May 25, 2025 - A Love SOOOOO Worth It - 6 Easter C 2025 John 14:23-29

6 Easter C 2025
John 14:23-29

Gospel texts about love

No matter how wonderful LOVE is

Are hard to make concrete

Hard to bring them down to earth;)

Love…Yes…of course…Love

I know…I know…

 

Maybe it’s the strange/confusing times we are in

(and then again maybe times are always confusing)

Or what’s happening in my personal life

Not sure

But Love it is 

 

You all remember  BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO?

Do you remember how on the VHS tapes

There was this sticker that read

“PLEASE BE KIND, REWIND”

 

Kind or Not 

We have to REWIND the Gospel of John

To appreciate…to really FEEL today’s Gospel

We need to re-visit the scene

 

As always in the Easter season

WE HEAR first ABOUT JESUS APPEARING TO HIS DISCIPLES 

AFTER THE RESURRECTION

Easter Stories

-first TO MM

-then, TO THOSE IN THE UPPER ROOM

-and TO THOMAS

-and then ON THE BEACH WHERE THEY SHARED A BREAKFAST AFTER A BIG HAUL OF FISH

 

And LAST SUNDAY
began the REWIND

-last week “love one another”

And today

We have clicked STOP on the night before Jesus died

Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet

He is doing his best to prepare them to make it through to the other side of the cross.

 

This scene, it's gestures and it's tone, are tender, and weighty, and urging.

 

We are eavesdropping on Jesus saying Good-bye

To his bewildered/confused, disciples

His final night conversation
His Farewell

 

Since today’s gospel reading starts with 

“Jesus answered him”

Let’s rewind just a bit more to grab the question

That Jesus is answering.

 

Jesus is talking about the LOVE

The love between Jesus and the Father

The love through him to the disciples

Love love love
and Jesus follows this with a promise 

to reveal himself to them…to show up…to both go-away and NOT go-away

 

Imagine how confusing that was!

 

So…Judas…not the Iscariot/not the betrayer…has asked a question.

He wants to know HOW

He wants details of Jesus’ befuddling promise

Which is where today’s text begins.

 

Perhaps Judas/not the Iscariot, 

had imagined spectacular lightning flashes… 

filling the sky from east to west…

 

But not so…The answer Jesus gives to Judas’ question 

is LOVE

This is how Jesus returns.

LOVE…is how he will reveal himself

LOVE…is Where to find him

LOVE…is The clue to his presence

 

We’ve set the context…

this is not a chat about first love, or romantic love, or sentimental love

This is…to use a Gospel WORD…ABIDING Love

 

SO let’s look at a few verses:

 

Jesus answered him,

Those who love me will keep my word

THIS IS NOT A CONDITIONAL STATEMENT.
THEY JUST WILL…THAT’S WHAT THE LOVE OF GOD DOES WHEN IT GRABS US

(pause)

And my father will love them,

THAT’S WHAT THE FATHER DOES, 
HE CAN’T HELP IT…HE JUST CAN’T DO OTHERWISE

 

And WE will come to them and make our home with them. 

TENDER, TENDER, TENDER

‘make our home’ or DWELL or ABIDE

 

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you.

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.

Peace I leave with you,

My peace I give you.

 

In chapter 1 of John’s Gospel 

The first disciples asked where Jesus was staying

“Where do you abide/dwell/make your home”

 

Now in chapter 23 they have their answer

Jesus is abiding/dwelling with them

You are my home!?!?!

 

Jesus did go away

But in that going away

The church is not marked by ABSENCE

But by the presence of an abiding/dwelling God

 

It is the sending of the paraclete that facilitates this move from Absence to Presence

 

PARACLETE is a strange word
The Tradition chooses not to translate the Word directly 

Because, to do so would stifle it's meaning…

it would turn a word with many facets (advocate, intercessor, helper, guide, counselor)

…into something flat and undynamic. 

