Discerning the Word within the Words: Reflections for the 3rd Sunday of Easter

RCL Easter 3A [i]

19 April 2026

 

Saint Helen’s Anglican Parish

Vancouver BC

 

            In January of 2012, I had the privilege of travelling with a group of Jewish and Christian clergy from the United States and Canada to Israel.  In hindsight the trip was far too short, and we did not have as many meaningful encounters with Palestinians as we might have wished.  But the trip was a rich encounter between congregational leaders who shared a common responsibility to interpret the Hebrew Scriptures that are central to both our traditions.  

 

One of my lasting memories is that of visiting a yeshiva, a school dedicated to training religious leaders.  The students sat in pairs with a Tanakh, the Hebrew texts that were the Bible for Jesus and his followers, and commentaries.  Unlike my theological college classrooms, students were actively talking with one another, sometimes loudly and energetically, about a text that they were studying.  The head teacher told us that the school was guided by the belief that such conversations, even debates, were valuable in mining all the meanings that were embodied in each text.

 

It was a wonderful reminder that what the Scriptures say may not always be what the Scriptures mean.  I remember when I was growing up in Colorado Springs, a centre of conservative Christian evangelical organizations, having a classmate who always called his parents by their first names.  This was something that was truly radical for me, and, when I asked him to explain, he quoted Matthew 23.9:  “And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father, the one in heaven.”  When I tried this on my parents, I quickly learned from my parents’ reaction that there were various ways of understanding the meaning of that text!

 

In today’s reading from the Gospel according to Luke, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus have their own experience of learning that what the Scriptures say may not always be what the Scriptures mean.  Just like the students in the yeshiva, the two disciples are talking with one another, trying to make sense of the events of the previous week and of that Sunday in particular.  They are so caught up in their conversation that they are unable to recognize Jesus when he sidles up to them on the road.  After trying to explain themselves, Jesus breaks open the Scriptures to them in words that I believe Jesus speaks to every generation:

 

Then Jesus said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!  Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?”  Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. [ii]

 

My friends, one of the reasons that we gather Sunday after Sunday is break open the Scriptures through our prayers, our singing, our reflections.  We are seeking to find the Word, with a capital ‘W’, within the words that fill our worship.  And how do we find the Word?  We find the Word by asking not whether something is biblical but whether it is Christ-like.  Let me give you an example.

 

One of the major themes in the Gospel according to Matthew is reconciliation within the Christian community.  At one point in the Gospel, Jesus gives his followers this teaching:

 

“If your brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.  If you are listened to, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.  If that person refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax collector.” [iii]

 

There are Christian communities where this text is used to justify the practice of ‘shunning’, of exiling a ‘sinner’ from the community and ceasing to have any relationship with that person.  I cannot deny that it’s biblical.

 

            But, if I ask the question, is it Christ-like, I find myself drawn to a different conclusion.  When I look at how Jesus relates to tax collectors and sinners, to gentiles and women, I find that he has this tendency to sit with them and share a meal.  In fact, the most frequent complaint made about Jesus is precisely his willingness to be in relationship with those whom the ‘religious’ folk will have nothing to do.  So, the Word tells me that those with whom I have the greatest conflict, with whom I am in the greatest need of reconciliation, are not to be shunned but embraced.  They are God’s beloved in whom the good news needs to be re-awakened, renewed, revealed.

 

            So, my friends, welcome to the challenge of finding the Word among the words.  Welcome to a community where the Spirit is constantly inviting us, enticing us, to go beneath the surface so that “may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” [iv]  That’s what happened to our friends on the road to Emmaus; they left with the words and then were embraced by the Word.  May it be so for us today and in the days to come.

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[i] RCL Propers with alternative readings from the Hebrew Scriptures:  Isaiah 51.1-6; Psalm 34.1-10; Acts 2.14a, 36-41; Luke 24.13-35.

 

[ii] Luke 24.25-27 (NRSVue).

 

[iii] Matthew 18.15-17 (NRSVue).

 

[iv] Ephesians 3.18-19 (NRSVue).

 

Witnessing, Belonging, Behaving and Believing

 

RCL Easter 2A [i]

12 April 2026

 

Saint Helen’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Click HERE to listen to Richard's sermon.

 

Belonging not believing is the starting point.

            As someone who was ordained priest on the feast of Saint Thomas, I have always had a particular devotion to an apostle whose image has been tarnished by the adjective ‘doubting’.  Many people tend to forget that, when Jesus announced that he was going to Jerusalem knowing full well that the religious authorities were seeking to rid themselves of this trouble-making rabbi from Galilee, it was Thomas who said to the others, “Let us also go, so that we may die with him.” [ii]

            After all, what did Thomas want that was more than the remaining ten apostles also desired.  They did not believe Mary Magdalene and the other women when they told them that the Lord had been raised from the dead.  While the women went about doing what needed to be done, it was these stalwarts who met behind locked doors for fear of the religious and Roman authorities.  It was only when the risen Jesus appeared in their midst, when they saw the wounds in his hands and side, and when they heard his voice, that they believed.

