Sounds of Sheer Silence

Reflection for Proper 7C Thomas E Wilson, Visiting Celebrant St. Mary’s Episcopal, Gatesville, NC June 22, 2025 Sounds of Sheer Silence 1 Kings 10: 1-15a Psalm 43 Galatians 3: 23-29 Luke 8: 26 -39 Let me start off, not with the lessons themself, but with an old Simon and Garfunkel song: Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again, Because a vision softly creeping, Left its seeds while I was sleeping, And the vision that was planted In my brain Still remains, Within the sounds of silence, In the lesson from 1st Kings for today, the Prophet Elijah has just finished his battle against Queen Jezebel and her prophets. The Hebrew name Elijah, comes from a combination of two names for the Hebrew God; El and Yah. The name means that he understands that he is doubly committed to the Hebrew faith. Now, the thing to make sure you pass on to your children is to never pick a fight with a rich and powerful woman named JEZEBEL. Jezebel is the daughter of the King of a neighboring Kingdom, Sidon, and she was devoted to the Storm and Fertility God named Baal. Her name means “Baal is exalted”. It would be like if you decided to name your child, “Jesus saves” so your child would be raised with an understanding that he or she would be devoted to that idea of God. She brought that worship and devotion of Baal to the court of the Hebrew King Ahab. Ahab’s job description was to be the King under the rule of the Hebrew God, YAWEH. But the King loved the girl, and she ruled the roost as soon as she showed up in town. Elijah could have handled Ahab easily but Jezebel was another story. So, Elijah challenged Queen Jezebel’s priests to a contest; all 450 of them. All by himself, Elijah builds an altar, coveres it with wood and logs. Then he challenged the Priests of Baal, all 450 of them, as an ecumenical gesture, to call upon their God to set the offering on fire, to cook the meat. The Priests spent a lot of energy, shouting, singing, dancing, cutting themselves: all the standard Baal Worship routine, calling on their God to set the offering on fire. Hours passed, as all worship services do, and Nothing happened. Elijah made fun of them when the fire did not come from Heaven. He taunted them that maybe their God, Baal, may be busy, or sleeping, or really busy suffering with an intense intestinal distress in the Celestial outhouse. After all the 450 of them were tired out, Elijah then put water all over the Altar, cut and slaughtered a bull,and laid the pieces on the Altar, all by himself. And then, all by himself, he called upon his God, YHWH, to accept his sacrifice. Then the Altar was covered with a blazing fire. Elijah’s God had won and in a great show of thanksgiving for his God’s power, Elijah then slaughtered all 450 of the Queen’s Prophets, all by himself. In a monarchy, ruled by an evil Queen, you are wise not to win, and even wiser not to gloat by massacring her henchmen. Jezebel puts him on her hit list. Discretion being the better part of Valour, Elijah gets the heck out of town and flees as fast as he can. He keeps running until he hits the wilderness. Then he keeps on running as far as he can go. Then, he clubs a lonely mountain to talk with God. But, his mind is so busy that he cannot stop to really listen. When our minds are full, it is impossible to listen.There are so many places he cannot hear God, but in this place, on the edge of nowhere, he enters into silence, and then, and only then, he hears God in the silence. Many of us who go to church, know something about that situation of when we go to a place of worship and our minds are so filled up with our own agendas, that we get nothing out of that experience. If we are fortunate, the words and thoughts will stay in our brains and later come back when we are reminded with a word or phrase. Last week, I went out to Colorado to see my baby. My baby, Shanon, has been my baby for over half a century. She lives with her husband and their two sons; sons who are in their second decades. One day, I went with my daughter, her husband Steve and one of my grandsons, the one who is studying Environmental Science in College, to the Denver Botanical Gardens Complex. The Denver Botanical Garden is a place of great beauty. Every path we took, we were hit with thousands of wonderful plants, trees, shrubs and flowers. There was a moment when an employee was trimming an amazingly beautiful flowering bush. As the cuttings touched the ground, I fell in love with the beauty. I wanted it! Now I live in a small condo on the Outer Banks, and that means I do not have room for a garden, so this was not something that I was able to buy to beautify my life, plus, even if there was , how could I carry it on the plane ride home from Colorado. Yet, I looked at the cutting on the ground, and I wanted it! The world stopped for me as I looked at that beauty. I asked the gardener, but he told me that wasn’t allowed. I thanked him for the care he took of the garden, and we walked on. But from that moment, there were no words I could come up with about the beauty everywhere. Beauty I could not own, but of which I could marvel. We looked at so many different kinds of flowers and shrubbery, that words seemed so useless. I would stop and look deeply; filled with absolute joy about what God was doing for us and with the gardeners who kept crossing plants to create variations in this creation, But, there were no words deep enough that could be said about all that beauty. I started to walk more slowly, stopping to look more deeply at the beauty, the complexity, of the so many different variations, the gifts from a loving God, who was working with people, so that we could stand in worshipful awe of the plants and the people. I stayed in silence, because words would just get in the way. In the Gospel for today, Jesus confronts a man possessed by demons. Out of compassion, Jesus sets him free from all the noise that had entrapped him. In silence, the man is able to listen deeply, and from the depths of that silence, he is able to speak only the words that need to be said. That is what I need to do more often, and I would suggest to you: listen deeply and speak only the words that need to be said. Sound Of Sheer Silence When I first dated my wife to be, I tried to fill up all my silences, Not knowing what that silence is; It’s when “you” becomes “thee’. But some words do get in our way, Becoming noise without meaning, Conversation turn into demeaning, Ruins what we really mean to say. Let’s take time for us to be still, Leaving spaces for us to grow In the time after we say “Hello Providing room for Spirit's will, Let’s make our sentences to slow, Giving room for our love to grow.