And so the Greek is kept---Paraclete

The presence of the paraclete points to…expresses… 

all the ways that the Church knows/feels/senses the Holy Spirit.

 

 

Remembering the question Judas has asked

The paraclete is Jesus’ answer

This is connective tissue…it is the HOW of communion

It announces that believers do not simply wait for the ‘final day’

When there is a dwelling place with God…

(“In my fathers house there are many rooms…”)

 

But communion is enjoyed now

The spirit continues the presence of the resurrected Christ in the community

 

Judas asks how

Jesus answers “Through my love…in YOU”

Through YOU, Judas

The YOU is plural

Through all of you…my disciples

 

As most of you know

I have been spending about half my time in Florida with my Dad since January
It has been…continues to be…

An UPPER ROOM experience
A Long, deep, revelatory but QUIET farewell discourse

A painful grief…but not without a hoped for gift.

 

I feel certain that Everyone here knows something of this

Everyone here has found themselves looking deeply into an abiding Love

Up close and personal

 

Because our God

…refuses to love from a distance

 

Our God instead dwells in and among us

And insists that it is the only way

The only way to be human

To flourish as a human being

The only way to know God

Even though…and maybe because it COSTS

it costs in loss and grief

 

 

 

It seems to me that

As vague and repetitive as this love business may sound

We disciples/followers of Jesus 

WE JUST NEED 

Over and over again

To be grounded in that love

To KNOW and REMEMBER that it is sooooooo worth it

 

This …perhaps repetitive…re-grounding

That we re-visit today, in that Upper Room

Has caused an ask and a challenge

 

Why IS it easier to be open to this mystery at these weighty moments in life?

I don’t know but I’d like to get better at seeking it, noticing it, welcoming it 

I want it to help me FLOURISH…every day

 

Remembering that the YOU is plural

That the question and the answer are for all of us

a body…that abiding love of God continues:

…in this place, every Sunday

…and Non-Sunday’s 

…and at home

…and about town

Right here

Right now

Refusing to love from a distance

 

 

 

April 27, 2025 - Forgiveness IS the Mission - 2 Easter C - 2025

2EasterC 2024
Forgiveness and Mission 

Ever since Jesus’ death on the cross

Those who made up his community 

(John uses the term DISCIPLES for everyone…never Apostles…never the 12)…

Everyone is having trouble RECOGNIZING him

…BELIEVING that it’s him

 

Which…I think you will agree…is perfectly understandable

 

Our Gospel text begins…

On the evening of that first day of the week…

So it is still that first Day

The same day that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone was rolled away

The same day she ran back to tell the Others

The same day that Mary and Peter and the “Other Disciple” went to see for themselves

They saw, they investigated and still they were covered with confusion and misunderstanding

 

Mary couldn’t tear herself away from the tomb

And after the others left

She looked again inside the tomb

And She saw 2 angels…one at the head…one at the feet of where Jesus had been

 

-Why are you weeping?

-They have taken him…I don’t know where they have laid him.

-She turns and sees Jesus…but thinks he is the gardener

-Jesus asked her “Why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for? 

-“Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him”

 

AND THEN he calls her by name…MARY

 

I imagine that he had a way of saying her name…she couldn’t misunderstand

NOW she can go back to the gathered disciples and say

“I have seen the Lord!”   ------ In John’s Gospel, Mary is the first.

 

Which brings us to today’s text 

Which narrates the 2^nd and 3^rd scenes of recognition.

 

They are behind Locked doors out of fear

Understandable

They have been following an enemy of both Rome and some powerful Jewish Leaders.

Peter has denied Jesus

They all fled the scene in fear

And what does Jesus say first?

There is no “Where were you?”…no condemnation or rebuke

Just “Peace”…”Peace be with you”

[gesture this]

He puts them sat ease with his PEACE

 

He showed them his wounds

Confirmation

It is Him.

 

Then the second part of our reading

It is a week later…Thomas was not there a week earlier.

Maybe the trauma was just too much

Maybe he felt like the Dream…the dream which turned into a nightmare…is over

And the best I can do is move on

Move on quickly

Sounds reasonable…no worse than trembling behind locked doors

 

A week has passed

Now Thomas IS with them

The doors are again locked

Again, Jesus appears with the words “Peace be with you”

And then Thomas’ GREAT confession

The only full understanding uttered in the Gospel

“My Lord and My God”

 

Thomas just wanted an encounter

He just wanted what the others had

 

He gets it and proclaims “My Lord and My God”

 

But let’s rewind a bit

on that evening of the first day of the week

At the 2^nd appearance

Something else happened.

 

At the end of the Easter season 

On the Feast of Pentecost

We celebrate LITURGICALLY

The birth of the Church

And we read Luke’s dramatic telling of the Pentecost story

---you remember the one with the tongues of fire and everyone speaking and understanding different languages?

 

But today

We read from John…

John’s version of sending the Holy Spirit

And giving a commission to the gathered disciples

“As the father has sent me

So I send you

And when he did this,

He breathed on them

“Receive the Holy Spirit”

 

And what is this COMISSION that Jesus gives?

It sounds like the theme of it is Forgiveness.

 

The line…

“whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Is simply a terrible translation…this is not disputed.

And there are historical/contextual reasons why…if you are interested we can talk further at coffee hour

 

But that second clause (the one about retaining sins) 

…in the Greek doesn’t contain the word “sins” at all

and the word translated to mean retain means retain as in “keep close” or “embrace”.

 

So this my friends is IMPORTANT…

It hits very differently as a mission to say:

“Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them; 

those whom you embrace…

those you bring into the community, those you hold fast are held fast.”

This is our commission too!

Be a people of Mercy

Forgive and embrace and hold the community together.

 

This mission has to do with forgiveness

Which makes sense

Jesus was a forgiver

He didn’t seem to be concerned with numbers 

Jesus is inviting us into a NEW world…a new way of being.

 

It is not a world of COUNTING sins

It is not a world of putting our sins on the back of a scapegoat 

and slaughtering the sacrifice to get on God’s good side.

There is no violence in God’s name…not anymore!

 

 

In the resurrection

We leave that world behind

And we enter into a new community

It is a community beyond 

“Wow Look how much God Loves us!”

Or

“Look how strong God is”

 

It is a world

Where we are animated by the Breath of God

SO  THAT

“as the Father sent Jesus

He also sends us”!

We share the mission

Forgiveness is our way of being in the world.

 

Forgiveness as a way of being

is different than forgiveness as part of an equation

It's not 

I’ll forgive after you express appropriate contrition

Forgiveness is in the Lead

God’s Love…God’s Mercy…God’s care for every hair on our heads comes first

RECEIVING THAT

(which isn’t always easy)

receiving that…receiving that breath of God and letting it make us into a new creation…is how forgiveness becomes a way of life

 

And the sign…the clue…that we are forgiveness people

Is Peace

Peace

 

I have been a part of this community for 10 years now

This is my spiritual home

Even though…because of my vagabond life…I find myself in other churches on many Sundays 

This is where I find that PEACE …Peace that renews and sends.

 

Our mission outside this church is nourished inside this church

Inside a believing community

But believing is not easy

I get Thomas

 

Maybe when “unbelieving is creeping in and stealing my peace” 

When I find myself pointing out all the sin and sins around me 

And as I (almost without realizing it) transfer them to my hidden ledger in the back of my soul…

Maybe that’s when your surplus of faith works on my behalf?
and maybe on other Sunday’s when the same is happening to you…

My surplus might work on your behalf?

