Intercessor
Because on this earth we are all sons and daughters of Eve, let us pray for the whole world and the church universal, that we might behold each other as brothers and sisters.
Lord in your mercy.
Hear our Prayer.

As Rebecca gave birth to Jacob, and in so doing she gave birth to a whole nation, let us pray for our own nation, and for all in authority.
Lord in your mercy.
Hear our Prayer.

As Rachel’s son Joseph was mistreated, beaten, and wrongly jailed, we pray for all in this world who are in trouble of any kind. We pray for the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, and the victims of war and all who live in terror’s wake.
Lord in your mercy.
Hear our Prayer.

As Hannah, the mother of Samuel, went to the House of the Lord to pray with earnest integrity, we earnestly pray for those in this community. [and especially those celebrating their birthdays this week...].
Lord in your mercy.
Hear our Prayer.

As Naomi took Ruth into her home, we pray for those who act as surrogate, spiritual mothers. We pray with gratitude for all those who give the gift of love and nurturing.
Lord in your mercy.
Hear our Prayer.

As Elizabeth gave birth in old age, and as she saw her son John the Baptist carried off to persecution, we pray for all those who are sick, those who are suffering, and those with any need. [Especially...]
Lord in your mercy.
Hear our Prayer.

And, as the Blessed Virgin Mary stood by the cross and watched her son die, we pray for the dead and the dying. [Especially...]
Lord in your mercy.
Hear our Prayer.

Officiant
Lord Jesus, who wishes to gather your people as a mother hen gathers together her brood, we offer to you our prayers. Accept our gratitude for all who mother, bless all who mother, and give all mothers your comfort and strength. And help all of us, brothers and sisters, to be your family on earth, as we shall be in Heaven. Amen.

You know that overpowering-intoxicating feeling when you’re annoyed?

And I don’t mean righteous indignation or anger over injustice. I mean being annoyed.

Quite frankly, I’m annoyed right now. Not for any good reason mind you. And certainly not for any righteous
reason.

I’m just plain annoyed.

The fact that my state of annoyance can serve a homiletical/ exegetical purpose tickles me. Not enough to lift my annoyance mind you.

But, I’m amused. Or, at least, I amuse myself.

Anyway. . . in the first paragraph of the lesson from Acts this week Paul is “very much annoyed.”

Now, from my personal and recent experience – annoyance comes in different flavors.

There’s being annoyed with someone you know well and love (spouse, child, co-worker, pet. . .). There’s being annoyed with circumstances that you can’t do much about (your train is late, your computer is slow, your overpriced iPhone keeps dropping calls…). And then there’s being annoyed with random people in your immediate vicinity.

I don’t know about you, but I get this a lot. Parents who don’t watch their kids in public spaces while they wreak havoc on the peace of others. Loud people on the subway. Slow drivers in the passing lane. People who so obviously think and act like the world revolves around them.

You know what I’m sayin’?

You’ve experienced this?

Ok, welcome to Paul’s world.

Paul and Silas are in Macedonia and they’re on their way to a ‘house of prayer.’ So, automatically you know that Paul’s looking for some peace and quiet. He’s yearning for some deep communion with God and some fellowship with some of his spiritual brothers and sisters.

And then there’s the loud woman screaming at the top of her lungs following Paul and Silas wherever they go.

And with that, Paul is “very much annoyed.”

And honestly, I can relate. I’m empathetic with Paul. At first glance this is where the scriptures intersect with my life.

So, stop for a moment and think: if you were Paul what would you do? Would you turn around and yell at this woman? Would you tell her to get away from you in a threatening-disgusted tone? Would you go find her owners (she was a slave) and, like a dog, tell them to better control her? Would you go to the authorities and complain that she’s disturbing the peace? Or would you just grit your teeth and bear it, all the while trying to slip out of her presence?

I could see myself doing any of the above, though honestly, in the end I’d probably just grit my teeth.

But, Paul does none of it. He turns, and with a word of prayer and spiritual authority he commands the spirit/ demon in her to leave.

When Paul is deeply disturbed he prays.

But, this passage isn’t finished with people being annoyed.

Because this woman who Paul exorcised. . . was a cash-cow for her owners. When the annoyed Paul cast the demon out of her they lost an income stream.

So, now they’re annoyed.

And they grab Paul and Silas and take them to the authorities and complain that they are “disturbing our city.”

People are annoyed. Heck, people are disturbed. And Paul and Silas end up in jail.

