Sunday, March 30, 2008

Year A, 2nd Easter: The Liturgy of Risen Wounds

Year A, Easter 2
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Psalm 16
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31

Preaching with St. Mary's House Episcopal Center


he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and
put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will
not believe."



IN THE NAME OF GOD, WHO MADE US, SAVES US, AND WILL NOT LEAVE US ALONE. AMEN.


I have some bad news for you.
On the last day, in the General Resurrection,
that glorious becoming
in which we, in all our earthly endeavors
will finally find completion
in the drowning fullness of God:
you might not recognize me at all.

Which is to say,
After the Lamb of God
comes to take away the sins of the world
I'm still confused
as to how much of me
will actually be left over.

I am the hypothetical fool that Paul rebukes
in this week's daily office readings, who asks:
"How are the dead raised?
With what kind of body do they come?"

I might, after all, be so completely full of God
as to be more completely myself
than I never had been before:
my SIN having at long last
withered entirely away,
to reveal the real me.

If, in this glorious becoming,
there were to be any ROOM for disappointment,
I dare say, you might be.
You might be disappointed
that I'm not quite as funny as I used to be.
My small stabs at humor are, after all,
mostly a product of my sin,
of my insistent separateness from God
and the resulting insecurity that at times
procures, albeit, rarely, a small offering
of dry wit.
I'm sure, however, that in our newly exalted state
we won't miss the old, bad jokes so much.

You might, however, be disappointed
that I've stopped baking entirely.
Yes, I'm sad to tell you after all this time
that my chocolate caramel tarts, my pear Roquefort,
and even my lemon curd icing are all products of sin.
All gluttonous misuses of the wealth of creation
while my brothers and sisters starve.
No more baking in the Kingdom,
we won't have to bake.
Everyone will already be provided for
and the price of dessert,
typically meted out with fasts and dire longing
will simply be paid until the endless end of time.
You'll get over it, trust me.

But then, you might be disappointed
that we don't preach and pray together anymore.
You might actually MISS that lingering suspicion
we came to dwell within so often
of whether or not we were ever really ON
to anything about God at all.
Once we are rooted firmly in our places
of the Great Welcome Table
we might not have to talk our way through any of this
any more,
We will simply know
and be glad in the full presence of God.
The consistent, startling inquiry
we have learned in the life of flesh
will die with sin once, and forever.
No more questions asked
All answers found.
You might
if there were any ROOM for disappointment, then,
be disappointed.
A glimmer of melancholy at how life used to be
Before flushing away
to a more satisfying spiritual greatness.

You might, in other words,
not recognize me at all,
or yourself for that matter.

Unless, of course,
today's Gospel has anything to say about it.

This is the day, after all,
when Christ appears to his disciples
bearing the marks of sin
on his risen body.
This is the day, when in John,
alone among the Evangelists
it takes the specific wounds of crucifixion
to signify himself as risen in the flesh
to disciples who exclaim
at this most gruesome display:
"My Lord! and my God!"
This is the day when we are invited
by the love of Christ to wonder:
What does the risen life of flesh look like
When all we have known of how to live in flesh
has been learned here on the ground? [pause]
What does it mean to see, and touch, and know
the wounds we have inflicted on the body of our God
and have our fear of death from wounds subside? [pause]
Can we really hold fast to the conviction of the psalmist
that the God of our faith will not abandon us to the Pit
in an age as grim as our present one? [pause]
And how do we approach these questions in Christian community?
Do we stand around with our arms crossed and wait
for Jesus to come and prove us right to Thomas?
Or will we bear the wounds of our own risen body
instead?

Here, at St. Mary's House, in Episcopal worship,
one way we approach these questions
offered by the mystery of the Gospel
is through our liturgy.
Our liturgy is, in part, what helps us INHABIT the tough
or unbelievable stories
which are so integral to our community of faith,
and on this, the second Sunday after Easter
we are just coming off something like
a liturgical binge session.
Its no wonder most of us stay home on this day.
We're worn out!
We've had a liturgy of Palms to inhabit the triumphal
entry of Jesus into Jerusalem,
a liturgy of foot-washing to re-enact the last supper
and the installation of the Eucharist
(which, in itself, is a liturgy for God's great gift to us),
We've had a liturgy of the cross to recreate the Passion narrative
and the liturgy of the Easter Vigil to symbolize
the resurrection of God's Light
among the darkness of sure death.
To return now to the bread and butter liturgy of Communion
is like having a breakfast of Melba toast
After a week of great feasting.
It is probably best for our digestion,
and yet, the part of me still lurching forward must wonder:

Where is the liturgy of the risen wounds?

We are, after all, more than happy
to pile the World's problems onto the story of the Passion.
It seems natural that we should talk of the
death penalty, and gay bashing,
and the pain of a Mother's loss
on Good Friday
but where are all those stories now?
There are wounds on both sides of Easter:
is it easier to see ourselves in the wounds of the cross
rather than the wounds that have passed through walls
and graves?

Where is the liturgy of the risen wounds?

