The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time July 30, 2017

1 Kings 3, 5, 7-12 + Psalm 119 + Romans 8, 28-30 + Matthew 13, 44-52

St Joseph Parish, Norman, OK

“Have you understood all of this?” It’s a good question. If this Gospel is the living Word of God spoken in every age, it is being addressed to us today. “Have you understood all of this?” Matthew says that the apostles said, “Yes.” I don’t believe them. I can remember my father standing over me the first time I drove off in his car at age 16. There had been some serious instructions, warnings, and disguised threats. “Do you understand me?” he concluded. I wouldn’t be standing here today if I had said, “No.” In all honesty, when it comes to that example, I’ll never really understand because I’ve never had a 16-year-old son, but I am beginning to understand a few things about the Kingdom of Heaven, and with that understanding has come some changes in my life.

In the parable about the field and the pearl, those two people find something that is already there right in front of them but hidden. They find it because they were looking. Imagine how many others may have walked by and never noticed, or seen that pearl and ignored it or maybe after looking it over decided that it was just a rock land tossed it aside! It seems to me that these two “finders” are pretty much like the inhabitants of this world. There are some who are just living day by day as if this is all there is not particularly looking for more, and then there are those who are searching all the time hoping that there is more to this life than work and sleep in order to get up and work again. Everyone in here falls into one of those two categories.

The Gospel insists that the Kingdom of Heaven is right here in front of us. It is not something we have to earn or work for. It is not something we build either in spite of a popular hymn that suggests we are building the Kingdom of God, a proud and preposterous thought! The reign of God is already established. Jesus came to lead us into that Kingdom, to teach how to recognize and then live in that Kingdom; and he shapes the behavior of those who discover it. It is a gift: the gift of God’s presence which is right in front of us. The parable proposes that those who are looking will find it, and it describes their response to the discovery of this gracious gift.

Those whose eyes have been opened to see what God is doing in Jesus commit themselves whole heartedly in faith and obedience. They will be people of Joy. Anything that gets in the way, or keeps them from the life of service, joy, and peace that marks that Kingdom must go, be sold, or sacrificed. There is no substitute for what is found in the Kingdom of God. It is the discovery of what we were made for, what we live for, and who we are as God’s loved ones for whom all creation was made and to whom all creation has been entrusted so that God’s beauty, God’s peace, God’s love can be known and shared for all eternity.

My friends we have come here today seeking “the pearl of great price.” We find it on this altar not just in bread and wine, but in the communion of the forgiven that this sacrament establishes among us. Our joyful, hope-filled, and blessed unity here is a sign of the Kingdom of Heaven, and what we do and what we say when we leave here renewed and strengthened by another taste of the Kingdom can strengthen all others who are seeking and looking for what we have found. “Wisdom” says Pope Francis, “is the grace of being able to see everything with the eyes of God.” It is the curious look of a man in a field, or a merchant who knows a fine pearl when he sees it. It is the look of a volunteer who sees their brother in a homeless man. It is the child who embraces with excitement the grandparent who has become a burden to the rest of the family.

Jesus asks again today: ‘Have you understood all of this?”

The Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time July 23, 2017

Wisdom 12, 13, 16-19 + Psalm 86 + Romans 8, 26-27 + Matthew 13, 24-43

St Joseph Parish, Norman, OK

One of the punishments I suffered as a child was pulling weeds out of the garden at our home. Mom had roses. Dad had vegetables. They both of their gardens had weeds.  While down on my hands and knees in anything but a prayerful mood, I would wonder if there weeds in the Garden of Eden.  I would think: if everything God made was good, what are these weeds, and why am I doing this? Then I would remember the offence that put there, and I would get all confused and just jerk off the tops leaving the roots. Fifty years later, I would still pull weeds out of Mom’s rose garden as age made it more difficult for her to keep it just the way she liked it. It was no punishment then. It was a privilege; but still I still wondered about weeds just the way this gospel invites us to do.

