Third Sunday of Easter (Year C, RCL)

God calls us to serve the world with our bodies—even when those bodies are failing.

"I dream of walking the streets of Damascus," sighed a Syrian refugee whose radio interview I heard on my evening commute. His voice trailed off into a wistful silence. I had been engrossed in his story, but at the interview's end, my mind connected the refugee's lament and longing for a Damascus road story of long ago.

On Sunday, we hear the story from John 21 of Jesus and Peter on the beach. Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?" and three times Peter answers, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Then Jesus tells him, "Feed my sheep." We also hear about how Saul became the apostle Paul, on the road to Damascus. Here he was, on the way to persecute the followers of the Way, and out of the blue, Jesus speaks to him, too: "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" There he is struck blind, and when he sees again, he has a new calling as a follower of Jesus and a missionary to the gentiles.

On one Sunday, we hear stories of two of the main characters from the New Testament. But I can't help being drawn to Ananias.

As we encounter the post-resurrection Jesus in this week’s Gospel, brokenness and disappointment permeate—brokenness as thick as the morning mist off the Sea of Galilee, disappointment as pungent as the smell of fish.

I can still smell the wet canvas and sawdust of my father's revivals. He believed that any self-respecting revival was held in a tent.

I love Don Juel’s description of Jesus as a “master of surprise.” The ways Jesus reveals himself to his followers in the post-resurrection stories testify to his delight in surprising those who love him, and whom he loves.

Jesus’ moments of self-revelation are not only world-shaking but intimate, relational, invitational and even clever.

Gangs excel at finding the lost, adopting them and sending them out. Therefore, gang youth can be recruited for apostolic ministry.

My mother’s generation of women was raised to expect that families would depend financially on the husband’s income. My mother is lively and creative, and as a child she wanted to be a doctor—but women just didn’t do that. When her husband left her, her creativity and energy were channeled into supporting three children on the small income from a job initially intended to supplement the family’s welfare and provide a personal challenge.