The Church of St. Aidan in the Beach

For a link to all upcoming readings consult Revised Common Lectionary through the web link to the right.

Trinity Sunday June 3

Isaiah 6:1-8

Psalm 29

Romans 8: 12-17

John 3:1-17

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Commentary on the gospel for Pentecost

You and some friends play a lot of pick-up hockey and soccer.  You play on streets, in parks, on patches of ice, and sometimes against other teams in real games.  It’s fun, especially because one of your friends is an amazing athlete.  This person scores lots, but also defends well when others cough up the ball or puck.  S/he makes everyone better with perfect passes and always congratulates others, even when s/he did most of the finesse work setting up the play.  Sometimes you just enjoy watching the person’s graceful, powerful talent. As you play more and get better you enter more tournaments, do well and get noticed.

Then one day this person tells you that s/he has a big league try-out and won’t be around any more.  You’re happy for his or her opportunity, you understand why, but you also feel a bit lost.  You’re afraid that you will never again be as good, never again enjoy the games in the same ways.

Then s/he tells you that s/he’s going to ask his/her twin to come and coach you. The twin knows all the moves and can remind you how the plays were set up.  This coach will help develop the potential that your amazing friend started to make you believe you had.  The coach will get you to try things that you thought were impossible and will make you believe that you can do it. In days to come when you’re listening to the coach you might swear that you heard the voice of your amazing friend.

You didn’t even know that your amazing friend had a twin or that s/he would help you improve your game, but in a different way.  But after the first practice the group of you feels like it might work, even though you still wish the other twin was still here too.

***

The gospel for Pentecost (John 15: 26-27, 16:4b -15) has Jesus speaking to his disciples just before he leaves them.  They are upset because he has been their leader and now he is going away. Then he promises to send them help in the form of someone that they did now know about, the Counselor, but whom he says comes from his Father.  “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.” There is an intimate relationship between Jesus and the Counselor. It is more than genetics.  They share points of view, affection for the Father and behaviour. They clearly understand each other.

Jesus continues, “…when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.”  The disciples will still have to do some heavy lifting, but the Spirit, the Counselor, the coach, will show them how it is to be done.  He will give them true and functional guidance: instruction that will be effective.

Jesus adds, at the end of this story, “…the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.” The Spirit will use the words, example and very soul of Jesus as the basis of his instruction. As a coach, the Spirit will instruct the disciples based on the best possible example of how to perform in different situations: Jesus.

***

The Holy Spirit still coaches us today.  He draws our attention to Jesus’ example in scripture, not with flaming tongues of fire but through the words and behaviour of other Christians.  He puts us in situations where we have to follow through on his game plan to be successful, even if that is sometime tough.  We still have to practice and prepare for the roles that he will give us. But he is there, coaching us, in the same spirit, in the same style, as Christ.

***

·     Is there someone you use as an example of how you want to live? How do you study that person and model your behaviour on them?  Do you rehearse lines and situations as though you were that person?  Is that person an athlete, a rock star, an actor, writer, politician, teacher, doctor… or Christ?

·     If you have ever had someone coach you, what made that coach successful? Did they show you examples? Did they encourage you, push you hard, make practice fun?  Did your performance improve because of it?  In what way is the Spirit trying to stretch you, trying to make you do things that you wouldn’t have thought possible?

·     How do you listen to the Spirit?  Another way of asking this question is: how does the Spirit speak to you? Do you try to find a few moments of quiet in a day and say “God, I’m listening. Speak to me if you will”? If not, try it each day for a week. 

***

Commentary on Luke 24:44-53, the gospel for Ascension Day.

The gospel for Ascension Day, (Luke 24:44-53) which we use on this Sunday, is puzzling on first reading.  It opens, “He said to them, ‘This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”  We want to know what Jesus said, not just that he opened their minds. How did Jesus ‘connect the dots’?  We want Luke to give us more details than “He told them, ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations’ ”

The second puzzling thing is the ascension itself.  In one short sentence, Luke writes: “While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.”  Did he disappear into the clouds or rise into a clear blue sky until he hit the vanishing point?  Where did he go? Jesus does his ‘rocket man’ act and it is recounted in one 14-word sentence!  Doesn’t something like that beg for more description?

