses to throw in her lot with her mother-in-law, Naomi:

Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die— there will I be buried.

Ruth 1:16b-17a

In that moment, Ruth holds nothing back. She gives herself over entirely. And it marks a new beginning for both of them. A new day. And even though we don’t hear what happens next, we know that this must be a pivotal moment; a new story will be written from this moment on. And neither Naomi nor Ruth will have to write that story alone.

The relevance of that moment to tonight’s celebration is, I trust, obvious. This, too, is a new beginning for both parties involved. A new day. And though we cannot know what happens next, we know that this, too, is a pivotal moment; a new story is being written from this moment on. But, again, it isn’t a story that Tony writes alone. It is one that the people of God in this place will write together.

There’s a parallel between these stories – the story of Ruth and this new one here tonight. But there’s a difference, too. While we gather here tonight on a festive occasion and in an optimistic mood, Ruth made her commitment to her mother-in-law under less auspicious circumstances.

Their story begins with so much devastating loss. Naomi first came to Moab with Elemelech, her husband, to escape famine and hard times back home, but Elemelech died there on foreign soil. Their two sons married local girls, but then they, too, died, leaving Naomi overwhelmed

with grief and desperately without hope. She is, after all, a woman in a man’s world, living without any man to protect her or to provide for her. She holds no hope for herself, nor for her two daughters-in-law, Orpah (whom we barely meet) and Ruth.

It’s so bad that Naomi encourages both her daughters-in-law NOT to stay with her. There was, at least so far as she could tell, no future with her. Better to go back to their own loved ones, she tells them, where they would have a chance at a new life. Orpah, one of the two new widows, takes her advice, of course. And there’s no fault found in her for doing so. She leaves with her mother-in-law’s blessing in the form of a good-bye kiss.

Ruth stays, of course, as we heard. But there’s no guarantee up front that it will all work out in the end. It does all work out in the end, in ways far surpassing anything they could have asked or imagined – which is the real reason this story is preserved for us. But it would be worth our telling the story, even if we didn’t know the astounding twist that comes at the end, just to hear of Ruth’s steadfast love for her mother-in-law. We are, I think meant to be emboldened by her verve and her willingness to make such an audacious commitment in the absence of knowing the outcome.

In that moment, Ruth becomes more than an exemplar of human fidelity (though she is that); she becomes, in my estimation, an image of God’s steadfast love for us. Tony, I hope you will always remember this story, whatever the future holds. Remember, always, that God has thrown in her lot with you. And you will never have to go it alone.

The chief image of God’s steadfast love for us, of course, is none other than Jesus himself. And in the gospel we heard this night, Jesus gathers with his disciples on a night when the road ahead of them must certainly have seemed very bleak indeed. This is, you may recall, the night of Jesus’ betrayal, the night before his crucifixion. And on that seemingly in-auspicious occasion, Jesus irrevocably throws his lot in with a bunch of ill-chosen, dim-witted, stubborn, unteachable misfits. Which is to say, he throws his lot in with us, too.

Dear people of God here tonight, I hope you, too, will always remember this story, whatever the future holds. Remember, always that Jesus calls them – and, by extension, calls us – “friends.” It doesn’t mean that we’ve got it all figured out. It doesn’t mean that we’re perfect, far from it. It doesn’t mean we’re better or smarter or more spiritual than anyone else. It just means we have been told who we are … and that we should remember, therefore, that we are, first and foremost, loved by God, never asked to face anything alone, for God has thrown in his lot with us – and we’ve been charged to throw our lot in with God and with one another besides.

It is a gift that simultaneously affirms and challenges us. It is a gift that insists that we are – in spite of every contrary message ever given and all appearances, all-too-often, to the contrary – loved and cherished as friends of God. We don’t always get that kind of affirmation – either in the church or outside of it – so we should be quick to embrace the Jesus who calls us friends. One of my wife’s favorite poems is called “God Says Yes to Me.” The author, a woman by the name of Kaylin Haught, uses a very different image for this divine affirmation, but she picks up on the affirmation implied, I think, by Jesus’ use of the word “friends.” She puts it this way:

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic

and she said yes

I asked her if it was okay to be short

and she said it sure is

I asked her if I could wear nail polish or not wear nail polish

and she said honey

she calls me that sometimes

she said you can do just exactly

what you want to

Thanks God I said

And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph

my letters

Sweetcakes God said

who knows where she picked that up

what I’m telling you is

Yes Yes Yes

We should, as I say, be quick to hear the divine affirmation that lies behind the image of God we see in Jesus, as in Ruth – to perceive how astonishingly committed God is to us. That’s the gift given to all of us this night, to know that we are never in it alone.

