Approaching Good Friday 2015

shared by a friend of St. Paul's

As I move through Lent, I try to remind myself of Jesus’s suffering, to make it real, despite the distance of some two thousand years.   I found this reading effective:

“The procedure of the crucifixion – how the victim was hanged – was left completely up to the executioner.   Some were nailed with their heads downward.  Some had their private parts impaled.  Most were stripped naked. . . . With his crime recorded in Pilate’s logbook, Jesus would have been led out of the Antonia fortress and taken to the courtyard, where he would be stripped naked, tied to a stake, and savagely scourged, as was the custom for all those sentenced to the cross.  The Romans would then have placed a crossbeam behind the nape of his neck and hooked his arms over it – again, as was the custom – so that the messiah . . .would himself be yoked like an animal and led to slaughter.

“As with all those condemned to crucifixion, Jesus would have been forced to carry the crossbeam himself to a hill situated outside the walls of Jerusalem, directly on the road leading into the city gates. . . .The crossbeam would be attached to a scaffold or post, and Jesus’ wrists and ankles would be nailed to the structure with three iron spikes.  A heave, and the cross would be lifted to the vertical.  Death would not have taken long.  In a few short hours, Jesus’ lungs would have tired, and breathing became impossible to sustain.”

This account was not written by a Christian – not quite, anyway.    I’ve been reading about Jesus with an Iranian writer.    Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth, was born in Iran and as a teenager fled the country with his family after the Iranian revolution in 1979.   He describes his family as lukewarm Muslims and atheists and who, having lost everything to the Ayatollah, made religion in general and Islam in particular a taboo subject after arriving in California. 

At 15, young Reza converted to evangelical Christianity at summer camp, and fell in love with a Jesus with whom “I could have a deep and personal relationship.”    However, as he plunged into biblical studies to strengthen his new faith,   he discovered the many contradictions in the Bible, even among the books of the New Testament..   “Confused and spiritually unmoored,” he angrily abandoned his new faith and began to rethink his relationship with Islam.

However, he continued his academic religious studies, “delving back into the Bible not as an unquestioning believer but as an inquisitive scholar.”   He became drawn to Jesus again, not Jesus the Christ, the divine being, but the very human Jesus of Nazareth whom Aslan came to admire as a political revolutionary.

So what am I doing trying to learn about Jesus’ death and passion from a not-too-zealous Muslim writer who is very comfortable as an academic skeptic who now teaches creative writing at the University of California-Riverside?    For one thing, he is a fine storyteller, and his brief account of the Crucifixion brings a new perspective to an old story.   Aslan goes on to describe  a time of seething opposition to the Roman occupation and its toadies in the Jerusalem temple, the countryside haunted by false messiahs who often resorted to violence, and the Romans’ brutal violence in kind.   Many messiahs were killed by the Romans, until the final upheavals of 70 A.D and after, which provoked Rome to destroy the temple and drive the surviving Jews out of Palestine.

But what drew me to this book is that it is a story of Jesus, well-written, by someone who is not a believing Christian but an admirer of  Jesus nonetheless.  Most important, here is someone who tries (and fails, it seems to me) to deny Jesus’ resurrection.   “One could stop the argument. . . dismiss the resurrection as a lie, and declare belief in the risen Jesus to be the product of a deludable mind.”   Here is struggle.  Aslan wants to remain a skeptic, but can’t quite do it:

“However, there is this nagging fact to consider:  one after another of those who claimed to have witnessed the risen Jesus went to their own gruesome deaths refusing to recant their testimony. . . they were being asked to deny something they themselves personally, directly encountered.”   Moreover, “perhaps the most obvious reason not to dismiss the disciples’ resurrection experiences out of hand is that, among all the other failed messiahs who came before and after him, Jesus alone is still called messiah.   It was precisely the fervor with which the followers of Jesus believed in his resurrection that transformed this tiny Jewish sect into the largest religion in the world.”

What the Gospels invite us to believe is overwhelming.  It defies what many would call common sense.  Yet faith persists after two thousand years, and keeps nagging at skeptics like Aslan, who want to deny it, but can’t quite seem to shake the Resurrection off.

A Lenten Reflection

shared by Holly Tepe

I am a “cradle Episcopalian”.  Church is a natural part of my life, like breathing.  My first church was St. George’s in Maplewood, NJ. I remember painting crèche figurines in Sunday school to take home.  The church seemed so big to me and the organ playing the postlude (probably Widor) was terrifying, while I clung to my parent’s hands for dear life!  Kind little old ladies would sometimes give me pretty flower s…

Then we moved to Summit, NJ and our new church was called Calvary.  At church on Sundays, following the sound of my mother’s jingling charm bracelets down the aisle to our seat; we became familiar with the joys of hiding under the pews, much to our mother’s chagrin!  Happily for her (and the other parents), we were all sent off to Sunday school before the sermon.  I didn’t stay in the church for a whole service until I started singing in the St. Cecilia girls’choir.