A final puzzle is that Jesus’ disciples “… worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.  And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.”  Were they expecting him to return again, soon?  Is that why they were happy?  Or was it because Jesus had opened their minds so they understood?  Did they understand that they would be following Jesus along a path of rejection and abuse at the hands of the authorities?

***

Like a puzzle, the pieces of the gospel are there to be organized into a coherent whole… except that the answers may not always feel like we want them to.

Jesus is the key to understanding the bible and its sometimes curious passages and prophesies.  Jesus was the personal fulfillment of these prophesies.  He is both king and servant.  He is both worshipped and abused.  He was dead but now lives.  He was so remote and awesome that people could not look at his face and live and yet he was born and lived among the poor and neglected humans.  He was man and at the same time a new creation.  There were so many apparent contradictions in his life that his disciples may well have not connected his life to the law of Moses, to the prophets and psalms.  Jesus needed to spell it out for them.

Jesus also validates scripture that we refer to as the Old Testament.  He interprets his own life in reference to these books.  He shares his insights with the disciples about the meaning of scripture.  And he makes clear that he is part of the continuous story of God’s promise in those scriptures both to the people of Israel and to the people of all nations.

***

When we think of the ascension it’s natural to wonder about how someone was “taken into heaven.”  It suggests a power that was beyond our current mastery of physics.  But wondering how he flew is a distraction.  The point is that Jesus knew that he would leave the disciples.  This was the time for him to go.

His departure also implies a happy reunion with the father whom he had honoured all his life.  Note that he said, “I am going to send you what my Father has promised.”  In other words, his ascension was part of a larger plan, rather than the end of the story, in which Jesus would send a further gift, which we know now was to be the Holy Spirit.

His departure and his promise also suggests, strongly, that he would continue to watch over us.

At the same time his departure put new importance on maintaining faith in Jesus when he is not physically present.

***

At some time each of us has had “now-I-get-it” moment in our lives. It could be a comment that someone made, that later took on new meaning.  These moments are exciting.  They reveal a new way of considering our world.  They cause us to reconsider everything we thought we knew.

On a small scale this is what it must have been like for the disciples as they considered familiar scripture in light of what Jesus had explained to them.  They saw the history of Israel and in a whole new light.  More than that!  When Jesus told them that “… repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations”  they saw themselves as having a part in the history of the world that was almost unimaginably bigger than their lives with fishing nets and tax collecting in a dusty corner of the Roman empire.

This was stimulating stuff.  No wonder “….they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

***

 Commentary on John 15:9-17: the gospel for the Sixth Sunday of Easter.

Love is the theme of the gospel for the sixth Sunday of Easter.  The gospel begins with it: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” And it ends with it: “This is my command: Love each other.”

Love is a constant theme throughout the whole of John’s gospel.  But the gospel for this coming Sunday is not a love-as-a-lesson, as when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, (John 13) or love-as-concern, as when he fed the 5,000 (John 6).  This love is happy, heartfelt, personal and expressed in a style that underscores both the humanity and the divinity of love.  One thing that makes this particular reading special is its poetry which comes from the symmetry of the phrases rather than the rhyming. (The whole gospel is reprinted below, in a poetic format.  Read it as you would a blank verse poem and see if you feel the poetry.)

The passage is a continuation of last Sunday’s gospel (John 15:1-8).  It expands on the mutual relationship of the parable of the vine and the branches.  Like the intimate connection of the vine to the branches, this gospel talks about a relationship that is so close that there is one spirit, and that spirit flows directly from the love of the father for the son to all of his followers.

***

The gospel story, itself, takes place at the Last Supper.  Jesus is hinting, broadly, at his own death when he says “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” So one question might be: what does a passage, lifted from the Last Supper, have to do with the season of Easter.

The answer has several parts.  One part is that Jesus doesn’t regard death as something that is terminal or depressing.  Despite anticipating his death he says, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” Joy would overcome any short-term sense of loss at his death.  Jesus has a way of standing conventional wisdom on its head.  He may be saying a version of ‘death is temporary and life with me is eternal.  Let’s enjoy it together’.  The price of entrance to this party is to love one another.

