Year B
Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:24-30
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lutheran and Anglican calendars of saints include people like Perpetua and Felicity\u2026 Teresa of Avila\u2026 Gregory the Great\u2026 and others who promoted the faith\u2026 there are also those who have healed the Church from heresies or schisms\u2026 people who are called Doctors of the Church\u2026 people like John of the Cross\u2026 Thomas Aquinas\u2026 Catherine of Sienna\u2026 and St. Ambrose…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These people… along with the Gospel writers\u2026 the disciples\u2026 and the apostles… didn’t heal with the medical equipment or knowledge we have today\u2026 they didn’t have the technology to peer into the far reaches of the cosmos… or into subatomic and quantum realms\u2026 but they were still scientists… of the heart\u2026 they understood that the heart is an organ of perception\u2026 and with their hearts they could discern hundreds of years ago\u2026 what modern science is beginning to reveal to us now\u2026 that what hurts or heals one of us\u2026 hurts or heals all of us\u2026 that we are all connected\u2026 with creation itself\u2026 and with one another\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Epistle tells about how Philip was directed by an angel to a place where he connected with the Ethiopian eunuch\u2026 whose name\u2026 tradition tells us was Indich\u2026 and he is reading a passage from Isaiah about someone who felt humiliated because justice was denied\u2026 he was coming back from Jerusalem where he worshipped\u2026 he was a devout man\u2026 but Jewish law would have kept him from the Assembly of the Lord because of his deformity\u2026 and he probably couldn’t get any closer to the Holy of Holies than the Court of the Gentiles\u2026 and like the man in Isaiah\u2026 he felt the humiliating sting of injustice too\u2026 but here… he invites Philip\u2026 includes Philip\u2026 and asks him to guide him\u2026 and Philip proclaimed the good news\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now according to the Law of Moses\u2026 Philip ought to have seen the Ethiopian as an outcast\u2026 as someone unable to receive all of God’s blessings\u2026 and the Gospel\u2026 but somehow the barriers came down\u2026 they experienced connection\u2026 and Philip baptized him\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Episcopal Priest Cynthia Bourgeault explains that our brains help us make sense of the world by perceiving through differentiation\u2026 dividing our experience into subject and object\u2026 inside and outside\u2026 light and dark\u2026 right and wrong\u2026 good and bad\u2026 in other words\u2026 what we know\u2026 we know in terms of contrast\u2026 But\u2026 <\/em>she writes\u2026 the heart has a different way of perceiving. Rather than dividing and conquering\u2026 it simply connects everything with a seamless and indivisible reality through a whole different way of organizing the information field<\/em>\u2026 She writes that\u2026 in the wisdom tradition\u2026 the heart is primarily an organ of spiritual perception\u2026 the heart picks up reality in a much deeper and more integral way than our poor Cartesian minds can even begin to imagine\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So Philip experienced a connection here [heart]\u2026 not here [head]\u2026 which allowed him to transcend the letter of the Mosaic Law and follow the spirit of the Gospel\u2026 it’s one way to look at the distillation of the law\u2026 from all 613 laws that had to be kept track of here [head]\u2026 to the two great commandments here [heart]\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today’s Epistle and Gospel are connected and interwoven\u2026 like branches and vines\u2026 this passage from 1 John uses the word “love” twenty-six times\u2026 there are themes of mutual love\u2026 mutual indwelling\u2026 and mutual abiding \u2026 we abide in God and God abides in us\u2026 and those who abide in love abide in God\u2026 and the Epistle reminds us that this love and mutual abiding cast out fear\u2026 the fear that we’re unlovable or that we’re alone\u2026 and the too-many-to-count things that arise out of that fear\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And today’s Gospel helps us visualize this inter-relationship\u2026 ] in a vine\u2026 branches are almost indistinguishable from each other\u2026 it’s a challenge to determine where one branch stops and another starts\u2026 and this image is the image of community\u2026 a community which doesn’t use the head to make distinctions or lift up free-standing individuals\u2026 but a community whose branches encircle each other\u2026 branches whose fruitfulness depend on the seamless connection of their hearts to the vine\u2026 branches that are rooted in and draw their nourishment\u2026 and love… from the self-emptying of God in Christ\u2026 just as Mary said at the Annunciation\u2026 Let it be with me according to Your word<\/em>\u2026 Jesus gave his self-emptying Yes to God in the Garden at Gethsemane\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Rev. Bourgeault writes\u2026 Even with death waiting in the wings\u2026 Jesus will allow no separation between God and humans\u2026 no separation between humans and humans\u2026 because the sap flowing through everything is love itself. In image after image he tries to impart to the disciples his assurance that they can never be cut off from that love\u2026 because their very beings are rooted in it<\/em>\u2026 that’s why the Epistle reminds us that those who don’t love a brother or sister whom they do see\u2026 can’t love God whom they don’t see<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n This metaphor of the vine also implies a radically new model for the church and for society\u2026 as the description of a vine and its branches suggests\u2026 no branch has pride of place\u2026 no one branch can say that it’s better than any other… and can judge the others\u2026 or that it deserves more benefits\u2026 or that it’s less accountable to the other branches\u2026 it’s the vine grower who judges and does the pruning and the cutting back\u2026 its a model that says we’re all in this together\u2026 we’re all connected\u2026 and we need to look out for each other\u2026 if our church and society were to shape themselves according to this Johannine metaphor\u2026 they would be communities in which decisions about power and governance would be made in light of the radical\u2026 egalitarian love of the vine image\u2026 and I won’t be the least bit surprised\u2026 if science discovers some day… that the unified field of quantum physics… is the consciousness of love\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n The world still needs a lot of healing. It has enough Saints\u2026 we’re all Saints\u2026 what it needs are more Doctors of the Church\u2026 women and men who can make the million-mile journey from here [head] to here [heart]\u2026 and who can lay down\u2026 give up… some of their own lives\u2026 to nourish\u2026 and look out for\u2026 and protect the lives of others\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n As an ending prayer\u2026\u00a0 I’d like to offer part of a poem about love\u2026 \u00a0by Khalil Gibran\u2026\u00a0 from his book The Prophet\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When love beckons to you\u2026\u00a0 follow him\u2026 Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. Year B Acts 8:26-40 Psalm 22:24-30 1 John 4:7-21 John 15:1-8 May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026 The Lutheran and Anglican calendars of saints include people like Perpetua and Felicity\u2026 Teresa of Avila\u2026 Gregory the Great\u2026 and others who promoted the faith\u2026 there are also those who have healed the Church from heresies or schisms\u2026 people who are called Doctors of the Church\u2026 people like John of the Cross\u2026 Thomas Aquinas\u2026 Catherine of Sienna\u2026 and St. Ambrose… These people… along with the Gospel writers\u2026 the disciples\u2026 and the apostles… didn’t heal with the medical equipment or knowledge we have today\u2026 they didn’t have the technology to peer into the far reaches of the cosmos… or into subatomic and quantum realms\u2026 but they were still scientists… of the heart\u2026 they understood that the heart is an organ of perception\u2026 and with their hearts they could discern hundreds of years ago\u2026 what modern science is beginning to reveal to us now\u2026 that what hurts or heals one of us\u2026 hurts or heals all of us\u2026 that we are all connected\u2026 with creation itself\u2026 and with one another\u2026 The Epistle tells about how Philip was directed by an angel to a place where he connected with the Ethiopian eunuch\u2026 whose name\u2026 tradition tells us was Indich\u2026 and he is reading a passage from Isaiah about someone who felt humiliated because justice was denied\u2026 he was coming back from Jerusalem where he worshipped\u2026 he was a devout man\u2026 but Jewish law would have kept him from the Assembly of the Lord because of his deformity\u2026 and he probably couldn’t get any closer to the Holy of Holies than the Court of the Gentiles\u2026 and like the man in Isaiah\u2026 he felt the humiliating sting of injustice too\u2026 but here… he invites Philip\u2026 includes Philip\u2026 and asks him to guide him\u2026 and Philip proclaimed the good news\u2026 Now according to the Law of Moses\u2026 Philip ought to have seen the Ethiopian as an outcast\u2026 as someone unable to receive all of God’s blessings\u2026 and the Gospel\u2026 but somehow the barriers came down\u2026 they experienced connection\u2026 and Philip baptized him\u2026 Episcopal Priest Cynthia Bourgeault explains that our brains help us make sense of the world by perceiving through differentiation\u2026 dividing our experience into subject and object\u2026 inside and outside\u2026 light and dark\u2026 right and wrong\u2026 good and bad\u2026 in other words\u2026 what we know\u2026 we know in terms of contrast\u2026 But\u2026 she writes\u2026 the heart has a different way of perceiving. Rather than dividing and conquering\u2026 