Reflections on January 6's Insurrection in Washington DC

On January 6, 2021 a mob staged an armed insurrection against the United States Capitol because they did not like the outcome of the US presidential election in November of 2020. This insurrection was driven by white supremacy, stoked and fuelled by Donald Trump, and many in his regime and in the United States government supported this action. Many were injured and some lay dead following this carnage. These facts are inscrutable. Additionally, there is strong evidence that the Capitol Police allowed the insurrectionists into the Capitol Building, that explosive and incendiary devices were found outside Congress, and few arrests have occurred following these events. We can juxtapose this to the BLM protests where police and military killed and arrested countless protesters across the US for standing against the murder of Black people by police.

How did we get here and where do we go from here?

Historians are going to have a monumental task when trying to parse these four years. As a historian and theologian, I do not envy them, I sometimes try to wrap my head around seventh and eighth century events when we have so little to work with, but here there is too much to work with. From my small perspective though I do have some thoughts about this. I will not go through a line by line breakdown of how it is we got here, but I do have some reflections on major issues and themes that made Donald Trump possible. The truth is, as monstrous and destructive as Donald Trump is, his presidency does not exist in a vacuum and he is symptomatic of a much greater rot that exists within the United States that was present at its beginning and have metastasized into the moment we are in now.

These events did not emerge out of nowhere and they are integral to the core of the United States. The United States has two great original sins that shaped its birth. The first is the genocide of the indigenous inhabitants of this continent. The second is the enslavement of people from Africa. These two things predate the Declaration of Independence and the formation of the United States government, but remember that the man who wrote “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” lived on a plantation built over Monacan land and owned 600 human beings in the bondage of slavery. This democratic republic was built by and for people like Jefferson and not for the people he enslaved. Threats to this are met with swift and deadly force because this democracy was built and is sustained by that primordial violence. Though there were some non-white insurrectionists in the mob yesterday, it does not change the fact that this insurrection was borne out of the perceived fear that the inherent power structures that create, support, and maintain white supremacy are under attack by the election of a Democratic president and congress. Even though the vast majority of the Democratic Party’s leadership is white, and their policies and platforms do little to change the fundamental structures of white supremacy. The small lip-service the Democratic Party makes to diversity and inclusion is enough to cause a mob attack the US Congress.

The people staging this insurrection and their supporters in the US government would of course reject this analysis out of hand. They claim to be protecting US democracy against socialism, communism, and authoritarianism. They of course do not understand what socialism and communism actually are. The policies being proposed by Joe Biden and his platform further and extend the reach of capitalism in the US (capitalism of course being an accelerant to further stoke this kind of violence). Instead, like the fascists in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, the fears of socialism and communism are used to mask their own violence against undesirables in their society. For the Nazis this was targeted particularly to German Jews. It should be no surprise when you scratch under the surface of the far-right in the US you find the same odious anti-Semitism lurking alongside the racism and xenophobia. A not too insignificant number of the people who attacked the US Capitol peddle in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories online and were wearing Nazi and even Holocaust-apologia paraphernalia alongside the Confederate battle flags and MAGA hats.

I can also imagine some who abhor the violence that took place in DC would raise an eyebrow over my analysis. There are people who want to say that the US is better than this, and that it is not who we are. This is of course tied into the mentality that if we get rid of Trump, we get rid of the problem. The thing is though that this kind of violence we saw in DC is not that different from the violence enacted against Black, indigenous, migrant, poor, and LGBTQIA+ communities on a near daily basis in the US, the only difference is that this violence was far more explicit and open and therefore undeniable. Trump is monstrous, but he also pulled down the glitzy façade that was always present that hid this from sight. This is who we are, whether the violence comes from an angry mob staging an insurrection or by police and military against the marginalized, the violence is still the same because it is linked back to that original sin which says that for some to have prosperity others must suffer.

So, where do we go from here?

This is a difficult question, and each and every one of us has a role to play. Aside from removing Trump from office, the answers are somewhat uncertain. There is also concern that by removing Trump or taking any major action in response we would be making Trump a martyr and further inflame the far-right within the US. However there needs to be a response to this, things are already broken and when we do not acknowledge that brokenness, we only create further damage.

Since Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election last November many have spoken about the need for the United States to heal. I fully agree, the United States needs to heal. But few seem to talk about what exactly the US needs to heal from. I think some hope that maybe there is some way to return to a kind of innocence that existed in the past before Trump’s presidency, looking to the 90s before 9/11 or even when Republicans had “integrity” like when Eisenhower was president as models to embrace. As I said though, what we saw yesterday was a manifestation of a primordial violence. No empire born in the coalescence of genocide and slavery will be able to find peace until there is justice. There is no prelapsarian state to which America can return to.

For there to be peace in the United States there needs to be justice. People need to be held accountable for their actions, and we need to take a long look at ourselves in the mirror and reflect on how we got here and then begin the work of changing it.

