Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Sunday, September 4, 2022

William Yagel

Grace Radford

September 4, 2022

Proper 18, Year C

“Baptism does not confer on us a status that marks us off from everybody else.  To be able to say, ‘I’m baptized’ is not to claim an extra dignity, let alone a sort of privilege that keeps you separate from and superior to the rest of the human race, but to claim a new level of solidarity with other people.  It is to accept that to be a Christian is to be affected – you might even say contaminated – by the mess of humanity.  This is very paradoxical.  Baptism is a ceremony in which we are washed, cleansed, and re-created.  It is also a ceremony in which we are pushed into the middle of a human situation that may hurt us, and that will not leave us untouched or unsullied.”  

May it be so.  

Amen

- The Reverend Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury, Retired.  From his work Being Christian; Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer.

I have to confess that the words of the Psalmist this morning are some of my very favorite in Scripture.  They were introduced to me as a young person at a church youth event.  I think it was a Diocesan weekend where I was one of the High School leaders that would sit with a small group as we had a conversation surrounding this psalm.  Particularly, we were discussing verses 12 through 15, I think, at least, those are the verses that I remember.  I should add that I don’t remember at all how that small group conversation went, nor can I remember much about the woman who reviewed the psalm and the questions with myself and the other small group leaders before the event.  My sense is that she was not a priest, but I am not certain…  Almost all of those details are now gone.

What I do remember, however, is a feeling.  I remember feeling more than a little shocked.  You see the woman - again, I can’t remember who, but I know it was a woman - was encouraging us to focus on verse 13 – 

“I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”

This was a concept that High School William Yagel did not believe, at all.  I certainly didn’t feel marvelously made.  I felt more like a shabbily hobbled together character with a string of inadequacies and insecurities that I wanted to hide.  But the Psalmist cut through all of that.  There isn’t anything that is unknown.  I was intimately known.  From the very beginning of me, I was known, and known well.  Now, I can not tell you that this was the epiphany that turned my life around.  I can’t tell you that this was the moment I found God… but as often happens with scripture, it lodged itself in the recesses of my consciousness, and went to work.  “I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well” became part of the affirming reality that is our Episcopal Church.  This community has repeatedly told me that I am loved, not because of who I am, but simply because I am.  I pray that each of you have heard the same in your own lives.

It is this same sentiment that we hear regularly in our baptismal covenant.  Even if you haven’t heard a baptism in some time, I hope you have heard the words of the covenant every so often in Church.  We are encouraged to renew our baptismal covenant four times a year if we are not having a baptism.  ON Easter Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, All Saints Sunday, and the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord we are encouraged to replace the Nicene Creed with a renewal of our vows of baptism.  We don’t do this to simply trot out the old BCP and make folks fumble through to find the right pages, we renew our vows from baptism four times a year because they are important and essential to our ongoing journey as disciples of Christ.  

A significant part of the journey is reminding us that we are all, each of us, and all of this creation, marvelously made.  That all of creation has been intimately known by the creator, redeemer, and sustainer, knit together carefully, lovingly, marvelously.  God knows us, and God loves us.  So, in our vows when we affirm that we will “strive for Justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being” with God’s help, it is because God has knitted those human beings together in their mother’s womb, has known them well.  Through our baptism we contaminate ourselves with everyone else and we are convicted by their humanity to value them and to respect their dignity, because they are beloved of God, just as we are.  And the work hasn’t gotten easier in the past 2000 years.  

It is this conviction that we hear in the words of Paul this morning.  The book of Philemon is the third shortest of the bible, and this morning we hear all but a couple of verses.  Historians have traditionally agreed that this is Paul’s letter asking Philemon to take back Philemon’s slave, Onesimus, and pardon him after running away.   It should be noted that Paul can be a challenging figure for us to hear from time to time.  In fact, Howard Thurman’s grandmother famously refused to hear any of Paul’s letters because the overseers who enslaved her used other writings from Paul to justify her enslavement.  No doubt those who enslaved her did not care for this letter to Philemon, especially the last line “knowing you will do even more than I say”.  It is widely accepted that Paul expects Onesimus not just to be accepted back, but to be made free.  

There is, of course, a risk in this request, we don’t have a letter in response from Philemon.  It is unknown what historically happened, but that is less important than the request.  Certainly, we hope that Onesimus was freed, but more important are the thoughts of Paul and the dignity he gave to Onesimus. That same dignity we are called to give to those we meet along our journey, through our baptism.

It is this image of a great journey which we are on as Christians that theologian NT Wright observes as critical in considering our passage from Luke today.  Certainly, these words of needing to hate one’s family to follow Christ fall hard on all of us, and this is a price most of us are not eager to pay.  But Wright reminds us that we are on a journey and that we are called to pack light.  We are not encouraged to hate at all, but we are called particularly to love, no matter the cost.  As the quote from Rowan Williams offered, our baptism places us solidly within this mess that is humanity.  

Amen

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost - Sunday, August 28, 2022

William Yagel

Grace Radford

August 28, 2022

Proper 17, Year C

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is 

hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where 

there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where 

there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where 

there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to 

be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; 

to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is 

in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we 

are born to eternal life.  Amen

-A prayer attributed to St. Francis.  (BCP pg 833) 

Good Morning.

It is a particular interest that our God has in caring for those who are on the margins of society.  St. Francis, to whom our prayer this morning is attributed, certainly heard this message loud and clear.  He famously gave up all he had to be in league with the poor and those in need and lived his life as a co-conspirator with the impoverished of his time.  Francis and the monastic order that would take his name and follow his example, lived of the generosity of those in their communities.  Providing examples of ways to be co-conspirators with those in need.  I like the term co-conspirator, whose use I am borrowing from popular conversations surrounding race, privilege, and oppression in our culture today, because it leaves little space for avoidance.  It is more than support; it is full bodily involvement.  

It says “all-in.”  

It Says: 

“What you endure, I endure.”  

and

“What you suffer, I suffer.”  

From the beginning God has had a profound interest in supporting God’s people.  We are reminded of this by the prophet Jeremiah this morning.  I should say, first because he is a prophet at all.  God has provided wisdom throughout the story of our shared faith with Judaism, sending men and women who find themselves in league with the ancestors and who provided guidance to them, or tried to.  

But also, in his message this morning Jerimiah reminds the people of Judah, or the Southern Kingdom, of God’s history of caring for them.   Jeremiah speaks to the moment of liberation of the people of Israel from the hand of the Pharoah.  Jeremiah reminds them of the moment when Moses led the people of Israel out of bondage.  God sends a prophet to walk with them, to be in league with them, to be a leader of them, and to liberate them.  Moses leads a people who had been enslaved by the Egyptians without cause providing justice for their term of enslavement.  But in that liberation there is also commitment.  God enters into a covenant with the people of Israel as they make their escape, and God agrees to be with them always.  

Jeremiah uses this history and reminds the people of Judah of their promises made to God and the reply of support by God.  At a time when the people have lost their way, Jeremiah speaks to the ancient covenant, showing how they had strayed. He tells the Southern Kingdom that God was their fountain of living water, but instead they have chosen to try to hold water in their own cracked cisterns.  This is a deep and cylical pattern that we are familiar with, particularly in the Old Testament, where the themes of decline, punishment, redemption, and life can be seen repeating.  But through all of those narratives, God is present and active, wanting freedom and community with God’s people.  

But, about 2000 years ago there was a profound shift in the model.  It was then that God became one of us.  Jesus is not simply a prophet who lives a good life, and whose life is an example to us all.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a great example of how to live our lives, but that is not why we are here.  We are here because of something more.  We are here to give thanks for God among us.  Jesus is God incarnate.  Jesus is fully God and Jesus is fully human.  Jesus is the moment that God joined us here as a co-conspirator on our earthly pilgrimage, and walked beside us for a time.

God walks among us and understands our human reality.  Jesus knows Hunger and Happiness; Anger and Calm; Frustration and Joy; Sadness and Relief.  His earthly pilgrimage was not simply a way for God to take a break from the demands of divinity, or to catch a few rays in the North African sun, but rather it was exclusively for us.  So that we might understand God’s devotion to us and Love of us. 

Luke reminds us of this shift in relationship when Jesus speaks to his host this morning.  Don’t be fooled into thinking this is an Ann Landers column on dinner party etiquette.  I am sure we can all use the refresher after a couple of years of COVID, but I am sure there are better references for good manners.  Rather, I invite you to see in these words a reflection of Christ’s life with us.  As we draw the lens back and see a fuller vision, I want to offer that we are the guests at the banquet.  We are the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, that God has invited into communion. And God has joined us here to assure us that this invitation is not exclusive.  

This is a humbling assertion of our faith.  The creator of all that is, has chosen to join us in this way.  The one before the big bang, or outside the big bang, of maybe of the big bang.  The one who stitched together the universe is concerned not just with humanity, but with those who live on the margins of our human existence.  Calling us to be in league with them.  As Christ has done with us, we are called to do with all of humanity.  And, like Christ, who didn’t join us out of pity or out of obligation or out of guilt, but out of Love, we are called to love and care for those we meet along the way.

We are called from our baptisms to seek and serve Christ in others, and to respect the dignity of every human being.  It is a foundational understanding of our faith that God became incarnate in Christ because God loves us and seeks relationship with us.  So we are called this morning to go and do likewise.  

Paul too reminds us that we are called to this ministry of welcome and of mutual love.  It is not enough to support those in need, we are instead called to be co-conspirators with those in need.  We are called to be co-conspirators with those in prison, to be co-conspirators with those who are tortured.  

To remember them as though we were in prison.  To remember them as though we were tortured.   To remember them and love them, as God has loved us.  There is no easy way around this obligation, instead we are asked to live into it.  We are called to be the beloved community that God envisioned in Christ.  We are called in this place to make a habit of entertaining the angels among us.

Amen

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost - Sunday, August 21, 2022

William Yagel

Grace Radford

August 21, 2022

Proper 16, Year C

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. (Romans 8: 1-2)

Amen

There is a very real danger in accusing someone of being a hypocrite.  I would dare say that Jesus is the only one who has the real higher ground to cast that title onto someone as he does this morning.  In truth, though, it is one of our favorite accusations.  Particularly in our political discourse we love to find that stone to throw.  These days one doesn’t have to look hard to hard to find examples of one political party or the other talking about files and emails and laptops and pointing out the hypocrisy of the other.  It feels as though we are trying to trap the opposition in their great hypocrisy, and that somehow, if we do, we will somehow “win”.  Clearly however, we have not yet found the supersized hypocrisy that will end all the debate and make us to be of one opinion…

 Reflection on this I was reminded of an old co-worker and friend, Tom.  Tom was full of advice best delivered as one-liners.  This was a guy who recounted to me that in his early days of construction his first job was literally digging a ditch for a storm pipe in Norfolk.  He pulled himself out of the ditch for lunch and sat there in the dirt and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the heat of the summer.  He looked up, and there was the construction office trailer and he could see the superintendent with his feet up, soaking up the A/C, talking on the phone, not a care in the world.  Tom looks and says, “One day, I’m gonna be that guy.”  Fast forward twenty years and Tom is in the office trailer with the plumber, the HVAC, and the Framing sub.  Everyone is yelling, no one even cares what is being said, it is miserable.  About that time he looks out the window at these two young guys who are sitting on a pile of lumber, jabbing each other in the ribs laughing and enjoying their lunch without a care in the world.  Tom looks and says, “One day, I’m gonna be that guy.”  From that day on, any time we were together Tom might nod his head at someone enjoying life and say, “One day…”

Another of my favorite sayings of Tom’s happened after I received a new project assignment from the company for which I worked for at Langley Air Force Base.  I was going to remodel the NCO Club, which was a high-profile job, and I felt pretty good for being trusted to take it on.  When I announced it to Tom he replied:

“Well, you got what you wanted, now it is time to go want what you got.” 

This one has stuck with me; is what I am asking for really going to satisfy me?  Is this thing I want the hunger of ambition that will never be satiated, always wanting a bit more.  About fifteen years later I was working in a job where I was not happy.  A couple of friends encouraged me to go ask for a raise, but Tom’s advice stuck with me.  You see, it wasn’t the money.  I mean, sure, more money might have made my life easier, but it would not have solved my problem.  My problem was a constant call to a new vocation that I had been ignoring.  Then, in a series of whispers, stutters, and what felt like ridiculous risks, I found myself talking to the bishop about a call to the priesthood.  And here I am, wanting what I got.

Tom’s advice provides a bit of caution for this notion of hypocrisy as the slam dunk in any argument.  Is correcting a particular hypocrisy going to change any of your political party affiliations?  I would assume not.  Winning an argument may allow us a moment of victory, but it will not solve the struggle.  If the Pharisee had simply said, your right, I’ll figure something else out so I never have to unbind my donkey again, that would not have solved the problem either. The problem was far larger than that one behavior, but that one behavior acts as a great example of how this Pharisee is missing the point.  It isn’t that this man does this one thing to care for his livestock, it is that this one thing illuminates how profoundly he missed what is going on right in front of him.

Abraham Joshua Heschel writes on the beauty of the Jewish faith in his work entitled “The Sabbath”.  In it he offers that sabbath is not merely a moment to stop working, it is not only a day of “rest”.  The sabbath is instead a way to find independence from the civilization to which we have become accustomed.  It is a day in the week which is set apart for freedom.  He says that we will certainly have or want the tools and comforts of our society, but the sabbath allows us the freedom to live without them.  It unshackles us from those things which would bind us by setting aside a day dedicated to God.  Now, I promise you that this is not exactly how I use my sabbath, but it is an important reflection for us this morning and a beautiful reminder of the relationship God seeks with us.

When we remember that the sabbath is about freedom from what binds us, we see the greater prophetic work of Jesus this morning.  Remember a few weeks, and chapters, back Luke told us that Jesus set his face on Jerusalem.  We are hearing weekly the stories of Jesus journeying to Jerusalem, and of course, his journeying to the cross.  It is important to keep this in mind in our reading this morning because it helps to illuminate the layers of meaning at work in Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisee.  This Pharisee is willing to unbind his ox every day, but can’t see the importance of Jesus unbinding this woman from what has racked her body for years.  He can’t see that this freedom is exactly what God has set aside the sabbath to celebrate!

What is more, Jesus notes that this woman is a child of Abraham who was bound by Satan.  I particularly want you to hear that this is NOT her doing.  This affliction is not some punishment for a life of sin, but something beyond her.  This eighteen-year ailment has been her burden to carry.  She has become accustomed to it as we notice that she does not ask to be healed, that healing is given to her freely.  In healing this woman, we are reminded of God’s promise to Abraham.  We hear the echo of the covenant in the wilderness that God will be with God’s people.  This healing is symbolic of the freeing of the people of Israel that God promised.  But this is also happening as Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem where his sacrifice will free us all from the sin that binds us.  

The layers of freedom that God seeks for us is the great hypocrisy that the Pharisee is missing, and the Good News embedded in our reading today.  

