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Revolution or Revelation?

What matters more? Revolution or Revelation?

Changing the world? Or, changing ourselves?

In today’s gospel lesson the Jews reveal their desire for revolution. They are impatient. They want to know if Jesus is the messiah. If he is then they want him to get to work making the changes they expect the messiah to make. Their messiah will be a warrior-leader who will Make Israel Great Again. He will exercise superior political might, overcome all mortal oppressors and occupiers, and through his power bring peace and prosperity to Israel.

Does Jesus meet their criteria? They wonder. He has done remarkable, even miraculous things, but nothing yet to indicate political power and authority.

So, when Jesus says, “The Father and I are one,” they know he is not their guy. Their messiah will be worldly, mortal, not some blasphemous form of God-man. Their messiah will change the world making it respect and honor them, the people of Israel. The world, under his direction, will bow to his authority and Israel will be made great again.

The Jews of Jesus’ time want revolution, not revelation.

They want the world to be changed; not to undergo change themselves.

Now, fast-forward to the end times as described in the Book of Revelation, when Jesus, the Lamb of God, sits on a throne with His Father in heaven. In this text we hear:

“There was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.”

They were those who had come out of the great ordeal; they had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Imagine it. People from all nations, all religions, all traditions, all languages, all races, standing, worshipping before the Lamb of God. All having pushed through the great ordeal of life. All having washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.

This multitude has accepted the revelation that Jesus is God. They have washed their revolution-dirtied robes in Christ’s blood and removed from themselves any hunger for revenge. They have given up their need for self-serving change and have opened their eyes to the truth of the Lamb of God, the truth that only through unselfish love, that love made perfect through suffering, can one find ultimate peace and eternal life.

I saw such unselfish love in the actions of a Louisville mother this past week. Her son, a mentally challenged youth, took his wife and young child hostage in their home, holding them at gunpoint. The area SWAT team was called. But before the team could arrive the mother of the young man entered the residence and took charge, telling her son that she wasn’t going to allow things to get any worse, that this situation would come to an immediate end. She kissed her son, told him that she loved him, then took her daughter-in-law and grandchild out of the home and away to safety. Shortly thereafter the SWAT team arrived and the young man gave himself up without a fight to authorities.

This mother’s love was for others, her son, whom she would later plead receive psychological help, her daughter-in-law, and her grandchild. Her action endangered her own life, but she considered other lives more important and acted anyway. She engaged in a Christ-like love.

On this Mother’s Day let us remember this kind of love expressed by so many mothers throughout the world everyday. May we learn to accept the revelation that love, that kind of love revealed to us in the Lamb of God, changes us and thereby changes the world through us, as we act as the living body of Christ. Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church on 5-11-2025

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Where is Sin?

This question is answered in two differing interpretations of Jesus’s words, words we are offered this morning in our gospel lesson.

Jesus, appearing to his disciples after being resurrected, breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

What does he mean?

Interpretation #1: Jesus is conferring upon his disciples the power to identify and judge the sin of others and decide their fate as to whether they deserve forgiveness or not.

“Here disciples,” Jesus seems to say. “Receive this Holy Spirit, this godly authorization to act in my stead, and go into the world and decide who out there is to be forgiven and who out there must remain trapped, condemned in their sin.”

Where is sin? According to this interpretation, sin is out there. That’s where you look for it and when you find it, judge it as such.

Now, I ask you, does this sound like Jesus? You know, love-your-neighbor-as-yourself Jesus, love-your-enemy Jesus? Judge-not-lest-ye-be-judged Jesus? Is this a proper interpretation of his words?

One can imagine where such an interpretation might lead. The disciples may conclude that Jesus is leaving them in charge. They need to run a tight ship. Certainly, there are some whose infractions are harmless enough to forgive, but others, no way, they should be condemned and shunned, maybe even deported without due process to an El Salvadorian prison.

The current political authorities seem to be embracing this interpretation of Jesus’s words. They are bent on rounding up and shipping out all outsiders, all those for whom they’ve judged no forgiveness is warranted. Using their “God-given” power, they are categorizing all opposing viewpoints and straightjacketing those who express them, in an effort to reestablish a caste structure that was done away with years ago.

But I ask again, does this at all sound like Jesus? Is this what he is saying?

Let’s try this again. Interpretation #2. Jesus says:

“Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

In interpretation #2, Jesus gives his disciples the power to forgive. That is what the reception of the Holy Spirit implies. He is not giving them the power to judge, but the power to forgive, with the freedom to either use it or not. Judgement is a worldly trait, forgiveness is of God. When Jesus breathes on his disciples he is granting them the opportunity to participate in godly forgiveness.

And forgiving another’s sin may not be what you think it is. For it is to remove from yourself the consciousness of that sin, that is, to let go of any such judgement you hold within yourself against another. That is what forgiveness is. When you forgive, you, the forgiver, are the one who is changed. To fail to forgive is to retain within yourself judgement against another, it is to remain governed by the powers of the world, it is to refuse to exercise the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The sin of this second interpretation of Jesus’s words, does not reside within the other, but within oneself--that’s where sin is. It’s the only place where we need to seek it out. For in finding and forgiving it we do as our Lord asks, we exercise his gift of the Holy Spirit, and transform ourselves into his disciples, the only beings capable of representing God in a world awash in suffering.

It’s important to understand what the Gospel of John intends when it discusses sin. For its author, sin is not about the moral wrongs one has committed: murder, thievery, adultery, etc. No. In John’s gospel, sin is the failure to recognize and embrace that Jesus Christ is Lord. Such failure maintains a separation between oneself and God. This separation is sin.

Forgiveness of sins is our Holy-Spirit-empowered mission to continue Jesus’ work of making God known in the world and through that work to bring the world to decision through its response to Jesus.1

Lord, enable us to see where sin is. May we exercise your gift of the Holy Spirit to overcome it. May we truly represent you and courageously spread your boundless love to a judgmentally divided world. May your love, mercy and forgiveness be known as the way out of the suffering that the world perpetuates. Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church 4-27-2025

1 New Interpreter’s Study Bible, Abingdon, page 1949

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Vigil

A quick Google search of the word “Vigil” reveals that a vigil is “a period of keeping awake during the time usually spent asleep, especially to watch and to pray.

We began this evening’s service at 9PM. I confess to you all, here and now, that 9PM is my usual bedtime.

Which begs the question: Can we, will we, keep vigil? Keep the faith? Stay awake?

From our Gospel lesson, the only apostles that truly “stayed awake” were women. They had been present for Jesus’s death. They rested as required on the sabbath, then were present again at the tomb early Sunday morning. And for their faithfulness, their perseverance, their watchful presence, they were the first to experience our Lord’s resurrection.

And even they required a nudge. The two men in dazzling clothes had to ask them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?……..Remember how he told you…….. that the Son of Man must be handed over…….and be crucified and on the third day rise again?” It was only then that the women remembered—put it all back together. Of course, they thought, Jesus had said these things. Their watchful waiting and their openness to revelation allowed them to remember.

There is a lot happening in our world today encouraging us to forget, to fall asleep, to accept Jesus’s death as the end of the story. The worldly thing is to be like the apostles when the women shared their experience with them regarding the tomb. They probably thought as the world thinks, “This can’t be. You know how women are: foolish, hysterical.” Indeed, we are told the apostles heard the women’s words as an idle tale and they would not believe them. Except for Peter, they chose to remain asleep.

Today, a strong sedative is blanketing our land. If we don’t intentionally stay awake it will put us to sleep.

Earlier this year, federal authorities gave nonprofits ten days to rid themselves of all DEI related terms and policies should they hope to continue to have access to federal grant money.

One local nonprofit leader told me of the changes she had to implement in order to remain a viable candidate for federal funding. Several terms had to be stricken from grant proposals and policy manuals associated with her nonprofit. Terms like advocacy, diversity, cultural differences, disabilities, discrimination, equity, inclusion, gender, hate speech, implicit bias, minorities, the marginalized, privilege, race, justice, stereotypes, systemic, socioeconomic, trauma, underserved, victim, and women.

Should these terms appear in nonprofit policy manuals and other organizational materials they will be flagged, scrutinized, and used as a basis for rejection of any grant proposals filed by that nonprofit.

Will we keep vigil? Keep the faith? Stay awake?

To continue their life-saving practices and services, many nonprofits can not afford to bite the hand which feeds them. Yet, giving up their mission to advocate for the disabled, the marginalized, refugees, victims, and women, isn’t an option either. To give up would be to fall asleep, to lose faith, to allow the gospel story to conclude with Jesus’s death.

So, taking the advice Jesus himself offers in Matthew’s gospel they are “being wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” They are remaining awake and are continuing their missions while altering the words which describe them; they intend to provide the same services while using a greatly altered narrative to appease worldly powers. They will give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to do likewise, and with the women at the tomb, keep vigil, stay awake, be open to revelation, and remember. Remember. We must remember who we are; we are children of a living God.

Alleluiah, Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluiah.

Alleluiah, Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluiah.

Alleluiah, Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluiah. Amen.

—Offered at Christ Church Cathedral for the Easter Vigil 2025

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It’s Hard to be a Pharisee

The group of privileged Jews, known as the Pharisees, is disgusted with Jesus' acceptance and welcoming of tax collectors and other sinners. They can’t fathom how a true prophet could possibly be accepting of those who have violated the Law with immoral and unacceptable behavior.

So, in response to them and their discontented grumbling, Jesus tells the story of the Prodigal Son. It is specifically to the Pharisees that he addresses this parable and, for that matter, to the Pharisee that lives within each of us.

With Jesus around, it’s hard to be a Pharisee.

Jesus and Pharisees don’t mix. You can’t put them together like bourbon and vermouth to make a good Manhattan. They can’t make a deal with each other or come to some understanding. They are utterly incompatible.

However, the Pharisee wants it all. He wants to be a representative of God, like the Elder Son represents his Father, AND, he wants to be superior to other brothers who fail to live up to the rules. Following the rules provides the Pharisee with the evidence to boast superiority but following them does nothing to grant him rights to be God’s representative. For God is first and foremost, a God of love, a God of forgiveness, a God longing for the reconciliation of God’s entire creation. The Pharisee, like the Elder Son, clings to his superiority and turns his back on following the actions of the Father. Jesus, through the telling of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, points out the Pharisee's failure to represent God and the Pharisee grows more conflicted.

With Jesus around, it’s hard to be a Pharisee.

To overcome his conflict the Pharisee must get rid of Jesus. By calling him a false prophet, a blasphemer, a rule breaker, he can maintain superiority AND continue to believe himself a genuine representative of God.

Such is the way of the world.

The new regime in Washington wants everything to be merit based, that is, everything to be in accord with the rules. It has therefore declared all DEI initiatives to be means whereby the undeserving are getting what they shouldn’t have, what they haven’t earned. The new regime has an Elder Son mentality.

And to many, Washington’s perspective is exclusivist and selfish. This great land, which once envisioned itself as the leader of the free world, has become a bully to friend and foe alike, claiming the world’s resources as its own. Once, it aspired to lead the whole world into a reconciled future. Now it promotes division and a take-what-you-can-get attitude. Once, it believed it could grow beyond itself as an Elder Son and become the benevolent Father of the world. But no longer.

But let us not fall into a feeling of self righteous judgement, supposing ourselves superior because we followed rules broken by others. Our fight against external injustice must begin in a repentant and contrite heart. Let us, this Lent, look inward and acknowledge our own Elder Son, he who would promote disgust, anger and division. Let us expose him and keep Jesus near.

Because, with Jesus around, it’s hard to be a Pharisee. Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church on 3-30-2025

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Give Up Hiding

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of our Lenten journey of 2025.

A time of fasting, a time of deep introspection, of coming to grips with our true motivations, a time to give up hiding.

And God, through Isaiah, would ask us: Are we committed to justice? Are we committed to righteousness? How willing are we to follow the demands of our God?”

The people of Israel to whom Isaiah’s words were spoken are not all that different from us. They went through all the motions, religious ritual, prayer, and fasting, to prove themselves worthy of God’s acceptance, all the while serving their own interests and maintaining an oppression over others for their own profit.

God asks us today, as God asked Israel of old, do you call this a fast, a day of humbling yourself? A day acceptable to the Lord?

And through Isaiah God announces God’s fast: Loose the bonds of injustice, let the oppressed go free, share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house, cover the naked, and give up hiding yourself from your own kin.

Give up hiding yourself from your own kin.

What kin have we about whom God speaks? Our kin are our fellow human beings, including those with whom we would rather not associate, the poor, the homeless, the migrant, and the oppressed.

Consider just three recent happenings in Washington, DC. The discontinuation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, the closure of USAID, which served the needs of people around the world and has been an expression of our nation’s generosity and benevolence, the shut down of Episcopal Migration Ministries, which has helped over 100,000 legal immigrants since 1988 to resettle in the US. Do these sound like the actions our God would recommend? Do they follow God’s demands of loving all those for whom we can affect positive change?

Are they not ways of hiding from our own kin?

