Author: StAlbansChurch

So you all know about the protests yesterday, yes? Maybe you were at one of the many many gatherings across this country that were about saying no to kings, to autocrats, to tyranny of any kind.

This is not a partisan issue. It is about who we are as Americans. Most all of us grew up standing at attention, facing the flag, putting our hands over our hearts and pledging allegiance to the country who values liberty and justice for all. Some of you are veterans who fought to protect this democracy and the world against fascism, and we honor you and the memories of those who laid down their lives for This.

We are also Christians, and our primary allegiance, before country or nationality and certainly before any political party, is to the Kingdom of God, whose citizenship includes our baptismal vow to resist evil and to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. And so both as Christians and as Americans, we stand up and let our voices be heard. As one teacher’s or mother’s sign said yesterday, It’s time to use our outside voices. And it is encouraging to be in the company of so many, so many others – including others who are in far more dangerous positions than we are. People who have darker skin than most of us do. People who are trying to work and feed their families and pay taxes, and who may or may not have the proper documentation. Politicians who risk not just their careers but increasingly their safety. And I want to pause a moment to send our prayers for the recovery of Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife after being shot, and pray that the souls of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortmann and her husband John, who were politically assassinated may rest in peace and rise in glory. Yes, it is time now to stand up and use our outside voices and to exercise our constitutional rights, again and again and again.

The six California Bishops co-wrote a letter this past week to all the episcopal parishes and missions in California, and our presiding Bishop, Sean Rowe, wrote to the whole Episcopal Church USA, to all of us who follow Jesus in the Episcopal tradition. I’m going to quote from these letters and if you have not yet read them in their entirety, I encourage you to do so.

This one from the six California Bishops:

Bishop John Harvey Taylor, the Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles, has expressed deep pain and anger as fourteen people in one single Episcopal congregation in that diocese were detained by ICE on Friday. Certainly, we as Episcopalians are shocked and saddened when any of our own are removed from our beloved Community.

In all six of our dioceses, people are concerned and fearful about the denial of due process for those detained and the potential for ICE raids targeting beloved community institutions and people working to support their families. People feel angry and threatened that the haven they sought in our communities is no longer safe. US citizens and legal residents feel deep grief at losing beloved friends and family members. Children whose parents are deported face uncertain futures. In our churches, we strive to protect our members who are at risk.

In the Episcopal Church, we uphold a proud tradition of advocating for civil rights and supporting the vulnerable in our society. We stand for fierce love and for justice that leads to peace, as well as societal practices that preserve human dignity. With God’s help, we will speak and pray on behalf of all in this situation. Bishop Taylor has asked for our prayers for Los Angeles, and we invite all our dioceses to pray for the unfolding situation there as well as for peace and justice in all our communities. We ask that you join us in praying:

“Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart, and especially the hearts of the people of this land, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (BCP p. 823).”

And from our Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Sean Rowe, in its entirety:

Dear people of God in The Episcopal Church:

I am writing to you from Geneva, where I am meeting with global partners at the World Council of Churches and the United Nations Refugee Agency. As we have discussed how our institutions might act faithfully and boldly in these turbulent times, I have been reflecting on how we Episcopalians can respond to what is unfolding around us as followers of the Risen Christ whose first allegiance is to the kingdom of God, not to any nation or political party.

The events of the last several days lend urgency to this spiritual challenge. Earlier this week, President Trump’s executive order banning or restricting travel from 19 countries went into effect. This order impacts countries that are home to dioceses of The Episcopal Church and many of our Anglican Communion partners, and I have written to the bishops and primates in those countries to express our concern.

The unwarranted deployment of the National Guard and U.S. Marine Corps on the streets of Los Angeles also signals a dangerous turn. As the bishops of California have written, these military deployments risk escalating the confrontations unnecessarily and set a dangerous precedent for future deployments that heighten tensions rather than resolve them. As Christians committed to strive for justice and peace among all people, we know that there is a better way. What we are witnessing is the kind of distortion that arises when institutions like the military and the State Department are turned on the people they were meant to protect. These mainstays of the federal government, designed to safeguard civil society and promote peace and stability, are now being weaponized for political advantage.

The violence on television is not our only risk. We are also seeing federal budget proposals that would shift resources from the poor to the wealthy; due process being denied to immigrants; and the defunding of essential public health, social service, and foreign aid programs that have long fulfilled the Gospel mandate to care for the vulnerable, children, and those who are hungry and sick.

With all of this in mind, we are finding ways to respond as Christians to what we see happening around us. We are exploring options to support litigation challenging the travel ban on the ground of religious freedom; advocating for federal spending that safeguards the welfare of the most vulnerable; caring for immigrants and refugees in our congregations and communities; and standing in solidarity with other faith groups. In short, we are practicing institutional resistance rooted not in partisan allegiance, but in Christian conviction.

At its best, our church is capable of moral clarity and resolute commitment to justice. I believe we can bring those strengths to bear on this gathering storm. Churches like ours, protected by the First Amendment and practiced in galvanizing people of goodwill, may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting the injustice now being promulgated. That is not a role we sought—but it is one we are called to.

In Geneva, I have been reminded that we are part of a global communion of hope in the Risen Christ. We do not stand alone as we live by our baptismal promises: to persevere in resisting evil, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being. In these troubling times, may we find courage and resilience in our identity as members of the Body of Christ.

Yours in Christ,

The Most Rev. Sean Rowe

Presiding Bishop

The Episcopal Church

And how, my friends, do we live our baptismal promises, even when our hearts may be leaden with despair or fear of the coming storm, and our bodies fearful of being harmed or our friends being hurt? We live our baptismal promises because the Holy Spirit lives in us, God with us, God within us, guiding us, encouraging us, putting us back on our feet when we fall, inspiring us. “When the Spirit of truth comes, Jesus said, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

And what does the Spirit declare? So much, so, so much. More than any one book or any one person could possibly hold or tell. But it is this Spirit that informs us in the moment as to what is needed to follow the way of Jesus, guides our decision making in the moment as we resist evil and strive for justice and peace among all people. Do we always get it right? No. Our own biases and prejudices and fears and sins get in the way of spiritual clarity – but we keep at it. We keep asking. We keep listening. We keep desiring to go the way of truth and the way of love above all other ways. And the Spirit? Jesus told his disciples will not leave us orphaned. And it is that Spirit who will ensure that we do find the courage and the resilience that our Presiding Bishop desires for us, as well as the moral clarity and resolute commitment to justice that he commends to us as the church.

My friends, I am so so grateful to be an American. I am even more grateful to be a living member of the body of Christ, following Jesus in our time and in our place. May we know that we and all others are created in God’s image, that we Christians bear the marks of Jesus, and that the Holy Spirit indwells us, guiding us always, correcting us as needed, breathing peace into our souls, truth into our minds, and courage into our bodies.

In the name of the One Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Happy Birthday, everybody! Today we celebrate the birthday of the church — not the birthday of this parish, but of all who follow in the ways of Christ Jesus. On this day, some ordinary people began to turn the world upside down.

Before the Holy Spirit came, there was no such thing as the Christian church; the first disciples of Jesus were not increasing in number; they were fearful, stagnant. But after this experience of God’s Spirit of boldness being poured out on them, their numbers went from 120 to 3,000.  That’s a factor of 25 times as many! How did they attract such enthusiasm that so many people joined on the spot?

The listeners declare it: “In our own languages we hear people proclaiming God’s deeds of power.”  And what are God’s deeds of power?  They’re not simply stories about Jesus’ miracles, or even the story of his rising from the dead. “God’s deeds of power” have to include the stories of how God has worked in your life to change you, to challenge you, to comfort you, to love you infinitely.

We started today’s worship by praying about the Good News of Jesus: “Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth.”

For many years, I was part of a ministry at Grace Cathedral. Once a quarter, we would welcome visitors there, and often have a short conversation with them. One woman I met started to tell me about a place where Jesus’ words about how the Gospel would spread to the ends of earth was literally fulfilled.

I was wondering about this line of thought, but I listened as she reminded me that in the 1700’s Roman Catholic Mexico and Orthodox Russia met just north of here in a place called Fort Ross. The languages and customs were very different, but each party could tell that the other party shared the faith of Christ.

Pentecost was an ancient spring harvest festival, when people gathered in the first fruits of the earth after a cold winter had turned into a hopeful spring. The followers of Christ Jesus know a more profound harvest, a spiritual harvest!

Those 120 people knew times of sadness and abandonment and uncertainty, but in God’s Spirit they harvested spiritual gifts that were new and unexpected. They felt the rush of a violent wind, filling the house where they were praying — they saw divided tongues as of fire, resting on each one, like condensed halos.

All of us here have had the experience of some moments of inner fire or bliss, and sometimes those moments come when we are in community. Some describe it as “spine-tingling”. Some deep, deep realization occurs to our minds and hearts, and then it seems like a subtle inner waterfall cascades down, or wells up from below.

Those spiritual “spine-tingling” moments may come about in sacred music, or when we’ve touched the soul of another person in a moment of deep sharing. At such times, we feel somethings almost tangible, as if we are radiant — as if something in us understands the halos painted above the “official” saints.

People who progress in the spiritual life have names for such blissful moments: names like “consolation.” Spiritual guides caution us not to become greedy for them.

Rather than seek only the consolations of God, seek the God who gives consolations. Otherwise we risk becoming addicted to inner bliss, and forgo outer service of neighbor.

The poet William Blake puts it this way:

     He who binds to himself a joy

     Does the wingéd life destroy.

    He who kisses the joy as it flies

    Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

We find quite a range of ways of showing forth the Holy Spirit’s life in our own lives. Our personal experiences vary so much; and the Holy Spirit blows where it wills. This matter of discernment explains why the sacred authors stress the variety of God’s gifts, sometimes described as the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Spirit:

• Wisdom
• Understanding
• Right Judgment
• Courage
• Knowledge
• Reverence
• Awe of God

Does any one Christian display all these gifts all the time? That’s not possible. In fact, that’s why the body of Christ has so many members with a great range of gifts.

How simultaneously challenging and wonderful it is, that Christ’s body shines forth with such a spectrum of temperaments and perspectives and ideas and gifts!

Even here at St. Alban’s we display a great range of abilities and limitations. We need one another to make a healthy church that shares the gifts of the Spirit. In the words of today’s Collect: “Shed abroad this gift throughout the world, by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth.”

Today is the last Sunday for the year that will have “Easter” as part of its name. But our Easter Season isn’t actually over until next week, the Day of Pentecost.  Then for the last time our first lesson will be from the Acts of the Apostles – when the Resurrection becomes, if you will, “full blown” with the gift of the Spirit.

For most of the Easter Season, in addition to having all the first lessons from Acts, our second readings have been from the book of Revelation – sometimes called the Apocalypse of John – and, on most Sundays, Gospel readings from John’s Gospel.

