Homily By The
Rev. Marcia McRae
St. John’s
Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA, 5th
Sunday of Easter, 18 May 2014
Year
A RCL
Acts
7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
Stones
are scattered throughout our
scriptures today:
stones that kill,
stones that protect,
stones that build a spiritual house,
stones that
live.
The
stone (in
the photo)
with its gentle flame reminds us (as
we read in 1 Peter)
that
we are called out of darkness into God's marvelous light.
The small
stone (sitting
atop the light-bearing stone)
is a gift
from a young person in the
Episcopal Diocese 0f Georgia, who
decorated it to
remind me to
have faith & to trust in Jesus.
Stephen, the
first Christian martyr, trusts in Jesus. We hear his trust
in today's lesson. His words echo our Lord, Jesus, on the cross. As
Stephen is being murdered by the enraged crowd throwing stones to
stone him to death, Stephen
says to Jesus:
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them”.
As we murder Jesus on
the hard wood of the cross, Jesus says: “Father forgive them.”
Through
Jesus' love & sacrifice for us, God equips us: to
be able to live into the reality of God's far-reaching Love; to find joy & freedom in forgiving those who hurt us; to
find joy & freedom by forgiving ourselves.
How
easy is it to forgive?
It can be
hard.
On
the Sunday after the September 2001
bombings, Episcopal priests & other preachers reminded us
to love
& forgive & have faith. What
else
do
you expect a priest to say?
What
do you expect
a country singer/songwriter to say or a Muslim to say when they have
suffered attacks & near death?
Devout
Muslim Rais Bhuiyan & “avowed American terrorist Mark Stroman”
are the central people in TheTrue
American: Murder & Mercy in Texas1
by
Anand Giridharadas.
After the 911 attacks, Stroman killed 2 men he assumed were Muslims & shot Rais Bhuiyan in the face, leaving him for dead2.
Stroman was sentenced to death row.3
Ten
years later, Bhuiyan acted on inspiration from his Islamic
pilgrimage & his family's upbringing that led him to forgive
Stroman publicly4
& to work “to have his attacker spared from the death
penalty.”5
This
is amazing grace.
“Amazing
Grace, how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me...”
Country
music singer/songwriter Sam Baker has quite a perspective on the
sounds he heard in his near death experience in 1986 before he became a song
writer, as
I learned listening to Terry Gross' interviiew with him on NPR's
Fresh Air6.
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/06/310089151/sam-baker-finding-grace-in-the-wake-of-destruction
Baker was traveling on a passenger
train in Peru & almost
died from the terrorist bombing of the train. The
blast from the bomb in the compartment directly overhead instantly
killed a couple sitting there. Their 7-year-old son took hours
to die.
Since
then, Baker has gained a renewed perspective on life & people
that he expresses in song, teaching us about our common humanity, about mercy & grace. He emphasizes empathy, sees each person as a sinner & a
saint,8
& has gained faith “in us as a group, as humans" (as he says in the NPR interview).
His
perspective of humans as a group echoes what we hear Peter say in
today's Epistle:
“Once you were not a people,
but now you are
God’s people.”
Beloved Brothers & Sisters, you are
a people. You are
a royal priesthood to serve
God, to draw
others to God so that they become
God’s people, living stones, fitted
into Christ, the cornerstone.
What
a difference it is to choose between
throwing stones in anger &
being living stones
fitted into Christ Jesus:
the way, the truth, the
life.
May
we have the mercy & the grace
to live as Jesus calls us to live,
(& as
Sam Baker reminds us to in
his album,
“Say
Grace,”
when he sings:
“Go in peace. Go in kindness. Go in love.
Go in
faith...Go in Grace.
Let us go into the dark. Not afraid.
Not
alone...9
Remember:
we go bearing
the Light of Christ into that darkness.
Bibliography
Barclay,
William. The
Gospel of John. Vol 2.
Revised Ed. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975.
Baker, Sam. BlueLimeStone Publishing. Sambakermusic.com.
Produced by Walt Wilkins & Tim Lorsch Bull Creek Productions.
2004.
Book of Common
Prayer.
New York: The Church Hymnal Corp., and The Seabury Press. 1979.
Giridharadas, Anand. The True
American: Murder and Mercy in Texas.
New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 2014.
Harper’s Bible
Commentary.
General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row
Publishers. 1988.
Holy Bible.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press.
1989.
Sam
Baker: Finding Grace In The Wake Of Destruction.
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/06/310089151/sam-baker-finding-grace-in-the-wake-of-destruction.
6 May 2014.
Voyles,
Robert J. Restoring
Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.
Hillsboro, OR: The Appreciative Way. 2010. www.appreciativeway.com.
2
Ibid. Pp. 26-29.
3
Ibid. P. 109.
4
Ibid. Inside cover flap.
5
Ibid.
6
Sam
Baker: Finding Grace In The Wake Of Destruction. NPR “Fresh Air”
Interview with Terry Gross.
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/06/310089151/sam-baker-finding-grace-in-the-wake-of-destruction.
6 May 2014.
7
Baker, Sam. BlueLimeStone Publishing. Sambakermusic.com. Produced by
Walt Wilkins & Tim Lorsch Bull Creek Productions. 2004.
8
Ibid. Baker. Paraphrase from “Angels." BlueLimeStone
Publishing.
9
Baker, Sam. NPR interview.
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/06/310089151/sam-baker-finding-grace-in-the-wake-of-destruction.
6 May 2014.
10
Ibid. Baker. NPR interview.
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