After the resurrection, after the sighting of the Risen Christ, afteascention of Jesus, the surviving disciples didn’t seem to know what to do. The Book of Acts tells us that the eleven (12 minus Judas) came down from the Mount of Olives and met in that upper room again, devoting themselves to prayer. All eleven disciples are named “together with certain women, (unnamed) including Mary, the mother of Jesus.” Peter takes the lead and affirms that they have to choose a twelfth member to replace Judas. It occurs to no one, of course to nominate any of the women. So they cast lots and Matthias is elected. The ragged band of followers now numbers 120 souls.

It has been 50 days since the Passover, and the Jewish Festival of Weeks, the ancient harvest festival is upon them. The Greek word for this feast is which also commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, is Pentecost.

Suddenly, in that upper room, something thunderous, otherworldly and elemental began to rush around them. It seemed to be the same Spirit of God, the same Ruach Elohim that moved over the waters in creation. And it created them into something else. They found themselves on fire with it, burning with it, and transformed by it.

And then, in a strange reversal of the story of the Tower of Babel, where language confuses and isolates, the disciples can suddenly speak every language of every pilgrim in Jerusalem. Remember they are inside, and upstairs, so they must have been even louder than that rushing wind, as people on the street can easily hear them and even understand exactly what they are saying. They were so loud and so spirit-filled that people naturally thought they were drunk.

Brushing off their ignorance, and, filled with the Spirit himself, Peter “stands up with the eleven” (I guess Matthias was still too green) and unleashes his beautiful sermon. He begins with the words of the prophet Joel, which leaves no uncertainty that the gift of prophecy is one that is given to all people.

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.

Because of certain events of late, I have been thinking about another band of eleven disciples, who were as surely lit up by the Holy Spirit, as surely moved by the force of the Ruach Elohim as the twelve in the Pentecost story.

In 1974, eleven deacons, filled with the Holy Spirit, were given the courage to go to the Philadelphia Church of the Advocate, another name for the Holy Spirit, and get ordained.  The ordaining bishops knew that these were “irregular ordinations,” but these bishops and the women they ordained were so surrounded and enveloped by the Holy Spirit, that they could not hear the loud complaints over the rushing of that Pentecostal wind.

As in a wedding ceremony, the presider was required to ask: “If there be any of you who knoweth any impediment, or notable crime ” in any of the women to be ordained priest, “let him come forth in the name of God and show what the crime or impediment is. “

Obligingly, Rev. Canon Charles H. Osborn stood and said, “The proceedings here enacted are unlawful and schismatical constituting a grave injury to the peace of Christ’s Church.”

The Rev. R. Dewitt Mallory, New York City, begged the assembly “not to shatter the unity and peace of our Church, ” but rather, “to obey the will of the Church.”

The Rev. George W. Rutler, of Pennsylvania, said, “You do not gain 11 priests today, but you lose four bishops… God here now as father and judge … sees you trying to make stones into bread. You can only offer up the smell and sound and sight of perversion. “

The flabbergasted clergy at the ordination were as amazed and perplexed as the crowd in the Pentecost story. They needed a preacher like Peter, and they got one.

The Spirit moved Charles Willie, the preacher at the event, to say that he participated in the service not because he wanted to speak out but because he could not remain silent.

“It was an unjust law of the state,” he said, “that demeaned the personhood of blacks by requiring them to move to the back of the bus, and it is an unjust law of the church which demeans women by denying them the opportunity to be priests.”

Bishop Ramos, of Costa Rica then said, “This ordination event stands as a prophetic witness on behalf of and for the oppressed. It is an act of disobedience, done to abolish a system of canon law … which can no longer stand the judgment of the liberating Christ.”

There was one among the eleven who continued to prophesy all her life. Katrina Wells Swanson, who was ordained by her father, Bishop Wells, never stopped fighting for justice for oppressed peoples. She worked faithfully for seventeen years as an inner-city priest, celebrating a bi-lingual Eucharist, and founding a school for inner-city children that grew to be one hundred strong.       She died of cancer in 2006, but before she did, she had visions and she dreamed dreams.

