Pentecost at Our Lady of Lebanon Church in Norman, OK

 Acts 2, 1-11 + Psalm 104 + Romans 8, 8-17 + John 20, 19-23

May 15, 2016

The Holy Spirit will teach us everything says Jesus Christ in John’s Gospel. That is quite a proposal when you stop to think about as I suggest we do today. I have been, and I suppose in some ways, I still am a teacher. We have all been teachers if not professionally we have been personally. Parents are teachers with or without a degree that says so. We all know what it’s like to be with someone who believes that they already know everything there is to know. There are a lot of people in this world in that category. Perhaps that is why this world is in such disarray right now. I’ve discovered that the best teachers are also the best learners. Many times I learned more from students than I knew before preparing a class often making the class preparation useless. Yet there are also teachers who believe that they know it all, and my experience as a student was that they did not teach very well, and if I learned anything in their class it was sometimes in spite of them. Believing that you know it all is an obstacle to the success of the whole project of learning.

This gift of the Holy Spirit which John describes today is a very profound and important gift necessary for life. It is in some sense a power for transformation, and an actual “spirit” or “attitude” with which to face the world. The gifting of the Holy Spirit which we celebrate today is not the “Birthday of the Church”. That idea has annoyed me for decades. In my opinion if there was one moment to mark the beginning of the church, it was at the Last Supper with Jesus on his knees. But having a “Birthday Party” today is a perfect example of how we have sentimentalized and reduced this power of God to trivial ideas that open us up to ridicule and misunderstanding allowing us to be written off by the secular world that looks upon us as silly dreamers who are trapped in some ancient mythology inspired by this “Bible” which gets used to judge, bully, and insult intelligent people. Something is off the mark with that thinking.

The Holy Spirit teaches the teachable. The Holy Spirit animating a living church raises questions as much as it provides answers. The Holy Spirit is what makes our church intellectual as well as spiritual. The two are not opposed. The Holy Spirit makes our church a place where great minds are awakened to the wonder of God and the mystery of creation. The Holy Spirit awakens the sleepy and disturbs the comfortable, especially those who think they know it all. The work of the Holy Spirit has not shaped a church that says “No” to everything new consecrating the past as something sacred; but rather the work of the Spirit shapes a church that continues to ask what something new means, where it comes from, and what good can come of it. Sometimes it is even the source of that “something new” itself. A people who live in the Spirit are people alive, curious, wonder filled, and seeking the truth, knowledge, and wisdom. A people who live in the Spirit have no confusion or doubt about God like too many in this world today who listen to the noise of the new atheists. But who can blame them when all they see and hear is a people who think God is my “invisible friend”, a security blanket, a mythological creature like Big Foot who may or may not exist! People alive with the Spirit are always seeking a greater and deeper knowledge of God who is not an item in this world. God is not the biggest thing that is. God is the reason for things being. Our Catholic faith is intellectual always seeking new and deeper knowledge and understanding. Our faith is not against or opposed to science as some would like to pretend. Science does not trump religion. The Church is against “scientism”, that idea that science is the only reliable source of knowledge and information. Science cannot prove anything about love, beauty, or truth. Yet our church has always been at the heart of science, and it has provided many of the greatest of scientists in history.

A people alive with the Spirit are a people of peace. Yet one hears again and again the cry that religion is the cause of violence and source of evil. It is an observable fact that this outcry begins very quickly after September 2001. The religious wars of the past have all had their roots in a tragic and serious wrong reading of the Sacred Scriptures. Again, the consequence of thinking we know it all because it’s written in the book, when in fact, we have not allowed the Holy Spirit to guide our reading of that book. The Holy Spirit teaches. What the book says is not always what is being taught by the book. The question is sometimes asked: “Do you believe the Bible?” It’s like saying: “Do you believe the Library?” That is what the Bible is, a “library”, a collection of various kinds of literature each of which must be known and studied for what they are and what they teach, not just what they say.

