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I’ve always liked the idea of a God who takes the initiative–beginning at Creation, intervening with Prophets and Seers, “at the right time” coming as Jesus…and introducing a Holy Spirit just when the Church needs encouragement the most!   Eastertide is the season when we specially acknowledge this proactive Other, who reaches from beyond the black frontier of Death to burst again into Life.   The word is “Sacrament”, isn’t it?  Readings for this Sunday embody this in-breaking of an abundant and overflowing cup.

We begin with Peter’s fantastic story in Acts, Chapter 11:  fasting on the roof-top, he had a vision of many animals, Kosher and non-, letting down from heaven on a sort of sheet.  As a proper Jew, he rejected some of these as “profane”.   But a Greater Voice told him, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” (v.9)  Peter rightly understood this as an affirmation that Jesus came to both Jew AND Gentile, a great overflowing of Grace to All.

We again dip into the Revelation for one of my favorite passages:  found near the happy ending of the book (chapter 21)  we find another vision, this time of the Holy City, New Jerusalem spilling out of heaven to flow over the Earth.  (Remember the Sherwin-Williams paint logo, “We Cover the Earth”?)     The Christmas Carol sings, “Our God, Heaven can not hold him, nor earth sustain; heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign.”  This is the ultimate Sacrament of Grace, an announcement that despite terror and tribulation, a final love prevails.

John’s Gospel reprises the Last Supper, where Jesus commands love for one another as the Church/Body of Christ congeals and forms. (13:31-35)   This comes in greater context of the passage which introduces the Holy Spirit, the Unsought Gift flowing from the Cross to once again flood the earth…..

Reading between the lines, the hearing Church has responsibility to point out where these Sacraments are re-visited in our contemporary life.   Believers are the keepers of the stories AND required to lift up the Sacramental healings and other occasions of Grace.  Let the visions continue!

God Bless Us, Every One                H   B   King

I’ve conducted 613 funerals in my ministry, so far.  And just last week I saw “again” the rubric I’ve used so much at cemeteries:  “In the midst of life, we are in death; from whom can we seek help?….Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”  One of the specific tasks of the Church is to audaciously speak Life even as –especially as –we are confronted and overwhelmed by our mortality.  Eastertide is a splendid season to wrestle together with the Powers of Death as met and defeated by the Resurrected Christ.

St. Luke’s second volume (aka The Acts of the Apostles) tells about the spread of the Jesus-story in ripples from Jerusalem.  This week’s episode (Acts 9:36-42) takes us to Lydda, a suburb of Joppa, the seaport of Jerusalem on the Mediterranean, a rather cosmopolitan place.  Here resided one Tabitha, or Dorcas:  a devout disciple who lived her faith by making clothes for the poor.  But illness and death play no favorites; and the congregation mourned.  Peter was sent for, and after prayer, Tabitha came back to life!  “Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive.” (v.41)

In the 23rd Psalm, one who has walked in the shadow of death/the darkest valley says that “(the Lord) restores my soul”.  And here he is to tell about it!

What?  Another reading from Revelation?!  Yes, ’cause this is the season for unbridled visions!   The seer tells of the Great Multitude, all-inclusive, who have gathered in the Presence to shout out, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.”  (7:10)   These have come successfully through of the great ordeal, and now in renewal of life they will hunger and thirst no more….  Let’s tell it!

John’s Gospel account is a rather testy encounter of Jesus with the Jewish religious leaders, a meeting between Old and re-Newed.  “No one,” says Jesus, “will be able to snatch (my sheep) out of my hand.” (10:28)  He continues, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.”

Cynics will say that we ARE in the midst of death.  Those who slept through history class will say that things are worse than they’ve ever been.  This weekend’s worship is but only one occasion to respond with a message of Life:  in our preaching and study, to be sure, but also in imitating Dorcas who clothed the poor; and so many other visible proclamations of God’s care through justice, compassion and mercy.

