Looking down and in instead of up and out Proper 24B Oct. 20, 2024

 

+This morning the disciples are stressed out—they’ve given up EVERYTHING—job, family, familiarity, safety-- to follow Jesus, and yet over the course of the previous two chapters in Mark’s Gospel—chapters we’ve been reading since Labor Day---Jesus has predicted his death not once, not twice, but three times. “Look!” he says, “We’re going up to Jerusalem. I’ll be handed over to the chief priests and the legal experts. They’ll condemn me to death and hand me over to the Gentiles. They’ll ridicule, spit on, torture, and kill me. After three days, I will rise to life again.”
So let’s review: first Peter hears Jesus’ prediction and tells him he’s out of his mind, making Jesus pretty mad.
Second, after hearing the next prediction, several disciples compete over who will be the greatest and Jesus responds by putting a child on his lap and reminding all that receiving the fullness of God’s grace and glory requires viewing the world through the unblemished eyes of a child.
Today, we hear John and James asking for a special place above all the other disciples. Again, the disciples are thinking of worldly glory instead of Divine Peace.
Who can blame them? When the world around you is falling apart—and pretty much has been your whole life—-it’s difficult to pry your mind from what’s right here in front of your eyes to what lies beyond the now.
I think this predicament of the disciples is similar to the predicament of today.
I think people are horribly frightened.
It seems to me this has been most evident since January 6, 2020 but I also know, from an historical perspective, that this has happened before in the world (Pearl Harbor, 9/11, school shootings, the Tops shooting) and will probably happen again: when we become unsure, nervous, and scared, we turn inward.
It’s the manifestation of survival of the fittest---the world around us becomes unmoored and we dig in to protect ourselves. We look down and in instead of up and out. We become insular and focused on “me” instead of broad-minded and in tune with the world around us and the world beyond us.
    I preach a lot  about the importance of community and what I’ve come to realize is that the “me me me” of our society isn’t as much about hubris, as it’s about fear.  
Nadia Bolz-Weber, in her book, “Accidental Saints,” says this: “I’ve finally realized that trying not to need others isn’t about strength and independence, it’s about fear.”
James and John’s world is most definitely becoming unmoored. Here they are, following Jesus down to Jerusalem where he’s meeting sure and certain death. This is a terrifying prospect so they begin to look out for themselves, to assure themselves of a place at Jesus’ side.
They’re not arrogant, they’re scared.
Everything they’ve come to know is about to be destroyed. They were simple fishermen when this preacher, offering a message of hope, compels them to drop their nets and follow him.
And now he’s leaving them.
Their world was inside out and upside down and they were freaked out. I so get this.
In our world, since 9/11, since January 6,  since the seemingly unending school shootings, our sense of security had been dismantled and we are, most assuredly, unmoored.
It’s a scary time, and has been for some time. The upcoming election doesn’t do much to improve our sense of security does it?
The world hasn’t become safer or more predictable. And so we turn inward. Just like the disciples did.
What Jesus was telling the disciples in today’s Gospel and what we really need to learn, is to when feeling overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty,  find certainty in the One who tells us that peace is found through service, compassion and care for others.
To look up and out from our fear and insecurity and into the eyes of the poor, hungry, oppressed, lonely,  scared, injured and outcast.
By doing this we will, as he did with his death and resurrection, “liberate many people.”

When we live into the last will be first and the first will be last, when we live into being a servant to all, there we’ll find our greatness. By finding Strength in Weakness and Courage in Fear we’ll find true security and endless peace.
The greatness of God’s love is not found in ourselves, but in our relationship to others.
And that, my friends, is Jesus’ point.. Amen.

Proper 23B An argyument with an innocent God. October 13, 2024

 Have you ever wanted to really go at with God? I mean, have a knock down drag out, no holds barred argument where you tell God all the things about your life which you are furious about and then listen to God try to answer you? Where you ask the age old question of God—why do bad things happen to good people?  
Yes? Well, welcome to the Book of Job. This is how this metaphorical story is set up—God and the number one fallen angel of all time—Satan are having their own argument. Satan maintains that all human beings are corruptible. That, given the right amount of heartache, despair and pain any human being will turn their back on their faith and abandon God. God disagrees and so finally, to settle this debate, God agrees to let Satan have a crack at the most faithful, honest, honorable person in all the world—Job from the fictional land of Uz. God promises not to intervene as long as Satan promises not to kill Job. Satan agrees and then proceeds to do everything EXCEPT kill him.
Job’s wife is so distressed and disgusted by Job quietly accepting all this indignation and humiliation which God is apparently indifferent to that she encourages Job to lie down and die. To stop fighting the good fight and give into what she sees as the inevitable. Then, Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar the Naamahite are so taken by the intensity of Job’s suffering that they sit with him for seven days, horrified by what’s happening. After seven days and nights of silence, Job finally speaks; cursing his life, the day he was born, begging that his very existence be swallowed up in eternal darkness. Whether Job is speaking to his friends, to God or to himself is unclear, but the speech is damning to all, except God. Job will not damn God. He’ll yell at God and ask God why, but he won’t damn the Divine. Sure that bad things only happen to those who deserve it, the friends  try to discern what horrible sin Job has committed to cause such Divine retribution.
Such begins a back and forth debate between Job, his friends and God.
It’s a debate for the ages. At times, Job defends himself, at other times he seems to accept that he’s behaved despicably, even though he has no idea what he’s “done” and still at other times rails at what he considers completely unfair treatment. While Job’s friends put him on trial trying to prove that he deserves what’s happening to him, Job puts God on trial trying to prove to God that he doesn’t deserve all this heartache. There’s a lot of point, counterpoint all adding up to nothing. You see God didn’t cause the suffering of Job, suffering just happens.
Job was so busy trying to prove his innocence he didn’t even realize that God was his companion in all this suffering.
God didn’t do it to Job, but God did live it with Job.  
You’ve heard me tell the story of the suicide of my of the members of my youth group, many years ago. In the sermon I preached at his funeral  I said that while Ian was readying the gun to shoot himself, God was right there with him, screaming for him not to do it. And then immediately upon pulling the trigger, God was there to take Ian home. God is with us through it all. God was with Jesus’s cries on the cross, God was with Job in his trials and God is with us in ours.
It’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for us to comprehend the full depth and breadth of God’s love for us.
What scripture shows us, again and again is that we shouldn’t blame God for our troubles, rather let’s welcome God into them. Because God is already there.
Amen

Don't blame God for our troubles, welcome God into them. Proper 23B

 Have you ever wanted to really go at with God? I mean, have a knock down drag out, no holds barred argument where you tell God all the things about your life which you are furious about and then listen to God try to answer you? Where you ask the age old question of God—why do bad things happen to good people?  
Yes? Well, welcome to the Book of Job. This is how this metaphorical story is set up—God and the number one fallen angel of all time—Satan are having their own argument. Satan maintains that all human beings are corruptible. That, given the right amount of heartache, despair and pain any human being will turn their back on their faith and abandon God. God disagrees and so finally, to settle this debate, God agrees to let Satan have a crack at the most faithful, honest, honorable person in all the world—Job from the fictional land of Uz. God promises not to intervene as long as Satan promises not to kill Job. Satan agrees and then proceeds to do everything EXCEPT kill him.
Job’s wife is so distressed and disgusted by Job quietly accepting all this indignation and humiliation which God is apparently indifferent to that she encourages Job to lie down and die. To stop fighting the good fight and give into what she sees as the inevitable. Then, Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar the Naamahite are so taken by the intensity of Job’s suffering that they sit with him for seven days, horrified by what’s happening. After seven days and nights of silence, Job finally speaks; cursing his life, the day he was born, begging that his very existence be swallowed up in eternal darkness. Whether Job is speaking to his friends, to God or to himself is unclear, but the speech is damning to all, except God. Job will not damn God. He’ll yell at God and ask God why, but he won’t damn the Divine. Sure that bad things only happen to those who deserve it, the friends  try to discern what horrible sin Job has committed to cause such Divine retribution.
Such begins a back and forth debate between Job, his friends and God.
It’s a debate for the ages. At times, Job defends himself, at other times he seems to accept that he’s behaved despicably, even though he has no idea what he’s “done” and still at other times rails at what he considers completely unfair treatment. While Job’s friends put him on trial trying to prove that he deserves what’s happening to him, Job puts God on trial trying to prove to God that he doesn’t deserve all this heartache. There’s a lot of point, counterpoint all adding up to nothing. You see God didn’t cause the suffering of Job, suffering just happens.
Job was so busy trying to prove his innocence he didn’t even realize that God was his companion in all this suffering.
God didn’t do it to Job, but God did live it with Job.  
You’ve heard me tell the story of the suicide of my of the members of my youth group, many years ago. In the sermon I preached at his funeral  I said that while Ian was readying the gun to shoot himself, God was right there with him, screaming for him not to do it. And then immediately upon pulling the trigger, God was there to take Ian home. God is with us through it all. God was with Jesus’s cries on the cross, God was with Job in his trials and God is with us in ours.
It’s easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for us to comprehend the full depth and breadth of God’s love for us.
What scripture shows us, again and again is that we shouldn’t blame God for our troubles, rather let’s welcome God into them. Because God is already there.
Amen

