Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

It’s a long way from “Hosanna” to “Crucify him.”

Last Sunday, we celebrated Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We waved palm branches, and acted out the part of the crowd cheering Jesus on as he entered town. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!”

But today, again acting out the part of the crowd, we shouted, “Crucify him!”

What changed? Jesus got caught. Messiahs aren’t supposed to get arrested.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowds’ expectation was clear. This was not just a healer, a miracle worker coming into town for Passover. When they shouted, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” they had something very concrete in mind.

Passover is the feast when the descendants of Jacob celebrate their liberation from slavery at the hands of a foreign king, the Pharaoh of Egypt. Passover is the feast when the children of Israel celebrate the end of their status as a subject people, and the beginning of the journey to self-rule in their own land.

Jesus’ miracles showed that he was favored by God. So when this great leader favored by God came to Jerusalem for the great feast of liberation, people thought it was time: God was about to drive the Romans out, and put a descendant of David on the throne again.

After centuries of first exile and then oppression, the Messiah was at hand to re-establish the Kingdom of Israel. This Jesus was the one. The crowds gathered in Jerusalem that Passover just knew it, so they hailed him as the coming king when he entered town.

So how then today could the crowd call for the hated Roman governor to publicly torture to death the one whom they had expected to be their military deliverer?

In the eyes of the crowd, Jesus had committed the most unthinkable of sins for a Messiah: The worst a military deliverer can do is to lead a failed uprising. Drive the Romans out and you’re almost everyone’s hero. Unsuccessfully attempt to drive the Romans out and no one wants to have anything to do with you. “Crucify him” is a message to the Roman governor: “We were just kidding when we said this guy was the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Governor Pilate, sir, we know you represent the real king. We’ve got nothing to do with this ‘coming kingdom’ bit. Don’t crucify us too.”

John’s gospel, which we heard today, paints a favorable picture of Pilate, but the historical record shows that Pilate had a well-established record for cruelty, even compared to other Roman governors. The crowds had ample reason to be afraid of him. Could his repeated offers to release Jesus have been a perverse loyalty test? A Messiah who tried and failed to overthrow Pilate was a dangerous thing indeed for the people of Jerusalem.

In the eyes of the crowd, a would-be Messiah who could be arrested was worse than no Messiah at all. A failure. The antithesis of all-powerful. How could someone represent the power of the Lord Almighty who can’t overpower a band sent to arrest him, or the the Roman guards who hold him captive?

If Pilate was offering to release their would-be Messiah to them, the message was clear: this was no Messiah. Fear won out over hope: No one could free them from the Romans who wasn’t more powerful than the Romans. No one could deliver them from Pilate’s ever-present threat of torture, death, and destruction who couldn’t defeat it personally. If this Messiah can’t stick it to the Romans, they’d better rid themselves of him, and fast, before the Romans get upset. It’s better for the Romans to torture to death this one person rather than lots of them.

If might must be toppled by greater might, if the way to overcome an army is to shock and awe them into submission with superior military force, then Jesus was an utter failure. Crucify him, Pilate, and forgive us for even thinking about backing the wrong horse here.

Where’s the good news here? A man travels around for three years proclaiming that a new kingdom is at hand, and performing signs that indicate he’s really someone out of the ordinary. He enters the holy city at the time of year they’re expecting a deliverer. The crowd hails him as the coming king. He gets arrested, the crowd realizes that he’s not unbeatable, and the occupying army tortures and kills him.

Some agent of an all-powerful god. Some “good” news.

And yet we call today Good Friday.

In today’s events, Jesus didn’t merely overthrow the Romans; he made them utterly impotent and irrelevant. Because their stock in trade for running an empire was fear, and Jesus didn’t let fear of their power to torture and kill him change his course of action. Jesus didn’t overthrow the Romans; he overthrew death itself, and in the process, negated the need to fear mere Roman armies.

Today we remember how good triumphs over evil. But there’s an awful lot of evil. Abandonment and cowardice and cruelty and pain and death are all too real, both on that Friday almost two thousand years ago and in our own day.

The crowds wanted a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans. If Jesus was taking on more than that: death itself, for instance, we’d still like a more spectacular demonstration. Because Jesus suffered, and died, and yes, he defeated death, and yes, it no longer has dominion over him, as we’ll sing on Sunday, but there’s still a lot of people suffering and dying now. If the crowds thought Jesus was a failure as a Messiah for not making a more spectacular public show of driving out the Romans, we’re not all that different. It sure would be nice for us now to see a more spectacular show of driving out suffering and death. We know that death doesn’t have the final word, but the word it does have is pretty intimidating.

The crowds didn’t see it. His closest followers didn’t see it. Even today, sometimes it’s hard to see. But in the actions of this day, the Messiah completely and utterly overthrew the reign of not only the Romans but anyone who would attempt to enslave God’s people. The crowds didn’t realize, but today their savior ended the need to live in fear of the threat of death. A conqueror could threaten to kill them, but death no longer had the final word.

We might wish Jesus had somehow destroyed death, rather than just neutralizing it. But if Jesus had met power with power, we who don’t have omnipotent power would still need to fear power.

If Jesus had met the Roman army with the hosts of heaven, we who don’t have legions of angels at our command would still need to fear the might of earthly rulers.

If Jesus had met death with immortality, we who are mortal would still need to fear death.

Instead, Jesus stood in the face of all the pain and suffering that evil could throw at him, and let it wash over him. He endured mocking, beating, sinister betrayal by Judas, cowardly betrayal by the crowd, abandonment by his closest followers, flogging, humiliation, lugging heavy beams, drinking sour wine, and even death itself. Jesus stood before the evil of the world, and somehow, through amazing grace, he didn’t use his infinite power to drive it off.

He let evil do its worst, and it did not prevail.

The good news here today is that evil can’t win. If we are baptized into Christ’s death, we share in this passion today. We share in Jesus’ facing up to all the terrible suffering that the mightiest empire in the world could throw at him, and not resisting it precisely because the worst they had to give was incapable of destroying him. The man who said “Love your enemies. Do good to those who persecute you. Bless those who curse you.” didn’t need to add a clause “unless they’re about to kill you; then, smite them with the hosts of heaven.”

The crowds we acted out today represent the victory of fear over hope. The passion of the Christ represents the victory of love over fear, and we are baptized into that victory. Evil has no power over us, because it can do its dreaded worst but not change our trajectory.

The crowds in today’s Gospel seemed to have in mind the old admonition “do unto others before they do unto you.” All this talk of loving enemies is great, but when things are really on the line, sometimes you have to be realistic, right?

But the triumph of the cross is the triumph of idealism over realism: Jesus said no to the temptation to abandon the strength of nonviolence, the power of selflessness, the might of love. The cross today is the ultimate act of practicing what one preaches. This passion and death that we heard in today’s gospel is the very enactment of the Sermon on the Mount.

The world is too much with us. We have much in common with the crowds we acted out today. We often let fear win out over hope, and power over love. Sin and fear are all too present, and we do not always live with the awareness of the present Kingdom of God. Disease, cruelty, loss, and death are realities. And even Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus, even when he was about to bring him back from the dead moments later.

But our baptism into Christ’s passion and death helps us to share in Christ’s triumph today: sometimes, in moments of hope and glimpses of grace, we can act differently than the crowds in today’s story. We do not need to act out of the fear of suffering or death. To Jesus, death did its worst, and now death is all used up. Even when it’s hardest to see that it’s true, death doesn’t have the final word. All of us go down to the dust, but even at the grave we make our song. Amen.

They say there are two kinds of people in the world: the kind divides the world into two kinds of people, and the kind that doesn't.

The temptation is to make the story in today's Gospel have clear good guys and bad guys. It's a parable, right? This isn't real life. If this is some sort of allegory, there must be clear roles. Is the wealthy man good or bad? Is the third slave a model of virtue or a lazy slacker? Who in this story is our role model?

In one telling, probably the one more familiar to most of us, the master is God. The first two slaves are good Christians, and the third slave isn’t.

The God figure gave each of his slaves a number of talents, “according to his ability.” What are these “talents”? In the literal story they aren’t abilities, because they are given “according to ability.” The talent was actually a weight of silver in the ancient world. Sources vary as to just how much a talent would be worth, but one book I read pegged a talent as about 15 years' wages for your typical peasant laborer in Jesus' time. Other sources have it worth more. In terms of today's relative purchasing power, my back-of-the-envelope estimation is that one talent would be equivalent to somewhere between $240,000 and $710,000. Not pocket change. Asking a slave to take care of ten talents would be equivalent to asking a minimum wage worker today to manage a portfolio of several million dollars. Even the slave with one talent would be managing far more than the net value of my assets.

But the Christian tradition allegorized this story. Talents, in this understanding, came to mean, well, talents: aptitudes or skills that people have. Because what does God give us? The ability to do things.

This allegory stuck so well that when we think about talents today, we hardly ever think about ancient near-eastern millionaires; we think about God-given skills. Our word talent comes from the Greek talanton, which meant a weight or sum of money; this story gave the word its common meaning today.

So two of the slaves used their talents and engaged the world with them, making more talents. But the third slave protected the talent he got. He didn’t take any risks with it. He didn’t use it.

When the God figure returned, the two slaves who engaged the world were rewarded, but the slave who didn’t use his talent was cast into the outer darkness.

This, then, is the stewardship story. God gives us talents, and we need to use them. We are to get out there and share what we have with the world.

Personally, I find this to be a very hard message. Essential, important, vital – but really hard to follow. I don't know about anyone else, but I really like my routine, and get really cranky when I get jostled out of it. But God challenges us to not get complacent. We need to take risks and engage the world. The slave who just went about his routine and protected what God gave him was condemned in this story. And we too need to embrace new opportunities for ministry, new and uncomfortable engagements with the world. This is a vital lesson. Don’t be like that bad third slave.

But there’s another way to read this story also.

In this telling, the master is a different master – Mammon, money, the lust for the things of this world. The first two slaves are obedient servants of their god Money, but the third isn't playing that game.

Let’s look at the character of the master. To start with, he’s rich. Really, really, really rich. The kind of rich you don’t become while following The Law, especially the parts about letting all your workers rest every seventh day, reverting land to its original owners and not amassing land, not harvesting the corners of your fields but leaving them for the poor, letting all your land lie fallow every seven years.

The master is a man who recommends putting money in a bank and earning interest – forbidden if that interest is collected from to others who are subject to The Law. The master “reaps where he hasn’t sown” and “gathers where he didn’t scatter seeds” – he amasses his wealth from the work of others. In this telling of the story, focusing on these details, the master isn’t a God figure. The master is greed incarnate. This is Mammon. This is the pursuit of profit and wealth above all else.

So Mammon leaves sums of money to three slaves of wealth. Two of them invest shrewdly, and make 100% returns on their money. 100% returns during the course of their master’s single journey. Might these gains be ill-gotten? Just what are they doing with the money? Predatory lending? Exploiting the labor of others? Fraud? The third slave says “No.” The third slave speaks truth to power, and tells the Master “I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed.” He rejects participating in injustice. He won’t amass wealth at the expense of the poor. He gives the master back his money, but refuses to make his already-filthy-rich master even richer.

