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Rez is a community where Jesus welcomes, shapes, and sends disciples for the good of our neighborhood. No matter where you are in life, this is a place for you.
Life Together In The Goodness Of God
and giver of life amen please be seated happy easter y'all again all right you know how there are traditions that are written down and those that are just known and followed for example many of the things we do in worship our liturgy is handed down as tradition and written down for us in the book of common prayer but there are many traditions that are just known for example my mom's sweet potatoes every year from thanksgiving to easter we had sweet potatoes every week every sunday without fail no matter what the main dish was our main side dish was sweet potatoes and this is not me complaining oh no no no no i love my mom's sweet potatoes but it was just a fact now after easter she would switch up the side dish every week sometimes it was mac and cheese sometimes mashed potatoes sometimes her famous what she called bluefield rice but every sunday between thanksgiving and easter it was sweet potatoes and i love that tradition and today today we are following a tradition of the episcopal church now it's not written down anywhere but it's just a tradition that happens one that is understood one that is followed and that tradition is that the rector the priest in charge does not preach the sunday after easter i have been in the episcopal church for a few years and i can assure you i have never seen a rector preach the sunday after easter i don't know why but it's just a fact another tradition we get in the church is this gospel reading every year on the second sunday of easter we hear of thomas doubting thomas as he has become to be called every year the gospel reading on the sunday after easter focuses on this story you know i love this story i think thomas gets a bad rap but before we get to thomas i'm going to take a look at our other readings notice today that we did not get an old testament reading rather we heard a reading from ax again another tradition during easter tide we hear readings from ax instead of readings from the old testament to focus on the spreading of the gospel during the season of easter today's reading though highly edited has peter giving a sermon after the pinnacos the coming of the holy spirit but he is reminding his fellow judaeans that god has been revealed through jesus through his works and signs miracles and through his resurrection peter reminds us that god has been with us through our ancestor david and through the works of jesus and now that the holy spirit has come god remains with us always then in our second reading we hear that same apostle peter encouraging us to never lose hope in christ Jesus to keep our faith no matter what trials we are going through no matter how much we may want to go astray peter reminds us why jesus came saying quote although you have not seen him you love him and even though you do not see him now you believe in him and rejoice and in in an indescribable and glorious joy for you are receiving that outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls here peter is reminding us that jesus is calling us to live rightly in a broken world to remember to love our neighbor as ourselves no matter what is happening around us as one theologian puts it quote right living in a hopeless world means modeling oneself as a true disciple of jesus christ but not neglecting the gift of salvation in a hopeless situation it is possible and at times even easy to drift away from the faith because human souls need an anchor simply put when things seem hopeless when we have been overcome with grief and despair we are called to put our trust in christ that is where i think we meet the apostle thomas today in our gospel reading jesus appears to his disciples but for whatever reason thomas is not there jesus then offers them the peace of god not once y'all but twice to calm the fears of those who follow him he then does what i think what i think is one of the most important acts in the gospel of john he breathes the holy spirit on them and commissions them again to spread the good news as john puts it quote receive the holy spirit if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven if you retain the sense of any they are retained but again we are reminded that thomas is not there now i want to speculate as to why thomas isn't there because like i get it maybe maybe thomas needed a moment he needed time to deal with the fact that his teacher his rabbi his beloved the person he believed to be the messiah was killed maybe he just needed some thomas time to deal with all of that so i get it he was off alone somewhere but when the other disciples tell him what they experienced thomas doesn't believe them and this is why i think thomas gets his back wrapped i personally don't think thomas is doubting his faith doubting the lord but rather i think thomas is processing the pain and the grief of losing someone whom he loved so much his doubt is a function of that pain and loss so when jesus appears again to the disciples thomas is there and jesus says to thomas put your finger here and see my hands reach out your hand and put them outside do not doubt but believe tradition here says that thomas doubted but i think thomas was dealing with the pain and the grief of the loss of his beloved to deal with that thomas needs assurance and i think that is something we can all understand where pain and grief consume us we need an assurance that things are going to be all right and god jesus the holy spirit meets us in that pain in that grief and offers us that assurance because i believe the joy of the resurrection does not erase the pain of the crucifixion the joy of our risen christ does not negate does not negate the grief of pain and loss but rather it transforms it it is transformed into something that can be counted on something that can be acted upon something that can be hoped upon something holy our pain is received by the risen christ and transformed into the hope of something made new something that we can act upon tradition tradition tells us that we are to be joyful in this entire season of easter these great 50 days but if you are dealing with grief and loss pain and suffering for whatever reason it's okay to acknowledge that and to realize that the resurrection does not erase it but i pray and i hope that you know you are filled with the grace and mercy of god and that that grief that pain that loss you feel it will be transformed into joy it will be transformed into hope it would be transformed into the goodness of god's love when jesus breathed the holy spirit upon the disciples he breathed that same holy spirit unto us we are all filled with the grace and the mercy of the holy spirit no matter what we have done no matter how we think we have sinned we are filled with the holy spirit the grace and mercy that only god can breathe on us our traditions y'all our traditions sustain us through hard times when things seem out of sorts we fall back on our traditions to remind us who we are after i first moved to austin my parents came to visit and on their last day i decided to make dinner so i made roast chicken and keep in mind this was in december a few weeks before christmas so i made roast chicken and macaroni and cheese and green beans and a salad and my mother said hun where are the sweet potatoes i'm like oh mom you know i wasn't gonna make sweet potatoes i think i do mac and cheese better than i do sweet potatoes she looked at my then husband and said uh my now husband and said take me to the store and so they went to the store she got what she needed she came back and we had to wait another 45 minutes for dinner for her to make sweet potatoes and then we sat down and had a very lovely dinner and all that to say that is our traditions that grounds us y'all and though i love a lot of our traditions some of them can be pushed back on and don't be afraid to do that but know that god meets us in our pain and joy and our suffering and our darkness amen