New Hope UMC of the Northern Berkshires

Patience ain’t easy. Sometimes we are so looking forward to something, or maybe even just so looking FOR something, that our ability to wait is compromised. We just can’t do it. So we turn to something else.

But as the old song reminds us: that’s looking for love, and grace, in all the wrong places.

We quote this scripture a lot. We really do. Actually, we really don’t. What we do is take the very last verse, pick it out, forget its context, and let it make us feel all warm and fuzzy.

But the truth is if we read the entire scripture it’s not quite as warm and fuzzy as we want it to be.

Where two or three gather in my name, I am there sounds great, and it can be great… but it can also be a challenge to which we often don’t live up.

Jesus’ warning to his disciples about the cost of discipleship isn’t about passively accepting the difficult things life hands us. Rather it’s about actively accepting our responsibility for loving sacrifice. In short, it’s about following Jesus. And that’s what Peter found out.

In this week’s Gospel reading, the disciples are out on a boat and Jesus, well, isn’t. A storm kicks up, and the disciples are afraid, and Jesus comes walking out towards them on the water.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus points out the way the Pharisees and the religious authorities can’t decide what they want in their prophets. While sometimes we see this as an either/or, which is the right way to be a follower of God, the truth is that it’s not either/or.

It’s both/and.

An author once wrote that home is the place that, when you go there, they have to take you in. While that may be true, it sets a pretty low bar on the subject of hospitality!

Jesus had a different idea of what it means to be welcoming. Let’s talk about Jesus’ expectations of us when it comes to extending hospitality and welcoming people home!

God: Parent, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three-in-one.The Trinity.We say that like it makes sense. Like it’s easy to explain. Obvious, even. And maybe we think that if we say it with enough confidence, no one will notice that the whole thing is kinda confusing.But as important to our faith as the Trinity is, remember that understanding the triune nature of God isn’t the most important thing.

Pentecost, the birthday of the church. The day when the Holy Spirit visited the followers of Jesus with the touch of flame. As United Methodists, that flame, the flame of Pentecost, is embodied in our logo. This is a big deal to us.

And so every year we read the same scripture, and we chuckle about whether or not the people thought the disciples were drunk, ha ha, but no, it’s only 9am!

But there’s something else going on there. A kind of desperation to disparage anything that might have sprung from the message of Jesus. Because the nay sayers only had one response to hide behind, and it didn’t make any kind of sense at all.

This is the Sunday we reserve for the one we call “doubting Thomas.” Forgetting for the moment that all of the Disciples doubted when Jesus first appeared, what if Thomas isn’t really mired in doubt… but hope?

Hope in the radical transformation of resurrection.

Mary Magdalene, Joana, Mary the mother of James, and the other women go to the tomb with spices to tend to Jesus’ body. When they find the tomb empty and are stunned by the presence and words of the men in dazzling clothing, they remember. They remember what Jesus had said, which compels them to go out and tell the story.

Even in utter shock, they return to their deepest knowing and allow themselves to receive the expansiveness of resurrection. Their imaginations and hearts expand, and they must take action in response.

Many of the disciples won’t open themselves to this expansiveness and reject it. Peter is curious enough to return to the tomb, and as a result, he is filled with amazement and awe.

How do we carry forth what we have learned this Lent? Can we be curious enough to return and remember? Can we allow ourselves to be filled with expansive hope? Can we trust in the expansive promise of new life, and carry that promise with us wherever we go?