SOCL, Easter5C

Sunday May 18, 2025

See

We excel at performative connection—masters of the visible metrics while our souls starve in isolation. Our phones buzz with notifications while our hearts ache with absence; we count followers while feeling fundamentally unseen. The digital age has perfected the illusion of intimacy without its substance.

The revolutionary command to love isn't about warm feelings but costly presence. True connection requires precisely what we fear most: vulnerability that risks rejection, attention that sacrifices efficiency, and commitment that transcends convenience. We've constructed elaborate systems to appear connected while remaining fundamentally untouchable.

The path forward isn't found in perfecting our presentations but in surrendering our protections. Like water that can only nourish by being absorbed, love only transforms when we allow ourselves to be changed by the encounter. Our greatest fear—being truly known—remains our deepest hunger.

Listen

Acts 14:21-27; Psalm 145 (144); Apocalypse 21:1-5; John 13:31-35

Reflect

(John 13:31-35)

Consider a relationship where you maintain careful distance—where you've chosen safety over vulnerability, efficiency over presence, or control over surrender. What walls have you built to protect yourself from the mess of authentic connection?

Jesus challenges us to measure our love not by comfortable emotion but by uncomfortable action. How might your relationships transform if you loved as he did—with a willingness to be inconvenienced, even wounded, for the sake of genuine presence?

Reflect on one small step toward authentic connection you could take today: a difficult conversation you've avoided, a boundary you've hidden behind, or a person you've kept at convenient distance. What single act of presence might begin to shift everything?

Pray

Lord,, you know us more deeply than we know ourselves. Dismantle our carefully constructed barriers to authentic connection. Transform our fear of vulnerability into courage for true presence. Teach us to recognize the sacred invitation in each uncomfortable encounter, finding you in the faces we've learned to avoid. Make us vessels of your revolutionary love in a world starving for genuine communion.

SOCL, Easter4C

Sunday May 11, 2025

See

The cultural dismissal of faith as illusory consolation or opium has left its mark on us all. Is it all projection? Has God truly spoken and revealed God’s self ? In Christian faith, our response is a resounding yes and, while we should be wary of facile solace, at the same time we should not deny ourselves the good and wholesome reassurance of faith. After all, one of the most repeated phrases throughout the Bible is “Do not the afraid” (though not in John, curiously). There are grounds for fear; but we, of all people, should not be overwhelmed by the negative.

Listen

Acts 13:14, 43-52; Psalm 100 [99]; Rev 7:9, 14b-17; John 10:27-30

Reflect

(John 10:27-30)

Jesus tells us that we can rely on his relationship with us. Think of the relationships you have in which you feel safe and secure because there is mutual understanding and the relationship has stood the test of time.

Jesus says that the disciple is one who listens. What is your experience of listening to the word of God in the Scriptures? To what other voices have you listened and found guidance?

The faithful disciple is also one who follows the path of love that Jesus preached and practiced. Although it may be difficult at times, it is in following it we find life. Where have you had the experience of listening, responding, loving, and finding life?

Pray

Safe in your hand, O God, is the flock you shepherd through Jesus your Son. Lead us always to the living waters where you promise respite and refreshment, that we may be counted among those who know and follow you. We ask this through Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the life, who lies and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit God for ever and ever. Amen.

SOCL, Easter3C

Sunday May 04, 2025

See

We prefer familiar failures to uncertain beginnings. After crushing disappointment, these fishermen retreat to what they know—empty nets and midnight waters—rather than navigating the unmapped territory of resurrection. How readily we too abandon possibility for the comfort of old identities, returning to practiced inadequacies when transformation seems too disorienting.

Recognition arrives not in spectacular revelation but through ordinary abundance. The shoreline breakfast—fish caught through borrowed wisdom, bread from unseen sources—reveals how sustenance often appears where we've repeatedly cast empty nets. Our blindness to divine presence stems not from absence but from our stubborn insistence on discovering it in expected forms.

Love's interrogation strips away our pretensions. Three questions penetrate Peter's self-assured loyalty, each peeling back layers of assumed devotion until raw vulnerability remains. True calling emerges not from capability but from acknowledged weakness; leadership authority flows precisely from the wounds we'd rather conceal. Our capacity to nurture others expands in proportion to our willingness to admit our need for nurturing.

Listen

Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41; Psalm 30 (29); Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19

Reflect

(John 21:1-19)

Reflect on where you've retreated to familiar patterns after disappointment. What comfortable failures do you return to when new possibilities seem too uncertain? When have your empty nets become preferable to the risk of casting them differently?

Consider moments when abundance arrived unexpectedly in your life. How might familiar landscapes—relationships, work, daily routines—contain unrecognized presence waiting to be discovered? Where have you been looking right past what you need most?

Examine your reluctance to acknowledge vulnerability. How might your wounds and failures—the very places where you feel inadequate—become sources of connection rather than shame? What might happen if you allowed these tender spots to become points of genuine leadership?

Pray

Restorer of broken trust, you meet us in our retreat to old patterns. Transform our unsuccessful night fishing into dawn revelations. Feed us when we cannot feed ourselves. Make our wounds sources of empathy rather than shame. Lead us from familiar failures toward the courage to follow even when the path leads where we'd rather not go.