Wash feet... break bread... pour wine... remember

Sermon by Rev. Joel Crouse

Maundy Thursday

March 28, 2024

John 13: 1-17, 31b-35

587 years before the birth of Christ, the Babylonian army converged upon Jerusalem and utterly destroyed the city. One eye witness to this dreadful event set down his feelings and reflections in a poem. In what we now call the Old Testament book of Lamentations, he not only expresses the pain of defeat and destruction, but also the hurt of the indifference of the people who passed by the smoldering ruins of that once great holy city. He laments the apathy of those who travel by without the slightest effort to offer a hand to help.

Jump ahead some 600 years. The scene is again Jerusalem, just outside the city wall. A man in his early 30s is cruelly nailed to a cross. With every swing of the hammer, the nails puncture his hands and feet. His body is wracked with pain. A crown of thorns cuts into his skull. The full weight of his body yanks at his wounds. Instead of water to quench his thirst, they trick him with vinegar. Instead of comfort, they cry in derision. Instead of walking by in holy awe, they strut by doing nothing.

Now jump ahead 30 more years. The scene is again Jerusalem and Emperor Nero has declared that every Christ-follower will die. Some are used as toys for the emperor’s amusement and torn apart by wild animals. Others are burned alive and used as human torches to light the streets and remind the people what happens to Christians under Roman rule. Some passed by at a distance, no doubt to avoid the sight and smell of the burning human flesh. Others forced themselves to tolerate the sight so that they were not suspected as followers.

One last jump to the present day. The scene is the roof of the Christian holy site known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. From it you can see the sacred Wailing Wall of the Jewish people and the Dome of the Rock so precious to the people of Islam. All three sites are inside the old city walls of Jerusalem. In the not-so-far distance you can see the smoke rising from the war in Gaza, the desolation of homes and gardens, the devastation of families, the brokenness of place never at peace with its mutual existence. Over 1,400 Israelis murdered. More than 30,000 Palestinians wiped out. Almost 100 journalists, and 150 aid workers killed. The world stands by while things are getting worse, not better.

The cries of indifference and apathy are heard not only in Jerusalem. We hear the cries, too. From the people of countless other nations where unrest grows into chaos. From the people living on our streets, crowding our prisons, weeping at grave sides in our cemeteries. The sights and sounds of human suffering surround us at every corner in our life. And the victims cry out and we stand by.

Our very gathering this night is deeply embedded in history. It is the night of the Passover meal remembering God’s mighty act of the deliverance of God’s people from being enslaved by the Egyptians. The history of the Jewish people means something to us. It is part of our story. But of much more importance to us is the second scene from Jerusalem. We gather to wash feet, break bread, and pour out wine in remembrance of the One who served, suffered, and died upon the cross. It is something for us because we know when and where we too have been bystanders. On this night we are forced to stop in this upper room. We cannot simply pass by the cross because we know what it really means. While others will be opening up the cottage, going to hockey games and doing Spring cleaning this weekend, we might want to stand in judgement. That is not what Jesus asks us to do. Jesus asks only that we look at our own lives. May God give us the grace to look upon the sacred Head now wounded and rejoice in calling Christ ours. Christ is not just some nice guy. Christ is among us as one who serves.

And if the thorn-crowned Christ is among us as one who serves, then the modern-day scene from Jerusalem and all the scenes of human pain and suffering have to mean something to us. We will never stop all the suffering in the world. But we can tell people living in the middle of it, that there is hope. That God is raising Jesus from the dead, and this is not a one-time event. God continues to do this each and every day through those people who have the courage to believe it. That is what Jesus tried to teach those first followers on this very night long ago, with the act of washing their feet and sharing a meal. We are invited to meet suffering and pain with the hand of comfort and help and hope.

The cries of indifference and apathy do mean something to us. The destruction of Jerusalem, the crucifixion of Jesus outside the city wall, the persecution of Christians, and the pain and suffering in the world around us remind us to love one another as Christ has loved us.

Amen.

Be a voice of love in a hateful wilderness

Sermon by Rev. Joel Crouse

Sunday of the Passion

Palm Sunday

March 24, 2024

Isaiah 50: 4-9a

Philippians 2: 5-11

Mark 11: 1-11

And so, here we have arrived, on the last day of sun before the storm. Palm Sunday is like the part in the disaster movie where life is still normal, people are still singing “Happy Birthday,” celebrating at restaurants, making vacation plans. And yet, we the viewer, know that the weird newsclip on the TV isn’t just a blip, or the guy coughing next to them isn’t just sick, or the fighter jet flying overhead isn’t on a training mission. We’ve been there – remember four years ago, when we heard about a virus in Wuhan, when we thought it was just another cough? We’ve been those people. But this time, on Palm Sunday, if we transported back to stand among that jubilation, we would know. We would know what’s coming.

That’s why we can never truly bask in the celebration of Palm Sunday. But we should try. Imagine being those people in Jerusalem who have been hearing about a travelling preacher and teacher who heals the sick and soothes the stranger. Some people say he is not just a preacher but a king. Some people whisper he has come to free the poor and oppressed. And finally, he has arrived at the gates of the city.

