Pentecost (Year C)
Acts 2:1-21
St. John’s, West Seneca
June 8, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
Imagine a person comes up to you and says this: “I was out driving the other day when I had a punctured tyre. I pulled off to the verge and opened the boot. There was no spare. So, I opened the bonnet. Fortunately, a lorry driver saw the raised bonnet and stopped to help me out.”
If you can understand that, you have either spent time in Great Britain, or you watch way too much British TV.
Want an American translation? “I was out driving the other day when I had a flat tire. I pulled off to the shoulder and opened the trunk. There was no spare. So, I opened the hood. Fortunately, a truck driver saw the raised hood and stopped to help me out.”
It’s Pentecost and it is all about language, but not language that confuses or needs to be translated, rather, one that brings together those first Christians and marks the beginning of the church.
Your accent can betray you. We see that in the Acts lesson: Are not these men Galileans? Yes, there were accents in ancient Israel. As a scholar says: “Identifying a person’s regional dialect suggests a number of things about them. Having grown up in the south, I can distinguish between redneck slang and an aristocratic drawl. Seminary in Chicago acquainted me with the midwestern twang, and grad school in New Jersey introduced me to nasal northeastern.”
As for me, I never thought I had an accent until I moved to Philadelphia. Then I was asked: Where are you from with that accent? My seminary internship was just south of Boston, Massachusetts. Just watch the Sam Adams commercials; you’ll get the drift.
“Language has divided Christians, too. Among the earliest followers of Jesus strife emerged between Greek-speaking Jews who complained that the Aramaic-speakers overlooked their widows in the distribution of food (Acts 6). A thousand years later, the Latin-speaking, Catholic west and the (mainly) Greek-speaking, Orthodox east divided in the Schism of 1054. During the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church banned translations of the Bible into the everyday vernacular of the common laity.”
Language is one of the unique traits that make us human. And so, to understand Pentecost, we need to know the story of the Tower of Babel, today’s first reading. The Tower of Babel was really the first skyscraper — “a tower with its top in the heavens.” Its purpose was to “make a name” for those who built it and then, as it would be a permanent structure, would certainly bring a reputation.
What did that tower say about God? The tower was a monument of self-reliance. The phrase “let us” shows up three times in this reading and sounds an alarm of independence and egocentrism.
Then, this tower was intended not for the glory of God, but to make a name for themselves. This is not God’s plan, and in the covenant with Abraham we will hear: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” It is God who makes our name, and God’s blessing on us is always to benefit others, not ourselves.
It’s spiritual selfishness. As N.T. Wright summarizes:
“Those who were supposed to be reflecting God’s image in the world — that is, human beings — are instead looking into mirrors of their own … arrogant and insecure, they have become self-important.”
Everything we have accomplished and everything that we have are the products of, and instruments of God’s blessing, intended to be a blessing to others. We’re not supposed to be making names for ourselves. And so God scatters them, by adding additional languages.
We come now to Pentecost. Given the volatile dynamics of language, it’s remarkable that in this transition, God uses language, as divisive as it can be, to build the church. In the book of Acts, Luke describes the first Pentecost.
Luke tells us that “God-fearing Jews from every nation of the world” as having converged upon Jerusalem for Pentecost; he goes on to list at least 15 ethno-linguistic groups who were present. And they all understood, meaning they could take the good news of Jesus to their respective communities.
Pentecost and the birth of the church reverses the calamity of the Tower of Babel. In those first pages of the Bible, one language did not unite the people, as they were more interested in making a name for themselves, honoring not God, but their own talents.
Pentecost takes the languages of the world and reminds us that languages can unite a people. You will notice, not one language is singled out as being superior.
Nadia Bolz Weber, writing about Pentecost, said: “There were several events of monumental importance that happened in 1492. One of those events seems, at first glance, to lack significance, but in reality altered the course of history. For it was in that year that Antonio de Nebrija entered the chambers of Queen Isabel of Spain and handed her what he called the key to their dreams for a Spanish Empire. It was a weapon. A weapon which had no equal and it was not made of steel or gunpowder. It was made of paper. It was the first book of grammar. When [he] handed it to her, Queen Isabel famously said that she knew the Spanish language quite well and had no need for such a book. To which Antonio replied, ‘But Your Highness, language is the greatest tool of empire.’
