Easter Garden
Images of resurrection
May 3-5, 2024
St John’s Cathedral, Jacksonville with Canon Susanna Gunner
Friday, 3 May
6 - 9
Social Hour and Dinner at St. John’s Cathedral followed by Susanna’s introductory address
Taliaferro Hall
256 East Church Street, Jacksonville, FL 32202
Saturday, 4 May
9 - 3
Over three sessions, we will search for resurrection hope in our own lives, in the world around us and in creation itself. We will eat lunch together and the day will culminate with the making of our own Easter Gardens.
St. John’s Cathedral
Taliaferro Hall
Sunday, 5 May
8 – 9
Holy Eucharist
Preacher: Canon Susanna Gunner
9 – 10:15
Dean’s Forum
Dean Kate and Susanna in conversation
10:30 – 11:30
Holy Eucharist
Preacher: Canon Susanna Gunner
Signs
Some sentences leap out of the Big Black Book like friends:
‘Supposing him to be the gardener… ’ ‘Did not our hearts burn within us?’
‘Come and have breakfast’ … Divine ends
dressed in the everyday: gardener, lover, cook, standing in for God, the Truth not far away but near as breath: fruit, fire and charcoaled fish holding the Word. Piers Plowright 1937-2021
The place where we are right
From the place where we are right, flowers will never grow in the spring.
The place where we are right is hard and trampled like a yard.
But doubt and loves dig up the world, like a mole, a plough.
And a whisper will be heard in the place where the ruined house once stood.
Yehuda Amichai 1924-2000
Mary Magdalene encounters the risen Jesus (John 20.1-18)
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed.
2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’
3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb.
4The two were running together, but the other disciple out-ran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
10Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.
13They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’
14When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’
16Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher).
17Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
O unfamiliar God, we seek you in the places you have already left, and fail to see you even when you stand before us. Grant us so to recognise your strangeness that we need not cling to our familiar grief, but may be freed to proclaim resurrection in the name of Christ, Amen Janet Morley: All Desires Known
O God, sometimes, even though we have come to find you, our souls wander in lostness.
We stand so close to you but do not know you. We stretch out our longing hands towards you, but do not find you.
Be revealed to us this Eastertide in the risen Christ. Be known to us in the holy power of transformation, in the miracle of life emerging from death. Amen
ALL:
God of all our growing, take our roots down deep in the long, dark winter season of our grief.
Nurture the resurrection life in us, in the secret places of the soil, in the barren, frozen earth, underground, where no eye can see.
Send your Spirit where the cold season rages and speak to us the promise of spring.
Amen Nicola SleeThe Road to Emmaus (Luke 24.13-35)
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in
Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.”
Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are & how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things before entering his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up & returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road & how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Risen Christ, on the road to Emmaus, your presence brought excitement out of dashed hopes, fresh energy out of weary fear and deep joy out of sadness: as you walk lovingly alongside us in a bruised and broken world, open our eyes to recognise you journeying with us, and set our hearts on fire with love for you. Amen
Cry with us
This is a season of weeping and mourning, but it is not void of hope.
Our tears are the bridge between brutality and humanity.
Our tears are the salty gates for seeing a different reality.
Our tears are facing soulless nations and a parched mentality.
Our tears are the dam preventing rivers of animosity.
For the sake of the mourning men, cry with us to reflect your amity.
For the sake of the poor children, cry with us demanding sanity.
For the sake of lamenting mothers, refuse violence and stupidity.
Love your enemies and cry with them is the advice of divinity.
Blessing those who curse is the path to genuine spirituality.
Pouring tears of mercy and compassion is true piety.
Pray with tears, for the sake of spreading equity.
Followers of Jesus: crying is now our responsibility.
But don’t cry for your friends only; but also for your Enemy.
Yohanna Katanacho
At the lakeside (John 21. 1-14)
After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he had taken it off, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them, and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them and did the same with the fish. This was now the 3rd time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
Because we have not made our lives to fit our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded, the streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope then to belong to your place by your own knowledge of what it is that no other place is, and by your caring for it as you care for no other place, this place that you belong to though it is not yours, for it was from the beginning and will be to the end. …
Speak to your fellow humans as your place has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you. Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it before they had heard a radio. Speak publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.
Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up from the pages of books and from your own heart. Be still and listen to the voices that belong to the streambanks and the trees and the open fields. There are songs and sayings that belong to this place, by which it speaks for itself and no other.
Wendell Berry Poem VIHope imagines the future and then acts as if that future is irresistible.
Walter Wink"The climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change… Even more than hope, we need action. Once we start to act, hope is everywhere.”
Greta Thunberg
We exist for the sake of each other: Jacob Lawrence, 1958
I embrace the world this morning, hold her in my arms in a long moment and decide never to let her go, never to return to safety, never to say, ‘It’s none of my business.’ It is.
Maybe there should be a ritual when we come of age, when we’re old enough to respond, ‘I do’, to the most crucial question: ‘Do you love this world?’ Perhaps that will be the final question: ‘Have you truly, deeply, faithfully loved this world?’
Carol Bialock 1929-2020
i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes. (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth day of life and love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any lifted from the no of all nothing human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened) e. e. cummings
We listen to Eric Whitacre’s setting of the poem above…
Concluding worship
Christ our life, you are alive in the beauty of the earth in the rhythm of the seasons in the mystery of time and space
Alleluia
Christ our life, you are alive in the tenderness of touch in the heartbeat of intimacy in the insights of solitude
Alleluia
Christ our life, you are alive in the creative possibility of the dullest conversation the dreariest task the most threatening event
Alleluia
Christ our life, you are alive to offer re-creation to every unhealed hurt to every deadened place to every damaged heart
Alleluia
You set before us a great choice Therefore we choose life. The dance of resurrection soars and surges through the whole creation. It sets gifts of bread and wine upon the table. This is grace, dying we live. So let us live in your life, always.
The Christ candle is lit…
…and silence is kept
Mary, weep not, weep no longer Now thy heart
hath gained its goal; Here in truth
the Gardener standeth, But the Gardener of thy soul, Who within thy spirit’s garden by his love hath made thee whole.
Philippe de Grève
The long day stretched into night and time crept onward toward the new day.
With the first gold of dawn came a resurrection, a new hope that grew with the rising sun, and went out to a waiting world
Jean Murdoch
We listen to “Sunrise” from Haydn’s oratorio “Creation” …
The deadness of winter has been overcome by him who is our most holy Spring
All: Christ is risen!
The deadness of the tomb has been overcome by Love who springs eternally forth to new life
All: Christ is risen!
The deadness of our hearts has been overcome by Love who quickens and cherishes us unconditionally
All: Christ is risen!
It is the truth. Christ is risen! The light of God burns in the world in warmth and beauty and in loving-kindness. The truth of God is never defeated as justice spreads its wings in hope. Christ is never destroyed by our deaths of doubt, but springs forth again in every generation. This we believe, this is our faith, for we have seen the life of Christ in our midst.
The peace of the risen Lord be always with you
All: and also with you. (We share a sign of peace with others)
May we go in risen life, and find this life rising within us, within our homes and communities and spreading across the universe, as God goes on recreating all that is, in every age and every place.
May the endless re-creating God fill you with hope; may Christ crucified and risen transform you daily; and may the Spirit heal and help you to be open to Life in all its fullness.
Amen