The Prayer of Humble Access with Fresh Eyes Pentecost 2C, May 29 2016 Holy Communion Lakeview

+One of my tasks, as the Bishop’s Canon, is to keep an eye on things. I have a wide variety of responsibilities, but they all fit under the umbrella of one task: making sure that what we’re doing; on the parish level, the diocesan level and throughout the wider church, is dedicated to expanding the Body of Christ in whatever ways the Holy Spirit is calling us to be the Body of Christ  in this world, at this time and in this place vs. hanging on to theologies, practices and procedures that were well-suited for another time and perhaps a different place. 

In other words, my job is to keep us, as a diocese, moving forward—looking ahead while still respecting and honoring all that has been. To be Christ’s body in the world, we must be a living breathing, adapting organism of faith and hope and love. And that isn’t always easy! 

      How many of you are familiar with the Prayer of Humble Access? I don’t know if it’s your practice to recite it when using Rite 1 as we are today, but the prayer goes like this:

 “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.”

This is one of those prayers, one of those icons of our institutional faith that people either love or loathe. Frankly, for years I fell into the loathe camp. When I first encountered it, I decided I didn’t like it and just moved on, never challenging my verdict and usually reciting it with a bit of disdain in my heart. 

That is, until I heard the foreshadowing of it in today’s Gospel. A Roman centurion has asked Jesus to heal his slave, but before Jesus can arrive, the slave dies and the centurion sends this message to Jesus:

 

“Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.”

    The scene in the Gospel is amazing---two outsiders, one who was the enemy of the Jesus Movement and the other, a slave, a non-person in the eyes of the Romans---become intimately connected to this wandering, odd, rabbi from Nazareth. The old is giving way to the new, what was despised is becoming cherished. 

     In our reading from the Book of Kings’, Solomon stands on the steps of his newly completed temple, praying that all those drawn to this amazing edifice, will come to understand that the God worshiped there is a God for all people, no exceptions. Read through a 21st century lens, these words drip with irony as, for most of its history, the temple in Jerusalem has been fought over by people trying to maintain their version of the institutional status quo, avoiding, at great cost, a move into the unfamiliar and the new.

        In both our reading from King’s and our reading from Luke we’re reminded that the growth of the church-- that the spread of the Body of Christ in this world--is a journey into the unfamiliar and a trip down the road of unknowing.

      Our Christian faith, if it’s going well, should be, at

times, uncomfortable. Because our faith, if it’s to grow and flourish, must accept the new, embrace the different, and welcome the unfamiliar. If we stay in what’s familiar, if we fail to listen with fresh ears and see with newly opened eyes, if we listen to the same old people saying the same old things and refuse to listen to the new, the different and the uncomfortable, then instead of being Christ’s body in this world we’re just a lifeless corpse hanging on a cross.

      So what does any of this have to do with the Prayer of Humble Access and my opinion of it? Lots.

As I read today’s Gospel and heard the familiar prose of the Prayer of Humble Access I began to wrestle with my assumptions and my opinions. I looked for something new wrapped up in the old; I looked for something fresh out of the familiar. And I realized that what I didn’t like about the prayer was the exact thing I needed to embrace about the prayer!

 I always heard this prayer as a hymn of self-loathing-- that we couldn’t receive communion until we were convinced that we were worthless worms and that it’s only through the mercy of God that we aren’t thrown into eternal damnation and hellfire.

Well guess what? While God never wants us to loathe ourselves we aren’t—and never can be—worthy of God’s grace and mercy. Hear me clearly--although we can never earn it, we also can never ever lose it. 

So, we have two choices: forget and reject it or remember and embrace it. God isn’t the fickle one, we are.