Paul and Silas Bound in Jail

A Reflection 7th Sunday of Easter Thomas E Wilson, Preacher St. Luke/ St Anne’s Roper, and Grace, Plymounth June 1, 2025 Acts 16:16-34 Revelation 22:12-14,16-17,20-21 John 17:20-26 Psalm 97 Paul and Silas, Bound in Jail As I begin this reflection about Paul and Silas Bound in Jail; I have to give you a warning. Many years ago in the mountains of North Carolina, I went to a BlueGrass Festival and it was there that I first heard it, and fell in love with a song that I started to sing along with a phrase in the chorus sung by so many different people over the decades. Paul and Silas bound in jail, all night long (3X) One for to sing, other for to Pray, all night long (3X) Saying who shall deliver for me “Who shall deliver for me?” So far in my pastoral life, I have visited many people in jails and prisons in three different states, but have not yet not been confined myself. So far, so good. However, there have been more than a few times where I could find no way out of difficult states of mind when I wondered: “Who shall deliver for me.” There are times when I come home, open the door, and I am hit with the fact that my wife who I loved and was loved by, died one hundred and five weeks ago, and she is not going to be there. And our dog, Yoda, the Wonder Dog, which we together rescued from the pound, died last month. Therefore, I am going to be alone and there is no one to deliver me from my sorrow. The reality is that I don’t want anyone to deliver me. My hope is that I can remember to see that I am not alone, but there is a power greater than myself ,who is there with me who will deliver me from my self-pity and remind me how fortunate I was to be loved and have the number of those hours, days, weeks, months and years together. In the story of Paul and Silas, they have the opportunity to escape, but they choose to remain in the jail with the jailer, out of compassion for the jailer who would be executed if any of his prisoners would escape. They do not take advantage of the release, but choose to enter deeply into their imprisonment and new ministry there with the jailer and his family. The question for them is not “Who shall deliver for me.”, but “Where does our faith lead us?” Out of love for the Risen Lord, they are what we would call “prisoners of hope” set free to do ministry in the world in which they live.. In my life, when I walk through the door into the empty room, I also have to ask, “Since I was loved, where does my faith lead me out of my love for her.” This last week, I had to write a reflection about what it is like to have someone who loved and was loved in one’s life. It is the understanding that it is only when you realize the jail you are in; when you understand this is the place where your particular ministry can begin and where you, in spite of yourself, are loved, So, where does your love lead you today?

