Be careful what you ask for …

So, do you hear it?

Do you hear that whoosh of a violent wind rush into this place, filling the entire sanctuary with its sound?

No?

Alas.

What about those tongues of fire? Tasting them yet?

No?

Well, I can take care of that.

Here.

Try these. (Hot Tamales® cinnamon candies)

Put them on your tongue, and chew.

Tongues of fire, anyone?

• • •

Today, my friends, is the Feast of Pentecost, the day when we celebrate the arrival of the promised Holy Spirit, the Advocate, who will testify on Jesus’ behalf, who will guide us into all truth, who will speak whatever he hears from God the Father and God the Son, who will declare to us the things that are to come.

This is the day when we eagerly acknowledge the power of the Spirit in our lives. It is the day when we especially pray, “Come, Holy Spirit, come!” – as though the Spirit isn’t present with us every moment of our lives! I mean, when we’re calling on the Holy Spirit, where exactly do we think the Holy Spirit is?! Jesus said he would send the Spirit, the Acts of the Apostles tells us the Risen Lord did just that … so why, pray tell, do we keep asking for the Holy Spirit to show up?

And what, pray tell, do we think the Holy Spirit is going to do when she gets here?

Make a big whooshing sound, like in the upper room so long ago?

Set our tongues on fire?

(Need another Hot Tamale?)

I can tell you one thing:

If you pray for the Holy Spirit to show up, you had better be prepared for what happens next.

Because the Holy Spirit is not some … some … wimpy little ghost that floats around, barely making her presence known.

No, my friends, the Spirit, is sent to us by God the Father (I know, I know, the Creed says the Spirit comes from both the Father and the Son, but read today’s Gospel again, and you’ll see that Jesus says quite firmly that the Spirit comes from the Father … the line in the Creed is the result of a council in Toledo in the 7th century … but that’s another story). And the reason God the Father sends us the Spirit?

To set us on fire … so that we can set the world on fire!

• • •

When I was a child, my mother used to warn me: “Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.”

The same is true with the Holy Spirit. Be careful, my friends … be very careful about asking the Holy Spirit to show up in your lives, to give you a sign, to lead you to that new place you so desperately wish to go.

Because you just might get exactly what you ask for … and then what?

What are you going to do with all this power she gives you?

Are you going to change the world?

I certainly hope so!

I certainly hope and pray that you go out and change the world … each and every one of you.

Because that’s what Pentecost is all about …

It’s about grabbing hold of the Spirit that is grabbing hold of us and going for the rides of our lives!

Remember last week, when I said that love is dangerous and scandalous and radical?

Well, who do you think makes love so dangerous, so scandalous, so radical?

Who do you think gives us the ability to love like that?

The Holy Spirit, that’s who!

We are Christians.

We are followers of … disciples of … the Risen Lord.

The Risen Lord never told us to sit back and rest on our laurels. The Risen Lord never said, “OK, now you’ve been baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, marked as mine forever, sealed by the Spirit, so go rest!

No!

The Risen Lord told us to go out into the world and change it!

That’s why we have the Spirit!

So we can change the world!

The Spirit is the one who inspires us … who literally gives us the breath of life that we need to take on the barroom brawl that is the world today and turn it into the world that can be, the world the God desires for us.

You see injustice in the world? Do something about it! Work for justice.

You see want in the world? Do something about it! Feed the hungry! Give water to the thirsty! Clothe the naked! Give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voice to the mute! You! Yes, you! Make the lame leap for joy!

We have been empowered, emboldened, by the Spirit. We asked for it, and we got it.

Now we have to do something with it!

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the retired primate of Cape Town, South Africa, has a prayer that sums up everything we need to know about the Holy Spirit working in our lives:

Disturb us, O Lord,

when we are too well-pleased with ourselves

when our dreams have come true

because we dreamed too little,

because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O Lord,

when with the abundance of things we possess,

we have lost our thirst for the water of life

when, having fallen in love with time,

we have ceased to dream of eternity

and in our efforts to build a new earth,

we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.

Stir us, O Lord,

to dare more boldly,

to venture into wider seas

where storms show Thy mastery,

where losing sight of land,

we shall find the stars.

