The 6th Sunday of Easter - Speaking and Acting on the Hope Within You

From today's epistle reading comes this quote:  "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence."

In seminary when we were preparing preach our extemporaneous sermons with only a half-hour to prepare--and groaning about how hard it was to get something intelligent and meaningful organized in so short a time--our professor paraphrased this quote from the first letter from Peter:  "You must always be ready to speak of the hope that is in you."

How important is the word "hope" in our scripture?  It appears 45 times in the 27 books of the New Testament mostly in the letters written to the early churches.. St. Paul included it as one of the top three enduring facets of our relationship to God (faith, hope and love). 

In the first letter Peter wrote to the Christian communities in Asia Minor, he spoke about "a living hope" given to Christians by "the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."  In the passage we heard this morning Peter claims that our baptism results in our being saved by God.  God wants us to live in such a way that our conscience is clear, and baptism is our path to that goal. Now God can clearly understand our desire for salvation, because the resurrected Jesus has returned to the Godhead and all the powers of heaven are his.

The theme of hope can be discerned in the reading from John’s gospel today as well.  Jesus, in this passage from John's gospel, marks a promise to the disciples not to leave them in an orphaned state.  He promises an Advocate, the Spirit who will encourage them, represent the truth about God and dwell within them.  He speaks to them, as a group, whose hope is for life eternal.  He assures them, ". . . Because I live, you also will live."

So hope—in the sense these readings portray—centers around Jesus—especially his overcoming death.  By his overcoming death, Jesus offers a path through the fear that our lives with their pain and suffering and their transient joys are all that we can expect.  Death isn't the end.  Union with God in the joy that comes from living in eternal presence of God's love becomes our hope.  The popular focus on reports of near death experiences today comes, I believe, from our need to seek the same reassurance Jesus understood the disciples to need.

But the other part of our "living hope" should focus on our lives and our world today.  In two weeks, we will celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit into the lives of the disciples and, by extension, into our lives as well.  The Feast of Pentecost will highlight the part of hope which focuses on our tasks as believers in the "meantime"--the time between when Jesus returned to the Godhead and when we believe he will come again to establish fully the reign of God with peace and justice and freedom from the oppression of sin--other people's and our own!  Liturgically we call this Ordinary Time (when our “color” in worship becomes green.)

Our "living hope" in Ordinary Time becomes what we pray for and what we work for.  Yes, we long for salvation, but there should be much more to our hope than that.  We may disagree about the means, but our prayers of petition and intercession and our actions that follow from these prayers should reflect our hope for lives in which God's love for us and God's compassion for those in need can be fully seen.  This means holding up to God the concerns from our lives, from the lives of those we love and from the lives of those we only read about in the newspaper or hear about through other media.  This means taking action about these concerns as well.

There’s a litany from “A Wee Worship Book,” created by The Iona Community in Scotland, which encapsulates this “living hope.”  I’d like to close by sharing it with you—and your response is “Christ is coming to make all things new.”

“Among the poor, among the proud,

Among the persecuted,

Among the privileged,

Christ is coming to make all things new.

In the private house, in the public place,

In the wedding feast,

In the judgment hall,

Christ is coming to make all things new.

With a gentle touch, with an angry word,

With a clear conscience,

With burning love,

Christ is coming to make all things new.

That the kingdom might come, that the world might believe,

That the powerful might stumble,

That the hidden might be seen,

Christ is coming to make all things new.

Within us, without us, behind us, before us,

In this place, in every place,

For this time, for all time,

Christ is coming to make all things new.”

So with the “living hope” given to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ may we join with Christ in working to make all things new.  Amen.

The 5th Sunday of Easter - Sunday Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of our Founding - May 18, 2014

In today's gospel reading two important questions get thrown out by the intrepid disciples, Thomas and Phillip. First, Thomas asks, "How can we know the way?"   Then Phillip chimes in with a question phrased as a demand, "Show us . . . and we shall be satisfied."   As human beings, we realize that knowing something gives us confidence.  We can be certain that we won't look foolish if what we believe is true.

