Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for May 21, 2017
Saint Paul preaching at the Areopagus in Athens (1515), by Raphael (1483-1520). Royal Collection of the United Kingdom.
Even after the resurrected Jesus returns to the Creator. God remains in the world; the Holy Spirit is with us. This is the reassuring message of Sunday’s readings. The God who made us all is with us always, watches over us and hears our prayers. As today’s Collect sums it up, God’s promises exceed all that we can desire. In our first reading we see Paul in Athens, trying to persuade skeptical Greeks that their altar “to an unknown God” actually celebrates our God, who made the world and remains so near to us that in God we live and move and have our being. (In the following verses we learn that some of the crowd remained doubtful, but many became believers and joined Paul.)
Sometimes bad things happen, and even God’s presence does not seem to protect us. The Psalm at first seems to suggest that God tests us with these heavy burdens, standing aside when enemies ride over us and we must go through fire and water, a theological idea that we would rather not hear. But then the verses turn back to hope and faith: God does keep watch over all the people and, at the last, ultimately brings us out to a place of refreshment, a spacious place of relief. God hears our prayers and does not reject them; at the end, God’s loving kindness is not withheld.
Second Reading: 1 Peter 3:13-22
Mirroring the theme of hope amid burdens and difficulties that we heard in Psalm 66, the excerpt from 1 Peter that we read today assures us that when we suffer for doing the right thing we earn blessing, a promise that may have brought some comfort to an early church community facing persecution. Just as Noah and his family endured the flood so that humanity could survive, Jesus suffered on the cross, died and was resurrected to sit at the right hand of God so that we too may be brought to God through baptism.
Gospel: John 14:15-21
Picking up where last Sunday’s Gospel left off, we hear Jesus continuing to reassure the apostles that, while he is leaving soon to return to the Creator, he will not leave them orphaned. Even if the world no longer sees Jesus, they will see him. He promises that God will send an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to remain with them forever. And, in words for all people and for all time, Jesus says, “If you love me, keep my commandments … They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”