God tells us what can happen if we give this up, if we give up hiding ourselves from our own kin.

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noon day. Your ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall rise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

While I wholeheartedly support letting our nation’s leaders know where we stand on their actions, I also feel compelled this Lent to encourage us to look deep within ourselves to expose tendencies we have to hide, to keep from recognizing neighbors as ourselves, and instead make them outcasts or subservient to our desires. Exposure of our hiding places and repentance therefrom is what this time of Lent is for.

One day, may we truly give up hiding ourselves from our own kin. Amen.

—Offered Ash Wednesday 2025 at St. George’s Episcopal Church

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Transactionalism

The culture of our day isn’t all that different from that of Jesus’s time. We too love those from whom we receive love in return. We too give to those whom we think are likely to pay us back. Such behavior is transactional. I love you; you love me. I do you a favor; you do me one.

This transactionalism operates in reverse too, and with negative behaviors. You hate me; well then, I’ll hate you. You cheat me; and I’ll cheat you. You hit me; and I will hit you back.

Transactionalism is often reactionary. It can be mindless and addicting. It can strip us of the freedom to choose for ourselves how to respond to the stimuli of life.

It can deprive us of a relationship with one another. It can make us all isolated individuals engaged in selfish pursuits.

And lest you think clergy are somehow immune from it, I succumbed to it last Tuesday. A man came into our gym to get Dare to Care food. He said he wanted his cart and saw one meeting its description we had filled with onions. He started pulling the onions from the cart when I confronted him. “That isn’t your cart,” I said. “Oh yes it is,” he replied. “Oh no it’s not, I said.” “Oh yes it is.” “Oh no it’s not.” As his anger increased, so did mine. Tit for tat. We sounded like angry children fighting over a toy, but in this instance it was a beat up 10-year-old grocery cart. I finally walked away and he stopped removing onions and eventually left.

You are probably aware of our Vice-President’s view on Christian Love.

During a Fox News interview on January 29, VP Vance said, “There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.”

In this perspective, Vance is forming prioritized concentric circles for our love’s distribution, from the safest places to those less assured. We love our families first as the interdependence of family life makes it likely that one’s love will be reciprocated by another within the family. Then one might love a neighbor, someone in close proximity and probably with a similar lifestyle, one who is likely to reciprocate one’s love, and then one might love someone further removed. The further one goes out the greater the danger of not having one’s love returned.

This view of love comes with a built-in risk assessment. It instructs the lover where the greatest risks in loving are and frees him from needless concern over the breadth of his love. Love family, a few neighbors and fellow citizens, and you’ve loved the most important groups.

It is precisely this heavily transactional love Jesus refutes in today’s gospel lesson. Hear what Jesus says about it.

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive payment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.

Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

You see, Jesus wants more for us. He knows we are more than mindless robots carrying out culture’s programming. We don’t have to live like animals, instinctively acting and reacting in the same old worldly ways. We can choose.

That’s what the people in our recovery programs here at St. George’s are doing. They are choosing to go a new way, a different way, to overcome the pernicious addiction to substances. And our program director, Ron Parris, is encouraging their progress with mindfulness meditation. Such meditation shines a light on one’s well-entrenched behaviors and sets the stage for the choice to behave differently.

We all have the power to choose. Yet, to access that power we must be intentional. We must do the harder thing—love those who can not or will not love us back. We must be willing to get involved in people’s lives, lives that do not profit us.

We can, thereby, live into our inheritance as children of the Most High. We can do as suggested by Our Lord Jesus and overcome the limitations of transactionalism by loving without expecting love in return. Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church on 2-23-2025

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Two Kings

In keeping with the Season of Epiphany, the Prophet Isaiah and the Apostle Peter both see what others do not.

These two men are visionaries. Their vision stretches well beyond the worldly.

What do we hear right off the bat in our Old Testament reading this morning? The prophet throws out the fact of King Uzziah’s death as a mere time frame during which something far more important happened—his vision of God.

Now, the king’s death was a turning point for the people of Israel, but its significance is ignored by the prophet immediately after he mentions it.

Doing some research I found that King Uzziah was a relatively good, but certainly not perfect, king for Judah, the Southern Kingdom of Israel. But immediately after his reign, Judah suffered under the reign of sinful kings and fell into war with its neighbors. Its people were eventually led away into exile in Babylon.

In today’s passage the prophet makes no mention of the king who succeeded Uzziah which one might expect him to do, having brought up Uzziah’s death. Instead he launches into a vision of a heavenly king and we, his readers, are exposed to the contrast between heavenly and worldly kingship.

I wonder if you and I are not in a similar situation today. One worldly ruler is out and another is in. Is our nation, like ancient Israel, beginning a descent that will end in the physical or spiritual exile of its people? Is this a time for lamentation? Or, as suggested by the prophet Isaiah, is it a time to refocus our attention and seek epiphany, enlightenment from God?

The Apostle Peter, in today's gospel reading, has fished all night and has caught nothing. He is discouraged, defeated. Jesus, knowing his state of mind, asks him to put out into deep water and lower his nets. Peter has no reason to do this save for his love of the man, Jesus. So, he does as asked. He acts on his love. His worldly limitations are replaced by the sight of the heavenly king as he sees the abundance of fish brought up from below. Like Isaiah, Peter sees God.

And like Isaiah his response is to acknowledge his sinfulness. Isaiah says, “Woe is me, I’m a man of unclean lips.” Peter says, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Similar responses from each as they realize they are in the presence of God.

Upon seeing God both men are prepared to do God’s work in the world. Isaiah says, “Here am I, send me,” and concerning Peter Jesus says, “From now on you will fish for people.”

The times they are a-changin. Laws are being rewritten, regulations tossed, whole federal departments, created for the good of the common people, disbanded. Worldly changes, done to benefit one nation’s elite. Changes infuriating friend and foe alike.

It would be easy to just get angry, to simply react, to pick up the story from the end of one administration to the beginning and continuance of another. Isaiah didn’t, and neither should we. He looked past the world. He looked to God.

We are God’s own. We are God’s children and are called to love. We live in the world but are not of the world.

We must look through and beyond any political environment and not let any blind us to God’s epiphany. We must focus on God and the enacting of God’s will in the world, no matter what hardships and discouragements we encounter.

I visited an Episcopal woman at Norton Audubon Hospital on Thursday. She had a daughter at her bedside who spends the night and two other children who take turns spelling the daughter during the day. After praying together I encouraged them to keep loving each other because that is what Episcopalians do. Remember, I said, quoting Bishop Curry, “If it isn’t about Love, it isn’t about God.”

It is that simple.