Who decides what is a weed and what is not a weed? A lot of people look at dandelions and think: “Weed”. It’s got to go. People who make and enjoy Dandelion Wine would disagree and hardly be motived to pull it up, and how many of us have the big grin on a child’s face who picks those yellow booms and makes a bouquet for Mom? So, the question remains, “Who decides which plant is undesirable?” When Jesus tells this parable and then discusses it with his disciples, he talks about the world with good and evil people. When Matthew retells the parable, it is to reflect upon the church with good and evil people to make the same point. The task of weeding questionable people or the task of deciding what is a weed is not part of the disciples’ job description. The landowner insists that there is to be no weeding. Everything gets a chance to grow until the harvest time, and the disciple is not the reaper.

This world, and even our church, has a lot of people who think they know just how things should be. Those “weeds” upset what they think is the way God has planned the order of things. These people are more like the Pharisees of the Gospels than those people Jesus is forming with parables like this. To them, Jesus was a problem. He ate with sinners, worked on the Sabbath, and did a lot things that to them were like blowing dandelion seeds over the perfectly lawn. I suspect that with a smile on his face, he went on to talk about a mustard seed that grows up and shelters the birds of the air. The people of his time considered the mustard plant invasive. It tended to take over everything around it. It was to them, a weed! Image them standing there shaking their heads at these images just as we might well shake our heads over our own inconsistent behavior and attitudes. Here is Jesus confusing us suggesting that there might be something good about this mustard weed.

These parables must make us wonder first about our own lives. If there are weeds to pull, let them be attitudes and behaviors within us. We all have plenty of weeds to pull, and perhaps the first is the weed of judgement about others; our quick decisions about who is good and who is bad, who belongs here and who does not, who is an alien and who is not. The Gospel today asks us to reassess all of this with the reminder that we are called to plant not to weed or reap. If there are weeds in God’s garden, there is always the chance that we planted them. Our best hope is that we are something like the mustard plant that grows to provide shelter and comfort for others in God’s creation even if some might think we are weeds because we do so. Sometimes our failures and our sins would merit us being pulled up, but the good news here is that the owner is willing to wait for us to get it right before the harvest. I have an idea that in the Garden of Eden when all was perfect there was just a lot of diversity and refreshing variety; and a “weed” was just a name for something waiting for someone to discover wine.

The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time July 16, 2017

Isaiah 55, 10-11 + Psalm 65 + Romans 8, 18-23 + Matthew 13, 1-23

St Joseph Parish, Norman, OK

Jesus told this parable to reveal something about the Father’s extravagant generosity since his mission was ultimately about the revelation of God. Matthew probably included this parable urging the church of his time to examine how they had received the seed or the “Word” of God. Moving around within the parable to examine each of the elements is a good way to open our hearts to the power of God’s Word in the scriptures. We could examine what kind of ground we are like the church of Saint Matthew. In other words, how receptive we have been to what has been sown in us. We might examine the seeds reflecting on how God has scattered us through this world with the expectation that we would bear fruit and flourish no matter where we are. We might even wonder if we have been like the birds who have become the cause of no harvest grabbing up God’s gifts, and then simply taking off to look elsewhere for more.

There is still another position with which we can open our hearts to the challenge and message of this parable, and that position is the sower. As a people made in the image of God there is something here to reflect upon, something that might bring us to more perfectly reflect that image to this world just as Jesus did.

This extravagant and generous sower becomes for us the very model of what we must be as images of our creator. Generous with forgiveness, extravagant with our gifts and resources, we spread the joy and the peace of the Kingdom everywhere and anywhere. There is no concern about whether or not it will do any good, or whether or not anyone deserves it. Our concern is not that it bears fruit. Our concern is that we mirror the likeness and behavior of God revealed to us by the Word. We do not pick and choose, we not hold back, and we do not worry about the harvest. It will come in due time in proportion to the nature of the one who receives it. We can sow seeds of kindness and mercy, and God will bring it to the harvest. We can sow seeds of compassion and understanding, of patience and joy to everyone everywhere even to the hardest of hearts and to the most dry and closed minds.

