FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR B

April 21, 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

Psalm 23 

John 10:11-18

 

 

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is known as Good Shepherd Sunday because the Gospel reading is always taken from Chapter Ten of Saint John’s Gospel, where Our Lord identifies himself as the Good Shepherd. And down through the centuries, this image of Jesus has held enormous appeal for Christians of all ages.

 

Artistic depictions of shepherds often portray sentimental scenes of bucolic bliss. The shepherd sits on a hillside playing his panpipes and watching the flock graze contentedly in the meadow below. But while such serene images do perhaps capture one dimension of pastoral existence, shepherding in the biblical world could also be rough and dangerous work. In his excellent book A History of Warfare, British military historian John Keegan speculates that ancient peoples developed their fighting abilities by transferring skills they’d learned not only in hunting but also in herding.

 

The Second Book of Samuel offers us a glimpse of this process when the young David volunteers to do battle against the armored giant Goliath. King Saul protests that David is only a youth; what does he know about fighting? But David confidently replies: "Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and smote him and delivered it out of his mouth; and if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him and killed him. Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God."

 

Shepherds needed to be prepared to fight off not only wild animals but also thieves and brigands. A good shepherd thus literally put his life on the line for the flock. And so, in today’s Gospel, our Lord identifies himself not once but twice as the Good Shepherd. And four times he says that he lays down his life for the sheep—adding the third and fourth times that having laid down his life he will take it up again. In this way, he points to his death and Resurrection as the ultimate act of shepherding by which he will gather and unite his Church as one flock under one shepherd.

 

So, while it may not seem obvious at first glance, in today’s Gospel Our Lord is invoking the image of the shepherd as warrior. He develops this picture in contradistinction to the hired hand, who flees at the approach of the wolf, which is thus given free rein to snatch sheep and scatter the flock: “A hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.” By contrast, Our Lord cares deeply and personally for his flock: “I know my own,” he says, “and my own know me.”

 

Today’s Gospel thus depicts the Good Shepherd first and foremost as a defense against danger. In a world of deadly predators, the Good Shepherd offers protection and safety. Hence the psalmist sings in the twenty-third psalm: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” The point not to miss is that the rod and the staff are used not only for herding and corralling the flock but are also available as weapons for fending off attackers.

 

In the life of our society, we entrust this shepherding function of defense against enemies foreign and domestic to those whom we authorize to bear arms and use lawful force on our behalf: the police, who protect us against criminality at home; and the military, which deters and defends against aggression from abroad. In both cases, these brave men and women put their lives on the line, like good shepherds, to provide the modicum of safety that we need to get on with our lives in a peaceful, well-ordered, and secure society.

 

In the vast majority of cases, I believe, the police and military do a wonderful job, discharging their duties with integrity, and respect for those whom they serve. In a small minority of cases, we’ve witnessed the excessive and wrongful use of force by rogue elements. Meanwhile, in other countries, we occasionally see entire military establishments turn on the very societies they’re meant to defend and protect. In both cases, such out-of-control forces fall far short of their calling to be good shepherds of their people.

 

In the spiritual realm, the Church’s leaders, your clergy, are similarly called to be good shepherds, protecting our flocks as far as we can from all harm. This responsibility ranges from defending against the spiritual dangers of false teaching and unsound liturgical practices to ensuring the parish’s compliance with officially mandated health and safety protocols.

 

Here at St. Mark’s, you’ve been blessed with a succession of truly good shepherds—clergy who’ve clearly done their best to protect and safeguard. In other places, however, we’ve heard of sickening examples of clergy exploiting and abusing those in their charge.

So, we do well to pray constantly for all entrusted with the care and protection of our communities that they may fulfill their calling to be good shepherds, not hired hands who care nothing for the sheep. The sad reality is, however, that while those to whom we entrust these responsibilities usually discharge their duties faithfully, in a few cases they don’t. We live in a fallen world where those in authority occasionally betray their calling and let us all down.

The good news, regardless, is that we can always trust Jesus to be our Good Shepherd. He knows his own and his own know him. And he will never let us down. So, in the words of today’s Collect, we do well to pray that whenever we hear his voice, we will know him who calls us by name and follow wherever he may lead. 

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR B

April 14, 2024

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

Acts 3:12-19

Luke 24:36b-48

 

During this season of Eastertide, the Sunday readings look at Christ’s resurrection from different angles so that over the course of six weeks we build up a cumulative picture of the Paschal mystery in its many dimensions. And today’s readings focus our attention on the relationships among the Resurrection, the Holy Scriptures, and living out our faith in the world today.

