4 Easter (Year C)
John 10: 22-30, Psalm 23
St. John’s, West Seneca
May 11, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, and it falls on the fourth Sunday of Easter. Psalm 23 is read always, and today John’s Gospel is before us. Now, I realize that being referred to as sheep may not be a compliment. But you must understand that in ancient Israel, there was no greater image of protector and guardian than that of the shepherd. The imagery is everywhere in the Psalms – like today’s Psalm 23 – as well as in the prophets and the writings.
“The Lord is my shepherd;’I shall not want’: that’s how most of us learned the first verse of Psalm 23. But that’s not what the original Hebrew says. The fault lies not in the Hebrew, which is clear enough, but rather in the English translation.
Specifically, the problem is with the Elizabethan English of the King James Version of the Bible, the language in which most of us learned the 23rd Psalm — and which is carried forward in many more recent translations. That team of translators assembled by King James of England did a pretty fair job, for their time. The problem is, the meaning of the English word “want” has shifted over the centuries.
Stop a person randomly on the street, and ask him or her to explain the meaning of the word, ‘want.’ You’re likely to hear something, in reply, about desire or craving… I want … a bigger house, a more luxurious car, a more fulfilling job, family members who understand me. I want my picture on the cover of People magazine … no, not People (that’s too ordinary). Make it TIME: ‘Person of the Year.’ I want to be President: not for any of the hard stuff, I’ll have minions to take care of that…
Is this what the psalmist means when he declares, ‘I shall not want’? Is he being some kind of Buddhist, teaching that the goal of the spiritual life is to free oneself from all desire — to empty the mind, through meditation, of every conscious thought, until one draws near to the silent, still point of the universe, the center of it all?
No. It’s nothing like that. What the psalmist means when he says, “I shall not want” is better expressed by some modern translations that render the second half of this first verse, ‘there is nothing I lack.’ Or, as another version puts it, turning the phrase around and expressing it positively: ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need.’” *
Keeping that in mind, consider this story.
“As I was walking through Kollen Park in Holland, Michigan along the shoreline of Lake Macatawa, I overtook a young mother and her two daughters. The younger daughter, maybe 4 years old, was forging ahead and the older daughter, maybe 10 years old, was in conversation with her mother.
"As I passed I heard the mother say, ‘Would you rather have one flower or 20 flowers?’ I had no idea what in the conversation led to that question, but the older daughter answered, ‘I’d rather have 20 flowers,’ …
"Would this young woman, I wondered, ever hear a counter truth, someone who would tell her that one thing in life could be more than enough? …
"I started to ruminate on the theme of “one thing” in Scripture. I thought of Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler: ‘There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ But when he heard this, he became sad; for he was very rich (Luke 18:22-23).’ The rich young ruler had acquired many things in life, things that gave him standing in the community, both moral points for fulfilling the law and material wealth. But the many was the enemy of the one. With his many acquisitions, his heart was divided and distracted. He could not find the one, narrow path.
"I thought about the story in which Martha came to Jesus complaining about her sister Mary who was not helping her prepare for the upcoming meal. To this complaint the Lord answered: “’Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her (Luke 10:41).’ Many things worry and distract us to the point that we, like Martha, can no longer see the one crucial thing standing right in front of us, the better part of life that can never be taken from us.
"In his response to both the rich young ruler and Martha, Jesus is reminding his followers of the Shema and applying its truth to everyday life. Moses implored the people of Israel: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might’ (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). …
"So I want to say to that little girl walking with her mother and sister along the shore of Lake Macatawa: Do not listen to the peddlers of our materialist culture; let not your heart be distracted by many things. There is a fullness that is emptiness, and an emptiness that is fullness. An empty heart has more space for God and, filled with the love of God, has more awareness of the world so loved by God and more courage to engage the forces that threaten to undo it.
"I want to say to that little girl that there is one flower more beautiful than 20 other flowers, one worthy of your full attention, a lily crowned with thorns.”**
In those two examples are two questions. On this Good Shepherd Sunday, what do we lack? Along with that, what is that “one thing,” the one thing that keeps us from becoming distracted by wonders of our material society?
With Psalm 23, we learn that we lack nothing from the shepherd. In Him there are still waters and green pasture, a feast, with a cup that is running over. It is no wonder that this Psalm is a favorite. What do we lack? Nothing. At least that is what we say. Too often we forget that God is a God of abundance. And always has been. That is why there is good theology in the words of the little girl who began to recite the 23rd Psalm "The Lord is my shepherd, that's all I want."