How do we enact our own small or large acts of violence against Black, indigenous, migrant, poor, and LGBTQIA+ people and communities around us? How do our active or passive actions or indifferences hurt those around us that are marginalized? Do we use our privilege to keep the status quo, or do we work to change the world around us? Do we show love and compassion to the least of these, or do we tune out because the cries of our neighbours are inconvenient to our routine? Do we support groups and policies that work to reconcile and restore the relationships between peoples in our communities, or do we allow for further marginalization to occur? Our actions both big and small have rippling effects and consequences beyond us, we are not islands unto ourselves even if we tend to see ourselves as isolated individuals and not as part of a community where we impact one another.

The past is the only light with which we can see the future. We cannot undo the past, but we can make the past right by embracing justice.

I will continue to pray for my home country as it begins to process the trauma from January 6, and I will continue to pray and work for justice in the spheres and world around me. I know that I am flawed, and I make mistakes. But I can always strive to do and be better. God willing, we are able to overcome the shadows that lurk in our hearts and pull out the logs in our eyes to see the world as it truly is with all of its beauty and all of its flaws. We are a family, but there are people in our family who are frightened and scared because they see the violence from January 6 and recognize that it is all too familiar. As we process our own fear, let us be mindful of the needs and fears of others, and work to make a more just and peaceful society.

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart and especially the hearts of the people of the United States, that barriers which divide us may

crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

James+

The Cross and the Crib: A Homily for the Feast of S. John the Evangelist

Genesis 1:1-5, 12-19
Psalm 92:1-2, 11-14
1 John 1:1-9
John 20:1-8

St. Thomas's Anglican Church

Toronto, ON

***

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head.

+In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

There is a certain discordance when the church transitions from Advent into the Christmas season. For four weeks we hear prophecies of God’s judgement of the Earth, calls from John the Baptist to repent, and hymnody and music that invokes the imminence of the eschaton and the majesty and grandeur of Heaven in our very midst. As the hymn Conditor alme siderum puts it.

At whose dread name, majestic now,

All knees must bend, all hearts must bow;

And things celestial Thee shall own,

And things terrestrial, Lord alone.

There is an imminence and closeness of the apocalypse in Advent with the proclamation that God’s judgment is near and that this world is temporary and will end.

We cut and pivot then to Christmas, and the smallness of the Holy Family attempting to find a place for Mary to give birth because there is no room in the inn. The bombastic “Let all mortal flesh keep silence,” gives way to “Silent Night”. The thunderous “Lo he comes with clouds descending” gives way to “O Little Town of Bethlehem”. The Feast of Saint John the Evangelist falls in this Christmas season, and while we celebrate the birth of Christ the lectionary gives us not the prologue of Saint John’s Gospel which explains the incarnation of Christ that lies at the heart of the nativity—the entry of the Divine Logos into the world and taking on our fleshly and human substance. Instead we jump ahead to the end of John’s Gospel and witness Mary Magdalene discovering the empty tomb, and Peter and the Disciple whom Jesus loved entering the tomb and discovering only the burial cloths Jesus was wrapped in.  There is no body to be found here.

What one might first consider to be a thematic discordance however reveals the great depth and mysteries of Jesus’s incarnation in its totality. Jesus’s incarnation embraces the fullness of the human experience from his birth, to his childhood, through his adulthood, into his passion and death, and concluding in his resurrection and ascension. These events in Jesus’s life are not isolated events or stories from one another, each are related to one another and define and give meaning to each other. 

Jesus’s birth in great humility is informed by the humility of his passion, death, and resurrection; and Jesus’s triumph in his passion, death, and resurrection inform his triumphant birth. Bethlehem points to Golgotha, and Golgotha points to Bethlehem. The two events are wrapped up and connected to one cannot be separated. You cannot have the intimacy of the creche without the isolation of Calvary. An Eastern Orthodox hymn for Feast of Saint Joseph of Arimathea speaks of Jesus’s incarnation in a powerful way that links Jesus’s birth to his passion:

A virgin womb, conceiving thee, revealed thee;

a virgin tomb, receiving thee, concealed thee.

Eastern Christian theologies of time do not make hard distinctions between temporality and eternity. God is eternal and is constantly working through all things and all events. He is present in and through all. God as he is manifests in his activity. God is the life of the living and the being of things eternal. There is no beginning or end in God, every aspect of Jesus’s life is a theophany and is linked back to its source in God.

There are many parallels that we can find between the nativity story and the empty tomb in John’s Gospel (and indeed in all accounts of the empty tomb). Jesus as an infant is cradled by Mary his mother, Jesus in death is cradled by Mary his mother as seen in Michelangelo’s Pieta. Eastern Orthodox iconography on the nativity and resurrection bring this into greater perspective. Jesus as an infant is wrapped in swaddling clothes, Jesus in death is wrapped in linen cloths. Jesus as an infant is laid on a stone box in a rock cave, Jesus in death is laid in a stone coffin in a rock cave. Jesus at the beginning of his life and at the end is wrapped in cloths and laid in a coffin-like box. 

Professor Noel Terranove of the University of Notre Dame comments on this, “Who would lay a child in a coffin? What macabre motive would make an artist paint a baby as a mummy and give him a tomb as his nursery?  Indeed, the motive is not macabre, but joyful and eschatologically triumphant: we only understand the significance of the incarnation if we hold it in tension with Jesus’ saving death; we may not separate the two. This also reminds us that the liturgical year commemorates events in the life of Jesus, but it never parses the paschal mystery.” The paschal mystery is the fulfilment of the incarnation and the two are linked together.