We should also be quick to notice that the gift, at least as it comes from Jesus, also carries a challenge. We who are called “friends” of Jesus are also given the commandment to be the same kind of friend that Jesus is for us with all those whom Jesus would consider friends, to befriend them on his behalf. And we should admit we haven’t always been that kind of friend.

There is a quote making the rounds of late, as these things do nowadays, on Facebook. It’s a quote that I know Tony knows, ‘cuz the front-page story in this morning’s local paper about tonight’s service made mention of it. It’s a quote attributed to Desmond Tutu:

I can’t for the life of me imagine that God would say, ‘I will punish you because you are black; you should have been white. I will punish you because you are a woman; you should have been a man. I punish you because you are homosexual; you ought to have been heterosexual.’ I can’t, I can’t for the life of me believe that that is how God sees things.

Desmond Tutu can make the claim because, I think, he understands the kind of people Jesus calls friends – which is to say people like you and me … as well as people not at all like you and me besides.

But Desmond Tutu has to make the claim because he also knows that far too many of Jesus’ so-called “friends” have not behaved this way, that too many of us have too often denied the whole reason for our existence and behaved like every other club that does a pretty good job of taking care of our own to the neglect of the rest of the world, separating between those who, in our estimation, deserve to be called “friends” and those who do not.

This evening, as we celebrate a new ministry, let us recall and affirm the gifts we have been given. In particular, we celebrate the gift of never having to go it alone in this life, that God has thrown in with us entirely and that we have been given one another, as well – people who are gifts to one another, people with gifts given to build up the “body of Christ” in this place.

And let us recall and affirm the vocation that comes with that gift, as well, the calling to live as “friends” of Jesus. There are so many ways to express it, some new, some old. Let me close with the familiar, memorable way Teresa of Avila put it in the 16th century:

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Victor, not Victim

Easter 2B
15 April 2012; 8:00 a.m. Said Mass and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon
Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31

We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life– this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us– we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 1:1-2:2)

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

“The hardest thing in my life,” a dear friend once told me, “is that I always feel like I’m such a fraud.  When things are going well, I’m always trying to catch up and make it appear that I’m totally on top of everything.  When things aren’t so good, I seem to spend all my time trying just to appear normal.”

I think that almost all of us have that feeling on occasion, and it is very debilitating.  It is a great drain on emotional energy to always be feeling behind the curve, trying to catch up, or always trying to stay on top.

There seems to be built into life itself, as good as life is, a painful disjunction between where we are and where we ought to be, or where we feel we ought to be.

The problem with making coffee in the morning is that you haven’t had your coffee yet and can barely negotiate the fixings and the machinery.

The problem with looking for your glasses is that you can’t see to find them.

The problem with pleasure is that there always is a point where it is too much and becomes disappointing or hellish.  Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

The problem with marriage is that the attraction that leads us to commit to each other—despite all our desire for autonomy and freedom—can have a mind of its own, and tends to wander after a while.

The problem with trying to not be so much a fraud is that you have to fake it so much.

The problem with making progress in spirituality is that you all too soon notice it and become very proud of it, and immediately lose it, or, worse, see it twisted into something ugly and unrecognizable.

The problem with trying to put away bad behavior is that it always seems to crop up again, sometimes in much worse form.

The problem with trying to live ordered lives is that life just can be so damned messy.  And, as we have seen the last few weeks in this parish, the problem with health and life is that they end in sickness and death.

I’m not saying that life isn’t good.  It is good, and sweet indeed.  All I am saying is that for whatever reason, there seems to be built into the very structure of our lives a gap between the is and the ought, between how things are and how they ought to be, between what we are and how we should be.

In the Hong Kong subway, there are little signs pointing between the station platform and the opened doors of the trains.  They say, “mind the gap.”

