Good Morning Doubters,
I woke up specifically with those of you who were not able to be with us for Palm Sunday (the start of the holiest week of the Christian year) on my heart.
If you were the kid who never got chosen first, or at all, on the play ground;
If you were the one who wasn’t big enough, or fast enough, or smart enough;
If you were the one who got called fag, or lez, or queer, or something much worse;
If you were the one who got spat on;
If you were (or maybe even now) always feeling on the outside, passed over, left out;
(Or maybe you were the one who did some of these things);
You missed a sermon meant just for YOU, and God put it on my heart this early morning to send it to you.
The text is below. It is short, and I encourage you to read it.
I encourage you to EVERY SINGLE SERVICE of the rest of Holy Week.
I promise you need it.
You are seen.
Jesus’ journey IS your journey.
Your faithful Rector,
Fr. Christopher+
Sermon for 6th Sunday in Lent (Liturgy of the Passion), Year B – 3/24/24
“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
A cry, the cry, universal, from the deepest, darkest, night of the soul. (Sound familiar?)
How can this be?
Why did this happen?
All I longed for, all I sought, all I wanted, was that one thing to which we all so deeply cling.
It is at the innermost core of my being:
To be deeply and intimately known;
To be deeply and intimately loved.
That space, between human, and divine.
“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabacthani?” (Where are you?)
“Out of the depths, have I cried unto you oh Lord; Lord, hear my voice!”
And yet it seems no one sees me, or at the very least, they see only the parts, the shards, the fragments of the me they want to see, the ones they wish I could be, the ones I never will be.
If you were only more white, or straight, or American; more “Christian,” or maybe you had a little more money, or safety, or security, if you lived on the right side of the tracks…if you were thinner, or healthier, or more attractive, or, gosh, you went to a better school…
Let’s be honest.
If you were a little less you, and a little more me,
Maybe then I could see you. Yes, then I could see you.
Maybe then I could hear your cry.
Maybe then, it would resonate somewhere on my heart.
Maybe then I wouldn’t be afraid of you.
Maybe then I would act?
“Don’t stand to close to ol’ Job. I hear there’s something’s wrong with him, and it might be catching!”
It’s not hard, really, to see how the crowd turned, in an instant, from “Hosanna,” to:
“Crucify him!”
“Crucify him!”
We thought he came to save us from the other! “Messiah!” (Chosen one.)
“Save others?
My God, he can’t even save himself!”
We take the moral high ground, “We’d never be THOSE people! How could they turn on our beloved Jesus?”
But we know, in that deep dark place, that we are every bit them, as they were them.
Why? Why is that? What is it that keeps us from wanting to see, to know, to love, the other?
Fear.
I am afraid of all the “I don’t knows.”
The “I don’t knows” keep me locked up, trapped in fear.
What will happen to me, if I stand, with you?
What will happen to me if I advocate for you?
Will I get what you have?
What will people think of me?
What will I lose?
Will I receive the same fate?
Will I see me, in you?
“Eloi, Eloi, I don’t think I can do this.”
“Follow me.”
“Do not be afraid.”
“I will show you the way.”
Amen.
