​In the Gospel this week, Jesus has “set his face toward Jerusalem.” He is sending messengers ahead of him to prepare the way. Yet one Samaritan community refuses to receive him. The disciples are quick to want to bring violence upon them: John and James want to set the town ablaze!

Their reaction is striking. Even the closest of disciples are susceptible to their own reactive and violent tendencies when others do not accept them/nor their message. This passage is a helpful reminder for us. Our defensive and destructive habits are difficult to break even as we journey in faith.

-At this point in their journey the twelve have already been spreading the good news and curing diseases.

-They have already been told “if someone does not receive you, shake the dust off your feet.”

-They have already fed the 5000.

-They have already heard the Beatitudes.

In the Gospel of Luke, Peace is emphasized as coming through the Spirit and it is also associated with God’s Glory. Peace and Glory. From the very beginning of the Gospel we hear: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

While we understand that Love is an action, We often don’t consider Peace as an action. Many understand the definition of Peace as lack of violence - or the absence of war.

How do you understand Peace? It is not simply doing nothing. It’s an activity. Sometimes it is choosing to do nothing which is not indifference. Peace has intention behind it. Peace needs to be created.

Jesus’ message is about just that. Peace is used fourteen times in Luke. He is building bridges between those who do not get along. The parable of the Good Samaritan comes from this Gospel.

When the disciples respond reactively to the Samaritan community, Jesus rebukes them. The passage says they simply continue on their way to the next village. Jesus does not have to stop to consider his response. He keeps moving forward. In fact, he has to turn to John and James in his reprimand, suggesting he is in continual motion. He has set his face forward.

Not only have the disciples missed the mark. They seem particularly dense at times (not unlike us). They are called to Jesus’ message (the greater message of God) but get misdirected by their own predispositions.

Do you Remember the Beatitudes: What he says about out enemies?

But to those of you who will listen, I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also.

Remember what he says about Judgment and Forgiveness?

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38Give, and it will be given to you.

1Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? 42How can you say, ‘Brother,c let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while you yourself fail to see the beam in your own eye?

Finally he ends with: Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I say? 47I will show you what he is like who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them: 48He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid his foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the torrent crashed against that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.


This is what comes from finding peace within ourselves. People will mistreat us. People will judge and condemn us. People will disagree with us. But if we have a good foundation it will not completely shake us.

As Author and Franciscan Brother, Richard Rohr, states:
“Many of us think we are converted to Christ, but without the conversion of our emotional reactions, we remain much like everyone else…
He goes on to say:

…The next time you are offended, consider it a “teachable moment.” Ask yourself what part of you is actually upset. It’s normally the smaller or ego self [which isn’t your converted self]. If we can move back to the big picture of who we are in God, our True Self, we’ll find that what upset us usually doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in objective reality! But we can waste a whole day (or longer) feeding that hurt until it seems to have a life of its own and, in fact, “possesses” us. At that point, it becomes what Eckhart Tolle rightly calls our “pain-body.”


Predispositions that hurt us and “take on a life of their own” were known to the desert mothers and fathers as “the passions.” Paul refers to them as things “of the flesh” the things that contribute to the pain body: “enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, adultery…It is a list of things that literally cause the “pain body.”


That is what Paul means when he says you will not inherit the Kingdom of God. It is not an arbitrary list that makes someone a bad person therefore we will be punished. It is a list of things that we are prone to - and that have the potential to cause pain to ourselves in a cascading domino effect… then there is no peace for ourselves or others - or for the Kingdom of God.


But if we all (literally all) were to spend time becoming awake to the passions that dominate us personally; that create such reactive emotions; we would start to uncover our true foundation.

The Gospel today is also a reminder that Jesus is not just "on the way" but Jesus "is the way.”

As we journey in our own spiritual development with him we learn to shake the dust off of our feet.
We learn to let slights slough off of us, we learn to forgive, we stop holding up a target for insults (real or imagined). We strive to keep our Spirits alive, healthy and moving forward toward a Peaceable Kingdom.


After this incident (or non incident with the Samaritans) in the Gospel there is a distinct separate piece. Our passage transitions into a portion that includes three statements from Jesus about what is necessary to follow the way. Essentially, they all boil down to one thing: your willingness is required immediately. We are moving in a direction and we cannot rest from it.

What’s interesting about this trio of statements is that they sound harsh and like an impossible feat. Yet, in the very next passage Jesus has commissioned 72 of his followers to go out and heal. (And they do.)

He tells them: 5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you.”

From here on out we hear the gift of Peace is ours.

Jesus’ final words before his ascension is that he is offering us the promise from the Father. We will be clothed with the power from on high. We are to be clothed in Peace. This is our inheritance: The Gift of Peace.

There is a lot of turmoil and division in our society right now. Not simply divisions among those who are different from ourselves. We are facing divisions among community members, friends, and family. War, vaccines, the recent Supreme Court decisions… We are facing into these important issues in what feels like a never ending stream of exhaustion.

And as followers of Christ, we have one questions to ask ourselves. Am I going to be drawn into something reactive that is destructive… or am I going to keep moving forward building an environment of peace?

I’ll end with Paul’s words:
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control….If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
Amen.




​

In the Gospel this week Jesus heals a disruptive Demoniac in the Gentile area of Garasenes. Jesus has been healing others in many ways throughout the Gospel of Luke who respond with joy and thanksgiving. However when Jesus heals this “demoniac” by casting out the legion of demons into a local herd of swine, the townspeople respond with fear. When they see him clothed and with a clear mind sitting at the feet of Jesus; They ask Jesus to leave. The healed man asks Jesus if he can accompany him on the way, but Jesus instead tells the man to stay at home and share his experience with others: To tell them “all that God has done” for him.
It is not just a story about the Gospel, the Good News, being spread to the Gentile World, but it is also an allegory. There are so many symbolic things going on in this story. Historians tell us Garasenes is either a fictional town - or a misspelling of what could be a couple of different options. (Perhaps it is all of our towns.)


