Stones Can Hinder, Stones Can Help

Homily By The Rev. Marcia McRae

St. Francis Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC, 5^th Sunday of Easter, 14 May 2017

Year A RCL Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14

We hear stones scattered throughout our scriptures today: stones that kill, stones that protect, stones that build a spiritual house, stones that live.

This stone with its gentle flame reminds us, as we read in 1^st Peter: we are called out of darkness into God's marvelous light. The Holy Spirit guides us through & out of darkness.

In his meditation “Risen One”¹, Brother Geoffrey Tristram of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist says,

“If the journey seems daunting or overwhelming, (Jesus') resurrection...assures us the Risen One (Jesus) will always be our companion on the Way, & will always go before us to prepare the way.”

This stone a young person decorated with words on 2 sides

reminds me of faith & to trust Jesus. [One side says “Faith”. The other says “Trust in me.”]

Stephen trusts in Jesus. We hear his trust in our lesson from Acts. The words of this 1^st Christian martyr echo our Lord Jesus on the cross. As Stephen is being murdered by the enraged crowd throwing stones to kill him, he says:

“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 the joy & freedom which come from forgiving those who hurt us; to find the joy & freedom which come from forgiving ourselves.

How easy is it to forgive? How easy is it to follow Jesus? It can be hard to follow Jesus when we have been wronged.

On the Sunday after the Sept. 11^th bombings in 2001, an Episcopal priest said this in a sermon:

“The challenge of this life is not to stay alive;

the challenge of this life is to stay in love.”²

What 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 and “avowed American terrorist Mark Stroman” are the central people in the non-fiction book, TheTrue American: Murder & Mercy in Texas³ by Anand Giridharadas.

On Sept. 20, 2001, Stroman, who after the 911 attacks has already killed at random 2 men he assumes to be Muslims, shoots Rais in the face & leaves him for dead⁴. Stroman gets sentenced to death row.⁵

Ten years after he is shot, Rais gets an idea from his Islamic pilgrimage which leads him to forgive Stroman publicly, “in the name of Islam & its notion of mercy.”⁶ He works “to have his attacker spared from the death penalty.”⁷

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 amazing grace & on the sounds he hears in his near death experience before he became a song writer, as I learned listening to Terry Gross' interview with him on NPR's Fresh Air^8. You may recall my sharing part of his story & perspective at our Good Friday worship.

Sam, in 1986 a 31-year-old tourist, travels on a passenger train in Peru. He almost dies in the terrorist bombing of the train.

The blast from the bomb in the compartment directly overhead instantly kills a mother & father sitting facing Sam.

Their 7-year-old son takes hours to die.

Sam is helpless to help that child. The blast collapses Sam's lungs, cuts an artery, leaves him deaf, damages his brain. He develops gangrene. He requires more than 15 reconstructive surgeries. Formerly very physically active, climbing & so forth, he lives simply now.

Sam grew up going to church & drifted away. He has renewed perspective & faith, a new sense of purpose he expresses in songs. He recalls coming back from dying & a voice saying:

“You have to do something.”

What he does is teach us about our common humanity. He teaches about Mercy & Grace. “Everyone is at the mercy of another one's dream,” he says in the song, “Angels,” in his album “Mercy”⁹.

“...If you have a dream of destruction, it's not going to come out well for all of us,”

he says in the NPR interview.

Sam started writing music after his life-altering experience. He has gained faith in humanity, as he says in the interview. One thing which has changed is his perspective on suffering. He knows we all suffer. He has learned empathy.

He sees each person as a sinner & a saint.¹⁰ 

He has gained faith “in us as a group, as humans."

In his album, “Say Grace,” 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...¹¹”

Sam's perspective of humans as a group echoes what we hear Peter say in our Epistle:

“Once you were not a people,

but now you are God’s people.”

I assure you, my Beloved Brothers & Sisters,

you are a people.

You /we are a royal priesthood to serve God. You draw others to God so 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 & as Sam reminds us to:

“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...”¹²

Remember:

We go into the darkness bearing the Light of Christ.

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.

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.

Tristram, Brother Geoffrey. Society of Saint John the Evangelist. “Risen One” daily meditation for 9 May 2017. Originally published as “Emmaus” at http://ssje.org/ssje/2008/04/06/emmaus/ Accessed 9 May 2017.

Voyles, Robert J. Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment. Hillsboro, OR: The Appreciative Way. 2010. www.appreciativeway.com.

1 Tristram, Brother Geoffrey. Society of Saint John the Evangelist. “Risen One” daily meditation for 9 May 2017. Originally published as “Emmaus” at http://ssje.org/ssje/2008/04/06/emmaus/ Accessed 9 May 2017.

2 The Rev. Chris Rankin-Williams of California. Quoted by the Rev. Dr. Robert J. Voyles in a Lenten Forgiveness series Introduction P. 5, based on Voyles' Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.

3 Giridharadas, Anand. The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

4 Ibid. Pp. 26-29.

5 Ibid. P. 109.

6 Ibid. Inside cover flap.

7 Ibid.

8 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.

9 Baker, Sam. BlueLimeStone Publishing. Sambakermusic.com. Produced by Walt Wilkins & Tim Lorsch Bull Creek Productions. 2004.

10 Ibid. Baker. Paraphrase from “Angels." BlueLimeStone Publishing.

11 Baker, Sam. NPR interview. http://www.npr.org/2014/05/06/310089151/sam-baker-finding-grace-in-the-wake-of-destruction. 6 May 2014.

12 Ibid. Baker. NPR interview.

Live in Abundant Life

Homily By The Rev. Marcia McRae

St. Francis Episcopal Church, Goldsboro, NC, 4^th Sunday of Easter, 7 May 2017

Year A RCL Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10

What animal, other than humans, do our scriptures mention today?

Yes! You're correct! Sheep!

Notice: These dolls represent sheep. Each carries distinctive colors like cattle being branded.

Visiting Scotland, our family learned sheep farmers paint a particular color on their sheep so when they mix along the hillside with neighboring flocks, each shepherd easily sees his sheep as they munch what's planted. Sheep eat food which has sprouted from seeds watered by rain God sends to nourish the earth & give growth.

What products do we get from sheep? [Answers: wool, meat.] Although sheep provide wool from which we make blankets & clothes, I am more familiar with cotton, having enjoyed the snow-like beauty of cotton fields for years living in the south.

My husband & our son know lots about cotton: They scouted cotton fields in the summer for our son to earn money for school. A few years ago, the company our son works for sent him & other employees to learn about cotton growing in California. It is different, he says.

He tells about experts explaining details during days flying over fields, being in fields to see various stages of growth, how plants are tended, picked & baled. The last day the group sees baling in action.

Standing in a warehouse surrounded by bales of cotton, the guide asks for questions. One person points to a bale & asks:

to make a bale this size,

how many sheep does it take?

! ! ! ! !

Was this person not listening all those days? This reminds me of a question in a favorite book of mine, which asks: If a man

tries to fail & succeeds, which does he do?¹ 

Does he fail or does he succeed?

This lighthearted & challenging question, reminds me of the disciples in our Gospel today. Jesus talks to his friends about sheep & shepherds, a normal part of their culture.

The disciples just don't get it. . . . Why?

 ? ? ?

People familiar with sheep say sheep respond to their shepherd's voice. At a clergy conference, a colleague shared about his trip to Israel & the guide taking the group among flocks of sheep & having a shepherd call a sheep by name. It looks up. He calls another name & way in the distance that sheep looks up. Sheep from other flocks keep munching & pay that shepherd no attention. They respond to their own shepherd's voice.

So why do the disciples not get this? . . . .

Like the disciples, we can be slow to respond, so slow to understand what Jesus is telling us, slow to remember we are sheep in Jesus' flock, “branded” in the water of baptism.

Jesus clearly tells the disciples he is the good shepherd & the gate for the sheep. This dual image sounds confusing. In Jesus' culture it makes sense.

Bible commentator William Barclay says²: In Jesus day there are 2 kinds of sheep-folds:

“communal sheep-folds” in villages to keep all the community's flocks at night. These are strongly guarded under lock & key.

When shepherds are away with their flocks in open places, they use hillside sheep-folds, which have a wall with an opening for the sheep to enter. At night the shepherd lies across the entrance to keep the sheep inside: the shepherd literally becomes the gate.³

Jesus assures us he comes so his sheep “may have life, & have it abundantly.” We hear the joy this abundant life brings to believers right after Jesus' resurrection. Our lesson from Acts says:

The baptized devote themselves to the apostles' teaching & fellowship, to the breaking of bread & the prayers. They spend much time together in the temple, break bread & eat with glad & generous hearts, praising God & having the good will of all the people.

This is abundant life. This is joy-filled living. This is good stewardship of the gifts God gives, like the gifts God blesses us with to use & share.

Our scriptures tell us of joy-filled life. Psalm 23 tells us about dwelling in the house of the Lord for ever. We tend to think of this as life after death. In the Hebrew perspective⁴, [and I paraphrase in parts] the Psalmist speaks of deep longing for life inside the Temple.

You may recall the song “If I were a rich man” Tevye, the farmer, sings in Fiddler on the Roof. He sings: “I'd sit all day in the synagogue & pray.” He sings about lingering in God's temple. This is the life dwelling in deep communion with God which we hear in Psalm 23. Trust in God is like living right in the Temple close to God, praising God continually.

What does this mean to you?

How do you see yourself as a person dwelling in God's house?

How do you see yourself as a sheep in the good, tender care of Jesus,

the Good Shepherd?

We gather in this temple regularly like the people we read about in Acts. We spend much time together in this temple. We break bread & eat with glad & generous hearts, praising God & having the good will of many. We carry this joy from here out to others. This is abundant life. This is joy-filled living.

What does this mean to you?

How do you see yourself as having abundant life here?

How do you see yourself as carrying this abundant life out our doors &

into your home, into your daily life?

We come to this holy temple & each of us is the temple where the Holy Spirit dwells. Like the challenge of Jesus as shepherd & gate, we have 2 images to live into:

gathering together in God's holy temple &

being the temple

where the Holy Spirit dwells.

What can you do to remember we do more than gather in this temple?

How can you remember we are the temple where the Holy Spirit dwells?

God lingers within us. Each of us is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

You have abundant life to enjoy & share!

If a man tries to fail & succeeds, which does he do?⁵

More important:

If you – if we – try to succeed as generous, loving people who are where the Holy Spirit dwells:

how can we possibly fail!?

Bibliography

Barclay, William. The Gospel of John. Vol 2. Revised Ed. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975.

Cathcart, Thomas. Daniel Klein. Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...:Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes. New York: Books. The Penguin Group. 2007.

Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1988.

“He Knows Your Name”. http://www.sermons4kids.com/ Accessed: 3 May 2017.

Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.

Levenson, Jon D. Sinai & Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible. Minneapolis: A Seabury Book. Winston Press. 1985.

1 Cathcart, Thomas. Daniel Klein. Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...:Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes. P. 49. Note: verb tense is paraphrased.

2 Barclay, William. The Gospel of John. Vol 2. Revised Ed. P. 58.

3 Ibid.

4 Levenson, Jon D. Sinai & Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible. Pp. 176-177.

5 Ibid. Cathcart. Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar.