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HOMILY PREACHED ON EASTER 7 – I remember World War II, visiting my Uncle Herbert at the army camp in Texas; two older cousins, Buck & Jack Morton, one navy, one belly gunner of a bomber. I remember seeing Uncle Hugh coming home from the war wounded with his left arm in a sling, duffle bag over his right shoulder, walking in from the highway. I remember the song interrupted on our battery powered radio, announcing that the war in Europe was over. For most people younger than I, the war is a shrug-of-the-shoulders chapter in a history book, but the American Cemetery outside Cambridge, England, gives a more personal account: row upon row of crosses as far as the eye can see, a few Stars of David, an occasional Crescent of Islam, all killed in action. How do we communicate the sacrifice of those men and women to new generations, so they can feel it? How do we communicate the Korean Conflict, Vietnam, Iraq? Whatever your view of these actions, these people gave their lives. How do we help new generations remember? After reconciliations had happened over Vietnam, I was asked to speak at the rally of the Veterans of Foreign Wars focusing on MIAs – Missing in Action. I called to their attention the words high on the wall at both ends of the V.F.W. hall: “Lest We Forget.” Everyone nodded as I called it to their attention. “Are you aware,” I asked, “that those words are covered over by the numbers of large BINGO signs?” There was an audible gasp. How do we help people remember? LEST WE FORGET. It occurred to me: that was the same challenge facing the writer of John’s gospel: how to communicate a memory to people three generations after Jesus’ death, living in a totally different world view. From what we can know, Jesus was straight-forward, personable and sometimes humorous in his teaching, though you’d never know it, his words so badly scripturalized – turned into stained-glass windows. People loved him for his sheer humanity. He never let religion get in the way of living or in relationships. How do you explain Jesus, his teaching, his way of life to people who never met him, never experienced his personality, his spirit? How do we communicate the “good news” we call “gospel?” How is Jesus still connected with the community that formed around his way of life? The author of John’s gospel was trying to translate the Jesus experience into meaning for a different generation, from Hebrew to Greek, from eastern mentality to the west. What you heard in today’s gospel was the voice of the early Church at the end of the first century, not the words of Jesus. To illustrate, let me rephrase part of today’s gospel into the church’s voice, as it attempted to explain the mystery. If not heard in context the words sound like gobble-de-gook, because John’s style - as the most sophisticated theologian of the gospel writers - is to go around the barn and back to make sure every nuance is said, restated, and understood. The Church prayed: “Jesus made God’s name known to all of us who God had given to him from the world. We were God’s, because God gave us to Jesus. . . Now we know that Jesus received everything from You, God; for the words that You gave him he gave to us. We believe You sent him. . All who belong to Jesus belong to God; that’s how Jesus is glorified in us, his Body. Now he’s gone to You, but we are in the world. His joy can be complete in us. Just as Jesus didn’t belong to the world, we don’t either. Make us whole, give us integrity to the truth; your word is truth. Just as You sent Jesus into the world, so Jesus sent us into the world.” Sounds good, but I’m afraid the church keeps forgetting the essential memories of Jesus, covering them with ecclesiastical BINGO signs. Jesus treated women with respect, the manly church didn’t allow women priests until 1976, the first woman bishop in 1989. In the musical, The Heavenly Host, the antagonist, Flaw, has arrived dressed as a bishop, and sings the tirade: The laymen can’t be trusted to run their own affairs, And, yes, that mentality is still residual in parts of our own Church. You know the litany, the churches support of slavery, and the various sexual attitudes that have crippled generations. I think the enormous interest in the Gnostic gospels and Mary Magdalene and DeVinci Code stems directly from those “pesky laos” who feel the church has been keeping something from them – and it has. Questions: Why wasn’t I told this? Why wasn’t I trusted enough to hear the whole story? But I can also assure you that when we clergy have shared basic learnings from seminary, the ideas are not always welcomed or appreciated! Like the author of John’s gospel: how do we communicate the experience of Jesus to people who live 500 world views after him? I view the Bible from the vantage point of this modern day. I do not try to comprehend the 21st century through the lenses of world views 3,000+ years old. I try to walk in their shoes, see the realities they found, plug into their vision, their integrity, and translate their discoveries into the same human issues we face at the heart of life where world view doesn’t matter. Then it makes sense. Otherwise religion becomes a shackle for control, not a key to liberation. So my question: how is Jesus connected to you? How is the experience of Jesus connected to the communities forming around his ideas in our day? I must confess, sometimes it’s hard to see. It’s here, in pockets – in all denominations, right here at Saint Andrew’s, your response to financial need, to emergencies like the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina; in your faithful presence here, in response to moments of birth and eath, and mutual support through hard times. You touch my heart. Form doesn’t matter, only content, whether it’s Jesus, the Dalai Lama or a Jewish teenager. God doesn’t care. In her diary, Anne Frank wrote, How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway. . . And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!” That’s the heart of Jesus, how – in his spirit - we connect across religious and national boundaries, how we remember those who gave their lives in war, he who gave his life on the cross to help us connect with each other to care, to love, to give ourselves – as they did, for others, and find the meaning of life. Copyright: Ernest W. Cockrell
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