Teach Us to Pray (The Rev. Richard Smith, Ph.D.)

The Lord's Prayer has been drilled into many of us from the time we were kids. These words form a kind of all-purpose prayer.

We say them when we are happy or sad, waiting for a child to be born or an elder to die, when we hear of a plane crash or watch a sunset or walk alone in the woods or gather with others for the Eucharist. In so many different moments, these familiar words are on our lips.

And they can become part of the arsenal of rituals and routines that give structure and solace to our lives--like good night kisses, or a tried and true jogging route, or that favorite recipe we can make without thinking, that practically makes itself. These soothing routines and rituals give us comfort and security. They are necessary for life.

But as many spiritual writers point out, there can be a danger of rattling the words off mindlessly, without attending to what we are saying. The trick, they tell us, is not to abandon the old formulas we have inherited--whether they be the Lord's Prayer or any of the other rituals and prayers of our tradition, but rather to inhabit them in a mindful way. The task is to enter into the consciousness they express and make it our own.

Usually this requires conscious effort and focus, but other times it just happens that the full weight of these familiar words can come crashing in on us.

A story. Years ago I was a chaplain in a big-city hospital on Chicago's south side. A young man was in the ER in critical condition from a gunshot wound. I was with his mother through what became a very long night, sitting with her, sometimes praying with her.

Along the way she taught me about praying as Jesus in today's gospel says we should pray: with persistence.

When she first arrived, the prayer that emerged from her initial hysteria and trauma was clear and straightforward: Please, God, don't let my son die. He's all I have. You can't let him die.

Now and then a doctor would emerge from the emergency room assuring us they were doing everything they could. But the signs were not encouraging.

She began to bargain: God, if you let him live I will start going back to church and maybe help in the soup kitchen. Please, don't let my son die.

The night wore on. Still no encouraging news. Her prayer shifted, becoming one of rage: You're supposed to be a loving god. And you're supposed to be all-powerful, so you can do this, you can make this miracle happen if you want to. My son does not deserve to suffer and die. If you let him die, I will hate you, God, forever.

The night turned into morning. She became exhausted with fear and sadness and rage.

But then around 4am, something else began to happen in her prayer. Her anger was softening, her prayer slowly becoming something like this : God, I know you love my son, and you love me too. I don't know whether my son will live or not. and I certainly don't know what I will do if he dies. but I trust your love for both of us. Even though I don't understand, I trust you.

A prayer of trust.

It was somewhere around this time I suggested we say the Lord's Prayer. So we did.
“Our Father, who art in heaven...” So far so good.

“Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.” At this point she's still OK. But then...

“Thy will be done on earth.” She couldn't go any further. She began sobbing uncontrollably.

Maybe for the first time in her life those words came crashing down on her, with all their terror and pain and rage, their trust and mercy and love. So many things rolled into those powerful, all-too-familiar words.

This woman had done what Jesus in today's gospel invites us to do: She had persisted in her prayer.

And the path of this amazing woman echoes Jesus' own path. On the night before he died, when he thought ahead to the loss of all his friends, the extreme physical pain, the rejection by society and his execution on a cross-- the scriptures say he sweated blood. He pleaded with God to let that cup pass him by.

It didn't happen, no miracle would rescue him from death. The next day, he would hang from the cross, barely able to life his head, and would cry out My God, why have you forsaken me?

But then, as with the woman I just mentioned, something else happened, a shift in Jesus' own prayer, a move into a different phase: He would say Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. In the end, an act of trust and complete confidence.

I am completely broken and all my friends have abandoned me now. I don't understand where you are right now, God, or why this has happened. But I know you love me and are with me, and I trust you. Into your hands I commend my spirit.

Like the woman I mentioned, Jesus had persisted in prayer, moving through all the terror and pain, arriving finally at trust.

As I was sitting with that woman at the hospital, I could see the dawn beginning to break, and it was time for me to leave and another chaplain to take my place. I had a plane to catch and would be gone for several weeks.

