Having chosen to use the Alternative
Gospel from John:
Jesus’ Story and Love, contrary to common practice, included Women.
And Jesus Love Heals; thus we heal one another.
Acts 16:9-15 – Lydia
Acts Thoughts
A women,
if you judge me to be faithful, come and stay with me. Response of
faith: to provide what is needed: hospitality for travellers, for
homeless. Now common? Enough, but in those days, accepting a woman as
one of the disciples was a rare act of equality.
No
matter our traditions, our culture norms, our expectations; Jesus
love reaches all people.
And we
are to love as Jesus loves us,
We are
to love those whom our tradition excludes from consideration.
Psalm 67 – Let all stand in Awe!
Revelation 21:10, 22–22:5
The city, no more night, only
goodness
For
the healing of the nations
Revelation Thoughts
In the
New Jerusalem, in the City of God, An exclusion: no unclean, only
those written in the Book of Life
there no
other light needed than the Light of God, no night, no darkness, no
abominations, nothing unclean.
[All
chaff will have already been burned away.]
The tree
produces fruits and leaves, the leaves are for the healing of the
nations.
Gospel (alt.): John 5:1-9 Heal one
another
as Jesus healed even on the Sabbath
Gospel Thoughts
Our
travails last and last: this man’s for 38! years!
And all
during that time no one has helped him.
Then in
a heartbeat Jesus heals him, even though it is the Sabbath.
Love
acts to restore health without regard for expectations and artificial
limits (which do not provide health in following them.)
Love one another as Jesus Loves us means HEAL one another, even if the stink of rot has surrounded the illness or circumstance of sin for decades, for generations even!
Today it is so dry there is a province wide fire ban in place
Though this is the first
as yesteryear’s extreme’s become
today’s normal, and
today’s new extremes become
tomorrow’s normal.
Hang on!
It’s going to be a rough ride for the next 50 years!
First Break in Nice (Thick) Ice
Back
when the ice was just breaking up, the reflection of light and cloud
make the water and shore jump.
Birch White Goldenized
The
Birch Show Their Colours Well
Mud Mirrors
Even
the huge puddles of spring mud and snow melt pick up the the light of
the sky behind the trees’ reflections.
Spring Moon Rises at Sunset
The
moon ascends into the evening sky, brilliant white against the gold
and blue of sunset.
Predawn Moon Going Down
Just
days later the moon settles in the west as the dawn touches the east.
Sunrise Moon Setting
And
settles closer to the water as the early morning breaks.
Open Cold Water
Waves
and White Water return as the wind churns up the lake touched still
with small patches of snow and ice.
Surviving Rodents
The few brush left with partial birch trunks, long since food for the beaver who keep the lake level high, stand out in the gold light at sunset.
Sol Plays with Aqua
The
water and the setting sun play with each other in familiar yet newly
wonderful manners almost each night.
Ugly becomes Gorgeous
Even
the junk, abandoned, and starting to be trashed camper cannot help
but shine with the immense wonders of the setting sun.
My favourite of late
The
reaching thirsty trees along the shore silhouette wonderfully against
the blues and oranges of the sun set reflecting remnants of light on
the water.
God,
who is the Alpha and Omega, says to John: “To the thirsty I will
give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”
Water Alive with Light
Peter
Bold and Humble;
Attentive
In
today’s first lesson we hear again how Peter is a leader in the
church, so capable, so vulnerable, and so attentive to the Holy
Spirit guiding him. Peter explains, step by step how and why he has
gone to non-Jews, and accepted them as followers of Jesus.
Today’s
Gospel comes from John 13, which starts with the last super. Jesus
washes the disciples’ feet, Peter resists, Jesus says this is part
of being Jesus’ follower, and Peter follows. Jesus sends Judas out
to betray him, which Jesus says is necessary; God will be glorified
in the cross.
Then
comes today’s Gospel selection which includes Jesus’ central
command, chosen as the theme for our Easter celebrations: that we are
to love one another as Jesus loves. By this love we will be known as
Jesus’ followers. To this command Peter responds that he will
always follow … except Jesus says Peter will deny him three times
before the cock crows.
Peter
is so confident, yet his failures are so glorious. Peter is so
capable; he brings Dorcas back to life. Yet the Holy Spirit needs to
change Peter’s direction, with visions and wisdom.
Refrain:
God
says, “To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring
of the water of life.”
Jesus,
with his washing the disciple’s feet, and Peter, in his
enthusiastic and misguided yet attentive following, demonstrate that
in humble service and in humbling ourselves we receive the water of
life.
New
Jerusalem:
In
our lesson from Revelation we hear that the New Jerusalem continually
comes down to earth in our midst. God dwells with all his peoples.
That’s plural. God dwells not just with one group, one people, but
with all his peoples.
In
the Lord’s Prayer we pray that God’s Kingdom will come. Luther
explained in his Small Catechism that God’s Kingdom will come no
matter what, but we pray that it will come to us, in our midst, and
through us.
The
old has passed away. The New Jerusalem is the city of Peace, where
there is no more crying, no more tears, the old tears will be wiped
away. We pray that our eyes will be open so that we can see the signs
of the New Jerusalem coming down, in our midst.
For
Peter that meant that Jesus’ love, which they exercised for one
another, did not stop with their small Jewish group. God intends that
their and our group, our ‘one another,’ includes all those we
have previously excluded.
God
sent Peter a sign, that the Gentiles he is called to visit in the
Roman city of Caesarea were ‘baptized’ with the HS as were the
disciples. This comes after God gives Peter a vision that what God
creates is not unclean. Rather all creation is sacred, though
mundane. There are no boundaries to God’s love and Jesus’ command
is not limited by our definitions of who we are, and who is not us.
Refrain:
All
are included in this God’s promise:
To
the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water
of life. In sacred visions Jesus surprises us showing us to whom God
gives the water of life.