The story closes with the problematic aphorism “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” But in this telling, we don’t have to attribute this to be a description of how God works. We don’t have to try reconcile this with the Sermon on the Mount; instead, this becomes a description of how Mammon works. This is precisely the opposite of the economics of the Kingdom of God.

So that’s another telling. Now what do we do with these? We're tempted to think either/or: who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, who are we supposed to be in this story. Is the master God or Mammon? Is the third slave the hero or the villain?

Which reading of the story is the right one? How do we find an answer?

Maybe we can look at the story in context. This reading from Matthew is just one in a series of parables Jesus told about the Kingdom of Heaven. In the story before this, which we heard last week, the wise characters didn't share their oil with the foolish ones, and in the context of that story, being prepared and fending for oneself seemed to be the course of action that was praised and rewarded. So maybe this week's story is about risk-taking and good investment strategy for the God-given resources in our lives.

But the story that comes after this, which we'll hear next week, is all about sharing: giving food to the hungry, clothing to the naked, drink to the thirsty, and so forth. In the context of that story, fending for oneself is condemned, and sharing is praised and rewarded. So where does that leave this story?

It leaves the story in a liminal place – that is, a place on the boundary or threshold between two other places. By the values and casting of the story before it, we are tempted to identify the master as God, the first two slaves as good and the third as bad. By the values of the story after it, we are tempted to identify the master and the first two slaves as evil, and the third slave as a hero who bravely resists evil.

But what if we let this story stand in its liminal place between these two other accounts, and take more than one lesson away from it?

With the treasure of this world, we are called to resist the temptation to increase our wealth through exploitation. In the face of a system that expects us to reap where we did not sow and gather where we did not scatter seed – that is, to make wealth off of the labor of others – we need the courage of the third slave to speak truth to power, and to refuse to play along. When Mammon is the master, we do not want to merit the words "well done, good and trustworthy slave" – we must not be the good and trustworthy slaves of the god Money.

But when God is the master, we are not called to bury God’s gifts in the ground, but to spread them abundantly. We are called to take risks, to venture beyond our safe habits and comfortable routines and dare to change everything for the sake of the kingdom. We are called to share God's blessings: feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the prisoner. For when we do not bury God's treasure, but "trade" it – when we do these things in the world, we get the treasure back again and again.

But above all, we don’t need to look for heroes and villains in the story. We don’t need to put people in boxes. We can read the story and see what lessons we can take away when we identify with each character. Because it’s not about good guys and bad guys. It’s about a multiplicity of moral lessons that we can learn when we strive to find the humanity, the noble heroism and tragic failures in each of the characters, and live our own lives in response.

God calls not to find good guys and bad guys, but to find how each character in the story can in some way be us. That is our challenge: not to vilify one character and praise another, but to find grace through all. Amen.

Near the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, at the end of his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says to his disciples, “Everyone then who hears my words and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.”

Reflecting on this message from earlier in Matthew’s Gospel might make one want to ask Jesus a question after today’s reading.

“Um Jesus? Sorry to bother you, but what you said today doesn’t make sense. I know you understand the importance of a sound foundation, but you’re picking Peter as the rock on which you’re building your church? Really?”

Yes, Peter got the answer right today, but just two weeks ago, we heard the story of the disciples’ boat caught in a storm. Jesus walked across the water to them, and they were all afraid. Somehow, though, Peter manages to fail more spectacularly than the rest of them. They all think Jesus is a ghost, and not real, but Jesus assures them he really is Jesus. Peter doesn’t believe him at that; he demands a sign: “Lord, if it is you, let me walk on the water.” Jesus calls him over, Peter leaps onto the surface of the water with enthusiasm, but then doubt and fear get the best of him and he sinks. “Lord, save me,” he calls out. Jesus does.

Last week, which of the disciples is it who exasperates Jesus by requesting yet another explanation of his parable? Of course, Peter.

Next week, we’ll hear another story in which Peter comes off with a less-than-stellar performance, and on Welcome Sunday next month we’ll hear yet another account in which Peter just doesn’t get the point of the message that Jesus is trying to preach.

And we can’t forget, of course, the Passion account we heard last Palm Sunday: most of the disciples manage to scatter and desert Jesus one way or another, but Peter again manages to do it with more flair: First he, along with James and John, falls asleep when Jesus asks him to keep watch, and then, more spectacularly, he asserts not once but three times, and not under threat of torture, but rather to such “threatening” figures as a servant girl, “I do not know the man!” – and he does this within hours of promising to Jesus that “Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you.”

Matthew’s Gospel takes particular pains to show us just how much Peter managed to fail more frequently and more spectacularly than any of the other disciples – Judas doesn’t even come close in frequency. Yet Jesus, who had already publicly stressed the importance of a solid foundation, proclaims, “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

The English translation loses something here; the Greek for Peter (πετρος) and for rock (πετρα) are quite similar. If this part of Matthew’s Gospel were originally written in Aramaic, as some scholars speculate, the words would be identical. Perhaps we’d capture more of the spirit of it if we translated Jesus as saying “Simon, son of Jonah, I’m going to call you Rocky, and on this Rock I will build my church.”

Peter, or Rocky, as we might call him, has a rocky journey with Jesus, indeed. He doubts. He challenges. He contradicts. He misunderstands. He denies. But never does he put in less than his whole self. And in Chapter 19 of Matthew’s Gospel it is in response to Peter’s plea to Jesus, “Look, we have left everything and followed you” that Jesus gives his apostles some much-needed words of encouragement.

