April 24, 2016 5th Sunday of Easter

John 13:34-35  (The Message)

 “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”

These are private, intimate words spoken by Jesus to his disciples, and to us.  They cut through all the pretense and get to the heart of the matter - what really counts - love!
Love bears and endures all things.  It can live with and respect differences.  Love listens even when we don’t like what we are hearing.  Love hangs in there when there is little to be received in return.  Love has the unquenchable capacity to believe the best in the midst of the worst.  Love endures all things!

We are being encouraged to hate rather then love; in our politics and even in the church.  Yes, hate, fear, and stay clear of those who are different from us.
All of which is contrary to one of the clearest commandments our Lord gave us.

We are to model Jesus love by how we treat each other in all aspects of life.
For, as  Martin Luther King said,
“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; loved illumines it.”
           



To love is not to demand ‘sameness’
but to affirm ‘differentness’,
and to live together in harmony.







Prayer thought:  “Lord, help me to affirm ‘differentness’ in my thoughts and actions this week…and always.”

April 17, 2016 4th Sunday of Easter

John 10:22-30  (The Message)

22-24 They were celebrating Hanukkah just then in Jerusalem. It was winter. Jesus was strolling in the Temple across Solomon’s Porch. The Jews, circling him, said, “How long are you going to keep us guessing? If you’re the Messiah, tell us straight out.”
25-30 Jesus answered, “I told you, but you don’t believe. Everything I have done has been authorized by my Father, actions that speak louder than words. You don’t believe because you’re not my sheep. My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him. I and the Father are one heart and mind.”

Paul Scherer, one of the great preachers of the 20th Century, wrote:

“Before the Word of God can get itself lived, it needs to get itself believed - and what is believed is not always lived.  But before it cannot itself believed, it has to get itself heard - and what is heard is not always believed.  Farther back than that, however...before the Word of God cannot itself heard, it must get itself said - and what is said is not always heard.”     The Word God Sent p. 3

There are two reasons why what is said is not always heard.
Because of the way it is said; and because of the way it is heard.

Jesus had trouble being heard because of the way he was heard.
They did not want to hear what he was saying, so they did everything they could to not hear.  And believe. They would not listen!

Is this not the root of all unbelief?  The refusal to listen and give truth a chance in our lives.

The request  “tell us straight out
” sounds legitimate, fair, reasonable, even honest.  But it isn’t.  It is loaded, bias, suspicious, deceptive.  A trap to catch Jesus and prove his blasphemy.

To look for the "plain truth" may well be a way to not have to face the truth.
The truth which is different than we want it to be!

And what is this truth?

 At it’s core it is that God loves you and me and everyone - “red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight.”

God includes those we exclude - and if God excludes anyone, it is not for me to say who that will be. It appears from Scripture that it will be those who reject the way of love which Jesus taught and choose to make God exclusive, judging who will make it and who won’t.  This I cannot do.  I am not God and I am not able to grasp how far God’s love goes to be inclusive





"Jesus loves the different people,
 All the people of the world.
 Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Jew,
 They are precious to him too.
 Jesus loves the different people
of the world."










Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to accept what I cannot change - that your love is inclusive.  Then help me be inclusive in my thinking and acting, daring to leave
judgement in your hands.”

April 10, 2016 3rd Sunday of Easter

John 21:1-19  (The Message)