Next week and for all those many Sundays after Pentecost, we will return to readings from Luke’s Gospel.

So, today, let’s savor this last dip into John’s Gospel.  It’s fitting, as we get near the end of the Easter season, that we hear the final verses of what is called Jesus’ Farewell Address.  This address stretches from chapter 13 all the way to the end of chapter 17. 

Chapter 18 begins John’s account of the passion of Jesus.

Today’s reading is the summation of what is the theme of John’s Gospel: it is good news that Jesus is no longer among us.  If Jesus hadn’t departed, we wouldn’t have his words, his abundant feast, and the gift of his Spirit.  Now, because Jesus is gone, we have a new identity, a new family, and a new community.

Of course, John’s point – yes, it’s confusing and contradictory – is that those three gifts are how Jesus is present with us right now.  In this absent-but-yet-present Jesus, we see the image and the substance of a God of love who created and continues to create all of life.  And, because Jesus is present with us, we have this love that enlivens and sustains all existence.

But how do we experience that love today?  How do we let Jesus’ presence shape and sustain our lives?

In today’s Gospel reading, we hear that Jesus is praying for us.  Significantly, Jesus concludes his long farewell address with what some have called his High Priestly Prayer.  Jesus prays to God to keep our name before God.  Jesus keeps reminding God – and reminding us – that we are his siblings, that we are one with him.

In today’s Gospel, we also hear that Jesus is giving us his glory.  This word glory is mentioned 18 times in John’s 21 chapters, and it is called out twice in these six verses.  This is the “glory” that we’ve heard about from the beginning of John’s Gospel.  It is glory of the Jesus’ hour on the cross, when Jesus gives up his life and is lifted up to the Father.  Jesus gives us this death so that we might have eternal life: life that begins anew every day and is self-renewing.

In today’s Gospel, we hear that Jesus gives us a mission.  That mission is to repeat the words that we have heard so that others might trust this promise of eternal life.  John’s Gospel was written to urge his community to keep gathering for the Eucharist and practicing Baptism as way to grow that beloved community.  And so we see huge vats of wine and gushing water that literally overflow into the lives of others.  

Hearing Jesus pray for us, to be lifted up on the cross with him, to take part in his mission are all ways that we deal with what we see in our first two lessons. 

In Acts, we see that being part of the Easter mission gets Paul and Silas in prison.  In Revelation, we hear a tale about the destruction of Babylon, which was a coded way to talk about the persecution, oppression, and corruption of the Roman Empire at the end of the first century.

Our own situation today doesn’t seem that far from what took place in Acts or Revelation.

You and I are watching the sledgehammering of knowledge, institutions, and resources that enable our economy and our culture to thrive. Threats to our health, safety, and security seem to grow daily.  Many of us are terrified about how all of this going to end – and whether it will even be possible to put everything back together when this nightmare ends.

 Our reading from Revelation encourages us – in the midst of our despair, anxiety, and – yes – anger to wait in hope and expectation.  We can trust that these times of travail are not the end, but rather the beginning.  We are invited – as Jesus prays for us – to repeat what many believe is the first Christian prayer: Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus.

Bathed in God’s abundant love and surrounded by this community, we can be clear-headed and strong hearted.

That means that we can – with appropriate moderation – read and watching the news.  Staying informed is an act of resistance. 

We can also speak up without fear, perhaps joining those who send a message every day to their members of Congress.  Our individual voices become stronger when joined with others as we call for an end to cruelty and stupidity.

And, in this time when revenge and bullying are pushed in our faces, we can act with kindness and compassion.  Perhaps never before in our lives have the smallest measures – saying hello to neighbors, contributing funds to food banks, distributing information about immigrant rights – have had such a huge impact. 

Let’s be clear, we are doing these things not to save ourselves, not to make us more worthy of God’s love.  We have that love – as fully qualified members of God’s family, as cherished parts of God’s creation.  It is Jesus’ absolute and unconditional gift to us.

That’s exactly why we shouldn’t be surprised – and we should give thanks – that we can’t help but be involved in sharing that love with others, preserving God’s creation, and protecting all those in God’s family.

The church, for all its failings, has always been marked by welcoming the stranger, healing the sick, and feeding the hungry.  Because we are joined with Christ, we are always doing what he did.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

As always, our lessons are a great gift to us, and the very first reading today is one that is especially compelling.

Do people still have visions? Visions that are as vivid as living life and that lead to action. Paul saw a vision of a Macedonian pleading with him to come to preach God’s good news. The vision was so real that it was enough to make him drop everything to set sail.  And once in Macedonia, he preached as he had been told to do, speaking to those who had gathered. Among those who gathered were, it would seem, women, including the cloth dealer Lydia. Her stock in trade was purple cloth, a cloth of high value of importance to the wealthy.

We don’t know Lydia’s back story. How had she come to be so independent? She seems to have been a successful business woman, dealing in a luxury item. Even in these few lines, we see something of her personality. She was open minded, eager to hear Paul’s message. And once she heard it, she was decisive. She was unhesitating in inviting these heretofore unknown men to come and lodge at her house.

That this was an unconventional request is suggested by the phrase that she had to be persuasive – she “prevailed” on them to come. And she did not simply welcome them. She was wholly open to them, transformed by what they said to the point that she was baptized and the whole household was baptized with her. She was a woman with influence, certainly over her household. She seems to have been socially unconventional, a woman operating without the supervision of a husband or father or son.  She was a woman on her own, economically self-sufficient, making her own decisions.  A woman for our times.