As for the one thing, the problem is that we do listen to the peddlers of material goods. And it is distracting. In John’s Gospel text, Jesus answers those questioning him: “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; 26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice.”
The one thing is the voice of the shepherd. It is all about hearing and we are surrounded by noise. That is the tricky part, the part that leads us down the wrong path. There are so many voices out there that it is essential to know who the shepherd is. Voices that tell us how to look, how to think, what to buy, what to aspire to. Voices that tell us our faults, voices that tell us we may not be good enough, or voices that cause us to doubt. Those voices are not the voice in John’s Gospel. Those are the voices that Ezekiel speaks of…wolves in sheep’s clothing. They do not have your best interests at heart.
And while it may seem easy to listen only for Jesus’ voice, the truth is that those voices calling to us sound good, alluring. Those voices promise us good things. And just as a curious sheep may get distracted and wander away, so do we. And there are so many ways and things that can distract us.
The ”one thing” is to know His voice, the voice of Jesus. Sheep do recognize their shepherd’s voice and they respond and follow. The sheep hear the shepherd’s voice and know that there are green pastures and still waters and an overflowing cup. My hope is that we do as well. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
*Homiletics Online, April 25, 2021
**—Tom Boogaart, “One Flower or Twenty Flowers,” Reformed Journal, August 20, 2022.
3 Easter (Year C)
Acts 9
St. John’s, West Seneca
May 4, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
“The adult human brain has approximately 100 billion neurons. These cells can be "
Then, in February 2010, he had a massive stroke. A blocked artery paralyzed the right side of his body and severely impaired his speech.
and reprogrammed in a way that resembles the flexibility of plastic…”
“…Sean Maloney was sitting pretty, and things looked like they could only get better. He was the executive vice president of Intel and widely considered the next in line to be CEO. He had a wife and family and maintained an active lifestyle that included running, rowing and skiing. And although he had high blood pressure, he addressed that by eating a healthy diet.
"He underwent six months of intensive rehabilitation to regain movement and the ability to talk. He had to learn to let speech originate from the other side of his brain, and while not everything returned, he was able to get enough back to function not only without relying on caregivers, but even to return to work, move to Beijing and lead Intel’s business with China, its largest market. He retired from Intel in 2013, but he was able to take up cycling, and in 2015, he founded Heart Across America, a 5,000-mile, cross-country bicycle ride from Palo Alto, California, to New York City to raise money and awareness for heart disease and stroke prevention.
"There are other stories like Maloney’s, and the reason he and others have been able to claw back some of what they lost to strokes and other brain-damaging events is something called neuroplasticity. That refers to the brain’s ability to change at any age. It was once believed that the brain became fixed after childhood, but we now know that such is not the case. The brain remains ‘plastic,’ capable of changing in function and structure as it responds to experience.
"These changes can be for better or worse, because a malleable brain is also a vulnerable one, which explains why war vets can come home from the battlefield quite different from who they were when they left. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a neuroplastic disorder caused by the trauma of war which has overwhelmed the brain and rewired it….”
The ability of the brain to make – or not - changes is one that we – especially pastors – deal with. Too often, we hear the seven last words of the church: "We’ve never done it that way before.” Old habits die hard. However, if not for the ability of the brain to change, we might not be here.
The First Reading is one of the most recognized stories in the Bible, with Saul – now Paul – on the road to Damascus. Talk about a change of brain…and heart.
Paul was not always a nice man, not always the saint he now is. He was a persecutor of those who followed Jesus. He was a zealous and pious Jew and in Galatians he describes his life: “You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism,” he writes. “I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors” (Galatians 1:13-14).
Elsewhere he writes, “Circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:5-6).
He was ruthless in his pursuit of the people of the Way – as the early Christians were called – even to the point of being the man who held the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen. Paul – Saul – was breathing threats and murder, we are told, even as he made his way to Damascus, determined to bring these Christians back in chains to Jerusalem. Ah, but on the road to Damascus, he had a vision of Jesus, lost his eyesight, and had to be led by the hand to the city.
Then he had a life altering event. He met Jesus on the Damascus road. Of his life after he wrote: “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith” (Philippians 3:7-9).