My friends, the Holy Spirit has come to set us free, free from ignorance as much as free from fear. What we see happening to those first believers is that they began to understand what they were being taught. At first, they thought they knew it all. They thought they knew what a messiah was supposed to be like, and as long as they thought they knew it all, nothing could happen. They could not accomplish anything. Wind and Fire destroy things, and what needed to be destroyed was their made-up minds. The wind and fire came; but like a forest after a destructive fire, new life springs up green and full promise. What Jesus gives and what we celebrate today is already more than we could ever imagine, but it stirs our hopes and inspires our dreams for a new age of wisdom and knowledge, patience, peace, and joy.

The Seventh Sunday of the Resurrection

May 8, 2016 at Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Church in Norman, OK

Ephesians 1, 15-23 + John 13, 31-35

Today in the Maronite Sunday readings, we have stopped telling stories of the risen Christ and Easter. Not because we have run out of them; but Pentecost is near and what is really important is the result of the resurrection in terms of how it changed others. We shall tell that story soon with Pentecost. It is the story of how followers of Christ were changed by the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit. It is the story of how the Easter experience was absorbed and finally changed the very identity of those who followed the risen Christ.

The “glorification” Jesus speaks of and anticipates in John’s Gospel chapter after chapter is that moment or that experience when His oneness with God is unmistakable. It means that his presence can no longer be misunderstood nor seen as anything other than the presence of God. The death and resurrection of Jesus is his glorification. For those who recognize the meaning of his death and resurrection, the love of God is revealed. What seems to the unbeliever to be a disappointment and the violent destruction of a human life and the end of all hope is really the moment of glory.

All that Jesus had is given to the community. It was the heart of his final prayer in that upper room, and it the mission he fulfilled. The love of the Son is revealed as the very essence of divine life being poured out into the community. All that Jesus had was love, and he gave it all. What the Father had given him was what he gave to his disciples. When he proclaimed that He and the Father were one, it was LOVE that they shared. What the Son provided was the mutual indwelling lover of God. What Jesus gave was his flesh, his body, his blood, his will so that the Lord of God would have a dwelling place, be accessible, be available, be ours.

Once we understand this, the commandment to “Love one another” is not simply a moral mandate. It becomes an expression of glory, a revelation of God’s presence and God’s love. This is a new kind of love for this world which only believes in love for the loveable, love for those who deserve it, “love for the lovely”, shall we say. Divine Love to which we are called and which we experience is what we find in Jesus who held nothing back, poured out everything because God does. When stop to remember that Jesus died for Judas just as much as he died for Peter, John, James, Andrew, Martha, Mary and all the rest we might start to see what is Divine and out of the ordinary here. This is glory. This is the glory of God revealed. He died for Judas and every other doubter and betrayer.

This is something new to the world, and this kind of love makes the world new. It is love that means opening doors we may have closed against others. It is a love that means we will respond to appeals that cry out for our help, without concerns about whether or not those who cry are deserving or worthy. It means that oversights or mistakes that someone may have made are forgotten before they apologize or even if they don’t.

We have been raised with Jesus, and no power on earth can really conquer us. We have received the Spirit he promised. We have the gifts it takes to set this world on fire with love. It is no longer the gifts of that Spirit for which we wait, now it is the fruits of those gifts that remain to be manifest: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Goodness, Friendliness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-0control As we look toward Pentecost, it must not be simply a matter of what gifts we receive, but rather how those gifts are manifest in our lives because of Jesus Christ we and the Father are one, and the hour has come for us to be glorified so that God is present wherever we are found.

The Ascension of the Lord

 Acts 1, 1-11 X Psalm 47 X Ephesians 1, 17-23 X Luke 24, 46-53

May 8, 2016

If we take away all the dramatic imagery presented in these Gospel verses, the Ascension is really a home-coming story of completing one’s work and then being where one is meant to be. I feel sure that everyone here has some experience of this. For me it was the day when I packed up my things at the seminary and came back home for ordination. The work of preparation was done, and it was time to be where I was meant to be. This is an experience of discovering one’s destiny. At the same time, the Ascension is a love story about God’s love for humanity, our struggle to love God in return, and God’s promise to guide all things until everyone and everything are brought to where they need to be. These thoughts make me think of that wonderful old “Shaker” Hymn Simple Gifts with the verse that ends: “Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be.”

