Journey Home - A Model

The new addition to Room in the Inn's facilities began with a vision and years of planning and fundraising. Last Thursday was the groundbreaking.

I wanted to share a portion of the program with my readers; a paragraph that describes beautifully the work and vision of Campus for Human Development:

This expansion to our facilities and programs will enable us, using Mayor Karl Dean's words, "to complete the Campus." What this means is that we will be able to open a path for a person to make the "Journey Home," from living on the streets to securing a permanent apartment all under the guidance and support of our Room in the Inn community. In 1995, we formed the Campus for Human Development, becoming the city's only single site of services, offering an array of both emergency and long-term services. Today we stand on the brink of a new chapter in our long story. Specifically, what we will be able to create is a larger Campus that includes increased medical, educational, and day service space; and, for the first time, 38 affordable housing apartments. In short, we will expand and complete Nashville's comprehensive center for the homeless.

I hope the Mayor will remember this development - a single site with comprehensive services for the homeless - as a great model.

Nashville has a variety of services, both government-based and through non-profits and congregations, that address poverty in the city. Unfortunately, the system is very difficult to understand and not easily accessible. In many cases, multiple appointments with various agencies across the city are necessary. This is very time-consuming and potentially frustrating, e.g. for people who depend on public transportation or who can't afford to take an entire day off of work to meet with just one or two agencies.

It would be a significant step in the right direction, if we could combine those services in a network of neighborhood-based, single-site access points. One social worker could work with an individual or a family to help them understand all the resources available to them and assist them with completing the necessary applications. Non-profit organizations and neighborhood congregations that work on related issues like substance abuse, adult literacy, parenting skills, budgeting etc. could be partners at these centers.

Head Start Centers or community centers come to mind as potential sites for more comprehensive services for Nashvillians battling the causes and consequences of poverty.

Kneeling

It was on the evening Jesus and the disciples gathered for one last meal, when he took off his robe and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin, washed the disciples feet, and wiped them with the towel. He spoke for a long time that evening, but what we remember, without even opening the pages of the gospel, is that act of hospitality and service; what we remember is Jesus the Lord kneeling on the floor.

I was reminded of that beautiful scene when Hope and I were standing in the little courtyard of the Campus for Human Development on Thursday morning. Several hundred friends of Room in the Inn had gathered under the smiling sky to participate in breaking ground for a new facility where Nashville’s homeless would find shelter, food, medical care, counseling and education. The Governor couldn’t be there, but he sent a representative with the gold-embossed certificate declaring May 21, 2009 Room in the Inn Day in Tennessee. The Mayor was there, the Chief of Police, the Attorney General and the Public Defender, and many other community leaders, together with representatives of the more than 150 congregations who support the many services provided under the umbrella of the Campus for Human Development.

It was a great day for Nashville, and I already look forward to the day when we will dedicate the new building, including 38 units of affordable housing (I am excited that with our recent grant of $10,000 to Campus for Human Development, Vine Street will help families and individuals transition into permanent housing).

It all began in 1977 when Fr. Charlie Strobel, then the priest at Holy Name Catholic Church on Woodland, gave a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to a homeless man at the door of his rectory. It didn’t stop there – the simple gesture of sharing food with a person in need led to the creation of Loaves and Fishes. Charlie’s simple gesture of opening the doors of the rectory to those sleeping outside in the cold led to the creation of a cooperative ministry by six Nashville congregations known as Room in the Inn. And it didn’t stop there. Last year, 151 congregations in and around Nashville provided 26,737 beds and served 64,779 meals to their homeless guests from November 1 to March 31.

Today the PBJ has iconic status among the people of Room in the Inn; it speaks of God’s unconditional love for all human beings, and especially the poor and dispossessed; it stands for the truth that relationships of trust and respect are healing; and it reminds us that even the most complex problems can be addressed with caring gestures we all know and understand.

Standing in the courtyard, I was reminded of Jesus who taught us how to be the community of his friends by kneeling on the floor with a basin and a towel. That evening, after he had washed the disciples’ feet, he returned to the table and began to teach them, or rather, continued to teach them. He didn’t tell any stories or parables, and only the image of the vine and the branches can anchor the many words of his farewell speech in our imagination. The vine and the branches speak of being the community of Jesus’ friends, of having roots and bearing fruit, even when the full meaning of the many words printed in red eludes us.

