Friends,
Many of you have asked if I might share the full text of the sermon that I preached last Good Friday. Our previous bishop had asked that we not post full texts of sermons, as he was plagiarized and did not want us to fall prey to the same fate. Nevertheless, we have a new bishop with no such policy (yet), so here is the full text since there was no recording available from that service.
Enjoy!
Sermon Preached on Good Friday, Year A, April 22, 2011, at St. Paul's, Chatt., by RKL
In the Name of the One, Holy, Undivided Trinity.
Amen.
In the formal discernment process for the priesthood, a wise counselor asked me if
I was prepared for the representation that the priesthood is. Was I prepared for or had I given thought to what I, as priest, would represent? I told her that I had thought about the fact that clergy represent God to the people – pronouncing God’s blessing and presiding at God’s Sacraments. She agreed, but added that the clergy also represent humanity before God. I did not know then, and I am only starting to know now what she meant and I am still surprised by the new ways that Incarnational Ministry affected Christ Jesus and still affects us as ministers of the Gospel.
At the heart of this representation of the sacred to the profane and the profane to the sacred is the mystery of the Incarnation. Whether God, in the person of Christ, is dragged down to earth or Christ, in the person of God, drags earth up to heaven, these reconciliatory movements happen through the mystery of the Incarnation.
I know what you are thinking, this is typical Bob: at Christmas, he preaches Incarnation; at Pentecost, he preaches Incarnation; at baptisms, he preaches Incarnation; and now on Good Friday, big surprise – Incarnation. But, as Anglicans, our tradition holds the mystery of the Incarnation – that the Person of God in Christ, would put on the mortal coil, being born into human likeness, in the person Jesus of Nazareth – Anglicans hold this divine mystery most sacred.
Today, this Good Friday, is a day our minds turn to thoughts of Christ’s dying for us. But today is also a day to consider the living God, living for us and all aspects of life that are touched by that divine presence. At Christmas, we heard that Christ was born for us. At Holy Week we hear that Christ died for us. On Easter, we will hear that Christ is raised to new life for us. Common to all of these statements is that God has been there before. In the person of Christ, God has been to the highest of highs and the lowest of lows that humanity has to offer – from the top to the bottom. And in all of these places, where the Incarnate Word has dwelt, dwells now, and will dwell, God's presence there deigns to make the basic stuff of life, the experiences that make up the human experience, Christ’s presence there makes them Holy.
Through the mystery of the Incarnation, experiences of the body are not separate from spiritual experiences. Christians do not have a spirit-is-good and flesh-is-bad understanding of the world. Christ Jesus walks with us as one of us and this human life, even with all of its brokenness, is pronounced Holy by the very presence of God. In the person of Christ Jesus, God knows friendship, in his family and in his disciples; and God knows emnity, in the religious authorities, agents of empire, and participants in the status quo who were threatened by His ministry.
In the person of Christ Jesus, God hears music, dances at weddings, weeps at the grave of a friend, is put on trial, and prays for deliverance, that this cup might pass from his lips. In the person of Christ Jesus, God knows the cool wetness of rivers, like the Jordan, God knows the embrace of a loving mother, and God knows the joy of new discovery – learning to walk and talk and eat. In the person of Christ Jesus, God smiles at children, laughs at jokes, knows victories and defeat – peaks and valleys; strikes and gutters.
And on this Good Friday, in the person of Christ Jesus, God knows what it is to be betrayed, abandoned, arrested, imprisoned, beaten, and God knows what it is to suffer injustice and to be agonizingly murdered. Christ has been there, and is there still, and will be there from generation to generation – not suffering for the sake of suffering, but suffering that we may not be left, ultimately, alone. The Incarnational Christ is Emmanuel, God with us.
Through the mystery of the Incarnation, Christ is still there with us, sharing in our joys and sorrows along with us, and there is nothing too great for the shoulders of Christ to bear, because he has already borne the sins of the whole world on his back, and even in that moment, Christ was working His redemptive works of love and reconciliation. Christ is with us still – in our highest of highs and our lowest of lows, and everyplace in between, and yes, Christ is even at the bottom.
I don't know where the bottom is for you. Maybe it was early in your life, when your father died unexpectedly. Maybe, it is yet to come in losing battle to cancer. Maybe it was recently in a terrible divorce, in a failure of nerve, in a loss of faith, or in the betrayal of a friend. Maybe it has been in a life of extended hardships and brokenness, never seeming to be able to make it better or to dig yourself out. I don't know where the bottom is for you, but I do know this: Christ is there. In
pain, and in sorrow, and in loss, and in betrayal, and even in death, Christ is there at the bottom: redeeming the seemingly irredeemable and reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable.
I have told some of you this story before, but it has been such in important part of my ministry, since hearing it, that I must share it with you again, especially today. Our story takes place at the Virginia Seminary in Alexandria, long before I was a student there, even before Donald was a student there back when it was still called the Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Virginia at Alexandria. In the late 1950s, the dean of the Virginia Seminary, was a man named Jesse Trotter, of the Trotter family with ties to Chattanooga. Dean Trotter was a Holy Man, and much beloved, by both students and faculty alike.
As seminary dean, his house was provided on campus, beside a major green-space that is now called the Trotter Bowl. Dean Trotter, and his family that included his wife and teen-aged son, lived just next to the Virginia Seminary Chapel – the same chapel that I preached about earlier this year, after it had burned to the ground. Dean Trotter was a staple at chapel services, always present at Good Ole' Morning Prayer, or GOMP, as the seminarians affectionately called it. After years of battling mental illness, the Trotters' teenage son, eventually succumbed to the terminal symptom of depression and took his own life in their house just next to the chapel. For days, Dean Trotter came to chapel services and said nothing. Days turned into weeks, as he came to worship services in the chapel, and still said nothing – participating in the service as much as his heart would allow – hearing the comforting words, even if unable to speak them fully. Dean Trotter lost weight, his health declined, and many, many prayers were directed his way and the way of his family.
Weeks turned into months and still Dean Trotter could not bring himself to speak during chapel services, until finally at the end of a service of Good Ole' Morning Prayer, Dean Trotter stood up, climbed, trembling, into the pulpit, and addressed his spellbound congregation. The chapel knew a silence that I am sure it had not known before or since, as he spoke these words: “I have seen the bottom and Christ is there and, in Christ, the bottom holds.” I have seen the bottom and Christ is there and, in Christ, the bottom holds.
I don't know where the bottom is for you. Maybe it was early in your life, maybe it is yet to come, or maybe it is today. Whenever or where ever you hit bottom, know that Christ has been there and is there now and will be there again, and his presence there dares to make even those places at the bottom, Holy.
Today, as Christ Jesus reaches the bottom, we are blessed to witness two arms of love outstretched on the hard wood of the cross: we see the bottom . . . and we should not be surprised to find that Christ is there and, in Christ, the bottom will hold. Amen.
Yours humbly in Christ,
Bob
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