Homily, SMMCC
5th Easter, 5/2/21
Acts 16: 40; 17: 1-4, 12-12, 16-18, 22-24, 25-28, 32-34
Ps. 22
1 John 3: 1-2, 18-21, 23-24
John 15: 1-1, 4-5, 8
A few years ago, I was leading a backpacking trip with a group of high school-age Girl Scouts. We were camped on the shore of Lake Monroe, south of Bloomington, in the Hoosier National Forest, on a hot day in July. There were six girls, and they decided to take our 2 canoes and 2 kayaks out, and paddled around the lake for a while. Then they brought the boats close together, about 40 feet from shore, and hopped out of them, and just floated around for a long time, in their life jackets. They spent most of the afternoon out there on the lake, swimming, floating, and talking. I think the only reason they finally came back in was that eventually they got hungry. At the end of the trip, during our closing campfire, they all described that afternoon as an experience of intense unity. One girl said, ”I felt like everything had come together, right there in that little circle of boats. I felt like I was part of the lake I was floating in, and I felt like we had all become really close friends, and we were sharing a really cool moment.” Another said she felt as if she were one with the earth and the fish in the lake and the birds flying around, and the people she was with. They all said they had been sorry that afternoon had to end. They wish it could have lasted forever.
I hope you have had similar experiences with friends, or family, maybe out in Nature, maybe around a dinner table, but feeling united and like everything had come together for you. I think this is part of what Jesus is describing the love of God is like, with the vine and branches symbol. God created every cell in our bodies, and loves us so much that we are always a part of God. We abide in God and God abides in us. As it said in our reading from 1 John, when we love others as God loves us, when we put our love into action to help one another, we bring forth the fruit of this beautiful plant, the sweet grapes of the life God created us for. Everything comes together.
Paul and Silas, and other women and men disciples, at the beginning of the Christian movement, traveled around a lot, as we read from Acts today. They visited house churches, like Lydia’s, as well as synagogues, marketplaces, and shrines, meeting with Jewish people, Greeks, and people who worshipped nature-- people of all different faiths—to share the good news of the unlimited love of the One Creator God. Paul told them, as he tells us today, “The God who made the world and everything in it, is the God of heaven and earth. It is God who gives everything—including life and breath—to everyone. For in God, we live and move and have our being.” And then he added, to the Areopagites: “As some of your own poets have said, ‘We, too, are offspring of the Divine.’” And it seems like people must have identified with their message, must have experienced a sense of unity with this loving God, and the Jesus who embodied God, and the Spirit who was with them and between them as they spoke. They joined with Paul and the others, and passed the word of love on to their friends, and the Jesus movement grew.
The people of Phillipi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and the Areopagus, must have caught some of that feeling of everything coming together for them. Hearing the words of Paul and Silas and their neighbors, and seeing their loving actions, they must have sensed that God was there present with them. Like God is here with us now, and is with us always. Let’s follow the example of those early Christian women and men, and keep spreading this good news around.
5th Easter, 5/2/21
Acts 16: 40; 17: 1-4, 12-12, 16-18, 22-24, 25-28, 32-34
Ps. 22
1 John 3: 1-2, 18-21, 23-24
John 15: 1-1, 4-5, 8
A few years ago, I was leading a backpacking trip with a group of high school-age Girl Scouts. We were camped on the shore of Lake Monroe, south of Bloomington, in the Hoosier National Forest, on a hot day in July. There were six girls, and they decided to take our 2 canoes and 2 kayaks out, and paddled around the lake for a while. Then they brought the boats close together, about 40 feet from shore, and hopped out of them, and just floated around for a long time, in their life jackets. They spent most of the afternoon out there on the lake, swimming, floating, and talking. I think the only reason they finally came back in was that eventually they got hungry. At the end of the trip, during our closing campfire, they all described that afternoon as an experience of intense unity. One girl said, ”I felt like everything had come together, right there in that little circle of boats. I felt like I was part of the lake I was floating in, and I felt like we had all become really close friends, and we were sharing a really cool moment.” Another said she felt as if she were one with the earth and the fish in the lake and the birds flying around, and the people she was with. They all said they had been sorry that afternoon had to end. They wish it could have lasted forever.
I hope you have had similar experiences with friends, or family, maybe out in Nature, maybe around a dinner table, but feeling united and like everything had come together for you. I think this is part of what Jesus is describing the love of God is like, with the vine and branches symbol. God created every cell in our bodies, and loves us so much that we are always a part of God. We abide in God and God abides in us. As it said in our reading from 1 John, when we love others as God loves us, when we put our love into action to help one another, we bring forth the fruit of this beautiful plant, the sweet grapes of the life God created us for. Everything comes together.
Paul and Silas, and other women and men disciples, at the beginning of the Christian movement, traveled around a lot, as we read from Acts today. They visited house churches, like Lydia’s, as well as synagogues, marketplaces, and shrines, meeting with Jewish people, Greeks, and people who worshipped nature-- people of all different faiths—to share the good news of the unlimited love of the One Creator God. Paul told them, as he tells us today, “The God who made the world and everything in it, is the God of heaven and earth. It is God who gives everything—including life and breath—to everyone. For in God, we live and move and have our being.” And then he added, to the Areopagites: “As some of your own poets have said, ‘We, too, are offspring of the Divine.’” And it seems like people must have identified with their message, must have experienced a sense of unity with this loving God, and the Jesus who embodied God, and the Spirit who was with them and between them as they spoke. They joined with Paul and the others, and passed the word of love on to their friends, and the Jesus movement grew.
The people of Phillipi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and the Areopagus, must have caught some of that feeling of everything coming together for them. Hearing the words of Paul and Silas and their neighbors, and seeing their loving actions, they must have sensed that God was there present with them. Like God is here with us now, and is with us always. Let’s follow the example of those early Christian women and men, and keep spreading this good news around.
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