      

    We can get so caught up in the institutional part of church we forget the Body of Christ part of church---our readings this morning remind us that ours is an ever-changing faith: the way we worship God, the way we strive to be God in the Flesh on earth, is always evolving, changing and becoming something all together new. As Solomon prayed for on the temple steps, as Jesus recognized in the faith of the Centurion, as I discovered when I read the prayer of humble access with fresh eyes, being the body of Christ in the world requires that we embrace the different, accept the new and reach out to the stranger; because when we do, our faith is enriched, our worship takes on new meaning and our God, the God who loves everyone always no exceptions? Well when we look at the familiar from a new perspective and when we welcome change instead of fearing it, that God shouts Alleluia and Amen!+

Plus, a prayer for Memorial Day:

Gracious and loving God, we remember, this day, those men and women who, in service to our country, gave their lives so that we could enjoy all the wonders this country offers.

We thank you for their bravery. We ask your blessings on those who were left behind: mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sons, daughters and all who loved them. May the hole in their hearts be healed, at least in part, through the balm of our gratitude. In Jesus’ name we pray, AMEN.

God in Three Persons, grooves deep paths of access St Luke's Jamestown, Trinity Sunday 2016

Remember the Far Side comic? Drawn by Gary Larson, it was a single frame comic that was a quirky take on every day life from a nerdy scientist’s perspective. It took the most familiar of human situations and twisted them into something altogether new.
Now I wouldn’t call the doctrine of the Trinity a familiar part of everyday life, but still I find some guidance in explaining the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God, from the Far Side.
My favorite Far Side comic depicts a figure looking an awful lot like Albert Einstein standing in front of a blackboard. Three headings sit atop three columns on the board, marked Step One, Step Two and Step Three. Under Steps 1 and 3 are numbers and mathematical symbols, suggesting some type of formula. Step 2 has no such numbers, no symbols, no formula. Instead it just says, “And then a miracle happens.” Sometimes, even in science, we just don’t know how we get from Step One to Step Three, we just know that we do. Such are the attempts to explain the doctrine of the Trinity: Father/Mother/ Creator, Son and Holy Spirit….one is tempted to give all the theological explanations and then just say, well, then a miracle happens: Step 1 We Believe in God. Step Three we believe in a Holy and Undivided Trinity. Step 2, a miracle happens which makes three into one, and one into three.
Some things can’t be explained as much as they can be experienced.
The bottom line is, none of us fully understand the Trinity. Sure we have a sense of it: we believe in One God who is present to us in three distinct, yet linked ways: God as Father/Mother/Creator, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit---but we don’t really understand it, to understand it would suggest that we grasp it in all of its nuance. We can’t do that. Our belief in the Trinity requires a leap of faith, a miracle, and an acceptance that we won’t know what this really means until the last day. Until then, we’re grasping at straws whenever we try to come up with a hard and fast definition.
So in no way am I going to try and make the Holy and Undivided Trinity understandable to you, Understanding is a personal thing which comes to each of us in different ways and at different times. It’s a dynamic process, constantly changing, evolving, moving. As a matter of fact that---the dynamic nature of learning, of understanding, is also an excellent way to describe the Trinity. For activity-- dynamic process-- is a key piece of the interrelatedness between our Creator Father/Mother God our Redeeming Son God and our Sustaining Advocate Holy Spirit God---they’re in constant movement toward one another and towards us.