But, I don’t think that we’re done with the ‘annoyed’ experience in this text.

Because no sooner than night falls while Paul and Silas are in jail and there’s a major earthquake which shakes the foundations of the jail and opens every door.

Dare I say it?

It looks like God is annoyed.

We’ve had a pattern of emotion leading to dramatic response going on here up until now.

Paul is annoyed—he exorcises a demon.

The slave girl’s owners are annoyed—they take them to the authorities.

The town is disturbed—Paul and Silas go to Jail.

Now we only have a dramatic action performed by God: violent earthquake. One would think that there would be a precipitating emotion. Is God annoyed? Annoyed that his apostles/ emissaries are thrown in jail for no good reason? Annoyed that they can’t continue their work?

The fascinating thing here is that the result of Paul’s annoyance is a woman who is delivered of the presence of evil in her life. And the result of Paul’s annoyance, the slave’s owner’s annoyance, the town being disturbed, and God being annoyed is a guard who is brought to a life of faith.

Annoyance here has incontrovertible positive results.

Now, maybe I see this because I want some positive reinforcement of my current state of annoyance. ‘Holiness’ would be a fabulous justification for my holding onto this grudge of mine.

But, of course, that’s not what this passage is about.

And, maybe it’s not the central meaning of this passage from the Book of Acts, but what this perspective at least demonstrates for me is that ministry, and blessing, and prayer all happen in the midst of the messiness of human emotion. There’s that awful preconceived notion that the Christian life is supposed to be one of calm serenity, if not outright blandness. There’s an unspoken (though maybe in some circles it IS spoken) platitude that if we’re close to the heart of God we just smile all the time and put up with anything and anyone without bother.

Bologna.

Living life with God is messy. Incarnation is messy. Ministry is messy. And, it’s anything but bland.

I think a sermon on this text which points out the human-ness of Paul, the impossible nature of the position he was put in, and the tabula rasa which is the impetus behind the dramatic action of God (was God annoyed?) would be a sermon worth preaching. You’d have to put the stained-glass-voice away, though.

And maybe find ways this week to be annoyed, if not be outright annoying others.

For homiletical purposes, of course.

“gratia in procella” Acrylic on canvas by Rick Morley. Inspired by the grace of God evident in communities of faith living in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

I’m currently reading Stanley Fish’s magnificent little book, How to Write a Sentence. He says that a good sentence is something to marvel at. Something to savor.

The twenty-seventh verse of the fourteenth chapter of John isn’t a sentence. It’s a verse. Depending on how you translate it, it’s at least two sentences. Maybe even three.

But, it is indeed worthy of marveling at. And savoring.

Particularly now. With bombs going off. Buildings collapsing. Chemical weapons being deployed. Plants exploding. Terrorists plotting. Hurricanes to clean up from. School children far-too-achingly-young in the crosshairs.

Oh, don’t we need something to savor? Something to loosen the bitter taste from the roof of our mouths?

And what does Jesus bring? On the night before his death? To us today?

Peace. His peace.

Not the world’s peace. Jesus doesn’t bring that sort of thing. As if the world has ever known peace long enough to lick a stamp.

No, Jesus brings the shalom of God, where everything is good and right. Where everything is in it’s place, and where there are no dark corners to shelter evil from the warm glow of God’s pure light. The kind of peace that walks on water, that stills the storm, and fills our jars to the brim with the finest of wines. The kind of peace that brings sight to the blind, restores hearing to the deaf, and tells the lame to get up and go home.

The kind of peace that comes to a tomb and renders it empty.

That kind of peace.

Where hearts never need be troubled—for what could ever cause such a stir in the presence of God’s Shalom?

Where there is nothing to fear. Nothing.

The kind of peace that bombs and storms and cancer and injustice and terrorists and dissidents and lobbyists and weapons of mass destruction and dark hairy beasts which go bump in the night—where none of those things which usher in the valley of the shadow of death can usher in even an ounce of fear.

Because there is no oxygen for fear to breathe. No room for fear to move. No water for fear to swim in.

Because the peace of Jesus has soaked us to the bone, and nothing can wring it out.

That’s what Jesus brings. To us.

And so let us marvel. Let us savor. And let us make it our mission to continue his mission, and take this peace—which passes all understanding—to the ends of the earth. And to the inner chambers of our hearts.

Because, O Jesus, do we ever need it.