For Saul, this is a complete reversal for his life.
Getting back to the neuroplasticity, that's what it may have been. That is what a conversion is, a complete change, a rewiring of everything.
What we can take from this? If Paul can be so changed in so brief a time, then transformation is possible for all of us. Because no matter where you are in life or your faith, being changed by the Gospel is possible. And it is a life-long journey. We die to sin each day and rise to new life in Christ.
Now, we can argue that Paul’s transformation was helped along by a vision and then blindness. There will not be a Damascus Road experience for most of us. No blinding flash of light; no voice from heaven; thank the Lord – no blindness; no grappling with spiritual issues for three days.
Speaking of change, of neuroplasticity, another is changed as well.
Paul is the star here, I can’t help but be drawn to Ananias, and then Judas. We've heard nothing of either one of these two Damascus citizens until now, and we'll not hear of them again. They surface in the Bible here in Acts 9 and then disappear. They're just two faithful disciples who were there when God called upon them for one specific task: to minister to the most feared man of their times: Saul of Tarsus.
We see that Ananias is taken aback. Paul was not the only one taken aback by a shocking revelation. Judas was asked to open his home and compromise the security of his family. Ananias was asked to lead this Saul guy into the Scripture, and in so doing identify himself openly as one of the very people Saul was hunting down.
Ananias’ response is about as human as it comes. To say that Ananias is not enthusiastic is an understatement. “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” Or in other words, “Whoa, Whoa, not that I don’t appreciate the attention and the kind visit, but who? Who did you say?
Ananias is told: “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16 I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
And he does. We too are able to change; to be transformed.
“Change my heart, O God.” It’s one of this congregation’s favorite songs. And that should be our prayer. Because we never know when God is going to pop into our lives with a special request, as in the case of Ananias. No doubt he was living the ordinary life in Damascus, just doing his thing. The same is true for us. We know from scientific research that our brains can be changed, in some cases. So can our hearts, if we but listen for God’s voice. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
2 Easter (Year C)
John 20: 19-31
St. John’s, West Seneca
April 27, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today we have before us Thomas, one of the twelve. For whatever reason, he was not there when Jesus appeared to the others. Perhaps he wanted to grieve alone. Or maybe he was distraught, maybe bitter because of the crucifixion? When told of the resurrection, Thomas probably had questions, even before he made his statement that he needed to see and to touch the risen Jesus.
Thomas has had to walk the halls of history known as "Doubting Thomas." That’s almost as bad as “Ethelred the Unready,” or “Louis the Fat.” Thomas has suffered because of this label. It’s part of our language. To be called a “Doubting Thomas”, is either a reprimand at best, and at worst, an insult. Too many times this Gospel text is used to beat people over the head: “Don’t be a doubting Thomas…” We need to consider Thomas from a different perspective; we should look at him not as one who is lacking, but as one who needs to believe.
The cabin lights had been dimmed, blankets pulled over legs or shoulders, and as usual, I was trying to will myself to fall asleep as the Boeing 737 conveyed us across the Atlantic. My wife and I were heading to England to visit my family and to introduce our six-month-old son to them. We’d been able to secure a coveted bulkhead seat with a bassinet, but there was no seat available for me there, so I found myself a couple of rows back. This was in the days before omnipresent screens on the back of seats: days when we read books, or chatted with strangers, or listened to a favorite band’s latest cassette on a Walkman.
But on that particular flight I did something different: I listened to my neighbor, book in hand, wife’s head on shoulder, gently chanting in a sing-song way in a language I did not recognize. I was hardly a well-seasoned international traveler, but still, that struck me as unusual. When he finished, he closed the book, eased his now sleeping wife into a comfortable position, and then sat, staring ahead.
My curiosity finally got the better of me, and I asked him if he wouldn’t mind telling me what he had been singing. He turned his body toward me and laid a hand on the book in his lap. “It is the custom of my people to read the four gospels in the Bible aloud during the season of Lent. It has become the practice of my wife and I to sing the words to each other at the end of the day, and this was the first opportunity we’ve had since we began our journey earlier. I hope I did not disturb you.”
“Not at all,” I assured him. “What a meaningful practice.”
“You are a Christian?” he asked.
