Bishop's Message

Micah 6:8

Preached at The Interchurch Center, New York City  

In a wonderful coincidence, this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity has presented opportunities to think and pray about justice in various venues. The convergence of the Second Inauguration of President Barack Obama and the annual remembrance of Blessed Martin Luther King Jr., the promise held out with a new year of grace and the hope that at least some of us have that a new Congress will actually be able to accomplish something: all of this is about what Martin Luther identified as the Two Hands of God’s Reign, the Two Kingdoms. (I just had to at least mention Luther.)

The temporal order, the world in which we live, the government by which we are guided – all of that is part of God’s work and God’s will, designed to let us live in peace, to worship as we desire, to freely proclaim God’s Word to all people. But it’s not some vague, abstract idea. It is CBS and the CIA, the Pentagon and our public schools, board rooms and court rooms, media and medicine, Chase and Calvin Klein, the projects and the country club. It’s our world, this absurd little earth, where more than a billion human beings fall asleep hungry while the First Lady helps us take on the problem of obesity, where the guns in our streets take as many lives in a year as two world wars, where men and women die for one another and kill for one another, where more people of color languish in jails than attend college, where "equal justice for all" remains a dream.    

A small portion of the Micah reading says "What does God require of us?" and then reminds us that it’s really not just about us, but about God and what God expects of all of us: Justice. Micah reminds us that Justice is Not Just Us.

You see, the justice the prophets like Micah preached was not simply an ethical construct, did not mean merely giving to others what they deserved, what they could justifiably demand because it was clear from philosophy or written into some constitution. God’s people were expected to care for the orphan and the alien, to protect the powerless and comfort the stranger, not because the needy deserved it, but because this was the way God had acted toward them. In freeing the oppressed, God’s people were mirroring the God who had freed them from oppression. In loving the loveless and the unloved, God’s people were imaging the God who time and again wooed them back despite their unfaithfulness. For God’s people – and just to be clear: that means all of us – justice is not merely something we "have to do" to reflect the good will and kind hearts of women and men in a civil society, but something we "get to do" as we demonstrate the desire and intent of God.

Without that clear and fundamental understanding, we simply live in the temporal kingdom, trying desperately and without success, to obey the letter of the law. And human law, for all its value, cannot save, cannot make us one with God. Only God can do that, only love, loving God above all that is not love, loving our every sister and brother at least as much as we love ourselves. The equality we dispense on the basis of law is not enough to unite black and white, Israeli and Palestinian, the haves and the have-nots, the restless young and the rest-home aged, the crack pushers and the police who imprison them. Only God can do that, working through us.

The challenge before us as we seek to do what God wants us to do, as we seek to live the truth that justice is not just us, is to give to each what each deserves and to give to all more than they deserve. That’s how God works. And that’s how God wants us to work too.

Bishop Robert Alan Rimbo 

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:

The great sadness surrounding us is overwhelming. The evil of the killings in Newtown on Friday is beyond words. But it is in the darkness that the light seems clearest. The increasing brightness of the candles on our Advent wreaths reminds us that the darkness will not overcome.

As often happens, hymns speak and sing the words for me. Poet Susan Palo Cherwien and composer Thomas Pavlechko put well the emotions I am feeling. You can find this treasure in the Lament section of Evangelical Lutheran Worship at number 699:

In deepest night, in darkest days, when harps are hung, no songs we raise,

when silence must suffice as praise, yet sounding in us quietly there is the song of God.

When friend was lost, when love deceived, dear Jesus wept, God was bereaved;

so with us in our grief God grieves, and round about us mournfully there are the tears of God.

When through the waters winds our path, around us pain, around us death:

deep calls to deep, a saving breath, and found beside us faithfully there is the love of God.

Come, Lord Jesus, come and save us. Give us peace. Console those whose lives are most intimately afflicted at this time. Strengthen families and caregivers and children who must now deal with overwhelming loss. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Amen.

Bishop Robert Alan Rimbo

Sermon from the ordination of Jonathan Recabarren, Emily Scott, and Rodney Smith

Saturday before Advent 2-C

Luke 3:1-6

Dear Friends in Christ, especially dear Jonathan, Emily and Rodney: I am honored to preside as you are ordained to the Holy Ministry of Word and Sacrament. I know it has been a long and sometimes tedious process, but we are here today – with thanks to St. Peter’s Church, to Candidacy Committees, to those friends and families who have supported and challenged and sustained you and to God. It is good to gather this morning in the Name of Jesus with ecumenical friends, members of congregations you will serve, and rostered leaders from throughout our synod. We rejoice today.

