This is the night! This night, and tomorrow night and the next night – welcome into these three holy days, these three holy nights, our high holy days. Starting hours ago, or in the hours to come, or right now, Christians all over the world are gathering in to this time – as if the time itself were literally a space that calls us all home again, or perhaps home for the first time – into this mystery of life and death, salvation and reconciliation, water and oil, bread and wine, fire and darkness, confession and betrayal.
This is the night in which it all begins – but, there is a city out there, outside these doors, a city pulsing with entertainment and allurements of all types – so, what are you doing here? Why are you here? You know these stories that we’ve just heard – you’ve heard them before; you know what we’re going to do – you’ve done these actions before; you probably even know a lot of the songs we’re singing – you’ve sung them before. Why are you here?
Since at least the beginning of the 4th century Christians have gathered on this night – it has been an evening of in-gathering for 1700 years, even if for very different reasons throughout history. But tonight, in 2008, what are we doing? The liturgies of holy week are among the most ancient in which we still live, and they are dramatic and they are sensual – we will eat and drink at the hands of others, we will listen to stories of humble service that apparently make us so cringe at their intimacy that we do not even do what the gospel tells us to do tonight! We will strip and wash the altar as if it were a human body being prepared for burial, we will keep watch as if before a tomb. We will kiss the wood of the cross, we will wash people in water and smear them with oil, we will gather in darkness, burn our hands on candlewax, listen to many more stories; we will sing ancient music, we will walk together, we will watch others walk on our behalf, we will be very tired – we have just begun, what is it that we are doing? What does it mean?
Are we retracing some perceived chronology – first Jesus did this (that’s tonight), then he did this (that’s tomorrow), then this happened (that has to wait until Saturday night)?
Are we imitating Jesus, are we remembering what Jesus did long ago and far away, are we acting out what Jesus did? Do we make sense of these days by following this chronological order beginning with tonight’s multiple stories, or, do we understand these days in a backwards chronology – making sense of all these days through the lens of the resurrection, in which the middle of the night on Saturday and early Sunday morning makes sense of Saturday, of Friday and of tonight?
In other words, is the Triduum – these three days – like a television series, a sequence of vignettes in which we reach the appropriate emotional response in each episode – responding to the diminishing physical state of Jesus as it is recounted to us in word and chronology?
I think that is the understanding that many people have of these days – I spent 40 minutes on the phone yesterday with a newspaper reporter from Southern California trying to explain – simply – how we calculate the date of Easter and in the process, trying to complicate his understanding of these days. Today is the Last Supper, tomorrow Jesus will be crucified, we’re not sure what happens on Saturday, and on Sunday he will rise from the dead – what more is there to understand? Well, if that all happened in the past, once and for all, what does it have to do with us? Why are we here and not out there – what is it exactly that we are entering into?
I would like to suggest these three days of one continuous liturgy are not like watching an engaging television series, but rather, as Kenneth Stevenson says, an invitation to an imaginative journey “into a great and wonderful mystery.” We are not re-presenting or acting out what Jesus did tonight, but certainly there is drama in these liturgies of holy week – it is an important vehicle for the affective, for engaging our emotions and our senses. We are not imitating Jesus in the liturgy tonight, at least not ritually, but we are rehearsing a pattern of imitating Jesus in all dimensions of our life. “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” The commandment (mandatum, Maundy Thursday) is to wash one another’s feet – and to do to one another all that the washing of feet means – humble service, the first shall be last, putting the last first, turning expectations of power and authority on their head, undoing the status quo, enacting an intimate human connection that invites us “into a great and wonderful mystery.”
And perhaps there is the best key into how those actions long ago and far away have anything to do with us here. It is not because we keep to a strict chronology, nor because we imitate in excruciatingly exact detail, it is because we gather as the body of Christ, bringing our faith – no matter how strong or how weak it is – and offer that for the common good and to God, who is the agent in bringing this all together. It is through the Holy Spirit that time and place are transcended, that ancient actions become new, that ancient texts speak fresh words, and we are made anew. Jesus said to Peter “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Did Peter understand when he denied Jesus? Did he understand when the women told him of the resurrection? Did he understand finally at his own death?