When I did get back to Chicago, I asked around the hospital about this woman and her son, but no one seemed to know what became of them. To this day I don't know if her son lived or not.

But to this day, I am still amazed at her faith and what she taught me on that long night as she persisted in prayer: through the hysteria and bargaining and rage to, finally, that deep conviction that God would be there with her and her son no matter what happened.

So my take-away from today's gospel is simply this: Keep on praying. In whatever words you have, familiar or otherwise, or completely wordless. Just keep praying.

And if the little voice that is inside all of us says, "But I don't believe. I don't believe," don't worry. Just keep praying anyway. Be persistent in your prayer.

As one spiritual writer says, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief" is the best any of us can do really, but thank God it is enough.”

The Good Samaritan (The Rev. Richard Smith, Ph.D.)

When I heard about yesterday's verdict in the Trayvon Martin case, I was on my way to see Fruitvale Station, a film about the tragic shooting four years ago in Oakland of another unarmed young black man. Another story about both the deep racism and violence in our society.
On my way to the theater, I got a text message inviting me to join other clergy from around the country in an emergency conference call. Ninety clergy dialed in.
All of us were outraged. Some feared what might happen to their own teenaged sons and young men in their congregations who are just like Trayvon. Would the same thing happen to their kids as happened to him?
You remember his story. One rainy night, Trayvon, a 17 year-old kid with a sweet tooth, decided to throw on an over-sized hoody and run to buy Skittles and iced-tea. His mere presence in a community caused him to be shot in the chest and killed.
Trayvon and other young black and Latino men are often misperceived by everyday Americans and the media as violent, dangerous, and as the "other". These racist lies about them are consciously perpetrated. These lies have left us, especially us white Americans, unwilling and unable to see their humanity, value them, and care about their lives.
And to the degree that this is true, we have sadly lost touch with our own hearts, our deepest loves and values and beliefs. We have become flatlined.
Today's gospel about the good Samaritan is about what can happen inside these hearts of ours
A lawyer, who is out of touch with his own heart, initiates a conversation with Jesus. He's not really seeking an answer, a deeper truth, but is testing Jesus' knowledge of scripture and the law by asking a tough question: What must I do to inherit eternal life?
This is not a question about how one gets to heaven. It's about is the meaning of life, the whole matter and purpose of life itself.
Jesus answers with another question. What does it say in the scriptures? How do you read it?
And, of course the lawyer knows all the right words: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And Jesus says, “That's it. That's what life is all about. It's about love. You have given the right answer. Do this, and you will live."
DO this! DO it. This is the key. You gotta move out of your head and live and act out of your heart in order to be fully alive.
The lawyer is not ready to make this shift from head to heart. He'd like to keep it a matter of abstract theological jousting. So he asks Jesus an abstract question: And who is my neighbor?
He wants to do some legal wrangling about boundaries and obligations, what the law requires, who qualifies to be my neighbor in the legal sense.
And as he so often does, Jesus responds not with abstract reasoning as the lawyer would like, but with a story.
A priest and a levite see a robbed and beaten man along the road. They move to the other side of the street.
Like the lawyer, they've lost touch with their hearts. Like him, they might have been weighing their legal obligations, an inner debate about what they were required to do, and what they were excused from doing.

• If they touched a dead or bleeding body, they would become impure.
  
• If the man was not a Jew, they were under no obligation to help him.
  

With this inner debate going on, they can't see the suffering human being in front of them. For them it's all legal fine print. Like the lawyer, they can recite the double commandment, but they can't do it.
In contrast to the priest and the levite, when the Samaritan sees the beaten man, he does not draw back; in fact he draws closer, and, as Luke says, he is "moved with compassion.”
The Greek word Luke uses for compassion here is esplanchnisthe. It's an interesting word.
The splanchna are the guts. To be moved with compassion is no matter of abstract reasoning. No, in this case you feel something in your guts.
Luke uses this verb on two other occasions:

• When Jesus sees a mother processing to bury her son
  
• and in the story of the prodigal son it is the father’s response when he sees his lost son returning home.
  