This feast today is about what is intended to happen in our life journey with God. This day invites us to discover or affirm the truth about who we are, connect with our Creator, and realize that our lives here and for all eternity are dependent upon a love relationship that we have with One greater than ourselves. When we do, we can understand that we could only be saved and brought back where we need to be by a God who saw fit to be born as one of us, encounter pain and suffering just like us, die as one day we must do, and then rise to show us firsthand that what he said was trustworthy, and finally ascend to his rightful place with the Father. That completes God’s work.

Those original disciples physically saw the risen Christ. He walked with them, talked and even ate with them. They saw him ascend to the Father. All of this brought them a deep conviction and confidence that never faltered. Now we are centuries removed from these events. It is easy to dismiss all of this as mere story or myth as many do. Without the real experience they had coming to such faith requires a choice, and it is a choice that everyone must make. Do we believe that we are here on this planet and as the person we are because of some random physiological or biological process that came together at some random moment providing us with what is? Or do we believe that we are here because we have been loved into existence by a God who chose for us to be here and be who we are with a soul that is unique and shared by no one else? If we choose the first, then nothing we do or say here makes any sense. If we choose the second, and continue to follow its truth, we are going to find ourselves stumbling upon the God who loves us. The bottom line is that God made us to be with him, and will make sure in the end that we are where we are meant to be. That is the power behind this feast.

The Ascension connects the dots. It brings us down where we ought to be. It brings things together and removes a dichotomy that can exist between the human and the divine, the secular and the sacred, and the great chasm that we sometimes wrongly believe exists between us and God. This feast brings us home. It brings this world home just as much as it brings Jesus home.

If we choose to live with the eyes of faith, all things are new. There is always hope and much more to be revealed for ourselves and for this world. Next week we celebrate the final act of that love in the gift of God’s very spirit, the Spirit of Love. Expect no powerful winds, and do go looking for tongues of fire. Look rather for the fruits of that Spirit in hearts that burn with love and hope, and with tongues that sing God’s praise, for one day we too shall be united with God as God promised. Make the choice and believe.

 Acts 15, 1-2 22-29 + Psalm 67 + Revelation 21, 10-14, 22-23 + John 14, 23-29

May 1, 2016 at Saint Peter & St William Churches in Naples, FL

          Within the heart of every person, and in the memory of every culture there is a profound nostalgia for paradise. The creation and origin myths of every people describe our beginnings as a time when God and humanity dwelled together as one. Our own primordial tale in Genesis speaks to us of the peace of Eden, and it describes the relationship that existed between the creator and the creature. In those days God spoke to his creature face to face and there was no fear. The Bible tells us that God walked the garden in the evening to talk with his beloved creatures. From this oneness man experienced peace within himself and with woman. From that moment in the primal paradise, the longings of the human heart were properly ordered, and there was peace. The significance of that order remains for us: the basis of human peace is peace within one’s self with God.

In the mythology of nearly every people there is also an account of how the human creature fell from this state of peace. It does not matter whether this took place at one moment in history, because for us all it takes place at every moment. There is something flawed in our hearts. There is a tragic misdirection of freedom which we inherit, reaffirm, and pass on. The Genesis story speaks to this condition. First is the break with God. At the sound of his coming there is fear, hiding, evasion, and shame. But the even more saddening effects of this are seen most clearly in the way man and woman turn on each other with anger or blame. In our story, he blames the woman, and she blames the serpent. Here at the beginning it is the same as the end, division between human beings.  The story goes on with anguish and progressive alienation. There is murder with Cane and Able. There is treachery with Noah’s son, then there is the story of the tower. It is always about man seizing by force what has been offered as a gift.

Finally, Jesus comes. The announcement of his birth is a proclamation of Peace. The message of the angel to Mary, and then to Shepherds is “Peace be with you”, and “Peace on Earth good will toward men.” In his life among us, Jesus reached across every barrier by the simple gesture of acceptance and by speaking the truth. He showed us what divine peacemaking was all about. It was his unity with the Father that enabled him to bring that unity to human persons for one purpose: “That they may all be one.”