In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons

of our hopes and invited the brave to follow. Amen.[1] 

I am telling you … you had better be careful … very careful … when you pray for the Holy Spirit to show up in your life.

Because the odds are, you are going to get exactly what you asked for …

And then you’ll have to do something with it.

You know … something simple … like changing the world!

Amen.

Sermon preached for the Feast of Pentecost, 26 May 2012, Year B, Church of the Good Shepherd, Blue Grass, Va.



[1] Adapted from an original prayer by Sir Francis Drake. Via http://godspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/disturb-us-o-lord-a-prayer-by-desmond-tutu-4/

 

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The dangerous, scandalous, radical act of love

John 17:6-19

Standing on the edge of eternity, looking over the abyss into his own death, knowing what the disciples do not yet know – that he is about to die – Jesus launches into his longest and most complicated discourse, talking first to the disciples – “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you” – and then to God on high – “I am asking on their behalf … protect them ….”

This portion of the Farewell Discourse in John’s Gospel is, as one of my favorite commentators, David Lose, says, “The Other Lord’s Prayer.”[1] Whereas in Matthew and Luke, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray for themselves, in this case, Jesus is praying for them, and by extension, for us.

Make no mistake here: Jesus is not just praying for his disciples way back 2,000 years ago.

He’s praying for all who follow him: “I ask not only on behalf of these,” he says, in the verse that follows today’s reading, “but also on behalf of those who will believe in my through their word …” (v. 20)

Jesus is asking that God on high, that his Father and our Father: “Protect them from the evil one.”

Why?

Why is Jesus praying for our protection?

I’ll tell you why:

Because love is dangerous! Because love is scandalous! Because love is radical.

Not just any love, but the kind of love of which Jesus is speaking, the kind of love where we lay our lives down for one another, the kind of love that Jesus lived and demonstrated and died for – that kind of love changes everything. That kind of love changes the world!

Don’t believe me?

Look at the first three centuries of Christianity, when it was worth your life to be a Christian – literally worth … your … life – because those Christians, those followers of Jesus upset the Roman apple cart. Those Christians refused to bow to Rome. They refused to acknowledge the Emperor as God. They gathered in groups that broke all the boundaries, bringing together all kinds of people who normally would not spend any time together. They cared for each other. They held everything they had in common. They made sure everyone had enough. They healed the sick. They preached a Gospel of hope and salvation in a time and place when hope and salvation were in very short supply. They proclaimed that their King was a poor, itinerant preacher from Nazareth who was crucified, was buried and who rose from the dead.

Those early disciples?

They didn’t just talk the talk, they walked the walk.

Because they loved.

And love, my friends, is a very dangerous thing. It is incredibly subversive. And it is so radical that the world doesn’t know what to do with it.

Which is why Jesus, standing on that edge of eternity, felt the need to pray for our protection.

Because when we live into our faith … when we live our faith … we are some of the most dangerous people on earth.

The writer Annie Dillard knows how dangerous this faith of ours is. In her book Teaching a Stone to Talk, she wonders:

Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged

tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? … The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness (she says) to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.[2]

Now, granted, Annie Dillard is talking about the act of worship, but I believe that we should not only wear crash helmets in church (because this worship thing we do? It’s pretty dangerous, for a whole lot of reasons), but out into the world.

"Lost In Space" Robot and Will Robinson

Heck, we should not only wear those crash helmets into the world, we should warn the world, just like the robot in that old TV show, Lost in Space, the one who warned the young space traveler: Danger, Will Robinson!

We should warn everyone:

Watch out, world! Here we come! We’re on a mission from God, and it’s dangerous as all get out! Because we’re going to love you, whether you like it or not!

Love, my friends, is very … very dangerous indeed.

• • •

Yesterday, I watched a webcast from Washington National Cathedral featuring Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel Peace laureate and retired archbishop of South Africa.

The discussion centered on mission in the 21st century, and how we are going to live our lives on a mission from God (OK, that’s my term, not theirs, but it applies, trust me …).