A seed is a marvelous thing, but it is weak and vulnerable. It is the same with words. They are powerful. One unkind word spoken in anger can destroy a lifetime of friendship and affection. Whispers of gossip and suspicion can sow seeds of doubt and ruin the reputations and dreams of the innocent never to be repaired. Yet for us, silence cannot be possible for we are a people filled with God’s Word which must be spoken. We sow the seeds of hospitality and welcome with words of encouragement and affirmation, advice and guidance, comfort and consolation because someone has sown those seeds in us. Those seeds bear fruit because of our faith and the attitude of openness that faith requires. Someone once spoke to us, and revealed the God who has called us. Like the one in whose image we are made, we must do the same.

My friends, what we say and how we speak to each other is a seed that holds the promise of a rich harvest of peace, reconciliation, understanding, compassion, and encouragement. Let us resolve that from our reflection upon this parable, we might become more like our creator who has sown the seeds of promise and hope everywhere throughout creation by what say and how we say every day and everywhere.

The Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time July 9, 2017

Zechariah 9, 9-10 + Psalm 145 + Romans 8, 9, 11-13 + Matthew 11, 25-30

St Joseph Parish, Norman, OK

It’s time for a little Greek lesson today, because there is a word in this Gospel passage that Matthew uses only twice. It was used earlier in the Beatitudes, and now it comes up again. The word in Greek is Praus. It is a strong word that is used to describe the taming or the domesticating of a powerful animal. Horses or oxen had to be “meeked”, and so it means strength under control, and so when Jesus says that he is “meek and humble of heart” he is really talking about his strength and his power. The Greek speaking Jews at the time Matthew wrote this Gospel got the point. There is no weakness in meekness. In fact, it quite the opposite: there is disciplined strength under control.

When Jesus says, “Come to me when you get tired, worn down, discouraged, or feel like you can’t go on any more”, he wants to share his strength. When Jesus talks then about a “yoke” you can understand the image he uses. That yoke is made and fitted on the neck and shoulders of strong animals to distribute and share a load evenly. This is a teaching from Jesus about power and what to do with it.

In the verses just before this text today, Jesus has scolded the towns that welcomed the signs and wonders he worked, but resisted his teaching. Those leaders he speaks to again and again have power, and they like it. Nothing much has changed since that time. This world still has its own idea about power. It belongs to those who seize it, and they use it for domination, oppression, and exploitation. In that thinking, the only limits to freedom are the limits imposed by my appetites. In this world, arrogance and a lack of care are signs of strength. “Be tough,” says this world, “go after what you want, and let anyone who gets in the way or who objects get lost! The weak and the vulnerable are just in the way. Too bad for them. They can take care of themselves.”

To that world and to those who think that way the Gospel seems naïve and senseless. They are so full of their ideas and opinions, that they can see nothing or think nothing about any other way or anyone but themselves. Along comes Jesus who turns away from them and reaches out to those who have been left behind, to those who feel as though they can never get ahead, to those who are like the children, dependent, and unable to make it on their own.

Power is among the greatest of temptations. Thomas Aquinas warns against it. “Learn from me” says Jesus, “For I am meek and humble of heart.” We have to become students, and learn from the master Earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, he said: “The meek will inherit the earth.” From God’s viewpoint, the meek can be trusted with the goods of this world, because they are not going to exploit or abuse. Their relationship with the world and created things is not about power, but about wonder and awe. The meek have been invited to enter into the intimate loving relationship that Jesus shares with the Father; a relationship that promises life and gives hope because the master shares the load with us. So, the meek become the source of hope and optimism in the face of helplessness.

The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time July 2, 2017

2 Kings 4, 8-11 + Psalm 89 + Romans 6, 3-4 + Matthew 10, 37-42

St Joseph Parish, Norman, OK

The culture and customs alive at the time Jesus spoke these words are not too different from our culture today. Here among us in this parish, customs and cultural identity are important. It matters if you are from Mexico, or Cuba, or Venezuela, Columbia, or Honduras. Your name matters. It tells who your father and perhaps who your mother is and their parents as well. Having children was important too, because when you aged and were no longer able to care for yourself, having many children brought the possibility of security and care. The family network provided safety, dignity, and respect. It also provided a future.

When Jesus says these things, it is disturbing. He is questioning the very core value and very structure of social and family systems. So, in this part of Matthew’s Gospel when he is preparing his disciples for their mission he wants them find their identity in him, not their past, and he wants them to find their future in their relationship with him rather than with their kin.

Those people believed that after they died, they somehow lived on in their children, so to be childless was to have no future. Children were a blessing and a promise. So, when Jesus asks his disciples to value him more than children, he is asking them to stake their future on him, and only through him would there be a future. He wants their identity. He wants being his disciple to be more important than being a mother or father. That is not to say that they should not be good parents, or good children, but rather that being his disciple would make those relationships fruitful and life giving. This is what he means by saying a disciple must lose one’s life in order to take up life again in a new way.

The demands he is making however do not seem to be for everyone. These are words spoken to those who are going out on mission in his name. Everyone is not going. However, with the second part of this Gospel, Jesus speaks to those who will remain at home when he begins to talk about hospitality. Those on mission are to become so much like Christ that welcoming them will be the same as welcoming Christ. For those who exercise this hospitality there is a bond, a solidarity that brings them all into communion. For sharing food or even that little cup of water signifies a bond, a unity, communion. Some will give up everything and take to the road for Jesus. Others give those representatives of Jesus a place in their home and in their lives.

In the end, all of us must decide which it will be for us. There is no middle option. We welcome and support those with love who carry on the most demanding part of Christ’s mission and bind ourselves to them, or we give up everything and put our hope and future into our relationship with the master.

The Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time June 25, 2017

Jeremiah 20, 1013 + Psalm 69 + Romans 5, 12-15 + Matthew 1o, 26-33

St Joseph Parish, Norman, OK

Matthew’s Gospel before the Passion is a series of discourses. The first is the Sermon on the Mount which describes the Father who is Blessed with instructions on how to become more like the one in whose images we are created. The second discourse which we pick up today is sometimes called the “Mission” discourse. Preparing to send out the disciples to share in his mission, Jesus speaks of the tough demands of that mission. Three times he tells them not to fear, because he knows from his own experience what fear can do to the human heart. He also tells them how to resist fear and build up their courage.

That fear must be replaced by faith, but not the kind of faith that is a comforting illusion that all is well. The faith Jesus describes is a kind of wisdom and trust that life is full of risk, of insecurity, yet real disciples can and will rejoice in it anyway. What Jesus proposes is trust that God is watching. Now every time I remind myself of this promise, I am suddenly back in grade school and Sister Mary of Holy Discipline is pointing at me say: “God is watching you.” That feeling of being watched is not comfortable; but the feeling of being
watched over” is comforting, strengthening, encouraging. This the feeling gives hope that can replace fear.

Few of us are ever likely to be beaten, tortured, or killed because we acknowledge Jesus and continue his mission of reconciliation, mercy, and justice. Yet, everyone who does knows the pain that comes from the whispers of those who criticize and judge, who mock, malign and accuse. Everyone who hears these words of Jesus today is called to be fearless and hopeful in acknowledging Jesus Christ in our families, at work, and in wider social situations. We must find the right words to speak and the wisdom to listen. Married people struggling with fidelity, young people at war with hormones, the disabled longing to be recognized as people, men and women searching for their sexual identity, the poor who are helpless and angry. All of these people need someone to listen and then respond with the voice of grace and love.

Old Jeremiah, that relentless truth teller, turns to God when he is discouraged like a mighty warrior. He does not attack those who whisper about him or seek revenge. He just let’s God take care of it all and protect him. What he asks of God is not to escape from his enemies who will be with him till the end, but that he may not despair and give up.

Once upon a time there was a mouse that had a crippling fear of cats. A magician took pity on it and turned it into a cat. But then it became afraid of dogs. So, the magician turned it into a dog. Then it became afraid of panthers. So, the magician turned it into a panther. Then it became afraid of hunters. At this point the magician gave up. He turned it back into a mouse saying, “Nothing I do for you is going to be of any help because you have the heart of a mouse.” My friends, we have to have the heart of Jesus Christ. When we do, there is nothing to fear.