The seeming discordance of Advent, Christmas, and the Feast of Saint John the Evangelist are actually a harmony that brings the fullness of Jesus’s incarnation to us. These different elements come from the same light. Fr. Al Rodriguez from the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, TX likens this incarnational reality to light shining through a prism. The Light of God coming into the world shines and is filtered and refracted through the prism of humanity and the human experience. Through Jesus we see the beauty and splendor of the human experience as that light embraces, redeems, and restores our humanity. No matter what part of the story we encounter we can see the fullness of Jesus’s humanity and God’s splendor and light in all of its colourful brilliance.

John’s Gospel bridges these disparate elements together even though it lacks the usual images of the nativity story. This is because, quoting again from professor Terranova, “The birth of Christ and his salvific death form the cosmic fulcrum upon which the beam of human history rests, with creation and eschaton at each end.  In a nativity icon this is super concentrated.” We see both the beginning and the end in the nativity, and we see that the beginning and the end are invariably linked together. The messiness, the challenges, and the difficulties of the human experience are therefore held as precious in this space and time, and in that moment, we see God in his dread and glorious majesty, wrapped in linen cloths and laid to rest in a cave while the world passes by. The eschaton is both triumphant and silent.

Our hope lies within these mysteries. As the prologue of John’s Gospel puts it, “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known,” and Jesus later says “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him… Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me” We cannot fully perceive or understand God, we as humans cannot behold the totally of the divine, but through Jesus, through God the Son we are able to behold the Father because Jesus’s incarnation becomes the bridge that unites God and humanity. Through Jesus, the Word of Life is made manifest and we can encounter that which was from the beginning, we can hear, see, and touch God. 

Humanity is no longer shrouded in the darkness of a cave because the light of the world came into that space and illuminated it. Our humanity becomes luminous and we can walk together in that light with one another and with the whole of that creation that God called good in the beginning. 

The end and the beginning are not the same. Time is not cyclical. The very nature of our world is one of beginnings, growth, change, and endings. Even the beginning and end of Jesus’s time on Earth are not the same, and yet the great wonder of this eschatological revelation is that the end and the beginning are linked to each other and point to God’s redemptive work to make and restore creation because that beginning and that end, that light that is refracted through the prism of human experience all comes from the same source—God. God is manifest and present in each and every moment of our lives because Jesus experienced the totality of human existence in all of its wonders and its limitations, and in doing so made our humanity limitless through his birth, life, death, and resurrection. Just as Jesus embraces the fullness of the human experience, we too are invited to embrace the fullness of Jesus’ existence. 

As we contemplate on Jesus’s humanity in the crib and in the coffin, we see the fullness of his divinity, and from that we see what our own humanity is when it is fully redeemed and restored by God’s love. God sent his son Jesus to be born and to live and die as we are born and live and die so that through the resurrection, the revelation of God’s love is made manifest in this world. This world began with God’s love, it is redeemed by God’s love, and it will end in God’s love only to be made anew in God’s love. Jesus is the manifestation, promise, and object of that love for God and for us. The same Jesus who embraces our humanity, in all of its wonders and all of its limis.

Worthy is the lamb who was slain, and worthy is the lamb who was born. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Amen.

James+

The Path Towards Kenosis: A Homily for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

Jeremiah 15:15-21
Psalm 26:1-8
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28

Preached over Zoom at St. Thomas’s Anglican Church
Toronto, ON

+In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Poor Peter. You really have to feel for him. The scene in today’s Gospel follows immediately after last week’s scene where Peter correctly identifies Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God” and receives the highest of praises from Jesus for this divinely inspired revelation. Any yet, soon thereafter, Jesus rebukes Peter, rather harshly, because Peter tries to dissuade Jesus from heading to Jerusalem to face his Passion. Jesus tells Peter “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.” 

Perhaps Peter is riding high on the praise he received from Jesus in last week’s gospel and hopes to once again provide some of that divinely inspired insight to encourage or convince Jesus that he does not need to go to his death in Jerusalem. Peter had good intentions that were informed by his personal relationship with Jesus and the theology of his time. As Origen of Alexandria and Saint John Chrysostom explain, Peter could not conceive of the Messiah, the Son of the living God, having to endure suffering and death and was therefore afraid of what Jesus was saying to his disciples. Death was something beneath God, something that God could not experience. The Messiah was not supposed to die, rather he was to restore the Earthly Kingdom of Israel and establish it over all the nations. The Messiah was to make a new empire that would conquer and subjugate the powers of this world. This was what Peter was taught, this was the eschatological hope people had in the Messiah, and so he sought to rebuke and correct Jesus for not fulfilling his expectations. Peter had good intentions.