Jesus came to free us from what binds us, not to obligate us to a life of rigididity.  God is in the business of freedom because God has shown time and again that God does not want forced or hollow worship.  God seeks free and sincere relationship with us, and that can’t happen if we are bound.  Instead, of holding us captive, God has released us, and called us back in Love.  To let our obligation be genuine and free.   

The great hypocrisy is not the way the Pharisee unbinds his ox, it is that he can’t see Jesus unbinding us.  This is Jesus illustrating the whole point of the sabbath is way to freedom.  It is Jesus showing us that he himself is our sabbath.  It is in this that we indeed know that his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.  May we now go out and want what we have received.

Amen

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 14, 2022

William Yagel

Grace Radford

August 14, 2022

Proper 15, Year C

We have never preached violence, 

except the violence of love,

which left Christ nailed to a cross,

the violence that we must each do to ourselves

to overcome our selfishness

and such cruel inequalities among us.

The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword,

the violence of hatred.

It is the violence of love,

of brotherhood,

the violence that wills to beat weapons 

into sickles for work.

Amen

It was a steep price that Archbishop and Saint Oscar Romero, author of our prayer, paid as he prepared his final mass in El Salvador on March 24, 1980.  While he was celebrating the Mass in his Catholic church, the assassin carried out his work.  He died in support of those on the margins of his society because the power of the gospel compelled him into dangerous and profound conflict with those who sought to oppress and enact violence on the people of El Salvador.  The gospel compelled division.

It was on this day, August 14th, 1965 that Jonathan Myrick Daniels was arrested in Alabama for peacefully protesting segregation at lunch counters in that state.  Daniels was an Episcopal Seminarian at Harvard University at the time, who found himself divided from the laws of the day by the words of Christ’s gospel message.  Daniels would be released from jail a few days later, on August 20th, and that was when he and three others decided to buy a soda from a store that sold to non-white patrons.  When a deputy forcefully refused them entrance Daniels stepped in front of the shotgun blast intended for then 17 year old civil rights activist, Ruby Sales.  Sales is, by the way, alive and well in Washington DC, and has spent a life of advocacy for the marginalized.  Both were compelled to stand at odds with forces of oppression by the message of Christ.

These martyrs, like countless others over the past 2000 years, have understood the central message of our gospel message today in poignant and costly  ways.  They were compelled by Jesus’ prophetic call for love to stand in the way of systems that had to be confronted.  I think of others who were compelled to action by the Gospel message.  Bell hooks, Doris Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and so many more who knew that complicity with those forces that they saw as evil went against the gospel message and against the very fiber of their being.  They risked their health and dedicated their lives to the notion that the radical message of Love would be worth the risk of division. 

This morning is a sharp and startling turn from the message that we have come to expect from Jesus, but I think it is beautiful because it speaks to our reality in this world.  But it is a challenge to hear that Christ’s came for conflict.  At least my tendency, when I heart these words from Luke, is to assume that Jesus is asserting that his purpose on this earth was conflict, and that is certainly in tension with the message of Love and Hope to which we are accustomed.  I struggled with this reality and in so doing I came across theologian Audrey West.  In her reflection on these verses she offers that this passage is descriptive rather than prescriptive, which helped a great deal.   

She is saying that Jesus’ mission is not division, that God is not here to set son against father, that God the Holy Spirit does not pit mother against daughter.  Rather, we might understand that the power of the gospel message compels action, and the by-product of that action will be division because of who we are.  It is us who provides the division.  Jesus’ message of profound love will not be welcomed by all, and Lord knows, it isn’t heard the same by all.  So despite knowing the challenges it will bring, Jesus inserts prophetic truth into our midst.  We are called as Christians to grapple with those truths and to try to hear God’s call to us in our lives.  

I want to offer to you this morning that it is these truths, at this risk of division that brings us here each week.  We can find community in lots of places, and clubs and organizations are willing to fill that need for community all over the place.  In fact, my brother, who lives in New York city and works for as a Vice President of something at a division of large Stock Market Ratings firm, expressed that to me a few months back.  

You see, they have divided their work force into teams, and those teams meet regularly to discuss their lives.  They take time out of the work day to focus on community, to hear about those struggles and challenges that each other faces.  Part of their reality is that they spend a great deal of time in communication, so the organization realized that it was productive and profitable to foster community.  I will tell you that as my brother shared some of their guiding principles for their time together, it was not so terribly different from a church community on its face.  They are supportive and affirming.  They are even encouraged to provide benevolent gifts to charities and the company will match that gift to a certain point!  

It sounds like a pretty thoughtful company, and all reports are that it is a really good place to work.  But it is alarming to me.  Not because I don’t want employees to have community, not because I don’t want them to be supported in that way, but because the underpinning of the system is not a profound and transcendent message of hope and love.  Rather it is a corporation bound by the laws of a profit and loss statement.  When that generosity is no longer economically sound, or when the members of that community are too old, or too slow, or too expensive they are removed and replaced.  Suddenly the community that the employees found so uplifting has abandoned them and moved on.  

The community that this church, and churches just like it around the world, provides is different.  It is based on a truth and a message bigger that the community that holds it, bigger than we can ever really live up to.  That truth is a transcendent, abiding, and sacrificial love that calls us together as one body.  We are reminded this morning that power of that love will be greater than we can manage.  There is no way around this hard truth.  I remember it in the eyes of old friends when I told them I was called to the priesthood.  I had to follow my path, they could not.  It was disappointing to them, they couldn’t imagine it, and I could no longer imagine not following this call, finding my way to you.

The Good News is actually sitting right in front of us in the form of our ritual this morning.  In a moment we will share the peace with each other.  We will acknowledge in a ritual form the healing and reconciliation that we are called into via the bonds of Christian fellowship.  We acknowledge these challenges of division every time we celebrate Christ’s sacrifice and ask for God’s help to repair those relationships.  We then proceed to the table where all things are made new again as we celebrate the Eucharist.  This morning I am reminded of the words of our Eucharistic prayer C:

“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.”

May it be that we are continually called deeper into the message of Hope and Grace in Christ.  May the divisions among us heal and though we know we will not be of one mind, let us be of one body, God’s holy church.

Amen

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost - Sunday, August 7, 2022

William Yagel

Grace Radford

August 7, 2022

Proper 14, Year C

Breathe into Me

O God, empty me of angry judgements,

and aching disappointments,

and anxious trying,

and breathe into me 

something like quietness

and confidence,

that the lion and the lamb in me

may lie down together

and be led by a trust 

as straightforward as a little child.

Catch my pride and doubt off guard

that, at least for the moment,

I may sense your presence

and you caring,

and be surprised

by a sudden joy

rising in me now

to sustain me in the coming then.

Amen

From Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder

God always knows what is on your heart.  God understands our motives.  God understands that sometimes we are kind to others because we need to be kind in the very core of our being, and sometimes we are kind to others because a voice is ringing in our ears, telling us to behave.  Sometimes we go through the motions of kindness, but really we aren’t feeling very kind.  God gets all that right?  We may think we are hiding it from the world, but our belief tells us that God knows not just our actions, but our motives as well.  

Some faith traditions or individuals might offer that God is keeping track of your rights and wrongs.  One could call it the Santa Claus model, where salvation is the gift we are all pining for, but only after of a lifetime of goodness can we “earn” God’s grace.  Guilt can become a primary motivator, and we can again begin to consider God as the cosmic vending machine who trades eternal love for merit badges.  This model may match many of our human interactions but that is not how God operates.

While I was in Seminary we reflected on the reason or the goal of our liturgies together.  The somewhat surprising answer from my professor, and Doctor and Priest who had spent his entire adult career officiating at the table and leading communities through services was… nothing. To be clear, he has a bit of a flare for the dramatic, so he loves contradictions like that.  But, in this case, he offers an essential truth.  Our time together is not one of doing.  It is one of being.

Have any of you ever have been involved in an instructed eucharist?  Well, your jaws may well be closest to the floor as you hear these words.  For those who haven’t, an instructed eucharist walks through our Eucharistic liturgy and explains all of the movements of the service.  Let me assure you, that there is not a single word of the Eucharist, or any of our liturgies, that is accidental.  The placement of the components; the deep order of the service; every element of that celebration has 2000 years of history translated into our context today, to arrive at the final product.  

And, of course, contrary to my Professor’s assertions, we are doing something.  We are doing something here this morning in our prayers and our reading of scripture and our responding with song, right!  But Dr. Farwell is speaking to that deeper truth, the one of which Isaiah speaks this morning.  That when we come together in common worship liturgy is both the ends and the means in itself.  We set aside this time to be profoundly un-productive.  Sure, we are bodies in motion, thinking and doing, but we as a community accomplish nothing if we are doing it right.  

There is no product, there is no quantifiable output from our time together.  We give thanks, we offer ourselves, but there is no transaction here.  This worship is not what gets us a route to God’s Love.  That is always offered.  It is our hope that over arc of our lives and worship together we find ourselves attentive to the presence of God in our lives.  That we find ourselves in relationship with the creator, redeemer, and sustainer of all things.  But it is not a direct line to the boss upstairs.  It is a necessary tension that we are doing and that we are not doing when we are here.  This is a unique time, set aside from everything else in our lives, a time that is profoundly different in form and function.

But the people of Israel whose story we have been hearing through Amos, Hosea, and now Isaiah have been getting it wrong, and this morning we hear a clear indictment of their behavior.  God Says:

“What, to me, is the multitude of your sacrifices?”  

“I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity”

The worship of the people is hollow because it is intended to appease God, not to be in relationship with God.  Like, throw God a hamburger and then we can do whatever we like!  This is treating God like an Idol, or again, that cosmic vending machine.  They were keeping God at bay with a worship that was perfect, that was solemn, that was in accordance with tradition, but which missed the great tradition of the covenantal relationship with God.  The perfect liturgy is a failure if our hearts are not focused on justice in all our lives.  The beauty of this place is wasted if our hearts are not focused on God.  And we all know it is so easy to lose focus, to find a rabbit hole to get lost in, to believe the parts more essential than the whole.

The people of the Northern kingdom of Israel stand as an example of how one can get off track.  How in our hopes to “get it right” we can easily lose track of what it is.  We can begin to focus on the tasks in our midst and lose sight of the being we are called into with God.

Selah.

Again, if we are not careful, we can lose track of this call to being when we hear the passage from Luke this morning.  At lease for me, when I read this passage, I think of the “Jesus is coming, look busy” bumper sticker, and giggle at it all.  This notion of preparation that Luke conveys can easily be heard as a call to constant vigilance where we only “behave” because we hope to attain God’s salvation.  This is not how it works!  Salvation and Grace are always available, they are not subject to the rules of supply and demand!

So, when we hear Luke telling us to be ready, to be dressed for action, it is this action of being that we are called into.  It is into this tension of relationship with God who bestows grace and love freely and who desires our lives to be directed Godward, bent to justice, that we are called.  When we are together in worship we are reminded of this call, and of God’s abundant Love.

Remember the first line of our reading from Luke?   

“Do not be afraid little flock, for it is God’ good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” 

Hear in these words the part-God wants us to be happy.  God wants to be in relationship with us.  God is constantly seeking us.  This reading is not an effort to coerce us into behaving.  It is not a wish that we operate out of fear, or anxiety, or expectation, but rather an expectation that we inspired by God’s love of us.  

From that Love may we:

Cease to do evil, 

Learn to do good;

Seek justice,

Rescue the oppressed,

Defend the orphan,

And plead for the widow.

May our time together bring us into closer being with God, and may we know that we are called to be God’s love in this world, and may we know that God working in us prepares us for the work in the weeks and months and years ahead.  May God’s love infect this church and makes her an example of God’s justice in each other, in Radford, and in the world.  

Amen

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost - Sunday, July 31, 2022

William Yagel

Grace Radford

July 31, 2022

Proper 13, Year C

I hear the sound of the genuine in myself, and having learned to listen to that, I can become quiet enough, still enough to hear the sound of the genuine in you. “There is something in you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in other people.” Now if I hear the sound of the genuine in me and if you hear the sound of the genuine in you it is possible for me to go down in [my spirit] and come up in [your spirit]. So that when I look at myself through your eyes having made that pilgrimage, I see in me what you see in me. [Then] the wall that separates and divides will disappear, and we will become one because of the sound of the genuine makes the same music-Amen

These are the words of Howard Thurman composed for a commencement speech, but which serve as a prayer this morning.

Until this week, I did not realize how much I like the book of Hosea.  Maybe I got stuck with the first couple of chapters, a passage of which Jennifer Hand read for us last week.  And after the service I commented that she must have drawn the short straw with that reading.  I’m not sure if you remember, but it was about Hosea taking a wife of “whoredom”, that is one who is unfaithful.  Then the names of the children of that union were nearly impossible to pronounce, and after the pronunciations, the meaning behind them was not very easy either.  Yeah, Jennifer definitely drew the short straw on that one.  Still, I appreciate you reading it for us, maybe next time will be better?  

Hosea has so much more to offer than that one passage last week, and it took this week’s passage to illuminate that for me.  And illuminate it did!  Hosea was a prophet of the divided kingdom who live at about the same time as Amos from a few weeks back.  Well, Hosea was a few years later, but their lifespans definitely would have crossed.  Where Amos was from the southern kingdom of Judah, Hosea is from the northern Kingdom of Israel, which Hosea also called Ephraim.  I know, why can’t they ever just keep it simple?

Anyway, both Amos and Hosea were prophesying about the Northern kingdom of Israel, whose capital you might remember was Samaria, which was about to fall in 722 BCE to the Kingdom of Assyria.  At that time the Assyrian empire included modern day Syria, Iraq, parts of Iran, and parts of Turkey-more or less.  Both the northern and southern kingdoms were on their way to destruction, but the northern kingdom had hopped in the fast lane hit the gas.  In general, the Northern Kingdom is seen to have had more corrupt kings and definitely had a nasty habit of worshiping other Gods, particularly the Canaanite God, Baal.  The summary is that their behavior was not in accordance with the covenant relationship God made with Israel via Moses at Mount Sinai.  This covenant people had promised to be faithful to God, to be in relationship with God, and to Love God.  God had promised to provide for them, to be faithful to them, and to love them too. 

Hosea extols in the 7 chapters preceding the one we read this morning the terrible behavior of the people of  Israel.  Israel, or Ephraim, is despicable, and they are committed to their bad behavior.  Understand this.  In the narrative of this prophetic work, Israel is NOT asking for forgiveness, they are not returning to right relationship with God, they do not think they are doing anything wrong.  They are a greedy people who have turned away from God, and they are OK with that.  God could rightly have ended the relationship, which is offered as a consideration, so things are precarious for Israel, but they don’t even recognize that they are in the wrong.

This is the moment that Hosea enters in our reading this morning.  This infidelity on the part of Israel is contrasted with God who had kept the covenant, who had remained in community.

And it is at this point that we are afforded a glimpse of who God is.  

Hosea reveals to us an image of God that is close and personal and tender and compassionate.  When we say God is Love, this is a chapter you can use as a reference.  God is portrayed as a loving parent whose child, Ephraim, has been held to God’s cheek.  Who God led out of bondage, and who now forsakes God.  This child doesn’t even know how badly they have hurt their parent.  But even with that kindness, God is disappointed.  God appears to be done with them.  God is about to let them go.