If the goal of these liturgies was educational, we could explain it all to you and control what happens so that the outcome would be correct. If the goal of these liturgies was therapeutic, we could make you feel certain things, we could control the emotional flow so that you would go away appropriately sorrowful tonight, but we would be in danger of destroying these days. Because these are symbolic realities, these are sacramental realities, we do not have to understand everything that happens tonight, tomorrow and Saturday night – we are invited to use our imagination as a response to God’s work – and to relate to these stories and actions. Symbols communicate, they suggest, they resound with us. They do not explain like signs, they invite, and they are real.
We hear stories tonight of what Jesus did at table with his friends and followers-we hear of the dress rehearsal for the Eucharist. But because the story takes place before the death and resurrection of Jesus, it is only by looking through the end of the story of these three days that tonight makes any sense. In a few moments we will, in reality, eat the story, we will take into ourselves and invite the reality of God made flesh to fill us. But we participate in this reality through the reality of the resurrection – we are Easter people – we have passed through the waters of death and resurrection. We stand in sure and certain hope of the resurrection, our resurrection, because of the resurrection that has already begun.
So what are we doing here? We are remembering who we are as we retell our stories and make this Eucharist. We enter into the story, not by taking a trip into a mythic past or by bringing that past into this small room. We become the story through sacramental reality, transcending all time and place by means of time and place and things and actions and faith.
In the Byzantine liturgy for this day, there is a short hymn text used several times throughout the liturgy, which captures the heart of the beginning of these three holy days:
“At your mystical supper, Son of God,
receive me today as a partaker,
for I will not betray the sacrament to your enemies,
nor give you a kiss like Judas,
but like the thief I confess you:
remember me Lord in your kingdom.”
(translated Robert Taft, The Great Entrance)
21st March 2008
Good Friday
Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Hebrews 10:1-25; John’s Passion
This is the night, as was last night, as will be tomorrow night, when we remember the love of God for us that is beyond our ability to name or comprehend.
Last night’s gospel ended with Jesus’ new commandment, “love one another as I have loved you…everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” How do we love as Jesus loved us? How do we even get in the same league as that kind of selfless outpouring, not of a surplus of love, but of the essence of love, essential love unto death – for us?
Last night’s liturgy never actually ended, we drifted into the night, some remaining to pray at the altar of repose, others to straighten up and then go home, a few conversations here and there, but not the usual communal completion that comes over coffee and classy nibbles in Lathrop Hall - it was unsettled and unfinished, it was at the same time both empty and confident – empty because undone, confident because we know how the story ends – or rather, how the story begins. It begins with the triumph of the resurrection – but that reality makes the horrible human suffering on which we focus today no less real, no less horrendous, no less cosmic because it is not just physical suffering, but psychic suffering, spiritual suffering, of a dimension that will always be incomprehensible to us in this lifetime, in this phase of life.
We have heard – through Christian ears – the suffering servant of Isaiah, we hear the story of Good Friday, we hear the story of Jesus on his way to death and through death: “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity…surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases…” We have heard in the letter to the Hebrews that the sacrifice of Christ changes sacrifice forever, “it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” “It is finished” Jesus gave up his body, his power, his authority, his life, his future, and even his spirit – for us.
What should we feel now? Are we here to tear ourselves apart – this is our fault, this is my fault – “I am personally responsible for the sins of the world and the death of Jesus” If only I had not done this, if only I had done this…what would be different?
Or, are we here to pity Jesus – “O sacred head now wounded…” O how very sorry I am that this has happened to you – how very relieved I am, that this has not happened to me…actually, how guilty I feel that this has happened to you and not to me…
When I was in the process of ordination in the diocese of Los Angeles, I was assigned to – I found out later – the most difficult parish situation available. I worked for 9 months at Pueblo Nuevo, a storefront mission near McArthur Park which existed to offer sanctuary, liturgy, and work experience to mostly transgendered, illegal, illiterate Roman Catholics who had no where else to turn. I never confessed to the diocese or to the commission on ministry that I, as a former Roman Catholic, found this not so much a challenge as a homecoming. The parishioners were very faithful to the liturgical gatherings, both in the traditional liturgical year and in the particular feast days that made sense of their lives, but the really important days of the year were Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, not Easter and Christmas, but Posada and Good Friday. Why? Because these were days they could relate to – these were days in which the symbolic power of the liturgy was not an intellectual exercise but a visceral connection – I too have suffered, I know what it is to suffer, to lose myself – to lose my power, my authority, my spirit and even my very body – I can relate to a God who has suffered, been excluded – better yet, this God can relate to me, this God knows who I am and where I am and how I cannot even see beyond Good Friday to the glorious resurrection of Jesus the Christ.
