« Do not be afraid.”

 

Jesus has just told the disciples that the Father was going to send the Holy Spirit, and he adds to that promise his peace and the admonition not to be afraid.

 

“Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.”

 

Easier said than done.

 

Fear is a perfectly acceptable human emotion. It’s part of a built-in safety mechanism, it’s part of our human instincts that certain situations, people or other creatures, or a combination automatically set off alarm bells.

 

“Do not be afraid.”

 

 

If someone would tell you about a spirit, a ghost, an invisible specter which was going to come to you, you might actually feel worried, wouldn’t you, a little scared even.

 

If you ever happen to have a ghost in your house, you might just call for an exorcist, or maybe the ghost busters.

 

Of course, Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, “the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father” as we’ll be professing in the Creed later on.

 

So, no need to be afraid of the Holy Spirit, no need to hire the ghost busters.

 

 

When Christ ascended bodily and rejoined His Father in Heaven, there was created a space for another, a Representer, non-bodily who would incorporate the divine in a personal and individual yet communal and interconnecting way.

 

This one-to-one and also group link -this first century Divine WiFi if you will- leads, nourishes, builds up; it offers courage, joy and faith; in the Church it works through Word and Sacrament; and rolls downs like righteousness, healing and forgiveness, an everlasting stream of respect, human rights and religious freedom.

 

The Spirit was there at creation, in Christ's salvific existence and work, and still roars in the Abba-Father cry of each person; unbound by circumstance, time and space.

 

Because of this, the Spirit can't be claimed nor pinned down by any particular group for their own means, their own agendas, their own exclusive claims of judgmental superiority.

 

This means that the Spirit is not a stranger, the Spirit is not a strange entity that appears out of nowhere, without any connection to God.

 

No, this is the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of God. 

 

And not only will the Spirit teach us all things, the Spirit will also remind us of everything Jesus has said to his disciples. In other words, the Spirit will confirm Jesus’ teachings and witness.

 

Do not be afraid, the Spirit is familiar to you, the Spirit is how God and Jesus make their home with you.

 

 

Do not let your hearts be troubled and accept the Spirit in your lives, accept the gifts of the Spirit.

  

Saint Augustine of Hippo, that famous and clever Teacher of the Church from the 4-5th century, drew a connection between these gifts and the Beatitudes in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Mt.5:3-12):

 

• Blessed are the poor in spirit, corresponds to the fear of the Lord as the "poor in spirit" are the humble and God-fearing;
• Blessed are those who mourn, corresponds to knowledge, because to Augustine the knowledge of God brings an increased awareness of personal sin;
• Blessed are the meek, corresponds to piety;
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, corresponds to fortitude;
• Blessed are the merciful, corresponds to counsel;
• Blessed are the pure in heart, corresponds to understanding;
• Blessed are the peacemakers, corresponds to wisdom.

 

There’s nothing to be afraid of, let the Spirit guide you, work these gifts in you.

 

don’t worry, don’t fret, it is about the assurance that God’s promises, God’s commitments are ongoing;

don’t feel abandoned, it is about how Jesus is with us until the end of the age, even though his physical story here on earth ended -for the time being- at the Ascension;

don’t feel alone, we can confirm our trust in the fact that as the Trinity is connected, so we too are connected to God and connected to each other;

don’t feel overwhelmed, we can celebrate the Spirit bringing peace, a peace the world cannot give and a peace we offer each other, as we do during the service.

   

 

In a sermon, US pastor Lydia Posselt had the following striking things to say:

 

"I belong to Christ, and you belong to Christ, and together, we get to march in the parade led by the Holy Spirit. This parade leads us out into the world, out to our neighbors, where the fruits of our freedom in Christ are given away to others, not hoarded or stored up for our own benefit." -end quote.

 

How wonderfully it ties in with our readings today of Jesus' promise of the Spirit. 

  

And we're all called to march along, limp along, roll along, dance along, support others along, carry the dying and the dead along, and be carried!

 

We're all called to claim this promise, to cling to it.

 

 

The Spirit is the seal that our Lord is truly a resurrected Lord; Jesus lives, so we live, so others live, so we live for them.

 

The Spirit is the seal that God truly is love; Jesus loves, so we love, are called to love our neighbors as ourselves.

 

But How to love, how to live when others deny you your place in the parade, target you, threaten your job, your house, your rightful place among family and friends, even your church and your god!?

 

How not to abandon the parade altogether!?

 

Thursday is Ascension Day, Sunday next Pentecost; very important feast days, too often neglected. Nonetheless, they should be up there with Christmas and Easter, even if we don't always really know what to do with them, if they're not as physical and as tangible, not as easily pinned down, because their messages are just as important, just as inspiring, vital.

 

They're festivals that assure us that when the material, that wonderfully and equally created, that bodily is under attack, under threat, discarded, the Spirit will keep rebuilding, will keep creating, indiscriminate, unfettered, alway there, always cheeky, always marching.

 

And we can and must march with the Spirit; we've got every God-given right to do so, not just for our neighbors but also for ourselves. We cling to the promise.

