Exodus 34, 4-6, 8-9 + Psalm Daniel 3, 52-56 + 2 Corinthians 13, 11-13 + John 3, 16-18

There is something completely silly about human beings using language to explain God. In some ways, it is almost an act of pride, for if we can explain in our words the Divine Mystery, then we have somehow captured, control, and now understand God. So, comes the annual observance of “Trinity Sunday” right after Pentecost perhaps to test how completely we have received the Holy Spirit and the gift of “Understanding.” Ridiculous!

I have spent most of my life thinking that this is a Feast for scholars, for those who can stand up and speak coherently about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: Three in One, One in Three, Undivided Unity. The hymn we sing this day sums it all up, and it boils down to some kind of mental exercise that has always left me a little bored and put off. As “Sister” used to say to us children in class: “It’s a mystery. Just believe it.” “Believe what?” I would ask in all innocence, and then spend 90 minutes after school writing: “It’s a mystery.” 1000 times!

I had to grow up and get out of school creating some distance from those theological scholars to discover that this is not a Feast of Scholars. It is a feast for lovers. Eventually in the face of love I began to see what this is all about. To help us explore this revelation, the church gives us readings about what God does; not about what God is. The way into the mystery of God is to look at what God does. From that we can begin to stumble around with human language to express what eventually is not expressible.

That first reading is almost a surprise, a surprise at how tender and loving God is with Moses providing the Law to give life. Paul speaks of discovering God in communion, and the conversation with Nicodemus is really about love. Saint Theresa, the “Little Flower” wrote that “The loveliest master piece of the heart of God is the heart of mother.” If that great woman so understood God by understanding the love of a mother, then why would it not be so for a father as well?. Loving parents are the first and best doorway into the mystery of God. Their love brings them together in Unity, but they are never indistinct from one another. The longer they live in that love however, the more one they become. The more they begin to think for each other, to speak for each other, to know without it being said what is going on in the heart of the other. These are clues for perceiving the nature of God. Relationships of this kind are sacramental. They are for us a sign of something deeper and more inaccessible through the sign, and the love they have and share is known by what they do.

We learn more about God from human relationships than from Philosophers and Theologians. You can learn more about God from your parents and teachers than you can from books and movies. People who believe in you, who are willing to make sacrifices for you; people who will not give up on you, who love you no matter what you do or say,: that is how you come to know what the Trinity means and what God is.

That first reading about Moses is a good one for today. Moses is someone worth getting to know. He is a good model and a worthy hero. Today we hear about him going up the mountain for the second time!  He goes up after the people have done their thing with the golden calf and betrayed everything he taught them, and ignored everything he gave them. He goes up there one more time to offer his life for those ungrateful, impatient people. Moses is an introduction to Jesus who comes to lead people who love the light into friendship with God that nothing can break, and unity with each other that is as close and real as blood.

For people who love the Trinity is not hard to understand. It is just a little difficult to talk about like real love is difficult to talk about. And so we either run the risk of talking too much, or finally just give in to the awe of it all and sit in silence holding hands, folded in the arms of the other, and believing that we are a people who have the life of God within us.

1 Kings 17, 7-16 + Psalm 4 + Matthew 5, 3-16

June 10, 2014 + Villa Theresa Convent + Oklahoma City, OK

 The Jewish people at the time of this Gospel’s earliest formation avoided using the name of God. They had all sorts of substitutes, but it seems that the word used by most people was “heaven”. With very few exceptions, this Gospel, so deeply set in the Judaism of its time always speaks of the “Kingdom of Heaven” instead of the “Kingdom of God.” It was the politically correct turn of phrase. It was polite, inoffensive, and respectful. However, a problem begins to arise once you move out of that time and that place because it suggests that the “Kingdom of God” is identical with heaven leading anyone who does not read this Gospel critically to assume that the Kingdom of God is somewhere else, and perhaps for some other time which then makes the work and preaching Jesus Christ quite a bit less immediate and a bit less emphatic since there was hardly any reason to get all worked up about something that would happen somewhere else later. However, there is nothing about the behavior of Jesus and nothing in his teaching to support that idea. In fact, picking up on the themes of John the Baptist, it is quite the contrary. The Kingdom of God, or perhaps better said, “The Reign of God” is primarily and above on earth, and Jesus insists again and again that it has begun. It is an event that has already happened.

 In Israel people began to speak of “God’s royal reign” during their monarchical period; the times of David and Solomon. This idea of God’s royal reign had a relationship to actual society from the very beginning of its use. It would be a real experience in which God’s kingship would be visible. It was not some ideal for the future, and in the Bible this concept never referred to something purely internal or spiritual. The “Kingdom of God would affect all relationship right then and there. After all, people knew that a king without a people is no king at all but simply a figure in a museum. If God is King, then there already is a Kingdom and people within it.

 What Matthew proposes to us in Chapter Five in these verses we call “The Beatitudes” is a profound awakening of the reality of the present reign of God. This is the beginning of the public life and ministry of Jesus Christ. It is his inaugural address. It expresses what he sees as his mission and the agenda of his life. It is not a vision of what heaven will be like. It is a proclamation of the Kingdom of God which he says has already begun. In that Kingdom, in that society, in relationships Jesus is forming among his disciples the poor will be blessed. They will not be cursed. Those who morn will find comfort. The condition of the meek will be reversed. Instead of being left out or last, they will get their inheritance. There will be no hunger or thirst, and mercy will be the experience of everyone. The clean of heart will reveal God. Peacemakers will know God’s favor, and the victims of violence, the persecuted, will find joy rather than fear. This does not describe the future. This is the vision Jesus has for the present, for the life of those who follow him, for the society and its members who are willing to leave all things and follow him.

