The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany

Third Sunday of Easter, April 18, 2010

God of power, light and love, here the prayer of Your people on the threshold of this new life; strengthen us to walk into the Way of resurrection light and answer Your call. May we rise and come forth into the light of knowledge and understanding and stand in Your presence until eternity dawns. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The scriptures for this third Sunday of Easter is about being on the threshold. Ester de Waal said in her little book, To Pause at the Threshold:

"'A threshold is a sacred thing.' In some places of the world, in some traditional cultures, and in monastic life, this is still remembered. It is something, however, that we generally forget today. . . ."

The purpose of her book she said is "to explore the role of thresholds, of the crossing-over places... All our lives are inevitably made of a succession of borders and threshold, which open up into the new and promise excitement and fear."

The three days without sight, after Paul's encounter with the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus, was a threshold time.

His past had been one of a seemingly well-intentioned man, doing what he genuinely thought was the right thing to do, but later he was to discover that he was operating without sight, without knowing of a far deeper and more profound reality than he could ever have imagined.

Yes, He thought he was doing the right thing in trying to eradiate this rogue new sect, those heretical people who were following the man named Jesus. But he could not have been more wrong.

The wrong things people do are a result, ultimately, of not knowing what they are doing. "Forgive them Father, they know not what they do."

Even when we understand we are doing the wrong thing, choosing the wrong way, there is still a very real aspect of not fully understanding at the deepest and most profound level of reality, what we are doing.

Like Paul, we are blind to this larger and deeper reality and we are blind to the full consequences of our actions. So those three days, that Paul spent without sight, when he took no food or water, was a threshold time for him. He was on the threshold of moving out of blindness into the light of Christ.

It was the incredible encounter with the resurrected Jesus that brought him to this threshold. A person is never the same after such an encounter. A very different reality, a very different Way, is revealed.

Experiencing this brings one to a threshold. One can choose to stay on the same comfortable path they have known or they can choose to venture into this new and as yet, unknown, but deeply expanded life.

One of the reasons some may not choose to venture into this new and amazing reality is because they realize suffering may be involved. Jesus told Ananias, "I myself will show him [Paul] how much he must suffer for the sake of my name."

Suffering! Why suffering? Why would anyone choose a way that involves suffering? Well, the suffering referred to was not punishment for Paul's past deeds.

The suffering comes from living with the need to leave behind deeply ingrained past ways of thinking and behaving and live into this new understanding.

The suffering also comes from trying to take away the blindness of others so that they too can live in this new and greater reality.

The suffering comes from not being understood or heard or believed; it comes from being persecuted by others because of their lack of understanding.

Peter was also on the threshold of this new life. "I'm going fishing." I love this story. I really think I understand what was going on with Peter when he said, "I'm going fishing."

When I was experiencing the call to the priesthood, and trying to figure out how navigate this seemingly impossible process to ordination coming out of the Diocese of Ft. Worth, and most of all, being absolutely scared to death thinking of myself venturing into this unknown life, a point came where I did something similar to the "I'm going fishing" thing.

I thought, "I'm tired of this struggle." So for three years I took a job as an Assistant Teacher to severely disabled children. It was a very rewarding, deep and purposeful work, but I ended up feeling more and more lost.

I had a dream at the end of that threshold time where I experienced the face of Jesus looking at me with such incredible love (I've never seen love like that in the eyes of someone).

It was a look that saw everything and in spite of seeing everything, it was a look of pure love. I thought, "What do you see? I'm not worthy of such a adoration." And then He turned and began to walk away.

And it was then I knew I had the choice to stay where I was, in my old life that was comfortable and known, or follow Jesus into the unknown. I woke up and I said, "I will follow that face of love wherever it takes me."

Peter had just gone through the most wrenching, traumatic experience conceivable, and then he had had this dramatic and intense experience of seeing Jesus alive. I think he wanted to have something of his old, known and understandable life.

He wanted in a sense to just "veg out". He wanted something of the routine of his old and mundane life as a fisherman. He was at the threshold. "I'm going fishing!"

But then, after fishing all night, catching nothing, the morning came, the light of day, and they saw Jesus on the shore. At first they didn't recognize Him.

I find that very interesting. As Esther de Waal said, "God, who is there at the center, is also at the raw edges. Our living God moves and expects us to move with him. God will not let us settle easily or for too long. Our God is too big for either/or.

"Instead he asks us to say both/and, so we move into that threshold to meet the God who is both known and unknown. The last pause of all is at the threshold of God who is unending mystery."

This new mindset, this new way of knowing, this new unending mystery is so beyond our ordinary way of understanding reality, that it takes a while; we need the threshold to give us time to adjust.

The way His disciples recognized Jesus was through His abundant giving. The abundant gift of fish was but a mere expression of His abundant nurturing love. This was how they knew without a doubt who He was.

And Peter, putting on his clothes and jumping into the sea was expressing the experience of that feeling, "I'm not worthy of this kind of abundance, goodness and love."

I love the part of the story of Jesus feeding them breakfast. His abundant love is always so nurturing and tender, in the everyday of our lives, here and now.

After feeding his disciples Jesus asked Peter three times, "Do you love me?" Do you love me more than anything else, more than your old comfortable way of living, more than your security and safety, more than anything you have ever known?

Jesus asked this of Peter three times. Peter had denied Jesus three times, because at that time he was not ready to answer this question.

But now, this whole new reality of resurrected life, the life of the Kingdom of God had fully been revealed to Peter and he was being asked to choose. And so here he was at the threshold; choose!

Professing one's love for Jesus is to choose His Way. Jesus told Peter to love Him was to follow Him. Following Jesus means to give that same abundant love by caring and nurturing others in the name of Jesus.

I think one of the ways to know if we have chosen to move beyond the threshold, if we are truly following Jesus, is to consider not following Him. That is, consider getting off the path and no longer journeying into His Way of love and transformation.

If one comes to the conclusion, "Well, I can take it of leave it," then that person remains on threshold or has actually decided to remain in a very limited understanding of reality, one that has no true conception of the love of God.

But if upon considering leaving this Way of Jesus one experiences the feeling, "I would be lost", "Lord, to whom shall we go?"

Then this is the best way to know that one needs to move beyond the threshold of the old and into the new resurrected life of joy God wants all of us to have.

But this new life of love and joy that God promises us is unknown territory. We are not moving into a known, familiar and comfortable Way.

And we can only discover it bit by bit as we move beyond ever successive thresholds in our effort to follow our risen Lord.

Ester de Waal shares this poem by Sr. Jennifer Dines:

For us there are no certainties, no star

Blazing our journey,. . .

We try

Out our way lit with angels, wondering

How far?

Amen.