The legion of demons is a direct reference to the Roman military. A legion would be three to six thousand soldiers. We are reminded of the Roman occupation of the area. Jesus’ ability to so easily cast them into a herd of swine expresses the knowledge of God’s reign. God holds the power the authority and the glory, not the Romans. The Legion may also represent thousands of ways in which we may delude ourselves, confuse ourselves, and participate in compulsive distractions from the true path, which is the way of peace.

It is very much a societal allegory. Jesus had a way of integrating the personal and the universal for us. When the demonic man is seized by fits he is chained and bound by the townspeople. When they see him clothed and in his right mind, they are afraid. How curious…


Often we respond with fear to a power greater than ourselves, even when it involves healing. Believing in a power greater than ourselves is difficult. We want to hold onto the agency we have developed over a lifetime. We’ve been trained to believe we should be able to solve all problems through our own initiative. We hold on tight to the patterns of our own thinking and doing, even when we know like St. Paul, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” It is difficult. We pray to God for guidance, but accepting that guidance may involve change or adaptation.


The healed man has a lot of work ahead of him too. Sharing his experience, as Jesus has asked him to do, will not be easy. Will his community accept him? What will they have to accept about themselves in order to do so?


We often resist the healing or transformation of others (especially in our own family) because we are so accustomed to the role that they play in our life-pattern, even if it is a disruptive role. Accepting that there is a power greater than ourselves dedicated to repair, restoration and healing (the kind of power that Jesus offers) usually means "getting out of our own way.”
It means surrendering to a universal love that we know is available. We can’t totally understand, but through trust and being truly open to the experience of another, we may discover a healing that has not just occurred in them - but will help be transformative for ourselves.


But beyond the very personal interpretation that we may recognize as a family systems issue… there is a more universal issue at play in the Gospel story. It involves the cliff and the swine! What is going on with the swine, and why are they driven over the cliff?!


Earlier in Luke, the townspeople of Nazareth wanted to throw Jesus over a cliff when he asked them to take a good look at themselves: when he reminded them that Elijah had helped the other: the non-Jews. It was Blasphemy in their view. And to be thrown over the cliff by an angry mob was a form of execution. Yet in the Gospel today, these townspeople had never sought to execute the man who was possessed by demons. Instead he was used as a scapegoat.

Such an allegorical reading of the text helps us understand why the townspeople do not rejoice to find the man healed. His possession represents all of the dark pieces hidden in the very subconscious of the people. This man loses his mind ever so often within the confines of this oppressive state. Yet, rather than recognize the violence in their culture, the townspeople use him as their scapegoat.


As many of you know, on Thursday evening this week there was a shooting at an Episcopal Church in Alabama: St. Stevens in Vestavia Hills just outside of Birmingham. Twenty-five people were in attendance at a potluck supper. We don’t know the details of why, but a lone shooter was able to shoot and kill three people before he was restrained by a member of the church.

We pray for the people of St. Stevens, for their friends and families, and for their community. We pray within the Body of Christ for our sisters and brothers, and we pray for a World free of violence.

These shootings have become prevalent. The madness of these shooters, whether it be in Alabama, Texas, New York, Florida, Connecticut, Colorado and everywhere else in our country - are signs. They are asking us to face ourselves… asking us to consider, that as inconceivable as it is, these demonic forces are not completely divorced from the rest of us. Like the Demoniac in the Gospel, the message is clear: When we delude ourselves, when our actions are not in sync with our values, we will start to unravel:
-When our leaders say, “Do as I say, not as I do”…
-When we buy and sell weapons in the name of Peace.
-When we model violence in so many of our forums, yet aver we are about peace and liberty and equality for all  -
it will, and it has manifested itself in depression, addiction, mental illness, and violence.

It is inconceivable on the one hand to feel connected to the gun violence in our midst, as inconceivable as it is for the towns people to feel connected to the Demoniac. Like the Demoniac, the sins of our community are partly to blame for the sins of such possessed individuals.

​Haul him out constrained and shackled - So much easier than looking at the mechanisms of society.

Seeing him seated, clothed and in his right mind?
That requires a powerful healing and requires the community to face themselves.

This is why Jesus asks him to stay: so the community can begin the healing work at home. St. Paul said, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

Healing begins at the local level. We know that. Over the last three and a half months I have been reminded daily that the people of this parish find support and healing in one another even as you are binding your own wounds. That is the definition of Christian.

Jesus wants the victim to help convert his community. It is part of a long tradition of the “wounded healer.” It’s part of your story and part of every Christian’s story because it is part of the resurrection story.

The Demoniac’s healing foreshadows Jesus’s role in conquering sin and death. And the sins of the community go over the cliff.
Jesus overturns the scapegoat mechanism in rising from the dead.

Jesus gives us the Very God who identifies with the marginalized and the victim, who confronts violence in all of its forms.

As Christins we not only stand as a healing place where "hate has no home here. " We stand as a healing reminder to one another and the community that no violence of any kind has a home here.


God, Bless us with you wisdom!
and God Bless this country.

​

Last week we celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit given to the World. Pentecost is recognized as the birthday of the Church, as this Gift of Peace, Wisdom, and Truth is discerned, at one time by many nations. It was the gift we have been waiting for…as Jesus promised. On this day we were given an awareness of God’s fullness as the Holy Trinity.

• We believe in God the mysterious agent of Love and Creation.
• We believe in the Son as the fully formed mature and loving “perfect human.”
• We believe in the Holy Spirit: the giver of life and peace, wisdom, and truth.

This full dynamic movement of the Godhead is recognized this Sunday; these three aspects working at all times in The Trinity.


There is a famous icon of the Trinity by Russian 5th Century Iconographer Andrei Rublev. It has three seated angels around a table: each representing a person of the Trinity pointing with one hand toward the sacred elements in the middle, as they gaze toward one another around the circle. On the front edge of the table as you are looking in, is a square box that has been somewhat of a mystery. On it there is a bit of ancient residual glue.
Some historians have come to believe that a mirror was originally glued in this space, making the viewer the participant who joins this circle…


We as participants in the Body of Christ are meant to be a part of this dynamic relationship.


