We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, and we respect and honor with gratitude the land itself, the legacy of the ancestors, and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

Sermons

Sermon, Epiphany, Jan. 6, 2023 – “Where should we be looking?”

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Matthew. 

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

`And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.'”

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

The gospel of the Lord. 

When the wise men arrived in Jerusalem after following the star across untold miles, they had only one question for King Herod. 

“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?”

That question struck me as one that we should always be asking.

“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?”

“Where is our Lord and Savior in this world?” 

Where should we be looking? 

We don’t want to leave the wise men and their question about where to find Jesus trapped in the Gospel according to Matthew and largely forgotten after the Christmas season.

Because their question, “Where should we be looking?” is the question that informs our own journeys to God. 

The fact that the wise men saw a star that guided them reminds us that when we are on the lookout for Jesus, active and at work in our lives, we will receive signs, maybe not as dramatic as a star, but signs none the less! 

As I mentioned in the sermon on the last Sunday of Advent, these signs may be enigmatic, or the signs may be literal, but God will speak directly to us about where Jesus may be found in our world—and I won’t discount prophets and angels speaking to us, or even stars and other signs from God’s creation lighting the way. 

The places we find Jesus will probably be unexpected.  The wise men went to Herod, because they knew that Jesus was born the king of the Jews.  And yet, Jesus wasn’t in the halls of power, but with his parents in the small town of Bethlehem. 

This location would have been unexpected, except to those who had been watching for signs of the Messiah—the chief priests and scribes knew, for they had studied the prophets. 

What are the unexpected places we can look for Jesus?  (Ask what listeners think) 

I’d say that we can find Jesus wherever there is love.  The wise men found Jesus with his mother, who loved and cared for him.   Wherever people love and care for one another, Jesus is present. 

And when we find ourselves in his presence, we too want to kneel before Jesus in gratitude, and offer all that we have to him, to bring our gifts. 

The greatest gift we can offer is to become the signs of Jesus, present and active here and now, loving and caring for one another. We can bring love and care to those who have no care or love, and who so desperately need God’s visible presence with them. 

But sometimes, when we are suffering or in pain, or full of anxiety,  it’s hard to be a sign of Jesus, or to go looking for Jesus, or to realize that Jesus is already present with us.   

That’s when using our imaginations becomes essential.  In his meditation, Journey to the Heart of God, January 2, 2023, Richard Rohr, a Catholic theologian, says that “Imagination is largely a matter of being able to re-image life in new ways.  It is not to be caught or trapped in old images of hopelessness. When we’re trapped in old images, we keep living out of them, fighting against them, resisting them, and even saying they don’t work. But it seems we are incapable oftentimes of creating or even accepting new images and living out of those new images.”

Hopelessness can keep us from searching, imagining or knowing anything except hopelessness. 

And that’s the beauty of the Epiphany. 

When we are feeling hopeless, we can remember the wise men.   We can call them up in our minds.  We can see them on the horizon, following the star that God has sent, leading them who knows where.  We can imagine ourselves following after them, and we too will eventually find the beloved community where Jesus waits. 

For even if at times we must only imagine Jesus, because we are in pain or suffering, and he’s nowhere to be found,  in the imagining that we are with him, we can find hope and even joy and the peace that passes all understanding, the peace that keeps our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord—Jesus, who is alive, and sustaining and true, the one who loves us beyond even our greatest imagining.    

Sermon, Advent 4, Dec. 18, 2022 -“God with ALL of us for the good of all of us”

Sermon, Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A 2022
Isaiah 7:10-16, Matthew 1:18-25

Fear is an awful thing. 

Fear can pounce, overwhelming us unexpectedly.  Fear can also be like a seed, planted in our minds, a seed that takes root and grows, and takes over our minds like one of those kudzu vines down south that grows out of control, covers everything in its  paths, and kills everything under it. 

We, too, must deal with the inevitable fears that come to us in this life, for if we do not, fear will take over and kill us. 

Dealing with fear can be next to impossible, though, for fear, once it takes root,  is so overwhelming. 

So here’s the good news in today’s gospel. 

God is with us, and God wants to help us deal with our fears.   Today’s lessons give us some examples. 

King Ahaz in today’s Old Testament reading is filled with fear. 

Ahaz is the king of a small nation, Judah.  His neighbors, Israel and Syria, are about to invade his nation to force him into an alliance with them so that he’ll have to join in their fight against Assyria, a powerful country that is threatening to  overwhelm all of the small nations around it. 

God knows that Ahaz is full of fear, and so God says, “Ask me for a sign.”   

God is telling Ahaz—”I am with you, Ahaz, and I will help you deal with your fear.” 

But Ahaz turns God down.  “No, I will not ask for a sign and put the Lord to the test,” he says. 

Then the prophet Isaiah says that even though Ahaz doesn’t want it, the Lord will give him a sign anyway. 