At one point, Archbishop Tutu was asked how we, as Christians, as followers of Jesus, can care for those in need. Which is when he pointed out that we spend billions and billions, indeed trillions, of dollars on weapons of mass destruction that we never intend to use, and that for a fraction of that cost – a fraction – we could more than feed the whole world. We could, he said, give clean water to every single person in the world. We could provide medicine to everyone who needs it.

It’s a radical idea, isn’t it, to take care of everyone, instead of focusing on getting ahead, on winning all the time? It’s so radical, it’s actually dangerous!

Which is why we should warn the world: Danger, Will Robinson!

That is, if we are willing to live into this dangerous calling of ours.

Remember, we live in a society is constantly telling us to do: “Take what you want! Don’t worry about anyone else! Get ahead of the Joneses … and the Smiths … and that Garcias … and anyone else you can think of!” This is a society that right now especially is saying, “I’ve got mine and I don’t care if you ever get yours!”

And what is our response?

Well, if we’re willing to live dangerously, our response is, quite simply, “No.”

“We refuse to live according to your standards.”

We are going to live according to God’s standards.”

“Which means we are going to love you, whether you like it or not.

And when the world laughs at us – which it will … when the world tells us, “You better stop that right now, because you’re upsetting the apple cart, and we won’t stand for that” – which it will … when the world attacks us – which it will, we do not have to worry.

Because God will protect us.

Because Jesus did pray for us.

Standing on the edge of eternity … looking over the abyss into his own death – Jesus … prays … for … us.

“Protect them, Father …”

Because they are about to go do something so wild, so radical, so … anti-social … that the world will hate them for it.

They are about to go out into the world … and love.

Amen.

Sermon preached on the 7th Sunday after Easter, 20 May 2012, Year B, at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Blue Grass, Va.



[1]David J. Lose, Marbury E. Anderson Biblical Preaching Chair, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, “The Other Lord’s Prayer,” workingpreacher.com, http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=587

 

[2] Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), pp. 40-41.

 

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Welcome to Brass Tacks Sunday

John 15:9-17

Welcome to Brass Tacks Sunday. This is the day when Jesus makes clear – crystal clear – what he has done and what he expects of us.

And what has he done for us?

He chose us.

We did not choose Jesus.

Jesus chose us.

Jesus chose you. And you. And you, and you, and you, and yes, you …

And me.

All of us.

Brass Tacks: We have been chosen.

And why did Jesus choose us?

Because Jesus has a job for us, a mission for our lives.

To love one another as Jesus loved us.

Brass Tacks: We are chosen in order to love our neighbors. Not just as ourselves … because if we are honest, there are far too many days when we don’t love ourselves very much. We all know those times. For many of us, when we stop on the scale. When someone makes a snide comment about the clothes we’re wearing. Or the work we do. Or the car we drive. Or what we eat. Or don’t eat. Or drink. Or don’t drink. Some days, it takes so very little for us to stop loving ourselves.

Which is why Jesus doesn’t ask us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus asks us – no, he commands us – to love one another as he loved us.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Just Brass Tacks.

We all know there are a lot of different interpretations of the Christian faith out there right now. The arguments over what it means to be a Christian are being fought in our own Church, and in this country, vociferously and all too often, viciously. We know this. We have heard it, we have witnessed it, and sometimes, we have participated in these arguments. Some people say, “Christianity means ‘A, B, C.’ Others say, “No, it means ‘whack, whack, whack.’” And still others say, “No, it means, ‘yadda, yadda, yadda.’”

All we do is argue, it seems, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.

Because Jesus is crystal clear:  I chose you so you can go love one another.

Brass Tacks.

• • •

I’m going to say something here, and then I’m going to have to correct myself right away.

For 17 years, I owned two cats.

Here’s the correction: For 17 years, the cats owned me. Anyone who has ever lived with cats know that to be the truth.

The older cat was named Boomerang. She was truly the Queen Witch of the household, and she never – ever – let you forget that.

The younger cat, who was 14 when I left to go overseas, was named Riki Tiki Tavi ( actually, Rrrrrrrikiii Tiki Tavi, because that’s how it is said in the book).