In the third and fourth centuries the theology that was adopted by the Councils of Church says that God is a interconnection of relations (a perichoresis, Greek and (circumincession, Latin): a cleaving of identities, a weaving circle dance. There is an outpouring and receiving among the three persons who receive their self and then hand it over to another in a self emptying act of love, and again to the third. “It makes God more of a verb than a noun” (Richard Rohr).


We have a role in this “divine dance” as participants in the Body of Christ: It is an outpouring of love, an emptying of self, and being filled back up again in an affirmation of our identity.


We do this sacramentally in the Eucharist in order to symbolize that activity working in our lives. We empty ourselves in praise through worship; we fill up with the loving spirit of God at communion; and take it out into the World.
A perfect circle


We do this in our lives in service to one another and in service to the needy. That’s why so many know that volunteering your time is fulfilling. We come to know that If you want to feel better - go help someone else. There is this dynamic giving and receiving as it happens in community.


This is why humans are so special.


Psalm 8 rejoices saying, What is it about us?!… with the moon and the stars and all that “you have set in their courses  [that] you would set us just below angels?”…blessed with so many gifts and abilities and the responsibility to take care of others: “Mastery over your [own] works?”!


This one precious human life is so special, because we have the ability to grow in Spirit, Wisdom and Truth and to share that with others.


The writer of Proverbs says Wisdom (another name for the Holy Spirit) has delighted in us from the very beginning, saying:


Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth...
Before the mountains had been shaped...
when he assigned to the sea its limit...
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master worker;
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race."


Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?


Wisdom is neither simply intuitive perception nor is it simply skilled rationalization. Wisdom is both of these developed through participation in the World in all of its joy, and chaos, tragedy and suffering…


Paul speaks of suffering in Romans. It is not about going out and looking for suffering, but how our faith transforms us in our suffering. A life of faith is one that asks us to look deeper into the meaning of the world around us. It asks for our participation, not a “take it or leave it.” Faith does not ask us to check our minds at the door. Faith is activity of the Holy Spirit imbued with wisdom that includes facing into the messiness of life’s challenges, pain and chaos. When we do this we are transformed.


In a time when we are feeling morally compromised by war, anxious about economic inflation, dispirited about politics, and fearful about illness and death…


What is our part in the community of God? What is our part in the dance?


Our participation can be creating communities of trust.
St. Paul’s is one such place.


Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?


Think about that: When we understand something the voice of wisdom is clearer, louder, when more of us rise to its resonance!


Where to do this? Proverbs suggests
On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads
beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out!


Let us find ways to be the portal, the door, an entryway, a safe harbor to others in our community.


Jesus said, “All that the father has is mine. He will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
This is the dynamic giving of the Trinity: The dance that we have been made participates in.


As the Body of Christ we are one with the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; One God, one indwelling that brings peace, comfort and understanding.


Let us declare it to one another and to Pleasant Valley through our activity; through our acknowledgement that the very nature of God is Love. And Love is always an action.


Amen.



​

This week Craig reminded me of an article, The Pressure to Modernize, in which linguist and author Helena Norburg-Hodge tells the story of her experience in Ladakh, “Little Tibet,” in India.

When Hodge first visited, she found a place rich in culture and pride. She describes people who did not know poverty. People worked together. People of all ages gathered to tell their story, through music and theatre, and dance. It was a regular part of community…

Until 1975 when tourism began: modernization, technology and Western money streamed in, and began to erode the self esteem of the Ladakhis. They began to feel insecure and impoverished in comparison. Their culture shifted on many levels. It eroded the spiritual power of their stories - even changed their understanding of their own history. Within eight years they no longer gathered to dance and sing and celebrate in the same way. They felt inadequate against the famous musicians and actors they had been introduced to.


Have you ever heard of Joseph Campbell? He was a professor who specialized in comparative religion and mythology. He wrote several books… But one particularly called The Power of Myth I discovered through a Bill Moyers series on the radio when I was just out of high school. I was fascinated! The power of archetypes, the hero’s journey, and how myths reveal spiritual experience.


The thing about myths is that they engage our imaginations, especially children. Myths are a powerful way to tell stories. They inflate imagery, create archetypal characters, enlarge the scope of things to provide a narrative that helps us share or remember deeper truths. They often teach about a cultures’ values and mores (while not speaking about particular factual events.)


We are accustomed to Jesus’ parables, but sometimes we fail to stop and think about the purpose of the other stories in the Bible, that are also parables or myths used to describe the way things are…


And not simply the way things are, but in the Bible it is a way of explaining how things are especially through a covenant lens…


We are covenant people which is what Judaism brought to the World - and what Christianity is built upon: Before Judaism and during the formation of Judaism in this area there were many Gods being worshipped…
Judaism brought us Relationship with one God; a mutual relationship - give and take… not simply being at the whim of various Gods…but with promises made to one another.


In our first story this morning… This is early, early early (obviously) Genesis. It is about the created order of things and very much incorporates early Myths found throughout Mesopotamia and the Middle East - drawing them into this covenant lens…


Mythological in nature and yet with truths to be mined… As Jesus would say, “like the pearl of great price”….


Not just to describe who God is… but to help us define who we are.


So, we consider: In the beginning
every one spoke one language! And then out of our hubris  (which isn’t too hard too imagine) we decided we could build a tower all the way to Heaven. (A hierarchy of course: the narrative puts God up there at the top.) Yet, we thought we could become as powerful as God.


So the story goes…that God confused our language, so we couldn’t understand one another… and then scatters us across the face of the earth.


Two things, yes: A way to tell our children a story about how we have so many different cultures and languages, while also instilling a lesson about power (that as a covenant people, we believe, that it is God who has “the kingdom, the power, and the glory” - and not one of us).


In our second reading: When the day of Pentecost had come, there is a gathering in Jerusalem for the Festival of Weeks (otherwise known as the Feast of Harvest. Shavout. It occurs seven weeks after Passover (about 50 days). Pentecost means 50, so the Greeks named this festival Pentecost.