21 1-3 After this, Jesus appeared again to the disciples, this time at the Tiberias Sea (the Sea of Galilee). This is how he did it: Simon Peter, Thomas (nicknamed “Twin”), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the brothers Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. Simon Peter announced, “I’m going fishing.”
3-4 The rest of them replied, “We’re going with you.” They went out and got in the boat. They caught nothing that night. When the sun came up, Jesus was standing on the beach, but they didn’t recognize him.
5 Jesus spoke to them: “Good morning! Did you catch anything for breakfast?”
They answered, “No.”
6 He said, “Throw the net off the right side of the boat and see what happens.”
They did what he said. All of a sudden there were so many fish in it, they weren’t strong enough to pull it in.
7-9 Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, “It’s the Master!”
When Simon Peter realized that it was the Master, he threw on some clothes, for he was stripped for work, and dove into the sea. The other disciples came in by boat for they weren’t far from land, a hundred yards or so, pulling along the net full of fish. When they got out of the boat, they saw a fire laid, with fish and bread cooking on it.
10-11 Jesus said, “Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught.” Simon Peter joined them and pulled the net to shore—153 big fish! And even with all those fish, the net didn’t rip.
12 Jesus said, “Breakfast is ready.” Not one of the disciples dared ask, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Master.
13-14 Jesus then took the bread and gave it to them. He did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus had shown himself alive to the disciples since being raised from the dead.

There is a knowing which is too deep for words; a knowing within which defies logic.

Such knowing comes from living with and discovering in the experiences of life that which is too deep for words.   Of such is faith, hope, love.  We don’t create them.  They create us, as we experience them both on a human level and beyond, on a mystical level, in the richness of God’s grace and the depth of God’s love.

“At its heart, I think, religion is mystical...Religions start, as Frost said poems do, with a lump in the throat, to put it mildly, or with the bush going up in flames, the rain of flowers, the dove coming down out of the sky.”  Frederick Buechner


We live as resurrection people not because we can understand the resurrection, but because the resurrection warms our heart and finds a home deep within our soul.  It rings true - there is “one more surprise” in store for us when our eyes close for the last time.







“The mystic in us is the one
moved to radical amazement
by the awe of things.”
Matthew Fox











Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, keep me surprised at life’s mystery, even to the better end.”

April 3, 2016 2nd Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-31  (The Message)

 19-20 Later on that day, the disciples had gathered together, but, fearful of the Jews, had locked all the doors in the house. Jesus entered, stood among them, and said, “Peace to you.” Then he showed them his hands and side.
20-21 The disciples, seeing the Master with their own eyes, were exuberant. Jesus repeated his greeting: “Peace to you. Just as the Father sent me, I send you.”
22-23 Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he said. “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?”
24-25 But Thomas, sometimes called the Twin, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples told him, “We saw the Master.”
But he said, “Unless I see the nail holes in his hands, put my finger in the nail holes, and stick my hand in his side, I won’t believe it.”
26 Eight days later, his disciples were again in the room. This time Thomas was with them. Jesus came through the locked doors, stood among them, and said, “Peace to you.”
27 Then he focused his attention on Thomas. “Take your finger and examine my hands. Take your hand and stick it in my side. Don’t be unbelieving. Believe.”
28 Thomas said, “My Master! My God!”
29 Jesus said, “So, you believe because you’ve seen with your own eyes. Even better blessings are in store for those who believe without seeing.”
30-31 Jesus provided far more God-revealing signs than are written down in this book. These are written down so you will believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and in the act of believing, have real and eternal life in the way he personally revealed it.

We don’t get very far into the Easter season before we run into Thomas - doubting Thomas.

He is the one who grounds the resurrection in the physical appearance of Jesus.
He is, as one person put it, “...a pioneer of the faith through whose persistency we are given a message of grace and joy.”
He is also the one who reminds us that doubt is a part of faith.  It is often on the growing edge of faith.

As Luther said, “There is more faith in honest doubt then in all the creeds of Christendom.”

What we say we doubt may well be what we most want to believe.
When we continue to believe, even when we have our doubts,  we are open to believing more then we can believe.

It is no sin to doubt.  Our doubts not only keep us honest and humble, they also are openings for God’s spirit to touch our lives.  For through our doubts we are let to believe in mysteries far beyond human logic or comprehension.






“I believe in the sun,
even when it is not shining.
I believe in Love
even when I feel it not.
I believe in God,
even when He is silent.”
           Cellar in Cologne after WWII










Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, I believe; help mine unbelief.  Help me see more then can be seen and believe more then can be grasped with the human mind.”