I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, so when I think of John the Baptist I often have a kind of hippy-esque image in mind. A sort of Woody Allen vision, half-clothed in camel hair, with a leather girdle from Daffy’s or Target, munching locusts from heaven-knows where, standing with the Occupy folks outside the Stock Exchange. Amid furious, frustrated talk about euros and yens, he shouts like a mad man: "Repent!" Most of the buyers and sellers don’t hear him; the trading is deafening. Most don’t see him; their eyes glued to the screen watching numbers.

The few who do notice him ignore him or shrug their shoulders or summon security to tell him to get lost. It is, after all, New York City. We’re used to people acting out and we have the security personnel to deal with them. He screams: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"

Now they’re sure he’s nuts.

Then he pleads: "Prepare the way of the Lord" and they reply "The way of who? Get out of here!"

Bizarre? I say no. Call it anachronistic. Twenty some-centuries separate Wall Street from John. But not bizarre, as if it had no relation to reality. Through John –and through you, dear Emily, Rodney, and Jonathan – the Church is proclaiming "Prepare."

The church’s year, the season of Advent, and your years of anticipation and preparation for this day and the days to come,  leave no room for argument. The Lord is coming, and we are to prepare his way. But it doesn’t seem to make sense, does it? Nowhere near the sense it made for the prophets and for John. After all, for us the Lord has already come. First, in swaddling clothes, omnipotence wrapped up by his mother. And each day all over the world in, with and under bread and wine, Godhead here in hiding. And in your inmost being, friend, as long as you love. And in sisters and brothers, like those gathered this morning, like those you – we – are called to serve, people of God at St. Lydia’s, and Fordham, and New Hope, people in this synod,people who are his living images.

The Lord is here – in you, in front of you, all around you. Why all the shenanigans about preparing the way?

Because it comes to crucial questions for Christians: How aware am I of Christ’s presence? Is Jesus Christ the one person who gives ultimate meaning to my life? What we need in Advent, what we need from our pastors including the three of you soon to be ordained, is a fresh awareness of Christ’s presence, an awareness that works a ceaseless change in our lives. We need, from you, that rapturous feeling the Virgin Mary had as she felt the Word made-of-the-flesh-of- her grow within her. We need the emotions that swept over John the Baptist when he recognized the Savior he had been selected to precede.

Which is lovely rhetoric, Bishop.

But how? How do you put flesh and blood on this skeleton, especially we pastors, rostered leaders, you – Rodney and Jonathan and Emily – how?  Several suggestions that I hope will trigger your thoughts and prayers today and in the days and even years to come.

The magic word for Advent and for ministry is not "Awake" but "Aware." So I want to suggest a kind of examination of conscience, a year-end-and-beginning inventory: Where does Christ really rank in your life? In the Top Ten of your thoughts? And this is not only directed to the ordinands or the rostered leaders among us. I’m talking to all, everyone. Where does he rank? Not abstractly; very concretely. In shared time, in real interest, in reflection, contemplation, discussion. Where does Christ rank?

And, more: time is indeed your enemy and, dear pastors, it will continue to be so. I am not asking for extra time off from your congregation, but maybe something as corny as an occasional coffee break for Christ, a little break from the frantic pace of this life to ponder on the God who ought to be the center of your existence.

And more: worship is the center of our life as the Church and the Eucharist is the heart and soul of our spiritual life. There is no better way to welcome Christ within you. Each Eucharist, including this one, is an advent, a fresh coming of Christ into your inmost being, including yours as you preside at Christ’s Table.

And, you know, more: be aware, all of you and especially you three, be aware that Christ comes to you in others. When we feed others, clothe others, care for others, visit others  - we meet Christ and Advent is no longer four weeks long but every day.  For Christ can come to you, dear friends, wherever and whenever your eyes meet another person’s eyes;  for your eyes are meeting Christ’s eyes, if only you have the eyes to see.

More, still: the toughest one in many ways, let Christ come to you in your crosses. I doubt that any one of you beyond the age of two has not encountered some kind of crucifixion. The nails have countless forms, from the acne on an adolescent’s cheek, through the schizophrenia that severs the human spirit, to the terminal cancer, to the ruined houses and dashed hopes in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. I beg you – especially you who are pastors – do not try to carry your cross alone. I’m not saying you cannot; I am saying it’s a lousy idea. A cross makes Christian sense only if you meet Christ on it along with other Christians, other pastors, me, and only of on your cross you are transformed into Christ. I pray that, every day each one of you, will become more and more you, the unique person Christ died to shape.

You, dear Jonathan, Rodney and Emily, are gifts to us. Know that. Feel that. Remember that.

We are so thankful that God has brought you to this day and this place and our synod.

So today, in this Advent Season which is already filled with gifts, celebrate what you have:

the gift that was first given to you from a stable in Palestine, the gift that has been given to the world throughout these centuries, the gift that rests within you and now comes to you again in this Holy Communion: God’s own Son, God’s love in flesh. This is the one gift you will enjoy most fully if you realize that you already have it, the gift which you are privileged to share – all of you – as with John and Mary and Jonathan and Emily and Rodney you prepare the way.