The gap I am talking about is much bigger, and so pervasive we cannot “mind” it.   It is the chasm between what we desire and what we fear, what we hope for and what we dread.  In the story of Lazarus and the Rich man, it is the “great gulf fixed” between Abraham’s bosom and hell.  The chasm is found beneath and in almost everything in life. We see it in arguments, in disappointments, in unfulfilled hope, ruined expectation, and spoiled esteem.  We experience it in dissatisfaction, when we feel shame, when we taste guilt.  Law calls it a crime.  Morals call it sin.

Trying to lower our standards to conform to our behavior doesn’t get rid of the gap, it just hides it for a while.  Trying to get rid of all desire, as Buddhism teaches, is itself still a form of trying. Resignation to the unacceptable is a recipe for no progress, either in society or in personal life. Careful efforts at following rules and written prescriptions of how things ought to be, whether in the Torah, the Quran, or a Christian Bible interpreted by the letter, may make things better, but only for a while. No matter how hard we try, the ideal always seems to retreat, like the horizon line, and the chasm between where we are and where we should be remains as great as ever.

And therein lie the roots of cynicism, pessimism, and despair, despite all the good we see in our life.  The problem with moral improvement is that we fail.  The problem with health is that we eventually get sick.  The problem with living is that we all die.

Today is the second Sunday of Easter. The epistle reading today says the following, “Jesus Christ … is an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

I was raised in a tradition that taught that when we say Jesus “died for our sins,” this meant that he had to die on the cross to pay for our sins.  God was just and we all deserved punishment and death; God the Father sent Jesus in love and mercy so that he could take our place.  And all we have to do is have faith in Jesus, repent, and follow him.  And then we won’t suffer the punishment for our sins, because he bore the punishment for us.

This is doctrine of transferred punishment.
The early undivided Christian Church never defined its doctrine of the atonement. The Nicene Creed says that it was “for us and our salvation” that Christ became incarnate and “for our sake” that he was crucified.  But it does not tell us how this was the case.  Just 15 years after Jesus’ death, St. Paul quotes the tradition he had received from earlier Christians: “Christ died for our sins“  (1 Cor 15:1-5), but again, does not tell us what this means.

Paul elsewhere gives us more than a dozen vivid images to describe what Christ did:  he liberated us from oppression, he saved us from danger on the battlefield, he created us anew, he purchased us back out of slavery, he reconciled us to God as one would reconcile friends who had quarreled, he propitiated an angry deity, he declared us innocent as in a court of Law, he transformed us like in the Greek myth of metamorphosis.   He is searching for the right image, drawing them from a wide range of human life, but clearly is not completely satisfied with any single one of them.

Similarly, today’s epistle from1 John uses numerous images used to describe what Christ did in addition to the one it takes from the Jewish Temple rites– an atoning sacrifice that drives out or expiates impurity and sin.  He is also described here as light conquering darkness, life conquering death, and a public defender called to speak on our behalf.

Over the ages, the Church has explained the atonement in different ways. For the first four or five centuries, both Eastern and Western preachers simply declared that Christ was a victor:  on the cross he took on sin, death, and hell in a battle, and on Easter beat them all.  Once feudalism had become the main social arrangement where Christians lived, they used its sense of honor based in social rank and began to say that Christ offered the “satisfaction” to a Deity insulted and dishonored by the failings of mere human beings, who could never repay their debt of honor to such a superior.  In the High Middle Ages, secular-leaning scholars like Peter Abelard argued that the example Christ set encourages us to behave better and thus be freed of sin, while the more churchly ones like St. Thomas Aquinas argued for a sacramental view, directly linking Christ’s death on the cross with Holy Communion, which they called the sacrifice of the Mass, and which they saw as directly transformative on those who not only partook it, but merely gazed upon it in reverence.  It was only during the Renaissance, with its greater emphasis on the individual; political economy, and legal reasoning, that Christians began primarily explaining atonement as substitutionary punishment.

All of these ideas are simply different ways of describing how Jesus closed for us the gap between how things are and how they ought to be, between what we are, and what God intends.  The different images and doctrines just emphasize different parts of the chasm.  And none is ideal.