God is listening are we talking? Proper 22B

 Remember a few weeks ago we had a gospel reading in which the disciples say to Jesus, “Master this teaching is difficult.” Today I want to say to Jesus, “ditto.”
These sentences about divorce are difficult. It’s important to know that the Pharisees are trying to back Jesus into a corner but, as usual, Jesus gives as well as he gets. But that’s not what’s burning a hole in the guts of those of you who are divorced, so here’s the deal: I would bet that none of you who are divorced went into your marriage with no intent of it not lasting until you were parted by death. The question of divorce during Jesus’s time was the penchant of men to divorce women willy nilly. Of course by divorcing them the men are assuring that the women—who remember had no standing in society without connection to a man---will be ostracized and marked as “tainted,” forever. So, stop beating yourself up!
I think what follows this exchange with the Pharisees shows just how disinterested Jesus was in the rules and restrictions of the “law.” People were bringing little children to Jesus but the disciples were forbidding it, not wanting to disturb the teacher. Of course, Jesus rebukes the 12 because what Jesus knows, and quickly tells us, is that the kingdom of God is made for children…that how we are to receive the gifts that God freely and abundantly gives us as children do: with glee and gladness.
Which brings us to the collect for today—one of the best collects in the church year. Remember that the collect of the day is the prayer of the day, outlining a theme. Let me repeat it here:
Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
God is always ready, willing and I’d even say anxious to hear from us. It is us –we—who forget, fail, and  resist reaching out to God and, when we finally do receive that which God is  offering us, often feel that we don’t deserve that which God is giving us. Or probably more often than we care to admit, we don’t desire that which God is offering us---because God is almost always offering us opportunities to serve in God’s name, to give in God’s name, to do in God’s name, but we tend to turn away from those opportunities because they’re usually inconvenient, uncomfortable and maybe even risky. Which is exactly what the next sentence of the collect references;  “forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid and giving us those things for which we are not worthy to ask…”
Friends, today is the official kickoff of our stewardship campaign—Walk in Love—I’ve written more about this in the bulletin, let me just say that I ask you to pray—mightily—to hear, see, and notice those things God is presenting to you. Do not give back to God your last fruits, instead have the courage and the willingness to give back to God your first fruits. Think not of what you can afford to give, but think about what you cannot refrain from giving. May I suggest you pray this collect all week and then listen for what it is God is calling you—and us—to do.
Let the little children come to me,  it is for these that the Kingdom is made: innocent, open, risk-taking and ever loving children. I pray to be one, too. How about you?
Amen.

We needn't bear it alone Proper 21B

 In our reading from Numbers, the Israelites are whining, Moses is complaining, and God, well God problem-solves. The Israelites are tired of wandering and the lure of the Promised Land has lost it’s luster while the tribulations of captivity in Egypt don't seem so bad anymore. Besides that, they’re sick and tired of manna, longing for meat, fish, onions and garlic. They’re fed up. And Moses is overwhelmed saying: “I can’t bear this people on my own. They’re too heavy for me.”
They’re too heavy for me, God. Gimme a hand. But, instead of taking the burden on God’s own shoulders, God asks Moses to bring in 70 elders of the community upon whom God will place the power of prophecy.
In other words, God delegates.
God realizes that what makes this whole faith thing work well is community. Especially, communities of faith committed to each other and God through acts of kindness, charity, and love.
      I think, in our own communities of faith, we can forget this responsibility to and for one another. As Christians of the Episcopal type in this region of the world,  we have responsibilities and duties, promises to make, and to keep.
First and foremost, of course, is to love our God with all our heart, mind and soul, and to love our neighbor as we are ourselves loved. We all want this, right? But the thing is, this isn’t a simple arrangement between each of us individually and God. As God taught Moses in our first reading this morning, God is not interested in being the singular source of Love for everyone. Now hear me clearly---God Loves each and everyone of us fully and without exception…. but what God teaches us is that God’s Love grows, strengthens, expands, and intensifies when it is shared among us.
God, inspires, encourages, enables and emboldens each and every one of us to be a conduit of that Love.
To be God’s instrument of Love to all whom we encounter.
Obviously, God’s love in and of itself is strong. But what we learn, when we’re active members of the Body of Christ, is that this Love becomes stronger, this Love becomes more vibrant, this Love becomes MORE when it’s embraced, cherished and shared.
God tells us:
 Feeling my Love? Share it.
Longing for my Love? Receive it from another.
Can’t feel it? Can’t find it? Trust that someone else is carrying it for you, that someone else is holding it until such a time as you can receive; until such a time you can feel it until such a time you can carry it.
God’s Love needs us.
And so, my sisters and brothers in Christ, communities of faith with grand traditions alone and with new traditions forming through our initiative, what do we do? How do we strengthen God’s Love?
Feed the hungry? Sure, that’s always a good idea.
Clothe the naked? You betcha.
Stand against injustice and respect the dignity of every single human being? Absolutely.
But….before we do any of these things, before we embark on our collective work  we must first and foremost remember to love one another. And the absolute best way to live out this love?
Pray for each other.
What I’ve learned is fundamental to the health of every community of faith is: Prayer.
Intentional prayer for one another, it’s life giving and it’s the work of God. So please, Pray for each other in your congregations and in the other congregations of the GRI. For when we pray for each other, we remember that we’re not alone, that we needn’t carry the load alone. [ you’ ll find the cycle of prayer in your bulletins]. I firmly believe that if we are intentional about this prayer, our love for each other will strengthen and grow.
Moses called the 70 elders, Jesus sent out the 72.
Let us send each other out, enveloped in prayerful love.
Whatever struggles you’re facing in Medina, Holley, Albion, Attica, Warsaw, Perry, Stafford, Leroy or Batavia, let’s carry them together, by doing that, we’re doing God’s will.

Amen.

We all must die Proper 19B

We All Must Die Proper 19B, C. Dempesy-Sims

To live fully as Christians, we must die. We must pick up our crosses---whatever ours happen to be-- and enter the darkness, loss, and pain. We know that to get to Easter morning we must enter Holy Week, walking the hill known as Calvary, stretching our arms on the cross, crying out in fear, breathing our last, and laying ourselves in the tomb. We must descend into death and then, AND ONLY THEN, will we rise.

We must, as Jesus says, lose our lives in order to live them.

And we must do this repeatedly.

For its only in dying that we can truly live.

It’s called The Way of the Cross. 

At the Eucharist we lay our lives on the table, the same table Jesus is on. It all gets mixed up and God does what God does and makes something altogether new. And then we all take a piece of this new creation---a little bit of you…and you…and you….a little bit of me, a little bit of Jesus , we all take a piece of one another, infused by and through God and go out into the world, as something new, ready to create more newness wherever we go.

And we do it, again and again and again.

This is what Jesus was trying to get across to Peter in today’s Gospel.

There’s a lot in this Gospel and it’s easy, at least for me, to get lost.

 But the bottom line is found in two sentences: "Who do YOU say I am" and “Get behind me Satan!”

When Jesus asks, “but who do you say I am?” Peter says, decisively,

“You are the Christ.”

No doubt Jesus is surprised that any of them had figured out that He was indeed, The Christ, the promised Messiah. Jesus is God come to earth. Peter is right.

And he’s also really wrong.

He’s wrong because although Jesus is, indeed the Messiah, the Son of God and the King of Kings, he’s not above or beyond humanity. He is in humanity. He is “both and."

He’s God and He’s Human and he’ll never use his divinity to bypass any single part of the human condition. Including humiliation, suffering, execution and the deepest, darkest piece of the human condition, death itself.

Peter can’t wrap his brain around Jesus as God and Jesus as Human. He can’t fathom that Jesus would accept the fullness of the human experience. Peter will not believe that the only way to gain a God-filled life, that the only way bring God’s reign of Love, Justice and Righteousness to this world is to die.

Peter won’t accept that the Way of Jesus is, indeed, the Way of the Cross.

And so Jesus exclaims:

“Get Behind me Satan!”

Get Behind me, all you who are so afraid of the darkness that you  go to extensive lengths to keep it at bay…which just gives it control over everything that you do.

Get Behind me, Satan all of you who so fear death that you absolutely forget to fully live.

Get Behind me Satan… you who want easy answers, the quick fix.

Get Behind me Satan for the life you seek, the life you live, isn’t life at all:

It’s Good Friday without Easter

It’s the dark of night without the light of dawn.

Jesus kind of unloads on Peter, doesn’t he?

But I get it…there’s so much more joy in life when we stop fighting the pain.

There’s so much more light in life when we stop railing against the darkness.

Jesus doesn’t want Peter to miss one minute of this thing called life.

And he doesn’t want us too, either.

 Come, my friends, all you who are weary and heavy laden. Bring your brokenness to this Holy Table and let God make you and me and all of us into something new; for the Way of the Cross takes the broken and makes it Holy.

Amen.

Proper 18 B

 I read an article in the Washington Post * (The Shelter and the Storm, Washington Post, September 7, 2024) about a rural town in Massachusetts splitting apart over the planned reuse of a closed minimum security prison. The plan was to turn the shuttered facility into a shelter for migrants who are waiting for a hearing on their asylum requests. The migrants to be housed are pregnant women and women with children. The town, which is suffering from an economic downturn due to the shuttered prison, erupted into all too familiar expressions of “not in my backyard.”
We all know this story, “no migrants in my town!”
 Remember, these are people who have been invited into this country to apply for asylum,  which means they’re in such danger where they are originally from the United States wants to help them.
But, once again, an American town is faced with the reality of helping your neighbor versus the rhetoric of helping your neighbor.
Did I mention this town is predominately democrat?
Anyway, it seems we may never learn that when Jesus said his mercy and grace was for everyone he meant everyone.
Except… for in today’s gospel… when our Lord and Savior is exclusionary in a very offensive way.
That is, until he encounters a gentile woman. A woman who embodied difference and who taught Jesus a thing or two.
 You’ve heard me speak about this story many times. It’s controversial, annoying and in the end, glorious.
The Syro-Phonecian woman had guts. She bested Jesus in a debate about who deserves God’s mercy and grace. Now, at the time of this encounter with the woman, Jesus didn’t realize he was the Messiah for all people—she, through their debate,  teaches Jesus that yes, he is the messiah for everyone, everywhere, always.
Just as he encounters her, Jesus still thinks he’s only been sent for the Jews, which is why he rudely—and I mean rudely—dismisses her as a dog, an “unclean woman.” She’s unclean, according to Jewish purity laws, because she’s not Jewish, she’s a foreigner, a gentile!
Now, you may be surprised to hear that Jesus didn’t know something but, it’s clear to me---and you’re free to disagree---that Jesus is corrected by the Syro-Phonecian woman.
I actually find it refreshing, that Jesus could be wrong about something. But more than Jesus being wrong, what I find most amazing is the grace with which the woman responds.
Jesus insults her, yet she doesn’t yell or cry, she isn’t struck dumb by his insolence.
She simply replies with a logical argument: “you may think of me as a dog, but even dogs get the crumbs. I’m not asking for the fullness of your glory, I’m just asking for the crumbs. For the crumbs are better than nothing and I know what you can do, so I’ll take just a portion.”
This display of great faith in Him and great love for her daughter turns Jesus’ heart and, ultimately, changes his mind.
It’s a startling Gospel story and one that has infuriated women for generations. Most of our sacred scripture warn about the danger of judging a book by its cover, of excluding people from our lives because of the size of their paycheck, the color of their skin, the name of their God, the gender of their beloved, the party affiliation on their voter registration card. Culminating with this Gospel reading we’re told--- compassion, wisdom, and love can come from all sorts and conditions of people so be slow to judge and quick to welcome, for there are angels all around us, eager to teach us exactly what it is we need to learn, even –especially- when we don’t know we need to learn it!
Just like Jesus.
Amen.

proper 17 B Sept. 1, 2024

     “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you.” These words from today’s psalm are powerful. Each of us—-you, you, you—-has been chosen, selected, anointed by God.
    Don’t think this means you? Think again. Today’s readings reflect God’s longing for us—in the Song of Solomon—a book we rarely read from on Sunday morning—we have a love poem. Scholars have fought over the subject of this book for generations—maybe it’s simply a series of erotic love poems or perhaps a series of love letters meant to reflect the love and longing God has for creation. I don’t claim to know the intent of the author but I do know how much I love the imagery suggested throughout today’s excerpt…
 most especially this:
“Look, there he stands
behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
looking through the lattice.”
    The Bishop of Wisconsin, Matt Gunter, in a reflection on this line writes:
“I love the image of Jesus peering through the lattice of the biblical text and calling us to go away with him saying, “Hey, come out and play.” Or “Ready for an adventure?” Or “Let’s bust this joint you are trapped in.”
God so loves us, Jesus so longs for us that they peer through the window, not in a creepy stalker way, but in, as Bishop Matt says, in the “hey please come out and play” way.
    God is waiting. Jesus is waiting…just beyond the window, just around the corner, just beyond our temporal vision….waiting for us—the anointed ones— to say yes.
    I am preparing a couple of teenagers to be baptized and the main thing I want to get across to them is that while baptism is the ritualistic entrance into the Christian faith, our saying yes to renouncing Satan and all spiritual forces that rebel against God, our renouncing evil, declaring to resist the temptations of all things that are not of God and our full acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, putting all our trust in his grace and love…is not a one and done proposition. It is a daily, hourly, minute by minute decision-making-process that we go through. Until our last breath.
Someone on the street is asking for money, should I give them some?
The clerk at Tops seems to be having a bad time with a customer who is berating  him, should I step in to offer support?
I am angry at my spouse, child, neighbor, co-worker, fellow parishioner. Should I gossip about them to others or should I speak directly to them, expressing my frustration and concern constructively and faithfully?
    These examples and many more offer us a choice….follow the path of the anointed or veer off the track of the Holy?
Indeed, this week I began the practice of reciting this prayer at the beginning of each day (adapted from the examination of the candidates in the BCP page 302):
Gracious and always reaching toward us God: help me to turn from the ways of selfishness, reactivity, anger, and judgement; turning instead toward the grace and trust given to me through you and your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. As I walk through this day may I never forget that you are always reaching out, always ready to receive me, just as I am. May I turn toward you, always. Amen.
    There they are, just around the corner, waiting for us to come near, God’s anointed ones. Let’s go to them. Always.
Amen.

Proper 16B 2024

 +Today we come to the end of the Bread of Life Discourse in John’s Gospel. Remember, the stage was set on the last Sunday of July with Jesus’s feeding the 5,000. In that story Philip is unbelieving---overwhelmed by the prospect of feeding over 5,000 people with a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread—and in response Jesus begins comparing and contrasting the food that perishes vs. the food that doesn’t. For the last four Sundays Jesus has gone on (AND ON?) about how He is the Bread of Life. At first Jesus was vague about what he meant. It seemed he was just riffing on what had happened with the feeding stories— that the physical hunger we feel can never be satisfied, but that belief in this eternal food—the Bread of Life--  will stave off our spiritual hunger forever.
But then, especially the last two Sundays, Jesus gets real graphic—- we must eat of his body and drink of his blood in order to be in full relationship with him and therefore, with God.
Maybe there’s something about how John phrases it or perhaps it’s how relentless the message has been, that by this week, the last Sunday of the bread of life discourse, many of us are at the point of shouting “all right already….we get it. You’re the bread of life, unless we eat of your body and drink of your blood we’ll never enter the kingdom of God. Got it…can we move on now?”
But, I remember one of the first things I learned in counseling school—-if a client keeps coming back to a particular topic, regardless of what they identify as their presenting issue——the topic they keep returning too? That’s the real issue, the real point.
     Today, as Jesus winds down the 50 plus verse soliloquy on how his body is food indeed, and our reading from Ephesians emphasizes the importance of clothing ourselves in the armor of God’s love to combat the forces of darkness and evil in the world, we can connect what Jesus is saying through John to what Paul’s saying to the church in Ephesus.
  Jesus, crucified and risen, is the fuel of our faith. Abiding in, dwelling in him, (and he in us) clothes us with an armor that protects us from what ails this lost and hurting world.
Abiding in God is what protected the ancient Israelites as they fled the oppression of Pharaoh, it’s what protected Jesus’s mother Mary as she lived into saying yes to God, it’s what protected Joseph as he refused to turn his back on Mary but instead stood by her side doing the right thing for her, and for God.
     Abiding in God through Christ, wearing the full armor of God, is what fills our hearts, minds and souls when we stand up against hatred, bullying and violence.
Abiding in God through the nourishment of all that Jesus was and is strengthens us to fight the good fight, to walk the lonely mile and to sing the song of faith through the words of our Eucharistic Prayer: Take Eat, this is my body, given for you.
Folks, we’re to take and remember.
We’re to remember the faith and the courage of our forebears who wore the armor of God as protection against those who said no while following God’s urging to say yes,  to do the right thing.
By taking and eating we remember Jesus.By taking and eating we’re clothed in the armor of God. By taking and eating we’re strengthened to do the work we’ve been given to do.
The real issue and the real point is to take, eat and go.

Amen.

Proper 15B

 1
This is the third Sunday in a row with the Bread of Life discourse from John’s Gospel. Today, if I’m being honest, the whole thing gets kind of creepy, doesn’t it?
Jesus says:  only those of us who will eat his body and drink his blood will have eternal life.
Of course, we use this imagery and almost exactly these words, every time we celebrate the Eucharist “This is my body, take eat, this is my blood, take, drink…” but somehow, because we’ve heard it for so long, or haven’t thought about it that much, or we just excuse it as one of those “mysteries of faith,” we let those words roll of our back. But, back in Jesus’s day and in the early days of Christianity, this concept of eating of Jesus’s Body and drinking of Jesus’s blood was downright scandalous. The discomfort with which many of us heard the words of today’s Gospel was magnified as they heard Jesus speak them…it smacked of cannibalism and cannibalism then, just as it is now, was taboo.
And yet, it’s one of the foundations of our faith—to take, to eat, to remember.
 How do we explain this—to those unfamiliar with our faith and, if we want to be honest, to ourselves?
So, I did some research….
It was only around the year 1200 that the common usage for what we now refer to as bread switched from the old middle English word “hlaf “ (pronounced ha-laugh) or loaf to the Germanic based word, brud (pronounced brood) or bread.
Hlaf meant one whole thing ---- while brud, bread, meant a portion of, a piece of….
That’s when the light bulb went off---Jesus is talking to us about the interconnectedness of God’s creation, of the desperate need we have for each other and for God. The need to be whole.,
And the desperate need God has for us.
Think about it---God so longed for us, so wanted to understand us that God became one of us, taking on flesh and bone to walk among us as Jesus. It’s one thing to realize we need to be in relationship with God through Jesus Christ, but how often do we consider how much God needs/wants/longs for us?
    This change in the word that we use for bread highlights that for me---when Jesus said he was the bread of life he most certainly wasn’t speaking English. And when John wrote about Jesus’ life he most certainly did not write it in English BUT when the Bible was translated into English ---in the 16th century—the word used was not Hlaf—the whole thing---but brud, bread, a piece of, a portion, a slice.
  I am the Bread of Life, says Jesus, only those who eat my flesh and drink my blood will be a part of me.
My friends, we’re part of something much bigger than ourselves. We’re part of something much bigger than our friends and family, bigger than this parish and this regional initiative, this diocesan partnership, bigger than this state or this country. We’re part of God’s creation and God longs for us to do our part within it, because if we don’t do our part, if we don’t partake of our portion than we’re incomplete.
We’re hungry, the world’s hungry, Jesus is hungry, God is hungry and you know what? We’re all hungering for the same thing---each other, together in peace and in love. One blessed whole.
Take and Eat: For Alone We are Nothing, But Together We Are Everything. Amen.

Proper 14 B 2024

 

+Jane was finished. The pain too much, the efforts to relieve it too much, the hate she had for her very being, too much. So, she drove partway across the bridge and stopped. With a deep breath and a resolve she hadn’t been able to muster for years, she got out of the car, climbed over the guardrail and looked down, prepared to jump.

But, as is so often the case, God had other plans.