Like at Passover, there were people from many nations gathered in Jerusalem. It is one of the three times the people are appointed to gather in Jerusalem…and the peoples have come from all over (many nations as the passage describes).


Suddenly a great wind or breath moves over the disciples with flames that look like tongues and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and the ability to preach the Gospel in every language. People wonder how this could be?! That they understand!


Pentecost in Christianity represents the day the Holy Spirit was revealed to all people…our advocate and guide who Jesus had promised will come.


It is contrasted with the tower of babel to show that this scattering of nations has been healed by the peace of the Holy Spirit lighting upon us with a united understanding of the heart: the advocate who provides wisdom, advocacy and consolation.


But the Tower of Babel remains a potent myth and a cautionary tale for our world today.


I often refer to the internet as “the tower of babel”. The internet has created a global network with an ability to communicate vast amounts of information over a fast distance in a short period of time.


We have a tool very much like the tower. Rather than being a forum for global diversity and the exchange of ideas and coming to understanding and solutions, it is supporting so many social media forums where we have become politically polarized.


And in our hubris we are responding to our anxiety, insecurity and fear, with censorship and a cancel culture. Some voices have been given the authority to say what voices and what conversations are legitimate, what ideas and what people are safe.


It is becoming a tower for a limited few with the hubris to decide what voices matter. Scholars, artists, clergy, doctors, reporters have had entire catalogues, interviews, decades of work erased overnight.


Ideological and political narratives seek to conform rather than unite us in thought and spirit.


The Holy Spirit is about unification, the ability to understand one another, but not because we have become homogenized: But in union to communicate lovingly in our diversity. A spiritual life is supposed to help us commune better with the knowledge and love of God.


As I said earlier: Not just to describe who God is… but to help us define who we are.
The Holy Spirit, the giver of life, guides us not only in our journey with God but in our pilgrimage with one another.


Today we celebrate the Coming of the Spirit. Hold strong to our narrative. We gather each week to tell our story, to sing or read psalms, to read aloud from ancient manuscripts, to celebrate a memorial supper, to remember and to praise God so that we know ourselves.


We are not that unlike the people of Ladakh.
The World would offer us a tower: a hubris that seeks to erode our identity, create doubt and insecurity.


But The Holy Spirit is to comfort us in our anxiety, provide advocacy through our insecurity, and peace in our fear.
Jesus promised, the Giver of Life "will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."

Jesus prays:
The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 


This is part of a long prayer from Jesus; an intercessory prayer from Jesus to God on behalf of the disciples.


It occurs just after the last supper and before his arrest. In John, there are added several chapters here: teachings Jesus gives to the disciples about the indwelling of God. Abiding in God…and about the Spirit/advocate who is to come who will prove the destructive forces of the World are wrong.


Through this prayer Jesus gives us the shape of eternal life; for his prayer is for his disciples, for us, and through the notion that the love of God and the Spirit of one-ness transcends time; it encompasses the now, the future and this one-ness-in-love which has been since before the foundation of the world.


Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.


Scholar Meda Stamper reflects, “eternal life will be an extension of the love of God stretching back before the foundation of the world, forward to us, and beyond us to the communion of the saints - and to those who may be able to experience God’s love through us.
And so the Easter season culminates where the Gospel began: with Jesus making God known so that the world may know that …we have a place in the creative love of God.”
And here we are with the culmination of the Easter season with two horrific mass shootings…pain that feels unbearable. Since January there have been more than 200 mass shootings (that means shootings involving at least four persons).
On Friday I watched the press conference from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Col. Steven McCraw, his face contorted in anguish as he read through the events of the day. Finally he cried. I’d say most of us have cried or felt sick to our stomach over these shootings.
We wonder where the love of God in us and through us is manifested?
Corinthians 12 was the first thing that came to mind:
“For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so, the body is not made up of one part but of many …If one part suffers, every part suffers with it..”
Our pain and anguish is God’s love manifest through us. How else could we feel such pain for people we do not know and haven’t met? We suffer because we have been blessed by God with the capacity to love deeply.


Let us pray for the people of Buffalo and “Youvaalde.” When we pray for them by name, we resist them becoming statistics:
 


Uvalde
Jose Flores, Jr., 10
Uziyah Garcia, 8
Amerie Jo Garza, 10
Xavier James Lopez, 10
Annabelle Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10
Rojelio Torres, 10
Eliahna “Ellie” Torres, 10
Jacklyn Cazares, 10
Jailah Nicole Silguero, 11
Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10
Ellie Garcia, 9
Alithia Ramirez, 10
Layla Salazar, 10
Makenna Lee Elrod, 10
Miranda Mathis, 11
Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio, 10
Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, 10
Nevaeh Bravo, 10
Tess Marie Mata, 10
Eva Mireles, 44 (4th grade teacher)
Irma Garcia, 49 (4th grade teacher)


(The shooter was Salvador Ramos, 18.)


Buffalo
Roberta A. Drury, 32
Margus D. Morrison, 52
Andre Mackniel, 53
Aaron Salter, 55
Geraldine Talley, 62
Celestine Chaney, 65
Heyward Patterson, 67
Katherine Massey, 72
Pearl Young, 77
Ruth Whitfield, 86


Their earthly lives were taken violently - and too soon. But we must hold onto the knowledge that they continue in the communion of Saints and in the Body of Christ.


When we take communion we are given (as Paul states) the ONE Spirit to drink and eat. Through our Eucharist we sacramentally express that we are eternally connected to those that have come before us.


We come to the table to physically commune with Jesus, one another, and all the saints in a meal of remembrance.


On this Memorial Day weekend we also recognize and remember our military men and women who during their earthly lives made great sacrifices to protect our country.


We pray for all those who continue to be faced with the cost of war.


In this sad time, the world’s global level of Violence is pervasive. The United States is now always at War. It is perpetual. It is difficult to find movies, TV shows, or video games that don’t glorify violence. We are becoming inured to it. The violence in society is a mirror of the media we consume and how we solve problems on the World stage.
The end to violence through Jesus’ way is to deny the World and to consume love instead.


