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We in Greater Binghamton are glad for Spring, for it has brought daffodils, robins–and pothole fixing on Riverside Drive!  As an arrogant American, I’m entitled to smooth streets, not like those of Africa and developing nations.  What’s more, we’ve built what we’ve built by our own ingenuity, strength and foresight!  (So why doesn’t it last?)  Is there anything better than Yankee ingenuity and scientific marvels?  One chapter of “The Gospel according to Peanuts” is entitled, “Savior?  Who needs a Savior?”  Bring on those orange diamond signs that warn, “Men (oops, Humans) at Work”…

Readings for this upcoming weekend continue to bolster those who honestly are trying to find out what The Resurrection means.  We begin with a great story from the Acts of the Apostles, about the Apostle Philip’s visit with a seeking Ethiopian official (8:26-40).  “He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’  [The official] replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?'”  The beginning of Knowledge is the admission that we can’t do it all ourselves:  we need the Community.  Philip was under direction from God’s initiative, the prerequisite for any success.

The First Letter of John can be repetitive, so don’t get lost in the rambling.  Chapter 4 tells us again & again to love one another, to become immersed and dissolved in the Easter Community.  “Not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son….We loved because he first loved us.” (vv.11,19)   With such a strong grace, we can no nothing but love the Creator’s handiwork!

“I am the vine, you are the branches”, begins the last of the great I AM teachings, John 15:1-8.  I’ve always liked the picture:  vitality arises from the Ground of Our Being through the roots of the Vine and is distributed through smaller and lesser capillaries to even the tiniest leaf-bud!  (Is it Spring, or what?)  Some will want to explore the warnings to the worthless branches which bear no fruit; OK, but remember that the “successful” branches are pruned as well!  I’d rather talk about the one-way flow of spiritual juices which absolves even the smallest twig from works-righteousness…

“Man proposes, God disposes”.  I dunno who said it first, but I learned it at seminary.  The Rest of the World devotes time to gathering, inventing, conquering and earning–and feels pretty good about being strong, wise & courageous.  And that’s OK, I guess:  today’s monuments are tomorrow’s ruins, and “time makes ancient goods uncouth”.  The recent Easter event shines a brighter light on history, and makes us to know that the things that are decent and right have roots in The Holy and not in my shortened wisdom….   Thanks be to God!

God Bless Us, Every One                     Horace Brown King

Ken Wood, pastor of Holy Nativity Evangelical Lutheran in Endicott, wrote in that church’s newsletter about the Great Fifty Days:  “The spiritual history of these days is the story of Jesus’ followers to ‘resurrection’….We followers of Jesus are to use these great fifty days to recognize what it means to live with resurrection.”  Dare we believe that this Easter-event involves US?  So what’s the catch?  Is salvation really this free?  Readings for this weekend continue the wide-eyed amazement of Jesus’ disciples–and invite us to join with them in Holy Awe.

The Authorities in Jerusalem were indignant when Peter & John offered Jesus’ healing to a beggar!  (He musta been evil, since God made him a beggar.  Why should these Galileans overthrow the established order?  Who do they think they are!?)   Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ…” (Acts 4:9-10)  And then he suggests that Wholeness is Salvation!

The First Letter of John is written to give a positive spin to what was then an underground and often illegal movement.  He writes, “…we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him….And this is [God’s] commandment, that we should believe in the name of [God’s] Son Jesus Christ and love one another…” (3:22-23)  William L. Self writes, “Being downcast is not sin, but it is destructive.  Our churches need the encouragement of faith so despair does not take root.”  (Feasting on the Word)  But aren’t there more spiritual acrobatics for us to perform?

Ah, finally:  the sheep.  “I am the Good Shepherd”, Jesus announces.  (John 10:11)  The difference between the Lord and the hired help is that the Shepherd cares enough about keeping the flock whole to jump into the fray to snatch each lamb from the jaws of the wolf!  Even if that means severe wounds; even if the Shepherd should die.  Not because we’re so loveable, but because the Shepherd has power to expend his life where he will…  Conversation point:  what did he mean by saying, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  I must bring them also…”?  Are these Gentiles?   Or Muslims, or Hindi, or Bhuddist?  Street people, too?  How far shall we take the preceding words of 3:16??

Easter’s wonder is because God has initiated it.  Easter breaks into  the World God Loves without depending upon Hard Work, Perfect Goodness, elaborate rituals or acceptable prayer routines. The result is an ageless community of hopeful sinners struggling to believe that they are beloved.  The Christian symbiosis is the energy flowing around this Flock and its ever-present Shepherd.

God Bless Us,Every One                                Horace Brown King

“How was your Easter?” he asked.  “Glorious!” I replied.  “Bells, brass quartet, full -throated congregation…”  “No, what I meant is, What’s Different?   Is the church excited about a Holy Mystery; or are they still fussing about the logic of bodily death?”  Can Easter happen without fourteen hypotheses about suspended animation, earth temperatures and bodily fluids?  Doubting Thomas has spoken for us all.

The third chapter of Acts has a marvelous story about Peter & John’s encounter with a lame man at the Temple.  The man can now walk normally,  which impresses the crowd.  “When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, ‘You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?'” (v.12)  Just as in today’s culture, a few individuals may have quietly believed, but the greater community wouldn’t accept the wonder.  This verse could be heard in every generation  between then & now:  the greater community resists the resurrection.