The Equal Rights Amendment went down in flames while Katrina was still alive, and she realized it would be a long and harrowing struggle to pass it. I read that it was during the devastation of the hurricane that bore her name that Katrina peacefully passed away. At that very moment, her namesake hurricane, another violent rush of wind, revealed how brutally the poor and oppressed are treated in this country.

These events have special significance to us here at Good Shepherd because within our own flock is another pioneer woman priest who endured protest at her ordination, not so very long after that of the Philadelphia 11. And also within our flock is the daughter-in-law of Katrina Wells Swanson, who fights on, tirelessly, for Katrina’s Dream.

We here at Good Shepherd Church have the poor and oppressed right under our noses. What languages do we need to speak, what wind of the Spirit is rushing around us that we need to take note of?

When I walked the neighborhood to let people know about our progress with the church, I heard many languages. I saw Yolanda coming out of her house, 3 doors from our church, with her 3-year-old granddaughter. I know them both because they always come to our free Friday lunches. She was sweet and chatty, and I could follow her swift Spanish enough to understand that she was begging me to hire her to clean my house. I guess she would have brought her little girl with her. I heard and I understood the language of poverty.

At the next house I saw a business-like man darting into his front door. “Do you live here?” I said. “I don’t know what you are selling, but I am not buying it.” He said.

“I’m not selling anything, I just want to let people know about the progress of the rebuilding of the church.”

“We don’t go to church and we don’t care about that.” He said. “But it’s part of your neighborhood, its right on your block,” I said, handing him a flyer. He took it from me with an exasperated sigh and said he would show it to his partner.” I heard and I understood the language of indifference.

At the next house I was warmly greeted by our Buddhist neighbor, Barbara. She was very interested in the rebuilding of the church, and her eyes lit up suddenly- “I have something for you!” she said. She went and got a journal that she published, in which she had written an article about the fire. I learned, upon reading it that her husband had climbed up to the roof of their house and trained their water hose on our parish hall roof. He did that even as they were scrambling to gather possessions and evacuate in case the fire consumed their house as well. I heard and I understood the language of lovingkindness.

On Feb 4th we had a shooting one block from the church, and until recently there was a small shrine to the neighbor who died there. As I walked by I felt the shock of that day, and I felt in my bones the language of violence.

Finally I went back to my office in the parish hall and began to put away the flyers. Someone called from the door and I went out to see who it was. It was a disheveled man of about 50, gently asking if there was a hot lunch that day. “I’m so sorry, that was yesterday.” I’ll see what we might still have.”

I rummaged in our supplies and got him a box of granola bars that he ate so quickly it made my head spin. His gratitude was endless. I saw and I understood the language of homelessness and the language of hunger.

Listening to all these varied, confusing and daunting languages, we might be tempted to say, as Phillip did in our Gospel reading, “Just show us God and we will be satisfied.” We want to know- “Where is God in all of this?”

But instead, Jesus gives his peace to us, and bids our hearts to be untroubled. He promises to send, to those troubled hearts, the voice of the Holy Spirit, that we might hear and that we might understand. The Spirit will teach us everything, he promises, and will remind us of all that Jesus said to us.

SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2013:

Starting today, we will offer healing prayers and anointing for those who request it after communion.  After everyone has received communion, those desiring prayer and/or anointing may stay at the altar while a Communion hymn is sung and people return to their seats.

Pentecost picnic today!  After our service we will join the congregations of St. Alban’s Albany, All Soul’s Berkeley and St. Mark’s Berkeley for an Area Ministry Pentecost Picnic.  Plans are for the picnic to be held at Coordonices Park from Noon-4:00 p.m.  Look for the red balloons!

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Noonday prayer every Thursday, please join us in the parish hall for Noonday Prayer using the New Zealand Prayer Book (NZPB), followed by healing prayer and meditation.

Bread Sunday – June 9, 2013:  On Sunday, June 9, we will take a moment to consider how we as a faith community can alleviate hunger in our community and throughout the world by right action and drawing our legislators’ attention to what needs to be done to feed our brothers and sisters in an offering of letters.  Materials and resources for letter writing, taking action, will be available after the service and you may write a letter to our legislators during coffee hour.

Road trip!  Road trip!  Time for a camping trip!  Join us for our second annual FABULOUS Big Sur Camping trip! August 16-18 at the private camping ground of All Saints Carmel, RIGHT on the river! $10.00 per night, scholarships available, gorgeous nearby hikes and free horseback riding for youth! Please sign up on the bulletin board sign-up sheet.

We are delighted to be working with The Bay Architects and Plath & Company General Contractors on the rebuilding and restoration project.  The Bay Architects is a Berkeley architectural firm established in 1980 by James Novosel to serve residential, commercial and institutional clients in the East Bay.  Plath & Company General Contractors, based in San Rafael, has been dedicated to the art of fine residential and commercial construction and renovation in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1976.

The City of Berkeley has agreed to let us divide the rebuilding and restoration project began into three phases:  first, fire damage mitigation/demolition, second, restoration of the sanctuary, and third, rebuilding of the sacristy on the north side of the church.   We expect that dividing the project into three phases will greatly shorten the rebuilding and restoration process.

The first phase of the project, fire damage mitigation/demolition, began on April 22, 2013 and is expected to take six weeks.  The sacristy, where the fire started, will be completely demolished, and the interior of the sanctuary, which was badly damaged by fire, smoke and water, will be stripped.  The stained glass windows will be removed for repair, where possible, or recreation, where necessary.

The Bay Architects are preparing to file a sanctuary repair building permit  application with the City of Berkeley in late May.  We hope that the work of repairing and restoring the sanctuary can begin in mid-summer.

The Bay Architects are also working on redesigning the sacristy to comply with building code mandates and to improve its appearance and functionality. The architect plans to file an application for a sacristy structural alteration permit with the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission in early May.  We anticipate a public hearing on the sacristy design around mid-summer.

We are continuing to fund raise for things that we believe are necessary or highly desirable but that are not covered by insurance.  Chief among them is a fire sprinkler system for the church and sacristy.  We will hold our first major fire restoration fund raising event on June 23.  Tickets are for sale on the homepage of this site, and keep an eye out for more detail!

Thank you for your continued patience, support and prayers.

To those who nurture, attend, heal, listen, comfort and share our joys and woes, our triumphs and disappointments, who encourage us, pray with and for us, Happy Mother’s Day.

Name tags!  We now have name tags for all.  Please see the Greeter to make yours if you haven’t already – and be creative!  Make it your own!

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Noonday Prayer every Thursday, please join us in the parish hall for Noonday Prayer using the New Zealand Prayer Book (NZPB), followed by healing prayer and meditation.

Starting on Pentecost, we will offer healing prayers and anointing for those who request it after communion.  After everyone has received communion, those desiring prayer and/or anointing may stay at the altar while a Communion hymn is sung and people return to their seats.

Pentecost picnic on Sunday, May 19, 2013.  Save the date and wear red!  After our service on Pentecost Sunday, we will join the congregations of St. Alban’s Albany, All Soul’s Berkeley and St. Mark’s Berkeley for an Area Ministry Pentecost Picnic.  Plans are for the picnic to be held at Coordinices Park fromNoon-4:00 p.m.  More details to follow.  We need a ‘point person’ to help coordinate with our sister parishes.  If you would like to help organize this event, please see Este or Ellen.

Bread Sunday– June 9, 2013:  On Sunday, June 9, we will take a moment to consider how we as a faith community can alleviate hunger in our community and throughout the world by right action and drawing our legislators’ attention to what needs to be done to feed our brothers and sisters in an offering of letters. Materials and resources for letter writing, taking action, will be available after the service on June 9.

Road trip!  Road trip!  Time for a camping trip!  Join us for our second annual FABULOUS Big Sur Camping trip! August 16-18 at the private camping ground of All Saints Carmel, RIGHT on the river! $10.00 per night, scholarships available, gorgeous nearby hikes and free horseback riding for youth! Please sign up on the bulletin board sign-up sheet.

SUNDAY, MAY 5, 2013:

Thanks to everyone who contributed to and attended the Newcomers’ Tea last weekend. 

Name tags!  We now have name tags for all.  Please see the Greeter to make yours.

Lectio Divina today after the service in the Sisson Salon.  All are welcome!

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Noonday prayer every Thursday, please join us in the parish hall for Noonday Prayer using the New Zealand Prayer Book (NZPB), followed by healing prayer and meditation.