There was a hesitation—not really doubt, not even fear, Jane couldn’t explain it, but something caused her to pause, and in that moment she heard Joe say “it’s not hopeless. Please don’t jump.” Suddenly, a gentle giant of a man wrapped his mammoth arms around Jane and lifted her to safety. Jane says it was a Holy Spirit moment….Joe, the truck driver who saved her life, agrees. “I don’t know what came over me-- It had to have been a higher power. I did the rescuing, but it wasn’t me, someone/something else took control.

Yes, God had other plans.

Elijah’s toast. He’s done. He dared to disagree with Jezebel and neither she nor the king were amused. Elijah’s running for his life. He knew there was nowhere to hide, he knew eventually the King’s guards would find him and that would be that. So, Elijah, exhausted and disgusted with himself collapses under the broom tree—begging death to overtake him.

But God had other plans.

A divine messenger awakens Elijah and says, “Get up! Eat something!”
Elijah opened his eyes and saw bread and water right by his head. He ate and drank, and then went back to sleep.
A second time the messenger awakens Elijah, saying, “Get up!”
“Eat something, you have a difficult road ahead of you.” Get up!
Elijah got up, ate and drank, and refreshed by that food, carried on.

Because God had other plans.

Through messengers, prophets, apostles, the Holy and Undivided Trinity calls to us, telling us to
“Get up girl, get up boy, get up man, get up woman, get up church, get up world, there’s work to do!”
And my friends WE’RE  just the people to do it.
God has plans for us:
Get up, woman!
That’s what the Holy Spirit was saying to Jane as she climbed over that guardrail.
Get up, man!
That’s what God was saying to Joe, the truck driver who prided himself on not getting involved but who got involved and pulled Jane from the edge.
Get up, prophet!
That’s what the messenger was saying to Elijah, “your work is not yet done.”
And yes, by the way, the road will be long, the journey tough, but GET UP, for I need you---yes YOU---to do this work and to do it now.
It’s a good message and it’s one we’d all be wise to heed.

 Get up…

God says:
“What’s that, you’re too tired? You’ve tried everything and nothing works? Well, get up ---through me you’ll find your way. I need you… there’s work to be done.”

Throughout this month of August we read the Bread of Life Discourse. In these 50 + verses Jesus repeatedly tells us that he’s all the nourishment we need. That the strength we find sapped from our very being; that the hope we find elusive at best and utterly absent at worst isn’t gone, it hasn’t run out, it hasn’t been removed.
It’s still there.
It’s always there.

Jesus is telling us in John’s Gospel, Elijah is showing us in the reading from Kings that hope and strength aren’t things we create, or earn, or acquire. They’re gifts, given to us by and through the unending, outrageous, abundant love of God.

It can’t be said enough. God loves us beyond all measure.
But God’s love of us doesn’t mean that the road won’t be long, bumpy, scary and full of detours.
It will be. It is!

Life is most definitely NOT EASY.
But, as the Church in Iona says in their invitation to communion and as Jesus is telling us through the Bread of life verses and the messenger told Elijah:
“Come to this altar, we have a holy meal to share.
Come, those of you who have much faith and those who feel you have none.
Come, those of you who have tried to follow Jesus, but believe you’ve failed.
This is the feast of Jesus our Lord;
holy food for holy people.”
So get up folks….come and be fed, God has plans for us. Amen+

Proper 13 B

 In chapter 4 of John’s gospel the woman at the well, after challenging Jesus about why he would dare to converse with her; a woman shunned by all of society; and why—by the way— would he be at a well without a bucket with which to fetch water, says, “ Sir, give me this water, so I shall never thirst again.”
Today we read, in the 6th chapter, “Sir, give us this bread, always.”
Sense a theme here? Besides these two, don’t forget the first chapter of John’s gospel, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Water, bread, light are all big themes for John because they are big themes for Jesus.
Jesus tells us that the Son of Man (Jesus) is the light of the world. And the darkness [of this world, no matter how hard the world tries] will not extinguish that Light.
Jesus tells us that ‘Everyone who drinks of regular water will be thirsty again,  but those who drink of the water that He gives them will never again be thirsty.
And today he tells us “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
    Jesus is our nourishment. Our hunger for the food of this world, the water of this world and the light of this world is fleeting. There is an end—the amount of light, water and bread is finite.
But faith in God through Jesus Christ never ends and as long as we keep the faith we will never hunger, thirst or wander in the darkness again.
Can we think about that for a moment?
Jesus is our nourishment—his life, his teachings, his death, his resurrection, his ascension all contribute to the quenching of our thirst, the brightening of our darkness, the satisfying of our hunger.
But just how do we get that nourishment? Is it magically given to us when we take the bread, break it, eat it, and remember him?
No.
Well yes. But also, no. Yes, we are nourished by and through the act of gathering each week and, most weeks, taking, breaking, eating and remembering Jesus through the act of communion. But also no—-because just doing that, coming here and going through these motions don’t mean anything in and of themselves. It’s when we take the nourishment and realize that it strengthens, encourages and emboldens us to be Jesus in this world, and that by being so strengthened, encouraged and emboldened we then, as those who came before us exclaim: give us this light, water and bread always!!!!
    When angered at the politics of today, remember  the nourishment of Christ.
When discouraged by your lot in life, remember the nourishment of Christ.
When worried about your health, or the health of one you love, remember the nourishment of Christ.
The light, water and bread of Christ is never ending, I pray that our desire for it and our accepting of it, also never, ever ends. Amen.

Proper 12B 2024

Jesus tells us: It is I, do not be afraid. OK, I’m just going to say it—easier said than done!
I mean, is being afraid really that bad? There’s a lot to be afraid about in life—-the state of the world, gun violence, the environment, the cost of food, plus our health and security, that of our children and others we love. And then those very personal fears, things we may never utter to another human being but that wake us up at night. There’s a lot to be afraid of, so being afraid isn’t necessarily the problem, is it? Is Jesus really mad when we’re afraid? I don’t thinks so—Remember what the definition of courage is…being afraid but doing it anyway.
I think it’s ok to be afraid, it’s just not ok to be paralyzed by our fear.
It’s what I wish I’d learned as a very anxious little girl—scared of any change in routines, of anything new——I wish I’d learned that the bravest people in the world aren’t unafraid—they feel the fear, acknowledge it, and then proceed to do it anyway.
So, I think Jesus gets a bum rap when we invoke his name in an effort to tell someone NOT TO BE AFRAID. After all, the act of feeling fear isn’t what stops us in our tracks, it’s not being able to find the courage to step forward and walk into the fear, knowing that we aren’t alone in it.
Take a look —Jesus doesn’t say Do Not Be Afraid, period. He says, “it is I, do not be afraid.” Until they heard his voice, the guys in the boat didn’t know what was coming toward them—-but once they heard his voice, they were no longer afraid. Once they focused on Jesus, they were not afraid.  [this is really brought home in the Matthew version of this story when Peter tries to meet Jesus halfway between the boat and Jesus….and he does it, until he realizes what he’s doing and sinks like a stone, ignoring Jesus when Jesus tells him to look only at Him, not at the fact that he is walking on water!
    Therein lies the lesson——we can do seemingly impossible things when we do them in and through faith, when we keep our eyes on our Savior and not on the danger. When we faithfully focus instead of humanly focus. We read it in our epistle for today, the letter to the Ephesians. I really like the translation used in  our Morning Prayer service:
Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine:
We do not achieve what we achieve solely by ourselves. The peace, contentment, and joy in our lives is provided  through the one in whom we’re given more than we can ask or imagine: Jesus Christ.
My friends, what is it that you are afraid of? What is it that churns deep within you, causing you sleepless nights? Take those things and PLEASE [ZOOM service: hand them to one to Jesus—let him take them!] place them upon this altar for the one who came to save us all will pick them up and take them away for us.
Remember what he says: “It is I, do not be afraid.” Let go of that which bogs you down and let Him pick it up and throw it away, for through him much more will be accomplished than without.
Amen.

Proper 10 B 2024

 
+We’ve all seen it, some of us have done it, some of us have had it done to us. A parent and child are in the grocery store and the child is engaged in a full blown, foot stomping, ear piercing, temper tantrum. The parent, displaying amazing restraint, says, “You know I love you, but right now I don’t like you very much.”
In most cases, the love of a parent for a child is unconditional….but the like? Oh that’s conditional…there are times we really don’t like the people we love.
Is God, as the ultimate parent, any different? I don’t think so. I know God loves us, but I’m not sure God likes us all the time. Consider the behavior of Herod in today’s Gospel.
 Now remember this isn’t the Herod of the nativity story, that Herod was ruthless and sure of himself. This Herod? Not so sure of himself. And even though he was attracted to John the Baptist’s message he didn’t follow John as he may have wanted  because, although Herod was King, he most certainly didn’t wear the pants in the family. So although John’s words made Herod’s heart burn, fear of his wife was MUCH stronger, so instead of following John, Herod ends up giving his wife what she wanted: John’s head on a platter. At that moment, in that situation, Herod had a choice, follow the Love of God as he received it through the words of John or follow his manipulative and vengeful wife’s hatred.
By denying what he was feeling about John, Herod rejected God. Herod has taken God’s love and simply said, ‘no thank you.”

