This week's sermon

 

Easter 6

        If you were here last Sunday, you know I talked about two words: “love” and “abide”.

        At the time, I thought I had talked out love and abide.

        Imagine my surprise when I read today’s lessons.

        The letter and the Gospel of John weren’t through with love and abide.

        “Everyone who loves the parent loves the child.”

        Then Jesus tells his disciples: “As the father loves me, so I have loved you; abide in my love”.

        But a new word stands out—commandment.

        “…we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments.”

        Then in the Gospel: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”

        “This is my commandment, that you love one another….I do not call you servants anymore , because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my father.”

 

        Jesus also says that there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends.

        And that is exactly what he is going to do for his friends.

 

        I don’t take well to be given commandments.

        Ask any bishop I’ve ever served with!

       

        But Jesus’ commandment is not like that. He commands us to love one another and to abide in his love.

 

        It is ‘agape’ love we are called to. Complete and total love—love that gives itself away and allows us to abide in love.

        One story from last week because we need to hear it again. I told you how, as a boy in Southern West Virginia people would say from their porches, “Jimmy, come up and ‘bide’ a spell.”

        It was an invitation to just ‘be’ with them, no expectations or requirements—just to ‘be’ on the rocking chairs on their porches.

        That’s what Jesus means by ‘abide’—to just ‘be’ with him, in his presence, on his front porch.

        So, a command to ‘just be’ is a commandment I don’t resist or object to.

        To just ‘be’ in the presence of love….

 

        We all know it isn’t easy to ‘love one another”.

        Some people don’t seem lovable. They can be harsh and vindictive and terribly wicked.

        So, we need the light to get in so we can see them in a different way.

        I’m reading a book by the Canadian novelist, Louise Penny. This one is called “How the Light Gets In”.

        The title is from a poem/song by Lenord Cohen that goes: “Ring the bells that still can ring./Forget your perfect offering./ There’s a crack in everything./ That’s how the light gets in.”

        It’s crack in our brains that lets the light get in and into our hearts.

        Let the light get in, beloved. Abide in the light. Vanquish darkness. And live into our love for each other.

        Let the Light of God flood your hearts.

Shalom and Amen.

       

       

 

toothless

I had a tooth removed today.

It's on the right side, near the back.

It's still bleeding, though there is a stitch in it that will disappear in a few days.

I can't have an implant or a bridge because my gum is retracting in that area.

I have pain pills, but no pain yet. And another set of pills to take for 5 days, plus a mouthwash to use in 3 days.

The dentist and his assistant were great. A painless procedure if you don't count the shots to numb it.

But it's on the side where I normally chew and I won't learn for a while what that will be like.

Altogether, not a great day.

Hope yours was better.

Shalom, Jim

 

my two plastic friends

 We have two plastic owls on our back deck.

I've named them Oliver and Olivia. "Olli" is short for Oliver.

I talk to them when I'm alone on the deck.

Don't tell Bern--she's be thinking about putting me in 'the home'.

Olli has a moveable head and I have to straighten it up from time to time.

Olivia used to have wings and live on a pole in our back yard. When the wings fell off I put her through a hole in a round table and she's happy there.

Olli sits on the banister in a flower pot.

We have very valuable conversations....

Dreaming

 I used to dream more than I do now.

Don't know why that is--no idea.

But I do have a waking dream.

The former President is convicted and sent to prison and out of our country's life.

That's my dream.

For sure.

 

This week's sermon

Easter 5, 2024

 

          Today’s lessons are rich and wondrous. Acts tells us of Phillip’s journey to a ‘wilderness road’ to baptize an Ethiopian eunuch who was in charge of the treasury of the queen.

          Phillip interprets Isaiah, baptizes the man and is mystically transported to Azotus, where he preached the gospel all the way to Caesarea.

          Psalm 22 has the beautiful and hopeful verse:

          “The poor shall eat and be satisfied,

          And those who seek the Lord shall praise him:

          ‘May your heart live forever.’”

          Then the Epistle of John teaches us about love. Love.

          And in John’s Gospel, Jesus asks us to ABIDE with him.

 

          Today, I want to talk about LOVE and ABIDING.

          You probably know that there are three Greek words that are all translated into English as ‘love’.

         

          The three Greek words that are all translated in English as ‘love’ are “Eros”, “Phileos’ and ‘Agape”.

          The words have very different meaning.

          “Eros” we can figure out—‘erotic love’…the love between two lovers.

