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, Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Feb. 19, 2023

John Meng-Frecker – “Transfiguration of our Lord”

Jesus has traveled a long way since his baptism. 

That day, when John baptized him in the Jordan River, Matthew tells us that just as Jesus came up out of the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Can you imagine what Jesus must have felt that day?  His skin tingling as the cool river water poured down his face and over his body, his eyes squinting as brilliant light poured out of heaven, and from that light, he saw a dove descending and alighting on him. 

And in his ears, a voice ringing. 

“This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” 

It was after his baptism and his forty days in the wilderness that Jesus began to proclaim throughout Galilee, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 

He called his first disciples, Peter, Andrew, James, and John.  And the disciples went with him as he taught and healed, restored a girl to life, and as he did all of this, people could see what the kingdom of God could and would be like on this earth. 

The disciples watched and learned. 

And then Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”

And Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”

Soon after this, Jesus started explaining to the disciples that he would go to Jerusalem, undergo great suffering, that he would be killed, and on the third day be raised. 

Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him!

“God forbid it, Lord!  This must never happen to you.” 

Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” 

Jesus then teaches the disciples that if any want to become his followers, they must take up their crosses and follow.

And then, only six days after Peter has said that Jesus is the Messiah, we come to today’s gospel. 

Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, and leads them up a high mountain, by themselves. 

Now it’s their turn to see light pouring out of heaven, Jesus shining like the sun, his clothes dazzling white.  Now it’s their turn to hear a voice ringing, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

And an added phrase.  “Listen to him.”

No wonder Peter, James and John fell to the ground in fear. 

But Jesus came and touched them, saying “get up and do not be afraid.”  And when they looked up, they saw no one but Jesus himself alone. Moses and Elijah, the dazzling light, the bright cloud, the ringing voice—all gone.

But Jesus was still there, with them! 

Their skin must have tingled as Jesus touched them.  And the voice they heard was his, familiar, reassuring, challenging and strengthening.  

“Get up and do not be afraid.”

And then they went back down the mountain.

We hear this story every year in church on the last Sunday after the Epiphany. 

The transfiguration inspires the disciples in the moment, what some would call a mountain top experience, because what they see points beyond his death to what will happen to Jesus in the future—his resurrection. 

When Peter, James and John see Jesus shining like the sun, and his clothes dazzling white, they are seeing a vision of the future, Jesus in his resurrection body, the one who will lead them “out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life”   as the words of Eucharistic Prayer B say. 

And so the disciples would remember the transfiguration forever because this event proved to them without a doubt that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the Son of God, and that his reign stretches into eternity.    

So no wonder that in the Second Letter of Peter, the writer says that “we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty” and we ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, saying “This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” 

So, the writer goes on, “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your own hearts.”

This story of the transfiguration can serve as a  lamp shining in a dark place for each one of us when we find ourselves facing into bad news, like the disciples faced the bad news that Jesus would suffer and die. 

This story helps us to remember that beyond death is resurrection, and that Jesus goes with us through our lives, through our years of health, productivity and mostly stability.  But at some point, we all end up staring death in the face, just as Jesus did.  But Jesus knew, and told the disciples, and they got to see, that beyond his death was resurrection. This fact is true for us as well.  The light of the resurrection burns through and beyond the darkness of death for all of us who follow Jesus.   

Today is the day of our congregational meeting, when we review the year just past.  

This church has been blessed for the almost two hundred years that it has been in existence.  I have no doubt that God considers this church as beloved, and that God is well pleased with this church.  For here we are, moving forward, even as we face the challenges of illnesses, aging, deaths, and other changes and transitions that have been difficult.

Like Peter, we may find ourselves saying, or wanting to say, “God forbid it, Lord!” when it comes to our individual challenges, and the challenges that we face as a small church in what seems to be a decline.   

But the story of the transfiguration reminds us to hear instead the words  of Jesus and to heed them. 

“Get up, and do not be afraid!” 

Jesus has always been with this church!    Jesus is with us now!  And Jesus will be with us!

When we are discouraged by our small numbers, discouraged by the accidents and illnesses that disable us for varying periods, when we want to do some work of God in the world that we feel might be impossible because we’re too small, or too old, or too isolated,  let’s turn to this story and not be afraid to proceed wherever it is that God will lead us.  Because just as Jesus led the disciples down that mountain back into ministry, Jesus leads us too. 

Our job is to follow, knowing that as the followers of Jesus, suffering may be inevitable, but guess what, our resurrections are inevitable as well.

So as this season after the Epiphany comes to a close, and we look back on 2022, and at all St Peter’s did last year, and as we look back at all that happened in our own lives,

Remember.  “We are God’s beloved.  God is pleased with us.”

For we are the light of the resurrection and the reign of God here and now in this time and in this place.  As God’s beloved sons and daughters,  our job is to continue to be resurrection light out in the world, so that the world can see that the reign of God has indeed already drawn near! 

Jesus has touched us, and blessed us and God has blessed this church, over and over and over. 