The Easter period started just days after this conversation at the Last Supper. Jesus’ disciples would have remembered what he had said.  They would have experienced an indescribable joy that he was back among them. In that sense, his message of love and joy belongs to Easter.

The second answer to what this has to do with Easter arises from the liturgical timing.  May 13th is the last Sunday of the Easter season.  On Thursday, May 17th we celebrate Jesus’ Ascension to heaven.  This passage restates Jesus’ instructions to his disciples before he left them, for the first time, the night before he died.  Now, on the liturgical last Sunday of Easter, we hear the message that Jesus gave before he departed by death then returned.  His message, to love one another, continues to this day.  It endures even though Jesus departed again, at least temporarily.  It is as true today as it was for his disciples approximately 2100 years ago.

***

·     Who is your model of an ideal loving relationship?  Your parents?  Some friends?  What qualities in their relationship make them ideal?  Does your consideration help you understand what Jesus was implying about his own ideal loving relationship when he said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you”? It is a remarkable gift, this invitation into such a special relationship.

·     Do the words “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” set the bar too high for friendship? Think of a situation where a friend has stepped into the street without seeing an oncoming car.  Do you shout a warning or risk your own life to knock them out of the way?  In a sense, Jesus jumps in to knock us out of the way of sin but loses his own life, for the moment, saving us.

·     What do you make of Jesus’ words “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love”? Commands are something we do when we are compelled under some kind of threat.  If you read it as “If you obey my instructions, you will remain in my love” does it change your sense of  Jesus words? Does the difference give you more responsibility for loving?

Here is the gospel set up as a blank verse poem, emphasizing the symmetry of Jesus’ words.

As the Father has loved me,
so have I loved you.
Now remain in my love.

If you obey my commands,
you will remain in my love,
just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands
and remain in his love.

I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and that your joy may be complete.

My command is this:
Love each other
as I have loved you.

Greater love has no one than this,
that he lay down his life for his friends.

You are my friends
if you do what I command.

I no longer call you servants,
because a servant does not know his master’s business.
Instead, I have called you friends,
for everything that I learned from my Father
I have made known to you.

You did not choose me,
but I chose you
and appointed you to go
and bear fruit–fruit that will last.

Then the Father will give you
whatever you ask in my name.

This is my command:
Love each other.

*****

Commentary on John 15:1-8 the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday of Easter

You’re directing an historical movie and you want to instruct the actors on their roles for the next scene.  They have each read the script but you want to give them the context so they can act their parts realistically.

***

The script has one speaker and an audience of eleven friends. (Another friend has left the dinner earlier, to run some kind of an errand.)  They are at a supper table.  The lead actor has to speak in a way that focuses their attention.  He could shout, but he grabs their attention by intrigue, not the volume of his voice.  The other actors are to listen and their faces have to respond to his words.  They have no dialogue.  The camera will move from a long shot of all the diners to the face of the speaker as he begins, then pan to the faces of the others as they listen to his words, spoken in the background.

***

The speaker’s part begins “I am the true vine….”  The lead actor, known as Jesus, has used this style of speaking before.  Earlier he has told his friends  “I am the living bread”,  “I am the good shepherd”, “I am the light of the world.”,  “I am the way, the truth and the life”.   These “I am” statements have always led to thought-provoking considerations of his character so just saying “I am…” would captivate his friends.

This Jesus character continues “…my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”  The friends have never seen Jesus’ father but Jesus has referred to him often with reverence and affection.  So it seems a bit paradoxical that Jesus would talk about the father cutting off unproductive branches from his body, and pruning back the vines that do bear fruit.  It seems harsh.  Sure, that is what grape growers do to ensure good growth but how does this relate to Jesus?  This paradox of cutting back to promote growth is part of Jesus’ technique for holding attention.

You ask the actors who will play the part of Jesus’ friends to consider how they would react to these opening sentences given this background.  Their faces and posture have to communicate their response.

You tell them that some will be thoughtful, some will look puzzled, some curious about where this conversation is going. You give them a few minutes to consider their individual reactions to the words.

***

Then you tell them that this puzzle is partially resolved but also made more complicated by the next words of Jesus, who gives them a role in his metaphor, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.  Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches…”

***

Someone suggests that the scriptwriter should edit this.  He says that it’s not only hard for the actors to respond to this complex set of ideas without words but the film audience will be baffled.  You dismiss the objection and say that the script stays as it stands.

