AEaster5 Philip and Stephen

Imagine you were Philip and you were standing watching from close by your brother Stephen as he is held down by a pile of rocks thrown by strangers imagine saying to him reminding him what our teacher told us what our teacher said to me as you Stephen stood next to me on that moment earlier remember this Stephen remember what he said I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father but by me Stephen he was 

Stephen he was talking to you and he was talking to me I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father but by me you’re going first Stephen before me but you won’t be the last all you did was tell the truth tell it in life to a hard hard hearted audience but the truth is that he is with you he is the path you were on he is the one who is holding you close even now he is the one who went before us the one who is with us as we go to the one who greets us when we arrive and the one who will be with us always

He will be with us always I go to prepare a place for you there he is in the city that will have been awaiting our arrival for years the city that he made that he owns that he is master of where we will join him and we will be with him forever and Philip we built it now we are building it now those stones are foundation stones in the church the city built with the blood of the martyrs in the mortar is the city that has the stones even of our persecution even of his gift of 

The stones even of his gift to sacrifice are the living stones you and I Philip the living stones out of which his home and ours is built God bless you Phillip God bless you Phillip we will see you again in him in Christ who is the way the truth and the life and through whom we all go to the father as we all have walked with him and he with us amen amen

May 10th 2020

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Acts 7:55-60

1 Peter 2:2-10

John 14:1-14

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

JRL+

the place where we are going

NOBODY COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME.

My mother's advice: there should always be an alternative route.

Do we really have to go this Way? Through the Cross and the shame of it, as if we were extras in an old Michael Been song ("I still believe") ... enduring the Passion before the hope of Resurrection?

And then the pain of resurrection itself. Do you think that Jesus felt nothing? Like open heart surgery and a flood of air into flattened lungs, after three days - three days - in the tomb in the garden beyond Golgotha?

It must hurt...

And this is the way to Paradise? "Today you will be with me in Paradise" Jesus assures The Good Thief, as they are both expiring on their crosses, the ultimate public execution engines of SPQR.

(We are more sophisticated now.)

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Even when we know what we are getting into. Amen, Alleluia.

• Acts 7:55-60
• 1 Peter 2:2-10
• John 14:1-14
• Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

as his glory passes by

This morning (Wednesday in the 4th week of Easter) as I read the passage from Exodus, I little remarked the assurance from God to Moses that he would put his hand on him and hide him in a cleft of the rock ... until I saw verse 3  in the responsorial psalm for this coming Sunday's Eucharist:

Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe,
for you are my crag and my stronghold; *
for the sake of your Name, lead me and guide me.

Even as he is being martyred, Stephen the deacon can feel this comfort. It is beyond me. But he does.

Look at what he prays - following Jesus: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

Forgive them, Lord, for they do not know what they are doing.

Somehow in the depths of what would be despair, the first martyr of the church has hope - hope beyond hope, beyond life. And what is more, and more explicit and important, he has obedience: total trust in God. I'm not sure his thoughts were on himself at all, simply on the witness he made to Jesus.

And this is discipleship - following Christ - too: for Christ died for the truth, which he would not betray.

He - Christ - has become that Truth.

When nothing can save you, save you from the fires or the stones of persecution, that Truth will.

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ (John 14:1-4)

Or, in the Scholars Version of the Jesus Seminar, in heavy black:

Don't give in to your distress. You believe in God, then believe in me too. There are plenty of places to stay in my Father's house. If it weren't true, I would have told you; I'm on my way to make a place ready for you. And if I go to make a place ready for you, I'll return and embrace you. So where I am you can be too. You know where I'm going and you know the way.

(Robert W. Funk et al., The Five Gospels, Polebridge Press/Macmillan, 1993. p. 450)

Which really gets the point across. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid! as the angels said to Mary. The messengers of God are pretty consistent. You only have to be afraid of ... God.

Look at all that stuff about the burning bush and leading the people out of Egypt and the horse and his rider drowned in the sea and all the temptations entertained by the people who wander and all the times God takes them back, like the wife of Hosea who was never faithful but always forgiven.

Trust God. There is no need to be afraid of anything else.

He is like a cleft in the rock, a safe place, in which his hand will cover you, even as he passes by.

‘See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.’ (Exodus 33:21-23)

Even as they throw the stones.

Even as the plague lurks, seeking whom it will devour.

Stay safe, people. Stay the course.

And we will bow to each other, and greet each other across a safe distance, or through a window at the hospital, or by means provided by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, and Steve Wozniak and all the rest.

Keep the faith. Keep it as we pass through kingdoms of anxiety into strange cities that have awaited us for years. Remember we are not alone, in this time or in all time. Stephen is still praying for us.

Even as we do wrong and turn our backs on the Messiah, only to pick up stones to throw, we are safe, in the cleft of the rock we are hidden, as his glory passes by. 

• • Acts 7:55-60
  • 1 Peter 2:2-10
  • John 14:1-14
  • Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Easter/AEaster5_RCL.html
http://edgeofenclosure.org/easter5a.html
https://episcopalchurch.org/lectionary-calendar

O Lord, from whom all good things do come: Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/collects-epistles-and-gospels-39 [Readings are St. James 1.22-end and St. John 16.23-end]

Fifth Sunday of Easter
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant
us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way,
the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his
steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ
your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity
of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

https://bcponline.org/

martyrs and mothers

In the name of God, source of all being, eternal Word, and holy Spirit. Amen.

The modern martyrs in their deaths and in their lives follow a pattern, a pattern we can follow back through the lives of saints to the early martyrs of the church. There is some formula to this, not out of laziness, without care for factuality, but intentionally as a pointer to us later followers of Jesus that they are indeed followers of Jesus, even into the lion’s mouth of death.

Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, arrested and called at night to the palace of the tyrant Idi Amin, was confronted by the dictator himself: Will you stop speaking out for your people? No! He refused. And so the dictator pulled out his own pistol and shot him down on the spot. Later his body was found, he’d been “shot trying to escape” or words to that effect.

Kaj Munk, the Danish playwright, premiered a new play in the days of the occupation, just at the feast of the Holy Innocents, after Christmas. It compared Hitler to Herod. That was too much. His body was found in a ditch, he’d been shot by the Gestapo.

Medieval martyrs and ancient witnesses, earlier in the history of the faithful, made testimony at the cost of their lives to the truth of the gospel.

Early Christians took heart, knowing that they followed the footsteps of their Lord.

And so we have Stephen, the deacon, the first martyr of the church, remembered this day, in the story of the book of Acts. His story patterns for us how disciples might joyfully follow Jesus, even in the midst of persecution and the threat, and fact, of imminent death.

Three times we see his story pattern after Jesus’ own passion. First, he sees what Jesus promised; his Lord at the right hand of the Father. This infuriates the crowd (already pretty upset for his description of their folly). And so they move in. As they begin to put him to death he cries out in words that resonate down the centuries, and back to the Cross of Christ, “Forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.” And then, as he succumbs, the prayer “I put my soul into your care”.

These words are his witness. The story of his witness is a gift to us.

We do not know much about who was there; apart from Saul (later Paul) no one is named.

We do have much more to go on, in the accounts of the resurrection of Christ. And first among the witnesses to his resurrection are the women at the tomb.

The angel said to the women,

“Why look for the living among the dead?”

“He is not here, he is risen!”

“Go tell my friends, set out for Galilee, there they will see me.”

It is the women, among them Mary of Magdala, who are the first witnesses to the empty tomb and the first to carry the message of the risen Christ.

And among them, as after his ascension they await the next chapter, is Mary his mother.

She is the one who saw it all. From Annunciation and Nativity, childhood and precocious youth, to his ministry wanderings and his fateful journey to Jerusalem, Mary was present. She was there at his crucifixion, and we learn (from Acts 1:14) that she was with the disciples as they wait for the Spirit to descend.

A mother’s witness. A mother’s martyrdom. From early days, she heard and saw all these things, and cherished them in her heart.

What sorrow it must be to know your son will die.

As so many mothers know.

So today, Mother’s Day, we remember not only the witness of the martyr Stephen, but the gift of mothers: a gift of life, a gift of love, of love as strong as death.

O God who so loved humankind that through your holy Spirit you conceived in Mary your only Son, our Lord, so grant us the obedience, and the fortitude, to follow the pattern of her witness, and the example of your saints, as we proclaim the death of Jesus, his resurrection and ascension, even as we await his coming in glory. Through that selfsame son, Jesus, Amen.

• Acts 7:55-60
• 1 Peter 2:2-10
• John 14:1-14
• Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

Said the angel to the women, "Why seek the living among the dead? He is risen; he is not here, alleluia, alleluia!"

"Be not afraid: go tell my friends to set out for Galilee, there they will see me, alleluia!"

-- Eastertide antiphons at New Camaldoli