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.