6th Sunday of Easter-Year C

The Sixth Sunday of Easter-Year C May 22, 2022 As I’ve been preparing to go on sabbatical, I’ve been thinking about peace a lot lately—thinking about what peace is in general and what it is specifically to me. Many people think that peace is the absence of conflict; it can be equated with tranquility, and for people with small children, it is often coupled with “quiet” (as in “Can I, please, just get five minutes of peace and quiet?”). As we watch from afar the 12 week war between Russia and Ukraine, peace may even feel like an unachievable dream for us and for our world. I asked our Wednesday group what peace means for them. One spoke about how peace is the opposite of fear. Another spoke of how it is a deepening in God. Another referred to a Martin Luther King Jr quote: "We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience." For me, both physically and spiritually, peace is a kind of deep breathing that dispels the tightness in my chest and belly and even the tightness in my soul that is anxiety, stress, striving, and a fearful and troubled heart. In our gospel reading for today, we see Jesus speaking to his disciples in the gospel of John’s long farewell discourse. He is responding to a question from one of the disciples, and even as he gives them the bad news that he is not going to be with them for much longer, he gives them the good news that God will be sending the Holy Spirit to teach and remind them. He also gives them the gift of his peace saying: “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.” As I was thinking about this peace that Jesus gives his disciples (both his disciples then and us, his disciples now), I began to wonder…Is Jesus saying that his gift of peace is an antidote for troubled and fearful hearts? Or is he giving them the gift of his peace coupled with a command to them: “do not let your hearts be troubled…[or] afraid”? Is peace a free gift that will strengthen our hearts through its reception or is it an either/or situation—Jesus gives us peace in which we can choose to dwell or we can allow our hearts to be troubled and afraid? At its heart, peace is a free gift of Jesus, what Jesus offers and wants for each one of us, and it comes into our hearts when they are undefended and longing for peace The Anglican priest Herbert O’Driscoll writes this about Jesus’s gift of peace in John 14:27: “The word Jesus would have used at that moment is shalom, a much richer and more complex term. ‘Peace’ in this sense does not mean tranquility, lack of challenge, or restfulness. We can experience the peace of Christ without any of these things. Experiencing the shalom of Christ is to taste moments when in an almost inexpressible way things seem to come together for us. The shalom of Christ comes when we experience the conviction that in Christ everything somehow makes sense.” i The story from Acts gives us a picture of what this peace, this shalom of Jesus looks like, a coming together of things to spread the good news of the resurrection throughout the world. In the story, we see Paul being obedient to a vision that he has that compels him to travel to Europe. He ends up in Philippi, and seemingly by chance, he finds himself on the outside of town near the river. There he encounters some women who’ve gathered there, and he sits down with them and begins to teach them. Among this group of women is Lydia, who is a wealthy, successful head of her own household in Philippi. She is a dealer in purple cloth which only the wealthy could afford, so she has access to most of the movers and shakers in town and perhaps beyond. As she is listening to Paul, the writer of Acts says that “God opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” She and her whole household get baptized and then she urges Paul and his companions to come stay at her home with her. What this story tells me is that in God’s shalom, nothing is a coincidence. It also shows me that when Lydia’s longing for a relationship with God encounters the grace of God, the offspring of that union are both peace and an abundance of generosity. So what does that mean for us this day? We too are offered the gift of Jesus’s peace, Jesus’s shalom into our hearts and lives. That does not mean that our lives will be conflict free. And it does not mean that we will always be perfectly tranquil. What it does mean is that we can rest in the assurance that in Christ, everything somehow makes sense. And it means that when our longing for God encounters the gift of God’s grace, then the results are both peace and generosity. In that way, we are made whole. In closing, as I prepare to be away from you for nine weeks on sabbatical, I’d like to share with you an old favorite song. It’s called Deep Peace by Kirk Dearmen, and it’s a Celtic blessing that brings me a little closer to this mystery that is peace. It goes: “Deep peace of the running wave to you, Deep peace of the silent starts/Deep peace of the flowing air to you. Deep peace of the quite Earth./ May peace, may peace, may peace fill your soul,/ Let peace, let peace, let peace make you whole.”ii i. O’ Driscoll, Herbert. Prayers for the Breaking of Bread. Cowley: Cambridge, 1991. p 87. ii. From Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi’s Camp Bratton Green Songbook: 1999 Expressions of Praise Music; CCLI song no. 2198338; CCLI license no. 2260158

4th Sunday of Easter Year C

4th Sunday of Easter-Year C May 8, 2022 I’ve been hearing one particular question more frequently over these last few weeks: “What are you going to do on your sabbatical?” The conversation usually proceeds along similar lines as I begin to share details of a family trip to Europe that we have planned to kick-off my sabbatical and to celebrate our daughter’s graduation from high school. I tell them all the different places we’ll be going and what we plan to do there, and after their initial enthusiastic response, their eyes start to glaze over. It’s a lot. Once I realize this, I quickly wrap up and we talk about the rest of the plans for what I’m going to do on sabbatical. (Don’t worry, I’ll be detailing more of this for y’all in upcoming correspondence…) But after several versions of this conversation, I began to sense some uneasiness within myself. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I have spent months planning this trip—where we’ll go and stay, how we’ll get there, what we’ll see and do when we’re there. (I do love to plan trips—my mom even gave me a bunch of guidebooks for my birthday this past January….because that’s what I asked for!) When I dig a little deeper, I begin to realize that the twinges of uneasiness I am feeling are, perhaps, gentle pecks from the Holy Spirit to pay attention. And when I dig deeper still, I begin to see that I am bringing the same sort of violence (or dare I call it sinfulness?) to my sabbatical that I often live with in my work and home life. Here’s what I mean by that. I’ve been re-reading a book titled Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in our Busy Lives. It’s by a man named Wayne Muller, who had a near death-experience through a serious infection during a time in his life when he was dramatically over-working. In his opening chapter, Muller writes this about sabbath keeping and our modern lives: “Thomas Jefferson suggested that human life and liberty were intimately entwined with the pursuit of happiness. Instead, life has become a maelstrom in which speed and accomplishment, consumption and productivity have become the most valued human commodities. In the trance of overwork, we take everything for granted. We consume things, people, and information. We do not have time to savor this life, nor to care deeply and gently for ourselves, our loved ones, or our world; rather, with increasingly dizzying haste, we use them all up, and throw them away…” Muller suggests that in all this, we have forgotten Sabbath—a time that is set aside for sacred rest. He continues, “Sabbath is more than the absence of work; it is not just a day off when we catch up on television or errands. It is the presence of something that arises when we consecrate a period of time to listen to what is most deeply beautiful, nourishing, or true. It is time consecrated with our attention, our mindfulness, honoring those quiet forces of grace or spirit that sustain and heal us….While many of us are terribly weary, we have come to associate tremendous guilt or shame with taking time to rest. Sabbath gives us permission….We only need to remember.”i Today, we are offered two different reminders of how we might find this rest, take this refuge in Jesus. In our gospel reading for today, Jesus reminds his listeners and us that none of his followers, his sheep, can be snatched out of his hand; how we are all also held in God’s hand as well. At a different point in John’s gospel, Jesus invites us to “make your home in me as I make mine in you.” The second reminder comes from Dame Julian of Norwich whose feast day is also today. Julian, a medieval mystic who lived in England during a time of plague and political tumult, had a vision about the nature of God’s love. And in this vision, Julian saw God holding something that looked like the size of a hazelnut in God’s hand. It was revealed to Julian that this hazelnut was all that had ever been created by God, and she realized three truths about her life, the life of others, and the life of all creation: 1. God made it. 2. God loves it. 3. God keeps it. We are already fully made, fully loved, and fully kept by God. There is no striving that we need to do or even that we can do in order to earn this. That offer of peace, of rest, of belonging is already there. We just have to accept it, and to open ourselves up to the delight that comes. So, what does that look like? For me, it has meant more a change in approach than a change in plans for sabbatical at this point. I’ve pulled back from trying to schedule out every moment of our trip and have left open spaces for rest, for exploration, for delight. Your invitation this week is two-fold. First, spend some time with Dame Julian’s revelation: that God made you; God loves you; and God keeps you. Second, spend some time doing a time inventory. Look at how you spend your time in a given week. What are ways that you are already keeping the sabbath—whether it be for just a few minutes a day to whole stretches of time? What are some ways that the God who keeps you is inviting you into deeper, fuller sabbath rest in the coming week? i. Muller. Wayne. Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in our Busy Lives. Bantam: New York, 1999, pp 4-8.