Begin anywhere.

Esme was born in England and raised in Chepstow, a Norman town on the Welsh/English border. She has B.S. in business administration/marketing from Portland State University and a master of divinity from Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Prior to becoming a priest, she was CEO of an executive recruiting firm. She served as associate rector at Grace Memorial in Portland, rector at St. Aidan's in Portland and as supply priest at Calvary Episcopal Church in Seaside.

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Acts 9:36-43

Psalm 23

Revelation 10:22-30

John 10:22-30

Plain Talk

If ever there was a piece of scripture that seems to speak directly to sophisticated, may I say, skeptical hearts of 21st century, while seeming as obscure and ambiguous as it did in the 1st century, this is it. As Jesus walks into the temple at the Festival of the Dedication, or as we know it, Hanukkah, the people are gathered around him, pleading for some plain talk about whether or not he could be the Messiah. Give it to us straight, Jesus. Are you, you know, the One?!

We can relate to the ancient people’s needs for straight answers. In our own time, unless one is unendingly naïve, one is automatically careful to try to sort out truth from fiction when the talk from the top seems convoluted or roundabout, rather than to the point. Sometimes they call it diplomacy, sometimes they call it spin, and sometimes, somebody, somewhere either wants, or doesn’t want, to stir the population to think one way or another until eventually, everybody is confused and sorting out truth from fiction is beyond anyone’s capacity to accomplish.

That’s the world for you, and the kind of worldly problem the people were having as they gathered around Jesus, asking their questions. They were asking worldly questions, formed from worldly perceptions, and asking them to the very One who had been telling them time and time again that he was not of this world.

One can’t help wondering that if this exchange had taken place in 2022, whether Jesus would have responded with the observation that the questions were offensive, and things would have shut down instantly. And, maybe he was offended, as he contemplated the meaning of all that was about to happen to him in Jerusalem. 

Whether in the year 30-something, or 2022, nothing much has changed. Asking for plain talk about anything beyond normal human comprehension can be highly misinterpreted by the one to whom the answer is given, while at the same time seeming highly offensive to the one to whom the questions are directed. 

When the world wants to engage in plain talk about the things of God, the world has a problem. The problem has to do with the world’s understanding of God and all that God is, and our understanding of all that God is, is frankly anything but plain. 

When we hear someone, or even ourselves, speaking about God with absolute certainty, we can be certain that what we are hearing or saying is not really about God at all. 

We can all speak with confidence about what we have learned, and what we know about in the world, and any aspect of life in the world that our minds can comprehend. We can even quote the scriptures with accuracy. All over the world. But God is not of this world, and we cannot comprehend God. 

God comprehends us. God knows us and gets us. We try our hardest to get God and to comprehend God, but to say we do either is to show either great arrogance or deep naivety. All we can do is to keep trying to understand and to know and to realize who or what God is. In return, we inherently understand that God wants us to know, understand and comprehend more about God.

Some of our greatest discussions among the faithful have to do with trying to understand what God means. However, beware. We must be careful that our desire for plain talk about God doesn’t leave us intent on finding the meaning of God to the extent that, when we think we have an answer, we can check a box. 

Understanding God won’t work by checking boxes. Bible study is far less about finding out the meaning of God, and far more about entering into, experiencing and participating in the rich stories of human lives revealed in scriptures, which hold within them multiple meanings. Holy Scripture does not have a secret code to be deciphered and cracked open. The lives of those who wrote the scriptures is right there, plainly visible and to a great extent we can relate to and understand what scripture is saying. There is nothing plain about God who, when asked how God should be addressed, answers, “I AM WHO I AM.” 

Jesus reminds those gathering around him at the temple gates that he has already given them the plain truth of who he is through all he has said and done – his works. The answer regarding who he is, should be plain enough. And therein lies the distances between the way the world thinks and perceives and the way of God’s knowing. The world likes titles like Lord, King, Emperor or Messiah. Each sends a message to the world that this new leader will well and truly fix things forever more. Every time we vote for a new political leader, or choose a new doctor, or find a new home, or any such example, don’t we too, secretly hope that this leader, this doctor, this home will bring us new opportunities for happiness and the peace we seek? 

Jesus understands this, and ignoring the question about the title of Messiah, returns again to his example analogy of shepherd and sheep. The sheep know their shepherd and trust the shepherd. Not because they have delved into his background, read his credentials, or indulged in any kind of intellectual discussion or discernment with or about him, but because they have experienced the shepherd and his way of being. In the same way, we can think of a child trusting a parent to lead in the way they always do. The trust and knowing come not from reason or intellect, but from experience, be it good, bad or indifferent. 

It is not intellect and sophistication of thought through which Jesus is revealing himself to the people of his own time and to us, it is through our trust in his words and actions and our experience of him directly or indirectly, that we come to recognize him as the One we follow.

This doesn’t mean we must ever stop studying our scriptures or thinking about the meaning of Jesus’ words. We must continue to work through our thoughts and questions, allowing those thoughts to grow into even more profound questions that invite deeper and more profound study. To love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind and strength is to continually engage one’s heart, soul and mind in the discernment of our faith and our journey through this world while working always to adhere to the way of God. 

As we delve deeper and deeper into the study of God’s way, we become increasingly conscious of our human propensity to slide into too much reliance on the intellect as the smartest way to understand God. Most faithful Christians would agree that God is beyond all human knowing. Even so, arguing about the word of God can get our thinking even more convoluted regarding how we describe God rather than simply allowing ourselves to experience walking side by side in the footsteps of Christ. 

While there is no doubt about the importance of using our minds and intellect in our pursuit of deepening understanding of our faith, we must, today more than ever, return to the kind of personal and collective experience of God, as did the early church, knowing all the while that this experience will always be beyond our knowing and understanding, and certainly beyond our ability to describe it. 

One of the reasons that the early church grew so rapidly in a highly resistant culture, was not because suddenly the people, Roman and Jew alike, were intellectually won over by dogma, but because they shared in the experience of the living God.

Loving God with heart, soul and mind, needs the very strength that Mark, Luke and Matthew added to the commandment. They wrote to get us out of our heads and into our hearts. Perhaps one way for us to understand this concept is to think of something we have seen, or somewhere we have been that seemed simply too difficult to fully describe. You can think of places you have seen, or conversations that held you fast, or any aspect of creation that captivated you: a hummingbird hovering inches from your face, or a bald eagle teaching its young to fly and hunt. The first flower of Spring. A brand new birth. A sunset or sunrise on the side of a snow-covered mountain. The list is endless, and you will have many entries to add to the list.

How many times have you tried to describe the feelings that rushed through your heart, soul and mind, as you experienced any or all of these and more? How did you manage to capture the experience, the colors, the smells, the light of that moments so that you could describe it in words, in plain talk, if you will, to those waiting to hear about your experience? When we try to tell the story, it seems difficult to feel the same sensations of knowing, of complete awe, that filled us as we stood within an overwhelming moment of experience that we inherently knew and recognized could only be of God. It is in these moments, even if we have only experienced a mere glimpse of something like this once in our lives, that we begin to understand what Jesus is saying to the people of to us today. It is in these moments we not only see God’s works, but we recognize God’s work of creation and recognize, too, our connection, our oneness with God. 

Jesus said to the people begging him for plain talk answers, “I have told you and you do not believe, (read “know me.)” The works that I do in my Fathers’ name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. I know them and they follow me….” Once there, once believing, once following in faith, once “knowing,” nothing can separate us from God. As the Father and I are one, Jesus said, if we believe, then we are one with Jesus. 

It is fine to be fond of creation, to be comfortable in the world that has been created for you, but to be one with me, says Jesus; to believe in me, you must experience that other dimension that is beyond your understanding or ability to put into words. God offers us glimpses of glory, those flickering recognitions of perception into that which is beyond our worldly knowing or understanding. 

God only knows, we have our differences, and harmony is difficult to achieve, but Jesus isn’t talking about that. Jesus is teaching us to reach toward our unity with God, and to experience awe-inspiring moments of divine understanding, brought to us through nothing less than divine eloquence. It is in these moments, we stand as one with God. It is in these moments that our knowing of God is astonishing.

The divine concept and the divine context of Jesus’ words are about unity in love. Not emotional human love, or sentimental love, as in I love my mother, my house, my dog, trees, but the kind of love we call Agape. One of the Greek words for love, Agape, wherein we are conscious at all times of being surrounded by love, comforted, cared for, needing to share that love with others, for the needs and welfare of others. In plain talk, simply sharing the gift of God’s love for us and all God’s gifts to us in body, mind and spirit. Agape. One.

We proclaim our desire for unity with Christ as he desires unity with us each week when we say the words which cannot describe the how or when, but only the desire for experience: “Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you,,,,[1]and may we “be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.”[2] One.

In the psalmist’s words as best as he can describe, “Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his: we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”[3] One.

The plain talk for Christians united in The Way of Christ, is to affirm our belief in our Creator, giving thanks for life eternal in God, and for God’s unalterable love and assurance that, no matter what the world and its future holds, for as long as we continue to experience glimpses of God’s glory, we are one with God and nothing or no one will be able to snatch us away. 

Amen

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

May 11, 2025

[1]BCP Holy Eucharist 1, 2: p 355

[2]BCP Holy Eucharist 1: p 336

[3]Psalm 100:3

 Known

“Who are you?” was the question the disciples held firmly in their hearts as they faced the stranger calmly grilling fish and bread over a charcoal fire. “Who are you?” In their hearts, they knew they recognized the man as the one they called the Lord. And, by degrees, they began to trust that certainly this was indeed, Jesus, inviting them to join him for breakfast. 

After all, Jesus had already appeared to them twice before since he left his tomb three days following his crucifixion. As recorded in the Gospels of Mark, Luke and John, Jesus first encountered Mary Magdalene after his rising, then Simon Peter, and then to two disciples making their way to Emmaus. So, it shouldn’t be too surprising that the identity of the man cooking fish for breakfast would not be a complete mystery to the disciples. Even so, it still seems too fantastic….too fantastic to believe in its reality?

Mark clearly reported about Jesus appearing to eleven of his disciples after his resurrection, which left them still in a state of unbelief, leaving them according to Luke’s Gospel “terrified and frightened, and supposing they had seen a spirit.” One can’t help wondering if Jesus was getting a little fed up with the disciples and their need for proof of identity. After all, hadn’t he already shown them his mutilated hands and evidence of his pierced side? 

With Simon Peter it was different.

After a night of fishing and catching nothing, the disciples met this seeming stranger on the beach who instructed them to go back and set their nets down again on the other side of the boat whereupon they caught one hundred and fifty-three fish. Simon Peter, suddenly recognizing that this could only be a Jesus miracle, exclaimed “It is the Lord,” after which, Peter being Peter, he jumped back into the sea where he, somehow, found some clothes to throw on before helping the others to haul the catch ashore.   

Jesus's relationship with Simon Peter was more than just Lord and devoted disciple. Over time it had grown into a deep friendship.  Together, with John and James, Peter was, how we would describe it today, on the inside. He was part of the inner circle, regardless of his impulsive nature, his moments of doubt and more. Jesus had forgiven him for all Peter’s transgressions, including his shameful and cowardly triple denial to the authorities about knowing Jesus.  Thus, for whatever the reason, of all the disciples it was to Peter that Jesus revealed himself first after rising from the tomb. 

By the time Peter and the rest of the disciples had successfully hauled all the fish to shore, and all had eaten their fill and broken bread together, at last there was no doubt left in the disciples’ minds that this truly was the resurrected Jesus. 

Perhaps their lingering skepticism is what led Jesus to especially love Peter so deeply. For all his mistakes, for all his shameful cowardice, his impulsiveness and unpredictability, perhaps Jesus recognized the humanity of the Peter, and Peter’s desire to do what he believed to be right, whether or not he was correct. He recognized the enormous potential in Peter, perhaps more than Peter knew himself, and yet he needed to test him and, glancing around at the slightly confused disciples standing near,,  was moved to ask Peter a very hard question. “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” 

How do you answer a question like this in front of those you call your closest friends? Do you deny them, or deny your love for the one questioner? Would Peter try to qualify his answer, saying something like, “You know I love you, Lord, just I love these others.” But that would not be answering the question, which clearly asked whether Peter loved the Lord more than any others or anything else in the world, for that matter.

