APRIL



1 John 3:11,18

"The message you heard from the very beginning is this: we must love one another....My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action."

April is action. People wake up, bears begin to roam to neighborhood garbage pails.  Blooming trees signal the arrival of Magnolia and Dogwood shad. The nets are set just off the sea lane on the Hudson River. The tides have mostly carried away winter flotsam. 

Good Friday, Easter, Passover. Endings. Beginnings. The first sound of leaf blowers and lawnmowers. Friends of the Library announce trips to public gardens, lunches. One hot day a cicada can be heard. Seems everyone and every thing is busy. 

One has to be committed to April.

After a few tantalizing summer-like days in March, April is not only bone dry, but chilly. Close to freezing at night. A cheat for the plants trying to awake. Day by day the Hostas furtively push out spikes. Ferns Struggle to unwind. Only the Lenten Rose has in inhospitable conditions bravely bloomed their purple and white glory.

 The birds however wake us us with newly hopeful spring choruses. They began to tune up in March. 

April 23 We find ourselves marveling at fleeting time as we all must eventually do. Happier to do so on this our son's 34th birthday. We remember his first attempts at describing his world. See! He throws his arms out and lies back against the pillowy Boxwoods. See, the blooshers! Our granddaughter's first sentence was, Daddy! The leaves falling! They were born, it seems, with a commitment to life and life's wonders.

April 25 The Wisteria has graced us with its spectacular amethyst dangle earrings. The Dogwoods, white and pink have made a run for glory at last. The ancient pink has held on for yet another spectacular act. We hold our breath in March to see if her last act has come. Applause when once again, for perhaps the 60th time, the curtain opens and out steps the grande dame  once again in the splendor of advanced but victorious old age.

April in Paris.  1985 . Just my husband and I.  Glorious inspiration of troubadours ancient and modern. Long walks among expertly pruned Chestnut trees leafing out in their allées above masses of tulips in the Tuileries. The happy trip in 2004.  We flew our son there to be with us. It was so amusing to see his surprise at how well I spoke French. He took four years of French at the high school where I taught. I made sure not to teach his class. I knew you spoke French, but not that good! April in Paris.

I was never in Paris in April with anyone I was in love with as a young woman going to school there. I wasn't all that comfortable alone with myself back then.  I suffered a bit le mal du pays.  No matter. I walked there happily decades later in summer with the man I am married to now some 40 years. Commitment is a good thing.

The fountain we made from a Pennsylvania Dutch copper boiling kettle  is cleaned and filled with fresh water now babbling away. A small brown bird takes a drink then flies as if to rest on our deck railing. It makes numerous trips, preening each time on the railing unconcerned by me watching its ablutions a foot away.  

Great hawks are riding April's breeze today overhead. The smart and mighty crows are ganging up on the hawk with loud barks no doubt in protection of their young. A doe feeds beside this year's fawn in a thicket not 200 yards from where I stand.

All of this is treasure within sight on my acre. I am committed to April.

The Sunday School lesson this week is about Commitment.

The Bible passage reminds me of a wider commitment. I am rich here on my acre. I must do more than talk about love. I must renew commitments I've made to Save Our Sisters, Polaris, the Food Bank, my church mission, to family and friends in need.

 Renewal. Growth. Commitment to the Light in Whom there is no darkness. The power of Jesus whom God raised from death. It is April's song.

WALK IN THE LIGHT



1 John 1:1-2:2

This was one of John Wesley's favorite passages in the New Testament.

The writer of this letter or sermon lives in a cultural 'stew'.  The neo-Platonists are talking about the "pleroma" in which the ideal exists out there somewhere in space, far beyond human habitation.  The Stoics believed that everything was 'material'- even God, and that nothing transcends this material world. The Jewish tradition taught that the true aspect of God is incomprehensible and unknowable- that only God's aspect interacts with mankind and the world. The Gnostics preached the flesh was evil. 

And here is John testifying that They have seen God of all things- not out there somewhere, not a material non transcendent being, and certainly not incomprehensible and unknowable.  He testifies that they have seen the Word of Life, The Logos with their own eyes. 

He testifies that there is fellowship with this Person.  Fellowship!  Not with some ideal, or unknowable God, but companionship in a company of close associates, partnership, friends.  Little wonder that their joy was complete.

Furthermore, John testifies that this Person is Light, and that in Him there is no darkness- this at a time when the Stoics at least thought they could conquer the darkness with reason alone.  John tells us this is folly.  Everyone sins.  To believe otherwise is a lie.  And in God there is no strange mixture of light and dark.  The dark is merely lack of God.

Sin, wrongdoing, is common to all.  And John testifies that indeed we can be purified not by our reason but by the purifying blood, the very life, of Jesus who purifies us from all sin.  This Person that the witnesses have seen the eternal life which was and is this man.  We have in Him an advocate, not a mean person, a person who was with God from the beginning, God's beloved Son- prevenient Grace in Wesleyan terms- who supports us and pleads our cause on our behalf, who along with our fellowship with Him releases us from the prison we are in.  And not only for a select group  or club, but the "whole world". 

Have whatever ideas about how the world is, this is the Christian message of hope in a nutshell. 

Read the passage and think on it.

1 John 1

The Incarnation of the Word of Life

¹ That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. ² The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. ³ We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. ⁴ We write this to make our^[a] joy complete.

Light and Darkness, Sin and Forgiveness

⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all^[b] sin.

⁸ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

1 John 2

¹ My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. ² He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.