6th Sunday of Easter, May 29, 2011

Acts 8:5-8; 1 Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21

          Is it possible for us to continue to love someone who is gone or with whom we have never had a personal relationship? These are the questions which seem to be on mind of Jesus in today's gospel as he is preparing his disciples for his imminent death, resurrection, and ascension. 

          He is conversing with them helping them to understand that this is possible. The disciples can still love Jesus when he is gone to his Father, but neither by clinging to a cherished memory of him nor by just retreating into their private experiences of him. Rather, they are to continue to love him by:

·       doing his works and

·       keeping his commandments.

It means that for them to show their love, and to remain in Jesus' and his Father's love, they are to live their lives in the ways he has taught them and showed to them in his own life.

          Jesus lived out God's love of him by keeping God's commandments, by making his Father known to the world, by offering God's promise of salvation to the world, by loving fully, even to the extent of laying down his life. Jesus' relationship with his Father was not a private affair. The love of God and Jesus was very public, first revealed to the world in Christ's incarnation and repeatedly revealed in his words and works of his ministry.

          The disciples of Christ, regardless of the fact if they have known him personally before his crucifixion and ascension or not, can still have a deep relationship with him if they continue to live out the love that Jesus showed the world and his first disciples in his own life and death.

          To aid the disciples in that task Jesus offers them, as we have heard it in today's gospel,  a gift of another Advocate. That Spirit is to ensure that we, the disciples of Christ, can continue Jesus legacy so the work of revealing God to the world and His promise of salvation to the world are continued.

          On may 20th we have had many young people who have received that Spirit, who is strengthening their baptism, in the sacrament of Confirmation in our church. That Spirit pour out on them the gifts of wisdom, understanding, right judgment, courage, knowledge, reverence, wonder and awe.

          We love Jesus, and are his community only if strengthened by the spirit of truth we continue doing his work and continue to keep his commandments.  There is no other way.

5th Sunday of Easter, May 22, 2011

Acts 6:1-7; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12

A word "afraid" appears quite frequently in the gospels:

·       At the birth of Jesus in the Luke’s gospel, the angle tells Mary and later the shepherds, “Do not be afraid”,

·       At the Jesus’ resurrection in the Matthew gospel, the angle tells the women at the tomb, “Do not be afraid”,

·       And in between Jesus birth and resurrection, all through his life and up to his death, Jesus himself tells people over and over again, “Do not be afraid”.

That is also what Jesus is telling his disciples in today’s gospel by saying to them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.”

Through his life, Jesus put people’s fear to flight by his preaching, teaching, and healing. Because Jesus' words and deeds filled people’s hearts with hope, there was much less room for fear in them.

We are all anxious about things in our lives: perhaps as simple as loss of hair, shape of body, size of a saving account. Perhaps our lives are filled with some fears:

·       Fear of death, or losing a friend, a spouse, a child or a parent

·       Fear of war, terrorism or injustice

·       Fear of being deployed to war

·       Fear of not finding employment, having enough money for insurance, medical or electric bill, or food

·       Fear of not being accepted, or feeling lonely, or loosing a good health

·       Fear of encountering new people, or taking up a new job, moving away or starting again.

     The question directed to each one of us on this 5th weekend of Easter is not:

          Are our lives anxiety and fear free? but,

          Do we allow Christ to be a part of our lives so anxiety and fears of our lives do not paralyze us or prevent us from living our lives as children of God, the disciples of Christ?

4th Sunday of Easter, May 15, 2011

4.a.easter.stmb.2011.community.of.good.shephered

Acts 2:14a,36-41; 1 Peter 2:20b-25; John 10:1-10

The images of Jesus as the good shepherded and the gate for the sheep are embedded deeply in our religious psyche. Those images are intensely relational. There is no shepherded without sheep, no sheep without shepherded.