The question has to do as much with the degree of Peter’s faith and his belief in the ministry of Jesus as it does his acceptance that such an inexplicable phenomenon like resurrection after death makes absolute sense, given the situation he was now facing. 

Jesus asked the pointblank question to Peter three times and each time Peter answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” “You know everything…you know that I love you.” Where upon, Jesus is satisfied and warning Peter of the consequences he would suffer because of that love, the church was born, and Peter followed Jesus and would live his life doing as the Lord had asked him, “Feed my sheep.”

More importantly, Jesus had enough foresight about Peter, that he came to proclaim Peter as the Rock upon which Jesus would build His Church. Thus, it is worth contemplating that without Peter, there would have been no church, and perhaps none of us would be sitting together in this church today. The church would see Peter die for, and we are to be grateful for his faithful and willing sacrifice.

Jesus needed to be sure, just as any of us need to be sure of our critical relationships. In every relationship, worldwide, be it between loving partners, married couples, parents to children, children to parents, friends to friends, that universal question arises: Do you love me?

Jesus knew that Peter loved him, but even Jesus had to be sure of the extent and measure of that love before entrusting him to continue Jesus’ ministry on earth. He had to know that Peter loved him with the kind of depth that he knew Jesus would expect of that kind of love. 

Merely asking the question was not enough for Jesus and it is not enough for us. Perhaps it is worth daring to ask the question again, as did Jesus, maybe over a delicious meal of fried fish, “Do you love me?” And then, asking “Why?”

You may remember the wonderful musical “Fiddler on the Roof, when Tevye sings to his wife Golde, “Do you love me?” They have been married for 25 years, and Tevye wants to be sure of how they still feel about each other and if their marriage is lasted due to love or mere repetition.

That level of knowing can only come from absolute faith, trust and love between two people, no matter the relationship, which begs the question: how well do you know your best friends, your children, your husband, your wife, your lover, your parents. How often have any of us asked “Do you love me,” and felt only slightly reassured by the answer, “Of course I love you, you know that.” 

It’s a valid question to ask within any relationship and, perhaps even more importantly, the question should lead to a need and desire to test oneself about how well we know this very significant person in our life or how well that very significant person knows us.

When was the last time you sat down with one of the most important people in your life to explore just who each other is at this moment in time? Just how well do you think you know each other and how much deeper your relationship can be when each is given the opportunity to explore a deeper knowledge of the other.

To know, really know someone very dear to you, and to be known, really known by that person and the reverse, is to be able to honestly answer the question, “Do you love me?”, rather than “Who are you?”

The question “Who are you?”, implies a not-knowing of the other. Some may describe it as a “drifting away” not necessarily of love, but certainly of knowing why love might still exist. Perhaps, simply coming to really know one another can re-kindle love that shows some danger of dying. It could be that a particular person in your life would love to be asked the question, “Who are you?”, or “Who do you think I am?” Perhaps a simple unveiling of the heart is the revelation that love needs to show itself in all its glory again. The revelation can reveal a genuine resurrection of love which then becomes set free to glorify each other and all else that is God’s creative glory in the world. How beautiful. How Jesus!

How beautiful to be known less as you were, and more as you are now, today. To be known who you are as a result of all that life has brought you to delight in, all that life has brought to test your strength and faith, all in life that has amazed, surprised or awed you. How freeing to be known for what delights you today, and for that which no longer delights you; for what frightens you, what makes you vulnerable or anxious, how you view the world, what you desire to do in or with or for the world in order to accurately reflect who you are today. To be known so well, and to know so deeply that you are known, allows you to freely follow a path you were destined to take. To know another deeply and completely allows that one to do the same. 

Perhaps for Jesus, the question, “Do you love me?” was the definitive question he asks of each one of us. For Jesus, perhaps the question, “Do you love me?” was really asking, “Do you really know me?”  Either way, the questions was vital enough to be asked more than once. Is the question any less vital for any of us? How well do we know how another views the world and what are the reasons are for that view.? What is the view of an immigrant? Of a family torn apart by government agents?  A husband sent  to an entirely opposite part of the world than his wife. Their children separated from their parents. Perhaps, during these warm days of Eastertide Spring, we can take a few moments to contemplate the injustice of that. Is it no less a crime than it was to arrest Jesus for his insistence on justice?

It is a Jesus question.  If we have come to know Jesus in such a deep and profound way, that we have no need to be questioned about how much we love the Lord, then it should not be too much of a stretch for us to love those close to us or to love the stranger who fought to reach a country where he thought he could be free. . 

Maybe the disciples weren’t so misguided by the resurrection phenomenon. Maybe their question, “Who are you?” was an appropriate gateway to understanding and coming to know Jesus in a far deeper, more profound way. 

Then if Jesus were to ask them, “Do you love me?” they, like Peter could say with confidence, “Yes, Lord, you know me, and you know that I love you.”

“Do you love me?” Is a deeply Jesus kind of thing which begs the question: How well do you really know me? If Jesus were to ask you, “Do you love me more than….. (fill in the blank for ‘these’?”), what would your answer be? 

And what would you be prepared to do about it?

End

Written to the Glory of God

Esme J. R. Culver+

May 3, 2025

Day of the Resurrection of our Lord

Isaiah 65:17-25

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

1 Corinthians 15:19-26

Luke 24:1-12

Run for Home!

What is it about this day that causes a stir in the heart, mind and soul like no other? Whether you fall on your knees every morning, noon and night, or attend church a couple of times a week or just once, or if you just come at Christmas or Easter, or if you never come at all, and haven’t since you were in sixth Grade, it doesn’t matter. There is something about Easter Sunday that brings about a certain lightness of spirit which enters into every soul, regardless of one’s degree of piety, that allows us all who are aware of Easter to imagine that no matter what, at the end of the metaphorical day, all will be well.

Maybe, this morning or any Sunday morning for that matter, you pondered whether or not you should come to church. After all, sometimes we’re just tired, and no doubt, there are many other activities which tug at our attention. Yet, here we are on this Easter Sunday, together in this sanctuary. Some of us know it well, some of us maybe not so much, and there may be some who have entered this holy place, or others like it for the first time. None of that is important. 

What matters is that, for all our differences, for all our life circumstances, or the amount of church life we have experienced, on this special day we have one thing in common. We have each felt a movement in our hearts and a call to our souls to make our way toward this sanctuary to fill some primal need to find peace, acceptance and love. To find sanctuary….a home away from home, a divine home, a sanctuary. God is here, in this place just as God is everywhere waiting for people to show up to find God.  And they do. They find God in the sense of peace they find as soon as they enter, as they find somewhere where they instantly belong, as they ponder their presence among this congregation, which is part of a congregation that spreads across the world. They find God in the knowledge that they are not alone 

And sometimes we all ask ourselves “Why am I here?” Even on such a day as Easter Sunday. What does this really mean, anyway, and what does it mean to me? And where is the Easter Bunny!

It’s a question we might ask ourselves each time we think about coming to church, especially on Easter Sunday.

What is it that stirred inside me? What voice spoke deep in my soul that compelled me to make the effort to show up at the church doors today. 

Perhaps it is the same movement of the Spirit that has compelled people like you and I to come and to continue to come, because they still dare to believe, still dare to celebrate God’s most powerful miracle and mystery of all time…..the resurrection of the one who truly understood and knew God: Jesus Christ. Why? Because, in the days leading up to his death, Jesus was no longer merely walking, he was running toward God’s heavenly kingdom, to God’s Divine home, just as we made sure we wasted no time in reaching a sanctuary today.  And not only was he running; he was willing to die an ungodly death, in order to enter it. And therein lies the mystery of the entire Easter story. Christ died. Christ rose. Christ will come again. 

After Jesus was laid to rest after his death, the women who knew and loved Jesus came to the tomb in which he was enclosed to mourn him. They found an empty tomb. They were terrified when confronted by the unbelievable emptiness. Two angel-like figures reminded them of God’s promise that God would always be with us, and suddenly they began to run, they ran and ran, yet not away from, but toward. They ran with hope, filled with joyful insight and recognition of the truth now made clear. And they told the eleven disciples who were doubtless troubled by the events and by their own cowardice, but still the disciples did not believe what the women were telling them, until one of them, Peter, got up to go and see for himself. And Peter, say those who were there that day, was amazed.

Perhaps we are a bit like Peter. We want to be certain of our circumstances and we deeply want our circumstances to be holy. Peter eventually emerged from his shock and amazement and so did the other disciples. They realized that their work was now ready to begin. It was time for them to keep running forward, strong in their faith, believing in the Good News of Jesus’ Resurrection, his triumph over death itself and for God’s revelation of God’s truly Divine self.  It is for that reason we are all gathered here today. We want to believe and we have heard from the eyewitnesses who were there, and saw, and we want to trust what they say. And we do, because we know we felt compelled to be here today, and that someway, somehow, all will eventually be well. 

We would be foolish to imagine that, in earthly terms, all will be well for all God’s people, no matter where or who they are. After all the lessons of Holy Week, we realize that God understands that human life isn’t that forgiving because we humans, as much as we long to be able to capitulate our lives, our decisions, our fate to God, at the same time we want to exercise our free will. And there is the battle between the world and the divine.

In human life, all is not well for all those innocents living under brutal terrorist attacks or unjust warmongering. All is not well, for those who have nowhere to call home, all is not well for the very sick or dying, all is not well for those running from poverty and hunger, or running from any kind of oppressors, running to survive whatever it is that stalks them out in the wilds of the world. 

Yet, Easter Morning brings with it a particular kind of hope and encouragement, as if to say to all of us, yes, you are running, but you can run toward something wonderful even as you must run away from the unthinkable.

Running toward something, even for those of us who have less to run from, implies that whatever it is we are running toward is worth the effort. It is on Easter Morning hearts run toward God, the Risen Jesus and the Holy Spirit who, no matter what the world throws across our particular paths, will guide us toward a place of peace and comfort into which we are always made welcome.

No matter who we are, what messes we have made in our lives, Easter Day, the Day of Resurrection, is the day that provides an opportunity to make all things new. God encourages us, whoever or wherever we are to always to begin again. Easter is the time that we hear and feel the call from God to start with whatever it is we want to resurrect in our hearts.

That is the core meaning of Easter!  It is a celebration of all things new and possible, in ourselves and in the way we view the world around us. Easter reveals a deeply profound place of the Divine; a Divine home, overflowing with love and with peace; where we will find God and be found by God.

May those who have been turned out of their homes, wherever they may be in the world, run toward that Divine home! May those who have seen their families murdered, mown down by bombs and guns, run, run toward that Divine home! May those who are hungry and thirsty run toward the home where the bread and water of life never disappear. May those who are misunderstood, neglected, made to feel less than who they really are by this world yet are truly the beautiful ones that God created in God’s image, run toward their Divine home. May those who mourn for lost loved ones, for lost work, lost relationships, lost friends, run, run. 

May we all run with them. Run toward the kind of freely given love we long for. Run toward that love that, like a mountain stream never runs dry, is never impeded by rocks of conditions, resentments or jealousies. Run, to the kind of love that enfolds, comforts and accepts without requirements, expectations or judgments. Run to that Divibne home where we are known to the depths of our souls.

How beautiful it is to know that we are known so deeply by our Creator! Are held in God’s heart, are seen and loved for who we are, each of us in our own way. When we allow God to come close enough to speak to us; to travel into all the nooks and crannies of our souls and minds, into our hopes and our challenges, our dreams and our failures, we cannot but be filled with hope and joyous gratitude. 