***

You turn to the actor playing Jesus and ask him how he would say, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.”  You ask him what he thinks Jesus is trying to communicate.  You ask him how he wants his friends to be “in” him and he “in” them. You want to see if he has actually thought about the script and what he is trying to convey.  Unfortunately he looks blankly back at you.

So you spend a few minutes talking about how you can be “in” someone.  For example when you’re in love you think about someone all the time, look at the world through their eyes, imagine how they would respond to different events: you’re trying to be inside their head and heart.  You discuss that it doesn’t happen only in romantic situations.  You talk about being empathetic with someone who has suffered a tragedy: how you can feel their pain.

You talk about the mutual relationship of the vine and the branches.  It’s obvious that the branches need the vine to bring the nutrients.  But you also talk about how the vine needs the branches to produce the grapes.  You say that Jesus needs his friends to carry on his work on his behalf.  They have to become so close to him that their activities are indistinguishable from his.  They both have the same purpose.

The actor’s eyes tell you that he understands and has thought through how he wants to communicate this.  You decide to do a run-through with the cameras rolling.

***

• Try reading the gospel passage aloud, as though you were the actor playing Jesus in the movie.  Do it a couple of times. (The full text is at the bottom.)
• If you were one of Jesus’ friends at the supper, what questions would you be thinking about as he speaks?  Would you want him to repeat what he is saying more slowly?  Would you wonder what part of you was going to be “pruned” so you would be more fruitful?
• If you are the director of this scene in the movie, what is the point that you want to communicate with it?  How does this fit in to the overall story about Jesus’ life?  What is it supposed to explain to the audience about how Jesus’ friends understood their roles after Jesus had left them?

John 15: 1-8

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.  Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.  Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.  If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.  This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

*****

The gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Easter (John 10:11-18) seems curious at first.  It opens with Jesus saying, “I am the good shepherd.”  As we read it though we wonder what it has to do with Easter.

***

Most of us have little experience with sheep beyond seeing them in petting zoos or as we’ve driven by sheep farms.  But in Jesus’ day people would have seen them routinely.  The sheep roamed the land even close to cities.  Sheep provided wool, food, and were sacrificed in the temple, so they had religious as well as economic and nutritional significance.

Sheep behave differently from cattle.  Cowboys herd cattle from behind, prodding them to keep moving, driving them in the directions the cowboys want them to go. If you do that with sheep they scatter.  Sheep have to be led by someone they trust.  They follow a voice and recognize a person’s unique way of walking and gesturing.  It is a subtle but significant relationship.  Some herders who have worked with both sheep and cattle think that sheep are smarter because of this trait.  Today we tend to think of sheep as stupid.  In Jesus’ day his audience didn’t take the metaphor this way.  They understood that there was a bond between the sheep and the shepherd and that a good shepherd had this bond.

***

In Jesus’ day shepherds were important for protecting the sheep from wolves, but also keeping them from wandering too far from the herd and getting lost.

At the same time, shepherds were pretty rough characters.  They lived outside, didn’t bathe often and had to be physically tough. They weren’t educated and weren’t paid well.  Saying “I am the good shepherd,” meant that Jesus was identifying himself with a class of people at the margin of society.

Jesus’ difference was that he was the good shepherd.  In the Greek, the word that we translate as “good” includes a sense of  “honourable, beautiful, right, proper”.  These are attributes of the shepherd that go far beyond our idea of “good”.

***

When Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me…” his listeners understood that sheep’s trust was built on a mutual relationship.  Jesus was describing himself as a shepherd and his followers as sheep. He doesn’t prod us like he would prod cattle, instead he leads us and invites us to follow.

Jesus continued, “just as the Father knows me and I know the Father–and I lay down my life for the sheep.”  Jesus’ relationship with his father was the model for his relationship with his sheep.  It wasn’t forced.  It was something that each wanted.  The same kind of intimacy and love that he had for his father is the love he has for his flock: us.  It is what he wants to share with us.

