+I’m so happy to be with you this morning. I thank Virginia for the invitation, you for your welcome, and Bishop Bill for creating this job of the Canon for Connections. Because it is this job of mine which allows me to travel around the diocese meeting people, speaking with them and hopefully connecting them in and through the Bishop’s web of grace. For those of you who don’t know, “the web of grace” is an interweaving, intertwined system of connections that strengthens us as a diocese and as a witness to the world around us, bringing grace, hope, love and peace to a world that so sorely needs it.
My friend Rick Morley , who is an Episcopal priest, an author and a poet, is someone who understands just how desperately this world of ours needs to hear and more importantly see the Web of Grace in action. In 2013 he wrote a beautiful reflection on today’s Gospel, and I will quote it heavily in this homily. (a peace of marvel – a reflection on John 14:27
April 26, 2013 accessed through rickmorley.com on April 29, 2016)
In this morning’s reading from John, as Jesus is in the midst of his farewell discourse to his friends---you remember it’s a set of very poignant statements Jesus makes on the night before his crucifixion--- he utters these iconic words: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Of course, as always with the disciples, they have no idea what he’s talking about.
I get their confusion. After all Jesus is telling them that he’ll be gone, but that he’ll never leave them. He’s telling them that the world won’t know a thing about him…except….until…only if they tell the world. That everything he’s taught them over the course of the past three years will signify absolutely nothing unless and until and only if they, his friends, his followers, his students, his disciples share what they have experienced, with others.
And while Jesus is speaking directly to his disciples in this Gospel he is, of course, also speaking to us.
He’s telling us that his peace---a peace which surpasses all understanding---is ours. Yours, and mine and everyone’s. Always. And forever.
He’s telling us that he knows our hearts get troubled, that our hearts become afraid …BUT he says, do not worry for His grace. His love, His peace is ours. That we receive this peace when we do as he has taught us: by reaching out to the other, by searching for the lost, by loving the hated, the despised and the thrown away. We receive this peace when we live as he lived.
All of this has been given to us, not to horde, not to hide and not to ignore. It’s been given to us to share.
And my goodness, does this world need it.
It’s my prayer and I trust it’s yours, that we, each and everyone of us will be strengthened through the fellowship of Christ, emboldened through the nourishment given at this altar, inspired by the worship offered here, to go out into the world and show all those whom we encounter, this peace.
Particularly now . With hatred being spewed across our airways in one of the most nasty election seasons in our memory, with gun violence ripping apart cities, small towns, villages, neighborhoods and families, with an uncertain darkness which seems to pervade our world, resulting in terrorist attacks of unspeakable horror.
The good news is, help is here, help has always been here. Help comes to us through Jesus Christ, who, on the night before his death brought his disciples the same help that is available to us, here and now.
Peace. His peace.
Not the world’s peace. Jesus doesn’t bring that sort of thing.
No, Jesus brings the shalom of God, where everything is good and right. Where everything is in it’s place, and where there are no dark corners to shelter evil from the warm glow of God’s pure light. The kind of peace that walks on water, that stills the storm, and fills our jars to the brim with the finest of wines. The kind of peace that brings sight to the blind, restores hearing to the deaf, and tells the lame to get up and walk.
The kind of peace that comes to a tomb and renders it empty.
That kind of peace.
Where hearts never need be troubled—for what could ever cause such a stir in the presence of God’s Shalom?
Where there is nothing to fear. Nothing.
The kind of peace that bombs and storms and cancer and injustice and terrorists and dissidents and lobbyists and weapons of mass destruction and dark hairy beasts which go bump in the night—where none of those things which usher in the valley of the shadow of death can usher in even an ounce of fear.
Because there is no oxygen for fear to breathe. No room for fear to move. No water for fear to swim in.
Because the peace of Jesus has soaked us to the bone, and nothing can wring it out.
That’s what Jesus brings. To us.
And so let us marvel. Let us savor. And let us make it our mission to continue his mission, and take this peace—which passes all understanding—to the ends of the earth. And to the inner chambers of our hearts.
For when we do that, the web of grace will once and for all be complete. And to that we all can say,
Amen and Alleluia.
No comments:
Post a Comment