As creatures of God’s own creation, the longing to hear God’s words and to know that we are known by God is in our DNA. The mystery of that experience is beyond our understanding and yet touches us deeply and changes us. God created us to love God and for God to love us. How can we not want then run toward that kind of comfort and relief. 

The immense truth of Jesus’ death is wrapped up in love for us, together with millions of others around the world who are part of the community we call Easter people, the people of Christ, Christians.  We are bound together by what Jesus taught us is the most important commandment of all: To love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. 

We are called to recognize the forgotten, called to recognize the old person who lives behind the window in the house down the street, called to recognize the lonely child, the stranger’s face, the unwashed and the lost. We are even called to recognize the ordinary, the face next to us, the one we see all the time but, too often fail to see. 

We are invited to join Mary and all the disciples who saw and heard and walked with Jesus in those days and then ran into the community of faith as the first Easter people. 

How it all happened, I don’t know, I wasn’t there. But something amazing and wonderful and beyond our knowing and beyond the knowing of all those early witnesses. Jesus had foretold the disciples of the events that were to take place. When they witnessed His truth, they were compelled to tell the world about the sacrifice Jesus Christ made in the name of love for all God’s people,  and the Good News of the Risen Christ 

There is a power in our lives that is alive and at large in the world. It is a power far greater than principalities and politics….far greater than the extremes who would force their ideologies in order to attain power….far greater than our capacity to hide from it…..and that power is Love. It is Love that was willing to lay down and die for love of us….it is through the power of Love that we are called to lay down all that separates us from that Love so that we can be resurrected with Christ into a new way of living. 

As Easter people, we become part of the Resurrection story. For Mary and for Peter and John, there was no doubt about the power of God’s love and there should be no doubt for us. Jesus is Love and Love is Risen. Let us rise up and run to let the world know that there is hope in the world. 

Run with the Good News by recognizing God in the faces you see around you, in your family, on the street and around the world. 

Run with the Good News by hearing his voice in the voiceless, the ones who are never heard, who yearn for someone to hear their cries.

Run with the Good News of Creation, celebrating every newborn flower of spring, and every newborn life in the world.

Run, run, toward all that is the common good!

Run, run to all that is Love!

In this world which finds it so hard to see….finds it so hard to hear….finds it so hard to listen….let us throw away the blinders from our eyes and let us take our hands away from our ears……and let us run toward the light of hope….run in any way we can, on your feet or in your mind, and don’t stop being the eyes and the ears and the voice of the Risen Christ

If you banish the darkness from your heart, Christ is alive!

If you put aside resentment, judgement and pride, Christ is alive!

Before he handed Jesus over to be crucified, Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” 

The Truth is that, on this Easter Day, the possibility of renewed joy, and hope and the resurrection of all we were created to be, has been unleashed anew to the world.

Alleluia!

Amen

Written to the Glory of God

E.J. R. Culver+

Easter Sunday

April 20, 2025

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Hebrews 10: 16-25

Psalm 22: 1-30

John 18:1 – 9:42

Eyewitness

My name is John. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I was there. Not a saint then. Just another sinner. An eyewitness. 

We were all there that day... all except of course, Judas.....although, who knows, he might have been watching from the shadows somewhere.....watching the results of his dirty work. Truth be told, I’m not sure any of us whom Jesus called disciples were much better..... .all spread out along the way.....mixing in with the crowds...trying to be inconspicuous I suppose. Safely, I’m ashamed to admit, watching from afar.
Even so, from my vantage point on the bend of the road, I could see Jesus making his way up a little incline, bent over, made to carry his own cross…his vehicle of torture, heading straight toward where I was standing. Somebody yelled some cruel, derisive words at him, meant, perhaps, to impress the Roman soldiers. The Romans, of course, had been packed all around him for the entire journey, making sure no-one came near. When people did try to jump out or grab at him, they were immediately shoved back and shown the point of a Roman spear. That kept some of the harassment down, but swords couldn’t stop the voices or the confusion or the chaotic atmosphere that hung in the hot, dusty midday air. 

It was as if all the tension of these final days and hours were being let loose; exploding into this unbelievably tragic situation for which no-one really wanted to lay claim, but now everyone had to. Pilate had given the people what they wanted and avoided having the entire city blow up with riots, and the chief priests got what they wanted: a quick death upon the cross and burial before the start of Passover. To be sure, not all the voices were berating Jesus....there were a few choice comments yelled out over the racket, clearly directed at the soldiers and the Romans authorities, but the owners of those voices seemed to melt into the crowd so as not to be identified. 

None of this was what any of us wanted. But one thing was clear. There was no going back. 

As Jesus came near, I was shocked at what I saw, never having believed it would all come to this......his face ashen, rivulets of blood seeping from the cruel points of a thorny crown they had put on him, dripping onto his forehead and cheeks...creating rivers with any last moisture in him being forced out into beads of torturous sweat. They had put a purple robe on him......and I felt a powerful urge to tear off the humiliation of it, and to somehow get that horrible head dress away from him, but I couldn’t do it. Something deep inside me stopped me. Fear? I confess I had my fair share of that, and I knew that such a rash move would probably have killed both of us there and then, a merciful end for us both perhaps. 

But rather what stopped me from rushing to his aid came from an inner sense that this would not be what he would want.

None of us, who were really close to him, really understood all he was telling us about this day, even though we knew in our hearts that we had been well forewarned. I had heard other rabbis, but Jesus was different.....compelling. We all had seen him befriend the people on the fringes. Why, even some of us came from those ranks of the hated: tax collectors, foreigners, people on the edge. 

And we were with him when he gave us powerful signs that he was of God. We saw him heal the sick, give sight to the blind. We were there when he raised Lazarus from death to life. We heard his words of love and compassion, when he taught us to love each other in the way he loved us. I don’t think any of us really grasped the true meaning of all that. He probably knew it. And maybe he knew we would understand later -- understand the mystery of him, this Son of Man, “despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with grief….”

Jesus was so close to me now. I could almost reach out and touch him. My eyes searched his face and his eyes, so that he could see that I was still here by his side. Did he see me? See into the depths of me? Into all my confusion and regret...my guilt and my longing? 

And, in those dying eyes, I saw fatigue and forgiveness, anguish and love. It was as if all my denial, all my sins, my weaknesses and afflictions were melted into him and what I received in return was His complete understanding of my own absolute truth. And it was more than that. There was a kind of pure innocence that lay deep within those eyes, as of the innocence that comes from having no falsity within, no show of pride or bravado, no need to make a point, no need be anything other than who one is ....destined to fulfill God’s call in complete and utter obedience.......even as it leads one to lay himself down.......as a perfect and unblemished sacrifice........in the face of the most excruciating pain and humiliation.....all the while praying to God that we could begin to understand. 

There was such sorrow in his eyes...such that I’ll never forget it. Such suffering. Looking back on it, I still marvel. Suddenly someone shoved past me roughly and yelled “Save yourself, King of the Jews!” Shocked, I instinctively moved to shove the person away and yell at him to hush his voice, but then I saw the eyes of Jesus, still looking at me unwaveringly as He passed, and I just stood there and felt the shades of his suffering for just an instant and I forgave the voice.... just as I had just been forgiven for so many harsh words from my own mouth, usually uttered out of fear.

The voice had come from anger borne of fear. It is a deep and abiding source of fear and of need for control, to take power over a situation. It is the same anger and need for power and control that starts wars against the innocents. Wasn’t Jesus supposed to be the one who would liberate us at last from all the power and control that oppresses us; all that makes life hard? Wasn’t this the one whom we thought would storm the gates of all in the world that would keep us down? Governments, armies, even each other? But now this? I understood the defeated disappointment of that voice in the crowd. How much we all wanted our vindication, wanted our own freedom, wanted to live without fear in joy and peace. How badly we wanted Jesus to show us the way and yet, how much we value our free will, our human capacity to decide for ourselves what our actions will be. 

Somehow, in that moment, I began to understand that all he had taught us in the past was but mere preparation for this day and in the days to come. After all his teaching, this was his ultimate lesson and example; this absolute obedience to the will of God and one’s own truth as the gateway to freedom. And I remember saying then.....Oh my God.....surely you were there at the beginning and will be at the end. I wish I could tell him now how I began to understand that day. But I am left now to remember his smile, his forgiveness, his eyes filled with grace, as if to say, “Yes. Begin where you are.”

Jolted out of my reverie by the horrifying spectacle of Jesus and his Roman entourage shuffling past, I start to push through the mob, trying to keep up with him and I noticed a small procession coming behind. It was the Mary’s. His mother, with Magdeline and Clopas’ wife, Mary.

I stood transfixed for a moment unsure of what I should do or say. Where are the words to measure the suffering of a mother? Where are the words to measure the anguish in any heart that loved Him and loves Him unto death? 

This “young plant and root (Isa 53:2) growing out of the stump of Jesse on whom the spirit of the Lord will rest (Isa. 11: 1-2). This vulnerable young root.... now a baby lying in a manger revered by shepherd and kings alike. Now capturing the imagination and trust of all he met along the roads of Galilee. Now, still left vulnerable through the unendurable rejection of his own people and all those he came to heal and save. 

And now, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted….. like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before is silent, he did not open his mouth”. 

Through the terrifying memory of this pent-up crowd yelling “Crucify Him,” my heart still pounds fast and heavy, as though taking on all the suffering in the world that brought Him such grief. I am bowed down by the cries of the victims of oppression and injustice in His own time, and all those who have suffered through the beginning of time and through time for the sake of Empire, and all those in this very moment face tyranny that lusts for power and control, all those who cannot claim their own right to live and love freely, without sacrifice of life itself. 

The insight brought with it an overwhelming need to get to Golgotha. I didn’t want to let him down. Not this time. Not ever again. Suddenly, I didn’t care what happened to me. I felt as if I could fight all of Rome singlehandedly, such was my need to show him I was still there. The power of the call was overwhelming then and still is. When there is no choice, when there is no turning back, when, no matter what the consequences may be, no matter what suffering and affliction might be brought to bear, in order to do God’s will: rejection, humiliation, loss and sacrifice; you have to respond with body, mind and spirit. All the way. Going only part of the way won’t work. God knows it, Jesus knew it, the Prophet knew it and now, at last, I know it too. 

As I approached The Place of the Skull, I caught sight of several of the others and I thought I saw Peter but couldn’t be sure. I wondered what he must be thinking. And the others, was it all beginning to make sense to them too? Would we all have to follow this road one day ourselves? We were being swept along, looking briefly around ourselves now and then, recognizing quickly here and there, amidst the bloodthirsty chaos, our reflected trepidations and feelings of growing guilt and indeed, awareness of our own complicity and the horrifying reality of our contributions to this moment. 

As I ran, stumbling over the increasingly rocky ground of Golgotha, the energy of the thinning crowd seemed to subside. Echoes of mocking laughter and derisiveness faded behind me and instead I heard my own sobbing cries for forgiveness and my own pleas melting into a kind of universal groan that could somehow be heard far beyond today, far beyond my own capacity to ease it, yet calling me to enter into it with all that Jesus taught us....with no exceptions....no malice...no resentments....no pride......just love....acceptance ...and total devotion to the other.....as I have been loved and am loved....so I must love others.. 

My eyes saw his feet first as I arrived at the foot of the Cross. The feet that had walked out of Nazareth into the Baptismal waters of the Jordan, the feet that walked the dusty roads of Galilee and walked on the waters of the seas and through the harsh deserts of the wilderness and left temptation behind them....the feet that untiringly led us to comfort all those in trouble, need or any kind of sickness.......were now bloodied and bruised from the nails that had been thrust through them. We all just stood there silently, among the assortment of the cruel and the curious, before His sacrificial altar built from our own weakness and transgressions and my body wrenched with nausea at the sight and the thought of it all.

And there were the Mary’s, standing together near the foot of the Cross regarding his ravaged, scourged body, filthy with blood, dirt and human spit. Mary His Mother, crying, faint, but standing on the arm of Magdalene, her face wet with tears but who stood with her back erect and with determined eyes, and the other Mary, softly present to them both. 