Whom do
we Exclude, Whom God Includes
In
1981 Henri Nowen came to Yale for a few weeks, played volley ball
with the new arriving students at the seminary, and ate in the
cafeteria. He received students and staff for less than a few minutes
each to dispense spiritual guidance to thirsty souls.
Nowen
was a Dutch priest, professor, writer and theologian with interests
rooted primarily in psychology, pastoral ministry, spirituality,
social justice and community. He knew and shared well that the Holy
Spirit finds us in our greatest vulnerabilities, and uses them to
demonstrate God’s love, grace, and purpose for us. In his book the
Wounded Healer Nowen countered the popular notion that God wants
strong, clean, and perfect people to lead the Church of Christ.
Rather God uses us as we are, imperfect and wounded.
Nowen
knew well, as a popular writer and mentor, that his own soul was
thirsty. He went to S. America to live with people of no privilege
suffering great persecution. Yet he only first found God’s peace
when, after meeting Jean Vanier, Nowen became a member of the L’Arche
Daybreak community in Richmond Hill ON. Paired with Adam Arnett, a
man with profound development disabilities, Nowen insisted, “It is
I, not Adam, who gets the main benefit from our friendship.”
The
founder of L’Arche, Jean Vanier, died May 7 2019. We were reminded
of how Vanier inspired so many people to include people with
disabilities of all kinds in those we love, not just for their sake,
but for the sake of our thirsty souls.
Jean
Vanier was born into a family of Canadian diplomats and public
servants. He expected to similarly serve and he started on a career
as a naval officer. Then led by the Holy Spirit, his life took a
different turn.
He
was ordained as a priest. While working on his PhD in France, he
volunteered to help his mentor work with institutionalized mentally
challenged men.
There
Vanier met two men and realized what they needed most from him was
for him to be a friend. He invited the two men to leave the
institution where they resided and live with him. Thus was born L
’Arche, which became an international organization of communities
that match helpers with mentally challenged people to the benefit of
everyone. Vanier taught so many people that those with disabilities
do not burden us with their need for care. Rather they help us
recover our humanity, giving us water for our thirsty souls.
Refrain
God
says: To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of
the water of life. Jesus sends the most vulnerable and furthest
outcast to teach us, what the living water is, and how to receive it
and to share it with one another.
Who is
thirsty b/c we exclude
Who
are the thirsty? Who in our cities, villages, and communities,
because we have excluded them, are thirsty, needing the water of
life?
What
are we going to do about it?
Will We Go Out Into the Dark and Bring Christ’s Welcome?
Regularly
we pray powerful words: “Your will be done on earth as in heaven.”
As Luther reminded us in the Small Catechism, God’s good and
gracious will comes about without our prayers, but we ask that it may
also come about in and among us.
So
we pray first, that we will recognize how Jesus includes us, when we
are not worthy; that we will recognize that in our humility and
vulnerability the grace of God is most visible; that we will
recognize that on our brokenness Jesus builds the Body of
Christ. For Christ marks us broken people not only as worthy, but
also as chosen, chosen to love one another.
We
then pray: that we will recognize who we exclude and leave thirsty;
that we will change allowing the New Jerusalem to arrive through us
for them; that we will give them living water, wash their dusty feet,
stoop to give them the necessities of life, listen to them and learn
from them the basics of humanity, that we will allow them to give us
water for our thirsty souls.
And
we also pray: that we will realize that God is glorified in our
mundane service, in our being vulnerable to the messy mundane needs
of the excluded; and that in our lives of loving service to the most
vulnerable outcasts, indeed to all of God’s creation, others will
recognize us as Jesus’ disciples … and join us.
We
give God thanks that we are so privileged to be the open-armed
welcoming party to those we previously excluded.
Refrain
God’s
says: To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of
the water of life. Jesus demonstrates that in humbling ourselves and
in humble service we receive the water of life. The Holy Spirit
surprises us with new visions of what the water of life is. God sends
the most vulnerable and furthest outcast to teach us, what the living
water is, and how to receive it and to share it.
The
water from the spring of life showers down on us from the New
Jerusalem descending into our midst, invigorating and inspiring us
also here and now to be the disciples of Jesus, the one’s known by
our love for all of God’s many peoples.
Knowing
plainly Jesus’ words is rarely enough. Love is required.
Waffles for Jesus
Two hungry young boys sparred with each other while eating breakfast. Finally they got to the last waffle which they both wanted. Their fight almost got ugly before their mother stepped in:
She said
to them, “Didn’t you learn in SS last week that Jesus taught us
to share what we have?”
So the
oldest boy said to his brother “Joey, you be Jesus!”
Powerful Love, Handle with Care
As we hear Jesus’ voice and follow him Jesus calls us to love one another, just as he has loved us. This love is powerful. It can give life. Peter exercises this love and it brings Dorcas back to life. Jesus promises that no one will snatch us away or that we will eternally perish.
But like
Joey’s brother we can also turn this power of love just a few
degrees, and it becomes something that destroys instead of giving
life. This love should come with a warning label: Handle with Care!
Revelation code Great Ordeal
In our
reading from Revelation we hear the code used then to keep people and
the writings safe from the destruction readily handed out by Rome to
Christians. The great ordeal is code for the persecution that cost
many their lives before Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity
in 312 AD.
Every
generation faces it’s own great ordeal. Often the ordeal is not
openly recognized, but it sits hidden in plain view like an elephant
in the room.
Franz Lost
Franz stood looking at his boss in disbelief. Two weeks before his girlfriend had broken up with him, telling him he was a loser. He believed her because his big investment with all his savings had turned out to be a scam and he’d lost everything. Then he found out that his girlfriend had been seeing his best friend for at least a month and she had taken the money he’d given her to pay the rent. The fridge and cupboards were almost bare.
