Getting Lost in the Woods

Have you ever wondered how many sacraments we have in the Episcopal Church?  If so, this is your lucky day.  Our tradition affirms there are two  sacraments  and five  sacramental rites .  They have two key distinctions.  First, sacraments were  given by Christ  to the Church, whereas sacramental rites were  instituted by the Church  through the guidance of the Holy Spirit . (1/ 2)  Second, sacraments are understood as  essential for all   Christians, while sacramental rites are not. ( 1)   In other words, some people will be called to partake in one or more of these rites, but it’s not imperative for  all  Christians.  Having covered the two sacraments in previous sermons, we’ll spend the next few teaching sermons getting better acquainted with the five sacramental rites.  These are: confirmation; marriage; ordination; reconciliation of a penitent - a form of personal confession; and unction - better known as anointing. ( 1)  Today our focus will be on confirmation and marriage. ( 2)

Luke 24:1-12 Our story begins in the early morning, a couple of days after Jesus' death.   A few women were walking to his grave.  I always assumed they wanted to check and make sure nothing had been disturbed.  Much like we might stop by a cemetery to visit the grave of a recently buried friend.  Saying one last goodbye, and tidying the flowers by the headstone.  Except this year, I noticed something.  At the end of the passion gospel, Luke writes:   “It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was dawning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath day they rested according to the commandment.”  For the first time, I noticed that Jesus' burial was  interrupted  by the sabbath.  Immediately following Jesus’ death, Joseph of Arimathea got Pilate’s permission to take Jesus’ body down from the cross.  He then  “...wrapped it in a linen cloth, and l

  Good Friday leaves me with more questions than answers: Why did Jesus die? Who should be held responsible? Was it necessary?  What does this story tell us about God? About us? Where do we go from here? We might be tempted to seek out concrete answers.  Instead, I would invite us to sit with the questions, and not get too caught up in finding  ‘the right answers’.  Living with ambiguity often makes us uncomfortable, and challenges our need to be in control.  Yet somehow it is in the strange, amorphous places that we can sometimes see God most clearly.   So let’s spend a few minutes sitting with these questions… Why did Jesus die? It would seem Jesus pushed too many people’s boundaries.  He represented change; preaching a message of God’s love that was accessible to both the most undesirable people of Jesus’ time and the most powerful.  As a result, he was perceived as a threat - and the question was,  to whom  and  to what? Who should be held responsible? Luke makes some suggestions: