The Chapel of Dismas The Repentant
Sinner
A place where we know that the church of Jesus is an evolving, transforming and
liberating clinic for sinners and not a museum for the self righteous
AA 5/38-40 Lk.23 42-44
We live in challenging times. The great non-violent revolutionary Gandhi identified the seven deadly sins as: politics without principle, wealth without work, commerce without morality, pleasure without conscience, education without character, science without humanity and worship without sacrifice. It is safe to conclude that all seven of these conditions are pervasive in our culture. . Peace evades us and tranquility shuns us .We have conquered the atom but not our prejudices. We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We love too seldom and hate far too often. We are a society polluted with fears, self-appointed victims and a very self-destructive sense of pride and arrogance. It appears that we are a society waiting for change and anticipating consolation. We are searching for answers, conversion and liberation
These cold hectic days preceding the celebration of the birth of the Liberator of Mankind has been designated as a period of waiting and anticipation. The ancient and eternally relevant message of the prophets and the Baptist is repent and be prepared for your salvation....
During these days of anticipation and expectation certain questions become quite pertinent. What are we expecting? For whom are we waiting? Who is the source of your expectancy? Are you hopeful or anxious about what is to come?
We are not anticipating the sweet little Jesus boy of the black spirituals. The liberator of mankind will never again occupy a human womb. The miracle of the incarnation need never repeat itself. We are anticipating the final coming of the Lord of the Universe, the Judge of the living and the dead. Just as surely as he once humbled himself to share in our humanity, Jesus will return. The first time He arrived as a weak dependent, insignificant infant born in poverty Two thousand years ago he came to us as a humble member of a small, politically powerless, oppressed nation on the periphery of the Roman Empire. When he returns, he will appear as the Glorified Lord of the Universe. During the course of his earthly ministry, He permitted His father’s chosen people to put him on trial for anarchy and sedition against the religio-political-social establishment. Two thousand years ago, those He came to save executed Him as a rabble-rouser and a political criminal but the next time he comes all creation will stand in judgment before Him.
We believe that this world that we know and enjoy will one day cease to exist and on that final day the only thing remaining that would have been made by us creatures will be the scars on the sacred body of the savior. This belief that Jesus is returning to judge us is one of the most ancient dogmas of our faith. We know that our Savior is returning, simply because the God- man himself who can neither deceive nor be deceived has assured us that he will return to judge us
As Christian we believe that on the other side of our final breath each of us will have a very personal encounter with Jesus. That meeting will determine how we spend eternity. This imminent meeting with the Judge of the living and the dead may be precipitated by our individual demise or by the final coming of our Blessed Savior. No one knows which will come first. We have absolutely no way of predicting when we will be called before the judgment throne of Christ. But let me assure you that no one has been guaranteed the opportunity to celebrate Christmas 2004.
While none of us can predict when we will encounter Christ the Judge, we can and must prepare for that meeting. If Jesus came this evening, as he very well may, would you be ashamed to meet your savior? Worst yet would you be terrified to meet your judge? If you were called before the throne of judgment today would your judgment be a catastrophe or would it be the fulfillment of all your hopes and expectations? If sister death escorted you form this life tonight what would Jesus say to you? Will He say;” Well done good and faithful servants enter into the kingdom that I have prepared for you from all eternity?” Or will the Liberator of humanity tell you to go to hell? Now throughout my life many people have told me to go to hell, perhaps the immense amounts of times I have heard those words should lead me to reflect upon my interactions with others but the one person I do not want to hear those words from is Jesus of Nazareth.
The greatest joy that any of us could ever experience would be that when you encounter Jesus, on the other side of your last breath, we would hear the words that the Master spoke to Dismas. “On this very day you will be with me in paradise.”
In preparing for this encounter with the Lord Jesus we must remove from our hearts and our conduct any attitude or behavior that is offensive to the Lord God. The one single word that best describes what we must do prepare for the coming of Jesus is repent.
When we stand before the judgment throne we must be found possessing nothing but faith in Jesus and a demonstrated history compliance with his gospel of love, compassion and justice. Therefore it is to our eternal benefit that we encounter Jesus as Savior before we meet him as judge. We must admit that we are sinners. Only the humble sinner has a need for a savior. Than we must ask the Liberator to grant us the grace of conversion and the grace to live the type of life He demands of us.
In light of the total unpredictability of the date of our judgment day each of us must embrace every opportunity to seek God’s mercy and reconciliation. Who among us actually believes that they have the luxury of postponing their preparation for their judgment? Today I encourage each member of our community to reflect upon our pending judgment, take a personal spiritual inventory of your behaviors and attitudes and make the extra effort to seek peace and reconciliation with the Father of All Mercies. Ask yourself! Have I been compliant with the very specific and uncompromising demands of the gospel of love, justice and peace?