 This religious community is today and has been for many generations just such a society: a people who acknowledge, profess, and live in the Royal Reign of God. It is not an idea, and the Kingdom of God is not something for an afterlife for those who are worthy. It is a way of life inspired by a young woman in France who caught the imagination of countless people all over the world by her simplicity, meekness, poverty, and mercy. She was “pure of heart” which has nothing to do with cleanliness, but everything to do with the truth that what you see is what you get. No hidden agenda, no other focus in life other than life itself. She said once in a letter: “You know well enough that our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions nor even their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”There is a “Beatitude” in full view.

 Theresa was like the woman we heard about in the first reading today whose greatness was not so much what she gave to the prophet, but the loving trust with which she gave it all. What we celebrate this week, last Sunday and again today in this old Motherhouse that has heard the laughter of joyful servants as well as their suffering is just such a “Beatitude”: a happy attitude of trust and confidence, fidelity, obedience, and service. When we celebrate and rejoice gratefully with Sister Sylvia, it is not just Sister Sylvia who is honored, admired, and loved. It is also all those who walked these halls before her in solitude with Christ and in sisterhood with companions who like the woman in Zerapath have given it all because they have nothing to fear. Just before Jesus gave everything he had into his passion, he sat down with his disciples in full view of the place in the temple where people left their offerings, and he observed a widow placing her last coins into the treasury. It was a gift of love, and sign of the Reign of God; because in that reign, in that society, and in that loving community Jesus came to establish she had nothing fear about her future. Others would care for her, feed her, give her shelter, and provide from what they had to keep her from suffering alone.

 This is the Kingdom of God, a real place that has social dimensions and relationships of trust and love. The reign of God develops its power where people live the new common life established by God and endow that common life with everything they have. This is what you are, sisters; and this is what you have been doing for the past fifty years, Sister Sylvia. You have left all things and sold all that you have to follow Christ into the mystery of God’s Kingdom. All of you live it faithfully here in a community that is poor, meek, merciful and sometimes persecuted by those who do not see the light that shines in you.

 Sister, may you find hope and comfort in the words Theresa, your patron once said to her family: “May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.”

Thank you for fifty years given to us all in Oklahoma.

Acts 2, 1-11 + Psalm 104 + 1 Corinthians 12, 3-7, 12-13 + John 20, 19-23

It occurred to me while reflecting on this day’s great celebration that in the Apostles Creed there are ten statements about Jesus Christ and only one about the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this is so because everything else proclaimed in the Creed is the consequence of the Holy Spirit. The Creed speaks of God as “Creator of Heaven and Earth”. That work or that act of creation was really the Holy Spirit, the “breath” of God. When it comes to the Creed’s proclamations about Jesus Christ, it is really all about the Holy Spirit from the Conception when the Holy Spirit comes upon the Blessed Mother to the Baptism of Jesus when his work begins as the Son of God.

Even the Old Testament is filled with evidence of God’s work by the Holy Spirit. No one leads who is not led by God’s Spirit. In Genesis the Spirit gives Joseph the skill to rule. Joshua has military might by the Spirit in the Book of Numbers, and every one of the prophets is moved by the Spirit. We often speak of “inspiration” when we are touched by a work of art, a piece of literature, or a musical composition recognizing a beauty that is uncommon and sometimes makes us catch our breath. These very expressions and experiences give evidence of God’s work. An inspired person has breathed in something of creation and the creator with it. A truly great artist working in any medium of art reveals not just some thing beautiful; but reveals something of God, something that draws us to God, to the divine. This is exactly what we profess in the Creed with those simple words: “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” There is nothing more to say. The Holy Spirit is the work of God: all of it.

Not too many years ago standing in the ambo at Saint Mark Church in Norman, I began the Pentecost homily by challenging the assembly to name the “Gifts of the Holy Spirit.” There was a nervous wave sweeping across the church, and I began pointing to people who had not looked away. Gradually, one by one, we managed to come up with the “Gifts of the Holy Spirit”, nine of them!  We got carried away, way beyond the traditional seven. The list we gathered was very convincing, but no one suggested that “energy” was a gift of the Holy Spirit; but from my own experience in all my years of ministry, I think it should be. We can talk all we want to about wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord, but without energy these are passive virtues all of which require some explanation or definition. What we hear happening in Acts of the Apostles today is anything but passive. It needs no explanation or definition. Those people in that upper room had some energy. They got up and went to work. They got up and began to do what was commanded of them by the risen Christ, and they did so with some extraordinary energy and enthusiasm. They had the Holy Spirit. In them and through them God went to work at creation.

One of the surest signs of sickness is a lack of energy. It afflicts many of us from time to time emotionally, spiritually, physically, and psychologically. The sick have no energy to do anything. It is a serious symptom. I remember the first awareness of my heart condition several years ago. It was a lack of energy. I could not keep up. I could not get going. Even walking to the office was a challenge. I had no energy. Fatigue is the way our body signals that something is wrong and our reserves are depleted, and it tells us that we need something that is missing. We must pay attention to this spiritually as well as physically. Spiritual fatigue is just as real as physical fatigue.