I took my first real piano lessons in the choir room with our beloved organist, Howard Vogel.  My elementary school was across the street from the church and I would often go there after school and wander around the empty building, sometimes helping the Altar Guild to polish silver.

We were expected to give up something like candy for Lent.  It was a Season that seemed inexplicable, long and gloomy, and it wasn’t until I was older and had learned more about it that I began to understand what it meant.  Jesus had become a hero to me and I loved the pictures of Him with the little children.  He spent 40 days in the Wilderness, fasting and praying in preparation for His ministry, this was the length of Lent.  In French, the word “lent” means “slow”.  The actual meaning comes from the Old English word “lencten” meaning spring or the lengthening of days.  I thought that “slow” worked better!

The end of Lent was Holy Week and Good Friday.  I just couldn’t understand why it was called “Good” when it was the day that Jesus died!  I learned that it had to be” Good” because Jesus didn’t stay dead.  He rose on Easter, as the Light of the World.

When I grew up Lent was a blessed time for reflection and developing a closer relationship to God.  Giving up candy was just a small part of it.  Jesus was still a hero, but He became closer and dearer, a loving Friend, Someone to count on in dark times, Someone to mourn for on Good Friday and Someone to rejoice with on Easter….Lucy and Susan Pevensie, riding joyfully through Narnia on the risen Aslan’s back.. ”Redemption and Release”.

“Foot-dragging through the Wilderness of Lent”

Summary of Lenten Discussion from March 4, 2015, St. Paul’s, Concord - 

By: The Rt. Rev. Donald Hart

Lent is holy ground, almost untouchable, and yet many people have problems with the practices, and piety, that Lent carries with it.

The problems are not theological. Lent’s grounding in the suffering of Jesus and God’s atonement that assures us of God’s love and grace is the foundation for our hope and strength in living our lives and facing our deaths. It is not a theology of magic, but one of faith, that calls us into compassion and forgiveness.

Ash Wednesday gives us a contradictory and confusing start. We are given excellent practices to enter a Holy Lent, by reading scripture, praying, fasting, meditating, and repenting. And then, immediately we share in the rite of imposing ashes, and the words reminding us we are dust and to dust we shall return. This powerfully symbolic action has taken place just after the equally powerful reading from St. Matthew’s Gospel, quoting Jesus warning against the hypocrisy of displaying a piety for everyone to see, and the value of washing our faces, so that no one but God will know of our fasting practices.

What is missing is recognition that between the dust of our beginnings and our ending is LIFE, that gift of time when we come to know God and ourselves as people who are called to be holy. Can we claim, in this Lenten Season, more than simply dust and ashes? Can we also enter into the complexity of knowing God’s love – that brings us our greatest joy and most enduring hope?

Our spirituality is fed and nurtured and deepened in so many ways. Traditional church practices often emphasize more services, teaching programs at the church, services with more ritual, the cross draped in purple, the reredos covered, no flowers, hymns in the minor key. Austerity works for many people, but not for all. Those who have difficulty with Lent long for the hymns that feed their spiritual expression, that give them the prayer language of praise and thanksgiving to God for God’s grace and compassion that is at the center of Lent.

Is this not a time for the poets and composers to give us new Lenten hymns that reflect the spirituality of today, and not only of Victorian England? Is Lent not also a time when people can be affirmed in deepening their spirituality, (as people have, since time immemorial ) by turning to nature, in seeing God in creation, in acknowledging that many everyday acts, like running, hiking, reading, knitting, woodworking, cooking, are powerful times of being open to God’s presence in our lives? Can Lent actually have “wilderness”, as it was for Jesus during his forty days, for us to hear God in the silence of life?

Most of us New Englanders have grown up and discovered our religious practices and piety for Lent among Congregationalist (Protestants in general) and Roman Catholics. The “middle way” of Episcopalians has proven to be a confusing path. Our way is no less serious because it gives us the experience of God’s unfailing love in the most difficult of times. That is very good news. Let the last word be to find something to enjoy in this Season of Lent, and if that means praising God with a silent ALLELUIA in the depths of your soul – do it! Enjoy it … and have a holy Lent. 