What do you see on Good Friday? Do you see the cross, timeless and placeless – what does it mean? Do you see in that cross a symbol of love, love poured out and understood through the resurrection, the resurrection of Christ and our resurrection, our passage from death to life?
Do you see a crucifix? Do you see a human form, suffering, yearning towards life and losing the battle? Do you see the most paradoxical action that any religion knows- love through death? Greatness through humiliation?
All of these are Good Friday – as long as the story of Good Friday does not remain solely in the past, but lives in the tension between the once and for all action of Jesus and our living into the reality of that today – right here and right now. In the Eastern Christian Byzantine liturgy, there is a song sung every year which tries to bridge this duality – not just then, not just now, but always; not just there, not just here, but everywhere.
I rarely break into song in the midst of a homily, but I’m not sure how to communicate the power of this kontakion for Good Friday except to sing part of it – so I invite you to close your eyes and hear the words from an ancient liturgy of the church that tries to express the love of God, the here and there, the now and then of what Good Friday tries to remember and enter into.
Today he who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the cross
He who is King of the angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns
He who wraps the heaven in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.
He who in Jordan set Adam free receives blows upon His face.
The bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails
The son of the Virgin is pierced with a spear.
We bow down to your passion, O Christ (3 xs)
Now, show us also your glorious resurrection (from the dead).
Show us what is already a reality – show us what we know and often dare not see, the glorious resurrection that makes sense of the horrific death that we remember today – Christ who was present at creation, Jesus who suffered for us, Christ who in resurrected glory bids us never forget how much we are loved – may our prayer and our striving this night be to live into how extraordinary we are – we have been died for – we have been resurrected for – we are beloved of God, may we live and practice that love, not through our own strength, but through prayer may God give us the gift of love for each other. Come back tomorrow to offer thanks for the resurrection that makes sense of all of this – for love that transcends death, for Easter that transcends Good Friday.
22nd March 2008
Easter Vigil
The readings of the vigil; Romans 6:3-11; Matthew 28:1-10
This is the night – I know I’ve been saying that for three nights now, but really, this is the night! This is the night when the stories of salvation history are told again and brought to the resurrection. This is the night when our stories are brought to these stories and both are made new. This is the night when we remember our baptism because others all over the world, and Brittany here in our midst have entered the waters of baptism to rise Christed forever, this is the night that the early church believed what was started would be ended – this is a good night to be in church because this is the night the early church believed Jesus would return. If Jesus is returning tonight, this is where you want to be. It is the beginning, it is the end, it is the turning point of our salvation, it is a new week, a new season, new relationships, a new life.
Tonight’s liturgy is a hodgepodge affair – even though the bulletin says it’s a mass, it’s really not a mass like any other day of the year – it is four liturgies stuck together from the second and third centuries, some of them just partial liturgies. First the light service, which probably began as a functional necessity (it’s dark, we can’t see, let’s light some candles) and then gained a theological interpretation of Jesus as the light of the world (with some generous contributions from Judaism and Greek religious practice). Then comes the vigil – we need to sit here in the church while people are being baptized somewhere else – we need to keep everybody awake, okay, we’ll do some readings, we’ll sing some psalms, we’ll do some prayers, and then we’ll do it again and then we’ll do it again and then we’ll do it again until they are done over there in the baptistery. So at the same time, the third liturgy is going on – people are being baptized in the baptistery, they are there and you are here because they are naked, and presumably you’re not invited – baptism was by invitation only – only those who needed to be there were there, everyone else was here, vigiling until the newly baptized and the bishop joined this group. Then the kiss of peace was shared – if you don’t have the Holy Spirit you can’t share the Holy Spirit, and only after baptism does that reality come to fruition. And finally, the last step of initiation for the newly baptized, they received their first communion, and so the community together celebrated the Eucharist – which because of the hour became the first Eucharist of Easter. So if this seems like a really long and oddly constructed liturgy, you’re right, it is.
