I and the Father are One (John 10:30)
Child Psychologist, Dr. David Heller, begins his book Talking To Your Child About God (New York: Doubleday, 1987), by quoting a prayer. It’s a very simple yet profound prayer, written by a ten-year-old named Walt. Listen in carefully: “Dear God, I love you more than anybody else that I do not know.” (Please read this little prayer again.) I find the confusion in this prayer to be very telling of the increasing questioning in our time. By this, I mean to say there is an ever-increasing sense of separation that we are experiencing in our lives – not only geographically and physically (as families are more and more scattered to the far-flung corners of the map), but especially emotionally and spiritually (as depression and spiritual apathy are ever on the rise). And so we are searching or questing for wholeness, connectedness, oneness. People are sensing a great need for God but don’t know how to connect, or better yet, be connected.
So how does this relate to the Gospel text for this coming weekend? Listen to Jesus’ Word for you:
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow [are connected] to me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:27-30; RSV. Emphasis added.)
“But how do I know that I’m of this family of God, one of Jesus’ sheep?” You’re hearing it right now! “My sheep hear my voice,” says Jesus. And this fact is all the more reinforced for you when you gather in worship – with God’s Word and Sacrament at the center of it all, addressing you by name – with the whole woolly lot of the other members of Christ’s flock. “And what of the last verse … where Jesus says, ‘I and [God] the Father are one’” (John 10:30)? What does that have to do with me?” you might ask. Everything! ... On this upcoming Mother’s Day Weekend, listen in again to the words of a child, from another of Dr. David Heller’s books. From a little girl named Lori, age 7. “As a little child shall lead us” (Isaiah 11:6).
“Dear God” [writes Lori]: “I know that Jesus is my friend. Since he’s your friend [Son] that makes us friends too. Right? Let’s get together and play this afternoon. You can bring all the toys you have and I’ll bring mine.” (David Heller; Children’s Letters To God, p.22. Emphasis added.)
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is calling you to gather with the rest of the flock this weekend at worship, even if … no especially if … we’re feeling “Baaaaad.”
John Christopherson
Senior Pastor
A Midwestern Goodbye
“After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples
by the Sea of [Galilee] …” (John 21:1; NRSV. Emphasis added.)
And just when you thought you were about to leave … or hang up the phone … you hear those infamous words from a close friend, or perhaps (just perhaps?) your beloved Mom: “Oh, you really don’t need to go quite yet, do you? C’mon, have another cup of coffee.” Or “Thanks for calling. But … ah … just a minute. There was something else I needed to tell you. Now, what was it?” Ever experienced this? Yup? It’s what has come to be referred to as the infamous “Minnesota/Midwestern Goodbye.”
In our Gospel story for this coming weekend, St. John’s Gospel also concludes with a “Midwestern Good-bye.” That is, it ends not with one but two endings. “Ah … just a minute … there was something else I needed to tell you.” In the first, Jesus appears to his disciples after his resurrection – as they cower behind locked doors (John 20:19-31). He gives them his word of peace, breathes new life and hope into them, and sends them forth in mission in his name. Sounds like an ending, right? But it it’s not. Or at least it’s not the only ending according to St. John’s gospel. Because in the 21st chapter that we’ll hear this weekend (John 21:1-19) there’s another, quote, “It’s the Lord!” … ending. And if it all seems a bit confusing, it’s hard to blame John because we all know how hard it is to come to an end. You think you’ve said everything, and then you think of something else, something too important to leave out. And so we put a “P.S.” at the bottom of the page/conversation … trying not to actually say, “Goodbye.”
Indeed, it’s hard to blame John for lingering over his ending for a while. Perhaps because he just wanted to make sure he had pretty much said it all (cf. John 20:30-31). He wanted to make sure he’d given us everything we’d need to make it through the long nights when we wait for a seeming eternity for our next daybreak to come. St. John didn’t know how long it would be for us, but he did know how long it had been for him and some of the other disciples. And so he decided to tell us a story about them that might help us too.
Come join in the family of faith this Sunday at worship, and hear why the disciples decided to go back to their fishing nets. What happens when they’re out all night fishing, get skunked, and at daybreak a voice calls to them from the shoreline – as their nets, say nothing of their lives, begin to overflow with joy? And then they gather ’round a campfire with a multiplication of bread and fish, a meal Jesus has prepared just for them [and you!].