My observation is that we are living in an age of fatigue both spiritual and physical. We are worn out from chasing around after nothing but puny pleasures that wear out and are quickly replaced by another that requires more of us than we sometimes have. We do not seem to have the energy to deal with immigration, human trafficking, drug abuse, and the countless ailments that infect our lives and the lives of our neighbors. Even our church is tired and worn around the edges often lacking the energy to be truly prophetic. The popular “Prosperity Theology” that often fills suburban mega-churches makes people feel good, comfortable, and justified, but it never inspires or fires us up about true justice and the reign of God. Too often imprisoned in a kind of fundamentalism that turns Christ into a “personal savior” communities get obsessed with saving the world from sin, while the real sin is not remembering that our roots and our beginnings are in Pentecost.

Several weeks ago I went to the grocery store and filled a basket with things I needed for the coming week. When I got the register to check out, I reached for my wallet, and it was not there. Humiliated and frustrated, I explained the problem and asked them to hold the basket until I returned. I raced home and searched through the clothing I had worn the day before. No wallet. Then I put my hand in my jacket pocket, and there was the wallet. I had it with me all the time. I simply forgot it where it was.

This is what our Feast of Pentecost is all about. I have never gotten into this thinking that this is a Birthday celebration for the Church. In my opinion, that trivializes the reality we celebrate, and removes us individually from an experience that must be our Pentecost. We have the Holy Spirit. We may not forget that truth. Paul reminds us again and again that the Spirit of God that raised Jesus from dead dwells within us. As Paul said to Timothy, he says to us: “God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power and of love.” The power of the Spirit is not like the power this world generates: a power of privilege and influence. It is the power of compassion, humility, gentleness, generosity, patience and service. More people will be drawn to that kind of power than to the power of might! Greatness in this world and in the reign of God is measured by how much a man or woman has been filled with the Spirit.

This is a day comes once every year with a reminder: a call to remember what we sometimes forget we have: Engery.

Acts 1, 1-11 + Ephesians 1, 17-23 + Matthew 28, 16-20

To move from preparing the homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter to this Ascension Day reflection, I spent a ridiculous amount of time listening to the great hymn composed by Charles Wesley in 1742, “Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise.” Before you go on I urge you to check either of these (or both) sites and listen as I have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zNJbUBGZfE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b_ODz_jgTs

Sit with this text, and let yourself be caught up in the spirit of this music which with such beauty expresses what our faith holds and proclaims on this day.

As I listened, it occurred to me that there is a change in heaven being proclaimed by the Feast of the Ascension and by this salvation event. Now, because Christ has accomplished the will of the Father, heaven is different. It is changed just as much as earth was changed by the Incarnation. Now heaven is for us. It is no longer just the domain of the divine. Now in Christ we are there, and heaven is a place for us. In the same context, this earth is changed as well by what Christ has accomplished. It is no longer just the human dwelling place. It is now a place where the divine can be encountered. The Son of God comes here to change the earth, and returns to the Father to change what we call “heaven.”

This is much of what we celebrate and much of what gives us joy today. Heaven and Earth are renewed, restored, and Paradise is at hand. As the verses unfold in the hymn, our  heavenward gaze shifts from the memories of the past to our hopes for the future leading us to expect with joy the return of Christ that is promised in Matthew’s Gospel. This is as much about the Church as it is about Christ. His return to the Father having accomplished the Father’s will now leaves us to do the same: accomplish the Father’s will with the assurance that heaven is where we belong since Christ himself has gone before us still calling us with the same invitation as before: “Follow me.”

Introduced now is the expectation that Christ will come again setting the scene and the mood for what our lives are like in the present. Living with this expectation of Christ’s return changes the way we perceive our relationships and our day by day lives. Readiness now marks the way we greet each day. Readiness now is the way we steward the gifts we have in expectation that the owner of the vineyard will come for an accounting. Having used those gifts for the glory of the Father, it will be a day of delight to hand over the fruits of our labor. Only those who have fearfully buried their gifts have anything to worry about. For those how live in this readiness, the joy of what is to come breaks through to silence every fear. Unlike those who fear the day, live in anxiety and expect the second coming to be a day of doom and frightening judgment, we who have bound ourselves to Christ in His death and resurrection are bound to him in his return to the Father. With nothing to fear, we stand in hope. With faith that is born in the Resurrection, we expect only a day of mercy not a day of wrath. Like the verses of Wesley’s hymn, “Alleluia” becomes the theme of our song and the style of our lives.

The commandment given in Matthew’s Gospel today expects far more than an effort to bring everyone to the font of Baptism. The command expects that we will bring this world into a relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. From that relationship springs Life and Peace, Forgiveness and Mercy. As Luke tells of this event in Acts of the Apostles, Angels are present again as they were at the beginning of his Gospel. Now their message is to us, not to the Virgin, to Joseph, or to Zechariah. Now we receive a message from on high telling us what to do and what to expect. As they gave their assent to the message of an angel, so must we, and so we GO as the angel instructs, to lead and teach in the name of Christ, to heal and forgive in the name of Christ, to reveal the Father’s mercy and love, and to live in the joyful expectation that Christ will come again.