Bishop Robert Alan Rimbo

Pastor Jack Horner, Assistant to the Bishop for Evangelical Mission, takes a turn on the blog toreflect on his recent Mount Kilimanjaroclimb toconquer malaria. Read the post here.

A Sermon from Chrism Mass 2012 with a reading from Mark 14:3-9.

In early February I experienced something new. Soon after my emergency appendectomy I received anointing from Holy Trinity’s Pastor, Bill Heisley. I had never been on the receiving end of that ministry and I was deeply moved. After Bill left, I actually broke down in tears. I’ve been thinking about this Chrism Mass ever since, though Bill had no idea he was acting for posterity.

She had no idea she was acting for posterity. It was not to be remembered that she did what she did. She had other motives than that. But Jesus said "wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."

Jesus’ own disciples did not value her deed that highly. In fact, it seemed to them a foolish, wasteful act. We can speculate as to who this woman was, but one thing is certain: in an extravagant expression of affection, this outcast woman had come into the home of Simon the leper-outcast where Jesus and his disciples were guests at a meal, and had poured an alabaster jar of ointment, a jar of expensive oil, on Jesus’ head. It was worth a year’s wages for the average laborer, money that could have put bread in the mouths of hungry children and clothing on their backs. But it couldn’t now; it was gone, poured out in an instant, never to be recovered again. Such a waste. Such extravagance.

But Jesus saw more in the act. He saw beauty. He saw devotion. He saw the future. He said that her deed would be known in all ages and all places where the gospel was proclaimed.

Which side would you have been on? Would you have called this ointment wasted? Would you have commended or condemned?

It was a beautiful thing in Jesus’ eyes, an expression of self-forgetful love. There was nothing calculating about it. The woman had nothing to gain by it. Indeed, she was not interested in gaining by it. And Jesus knew it. She simply wanted to give. She wanted to express in this visible and tangible way something like gratitude, I think. So forgetting herself and the things she might have procured with cash from the sale of that expensive ointment, she poured it all out in an expression of affection and gratitude. And Jesus did not miss that.

Let’s be honest, sisters and brothers. We often do what is calculated to benefit us in some way. We place such a high value on our own welfare, our own interest, our own desires, our own entitlements, and the result is one calculated act after another. There is little beauty in that kind of living; it has no claim to commendation.

But every now and then some person pours out the jar of self in the interests of another, and his or her life takes on a beauty it has not shown before. That’s why Jesus commended this woman! She was acting in love, uninterested in gain for herself. She was pouring out, not just expensive ointment, but selfless devotion and gratitude as well.

The thing that bothered the disciples about this was that they saw no value in it. The woman was giving expression to her feelings, but what good could come from that? What kind of return could be expected from poured-out oil? It just didn’t pay to waste like that. They had no tolerance for waste. And if something doesn’t have some pay-off, it has to be stopped.

But we are not mere flesh and blood, are we? So it is not enough to be concerned only about the most obvious needs. One can be well-fed and yet be starving. One can be warmly clothed and still be cold. One can be surrounded by people and yet feel lonely. One can have everything money can buy and still be miserably impoverished so far as meaning and purpose and love and joy are concerned. On the surface, for instance – thank you, Marva Dawn, for this reminder - it may seem "a royal waste of time" to worship. That’s a realization that could be a bit of a blow at the beginning of this Holy Week. The worship in these days may seem irrelevant in the face of the desperate cries of the needy, in the world of Trayvon Martin and Afghanistan.

But who can measure the influence and importance of what we are doing this afternoon and for these next holy days? Who knows how much meaning is given, how much purpose is created, how much comfort is imparted, how much courage is inspired, how much generosity is motivated, how much love is expressed because of what takes place in our worship this week? There is a lot of wasted oil these days and every day we gather for worship. But who can measure how much God enjoys it? And that is, after all, the main point.

When Jesus said, "the poor you always have with you," what was on his mind was the brief remaining time he had with them. And here they were, mouthing a pious platitude when they could have been doing something to lighten the heavy load he was bearing. But there was one person who did not let this opportunity slip by, and that wasted ointment is witness to that fact.

When you look at her deed in a rational way, it is not too impressive. A royal waste. Its physical effects could not have lasted very long. But it meant something to Jesus that could not be explained in terms of the outward actions and elements involved in it. He was living at that time in the shadow of the cross. He was already feeling the sting of his rejection by the world. He knew his disciples well enough to know that even they would desert him when the going got tough. Perhaps what he needed then more than anything else was the communion of those who loved him. So he was strengthened by this woman’s extravagant and unrestrained expression. Not much could be done for him, but what she could do, she did, and Jesus was pleased. He said, "She has done what she could." Just as we offer our praise, not as we ought but as we are able, doing what we can is often an unexciting and unspectacular thing. We are so often looking to do something else, aren’t we? Something else would be so much more interesting and useful than this, wouldn’t it? But that poured out oil should encourage us to do what we can instead of complaining of how little we can do or waiting for an opportunity to do something big and significant.   