            So, just as the apostles had not believed the women who bore witness to the resurrection, so too did Thomas not believe the witness of his ten colleagues when they shared the news of their encounter with the risen Jesus.  He only wanted what they had received.  What is most remarkable about this story is not that Thomas does not believe, but that the Ten do not shun him because of his disbelief.  One week later, despite his disbelief, Thomas is with them in their hideaway, continuing to belong and to behave as a member of their small community of disciples who are seeking to make sense of and to recover from the trauma of the preceding days.

            Thomas’ transformation does not begin with his belief in the resurrection.  His transformation begins with his continued belonging to the apostolic community and his continued participation in its way of behaving in a hostile environment.  Belonging and behaving is what led to Thomas’ believing.  Belonging, behaving and believing prepared him to be a witness to the new life made possible to all humanity through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

 

We all need to belong.

            We all need to belong to a community that gives us an identity and meaning.  One of the enduring myths of our society is that of the self-sufficient individual.  Even those who ‘live off the land’ are dependent both on the providence of nature and on how the rest of humanity exercises stewardship of our fragile planet.  We are all inter-connected and inter-dependent upon a network of relationships, some we can influence and others we cannot and can only marginally influence.

            There are communities which define themselves so narrowly that they cannot see the necessity of this inter-connectedness and inter-dependency.  When they describe how their community gives them meaning, they often describe themselves as ‘other than’ or ‘superior to’ or other exclusive terms.

            Despite the many failures of the Christian community over time and throughout the world, the good news of God in Jesus of Nazareth is that there are no ‘others’ from whom we exclude from our communities.  The death and resurrection of Jesus is not for ‘some’ but for ‘all’.

 

We all need nurture in life-giving and generous behaviour.

            Communities that are truly meaningful, that embodied what I dare call truth, nurture and model ways of behaving that are life-giving and generous.  Life-giving and generous communities resist evil and are not afraid to acknowledge when they fail and when they need to repent.  Life-giving and generous communities seek Christ in all persons, seeing only neighbours not ‘others’.  Life-giving and generous communities know that respect for the dignity of every human being leads to justice and peace for all.  Life-giving and generous communities believe in the stewardship of the resources of our world so that every one of us has what we need to flourish.

 

We all need to believe, to fall in love with the way, the truth and the life. 

            When we belong to a community that is inter-connected and inter-dependent, when we find ourselves behaving in life-giving and generous ways, we discover that believing is birthed in us, a falling in love with the way, the truth and the love we have come to know and to experience.

            Most of the time we think of believing as holding ‘certain truths to be self-evident’, dogmas that require primarily our intellectual assent.  To some degree this is true; religious faith does come with a package of beliefs that have come into being over the course of two thousand years of reflection, conversation, controversy and reform.  But it’s good to remember that the English word, ‘believe’, has its linguistic roots in the Germanic word ‘to fall in love with’ or ‘to hold as loved’.

            As a priest I promised forty-five years ago that I believed in the Scriptures as the Word of God and that they held everything necessary for salvation.  As a baptized member of the community, I have joined you in renewing our baptismal faith and commitments on numerous occasions.  But, as I have grown older, I realize that I have made this confession of faith and these promises, because I have fallen in love with them and, more especially, with the community that holds this faith and these promises holy and life-giving.

            I recently participated in a podcast as part of a series being made by Saint Matthew’s Anglican Church in Abbotsford.  At one point I was asked, in one way or another, why I ‘believe’.  Here’s my answer.  Seventy-three years ago, my parents brought me into the life of the Christian community.  From the day of my birth, I have belonged; my questions were not dismissed and my identity as a child of God was honoured.  From the day of my birth I have behaved in the manner that my community taught me was life-giving and generous.  When I have failed, I have had to face the consequences, but I have not been shunned or expelled.  I still belong.  And, after so many years, I have fallen in love with the God who has brought this community into being.  Like anyone who is love, there are times when I’m don’t like what’s going on in my community, but I’ve never fallen out of love.

            Our love of the Scriptures, even the parts that confuse and infuriate us, nurtures me and gives me life.  Our respect for the intellect, even when we acknowledge that we are far from understanding, nurture me and gives me life.  Our fidelity to tradition, even when we recognize the need for change, for reform, for setting aside, nurture me and give me life.

            It is our belonging, our behaving and our believing that makes us, just as it did Peter and Thomas, witnesses to the new life that has come into the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  It is our witness to a life of faith that begins in belonging before it comes to believing that is the leaven that will raise the lives of those who find their way to this place. 

