4 Pentecost, 2025-C: Essential humility

Lectionary: 2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

En el nombre del unico Dios, santo y vivo. In the name of the one, holy, and living God. Amen. 

Our readings today highlight how essential humility is for us as followers of Jesus. We begin with one of my favorite OT stories, the healing of Naaman.

Naaman is a privileged and powerful military commander who has leprosy, a disease that slowly eats away at a person. When the leprosy progresses, he’ll lose his position of power because in those days, a person with leprosy was exiled in order to keep the disease from spreading. Leprosy was thought to be punishment for sin, so not only were they exiled, they were also shamed and blamed.

Hearing about Naaman’s condition, a young Israelite slave girl (notice the vulnerability in each of those descriptors: young, Jewish, slave, female) who served Naaman’s wife offers some advice: Why doesn’t Naaman go see the prophet of God in Samaria? He could cure him.

So the King of Aram sends his military commander to find this prophet, carrying with him lots of expensive gifts. Naaman announces his importance by arriving with military pageantry. But Elisha doesn’t even come out to greet him. Instead, he sends a lowly messenger to tell Naaman to go and wash in the River Jordan seven times.

Naaman is highly insulted and angry. ‘That’s it? I thought the prophet and his God would put on a great show of healing magic because – well, it’s me! And why would I go to the Jordan River when we have all the best rivers in Aram.

It isn’t until Naaman humbles himself that he’s healed. In that moment, power is redefined for all who read this story and have ears to hear it.

The unnamed slave girl in this story exemplifies what Jesus is teaching his followers about being laborers for God’s harvest. She notices Naaman’s weakness and tends to him. His physical weakness is the skin condition, but his real weakness is spiritual: his attachment to having and wielding earthly, coercive power.

There are plenty of Naamans among us today. There always have been and probably always will be.

It’s important to note that the unnamed slave girl didn’t need to tend to Naaman. She could have let his disease progress. It’s likely that his downfall would have led to her freedom. But she was a laborer in God’s harvest, one in which every fruit, every person is worth serving.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is sending 70 followers into the harvest, but first he tells them to pray for themselves: “…ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” The reason is, prayer is where we learn and practice humility. It’s where we surrender ourselves and our wills to the will of God.

Praying before they went would help the 70 remember that it’s God’s harvest, not theirs. God has done the work: planting the seeds, growing them in the womb of the earth in secret, nourishing them, and bringing them to ripeness, ready for harvesting.

They are sent two by two - because we don’t do the work of God alone. We also don’t carry expensive gifts as Naaman did. We carry only the peace of Christ, which unleashes God’s powerful, redeeming love into the world.

Jesus sent the 70 to share his peace with everyone they meet – everyone, that is, who will receive it - because some won’t. When that happens, Jesus tells them to shake it off, as Taylor Swift would say, and walk away, allowing God to work that reconciliation another way at another time. What happens to those who refuse Christ’s peace is God’s business, not theirs, but do tell them, Jesus says, that the kingdom of God has come near to them.

In Galatians, this point is taken even further. Paul talks about those living outside the love of God as lost, and teaches us that when we find someone who is lost, we “who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.”

Followers of Jesus must never be tempted to violence, coercion, or contempt. We must, instead, always remain open to the grace of the Holy Spirit, because by that grace we will not only remain devoted to God, but our unity and tenderness for one another, even those who challenge us, will be complete, and in that completeness God’s love restores them.

When they returned, the 70 were excited to tell Jesus about what happened: “In your name even the demons submit to us!” When we hear that, we often think of otherworldly beings who tempt, damage, or possess humans. But demons are also humans who are fierce and skilled in making their evil, selfish, destructive plans succeed – usually by coercive means.

Even these demons submitted to the peace of Christ brought by the 70 followers. In response, Jesus cautions them to remember that it is the unity of their spirits with God’s Spirit and their wills with the will of God, they should celebrate, not a newfound power over anyone or anything. That power belongs to God alone.

“Do not be deceived,” Paul says in Galatians, for “God is not mocked.” In other words, you can’t claim God’s power as your own. “If you sow to your own flesh,” what you will reap will be your own corruption. 19th century historian and moralist Lord Acton said it like this (I think you’ll find this familiar): "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

Jesus calls them wolves and instructs the 70 to go out like lambs among those wolves. We don’t need to be powerful. We need to be humble, remembering that any power we carry into the world belongs to the Lord of the harvest, and God’s power doesn’t destroy – it transforms, reconciles, and re-creates. Therefore, we don’t grow weary in doing what is right, and whenever we have the opportunity, we work for the good of all. “All, all, all, all, all” as Archbishop Desmond Tutu said.

Being lambs among wolves feels rather appropriate right now, doesn’t it? When modern day demons are working to destroy the vulnerable among us, we want to fight back, by pushing against their power with our own, but that will get us nowhere. We need to be like the 70 Jesus sent out carrying nothing but his peace. The demons submitted then, and they will submit now.