These two cats clearly ran the household, doing exactly what they wanted. And why not? They were cats, and they knew that they were born without original sin, whereas we, the mere humans, were born with original sin, and they never let me forget that.

The house where we lived had a foundation crawl space, which was inhabited, as near as I can figure out, by approximately 1 million crickets. Every night, the two cats would go down to the kitchen and crouch in a corner, staring intently at what they knew was a hole between the kitchen and the foundation. (I honestly never found the hole in all the years I live there.)

The cats would hunker down, with their tails twitching, and their ears pointed forward, staring intently … waiting … waiting …

Meanwhile, I am convinced, down below, the crickets would gather, and one would cry out, “Who will go up into the light, and then come back to tell us what is up there?” And each night, the crickets would send up one – one – representative, and Boomer and Riki would catch it and play with it – because that’s what cats do – and eventually kill it, and the next morning, I would find body parts strewn around the house, usually placed exactly where I would step on them barefoot.

For years, I was under the impression that the cats were bringing me tribute. That’s what the animal experts told me, and I believed them – although why I did I don’t know, because remember, the cats thought they were superior to me, so why should they bring me tribute?

And then I read some new information. It turns out that the cats were not bringing me tribute. They were actually trying to teach me to hunt! That’s right, they were trying to teach me!

It’s called the Mama Lion Method of Ministry.

You’ve seen the Animal Planet shows, right? Well, if you watch that show, you’ll see, in great detail, how Mama Lions train their cubs to hunt.

When the cubs are small and still nursing, she’ll bring them pieces of the animals she kills, not so that they can eat, but so that they can play with the carcasses and, frankly, get the taste for blood.

When the cubs are a bit older, and on the verge of being weaned, she’ll take them to the hunt, place them in a hidden and safe spot, and make them stay still, so they can watch and learn. And let me tell you, if they so much as move, she whaps them upside the head to keep them in line.

After they’ve watched and learned, the Mama Lion helps them hunt. She’ll pick out the target animal – something small and weak, usually – and help the cubs take down the animal.

Once they’ve gotten used to hunting, and had some measure of success, the Mama Lion will go to the hunt with them, but now, she’s the one who settles in on the sidelines. She may direct her cubs in picking out an animal to kill, but she won’t do a thing beyond that to help them.

Because it’s time for the cubs to grow up and feed themselves. She’s got other things to do – have more cubs – so she lets them feed themselves.

In essence, throughout their training, the Mama Lion says to her cubs, “See? It’s not that hard. You can do this too!”

And isn’t that what Jesus did for his disciples? And for us?

Didn’t Jesus teach his disciples how to preach? And teach?

Didn’t he show them how to heal the sick?

Didn’t he teach them to pray? And not just any prayer, but the prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, giving the disciples, for the first time, an intimate way to talk to God on high?

Didn’t he send them out to do all these things, not alone, but two by two (because we are never alone in our ministry)?

Face it, folks: Jesus used the Mama Lion Method of Ministry to teach his disciples – to teach us ­– how to love our neighbors not as ourselves but as Jesus loved us.

Jesus chose us and taught us so that we could love just as deeply, just as broadly, as he loved us.

Brass Tacks.

Now I know this sounds rather simplistic, and I know people say (because they have said it to me repeatedly), “That’s nice. But what does it mean? It’s too vague.” As though love were something hard to understand, hard to give, hard to receive.

Or they’ll say, “Well, of course we are to love one another.” And then turn around and say, “Well, not that person. Because I don’t like that person. Because his dog poops on my lawn every night, and he never picks up after it. So I’m certainly not going to love that person.”

As though Jesus differentiates between those he loves, and those he doesn’t love.

On this day, on Brass Tacks Sunday, understand this:

Jesus is not suggesting we live in love.

Jesus is commanding that we do so.

He has chosen us – us – to carry on his mission in the world.

This is now our mission in life.

To love.

Not just the people we like, not just the people we know, but everyone. Regardless of race or religion or ethnicity or nationality or gender or orientation.

Everyone.

The good news for us this morning is that as Episcopalians, we not only know what we are supposed to do, we know how we are supposed to do this.

Because we have the Baptismal Covenant, which lays out for us the steps we need to take so that we indeed can love one another as Jesus loved us. Take our your prayerbooks and look it up. Turn to page 304.

What does it tell us to do?

To continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, and the prayers. Tell me: How many of you say prayers before you eat? And how many of you pray in public before you eat?  That’s what we have vowed to do, remember.

We break bread together at this table, welcoming all, sharing all that we have with each other.

We know how to repent of our sins – we’ve done the Hokey Pokey in this very church, have we not?

We serve others … instead of demanding to be served.

We work for justice and for peace … and not for our justice and peace, but for God’s justice and peace … even if it means that some will deride us and question our motives.

And we respect each other … always.

Again, some of us may say, “This is too hard. It’s too vague. I don’t understand.”

Well, let me tell you, on Brass Tacks Sunday:

Yes, this is hard. It’s very hard to love someone, especially when you don’t like them. But there is nothing vague about loving. We either love or we don’t.

We didn’t choose.

We have been chosen.

Brass Tacks.

Amen.

Sermon preached on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, 13 May 2012, Year B, at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Blue Grass, Va.


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Cleansing love

John 15:1-8

This morning’s Gospel is one of those difficult passages in the Scriptures to which we need to pay a great deal of attention, because over the years, it has been translated, quite loosely, to mean, “My way or the highway.”

This passage talks about pruning, about cutting off, the branches that do not produce well. It is a passage that many preachers, and many churches, have
used – and we all know this – to say, “This is the only way to interpret the Scriptures, and if you don’t agree, you need to leave.”

Jesus is talking about being the vine, and us being the branches, and that branches need to be pruned so they can produce better, and those that do not produce will be cut off and cast into the fire.

Far too many people in our lives have used it to justify their “My way or the highway” approach to life, and to faith.

But John never uses the word “to prune” in this passage.

John, who is so elegant, so deliberative in his writing, who so carefully chooses each word in order to make a point, actually uses the Greek word katharei, which means “to cleanse.” Not to “cut,” but to “cleanse.”[1]

And if you pay attention to John’s Greek – and we should, because it is beautiful and John knew exactly what he was doing with his choice of words – you don’t end up with being cut off and cast into the fires of eternal hell. We know, from the Scriptures, that God has no intentions of casting us into the fires – not if we accept his love. Paul tells us that, doesn’t he? Paul is the one who tells us that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing.  So if nothing can separate us, where do people get the idea that they can do so, that they can preach, “My way or the highway”?

Instead, what John is talking about here is being cleansed.

Cleansed of all the things that get in the way of living in love and living in community.

• • •

Many of you know that I own a townhouse in Alexandria, which I have rented out for years, because I’m a missionary. But when I did live there, I had beautiful rose bushes. Actually, they were more climbing vines than bushes … vines that grew and spread, and which I intentionally tied up against my house, framing the breezeway that led to my front door and my back porch.

Over the years, those vines grew and grew, held up by an intricate web of string and nails and poles and ties, all so that my roses could bloom gloriously … for three weeks at the beginning of May.

That’s it. They appeared in early May, spread gloriously for three weeks, and then they faded away.

For six years, I tended those vines, mainly by using more and more string and twist ties to form the vines into bowers that framed each end of the breezeway, so that’s what I did.

One of my neighbors kept telling me that the roses

would be better off, would bloom more gloriously, if I pruned them each year. And by “pruning,” I mean cutting them way, way, way back.

Finally, I agreed, and went out there with my cutters, and … I just stood there. I could not bring myself to do this.

So I went to my neighbor, to Gray, and said, “You do this. I can’t cut them.”

And oh, my, did he cut them back. He cut and hacked and trimmed and pruned, and it go to be so painful that I couldn’t watch any longer. I simply turned my back to him and let him do what was best for the roses.

When he was done, I turned around and looked, and all I could say was, “Really?”

I felt like I had cut myself off.

Of course, the next year, those bushes blossomed like crazy, and I had roses all over the place and it was lovely. But I did not have the bowers any longer, because the bushes had been cut back so much.

That’s the problem with pruning, isn’t it? You cut away a lot because it’s supposed to be good, but sometimes, the good that you get isn’t the good you want, and it doesn’t achieve what you want it to achieve.

That’s why John doesn’t talk about “pruning.” He’s talking about cleansing. And we need to remember that.

• • •

This morning, as I was trying to get here (having started a bit late, having wandered slooooowly through Staunton on what I thought was a shortcut, and having been stuck behind two trucks whose drivers didn’t seem to know the mountain roads and at times dropped us down to 12 miles per hour), I felt that need to be cleansed.

 

You know what it’s like to come across the mountains, twisting and turning, up the mountain, down the mountain, through the forest, up the mountain, out of the forest, down the mountain.

When I first fell in behind these trucks, and realized how slowly they were going (and how much I have become accustomed to driving over the mountains to get here), my first reaction was, “Well, spit.” Which quickly accelerated to, “Really?” Which in turn, as we sloooooowed down to those 12 miles per hour, to, “Really?!?!” I could feel the anxiety building up in me, feel the frustration, even though I had already called Caroline to tell her I would be late, even though I knew you could start the service by yourselves, even though I knew that all would be well.

I was getting angry.

And I needed to be cleansed of that anger.

I needed to relax, to simply drive, to remember what it was like the first time I drove out here, at night, not knowing the roads, with a pickup truck on my tail the whole way. I needed to realize what it was like to be the driver of that pickup, frustrated that I wouldn’t go faster, and wouldn’t pull over because I didn’t know where to do so.

We all have moments when we need to be cleansed as well.

When we feel that we are not loved enough.

Or appreciated enough.

Or that we are alone.

Or that the fates have conspired against us.

When we’re told that what we believe is wrong. That we need to leave, to quit, to go away, because we don’t fit in anymore.

When someone says to us, “You are out. God doesn’t love you.”

Or, “You are out – because you are wearing the wrong color.”

Or, “You, Caroline, don’t belong, because you are sitting at the piano, instead of in the pew.”

We all know this, right?

Well, I’m here to tell you, this is not what the Gospel says.

Because John doesn’t use the word for pruning. He’s talking about cleansing.

From the Greek word katharei we get the English word catharsis, which according is an emotional release or purification, a purging. We’ve all had, or know people who have had, cathartic experiences – through grief or great pain – and when we think of the word in this way, we realize: Jesus isn’t talking about getting cut off. He’s talking about us being cleansed of that which is harming us, paining us, grieving us.

Not quite the same thing, is it?

Being cut off is harsh. It separates us from the love of God, which we know isn’t possible for, as Paul tells us, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Being cleansed? Well, that’s a whole ’nother story, one that implies love, because only someone who loves us enough will bother to clean us.

So instead of spending this day thinking about what we need to cut out of our lives, so as to avoid being cut off and thrown into the fire, we get to spend our day concentrating on what we would like to have cleaned off in our lives, where we would like clean up our own acts, so that we can indeed to do that for which we are created …

Which of course is to love.

God loves us enough to cleanse us.

So that we can love in return.

Because it is in loving that we bear fruit.

Love is what counts … not just us being love, but us loving others.

Cleanse Your Spirit by Cathy Beharriell

And we can’t do that to the best of our ability until we clean out the stuff, the junk, that gets in the way of love.

So think about it: What do you want to get rid of? What do you want God to cleanse in you?

And how will your life change when whatever it is that needs cleansing is gone? Will you be able to love more? Will you be able to bear more fruit? Will you be able to be the person God is calling you to be, the person God created you to be?

It’s not about pruning, folks. It’s not about cutting off.

It’s about being cleansed.

So we can bear fruit.

So we can love.

Amen.

 

 

Sermon preached on the Fifth Sunday of Easter, 6 May 2012, Year B, at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Blue Grass, Va.

 


[1] Rev. Peter Woods, Methodist minister in South Africa, “The catharsis of not cutting, “ The Listening Hermit blog, http://thelisteninghermit.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/the-catharsis-of-not-cutting-easter5/

 

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