Special Ascension Day evening service at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, May 9, 2013, with The Rt. Rev. Trasip Kamble, Bishop of Nasik, India   New Good Shepherd parishioner Helene Swanson has brought Anglican Bishop Kamble here to preach across the country and we are happy to have him at Good Shepherd and to invite our large local Indian population. Please join us!

Starting on Pentecost, we will offer healing prayers and anointing for those who request it after communion.  After everyone has received communion, those desiring prayer and/or anointing may stay at the altar while the Communion hymn is sung and people return to their seats.

Pentecost Picnic on Sunday, May 19, 2013.  Save the date and wear red!  After our service on Pentecost Sunday, we will join the congregations of St. Alban’s Albany, All Soul’s Berkeley and St. Mark’s Berkeley for an Area Ministry Pentecost Picnic.  Plans are for the picnic to be held at Cordonices Park from Noon-4:00 p.m.  More details to follow.  We need a ‘point person’ to help coordinate with our sister parishes.  If you would like to help organize this event, please see Este or Ellen.

Bread Sunday – June 9, 2013:  On Sunday, June 9, we will take a moment to consider how we as a faith community can alleviate hunger in our community and throughout the world by right action and drawing our legislators’ attention to what needs to be done to feed our brothers and sisters in an offering of letters. Materials and resources for letter writing, taking action, will be available after the service on June 9.

Road trip!  Road trip!  Time  for a camping trip!  Join us for our second annual FABULOUS Big Sur Camping trip! August 16-18 at the private camping ground of All Saints Carmel, RIGHT on the river, with gorgeous nearby hikes and free horseback riding for youth! Please sign up on the bulletin board sign-up sheet.  The cost is $10.00 per person per night and scholarships are available.

At the very beginning of our Gospel story, Judas has just left the upper room, where the last supper took place. But before he goes out, Jesus washes the feet of Judas, along with all the others, in the gesture he has chosen to show unconditional love for one’s friends. And then he gives him the dipped morsel of bread in what seems to be a Eucharistic blessing, even though he is quite aware of Judas’ coming treachery. So it seems to me that Jesus is not only modeling how to truly love one another, he is modeling love beyond, and in spite of betrayal. This love might just be the glorification of God that Jesus speaks of.

Jesus’ stated message in this passage, the commandment to love one another, would not have been entirely new to the disciples. In Leviticus, a scripture they would have known well, God commands that you must not

…have hate in your heart for anyone of your own kin, you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

And pulling rank a little bit, God adds, “I am the Lord.”

But it can, of course, be very hard to love one another. It is even hard to love one’s own family sometimes. It might even be easier to love ones’ enemies, than to love one’s family, since one does not typically share a bathroom with one’s enemies. But loving someone with whom you have been intimate who then betrays you surely is a whole new dimension in the capacity for human love. A spouse or a lover who betrays you, a sibling who grabs for an inheritance, a mother or father who deserts you. This is rough ground for love.

Just to give you some context, our gospel reading comes at the beginning of the astonishingly long-winded last supper discourse by Jesus, only seen in the Gospel of John. It begins with the washing of the disciples’ feet by Jesus, and a misunderstanding by Peter- he feels it would be an outrageous insult to let Jesus wash his feet- he feels it would be like treating him like a slave. He finally seems to get the idea Jesus is putting forth, and then towards the middle of this long discourse, there is another misunderstanding by Peter. He can’t understand just where Jesus is going, and why he can’t go with. He insists that he will always follow Jesus, that he will lay down his life for him. Jesus then has to tell him the bad news that Peter will deny him three times before the cock crows. Finally, at the end of the last supper discourse, Jesus tells the disciples that they will all scatter, and leave him alone.

So it is not only to be Judas who will betray him, it is all of them, the whole of his community.

We have a betrayer in our midst, youthful, damaged and utterly alone. It is undoubtedly a stretch to love this alienated child of the family of God. He has been destructive beyond the powers of the imagination. He has betrayed us- he was one of us- brought up in this country, educated in our schools. In fact when I first saw his picture, I realized that he looked very much like one of my daughter’s high school friends. He is 19 years old. When I see that picture I become very aware that my own daughter is 19 years old as well.