No longer caring about the consequences, I broke out of the crowd and went to them and stood with them, following their eyes, to meet the eyes of Jesus. And he looked deeply into me, then said, “Here is your mother.” And then, “It is finished.”

We all knew then that he was gone. I sensed then and I know with certitude now that, at that moment, that we had all been part of something far beyond our human capacity to grasp, because the life we had been chosen to accompany could be nothing else but divine. We knew then that, somehow, in some way, we would be convinced that what was not possible would now be made possible and that the work he was sent to do on earth was successfully completed, and that the rising of his Church was already beginning.

I was the last person on earth to whom he spoke and my work on earth since has been unwaveringly to continue that which he started....to walk from the place where his feet left this earth forever. I wish I could tell you the rest of the story, but that is for another day. 

I do know and did learn that grief follows a real and direct experience of death, and that out of the ashes of grief, come new life and new possibilities.

The work Christ completed on that terrible day became yours and mine to continue. All He taught us in life was now left to us to teach others.....to heal, not to tear down....to do justice and not accept injustice toward anyone......to be forgiving just as we are forgiven.....to bear whatever suffering we must endure in the name of God’s true call to us and above all....to love in such a way as Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ loved us......without condition and without end. 

My name is John. I was there. The eyewitness. I am witness for the others who were there, who saw and heard it all, and for the one who is speaking before you now and I am witness for all of you who must always remember in His name that love, grace and forgiveness will always triumph over hatred, revenge and cruelty. 

My name is John. “He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.” (John 19:35)

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God 

E. J. R. Culver+

April 18, 2025

Maundy Thursday

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14

Psalm 116: 1, 10-17

1 Corinthians 11: 23-26

John 13: 1-17, 31b-35

“Just as I have loved you…”

On the night we are recalling this evening, the disciples gathered for a meal with Jesus. Many churches add a commemorative meal prior to the Maundy Thursday service. It is called the Agape Meal, Agape meaning Love, a meal of love shared by congregations in remembrance of Jesus’ last supper with this disciples. Perhaps we will share an Agape Meal next year, here at Christ Church. 

What is important for us tonight is to notice that Saint John doesn’t tell us how many disciples are in the Upper Room for supper with Jesus, therefore, any number of us might be there.

The difference between us and the others who knew him lies in our knowledge of the sequence of events that are yet to come. We may not have walked and talked directly with Jesus, but we do know what lies in the future, yet those disciples who were with him that evening, had no idea of what would happen on the next day or on the third day.

Being there, in that room with this distinct advantage of advance knowledge, we might think we understand the dynamic of the evening. It seems easy enough to be armchair disciples, easy to shake our heads in amusement at the lack of insight and lack of sophistication of this twelve who have been with Jesus throughout his ministry. Jesus has been telling them about what is to come and now, here they are, here we are, on the eve of Passover, the night before a time of sacrifice. It is the night before Jesus will offer himself as the ultimate sacrifice, paralleling in chilling reality that ritual sought out by all those with sins to be absolved. 

It is at this, his Last Supper, that Jesus gives us the central message of his mission on earth, the mission we are called to keep alive in His name: “Little children, I am with you only a little longer….just as I have loved you…. you should also love one another.” 

Little children, I am leaving you…you have little time left to learn, learn now. You must learn and come to truly understand how much care you must take with the hearts of others. You must learn and come to truly understand that there is no substitute for love, no room for hate. It will be hard, but this is it, little children. There is no other message, no commandment greater than this, even unto death. Listen and learn now.

It is the Maundy message….the mandatum… the commandment of Jesus. It is the last night that any of us will dine with Jesus before his death, and we are hearing his very human need to convey the central core of his ministry and message into our distracted heads and ears before it is too late for us to hear it.

Yet, the disciples who have been so close to Jesus for so long, hardly hear him due to focusing on their own agendas. They are not hearing him at the heart’s level, let alone understanding him in their minds. 

We who are witnessing all of this from our place in the bleachers desperately want them to hear, we want them to listen for once, listen deeply and understand. We ache with the realization that he is not being heard, while deep down in our own hearts, we realize that at some level, we don’t hear it well enough to understand what it really all means either. 

So, we sink back in our seats, back into the shadows with a sense of our own ineffectiveness. If we understand anything at all, it is how very stuck we are in our own simple human single mindedness.

All that said, it must have been clear to Jesus that actions rather than words were all that was left to him. And what happened next was not only unusual and uncomfortable to all present, but to a degree, shocking for the disciples, just as it continues to be for many of us. 

In the years around 33 of the Common Era, after walking along dusty streets during the day, then entering an establishment for a meal, it was common to have one’s feet washed before eating and drinking. A servant or a slave, or even a child of the host, would always offer a bowl for the purpose of cleaning one’s hands, and the servant or slave would also kneel to wash guests’ tired and dusty feet.

But this was no ordinary night and the rituals surrounding eating meals together were beyond the expected normal boundaries. Outside the atmosphere was politically charged, while inside the room the air was ripe with tension. The usual air of comradery was absent as the disciples continued to bicker about who was greater or who was the closest to Jesus. Looking back, one cannot help comparing that kind of conversation with that of quarrelsome children fighting about who’s gets to ride in the front seat! 

They were, however, most likely aware of some unspoken tension building between Jesus and Judas Iscariot. The disciples were probably used to the two having differences of opinion about Jesus’ approach to his ministry and how he should be handling the push back from the authorities. And, they were probably used to Judas and his moods, but tonight Judas seemed especially angry at the turn of events politically, and found himself at odds with the group, weighing his own options about whether he should stay the course or whether he should jump ship now before the authorities moved in.

It was into the midst of all this angst and anger and perhaps compelled by it and by his own deep desire to make his point clear, that Jesus was drawn to rise midway through the meal, remove his robe, pour water into a basin and drop to his knees to wash the feet of those who had followed him into this place.

Hearing this again and again, do our hearts not still sink for him? Do we not feel the urge to snatch the basin from him, so that we can wash the very feet that carry such a message of love and peace? Are we not angry by the disciples’ confusion, their embarrassment at their own sense of superiority, by their failure to understand the true meaning of humbleness of heart? Why is it, we ask, they cannot understand that this last act of love will serve as a deeply poignant moment of their last few hours together. And yet, do we? And who are we to judge? Are we ever aware that our words to someone else, our actions toward someone else, our ability to truly listen to another, or to hear their truth could be the last time

It was a humble, selfless act. An expression of the deepest servitude of the master, a precursor of what it means to sacrifice oneself in the name of love for another….an interpretation, if you will, by Jesus. A revelation of what total capitulation of ego and self can look like. 

One could say that it was an ultimate purification rite for the disciples and a lesson for every one of us. In a sense, it was a sacramental act of baptism. A washing clean of all our muddy thinking, our darkest thoughts, our self-preserving egos and the rest. 

It was nothing less than a dramatization of the Kingdom in which the greatest is the least. Not a condition that brings privilege to a few and slavish conditions or fear to the many, but a Kingdom in which we are to live as servants to all. Jesus wants us to experience pure selflessness. He wants us to experience his final act of love.

With some measure of contrite misery and continued confusion, each of the disciples submits to his Lord kneeling before him, and watching as Jesus washes the foot presented to him, and finally, gently, taking his own towel, dries each one. 

Is wasn’t so long ago, we recall, that Mary of Bethany anointed the feet of Jesus with precious oil, and now Jesus, “anoints” our feet with lowly, cleansing, clear water so that we might have “full share of him.” 

It is too much for Peter, who cries out for him to stop.. “Not my feet!” One wonders what Peter saw in the eyes of Jesus, as Jesus responds, “If I do not wash you, you will have no share in me…..” Whereupon, Peter, God love him, impulsive, affectionate, well-meaning Peter, panic-stricken at the thought of separation from Christ, goes to the other extreme… “then also my hands and my head.” I pray that Jesus, even in his anguish, found the moment worthy of a loving smile. 

Even here there is a lesson to be learned. Jesus is not asking us to exaggerate our obedience to his command. We are to simply prepare ourselves anew for the spiritual life in Christ, in body, mind and Spirit. It is as if Jesus is asking us to wash the feet of another unceasingly….. just as does the baptismal water flow freely for our needs and just as our intimate relationship with Christ and our love for each other must never cease. 

Jesus reminds us that we that if we are in fellowship with Him then we are in fellowship with God. It is when we allow ourselves to drift away from this relationship, if our prayers and rituals are not cleansing our characters, not healing our broken hearts, then we are simply moving from day to day in life. We are no different than we were before we knew God and we have missed the point. 

It is through an act of spiritual servitude, an act of loving, that brings us back into relationship with God, and we can take heart in Jesus’ answer to Peter, “He who is bathed is clean.”

And, so, like St. Paul, we press on. Beyond the Upper Room and into our worldly priorities, pressing on to learn and grow in Christ. Not giving in to the unalterable status quo of the world and all its sins but rather growing into His Spirit. The Spirit is not bound by convention and moves where it will in the moment, forgiving unendingly even in the midst of anger, scorn and betrayal presented at our door each day by the world. 

The disciples were privileged to see, touch and hear directly an ideal way of living realized in the person of the One who lived it. It was nothing less than the dream of Jesus brought to earthly reality through a simple act of humility which has prevailed for over 2,000 years.

Tonight, it is time for us to come down from the bleachers. Our time for mere watching is over and it is our turn to experience the incarnation of the ideal Jesus has shown us by example.

Through a visible sign, like a simple act of foot washing and being washed, we serve the love of Christ to one another, and God’s invisible grace breaks our worldly hearts wide open.

Yet, like the twelve gone before us, we will deny Him yet, we will fail Him, but we will love Him and follow Him and keep clambering down from our high places to try to walk in His Way, even unto death. 

The reward is great, “Little children”, Jesus says to us; we tormented and troubled, we lost and confused, we still stumbling in the dark, little children, “You are in my heart, just as I am in God’s heart, and I will love you to the end.” 

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God.

E. J. R. Culver

April 17, 2025

Fifth Sunday in Lent

Isaiah 43:16-21

Psalm 126

Philippians 3:4b-14

John 12:1-8

The Gift

“Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to

problems that upset you, oh,

Don’t you know

Everything’s alright, yes, everything’s fine.

And we want you to sleep well tonight,

Let the world turn without you tonight.

If we try, we’ll get by, so forget all about us tonight.

Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you, and anoint you.

Myrrh for your hot forehead

Then you’ll feel

Everything’s alright, yes, everything’s fine.

And it’s cool and the ointment’s sweet

For the fire in your head and feet.

Close your eyes, close your eyes

And relax, think of nothing tonight.”[i]

These are some of the lyrics from Jesus Christ, Superstar and the words are exactly based on our reading from John’s Gospel chapter today. 

Have you ever received a gift, perhaps at Christmas, for a birthday, or some other special occasion and, upon opening it and viewing it, you realize with instant certainty that what lay inside the wrapping paper or bag was simply a mere reflection of the real gift being offered to you?

You knew immediately that the gift was given with love and that you are the beloved of the gift giver and beyond your knowing of that, with even more impact than that, you realize that what lies before you is an expression of yourself being known. You are known deeply, sincerely and accurately, and that in the mere circumstance of being so deeply known, you are indeed thought of, sincerely loved and sincerely remembered, not just in one moment in time, but all the time and for all time.

Such it was when Jesus first saw the gift prepared for him by Mary of Bethany. We are familiar with several Mary’s, however, this Mary is the Mary of the sisters, Mary and Martha, and brother Lazarus. You might recall that Mary and Martha were there when Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead. All the Mary’s were early and devoted disciples and considered holy women and as such, have often been confused or conflated by the medieval church and even, in some circles, in the present time. But not in our Gospel reading today.

It is Mary of Bethany who takes center stage in the drama taking place at the home of Lazarus in Bethany. Her love and knowledge of Jesus is clear and apparent. The story of Mary and her costly perfume is well known and serves as a very revealing measure about how well and deeply we know ourselves, how well and deeply we know those we love, and how well and deeply we know God. 