it simply connects everything with a seamless and indivisible reality through a whole different way of organizing the information field\u2026 She writes that\u2026 in the wisdom tradition\u2026 the heart is primarily an organ of spiritual perception\u2026 the heart picks up reality in a much deeper and more integral way than our poor Cartesian minds can even begin to imagine\u2026 So Philip experienced a connection here [heart]\u2026 not here [head]\u2026 which allowed him to transcend the letter of the Mosaic Law and follow the spirit of the Gospel\u2026 it’s one way to look at the distillation of the law\u2026 from all 613 laws that had to be kept track of here [head]\u2026 to the two great commandments here [heart]\u2026 Today’s Epistle and Gospel are connected and interwoven\u2026 like branches and vines\u2026 this passage from 1 John uses the word “love” twenty-six times\u2026 there are themes of mutual love\u2026 mutual indwelling\u2026 and mutual abiding \u2026 we abide in God and God abides in us\u2026 and those who abide in love abide in God\u2026 and the Epistle reminds us that this love and mutual abiding cast out fear\u2026 the fear that we’re unlovable or that we’re alone\u2026 and the too-many-to-count things that arise out of that fear\u2026 And today’s Gospel helps us visualize this inter-relationship\u2026 ] in a vine\u2026 branches are almost indistinguishable from each other\u2026 it’s a challenge to determine where one branch stops and another starts\u2026 and this image is the image of community\u2026 a community which doesn’t use the head to make distinctions or lift up free-standing individuals\u2026 but a community whose branches encircle each other\u2026 branches whose fruitfulness depend on the seamless connection of their hearts to the vine\u2026 branches that are rooted in and draw their nourishment\u2026 and love… from the self-emptying of God in Christ\u2026 just as Mary said at the Annunciation\u2026 Let it be with me according to Your word\u2026 Jesus gave his self-emptying Yes to God in the Garden at Gethsemane\u2026 And Rev. Bourgeault writes\u2026 Even with death waiting in the wings\u2026 Jesus will allow no separation between God and humans\u2026 no separation between humans and humans\u2026 because the sap flowing through everything is love itself. In image after image he tries to impart to the disciples his assurance that they can never be cut off from that love\u2026 because their very beings are rooted in it\u2026 that’s why the Epistle reminds us that those who don’t love a brother or sister whom they do see\u2026 can’t love God whom they don’t see\u2026 This metaphor of the vine also implies a radically new model for the church and for society\u2026 as the description of a vine and its branches suggests\u2026 no branch has pride of place\u2026 no one branch can say that it’s better than any other… and can judge the others\u2026 or that it deserves more benefits\u2026 or that it’s less accountable to the other branches\u2026 it’s the vine grower who judges and does the pruning and the cutting back\u2026 its a model that says we’re all in this together\u2026 we’re all connected\u2026 and we need to look out for each other\u2026 if our church and society were to shape themselves according to this Johannine metaphor\u2026 they would be communities in which decisions about power and governance would be made in light of the radical\u2026 egalitarian love of the vine image\u2026 and I won’t be the least bit surprised\u2026 if science discovers some day… that the unified field of quantum physics… is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[323,322,190,139],"class_list":["post-2497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons","tag-connection","tag-eastertide","tag-love","tag-relationship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/healinghandbranches.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2499,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497\/revisions\/2499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you\u2026\u00a0 yield to him\u2026\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0though the sword hidden among his pinions may
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him\u2026\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0though his voice may shatter your dreams\u2026\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0as the north wind lays waste the garden.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0But if you love and must needs have desires\u2026\u00a0 let these be
\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0your desires:
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody
\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0to the night\u2026\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0To know the pain of too much tenderness\u2026\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0To be wounded by your own understanding of love\u2026\u00a0
\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and to bleed willingly and joyfully.<\/em>
Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"