– Sundays after Pentecost: We’re in this time of the liturgical year where we want to think about “Discipleship” – What it means to follow Jesus. I apologize in advance to those for whom I state the obvious but we sometimes need a little reminder: The liturgical year is really split in two cycles rather than 6 seasons (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and then Ordinary time or Sundays after Pentecost). A year in two cycles that divides like this:

From Advent to Pentecost we look at Jesus’s life / Important moments in Jesus’s life, his death and R

From Pentecost to Advent: “Ordinary times”: What it means to be Jesus’s church / what it means to be a Christian or what it means to “Follow Jesus”

– and today in our Gospel this is what we hear about what it means to follow Jesus: It is “to take up our cross” – an expression we hear many times in the Gospel, an expression that is also one of the most misunderstood of all – so I would like to spend a little time with you on that today. I don’t pretend I have the right explanation to what it means to take up one’s cross, but there are a few things I can’t help noticing:

– First of all Jesus asks us to “take up” our cross and to me it sounds really different than saying “Accept your cross”. It is rather quite the opposite and we know what happened to Jesus when he “took up” his cross. The tradition tells us that he fell three times under the weight of the cross. He could have remained crushed, but he got up each time to finish the way / to give all he had to give.

To me “Taking up one’s cross” means that when we suffer, we don’t necessarily have to be passive. It does not mean that we have to be a “warrior”, to be at war with our pain or whatever causes our pain. Taking up our cross means that by the way we endure, or better, by the way we walk trough our sufferings we can be a sign of hope and resilience to others, and we can also make the choice to keep on being loving people instead of staying wrapped up in our pain. If you’re interested in thinking about suffering as a place where you can still make decisions, bear hope and eventually learn to be more loving and compassionate, I invite you to read the beautiful book “The choice” by Dr Edith Eva Eger who survived the concentration camps.

– The second thing I notice in the expression “Take up your cross”, is that it’s probably something Jesus never said at the time of his teaching on earth. To me, Jesus had probably a strong sense that he would be rejected and possibly be put to death, but I don’t think he knew with certainty he would be crucified. This expression comes from the other side of the cross, from resurrection – whether the risen Christ said it or the author of the Gospel put this expression into Jesus’s mouth.

And so when we “take up our cross” we don’t do it for the mere sake of suffering, we take up our cross because there is a horizon. It’s not that God wants you to suffer so you’ll become a more spiritual person detached from the flesh and the world. It means that there is still goodness and beauty to be found and that eventually life will have the last word. As Christians, we made the cross our symbol yet all the meaning of the cross is that the cross does not have the last word! We don’t give up. We don’t give up on the world, we don’t give up because of sin, we don’t give up on others and on ourselves. We don’t give up on God. Taking up our cross is about moving forward because we know that there is something beyond our pain.

– Third observation: The pain mentioned in the Gospel today / the context is more about the pain endured from rejection than from the hardships of life by themselves. When we bring our testimony about faith, we suffer. Jesus warns his disciples that they will be persecuted.

What does Jesus mean exactly? It can be tricky because some people come to believe, when they are hated, or when they meet opposition that “they must have done something right”. And maybe. Sometimes you do something right and it makes people mad. But we have to be very careful not to be arrogant with that. I am currently reading the book “Unfollow” by Megan Phelps-Roper about growing up in the Westboro Baptist Church, the very virulent anti-gay church, and she says that this is what they believed in her church: that they were hated because they did God’s work! It took her time to realize they were hated (back) because they were just a hateful church!

So what Jesus asks his disciples is not to judge or condemn others, to set the standards, rather it is to live with integrity, to have the courage to choose for ourselves what’s right over what’s comfortable – like being approved by people or pleasing your family and being a good son, daughter or daughter in law who goes with the flow. We say that every week in the Sunday school prayer: “Help me to stand for the hard right against the easy wrong”.

And you know, I believed for a long time that those words of the Gospel about being persecuted for the truth had not much to do with me. Not much to do with me because I live in a Christian country, and so if I say I believe in Christ, people are more likely to approve of me rather than criticize. It’s not very controversial, right? The thing is, it’s not about what you believe / your identity as Christian. It’s about what your belief sets in motion and how you live your daily life because of what you believe. Living with integrity is for all of us, every minute of our life we have to make this choice.

I have started talking about racism with a group of neighbors and our group opened in conversation with this simple question: How do you react when people make racists comments? Do you say nothing, do you pretend it’s not your problem (if you’re white) or if it is thrown at you (because you’re black) do you choose to ignore it because you’re so tired of it? And as we unpacked our experiences, we realized how hard it was to do something as simple as interrupting a conversation, as risking to be the troublemaker or the offended one by asking this simple question: “Why would you say that?”

“Why would you say that?” I think is a good example of what it means to take up one’s cross, to live with integrity for the Gospel at the risk of being criticized and rejected. Sometimes it seems like very little things, so small we think we can overlook them, but it is really what our daily lives are made of and eventually our society.

– As a conclusion on that, I would say that what it means to “Take up one’s cross” is perfectly summarized by Paul in the passage from Romans we have just heard: “We have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life”

Taking up our cross is about walking in newness of life, for ourselves but not only – it’s for our community and for our world. Even if “taking up our cross” includes a level of acceptance, it has nothing to do with passivity, resignation and giving up. It’s about transformation and rebirth, it’s about “kicking the darkness until it bleeds light” (Nadia Bolz-weber)

– We have a beautiful example of what it means to walk in newness of life in the story of the OT today that tells us about Hagar and Ishmael’s rejection by Abraham and Sarah. When Abraham and Sarah finally obtain what they wanted – a son of theirs – they decide that Hagar and Ishmael don’t fit anymore into their plans and they get rid of them. And the story could end here. But we know that it isn’t where the story ends. God hears the boy and sees Hagar’s despair and provides the means for them to go back to their country where Ishmael will be able to start a new family. And we know that it is also the start of a brand new story of God with God’s people through the Ishmaelites and Arabian people.

The story does not have to end in despair. The bible shows us that God always provides a horizon whether for an individual or through an individual to her descendants / her people. Hagar moves from being a slave to being a matriarch. But yes, we may have to go through the pain. To take up our crosses. It may have been easier for Hagar to get used to her slavery rather than to walk through the wilderness with her son. But there was a horizon for her and God led her to new life beyond her humiliation, rejection and suffering. May it be so for us whatever the pain we’re going through.

– Quite a week we had. Lot of emotions. Most of them not precisely positive. Disturbing emotions!

I have one of those little tables at home you may have seen to teach children (and adults) about emotions, it’s called: “How are you feeling today?” and there are representations of facial expressions with naming all the feelings we may experience. I thought it might be interesting to check the feelings of the week. Those I have witnessed in the press, social medias, in conversations with friends and with some of you, and also those I noticed when I have been in conversation with myself!

So how have we been feeling this week?

Aggressive, Angered, Argumentative, Apologetic, Bitter, Confused, Depressed, Disappointed, Disapproving, Disbelieving, Disgusted, Distasteful, Engrossed, Enraged, Exasperated, Exhausted, Frightened, Frustrated, Grieving, Guilty, Hopeless, Hostile, Horrified, Hurt, Lonely, Miserable, Nauseous, Negative, Obsessed, Pained, Paranoid, Perplexed, Puzzled, Sad, Shocked, Sorrowful, Steaming, Stressed, Traumatized, Worried, Withdrew?

Have you checked any? How are you been feeling this week? And how are you feeling today?

The reading of Genesis reminds us today of another week, a week that happened a long time ago, even if most of us don’t believe it was an actual week. The week the world was created and every living thing and creature and humankind brought into being and blessed by God. And I thought it was kind of funny and touching to realize that each day of the week, God saw that is was “Good” (“Tov”: good and beautiful – used 7 times in the text). Each day, how did God feel? God felt contented, and how was the world? The world was contented. And humankind, man and woman were created in the image of God – and they were contented too!