So get up, and do not be afraid.  Let’s head down the mountain and take up our crosses and follow Jesus wherever he will lead us, knowing that resurrection awaits.   

Sermon, Second Sunday after Epiphany – “We are the People of Hope”

Sermon, Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A 2023
I Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42

“Calling of Peter and Andrew” – Caravaggio 1602

“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 

So begins Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth, a diverse and contentious group of people, called together by God into the fellowship of Jesus Christ our Lord:  called to be the church, to be God’s light in the world. 

Paul’s enthralling words remind us that God calls us too—you and me– to be saints, that is, to follow Jesus and to witness to God’s justice, power, mercy, healing, and love in this world. 

That is why we’ve chosen to be here today, because we have heard God calling us to be part of this fellowship of the saints that we know as the church. 

Here, God reminds us, through scripture and prayer and song that we are not alone in this calling to follow Jesus. 

Jesus is not just a prophet with tremendous healing power and a mighty heart, willing to go to death and beyond as he does God’s will in this world, someone to admire and emulate.  Jesus is more than all of that, as wonderful as all of that is. 

Jesus is God’s Son.

So when we follow Jesus, God’s Son,  we enter ever more deeply into the heart of God, even in the ordinary things that we do, which can grow into the extraordinary things that God calls us to do, the things that we never believed possible—Glory to God, whose power working in us, can do infinitely more than we could ask, or even imagine. 

God imagines our lives—magnificent, challenging lives that reveal God to those around us! 

God has already imagined the life that God is calling you and me  and this church, St Peter’s, into.

God wants our imaginations to expand, so that ultimately, God’s imagination for each of us and for this church, and for this world, can and will  become reality. 

The clue to how we even begin to live into God’s imagination is to have the desire to know God more deeply, to want to live in the heart and mind of God, which is what the two disciples in today’s gospel realized they wanted. 

They were followers of John the Baptist.  But when they saw Jesus walk by and heard John say, “Look!  Here is the Lamb of God” these two disciples of John followed Jesus. 

Jesus turned and saw them following and asked what they were looking for. 

Their answer was simple and to the point. 

“Rabbi, we want to know where you are staying.”

Jesus invites them, right that minute,  to come with him and see. 

And so these two went with him and saw where he was staying and they remained with him that day. 

Andrew, one of these disciples, was so excited that he went to find his brother, Simon Peter, and told him, “We have found the Messiah!” 

In that time he had spent with Jesus, Andrew had found his imagination sparked.  And now his imagination was growing because he realized that Jesus was the one they had been waiting for, the one sent by God, 

The Messiah!  The Anointed One!

Andrew didn’t go to Peter and say, “We’ve found the Son of God or the Lamb of God.”  That deeper understanding of who Jesus was would come later. 

Instead, Andrew proclaimed, “We have found the Messiah!” 

In Andrew’s time, the Jewish people were looking with great expectation for the Messiah, the one God had promised, for they lived under the yoke of the Roman Empire.  The people of Palestine were oppressed, disrespected, and mistreated.  Since they were not Roman citizens, they could not expect the privileges of a citizen.  They were nobodies. 

So when Andrew told Peter that they had found the Messiah, Andrew must have been convinced that Jesus was the one that would lead the people out of bondage. 

You can see how Andrew’s imagination had started growing.  He must have imagined that Jesus would somehow lead his followers into freedom.  Maybe he imagined the literal deliverance from the bondage of the Roman Empire and  freedom for the people that the Messiah, sent by God,  would bring. 

All of us are in bondage to something that limits our imaginations. 

Right now we are in the season of winter, and the darkness closes around us late in the afternoon.  And in the winters of our lives, especially, the darkness  of illness, accidents, the deaths of those we love, transitions, wanted and unwanted, and the list goes on—we find ourselves in bondage to anxiety and worry and despair and fear.    

The challenges of aging, the challenges of illness, the challenges of addiction, the challenge of stressful busyness, all of these things can kill our imaginations and hold us captive to what is.  We lose the ability  to imagine what could be. 

That’s when the story of Andrew and the other disciple comes as a welcome reminder that wanting to go where Jesus is, and learning from him can turn the twilight and darkness that can so easily close around us into the brightness of a new day.

Spending time with Jesus in prayer, worship and study helps us to imagine more fully what God’s kingdom here on earth could be like, especially when the current reality tempts us into hopelessness.   One of the big functions of a Messiah is to restore hope to those who have lost hope. 

Choosing to follow Jesus is an act of hope!

We follow Jesus because we hope and imagine something different and something better, not just for ourselves but for everyone, and for all of creation.   

Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday is today, was a man whose journey into God as a follower of Jesus allowed him to see through the darkness of the racial discrimination and segregation that gripped this nation and held it in bondage into the light of what God must imagine for this nation, liberty and justice, equality and respect for all.     

King’s journey on this earth as a pastor and as a civil rights leader was a journey of hope and imagination.    