And one has only to look at the 21 Spanish language countries that exist now, over 500 years later, to know that he was right. And one has only to look to the language laws of Germany in the 1930s and 40s and of South Africa in the mid 40s to the mid 90s…to know that there are few more potent markers of identity than language. Language, as you know, is powerful.
What becomes a problem is when I insist that there is one language in which the Gospel can be preached and it just so happens to be with the language, or the art, or the culture, or the humor that I understand. I’ve then confused the ethos and the logos, the wrapping with the gift.
Because while there may be one Gospel, one story about God-with-us, God becoming human and healing the sick and feeding the hungry and being killed for it all and then defeating death itself, while there is this one story, there are countless ways of understanding it. There are countless images and words and music and culture which serve to tell that story.”
This is one reason the Pentecost story in so compelling. There is no one language. What there is, is the Holy Spirit.
And that is where we find ourselves today, with an amazing story that has been translated into hundreds of languages and dialects. And not one of them is better because it is the one story that matters.
Pentecost marks the end of the Easter season, and it begins what I call the “long, green season,” a time of growth for the church and for us. I like to think that Pentecost brings with it a clean slate. If Pentecost tells us anything at all, besides all the details about that mighty wind, those tongues of fire, and all those languages, it is that God delivers on his promises. And this marvelous Holy Spirit leaves us with a sense of peace and awe that should inspire us, as those at the first Pentecost were inspired. And like those who were there, we can understand God’s word in a language that didn’t really take form until the 5th century. There is no one way and there is no one language. God will always find a way and come to us. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
6 Easter (Year C)
John 17: 20-26
St. John’s, West Seneca
May 25, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
David Foster Wallace, an author and short story writer, gave a Commencement address at Kenyon College twenty years ago, an address that holds as true today as it was then. I honestly didn’t know much about him until Friday. He was born in Ithaca in 1962, and died young, by suicide after struggling with depression. The commencement speech – entitled THIS IS WATER - won widespread acclaim, and covered subjects including the difficulty of empathy, the importance of being well-adjusted, and being compassionate.
Here is one example from the address.
“There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: ‘Look, it’s not like I don’t have actual reasons for not believing in God. It’s not like I haven’t ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn’t see a thing, and it was 50 below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out ‘Oh, God, if there is a God, I’m lost in this blizzard, and I’m gonna die if you don’t help me.’ And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. ‘Well then you must believe now,’ he says, ‘After all, here you are, alive.’ The atheist just rolls his eyes. ‘No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp.’”
He goes on to say – in a nutshell – that we need to consider how we make meaning out of our lives, and some of that is intentional choice. For the faithful, God did intervene, not with a spectacular miracle, but a miracle nonetheless. Still, when it comes to religion, Wallace warns us about arrogance, saying that …the nonreligious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help. For believers and non-believers alike, the enemy is “blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up.”
It's a lesson to all of us to think, really think, on who we are and how we believe, how we understand how God is working in this world, all without becoming arrogant or belittling.
And then he goes on to say this:
“You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.
"Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
"Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.
"They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.
"And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.”
No wonder his speech won acclaim and attention.
What is your default setting? Who or what do you worship? How do you decide what has meaning? How do you keep the truth in front of you?
As followers of Jesus, we are given default settings when the world lets us down. In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of his departure, and provides us just that.
“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 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.”
We have been given God’s peace. Because of that, we do not have to be afraid, and certainly not troubled. Are you going to cling to that or find meaning elsewhere?
John, in Revelation, gives us a default setting as well, with visions of the river of life, the tree of life laden with its twelve fruits, its leaves for the healing of the nations. And there will be no need for sun or lamp, for God will be our light.
And in the Acts lesson, Paul’s default setting is to go find a place for prayer, no matter where he was. In a vision he is called to Macedonia and there he meets Lydia, whose heart is opened, and a new believer is born. What do you choose for that “peace that passes all understanding?”
When the world gets you down, where do you turn for relief and solace and a good word? After all, the world wants us to turn to whatever it is offering at the moment. They call to us seductively: self-help gurus, TikTok tutorials, what’s on Facebook or X or Instagram. Those are temporary helps, these things that encourage us to just follow. It’s fun for a while, but there will always be a new influencer, a new platform. There will never be enough money, or power, or beauty, and eventually we need to find solid ground that will not fail.
You have to choose. I gave you three just now from today’s readings, but Scripture is filled with wisdom, compassion and a love that will not let you go. From the beginning, when God called the creation “good,” to the patriarchs and Moses and the prophets. And Jesus, who teaches us that He is the way, the truth, and the life. Along the way there were many influencers and false prophets, wealth and power, and it all faded away.
This past Thursday one of my patients was declared brain dead, and the family opted for organ donation. What is often done in these situations is an HONOR WALK, where the patient is taken from the room to the OR for the harvest of organs. The word goes out and associates gather in the halls to honor this person, to mourn the death, but also to remember that people who are suffering will be given a chance for better health. I was in the room; I prayed with them, then joined the dozens who were present. It was an emotional moment. The family expressed their gratitude. And my hope, my hope and prayer is that they will remember this Christian witness and make that their default setting.
A default setting cannot be what the world offers because the world is fickle and frivolous, ultimately unreliable. Set your default setting to the one God who so loved the world that he gave His only Son, that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
5 Easter (Year C)
Revelation 21
St. John’s, West Seneca
May 18, 025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
It was the class so many of us wanted to take while in Seminary. Alas, my schedule didn’t give me the opportunity. And why wouldn’t it be? As one author wrote: “The book of Revelation is filled with strange images: A great red dragon, beasts from the sea and land, the bowls of God’s wrath, a great whore, an apocalyptic battle, and the final judgment. When the seventh trumpet blows, we learn of God’s plan “for destroying those who destroy the earth.”
There have been movies and television and books on Revelation, always attempting to explore this mystery of what it being said in this last book of the Bible.
But for all this, Revelation was almost not included in the New Testament. There are any number of reasons.
First, there are doubts as to who wrote it. Was it written by John, the apostle, or another John? The style of Greek doesn’t match with the other books attributed to John.
Then, there is its style, which is unusual and apocalyptic. As a side note, Apocalypse simply means “unveiling,” or disclosure. In the apostolic tradition, apocalypse is not so much the end of the world as it is the beginning, the disclosure, the unveiling of this new creation that Jesus will bring in. Unfortunately, due to bad theology, it has come to mean something far more dire, more frightening, more of a scare tactic.
Revelation has vivid imagery and symbolic language, and it differs from other New Testament writings, not only making it a challenge to interpret, but being far too easy to misinterpret. For example, some understand it as prophecy already fulfilled. Some see it as prophecy happening in the here and now. Still others view it as prophecy for the future.
All this language and imagery have made it difficult to understand, and when something is difficult to understand, then comes misunderstanding. And many of those misunderstandings in the early church conflicted with agreed upon Christian doctrine.
And it didn’t help that Revelation was associated with heretical groups like the Montanists, who focused more on the Holy Spirit to the neglect of the Gospels. And so the questions arose, with concerns about its theology and whether it was suitable for inclusion.
And, as some have argued, it may have been written in code. ”Elaine Pagels, a New Testament scholar, has written that that Revelation, far from being meant as a hallucinatory prophecy, is actually a coded account of events that were happening at the time John was writing. It’s essentially a political cartoon about the crisis in the Jesus movement in the late first century, with Jerusalem fallen and the Temple destroyed and the Saviour, despite his promises, still not back. All the imagery…represents contemporary people and events, and was well understood in those terms by the original audience… When John says that ‘the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth,’ he revises Daniel’s vision to picture Rome as the worst empire of all,” Pagels writes. “When he says that the beast’s seven heads are ‘seven kings,’ John probably means the Roman emperors who ruled from the time of Augustus until his own time.” As for the creepy 666, the “number of the beast,” the original text adds, helpfully, “Let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person.” This almost certainly refers — by way of Gematria, the Jewish numerological system — to the contemporary Emperor Nero. Even John’s vision of a great mountain exploding is a topical reference to the recent eruption of Vesuvius, in C.E. 79.” The argument is that Revelation was not about what was to happen, but what was happening.
Despite all these initial reservations, the Book of Revelation was eventually included in the canon, likely because it was accepted, and it did have connections to other writings, especially if it was written by John.
So we turn to Revelation 21 and contrary to popular opinion, destruction, doom and damnation are not the final word in Revelation. The book ends with a vision of a new heaven and a new earth.
Pastor Henry Brinton writes in Interpretation that the end of Revelation contains a promise of “a new relationship with God, one that is both intimate and eternal, in which people live in harmony with God and with all that God has made. This bond is a restoration of the original creation in Genesis, and it contains the best of numerous biblical images — a new heaven and earth, a city, and a garden.”
Revelation is not intended to frighten us. Instead, it provides a message of comfort and hope, written by the Christians of the first century to the Christians of any era, including our own.
As the chapter begins, John sees “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” This new creation is one in which the past is forgotten, over and done, wiped clean. That “the sea is no more” is important, as the sea always seen as a force of chaos and darkness, the unknown. In Revelation, it will be no more. All the forces that keep us from living fully are defeated as the creation is transformed, even set free.
So what do we do with this text that even Martin Luther thought should not be in the Bible? His argument was that it did not reveal anything. When Luther first translated and published the New Testament, he thought that Revelation should not have the same status or authority as the gospels or the letters of Paul or Peter. And so he put it at the end, but he didn't number it.
What do we do with this book that has us so fascinated? Simply this. God is always the Creator and so let us concentrate on making a “new heaven and a new earth” for others: the marginalized, the forgotten, the lost, those we criminalize for no apparent reason. Let’s wipe away the tears and the pain and trust in God’s promises. That new heaven and new earth is coming, but Jesus brought it here for us now. But we have to allow the resurrection of Jesus to transform us. Let’s bring heaven to earth. Richard Rohr writes of this:
“Jesus talked much more about how to live on earth now than about how to get to heaven later. Show me where Jesus healed people for the next world. He healed their present entrapment and suffering in their bodies, not just their souls. But many Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, pushed the goal into the future, making religion into a petty reward/punishment system inside a frame of retributive justice. (The major prophets — and Jesus himself — teach restorative justice instead.) Once Christianity became a simplistic win/lose morality contest, we lost most of the practical, transformative power of the Gospel for the individual and for society.”
Transformation. Today, in the First Reading, we see Peter is transformed by a vision, how he is to be open when it comes to those who are different, namely, the Gentiles. Make no distinctions. It is the same Holy Spirit.
Jesus gives us the commandment, to love one another as we have been loved. This was not new, as Leviticus commands the same. What makes it new is that this commandment is to be modeled on the love Jesus showed for his disciples, by his washing of their feet and by his death. Too many times, we define this only as belief; however, Jesus asks us to act out this love so that others may know us by the “good fruits” we live. Good trees bear good fruit.
So, here is your homework for the week: Bring heaven to earth, especially now. That is what Jesus did. If heaven looks like a city and we are to pursue God’s will on earth as it is in heaven, then as ourselves: how do we live that here? How do we restore justice? How do we love our neighbor? How do we serve this city? How can we change this place? How can we become the church that transforms lives? No matter how you understand Revelation, we can trust God’s promises that all is held in His hand, that God is “the Alpha and the Omega.” Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
4 Easter (Year C)
John 10: 22-30, Psalm 23
St. John’s, West Seneca
May 11, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, and it falls on the fourth Sunday of Easter. Psalm 23 is read always, and today John’s Gospel is before us. Now, I realize that being referred to as sheep may not be a compliment. But you must understand that in ancient Israel, there was no greater image of protector and guardian than that of the shepherd. The imagery is everywhere in the Psalms – like today’s Psalm 23 – as well as in the prophets and the writings.
“The Lord is my shepherd;’I shall not want’: that’s how most of us learned the first verse of Psalm 23. But that’s not what the original Hebrew says. The fault lies not in the Hebrew, which is clear enough, but rather in the English translation.
Specifically, the problem is with the Elizabethan English of the King James Version of the Bible, the language in which most of us learned the 23rd Psalm — and which is carried forward in many more recent translations. That team of translators assembled by King James of England did a pretty fair job, for their time. The problem is, the meaning of the English word “want” has shifted over the centuries.
Stop a person randomly on the street, and ask him or her to explain the meaning of the word, ‘want.’ You’re likely to hear something, in reply, about desire or craving… I want … a bigger house, a more luxurious car, a more fulfilling job, family members who understand me. I want my picture on the cover of People magazine … no, not People (that’s too ordinary). Make it TIME: ‘Person of the Year.’ I want to be President: not for any of the hard stuff, I’ll have minions to take care of that…
Is this what the psalmist means when he declares, ‘I shall not want’? Is he being some kind of Buddhist, teaching that the goal of the spiritual life is to free oneself from all desire — to empty the mind, through meditation, of every conscious thought, until one draws near to the silent, still point of the universe, the center of it all?
No. It’s nothing like that. What the psalmist means when he says, “I shall not want” is better expressed by some modern translations that render the second half of this first verse, ‘there is nothing I lack.’ Or, as another version puts it, turning the phrase around and expressing it positively: ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need.’” *
Keeping that in mind, consider this story.
“As I was walking through Kollen Park in Holland, Michigan along the shoreline of Lake Macatawa, I overtook a young mother and her two daughters. The younger daughter, maybe 4 years old, was forging ahead and the older daughter, maybe 10 years old, was in conversation with her mother.
"As I passed I heard the mother say, ‘Would you rather have one flower or 20 flowers?’ I had no idea what in the conversation led to that question, but the older daughter answered, ‘I’d rather have 20 flowers,’ …
"Would this young woman, I wondered, ever hear a counter truth, someone who would tell her that one thing in life could be more than enough? …
"I started to ruminate on the theme of “one thing” in Scripture. I thought of Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler: ‘There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ But when he heard this, he became sad; for he was very rich (Luke 18:22-23).’ The rich young ruler had acquired many things in life, things that gave him standing in the community, both moral points for fulfilling the law and material wealth. But the many was the enemy of the one. With his many acquisitions, his heart was divided and distracted. He could not find the one, narrow path.
"I thought about the story in which Martha came to Jesus complaining about her sister Mary who was not helping her prepare for the upcoming meal. To this complaint the Lord answered: “’Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her (Luke 10:41).’ Many things worry and distract us to the point that we, like Martha, can no longer see the one crucial thing standing right in front of us, the better part of life that can never be taken from us.
"In his response to both the rich young ruler and Martha, Jesus is reminding his followers of the Shema and applying its truth to everyday life. Moses implored the people of Israel: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might’ (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). …
"So I want to say to that little girl walking with her mother and sister along the shore of Lake Macatawa: Do not listen to the peddlers of our materialist culture; let not your heart be distracted by many things. There is a fullness that is emptiness, and an emptiness that is fullness. An empty heart has more space for God and, filled with the love of God, has more awareness of the world so loved by God and more courage to engage the forces that threaten to undo it.
"I want to say to that little girl that there is one flower more beautiful than 20 other flowers, one worthy of your full attention, a lily crowned with thorns.”**
In those two examples are two questions. On this Good Shepherd Sunday, what do we lack? Along with that, what is that “one thing,” the one thing that keeps us from becoming distracted by wonders of our material society?
With Psalm 23, we learn that we lack nothing from the shepherd. In Him there are still waters and green pasture, a feast, with a cup that is running over. It is no wonder that this Psalm is a favorite. What do we lack? Nothing. At least that is what we say. Too often we forget that God is a God of abundance. And always has been. That is why there is good theology in the words of the little girl who began to recite the 23rd Psalm "The Lord is my shepherd, that's all I want."
As for the one thing, the problem is that we do listen to the peddlers of material goods. And it is distracting. In John’s Gospel text, Jesus answers those questioning him: “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; 26 but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice.”
The one thing is the voice of the shepherd. It is all about hearing and we are surrounded by noise. That is the tricky part, the part that leads us down the wrong path. There are so many voices out there that it is essential to know who the shepherd is. Voices that tell us how to look, how to think, what to buy, what to aspire to. Voices that tell us our faults, voices that tell us we may not be good enough, or voices that cause us to doubt. Those voices are not the voice in John’s Gospel. Those are the voices that Ezekiel speaks of…wolves in sheep’s clothing. They do not have your best interests at heart.
And while it may seem easy to listen only for Jesus’ voice, the truth is that those voices calling to us sound good, alluring. Those voices promise us good things. And just as a curious sheep may get distracted and wander away, so do we. And there are so many ways and things that can distract us.
The ”one thing” is to know His voice, the voice of Jesus. Sheep do recognize their shepherd’s voice and they respond and follow. The sheep hear the shepherd’s voice and know that there are green pastures and still waters and an overflowing cup. My hope is that we do as well. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
*Homiletics Online, April 25, 2021
**—Tom Boogaart, “One Flower or Twenty Flowers,” Reformed Journal, August 20, 2022.
3 Easter (Year C)
Acts 9
St. John’s, West Seneca
May 4, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
“The adult human brain has approximately 100 billion neurons. These cells can be "
Then, in February 2010, he had a massive stroke. A blocked artery paralyzed the right side of his body and severely impaired his speech.
and reprogrammed in a way that resembles the flexibility of plastic…”
“…Sean Maloney was sitting pretty, and things looked like they could only get better. He was the executive vice president of Intel and widely considered the next in line to be CEO. He had a wife and family and maintained an active lifestyle that included running, rowing and skiing. And although he had high blood pressure, he addressed that by eating a healthy diet.
"He underwent six months of intensive rehabilitation to regain movement and the ability to talk. He had to learn to let speech originate from the other side of his brain, and while not everything returned, he was able to get enough back to function not only without relying on caregivers, but even to return to work, move to Beijing and lead Intel’s business with China, its largest market. He retired from Intel in 2013, but he was able to take up cycling, and in 2015, he founded Heart Across America, a 5,000-mile, cross-country bicycle ride from Palo Alto, California, to New York City to raise money and awareness for heart disease and stroke prevention.
"There are other stories like Maloney’s, and the reason he and others have been able to claw back some of what they lost to strokes and other brain-damaging events is something called neuroplasticity. That refers to the brain’s ability to change at any age. It was once believed that the brain became fixed after childhood, but we now know that such is not the case. The brain remains ‘plastic,’ capable of changing in function and structure as it responds to experience.
"These changes can be for better or worse, because a malleable brain is also a vulnerable one, which explains why war vets can come home from the battlefield quite different from who they were when they left. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a neuroplastic disorder caused by the trauma of war which has overwhelmed the brain and rewired it….”
The ability of the brain to make – or not - changes is one that we – especially pastors – deal with. Too often, we hear the seven last words of the church: "We’ve never done it that way before.” Old habits die hard. However, if not for the ability of the brain to change, we might not be here.
The First Reading is one of the most recognized stories in the Bible, with Saul – now Paul – on the road to Damascus. Talk about a change of brain…and heart.
Paul was not always a nice man, not always the saint he now is. He was a persecutor of those who followed Jesus. He was a zealous and pious Jew and in Galatians he describes his life: “You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism,” he writes. “I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors” (Galatians 1:13-14).
Elsewhere he writes, “Circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:5-6).
He was ruthless in his pursuit of the people of the Way – as the early Christians were called – even to the point of being the man who held the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen. Paul – Saul – was breathing threats and murder, we are told, even as he made his way to Damascus, determined to bring these Christians back in chains to Jerusalem. Ah, but on the road to Damascus, he had a vision of Jesus, lost his eyesight, and had to be led by the hand to the city.
Then he had a life altering event. He met Jesus on the Damascus road. Of his life after he wrote: “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith” (Philippians 3:7-9).
For Saul, this is a complete reversal for his life.
Getting back to the neuroplasticity, that's what it may have been. That is what a conversion is, a complete change, a rewiring of everything.
What we can take from this? If Paul can be so changed in so brief a time, then transformation is possible for all of us. Because no matter where you are in life or your faith, being changed by the Gospel is possible. And it is a life-long journey. We die to sin each day and rise to new life in Christ.
Now, we can argue that Paul’s transformation was helped along by a vision and then blindness. There will not be a Damascus Road experience for most of us. No blinding flash of light; no voice from heaven; thank the Lord – no blindness; no grappling with spiritual issues for three days.
Speaking of change, of neuroplasticity, another is changed as well.
Paul is the star here, I can’t help but be drawn to Ananias, and then Judas. We've heard nothing of either one of these two Damascus citizens until now, and we'll not hear of them again. They surface in the Bible here in Acts 9 and then disappear. They're just two faithful disciples who were there when God called upon them for one specific task: to minister to the most feared man of their times: Saul of Tarsus.
We see that Ananias is taken aback. Paul was not the only one taken aback by a shocking revelation. Judas was asked to open his home and compromise the security of his family. Ananias was asked to lead this Saul guy into the Scripture, and in so doing identify himself openly as one of the very people Saul was hunting down.
Ananias’ response is about as human as it comes. To say that Ananias is not enthusiastic is an understatement. “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” Or in other words, “Whoa, Whoa, not that I don’t appreciate the attention and the kind visit, but who? Who did you say?
Ananias is told: “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16 I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
And he does. We too are able to change; to be transformed.
“Change my heart, O God.” It’s one of this congregation’s favorite songs. And that should be our prayer. Because we never know when God is going to pop into our lives with a special request, as in the case of Ananias. No doubt he was living the ordinary life in Damascus, just doing his thing. The same is true for us. We know from scientific research that our brains can be changed, in some cases. So can our hearts, if we but listen for God’s voice. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
2 Easter (Year C)
John 20: 19-31
St. John’s, West Seneca
April 27, 2025
Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today we have before us Thomas, one of the twelve. For whatever reason, he was not there when Jesus appeared to the others. Perhaps he wanted to grieve alone. Or maybe he was distraught, maybe bitter because of the crucifixion? When told of the resurrection, Thomas probably had questions, even before he made his statement that he needed to see and to touch the risen Jesus.
Thomas has had to walk the halls of history known as "Doubting Thomas." That’s almost as bad as “Ethelred the Unready,” or “Louis the Fat.” Thomas has suffered because of this label. It’s part of our language. To be called a “Doubting Thomas”, is either a reprimand at best, and at worst, an insult. Too many times this Gospel text is used to beat people over the head: “Don’t be a doubting Thomas…” We need to consider Thomas from a different perspective; we should look at him not as one who is lacking, but as one who needs to believe.
The cabin lights had been dimmed, blankets pulled over legs or shoulders, and as usual, I was trying to will myself to fall asleep as the Boeing 737 conveyed us across the Atlantic. My wife and I were heading to England to visit my family and to introduce our six-month-old son to them. We’d been able to secure a coveted bulkhead seat with a bassinet, but there was no seat available for me there, so I found myself a couple of rows back. This was in the days before omnipresent screens on the back of seats: days when we read books, or chatted with strangers, or listened to a favorite band’s latest cassette on a Walkman.
But on that particular flight I did something different: I listened to my neighbor, book in hand, wife’s head on shoulder, gently chanting in a sing-song way in a language I did not recognize. I was hardly a well-seasoned international traveler, but still, that struck me as unusual. When he finished, he closed the book, eased his now sleeping wife into a comfortable position, and then sat, staring ahead.
My curiosity finally got the better of me, and I asked him if he wouldn’t mind telling me what he had been singing. He turned his body toward me and laid a hand on the book in his lap. “It is the custom of my people to read the four gospels in the Bible aloud during the season of Lent. It has become the practice of my wife and I to sing the words to each other at the end of the day, and this was the first opportunity we’ve had since we began our journey earlier. I hope I did not disturb you.”
“Not at all,” I assured him. “What a meaningful practice.”
“You are a Christian?” he asked.
And then—in the way we used to do while spending multiple hours in close proximity as planes winged us to our destinations—we quietly spoke. Beginning as usual with where we were going and why, where we were coming from (me, Texas, but England originally; he, Kerala in India), we moved on to speak of our shared faith, our families, our communities. At some point I realized we hadn’t introduced ourselves.
“My name’s Sean, by the way.”
“And I’m Thomas. It’s good to meet you, brother.”
And then I said something that still causes me to wince whenever I recall this particular conversation.
“And how long have your people been Christians?”
Much to his credit, he didn’t respond in any of the ways he could have done, many of which I have imagined in the years since. After all, the crass assumption that lay beneath my question was that people from my homeland must have gone as missionaries to his homeland. There were all manner of sarcastic or offended responses my traveling companion could have made. I’m sure my world religion and cross-cultural mission professors from seminary would have shaken their heads in disappointment.
His response was simply to smile and say, “My name is Thomas.”
I looked at him blankly, not understanding, thinking he had perhaps misheard me. “My name is Thomas,” he repeated. “My people have been Christians for about 2,000 years.”
He didn’t continue in the way I would have been tempted to, by saying, “And how long have your people been Christians?” Instead, he gently explained that St. Thomas is believed to have brought the Christian faith to India, and he is descended from a long line of faithful Christians. Me? I’m the first person on either side of my family for unknown generations to become a follower of Jesus.
Whenever we get to the story of “Doubting Thomas” in the lectionary, I remember my encounter with another Thomas, from Kerala.
So let’s take a look again at Thomas. He is at a disadvantage, for the ten had seen him, been in his presence. Again, for whatever reason. Thomas – who no doubt believed his fellow disciples – simply needed the physical presence of Jesus, not so much to be sure, but to have the experience that the others had. And it happens, when they are gathered once again and Jesus appears and Thomas – at that point – has no need to put his hands on Jesus’ wounds. He believes.
We are like Thomas, with our questions and need for evidence. In our modern society, with all its technology and research, we have evidence at our fingertips. But think on this. Who among us has not doubted? How many of us don’t take little things on faith?
- How many of us check the carton of eggs for cracks?
- Or, if purchasing fast food, check the order to make sure all is there?
So, if we do not take the little things on faith, how can we take the big ones?
Thomas is tactile and needed tangible proof, and he’s expressed out loud what countless believers after him will repeat. Things like: Jesus appeared to Paul, why doesn’t he appear to me? God spoke to Moses, so why don’t I get a burning bush? The archangel Gabriel came to Mary, why not…and then, you fill in the blank.
As Jesus returns to engage his last doubting disciple, he appears as dramatically as he did when he met with the 10. He offers the same words “Peace be with you” to Thomas. And further understanding what Thomas needs, he provides evidence of himself as living and risen.
Consider what Jesus did not do. Jesus did not punish Thomas or ignore him. Jesus does not shame Thomas or patronize him, nor did Jesus marginalize him.
Today God does the same, reaching out to those of us who have questions.
Scripture is filled with those who doubt. Abraham was incredulous and Sarah hysterical with doubt when God promised them a son in their advanced years. Jonah's faith was so doubt-filled that he tried to run away from his mission to Nineveh completely. Jesus's disciples were constantly doubting. Despite the fact that they were witnesses to the remarkable powers Jesus commanded, they still panicked: "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” When Jesus was peacefully napping through a storm at sea. Luke records that after the resurrection these same disciples "disbelieved for joy and wonder". Jesus himself, the incarnation of faithfulness, cried out on the cross in doubt, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Jesus provides us with the greatest example of faith even in the midst of despair. It has been said, a faith that does not doubt is a dead faith. One mark of great faith is a continuous struggle to get it, keep it, share it. The early church embraced doubt, finding comfort in the image of a doubt-riddled Jesus praying in the Gethsemane Garden for the cup to pass from him.
True doubts grow naturally out of true faith. We know that God, can never be proven in the way we want. Theologian Richard John Neuhaus correctly points out that we use "the term 'believer' to describe a person who is persuaded of the reality of God. The alternative to being a believer, of course, is to be a knower."
Honest doubts and questions should not be suppressed. Thomas voiced his doubts about Jesus's miraculous return. But he continued to remain in the midst of the company of the disciples. He took the good news of Jesus to India.
There is the story of a young girl who asked her Sunday School teacher questions, only to be told me that it was wrong to ask questions and have doubts. So she asked yet another question: “Is God afraid of my questions and doubts?” She said she came to realize that God’s not afraid but her teacher sure was.
No, God is not afraid of doubt. Today’s story of Thomas proves that. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
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