 

So…
Whenever I take Dad to church

And he is 92 so he has some pre-vatican 2 gestures/habits that I was never taught

At the consecration…I believe that is when

He whispers…loud enough for me to hear and with his fist to his chest

“My Lord and My god”

 

Until now, it never occurred to me how powerful this confession can be

I mean actually repeating Thomas’ words

 

It’s like saying 

Yes, I see you

You are here

You are in this community that gathers in your name

You are here in the beauty of your creation

You are here in this encounter with a stranger who helped me

You are here in this encounter with a stranger who needed me

 

Wherever there is peace offered

Wherever there is love that doesn’t count

Wherever there is brokenness being tended to

“My Lord and My God”
It is you…you are here

 

 

Like many of you
I have been thinking a lot about Ken and Peggy

And I am so grateful for Peggy’s sharing with us…sharing Ken’s progress and his challenges

And I found myself praying each time an update came

For Ken, and Peggy, and all the clinical staff…

Peggy, 

as she included us in her deepest concerns

Offered us, as a community, an opportunity to care alongside her.

 

This doesn’t just happen

It is the fruit of this community being a place of peace and hope and grace

Of true forgiveness…

 

Easter is 50 Days…

50 days of asking ourselves…

What does it mean to be an Easter People?

What does it look like to live in the light of the Resurrection?

To be disciples breathing with the breath of God?

 

It looks like us at our best

When we gather together

We are upheld

We can say as we lean on each other: “My Lord and My God”

We are nourished over and over again…toward being an Easter People.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 21, 2025 - RIP Gary Gerard, Man of Hospitality

 While I’d known OF Mary Ellen and Gary

WAIT…As an aside…its difficult to talk about Gary without saying “Mary Ellen & Gary”

So… Because of my Posey County 
Sister and brother in law

I’d known OF Mary Ellen and Gary

Pretty much since I moved to Evansville 36 years ago

We were … mild acquaintances

Until about 10 years ago, when they invited me here
To St Stephen’s 

That’s when we became…I don’t know…

Maybe I’d call it “heart friends”

WHICH is…SO like them…right?

Invitation and Hospitality
That’s the theme that runs deep

As we remember Gary’s life

 

Here…In this church

This is where Mary Ellen and Gary 

Made their spiritual home

 

They sat right there

That red thing is their cushion

And when they moved to Evansville

There was an invisible holographic sign on that pew

This is Mary Ellen and Gary’s place

DO NOT SIT

Really…No one sat there
Because YOU were…well, still there

 

So it’s important that we are gathered here

Right now

And at this point…We are, together, participating in familiar ritual actions

We recite familiar prayers

And read familiar passages from Scripture

In order to reflect on Gary’s life

In light of his faith

…a faith shared and nurtured here 

year after year, Sunday after Sunday

So that 

we might benefit from his life’s witness
So that we might be poked a little

To do the same sort of reflection in our own lives

 

The family wanted to select scripture passages that Got at the heart of Gary’s particular way living out his faith

1) Gary’s dedication to his vocation of hospitality

2) And his care and concern for neighbors 

…known and unknown

3) And his steadfast love of and commitment to family

 

This first reading from the prophet Isaiah

Is a vision of the ‘Messianic Banquet”

What does it look like to be in the God’s presence

What does it feel like to witness a new heaven and a new earth???

I looks/smells/tastes like rich food and choice wine shared with the saints around a well laid table.
That fits.
Gary loved to make this vision LIVE for people!

 

I think it is marvelous that, biblically speaking,

It is the lavish banquet that is the most perfect image of the blessing of resurrection and eternal life. God is host. Gary is guest.

 

The reading from the Gospel of Matthew’s sermon on the Mount

Helps us see that Gary’s exuberant hospitality 

Was not just a career but a way of life

For I was hungry…well his work was feeding people with more than just food

…and of course he did this for his family…
…for the Indiana State Police at unforgettable Christmas parties

…for us here at St Stephen’s at coffee hour

…through their work with the food pantry

So much noticing HUNGER & THIRST 

…so much feeding

 

Scott told me about how Gary clothed people

And how you might see someone wearing his monogrammed shirts around town;)

 

And as for “sick and in prison”
I met Gary and Mary Ellen when they were visiting a friend in the hospital…hospitals can feel a bit like a prison;)…