At the end of his farewell speech, after Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven. Throughout the evening, his eyes and attention had been on the disciples: he washed their feet and wiped them dry, he spoke to their troubled hearts, he promised them fullness of joy and truth, he taught and encouraged them.

Now he looked up to heaven, and the words he spoke were addressed to the One he called Father. At the end of the evening, before they crossed the Kidron valley to go to the garden, Jesus prayed.

“I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.”

This is not the prayer of a man in agony, wrestling in the dark night with God’s will and the knowledge of his impending death; there is not even a hint of struggle. This is the prayer of a man who has complete confidence that the purposes of God will be fulfilled in the events about to unfold. It is the prayer of the Son whose earthly mission is completed in his death and return to the Father.

Most of the prayer, however, is more than merely a reflection of the love and intimacy the two share with each other. The prayer opens up to include the community of Jesus’ friends; his eyes are lifted up to heaven, but his arms are stretched out to embrace all believers.

“Now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

Most of Jesus’ prayer is intercession for the future life of his followers, for generation after generation of believers. He prays for us and our work and witness in the world. He prays for us, because we live in the world, but we don’t belong to it.

We belong to the community of Jesus’ friends; we belong to the communion of life, based in the mutuality of love and intimacy between Jesus and God. We don’t belong to the world, but we live in it as those sent to reveal the glory of God by embodying the friendship of Jesus. We live in the world as the living, breathing invitation to life in communion with God and one another.

Twice in this prayer, Jesus speaks of unity. “Protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

In these times of deep division within the church over how to be church, how to respond faithfully to God’s call to ministry, perhaps the first thing to remember is that Jesus is praying for us.

His words are not instructions for us on the subject of unity. We are not to determine the character of the relationship between Jesus and the Father in order to come up with ecclesial principles and organizational flow charts. Jesus entrusts the future of the church not to the church itself and our capacity to understand, agree on, or live that unity. With the same confidence with which he entrusts himself to the love and power of God, he places the church’s future in the hands of God.

We participate in his prayer by overhearing it and remembering that we are a community that not only needs Jesus’ prayer, but can depend on it. Gail O’Day wonders how the Christian community’s self-definition would be changed if it took as its beginning point, “We are a community for whom Jesus prays.” To me, it is profoundly comforting to remember that.

Anthony Healy is a church consultant, and one evening he was sitting in the fellowship hall of a congregation that had been plagued by trouble throughout its existence and wanted to move on.

Part of his work was to trace that painful history, touching gently on the episodes that had befallen that community with a senseless regularity. It was a distressing yet necessary process.
He looked around the room and saw sorrowful faces, eyes close to tears turned toward him. Then he noticed on the opposite wall a picture that had to that point escaped his attention.

It was the picture of the Laughing Jesus, you have probably seen it many times. Healy asked himself, “What in the sorrows of this church is so humorous?” He was convinced there was a reason he noticed the laughing face of Jesus when he did, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

He completed his work with the congregation, and a few weeks later the epiphany emerged from this seeming outbreak of divine levity over a church’s troubled past. The message was: Ease up. Even as they are, these people are my people. Even as it is, this church is my church (see Healy's book, The Postindustrial Promise). Smile, we are a community for whom Jesus prays.

Jesus’ words in the gospel according to John are written for repeated reading, for slow, persistent ruminating – the individual phrases come to life only in the context of the whole. I used to dread reading John, but not anymore. Every time, it seems, I open the pages, I hear echoes and notice patterns I hadn’t seen before. Reading John is like walking through a garden that looks different every time you set foot in it, and as soon as you think you have finally determined the layout of its paths it takes you to a corner where surprises grow. The secret, I believe, is to keep walking. The secret is to live in that garden.

Reading and rereading the chapters of Jesus’ farewell speech I noticed that the tall columns of words in red were flanked by two beautiful and memorable images: At the beginning, Jesus kneeling on the floor, close to the ground, washing the disciples’ feet, and at the end, Jesus looking up to heaven, his arms stretched out to embrace all whom the Father has given him, praying for the disciples.