In this case, it is certain that Mary knows Jesus deeply and well and has the confidence within herself to gift him with the opportunity to find rest, comfort and release from any thoughts he might have about the direction his activities were swiftly carrying him. He knows, and Mary seems able to discern, that he is coming very close to the end, coming closer and closer to the cross. 

Jesus kept nothing from his disciples and had warned them of his coming death. But more than that, he told them he was going to die and rise again. The disciples couldn’t absorb the last part of his warning, any more than we could have understood the message had we been there at the time. 

But Mary seemed believe and understand and was moved to ensure Jesus could find a little luxurious respite from the inevitable torture he would have to undergo. So she gave all her savings to purchase costly perfumed ointment, designed to soothe body, mind and spirit.  The ointment was worth 300 denari, an enormous amount of money for simple working class people but for Mary, every ounce of the perfumed ointment she poured out was worth it. She gave everything she had to show Jesus how much he was loved and to honor all that he was in the world. Most of all, when Jesus saw this gift, he too knew the meaning of such a gift.  Such a gift is a profound reflection of what it means to give one’s all, to give all of one’s self in love to another. 

We can learn from the very human Mary of Bethany. She was subject to the same human mistakes, range of emotions, regrets, and all the rest just as much as anyone else in her time and just as much as anyone alive today. Yet her gift came from a place in her heart that is not often considered when we think of others, even when we think of them lovingly. 

In our Lenten study group, we’ve been talking a lot about the difference between the human heart and the divine heart. The human heart is beset by a million options imposed by the world. What does the world expect? How does the world expect us to act? To respond?  How to show love for another? What are the worldly boundaries? What is acceptable behavior in the world? 

The divine heart, while aware of normal existence in the world, goes deeper, sees deeper, understands deeper, knows far more deeply than the human heart wants to take time to uncover. The divine heart doesn’t so much react to what seems like a difficult situation, as it does respond in such a way that the difficult situation is made less arduous. 

The human heart can love, can like, can feel empathy or compassion. The divine heart expresses all those, yet with a deep knowing that is hard to find, hidden as it is in human hearts. The divine heart recognizes longing and yearning when it see it and moves to respond to that longing. While the human heart takes into consideration the practicalities of a situation for living,  the divine heart allows one to let go of those considerations for the benefit of another. 

All this leads each one of us to a profound question. What is it that each one of us is willing to let go, willing to surrender, willing to sacrifice in order to show our love for one another and for God? 

Now Judas speaks, 

“Woman your fine ointment, brand new and expensive

Should have been saved for the poor.

Why has it been wasted? We could have raised maybe

Three hundred silver pieces or more.

People who are hungry, people who are starving

They matter more that your feet or hair.”

By his angry outburst, we begin to understand Judas is thinking with his human heart. He has taken good note of Jesus’ desire to care for the poor and suffering. We heard his admonishment of Mary and by the world’s standards, for good reason. Thinking about the enormous value of the expensive perfume he says that the money spent on the costly stuff could have been spent of the poor. And, thinking about that with our human hearts we would probably agree with Judas. 

Of course, John’s Gospel, ever alert to an opportunity to point out the sins of Judas, suggests Judas might have thought he could get his own hands on the money. Whether or not, we humans must admit Judas had a good point when he suggested selling the exotic oil in order to use the money to feed the poor. After all, wasn’t that instruction coming straight from Jesus?  Wasn’t his message to everyone around him to to sell their possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and to become part of his activity in the world?  Isn’t that part of his message to us?

Yer, let us be clear. Jesus does not expect us to give away our clothes, our homes, our beds so that we, too, become poor.  His message about giving away everything you have is a message to our human hearts to let go of all our worldly viewpoints and perspectives, it’s demands and expectations, and to allow the divine into our hearts to such a point that we are ready and, indeed, able to truly understand, know, love and follow Christ, thus coming to understand what it is that Christ is asking from every one of us, each in our own way. 

It is Jesus’ way of saying that in order to follow Jesus, we’ve got to let got of a lot of stuff we don’t need such as jealousy, pride, need for recognition or success, need to accumulate money or possessions and much more. We are to let go of these selfish, self-centered desires and replace them with deep compassion, knowledge of the longings of another, knowledge and understanding of another’s needs and above all, a commitment to uphold the needs of the poor while at the same time, demonstrating absolute understanding, commitment and devotion to Jesus. 

As Jesus said, the poor will always be with us and we are called by Jesus to continue caring for the poor in everyway we can. In this world, the poor and suffering are not hard to find, in the streets of our city, families struggling to keep a roof over their heads, to people worldwide who are suffering in a variety of most profound ways due to a variety of causes. To serve the poor is to serve Jesus. Letting go of our worldly possessions, that is, letting go of our human perspectives in order to make way for the divine to enter in, is to serve God.  The divine heart will recognize, know and understand God’s divine intention for its purpose and the particular spiritual way in which it can serve the poor, and by doing so, serve God.

What John wants us to understand is that the issue of the costly perfume is not about what the perfume was used for. Rather, the point of this story is to draw our attention to Mary’s spiritual motivation which drove her actions. She allowed herself to leave behind all worldly expectations and judgments about her purchase of the ointment, in order that she would be free to give all of herself, unencumbered by the world, to Jesus. In that gesture, she gave herself to Jesus and all he stood for with a depth of understanding that Judas and most of the others around her could not reach. 

In what way will you show Jesus the same? What sacrifice are you willing to make in order to how Jesus the depth of your love for him?  Will we continue to protect all of our possessions with rationalization and excuse? What do our human hearts really think about those who give it all up for Christ?

All the possessions, people and places we love are meant to teach us gratitude and to lead us toward living with a divine heart, soul and mind.  How we feel about our homes, our relationships, our precious mementos and more provides an opportunity to reflect our gratitude to God and God’s provision of abundance in our lives. 

An abundance of belongings, relationships and more, when held with gratitude, becomes the conduit to an outpouring of divine love from a divine heart which leads to divine love being instantly returned, felt and easily recognized. Such is the state of grace.

Even though Judas objected and criticized Mary for her extravagance, as would most of us, as we approach the holiest time of Christian awareness, we accept and understand that Jesus gave all he had, his very life in an act of unconditional love for all the Mary’s, Judas’s, and every one of us in this sanctuary. He asks nothing in return except our own willingness to let go of our worldliness and surrender it and all of ourselves to God. 

May we now carry this message of divine, unconditional love with us into Holy Week and beyond.  Let us allow ourselves to make space in our human hearts for the Divine. Let us make space for God to dwell there so that our decisions at all levels are directed with overflowing Divine love, for each other, for the poor, and for all that God has created.

Like the expensive gift Mary poured onto the feet of Jesus, Divine Love is that kind of love that will thrill all that receive it, will captivate, will inspire and will spread unchecked into the world and will ultimately save it. 

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E.J. R. Culver+

April 6, 2025

[i]“Everything’s Alright,” from “Jesus Christ, Superstar,”(1971) Music, Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lyrics by Tim Rice

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Joshua 5:9-12

Psalm 32

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Luke 15: 1-3,11b-32

Where The Heart Is

If you have read J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic masterwork, “The Lord of the Rings,”[1] you will be well acquainted with the life and likes of Bilbo Baggins, a fine and humble Hobbit, who suddenly finds himself pulled away from his comfy, somewhat benign and predictable slipper kind of life at home, into adventures he could never have imagined, let alone encounter, as he was destined to do. The four books which tell of these adventures taking place in a mythical middle earth, are filled with the kind of theology you and I work to understand. The lessons learned in Middle Earth, enjoyed by young and old alike, around the world, are not far removed from the lessons brought to us through the parables of Jesus. Stories of good prevailing over evil, of unknowing and trust, of humble and contrite hearts, of forgiveness and grace.

What springs immediately to mind when thinking about the Hobbits is a reminder of their innate generosity. If you have read the books, you will remember that, rather than wait for someone to hold a birthday party in one’s honor, the Hobbit arranges for a birthday party for his family and friends… giving thanks for their presence in his life, and indeed, as far as his parents were concerned, for giving him life in the first place. So, the birthday celebration does not seek to bring attention and focus to the birthday of the Hobbit himself, rather that auspicious day is meant to celebrate others through gifts of joyous gratitude. 

All this said, it would seem to make sense that the well-known parable we call the Parable of the Prodigal Son, heard today, would be easily understood by Tolkien’s Hobbits, and all others whose hearts reside in a place of humble hospitality and joyous recognition of others.

Jesus tells the story of a wealthy farmer and his two sons. Both are due to inherit a goodly sum from their father after his death. The younger son, however, somehow convinces his father that he should not have to wait for his share of the inheritance, and his father responds by fulfilling his request for what he feels already belongs to him. As we know, off goes the son to quickly spend his share of his father’s hard-earned money, on high living in the world, and, as expected, the money is soon gone, slipping through his foolish hands like sand. And, without a single coin to his name, he finds himself eating pig slop in order to survive. At this, he makes the decision to return to his father, who, at the very least, might give him a paid job, even if the work be at the bottom of the pecking order among the hired help.

Filled with humiliation and shame, he returns home. He practices his speech in order to have the right words to say before being cast out as disowned. He cannot imagine anything but the worst kind of welcome, filled with anger, blame and judgement, so he must not have been looking forward to the conversation about to ensue with dear old Dad. He is first sighted by his father as he walks over the hill overlooking the familiar homestead. His father joyously runs with open arms toward his younger son, his heart overflowing with compassion to greet him. It is the most unexpected reception the son could ever have imagined and before he has a chance to spill out his prepared speech, his father kissed him, a fine robe was thrust around him, a ring placed on his finger, a great feast was begun and most of the town was invited. I confess, I cannot stop thinking of a 1960’s MGM production here, maybe starring Spencer Tracy as the father and a young Burt Lancaster as the son! But no matter. For the cast was already set. For the father, it was a very big deal to see his son returned and, indirectly for all those who loved the father and witnessed his joy, it was a singular pleasure to revel in it with him. 

It would be so comfortable and easy if the story ended on this note. Just as it would have been far more comfortable not to have withstood all the challenges interrupting the happy life of the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins. But life most usually isn’t that smooth and the endings, while sometimes quite happy, are never really perfect.

There is another brother in the story, for whom none of this over-the-top welcome makes sense. During the entire time his brother has been gone, he has been the faithful, hardworking son, not expecting to use his coming wealth before its time, or in any way other than to continue in his father’s footsteps. For years he has worked hard without any overt appreciation or party thrown in his honor. At this huge celebration at his brother’s return, he is angry. Fed up. He would have most likely preferred to see his brother relegated to the lowest, most menial job on the farm, undergoing hardship and humiliation among those who used to pay him respect as a son of the landowner. That, at least, could have given some satisfaction.

Alas, so it is that in the human heart, cold justice too often ignores other human hearts involved and has no idea of the contents held within, thus counting their fate as not worth thinking about. This kind of worldly justice finds no place for forgiveness. At this unexpected and ceremonious welcome, he doesn’t want anything to do with his ne’er-do well younger brother and despite his father’s pleas for him to come to the party to greet his brother, he’ll have none of it. 

And here we are. Safely landed back on earth, with our very earthy, human responses. Back from the mythology of extreme generosity that lived in Middle Earth, back from the happy-ever-after fairy tales that seem to stop at the moment of all-ends-well, before too much can go wrong. After all, isn’t that why we call them fairy tales? They are not real. Human hearts that dwell in revenge or resentment are real. 

Jesus’ story is very real, and lifts up very real, human relationships and the complications of deep feelings, well-placed and well-intentioned, as well as feelings, while understandable, don’t often get us where we would really like to be. And yet, the parable does not ignore evil, does not belittle God’s way and justice is served, even though in a way we would never have thought possible. 

After all, it isn’t hard for us to understand the feelings of the hard-working brother after his responsible work for his father, his admirable behavior and care of his father’s land. And it isn’t too much of a stretch for us to think the younger brother should have to pay at some point. He’s the one who’s been playing at have a good time all these years, thoroughly enjoying himself, and now, instead of having his come-uppance, he’s arrived back home, penniless and with nothing to show for his time away, to yet another party in his honor. Our human hearts understand the elder brother’s anger. Who wouldn’t understand his being royally ticked off at his brother, and even at his father? How could his father be so blind!

Yet, as St. Paul says, we have to stop thinking about the relationship just described between the two brothers in human terms as he explained, “we regard no one from human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.”.[2] Paul reminds of that through his own suffering and death, Jesus took the place of the sinner in this story, just as he took the place for all sinners, including you and me, taking on all our iniquities and our turning away from God. Jesus is with us in the midst of all our human mess, which he overcomes. 

As professed Christians, we in turn, are adopted into that sinless One so that, even though we understand Jesus in his humanity, feeling, suffering as we do, we also understand and accept his resurrection and return to the Divine. We understand that we are reconciled to God through Christ, and thus we hold the ministry and capability of reconciliation in our hearts. This means, we do not count the trespasses against others but rather work toward reconciliation, just as as we are reconciled to God who forgives all our trespasses. 

In other words, let us begin to think of our relationships with the heart of the Divine. Perhaps one way to think about our approach to all our relationships, regardless of their circumstances or degree of difficulty, or even of their ease and tranquility, is to approach them as St. Benedict would say, with the “ear of our heart.” In other words, with the heart of the Divine. To place our heart where it can meet and be reconciled with the Divine.It is with the Divine heart that the father greets his younger son, and pleads with his older son, as well. 

Human reactions are not the focus of Jesus’ parable. We know the son feels afraid as he approaches his home after spending all his father’s inheritance and we know that his brother is boiling mad when he sees what he perceives to be unfair on the part of his brother’s welcome, and of his own sense of isolation from that welcome.

Rather Jesus focuses on the movement of the Divine in the heart of the father. The father does not react in a very understandable and human way, flailing in anger and blame at the sight of his long-lost and wayward son. Nor does he reprimand the older brother for his very human reaction of anger and bitterness toward his younger brother. He neither defends nor blames, which are very human reactions in a multitude of situations we all come across in our relationships, familial or between friends, at work or with all sorts of groups and institutions in which we are a part.

Rather, we are made witness to the father’s own abundance of joyous love, not just for one, but for many. There is no limit to his love. There is plenty for all. “All that is mine is yours,” exclaims the father when talking to his older son. In other words, there is no less love for you than for the other. My love is without condition and has no end. 

What has happened in the past has no impact on the father’s love. What might happen in the future has no impact on that unending love, either. The father is, you might say, in the moment. His heart is in the moment of the Divine, he is experiencing a moment where the divine heart has taken hold of the human heart to show it the way of the Divine. As Paul put it to the Christians in Corinth, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”[3]

For the Divine Heart, the past counts for nothing. It has no place in the present moment for the Divine heart. And yet, the past and future, the blame and the warnings always seems to count for everything in the human heart. It is this inclusion of what has happened in the past, and what the outcome should be that steals away any opportunity for unconditional and overflowing love from our hearts, turning us away from the Way to God’s Kingdom on earth. 

Like the Hobbits and their birthday parties for the ones they love, the father is responding to the ones he loves and is ready to lift them up in celebration no matter who they are or what they have done. 

Through his parable, Jesus teaches us about God’s love for us. Abounding love, consistent, unconditional love. In our humanity, we get confused about love and put a price on it too quickly. I will love you, if…. I will love you when…. If you loved me you would…. How do I know you love me if you don’t…. I leave it to you to fill in the blanks. 

It will take perseverance, practice and deep awareness far beyond Lent for us to recognize our many personal sins of resentment, judgment, as our own pig-troughs continue to fill with envy and complaint. Yet, just as the son was welcomed back with open arms and non-judgmental love, so are we welcomed continually to return to God, the Divine Heart, no questions asked. 

Our human hearts are always waiting for the bad guy to get his, or her just deserts and we want the good guy to be vindicated. But for this to happen, war, at any level, must break out. Good must prevail over evil. Evil desires to win at all costs for selfish gain. What starts as a war in the human heart, is in danger of growing to such proportions that it infects the human hearts of others, and resentments, greed and lust for power, casts a fire of hell over all that could be at peace whether between two human hearts or the nations of the world. 

That said, it is clear we live on the side of a very slippery slope. We were created by God to be in relationship with God; in relationship with one another, and in harmony with God and in harmony with all of God’s created beings. It is when we fall out of relationship with God, when we allow our lives to become fragmented, distorted and broken due to the human need to be right, or to win, that we find ourselves lost in a fog of indirection. 

God’s deepest desire is for continual renewal of God’s creation and all God’s created beings. Only through God’s people can creation be repaired and restored, and we do not have time for human reactions to take final control over the Divine possibility that dwells within us. Perhaps the Hobbits were ahead of their time and could teach us a thing or two about awareness of where our hearts are. 

This story has little to do with wayward children and everything to do with the infinite height and depth, width and breadth of God’s limitless compassion and love and divine justice that transcends our ability to fathom it. 

For us to gain a foothold to lift us back into the safety of that Divinely held grace, compassion and mercy, we must remember the scope of God’s Divine Heart, always searching, always healing, always forgiving, always bringing the one that was lost, like you and like me, back home. 

Here is a prayer, God Has A Dream, in his book, A Vison of Hope For our Time, written by the late Bishop Desmond Tutu:

“I have a dream, God says. Please help Me to realize it. It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, its war and hostility, its greed and harsh competitiveness, its alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts, when there will be more laughter, joy and peace, where there will be justice and goodness and compassion and love and caring and sharing. I have a dream that swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, that My children will know that they are members of one family, the human family, God’s family, My family.”[4] 

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

March 30, 2025

[1]J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, (George Allen and Unwin (UK), 1937. 

[2]2 Corinthians 5:16

[3]2 Corinthians 5:17

[4]Desmond Tutu, God Has A Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time (New York: Doubleday, 2004),19-20.

The Third Sunday in Lent

Exodus 3:1-15

Psalm 63:1-8

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Luke 13:1-9

SILK TREE THEOLOGY

When the nights were long and the mornings foggily dark and damp, from out of the depths, out of the darkness, out of holy ground, a minute piece of root left behind from the remains of a long since dead, old and broken down Silk Tree, formed a pale green grass-like shoot that began to move toward the light of day.

What awaited it there, it could not know. Nor was it capable of knowing. All it knew was to be obediently responsive to a call promising that if it kept on moving, its faithful work would be rewarded. The promise it understood was that there would be life-giving light and something would be tangible. While it could not understand the physicality of that promise, it did sense through whatever sensory gifts it had been given, that there would also be an indefinable and intangible opportunity to experience life in a new way, a way promised since the beginning of time, a way that, followed with faith and determination, never seemed to fail.

Somehow the little shoot underst00d that it could trust this way, even though it still could not be seen, perhaps so that it would be undaunted by the unseen and it would just keep moving until all could be seen and the little shoot, too, could be seen so that it could see its world revealed in a completely new way. The little shoot began to grow into its new way, then rested to prepare for what would happen next.

So it was for Moses. A simple man, small, tending his flocks, unchanging and unknowing, and yet invited, as are all God’s people to venture forward on to holy ground. We are invited to come before God in order to hear God’s word and to find the courage to follow the guidance for living found there. For Moses, it was the voice of God coming out of a burning bush that would not, could not, be consumed. Just as for us are hard-to-understand instincts that cause us to stop, turn and pray, call to listen, for once, to God’s voice, rather than the noise of the world.

What God had to say to Moses wasn’t easy for Moses to hear and, often, what God has to say to each of us isn’t easy to hear either. Would that any of us had it so easy as did the little green shoot. To be simply called up into the world, nothing more, nothing less. And yet, just how easy was that call in the life of the little shoot sensing only a call to keep moving forward with little else to rely on but trust.

To continue moving through dark unknowing, in trust that we will reach a place where each of us can fulfill our own particular destiny, a destiny designed to be embraced and received as fully acceptable, as fully authentic, as designed by an unseen voice, and to be received as one belonging in the place made available for us in the revealing light of day, takes courage, determination and faith in that unseen call.

The little shoot cannot know or understand the complexities of how it was created, the meaning of survival, or how its urge for survival gives it the strength to push its frail blade against a particularly hard clod of dirt or a pebble buried deep in the earth, barring its way. It only knows, deep in its DNA that it must and will keep moving in as straight a line as possible in order to reach the light. 

Within the complexities of our lives we meet the same hard clods of dirt, the same pebbles buried deep in the ground of our intentions and yet, rather than simply try to move through them or around them, we, too often, allow them to impede our progress, and we are quick to place the blame for our delay in reaching our destination.

Moses needed to push his way through his own obligations, his insecurities and indecision, his profound preferences, and to be given the chance to explain the reasons for his personal choices. Like us, Moses had all these and felt comfortable in his role as shepherd, with hearth and home a known and acceptable part of his life. 

Now he is being called to change all that; to leave it behind; to step out into the world in a new way; to do nothing less than to rescue and shepherd a nation of people. It seems an impossible task for Moses, and if he were to follow a path of his own choosing, he would likely have stayed put, or been pulled into other still-unknown directions which might have been unfulfilling or even disastrous.

When it comes to personal preferences, we’re not really much different than Moses. We allow ourselves to be controlled by our misguided needs and desires, making decisions that seem satisfying at the time, but tend to leave us feeling empty, undernourished, leading to life that seems acceptable, yet put to the risk of a kind of starvation and ultimate death of the soul.

The little shoot, unencumbered by choice, continues to make its way, like a pilgrim on a dark Lenten walk, one step at a time, in patient acceptance and trust that the light of Easter will eventually come. 

In the midst of our own Lenten walk, we, too, come to seek the Light, continually searching for answers that can only come with an enlightened awareness of our own deep call.

Once learning of that, much like a small shoot rising out of a single cell, we are called to walk on in trust, through this dark time of unknowing we call Lent and beyond. We are called by God to keep moving, in anticipation for what, we are unsure. We hear the voice of God when we set out to listen for it. “The Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you? He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid……” [1]

Like Adam, we are afraid of what God asks of us, but like Moses, we are to summon the courage to respond. God wants to be there with us at our greatest times of uncertainty and doubt about what direction we should take, and how we are to enter on to a path that God wishes us to take. Too often the holy ground we are invited to enter seems too difficult to encounter, guarded by a burning bush of our own making and yet which we cannot seem to understand, yet seems to challenge us, daring us to come closer. 

Holy Ground is that of God. And how sad it seems that when obstacles, real or imagined, rise up to block our way, we either don’t notice God’s abundance of gifts freely given to us, or we are reluctant to let go of our own definition of Godly living in order to allow God to be a part of it. 

It is when we allow God to enter the conversation about our own particular destiny that we hear our singular call to move forward, perhaps in a very different way. Perhaps in a way that is outside the expected, outside the ordinary of our lives.

To allow God in is to move away from the ordinary. We are offered an opportunity to think about living a life that transcends the ordinary….a life that grows beyond our known comforts or beyond our own self-sanctification of what we think we deserve. Ours is a world that has those kinds of limits and, like a fenced mansion, we can become entrapped by our own self-identity and meaning in life that has been fashioned by our own view of ourselves, with no or little input from God.

Yet, with all that being true, as the psalmist reminds us, God enters easily into the ordinary. The psalmist thinks of God as he lies in his bed, as he pads around his room in the middle of the night, and he shows us that God can just as easily be found there, in the ordinary. It is the ordinary that becomes extraordinary, as our trust in God grows with more ease and as God just as easily then, enters in.

Spurred on by its innate ability to respond to God’s creative call, the little shoot has continued faithfully on its way. It has become slightly misshapen but the hard clod of dirt has been split wide open and the pebble, buried so deep in the earth has been moved. Would that we could be so content to simply grow, mindlessly trusting in an expected outcome that has nothing to do with our control over the situation.