When I heard that our young betrayer was Muslim my heart sank. Inevitably there will be a resurgence of anti-Muslim feeling. Inevitably we will have a greater challenge in our efforts to love one another. Inevitably there will be those innocent Muslims who will suffer hatred from their neighbors because of their clothing, their skin color, their habits, their faith.

In our reading from Acts, Peter is visited by dreams, visions, angels, and God herself. His Jewish comrades berate him for following the instructions he received from these holy visitors, by welcoming those with different habits and taboos. Peter describes his dream, and how the Spirit told him to “make no distinction between them and us.” To transcend the cultural gulf between them of diet and dress and custom. Because, as Peter says, “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”

Peter, who always misunderstands, who always jumps the wrong way and says the wrong thing, has it right at last. There should be no distinction between them and us. Even when the “them and us” is really just us.

Jesus, it seems is a really tough taskmaster. Is there no one we are allowed to hate? The only time he seems to advocate hate is almost certainly rabbinical hyperbole:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters–yes, even their own life–such a person cannot be my disciple.

Jesus did seem to have issues with his own family, but I think his point was probably that one would have to be willing to sacrifice everything to follow him. This is not an entirely popular notion then or now.  In fact, this kind of devotion may seem impossible, but, as we have read in the bible, with God, nothing is impossible.

We saw such self-sacrificing love very recently. At the Boston marathon bombing, it was reported that after the initial shock people ran towards, not away from the scene of the explosion. I read that “People knelt on the pavement and used belts or scraps of clothing as tourniquets to prevent people from bleeding to death. A pediatric resident who had almost finished the race, jumped over the barricades and evaded the police to tend to victims.” Thousands of people opened their homes to strangers- to anyone who had been lost or stranded. There was great beauty following the horror of that explosion.

These people found the courage, during that horrendous time, to rush into a place of danger, to risk trusting a stranger in their homes, to go beyond exhaustion to help someone in desperate need. They found themselves, even at great risk, able to love one another.

There is a 9/11 or a Boston bombing in someone’s life everyday. Everyday someone loses a daughter, gets a horrific diagnosis, loses hope, or considers ending it all. Jesus’ impossible plea is to love one another through the worst of times. And to remember that however damaged, or betraying the recipient of that love might be, they are nothing less than an image of the wounded Christ himself.

Amen

Newcomer’s tea this afternoon: All are invited to the Newcomer’s Tea after the service.  We would absolutely love donations of potluck, tea-like goodies, such as cucumber sandwiches, cookies, scones for this fellowship.  Please come and get to know us better if you are new, and please come so the new comers can get to know you if you are a long-timer!

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Noonday prayer every Wednesday, please join us in the parish hall for Noonday Prayer using the New Zealand Prayer Book (NZPB), followed by healing prayer and meditation.

Starting on Pentecost, we will offer healing prayers and anointing for those who request it after communion.  After everyone has received communion, those desiring prayer and/or anointing may stay at the altar.

Pentecost picnic on Sunday, May 19, 2013.  Save the date and wear red!  After our service on Pentecost Sunday, we will join the congregations of St. Alban’s Albany, All Soul’s Berkeley and St. Mark’s Berkeley for an Area Ministry Pentecost Picnic.  Plans are for the picnic to be held at Cordinices Park from Noon-4:00 p.m.  More details to follow.  We need a ‘point person’ to help coordinate with our sister parishes.  If you would like to help organize this event, please see Este or Ellen.

Bread Sunday – June 9, 2013:  On Sunday, June 9, we will take a moment to consider how we as a faith community can alleviate hunger in our community and throughout the world by right action and drawing our legislators’ attention to what needs to be done to feed our brothers and sisters in an offering of letters. Materials and resources for letter writing, taking action, will be available after the service on June 9.

Save the Date!! Help Good Shepherd Church rise from the ashes by attending our SUMMER PHOENIX FEST Fundraiser! Sunday June 23, 4-6:00 at the gorgeous Julia Morgan Mansion of the Very Rev. Don and Carol Anne Brown. Listen to the lovely Spohr Octet, featuring Good Shepherd’s own Paula White on violin, performed in the music room. Sip wine, munch hors d’oeuvres and mingle with great company! At 2821 Claremont Boulevard (RIGHT near St. Clement’s) Berkeley!

