Sunday Homily 5-17-09, 6th Easter
Readings: Acts 10 25-48; Psalm 98, The Lord has revealed to the Nations his Saving Power; 1 John 4, 7-10; John 15, 9-17
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
Requem for a Water Trailer: That Your Joy May be Complete
Friday morning I handed it over, Folks. You remember the big red water tank I used to fill up at the back door here ever since we started coming here? Friday I donated it to the Texas Tree Foundation, the group where I used to buy our trees wholesale.
A number of events were taking place that made me aware it may be time for me to move on to another hobby. PISD & RISD have both said they don't want any more trees because they get in the way of their big lawn mowers and it busts their budgets. My truck is smoking badly. And heading into 70 years I am aware I cannot lift and dig like I used to.
I admit I experienced a sadness when I went to Jean Atwood's house Thursday night to pick up the trailer, Jean who has been so generous to store the trailer in her driveway for the last 4 years, ever since I departed Jesuit & we planted Plano Senior. And likewise, Friday morning when I drove it over to the the tree farm. I have spent hours working with that trailer and have kept alive thousands of little trees through terrific Dallas droughts.
More than the sadness, though, I sense a joy probably like what is mentioned in John's Gospel, one of my favorite line in Scripture.
I certainly was consoled when I delivered the trailer to the team at the TX Trees Foundation near TI. They need the trailer to water trees in a downtown Dallas urban forest park this summer.
I, likewise, am delighted when I ride streets in north Dallas shaded with our trees. I pass islands, say, on the east side of Love Field, along Lemon Avenue, and I can see in my mind Kovatis and Leals planting the islands or Rose Banzhaf shoveling mulch into containers behind Hillcrest High. I can see Kim Quirk & her family planting trees in a park at Lovers Lane & Lemon.
I got some amusing memories which give me joy. Plano Senior, 5:30 A.M., Sean Schleicher watering from the back of the truck in the dark, I'm driving. I get us stuck in the mud of a shallow irrigation ditch just north of the baseball diamond which had over watered its field and the water had drained into the ditch.
Remember the beautiful day we planted 400 trees in 1 hour at Plano Senior? We were scheduled to start about 12:00. Ten minutes before 12:00 I'm in that big south east parking lot getting things ready. Kovatis comes by and yells, "Where is everybody? We got a lot of work to do!" I look up 30 minutes later and people are everywhere. 30 more minutes and people are coming up asking where are more trees to plant. Everything was planted and the picnic we planned for 3:00 began ca. 1:00.
Remember the chili picnics prepared by my buddy Lamberty at Jesuit? Remember way back when we took two Sundays to plant Marsh Lane from LBJ to Northwest Hwy and Frank Hart, my old coach from Christ the King, invited the whole planting party to his restaurant?
These memories give me great joy as do my trips around the streets, parks, and school campuses we have planted. How many? Who knows? Take 20 years and conservatively say we averaged 200 trees a year. That would be a minimum. And most of them are all out there.
This is the joy I think John is talking about in his Gospel. We got it.
What next?
AUDIO: http://mysite.verizon.net/reso7rjy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2009-05-17.mp3
Picture 1: Mass with Kevin & Noah
Picture 2: Richardson Women's Club Gazebo Wedding of
Picture 3: Dorothy & Jim butterly
Picture 4: The red water trailer custom built by Al Tenbusch