The Body and Blood of Christ   +   June 18, 2017

Deuteronomy 8, 2-3, 14-16 + Psalm 147 + 1 Corinthians 10, 16-17 + John 6, 51-58

St Peter the Apostle and St William Parishes in Naples, Fl

To celebrate this feast, we used to call “Corpus Christi,” we have to confront a cultural barrier. Moreover, to enter into the mystery of what is being revealed in John’s sixth chapter requires more than just reading the words. What John is addressing here is human hunger, not necessarily food. Yet, we live in a world of fast food and junk food in a culture that too often eats in the car or at best, on the run; and when the wrappers are thrown away, there is still hunger. Curiously, and for me disturbingly, even in restaurants, people hardly relax to savor food and conversation. What we often find is iPads and cell phones in one hand with a fork in the other. What we are also beginning to admit is that the junk food is exactly that. It is not real food because it supplies no nourishment and is often harmful to eat. In the meantime, hunger remains.

It isn’t just junk food that we consume either. We feed our minds with trivia, news that is mostly opinion rather than fact. Instead of consuming great literature, most people seem content to devour trivial, shallow trash picked up at the check-out stand attracted by sensational headlines and photos of superstars. In the meantime, hunger remains.

Some people are awakening to this reality, and they make changes. They train themselves to walk past the processed food aisle. They turn off the TV, giving up the prepackaged opinions of hate radio and the shouting of left or right extremists. They look for and hunger for people who are engaged in real living, people whose lives are about more than work, eating, entertainment and sleeping. Some folks are looking for real food, because they are hungry for what matters, for what give life.

There is in every human life a hunger for God, and to desperate, starving people wandering in a desert, God gave food, manna every day. They had to take the “manna risk” of doing things God’s way, and not returning to Egypt. Then again in God’s own time, Jesus Christ came to feed the hungry. The Gospels are filled with accounts of this. To people who followed him into the desert, he offered ordinary bread. To the leper hungry for companionship, he offered the bread of healing. To a lonely woman at Jacob’s well, he offered the bread of human kindness and satisfied her hunger for acceptance. To sinners he offered the bread of forgiveness, and satisfied their hunger for salvation. To the rejects and outcasts, by mixing with them and sharing their bread, he offered companionship and so satisfied their hunger for self-worth. To a widow burying her only son, and to Martha and Mary who had just buried their brother, he offered the bread of compassion, and showed them that even in death we are not beyond the reach of God’s help. To Zacchaeus, a rich tax collector who robbed bread from the tables of the poor, Jesus invited himself to his table. Then, awakening within him a hunger for a better life, he got him to share his money with the poor.

This Eucharist we gather to celebrate here week after week is real food for us that can satisfy every hunger. “Flesh and Blood” is a way of referring to a human being, not just tissue and fluid, and that is what this Feast is about: being human. Way more than processions and walking behind a monstrance, this feast is about the mystery into which we drawn here, the Body and Blood of Christ. This is what gives us the strength to walk in the power of Christ’s presence day after day aware of our dignity, our communion, and our responsibility for one another.

When we hold out our hands and accept the broken bread, we are daring to take hold of a body that was broken in death and rose in freedom. When we drink the cup, we pledge ourselves to solidarity. That is the meaning of drinking from the same cup. We become one with the losers, the powerless, the have-nots, the “dregs” of society, the sinners for whom Jesus drained the cup of suffering. So today we focus on what we easily forget: that every Eucharist must create in us a great sense of unease about disunity, discrimination, and hypocrisy in the body of Christ. It must make us bold in assuming the work of Jesus with the gifts of his Spirit. This then, is the gathering place, a stopping place, a resting place for us who are on the way to Kingdom of Justice and Peace.