Visionary Colombian music artist Ela Minus expresses this simplicity in a popular tune.

“Everyone told us it's hard, but they were wrong.

When we love, we love it all and nothing is impossible.”

Nothing is impossible for God and those who share God’s love.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t let the world’s craziness pull you away from seeing God’s mission for your life. See your mission, as did Isaiah and Peter, and be God’s emissary of love in the world. Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church on 2-9-2025

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Ice Sheet

In my sermon last week, an epiphany took place. And I asked you to imagine two men standing along the Jordan River Bank when it occurred, two men who witnessed the Baptism of Our Lord, two men who were present when a sound came out of heaven. One, as I suggested, heard God’s voice telling all those assembled about Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” While the second man, burdened with a harder, more skeptical heart, heard only thunder.

In today's lesson from John's Gospel, we learn of another epiphany. And it too happens in such a way that some experience it while others do not.

Mary and her son, Jesus, attend a wedding in Cana. Mary notices that the wine is running out and tells Jesus about it. Jesus shrugs, “So what? Why should we care?”

Undeterred, Mary tells the servants to do as Jesus tells them. They do.

After the servants fill empty jars with water as instructed by Jesus, we learn about the miracle. But what an odd way to learn of it. Jesus doesn’t stand over the water jars, place his hands on them, and make a fuss, saying incantations. No, water is turned to wine without any indication that it has happened at all.

Hear again, how it happens.

Jesus said to the servants, “Now draw some out, and take it to the person in charge of the banquet.” So they took it. When the person in charge tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), that person called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

And then the story abruptly ends with the following words: Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

Wait a minute! Only the disciples believed in him? What about everyone else at the wedding? Weren’t people talking and wondering? The servants had put water in jars and wine came out. We hear nothing from them. And how about the bridegroom? Six jars, each holding twenty gallons, each filled to the brim. That is 120 gallons of wine that they didn’t start out with, and of a much higher quality. Why isn’t the bridegroom asking, where did this 120 gallons of wine come from? What is going on? But no, nothing, all we hear is that the disciples believed in Jesus.

Why aren’t more people in this story experiencing an epiphany?

Last Tuesday I came to the Community Center for the Dare to Care distribution, as is my custom. I started moving tables around and putting shopping carts in place. After a bit, Brother Ron and the driver of the Dare to Care truck showed up. Wearing a frown, the truck driver spoke with Ron. I joined in the conversation to find that the driver was suggesting we skip today’s delivery as there was a big slab of ice between the road and our ramp.

We all went outside to observe the scene. Sure enough a thick sheet of ice prevented pallet transport from the street to our community center. Ron had a pick-like tool with him. He took a mighty swing and struck the ice with a great force. Only a tiny chip of ice flew off into the air. The three of us glanced at each other as if to say, “If one blow had that little an impact, it’s going to take a lot of blows and a lot of time to remove this ice sheet.” More time, perhaps, than the driver was willing to give us.

Ron made nice with the driver who had moved to stand next to his idling truck, telling him how appreciative he was to give us a minute. The driver grunted something and crossed his arms. Ron resumed striking the ice and with each successive blow larger and larger chunks became dislodged. I asked Ron if he had a shovel and he went to get one as I took my shots with the pick at this ice monster. When Ron returned with the shovel he and I worked vigorously as the driver began removing pallets of food from his truck and setting them in the street.

Miraculously, we got enough ice pushed aside to allow pallets to be pulled into the building. Ron made nice again with the driver, thanking him for his patience. With the delivery made, he drove off as a second truck, this one with senior commodities, arrived.

Now, Ron and I hadn’t turned water into wine, but both of us were aware that something special had happened. Ron had come to the community center, he had brought the exact tools needed, the driver had shown enough respect for what we were trying to do to give us time to do it, and the ice had given way to the blows we brought upon it. Any of these factors being different would have prevented our Dare to Care participants from receiving the food being brought to them.

Soon, the people arrived as they do every second Tuesday and received the same sorts of things they receive on that day: commodities, produce, breads, and sweets, without ever knowing that it all might not have been.

Just so, the people at the Wedding in Cana, captive to their usual expectations, drank really good wine without becoming aware, without experiencing God’s breaking into their hum-drum world, without experiencing the epiphany, without rejoicing in the miracle that had just happened.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t be locked into your usual expectations, your usual assumptions, allowing them to govern what you hear and what you see. We are children of God, we are disciples of Christ. As such we must expect the unexpected, we must look for the Holy Spirit’s actions in our daily lives. Smile at them when they present themselves. The more you look the more you will see.

Ron and I knew the Holy Spirit was with us Tuesday morning. Our acceptance of the experience as a partnership with God fortifies our faith, a faith which grows larger and larger just as the ice sheets of our lives are chipped away in larger and larger chunks.

In a few minutes you will hear in the commemoration of MLK, Jr, how he, broken under the weight of fierce opposition, humbly opened himself to God’s will. It was then, as with our first man at the river, that he experienced epiphany; he heard God’s voice saying, "Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever."

Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church on 1-19-2025

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The Christ Ephod

1 Samuel 2:18-20,26

Psalm 148

Colossians 3:12-17

Luke 2:41-52

In our Old Testament lesson today we hear about the Linen Ephod. Our scripture reads, “Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing a linen ephod.”

What’s this linen ephod and what is its significance?

Doing a little research, I found that the linen ephod is a sacred garment with a rather conflicted history. It functions as a communication aid between its wearer and God, kind of like an antenna one might wear around oneself to better tune in God’s voice by accessing the frequency over which God transmits God’s message. It was worn by the high priest and it was supposed to enable him to better hear and understand the will of God.

However, when the Israelites drifted from God and worshipped idols, it was worn by those idols, becoming itself an object of idolatry, making its wearers’ efforts to tune in God futile.

In today’s story we find a boy wearing it, the boy Samuel, a boy given to God by his mother, Hannah. His wearing it suggests that he, a mere boy, is empowered with the gift of direct communication with God.

In our Gospel lesson we are offered a glimpse of Jesus as a child. His parents have lost him. And he is to be found where he, and anyone else knowing his true identity, would expect him to be, regardless of his age—in His Father’s House.

Unlike Samuel, Jesus doesn’t wear an ephod. Why not? Because Jesus is the Ephod. Jesus is our mediator, our antenna, our direct link with God, the Father. He is the Holy garment we put on and through whom we gain access to the Father.

But, as with the linen ephod, much depends on how the Christ ephod is worn. If we haven’t been given over to God’s care, as Samuel has, we stand a good chance of making an idol of ourselves, even as we wear the ephod of Christ. The ephod becomes merely an outward garment covering our idolatrous selves. In such a case, we use Jesus to legitimize a false servant of the Lord.