But he doesn’t

To end that relationship is contrary to God’s very being.

John Zizioulas is a Greek Orthodox theologian who has reflected a great deal on this being of God, on God’s personhood and what that could look like.  His reflections highlight the vision of God as Trinity.   God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  God is one.  God is three in one.  We profess it weekly in our creeds and it is a foundation of our faith.  But, it is part of our theology that many of us might be more than a little unsure of.  It is my experience that many of us are good with God, we really like the life and teachings of Jesus, and are grateful for the presence of the spirit, but the hard work of considering the nature of God as Trinitarian is really not where we spend our time.  But, that is exactly what I am going to ask you to do, at least for a moment, this morning.  

I want you to remember back to the second verse of the first chapter of Genesis when God created the heavens and the earth.  God’s wind, or Spirit, moved over the surface of the waters, creating with God, creating as God.  From the beginning, the Holy Spirit was there.  The Holy Spirit didn’t show up on Pentecost, but is always with God.  The Holy Spirit always is God.  

Again in the beautiful prologue of the Gospel of John we are told that in the beginning was the Word.  And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  That nothing came into being without the Word.  The Word of God would become enfleshed or incarnate in the person of Jesus.  The life of the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was not the beginning of the second person of the Trinity.  The word of the God is with God.  The Word is God.  

You confused yet?  Hold on, I promise, I am going somewhere with all of this.  You see, I want to emphasize to you that God, as we understand God, and as God has been revealed in scripture, did not become the Trinity 2000 years ago.  God’s being is Trinitarian.  Always.  Period.  The Trinity is an eternal dance of the three persons.

So, you see, God’s nature, God’s being, God’s identity is one and God’s identity is three in one.  And in 1985 this is what John Zizioulas was reflecting on when he offered that 

God’s being is communion. 

God is necessarily and always in communion; in community. That God is a communion of three in one, always shows us how important community is to God.

This is important when we hear the words of Hosea this morning and we see a reflection of the inner communion that is the Trinitarian God.  God was angry and ready to give up on the people of Israel, and deservedly so.  But what conclusion does God reach?  God says: 

“I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in you midst, and I will not come in wrath.”  

God changes course.  God’s own identity stops God from abandoning this people, not the pleas of the people who made a mistake, but the assurance of God whose identity is to be in community.  It is God’s Love, God’s compassion, and God’s faithfulness that keeps God in relationship.  God who on some level, beyond our comprehension, exists in loving community extends that community to the people of Israel.  We see that community reflected to the people of Israel 2700 years ago.  

And we are called to be a reflection of that here, today.  

We are called into the work of being beloved community.  In a moment that seems impossibly divisive, we are called to be in communion with those in our midst.  And this is not a call to a saccharine sweet “let’s act as though we are happy all the time”.  Certainly, the northern kingdom was conquered, and they did fall, but they were able to live in the promise of relationship with God.  

This is a call, in the words of Howard Thurman, to listen for the genuine self where we can hear truth in one another and where we can strive to do so with the inspiration of God whose very nature is to understand what it is to be in relationship.   

 Amen

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost - Sunday, July 17, 2022

William Yagel

Grace Radford

July 17, 2022

Proper 11, Year C

O God, here I am, a single entity bearing the cares of many on my shoulders.

Help me to continue to be a source of light for them by your spirit.

Keep me from being weary.

Help me to continue to remember that your grace is sufficient.

Continue to light my path

And

Help me in all things not to rely on my own insight but to trust in you with all my heart, for you will direct my path.

Amen

This prayer was written by Ms. Debra Q. Bennett and is from a collection called “Women’s uncommon Prayers”. Fitting, I think, for our Gospel this morning.

Remember three weeks back, my first Sunday here. We heard in Luke that Jesus turned his face to Jerusalem. We are still in the travel narrative from Luke where Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem. He has set his face on Jerusalem. He has set his face on the cross. That is the only explanation. It is the only reason I can find to explain Jesus’ behavior. I mean, I don’t think he is pulling a prank on the Martha and Mary, and the commentaries don’t indicate any play on words here. So, all I can figure is that he must have been tired. I mean, he would have to have been exhausted to make such a mistake. I mean, I learned from my dear old friends Hurst and Hugh Kelley, a loooong time ago-never take sides when siblings are fighting! Right! Just sit back and eat your popcorn, but never ever register an opinion, lest you quickly become the enemy of both!

But really, I doubt I am the only one who finds this passage about Martha and Mary a little odd? It feels like Jesus is saying that the efforts by Marth to provide hospitality are less important than Mary’s sitting around. A real kick in the teeth for any of us who have worked tirelessly to provide for guests only to be told that it doesn’t matter. What does this possibly mean? Surely, we all know how wonderful it is to feel well received. To feel that genuine sense of welcome of which food, drink, and entertainment are a natural extension, but which never feel like an obligation.

The Yiddish word for this is Haimish. In August of 2011 David Brooks, Opinion writer for the New York Times, reflected thoughtfully on this concept after his family took a trip to Kenya and Tanzania. He spoke of haimish existing as a line. An invisible barrier that he crossed as he went from camp to camp on his trip.

He would go to more elegant camps where everything was perfect. The food was well prepared, all the amenities were clean and available, staff would wait on you for what you needed then disappear as soon as they were finished. Basically, the Western notion of fine service that one might see at high end resorts in the states. Maybe even what we would epitomize as the ideal--everything attended to, nothing out of place. Everything is picture perfect, except that it is hollow and impersonal.

Brooks noted that in the simpler camps dinner tables were larger and the group of travelers and the staff got to know each other. I imagine food was generous and thoughtful, but I would guess far from “fine dining”. The servers and wait staff would interact with the guests. He told of one man who took he and his 12-year-old on a “mock hunt” around the ravines and hills near camp, showing that boy a memory that would last a lifetime. At another camp they had spear throwing and archery competitions with the kitchen staff. Rich and full experiences where the welcome actually says “we are glad you’re here”.

When traveling from one camp to another he noted that he would cross the haimish line, or maybe it is better to say he would see a spectrum of haimish? Haimish means warm, relaxed, and unpretentious. So, the more elegant camps had all of the bells and whistles, but none of the heart. None of the affection, hospitality, and welcome that the simpler camps seemed to come by naturally.

I wonder if Mary and Martha knew the term. I should note here that theologians agree that Mary and Martha from this story only appear here in the Synoptic Gospels. In the Gospel of John, they appear again and have a brother Lazarus whose name you might recognize. The vast majority of theologians agree that this is not Mary Magdalene, in case you were wondering…

Mary is sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to him talk. As theologian NT Wright points out, this is significant in and of itself, and it is important not to miss what is going on here. Mary is not presented as an adoring fan who is fawning over Jesus. Neither is she being lazy to avoid work. Mary is doing an entire other thing. This notion of sitting at the foot of a teacher implies that Mary was a student of Jesus. She was sitting so that she could learn and then go out and teach herself! Do not miss this piece of the reading today. Historians and theologians tell us, with little surprise, that this was not normal for women of that time. Segregation of the genders was expected, and to be in that position Mary was taking a real risk. By all counts, anyone who was there besides Jesus likely agreed with Martha! This was not her place, she could not be a teacher, she needed to go, to tend to the work of hospitality.

But, it appears, Jesus was an early feminist! He challenged the norms of the day by insisting that she stay. Jesus had a habit of doing that, still does. And so in keeping with that, Jesus asserts not just that Mary can stay. Not just that he will entertain her presence this one time. No, Jesus asserts that Mary has chosen the better part. He values Mary’s behavior over that of Martha. BUT, I don’t think we should hear in this a chastising of those who would feed and care for their guests. This is exactly the opposite of what is going on.

It seems that Mary did know the word Haimish, or at the very least, she knew the concept. But unlike Martha’s hospitality that was busy and maybe more of an obligation, Mary’s hospitality was to offer her full self. She sat and listened, she valued Jesus’ message, she was committed to his word. By her actions we see that Mary cared that Jesus’ was made welcome not simply as a man who would need to eat and to drink, but as a unique guest who she wanted to know more fully and more thoughtfully. And this was the better part.

And this is what we should mean by hospitality in the church. And I should add, that I think I may just be affirming what you here are Grace already know, based on the way my family and I have been received. But this type of hospitality necessitates a full acceptance of an individual.

This type of welcome says you,

just who you are,

just as God has known you,

just as God knit you together in your mother’s womb,

just as you walked in this morning,

are wonderfully made and you are right where you are supposed to be, and we are glad that you are! This is how we accept you and this is how we will affirm you.

And it is just this type of hospitality that we are moving toward this morning. As we prepare for Eucharist after a month’s drought, I want to tell you that this is exactly what God has done for us. We will consume bread and wine that is the most radical hospitality imaginable. It endured suffering and Death on the Cross. But in so doing, conquered death and provided a life of abundant hospitality for us. So come to the table to be welcomed, come to the table to be welcomed as you are, a beloved child of God.

Amen

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost - Sunday, July 10, 2022

William Yagel

Grace Radford

July 10, 2022

Proper 10, Year C

A Prayer Attributed to Sir Francis Drake

Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we have dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst For the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push into the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.

We pray in the name of our captain, who is Jesus Christ. Amen

Disturb us Lord.

This is not our usual cry.

Often, in fact, we come to Church for exactly the opposite. The hymns we love bring us peace, the grand phrasing of our liturgy may offer respite from the mundane routine and remind us of something far greater. Maybe it is just being with the community of Grace that brings us particular comfort, especially as we navigate this time of pandemic and find ourselves re-entering a world we left 2-1/2 years ago. All of these, and the myriad of other reasons personal to each of you are good, and right. We do come for comfort. But our lessons this morning remind us that that is not all we are here for.

Comfort is certainly NOT what Amaziah, the priest of Bethel in the Northern Kingdom, heard from Amos in our reading this morning. He heard of the fall of Israel, he heard of the demise of the children of Israel, the dividing of his home, and Israel’s exile out of her ancestral lands. Not the kind of disturbing that he wanted, as we head today. “OH seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah and earn your bread there.”

A little back story, King Jeroboam was in power in the first half of the 8th century BC. The kingdom of Israel had been divided about 180 years earlier, after the death of David’s son, King Solomon. Bethel was a city in the Northern Kingdom, which had retained the name of Israel. The Southern Kingdom was called Judah because of the majority identity of the tribe of Judah that settled there. Judah retained the holy city of Jerusalem along with Solomon’s temple. History would prove to favor the Southern Kingdom of Judah for some time, but both kingdoms would ultimately fall.

Anyway, Amos was from the Southern Kingdom of Judah. So, when Amaziah says to go earn your bread in Judah he is telling Amos to go home, we don’t need your disturbances here! Amos was a simple herdsman who pruned trees in season, but who pulled a Lorax and walked right into the Priest at Bethel to make plain his vision from God. He predicts the downfall of Israel because the Northern kingdom has lost its way. It isn’t that they are worshiping other Gods exactly. They are maintaining their rituals and they are worshiping God, but they are completely out of relationship with God. They are enslaving people and binding them into debt slavery to keep them oppressed. When they go to worship at the synagogues, they are opulent, immoral, smug, and pious. The people of the Northern Kingdom had made their worship hollow, and thus their relationship with God was hollow. It lacked the challenge that God had offered. It lacked Justice. They had bent the arch of their culture so that those in power could exploit those without it.

But it was comfortable! Well, for some, I suppose.

Amos prophesied against them for their lack of real devotion and their hypocrisy. Small wonder that The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. leaned so heavily on the words of Amos in his ministry for Civil Rights. He did not need to study long to see the parallels between the lives of the oppressed in Israel and the lives of the oppressed in his time. He vocalized the cries of the oppressed in our time in concert with those from 2700 years earlier. He shared the cry of Amos to disturb our Country and thank God he did. We needed to be disturbed by that prophetic voice.

Well, the Northern Kingdom of Israel did not change its ways, and it did fall about 20-30 years after the visions of Amos to the Assyrians in 722 BCE. It fell when the capital of Israel fell and the Assyrians deported the people. And what was that capital of the Northern Kingdom?

The city Samaria.

So, in our Gospel today, when Jesus tells the well-known story of the Samaritan, he is leaning on almost a millennium of history. You see the Samaritans in Jesus day were ancestral remnant of the Northern Kingdom who had avoided deportation. They had a different understanding of the faith of Israel and were held in contempt by the Jews and vice versa. We are talking about, well if you consider the dividing of the kingdom the beginning of the problem, about 960 years of the Hatfield’s and the McCoys! The distrust of these communities was deep, and I am not doing justice to their history here, but hopefully you get the image that the Samaritans were not the enemy DuJour, their opinions of each other go waaay back.

And this is precisely what Jesus is relying on when he invokes their identity.

Don’t get me wrong, there are wonderful sermons that we have all heard about being good to people who need help, and I LOVE that message, but there is MORE than that here! Jesus invokes this identity because they KNOW the Samaritans are NOT good. It goes without saying in their context. In fact, I would argue that we have unintentionally changed the point story by continually calling it the story of the good Samaritan.

Should we understand that he is the only good one? Did our traveler on the road meet the ONE exceptional Samaritan? Is it OK to like that one good one, but still maintain our world view that all the others are somehow not good? If we are not careful with this narrative we can bend it to our own needs not unlike the people of the Northern kingdom.

When Jesus relays this story the hearers are disturbed, just like the hearers of the words of Amos. Jesus is not simply offering a lesson in history like I have offered here today. Jesus is doing far more by leaning on the biases of those who are listening to him speak. I imagine sideways glances and murmurs around as Jesus speaks this story. Jesus then refuses to answer the question that the lawyer asked. You see the Lawyer wanted to know who. The Lawyer wanted to be able to bend and control the narrative so that the neighbors he imagined were all like him. So that the neighbors could be of his choosing. Jesus refuses to put an asterisk on the Law, and Jesus never tells the Lawyer who his neighbor is, or isn’t. Instead, Jesus tells the Lawyer how to behave, how to Love, what to do.

Hear the echo of justice from Amos resonate across the centuries from the lips of Jesus. When you encounter those who hate you, Love them. Break down those barriers you have erected in your heart to separate and segregate God’s creation. Jesus says to go and love as this Samaritan loved. You see Jesus knows a little bit about being hated. God incarnate would be hated and feared and ultimately crucified, yet he still loved them until the end. Jesus is really saying to go and Love the world as God loves them.

And this can be disturbing. Being called into a life of Love is not always an easy road, but it is the way of God, of Christ, of the Holy Spirit. Comfort is important, vital even, but we can be comfortable at home in our PJs on a rainy Sunday Morning. This morning we are called to be disturbed. We are called into those rougher seas where we must depend on God. We are called to be disturbed and challenged by the life of Jesus.

Then we are called to go and to likewise. Amen

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost - Sunday, July 3, 2022

William Yagel

Grace Radford

July 3, 2022

Proper 9, Year C

Holy and Loving God - may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing in your sight oh Lord for you are our rock and our redeemer.

Good Morning!