The resurrection has consequences. It changes things. Everything. The very fabric of the universe, in fact. But, it doesn’t stop there. (!) It also changes the way we are supposed to relate to each other.

In the Gospel lesson (John 13:31-35) Jesus says that we are now to love one another “as I have loved you.” Not insignificant words, especially when you consider that he said them on the night before he died on the cross. A few days before he rose from the dead. The bar of love has been raised pretty high.

In the New Testament lesson (Revelation 21:1-6) we find that the resurrection has spread to the universe. A new earth. AND, a new heaven. (Wow. What needed renewed in heaven?)

And, in the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles we see the food prohibitions of the Hebrew Bible nullified, and the boundaries which separated Jews and Gentiles reduced to rubble. This stuns me for one principle reason: Peter announces the reversal of standing biblical law because of a vision he had and voices he heard.

By now the pastel bonnets and ties our children wore on Easter morning are…well, who knows where they are? The chocolate bunnies are eaten. The lillies are brown and sad. Our Easter sermons have been probably largely forgotten.

Easter Sunday but a distant memory.

But, the effects of resurrection are still reverberating through the cosmos, and are supposed to still be reverberating through our lives and our faith. Our churches are to be communities which demonstrate, and incarnate, what resurrection looks like.

What does resurrection mean in the face of bombings, massacres, terrorism, hurricanes, cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, racism, depression…? Those aren’t rhetorical questions. They also aren’t intellectual questions to be met with intellectual answers.

They are questions that Christian living is meant to answer. We are to show the world how resurrection shatters darkness, sin, and despair. How we are not alone. How we do not need to be afraid. How deeply we are loved. And how abundant hope is.

And, I have to say those are real questions that real people are desperately asking. It’s up to us to answer. With our lives and witness we are to show the world that the resurrection has consequences.

How with that empty tomb everything changes.

Intercessor
We pray, O Lord, for those who were so tragically killed in Boston. We pray for all who love them, and all who grieve. We pray that they might find strength in you, and not be overwhelmed by their loss.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray, for those who were injured. Those who lost limbs. Those who are in great pain. Those who lives will forever be changed.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray, for those who witnessed horrible sights, for innocent bystanders, for the first responders, police, nurses, doctors, and all who are shaken to the core.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for those who are caring for the injured at this hour, that through them you would offer healing and life.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for the men and women of law enforcement who have long and difficult days ahead of them.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for the clergy and lay ministers who will tend to the needs of people in fear and grief.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for all the people of Boston, and everyone across the world who live under the threat of terror.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

In the spirit of you, O Christ, who commanded us to love, and pray for, our enemies; we pray for those who seek to do others harm. We pray that their hearts be turned, and their minds and souls find healing.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for all who are called to keep us safe. We pray that they might have wisdom and strength to do the task that is set before them.
Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer.

Officiant
And, we pray for the day when evil takes its last gasp. When the light finally, and thoroughly, snuffs out the darkness in this world, and the darkness which infects the hearts of people who do unspeakable wrong. Amen.

If this litany is helpful to you or your community of worship in any way, please feel free to use it, and to use it freely. You may amend, add, adapt, etc. in any way that you see fit. Attribution is not necessary.

Detail of palm branches from the tomb effigy of Elizabeth Boott Duveneck by Frank Duveneck (1848–1919), from the American Wing at the MMA. Photo by Rick Morley.

The following is a reflection on Revelation 7:9-17, the New Testament lesson appointed for Easter 5C, and All Saint’s Day, Year A according to the New Revised Common Lectionary. 

The Book of Leviticus tells of the major festival of Tabernacles. All Israel was to gather together, and construct temporary shelters, called tabernacles, to remind themselves of their ancestors dwelling in temporary shelters for the forty year wilderness journey. They were also to pray, waving palm, and other kinds of branches, in the air.

I have to say, that I think having a great-national-camping trip each and every year would have been an awesome experience. Can you imagine being a kid during this great festival? Everyone getting to sleep outside? Everyone coming into the Big City and making their huts and waving their branches?

I think it would have been amazing.

I like to think that families would return to the same spot year after year, and would see the same families year after year. Kids would have grown up playing with their Tabernacles-friends, and adults would, each year, watch their children get a little older. And, perhaps it would have made them think back to the time when they were a child, camping out with their parents and grandparents.

It would have served as a formative experience for God’s People. It would have been one of those things that would have shaped them, and molded them.