There is much debate as to whether violence begins at the individual level - or is a reflection of the culture. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?


What we do know is that in the face of the World’s destructive power, Jesus taught us to pray. In that we do have some agency.


Violence can mutate at the microlevel with hurt, and pain and resentments. It is so necessary to understand those states as violent forces trying to work their way into our lives and families. It is important to recognize our negative and resentful feelings as poison.


Prayer is the antidote.
It may not feel like it is. That’s why prayer is referred to as a practice.


Silent prayer (as Jesus has taught us) is to go into our inner room. The practice of silent prayer helps us to see what our minds and hearts are grappling with. It is that opportunity to understand more deeply how we react and the chain reactions of our resentments that spin us into anger and ultimately forms of violence against others close to us, through unkind words and deeds.


Cutting these thoughts and turning to God when we feel them arise can become a practice that saves not only ourselves from suffering, but changes how we respond to others and may break a chain of suffering.


Jesus said Abide in me. To Abide in God is to bear witness. When we abide in God, we bear loving witness to ourselves and to others. It is how we stay awake to the small blessings of this life, and how we stay awake to pain - and to the pain of the World. As people of God we’ve been training, developing prayer practices to help us be Christlike: to cultivate love and joy, to stay awake - to identify with the suffering - not the destructive forces of the World.


Prayer is communal. Even when we silently pray we are doing so as part of the Body of Christ where we all are made one.


In today’s Gospel
Jesus prayed for his disciples, and then
[He prayed for us]


I think we all could use some intercessory prayer from Jesus!


“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us…”


The pain we feel today is there because God is in us.


And like Jesus, through our suffering, we pray as the one body for all the Saints through that eternal life: forward to those who may feel the power of love through us.
We pray stretching back for our lost loved ones; to the present for the people of Uvaalde, for the people of Buffalo, for the people of Ukraine, and Russia, for Yemen and Afghanistan.


And beyond us: we pray for all those we do not know and cannot name whose lives are bound up in our own through the creative love of God.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.


The symbolism of Water and the Spirit is paramount in John. In the first chapter Jesus is baptized and we learn that Jesus baptizes uniquely with the gift of the Holy Spirit. He offers living water; Springs that lead to everlasting life; and we will never be thirsty again.

Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus will say,

“…the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

The Gospel of John is a bit different than the others, we name the “Synoptic Gospels.” From Syn Optic: seeing all together; Matthew Mark and Luke are in synch. They share the same lens and share many of the same passages and teachings through Jesus’ parables.

The Gospel of John is set apart. The Gospel is thought to have been written considerably later, around the turn of the 1st to 2nd Century). And it is full of stories that don’t exist in the other gospels, but are often very intimate and detailed interactions with particular individuals.

Earlier in the Gospel Jesus meets the woman at the well. She is a Samaritan drawing water from the well of Jacob. Samaritans worshipped a variety of Gods including Yahweh, but not solely. And there is a lot of enmity between Jews and Samaritans. So Jesus startles her by asking for a drink. In this discourse (which is one of the longest conversations he has in the Bible) he tells her

“if you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water…
Everyone who drinks of this water [the well water] will be thirsty again…the water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

The end of this story has her entire town converted - and the message they receive is that the true worship of God from now on will be through the Spirit and in truth.

So today we find ourselves in this short Gospel passage with a man who has been languishing by a healing pool of water. From our previous story with the Samaritan Woman we may already be wondering about this pool of water and its symbolism.

He has been there for thirty-eight years along with a multitude of other ill and paralyzed individuals. Our reading says many, but the word in Greek is actually a very great number. And I believe this is important because Jesus sees him in this great crowd. Not only does he see him, but he knows him. He knows he’s been there a long time. Jesus knows him, yet the man does not know Jesus.

He has waited so very close to what he believes would be a source of healing, yet with no ability nor assistance over all of these years to reach what it is he seeks. Jesus suddenly speaks to him and heals him.

Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be made well?” He answers him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

Jesus’ question: “Do you want to be made well?”… could just as easily be: What are you seeking here? “What are you seeking in this pool of water?”
This healing pool could be a metaphor for so many ideas and obstacles to our journey with God. This man is stuck. The World tells us that competition is the only way to move ahead. He has been looking for the balm of life in the wrong place.

What obstacles hinder us from seeking the The Spirit of Truth? Many of us here spent time away from Christian community. Once we become re-immersed in we can look back and more easily see what those great distractions were.

And sometimes the distractions from God are illness, real and debilitating and not simply a metaphor. “Bad things happen to good people” - and in our distress we can turn to other comforts, even delusions, for many years before we are able to begin walking a path toward physical, emotional and spiritual healing. That is real.

In our story, Jesus tells him to pick up his mat and walk. This is a healing that is infused with the metaphor for walking one’s path toward God. I do not see this man’s answer as simply an ungrateful complaint, rather: the reality of what we come up against in life: real illness, real desperation and real yearning.

Jesus’ question can be taken at face value: not as a challenge, but rather a compassionate and loving response to someone he sees sitting in front of him suffering. Someone who is stuck.

Sometimes it takes another to see us for who we are: to ask us directly what it is that we really want and need. When someone meets us in this way, it moves us to look inside: to probe our very own depths. That is the beginning of spiritual awakening. It is what Jesus offers to this man, to the Samaritan Woman, and to so many others.

“Spiritual awakening is not about knowing more, but about knowing more deeply” …Episcopal Priest and author Cynthia Bourgeault writes, “as we enter the path of [spiritual] transformation, the most valuable thing we have working in our favor is our yearning.”

Our yearning helps open the door to wonder. And our prayer life becomes our teacher and comforter. As Jesus said, "the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you."

This man did not know God, yet he responds, he moves. He has been seen and he begins to walk… in a new way.To be made well is to be made whole, to uncover our authentic selves, where life springs like a font.


The Question Jesus asks,
“Do you want to be made well?”
inspires us to ask ourselves:
Who am I? …

What are you seeking?
What are you yearning for?
And Where are you looking?