Why couldn't these disciples get it?  Spending lots of time with Jesus still hasn't convinced them that Jesus is the one they were hoping for--the Messiah who would liberate them from oppression and restore Israel.  The gospel reading today from the section of John’s gospel called Jesus' farewell address. It takes place after he had washed the disciples’ feet.  In it he urges the disciples to love one another.  He tries to explain how he will have to leave them.  But after he has gone, he will send the Holy Spirit to be their companion and sustain them in the trials they will face.  He defines himself using the phrase from the Hebrew scripture that indicates the divine: "I am . . . " -  "I am the way, the truth and the life," in today's gospel.  "I am the true vine," in the following chapter.

Finally at the end of his address tells his disciples that he will tell them plainly--without using "figures of speech"--about God.  Here's what he says at the end of the 16th chapter of John: "The Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and believed that I came from God.  I left the Father and came into the world.  I tell you again: I am leaving the world and returning to the Father."   Then Jesus' disciples claim they finally understand because of his plain speaking.  Jesus skeptically replies that they may believe now, but soon they will abandon him.

As I think about this story, I believe this interaction between Jesus and his disciples reflects our own struggles to understand who Jesus is and to live as he taught.  When we arrive for worship each Sunday, are we hoping for a revelation from God that prove the truth of our beliefs, proof that explains everything about God and the way to a relationship with God?

In the 50 years that St. Nicholas' folks have met for worship, we have hoped for answers; we have struggled with our questions.  At times much seems clear--at other times it all appears quite cloudy. We have found, as the disciples eventually did, that God manifests God's self best when together we ask the questions and together we wait for God's answers.

Private prayer should be an important part of our Christian practice.  But we will surely encounter Christ as we belong to and worship in a Christian community like St. Nicholas and when we work with each other in service to others.  As the disciples' encounters with Jesus and with each other were not always easy or smooth sailing, our encounters with one another in this St. Nicholas' community can be fraught at times.  But by placing the Christ we have encountered at the center of our life together--as we have done for 50 years--we will be enabled to understand God's love for us more clearly and follow Christ's command to love each other more nearly every day we are given.

[I asked any members of the congregation who would like to speak to respond to my remarks by saying in a few sentences how being part of the St. Nicholas' community helped them in their faith journey.  A number of people spoke very movingly.]

Homily for the 50th Anniversary of the Founding of St. Nicholas - May 17, 2014

        Today we give thanks for 50 years of God's blessing on this community, this assembly that began to meet in the living room of Fr. Sheehan's home, then in the bowling alley, then in Kirk School and finally in the building where we sit today.  In preparing for today, when I looked at the pictures gathered over the years, I gained a sense of the decades of prayer and service and fellowship that comprised 85% of your life together before I joined you on this journey.

As I thought about our life together during the last almost eight years and the readings today from the first letter of Peter and from Matthew's gospel, the children's story of "Stone Soup" came to mind.  You know the story of hungry travelers who convinced villagers to part with a little of this vegetable and a little of that spice to put in the water, along with the stone, to make the soup better.  What began as a stone and some water in a soup pot turned into a amazingly delicious meal.  This story speaks of generosity--yes, a story of the sharing of blessings, given by nature, to make something more wonderful than any of the villagers could have made on their own.

It seems entirely appropriate that our readings for this anniversary celebration contain references to stones, an important resource for building a structure that will last. Stones can make up a strong foundation for a building; stones can be laid on top of one another to make the walls of a structure.  If they are properly engineered, stone buildings will last for centuries. We hear from Jesus that the foundation of our faith and how we live out our faith needs to finds its base in his words.  Jesus becomes the rock upon which we as wise people build the houses of our lives.

At St. Nicholas' we find our foundation in our weekly hearing of God’s Word and in our weekly receiving Christ within us as bread and wine.  We also find our foundation in our service to others in the name of Jesus Christ who are hungry and may be homeless.

Jesus might also be called the stone at the center of our St. Nicholas' "soup."  He draws us into relationship by his presence in our midst, mediated by the Holy Spirit.  Each of us brings with us something to add to this “soup”: something we do well, an enthusiastic attitude, problem solving skills, compassion, clear thinking, a willingness to work, an encouraging spirit, leadership talents, and many more gifts of God to enrich our life together.

Yes, transformed into being more in the "soup" than we could ever manage to be on our own, we become living stones--components of a very special stone soup, you could say, with Christ at the center.  Let us reflect with gratitude on the 50 years of God's “soup making” here. May each of us continue to respond to God's presence in our midst by adding something unique and wonderful to our common life.  May the "soup" we will become over the next 50 years provide nourishment and sustenance not only for ourselves, but also for our neighbors—and even for the whole world.