 

All of it appears to me

Like an overflowing

An overflowing of an endless reservoir 

of the Love of God poured into his heart

 

Consciously or unconsciously,

My guess is that Gary connected to the idea of the hospitality of God…

A hospitality which begins with an invitation

Come…as John’s Gospel begins

Come…Come and see

Come…Mary Ellen, Marry me

Come…Scott and Sally, come into this world to be loved by me

Come…let me throw you a party

Come…let me celebrate your service to our community

Come…let me introduce you to St Stephens where you will be most welcomed

Come…Cecelia, Alex, Ian and Bryan

Come…Amelia, Violet, Stella, Evelyn, Nora, Sterling, and William

Come and let me be your POKA

Come…let me show you what I have for you

Come…taste this beef from my secret source

Come…let me do this for you

 

Everyone here has stories to tell about Gary

His life is a good one to try and imitate

To be like Gary is to love life in a big way

In an overflowing way

And to know that it is a gift
And to know that it is in the sharing 

That the gift multiplies

 

 

And God says…well done good and faithful servant

Come…now be a guest at my table of plenty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

December 8, 2025 - History/Mystery/Majesty 2AdventC 2024

HISTORY, MYSTERY, AND MAJESTY
Advent 2C 2024

 

JB---2 readings

The Gospel and the Psalm for today…It’s listed as Canticle 16, 

the Song of Zechariah, the Benedictus

But today it is chosen as the Psalm for the day

Because it, too is about John the Baptist

And though the words are very familiar

And we pray it so very often

we rarely step back and consider what Zechariah is doing and Why

 

 

I recall a line about Advent from a teacher long ago:

Advent celebrates Christ’s coming in 

HISTORY, MYSTERY, AND MAJESTY

The Majesty bit…we had last week…those Gospel passages we call apocalyptic

Which deal with imagining the end times when all wrongs are righted

 

And in today’s Gospel we get the HISTORY bit

Christianity is not some sort of philosophy originating in someone’s mind or imagination

In the first instance it is grounded in events

Events that happened

Events that happened in historical time

 

That’s why we hear details about:

Mary and Joseph set out because of the census ordered by Augustus the Emperor

“in the days of King Herod of Judea…’

The angel appearing to Mary is carefully set in space and time

And same with the song of Zachariah

 

And in Today’s Gospel 

Luke is very intent…To name 7 leaders…some secular…some religious

And then

In stark contrast

He names John…the small town nobody hanging out in the wilderness somewhere

And it is to him that

“the Word of God came”

 

All those 7 leaders: 

Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysansias, Annas, and Caiaphas

Will oppose the One fortold by John

One will behead John

One will crucify Jesus

They are all dead at the writing of this Gospel

 

But what is not dead

What is very much alive

Is the Community for whom the Gospel is written

The community who gathers in Jesus’ name

The community that continues to extend through time to NOW

including all of us

 

History Mystery and Majesty

History is Chronological time

we live in history---we get it!

 

Majesty…we might not get it…but I think we can imagine it

 

But it’s the Coming of Christ in the Mystery 

The mystery of Christ present NOW

That needs our daily attention

 

And I think the story of John the Baptist

And in particular the story of his birth from Chapter 1 of Luke’s Gospel

Canticle 16/the Benedictus

Has something to offer our daily attention

 

Let’s rewind a little because to recall the story of John

Earlier in Chapter 1

Zechariah is in the Temple, He is a priest, it is ordinary for him to be in the Temple

A quiet and dark place…the place of The Holy of Holies

Where God’s finger touches the world…

And…enter stage left…Gabriel…with a message

A message that is a promise

A really big promise

Elizabeth will bear a child…

Well…that alone is super-big…they are really old

Biology says “No-Way” 

But there is more…we are not talking just any child

He will be great in God’s eyes

He will come filled with the Holy Spirit

He will come like the great prophet Elijah

Turning hearts to God, turning disobedience to wisdom

…as he prepares the way for the Lord

 

Zechariah doubts…How can this be? That is not surprising!

