Sunday Homily, May 10, 2015, 6th Easter, B
Readings:
Acts 10, 25-26, 34-35, 44-48, God shows no partiality.
Psalm 98, The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
1 John 4, 7-10, Let us love one another.
John 15, 9-17, As the Father has loved me, so I love you. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy be complete.
1 John and John 15, perfect, fitting readings for Mother's Day
Acts: Another review–
Author: Luke, who wrote both the Gospel and Acts
Date: ca. 40-50 years after the death of Jesus
Our selection: This same selection was read on Easter Sunday. What is happening is this. Last Sunday we began the second half of Acts, from chapter 9 to the end. Last week's reading had to do with Paul returning to the community in Jerusalem after he had his conversion experience on the road to Damascus.
This week we get into chapter 10 which focuses on two characters: Peter and a Gentile (non-Jew) captain in the Roman army named Cornelius. Cornelius was supposed to be a good man and he has a voice call him, "Cornelius." "What is it, sir?" he answers. The voice tells him to go a town called Joppa and talk with a man named Peter. Cornelius sends two servants.
Meanwhile in Joppa Peter has that vision we talked about Easter Sunday: a sheet coming down from the sky with a multitude of animals. Many of the animals are considered ritually impure by Jews. Peter is told by a voice to eat from these animals, but Peter refuses. While this is going on the two servants arrive and the voice tells Peter to go with them. Peter arrives at Captain Cornelius' house and that is where we take up the story.
Luke is interested here not so much in history as in convincing his readers that the Gentiles as well as Jews are included in the new religion.
Source: Good News Bible
Psalms:
Dates:Put together at ca. 300 years BCE.
Author(s): The old belief that David composed all 150 Psalms is just myth. The reality: many people and groups of people composed the psalms over centuries.
Purpose: songs of gratitude, sorrow, pain, and longing to be sung by the Jewish people, especially in the temple and later in the synagogue. Special songs were composed for feast days like passover and the feast of lights, to name just two.
Source:Bishop (Episcopal) John Shelby Spong, Origins of the Bible XXV, published 5-2-09 in Mirabile Dictu
A Mother’s Day Story
I would like to tell you a Mother’s Day story this morning. This is a “hope you don’t have a kid like this” story. And if you do, maybe it will give you a little hope.
I admit that I have told this story at least once during the 15 or so years I was working at St. Mark’s. I don’t think I have told the story here. If you have already heard it, visit the coffee shop in the back with the kids.
The story took place many years ago. It was a chilly, damp, gray day in probably November. It was a Saturday. Myself and maybe 5-6 of my buddies from Christ the King grade school took the city buses downtown to watch a movie. At most we were 7th grade, 11 or 12 years old.
There used to be 3-4 theaters downtown, the Majestic, the Palace, and others. There was a bus line down Preston Road near my house in University Park and another on Airline, coming along the SMU campus, west side, the Hillcrest side. We used both bus lines because some of the guys lived further east in University Park.
So we go to the movie. We come out, and somewhere, probably at a dime store (remember those?), we buy water pistols. Then we race around town and run in and out of the department stores, like Neiman’s, having water pistol fights.
Finally, about 4:30, we get on our buses, some on the Airline bus, myself and another guy on the Preston bus.
We get off at my corner, Stanford St., and walk the 2 blocks to my house. In my back yard I had built a fort some years earlier. It was on the west side of our house against the west side picket fence. The fence was against a hedge about 7 feet tall, which ran along the driveway to the garage of our neighbors’ house, Mr. & Mrs. Barnes.
My friend & I went in the fort and hung out. At one point Mr. & Mrs. Barnes walked along their driveway and got into their car in the garage. My friend & I climbed onto the roof of the fort.
Mr. & Mrs. Barnes started backing their car, a white Cadillac, out the driveway. She was dressed formally and he was in a tux, if I remember correctly. Mr. Barnes’ head was slightly out the window of his car, looking back.
You guessed it, folks. As they passed by us, we leaned over and let loose with our water pistols.
Suddenly I knew I was in deep doo doo. Mr. Barnes backed past the hedge, stopped, got out, and walked over to our front door. We ran around the opposite side of our house, went across the street, and hid in the bushes. At that point, my buddy took off.
After Mr. Barnes finished talking with my mom, he left, and I was ready to go back downtown and move into The Bridge, claiming I was homeless. Trouble was, The Bridge had not yet been built. I had to go home, which I finally did.
My mom? She was so mad! Actually, I think she spanked me with her hair brush. It was probably a useless gesture, because I was a little big for it to do much harm. Either way, I felt like a really bad kid. During the next 6 years I was quite capable of equally dumb acts. And you wonder why I thought I better get in the Jesuits 6 years later or I was going to hell?
Shonda, Bethany, Beth, Michelle, Mary, Erin Pack, Erin McClurg, & Cathy and all you moms and grandmoms with young kids, I pray that you don’t have the same challenges my mom had. Happy Mother’s Day.