Georgie Heskins | April 20, 2010
Chris Skilton challenged us last week with a description of that first Isaiah community as one which held together a commitment to society in the present….with a radical exploration of the past….and an imaginative and poetic hope for the future. And of keeping those three dimensions in balance: So we don’t tip off either into pie in the sky or into an irrelevant, if quite interesting, archaism.
I’m a hospital chaplain…and I have learned that, as we prepare for death, it is those same 3 dimensions which we have to hold together:
I had a wonderful experience on Thursday night…..I was called to another hospital where an elderly man, facing imminent death, wanted to talk. Well, we talked. I would be breaking too many confidentiality codes if I told you what we talked about – suffice to say that we discovered, there was a good deal for which we both needed forgiveness - of each other and of God. And there were resources there, long hidden, which were for our strengthening and our vision. The present is complicated, nuanced, sometimes unclear – and the future unknown.
At the end of our talking - I offered to anoint him with oil, something we often do in hospital, a sign of God’s grace and generosity; but to my surprise he said he’d really rather have his Easter Communion. So 2 weeks after Easter that’s what we did: on the night before his anticipated dying we said the Easter anthems together:
In this Gospel reading: the transition from Jesus’s existence in his physical body to that different existence of which we too are part as members of his mystical body, the church. The resurrection is about having the experience of Jesus living within us - of being compelled to do what he does – what he does for Peter, which is to forgive…and forgive, …..3 times, 70 times 7 – to forgive.
You may know there’s some discussion about the different words for love that are used in this passage. The past failures in friendship have been recalled between Peter and Jesus; the charcoal fire has taken them back to that fateful courtyard. Jesus asks Peter twice whether he loves him as God loves the creation – with that expanded kind of love which pours itself out like the Niagara falls. And twice Peter replies that he loves him with human affection; we are friends, great friends. So Jesus meets him, as he always meets us, exactly where he is: do you love me with real affection: are we brothers and friends? Peter is hurt because Jesus presses his understanding of friendship: do you love me with human affection – and finally he replies ‘Lord you know everything; you know that the love I have for you is agape the love that pours itself out like the Niagara Falls – the love of the Creator for the creature – even the love of God. For us, Easter people, friendship participates in the love of God. We are to love one another and God’s world- with the love of God – awesome stuff.
We are to see Christ in one other - not just in good, nice people - but in unexpected people; the stranger, the refugee - those fluttering birds of Moab at the ford of Arnon that we heard of in the Isaiah reading. On Thursday, in an everyday encounter between two strangers, Jesus was in the forgiveness which we offered one another and so we met Christ in one another. It was an experience I won’t forget; holy ground.
You see, for us, the resurrection of Jesus is the event which changes everything else – everything that has ever happened. It has changed our perception of death. We walk constantly on holy ground.
In the story of the encounter with Peter is the very beginning of a community of men and women who believe in the resurrection and who share that quality of love which was central to Jesus’s own life: poured out with God’s love for the world. Following Jesus will be expressed in a thousand different ways. When he says ‘follow me’ he is calling us and drawing us into discipleship, giving each of us our unique place – our name - the place we are created to fill, just as he called Peter.
You may think of Peter as a towering figure – but look again. He was all over the place, aimlessly unsure about whether he is still part of Jesus’s band at all: ‘I’m going fishing’, back to that occupation from which Jesus had originally called him. (how many of us feel like that sometimes?) Look at how Jesus mends him, restores him, forgives him, loves him and strengthens him to make the name Kephas, the rock, come true; he harnesses all that original energy, enthusiasm and leadership in a new direction.
Like Peter, you and I are to be open for a movement of love and grace if our life becomes aimless. Or, if our enthusiasm is off the mark, we need to be alert for an encounter – ‘I am with you always, even to the end of the world’ Jesus said.
More important, we will recognise Jesus with others. The resurrection encounter is a very ordinary meeting within an extraordinary body. We are Easter people. Peter is surrounded by his fellow-disciples. In moments of consuming enthusiasm, as at times of aimlessness – Peter alerts us to the Risen Jesus, makes us ready to accept grace and love. Peter was given a task; his life was transformed. are we ready to meet the risen Jesus within this Body?
God is preparing a springtime of the church (Fr Roger of Taize): we are
He is the Way.
Follow Him through the land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.