And the sign is that a young woman is with child and shall bear a son and will call him Immanuel, and that sign means “God with us.”    And before the baby grows up, the two nations that Ahaz is worried about will be deserted.  In other words, those two kings will be destroyed and Ahaz won’t have to fear them. 

But Ahaz chooses to ignore the sign from God and continues to let fear drive his decisions.  He turns to the king of Assyria for help, a bad plan, for in the end, Assyria brings Ahaz and Judah to ruin.  

If only Ahaz had only paid attention to God’s sign and acted accordingly! 

Then we come to Joseph in Matthew’s gospel.  Joseph has found out that Mary is pregnant.  And so Joseph is frightened.  He is caught in a great dilemma.  Break the law and take Mary as his wife anyway?  Let Mary go?  If he lets her go, her life will be in danger, for the penalty she might face for her pregnancy is death. 

What to do! 

Joseph decides to dismiss Mary quietly, hoping that she will not be exposed to public disgrace. 

But after he makes this mental resolve, God comes to Joseph in a dream.  The angel tells Joseph not to be afraid, because wouldn’t you be afraid if an angel showed up and started talking to you?

And then the angel gives Joseph a sign, the same one that Ahaz had received so long ago. 

A virgin will conceive and bear a son, whose name will be Emmanuel, God with us!

God with us. 

When we find ourselves full of fear, that’s the time to look for a sign from God, for God is with us in our fear, and we will get through the fear to the other side if we welcome God into the fear.      

But how do we receive signs from God when we are afraid? 

Prophets like Isaiah and angels like the one who appeared to Joseph in a dream seem to be in short supply these days, but we need not despair.  God still speaks to us in an infinite variety of ways, especially when we are full of fear, or facing an unexpected challenging situation.  God will speak to us in our fears and will sustain us as we deal with those fears. 

Some of you know Salli Hartman.  Her husband, Frank, died of ALS a few years ago.  Can you imagine the fear that Frank and Salli felt when the doctor told them that Frank had ALS?   What horrible news. 

So here’s what happened, and I’m sharing this with Salli’s permission.  As they both agonized over what was ahead, Salli received a sign from God, a curious and maybe unwanted at that moment sign, a sign about the future that would require trust in God and patience.   Within forty-eight hours of Frank’s diagnosis, Salli  felt a very clear call from God to become a deacon in the Episcopal Church.  But wait, she had to take care of Frank!  As time passed, though, Salli realized that this call to the diaconate was a sign that God would be with her through Frank’s illness and death, and that God had a plan for her and her life after Frank was gone.  That was a powerful sign!    Salli trusted in God and had patience with God’s timing.   Today, she is an ordained deacon and is serving at St Mary’s, over in Colonial Beach.   

Now here’s a literal sign from my own life.  Earlier this year, I had some tough decisions to make and just didn’t know how I’d manage to do what I felt God was asking me to do.  I was full of fear on many levels.

God provided signs about what I should do, and I won’t go into all of that because to tell you about how God’s grace has been in my life in so many ways this year would take hours.   But I want to share this one sign because it meant so much to me in the moment. 

One rainy cold night, I was driving and trying to deal with a series of alarming texts.   I pulled into a parking lot to answer the texts. And there, right in front of me in the window of the store where I had stopped was a hand painted wooden sign, and here’s what the sign said. 

“I can do all things through him who gives me strength.”  Philippians 4:13. 

That handpainted wooden sign was a literal sign from God.   What reassurance I felt. 

The person who painted that sign and put it in the window could have had no idea that I would see the sign and know that God was speaking directly to me. 

God has given me strength this past year. 

And God will give you strength too, in your greatest fears. 

The signs you receive from God may be enigmatic, or the signs may be literal, but God will speak directly to you—and I won’t discount prophets and angels speaking to you, even in our profane times.   

So the next time you find yourself full of fear, expect a sign from God that God is with you.  God will sustain you.  God will give you strength and courage to deal with your fears.    

There’s one other thing that I hope you’ll remember from today’s readings.  God is with us in our fears and gives us signs not just for our own benefit, but for the greater benefit to those around us and to the rest of the world. 

If Ahaz had paid attention to God’s sign and had resolved to wait on God rather than Assyria, the nation of Judah may have been saved rather than destroyed. 

Joseph paid attention to the sign God sent him, and in so doing raised the boy who would turn out to be the Savior of the world.

In this season of preparation, we get to remember all over again that  God gives all of us the same sign that God gave to Ahaz and to Joseph so long ago. 

“Look, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel.”

God with us.

God with ALL of us for the good of all of us. 

God’s signs to us, when we receive them, allow us to be part of God’s eternal work of creating beginnings from endings, bringing life out of death, and making all things new. 

Sermon, Oct. 30, 2022 – Pentecost 21 – “Zacchaeus”

Who in here likes donuts?  I’d never given serious thought before to how doughnuts ended up having a hole in the middle,  but according to Bishop Douglas Fisher from The Diocese of Western Massachusetts, donuts date way back to Ireland and early Christian traditions there. 