     Now let’s get one thing clear, we have one God. Period. When we say, there are three persons in One God, what we mean is that there are three aspects, three distinct ways the Divine is in relationship with us—the more authoritative, parental God who was and is the Creator of all things, the accessible fully human and fully divine God—the Son who felt all the same things we feel and was capable of all the same things--except sin-- and finally, the advocate, the Holy Spirit given to us on Pentecost; that unseen God who acts in and through other people in our lives and is that still small voice deep within us. But these three distinct characteristics of God are just that--- characteristics of a whole—they are not separate.
They are “part of. “
      Throughout the generations, people have fought over the Doctrine of the Trinity---St. Nicholas was expelled from the Council of Nicea because he became so irate over the efforts to explain, in words, just what we mean by the Holy and Undivided Trinity, one God, that he actually punched another attendee. Others have made valiant efforts to explain the Trinity using visual aids:
     St. Patrick used the three leaves of a Shamrock—each leaf is distinct but is not separate from the whole of the clover.
    Icons show the Trinity as a swirling dance of interconnected parts—always attached, but each moving in it’s own way.
Almost all expository attempts at describing the Trinity fall short because at its heart, the essence of the Trinity is relationship. And describing the essence of a relationship almost always fails.  Think of your own relationships---the most precious ones you have—how would you describe them? Can you find the words? Could you diagram it? You could get close, but it would still be lacking.
That’s my point---to describe the Holy and Undivided Trinity just doesn’t do it justice, because it’s a relationship and relationships can’t be explained as much as they are experienced.
God, in God’s three fold nature, is relationship. God, as expressed through the Body of Christ here at St Luke's....[and more examples of their ministries] is relationship
             Retired Lutheran Pastor Richard Lischer shared this interpretation of the Trinity he discovered while contemplating a stained glass window depiction of the Trinity: “The fairly typical Trinitarian design of three interconnecting triangles reminded me of an aerial photograph taken of our small farming community,” wrote Lischer.  Besides the straight and orderly rows of crops in the fields, another distinct pattern emerged: well-worn paths criss-crossing from one farmhouse to another. These paths, worn into the ground by generations of neighbors visiting and helping out in times of need, linked the town, they knit the community together.”
Lischer’s description of the interconnectedness represented in those paths explains my experience of the Trinity.
    God grooves paths in our lives, coming to us at different times and in different forms to address a variety of needs.
God, in three persons, Blessed Trinity, reaches out to us as a strong parental type when we feel small and childlike. God in three persons, Blessed Trinity reaches out to us as a forgiving friend in times of loneliness and confusion. God in three persons, Blessed Trinity reaches out to us as a sustaining force of inexplicable peace when we are bereft and lost, angry and bitter, hopeless and helpless. God in three persons, Blessed Trinity, longs to be a palpable presence in our lives, so God in God’s infinite wisdom, walks a number of paths to reach us.
Step One: God Loves Us.
Step Three: God Wants to be With Us
Step Two: Through the miracle and mystery of God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity, God’s Love is always with us.
Amen.