And I would like to make a first observation about that:

– I think it’s more important than ever to remember that the world was created good and that we were created good. And we were created for peace, harmony and contentment. And it’s so easy to forget about that. Not only because there are so many disturbing events taking place these days. It’s easy to forget that we are made for goodness because religion throughout the ages has been quite responsible for presenting humanity as guilty, lawless and enemies of God. But Genesis reminds us that first of all, we are good and made for goodness. I heard once a preacher saying that the world was wonderfully made because the color the most soothing to the human eye is green and so God created everything green so we would be soothed. Well, I am not sure about that. Green is soothing to our eyes because our eyes have evolved surrounded by the green of nature. But you get the idea: There is harmony in nature – not necessarily a harmony where there is never suffering or death, but there is an equilibrium, a balance. No distress and despair. The world is brought into being by leaving the chaos behind.

I was amazed to realize this week that even in the midst of the pandemic people were not doing too bad. They were worried of course, but even when nature acts hostile towards us, we have experienced ways of coming together and finding solutions. I had a sense that these past couple of weeks, the shift in our minds came with the racial violence, the protest and the looting and the repression and all of that was not just worrying, it felt traumatic. We can face uncertainty and danger together but hate and violence that create division are traumatic. Because we are made for goodness and harmony.

And so, if like me you’ve been wondering about those emotions we’re going through right now, I think that’s it: Our brains are traumatized, because deep down we are wired for goodness, harmony and peace and it does not make any sense. I heard so many people this week saying to me that they could not make sense of hatred and physical violence, about the racism, but I’ve also heard about the looting, the verbal violence against the authorities, the politicization of the church, Christians condemning other Christians…

We are not meant for chaos, we don’t thrive in the chaos and actually God called us out from the chaos.

“In the beginning (…) the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep”

So I think one of the things we can hear in the passage of Genesis today is that we have to stop. Stop trying to make sense of the chaos, stop obsessing with the chaos, and sort of “making friend with the chaos” when we spend most of our days watching or scrolling through the chaos. Today and from the beginning, God called us out of the chaos.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend who told me she didn’t really like the role the National Church was playing in the crisis and my friend told me that she felt bad because “She didn’t know how to react” – and it really hit me – this expression. I said to her: Well, you don’t have to react.

We have to act, oh yes indeed, but we don’t have to react. We certainly have the right not to react and it is actually recommended not to react. When under pressure, we have the right not to know how to feel or what to think – and it would actually be quite normal. God called us out of the chaos because we’re never going to be out best selves in the chaos. We’re not going to be our best selves when our mind are on alert, our bodies tensed, our brain overloaded and our nervous system overstimulated.

And so it is our job to bring back peace into ourselves and into the world. The harmony God wanted to bring from the beginning. To bring back goodness. It is not the goodness of the status quo. It’s a goodness that brings life and enable all creatures to thrive. We don’t have to react, but we are called to act and actually if we really want to act, we have to stop reacting – whatever is our way of reacting (withdrawal and indifference or anger and panic). Psychologists call that the “blue zone” (withdrawal, indifference, depression) and the “red zone” (anger, fear, panic). The “green zone” being the one where we can be balanced and truly ourselves. There is nothing wrong with being in the blue or red zone, that’s just the way our nervous system work, and maybe it’s even harder for some of us who are more sensitive, but we have to come back in the green zone to make rational decisions, act with love and compassion and be fully engaged in the world.

In his letter today, Paul reminds the church to live in peace. I am really amazed to realize how often this message of peace comes back in the first Christians writing, whether in the passages about Jesus’ resurrection, in Acts and the Epistles. The first Christians insisted on peace, not because they were dreamers and idealists but actually because they had plenty of good reasons to freak out! Roman persecutions and also Christians divided against each other.

How do we do that? How can we achieve peace so we can be fully engaged with the world and one another?

Well, of course, we have first to be mindful or our physical and mental well being. Sleep, eat, exercise.
Do something that connects us with the world, brings us relief, joy and even fun if we can. Something that keeps us grounded. (I’ve been experiencing quite unsuccessfully with Art, but at least it brings me peace, one of my neighbors told me she watches all the romantic movies she usually really does not care about). It’s not always superficial to be superficial. We also need to be mindful of addictive behaviors (food, alcohol of course but also social medias). We have the right to remove ourselves from stressful situations, toxic people and toxic conversations. If we’re feeling overwhelmed, we need to talk to a therapist as surely as we would visit a doctor if we are sick. It’s not weakness. We cannot cure ourselves of mental disease as surely as we can’t cure ourselves of a physical one. We can certainly do things that help or not with our health. But there are also specialists and medications out there that are meant to help us. I have put a list of resources in the announcements.

Now today what we need to talk about is spiritual well being.

– Genesis: Surprising that it is not so much about telling us that God is good than God is the one who creates, see and seek goodness. As I’ve said, let’s not be caught by chaos, evil and toxicity to try to “react” to it. We need to turn our eyes towards the good, constructive actions, constructive people and then respond to it, build on it, make it happen with others. “Be the reason someone believes in the goodness of people”

– The first commandment God gives to humankind is to be “Fruitful and multiply”: Fruitfulness is not all about multiplying, about physical reproduction. It’s about the reproduction of God’s act of goodness. God name “good” what brings life and growth, what promotes life. We can help other people, do our part. (“Tov” means “Beautiful and good” – but also, mostly, in this context: “What brings life”. Good is not just something pleasant, comfortable and nice, it is something that brings growth and expansion and novelty.)

– Paul asks us to live in peace. Not so much about remaining undisturbed. PEACE: Presence, Engagement, Affection, Calm, Empathy.

Presence: Show up / awareness/ openness / invite connection
Engagement: Actively listen – to understand, not to be right
Affection: Express your affection, make people feel loved and affirmed
Calm: Be the adult in the relationships / Act from a place of calm
Empathy: Feel with people, make them feel felt.

– Remember Jesus’s last words (not just the words on the cross!): “I am with you always.”
Do we really believe that?

Today is Trinity Sunday: We are reminded that we believe in a God who is not a sovereign God who acts like a ruler who wants us to obey orders. God came to be in relationships with us in Jesus and still is. God hasn’t abandoned us. We can talk to God from our heart. God is not that interested in our formal prayers. Rather God is interested in what’s going on in our hearts (You don’t want your lover to read you poetry / you want to hear words from the heart)

– Psalm 8: “You are mindful of human beings…” We need to rest – even God rests! Rest our body, but also quieten our soul and our heart knowing we’re in God’s hands.

– God as Trinity share God’s spirit with us: God fills us with God’s spirit to know when and where and how to act.

Conclusion: Be like God! The only response to chaos is goodness! It’s not so much about justifying ourselves, trying to find out if we are the good people or not, it’s seeing goodness, not despairing about humanity, having a sense that there is still room for love and justice in the world. And trusting that God still brings goodness out of chaos if we’re willing to make room for it and receive it.

So I wrote another sermon this week…For Pentecost…And you know, it’s fine. I come up with stuff, and there are maybe a few ideas and it’s on line and you can check it out if you want and maybe it will help you to think about things but in this context, given the events that took place this weekend, my heart isn’t in it to preach it today and I don’t think you’ll get much from it right now.

Pentecost, right. We should celebrate the coming together of all people – tongues and nations, united in the power of the Holy Spirit – but what happened this week is that we’ve just been witnessing all this hate and division in our society, white people threatening, humiliating and murdering African Americans – or white people just being bystanders, approving by a criminal indifference and silence.

It sickens me.

I was texting yesterday with a friend of mine from seminary who is now a priest in Memphis – He’s an African American. And he wasn’t saying a thing about the situation you know – He was just texting to send me pictures of his two beautiful kids playing together in his living room, but when I saw his kids, his four years old daughter and one year old son, it made me want to cry, it made me want to cry thinking about them so innocent and joyful growing up in this society. And I thought, I need to say something to my friend, and I didn’t know what to say. And I had this back and forth in my mind: “I need to say something, I don’t know what to say” and you see, I didn’t know what to say because I don’t know much about races in America, I am not American as you know, I am not Black obviously, but this only thing I know is that this situation sickens me and so that’s what I told to my friend: I don’t know what to say about all this s…ituation (I didn’t say “situation”) going on, it makes me sick. And when I wrote that to my friend, that’s what he answered me:

That’s exactly the right description for this nation. It is sick! And I said Yes, maybe it is even sicker on the inside than it is on the outside.

Today, we’re looking for cure, medicines and vaccines against the virus and yes we need to put all our efforts in it. Yet we also need to remember, urgently, that’s it’s on the inside we also need to be cured. It’s on the inside that we need to be healed and maybe it’s not that bad after all that today we think about Pentecost and the Holy Spirit, because here’s the thing: Our hearts need to be changed. Life is not only about our bodies. It’s important to be healthy in our bodies, but now it’s not only our bodies that are threatened. It’s our hearts that are dying, it’s our souls that are in danger.