The First Letter ascribed to John has this hopeful verse, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” (3:2a)  The author sees himself in a bi-polar world, with a small number understanding themselves as “children of God”–and the rest of the “world” which is basically lawless.  Sometimes it seems as if we are aliens; other times I can deal with being a change-agent, “yeast in the flour”.   After all this hard work, even to death, why do they still resist the resurrection?

Luke’s Gospel reports that on the evening after the resurrection, Jesus suddenly was among the gathered believers. (24:36-42)  They thought they were seeing a ghost!  (I can relate to that.)  The Lord told them, “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.” (v.39)  To further his proof, he ate a piece of broiled fish; it didn’t fall on the floor, so he must have been human!  Well, who would have expected this?  Even his close companions tended to resist the resurrection!

I’m done whining about this:  the post-modern Christian movement really works best as a lean and committed minority.  Throughout holy-history the greatest and most effective results have been realized when the Church has been a small enclave of monks in The Dark Ages…or underground cells meeting in the catacombs…or bleary-eyed scholars illegally translating holy writ into the language of their people…   By God, the revolution has survived!   There’re always a few who haven’t resisted the resurrection!!

God Bless Us, Every One           Horace Brown King

Wasn’t Easter grand?!!  At the church where we worship, Central United Methodist of Endicott NY, we had a superb brass quartet plus bell choir added to organ and piano….  Glorious!!  I hated to come home….  The trite hymn whines that “I’d stay in the garden with Him tho’ the night around me be falling.”  Truly, it’s more comforting to remain in Easter’s amazement than to accept Easter’s challenge.

Readings for this Low Sunday–the lesser of the Sundays within the eight days of the Easter cycle–call disciples into the next phase of the spirit-journey.  During these several Sundays, we’ll read from Volume II of “The Christians’ Handbook”, aka “The Acts of the Apostles”.  In Chapter 4:32-35, we hear about the apostles pooling their resources and holding their belongings in common.  They were attempting to live alternatively, having seen the Risen Christ.  Things just weren’t The Same….

The First Letter of John deals with the expectation that the Believer will stand in the Light.  “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” (1:5)  A closer reading of the word “sin(s)”–1:9-2:2– might be “brokenness”: a relational gap between Creator and Creation,  between parts of the Church, between our home castles and the free air of community life.  Now that the Lord is risen, things just aren’t The Same…

The Gospel is traditionally the confession of Doubting Thomas, John 20:19-31.  The preacher/study leader could analyze Thomas’ inner fears (“why wasn’t he there the first time?”)  and assign Thomas to the role of EveryMan (“someone has to ask the silly questions”).  Be kind to Thomas: he’s my alter ego!  Were I preaching, this Sunday, I think I’d lift up the verses (19,26) about Jesus appearing even though the doors were locked–what doors have we closed against God, what closets are off-limits to the Holy Spirit?

One Easter, while serving the Montrose PA United Methodist congregation, I had our resident computer guru print out a banner which said, “NOW WHAT??”; and it was hung above the main exit from the sanctuary.  After Easter,  things just aren’t The Same…

God has blessed us, every one!       Horace Brown King

Easter!  Again!  By this point, many preachers, teachers and church workers are exhausted from Lent and its intense activities.  What, then, shall we present to the Easter crowd–many of whom we see only occasionally, when they need some good news?  Most of us, myself included, search for some clever twist that we haven’t used before.  This, we feel, may put some new life into our dusty tradition of the years ‘n’ years of telling the Resurrection Story.  Help me, Lord, to remember that today’s faithful have come especially to hear the old story of new life, and thus to become stabilized on their journey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Long before Eternal Life became a goal for holy living, Isaiah of Jerusalem made a quantum leap in prophecy:  he announced that God is holding a summit meeting, and has drawn together all nations in sacred covenant!  “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines….And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.” (25:6-8a)  We read “ALL peoples/nations/faces” five times in verses 6-9!  “Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation!”

The Centurion Cornelius called St. Peter to have him explain a bit about Christianity.  Peter had just been wrestling with the issue of including non-Jewish believers, and had received a vision of God’s OK-ing animals which were considered “unclean”.  His Easter message began, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” (Acts 10:34-35)   The traditional Church needs to make this invitation to participate in the Resurrection!  The exiles and disenfranchised are the ones most appreciative of Easter….

This year, the Gospel story is from John, chapter 20.  The story seems to have two parts, divided along gender lines:  we guys relate to the sprinting (but clueless) disciples, whereas the ladies groove out on the romantic encounter of Jesus & Mary Magdalene while the dew is still on the roses.  Be as it may, “I have seen the Lord!” is the core of the Christian experience.

The explosiveness of Easter is that which has re-created the universe.  If any power can undo exploitation and fear, anger and greed, it is this knowledge that God has arranged for life to overcome death.  Reuben P. Job has offered, “To live in a world where evil holds no fear and death holds no threat requires a radical shift in understanding and attitude.  Such a world is no longer under the dominant control of darkness but is already showing signs of the healing and life-giving presence of light.”  (A GUIDE TO PRAYER FOR ALL WHO SEEK GOD, page 169)  Every morning is Easter morning from now on!

God (has) blessed us, every one!      Horace Brown King