Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for May 13, 2018

Tirage nomination de saint Matthias (Election of St. Matthias by drawing lots), 12th century painting in the parish church of the vallée de l’Aisne, France. (Click image to enlarge.)

Three days after Ascension Thursday and one week before Pentecost Sunday, our readings for the last Sunday after Easter mark a pause in time, a moment when the world is about to turn. Our first reading from Acts finds the apostles gathering just after Jesus has been taken into heaven, lifted up into a cloud. Next Sunday we will hear of the Holy Spirit coming down like wind and fire, inspiring the apostles to take the Gospel into the world. But first, asking God’s guidance, they cast lots and choose Matthias to take the place in their numbers left by the departure of Judas, the traitor who betrayed Jesus.

Psalm 1

The first of all the Psalms begins the book with a promise: Happiness awaits those who walk in the way of God. The 150 Psalms, the ancient hymns of the Jerusalem temple, sing an emotional range from joy to fear to anger to sadness to thanksgiving, but the joy of following God provides a recurring bass line. Psalm 1 also celebrates delight in the law, the Torah, understood not as mere regulation but God’s holy teaching: God showing us how to live in love of God and neighbor.

Second Reading: 1 John 5:9-13

Our Eastertide voyage through the first Letter of John concludes today with part of its last chapter. This letter written in the spirit of John’s Gospel by later members of the Johannine community. Its consistent, uplifting theme reassures us again in these verses that we gain eternal life through God’s love given us in Jesus: “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

Gospel: John 17:6-19

In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus spends the night before his crucifixion praying in the Garden of Gethsemane while the apostles wait and try not to fall asleep. John’s Gospel is different: Here we hear Jesus after the last supper, talking to his disciples and praying for them, preparing them to move ahead after he has gone . Having protected and guarded the apostles – losing only Judas from the flock – Jesus now asks God to protect them as Jesus sends them out into the world, as God had sent Jesus out into the world.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for May 6, 2018

Detail of Jesus giving the Farewell Discourse to his Apostles after the Last Supper (1308-1311); Maestà, tempera on wood altarpiece by Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319). Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena. (Click image to enlarge.)

Sunday’s readings build on the theme that we heard last Sunday: God’s love pours out on all the world, and we are called to love each other as God loves us. Our first reading marks a key turning point in Acts: The joyful reaction of a Gentile crowd to Peter’s teaching reveals to the apostles that the Holy Spirit comes to everyone, not only Jewish Christians but Gentiles too. Everyone. Peter asks, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” The answer is clear: Baptism is for all. As we heard in last week’s reading about the Ethiopian eunuch, “Here is water. What is to prevent it?”

Psalm: Psalm 98

This triumphant hymn of faith in God’s power is consistent with the theme that we hear throughout today’s readings: God’s victory shows divine mercy and faithfulness for Israel, but it is not a victory for Israel alone. God will judge not only Israel but all the people of the earth with mercy and equity. In a resounding symphony of thanksgiving, not only the people but even the sea, the lands, the rivers and hills ring out their joy, singing to the Lord a new song.

Second Reading: 1 John 5:1-6

Our second reading and Gospel continue seamlessly where last Sunday’s readings left off, expanding on the same theme. We are commanded to love one another as Jesus loves us. Now we learn in the First Letter of John that the way to love God – to become a child of God – is by obeying God’s commandments, a direction that follows the Jewish tradition of love for God’s law and teaching. In words that echo the triumphant sentiment of today’s Psalm, we hear that our faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God brings God’s victory into the world.

Gospel: John 15:9-17

Mark, Matthew and Luke all tell us that Jesus taught – in the spirit of the essential Jewish prayer, the Shema – that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind. Then Jesus connects the dots: It follows, then, that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. In John’s Gospel Jesus expands on this theme. Just as God has loved Jesus, so Jesus loves us. Therefore, he commands, “Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Through our faith we go out and bear fruit that will last, like the branches of the vine in last week’s Gospel.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for April 29, 2018

The Baptism of the Eunuch (1626). Oil painting on oak panel by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669). Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, Netherlands. (Click image to enlarge.)