          “Phileos” is ‘brotherly or sisterly love’—as in the city Philadelphia.

          But “Agape” is the love that gives itself away—love that is total and complete, love that knows no limits or bounds.

          Near the end of the Gospel of John, you might recall, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Peter, do you love me?” And three times Peter answers, “Lord you know I love you”.

          Seems odd in English, that exchange, but in Greek it is different story. The first two times, Jesus askes, “Peter, do you ‘agape’ me” and Peter replies, “Lord, you know I ‘phileos’ you.”

          The third time Jesus asks he says “do you ‘phileos’ me?” and Peter responds, “Lord you know I ‘phileos’ you.”

          Peter didn’t feel worthy to give ‘agape’ love.

          But ‘love’ in today’s epistle of John is always “agape”!

          We are to have ‘agape’ love for each other, for those around us, for everyone on the planet!

          We are to love without bounds, without limits, without any restrictions.

          And we are to BE ‘agape’ in the world because ‘agape’ is from God and ‘whoever does not ‘agape’ does not know God.’

          A heavy responsibility for us—to give ourselves away to ‘agape’ so we might know God.

          There’s so much hate in our country and our world right now that we are needed by God, to give ourselves away to love and love and love.

          And we must support and…hold each other in our hearts so we might ‘love’ as God calls us to ‘love’.

 

          But what I really want to talk about today is ‘to abide’.

          “Abide” has been a part of the English language since the 11^th century. It sounds a little dated, but it is a word I love.

          Webster’s dictionary has a lot of meanings to “abide”.

          One is ‘to obey’, as in ‘abide by the law’ or ‘abide by the court’s decision.

          But that’s not what Jesus meant.

          He meant “to wait or await”, “to continue in a place—to ‘sojourn’ there”, to “remain with and stay around”—or as teens would say, to ‘hang out with’.

          I grew up in Southern West Virginia and when I would walk around the neighborhood in Spring and Summer and Early Autumn, people would be sitting on their front porches and often they would say, “Jim, come up and ‘bide a spell.”

          Nothing was expected in ‘biding a spell.

          No questions were asked. No conversation was required. You were just invited to sit in a rocking chair and ‘abide’ for a while.

          That’s lovely. And that’s Jesus’ invitation to us—to come up on the porch and take a rocking chair and ‘abide’ with him, so he can ‘abide’ with us.

          Jesus invites us to be ‘a part of the vine’.

          I am someone who does not think ‘individuality’ is more important than ‘commonality’.

          The American concept of ‘individuality’ is the root of many of the problems in our country.

          ‘Individuality’ is at the root of racial inequality, childhood poverty, the divide between right and left, the lack of attention to the ‘common good’.

          We need community, we need to be ‘part of the vine’, part of the whole.

          And we need to ‘abide’ in the vine, ‘abide’ with all people, ‘abide’ with God, ‘abide’ with each other.

          I want to invite you for a few moments, just to ‘bide with each other. No expectations, no requirements. Just ‘be’ with each other in silence. Join me.

(silence)

Thanks for ‘abiding’ with me. Amen and Amen.

 

Not much to say

 I haven't had much to say the last few days.

After my Thursday physical therapy, my knees hurt so bad I couldn't do the 'at home' exercises. I told my therapist today that I thought it was from riding the stationary bike for 10 minutes, so I didn't have to do it today.

Friday, I missed my appointment at Waterbury Hospital to get my allergy shots. Called in Monday and got an appointment this Friday.

Church was great on Sunday. I love Trinity, Milton--but I've loved all the churches I've served.

They are great people and so liberal that they put up with my far-left antics!

Hope to have more to tell you tomorrow.

This week's sermon

 

EASTER 4, 2024 (The Good Shepherd….)

 

          The 4^th Sunday of Easter is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday”. The Gospel is always from the 10^th Chapter of John, the OT reading—as in Ezekiel today—always refers to sheep and shepherds and the Psalm…O’ the Psalm…is usually the 23^rd Psalm (“The Lord is my Shepherd”) and when not it is Psalm 100 (“we are his people and the sheep of his pasture”).

          I was ordained in 1975 and in the years since then I have preached on “Good Shepherd Sunday” nearly two dozen times. And I’m here to tell you today that the well is dry, I’ve told you everything I know about sheep and shepherds, I’ve emptied the tank and exhausted my reservoir of Biblical, historical and personal information about herding sheep and tending sheep and sheep in general, never mind the shepherd who herds and tends them. I’m finished. I have nothing to say about “the Good Shepherd”. I hereby swear off sheep and shepherds for the rest of my preaching life! I am dry and finished with that metaphor.

