13 May 2012

Acts 10:44-48
Psalm 98
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

As is the case with most western languages, English is usually more than adequate for translating what is expressed in the original Koine Greek of the New Testament -- until it comes to what is translated into English as love. Whenever you hear the word love anywhere in the English New Testament, you can bet that in the Greek it’s not saying what we mean when we say love. You can bet that the Greek text isn’t talking about romantic love; that it’s not talking about attraction, nor about love between friends and family, nor about loving ice-cream nor about loving a particular style or composer of music. So when we in today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus commanding us to love one another as Jesus himself has loved us – you can be sure that he isn’t commanding us to gin up from within ourselves feelings of an especially high regard for one another. In John’s Gospel the love that Jesus shows his disciples is something altogether different.

6 May 2012

Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:25-31
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fear is fun. Or so one would think, since fear seems to be our national pastime. Witness, for example, this nation’s fear-based reluctance to even consider the most minutely modest of gun-control measures; after all, you never know when or where a rapist, a murderer, or some other sort of crazed criminal may be lurking and “out to getcha.” If only, you know, there had been someone carrying a concealed weapon that day on the Virginia Tech campus when a lone, gun-toting mad man went on a shooting spree. Of course some of the fear mongers will argue that the perpetrator probably shouldn’t have had a gun in the first place – he wasn’t white you know – an “oriental,” and you know how sneaky they still are after all these years. Yes, we need our weapons; after all, you never can tell when a young, black, hoodie-wearing male might walk through your neighborhood looking hostile and all hopped-up on iced-tea and Skittles, doubtless hiding a gun somewhere on his person. (Though, depending on the courts, it still may prove be OK in Florida for white-looking people to hide guns somewhere on their persons and to use them when feeling intimidated. Gotta be afraid of those who are different.)

29 April 2012

Acts 4:5-12
Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18

In the sweet and holy Name of Jesus. Amen.

How shall we speak of God this day? Quite simply. And though quite simply, quite oddly. God is like a shepherd. Like a shepherd who would die for a sheep. And if we don’t think that’s odd and just plain weird . . . well, let me ask you. Would you give your life in order that a mere sheep have life?

22 April 2012

Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48

15 April 2012

Acts 4:32-35
Psalm 133
1 John 1:1–2:2
John 20:19-31

8 April 2012

Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Acts 10:34-43
Mark 16:1-8

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome go very early in the morning to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus. And when they get there they see that the stone at the entrance to the tomb has been rolled away. And so they go in, and there, they see . . . they see . . .  some glow-in-the-dark-figure sitting where the body had been! And then they hear Mr. Glow-in-the-dark say that Jesus has been raised, that they need to go and tell Peter and the others that Jesus is waiting for them in Galilee – and so, “they flee from the tomb,” as Mark’s Greek has it, “for they’re undergoing trauma and having an out-of-body experience and they’re saying nothing to no one for they are terrorized.”