For instance, we just heard about the Galileans who are in conversation with Jesus. They are angry at the treatment and working conditions of their fellow countrymen under the thumb of the Romans. You can’t blame them for being angry about what they have heard, even though there’s a chance that what they are hearing of not being absolutely true. Regardless, they want Jesus to control the situation, to do something about it, to fix it,

But Jesus does not enter this place of blame and condemnation and focuses his attention on the angry faces before him. His call for their repentance, their about face from anger to self-awareness is a tall order. Yet Jesus challenges them on they way they are allowing themselves to be defined by the forces that surround them. Jesus calls us just as he calls them to be aware of our own actions before we come to conclusions about how to deal with life on our own terms without any input from God. 

It is into this world filled with discontent that Jesus tells the parable of the old fig tree, no longer vey productive. The farmer sees fertile land being taken up by a tree that doesn’t seem to bear fruit anymore, and he wants to cut it down.  However, the farmer’s head gardener intervenes on the tree’s behalf, persuading the farmer to allow him to fertilize the tree to see if there is life left in the tree and thus more fruit yet to come. 

It’s a sweet story with a hard lesson, as Jesus brings our self-righteous clamoring for what we think we are entitled to and our competitive need for power, back into perspective. We are brought down to size with his example of the old tree, asking us the question: are you bearing fruit or just taking up space? Are we bearing the fruit of forbearance or are we more interested in our own position to find room and space to think another way?

Jesus knew that it probably made more sense, given conventional wisdom, for the old unproductive tree to be cut down and yet his parable has the farmer making a management decision that seems efficient on the surface, yet inefficient given the circumstances. Jesus wants to emphasize something far more important than the place taken up by an old tree. He wants us to glimpse the amount of power that a mere hint of God’s mercy can bring about. As powerful as the opportunity to live anew, with a new way of thinking and being in the world.

Like the tree which has one year to turn itself around and bear fruit, so we are given yet another chance to turn and move humbly into a place that will fill us with an abundance of God’s grace and mercy until we become part of God’s presence in the world by its strengthening goodness. 

The little shoot finally breaks through the surface of a damp, cold earth and greets the world in which it has been called to live. It observes its new home with unspoken but visible gratitude for the strength and power it was given to reach this heretofore unknown place. It absorbs the Spring rain and discerns an irresistible pull toward the cool warmth of the sun as it begins the work of transforming itself into what it is to become. The shoot, now with full awareness of its destination, increases the pace of its growth and sends out young leaves that carry out a promise made in infinity. The leaves are supported by the shoot, itself, which has soon become identifiable as a Silk Tree sapling, grown from deep remnants of the old dying tree.

In its reaching for its authentic identity and presence on the earth, it assumes nothing, demands nothing, yet is clearly the recipient of God’s wealth of food and drink, surviving through that nurturing grace, to take its place in the world. It could have died, but it was called to live, to reach forward, to break out and establish itself as God’s own, firmly implanted in a place prepared for it, taking its position as part of the body of all God’s creation, a partner in the building up of God’s Kingdom on Earth. What a mighty destination!

To try to give ourselves bread and water of God’s grace without God is an effort in futility. We may grow but are in danger of growing in the wrong direction, encountering clods of dirt to big to break open, or rocks too large to circumvent. We try to live as best we can, perhaps loving the wrong way, embracing wrong relationships, wrong jobs, wrong desires for wealth and power, wrongly judging or blaming, as we continue to perpetuate the age-old paradox of needing to find God when God is already at our side waiting to be received 

God makes the deal abundantly clear. God is continually calling us into relationship and when we enter authentically on to that holy ground, God’s powerful richness of gifts give us all the strength we need for the journey we know we are called to make. 

Whether we are deeply seeking or simply aware that we have to make some changes in who we are, or within our lives, God is prepared to take us just as we are in our present, with our minute desire for change, and enter into it.

We start where we find ourselves in the here and now, and then with whatever amount of longing we have, we begin to grow toward the light. It’s alright if we are small. God understands the small, the vulnerable, the forgotten, the uncertain, and the repentant and celebrates them as God’s own, whether a small nation of Israelites, a baby born in a barn, the fearful carrying a heavy cross. Called to uphold and defend them, God fills them to overflowing with God’s grace and blessing.

Lent presents a challenge for us humans that seems far less difficult for much of creation that easily chooses God’s way. We are called to repent, to turn away from materialistic deadening choices that lead to only fleeting satisfaction and then to emptiness of spirit. Yet, within that message we are called to move toward choices that might fly in the face of conventional wisdom. In Lent we are called to find a path which leads to renewed intent, renewed trust, and renewed hope and thus toward a new way of being and living. 

Like the birth of a new tree, Lent offers us the opportunity to find life in the unexpected rather than the uniform, a life found in the complexity of the divine, rather than the wisdom of convention.

The old Silk Tree was left as dead and yet it rose again within a divine state of grace. It rose to stand firm upon the earth, filled with the strength of new life and purpose. Brand new. Vulnerable, yet with all the presence of the tree born before it. One among many others destined to be just as beautiful, just as noticeable, yet barely daring to think it could be noticed at all, especially by God.

But it is beautiful in God’s eyes and holds within the capacity to be far grander and far bigger than it could have ever hoped to be without its innate sense of God’s presence in and around it. It takes its place from which it will continue to grow, out of holy ground, responding to God’s call with humility and grace.

Like that little green shoot, like Moses and like all those who would call themselves the people of God, we are called to do the same. 

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God.

Esme J. R. Culver+

March 23, 2025

[1] Genesis 3:9b-10a

Second Sunday In Lent

Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18

Psalm 27

Philippians 2:17-4:1

Luke 13:31-35

Journey of Faith

If someone were to ask me which word I would like most to strike from current vocabulary, the word that most quickly comes to mind is the word, “politics.” To be sure, politics can be used for the public good, and used well, everyone might benefit. Yet too often, politics, whether at the highest order of state, politics within systems existing within systems, politics in the schools and, sadly yes, even politics in the church, are often less beneficial. At any level, politics enables the shuffling for power and, too often, the murder of acceptable character, shoving any obstacles to status out of the way, with misdirected goals setting a few against the sacrifice of the many.

Jesus was no stranger to politics. Politics popped up in front of him at every turn, from his disciples shoving and pushing to be nearer to the top of his trusted inner circle, to corrupt politics of the Pharisees and Herod’s ruling elite.  Jesus had to stand his ground against any and all forces that wanted to, directly or indirectly, with or without cause, trip him up and trip up his ministry. Despite all efforts to redirect him,  Jesus would not be moved from the path he walked, casting out demons or healing bodies, souls and spirits, until he was ready to start moving forward to Jerusalem. The political machines were already being tuned up in that city, in anticipation of his arrival. 

Jesus, the one whom God named, “My Beloved,” spends his life and ministry beset by evildoers, enemies, legions of foes out to capture him in some way, to get him off the streets, if you will, in order that their own powerful grip on the people might remain secure. 

It is interesting to note that it was a group of Pharisee leadership, political animals of the first degree, who arrive to warn Jesus that Herod is out to kill him, advising him to get away while the getting was good. Herod did not have a very high rating among the Jews at the time, and Jesus was well known to have no respect for Herod and his oppressive tactics. Thus, when the Pharisees tell him of Herod’s plot to kill him, he makes it clear he has no time for Herod and his threats.  Jesus, like many of his fellow Jews, thought of all the Herodians as nothing more than usurpers who had taken by force the kingdom promised by God to David. Jesus well understood politics.

Even though it appears the Pharisees were trying to alert Jesus, seeming to protect him, it helps us to recall that the Pharisees and Jesus were never, what we might call, bosom buddies. If any group was immersed in political motive and maneuvering, it was the Pharisees. They were especially sensitive to the highly charged and continually changing directions of the political winds of their time, and they were quite aware that leaning toward collaboration with Herod would help their own sense of security, regardless of which way the political winds might blow, just as long as they could persuade Jesus to get out of town completely. With Jesus gone, he would no longer be a problem for them or their position of authority among the people, nor would Jesus be a problem for Herod and Herod’s agenda for power. 

Jesus’ response to this seemingly friendly and concerned warning by the Pharisees, began with “Go and tell that fox from me…”., his quick response revealing his recognition of the political machinations going on, and the ulterior motives of the Pharisees whom he well knows are into political intrigue up to their necks with the Herodians. 

So, perhaps that is one of the reasons Jesus let them know, in no uncertain terms, that he would remain where he was, until it was time for him to go. Then, and only then, would he start toward Jerusalem, the city, he says, “that kills prophets.” 

Jesus knew well that the ablest politician will always work toward an end that will endeavor to satisfy the loudest voices, most especially paying attention to those who will bring rewards for accomplished agendas. Jesus knew that dwelling among honest and sincere politicians who endeavored to uphold the best intentions on behalf of the people they served, there also existed the cunning and sly, albeit clever, and in some cases, the wily and the untrustworthy. 

So it was, that Jesus refers to Herod as “that fox.”

Now, I cannot let this opportunity for the defense of foxes to slip by. I grew up in a part of the world, where foxes got chased until death by a hundred hounds and lots of people on horseback. The fox was the hunted, terrified and afraid of imminent death. On the other hand, the fox was also a predator, keeping his eye firmly on chicken coops he happened across, often much to the demise of a few chickens. But then the fox had to worry about being chased by a snarling dog, or worse, being shot at by an angry farmer. Where I grew up, it was a pretty even playing field for the fox. A bit of a battle of wits. Nothing political. Nothing personal. Just an ongoing positioning for livelihood and sustenance. It took skill, wiles, cleverness and instinct for a fox to survive day to day in order to find his supper. It took the same attributes for the farmer to protect his chickens.

Conversely, in the Hellenistic thought of Jesus’ day and in his part of the world, the fox was thought of as clever indeed, but also sly and unprincipled. The Old Testament aligns the fox with certain destruction,[1]like a jackal, unclean and, therefore, not fit to eat. But there not much implication of this in Jesus’ description of Herod as “that fox.” Rather, Jesus is simply disdainful of Herod’s murderous threats, and he deflects the threats as not worthy enough to be heard, unable to prevent him from his mission to establish God’s Kingdom on earth.

The oppressive tactics of Herod were meant to subdue the people into a kind of acceptance or even submission. Fearing their very lives, the people dared not protest bad laws which Herod created to the detriment of the very people the laws were purported to be protecting and providing for. Luke’s Gospel brings home this reality in Jesus’ world and implies that not only is Jesus unafraid of Herod’s threats, if anything, he doubles down on his own ministerial agenda that he has set out to accomplish. 

After all, this is the Jesus who proclaimed that with the coming of the Kingdom of God, “some who are last will be first, and some who are first will be last.”[2] No wonder, there is more than a little restlessness amongst the powers that be. No wonder all those who were currently holding comfortable positions of power at the cost of comfort of the people, were becoming a wee bit threatened, themselves by this man called Jesus. 

No wonder, the political war machinery, fashioned from pent-up fear and jealousy, greed and lust for power, was being lined up and made ready for battle. For it will be on the third day, says Jesus, when I will begin my journey toward Jerusalem, and I will be taking my challenge all the way to the top.

It was in this politically charged environment, that Jesus sets the stage for his journey toward the cross. Jesus faces down the veiled threats sent out by Herod, letting the Pharisees and Herod know that he, Jesus, is anything but politically naïve, and that he is, if you will, on to them all. To emphasize his point, he informs the Pharisees that he will not even stop in at any of the villages along the way. He will head straight for Jerusalem, within his own time frame.

He is heading for the finish line, the show down, the ultimate end to his ministry.  Placing it into our modern frame of reference in our own place and time, he’s not taking it to any mere state capital, but to the heart of the Congress and the White House of his day. He knows he will not be expected, nor does he expect to be welcomed. He knows he is going to a place where, far too often, expectations, desires and dreams for a new and more just world simply disappear or die.