We should heed her example of attentiveness and openness. There are many voices trying to influence us. We need to hear the voices that speak truth and generosity, as she was able to do. There are, however, some voices, alas, that are not generous. They draw lines that question the rights and interests of other people, people who are not “like us” and who don’t belong. We need to see this attitude as destructive of our shared human needs.

I suggested that Lydia in her independence and values was a woman for our times. But her ways were not for everyone in our times, alas. You could stay with her without providing, say, a jet plane in return, as Trump’s recent guest from South Africa felt constrained to provide. Lydia we can feel sure would be the good host. She managed her household well, we imagine — someone who was generous, successful, enterprising, open to what was powerful and true.

Let’s return to the visions. Paul was in Macedonia where he met Lydia because he had a vision in the night that he believed was sent by God. And because he believed that, he acted on the vision. He simply set sail. He went to Macedonia because he felt summoned to preach, and, once there, he did so with influence. —–

Revelations also offers a vision. This is a different kind of vision from Paul’s, a vision – not of a worldly place where someone felt he needed to be, as Paul was — but a vision of the new Jerusalem, a place of light and peace and people living in honor and truth  – all shown from a high place by an angel. This is a vision that does not call to action but that holds out a golden dream of light and peace.  It is a vision of healing and abundance in the engulfing presence of the light of God. This is a vision to inform all of life.

And, finally, our gospel offers a vision – here vision in the sense of an account – a vision of real healing, of the healing from physical suffering that transforms an individual’s life. This is a story that even in its simplest form is one that anyone hearing has to be deeply moved by. This is a story about ignoring  legalisms–  like prohibitions on Sabbath actions — in favor of human generosity.

It first briefly recalls the healing of the official’s son, a child near death who at Jesus’ word is restored to life. 

It then goes on to its main subject, the story of a man long paralyzed, perhaps his whole life, who faced not only his physical suffering but the isolation that no one seemed to care about his plight. There was, it would seem, no one to help him do what he badly needed, to be put into the pool that would give him respite. This is a story of physical pain and the personal pain of isolation. And the take-away, perhaps, is that Jesus responded to that pain. He saw a person’s suffering and found a way – admittedly a way beyond what any one of us could do – to alleviate that pain. But still there is a lesson that anyone could take away.  This is the lesson that, in whatever way possible, suffering needs a response. It’s the same lesson as that offered by the good Samaritan, who does not pass by on the other side.

So we are given three visions –

a vision of guidance,

 a vision of God’s new Jerusalem,

 and a vision of Jesus’ modeling of legalism-defying service.

Our collect today prays for such love of God that we will love God in all things. To go back to Lydia, that is, I think, what she does. When she encounters Paul, she hears God’s truth. She welcomes his words.  She calls him to her house. Like her, we must hope to sift truth from falsehood. We must hope to recognize and truly hear the truths that we need to hear. And then, doing then, we must not just hear, but respond as we should.

“Love as I have loved you.”

On the 5th and 6th Sundays of Easter – this week and the next, we will be back in John’s gospel, in the long instruction and prayer that Jesus gives to his disciples on the eve of his arrest and crucifixion. This is because we hear these teachings differently in light of what comes after the crucifixion – the amazing truth of resurrection. We can follow this new commandment that we love as Jesus loved because we know that it is the path of life and we know that we are inhabited, inspired, indwelt by the Holy Spirit which empowers us.

Ok – so this morning, we are back at the Last Supper, and after Jesus tells his disciples, “everyone will know you are my disciples if you have love for one another,” he demonstrates what he means by getting on his knees with a basin of water and a towel and tenderly washing each of those rascally disciples’ feet – even the one he knows is going to betray him in just a couple of hours, and the one he knows is going to deny that he ever knew him. Judas – and Peter – and most all the rest who will scatter to hell and gone with the soldiers show up.

Love one another as I have loved you. So that looks like Jesus tenderly washing those feet. It looks like mundane, every day acts of service. Basin and towel kinds of service – watching your grandchildren and actively listening to them without the phone in your hand. It looks like taking in the garbage cans for your neighbor – giving your place in the checkout line to the mother behind you that is trying to keep her kids corralled – making food to share at coffee hour, and setting up the coffee for the rest of us. It looks like sharing tomato starts and going out of your way to make conversation with the crotchety neighbor. It looks like volunteering in the community – at a school, a homeless shelter, the food bank, the public radio station, the library’s literacy projects. It looks like waking up night after night with your baby, or curtailing your social life as you care for an ailing spouse.

Basin and towel kind of love can easily be overlooked and yet it is the kind of love that makes the world work. It is the glue that grounds a community and that makes it more difficult to divide people over political differences. It looks like no big deal – but in fact, it is. Consistently loving in this basin and towel kind of way makes for families and communities that provide shelter and hope and life. It is Jesus’ kind of love, demonstrated at the last meal he would share with his friends before his arrest.

We sing about this foot washing kind of love on Maundy Thursday:

(Refrain) Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love,

show us how to serve the neighbors we have from you.

Kneels at the feet of his friends,

silently washes their feet,

Master who acts as a slave to them.

(Refrain)

Neighbors are wealthy and poor,

varied in color and race,

neighbors are near us and far away.

(Refrain)

These are the ones we should serve,

these are the ones we should love,

all these are neighbors to us and you.

(Refrain)

Loving puts us on our knees,

silently washing their feet,

this is the way we should live with you.