History is full of such perversion. Martin Luther’s 95 theses were a description of the grievous wrongs perpetrated by the Church of Rome, wrongs done by church leaders making idols of themselves, instead of giving themselves over into the hands of God.

We must be purified through sincere repentance, through sincere renunciation of our worldly affections, if Christ’s ephod is to allow us to tune in to the Father. The ephod is of no use to an unrepentant soul.

Our reading from Colossians speaks both of who we are and what we are to wear. We hear in it:

“Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”

Like Samuel, we are God’s chosen, beloved, provided we do not make idols of ourselves and our desires. We are to put on Christ, and all those qualities exemplified by our Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We put Christ on over selves that have been given to God and in so doing enter into wholeness. Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church on 12-29-2024

[deaconwords]

Perseverance and Birth Pangs

Last week we heard about Ruth, the faith-filled woman who refused to go back to Moab, but instead, followed her mother-in-law to Israel.

This week we have Hannah, the barren wife of the priest, Elkanah. As the story goes, Elkanah’s family, which was considerable, traveled each year from their hometown to worship and sacrifice to the Lord at Shiloh. And each year Elkanah’s second wife, Peninnah, would provoke and belittle Hannah on account of her barrenness.

Elkanah had married Hannah first, but when she was unable to give him children married Peninnah as well. Elkanah preferred Hannah, but his need to have children prompted him to get another wife and she bore them for him.

In today’s lesson, when Elkanah sees Hannah weeping and refusing to eat or drink he asks insensitive questions.

“Why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad?” And then the kicker, “Am I not more to you than ten sons?”

And with these questions left unanswered, Elkanah returns to his feast.

Elkanah isn’t helpful. His questions “Why do you weep? Why do you not eat?” And, “Why is your heart sad?” feign ignorance. He knows darn well the answers to these questions but he chooses to imply by asking them that Hannah is wrong about her own feelings, suggesting that her feelings are unfounded.

And then he makes it about himself when asking “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” As if she should be ashamed to feel as she does since he is so great and benevolent. She has it so good. Why can’t she just drop this whole sadness thing?

When Elkanah won’t listen, Hannah goes to the Lord and presents herself at the temple. And while her clan is feasting, consuming food and wine, she is pouring out her heart to God. She stands in the temple crying and mouthing her words in silence.

Eli, the temple priest, notices her. Prayers in the temple were ordinarily spoken aloud, but Eli cannot hear Hannah so he makes an incorrect assumption. He believes she is drunk.

Eli asks her, “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.”

But she speaks up, breaks her silence, and corrects him, corrects the priest.

“No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.”

To which Eli, having been put in his place, answers, “Go in peace, May the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.”

Hannah is unburdened. She returns to the family, eats a meal with her husband, and is no longer sad. She has turned over her troubles to God. She rests in God and trusts that God’s will will be done. She exercises her faith.

Last week, I visited an Episcopal woman in the hospital. She had suffered a relapse of cancer that she had beaten a few years back. And as she laid in her bed without any hair on her head I asked her for what we should pray. She said with assurance and confidence, “That God’s will be done.”

I smiled and we prayed as she had asked. We prayed too that we might learn, as had Ruth, and Hannah, to rest in God’s loving arms with the assurance that no matter what troubles we face we can do so as God’s children.

Ruth and Hannah, two faith-filled women who see and live in the deeper reality, that which when lived allows us to rest in God’s love with a confidence that beckons us to be God’s hands and feet in the world. Through her faith, Ruth became the great grandmother of King David. Hannah, by pouring herself out to God, rested in God’s love and gave birth to Samuel, the great prophet of Israel, who anointed King David and established him along the genealogical journey leading to Christ, the Lord.

May we too exercise such faith as these two women did. Through such faith truly marvelous things can be born in and through us. Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church on 11-17-2024

[deaconwords]

Women and the Deeper Reality

The American people have once again refused to accept a woman as their leader.

Women are capable of great conviction and love. They often do remarkable things with little recognition. Much of their work in the development of humanity has gone unseen.

Today, Ruth is my teacher on the power of a woman. She exemplifies what a faith-filled woman looks like. And her conviction is amazing. Given the control men have exercised throughout history, it is a wonder that the Book of Ruth made it into the Bible, a book that so exposes the potential power in women.

To set the stage for today’s lesson from the Book of Ruth, Naomi and her two daughter-in-laws are living in Moab with their three husbands. All three husbands die, leaving the three women on their own. The two daughter-in-laws are Moabite women while Naomi is Jewish.

Naomi decides to return to Israel where she has family and she tells Ruth and the other daughter-in-law to stay behind in Moab, as they would be considered outcasts in Israel. And this is where we begin to see Ruth’s character revealed.

Ruth replies to Naomi with these words:

“Do not press me to leave you,

to turn back from following you!

Where you go, I will go;

where you lodge, I will lodge;

your people shall be my people

and your God my God.

Where you die, I will die,

and there will I be buried.

This is the faithfulness we hear from Ruth and she puts this faithfulness into action and follows Naomi to Israel.

In today's story Ruth does as asked by Naomi, without question.

I can’t help but reflect on Mary, the mother of Jesus. When the Angel Gabriel comes to her she accepts her mission without question. Remember Mary’s words, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

Nowhere in scripture will you hear a man speak this way.

You see, a woman often accepts the deeper reality. Ruth knew she was called to be a companion to Naomi, that together they were stronger than they would be apart. She could have focused on herself. She could have returned to an easier life back in Moab, as did the other daughter-in-law. But she did not. And for that we respect and revere her. She accepted the struggles that would be forthcoming in order to stay true to her commitment to Naomi, her commitment to a deeper shared existence, to a God-given principle that stands above one’s individual desire to fend for herself.

What a difference four years makes! Remember our last transfer of power? Remember January 6?

This time around, the loser, a woman, conceded. She congratulated the winner in order to pay homage to something greater than her opponent or herself—democracy.

VP Harris said, “A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results.”

She went on, “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign……….. Do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves. This is a time to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together."

It is right for us to participate in politics. It is right that we side with those politicians who address the needs of the country’s citizens with equity, justice, and compassion. But, as Christians who follow Jesus, we mustn’t grow blind to the deeper reality, a reality in which we can all participate.

Ruth knew it. Ruth accepted it. Ruth participated in it. Her faithfulness in staying true to Naomi led directly to her joining an all-important hereditary lineage. For as our lesson concludes today, regarding Ruth’s son: They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

And from King David, the greatest of Israel’s kings, the genealogical line would continue for 28 generations, all the way to Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.