The world and the church owes most, not to those who sought to do great things but to those who were faithful and loving in little ones. The truly memorable people are the ones who devote themselves to doing what they can, what they are able to do, even when it is not what they would like to be doing, even if the results are questionable. The world and the church owe most to people like you.

We should not be surprised, then, that a person should become immortal in history for an act of wastefulness. But this was only because Jesus saw the truth, the nature and value of her deed, and called it a thing of beauty. He knew her deed was a defiance of the mind that thinks primarily in terms of success. He knew she was seizing an opportunity that would not be hers again, doing the little she could do to ease his own hurt and sorrow. And Jesus saw she was doing so out of self-forgetful love.

It is not for waste that we desire to be remembered or to receive Christ’s commendation. But it may well be that if the kind of outlook and desire that motivated that woman long ago could possess us, we might have the thrilling experience of hearing Jesus say that we have done a beautiful thing as well.

Bishop Robert Alan Rimbo

Every Lent I think of Kellie. In fact, I wrote about her for The Lutheran a few years ago. Kellie was in confirmation class and had experienced rough things in her life. The death of a sibling. The divorce of parents. So I should not have been surprised by her answer. In addition to asking students about last Sunday’s sermon – threatening, risky for any pastor, I think – I also habitually asked about the service itself.

What was the color for the day? Purple.

Who was included in the prayers? Millie, Frank, the President.

What did you not like about the service? The sad stuff.

Kellie did not like the sad stuff. Further conversation revealed that what she meant was the absence of "This is the feast" and the presence of the Brief Order for Confession and Forgiveness, the Kyrie, and "all those sad songs." She really missed "the A word." It was Lent. Lent brings with it "the sad stuff."

I was frankly troubled by Kellie’s lament over "the sad stuff." There is good reason for having Confession and Forgiveness at the outset on Sunday morning, praying the Kyrie, singing "all those sad songs" and omitting the "glad" ones. We assemble to make visible the Body of Christ though we have not lived as that Body. We have not been faithful to our common vocation to offer the world a sign of hope and renewal. We have not lived a lifestyle which contradicts the individualism, self-interest and consumerism of our culture. We have failed to work for justice and peace. We have not shown that divisions, prejudice, injustice and indifference can be overcome by God.

We cry for mercy as our worship begins, in our intercessory prayers, as we gather around the Table singing of the Lamb of God. We plead for mercy for friend and stranger, for the whole universe and for me. And we rejoice that this mercy is for everyone and everything. At this Table all are welcome and all are fed, for all – whether they know it or not – need this mercy. 

I was troubled by Kellie’s lament because it indicated that she did not get the "glad" stuff that’s evident even on Lenten Sundays, the "glad stuff" offered in worship by God to the people of God. The Lord to whom we pray, before whom alone we bow, before whom the cherubim and seraphim bend their knees, before whom the earth is silent is the source of mercy.

Kellie needs to know (as I need to know) that God gives reprieve, release, another chance, a new lease on life, new dawn, new day, new age, repair of the broken, resurrection of the dead, smiles for the defeated, life to those who are crushed in the winepress we call living. Oh, yes, we need to lament. We need to confess. We need to plead. We need the "sad stuff." But more than that, we need to know and feel that God fills us with forgiveness, with gladness, with joy, with love.

Bishop Robert Alan Rimbo

A Reflection for Advent on Isaiah 40:3-8

So, believe it or not, we just passed the Second Sunday in Advent. Two down and two to go in what is a very long Advent indeed. It’s as long as Advent can last, giving us plenty of time to prepare. Christmas, our celebration of the Incarnation, is near, but the Church is in no great hurry to get there, especially this year. With the wisdom of the centuries, our tradition tells us that the journey itself is what we need, more than merely reaching that stable in Bethlehem. Advent tells us to pause, to take stock, to lie on some hillside and look at the stars. It tells us to empty our hearts so that there is room in them for the birth of something new and altogether unseen.

Pause now, dear friend, and open your Bible. Read Isaiah 40:3-8, part of the first reading for last Sunday. 

“Clear a road for the Lord,” Isaiah says, “prepare a highway across the desert for our God.”

While paving a highway may not be your idea of holy preparation, for a desert nomad it must have seemed like a piece of heaven for all the valleys to be lifted up and the mountains and hills made low. No more hard climbs or knee-wrenching descents, no bandits down in that valley or wolves around that bend. No, according to Isaiah, the way of the Lord is flat and straight and totally revealed. Oh, right, yeah. The problem is: that clear way is only apparent after everything else has passed away, after the grass has withered and the flower has faded and all the glories of the flesh have perished from the face of the earth. Only the Word of God will stand forever, Isaiah says, which is the prophet’s way of telling us that whatever else we get attached to it will finally let us down. Even the Church.