 

 

Easter Five

 

Acts 11, Rev. 21, Jn. 13)

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Everything and everyone on this planet, indeed in the whole universe, is linked up, interconnected, interwoven.

 

Remember that pandemic we went through, and psychologists coined a new word, skin hunger, to indicate the mental distress many felt because of the lack of human face to face contact and direct touch. Six feet or one and a half meters will always have a certain connotation.

Remember that container ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal, and the whole World’s economy grind to a halt: hundreds of ships were stuck in a nautical traffic jam, hundreds of millions of euros of revenue are lost, orders delayed, port laborers having to wait to process the goods, a nation that lost out on much needed income.

Remember the crucifixion, when Jesus said I will draw all nations to me.

Remember the resurrection, when biological life and life eternal were bridged once and for all.

Remember the ascension and the Pentecost feast, when heaven and earth were directly connected without obstacle.

 

Everything is interwoven.

Nothing exists on its own.

The moment Creation was started, there was nothing that would ever exist separated from all the rest. Everything exists in a network, a constant current flowing to and fro. All parts are in relationship with each other, they feed each other, they are each other’s lifeblood. An organism is only an organism in relation to another organism. Atoms, organs, nerve systems, everything points to a system which is not supposed to exist by itself. Saint Paul already wrote about it in 1 Corinthians 12,

 

18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many members, yet one body.

 

The late Emily Levine (1944-2019), a writer and actress from The US, at her last performance, told her audiences that they made her life real, a reality. “Reality begins with an interaction.”, she said.

In Genesis chapter 1 God’s interaction with the void and the darkness formed the reality of existence.

 

Everything is interwoven.

Jesus used a symbol from nature to make that connection: “I am the vine.”

Everything’s connected, is attached to Christ; “3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being what has come into being.” (Jn. 1)

Aren’t we all called to be co-workers with God in God’s vineyard?!

 

God is sometimes pictured as a potter, but can we not also imagine him as a weaver?

 

A single tread in a tapestry

Though its color brightly shines,

Can never see its purpose

In the pattern of the grand design.

 

And the stone that sits at the very top

Of the mountain’s mighty face

Does it think that its more important

Than the stones that form the base?

 

A lake of gold in the desert sand

Is less than a cool fresh spring

And to one lost sheep, a shepherd boy

Is greater than the richest king

 

So how do you judge what a man is worth

By what he builds or buys?

You can never see with your eyes on earth

Look at your life through heaven's eyes

 

(Jethro, The Prince of Egypt, 1998)

 

We need to tell ourselves and the World that we are all interwoven, connected.

Our interwoveness is constantly moving forward, it does not like stagnation. “See, I am making all things new.” (Rev. 21:5).

Our interwoveness is only content when everyone’s on board, when no one’s left behind. Everything in Creation breaths in tandem, synchronized.

Our interwoveness means that everyone and everything is as they’re supposed to be.

Now, replace the word ‘interwoveness’ with ‘Jesus Christ’.

Jesus Christ is constantly moving forward, he does not like stagnation.

Jesus Christ is only content when everyone’s on board, when no one’s left behind.

Jesus Christ means that everyone and everything is as they’re supposed to be.

 

Christ is our weaver.

“I am the vine.”

 

Perhaps we don’t always realise that we’re interwoven but we are, the last decade has made that abundantly clear.

So question is, how interwoven do we feel? How interwoven are we willing to be?

‘I want to be interwoven’ or ‘I am interwoven, you are interwoven, we all are interwoven’ could perhaps be a good message on our social media, or as a button, or on a T-shirt.

 

After all, Christ did not say, I will be the vine, you will abide in me, my Father will be glorified. No, he said, I am the vine, you abide in me, my Father is glorified, etc. We must remember that we are already interwoven, because as with everything with God, God always takes the first step, usually without us deserving it, asking for it, or even realizing it.

That’s called grace. It’s a grace that throws our arrogance and selfishness and exclusivity on a pile and burns them. The ashes then serve to fertilize the vine and its branches, to grow together as one vine.

 

3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

All interwoven like branches on a vine.

 

Examples like a Pride weekend, a cultural history months, or open days in our neighborhood churches and businesses, and so on, remind us that we’re all connected, from the very local to the internationally, and perhaps even to the interstellar.

We cannot pick and chose the parts of the whole we wish to engage with, because we will be confronted with their existence one way or another. We cannot shut parts of the whole out or banish them from sight, from existence, merely because they don’t suit us, our sensitivies, our belief systems, our politics, and so on. People who complain that ´you didn’t see or talk about those things beforé, or ´ they’re shoving it down our throats’, are most likely only content when society looks exactly like they do and like they want it.

 

The pandemic petered out and is now a containable disease, like flu. The container ship was pulled free and sailed on. The cycle of interwoveness continues.

Easter Four : Good Shepherd Sunday

 

[Acts 9:36-43; Ps. 23; Jn. 10:22-30]

 

Peace to all of you who are in Christ. Amen.

  

So, this is our scene:

It’s winter in Jerusalem, and it can get cold there, even snow a little in the hillside. It’s the period of the Festival of Dedication or Festival of Lights (khanukah), a Jewish celebration marking triumph over foreign invaders and occupiers centuries earlier.

