WELCOME TO CHRIST CHURCH Sunday April 5, 2015: Easter Sunday From the Interim Rector: And They Told No One Because They Were Afraid For Holy Week I’ ve been reading Br. David Steindl-Rast’ s brief and delightful book Deeper Than Words, Living the Apostles Creed (foreword by holiness the Dalai Lama). I know Br. David slightly from participating in a Buddhist-Christian dialogue gathering over some days at Mercy Center, Burlingame, I have enjoyed reading and re-reading his book Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer. I started this new book when I learned that the Dalai Lama had encouraged Br. David to write it. Br. David’ s commentary on Jesus’ crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection makes great reading for Holy Week. As he offers us a line by line explanation of the Apostles Creed, he steadily asks himself what universal human hope and meaning he finds in each piece of the creed. It’ s just what Desmond Tutu tells us we need to hear again and again in Jesus’ words about his Passion in John’ s Gospel, “ When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself. ” Archbishop Tutu elaborates, “ Jesus didn’ t say SOME people, he said all people, ALL people.” Continued overleaf … An Easter Message from the Presiding Bishop It’ s still dark when Mary ventures out to find the tomb. The graveyards around Jerusalem don’ t have much greenery today. The earth is mostly rock and stone, and it is far from easy to make a place to secure a body. Jesus’ body was put in a cave-like space, with a stone rolled across the opening to close it up. Mary has made the journey from wherever she’ s sheltered over the last day, through darkened streets, perhaps hearing cocks begin to crow and townspeople start to stir. She nears the place, but somehow it seems different than they left it – this can’ t be it, can it? Who moved the stone? A trip begun in tears and grief now has added burden– confusion, anger, shock, chaos, abandonment. His very body has been stolen. She runs to tell the others. The three tear back to the tomb – no, the body is not there, though some of the burial cloths remain. Who has torn away the shroud and stolen him away? Why must the cruel torture continue, sacrilege and insult even after death? Who has done this awful thing? The men run away again, leaving her to weep at even greater loss. She peers in once more – who are these, so bold appearing? “Fear not, woman… why do you weep?” She turns away and meets another, who says the same – why do you weep, who are you looking for? This gardener has himself been planted and now springs up green and vibrant, still rising into greater life. He challenges her to go and share that rising, great news of green and life, with those who have fled. Still rising, still seeking union with Creator, making tender offering to beloved friends – briefly I am with you, I am on my way. Go and you will find me if you look. The risen one still offers life to those who will look for evidence of his gardening – hope, friendship, healing, reunion, restoration – to all who have been uprooted, cut off, to those who are parched and withered, to those who lie wasting in the desert. Why do we weep or run away when that promise abides? We can find that green one, still rising, if we will go stand with the grieving Marys of this world, if we will draw out the terrified who have retreated to their holes, if we will walk the Emmaus road with the lost and confused, if we will search out the hungry in the neighborhood called Galilee. We will find him already there before us, bringing new and verdant life. The only place we will not find him is in the tomb. The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori
Transcript
WELCOME TO CHRIST CHURCH Sunday April 5, 2015: Easter Sunday
From the Interim Rector: And They Told No One Because They Were Afraid For Holy Week I’ve been reading Br. David Steindl-Rast’s brief and delightful book Deeper Than Words, Living the Apostles Creed (foreword by holiness the Dalai Lama). I know Br. David slightly from participating in a Buddhist-Christian dialogue gathering over some days at Mercy Center, Burlingame, I have enjoyed reading and re-reading his book Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer. I started this new book when I learned that the Dalai Lama had encouraged Br. David to write it.
Br. David’s commentary on Jesus’ crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection makes great reading for Holy Week. As he offers us a line by line explanation of the Apostles Creed, he steadily asks himself what universal human hope and meaning he finds in each piece of the creed. It’s just what Desmond Tutu tells us we need to hear again and again in Jesus’ words about his Passion in John’s Gospel, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” Archbishop Tutu elaborates, “Jesus didn’t say SOME people, he said all people, ALL people.”
Continued overleaf …
An Easter Message from the Presiding Bishop It’s still dark when Mary ventures out to find the tomb. The graveyards around Jerusalem don’t have much greenery today. The earth is mostly rock and stone, and it is far from easy to make a place to secure a body. Jesus’ body was put in a cave-like space, with a stone rolled across the opening to close it up. Mary has made the journey from wherever she’s sheltered over the last day, through darkened streets, perhaps hearing cocks begin to crow and townspeople start to stir.
She nears the place, but somehow it seems different than they left it – this can’t be it, can it? Who moved the stone? A trip begun in tears and grief now has added burden– confusion, anger, shock, chaos, abandonment. His very body has been stolen.
She runs to tell the others. The three tear back to the tomb – no, the body is not there, though some of the burial cloths remain. Who has torn away the shroud and stolen him away? Why must the cruel torture continue, sacrilege and insult even after death? Who has done this awful thing? The men run away again, leaving her to weep at even greater loss.
She peers in once more – who are these, so bold appearing? “Fear not, woman… why do you weep?” She turns away and meets another, who says the same – why do you weep, who are you looking for? This gardener has himself been planted and now springs up green and vibrant, still rising into greater life. He challenges her to go and share that rising, great news of green and life, with those who have fled.
Still rising, still seeking union with Creator, making tender offering to beloved friends – briefly I am with you, I am on my way. Go and you will find me if you look.
The risen one still offers life to those who will look for evidence of his gardening – hope, friendship, healing, reunion, restoration – to all who have been uprooted, cut off, to those who are parched and withered, to those who lie wasting in the desert. Why do we weep or run away when that promise abides?
We can find that green one, still rising, if we will go stand with the grieving Marys of this world, if we will draw out the terrified who have retreated to their holes, if we will walk the Emmaus road with the lost and confused, if we will search out the hungry in the neighborhood called Galilee. We will find him already there before us, bringing new and verdant life. The only place we will not find him is in the tomb.
The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori
From the Interim Rector, continued … In the crucifixion (and Jesus’ death, burial, and “descent into hell”) , Br. David tells us we learn that we are never alone, never abandoned, that God comes to us all to fill whatever in us is least, most shameful, most alone, most hopeless. And in the resurrection, the Father raising Jesus up, Br. David asks us to see what all of us, when we’ll admit it, most hope for - that love wins, that love is stronger than death, that life is ultimately meaningful, and that God’s work embracing all of humankind, reconciling us, and making us one cannot be stopped. It’s what we really hope or would really hope if we dared.
Now if Jesus’ death and God raising Jesus make us one, what separations is God healing? What friends and loved ones have we lost to death? Who among us have lost children? Who have lost family members to Alzheimer’s? What friends and family are we estranged from? Who do we fear, and who Jesus challenges us to ask, are our enemies? Jesus commands us to love and prayer for those as he prayed for his killers from the cross. Is this Good News that we can bear?
Br. David’s book took me back to the startling ending of the Gospel According to St. Mark, the oldest and briefest of our four Gospels.
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
And there the Gospel ends, “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Now if you look this passage up in the 1610 Authorized King James version, you’ll find more resurrection appearances, a summary of appearances of Jesus that sounds more like the other three Gospels. But our contemporary translations tell us that everything after “they were afraid” is tacked on from a the second and third generation of manuscripts. It seems early copyists and editors wrote a “longer ending” to Mark’s Gospel because they were troubled at the original ending.
Might Mark telling us something about the struggle between hope and fear?
The angel has already greeted the women just what we expect angels to, “Don’t be afraid,” “Don’t be alarmed,” “fear not.” Loving all that Br. David offers us, finding universal human hope
affirmed in each piece of the Holy Week story of Jesus’ passion and resurrection, the abrupt ending of this Gospel, “…for they were afraid,” asks us to see our investment in our fears, the odd comfort of being defined by our fears, and our stubborn protection of our fears against hope that threatens to undo them.