It’s also interesting that we have inherited a way of doing this liturgy that seems to say that Easter doesn’t really start until we sing the alleluia – it is peculiar, isn’t it? Easter started 2000 years ago – it rings unceasingly through the centuries – it is the reality that makes us who we are – we are Easter people, on Maundy Thursday, on Good Friday, and yes, even at the Easter Vigil – it is Easter, it will be Easter for the next 50 days, it is Easter every single Sunday, even the Sundays in Lent, because out of the weekly celebration of the Lord’s resurrection came the annual feast of Easter, every Sunday is a little Easter, in many ways, every Eucharist is an Easter.
But could we celebrate Easter all year long? Is there something in our human nature that needs the alternation of fasting and feasting, of expectation and fulfillment, of work and dance? I suspect we know the wisdom in this ancient pattern helps us make sense of time, God’s time and
our time, so these seasons of Lent and Easter, Advent and Christmas are important as vehicles of God’s revelation. Tonight, however, is unique, the ‘mother of all vigils’ as St. Augustine called it is the source of both seasons – out of the Easter Vigil came the dominant strand of Lent, out of the Easter Vigil came the great 50 days of Easter, and it appears that out of this came even Christmas a couple centuries later.
But this ‘mother of all vigils’ is strange in that it is not just on the feasting, the fulfillment, and the dance side of the equation. It is betwixt and between, it is liminal time and space. In liturgical time, the new day begins when the sun sets. At sundown, several hours ago, it became Easter. Our civil inheritance of Roman time looks to midnight as the turning from one day to another – it is almost midnight. Greek time saw dawn as the beginning of the new day “After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning…” This is time outside of time, neither completely in one day or the other.
We are here, in church, in the middle of the night, and we began this jumble of liturgies with the celebrant announcing, “this is the Passover of the Lord.” Now there has been more than one interpretation to the meaning of Pascha, Passover, in Christian history, but the winner seems to be the theology of passing over, transitus, Christ passing over from death to life. That was the first layer of meaning on this night. When baptisms were added to the Easter Vigil, another layer of meaning was added – this night also commemorates and celebrates our passing over, it is why we read from Paul’s letter to the Romans at every Easter vigil – “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death…for if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” All of us, baptized this very night or recommitting ourselves tonight to the promises made at our own baptism participate in this great mystery, the paschal mystery. The baptism is real, we are conformed to Christ through water and the Holy Spirit, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own for ever. The death in the waters of baptism is not real – not real in the sense of a physical death like the one that Jesus suffered, but the resurrection to come will be real – as was the resurrection of Jesus that we celebrate this very night. This is part of the mystery, that by sacramental reality we participate in death and by sacramental and literal reality we participate in resurrection.
The preface of the Eucharistic prayer tonight – and throughout Easter – says that “By his death he has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again he has won for us everlasting life.” But how can this be – we will still die, no matter how much we believe. Part of this Easter mystery, this Paschal mystery is connected very much to our own death. We too will pass over, our baptisms, our faithful response to the unchanging promise of God, and our own deaths are part of the Passover of this night. “By his death he has destroyed death…so that “for your faithful people, life is changed, not ended.” “For as we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” The migration of our soul at death is another passing over, but from life to life, life changed not ended.
We celebrate many things tonight – this is the night, when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave, this is the night when we hear of the first proclamation of the resurrection from the women at the tomb, this is the night that we recommit ourselves to do the same, proclaiming “by word and example the Good News of God in Christ” This is the night when we sing for joy in the mystery of a new beginning, this is the night when we thank God for new Christians, this is the night when we drink the wine of the new vineyard and eat at the heavenly banquet, this is the night when remembering life given for us, we also remember death endured for us, and life and love conquering all.
Perhaps we should let a bishop of the 2nd century have the last word of these three paschal sermons – from an Easter vigil homily of Melito of Sardis:
“The text of the Hebrew Exodus has been read and the words of the mystery have been explained: how the sheep was sacrificed for the salvation of the people.
For born Son-like, and led forth lamb-like, and slaughtered sheep-like, and buried human-like, he has risen God-like, being by nature God and human.
He is all things: in as much as he judges, Law; in as much as he teaches, Word; in as much as he saves, Grace; in as much as he begets, Father; in as much as he is begotten, Son; in as much as he suffers, sheep; in as much as he is buried,; human; in as much as he has risen, God.
This is Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”