As the saying goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Peter desires a world free from the injustices of his era, but he has set his eye on earthly or human things—the desire for power and might making right by replacing one empire with another. This scene between Peter and Jesus evokes the final temptation the Devil puts before Jesus in the Wilderness. The Devil took Jesus to the top of a high mountain showed him all the kingdoms and empires of the world and tells him “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Satan offers Jesus his own empire over all the earth to rule and dominate. Jesus replies in a manner foreshadowing his rebuke of Peter “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” Both Peter and Satan attempt to draw Jesus away from the will of God and focus on earthly power and might, and though Peter’s intentions were good, Jesus still draws the comparison between the two because ultimately the consequences of Peter and Satan’s attempts are the same, focusing on power and might causes people to stumble on the path towards righteousness.

Rétire-toi, Satan by Jacques Joseph Tissot

The image on the front cover of the bulletin, Rétire-toi, Satan by the 19th century French artist Jacques Joseph Tissot, imagines the scene between Jesus and Peter in a more violent manner. Jesus pushes Peter behind him to keep Peter from blocking his way to Jerusalem. Peter is a literal stumbling block in Jesus’s ministry that has to be pushed away from the road lest he and others trip and fall on their way. Yet even as Jesus rebukes Peter, he provides consolation to him and to the other apostles and explains why he must go through his Passion. 

Jesus in his incarnation experiences an act of kenosis, or an act of self-emptying of himself, save for his love for us, in order to live among us and to suffer, die, and rise again to redeem and restore this world. Jesus empties himself of power and might, and through his Passion he receives glory and majesty and opens the way for humanity to be transformed. The Kingdom of God is made manifest by Jesus’ sacrificial love on the cross. Jesus therefore invites us to become like him by taking up our own crosses and following after him so that we too can manifest the Kingdom of God in this world. 

Earthly and human power cannot alone change this world. Too often we are caught up in our pride, greed, and wrath and these things can cloud our judgment when we try to follow Jesus. We can be like Peter and focus on the earthly without giving thought to the heavenly. We can desire our own mini empires to rule and dominate over. We may have good intentions, but if our desire is not aligned with the Heavenly Will, if we focus on our own will and desire for power and wealth, we will stumble along the road following Christ. We can end up responding to harm and evil done to us in ways that can compound the error. When that happens nothing truly changes, nothing is transformed. However, we can also be like Peter because by the Grace of our Father in Heaven we, as individuals, as a community, and as Church can embrace that which is “really life-giving and detecting what might appear to be life-giving and freeing, but in reality is killing us” and “make a decision about what is of ultimate value and importance in this life.” as Fr David said last week. When we accept Jesus’ invitation to follow him, we become open to being transformed by him.

Jesus’s kenosis, his emptying of himself, is the model that we ought to embody if we wish to follow after him. Jesus invites us to empty ourselves, deny ourselves, turn away from our pride, our ego, and our domineering, and take up our cross, those tools of our own sacrifice, service, and love, to follow him. We empty ourselves to find ourselves, and in doing so we can orient our will towards God. Saint Jerome in his commentary on this Gospel says that “he who lays aside the old man with his works denies himself. He is one who says: ‘But I live no longer, but Christ lives in me.’ And he who is crucified to the world takes up his own cross. Now the one to whom the world has been crucified is following the crucified Lord.” When we empty ourselves, Christ comes to embody and dwell within us. 

How can we do this though, how do we deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus?

Turning to Saint Paul, the Epistle for today from Romans gives us the instructions on how to do this. I will not repeat the whole of the Epistle, but in it Paul emphasizes on the need for humility and love to be the guide on our way to follow Jesus, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all.” When we act with love, compassion, and justice to all, including those who have wronged us, we embody Christ’s love for all people. Serving the needs of others opens the way to denying our pride. We no longer exist solely for ourselves or those things we can seek to dominate over, we walk the way of service, sacrifice, and love with Christ who redeems and transforms this world.

Peace and love towards not only our friends and neighbours, but also towards our enemies can sweep away the stumbling blocks that keep us from following Christ because peace and love fundamentally transforms the path that we are walking upon and clears our vision as we walk that path. When we turn away from might, power, pride, ego, and earthly things we align ourselves to the Will of God and it is in this place that we receive the divine wisdom to identify correctly who Jesus is and to follow after him. Rather than building an earthly empire of might and power, we work with Christ to build the Kingdom of God here on Earth. We no longer walk that road alone but do so as a community supporting one another, we each become like Christ to one another. We carry our crosses, but we are also carrying each other’s crosses. 

Here, in this place, we find Jesus among us, and we will see the “Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Amen

There's Something About Mary (Magdalene Edition): A Homily for the Feast of S. Mary Magdalene

Acts 13:27-31
Psalm 30.1-5
John 20:11-18

St. Thomas’s Anglican Church
Toronto, ON (Preached over Zoom)

+In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

Mary Magdalene from James C. Lewis's
Icons of the Bible project.

Mary Magdalene is a figure who inspires much of our imagination. Her constant, but often silent presence in the Bible has inspired many stories and legends, works of art, and theological discourses and debates. She is mentioned twelve times in the Bible by name, more than any of the apostles, she financed Jesus’s ministry (though the gospels are silent as to how), she is said to have carried seven demons and was healed by Jesus, and here in the Gospel of John she is the first to encounter the risen Christ and is instructed to tell the apostles of the resurrection, earning her the title of the Apostle to the Apostles and Equal to the Apostles.