Peter may have case after case of spectacular failures, but he is always willing, whenever he falls into sin, to repent and return to the Lord. Indeed, our baptismal covenant does not call us to repent if we fall into sin, but whenever we fall into sin. The ministry of the church – a ministry shared by all the baptized – the ministry of the church does not depend on the unfailing righteousness of its ministers, but rather on our reliance on God’s grace to help us all when we inevitably stray. A fourth century dispute in the Christian church called Donatism centered around this issue: was ministry valid if it was done by ministers who had committed serious sins but later repented and been absolved of their sins? The Donatists held that it was not valid, while the position adopted by the Church at the council of Arles held that it is not the grace and righteousness of the minister that makes ministry “work”, but the grace and holiness of God. Matthew’s Gospel, in stressing Peter’s frequent failures, his never-ceasing returning to the Lord, and the centrality of Peter’s position in the church, gives a powerful testimony: the work of the church does not depend on never-erring ecclesial supermen. The Rock of the Church is the biggest failure in the Gospel, but also the one who most often returns to the Lord.

And therein lies Jesus’ promise to Peter: “On this rock I will build my church.” Jesus is the one doing the building. After the events of this week’s Gospel and then Peter’s failure next week, the next chapter tells a story we won’t hear in sequence this summer. After Peter professes to Jesus that while some people think Jesus is Elijah or one of the prophets, Peter believes that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ. In the very next chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, which was read on a Wednesday a few weeks ago for its own feast day, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to a mountaintop where they see Jesus alongside Moses and Elijah. Peter professed that he believed Jesus was not merely Elijah or a prophet; then he got to see the contrast himself. Peter professed that he believed that Jesus was the Son of the Living God; then he got to hear God’s voice proclaim that Jesus is the son of the Living God. Peter sometimes gets it right and often gets it wrong, but he always turns to God, and God always corrects or strengthens him. In the Gospel two weeks ago, when Peter was literally drowning in doubt, he turned to Jesus and Jesus saved him. When Peter makes his sudden and inspired proclamation of faith in today’s Gospel, it gets reinforced in the next chapter by a miraculous manifestation. When Peter clings to adherence to Jewish law at the Council of Jerusalem, Jesus appears to him in a dream to help him change his position. Peter doesn’t always get it right on the first try, but he is always willing to (eventually) ask Jesus for help, and if Peter’s failures are spectacular, Jesus’ aid in reinforcing him when he is right and assisting and restoring him when he is wrong is even more spectacular.

It’s ironic that this reading has been associated for so much of its history with claims of infallibility for Peter. The Gospel according to Matthew points out more failings and foibles of Peter than any of the other gospels. And yet it also is the only Gospel in which Jesus follows Peter’s confession of faith with the promise that “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

But a lack of infallibility doesn’t jeopardize at all Peter’s importance to the church. Peter’s foundational role in the church is not important because he is some sort of infallible superman. He doesn’t even acquire infallible superpowers after the resurrection – in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Paul writes that at the council of Jerusalem, he opposed Peter to his face, “because he was wrong!”

Peter’s foundational role in the church is vitally important precisely because, as Matthew tells the story, Peter is the most spectacular failure of all the disciples. Peter falls on his face again and again. And yet his efforts are always whole-hearted, and Jesus never stops providing grace to pick Peter back up so he can keep going.

Throughout scripture, God has a funny way of choosing people to do God’s work who might seem distinctly unqualified for the job.

Moses, about whom we started to hear in the first lesson today, was hardly whom one would expect as a leader of the Israelites. Moses was ineloquent. His grew up in Pharaoh’s household. He was a convicted murderer exiled from his people. Despite all this, God called Moses to be the great speaker of liberation for the Israelites.
Sarah and Abraham, and later Elizabeth and Zechariah were well past the age to bear children when God called on them to play important roles – you guessed it – raising children. Mary had the opposite problem – she was young and unmarried when God called upon her to be the mother of Jesus. David was a scrawny young shepherd when he was called upon to deliver Israel’s army from the Philistine giant Goliath. Jeremiah protested he could hardly be God’s prophet because he was “only a boy” and didn’t know what to say. Mary Magdalene, out of whom seven demons were driven, went on to be the first witness to the resurrection, and the first one sent to spread the Good News. Paul had a strong record of persecuting the Church, in addition to the mysterious “thorn in his side” that impaired his work – but God did amazing things with him.

None of them could do the work God set before them solely on the basis of their own strength, skill, talent, or effort. And that is precisely the point. The ability to do ministry, to do God’s work in the world, does not depend on our own strength, skill, or righteousness, but on God’s grace.

If the LORD had not been on our side,
    let Israel now say;
If the LORD had not been on our side,
    when enemies rose up against us;
Then would they have swallowed us up alive
    in their fierce anger toward us;
Our help is in the Name of the LORD,
    the maker of heaven and earth.

Peter’s help was in the name of the Lord, and despite all his weaknesses, his ministry built up the church. Likewise, our help is in the name of the Lord, and with God all things are possible. All our failures, our inadequacies, our weaknesses are no excuse to keep us from doing God’s work. God invites us to not be afraid to fail spectacularly. The glory of this story is that Peter, who Matthew takes great pains to paint as the model of unreliability – he’s reliably unreliable – Peter, a sinner of God’s own redeeming, is established as a foundation of the Church, and a model of ministry.

While the Church rejected Donatism as heresy in 314, its legacy is still with us today. While there are certainly Christians too willing to point fingers at someone and say “they” couldn’t possibly be doing God’s work because “they” are sinners in one way or another, I believe that there is an even more destructive legacy of this heresy. How many times in our own lives do we step away from God’s call to do God’s work in the world because we believe that we are unworthy to be God’s presence in the world to others? “I can’t do God’s work; I mess up too much. That’s for holy people, not sinners like me.” When we do this, and I know I do it all the time, we deprive the Church of the very building blocks God has shown time and again that God works with. God built the church starting with Saint Peter, spectacular failure #1, whose only greater characteristic was his willingness to keep returning to the Lord after each time he messed up. Our failures, our inadequacies, all the things we’ve messed up – none of these keep God from using us, if we only put our trust in God.