Jesus is walking in the Portico of Solomon, on the eastern side of the Temple… He is walking in His Father’s house.  

Jesus is calling all us to be his sheep; not that that means we should be a bunch of mindless, submissive creatures, but that we should accept that as far as God is concerned we are all equal and equally important, and he is our Good Shepherd, we don’t shepherd ourselves.

Jesus is calling out to us, not screaming or commanding, but in an intimate, ‘knowing’, manner, calling out for us to believe and follow Him, through a life close to him and close to the Father, close to others, all the way to an eternal life of Resurrection.

 

Today, the fourth Sunday of the Easter season is often known as Good Shepherd Sunday because of the assigned Gospel reading: “I am the good shepherd.” said Jesus.

In many churches it’s also known as Vocations Sunday, when prayers are offered for new vocations, for new shepherds in the Church of Christ, for people -men and women- we can trust to guide us on a spiritual level, people we can trust to guide us on our journey of faith.

 

The Greek word for trust is pistis; it also means ‘reliance’.

It’s this word we find in the New Testament and which is usually translated with ‘faith’.

It has become to mean an agreement to a certain set of faith rules or expressions; while this is important too, it’s not exactly what the authors of the Scriptures were trying to say: it’s far more about letting go and letting someone else be in charge, about relying on them to envision only the best for us and truly act with our best interests at heart.

James Allison, a Catholic theologian describes faith as relaxing, in the way that you relax in the presence of someone you’re certain is fond of you.

Someone we want to spend time with and someone who’s fond of us and wants to spend time with us, who wants to make us lay down in green pastures and lead us besides still waters.

 

Psalm 23 interestingly reads like a kind of creed, like a kind of affirmation of faith.

It’s a poem, a song about trust and care, about spending time with our heavenly Father, with our Creator, our Good Shepherd.

 

He leads me in right paths...

God is enough, our Good Shepherd is enough.

God is the source of all existence, God ís all existence, our Alpha and Omega from whom all things flow and to whom all things will return.

This is why we can take a deep breath and let go.

 

We can be still -not to mean that there’s no volume- but we can be still in our souls, in our lives. We can leave behind all that pressures us, all that makes us feel hunted.

Anxiety, depression, pride, self-pity, and so on... we can leave it all behind.

But that’s so difficult, isn’t it, to surrender everything in to God’s hands, to let God take care of everything, because we human beings so love to be in control...yet, if we’re truly honest with ourselves, when are we really ever in control?! When do we really ever trust?!

 

Martin Luther, the German Reformer in his Commentary on this Psalm wrote:

“If you wish therefore, to be richly supplied in both body and soul, then above all give careful attention to the voice of this Shepherd, listen to His voice, let Him feed, direct, lead, protect and comfort you. That is: hold fast to His Word, hear and learn it gladly, for then you will be well supplied in both body and soul.”

God is greater than our hearts, Saint John writes, we don’t have to be afraid to let go, to take that leap of faith, that leap of pistis.

 

That’s the message of hope and love Psalm 23 insists on: that darkest valley cannot win, death -be it physical or spiritual death- has lost its sting.

No, life isn’t perfect, life’s hard, but anything which seems closed off to us, any situation which we don’t seem to be able to get out off -even as sealed as a tomb- God will break open to let light and life in, to let new opportunities in, every single day.

 

He restores my soul...

These are opportunities to make something of our lives, to mean a difference for good in the lives of others.

It’s not always easy, people aren’t always easy to like and often we don’t actually like ourselves very much.

Fortunately, God does like us, else He wouldn’t have commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

 

Psalm 23 is a literary reminder of a God who cares, who is engaged and concerned.

It reiterates time and time again that God is present, keeping a watchful eye on Creation, like a good shepherd.

God is present, also in Communion which we will be celebrating in a few moments time.

God is abundantly present.

...my cup overflows...

 

 

We too are called to be the shepherd in the Psalm.

We too are called to lead others by still waters, to bring peace to their lives when they’re totally overwhelmed.

We too are called to be present in the dark hours and dark places of others, to bring resurrection light and to hopefully bring some kind of healing, some kind of anointing to them.

This isn’t just a suggestion, to be nice to people, even the people we prefer to avoid; it’s God who asks this of us and God’s requests always have purpose -they’re not there to annoy us- they always have meaning.

We’re called not to shame other peoples’ pistis in us.

The Church, Christianity as a whole has a bad reputation for lettings people down in their trust and reliance, and it’s time that we really take the task which Psalm 23 sets before all of us genuinely to heart.

We all must be better shepherds! Isn’t that a good reminder on Good Shepherd Sunday.

A difficult task for sure, but we have the best example there could possibly be: Jesus, our Good Shepherd.

...goodness and mercy shall follow me...

 

The Easter season is a time for regeneration, for restoration, for all things new.

Psalm 23 can be our daily guide in this, our daily prayer also.

When our trust, our pistis doesn’t seem enough, we can find courage and energy in these words; we can be reminded that God does watch over his flock, that God does walk with us.

...and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long. 

Amen.