(Refrain)

Then there are the grand huge and concrete acts of love that are more costly. Sacrificial love. The kind which bears witness to the cross of Christ. The kind that Jesus gave on the cross – his blood shed, his body broken for the healing of all creation. Sacrificial love. And it plays out in private settings but more often in public ones.

We have a storehouse of saints who teach us what this love looks like. This past week, May 13th, for example, was the Feast Day of Frances Perkins. A lifelong Episcopalian, she was a staunch and outspoken advocate for industrial safety, and a persistent voice for the reform of what she believed were unjust labor laws. She became the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the White House and as Secretary of Labor, she had a major role in shaping the “New Deal” legislation signed into law by President Roosevelt and which had great impact upon the nation as it emerged from the Great Depression of the early 1930s. Because the Augustinian order is in the news now what with the new Pope being a member, I want to note that Frances frequently recited the Augustinian prayer: ‘My God, I love thee above all others, and I love my neighbors as myself.’ She was frequently and publicly attacked: Not suitable for a cabinet position because she was a woman; a communist because she supported labor rights, she was called Jewish in order to damage her reputation and undermine her political influence; she was lax and dangerous to the nation because she assisted refugees, including Jewish folks fleeing Nazi Germany.

Most of us are not called to the kind of love that would earn us a place in the Calendar of Saints – the kind of love symbolized by the cross – but every single one of us is called to the kind of love symbolized by the basin and towel. Whatever opportunities come your way, large or small, to love the way Jesus loved – take them. There are hundreds of them every day one you begin looking. Guaranteed, the Spirit comes alongside and magnifies every single act of service to do more good than you will most likely ever know.

“The Lord is my shepherd.” This is the statement of fact and confidence that opens the most comforting and calmest of the Psalms. It is the signal of God’s constant presence and concern, no matter where we are, whether in green pastures, in the valley of the shadow of death, or at the dining room table. Its message is that God is pervasive in our lives. As another psalm, the 95^th says: We are “the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.”

The Twenty-third Psalm is attributed to King David of Israel. We don’t know at what point in his long life he is supposed to have composed it. But, if you read the First and Second Books of Samuel, you realize that David did not remain the handsome and ruddy young man whom the prophet Samuel picked out from among Jesse’s sons as the next king. (1 Samuel 16:12) David’s life thereafter was passionate and violent. He lost the friend of his bosom, Jonathan, the son of the very king, Saul, whom David was replacing. (2 Samuel 1:25-26) He was a renegade and actually a kind of brigand. (1 Samuel 25: the extortion of Nabal) He was also a mercenary. When he was king, he seduced Bathsheba, a married woman, and saw to it that her husband Uriah was killed in battle. (2 Samuel 11-12) His son Absalom rebelled against him, and he was forced to flee Jerusalem. (2 Samuel 15-18) The Bible points out in detail how and how much blood was shed.

Yet, and perhaps we can be shocked, David continued to love God, and God continued to love him. And this is another encouraging feature of the Twenty-third Psalm. It is so interesting that, at some time in his stormy life, David would hark back to his handsome and ruddy years and take comfort from his past life as a shepherd. He could see the peace in leading his father’s flocks. He carried this experience in his heart – and we all do the same thing! And, because David was so good at his art, he could take his life as a shepherd and translate it into God’s unending care for him.

As to the metaphor of the shepherd and the sheep, we should really think about the relationship of humans to animals. As to sheep, not only were they valuable in economic terms as a source of food and of their immensely precious wool. They also have an emotional appeal at least in that they require guardianship and love. At one point, David told King Saul that he killed or drove off lions to protect his flock. (1 Samuel 17:36-36) Of course he might have been boasting, but I don’t doubt that he drove predators off. And the New Testament statements how Jesus seeks out the straying lamb is a metaphor that must have an absolutely accurate origin in real life. (Luke 15:4-7; Matthew 18:12-14)

A shepherd lived with the flock all day and all night. The flock really knew him. When the group traveled, the sheep followed the shepherd. He did not have to drive them, and he could be certain they were behind him. They knew his face.

There are many other fascinating things to say. For example, how the shepherd is the sheep’s doctor and obstetrician. But the point is that the relationship between shepherd and sheep is profound. If you have an animal in your life, you know the incredible strength of the bond. David beautifully takes the reality of this bond between humans and animals and turns it into the bond between The Good Shepherd and us.

We should not forget that the Twenty-third Psalm is more than a metaphor and more than a poem. It is a meditation and a prayer, that is meant to comfort us. And it does comfort us. It is meant to express foundational connection and it does that. Like David, we have problems. We have problems in our personal lives, the problems that come with love. We have problems in the broader world which we recognize because we love. Our world is as uncertain and perilous as the world of ancient Israel was. In his prayer, David is telling us that, amidst problems, amidst enemies, in the valley of the shadow of death, our connection to the shepherd remains unchanged. And that is a good point. Indeed, we need rest and comfort and we want predictability. The Psalm gives us the predictability that comes from faith. The Lord is our shepherd, indeed. As Jesus says in today’s Gospel passage, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me…No one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27) 

It is so wonderful, so entirely lovely, to have a God who loves us. I am not sure that any other religious tradition in the whole world and ever is based on the biblical tradition of a God who loves. The Psalm tells us to have great confidence in God’s grace, not in the world’s perfection – as if! – but in his grace. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton gave a nice definition of grace in his book “The Seven Story Mountain.”  He wrote: “What is grace? It is God’s own life, shared by us.” (Thomas Merton, The Seven Story Mountain, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978 at page 169)

