Bible Study: Easter 5 (C) – May 18, 2025

RCL: Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35

Another Impossible Commandment

They sat around the table, not yet knowing it was the last time. The bread was still warm, the air still full of ordinary things, but something in the room had shifted. The water had barely dried from their feet when he spoke—“Love one another. As I have loved you.”

Love that doesn’t draw lines around who gets to belong. Love that kneels even when the heart is breaking. They didn’t know yet what he meant—not really. But he did. He had already begun. And now we have heard it, too. The only mark of those who follow him will not be well-polished theological arguments, perfectly executed potlucks, or our ability to sing “Come, Thou Fount” by heart.

On this fifth Sunday of Easter, still rising from death and dust and disbelief, we are marked not by certainty or success or piety, but by this: how we love, and who we’re willing to become in the process.

Acts 11:1-18

When God Breaks the Rules

Poor Peter. Poor, rule-following, well-intentioned, sincere Peter, who thought he had this faith thing nailed down. Because what is religion, if not a clearly labeled seating chart? The clean over here, the unclean over there, no need to mix.

And then the dream comes. A sky cracked open and down floats a picnic basket—wild, crawling, hooved, unholy things tumbling out. A feast Peter never asked for. A voice he can’t ignore: “Eat.”

Peter, bless him, pushes back. Because he knows the rules. He’s built his life on the rules. But apparently, God has moved past them. “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

And just like that, Peter’s entire theological framework is toast. His boundaries blur. And to drive the point home, the Spirit descends—right there, on the very people he was told to avoid. No conversion form. No doctrinal checkbox. No religious SAT score required.

Peter, stunned, horrified, a little in awe, asks: “Who was I that I could hinder God?”

And isn’t that the question? Because God is always bigger. Always wilder. Always more unsettlingly inclusive than we’re ready for.

• When has God’s grace been frustratingly inclusive?
• Where in your life are you keeping God small, contained, and respectable?

Psalm 148

Everything Everywhere All at Once

This psalm is an open invitation—for everything, everywhere, all at once—to praise God. Mountains? Of course. Storms? Absolutely. Sea monsters? Sure, why not?

It’s an apocalyptic karaoke night—every creature gets a verse. Not just the choir, not just the ones who read sheet music and land every note with confidence. But the algae, the street pigeons, the beetles rolling tiny balls of dung with fierce determination. And yes, even the spider—a tiny mystic—spinning her fragile masterpiece, waiting for the light to hit the prayer rug just so.

God calls to the alley cats, the old women on their porches watching the world shuffle by, and the kids with sticky hands, lifting them to the sky for no reason except the sky is there and so are they.

Because apparently, God is not interested in curated praise. No polished performance required. No auditions or tryouts. Just the whole, holy, loud, off-key, unfiltered chorus of creation, singing anyway.

Which means you, too. You, with your big feelings and your deep worries. You, the radiant and the ragged. You, trying your best, or maybe not trying at all today. Even when you don’t feel like much of a hymn, you’re already part of the song.

You are the song.

• If God is inviting everything to sing, whose voices have you learned to tune out?
• What would it look like to let your mess join the melody?

Revelation 21:1-6

One Wedding, Zero Funerals

Rome believed itself eternal. As if the Pax Romana—the peace of conquest—wasn’t a fragile veil stretched over the thunder of marching feet. As if fear could impersonate peace forever. As if empire were the sun and the rest of us mere shadows, caught in its orbit, circling and circling, unable to break free.

But John sees something else entirely—not a war, not a divine smackdown, not a reckoning. A wedding—the long-awaited embrace of heaven and earth. The dissolving of all distance between the Divine and the dust. And like every sacred union, it brings with it a home—built not of force but of longing and love. A city that does not conquer but welcomes, descending like breath, like blessing, like the dream we forgot we were allowed to want.

The walls are made of welcome, the streets of mercy, the air thick with the scent of something new and ancient all at once.

And at last, there is rest. The kind you didn’t know you needed, the kind that feels like coming in from the cold. The kind that comes when you realize you don’t have to fight anymore, because love has already won.

Rome? Temporary.Caesar? A footnote.Empire? A fading echo, swallowed by the sound of love calling us home.

• Where in your life have you accepted a “Pax Romana”—a false peace that masks control or fear?
• If empire is fading, why does it still echo in you? What would it cost to stop listening?

John 13:31-35

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The revolution will not be televised. It will be powered by a towel and a basin, with bread broken in trembling hands, with love that kneels instead of conquers.

Jesus waits until Judas has left. The betrayal is in motion. The cross is hours away. As the door closes, the room holds its breath.

Outside, Rome is still Rome. The empire stretches from Spain to Syria, with legions enforcing the will of men who call themselves gods. But inside, Jesus turns to the ones who remain—men who, by morning, will abandon him. He knows them. The softness of their hands. The way their eyes widen when the world turns cruel. Still, he loves them.

“Love one another. As I have loved you.”

A commandment terrifying in its tenderness. Given by the one whose hands shaped the cosmos—and scrubbed the dirt from his betrayer’s toes. A love so absurd, so unflinching, that even Judas, silver in hand, left with love-soaked feet.

If Judas was included, who are we to decide who isn’t? This love—impossible, unrelenting— is how they would be known.

Two thousand years later, Rome has crumbled. The gods of conquest are forgotten. Yet this love—this ridiculous, relentless mercy—still rises from the ground like something green and stubborn and alive.

The revolution has already begun.

• Judas, even in betrayal, left with love-soaked feet. Who do you struggle to kneel before, to welcome, to love without condition? What would it take to let Christ’s love undo that boundary in you?
• What would change if you lived like the revolution had already begun?

Tina Francis is a seminarian at the Seminary of the Southwest.

This page is available in: Español