Saturday, April 30, 2016

"Sacred Water" a sermon basedon Acts 16:9-13, and Revelation 22 May 1, 2016 Keswick-Ravenshoe Pastoral Charge




Acts 16:9-13 A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So putting out to sea from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and on the day following to Neapolis; 1and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony; and we were staying in this city for some days. On the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer; and we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled.

Revelation 22
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
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Far into the imaginary future, there is a desert planet called Dune. With the exception of giant desert sandworms, it is believed nothing else lives on Dune. It is believed there is no water. The only commodity on this planet is an addictive spice which is mined from the sand.

But there is water on Dune - slowly and painstakingly collected by desert dwellers called Fremen, hidden in large underground reservoirs. This dry, desert planet was once green and fertile, till people destroyed it with their desire to use its resources for their own wealth. Yet the Fremen continue to plant hidden gardens, collecting dew at night and saving water for the precious plants, and their plan is make the planet green again.

On this desert planet, the elusive Fremen have learned that when the giant sandworms come in contact with water, they fragment into tiny sandfish, which grow again into giant worms. In the process of death their essence mingles with the water, which is collected and called the “water of life”. If ordinary people drink this ‘water of life’, they will die - only the religious Bene Gesserit sisters can physically transmute the ‘water of life’. Once this is done, it is not dangerous for others. ...and yet, the sandworm, the spice, and water are all interconnected, and necessary if the cycle of life is to continue.
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In a village somewhere in the mountains, a beautiful tree grows beside a beautiful sparkling stream. Pilgrims on spiritual quests, travellers who are weary and tired, come to this stream; they drink from the well, rest on the green grass under the shade of the trees, take fruit for their food. They leave again, refreshed, to continue their pilgrimage. The people of the village, seeing a good opportunity for commerce, decide that more benefit from this marvellous oasis should be garnered - so they install a gate at the road, and charge a toll. As the procession of pilgrims continues to come, they decide to brick over the stream, and charge even for a drink. Eventually, the pilgrims continue on their journeys without stopping, the travellers no longer come. The village is isolated; the inns and restaurants close, the parks are empty, the stream gradually dries up, the fruit trees and the shade trees die, the village dies. The river of the water of life no longer flows - only a desert remains.
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Here on this earth, in this lifetime, water brings both life and death. In the river flowing through the new creation, the water is life itself. In the river flowing through Bangkok, human waste, food waste and industrial garbage flow to the sea. In the rainy season, cholera, typhoid and parasites are prevalent. In this same water, people bathe and wash their clothes; the water is used for cooking. They are well aware that the water which gives life for some, gives death to others. There is no choice. The water of life is also the water of death.

In Ethiopia and Eritrea, trees have been so consistently cut down for homes and fuel, that the desert has taken over - water is a rare commodity. For years, rain has barely fallen at all. When the water does come, disease is a very real problem. People die without rain, they die with rain. A child’s life expectancy is about five years, if even that.

Recently, water in all its forms has been the source of much death. A tsunami resulting from a Point 9 earthquake washed around the world, killing thousands and destroying much that was once green. All the way to the shores of Cape Breton this tsunami moved - in fact, it’s reported that the wave went around the earth more than once. Levees broke in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, killing and washing away most of a city, with the poorest of the poor suffering the most. Texas has been hit with some of the most incredible flooding ever experienced.

In Canada, in a place called Attawapiskat, people still have no clean drinking water. They are aboriginal peoples, and as such have continued to be treated as last and least. “Let them move” people say, instead of “Why are people in this country still without clean water?” Remember the water in Walkerton, poisoned with E. Coli  we were outraged when people died from poor water in Ontario - shouldn’t happen here, we said. The problem was addressed. Yet where is our outrage when children die around the world for lack of clean water? When our native communities are attempting suicide because they can’t cope any more? Flint Michigan – water poisoned with huge amounts of lead and a bureaucracy which knew perfectly well what it was doing, but letting it gobecause the people mostly involved are black.

Michigan State University sits on top of one of the largest garbage dump sites in the United States. The water in student housing is said to be safe and drinkable, yet when we lived there, it was almost impossible to get baby formula to mix properly, and boiled water produced an oily slick on the surface and in the cup.  Sometimes it came out red and sludgy, but was still pronounced safe to drink. None of us did, of course.

The great company Nestle takes water out the ground in California, even as California suffers one of the worst droughts in its history. The CEO of Nestle has said that human beings don’t have a right to water. And so water becomes a commodity to be bought and sold.

