May 6, 2012 Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 15:1-8

¹ “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

   ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

 “Remain In Me”

There is no doubt about it; by our fruits we are known.  Actions speak louder than words. Believing and doing always go together.  For “demand is laid on us the same moment grace meets us.”

St. Francis of Assisi - “It is no use walking any where to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”

Good fruit is a natural part of being “in Christ”.  When we remain in Him good things will come from our living.  For the fruit of the spirit - the fruit of His love and energy - will flow through us and enrich the lives of others.  

 “Bear Much Fruit”

To go to church is to risk being changed - changed into Christ’s likeness so we might be more fruitful in our living.  So we might bear much fruit.

Going to church will not keep bad things from happening to us. It will help make  good things happen through us. 

For it is there we are pruned so we can produce good fruit.  Pruned to love more and hate less.  Pruned to accept difference more and judge less.  Pruned so we can forgive more, trust more, be generous more, be more like Christ. 

We may not like it at first; it certainly will not be easy, but it is the way it is when Christ comes into our lives.  We are loved much; we must love much.

April 29, 2012 Fourth Sunday of Easter

John 10:11-18

  ¹¹ “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹² The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. ¹³ The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

   ¹⁴ “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— ¹⁵ just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. ¹⁶ I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. ¹⁷ The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. ¹⁸ No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”" 

“Life In All Its Fullness”

Ernest Hemingway - “The Sun Also Rises” - nobody but bullfighters ever really live “life all the way up.”  We don’t agree.

Jesus Christ tells us that life in all its fullness is His to give, and only his.

We don’t like this very much either!  For is not the fullness of life attained by achieving it? No.

Life is not to be discovered in things, objects and possessions; life is discovered in all its fullness in being known and in knowing, in relationships!

Herman Wouk, author of “The Caine Mutiny”

“It was my lot to reach quite young what many people consider the dream life of America:  success by my own efforts,

    a stream of dollars to spend’

    a penthouse in New York,

    forays to Hollywood’

  the companionship of pretty women’

all before lI was 24.  There I was in the realms of gold.  But even as I lived this conventional smart existence of inner show business and dreamed the conventional dreams, IT ALL SEEMED THIN.”  Sept, 21, 1959, Time Magazine

Life is relationships.  It is knowing and being known.  The fullness of life is discovered in the touch of others, and in the touch of the One who came that we might have life. Who calls us by name and knows us intimately, so we can be totally honest with him.  When we hear his voice and follow him we discover life all the way up.

“The Abundant Life”

Jesus came to give that which every living person desires - the abundant life.

We have no argument whit this.  We do have some questions about how he does this and some doubts as to what really makes up the abundant life.

He came to give us the abundant life.  We want to create it for ourselves.

How do we reconcile this?  

We don’t!  We don’t resolve the paradoxes of life with faith.

We discover in them - in the very experiences of life which seem to destroy - the meaning of our humanity.

We discover we have feet of clay but also are creatures of our God and King.

We discover that life is political, economic and social, but it is also spiritual.

We discover that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God, and in so discovering, we also discover the abundant life in Christ.

The abundant life is a gift, offered by Christ, received by faith.  It offers no pat answers to all the dangers and struggles of life.  It simply yet profoundly enables me to say, with confidence and hope in the face of all that life throws at me, “The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want.” 

To live the abundant life is to live knowing the Masters voice, and it is to be called by name.  Then it is to follow him, as he leads out into life.

“One Flock - One Shepherd”

There is one flock because there is one Shepherd.  There are many sheep and all are different.  There are numerous folds in the flock, and they are different.  Yet there is one flock and this flock is made up of all who hear the voice of the Shepherd and follow.

One thing is necessary within the unity which is ours in Christ and that is faithfulness to our confession that Jesus is Lord.  All else is secondary. 

Unity in the Church does not depend on sameness within the church, but upon oneness in Christ, in which there is room for differences.