Road trip!  Road trip!  Time for a camping trip!  Join us for our second annual FABULOUS Big Sur Camping trip! August 16-18 at the private camping ground of All Saints Carmel, RIGHT on the river! $10.00 per night, scholarships available, gorgeous nearby hikes and free horseback riding for youth! Please sign up on the bulletin board sign-up sheet.

Today we welcome the Chaplain for AEMCH (An Episcopal Ministry to Convalescent Hospitals), The Rev. Nancy Eswein, who will be with us as our preacher and deacon on this Sunday.

A note from Jennifer Ristau regarding Human Rights Violations in Guatemala:

I belong to an organization that monitors human rights abuses in Guatemala. Violent attacks in Guatemala by government officials against activists have increased in the past year. This is no surprise as the current Guatemalan President, Otto Perez Molina, was “himself” involved in the extermination of the indigenous people during the armed conflict. The organization I will be volunteering with for a year starting in July needs international observers to accompany Guatemalan activists and document their efforts in order to dissuade violent military retaliation. I know not everyone can come with me but everyone can participate! I am asking Berkeley residents to donate $20 to help me raise the $4,000 it will take to cover one indigenous region of Guatemala with accompaniment. I will be showing a documentary film about the efforts of my organization Sunday April 21 at 12:30. Please make a donation if you can.  For more information you can email me atjenneristau@gmail.com. I would love to update you all on how your solidarity is making a real difference. To join the mailing list, email me at jenneristau@gmail.com.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Noonday Prayer every Wednesday, please join us in the parish hall for Noonday Prayer using the  New Zealand Prayer Book, followed by meditation.

Newcomer’s tea, April 28, 2013: All are invited to the Newcomer’s Tea on April 28, 2013 after the service.  Please come and get to know us better if you are new, and please come so the new comers can get to know you if you are an old-timer!

Pentecost Picnic on SUNDAY, May 19, 2013.  Save the date!  After our service on Pentecost Sunday, we will join the congregations of St. Alban’s Albany, All Soul’s Berkeley and St. Mark’s Berkeley for an Area Ministry Pentecost Picnic.  Plans are for the picnic to be held at Coordinices Park from Noon-4:00 p.m.  More details to follow.

Bread Sunday – June 9, 2013:  On Sunday, June 9, we will take a moment to consider how we as a faith community can alleviate hunger in our community and throughout the world by right action and drawing our legislators’ attention to what needs to be done to feed our brothers and sisters in an offering of letters.  Materials and resources for letter writing, taking action, will be available after the service on June 9.

 Save the Date!! Help Good Shepherd Church rise from the ashes by attending our SUMMER PHOENIX FEST Fundraiser! Sunday June 23, 4-6:00 at the gorgeous Julia Morgan Mansion of the Very Rev. Don and Carol Anne Brown. Listen to the lovely Spohr Octet, featuring Good Shepherd’s own Paula White on violin, performed in the music room. Sip wine, munch hors d’oeuvres and mingle with great company! At 2821 Claremont Boulevard (RIGHT near St. Clement’s) Berkeley!

Road trip!  Road trip!  Time for a camping trip!  Join us for our second annual FABULOUS Big Sur Camping trip! August 16-18 at the private camping ground of All Saints Carmel, RIGHT on the river! $10.00 per night, scholarships available, gorgeous nearby hikes and free horseback riding for youth! Please sign up on the bulletin board sign-up sheet.

Jesus has rarely been so specific, and rarely has he repeated his instructions so helpfully as he does in his plea to Peter. Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. It seems to be a thorough and profound incantation, which, I have read, was a way of everlastingly cancelling out Peter’s thrice-spoken denial of Jesus. Maybe it is supposed to cancel out ours as well.

Love me, love me, love me, and feed my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my sheep. I take this pretty literally, as I think many of us do. Love Jesus by doing your best to love your fellows. Feed the sheep who need actual food, and for those of us who need to be fed with love and healing and inspiration, with ritual and with work and with words, we try to do that for each other as well. And it could be that we here at in this community hear Jesus’ call to us in a more urgent way, because, after all, the name of our community is “The Church of the Good Shepherd.” But have you noticed that it is sometimes hard to suss out the question of What Would Jesus Do? Or even, whom would Jesus feed?