When I was learning about liturgical theology at VTS I was taught that a liturgy often embraces or provides tension.  It is not always obvious, in fact, it usually escapes notice.  The tension that often appears in a liturgy can be subtle, working on us a deeper level than we might be aware.  Those tensions can help express the broadness or our understanding of the Trinitarian God that we worship.  They work to remind us that we are all complex beings who can, say, laugh and weep at a funeral, a wedding, or a baptism.  Those tensions can help remind us that the nature of our faith and the nature of God is complex and varied, and the moment we are comfortable with a simplistic or linear understanding is the moment that we should be preparing for a shift.  

I think of the Ash Wednesday service:  full of the gravity and somberness of the season of Lent that is to follow, calling us into a time of fasting and reflection.  But often that service ends with a Eucharistic meal celebrating God’s sacrifice for us?  

In a Eucharist, we confess our sins for those things we have done and left undone before receiving the sacraments, but we are still those flawed people that are invited to the Lord’s table.  We the broken receive perfection broken for us.  My professor of liturgics was fond of saying that our Eucharistic meal is ordinary bread and ordinary wine, like any other.  AND it is bread and wine like no other in the world.  I mean, the concept of the Trinity itself: God as one and God as three in one.  God is singular and God is community at once to our minds.  Tension.

Bearing that in mind, I think the liturgists might be pleased with the Gospel of the day.  It seems a fitting challenge to us as Americans that Luke’s words for this morning fall on the week of Independence Day.  On this, the most American holiday, the lectionary challenges our concepts of security and really, I would say our very notion of independence..  

When Jesus sends out his seventy laborers, he sends them out with nothing extra.  Only the clothes they are wearing.  They are to rely on the generosity of strangers.  Like lambs.  Among wolves.  They are sent with only who they are, and who God has called them to be.  Armed with love, go change the world.  It gets even better, once you get there and find a place that will feed you and give you shelter, you are not to look for another place to go.  

“You are to remain in that same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid.  Do not move about from house to house.”

They couldn’t upgrade to a house with more square feet and a more comfortable bed.  Once they were there, they were there, and they had to rely on that family for care.  These seventy travelled with nothing.  No way to provide for themselves, and they had to depend on their neighbors to support them.  

Yes, I think the liturgical theologians might be appreciating the tension, as this Gospel is proclaimed a day before we celebrate our “independence”.  Tomorrow we celebrate breaking ties with England, but it also brings to mind for me some of the narratives that we celebrate in our culture:  rugged individualism, dogged determination, and self-reliance.  Pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps seems an operable phrase here?

Now believe me, I know and participate in all these narratives from time to time.  Often I would say I love them to my detriment.  For example, I don’t always like asking for help, and if I search deeply, I might find that I consider that a weakness in myself, but at the same time, a strength in someone else.  Maybe you can relate?  It is good for everyone else to lean on each other, but somehow, I should be able to do it myself.  More tension. 

Anyway, I expect and hope that you might recognize the ethos I am referring to in our national consciousness.  I also hope you see the tension and the challenge that our reading offers this morning.  How do we do God’s work with so little.  I mean we have a full pantry in our house pretty much all the time, and though it always seems to be lacking that one ingredient for any dish we want for dinner, there is no denying that we live in a house of plenty.  I am glad that we do, but I recognize how uncomfortable that makes me when I think of our passage to day.     The notion that we are to be equipped with only ourselves can be unnerving.  It can be defeating.  It can be terrifying.  It is terrifying as individuals, but maybe even more so as a church.  

Outreach.

There is a budget item for us.  How do we take what we have left, after we have covered the salaries, repaired the buildings, paid our utilities, our worship expenses, and then go out and give to the community?  So often anymore that number is written in red on the balance sheet!  How in such scarcity do we give?  How can we be present in our community and a voice for God’s love if we don’t have enough money, enough people, enough youth, enough programming?  It is easy to set our mind on how we are supposed to do this ourselves, and lose sight of the fact that doing it ourselves was never asked of us!  

In the late 1990s a group of theologians and missiologists were studying trends and spotted where we were headed.  In their work, edited by Darrell Gruder entitled Missional Church, they examined this question.  Early in the book they identify the paradigm shift that is essential for us to understand as we consider this question.  They note that we should consider the Church not as an organized body that creates programs for sending people out.  Rather, we are to come to understand ourselves as God’s sent people in the world.  The mission of the church is God’s mission in the world.  

And that is the part!  

We are called to be God’s message of abundance, and to refuse to see God’s abundance as limited by our means!

In our gospel today we hear of the seventy coming back.  We hear of their joyful return to be back together in community, they are telling of the things they accomplished in Jesus’ name, and what do they hear?  

“I have given you power, and nothing will hurt you.”

God was present with them the whole time.

God remains present with us today!

And I want you to hear that.  I want you to know that today, here, in Grace Church in Radford, God is with us, calling us to be God’s mission in the world.  We are not the individuals that we might think we are.  We have a companion in our work that is not counting the Average Sunday Attendance, not trying to get more people in the pews, I mean sure, that can happen too, but that is not God’s mission!  God is not running numbers to evaluate our worth, else we would all be lost.    

Our work is to hear and to be God’s Mission to Radford to the New River Valley, and to the world, and to do that work with the power of the spirit in our midst.  We are asked to do this not out of our abundance once everything else is done, but rather we are called to be fearless and to walk with God in God’s mission for us.  We are called to this work with our very lives. So, be of good hope, and be comforted as we imagine scarcity and as we listen for God’s call to us as a church and as individuals - for God is with us.  God knows this tension and is asking us this morning to remember that the struggles of this world are not to overshadow God’s call to us.  Know that God is sending us and as we hear God’s call for our mission know that the harvest has always been plentiful, 

and the laborers have always been few. 

Amen

Third Sunday after Pentecost - Sunday, June 26, 2022

William Yagel

Grace Radford

June 26, 2022

Proper 8, Year C

Holy and Loving God - may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing in your sight oh Lord for you are our rock and our redeemer.

Good Morning!

Before I begin my sermon, I want to offer all of you an invitation into conversation with me in general, and specifically this week.  This has been an historic week in the life of our Nation.  In particular, the decision announced by the Supreme Court on Friday. I expect that the decision to overturn Roe v Wade will be received differently by each of you.  I believe it must be the most divisive issue of the past fifty years with no relief in sight.  I want you to know that I am available to speak with you about this or, really, most any topic, and will make time available for you.  Please know that I will always respect your opinions regardless of my own personal positions.  You will all remain in my prayers. Thank you.

Pause…

As I mentioned at the beginning of the service, it is so wonderful to be here with you on this, our first official Sunday together!  It has been a long journey for my family and me.  Not just the transition from Alexandria to Radford, but a much longer journey going back 25 years for me.  It was the summer of 1997 that I first wondered aloud about a call to the priesthood.  My wanderings would lead me closer to a call to ministry before I would back away again. By the summer of 2017 I would be ready to speak those words again, and since then the barriers have been parted, and we have made our way to you.  It has been my own personal Exodus.

God takes a particular interest in our journeys.  We have been a people on a journey for a long time.  Exodus, the book in the bible, is the story of the deliverance of the people of Israel out of bondage in Egypt under Pharaoh and into a covenantal relationship with God and into a land of their own.  If you remember the story, Moses tells the people of Israel to prepare for their Exodus.  That the angel of the Lord would “Pass over” their dwellings whose door frames had been marked with the blood of a sacrificial lamb.  Because of this passing over, no harm would come to them.  But, to the Egyptians the angel of the Lord brought death and destruction.  

As the Israelites make their exodus, the people are lead our of bondage by an angel who takes the form of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night as they make their way to the Red Sea.  There is this image of power and might that goes before the people of Israel, making way for them.  God parts the waters of the sea and the Israelites walk out of bondage and into freedom as Pharaoh and his armies are destroyed when the waters crash in around them.  God, in this narrative, trades in power and in might!

It is noteworthy that we get to this moment and this concept of freedom quickly in the bible, the second book is about liberation.  We should hear that as important, in my observation.  The Jewish people have been celebrating that liberation in the Passover celebration for at least 2500 years in one form or another.  We here in the United States just marked a liberation moment by celebrating Juneteenth this week.  We marked the end of chattel slavery by honoring the freeing of the enslaved persons in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865.  A holiday with deep biblical roots.  That is another sermon, the point is, we can see that God takes an interest in freedom.

Our 2nd Kings reading this morning obviously pulls from this Narrative of Exodus as Elijah parts the Jordan with his mantel during his Exodus from this world.  The imagery is similar with a scene of power with chariots blazing with fire that draw Elijah up bodily on his journey back to God.   This scene, which inspired the song “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” – leans heavily on the awesome power of God.  There is no subtlety  here, God is doing the work of liberation in a mighty show.  After Elijah is carried up into heaven, we read that Elisha picks up the mantel and continues to his prophetic work.  

Elijah, and arguably Enoch, are the only figures in the Old Testament that ascend bodily.  Therefore, the early church often thought of Jesus as the return of Elijah, as, of course, Jesus appeared bodily after his death.  And embedded in our reading from Luke today is just that symbolism, where the Evangelist was using the story of Elijah and the story of Exodus to draw the reader in, but Jesus’ methods are entirely different.

The word Exodus appears in Luke in the this chapter in verse 31, a few verses before our reading today during Luke’s telling of the story of the Transfiguration.  Our NRSV translates the Greek “Exodon” as departure.  But to be clear, Luke only uses that root word, Exodus, one time in his Gospel, and it is in reference to Jesus’ departure to Jerusalem.  Clearly the author knew the importance of the word, he was leaning on their history as the people of Israel, and it would not have been lost on his audience.   

Remember the imagery of the Angel of God leading the people out of Egypt?  This power and might going before the people, clearing the way?  This morning we hear of Jesus sending his messenger ahead to that Samaritan village.  Messenger, which in Greek is “Angelous” and is often translated as Angel.  So here is Jesus’ Exodus with Angels going before to lead the way, and when the messengers are refused, James and John want to call down the fire from heaven and destroy them!  They expect a reaction that is similar to God’s powerful display in Exodus and in the story of Elijah!

So, here is the part- as my wife’s family is fond of saying. 

 Here is the part.

Jesus. Says. No.

Jesus’ journey is profoundly different from that of the old narrative.  Not that the story isn’t important, but Jesus is bringing a different way.  A new way.  

No fire.

No destruction.

Jesus’ journey of liberation is not made possible by destruction.  Jesus’ journey of liberation is one of sacrificial love.  

It is at this point in Luke’s gospel that Jesus sets his face on Jerusalem and begins his journey for our freedom.  

His Exodus, our freedom.  

And it is not just about the end of the journey.  It is not only a sacrificial death on the cross, but also a life’s journey in love.  We can only imagine that the creator of all things that joined us in a human life here on this planet could have handled the situation any way he chose, but instead of raw power, the redeemer in our midst chose love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  

This is what freedom in Christ looks like, and this is what Paul was telling the Church in Galatia to be mindful of as they were seeking to “devour” one another.  The Exodus that Christ made has afforded us freedom.  Freedom from that which would bind us, but that freedom calls us to be bound to one another and to God.  

Jesus’ exodus didn’t free him, it freed us, and in that freedom God calls us into deeper and deeper relationship with the creator and with each other.  The freedom doesn’t come with a price.   We are not obligated - bountiful Grace is afforded to us in Christ freely.  

God is not transactional, but God is clearly interested in our journey to God.  

God wants to be in relationship with us.  We are given freedom that we might choose to be nearer to God, that we might choose to be nearer to one another. 

That we might choose to acknowledge that abundant and Amazing Grace.

Amen

Fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost - September 13, 2020

Proper 19A 2020

Matthew 18:21-35

The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly

Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

Last week during our Sunday morning Eucharist there was a ruckus that was somewhat disturbing for me and I think I may be the only one who noticed.

A Cooper’s Hawk was in the neighborhood and flew by just behind the congregation who were facing me out in the Memorial Garden. We were listening to the readings so I feel a bit guilty admitting I was watching the birds. But I am always watching birds.

In my amateur birding hobby I set up feeders on the back deck of the rectory and for nearly three years now I have been sitting just inside the back window which overlooks that deck. I watch the birds while I work at my computer.

The squirrels get into the feeders. I don’t mind. I like watching them too. They and some of the larger birds tend to spill seed onto the deck. This draws chipmunks and smaller birds who scurry across the desk and scavenge for these extras. I really enjoy watching all of this.

There is a certain echo system to the birds and small mammals in any suburban back yard which we tend to take for granted. Birds tend to stay to their breed. Mocking Birds are very defensive of their nests and make a lot of noise and will threaten other birds and humans and dogs and cats or whoever comes too near.

Then there’s the larger Blue Jay. Blue Jays are really pretty but they get very loud when being territorial. They are gregarious and mean. They will attack the nests of other birds and kill their young and sometimes decapitate other songbirds.

The largest population in these church grounds are Finches. These little birds are surprisingly loud when feeding with a high pitched song that is ear piercing but lovely.

What I learned while living in this particular neighborhood is that, while most birds of a feather tend to defend their own breed, the different breeds will come together to defend against a foreign invasion.

I’ve watched the Cat Birds and Mocking Birds and various smaller birds join forces to drive away crows, for instance.

A draw back for all of this drama is that the seed spilled onto the deck draws chipmunks and chipmunks draw raptors. So, the Cooper’s Hawk started coming around last year. I was thrilled to watch a hawk land just outside my window but sad when I stopped seeing the chipmunks for a few months. It took me a while to put that together and realize I was complicit in the demise of the chipmunks in feeding them. Echo systems are balanced by the food chain though. This is all just part of life.

So when the Cooper’s Hawk showed up  last Sunday during our next to last Eucharist together, I was disturbed. So were the Blue Jays, whose number has tripled by a successful nesting season this year. And the Mocking Birds and Cat Birds and Finches. And they all joined forces in the hemlock branches above us and they caused a ruckus. And their noisy brigade chased away the raptor - for the time being.

All this reminded me of our own ways of tribalism, denominationalism, defensiveness and divisiveness. While there is a place in this broken world for defending one’s own, in this age we have become over zealous with our defensiveness, we are quick to judge, we are quick to hold on to grudges and quick to stick to our tribes and our bubbles.

Jesus understood echo systems and tribes. The Israelites and Romans and Gentiles and criminals all crammed into this melting pot of the First Century Middle East. But Jesus commands us to lay down our swords, love our enemies, and above all practice forgiveness. “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times,” you must forgive.

This is counter intuitive. It is counter to all that we know about survival and about law and order. What Jesus commands seems against our best code of ethics, defense department, safe living, security and common sense!

I served a church in South Georgia for several years when I was first ordained a deacon. The interior of this beautiful church has walnut paneling on the lower half of each wall and a hand carved crucifix out of the same walnut above the altar. This wood is so beautiful it competes with the stained glass.

The priest there at the time insisted on leaving the church unlocked so that we could go there to pray during the week. And we did.

We were careful to lock away any wine or silver and the like but the sanctuary was open 24/7. We did that for more than a decade until eventually someone vandalized the space.