We must remember what Dr. King told us, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

The struggle is real. The cost of discipleship is high. Many in our nation shirk from electing a woman to lead it, fearing her latent nurturing power will raise others and lessen them.

Yet, raising another up is precisely what Ruth did. She is our example on how to live a life, what we are called to do as followers of Jesus. She gave up herself to redeem Naomi and in doing so became the great-grandmother of King David. We are called to give of ourselves to participate in God’s unrelenting work of love, for whom Jesus, whom we follow, is the embodiment. His wholeness is our deeper reality and in it we know our place as Children of God.

Grieve, if needed. Lament, if warranted. But remember who you are and the deeper reality you serve. Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church 11-10-2024

[deaconwords]

Creature and Creator 2

Last week I concluded my sermon with these words regarding our mission in life: We have only to get out of our own way and allow God to be God.

Now, if we are to accept this missional directive then what are we to make of James and John in today’s Gospel lesson? Hear what they demand of the Christ, the Son of God: “We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you………grant us to sit, one on your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

How does their request sit with you? Does it sound appropriate? In it, do the disciples of Jesus reveal themselves as having understood Jesus? Of having understood the Gospel? Of having understood that before resurrection one must drink the cup, one must die?

In this context their request is laughable, but I’m not laughing, because I too, have a desire to stand above other men. I too want to be acclaimed as being “somebody.”

And as a human being I have no hope of overcoming myself and my human desires on my own, without God’s intervention. Remember last week’s lesson and Jesus’s words, “For mortals it is impossible. But for God nothing is impossible.”

I am creature; God is creator.

There is no getting around this fact. Not even Jesus can alter it. For you see, he too leaves to God the Father the positioning of the Father’s subjects in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus says, “to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to appoint, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

Did you hear God’s response to Job in our first lesson, the questions God asked of him?

“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that a flood of waters may cover you? Can you send forth lightenings, so that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are?’”

Job is creature; God is creator.

We, God’s creation, are like children in daycare. We are given blocks to play with. We can stack them up upon each other. We can move them around in interesting ways and marvel at our configurations of them. But we cannot bring them into being; we cannot create. No, overcoming the limits of creaturehood are beyond our capabilities.

We are creatures; God is creator.

In the introduction to his book, The Birth of an Artist, Ed Hamilton ruminates on his participation in acts of creation. He writes, “There are times when I am amazed with the process of creating art. I have asked myself, ‘Where did it all begin, and what were the events that led me to become involved in a profession that can, at times, be like riding on a rollercoaster?’ I have wondered just what was it that prepared me for a career as an artist and sculptor. Is it a gift from God, is it something in my genes, or is it an element of fate?”

With these words, Ed notes three possible sources for his creative talent. God, genetics, and fate. Interestingly, all three reside outside of Ed’s control. New creation comes into being from outside Ed yet through his hands. I believe he must continually “get out of his own way” and allow new creation to emerge. He must function as a conduit, a vessel, through whom the new can be made manifest. With each new creation he must choose to engage the task at hand over pursuing the reward it will bring him.

This is very different from what we hear about James and John today. They too were in the midst of a creative source, Jesus, the Christ. Yet, they didn’t seek to participate in the expression of new creation, how they might act as co-creators with God. No, they thought of their own personal status, of profit, of how they might be seen in the eyes of others.

The 20th century psychologist, Fritz Kunkel, has stated that the opposite of sin isn’t virtue, it isn’t faith, it isn’t honorableness. No, it is creativity. Think of it, the opposite of sin is creativity.

You see, for Kunkel creation is ongoing. Each and every moment we have the opportunity to participate with God in it, or we can go our own way and seek personal rewards made possible by it.

By participating in Creation we are in the mix with God and are living into God’s actions.

By seeking our own personal benefit made possible by Creation we separate ourselves from God and God’s works.

Participate or profit. That’s the everpresent choice before us. Do we accept our creaturehood and participate with God as vessels through which God’s love flows? Or, do we detach and fixate on ourselves and seek to profit from God’s ongoing creation story?

We have only to get out of our own way and allow God to be God. Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church 10-20-2024

[deaconwords]

Finding God

In our reading from Job this morning we hear Job experiencing God’s absence. Hear his words, first in verse 3:

3

Oh, that I knew where I might find him,

that I might come even to his dwelling!

Then in verses 8 and 9:

8

“If I go forward, he is not there;

or backward, I cannot perceive him;

9

on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him;

I turn[c] to the right, but I cannot see him.

And in today’s psalm we hear in verse 1:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?

And again in verse 11:

Be not far from me for trouble is near, and there is none to help.

Both Job and the psalmist are lamenting God’s absence. Where O where is God?

Have you ever experienced this? God’s absence? A powerful sense of being all alone, abandoned, forsaken?

In today’s Gospel lesson, a rich young man comes to Jesus. He has followed all the commandments throughout his life but knows, somehow, that he lacks something. Like Job and the psalmist he senses that something is missing. God (or the Eternal) is absent from his life. What must he do to find God? Where must he look?

Thirty years ago, I was in a dark place. Dark places often bring to light God’s absence. Both my parents and my brother had recently died. I had uprooted myself from my home state of California. My wife was divorcing me and I was without stable employment. As a broken man I found myself on my knees one night praying for help. And after pouring out my failures and lost dreams I felt God’s presence. I experienced God as a powerful force of unconditional love. It was amazing.

Shortly after the experience, I began attending Christ Church Cathedral. And to my great joy the same sense of unconditional love I had experienced on my knees that late night I sensed in this House of God. At least, until one particular Sunday.

On that day I arrived expectant. God would be there, I thought. After all, I had returned to church, a place I had abandoned some years before to live a completely secular life. But on this day I felt God’s absence, not God’s presence. What gives? I questioned.

I sat in the pew and became angry. I had turned my life around because of God. Where was God? Like Job I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was holding up my end of the deal. Where was God? God’s not being present, I thought, was unjust. I sat and stewed. I wanted to give God a piece of my mind but couldn’t find God anywhere.

I listened to the readings and then the sermon. No God to be found. Then, Dean Wolf began the Liturgy of the Table. I stood and got into line to move forward to receive communion. I was graced with a softening heart. I began to realize how foolish I was acting. Who was I to be making demands of the God of the Universe? Who was I to say where God was to spend God’s mornings? How could I know if God wasn’t giving me just what I needed by being absent? Who was I to limit God in being God?

Indeed, by the time I arrived at the front of the line I had become completely humbled. I had let go of my demands and expectations. I had let go of my need to validate myself through argument. I had become empty. And right then, I held out my hands and received the host. Consuming it I felt the powerful presence of God. Suddenly, God was present. As I drank from the cup I became aware of Christ’s intimate presence.

Now, make no mistake, God had been present throughout my whole ordeal. I had simply been unable to find God due to my demanding God be other than who God is, the independent, all powerful sustainer of all things. When I returned to myself, a wholly dependent being of God's creation, clear vision and awareness was reestablished.

It would seem that there are three states in which we can find ourselves. We can feel God’s presence. We can feel God’s absence. And, we can go through life oblivious to either God’s presence or God’s absence.

Jesus tells the young man who desires eternal life to give up his possessions and knowing that he cannot free himself of them he walks away dejected. Jesus tells his disciples, “Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God!”

The disciples ask, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus responds, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God.”

We cannot save ourselves. God alone can do that. We have only to get out of our own way and allow God to be God. Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church on 10-13-2024

[deaconwords]

Going Out

Pope Francis offers some insightful words on human fulfillment. He says from today's reading taken from his encyclical Laudato Si:

“The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures.”

This “going out” from ourselves is vital. It is how we expand our relationship with God and each other. And it can be hard. We can often feel a desire to avoid it, this “going out” from oneself. It can feel and be risky.

Our gospel lesson provides examples of “going out.”

First we hear of Jesus and his disciples traveling to Tyre. Why would they travel there? Tyre is well beyond the bounds of Israel. It is in Lebanon.

The Jewish leaders would have considered it unclean and a place to be avoided. We are not told why Jesus goes there but he does, and with intention.

Jesus “goes out” to Tyre, a city of Gentiles.

In Tyre there is a woman who knows about Jesus and tracks him down to ask for healing for her daughter. There it is again, this “going out,” this time it is the action of a Syrophoenician woman. The woman didn’t stay at home when the opportunity arose to connect with a spiritual healer. She went out to him and kneeled at his feet.

As the story continues, Jesus defaults to his tradition’s response in saying he has nothing for the woman, since he intends to feed the children first. But she presses him. She “goes out” even further from herself demanding Jesus acknowledge the relationship she and her people have with God. And Jesus can’t dispute it. She reminds him of the “web of relationships” existing throughout the Universe. And he confirms God’s relationship with Gentiles by providing his healing to the woman’s daughter.

The second healing in our gospel lesson also shows a “going out.” Still in the land of Gentiles, a group of people bring a deaf and mute man to Jesus. They “go out” to Jesus. This time there is no discussion concerning whether the man is a Jew or a Gentile. Jesus is over that now. His recent encounter with the Syrophoenician woman has broken down barriers that he previously thought relevant. This time, Jesus readily gets to work and heals the man of what ails him.

You see, exemplified in Christ, the more we “go out” the more we soften internal barriers that would restrict our movement. Breaking down such walls makes possible more and deeper relationships with others we encounter. It also deepens our relationship with God and God’s creation.

As a teacher at Assumption High School I had the opportunity to take students on regional and international mission trips. It was a “going out.” We traveled to places like Appalachia, Nicaragua, Belize, and Jamaica. We just went and made ourselves available to serve.

And you know, if we went with the right mindset, we didn’t know if we were among the people who would heal or be healed. It was often a two-way street. That is, those whom we sought to heal were often those who provided us with healing of ailments we may not have even known we had. Therein lay the real wonder of the trips. God, being present in all God’s people, made God’s healing available for all God’s suffering people, and did so through the relationships they formed with one another.

In Pope Francis’s words, “Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity.”

Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church on 9-8-2024

[deaconwords]

Consume for Health

Our readings today proclaim much wisdom.

Listen to Solomon, Israel's wisest king, speaking to God regarding the construction of the temple. “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!”

And regarding foreigners, Solomon says, “When a foreigner comes and prays toward this house, then hear in heaven……..and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel.”

Solomon speaks with wisdom, humility and inclusivity. His and ours isn’t the only house in which God dwells! And even it, our church, doesn’t belong solely to us. It is God’s and is to be shared with foreigners, with any and all who come to know and experience God.

And from Paul in the Book of Ephesians we hear, “Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil.”

These readings present a clear understanding of our situation. They say we can’t contain God. They say we can’t offer God only to those we deem worthy. They say our struggle is not against one another, but with the spiritual forces of evil in the world, spiritual forces that potentially operate within each and every one of us.

Given our situation so described, what are we to do? How do we find healing?

Between the 16th and 18th centuries, more than two million sailors died of scurvy. Early symptoms of the disease include weakness, fatigue, and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, gum disease, changes to hair, and bleeding from the skin may occur. As scurvy worsens there can be poor wound healing, personality changes, and finally death from infection or bleeding. It took a long time to figure out the cause of the disease, which was finally found to be vitamin C deficiency. That is, the cure was to eat citrus fruit and other vitamin C rich foods. All one needs is 10mg of vitamin C a day to prevent ever having to suffer with scurvy.

In like fashion, to overcome the spiritual diseases within ourselves we must feed on Jesus.

Jesus tells us in our Gospel lesson.

“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” Eat my flesh and drink my blood. This is what we are to do.

Now, we needn’t get bogged down with a literal interpretation of these words. Hear Jesus, “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

We are to spiritually consume Jesus. That is, we are to take Jesus into ourselves as a body takes in a nutrient, allowing it to take its place as a constituent part of the body. Consuming Jesus heals us of our spiritual disease just as vitamin C heals scurvy. As the healing nutrient comes in the disease is driven out.

Why do so many of those following Jesus resist and take offense at this teaching?

They cling to their disease. They work to remain separate. They don’t want to become Jesus or even Solomon. They want their God to be contained in a temple that they control. They want to distribute God to those whom they determine worthy. They don’t want internal change, only the change in others to suit their interests.

Therein lies their offense.

Are we similarly offended with Jesus’ teaching? Do we cling to our disease, preferring it to God’s transformative healing?

Some of you may feel disappointment in not receiving Holy Eucharist today. And on this day when we will not receive communion I ask we consider our motivations in coming to God's table when we do so on typical Eucharist Sundays. Do we come to gain for ourselves only, to satisfy a personal need? Or, do we come to be changed from diseased people to healed people of God?

I close my sermon today with the words we recite each time we use Eucharistic Prayer C.

Lord God of our Fathers; God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us. Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in His name. Amen.

—Offered at St. George’s Episcopal Church on 8-25-2024

[deaconwords]

Celebrate!