 

In today’s Gospel, the Risen Jesus appears in the Upper Room on the evening of the first Easter Day. Initially the disciples have no idea what to make of what they’re witnessing. As Luke puts it, “they were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.” So, first of all, Jesus needs to correct that misapprehension by showing them his hands and feet, and reassuring them that it’s really him in the flesh: “Touch me, and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

 

In the ancient world, the appearance of spirits of the dead, especially the recently dead, were not at all uncommon. The point being made here is that Christ’s Resurrection belongs to a totally different category. The Risen Jesus is neither a ghost nor a resuscitated corpse. His risen body is glorious, with the supernatural ability to appear out of nowhere, even behind closed doors. The new life into which he’s entered is not the stuff of zombie horror movies but the precise opposite: in his wonderful new existence he’s more gloriously and fully alive than ever before. Nonetheless, between his former earthly life and his risen life there’s continuity as well as discontinuity. His body can still be touched; his hands and feet still bear the marks of his wounds; he’s even able to eat a piece of broiled fish! Biological human life in all its wonderful materiality and physicality is caught up into the eternal realm of the spirit.

 

Then, having cleared up the disciples’ misconceptions about what they’re seeing, Jesus goes a major step further. He opens their minds to understand the scriptures, showing how the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms all foretold that the Messiah should suffer, die, and on the third day rise again.

Let’s dwell for a moment on that remarkable statement: “He opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” The Resurrection is not self-explanatory. The disciples can only understand the events that they’ve been experiencing in the wider narrative context of the scriptures, but, at the same time, their understanding of that scriptural narrative is utterly transformed by their experience of those events. So, it’s a reciprocal process: the scriptures interpret the Resurrection, and the Resurrection interprets the scriptures. And then, having opened the disciples’ minds to this new understanding of the scriptures, Jesus sends the disciples into the world as witnesses to his Resurrection.

 

Our reading from the Acts of the Apostles takes up the story of the apostles’ preaching the good news to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Peter and John have just healed a cripple in the precincts of the Jerusalem Temple. Amazed and filled with awe, the crowds have gathered around to see these wonderworkers.

 

So, just as in the Gospel reading, a misconception first needs to be cleared up. Just as Jesus had to explain that, no, he wasn’t a ghost, so Peter has to explain that, no, he and John didn’t perform this healing themselves: “You Israelites, why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?” Outward appearances to the contrary, Peter and John are not the stars of this show.

 

Peter proceeds to explain the miracle’s meaning by proclaiming the Lord’s resurrection. To borrow Luke’s phrase from the Gospel, Peter opens their minds to understand the scriptures. He shows that God foretold by the prophets that the Christ should suffer, and he calls on the people gathered round to repent and turn to God so that their sins may be blotted out. So here, again, we see the same pattern of mutual interpretation as in the Gospel. The miracle is not self-explanatory.  Its meaning can only be fully understood in light of the Lord’s death and resurrection in fulfillment of the scriptures. And in turn, those same scriptures can only be fully understood in and through their fulfillment in the Lord’s resurrection, and by extension in such wondrous deeds as this miraculous healing of a cripple.

 

Now, I would propose that this process works in a similar way for us today. God continues to be present and active in our midst, although we don’t always recognize that presence and activity for what it is. In today’s Collect, we pray God to “open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold [Christ] in all his redeeming work.” That’s a wonderful prayer! And a key component of this beholding of Christ’s redeeming work is the opening of our minds to understand the scriptures, which sensitizes us to the many ways in which God is present and active in our world today. And conversely, our recognition of God’s presence and activity then helps us to understand more fully what the scriptures were talking about in the first place.

Such recognition presupposes systematic, disciplined, and prayerful reading of God’s Word. Before the disciples could have their minds opened to understand the scriptures, they needed to know the scriptures; and we can be confident that as devout Jews they’d been raised in the synagogue to know the scriptures inside out! For this reason, the Church encourages us to make use of such liturgical practices as the Daily Office, or devotional aids such as Forward Day by Day, that systematically immerse us in the scriptures and psalms over time. And that’s what we’re about here today. As we come to church Sunday by Sunday, the lectionary takes us through much of the Bible every three years.

 

The promise of today’s readings is that as we read and reflect prayerfully on the Scriptures, we shall develop the ability to recognize the risen Christ present and working among us today. During this time of transition, you’ve been asked to reflect on your parish history, and identify how God has been leading and guiding you along the way. That parish story fits in turn into the much larger story of God’s gracious dealings with his people throughout history. And I’m confident that God’s gift to you during this transition period will be not only opening of your minds to understand the scriptures, where that story is definitively set forth, but also opening the eyes of your faith to perceive Christ’s redeeming work in your midst. For those are but two sides of the same coin.

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR B

April 7, 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; I John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31

 

The Collect for the Second Sunday of Easter introduces two themes in today’s readings: reconciliation and fellowship. It begins by addressing God “who in the Paschal mystery hast established the new covenant of reconciliation,” and then asks that “all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith …”

 

The word for fellowship in New Testament Greek is koinōnia, which is often translated “community.” However translated, it refers not to a casual circle of easygoing friends and acquaintances who enjoy doing things together, but to the sort of intimate bond that develops among an otherwise diverse group of people who share some deep common commitment - and who may well have nothing else in common whatever. 