Hear this assuring message through Sunday’s readings: God’s abiding love is open to all humankind. It showers on us as a free gift. The Acts reading offers a sweet, funny story of the young church: All are welcome, no matter who they are. To join the young Christian community through baptism, all you had to do was ask. Even an Ethiopian eunuch – a foreigner from a strange land, barred from Judaism because his physical condition made him biblically unclean – was eagerly welcomed as an equal. With mutual joy, right there on the spot, Philip baptized him as one of us.

Psalm: Psalm 22:24-30

This relatively short passage comes from a longer Psalm that begins with the memorable words that Jesus uttered from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The despair of the opening two verses quickly turns, though, to the message we hear in this reading, a statement that resonates with Philip’s warm welcome to the Ethiopian eunuch: God is the ruler of all the world’s nations: those already born and all those yet to come. We live for God, we serve God, we praise God, and we fulfill our vow to God by caring for the poor and feeding the hungry.

Second Reading: 1 John 4:7-21

Sunday’s verses from the first letter of John both reflect and add to Jesus’ unforgettable promise as told by John the Evangelist: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you … love one another as I have loved you.” (We will hear that passage, by the way, in next week’s Gospel.) This reading, like last week’s, assures us of God’s love, and in doing so it calls us to action. “Love one another” is not just a suggestion: It incorporates a covenant promise. If we can’t love our brothers and sisters, how can we make room in our hearts for God?

Gospel: John 15:1-8

For the remaining Sundays of Eastertide, our Gospel readings will draw from John’s account of Jesus’ long farewell to his disciples at the Last Supper. Here, Jesus uses the vineyard as an extended metaphor for our relationship with God through Christ. Clearly describing vineyard practices that continue with little change to this day, Jesus shows us how God cuts out weaker branches in order to make the vines strong and productive. We must abide in God as God abides in us; otherwise we risk being pruned and discarded as the weak vines are. But when we abide in God through Jesus, living in God like a sturdy branch on a nurturing vine, we will be strong and fruitful.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for April 22, 2018

Christ as the Good Shepherd (1750), by an unknown artist from Lower Bavaria. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg. (Click image to enlarge.)

This Sunday, coincidentally falling on Earth Day this year, is called “Good Shepherd Sunday” for its focus on God’s protective love. In our first reading from Acts, we see Peter again, brave and bold with the power of the Holy Spirit. He and John have been arrested by the Temple authorities for healing a paralyzed man and preaching that the resurrected Jesus is the Messiah. Unafraid, he reminds them that they are the ones who crucified Jesus, whom God then raised from the dead and – quoting the Psalm 118 verses that we heard on Palm Sunday and Easter – made Jesus, the stone they had rejected, into the cornerstone of salvation.

Psalm: Psalm 23

When Christians read the beloved verses of the 23rd Psalm, we may well imagine the face of Jesus as the Good Shepherd who walks beside us through the valley of the shadow of death. Indeed, John’s Gospel shows us Jesus declaring himself the Good Shepherd in today’s Gospel reading. Originally, of course, the people sang this Psalm in thanksgiving and praise for God, who brought them out of exile and led them home, serving them a lavish banquet while their vanquished enemies could only look on.

Second Reading: 1 John 3:16-24

Jesus loved us so much that he laid down his life for us. This beloved idea from John’s Gospel – which we see reflected here in the first letter in John’s name – is just about as reassuring as the 23rd Psalm. But the rest of this reading becomes challenging when we hear that we are to lay down our lives for one another too. We must not refuse help to a brother or sister in need. In short, we are to be not only sheep, but shepherds, too. Filled with God’s love, we are called to be bold, just as Peter was bold, fired by the Holy Spirit just as Peter was inspired.

Gospel: John 10:11-18

If we step back and read this chapter of John its full context, this seemingly simple narrative intriguingly mirrors today’s reading in Acts. Much like the authorities confronting Peter and John in Acts over their healing and preaching, here the Pharisees are angry and alarmed because Jesus healed a blind man on the Sabbath, prompting people to speak of Jesus as the Messiah. Suddenly we realize that Jesus isn’t gently reassuring us by calling himself the Good Shepherd; he is pushing back hard against the Pharisees. If the people are harmless sheep, the Pharisees are the vicious wolves who prey upon them. Jesus declares that he will lay down his life for the sheep, and that he will live again.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for April 15, 2018

La cena de Emaús (The dinner at Emmaus, 1620); oil painting by Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) . The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (Click image to enlarge.)