Then
this morning his boss told him he was fired, even though he was good
at his job. It was the last straw. He simply did not know what to do.
Shepherd of (dumb) Sheep
When we
hear that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, we often forget what an insult
it is to be compared to sheep. Sheep are just dumb.
Growing up on a farm with sheep, I watched as my brother showed me how dumb sheep can be. In the evening, herding them into the safety of the barn through a narrow door, my brother put a pitchfork handle a foot off the ground in front of the third sheep coming in through the door. She jumped over the handle as did all the rest of the 100 sheep, even though the handle was already removed after the tenth sheep was safely in the barn.
It is no
accident that Jesus compares us to sheep, and that we need a Good
Shepherd to guide us to what is important in life, and to save us
from what robs life from us.
Franz’ Dark Plan
Darkness
Unemployed Franz came up with a plan, a dark plan. He was done and no one would miss him. He went on to the group chat that he’d been on for a few years, to say good bye, that he was moving on. He could have just headed out on his last walk, but he remembered what Aaron had said.
Aaron’s Light
Aaron, as a young boy, had lived through a pogrom. His father was intent on not just feeding his family, but also on keeping the Sabbath, which always included the lighting of a candle. When their last candle was gone, the father used some of their meager ration of butter and a piece of string to make a candle. Aaron had said it was foolish to use precious food for a candle. His father replied, “Without food we can survive a week. Without faith we wouldn’t survive an hour.” ( SERMONSHOP, August 5, 2000, Bill Adams Trinity Episcopal, Sutter Creek, CA reworked TL).
When
Aaron had greeted Franz, they were just strangers in the grocery
store exchanging kind words. Then as Franz was paying at the
checkout, Aaron came walking back into the store, to thank Franz, and
to say good bye.
Aaron was moving to another city, but it was important to say good bye, anyway, as Aaron said so often, “It helps us remember the light of life.”
Moderator interrupts
Remembering Aaron’s words, Franz decided one last visit on-line would be the right way to say good bye. No one on line seemed to notice him saying good bye. Franz was ready to sign off when the moderator popped in and asked him to meet her in a private chat in a half hour. She had something she wanted to get his input on. So Franz waited with his last plan.
As
we hear the Good Shepherd’s voice and follow him Jesus calls us to
love one another, just as he has loved us.
Price of Love, a Mother’s Love: I’ll go with
you.
Even when we seem to be totally lost, the Good Shepherd sends someone to save us, to feed us and give us living water, to protect us from the ravages of sin. The price Jesus paid is high. Sometimes when Jesus sends us to love one another with that love, the love of a mother, the price is just as high.
During
the Holocaust the Nazis worked people in concentration camps until
they could no longer work, before they executed them. A father and
mother, among the many, were crowded in with their two children. The
older had a deformed leg since birth. Every day, the mother and two
children were taken to one work site and the father to another. One
night the father returning to their wood bunk found only his one son.
“What happened?” he asked. The surviving child said that his
brother had collapsed, so the guards had ordered him to be taken
away. He clung to his mother’s skirt, sobbing. She picked him up
and, holding him close to her, said, “Don’t be afraid. I’ll go
with you.” Mark Daniels,
Do Not Worry!
The Watch, a day at a time
As
we hear the Good Shepherd’s voice and follow him Jesus calls us to
love one another, just as he has loved us. Our love can make all the
difference in the world.
When the
moderator met Franz in their private chat she said she needed Franz’s
help with a project. Franz knew this kind of work inside out. He
easily sorted the confused plan of the moderator into something
workable.
Franz was about to summarize the modified plan to the moderator, when she had to sign off. She asked Franz if they could meet again tomorrow to finish the plans. The plans turned into some work for Franz, not much at first, but enough to pay for food and rent. Before long Franz was the project’s manager.
A year later the moderator told Franz that she had noticed he was in a dark place, and had kept a suicide watch on him. Franz was surprised that she’d seen through him, but he thanked her, and asked her how he could repay her. She said “pay it forward as she had”. She taught him everything she could about keeping a suicide watch on anyone who seemed to be at risk. It was a skill, she said, that had saved people in more than 5 generations before it saved her, and always people had paid it forward to others in need.
Franz still does not know the moderator’s real name or where she lives. But he knows she kept him alive through the valley of the shadow of death, and more. Against all odds she kept him from hunger, saved him from despair, and showed him how to give life to so many people around him.
As
we hear the Good Shepherd’s voice and follow him Jesus calls us to
love one another, just as he has loved us. Our love can save lives.
Against all Odds: Jake
In her book The Spark Kristine Barnett tells the story of her son Jake.
At age 2, Jake started to crawl into his shell, because he was autistic. Once this had been diagnosed, everyone predicted what was not possible including that in just a few years Jake would not speak or communicate at all.
Kristine
simply would not believe it. She did everything she could to give
Jake exactly what he was most interested in, not what others told her
she should. Instead she did everything that she dared to do. It was a
lonely, difficult, and unrewarding road for years. It seemed it would
never end.
Then, at
age 16, we see little Jake, a small boy for his age, standing and
talking with the professor. Jake then joins one of the groups of
college students working on the difficult problem the professor has
given them. In his group Jake stands at the whiteboard and writes a
bit and then, giving the other students leading questions, entices
and invites them to understand what he sees clearly … in a
multitude of ways.
Soon one and two students from the other groups come across to Jake’s board. Not too much later most of the students are there listening, eagerly absorbing what Jake offers to them, until first one, then another, and then most of them, nodding understanding, return to their own whiteboards to work through the problem before them.
Jake is one of the most brilliant minds of this century.
And we almost lost him completely.
As
we hear the Good Shepherd’s voice and follow him Jesus calls us to
love one another, just as he has loved us. Our love can give the
world gifts it would otherwise never know.
The Light is Always There
Jesus Knows Us: Breath, be Bold.