As the final verses of Wesley’s him proclaim:

Ever upward let us move, Alleluia!
Wafted on the wings of love, Alleluia!
Looking when our Lord shall come, Alleluia!
Longing, gasping after home, Alleluia!

There we shall with Thee remain, Alleluia!
Partners of Thy endless reign, Alleluia!
There Thy face unclouded see, Alleluia!
Find our heaven of heavens in Thee, Alleluia!

Acts 8, 5-8, 14-17 + Psalm 66 + 1 Peter 3, 15-18 + John 14, 15-21

MS Massdam Passanger and Crew Mass

In many ways, our gathering here is always like the gathering of the faithful disciples of Jesus in that Jerusalem upper room. They picked up the pieces of their lives, their failures, sins, and denials and came together because they knew, once they were with one another, that they were acceptable and forgivable. These gifts of acceptance and forgiveness experienced in Christ could be shared with each other as Jesus had accepted and forgiven them time after time in his great mercy. This assembly is never more like that than when we approach the celebration of Pentecost, because every Assembly of God’s people on the first day of the week ought to be a time when the Spirit promised by Christ would renew us to continue the new life we have found in Christ. What we read and hear about in those communities must be a description of us, or we have strayed from the zeal, the love, the hope, and the joy that so marked those communities always recognized by their love. What clearly startled those who observed this love was not just their love for one another, but their love for everyone. It is no great accomplishment to love people who love you. It is something remarkable to encounter people who love those who have no love at all.

So in the readings for today, which tease us into readiness for Pentecost, we begin to see some very real and obvious characteristics of those who followed the “Way”, who had in faith begun already to lead the life promised by Christ at Easter. That life is manifest within a network of relationships where cooperation, reconciliation, unselfish sharing and real concern for one another reveal who we are.

Aristotle once said that “As a thing appears and acts, so it is.” Such profound wisdom so simply stated reminds us that who and what we are is revealed in what we say and do, in the way we carry our bodies, and express our feelings. If we are angry or depressed, in doubt or confusion, this will be evident in our appearance and body language. Conversely, when a person is in love, they cannot long hide it from others. When someone lives their lives with hope and with joy in the face of everything this world can throw at us, people will notice. They will wonder, and sometimes they will ask, and we owe it to them to explain it and profess our faith.

Hope and Joy are clearly evident in the faithful communities we read about in today’s scriptures. Of all the signs of the Spirit, these two are the first that receive attention. Joy is an undeniable and unmistakable sign of the Spirit’s presence. You can hear it! It is the sound of laughter and the result of good humor – of not taking one’s self too seriously, which is a mark of humility. These people, filled with the spirit make good companions. Their hope raises all kinds of questions when in the face of bad news or a tragedy, they do not give in to blame or denial, anger or despair, but move forward confident that with the help of their fellow companions, Christ will lift them up and dry their tears.

Other marks of life in the Spirit we can identify are the great signs worked by these faithful ones. A sincere and deep examination of our life in the Spirit calls for a careful look at this mark of the Spirit. It is still present, but for some reason, our privatized and “personal” style of living our faith obscures the truth and the fact that such great signs continue. There is healing, and we can do it. The pragmatism of this age and our exaltation of science leads some to scoff, but the power to heal through love and forgiveness is still at work in us. It may be untested and untried, but it’s there. We are often too narrow in our thinking about healing. It does not always have to be physical. We block the power of God by our easy assumptions that: “God doesn’t work that way.” When we are alive in the Spirit, we are a conduit for the power of that Spirit given to us by Christ without reservation or condition. We can work great signs and wonders by the power of love and forgiveness, mercy, compassion, and generosity.

Finally, as we hear these rich stories that describe not communities in the past, but the signs of Life in the Spirit in every age, there is one more that is probably the greatest challenge and test. It is that “bold speech” we read about so often. That confidence, and that zeal to share what we have with those who are alone, without hope, without joy, without the very relationship with Christ that gives us the Spirit he shares with the Father.

We are too shy. We are too reserved and too private about our faith. There is nothing private about faith, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not a private agent. The Holy Spirit is a Public Agent, a Public Event, a Public Person that stirs and motivates, encourages, prompts, and blows through us like the wind.

The Holy Spirit is a “person”, not an “it”. One great writer describes the Holy Spirit as the consequence of the Love between the Father and the Son. Their mutual love is the Holy Spirit. They look at each other, and in their love they “sigh” as lovers often do. That “sigh” is “SPIRITUS”, the holy sign of love between the Father and the Son. In Genesis God speaks in the plural. “Let US make”, God says. The love between the Father and the Son is the power that makes the world. We are invited, called, and created to enter into that great mystery of love. A real “spiritual life” is living in that Holy Spirit; living in that love, in that hope, in that joy, and it’s not a secret! If we believe it, we must proclaim it.