One of the classic texts used as a so-called proof of the substituted penal punishment explanation of the atonement, 1 Peter 2:24, says  “[Jesus’] own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed.”  But even this passage introduces this image by using another image, “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps” (v. 21).   He thus says that Jesus died for us and bore our sins in his body on the Cross to serve as an example to us, an idea close to Abelard’s: he died for our benefit by leaving us his example.

In the person of Jesus, the gap between what ought to be and what actually is was as thin as it possibly could be.  It is because of this thinness of the gap shown in Jesus’ life and teachings, that his disciples interpreted what happened on Good Friday and then Easter morning in the way they did.  The resurrection was the ultimate closing of the gap, bridging of the chasm.

Soon his followers were saying that Jesus had in some way been God made present among us.  They knew that his resurrection showed that his death was not meaningless or random.    Within a decade of his death, they were affirming clearly as Paul reports in the passage I quoted earlier, “Jesus died for us in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3-9), thinking of passages in the Hebrew Bible where a good person suffers wrongly but is delivered by God, thus bringing the wicked to a knowledge of God, and where this is described poetically as the wounds of those who suffer wrongly as a kind of medicine that heals the wicked.

I have felt the healing and calming effect of Jesus’ victory, of his bridging the chasm.  Christ on the Cross and Christ risen again gives me courage to try again, to not lose hope, whether this is making amendment of life or trying to work for a better world around me.  The sweet comfort and the fierce joy we feel at Jesus’ victory is but a foretaste of a world with the gaps closed, the chasms filled, with all as it should be, all as God intends.  No frauds, no sickness, no guilt, no oppression, no fear—just the loving presence that enables us to do and be what we ought.

Sisters and Brothers of Trinity Church Ashland: the Lord is risen indeed.  In his victory over sin, death, and all that is wrong with the world, he shines before us as a great light, he stands before us as the closing of the gaps, of bridging from where we are to where we need to be.  We need not fear the darkness, the chasm, or be discouraged by our failings.  Thanks be to God. 

Memorial Service for Bruce Duncan will be Wednesday, April 18 at 3:00 p.m.

Memorial Service for Jean Haller will be Friday, April 20 at 3:00 p.m.

Sunday forum Series   End Game: The Book of Living and Dying will begin this Sunday at 9am. The series will be 5 successive Sunday forums.  Goldye Wolf, MSW and Sarah Seybold, RN will lead the first session “How to Have End-of-Life Conversations with Family and Friends.    In the following weeks the topics will be the film “Consider the Conversation”; Living While Dying:  How our Body Dies”; A Christian Perspective on Living and Dying”; “Hospice Care:  Physical, Emotional & Spiritual Aspects”: and a workshop: to review & update Advance Directives, Power of Attorney Designations, etc.  There will be one Thursday session, April 26, 10:30 a.m. at the Unitarian Fellowship Hall with Barbara Karnes.

Contemplative Eucharist Sunday night at 5:00 p.m.

The Other Trinity Book Group will meet on April 26 at 5:30 p.m. in the Library to conclude our discussion of Richard Rohr’s book The Naked Now: Seeing as the Mystics See.We will focus on the last part of the book and hopefully will have a discussion with people from the Congregational Church who have also been reading this book. Even if you have not read the book completely, come for the discussion.

Music, Music, Music This weekend we have the opportunity to enjoy the music of both the Rogue Valley Choral and the Southern Oregon Repertory Singers.  The Rogue Choral will be performing “Broadway Can’t Help Singing” at the Craterian Theater Sat April 14, 7:30 p.m. and Sunday April 15, 3:00 p.m.  The Repertory Singers present “Ancient Voices” at the SOU Saturday, 7:30 p.m., and Sunday 3:00 p.m.  You will see many of the Trinity Choir members in one or the other choirs.

The Outreach Funding Committee will be receiving presentations from direct service providers requesting donations from Trinity Church, on Wednesday, April 25 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Saturday, May 12 from 9:00 a.m. to noon. Parishoners are invited to contact their favorite charities to let them know of this request for proposals and to advise them to contact Becky Snow at 541-708-5155 for details and to arrange a place on the schedule at one of these meetings. Parishioners may also make a presentation on behalf of their favorite charity. The committee is particularly looking for entities that provide direct services to those in need and are 501(c)(3) corporations.