It would have grafted in them the sense that they were a pilgrim people.

Psalm 118 gradually became a part of the liturgy of the festival, and it’s double cry of “Hosanna, hosanna!,” literally, “Salvation, salvation!,” became part of the warp and woof of the whole shelter-temple-palm branch waving thing.

Later, in one of the darkest days of Israel’s history, when the Antiocus Epiphanes IV took over Judea, and set up pagan altars and idols in the Temple, the Israelites could not celebrate anything, much less Tabernacles. After Judas Maccabee led a small band of warriors to overthrow the pagan Seleucid rein, they cleared out the Temple, rededicated it, and celebrated Tabernacles–even though it wasn’t the right time of the year for Tabernacles.

The Children of Israel would have gathered together after a time of great national strife, and after an unlikely victory, made their shelters, took up their palm branches, and shouted out their “hosannas.”

There wouldn’t have been a dry eye in the place.

When St. John the Divine witnessed his vision apocalypse, he saw God’s people gathered around the Presence of God. And, this time it wasn’t just the children of Israel gathered–but ALL people. All nations, all tribes, all languages. Gathered together.

And, what were they doing? Waving palm branches. And, singing a song: “Salvation (Hosanna) belongs to our God sitting on the throne.”

John was witnessing something new. But, it was also something old.

It was something old being done a new way.

It was the old story of God’s victory and God providing for his people, but this time it was for all people. Everywhere.

Salvation/ Hosanna wasn’t just for one nation, but for all.

John’s vision–the apocalypse–is meant to serve as a new formative vision for all God’s People. Grafting in us all the sense that we are a pilgrim people, but that our home is with God. That we’re a pilgrim people, but that our home is with people of every race and nation.

Grafting in us a sense of expectation that one day–some day–we’ll have a great Kingdom-wide camping trip. And we’ll all have a spot. And, we’ll all sing of the glory of God. And, we’ll all do the wave with branches of palm.

And, it will be awesome.

There won’t be a dry eye in the house.

The reredos in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, General Seminary. NYC. Photo by Rick Morley

In meaningful conversation there’s what’s said, and then there’s what is actually being said. The conversation underneath the conversation.

When Jesus talks to Peter in the 21st chapter of John what is actually being said is pretty profound. It will change the arc of Peter’s life—as if it hasn’t already been changed enough.

There is, on the outside, this extraordinarily awkward interchange between Jesus and Peter. This is the first time that they’ve really spoken since Peter’s denial.

I don’t know him.

You have to believe that it’s eating Peter alive.

It would have been eating Peter even before talking to Jesus. It might have been one thing if Jesus had stayed in the tomb. Peter would have had to live with himself for denying his friend and teacher, at the moment when Jesus needed him the most. He would have hated himself for it for the rest of his days.

But then Jesus rose from the dead, and he had to actually look Jesus in the eye again. Now he knew that he was going to be forced to deal with his demons head-on.

Peter was probably going through this conversation in his head over and over again. Thinking over what he would say to Jesus. Imagining what Jesus would say to him. Perhaps he was even considering initiating the conversation himself.

But then Jesus is standing there in front of him by a charcoal fire. The last time Peter was by a charcoal fire is when he denied Jesus on the night of the betrayal and arrest.

Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Ouch.

I bet the crowd hushed at this point. Everyone knew Peter had this coming to him. And, everyone loves to see a good fight.

Then he asks again. And again.

Now that’s awkward.

And Jesus keeps telling Peter that if he does love him, as he insists he does, that he’s to feed his sheep, his lambs.

But, that’s just the outward conversation. Because what Jesus is really saying is: If you love me, do something about it. Show me.

And, not like the last time…

This time, feed. Tend. Do it.

What he doesn’t say is, “If you love me, have a nice fuzzy feeling in your belly. Feel all warm and tingly inside.”

But, then Jesus goes for broke.

Follow me.

This isn’t the first time he’s told Peter to “follow me.” But this time it’s different. This time there’s no room for Peter’s denial. For his sinking doubts.

This time Peter is to follow Jesus all the way. In love. In ministering to others. In spreading the Good News. In life. In death.

But, then of course there’s one more level to the conversation. John recorded this for us in his gospel because…we’re also in on the conversation.

Because if we love Jesus…then feeling something isn’t good enough. Thinking things in our minds and hearts isn’t enough.

We need to live it. We need to do it. We need to feed. Tend.

We need to follow Jesus. All the way.