God of Grace and Goodness, you create us body and spirit that all our living and all our dying – may be one in you. Keep on calling to us - that we and all your children shall be free and the whole earth live to praise your name. Amen
I’m a hospital chaplain…and I have learned that, as we prepare for death, it is those same 3 dimensions which we have to hold together:
- the gathering and sorting of past memories – some healing of them perhaps
- commitment to life in the present, with its possibilities and its limitations
- and the anticipation of the future both for ourselves and for those we love
I had a wonderful experience on Thursday night…..I was called to another hospital where an elderly man, facing imminent death, wanted to talk. Well, we talked. I would be breaking too many confidentiality codes if I told you what we talked about – suffice to say that we discovered, there was a good deal for which we both needed forgiveness - of each other and of God. And there were resources there, long hidden, which were for our strengthening and our vision. The present is complicated, nuanced, sometimes unclear – and the future unknown.
At the end of our talking - I offered to anoint him with oil, something we often do in hospital, a sign of God’s grace and generosity; but to my surprise he said he’d really rather have his Easter Communion. So 2 weeks after Easter that’s what we did: on the night before his anticipated dying we said the Easter anthems together:
- Christ our passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast
- Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more: death hath no more dominion over him.
- For as in Adam all die : even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
In this Gospel reading: the transition from Jesus’s existence in his physical body to that different existence of which we too are part as members of his mystical body, the church. The resurrection is about having the experience of Jesus living within us - of being compelled to do what he does – what he does for Peter, which is to forgive…and forgive, …..3 times, 70 times 7 – to forgive.
You may know there’s some discussion about the different words for love that are used in this passage. The past failures in friendship have been recalled between Peter and Jesus; the charcoal fire has taken them back to that fateful courtyard. Jesus asks Peter twice whether he loves him as God loves the creation – with that expanded kind of love which pours itself out like the Niagara falls. And twice Peter replies that he loves him with human affection; we are friends, great friends. So Jesus meets him, as he always meets us, exactly where he is: do you love me with real affection: are we brothers and friends? Peter is hurt because Jesus presses his understanding of friendship: do you love me with human affection – and finally he replies ‘Lord you know everything; you know that the love I have for you is agape the love that pours itself out like the Niagara Falls – the love of the Creator for the creature – even the love of God. For us, Easter people, friendship participates in the love of God. We are to love one another and God’s world- with the love of God – awesome stuff.
We are to see Christ in one other - not just in good, nice people - but in unexpected people; the stranger, the refugee - those fluttering birds of Moab at the ford of Arnon that we heard of in the Isaiah reading. On Thursday, in an everyday encounter between two strangers, Jesus was in the forgiveness which we offered one another and so we met Christ in one another. It was an experience I won’t forget; holy ground.
You see, for us, the resurrection of Jesus is the event which changes everything else – everything that has ever happened. It has changed our perception of death. We walk constantly on holy ground.
In the story of the encounter with Peter is the very beginning of a community of men and women who believe in the resurrection and who share that quality of love which was central to Jesus’s own life: poured out with God’s love for the world. Following Jesus will be expressed in a thousand different ways. When he says ‘follow me’ he is calling us and drawing us into discipleship, giving each of us our unique place – our name - the place we are created to fill, just as he called Peter.
You may think of Peter as a towering figure – but look again. He was all over the place, aimlessly unsure about whether he is still part of Jesus’s band at all: ‘I’m going fishing’, back to that occupation from which Jesus had originally called him. (how many of us feel like that sometimes?) Look at how Jesus mends him, restores him, forgives him, loves him and strengthens him to make the name Kephas, the rock, come true; he harnesses all that original energy, enthusiasm and leadership in a new direction.
Like Peter, you and I are to be open for a movement of love and grace if our life becomes aimless. Or, if our enthusiasm is off the mark, we need to be alert for an encounter – ‘I am with you always, even to the end of the world’ Jesus said.
More important, we will recognise Jesus with others. The resurrection encounter is a very ordinary meeting within an extraordinary body. We are Easter people. Peter is surrounded by his fellow-disciples. In moments of consuming enthusiasm, as at times of aimlessness – Peter alerts us to the Risen Jesus, makes us ready to accept grace and love. Peter was given a task; his life was transformed. are we ready to meet the risen Jesus within this Body?
God is preparing a springtime of the church (Fr Roger of Taize): we are
- to be clear-eyed about the fragile green shoots,
- to draw on nourishment stored up from winter and
- to be alert for the call of the unknown
He is the Way.
Follow Him through the land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.
God of Grace and Goodness, you create us body and spirit that all our living and all our dying – may be one in you. Keep on calling to us - that we and all your children shall be free and the whole earth live to praise your name. Amen