I had moved away by then but saw some pictures. The vandals took black spray paint and painted swirls all over that walnut wainscoting. It was everywhere. It cost nearly a quarter of a million dollars to repair the damage.

Sadly, that church no longer stays unlocked and available for prayer between services. They never caught the vandals. We never found out who hurt us through this awful crime.

I remember wondering about who might do such a thing. Were they kids? Gang members completing a prank for admission to the gang? Were they bored or frustrated kids? Did they understand the value of the church building? Did they know anything about the people of the church, the faith, the symbols and the deep meaning we hold in that walnut paneling? Did they care?

I imagined all these possibilities and I decided that whoever did this could not possibly live with themselves if they knew about that deep meaning held in the very grain of that 150 year old walnut. They couldn’t possibly know about the sacrifice of Jesus or the beauty of the Holy Spirit moving in one’s heart. If they had any inkling about those things they would feel remorse, or not have acted in this destructive way in the first place.

Of course, it is possible they had a different sense of meaning attached to not only that walnut but the entire building. It may have seemed like a symbol to them of the elite and privileged people who worshiped there and didn’t notice the pain of their poor and oppressed neighbors.

I tried to forgive them. But I kept coming back to the thought that my forgiveness didn’t matter. It didn’t make any difference to non-repentant vandals or it didn’t make any difference toward changing an oppressive and racist system. Whichever was the case.

Maybe none of my thoughts came close to the true reasons for this destruction.

Maybe I should forgive these strangers anyway.

I think we take forgiveness for granted in our day and time. We tend to think forgiveness is an attitude you take to relieve your own guilt over the desire to retaliate when we feel hurt or angry at someone. We think we need to forgive in order to get into heaven. We think forgiving and forgetting are the same.

We have much to learn about forgiveness.

In this Gospel lesson Jesus commands forgiveness and not just as a get-out-of-jail-free card but with sincerity - “from the heart.”

But there is a loophole.

Before telling the parable, in last week’s Gospel lesson from the first half of this chapter, Jesus spells out a formula for how the church should work on forgiveness. Try talking it out. If that doesn’t work try again with more involvement. If that doesn’t work try once more with the whole congregation. But at some point if the offender is unrepentant you have to sever ties and move on.

So, it might have been easy for me to chalk up those vandals who spray painted my most sacred space as unrepentant. If I thought of them as worthless I could stop worrying about the consequences for their bad behavior and just move on.

But Jesus commands us to love our enemies. Jesus commands us to forgive them too.

More importantly, and more specific to today’s lesson, Jesus commands that we forgive within the community. Forgive our own. Then forgive our enemies as if they were our family.

When I first came to Grace I had high hopes to lead us all in the forgiveness work we needed to do with our bishop and his staff. I don’t think we have been completely successful in that goal. I still hope you can forgive - from the heart - because our brothers and sisters in the diocesan office are in the same community of this church, this Episcopal church, this part of the Kingdom of God, this part of the Jesus movement. We’re all in this together.

Forgiveness is not an attitude. It is not even an action. Forgiveness is a transformation of the heart. It is deep work. It is difficult work. And it takes practice.

Well, I hope you can forgive me for leaving you at this time, too early in our ministry together. But I don’t want your forgiveness in order to ease my hard feelings. I don’t really have any hard feelings. I do want you to work on easing your hard feelings. I imagine you have now or have had in the past hard feelings toward someone and found it difficult to let go. This is the stuff of sin and the opportunity to practice forgiveness.

It is not sinful because it is breaking a rule. It is sinful because it is breaking a heart. It breaks, to some extent, your connection with God and with the communion of saints. That is the definition of sin - that which separates us from God. That which separates us from the community.

Like the unforgiving servant in the parable, we might as well be banished or tortured if we are to refuse to practice forgiveness. Actually, living an unforgiving life will leave us tortured on the inside. No need for prisons or tormentors.

Of course nothing can separate us from God but in our sinfulness we turn our back on God. And then we turn on each other too. That is why Jesus and Paul constantly call on us to repent - to turn around - to face God again. And to face God again takes softening hard feelings. It takes being practiced at forgiveness.

The best way to turn this sort of thing around is to celebrate the good we see in each other in stead of getting stuck with the bad we see.

Maybe I didn’t get everyone in the New River Valley to change their mind about Bishop Bourlakas in these two-and-a-half years. But look at what we did accomplish.

Since I have been here we came together as a parish and rebuilt much of what had gone either by the wayside or was lost to unforeseen and uncontrollable realities - like a pandemic!

We developed a new staff. Mason and Samantha and Roger have become so good at their jobs. They each have developed their skills and gifts during this time and Grace is so much better for having them join us in ministry.

We also strengthened our lay leadership. The vestry met the other night and went over who has been doing what. Sure, everyone participates in weekly roles and takes their turn with coffee hour and the like. But your leadership was challenged by the COVID quarantine and all of you flexed and pitched in and found new ways to serve. So, as hard as all these challenges have been, I think this need to step up to the plate has been very good for Grace.

And we grew a new ministry with the development of a Guiding Team for the Way of Love: Joining God missional effort. And that group started the mask ministry. And that ministry has not only provided a tangible difference in the lives of thousands of local people, it has brought new awareness to the New River Valley of just how much Grace Episcopal Church cares. It increased your already good reputation. It connected you anew with other ministries in the region.

You may feel anxious right now at facing another transition between priests, but Grace is on solid ground. Just keep praying and following your heart and Grace will flourish.

I have loved being a part of this parish and this community and I am deeply sad to leave. God calls us to difficult decisions and difficult work every day though. And I am up to the challenge of my next thing partly because of the love you have shown me. Partly because of what I have learned by my observance of the birds and and other echo systems around this parish. And you too are up for the challenge of the next phase for Grace.

Even when a Cooper’s Hawk occasionally flies into the mix.

I love you and will continue to pray for you and listen for those times you cause a ruckus and those times you let down your guard and practice forgiveness.

Amen.

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 30, 2020

Proper 17A 2020

Matthew 16:21-28

The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly

I will with God’s help.

I often want to remind us of that oath we take whenever we celebrate the liturgy of Confirmation. Maybe people don’t care much any more about oaths or Confirmation for that matter. Maybe we are losing something important about being members of the church and committing ourselves to the Church - big C - and to the larger meaning of joining Jesus in The Way of Love.

I will with God’s help.

But that is what we say when we stand up and take that oath.

I was once asked to serve on the Zoning Commission in a small town where I lived and for some reason the only time they could schedule a meeting with the mayor for the installation of new commissioners was on a Sunday afternoon. This particular Sunday was a bishop’s visitation so I showed up rushed and tired for this civic meeting after a full morning at Confirmation.

When the mayor asked me to raise my hand and agree to an oath of office he read a lengthy list of what I was committing to and when he finished the whole room gathered expected me to simply say, “I do.” But I said instead, “I will with God’s help!”

This got a chuckle from the crowd and a smile from the mayor who suggested we should change the oath since we could all use a little help from God in our civid duties too.

So to this day I often think about this oath and remind anyone who will listen that we all once stood before the crowd and announced our intention to follow Jesus.

I will with God’s help.

Today we have two stories of strife in faith. Moses and Peter both get it wrong to some degree but they also both got it right. They both took a leap of faith, they both tried to name God, and they both tried to understand and to follow God, so they both learned good lessons from the ride. Even though it may have been a scary and difficult ride.

I learned a new word this week from Dictionary.com. It is a literary term much like the word paraprosdokian which I shared with you last year. Paraprosdokian describes a certain play on words that makes a joke out of double meanings like, Groucho Marx’s “I shot and elephant in my pajamas this morning. How he got in my pajamas I’ll never know.” 

This week’s grammar lesson is the word: epizeuxis [ ep-i-zook-sis ]. Don’t ask me how to spell it. It has a z in the middle, the middle syllable is  z-e-u-x to be exact. You probably wouldn’t remember the rest so you’ll have to look it up later if you want to learn this word.

Epizeuxis is a noun which is defined like this: “a literary or rhetorical device that appeals to or invokes the listener’s emotions through the repetition of words in quick succession.” Epizeuxis.

This immediately made me think of preaching. Some styles of preaching, especially in the African American tradition use repetition to help people connect to the Bible story in an emotional way. I love the meter, rhyme and repetition of words and phrases used in that style of preaching.

A great example is Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech in which he repeated the phrase, “I have a dream” until we all shared that dream. ( All of us who were listening, anyway.)

I also love that preaching in charismatic traditions is interactive. The people shout “amen” and hum and sway and it feels more like a conversation, a dialogue.

We don’t usually do that in this part of the Episcopal Church.

In the past century of the White, mainline tradition, no one would dare speak while the preacher is speaking. This comes from a tradition of valuing solemnity which is a good thing too. As a preacher I suppose I have to admit I like it that way, to preach with no interruptions, but when I was a teenager I didn’t.

I started really listening to the preacher, probably for the first time, when I was about 14 and I found what he was saying interesting and worthy of further study and dialogue.

One Sunday I raised my hand during the sermon hoping he would field a question like teachers did in school. He ignored me, if he even noticed. My mom quickly grabbed my arm and brought it down. I felt sort of silenced. I just wanted dialogue.

If we were to have some dialogue in our sermons at Grace this month, it might be interesting.

Last Sunday Deacon Greene reminded us that life is full of experiences like roller coasters with ups and downs and surprises and he likened this to my announcement the prior week of my resignation and call to another parish.

Jon is right. My leaving in the middle of COVID quarantine feels like the bottom has fallen out in the way that it feels when that roller coaster tips the peak and starts barreling down hill. He is also right to remind us that a life in faith is meant to guide us through the ups and downs of life.

I told Jon after the service on the lawn last Sunday that I would add something more to his metaphor. I don’t think he disagreed.

I loved the metaphor, though I hate roller coasters, so maybe I’m not one to play the critic, but there is a tradition among roller coaster riders, one which I hardly understand, in which you throw your hands in the air at the top of the peak. I told Jon this looks like some sort of crazy expression of joy. Right when you want to cling to the structures around you, you trust your seat belt enough to throw your hands in the air.

What would it be like for us to be so grounded in our faith that we could even find joy in the most extreme moments of turmoil?

In this story from Exodus, Moses dialogues with God on Mt. Horeb. It takes a burning bush to get Moses’ attention. That’s pretty scary. As scary as a roller coaster at least. Moses says, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see…” At which point, God calls out to Moses from the bush.  

When Moses pauses and turns away from where he was looking and toward the sight of this burning bush, that is when God speaks to him. That is like staring down the source of your fear.

God tells Moses that he will go back to Egypt and tell the Pharoah to release the Hebrew people, and Moses tells God that he needs to know God’s name. Given that he is going to assert God’s power against the pantheon of Egyptian deities, Moses needs a name – he thinks.  

Instead of a name, God gives him a glimpse of reality.  YHWH, which is more of a verb than a noun in Hebrew, moving and alive.  “I am who I am,” God tells Moses.  Or, I will be who I will be.  Living, moving, dynamic, flowing. With this insight into God’s very being, Moses returns to Egypt and leads his people out of bondage.

There is also a lot of dialogue in today’s Gospel lesson. This is the way rabbi’s taught and still teach - though I think you would be remiss to raise your hand during a sermon in a synagogue too. But dialogue is the best way to learn.

So Jesus asked them, who do you say that I am, instead of just telling them the answer he lets them grapple with the question. That’s good teaching.

“As they walked in the region of Caesarea Philippi, Peter and the disciples pondered Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?” Not limiting himself to the options offered by “others,” Peter proclaimed his answer: Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God.

Peter got it right. But in the very next instant, Peter gets it wrong. Wrong enough, Jesus suggests, for him to be in league with Satan.

Both of these stories bring to mind the temptations of glory.

In a recent sermon I used a sort of throw away line in which I suggested it is best to look at the glory later and simply pray first, then act. This was in the context of reminding you that Jesus usually went off alone to pray before the big miracles so we too should pray first, act later and look at the glory later.

But we tend to start with the glory. We look for power and influence and security in most of our seeking. Moses might have said, “Oh joy! I’ve found a lottery ticket with a big pay off! God himself is speaking to me! I’ll be rich and famous!”

Peter seems to have been drawn along that same line when he names Jesus as the Messiah and then tries to talk Jesus out of the sacrifice. Perhaps he can’t help thinking that his close association with the Messiah will right all that is wrong about the world.

But Jesus’ announcement of the death-dealing events about to unfold in Jerusalem point to anything but the glory of security, influence, or power. What about the new church, and its authority to bind and to loose? What about withstanding the power of death (“the gates of Hades”)? How can these things happen if God’s own anointed one is to be tortured and executed?!

No wonder Peter protests. “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!” Jesus’ response is swift and to the point: “Get behind me, Satan!”

Jesus refused the glory of security, influence, or power. Instead of hoarding bread made from stones to relieve his own empty stomach, he fed the hungry multitudes (Matthew 14:17-21; 15:33-38). Instead of claiming the privileges of Sonship to call on God’s angels for his own benefit, he used his privilege to save, heal, and restore the lives of sick and marginalized persons. Instead of grasping after worldly varieties of power and authority, he opened the kingdom of the heavens to all who would follow after him in the way of righteousness.

Instead.

Instead.

Instead.

There’s na ep-i-zook-sis for this sermon. Instead.

Jesus says instead a lot. Maybe not by using this particular word or that but he insists on the concept of change. Instead of acting this way, turn around and act this way. Instead of thinking this way, think that way. Instead of believing this way, believe that way.

He does repeat the word repentance, over and over again, which literally means “turn around.”

So friends, how can we, on this day practice this flipped around way of Jesus? Can we learn to forgo glory and power and even our sense of security and make the sacrifice of following Jesus? Can we let go of our comforts and options and turn around and join this Way of Love? Can we learn to pray first and act later? Can we recognize the holiness of the very ground we walk on or the splendidness of even the cross? Can we dare to throw our hands into the air in joy when all around us seems like chaos and fills us with fear?

We can with God’s help.

We can with God’s help.

We can with God’s help.

Amen.

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost - August 12, 2020

Proper 15A 2020

Matthew 14:22-33

The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly

In today’s Gospel reading we have two stories. Jesus is trying to teach the disciples that when they are leading others to the Kingdom of God, to discern through their hearts more than just blindly follow rigid laws about things like what not to eat. He wants them to learn to listen and understand and to be intentional about the words they choose as much as they were about their dietary customs. And then they have a strange encounter with a woman from the other side of the tracks, a Canaanite woman, and they all seem to turn a blind eye to her.

The most important lesson in this Gospel reading is this phrase: “listen and understand.” So hold on to that as we dig through this.

In the middle of all that’s going on here, we have that oft quoted saying, “the blind leading the blind.”  I’ve heard this phrase thrown around a lot, especially lately and always, it seems, in reference to political leaders, or people we don’t like who are in power. The blind leading the blind into a ditch is a metaphor for bad leadership. Jesus says this of the Pharisees but we’ve used it repeatedly to point fingers ever since he said it.