Acts 6, 1-17 + Psalm 33 + 1 Peter 2, 4-9 + John 14, 1-12

If I were to ask each of you which of the commandments gives you the most trouble and is the greatest challenge, I suspect it would be an interesting list that would include do not lie which is a great test for us all tempted as we are day by day to twist the truth and hide behind a lie. I am sure that do not covet would be on that list because of the materialistic consumer society in which we find ourselves. There is no way to escape that temptation for anyone watches even thirty minutes of television. There is another commandment however that ought to be there if you have not already thought of it, and it comes out of today’s Gospel. It is certainly a commandment that gives me a lot of challenge: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” In a world where terrorism and economic instability is in the news every day, and where job security means nothing because profitability is the driving force behind every management decision, there is plenty to worry about. Yet, the commandment is clear and forceful: Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

Jesus says this to a people who have every reason to be troubled. They are anxious and they are worried. He is saying other things to them that are deeply troubling. They have left all to follow him, and he has just told them that he is leaving. “I am going away” he says. Then he adds: “But I will not leave you.” What in the world does that mean? How can anyone go away and not leave? They are struggling not only to understand this, but to believe in someone who keeps getting into trouble and then talks of go away. Their questions betray their concern and anxiety. “Where are you going?” “How can we know the way?” “Show us the Father!” they cry out.

Being lost is one of the great occasions that stirs up anxiety, especially if you are in a hurry. Several years ago I was leading a group of pilgrims from Oklahoma to the birthplace of our first Bishop in Belgium. For months, the pastor of the tiny parish far out in the rural area of western Belgium had been working with me to create a wonderful experience commemorating the Bishop’s return to his home after being named the first Bishop of the Indian Territory. The local mayor was to welcome us. There was going to be a band that would lead us from the City Hall to the Church where we would celebrate Mass with the Bishop’s ancestors and the people of the tiny village. Far off the beaten path, the village is simply a cross road in web of tiny narrow roads that come from nowhere in particular and go nowhere in particular. We were in a very large tour bus, and we were getting late because there is no such thing as a map of those roads, and there are certainly no signs. The only people on those roads live there, and they know where they are going and where they have come from. It is a matter of knowing the landmarks; but to people from Oklahoma and even the bus driver, every farm house looks alike. As the time of our arrival grew near, my anxiety was over the top, and the bus driver was uncomfortable for me, and because the bus was wider than the road he was even more anxious. It was a Sunday morning. No one was out – they were probably all at the church waiting for us. With minutes to spare, we came upon a man who was walking a small dog along the road. Quite surprised to see such a large bus on such a small road, he stopped in amazement. I got out and with many hand signals and broken French and Flemish words he began to give directions that went something like this: go to the left a little way and then turn left. After a while turn right and go past a couple of farms until you can turn right again and should see the church tower to the right or to the left. The look on my face said it all. He looked at the bus, then at me, shrugged, picked up the dog, and said: “Follow me.” He got on a tractor and led us to the church. We were late; but we got there.

This experience comes to mind often when I hear Jesus say: “Follow me.” It comes to mind again when I read Thomas’ anxious interruption: “We don’t know the way.” The only way to the Father’s House is to follow the one who leads and is himself,  “the way.”  There was a moment in my meeting with that farmer in Belgium when he looked at the bus and realized we were Americans. I could see it on his face. While I wondered for a brief moment why he wasn’t at the church with everyone else, there was not a moment’s hesitation when it came to following him. He knew the truth, and we followed.

As Jesus speaks to Peter, Thomas, and Phillip they suddenly came to see the Truth of who He was and where he would take them. For those who have not seen the Truth and followed the Way, there is no understanding much less interest in going to the Father’s House. To them it would seem that Jesus was leading them to Jerusalem and Calvary, but in fact, it is not death that he leads to, but to Life. So, as a church full of disciples, in spite of the temptation to be anxious and afraid, worried and concerned about many things, we hear John’s Gospel speak to us in this Easter season about the Way, the Truth, and the Life. To those who have not seen the Way, we must be the Way. For if having seen Jesus is to have seen the Father, then seeing us must be to see the risen Christ. In the very next verse not included into today’s proclamation, Jesus begins to speak with those words that mean, “Pay attention!” He says: “Amen, Amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and will do greater ones than these because I go to the Father.” It occurs to me then that even though Jesus does go away, this world is not left without him because his disciples remain to do his work until he returns. That understanding of our vocation and Christ’s expectation of us is enough to give us anxiety and plenty to worry about except for the power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit which we are soon to celebrate at Pentecost. For those gifts; for the courage, wisdom, and joy to set aside our anxiety, worries, and fears, we must pray.

Acts 2, 14, 36-41 + Psalm 23 + 1 Peter 2, 20-25 + John 10, 1-10

It seems very helpful to know that this Gospel passage follows immediately after a big confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees. They have expelled a man from synagogue calling him a sinner because he was born blind. Jesus gave the man sight, and there was big trouble. In his skillful way, John now compares these religious leaders and their way of doing things to Jesus and what is ultimately God’s way of doing things leaving those first readers of John to make a choice between leadership: Pharisees or Jesus. What’s it going to be: good shepherds or bad shepherds? On top of that, he calls them, “thieves”. No wonder they were hostile toward him!

This image of Jesus as the gate through which the sheep must pass coming and going is an image of comfort for us. It is an image than can give us confidence that listening and being attentive to his voice will result in the security of salvation. But there is much more to this instruction in John’s Gospel than a few verses to reassure us. Sadly this text has too often been used to frighten and threaten those who do not believe, who have not received the gift of faith and those who have not known Jesus as savior and Son of God.

There is something more here than one of the seven “I am” sayings in John’s Gospel. John was not providing us with a text by which we might threaten or shame those who do not know Jesus. Neither is he trying to pump up the confidence of those who consider themselves to be part of the flock. The choice of following Pharisees or Jesus is long past by the time John writes to tell this story. What unfolds here today just as it did for the faithful John is first writing to is an invitation to discover what it means to have and to live an ABUNDANT LIFE.