And then—in the way we used to do while spending multiple hours in close proximity as planes winged us to our destinations—we quietly spoke. Beginning as usual with where we were going and why, where we were coming from (me, Texas, but England originally; he, Kerala in India), we moved on to speak of our shared faith, our families, our communities. At some point I realized we hadn’t introduced ourselves.
“My name’s Sean, by the way.”
“And I’m Thomas. It’s good to meet you, brother.”
And then I said something that still causes me to wince whenever I recall this particular conversation.
“And how long have your people been Christians?”
Much to his credit, he didn’t respond in any of the ways he could have done, many of which I have imagined in the years since. After all, the crass assumption that lay beneath my question was that people from my homeland must have gone as missionaries to his homeland. There were all manner of sarcastic or offended responses my traveling companion could have made. I’m sure my world religion and cross-cultural mission professors from seminary would have shaken their heads in disappointment.
His response was simply to smile and say, “My name is Thomas.”
I looked at him blankly, not understanding, thinking he had perhaps misheard me. “My name is Thomas,” he repeated. “My people have been Christians for about 2,000 years.”
He didn’t continue in the way I would have been tempted to, by saying, “And how long have your people been Christians?” Instead, he gently explained that St. Thomas is believed to have brought the Christian faith to India, and he is descended from a long line of faithful Christians. Me? I’m the first person on either side of my family for unknown generations to become a follower of Jesus.
Whenever we get to the story of “Doubting Thomas” in the lectionary, I remember my encounter with another Thomas, from Kerala.
So let’s take a look again at Thomas. He is at a disadvantage, for the ten had seen him, been in his presence. Again, for whatever reason. Thomas – who no doubt believed his fellow disciples – simply needed the physical presence of Jesus, not so much to be sure, but to have the experience that the others had. And it happens, when they are gathered once again and Jesus appears and Thomas – at that point – has no need to put his hands on Jesus’ wounds. He believes.
We are like Thomas, with our questions and need for evidence. In our modern society, with all its technology and research, we have evidence at our fingertips. But think on this. Who among us has not doubted? How many of us don’t take little things on faith?
- How many of us check the carton of eggs for cracks?
- Or, if purchasing fast food, check the order to make sure all is there?
So, if we do not take the little things on faith, how can we take the big ones?
Thomas is tactile and needed tangible proof, and he’s expressed out loud what countless believers after him will repeat. Things like: Jesus appeared to Paul, why doesn’t he appear to me? God spoke to Moses, so why don’t I get a burning bush? The archangel Gabriel came to Mary, why not…and then, you fill in the blank.
As Jesus returns to engage his last doubting disciple, he appears as dramatically as he did when he met with the 10. He offers the same words “Peace be with you” to Thomas. And further understanding what Thomas needs, he provides evidence of himself as living and risen.
Consider what Jesus did not do. Jesus did not punish Thomas or ignore him. Jesus does not shame Thomas or patronize him, nor did Jesus marginalize him.
Today God does the same, reaching out to those of us who have questions.
Scripture is filled with those who doubt. Abraham was incredulous and Sarah hysterical with doubt when God promised them a son in their advanced years. Jonah's faith was so doubt-filled that he tried to run away from his mission to Nineveh completely. Jesus's disciples were constantly doubting. Despite the fact that they were witnesses to the remarkable powers Jesus commanded, they still panicked: "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” When Jesus was peacefully napping through a storm at sea. Luke records that after the resurrection these same disciples "disbelieved for joy and wonder". Jesus himself, the incarnation of faithfulness, cried out on the cross in doubt, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Jesus provides us with the greatest example of faith even in the midst of despair. It has been said, a faith that does not doubt is a dead faith. One mark of great faith is a continuous struggle to get it, keep it, share it. The early church embraced doubt, finding comfort in the image of a doubt-riddled Jesus praying in the Gethsemane Garden for the cup to pass from him.
True doubts grow naturally out of true faith. We know that God, can never be proven in the way we want. Theologian Richard John Neuhaus correctly points out that we use "the term 'believer' to describe a person who is persuaded of the reality of God. The alternative to being a believer, of course, is to be a knower."
Honest doubts and questions should not be suppressed. Thomas voiced his doubts about Jesus's miraculous return. But he continued to remain in the midst of the company of the disciples. He took the good news of Jesus to India.