Do we trust that?

It’s hard to be humble in the face of violent power, but thankfully, Jesus modeled that for us too - at his trial before Pontius Pilate. What followed next, his crucifixion, seemed like the end of hope, but it was, in fact, the doorway to a new life – resurrection life in Jesus.

Do we trust that?

Our task right now is to learn and practice humility together. In order to do that, we need to consider how we understand humility. Humility comes from the Latin word humus which means grounded… from the earth. When we are humble, we are grounded in our faith and self-aware.

Humility is not self-deprecating - quite the opposite. Humility is an appreciation of our gifts and talents in relationship to God by whose grace we have them. In humility, we remember that we are from the earth, created and sent by God with a divine purpose to complete during our time on earth.

And what is that purpose? To be devoted to God with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection, bearing one another’s burdens with gentleness, and tirelessly co-creating a world where all of God’s beloveds know they are valued and will be cared for. A world where everyone’s sackcloth is turned into joy.

Then we, the ones God is sending in our time, will praise God without ceasing, giving thanks forever for God’s grace, mercy, love, and faith in us to serve. Amen.

Pentecost, 2025-C: Continuing prophetic witness

Lectionary: Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104:25-35, 37; Romans 8:14-17; John 14:8-17

 

Last week, the clergy of our convocation gathered at Emmanuel for a Clericus (which simply means a gathering of clergy), led by our bishop. Among the many concerns we discussed were the issues of serving victims of the tornado in the long haul given FEMA aid remains unattained and among reports that folks in some zip codes are being refused insurance referrals for construction help, inaugurating a modern form of redlining.

We also discussed serving vulnerable populations like people of color, LGBTQIA2S+ folks, and immigrants. Our bishop is, as you know, an immigrant himself. He is also a black, married gay man, making him a member of several vulnerable populations currently under fire in this cultural moment. He is married to a hispanic immigrant, and their family has already suffered from the arbitrary interpretation and enforcement of immigration law.

This led us to a discussion about the need for churches to be prophetic. Those of us who can must speak out on behalf of those who can’t, those who are being silenced, disappeared, ambushed, and dismissed to the margins.

Bp. Deon wisely reminded us that being prophetic doesn’t always require doing something flashy, but consistently doing the small things that demonstrate the truth we hold as Episcopalians.

And what is that truth? We can find it in our Baptismal vows on page 304 in the BCP: to gather and break bread together, prayerfully nourishing the bonds of our community of faith so that we can proclaim by our words and our lives the Good News we know; to persevere in resisting evil and repent, that is, return to God, whenever we sin; and to seek and serve Christ in ALL persons, respecting their dignity as we strive for God’s justice and peace. No small task.

There are two things we need to accomplish this: God and each other. Every Sunday we celebrate the love of God that binds us as a community of faith. We nurture ourselves with the spiritual food of Scripture and Holy Communion. Today, on the Feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the truth that we have God in us – individually and communally.

The story of the first Pentecost found in the Book of Acts is a familiar one, as are the images associated with it – the small tongues of fire emanating from the dove-like Holy Spirit, hovering over the heads of the gathered faithful. We imagine those same tongues of fire hovering over our own heads. To embody that, we wave a dove over us during our opening procession.

Fire, as you have often heard me say, is Bible-talk for the presence of God. The tongues of fire are small bits of the Almighty Themself, being given to imperfect, unfinished humans, who are motivated and equipped to serve by that very presence of God that rests on them.

Our remembrance of this event each liturgical year is an opportunity for us to reopen our awareness to the truth that God is co-existing with us and what that means. These tiny pieces in each of us, when taken together, become a powerful force for love, a prophetic, revelatory vision of the living God. We become more together than any of us can be alone. This is church.

Whatever gifts we have, individually and as a community, are evidence of the presence of God within us. One of our responsibilities as a church community is to be the place where each person's gifts are discovered and nurtured. We then discern what our collective gifts are so that we can use them to serve the world according to God’s purpose and plan for us.

Our churches also work together in community, which for us, is the Diocese of Missouri. All of us serving God synergistically - better and more faithfully than any one of us can serve alone – and we have plenty to do.

In Scripture, we learn that it didn’t take long for some of those disciples upon whom the spirit of God descended to be edged out to the margins of the community once again. As the fledgling church began to form its institutional identity the new wine of this Pentecost reality was shoved back into the old skins of the Jewish temple system, edging women, slaves, the poor, and others right back to the “outer courts” of the community. The doors that Jesus had flung open began to close, and that initial institutional system evolved into the one we have today, a system that continues to reflect an ancient ethnic and patriarchal advantage.