This means something very special. We are made to go beyond being the comforted. God is not only deeply loyal to us his flock, but God also shares his life with us. In the Book of Genesis, which is wise and clear-sighted, we read that God actually made us in his own image, And that he put us in charge of his Creation. (Genesis 1:26-30)

If God is so free with his life and his image and his creation, our posture changes dramatically. I would say that the Twenty-third Psalm goes upside-down under our feet.  The reason is that, if we share in God’s life, we enter into King David’s metaphor so that we are shepherds too. We are shepherds to each other and we are shepherds to Creation. In other words, we become Good Shepherds too. Maybe, and I am not a theologian, this is one of the big lessons of the Incarnation: that we can actually imitate the Lord. After all, as in last Sunday’s Gospel reading, Jesus said to Peter: “Feed my sheep.”  (John 21:15-17)

How do we fulfill the job of being shepherds?  We have to take the shepherd’s long, slow, difficult, painful walk of love. Jesus walked this road in his life on earth. And many people followed him and they listened to him. We listen to him today. So, the first stage of the walk is listening. One might say that this is passive. I don’t think so. It means being receptive to Scripture, to good books, to good talks, to good movies, to what we say to each other even in the most trivial conversations. We find the Gospel everywhere, and the trivial is often the arena of the depth of friendship and mutual respect. There is something about this passivity, as it were, that makes things sink in. It is like being picked up and set down at another level.

The next step on the walk is prayer. I am a big enthusiast for prayer. It strengthens faith. Prayer is not something fancy. It is not a big thing. As Father Rocky says, there is no such thing as bad prayer. But prayer keeps our minds and bodies active and attentive to our needs and desires and our aspirations. Since the interaction is with God, prayer has results. In the case of shepherding, it makes us more deeply aware of love and its radical style. For example, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  This is really a prayer about love.

And so, we become attentive to love. We feel a loyalty and love for other people – and for animals and for the beauty of Creation. And we can act in love. I don’t mean we will found nonprofits that will feed the world. I mean that we will become attentive to all our acts and contacts. That we desire every little thing we do to be done lovingly. Making dinner is an act of love. We become aware that hatred can rise up in an interaction with any person, even a person we don’t know like a person highly placed in politics. But Jesus said, “Love your enemies.”  Hatred can eat away at the foundation of justice.

Somehow, praying is a way of participating in God’s love. We and God, in prayer, love the people of Gaza and the Sudan; love the people in government offices in Russia; love the kids who get measles; love our wives and husbands and sons and daughters and grandchildren and friends. Prayer is never-ending, never boring. The more we pray, the more people we have to prayer for. I can see why some people keep lists!

I know that the world is a mess. Consider just a part of it: the major wars that are going on. Some readers of Genesis would describe this as The Fall. When I was young, I thought that we could fix it. But I don’t think anymore that we can fix it by ourselves. But we can pray that it be fixed. We are shepherds in this way, too. Our sleepless nights are shared with the shepherd by the camp fire who worries about the predators that we all fear – until, in God’s time, the wolf dwells with our lambs. (Isaiah 11:6)

Prayer is foundational to our lives. This lesson about prayer is really the simple fact of the existence of the Twenty-third Psalm. The Psalm is not just a nice poem or metaphor. It is itself, in the middle of David’s troubled life, a meditation and a prayer. Shepherds love their sheep and they know how bad things can get. So, shepherds like us pray. It is part of being a shepherd. It is the shepherd in King David who said: “The Lord is my shepherd.”

Thank you for listening.

I have this vision of John, the author of the gospel of John, finishing off his 20 chapters and then noticing some extra pages on the shelves. After checking them, John says – ‘oh right, there’s this story too, I should have put that in!’ In some ways that’s our chapter 21 today…last week the gospel ended with a summary “Now Jesus did may other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book…” – a nice ending for a gospel. But the appendix, or addition, which begins with our story this week; “Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias…” is a change – as if the editor started combining pieces of John’s gospel with Luke’s gospel…Last week Jesus and the apostles (including Thomas) were still in Jerusalem; with this story we’re back up north in Galilee, on the lake where so much of Jesus’ ministry had taken place. And there are a lot of pieces in this gospel passage that both connect and do not connect with earlier stories.

First – what are the disciples doing fishing back at home? Weren’t they supposed to be out changing the world? (a disconnect) Second, the abundance of fish, exactly 153 apparently, using the same language as the first miracle that Jesus performed – the changing of water into wine in Cana of Galilee about 11 miles away from the lake (a connection)… But at the heart of the story are two things: breakfast, and the ongoing commissioning by Jesus of the disciples.

This story of a meal with Jesus is an interesting counter to Luke’s Easter story of the walk to Emmaus, where the two disciples recognize Jesus “in the breaking of the bread” – here the disciples have already figured out who this was, “they knew it was the Lord.” It was Jesus who took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.” So what is the point here? Is the focus on breakfast and eating together, sharing a meal and all that means? (perhaps) Or is it a way to prove that Jesus is really alive because he’s eating breakfast? (perhaps) Knowing John’s gospel though, this is also a story connected to the Eucharist and its many meanings – particularly union with Christ. The giving of bread is a pretty straightforward link, but the presence of fish, perhaps drawing on earlier Jewish ritual meals (pointing to the future fulfillment of the reign of God), as well as the abundance of fish symbolism in the early church may mean several things.