The basis of all true community or fellowship in the Church is our shared faith in God the Holy Trinity, rooted in Holy Scripture and summarized in in the Creeds, and our common membership in the Body of Christ, established in Holy Baptism, and nourished by the Church’s Sacraments.

 

And then there’s reconciliation. Fellowship and reconciliation naturally go together. To maintain our fellowship serious conflicts and interpersonal disputes among the Church’s members need to be identified, named, and resolved through mutual repentance and forgiveness. So reconciliation restores fellowship; and fellowship in turn facilitates reconciliation when disagreements arise, as they inevitably will, we being the fallen creatures that we are. A community whose members are unable to be reconciled with one another is likely to disintegrate. Conversely, communities that actively foster reconciliation among their members strengthen their cohesion and hence ability to grow and flourish.

 

Today’s reading from Acts describes the deep fellowship among the earliest Christian disciples in Jerusalem: “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common ... There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and … laid [the proceeds] at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.”

Now, I don’t think that this passage is meant to be read as a utopian blueprint for an ideal Christian society. Rather, it testifies to the power of the apostolic preaching: With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. Reconciled to God through the apostles' preaching, the Jerusalem Christians find themselves reconciled to one another—overcoming the age-old division between rich and poor, those of high degree and low. This transformation exemplifies the difference that Christ’s resurrection makes, in fulfillment of the words of Psalm 133: “Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity!”

 

Today’s reading from the First Letter of John also takes up these twin themes of fellowship and reconciliation. The Apostle writes: “we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ … if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” Notice how John links fellowship—a word he uses in this reading no fewer than four times—with being cleansed from sin by the blood of Jesus. Only reconciliation with God through the saving work of Christ makes possible the reconciliation with one another that is the sole foundation of any genuine Christian community.

 

Our Gospel reading is taken from Saint John’s account of the risen Lord’s appearance in the upper room on the evening of the day of his resurrection. Jesus stands among the disciples and wishes them Peace—Shalom. He then delegates to them his authority to forgive sins: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” This text has many implications, not least concerning the ordained priesthood’s authority to grant absolution to repentant sinners. But the implication I want to highlight is that this duty to forgive extends to all Christians, because only by mutual forgiveness and reconciliation can we experience that harmony with God and one another—that Shalom—that Christ wishes his disciples when he says to them, and to us, “Peace be with you.” 

 

In this context, I suspect that the deepest significance of the story of Doubting Thomas—seemingly everyone’s favorite character in the Gospels—is that before he can finally see and touch the risen Jesus, he must rejoin the disciples’ fellowship. Luke doesn’t say why Thomas was absent or where he was that evening when the risen Jesus first appeared to the disciples. What seems significant to me, however, is that Jesus didn’t just go and appear separately to Thomas wherever he was, even though he was entirely capable of doing so. Instead, he waited for Thomas to be reunited with the community one week later.

 

That detail suggests that we normally experience the presence of the risen Jesus in the context of Christian community. As someone once put it, the Christian life is a team sport, not a solo performance. The good news is that once Thomas rejoins the fellowship, the risen Christ does come to him, answering his questions and overcoming his doubts. Our God is a God of second chances, and that is good news for us.

 

These observations suggest some questions that we might profitably reflect on during the coming week. In what ways do we need to be restored to the fellowship of Christ’s body to reawaken and renew our faith? More specifically, whom do we need to forgive, and whose forgiveness do we need to seek, in order to take our appointed place in Christ’s new covenant of reconciliation?

 

I hasten to add that none of this is anything we can do on our own, but only something that Christ does in us. As today’s reading from Acts says of those first Christians in Jerusalem, “With great power the apostles gave their testimony … and great grace was upon them all.” That power and grace came from on high. Again, “Jesus breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit …’” Relying not on ourselves, then, but on the grace that God continually offers us in the Holy Spirit, we realize true reconciliation and fellowship in the Body of Christ, showing forth in our life what we profess by our faith.

GOOD FRIDAY STATIONS OF THE CROSS

Meditation on the First Station:

Jesus is Condemned to Death

Good Friday, March 29, 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick R. I.

 

In a few minutes we shall follow together in the Way of the Cross, a devotion brought back to the Western Church by pilgrims to Jerusalem who retraced our Lord’s steps on the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows. I’ve discovered that reflecting on just one of the Stations can have the effect of illuminating them all. So, I will here confine myself to the First Station: Jesus is condemned to death. The theme is judgment.