.
Each of us has been called from the womb to be seekers and lovers of the Living God. The Infinite and Intimate Most High God must be the source and goal of all our behaviors, thoughts and actions. We are called to love the Omnipresent, Omniscient God of Majesty and Might with every single fiber of our being. This is the essence of our vocations as disciples of the Liberator.
We must also have a healthy reverential fear of the Immortal Holy One. The question posed by our patron Dismas from Golgotha “Have you know fear of God at all (Lk 23/40) is an eternally relevant question... Our God is indeed a God of Mercy and for that I am eternally grateful but we must never take His mercy for granted or forget for a second that He is also a God of Justice. God must be feared simply because he is the Almighty, Incomprehensible Creator of the Universe, and The Source of All Reality. He must be loved because in the flesh and bones of the first century Palestinian Yeshua, .The Wholly Other, the Unapproachable Unique Source of all Being has made himself our God. Yahweh is now Emmanuel. Think about that for a moment. In the incomprehensible miracle of the Incarnation, the fullness of the Immortal and Immutable God of Mercy, Justice, and Power resides in the flesh, bones, and muscles of the first century Palestinian political criminal Jesus of Nazareth. Through the marvelous miracle of the Incarnation that we are about to celebrate, The All Holy One, the Unapproachable Source of all reality has become Emmanuel that is God with Us.
The God Man Jesus of Nazareth must become the single most important person in our lives. He makes it very clear that if you love anyone more than you love Him than you are not worthy of Him. (Mt.10/37). Now you might say: Well he really doesn’t mean that I have to love Him more than my spouse, children or grandchildren? Well I think that is exactly what he means. God and his Christ must become the love of our lives.
Jesus the Liberator confronts each of us with a very clear choice; to be for Him or against Him. We are challenged to accept His gospel of justice or to be scandalized by it. We are invited to embrace His ministry of service or to walk away from it. The choice is always ours. He will never impose his will upon us.
But if we seek the grace of the Jealous and Immortal God to follow His demand for an uncompromising and unconditional love than He will give us the divine assistance that will enable us to become the type of spouse, parents, sibling grandparents and citizens that He wants us to be. Remember these are not my words or speculations but the words and promises of the Omniscient God.
But the sacred scriptures remind us that if we say that we love God who we cannot see but yet refuse to love our visible brothers and sisters than we are liars. It doesn’t say that we are mistaken or misinformed it says we are liars. We have a divine mandate to love those with whom we share this planet. Keep in mind your primary neighbors are your spouse and your children. You must treat your spouse and your children; despite their annoying, demanding and unappreciative behaviors the way the historical Jesus would have treated them. Furthermore, this Christ like love must be manifested to your extended families. Yes that does include your critical and whinny in laws.
This mandate to love must extend beyond our families, we like Jesus must reach out to the marginized, the despised and the rejected. The Savior was a rabble rouser who offended the establishment. No matter how hard the religious right may try, no degree of exegeses can alter that fact. The most offensive characteristic of the Nazarene was that he elected to become involved with those who were labeled as moral failures, misfits and degenerates. His congregation was made up of the irreligious and immoral people who were politically and ethically suspect by the vast majority of good God fearing people. His following consisted of the obscure, abandoned and hopeless that existed on the fringe of first century Judea... He lived among and ministered to .the outlaws, the lawless members of Palestinian society who were judged to be without religion, morals, value. or merit The Nazarene came to call, serve and save those members of His society who the righteous religious people would point their fingers of scorn and try to dissociate themselves from. We who bear the precious name of Christian must seek to imitate Him and reach out to the marginized. We must encounter them, experience their vulnerability and through our acts of love and service facilitate their reconciliation with the Father of Mercies. No one can afford the luxury of ignoring any of our siblings. To worship the liberator of mankind while we ignore the plight of those suffering constitutes the lukewarm apathy that we are told nauseates the Master. (Rev, 7/16)
As we prepare for our invertible judgment, we must avoid judging our siblings. I for one, give thanks on a daily basis that the Liberator will judge me by the content of my heart and not according to the labels that we so readily place upon each other’s. A safe rule of thumb is that we may judge only those siblings who do not have the Eternal Living God as their Creator, Liberator and Sanctifier.
The revolutionary law of love proclaimed by Blessed Jesus must go even beyond the call for social justice. Jesus himself commands us to love those we perceive as enemies as well as those who label us as their enemies. Now from personal experience, most of us realize that this is indeed the most difficult demand of the gospel. Let me put this way; take a moment to think about the person who has hurt you or your family the most. Have you identified that person? Now Jesus tells us that we love Him only as much as we love that person. You love the Liberator of Mankind only as much as you love your ex old man or ex old lady. You love Jesus, who will judge you, only as much as you love the most obnoxious, arrogant vile person that you know. You love Jesus only as much as you loved that person who dropped a dime on you, the last person who ripped you off, who fired you, cheated on you or told lies about you.