We love God. We know God loves us…but that love so easily fades to the  background when we’re faced with the “expectations” of this world, the “expectations” of our own social circle, the “expectations” of our family. How often do we choose the “socially expected” way, the way that will make the fewest waves, cause the least amount of relationship strain instead of the way of God?
When we do that, God, like many a parent,  doesn’t like us too much.
When we cross the street to avoid the homeless person, God doesn’t like us too much. God doesn’t expect us to give them money, God simply expects us to look them in the eye and to treat them as the human being—the beloved child of God they are.
When we hear someone demeaning the dignity of another human being based on the color of their skin, the name they call their God or the gender of their beloved and we fail to confront that person for their intolerance and hate, God doesn’t like us too much.
When we participate in the destruction of our planet, when we are too lazy to recycle, to cheap to demand our food be produced in environmentally sound ways, when we drive bigger and bigger cars, regardless of the cost to earth, God doesn’t like us very much.
When we fail to confront the loved one whose self-destructive behavior is destroying everything good in their world, God doesn’t like us very much.
 When we fail to do one of the simplest things we can do to give life to another, by giving blood and by being an organ donor, God doesn’t like us too much.
With love comes great responsibility. To truly love God and fully accept God’s love of us, we must make the difficult choices, we must speak the hard to hear words.
Herod couldn’t do that—he rejected the love of God and killed the messenger— all for a few moments of temporal glory and family peace.
We’re no different.
With God’s love comes great expectations. We must let our hearts burn with recognition, we must set out to love and serve the Lord in all we do. We must gather here proclaiming God’s love and then leave here showing the world that love in all that we do and with all whom we encounter.
 For this is what God likes, a people who know they are loved and in turn love each other in God’s name. When we do that, not only will we be loved, but we’ll also be liked.
Amen.

Proper 9B 2024

 It’s rare for me to struggle with a sermon like I did this week. Perhaps it’s my lingering illness which has rendered the very basics of daily life a challenge, perhaps it’s this liminal place I find myself personally and professionally as I strive to navigate the betwixt and between for our diocesan partnership, perhaps it’s the slower summer pace, but this week I wasn’t feeling it. I mean, I could preach about David’s second reign as King and what perhaps he had learned from his first kingship that he could bring to his second. Perhaps I could relate that to two presidents, one current and one former, vying for the highest office in the land. But that didn't speak to me.
Or perhaps I could speak about the effect of “you can’t go home again,” as Jesus experienced in today’s Gospel. But again, that wasn’t appealing.
So using the process I encourage others to use when struggling with preaching I asked my self, “what’s been laid upon my heart?”
And what’s there is this: Are we, here at St James, in the GRI ion the Partnership Dioceses, saving lives? Have we saved your life? If yes, how? If no, what did we miss? More specifically:
Why is your faith/being an Episcopalian/being a member of St James important to you?
How does St James fit into your life? How are you fed by your faith, by your presence here?
Remember your answer. Email, text or snail mail it to me, ok? I really want to know.
In that same vein, let me tell you how my faith saved me:
I’m a priest because the church in general, but The Episcopal Church of the Holy Nativity in Clarendon Hills, Illinois specifically, saved my life when I was a kid. I didn't fit in anywhere— I was the outcasts outcast. My parents were, by the time I came around, dealing with their own demons (which I’m happy to say they both defeated later in life.)
My sisters did their very best to “big sister” me,  but by the late 1960’s early 1970’s it was every kid for themselves. We were just trying to get by.
So there I was, a little kid carrying a lot of family garbage on my heart and soul. Now no one really knew what a mess our home was, we still went to church every week, and my parents were absolute pillars of the church community. Which was lucky for me because, within that community I encountered adults who took an interest in me, who didn’t need me to be anyone but who I was, and who strove to make sure I knew that I was loved and that I was safe. I developed a relationship with God through Jesus that gave me a moral compass, a confidence and a hope that my parents professed, but really couldn’t live into.
Through my faith in God I have endured things I never thought possible, achieved things I never thought possible, I have dreamed dreams and strived to have them reach fruition.
And I want this diocese, this regional ministry and this parish church of St James to be a version of that for all those who encounter us. Because isn’t that what really matters? That we save lives.
Has your experience in this faith community saved you? Has it harmed you? Or don’t you think of it that way ? How are you fed here? I REALLY want to know.
Because here’s the deal—Jesus wants us to save one another—-and if we are, great, and if we aren’t, how can we fix that? Because if we’re doing things that aren’t helpful I believe we should shake the dust of that behavior off and move on. And if we are being helpful, if we are feeding each other, saving each other, then we need to know and do MORE of it.
How are you fed?
How are you saved?
Amen.                                                                                               

Proper 8 B "Flash Mob " for the GRI June 30, 2024

 I don’t like that many of the women in the Gospels aren’t given a proper name, so for this sermon, the “woman with the hemorrhage will be named Ruth

Ruth was at the end of her rope. She was on the outside looking in. People saw her and YELLED…..UNCLEAN or TRAITOR or HUSSY or other words not suitable for a family gathering.

People saw Ruth’s lowered head and defeated composure and smugly thought, “well she deserves it, after all look at what she did….or her parents did….or her parents did….or her ancestors did.”

People looked upon Ruth and thought—-“thank goodness that’s not me.”

In this story, Ruth is the epitome of the outsider, the other, and we are the insiders, the chosen.

And yet….who is it that Jesus notices, who is it that Jesus praises, who is it that Jesus credits for her own healing? Ruth.

Was she healed because Jesus deemed her worthy?
No.
Was she healed because Jesus’s cloak held special powers?
No.
Was she healed because God decided she had suffered enough?
I highly doubt it.
Ruth was healed, according to Jesus, because of her faith.
Her. Faith.

She believed that if she could get to Jesus she would be healed. She did get to him but the destination wasn’t the cure.
The drive to get there was.
And what fueled that drive? Her faith.

My friends, ours is a noisy world, full of distractions. You listen to someone like me standing before you each week trying to give you the fuel to go out these doors and into this hurting world to make a difference; to give hope to those with hurting hearts and souls, to bring the proud, arrogant, dismissive and abusive up short. To lift the lowly, to preach and live peace. It’s not easy work—the preaching nor the living. It is easier to shrug our shoulders and say—I believe in God, I have faith, that’s good enough.
But is it?
Let’s look at our Gospel again.
Both Jairus and Ruth the woman with the hemorrhage had faith, they both believed that Jesus could heal. But their faith in Jesus wasn't enough. We are told they both—-at great sacrifice to themselves—-publicly reached out to Jesus, publicly proclaiming their faith in him.
We Episcopalians may be known as the “Frozen Chosen,” but that’s not how we are to live our faith. We’re to live our faith outwardly and openly, not afraid to speak our truth. How willing are we to live our faith boldly, to risk who we are and what we have for this faith? To live our faith as Ruth and Jairus did in our Gospel as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mathew Shepherd, the Philadelphia 11, the Stonewall people, and many more did and do? Out loud. Publicly. Profoundly. Noticeably.
[This past week was the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. Some people find the triennial convention a waste of money and time, but it is where, every three years, we gather to hammer out how we will live our faith. We’re Episcopalians and we believe in speaking openly and honestly. We believe in disagreeing, we believe in feeling passionately and compromising faithfully. The arc toward God’s dream for us is a bumpy ride. But if we stick with it, inch by inch, step by step we move ahead. In Austin Texas, in 2018 I stood in front of the convention and testified about having all marriage rites available to all people who want to be married in the Episcopal Church. That means the Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage as found in the hardback version of the Book of Common Prayer as well as “I will Bless You and You will be a Blessing” marriage liturgy originally designed ONLY for same-sex couples. I stated that my wife Pete and I were married using a liturgy NOT available to all people in the church, that we were forbidden from using the liturgy in our prayer book, but that, 4 1/2 years later, when I buried my wife, we used the same liturgy we all use when we die. Was she unequal when we married, but somehow equal in death? 6 years after that testimony, our General Convention approved all marriage liturgies for all people. The arc of history and justice is long, slow, and bumpy, but when we live our faith loud and in public, like the woman with the bleeding and Jairus the official and a lowly priest from Western New York we live our faith in a way that makes Jesus smile and God breathes sighs of delight.]
Spend time with this reading from the Gospel this week. Consider yourself Jairus or Ruth. Instead of asking what Jesus would do, perhaps it is time to ask if we can do what both Jairus and Ruth did.
And then do it.
Let us pray:
Gracious and Loving God, our faith resides in you, but our faith is only activated when we live it, speak it, and model it. Embolden us to activate our faith in you in all that we do, wherever we go, and however long we need to do it. For if we but touch the hem of your garment, if we just allow your ever-loving hands to lay upon us, we will be made well. And, because we know you love it when we pray, we now say, Amen.

Yr B 2024 Trinity Sunday through

 

Trinity Sunday

At it’s essence, faith is a mystery. How one decides to tirn their life over to God as we experience God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is at it’s simplest a deeply personal and private decision and at it’s most comolicated a sense that without faith in the Holy and Undivided Trinity: One God our existence is reduced to (to quote St. Paul) a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal, signifying nothing….so when my colleagues lament preaching on Trinity Sunday I stay silent…for preaching on this wondefrul mystery of the Trinity is an honor, not a burden.
    Why has God decided to exprerss God’s Divine self in three distinct, yet forever connected, ways? I wouldn’t presume to speak for the Creator but I can speak about why the Trinity is something I love rather than loathe. God as Creator tried—for THOUSANDS of years—to communicate with us through prophets like Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Miriam, Deborah, Anna, John the Baptist. We didn’t get it, continuing to forget about God the Creator, turning to false prophets and their false gods. So…God took on human form—Jesus—to teach us through direct and personal relationships: beginning with the original 12 disciples  and carrying all the way through to today with you and me. We, through the vows we make at baptism, carry the message of God as given to us through Jesus Christ to one another, both individually and corprorately through this community of faith—Trinity itself, the GRI, the Partnership dioceses and the wider Episcopal Church.
As we’ve heard the last couple of weeks in our readings, Jesus couldn’t stick around in any bodily/physical way for he knew that if He did, we wouldn’t do the work of spreading the Good News far and wide….he knew that we’d sit at his feet and watch him do it. So he left….BUT he left with the promise that he would send us someone—an advocate, the third part of the Trinity to enflame our souls, ingnite our hearts and loosen our tongues to spread the news that we, in the name of Jesus Christ, love everyone, everywhere, without exception. And we do this not only with our words, but our actions, not only through our creeds, but also with our deeds.
Why do we have a Triune—a three version— God? Because we—human beings—are a complicated bunch and so our Divine source of life is expressed three ways: As a supreme, unknowable ever creating God,; a tangible, historical figure of a fully human and fully divine Christ who has felt all that we have—joy, love, regret, fear, hope, anger, peace and turnoil; and a we can’t see her, we can’t really describe her, but a Spirit, an advocate, whom we feel deep in our soul, a being who urges us to take risks we didn’t think we could and animates the very essence of who we are.
The Trinity is a gift from a God who will do anything and everything to get through to us. May we strive to always recive this Trinity of Love, however, and whenever we can.
Amen. 

Proper 4B

+I have a friend who is a priest in Chicago. One day I was at his church as he was preparing for a big parish event…as he was running around he KEPT muttering, “Jesus never had a parish, Jesus never had a parish.” At the time I wasn’t sure what that was all about but now, after being ordained for 17 years, I get it….sometimes the business of the church feels as if it’s overshadowing the business of God.
     It’s true, Jesus didn’t have a church, nor did he have a denomination. Jesus simply had a message and some followers. But the message was revolutionary and his followers were growing, so he had to deal with the institutional faith of the day—the Temple and the temple authorities. Jesus may have been fully human and fully Divine, but even his Divine nature had to deal with church—or in this case temple--- politics.
     In today’s Gospel those authorities were none too happy with Jesus. The specifics of the argument are a bit arcane; suffice it to say the authorities had one interpretation of the Jewish restrictions on activity during the sabbath while Jesus had a broader, wider encompassing view. The authorities were basing their opinion on human-made (although no doubt Divine inspired) law. Jesus was basing it on who God is, what God wants, and what God needs. You see,  the Jewish people had their “law” handed down to them from Moses. Jesus’ followers had the requirements of God presented to them by God in the flesh,Jesus Christ.
Yeah, this is an argument the temple authorities are going to lose every single time.
The authorities had Divine law interpreted by human beings---complete with what humanity brings to the table—flaws and foibles—while Jesus had, well Jesus had the inside track…. Jesus had God. Jesus knew what it was God required of us. The authorities had nary a chance.
     But even if Jesus wasn’t the Messiah, even if the authorities took up this same argument—-plucking grain to feed hungry people on the sabbath as some type of horrendous violation of Jewish law— they quite possibly would have lost the argument.
Why?
Because when religions fail to adapt to the reality of the world around them, they become irrelevant.
Yes, we are to take a day of rest. Working all the time is bad for our souls, failing to rest in the presence of God is not good for us, no question. However….grabbing an apple off a tree, a head of grain from a stalk, or even cooking a full meal for a starving person is not an insult to God, it is doing the work God gave us and Jesus taught us.
And just what is it that God requires of us, just what is it that God dreams for us, just what is it that God created us to be?
Creatures of Love. People who love one another. Without exception.
      The law of Moses served a people in a particular time and a particular place, and then the time and the place and the circumstances changed. The Law worked until it didn’t.
We, Episcopal Christians in Western New York, know a little bit about stuff working until it not longer does. We know a thing or two about adapting to new circumstances and we know a thing or two about trying different things to accomplish that which we’ve always strived to accomplish: Peace on earth and goodwill to all, always. And forever.
When love adapts my friends. Love wins. Amen.

Proper 5B


Just how crazy was Jesus?  Using the book of Mark as a resource, let’s do a little forensic psychology.  Jesus doesn’t head to the temple to solicit the blessing of religious leaders before beginning His ministry. He heads to the river Jordan and into the clutches of a wild man. Jesus doesn’t look for the approval of the folks who are in charge before beginning, He goes out to encounter John and the Holy Spirit, and He hears a voice from heaven saying “You are my Son, whom I love.” How crazy is that?
 After hearing the voice Jesus immediately is sent by the Spirit out into the desert where he meets evil and darkness head on with no weapons other than His faith in God and His faith in His ministry.  How crazy is that?
 Jesus heads to Galilee preaching that the kingdom of God has come near and it’s time to repent and believe the good news. He heads to the sea and calls 4 fisherman to follow him. At Capernaum Jesus teaches in the synagogue, amazing the people with His authority and drives out an impure spirit from one of His listeners.  The people are amazed and word of Him begins to spread.  At the home of Simon and Andrew the whole town gathers and Jesus healed diseases and drove out demons.  How crazy is that?
  A few days later Jesus is in a house packed to the gills— it’s so crowded that  people open a hole in the roof to lower their paralyzed friend inside for Jesus to heal.  Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven”, knowing that this will  tick off their temple authorities who are witnessing the whole thing this will spark confrontation.  How crazy is that?
 The list of suspect behaviors goes on…Jesus doesn’t make a big deal out of fasting, a vital part of the Jewish faith. He allows the disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath, heals a man with a shriveled hand on the Sabbath, and impure spirits fall before him, proclaiming, “You’re the Son of God”.  How crazy is all of that?
 So, it’s no wonder that by today’s Gospel Jesus’ family is fired up, ready to take control of Him. Who is He to be preaching and teaching in synagogues instead of following in Joseph’s footsteps? Why isn’t He getting married and raising a family?  He must be crazy to have gathered up this rag tag band of followers, He must be out of his mind to think He is curing the sick and banishing demons.  He must be a bubble off level to be so intentional about infuriating the secular and religious leaders of the day.  He must be nuts to think that He’s doing the will of God, showing us who God is and showing us what God would have us do.
 There you have it, according to the norms of His times, according to His family, and according to the events recorded in Mark, our diagnosis is clear…Jesus is nuts!
 And that’s a problem, isn’t it?.  Jesus, our icon of how to be in right relationship with God is out of his mind.  Does He expect us to be nuts too?
    Yes. Because you have to be a little bit nuts to be a Christian, you have to be a little bit crazy to accept that you can make a difference. That one person, one kind act at a time, one loving thought at a time, one out of the norm action at a time can make a difference in this messed up world of ours. But it can. And it does.
If people think we’re crazy for believing in an all loving, all accepting, always ready to cheer us on God, so be it. Because we’re a bunch of people crazy enough to believe that God so loved the world, God will do anything to help us love it as much as our loving, life-giving and sometimes crazy making Savior does. And for that we can all say, Amen.   



 




 

Easter Season beginning with the Second Day of Easter (Easter Day sermon included in Holy Week post) to Pentecost

 

From the Gospel of Luke:

“Now on that same day two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”

*****************************************

Who do we fail to recognize? On Saturday evening, at the Easter Vigil in a small rural church, a couple attended whom no one recognized. There was a young woman who seemed very comfortable in an Episcopal Church and she was accompanied by a young man who was covered in tattoos, had a hat pulled low over his eyes, and hadn’t seen a washcloth in awhile. I think he may have been coming straight from work, but I don’t know. I introduced myself and welcomed them to the service. They were polite. During the service the woman participated and seemed engaged. The man, not so much. If I needed to choose a word I would say he begrudgingly participated. He could barely stand in front of me for communion and did not make eye contact.

I can’t get him out of my mind.

I hope I truly saw him and I wonder if he saw me.

I hope his eyes were opened some. I’d love to know his story.

A couple of things seem clear to me: he is a good friend/partner/whatever to the woman because he was there.

I have no idea if he was touched by the service.

He may never give it a second thought. But I am giving it a second thought.

Who was he? How is he? Did our liturgy do anything for him?

I didn’t recognize him. Did he recognize me? Did I do enough?

People cross our paths.

Are our eyes open enough to see them?

Easter Day 2.

Easter 2B

+Thomas gets a bum rap. Not that he didn’t doubt, but his doubting wasn’t unique—the other disciples doubted too. Doubting must be an important part of our Christian story because why else would we read this story EVERY SINGLE YEAR on the Second Sunday of the Easter season? Clearly our forebears realized that doubting isn’t as much the exception as the rule. And that doubting, while normal, is something to pay attention to.
So yeah, Thomas gets a bad rap with the whole doubting thing while, in truth, doubt isn’t a uniquely bad thing, it’s just a common human thing.
Doubt is a moment in time,  a step in a process.  A time of bewilderment, a time of question---doubt comes when things aren’t clear---when all the evidence isn’t yet in or all the evidence hasn’t crystallized in our brains yet. Doubt happens when all that we know to be—the order of our world---is shattered.
    On several occassions in my life, I’ve had the painful task of informing someone of an unexpected death. The first response of most people to such shocking news is disbelief—“No that cannot be.” Or “How can that be?” It’s too hard to comprehend the horror, so we deny.
But it’s not only bad news that can be met with doubt, good news can be equally difficult to fathom.
Whether it’s finding out the surgery was a success, or you’ve gotten the job of your dreams----good news can take some time to sink in.
Doubt buys us time for joy to fully engage;  or time to gird ourselves against the bad.
Doubt gives us time to catch up to the reality of our lives.
    In these early days of the Easter season, we have some catching up to do.
So did the disciples.
The king they loved; they’d denied, the rulers they feared; they’d defied. It wasn’t a good time to be one of Jesus’ followers…so when they hear from Mary Magdalene that Jesus is alive do they run out looking for him?
No,  paralyzed by their doubt, immobilized by their fear, stuck in their shame, they stay behind locked doors.
He’s alive?
Uh oh.
But Jesus, instead of “How could you?” says, “Peace Be With You.”
He accepts their failings and loves them.
He rejects their fear and loves them.
He loves them. In spite of themselves.
This is shocking.
It takes some  time to get used to!
Even though they’d heard it hundreds of times before, even though we hear it, week in and week out, this simple message of love, peace and forgiveness is difficult to understand and to accept.
Thomas, along with the other disciples, needed to see the reality of Jesus’ resurrection before they could "get it." Their doubt wasn’t a lack of faith, it wasn’t that they didn’t believe, they just didn’t comprehend.
Thomas’ doubt bought him time to wrap his brain around all that had happened, so that, when he saw Jesus for himself he would, at least on some level, “get it.” Thomas’s doubt gave him the time to move into a greater understanding, leading him to proclaim, “My Lord and My God.” Thomas’ doubt led his faith to a place of understanding. Thomas, given time, Got It.
    Today, the emotional roller coaster of Holy Week is over, we’ve proclaimed Christ risen, we’ve shouted Alleluia, we’ve rejoiced in the new light of Christ.
This astonishing realization of what God always does, is shocking and takes some getting used too.
So this morning we begin clearing doubt from our hearts and minds and embracing the Truth as given to us through Jesus Christ:
To go into the world seeking and serving Christ in everyone we meet…
To not rest until everyone, everywhere knows the Love that is God…
To not run from fear, but to enter it courageously… [like the CORE initiative…]
To not deny doubt, but embrace it for what it is and see what’s on the other side…
To forgive ourselves for what we’ve left undone while redoubling our efforts to do more…
To see the Risen One and to call out My Lord! My God! My hope! My Savior!
We don’t need to understand or even fully comprehend it, we just need to enter this resurrection life and see where it takes us! Alleluia and Amen. The 23rd Psalm. Most people know of it, many people know it by heart, and more than a handful of people I’ve walked with, through their final days, have been comforted by hearing it recited.
The 23rd Psalm is part of the fabric of many lives.
But…when was the last time you REALLY listened to it, interpreted it in your own words. Well, lucky you, I did some of my own interpreting this week:
“I follow God, God will fulfill all my needs... When I feel depleted God will refresh and renew me. Even when I take a wrong turn, God will lead me toward the right road. No matter what the challenge, no matter how dark the night seems, this God whom I follow will be with me so I won’t let my fear derail me. You will push me when I lag and you will catch me when I stray and when those who wish me ill come calling, You will be right there, sitting at the dinner table with me. My gifts and joys will overflow and as long as i keep letting God Lead me, I’ll be ok.”
If I follow God. If I let God lead me, I will be ok.
To me that sums up this psalm. But something very specific about the psalm kept niggling at me all week. It’s the second half of the first line: I shall not be in want.
Like most people I always read this line as, “God will make sure that I have what I need,” but it doesn’t say that. It says, as the rest of the psalm supports, “I will never be alone in whatever befalls me and that all that I need is within my reach.”
If I reach for it.
The good shepherd, as described here in Hebrew scripture, and as outlined in John’s gospel tells us that the Lord will lead us and the Lord will seek us, the Lord may even grab us by the scruff of the neck to bring us back into the fold, but nowhere are we told that the Good Shepherd will lock us into the fold.  The Shepherd will look for us, long for us, and will lead us home. But the shepherd can’t keep us there. The Shepherd can’t keep us from wandering and getting lost.
All the shepherd can do is find us, it’s up to us to stay.
We get lost all the time. And Jesus pursues us, invites us, even prods us to come home.
But after we’re found, no one can keep us from leaving again.
Except us.
This is where the “I shall not want” comes in for me.
I may want for all sorts of things….I may want to lose 30 lbs, but just wanting that without exercising more and eating better won’t get me anywhere.
I may want every congregation in our dioceses to be whole and happy and thriving but there are congregations who simply won’t do the needed hard work .We all want a lot of things. But…
What we want is not the same as being in want.
Being in want, at its core, is being without hope, without recourse, without anything that’s needed to sustain life.
This is what the psalmist is telling us: when we turn our hearts, minds and souls over to God we’ll never be without that which we truly need: hope, faith and love.
God won’t put butts in the pews on Sunday morning, God won’t make Christianity regain the glory it held in the public’s mind back in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, but God does equip every person who allows God to walk with them through life, the security of verdant pastures and still waters. Our job is to allow ourselves to be led by God, when we do that, we will not be in want. Ever.
Amen.

Easter 3B

Our Gospel reading for today is from Luke which is odd—we're in Liturgical Year B which means the bulk of our Gospel readings are from Mark (in year A Matthew, B Mark and C Luke) but here we are smack dab in the middle of year B, three Sundays into the Easter season, and we’re reading from Luke. The why for this is pretty clear, the designers of the lectionary want us to hear as many resurrection stories as possible. They want us to hear that the disciples—Jesus’s closest friends—were confused, disbelieving, terrified, unsure of whether this was really Jesus alive again, or a figment of their imaginations.
I think we hear all these stories because we need to be reminded that we aren’t alone in how unbelievable this whole resurrection thing is.
It’s one thing for us to believe what we’ve been told,  but for Jesus’s friends it was to believe what they’re seeing. It wasn’t easy… so Jesus does all that he can to share with his friends physical proof that he’s not a mirage, not a ghost. He uses actions like touching, feeling, cooking, eating to show that he is, indeed, the one who was killed and buried, back to life!
 Jesus knows that we need to know in addition to believing. And to know is to do, so he shares a fish breakfast with the disciples in today’s reading; in other post-resurrection stories he has Thomas touch his wounds, has the travelers on the way to Emmaus share dinner with him where, when he breaks the bread, his follower’s eyes are opened.
So…how do we get to the place of knowing— of really knowing— that Jesus is our Savior, our hope, our salvation?
How do we know that this God in the flesh did indeed rise from the dead?
We can believe what we’ve been told, but how can we know?
By having proof.
For the disciples Jesus is able to do human things—breathe on them, eat with them, let them touch his wounds.
But what about us?
How do we reach that place of physical knowing that Jesus died, was buried and rose again to walk the earth?
      I suppose the easy answer is—knowing doesn’t matter, belief does—“I don't need proof, I just believe.” And for those of you who can be satisfied with that, great!
I’m not one of those people.
I like the tangible.
So how do I (and others like me) find tangible proof of resurrected life?
Right here.
For me the proof of resurrected life is the power in the community of faith in such a resurrected one as we have here. Look around—-remember the pain that many of you have endured or are enduring. Think of the joys, the great gifts, the seemingly unbearable losses, all brought here and laid upon this altar and each other. We’ve shared so much in our lives: births, deaths, graduations and so on. Some of us who've only been part of this community for a short while may not have all that to share but you’d be hard pressed to convince me that you didn't feel the power of our shared lives when entering these doors.
The power of our experiences bind us, the hope for experiences yet to come bind us, the belief in the resurrected one bind us and the tangible experience of walking together through whatever comes is the real and physical evidence of a truly resurrected Son of God, who, through us and with us, creates a new world, one group of faithful folk at a time. That, my friends is believing AND it is knowing…And for that we say Amen and Alleluia!!!!!

Easter 4B

 The 23rd Psalm. Most people know of it, many people know it by heart, and more than a handful of people I’ve walked with, through their final days, have been comforted by hearing it recited.
The 23rd Psalm is part of the fabric of many lives.
But…when was the last time you REALLY listened to it, interpreted it in your own words. Well, lucky you, I did some of my own interpreting this week:
“I follow God, God will fulfill all my needs... When I feel depleted God will refresh and renew me. Even when I take a wrong turn, God will lead me toward the right road. No matter what the challenge, no matter how dark the night seems, this God whom I follow will be with me so I won’t let my fear derail me. You will push me when I lag and you will catch me when I stray and when those who wish me ill come calling, You will be right there, sitting at the dinner table with me. My gifts and joys will overflow and as long as i keep letting God Lead me, I’ll be ok.”
If I follow God. If I let God lead me, I will be ok.
To me that sums up this psalm. But something very specific about the psalm kept niggling at me all week. It’s the second half of the first line: I shall not be in want.
Like most people I always read this line as, “God will make sure that I have what I need,” but it doesn’t say that. It says, as the rest of the psalm supports, “I will never be alone in whatever befalls me and that all that I need is within my reach.”
If I reach for it.
The good shepherd, as described here in Hebrew scripture, and as outlined in John’s gospel tells us that the Lord will lead us and the Lord will seek us, the Lord may even grab us by the scruff of the neck to bring us back into the fold, but nowhere are we told that the Good Shepherd will lock us into the fold.  The Shepherd will look for us, long for us, and will lead us home. But the shepherd can’t keep us there. The Shepherd can’t keep us from wandering and getting lost.
All the shepherd can do is find us, it’s up to us to stay.
We get lost all the time. And Jesus pursues us, invites us, even prods us to come home.
But after we’re found, no one can keep us from leaving again.
Except us.
This is where the “I shall not want” comes in for me.
I may want for all sorts of things….I may want to lose 30 lbs, but just wanting that without exercising more and eating better won’t get me anywhere.
I may want every congregation in our dioceses to be whole and happy and thriving but there are congregations who simply won’t do the needed hard work .We all want a lot of things. But…
What we want is not the same as being in want.
Being in want, at its core, is being without hope, without recourse, without anything that’s needed to sustain life.
This is what the psalmist is telling us: when we turn our hearts, minds and souls over to God we’ll never be without that which we truly need: hope, faith and love.
God won’t put butts in the pews on Sunday morning, God won’t make Christianity regain the glory it held in the public’s mind back in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, but God does equip every person who allows God to walk with them through life, the security of verdant pastures and still waters. Our job is to allow ourselves to be led by God, when we do that, we will not be in want. Ever.
Amen.