Esplanchnisthe. The Samaritan is connected to his heart. He sees another human being in need and he does not engage in inner debate about the law. No, he is moved, and out of that feeling of compassion he goes to work: bandages the man, pours oil and wine on his wounds, puts him on his own animal, brings him to an inn, nurses him, and gives money to the innkeeper for his care. Not a moment for legal and theological debate. It's time for action.
Could the Trayvon Martin verdict finally be our moment for action:

• working for sensible gun laws
  
• and for sentencing reform and other measures to keep black and latino kids from filling up our jails
  
• working to create more educational and employment opportunities so they have a fighting chance.
  

We gotta get out of our heads. We can't just talk about this. It's time for action.
There are times when it all seems clear to us religious folks. Like the lawyer, we know in our bones what must be done. We see the law so simply drawn: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Ah, but the living of it, the action, that is the rub.
To the extent that we cannot act with courage, we are flatlined, like the priest and the levite. We have lost touch with our own hearts. It's what our scriptures call sin.
At the end of the gospel passage, the lawyer's question, who is my neighbor, has been answered. He has moved beyond recitation and debate about the law. Through this story, Jesus has given him a concrete understanding of how to love God and neighbor, a preparation for action.
There is only one thing left for him and for each of us--the most important thing, the thing of courage--and that is to go and do likewise.

And that is up to us.

Trinity Sunday and the Cosmic Dance (The Rev'd. Dr. Richard Smith)

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day when theologians have traditionally dragged out every $5 word they've ever dreamed up, leaving us wondering what the hell they're talking about. Truth is, they don't know what they're talking about either. If you have any doubt about this, listen to how one theologian explains the Trinity:
In this Trinity of Persons, the Son is begotten of the Father by an eternal generation, and the Holy Spirit proceeds by an eternal procession from the Father and the Son. Yet, notwithstanding this difference as to origin, the Persons are co-eternal and co-equal: all alike are uncreated and omnipotent.
So, now that we've cleared that up, let's move on, shall we?
Back in an earlier time, before everything became so wordy and obscure, the Greeks used a simple but beautiful word to describe what's going on here. Perichoresis. Dancing around. God is like three persons caught up in one big joyful dance. Their life and work are bound together. They are what they are only in relationship to each other. Perichoresis. A joyful dance.
In Jesus, the second person of that Trinity, you and I are brought into the dance, into the relationship. Perichoresis. It says as much about us as it does about Ultimate Reality.
Trudy the bag lady understands this great mystery.
She is a character in a play from the 80s by Jane Wagner and Lily Tomlin called
the Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.
Trudy is crazy. Much of the time she's waiting on a street corner for her friends from outer space to show up. One night, she looks up at the stars, and she is in awe. She has what we would call a religious experience. She realizes how vast and glorious the universe is, and perhaps even more importantly, that she, in some small way, is a part of it all. About that moment she says:
...as usual,
I felt in awe.
And then I felt even deeper in awe at this capacity we have to be in awe about something.
Then I became even more awestruck
at the thought that I was,
in some small way,
a part of that which I was in awe about.
And this feeling went on
and on
and on...
My space chums got a word for it: "awe infinitum."
"Suddenly I burst into song: 'Awe, sweet mystery of life, at last I found thee...'
And I felt so good inside and my heart felt so full, I decided I would set

