Asking Who is Jesus? is to ask Who is the Body of Christ? The readings for today circle around those questions, offering multi-dimensional answers.
John's Gospel gives us Jesus' identity as shepherd to his sheep. The first reading lifts up the individual: Dorcas who stalwartly cared for others as a beloved member of the flock. And the Revelation describes the white-robed multitude who endured through centuries of suffering. This is a
day to rejoice over the church itself!
John 10:22-30
On a day when he was moving freely
about the temple, a crowd gathers around Jesus and implores him to tell them
plainly if he is the Messiah. . . .
Jesus tells them that this is
exactly what he has done; he has spoken, and he has acted, in ways consistent
with his purpose of revealing God to them. . . .
Jesus assures them that those who
are his will hear his voice. A relationship of trust will develop, like that of
a shepherd and his sheep. Perhaps the best thing that we can do is to stop
searching so furiously for the proof that we feel we need in order to believe, and
simply to start listening for the voice of the One that can be trusted. – John
P. Fairless
Acts 9:36-43
Two items to notice in the book of
Acts: the profound role Dorcas had played in the life of the community as a
seamstress who clothed the poor, and where Peter stays while in Joppa. Who are
the Dorcases in your congregation? How might you appreciate them and cultivate
them more? – Taylor Burton-Edwards
Revelation 7:9-17
My daughter Meredith, in her first
semester of college took a class on the Western intellectual tradition. The class
studied the Revelation of John as one of the most important books in Western
cultural history. The professor rightly stressed the way the Revelation has
influenced art, music, religious faith, politics. The professor had read some
contemporary biblical scholarship on the Revelation. She told that class that
this influence of Revelation is surprising given the obvious fact that the
early church had been disappointed about the imminent return of Jesus and the
end of the world. The Revelation, she said, was not a prediction about some
distant future events as Christian fundamentalists still assume. It was about
the hoped-for destruction of the Roman Empire and vindication of Christian
martyrs at the end of the first century. And, of course, that didn't happen.
Then the teacher asked the class
(in the way that many of us who teach tend to indoctrinate our students with
our ideas)—she asked the class how many of them thought that John in the
Revelation had been wrong about the future. Meredith said, “Daddy, I was the
only one who didn't raise my hand.” “What did the teacher say about that?” I
wondered. “She asked me if I thought John was right, and I said, ‘Yes.’ The
teacher seemed surprised with my answer, so I went on to explain. ‘Well, you
see, the Roman Empire did fall, and nineteen hundred years later we still have
the church!’”
Yes! John seems to have had that
understanding: Rome will fall; Christ's church will prevail. The world may
worship Rome; but the worship that will endure as truth will be the worship of
the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Indeed, in a fundamental way,
the book of Revelation is about getting our worship right. – L. Edward Phillips
Taylor
Burton-Edwards is the Director of Worship resources for the United
Methodist Church.
John P. Fairless
is senior minister of the First Baptist Church of Gainesville, Florida.
L. Edward Phillips is
an associate professor of worship and liturgical theology at Candler School of
Theology, Atlanta, Georgia.
Homily Service 40, no. 5 (2007): 76-85.
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