Whatever the challenge is that we face, more important than us hearing, following and loving as Jesus does, is that Jesus knows us. Jesus the Good Shepherd will protect us, comfort us, guide us. Jesus knows us completely and still loves us. Then Jesus sends us out to be the voice, the hands, the feet, the rod and the staff of Our Good Shepherd to one another.
See
Previous Post for
Themes of Each Sunday in
Easter
The
one theme for this entire Easter:
Love one
another as I have loved you. Jesus’ single command that encompasses
everything else that is God’s story of love, encompassed in the
life of Jesus, (so that we -finite creatures- can comprehend what God
-infinite divinity- wants us to know.)
God’s Light Reflected to Us
Jesus is the Good Shepherd, We are
called to love one another as Jesus love us:
We are to be Good Shepherds to
one another
Acts 9:36-43
Thoughts
As Jesus
is able to bring the young girl and Lazarus back from the dead, so
Simon Peter is able to bring Dorcas, Tabitha, back to life after she
dies!
Our love
can be as life giving as Jesus’.
Handle with care!
Psalm 23
Thoughts
The
needs for life, abundant life, of a sheep, (green pastures, still
waters) the good Shepherd provides for us.
More: in
the dark valley of the shadow of death (the greatest evil) I need not
fear, the shepherd’s tools: rod and staff, comfort us.
Table
along with my enemies! My cup runs over!
Goodness
and mercy shall follow me all my days. I dwell eternally in God’s
house.
Revelation 7:9-17
Thoughts
There
are those who will survive the Great Ordeal, the silence of Beale
Street in every generation. They will be gathered at Christ’s
throne!
They
will be washed white in the blood of the Lamb!
Shelter,
food, water, no scorching by sun, but water of life, and tears wiped
away!
John 10:22-30
Thoughts
We, like
the Jews, want to know plainly, though Jesus has told and done
enough. Like doubting Thomas we want to put our hands in Jesus’
side and feel the nail marks in his hand, but that is not enough. The
HS must transform our hearts, teach us to know Jesus’ voice.
Voice
and sheep and shepherds and gathering in and gathering to go out to
green pastures and still waters.
They
will never perish, die but not perish! No snatching, not from God.
Jesus is God, one and three persons.
Outline Ideas
We want
to know plainly, though Jesus has said and done enough, and
there is no more that would help us.
Apologists,
trying to argue the existence of God, futile. Every argument for or
against God’s existence begins with a presumption that is equal to
the conclusion of the argument.
HS
transforming our hearts. The
gift of faith, the growth of faith, the exercise of responding to
faith.
Jesus
the Good Shepherd, 23rd
and repeated in Revelations:
provides
life abundant
protects
from destruction and all loss
We
are to exercise that same love for one another
Peter
brings Dorcas back to life,
as Jesus did with talitha cum, and Lazarus.
Our
love, as Jesus’ Love, is a life changing thing.
Warning
Label Volatile Potential Handle
with Care
Handle
with Care Negative Potential:
as
always, what can be so positively powerful, with a slight twist, a
few degrees off from original, and there can be as much destruction
as there could have been profound positive change.
Devil
is so tempting, looks like Jesus the shepherd, just not.
Sin
looks so tempting, looks like good life, it is not.
Handle
with Care Positive Potential:
give
life, but in the lack of exercise, leave
people ‘dead’.
Stories
needed of giving life (being the good shepherd
for one another), of degrees of destroying life, of
withholding means destruction.
Mother’s
Day, possibly use stories as above, of mothers in action giving life?
Winston
Churchill once said: “[People]
occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves
up and hurry off as though nothing had happened.”
The
Light of Christ is alarming, blinding, and demanding. Often we try to
control what part of the Light, what part of Jesus’ story, what
part of the awful freedom of forgiveness we acknowledge.
Other times we entirely deny the Love of Christ that shines a light into every darkness, exposing all our secrets and revealing every hidden truth. Instead we choose to slip back into the convenient darkness of our daily lives.
The Light of Christ Finds Us in Our Darkness.
Jesus does not give up on us. He keeps showing up to get our attention. Have you seen Jesus talking? Or God giving a lesson? Or have you seen the crimson blood of Christ wash the stain of sin away to leave a person fuller white bright? For 200 years no one in England reported that they had, and then came Julian of Norwich who we commemorate this week.
While
the Black Plague, the Peasants Revolt, and the suppression of the
Lollards devastated the English countryside, Julian lived a mystic’s
life, profoundly assured of God’s care and love as few people in
all of history.
In the
face of so much evidence that death, raw evil, and sin had the world
in its control, she famously quoted Jesus in her vision, “All will
be well. All will be well. All manner of things will be well.”
These simple words have given a thin thread of powerful hope to people in the most desperate situations. Among others, I know that it helped a young mother of two teenagers, living in Germany, stay alive. She was struggling to stay sane after years of abuse by her husband, when he had secretly already started another family with a much younger woman.
Julian wrote “God is nearer to us than our own soul”. God sees us as perfect and waits for the day when evil and sin will no longer hinder us.
Throughout
these 7 Easter Sundays we keep in mind Jesus’ command to “Love
one another as I have loved you.” It will be part of the Gospel in
two weeks and we know these words contain everything else in Jesus’
story.
In
today’s readings we hear how Jesus continues to surprise people
with visions of his love.
Jesus in a vision astounds Saul of Tarsus. A well educated Pharisee and righteous under the law for himself, Saul is dedicated to God. He stones and arrests followers of Jesus to cleanse the synagogues of them. Then the Light of Christ finds him. Saul has a vision of Jesus telling Saul he is persecuting Jesus himself. Blinded by the Light, Saul needs help from others to regain his sight. When he does Saul is baptized as Paul.
After
3 years of study Paul
spreads Jesus’ story of the Love of God
around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea
as far as Rome itself.
