John 14.  Such dear and familiar words, spoken by Jesus, but such a stumbling block, to so very many, and to me. According to John, Jesus is giddy with emotion, intense with elation.  Jesus, euphoric, pours out his happiness, excitement and joy.  Jesus, euphoric.  It may be the only time. Euphoria is recognized medically as an emotional condition of intense well-being, of transcendent happiness, of contentment.  It comes from a Greek word, εὐφορία, “power of enduring easily, fertility”. If Christ crucified... Read more

He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.  The sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying . . . . The Good Shepherd, the best loved image of Jesus, appears in all four gospels and is prominent in John.  In... Read more

The Easter stranger appeared to three broken-hearted disciples who were getting out of Dodge.   Jesus was dead.  Everything in them was defiled by what they had seen, heard, done, left undone.  For three days in the Upper Room they’d been holed up with the others, unable to agree what to do next.  All their words, monotonous with defeat, were stale on their tongues.  Even their grief was stagnant now.    On Easter, these three went for a walk.  They left town,... Read more

Doubting Thomas – he’s always featured on the Sunday after Easter.  He’s reliable.  He anchors the season and relieves the atmosphere, which is always over-lily-ed.  And who can’t relate to him? His name means ‘twin’ in Greek.  The twin, nestled next to him in spirit, is us.  Across the centuries our connection to him is immediate.  His tone, his stance, the look in his eyes as he makes his remarks, are ours.  We doubt what he doubts:  Easter. The truth... Read more

Let me keep my distance, always,  from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment,  and bow their heads.      — Mary Oliver, in Thirst Easter:  it’s a moveable feast, like the Passover Seder in which it is rooted.  To get to Easter you must first look for the vernal equinox, a sky-defined event, and you must look for the full moon, a night vision.  Easter... Read more

The uses of sorrow – as Jesus unfolds them – are many, and powerful.  Sorrow becomes a fertile ground in which broken hearts become miracles of green life.  But all of this requires eyes and minds attentive to the life that grows from sorrow.  And this attentiveness requires looking deeply into sorrow, without fear and without turning away. America may be the hardest place of all in which to look into sorrow.  All of us descend from people who came... Read more

Who is this? He rides in straddling two donkeys, according to Matthew, one a colt, the other its mother.  He planned this ‘entrance’:  funny as a late night comic, awkward as a clown’s pratfall, not piously humble but mocking, like Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, refusing to enter into the pomp and circumstance of the Games because she knows they are rigged.  It is death she is challenging.  And it is death Jesus is challenging, in the Jerusalem Games.... Read more

All the world has tales of dragonslayers.  The dragon is Death, a monster breathing poisonous fire, whose hunger feeds, one by one, on everyone.  In their terror, townspeople sacrifice vulnerable flocks, then their young, and then their beautiful maidens (their hope for the future), to the corrupt appetites of the dragon.   At last comes the Dragonslayer:  pure hearted, valorous, faithful to God, compassionate, he rises as the champion of the afflicted. Iconic among dragonslayers  is St. George, patron saint... Read more

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree is a familiar adage, more often than not used ironically, but sometimes admiringly, about qualities of character, personality, or fate, as they emerge in generations of adults in a family. The nature of the argument in John’s long tale, about the encounter between Jesus and the community of the man born blind, is about the continuity of seed and sin.  Whose fault is it that he is blind?  Did his parents sin? ... Read more

“How is it that you ask a drink of me?” John tells this story:  Jesus is preaching among the Samaritans, in their land, north of Judea and south of Galilee. He has walked a long way.  It’s noon, it’s hot and he’s thirsty.  He stops at Jacob’s well, an ancient sacred spot and a public well.  He has no cup. And he asks a Samaritan woman to give him a drink. She is justly suspicious.  He’s alone and so is... Read more