We’ll hear plenty about Peter’s failings and shortcomings, including next Sunday. For now, though, we should rejoice that Peter, for all his flaws, could be the vehicle of such grace. For all his impulsiveness, unreliability, and unsteadiness, God made Peter a solid rock foundation on which the Church is built. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock – not because Peter was never wrong, but because he knew all too well just how often he was wrong, and was always willing to return to the Lord, for solace and for strength; for pardon and for renewal. Because underneath Peter, an even firmer foundation kept him in place: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Despite each of our weaknesses, failings, and inadequacies, God calls each one of us to do God’s work in the world. On our own, we are hopelessly inadequate for the job. With God’s grace, there are no limits to what we can do to the Glory of God.

Praise God for those in every generation in whom Christ has been honored; Pray that we may have grace to glorify Christ in our own day!

The end is near.
I'm not talking about the 42 days until end of Christmas shopping, or the 434 days until the end of the Bush administration, or the ten minutes until the end of this sermon.
I'm not talking about the end of your supervised ministry, or your wedding planning, or a bad year for crops;
I'm not talking about the end of any of the things that are on our minds each and every day.
I am talking about the end of all of them together.
I'm talking about the end of the world: the Kingdom of God is at hand.

We Episcopalians don't like to talk too much about the end of the world.
On average, we tend to do pretty well in the world as it is.
So the end of the world isn't a particularly comfortable or frankly welcome subject for us.
When we do talk about the end, we keep it at an intellectual distance, wrapped in fancy words like "Eschaton" to avoid blunt statements like "the end is near: the Kingdom of God is at hand."

And then there's the embarrassment factor.
I mean it's been almost 2000 years that we've been going on that the end is near.
How many times can you cry wolf and still have people listen?
We pride ourselves on being a church where you don't have to check your mind at the door; something doesn't sit right about making yet another claim that the end is near.

So what do we do?
Our choirs will sing anthems about the end times.
Bach's beautiful cantada "Wachet auf".
And that beautiful sequence from Mozart's Requiem, Dies Irae, sounds stunning.
And even better, it's in Latin, so we don't have to focus on the words: "Day of Wrath, that day when the world dissolves into ashes."
This is supposed to be good news?

What images does today's Gospel use to describe the end?
Matthew starts with the Flood.
For Noah, the Flood meant leaving behind everything he knew and being locked up in a crowded boat with a bunch of smelly animals for months.
And his family was the one with the happy ending; everyone else fared far worse.
And Matthew makes it clear that not everybody gets to play the role of Noah in re-enacting this story.
Doesn't sound like good news.

And then we hear that the coming of the kingdom is like a thief invading a home in the night.
Such pleasant images.
So we must be supposed to weep, not rejoice, when we hear that the end is near: the Kingdom of God is at hand.

But there's this pericope from Matthew's Gospel that gets proclaimed millions of times each day by Christians all around the world.
Depending on your translation, it starts something like this:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come!

Now wait a minute, did we really just say that?
Was that really the second thing we prayed?
Before we asked for bread, before we asked for forgiveness, before we asked to be spared from trials and tribulations -- we ASKED for God's Kingdom to come?
That thief invading your home in the night, flood killing off most of mankind, world dissolving into ashes kingdom coming event?
We ask for this to happen?
Every time we gather to pray?
Are we nuts?

This thief in the night, this flood drowning humankind -- how is this something we want to pray for?
How is this an event for which we wait in joyful hope?
How could we possibly rejoice when we hear that the end is near: the Kingdom of God is at hand?

When you're drinking a really good thick chocolate milkshake, and you're savoring each drop of it, that echoing, resounding slurping sound you get when your straw hits an air pocket -- that's not good news.
It tells you that the end is near, and your good times are almost done.

How do we react when we hear that the end is near?
Are these words the slurping sound at the bottom of a milkshake?
Do we get upset because we are enjoying this world and hate to see it go?

That slurping sound is grace, then: grace to change our lives.

If we hear "the end is near" and think it means that our time of pleasure is done, we've been storing up treasure in the wrong place.
That slurping sound is a call to repent, to change our priorities.
Unwelcome though it may be, this is truly grace.

But when we're overwhelmed by trouble and cares, when suffering for the Gospel has us at the breaking point, when all that we have taken on brings us to ask how much longer we can be asked to endure, the words "the end is near" take on an entirely different meaning.
We just need to be sure it's the right one.

When I was in high school, I ran cross country.
Our five kilometer home course ended by going up a steep hill right before the finish line.
If you knew the course well, you knew that when you came around a turn at the bottom of the hill, you had to pick up your feet and put them down only 300 more times.
It was all uphill, and you were exhausted, but there were only 300 steps left to go.
The end is near.
And what a welcome message that was.
"The end is near" was the encouragement you needed to give those last 300 steps every ounce of energy you had left.
You'd go up that last hill, maybe passing a few people on the way, and put all your heart and all your soul and all your strength into that last burst of glory toward the finish line.

Except once they hosted the state regional meet there.
They changed some of the turns to accommodate the larger crowd.
And as a result, the finish line got moved back about a quarter mile from its usual place at the top of the hill.
The turn at the bottom of the hill that usually sent the message "only 300 steps left" was cruelly misleading.
You put everything you had into those last 300 steps only to find that there was still another quarter mile to cover.

If we think "the end is near" means "start sprinting," the fact that we've been proclaiming it for almost 2000 years makes it a cruel joke.
If we understand "the end is near" to be a promise of rest coming in the next few minutes, days, months -- and that promise remains unfulfilled for two thousand years, this isn't comfort; it's brutality.

But today's Gospel stresses that God refuses to promise to come at a particular time.
God is near and will intervene, but on God's own timetable.
The promise of the end times is not a promise that we have only 300 steps left in the race.
It isn't a promise that we have to get up one more hill and then we can rest.
It IS a promise that God is near.
God is present.
And when God decides that all is done and it is time to complete the world God set in motion, God will.

Last month they called off the Chicago marathon after a few hours because of high temperatures.
After determining that conditions were unsafe for the race to continue, the organizers stepped in and said it was over.
Some runners were far from the finish line, but just like that, the race was done.
Despite being far from crossing the line, the end was near.

The end is near because God will complete this world and bring about the next at any moment God chooses.
The end is near because when the time is right, it takes no prelude.
It takes no warm-up.
When God the Father, who so loved the world that he sent his only son, determines that it is finished, then it is finished.

And so, we persist in doing what is right.
We proclaim Christ crucified.
We feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the prisoners.
We go and make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
And we persist in the face of exhaustion.

Matthew's Gospel today makes it abundantly clear that we don't get a countdown to the end times.
"The end is near" doesn't mean we only have 300 steps to go.
But when we hear "The end is near" we know that at any time, at any moment, God is ready to step in say, "It is finished."
As soon as God thinks work in the world is done, it is.
The end is near -- not in terms of time, but in terms of causality.
The end is near because it will happen as soon as God wills it.

The end is near: the Kingdom of God is at hand.
Amen.
Come Lord Jesus!

Today is the feast of Saint James of Jerusalem.  Matthew's gospel calls him the brother of our Lord; Mark calls him the cousin, and other ancient texts refer to him as Jesus' half brother.  In any event, he would have known well the historic figure of Jesus of Nazareth.  Despite this, or perhaps because of it, he was not one of the Apostles; he wasn't even a disciple before the resurrection.  So the reading we heard today from the Gospel according to Saint Matthew seems, at first glance, to be an odd one for this feast: the reading is a passage from Jesus' instructions to the Apostles when he sent them out to minister during his lifetime.

Now one might try to justify this odd selection of readings by noting that the proper readings for Eucharist today took the most obvious choices of readings for Saint James of Jerusalem.  The office and the Eucharist are complements, not substitutes, and their Lectionaries are designed as such.  If you were here last night when we celebrated Eucharist for the feast of Saint James of Jerusalem, you heard the reading from Acts that recounted the Council of Jerusalem, that tense and vital time in the history of the Church when church leaders tried to grapple with the role of Gentiles in the emerging Christian community.  As the Church tried to settle the question of whether converts to Christianity had to become Jewish in order to become Christian, James played a vital mediating role.  The Gospel yesterday evening gave Matthew's account of James as one of the brothers of Jesus.  And the reading from Paul's letter to the Corrinthians, which we did not read in church but is still in the Lectionary for the Eucharist, told of Jesus' appearance to his brother James after his resurrection, which led James to join the church.

So if all these readings that actually mention James were taken, what's left for us to hear today?  We hear an account of Jesus' instructions to the Apostles.  Let's take a closer look at that reading.

Jesus had just finished calling the last of the twelve.  He sent them out in mission and gave them instructions (including the admonition not to wear sandals, in contrast with their instructions in Mark's gospel to wear sandals); today's reading is a warning of the persecutions they will face.

The thing is, while this reading is placed at this point in Matthew's gospel, before the confession of St. Peter, before the Transfiguration, before the Last Supper, there isn't really any evidence that the Apostles went out and were persecuted and dragged before governors and kings at this point in the story.  While the Apostles were dragged before governors and kings, and all but one martyred, we have no accounts of this happening until after the resurrection.  Matthew inserts this tale of commissioning here in the story, but the instructions and warnings apply as much if not more to the Apostles and indeed to all followers of Jesus who are sent out in mission after the resurrection.  And the admonition to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves surely describes James of Jerusalem.

James held his beliefs strongly, but was able to find common ground and preserve the unity of the Church in the midst of a doctrinal conflict that threatened to tear it apart.  James helped those who ministered among the Gentiles and those who ministered among the Jews listen to each other and to the voice of God.  The Church didn't compromise, but James helped it reflect and discern God's will at a time when tensions between factions might have torn the Church apart.  In the epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul writes that at the council he opposed St. Peter to his face, because Peter was wrong.  James' leadership in Jerusalem helped hold the Church together.  Wise as serpents, and innocent as doves.

James, in his zeal, won many converts to the faith, but managed to discreetly live a long life in Jerusalem after the resurrection.  Wise as serpents and innocent as doves.  He converted many just as he had himself converted to following Jesus, but he managed to avoid antagonizing the religious leaders of Jerusalem for a good thirty years.

But ultimately, James was martyred.  Because while he was a model of understanding, he knew and believed that ultimately, the faith cannot be compromised.  Ultimately, the Gospel will require our total devotion, and that devotion can consume our lives.  Today's reading reminds us that obedience to the Gospel will ultimately come before our friends and family, our safety, our homes, our freedom, and perhaps even our lives.  James of Jerusalem, in wisdom and innocence, did not seek this out.  He did not pick fights, and indeed, he avoided them as long as he could, in conscience.  But when he was forced to choose between saving his life by renouncing the faith and continuing to preach the Gospel, he preached the Gospel.  For this he was killed.  In today's reading, Jesus promises us that God will be with us in all our tribulations and that one who endures to the end will be saved.  Praise God for James of Jerusalem.  Praise God for those in every generation in whom Christ has been honored.  Pray that we may have the grace to glorify Christ in our own day.  Amen.