The great mystery of peace is that it was accomplished by an act of violence. In this foolishness was the wisdom of God’s way revealed; in this weakness was his power to save. In this violence by which his body was torn apart, the man of peace handed over his spirit. Before his death he told his followers, “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” We are to continue the peacemaking of Jesus by using the same attitudes of forgiveness and mercy, of acceptance and reconciliation that he showed toward us. In order to do this, we must be at peace with ourselves. The peace Jesus leaves with us has little to do with feeling good inside, much less with assurances of a calm and undisturbed life or a successful career. The peace given by a crucified Messiah is not manifest in trivialities. The peace of Jesus has to do with fidelity toward the Father, with awareness that we are loved and accepted by God. Once grounded in this, we are able to reach out to others in peace. Because we do not find our center in pleasure, possessions, or power, we have no conflict with others over the world and over the things of this world. Not needing to possess or use others as assurance of our own worth, we are able to freely see them for what they are, God’s children and place ourselves at their service.

Without this basis in God, all the world’s attempts at peace-making are futile. They all eventually break down because of the conflicting idolatries of humans. Without peace with God, there can be no peace among us. Pay attention to what Jesus is saying here. Peace is a gift. It is not something we make, enforce or establish. It is a gift that we can only accept by accepting God into our hearts and making that relationship the first and the best. The only treaty that brings lasting peace is a covenant with God. The entire history of this world is littered with peace treaties broken again and again. Not until we are at peace with God can we find peace with others, and when we do, we will have found again the garden in which a lion can lie down with a lamb, in which I child can play by the nest of a viper, and men and women everywhere will rejoice in being children of God.

 Acts 14, 21-27 + Psalm 145 + Revelation 21, 1-5 + John 13, 31-35

April 24, 2016 at Saint Peter & St William Churches in Naples, FL

The fragment of John’s Gospel we open today cuts through the complexity of human nature and the mixed motives behind everything that we do as it unfolds for us the meaning of glory and love.

There seem to be five kinds of love.

The first is utilitarian. We love someone because they are useful to us. It is obviously more love of self than of another. It says, “I love what you do, but I don’t love you.”

The second kind is romantic love. It is a kind of affection we feel because of the pleasure another gives us. We may think we love the other person, but what we really love is the feeling. It doesn’t last, which is why some marriages fail.

The third kind of love is democratic love which is based on equality under the law. We respect others because they are fellow citizens. We expect respect from them in return, and that is the honest reason for doing good things for them.

The fourth kind is humanitarian love. This is a general love for humanity. The problem lies in the fact that it is abstract rather than concrete. There are always exceptions: “I love human nature, but can’t stand those people next door.”

The fifth kind of love is what Jesus is speaking of today. It is Christian love summed up in the commandment he gives: “Love one another as I have loved you.” Now we are talking about disinterested love; loving even when there is nothing in it for us. This love persists when there is hostility and rejection. It is an enduring relationship expressed in service, affection, and self-sacrifice. It only is possible with the help of the Holy Spirit.

The glory Jesus speaks of is the final and total revelation of the Father, the God of Love. Glory is the revelation of what love is and therefore what God is. Jesus enters into his glory when he does exactly what the Father does, pour himself out for the sake of another – an “other” that may not be worthy, or able to give anything back. This is exactly what God is in God’s Love – a total outpouring of self. God gives. God gives all, even God’s only Son. To make that real and understandable for us, Jesus pours out everything he has to the very last drop – not because he will get anything in return, but simply because he is the human nature of the divine love.

The closest we come to this is embraced by the church as a sacrament. It is the sign of married love that is even more enhance by the sign of parental love. You faithful and loving people who have entered into the mystery of real love are living in glory. You are for this world. You are sign of God’s presence and Divine Love. Sacrifice, Service, and Selflessness are the tools of this love and its expression. Yet married love is the final and full expression of this divine love that can start even earlier in life before it is expressed and lived in marriage. A simple story says it all.

Five year old, Johnny, loved his big brother, Michael very much. One day the doctor told Johnny that Michael was very sick and need a blood transfusion. On hearing this Johnny began to cry. Then the doctor said to him, ‘Johnny, would you be willing to give some of our blood to your brother?” Johnny hesitated for a moment, and then said, “Yes, doctor.” The doctor took blood from Johnny, and afterwards Johnny continued to rest quietly on the table. At a certain point he looked up at the doctor and said, “Doctor, when do I die?” It was only then that the doctor fully appreciated the extent of this little boy’s love for his brother.

