Third Sunday of Easter, May 4, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
St. Michael’s
Simon, do you love me?
Yes Lord, you know that I love you.
Then tend my sheep.
If he’s in town, 82 year old Garrison Keillor will walk to church this morning from his condo on the 12th floor of the hundred year old El Dorado building on Central Park West in Manhattan. Now and then he writes about his experience at St. Michael’s Episcopal, and his walk of several blocks back and forth from the 10 am service.
Jesus said to Simon Peter a second time,
Simon, son of John, do you love me?
Yes Lord, you know that I love you.
Then tend my sheep.
At his shows around the country and the world, Garrison often leads his audience in old hymns, which he has known since his childhood days in the Plymouth Brethren church in Anoka, Minnesota. During his monologues about Lake Wobegon he pokes fun at the fictional Lutherans and the Catholics in his fictional little town, but even in the poking he obviously loves those congregations, and the people in them.
Jesus said to Peter a third time,
Simon, son of John, do you love me?
Peter was distressed and said,
Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.
And Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”
I don’t know where Garrison is today, but last week he wrote about his church and his experience there, at the corner of 100th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
I join my voice to the voices around me in the hymns and prayers and the creed. We praise our Creator and acknowledge His love and give thanks for His gifts, His endless goodness. All week I’ve been walking around inside myself and this hour on Sunday morning is when I disappear and feel joined to the world around me. I think tenderly of those I love and I also pray for my enemies. This is the heart of my faith: love, kindness, charity, sitting with head bowed in a beautiful quiet corner of the biggest busiest city in America, in a Jewish neighborhood, a block north of a Hispanic Catholic church, a Buddhist temple and a Muslim temple and Hindu temple within walking distance, in a city where same-sex couples are a common sight, and I pray for those whom I need and love. Religious doctrine does not cross my mind, not even a wisp or whisper. I feel lightened, lifted, buoyant. We sing the closing hymn, our hands raised on the chorus, “And I will raise them up on the last day.”
I slip out of the pew, I give a fist bump to the deacon who read the Gospel, I thank the priest for the good word, and I head out into Manhattan and walk home.
Garrison “needs and loves” his wife and daughter, and his doctors, all of whom he also writes about. Like all of us, he struggles with his ego. Unlike most of us, he talks about it, not just with a confessor but also with his readers. He sits on his patio with his laptop and writes about it all. I envy him, admire him, and from a distance, love him for it.
I say to you, when you were younger,
you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted;
but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands,
and someone else will dress you
and lead you where you do not want to go.
(Acts 5, Psalm 30, Revelation 5, John 21)
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