Making A Home

A Reflection for the 6th Sunday of Easter St. Mary’s Church, Gatesville, NC Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher and Celebrant May 26, 2025 Acts 16:9-15 Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5 John 14:23-29 Psalm 67 Making a Home I am a very lucky man, I get to drive about a hundred miles one way, close to 2 hours, in order to get here on Sunday morning. By Sunday morning, I should have already written the sermon and emailed a copy to St. Mary’s so they can make a copy I can read from. The drive gives me two hours to leave the sermon alone, forgetting the whole concept of perfection, and just have moments of awe about how beautiful this part of this country is. The roads are not too crowded in the early morning, so I can think about how blessed I am. It gives me a chance to keep some friendsin my heart with prayer. While I have to keep my eyes open in that kind of prayer, I don’t crowd out my thoughts with words, but keep thinking of old friends of mine, like one whose wife is dying, being surrounded with graceful peace. He is my age and I met him when I was invited to volunteer at an Addiction Treatment Center as a Chaplain, to help the addicts to go deeper into the Serenity Prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference; just for today” I did the volunteer work there because my older brother had been an addict and he refused to get help. He committed suicide when it got too much for him. His two teenage sons came to live with me and my wife for a time that summer. I realized I needed to help people who were not parishioners, and was given the opportunity to help addicts there at the center. As I prepared for the Sunday sermon, especially, I was swimming in the words from the Gospel Passage from the Book of John’s Gospel, for this Sixth Sunday of Easter: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them.” I am praying that my friend and his wife will find that the Holy ( Father, Son and Holy Spirit) are making a home with them. “Making a Home” There is a difference between being a guest and making a home with someone. I have been a guest in many homes. In a couple of weeks I am going to Colorado to visit my daughter. She is putting on a full court press to get the old man to move to Colorado. She informs me that her husband has already connected with a real estate person who will be taking me around to look at properties. I love my daughter, my grandsons and my son in law. I will be a good guest, but at this point I am not yet ready to make my home with them. My daughter is a wonderful person; she is in her 50’s, but she is still my baby. I will enjoy my time snuggling with them. I will take them out to dinner, and I will pay for my grandsons’ drinks. We will laugh and perhaps cry together. We will share special moments. We will make meals together. We will use the same bathrooms: to the naked eye we will share a property; but it is not yet making a home with them. My home is on the Outer Banks, it is the place where my wife and I lived; until she died two years ago. Every day I walk into that Condo we shared, and while she is not physically there, I relax and tell the empty space the news of what is going on at the places and the people I have visited that day. In the home we shared, I will tell her I miss her and share what is going on with our friends. I was reminded of Carl Sandburg’s poem Home Thoughts THE SEA rocks have a green moss. The pine rocks have red berries. I have memories of you. Speak to me of how you miss me. Tell me the hours go long and slow. Speak to me of the drag on your heart, The iron drag of the long days. I know hours empty as a beggar’s tin cup on a rainy day, empty as a soldier’s sleeve with an arm lost. Speak to me … When I speak honestly to my wife; her spirit is there with me. The same is true of my Lord Jesus. When I speak honestly with my Lord, I indeed know he is with me, making a home when I share my heart. It is not the words we use, but the hearts we open. Prayers are not the words we memorize and recite, but the heart we share. With churches, there is a difference between going to a church and making a church home. One of the problems of the Book of Common Prayer, is that we are tempted to speed read through the service. If we only say the words out loud with our mouth, but don’t engage our souls to share with our Lord and our fellow parishioner, or visitor; we miss the whole point of prayer. As a Priest, I have to empty out my pride and remember that I am only a servant taking part in a mystery beyond my understanding. As a Preacher, I “make with a message” by going deeper than the surface of the words I would read in the scripture lessons and prayers for the day, echoing in my heart, under scoring with God’s Spirit lived out in the lives of my neighbors, parishioners, friends and family. As a Parson, I am called to listen to Parishioners and neighbors who struggle to be faithful to their church, their community, their family, the people in the other pews, and the promises they make and have made throughout their lives. I have been fortunate in that the four and a half decades in the churches I have served as a Priest, when they dared to believe in forgiveness rather than perfection. Thank you for allowing me a chance to come into your heart.