I’ve told you the story before of a friend I made years ago when I was running a mental health facility in Georgia when I had the great fortune to hire and work with a man named Tim Mullins. Tim was blind from birth and had become a counselor so that he could give back. He had gone to The Georgia School for the Blind which was across the street from my house when I live in Macon. Ray Charles went to school there. Tim was working toward his goal of becoming a Rehab Counselor so that he could help other visually impaired people.

I learned a lot from Tim about the experience of blindness. He explained that he can see some light and shadows and that he learned like me, through his development as a child, to understand objects, their names and function and all the other things we learn in school. He understood politics and science and math and poetry as much as I do. I began to realize that I had an ignorant bias against the visually impaired. I began to realize that I was treating Tim with kid gloves when he didn’t need me to and he would have been insulted by my demeaning attitude if he weren’t such a patient guy.

Tim taught me a lot. He taught me to lead him when we walked across the campus where we worked. He would place his hand on my elbow and follow just behind me across the sidewalks to the admin building or the parking lot. Sometimes we would all pile in my car and have a staff lunch out.

One day I was leading Tim like this and I cut a corner too sharp and Tim stepped off the edge of the sidewalk, lost his balance and fell into some landscaping. I was mortified. He laughed with good humor about it and immediately forgave me. He got himself back up, brushed himself off and waved me away when I offered to get first aid for the scratches on his arms and face.

Tim has good-natured-ly teased me about that mistake ever since. “He had one over on me,” he said.

I learned from Tim not only about forgiveness but about being open to friendships with people who are different. By listening to and respecting Tim, I realized he and I were not very different at all. He did finally, after our friendship developed, tell me one difference between us. Having been born blind, he had trouble understanding color.  The difference between blue sky and green grass was beyond him. I felt sad about this. He did not feel sad about it. It is just part of who he is.

Tim opened my eyes. And one of the realizations he gave to me was that the blind often have more in-sight than the sighted.

In this strange story from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus uses this metaphor of the blind leading the blind as a description of bad leadership. And then Jesus changes his mind in this story about the Canaanite woman who followed and pestered Jesus to heal her daughter.

That Jesus refused to help the Canaanite woman at first is unfathomable to us. We, who have pretty much every thing we need and get more than what we want during our privileged lives, we can’t fathom Jesus or God saying no to anyone, especially a poor woman begging for her daughter to be saved. We would save that girl ourselves if at all possible and Jesus could obviously heal her so why did he ignore her and make her beg all the more?

And then he essentially calls her a dog! This is really confusing.

This woman would have been a sort of “nobody” in that culture. Jesus and his followers were traveling through the region of Tyre and Sidon. The Greeks called this Phoenicia. Jesus and his disciples were among gentiles, not in their own Israelite territory when they were accosted by this woman. So, Jesus’ initial response to ignore her would have been expected, at that time in that culture.

This woman breaks through every traditional barrier that should prevent her from approaching Jesus. By cultural standards, she is considered to be impure, one who lives outside of the land of Israel and outside of the law of Moses, a descendant of the ancient enemies of Israel. She is also a woman, unaccompanied by a husband or male relative, who initiates a conversation with a strange man -- another taboo transgressed.

On top of all of this, her daughter is possessed by a demon. Although we are not told exactly how the demon affected her daughter, we can probably guess from other stories about demon-possessed people that it made her act in bizarre and anti-social ways. This woman and her daughter were not the kind of family most people would be likely to invite over for dinner.

Any way you look at it, this woman is an outsider. And what’s more, Jesus actually has the nerve to say as much to her face. When the woman falls at his feet and begs him to heal her daughter, Jesus says, It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." The “children” in this statement are the children of Israel, the “little dogs” are understood to be all other people. So, he essentially calls her a dog because she’s not a Jew.

Wow! And we fuss about tribalism in our time and culture!

We have a really hard time understanding Jesus’ behavior here. And it seems like we’re making excuses when we try to explain it.

One scholar explains it though by saying that Jesus was tired, he wanted to get away for a few days for some quiet and rest so he headed to the coast, into Gentile country - away from the Jews, away from the Pharisees and Sadducees and away from, it seems, his own followers and he found a little Air BnB on the beach and he tried to take a mini-vacation on the shores of Tyre and Sidon. We love this. We can relate to this. We want him to have a nice weekend on the coast. But, alas, his fame catches up with him and people start bugging him again.

This woman is easy to hate - she is about as different as she could be from the first century Christians who were the audience of this story. She’s sort of villain like when she shows up making demands on our tired messiah. We want to yell at her to leave him alone! And at that point in the story, from the vantage of hating her, we don’t mind if he’s a bit snarky. 

Then later, when we’ve had our laugh at him calling her a dog, later, maybe on the way home from the show, we wonder for a moment that pestering question, “How can the fully divine God-man be snarky?” It doesn’t make sense for perfect, peaceful, loving Jesus to be mean even to an annoying, single-mother-nobody.

We love the Jesus who wants to take a mini-vacation on the Phoenician coast. We love the Jesus who hits up some folks for the use of their house as a hide out. We love this Jesus who ends up changing his mind, at first saying “go away” to this woman from the ghetto and then granting her wish anyway. We love this Jesus who is snarky to someone from across the tracks. We love this because it is so human and a fully human Jesus is easier to relate with.

But then, we don’t love that he was snarky.  And we want our fully divine Jesus back, the one who knows all, loves all, is all powerful and never snarky or mean.

The problem in all this is how easy it is for us to fall into defining God.  It is so easy for us to decide who and what God is and how God thinks and what God will do for us. We like to emphasize the humanity of Jesus so that we can get our agenda in the mix. We don’t mean to do this. It’s just human nature. But we do it all the time.

So once again we stand divided because we take sides in the argument. Some take the side that Jesus is perfect, Jesus is God, we can only worship and adore the Bread of Heaven, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And some of those folks mix into all that praise their own quest for power.

Others choose the side of Jesus who is one of us and that’s why we can enjoy the love he bestows on us because since he’s human he gets us and loves us in spite of our sinfulness. These folks have an agenda too - of getting all the love they want. Bonhoeffer calls this cheap grace.

So my friends, here we are again mired in the frustration of division, when all we really need to do is lay down the armament of our agendas and listen and understand. Listen for that thing in the story that maybe we were missing before. Listen and understand.

Whether Jesus knew or planned on this interchange with this woman in order to use it as a teaching moment, or if he stumbled into a teaching moment in which he was the one who actually learned something, it doesn’t really matter.

What matters is that we remember to follow him instead of trying to control him.

What matters is our effort to ever increase our abilities to listen and understand, of seeing the Canaanite woman in the eyes of the marginalized people we know in our lives and in the lives of the strangers we encounter every day.

What matters is noticing her.

What matters is letting go of control enough to receive the healing that Jesus offers either in wide open social spaces or in private, around the corner spaces.

What matters is to listen and understand. Then we will receive the healing of becoming freed from demons, then our words will speak his agenda not ours. Then we will becoming speakers of truth. Then will use our gifts for the building up of the Kingdom. God’s Kingdom. Not ours. Not the kingdom of our agendas. The Kingdom of Love.

Here is a quote from another scholar. She digs a little deeper into this error we humans make when we try to judge God incarnate. As we struggle with Jesus seeming mean to this poor woman, as we see Jesus seem to contradict his own teachings, if we listen and try to understand, there is much to learn about our own need for growth.

But as I read this quote, I ask you to live into the toe stepping. Can you handle some heat? Or will you think this scholar describes some other group of human failures? Listen and understand. She says:

We know very well the tendency to define and fear an "other" on the basis of skin color, nationality, class, or creed, deeply ingrained stereotypes that go back generations or even centuries. We resent being bothered by the concerns of those people. We have our own children to care for. When they persist, insisting on equal treatment and justice for their children, we resort to racial slurs and insults. And we are very good at justifying our actions rather than admitting the prejudice that persists. This story is about Jesus, and in Jesus we see the very best of human potential in relationships with others, even those we avoid and fear. We see in Jesus the possibility of perceiving common humanity where we could see only difference. And when we encounter the "other" as one who shares our humanity, we can never see them as "other" again.

The Canaanite woman has the best lines in this story, she’s a bit snarky too. But Jesus has the last word: "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." Not "Canaanite woman" but simply "woman." She will never be defined by national or racial or religious prejudice again. She is now a mother like any other who desperately seeks help for her child. And for this mother's sake, Jesus heals her daughter. And Jesus heals us, too, from the temptation to hang on to old stereotypes, from turning a blind eye to those in need, and from habits that prevent us from embracing our common humanity.[1]

The most important lesson in this part of the Gospel is “listen and understand.”

Let’s work on that.

Amen.

[1] Marilyn Salmon, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=125

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost - August 9, 2020

Proper 14A 2020

Matthew 14:22-33

The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly

In today’s Gospel story we see Jesus, just after feeding the five thousand, go up on the mountain to pray. He is contemplative. He tends to do this, togo and seek renewal just prior to these moments of glory like walking on water. This is something I think we should model ourselves - pray first, then act. And I would add look at the Glory later.

Jesus sends his disciples out to sea and they feel abandoned, alone and afraid. At this time in history, the sea was especially believed to be the abode of demonic forces and these forces were believed to be hostile to God. So, Jesus shows up in the middle of this crisis and clearly takes control, casting aside fear and doubt. There is no doubt at the end of this story that Jesus is the messiah.

That is the Jesus we follow, the One who is powerful, loving and ready to calm the troubled waters, the One who will catch us when we fall.

But there is a little sentence in Matthew’s version of this story that often is overlooked.

“And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.”

By the Roman time keeping standard of the 1st century, 6am is the end of the fourth watch.  After a night spent in prayer, Jesus set out to meet up with the wind battered disciples on a boat somewhere near the middle of the Sea of Galilee - which is a really big body of water so way out there. and he showed up walking across the water.  But it was at dawn, or just before dawn that this happened. 

Matthew tells us that somewhere during the period between 3am and 6am, Jesus walked across the sea to meet his disciples.  It would have taken him some time to traverse the roughly four mile hike from the south-western shore to mid-lake.  As he walked, the sky began to wake.  First light came, and as the sun approached the horizon, the twilight grew until the figure on the water began to come into focus for the disciples.  Many have experienced the twilight of the morning.  We know what it is like as what was once darkness gives way to light and more and more things come into view.  Sometimes, all it takes is paying attention to one small detail of subtle drama such as this to allow us to experience more fully what the disciples were feeling, to understand the story more fully, and find our place in an ancient encounter with the Savior of the World.

There are two stories in the Gospels about Jesus and his frightened disciples in a boat on rocky water.  In the first story, Jesus was with them on the boat and he slept through a storm. They had to wake him and he calmed the storm. In this later story, and we are studying Matthew’s version this morning, the disciples are frightened because the water is rocky though there is not a storm. Jesus walks to them across the water and what scares them is not stormy weather but that they think they’ve seen a ghost.

In both stories, Jesus calms the waters and relieves their fear.

But only in Matthew’s version does Peter try to emulate the Lord.

Some years ago when the story of the calming of the storm came up I told the story of the time I got caught o a storm on a lake. You’ve heard me talk a lot about enjoying our family pontoon boat on South Holston Lake near Abingdon. I tell stories about adventures on that lake because I grew up on that lake, I learned to swim, ski, sail, and camp out on that lake so that is where a lot of my development happened in my youth, and where many of my early happy memories are set.

But that sermon when I talked about that time I felt scared on that lake in that storm didn’t resonate with the assembly who listened. And why should they? They had not been on that lake or shared my experiences of lake life.

Last week I finally got the chance to get out on Clayton Lake. I went out on a boat, I saw an eagle, but there was no storm. You might think if I talk about a lake closer to home it might connect for you.

But alas. I find I am coming up short in helping us, all of us to get in that boat with those terrified disciples. Part of the problem is that the experience of those disciples in that boat on those rocky waters are far removed from our experience of any body of water.

We all know about storms though.

When I watched the movie The Perfect Storm in terror and saw waves twice the size of the length of that fishing vessel swallow those men, my little lake story shrunk even more.

But we know about storms in our own lives.

We watched the news this week of the hurricane (Isaias) beating up the east coast. We often watch these storm stories from our comfortable living rooms and we may feel empathy and concern for those folks facing that storm, but we really don’t fully resonate with their pain because we are safe and dry.

But we do all know about storms. Both literally and figuratively, we each have endured storms in our lives. I often ponder why it is difficult for us to empathize with each other’s storm survival.

Now, if this town got hit by a tornado, or flood or blizzard we would all band together and survive together and feel good about being a community. We know this because it has happened here in the past.

In 1940 the worst flooding in the history of Radford hit causing the New River to rise 22 feet above normal, flooding Bisset Park. There is a plaque in the park, placed there in 2011 describing that flood which was brought on by several hurricanes coming back to back during August of that year.

You also probably remember the blizzard of 1993 which dumped so much snow on the region that roofs caved in, including the roof of the Dedmon Center.

We remember big storms like that in which we came together as a community but we don’t always remember the inner storms of those we love nor do we always share the truth about our own inner storms with each other.

Scott Gunn’s blog this week struck a chord with me. Scott is the editor of Forward Movement. He talked about the sermons we remember. He’s said: (that)

It’s funny what sticks in our memory and what doesn't. As a preacher, I sometimes wonder what anyone will remember an hour after I finish the sermon. For my part, there are a few sermons I remember years later (and some I forget seconds later). Today I'm thinking of one sermon that's stuck with me. I heard it as a child in elementary school

The preacher was speaking about the Gospel passage we hear this Sunday-- Peter walking on the water (Matthew 14:22-33). The relevant part is brief

Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

In the sermon I remember, the preacher assumed Jesus was angry or disappointed. And the preacher said Peter blew it by not trusting Jesus and keeping faith.

That stuck with me, and, for a while, I agreed with that reading. Now I think it is 180 degrees wrong.

I cannot imagine having the faith that would make (walking on water) possible! The point is not that Peter failed to keep walking on the water, but rather that Peter managed even a few steps.

What is the relationship between Peter and Jesus in this moment? We often don't have emotional adjectives in the Bible, so we have to be careful what we project onto the speakers. 

It seems to me that Jesus was offering compassion. After all, he reached out his hand for Peter. His question may have been asked in pity or in sorrow or in wonder. 

Reading the passage as I suggest, it teaches us that we should not beat ourselves up when we fail to keep faith. Rather, we should rejoice for those faithful moments in our lives. And we should know that our Lord Jesus reaches out to catch us when we fail. Jesus offered grace to Peter again and again. Of all the people Jesus could have chosen to lead the church, he chose impetuous Peter, though Peter was often loudly and completely wrong.

Jesus chooses us, too. When we lose our faith, we need only cry out to Jesus, "Lord, save me!" And Jesus will catch us.[1]

Another perspective in this story worth considering is the experience of seeing Jesus coming toward you. For the disciples, in this boat, on this rocky water this was frightening which is understandable. He was after all walking on the sea! So they thought he was a ghost. I guess we might too.