In Andrew McGowan’s wonderful book, Ascetic Eucharists, he traces the importance of fish in ritual meals, and particularly in the bread and fish of the feeding of the 5000 and other gospel meals. Not long after John’s gospel was written, fish became an important symbol of Christians, followers of Jesus. They were the little fish, born in the living waters of baptism. The church very early on also became identified as the big fish, still recognizable (2000 years later) on the back of some peoples’ cars with the fish shape sticker and the Greek acrostic ICHTHUS (fish, but also Jesus Christ Son of God Savior).

The heart of all the stories, however, is the conversation Jesus has with Peter after breakfast. Things left off pretty poorly with Peter before and after the crucifixion in all four gospels. On Palm Sunday we heard Luke’s version – “This man also was with him,” “Woman, I do not know him;” on Good Friday we heard John’s version: “you are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you,” Peter replied “I am not.” And the cock crowed… the three denials of Peter, predicted by Jesus and accompanied by the rooster’s confirmation. But here almost at the very end of John’s gospel, that horrible threefold denial is met with a threefold challenge to Peter from Jesus: do you love me? Peter answers that he does; and Jesus charges him to “feed my lambs;” a second time Peter is asked if he loves Jesus; he affirms that he does, and Jesus tells him to “tend my sheep,” and a third time Jesus asks Peter “do you love me,” Peter replies with sadness “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” And Jesus replies “feed my sheep.” Three times Peter denies Jesus; now three times Jesus asks him if he loves him and if so, what will need to happen next.

The return to fishing for a living, the return to being home with their families – with all that was familiar – is about to come to an end. Peter – and the other disciples – will now be sent out to preach the good news, to be Christ for the world. Love is not a warm fuzzy sentiment – it is love in action, caritas-charity: “if you love me, keep my commandments.” The editors of John’s gospel, tell us what that looked like for Peter: he would be tied up, led to a place “he did not wish to go.” It’s clear here, by the end of the gospel, that Peter has been murdered – he has been martyred…he redeemed his sins of denial with affirmations of love and following Christ – and did what Jesus asked him to do, even into death.

We sang a hymn to acclaim the gospel just a little while ago, “they cast their nets in Galilee.” I remember the first time I sang it I thought “what a silly, trite hymn” – “such happy simple fisherfolk..,” but, of course, one has to sing all the verses, through “the peace of God…breaking them in two,” John dying in Patmos, Peter, “who hauled the teeming net, head-down was crucified.”  And then it gets to us: “The peace of God, it is no peace…yet let us pray for but one thing – the marvelous peace of God.”

Jesus says to us – individually and as a community – every day, “do you love me?” then do that love, feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. In this life, the peace of God is not an invitation into safety, into calm isolated protection, into all sweetness and light – “the peace of God, it is no peace.” Only in hearing the call of Christ, responding by following Christ every day, and knowing Christ more day by day – do we begin to understand the power of this divine peace.

Do you love me, Jesus asks? Then go out and feed the sheep…

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not not believe.” The week after resurrection, the week of doubting Thomas. We have been here before and often, the balance of doubt versus belief. As I was going through this week’s readings I was drawn to Reverend Linda’s sermon from last Sunday and the many resonating messages she shared. If you did not have a chance to hear it, it is still as resounding in video – I know, I rewatched it. 

And I thought about how love wins and ways we can live out loud, big and proud. And about being Prisoners of Hope. Hope that recognizes the transgressions on earth, that believes despite that, not ignoring it. That we are free in our belief and hope. Yet sometimes, maybe more often than not, that hope can be shaken. Shaken through what may seem as doubt or fear. What if we are wrong, if this is all for naught? I will admit I do not like being wrong and it is a challenge. Yet, if we are not willing to challenge what we know, how do we grow? And maybe that is the fear, not knowing what changes we need in our own lives in order to fully live it according to God’s will. 

The day after Easter I was going through my emails, trying to clear out the multitude of messages from the weekend and I paused on the New York Times Morning edition from the day before. It’s the really short synopsis that I sometimes will look at, although more often than not these days just delete. The title of the Easter edition was “The Morning: America Wants a God.” I didn’t read it right away because so often over the past decades we hear of the trend away from religion and in theory then God. I did eventually go back to it and there was a short summary of  “Believing,” a yearlong project from The New York Times exploring how people experience religion and spirituality now. The highlights from the email, because I still have not found it in me to subscribe to the New York Times and engage with all the other news, however I am intrigued in part to understand this a little bit more. The highlights though, Americans believe. Based on the reporting – “Almost all Americans — 92 percent of adults — say they have a spiritual belief, in a god, human souls or spirits, an afterlife or something ‘beyond the natural world,’…”

Yet the article points out that, “Over the past few decades, around 40 million Americans left churches, and the number of people who say they have no religion grew to about 30 percent of the country.” Yet studies continued to show that those who practiced a religion tended to be happier, healthier, and connected, giving what “sociologists called the ‘three B’s’ — belief in something, belonging in a community and behaviors to guide their lives.”

Something is shifting though. Although most people may not be going back to religion, many do want spaces to discuss and explore their spirituality. The last piece of the summary highlighted that “Americans are looking to believe in something.” The conservatives have been better at using the infrastructure of evangelical Christians to bring more people in. And there doesn’t seem to be other alternatives, with many liberals ignoring this American quest for spirituality.   

So then what do we do? We have recognized fear and chosen Hope by coming together here physically or virtually to continue to nourish our souls. To share in a common belief and belonging that takes us through the weeks, months and years. How do we translate that to others? Maybe by changing how we look at it.