Simone Biles is the GOAT of all GOATS. She attempts the most difficult maneuvers. She puts her whole self into her work as a gymnastic athlete. One is spellbound watching her performances. With the challenges she faces sometimes she slips, sometimes she steps out of bounds. Such missteps are inevitable, given the level of difficulty in which she operates. And for all of her successes, perhaps, she is at her best when she falters. I thought so this week when a couple of errors earned her a silver instead of a gold medal on the floor exercises in Paris.

What she was facing when it came time to receive her medal was akin, I believe, to what the Jews were facing when Jesus proclaimed himself as the “Bread of Heaven.”

Listen to their response to Jesus from today’s Gospel lesson. “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

They are offended by Jesus’s declaration of being the “Bread of Heaven.” They think they know who he is and where he comes from. He is nothing special. And in their pompous assurance they miss out on being with the Son of God.

But Simone Biles, the GOAT of all GOATS, didn’t succumb to such a temptation this week. No, when the awards ceremony began, she didn’t pout, she didn’t denigrate the gold medal winner, she didn’t look the other way in offense or hostility. She orchestrated something with her teammate, Jordan Chiles, who had won the bronze medal.

Now, the award’s podium has three tiers, low, middle, and high, with the highest tier in the center. So, as they gathered for the awards, Simone and Jordan, her teammate, from their respective positions turned toward the center tier where the gold medalist Rebeca Andrade was positioning herself and bowed in reverence toward her.

The three young women wore huge smiles on their faces. They were positively exuberant. They were all winning Olympic medals. They were feeling that spirit of community and love which our Jewish folk described in our Gospel lesson missed out on.

From today’s lesson from Ephesians we heard, “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.”

These suggestions, from Ephesians, for how to live a life of love are not commandments to follow. We don’t do as Christ says in order to earn salvation. They themselves (our selfless actions) are the manifestation of heaven, the realization of eternal life.

Nancy Armour, columnist for USA Today, quoted Biles in Paris speaking about her Brazilian counterpart and gold medal winner, “I love Rebeca. She’s absolutely amazing,” Biles said Monday afternoon. “Jordan was like, ‘Should we bow to her?’ And I was like, ‘Absolutely.’ It was just the right thing to do.”

The columnist continues, “Not many athletes – not many people – would be big enough to celebrate someone else’s success in the wake of their own disappointment. Or mature enough to do it so genuinely. Not many would be generous enough to show the grace that so often isn’t extended to her. Biles is the greatest gymnast of all time, and the surprising results Monday do nothing to change that. But she’s an equally good human, continuing to dole out lessons on how to do life. Be kind. Celebrate success, both yours and that of others.”

Jesus Christ is the Bread of Heaven. Recognize and celebrate his greatness. Accept what he offers and experience the joy of eternal life. See him in others. Celebrate them without reserve. Let go of your own fixations and be freed of your own insecurities. There is a celebration going on. Don’t miss out on it! Amen.

—Offered on 8-11-2024 at St. George’s Episcopal Church

[deaconwords]

Expand and Rest

Jesus tells his disciples in today’s Gospel lesson that they need a break. They have been working very hard for God. So together they set out to find a place to be alone for rest and recuperation.

We’ve all planned getaways, a needed break from our usual duties, our usual responsibilities, our usual occupations. Can you put yourself in the disciples’ frame of mind regarding upcoming time off, time away? They would be feeling expectant and excited. They would be saying to each other, “Hey, we’re going on retreat with Jesus!” Imagine it, you are about to go to a quiet place where you can put aside the cares of the world. And in this Gospel passage Jesus advocates for just that. He says, “[Let’s go] away to a deserted place all by [ourselves] and rest a while.” Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Only thing, when you arrive at your destination all the troubles you thought you were leaving behind have somehow arrived there ahead of you. They learned of your travel plans and scurried to beat you to your destination. You arrive and they are there to greet you. Now, how do you suppose you would feel under such circumstances?

I know how I’d feel! “What the heck are all these troubles doing here? Listen, I’m on break. I can’t deal with you right now. I’m here for me! This is my time, my place.”

That would be my, fully human, response. Jesus, however, models something different. He models for us how an enlightened being sees and responds to the world. Note Jesus’ reaction to the crowds he sees assembled. He feels their pain. We are told he has compassion for them. His first reaction upon seeing the crowd is one of compassion, which means he suffers with them.

He so identifies with his people that he fails to differentiate between his needs and their needs. For Jesus, their pain is his pain. For Jesus, loving oneself and loving one’s neighbor are not two separate acts that one can put into two different spatial and temporal boxes. For Jesus, there can be no work-life balance because there aren’t two things to compare.

Back in 2019, I was a new chaplain resident serving at Norton Hospital. I’d been given a unit to cover. The unit was comprised of 35 patient rooms and a central nurses’ station. It was MY unit. One day at lunchtime in another part of the hospital, a doctor joined me on an elevator. Noticing my chaplain badge he began complaining about a difficult patient. It took me a moment, but I was able to come around from being a man en route to lunch to being a man providing a listening ear to another. There was a shift in me, an “aha” moment in me.

I became aware that a chaplain might be assigned a particular unit but that wouldn’t negate his being a chaplain elsewhere when called upon to be one. That day, my territory expanded from a single unit to an entire hospital.

That is what Jesus is modeling for us in today's lesson. His message: Expand yourself. Expand your concerns. Make your concern for others the same as your concern for yourself. Break down the wall that separates you from your vocation. That is how you follow me.

David’s story is instructive. Our OT lesson describes David’s response to down time. He has defeated all his foes and is antsy to do more. So, he stops listening to God and comes up with what he thinks he should do next. He decides he should build God a permanent dwelling. And God tells Nathan, the prophet, 5Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? 6I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. 7Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”

Wow! A clear rebuke from God! David is a workaholic and needs to stay busy so he goes off script. God reels him in, clips his wings, tells him to take a chill pill. It’s David’s time to rest and recuperate from all his battles for God.

A willingness to do what is needed when and where it is needed and to rest when appropriate is what Jesus is demonstrating to us in today’s gospel lesson. Jesus advocates for rest, but not when it conflicts with our vocation. One’s vocation, one’s calling, isn’t really separate from one’s self, not when it is God’s calling for us. To engage one’s calling is to engage one’s true self.

Can we recognize and engage our calling wherever and whenever it appears? Can we let go of tasks we want to engage in when they are not given to us by God? Can we allow God’s unlimited love, flowing through us to dissolve the wall that separates our needs from those of others? Not without God’s help.

But with God’s help we can follow our Savior, Jesus, and expand ourselves further and further into God’s Undivided Kingdom. Amen.

—Offered 7-21-2024 at St. George’s Episcopal Church