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[i] Exodus 15.1-11; Psalm 111; Acts 2.14a, 22-32; John 20.19-31 (alternative Hebrew Scriptures series).

 

[ii] John 11.16 (NRSVue).

 

A Divine Conspiracy: Reflections on John 20.1-18

RCL Easter A [i]

5 April 2026

 

Saint Helen’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

LISTEN to the Sermon here. 

            When I am driving home after an evening meeting, I often listen to CBC Radio One.  It’s the rare evening when the programming doesn’t introduce me to new ideas or to a new book or a new person of interest.  Just this past Monday, as I was driving home after visiting my wife at UBC Hospital following her knee surgery, I was listening to a re-broadcast of Tom Power’s interview of the US actor, Sterling K. Brown. 

            Tom remarked on how Brown could talk about the challenges he has faced and the disappointments he has experienced with an attitude of optimism and positivity.  Brown first responded by sharing a brief bit of his family’s history as providing the foundation for this attitude.  But it’s what he said next that almost caused me to stop in the middle of the East-West Connector to write his words down.  Brown said that he was able to maintain this attitude because he believed that there was a divine conspiracy for his success.  Let me say that again.  Brown believes that there is a divine conspiracy for his success.

            He quickly added that his success does not require the failure of others.  It does not mean a zero-sum world in which he sits on top of the heap.  ‘Success’, in Brown’s thoughts, means finding joy in becoming more fully the person he was created and is called to become and to be.

            Friends, the moment I heard that phrase I knew it held my Easter message to you.  There is a divine conspiracy for our success.  While I do not doubt that there is an evil conspiracy to undermine the purposes and works of God, there is a more powerful and, I believe, an ultimately more successful conspiracy for our salvation, for our becoming more fully alive in the likeness of Christ.

            This divine conspiracy for our success forms the foundation for the closing chapters of the Gospel according to John.  During his final meal with his disciples, Jesus tells them, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” [ii]  Later he speaks about the promise of the Spirit, the Advocate, ‘the One who speaks for another’, and tells them that the Spirit will guide into all truth those who love Jesus, those who obey his commandments and who follow in his path. [iii]  In his final prayer to God, Jesus prays that the unity he has with God will be the unity that Jesus’ disciples have with one another. [iv]

Then comes the moment outside the tomb.  The disciple whom Jesus loved recognizes that Jesus has risen but does not yet know what this will mean for him and for Jesus’ followers.  It is Mary Magdalene, weeping for her loss, who is the first witness to this divine conspiracy for our success.  I have loved this passage and preached on it many times.  But this is the first time that I listened more closely to what Jesus tells Mary what to do:  “But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your father, to my God and your God.’” [v]

            This is the first time that I’ve realized that Jesus does not tell her to share the news of the resurrection.  The beloved disciple already believes that Jesus has risen.  By the time Mary meets the Eleven, they already know that the tomb is empty.  Jesus tells Mary to share the news that he is ascending to resume that unity with God that he had before his earthly ministry.  With the ascension the Spirit, the One who will lead us into all truth, the One who will enable to do greater things than Jesus, will soon be unleashed to put the divine conspiracy for our success into action.

            As central as the resurrection is to our faith as Christians, its message is not primarily about life after death.  It is the sign that the divine conspiracy begun in creation and renewed in the ministry of Jesus will now, through the work of the Spirit, reach its ultimate phase.  Through the witness of the followers of the risen Christ, the world will see that the conspiracies of “the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God” are ultimately destined to fail.  Why?  Because through the Spirit of truth, we are able to see what Desmond Tutu once wrote:

 

Goodness is stronger than evil;

love is stronger than hate;

light is stronger than darkness;

life is stronger than death;

victory is ours, through God who loves us. [vi]

 

            Friends, it is easy to despair these days.  All one needs to do is watch the news or listen to the rants of leaders who seem to lack any empathy or see how the gap between those who have an abundance of resources and those who do not continues to grow.  But today is not a day for despair.  Today is a day to celebrate this divine conspiracy for our success.  Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, we may doubt that this conspiracy is afoot.  But the prophet Habakkuk tells us, “For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end and does not lie.  If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” [vii]

            Friends, hear the good news of Easter:  There is a divine conspiracy for our success.  These are holy words; this is holy wisdom.  Thanks be to God.

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[i] Jeremiah 31.1-6; Psalm 118.1-2, 14-24 (BAS); Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18.

 

[ii] John 14.12 (NRSVue).

 

[iii] John 16.13 (NRSVue).

 

[iv] John 17.20-24 (NRSVue).

 

[v] John 20.17b (NRSVue).

 

[vi] “Goodness Is Stronger than Evil” in Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), Hymn #721.

 

[vii] Habukkuk 2.3 (NRSVue).