June 5, 2011 Seventh Sunday of Easter

John 17: 1-11

   1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:

   “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

    6 “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.

May 7, 1978 “Living In Love ”

 “The petition that this community of believes be kept in God’s name is in effect a petition that love be the sign and seal of their common life.  Just as love marks the unity of the Father with his Son, and of the Son with his followers, so love shall mark the unity of God’s people and provide the power for their mission.”  From Proclamation

Living in love is the mark of unity - not sameness.

In the church we have had difficulty with differtness.

Our unity lies not in our sameness but in our love which transcends, embraces, encourages, applauds differtness!

To encourage differtness is healthy.

Love encourages differtness and is the power needed to live in unity with differtness.

There is only ONE holy, apostolic, catholic Church.  Only one!

Yet, the Church has never been ONE.  There have always been differences, disagreements and dissension within the body of believers.

“If Puritans had been, in part, driven by the haunting fear that someone, somewhere might be happy, Lutherans (have) been driven in part by the fear that someone, somewhere else might be right.”  The Cresset, May 1984, p.10

These words of our text are beyond our doing; but not beyond God’s doing!

Our task is not to create the oneness, the unity; our task is to discover it, affirm it, and share it with one another.

The irony is, unity can be discovered in places of division, even places of tension.

There is room for differtness in our oneness and sometimes it takes tension to discover it.

The unity of the Church is deeper then our differtness; the oneness is a great mystery born of God’s love at work ink our hearts and lives.

“Now They Know”

Jesus Christ came to make God’ knowable’; so we might know the one true God.

No one is prevented from knowing God by God.  God does not predestine anyone to blindness and disbelief.

Knowing begins with trust; trusting the person who has the word; trusting Jesus Christ.

Then knowing becomes a matter of obeying; acting on his word.

To know is to trust; to trust is to act, to act is to discover - now we know!

“And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings ( and we can add the joys) which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.”             

                                  Albert Schweitzer, “The Search For The Historical Jesus”

May 29, 2011 Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 14:15-21

15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[a] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

 “Love...As Struggle Together” 

“Love is, as much as it is anything, a struggle together that is always seeded with new possibilities and challenges...even in old age.”    Eugene Kennedy

Jesus is talking about such a struggle in our text for today.

He is not talking about a comfortable system for getting into heaven. 

He is talking about the struggle inherent in loving one’s neighbor as one’s self!

Jesus can be very demanding.  To know of his amazing grace is also to learn of his demanding love.  For once we are loved and know lit, we have to love so others know it.

To say that God loves me is to say something not only life giving, but also something life demanding.  This means we are to be about the task of healing where ever it is needed.

As Sam Keen says, “The task of the lover is to be an agent of healing.“ 

This is the struggle to be human in the image of Jesus. 

This is the bottom line with Jesus: to love God and live it by showing love to others.

This is no extra curricular activity we are called to do. This is the heart of it all.   

We have been loved with a great love!  We are to love with a great love!

“Unlike The World”   

“The disciplesare utterly unlike the world.  (They) live under a different command, are given a different spirit, serve a different God, and engage in a different love.  (this) community-defininlg command...is new and unexpected....the command is an invitation to live a different life together, unlike the sways of the world. The practice of love makes the church staggeringly unlike the world.”    Walter Brueggemann 

We are called to be different.  Not perfect, not sanctimonious, not judgmental, but different!  Different because of the role love plays in our lives and relationships.

 “All gestures of love however small they be in favor of the poor and the unwanted, are important to Jesus.”  Mother Teresa: 

“We can do no great things; only small things with great love.”  Mother Teresa: 

 “Let them say, ‘He tried to love somebody.’”   Martin Luther King:

We are called to be different in how we love.  This is the all consuming task of following Jesus.

May 22, 2011  Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 14:1-14

11 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God[a]; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”

 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Even with words we have heard many times, we must listen for what we have never heard before.  And with words we know we must listen for the unknown.

The words of John 14, which we often use to make out an exclusive defense for Christianity, were spoken in a powerfully intimate moment.  They are not meant to be used as a smug statement of egotistical arrogance, but  a expression of the extent of God’s love.  

It is through His love that all people come to the Father.  He who ate with tax collectors and sinners and forgave those no one else would forgive opens the door to God’s love for everyone - those who believe and those who don’t!

We are not called to save people; this is God’s task.  We are called to love people, as God has loved us. This is the greater work we are to do - trust in and live out the  way of love over hate, the truth of forgiveness over condemnation, and the life of faith which dares

keep compassion at the center of life.

An important emphasis of this text is that what it promises has already come to us.  We don’t have to live wondering how we are going to get there; we can live doing his work. And dare we say it, even doing greater things then he did because He is in all we do and makes more of it then we ever could alone.  

Greater works then Jesus - more accepting, more forgiving, compassionate, understanding, open to new possibilities then we would ever be left  to ourselves.  

May 15, 2011 Fourth Sunday of Easter

John 10:1-10

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

   7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

“The Shepherd Gives Life”  

“The purpose of the shepherd is to give life to the sheep.”

This is why he exists!

He knows them by name. They know his voice.  The relationship leads to abundant life.

In the book, “The Little Prince”, the following conversion takes place between a boy and a fox:    

The fox is speaking to the boy:

“I have no need for you, and you, on your part, have no need of me.  To you, I am 

nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.  But if you tame me,

       then we will need each other.  To me, you will be unique in all the world.  To you, I

       shall be unique in all the world.”

That’s the key - to be unique to someone!

We are unique to God - who loves us with a unique love in Jesus, 

calls us by name and gives us opportunity to live life all the way up!

God won’t live our lives for us; God will live our lives with us.

The purpose of the Church is also to give life, fill life, enrich life so that we are pregnant with potential and then turned loose on the world.

April 16, 1978  “Discovering Life -  Abundantly”

Thornton Wilder in his play “Our Town” has Emily, the young bride who had died in childbirth, ask, in a return to live over one day with her family,:  “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”  The answer given is, “No, the Saints and poets maybe, they do some.”

It is so easy to live for yesterday or tomorrow and miss today.

We must realize that life is a spiritual journey and it’s abundance is to be discovered on the way.  It is discovered as it is shared with others and as we open ourselves to new possibilities.  

Slowing down helps; so does a simpler life style; time to touch and be touched.

The abundant life in Christ is hidden in human form yet today; even as we are touched by His presence, we also must touch to live.

A story to spark the text

“Peter W Marty, in a short article titled “The Poetry of Sheep.” offers yet another ideal picture of the church:  ”Metaphorically speaking, it’s like a jumble of words coming together to form an unexplainable rich poem.“

His inspiration comes from a sheep farm in England in which a writer spray-painted a single word on each sheep in the flock and then set them loose.  As the sheep wandered around, the words took on constantly shifting poetic forms.

Marty says, “We the church would do well to think of God as writing poetry with our lives.  You can’t write a poem with one word.  It takes a whole flock...Always God is trying to figure out how to get us to be this unexplainably rich poem we’re capable of being.”

Nancy Claire Pittman, New Proclamation, Year A 2011 Easter through Christ the King

Peer W. Marty, “The Poetry of Sheep”. Christian Century. (Sept. 9, 2008), 10.