To find out,
I would like for you to take a moment and imagine
The body of our Church
coming at long last
into the arms of our Beloved Jesus.
This is what we have been waiting for all this time.
The Body of our Church in our collective longing
has been rising through the Centuries
To touch
The Object of our One and Singular Desire:
the Body of our Christ
which has itself
been rising through the Centuries
among us
in the tired hands and faces
which have labored for the Kingdom
on this impossible Earth.
I want you to IMAGINE
for just a moment,
that this is the day when we are reunited.
It is, in fact, not day at all,
but night, for the world itself is at rest.
It is difficult at first to recognize Jesus
in the starlight.

"Is that you?" we ask.
He nods.
"Did all this really happen?" we ask.
He nods.
And still we are not so sure.
We can feel the love between us
and we know it is eternal
But we are unsure if this is the same love
that saved us
through all those years
we thought for sure
we were alone.

Jesus, knowing our hesitation,
takes our hand,
and brings it to his eyes.
We can feel the bags of worry
that have gathered there
from all the nights that we spent sleepless
waiting for our children to come home.
There are tiny canyons in his face
Carved from the river of tears we shed
When our brother died.
There are the ears
we stared at for hours in the bathroom mirror
sure that they protruded too far from our hair
to be beautiful to anyone.
Then he brings our hand to his side,
and there is the sickly familiar shape
of the first legion we found
before the letters H, I and V even had a meaning.
It is right next to the shrapnel
that dug the end of our life
right out from underneath our fifth year
of childhood games in the field.
The ulcer is there
that appeared when our parents decided
that the final weeks of our dissertation
was the best time to tell us how disappointed they were
that we hadn't gotten married yet.
There also is the crick
that ticked through our calf
on the nights we spent 10 hours or more
standing behind the cash register.
The dirt beneath the finger nails,
the cancers that refused to recess
the feet that buckled long before
we ever reached the finish line
even the vanity we feigned each time
a handsome man passed us on the sidewalk
and FROM AMONG this clean cut ruin
in the heartiest of tones
he bids us Peace,
"Peace be with you!"

"My Lord,"
we whisper, in response
"and My God"
And we finally BELIEVE
that all the wounds we retained [SLOWLY!]
in the life of our own flesh
never once held the THREAT
of keeping us from this love.

We spend the whole first night like this
two lovers who, for the last time,
have escaped the bullies of the yard:
together, side by side beneath the stars
Examining each other's wounds,
as they rise and disappear again
like blemishing trout
beneath the clearer stream
of our Resurrected Union.

Where, I ask, is the liturgy for this embrace?
Where is the liturgy of the risen wounds?

Can you imagine how uncomfortable it would make us feel?
Can you imagine how messy it would be?
Can you imagine the squirming
As each intimate detail of our own injury
rose in the unguarded voices of our neighbors?
With what would we symbolize such an encounter?
At whom would we gawk?
Would stories of mere survival alone suffice
Or would those wounds be too healed
to sufficiently represent the ever-open sores
of our dear Savior?
Could we really look on any injured mortal flesh or object
without the fear of DEATH that always LOOMS
when someone mentions their foreclosure
when someone mentions their ill Mother
when someone mentions their disbelief
at being able to face another day?
Or would we shy away
completely
and simply wish
they would get their act together.
Where is the part of our worship
That abolishes this fear of death?
Where is the part of our worship
That gazes upon the marks of horror
this world has made
and returns from such gazing
with a strength of faith
that proclaims:
this too is in the body of our Christ,
risen from the grave!
even here, we were not given up
to Sheol,
we did not, even here,
see the Pit alone!
Where is the part of our worship
Where our applauding God commands:
"MORE LIFE! MORE LIFE! MORE LIFE!"
Even as we, weeping,
look up from our bloodied brierey hands?
Where our laughing God proclaims
"MORE LIFE!"
Even as we, trembling
lock our doors to our own kind?

Where, then, is the liturgy of the risen wounds?

I tell you,
it is here,
in this place,
every week:
in the prayers that we share
and in the peace that we exchange
and in the bodies that we bring
into communion.

IT IS HERE
Every week when we pray together
and we can hear the sins and calamities of our life on Earth
confessed, cataloged and retained
in the memory of our own complicity and helplessness:
Ceaseless War, Environmental Destruction, Reckless Poverty
All a mark and pox upon us
Even as we rise
to be collected
by our God.

IT IS HERE
Every week when we bear
the names of the sick, injured, troubled and dying among us
Even as we greet one another
in the name of our Lord's peace.

IT IS HERE
Every week when we confess ourselves unfinished;
still a mess of flesh
not quite resurrected
not quite knit together with our God
and yet still FROM AMONG such ruin
persisting
in the heartiest of tones
of resistance and resilience
to bid each other
as Christ bids us:
"PEACE!
Peace be with you!"

IT __ IS __ HERE
in this communion
where the recognition comes:
a people risen with our wounds
murmuring in the shock of such belief,
"My Lord,
and my God."