I read Isaiah 40 and ask “That’s supposed to comfort us? That everything we know and love is doomed, and the one reliable object of our devotion is the word of a God so much greater than we are that we know virtually nothing about this deity? Well…it’s only the first reading, from last Sunday. Let’s turn to the other readings.

Ha! Second Peter (3:8-15a) is no better when it comes to comforting: “The day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise and the elements will be dissolved with fire and the earth and everything that is done on it will be burned up.” Then, there’s John the Baptist (Mark 1:1-8) appearing on the scene. ‘Nuff said.

So what does this mean for us? Most of us are waiting, if not for the day of the Lord then for this day or for something else – for true love…for the return of health…for a job that means something…for thriving congregations…for increased membership…for a house to call our own…for peace in our families, our community, our church, our nation, our world. Most of us are waiting for something and many of us yearn for something better that we cannot name. Like the words from Isaiah’s prophecy, a voice says, “Cry,” and we say, “What shall I cry?”

I have just returned from Washington, D. C., where I was, frankly, lobbying for immigration reform and for a federal budget that does not oppress the poor. “What shall I cry?” The words escape us; all we know is that there must be more and better than this.

That is what makes Isaiah and John and Peter our siblings: they too yearn for something better they cannot name. The revealed glory of the Lord, whatever that high mystery means. The one who will come after, the one who is mightier, whoever that might be; they didn’t know for sure. The day of the Lord, whatever that means, even though I’m pretty sure it’s got nothing to do with that preacher named Kamping who keeps trying to scare us. Peter and John and Isaiah don’t know the details. All they can do is proclaim that the old ways of life are passing away and new life is coming. And that’s all we can do. Proclaim, sometimes with words, sometimes not. Without the luxury of details, with no concession to our need to know what we are getting ready for or what we are getting ourselves into, they call us to prepare the way for that new life, to clear away anything that might get in its way, and wait without knowing when it will come, or what it will look like, or how it will change our lives.

I know these are harsh words. I know. But, see: we have heard and believed the story of a particular birth, which gives us reason to think for a moment about babies and about what goes into preparing the way for that form of new life in our lives. All fortune-telling and amniocentesis aside, most expectant parents do not know exactly what they are expecting. Even if they know the gender of their child, they cannot know the rest: what it will look like, be like, how it will change them. All they know for sure is that nothing will ever be the same again, and the way most of them go about preparing for that is literally to clear a space – a nursery or a corner of their bedroom – a place for this unknown child to become a part of their lives. Whether it is our own baby we are expecting, or the baby Jesus, or the grown-up Lord coming in great power and glory, we are all called to prepare the way for new life in our lives, to make room for it by letting go of our old ways, our old lives, as painful as that may sometimes be.

The title of a book has haunted me lately, a book I ran across many years ago – I think I was in college at the time – which I skimmed through, never really read, but whose title has stuck with me. It was called Wait Without Idols, and whoever the author was, he or she might well have been Isaiah or John or Peter because that title is the theme of our proclamation as the church these days. Wait Without Idols. The grass withers, the flower fades, heaven and earth will pass away. Church buildings and Bibles and hymnals and bishops will all pass away. Which is God’s way of telling us that it is only when we stop believing in all of these and stop looking to everything that is not God to save us, only when we are able to empty our hearts and wait without idols, that there is room for God almighty to come to us, to bring us to God’s very self. That’s what we, the church, are called to say and do in the Name of Jesus Christ.

What is surprising is how deceptive some of our idols are. Anyone can turn and walk away from a golden calf, and I expect most of us could toss our savings out the window if we had any and if we believed our souls depended on it. These are obvious idols.  

But what about, say, the idol of independence – the belief that everything will be all right if we can just take care of ourselves and not have to ask anyone else to look after us? Or the idol of – let’s call it – romance – the belief that we can face anything in life if we just have one other person to love us the way we are and to love that person in return? Or how about the idol of family – the belief that if we can just gather close to one another our happiness will be unassailable.

To the idol of independence, we say that we are never alone, never autonomous, especially when it comes to being the church. To the idol of romance, we say that people are meant to live in communion with others, with saints of all times and places. To the idol of family – especially the idol that says “my church is like a family” – we say, simply, one word: “dysfunctional.” There are others: patriotism, health, friendship. The list is long. And I’m just mentioning my own, not even touching yours.

And then there is the most deceptive of all idols, the idol of religion, the belief that if we just go to church and struggle, really struggle, to live a life of faith, then our souls will be safe.  