In the novel, “The Healing” by Jonathan O’Dell, set on a cotton plantation in pre-Civil War Mississippi, a young slave girl named Granada is apprenticed to a mixed-race, midwife and healer named Mother Polly. Mother Polly was purchased by the master to intervene in the cholera epidemic, which was wiping out his “stock” of slaves. Knowing abolition was on the horizon, the master wanted to treat his slaves well enough so that when freedom became an option, they’d have no need of it – a condition Mother Polly called being “freedom stupid.”

When Granada complained to Mother Polly that she didn’t want to leave the plantation to go to freedom-land, she asked, “Where was it, anyway?” It isn’t a place, Mother Polly told her, it’s a way of being.

This story is such a great metaphor for the church. Church isn’t a place. It’s a way of being. We don’t go to church. We are the church, the body of Christ in the world.

In the reading from Acts, Peter quotes the prophet Joel who declares God’s intention to pour out Their divine Spirit onto ALL flesh: sons and daughters, men and women, old and young, slave and free. This is that time, Peter proclaims. Emmanuel family, I proclaim to you now, this is still that time because God is still redeeming. God is always redeeming.

Like young Granada, however, so many in the church, unable to comprehend the magnitude of the freedom of God’s spirit and trust its power to transform us, our community, and even the world, choose to be “salvation stupid,” turning away and choosing to fall back into a spirit of fear as St. Paul said.

We look back at the pre-Civil War era and wonder how Christians could ever have believed that kidnapping and enslaving humans, snatching babies from their mother’s breasts, and children from their innocence; working people to near exhaustion, and killing them as if they weren’t humans, was in any way in keeping with Jesus’ commandments to love. Looking at our current news reports leads me to wonder the same thing about us today.

Thankfully, God is still redeeming. God is always redeeming until “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” God continually sends forth God’s own Spirit to create and re-create the world; and God has chosen us as partners in this work, making manifest on earth the eternal truth that God is love, and we ALL are God’s beloveds.

This is a tremendous gift, one that often overwhelms us, but when we gather together, the bits of God’s Spirit in each of us unites with the bits of God’s spirit in all of us, and the fullness of God is made manifest through us on the earth.

Even with all our imperfections, we can, by the grace and Spirit of God, be prophetic and revelatory of the loving God we serve in small and big ways. One small way we are doing this is the display of PRIDE flags on our church property. We used to have one flag on a pole next to a metal sign out front. That flag was stolen, and our pole was destroyed. In response, we screwed PRIDE flags onto the two metal signs on our property that are awaiting refurbishment. Those signs will soon have permanent PRIDE flags as a continuing, prophetic witness to our love for our LGBTQIA2S+ siblings in Christ.

Happy birthday to the church in our continual becoming... and Happy PRIDE Month. Amen.

Fst of the Ascension & Wear Orange Sunday, 2025: The unitive community of God

Lectionary: Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53

 

En el nombre de Dios, nuestra vida, nuestra protección, y nuestra paz… In the name of God, our life, our protection, and our peace. Amen. 

The confluence of the Feast of the Ascension and Wear Orange Sunday may seem odd at first. It did to me - until I listened for the Spirit and realized that the need for Wear Orange Sunday is a consequence of the spiritual issue raised in the Feast of the Ascension. I’ll explain…

We often approach this story of the ascension like a movie. In this movie, we see the disciples hanging out with post-resurrection Jesus on the beach (which is from John, btw, not Luke). Jesus is demonstrating that he is real by eating with them. Everyone knows that ghosts can’t eat fish.

As they dine, Jesus reminds them that John the Baptist told them that Jesus would baptize them with the Spirit and fire, and Jesus says this would happen for them in just a few days. Then he commissions them as witnesses of all these things, instructing them to stay together until the Holy Spirit of God acts again, empowering them.

Then he blesses them and is carried up by a cloud into heaven. Two men in white (presumably angels) appear and ask the disciples why they are staring up toward heaven. They tell the disciples that Jesus, who “has been separated from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

Ever since, we’ve been waiting for Jesus to float back down from heaven on a cloud and fix (or end) the world once and for all.

End of movie. Sound about right?

The thing is, the Scripture tells a very different story - a story that is harder to tell, so we simplified it, combining bits of Scripture with explanations that made sense. Then we began to believe that this simplified version was the real story.

The real story in Scripture is about how Almighty God, who is Trinity in Unity, guided the disciples in their journey of faith; a journey that led them from fear to great joy; from the darkness of their limited human understanding to enlightened hearts.

It’s the same journey we’re on now, so this matters. Let’s retell this story with a little more context from Luke, without simplifying it.

Jesus has died, and the last everyone knew, he was in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Then the women come and announce that the tomb is empty, but the disciples didn’t believe the women, calling their proclamation an idle tale.

Then two of the disciples head out on the road to Emmaus, where they encounter the risen Christ. They don’t know it’s him until he breaks bread with them. Afterwards, they remembered how their hearts were on fire as he opened their minds to understand Scripture.

Next, these two find the eleven and as they’re telling them of their experience with the risen Christ, Jesus appears to them all and invites them to touch him, “for a ghost does not have flesh and bones.” The disciples were at once disbelieving and still wondering, so meeting them where they are, Jesus says to them, "Have you anything… to eat?" This is where today’s gospel picks up the story.

Jesus reminds the disciples of his earlier teaching that everything in the law of Moses must be fulfilled. Jesus opens their minds to understand how he is the fulfillment, and commissions them to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sin in his name, starting in Jerusalem and going out to the whole world.

He tells them to stay together during this liminal time, until they are “clothed with power from on high.” I love the definition from the Greek of the word “power” as it is used here. It is “the ability to effect all the purposes of rectitude and wisdom.” How’s that?!

This promised power that God will place within us, around and over us, will be evident to others - like clothing that identifies the work of its wearer. This power will be the ability to bring about God’s intent through righteousness (that is, right relationship with God and others); with experience, knowledge, and judgment that proceeds from our unitive relationship with God, a relationship of common purpose and action.

Then Jesus blesses them and is carried up into heaven, but he did not float out of their sight. The original Greek says that while he was blessing them, he was offered up, the way a sacrifice is lifted up and placed on an altar, bearing their sins by imputation.

“Heaven” in Greek means sky, but it also means “the dwelling place of God,” and it includes the entire cosmos, heaven, earth, and all that there is. It isn’t a location being described, it’s an expanded understanding: God who is all in all.

And they worshipped him - a startling statement, because only God is worshipped. This means that the new understanding given to them by God is that Jesus isn’t just a really great rabbi and teacher. He’s a divine reality, God Incarnate, who brings salvation by the forgiveness of sin and reconciliation to God. This new understanding filled them with so much joy, they couldn’t stop praising God together in their community of faith.

This is the end of the gospel version, but Luke tells the story again in the first chapter of Acts to the non-specified “Theophilus,” which means “friend of God,” filling in some details. For example, in the Acts story, Luke says Jesus reminded them of his teaching that they would be baptized with fire, which would happen just a few days from then. Fire, of course, is Bible-talk for the presence of God, and this points to Pentecost.

The disciples ask Jesus, When are you going to fix this and restore the kingdom of Israel? Knowing that they still are unable to perceive the bigger picture that salvation is for the whole world for all time, and not just for them in this moment in their history, Jesus responds by telling them they can’t know the seasons of the movement of the plan of God. That is beyond human ability.

But they will be given power when the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, comes upon them, literally breathes on them, empowering them to be Jesus’ witnesses, proclaiming repentance and the forgiveness of sin in his name, starting in Jerusalem and going out to the whole world.

As Jesus said this, he was lifted up and this time, a cloud took him from their sight. A cloud symbolizes divine action that is beyond human understanding. Luke is saying that the disciples’ current understanding of Jesus, was taken from them by divine action, and a new, deeper, broader understanding was about to be given them.

So, the Scriptural story of the Ascension is about the disciples on whom God acted, bringing them to a deeper, divinely inspired understanding of Jesus, our Scripture, and their common purpose with God. We are now, as they were then, endued with this same power by the Holy Spirit.

How does all this tie into Wear Orange Sunday? Our current society seems to be in a continual state of fear and anxiety. Guns represent, to some, the ability to control one’s life and protect oneself, and we want unfettered access to these. I will survive, even if I have to kill you.

But when we are in the unitive relationship with God in Christ established by Jesus at his Ascension, our minds are opened and our hearts are enlightened, so we know we have a common purpose with God. We know that we are not alone and are protected by God.

We hear Jesus’ continual reminder: “Do not be afraid. Do not let your hearts be troubled.” We live as part of the unitive community of God, a community of all nations and peoples, so we don’t need to protect ourselves at the expense of another member of the community of God.

Every single experience we have on this earth enables us to continue to invite God to open our minds and enlighten our hearts even more, further empowering us to trust and participate in the bigger picture of God’s loving plan of reconciliation for the whole world. We can, therefore, stop worrying about ourselves, our survival, and our present moment in history.

Instead, we can get on with our work: witnessing the love of Christ by our words and our lives; living in a community that is expanded to include all whom God has made, just as God made them; praising God continually together, and knowing by faith, not by human understanding, that God’s judgment is forgiveness and reconciliation through Jesus Christ.

When we share that good news in the world, we make space for others to accept God’s forgiveness, healing, change the course of their lives, and live as one with us in the unitive community of God. Amen.

6 Easter, 2025-C: The promises of God in Christ

Lectionary: Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5; John 14:23-29

 

En el nombre de Dios, quien promete vida, paz, protección y provisión. In the name of God, who promises life, peace, protection, and provision. Amen. 

