EASTER
HOMILY
MARCH 23, 2008
SAINT MARY’S PARISH, BOISE,
IDAHO
Rev. W. Thomas Faucher
As those who are familiar with my preaching know, I rarely
stay here at the ambo when giving the homily, and rarely use a written text.
But today is going to be a bit different.
I actually had another
homily planned, but a number of things touched me in the past weeks to make me
change my plans. One was the speech given earlier this week by Senator
Obama which challenged all of us to more openly consider the issues of
discrimination in our country. Another was receiving a second sermon from
Rev. Forrest Church, a friend, and son of the late senator Frank Church.
Forrest has terminal cancer and is preaching about what it means to be dying.
A third influence was
being sent a 1,500 year old Easter homily from St. John Chrysostom which spoke
exactly to the points where my mind was taking me.
And the fourth was
praying and meditating this Holy Week on what it means to be the pastor of this
interesting and exciting parish of Saint Mary’s. This is now a parish of
1,200 households, with Anglos, Hispanics, and increasing numbers of people from
Burundi, Burma, Viet Nam, and other places across the globe. We have
parishioners born in at least five continents, speaking dozens of different
languages. What does it mean to be pastor of a parish like this?
I begin with the
invitation from the great Chrysostom:
Come you all: enter into the joy of your Lord. You the
first and you the last, receive alike your reward; you rich and you poor, dance
together; you sober and you weaklings, celebrate the day; you who have kept the
fast and you who have not, rejoice today. The table is richly loaded: enjoy its
royal banquet. The calf is a fatted one: let no one go away hungry. All of you
enjoy the banquet of faith; all of you receive the riches of his goodness.
“Come you all” – One of
the great challenges of all religions, all creeds, and people is the desire to
limit success and salvation to a narrow, limited group of people.
Chrysostom is saying that all people are invited to the banquet of the Lord, not
just those who are rich, or who kept the Lenten fast, or are sober – all people
are welcome and wanted.
This issue of welcome,
openness, the goodness and dignity of all was a central theme of the Declaration
of Independence, “all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with
certain inalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
And it is on this topic
-- the dignity and rights of the human person -- that we are today being
challenged by the senator, by the pope, by world events, and by our children.
Forrest Church,
speaking from an entirely different perspective says this:
"For millions around the
world, the greatest story ever told is that of Jesus the carpenter’s son.
Yet it is a story without any of the markings by which the world measures
success. No riches. No earthly power. Not to mention that the
hero dies young, branded a criminal and nailed to a cross. Yet all of us,
whether Christian or not, can draw meaning from his tale......
Jesus entered Jerusalem with fanfare, leading a band of followers who believed
that he was the Messiah. Within a week he was betrayed by one of his
disciples, brought before Pilate, sentenced, and crucified. His followers
disbanded and went into hiding, in fear for their own lives.
This is not the way the story was supposed to turn out. By ancient
tradition the promised messiah, scion of David, King of the Jews, would march
triumphantly into Jerusalem to be crowned. Apparently, this was the
expectation of many of Jesus' Palm Sunday followers."
Reverend Church
goes on to say that what the followers of Jesus did not understand was that
"—Jesus’ good news celebrates the gift of sacrificial love. Take his most
challenging injunction. By loving our enemy, we give away our entitlement
to revenge; we sacrifice our pride. We also sacrifice our sense of
entitlement and all the pleasures that go with vengefulness, bitterness, and
hate. Forgiveness, too, requires sacrifice. We must sacrifice self
righteousness, our preoccupation with having been wronged, and the advantage of
holding another in our debt. Finally, and most important, we must
sacrifice our control over everything that lies beyond our power—including our
control over others, over events, and over the future. Ultimately, the
courage to be requires the courage to let go. Fear accompanies us all the
way to the grave, but we needn’t hold its hand or accept its cold comfort.
The word sacrifice literally means, "to render sacred."
Forrest is saying that
the gift of sacrificial love requires that we give up any sense of superiority,
entitlement, bitterness and hate. We must sacrifice, especially sacrifice
our desire to control others, control events, control the future. We must
go beyond feeling wronged and seeking revenge, or the smug satisfaction of
watching and enjoying the sufferings of others.
Easter is the sum and
substance of all this teaching. Easter is the ultimate triumph of good
over evil. Easter is proof that even though evil can kill Jesus of
Nazareth, it cannot stop him from rising from the dead, because good is always
stronger than evil.
What we must do is take
these words of St. John Chrysostom and Rev. Forrest Church and apply them to
ourselves, to America, to Idaho, to Boise, to Saint Mary’s parish, now, at
Easter, in the spring of the year of our Lord, two thousand and eight.
My prayer and
meditation has led me to form questions and seek answers:
1) Do we invite everyone to the banquet, to
enter into the joy of the Lord? Or do we see some of us as better than
others?
2) Do we try to control those around us,
limit them to what we allow them to do?
3) Do we really believe that Christ died and
rose for all, or just for those we think are worthy? Is there room in our
country,
state, city, and parish
for all people to be seen as our brothers and sisters?
4) How can we deal with terrorism, two wars
in Asia, thousands of dead and wounded, religious fundamentalism,
and apply the Gospel
fairly and accurately to these world events?
5) Do we believe that the life of an Iraqi
and an American are equal? If so why? If not, why not?
6) Can we as a country, state, city and
parish honestly and openly discuss subjects such as race, immigration, sexual
orientation,
gender discrimination,
the Iraq war, and other touchy and sensitive topics in mutual openness and
respect?
7) Deep down, at the very depth of our
beings, do we really believe that we are each other’s brothers and sisters?
What does all of this
have to do with Easter? Shouldn’t an Easter homily be about joy,
happiness, flowers and eggs?
NO. Christmas is about joy, happiness, flowers and if not
eggs, at least presents. Easter is about evil, sin, corruption, envy, hatred,
crucifixion, whipping, beating, and ultimately death. Easter is the time
to examine humanity at our worst, when on a day we call “Good Friday” we killed
God. Easter is the time to look at our sins, our failings, our weaknesses,
and let them be seen through the light of the Resurrection. Easter is
precisely the time to ask these questions because it is the time when we know
that goodness will always triumph over evil.
These are not questions
of despair but of hope, not of pessimism but of optimism, not of fear but of
courage. These are only a few of the Easter Questions we should be asking
ourselves. Now that we are once again assured that evil can never
ultimately win, we need to examine the evils around us and defeat them.
Chrysostom says:
Let no one grieve over his poverty, for the universal
kingdom has been revealed; let no one weep over his sins, for pardon has shone
from the grave; let no one fear death, for the death of our Savior has set us
free: He has destroyed it by enduring it, He has despoiled Hades by going down
into its kingdom, He has angered it by allowing it to taste of his flesh.
Yes, Jesus Christ has
“despoiled Hades” – defeated Hell, by dying and rising. There is no evil
he cannot conquer and no evil we cannot conquer together with him.
Chrysostom ends
with:
O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your
victory? Christ is risen and life is freed, Christ is risen and the tomb is
emptied of the dead: for Christ, being risen from the dead, has become the
Leader and Reviver of those who had fallen asleep. To Him be glory and power for
ever and ever. Amen.
The ancient cry of
Christians is “Jesus Christ is Risen” and the response is to be “He is risen
indeed.” To that response we should add, “and this means we all have a lot
of work to do.”