Joyce's Blog

Sixth Sunday of Easter

If ye love me, keep my commandments - Jesus

Love is as hard as hell - Dostoevsky

            A man said to a counselor, “My wife and I just don’t have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don’t love her anymore and she doesn’t love me. What can I do?”

            The counselor asked, “The feeling isn’t there anymore?”
            “That right. And we have three children we’re really concerned about. What do you suggest?”

            “Love her,” the counselor replied.

            “I told you, the feeling just isn’t there any more.”

            “Love her.”

            “You don’t understand. The feeling of love just isn’t there.”

            “Then love her. If the feeling isn’t there, that’s a good reason to love her.”

            “But how do you love when you don’t love?”
            “My friend, love is a verb. Love -- the feeling -- is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate her. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?” (as told by Fr. Harold Buetow)

On Monday morning, a mother and daughter showed up at our side door. Terry is mentally handicapped and deeply damaged. Her daughter has her own set of issues. For months we'd been planning a summer move from their dangerous, filthy, heatless apartment building into a cute little duplex we've been fixing up around the corner, but all of a sudden we were too late. "Tanya got raped in the hall last night," her mother said, and from then until now we've been walking on the dark side of love.

The sequence of what followed doesn't matter. The hospital, the detectives, the rape crisis center. Getting that evil building condemned, relocating them in our duplex, finding bedbug-free furniture for Terry and Tanya, finding helpers for the move itself. The girl's bad behavior as our houseguest, her mother's worse behavior as a parent. The questions, the doubts -- the guilt for questioning and doubting. And then, as if piling on, the quick meltdown of a promising young man we've lavished with attention and opportunity for the past seven months, and the crude suicide attempt of a troubled young woman whose phone call for help I failed to return the day before.

What does matter, I think, is the way all those things have been eating away at expectations of goodness and order I didn't even know I had. It's been awhile since I believed everything happens for a reason, according to some grand plan, but evidently I've hung onto the notion that love always makes some kind of difference, even in the midst of chaos. These are the poorest of the poor in spirit, the ones who hope for next to nothing. To survive in a place like this, some people learn to live almost completely in the moment. They know better than to expect any ongoing goodness or order. They keep no faith. We have come to love them, but the longer we’re at it the more I am haunted by the fear that nothing, not even love, may be strong enough. (Pastor Bart Campolo)

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Near the synagogue in Capernaum there is a house built without mortar. The small stones were rubbed together until they fit together perfectly. This little house is called “the house made with living stones.” (Rev. Patricia Gillespie)

In today’s second reading, Peter refers to Jesus as “a living stone.” Though rejected by the builders, this stone has become the cornerstone. Paul carries the metaphor one step further: when we “rub against” Jesus in Baptism, we, too, become living stones -- no longer dead and lifeless but growing and changing, good material for building God’s Church.

In Baptism, we who were once individuals are formed into a people -- a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God’s own.”   Our first responsibility: “announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” God calls us forth (the meaning of ekklesia, the Greek word for church) to worship him. In the words of Augustine, “We were made for praise. Alleluia is our song.”

Our calling is to worship God. And our challenge is to worship God as a community. We must “rub against” other living stones whether we know them or not, whether we even like them, and recognize that Christ is present within each “stone.” We have been built together in such a way that each one us has a place and a purpose. Each “stone” matters, each “stone” relates to every other “stone.” Take away one stone and the whole structure is weakened. We can only carry on God’s building project if we work and worship as a community, stone upon stone.

There is a Presbyterian church in New York built in the ‘60’s with “clinker bricks.” These are bricks that come out of the kiln deformed and misshapen. Factory seconds. Rejects. Most of the time they are thrown out. But this Presbyterian community thought they were a fitting symbol of what the body of Christ should be: that which is thrown out, rejected, considered useless comes together and is built into a strong, beautiful structure.

Some of the time, we may feel like “clinker blocks” -- broken and misshapen and not good for much. But to God, each one of us is a precious stone and the very place where God chooses to dwell.

Second and Third Sundays of Easter

A lot of us have lived on “borrowed faith” from time to time.   For some of us, our faith became shaky because of an accident or an illness. “How can I believe in a God who allows something this horrible to happen?” For others, doubt crept in not because something happened but because of something we did. “How can God ever forgive me?” Still others feel the increasing pressure of a culture that sees all things religious as absurd. “Believe -- in what?” During these times of fear and doubt, the fortunate among us are sustained by a friend or a community that cares for us and cries with us and prays for us when words fail.

Brother Thomas in last Sunday’s gospel could no way live on “borrowed faith.” He wasn’t there when the Risen Lord mysteriously appeared to the disciples. Though they tried to tell him about it -- no doubt they spoke with great excitement and conviction -- it wasn’t enough. Sometimes you just gotta be there. Duke professor Stanley Hauerwas (A Community of Character) makes an interesting observation, “What we [humans] seek is not power, or security, or equality, or even dignity, but a sense of worth gained from participation -- and contribution -- to a common sense of adventure. Our dignity derives from our sense of having played a part in such a story.” Thomas had missed the adventure. “He had no patience for tall tales and wishful thinking. He wanted what Mary had on the day of resurrection -- a Savior with skin on.” (Pastor Brant Copeland)

The disciples on the road to Emmaus, on the other hand, saw Jesus with their own eyes, spent hours walking and talking with him -- but failed to recognize him. They were so wrapped up in their personal grief and disappointment that they were unable to see clearly. The seventeenth century Dutch painter, Rembrandt, painted the Emmaus story several times. In one of his paintings, Rembrandt captured the very moment when the spark of recognition appeared in the eyes of the two disciples. As you look at the painting you can see the sense of awe, the awakening of faith and insight reflected in their eyes. In that same instant, a bored and weary servant is depicted offering them a plate of food, seeing nothing remarkable going on at the table. What Rembrandt captured in that painting is the very essence of the gospel story: the reality of the living Christ is apparent only to those whose eyes are open to see it.

Thomas couldn’t be a believer on his own. Most of us can’t. We need other believers in our lives. If we are fortunate, we have a community where we can see and touch Christ in the bread that is broken, the cup that is poured, the feet that are washed, the Word that is lived. But ultimately, like Thomas, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we will only be a believer if our eyes -- and our hearts -- are open when we encounter Christ along the way.

Home Worship Education Stewardship Outreach Parish Life About Us Staff / Contact Us Bulletin