In Paul’s
writings to his congregations
to encourage their faith we have the earliest accounts of the
Christian faith,
which we receive, practice and proclaim today.
Our reading from the Book of the Revelation to John reminds us of what danger and persecution the early Christians faced. Any author, carrier, or reader of Words about faith in Jesus, if caught by the Romans, would be put to death. Difficult to produce and therefore very precious, the writings would also be destroyed.
To preserve the writings (and the people) the writing’s content was codified. The codes, colourful and out of this world, were popularly used by Christians but not understood by their Roman persecutors. Today we can estimate much but do not fully know their code. Revelation is the only one of these many writings accepted into the New Testament.
Written to inspire, comfort, and encourage faith in people who were mercilessly persecuted, Revelation has touched the hearts of desperate people through the generations and even today!
Seeing What Others May Overlook, a Mystic’s View.
Today
Jesus still appears in visions to people, though perhaps as rare as
in Julian of Norwich’s time. I personally know only one sacramental
mystic to whom Jesus appears in the ordinary things of creation: in
Light, in Truth and in Grace, in visions both troubling and
comforting.
This mystic’s experience is quite like the disciples’, who, having encountered the awesome, fearful truth of Jesus’ death and resurrection, return to something familiar. They go fishing. Then Jesus appears, hardly recognizable, and asks them to fish on the other side of the boat. The results overwhelm the fishers and their nets, and open their eyes to who has spoken to them. Ashore he feeds them from their spectacular catch and with the bread of life. They leave the nets and resume Jesus’ ministry healing people with God’s love.
In the stories of the Fishers and of Paul, in stories codified to preserve them and in Julian’s visions and counsel, and in the words of mystics of all times, the constant in all of them is the brightly shining love of God.
This
Love was exercised at great expense by Jesus for us, and by many who
have gone before us and who handed on the faith to us.
Jesus’
love story is not a benign story, it is not a safe story, it is not
an easy story to get right. It is always a story of how we are to
love one another as Jesus loves us.
At age
60 James Mitchner, a man of grand words and acquaintance of powerful
people everywhere, including many US presidents, told a story about
the most influential person he ever met.
At 7
years old Jim was orphaned and sent to live with relatives. The
couple was so poor both husband and wife worked seven days a week.
That first weekend, with apologies, his foster parents set off to
work leaving Jim alone. He was bored, bored stiff. He walked around
the house. Nothing happened. So when he heard a truck coming down the
alley just before noon, he went out on the back step. The truck
stopped at each house until it stopped at his house. The driver got
out with the truck running, emptied the garbage cans, got back into
the truck, and drove on. That was the day’s greatest action.
The next Saturday, again Jim was just as alone, just as bored. Nothing was happening in the empty house. So just before noon he sat down on the back step to wait for the garbage truck. He waited and waited. Finally after an hour of waiting Jim heard the truck. It followed the same routine, stopping at each house until it stopped at his house. The driver got out with the truck running, emptied the garbage cans, got back into the truck and drove on. Lonely Jim was left to go back inside … to boredom.
The third Saturday, same story. Except the truck didn’t come. With nothing else to do Jim sat and sat, and waited. Finally about 3 o’clock he heard the truck. The truck kept the same routine, stopping last at his house at the end of the alley. The driver got out with the truck running, grabbed and emptied the garbage cans, and got back in the truck. But then the driver turned off the truck, walked through the gate and said,
“Hi, what’s your name.”
He
answered, “I am Jim and I am lonely.”
“I
have seen you for the last few weeks. I’ve thought of you each day
and I am sorry I have not stopped.”
The
garbage man sat and listened to Jim, not only that day, but each
Saturday. James’ foster parents set out chairs for the garbage man
and for Jim.
James Mitchner, a man of many words, acquaintance of most US presidents of his adult life, and of powerful people everywhere was most influenced by the garbage man who took the time to turn off his truck each Saturday from the time Jim was seven until he was seventeen. (story told at Asset Build Workshop – Powell River)
God’s love story was lived out by a garbage man on Saturdays with a lonely child. What followed for James Mitchner was a life of military and civilian travel, adventure, and writing books that inspired a generation and more.
Christ’s
Light will find us, shock us, blind
us, turn us around, and make us into new
people. Jesus’ love will send us into lives of real work filled
with real excitement and
challenges, even
abundantly filled with real adventure, … if not in travels, then in
learning, sharing, and bringing abundant life to others. The Light of
Christ will repeatedly interrupt our work and dreams, guiding us
onward, correcting and even reversing our courses, but always moving
us towards loving one another with God’s love in all things.
The only question is what we are going to do with the brilliance of Christ’s Light, the Freedom of God’s Forgiveness, the comfort of the Spirit, the abundance Jesus helps us catch, and the abiding assurance that all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well?
What are we going to do in response to the Love that resurrected Jesus from the dead, and saves us each day?
Amen
The Son’s Light Never Sets, God’s Love Never Ends.
As We
Gather…for this Sunday
Born in
1342 Julian of Norwich was a mystic, counsellor, and lay theologian.
We commemorate her on May8th. We know little directly about her life,
but what we know leaves us to think she was married, lost her husband
and children to perhaps the plague. We do know she became sick
herself at age 30, thought she would die, received her last rites,
and had 16 visions of Jesus.
Julian did not then die, though. She lived on, secluded in a cell attached to St. Julian’s Church, as an anchoress.
What was
unusual is that she wrote down short descriptions of her visions.
Only later people learned they were written by her.
Though living apart she received people for counselling and became known affectionately by many. Through many years she rewrote her visions adding theological reflections in what survive today as her book Revelations of Divine Love. Her words of counsel have provided inspiration and hope for generations of people. She died at least 74 years old, sometime after 1416.
and just when I thought it was safe to put away the winter jackets, the wool socks, take off the ice tires, bring out the canoe, lighten the setup, burn little if any wood for heat …
That leaves room for less wet, less bugs, less allergies so it is not all bad.
