A TIME for RESTORATION
Psalm 30
JOHN 21: 1-3, 5-6, 9-13, & 15-19
MAY 4, 2025
Today’s a day when STAR WARS reenters the conversation … I have already had several good morning TEXT messages that are declaring MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU.
I always find it interesting how phrases and words become common place amongst society. Some hang around while others disappear almost as quickly as they become part of the popular vernacular. “There’s no place like home” … “Here’s looking at you kid” … “I’ll be Back” … “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” … “Hello Gourgeous” … “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse” … and of course the line from Gone with the Wind that I won’t complete here in church … “Frankly my dear”
Anyhow where did feeling groovy disappear to? Perhaps we never slowed down and we actually moved too fast to continue to feel groovy any longer. I started thinking about this yesterday when my daughter said that the new dinosaur museum at Rowan was COOL.
Now, I like being cool but there are times when something that’s hot is also really cool. The slang use of cool meaning good or stylish originated in the 1930’s and 1940’s African American jazz culture. A guy I never heard of until I looked it up named Lester Young who played tenor saxophone should get credit for our saying coming to church is cool. Enjoying a museum exhibit is cool … and yes, you can feel groovy when you are involved in a cool activity.
When most of you see me next I will have celebrated another birthday … and that’s cool and I am hoping to have a groovy time and yes, 31. But, this particular birthday has me thinking about life … thinking about the restoration that is offered through changes that occur in our journeys. I am wondering again what my dad was thinking at 70.
And, part of restoration and part of reflection comes from today’s Scripture lessons … by the way, how often do each of you pause to consider your relationship with God? Birthdays are a good time to reassess … become reflective and then strive to move forward in life in a better way and so today’s lessons include my favorite Jesus barbecue at the beach moment from His life and this Psalm, which is a call to people of faith to reinvigorate their connection to the Holy.
Bishop Marianne Budde, the Bishop from Washington DC and the pastor of our National Cathedral recently reflected during an interview that “the teachings of Christ are being ignored” in the year 2025 by more and more individuals who call themselves Christian. She offered the interviewer this suggestion, “Anyone who buys a Bible should read and focus in on the teachings of Jesus.”
And, as we come to the table of the Lord this morning … as I am now approximately 110 hours from my adding a digit to my age … I think we all have an obligation in our faith walk to turn to Jesus. I don’t know how many of you are buying Bibles these days since FREE BIBLE APPS are available on our devices … I will probably gift myself a new one in the near future … but more importantly … my Christian friends … members and visitors of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in West Deptford … we are still in the EASTER season so in these times of trouble in our land … in these days of struggle and stress … at this moment in time … are you in a moment in your life just as I am when you are in need of restoration? Well … the cool thing to do, which will help you avoid some hot times later when life is done is to pick up your Bible … pick up your I-Pad … look at your phone for more than a text or a game and read the words of Jesus Christ. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts.
Jesus set up the breakfast barbecue along the Sea of Tiberius, which is another name for the Sea of Galilee, after His Crucifixion, after He left the tomb behind … the women of faith had already delivered the message to His disciples HE IS RISEN <<He is Risen Indeed>> and they already had spent time with Him. But in addition to making sure that His disciples shared a good breakfast with Him, Jesus had some points to make that I would like to emphasize with all of us this morning as we head into the month of May.
You see, Jesus was not all that complicated unlike the Prophets who guided the people of Israel during their times of strife and struggle … Jesus, as is recorded in the Gospels, brought God’s directives to those around Him and then thanks to the historians who recorded Jesus’ life story and Jesus’ words we here in the year 2025 can actually be connected directly to God’s expectations … we can be restored just as God offered restoration to God’s people throughout history but friends we need to make the active decision to connect with God … to be one with Christ and to allow the Holy Spirit to take actions in this world THROUGH US.
The best descriptive term for Jesus’ believers … Jesus’ followers is not that we are groovy …. Not that we are cool … but we obviously meet both of those descriptions, but it is that we are EASTER PEOPLE. EASTER PEOPLE who celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ through our words, our actions, our social media, and in the image, we offer to the world.