And what does he do? He asks for a colt, not a stallion, to carry him into the city. The people are jubilant. Could this humble guy really be the Messiah everyone is talking about? When they listen to his word, they hear him speak against tyranny and for justice. He travels with friends from many places. They are in awe. They put palms on his path and cheer his journey into the heart of the city. Who doesn’t love a party for a good cause?

What would we see with our knowledge, standing in that crowd? A crowd to make a memory in a city the size of Jerusalem would have to be large and diverse and noisy. All through Jesus’s journey, he had been attracting people from all walks of life,; of course they filled the streets of Jerusalem. That is the point, and the gift, of Palm Sunday: no one in the parade looks the same or tells the same story. We have all come to our faith and our beliefs with different backgrounds and by different routes. And yet, in this moment, on this day, standing in the crowd, all we see is unity.

There would be people craning their necks to get a look. Others squeezing through to reach out to Jesus as he passed. People breaking out in chants and songs. A glorious, noisy, happy crowd honouring a man well-deserving of being honoured.

But, what else do we see, with our knowing eyes? We see the frowning man in the crowd with his arms crossed, who refuses to sing; he leans down and says something scornfully to his neighbor beside him. We see the woman who cracks an unkind joke about the dirty sandals on this supposed king’s feet, and the shabby colt upon which he rides. We see the spy for the religious leaders, watching closely, yet not participating, then scurrying away.

We see what we so often see in our own world, on our own Facebook and Instagram feeds -- how quickly a sneer or an insult can suddenly shift the whole tone of the conversation, how easily a question lobbed to cause confusion and spread misinformation can spark conspiracy.

We see how quickly that happens in our own day and age - humans have not changed that much - for all our education and ability to search facts, the vehicle for misinformation has become even more effective. Consider the current conspiracy thinking around Kate Middleton, which seems on its surface to be frivolous entertainment on Twitter. Most likely, she is recovering from surgery, as had been said, and will appear next week for Easter service. But there have been manipulated pictures and questionable videos and a lack of disclosure about her medical issues - as is her right - that have made even people who don't care about what the royals are up to, jump on the conspiracy bandwagon. That's a larger issue for us: what is real and what is not? How do we properly fact-check? How can we be discerning? What happens when significant pictures are manipulated - for instance in the Middle East or Ukraine? (My journalist partner would point out here that it was the professional media who first identified the royal picture as having been altered and told newspapers not to run it; The Globe and Mail also has a detailed process for checking photoshopping and AI in photographs.)

Imagine if Jesus appeared today in the crowd, what conspiracies might spread about him - even faster than they did among the crowd in Jerusalem. The gospel doesn't just guide us to be loving and kind, it coaches us to be discerning. We are called to question the source of information, to think critically about what people say, "must be, or has always been," to frame our response against what the gospel would say is right. If Jesus is our guide through this, he set the example over and over again of questioning authority, debating assumed truths, searching for clear answers. That is as much the journey of faith as any other path.

And so, standing in the crowd in Jerusalem, we might listen closely, and think for ourselves. "Who is this Jesus guy anyway?" you hear someone ask. Well, who do we know him to be? "Maybe the religious leaders are right about him?" someone else asks. Yet we know, all along his journey to Jerusalem he has engaged with leaders; what do we understand about these exchanges? When we know context, when we search our own beliefs and reasoning, instead of being swept up in the mob, in any mob, the answers almost always become clearer.

But back in Jerusalem, we don't see that happening. The happy, noisy crowd is beginning its journey to an angry, judging mob.

We see Judas, scowling in back of those disciples travelling with Jesus. And we know how a rash choice made of greed and selfishness can wreak terrible harm. We know that harm can come from the inside as much as from the outside.

We know what is coming. Yet what does the knowledge grant us? The power to stop what is to come? Can we change the mind of the scornful man with a good argument? Can we help the woman see the rich world that Jesus is describing? Can we turn the spy? Can we stop Judas? We can try. Maybe they will listen. But the mob will turn. We will be a voice of love in a hateful wilderness.

And that, we would realize, is our job. Standing in the crowd, watching Jesus pass by, knowing all that he has been, all that he has done, and the lessons he has taught, we understand that this is the reason for the gospel: to be the voice of love when the world needs it. So yes, it falls to us, standing in this crowd on Palm Sunday, and in every crowd, to shake hands with the scornful, show generosity to the petty, and offer forgiveness to the selfish.

That is what we learn standing in the crowd on Palm Sunday, watching it become a mob. If we are not the voice of love, then what chance do we have? And so, Jesus will ride past, the colt plodding on the palms thrown before it, and the world will cheer. And we will know. And our actions are to be a response to that knowledge, each and every day.

Amen.