The Holy Spirit moves among us and gives us the courage to do what we never thought we could. Pentecost 5.15.16 Trinity Lancaster

+Imagine if someone’s first time in a church was either last week or this? Bodies visibly rising to heaven, tongues of fire, violent wind and some ramble by Jesus about he being in the Father and the Father being in Him!.
Welcome to Christianity—it’s accessible! It’s understandable! Not so much…!
 So, I think I need to begin today by laying out the facts of Pentecost and then talking about the reality of it.
       First of all, let’s get the Holy Spirit pronoun issue out of the way. In orthodox traditions, of which we are one, The Holy Spirit is referred to in the feminine. This tradition goes back to the time of Jesus but has just recently been resurrected by scholars. It seems some men took offense at women having any type of connection to the Godhead so they replaced the female imagery of the spirit with male.
 But, to me, it makes sense that the Spirit be seen as feminine, after all, Jesus is male and God is either no specific gender or is all possible gender identities…who knows…so by referring to the Spirit in the feminine we cover all traditional gender expressions.
     Now, onto the name—Pentecost---nothing fancy here, Pentecost simply means the 50th day. Jews have a holiday that predates the Christian Pentecost—it’s called the Feast of Weeks and it commemorates Moses receiving the Torah on Mt Sinai. According to Jewish tradition this commemoration, called Shavu’ot is held 50 days after the first day of Passover. On that first Christian Pentecost, Jerusalem was teeming with people, for Shavu’ot is one of three observances that required the Jews of ancient times to go to Jerusalem and worship in the temple.
          So the city was packed and because a crowded city put everyone on edge and an edgy city didn’t bode well for the followers of Jesus, the disciples were hiding, caught between the traditions of their Jewish faith and the bewildering happenings of the previous few weeks—crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and now, today, crazy wind and flames falling from the sky.
As you know, Jesus NEVER does anything by happenstance, so sending the Holy Spirit on this day, at this time, was by design. It was another example of Jesus saying, “this is the new way….the Torah got us this far, but now we have farther to go, we have a different way to try.” And, just as he had promised, Jesus sends us an instrument through which His work of redemption for this world can and will continue.
But, much like the dramatic ascent into heaven of last week, the Holy Spirit, on this last day of the Easter season, on this 50th day, arrives in style, on tongues of fire and in gusts of violent wind.
     OK so now we know what to call her and where the name of Pentecost came from and why the disciples were all in one place…but just what or who is the Holy Spirit?
Well she isn’t anything. Or she’s everything.
We can’t see her, but she’s everywhere, we can’t hear her, but she speaks volumes, we can’t touch her, yet we do feel her.
The reality of the Holy Spirit is this: she can’t be explained, she needs to be experienced. She can’t be defined, she needs to be felt, she can’t be corralled, she must be allowed to run free.
Oh and she’s everywhere, all the time…we just need to perceive her.
The scripture writers have tried to give us a story of the Holy Spirit being bestowed upon us, but the truth of the matter is, the Hoy Spirit’s always been here, moving among us, between us, through us.
Always.
But, as is often the case with human beings, we didn’t notice. Not because we’re bad or evil or ignorant, but because, in spite of the fire and wind, for the most part the Holy Spirit is really subtle.
The Holy Spirit is that still small voice whispering deep within us. The voice we can’t hear unless we quiet ourselves enough, still ourselves enough to notice.
The Holy Spirit is that sense of inspiration, acknowledgement or realization that comes when you’ve finally left an issue that’s been bugging you for weeks, behind, when you’ve turned to another task and in the middle of something completely different you have that “eureka” moment.
The Holy Spirit is when everything falls apart and we’re angry, lost, sad, hopeless, confused and then, days later, months later, years later, we realize that if we hadn’t experienced that loss—the loss that felt overwhelmingly painful at the moment---we never would have experienced the joy of something altogether unexpected and new.
The Holy Spirit is when a group of people decide to tackle a problem---hunger, as witnessed by your food pantry; failing schools as witnessed by the diocesan Jim Eaton Summer Reading Program; the challenges of Juvenile diabetes as witnessed by your Sunday School donating some of the proceeds of your Bake sale to JDRF and FOTOS.
The Holy Spirit moves among us and gives us the courage to do what we never thought we could. The Holy Spirit moves among us and gives us the audacity to do the things other people are shocked that we will actually do.
The gift of the Holy Spirit may not have a cute birth story or a miraculous resurrection tale attached to it like Christmas and Easter. The Holy Spirit may not be describable or definable, but the Holy Spirit can be experienced and, my friends, we must do everything in our power to experience her.
  The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to us, she’s the whisper in our ear, the shout in our heart, the hope in our soul. She’¬¬s the nudge that leads us places we never thought we could go, she’s the detour that feels frightening but ends up being enlightening.
The Holy Spirit is the love we feel for one another.
The Holy Spirit is the hope we share with the world.
The Holy Spirit is the frustration we feel with the status quo, the anger we feel with injustice, the disgust we feel with evil.
The Holy Spirit is our conscience, our longing, our passion.
The Holy Spirit is here. Welcome the Spirit, and like so many who have walked before us, let the Spirit take us where we absolutely positively must go.
Amen.