For the Irish Christians, All Saints’ Day was a day on which prayers for all the saints were offered, and people had a feast to celebrate the day.  But many people in Ireland were too poor to put enough food on the table for their feast, and so the night before,on All Hollow’s Eve, they’d go out and knock on the doors of houses and beg for food.  As time went on, this practice evolved, and the beggars at the doors would promise to offer prayers for the dead on All Saints ‘Day in exchange for food. 

One woman wondered to herself—“Are these people I’m giving food to really remembering to pray for my dead relatives?” So she decided to start giving those who knocked on her door cakes with a hole in the middle.  The person eating the cake would get to the hole in the middle of the cake and remember to pray for the deceased. 

And so the donut was born. 

Who knows whether or not this is really how donuts came to be, but that’s a good story. 

Bishop Fisher connects this Halloween story of the donut to what happens in the story about Jesus and Zacchaeus. 

Zacchaeus was not only a tax collector, but a chief tax collector.  Zacchaeus was rich.    He had everything he needed and more than enough.  He could make as much money as he wanted at the expense of the people from whom he collected taxes.  The Roman oppressors, who ruled Palestine, hired people to collect the taxes, and in return, the tax collectors could collect whatever they wanted from the people in addition to the actual tax to pay themselves for doing their job.  So not only were the people having to pay taxes, but they were also having to pay whatever  the tax collectors demanded for themselves—talk about a corrupt system!

So certainly, Zacchaeus was not a popular person in his community by any stretch of the imagination.  

I can just hear the derisive laughter when this rich little man went racing through the streets, shedding his dignity out of his desperation to see who Jesus was,  trying to barge his way through the crowd, but I’m sure that no one in the crowd was about to let him get to the front to see anything. 

So Zacchaeus resorts to climbing a tree by the roadside (more laughter)  hoping that from that vantage point, he’ll be able to see Jesus.  The other advantage of being up in the tree is that Zacchaeus is now still, and waiting, rather than rushing and in a frenzy. 

So here comes Jesus down the road, surrounded by the crowd.  Zacchaeus holds his breath up in that tree.  Finally he is going to see this man he’s heard so much about.  Maybe he’s even mesmerized. 

Here’s what I love about this story.  Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, and he got more than he bargained for, because when Jesus saw Zacchaeus, Jesus saw more than a rich little man in a tree.

Jesus could see inside Zacchaeus. 

And what Jesus saw was that Zacchaeus had a big old hole in his heart, a hole so deep and wide that all the money in the world couldn’t fill it. 

And Jesus, being the healer that he was, did some open heart surgery to repair that hole in Zacchaeus’ heart right there on that dusty road when he said,

 “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” 

What healing grace and mercy this must have been—

Jesus saw Zacchaeus. 

Jesus knew his name. 

Jesus wanted to come to his house. 

The people in the crowd did not like this—that out of all of them around Jesus that day, Jesus would welcome the loser, the despised tax collector, the unclean one, instead of one of them. 

Jesus simply says to them that he has come to seek out and save the lost.  Jesus has come to do open heart surgery, to heal hearts, to repair and fill the holes that nothing else can fill. 

St Augustine described the hole in all our hearts when he wrote this famous line in his Confessions.  “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.” 

That’s the God shaped hole in our hearts, that nothing else can fill.  No matter what we try to put in that hole—money, other people, hobbies, food, our addictions– all of these things will eventually let us down—nothing will ever fill that hole in our hearts except God. 

And as Jesus makes clear in this story, God is a big believer in second chances.  Clearly, Zacchaeus was a sinner—having taken advantage of his fellow citizens for his own gain. 

It’s as if Zacchaeus is knocking on Jesus’ door, begging, and when Jesus welcomes him in, Zacchaeus, out of gratitude, says that he will give half of what he has to the poor, and to go back and repay anyone he’s defrauded four times as much as he has taken. And Zacchaeus welcomes Jesus into his house. 

And his heart is healed and filled with the only thing that can satisfy his longing—his heart is filled with Jesus. 

The first verse of that old gospel hymn, “I love to tell the story” whose words were written by Katherine Hankey,  goes like this. 

“ I love to tell the story of unseen things above, of Jesus and His glory Of Jesus and his love, I love to tell the story, because I know it’s true, it satisfies my longings as nothing else would do.” 

So here is what I hope you’ll remember about this story of Jesus and Zacchaeus. 

Not a one of us is perfect.  We all need healing.  We all need second chances.  Jesus  sees us, full of hurt, full of holes, full of longing.  We all need open heart surgery.  

Zacchaeus reminds us to go in haste,  to climb up a tree if we must and  to  get still and wait for Jesus, because Jesus is coming down the road toward us, his hands full of healing love, ready to give us what we need—his acceptance, and his presence in our hearts. 

If we’re looking and waiting, Jesus will see us.  Jesus knows our names, and Jesus wants to come home with us today.  Jesus wants to fill that hole in our hearts.  Jesus wants to give us a second chance. 

