SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR C

May 25, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Acts 16:9-15

Psalm 67

Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5

John 14:23-29

 

Let’s begin by listening again to the Collect of the Day. As I think I’ve remarked before, it can be all too easy to breeze through these Collects without pausing to pay attention to the often profound and sublime prayers they express.

 

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire …

 

This Collect teaches us, first, that God has prepared for those who love him joys beyond anything we can even begin to conceive. It asks him to pour this love into our hearts, that we may love him both in all created things, and above all created things, and thus ultimately receive everything that he’s promised us, which infinitely surpasses all our greatest hopes, longings, and desires. Each of these phrases is so pregnant with meaning that we could easily spend, say, half an hour or more meditating on this one compact prayer!

 

Moreover, the love which this Collect asks God to pour into our hearts is none other than the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love proceeding from the Father through the Son into our hearts. So, this prayer is especially appropriate today, when we’re beginning to look forward to the Feast of Pentecost in two weeks’ time.

 

Today’s appointed Scripture readings offer us a cumulative picture of what this love of God poured into our hearts looks like in action. The theme running through these readings is that of the Church’s mission to the nations of the earth. The point is that the Holy Spirit transforms us into agents of the Church’s mission to proclaim Christ’s Resurrection to all peoples everywhere.

 

As Psalm 67 puts it: “Let your ways be known upon earth, your saving health among all nations … May God give us his blessing, and may all the ends of the earth stand in awe of him.” Again, in the reading from Revelation, we see in John’s wonderful vision of the new Jerusalem descending from heaven with the Tree of Life bearing twelve kinds of fruit, one for each month of the year, whose leaves are for “the healing of the nations.”

 

The reading from the Acts of the Apostles exemplifies this same theme. Saint Paul receives a night vision of a man from Macedonia in Greece entreating him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Up to this point, Paul has been pursuing his missionary work only in Asia Minor, what is today Turkey (where I’ll be a week from today).

 

After this vision, Paul and his companions conclude that God is calling them to sail over the Aegean Sea to Macedonia (which we may remember from history as the birthplace of Alexander the Great some four centuries earlier). This decision is a momentous milestone marking the point at which the Christian Gospel crosses over from Asia into Europe, where it will ultimately engage with and transform the classical world of Greco-Roman civilization.

 

In the meantime, the conversion and baptism of Lydia of Thyatira, clearly a woman of means who’s able to provide hospitality and support for Paul’s mission, confirms God’s blessing on this decision. And all because Paul and his companions are attentive and obedient enough to discern and respond to God’s call in a vision in the night: Come over to Macedonia and help us.

 

Now, the last thing I want to do is compare myself with the Apostle Paul; and I certainly cannot say that a year ago I literally had a night vision of a man from Rhode Island saying, “Come over to Barrington and help us.” But my conversations at that time with the Search Committee, Wardens, and Vestry had a similar effect of convincing me that God was indeed calling me to come to Saints Matthew and Mark and preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments.

 

The few years before my call here involved an interesting journey, full of unexpected twists and turns. After nineteen years of settled ministry as Rector of Saint Stephen’s in Providence, I was called to move on and undertake interim assignments in two wonderful parishes in New Jersey. Then, within a week of retiring from full-time active ministry, I found myself called again to serve as an half-time interim priest for over a year at Saint’s Mark’s in Warwick. Each of these calls brought great blessings, certainly to me and, I hope, to the parishes and people that I’ve served.

 

The point is that when we open ourselves to the love of God, we may well find ourselves called to go places that we never imagined ourselves going. Those “new places” may or may not be geographical locations; they may instead represent the invitation to try something new, unimagined, and unheard-of right where we are.

 

All this is just as true for the laity as for the ordained. As baptized members of the Body of Christ, we’re all in this together. God calls each of us without exception to serve him and to share in the Church’s mission to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and peoples, to the ends of the earth, to the end of time.

