The Fifth Sunday of Easter - May 14

Come, My Way

John 14:1-14

In this morning’s reading, Jesus really blows it as a therapist.  He commits the cardinal sin of therapy:  he tells the disciples not to feel what they are, in fact, feeling.

The beginning of the 14^th chapter of John is relatively familiar.  We often hear it read at funerals…  “in my father’s house are many mansions.”  We are so accustomed to hear Jesus’ words as comforting in that context, it is hard to imagine what this time would have actually been like for Jesus’ disciples.

Don’t be worried, Jesus says.  Don’t let your hearts be troubled. But the disciples ARE worried.  This is the beginning of what is called Jesus’ farewell discourse in John’s Gospel.  This comes right after the last supper and Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.  Jesus has said that be will be betrayed, he has foretold Peter’s denial, and he has said that he will be going away—leaving them.  The disciples are very worried and anxious.  What will happen to Jesus?  What will happen to them?

Jesus says, Believe in God, believe also in me.  So the disciples must think: if I’m still worried I don’t have enough belief?  This is not helping.

Jesus continues:  I go to prepare a place for you…  and you know the way to the place where I am going.

At this point, I imagine that Thomas’ anxiety is at a breaking point:  How can we know the way?? This is not a casual conversation about theology.  Thomas and the disciples see their lives and their hopes ending and they don’t know what to do.

Then in John 14:6 Jesus says:  I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me. 

There are several ways to react to that verse.  Especially when we hear this passage at funerals, we hear the reassuring promise in the first part of this verse.  Jesus is our way to God.

But for the disciples these words might have only increased their anxiety even more.  There is only one particular, specific way to the Father.  What if I don’t get it right?  What if I fail the test?  Even after Jesus says these words Philip expresses the disciples’ ongoing confusion and anxiety.   We don’t know who you are, Jesus.  We don’t know what’s going on.  Help us.

Jesus could have said thing better.  He could have expressed himself more pastorally, more therapeutically (!).

The poet George Herbert said what Jesus should have said to the disciples in their state of worry and anxiety.

Herbert wrote a poem based in large part on John 14:6.  It is called “The Call.”  Over and over again, the stanzas of the poem begin with the invitation, “Come.”  Jesus’ words are an invitation, not a test.  An invitation.  Come, Jesus says.

Do you know George Herbert?  As Episcopalians, we should at least be aware of him. I’m not much of a poetry reader, but there are a few poems I know well because they’ve been set to music.  Herbert’s poem “The Call” has been set to music as one of Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs.  And in that form it made it into and our current hymnal. 

The Poetry Foundation’s biography of Herbert says this (Read the full biography HERE):

Nestled somewhere within the Age of Shakespeare and the Age of Milton is George Herbert. There is no Age of Herbert: he did not consciously fashion an expansive literary career for himself, and his characteristic gestures, insofar as these can be gleaned from his poems and other writings, tend to be careful self-scrutiny rather than rhetorical pronouncement; local involvement rather than broad social engagement; and complex, ever-qualified lyric contemplation rather than epic or dramatic mythmaking. This is the stuff of humility and integrity, not celebrity. But even if Herbert does not appear to be one of the larger-than-life cultural monuments of seventeenth-century England—a position that virtually requires the qualities of irrepressible ambition and boldness, if not self-regarding arrogance, that he attempted to flee—he is in some ways a pivotal figure: enormously popular, deeply and broadly influential, and arguably the most skillful and important British devotional lyricist of this or any other time.

Herbert lived from 1593-1633, and for much of that time served as a priest in the Church of England.  His poetry has been described as allusive or evocative. 

Listen to The Call.  And hear Jesus saying these words to you.  Come.  Come along my way with me.  Come into my truth, my life.  Jesus says (Hymn 487).

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:

such a way as gives s breath;

such a truth as ends all strife;

such a life as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:

such a light as shows a feast;

such a feast as mends in length;

such a strength as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart: 

such a joy as none can move

such a love as none can part;

such a heart as joys in love.

I don’t completely understand it.  I can’t analyze what every phrase means.  But when I hear Jesus saying those words to me, I want to follow.