May God be merciful to us and bless us, *
show us the light of his countenance and come to us.
Let your ways be known upon earth, *
your saving health among all nations. (Psalm 67)

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Jesus, say “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Today our Gospel is from the same reading we had on Maundy Thursday. It is Jesus’ last teaching after he washes the feet of his disciples, just before he is arrested. He commands them to “love one another as I have loved you.”

In the Bible there are four different forms of “love” used. We have philia: the love of equals. (A love we choose: our companions.) There is passionate love: eros. There is storge, the love between parents and children -  for our relatives. A love that we are born into.

And we have agape: love of humankind (so to speak): a spiritual love. A love that goes beyond the self to the benefit of others. It is the selflessness that Jesus models for us that offers us a vision of forgiveness and mercy for every living thing. And in that: healing. Jesus doesn’t ask us to love one another as equals. He asks us to love as he loves us: selflessly. Agape love.

It is a tall order when we first start to wrap ourselves around this concept… we don’t even love ourselves selflessly…

I am reminded of St. Benedict’s encouragement: “Listen with the ear of your heart.”

As the apostles spread out to follow Jesus in his commission to spread that love of God, they are of course faced with those who are different from themselves.

Peter has an amazing vision: He is confronted with new people, new customs and new food. He doesn’t think he should eat of the food because it is not clean according to his custom. In our reading, a “voice from heaven” tells Peter, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” It is the reminder: Everything God makes is sacred. It is not ours to judge.

Several of the early community seem concerned that Peter is eating and bringing the good news to the Gentiles, to those who are different. He tells them, “The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us.”

And the rest of the community then praised God, saying,

"Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

They recognize that God also calls them (these outsiders) to relationship. This spiritual relationship, this sacredness is extended far beyond our imaginings to those things, places and people that we don’t understand or can’t yet comprehend. As a species…We are naturally judgmental. It’s part of what sets us apart from other species. It is to our benefit to be judgmental. It helps us make decisions, to weigh the benefits or risks, to develop guidelines and distinguish safety. But our judgment over time can become calcified as a self-centered righteousness rather than growing into the wisdom that recognizes (like Peter did) that it is not ours to be judge. As Christians it is ours to be loving.


There is a mystery and a sacredness to the created world that we can never fully understand. That is why we come together to praise God in awe and wonder, and to glean how we may participate in the redeeming relationship that gives us true life: a flourishing life for all.

The psalm today praises God through every expression. God present with the mountains and hills, and snow and fog, and stars and sun, and all creatures of the land and sea. The great creation that we sing about is beyond anything we can truly comprehend…while at the same time the reading from Revelation reminds us that God is in this creation with us. God is not far off but part of the very mix: the alpha and the omega. The beginning and the end- all; From dust to stardust -    …and beyond our wildest imaginings.

When we praise God we are praising the majesty and miracle of our very selves enlivened by something very Good. We are enlivened by the Spirit - and as humans we have the free will to live and move in the world; in nature, culture and society. These aspects of the environment are all interwoven. There is a delicate natural balance in all that we do and in all that we are.


The weave is dependent on myriad strands that are not always obvious to us. This is so true in the natural world, where scientists have proven that altering one aspect of an ecosystem can have huge impacts (unbeknownst to us) on other species, and land, and water.

We are learning this about our bodies too: now understanding the gut itself is being studied as an ecosystem, with a tender balance that has ramifications on our brains and our hearts, among other things… We are made of intricate systems.

And as humans, our cultures continue to have systems at play that create imbalances in financial equity, health and achievement, gender equality. Imbalances that are difficult to discern, remedies that make matters worse because they are based on our limited human understandings.
Our societies are wrought with the struggle of implicit bias - when it comes …to one another.

We are still struggling to love as Jesus asks us to love.

We still have a lot to learn from this passage from Acts, but also from the hope unveiled in revelation that The home of God is among mortals. God will wipe every tear from our eyes. God is drawing us all into renewed relationship. God says, “See, I am making all things new.”

We can’t always know why things are the way that they are. Jesus asks us to live into this mystery by loving selflessly. We do not know what grief someone else is carrying, what one kindness can do to assuage the suffering. It is not ours to judge, but rather ours to nurture, tend and to love.

We don’t know the gentle balance really, we can only praise God by participating in agape, that great love that surpasses our understanding.

When we talk about surrendering to God. This is what we mean. It doesn’t mean that we give over our minds to blindly follow. It means we give over our hearts to assuredly follow in a path of righteousness that is not our own, but belongs to and benefits all of creation:

fruit trees and all cedars;
Wild beasts and all cattle, *
creeping things and winged birds;
Kings of the earth and all peoples, *
Young men and maidens, *
old and young together.


If we “listen with our hearts” we may find that
God has a way of saying to us:
"See, I am making all things new." 


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Today is a day of healing and inclusion.
What a perfect connection to “Mothering.”


Let’s start with the Gospel.


When Jesus is walking in the portico he is addressed by those who want him to verify once and for all if he is the Messiah they have been waiting for? Jesus answered, "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me.”


What you don’t know from this brief Gospel, is that in the previous story, Jesus has been healing on the Sabbath. And those who are strict in their observance of the law are frustrated by this behavior. It is the story of the blind man. He regains both physical and spiritual sight. Jesus assures the crowd he is not blind because of some sin of his or his parents. Jesus gives everyone spiritual insight that day, at least those who believed.


Jesus is walking at the Festival of the Dedication. They are referring to the dedication of the second temple which celebrates the successful victory of the Jewish people over the Syrian Greek invaders who had taken over Jerusalem. It was about two hundred years before Jesus’ time. You may have heard of it as the Macabbean Wars. It was a three year battle - and they were fighting for their religious beliefs. Today we know the celebration as Hanukkah.