On Wednesday, I noticed, as I passed the church that the banner we have on the fence in front of the church was gone, and thought it had been stolen. Then I saw that it had just been blown over the other side of the fence. I went to the parish hall to get scissors to cut it down and fix it, and when I came back there was a huge graffiti sign on the fence that said “NO FACE” in huge letters. What?? Could it have meant that the face of Jesus was gone? I don’t know!  I was shocked- this must have happened in the 10 minutes since I had looked at the blown-away banner. I then saw two people five feet away, lying down on a cardboard bed just behind the tree right next to the church. The couple was about 20 years old and the guy had his head on the chest of his girl, and they looked very cozy. I wasn’t in the pleasantest mood and I parted the curtain of the tree and abruptly said, “Did you just spray that graffiti on the fence?  “No”, said the young women, “That has been there since yesterday.” No it hasn’t “ I said, I was just looking at the fence 10 minutes ago. They then closed their lovely young eyes and appeared to go to sleep. I then said, not too unkindly, I can’t let you sleep here.” The young man opened his eyes, looked at me, and said “Jesus said we could sleep here.” I’m afraid I said something like, “Well, Jesus may have said that, but I am saying that you have to leave.”

I have dealt with Jesus’ sheep sleeping on our grounds ever since I got first here, and I always felt that Jesus probably would have let them sleep. The most dramatic case was the guy who moved in to our back garden with all his possessions. I also learned to wake people gently, and from a distance. And I noticed that if I let them sleep, I would come back to find their discarded junk, cardboard beds, sleeping bags and food trash, and I would be more likely to meet more people doing the same.

Well, of course, we do FEED these sheep. We feed them great bag lunch every Monday and a hot meal every Friday at noon, after which we hand out groceries. We feed them the produce from our vegetable gardens. And not too infrequently, we have guests who decide to stay for a snooze after their big lunch. What to do?

I sometimes feel as cold as Saul, breathing murderous threats under my breath. But Saul had much bigger fish to fry (so to speak) than my petty purity code of where on may or may not sleep. Saul had been attempting to arrest all those followers of The Way who were unlucky enough to encounter him. His goal was apparently to drag as many Christians as he could, bound in chains, back to Jerusalem for execution. Saul is utterly sure of himself, murderous in intent, and not particularly mindful of the weather. Then the light flashes from the sky, and Jesus asks a rather less gentle question than he asks Peter: Saul, why do you persecute me?”  Saul is utterly bewildered, and asks:

“Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one.

Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

His violence preceded a profound conversion, and he, of course, became a great evangelist of the Gospel of the Christ he once persecuted. He had been as brutal as Peter was clueless. But like Peter, be became a willing miracle in the hands of God.

We are told in our Gospel story that “This is the third time Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.” It was actually the fourth- but the author did not count Jesus’ rather memorable appearance to Mary Magdalene, on that first Easter morning. But by the time of our reading, the disciples had apparently gone back to their pre-Jesus profession- fishing in the Sea of Galilee, here called the Sea of Tiberius. When they were first called by Jesus, their mundane work life as fishermen was suddenly interrupted. And here again, the divine interruption occurs, with not one, but a series of miracles. First there is Jesus’ appearance, which his disciples fail to recognize. Then there is the abundant catch of fish, so reminiscent of the miraculous feeding of the multitudes. And then there is the shared meal of bread and fish, so like the miracle we get to taste every time we share the bread and the cup. There is no wine at this barbeque by the sea- it is breakfast, after all- but it is no less a Eucharist.

When I traveled across Canada in 1971 in a VW van, we stopped at the Great Lakes, at Lake Huron, close to where I was born. There we met a band of Native American fishermen. I don’t remember how it happened that we ended up going out on that vast lake with them in their little boat to help them fish, but we did. The haul they were authorized to get was tuna, and the catch was abundant. But for some reason they were not allowed to catch salmon, so the few that were caught had to be disposed of right away. Wishing to be helpful, we accepted their invitation to dine with them on the shores of Lake Superior, as they barbequed the salmon that had been swimming through the water an hour earlier. So I can tell you from experience what a holy thing it is to eat fish drawn from the sea and cooked right on the shore. I remember that the four Indian fishermen hauled in the catch of fish together, lacking the superhuman zeal of Peter, who did it all alone.

Peter is unaccountably held up as a leader in the Gospel of John, and in the other gospels as well. In Paul’s letters, he is charmingly called “Cephas” or “Rocky,” the original Aramaic form for Peter. In the Roman Catholic tradition he was the first Bishop of Rome, the first Pope, and tradition has it that his bones are buried in the great Basilica in Rome, and you know, they might actually be.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives Peter great authority, saying,

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

As always, it is comforting, and perhaps it is meant to be comforting, that the most impulsive, awkward, wrong-thinking and faithless disciple is the one in whom Jesus puts such trust. The one who pulled on his clothes and then jumped into the sea. The one who risked a major holy hernia by personally hauling all the fish in by himself. The one who tried to talk Jesus out of the crucifixion, and, of course, the one who denied Jesus three times.

It seems that it doesn’t matter how many times we have denied Jesus. It seems that it doesn’t matter how foolish we are. It doesn’t matter if we are sometimes guilty of disturbing Jesus’ sleeping sheep or if we sometimes fail to feed them at all. It doesn’t matter how clumsy or small our efforts might seem, it doesn’t even matter if we sometimes have violence in our hearts towards our fellows. In our simpleness, our awkwardness, our faithlessness, Jesus is still there, sharing with us his miraculous meal, and then calmly asking us to tend, nourish, and feed those myriad lambs of his.

Today: “Bowling for Columbine.” Following the service, we will screen Michael Moore’s powerful, anti-gun, anti-violence documentary, “Bowling for Columbine,” and after the viewing, we will offer letters to our government representatives encouraging more stringent gun control legislation.  Please bring a bag lunch.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

Noonday Prayer begins Wednesday, April 17, 2013: Starting Wednesday, April 17th, and every following Wednesday, please join us in the parish hall for Noonday Prayer using the New Zealand Prayer Book, followed by meditation.

Sunday, April 21, 2013:  We will welcome the Chaplain for AEMCH (An Episcopal Ministry to Convalescent Hospitals), The Rev. Nancy Eswein will be with us as our preacher and deacon on this Sunday.

A NOTE from Jennifer Ristau regarding Human Rights Violations in Guatemala:

“I belong to an organization that monitors human rights abuses in Guatemala. Violent attacks in Guatemala by government officials against activists have increased in the past year. This is no surprise as the current Guatemalan President, Otto Perez Molina, was “himself” involved in the extermination of the indigenous people during the armed conflict. The organization I will be volunteering with for a year starting in July needs international observers to accompany Guatemalan activists and document their efforts in order to dissuade violent military retaliation. I know not everyone can come with me but everyone can participate! I am asking Berkeley residents to donate $20 to help me raise the $4,000 it will take to cover one indigenous region of Guatemala with accompaniment. I will be showing a documentary film about the efforts of my organization Sunday April 21 at 12:30. Please make a donation if you can.  For more information you can email me at jenneristau@gmail.com. I would love to update you all on how your solidarity is making a real difference. To join the mailing list, email me at jenneristau@gmail.com.

“In peace, Jennifer Ristau”

Newcomer’s Tea, April 28, 2013: All are invited to the Newcomer’s Tea on April 28, 2013 after the service.  Please come and get to know us better if you are new, and please come so the new comers can get to know you if you are an old-timer!

Pentecost Picnic on Sunday, MAY 19, 2013.  Save the date!  After our service on Pentecost Sunday, we will join the congregations of St. Alban’s Albany, All Soul’s Berkeley and St. Mark’s Berkeley for an Area Ministry Pentecost Picnic.  Plans are for the picnic to be held at Coordinices Park from Noon-4:00 p.m.  More details to follow.

Bread Sunday – June 9, 2013:  On Sunday, June 9, we will take a moment to consider how we as a faith community can alleviate hunger in our community and throughout the world by right action and drawing our legislators’ attention to what needs to be done to feed our brothers and sisters in an offering of letters.  Materials and resources for letter writing, taking action, will be available after the service on June 9.

Camping trip!  Join us for our second annual FABULOUS Big Sur Camping trip! August 16-18 at the private camping ground of All Saints Carmel, RIGHT on the river! $10.00 per night, scholarships available, gorgeous nearby hikes and free horseback riding for youth! Please sign up on the bulletin board sign-up sheet.