We need the Holy Spirit more than ever. To change the hearts of those who commit and support such hatred. And we also need the Holy Spirit to mend the broken hearts of those who endure this hatred, those who have been enduring this hatred for so long. We need the Holy Spirit to strengthen them, comfort them, restore them.

I don’t know what to say because I don’t feel I have the right to say something: I am not American, I don’t know much about races, but I know that most days I am ashamed to be white and I would like to apologize for all white people, and in the same time I feel it’s even more shameful to think white people could get away with an apology and mostly I don’t want to burden you with my white people feelings, so I won’t say anything.

But as your priest, there is something I can tell you. I can tell you that we need the Holy Spirit more than ever and although the Holy Spirit is like the wind and blows wherever the Spirit wants to blow, we are reminded today that the Spirit chose Jesus’s disciples and the Spirit continues to choose the church and you are the church.

And maybe we don’t have much at Christ Church. For now, we don’t even have our building! And we’re not the youngest, the fittest, or the richest, but we have each other and even if it’s not perfect, we have managed to find a way to live together and to worship together between races. Oh, it’s not perfect, I am sure there are some hurt feelings, misunderstandings and prejudices – we make mistakes, we fail, but we try again. We try and we’re still here. And maybe we’re not a fancy church, but you see, we have that. We have each other and we try to be together. And we love each other.

And it’s so important. It’s so important right now not only to be the church, but to be our church. To be us. A church where we try to love each other coming all from different places, backgrounds and races.

When you read the Scriptures, really, this is all there is to it – the Church, the Holy Spirit. People coming together in love, in peace, in reconciliation. And the world needs this testimony.

We hear a lot today that church, it’s not that important. You can just stay home and believe in God. But it is important. Church is important. Because God is just not a Spirit up above, God’s Spirit visits God’s people. God’s Spirit holds people together. We need to be the church. Just to show them. Just to show them it’s possible to be us.

But better than showing them, maybe we need to tell them. I don’t know what to say, but what I can say is that I know a lot of you would know what to say. Or even if you don’t know what to say, the Spirit will tell you what to say. The Spirit will lead you out of weariness, fear and pain to speak your truth and your reality and to carry on the mission to change the world and even harder, to change the hearts of those who wouldn’t listen – a mission the Apostles started two thousands years ago when they left their house to meet the people out there, people who didn’t want them, people who were their enemies, people who killed their friend.

The world needs you and the world needs Christ Church. The world needs to hear us, as a church, and the world needs us to preach, all of us, not just me! Each in our own voices, we need to preach about the Kingdom of God and denounce the absurd violence and hatred of this world. The world needs the Church and needs Christ Church because the world needs to be healed and we can be an example of this healing / strive to be an example. Together.

I am sure a lot of you today are angry. I am not going to tell you not to be angry. Yesterday, I came across this beautiful quotation from Maya Angelou: “If you’re not angry, you’re either a stone, or you’re too sick to be angry. You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger, yes. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.”

Don’t be a stone and to be too sick to talk about it – as I have felt these past days. We can be angry yes, and we can use our anger – not as they want everybody to believe to bring more violence and destruction in the world, but to heal the world – we need to use our anger to claim the justice of God’s kingdom and to do something good for God’s children who suffer and to do something redemptive for those who persecute them. We need to let the Spirit act through us. The Spirit set the disciples on fire. Let the Spirit set a fire inside of you. Speak your truth and your reality. Never stop talking it. By your individual testimony, by our collective testimony.

And when it’s too much and you’re weary, remember, we still have each other. And God is with each one of us. Today is Sunday, and it’s the Feast of the Pentecost. Take some time for God – seriously. Unplug from the news, TV, social medias. Put down your phone. Just stop for a few hours. Go out if you can. Take a walk, pray. Ask God to fill your heart with God’s Spirit, ask God to give you peace, healing and comfort and then what God wants from you, in this situation. What you can do, what you can say, how you can use your sadness, your anger and your pain to bring a little more of God’s Spirit into this broken world. And God will certainly show us the way. God wants this to change even more than we do.

On this day of Pentecost, both of our readings today (Acts and John) start by mentioning a location, and the situation the disciples found themselves in when the Holy Spirit was given to them: Luke mentions in Acts that “They were all together in the same place” and the Gospel of John adds that, more precisely, it was “Evening on that day”, “the first day of the week” and the “door of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews”.

And so those two versions of what happened on the Day of Pentecost we’ve heard today differ quite a bit, but Luke and John agree on that: The Holy Spirit finds the disciples locked behind closed doors, afraid and wrapped up on themselves / keeping safe in their little group. And it’s only when they receive the Spirit that they can open up and start their work of evangelization through meeting people and giving their testimonies, living up to their full potential.

Actually, I thought it was a bit ironic to have those two readings on the Eve of the reopening of our county. I was afraid it would make us feel like we “all need to go out now”, you know because staying home would mean we are afraid and not empowered by the Holy Spirit, and certainly many churches today, and many church leaders, have made some members of their congregation feel guilty about staying home saying something like: “If you’d really have faith, you wouldn’t be afraid”. Well, we know that things didn’t turn out that well for those who felt overly confident in this pandemic. It’s quite clear for all of us with common sense that it is safer now to stay home, not only for ourselves, but it is also the loving and wise thing to do for our vulnerable neighbors, to do our best efforts not to spread the disease.

This said, I have good news for you because the thing is that, of course, the readings are not so much about the dilemma “leaving home or staying home”. Even if it’s an important question today, now spiritually, that would be a bit shallow, right? Luke and John both refers to the situation of the disciples from a closed space to an open space to describe an inner tension: how often our hearts and minds get closed and our lives get stuck when God’s work is to always take us beyond our routines, habits and what we take for granted.

And so mainly that’s what I want to talk to you about today. As I mentioned in a previous sermon, I wouldn’t say about myself that I have many earthshaking spiritual experiences, but I remember the day of my confirmation a friend asked me if it “changed anything” to receive the Holy Spirit, and I remember telling them, to my own surprise, that it “changed everything”. We say so much about the Holy Spirit: If you open (as I did to prepare this sermon) a book of Biblical doctrine, you would find that in Paul’s writings there are at least 22 gifts of the Holy Spirit: Apostle, prophet, teacher, healing, encouraging, tongues, wisdom, knowledge, prophecy, leadership etc. and it can becomes quite overwhelming (I remember having to learn about those gifts to prepare for my confirmation, and I was quite confused!). We have to acknowledge that the HS can do so many things, and that in the end it’s very difficult to identify the HS if we describe all the things the HS can do. So to me, I would stick to the definition I gave to my friend on that day when I was 16 years old:

The Holy Spirit is the one who makes a difference, and who makes all the difference.

You see, to me what the readings are about today is that it’s not enough to believe in God unless it changes our lives and more deeply, until it changes us. We can be assured that after Easter, on that day they were gathered together, the disciples believed in God, and in Jesus’s teachings and in Jesus’ s Resurrection – yet it still didn’t make a difference in their lives. Until they received the Holy Spirit, they were closed behind visible and invisible locked doors and walls. Then they received the Spirit and they opened up and got out of themselves to meet people and change the world. So the Holy Spirit, if you will, and that would be the main idea I would like to share with you today, the Holy Spirit is the one who gets us unstuck. You can name many things the HS does, Paul found 22 gifts (and it was just the beginning of Christianity) but, to me, the role of the Spirit, whatever the Spirit does, in the end is to get us UNSTUCK, and I’d like to explore that a little bit with you because for us, it is still the same story than it was for the disciples. We need to move from “belief in God” to “life in God” and even more to “live out God”, which means: not just to live conforming to a doctrine but to let God live inside of us, through us. A Liturgical time ends here: We turn from the life of Jesus (Advent through Pentecost) to the life of discipleship (“Ordinary times”) and what we learn is that God’s story isn’t just written for us, we have to write God’s story. And we know it’s not easy. It’s not easy because we get stuck.

So how do we move from that?