What if we were to start being more intentional about sharing our experiences of rocky waters or the storms in our lives. What if we were to each share a story from our lives about seeing Jesus. Would you tell of a time when Jesus seemed like a scary ghost? Would you tell of a time when the true nature of our Lord became clear to you through an experience like your inner storms being calmed or an experience when you felt so close to Jesus you too felt that you could step out there on that water like Peter.

( For Sunday only) I owe our deacon a public apology. So here, from this makeshift pulpit of my front law, in front of God and everybody, as the saying goes, I’ll apologize to Jon. If you read. Gracenotes yesterday you will have seen where he called me out - and you too - us who didn’t do our homework from his last sermon. If you remember, he asked us to send him an email with our thoughts on what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. Only a few of us did this. So, Jon, I’m sorry I forgot to do that but I sure am glad for those who did send Jon some images of the Kingdom:

The kingdom of heaven is like light piercing through the deepest, darkest canopy in the forest - or through the leaves of the oak tree and onto the floor of the living room - or - the soft and gentle rain of a summer evening - or - the love shared in a roast beef dinner.

If we can share images of the Kingdom in this way. Maybe we can share our fears of the storm. We are certainly in the midst of a storm right now. Most of us are feeling very shaky most of the time as if we are in a little boat on a big rocky sea and Jesus sometimes seems absent.

But rather than wait for a ghost like image of Jesus to do something extraordinary like walk across the water to us, let’s just look for the Jesus who is here, in the simple beauty of the light through the trees, or the summer rain, or the love we share with each other. Let’s rejoice for the faithful moments in our lives. Let’s be the body of Christ to each other during this storm and give a hand to each other when we feel like we’re sinking. Let’s reach out to each other and lift each other up during these stormy times.

Better yet, let’s reach out to all the world and be the body of Christ, be the light of Christ, share the strength of Christ. This storm too will pass.

Amen.

[1] Scott Gunn, Forward Today, News and Inspiration from Forward Movement, https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/forward/FMfcgxwJXLcXnBdHbZdckRmKHFlXJLSF accessed 08-07-20.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost - August 2, 2020

Proper 13A 2020

Genesis 32:22-31

Matthew 14:13-21

The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly

This is awkward.

Here we are still trying to “do church” through a screen, YouTube, a Zoom meeting, or by sitting outside with the bugs and heat behind masks - 6 feet apart. It’s awkward. And this awkwardness puts us in a difficult place of feeling off balance. We want our balance back. We want normal back. We want to at least know when this will end.

So, my word for the day is ambivalence. I think that we are being called to live into that in-between place, that liminal space of unknowing and uncertainty. I want to look at that thought in reflection with these readings for this Ordinary Sunday. How does the Jacob story and the feeding of the 5000 shine light on our experience of ambivalence?

Like Jacob, we’ve been resilient and we’ve been resourceful. And, though unlike Jacob, we’ve been patient. But we get tired of waiting for this pandemic to pass. We get tired of being resilient and resourceful. We are being forced to face the fact that we will never go back to that normal. We may end up with a new normal but we can’t go back. We are becoming the church all over again. We are being called to new ways of caring for the poor, new ways os loving our neighbor, new ways of standing up for social justice, new ways of worship, fellowship, prayer.

I truly believe that God is leading us through this plague in the same way God led the people through the red sea, the wilderness and the struggles and conflict at the foot of Mt. Sinai before leading them to the promised land. God did not cause this plague, but God is leading us through this crisis and there is much to learn here.

The story of Jacob is an older story - before all that. The Bible is full of struggle stories when the people of God wallow in our fear of scarcity. But God always brings us to that place of abundance, over and over again.

The Jacob story is full of ambivalence.

Jacob and his twin brother Esau were born into strife with each other. Scholars say that the Jacob story, the story of the father of the Israelites, is representative of two different grades of social order, Jacob being a shepherd and Esau, the ancestor of the Edomites, a nomadic hunter. These stories of the two sides of this social order are also said to be “a thinly veiled apology for the relation between Edom (Esau) and Israel in Davidic times.”[1] Esau was the ancestor of the Edomites, Jacob the ancestor of the Israelites. The Edomites were made subject to Israel by David (2 Samuel 8:8ff.). So when these stories were told later, they were told as a larger story of reconciliation.

Ambivalence is key to reconciliation. Ambivalence is the opposite of certainty. We think of ambivalence as a weakness, as wrong. We think it is an attitude of confusion or lack of direction. We thin that uncertainty is always the losers stance.

But ambivalence is actually a strong word. Ambivalence at root means “both-strong.” Valence is a chemistry word that indicates the power of two elements in reaction. “Ambi” is a suffix meaning “both.”

Ambivalence is a psychological word based on chemistry which was first coined in 1910 by the same psychoanalyst (Eugen Bleuler) who came up with the words schizoid and schizophrenia. The psychological theories of ambivalence have evolved over these hundred years from ambivalence being a bad thing of uncertainty to a good thing. Ambivalence has come to be understood as the strength of living with cognitive dissonance.

In other words, we have come to realize that living into ambivalence, holding the tension of opposing attitudes is more powerful than certainty of one or the other.

The story of the feeding of the five thousand is a counterpoint to Jacob’s struggle. Where Jacob, motivated by a fear of scarcity, lies, and cheats and steals and struggles to make his way in a world that seems full of scarcity, Jesus takes what seems like scarcity and models the miracle of abundance.

I’ve shared before the story of the time I counseled a man who told me that he was “raised in a church in which the fathers of the church told him that the foundational key to faith is to be able to claim, on a personal level of faith the phrase “I know, that I know, that I know.” These elders from this young man’s past church pressured him to speak these words aloud and wouldn’t stop hounding him about this until he sounded convincing when saying them. “I know, that I know, that I know.” My counseling client then told me that he left that church and had come to believe, in his nearly thirty years, that he more valued the mystery of Grace than a theology of certainty and that he was struggling to learn how not to “know” so much.

I imagine for those first followers of Jesus, who actually witnessed the Resurrected Lord and the Ascension of our Lord, those men and women who were present at that Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit blew the Spirit of God on them, these who were so blessed, who didn’t have televisions, iPads, laptops, Google, or the nightly news, I imagine for them it was merely a memory they carried for the rest of their journeys.  They knew that they knew that they knew because they had stood there and watched Jesus feed five thousand from two fish and five loaves.

People of certainty start doing math here. How does five loaves divide into five thousand mouths? How large were the loaves? How big the fish? Did they measure and weigh each portion to be fair?

People of ambivalence are able to not worry about these irrelevant details. The abundance of the Lord just is. We don’t worry about certainties. The only thing we need be certain of is that the Love of God is abundant. We’ve forgotten about our fear of scarcity when we can live into our ambivalence - when we can live with uncertainty in our faith.

We think that those early disciples knew-that-they-knew-that-they-knew because they were first witnesses but I don’t think they were keeping score or measuring portions. I think their knowledge of God through their encounter with the miracles of Christ was one of wonder, not certainty.

I wonder if most of the Church feels that we have wandered so far from that sort of certainly that we must at all cost recreate it. Like we have to be certain of what fits inside the box in which we keep God and we must live according to the rules and conventions that hang on that box.

Those who want that certainty work hard to believe that they know, that they know, that they know.

But we don’t know. We don’t know a lot. We don’t know when we will be able to see each other again. We don’t know when we will be able to laugh, hug and sing together without masks. We don’t know if we might accidentally infect each other with this horrible illness if we embrace or stand too close to each other, masked or not. We worry about the economy. We don’t know when it will end.

So what do we know? What are we certain of? Doom? Gloom? Joy? Faith?

Paul tells the Romans, in this section of his letter, just before today’s reading:

I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

That is all we need be certain of - that nothing can separate us from God.

But many of us are acting like Jacob lately. We are on the run, fearful of scarcity, we’re anxious, looking over our shoulders. Only it’s not because of our bad behavior like Jacob, it’s just because the world seems scary and chaotic and we feel the need to regain our sense of control. These are the thoughts and behaviors of scarcity thinkers. When it seems there is not enough we turn into fighters, we cheat our brothers, we skip town with the loot, we work for decades to amass wealth only to end up wrestling with God in the dark. We end up realizing it is reconciliation we are called to seek, not wealth and ownership. Jacob finally came to peace with this after many blessings from God and then he sought out reconciliation with his brother Esau.

It is ambivalence, that learning to live into the both-and of life, learning to simply trust in the abundance of God’s love for us, that is the key. Not certainty. Not absolutism. Not tribalism. Not gold, nor death, “nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth . . .

We need only rely on the abundance of a God who feeds everyone out of what seems a scarce amount.  We need not be certain of our portion, we need only trust the miracle that is the Christ.

Here is a poem by Mary Oliver.

Logos

Why worry about the loaves and fishes?

If you say the right words, the wine expands.

If you say them with love

and the felt ferocity of that love

and the felt necessity of that love,

the fish explode into many.

Imagine him, speaking,

and don’t worry about what is reality,

or what is plain, or what is mysterious.

If you were there, it was all those things.

If you can imagine it, it is all those things.

Eat, drink, be happy.

Accept the miracle.

Accept, too, each spoken word

spoken with love.

I think that God is calling us into the un-balance of our current circumstances. God does not want us in this place of fear and pain, but God is leading us to learn from it. From this place of feeling off balance we will have a new perspective of the church, we will see how much we need God, we will grow by necessity.

It takes living into ambivalence to benefit from this un-balance. Certainty of our purpose, certainty of our interpretation of scripture, certainty of the economy,  the bottom line, these all seem the stronger thing. But the practice of faith through uncertainty is actually stronger.

Thanks be to God who is our strength, who guides us through the wilderness, who sustains us through the Holy Spirit to live into that uncertain path which it turns out is the Way of the Lord.

Amen.

[1] Gloria Lotha, Jacob, Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacob-Hebrew-patriarch

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Fifth Sunday after Pentecost - July 5, 2020

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost /Proper 9A 2020

Romans 7:15-25a

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly

This sermon is one of those times when I couldn’t decide on which of the readings to focus on so I have woven them together. Today’s Gospel lesson is about identity. Who we are as followers of Jesus. In this infamous section of Paul’s letter to the Romans we find one of his classic sentiments about his personal struggle with sin and so we can reflect with him on our Christian identity as well. But from the Old Testament reading we get a love story. So I want to start there.

The optional reading for today is from The Song of Solomon. Most preachers blush and shy away from preaching on The Song of Solomon. It is a love poem between lovers and we don’t want to hear about that sort of thing from the pulpit! So we chose a less graphic love story from the Bible for this lectionary theme and hear all about the love story between Isaac and Rebekah instead.

But the poem of The Song of Solomon is a lovely, and I think when pondering our identity as Christians it helps to to ask these simple questions which The Song of Solomon sings about: What is your true desire?

My beloved speaks and says to me:

"Arise, my love, my fair one,

and come away;

These lovers are very desirous of each other and want to run away together. Isaac and Rebekah are also desirous but they are careful and true to their community and wait and get married.

All that said, I ask you to ponder these questions during this meditation on these readings: What primary desire is motivating and guiding you these days? How can we find rest in God's presence rather than our own ambition?

All that said, I find myself focused on one simple saying that sums all this up and that is this?

I know you are but what am I?!

Do you remember that childhood taunt? I know you are but what am I?! I never did quite understand what it means. Because, if I know that it is actually you who is the “loser,” or whatever the insult is - if I know that you are the loser and not me, then asking you to come up with some other description of me only invites more insults! I know you are but what am I?! That’s non-sense!

I once posted this on my Facebook page as a parody of the political banter we see on social media these days. I can actually hear some of those voices yelling this non-sensical phrase at each other when I read the news too.

I know you are but what am I?!

So the lessons for today are about identity. Who we are as followers of Jesus. Who Jesus is as our Lord and master. Who we are to each other in the community of believers. Who we are to the world. Well, we already know who we are in the 21st century, don’t we? We are the Children of God. The body of Christ. Followers of The Way of Love. We are One in the Spirit. Which means that we are all the same in Christ.

But these instructions from Jesus begin with the children of God sitting in the marketplaces mud slinging insults at each other. Then he reminds us that John the Baptist got called names. They said he was a demon. Jesus got called names too like “glutton,” “drunkard,” and worse, “a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” So Jesus compares this name calling to the way the crowd calls out to one another in the marketplace.

I know you are but what am I?!

In my recent study of the modern mystics I have especially enjoyed getting to know the work of Thomas Keating. Keating was a monk who lived a contemplative life and spent all of his life trying to teach all of us how to be quiet and sit in the divine presence without all this shouting for attention or making of demands that we tend to turn to, even in our prayer times.

Keating believed that our sinful human nature tends to draw out the worst in us and we end up mud slinging in the marketplace, because of our deep desire for certain things. He focused on these three things. It sounds like six things but he has two words for each:

He said that we get tripped up longing for 1. self esteem and affection; 2. security and survival; and 3. power and control. I don’t know about you but that fits my sinful nature spot on. Keating invites all of us to consider the option of letting all of that stuff go and opening our hearts to God instead. It’s very simple. It’s like the 2nd and 3rd steps of the Twelve Steps - “Let Go and Let God.” Why is this so hard for us? Why do we try and end up mud slinging insults at each other instead?

Part of the reason is our tribalism.

I have a friend who told the story of being a preacher’s kid. He said that his preacher-father would always say the same thing to him when he was a teenager leaving the house to go out and socialize. The father would say to his son, “Remember who you are!” The son, my friend, became a preacher too later on and recalled this phrase as something that felt confining and controlling at the time. He confessed that he had resented his father’s words as a teenager but had come to see them as useful in his adulthood.

To remember who you are is a way of practicing discipline of self, self awareness and self control. But we tend to think of it as belonging to this family, this church, this denomination, this race, this club. Then we end up mud slinging again so worried about keeping our esteem, security and control.

Why can’t we remember that we are Christ’s own?

Let go! Let God!

Paul talks about this struggle a lot. But before we look at this lesson, let’s look at the context: In Romans 5 and 6, the two chapters preceding this one, Paul has just made a strong case that those baptized in Christ have “died” to their (Adamic) humanity and have been united with Christ (6:1-14). Those baptized “no longer live in Sin” and are no longer enslaved to sin and injustice (“unrighteousness”). There has been a real “transfer” of existence and identity, from one “Lord” to another, from one mode of existence to another, affected not by the law but by the Spirit of the living Christ.

We know this. We’ve thought about this before. We know how to move from a theology of only keeping commandments to following the Way of Christ in love through our experience of that love.

Now in chapter 7 of this letter to the church in Rome, Paul describes the human situation from which God has delivered humanity in and through Jesus Christ. This passage says less about the human struggle in Sin and more about human identity in Christ.

In Christ the “I” is no longer divided but united; no longer frustrated but fulfilled; no longer at odds with God’s will, but in conformity to it. God has done all this. All human systems (“law”) have been and will be incapable of achieving this thing that Jesus has done for us. It is only the Spirit through Christ that delivers humanity.[1]

So friends, how can we learn to stop slinging insults and drawing lines in the sand of our tribalism and embrace all of the world in the love of Christ that lives in and through us?