But Gabriel gets a little irritated… and reaches for the MUTE button

Zechariah will say nothing until the child is born.

 

Then Gabriel comes to Mary

Who, by the way, does not doubt…no  mute button for her

Mary visits Elizabeth

Mary sings her Song…her canticle…her Magnificat

Then its time

For the birth of John 

 

In the Benedictus 

we arrive at John’s ritual naming and circumcision

Luke not only grounds his story in History

But squarely in Judaism

 

This is the scene of today’s Psalm/canticle

…and I’m going to call it  Zechariah’s ARIA

As a thought experiment…what would you finally say or sing or shout

After 9 months of being mute???

9 months where you were forced to listen like you had never listened before

 

I hope it would be an ARIA

Something big and emotional and profound

And…That is what erupts out of Zechariah

 

“Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophesy”

A biblical prophecy isn’t about predicting the future

Its more about naming what has been promised

And what will happen

In God’s time

It is full of hope…full of trust

 

On the ritual occasion of his son’s naming and circumcision

Zechariah begins with his wife’s cousin’s kid!

It is in Jesus that the promises and prophesies of old are coming to fulfillment

And it is John who paves the way

[I think he overheard Mary’s Magnificat and he was paying very close attention!]

 

In the second half

We hear about John

Who will prepare the way by turning people to repentance

 

Why repentance?

How does repentance “pave the way”

How does forgiveness bring us knowledge of salvation?

 

… lately

The image that comes to mind 

is when you are driving someplace you’ve never been

And you are following the way…The google map way

And you make a wrong turn

And you know that little moving circle that says “re-routing”???

I’m thinking of repentance, like that 

A kind of re-calculating

 

Again…lately…in the past couple of weeks

Too many people I love have been getting more than their share of bad news.

And I can’t seem to feel the truth of the promise

I’m not seeing the “dawn from on high…”

I don’t feel my feet being “guided into the way of peace”

 

I said before that it is Christ coming in Mystery

In the NOW

That needs our attention

 

The work of repentance…of recalculating
prepares us…in the now…in every now

Because it helps us see

And remember 

And notice

What we have forgotten in the midst of our trouble.

 

It is the “Coming of Christ in Mystery”

The NOW of the promise

That makes room for me to live in the meantime

 

We use the phrase “lean into it” these days

There’s this challenging change happening in my life?

“lean into it” I here from well-intentioned friends

 

I know I say this a lot

…But isn’t that why

The rhythm of the week

And the weekly celebration of Sunday

Is so important

And can be so healing?

 

Here, alongside each other,

it’s easier to for me to remember

And notice what I’ve forgotten in the midst of my trouble.

Being here helps me lean with trust and faith

 

I like to think that here

For 1 hour

We live out of time

Out of chronological time

Here, with a little imagination, we live in God’s time

Where once again we confess that the promises of God are not only trustworthy

But fulfilled in God’s time…assured.

 

We sit and listen and sing

And are gripped by the word of God

And suddenly…mysteriously 

We are invited…we are included…in this ongoing story of repentence, forgiveness, and mercy…a story whose end is written.

 

 

I hear Paul’s beautiful words

Writing to the Philippians…not an individual but a community

And also writing to us and praying for us:

“I pray always with joy in my every prayer for all of you

Because of your partnership for the Gospel from the first day util NOW…
I am confident that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus…

And he continues…praying that OUR love may increase ever more and more

In knowledge and every kind of perception,

To discern what is of value”

 

Paul’s words inspire courage

They invite all of us (to borrow words from Zechariah) 

to be persons who travels “the way of peace” within a community that reaches for the same.

 

What if each of us…As we sit up in the morning…that morning NOW

Maybe we could glance at our feet…And as we plant our feet on the floor

Maybe we could imagine God setting their direction…
Guiding them, NOW, this day, into the way of Peace.