For over four hundred years, the house of David ruled the Kingdom of Judah from Jerusalem. For over four hundred years, the city of Jerusalem remained unconquered. For over four hundred years, the people of Judah believed that as the Lord’s chosen people, they would be ruled by the house of David forever. This was no small claim for a fairly minor kingdom nestled between the great empires of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Then, in 586 BCE, the unthinkable happened. The sky fell in. The Babylonian empire conquered Jerusalem and forced many of its inhabitants to relocate to Babylon. This exile reduced to ruins not only their homes, their livelihoods, and their ordinary way of life, but also their very sense of identity relative to God and the rest of the world. Which brings us to where our lament opens today: By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered you, O Zion.

Exile. Prophets had warned that if Judah did not change its ways and more faithfully worship the Lord, evil would betide them, but this? A conquered people? Forced relocation to an alien land? Could this be the fate of the people the Lord freed from slavery in Egypt? The ones set up by the Lord as a free people, neither subject to an empire, nor ruling over one? How could they now be led away captive.

For those who led us away captive asked us for a song, and our oppressors called for mirth: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How could we sing the Lord’s song in an alien land!”

An alien land is not THE Land: The Land promised by the Lord to Abraham. The Land to which Moses led the people through the wilderness. The Land that the Lord promised to David his descendants would rule so long as they remained faithful. How could the Babylonians expect they could sing holy songs away from The Land that defined them and their relationship with the Lord?

Those Babylonians knew how to run an empire. All this forced relocation and exile – this wasn’t about extracting slave labor. And calling for mirth and songs wasn’t about taunting the prisoners. The Babylonians didn’t want an empire of conquered peoples, resentful and eager to break away from Babylon. The Babylonians wanted an empire of Babylonians. Conquering people and forcing them to relocate wasn’t about making them slaves; it was about making them Babylonians. Be happy. Enjoy your new home. Sure, sing one of those songs of Zion – let’s all sing songs of Zion. It’s about as relevant as “being Irish” is on March 17. Or being Christian on December 25. And so the people of Judah’s first reaction was to hang up their harps and refuse to sing at all. And by the waters of Babylon, we sat and wept, when we remembered you, O Zion. The people of Judah did not forget. They were not assimilated. In all their grief and anger, they remembered.

Of course, they weren’t just sitting and weeping anywhere. Those waters of Babylon play a bigger role in our story. The waters of Babylon – the Tigris and Euphrates rivers – those were the rivers that watered the Garden of Eden. All of us share in this story of exile, because all people are exiled children of Eden. Just like Judah, we have a home from which we have been forcibly removed. We are in this world of sin and troubles, but we are not home here. We were not created for this world of sin; we are children of the Most High God, and we were created to tend the garden and dwell in paradise. We find ourselves far from our heavenly home, and under the same pressure to assimilate – to forget that we do not belong to the empires of this world, and to make ourselves at home here.

The siren song of the empires of sin tell us to forget Zion. Forget that we are free people in exile, and join in the empire. Be merry. Get ahead. Look out for number one.

Forget that as children of God, we might be called to live in very particular ways; that’s not how you get ahead. That’s now how you make it. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, so do unto others before they do unto you. That’s what our leaders told us we had to do in Iraq – remember, they said we needed a preemptive strike so the smoking gun of their nuclear program wouldn’t be a mushroom cloud over one of our cities? Do unto others before they do unto you. And now by the waters of Babylon there is O so much weeping today. Soldiers far from their families. A whole country torn apart by war and devastation, with no promising hope of stability anytime in the foreseeable future. Sitting and weeping.

The siren song of Empire calls us to forget our identity as children of Eden and put our trust in the gun and the bomb. The siren song of empire tells us it is unpatriotic to challenge “our” leaders when “our” troops are at war. Because if we have been assimilated into the empire, our leader is in Washington and not in heaven, and our troops carry American flags and aren’t the host of angels, and there is no greater sin than “unpatriotism” (if that’s even a word). But when patriotism and reverence for the rulers of this world come before our obligations and identity with the kingdom of heaven, there’s a word for this: idolatry.

And whether you’re a pacifist or you believe in the Just War tradition, there’s no room in Christian ethics for a morally permissible war of aggression, which is what a preemptive invasion really is.

But I’m not cataloging our past silence so we can feel bad about it. I bring up the relative silence of the people of God – sure, some of us said something, but not enough – about the last war not so we can feel bad, but because the drums are already beating for the next war. The devastation in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t enough, apparently. Presidential candidates are already making threatening noises about the coming war with Iran. The drums are beating; can we followers of the Lord raise a different tune?

By the waters of Bablyon, we sat down and wept when we remembered you, O Zion. How could we sing the Lord’s song in an alien land?

Beyond grief and anger (ten minutes is too short, but if we had longer, I’d love to unpack the last verses of this psalm with you all today), the people of Judah moved on to trying to sing the Lord’s song in an alien land. The curses they wished on themselves if they were to forget the Lord – the tongue cleaving to the roof of the mouth, the right hand forgetting its skill – this is all about playing the harp and singing. But how does one sing the Lord’s song in an alien land? For Judah, singing the Lord’s song had previously been all about the Promised Land. You just don’t sing the Lord’s song anywhere else. But the people of Judah decided to sing the Lord’s song, despite all that. The rest is all grace.

Somehow, against all likelihood, they managed to write down their stories, their traditions, their songs. Somehow, against all likelihood, they kept their identity as a people in the midst of the Babylonian empire. Somehow, they sang the songs of Zion not as a “once upon a time” story, but as something that defined them and their way of life right as they sang them. That “somehow” is by grace, and that grace made them ready for when deutero-Isaiah cried out “In the wilderness, prepare a highway for the Lord, or as Peter Gabriel put it, “Pack your things, I’ve come to take you home.” Return from exile couldn’t have happened without the grace to sing the Lord’s song in an alien land.