And in gratitude for all that Jesus gives to us, may we go out and do likewise for one another—to accept one another, to fill one another with God’s love, and offer that second chance for those who have wronged us. 

Next time you eat a donut, remember Zacchaeus. 

Remember to pray for someone who needs your prayers when you get to the donut hole. 

And remember to pray that God will come and fill the hole in your heart. 

 

Sermon, Aug 28, 2022

Sermon, Proper 17, Year C, 2022 Proverbs 25: 6-7, Psalm 112, Luke 14:1, 7-14

“Supper at Emmaus”- Caravaggio

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells us about how we are to come to our true place in the reign of God and find ourselves seated at God’s “welcome table.”   

In this story, Jesus is eating a meal on the Sabbath with a leader of the Pharisees.  The first verse of this passage says that they were watching Jesus closely.   I’m assuming that “they” were the group of Pharisees who would have been invited to this meal.

Jesus watches the Pharisees take their places at the meal.  Where they sat was quite important, for the seating indicated where people stood within the group, who were the most honored, and who were the least important.    

The Pharisees were strict followers of Jewish tradition.  The more they followed the tradition, the better they considered themselves to be.    They judged one another on their accomplishments in the department of law keeping.  And those who were the best were the ones chosen to sit in the place of honor at banquets. 

Inevitably the Pharisees had come to believe that their relationships with God were determined by how well they kept the laws, and that they earned God’s favor by keeping God’s commandments.      

We fall into the same trap ourselves.  We try to live by God’s laws.  We try to love God and to care for others.  We are proud of our accomplishments.  We are proud of being good people.  But that proudness we develop can adversely affect our relationship with God, and with other people.    

Here’s an example.   Years ago, Easter Sunday had at last arrived at St George’s in Fredericksburg.  The scent of lilies filled the church, exquisitely arranged flowers delighted our eyes, the choir, accompanied by trumpets, sounded like a heavenly chorus—what a grand way to celebrate our Lord’s resurrection.   How proud I was to be there, proud of being a good Christian on this day, along with all the other good Christians who filled every pew. 

And then my rejoicing was interrupted.

For who should be the lector that day but a woman in our congregation who was well known for her struggles in life and who wasn’t the best reader either.   

I’m ashamed to admit that I thought to myself, “I can’t believe that she is reading on Easter Sunday of all days!  She isn’t worthy of that honor.  Someone who is better than she should be the one up there in front of all these people.  I am worthier than she is!  Why didn’t I get chosen to read today?”  And then I instantly felt guilty and ashamed for this proud thought. 

I have mulled over that incident many times in the years that have passed since then.  I had gotten caught up in trying to prove myself to God and to everyone else, trying to prove that I was worthy of a place of honor. I was trying to earn my way to God’s table.  I had not taken to heart the wisdom of what Jesus had to say in today’s gospel.     

Maybe the Pharisees who listened to Jesus that day took the parable he told literally.  Maybe at that very meal they had observed the host asking someone to move  so that someone more important could sit near the host.  And so Jesus underscored what they had all just seen by reminding them of the verse in Proverbs that says “It is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower at the table.  Who would want to be embarrassed in such a public way? 

But there’s more to the story Jesus tells than just what happens on the surface of the story.

Jesus is reminding those with ears to hear that our true place in God’s reign is not up to us.  No matter how hard we try, we cannot earn the seat of honor at the heavenly banquet, or even a place at all.   

Instead, our place at the table in God’s house is entirely up to God’s gracious love and mercy.  And we want to put forth our best effort out of gratitude for God’s gracious love and mercy at work in our lives.      

Instead of working on earning a place of honor, instead of trying to prove our worthiness, our assignment is simply to trust in the Lord instead of ourselves, to fear the Lord, to take delight in the Lord’s commandments, to be merciful and full of compassion, and to be generous and just, as today’s psalmist explains. 

Our assignment is to be humble, just like Jesus was in his life on earth. 

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul reminded his listeners that Jesus himself, God incarnate, did not cling to equality with God, but humbled himself, becoming a servant, and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. 

To be a follower of Jesus is to cultivate humility, and to be a servant to God and to those around us. 

Remember the parable Jesus told that we heard a few weeks ago, in which the watchful slaves are to be dressed for action and to have their lamps lit, to be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. 

And then when the master arrives, he blesses the alert slaves.  Just as Jesus did when he washed the feet of his disciples at the last supper, this master will come in, put on his apron, and have the servants sit down to eat, and the master will serve them! 

That is shocking, that God would choose to wait on us! 

And even more shocking, God invites everyone to the table, not just the worthy few who may, in the eyes of this world, be the deserving ones. 

Jesus reminds the Pharisees, and us, of that aspect of God’s unconditional love for all of us in the second half of today’s gospel, when he tells the host, “Next time, don’t invite the ones who can and will repay you.  Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind.”  They can’t repay you.  But God, the only one who can bless us, will bless you because what you have done for those who cannot repay you have done for God. 