 It should be no surprise for many of us, shaped by the values of the western culture, that whenever we think about the Good Shepherd and the sheep, we think about uniquely individual  interaction and relationship between us and Christ. However; this is not the focus of the writer of the fourth gospel. John the Evangelist proposes to us in the image of the shepherd and the sheep more corporate, communal approach. It is Jesus and the community, not just Jesus and the individual, which are center of his theological debate.

          According to John our identity as the community is determined by Jesus' relationship to us and our relationship to him. They are inextricably linked. So perhaps today we can ask ourselves some very important questions, namely:

·       What does it mean for us to live as Jesus' sheep?

·       What does community that understands itself as Jesus' sheep look like?

·       How our identity as Jesus' community should be manifested in Blacksburg, in our schools and work places, for example at VirginiaTech?

         

What John the Evangelist proposes to us in his gospel is the following:

1.    Jesus' community is the one of interrelationship, mutuality and indwelling. We can't built the community around individuals, or individual accomplishments, choices, or rights, but around our accountability to the abiding presence of Jesus in our midst, and our acts of love that are done with all other members of our community. There are no free-standing individuals in Christian community. One would say there is no Christian apart from community,  but each one of us is connected to one another, and most importantly to Jesus. If we are to bear fruit of God's love and compassion in this world we have to remain connected.

2.    No member of the community has pride of place; no one of us can claim precedence or privilege over any other. Each one of us is the same before God, we only differ from one another in our ability and intensity of love which we have for others. There is only one measure of one's place in the faith community, to love as Jesus loved, and all of us, great and small, rich and poor, ordained and lay, young and old, PHDs or SATs or GEDs, male or female are equally accountable to that one standard.

Consequently, the mark of the faith community is how it loves, not who are its members, or what beautiful church building is has, or how much money and influence it possess. There is only one thing, one gift that the community can offer to the world, to love others as Jesus did.

These have to be evident in any community who claims Jesus to be its Shepherd. 

3d Sunday of Easter, May-08, 2011

Acts 2:14,22-33; 1 Peter 1:17-21;
Luke 24:13-35

          Emmaus....For two of Jesus disciples it was a physical, specific place. Somewhere outside of Jerusalem. About 7 miles outside of the city? Why were they going there? To escape persecution? To regroup? To lick their wounds after their teacher was killed?

          For many of us Emmaus is the place where we go to escape - a bar, a movie, a video game, a hike, an exercise at a gym, a road trip, a trip abroad.  It might be buying a new car or jewelry, or reading a book. Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that what brings us down, what seems to be draining our lives away from us. Emmaus is a state or a place to which we retreat when life might seem bit too much for us.

          Emmaus may be going to church on Sunday. Is it why we are here today? If so, are we willing to recognize the strangers whom we encounter here?  To be in a dialogue  with them?

          We have seen them here every Sunday for the last 30, 20, 10 years or perhaps just for the last year or two. Perhaps today is the day when we see them for the first time in our life. Can we look at them not as an occasion for gossip or intrigue, or an obstacle and a necessary evil on our  way to holiness, but as the fellow travelers who perhaps might feel broken, wounded, or empty, as some of us do? Are we willing to interpret the Scriptures with them and  break the Eucharistic bread with them so our eyes might be open to the presence of the Risen Lord?

          In one of the parables of the New Testament the rich man traveled daily to his home to live in luxury. He was retreating to his Emmaus. But he never seemed to notice the beggar at this gate or to share his bread with him. The rich man was getting out of his life and his Emmaus what he wanted. He did not need Lazarus. He only took a notice of him while he was in torment in the netherworld, in Hades, or as some translations of the Bible say in hell. Have you ever asked yourself what would have happened if he shared his bread with Lazarus?

          The important question directed to each one of us this Sunday is :

          Are you that rich man?

          Or are you one of the disciples from today's gospel who takes a notice of a stranger, who shares with him or her the Word of God and the Bread of life so there are no more strangers here, so there is no more need for Emmaus. So each time when we come to St. Mary's as we engage our fellow travelers we discover that we are all in the presence of the Risen Lord.