John Christopherson
Senior Pastor
P.S.
With a calling word and a splashing of water
Even when the campfires of our lives have seemingly all gone out
Someone has written something “good news” news
In the ashes of our lives that says:
”You will not see me for a little while.
But in the meantime … when you gather around my meal of broken bread and fish
And then go out into the world and feed my sheep
Know that I am always with you.” Signed “Jesus”
When I Am Weak
“When I Am Weak”
(A Reflection For Palm-Passion Sunday)
This coming weekend we will be observing Palm-Passion Sunday, which in the church year signals the beginning of Holy Week (Maundy Thursday with Jesus instituting the Last Supper “in remembrance,” Good Friday with Jesus going to the Cross “for our sin and salvation,” and the wonder of Easter Sunday with Jesus “overcoming sin, death, and the devil” for us, by his resurrection. This weekend will also conclude our Lenten Study on the book of Psalms, giving special focus to Psalm 31.
Much like the music of Jazz, we have found various genres or styles in the Psalms. For example, we have heard the diminished “Blues” of lament such as Psalm 51:1 (“Have mercy on me, O God … blot out my transgressions”). But as well, we have also heard the up-beat “Swing” of praise and thanksgiving lifted up in Psalm 121:2, “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” In sum: the book of Psalms at once speaks of our human condition of sin yet also of our being met by God’s Word of steadfast mercy and grace that reaches across the whole gamut of our life of faith. And so, let me ask: “As you listen to the heart of Psalm 31, for this coming weekend’s reading, what are you hearing?”
“Be gracious to me, O [God], for I am in distress; my eye is wasted
from grief , my soul and body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my
years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones
waste away.” (Psalm 31:9)
At least this part of the psalm is without question, a lament. Can you feel the weariness of the psalmist? In “body and soul” the psalmist is absolutely spent … wearied right down to “my bones [that are] wasting away.” And so it is with Jesus in our first Gospel text for this coming weekend from Luke 19:28-40. Think on the fact that at this point in his life, as Jesus enters the gates of Jerusalem on that Palm-Passion Sunday (what in Jesus’ time, the Jewish tradition referred to as the beginning of Passover) … he’s doggedly spent himself in a ministry of healing, teaching, traveling, being ridiculed and challenged … day after day … for now some three years since his ministry began at his baptism.
In our mid-week Bible study this past Wednesday, a woman pointed out something I’d never really “seen” before: as Jesus and the disciples prepare to enter the gates of Jerusalem, “they set Jesus upon [the donkey]” (Luke 19:35). “Could it be,” she questioned, “that Jesus was so weary that his disciples needed to help him up onto the donkey’s back? I mean, he must have been totally exhausted, say nothing of what he knew was his destiny with death, finally being used up for our salvation.” Could it be? And so what was it that kept Jesus going, his grounds for hope and strength, facing the cross? Listen once more to the words of Psalm 31 …
“BUT I trust in thee, O Lord, I say, ‘Thou art my God.’ My times are [and
have always been] in thy hands; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors!
Let thy face shine on thy servant; save me in thy steadfast love!” (Psalm 31:14-16)
My friends, think carefully and deeply with me on this … There are places in our hearts where only weakness can get in, where power and glory cannot enter. Knowing that, God has sent his Son in the likeness of a suffering servant (see our Old Testament lesson for this Sunday from Isaiah 50:4-9a), taking on our frail flesh and the sins of the world. And Christ, having laid aside his majesty and taking the form of a servant, being obedient even unto death on the cross, was crucified in weakness (see our Epistle lesson for this Sunday from Philippians 2:5-11). And on him God has laid the chastisement that has made us whole.
So it is, that when we come to the end of ourselves that we are most ready for the saving, steadfast presence of God. And then, into the earthen vessel of our own weakness is poured the whole counsel of God. Yes, even in the weakness and weariness of life, what we are called to embrace there is a supreme strength because it is God’s strength. For when we are weak, then we are strong (II Corinthians 12:10b) – in Christ. “O bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me” (Psalm 103:1)!
Dr. John Christopherson
Senior Pastor