To offer this grace and mercy to all that is around us is not about earning God’s favor.  Offering grace and mercy to the other is an act of gratitude and thanksgiving to God—God, who loves us enough to welcome us to the table even when we are poor in spirit, even when we are crippled physically or spiritually or emotionally, even when we are too weak to get up and walk through another day, even when we can’t even see that God is right there before us, inviting us to God’s table, even when we struggle to be unselfish and hesitate to invite those who cannot repay us to come on in.      

So how are we to come to our true place in God’s reign? 

To humbly trust in the Lord instead of in ourselves and our accomplishments.   

And to live in gratitude by sharing God’s undeserved hospitality, knowing that God embraces all of us and all things in God’s great circle of love, and invites us all to God’s  welcome table. 

Sermon, Pentecost 9, August 7

“Watchful Servants” – Eugène Burnand (1850-1921)

Sermon, Proper 14, Year C 2022

Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40

We spend a great deal of our lives waiting.  Our lives begin with nine months of waiting to be born, and that’s only the beginning  of the waiting we will do throughout our lives. 

Today’s scriptures remind  us that, as Christians, the most important thing we wait for is for God’s reign to become complete on earth, as it is in heaven. 

No wonder that’s the first thing Jesus asks us to pray for in the Lord’s Prayer. When we pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth, we are praying for God to make the old destructive death dealing ways of the world into something new and life giving.  

Even waiting at a stoplight can take on new meaning if I know that the big thing I am waiting for is for God’s reign of love to come on this earth, and that how I wait, even for a stop light, matters.   

Abraham is a faithful waiter.  God promises Abraham that Abraham’s old life is going to become a whole new thing—specifically, Abraham will inhabit a new land and have many descendants.  God asks Abraham to pick up and go to the land that God will show him.  And as the writer of Hebrews tells us, Abraham does what God asks and goes, not knowing where he is going—but he trusts that God will lead him where God wants him to go.    

As Oswald Chambers points out, “to wait is not to sit with folded hands, but to learn to do what we are told” by God to do.  I like that idea, that waiting is not static, but dynamic.  Waiting involves active listening for what God might be calling us to do while we wait for what God is trying to make new in our lives.    

So like Abraham, who waited faithfully,  we must listen for God’s promise to us, and for the world, (God’s reign coming into reality) and as we wait for that promise, to do what God calls us to do, because God is counting on us to do our parts for God’s coming reign as God makes our lives and the life of the world new. 

The next thing we must do is to trust. Because we’re human, we can’t often see how God’s promises are being realized in our lives. So we must trust that even when God seems to be asking us  to do something that in our understanding  goes against what God has promised, then we should consider doing what God is asking.    

Jesus faced this dilemma in the Garden of Gethsemane.  How could God’s reign on earth come closer to reality through Jesus dying on the cross?    How could death lead to new life?  But Jesus trusted God and did end up on the cross.  On the other side of death, God resurrected Jesus.  And God’s reign on this earth is all about the resurrection of the old into something new. 

In her poem, All Things New, Frances Havergal  lists some of the gifts God provides when we wait faithfully for God to make all things new, especially when we are dealing with difficulties in our lives. 

Light after darkness

Gain after loss

Strength after weakness

Crown after cross

Sweet after bitter

Hope after fears

Home after wandering

Praise after tears

Sight after mystery,

Sun after rain,

Joy after sorrow

Peace after pain

Near after distant

Gleam after gloom

Love after wandering

Life after tomb 

 

Alpha and Omega

Beginning and the end

He is making all things new. 

Springs of living water

Will wash away each tear

He is making all things new. 

 

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells the disciples not to be afraid because God’s good pleasure is to give us the kingdom. 

Jesus reminds us that in all the waiting we do in our lives, we will want to do what God has asked us to do, which is to love God with our whole heart and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  As we care for our neighbors, God will care for us. 

Remembering this puts a whole new spin on what we do with our stuff while we wait for God’s reign here on earth to become fully realized—all the way from that duplicate rolling pin I have in my kitchen, and the extra food I’ve saved up for hard times, to any extra money that God provides. 

One of the biggest challenges that Jesus lays out for the disciples in today’s gospel is the need to be constantly ready as they wait for Jesus’ return and God’s kingdom fully realized on this earth.    

This challenge is even harder for us than it was for the disciples, for we are the current generation of the countless generations of Christians who have waited faithfully for Jesus to return in glory.  Along with the Hebrews, who were discouraged because Jesus had not returned after only two generations,  we have grown tired of waiting for Jesus to show up in glory and some of us have even given up and left, placing our hopes in our self-sufficiency, or in the material things of this world, even though we say with our fingers crossed each Sunday that we really do expect Jesus to return in glory.  We have simply given up and stopped looking for the signs of  God’s homecoming.   

So today’s gospel brings us up short!    

Jesus reminds his disciples and us that we need to get busy and clear out all that extra stuff that clutters up our minds and our spirits to get ready for God to show up!

In our physical lives, we Christians also have the dilemma of too many material things distracting us and keeping us worrying about the things that ultimately don’t matter.

