“[Peter said,] ‘This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.'” – Acts 4:11
Your Honor, I am here accused. They say I spoke of resurrection. Yes, I did. They say I said this comes from Jesus, and: I did. They say what you can plainly see. I am no educated scholar, no respected sage, no doctor of the law.
Because of this, they take me up before you as an agitator who disturbs the peace, the truth, the faith, the way, the light. They say I should be silenced, voice unheard, the things I’ve seen forgotten, left untold, until no one remembers anything.
Were I to make a strong defense, I’d tell you that your officers misheard our words, misunderstood what little they had heard. We made no claims like those of which we stand accused. We spoke of resurrected hopes alone, within this man who now can walk.
Alas, I make no strong defense. Instead, I’ll make those claims again for you to hear. In Jesus there is resurrection of the body and of hope, of healing and of joy restored. And neither John nor I can hold our tongues from sharing this great news.
I’m sorry, in a way, that my defense is only to repeat the offense that has brought me here before you in this place. I’m sorry that it grieves you, and I hope beyond imagination, that it moves you to a mercy given, mercy then
received.
A poem/prayer based on Acts 4:5-12, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year B, Fourth Sunday of Easter.
The image is a part of the Sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus (ca. 330-335, Palazzo Massimo, Rome): Detail, The Arrest of Peter. Photo by Dick Stracke – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31956813.
The kolea had successfully made his first flight to Hawai’i the previous fall. He’d hatched a young bird in Alaska, he’d been fed by his parents, he’d learned to find his own food, and eventually he’d taken off for the long journey to Hawai’i. He’d found a spot here to look for worms and seeds and berries. He’d worn his mottled tan and brown feathers through the winter months. He was starting to put on the black and white feathering of summer.
He’d also been paying attention to people. I advise you to pay good attention to people, because you are people, and paying attention to people who are people like you helps you to learn how to be people, and it also helps you to know what other people are going to do, like when they might step backward and one people steps on another’s people’s toes.
Um. Person’s toes.
While it’s useful for people to listen to people, it’s not always so useful for other creatures. For some reason, this kolea heard a lot of people talking about signs. If you want to find your way to Hilo, follow the signs. If you want to find your way to the beach, follow the signs. If you want to go not too fast and not too slow, follow the signs.
Where, wondered the kolea, would he find signs on the way to Alaska?
Mind you, people do put signs out on the waters. If you look around Hilo Bay, there are marker buoys out there to help boats find their way to the harbor mouth and back home. They’re easier to see at night, when they blink red and green. As you get further from the shore, however, there are fewer of them, and not many at all across the vast expanse of ocean.
The kolea hadn’t noticed any on the way to Hawai’i, and didn’t expect to see any on the way to Alaska.
“Where will I find the signs?” he asked.
“Why do you want signs?” an older kolea wanted to know.
“People use them all the time,” he answered, and the other kolea thought he meant kolea people rather than human people, and flew away because he wasn’t making any sense.
It was another older kolea who sat him down for a heart-to-heart, brain-to-brain, and feather-to-feather talk.
“What signs do you expect to see?” she wanted to know.
“Clouds, stars, lights, glowing plankton in the ocean,” he said.
“Did you see any coming here?” she asked.
“Of course I did,” he told her, because those things happen around the oceans.
“Did they tell you how to get here?” she asked.
Well, no, they hadn’t.
“How did you get here?” she asked.
He gave her an answer that he understood, and she understood, because they’re both kolea and they can fly three days over open ocean without signs, but that I don’t understand because I’m a human person and I don’t know how they do it.
“The signs are inside you,” she told him.
We live with a lot of signs around, it’s true, telling you everything from what the name of this church is to how far it is to Kona. Some things, however, and some of that is in our lives of prayer, take place within us, in our hearts and in our souls. There are signs for that, like the Bible, but down deep we’ll find the guidance of the Holy Spirit to bring us safely home.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories ahead of time and tell them in worship services from memory. As a result, the prepared text and the told story rarely match. I’m quite pleased how much of the paragraph with all the people I remembered this week.
[Jesus said,] “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” – Luke 17:6
Look, Lord, I have faith!
Sproing!
You pointed at this mulberry tree, and look!
Sproing!
It’s gallivanting all about, prancing on the shore. I know you said to tell it to take root, but look! What eye could turn away from jigging roots and twisting trunk, from limbs a-sweeping in the dance?
Sproing!
Now isn’t that great?
Sproing!
Jesus? Isn’t that good?
Sproing!
Look, Jesus, I admit that servants have to serve and all, but look! A leaping tree! The spray upon your cheek comes from its hula in the waves!
Sproing!
What happened to, “Well done, my faithful one” (now that I’ve demonstrated faith)? What happened to, “Your faith has made you well” – and in my case, not well, but great!
Sproing!
You really mean discipleship is not about the majesty of miracle, but finds its roots in gentler dance, in tender care, in humble healing, and in righteousness?
Sproing!
All right, Jesus. Mulberry, take your place. My place, it seems, is with the cranky and demanding healer.