Jesus spoke about love at the last supper. He said to his apostles, “Greater love no one has than the one who lays down his life for his friends.” But it probably was only later, when Jesus had actually done that, that the apostles appreciated the extent of his love for them. Then they knew the greatness of the challenge facing them when the remembered those other words he said to them on the same occasion: “Love one another as I have loved you.” We may all be a bit slow in understanding and fulfilling the commandment, but the Holy Spirit comes to move us along little by little.

Acts 13, 14-52 + Revelation 7, 9-17 + John 10, 14-30

April 17, 2016 at Saint Peter & St William Churches in Naples, FL

Not too many years ago I was presiding at a funeral for man I had come to know during the last few months of his life. He was very ill, but taking his time about surrendering to the arms of mercy. It was my privilege as his pastor to share some time near the end of journey getting to know him. We prayed, we talked, laughed, and cried a few times. There were great stories shared between us, and then it was time for the funeral. A business associate and golfing partner stood up to give a “eulogy.” I sat for what seemed to be about an hour and half as the gentleman, with all good intentions, told the congregation about all the things his friend had done and accomplished in life. As he went on and on about this and that, I learned a lot things, got a lot of information about the man who had died, but as it went on and on, I began to realize that the speaker did not really know his colleague. He just knew a lot about him, and there is a big difference.

There are many people these days who know a lot about Jesus Christ. These folks probably know even more about him than those people who were hounding him to step into their trap. Some of those people John calls “the Jews”, at the time, knew what he had done, and they could probably quote things they had heard he said. They had an idea of “Messiah”, and he didn’t fit the description. They did not really know him. They just knew about him. Sadly, it is not much different today. There are books and movies, plays, videos, children’s coloring books, thousands of publications everywhere with all kinds of information about Jesus, but knowing Jesus Christ by hear say is a long way from knowing him personally, and that’s the issue raised in this week’s Gospel.

These verses come in reply to the question a not-so-friendly crowd put to Jesus about whether or not he was the Messiah. Refusing to fall into the trap of allowing himself to be defined by their messiah concept, he replied that they could not understand him because they were not among his sheep, and then he goes on to describe those who were his own. You see, it is all about a relationship, a relationship that real, immediate, and ongoing. It is not enough to know what Jesus did in the past. We have to know and experience what he is doing now in this church and in our lives day by day, and that relationship is just like every other relationship. It takes time, and it takes a little work. It takes a lot of listening, a lot of attention and presence. This is how you get to know someone. Some of those people were stuck on what Jesus was without any concern about who he was. They wanted to argue about a Messiah. He wanted to be their shepherd. The issue is: who is he, not what is he. That comes later. When you get to the point who Jesus is, you will know what he is. They didn’t want to put in the time and the effort to know who he was.

Now there are some who like to call this “Good Shepherd Sunday, but I am not so sure that is a good idea, because you can’t be a shepherd if there are no sheep. At least not for long. If this is “Good Shepherd Sunday” it is also “Good Sheep Sunday.” There is as much information here about who we are as there as there is about who Jesus is. We are a people who belong to the flock, who listen, and who obey the shepherd’s call. We know what we must do: listen and obey. We also know who we are, God’s children, and the more we work our way deeper into the wonder of that relationship, the deeper will be our faith and the richer our lives. While those who are nagging at Jesus over this “messiah” stuff, keep pushing for his identity, he pushes back to define another identity, ours. When this whole episode is over, we end up knowing as much about ourselves as we know about Jesus of Nazareth. In the few verses we hear today, we have an invitation that strikes at the very heart of our contemporary society that so prizes and encourages individualism. This phenomenon that so marks this age of human history is a time of extraordinary loneliness. I think sometimes this is why we see so many people are behaving so strangely and often so violently. The behaviorists call it “anti-social behavior.” I just call it loneliness. Most of time it is simply someone hurting so badly from a lack of attention and affection that they will get what they need any way they can. They don’t feel like they belong, but this Jesus proposes that our identity comes from belonging, from joining, and committing oneself to another or to a family.