 

What kind of person is the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate? Historians have rendered widely varying assessments. Some portray him as a beleaguered administrator doing his best under difficult circumstances. According to this interpretation, Pilate knows full well that Jesus is innocent and wants to let him off, but ultimately yields to political pressure from those seeking Jesus’ death.

 

Others dismiss that reading as a whitewash. Pilate, they argue, is a callous and cruel military governor who wouldn’t give a second thought to condemning an accused man – especially when the charge is sedition and treason.

 

The truth probably lies somewhere in between. The important point is that it’s still Pilate’s decision. He bears the responsibility and authority of judgment. And all four Gospels are unanimous in suggesting that Pilate made his final decision in the interests not of truth or justice but of political expediency.

 

The deep irony is that in condemning Jesus, Pilate is judging his own Judge. Just as Jesus stands now before Pilate, so in the Last Day the roles will be reversed. Then Pilate will stand before Jesus and be judged for the judgment that he rendered.

 

None of us wants to be judgmental. But judgment is an inescapable dimension of human interaction. To have any meaningful relations with other people, we constantly exercise our critical faculties, sizing up those with whom we have to deal, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, their virtues and vices. Our choice is not between judging and not judging, but between judging badly and judging well. One of the key ingredients of good judgment is the humility borne of the recognitions of how often we ourselves fall short by the very same standards we use to judge others.

 

What I like to call “the paradox of judgment” is that every time we render judgment, we simultaneously render ourselves liable to judgment. The story is told of a brash young American tourist visiting the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. After taking half an hour to breeze through the dozens of rooms that often occupied other visitors for days on end, he announced to the old guard at the entrance: “Well I certainly don’t think much of your old masters.” Unfazed, the guard calmly replied, “Yes sir, and they don’t think much of you either. But unfortunately, it’s not the old masters who are on trial here but the viewers.”

 

The Dean of my seminary had a stock speech he used to give about student evaluations. Every year, a faculty committee would convene to evaluate each seminarian’s progress. They would then write a report to be sent to the seminarian’s Bishop and diocesan Commission on Ministry. In the final year, the evaluation would include the faculty’s recommendation for or against ordination.

 

Now, the Dean would say every year, this process might seem unfair and, well, judgmental. Who were the faculty to judge the seminarians in this way? Only God knew what was in their hearts. But notice, said the Dean, that we all evaluate one another all the time. “From the moment you entered this seminary,” he continued, “you’ve been evaluating me. And while your judgment may not have the immediate effect on my future that the faculty evaluations will have on yours, nonetheless, I know that if over time enough of you form negative judgments of my performance as Dean, then sooner or later I will face the consequences.”

 

We were all impressed by his humility. Here was a senior academic administrator presiding over a process that systematically evaluated people’s fitness for ordained ministry. Yet he acknowledged that in this position he was simultaneously rendering himself liable to judgment by the very people it was his responsibility to judge, not to mention their bishops, the seminary trustees, and so on.

 

We need to remember that ultimately God is our judge. C. S. Lewis remarked in his essay “God in the Dock” that by the middle of the twentieth century, human beings had adopted an entirely new posture towards God. People in the ancient world approached the divine as accused criminals approach their judge: confessing their sins and begging for mercy. For modern people, however, the positions are reversed. We’ve put ourselves on the judge’s bench and God in the prisoner’s dock. We fancy ourselves quite kindly judges, and if God has a reasonable explanation for being the sort of God who permits war, poverty, disease, and famine, then we’re prepared to give him a fair hearing. But, Lewis concluded, the important point is that we’ve made ourselves the judges and God the defendant.

 

That is the very scene anticipated two thousand years ago at the judgment seat in the place called Gabbatha, the pavement, where Jesus stands before Pilate. We put ourselves in Pilate’s place whenever we presume to judge God. But judgment has this odd boomerang effect. As we evaluate God, so God evaluates us. As we question Christianity and find it wanting, so Christianity questions us and finds us wanting. As we reject the Church, so the Church rejects us. Our Lord himself says as much in the Sermon on the Mount: “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure that you get.”

 

This picture may seem terrifying, and so it is. But God always has the last word; and in the Cross of Christ God’s final word is not condemnation and death, but forgiveness and life – made possible by precisely the judgment that Jesus underwent for our sakes. On Good Friday, Jesus stands before Pilate and receives a judgment that he doesn’t deserve, namely condemnation and death. We don’t know, but on the Last Day it’s entirely possible that Pilate may stand before Jesus and receive a judgment that he doesn’t deserve, namely forgiveness and life. And if that can be true for Pilate, it can certainly be true for us.

 

In the first Station, Jesus stands before Pilate and accepts his judgment. In so doing, he enables us to face our judgment. He calls us to repent of our sins and place our faith and trust in his mercy. If we do so, then at the last Judgment we shall receive the verdict of forgiveness, acquittal, and life—all on account of the very death to which Jesus was condemned for us on the first Good Friday.