We all know what it’s like to be distraught disciples, says Courtney Allen Crump, Pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia. We’ve all found ourselves, at one time or another, experiencing something that left us distraught, anxious, grieved, fearful, or all of the above. In this Sunday’s Gospel lesson from John 14:1-14 we find Jesus offering pastoral care to his own distraught disciples. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he says. “Believe in God; believe also in me.” “Funny thing about the grammar of the Greek in this sentence,” Crump notices (she grew up in the deep South). “The ‘your’ is plural and the ‘heart’ is singular. So we might read it, ‘Do not let y’alls heart be troubled.’ Think about that for a moment—this idea that we share a heart—all of us share a common heart—a heart in God’s heart and home in God. And that collective heart still beats and keeps life flowing, and the reign of God coming into our world…”
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