TIME

A reflection by Jerry Tepe

Tempus fugit. A stitch in time saves nine. Time is money. Time wasted is time lost. Time is of the essence. Time marches on.

How many clichés can we have around a single word? And how often is time important in our lives?

We often say we do not have enough time in a day to do what needs to be accomplished. Yet on other days, time seems to stand still as we keep checking the clock every few minutes.

Now I can fully appreciate that many of us are in circumstances where our time does seem limited. Those with young families have not only their own claims to the hours of a day, but need also to think about the time commitments of their family, particularly the children. Still others have the pressures of their business, particularly of their bosses who may be at times unrealistic in their expectations, but have to be followed regardless. We hear about the need to be available 24/7/365.

Given all this, it is often difficult to find the time in our lives for ourselves; to just stop and reflect on what is happening in our lives, in our families, in our community, in our faith? Granted I have reached the time in my life where many of these outside pressures are limited or nonexistent, but I learned years ago that I needed to build time into my life to care for myself if I was going to be able to care for others. I put these times, like visiting the YMCA for exercise, into my weekly calendar and treated them as I would any other commitment as inviolable.

Many of you have heard me before speak of the importance of putting some silence, silent time if you will, into our lives so we can hear God speaking to us. If we do not block the outside sources that demand our attention daily, we cannot hear God’s voice. To be sure, at times He hits us over the head just like he did with St. Paul; but mostly it is a quieter, thought provoking approach. But we also, at times, need to be silent in our relationships with others, so we can hear their voice, their concerns, their worries and burdens. If we can’t take the time to listen, how can we offer support? And lastly, but maybe most importantly, take the time, a minute here, a minute there, to pray and give thanks.

As we go through the Lenten season, perhaps we can all take on the obligation of allowing ourselves some time away from the distractions of our lives to put that time of silence into every day; to listen, really listen to others; and to pray. Make the effort and I truly think you will find it rewarding.

Carrying Our Cross

Hani

Yousef

Towadros

Maged

Milad

Abanub

Kirollos

Bishoy

Malak 

Girgis

Mina

Samuel

Samuel

Ezat

Loqa

Munir

Esam

Malak

Sameh

Girgis

and one other whose name is unknown.

These 21 men were laborers, fishermen, ordinary, hard-working husbands, fathers and sons who left their homes in Egypt to find work in Libya.  As Coptic Christians, they knew it wouldn’t be easy for them to live in a place where ISIS is actively engaged in terrorism.  But they were desperate to provide for their families so they took the risk in spite of the dangers.

In December and January, during two nighttime raids, masked gunmen went through the city of Sirte, looking specifically for Christians. They dragged these men from their beds and took them hostage, making it clear to the world that they would punish them for the double “sin” of being both Christian and Egyptian.  Two weeks ago, all 21 men were executed.

Those simple, ordinary men probably never intended to die for their faith – but that’s exactly what they did.  Like thousands of men and women before them who, in the face of persecution, carried their cross openly and without shame, they lost their lives.

As Episcopalians in New England, it’s unlikely that our journeys will lead to martyrdom at the hands of terrorists. But many of our brothers and sisters in faith truly do live their lives in danger.  The cross that we’re called to carry every day of our lives is a symbol of solidarity with them.

The martyrs among us may proclaim their faith with dramatic acts of courage – such as stepping in front of an assailant’s bullet to save a life, the way Jonathan Daniels did in Alabama 50 years ago.   And there are less dramatic but equally courageous acts – like earning a living in a hostile country with a Coptic cross tattooed on your wrist. 

Jesus taught that choosing to become his followers requires that we deny ourselves (Mark 8:34). That means recognizing that not one of us is more important than another; no life is worth more; no death is worth less. 

Being ashamed of Jesus doesn’t just mean denying all knowledge of him. It also means denying his sovereignty in our lives by not putting him foremost, by not acknowledging the comfort he gives us, by not responding to his desire to help and bless us in every way.  In other words, being ashamed of Jesus is often expressed in what we don’t do.

If we’re too ashamed to show people what Jesus is like and what he’s done, and continues to do, in our lives, if we compromise our faith to fit into a faithless society, then we dishonor the people whose earthly lives are damaged or ended because they’re not ashamed.

Before they were killed, each of those 21 men cried out, “Jesus, help me!”

We’re all sustained by the same holy, life-giving source, Jesus Christ.  When we’re not afraid to pick up our cross and carry it through our daily lives; when we’re not ashamed to let other people know where our strength and confidence comes from; that’s how we ensure that those who lose their live do not die in vain.  And they are never, ever forgotten.

Excerpted from a sermon preached February 28 & March 1

Artwork created in memory of the martyrs - by Tony Rezk

You may find sermons from our weekend services on our website:

www.stpaulsconcord.org under the Worship Tab - you may read this sermon in its entirety here

Mind the Gap!

A reflection by Jerry Tepe

Anyone who has visited England, or perhaps even watched some British television shows, is familiar with the expression – Mind the Gap! Mind the Gap in the UK refers to the space between the platform and the rail or subway (underground) car. If your foot gets caught in the gap, you risk possible physical injury.

During Lent, we are often encouraged to reexamine our faith, our beliefs and our lives in light of our faith as taught to us by Jesus. But while we look at these elements, do we sometimes miss the gaps that occur between them and at what risk of injury of another type?

These gaps can occur between our beliefs and our actions in daily life; between what our culture tells us, urges us, to do or how to do things and what our faith tradition from the church and Jesus tells us, urges us, yea commands us to do; between what we are taught to believe and how we translate that into daily life. And we ignore these gaps at our spiritual peril.

It is relatively easy to focus on a faith, a belief, a teaching and yet to miss what happens in the gaps between these specific elements. It is truly how we put the various elements of our faith into action during our daily lives, in our relationships with others and with God, and make the whole work for the betterment of the world and to further God’s purpose for our world and our lives.

In the Education for Ministry (EfM) program we practice a thought process referred to as Theological Reflection or TR. In this process we intentionally bring into focus what our personal beliefs, our culture, and our church tradition/teaching tell us about any particular situation or event. During that process we then can examine where the gaps occur between these various points of view and thus help us focus on what or how we should proceed as Christians. While it is unrealistic to expect those outside of the EfM program to pick up on this process without training and experience, we all can, and should, be mindful of the gaps as we work our way through our daily lives. I encourage you, as part of your Lenten observations, to consider where the gaps occur in your faith and life.

DUST

A personal reflection by Cherie Greene

On Ash Wednesday, I had to work an afternoon-evening shift in Bedford. I wasn’t sure whether the 12:10 Eucharist would let me out in time to get to work, so I decided to try one of these “Ashes to Go” stations. I had run an errand up Loudon Road and was returning down Main Street with an eye out for roadside priests. Sure enough, there on the corner of Main and Capitol I spied a man in a cope. By what seemed a miracle, I found a parking spot in the next block.

As I approached him along the sidewalk, I made sure to make eye contact. I didn’t recognize him. Since I didn’t know of any parishes doing this besides St. Paul’s and Grace, I thought maybe they had a new guy over there on the east side. Three other people walked past him without looking, trying to ignore the presence of such overt piety. I would be different. I would show him I appreciated him being there.

Then I got close enough to read his name tag. Beneath a name I instantly forgot, I saw “St. Luke’s Anglican Church.”

Oh, I thought. He’s not ours. He’s from one of THOSE parishes.

If you haven’t kept up on the internal politics of the Anglican Communion in the past few decades, let me explain. The word “Anglican” on an American parish means that they broke away from the Episcopal Church, placing themselves in the jurisdiction of a more conservative foreign bishop—one who would never do anything as divisive as, for instance, ordain a homosexual.

I expected that, if he knew I was from St. Paul’s, he would view me as a (possibly heretical) left-wing radical. I saw him as a right-wing stick-in-the-mud. But I had already given him a friendly smile, and he was smiling back, so I couldn’t wiggle out of it now. I approached and presented my forehead.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

I said, “Amen,” and that was that. I now sported a rather large, ostentatious black cross on my face, planted there by someone I disagree with.

My first instinct was regret, even revulsion. I spent the drive from Capitol to Pleasant kicking myself for my haste. I should have kept looking until I found a more ideologically friendly cleric. Our own people were out here somewhere. The cross felt dirty, the ashes polluted with the wrong-headedness of “those people” and their backward ideas.

Wait, I thought. You’re doing the same thing you fault them for, rejecting a fellow member of Christ’s body to maintain your own ideological and ritual purity. And so I spent the drive from Pleasant Street to my place kicking myself for being such a Pharisee.

Only when I was looking in the bathroom mirror, debating whether to remove the ashes before going to work, did the point of the whole exercise finally start to sink in. I’m dust. He’s dust. My bishop and his bishop, both dust. In the end, all our rituals and titles and family feuds will crumble and blow away. If Ash Wednesday is about anything besides making nonbelievers wonder what’s up with our foreheads, it’s about getting over ourselves. We’re all dust.

I washed my face and hit the road.