Christ, the Messiah, has come for all the world. We’ll hear this promise repeated through Sunday’s readings. In the Acts passage, Peter and John have just healed a beggar who could not walk, to the amazement of everyone who saw this once-disabled man walking and praising God. Peter tells the crowd that this man was healed through the power of Jesus, the Messiah, whom they had rejected and had killed, but who will forgive them if they turn to him. It’s best to set aside the ancient echoes of anti-Judaism that we hear now and then in Acts. Hear, rather, God’s gracious promise that forgiveness through the Holy Spirit is available to all humankind.

Psalm: Psalm 4

You may hear the lovely Taizé hymn, “When I call, answer me,” in your head as you read this Psalm. In contrast with the many angry Psalms that call on God to crush and destroy the foe, Psalm 4 raises up a more quiet and trusting confidence that’s echoed in the Taize hymn: “O Lord, hear my prayer … when I call, answer me.” We ask that the light of God’s countenance shine upon us, and we are grateful that we can sleep in peace, knowing that God is watching over us.

Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-7

In a message that resonates with Peter’s speech in Acts, the author of First John assures the people of the early church that we become the children of God through the gift of God’s love as revealed to us through Jesus. Although the world does not seem to know this yet, the writer assures his audience, the world will eventually come to do so. Meanwhile, doing what is right keeps us in relationship with God through Jesus and thus free from sin, for there is surely no sin in Jesus.

Gospel: Luke 24:36b-48

We turn to Luke’s Gospel for one more account of the resurrected Jesus, picking up the narrative just as the two disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus have returned to tell the rest. Suddenly Jesus is standing with them, such a shocking apparition that they respond not with joy but surprise and terror, as if a ghost had appeared! Much as he did for Thomas in John’s Gospel, Jesus invites them to examine and touch his wounds. He takes a piece of fish to eat, perhaps to show that he is no ghost but solid flesh and blood. Then he declares himself the Messiah, and declares that repentance and forgiveness of sins will go out in his name to all nations.

Thoughts on Sunday’s Lessons for April 8, 2018

Incredulità di San Tommaso (The Incredulity of Saint Thomas), oil painting (1601-1602) by Michele Angelo Amerighi da Caravaggio (1571-1610). Sanssouci Palace of Frederick the Great, Potsdam, Germany. (Click image to enlarge.)

Christ is risen, and we move forward with joy into the 50 days of Eastertide. Sunday’s readings offer us insights into the meaning of resurrection in our lives. Our first readings during the season come from the Acts of the Apostles, the evangelist Luke’s story of the life of the early church. Luke’s Gospel consistently emphasizes Jesus’ command to avoid riches and serve the poor and the oppressed. Now in Acts Luke shows members of the early church following Christ’s example, sharing all possessions and caring for the poor. What can we glean from this to guide life in Christ today?

Psalm: Psalm 133

Sunday’s short Psalm celebrates the joy of a community that lives together in unity like brothers and sisters, a theme that foreshadows the sharing lifestyle that Luke shows us in the early church. The earthy image of anointing oil running down Aaron’s head, beard and robe may sound less than appealing to modern sensibilities, but – perhaps akin to the Gospel accounts of the woman anointing Jesus with very expensive ointment – this reminds us that the most desirable luxuries are not to be hoarded but abundantly shared.

Second Reading: 1 John 1:1-2:2

We will hear parts of the First Letter of John every Sunday during Eastertide. This letter was written in John’s name long after his life, but its overall style is consistent with John’s Gospel, as is the emphasis that it places on love and on Jesus as the Word and the Light. If we walk in the light just as Jesus is in the light, John’s first letter tells us, we have fellowship with one another akin to the fellowship of the early apostles. We only deceive ourselves if we think we are free from sin, it goes on. But when we confess our sins, God will forgive our sins and restore our righteousness through Christ.

Gospel: John 20:19-31

After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to the disciples at many times and places, the Gospels tell us, often in mysterious ways. In today’s Gospel, the terrified apostles are hiding. Suddenly Jesus is with them in a locked room! Their fear is turned to joy, but Thomas, who missed Jesus’ first appearance, refuses to believe that Jesus is alive until he sees him and his wounds for himself. Jesus doesn’t show anger but offers Thomas peace; but he also asks Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me?” Then, in words for us all to consider, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”