***

This is where Easter comes in.  As a good shepherd, Jesus is prepared to sacrifice everything, including his life, for us.  He made the choice to stay with us, not to run away.  That part occurred on Good Friday.

A dead shepherd is of no use to the sheep.  Jesus lives.  “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life–only to take it up again.”  While Jesus protected us to his death, his father raised him up, gave him back his life, to show that he approved of what Jesus had done.

We celebrate Jesus’ constant presence with us as our leader.  He invites us to follow him.  The choice is still ours.

***

What other mutual relationships do you know that would be similar to this gospel and could deliver the same message to a contemporary society?  (Would you say a teacher and student, or a coach and a hockey team?) Where would the metaphor break down?

What is the strongest mutual relationship you have?  Is it with a parent, a spouse or a child?  Would you see it as a model for your relationship with God?  Why?  Why not?

Are you a model to anyone for a proper relationship with God?

Who do you think of as a model for an appropriate relationship with God?

Peace

Commentary on the Third Sunday of Easter

Luke’s account (Luke 24:36b-48) of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples on Easter opens with, ‘Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”’ Peace reestablishes Jesus’ relationship with them.  It heals the hole left by their cowardice and denial of him.  Peace comes from Jesus’ unconditional acceptance of their sorrow and grief. Peace is also his gift of confidence and hope.

Still ‘They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.  He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?”’  Each disciple had seen at least part of Jesus’ capture, trial, torture and death.  They were probably sick with grief and exhausted by their self-recrimination.  They were angry and confused at the betrayal and suicide of Judas.  They were suffering a version of post-traumatic stress.  No wonder they denied what their eyes actually saw!

Jesus understands and offers them proof, ‘Look at my hands and my feet.’ He had the nail scars on his body to prove that it was really him and that he had come back from the dead.      ‘ “It is I myself ! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”  When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.  And … they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement…”’

***

Then Jesus explained scripture to them in a way that connected the dots between the prophesies and what had happened to him.  He made it clear that he was the one who fulfilled the prophesies.

Finally he said “You are witnesses…”.   He gave them a role.  Witnessing meant that they were to become more than spectators, more than observers.  They were tell the story of what they had just seen and to communicate their new understanding of how Jesus had completed the promises that were part of what we call the Old Testament.  They were to tell the truth about what they had seen and to do so even in the face of denial and threats.

***

But the disciples would also come to understand that being a witness to Christ’s resurrection would mean even more than telling the truth about what they had seen.  It would mean that they would live their lives in a way that was consistent with the truth.  They would incorporate the teachings and example of Jesus into their own lives.  They would address the issue ‘if it is true that Jesus rose from the dead what difference does it make?’ by living their lives according to their new understanding.  They would become living testimony of the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection.

The disciples would do so in peace.  They would experience opposition and persecution from the Chief priests and Romans.  They would even disagree among themselves about how Jesus intended them to incorporate new followers.  But in their lives they would always be guided by the certainty that they were doing the right thing in trying to follow the teaching and example of Jesus. This is what witnessing was to mean.

***

How do you “witness” to the death and resurrection of Jesus?  Do you tell people when they talk about religion that you are a Christian?  Do you explain that you schedule your life in a specific way to incorporate prayer and worship? Do you invite others to join you? (It is not easy to be a witness. So if your answer is “no” or “sometimes, a bit” then at least you understand that it can be awkward and difficult sometime.)

How would you explain the resurrection to someone who does not know much about Christianity? Would you say that Jesus came back to life after being tortured and killed?  Would you tell them that many witnesses saw him and saw the scars left by the nails on his hands and feet?  Would you say that Jesus fulfilled the promises that were made hundreds and thousands of years earlier?

Do you ever describe an event as “unbelievable”?  It could be a goal by Sidney Crosby or a save by Jonathan Quick.  When you describe an event as “unbelievable” you mean that the event was so difficult that it would seem impossible, except that you actually saw it.  Moreover, you are asking your listeners to accept that your description is true, despite how improbable it would seem.  Would you ever tell someone that Jesus’ resurrection was “unbelievable”?  (But true?)

And if you ever did or said something Christian that was outside of your normal behavior: maybe give money to a panhandler, or break up a fight, or say “bless you” to someone, did you feel a strange peace?  (Try it and see.)

Peace