So how can we sing the Lord’s song in an alien land? We exiled children of Eden, free children of God exiled to an empire of sin – how can we sing the Lord’s song in an alien land and not succumb to the siren song of sin? Left to our own devices, we cannot.

But God’s grace is an active grace, seeking us out and teaching us to sing the Lord’s song. Teaching us to sing about God’s law, and not the laws of the world. The siren song of sin sings to us that our safety comes from mighty armies, from preemptive attacks against threats, from shock and awe at the destruction we can unleash, from the rocket’s red glare and the bombs bursting in air. God gives us the grace to sing that our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. The siren song of sin tells us that we cannot sleep at night unless we torture the bad guys to find our what they’re up to, but God gives us the grace to sing that we lie down in peace; at once we fall asleep for only in God do we rest in safety. The siren song of sin tells us to enlist in the armies of empire, and train to become a mighty warrior to defend our friends and neighbors, but God gives us the grace to sing that no greater love is there than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, and that the greatest power of all is vulnerable, self-emptying love.

This song is hard to sing! The songs of empire are catchier, and a lot less scary. How can we sing the Lord’s song in the face of all this? How can we possibly resist the drums of war, and I tell you they’re already beating again, when our song is so hard to hear?

Only by grace. Only by grace.

And that’s what God gives us. Hallelujah!

It is finished.

It is fulfilled.

It is handed down.

In our Lenten Study here at Nativity, we have read and reflected upon the last words of Christ. This past week, the subject was these very last words of Christ in John’s Gospel: It is finished.

When Jesus bowed his head and gave up his spirit in the Gospel according to John, he had given his all and fulfilled his work.

In his death on the cross, Jesus completed his redemptive work. As our first lesson today tells us, he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our inequities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises, we are healed.

The crucifixion marked the fulfillment of Jesus’ mission.

The author of the book of Isaiah proclaims that the Lord said “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

The word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and came into the world, and did not return until that which God purposed had been fulfilled. Jesus watered the earth with Living Waters. Because of him, the earth brought forth, and his disciples are the seed to the sower and bread to the eater. God’s word went forth and did not return empty. It is finished.

And even as it is finished, it is just beginning.

After the sermon, the order of service for Good Friday continues to the Solemn Collects, in which we pray for all people according to their needs. If it is finished, why would we do that? Why would we pray for all who minister, for all who take counsel for peace, for all who sorrow and all who serve them, for all who preach the Gospel, and for the mystery of the Church?

The salvific work of Jesus is finished in his suffering unto death, but the work of his followers, the work of those “many made righteous” by his death, those whose inequities he bears, whose diseases he carries, those whom He makes whole – their work, OUR work – begins under that same cross.

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved, he said to this mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

After this, all was finished for Jesus. And all had just begun. The cross is now ours to bear. Jesus said that those who would be his disciples should take up their cross and follow him.

And thus, with God’s help, with the help of Jesus’ death on the cross, we now continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, in the prayers, in resisting evil, and repenting and returning to the Lord when we fall into sin. We continue to proclaim by word and example the Good news of God in Christ. We continue to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and we strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.

These words come from our baptismal covenant. But remember, in the waters of baptism, we die with Christ. Our baptism is our participation in the passion of Christ, in the fulfillment of his work, and thus in our mission that he hands down to us. The cross, then, is tied closely to our baptism, and to our work. Like Jesus’ mother and the beloved disciple, we leave the cross, we leave our baptism, with new work, a new role.

Jesus’ walk to Golgotha, cross upon his back, led to the end of his work. Christians walk away from Golgotha with their work before them, and God’s saving grace to empower them.

Without that grace, none of us could walk from Golgotha. But even with grace, that road is not an easy one. Pilate was told, “If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against emperor.” How much more true is this if we not just release, but follow this King? To follow Jesus will lead us into conflict with the emperor, with the powers and principalities, with the prevailing culture.

As we bear our cross, as we live out the vows of our baptism, we are called to work for many difficult, often unpopular ends. Some of the ways the Church has identified to strive for justice and peace for all people are outlined in the social policies of the Episcopal Church, which are collected and distributed by the Episcopal Public Policy Network.

We may not be scourged, may not be crucified, but we will need strength from God as we strive for such ends as enacting a living wage for all people. For striving to eradicate hunger. For encouraging low-cost housing. For overcoming racism. For extending civil rights protections to gay and lesbian people. For bringing about an international ban on land mines. For striving against the use of nuclear and chemical weapons. For advocating for refugees, and for the homeless, and for all those who are marginalized. And these are just the beginning of a small sample of the social policies of the Episcopal Church. If you want more information, there is a poster on the bulletin board in the narthex with post cards you can send in.

The Episcopal Public Policy Network gives us one tool to strive for justice and peace through the policies that shape our public lives. And how we contribute to the shape of our public life is one part of the word and example by which we proclaim the Good News of God in Christ. But the cross is ours to bear in all that we do. Our whole lives are the word and example through which we are called to proclaim the Good News. How we work, how we interact with friends, children, parents, strangers, drivers, pedestrians, the powerful, the powerless, and all in between – in all things, we bear the cross, and our lives proclaim the Good News.

When we see the cross, we recall that we are joined to it through our baptism. When we see the cross, we recall the completed, fulfilled work of Jesus. We recall how Jesus gave his all in fulfilling the work for which he was sent. And we recall the ministry to which we are called through our baptism, the unfinished work with God’s help of proclaiming through word and example the Good News of God in Christ.

It is finished. It is begun.