One of the most striking things about the gospel stories is that calling disciples was one of the first things Jesus did. It was central to what he was about from the very beginning. So let’s ask ourselves today, what does it mean to be a disciple? And what I will propose is that there are two things we can learn about it. On the one hand, of course, it involves following Jesus, which means learning from him, and spending so much time with him getting to know him and the way he is that you gradually have his life in front of you all the time, and at different…
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A few weeks ago we had some online gatherings of parishioners, and one of the things everyone was asked was what they missed the most about the parish during the pandemic. And as I was thinking about how I would answer this question, I thought two things. One of course is being in the church. I mean it’s wonderful what has been accomplished here in the great hall, a million cheers for everyone who has made it possible. But you’re all so far away. Over in the church, we are facing one another, as if we’re sitting around a table at a meal, which is what we are doing after…
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The Pentecost reading we heard first today describes something that sounds hard to believe in, It is the Holy Spirit finally arriving as Jesus said it would and what it really is, is a picture of real liberation. First it seems to bring an enormous release of energy. These disciples have been locked in a room, puzzled about what is next, maybe just a little the way we’ve been locked up for more than a year, but all of a sudden they feel a tremendous readiness to get out of there. And when they do, there are suddenly no barriers of communication between them and total strangers, they find words…
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I want to start today by going back to that first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles. Peter has been approached by a Roman centurion named Cornelius, whose whole family wants to be baptized and join the Christian community. It’s hard for us to imagine how completely impossible this must have seemed to these first Christians, all of whom still saw themselves as Jewish, all of whom assumed that the point of Jesus’s life was that he had been one of them, and that the community was meant for people like them. The reading says that they were astounded to see the Holy Spirit acting this way on a…
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I think sometimes that the Easter Season has a marketing and promotion problem, and let me explain a little about why. Think back to the season of Lent a few weeks ago; we might all have a slightly different way of expressing it, but after 2,000 years we all have successfully learned what Lent is, that Lent is a time for regrouping, for taking stock, for prayer and fasting and deciding what changes and forms of reconversion might be good for us. That has been very successful. And then the Easter comes, and in these seven weeks we’re supposed to now feel and do — what exactly? I don’t think…
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In that first reading we heard from the Acts of the Apostles, we heard that the early church community in Jerusalem felt so close to one another that they did something amazing, they shared all their property as if it were all common property, the idea being that if anyone needed anything, they would be taken care of. The question is, where did they get this idea? It’s not as if Jesus told them that private property had been abolished, or really said anything at all about how his followers were supposed to organize themselves, or even if they were going to be very organized at all. But the resurrection…
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I’m sure you all remember the past when people used to attend sporting events in person. And in the end zones at football games you’d often see someone holding up a sign that said John 3:16. And of course that’s scriptural shorthand for one of the sentences in today’s gospel, the one that tells us that God so loved the world that he sent his only son to bring us eternal life. I imagine that the people in the end zones with those signs think that if you were going to see only one sentence from the gospel, only remember one thing, that this is the one. Are they right?…
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As I was preparing to stand up here and preach on the Second Sunday of Lent I was struck by the fact that all the things the church usually says about what to do during Lent seem all wrong this year. I mean, I feel like Lent has already been going on for a year — didn’t Lent start last March and just never stop? We didn’t have Easter last year, we didn’t really have summer, I don’t think there was Christmas really. The mood for all of us has been subdued at best, and for many people it has been worse than that, a time of real loss and…
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If you ever read any of the gospels all the way through, every time you do it, something new will strike you that you have never noticed before. And I’ll bet that one thing you would notice sooner rather than later is how much of Jesus’s life was spent healing people. We tend to imagine a great deal of his life was spent talking, because so much care was taken to record some of the things he repeatedly said. But really, when he went from place to place, he must have spent more time healing people than preaching, and it’s that, more than his words, that drew enormous crowds to…
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We just heard two stories today, in that first reading and in the gospel, about God speaking to people very directly. So I think the question for today is, does God speak to people, and does he ever speak to us? The first problem we face trying to answer that question is this. We all have seen people who seem very sure God speaks to them all the time, and is it possible they’re delusional or confused? Unfortunately the answer is yes, it is quite possible. We’re human and we can all deceive ourselves or be deceived by others. Plenty of people manage to convince themselves they’re on God’s side…