Mary is indeed important, but many often approach her with a particular theological project in mind without often considering the person presented in the Bible. We know so little about her, and because outside of this one scene in the Gospel of John, she does not speak. Therefore, people often put words into her mouth. The theologian Martín Hugo Córdova Quero notes that Mary is often cast in binary roles within the classical, the so-called gnostic, and the modern interpretations of her. In the traditional western view of the Latin church, Mary is a prostitute who becomes a penitent saint who quietly waits at the feet of Jesus seeking lifelong absolution for her supposedly sinful career choice. In the so-called gnostic tradition, Mary is a woman who has to be defeminized to become a virtuous and masculine member of the spiritual community. And in the modern and twentieth century interpretation, Mary is no longer a sex worker but is now a proto-capitalist entrepreneur and businessperson who becomes a leader in the early church. These depictions are often held as mutually exclusive to one another, and some are considered more positive than others. Indeed, the modern interpretation is in many ways a liberating interpretation because Mary is an active agent and leader in the early church and in the early Jesus movement.

"Jesus appears to Mary" from Douglas Blanchard's
Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision series

Nevertheless, all of these depictions are often tied to the idea of what different communities (often the men in those communities) want Mary to be, and in turn they (again, usually men) can use Mary to be a guide for what they want women to be. However, many criticize these interpretations as being dehumanizing towards women and for not being properly concerned with the real life experiences women, particularly women in marginalized communities, encounter in their day-to-day lives. Even the modern interpretation is criticized by some contemporary theologians because it often implicitly excludes women who experience poverty, women and people whose gender and sexuality do not conform to societal norms, or women who work in stigmatized careers like sex work and treats them as not being worthy of acceptance in the Church and worthy of love from Christ.

Jesus however has a way of troubling those waters of normalcy that we desire in our lives by challenging the binaries that we impose on ourselves and others. Jesus makes the indecent decent and the decent indecent, and Jesus helps us to look beyond the roles we impose on ourselves and others to see the human being in front of us for who they truly are, someone beloved by God and someone who is vital to the sharing of God’s Kingdom as an active agent. This is why Jesus associated himself with the poor, the oppressed, and even with sex workers, because they are the ones who will inherit the Kingdom of God, and therefore they are the ones who share the Good News with the rest of us.

With Mary we can look beyond the binary roles that were established for us and for others to see what a true follower of Jesus looks like. Through Mary, we see the person who loved Jesus, who listened and accepted his teachings, who was there through the entirety of his passion and death, and then after his resurrection shared his message with the apostles and the world. In turn we see the Son of God who was also clearly close to Mary, who welcomed her into his closest ranks, and tasked her to be the herald of his resurrection. Here in the Gospel of John, we hear Mary speak for the one and only time in the New Testament, and it is here that she alone receives a personal Christophany or manifestation of the risen Christ from Jesus. The other apostles see the risen Christ, often in groups, but Mary alone receives this personal appearance. Mary has agency and makes requests of Jesus. Jesus responds with care and affection to the genuine human needs of Mary. It is in the close and interpersonal relationship between Christ and Mary that we see how the Kingdom of God is made manifest in our lives, through the love we share with one another. Therefore, in our personal love and close affection with Jesus, we are tasked like Mary to go out and tell the world of Christ’s resurrection irrespective of who we are or the roles society places and imposes on us.

In this way, we too become apostles to other apostles.

Amen

On the Edge of the New World: A Sermon on the Feast of the Ascension

Acts 1:1-11
Psalm 47
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 24:44-53

St. Thomas's Anglican Church
Toronto, ON

“And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.”

+In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

It is tradition to extinguish the Paschal Candle
following the Gospel on the Feast of the Ascension

The Feast of the Ascension is one of the great Feasts of our Lord and one of the great mysteries of the Incarnation. Jesus is taken up into heaven and is removed from our sight, and yet through his ascension we are drawn closer than ever to him because his presence is now known to all the world. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is now enthroned in splendour on the right hand of God the Father. He returns from whence he came, and he is fully received into heaven as the Incarnate Word of God. His humanity is not subsumed by his divinity, nor is his divinity diminished by his humanity. His ascension changes everything, and yet so much remains the same. What does this all mean for us in 2020, and how can we begin to grasp this mystery in our lives?

Syriac icon of the Ascension

The sixth-century Syrian bishop Jacob of Serugh writes regarding the Ascension “in the Son of God, heaven and earth had joined each other; and in Him were pacified, both the human race and the angels.” In the Ascension, the timeless and unchanging heaven is united with the ephemeral and transient Earth, and the two are united now by Christ. When Christ returns to heaven, he returns with that human body that was formed in the Incarnation. That body is like our bodies. It carries with it the marks of time, every line from laughter and the joys of life, the aches and pains of middle age, and of course the scars and trauma of his crucifixion and resurrection.

Christ’s pains are revealed and glorified in heaven, and just as those pains were lifted into heaven, so too are our pains lifted up into heaven with him. There is no theosis, no union or restoration of our original divinely beheld image without the ascension. Christ shares in our humanity so we can share in his divinity, as Athanasius of Alexandria from the fourth century writes. Jesus’s wounds are known to God and remain present with him, and by those wounds our relationship with God is restored. There is no journey gone so far that we cannot stop and change direction, and Christ’s ministry including his ascension reveals this to us. We cannot go back to the beginning, but we can begin anew, looking back on what has brought us to this point, and looking ahead at what is to come.

