Fourth Sunday of Easter – A

Fourth Sunday of Easter – A

Years A
Acts 4:5-12
Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18

What an openness to life! Teaching (being led forth), Fellowship, Feasting, and Communicating within and beyond - these are still key elements in a healthy community - whether of one faith or another.

These four qualities bind a community closely enough together that trust of their most prized possessions (even survival) to one another can take place. Without this vital communitarian impetus organic growth doesn't take place. Oh, there can be surface unity, but the lack of deep trust will eventually shine through and fracture will show.

In today's untrusting environment where winning and losing metaphors abound, what Teaching is most needed that would lead us toward trust? What Fellowship and Feasting? What Prayers? Note that teaching toward trust is different than teaching toward a particular doctrine.

There are undoubtedly many responses to these questions. Instead of waiting to come up with one grand theory of everything, you and I are encouraged to Teach, Fellowship, Feast, and Pray as best we can, leaving any later form of such to such a time.

= = = = = = =

called to endurance
is a strange gift
to receive
in a world valuing
this quarter's bottom line
only in light of the next

endurance will best be seen
in light of the flighty
expedient choices of today
which reveal the long-term
values worth investing in
today for tomorrow's sake

to pile value high
pack it down and heap it higher
is still a long-term strategy
with a proven track record
sustainability trumps a Vegas hit
enduring and guarding life

so our ancestors found
again and again and again
forgetting this teaching imperils life
hoarding goods and celebrations
to the fewest possible number entitled
diminishes possibilities

so our descendents call out
again and again and again
to be included in the bounty of life
and so we endure today
with ancestral solidarity
received and passed on