After cutting wood in comfort, not too hot, not too cold, and making some good progress stacking cut pieces to split later …
And after enjoying the snow free and sunny afternoon as the snow of the morning completely disappears…
I finally pull out the canoe, reattach the supports removed last fall to be sanded and varnished with a fresh coat to stop the break down at the attachment points.
The wood has been water stained, but the new coats of varnish should help them last a few more years.
Delivery is more difficult since the trailer is no longer available, wood furnace in a shelter tying it up.
So atop the truck, slow progress toward the lake, supper late, and finally delivery to the water.
Canoeing into the sunset wonders.
Wonderful to be out on the water again, though I did need a warm jacket against the biting wind. A vest and hoodie did not cut it.
Red Sky Sailors Delight; but here it still snows the next day, nicely like small cool ash melting on impact with the brown bare earth.
Later I watched as the sun set and left a red sky for the lake to reflect back on.
Jesus
loves even those not present, those not able to trust God, not able
to believe without seeing. Jesus calls us to love, tend and feed
them, too.
Easter 3 May 5 The Light surprises and gives new
visions
No
matter our lives, even if dedicated against God, God’s light will
come and blind us, give us new visions, people to care for us as we
recover from the blindness of encountering the Light, send us out to
share the light with others.
We
may need a code to protect us, but the Light will be heard!
We
may think we can ‘go fishing’ (return to normal) but Jesus has so
much more planned for us. The light must be shared and heard, by all.
Jesus’ love cannot be squashed or squelched or set aside.
Easter 4 May 12 Jesus the Good Shepherd, calls us
to care for each other.
Jesus
leads us out to green pastures, still waters, through the greatest
darkness of life (the shadow of death), comforts us, shows us with
words and guides us with miracles of healing, and even though we
suffer the greatest ordeals, Jesus’ blood washes us white, even
though we die, Jesus brings us to new life.
So
we are to be and do for others.
Easter 5 May 19 Jesus Story for ALL, even
Gentiles and Rulers!
Jesus’
Story and his love is for all, even those we think are out of bounds,
beyond consideration, those we think are ‘unclean’!
Even
the rulers of the world, politicians, despots, tyrants, or even
benevolent rulers.
Easter 6 May 26 For Women, We Heal All
Jesus
Story is also for Women, HS will teach us new things, Jesus heals so
also we to heal one another, even on Sabbath, i.e. despite all
expectations not to heal or even help others.
Easter 7 June 2 As One, Love All Even our Enemies
so that all believe
So that
we may be one, Jesus does all this.
So that
we may be one, we love our enemies.
So that
we may be one, and so that the world may know God’s name and
believe.
May 5 Surprises, Visions Easter 3
The light will surprise us and give us visions of
Jesus.
No
matter who we think is our enemy, even if it be Christ or his
followers
No
matter our enthusiasm against God, God can and does use us, and all
people.
God
brings light, it blinds us, we remain in darkness until someone comes
to lead us home, to safety, to a period needed for the journey
through the darkness of being blinded by God’s light, to the other
side, when we can see clearly, believe assuredly, act confidently to
give everything, so that others may encounter the Light of Christ,
the Love of Christ, the Hope of Christ.
We may
need a code, to protect the Gospel, to save the authors, carriers,
listeners, and believers from death. But we will worship and praise
God on this real world, this dirt of dirt, in all seasons, cold or
hot, dry or wet, growing or dying, planting or harvest, surviving or
being active.
I am
going fishing. We will come along. A return to usual labours. God
will use that, too.
God will
come to us, redirect our efforts, bring such success we cannot
continue, and God will redirect us to fish with the story of Jesus,
with the Love of Jesus, among the people.
Acts 9:1-6 [7-20]
Thoughts
Saul
thinks he is right, very assured, very judgmental, just oversaw
stoning of Stephan.
The
Light of Christ enters him darkness of ruining lives, the light is
too much, blinds Saul.
Stylized:
three days Jesus dead, Saul in darkness, immediately (no Paul reports
he spent three years in the wilderness studying before he began
preaching.
Takes
another follower of Jesus, to bring the light back to Paul
For
Jesus has chosen to use this inspired, persistent, driven man to
bring Gospel to the nations.
Psalm 30
Revelation 5:11-14
Thoughts
Intro to
Revelation needed: a code known to Followers of the Way, so that
political Thoughts could be shared, and messages of the forbidden
faith, without authorities knowing, so the writings could be shared,
read, written back and forth. Most of this literature never made the
canon, but Revelations did: a vision of how God uses the events of
the world to ensure God’s message carried in the story of Jesus
could be shared everywhere, no matter what.
This
kind of writing, this code, was well known and used widely decades
before the Gospels were written, before the Gospels could survive.
Even so we’ve remnants of lost Gospels: the Q source, and others.
Challenge:
we have not fully deciphered the code: but generally all creatures
represent real people, rulers, kingdoms,
and
those gathered around the throne, represent various Xn Churches.
Great
words of encouragement for people under great persecution, after
WWII, refugees heard this with great hope.
Today,
for us, inspiration to rekindle our faith, hope and love for Christ
and for one another.
John 21:1-19
Thoughts
Our
plans: I am going fishing. We will go with you.
And God
has plans for our plans. Love one another as I loved you,
Love me
more than these:
feed my
lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep.
Fish on
the right side of the boat. Mission field, the harvest, most needed,
most plentiful on the right.
Jesus
feeds the fishermen, and the recognize him. Dare not ask who he is.
They
dare not ask, know, but they wonder and doubt, and do not dare.