Easter 5B

 +Have you been pruned? My most powerful pruning came on November 9, 2017, the day my wife of five and a half years died.
 We thought we had 20/30 years to be together. We laughed at how long it took for us to find each other…we had plans, hopes, dreams…we thought we’d get old together.
But cancer took it all from us.
For just about a year we walked the walk familiar to so many of us…treatments, surgeries, new treatments, more surgeries…we just kept waiting for her to get better. Once she was better we would do this and that, we’d get on with our lives.
But that’s not how it worked out.
Suddenly, after a promising report from the oncologist and a new treatment plan to hold the cancer at bay, she died.
I felt like my legs had been cut off from me. My heart in a million pieces, I was wracked with grief, exhausted, terrified, angry, lonely, lost. I couldn’t pray, at times I couldn’t breathe.
But, I carried on.
Somehow, someway I got out of bed and did what needed to be done.  
I learned how to be alone… by realizing that I wasn’t.
I asked for help,  reached out, and accepted others reaching in.
I heal by feeling the pain, asking for help, sharing my grief.  
By abiding in others and letting others abide in me. Including and especially God.
         Jesus says abide in me as I abide in my father.
    Endure with me as I endure you.
    Hold onto me while I hold onto you
    Love me while I love you.
      Abiding, my friends, is taking up residence with another’s sorrows and joys and all that’s in between. Abiding is holding fast to another when your own branch has been cut out from under you.
Abiding is being there when the pruning feels too severe, the growth too painful and the living too hard.
Abiding is being strong for others who are feeling weak. And vice versa.
Abiding is being a community. Abiding is taking the example of God being within Jesus, bearing all things that Jesus bore and doing it, right here.
Abiding is being the face of God to each other.
Abiding allows us to prune the vines of our own lives. To know what to hold onto and what to let go of.
Abiding helps us survive being pruned.
I was pruned when Pete died.
You’ve been pruned through your individual losses, some we know about others we don’t, as well as the losses you’ve experienced as and in community.
But here we are. Upright. Breathing and ready to keep on living.
How? Why?
Because God abides in us and we abide in God. Because God cries with us, rails with us, comforts us, and challenges us. Because God is in us and we’re in God.
 You don’t look like you did before this pruning, you don’t think like you did. You don’t like all that’s happened, and you may wonder about what will be, but together you’ve abided in love, light and hope, even when the days seem dark, the love painful, and the hope fleeting.
       This is life…we have joys and sorrows…and in between we have regular old life. The lesson of our readings is that pruning happens and that pruning, no matter how painful, no matter how much we pray it didn’t happen, does lead to growth, change, and new life. The  journey is arduous, the path not always straight, the way often confusing but, as long as we abide in one another and in God through Jesus Christ, we’ll survive the challenges and the worry.
Why? Because, as John says in today’s epistle: “God is Love, and those who abide in love, abide in God, and God abides in them.”
God is with us in the pruning, the growth, and the abiding. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Easter 6 B

Today’s readings are full of talk about commandments. Following God’s commandments, according to the author of the Letter of John, is how we show God our love. And in the Gospel, Jesus gives us a new commandment—to love one another as he has loved us. And that the disciples are his friends if they obey his command.
I’m not sure this is the greatest way to making friends, Jesus. I’ve never made a friend by commanding someone. It reminds me of Sheldon in the Big Bang Theory—Sheldon’s completely clueless about interpersonal relationships so when Sheldon makes demands and directs commands towards those he calls friends, it makes sense to us, but for Jesus to do it? He seems a little more socially competent than that doesn’t he?
So what’s with this command to love others otherwise we can’t be his friend or follower?
Well, as is often the case with scripture, it’s a translation issue. The Greek word translated to commandment in both our Letter of John and the Gospel of John is “entola.” There isn’t a good direct English translation for “entola,” … it means to teach, to direct one to follow an example. Jesus wants us to do as he’s done and at this stage of his life—the Gospel today is taken from that four chapter section of John called Jesus’s Farewell Discourse—— Jesus is pressured, anxious to have the disciples learn as much as they can as quickly as possible. Put in that context, the “command” language makes a little more sense to me—when feeling urgent our language can sound more like a command than a teaching, a desire to emulate, or a direction. It’s less, turn here and more TURN HERE!!!!
I like to think that I understand a little of Jesus’s mood—-when one has been the recipient of much Love it’s painful to see doubt, fear, confusion all fuse into the intolerance and hate which seems to be overpowering our daily lives.
    Today is our Thanksgiving in May dinner. Why do we do this? To show others love and to offer thanks for all the love we have received. To me, the Thanksgiving in May event is Loving others as we ourselves have been loved, on a plate! It’s the perfect date for this event because 45 years ago today someone I had the privilege of loving and—more importantly—-being loved by, was born. My nephew, John. Born too soon and too quickly John was what we used to call a “blue baby.” Diagnosed at 3 years old with atypical cerebral palsy his wondrous heart and spirit trapped in an uncooperative and painfully crooked body did not sway his loving countenance.  He couldn’t walk and he couldn’t talk. But man oh man could he communicate. And what did he communicate, what did he exude at all times and in all things? Love. When it came to following commandments John got this “Love one another as I have loved you” part down pat. On the day John drew his last breath I know that as he ran to outstretched arms of our Lord, Jesus exclaimed, “You did it John, you got it, you Loved as I loved you!”
When we accept love is it is so easier to love back —- I learned love from John. He loved so much and so well there was nothing to do but love.
May we  —in all things and at all times—accept the love of others and love in return. Not because we’re commanded to, but because when we’re loved, how can we NOT? Amen.
And Johnzo? Happy birthday. I loved being loved by you.
 

Easter 7B/Sunday after Ascension

+Ok let’s face it, the Ascension is weird. Why did Jesus rise from the dead, hang out for awhile and then leave in a Technicolor, MGM drama-filled way?
     The quick answer is that I have no idea, but the more lengthy answer is this: I think Jesus walked the earth for a while after his resurrection and then physically and visibly “left,” for a very good reason. Us.
      The resurrection of Jesus, while the major part of our Christian faith, can be a little tough to fathom... And yet, at least for me, I know it to be absolutely true. But what if I’d actually known the man? What if I was a contemporary of Jesus? What if I’d lived in 1st century Palestine and counted Jesus as one of my friends? What if I saw him take his final breath, saw his body removed from the cross and laid in a tomb. What if, a few days later, that same very dead friend calls me by name, places my hand in his wounds, joins me for a fish breakfast and preaches one more sermon?
How does one deal with it? Think about how utterly FREAKED out you’d be. Of course you’d like to think you’d be grateful, joyful and happy. But at first I think most of us would have FREAKED out.
    So, I think I get why we have this span of time---40 days to be precise---between Jesus’ resurrection on Easter morning and the Ascension of Christ into heaven. We need some time to adjust.[1]So I believe the 40 days were, in many respects, a “do-over” for the apostles. They, with a resurrected Jesus by their side, get to revisit all the lessons he’d taught them before his death. Once again, they get to see that all things are possible through Him. they get to understand that all the crazy mind blowing things he said and did weren’t  side-shows, they weren’t the work of a mad man. They were the work of a Savior, they were the work of a man sent by God, they were the work of God made human. They were the opening chords of a chorus of a new life. The apostles then and we now were granted some time to realize that God’s not kidding: Death is dead, darkness is defeated, loss is overturned, hate will not win, hope does live and God’s kingdom is a place where there is no longer Jew or Greek, Male or female, black white or brown, gay, straight, trans, rich, poor, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist or agnostic.
God’s not kidding.

But still, why the spectacle of ascending into heaven? Couldn’t Jesus just have said good bye and disappeared? Why the show?
Well, I don’t think Jesus ever did anything without a very good reason so we need to consider why a bodily, visible Ascension was necessary.
I think what Jesus is saying is, “I have to go, and I know that’s going to hurt you…it’s going to hurt me….but the reality is that if I didn’t go, you wouldn’t grow to be the people I know you can be. If I don’t go you won’t pick up the work you are called to do.”
When Jesus left he left his work behind for us to continue.
Are we?
How are we doing Jesus’s work here at St James, in the GRI, in the partnership dioceses? How are we doing that around our dinner table, in our families, neighborhoods, towns, regions? It’s now our work. How are we doing it?
It’s something to think about and if there is something we should be doing at St James’s—speak up. For discerning the work around us, is every bit as important as doing the work.
May we take up that work and do it with joy and praise.
 Amen and Alleluia.

The Day of Pentecost with Baptism

     All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" Indeed, why all this hype about Pentecost? What does it all mean?
It means that Jesus’s departure isn’t absence. It’s freeing the spirit from her confines within Jesus to spread among and through us so that we all become clothed with the power of what our Presiding Bishop calls Love. The Holy  Spirit is fueled by and through  community and the Love which permeates through that community.
    This is why we baptize within the context of the principal weekly service of the church. It’s why I’ll ask if y’all will do all in your power to support Tommy in his life in Christ?  It’s why we all turn around and witness the action of sprinkling his head with water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It’s why we are witnesses of Tommy being sealed with the oil of chrism, an oil only used at this liturgy and at the anointing of a body at death—- because today we celebrate what all of us already know just by being around Tommy— he is sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.
    Just like we are. Just like his sisters, parents, godparents. Just like you and just like me. On this day we celebrate that the Holy Spirit is not a gift reserved for the few, but it is the gift promised to all. It is a gift that makes us risk things we never thought we would, it’s the gift that accompanies us as we endure things we thought impossible to endure, it’s the gift that enlivens us as a community of faith to show Tommy and all our kids within these walls and all the children of God outside of these walls that they are beloved of God.
    Beloved— not tolerated, not dismissed, not rejected, not hated, not judged, not gossiped about but beloved. By God, By Jesus, By the Holy Spirit and by each and everyone of us here. If there are any people here this day whose love for Tommy or for anyone here is dependent on him (or any of us) acting a certain way, loving a certain way, living a certain way then I will pray for you as I escort you out of our community. For we are a tolerant bunch but we will never tolerate conditional love. never.
Tommy is going to be whomever it is God calls him to be and we—- all of us here and all of us yet to come—will be cheering him on, loving him as we ourselves are loved.
The disciples asked, what does this mean? I say what it means is that Tommy is beloved by us and by God. Always and forever.
Now… because it’s Tommy’s seventh birthday today AS WELL as his baptismal day—- let’s get on with it, shall we?
Alleluia Christ is Risen, the Lord is Risen Indeed. Alleluia. And Amen.