The Sixth Sunday of Easter ---- 26 May 2019

John 14:23-29

23 Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. 25 "I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But 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. 27 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. 28 You heard me say to you, "I am going away, and I am coming to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.

Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

·       Ever wonder why Jesus says both he and the Father will “make our home” with us?

·       Ever wonder why the book of Revelation speaks of a new Jerusalem and a new heaven and a new earth?

·       Ever wonder what Christian hope is for and what it is about?

·       Maybe I’m strange and weird, but I think about that from time to time. Maybe I’m not busy enough with all the regular things of life. Maybe it’s something I do while cutting the grass.

·       For some Christians, earthly life is something to be escaped, something to be overcome. It’s an annoying stop-over on the road to heaven. If your life on earth is rotten and painful and unsatisfying, then heaven is the place to be. If you live a privileged life of wealth or comfort or happiness on earth, heaven and the real loss of all those things is something not to be thought about. Maybe it’s something to be avoided.

·       What is life on earth about then? We could say it’s a trial, testing us to see if we’re ready for (or worthy of) what is to come. However if we say that, it makes salvation our work rather than a free gift of grace from God. The same could be said if we say that life is a search for God. Again that gives us over to our own effort rather than the grace of God.

·       John says that those who keep Jesus’ word out of love for him will be loved by God and will become that home of God. Although this may sound a bit like a reward for proper behavior, it is a statement of grace. Hearing Jesus’ words and keeping Jesus’ word can only be done in God’s grace and the presence of the Father and of Jesus is certainly grace.

·       Notice there is no talk of removing the Christian from life in this earth nor is there any talk of all this being a heavenly reward at the end of a life well lived. Rather this presence, this “in-dwelling” takes place in the here-and-now. Not at some mysterious place and some unknown time, but now.

·       If we make Christian hope all about somewhere else at some other time, we miss the point of the Kingdom of God and of the Resurrection. Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom was that it has “come near” and it was to be seen and accepted now. It is Good News to those who heard the proclamation when they heard it.

·       As Jesus told his disciples, this is not peace as the world gives, but it will be peace in the middle of any and all troubles. It will be peace as peace was meant to be.

·       At Easter, our festival of the Resurrection of Christ, we glimpse where the whole of creation is going – renewed life. In the readings during the Easter season, we hear of a promised future in the passages taken from that strange book, Revelation. We hear of a new heaven and a new earth and an intimate closeness with God that is coming even as it begins now. Even hearing this, we can remember that the revelation of God takes place in this world and is given to “average” people like us. We can begin to see the full beauty and depth of God’s creation and the fullness and renewal of that creation promised to us in the book of Revelation, but most wonderfully in the Resurrection of Jesus, whom death could not hold bound. Death itself will be defeated and the world death held in chains will be freed and renewed, completed and –in a way- even transfigured.

·       It’s a lot to hope for and a lot to digest, but I suppose that is what eternity is for. It might be too much to ask, but it will not be too much for God to give.

Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

The Fifth Sunday of Easter ---- 18 May 2019

Revelation 21:1-6

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." 5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." 6 Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

John 13:31-35

31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, "Where I am going, you cannot come.' 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

·       In this day and age, we can be in touch with each other almost instantaneously and almost at the push of a few buttons. Telephones - whether for talk or text, e-mail (if we have it and use it), Skype for video calls are all quick. I use some of them to send and receive information from the Synod, the church council, groups I am attached to, and from friends, near and far. I hear from friends in London, in Dutton, in Toronto and Hamilton, in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and in Greece, Italy, and Finland. It’s fun and it’s a good way to keep in touch.

·       But it isn’t face-to-face contact. There is something lacking that only actually being there can offer.

·       With this in mind, our Gospel reading today takes us back to the upper room and the Last Supper to hear what Jesus told the Eleven after Judas left.

·       I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. We’ve heard so often, we don’t even hear it anymore. Theologians have studied this passage and picked it apart, interpreted it and reinterpreted it many times. Yet it stands. If it falls, it is because we ignored it.

·       I don’t really know why this reading was chosen for this Sunday, and yet it makes sense. We’ve talked about “living in the Resurrection” before. Since Jesus spoke to his disciples about this before his crucifixion (and resurrection), this must be how he wanted his disciple to live. This is what it means to “live in the Resurrection.”

·       Even the book of Revelation echoes this when it says See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. Despite the troubles of the writer’s time, the community of the faithful would receive this as a gift from God.

·       So through all our troubles, will the world know that we are disciples of Jesus by

·       Our dress?

·       Our speech?

·       Our choice of jobs?

·       Where we live?

·       Our backgrounds?

·       The number of our children?

·       How clean our houses are?

·       What we “like” on Facebook?

·       Whether or not we wear a little cross on a chain around our necks?

·       No, it’s actually simpler and tougher … By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. As the writer G.K. Chesterton put it: Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.

·       That’s what it’ll take. It won’t be easy although it appears to be the easiest thing to do. It is actually the hardest thing to do, to love God and to love unreservedly the person next to you, behind you, and in front of you.

·       It is what ultimately draws people to the Christian church – not the quality of the preaching, not the liturgy and the music, not the coffee and cakes, but the acceptance, the common concern, the support, the lived message of the grace of God. For lack of a more precise term – the love.

·       It is what the world needs now and has always needed. It is what we all need, what we will always need, and what has been promised to us by the grace of God, both now and in what is to come.

·       It is grace lived out.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

The Fourth Sunday of Easter ---- 12 May 2019

Revelation 7:9-17

9 After this I looked, and 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. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!" 11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen." 13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" 14 I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. 16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; 17 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."

for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd

·       The Book of Revelation is one strange piece of work. It contains some of the weirdest visions ever put on paper, weirder than many movies and TV shows. I’ve told people that it might be compared to a “fever dream.”