I was struck this past week while sitting with these readings to notice for the first time a curious conflict of images. In the second reading the symbolic figure representing Christ is described as the “Lamb of God”. There he is a symbolic Lamb, one of the sheep? Then in the Gospel he becomes the shepherd. What is revealed to us is that Christ is both Lamb and Shepherd. In our tradition, we say that he is both the victim and the priest. More theologically, we profess that he is both human and divine. These seemingly contrary juxta-positions are really a reminder that draws us more deeply into the Incarnation of God who has become Man for the sake of our redemption. What we draw from pondering this is that we have a God and a Savior who has been one of us, who has lived among us, experienced everything we know about human life from birth to death. This Shepherd has been a Lamb. We have a God who lives with us. We have a God who knows us from intimate experience, and a God who wants to be known, not “known about”, but known. It is a God who has spent time with us and listened to us. Our voices are heard in these scriptures over and over again: “Help me.” Lord, I want to see.” Lord, I want to walk.” Lord, my daughter is ill with a fever.” He comes to Martha and Mary in their grief. He embraces a grieving mother whose only son has died. He touches those no one else will touch reaching out to the lonely and those shunned and avoided. Even in his most desperate hour, he listens to the cry of a dying criminal and makes him a promise.

We who choose to know this Shepherd become part of his flock. He knows us, and we know him. We stay in the fold. We listen. We make time to hear what he asks and what he promises. We are not out “doing our own thing.” We are always doing His thing. We care for each other, and we care about what he cares about. This is what and who we are becoming as members of Christ’s church on Good Sheep Sunday.

 Acts 5, 27-32 + Psalm 30 + Revelation 5, 11-14 + John 21, 1-19

April 10, 2016 at Saint Peter & St William Churches in Naples, FL

With Peter before us today, the Gospel affirms that strength and weakness can be found in the same person, and I suppose that is good news for all of us. The weakness of Peter is there all along and it is unmistakable, but Christ sees Peter’s strength and that too is good news for us because Peter is not the only person in whom there is strength and weakness. As we gather here today, we can only hope that Christ sees some strength in us as well.

There is a pattern to Peter’s experience with Christ that we might refer to as: “Call, Fall, and Re-call.” That first call occurred as Jesus was beginning his ministry. The second call is the one we hear today. Perhaps about three years passed between those calls, and during that time a lot of things happened to Peter. He found out a lot about the one who called him, about the task to which he was called, and most of all, he found out a lot about himself, and most of that was nothing to brag about. When the second call comes, he is a lot more wise and humble, and so his response this time is much more mature and enlightened than the first time.

I like to think that Peter’s story is a lot like our own, and that pattern of “Call, Fall, and Re-call” is ours as well. It’s that middle part that matters, and makes us more wise and humble as well. Sadly, too many people get the first two parts of this experience, but miss the third. When the fall comes, it’s just too devastating and too destructive. They never hear or respond to the re-call for one reason or another. We all know people like that who have fallen and never get up, who have faced a tragedy and never risen, and who have been broken and never healed: people whose weaknesses overcome their strengths.

The story of Peter is the heart of the Gospel message for people who have strengths and weaknesses, who have been called to faith and have fallen. Still in this Easter Season, we proclaim as a church that with Christ, no fall is the end of the story. We are, because of the power of forgiveness, all re-called again. The story reminds us that something more is expected of people who are forgiven, of people who have fallen. There is no just going back to the way things were, like Peter and his friends going back to their boats. Once called and fallen, there is forgiveness and then there is Mission. There is something more to do after forgiveness and reconciliation.

In today’s world, we cannot be “Keep it to ourselves” Catholics. The world is starving for spiritual nourishment, and people are looking for God everywhere. There is too much ignorance and prejudice about Christians and our beliefs. Our society is growing increasingly unwilling to defend the dignity of innocent human life, increasingly dismissive of the critical importance of married love to the health of human society, and increasingly hostile to the teachings of Jesus. If we do not speak up, who will? We are all re-called in our strength and weakness to love and feed his lost sheep. He has given us his Holy Spirit with all the gifts we need to do so. All we need to do now is step out with faith and courage and let the Holy Spirit take care of the rest.