time
aside each day to do awe-robics. Because at the moment you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don't understand, you are closer to understanding it all than at any other time.
Trudy is in awe realizing she, seemingly so small and insignificant, is connected to something big and grand.
This is what the mystery of the Trinity is getting at: that we are not rugged individualists charting our own separate ways through life. No, like the One in whose image we are created, we are in relationship, connected, caught up, like Trudy the bag lady, in a joyful cosmic dance.
What Trudy describes happened in a different way to the great Trappist monk, Thomas Merton. After several years in the monastery, he had come to think of himself as some kind of spiritual rock star, someone set apart from other mortals, in a different jet stream from the rest of us.
And then one day, on a trip to downtown Louisville to see the dentist, as he waited on the corner, he was overwhelmed looking around him at all the passersby. And he realized that he was not separate from them at all, that he was a part of them and they of him. He realized he was connected. It was a joyful revelation, and he cried out,
I thank you God that I am like all the rest. That I am a human being among other human beings. It is a glorious destiny to be member of the human race.
A moment of being caught up in the dance. Perichoresis.
Where did we Westerners ever get this idea that we are each rugged individualists, locked in competition with each other for things and for status and for love and recognition. How did we get so mixed up about this, when the reality is that we, like the God in whose image we were created, are all wrapped up in each other.
The hands of other people welcome us from our mother's womb into this world at birth, and they feed and bathe us and teach us to walk. Other people teach us to speak, to hold a pencil, to read, to solve an equation in algebra, to learn the skills for a job. Other people awaken our bodies to exquisite joy, care for us when we are sick, and hold us close in times of sadness and struggle. And one day the hands of others will lower us back into the earth.
Like the one in whose image we are made, we are at our core, all wrapped up in each other, all caught up in the great cosmic dance. Perichoresis. It's what we celebrate on this feast of the Holy Trinity.
It's what we remember every time we come to this table. You may be Bill and Melinda Gates or you may be homeless, Mother Theresa or Kim Kardashian, Albert Einstein or a high school dropout. You could even be a Republican. When we come to this table, none of this stuff matters. What does matter is what lies much deeper, that all of us are connected, caught up in the same joyful cosmic dance.

Here we celebrate what Trudy the bag lady and Thomas Merton both understood, that despite our apparent separations, despite the boundaries erected between us by our culture, we though many, are one—just like the one who made us.
It's time for some awe-robics. 

The Centurion (The Rev'd. Dr. Richard Smith)

Today's gospel includes an unlikely cast of characters who somehow manage to find themselves working with Jesus to bring about a healing.
At the center of the story is the centurion, a commanding officer in the Roman army that Caesar used to keep the Jews under his thumb. Later, this very same Roman empire will order the execution of Jesus.
Jesus, a devout Jew, has a number of reasons to resist helping this centurion. From the perspective of many of Jesus' fellow Jews, this centurion represents everything that is wrong about the world. Even to enter his house could make a devout Jew unclean.
But this centurion is not your stereotypical Roman officer, which is where the story starts to get interesting.
For one thing, he loves the Jewish people, a people who were different than he was. He had true feelings of affection for these people against whom the rest of the world was prejudiced.
But there's more: He also he has feelings of compassion, not merely for his own children or family, but for one of his slaves, someone considered at the time as a piece of his personal property. In fact, the original Greek suggests that this slave was not merely “of value” to him as our translation says, but rather was very dear, precious, to him.
During our story-telling sessions a few weeks ago, we asked what is keeping you awake at night; this is what's keeping him awake--that this slave, very dear to him, is near death.
He wants Jesus, a known healer in the region, to cure his slave.
But he doesn't feel comfortable going directly to Jesus. He is, after all, part of the hated Roman army, and Jesus is, after all, a Jew. So he sends his Jewish friends to speak to Jesus on his behalf.
Though they hate the Romans occupying their land, these Jews are happy to put in a good word for their friend. “He loves our people,” they tell Jesus. “Even though he's not a Jew, he built our synagogue.”
You know how the story ends. These Jews and this centurion, an unlikely cast of characters, work with Jesus to bring healing to the slave.
I wonder if this story is holding up a mirror to us here at St. John's. Like the characters in today's Gospel, we, too, are an unlikely cast of characters, working with Jesus, to bring healing.
I saw this the other evening in the prayer vigil for immigration reform that
Lauren Dietrich-Chavez organized. There we were in a circle outside Senator Feinstein's office: Anglos and Latinos, from Leah Forbes to idealistic young college students to baby Elena Claire, many straight people and the rest of us as queer as three dollar bills--all of us catching up on the latest developments in the law now working its way through Congress, sharing each others stories, and reflecting on the scripture that says that though we are many, we form one body. We were in that moment an unlikely cast of characters working with Jesus to bring healing to the many families that have been torn apart by our nation's immigration system.
The same thing happens in a slightly different way every Saturday morning when Jean gets up way before the crack of dawn so she can get here by 5am to open the church and start setting up for the Julian Pantry.
Eventually an unlikely cast of volunteers begins to arrive from around the neighborhood, from Noe Valley and other parts of the City. They unload the truck delivering the food, they stock the tables, and they share a breakfast, a time for check-in, and a brief reflection. Then they open the doors to welcome the folks standing in line outside.
Between 2- and 3-hundred people come through our doors each week to receive the free fresh veggies and fruits and breads provided through the Julian Pantry.
And for all the challenges of making something like this work smoothly, and there are many, Jean and her crew keep at it week after week. An unlikely cast of characters, working with Jesus, to bring healing—this time in the form of food in these tough economic times--to people in our neighborhood and the City.
Maybe you've experienced some of this healing in your own life through this parish family. Suddenly, as you're making your way to sobriety, or mourning the loss of the person you love the most, or maybe just trying to make sense of your life, to figure out what is really important—suddenly you find yourself in the midst of this unlikely cast of characters who work with Jesus. And somewhere in the various sacraments and songs, the coffee and munchies after mass, the friendships and support of this community, you find yourself slowly beginning to heal, to get back into the groove. Maybe you've experienced a bit of this healing yourself.
In many ways we in this parish are like the unlikely cast of characters in today's Gospel as we gather week after week around this table: unlikely people— ourselves often in need of healing—who work with each other and with Jesus to bring that same healing in some small way to this broken world around us.

