Being Healed is to Change – 22 May 2022 –Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 5:1–9

I used to work with a man who had a sweatshirt that said, “Change is good.” It may be my imagination, but he seemed to pull it out just after some news had broken that set the place in an uproar of speculation and fears about the future. His sweatshirt slogan could be a summary of this morning’s lesson. Change is good. Don’t get attached to what you know. It will change. . . .

On those rare occasions when I voluntarily embrace change, I do so only because at some deep level I am convinced that not changing will be more painful than change. When change is thrust upon me, my first interpretation is far more likely to be disaster than adventure. Secretly, I cling to the hope that there is some third option for human life on earth: that some static state of peace and joy can be achieved, that someday soon, maybe after I clean off my desk or get caught up with filing, I will be able to cross everything off my list and be at rest.

Mature Christians assure me that . . .life is a struggle to respond to change, to make change, and above all, to trust. They say that when they trust God and live life depending only on God’s presence, that experience makes them trust God more. We . . . can be radically transformed by living a life of faith each day. We can become mature Christians who testify to the muddled and to the frightened regarding what we now know about the presence and the peace of God amidst all the changes that life (and that same God) can bring. –– Melinda Reagor Flannery

Acts 16:9–15

The Reformed tradition is known for its educated clergy, and the thinking goes(!) that if we have the right theology in place, then our minds will guide the rest of our body and heart and mouth towards the right direction. My pastor friend reminded us that what we are in need of is soul. Soul. Passion. Spirit. It’s not that we set aside cognition and intellectual edification. Rather, we need the balance of knowing that God has taken care of things, of everything. . .

. . . Jesus calms the fears of the disciples. He doesn’t give them a precise theology, or a long-winded explanation. He speaks to them plainly, lovingly, and sincerely about peace and the peace that he gives. . . What we do is nothing more and nothing less than direct the soul’s gaze of our people to Jesus. That’s what it means to be a witness: to direct, to point to the One who has sent us.

So, preacher/teacher, offer that gracious, Spirit-filled word to your congregation, community, family, and even to yourself. –– Neal D. Presa

Revelation 21:10, 22––22:5

In what ways do the images in Revelation 21:22—22:5 evoke the description of paradise in Genesis 2:4–17? How is the cross the tree of life? What is the fruit of the cross, and how do people eat it? –– John Paul Salay

Melinda Reagor Flannery, an Episcopalian, lives in Galveston, Texas.

Neal D. Presa, pastor of the Village Presbyterian Church, Rancho Santa Fe, California, and adjunct professor of worship at Fuller Theological Seminary, was the Moderator of the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA).

John Paul Salay is Loyola University’s Minister of Liturgy and the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA).

Homily Service 43, no. 2 (2009): 139–149.