There is the story of a young girl who asked her Sunday School teacher questions, only to be told me that it was wrong to ask questions and have doubts. So she asked yet another question: “Is God afraid of my questions and doubts?” She said she came to realize that God’s not afraid but her teacher sure was.
No, God is not afraid of doubt. Today’s story of Thomas proves that. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
Easter (Year C)
Luke 24:1-12
St. John’s, West Seneca
April 20, 2025
1 On the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
It was always the same. The women who came to the tomb that Sunday morning had done this before, always a sad, but necessary task for a loved one. They were familiar with death. There were no illusions that this day could be any different. It was always the same.
This is why the women came with spices that morning. You didn't bring those along unless you were expecting to find death. Jewish burial rites at the time meant anointing the dead body with spices to hasten decomposition and cut down the smell. Then, a year later, they came back among the rocks and gathered the remaining bones. They put them in a stone box called an ossuary, and then put the box in a niche in the back of the tomb. The same tomb would be used many times.
That morning they came to anoint the body of the one whom they had hoped would bring new life to a world desperately looking for it. When Jesus had been with them, it seemed to them that anything was possible. Just consider what they had witnessed: people healed from disease; demons cast out; even the death being brought back to life. They had listened as He spoke of the kingdom of God, a whole new world with a very different type of life, one where the last were first; one with no pain, where sin and brokenness were freely forgiven. And it wasn’t a far-off dream, but now, breaking in on this world.
And now that was gone. Jesus had been crucified as a common criminal, a threat to the religious order, and the world order. “He had talked as if he was from somewhere else, not from this world. His authority and wisdom seemed to be otherworldly. At the same time, however, he was fully human —fully like them, like us. These women, like so many others, had their view of the world changed by this one who at once seemed so alien, and yet, so familiar.”
All that vanished; He had died, and now the familiar ritual needed to be performed. On that morning, these women were certain that they would not find signs of life. In a moment, all changed. The stone had been rolled away and there was no body in the tomb. What they did encounter were "two men in dazzling white clothes" standing beside them. They were terrified at this sign, they bowed their faces to the ground. Then these men asked: "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” Same old, same old, no more. There was life among the dead, the very thing that Jesus had spoken of.
And then came another question; “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again?”
They remembered his words. They remembered.
Why do you seek the living among the dead? Could those women have remembered? It has been a terrible few days, and the Friday had brought only despair and death, no doubt their memories were clouded with grief and sadness. That is understandable. What about us?
One pastor wrote: “What really struck me in reading the text was the notion of remembering. The women did not expect to find signs of life at the tomb, but, as the two men remind the women, they would have expected this if they had remembered what Jesus told them. As we look at the world around us, what are we called to remember about what Jesus told us? Where can we expect to find life?”*
That’s our question: Where can we expect to find life? In our busy, over-scheduled, chaotic, often fragile, world, where do we find life? And not just any old life, but the abundant one that God offers us on this Resurrection Day and every day. As N.T. Wright – an English scholar and theologian - states: “Then, as now, claiming that somebody was alive again — particularly somebody who made the sort of claims that Jesus made or were made about him — was revolutionary. It was dangerous talk. So if people don’t like dangerous talk, then stay away from Easter is my advice.”
But why would you do that? With all of our complaining about our lives, why would we stay away from Easter?
In writing about living our lives fully, Anna Quindlen wrote “…you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on the bus, or in the car or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.”**
So what are you going to do? It strikes me that we respond with joy, that we take seriously the words Jesus spoke and put them into action. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and body, and your neighbor as yourself. It is radical. And it’s dangerous. The old rules, the old ways we have of separating people just don’t work anymore. There is no male or female, Jew or Gentile, slave or free. It’s time to live it. Look at the headlines and you will see who is not being loved as we are loved.
Last week I came across this from the Roman philosopher Seneca, who was a Stoic. Now stoicism is a philosophy – one focused on cultivating virtue, resilience, and well-being through focusing on what we can control, as well as practicing self-awareness. There are four virtues for the stoic: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Seneca lived at the same time as Jesus. When considering life, this is what he wrote:
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury, and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death's final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: We are not given a short life, but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied, but wasteful of it ... Life is long if you know how to use it.”