– First of all, I think that we have to recognize that it is a natural tendency to get stuck, as individuals of course, but also as people, societies, races, civilizations. We get stuck in our patterns / ways of thinking and behaving. We are animals of habits (Aristotle) for the best (survival, natural life) but also for the worst (when it comes to divine/ supernatural life). Jesus came on earth at a time when Israel was stuck in a way that it has never been before (Roman Occupation / no prophets for centuries / Religious legalism).

Getting stuck can happen even if you’re a devout believer. Don’t blame yourself if you get stuck, first because as I’ve just said, it’s a natural tendency but also because it does not mean that you should believe “more”! At different times in our lives, we just need to get unstuck. Maybe because we have old habits (It is sometimes with God like in an old couple), sometimes we get stuck because of grief, or trauma (We discover that the world is a dangerous place, or that we ourselves can become dangerous, and so it may be better to “shelter in place” in our own ways).

The disciples believed in Jesus (probably more than us!) but they still were stuck, and what they needed was to receive the Holy Spirit (Readings last week: “Stay in Jerusalem until you have received the HS”). If you think about that Jesus’s life and teaching was all about: not enough to believe in God / to live religiously or even to have moral standards (as did the Pharisees) – especially in John’s: You have to keep moving and to receive the divine life and to live out a godly life.

– How does the HS get us unstuck?

These days, we see so many books on shelves about how to get unstuck. All authors have their own theories but what comes back again and again is that when we are stuck in our lives, it’s not so much because of our circumstances. We have the power to change circumstances, at least some circumstances. Most of the time we are stuck in our heads. Because of habit, grief, trauma we have set patterns of fear and anxiety (like the disciples) that kill life inside of us: It can be something as simple as low self esteem that paralyzes us, or we got our heart broken and we don’t believe there is anything good left in this world. Sometimes also, we get defensive after being hurt. We believe that “some people are evil”, “money is the answer to our problems”, “or just don’t mention it and it’ll go away”. And so to me what we see is that it’s not even so much in our heads that we get stuck, it’s mostly in our hearts. And this is where the Gospel hits home today and this is second idea I want to share with you:

The most helpful advice to get unstuck is the one Jesus gives us: receive the HS by making peace and do the work of reconciliation and forgiveness. Comes to terms with the ways you’ve been hurt and the way you’ve hurt others (and yourself!).

I love it that Jesus does not just say “Forgive” to his disciples. First of all, HE forgives them, granting them “peace”. He does not come back to condemn them for letting him down at his worst hour. And then he asks them to “do the work”: “Retain the sins”: Yes, the disciples have to grant forgiveness but also they have to ask those who do wrong to repent, to change, ask for justice. Forgiveness in the Gospel is never, never a forget and let go right away. It’s always hard work, with oneself, others and God and there is always a reciprocity (Lord’s prayer: Forgive us as we forgive others). Forgiveness is meant to expose the sins, bring justice and healing, it’s not a “covering up” of wrongdoings. It’s hard and painful work, but it’s done in the hope of a possible renewal.

If we don’t do the work of forgiveness we get stuck: as individuals, as couples and families (a lot!!), as societies and we repeat history: Conflicts, wars, injustices, abuse and so on. I read a great article this week about how racism in America is a never ending problem because white people never actually acknowledged the original sin of slavery. We have to go to the root of the pain and the hurt and deal with it. A theologian I like says that: “Sin is when life freezes”. When we sin against each other, we freeze the movement of life because shame and guilt haunt us and prevent us from being renewed and we get trapped in our patterns. We get frozen in sadness, angry, indifference, terror, hate, resentfulness or self-righteousness, and in the process we punish others or we punish ourselves, we may even end up trying to punish God! We are stuck in sin like a clogged drain with all sort of impurities inside of us. Life cannot circulate in a clogged heart as surely as water cannot circulate in a clogged drain.

– To receive the HS: Examine your heart and do the work of forgiveness. Ask God if you cannot ask the ones who hurt you or the ones you hurt. Sometimes we’ll find out that not only do we have to forgive others and be forgiven by them but we also have to forgive ourselves (for not being as “good” as we would like to believe, for having let others hurt us), we also have to forgive God (Not that God “sins” against us of course, but a lot of us hold well hidden grudges against God for “letting that happen”).

Yet, the promise is that in the end, life will come back rushing trough our veins when our hearts are unclogged. HS will unleash our potential. So it can be anything, really. There are much more than 22 gifts. There are as many gifts as there are people in this world, each our own language, but it’s always a potential to love, a work we do with one another aiming towards the reconciliation of all people, as impossible as it may seems. We don’t receive the HS for ourselves. Pentecost is a communal event.

Ascension, in my experience, is a not so well-known / not so beloved Christian feast.

There is something puzzling about this feast. Well, Easter is puzzling all right but we know what it’s about and what it means for us, Jesus bringing us the hope of victory over death.

Ascension: Resurrected Christ lifted up towards heavens…What does it mean for us? What does it have to do with my life? Most of our lives aren’t about ascending, right? Most of our lives are kind of weighty maybe with actual extra pounds but mostly weighty with health problems, age, worries about finances, jobs, family…The list seems unending of what binds us to our down to earth preoccupations, especially in this time of global crisis.

Yet in the midst of that, today we celebrate Ascension Sunday (Ascension was actually on Thursday, 40 days after Easter)

And so today, I want to say three things about what Ascension could mean for us. I want to talk about Glory, about Joy and about Power – 3 main themes in our readings today.

1 – About Glory

Ascension is first of all about Christ’s glory. Easter to Ascension: 40 days, a period that is still an in between time of Jesus “hanging around” showing himself to the disciples, continuing the teaching (In Luke, explaining the meaning of the Scriptures). On Ascension Day, Jesus is reunited with the Father “sitting at the right hand of the Father” (Nicene Creed)

“Sitting at the right hand of the Father” is an image / like our psalm today “He subdues the peoples under us and the nations under our feet”. Jesus ascending, often represented in paintings with his feet hanging in the air, is “lifted up” that’s what it means: Not so much an actual “lifting up” in a “heavenly elevator”, it means that Christ is given all authority, the earth is his footstool (and expression that is used a lot in the Bible). “Having the world at your feet” is an expression of kingship.

It’s an image important for us to remember, especially in times of suffering. Growing up as a Catholic, I was often taught that in times of suffering, you need to remember the cross. That’s right, but come to think about it, it’s been more helpful to me to remember the cross when everything is fine in my life and I start to become a little to self assured, arrogant, forgetful of others, selfish. But in times of suffering, when we feel crushed, I think it is important to be reminded of glory. That Christ has ultimate authority, not so much that he controls everything but that he will have the last word, a word of forgiveness, resurrection and blessing (as in our Gospel of today) Through his flesh, our flesh (=human life) (and, in my mind, all flesh, all creation) is sanctified and manifest also his glory. We can see ourselves as beautiful and significant. Beyond all the sufferings and humiliations (of the cross/of our lives) there is this beauty and majesty that comes from God, beauty and majesty that cannot be destroyed and will shine forth in the end.

And it’s not only something that brings us comfort, it is an ethical way of living, to be able see others and to be able to see creation as glorious / the footstool of Christ glory. Not seeing this glory in each other and in each creature is cynicism, nihilism (= seeing void in everything) and it’s the root of all evils: social injustices, racism, abusive relationships, animal cruelty, pollution and so on.

2 – About Joy

Seeing glory/majesty/beauty/ significance in ourselves and in others, even / especially in times of suffering, can enable us to feel joy even if it appears “out of context”.

Indeed, there is something surprising in our Gospel about Jesus leaving and then the disciples being left full of joy and praising God. It’s a very different experience of loss than the usual grief/ sadness/despair or even trauma. The disciples experienced trauma at Jesus’s death because it didn’t make any sense at all – but now Jesus explains the meaning of his life, of Scriptures, of every human life – and the meaning is to be reunited to God beyond suffering and death.

I heard once that human beings are actually more looking for meaning than looking for happiness. To me, I think that when we have meaning, we can experience joy even if circumstances are tough. Sometimes, Christian are too quick to assign (specific) meaning to (difficult) circumstances, and it makes it even more difficult (we hear a lot of horrible things today about the meaning of this pandemic). To me it’s enough to believe that, if we are willing, God will use all circumstances to conform our lives to Christ and to give birth to our glorious, beautiful, eternal selves. Meaning is different for each one of us, as individuals but also as communities. The common feature it that when meaning is present, there is joy (if happiness is not always possible). Jesus used the example of a woman giving birth: Sufferings are quickly forgotten and leave room for joy when her child is born, she understands that her sufferings has led to something incredible. In the same way, Jesus assures us that our sufferings are not in vain so we can find joy inside of us knowing that.