May 12 Good Shepherd Easter 4
Jesus is the Good Shepherd, We are called to love
one another as Jesus love us:
We are to be Good Shepherds to one another
Acts 9:36-43
Thoughts
As Jesus
is able to bring the young girl and Lazarus back from the dead, so
Simon Peter is able to bring Dorcas, Tabitha, back to life after she
dies!
Our love
can be as life giving as Jesus’.
Handle with care!
Psalm 23
Thoughts
The
needs for life, abundant life, of a sheep, (green pastures, still
waters) the good Shepherd provides for us.
More: in
the dark valley of the shadow of death (the greatest evil) I need not
fear, the shepherd’s tools: rod and staff, comfort us.
Table
along with my enemies! My cup runs over!
Goodness
and mercy shall follow me all my days. I dwell eternally in God’s
house.
The Valley of the Shadow of Death
Revelation 7:9-17
Thoughts
There
are those who will survive the Great Ordeal, the silence of Beale
Street in every generation. They will be gathered at Christ’s
throne!
The will
be washed white in the blood of the Lamb!
Shelter,
food, water, no scorching by sun, but water of life, and tears wiped
away!
John 10:22-30
Thoughts
We, like
the Jews, want to know plainly, though Jesus has told and done
enough. Like doubting Thomas we want to put our hands in Jesus’
side and feel the nail marks in his hand, but that is not enough. The
HS must transform our hearts, teach us to know Jesus’ voice.
Voice
and sheep and shepherds and gathering in and gathering to go out to
green pastures and still waters.
They
will never perish, die but not perish! No snatching, not from God.
Jesus is God, one and three persons.
May 19 For ALL Easter 5
Jesus’ Story for ALL, Even Gentiles, Rulers
Acts 11:1-18
Thoughts
already,
not faith as a gift, but earned by repentance!
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
Thoughts
“See,
I am making all things new.”
To
the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water
of life.”
John 13:31-35
Thoughts
We will
be known as followers of Jesus, by our love for one another.
IN our
love, Jesus and God will be glorified.
What
else can we do?
May 26 For Women, too. Easter 6
Jesus’ Story and Love, for Women.
A) H.S. will teach us OR
B) Jesus Love Heals; thus we heal one another.
Acts 16:9-15
Thoughts
A women,
if you judge me to be faithful, come and stay with me. Response of
faith: to provide what is needed: hospitality for travellers, for
homeless.
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 22–22:5
Thoughts
An
exclusion: no unclean, only those written in the Book of Life
there no
other light needed than the Light of God, no night, no darkness, no
abominations, nothing unclean.
All
chaff will have been burned away.
John 14:23-29 HS will teach you everything!
Thoughts
Those
who love Jesus, keep his word, [and opposite, not love: not keep]
Advocate,
HS, will teach you everything
Do not
be troubled, or afraid;
rejoice
I will return to Father, foretold you so that you may believe.
Gospel (alt.): John 5:1-9 Heal one another
Thoughts
Our
travails last and last: this man’s for 38! years!
And in a
heartbeat Jesus heals him.
Love one
another as Jesus Loves us means HEAL one another, even if the stink
of rot has surrounded the illness or circumstance of sin for decades,
for generations even!
June 2 Be One: Love your enemies Easter 7
Jesus Story is for even our enemies. Love even
our enemies so that we may be one.
Acts 16:16-34
Thoughts
Good
News for those oppressing, even jailing us. Jesus’ Story Good for
Everyone! Even if we remain in jail to live it, to love even one’s
enemies
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
Thoughts
Testimony
for the churches, but everyone comes, everyone calls, the thirst
come. Grace with all the saints (God makes us all saints!)
John 17:20-26
Thoughts
All in
order that we may be one, with the love of the parent, God, for the
son, Jesus.
the ice
with cracks like rifle shots broke up, the wind pushed it to the
shoreline and the warmer weather melted it off the lake, except for a
few remnants on the windblown shore.
The
occasional camper ventures out for a weekend.
Allergies
return in force.
But my
favourite by far is the return of the loons.
Calm after, Preparation for, Speck of Haunting Beauty
The
question is always
where
to this day, this month, this year, with this life, precious as
Christ has claimed it to be?
The path toward the light at sunrise
Every
moment opportunities to do well, do the right thing, are before us.
Which will you choose this day?
Will you walk to the light?
Or will you choose to remain in the darkness of greed, self interest, deception, and destruction in order to just make it through the days you’ve filled with such pain for others, and your own soul?
[replace the above with and fill in your own choice of sin, evil, and darkness – we all have our favourites!]
In the
light is truth, grace, health, purpose, and peace.
And
profound joy, even in the midst of grief.
Your
choice?
The haunting loon returns with all the other signs of spring, by instinct, by the pull of nature, and for pure survival. Humans can choose more than survival and instinct. You can choose new life in the light, and choose to share it with everyone,
This
wondrous morning, we remember especially God’s victorious response
to death’s three-day claim on Jesus. We remember Jesus’
resurrection. And we hope for God’s resurrection response to all
claims evil has on us and on all people.
The Proclamation
3x
Christ is Risen, Christ is Risen Indeed!
The Darkness Before
This
past
week,
Holy
Week,
we have remembered Jesus’ story, from the Palm procession into
Jerusalem, to his last meal with his disciples as he gave us the New
Covenant, … to his arrest and
his disciples deserting him, … to the questioning, the scapegoating
and condemning
crowds, … to
his
whipping,
Peter’s denials, and
the
mocking of Jesus, … to
his torture,
and then his death and burial in an unused tomb. Rightfully so his
followers are fearful; they
hide behind locked doors.
All of this is so horrendous and unbearable.
Except
we know the next part of Jesus’ story, because we celebrate it each
Sunday. We know that Jesus is Risen from the dead, back to life.
The Light
Even
though all
that evil played
out
against him and
overwhelmed so many people and then even Jesus himself in death …
Even
so God
defeats death.
