Looking Ahead to May 15, 2022 -- 5th Sunday of Easter

 The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Acts 5:12-16
• Deuteronomy 28:1-14
• John 5:25-29

The Sermon title is Blessings Will Come

Early Thoughts: In the promise of Easter is a promise of life, and that in abundance. As followers of Christ we are people of hope, we are people who trust, we are people who look for the blessings of life.

This is a strange combination of readings. Acts talks about the continuing growth of the Christian community and the signs and wonders that accompanied (or caused?) that growth. The growth of the community is accompanied by blessings. The Gospel reading is a little odd. But I think that there is a blessing in the doing of justice (more than the execution of judgement but the bringing on of full justice which is what Jesus was all about). There is a blessing in removing those things that are death-dealing and calling people to leave their tombs. 

Then we have the Deuteronomy reading. It is all about promised blessings. It also is clear that those promised blessings flow from the people making good choices. This is a common theme in Deuteronomy and in the stream of theology sometimes called Deuteronomistic. If the people live well, in accordance with the law given by God, they will be blessed in the land that they are about to conquer. If they do not live well, and not follow the law, they will be cursed ad the blessings will be withdrawn/withheld. Blessings are conditional on our choices.

This makes perfect sense. It is also a challenging image of how God operates. Do we behave well just to keep God happy and be blessed? There may be days... However I am not sure that is the whole truth to be drawn out of this theological theme. I think the deeper truth lies in the realization that living well naturally brings blessings. Living in the way that God would have us live brings us blessings simply because they are good practices for the betterment of the community. We do not behave as a sort of a bribe, or to avoid a negative consequence. We are called and challenged to get to the point where we see the bigger picture, see beyond the carrot and the stick to the grand vision of what could be.

Some days I wonder if we will ever get to that point. Some days I am actually see it happening..

--Gord