I want to follow an a path that “gives us breath,” a journey that inspires rather than tires.  I want to know a truth that does not divide or is not used as a weapon, but rather a truth that “ends all strife.”  And I want to live a life, now in this life, that is stronger than death.  Come, Jesus says.  Come to a feast that mends.  Gather for the Lord’s feast mends all those places within us that are broken or torn.  Come share a love and joy that no one can move or part from you.

Come, Jesus says.  Come, join me in my Way, my Truth, my Life.

The Fourth Sunday of Easter - May 7

Jesus' Flock

John 10:1-10

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a solitary sheep.  I’ve seen lots of sheep.  They run huge flocks of them in the mountains out west.  But I have never seen a solitary sheep.

Today is informally known as Good Shepherd Sunday.  On this Fourth Sunday of Easter we always have readings that refer to Jesus as the Good Shepherd.  We always pray Psalm 23.

There are lots of pieces to this image that Jesus offers of himself as the Good Shepherd and us as the sheep of his flock.  Most of us probably tend to focus on the image of Jesus as the caring shepherd.

We focus less on the sheep.  After all, it is called Good Shepherd Sunday, not sheep Sunday.  But today I want to focus on one aspect of the sheep.  The flock.  Sheep live in a flock.  I’ve never seen a solitary sheep.

This image that Jesus chooses to describe our relationship with him of shepherd and sheep involves a flock.  The flock is built into the image.  Jesus might have had other reasons for choosing this image.  Certainly sheep and sheep herding were familiar to Jesus’ audience.  But amongst all of the familiar images he could have chosen he chose this image, of a shepherd and a flock of sheep.  To be a follower of Jesus, to be one of Jesus’ own, is to be part of a flock.

Again and again, the Scriptures emphasize the importance of the flock.  Not just sheep, but sheep in a flock.

In the passage from John we heard today, Jesus describes himself first as the shepherd, then as the gate.  The gate which protects the sheep, as a flock, in the sheepfold.  Jesus doesn’t offer his sheep individual force fields for protection.  He offers himself as protection when they are gathered together as a flock.

In another passage from John that is read on this Sunday in other years, Jesus talks about calling, gathering his sheep into a flock.  So there will be one flock under Jesus, the shepherd.

Then there is the parable of the lost sheep in Luke and Matthew.  In the parable, the shepherd goes in search of the one sheep who is lost.  Note that the sheep is lost because it has strayed from the flock.  The sheep is not lost because it does not know where it is geographically.  It is not lost because it doesn’t have directions to get to some destination.  It is lost because it is separated from the flock.  For a sheep, to be solitary is to be lost.  The definition of lost for a sheep is to be separated from the flock.

This does not mean that, as Christians, we have to be just part of the herd or act like lemmings in all aspects of our lives.  This is not to quash individual initiative or creativity.  But in a culture that celebrates rugged individualism, it is important to remember that charting a solitary course is not a Christian virtue.

Being a part of Jesus’ flock means that our Christian lives are rooted and sustained and guided here in this community, this particular “flock”.  On our own, we are lost as Christians.

In today’s collect we pray that we may know and recognize Jesus, the good shepherd’s voice, when he calls us and follow where he leads.  A good prayer, but remember that we do not listen or respond on our own, but as members of a flock.  And in those times that we all experience, when we do not recognize Jesus’ voice in our lives, when we cannot hear him speaking to us, or cannot figure out how to follow…  in those times, come here.  Jesus, the good shepherd, will be with the flock, to guide and protect his own.

The Third Sunday of Easter - April 30

First Hand Christians

Luke 24:13-35

The road to Emmaus story.  Two of Jesus’ followers, Cleopas and a companion are joined by Jesus as they are walking home from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus.  It is later in the day on Easter Day, the day of Jesus’ resurrection.  This story appears only in Luke’s gospel and Cleopas is not mentioned anywhere else.  Scholars aren’t real sure where the village of Emmaus is, either.  Regardless of whether or not we can confirm the historical details of this story, it has important implications for us as Christians today.

Listen to what one commentator writes about Luke’s telling of the Emmaus story (Fred Craddock, Interpretation Commentary):

There is no doubt that Luke is writing not only the story of Jesus but also that of the church which knows him in these ways.  The importance of experiencing the living Christ in word and sacrament cannot be overemphasized.  There were, says Luke, special appearances of the resurrected Christ to a number of his followers.  In fact, Luke says that such appearances continued for forty days before he was received up into glory (Acts 1:1-11).  Yet were that the whole of the story, all believers except those select few would experience only the absence of Jesus, fated to try to keep faith alive on the thin diet of these reports of his having once been seen by others.  Thus all subsequent generations would have been secondhand Christians, removed by time and place from the Camelot of Luke-Acts.  But Luke here tells us that the living Christ is both the key to our understanding of the Scriptures and the very present Lord who is revealed to us in the breaking of bread.  His presence at the table makes all believers first-generation Christians and every meeting place Emmaus.

There is no reason to doubt that the story Luke tells here about Jesus, about Jesus coming to meet two disciples on the road, is true.  But Luke is also telling a story about his Christian community.  About how they continued, first hand, to encounter the living Christ in the sharing and interpretation of Scripture and in the breaking of the bread.  So this is our story, too.  About how we encounter the risen, living Christ firsthand.  As we gather to share God’s word and to break bread at the Lord’s table.

Thinking about Luke telling the story of how his community encounters the living Christ, I got to thinking how I would tell the story of this community encountering Jesus alive with us.  Of course, like the early Christians, we meet Jesus as he speaks to us from the Scriptures and as he offers himself to us in Holy Communion.  But I would also tell a story set in the undercroft where we gather in caring and conversation.  Where Jesus is active and revealed in acts of compassion and conversations of care for one another.  And stories of outreach, where Jesus’ hands work with us to care for the “least of these.”

As I followed this train of thought I began to think about my own life beyond the life of this Christian community.  When and where do I encounter the living Christ in my life.

I could tell a story about a solitary individual, it could be me or any number of other people, taking time for prayer of reading of Scripture.  Maybe with a candle lit, saying the daily office and reading the Bible and meeting Jesus there.  Or I think about a clergy group I’m in—all women Rectors.  We gather once a month for conversation and support.  Jesus often sits with us.

But as I really thought about the sweep of my daily life, there’s a whole lot of it where I am not aware of the risen Christ with me. 

As you might imagine, I’m dreading the physical move that’s ahead, and I’m just beginning to start thinking about sorting things to move and things not to move.  What if I were to chuck out from my life every thing and every activity where I am not aware of the risen Christ?  What if I were to just sweep away every thing I have and every thing I do that does not lead me to encounter the living Christ.  A lot of the mundane things and activities that fill up everyday life would be gone.

Think about that in your life.  Imagine getting rid of everything that isn’t alive with Christ for you.

What would be left?

Not much?  Would your life, like mine, have huge gaps of time and space if you eliminated everything where you don’t perceive the presence of Christ?

Assuming we want to be closer to Jesus and know him more deeply, there are two things we can do to fill those gaps.

First, do more of those things where we do encounter Jesus.  Spend more time in prayer or Bible study or common worship.  More than just that token every now and then.

And, second, retune our awareness to see Christ present with us in aspects of our lives where we may not expect to find him.   When we fail to see the living Christ with us in many of the activities of our daily lives, it is not because he is not there.  It is because we fail to see him.  Remember, even Cleopas and his companion did not recognize Jesus right away.  They were not expecting to see him there.  Sometimes it takes time or focus to see Jesus in places where we may not expect to find him.

Attentiveness, mindfulness, prayer are ways to do that.  I know I’ve shared at least a portion of these prayers with you before.  I first encountered them many years ago and they really made an impression.  They are prayers of Chinese Christians said to accompany many everyday activities (From the Oxford Book of Prayer, ed. George Appleton). 

A prayer to be said while washing clothes:

I pray thee, Lord, to wash my heart, making me white as snow.

A prayer while pruning a tree:

I pray thee, Lord, to purge me and take away my selfishness and sinful thoughts, that I may bring forth more fruits of the Spirit.

When posting a letter:

I pray thee, Lord, to add to me faith upon faith, that I may always have communication with thee.

Short prayers for mundane, daily activities.  Reminding us that Jesus is with us and praying for his transforming power in our lives.

So Luke’s story about the road to Emmaus leaves us with several things to think about.  In your life, on what occasions, activities, or places do you encounter firsthand the risen Christ?   And how much of your life do those experiences encompass?  If there are gaps and if you would like to know Christ more and better, do more of those things where you find him and work at seeing him in those other aspects of your life.  He is there.