And yet, now we remain, here on earth in a world that has indeed changed and yet remains all too familiar.

Image from CTV News

Slowly, our city and world is beginning to open up. Though the lockdown was severe and sudden, the release is slow and cautious with the possibility that further lockdowns may be in the future until a vaccine or other viable treatments for COVID-19 are found. Even as some aspects of life slowly return to normal, there is the recognition that we are exiting our homes into a new world. And we come into this world with the anticipation and fear of the unknown, and the knowledge that not all of us can safely exit our homes until a later date. We may feel like we are at the edge, staring into the unknown. When Jesus departed from the apostles, they gazed at the heavens in anticipation and wonder as they too stood at the edge of a new world. Jesus departs from their sight, but he does not abandon them, nor does he abandon us. He offers us the promise of peace and his blessing. Turning again to Jacob of Serugh, he writes that:

“Jesus had given peace so that they themselves might give it to the whole earth, and he would fill them with his peace, instead of himself. He encouraged them and promised them, ‘I am with you’ so that when he would be raised up from among them it would not sadden them. He is with them and behold, the name of the Father is with them and he will send the Spirit so as not to leave them behind as orphans. His peace is with them and the name of the Father was made the guard, and the advocate carried the riches for the discipleship.

As we stand on the edge of our new world, do not be afraid. Even though we are still in many ways isolated, we are not alone. Even though Christ has gone up into heaven, those burdens that we carry in our lives, the sorrows and the traumas of our present time, the sorrows and traumas of our present experience, are known to God and held dearly and lovingly by God. He will not abandon us. The Holy Spirit brings us ever closer into intimacy with Christ because the Spirit fills us with God’s blessing, peace, and love for us. Even in his departure, even in his seeming absence, do not be afraid, for Jesus tells us to “remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Amen.

Faith Manages: A Homily for The First Sunday After Easter Day

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

St. Thomas's Anglican Church
Toronto, ON

“Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.”

+In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Statues by Duane Linklater

A few days ago, I was riding my bike on the Don Valley trail. I noticed how empty the roads are and the overall silence that has fallen upon our city. There are pockets of activity as people go about their business but there is a certain echo of the life that once was. Many refer to this as the new normal. This new normal is often described in terms of absence. We go about our lives in some ways as if nothing has changed, but we see everywhere that nothing is the same. We try to maintain some semblance of a routine: we wake up, we shower, we eat, we watch or read the news, we try to do our work, we get distracted, we eat again, we try to go back to work, we give up, we go outside for a walk, we eat again, we do some other chore, and then go to bed. We repeat this daily as our new normal. Our lives are now circumscribed by our home’s walls and most of us do not venture outside except for those few errands that are absolutely necessary.

We gathered two weeks ago virtually to commemorate the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. During our Zoom coffee-hour last Wednesday, many in our community shared their appreciation for the elegant simplicity of our online Holy Week liturgies. We were still able to capture some of the solemnity, beauty, drama, and joys of Holy Week and Easter. Yet there was a certain melancholy as we could not encounter the usual sights, smells, sounds, touch, and taste of Holy Week. Many people walked away from the Easter Mass with a sense of joy that grows from the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection. But I felt in some ways that the joy of the Resurrection slipped away when I returned to my new normal routine on Easter Monday. I found myself asking, now what? How do we live into Eastertide in the duration of this, and as the quarantine continues on in the weeks to come?

In many respects, our Easter celebration this year has taken on new meaning. We are like the disciples, locked away and living in a state of isolation. Like them, we too have learned that Christ’s tomb is empty, and have learned of Mary Magdalen’s encounter with the risen Lord, and like them in this Gospel we find ourselves locked away. They hide themselves away, venturing outside only for those few errands that are absolutely necessary. However, Jesus breaks into the locked room, not through the door but through reality itself. He offers peace to the disciples and breathes the Holy Spirit upon them. Thomas, however, is not there when Jesus first appears, he is outside, perhaps running an absolutely necessary errand. He hears from the other apostles that Jesus appeared to them but does not believe. He says, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Later Thomas and the other the disciples are gathered again in the locked room. Jesus breaks in again presents his hands and his side for Thomas to touch. Thomas, upon realising Jesus is truly and physically there, and declares “My Lord and my God”. Jesus replies, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

The Incredulity of St Thomas, Getty Museum

I could then easily tell you that what Jesus has to say “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” will be sufficient to carry you through this period of isolation and quarantine as it carries on into Eastertide. But in some ways that is a cold comfort in this new normal. It may be easier to repeat what Jesus says, but to actually take those words into our hearts especially now, can be quite difficult. We ask ourselves how long this social distancing will continue, how long will I be isolated and locked behind my door? If only we could be like the apostles who had it so easy, Jesus could then break down that door break into my reality. Jesus could then cross into that 6-foot barrier of distance around myself and be close to me. If only he could present his hands and his side for me to touch. If only, like in so many artistic depictions of this scene, Jesus would grab my hand so that I could feel his hand, and feel his body, and know that there is another living and breathing person in front of me. Then I would have hope, then I would believe, and then I can be strengthened for whatever may come in the next few weeks. And yet, this is not the case, and so we go through another day of this new normal wondering where is God in all of this. Where is the resurrection when it feels we are still in the tomb?