We often see joy as coming from the world, from people around us, from events, but you cannot receive joy in anything if you don’t have an ability to receive joy inside of you (and you know that there are people who are never happy, never satisfied!) Joy may not be to be found inside of us like a “thing” placed there, but the ability to be joyful surely is surely inside of us, as surely as we have the ability to talk, laugh and sing– believing (knowing!) that we are enough, beautiful, worthy of love, discovering not only that life has meaning but that we mean something (to someone) is the key to receive the joy that life brings to us / the joy we can build in this life. The source of joy is inside of us, and we can praise God for that, because indeed God made all things beautiful and worthy of love. Only our “brokenness” “breaks” this vision, but Jesus assures us that forgiveness is given and it frees us to receive joy.

3 – About Power

The joy we receive from our lives in Christ will bring us Power. All our readings today are about power, and not only God’s power, but the promise that we will be made powerful.

Interesting to notice b/c we often think of Christian life as renouncing power. But real power is not control, coercion, or even persuasion. We are called to renounce control, coercion and even persuasion (in my opinion!), but we are not to renounce power. God wants us powerful. Power is freedom to exercise our own abilities that are the gifts of the Holy Spirit (and we’ll talk about that next Sunday for Pentecost). Power is the ability we are given to be our best selves and let shine forth the glory of God that is inside of us / to see glory in others.

It’s interesting we are back in Luke’s Gospel today (in year A, we mostly read Matthew). You may remember that from last year when we were reading Luke, I told you so many times that Luke is the Gospel of the little ones, the poor, the women and the children, the strangers and it’s the story of Jesus’s compassion for all those people. Yet Jesus’s goal is not to keep them powerless, it is to be bring them strength, to “raise them up”, spiritually and existentially, to show them/ reveal to them and lead them to experience themselves as beautiful and loved.

Jesus does not feel “sorry” for all those people! It’s not what compassion is about – it’s about seeing God’s glory in all. Jesus sees God’s glory in everyone, especially the overlooked.

How about us? Do we just feel sorry for ourselves, or are we in touch with our inner strength a life of prayer / adoration / relationships with God bring us? In the same way, do we feel sorry for the poor, those we see as “the little ones”, or do we see their strength and resilience and just help them to be reminded of their power by being kind, attentive and mostly encouraging and fair?

Conclusion on Jesus’s ascension

He leaves his disciples and leaves them his legacy – a legacy of love. Not so much the “power of love” than the power to love. Jesus sends out the disciples “to the ends of the earth” to receive and share the love he has shown to them. The way he remains with us…Each time you feel far from God, try a little act of love and you’ll realize God is closer than you think, not up in the sky but inside of you.

Glory = Kadov / Weight in Hebrew. Not the weight of being stuck on earth. It means that you matter / each one matters therefore we should care.

“I don’t believe that life matters because it continues. I believe that life continues because it matters. If it doesn’t continue, it still matters. We love each other imperfectly, yet love remains. My mother’s love for me did not begin or end with her. She could love me because others loved her, they could love her because they had been loved, and so on. Her love is with me now. And it will continue, through me, through everyone I love, through everyone they love, long after we are all forgotten. Whether I actually see my mom again, in the specific way I anticipate, doesn’t change that. As love, we live forever, we always will have lived.” Karen Teel Credit (Christian theologian)

This Sunday is known as “Good Shepherd” Sunday – a well-beloved image of Jesus and we have just heard a passage of John’s Gospel, how about Jesus is the shepherd for the sheep in the pen.

The passage reminded me about a folktale I use to read when I was a little girl. A folk tale from the South of France: “Mr Seguin’s goat”. And it is the story of a man, a farmer, who is very unlucky with his goats. He’s had had seven goats and, although he takes the best care of them in his comfortable little farm, there invariably comes a time when the goat escapes, runs away to the hills, gets lost and ends up in the stomach of a wolf.

The story begins when Mr Seguin is very discouraged after his seven attempts. Yet he decides to give it another shot, purchases a new goat and makes her at home in his farm. The story says that this one goat is really super sweet – her name is “Blanquette” which means both something like “Pretty little white thing”, but it’s also the name of a famous dish (So you get a pretty good sense where the story is headed).

Anyways, at the beginning, everything is fine, Blanquette likes it at the farm, she has a nice little pen, the farmer pets her and brings her good food, often reminding her of her good fortune. Yet at some point, the story tells us, Blanquette gets bored. She keeps looking at the hills and the green pastures over there and can’t help imagine how life would be like over there, and so on one day, in spite of the many warnings given by the farmer about the wolves, Blanquette escapes from the farm.

She has a wonderful day in the hills. It’s the South of France so it’s very pretty: all kind of flowers, vines, olive trees, the scents of rosemary, lavender. The sun, the pastures, the streams, so it’s all very exciting. She even finds herself a little flirt.

The thing is, of course, at some point, the sun sets down on this beautiful day. That’s when Blanquette realizes, a bit late, that she’s lost and on her own. And as if it wasn’t enough, she hears the wolves from afar. She also hears Mr Seguin, starting to worry, calling her from the entrance of his farm but she decides not to go back to a life she cannot bear anymore and resolves to be brave. That’s when the wolf shows up, but after a long night of fighting, Blanquette finally surrenders and gets eaten by the wolf.

And that’s it – end of the story. You would expect that, after seven goats making the same mistake, things would turn out different, but they don’t and there is no magic, no miracle for Blanquette – They don’t open the wolf’s stomach to retrieve her. No redemption for the one who disobeyed and longed for freedom.

And so – it’s a very useful story you want to tell when you want people (children) to behave, right? My mother used to tell me – in case I missed the point: “See, Blanquette is like you when we go to the store” (I used to love getting lost in the supermarket) But that’s the insight of the story, right? Either you stay put and you’re safe, or either you roam and have a little adventure and then something terrible happens to you.

And so today I am glad because the Gospel reminds me of the story, and in the meantime, it does not remind me of the story. The story of the sheep pen, it looks like the story of Mr Seguin’s goat but it tells another story – as often in the Gospel.

So let’s unpack that a little bit.

Jesus talks about the sheep being in a sheep pen, with the shepherd looking after them, and isn’t it the way we so often think about religion? A flock of people, together, under the pastor’s supervision. And you know, hopefully the pastor is very nice and takes good care of you, and also he will tell you what to do, what is good for you and what is bad, or dangerous. And that’s right, that’s the way a lot of our churches are today, but it’s also the way religion has been for a long time – at any rate, that’s how things were at the synagogue. This passage of the Gospel comes right after Jesus is blamed by the religious leaders for healing a blind man on a Sabbath day, because the religious leaders know how to care of the sheep and can tell God’s will and can tell right from wrong.

And so Jesus tells this story to his disciples. A story that is about the sheep pen, but a story that has never been about praising the life inside the sheep pen, a story that isn’t at all about comfort and safety.

Two important things need to be noticed in the passage:

– The danger comes inside. Thief and bandit climb in. From that, we can gather that Jesus wants probably to say to his disciples that life is not about being safe and comfortable, not only because there is more to life than that, but also simply because this is actually not as safe as it seems. There is something about this life that can destroy us.

– Jesus sees himself as a pastor, a shepherd – That’s perfectly right, but another image as important to remember is that Jesus sees himself as a gate / a door. He is not here just to watch over the flock. He leads them out to their longing: green pastures, streams, etc. (Ps 23)

Three commentaries I want to make:

1 – Life in quarantine teaches us one thing: We’re not meant to live like that (even if it is what we need to do right now). We’re not happy / fulfilled in a narrow life, stuck within the walls. It’s not only when we are in a physical sheep pen, it’s the narrowness in our minds and hearts (of our religion) that can kill us.
Jesus asks his disciples to open up and follow him outside. He takes them from a narrow life to a bigger life / narrow understanding of God to a wider one. Being a follower is about being open to change and willing to take risks. Especially when you want to know about God, and you be curious and open, whatever your age or life situation.