Missing from the Table (Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year C, 2013, Richard Smith)

The gospel passage takes place at the last supper. Judas has just left the meal, has gone out into the night to hand Jesus over, leaving behind him an empty place at table.
In that moment, as Judas sets off to betray him, Jesus gives us these unforgettable words, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Theologian Frederick Niedner wonders: Having heard those words from the lips of Jesus, did any of the disciples then go out looking for Judas?  Did anyone begin to fear for Judas, miss him, or try to bring him back, to talk him out of his shame, his anger, his life spinning out of control?
Did they recognize that they could not be whole as long as he was missing from their table? As long as Judas remained out there in the night, wandering alone or swinging lifeless from a tree, there would be tears and aching in his community where his place would still be set at the table, but where his absence would still be felt.
This same kind of brokenness is all around us.
The other day in the neighborhood a mother stopped me and asked me to pray with her for her son who is serving a life sentence in prison. With him gone, there is a brokenness in her family, an empty place at the table, and an empty place in their hearts.
There is a brokenness among people of faith, and it's all too apparent in the Islamophobic reactions to the bombings in Boston. We are all children of Abraham, but some Christians cannot imagine sitting at table with a real, live Muslim.
Our own parish has had its own brokenness. There are people who used to join us at this table but, for various reasons, our relationships with them became broken and they are no longer here.
Perhaps in your own families and in your own circles of friends, you, too, know the pain and shame of having places at the table where no one sits any more.
Friendships that were put to death with hasty, angry, bitter words.
We don't know if the disciples did try to find Judas that night. Even if they had would he have returned? Only God knows.
But we have reason to hope because of the promise in today's reading from the Book of Revelations. One day, when the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven decked out like a bride, God will set out a great marriage feast, and there God will wipe away every tear. No more tears, no more pain.
Will Judas be present? We can hope that he will, that he will sit among all the rest of us who have our own stories of brokenness and betrayal.
This is the great vision of the Book of Revelations, the future we are invited to embrace this morning.
And if we choose to embrace this future, then it will shape and govern how we act and think in the present.
If in the world to come, God will wipe away the tears from our eyes, then we wipe the tears from each others eyes now.
If in the world to come, swords will be beaten into plowshares and there will be no more war, then the weapons fall from our hands now.
If in the world to come, everyone will have a place at the table, including those from whom we are now estranged, even those we regard as most repugnant and despicable, then we reach out our hands in friendship and reconciliation now.
The amazing future described in Revelations shapes and governs how we live our lives in this moment.
The banquet is set before us. We look back to remember the night when Jesus gave us a new commandment, but also we look ahead to the day of its fulfillment.
Let us celebrate the joy we have in sitting together as family, reconciled to each other, and living in hope of that day when every tear will be wiped away and every place at the table will be filled.

The Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year C, 2013 (The Rev. Dr. John H. Eastwood)

Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, 
and follow where he leads. AMEN

Our theme today is Jesus, the Good Shepherd; the one who calls us to follow him,  the one who calls us into discernment about our own ministry. And the challenge that the scriptures present to us is one of knowing his voice and hearing his call.  I don’t know about you, but this sort of reminds me of when I was a kid playing with my friends after school in the back yard. Come dinner time, I would hear my mother call me from the back porch telling me to stop playing and come in for dinner, and of course, I wanted to keep playing.  I didn’t have any trouble knowing who was calling; I just didn’t like the message. The gospel raises the first question. Amid all the voices of our culture, can you hear the voice of Jesus? 

The Easter season brings to our attention a variety of images that tantalize our spiritual senses.  An earthquake and an angel descending, rolling back a stone from a tomb... guards fainting in fear... an empty tomb and angelic figures sitting where Jesus was lying... a group of apprehensive disciples locked in a room, visited by the risen Lord... a clear moment of recognition of Jesus in the breaking of the bread... And in today’s readings, the church in Joppa is weeping over the death of a sister named Tabitha, the call for Peter, who comes and prays over here, and Tabitha is raised to life from death and come to belief in Jesus.  All along the way there are voices of doubt, and voices of fear, anguish and grief... but there are also voices of knowing and trusting and believing and incredible joy ...  The images of the Easter Season are  extreme and provocative,  they are because they are about resurrection, and they are also the story of our lives. This is a season of contrasting voices, the events of our lives that compete for our attention.   With such a clamor, sometimes it is hard to hear the shepherd’ voice.

Consider the week just passed.  In one week we have heard voices crying “shame” as gun control legislation was defeated in the Senate, by a vote of 40 to 60,  and we have heard voices of anguish, chaos, and grief crying out in the streets of Boston after bombs explode at a marathon race. Defeat seemed everywhere, and frankly, as I listened and watched, I began to feel depressed and overwhelmed. With other recent incidents of violence, at Sandy Hook Elementary, and other places, one tragedy inevitably calls to mind other events in the past, like one death reminds of other deaths. Of course, there is the pain of ongoing deaths in war. There are times, and this week was one of those times, when I give in to the voices of violence, and I am truly grasping for hope as I shake my head, and long to hear the voice of peace, and the belief that committing violent acts is not the answer.  Finding a way to hear the voice of peace is the answer.

I watched and heard on TV Friday night the voices of jubilation in the streets of Watertown and Boston. To me they were real and understandable, people were safe, at least safer than not, but I couldn’t find much rest there. I wanted some perspective. I did some searching.

I remembered another April, the year was 1968, and the shock and loss of hope that I felt, with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. And I began to look further: April is also the month of the shooting of students at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Columbine in 1999, and the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. With those sad echoes of times past, the voices of grief and the voices of politics, lobbying, and the NRA  push away the shepherds voice of love, hope, and peace in April’s Easter Season

We have to listen again to a different wisdom:  
We have to go back to the gardener’s voice that called “Mary” and she knew it was the Lord; 
we have to remember the voice of Jesus when surrounded by the soldiers in the garden, saying to Peter, “Put away your sword”;  
we have to go back to the moment of recognition in the upper room when he breathed on them and said “Peace be with you”; 
we have to remember how he had been known to the disciples in the breaking of bread; 
our wounds are his wounds, and through these wounds, we hear his voice, the voice not of vengeance or violence, but the voice of peace.   