 Acts 5, 12-16 – Psalm 118 – Revelation 1, 9-11, 12-13 – John 20, 19-31

April 3, 2016 at Saint Peter & St William Churches in Naples, FL

It is a world of wounded people who have celebrated Easter this year. Wounds are everywhere from Belgium to Paris, from Boston to Pakistan where Christian children celebrating Easter with their families are killed by a suicide bomb. These atrocities bogle the mind and tear at our hearts with the risk that we become numb to all of this and cease to stirred and troubled closing ourselves away from one another. All the while in the background multitudes of Syrian refugees flee their homes to be met by hostility and barbed wire. This church is full of wounds too, perhaps not as dramatic or violent, but there are wounds in every one of us. Wounds from divorce, wounds from tragedies, lost children, broken dreams and hopes, betrayals and unexpected deaths that leave people alone, helpless, and frightened. The whole earth cries out wounded and in pain.

Our response is often to lock the doors and close the windows. Hearts that are broken are too often frozen in grief and closed to healing. Like nations overwhelmed by the flood of refugees, we close the borders and in fear want to protect ourselves so that there can be no more wounds, or hurt, or pain. But into all of that steps Jesus who will not be kept out, and notice how he comes, with his wounds in plain sight, not hidden from view, or minimized. A wounded savior stands among the wounded.

He showed those wounds, but he did not whine about them, exaggerate them, or blame anyone. He did not stand in that room looking for pity either. He came as he always had before to reveal something about the one he called: “Father.” He was not afraid of suffering. He touched lepers. He lifted a woman suffering the humiliation of being caught. He went to Martha and Mary. He wept at the death of his friend. He was moved with pity for a widow whose son had died, and he felt the suffering of a foreigner whose daughter was dead.

To all he revealed a God who did not shy away from human suffering, pretend that it did not exist, or make nothing of the real pain human beings can cause one another. In that room he revealed that in resurrection and new life, the wounds do not disappear, but anger, vengeance, and hatred toward those who caused the pain is useless and will not take away the wounds. He came to reveal that even those who were afraid of wounds and locked themselves away in hiding find no healing and no life. Fear of getting hurt or of having wounds will not be the way for those who love and look at him with his wounds.

That broken and wounded Son of God stands in this room before us today through the words of John’s Gospel. He stands among us with all our wounds to remind us again that there is no hiding, pretending, avoiding, or denying the fact that those who love and who are faithful to God and God’s will cannot be lost, abandoned, or left unhealed. In spite of all the wounds, we shall rise again. In spite of all the doors we close, Christ will find a way to enter and call us out, out to faith, out to life, out to another day in which the glory of the resurrection will shine from our faces and from our hearts.

It is still Easter, my friends, and it will always be Easter for those who can look at a wounded Christ and see the Lord God. It will always be Easter when we look at our wounds without anger, hatred, or blame. It will always be Easter when we offer forgiveness instead of revenge, and it will always be Easter when wounds do not keep us from one another and especially from those who caused them.

 Acts 10, 34, 37-43 + Psalm 118 + 1 Corinthians 5, 6-8 + John 20, 1-9

March 27, 2016 at Saint Peter & St William Churches in Naples, FL

No one goes to a grave and expects to find it empty and if they did, they would not expect to find life in an empty tomb. But, that is what happened. That one John calls, “Mary” and then Peter and John went to an empty tomb and confronted the unexpected. They went there because their relationship with Jesus Christ was being challenged by their experiences in the preceding days. They did not expect to find an empty tomb. They did not expect to find life when they had seen death, but that’s the way it had been since they walked away from their past and their old way of life. One surprise after another kept them together with that man who walked through their life. At first they expected a political revolution, and some of them were slow to give up on that. They never expected to hear about a Kingdom that was not of this world. They never expected to see lame people get up and walk, blind people begin to see, and a young girl and an old friend be awakened from the sleep of death. Never expected to see 5000 people fed on five loaves and two fish. They never expected to see Samaritans, Tax Collectors, and sinners embraced as friends and included among the chosen. They never expected to be left alone either fearful of being hunted down and killed as co-conspirators or blasphemers; but they were.