 

Hearing this call is often scary. I can certainly attest to that. But we have the Lord’s promise in today’s Gospel that the Father will send the Holy Spirit to be our Advocate. Here Advocate translates the mysterious Greek word paraclete, which originally meant something like the counsel for the defense in a court proceeding, and can be translated equally well as counselor, advisor, guide, or comforter.

 

The crucial reassurance is that as we respond to God’s call to take our place in the Church’s mission, the Holy Spirit comes alongside us and teaches us all we need to know, recalling to our minds all that the Lord Jesus taught us while he was among us here on earth. However inadequate we may feel to the task, if we trust God, he’ll give us the right words to say in the right place at the right time. In this way, we prepare ourselves to receive all the good things that God has prepared for those who love him—good things surpassing all human understanding and exceeding all human desires.

 

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR C

May 18, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

John 13:31-35

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

 

At this point in the liturgical year, we’re almost three-quarters of the way through the forty days between our Lord’s Resurrection and his Ascension into heaven. Today’s Gospel takes us back, however, to Maundy Thursday, the night before the Crucifixion, when Jesus and his disciples were gathered for their last supper together. This part of John’s Gospel is called the “Farewell Discourse,” because Jesus is giving his disciples instructions on how to carry on after he’s taken from them. So, it makes sense that the Church appoints readings from the Farewell Discourse on these Sundays leading up to the Feast of the Ascension when the risen Jesus finally is taken up into heaven.

 

It’s easy to overlook the key point that at the Last Supper we’re hearing from someone who’s to all outward appearances a defeated and doomed man. His enemies are closing in. In John’s Gospel, the Jewish authorities have been conspiring to have Jesus put to death ever since the raising of Lazarus, and Jesus has gone into hiding.

 

As they're gathered for supper in the upper room in Jerusalem, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. Then, troubled in spirit, he predicts that one of those present will betray him. When Judas Iscariot departs, the disciples think that he’s gone out on an errand to buy something for the feast or perhaps something for the poor. It’s at this point that today’s Gospel reading begins: “when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him …”

 

Strangely enough, these words are a prediction of the Passion—since in John’s Gospel Jesus routinely refers to his coming death as his glorification. Then he adds: “Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'” Once again, these words are spoken by one who’s to all outward appearances a defeated man, matter-of-factly anticipating his death the next day.

 

What’s remarkable in this context is what Jesus does not say. He does not behave as we might expect a defeated man to behave.

In the German film Downfall, released in 2004, the actor Bruno Ganz plays Adolf Hitler in his final days in the bunker deep under the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. As the Soviet forces smash their way into the city, Ganz delivers an epic tantrum blaming Germany’s defeat on its military commanders, the SS, the rank-and-file soldiers, and finally the German people themselves. Whatever its historical accuracy, Ganz’s performance is riveting not only because it channels an evil madman’s rage, but also because it exemplifies in extreme form the all-too typical behavior of defeated leaders: fault-finding, vindictiveness, recrimination, blame, self-pity, and self-exoneration.

 

At the Last Supper, we might expect a messianic figure like Jesus not only to voice disappointment or regret, but also to lash out at his disciples for their supposed disloyalty and cowardice or, conversely, perhaps to try to rally them with calls to avenge his death. But instead, Jesus speaks of love. At the moment of his apparent downfall, he commands his disciples to love one another as he’s loved them.

 

I give you a new commandment. Notice, first, that Jesus calls this saying a commandment: not a suggestion, recommendation, invitation, good advice, or exhortation, but a commandment. Here’s what you must do to continue as my disciples after I’m gone. But also notice that Jesus calls it a new commandment: something that the disciples presumably haven’t heard before. And that raises the question: In what sense is this commandment to love one another something new?

 

In the Old Testament, God gave Israel the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.” But our Lord’s commandment to love one another is new and unprecedented on account of the phrase: “Just as I have loved you.” To love our neighbors as ourselves, we need to be willing to do for them only whatever we hope they’d do for us in reversed circumstances. If I hope that you’d be willing to go grocery shopping for me when I’m quarantined at home, then I’d better be willing to do the same for you. It’s simple reciprocity.

 

But our Lord’s love surpasses that kind of love. For us, he dies on the cross. That’s not something we’d ever ask anyone to do for us. On the cross, Jesus offers up everything he is and everything he has, with no thought for himself. His love is self-sacrificial: love that literally dies to self for the sake of the beloved.

 

It’s this quality of self-denying love that he commands us to exhibit in our life together as Christians. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll be called to suffer literal martyrdom – although in many parts of the world giving one’s life for Christ remains a very real possibility. But it does mean that life in the Church entails offering ourselves as servants of one another and putting the collective good of the community before our own individual good. In this way, we begin to learn to love one another as Christ has loved us.

 

We already see this quality of love exhibited in the life of this parish community. Here at Saints Matthew and Mark, I’ve been deeply moved by the ways in which parishioners reach out to express concern for one another in times of loss, and to lend a helping hand in time of need. One of the many blessings to me of the time I’ve spent with you so far is that it’s reminded me that something approximating genuine Christian community really still is possible in today’s Church.

 

And in today’s world, this quality of love is more important than ever. It requires a few basic commitments, beginning with simply being here: coming to worship faithfully on Sundays throughout the year unless for good cause prevented; and attending parish activities and events as we’re able. Such simple sacrifices are not always easy, not always convenient, and not always what we’d most rather be doing in the moment. But they school us by baby steps in the art of loving one another as Christ has loved us, so that the world may know that we’re his disciples. As we move into the future, let’s take every opportunity to keep on drawing closer to one another in love.

 

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR C

May 11, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

John 10:22-30

 

Strangely enough, now that Spring is well and truly here, the Gospel that we’ve just heard takes us back into the dark cold of winter: “It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the Temple, in the portico of Solomon.”

 

The Feast of the Dedication is what we know today as Hanukkah: the Jewish winter festival. In our Lord’s time, it was one of the great pilgrimage festivals, like Passover, when Jews from all over the then-known world would come up to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple.

 

Unlike the other great pilgrimage festivals, the Feast of the Dedication was of relatively recent origin. Almost two centuries earlier, in 167 BC, the Hellenistic Greek rulers of Palestine desecrated the Jewish Temple, setting up a statue of Zeus in its precincts. After a two-year rebellion led by Judas Maccabeus, the Jews retook Jerusalem and re-consecrated the Temple to the worship of Israel’s God. It was this restoration that the Feast of the Dedication commemorated annually.

To this day, the Jewish Hanukkah service includes a lengthy reading from the Book of Numbers, which describes Moses dedicating the Tent of Meeting – which housed the Ark of the Covenant before the Temple was built. At the conclusion of this elaborate ritual, a miracle occurred:

 

And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was upon the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him.

 

Some New Testament scholars speculate that when Jesus declares, “my sheep hear my voice,” he’s intentionally evoking this memory of God speaking to Moses in the Tent of Meeting. His voice as the Incarnate Word of God is the same divine voice that spoke to patriarchs and prophets throughout Old Testament history.

 

A distinguishing feature of our Judeo-Christian tradition is that we worship a God who speaks, a God who has a voice. The biblical God is not some ineffable abyss of silence beyond all words and images. He may be that, but he’s much more than that: a personal, active, dynamic, and loving God who reveals himself and his saving purposes for creation through his Word. He has a voice that can be heard, and a Word that can be understood.

 

To take just two favorite Old Testament stories: when the boy Samuel is lying in bed at night, he hears a voice calling his name, “Samuel, Samuel.” He thinks it’s his mentor the priest Eli calling him, so he goes to Eli and says, “Here I am, for you called me.” After this happens multiple times, Eli realizes that it’s the voice of the Lord, and he instructs Samuel to respond, “Speak Lord, for thy servant hears.”

 

Centuries later, the prophet Elijah flees forty days into the wilderness to escape the enemies who are trying to kill him. He arrives at Mount Horeb and takes refuge in a cave. A series of spectacular natural phenomena shake and rend the mountain: earthquake, wind, and fire. But the Lord is not in any of these. Then, in the silence following, there comes a “still, small voice,” which tells Elijah what he must do next.

 

Sometimes, God speaks not in a “still small voice” but much more dramatically. As we heard in last Sunday’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Saul is on the road to Damascus to arrest any Christians he finds and bring them in chains back to Jerusalem. Suddenly a light from heaven flashes around him; and, as he falls to the ground, he hears a voice asking, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” When he replies, “Who are you, Lord?” the voice answers, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” This moment marks the turning point in Saul’s life: the beginning of his conversion from persecutor of the Church to Apostle to the Gentiles.

 

So, we have countless biblical examples of people hearing and responding to the voice of God, the Word of the Lord. In today’s Gospel, Jesus declares that his sheep know his voice and follow him. He’s most likely alluding to the shepherding practices of the time. Apparently, Middle Eastern shepherds each have a distinctive call. When their flocks intermingle, each shepherd gives his distinctive call when it’s time to move on, to which only the sheep belonging to his flock respond by following where he leads.

 

The question for us, then, is whether we’re listening for the voice of our shepherd: an especially appropriate question in Eastertide when we proclaim his resurrection from the dead. Because he lives, he speaks, and we can still hear his voice.

 

The challenge for us is to cultivate attentiveness to God’s voice in our own daily lives. Down through the centuries, the Church has commended spiritual practices of prayer, meditation, and scripture reading for precisely this purpose.

 

A popular misconception of prayer is that it’s all about us talking to God. It does include that, but the most important moments occur when we finish telling God whatever’s on our minds, and then we shut up and start listening. Sometimes we hear him saying something and sometimes we don’t. It’s okay either way. Sometimes he allows just to bask silently in his presence, and that’s fine.

 

On other occasions, we may hear a word of comfort, reassurance, calling, or even warning. If we believe that we’re hearing such a word, we do need to be careful. The Church’s tradition counsels us to test everything by the Scriptures—and, if it seems that God is giving some specific direction, to test it by talking it out with trusted spiritual friends and advisors.

 

In other words, the task of discerning God’s Word always needs to be done in community, among fellow members of the Body of Christ, and never individually on our own. Indeed, the way that God often speaks to us is not necessarily in the solitary silence of our hearts, but in the living voices of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

Last week, your vestry met during Coffee Hour to begin setting goals for the coming year. We’ll continue next Sunday with a second meeting. In this process, I expect that we’ll hear many voices saying many different things, and we’ll do our best to exercise good discernment—which requires spending much time in prayer, and in prayerful conversation with one another.

 

Whatever the future holds for this wonderful parish, we can take confidence in Our Lord’s promise: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no-one shall snatch them out of my hand.” Jesus our Good Shepherd will never forsake us. So, my word for today is simply this: Let’s always be listening for the voice of the shepherd.

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR C

May 4, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Acts 9:1-6

John 21:1-19

 

In the New Testament, the risen Christ never appears to his followers merely to comfort, edify, or inspire. No, the Lord’s Resurrection appearances always entail a commission: a command to go and do something.

 

In the forty days between his Resurrection and Ascension, Christ instructs and organizes the disciples for the tasks ahead. The period of his earthly ministry is ending; the age of the Church’s mission to the world is about to begin.

 

In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Jesus promises his disciples that after he’s raised from the dead, he’ll go before them to Galilee, where they’ll see him. So, in today’s Gospel from John, we have one of the Risen Lord’s appearances to his disciples back up north, where they all came from.