A Eulogy for Scout

In April of 2004 I moved into a house with a large, fenced in backyard. At the time I tele-commuted so it seemed the perfect time to get a dog. I’d had cats for most of my adult life but the truth of the matter was, I’m a dog person. I just hadn’t had the lifestyle that afforded me the opportunity to have a dog. Now I did. So I began to look on Petfinder for a dog. I figured I would look for a dachshund, as I had grown up with dachshunds.
So I find this dog. Well actually, I saw this face…this classically hound face….a face that I would have sworn belonged to a dachshund….a face that was actually attached to what Petfinder said was a “hound mix,” my vet at the time insisted Viszla, and my own research and living with her for 12 years  which determined that she was indeed a coonhound of the redbone variety crossed with Rhodesian Ridgeback.
What she wasn’t was a dachshund.
But she was so beautiful.
So Suzanne, Robin and I trekked out to the Genesee Animal Shelter to meet Maisy (that was her pound name) . As we took that walk so many of you are familiar with---down the concrete halls lined with cages, there was a great cacophony of barking and whimpering. In the cage marked Maisy was that sweet hound, not making a sound, sitting kind of hang dog in the center of the pen. I greeted her and she stood up, wiggled the wiggle that became her trademark and leaned against me at the front of the cage. MaisyScout had chosen me. And at that moment, I was rescued.
There was paperwork involved and she needed one more round of vaccinations, so we had two choices…she could be picked up during regular business hours on Wednesday (April 28) or the next Saturday. Having pesky day jobs, neither Robin nor I could go to Batavia on Wednesday. BUT SUZANNE COULD! And did.
I don’t think either of us will ever forget when Scout first saw her backyard. She ran and she ran and she ran the loop of the yard. Fast. Furious and with wild abandon.
She was, after four other homes in 9 months of life, home.
There is a lot to learn when you grew up with short dogs only to find yourself with a tall and very agile dog. Many loaves of bread, boxes of cookies, sandwiches and in one epic case, a pan of brownies later, we all learned about counter surfing and never again was anything we didn’t want eaten, nosed, moved and or knocked over (think a toaster in the middle of the living room) left on a kitchen counter.
Or, for that matter, a bedside table (someday ask my mom about the mouth-guard she wore. Wore is the operative, past-tense word. Did you know those cost $500?).
She could find anything with the combination of her nose and her determination (and those opposable thumbs we KNOW she kept in the pockets we never found)
She was a terror.
She was wild.
She was stubborn.
She got expelled from Canine Academy where she was having “puppy classes.”
We hired a private dog trainer. Paul Burger. What a wonderful man. And what a smart student Scout was. She caught on way faster than I did. But after a couple of months, we graduated.
And then we got down to the business of living and being a family.
Scout learned a lot from her Uncle Timber. She adored her Aunt Suzanne and she was the mayor of Parkside.
We went to baseball games where she ate hotdogs, made friends and was terrified of a stuffed gorilla.
We traveled to Wisconsin every summer. She loved staying in hotels along the way. She loved rest stops and travel plazas.
She loved her Aunt Anne, her Uncle Mark and Alyssa. She especially loved  our nephew David. They were inseparable whenever we were in Wisconsin. David gave her the very best nickname ever---Scoot Loops.
She harassed Alyssa’s dog Adam. Adam hated to swim. Scout loved to swim. So they swam. Scout DRAGGING Adam into the water…..
Alyssa was very patient with all of that. When Adam died, Scout did her best, when we visited, to hang with Alyssa. Alyssa was one of Scout’s favorite people. Along with her Uncle Mark and her Aunt Anne. They all, including Oliver, were with her the last week of her life.
Although Robin and I adopted Scout together, there was never any doubt that Scout was my girl and that I was hers.
Every morning, Scout and I would rub heads. She loved to have me rub my face across hers and into the scruff of her neck. As she lay dying, I did that one last time. Not for her, but for me. You see, that’s how it was with Scout. She truly did rescue me. She saw me through so many things---changes in relationships, changes in jobs, changes in careers. She helped me through seminary, she listened to COUNTLESS sermons.
And then, on that Monday afternoon in October of 2010,when the phone rang with the news that I had cancer, Scout got up from her throne---I mean chair----and walked up to where I was standing and sat on my foot. When I hung up the phone, I sat right down next to her and she held me. She never stopped holding me. Through diagnosis (and many many many trips to Roswell),  surgery and active treatment this dog who never ever slept in my bed, slept with me, walked with me, snuggled with me, guarded me----oh my did she guard me!----until one day, toward the end of 2011, she eased back a bit. She no longer slept with me. And I knew I was cured.
And I was.
When I met Pete and she came to the house for the first time, Scout LOVED her. There was no hesitation, no “checking her out,” it was immediate and total acceptance. And suddenly Scout knew that she could ease back even more. Because Scout knew I was going to be ok. It wasn’t long after Pete and I got married that the first signs of Scout’s illness began to show. She slowed way down, she developed visible benign tumors and it seemed clear that she was becoming our good OL’ girl. We had a good year with her just slowing down ever so gradually---she still loved chasing whatever she could find up at the ranch, she still took off on her “walkabouts,” returning filthy dirty with a gigantic smile on her face, but she was losing weight so we knew something was wrong. In the summer of 2014 she had surgery to remove a number of the tumors and we were told that she had a tumor on her liver and that eventually either her liver would fail or a tumor would burst. What we knew is that she wasn’t going to get out of it alive. And so began the #DyingMyAss tour. It was two years of great living, interspersed with lots of expert love and attention by Colleen, Scamp, Dr Garafalo and Dr Nellis, but finally, on the 25th of March 2016 our princess, our Scooters, our Scoot Loops, our Jean Louise Scout Dempesy-Sims couldn’t do it anymore. And we said good-bye.
What some of you already know is this---after she breathed her last, Dr G asked Pete if it would be ok for the folks who worked at ESAH to say good-bye to her. So one by one, with Dr Garafalo standing at the door, vet techs, aides and the office staff came into the room to kiss Scout good-bye. She had a lot of human friends. They loved her. And that is something we will never forget.
Speaking of friends---Scout had a lot of dog friends….Uncle Timber, Jack, Molson. And she helped raise her share of puppy friends---Milo and Cowboy. She had her sister, Hari and her brother Cooper. After Hari died Scout got her very own in house puppy, Louie…and we found out what a wondrous mother she could be. And of course there was her best friend, her pal, her running mate (thank you Dash Dog Running—Chris and Amanda Muldoon!!) and her cousin, Yodel Watson Taylor. Scout and Yodel were friends from the moment they met. And I guess it makes sense that they died so close together….life in this world without the two of them together, just wasn’t going to work, so they are together again, young, healthy and without a care in the world….they rescued us and now God has rescued them from their ailments and their challenges, to run free, to play hard and to keep dog heaven running as smoothly as a Swiss watch. No matter when they left us it would have been too soon, this we know, but somehow, some way we long for just one more day. So hug your pets. Love those who love you and never ever forget to stop and give someone a wiggle.
Thank you for being here, for loving Scout and Yodel and for loving us, Suzanne, Pete and me. Amen.
Thank you, Creator God for the gift of pets: for dogs and cats, donkeys and goats. For all makes and manner of creatures we give you thanks.
We ask your healing to those pets who have been neglected and abused, we ask your soothing presence in the hearts of us who have loved and lost our pets, especially those we now name:

Heal our broken hearts and, in good time, bring to us other pets who need us as much as we need them.
Amen.

Pray Easter 7 St Paul’s Stafford/St. Mark’s Leroy 8 May 2016

+Today’s reading from John’s Gospel is the end of what’s known as Jesus’ Farewell Discourse, a long series of statements Jesus makes to his disciples on the night before his crucifixion. We’ve read from this discourse for these last several weeks of Easter.
It’s a bit confusing and disconcerting---here we are, shouting Alleluia, rejoicing in the wonder of the empty tomb for these Great 50 Days only to have our Gospel readings take us back to that sorrowful night during the first Holy Week.
And we’re reading these selections at the tail end of the Easter season, during one of the oddest ten day stretches in the entire church year. You see, this past Thursday was the Ascension of the Lord…when Jesus says good-bye to his disciples yet tells them to stay put and wait, help is on the way. So the disciples do as they are told (for once) and just stay put, looking somewhat slack jawed up to the heavens as Jesus ascends, waiting for something more to happen. And so here we are---no longer reveling in the empty tomb and also not yet rejoicing in the gift of the Holy Spirit. We, like the disciples before us stand a bit slack jawed as we linger betwixt and between endings, and beginnings, “hurry up and wait,” and not quite yet.
Where are we and what in the world are we supposed to do? Although our Gospel reading is taken from the night before Jesus’ crucifixion it’s all about what will come---the resurrection, the ascension, the coming of the Holy Spirit and the steady walk toward the coming of God’s reign in this world, on that day when, as Jesus says, we’ll all be one. The world outlined in the reading from Revelation---a world which is, according to John is “coming soon,” a world where all those who desire the water of life will be washed in it, where everyone who thirsts for justice and righteousness will be quenched, a world to which we are invited by the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God: come they say, come and enter through the gates, take your seat and be refreshed. So today we’re looking behind; remembering the pain and terror, the sadness and grief of Holy Week, and we’re looking ahead to the New Jerusalem, to the promise of eternal life where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing but life everlasting. And in the midst of this looking ahead and looking behind, of thinking about what was and what will be, Jesus gathers us, much like a mother bird gathers her brood under her wings, and prays for us.
Prayer is an amazing, powerful, mysterious and incredible thing.
Five years ago I experienced a health crisis and as a result lots and lots of people were praying for me. Now, I am a priest and as such I am a big proponent of prayer. I highly recommend it and for years----even before I was a priest---I spoke glowingly about the power of prayer. I had certainly done my share of praying and I intellectually knew that research shows and people repeatedly speak about the power, the effectiveness, of prayer. But truly, it wasn’t until I was the recipient of extensive, intensive, pointed prayer that I understood---really felt deep in my bones, my heart and my soul---the power of prayer. I was, and remain incredibly humbled by my prayer warriors and have seen again and again and again that same intentional intercessory prayer work absolute wonders for others. Prayer works.
Not only does prayer work, prayer is, in my opinion, not optional for any of us who long for that New Jerusalem described in Revelation or that world where we all—everyone everywhere—will be one as Jesus prayed for in the Gospel.  Now maybe this sounds ridiculous, that I’m stating the obvious, but hear me out. My charge to you, each and every one of you here today, is to pray.
Diligently, regularly. And not just for those you know but especially for those you don’t.
Pray for peace and for wisdom the world’s leaders is always good. Praying for our planet, praying for seasonable weather and successful crops, all very important.
It’s also important to pray for our enemies. And that? That’s really hard. But it’s important. Pray for your enemies.
It’s also important to pray for this, your church, and for your priest, and your vestry and wardens. And pray for St Mark’s (St Paul’s). And please. Please pray for our diocese, pray for me, pray for Bishop Bill. Pray that all 58 of the churches in this diocese will live into the task that has been given to us. To be the hands and feet, the eyes and ears of Christ in this world and to seek and serve Christ in all whom we meet. The stronger we are as a diocese, the more work we can do for our Lord.
On the night before he died, our Lord prayed for his friends, he prayed for the world and he prayed for us. Today as our focus moves from the empty tomb to being the church in the world, let us pray for him, let us pray with him. For through prayer, the world is changed.  Amen.