In John’s time as in our own an abundant life might easily be imagined as one that is long, happy, free of fear, healthy, and wealthy; a life full of opportunities and comforts, bigger and better than anyone could have imagined. If that is what Jesus is promising in verse ten when he explains why he has come, “that we may have life and have it more abundantly”, the death and resurrection of Jesus in fact, his whole life among us makes no sense at all. You don’t get wealthy, stay healthy, live without fear, and remain happy very long by calling the existing authorities “thieves”. You don’t have that kind of life by eating with tax collectors and sinner. That would be like thinking you are going to make millions by spending your time with the homeless sleeping under a bridge. It isn’t going to happen. I am sure you get the point here without a more examples.

The kind of life that Jesus has come to provide is different, and the only way to know what it is and recognize it, the only way to assimilate that gifted life is to pass through the gate and begin to recognize the qualities of this Good Shepherd. Knowing the Shepherd then establishes the relationship that I think he is calling “Abundant Life.”

The full and abundant life he has come to give us is a life of obedience to the Father’s will, of listening to the Father in prayer and seeking to know and follow the Father’s will at every turn and every decision. “Is this what God wants me to do?” is the door way to an abundant life.

It is also a life of service not just to those who need and ask for help, but to those who have no voice and have no way of even seeking what they need. That blind man in the story before this one did not even know who Jesus was. He never asked for a thing, but Jesus saw his need, responded and then was gone before the man ever realized what had happened. That looks like an abundant life to me.

It must also be a life of sacrifice and suffering accepted without complaint; a life of confidence that with God all things are possible, and God’s ways are not our ways. So an abundant life in Christ is not a life without pain or sacrifice. It is a life of love and patience.  It is also a generous life that expects nothing in return except another opportunity to be generous again. An abundant life as we see it in Christ is a life of forgiveness – seventy time seven times of forgiveness.

The abundant life offered by Christ is then a life of peace free of fear and violence, revenge and anger. With those things gone, there is room for joy, and laughter, humility, and love centered outside of one’s self and nourishing the human spirit with a goodness that reflects the “Godness” of all things.

This is what the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel is about – abundant life. The image of an abundant life is found in the one who offers it to those who will follow his call. This is a good week to reflect upon the abundant life in the face of a great deal of material abundance for which we are all called to be stewards.

Acts 2, 14, 22-28 + Psalm 16 + 1 Peter 1, 17-21 + Luke 24, 13-35

It has always fascinated and amused me to notice the names of Churches. When it comes to Catholic Churches, there are often hints about the ethnic origins of the founding families. Sometimes the names are a little more obscure. We have two parishes in my home diocese named for Saint Eugene. For those of us there who are old enough to remember, those parishes were founded by a Bishop named: Eugene. Whether or not is says something about his hopes and ambitions remains a matter of conversation among the older priests who can remember him. Perhaps he was hoping to invoke the protection or assistance of that rather obscure Pope from the 7^th century known for his generosity to the poor. All I know is that we have two parishes in the diocese named St. Eugene which is probably something of a record. You have to go to Wendell, North Carolina or to Chicago to find another one. Protestant Churches, probably in reaction to the cult of Saints have tended to come up with even more imagination. There is always the “First” whether it is Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist. I’ve never run across and “Second”, “Third”, or “Fourth” among them. Perhaps it is some kind of race or ambition rather than a numerical counting. Coming in “first” is always preferable. Then there is that custom of naming a church by the street which could get confusing if the church is on a number-named street or if they decide to abandon some neighborhood, pack and move to the suburbs which happens where I live. There is a “Capitol Hill Baptist Church a very long distance from Capitol Hill where the street language is now Spanish. Be that as it may, here we are on the Veendam this week and I’m going to be on the Veendam for the next three! So, perhaps we should call ourselves, “Veendam Catholic.” “Veen” by the way is a city in the Dutch Province of North Brabant. You should probably know that just in case anyone asks you what you did or learned at Church today!

It is significant, at least to me, that our first celebration of the Eucharist together is done so much in the setting of a Gospel text the whole western church proclaims this weekend. This is as much a story about the church as it is about disciples or the risen Lord. We already know that the disciples were down, disappointed, discouraged, and depressed over the way things had gone in Jerusalem. We already know from last week’s Gospel that Jesus is up and out of the grave. He has been showing up here and there, and proposing some rather challenging things to those who experience his presence: about going to Galilee and about baptizing, healing, and about going to the Father but not leaving them like orphans!  Galilee in those days was not exactly a resort destination! Their first thought at that command would have been: “For how long?” Perhaps they thought it was a “penance” for having abandoning him!

At any rate, in the middle of this story there is a detail that shows up in Mark’s Gospel as well. It is a simple little comment that could easily be missed in the great drama of this scene. Luke writes: “And their eyes were opened.” Notice that in grammar this is in the passive voice. It does not say, “They opened their eyes.” So we can understand two important things: 1) their experience is not about something that involves the physical ability to see. 2) God did something to them or for them. What happened did not depend upon something they did.

This is not about seeing. This is about believing, and that believing and that experience of Christ and of God’s work cannot happen when someone, anyone, you and I included are closed. A closed mind can never and will never perceive, understand, experience or enjoy the work of God here and now. Until those disciples or perhaps they are the Church of Emmaus have been opened they cannot see nor believe that God is present and active in and around them. Openness is essential. Openness is a quality of a disciple without which they can never truly believe and then do what disciples must do.