The Most Holy Trinity   +   June 11, 2017

Exodus 34, 4-6, 8-9 + Psalm Deuteronomy 3, 52-56 + 2 Corinthians 13, 11-13 + John 3, 16-18

St Peter the Apostle and St William Parishes in Naples, Fl

With this Sunday’s focus on the Most Holy Trinity in mind, I came across this little story several weeks ago. It seems that a farmer went into the city, and while walking down a busy street he suddenly stopped and said to a friend who was with him, “I can hear a cricket.” His friend was amazed and asked, “How can you hear a cricket in the midst of all this noise?” “Because my ears are attuned to his sound,” the farmer replied. Then he listened even more intently, and following the sound, found the cricket perched on a window ledge. His friend couldn’t get over this. But the farmer showed no surprise. Instead he took a few coins out of his pocket and threw them on the pavement. On hearing the jingle of coins, passers-by stopped in their tracks. “You see what I mean?” said the farmer, “None of those people could hear the sound of the cricket, but all of them could hear the sound of the money. People hear what their ears are attuned to hear, and are deaf to all the rest.”

It’s a powerful little story that left me thinking about what I see and what I hear; what I look for and what I listen to. For me it is impossible to look at a work of art and not wonder about the artist or listen to a magnificent piece of music and wonder about the composer, how they thought of it, imagined it, and then crafted it. This is the way that creation proclaims God, its Creator. To look on creation and not see the Creator is to be blind to the meaning of the whole of creation and of ourselves.  Yet sadly many look and see nothing. They listen and hear nothing. Jesus spoke about God as a merciful and forgiving Father. He spoke about himself as the Son of the Father. And he sent the Holy Spirit to us to help us live as his disciples and as daughters and sons of God.

Complex and profound as it is, the Trinity is not something we explain. It is something we reveal by our lives together as a church. We can see the Creator through creation if we simply look and wonder. We can hear the voice of God in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. His words speak to us about our privileged place in creation as the Father’s most beloved and chosen ones. We experience the creative, healing, and loving Spirit of the Father and the Son when we are with them and with each other as church and as the Body of Christ. The gift of this Spirit comes to those who are gathered together in that room. That assembly, that unity, that bond they share is where the Spirit is found, celebrate, and best revealed, and it is the same for us. When we are gathered together, one with each other with the Father and with the Son, we experience the Spirit with all of its power, its peace, and its joy.

As the farmer said in that story, “People hear what their ears are attuned to, and they are deaf to all the rest.” The same applies to what we see. People see what they are looking for, and they are blind to all the rest. We are a people who look upon creation and all of God’s people. We see the beauty, the promise, and the face of a loving God who in one final act of love came to give life and light where there was darkness and death, and then remain with us always through the Spirit that binds us as one with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost June 4, 2017

Acts 2, 1-11 + Psalm 104 + 1 Corinthians 12, 3-7, 12-13 + John 20, 19-23

Aboard the MS Maasdam and at St Peter and St William Parishes in Naples, FL

For years, I have listened to this Gospel story and put myself in that room and in that company. Now remember, these are the people who did nothing and said nothing as Jesus was hauled off, mocked, abused, tortured, and killed. They knew he was innocent. They did nothing. In fact, their leader even denied knowing Jesus. Putting yourself in that room requires some real self-knowledge. I have tried, and I have come to feel that the doors were not necessarily locked for “fear of the Jews” which is John’s code language for the opponents of Jesus. Besides, those doors were not the only thing barricaded. If I had been through what they had been through, my heart would have been barricaded as well, because my heart was broken with disappointment and shame over what I had done and failed to do.

Hope was locked out as well, because hope was broken. We’ve all been there, disappointed and protecting ourselves from more disappointment by expecting the worst rather than allowing any more disappointment and pain. But the fact is, they had already heard that the tomb was empty. Allowing hope over what it could mean was out of the question. Yet just possibly he was risen, alive, and there were reports to this effect. So, in shame possibly more than in fear, they locked the doors. When you have betrayed a friend, failed to come to their aid, and even denied knowing them, the last person you want to see is that friend. It’s not hard to imagine why that door was locked.