The Peace of God Spins the Web of Grace St Peter’s Westfield, May 1 2016 Easter 6

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you
+I’m so happy to be with you this morning. I thank Virginia for the invitation, you for your welcome, and Bishop Bill for creating this job of the Canon for Connections. Because it is this job of mine which allows me to travel around the diocese meeting people, speaking with them and hopefully connecting them in and through the Bishop’s web of grace. For those of you who don’t know, “the web of grace” is an interweaving, intertwined system of connections that strengthens us as a diocese and as a witness to the world around us, bringing grace, hope, love and peace to a world that so sorely needs it.
My friend Rick Morley , who is an Episcopal priest, an author and a poet, is someone who understands just how desperately this world of ours needs to hear and more importantly see the Web of Grace in action. In 2013 he wrote a beautiful reflection on today’s Gospel, and I will quote it heavily in this homily.  (a peace of marvel – a reflection on John 14:27
April 26, 2013 accessed through rickmorley.com on April 29, 2016)
In this morning’s reading from John, as Jesus is in the midst of his farewell discourse to his friends---you remember it’s a set of very poignant statements Jesus makes on the night before his crucifixion--- he utters these iconic words:  “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Of course, as always with the disciples, they have no idea what he’s talking about.
I get their confusion. After all Jesus is telling them that he’ll be gone, but that he’ll never leave them. He’s telling them that the world won’t know a thing about him…except….until…only if they tell the world. That everything he’s taught them over the course of the past three years will signify absolutely nothing unless and until and only if they, his friends, his followers, his students, his disciples share what they have experienced, with others.
And while Jesus is speaking directly to his disciples in this Gospel he is, of course, also speaking to us.
He’s telling us that his peace---a peace which surpasses all understanding---is ours. Yours, and mine and everyone’s. Always. And forever.
He’s telling us that he knows our hearts get troubled, that our hearts become afraid …BUT he says, do not worry for His grace. His love, His peace is ours. That we receive this peace when we do as he has taught us: by reaching out to the other, by searching for the lost, by loving the hated, the despised and the thrown away. We receive this peace when we live as he lived.
All of this has been given to us, not to horde, not to hide and not to ignore. It’s been given to us to share.
And my goodness, does this world need it.
It’s my prayer and I trust it’s yours, that we, each and everyone of us will be strengthened through the fellowship of Christ, emboldened through the nourishment given at this altar, inspired by the worship offered here, to go out into the world and show all those whom we encounter, this peace.
Particularly now . With hatred being spewed across our airways in one of the most nasty election seasons in our memory, with gun violence ripping apart cities, small towns, villages, neighborhoods and families, with an uncertain darkness which seems to pervade our world, resulting in terrorist attacks of unspeakable horror.
      The good news is, help is here, help has always been here. Help comes to us through Jesus Christ, who, on the night before his death brought his disciples the same help that is available to us, here and now.
Peace. His peace.
Not the world’s peace. Jesus doesn’t bring that sort of thing.
No, Jesus brings the shalom of God, where everything is good and right. Where everything is in it’s place, and where there are no dark corners to shelter evil from the warm glow of God’s pure light. The kind of peace that walks on water, that stills the storm, and fills our jars to the brim with the finest of wines. The kind of peace that brings sight to the blind, restores hearing to the deaf, and tells the lame to get up and walk.
The kind of peace that comes to a tomb and renders it empty.
That kind of peace.
Where hearts never need be troubled—for what could ever cause such a stir in the presence of God’s Shalom?
Where there is nothing to fear. Nothing.
The kind of peace that bombs and storms and cancer and injustice and terrorists and dissidents and lobbyists and weapons of mass destruction and dark hairy beasts which go bump in the night—where none of those things which usher in the valley of the shadow of death can usher in even an ounce of fear.
Because there is no oxygen for fear to breathe. No room for fear to move. No water for fear to swim in.
Because the peace of Jesus has soaked us to the bone, and nothing can wring it out.
That’s what Jesus brings. To us.
And so let us marvel. Let us savor. And let us make it our mission to continue his mission, and take this peace—which passes all understanding—to the ends of the earth. And to the inner chambers of our hearts.
For when we do that, the web of grace will once and for all be complete. And to that we all can say,
Amen and Alleluia.