April 22, 2012 Third Sunday of Easter

Luke 24:36b-48

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”³⁷ They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. ³⁸ He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? ³⁹ Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

⁴⁰ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. ⁴¹ And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” ⁴² They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³ and he took it and ate it in their presence.

   ⁴⁴ He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

   ⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶ He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things.

 “They Disbelieved For Joy”

Good news as well as bad news is hard to believe.  It is too good to be true.

To disbelieve for joy is to believe that which is too good to be true.  It is perhaps the most honest way to hear and respond to the Easter message.

As Eugene Kennedy, says in his book, Believing, the disciples here are 

“experiencing an impulse to believe more deeply...a passionate need to believe as richly and profoundly as possible.”

For “believing cannot be activated by force or by fear.” It happens when we encounter the mystery of the resurrection.  And discover a truth which is too good to not be true!

Acts 3:12-19

¹² When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? ¹³ The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. ¹⁴ You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. ¹⁵ You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. ¹⁶ By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.

¹⁷ “Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. ¹⁸ But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer. ¹⁹ Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.

“But God...”

The genius of the poet is that he says more then he knows.

The same is true for the Bible, and those who speak in it.

Like Peter in today's lesson.

He begins by blaming them for Jesus crucifixion; but he doesn’t belabor it. Blaming doesn’t help anyone!  It doesn’t bring times of refreshment.

Words of a father in a TV story where a boy drowns:

“To blame ourselves is the easy way out.  It was a tragic accident.

It happened.  It doesn’t make any sense.  And to blame ourselves for it happening is to run away from it, and it is to keep life from ever happening to us.”

To blame is to die; to accept the mystery of it is to be open to times of refreshing.

Peter also gives them an excuse as a way out but doesn’t stay with it.  There is no hope in making excuses.  It is a cowards way of blaming.

What we need to dare say is, “I blew it...but God didn’t and God doesn’t!”  God can reverse it!  That brings times of refreshment.

April 15, 2012 2 Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-31

  ¹⁹ On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

   ²¹ Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

    ²⁴ Now Thomas (also known as Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. ²⁵ So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

   But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

   ²⁶ A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

   ²⁸ Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

   ²⁹ Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

    ³⁰ Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. ³¹ But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

 “My Lord And My God”

We don’t see God and then believe; we believe, then we see.

“For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”  Heb. 11:6

Thomas doubted - but he wanted to believe.  This opened his eyes and heart to see and believe.  He wanted to believe Jesus rose; he stuck with those who did believe.  And he acted upon this desire; he saw the marks of the crucification; he confessed his faith in Jesus.

Faith does not rest on seeing alone; it rests on acting; taking the plunge and going where the mind can never fully comprehend.  This is why faith is a “power and passion in authority among the powers and passions of life.”  P. T. Forsythe

For John, believing in God and believing in the resurrection is all tied up with loving one another.  It is not something we do in isolation, something we achieve by ourselves.  

It is something which happens to us when we obey his commands and do good to one another. 

Faith active in love  increases faith so we can see what we could not see, believe what we could not believe, and know what we could never know - even the awesome truth of the resurrection.

 “Doubting Thomas”

Be a doubting Thomas!  It is a part of healthy faith.

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

Be a doubting Thomas: 

It will keep you honest and open to change; open to God’s will for your life.  

It will keep you humble - you will not get so easily caught in the idolatry of certainty.  Faith will be a voyage of discovery, often disturbing, yet also fulfilling.

Doubt helps faith happen - it opens us to the miracle of faith happening in us.

Be a doubting Thomas!  It is a part of healthy faith!

Quotes on Doubt

Gamaliel Bailey, an American abolitionist said,

“Who never doubted, never half believed.  Where doubt is, there

truth is - it is her shadow.”

Frederick Buechner puts it when he says, 

“Whether your faith is that there is a God, or that there is not a God,

if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep.

Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith.  They keep it awake and moving.”

Soul Making, Alan Jones says, 

“In a world where there is no room for doubt, ambiguity, or questioning, there is no room for genuine faith.”  (p.116)

Ellie Wiesel, who lived through the fanaticism of the Holocaust born of the blind belief in the superiority of the Arian race says, “I turn away from persons who declare that they know better than anyone else the only true road to God....My experience is that the fanatic hides from true debate...He is afraid of pluralism and diversity; he abhors learning.  He knows how to speak in monologues only...The fanatic never rests and never quits; the more he conquers, the more he seeks new conquests....A fanatic has answers, not questions; certainties, not hesitations,(and ) as the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche expressed it, (it’s) ‘Madness is the result not of uncertainty but certainty’.” 

                                                Parade Magazine, April 19,1992

For the terrible truth we are saved from by doubt is, as Alan Jones says,  “the persecuting personality (which) is marked by clarity and precision.  (In which) there is no room for indecision... no room for guilt... no room for doubt.  Such are the marks of a totalitarian state or totalitarian church.  (It is ) the divided mind, the uneasy conscience, and the sense of personal failure (that is, our own uneasiness and doubt) which brings us... to the place of faith” where we become not blind believers but “one of God’s spies trying to make room for hope” and love in a world of hopelessness and despair.  (Soulmaking,pp.117,119)

April 8, 2012 Easter Sunday

John 20:1-18

¹ Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. ² So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

³ So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. ⁴ Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, ⁷ as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. ⁸ Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. ⁹ (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) ¹⁰ Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.”She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

   ¹⁷ Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’'⁸ Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

“The Unexpected Happened!”

No one expected Jesus to rise from the dead.

Pilate didn’t.  The Centurion didn’t.  The Pharisee’s didn’t.  The disciples didn’t.

Not even Mary Magdalene expected to find an empty tomb.  Then it happened and nothing has been the same since - for them or for us.

Everything we believe hinges on the resurrection.  The words our Lord spoke; the sacrifice he made; the promises He gave, all rest on the resurrection.  Without it they are empty.

With it they become words of life and hope, trusting that nothing now can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ!

 “The Future Is Open”

When POW’s are released and go hope the future is open again.

When Jesus rose from the dead the future was opened again for him and for us.

Without a future life becomes stale, boring, routine, uneventful; it looses its sing.  With a future, life becomes exciting, dynamic, moving, pulsating, alive.  That’s what Easter is all about: a future which is eternal!  Not even death can take our future away from us.

The future is open; we can live hopefully, joyfully - fully.  

With Martin Luther, we can plant a rose bush in our garden today, even if the world should end tomorrow.  For there is no end to God’s love and our eternal home!

Mark 16:1-8 (Alternate Gospel for Easter)

“Be Amazed!” 

The angles advice to the women is absurd - “Do not be amazed!”

Indeed, how could they not be amazed!  A resurrection had just taken place - something which had never happened before and would never happen gain - and they are to take it calmly, without amazement?

How absurd; preposterous; impossible!

Be amazed at the message of today.  Don’t lose this quality as you contemplate the good news that Jesus lives.  We have heard it many times; we think we know what it means; we believe it.  It is still amazing!  It doesn’t make sense; it is not logical  or rational.  It is exceptional!

Be amazed that Jesus rose; that out of death comes life; that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ!  It is shockingly good news - it is love “so amazing so divine” at work in our lives and in our world.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the source of all true art and science (we can add religion, as Paul says.’Great indeed is the mystery of our religion’).  He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead;  his eyes are closed.”  Albert Einstein

Be amazed by Easter and the energy it releases in our lives and our world.

i.e. The 4 Chaplains on the Dorchester in WWII.

Be amazed by Easter and walk “from here to eternity” as one who lives in the hope, love, peace, joy, and life’s meaning generated by that open tomb and the words, “He is not here!  He is risen! He lives! Alleluia!