B - Fifth Sunday of Easter

Video of Homily

St. Peter hears the doorbell and looking out the window sees a man standing there at the pearly gates waiting to come in. St. Peter goes to open the gates but as soon as he arrives the man who was waiting disappears.  St. Peter is surprised but returns to what he was doing, when again the doorbell rings, and so he goes once more to open the gates.  As soon as St. Peter arrives, the man disappears again.  Frustrated St. Peter returns to his activities when a third time the bell rings.  Going out St. Peter shouts, “what is going on here.”  “Sorry,” the man says, “they are trying to resuscitate me.”   

Stories and jokes such as these tend to reinforce the notion that the gates of heaven are found at the end of our lives where the scales of justice will weigh our actions to determine our acceptability and whether we can pass through the gates and into heaven.   It is very true that there will be a particular judgement immediately upon our death, and at that time the assignment to heaven, purgatory or hell.  And at the end of all time there will also be the final judgement when the justice, mercy and glory of God will be seen by all.   Yet the gates of heaven are not to be found at the time of our death.  Rather we pass through those gates when we are baptized. We are in many ways already traveling the pathway beyond the gates of heaven and towards the embrace of God.   It is at our baptism that we are made acceptable to God. We need to really meditate on this truth; we are already acceptable to God because of our baptism, and not by our accomplishments or good acts.  If we hear a voice within telling us, we are unacceptable that is simply a lie. A lie we can sometimes tell ourselves because of a faulty or weak understanding, or a lie told to us when under spiritual attack - the purpose of which is to have us lose hope and ultimately our faith.  

John Lennox, a scientist and Christian apologist makes this point very well when he says that in marrying his wife Sally, he did not wait 30 years into the marriage to accept her, nor she him.  The acceptance came first.  Acceptance does come first and then the growth and flourishing of a loving relationship over time.   We need not fear our own thoughts of unacceptability.   We are already the beloved children of God. And as in marriage, our relationship with God grows, develops, and bears fruit over time if we remain committed to that relationship.   

God is the vine grower, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches.  At our baptism we were grafted onto the vine, made acceptable, given light and a new life. We were sanctified and set apart for holy purposes. Our capacity for faith, hope and charity was supercharged.   And Jesus Christ, the true vine, became our source of nourishment, of life, and fruitfulness. It is true we cannot do anything without him, since all we would do, however good it appears, will be lacking.  But living in the Holy Spirit we can walk in obedience to God’s will and so love as Christ loves – sacrificially.   This is an important teaching for us to grasp and ponder.  Whether we wish to be good parents and bring up children well, whether we wish to find the right words of comfort or peace at work or school, or whether we wish to lead in ministry, it is only by remaining in Christ that life will flow from God and through us and into our thoughts, words and works.   

Jesus tells us that we are already pruned because He, the living Word, has found a home in our hearts.  We are already pruned since choosing to sacramentalize our lives we conform ourselves to our Lord.   

But lest we become complacent, too comfortable, we are warned that the branches that bare no fruit will be cut off and burned.  This means that even though we are joined to the vine if we then fail to remain in him, fail to keep his commandments, and, as his disciples, fail to produce fruit, then we will be separated.  Like any good vine grower, God the Father will take off the branch that is lifeless and unproductive.  These are sobering words and should give us cause for pause.   

In the second reading Saint Paul tells us how we are to know that we are in him and living in the truth.  Simply, because our hearts do not condemn us. And if they do then this is because God lives in us. The Spirit is "greater than our heart" and "knows everything."  When we sin, the Spirit convicts us of the wrong and helps us to desire a change.  

We are already walking in the hinterlands of heaven; not quite home, yet within sight of it.  By means of our baptism we are already accepted by the Father and are grafted onto the vine who is his son.  Fear not God’s pruning for this is for our good.  Our life mission, which we must accept if we are not to be cut off and thrown away, is to love one another as he commanded us to do.  We keep his commandments and so remain in him as he remains in us. By this our ability to do good and bear much fruit is made possible. 

Jesus, help us to share fully in the life you give us. Keep us free from sin and from distracting entanglements. May the fruits of our actions prove us to be your faithful disciples. Amen. 

 

Deacon Peter Bujwid, Saint Agnes Church
Arlington, MA. 
Sunday 28th April 2024 

B - Good Friday

As you look upon the cross, what do you see?  What feelings are stirred in you?  How do you respond? 

There are four responses to the cross.  For a growing number it is merely a symbol – one of many symbols in the religious marketplace, all similar and indistinct – be it the cross, the Muslim crescent, the Ying and Yang, the Star of David – to each the response is one of casual disinterest.  For others the cross is an object to be scorned, insulted, hated even, as it speaks plainly and confronts life's choices and courses.  It is a symbol to be removed from the public square by any means.  We have seen this growing response in many places but perhaps most strongly right now in Europe where the Christian identity continues to be lost, at least for a time.  For a third group the cross is foolishness.  It represents the natural outcome of the actions of a man set upon his own destruction.  This man Jesus would confront all the political powers and forces of his day with no chance of winning or even coming out alive.  What foolishness.  There are many today ignorant of the good news that hold this position.  “You Christians call this day good – Good Friday, how foolish you are.” 

