Believing is seeing... I believe, Lord, help my unbelief...

Scripture: Acts 2:14a, 22-32  • Psalm 16  • 1 Peter 1:3-9  • John 20:19-31

This second Sunday of the Easter season we consider the gospel of John's account of  the "doubting" of the disciple Thomas. We are told that Jesus first appeared to the disciples in a room where Thomas was not present. When told of this, Thomas, with a mindset not unlike the empirical bias of our present times, said that he must see and put his fingers in the scars of Jesus' hand and his hand in Jesus' side, which was pierced. In other words, seeing is believing. What is going on here with Thomas? Where did Jesus make his appearance? What does Jesus say? What does Thomas do, (or not do), and say? For insight into this , and in dealing with grief, loss and disappointment see "Picking Up the Pieces," by John Jewell.

In an imagined conversation between Thomas and his grandson in Thomas' waning years, The Rev. Dr. Laura Mendenhall, in "Dealing with Mystery,"shows us how Jesus turned "seeing is believing" into "believing is seeing." Notice where this is likely to occur. I look forward to seeing you, and believing with you, Sunday!

Tell them I will meet them in Galilee...

Scripture: Acts 10:34-43 or Jeremiah 31:1-6  • Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24  • Colossians 3:1-4 or Acts 10:34-43  

• John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10

 

Because of Easter, we are able to ask "Where will Jesus meet us?" Just as Jesus told Mary to tell the disciples that he was going ahead to Galilee, and he would meet them there, we are also invited to meet Jesus. Where, and what are the Galilees of our lives? Think about what happened in Galilee during Jesus' ministry. Will we recognize him? See Sister Kym Harris' "This Sunday's Exposition." 

 

This is a time to reflect on how we are blessed. Consider Jesus' sermon on the mount (or plain, depending on which gospel account you read), and Sister Harris' Reflection. Notice who carries Jesus' message to the disciples.

 

Finally, Barbara Brown Taylor has some thoughts on where Jesus turns up. See her " Escape from the Tomb." The living one's business is with the living. He is among the living. Taylor reminds us not to be so focused on the tomb that we forget to speak with the gardener.

 

May you have a blessed Easter, and a blessed life. He lives! 

 

 

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

Scripture: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29  • Matthew 21:1-11   • Philippians 2:5-11

We  are invited this week to see things as God sees them. Jesus' triumphant entry into David's City riding on a donkey and young colt over coats and cut palm branches contrast with the martial display of occupying Caesar's troops. A contrast in power.

More importantly , we see love as we have never seen it before. The very nature and essence of God is made manifest for all to see through the sacrifice, passion and death of his beloved Son. Sister Kym Harris, in her Exposition, contrasts the delights we see and experience in romantic love with the love of God through the sacrifice and death of Jesus, an unselfish gift of love, seeing us, and despite all of our weakness, flaws and sin.

The Rev. Kate Huey cites several authors, in her Passion Amidst Palms, who say that Jesus' death changed everything, especially how we see and experience God's love. Barbara Brown Taylor says that God brought divine love to life in the gift of God's Son, the one thing God had to give more precious to God than God himself. God said we no longer had to come to him - to the temple any more. God loves us so much that he now comes to us, wherever we are and whatever we are experiencing in our lives. In the passion of Christ we see that God loves us even in acts of betrayal, fear, weakness, denial and desertion.

In "Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday," Sara Miles tells us that Jesus willingly faced and absorbed all the hard truths of human violence, pride and weakness, and to love and stay with us anyway so that sin and death will have no more power over us. With her, let us pray that we may see how much we have in common with all of Jesus' beloved people. May we face the beauty and sadness of humanity, and not turn away. And that we may love and forgive in face of every hurt, betrayal, pain, sickness, mistake and failure. May we be Christ, be his love, to the world.

  

What is Resurrected Life?

Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14  • Psalm 130  • Romans 8:6-11  • John 11:1-45

From Ezekiel's valley of "dry bones," to St. Paul's testimony of the life giving Spirit which raised Christ, to this week's gospel account in John of the raising of Lazarus, and as Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem and the cross, we learn something of resurrected life. Jesus tells us that he, who is the bread of life and whose blood is the cup of salvation from which all who drink will never thirst again, is "the resurrection and the life, and that all who believe in [him], even though they die, will live."

What is the resurrected life? See "Resurrected Hopes," by Craig Barnes.  Dee also "This Sunday's Reflection" by Sister Kym Harris.

Thanks to Alan Rezek for leading our discussion this Sunday while I am out of town!

I Was Blind, But Now I See

Scripture: 1 Samuel 16:1-13  • Psalm 23  • Ephesians 5:8-14  • John 9:1-41

This week's lesson from the gospel of John is the story of Jesus giving sight to the man who was blind from birth. How was the blind man given sight? What did he do? What did Jesus' disciples see, and ask before he was given sight? What does Jesus teach us about sin, and judgment of others in this lesson?

What does Jesus mean when he says, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.?" Why does he tell the Pharisees who said "they see," that they sin, and those who are blind are without sin?

Compare your thoughts with The Rev. Kate Huey's "Learning to See - Reflections."

Living Water

Scripture: Exodus 17:1-7  • Psalm 95  • Romans 5:1-11  • John 4:5-42

Matthew Skinner asks "What does it look like when God defies the restrictions we assume are in place?" In the longest conversation Jesus has with anyone recorded in the gospels, Jesus shows us. In his encounter with the woman at the well, Jesus defies accepted customs and behavior. He talks with a woman other than a relative in public, and a Samaritan woman at that. Samaritans were considered impure when, after the Assyrians conquered Israel, they inter-married with non-Jews. He cuts through differences in where we should worship saying that we should worship in spirit and in truth, not in the temple in Jerusalem, as Jews, or at Shechem, as the Samaritans. And when she says the Messiah will come and set things straight. He says "I am," who is speaking to you. God is the great "I am." Skinner, In "You Ought to Leave the Church," tells us God will not be confined to the walls of the Church. Do we take God outside our walls? Do we invite Him in?

In "The Third Sunday in Lent," Marjorie Suchocki compares the water gushing from the rock struck by Moses at Massah and Meribah (which means "test" and "quarrelsome") given to a contentious people who put God to the test, and the living water God gives through his Christ who is betrayed, struck, abused and put to a cruel death by men. The difference is the living water Jesus gives us "gushing up to eternal life," and reconciling us to God, and each other.

What is it to be "born again," to believe, to be saved?

Scripture: Genesis 12:1-4a  • Psalm 121  • Romans 4:1-5, 13-17  • John 3:1-17

This second Sunday of Lent we consider Nicodemus' question of Jesus of how he might be saved. Jesus tries to help him see that he is asking the wrong question. It is not "how," but why. Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be "born again," or more accurately from the Greek, "born from above."  What did he mean? Do we have to do anything to be saved? What is it to be saved? What did God do to save us? Why? What is it to believe? What does Jesus mean to be born of the Spirit, the wind which blows where it chooses? How will we hear it? Is Jesus' message one of judgment or grace? In her "Reflections," The Rev. Kate Huey offers us wonderful insights to these questions.