There’s an old Appalachian saying that goes like this: On the first day of the month, before speaking anything else, say aloud “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit” and you will have luck all month. My mother and her 7 siblings loved this game as children and all through their lives waited to see who would remember to say rabbit, rabbit, rabbit on the first day of each month. They passed it on to their children and all of my siblings and cousins continued the tradition. My Uncle Buddy, who is now 95 took up this tradition and each fist day of the month, for a couple of decades now, he has been sending a brief email with family news to a large email list. As he has aged, Uncle Buddy has increased in the number of misspellings and typos in this monthly effort but he still sits at his old computer and hacks something out every month. And he’s always positive. Weddings and graduations and babies and other good news of the family.

One month his misspelling was of the word rabbit itself. The title line came out, instead of Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit, - Rabbi, Rabbi, Rabbi! I guess the “T” key on his keyboard was stuck or something and got dropped. All the cousins in my generation had lots of fun reminding Uncle Buddy no one in our family is actually Jewish though we would be very welcoming to any rabbi who perhaps married in. But this is the Robinson clan. There are no rabbis in our family!

Long before Uncle Buddy picked up this tradition, when my daughter Kate was about 5 years old, Mom reminded me of this old game which I had forgotten by then. So I decided to teach it to Kate. I was a busy mother and distracted and I couldn’t really remember how it went so I added that I think you might need to spin around three times. I apparently got this mixed up with Dorothy’s ritual exit from the Land of Oz. Spinning was not part of our family tradition of saying rabbit rabbit, rabbit first thing on the first day of the month.

The next morning I had forgotten all this conversation and Kate came to me tugging at me. She seemed to want to play charades.  She was making all sorts of gestures but not speaking. She pointed to her closed mouth. She shrugged and stomped her foot and then she turned around three times. I stood there clueless. Finally she sighed loudly, stomped again and yelled, “Bunny, Bunny, Bunny!” She had been trying to get me to remind her which words to use. (At least she didn’t call me a rabbi three times!)

These sorts of family games are all around identity. Who are we as members of this family? What are our values? Our beliefs? Our traditions? Do we yell insults at other families in the marketplaces? Do we really have luck all month if we take time to remember to be careful about what we speak and when?  Do these games help us to remember that we, in the end, are all the same? Or do we use identity formation to make sure we fall in line and know who is NOT a part of our clan?

My favorite song in the Messiah, which we used to sing every Christmas is also in these readings today. In the last words of this gospel reading Jesus tells us exactly who we are as the family of God. He tells us who he is too. He is The Great Shepherd and we can rely on him to comfort us and give us rest for our souls when we are weary.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

If you notice though, he didn’t say he would take our burden and carry us like that poem about footprints in the sand. No, here he says that we take the yoke. That sounds like taking more burden on when we are already weary, doesn’t it?

But there is a great difference between burdening ourselves with self aggrandizement, seeking “esteem and affection, security and survival, power and control” and taking on the gentle yoke of Jesus. Taking on the yoke of Jesus is easy and light and he is a gentle guide. This statement is not just about comfort. It is about discipleship.

Following Jesus is not a burden. It is living into joy. But it takes commitment. It takes letting go. It takes following.

Who are we in Christ? How can we let go of our worldly desires and sit confidently in the presence of God? Can we turn from our desires for self esteem, and affection, security and survival, power and control and turn toward the Holy Spirit? Can we become desirous of the love of the spirit of God instead?

Of course we can and we will because we are followers of The Way of Love. We are children of God. We are One in the Spirit.

I know you are but what am I?

We are the same. We are all sinners. We are all saints. We are all longing for God to comfort our fears. We are all longing for divisions and anger and hurt and destruction to end. And we all have our opinions about how that should happen!

Well friends. I believe we are called and commanded to follow the way of love. I have found in my spiritual journey that sitting in the quiet presence of the Spirit of God without agenda is the answer. I think Thomas Keating had it right. We must lay down our longing for esteem and security and control. We must lay down our opinions and our violence and our tribalism and learn to walk humbly with our God.

Amen.

[1] Kyle Fever, http://www.workingpreacher.org/profile/default.aspx?uid=2-kyle_fever

Third Sunday of Lent - Sunday, March 15, 2020

Grace Episcopal Church, Radford VA

March 15, 2020

Lent 3 Year A

Rev. Jon Greene, Deacon

What does the Lord require of us? What does the Lord require of us?

What does the Lord require of us? What does the Lord require of us?

Justice, kindness, walk humbly with your God.

Justice, kindness, walk humbly with your God.

(This is from the “Music that Makes Community” program.  I sang it a Capella, which is scary on a whole number of levels.)

I’ve been a little nervous about singing this for a number of reasons.

Number one, I don’t have Kathy or Mason’s voice.

Number two, at the early service they looked at me like I was crazy.  “Dude, this is the 8 o’clock service, we don’t sing here!

Number three, we have some wonderful lectionary readings today and I always try to study the lectionary and bring you back the message from the Holy Spirit that I discern.

But this week, I have been haunted by this song that comes from Music that Makes Community (which we are going to do a little of later).  This is an adaptation of the words from Micah 6:8

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

    and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

    and to walk humbly with your God?

What does the Lord require of us in these days?  These days of pandemic.

I believe there are two things:  to take care of ourselves and take care of each other.

In taking care of ourselves, we need to recognize that the threat is real, and that those of us over 60 or with underlying conditions, need to take the steps to keep ourselves safe.  To maintain that social distance of 6 feet whenever possible and a minimum of 3 feet.  To replace shaking hands with the elbow bump or, the one I love, placing our hand over our heart.  To wash our hands often and to frequently clean surfaces that could become infected. 

We need to assume that anything we touch has been infected and ensure we wash our hands before we move on to the next place, eat, touch our face, etc.

And we make deliberate decisions about risk.

More important than taking care of ourselves is we need to take care of each other.  This has two aspects.  The first having to do with the disease.

We need to recognize that there are folks that are more at risk than ourselves and we need to do everything we can to protect them.  But, we also need to think about our responsibility to our community and our society.

Today, the health care system in Italy is overwhelmed and doctors are being made to choose who gets the treatment they need…and who does not.  That is not a situation we want to happen here, but it could.

This virus is moving through populations like wildfire and we could see it show up here and infect a significant portion of the population.  It would be easy to consider a time when we could have 1000 people in Radford infected.

Of that 1000, we would expect 10 to die.  That’s scary enough, but that seems to be dependent on appropriate care and the number could be much higher.  We would expect 20% (200 people) to need hospitalization and there are only 146 beds at Carillion Radford.  And half of those, or 100 people, would need an ICU and a mechanical ventilator.  There are 6 ICU rooms at Radford, I think…and only about 50 at Roanoke Memorial.

You can see that we need to “flatten the curve” as you may have heard.

But there’s another aspect of taking care of others that we can’t forget.  We need to figure out how we can be God’s Church in these conditions?

How will we feed ourselves and each other spiritually when we can’t meet?

Some people find that the only time they experience touch is at church.  How can we fill that need when we can’t physically touch?

How will the kids that depend on school meals for nutrition be fed?

How will families suddenly without daycare cope?

How will folks that have lost their jobs make ends meet?

We will need to be flexible and creative and make smart decisions about our risks to ourselves and others.

(We then sang the Music that Makes Community song together.  This was much less scary for me, but I think terrifying for some of the folks at 8 o’clock.  At 10:30 we even tried to sing it as a round, but Mason’s group kind of petered out. J)

What does the Lord require of us? What does the Lord require of us?

What does the Lord require of us? What does the Lord require of us?

Justice, kindness, walk humbly with your God.

Justice, kindness, walk humbly with your God.

What does the Lord require of us?

Amen.

Ash Wednesday 2020

Ash Wednesday, 2020

Isaiah 58:1-12

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly

In the collect for this service are these words: “Create and make in us new and contrite hearts.” We know we are here to start our annual journey of Lent and to work on contrition, to take on that posture of humility and admission of sin. But I want to talk today about the creation of a new heart.

In the early 2000’s, Mike Myer’s was asked to present an Academy Award. I don’t remember exactly which year or which award but I do remember that he came on to the stage in a tuxedo with ashes on his forehead. You see, the awards landed on Ash Wednesday that year and Mr. Myers is Anglican. His parents were from Liverpool but raised him in Canada in the Anglican Church of Canada. So, Mike Myers is essentially Episcopalian and he wore his Ash Wednesday ashes on television in front of more than 20 million viewers that year.

Was this evangelism or piety? What’s the difference?

I didn’t see much online about Mike Myer’s donning ashes at the Oscars other than a few comments along the line of “What was that? Oh. His religion. Leave him alone.”

This reminds me of the time I heard a girl say about saying Merry Christmas in December, she said “It’s the birthday of their God! So they should be able to celebrate that however they want!”

Well, God was not born on December 25th so she really does not get Christianity. But, thanks for the freedom of religion stuff anyway.

Myer’s did receive a great deal of criticism three years later when he did an interview with Deepak Chopra. Myers said in that interview that “enlightenment actually means lightening up” and he talked about comedy and faith. His own faith.

He got slammed by the negative commenters who said that a goofball comedian can’t be taken seriously talking about religion. They said he was practicing cheap religion and made a fool of himself and of Chopra too. I won’t go into the much worse criticism of Chopra.

Again, it seems no one gets us Christians anymore. Also, everyone seems to think they are smarter than everybody else and right about everything they can post on the comment section of a social media page. But that’s another sermon for another time.

Actually, this afternoon, after I wrote and even preached this sermon earlier today, a friend sent me the link to an article informing me that Pope Francis suggests we all give up trolling for lent. So, maybe I’m on to something.

Let me see if I can clear this up. Myers was simply saying that comedy and the awareness of the love of the living God are akin. He was just talking about joy. He didn’t say a word about the ashes he wore on television. He was just practicing his faith. 

I think that is both piety and evangelism. He did not make a big deal of his faith. Those ashes were for his personal piety. The conversation with Deepak Chopra was a public answer to the questions raised about that faith. That’s good evangelism, whether he meant it to be or not.

The Gospel reading today lays out our course for the coming forty days to ward off ostentation. This is another section of the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus preaches to the crowds and to his disciples, identifying blessings which honor the people of God. These blessings are within a crowd of believers, of religious practitioners. So the listeners have a basic understanding of God the creator, of the hope for the messiah and of the need for discipleship, for committing to certain commandments.

Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is a physical healer, responding to the great poverty and malnourishment of the peasant population. Jesus sees the crowds that follow him as people in need from social and economic exploitation. 

Because this is the day of ashes, the beginning of Lent, the time to set one’s vision on the enormity of Jesus’ incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension, this is also a day to talk about suffering and death - what we are made of and what we will become. It is a day of utter honesty.

We don’t like to talk about these topics. Talking about death makes us uncomfortable. We would rather stay in our world of denial and enjoy life. That’s joy, right? “Don’t worry, be happy?” Why the downer?

In my Ash Wednesday sermon last year, I talked about my favorite word - juxtaposition.  I learned this word in college as a music major. The meaning of the word denotes something that is in the middle - exactly in the middle - of two things. In music the juxtaposition of an F# between a D and an A is the third of the chord and therefore provides harmony and is also significant on its own. Juxtaposition is like the fulcrum of a seesaw, that post on which everything is balanced.

Juxtaposition also works well in theology, as in, the juxtaposition of each member of the trinity to each other or each member of Hooker’s famous three legged stool - reason, tradition and scripture.  It’s about how things relate with one another. It is about perfect balance, harmony and relationship.

So, the juxtaposition between a sermon on the Transfiguration, like Jon’s sermon on Sunday and a sermon on Ash Wednesday in the same week is -annually - a place for me, an in-between place that, well, I dread and squirm about each year in the same way we all squirm when facing the fact of our inevitable deaths.

On Sunday Jon reminded us about the glory of God as seen in the glowing face of Jesus on the mountain, as seen by Peter, James and John. This story is compared to the glowing face of Moses that happened to him on Mount Sinai with God. But now, three days later, we have to turn and remember our own deaths, that we are finite mortals, that we are sinners who can’t not sin, that we are dust and to dust we will return.

In a few moments, I will invite you to observe a holy Lent through self-examination, self-denial, prayer and meditation on Holy Scripture. This invitation closes with these striking words: ‘to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.’ Two phrases stand out there, the ‘right beginning’ of repentance, and the ‘mark of our mortal nature.’ These two invitations are both caught up in the solemn gesture of silent, knelt prayer.

Why does repentance require a ‘right beginning?’ It seems as though we could simply enter into our regret and sorrow for sin without any preamble, any preparation. But the Prayer Book liturgy instructs us otherwise. We must learn how to repent; what it looks like; and before whom we show contrition. There is a bodily dimension to repentance. It is not simply words, nor an inward movement of a heavy heart. To kneel publicly is rare these days. But on Ash Wednesday the whole people of God get on our knees before our Lord and Maker. This is not the end of repentance; by no means. But it is the right beginning. On this day, as on the solemnity of Yom Kippur, the congregation kneels before the Holy One, a sign of reverence, of deep contrition, and of unmistakable belonging.

This is the ‘mark’ of a creature destined for dust. We do not owe Almighty God only our sorrow; we owe God our very life. We are finite, and this day we acknowledge, as none other, the stamp of mortality that is ours, our body and soul. We will return to our Maker through dust, and the signs we make today to acknowledge this solemn truth is our bent knee, and our silence and ashes on faces.

The juxtaposition I want to leave you with though is actually joy.

How do we balance this moment of knelt contrition, of shear recognition of our mortality, of our utter need of God, with Easter? This is the beginning of a journey that ends with foot washing, crucifixion and resurrection. It seems it would be easier to skip all the parts about suffering and live all the time in the happy place of resurrection, of God’s love for us, of our ultimate fate of joining Jesus in heaven through our baptism, through our own resurrection.

But that would be practicing the cheap religion for which Mike Myers was criticized. We would make fools of ourselves and our Lord if we only spent our lives goofing about our Christian values. 

So we don’t. We take this stuff seriously. We work at our faith through prayer, study, and we always seek ways to grow in our faith, to learn more about how to pray, how to be in relationship with our God, how to serve God and the church. And we need to take this seriously.

That is why we kneel and impose ashes and remind each other of our utter need of God.

Otherwise we are just a bunch of complainers trying to outwit each other with negativity and silliness.

On the other hand - here’s the juxtaposition with joy part - if we degrade the miracles, if we degrade the amazing truth of the incarnation, of the God-Man who died for us and rose again, if we just ridicule or oversimplify Easter with just a bunch of bunnies and eggs, then we are going to end up only moping and whining. 

So, we need to always remember joy. Even on Ash Wednesday. Even throughout Lent.

For my lenten study this year, I am going to read The Book of Joy, Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I invite you to read, or re-read this book with me and let me know if you want to meet for discussion. While we work on our contrition, our sin, our need for repentance, let us not forget our need to also practice joy.

We can learn new ways to live into the balance of suffering with wholeness, sin with forgiveness, and sorrow with joy.

And that is how we can accept Gods creation of a new hearts in us through opening our broken hearts to the love of the living God.

Amen.