2 – Jesus leads the sheep out. He doesn’t expect the disciples to stay put. Quite the opposite, he often opens a breach in our lives. It can be a painful or difficult journey. We have to climb the mountain before we get to the green pastures. Starting our journey may feel like being lost: “Valley of the shadow of death” but Jesus tells us he is our guide…

How does Jesus guide us? They are a lot of lost sheep in the Gospel, and we all feel lost at some point. As a priest, I am very often asked to pray for healing, but right after that the thing people ask me more often is to pray for guidance. We want to know what we are supposed to do…I often pray: Just tell me what to do and I will do it…

– Yet my experience is that if God can do what God wants, God is more interested in what we want to do. In what’s deep inside of us or what we just do naturally / what our love for others bring us to do. My father taught me when I asked him for guidance that maybe the most important thing is just to do something: Make a decision and do something and as you do you learn, even if you make mistakes.

– We experience that God talks to us through our journey. Yes, it’s often hard to hear God’s voice…Maybe a first step is trying not to listen to other voices that don’t come from God. A voice that comes from God we believe is not so much a verse taken from the Bible (often we can twist it in any direction), it’s a word that lift you up, bring joy and freedom. We often assume God wants just obedience by leading a well ordered life, but we realize with the story that obedience is actually hearing the shepherd and following him towards something new.

3 – If you follow Jesus: You will also become a pastor and a gate for others. The story is about going into the world, reaching other horizons, but it’s not like now we dream to leave our houses to go shopping or to the restaurant! And it’s not about getting out to have a little adventure for ourselves. It’s about meeting others, to be there for them and to experience a more meaningful life with them as we experience God in a life of love, compassion and forgiveness.

As a conclusion, I would say that the sad thing about that tale I read in my childhood is not that the goat disobeys, it is that the farmer in the tale never goes to be with her. Jesus leads his sheep out and shows up for them (cf the story of blind man, Jesus sees those who are unseen). Jesus looks for his sheep when they are lost and we know that in the end, Jesus also “opens the wolf’s stomach” by claiming us from our graves.

So don’t be afraid to make a friend, show love, go and meet people were they are, physically and on their journey. I know for now we have to stay home, but there are many ways to be here for one another, to leave no one feeling lost or isolated or left behind. People get lost sometimes just because nobody never shows up for them.

Easter message

– Happy Easter / Blessed Easter…Not happy in the way Easter is supposed to be happy.

Heard a lot of comments this year about how Easter will be different…in the midst of grief and death and fear…Some noticed though that it may be closer to what the first Easter was…Proclamation in a time of fear and grief, loneliness. Traumatic events. No trumpet. Sentence was striking to me. President: hard week, another hard week…Just what happened to the disciples, people at Jesus’s time. Holy week. The hardest week of all…Maybe we’ll get a better understanding of the story of the R that is so puzzling to us.

– Story we have today is from John’s Gospel. One of my favorites…This is really my favorite. Mary at the center of the drama. In the midst of the drama / THE drama. First responder. Does what she can, all she can, not much. Follows Jesus, watches him die, washes his body, visits him at the tomb. Helplessness. If you ever lost somebody you loved after doing “all you could” / suffering of many today. She did all she could and in the end, it’s not enough to save Jesus, not enough to save herself from grief. Like all first responders, people are going to tell her that she is brave…like all first responders, she’s going to say there is nothing else she can do, yet she still brave. We’re brave not only because we choose the hardest, but also in the absence of choice. In the absence of choice, following her fate, she shows love and this is the one she is, the one who “shows love” said Jesus – Jesus always had nicknames for his disciples – Luke 7 – And because she “shows love” (most important) love will be shown to her / love will be manifested.

– R: act of love. Jesus does not come back to be w/ disciples again (this time) but to take them with him eventually. We hear all the time at Christmas that J came to be w/ us b/c he loves us. But it’s the same at Easter! Except that this time he comes so we can be with him. It’s not God’s will to cut lives short, God wants us to follow our destiny, it is yet our ultimate destiny to be with God. Reconciliation. Life eternal: being together. With God and one another. My Father, your Father / My God, your God = In John, R is really about being together (Jesus’s farewell discourses) All the Bible what is it about? Jeremiah” story of an exile. Of course geographical, historical exile, it can be a moral exile (sin, not living in God’s ways) but it is mostly a spiritual exile. From not being w/ God to be in God’s kingdom.

– Jesus meets Mary in the midst of her exile, in the midst of her anxiety, not when she’s able to calm herself (Maybe that’s why the boys ran away). Mary cannot help herself. There is nothing more she can do for Jesus, to save herself from grief and to calm down. There is only so much we can do. A lot of our ways of understanding spiritual life now is about control, how you can make it happen to be this wise, disciplined and peaceful person. And there are certainly things you can do to help become like that, yet a genuine spiritual experience is when God finds you, still able to find you in the midst of your deepest misery, then you know it does not come from you. Not that many spiritual experiences, but happened to me in the midst of deep grief when I could not control my spi life / when I could not help myself. That’s when you know if comes from God – Blessing: “Peace that surpasses understanding” – even if you can’t grasp it. And so that’s when Jesus manifests himself to Mary, when she is overwhelmed by her pain, not when she is spiritually available.

– God helps those who help themselves, so we say…we certainly have to help ourselves / help one another but when it comes to the ultimate promise / and the promise at the root of all promises = we just have to receive it. Gift. We cannot give life to ourselves. Our money won’t save us. See our limitations and what’s really important. That the people we love are okay. All the rest fades in comparison. God is the God of life and we are made for God and God wants us to be with God and that’s the work Jesus came to do and still do for us. The ultimate will is a will for love and life

– Invited to prayer and hope in the midst of what we can’t understand. Mary was overwhelmed, yet she stayed there waiting for Jesus b/c she had this glimmer of hope. Standing there at the tomb was her prayer. If you have love, you cannot not have hope.

1st remark: Beautiful to have this week Psalm 23^rd. We often think of it as the psalm of the “Valley of the shadow of death” / Read at funerals, but it is first of all a psalm of trust – Confidence that God as a shepherd walks with us and can bring us strength, courage, comfort and help on the journey / Guidance.

Once again in the Bible, we are invited to overcome fear. I would like to stop here to explain two points that I think are important:

– Overcoming fear does not mean that we don’t have the right to fear. If there is no fear, there is nothing to overcome. It is not about denying our feelings or self persuasion. It is to realize that there is something / someone bigger than us / bigger than our problems and that this someone bigger than us cares and does not abandon us. (Some of you have posted how praying these days made you feel better). There is a promise of life even in the midst of death. This is this promise we remember during Lent.

– The invitation not to fear does not mean there is nothing to fear, it is not an invitation to be reckless. Some Christians act like they believe that God is a superhero in the sky pulling all the strings for them and watching their backs, and so nothing bad can happen (to them). But the Psalm tells us that the way God is with us is not by pulling the strings, but by walking with us. God’s power is the power of life and life is resilient.

Some crisis are inevitable, most are made worse b/c of our way of living even if it is not b/c of individual sin (cf John: The blind man is not blind b/c of his sin or of his parents’). We are responsible for the bad and we have to do our best to fix it. But God will work with us. Individually and as a community.

2 – Moreover, God works with those who are willing to work with God – two readings today and also Mary’s Canticle reminds us that God works with those who are humble, the “overlooked” b/c they let God act trough them, knowing they aren’t all powerful themselves. The Bible made of David this great king but also reminds us (first reading) that David was the last and the least in his own family. His own father completely overlooked him: When Samuel said he was looking for a king among Jesse’s sons, Jesse didn’t even remember David. In the Gospel, ironically, the blind man is also the one who is “overlooked” – He does not see, but more deeply, nobody sees him.

Salvation comes in unexpected way, from unexpected people and it is something important to remember when we are afraid. Don’t overlook what could be life giving.

What makes the difference in our lives is when we are humble enough / willing to open up to God. David wrote this beautiful psalm. He was a shepherd, he shares his own experience of feeling lonely, afraid and overlooked. But God saw him and chose him. The blind man also opens up to Jesus’s power instead of trying to identify (as did a lot of religious people) if Jesus was “good enough” to cure him, had all the credentials, obeyed the letter of the law (He cured on a Sabbath). And Jesus turns to those who turn to him. What matters to God is the disposition of our hearts.