“What?” you say. These are all good and noble things! Of course they are. How else could they become idols? That is the first criterion of an idol, that it gladden our hearts and nourish our souls, because that is how we learn to believe in it and depend on it, and finally to cling to it as the only possible source of life. The only problem is that as long as our hearts and souls are full of what we know will sustain us, we have lost our ability to receive the as-yet-unseen-and-unknown-things God has in store for us. We are full up: there is no room at the inn.

During Advent we are invited to come out, to let go, to open up – not to forsake the things we love and want for our lives, but to forsake them as idols. That means learning how to hold them lightly, without clinging, and to be willing to give them up when it becomes clear that they are taking up too much room. Because during Advent we are invited to prepare the way for something new and unknown in our lives, brought to us in person by the living God. 

So what will it be for us? What might new life mean for you? What idols will you wait without? What has to go first? What is taking up too much room? You don’t have to do all the clutter-removal at once, but you do get to do it every day through daily repentance. It’s all right if you don’t know all the answers right now. But this is what Advent is about: preparing a place for something new in our lives, for new life in us, waiting without idols, waiting without knowing, waiting with nothing but faith, hope, and love for company in the stillness that teaches us how completely we live at God’s mercy, a mercy that promises everything, that promises the Advent of God.

Bishop Robert Alan Rimbo

No, this title is not an endorsement for a certain brand name. I’m getting no commission for using it! Nor is it a reference to the British exhortation “Mind the gap” or the LIRR’s less luxurious “Watch the gap.” It’s rather a little bit of a reflection on my increasing sense of disparity in our world and the despair that accompanies it.

It doesn’t take very long for us to react when someone mentions the disparity between races and even between cultures within races. The media is a little less attentive now to the disparity being pointed to by those who occupy Wall Street, but they are still there. (People who ask my opinion about that are quickly referred to the ELCA’s social statement on economics; you can find that wise and balanced statement here: “Sufficient, Sustainable Livelihood for All.”) Even the All Saints’ Day gospel from Matthew 5 points to gaps in our world; it’s even more acute in Luke’s telling of the beatitudes and his accompanying “woe-itudes.”

Jesus turned the world upside down that day on the hillside. Those who had been fighting for breath at the bottom of the human heap suddenly found themselves closest to heaven and those who thought they were on top of things found themselves flat on their backs looking up.

I don’t want to sound sacrilegious, but, seriously: Blessed are the meek? The mourning? The poor in spirit? Who is he kidding? There is nothing blessed about that at all. What is so blessed about hungering and thirsting for righteousness? About being reviled and persecuted? “Rejoice and be glad”? Excuse me, Lord, but gimme a break! No one with an ounce of common sense would endorse that kind of thinking. No one with an ounce of common sense would consider that the good life. But that’s exactly what these nine short verses constitute: a new portrait of citizens in the reign of God, people previously known as losers, victims, fools, dreamers, and pushovers. These are the chosen. These are the saints. These are the ones who will see God face-to-face.

Mind this gap, friends: The blessed shall be satisfied not because they’re winners but because winning is the farthest thing from their minds. The ever-unpredictable Jesus presents a list of losers. And we are among them. I’m reasonably certain that these descriptors can be used to describe you: The merciful who keep forgiving their enemies so their enemies can trounce them all over again. The pure in heart who believe everything they hear and empty their bank accounts to help the needy. The peacemakers who hear the nagging voices of politicians and decide to step in and promote a cause that can change the world. These are the blessed of God – the ones who cannot compete and who would not know success if it came up to them and handed them a trophy. The blessed ones would insist that there must be some mistake. The blessed ones would give the prize away to someone who needed it more. The blessed ones would put that trophy in the closet so they would not be tempted to think too highly of themselves.

There are great gaps between people, gaps we need to mind, to watch, to be aware of and attentive to. It’s part of our calling as Christians, I think. The blessed ones – us – can mind them, watch them with the eyes of Christ, give care to them with the heart of Christ. That’s what it means to be a saint. And that’s what we are. 

Bishop Robert Alan Rimbo

I was not in New York City on September 11, 2001. I did not feel the terror of falling towers and broken bodies and tragic death as many in this City feel to this day. At least not in the same way many feel it. I can assure you: the wounds are still there, especially on this day. The wounds remain.

There are the wounds of loss for those who were directly impacted by the deaths of friends and family members. There are the wounds of first-responders who suffer still from the damage to their bodies and souls. There are the wounds of those who have been sent to far-off places to fight unseen enemies in what might be called a state of perpetual war. There are the wounds of those yet held in places like Guantanamo and immigration detention centers because they are Muslim. There are the wounds of fear perpetuated by our culture, our politicians. There are the wounds of the tortured. There are the wounds – even in this amazingly multicultural metropolitan area – that evidence themselves in rampant racism and deep fear of “the other.” The wounds remain.