It is a story we understand and accept as part of Jesus’ world, because it is a common story all around our world. We hear the voices of people crying out in the face of undeserved killing and humiliation. We are witnessing daily sacrifices being made in the name of all that is good. We are witnessing the attempted humiliation of nations who fought to bring stability, security and freedom to their people. Yet, in defiance of evil, now unleashing its angry, lustful greediness for power, we are modern-day witnesses of those who are walking their journey of faith toward Jerusalem, on their own terms, in their own way, and in their own time. 

They are fighting a political few that hold no respect for what is good, whole and holy even though they know, their resistance will, in all likelihood, lead them to their own cross of sacrifice.

Their lament is being heard around the world: Why? Why? They ask, when we did not threaten or tease but only yearn to live and work in peace. 

In his story Luke shared with us today, Jesus did not call out with revolutionary style, eye for an eye rhetoric, but rather he offered his own lament, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wing, and you were not willing!” (34)

As Jesus and the people in his world cried out, and as the people of our world cry out for a better way in the name of peace, the mighty and powerful present themselves very differently. 

Herod, the Pharisees, the collaborators, the politically powerful, and all those who would be first, then and now, and all who desire to be feared as all-powerful, invulnerable, impenetrable behind the doors of their fox dens of political maneuvering, are and will be exposed by Jesus as they really are, as if caught in the glare of the spotlight of the world. 

In much of the world, as it was in Herod’s time, and as it has continue to be and is during and since the life of Jesus on this earth, politics of every kind and at every level continue to dominate the way people are told to think, to argue, to rage and quarrel, to trust and distrust, to uphold and to resist. But Jesus knew, as does every human being who lives and dies at the behest at someone else’s lust for power, that there is a better way. That better way lies at the heart of the one true and living God.

In the heart of God, in spite of God’s distaste of Herod and his like, they are thought of as lost chicks, scattering here and there, unable to come together as one, too stubborn and too afraid to find shelter in a way that would mean less power and more love. At the end of the day, Jesus would choose to gather them together, rather than fight them, so that unity can be achieved at last, a worldly union that is safe, secure and at peace.

The Kingdom of God is not built on politics. Rather God’s Kingdom is continually being built and rebuilt on the foundations of unity, compassion, forgiveness and love. It is those who are called “beloved and blessed” who will be welcomed from their journey of faith in the name of humility, innocence, faith and trust in the God of creation.

We pray that the innocent foxes find a way to live in peace with the nature God intended for them And may those we know of as guilty of hate, greed and overzealous, self-serving politics, come to discover when their earthly truth is revealed before God, that, at the end of their day, when they face the truth of their action, they will be forgiven. Then, and only then, face to face with their truth, they will realize that they are far less powerful than they ever imagined themselves to be during their life on earth. 

Amen.

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

March 16, 2025

[1]Song 2:15, Ezek. 13.4

[2]Luke 13.30 

The First Sunday In Lent

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Romans 10:8b-13

Luke 4:1-13

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16

TEMPTED

He “was tempted in every way as we are, and yet did not sin.” So are the words of the Preface we hear with our Eucharistic Prayer during the Sundays during Lent. 

Jesus was tempted not once, or twice or even three times. He was tempted at every opportune time that the spiritual forces against God could find to try to destroy Him. 

It seems odd to think of the grubby little worldly realities of temptation, after having just been transported with Jesus and his disciples to the mountain top, toward the end of his ministry. Yet, here we are, now back at the opening days of that time when Jesus emerged from the baptismal waters of the Jordan and is now being led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to figure things out about himself, his ministry and what it was he was called to accomplish in the world. His mission was nothing less than to save the world, yet then, as now, the world was not an easy place to venture into in order to save it.

No matter the landscape you envision as representative of wilderness, your perception probably doesn’t  conjure up scenes of home with its creature comforts, well stocked pantry and adequate covering for warmth at night or shade as protection from the sun during the day, not to mention insect repellant, snake bite kits and the rest. Putting it mildly, the wilderness is anything but that. The wilderness is wild, filled with jeopardy, far from home, hearth and the kind of comfort most of us prefer.

Nowhere in the Gospels, whether Matthew, Mark or today’s version given by Luke, are we given the relief of knowing Jesus went into the wilderness with a well equipped backpack for the forty days he would spend in a Middle Eastern desert. 

And, even though we know the story well, and know how the story ends, with Jesus triumphant over the temptations of the devil, winning the day as the devil slinks away, contemplating an even more tempting comeback, we find ourselves, each in our own particular way, entering into our own sense of  deprivation… our own kind of wilderness,just as Jesus entered his. Like Jesus, we are equally ill equipped materially as we set out, but unlike Jesus, we are, sad to say, far less equipped spiritually to withstand the hardship and distance. 

Feeling fairly well equipped with faithful spirit in the best of circumstances, we find we are coming up short on faith when facing a wilderness of unknown and sometimes dangerous temptation. I not yet met anyone who ran joyfully toward Lent. If we have experienced entering the desert of Lent, over several years, as many of us have, we can’t help wondering why it doesn’t get any easier. Why is it, that we are still being tempted away from the difficult paths, toward paths that are so less forbidding and, indeed, even welcome in their comfort and relief to body, mind and spirit? 

Why is it that we seem to come face to face with the same shortcomings this year, as we did in years gone by? Why haven’t those sins disappeared, leaving us less work to do every time Lent bids us, yet again, to venture into the wilderness of our own making?

As The Rev. Dr. Clair McPhearson, a Professor of Ascetical Theology[1]at General Seminary in New York, once taught my son when he was a seminarian at General Thrological Seminary said in effect, that our greatest temptations are those which, when successfully embraced, make life much easier. Maybe, we are better at fending off temptations when they don’t interfere too much with our creature comforts.

Or, perhaps, because our sins are admittedly plentiful, we have been addressing the wrong sins. Maybe God doesn’t care what we eat or what we wear. “5 Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?”[2]

These are all good to address in terms of looking pleasing to God, but let’s be honest, is going on a Lenten diet, or consuming less during Lent, something we’re doing for God? It’s a bit of a stretch to think so. It’s rather doubtful that Jesus had eating less carbs on his mind, in order to lose weight, when he spurned the devil who tempted him to turn rocks into bread when he was seriously hungry. Too often, we use Lent to make an attempt to better ourselves for ourselves rather than for God.

And Lent isn’t just about giving up treats. Working more hours, in order to get the promotion which translates into more money as a means to buying a bigger house or paying bigger bills for whatever it is that brings power and status, but yet never seeing, or even losing, one’s family in the effort, has a very different intent than the intent of Jesus, as he spurned the devil’s attempt to bring him power for the exchange of his body, mind and soul. As Jesus taught in our Ash Wednesday Gospel, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.”[3]

When the devil invited Jesus to throw himself off a pinnacle and to trust in angels to lift him from certain death, Jesus would not allow the devil to put God to the test.  Jesus stuck to his conviction.  How many times does our faith waver when we begin to rationalize the reasons Lent is meant to test us and the measure of our convicton. 

Lent is not about putting God to the test. Nor do we try to impress God with our intention to topple idols which we cause only to rock a little on their bases because they are mere human ideals, which we for various reasons, wish to reach for all the wrong reasons. In other words as Paul asked the Romans, “Do we believe in our hearts what we confessed with our lips?”[4]

So here we are again at the gates of Lent, stepping onto a path that will lead us to be tested, by our own truths and by God. All the spiritual forces that rebel against God, all the evil powers that are out to corrupt and destroy all creatures of God and all the sinful desires that draw us from the love of God, are still out there. The struggle for our repentance is still out there, as is the struggle by evil forces to steer us away from God’s way, waiting too, as it was for Jesus, waiting for an opportune time to win the battle for our eternal souls. 

Yet even in Lent there is good news. We do not enter into this wilderness alone, and perhaps, thinking that we are alone might be the greatest test of our faith of all the tests we face. Even though we may feel alone in the world or in the spiritual wilderness into which we are now invited, the fact is we are not alone. We are not left alone to withstand the sly and sinister temptations creeping alongside of us as we continue on.

Of course, even walking in the footsteps of Jesus, we humans have the temerity to think we are perfectly capable of withstanding opposing forces by ourselves alone. We are the epitome of self-sufficiency: “I can do it myself!” And yet, in all truth, to be able to say something like that, we have to take time to learn how to do something, before we are able to take sole responsibility for a successful outcome, regardless of how long we have been in this world, or what we want to do. Sometimes, it means we have to put our worldly pride behind us, allowing one who knows the path well to walk alongside us, as we venture forward. 

It was when Jesus was hungry, with a gnawing pain permeating his entire body as it tried to function through the pangs of starvation, that Jesus defied the devil. And even through all this, Jesus remembers listening to the voices of Moses and Elijah, with him during his Transfiguration, and with him now, as part of his own ancestry to which he fiercely clings, just as he holds on to the voice he heard at his baptism, “This is my Beloved.” It is revelation that he was not alone that grounded his faith, that created such a strong foundation that no temptation would move it.

This is my Beloved. This is the voice we listen for and can hear with a heart of faith as we face down the truths of our own temptations at the beginning of this 40-day sojourn through the deserts of our own making. This is the voice assuring us that we are not alone: whatever or wherever our desert wilderness may be. Forty days seems a long time, but yet, in comparison to some walks through the wilderness, it is but a fleeting moment. 

Just a couple of years ago, the people of the world emerged from the isolation of pandemic, like all of us in this sanctuary today, with a newfound awareness of self and neighbor. Yet, as we enter into this Lent, we are acutely aware of continuing injustice and war imposed on innocent people, who have to continue to grapple with faithful adherence against the spiritual forces still at large in the world. Thus, this Lent takes on an even more profound meaning than ever. 

Let us pray that all God’s people know they are not alone. Perhaps that is the deeper message of today’s Gospel reading. It is not so much about how Jesus can resist temptation while I can only fail. It is far more about our not being alone as we walk through the wilderness of life. We are surrounded by a community of faithful, in this church and around the world and we have God. God’s beloved people are not expected, or even allowed to walk into the unknown without God walking with them, wherever their wilderness might be encountered or whatever its shape may be. Every step of the way, we hear the voice from deep within our hearts, minds and souls, “You are my beloved.”

The experience of the wilderness is not unfamiliar. It’s landscape may change and its challenges take on different complexities. It is all a part of life, but it is not all there is. If we would but listen, even in our darkest hours, we would hear the voice of Jesus, sounding firm against all that would try to tempt him, calling to us to be strong and to know that He is with us, even until the end.

It is through the guidance of he Holy Spirit we move through the wilderness of Lent from this day, armed with trust and faith, ready to resist with the best of our ability its temptations, doubts, challenges and pitfalls, and every part of us it might put to the test. The Holy Spirit, sent to us by Jesus to be our Advocate, our Comforter and Guide, walks next to us, every step of the way.

This world is proving to be a dangerous and confusing place with its sacred beauty and serenity always challenged, its holiness marred by tribulation and trial. And yet, we Beloved of God, will persevere in faith and joy in our ability to overcome whatever adversity comes before us, as we follow in the footsteps of Christ, who resisted temptation to take the easy way out, who walks only in the way of justice and peace, and who leads the way through whatever trials await us around the next turn. 

Guided by Father Son and Holy Spirit, we will keep on, groaning and complaining as we stumble along the hard road we are called to follow, continually tempted to find an easier way to keep going yet, in faith, find we unable to keep the joyous anticipation of Easter in our hearts silent in the face of it all. 

Amen

Written to the Glory of God

E. J. R. Culver+

March 9, 2025

[1]Ascetical Theology embraces spiritual teachings found in Holy Scripture and in the writing of the Desert Fathers, that help all faithful Christians to follow the teachings of Christ more faithfully in order to aspire to attain Christian perfection. Christian Asceticism implies self-denial for a Christian purpose. 

[2]Matthew 6:25-34, Luke 12:22

[3]Matthew 6:21

[4]Romans 8:9