The disciples were shaken and were not able to make sense of the resurrection because they were not open to God acting in human history in ways they did not expect or in ways they could not control. Not until they were opened could they come to realize what had happened not only to Jesus Christ, but to them as well. Closed minds and closed hearts can never and will never experience the joy, the hope, and the peace that faith in the risen Christ can offer us. A closed mind that encounters a personal tragedy will never wonder what God can do in that circumstance. A closed heart will never recognize the face of Christ in the presence of an enemy or a foreigner.

Openness is the gift for which we must pray in this season. Openness is a sure sign of the Holy Spirit blowing and moving, refreshing and clearing away the debris of the past. Our hearts and our vision these days after Easter are already looking toward Pentecost. Perhaps more than at any other time, we should be anxious and ready for that Spirit to open us again wider and wider to the endless possibilities of what God can do with us and what God has in store for us. Clinging to the past, insisting on old way and old thinking, closes our eyes, hearts, and minds to what is yet to come. Our expectations of how God should be God can get in the way of God being God.

As we near the great Feast of Pentecost, our prayer and our hope must be for a greater share in a Spirit of Openness that will make all things new, even this church, even our lives, marriages, our children, and our world. When we have been opened, painful and disappointing as it might be, we shall then truly see, believe, and rejoice in the reality of Jesus among us. Again and again in the weeks between now and Pentecost we should be saying over and over again: “Come Holy Spirit” and when we do we ought to mean: “Open my Eyes, My Heart, and my Soul.”

Acts 2, 42-27 + Psalm 118 + 1 Peter 1, 3-9 + John 20, 19-31

A life-time of disappointments, failures, mistakes, betrayals, let-downs, and unfulfilled promises does eventually wear us down. Because these experiences accumulate quickly, and by the time many of us are young men and women the first bitter taste of distrust, disillusionment, and cynicism have set in. The consequences of this are often subtle, and they weave their way into our behavior and into our hearts. They make us suspicious and doubtful. They cause us to expect the worst and deny the best. Bad news travels fast, and there is a reason. Good news is unexpected and always too hard to believe. “Too good to be true” is not just an old saying, it is way of thinking.

These things are a greater obstacle than locked doors when it comes to believing that Jesus Christ has risen; and this good news is still greeted in every way possible except with immediate belief. Thomas was not the only one who did not believe. Even though the others in that room had seen, they did not believe or they never would have still been in that room a week later with doors locked. It was too good to be true.

Thomas and his friends are a perfect snapshot of their world and of ours. Their disappointment and their disillusionment left them distrustful even of what their eyes and ears told them. Cynicism and suspicion mark our days too. We don’t believe what we see and hear. If we do, we’re fools and we are going to be disappointed. The media captured by the stars and celebrities of our time continues to trick us into believing all kinds of things that eventually unravel and reveal lives of desperate loneliness and narcissism. Politicians and their would-be successors leave us cynical and frustrated often choosing between the lesser of two evils or voting against a candidate rather than voting for one, if we vote at all. Their ideologies continue to reveal a truth we would rather deny; no one is to be trusted.

To all of this and to all of us, a Gospel is proclaimed today. It is a Gospel that speaks directly to us and to all who have nodded in assent to what I have just said. It is a Gospel particularly challenging to young people who are lured into a way of thinking and living that is based only on empirical truth. “Prove it”, they say. “Show me”, they think over and over again. “Show me you love me” is their way of luring another into fleeting pleasure and destructive behavior. The search for proof that there is a God is never really God centered, but some intellectual ego trip for the sake of saying: “I did it” one way or the other.

When it comes to forgiveness, it’s the same thing. Hanging on to old hurts, memories, and grudges is the consequence often of not believing that forgiveness is possible: possible to give or possible to receive. Sometimes even when we have been forgiven by someone we have hurt, disappointed, or failed, we simply can’t move on as they would like for us to do, because lurking doubt and disbelief linger in our hearts. We wait for the other to prove what cannot be proven, so we wait for them to prove that they really did not forgive us because forgiving us means we will have to forgive ourselves.

Yet, to all of this and to all of us, a Gospel is proclaimed today. It is a Gospel of Truth, a Gospel of Hope, a Gospel of Forgiveness.

I think sometimes the apostles were slow to believe because they were slow to forgive themselves. I think sometimes that Jesus came to them again and again not to prove something, but to urge them to believe what they could not see: that they were loved and chosen, forgiven and cherished by the God who was abandoned when they could not see what had been given to them or prove what they hoped would be true.

The news here with this Gospel is that the best things can never been proven, they are simply accepted, believed, treasured and shared. The news here is that we are a people truly blessed because we have not seen but believed. Those who had seen Jesus and lived at the time of his earthly life had a very difficult and challenging time of it. They had to believe what they could not see. They had to believe that this carpenter’s son from Nazareth, of all places, was the “Son of God.” I don’t know about you, but I do not think I would like to face that challenge. Now in these times there is still a challenge similar to theirs. We must look at one another and believe that we see a child of God, someone different from us yet made in the image and likeness of God. We can’t see that, and no one can prove that, but we can believe it, and when we do everything changes and we do too.