Being at Mercy Hospital full-time, I often see lives cut short, so Seneca’s words hit me hard. We do waste our time with foolish things, trying in vain to fill the “God-shaped” hole with everything but what God offers. You know, sex, drugs, rock and roll. Add to that, keeping up with the Joneses, buying into every new fad and gadget that comes along, only to lose interest, way too much time online watching other people’s lives when we should be living ours. And Seneca hit on it. As Christians, we are not “ill-supplied;” God is abundant in his love and grace, if not, we would not be celebrating this day.
So, remember what Jesus said, remember God’s promises, and live. God is calling each and every one of us. God is calling us to new life this day and every day because we are caught in our endless routines that too often lead to a meaninglessness existence. We are often like those women, going about our business, and we need to be taken aback by an empty tomb and a question: Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Why indeed? The abundant life is ever before us. And yes, it is radical, but so is God! A blessed Easter. Alleluia! He is risen! Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
*--Rev. Kevin A. Bowers, Bethany Presbyterian Church, Lafayette, Indiana
**--Anna Quindlen, A Short Guide to a Happy Life (Random House, 2000)..
Passion Sunday (Year C)
St. John’s, West Seneca
April 12, 2025
(for Saturday service)
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
When we celebrate Palm Sunday, now called Sunday of the Passion, we see – as today – Jesus making his preparations for the Passover. He needed a colt, and indeed, one was found. He rides into Jerusalem, the crowds surrounding him, laying palms before him.
“Jesus was accustomed to the crowds. He was always around crowds for the entire three years while he was teaching, preaching, healing and performing miracles.
"Remember, there was a crowd around him when he delivered his Sermon on the Mount. He fed a crowd of 5,000 men besides women and children in Jewish territory. Later, he fed a crowd of 4,000 in Gentile territory. He called Zacchaeus down from the sycamore tree when the short tax collector climbed it to see Jesus in the crowd.
“Having a large crowd of people around Jesus on Palm Sunday was no problem for him at all, but everyone in that crowd was not there for the right reason. ...
"There were five distinct crowds that included people with five different agendas and five different motives. ...
"The curious crowd had seen Jesus preach, teach, heal and perform many miracles over a three-year period. These people had a curious mentality. ...
"The confused crowd is illustrated in Matthew 21:10-11, “When Jesus came to Jerusalem, everyone in the city was excited and asked, “Who can this be?”. ... Even though they were following him, they were still confused about who Jesus was. ...
"The third group included the pretenders. They were in the crowd on Palm Sunday pretending to be committed to Jesus. They were pretending, but they were not fully sold out. ...
"The fourth group included the opposers like the Pharisees and the Sadducees. ... There are opposers today who promote their own interests and their own agendas. Opposers try to tear down God’s people just like the Pharisees and Sadducees tried to do to Jesus. ...
"The committed crowd is the last group and the one most people say they are in. However, this is the smallest group.” — Margaret Minnicks, “5 types of people in the Palm Sunday crowd,” LetterPile.com, April 21, 2018.
As we come to Holy Week, we need to know which crowd we are in. Are we in with Jesus, or out? Are we still confused? Curious? Committed?
Wherever you find yourself, Lent is the time to be attentive, and as we come to the end of this season, most of us want to take stock. Are we committed to Jesus, or do we need to tidy a few things up, make a few adjustments in life and attitude?
Do you remember when I mentioned an article I had read that stated that the key to the faith and to being the church was to keep worship weird? “The trick isn’t to make church cool; it’s to keep worship weird.” And then…“You can get a cup of coffee with your friends anywhere, but church is the only place you can get ashes smudged on your forehead as a reminder of your mortality…You can snag all sorts of free swag for brand loyalty online, but church is the only place where you are named a beloved child of God with a cold plunge into the water. You can share food with the hungry at any homeless shelter, but only the church teaches that a shared meal brings us into the very presence of God.”
If you want to shore up strength for the next months, what comes this week will do exactly that, and it is the very embodiment of “weird” worship. You just can’t do this anywhere else. Wonderful and strange things are happening this week and we repeat the narrative each year: the joy and fear, life and death, the human and the divine. It’s going to be a wild week.
And we need this. None of us can survive in a life that is empty of ritual. For all of our scoffing about ritual, the truth is….we need it, especially in this chaotic world. We need special markings and moments to help us define our lives and the passing of our days. To this end, all of us create rituals that help guide us forward and bring us back again. Some rituals are practiced so often they become ingrained habits. We have 'morning rituals'--which help us get up and prepare to face a new day. Whatever form they take, these rituals help settle our souls.
Rituals move us through life with intention and integrity. Without rituals, the sands of time just pass through the hourglass of our lives, just plodding on with nothing that separates one moment from the next. With rituals, we create a particular pattern that helps tell the story of our lives.
The church, of course, is steeped in ritual. Now, some denominations are taught to view rituals suspiciously, believing them to be a substitution – and a superstitious one at that - for true faith and piety. But as long as a ritual reaches our hearts and speaks a message to our souls, we are enriched in our faith life.
That is what this week is all about. Ritual. The power of symbols. Passion or Palm Sunday is a joyous day for now, Palms and shouts of Hosanna. But as the week marches on, the scene changes.
Holy Thursday brings us footwashing, something a servant does, and something Jesus does for his disciples. There is the New Commandment, a Passover meal to remember how God delivered the people out of slavery in Egypt into the promised land. Then there is a new meal of bread and wine.
There is the Garden of Gethsemene, and we will end the service with the stripping of the altar, symbolizing Jesus being stripped of his garments and his dignity.
On Good Friday, we will listen to John’s passion reading, for the bidding prayer. Some years I have used the solemn reproaches. The cross is at the center, the candles will be extinguished one by one, and Jesus will be laid in the tomb. There will be a harsh and jarring sound – the strepidus – as the tomb is sealed. We will leave in silence.
We keep track this week of what is happening to Jesus, and we keep track of what God is doing for us. It is as simple as that.
Each year we are given forty days, ten percent, or a tithe. We call it Lent, and it is a time for reflecting on our faith, our lives, who we are as children of God. We do it every year. The holiest week of the year is upon us. We need not shy away from the pain and struggle that this week brings, or the weirdness. I don’t know how one celebrates Easter without thinking on these things. The most faithful and joyous people I know look to this week as the centerpiece of their faith. It is a busy week; but that’s the beauty of it. It gives us time to re-build, begin anew, knowing that Jesus is going before us and is waiting for us.
This is our life; it is what we do. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
5 Lent (Year C)
John 12 1-8
St. John’s, West Seneca
April 6, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
Is there every a time or place where wasting something is appropriate? The question of “wasting,” is important; I know that I think of all I waste, not intentionally, of course. But consider the food we waste. Or the gadgets we can buy so we won’t waste. But a good thing?
We are told that Jesus – six days before Passover – has returned to Bethany, where he is dining with Lazarus – whom he had raised from the dead - and his sisters, Mary and Martha. Mary does something out of the ordinary; it is as if she knows that Jesus will not be among them much longer. Mary took a pound of very expensive nard and anoints Jesus’s feet. Her sister Martha is the one who is mostly preparing the meal. Mary attends solely to Jesus by taking a pound of this expensive ointment and anointing Jesus’s feet. This aromatic oil could have cost as much as a year’s worth of wages for a day laborer. This isn’t the anointing of a king or a priest — those rituals use the oil on the head.
Now, it was not uncommon in those days to anoint the head of a guest as a sign of respect, but in those cases, only a few drops of oil would normally be used. The pouring of great amounts of oil — again, on the head — was the kind of anointing that was considered sacred, and it was usually reserved for designating someone as a king or priest. The anointing marked that person for divine service. So while we have no way of knowing exactly what Mary was thinking. This act appears to be more than simple respect. As Mary is the attentive one, this seems to express her belief that Jesus is the Savior who was promised.
One can only imagine what the others thought, and so John has Judas ask the question: “Why this waste?” His suggestion that the perfume could have been sold and that the money could have been given to the poor seems like a plausible, even better, course of action. Jesus urges Judas to let Mary be and reminds that they will always have the poor with them.
This one woman knows and understands that Jesus will soon die, and she does what she must to prepare for the moment. It is lost on Judas, and probably the others as well.
Jesus also responds to Judas’s statement that the poor could have benefited from the sale of the ointment. He is clear that there are always poor people to be helped, but there is an undertone here. “Yes, this perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor, but would it have? If you had an extra 300 denarii in your hands right now, would you give it to the poor? Is that really where it would end up?” A good question for us, as well.