Last week we heard the story that Jesus told about the rich man who was worried about what to do with his excess crops.  He went to great expense to build extra barns to store everything in, only to find that he was going to die that night, and that none of the stuff that seemed so important just hours earlier now really mattered at all. 

We’ve all got stuff we need to get rid of, both inner and outer stuff, so that we can travel light and to be ready, no matter when Jesus comes.  If we have been getting ready,  we won’t get caught by surprise.  Until we get rid of the old stuff, we will find that waiting for God to make all things new might be a wait that lasts forever because we haven’t done what we need to do. 

Which brings us back to the issue of trusting in God instead of in ourselves and what seems like our material self-sufficiency. 

But even after we have done what God has asked us to do, and we find ourselves still waiting,  we must trust God that God really is making all things new in God’s own, perfect time. 

The thoughts of Christopher Davis, who teaches at Memphis Theological Seminary in Memphis, Tennessee, are helpful here. 

Davis says in his commentary on today’s Genesis passage that there comes a place in the process of waiting that our trust gets put on trial.   “If you’re going to move from frustration to fulfillment, you must develop an intentional life of waiting…the prize isn’t always finally getting what you wanted, it’s what you learned while you waited.”  He goes on to say that our job is to go from putting God to the test to simply trusting God, that it’s not just about what we do, but also about who we grow into. 

In the waiting, if we wait faithfully, God really does make us new.

What is God trying to make new in my life, and in yours? What is God trying to teach us in the waiting?  What is God trying to make new in our church and in our world? 

All of us are waiting for something.  So let’s remember that as we wait for whatever it is, that all the waiting, for both the small and large things in our lives, must be informed by our expectant waiting for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.  

So let’s resolve to listen for God, to wait faithfully and obediently and to trust that even if not in our lifetimes, God’s reign of love will someday come to pass on this earth, as it is in heaven.

And in our intentional, faithful, and trusting waiting, our lives can be a sign  to the rest of the waiting world that God’s reign of love really  is on the way.   

 

Resources:  The poem, “All things new” by Frances Havergal

Commentary on Genesis 15:1-6

Sermon, Pentecost 4, Proper 9, July 3, 2022

Native American Prayers

We’re going to start off this time together with a little mind exercise. 

Here’s a statement from today’s gospel to think over. 

“The kingdom of God has come near to you.” 

(Time to think)

In your time of reflection, what came to mind? 

(Answers from congregation)

Now, turn to your neighbor and offer this greeting. 

“The kingdom of God has come near to you.” 

(People greet one another)

How did you feel as you offered that greeting? 

How did you feel as you received that greeting? 

I’m thinking that this greeting is revolutionary! 

In today’s gospel, Jesus sent seventy people out ahead of him in pairs to prepare the way for his coming.  And Jesus told them to greet the people with this greeting, “The Kingdom of God has drawn near you.” In the towns that received them, the disciples brought about miracles and the kingdom of God did indeed draw near.     

Now what if at the end of each day, I had to report in to Jesus about how my mission of bringing God’s kingdom near had gone that day?  Would I have anything to report? 

Some days, I’d have to confess a complete fail! 

Thank God that even when we do fail (think Peter and all his failures) Jesus will send us out yet again. 

So what CAN we do to bring the kingdom of God near to the places and to the people that Jesus sends us to each day? 

The first thing is to remember that we carry God’s peace out with us.  In fact, God’s peace is the most important thing that Jesus asks us to carry out into the world.   

And God’s peace is a treasure.    

Today’s first hymn, “Peace before us,” written by David Haas, is based on a Navaho prayer.   In Native American spirituality, as well as Celtic spirituality, God’s presence “permeates everything—blending and shading into all of life like the iridescent colours of the rainbow.”   (Hymn notes on WLP 791 in Wonder, Love and Praise.)

So to carry God’s peace into the world, we can pray that all around each one of us will be God’s peace, that all around  each one of us will be God’s love, that all around each one of  us will be that iridescence of God’s light, that all around each one of us will be the presence of Jesus.

Then we pray again  that all around us will be peace—for that peace that we long for and that peace that we want to carry out  is made up of God’s love, light, and the presence of Jesus himself with us, around us and dwelling in us constantly. 

This peace is a gift from God.

Jesus points out in today’s gospel that we must be willing to accept the gift of God’s peace.    

God’s peace is a living thing—if we decide to accept God’s peace and to share in it, then God’s peace will rest in us, take root in us, and grow in us.    

But if we decline it, and there are so many ways to decline God’s peace, that peace will simply return to God.    

God’s peace won’t be wasted, so when we don’t want it, God sends it elsewhere, until at last if finds a resting place in another’s heart, where it can take root and grow. 

So  let’s be people who accept God’s peace and let that peace grow up in us. 

Then, Jesus can send us out into the world bearing that peace to those who need it so desperately. 

And when we truly bear that peace out into the world, people will know that the kingdom of God has indeed drawn near. 