This was Jesus point.  From all the voices of culture that you hear, listen for my voice.  Beyond all the words of commentary, sounds of confusion, and discordant lyrics trying to make sense of things, listen for my voice.  The church to which the Gospel of John was addressed shared in the uncertainty of many voices.  The church has always had to face this problem.  Today’s gospel provides for us a compass to discern the right path for hearing the voice of Christ and doing authentic ministry in his name.  And that can only be done in community.
Someone will say, “I believe I am called to be a priest, or a social worker; another will say “I am called to work for immigration, or for clean water in Guatemala, or to volunteer in the Julian Food Pantry on Saturdays.”  Just like hearing the call to dinner in the midst of playing, you have to learn to hear who is calling you and what is being said. For that, I know the only way is through community. We can’t be Christians alone walking on a sand beach or on a journey through the woods, we need each other, and the food the Shepherd gives, so that we know our calling. 

There is a well-known, unforgettable story about one of our leaders who through community found the call that strengthened him in his ministry. It is about Martin Luther King during the days of the Montgomery bus boycott.  It comes from a time in his life, not unlike our own, when voices of fear, voices of doubt, and voices of despair were competing for his attention.  Violence had been threatened repeatedly against King and his family and he was afraid.  At home one night, about midnight, King heard the phone ring and he answered.  It was another anonymous caller breathing threats of violence against him unless he got out of town.  After the call, King sat at the kitchen table worrying about the threat, about his children, his wife, himself.  Then he prayed, prayed to God admitting that he was losing his courage, and as he prayed, he heard a voice, a voice he knew. It was the voice of Jesus. “Martin Luther,” the voice said, “stand up for righteousness.  Stand up for justice.  Stand up for truth.  And, lo, I will be with you, even unto the end of the world.”  Strengthened by the voice, he knew which path to take and gained courage in his ministry.  “Almost at once,” he remembered, “my fears began to go.  My uncertainty disappeared.”

Easter is not just an empty tomb, but a victory over the voices of darkness, and a presence, a person, a voice that calls us each by name into the light shines eternally.  AMEN

Peter, Do You Love Me? (Third Sunday of Easter, Year C, 2013, Richard Smith)

I don't know if any of you were once Sunday School over-achievers, but if you were, have I got a trivia question for you!