If we are to receive the reconciling mercy of the Lord God than we must right now seek the grace that will enable us to forgive that person who has caused us the greatest trauma in our lives? Now this is not my idea, I have far too great of a need for affirmation too ever proposed anything so radical and difficult. But it is the demand of our Blessed Savior before whom we will all one day stands in judgment
Now this demand of the gospel is so difficult that none of us can fulfill it without the assistance of divine grace. So we must ask Jesus to give us the grace that will enable us to forgive those who have hurt us. But keep in mind that Jesus never asks us to give up anything that is really worth holding on to. Think for a moment about the resentment you might be carrying with you. Who is it really hurting?
The key to loving these more challenging brothers and sisters is to imitate the compassion of the gentle savior. Compassion is nothing more than the ability to identify and empathize with the suffering and pain that is common to each and every member of our race. Think about the most obnoxious, vindictive mean person you know. Are you able to identify some pain in that person’s life? Rest assured that person is hurting, he or she may be very good at masking the pain, dealing with it or even projecting it upon others but if they are breathing than they too are in need of the liberating healing grace of the Lord Jesus. When I focus upon the gifts or talents of others I become envious. When I focus upon their weaknesses I become critical. But when I focus upon their pain I become Christ -like and my siblings become much easier to serve and love.
But there is yet another component of the Gospel o Love and that is the mandate for healthy love of self. Each of us must recognize that we have an innate dignity simply because the Living God Himself has elected to love us as Creator, Savior and Sanctifier. Often in this community of faith, we discussed what it means to have Jesus as a personal savior. Be mindful that such an act of divine love and mercy must be perceived as a verification of our innate worth. In light of your intrinsic value as a precious child of the Most High God. We must avoid those behaviors and attitudes, which have the potential to be self-destructive or to alienate us from the mercy of such a Loving Savior. No member of this sacred congregation has the vocation to be a helpless hopeless victim. If any member of this community is tolerating abuse, exploitation or manipulation for any reason other the name and gospel of Blessed Jesus than you are not fulfilling the great revolutionary law to love your God and your neighbor as yourself. Remember there are three and not simply two components of that great commandment.
On the other hand we must avoid any trace of self-destructive egotism or arrogance. We must remember that on our very best day, we remain sinners in desperate need of the Savior’s mercy and grace.
God is calling each of us to live a life of holiness, moral goodness and love. We must respond to this call to holiness through prayer; scripture study and frequent fellowship.
We must strive to nourish the gift of faith on a daily basis. We must give witness through our words and action that Jesus is alive and active in our lives. And we must be willing to give generously of our time, talent and resources to further the kingdom of God.
There is one more thing we can do to prepare for the coming of our blessed savior and that is to imitate John the Baptist and prepare others for the arrival of the Lord.
I am certain that everyone in this community knows at least one person who has abandoned the God of their childhood or who has never known the love of our Merciful God. I encourage you to reach out to that person and invite them to prepare for the Lord. Pray that they will return to Him... Invite them to this community of faith where everyone is welcome.
Can you think of a better Christmas gift for anyone than to give him or her opportunity to prepare themselves for their final encounter with Jesus the Lord?
Would it not be wonderful to stand before the judgment seat of the Lord and be able to say, yes Lord I made mistakes during my earthly pilgrimage but I was reconciled with you and yes Lord I shared your good news and brought someone back to You? If there is one characteristic that describes this faith community, (besides the fact that we have the most colorful names of any faith community it is safe to assume that no other faith community has elders names Snake, Pimp and Pagan) it would be fearlessness. You are men and woman who have confronted and overcame your fears. Use that God given courage. Today go tell someone about Jesus and what he has done for you. Prepare for your judgment by bringing at least one person to the Liberator who has done so very much for you. My prayer and hope is that each week, one of you can bring just one new person to our faith community. See despite the allegations of our detractors, I have no grandiose plan for this community. Bring just one new member each week and the Spirit of the Living God will take care of the rest.
Our days are numbered. Now neither I nor any one else can tell you the exact number of days that you have left before you meet Christ the Judge. But do not procrastinate any longer. Repent and believe the good news. Prepare for the coming on the Lord.
In the cathedral at Vilnius Lithuania, there is a magnificent stature of Christ the Judge and at he base of the stature is the following inscription, Thus speaks Jesus to all who pass by, You call me Lord but do not follow me, You call me God but do not obey me you call Savior but do not trust me. When I condemn you do not blame me.
To Jesus are all honors, praise and glory both now and forevermore.
12/11/2004