We worship the Risen Christ whose body is wounded even now. Jesus healed many others of deforming diseases and physical flaws. He made many broken bodies whole. But on his own transformed, risen body, there were scars. The holes in his hurt hands and feet. The wound in his side. By these wounds we who have seen Hiroshima and Auschwitz and Vietnam and Ground Zero with towers falling to dust – we are healed. We see Jesus and the permanence of his wounds. We see him and believe that the Christ who could not come down from the cross to save himself, could not be raised from the dead without his wounds, the marks of his dying. Those wounds convict us still but also give us life. By the authority of those wounds he speaks a message of hope to our wounded lives and our wounded world and, yes, our wounded City.

Against all reason and all natural law, Jesus rose from the dead, wounds and all.

We need to remember that and live that with all of our wounds intact. Cynics argue that, even if there were such a thing as resurrection, the scars on many of us would be so numerous there would be nothing left to be raised. They resist the temptation to hope. They shake their heads at our faith and are sure that they are right as they ask “Who believes in resurrection?’

Our faith says, “We do.” This is the heart of the Christian mystery, our faith. Jesus is alive, wounds and all. Alive now. Alive for us and in us. This is our hope. It is not wishful thinking. It is not a stiff upper lip. It is the confident expectation that God is faithful and will always be there with us and for us. This is the hope that marks a follower of Christ.

Every anniversary of the tragedies of September 11, I reflect on the wonderful hymn “All My Hope on God Is Founded” (ELW #757). It is a sturdy text and tune that carries me, supports me, and calls to mind the ultimate hope we have in God. Two stanzas say it all for me, especially today as I write:

            Mortal pride and earthly glory, sword and crown betray our trust;

            What with care and toil we fashion, tow’r and temple, fall to dust.

            But thy power, hour by hour, is my temple and my tow’r.

            Great thy goodness, e’er enduring; deep thy wisdom, passing thought;

            Splendor, light, and life attend thee, beauty springing out of naught.

            Evermore from thy store newborn worlds rise and adore.

Here is my hope today, as we mark this anniversary. I hope we will continue to hold on to the wounded Christ, acknowledging all the terrors and sorrows and pains we bear. I hope we will never forget the stories that have shaped our lives in this metropolitan area. But I also hope we will move forward from here, holding on to the story of the wounded Jesus, crucified but risen. While there remains sadness, I hope we will turn now and walk into a newborn world in which all will live in hope.

Bishop Robert Alan Rimbo

SERMON FOR FESTIVAL EUCHARIST, Synod Assembly 2011

Easter 3, Cycle A

St. Luke 24:13-35

St. Luke’s story of what happened on the road to Emmaus is one of my favorites in the Bible, one of seven post-resurrection stories in the gospels. I have tried to come up with a word to describe it and the only word I can use is “ghostly.”  

Think about it: the stranger whom the disciples do not recognize at first turns out to be the Messiah and then vanishes from their sight – poof – as soon as they know who he is. It’s ghostly. The crucifixion stories are not like this. They are one hundred percent solid. Jesus is nailed to the cross with a nameplate tacked above his head, where he dies in front of scores of eyewitnesses. No case of mistaken identity here. No sudden appearance and disappearance. His death is real.

His resurrection, on the other hand, is largely rumor. Someone said that someone said his tomb was empty, but that could mean anything. Maybe his body was stolen. Maybe he revived and walked away. Even those who saw him in the flesh had a hard time convincing anyone else it was true. Seven post-resurrection stories do not go very far. Jesus did not appear to everyone before he ascended to heaven, which left plenty of people to weigh the evidence for themselves, to listen to the testimony of those who were there and to decide if and what they would believe.

That’s pretty much our situation in the post-Easter church. None of us was there, for the real death or the rumored resurrection. All of us have a decision to make about the truth of what we have heard. But if it is all true, then we have more than hearsay to make up our minds. If Christ is risen indeed, then we may base our decision on our own encounter with the living God. The question is, what is the address?

For St. Luke, the answer is: Somewhere on the road between here and Emmaus. Luke is the only gospel writer who tells us the story of what happened on that road, but everyone has walked it at one time or another. It is the road you walk when your team has lost, your candidate has been defeated, your loved one has died – the long road back to the empty house, the piles of unopened mail, to life as usual, if life can ever be usual again.

It is the road of deep disappointment, diminishing numbers, fear and scarcity, illness and disconnect. Walking it is the living definition of sad, and many in this assembly have been walking it just like the two disciples in today’s story. It takes two hours or so to walk seven miles, and that is how long they have to talk-over the roller coaster events of the past three days. The trial, the crucifixion, the silent procession to the tomb for burial. And then the women’s vision of angels, the empty grave. Real death. Rumored resurrection. Even the disciples thought it was an idle tale.

