Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, May 25, 2014

Paul preaches at the Areopagus in Athens.

Paul has arrived in Athens, where he enthusiastically debates theology with both Jews and Greek pagans. Now he plays a crafty trick. Pointing out that the Greeks keep an altar “to an unknown God,” Paul proclaims that the God who is unknown to them is in fact our God who made the world and everything in it, who gives to all mortals life and breath. Then Paul expresses a core truth about God that has endured through the ages and that we often hear in the Collect for Guidance in Morning Prayer: “In God we live and move and have our being.”

Psalm: Psalm 66:7-18

Why do bad things happen to good people? The Psalmist ponders this eternal question. Sometimes it seems as if God is testing us when we face burdens that seem too heavy to bear. But God keeps watch over all the people of the Earth and ultimately brings us out to a spacious place of relief. Curiously, the Lectionary omits the final two verses that bring Psalm 66 to its happy conclusion: “… truly God has listened; God has given heed to the words of my prayer.”

Second Reading: 1 Peter 3:13-22

This letter, written in Peter’s name long after the first Easter, offers fascinating glimpses of the early church working out its theology at a time when many faced persecution. Echoing the hope of Psalm 66, these verses assure us that we earn blessing when we suffer for doing the right thing, just as Noah and his family endured the flood so that humanity could survive, and just as Jesus suffered on the cross, died and was resurrected, and now waits for us at the right hand of God.

Gospel: John 14:15-21


As Eastertide turns toward the Ascension and Pentecost, we return to Jesus’ extended farewell at the Last Supper in a new context: Soon Jesus will return to the Creator, but he remains with us in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is sent from God as our “advocate,” a word also used in ancient Greek as “helper” or “intercessor.” When the Spirit moves in our world, when we are inspired by God’s breath on our faces, when our hearts burn with desire to act as Christ’s hands in the world, we know that the Holy Spirit is with us.