·       Having said all that, I need to remember that the book was written for a specific reason and for a specific group at a particular time. In some way or another the community of the church the writer was part of was undergoing a period of persecution. Hope was scarce for them and the writer, called John, received a vision that was full of hope… in the end. Modern scholars call this sort of writing “apocalyptic” which mean “unveiling.” It can be interpreted as both aimed at the past – to John’s community – and to the future, as a prophecy of what is to come.

·       The images found in the book are disturbing and often frightening. There are, however, some parts of the book that were meant to fill the readers with hope despite the dire circumstance in which they found themselves.

·       The scene of heavenly worship found in our reading today is made all the greater in the last few chapters of the book, where a new heaven and a new earth are made and a new Jerusalem descends from heaven with 12 gates of pearl (‘the pearly gates’) and a life-giving river flowing through the city from the throne of God and the Lamb.

·       The message includes hope for everyone in the world since there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, for no one – NO ONE of any tribe, race, nation, or language – will be excluded from the grace and reign of God. They are identified as those who come through the ‘great ordeal’ and remained faithful.

·       These faithful show that God is ultimately and still in charge despite the persecution and the terror that surrounds them. God - the one who is seated on the throne – is the one who will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat. Of course these images of hunger, thirst, of heat and sunstroke, are natural and are found everywhere. (Many of you know these things very well.)

·       Then comes a sort of revelation, an unveiling - 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.

·       The Lamb, an important figure in this book, is both sacrificial lamb and shepherd. This can be looked from two vantage points: the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, so the shepherd becomes the lamb of sacrifice, while the lamb of sacrifice becomes the shepherd.

·       This Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is called “Good Shepherd Sunday” and the readings every year speak of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. In the readings this year, the Book of Revelation is used to speak of this.

·       This book has been used to comfort the oppressed in the early days of the Church’s history. It’s used (and honestly, often abused) as a window of prophecy to see the future or a possible future.

·       For us here today, in this place where the Church is not persecuted, we can apply it to the terrors of everyday life – uncertainty, over-work, overwhelming worry, the loss of loved ones – and it makes the same sense. 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.

·       Easter puts us in a place of waiting. We live in the time of the Resurrection, yet we wait for the fullness of all that the Resurrection means.

·       Restoration and renewal is coming. It’s been promised and even today, we need that promise as much as our grand-parents in the faith did. The Resurrection inaugurates it. The new heavens and new earth of Revelation points to it.

·       If hunger, thirst, sunstroke, and tears have no place in the heavenly realm John unveils in this writing, they will have no place in the new creation that has been promised to us. We live in the light of that promise and we wait for all of God’s promises to be fulfilled.

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.

The Second Sunday of Easter ----- 5 May 2019

John 21:1-19

1 After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. 2 Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. 3 Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. 4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No." 6 He said to them, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. 7 That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. 8 But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off. 9 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. 10 Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." 11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. 12 Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who are you?" because they knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. 15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." 16 A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." 17 He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, "Follow me."

Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn.

§  There is a lot going on in this passage from John’s Gospel. Some of it is clear and some not so much. There is even an allusion to the science of the time.

§  John tells of the appearance of the risen Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius as seven of the Twelve finished a futile night of fishing. This was not a recreational fishing trip, but a return to the disciples’ previous profession. Remember that Peter and the sons of Zebedee were professional fishermen; the others four we don’t know about. When Jesus tells them to lower their nets in a certain place and in a certain way, the catch is overwhelming.

§  So the men reverted to type and did not understand that the Resurrection of Jesus changed everything including their lives. Even in their old profession, it is the command of Jesus that yields results and results beyond all expectations.

§  When Jesus calls to the disciples in the boat, he is recognized. Peter throws on clothes since he was in his “working garb” and swims to shore. Jesus tells him to gather in the fish. John notes that the haul is 153 fish. It’s an odd term; why is 153 so important? Well, in ancient times, the common wisdom said that there were 153 different species of fish in the world. For Peter to catch 153 fish and have the net untorn despite the number, weight, and size of the haul shows that the message of Jesus and the community of the church is for everyone in the world. All sorts of people from everywhere would be included and none would be excluded.

§  Peter is questioned by Jesus, who uses the same question three times, each time giving Peter a special commission among the disciples. Despite his impetuous nature and even his anger that led him to cut of the ear of one of the mob in the Garden as Jesus was arrested, Peter is the one told to feed my sheep. Peter is also told of the death he was to endure: when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go. John tells us that this martyrdom had already taken place.

§  The point appears to be the difficulty of the earliest disciples to live life in the Resurrection. Returning to familiar patterns of behaviour and understanding were shown not to be good enough; they always fell short as our Gospel story shows.

§  That still holds true today. It is one of the reasons why the Church continually preaches Resurrection, repentance, and the primacy of grace in Christian discipleship. It is as simple as knowing that we forget that Jesus rose from the dead for our salvation. It is as simple as repenting sins and constantly renewing our lives in the life of Jesus we all received in our baptisms. It is as simple as knowing that we constantly try to save ourselves by our own efforts and do not rely on the free gift of grace. We use our time and effort in an attempt to earn what is freely given.

§  We also forget that the church has room for everyone although a certain congregation might not be the best fit for a particular person. It is the Spirit who leads, often in strange and wonderful ways.

§  This passage from John’s Gospel give us a glimpse of the struggle of the earliest disciples to live in the resurrection. It gives us a model on which to base our congregational lives… which may even include a breakfast of fish and bread. It also gives us a direction for our individual and community lives… and it’s just this simple:

§  After this he said to him, "Follow me."