Back to the story…
Jesus is walking in the portico of Solomon. Porticos are like a covered walkway with columns. You’ve probably seen them in pictures. The Temple is a big space with several courtyards. The portico that separates the gentiles from the other courts in the temple apparently had warning signs. Archeologists have discovered one that read:


NO FOREIGNER
IS TO GO BEYOND THE BALUSTRADE
AND THE PLAZA OF THE TEMPLE ZONE
WHOEVER IS CAUGHT DOING SO
WILL HAVE HIMSELF TO BLAME
FOR HIS DEATH
WHICH WILL FOLLOW


Pretty serious segregation.
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This is the spot where Jesus walked - where he walked and where he healed and where the disciples later also healed those we did not consider worth healing. Those who were foreign or those the community did not include.

Although our readings may seem wildly different this morning they do have a thread I’d like to explore: Healing. We have several images which include sheep, and consolation and care from the Shepherd. But we also have images of inclusion.
The psalm is not just about safety, but about hospitality. This God is inviting the psalmist to the table.

“You spread a table for me in the presence of those that trouble me.”

What an inviting description of “acceptance.” To have someone, let alone God, set a table for you in the very midst of anxiety and stress: Nourishment! You are welcome. You are affirmed, recognized and honored by a seat at the table. Oh, how we are healed by inclusion.


And rather than an old testament lesson, we have a lesson from the Early Christian Church from the book of Acts that follows Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. Peter has reached the Gentiles with his commission from Jesus. Not only this, but he has been given the power to heal people through the Holy Spirit gifted to him by Jesus. Disciples call on Peter when Dorcus falls ill. He kneels down and invokes the Spirit.


Beyond being one of the early community, she is Greek: a Gentile woman, someone who previously would have been segregated from the community. The book of Acts is illustrative of the Christian mission and struggle to move out into the world to all nations.


Finally, we come to the book of Revelation which means unveiling. Revelation offers us intense imagery with details that sound otherworldly. It is symbolic and apocalyptic in nature. Apocalyptic in describing the end of the world as we know it, and unveiling a God centered reality.…Although Revelation is cosmic in its descriptions, it also deals with very vulnerable human yearnings and need for protection.


“for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”


God is described here so like a tender mother.

While the vision may seem scary at first because the symbols are foreign to us, it is a healing vision. And it is also inclusive.


In the vision there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice. They cried out in ONE voice. Because we are all children of God.

We don’t all have to be literal mothers to feel this stirring. We know this in our guts.

Today is Mother’s Day. In the United States, early on it had also became an anti war response. During the Civil War the day sought the movement of reconciliation between Union and Confederate soldiers, where mother’s came together for this healing work.

In 1870 a Mother’s Day Proclamation sought to bring mother’s together united to promote World Peace. Our Official Mother’s Day arose later in the early 1900s.
Mother’s Day throughout the years has been a day used by abolitionists, feminists, and peacemakers to promote social justice, peace, inclusivity and equality.


Mother’s Day is a healing day. For some of us it can be a very difficult day sometimes a sad day, for a myriad of personal reasons. But today is a healing day. There is a quote attributed to 13th century theologian Meister Eckhart:
"We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.”


There are many “mothers" in this parish who did not literally give birth to a child. St. Paul’s is full of nurturing individuals. Taking the lead from Jesus, you shepherd: comfort, console, raise families, sacrifice your time, and pour out your love. Just as Jesus said, “my works testify to me,” …I believe these actions are a testimony to God being born in the world.


So on this Mother’s Day let us pray…
Pray for Peace in the name of Jesus our Prince of Peace
Pray for Healing by the Power of the Holy Spirit
And Pray for unity through a God who wipes away all of our tears with those almighty hands of love.


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It is Easter. But the big service and celebration happened a couple of Sundays ago. We may find that we are back to living life as before, with the same routines, and the feeling of holiday joy slipping away. The reality of war, the news feeds, and the uncertainty come clamoring in to dull our spirits.

But the promise of Easter is not just for one day or for a season. It is something for us to build on as a “way of life.” Life is made new. As the trees and flowers begin to bloom we are already unconsciously aware that “life is made new” after a winter of dormancy.  

As our collect says, “Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold God in all his redeeming work”

In our story this week, Peter and some of the disciples have gathered in Galilee and are back to their work of fishing. After the crucifixion and even after two encounters with the risen Jesus they have returned to “business as usual.” However, even while casting a net in familiar waters, they don’t seem to be catching anything. Their work has become unproductive. Jesus suddenly appears for the third time, fills their net and feeds them breakfast.
I love the image of breakfast on the beach around a fire. We can imagine the smell of the fish cooking in the open air: The feeling of warmth. The sounds of crackling wood, and water washing the shore, the dawn light, and wet sand. But the passage doesn’t provide these details for us, nor does it describe the taste of the fish; How they feel to eat after a long night. This is what we think of. Instead, Deep conversation ensues. They are eating communally - and the focus is on their shared conversation.

Jesus primarily engages Peter. He asks him three times, “Do you love me?” Each time Peter says, “You know I do.” And each time Jesus responds with an answer that represents what loving God means: Feed, Tend, Feed. More than anything Love means tending for others, and feeding one another. Jesus repeats himself.

For some it is literally food. But for any of us, we know that eating with families or friends is so much more than just food at dinner time. Our family also requires our attention, our connection as nourishment.
For any of us who have worked in feeding ministry we know it is more than meals. A feeding ministry provides connection not just food. It represents tenderness and care. The greatest gift: our humanity. The care that involves using our hands, and our hearts and the sacrifice of time. Precious time. Feeding and tending prioritizes connection.
Meals are a time for shared conversation.

Jesus comes to tell the disciples it’s time to break the fast from life. Follow me: Live now. Live now for what you believe in most: Love, Tend, Feed others. Follow me. Now is the time to live.

Open the eyes of our faith God, that we may behold you in all of your redeeming work

Life is not one even-keeled sail. Dramatic things happen. Things change and require us to change too, or we lapse into stale versions of ourselves. Covid happened. It had dramatic impacts on all of us. We are trying to return to “normal," but we also recognize that things have shifted. We have learned to do things in new ways and we are discerning which ways do we want to keep - and what old ways are we ready to let go of.
The death of George Floyd happened during Covid. It sparked a response to the way people of color have been - and continue to be targeted. Beyond marches and protests, many of us began to search for answers to the inequities in our country. We began to realize that recognition and repair are necessary for healing to begin: for redemption. The Episcopal Church who has included antiracism in our mission for many years, finally seemed to really focus our attentions.

