Our brother's words

Friends,

I want to post the first three paragraphs of Tom's sermon for Easter in Jamestown.

I love the clarity of expression and the deep wisdom of what Tom says here.

It strikes me that such clarity is a fringe position, the idea that this life is our one life and that we can simply trust in God and say that our sight reaches only to the horizon.
****************
One of the saddest and most diabolical distortions of religion occurs whenever it is used to distract us from living lovingly, justly, and faithfully in this life. Religion that redirects our focus from this life to some other life after this one has little in common, it seems to me, with the religion of Jesus. Easter is not primarily about transport from this life into another one just as eternal life is not about living forever, but living deeply in the present moment. Eternal life, properly understood, is not an expression of infinite time. It is about living our lives now in such a way that their effects for good radiate outward forever.

About what happens to us when we die at the end of our days on earth I do not have much to say today because I do not know. No one does. A lot of preachers say they know, but they are not at that point telling the truth. No one knows. That is why I simply trust God with my life and my death and my loved ones. I trust God. Period. Scripture says that nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even death, and that is good enough for me.

Meanwhile, resurrection is for the living. I am utterly convinced of that. The Bible has almost nothing to say about what happens to us after this life because its writers did not know either. Rather, through the stories of our mothers and father in the faith, it tells of our human encounters with God, our engagements with the sacred, our experiences with the divine in this life. It exhorts us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly in this life. It encourages us to live toward and into our true and full humanity in this life. So it is a wonderment to me how and why so many parts of the church go to such great lengths to teach us to concern ourselves with heaven when Jesus was so deeply interested in earth.

Resurrection

For our midweek preaching series in Lent this year at First Pres, Jamestown, I asked five people...three clergy, two non-clergy...to compose an original poem, present it, and offer preaching reflections on it. "Five Poems for Lent" turned out to be wonderful, so much so that I suggested to our staff that we follow it with "Four Poems for Holy Week and Lent." Jon Rieley-Goddard's previous post was of the Good Friday poem he wrote and presented as well as the sermon he preached on it. The pastoral associate at First Pres did Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday. I figured it might be good for my job longevity if I weighed in with at least one poem...so I am in the pulpit on Easter. As I post this Friday evening, I haven't a clue yet as to the sermon I will preach around this poem, but, here, with my best wishes for the presence of Easter in your life all the year long, is the poem.


Tom


P.S. to Steve Phelps - I have not forgotten my phone call to you...soon and very soon!!



Resurrection

Sometimes we give our hearts to something or someone
and then it or they are gone.
Loving deeply,
the letting go is wrenching,
a searing, scarring agony entombing us
until one day,
amid or after the weeping and wasting,
we are set free:
alive again.

(TAS - Easter 2008)

Good My Lord

Here are a poem that I wrote and my sermon outline for Good Friday at First Pres. Church in Jamestown.

Good My Lord

Today is for
despair.

Yesterday is for
hope.

Tomorrow is for
expectation.

Joy hangs in the balance,
dizzy with dread.
Three days upside down.

Good Friday?
Good, my Lord?

***

Today is for despair.
Get into the depths of it.

Go to the crossroads,
and choose your way.

Today is for despair.
Be your best.

***

Touch the face of God.
Hide under God's strong wings.

Choose this day --
the tomb, or just after.

One day for despair,
and one day only.

***

See through the ink that wrote
"King of the Jews".

Open your eyes;
there will be no difference.
Ink will stain your orbs
and dye your spirit.

Learn the far edge of Good.
Learn the lesson of giving up.

***

Stand still and feel it.
This is the threshhold
of joy. Laugh at allthat would destroy you.

Believe that you have
the strength of the one
whom you follow.

Laugh now.
Stay in that place of pain
and gain. Laugh.

***

Good my Lord.

Oh, yes, very, very good.
The best.

The_best_laugh_last.

************************************************************

Today is the one day that we, as followers of God in Jesus Christ, have full permission to give in to despair.

There is God’s absolute genius in this, because that means we have both permission and the expectation that on all the other days of the year, and every year, we will sing God’s praise and do God’s will and say,

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

But on this one day, when the sun became a black hole that swallowed up all that was good in the Creation,we are invited, and we are encouraged, to feel the full despair of the occasion.

Our Lord, dead on the Cross.

His followers, stunned and terrified.

The Cross has power for you, in proportion to your ability to understand the despairof this occasion.

The text that I chose is short and ugly, stark and frightening:
Mark 15:25: It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified him.

Matter-of-fact.

No exit.

No future, and no hope.

For the space of this one day, allow the facts to teach you of despair.

Tomorrow, jump up with joy, for your salvation is near.

And Sunday? Put despair on the shelf for another year,for there is no place like that in the Kingdom of God,except for the space of this one day.

Sunday is for laughing, and dancing, and singing.

Today is different.

But still, and all, this, too, is the day that the Lord has made.Let us rejoice and be glad in it,

and let us feel the occasional, as well, in that matrix of joy.