Have you noticed that the OT says that God does not look the appearance and then it says that David was very good looking? It’s b/c when the Bible talk about appearance, it is not about physical appearance, it is more about social status. God does not look at social status but sees the hearts (open or close). As for us, generally we don’t care about the hearts, we care more about social status. We don’t look at those who have no power and mostly, we don’t believe their stories – and that’s another important point I want to discuss about our Scriptures today.

3 – We generally read John 4 as this story where “Jesus cures a blind man” and we understand it as a story of a miracle, but if we look closer, it is not so much about a miracle. It is more about somebody telling a story nobody wants to believe. Not the religious leaders and not even the parents of the man.

We know that. There are people in this world whom, no matter what, everybody will believe their stories even if they lie to your face, and others, who tell the truth, are voices that go unheard. Your age, social class, gender or race is often what makes your story believable or not.

This man / blind man was a “sinner” – mostly he was handicapped and poor and had no connections, therefore his story was unbelievable for most. It may cut deep for some of us who experienced that…People don’t believe you b/c you’re too young, or b/c of your skin color…On the other side, doesn’t it happen to us that we don’t believe people based on how they look like / they are and mainly because their story is disturbing to us?

– The real issue is that the religious leaders does not want to believe the blind man because they don’t want to believe in Jesus / Jesus brings disruptions to their lives, questions their power and what they take for granted. The miracle of a “sinner” being healed by a “sinner” on a Sabbath Day does not fit the narrative of the Temple where people used religion / rites to assert their power and where the roles were clearly defined.

4 – Heart of the question: It’s not only that we tend to believe powerful people’s stories but the main problem is that some people use stories to assert their power (religious people, politics), or lie to please others (family, parents) – and not to spare them but to manipulate them. How often do we say what’s expect of us and are not truthful to our experience just b/c it’s more convenient? What happens and what is extraordinary with the blind man is that he clings to his story, to what he witnessed even if he does not understand and cannot explain, and even if he is not rewarded for telling the truth – quite the opposite. The blind man acknowledges that someone / something is bigger than him and he let this power works through him. The truth is more important than what’s advantageous to him.

Some people think they are truthful b/c they cling to their opinions (religious, political etc), but the Gospel shows us that the real truthfulness is to testify of what we have experienced, even if it is disturbing. We are invited to refuse to fit the official narrative that pleases some and gives power to others. We are called to testify about what we have seen, even if we are the only one who saw / who can see.

These days, I think a lot of scientists and how they can be the prophets of our age when they warn us of impending dangers. But we don’t listen to them b/c they aren’t charismatic enough or b/c what they have to say does not please us, and it disturbs us. On the other way around, a lot of politics, companies will tell lies / tales that reassure us but aren’t for our own good eventually. The Gospel reminds us that we need to be faithful to the truth, not to what is convenient for us.

What about you? What is the story of your life? If you had one story, what would you choose to tell? Where did you see salvation coming to you? Where did you experience rejection? When were you heard?

During this Lent we will dive into John’s Gospel…There are not that many “stories” in John – fewer than in the three other Gospels, but each time the story is well developed and an occasion for an extended teaching.

Today we have heard of Jesus meeting at night with Nicodemus, a Jewish leader. We may not know the whole story but there are two points we would recognize quickly even if we have very little knowledge of the Christian faith:

– The invitation to be “born again”

– John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son [so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life]”

We often connect the two. If we want to be “born again” we have to believe that God gave God’s only Son.

I – First of all, I would like to say something about being “born again” b/c it is something we hear so often we don’t think about it so much.

To be “born again” is translated more accurately as being born “from above” – and it does not mean to start again (from scratch, leaving everything behind), it mainly means to be born spiritually, to be awakened to a spiritual way of living.

What is worth noticing is that birth does not happen all at once / suddenly. To a lot of people, being born again means that suddenly you accept Jesus into your life and your life is completely transformed. Well, this experience happens, but generally spiritual birth takes time. It is interesting to have women starting to comment the Scriptures more systematically b/c they understand that birthing does not happen all at once, when the baby is here, rather birthing is a process (biological) but also an emotional and spiritual journey – You become a mother, a parent. It is not simple. There are fears, doubts, hopes, discouragements, pain, meltdowns and inexplicable joys. It is also the case when we need to be born spiritually.

This is helpful to think of all our lives as birth, we are led by God to become spiritual beings. As the unborn child or the parent to be, it is a process to which we are blind most of the time, that is hidden from us, does not depend on us. The only thing the child can do is to let the mother birth him and the mother also expects the child to let her know his needs.

In the same way, when Jesus says that No one can see the KOG without being born from above, maybe he notices that Nicodemus already sees the KOG. N says to Jesus he sees God’s presence in him. Nicodemus is in the process of being born and so are we. Faith as a journey: There are back and forth, long pauses (Abraham). It is not always a yes or no kind of thing.

The Spirit blows where it chooses. You cannot control it / have guarantees. Our spirituality needs emphasis on detachment, letting go and most of all trust. Instead of thinking what you want from life, ask yourself what it is that life wants from you.Let the Spirit blows through our lives, inspire us and lead us even if we don’t know the way yet.

Nicodemus is an example to whom we can relate. He hasn’t it all figured it out – but he is on his way to awakening…He is looking for more than just some kind of religious teaching from Jesus that would keep his life ordered/secure. He can feel God’s presence in Jesus and he wants more of it! As Nicodemus, we may feel attracted / try to come closer to God’s presence. Nicodemus was restless, at night, scared or questioning, wanted to know if God was for real. Desire / longing. Not contented with “exterior religious rites” or even a good teaching.

What about us? Are we curious for God, a little restless, growing in the desire to be in God’s presence? How would it change our spirituality?

I read a great story this week. A woman was telling how she discovered how God’s presence was really what she needed. It happened when she was found w/ a lump. She started to feel very anxious. Supposed to have the results of her biopsy in 48 hours and it took 8 days. She kept praying that everything would be all right, she felt she was going crazy with anxiety. After 7 days though she said she had suddenly a clear sense that God was there and that it would be all right, in a way or another. She said the 8^th day she woke up at peace – although she still didn’t have her results (They turned out fine). She discovered that what she needed the most was to realize that God was for real.

What Lent is about: Come closer to God. Do we feel in us this longing to be in God’s presence and to feel that God is “for real”? Is it something we pray about – to experience this spiritual birthing?

II – Second thing we may want to think about is v16: “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son [so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life”

It is worth noticing is that we often translate or understand that God loved the world “so much” that God gave God’s only Son. Yet, if you read John’s Gospel thoroughly, you will quickly notice that the world is not especially God’s realm, rather the opposite. The disciples “are not from the world” and are invited to part from the “world’s ways.”

The “world” is not a physical place – what’s outside the church, for example. It is more of a dimension: a way of living that do not have spiritual roots, that is not connected to God. So God does not love the world “so much” but God loves the world “so” in the translation of the Greek outos: in this way. God loves the world in this way that God gave God’s only Son.

The verse does not teach us so much about how much God loves, rather than the way in which God chooses to love. And I think it is important for us to think about that, because most of the time, whether in our families, romantic relationships, even with our pets and of course as Christians, we think that what we need to do is to love “very much” without always giving a lot of thoughts about the way we are supposed to love.

But today the Gospel tells us the way God loves and the way we are supposed to imitate: By giving, so that others might have life. By giving so that others might have life.

It’s not the first time the Bible teaches that though. We think the Bible talks a lot about love, and it does, but do you know that it mentions love 300 times, when giving is mentioned 1000 times?

The way to love is by giving, and not only, not mainly by giving your money, but by giving life. Literally sometimes, but mainly spiritually.

It could be something we want to reflect on during Lent: How is our love life giving or not? Because so often the problem with the way we are is not so much that we don’t love enough, it is often that we don’t know how to love. I heard once a pastor saying that we often “love to death” instead of “loving to life” and I find it a very good way of putting things. We love for ourselves, for our own needs, we want to “keep” people or we project our needs on others w/o really seeing them. Or we try very hard to be very nice, when maybe what would be life giving would be to have a difficult conversation. Or maybe it is willing to open up about yourself and your own struggles to help somebody feel better about what they’re going through.

To me, this is the way God loves us and calls us to love from the beginning: By giving life.