Jesus calls us to live and abide in the communion of love he shares with the Father and to love one another as he loved us. Jesus sends us into the world to be the living, breathing embodiment of the reconciliation he brings.

Until we discover an even fuller expression of our calling, let us serve as he served, with humility and loving attention, and remember that he prays for us.

And when we pray, let us pray as he prays, with confidence and loving attention.

Audio of this post

Falling Over

On Sunday, KK and the kids talked about things we do with our hands in worship and ministry. Clapping, shaking hands, holding hands, hugging - they came up with over forty things we do with our hands to share God's love with one another!

At one point, KK was shaking her hand in a way that reminded me of dusting the furniture. "This is something Thomas does a lot," she said. I was confused. "Dusting?" I asked, and she started laughing. "Not dusting, writing! Thomas writes a lot!" and there was the motion again. I fell over backwards on the carpet, laughing.

Then the kids led the congregation in what TJ calls, "Jazz hands!" a.k.a. applause in American Sign Language, thanking me for five years of ministry at Vine Street.

Carol Doidge, John Marshall, and Greg Bailey added words of thanks and Greg handed me an envelope with a thank-you gift.

I didn't open the envelope until after our worship service - and I almost fell over backwards again! Thank you all for this wonderful gift, and for the relationships, the conversations, the prayers, the songs, the meals, the work, the laughs and smiles and tears of the past five years.

Thank you, Vine Street!

For the Peace of the City

Requests to the church office for housting assistance have been going up steadily since October 2008. In these difficult times, more individuals and families need help so they can stay in their homes and pay their utility bills. At the same time, funding for local non-profits that focus on helping Nashvillians stay in their homes (or assisting them in getting back into permanent housing) has dried up: many charitable foundations have lost 40% or more in assets in the current economic downturn.

I am happy to report that Vine Street Christian Church decided to meet this critical moment with a strategic move. The Official Board voted on Monday, May 18, to invest, in addition to current outreach commitments, $30,000 in local agencies who address the need for housing from different angles. The details of the proposal had been worked out by Julia Keith, Chair of Local Outreach, and Hope Hodnett, representing the staff.

Checks for $10,000 each will be sent to

• Disciples Village, a retirement home in Nashville that opens its doors to low-income elderly in our community;
• Room in the Inn, a ministry that assists people without housing with essential services and help to find permanent housing; and
• Rooftop, an organization that provides funds to individuals and families in need of emergency financial help with the goal of preventing homelessness and providing hope.

I am grateful for the work of this church, love in action for the peace of the city. I am grateful for leaders who step out boldly when tough times call for bold action.

What Abides

In April, the U.S. lost 563,000 jobs, and who would have thought that this labor statistic could be cause for cautious optimism: The numbers are down 100,000 or so from the 663,000 jobs lost in March; we may have reached the bottom. Since December 2007, 5.7 million jobs have been cut – that’s about ten times the population of Nashville.

These numbers are important, but they don’t tell us how dramatically life has changed for the individuals and families directly impacted by those losses. This summer, high-school students are competing for summer jobs at Nashville Shores and for other seasonal work with men and women who must make a living for themselves and their families. Every day the church office receives multiple requests for financial assistance to pay rent, utilities, medications, gas or food. We use my discretionary fund to help individuals and families stay in their homes – and last month, for the first time in five years, it was almost depleted. Rooftop, one of the key non-profit agencies in the city assisting people with housing expenses, ran out of funds for the month of May after only two days.

We are currently working on a proposal to the Official Board to double our outreach funding by strategically using endowment earnings and designated funds. We want to use those funds specifically for housing here in Nashville, because once a family loses the roof over their heads, issues like loss of work and income, lack of education and health care become a lot more difficult to address.

I am telling you this because this is what the staff here is working on every day. I am telling you this on mother’s day, because this year, whenever I call my mom, she asks me three questions, and I know today will be no different: First, how are the kids and Nancy? Second, what’s new at Vine Street? And third, how are people dealing with the depressed economy?

My mom taught us that love isn’t a word we write on a card on occasion, but our response to the world and to the needs of others. In her life and her faith, love has always been a lot closer to solidarity than to sentimentality. She taught me that love is the power that keeps us from getting lost in fragmented isolation.

When people lose their jobs, they lose more than their income. Work is our way to make a living, but it is more than that. Work is how we each turn the gift of life into our life. Work is an important part of who we are, it gives us a sense of purpose, the deep satisfaction of having something to offer – skills, products, and services that others need and appreciate. The work we do is an essential piece of the story we tell about ourselves.

Let me tell you about Emilio. Emilio was sixteen at the end of World War II when he came to the U.S. from Sicily. He married Flavia and they had two boys. [My thanks to Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character, for insight and inspiration]

Emilio had little education, and he worked as a janitor all his life. Working hard, saving regularly, and playing by the rules, he and Flavia were able to buy a little house in the Boston suburbs and send their two sons to college. Whenever the boys talked about their class work, Dad didn’t understand a word, but that didn’t diminish his pride. The little house and his sons’ education were visible results of his life’s work. To his colleagues and neighbors Emilio was a friend they could rely on, and he was a respected member of the catholic parish in what was once an Italian neighborhood.

His son Rico graduated from a local university in electrical engineering, went to business school, and married a fellow student – Jennifer was neither Italian nor Catholic, but that was OK. School prepared the young couple to move and change jobs frequently, and they did, following the demands of an economy that values flexibility. In fourteen years at work, Rico and his wife have moved four times, from New York to California, then to Chicago and Missouri, and back to the east coast.

The world they live and work in is very different from the one Emilio and Flavia knew. Stable routines and predictable career tracks are things of the past. Staid bureaucracies and hierarchical management have given way to flatter, more fluid networks. Flexibility has replaced long-term commitment. No more gold watches after thirty years with the same company.

In some ways these changes are positive; they make for a dynamic economy. But they are also destructive.

There was a time when the word “career” referred to a carriage road – a means to help you get from one place to another. Applied to work, a career was a path with fairly predictable stops and turns. You would start at the bottom and work your way up over time in just one or perhaps two companies. Or you would choose a field, get the required training, and all you had to do was fine-tune a skill set that would remain valuable for decades.

We can no longer count on that. The estimates change constantly, but college students are advised these days to anticipate more than ten job changes during their working life. Flexibility is key – colleges are preparing young people for jobs for which no job descriptions have been written yet.

And it’s not just flexible minds that are needed, the demand for flexible bodies is also growing. Recently, when IBM closed a facility in California, they told 200 engineers they could keep their jobs if they were willing to move their families to India.

Flexibility makes for a dynamic economy, but it cuts roots and makes it more and more difficult to sustain family ties and friendships.

Rico makes more in a month than his dad made in a year, but he is worried. He grew up with values like mutual commitment, self-discipline, loyalty, and trust. “You can’t imagine how stupid I feel when I talk to my kids about commitment,” says Rico. “It’s an abstract virtue to them; they don’t see it anywhere.” Flexibility means, there is no long term; stay loose, keep moving, don’t be dependent, don’t get too attached, it only hurts when you have to leave.

I find it curious how changes in our economy lead to the loss of homes for thousands of workers and their families, and at the same time create a sense of being uprooted and disconnected, a sense of homelessness among those most successful in this new world of constant and rapid change.

I have thought much about housing recently, simply because the number of people looking for help to prevent eviction has gone up. I have thought about the things that can give us a sense of stability when everything is in flux, a sense of being at home in the world, if you will.

Some of those thoughts were triggered by an old-fashioned word, abide, repeated again and again in today’s readings from the gospel according to John and from First John. We don’t use the word abide much anymore, and even in parts of the country where traditions and the King’s English are honored, highway motel signs don’t read, “Abide with us.” They simply flash, “Vacancies” or perhaps, “Stay here.”

“To abide” has to do with staying, even if it is only for a night. But it also has to do with dwelling, persevering, and lasting.

Perhaps you remember the ending of chapter 13 of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, where the Apostle writes, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

All things come to an end, but love outlasts them all. Love is the power that keeps us from getting lost in fragmented isolation.

In the gospel according to John, Jesus gives us this beautiful image, “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

We want to lead fruitful lives, we have a need to lead fruitful lives, and we need a sense of belonging that can outlast the ever-changing circumstances of our lives. Jesus points to himself as the place where we can stay. He gives us roots we can rely on no matter where in the world we are. He invites us to draw strength from him and bear fruit, fruit that brings joy to the vinegrower, to us and to those with whom we share the gift of life.

Love abides: not as a principle or a virtue, but as the living relationship we have with God and with each other through Christ the Vine.

Love abides because Christ abides, because Christ lasts, endures, perseveres, hangs in with us, holds on to us.

Love abides because Christ binds us together across boundaries of income, education, ethnic origin, and political philosophy.

I am not sure if we will be able to create just and sustainable ways of producing and distributing goods around the world, but I hope so. I am not sure if we will be able to build political and economic institutions that serve the well-being of all, but I hope so. I am not sure if we will ever be able to promise each other that none shall have to live on the street, but I hope so. I have the courage to hope because I believe that love abides. I have the strength to hope because Christ is risen, Christ abides.

The love of Christ is the power that saves us from getting lost in fragmented isolation. The love of Christ bears fruit in our lives in all the ways necessary for God’s planting to flourish: we become generous and creative in making sure individuals and families have a roof over their heads; we encourage our children and each other to trust God and think about more than just ourselves; and we practice disciplines that help us to abide in him who so faithfully abides in us.

The love of Christ is the power that saves us from getting lost in flexibility.

Make yourselves at home.

Audio of this post

In love laid down for me

1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18


“Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” It’s not about words, it’s actions that matter. I think I know what the writer of 1 John has in mind. Let’s not just talk about love. Let’s not just sing pretty songs about love. Let us embody love and put it into action.

But words do matter, or the writer of 1 John wouldn’t use so many of them to try and convince us. Words do matter, or we wouldn’t lose any sleep over hate speech. Words do matter, because to speak or to write is to act. The words of 1 John are not just words, but testimony, argument, authoritative demand, and urgent plea.

Let love determine what we say and how we say it, what we do and how we act, the letter insists. Let love be the fabric that weaves together all strands of our being, let love be the pattern of our days.

And not just any love. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and the love of power thrives in its company. No, not just any love will do.

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Jesus is the pattern. Jesus laid down his life for us – he sought neither power nor wealth. The center of his attention was occupied by God and God’s will, life in abundance for all. Jesus didn’t think of himself outside of these relationships – with the One he called Father, and the many he called brothers and sisters. Not once did he place himself outside of these relationships in splendid isolation. Not once did he participate in the game, where everything and everyone can become a means to selfish ends, and every action is calculated, every step and gesture and word.

Let us love, but not just any love will do. We know how easy it is to mask our desire to have as affection – or our need to control, our hunger for attention, our need to be needed, all dressed up in love-talk.

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Frightening words; we wonder if we’re supposed to be willing to die for each other.
Jesus didn’t wait until the end to lay down his life. Jesus didn’t wait until government, religion, and public opinion came together in uncommon accord, condemning him to death and executing him – Jesus laid down his life for us from the beginning. Every step of his, every gesture, every word, every touch, every breath was life laid down for us.

How do we lay down our lives for one another? In 1 John, the answer comes in the form of a question: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?”

The laying down of our lives begins not with a big, bold, once-and-for-all yes, but with just one small no that is not spoken, neither in word nor in action. The laying down of our lives begins with seeing a brother or sister in need and not turning away, and it continues in the slow, persistent refusal to think of ourselves outside of our relationship with that brother or sister and God. The laying down of our lives is complete when we can no longer say “I” without saying “you” and “You.”

I believe this is what Jesus calls the life abundant. I believe this is what Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon has in mind when he teaches, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.” The abundance, the fullness comes with the laying down.

By happy coincidence I watched a movie last week that offers great commentary and insight on what it means to lay down one’s life. The Mission, released in 1986, tells the story of a Jesuit mission in the heart of South America.

Father Gabriel, played by Jeremy Irons, climbs the steep rock face of Iguazu Falls to bring the faith to the Guaraní, an indigenous people living above the falls. He can’t expect a friendly welcome; the last missionary to go there had been strapped to a cross and sent over the falls to his death. Father Gabriel enters the forest, and when he notices that he’s being watched, he sits on a rock, assembles his oboe, and begins to play. Soon he’s surrounded by curious warriors who listen to his music. They let him live and take him with them.