And yet water is also a miracle..............

A few years ago, in an effort to find out whether or not homeopathic remedies work, a study was conducted in variety of substances were diluted in water, until there was no longer any molecular trace of the original substance. A miracle - the water molecules had taken on the properties of the substances - so the water molecules functioned like, for instance the homeopathic substance arnica, but also the antibiotic penicillin. Recent studies have again shown that water has memory.

Just outside Corner Brook in Newfoundland is a place called Steady Brook. About a kilometre or so along the Trans-Canada Highway past Steady Brook, is a stream which runs steadily year round. It is absolutely pure clean water with no bacteria, and it keeps for months without going bad. There are streams like that all over Newfoundland – and it’s far safer than the city water, which often has to be boiled before drinking.

A human being can survive a long time without food, but only two weeks without water. Water eases the pain of sore and tired muscles, helps provide a means for healing of injury. Water soothes us when we are tense or upset – a long bath can do wonders. Water and the smell of green air rejuvenates us.
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 Today, in this millennium, we are finding ourselves in a desert wilderness of our own creation, not God’s. In our destruction of the earth, we not only create a physical wilderness, but a spiritual one as well. We read the papers and shake our heads, but our garbage will still get shipped to someone else’s back yard. We are slowly beginning to take seriously the connections between our actions and the results of our actions, which have far-reaching effects.

In 1968 when our creed was written, there was nothing about creation in it. Since then, the world around us and our role in creation have come to further prominence. We have begun to realise that the stories in Genesis were mistranslated - that we were not given “dominion” over creation, but were asked to take responsibility - a word called ‘stewardship’.  So, we added to our creed the line “to live with respect in creation”.

Our Christian faith is also built on hope - the kind of hope which says “Come to me, and I will give you living water.” Scriptures which say “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water. “  This says to me, though, that the physical renewal of the earth can only come about IF humanity has a spiritual renewal. We have to drink the ‘water of life’ and undergo a transformation. We are asked by God to be co-creators in a new creation. Our faith opens our hearts like the rocks in the desert; the streams of living water, which renew our souls, flow into the deserts. As the spiritual desert begins to bloom and become green, then the water flows from us into the spiritual deserts of others - and as that water flows, the physical desert again becomes green. We cannot separate our faith from environment - and we cannot separate our environment from our faith. The one thing critical to all the deserts in our creation is the water of life.

Paul and Silas respond to a call – and when they arrive in Philippi, they go out one morning to find a place where they believe there will be a prayer service. They find Lydia, under a tree beside a river which flows just outside the city. A river and a tree, a place of prayer and spiritual growth. In the city of God, the river of the water of life flows through the city; on each side is the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, one for each month of the year. The river provides sustenance for the tree, the tree provides food for the people, so there is no hunger and no want any longer. Everyone will have access to the river of the water of life, without having to pay for it. Everyone has the right to the water, spiritual and literal. And the words are clear - No spiritual hunger or thirst, no physical hunger or thirst. The Holy City is Eden recreated, the realm of God, in the here and now. There is nothing accursed – no poisons, no disease, no death – only abundant life. Paul and Silas found growth beside the river under a tree, and helped someone else to grow; in the new realm, growth and new life are found beside a river under a tree. Abundant life. May it be so.

Saturday, April 23, 2016

“Genesis – A New Thing” based on Psalm 104 and Revelation 21:1-7 April 24, 2016 Earth Sunday




Psalm 104 O God, how many are your works! With Wisdom beside you, they were all made. The earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, great and wide, all kinds of creeping and swimming things there, both large and small. The ships, sail on it – and the great whales, Leviathan, made to play in it. These all look to you to give them their food in due season;  when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you turn away, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to ordinary soil.
When you send forth your spirit, they are created;  and you renew the face of the earth.
Revelation 21:1-7 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."
And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To anyone who is thirsty I will give the right to drink from the spring of the water of life, without paying for it. Those who win the victory will receive this from me: I will be their God, and they will be my children.”    
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Imagine you are in the future, in a galaxy far, far away,  the year 2154.  Human beings finally have depleted all earth’s natural resources. In greed to find more, having learned nothing, humans are mining for a rare mineral called ‘unobtanium’ on the planet Pandora, a forested habitable moon in the Alpha Centauri star system. The planet is inhabited by the Na'vi;  tall, blue-skinned, intelligent humanoids who live in harmony with nature, and worship a mother goddess, Eywa. The atmosphere of Pandora is toxic to humans, so the scientists use Na'vi-human hybrids called "avatars", operated by genetically matched humans. The clan's gathering place is a giant tree called Hometree, which also stands above the richest deposit of  ‘unobtanium’ on the planet. The mining company cares nothing for the ecology of the planet, but only for what it can extract, even if it means destroying a people and a whole planet yet again. But there is another tree, sentient, called the Tree of Souls. It has power to heal and renew, and sometimes even resurrect. When attack from the military-type mining company becomes imminent, the tree connects to the  animals of the planet, together defeating the humans, and saving their home.

Seems far-fetched and fantastical doesn’t it? Aboriginal people living in harmony with their planet, who use just what they need, and recognise the interconnectedness of everything - over against humans who dismiss the aboriginals as primitives who don’t understand anything; humans who still believe that anything anywhere is there for the taking, with violence if necessary, from places and planets which are not theirs.

Far out? Scientists here on earth have learned that trees and other plants do have sentience. Trees connect in the forest through their roots, which function as a neural network; when trees are cut, other trees try to support the remaining stump by diverting nutrients and water into it.  Forest ecologist Dr Suzanne Simard, from the University of British Colombia studies a type of fungi that forms underground communication networks between trees in North American forests. Big old trees — dubbed 'mother trees' — are hubs in this mycorrhizal fungal network, playing a key role in supporting other trees in the forest, especially their offspring.

The reality is that earth is an intricate and involved network of many things which survives because of the interaction and interconnectedness of those many things. Human beings – perhaps with the exception of those who live off the land – have unfortunately seen ourselves as separate from the rest of the living earth.

Because of our insistence on seeing ourselves as separate from the earth and other animals, we have created chaos where there was a balance. Here’s just one example – in the 1930’s wolves were eliminated because ranchers didn’t want their cattle being eaten. With the loss of the wolves, other animals species also declined, and so did the land. After the wolves were gone, the beaver population dropped to one colony. The elk were still preyed upon by bears, cougars and coyotes, but the absence of wolves took much predatory pressure off the elk, and as a result the elk populations did too well. They pushed the limits of Yellowstone’s carrying capacity, and in the winter instead of moving around as they once did, stayed and ate the young willow, aspen and cottonwood plants. That affected the beaver, who need willows to survive in winter.

This is, in fact, a counterintuitive situation. Back in 1968 when the elk population was about a third what it is today, the willow stands along streams were in bad shape. Today, with three times as many elk, willow stands are robust. Why? Because the predatory pressure from wolves keeps elk on the move, so they don’t have time to browse the trees as much. With elk moving during the winter, the tree stands recovered, and beaver rediscovered an abundant food source. The beavers built new dams and ponds, and those dams have multiple effects on stream hydrology. They even out the seasonal pulses of runoff; they store water for recharging the water table; and provide cold, shaded water for fish, and the willow stands provide habitat for songbirds.

Researchers have also determined that wolves are now the primary reason for elk mortality. Before wolf reintroduction, deep snows were the main determinant of whether an elk was going to die. So rather than a boom and bust cycle of elk carrion - as existed before wolves and when winters were harder - there’s now a more equitable distribution of carrion throughout winter and early spring. Scavengers which once relied on winter-killed elk for food now depend on wolf-killed elk. That benefits ravens, eagles, magpies, coyotes and bears. Indian legends spoke of ravens following wolves – turns out it was literal. Wolves mean food for others.

Today’s two scriptures don’t say exactly how, but rather hint at what’s possible. Psalm 104 is a plea to Yahweh to send the winds of the Spirit to renew the earth. Revelation is a vision of what can be – what can happen with the renewal of the earth, and it places the throne, once again – at the centre – the symbol of stability and balance. Jesus kept saying the ‘realm of God’ is at hand – it’s near – it’s possible. Jesus never said just sit and wait, God will do it. In so many words, Jesus was saying that humans are co-creators with God. 

The Bible sees life as a continuum, with the present flowing into the future.  Eternal life begins in the present rather than something we finally get at the end of this life. However, everlasting existence could be hell in certain circumstances. In the “Avatar” movie example, the people of earth have created an everlasting hell – but instead of learning from that, they are out on other planets, recreating that hell. The word "eternal" is not simply an indication of length, but also of a quality of life. 
"The Realm of God is among you." said Jesus. Don't go off looking for some future event to be thrust upon the world from the outside. God's realm is expressed wherever people are moved to make it so - it starts within the heart and becomes ever widening circles. It’s a process of conversion to creating the realm through peaceable means. 

Well, where do I get this ‘co-creator stuff, and how does that link to Psalm 104 and Revelation?

God creates – Genesis 1, God creates everything else first, then human beings – or so we are told. “In the beginning when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit of God was moving over the water. ….God said “And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us.”
The Spirit of God, Ruach the breath, the feminine principle – associated with Wisdom. “Like us, resemble us.” In older translations of Genesis, we are ‘made in God’s image’. I don’t know about you, but for me that’s a profound statement of who humans are, and how we should be in the world, if we are made in God’s image. God the Creator together with Wisdom,  and we are made in that likeness.

In the Proverbs of Solomon Wisdom speaks: “God formed me from the beginning, before anything else was created. I was appointed in ages past, at the very first, before the earth began. I was born before the oceans were created, before the springs bubbled forth their waters. Before the mountains were formed, before the hills, I was born—before the earth and fields and the first handfuls of soil were made. I was there when the heavens were established, when the horizon was drawn on the oceans. I was there when the clouds were set above, and springs established deep in the earth. I was there when the limits of the seas were set, so they would not spread beyond their boundaries. When God marked off the earth’s foundations, I was the architect at God’s side. I was God’s constant delight, rejoicing always in his presence. How happy I was with the world God created; how I rejoiced with the human family!"

So here we are on the Earth Day weekend, praying for God to send the Spirit to renew the earth, and reading the words “And now I make all things new!” If we listen to and follow the words of Jesus, however, it won’t happen by itself. We are an integral part of this Creation, are we not? Made in the likeness of the one we call God, given the same calling – to be co-creators in the renewal, not the destruction. I believe God continues to call us to a conversion – to be converted to seeing ourselves as God’s likeness, the hands and feet of God in the world, taking care of the creation into which we were born. It is a calling. May it be so.

Sources:
1.      “Heaven Here and There” by Dr. David Rogne
2.      “Avatar” 2009 movie of James Cameron. (from Wikipedia)
3.      http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/05

Saturday, April 16, 2016

“Living in New Life” Sunday April 17, 2016 Keswick-Ravenshoe Pastoral Charge




Acts 9:36-43 In Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, "Please come to us without delay." So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, "Tabitha, get up." Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

Revelation 7:9-17 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!"  And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen." Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

If you look at all the selected lectionary texts for this week, there are the two we have today; the other two are the 23rd Psalm, and the story from John about the good shepherd. Well, I’ve preached those other two so often I decided to step off and preach the less familiar ones. So, today we are looking at Acts and Revelation.

It’s necessary when grappling with both, to bear in mind some background. Acts is a compilation of stories told about the work of the disciples, following the resurrection. It was likely written by the same person who wrote the Gospel of Luke, hence the two are often referred to as Luke-Acts. At the very beginning of Luke, we are told that the author is writing down what he has been told, to the best of his ability. So last week in Acts was the conversion of Saul, this week is Peter being called to Joppa, on the death of Tabitha.

Much like Canada of today, people had to be bi, or multi-lingual. In Joppa, people spoke Greek and Aramaic.  Depending upon the context, the woman in the story was called Dorcas or Tabitha. I imagine she was like many women we’ve known in many churches and many places. She apparently had an unending supply of energy.  She remembered everyones birthday. She worked hard to support her own family, but there was always time to make special gifts for other people, too. Casseroles when someone was ill, clothes for those who couldn’t afford much – and often things which were hand made. Well, most of us technically know we are limited to 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week, but people like Tabitha always seem to have more hours  in a day and somehow an extra day in every week. Tabitha was the kind of person who was always there and always ready to listen. If she did have a fault it was that she didn’t know how to say no, and I’d venture to say she didn’t realise she could.

However, people became so used to assuming she was always around, they didn’t notice how tired she was getting, how weary of constant requests for her time, weary of the day-after-day burdens of caring for the needs of others, weary of the hurts and sorrows she was carrying for people, weary of the growing expectations that she could do it all. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity, but it seemed like the church in Joppa loved having her do the work for them.

Let’s look at this church a bit. Churches then were brand new ‘plantings’, and didn’t have paid ministers like we have now. This was likely a house church, as most were – where the community of new disciples met around a meal, and where important gatherings took place. The homes of the wealthier then were built around an inner courtyard, with sleeping rooms on the second floor, eating space on the first, and to the rear of the courtyard kitchens and places for the animals. Perhaps this was Tabitha’s home, perhaps someone else’s. However, it seemed as if only Tabitha did the work, and everyone let her. She was the stability of the gathered community. So when she died, there was a crisis. No one else knew what to do.  No one else knew who to visit or how to visit. And worse still, no one thought anyone could replace her.

No one had thanked her, no one had tried to relieve her of the load. Until she died. Then they had to find a way to minister to her. So they washed her body and laid her on a bed. The person who had in many ways washed their feet is now being washed. She, Tabitha-Dorcas was a named disciple, and was a special person in their midst. 

But Dorcas – let’s call her that now – Dorcas’ ministry had allowed the church to focus on their own needs.  Her work in their midst had made people think the church was there to serve them.  Her method of caring for people created a self-centered group of people who thought there was no future if there was no Dorcas. In their minds, the death of Dorcas spelled death for the church. They had a limited notion of what the community is supposed to be about.

There are so many questions in this passage, and so many ways it can be interpreted. What seems, on the surface, to be a story about a simple death, and the calling of the leader of the disciples Peter, to help – it’s a great passage for defining pastoral care ministry, and developing the gifts of people within congregations. It’s a story about kinds of ministry. It’s a story about stability versus stagnation. It’s a story about congregational community. It’s a story about death and new life.

Did Dorcas really die, or is this story a metaphor? The Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan has noted  “Its not that the early people wrote literally and we are now smart enough to take it metaphorically, but that they wrote metaphorically and we are now dumb enough to take it literally.”
Stability. Something we want in every congregation. There’s a difference, though, between stability and just being there and letting everything happen. 

The Revelation passage gives us another insight into this paschal death and resurrection. Revelation talks about the throne, where the Lamb is seated. The throne is the metaphor for stability. It is not a literal throne, but a solid place where grace, compassion and justice exist. It becomes symbolic for the centre of God’s realm. While the word throne has many symbolic meanings, I like the meaning of stability and the centre of the realm – because it is, in our sacraments, services and life together, what we as community seek to emulate and establish. A stable, solid but active-in-the-spirit community with Jesus at the centre.

In the book, The Holy Longing, author Ronald Rolheiser posits two kinds of deaths and two kinds of life. He says “There is terminal death and there is paschal death. Terminal death is a death that ends life and ends possibilities. Paschal death, like terminal death, is real. However, paschal death is a death that, while ending one kind of life, opens the person undergoing it to receive a deeper and richer form of life. The image of the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying so as to produce new life is an image of paschal death.

There are also two kinds of life: There is resuscitated life and there is resurrected 
life. Resuscitated life is when one is restored to ones former life and health, as is the case with someone who has been clinically dead and is brought back to life. Resurrected life is not this. It is not a restoration of ones old life but the reception of a radically new life.”

So let’s assume Dorcas died.  The story would have us believe that her death was  a terminal one.  She is given a resuscitated life.  She comes back to life and resumes the kind of life she had been living before. Or does she? Is this a story about the metaphorical death of a person to one way of life, and a rising to a new way of being – in the same place with the same people. Look at the supposed return of Lazarus – do we think he went back to the same life in the same way? And that word paschal or Easter – Jesus is resurrected into a new kind of life – not resuscitated into the old life. Each, in fact, experienced both a literal death and a paschal death
More importantly, there was another death as well.  The church had died when Dorcas had died.  Essentially the community/congregation had put all its eggs in one basket, and leaned on Dorcas for its stability, instead of Jesus for its stability. The church could have suffered a literal death, but instead it had an Easter death – one that yielded a new kind of life – one which included Dorcas as a treasured leader, but didn’t need her to hold it all together.

This little congregation learned how to live into abundance – to celebrate what they did have not what they didn’t.  Their resurrection gives them the chance to re-evaluate who they are and how they have been functioning as a community. They begin to reach out more in care of others, and care for their own in different ways; they do it by celebrating God’s abundant gifts, and the working of the Spirit throughout community, not just inside, but outside our congregations. The Holy Spirit is at work in our midst. 

Sources:
1.      Resuscitated for Service by Rev. Randy Quinn
2.      Various symbolic definitions of ‘throne’
3.      Rolheiser, Ronald. The Holy Longing. Crown Publishing, Random House; c. 1998, 1999, 2014