A Perfect Storm of Human Realization of God

(This Good Friday meditation was delivered at The Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia on Good Friday, 2 April 2010. Thanks to a former colleague for reminding me of it’s appropriateness at this moment in human history.)

Just the other day the good folks (by which I mean theoretical physicists, who by the way are by far the best theologians we have today, these wonderful geeks) at CERN managed to make their particle accelerator work. What is happening in that big machine is a re-creation of the beginning of everything. By re-creating creation they are going to be able to see just exactly what happened in the theoretical “big bang,” which was the moment of the creation of everything. They have been occasionally accused of hunting for God in their data, but like good scientists everywhere, they just soldier on, spinning those particles into shattering whirlwinds in tunnels deep beneath the earth. As the psalmist once said, deep in the bowels of the earth spin the elements of the creation of the universe (see Psalm 19, especially verses 2 [time-space] and 5-6 [in the deep … a pavilion for the sun]).

So what does it mean if we have learned how to make the beginning happen again? I suppose it means we are reminded once again that the linear view of time is not realistic. There is my time, and there is your time .… Did you ever notice that when you can’t sleep, or when you’re stuck at the airport, the seconds trudge by slowly, but when you are working hard or otherwise having a great time, the moments fly past? Well, there is your time and my time, and there is God’s time, which is all time. Or rather, all time is in God’s good time.

In this gospel narrative we have learned to ignore most of the detail, and to listen to the linear sequence— prayer, kiss, capture, trial, flogging, crucifixion— death— (just to line it up for you neatly). So we have learned to ignore all of the other stories that come together like particles spinning out of control in this narrative. In fact we have heard not one story but many stories all taking place at once. Disparate events seem to come together in a critical way. But, just like real life, this story combines the intersections of many stories, all whirling about each other in a furious conjunction— a perfect storm, as it were, of human realization of the acts of God.

So, there are too many examples to fit into one sermon. But what about that slave whose ear is cut off? Here we learn his name is Malchus, he is a relative of the third person who asks Peter to identify himself as a disciple. What about those other people who confront Peter? How did their days begin? How was it that they got wound up in this drama? What about Pilate, for whom this was just one more thing to deal with on the day before a holiday? What about our friends Nicodemus and Joseph of Aramathea, secret disciples of Jesus, who come forward after Jesus’ death, but who, the story tells us, sneak about in the darkness for fear of being discovered? What about Mary? What about Mary Magdelene, and the disciple whom Jesus loved? There is not one story here, there are a million stories here. And that is part of the lesson of this day. Good Friday is the collision of all of these particles of human fury …  clashing together in a horrible moment of intensity. Good Friday is just like your worst day on earth, and it is just like your every normal day on earth, because every day on earth is one of those things for some one, some child of God, somewhere.

This is the perfect storm that is life. Right down to the aftermath, the pondering, the questioning for sure, but mostly … the quiet, the stone cold silence … the grief for sure, but maybe you remember, that it is in silence  that we know that God is God, it is in that stone cold silence  that we see with the eyes of our hearts that God is with us. And then in the aftermath, in the silent aftermath of the collision of all of this whirling humanity we stand like Job pondering the meaning. And the meaning is this:  “let us hold fast to the confession of hope without wavering ….”

The prophecy from Isaiah tells the story of a prince of peace living in a chaotic spin of whirling stories. It tells us about a servant of God who is lifted up in his misery, whose silence silences the whole world, in whose exaltation the whole world is startled; silent and startled in the same breath. because his life, has become an offering for sin. An offering, for sin. What is an offering for sin, but a prayer to be connected to God? Wherever you are today on your journey with God, the prayer you offer up today is a prayer that is an offering for your sin, for your own reconnection with God. And all it takes to reconnect, is to offer that very prayer. And in that single simple act of intention, you shift the dimensions of the world in which you live, from sin and death to life eternal.

This is the moment of God’s peace. God said:  “This is the covenant that I will make with them … I will put my laws in their hearts,  … I will write them on their minds,” And so we are asked this day to remember these mighty acts that shifted God’s world on its axis by shifting the particles in our own hearts. We are reminded once again that God’s love for us is without end. Our stories might seem to whirl about us in our time, but all of our stories are taking place together in God’s good time. And we are reminded once again that God asks us at every time to provoke one another, to love and good deeds.

 

Good Friday (Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22 Deus, Deus meus; Hebrews 10:16-25; John 18:1-19:42)

©2020 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Provoke One Another*

My favorite waiter is a sort of lapsed Roman Catholic. I doubt he has been to mass in decades, although really I don’t know. I do know he has a sort of terror about apocalyptic scripture; every year as Advent approaches he gets scared about the lessons he would hear were he actually to go to mass. I find it humorous and also a little awe-inspiring. I always try to tell him what I’m going to try to say here, but he doesn’t believe me.

Jesus is very clear in this Gospel (Mark 13:1-8), that as the decision-point approaches there will be wars and famines and earthquakes.

Well, 2000 years on we still are having wars and famines and earthquakes. What you need to try to grasp here is that that is not the important part of Jesus’ message. The important part is the last phrase “this is but the beginning of the birthpangs.” You see, our whole lives are made up of sequences of wars and famines and earthquakes. Trials come and go. It is the nature of human existence. And yet, how often do we fall to pieces in the midst of these trials, thinking it somehow is the end? Instead, we must see these trials as beginnings, as places in life where we begin to see the truth about our existence and our relationship with God, which is our relationship with each other.

As it says in the letter to the Hebrews “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without ever wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.” We must understand that through our trials our love for one another deepens, and as a natural consequence of that, our relationship with God strengthens.

LGBT people in America have just won several important victories. We have won votes for basic marriage equality in three more states. An out lesbian has been elected to the United States Senate. It is a kind of morning, like a new day, except it is the result of something like a cross between a war and a famine and an earthquake. And so we see it is the beginning of a birthpang, of justice. Justice my friends is the one thing God always delivers.

So “let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds … and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25). Yes, indeed, let us consider how to provoke one another to love.

It is Thanksgiving in America. As a citizen of the world, I always am surprised to discover how little people in other countries understand what this week means to us. And as I grow older and older I understand ever more just how important Thanksgiving is for us. Because it is our once-a-year time to pause, and consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.

Happy Thanksgiving!

©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Proper 28 (1 Samuel 1:4-20; 1 Samuel 2:1-10; Hebrews 10: 11-14 (15-18) 19-25; Mark 13:1-8)