If we turn back to the Book of Genesis this morning, I think we have a good sense of what in means in Abraham and Sarah’s call. They are called to be blessed and then to be a blessing. A blessing not only to their own families, but to all the families of the earth.

Well, this call is quite extraordinary. And in the same time very accessible. We may think that this call was for Sarah and Abraham only because they were to be mother and father of all believers. Rather, it is a call we need all to imitate. So this is why it is extraordinary and ordinary in the same time. To be a blessing: This is at the root of the birth of faith and in the same time, we need to do it everyday, every time we meet somebody, or even when we “act in secret” as Jesus asked us to do during Lent – maybe when we write a check to a non-profit, or recycle our trash, give up eating meat…

It is not always easy to know if we have been nice or loving or kind, but to me if I look back at my day, at my week, it is rather easy to know when I have been a blessing and when I haven’t been one. The question is: When is it that we have raised people into new, bigger, better life or limited them in their world as they know it?

If God keeps on birthing us from this world into new life, so we have are invited to do the same for those surrounding us.

Conclusion: Asked this question: Is God for real in our spirituality? God becomes real for us as we make God become real for others, by being a blessing. Yes, we are blessed and the become a blessing but also by being a blessing, we are blessed too. The more we make God real to others, the more God becomes real to us.

Sometimes readings gather around a common theme. Readings clearly about temptation this week.

A few observations:

– Throughout the Bible, from Genesis to the Gospel, people struggle with temptation.

From the first couple, Adam and Eve, to our Redeemer, Jesus, whom Paul qualifies in Romans as a “New Adam”.

Throughout the Gospel, we see Jesus struggling with temptation from the beginning of his ministry (Before it even starts, and it is the passage we have today when Jesus meets the devil in the wilderness) to the end of his ministry and his agony in the garden of Gethsemane (Asking God to be spared from the cross).

Temptation happens all the time in the story of God’s people and interestingly, it does not happen only to notorious sinners. Rather the opposite.

Temptation comes to Adam and Eve in their state of innocence, in a perfect place, when they still have a whole relationships together / an untarnished friendship with God.

Temptation comes to Jesus in his state of holiness, after he has been abundantly blessed, after he received the baptism in the Jordan (That happens right before the passage we have read this morning)

So we need to remember that: Temptation happens to people who are innocent / holy / “good people”. It’s important to notice that because when something happens to Xns they identify as temptation, Xns often wonder:

What’s wrong with me? What did I do / where did I fail that I feel tempted?

But I read once in a book of piety something that I found really useful: “The devil does not bother with people who already belong to him”.

The devil does not bother with people who already belong to him.

It is not that I believe there are people who belong to the devil. To me, the sense of this quotation is first than if you’re in a state of sin, you do not identify temptation. You just do what you do without thinking much about your acts and their consequences or what God wants.

But even more deeper, and this is what we read today, innocence and holiness, in a strange way, attracts the devil who tries to destroy the work of God and God’s people.

There is a poem that says that Satan sheds tears of bitterness when he sees the beauty of the world. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, says that there is something in vulnerability, innocence and goodness that is like a magnet to what is evil, something that provokes jealousy, violence, destruction. We see in our world that it is the innocents and the powerless who suffer the most from violence. They get hurt simply b/c it’s easy to hurt them.

If we encounter strong temptation, it’s not necessarily that we have done something wrong, it could be the devil going out of his way to break our relationships with God.

Once we know that, it makes it easier to deal with temptation. Temptation is not so much about wanting things that are “wrong”, it’s when we are faced with risking being led in a way of living or thinking that will ultimately break our relationship with God.

– How does the Devil break our relationship with God?

Well, we first have to remember that the devil will ALWAYS outsmart people, even the holy and innocent, and especially the holy and innocent because they cannot relate to what the devil has in mind, to evil.

Psychologists use this test to know if a patient has evil tendencies:
A woman is attending the funeral of her mother. At this funeral, she meets a man she likes but he leaves before she can find out who he is and how to be in touch with him. One week later, she kills her sister. Why?

Well, according to the psychologists, most people will never find the answer. The answer is: Because she thinks that the man may attend this funeral as well. People can’t find the answer, not because they’re stupid, but because they’re good.

Evil is something the majority of people can’t even think about. In this way, it’s something that will always outsmart them.

– How does the devil outsmart us, especially Xns? By tempting us with what is the most important to us, by tricking us with our own goodness, our faith and our devotion.

It is worrisome that we always identify temptation with greed and sex. It is often the way we interpret this first reading of Genesis. But if you read Genesis though, after he created Adam and Eve, God commands them to “Be fruitful and multiply”, so it’s not sex that is forbidden when they “eat the apple”.

Of course, there is a lot to say about greed (and sex when it becomes greedy), a lot of our problems in our world are happening because of greed (Greed for money and power). The collapse of ecological systems today is the result of centuries of collective greed.

But that’s not the real work of the devil. People walk down the path of greed by themselves most of the time. The real temptation (and the most dangerous) is the one we don’t see coming. It’s when the devil tempts us with our own goodness and our own faith.

To me, this is the story of Eve. You see how the serpent talks to her? The serpent promises Eve that she will be “Like God”. But you want to become like what you really like, what you really think is good. Eve has this perfect relationships with God, and she wants to become as wise as God, probably not out of rivalry, but out of imitation.

And we see that we Jesus as well. The devil does not tempt Jesus by telling him he should better get out of the wilderness to make lots of money and spend it on partying. The Devil tempts Jesus with proving / testing his relationship with God. The devil tempts Jesus with ways Jesus could become “even closer” or “even more beloved” by God, or carry on a more successful mission.

You know how we say that best is sometimes the enemy of good, or The road that goes to Hell is paved with good intentions. There is some wisdom in that.

If you really love your job, maybe Satan is going to tempt you by working so hard you won’t have time for anything else.

If you really love being a Mom, maybe Satan is going to tempt you by exhausting yourself trying to do such a terrific job, at some point you will start resenting your family for not being more grateful.

If you really love God, maybe Satan is going to tempt you by willing so much to do God’s will, as you carry on your mission you will lose track of your community and your own soul.

– As we exhaust ourselves to measure up, we start to self destroy. The way Satan works always lead to despair and to self destruction. Because Satan is jealous of the work of God and wants to destroy the work of God, us, humans beings, replicas of Adam and Eve, but even more, the replicas of Christ Christians are supposed to be.

And to me, this is the heart of the problem. Doubt in itself is not the enemy of faith. Quite the opposite, it is reasonable to reflect on the articles of faith, and our tradition in the Anglican Church invites us always to question.

The doubt that the devil introduces is the doubt towards God’s goodness. When we hear this voice that says: “See, God does not care, nobody loves you and your life means nothing” – especially in times of weakness, when we are tired, sick, bullied, or isolated.

– We start doubting that God really loves us or desires what is good for us

– We start wondering if goodness is God, if goodness is really this ultimate power / has really the ultimate authority or if we should surrender to other powers (= Satan’s) / wondering if goodness is good enough or if we should add a little more to it.

The work of the devil is to convince us that God does not care about us and that there is no use in being good, and that’s the opposite of what Jesus commanded us to do: Love God and love neighbor. Now that’s the path that leads us not only to sin, but even more, that leads to self destruction, nihilism and despair (Spiritual death – the real problem with sin)

This is where Eve fails the test, and where Jesus passes it.

Eve does not believe that goodness, trust in God and confidence in the fact that she is already created in God’s image, will lead her to be God like / make her already God like. She thinks she needs a shortcut to get what she wants, to get even more b/c maybe God does not want what’s best for her.

Jesus is also tempted to look for proofs that he is indeed the Son of God, that God really cares for him, that God will reward him. But he decides to trust and not use tricks. Jesus believes the goodness and love of God will carry on and see him through his trials and questioning.

In the end, Jesus is the one (and according to Paul, the first one) who truly outsmarted the devil.

Isn’t it interesting to notice that the devil quotes the Scriptures? God can be whoever you want God to be, you can make the Bible say a lot of things. The devil can tempt us with our own faith. The bottom line is to hold on to the truth that God is good and that goodness/ love are not only the ultimate end but the only means / the only way – The way of Love: “Love is the only thing that has ever worked” (Bishop Curry)

The response to the devil: It all comes down to trusting ourselves as being enough, already loved by God and led by God / goodness in spite / through of the difficulties (wilderness).