Fronn the season of Epiphany until now, we’ve been reading about the spiritual development and maturation of the disciples and connecting what we learn from them to us, for example, how each journey is unique to the journeyer, how God is steadfastly present with us, meeting us where we are and leading us to where we need to be; how our spiritual maturation is a process that is enriched and developed over time - God’s time; how we hit walls on this journey and how God leads us through them to new freedom, new understanding, and new depths of our faith.

In last week’s gospel, we saw how Peter finally got it… through a dream. Hesitant, at first, to violate a long-held habit and understanding of necessary separation, Peter responded to God’s prompting and opened himself to connect with persons previously forbidden to him. Thus began his powerful, productive life of faith and evangelism. 

In today’s gospel, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, undergoes a similar growth experience also from a dream. Paul is clear about his divine purpose. He knows he is being sent by God in Christ to carry the Good News to the Gentiles and to expand the boundaries of the family of God to include them. But as this story shows us, even knowing our divine purpose doesn’t prevent us from hitting walls. Paul went to the Roman colony mentioned in his dream. He anticipated meeting a man, but instead, he met Lydia of Thyatira, a woman - a rich, astute business woman. 

If you know Paul, you know the nature of this wall he hit. With God’s help, however, Paul responded toLydia’s eager listening of his proclamation by baptizing her entire household, making them the first European converts to Christianity. But when Lydia invited Paul to stay at her home, he hit another wall: a Jewish religious leader staying at the home of a Gentile woman…? The writer tells us Lydia prevailed upon Paul, having to persuade Paul to accept her offer of hospitality. 

In this moment, however, we understand what the writer of Revelation meant when he said, “On either side of the river [of the water of life] - the Jewish side and the Gentile side - is the tree of life,” which in the original Greek means, “collective.” The two sides are mafe one.

That’s the work of God among us, then and now. It is our work too - the work God calls us to do until the whole world is reconciled to God. We have much to do, and we do it as the church, the body of Christ in the world. 

Church is a collective enterprise. We gather not to reassure ourselves that we’re on the path to heaven after we die, but rather, to learn and grow together so that we can go into the world and BE the presence of the path to heaven, which is God in Christ. What do I mean by that? Several things: 

1 - I mean that heaven isn’t a prize we earn after we die. Heaven is the reality of the eternal God in the present moment, living in us.  Jesus said, “my Father (Note: this word is plural, meaning Father and Mother, nourisher, protector, upholder) will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. “With them”here literally means “proceeding from them.” God is in us, acting through us. That is the primary promise of this gospel story.

The one whom God promises will proceed from us is the Holy Spirit of God. Spirit means breath, in Hebrew, ruach. This same ruach that breathed life into all creation, including the first humans, continues to breathe life into us now, and through us, into the world. 

2 - I mean that our church community is meant to be a safe place for us to learn and practice how to be people through whom God acts in the world. We listen together in the circumstances we confront, for the guidance of the Holy Spirit on how we can respond, bringing God’s peace, harmony, and well-being into the world where there is fear, hatred, and distress. 

3 - I mean that as we grow in spiritual maturity in our relationship with God in Christ, we remember that the love Jesus is talking about in this gospel is agape love: a deeply committed, sacrificial love, just like he had for us. A love that led him to the cross, the tomb, and the resurrection for our sake, so that we could believe and become witnesses for him, as Peter and Paul did.

God in Christ, who has agape love for us, abides in us right now, and acts through us to bring this love to all the broken people and places in the world just as he did. Knowing how this feels from his own human experience, Jesus promises us one more thing: his peace. 

When this gospel was written, there was peace. It was known as the Pax Romana… a peace established by the strength of the Roman military, funded by oppressive taxation, and maintained through threat of punishment and the ever-presence of soldiers. This is the peace the world gives. 

Jesus is offering a totally different kind of peace. Jesus’ peace proceeds from our harmony with the eternal God who abides in us.

This peace provides a foundation of well-being, tranquility, and hope, that isn’t disturbed by any circumstances. In fact, this peace transcends all external circumstances as it lifts us continually into the loving presence of God who protects us, provides for us, and holds us close to comfort us, while the powerful love of God works to redeem those external circumstances.

When sin and conflict happen, and they will continue to happen, Jesus says, ‘Remember that I am with you, my peace is with you. So, fear not. Don’t let your hearts be troubled. I am eternally present with you. Love as I love, go where I send you, listen when I speak in your dreams or give you visions, open your eyes to see the truth around you, then work with me to transform the systems of the world that harm my beloved ones and my creation.’ 

All of this may take longer than we’d like, or look different than we’d expected, but our faith assures us that God, who always acts out of love and mercy for us and for the world, will redeem all things. That is the promise. 

So... presence, peace, patience, guidance, provision, comfort, protection, redemption, mercy, and love… these are the promises of God, and they truly do exceed all that we can ask, imagine, or desire. 

I close with a familiar prayer by American theologian and monk, Thomas Mertom. Let's pray.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. 

Amen. 

3 Easter, 2025-C: Children, have you Jesus?

Lectionary:Acts 9:1-6, (7-20); Psalm 30; Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19

The Scripture stories we share after Easter are so empowering! We can see the various ways Jesus made himself known to the disciples and began the movement that became Christianity - a movement that changed the course of human history… and continues to change it.

These stories show us the gentle but powerful transforming love of Jesus at work in our forebears in the faith and assure us that we too can be transformed, each in our own way and in God’s time.

The reading from Acts is a story of how God transforms hate to love in a single heart: from Saul to Paul. From our perspective, 2,000+ years later, we can see how much the change of a single heart can lead to changing the world. Paul couldn’t have seen it while he lived. Neither will we while we live, but we know that it will happen because we believe that God is always redeeming, always acting in love.

Our Psalm reminds us that we all sing a song of hope and gratitude for God who forgives us quickly and restores our lives even when we have descended into a terrifying darkness or a death spiral that threatens to destroy us. The reading from Revelation reminds us that we are in this with all the company of heaven.

The gospel of John tells about the first revelations of the resurrected Jesus, and the various ways Jesus makes himself known - something that continues to this day. These post-resurrection stories contain so much symbolism! Here are just a few: 

• Night is Bible-talk for darkness of sight, understanding, or experience. 
• Light is Jesus’ presence with us - the light that penetrates the darkness and is not destroyed by it. 
• Water… remember our recent discussions where the chaos waters were calmed and ordered by the breath/ruach of God so that they nourish and don’t destroy. 
• Jesus cooking on the beach is him preparing a table for the disciples, pointing to Psalm 23. This story reminds us that transformation happens in the midst of our everydayness. Do what you always do and see how my presence in you transforms it into divine action. 
• 153 fish - a very specific number, don’t you think? This refers to the Hebrew word ‘rob’, which means abundance, greatness. The catch of fish the disciples brought in symbolizes that this gift from God is meant to feed so many more beyond themselves.

But it’s Jesus’ questions I want us to ponder. 

To the disciples, Jesus asks, “Children,” a term of endearment meaning little ones, and also refers to the Children of Israel. “Children, do you have no fish?” Fish, when this gospel was written was a symbol of Jesus Christ. We know it today as the Icthys.

Children, do you have fish? The disciples answer: ‘No.’ 

So, Jesus instructs them: Do as I say and you will, enough to nourish you and all others. The 153 fish not only symbolized an abundance, displaying the greatness of God, but also represented all nations, all peoples. Jesus was teaching the disciples to cast their nets wide, allowing divine grace to gather EVERYONE into Their community of love.

When they return with their huge catch of fish, Jesus says to the disciples: Come and eat. This is the risen Lord’s first invitation to Communion: God’s holy food for God’s holy people.

During their meal, Jesus asks Peter three times: Do you love me? The first two times, Jesus uses the word agape, meaning a strong, committed, sacrificial kind of love. Peter responds with the word philio, meaning affection, not as strong a commitment. The third time he asks Peter if he loves him, Jesus uses Peter’s term: philio, and Peter is hurt. We can’t know why, but we can see that Peter still doesn’t get it. He will, though - in God’s time.

The same is true for every one of us. Our faith journeys will take each of us where we don’t want to go - not necessarily to the deaths of our bodies, as for Peter, but certainly to the deaths of our ideas, plans, and understandings that don’t serve God or us - which is what the story in Acts of Saul’s conversion to Paul illustrates so powerfully.

Jesus’ responses to Peter are also important because the Good Shepherd offers guidance on how living out our faith will unfold for us - even today. 

1. Feed my lambs, Jesus says, my babies, my children (as he had called them earlier). This refers to those in the inner circle of our lives. Feed them, nourish them with the holy food prepared by God for the holy people of God. 
2. Tend my sheep. Sheep is Bible-talk for the flock of Christ - all followers of his Way. We all must look beyond caring for those only in our inner circles, our churches, and tend to the larger family of Christ. These will come in different varieties, like the 153 fish - all nations, all peoples. Tend to them all. Serve them all. 
3. Feed my sheep. This is Jesus’ invitation to us to serve the global community. All nations, all peoples are to be nourished with God’s love by the holy food prepared by God for God’s holy people; and it is to be given to them with the same abundance and generosity that God gives it to us.

Every one of us, of every age and ability, is invited to answer Jesus’ call to feed his lambs; tend his sheep; and feed his sheep. Jesus will make himself known to us, to each one of us, and to us as a community, so we must keep the eyes of our faith open to the way God chooses for us that we may behold God in all Their redeeming work, and serve Them proclaiming by word and example, the love of Christ for the world.

Then, when God in Christ asks us, Children, have you fish… have you Jesus? We can shout with joy and gratitude: Yes, we have! Christ is in me. Christ is in us, and we’re ready to tend and feed your sheep, with the gifts you have given us, in the way you have shown us. Amen.

