1 Easter 5 Year C 2013 Denver, CO Pastor Dena Williams Acts 11:18 After Jesus Ascension, the disciples go out

to teach and preach the good news of the Gospel. They are Jewish, but they go to all people, including non-Jews or Gentiles. Then Peter goes to Jerusalem. The Jewish Christ believers there ask him why he eats with Gentiles which is forbidden. This is what Peter told themhow God came to him in a dream, with a vision. Psalm 148Childrens SermonA Psalm of Praise! Revelation 21:16God loves the earth, the world and all God created! God will come and live with us and care for us. God will come home! The Holy Gospel according to the Community of St. John in the 13th Chapter Glory to you, O Lord 13:31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 13:32 If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 13:33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' 13:34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one

2 another. 13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." The Gospel of the Lord Praise to you, O Christ All Things New I read The Denver Post nearly every morning. Its part of my routine. I say its because I need and want to keep up with whats going on in the world. It probably is, at least in part. Im afraid Ill miss something. First I read Section A and then Denver and West. Truth be known, the part I save til last, the part I savor, is the funny pages. If time runs out in the morning, I save the funnies and try to find time in the evening, but most days of my life I can tell you exactly what is going on in Shermans Lagoon, (Hawthorne, the crab, is the new lagoon police officer), I know who Lu Ann is dreamy-eyed about, (a handsome Australian named Quill), and how much Ruthie is charging for her crayon drawings, (the usual, 10 cents). From time to time The Post runs a survey for readers. They ask us to evaluate the comics, to indicate who we read regularly and who we skip. I get anxious when this happens. What if the rest of the world does not treasure Baldo or Zits or Pickles or Sally Forth the same way I do? What if one of my favorites disappears, simply isnt there some morning? What if there are new and different strips with

3 unfamiliar characters? My word bubble reads: Yikes, aarg, ack! I silently beg the editors to have mercy. Please, dont change anything! Now, we have all heard that the only constant in life is change, we know it is true, but we dont like it. It doesnt seem to matter whether change is great or small, we, in general, dont like it. From funny papers to relationships, to the way things get accomplished at home, at church, at work, we really want things to stay the same. Even when we know change is for the best, even when its time, we resist it. We say we want to change because we know it is only through change we mature and grow, but we dont like it. Now, most folks are okay with change, in theory. Its when change becomes real that we get anxious. We often dont even realize, its the prospect of change making us anxious! Were sad or angry or in denial. Its important for us to realize our feelings are about our resistance to the very change we know is inevitable and, often, in the long run, a very, very good thing. It is the thought of change that makes us a bit crazy! The ways we handle change is well researched and written about. When things change, we experience something we call grief. The process of grief, and it is a process, is carefully described.

4 I am not convinced we move through the process in any prescribed way. Our needs and feelings change from day to day or even minute to minute. There is no one way to grieve a change, a loss, but no matter how we move through grief, we experience pain, sometimes more, sometimes less, but there is always pain. It is important, then, when we experience change, it is important we pay attention to how we are feeling. Sometimes it is difficult to connect our feelings with grief, difficult to recognize we are in pain. You may find yourself suddenly furious about the wallpaper in the ladies restroom, or really, really sad when your daffodils died, or confused about your childs or grandchilds sudden romantic interest in his or her friends. If youre complaining loudly about the wallpaper or if youre crying about your flowers, or in a panic because your child or grandchild is growing up, it is probably time to figure out why you are angry or sad or anxious. Offer your anger, your sadness, your anxiety to God in prayer. Talk to someone you trust. Be good listeners. We need to help one another through times of change and grief, and the pain that accompanies us in the process. There are many occasions in our lives when change brings grief and pain. What about ultimate change? What about big, permanent, constant change the one always a part of life?

5 What about death? We experience death globally. We watch with horror as young people, soldiers, perish in far away places, they are deeply grieved by their families and friends, we grieve as well. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the immeasurable loss We witness as an earthquake or hurricane, tsunami or volcano wipe out entire communities. We experience death as a nation. Attacks of terror, the gunning down of innocents, poison in mailboxes! There is so much pain surrounding so much grief that we insulate ourselves. We grieve change in painful ways, in the death we experience in our world community. We come together as a community of faith from time to time to grieve the death of a brother or sister from our congregation. Then we experience the change the grief and pain of death in a more personal way. We come together to care for one another, to comfort family and friends. It is the presence of our community in worship that comforts us as we share the pain as it comes with death the ultimate change. Many of us have experienced the pain death brings in an even more personal way we have lost someone we love. Then the change is up close and constant. We move through days and weeks and months, even years, of experiencing the change brought by absence, the pain oozing from the void left in our lives.

6 Deaththe ultimate change brings pain. Death always puts our losses in order, doesnt it? Death is the ultimate change, the ultimate bringer of grief and pain. Experiencing the death of a loved one, hearing the details of the death of soldiers, students, especially young people, often puts our other grief responses in order. Suddenly the everyday kinds of changes we experience at home, at church, at work, at school, seem less important, more manageable, less painful. Our preoccupation with change as it inevitably accompanies us on our life journey falls away . . . We know in our hearts those changes in our family and in our community and in our congregation those changes we feel bring us so much grief, so much pain, are really largely inconsequential when we consider the ultimate change brought by death. Unless we have recently lost a loved one or someone we love is quite ill, we look up and look around and realize our spouse or partner, our children, are healthy and relatively happy. We observe our frustration with a change in our congregation, in how we do ministry in our community or even new staff or a new pastor is not the end of the world. Its a change and we will survive and maybe even prosper. We may be sad, but we open ourselves to a new perspective,

7 to new possibility, we learn to embrace change as positive and exciting. We experience change which leads to new life. What about, though, the ultimate change? What about death? How do we survive grief as it accompanies the death of someone we love or even many someones whom we never met? We survive because of a vision of change, a vision of hope given by God to a man called John, and written down for us by John in a book called Revelation. Gods vision, Johns vision a vision of change, radical change, transforming change, a vision of hope-Hear again this vision: Then I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth . . . I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, See the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with us as our God. We will be Gods people. God will be with us. God will wipe every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more. I am making all things new. I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. What is it that God promises? It is change, more change than we can begin to imagine. God will come to live with us. Death will be no more.

8 In the beginning? God . . . in the waters of our baptism. In the end? God . . . who brings us the water of life. Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Amen