New Commanment: Love One Another

A Reflection for the 5th Sunday of Easter May 18, 2025 St. Luke and St Anne’s, Roper, Grace Plymouth Thomas E Wilson, Guest "New Commandment; Love One Another” Acts 11:1-18 Revelation 21:1-6 John 13:31-35 Psalm 148 From the Gospel of John for today: “'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." I had an older brother when I was growing up. He was a year and four days older than me and athletic and handsome as all get out. As we were growing up, he was always going to be taller than me. We got into a lot of fights with each other; most of which I lost. My mother, who had been an only child growing up, longed to have a brother or sister and could never understand why we were wasting our energies competing against each other. As we grew older, he was held back a year in High School and he and I graduated together. I went to Chapel Hill to college and he went into the Marine Corps. We got into heated discussions over the War in Vietnam, but that Christmas, as we were both on leave, he took me out for my first legal beer the day I turned 18. We had missed each other and we learned how to disagree. Two years later, when our father died, we realized how much we loved each other and life was too short. When he got out of the Corps and I graduated from college, he asked me to be the best man at his wedding. We both had many flaws, and over 20 years later he died. My mother asked me to say a few words at his funeral, and I spoke of how much time we lose letting differences get in the way of love. Life is too short not to love. The lessons for today are about needing to remember to love. Love is not meant to be restricted to people with whom we agree, but to go way beyond approval and about loving the neighbor, even loving the stranger, and even attempting with divine help, to love the enemy. The writer of the Book of Revelation reminds us God does not look down from a far off heaven: "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. In the Book of Acts, Peter is relating about his trying to show how pure he is; so pure that he will not associate with the uncircumcised, meaning Gentiles, or 99% of the Roman Empire. This is the reality in which he lives, choosing rigid conformity instead of open love for neighbor. These are the people who are beyond his compassion. But the new vision of Grace that Peter is given is of a radical expansion of what family means. Our brothers and sisters are those in the much larger human family. In my senior year in High School, sixty one years ago, I was a confirmed member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Upstate New York. I had been confirmed by Bishop Peabody and one day, two months before graduation, we gort news that Mrs Peabody, the Bishop’s wife, was arrested for being with a group of black and white people who were attempting to integrate a restaurant in St. Augustine, Florida, after attempting to integrate the local Episcopal Church whose ushers had refused to admit her and her friends. It was considered scandalous that she acted out of a love that went beyond accepted social, and even legal, boundaries. When I graduated from High School that year and went to college in North Carolina, I stopped going to church, because I had felt that the Episcopal Church had become a clique rather than a church. It was more a fit of pique, a disappointment that the church I loved had let me down. In my second summer, in 1966, I took a job working in an Outdoor Drama in St. Augustine, “The Cross and Sword”. One Sunday morning that summer, I stopped in front of that church and in my bitterness, I refused to go in. The next year in March of 1967 my father died while he and my mother were visiting my mother’s parents in Daytona Beach. After I graduated in 1968, she moved down to Daytona Beach to help take care of her father. She placed my father’s ashes in the Veterans Cemetery in St. Augustine. Every year I visited my mother, I would always stop by St. Augustine, visiting his grave, but it took me almost two decades to stop at that church. It was only after I graduated from Seminary that I had enough faith to forgive. Forgiveness is not given to people and institutions to forgive because the offenders deserve it, but forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves to let go of our hate and pain. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in 1967 in his last book, Where Do We Go From Here, is about hope in the midst of disappointment and bitterness; “These reactions poison the soul and scar the personality, always harming the person who harbors them more than anyone else. The only healthy answer lies in one’s honest recognition of disappointment even as he still clings to hope, one’s acceptance of finite disappointment even while clinging to infinite hope.” We end with the words of the Psalmist for today, where we end up praising God in the middle of the lives which we live: Young men and maidens, *old and young together. Let them praise the Name of the Lord, *for his Name only is exalted, his splendor is over earth and heaven. He has raised up strength for his people and praise for all his loyal servants, * the children of Israel, a people who are near him. Hallelujah!