The women, these two Marys and Salome are us, you and me. We’ve managed to make the frightening and possibly dangerous visit to Jesus’ tomb. The King of peace, the best of us and our best hope seemed defeated and destroyed, and with his death, all the brave and unrealistic hopes he raised in us died too. But when we come in grieving love to complete things properly and offer him a decent burial, we come face to face with a messenger of Good News who tells us that all our best hopes really and actually live, that the one who risked everything for us now fills our lives and renews hope and all life with his divine and human life. It’s everything we want, or thought we wanted, and it’s too much. Our hope makes us afraid. Risking hope again is too much. Humankind cannot bear too much reality.
Father Donald
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past. What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. My words echo Thus, in your mind. But to what purpose Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves I do not know. Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children, Hidden excitedly, containing laughter. Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is… At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
T.S. Eliot, from “Burnt Norton” in Four Quartets
Our Musicians Today!
Choir: Catherine Aragon, James Coker, Catharine Eastman, David Gorsulowsky, Angela Hey, Ed Jennings, Belinda Lipa, Richard Llewellyn, Scott Power, Annemarie Redmond, Donald Schell, Anita Van Kimmenade, and Ruth Ann Wrucke
String Trio: Tyler DeVigal, Da Eun Kim and Lily Liao
Organ: Matthew Burt, Tysen Dauer
Directory
Christ Church, 815 Portola Road, Portola Valley, California 94028 (650) 851-0224 <www.ccpvw.org> <www.facebook.com/ccpvw>
Vestry Class of 2018/Senior Warden Diane Leonard Class of 2017/Junior Warden Angela Hey Class of 2018/Clerk Richard Holm Class of 2017 Emily Foley Class of 2016 Stannye Llewellyn Class of 2018 Terry Lynn Class of 2016 Betsy Morgenthaler Class of 2017 Robert Redfern-West
Treasurer Annemarie Redmond
Clergy and Staff Interim Rector Donald Schell Associate Priest Suzanne Love Harris Associate Priest David Sheetz Deacon Dede Jamison Director of Music Ministry Matthew Burt Youth & Family Program Director Andi Mallinckrodt Parish Administrator Judy Horton Carillon Preschool Director Kay Erikson
Ellie Gardner and Penny McCulloch for arranging the flowers and:
8:00 a.m. Holy Eucharist
Celebrant David Sheetz
Preacher Donald Schell
Altar Guild Carol Wentworth
Usher Angela Hey
Lector (Lesson) Mary Paine
Lector (Epistle) Langdon Hilleary
Intercessor Jane Chai
10:00 a.m. Holy Eucharist
Celebrant David Sheetz
Preacher Donald Schell
Altar Guild Stu and Kaethe Langs
Greeters Emily and Ian Foley Lenore and Paul Lovoi
Ushers Diane and Trask Leonard
Acolytes Louise Delafield, Natalie Leonard
Lector (Lesson) Ben Leonard
Lector (Epistle) Paul Lovoi
Intercessor Lenore Lovoi
LEMs Louise Delafield, Stannye Llewellyn
Coffee Hour Host Kathy Kennedy
Birthdays/Anniversaries This Week! Tues. Louise Delafield, Ailsa McCulloch,
Liam Bjorke-Kohler; anniversary of Jim and Elaine Raitt
Weds. Emma Loaiza, Amalie Maria Fjeldsoe-Nielsen
Fri. Paul Lovoi
Sat. Donald Schell
Carillon Preschool Now Enrolling
Our preschool is currently enrolling children for the 2015-2016 school year. We offer four different programs for ages 18 months through 5 years old. For more information call Kay Erikson at (650) 529-1335.
Home & Hope Seeks Volunteers
Home & Hope’s next evening with homeless families and children will be Thursday April 9, at our regular site in San Carlos. If you’d enjoy being part of our little team for this caring ministry please contact Sue Riggs at (650) 493-1088 or <[email protected]>. And many thanks to Mary Jennings and Carol Wentworth for participating on March 26!