A poem/prayer based on 17:5-10, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year C, Proper 22 (27).
[Jesus said,] “But woe to you who are rich… who are full now… who are laughing now… when all speak well of you…” – Luke 6:24-26, excerpted
Oh, thank you, Jesus, for those comforting words!
“Blessed are the poor.” Did you forget “in spirit”?
“Blessed are the hungry.” “For righteousness,” you mean.
“Blessed are those who weep.” Didn’t you mean, “those who mourn”?
“Blessed are you when people hate you.” Isn’t it amazing, Jesus, that people could hate me?
Wait. What?
You have more to say? Oh, I don’t like that. Oh, no.
“Woe to the rich”? They seem pleased with their consolation.
“Woe to those who are full”? Well, sure they’ll be hungry again. And filled again, I’m sure.
“Woe to those who laugh”? Honestly, don’t we need more laughter in this world?
“Woe to you when all speak well of you”? Oh, that one stings. I want to be remembered well, and even honored, for…
Helping the poor gain the realm of God. Helping the hungry be filled. Helping the weeping find comfort. Amplifying the silenced voices.
Wait. What?
A poem/prayer based on Luke 6:17-26, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year C, Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany.
The image is Blessed Are Those by Hochhalter, Cara B., from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59299 [retrieved February 8, 2022]. Original source: Cara B. Hochhalter, A Challenging Peace in the Life and Stories of Jesus, 2019.
He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. – Mark 8:29-30
Could I become your follower without the burden of a cross? The walk would be so easy then, a spiritual stroll, an amble down the garden path of soul, refreshed with rain.
Could I become your follower and leave aside the self-denial? I look around and see so clearly that a number of your followers have done this very thing. As I could, too.
And I could cheerily obey your word to keep my silence, tell nobody of your puzzling riddles: save my life by losing it? Lose my life by saving it? I can produce such nonsense without help.
But what temptation do I have for you? Now Peter tried by loyalty and love to make you do what you, right near the end, preferred: to let the cup go by and take the simple way of power.
You turned away from tempter’s lure. You took the road. You dared rejection, found rejection. You were faithful unto death. Now through that course, temptation has no power over you forever more.
In these five stanzas, though, you’ll find temptation has its power still, not over you, but over me, to choose the words which ask the least of me, and leave aside the words which ask my height and depth.
Reluctantly, then, Sufferer of Calvary, I lift the burden of the day, and hope it is, indeed, a cross, and that a Simon of Cyrene might help me bear it to the place where life meets life.
A poem/prayer based on Mark 8:27-38, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 19 (24).
We left you there upon the mountain, Lord. The safest place for you – or well, for us – well insulated from the crowd’s demands for things that we, in truth, cannot provide.
If you are there upon the mountain, Lord, then you will not repeat those awkward words, “You give them something now to eat.” With just five loaves of bread at hand (as well you knew).
If we had known about that pair of fish, well, that would surely make the difference in our well-meaning cluelessness. “Bring them to me,” was all you said, and all were fed.
So you are there upon the mountain, Lord, and when we have once more resumed our breath, when we are not so weary carrying those baskets full, we will be there for you.
But now that you are on the mountain, Lord, we find that we cannot return to you with quite the ease we promised. Now a wind opposes our return to land and you.
We’d rather be upon the mountain, Lord, instead of struggling with our oars and sail to make some headway into this head wind. How can we find your presence once again?
But now the wind blows from the mountain, Lord, and with it moves a terrifying shape, a figure of the dead and of our deaths, to take us from your side for now and ever.
“Take heart!” we hear. “Do not now be afraid!” Oh, these, we know, are words of angels, heard by those they summon to great deeds, the likes of which are not within our feeble skills.
And, “It is I!” you cry, O Lord, a word of doubtful reassurance. Who is that who walks upon the gale-tossed sea? A ghost we comprehend; a Savior, not as much.
But when you were upon the mountain, Lord, we strove to come to you despite the wind and now see you come to us, and how can we do other but to meet you here?
So call us from the mountain, Lord, and call us from the heaving sea, and may we take our faltering steps upon the waves and reach – and find – and grasp – your outstretched loving hand.
A poem/prayer based on Matthew 14:22-33, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year A, Proper 14 (19).
They sent for you, dear Simon, Cephas, Petros: You’re the Rock. They sent for you, dear Simon, when their dear Tabitha had died.
Oh, what if they’d called me?
My heart would have been pounding in my chest so loud the village could have heard. Why send them all away (except to miss my failure)?
Oh, what if they’d called me?
A prayer. A tender summons: “Tabitha, get up!” That heart whose love so overflowed is beating even louder than my own. Look, she lives!
Oh, what if they’d called me?
Did you feel you were holding Jesus’ place? Did you ache for the Master’s steady poise? Did your heart falter before hers revived? How did you dare to call her name?
Oh, what if they’d called me?
A poem/prayer based on Acts 9:36-43, the Revised Common Lectionary first reading for Year C, Fourth Sunday of Easter.
ordainedgeek 