God Bless Us, Every One — as we live the Resurrection!          H   B   King

Readings from the Common Lectionary during the Sundays after Easter centralize the obligation of the Church to not only recognize the Risen Christ, but to point him out to the rest of the world, waiting fussily for some Good News (for once).   Lessons to which we’ve attended lately acknowledge the amazement and delight of Believers when holy encounters occur.  Scriptures for this Third Sunday continue to commission the congregation to herald what God is doing, even Today!

Perhaps the passage(s) from the Acts of the Apostles could be read at the top of the order of worship, a sort of vision statement, or a reason for us to be in attendance in the first place.  This week we hear the famous story of the Conversion of St. Paul (Acts 9:1-6), where a blinding glimpse of Glory shut off his limited sight in order to prepare him for a more heavenly vision.  “He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’  The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.'”(v.5)  Full of the world’s traditions and expectations, most of us have come with the same question:  “Who are you, Lord?”

What a quantum leap to Revelation 5:11-14!  Here John the Divine/today’s observer sees the Christ just where one expects, on the Throne of God in the midst of adoring angels and saints.  Even the eagles and the fish in the sea are singing his praise!   Michael Pasquarello III says that this kind of attention “is the work of the whole church,which, drawn by the Spirit in response to the living Word, the risen Lord, offers itself in prayer and praise  and so constitutes itself… as the body of Christ.”   Also, “worship is central to our identity and mission as God’s people, since it is worship that shapes the human community in response to the God of Jesus Christ.”

And then one of the best tales in the Gospels, John’s account of Peter’s fishing trip! (21:1-14)   Not knowing just what to do, some of the Disciples went fishing, a familiar job.  You remember how they saw Jesus on the beach in the morning mist, and how he told them to be successful they had to fish on the Other Side. (“Oy vey, don’t these guys ever learn?”)   With the huge catch again comes recognition for Peter & Co.:  “Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.” (v.12)

After the Resurrection, Jesus keeps coming back.   Sometimes we see him just as we expect, in power and glory–but more often where we least expect him.  The task of the Church, then, is to put aside the Old Sight in order that we may know the Christ more completely; and then to aid the rest of the short-sighted world in discerning Justice and Mercy where they make their brief appearances.

God Bless Us, Every One!                 H   B   King

During the Sundays after Easter, tradition substitutes readings from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles for the “ordinary” Old Testament lessons.  This lends itself to a  guided and intentional study of the Early Church as it formed and spread; and to the post-Easter activities of the Holy Spirit, just in case we think that God’s done after Resurrection.

When we saw Peter last, he was breathless from running to the empty garden tomb.  Recently a man of the shadows, he appears in Acts 5 as very confidently standing up to the high priest:  “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” (v.29)  What changed?  Our sole clue is the Resurrection, which announced a New Day and a new way of doing things.  If this reading can bring some Holy Audacity to the People of the Church, it’s well worth the insertion into the day’s liturgy!

The Epistle reading is from the opening chapter of the always-mysterious Revelation.   I especially like verse 6: “…and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. AMEN.”  Another word of encouragement to the uncertain Church, cowering before the wave of secularism which was then and still is now.  In the light of the Cross & Tomb, who are we?  “A kingdom of priests”!

And of course the traditional Doubting Thomas story:  Thomas, who dared speak for the rest of us about needing something tangible.(John 20:19-29)   The Jesus Bunch were in lock-down, afraid of “the Jews” (read “establishment, system, business as usual”), but Jesus shows up anyway.   Again, the preaching- point is to ennoble the Church to come out of our locked rooms, for we are the Resurrection People!  “BLESSED are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

This Sunday after Easter is called “Low Sunday”  (clergy say that it refers to the attendance) because the Disciples were feelin’ mighty low.   Discouraged, hiding, confused, they were paralyzed as the People of Jesus.   Can the Church be still catatonic, having been to and through Easter?

God Bless Us, Every One             H   B   King