Yet
Holy Week leading to Easter is so much more than that:
God did not just step in to defeat the death of Jesus. After all
Jesus is not the first to come back from the dead. Death is
apparently,
– relatively speaking, – easily overcome, one person at a time.
Lazarus steps out of his tomb with grave clothes still covering him.
The young girl answers Jesus’ call Talitha cumi, and walks away
from her death bed.
Today
we remember that God does something much, much larger.
The story is more than one resurrection
The
story is more than one resurrection. God
defeats
all evil. All
death defeated.
It
is not just laying down in one’s own bed and waking up the next
morning in one’s own home. It is to be able to do this after living
on the streets or in the woods for years, with no bed or home to call
one’s own, and
then one night having ones own bed to sleep in, in one’s own home.
It’s not just having three meals a day in the senior’s care centre and being able to give an CLWR offering for Easter, which will give meals to people starving in refugee camps who have fled genocide in their home countries. Rather it is as a child having only grass to eat on the walk out of Stalin’s drought in the Ukraine, and having survived years of hardships and hunger when there were no refugee camps. Then in one’s later years being able to make a donation that will feed others who now have no food.
It’s not just a love story of ‘girl gets guy’, and they waltz off into the sunset of life. It is growing up without friends as an immigrant, an outsider. Then evil being defeated means one finds love in the most unexpected place with the most unexpected person against the most unbeatable odds … in the family of what once was one’s real enemies.
It’s
not just Jesus coming back from the dead to live again, although
that’s a bit terrific already. It’s Jesus having taken on all
Evil and having taken on all the sins of every person who has and
ever will live. It’s having taken on the penalties
for all that sin along with the big
penalty,
death for every person. Then
it is
being brought back to live life. It’s having Jesus
take
on all that and having defeated it!
Home Run
Jesus’
story is not like just standing at home plate and hitting a home run
out of the stadium. It’s standing at the plate, in the bottom of
the thirteenth inning, with a full count, down three runs, bases
loaded, with all your pitchers hurting, having been put up there in
desperation by the manager. You will never be here again, ever, no
matter if you play 1000 more games. Then
…
That’s like Jesus’ story; his life, suffering, death and resurrection mean so much more than we are able to imagine. That’s like our story or rather we each have a variation of that as our own story.
Our Response
In
Jesus’ and in our stories, God defeats all Evil and all death once
and for all time.
Or
sort of. God makes the promise visible to us, that one day, at the
end of this world, new life will be given to all the dead. There will
be a resurrection for everyone. That’s when God will put Evil to
rest.
God’s
promise to Abraham and Sarah took most of their life times before
God’s time was right for them to have a child, long past normal
time. God’s time to make this promise to us will come.
In
the meantime, today
we are God’s saints, not because we have done good things. Rather
we
are saints only because
God takes
us when we cannot
do anything
good.
God
makes
us the people who think the thoughts, who say the words, who do the
deeds of God’s perfect people. Jesus has pulled us from the grips
of evil where we’ve put ourselves, from where we only deserve
eternal death. From the darkest valley of the shadows of death Jesus
has brought blessed things to
us and out of
us. These
blessing
give life abundant to others around us.
How
do we respond to Gods’ work in and through us?
Our
response can be to delve into Jesus’ story, again and again. Our
response can be to learn more and more of God’s purpose for us,
communicated by God from outside of time, beyond matter, from
infinity. God has compressed God’s will into Jesus’ life story.
God has funnelled it to us living inside of time, confined to bodies,
living a finite existence. God communicates everything we need to
know through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection story. Our
response can be to engage with Jesus’ story again and again our
lives long.
The
Holy Spirit works in us to help us understand what we see and hear.
The Holy Spirit works in us so that like Mary in the Garden, we
recognize our shepherd’s voice and follow where he leads us.
Like
Mary, we see angels but we may not know it. The Holy Spirit helps us
fill in the blanks. Like Peter, we may hear the women’s story, even
go to see for ourselves, and find the grave clothes neatly folded on
the stone death bed. Yet we not understand what it is that we see, or
rather what
it is that we do
not see. The Holy Spirit helps us comprehend the obvious but
impossible: namely
that
God’s limitless creative power has just undone death through
Jesus’ sacrifice.
Like
the beloved disciple we may hear the women’s story, and see exactly
what Peter sees, and we may believe that Jesus lives. The Holy Spirit
helps us to grasp how we, as representatives of the human species,
just caught a new glimpse of God’s will and our place in creation.
The
Holy Spirit helps us continually change the rest of our lives, so
that we live as one
person in
the whole fully
changed
human project.
We
no longer need to compete with each other to succeed. God calls us to
the acceptable fast during Lent, giving of ourselves so that others
will have life abundant.
Then
after Easter, God calls us to celebrate every day, not just how the
light of Christ frees us, and how that changes the rest of our lives,
but how we are to be Christ’s
Light for others. Everyone’s life can be changed. God
has a part in the creating the new creation for each of us.
Can
we celebrate, even outright dance, the rest of our lives in Christ’s
Light?
Yes,
we can, if we choose, and not just because Jesus is for us, but
because Jesus sends us to share that light with all people,
especially those in desperate need around the world.
The Holy
Spirit helps us celebrate life with the most difficult people in our
lives, whether its a grouchy neighbour, a mean person we have to
relate to again and again, a nice but nosy relative, a recalcitrant
spouse, or a self-destructive friend.
Yes,
we can celebrate and dance through the challenges that come our way,
because the Holy Spirit inspires and guides us to understand more and
more fully what it means that Jesus lived, taught, healed, suffered,
died and is resurrected back to life!
Jesus
lives!
Alleluia!
For we can, no matter our past or future, live well.
Jesus
lives!
Alleluia!
For we can, no matter our past or future, bring life abundant to all
people!