2 Easter & Baptism of Mel Pey: Drenched in God’s love

Lectionary: Lectionary: Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 150; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31

St. Teresa of Avila, 16th-century Spanish mystic, wrote a prayer that I think is familiar to most of us: 

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which to look out Christ's compassion to the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which he is to bless [people] now.”

This prayer speaks to us about how we witness our faith. Ours is an embodied faith, not a faith of thoughts or doctrines, but a living, breathing, acting faith.

Christians are, by definition, a community, the body of Christ. We are made in the image of God, who is also a community - The Trinity who lives in Unity.

In today’s gospel, Thomas is absent from his community when Jesus makes his first post-resurrection appearance to them. Thomas’ path is one that needs proof - so God provides it.

This story is important because it demonstrates three very important lessons for us: 

1) that God accepts us where we are and leads us to where we need to be; 

2) that there are many ways to come to faith and many ways to live faithfully;

3) that God is present in the gathered community.

Notice that Jesus didn’t get mad at Thomas for doubting. Instead, he came back and invited Thomas to come into his presence to confront his doubt - to go fully into it – not to deny it or avoid it or be ashamed of it. Come close, Jesus said. Touch me. Be with me.

And no one kicked Thomas out of the disciples club for not believing right. They preserved their friendship with him, keeping him part of the community, while God did the rest.

Whether or not we ever “see” Jesus will depend upon how accessible we make ourselves to God throughout our lives and how God wishes to work in us. Some will know about Jesus from earliest childhood. We often witness a deep, abiding faith in children.

Others will have resurrection experiences, like Theresa of Avila, who saw visions of Christ in his bodily form, or John Wesley, whose heart was strangely warmed when he encountered the presence of Jesus in prayer, much like those disciples who encountered Christ on the road to Damascus. Others will say they never experience the presence of God. They don’t “see” Jesus. To them, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

In writings discovered after her death, St. Teresa of Calcutta confessed living most of her life in a dark night – a state of feeling totally absent of the presence of God. She struggled to believe, yet never stopped serving because it’s what her faith demanded of her. And how well did she serve?!? She drew close to the poor and touched them, saying, “In the face of each of these I serve, I see the face of Jesus.” It seems to me she was in the presence of God in Christ - all the time.

In our Collect today, we asked God to help us “show forth in our lives what we profess in our faith.” So we must ask ourselves: what do we believe?... and do we truly believe what we profess in our faith? …and if we can’t believe it, do we live it?...

We have opportunities all the time. For example, what do we say when people ask us about the presidential election, or laws up for consideration by our legislators? I’m not going to talk politics, but I am going to ask: Do we witness to our Baptismal Covenant in response? Think about this as we renew our Baptismal Covenant today,

What about when we’re out in the world and we’re with someone who says they don’t believe in God? What do they learn about God by being with us… by watching us live our lives? How will what we do, what we say, and how we live influence Mel, who will be baptized today?

As witnesses, we are called to be the presence of Christ in the world. His presence in us empowers us to accept people where they are, and gently place them in the presence of God, who will lead them into all truth.

Today, we welcome young Mel Pey and his family to this gathered community at Emmanuel Episcopal Church. We know that Mel will have his own path of faith to learn and to live, and we commit to being with him as friends to support him along his way.

We commit to making opportunities for Mel to encounter the grace of God through Christian formation, children’s choir, and other ministries that strengthen his faith, so that when he doubts (and he will doubt), we can respond to Mel as tenderly as Jesus responds to Thomas, drawing near to him with assurance and steadfast love.

Together with Mel and his family, we at Emmanuel are Christ’s hands in the world today – hands that reach out to catch someone who is falling, even when that means sacrificing our own comfort for their sake.

We are Christ’s feet in the world today – feet that will go to those places where hope needs to be spoken and compassion needs to be given. Feet that will walk willingly into the darkness of someone’s nightmare, confident that we are bearers of the light of Christ.

We are the body of Christ in the world today, members of the communion of saints, and members of one another.

In the Episcopal Church, we talk about Christian Formation as being like a cup of tea. The more it steeps, the richer the flavor. In other words, bring the kiddos to church. They soak up more than we realize.

I close with this poem from the book “Episcopal Haiku” (p. 42): 

A little girl drops 

her wafer in the wine. She’s 

soaking up God’s grace. 

Let’s baptize Mel, then, so he can soak up the grace of God; and let’s drench ourselves in God’s love, so that we all can show forth in our lives what we believe. Amen.

Easter Day, 2025: The birth of faith

Lectionary: Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; John 20:1-18

 

Happy Day of Resurrection - the mystery that defines us as followers of Jesus. As Episcopalians, we don’t try to resolve this mystery; we simply enter it and let God do Their work in us. This is the benefit of our commitment to taking the Bible seriously, but not literally.

