May 29, 2022 7th Sunday of Easter

 John 17:20-23  (The Message) 

 I’m (Jesus) praying not only for them

But also for those who will believe in me

Because of them and their witness about me.

The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—

Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,

So they might be one heart and mind with us.

Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.

The same glory you gave me, I gave them,

So they’ll be as unified and together as we are—

I in them and you in me.

Then they’ll be mature in this oneness,

And give the godless world evidence

That you’ve sent me and loved them

In the same way you’ve loved me.

These words of Jesus last recorded prayer end with a challenge which

gets to the heart of what it means to be a Christian.  It isn’t sameness.

It isn’t agreeing on every thing.  It is to love as we have been loved.

What ever else this means, it does mean we cannot give up on love as we seek to make a difference in a world so full of hate.  

Bertrand Russell, a British philosopher, logician, and social critic. as well as a very vocal opponent of Christianity came to this conclusion near the end of his life (1872-1970):

“There are certain things that our age needs...The root of the matter is a thing so simple that I am almost ashamed to mention it for fear of the derisive smile with which wise cynics will greet my words.  The thing I mean - please forgive me for mentioning it - is love, Christian love, or compassion.  If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide in action, a reason for courage, and imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.”  

His words still hold true for us now more then ever! 

Ukraine civilians giving bread      

to a Russian soldier and helping 

him video call his mother.  

Christ’s love in action indeed!

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, ‘Love, love, love, that’s what it’s all about.”  Help me to not only sing these words, but live them each day.”  

May 22, 2022 6th Sunday of Easter

John 14:23-29   (The Message)

23-24 “Because a loveless world,” said Jesus, “is a sightless world. If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him—we’ll move right into the neighborhood! Not loving me means not keeping my words. The message you are hearing isn’t mine. It’s the message of the Father who sent me.

25-27 “I’m telling you these things while I’m still living with you. The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you. I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.

28 “You’ve heard me tell you, ‘I’m going away, and I’m coming back.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I’m on my way to the Father because the Father is the goal and purpose of my life. 29 “I’ve told you this ahead of time, before it happens, so that when it does happen, the confirmation will deepen your belief in me.

Saying goodbye is often difficult.  This is the setting of our text - Jesus saying goodbye.  The disciples don’t get it; so he tells them again.   They hear the words but still do not really understand, for it has not happened yet.  Only when it happens will they know.  So Jesus leaves them with a word they can hang on to - love.

Love is the most important word in the Bible and in our lives. 

It is enough to say, “God is love.”

And to repeat over and over and over again, as the Psalmist does, 

that “his steadfast love endures forever.”  It is enough to know that I am loved.  

Then I can make it through even the roughest of days!  

We are to obey Jesus words because we love doing it.  We love doing it because we have first been loved into doing it.  To obey out of love is to love obeying! 

We are to be amateurs about love.  

That is, be “those who do something 

because they love doing it.” 

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me obey one commandment ahead of all others -  to love as I have been loved by You!” 

May 15, 2022 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.”

May 8, 2022 4th Sunday of Easter

John 10:22-25  (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 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. 

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.  They did not want to hear what Jesus was saying, in word and deed.  They wanted the “plain truth” which was less than the truth Jesus lived.  They wanted Jesus  truth to fit their truth and his was far different from theirs.

And what is this truth?  It is hidden in Jesus actions which speak louder than words

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.”  

And also that 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,

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.”

 May 1, 2022  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 24, 2022 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 Paul  Tillich said, “Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith, it is an element of faith”.

And Alan Jones said, “In a world where there is no room for doubt, ambiguity, or questioning, there is no room for genuine faith.”

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 than 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. 

Despite being a major figure in faith today, 

even Mother Teresa of Calcutta was not 

immune to struggles with doubt.

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.”

April 17, 2021 Easter Sunday

Luke 24:1-12   (The Message) 

1-3 At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of the Master Jesus.

4-8 They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here, but raised up. Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee that he had to be handed over to sinners, be killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?” Then they remembered Jesus’ words.

9-11 They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, but the apostles didn’t believe a word of it, thought they were making it all up.

12 But Peter jumped to his feet and ran to the tomb. He stooped to look in and saw a few grave clothes, that’s all. He walked away puzzled, shaking his head.

Easter is hope.

What oxygen is for the lungs, hope is for the spirit.

Without it suffocation takes place; despair takes over; paralysis sets in.  Without it, as Jean Paul Sartre put it, “man is a useless passion”.

Without hope there is no meaning to living.

Easter  is hope!  Hope born of an event and a promise which touch the very core of human yearning.  The event is a resurrection; the promise is eternal life.  Both so incredible they are difficult to believe yet so powerful that nothing can overcome them.  

We are living in times which cry out for hope for those caught up in hopelessness and despair.  And we see it appear in places of great pain and destruction as the people of Ukraine struggle to be free and most of the world struggles with them, doing what can be done to keep hope alive in the midst of that which sometimes must seem hopeless.

It doesn’t sound like much yet it is vital to their survival that hope not be extinguished and they know they are not alone.  This must be at the heart of all we do to walk with them for it is the gift of Easter born of a Resurrection!

Yes, Easter is hope!  The hope which adds to the love of living and will never disappoint.  The resurrection says there are no closed doors, the future is open, anything is possible.   For Jesus lives and we live in God’s eternal love!

 

Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, help me to live in hope with love,

born of your resurrection .  And keep hope alive in the hearts of all who walk this day in despair and hopelessness.  Especially the people of Ukraine who face the evil of the senseless destruction of their homes and communities.”   Amen