And, so after they had that barbecue breakfast along the shoreline that today is marked by a beautiful little church … Jesus pulled Simon Peter off to the side. John clearly witnessed these moments but the first question for Peter who had denied Jesus three times … Peter who saw the empty tomb and ran to hide behind locked doors rather than declaring to the world that Jesus was alive … Jesus asks Peter the question that just might be the question we each get asked by Jesus or by God when our journey here is over … “DO YOU LOVE ME?”
It became a repetitive question as Peter answers “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” It is on the third time that John records Peter’s response as being slightly different … “Lord You know everything … You know that I love You.”
So church, as we approach the Table of the Lord … Holy Communion … this first Sunday of the month ritual … if Jesus was to appear to you after church … after Communion … as you headed off to breakfast and Jesus asked you face-to-face … DO YOU LOVE ME, what would your answer be knowing that Jesus knows everything. Do you have a LOVE STORY with the Son of God?
And, I again repeat ARE YOU IN NEED of RESTORATION? Of your faith … of your God connection … of how you are choosing to reflect or to ignore God and Jesus Christ in your daily walk. The God of Creation loves each of us so much and we are COMMANDED … well, that is if we believe in God and Christ … otherwise we can join Rhett in saying “Frankly, my dear I don’t give a …” HOOT when commenting about God.
We are COMMANDED (It’s the primary and first commandment according to Jesus that all the other laws and commands and rules fall upon along with the second commandment.) we are COMMANDED TO LOVE GOD with ALL of our hearts, our souls and our minds … total and complete love and when we love God then we strive for restoration. When we love God then we pay attention to the teachings of Jesus Christ … when we love God we deny the world and embrace the fact that we are EASTER people celebrating that Jesus Christ is alive … HE IS RISEN <<He is Risen Indeed>> and thanks to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John we can easily access words, sentences, phrases, and lessons that Jesus Himself spoke.
I could speak about Psalm 30 for hours, but I won’t. However, I find a link between these readings from today’s Lectionary. David in his own way is declaring his love of God. He begins the Psalm by saying, “I exalt you, LORD, because You pulled me up. I cried out to You for help and You healed me. Lord, You brought me back to life from amongst those going to the pit. Weeping may stay all night, but by morning, JOY!”
That could be my life journey and some of yours … the praise song TRADING MY SORROWS is a celebration of the joy God offers. I don’t need and don’t want to repeat my life from 2023 and 2024, but I do want to briefly share a conversation I had yesterday morning as I drove along New Jersey’s highways with a woman named Lauren who actually preached here one Mother’s Day a few years ago. On that day here in front of this church she did not know that while giving birth to her second child Ezra that she would go into a deep coma and be sent to the ICU. Her parents and her husband Matt were told to prepare for a funeral rather than celebrating new birth. Yes, St. Paul’s prayed for her then … as did others. And, Lauren survived … she still has serious health challenges, but we talked for an hour or so yesterday about life and living. We talked about faith and God. We celebrated in the moments God’s restoration even in the darkness and yes, there was a lot of anger and frustration amongst everyone who loves her.
But friends, God … God even when we are in the darkness is shining a beam of love light in our direction. God’s love has brought Jesus to the world to teach us about living but also to serve as a sacrifice for our shortcomings …. God’s always there to change our mourning into dancing … to take off our funeral clothes and dress us up in joy so that our entire being might sing praises to God and never stop.”
However just like David, we declare “we will never stumble” but we do and God becomes hidden away. We lose that peace that exceeds human understanding because we align with the world … we need restoration … God has made an offer we shouldn’t be refusing but all too often we are. Even when we share in the Sacrament of Communion there are many people who are not focused on God but on breakfast or baseball or just the clock.
As we approach the Table … join me in declaring Lord have mercy … be my helper … restore my faith and lead me to read the words of Jesus that can be transformative making each of us once again EASTER people whose goal is to shine Jesus out into the world through our words, our actions and our lives. God’s calling … that’s really cool and groovy … and God didn’t need a fourth to be with us because the TRINITY has always been there each and every day. AMEN