Blessed are those who believe but cannot see. Blest with love, blest with forgiveness, blest with hope, and blest with a joy that no disappointment, no betrayal, no let-down, no mistake, failure, or sin can destroy. Cynicism, suspicion, and doubt about this good news has no place among these blessed. Happy are we who have heard this Good News and believed what we cannot see. Happy are we who gather again and again to hear the Word of God and be fed on that Word Made Flesh at this altar. Happy are we whose hope is renewed by the fellowship we share. Happy are we who have unlocked the doors of our hearts, unlocked the possibilities that come with the truth we share in Christ, and the life into which he leads.

Acts 10, 34, 37-42 + Psalm 118 + Colossians 3, 1-4 + Matthew 28, 1-10

A choice is presented for the Easter Sunday Gospels, and I have chosen Matthew because it is the Gospel of this year. A problem arises when faced with this choice because each of the four accounts of the Resurrection is very different, and after reading and hearing them over the years, they all blend together. This is a problem because the blending “waters down” the unique elements of each Gospel account leaving us with too many details and no way to identify what is significant. When put together, they are all significant, and it is simply TMI, too much information. For instance, in John’s account, Peter and “The Beloved Disciple” run to the tomb. Peter arrives last in that race, but the other disciple stands back to let Peter enter first, and Peter is then the first to conclude that the Lord has risen. Notice that there is no mention of that in Matthew’s account. It is quite different, quite simple, and almost without detail until you begin to take it apart.

In Matthew’s Gospel, unlike the others, there is an earthquake. There is an angel sitting on the stone that had been in the way. I like the image! There are no spices. The two women named Mary are simply going to visit the grave. There are guards only in Matthew’s Gospel, and they are “like dead men.”

When there is an earthquake, no matter what you are doing, it gets your attention. I’ve been through a couple in San Francisco, and we are beginning to become more accustomed to them in Oklahoma. None the less, we still know when they happen. Things shake. Some things fall down. We remember that we are vulnerable, and we look around and pay attention because something is going on out of our control. No matter how we might want to or try, an earthquake is not under our control. So today the Resurrection is announced by an earthquake. Wake up. Pay attention. Things are coming apart. What was closed is open. It’s an earthquake!

An angel came. Even though Matthew gives the angel no name, I like to imagine that it is Gabriel. Luke is the one who names angels, and Luke liked Gabriel. Besides, it’s the same message: “Do not be afraid.” So, why not the same angel? Every time that angel shows up, God is doing something no one could have ever imagined, and in doing so, God is being revealed. An angel says to an old childless couple, “You’re going to be parents.” Now there is something new, and it is something only God could have done. An angel says to Mary, “You will conceive a child by the Holy Spirit.” Something new again. That has never happened before, and only God could do it. An angel says: “He is risen as he said.” Again, something new and never imagined! This is God at work, God being revealed. Then there is an image I really enjoy: that image of an angel perched on a rock. A stone that had blocked the entrance to the tomb…. or was it blocking the exit from the tomb? It works both ways. That stone kept the women outside unable to see the emptiness, and that stone kept the Lord of Life in. It had to go, and there sits the angel right on top as though it were a throne. There is the angel sitting on the obstacle. It is a kind of victory pose that is a message in itself.

Finally, there are the guards, the brave, big, tough, fearless Roman Guards! They are afraid of nothing. They have conquered the world, but they fall down in the face of the one who conquers death. In contrast to life itself, they are like dead men. Suddenly the dead are alive and the living are dead suggests Matthew. That is earth shaking!

Then the women are sent to Galilee. That’s not home. The angel sends them to the outside world, away from home. They are sent out, and there they experience the risen one. Not in the Temple, not in the safety of their homes, not in the synagogue or any of the places where they are safe and comfortable.

My friends, on the cross we venerated two days ago, the world did all it could to Jesus. At Easter, God did all God could do to the world; and the earth shook! You do not explain that, you witness it. The risen Christ appeared first to his own; the ones who heard him teach, heal, and forgive. They witnessed his arrest, trial, and crucifixion. He went to them first because they would be the ones to recognize that this was the crucified Jesus. That crucifixion was not an unfortunate mistake in the Roman legal system. It was the inevitable and predictable result of saying the things Jesus said, and doing the things Jesus did. That is what the world does to people who threaten the way things are. Face the facts here!

On that first day of the week, God presented a new fact. The God who made light from darkness and a world from a void took the worst we could and turned it toward life. The earth shook, and a new world is offered to us. Jesus came back to forgive the disciples for abandoning him. The new world is about forgiveness, not vengeance, and the earth shook. When the stone was rolled away, and the earth shook, we got our first glimpse of a new world where death does not have the last word, where injustice is made right, and innocent suffering is vindicated by the hand of God.

Those two women came to a cemetery to grieve over the sad story of death and one more chapter in the sad story of how the good always get it in the end when cruel power, jealousy and fear have their way. But then the earth shook, the obstacle, the barrier between life and death is moved away. That angel plopped itself right down on that stone in one final act of impudent defiance of death and Roman soldiers. It is as though the angel says to the soldiers, “Boo! Be afraid! Your world and what it was built on is shaking apart.” To the others the message is simply: “Go out and away from the old familiar places where you feel safe and secure. You will find him elsewhere.”

So just as with another story that opened Matthew’s Gospel, there is a story here at the end in which no body went back the way they came. Once we experience the risen Lord, healing and forgiving, there is no going back.