So –we have God’s peace to carry into the world but we need the energy to deliver it.   

One of the reasons we come to church each Sunday is to get rejuvenated for the week ahead, sort of like going to the gas station when our gas tanks are on  empty.  We get refueled so that we can go out and do God’s work. 

Each week we come to God’s table ready to receive the body and blood of Christ, literally taking God’s presence into us.  And when we come to the table, we receive comfort. 

Isaiah describes God as comforting us as a mother comforts her child, and so we are comforted at God’s table. 

Jesus directs the disciples to go out and to graciously receive hospitality from those who welcome them, to receive the comfort that others offer to them.  “Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide,” a lovely give and take, a back and forth reminiscent of the dance of shared love among the Trinity. 

That constant exchange of love produces its own holy energy in which we share when we come together to the Lord’s table with humble and open hearts,  ready to receive whatever it is that God intends to provide to each one of us this day. 

Our temptation though, is to prefer giving to receiving.  After all, Paul told the Ephesian elders in the Acts of the Apostles that Jesus himself said that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” 

And yet, being willing to receive has its own benefits that help us grow into the disciples who can give God’s gifts to others by carrying God’s peace and healing into the world. 

In her blog on leadership, Jesse Lee Stoner lists several reasons why receiving can be a good thing.  I think Jesus would agree with her reasons. 

Receiving reminds you that you’re not in charge, and helps you to develop a more realistic self-image.  

Receiving keeps you humble. 

When you receive, you allow others the opportunity to feel the pleasure of giving, and you create a space for others to shine. 

Receiving lets us experience gratitude. 

Receiving helps us to begin to understand what strength really is. 

Receiving makes us more well-rounded and helps  our relationships  with one another to become richer.  (https://leadershipfreak.blog/2011/12/19/its-better-to-give-than-receive-and-other-lies/ )

So now, let’s go back to where we started. 

Imagine yourself surrounded by and filled with God’s peace. 

Imagine yourself with an open heart, open hands,  humbly ready to receive the gifts that God wants you to receive.  For the moment, just lay aside what you have to offer. 

Now imagine going out now in peace, your hearts and hands open. 

Imagine this. 

And now, turn to your neighbor once more, and greet that person in peace, with your hands open, 

saying, “The kingdom of God has drawn near.” 

May God’s kingdom draw near to us this day, and may we receive God’s strength to  carry God’s  love and light and peace out into the world. 

Sermon, Trinity Sunday, June 12, 2022

Sermon, Trinity Sunday, Year C 2022

Today’s sermon is  almost completely taken from the first sermon I preached on Trinity Sunday here at St Peter’s.    

The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the ways that we Christians try to understand the nature of God.    In today’s reading from Proverbs, the woman called Wisdom gives us some insight into God’s nature.   

Ellen Davis, who teaches at Duke, and is one of our most important  Old Testament theologians  and Hebrew scholars, says that “the picture of Wisdom playing, even giddily, before God, must be allowed to stand as the important theological statement it is.” 

Davis offers this translation of Wisdom speaking about herself at the end of today’s reading from Proverbs. 

 “And I was delights daily, playing before him continually, playing in his inhabited world, and my delights were with human beings.”

Davis says that here the writer of Proverbs emphasizes the element of play in God’s nature.

After all, God didn’t have to create this world, or us, for that matter! 

Davis points out that God’s decision to create the world was a matter of absolutely free choice, and in fact, creation, and especially humanity, God created simply for “the sake of God’s own pleasure.” 

The freedom to create and delight in what is created belong together, in divine play just as in child’s play.  In  this “boisterous” image we see Divine Wisdom freely playing with, and delighting in human beings!

The fact that God plays in creation reminds us that God is here with us and is intimately involved with every aspect of our lives, just as God is intimately involved with all of creation. 

And the fact that God is intimately involved with us and with all of creation finds expression in the doctrine of the Trinity,

because as Davis goes on to point out,  we “Christians confess that God not only created the world but dwelt in it as a human being and God now continues to be present in our midst through the Holy Spirit, one of whose seven gifts is the wisdom of God.”

An understanding of the Trinity that was popular in the first few centuries of  the church captures this playful nature of God.  

This understanding  is known as perichoreisis.

Catherine LaCugna, a theologian who wrote about the Trinity, tells us that perichoresis expresses the idea  that the three divine persons mutually exist permanently in one another, draw life from one another, and are what they are by relation to one another.

If we take the Greek  prefix peri (around) and  link it with the root of the verb choreuein (to dance), we get a lively  metaphor that describes  the “one nature in three persons” of the Trinity. Literally God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit “dance around.”  The choreia or dance of God is “the choreography of the cosmos—it’s the interrelationship of Creator, creation, and life itself, the holy creativity of the All in All.” (from notes on Perichoresis from The Rev. Susan Sowers)

And LaCugna goes on to add that we, yes, all of us, all of humanity, have been made partners in this divine dance, not through our own merit, or because we’re good dancers,  but because God has chosen us to join in this cosmic dance of love.  We have been made partners in the divine dance, because everything comes from God, and everything returns to God, and this coming and returning happens through Jesus Christ in the Spirit—“the choreography of the divine dance which takes place from all eternity and is manifest at every moment of creation.”