Jesus Calls Us

A Reflection for 3rd Sunday of Easter St Luke & St. Anne. Roper and Grace, Plymouth May 4, 2025 Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant/Preacher Acts 9:1-20 Revelation 5:11-14 John 21:1-19 Psalm 30 Jesus Calls Us We started off the service with the old Hymn, “Jesus Calls Us”. The words were written by Cecil Frances Alexander, a 19th Century Anglo-Irish writer and poet, and here she calls us to, and the lessons underscore, being called to a deeper relationship with God and the Creation. In the Gospel of John. This Gospel should have ended at the 20th chapter of John, for there is a colophon, a literary formula, an ending which sums everything up. But, there is this chapter added on; a new ending at the end of the ending. I think it was probably added in by an editor of the Gospel who just had to add one more story, a story of Jesus inviting his followers to bring his spirit into their daily life and work. I think it is a nice way of reminding us that the Jesus story does not end, but it continues in our lives. Or, the author's way of saying that the story of Jesus has no ending; as long as two or three are gathered in God’s name the Good News continues. 1. Jesus calls us o'er the tumult of our life's wild, restless sea; day by day his sweet voice soundeth, saying, "Christian, follow me!" In the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus calls Saul, an enemy of the Jesus movement, to totally change his whole perception of his own faith. Saul, famous for being zealous in the persecution of those who followed Jesus; now is called to be Paul, the one who becomes the chief interpreter of the meaning of the Christ. The name Saul means “asked for” as in the name of the First King of Israel, Saul, whom the people called for a King. Saul will change his name to Paul which means humble 2. As of old the apostles heard it by the Galilean lake, turned from home and toil and kindred, leaving all for Jesus' sake. Saul starts off his religious career as being a devoted Pharisee; one who is determined to obey all matters of religious dogma and practice. He sees in the Jesus movement of the Christians a neglecting and disregarding, and even a hi-jacking of the Pharisee spirit by the followers of Jesus. So, in the name of religious purity, he works overtime, using all of his strength and powers to viciously get rid of these heretics. He works so hard that he collapses. In his collapse, a power greater than his religion gives him an invitation to healing. Saul is told to place himself into the hands of Ananias, a follower of Paul’s enemy, Jesus. The healing is a new sight for Saul, a way of seeing all things in a different way; seeing things through the eyes of Jesus. The vision he receives gives Saul a whole new vision of life and it will give hima new name “Paul” which means humble, as he empties himself out for the Gospel. 3. Jesus calls us from the worship of the vain world's golden store, from each idol that would keep us, saying, "Christian, love me more!" Six decades, more than a half of a century ago, my draft board sent me a note to go get a pre-induction physical. The docs did all the things they needed to do and told me that I had a cataract and was functionally blind in one eye. It was news to me, but then I am a male and by definition, do not pay attention to my own body. I pointed out to them that during the Arab Israeli Conflicts, General Moshe Dayan only had one functioning eye. The doc pointed out that the Israeli armed forces had different standards. After different operations over the decades, I see all right, but not perfectly. It is a reminder to me that I need to pay attention, to look deeply and see what is really going on in my life and in my world. As Proverbs remind us: “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” 4. In our joys and in our sorrows, days of toil and hours of ease, still he calls, in cares and pleasures, "Christian, love me more than these!" How much of a change is it when we make a commitment to truly see? Let me give you an idea. You have heard me tell you over and over again, of my religious beliefs; but I have not told you of my political beliefs. I am what is called a “Yellow Dog Democrat”! That is a term that came from the time after Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War. They were men, only men could vote then, who said they would vote for a “Mangy Yeller Dog” before they would ever vote for a Republican.. Where am I on the political scale? I am so far to the left that I consider Bernie Sanders much too conservative. Yet, regardless of my political beliefs, I pray every day for the current President of the United States, with whom I disagree on almost everything. Prayer is not a matter of agreement but of entering into the sacred space between each one and to see each other as brothers and sisters of Christ and children of the living God. 5. Jesus calls us! By thy mercies, Savior, may we hear thy call, give our hearts to thine obedience, serve and love thee best of all.

Hope or Belief?

A Reflection for the the 2nd Sunday of Easter Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher St Mary’s Episcopal Church, Gatesville, NC April 27, 2025 Acts 5:27-32 Revelation 1:4-8 John 20:19-31 Psalm 150 Hope or Belief? Today’s Gospel lesson is the one that is the reason for the phrase “Doubting Thomas”. It is when I wonder what was in my father’s mind when I was born and as he was filling out the forms in the hospital in St. Louis gave me the name “Thomas”. The story he used to tell was that as my mother was in labor, he took a break from the waiting room and went next door to a bar where the man sitting at the stool next to him was named “Thomas”. My father liked telling stories; believing that stories should be mainly enjoyable, the bigger and taller the better, and where truth was a negotiable factor. Shakespeare must have had my father in mind when he has Hamlet say: “There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” I grew to get used to the idea of being a “doubting Thomas” and I grew to expect to ask questions and use my brain to doubt. I understand the difficulty that Thomas had, when the other disciples told him that they had seen Jesus, the dead Jesus, alive as he could be. Doubt was a good fall back to have. I found it helpful when I made a living being a counselor who understood when people felt the need to shade an elastic truth. It was helpful when I taught in a College as students had so many reasons for papers being late, with so many parents being ill or dying. When I became a Priest, I got used to hearing stories from parishioners, and indeed other clergy, which omitted certain details that they did not want to be a cause of my Priestly dissaproval. C.G Jung, the 20th Century Swiss Psychiatrist, had the concept of “Persona”, which is a mask that we humans begin developing about the time we start interacting with the world outside our home, like going to school. We develop and wear our persona as we interact with, or hide behind from, other people in our daily life. In order to really know someone, we have to get past their persona. When I met a person called Pat the month after I was ordained in 1984, I focused on her “persona”. I figured I knew everything about her the first time I attended a meeting she was running. I walked away from that crowded meeting figuring she was a waste of space and my time. Luckily, I had to attend a lot more meetings with her, and five years later we got married for 34 years of the happiest times of my life. The longer I worked as a Priest, the less important it was to be judgmental of a person who might be shading the facts of his or her life, and the more important it was to focus on the hope in each person. It is what St. Francis called, and the late Pope Francis, who died this last week. echoed in his life, is “Listening with the ear of the heart.” I am reminded of the old television show I saw in my youth, “Dragnet”. There was a character called Joe Friday, who is pure “persona”, who wanted “just the facts!” You can hear the “Persona” in his voice and see it in his face. What a sensible way to look at crime and misdemeanors. Just the facts! The story in the Gospel is the story of “Doubting Thomas” who is pure persona. Thomas is a man who looks and wants to get just the facts. He wanted the facts of Jesus’s body being dead, the nail riddled hands, the gaping wounded seared side. However, he discovers there was a deeper reality than the facts. In the 150th Psalm for today, the Psalmist says that when we enter the Presence of the Holy, we are encouraged to enter with Thanksgiving and praise. So how did each of you enter the church for today's service? Was it a look at how well the church was all fixed up, or not fixed up, to meet your standards? Did you come to the sanctuary to give or withhold your approval based on your exacting standards? Or did you come to listen with the ear of God’s heart, and see with the divine vision? When I was in Seminary, we would have daily morning prayer and a weekly Holy Eucharist and each of us would have times of Chapel duty getting everything ready for the service. Oh, how important it was to get everything right. After all, when we finally graduated and got ordained, it would be important that we would make sure the Altar Guilds in the Parishes, we might be called to after we graduated, would get it right. Getting it right! That is one of the issues in the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles. The local authorities want to have a well run community and urge the disciples not to stir up emotions. The Disciples, on the other hand, want hearts to be moved, hopes to be raised and faith to be deepened. In the same way, we ask ourselves why we do services? Are we here to make sure our religious duties are done, or are we here to give ourselves, to give prayer for our neighbors in our world and to forgive others. Hope or Belief ? First seeing her was a stab of belief, thinking; it’s all I needed to know, not allowing for any hope to grow; but it did; sneaking in like a thief. It was mixtures of some new laughter with tears as she read some of my pain, then deciding to pray for a help again, in an here and now; not the hereafter. She, of course, wanted to be perfect, but Savior’s job was beyond taking, so she had to settle in the making, stabs, showing love more respect. Trusting each other’s vision scope; years of believing in blessed hope.

Starting All Over Again

A Reflection for Easter Sunday Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher April 20, 2025 St. Luke/ St Anne, Roper, & Grace, Plymouth, NC Starting All Over Again Isaiah 65:17-25 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 Acts 10:34-43 John 20:1-18 The day after I graduated from college, I got married to my then girlfriend. I was not a success as a husband. When my daughter went off to college, my wife and I got a divorce. In 1989 I got married to Pat. She also had been married before. Both of us, who had failed in marriage, both of us were damaged goods: yet we decided that we would take a chance and start all over again in being married people. The odds were against us, but both of us learned from our mistakes and entered into the best 34 years of our lives. She died a couple years ago, and I am still in mourning. Part of the reason I keep showing up here is that there is an empty part of me and I need to fill up my time. Sharing the good news of God is one of the ways I can spend energy. I have not allowed myself to even think about any romance and starting over with that part of my life. However, one of the real problems with being a Preacher is that you have to be faithful to the lessons from which the spoken message of a Sermon is to take place. The Message I hear in these lessons is about urging people to start all over again. In the Hebrew Testament lesson for today, the prophet Issiah is dictating words of welcome to the people coming back from Exile. He is saying that while the exile was a result of the arrogance the people practiced, a new day is coming when the relationship between God and God’s people will be renewed. Issiah says he heard God give the promise to start all over again, God’s very self, will change to make it better for God’s people and the impossible will happen. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent-- its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord. So, option number one is to pick up the pieces and with God’s help, start all over again The Psalm for today gives the message that the past is shattered but we are free to build a whole new foundation. Go back to before the beginning, and start all over again. 22 The same stone which the builders rejected * has become the chief cornerstone. 23 This is the Lord's doing, * and it is marvelous in our eyes. 24 On this day the Lord has acted; * we will rejoice and be glad in it. So, option number two is to take the wreckage of the past and paste as much as you can together to create a new place in this world.With God’s help we are able to start all over again. In the Acts lesson, Peter says “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.” He is telling the people that the Death and Resurrection of Jesus means that we can start over with God; sins are forgiven. There is no need to hold on to the past; the death and resurrection of Jesus means that the past is dead and the present calls us to live deeply in faith in a new way of living. So, option number three; it is not a matter of starting over on the same old path, but to start with that new pattern of living in this world. In the Gospel lesson from John we get the story that Mary comes to the tomb to anoint the dead body of Jesue. Except the stone has been rolled away and it looks as if the body has been stolen, Except it isn’t a plundering job. There is a clue: the face cloth that was placed on Jesus' face is still in the cave. If it was left by a grave robber, it would have been tossed on the floor of the cave. But the face cloth had been rolled up and set reverently to one side. It was not discarded, but it was given reverence. It is a sign that the body was not stolen, but the body has been changed. Jesus does not return to the old life but rather, he shows us a new dimension of what life is all about. So option four is we, like Jesus, are to die to the old life we are used to living, and be raised to a new life that connects to mysteries whose dimensions are those that are beyond our imagination. Four ways of starting over again in life. The more we read in scripture the more we are exposed to hope. If we did a full Bible study, we could find even more ways to start over. The problem for me is that I don’t want to stop mourning, I want to still hold on to the past, because I do not want to leave her behind. I still find meaning in the fact that I was loved, way beyond reason. I know my shortcomings only too well and yet she loved me. When I was a child I learned the song; “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me . Yes, Jesus loves you. The Bible tells me so.” I have to keep remembering that truth. Just a suggestion, but you might want to sing that song quietly to yourself before you go to bed at night, or when you are brushing your teeth in the morning. I am 78 years old, and have not grown out of needing to sing that song. It is a way of starting over again. If we sing the song to ourselves at night; we can start to expect dreams that tell us how we are loved by God. If we sing it to ourselves in the morning; we set ourselves up to share an act, or disposition, of love with our neighbors. We have more love showered upon us than we know what to do with. That is where I am right now; instead of feeling so empty because the object of my love is gone from my sight; I am aware I was loved beyond my imagination and beyond my ability to earn it. It was grace. In thanksgiving for all of that love given to me; it is only right that now I am free to do acts of love in return for what I have been given. Starting All Over Again There are times we want to just swallow, and feel all sorts of sorry for ourselves, fitting all our feelings in bookshelves, so that in our memories, we can wallow.. But we are not made to live in a past, wanting to cling to with all our heart, not allowing a present to take its part, so that we might have futures to last. The futures with dreams which spawn hopes; this’ll be the day it all begins, this’ll be an hour, when prayer wins, as we’re to live into a brighter dawn. The past is where the gift was given; but today’s when the hurt’s forgiven.