Mondays through Thursdays I listen to motivational talks through the fitness community I joined last year. This past Thursday the speaker was talking about new lenses – physical glasses with a new prescription that was literally giving him a new way of looking at things. For anyone who has needed glasses, you may recall and for those of you blessed with excellent vision – let me tell you a new set of glasses can be disorienting. The world you look at is different and at first you may not be convinced you answered correctly to the lens fitting while your eyes adjust to seeing the world a little sharper than before. That initial adjustment time frame can be challenging and if the strain on your eyes is too much can even have you thinking of going back to your old glasses. However, if you’re willing to acknowledge that bit of discomfort and give yourself time, you literally see the world better. 

And much like physical glasses, we switch around how we look at the world all day long, based on how we feel, our perceptions, our fears, and sometimes our own self doubt. When things don’t always go our way, we can easily begin to doubt ourselves, our way of life, and sometimes God’s love. And that doubt or fear that maybe we aren’t good enough for the things that may come our way. However we are given guides and a community where we can bring together our doubts, our sadness, and woes, yet continue to strengthen our hope and how we live it. And it is a continual challenge to live God’s will and care for all of God’s creatures. 

Pope Francis, even in his last requests, continued to challenge human authority, the authorities themselves that gave him his position as the head of the Catholic church. For all the many structural, ideological or political reasons that Pope Francis was selected, he continued to live his life the way he always had, as a Jesuit. Pope Francis challenged the Catholic church – he was an advocate for not only the people of this earth but the earth itself and all its living things. He bent the strict orders and gave a little more room for love to win. “‘Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times,” Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said of the late pontiff, who often pushed against the tides of geopolitics. – That was a tagline from one of the headlines from NBC News Now of the funeral coverage for Pope Francis. 

Pope Francis was one of the examples we witnessed in our lifetime of the first lesson from Acts. “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” In our weekly gatherings that is what we come together to do. To receive the Holy Spirit together so that we can carry the light brightly when apart. I don’t necessarily go out and regularly try to recruit people to the church – although that is something I need to work on. However I believe it’s in the ways we live our lives with purpose, belief, hope and the knowledge that everlasting life and love is ours that we can begin to give a new lens to those who may seek to question spirituality and find a higher truth. Despite or in spite of the challenges of those who are in authority, be willing to continue to live a life where love wins. Where we care for our neighbors and embrace all those willing to come to God’s fold. Our lens that Hope is real, that there can be light and doubt and our everlasting belief that love will win, is a way of viewing the world that is worth sharing. A lens that maybe others who view our actions are yearning to also get a glimpse of, to move past the initial discomfort of seeing something new so that life is a little clearer. 

We have just participated in the recitation of the most tragic story imaginable. In fact, this drama of the Passion of Jesus Christ is beyond any human tragedy. In a stage play, the tragic figure may be heroic and self-sacrificing and noble, but also has a blind spot, a “tragic flaw” — often the exaggeration of a virtue.

But the person of Christ Jesus does not display any such tragic flaw. Instead, we have just reenacted the telling of a story of a person totally innocent, who never denied his deepest truth, & was executed for living out that truth. As the church enters into the most solemn week of the sacred year, Holy Week, this is the mystery we ponder — the innocent dying to free the guilty.

Over many centuries Christians have thought deeply about this central mystery, and this reflection can be summarized under the one word, “Atonement.” You have probably heard different explanations about “Christ dying for us.” Some of these explanations depend too much on human courtroom imagery, or a medieval sense of a feudal lord offended by some servant or vassal.

That’s a legalistic view that imagines God the Father as outraged by human sin; but as God, is unable to receive justice from a finite creature, a human being because the offended party (God the Father) is infinite. Therefore an infinite Being, God the Son, makes restitution by his death, satisfying God’s justice.

Maybe there was a time when such a theology could really help people make sense out of this most tragic story imaginable: the death of Christ Jesus on a cross. In that view God shows no love. Some theologians call it “divine child abuse.” And the church has never endorsed just one explanation of the Atonement. The universal church is open to other understandings of the atonement.

One that makes much more sense to me, and to many people I speak to, is to view Christ Jesus in the role of the hero, unafraid in confronting worldly evil. Jesus knew what would happen if he spoke out and confronted evildoers — that not all of them would repent. Some would try to eliminate him for good.

And for too long the church has entertained a dubious speculation about who was more to blame — the Jewish leaders or the Roman rulers. Jews or Romans, old world or new world — none of that really matters. The tragedy is that we all participate in human evil. Some of the things we’ve done, and some of the things we still do, add to the evil that infects this world. Whether they are sins of commission or sins of omission, we’re caught in sin’s tangle.

We’re often suspicious about the kind of love which other people offer us, wondering when their self-giving will end, and when the payback time will start. And part of us just can’t believe that God would really love us without limit. We have some idea of how bad we can be — so how can God put up with us?

We have all rejected God’s love in the past, preferring to trust our own ways; trusting in our intellects, or our hard work, or any number of finite human works. We have all known that blazing embarrassment of realizing that God loves us even as we are imagining something devious, something that will bring us shame.

Rather than accept God’s love, sometimes we choose the path of rejection, keeping divine love at some imaginary distance (since we really can’t lock God out).

What is our  hope, caught as we are between our high ideals and our weaknesses? I suggest we keep our attention, this Holy Week, not on our ups and downs, but on the unfolding of the story of God made human, Jesus Christ’s story.

And our church dares us to do this, not with our heads bowed down like a reed, but with joy! Joy that we can share in the new life of Christ Jesus who died for us. Take to heart the bold words at the beginning of the first liturgy of Holy Week, today:

Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation,

that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts,

whereby you have given us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord.