postID: 7043; title: The Fifth Sunday Of Easter
groupKey: secondary
groupKey: other
The Fifth Sunday Of Easter
O Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Array
(
[date] => 2017-05-14 11:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 1433
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => formatted
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2017-05-14 11:00:00
)
1 post(s) found for dateStr : 2017-05-14postID: 7043 (The Fifth Sunday Of Easter)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7043; date_type: variable; year: 2017
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 7043
displayDates for postID: 7043/year: 2017
Array
(
[0] => 2017-05-14
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2017-05-14 with ID: 7043 (The Fifth Sunday Of Easter)
The Fifth Sunday Of Easter
Array
(
[date] => 2017-05-14 11:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 1433
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => simple
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2017-05-14 11:00:00
)
1 post(s) found for dateStr : 2017-05-14postID: 7043 (The Fifth Sunday Of Easter)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7043; date_type: variable; year: 2017
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 7043
displayDates for postID: 7043/year: 2017
Array
(
[0] => 2017-05-14
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2017-05-14 with ID: 7043 (The Fifth Sunday Of Easter)
A Sermon by
✛
A Sermon for Confirmation
Good morning, and happy Mother’s Day.
I want to begin by thanking Canon Turner for his invitation to be with you today.
Further, I want to congratulate those being confirmed and received this morning, and to welcome those who may have joined them for this special moment. And special it is. Rarely, even over the course of a lifetime, does one have the chance to stand up in public and make a personal declaration of faith – but that is what will happen later this morning.
Though their declaration will be personal it is not at all private. In fact they can not make this promise at all if it is not a promise that is received, embraced and supported by the people of God, as represented by this congregation. So it has been made clear to those being confirmed and received that they need to grasp this rare opportunity and speak up. And you, the congregation have the same obligation. Speak up and lend your voice to those who are welcoming and assuring these good folks that the commitments that they are making are being received with a warm and welcoming heart.
This is the 5th Sunday after Easter in the year of our Lord 2017: Which is to say that there have been a great many Easters since that first one nearly 20 centuries ago.
That Easter, that Day of the Resurrection, the day when death was defeated, was The Event that changed the world. Or rather perhaps it would be better described as The Event that enabled us to see the world as it is: the Creation of an infinitely caring God who loves it, and loves us, like beloved children.
But that was a very long time ago. Ages have past. Generations of people have come and gone. We, ourselves, grow up and grow old. And still that Resurrection event reverberates through time.
What are we to make of it?
Clearly Jesus’ first followers expected His return in Glory in the months and first years immediately after His resurrection.
But that didn’t happen. Once again Jesus had defied their expectations. He didn’t do what they expected and wanted Him to do. Jesus had, as He still has, his own plans.
Our readings this morning grapple with this challenge. What where Jesus followers to make of this unexpected development? Obviously Jesus was not coming back as originally anticipated. So how were they to live? What were they to do? They could not continue in a kind of suspended animation waiting for the Second Coming. And neither can we.
So how do we live? What does living in the light of the Resurrection mean for us?
There are a great many things that could be said in answer to those questions. You may be relieved to know that I want to point to just two: two that are drawn from our lessons.
The first is that the implications of the Resurrection are developed and lived out by each of us across the entire span of our own individual lives, just as those implications have been lived across the centuries by the generations that have preceded us.
The Resurrection was an event in a moment in time. It is as well an event that echoes through time and is present still. It echoes through the particularity of our individual daily lives.
As we live those lives, our lives; we are blest by God. God blesses us with the opportunity and the capacity to see that resurrection reverberating around us. Yet, the fact is, that we so often don’t see anything at all. Why might that be? What blinds us to the wonder of God’s action all around us?
I think that the most obvious answer is that we don’t look. We don’t look because we don’t expect. We don’t pay attention. And if we do pay attention often we don’t know what we’re looking at or for, anyway.
That inability reminds me of a short hike I took just the other day with an accomplished bird watcher. Where I saw were LBLs (little brown birds) he saw different species. He could not only identify one from the other, but he could tell me about their individual habits and habitats.
If we are to develop the capacity to see the signs of the Resurrection we need to be trained like that. The first step, of course, is to pay attention. But the second step is to train the eyes of our heart to recognize what we are seeing.
That is, in part, what the sacraments do. That is what today’s confirmation does. These sacramental events ask us to stop for at least a moment, to stop and to pay attention. Further, we are reminded of what we are looking for, and in that reminder is the training, the preparation that we need to see, to really see, the world around us.
We are to “seek and serve Christ in all persons.” Which is to say we are reminded that if we want to see the Risen Christ we need look no further than the person next to us in the pew, or the unknown person passing us on the street. There, in that person, whether friend or stranger, is the dwelling place of Christ. Look and see. Pay attention.
Easy to say, but hard to do. We live in a society where simply everything is clamoring for our attention. What is trending now? Therefore, to develop the ability to pay attention takes more than a little effort. It takes work. It takes practice.
That work, that practice, is prayer. It is paying attention to the other, as well as to self, and doing so consciously in the presence of God.
I see the Little Brown Bird and ask what it is, and my friend, who sees that same bird, knows it in greater depth and introduces me to it in an entirely new way.
So how, precisely do I turn to Jesus, my companion on the way, and ask what He sees in that stranger passing me on the street? Where and how does Christ live in that person as Christ does in me?
The answer is straightforward, but not what we expect, or perhaps want, to hear. The answer is not in me, or in you, but in us. It is in us – together.
The Letter from St. Peter reminds his readers and us that we are not in this struggle alone. He writes,
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house….
We are, in this image, each living stones. Living, but alone, by ourselves, though we are chosen and precious, we are, nevertheless, scattered stones, not yet what we are meant to be. But together we can be joined one to the other built into a spiritual house, each stone taking its proper place in the larger structure. It is together that we find our deeper purpose and discover the Risen Christ among us.
The same message is found in the Gospel of John. In slightly different ways both Thomas and Philip each asked Jesus how they might follow Him.
Thomas asked,
Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?
And Philip put it this way,
“Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
In both instances the disciples presented their concern as a communal issue, a corporate concern. Thomas didn’t ask, “How can I know the way?” The question was, “How can we know the way. The same for Philip: He didn’t say “Show me the Father…” It was “Show us the Father…”
The fact is brothers and sisters we are on this journey together. We are bound to one another in the faith. If we hope to find the way of life, the way to life, we can only do so together. It may be a frightening thought but the simple truth is that in our journey through the wilderness of life we will become lost without each other.
It is to that truth, and in service to that call, that we gather Sunday by Sunday to worship God. On this particular day we, as a community, have the opportunity to affirm the faith and witness of those being confirmed and received this morning.
But there is more. The very solemnity of this space, and the beauty of this liturgy, can blind to the deeper truth of our common witness beyond these glorious Gothic walls.
As remarkable as it might seem, it is nevertheless true, that it is as we recommit our faith in Christ through the flawed and fragile institution that is the Episcopal Church, we give witness to a yet deeper truth. And that truth is this: The whole human family is bound together with unbreakable bonds that tie us one to the other, believe and unbeliever, friend and foe alike, whether we like it or not, we are one common humanity. It is to that fundamental unity that we give witness this morning.
And that my friends, is a witness worth making this morning, this day, tomorrow and unto the ages of ages. AMEN