Then we meet Rodrigo Mendoza, played by Robert de Niro, who makes his living as a slaver, kidnapping indigenous people and selling them to the nearby colonial plantations. Rodrigo stabs his brother in a jealous rage, and his guilt buries him alive. Father Gabriel visits him and invites him, as an act of penance, to come to the mission with him.

So Rodrigo also climbs the falls, dragging behind him his heavy armor and weapons, tied into a net. He drags his guilt all the way to the Guaraní camp, where one of the men cuts the rope, releasing him from the weight of his past. Armor and sword are thrown into the river, and Rodrigo begins a new life. He becomes a member of the mission community, a community of peace and learning, of music and worship, where life in fullness thrives.

But suddenly the political circumstances change dramatically. The colonial powers, Portugal and Spain, have come to an agreement that portions of the land claimed by Spain would be signed over to Portugal, including the land above the falls. Portugal wants the Jesuit missions closed, in order to pursue without interference the conquest of the land and the expansion of the plantation economy based on slavery.

The Pope sends an emissary to survey the Jesuit missions and decide which, if any, to allow to continue. Cardinal Altamirano is faced with a difficult choice: If he closes the missions, the indigenous people will certainly die or become enslaved. If he rules in favor of the missions, the Jesuit order may be forced to leave Portugal and all its colonies. The decision is made: Father Gabriel’s mission is to be abandoned, along with all other Jesuit missions.

Now Portuguese troops and militia gather at the foot of the falls; Father Gabriel and Rodrigo, the former slaver, debate how to respond to the violent threat. Rodrigo once more takes up his sword that a boy has retrieved from the river; he cannot stand the thought of the people he has come to love becoming slaves. Fr. Gabriel shakes his head and says to him, “If might is right, then love has no place in the world. It may be so, it may be so. But I don’t have the strength to live in a world like that, Rodrigo.”

They both prepare for the attack. Rodrigo by organizing the defense and building weapons, Gabriel by praying and gathering women, children, and old people in front of the church.

The battle begins, the defenders fight bravely, but they can only slow down the attackers – there’s no stopping them.

Rodrigo is shot several times and lying on the ground, he watches Fr. Gabriel leading the unarmed congregation out of the burning mission compound toward the river. They sing, and all they carry is a crucifix and a monstrance, all they carry are symbols of the good shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. The soldiers hesitate for a moment, but when the order comes, they fire, some of them crossing themselves before they pull the trigger. Dying, Rodrigo watches his friends fall, one by one, only a handful escape by running away to the jungle. Rodrigo watches until he sees Fr. Gabriel collapse, his body pierced by bullets.

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” says Jesus according to John. Rodrigo and Fr. Gabriel both laid down their lives for their friends by living with them, teaching them and learning from them, receiving their forgiveness and offering it, working with them, building a community of peace with them. Rodrigo took up arms in defense of the defenseless, Fr. Gabriel refused to live in a world where might leaves no room for love. Both died a violent death because of their commitment to that life of embodied, daily love. Who wants to decide which one made the right choice?


At the end of the film, we see a group of Guaraní children loading a few salvaged belongings into a canoe. One of the girls notices a broken violin floating in the water, next to Fr. Gabriel’s scorched oboe. She picks it up and takes it with her as they set off, up the river.

I hope that somehow, after all the brutality and loss, she will be able to play the tune Fr. Gabriel had played and invite those around her to trust the power of love.

The film doesn’t end with that scene. It ends with Cardinal Altamirano, the Papal emissary, concluding his written report: “So, your Holiness, now your priests are dead, and I am left alive. But in truth it is I who am dead, and they who live.”

This the Fourth Sunday of Easter. This is the fourth Sunday of the new song, the fourth Sunday of praise, the fourth Sunday of bold hope: might does not equal right – Christ is risen from the dead. The good shepherd continues to seek the lost and bring back the strayed, to bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. He doesn’t send out the dogs to round up the herd, or emissaries to negotiate with the wolf; he calls, he talks, he sings the shepherd song and plays the kingdom tune like only he can play it. “I lay down my life for the sheep,” is the chorus. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

Christ is risen and he sings for Jews and Gentiles, for slavers and Guaraní, for priests and warriors, for all who hear and recognize his voice in the wilderness we have made of God’s world.

Pick up the broken violin and learn to play.

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