In sacrificing, we gain

Sermon by Rev. Joel Crouse

Fifth Sunday in Lent

March 17, 2024

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Hebrews 5:5-10

John 12: 20-33

Not long into the pandemic – whose four-year anniversary we recognized this week – a journalist I know well wrote an article about how we might remember this time, and what might get us through it. Part of her story quoted a study that a professor named Karen Blair at St. FX university had been doing where she was collecting the diary entries of Canadians during that first year. One of things she asked them to do was to write messages they would have wanted to know seven days earlier. The journalist, who read the messages said they felt as if the country was having a collective anxiety attack.

Some people sent practical advice back in time: Stock up on masks. Fix the Internet. Others sent personal insights: This is real. I know nothing feels real, but it is. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. It is okay to cry. Life goes on.

They were also asked to write questions to themselves, that they would then answer seven days later. How stressed are you at work right now? Holy [cow], you have no idea. (I edited that for the pulpit.) Did you get to get to see Grandpa? No, he died before I got better.

People -- so many people -- were losing their lives. Others were losing their livelihoods. Our children and youth were losing their way of life, and their idea of how life was supposed to be.

And I remember, how in the middle of the pandemic, coming off a particularly rough, locked-down and lonely winter, when this gospel came around, with Jesus telling us how those of us who lose our lives will gain them, and those who keep their lives will lose them, and they were not the words we needed to hear -- not in the moment, when we were already in so much pain. We knew loss. Each and every one of us.

Now, three years later, toward the end of our Lenten journey, this gospel speaks to us again, and how do we hear it now?

How do we hear that call today from Jesus to hate our lives so that we might gain them? That caution that those who love their lives will lose them.

The gospel is a foreshadowing of the resurrection, and of the path that Jesus is on and the death to which he is heading. But while speaking about the future, Jesus reaches out to us with those searing words in the present. If you love your life too much, if you are too comfortable, you will lose it. If your life is hard and challenging, you will keep it.

We can ask what Jesus meant, but deep down we know. Ultimately, he is talking about what really matters for us, and for our collective hearts on earth. It is often not the things we love most easily or that distract so readily. It is not the time we might spend down the rabbit holes on social media. It is not even the time we devote to winning praise and adoration. It is, in fact, the life the gospel describes -- one built on relationships and purpose and generosity of spirit. In reaching out, and sharing, and sacrificing for others, we gain. Hold on to our lives too tightly, and we lose the lives we most desire.

This is what so many of us learned in that time of hating our lives, of losing the things in life we thought were most important, the ones that, whether or not we would call it love, took up so much of our time. Yet many of us learned – or were reminded - that what we missed most was not the work, but the people. Not the material things, but the connection with family. We learned, in those days, essential lessons. They appeared in many of the hopeful messages that people sent back to themselves: Appreciate what is important. You’ll get through this.

We also learned that our individual actions could have collective consequences. We learned that we had to trust one another. Many of us learned to make the most of the times when we were able to be present, and to be more creative with our love when we could not be together. What else is all of this, but the lesson of hating life to gain it? But have we forgotten?

Early on in the pandemic, back when we thought it would last a few weeks, and then maybe a few months, but never a few years, researchers talked about how, after the Spanish flu, people kind of just went on, as if nothing had happened. Not much was even recorded about it. They just wanted to forget. They didn’t want to think about how this terrible disease had killed their neighbors and altered their lives. How vulnerable their society had suddenly felt, how threatened their safety. They wanted to move on and so they did - the lucky ones, anyway. In forgetting, they gained their lives. That’s part of why humanity is so amazing: our incredible resilience as a species. Our failure to learn from mistakes is perhaps one of our greatest weaknesses. So yes, they gained their lives – they went back to the way things had been and acted as if nothing had changed – and they lost. Two decades later, the Depression arrived, and then another World War. That war ended not with a flu, but a bomb. Last Sunday, the movie about the man who built that bomb and regretted doing so his entire life, won the Oscar for Best Picture. But someone had to make that movie because we were already forgetting. We gained our lives, our earthly comfort and peace in one of the safest, richest countries in the world, and over time, we lost our awareness of our own mistakes; we lost the lesson that would have taught us how to avoid making more of them.

I have to admit, this week, while driving to a hospital visit, that I heard on the CBC it was the fourth anniversary of the pandemic, I thought, has it really been four years? It feels longer, on some days. And shorter on others. But already it is starting to feel like an experience from another time, a moment that we are no longer in. I am sure I am not the only one. We have gained our lives, and we are losing that memory.

I would encourage us to take a moment to pause in our Lenten journey to reflect on the words of Jesus. What lesson did I learn in the pandemic that I have set aside too quickly? Now that it is over, and life is easier, what have I forgotten? When I am too comfortable in life, too smug, too proud of who I am, what am I missing? When I have sacrificed or risked a share of my happy life, when I have intentionally made my life a little harder through effort on behalf of someone else, what did I gain that I may keep?

“Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life,” Jesus says. “Whoever serves me, must follow me.”

To follow the gospel, we must suffer an uncomfortable, seeking, questioning, challenging life. Yet we never do so alone. Because Jesus goes on: “For where I am, there will be my servant also.” And the same must also be true: Where my servant is, there will I be.

Amen.