 

It’s almost as though they’ve returned to the old life they once left behind to follow Jesus: fishing on the Sea of Galilee (also known as Lake Tiberias). After they catch nothing all night, the risen Jesus appears on the shore. At his instruction, they cast the net on the right side of the boat and miraculously haul in a catch of 153 large fish. This catch symbolically points to their future success in preaching the Gospel and gathering men and women into the Church. Jesus then cooks them breakfast over a charcoal fire on the beach. (When I was in the Holy Land three years ago, I stood on the same beach where this episode is believed to have taken place. It is a wonderful spot.)

 

What follows might be called the rehabilitation of Peter. Remember, on the night before Jesus dies, at the Last Supper, Peter promises Jesus that he will lay down his life for him—to which Jesus responds, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the cock will not crow until you have denied me three times.” Sure enough, after Jesus is arrested and taken to the high priest’s house, Peter three times denies being one of his disciples.

 

In the Judaism of the time, to declare something three times is to make it legally irrevocable and binding. So, even after the Lord’s Resurrection, Peter is living with the guilt and shame of having betrayed Jesus after saying he’d lay down his life for him.

The point, then, of Christ’s asking Peter three times, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” is to give Peter the opportunity to cancel his threefold denial with a threefold declaration of love: “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” In response, Jesus three times commissions Peter to shepherd his flock: “Feed my lambs … tend my sheep … feed my sheep.” Not only that, but he foretells that eventually Peter will indeed fulfill his promise to lay down his life for his Lord: “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young you girded yourself and walked where you would, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.”

 

In our reading from Acts, we see an even more dramatic instance of rehabilitation. Up until this moment, Saul has persecuted the fledgling Christian Church. He’s looked on with approval at the stoning to death of Saint Stephen, one of the first seven deacons. Then, according to Acts 8:3, “Saul laid waste the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.”

 

As today’s reading opens, we find Saul on the road to Damascus, carrying letters from the high priest authorizing him to arrest any Christians he finds there, to bring them back to Jerusalem bound in ropes and chains. Saul is a hard case; and hard cases require extreme measures. To turn him around, it takes nothing less than a blinding light from heaven knocking him to the ground and a voice asking, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

 

But instead of striking Saul dead on the spot for his crimes, the Lord does something totally unexpected. He chooses Saul to become the figure known to history as the Apostle Paul. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

 

In both these stories, the person being commissioned must first be forgiven. Peter needs to be forgiven for denying Jesus three times, Paul needs to be forgiven for his murderous persecution of the Church. In both cases, forgiveness is indeed forthcoming. Peter is commissioned to be the Chief Shepherd of the Church, and the forgiven Paul is commissioned to be the Apostle to the Gentiles.

 

The point is that Christ’s Resurrection engenders a whole new raft of opportunities for second chances and fresh starts. Forgiveness becomes a real possibility for all who repent of their sins and return to the Lord. And that’s good news for all of us.

 

However, today’s Church often falls short of that ideal. In an age of zero tolerance, lawsuits, and legal liability, we’ve become a largely unforgiving Church. It’s not clear that either Saint Peter or Saint Paul would make even the first cut in the search and nomination processes in most of our episcopal elections today. They probably wouldn’t get past the initial background checks! (And I say this without the slightest intention of disrespect to any of our bishops!)

 

I don’t pretend to have any easy solutions to this problem. Clearly for some crimes, such as child abuse, we should have zero tolerance, and after such crimes there can be no second chances. Protecting the flock requires nothing less.

 

What I can suggest, however, is that we allow today’s readings to challenge us with an alternative vision of the Church and the world from the perspective of God’s Kingdom. If Jesus could not only forgive Peter but also make him chief shepherd among the apostles—and if Jesus could not only forgive Saul but also entrust him with the mission of preaching the Gospel throughout the world—then how far should we be willing to go in extending to repentant wrongdoers forgiveness, second chances, and fresh starts? Again, I have no easy answers to that question. But in light of today’s readings, it’s the question that we need always to be asking.