Question: How many charcoal fires are mentioned in the New Testament?
...
Answer: There are two charcoal fires in the New Testament, both mentioned in John's gospel.
The first is mentioned after the arrest of Jesus. It is in the courtyard of the high priest. The night is very cold, and it burns at  the darkest hour just before dawn. Over this fire, Peter warms himself. While he stands there, three people ask him if he is a disciple of Jesus. Three times he denies it. This is the first charcoal fire.
The second charcoal fire is described in today's gospel passage. This fire burns after the disciples, including Peter, have abandoned Jesus and left him to die. It's about them moving out of that failure, and moment of despair and guilt and fear and mutual recrimination into a sense of hope and aliveness and purpose. It's about their meeting the risen Jesus.
Unlike the first charcoal fire, this second fire burns not in the darkest hour of the night but in the morning just after daybreak. A new day is just starting to dawn. Over this fire, Jesus is making breakfast for his disciples.
Remember that for Jesus and his friends, a meal is a very powerful moment, and when people sat down to a meal, they were saying many things, one of which was forgiveness. They were saying that anything that had come between them, no matter how great or how small, had now been set aside. As they sat down to table, they were saying that they were one. This is why Jesus got in so much trouble with the religious leaders of his day when he so recklessly sat down at table with tax collectors and sinners. He was a bit too generous with the forgiveness. (Remember this aspect of a meal, forgiveness, when you come to this table for the Eucharist.)
So, anyway, over this second charcoal fire, Jesus is preparing a meal for his disciples who have just abandoned and betrayed him. Forgiveness is in the making. 
After they have eaten Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me.” And Peter answers three times, “I do love you. Well, at least I sort of love you.”
There are two Greek words at play here. One word is agape, the other is philos. Agape is complete and unconditional love, the kind of love that that God has for us, the kind that is willing to die for the beloved. The other word for love, philos, means the kind of love buddies have for each other, comaraderie. It's what you feel for the people you enjoy hanging out with.
When Jesus asks Peter, do you love me, he is using the word agape. It's as though he is saying, Peter, do you love me with all your heart, to the point where you would even lay down your life for me as I gave mine for you?
And Peter answers with the word philos, as if to say, “Well, Lord, I think you're a really cool guy.”
They're missing each other here.
So Jesus asks a second time, “Do you love me--using agape, would you lay down your life for me.” And Peter answers again with philos: “Yo! You're my good bud.”
Again, it's a miss.
Finally, Jesus asks a third time, and Peter is hurt that he's asked him a third time. And his response, again using philos, amounts to a kind of confession, as if to say, “Lord, you know everything. You know what kind of man I am. You know that I denied you three times. You know that at this moment I can't honestly say that I love you with the kind of love you are asking for. But I do think you are a good friend. That much I can say. So I leave it at that.” Peter knows himself very well by now.
Jesus then goes on to predict Peter's death. He says that the moment will come when Peter will, in fact, lay down his life out of love for Jesus. He would do this not only by feeding the sheep as Jesus commissions him to do in this passage, but also by literal martyrdom. (Tradition says Peter himself was crucified.)
Peter would one day arrive at this stage of radical love, but it would not happen right away. It would not happen until he was an old man. It would be a matter of growth over time.
Some marriage counselors describe the stages that couples go through in a marriage, from the time they first get the hots for each other, through periods of grayness and everyday-ness and the seven-year itch, through a time of despair when they think they have nothing left between them. These counselors say that if they hang in there through those dark moments, if they can talk things through and heal and forgive, they can come to a time of reawakening when they discover again the love that had been there all the time but had gone unseen, like a powerful underground river. Finally, they can reach the final stage, called, very simply, love. It's what we sometimes see in older couples who have done the work over the course of many years together.
The fact is that married love is not something that happens in a flash. It's not a matter of a few months or years. It takes years and years and years to marry a man, years and years to marry a woman. It's a matter of growth. It takes a lifetime. 
It's less like a display of fireworks and more like a pilgrimage. Along the way, there is a lot of fun, great thrills and laughter, as well as tough times you just work your way through, one step at a time. There are some tough moments when Dostoevky's words can sound all too true, that “love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”
It's like this in a relationship with this character we call Jesus. This is what Peter is wrestling with in today's gospel.
He is a pilgrim on the way, and one day, Jesus tells him, he would arrive at the fullness of love, at agape. But it would not happen overnight. it would take a lifetime, it was a journey.
This is the journey you and I are on. As for Peter, so also with us, learning how to love doesn't happen overnight. It is a pilgrimage, and each morning we put on our shoes and take the next steps. 
It is the journey of a lifetime. It is why God put us here.
And it's a journey that God does not want us to make alone. Which is why he gives us fellow pilgrims, gives us each other. Sometimes they carry us, sometimes we carry them, all of us fellow pilgrims, learning together how to love. I love Ram Dass's definition of community: We're just walking each other home.
Let me end by inviting you to do as Peter does in today's gospel: Take a look for a moment at your own relationship with Jesus. Where are you in your own pilgrimage? Maybe it's that magical time of first infatuation, or maybe it's a time of dryness. Maybe it's a time of despair when it feels like there's really nothing or no one there. Or maybe it is daybreak, a time of reawakening and wonderful new beginnings. Where are you today in your relationship with the one who has gathered us, this wild and woolly character we call Jesus? Take a moment, as Peter did, to wrestle with this question. Maybe do as Peter did and, in the quiet of your heart, speak to Jesus, tell him about where you are this morning.