Something shifted. Something dramatic happened, and it is time to change.

But now that the emotional flare of that period is waning, are we simply returning to our old ways? Or are we continuing to educate ourselves? Look deeply at the history of our country, trying to understand the terrible dynamics that persist? Martin Luther King Jr said, “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” To put it into even more context, MLK was harkening back to the phrase from a famous abolitionist minister Theodore Parker. Parker studied at Harvard Divinity School and eventually became an influential minister in the Unitarian church. In 1853 Parker preached (100 years before MLK)

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

In other words: It is with conscious vision that it bends toward justice.

We cannot go back to “business as usual” now that we have seen the light (like our brother Paul) the light that sheds truth on suffering: a nation awakened by tragedy… to our own reality. In 2020 we returned to the table of antiracism for conversation. This table provides sustenance for our future and for our community and country.
Like Peter and the disciples we are being asked,
“Do you love me?”
Jesus makes it pretty clear: Loving God means to feed and tend.
How do we feed and tend one another? We must continue the conversation: talking and moving toward that arc of justice, lest we find like the disciples that our life work has become unproductive.

Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold you God in all your redeeming work.

Once we’ve tasted the “new” way, our old ways will no longer suffice.

Break your fast from True life…with hope and courage to live into your beliefs this Easter!

Today the Gospel allows us to enter into that private space with Thomas, the disciples, and Jesus. We are invited into a room that is locked from the inside to become part of the great teaching Jesus has to offer.

Twice Jesus appears to the apostles while they are there. They are in a bit of limbo, unsure perhaps what to do next: They are Afraid. (Our Gospel says they were afraid of “the Jews” but we know that Jesus and all of his disciples were Jewish. The Gospel means the Jewish authorities, the temple police we hear about in the reading from Acts today. They are afraid of being arrested too. They are afraid and hiding out in the upper room where they held the last supper. Jesus essentially comes to bust them out.

This story is most widely remembered for the phrase it has engendered: “Don’t be a Doubting Thomas.”

But I believe this is a special passage that has a lot more to offer us!

Jesus appears to the disciples bringing with him the gift of the Holy Spirit. He breathes on them (which is the gift of Peace - and within it, the power to forgive sins.) Jesus is helping us understand that peace and forgiveness are intrinsically connected. Jesus brings the key to that locked door. He commissions the disciples to go back out into the world. He says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Thomas was not with the disciples when Jesus returned the first time. They tell him, “We have seen the Lord.” And He reacts rather defensively to the story they have recounted. Not until I have seen and touched will I believe. He has a very human response. In doing so, Thomas invites us into that locked room… into the scene so that we can be there too. Thomas is our “way in” so to speak.

Thomas means twin. And in some ways he mirrors us through his reaction. Scripture refers to him as, “Thomas also called the twin.” And “Didymus” which also means Twin. He helps us into the story by mirroring us – and the way we may feel:
Why God, did you choose a moment when I was not here to reveal yourself?  Why come when I was not here? What about me? I am suffering and in grief too – and you have revealed yourself to my siblings.

How come some of us seem to have peace and faith and belief, but I am struggling?
It is something we can relate to…And our anger and sadness are reactionary. Our instinct is often not full of peace and forgiveness. We feel victimized and may cast blame or mistrust.Thomas’ reaction is relatable. He essentially says, “Well I’ll believe it when I see it.”And Thomas allows us to feel it and say it openly to God, not to hide away, but to engage.

And then Jesus does come - and says “touch my wounds.”  He doesn’t come to walk on water, or turn the water into wine, or feed the masses. He comes as wounded and says, “touch me.” I mirror you too. Jesus replies I am with you. I know human suffering. I am with you even in your woundedness. It is intimate and mutual. I am a God who identifies with your suffering and your pain.

Jesus has been abandoned by his friends, tortured and killed, but when he returns the first thing he does is say, “Peace be with you." I forgive - and now I give you the power to forgive. When he comes to the upper room, he has a mission. And it has to do with moving us out into the world with the power of forgiveness in the life of the Spirit…
"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

This is his message from the beginning of the Gospels to the end. Earlier when the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, he gives them the Lord’s prayer. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” He also tells us the second greatest commandment is to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” Inherent in that notion is that we love ourselves. Forgiveness is to be extended to others, but we also need to practice forgiving ourselves, to come out of our locked up rooms; places where we hide from ourselves and become strangers to God. We can think the worst of ourselves and we may project the worst onto others. Jesus asks the disciples and us to move out into the world in a new way: A way of forgiveness and peace.

Jesus shows up as resurrected in the fullness of his Spirit. This Bodily resurrection we speak about, has to do with that fullness of Spirit…that we like Jesus will be resurrected in the fullness of our being. As Christians we are working at growing into that fullness of our being through growing in wisdom, forgiveness and as bearers of peace. As the body of Christ we also carry one another’s wounds. When we doubt, or struggle with our belief, another one of us, another part of the body can carry us the rest of the way. We buoy one another. This is Christian Community. They say noone can be a Christian alone.

As our collect today reminds us Jesus brings the new covenant of reconciliation. We are brought together with one another and God through forgiveness  -  and recognizing the suffering in each of us. It is not an easy task, but it will transform us.

Thomas also contributes a model for us - not simply a model of doubt, but a model of honesty. He doesn’t remain a stranger to God. He says "it like it is." He isn’t afraid to engage in intimate dialogue with God.

Jesus says, “Blessed are those that Believe but have not seen.” This is us, and it is Thomas’s intimate relationship with Jesus who helps us into this space through our own pain and doubt. Thomas in his honesty and love delivers us into the moment.

Jesus reminds us that pain and suffering is something we all share.
Forgiveness is something we can offer…
And Peace depends on it.


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