          So, enjoy the music and come to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, but don’t expect me to talk about sheep and shepherds today….I’m taking the day off….

          However, I’m an old English major, so I’m never through with metaphors.

          A metaphor, according to my dictionary, is: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.

          The English word, “metaphor” comes from the Greek “meta-pherein”, which means, literally, “to bear”. A metaphor “bears” a second meaning.

          “You are my sunshine,” is a metaphor. Even though a person CAN’T BE “sunshine”, we all know what the metaphor means. It means that the person referred to “lights up my life”, “gives me warmth”, provides joy and comfort and meaning to life.

          (OK, if you aren’t an old English major, I’m making your eyes glaze over. But this kind of conversation “is food and drink to an old English major.” That, by the way, is a “metaphor”. Obviously a conversation about figures of speech isn’t really “food and drink”, but we all know what that means.)

 

          One thing about metaphors—they all eventually fall apart. A person, no matter how much you love them, ISN’T “sunshine” and a conversation about metaphors ISN’T “food and drink”. Metaphors all fail eventually.

          Jesus’ metaphor: “I am the good shepherd” falls apart on a couple of levels. First of all, and most obviously, Jesus wasn’t a shepherd and we aren’t sheep. Secondly, unlike metaphors about “sunshine” and “food and drink”, both of which we all have intimate knowledge about, you and I don’t know much about sheep and shepherds. We just don’t.

          So, what is the reference Jesus is making? What is the likeness and similarity of “who he is” that is comparable, in the metaphor, to being “the Good Shepherd”? What is he trying to tell us?

          There was probably something obvious to those who heard Jesus’ metaphor first hand, or those who read the metaphor in Ezekiel when it was first written, and to David as he wrote the psalms about sheep and shepherds that is not obvious to me and most likely, not obvious to you. And here’s what I think that obvious thing is: the shepherd, in their culture and experience, wasn’t just a “caretaker” of the sheep…the shepherd and the sheep were interdependent…the shepherd’s well being depended upon the sheep’s well being.

          So, what Jesus is trying to tell us in this metaphor, it seems to me, is that his relationship to us is like that as well. Jesus feels interdependent with those whom he loves. His well being depends on our well being. And for love, he was willing to lay down his life for us.

 

          Remember Jesus’ parable about the shepherd who would leave the ninety and nine sheep and go seek the one that was lost? That too is a metaphor for the love God feels for each one of us. No matter what happens, no matter how far away we roam, no matter how lost we get—God will come looking for us, seek us out, risk all for each of us.

          In most every funeral homily I give, at some point I will say that the person who died is “in the nearer presence of the one who loves them best of all.” I don’t have any idea what that means, realistically, but I “trust” with all my heart that it is so.

          That, in my mind and heart, is a Truth we shouldn’t have to wait to “trust” in. God loves each of us—each of us—“best of all”. We are never alone, no never, not ever alone. And God’s love is so eternal, so wondrous, so unfathomable that God really can love each of us “best of all….”

 

          I’m going to date myself now. How many of you know what a “Slam Book” is?

          When I was in grade school and even junior high school, people would circulate spiral notebooks for everyone to fill in. The book would ask all sorts of silly questions like: “What’s your favorite food?” and “What TV show do you like best?” and “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

          And always, always there would be a question like this: “Who do you like best of all?” That was the question about pre-adolescent and adolescent unrequited love.

          When I was in 5^th grade, Donna Comber gave me her Slam Book to fill out. The great thing about Slam Books was to read what other people wrote. And as I read it I saw that Anna Maria Osborn wrote “Jimmy Bradley” under the question “Who do you like best of all?”

          Anna Maria was the prettiest and nicest girl in our school and I was this dorky kid with a crew cut, Coke bottle thick glasses and goofy clothes. My heart leapt up! I was as close to heaven as I’d ever been! Anna Maria liked me best of all….There was nothing life could throw at me that I couldn’t handle!

          We were 10 years old and I was dorky and Anna Maria’s parents moved away that summer. But it was so incredible and astonishing to know she liked me “best of all”.

          God’s Slam Book is coming around. And when it comes to you under God’s line at the question “Who do you love best of all?” you will find, wonder of wonders—YOUR NAME. Your name and no other.

          Each of us is the one God loves best of all.

          That is what Jesus’ metaphor is trying to tell us. And we should listen. We should listen and trust that it is so….