Jesus’s resurrection is a promise and gift to humanity. What Jesus gives to his disciples and to us is not the gift of his physical body, but the promise and the gift of faith. It is more precious than any physical or worldly treasure. Faith is the promise that the past has meaning and will be fulfilled. It is the promise of a future restored and renewed better than the past ever way. And, though this may cliched, faith transforms the normal into the abnormal the ordinary into the extraordinary. The faith that the resurrected Christ offers to his apostles and to all of us is that where we are and all that surrounds us is indeed good because in his resurrection, he is still embodied clothed with the mundane aspects of creation just as we are. Jesus is resurrected and his body is glorified, but it is still his original body. He is still a human being; his divinity has not consumed or superseded his humanity. The body that he was incarnate in is still a good body and yet it also bears the wounds of its humanity. It is a promise that this world is still good, that this world is still loved and held closely by God even when we are surrounded by uncertainty, fear, or even monotony. It tells us that the normal we find ourselves in, whether it is an old normal, or a new normal, or a new-new normal, is still good enough for God, and God will always come into it and transform it. Christ breaks into our world and is present, even though we might not see or touch him, he is still there.

Evergreen Brick Works

In the Hebrew language, and indeed in many Semitic languages, the word for breath or wind, ruha, is also the word for spirit. Beginning in Genesis and throughout the entire Bible there is this linking between spirit, breath, and wind. Jesus in this story breathes the Holy Spirit on his disciples. I like to believe that the coming of the Holy Spirit here and on the Day of Pentecost was not a localized phenomenon of Christ’s breath on the disciples. Rather, God’s breath is shared and continues beyond this moment. God continually breaths upon creation as one would blow on a fire to bring forth new life, new heat, and new warmth from it. As I ride my bike alone in the Don Valley, I often feel the wind blowing up on me, pushing me forward or back. I see it rustling through the trees, I hear it as it moves up on the river, and it carries the sounds of life wherever it goes. Christ is still present in this world; he lives and moves among us. He does indeed crash into our lives and breathe upon us to give us life and vigour. He gives us the gift of faith, faith that our times and places have meaning, that he will never abandon us, and that the world we live in is still indeed good.

Faith manages. Faith will manage us through this normal the next new normal and whatever new normal lies out there because faith reminds us of God’s continual presence and renewal in the world. Jesus through his breath upon the world continues to work wonders and signs that are both readily apparent and sometimes hard to see. He is present in every routine day, every quiet walk, every moment with a bored and screaming child, every line-up outside the store, every meal given to the poor, every Zoom call (yes, even the ones that get Zoom-bombed), every hospital waiting room, and every day that lives are saved because we are staying home. Jesus moves in ways that we may see or not see, know or not know, but he is still present, breathing life into this world, even the very walls of our homes. “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:  But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”

Amen.

"I am the light of the world": A Sermon for Laetare Sunday during the COVID-19 Pandemic

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Psalm 23

Ephesians 5:8-14

John 9:1-41

“As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

+In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

High altar from St. Ignatius Episcopal Church

The Fourth Sunday in Lent is often called Laetare Sunday. On this Sunday, the Lenten Fast is loosened briefly, the purple vestments are swapped for a lighter rose-coloured set, the music takes a brighter turn, and the first glimmers of Easter appear on the horizon as some churches place flowers on the alter for this one Sunday in Lent. It is intended to encourage the faithful in their course through the season of penance and fasting, to reassure them that there is a season to all things, and that on the other side of Lent and the Passion is the glory of Easter and the Resurrection. The name Laetare comes from the traditional Latin introit or entrance for the mass of the day, Lætare Jerusalem. The full introit comes from Isaiah 66 and Psalm 122:

Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her:

That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.

I was glad when they said unto me, ‘We will go unto the house of the Lord.’

Right now, it is difficult to rejoice. We are in our homes practicing social distancing in an attempt to blunt the spread of COVID-19 and the flatten the curve of infection so as to not overwhelm our healthcare systems. Many of us are cut-off from our friends and family, only engaging in necessary contact for groceries and medicine. Schools are closed, businesses are shutdown, the economy is uncertain, and the future is unclear. It is as if the world has hit a pause button, and yet we still have to move to continue life in whatever shape we can.

The most painful part of this for many of us is that churches are closed, and liturgies are cancelled. We are cut-off from the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, one of the things many of us look to in order to sustain them through the Lenten Fast is now a part of the Lenten Fast.