After all, they were just ordinary people working hard to earn a living and care for loved ones when that man walked by and said: “Follow me.” They had no idea where they were going. They never expected to be led to an empty tomb and then find themselves trying to make senses of what it meant much less what to do about it. As we shall see from their stories in the weeks to come, they began to scatter and tried to go back to “business as usual”, but that didn’t work out. He did not leave them alone, and there was no going back. What they heard and what they had seen in his company changed them forever. Now things they never expected or imagined were suddenly very possible. Enemies began to speak to one another. A frightening God who demanded sacrifices and whose name could not even be spoken was now called: “Father”; and this Father preferred mercy over sacrifice, forgiveness over revenge, and love rather than fear.

From a manger in Bethlehem to an empty tomb outside Jerusalem it was all beginning to come together. God has visited God’s people, and God cannot die and still be God. No tomb can contain or restrain this Divine Word by which God has created all things. The Lord of Life will have nothing to do with death. The source of all goodness will change all evil into glory.

As the people of Israel spent 40 days in a desert being formed by trial and faith into a Holy Nation, we who have passed 40 days in the desert of Lent are formed as well into a Holy, Royal, and Priestly People. In forty more days and we shall hear again the voice of an angel that asks why we are standing around doing nothing but looking up into the sky. Ten days later, those who persevere in faith and hope will be lit by the fire by the Spirit and filled with the breath of that Spirit making all things new. There is nothing more to expect, and there is nothing more to wait for. The promise made in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve has been kept. The covenant made in the desert has been fulfilled and folded into the new covenant we share at this table.

No one goes to a grave and expects to find it empty. No one goes to an empty tomb and expects to find life: but we do, and as long as we do not run or hide in fear from anything or any evil, we shall bear witness to what we have seen and heard. We shall fulfill what has been promised, and we shall be a light shining in darkness reflecting the glory of the one who has come to set us free from death, despair, emptiness, and hopelessness. We are the ones called to life this day, a life of joy, a life of peace, a life that reflects the glory of the one who is life itself. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad. Peace be with you.

 Luke 24, 1-12

March 26, 2016 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Rolled in place and set with a seal, that stone was there to stay so some thought, but those women who had a different idea.

We all have our versions of that stone in our lives. Every one of us here knows what it is like to be in a tomb with a big stone in our way. We know what it is like to be trapped, blocked, or held back from something we want, need, or have dreamed of. We have stones of resentment that keep us entombed in bitterness or anger and rob us of Joy. We have stones of the past, mistakes we’ve made, failures, disappointments, and broken dreams that rob us of Joy. We have stones of self-doubt and depression, stones of old memories and shadows of a past that haunt us and steal our Joy. We have the stones of ignorance and prejudice, unbelief and doubt, stones of fear, independence and stubbornness that have been in our way, blocked our growth, and stifled the work of the Spirit.

But we are here, all of us because those stones have not been as permanent as we thought. A glimmer of light as dim as a candle shines into the darkness of all that stuff with a flicker of hope that gives us reason to think like the women of this Gospel that someone will roll back the stone. We are in this holy place, priests and deacons, sponsors, baptized, and confirmed, children and grandparents, friends, and neighbors all because someone has rolled back the stone that have kept us apart, kept us in the dark, and kept us from the light of a resurrection day.

The story of these women is our best news, and they are great teachers, for they came to that tomb in hope and certain that someone would roll back the stone that kept them from Jesus. Little did they know along the way what it might all mean and what would happen when they found the stone rolled back and what they would become because of it.

It shall not be different for us. The stones have to go. Expect that they will, be confident that by your hope and by the power of Life itself in Jesus Christ all the stones will roll away.

This is the news we share this night. This is the way we walk to the tombs that darkness, sin, and Satan may have prepared for us; singing the Alleluia of Life itself. Walk together, stay together, and preserve this oneness, because the sin and sadness of death, the violence, hatred, anger, power and envy of the days before did not break them apart, scatter them in weakness, nor destroy the bond and unity for which Jesus had prayed just before his death.

It shall be so for us. Stay together, that is the essence of “church”. Look at the ministers at this altar. It is a vision of the church. Two islands and two continents, cultures, colors, and people all one in Christ’s church. In that unity, no stone stays put, no stone is too heavy, no stone can keep us from the risen Christ. Be Joyful. Be confident. Be grateful. Be faithful. Christ is risen, and we shall rise again with him by the power of his Spirit.