RCL Easter 3C [i]
4 May 2025
Anglican Church of the Epiphany
Surrey BC
For Paula and me the months between September 1986 and June 1987 were perhaps filled with more uncertainty than either of us had ever experienced. At the beginning of September I was contacted out of the blue and asked to apply for a teaching position at Vancouver School of Theology. By the end of September our first child was born with some special medical needs. The beginning of October saw me in Vancouver for an interview, then November we were in Denver for David’s first surgery. I was asked back for a second interview in December and offered the position. Between January and May I was completing my doctoral candidacy exams as well as one more surgery for David in Denver. Then we packed up our car with a nine-month-old son, two cats and other baggage for our trip to Vancouver. We arrived on the 23rd of June for what we imagined would be a three-year stay.
The uncertainty of the nine months between September 1986 and June 1987 did not end. Throughout the first three years we were in Canada, Paula and I consider returning to the certainty of the United States where we had grown up and where we had family and friends. But, in those three years, we had two more children and Vancouver School of Theology expressed its confidence in me as a teacher that I was granted a full-year sabbatical to complete my doctorate. Paula began her theological studies in the fall of 1991 and by the end of 1995 she had been ordained, and we had become Canadian citizens. Although we craved certainty, we ended up embracing uncertainty.
In today’s readings from the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel according to John, we encounter two men who are craving certainty yet end up embracing uncertainty. Let’s start with one of my favourite stories from the Gospel according to John. Peter, along with a number of the apostles, has decided to run away from the uncertainty that followed their experience of the resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem. Peter returns to the certainty of fishing in the Sea of Galilee where three years earlier Jesus had plucked him, his brother and the sons of Zebedee to make them ‘fish for people’. I can understand Peter’s desire to find something familiar, something more secure, to hold on to. He needs to figure out what all this means for him.
But Jesus does what Jesus seems to do always. Jesus will not let us hide in our certainties. He comes after us and presents us with new possibilities and new challenges. And he does this by asking us, ‘Do you love me? Will you be my friend?’ And we cannot resist him. And Peter puts down his nets and follows Jesus all the way to Rome and to martyrdom.
Saul of Tarsus considers the disciples of Jesus, the Followers of the Way, to be a threat to the certainty of the Judaism in which he was raised and in which he finds his identity. He is so intent on craving the certainty of that path that he is willing to arrest, to imprison and, as we know from earlier in Acts, to condone the execution of Jesus’ followers. He is so committed that he takes it upon himself to travel to Damascus, a city outside of the official jurisdiction of the religious authorities in Jerusalem, to pursue the movement.
But Jesus does what Jesus seems to do always. Jesus will not let us hide in our certainties. He comes after us and presents us with new possibilities and new challenges. And he does this by asking us, ‘Do you love me? Will you be my friend?’ And we cannot resist him. And Paul puts abandons his path of persecution and follows Jesus all the way to Rome and to martyrdom.
What happens in the lives of Peter and Paul is perhaps more dramatic than what happens in our lives when we decide to love Jesus, to be his friend and to follow him where he leads. It’s made less dramatic because we live in a time when the followers of Jesus fill the known world and have created institutions that provide us with a degree of certainty that Peter and Paul and the earliest disciples did not have. But we are living in a time when the certainty that the institutions we have created is uncertain. Other religious traditions are claiming their place on the stage of human society. The voices of those who believe religious faith to be irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst are heard throughout the media.
Twelve years ago, during the conclave that elected the Argentinian cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis, Cardinal Bergoglio offered a reflection upon the familiar image of Jesus standing knocking at the door. The tradition reading, he noted, is that Jesus is knocking to be admitted, to come into our hearts, to enter our lives. But what, he wondered, if Jesus is knocking for us to come out instead, to join him in the world outside. [ii] What if, I wonder, Jesus is daring us to come out of our certainty and into the uncertainty of the world? What if, I wonder, Jesus is reminding us that we are the salt of the earth, that we are a light to the world, the yeast to leaven the flour God is using to bake the bread of life, especially in these times? [iii]
Here at the Church of the Epiphany we are moving closer to the appointment of a new Rector who will bring fresh insights to our ministry here. We are moving closer to the redevelopment of our land so that we can be more effective and responsive in our ministries of service, of worship, of evangelism, of education and of pastoral care. There will be uncertainty throughout this journey. We will be tempted to crave certainty rather than embrace uncertainty.
But Jesus does what Jesus seems to do always. Jesus will not let us hide in our certainties. He comes after us and presents us with new possibilities and new challenges. And he does this by asking us, ‘Do you love me? Will you be my friend?’ And we cannot resist him. And we will step out on an unexpected path and follow Jesus on the road to faithful witness and renewed community life. This is what we have down, generation after generation. God is working out in tranquillity the plan of salvation, so that the whole world will see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection in Jesus Christ our Lord. [iv]
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