We may be at this for some time. China has now only begun to relax their own measures of quarantine, social distancing, and isolation after two months of implementation. Yet part of the problem with COVID-19 is that it is a novel strain of a coronavirus, and though scientists have learned much about it, there is still so much that is unknown. We are groping around unable to see as if in a dark room, blinded by shadows. The fear is that the virus may come rushing back once the restrictions are loosened so some scientists believe we may have to go in and out of social distancing until a vaccine is produced and distributed which could be 18 months to 2 years from now. There is a silver lining in this, should we need to enact social distancing again, the duration will likely be shorter than the prior one, our healthcare system will become more adapt at meeting society’s needs when an outbreak comes, and new anti-viral treatments are showing positive results. Even the most clinical and lacking in bedside manner scientists say that there is an end to this though the road ahead may be long and what lies at the other side is unsure.

In our Gospel reading today Jesus heals the man born blind. This healing is quite unique compared to the other healings in John’s Gospels. When Jesus heals the royal official’s son in John 4 or the paralytic in John 5, he does so at a distance, or by his command. Here however, Jesus spits on the ground, makes a paste of saliva and mud, smears it on the eyes of the blind man, and tells him to wash in the public pool of Siloam. This is not very sanitary and goes against all medical practice! And yet its very tactile, physical, and earthy scene and its physicality highlights Jesus message, “I am the light of the world.” That light is not some philosophical concept, there is no intellectual ascent or hidden knowledge given by Jesus to transcend reality, no Jesus is the physical light sent into the world so that people can see, and by his light people can see and know God. Reality itself bends to his very presence, and the light that he shines scatters the darkness and reveals the truth plainly for all to see, as S. Paul says in his epistle to the Ephesians “all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” Through Christ, salvation and hope is offered to all, and that radiance overwhelms any darkness and any secret in the world because “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” And in that light, all the secrets we carry, the worries, the fears, the anxieties which blind us to the light and hope of Christ are revealed as the foolishness of our human nature. We can see ourselves as we truly are. And when we stare at our human nature while under that light as if in a mirror, we see how foolish we can be, and laughter is inevitable. And from that laughter comes wisdom and joy as a gift from God, and from that joy comes hope.

Jesus tell us “as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Though Jesus has ascended to the Father in Heaven, we believe that Jesus is still present physically in the world. We primarily acknowledge that Christ is present in the Body and Blood of the Eucharist, but now with many cut off from the Sacrament we are rediscovering how Christ is present in the Body of the Church. Though we do not gather in together in person, we can still pray together. Even if we are not in the same room, we can gather with our friends and loved ones to pray over Skype, Facetime, Zoom, or even the good old-fashioned telephone. Though we may not be in the same room, we are still gathered together and united in prayer because the Holy Spirit moves through us despite the distance. The Prayer of S. Chrysostom in the Daily Office of the Book of Common Prayer reminds us of Jesus’s promise “that when two or three are gathered together in thy Name thou wilt grant their requests.” Indeed, this may be a time to rediscover the poetry and prayers of Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline, which lies at the bedrock of the Prayer Book tradition.

More importantly, we are united in the Body of Christ through our baptism. Our baptism knits us together in ways that transcend our imagination and it gives us the opportunity to be the Body of Christ wherever we are and in what we do. We allow the Light of Christ to shine through us and into the world and help us to see others as God sees us, loved, beloved, and cherished. Our baptism allows us to be Christ to others and allow others to see God through our actions. Brian P. Flanagan, a professor of theology at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, wrote recently in America Magazine:

Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images

“Jesus teaches us, ‘For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ I have the privilege of being healthy and at low risk for complications from the virus. How can I use my time to support those in my community who are more biologically vulnerable? ... In this time in which we are not able to encounter Christ in the assembly or the Eucharist, we always have the opportunity to encounter Christ in the vulnerable, even in ways that protect ourselves and those we wish to help from further risk. A meal or groceries left on a doorstep [or given to the most vulnerable among us], a contribution to a fund for unemployed restaurant workers, a check-in with an isolated older person or a friend who has suddenly become a homeschooling parent—we can all do something, for someone, in this time.”

We can still serve one another and be like Christ to others in the world, even if it must be done so at a distance. Though our prayers, our words, and our deeds, the Light that is Christ will continue to shine in this world, illuminating even the deepest shadow that seems to be so ever present in these times. As S. Paul says in his epistle to the Romans, “I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” There is nothing that will ever truly separate us from one another, and us from God, not even a virus.

The next few weeks may be very difficult, and the future beyond that may be uncertain. Pray for a quick end to this pandemic, but in these times, do not lose hope. God will never abandon us, as Psalm 23 says,

The Lord is my shepherd; therefore can I lack nothing.

He shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.

He shall restore my soul, and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness, for his Name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me.

Though we cannot drink deeply of the Eucharistic cup, we can drink deeply of God’s love for us and that cup will sustain us in the midst of these times.

In the days to come I urge you to look after and take care of one another as best you can. Each day find something to be thankful for, something to pray for, and something to laugh over. If you are young and healthy and able to, find ways to reach out and serve the vulnerable because they are at even more risk than anyone else. In these acts we can find joy and laughter, and in that we find hope, and in that hope, Christ is known among us. As my mother told me on Friday, find Jesus in every moment.

I look forward to the day when I can say to you all in person, “We will go unto the house of the Lord,” and celebrate once again the Feast of Christ’s Body and Blood together as a community. May that day be a bright and joyous day filled with laughter where no shadows lie, and may that day come soon.

Amen.