Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19 Easter 7B What happens next? The seventh Sunday of Easter is all about what happens after resurrection and after Jesus’ ascension. The whirlwind of fear, grief, more fear, confusion, joy and nascent understanding gives way to a new normal. Judas (that one destined to be lost or the one allotted his share in this ministry depending how one wants to understand the betrayer’s role) has gone on to what? Glory? Judgment? Both? Now he fully knows and is fully known and I am hoping that with God’s great mercy even Judas is surprised by grace. The 11 feel compelled to be 12 again and the lot falls on Matthias. We hear nothing more of Joseph called Barabbas known as Justus. I suspect he is like so many other disciples through the ages: He keeps doing the work, doing his best to follow Jesus, trying to make his Christianity matter in his life and in the life of the world until he, too, meets God face to face. The 12, then 11, now 12 … [Read more...]

Acts 10:44-48; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17 Easter 6B Could the Gentiles, even the Gentiles, be our friends? Friends for whom we are to lay down our lives? Friends we are to love like Jesus loves us? If the Holy Spirit pours over the Gentiles, does that not mean that God has chosen them, too? If God abides in them and we abide in God, doesn’t that mean we can’t escape being close to each other? Jesus reminds his friends that he chose them, not the other way around. Therefore, those whom God has chosen become part of our circle of concern in ways we heretofore could not have imagined. Committee meetings, parties, worship, work, family dinners — everything just got a whole lot more complicated. When our gatherings include people of different cultures, languages and experiences, very little can be assumed. Have you found yourself in a context where everything was unfamiliar? The attentiveness and energy required exhausts and sometimes overwhelms all involved. I remember … [Read more...]

Acts 8:26-40; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-11 Where are the fruitful places for sharing the gospel? In short, any place where we abide in Jesus. Acts tells us that Philip is sent by an angel of the Lord to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. “This is a desert road.” And yet even desert roads, when God directs us to them, contain people looking to worship, ready to receive the Word of the Lord, eager to be baptized. Desert roads, when our abiding in Jesus sends us to abide with others, contain water, living water that flows from the believer’s heart and is never exhausted. Good fruit is borne wherever Jesus is. And when we follow and stay close to Jesus, we bear good fruit, whether on desert roads or city streets. All the appointed texts for this fifth Sunday of Easter invite us to consider what draws us closer to Jesus and what, in contrast, pushes us farther from him. But how do we know which is which? How do we figure out which branches God will throw on the burn … [Read more...]

Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.” No equivocation. No qualifiers. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The good shepherd, in contrast to the hired hand, never abandons the flock entrusted to him. The good shepherd knows the sheep and the sheep know him. The good shepherd described in Ezekiel searches for the sheep, rescues them, gathers them, feeds them, binds up the wounded, strengthens the weak ones. The good shepherd Jesus makes explicit that the flock will expand and the sheep yet to come will be incorporated, fully, into the flock. No sheep will be left vulnerable to the wolves, uncared for or abandoned. The image of the good shepherd tending to the one beloved flock, so valued and valuable that the shepherd will stop at nothing to keep them gathered and safe, calls forth a longing in me that feels almost primal, mostly subconscious, but unmistakable when I read this … [Read more...]

Acts 3:12-19; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48 Eastertide 3B Do you know the phrase, “You know better, so do better”? One little girl with whom I am acquainted repeats this phrase with regularity because her mother employs the admonishment in many settings: in church, at the dinner table, after a less-than-stellar report from the teacher. “You know better, so do better.” The theory, of course, is that once we possess a certain knowledge, we employ it. The reality, of course, is that often our knowledge and behavior don’t match. Even that pillar of the early church, Paul, confessed,“I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19).Knowing, even wanting, to do what is right and good doesn’t necessarily mean we actually do that. In fact, sometimes we do the exact opposite. And yet, knowledge seems an irreplaceable part of the equation for living with intentional integrity. Ignorance may be bliss for the one who is ignorant, but those … [Read more...]