Cleopas and the other disciple are talking it all over when the stranger comes up behind them and asks them what they are talking about so that they stop in their tracks to look at him. Who is he? Rip van Winkle? “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” Cleopas asks him. But the truth is they are both glad for his company and so they walk with him, matching their stride to his as they tell him everything they know. They tell him how things had looked so promising at first, when Jesus impressed everyone with his eloquence and mighty acts, when they had hope. And then they tell him how things had gone wrong, bad wrong, so that there was finally nothing left for them to do but to go back home, dragging their feet in the dust.

“We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel,” they say to him, admitting their defeat. “We had hoped.” Hope in the past tense is one of the saddest sounds a human being can make. We had hoped he was the one. We believed things might really change, but we were wrong. He died. It is over now. No more idle tales. No more illusions. Back to business as usual.

And that is when their walking partner explodes at them. “Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart!” he says to them. If you had read your Bibles, none of this would come as a surprise to you. Listen, Cleopas and all of you walking with him, hearing now, the other disciples walking the road, listen. It is right there: The Christ is not the one who wins the power struggle; he is the one who loses it. The Christ is not the undefeated champion; he is the suffering servant, the broken one, who comes into his glory with his wounds still visible. Those hurt places are the proof that he is who he says he is, because the way you recognize the Christ – and his followers – is not by their muscles but by their scars.

Which means that they are not to despise the painful parts of their lives anymore. Which means that they are not to interpret their defeats as failures anymore, not even death itself. Contrary to all good common sense, they are to follow their leaders into the ghostly, scary, most dangerous places in the world armed with nothing but a first-aid kit, because they, like him, are not fighters but physicians – wounded healers – whose credentials are their own hurt places.

Starting with Moses and working his way through the prophets, the stranger opens the scriptures to them and they hang on his words. He is a gifted preacher, but it is more than that. They are wounded. And what he is telling them is good, good news.

Maybe they aren’t losers after all. Maybe the rumors are true. Maybe there is reason to resurrect their crucified hope. So when they arrive at their village and he shakes their hands goodbye, they will not let him go. They have not gotten enough of him yet, so they invite him to stay with them and he does. He is an odd guest, though. It is their house, their food, their table, but when the three of them sit down together, it is he, the guest, who acts as host, who reaches out, takes the bread, blesses God for it, breaks it, and gives it to them. Maybe it is the oddness of the act that makes the blinders fall from their eyes, or maybe it is the familiarity of it – something they have seen him do before on a green hillside with five loaves and two fish, in an upper room the night before it all came crashing down. He takes, blesses, breaks, gives – and through the torn, fragrant edges of the loaf he holds out to them, they look at him and know who he is…one moment before he vanishes from their sight.

Their blindness does not prevent his coming to them. He does not limit his post-resurrection appearances to those with full confidence in him. He comes to the disappointed, the doubtful, the disconsolate. He comes to those who do not know their Bibles, who do not recognize him even when they are walking right beside him. He comes to those who have given up and are headed back home, which makes this whole story a story about the blessed-ness of broken-ness.

Maybe that is only good news if you happen to be broken. If you are not, then I guess it would be better news to hear a story about how those who believe in God may skip right over the broken part and go straight to the wholeness part, but that does not seem to be the case. Jesus seems to prefer working with broken people, with broken dreams, in a broken world. And for us, too. Jesus shows us how to take what we have been given, whether we like it or not, and to bless it – to say thank you to God for it – whether it is the sweet, satisfying bread of success or the tear-soaked bread of sorrow. To say thank you and to break it because that is the only way it can be shared, and to hand it around not to eat it all by ourselves but to find someone to eat it with, so that the broken loaf may bring all of us broken ones together into one body, where we may recognize the risen Lord in our midst.

What a story this is, showing us where we can see the living God. In the closeness of the two disciples on the road. In their kindness to a stranger. In the way their hearts burned within them when he opened the scriptures to them. In the way they knew him in the breaking of the bread. These are all the ways Christ has promised to be present with us, which also happen to be the everyday activities of the church, the people of God, who attend to one another, to strangers, to God’s word and sacraments as a way of life.

A lot of it happens in other places, but the breaking of the bread at Holy Communion can break me right open. Sometimes I can be right in the middle of it when suddenly the tears well up. It is like the gates to my heart open and everything I have ever loved comes tumbling out to be missed and praised and mourned and loved some more. It is like being known all the way down to the tips of my toes. It is being in the presence of God. One moment I see Christ and the next he’s gone. One moment my eyes are opened and I recognize the risen Savior and the next he vanishes from my sight.

If you are anything like me, and I suspect you are, then take heart. This is no ghost. Do not fear. You can never lose him for good. This is the place he has promised to be, in his own body and blood, and this is the place he returns to meet us again and again.

Bishop Robert Alan Rimbo