LaCugna  points out that this “one mystery of communion includes God and humanity as beloved partners in the dance.”

Dancing is good for us.  A recent article in The Washington Post, “Anxious, lonely, or angry? Try Dancing,” quotes Lucia Horan, who teaches a specific kind of dance that helps people to deal with stress.  She says that the “beauty of dance is that it addresses these quadrants of healing—the physical, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual.”  She goes on to say that dance works for many people because if forces people to focus on the present moment, which can bring relief from worry, grief, and emotional pain.  

The early church fathers used the metaphor of dancing as a way of elevating the soul. 

St Augustine says this about dancing.

“I praise the dance, because it frees people from the heaviness of matter and binds the isolated to community.  I praise the dance, which demands everything:  health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.  Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people, who are in constant danger of becoming  all brain, will, or feeling.  Dancing demands a whole person, one who is firmly anchored in the centre of his life…I praise the dance.  O Man, learn to dance, or else the angels in heaven will not know what to do with you.”   

Brendan O’Malley tells us that in the Christian Church for the first thousand years Christians danced in procession to and from the church.  This dance was known as the “Tripudium, which means three steps or transport of joy… The dancers linked arms and danced in row after row, three steps forward, one step back, moving through the streets and into the church and around it during the hymns of the service, and then out through the streets as a recessional.” 

Three steps forward, one step back, three steps forward and one step back—this is how we move toward God in this lifetime, stepping backward periodically, but then advancing again. 

So the early Christians danced into, and in, and out of their churches, and felt in their bodies the pull of the divine dance of the Trinity, a dance of mutual love, breathing in together the breath of life, and pouring out to one another in mutual giving. 

So what does this understanding of the Trinity, this divine dance  that we’re a part of, have to do with how we live our lives today?  

Brain McLaren, a current theologian, offers this simple thought experiment. 

Imagine God as “this loving trinity of perichoresis, a sacred choreography of self-giving, other receiving; honoring, being honored; fully seeing the other, fully revealing the self.”

Now imagine the universe that this God has freely and playfully chosen to create.  Imagine dancing to the music of this universe—“a wild and wonderful symphony, full of polyphony and surprise, expansive in themes, each movement inspiring the possibility of more movements as yet unimagined, all woven together with coherent motifs and morphing rhythms, where even dissonance has a place within higher more comprehensive patterns of harmony and wholeness.” 

And finally, McLaren asks us to “imagine how people in this universe would manifest trust in this triune God—with undying creative love toward creation, and all of humanity, and even love toward those people who hold differing beliefs.”

This doctrine of the Trinity as perichoresis is a gift to us, because it allows us to imagine God-in-God, dancing in community, God electing us, choosing you and choosing me, to join in God in this divine dance, stepping with joy into God’s dance with the rest of humanity and all of creation.    

And because God has no limits, we know that God has elected all of humanity, not just us, to dance divinely,  our arms outstretched and  linked in love  to one another, taking three steps forward, one step back, and three more steps forward,  in a transport of joy, as we learn to dance this divine dance with one another and with God  right here in God’s good creation.

And if we fully enter into this divine dance, then  surely, as Clement of Alexandria said, even now, “we raise our winged souls to the heavens.” 

References

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs,  by Ellen Davis.  Westminster John Knox Press, 2000. 

God for Us:  The Trinity and Christian Life, by Catherine Mowry LaCugna. HarperSanFrancisco, 1973.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/05/20/dance-therapy-anxiety-pandemic/

Lord of Creation:  A Resource for Creative Celtic Spirituality, by Brendan O’Malley.   Morehouse Publishing, 2008.

Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?  Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World, by Brian D. McLaren.  Jericho Books, 2012. 

Notes on perichoresis from The Rev. Susan Sowers

Sermon, the Transfiguration, Aug 6, 2023

When my five-year-old granddaughter and I are going somewhere in the car, we often listen to music that she likes.  Not too long ago, we got the soundtrack to Aladdin from the library.  My car is not exactly a magic carpet ride, but the music does take us into another world, a magical world in which what’s expected gets turned upside down and the impossible becomes reality. 

In the movie, Jasmine, a princess with all she could ever want and more than she could ever need who is imprisoned in the restrictive world of royal expectations meets  Aladdin, a street urchin who never has enough and is constantly in trouble with the law. 

The two go on a magic carpet ride high above the world that holds them both captive.  We probably all know the hit song from this show, “A Whole New World.”

As I was listening to this song yet again, the thought burst into my mind that in many ways, the lyrics have some similarities to  what is  going in today’s scripture, when Peter, John, and James go up on the mountain with Jesus to pray.  High above the world that they know, they open their hearts to God.  Although they are weighed down with sleep, they are awake enough to be aware of what is happening. 

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