Then the tomb breaker is in their midst. So much for locks and barricades! Hope will not be stifled. Peace is the greeting. But, this gift of peace that he brings is far more than we imagine with our English language definition of that word. The greeting and the gift he announces is not about the absence of war or conflict. It is the opposite of chaos. It is the right ordering of all things and all relationships. The people in that room were in chaos. He has come to take them out of chaos, which is a kind of re-creation. He is going to make something of them, and for that matter he is still doing so with us.

As John tells the story, Jesus comes with his wounds, because a risen Lord with no wounds would not have much to say to the wounded people in that room or anywhere else. It has always struck me that people who have suffered the most are comforted and attracted to images of Christ that are anguished and bloody. I have also observed that some who have suffered little in life prefer to surround themselves with images of Christ that are sentimental and hardly human.

There is a story told about a man who died and arrived at the gates of heaven. The guardian at the gate said: “Show me your wounds.” To which the man answered, “I don’t have any.” The guardian then said: “Did you ever think that anything or anyone was worth fighting for?” And with that, there was silence. The one who stood in the midst of that chaos knew that his sisters and brothers were worth fighting for. Our wounds tell us who we are like the tattoos on the hands and arms of Jewish people. The bumps, scrapes, and scars of lives well lived tell the story. For some life seems to drain out of them through their hurts. They become bitter and lifeless. They have no hope and no future. They never really live again. For others, new life comes from these broken places, and this is resurrection; and it is a call to go, be broken and suffer a bit for the sake of another. Peace be with you.

Ascension of the Lord May 28, 2017

Acts 1, 1-11 + Psalm 47 + Ephesians 1, 17-23 + Matthew 28, 16-20

Aboard the MS Maasdam

 Jesus is the great boundary crosser. First, from the Father to a birth in Bethlehem. Then through his entire life he crossed every boundary humans had ever erected by touching the sick and unclean, by passing through Samaria and there talking with a woman, and finally by crossing the greatest divide from death to life returning from the realm of death with freedom and authority to tell us to do what he has done. All nations are to be included in the Kingdom we proclaim. There will be no exclusions; no boundaries of race, gender, or ethnicity are to be obstruct the plan of the Father for all God’s children to be one.

Matthew takes us to Galilee today not because of its geographical location, but first of all because it was the place where his mission began. The place where he first met and called those disciples. He calls them home to the place of their first enthusiastic response where their hopes first soared and fired their enthusiasm. He also takes them to Galilee because it was an unsophisticated and marginalized region. He takes them to that world of the less privileged as the starting place for their work.

What we celebrate today with this Feast of the Ascension is the fulfillment of a promise that Jesus makes to all his disciples. It is a promise intrinsic to the Easter mystery that only after they had stopped clinging to his physical presence, only after his Ascension, could the promise of the Father to send the Holy Spirit be fulfilled. The promise of the Father to us is more than a promise that Jesus would remain with them always. The promise is for that new advocate, that new birth of life that comes with the Holy Spirit.

So often when we are parting company we say to each other: “Keep in touch.” And so often we say, “I promise”, and then we don’t. Now comes the Ascension when Jesus leaves and says: “Keep in touch”, and with the coming of the Holy Spirit which we celebrate next weekend, we can and we do stay intimately and always “in touch” with Jesus.

The disciples needed to see Jesus ascending just as the old prophet Elisha was only able to inherit Elijah’s prophetic mantel after he had seen his master taken up into heaven. As long as Elijah stayed with Elisha; as long as Jesus remained with the disciples, they never would have taken up the work of the master. They would simply have been content to watch and let him do the work. He’s gone now, yet his Spirit is with us. At this altar we wrap ourselves, in a sense, in his mantel. We take up his mission looking for those who are lost or left behind and longing for the comfort of his presence. We stand in his place offering forgiveness, a welcome, compassion, understanding, and we feed the hungry never sending them away. Our desire is always the will of the Father. Matthew’s Gospel begins by naming Jesus as “Emmanuel”, “God is with us”. At the end, he repeats the promise: “I will be with you always.”