Jesus challenges Judas’s assumption – and perhaps ours - that the perfume — and Mary’s act — was wasted. Jesus was aware that most people resist waste. That is true yet today. We too often think of what we have wasted rather than what we have received. We give a child an expensive toy for Christmas, and he has a wonderful time playing with ... the box the toy came in. Rather than enjoying a child’s pleasure, we’re bothered that the toy itself is unloved. What a waste, we think, even if we don’t say it.
I am reminded of Dorothy Day, who has been called a saint. “She took her Christian faith right into the most dreadful slums of New York City. There she established the first Catholic Worker House, a place of radical Christian discipleship.
"That house became a place of hospitality for the down and out — for men Day later described as ‘grey men, the color of lifeless trees and bushes and winter soil, who had in them as yet none of the green of hope, the rising sap of faith.’ Not long after, the Catholic Worker House began welcoming women and children as well.
"One day, a wealthy socialite pulled up to the house, in a big car. She received the obligatory tour of the mission from Day herself. When she was about to leave, the woman impulsively pulled a diamond ring off her finger and handed it to Day.
"The staff was ecstatic when they heard about this act of generosity. The ring, they realized, could be sold for a princely sum — enough money to take some pressure off the budget, at least for a while.
"A day or two later, though, one of them noticed the diamond ring on the finger of a homeless woman who was leaving the mission. Immediately, the staff members confronted Day. Why, in heaven’s name, would she just give away a valuable piece of jewelry like that?
"Day responded: ‘That woman was admiring the ring. She thought it was so beautiful. So I gave it to her. Do you think God made diamonds just for the rich?’”
I said a few weeks ago that we do not understand God’s economy. Maybe we need to do some re-thinking of what is wasteful.
Mary and her perfume challenges us to think about that which we are quick to label “wasted” — wasted time, wasted effort, wasted talent, wasted money, wasted commitment, wasted life. Some of those things may indeed be true, but we can’t always be sure. Waste, perhaps, can only be correctly identified based on whatever comes next. Sometimes what is “wasted” changes the world — or at least us — for the better.
Mary reminds us that some of those things we’re quick to call wasted surely are not. Instead, they’re wonderful gifts of great extravagance, poured on us by love itself. This costly perfume and Mary’s gesture of anointing Jesus was missed by the disciples, and certainly by Judas. And what is remarkable is that they missed the obvious. What was the purpose of that oil? To anoint a king and prepare the body for burial.
She has done a beautiful thing, a right thing, but the rightness is of a different order. Of course the money could have been used for the poor, yet good deeds without love are oddly empty. To give to the poor while refusing to assist and comfort the one next to you is as wrong as ignoring the world to concentrate on personal concerns. It is all in the timing, isn’t it?
Do we understand the timing of this gesture? Do we understand the this radical generosity? Think for a minute when you hear of a family member or friend is in the hospital. What do you do? You buy flowers; almost always expensive, and certainly extravagant. Why? Perhaps because in a moment we – you and I – understand the fragility of life, and desire nothing more than to give something beautiful, something bright for the hospital room.
This text defies all logic and common sense; for who would take what was worth a year’s wages and simply pour it on Jesus’s feet? She could have sold it and used the money for herself. Who would? No one, if you thought about it.
This story also contrasts two very different ways of discipleship; it is a study in contrast. “One person is lavish with her gifts; the other is parsimonious and critical. One expresses her devotion openly and earnestly; the other is guarded and treacherous. One loves; the other betrays.”
But…selfless love, extravagant love, as Mary knows, as the disciples know, does not consider the cost; it considers the outcome. If Mary had counted the cost, she may indeed have sold that precious, expensive oil. But she did not. She considered the one who loved her. And it was not wasted. When we find ourselves in an act of selfless love, an act of kindness, a moment of compassion, the cost is just not important.
How might we live a life of lavish discipleship? How can we be more generous hosts, more extravagant in our giving? How can we be a little Christ to all we meet?
We model ourselves on what God does each and every day. God is extravagant, as we saw in last week’s Gospel of the Prodigal Son, or should I say, Prodigal Father. Our actions should be as well. Our God looks at the creation and sees that it was good, just as Mary saw the good. God, in a selfless love, has destroyed the power of sin and death.
One of the mandates of Lent is to do works of love. This text ends with Jesus reprimanding Judas: “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Mary did a thing of great beauty, of great cost. In Lent we should do the same.
As we soon come to the holiest of weeks, we will see that God does not consider the cost. And neither should we. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
Contact