But to us, what is the cross?   Saint Paul speaks for us when he says the cross is absolutely everything (Galatians, 6:14).  It represents the very moment when the eternal consequences of sin were stopped dead in their tracks. As Paul tells us “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  It is the power of God revealed to the prophets.  That which was only partially seen has come to be.  In Isaiah, our first reading, we hear of the suffering servant.  This prophetic poem written 750 years before Christ was born, tells us of the one who would suffer in our place, the one who would bear the punishment for our sin, and who would intercede on our behalf.  The one who would take upon himself our infirmities.  The one led away like a lamb to slaughter.  The words of Isaiah would now be fulfilled on Good Friday in the arrest, sentencing, torture and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.   

What does the cross of Christ mean?  It means everything, since without it we are lost, but by it every man, woman, and child has the gift of eternal life, if only it is accepted.  Christ has accomplished that which we could never do, to atone for our sins.  For how can creatures like us atone for sins with eternal consequences? But by way of his suffering our saviour raises us to become a new creation, a new man. His obedience to the Father opens the way to a new kind of evolution by means of which we are being raised up in holiness, in life, and in friendship with God. By his broken body all is made new.  

What does the Cross mean to you and to me?   It means everything for Jesus did not hold back but gave everything - for you and for me.  

Today we continue to journey towards the heart of the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection. How privileged we are to be called by name to participate.   For those who look at the cross as just another symbol among many, and for those who hate what it represents, and for those, who only see the foolishness of the cross, we the beloved, are being led deeper into the mystery, so we can speak courageously, lovingly, and explain, to such as these, why today is good – a Good Friday, a very good Friday.  

 

Deacon Peter Bujwid, Saint Agnes,  
Arlington, MA.,  
Friday March 29, 2024

B - Palm Sunday

Have Mercy on me, God, in your kindness.  In your compassion blot out my offense.  O wash me more and more from my guilt and clean me from my sin. (Psalm 51.)   These are the words of King David recorded in Psalm 51.  King David admits his guilt.  But are we guilty?  Are you and I guilty too, truly guilty?  Have we not all failed miserably in living as we should?  More significantly – have we not been complicit with sin itself?  By our actions we have sinned, for flesh can be the highway to impurity, to greed, to division.  By our thoughts we too have sinned, since it is enough to look upon another with lust and to be guilty of adultery.   Left only with our words – can these at least be harmless?  No, since by our words we are found guilty, and we will be accountable for every word we have spoken as Matthew tells us (Matthew 12:36).  God demands holiness (Peter 1:16).  The bar is set high, and we just cannot jump high enough to meet it.  

By our thoughts and by our words, and by our deeds, we are guilty.  From there it does not get any better, but worse.  For our sins have done more, much more than merely mark as out as sinful failures.  Our sins place us fair and square in the middle of the council of the Sanhedrin and in friendship with Pilate.  For do our sins not ultimately seek a way to put Jesus to death – after all sin demands that we place ourselves over God.   It demands an undoing by means large or small of that which is true. It demands that we turn away from Jesus himself and to put him behind us – out of sight and out of mind. But can it get worse than that?   

It can.  For while we live as sinners we can pretend for the sake of our neighbor and for ourselves that we are whole, entire, good, and righteous; hiding or explaining away our treachery.    

This is the ugly truth; a truth hard to face.   And here we would remain, helpless despite hoping or thinking that we are OK, or that we can help ourselves, or that we are good enough.  Here we would remain with our prideful thoughts.  

To know the truth of the ugliness of our sin. To know the real and eternal results of our missteps in thought, word, and deed we look at the cross.  That is what sin demands and always ends with – death - the extinguishing of life and all light….  So where do we go from here? 

The whole movement of Marks’ Gospel is to tell the Christian community who Jesus is – the one beloved Son of God.  And that his mission was singular – to rescue humanity from sin of thought, word, and deed, and from the resulting darkness, by the sacrifice of his life.   The truth the gospel teaches is, that which we cannot do for ourselves is done for us.  Jesus’s desire unto death is to gather us up and gather us in.  That is his mission, that is his objective, to gather us up and gather us in.   

So, get up, cheer up, for the master is calling you.  Let us rise and leave this place.  Let us leave those who are amongst the Sanhedrin and those that seek the death of our one savior.  Let us rise and pick up our palms and join the rejoicing crowds and welcome our King; the one riding humbly on a colt.  Let us sing hosanna, and shout that blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.    And let us follow him.  Follow him to the cross where our failings, our sins, our missteps, in thought, word and deed are firmly nailed, eternally fixed and forever undone.  Let us go with him now to the cross and pass, by way of the cross, as if through a doorway, to the path, the only path that leads to forgiveness, to wholeness, and to new life.   

Deacon Peter Bujwid 
Saint Agnes, Arlington, MA.  
March 24, 2024