On the Indomitable Impulse
May 11, 2025
Traceymay Kalvaitis
John 10:22-30
At that time the Festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me, but you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, in regard to what he has given me, is greater than all else, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”
Acts 9:36-43
Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs.Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.”
So Peter got up and went with them, and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile, he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.
***
Today’s sermon is titled On the Indomitable Impulse. In the spring of 1515, in the village of Avila, Spain, a baby was born; they named her Teresa. She was born into a violent era. Twenty years before, the King of Spain declared that all Jews and Muslims must convert to Christianity in order to stay in Spain. Many converted but as doubts grew over the authenticity of the conversions, a religious court was established to make determinations. During the Spanish Inquisition, over 150,000 were prosecuted, many were tortured, and nearly 5,000 are estimated to have been executed.* Generations of families were impacted. The Jewish grandfather of the baby Teresa was prosecuted but spared punishment. Teresa’s parents made an obvious show of being pious Christians and Teresa showed signs of interest in religion and spiritual practice from a very young age. When Teresa was 14, her mother died; when Teresa was 20 she entered into cloistered life in a Carmetlite convent where she became, in her own words, a “lackadaisical nun.”**
Her health collapsed and for years she was unable even to walk. Instead, she crawled, and eventually learned to walk again. In the midst of her suffering she experienced a spiritual reawakening when she began to have unexplainable experiences. Teresa devoted her life to what she called quiet prayer in place of the recitation of prayers. She began to speak about her experiences and to urge the return of the Carmelite order to the practice of contemplative prayer. Teresa, although still frail, was obviously full of joy and devotion to the point of being ecstatic. Teresa initiated a movement within the Carmelites to return to the ancient practice of contemplative prayer as a primary practice; it was wildly successful. Teresa of Avila faced life-threatening accusations and criticism from within her own order, her peers and her superiors, and from the church.She began to attract attention and the religious court of the Inquisition called her in and ordered her to write her autobiography. The inquisitors demanded to know how she identified herself and from whence her inspiration came.
I share her story with you because it reflects the very same pattern we see running through our readings for today and, if we take the long view, we see it running through the long arc of human history. Those who stray too far from the norm, those who raise a voice for change, those who challenge are often subject to silencing.
Jesus knew all about this. In our reading today from the book of John, we go back in time to Jesus’s ministry. The details in our reading give us important clues. We read it was winter, time of the Festival of the Dedication (or Hanukkah) and “Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.” This is a very public place, a very prominent place at a significant time in the Jewish year and Jesus is pressed to reveal his identity. The inquisitors of his day say to him, “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe.” What he says next is so closely related to a passage in the first testament writings of the prophet Zechariah, chapter 34, that we must look at it. His inquisitors would have known this passage well. In it, the prophet Zechariah writes, “The word of the Lord came to me, ‘Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally.’ …I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them… I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd.” (Zechariah 34: 1- 4, 10-12, 23). You can hear that in Jesus’s defense, he also makes an accusation. Those who do not recognize who he is, those who are threatened by his presence, his ministry, his miraculous signs of healing…they are also the ones who are profiting from an allegiance to the Roman Empire instead of shepherding the people whom they have vowed to serve.
Friends, it is the same pattern we see repeated over and over again. A week ago this past Monday, a fellow native North Carolinian and clergy member, Rev. Dr. William Barber II was arrested and ticketed for praying quietly, along with two other clergy members, in the Capitol rotunda. NBC news reported on Friday that they were arrested, removed from the building and ticketed for, “crowding, obstructing and incommoding. Capitol Police told NBC News the group also violated federal regulations that prohibit demonstrations, including prayer, in congressional buildings.”*** Barber and the other clergy were raising awareness about impending cuts to medicaid in the federal budget. The proposed budget is reduced by 23%, or 63 billion.**** Meanwhile, economists expect the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to be extended. We can well imagine what the prophet Zechariah would say about that.”
Zechariah was slain in the temple, Jesus was slain on the cross, Teresa of Avila’s life was threatened by the Spanish Inquisition, and Rev. Barber was arrested and escorted out of The People’s House, but Friend, the impulse to love, and to care, the impulse that leads us to seek justice not for some, but for all…that impulse is of God and it is indomitable; it shall not be overcome.
The affirmation of this truth is on full display in our scripture reading from Acts today. What we find is a strong community, devoted to the teachings of Christ, gathered around a beloved member who has died. The fact that this woman has two recognized names, one in Hebrew and one in Greek, is a testament to her sphere of influence. In their vulnerability, in their grief, and in their faith, the community has called for the Apostle Peter. He has been called and he responds, even in the wake of the public execution of another Apostle, Stephen, Peter responds . We can not know if he is hesitant. We can not know if he is fearful for the attention such an action will surely bring to focus. All we know is that Peter responds and Tabitha also responds to his command that she “get up.” Jesus was no longer with the people in physical form, but the impulse of love that is stronger than fear, the impulse of love that is stronger than death.
Friends, we don’t have to understand it. All we are called to do is witness it. I would add we are called to seek that of God in one another and in the circumstances of our lives, especially when people or circumstances are difficult. We are invited, then, to live in alignment with the limitless presence of God, to not put limits on ourselves, and to not put limits on what a community of people, centered in love, can accomplish. In this spirit, I will close with words of Teresa of Avila who was recognized as saint by Pope Gregory XV in 1622, one of 37 saints, and later elevated to a Doctor of the Church, by Pope Paul VI in 1970, the first woman to receive that designation; she is one of only 17. These are St. Teresa’s charge to humanity:
“Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which Christ is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which Christ is to bless us now.”
-St. Teresa of Avila, 1515-1582
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition
**https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Teresa-of-Avila
***https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/william-barbers-latest-prayer-protest-led-arrest-capitol-rcna204187
****https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/05/the-white-house-office-of-management-and-budget-releases-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2026-skinny-budget/
Pastoral Prayer
Holy One, I thank you this morning for this practice of prayer. Just how it works, we may never know, but we are grateful to be participants in something deeper, something wider, something far beyond who we are. We extend our prayers over all the world this morning and we call on the highest, purest form of mother love to aid us in the healing of our Selves, the healing of our relationships, and the healing of our planetary home. Give us the courage to pray about anything, about everything. This we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
Benediction
I leave you with these final words:
For the many ways women share their love, their concern, their wisdom and their time, may they receive abundant strength and clarity from the very heart of God and may the most tender aspects of mothering be an expression of love that each and every one of us can, with the grace of God, embody. Amen.