If we’re going to enter a mystery, the mystical writing of John is the go-to gospel. John uses so much symbolic language, quietly referencing the foundations of the faith of his listeners. For example, John’s story begins with: Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark… pointing to the creation story in Genesis, when on the first day the breath of God brought order to the chaos of the formless void saying, “Let there be light.” (1:1)

In John’s gospel, Mary Magdalene goes alone to the tomb and sees the stone rolled away. Her perception of what must be happening comes from an earthly perspective. A dead man’s body is missing from its tomb. Someone must have taken it.

Mary runs to tell Peter and another disciple. The identity of this second person isn’t known. What is known is that for testimony to have credibility in that time, there had to be two male witnesses, which John has included.

Upon hearing Mary’s fear that Jesus’ body had been taken, Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb. John says Peter lagged behind the other disciple. While Peter entered the tomb first, it was the other disciple who saw the empty linens and believed. Peter’s time had not yet come.

Noting that the two men didn’t understand, John simply says they returned to their homes. This always seems like such a flat ending to an exciting moment, but I think it’s because what John is focusing on is how each of our paths to the birth of our faith is different.

What’s true for every path to God is that God provides us with what we need to get there - in God’s time.

The other disciple, the beloved one, believed upon seeing the linens. The word John uses there means self-surrender. When the other disciple let go of his own way of understanding, his faith was born.

John then skips past Peter, and moves to Mary Magdalene, who remained grieving at the tomb after the two men had gone home. Mary looks into the tomb, which she knows is empty, and sees two angels in white.

This detail is important because it isn’t about the color of their robes. The word John uses there means emitting light, brilliant, glittering. These aren’t earthly beings, and they point back to the cherubim at the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant in Exodus. (25:18) In John’s telling of this story, these glittering angels are what God provided Mary to lead her to the birth of her faith.

While she is speaking with these angels, Mary’s earthly eyes see a man. She sees but doesn’t comprehend until, by the utterance of a divine word (think Word of God and God speaking creation into being), Mary’s eyes are opened; and the word Jesus uses is her name. This points to Jesus’ previous teaching that he is the Good Shepherd: I know my own and my own know me. (Jn 10:14)

The next statement by John is remarkable: “She turned and said in Hebrew, Rabbouni.’ The word John uses for ‘turned’ means convert, or change oneself. Mary chose to be converted, to be changed.

We can almost share in her excitement and picture ourselves hugging Jesus in that joyful moment, but John doesn’t say Mary did that. He simply says that upon seeing her conversion, Jesus says to her: Don’t hold onto me… the words John uses mean, don’t put one thing to another, don’t connect with me as you remember me because I’m not finished. The Greek word here is talking about an event in progress.

Then Jesus tells Mary, “Go to my kin and tell them I am ascending to my nourisher, protector, and upholder, who is your nourisher, protector and upholder; to my source, my progenitor, who is your source, your progenitor.

By this, John has Jesus ordaining Mary as the first person sent to tell the Good News of his resurrection. She is the apostle, that is, one who is sent, to the apostles.

Our story today ends with Mary going to the others, telling them what Jesus told her. The Scripture then continues telling the story of the birth of faith for all of the disciples through the resurrection appearances and on into the Acts of the Apostles.

The birth of faith is different for all of us, and is accomplished in God’s way and in God’s time. Thomas, the Twin, can’t believe without proof, and he gets it. Peter, thank God for Peter, takes longer, as we see from the story in the reading from Acts, but God provides Peter what he needs when the time is right.

In the post-resurrection story in Acts, Peter is talking to the household of Cornelius, a Gentile and a Roman military officer. To put this in context, Cornelius has seen an angel who tells him that God wants him to send men to a nearby town called Joppa to find Peter and bring him to Cornelius. Cornelius obeys and Peter is found and brought to him.

In the meantime, Peter, who is praying, enters a trance and sees a vision of creatures of all kinds. Peter is told to eat, but that would violate Jewish kosher laws, so he resists. A divine voice says to him, ”What I have made clean you must not profane.” This event marks the birth of Peter’s faith.

When brought to Cornelius, this transformation in Peter is expressed in his sermon to Cornelius’ household: “"I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him…” and Peter goes on to tell the story of salvation in Jesus Christ. This marks the birth of their faith.

We are the descendants of this story and this process. Each of us is on a path to the birth of our faith or the living out of that faith. All of us are acceptable to God who provides us what we need - in God’s time - so we don’t judge. This isn’t a race.

Today, we celebrate that Jesus’ resurrection means death, what Paul calls the last enemy, has been defeated. God, who is Love, is the final word. God is our source, our nourisher, our protector, and upholder. There is, therefore, no person, no system, no event to fear, because we have been set free from the power of all who would disturb our connection with God. Not even death, can do that. As the Psalmist says, “I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”

We are Jesus’ kin, current bearers of the breath of God meant to bring peace to the chaos of the world. God’s own light emanates through us into the darkness of the world. “On this day the Lord has acted”... we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Amen.