King’s dream is not a solitary, individual dream.  It includes all of those who call on the name of God and who follow Jesus as their Lord and Savior, a way of non violence, love, and insistence on God’s justice for all, no matter the cost.     

In a stirring speech, Dr King shared his dream of God’s kingdom come on earth with the over 200,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington.    

In his speech, King pointed out that our destinies and our freedoms are bound together. As King puts it, “We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

A little later in the speech, King describes  what he is imagining, his dream—that we all might be one, his dream that “the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood”… “that black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.” 

In the words of the prophet Isaiah, King shares God’s dream for us all, that God’s glory will be revealed in all of creation and in all of us.    

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope, King says.  God’s imagination made reality when we in this nation come together to dream of and work for freedom and justice for all people. 

So now, joining Andrew, that first one to follow Jesus, joining those people in the church at Corinth, joining with all who have followed Jesus down through the ages, joining modern day saints like Martin Luther King, Jr,

We are the people of hope. 

We are the saints, the ones who call on the name of the Lord Jesus and seek him. 

And when we seek him, Jesus invites us to come and see. 

Jesus invites us to be the ones who imagine God’s dreams of grace and peace and justice, mercy and healing for this earth. 

Jesus invites us to live the magnificent and extraordinary lives that God imagines for us.   

Jesus invites us to be the ones, who when God’s power is working through us, can help turn God’s dreams for this earth into the reality of a new day, bright and full of God’s glory and love for all.

Come and see.  Let’s take Jesus up on that invitation.  The world is waiting. 

 

Resource:  https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety 

Sermon, Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2022

Sermon, Christmas Day III, 2022 John 1:1-14

In the magisterial opening of John’s gospel, John describes a great cosmic darkness into which life and light come—the Word made flesh, Jesus. 

Ultimately, what difference does the coming of Jesus make to us several thousand years later?   Why should we care?

Because as John points out, the world does not care.  The world did not know Jesus, and does not know Jesus now. 

So I ask you, “Why should we care?  Why should we accept this Word into our lives?”

Because as St Athanasius says, “For the Son of God became man so that we might become gods.” 

That is, we can only be what we are until we come across Jesus, and if we receive him, then our lives begin to expand, not only on this earth, but out into eternity. 

As John puts it, “For all who receive him, who believe in his name, he gives the power to become children of God, who are born not just as flesh and blood, but born of God.”

That’s why the coming of Jesus makes a difference, and why we should care.  Because receiving Jesus draws us into the life of God, into eternity beginning now, into love and into light, even in the darkness that surrounds us. 

When we choose to become children of God, our vision changes.  God gives us the great desire to see into the essence of the universe, to see into the essence of God’s creation, and to see deep into the hearts of one another. 

Newborn babies are very sensitive to bright light.  Their pupils are small, limiting the amount of light that comes into their eyes. 

But as their retinas develop, their pupils widen and allow more light into their eyes.  And, as Kierstan Boyd says in her article about the vision development of newborns, “they can see light and dark ranges and patterns.” 

We human beings tend to limit the amount of light that comes into our eyes as well, limiting our vision to what fits into our limited world views, that is, until we become children of God. 

Then, our “children of God”  retinas develop, letting in more and more of God’s light.  We can distinguish more clearly the light and the darkness and the patterns of light and darkness in our own lives and in the lives of those around us.  

And as children of God, we gain the ability to see the light in others that is mostly  hidden to all except to God. 

As we see into the essence of things, we now see light even in the darkness of our lives.  We see light in the lives of others.  We can look into the light with no fear of being blinded.   We realize that the light we are seeing is the light of love itself. 

And so, our ability to love deepens.  We gain the capacity to love ourselves as God loves us, and to  love others as God loves them.

As we love with God’s love, the light of that love helps to push away the darkness of our own shame, and  the darkness of hatred that is so much a part of our world. 

To see light is to see God’s love at work in the world, and to see the potential of God’s work in the world—to see beyond the years into the mighty eternally transforming power of God’s love. 

And as children of light, we become part of God’s work of love on this earth. 

When we become children of God, God also gives us new hearing.  We can hear God speaking in the sounds around us.  We can hear the meaning of sounds. 

When we hear people shouting with rage and hatred, we now can hear in their raging the interior voices of fear that drive the hatred.  We can hear loneliness in the silence of the neglected.  

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow could hear God’s voice in sounds.    My reference is an article written by Dennis Rainey. Longfellow lived from 1807 to 1882 and was a well known poet in his time.  He is still known today for his poems.  But what I didn’t know about Longfellow was that his life was filled with great tragedy.  In a horrible accident, his wife’s dress caught fire.  Longfellow tried to put out the fire with his own body, but his wife was killed by the flames.  And then, only two years later, in 1863,  one of Longfellow’s sons, Charlie, joined Lincoln’s army.  The Civil War raged as the country fought a war with itself. 

On December 1, 1863, as Longfellow was eating dinner with his family, he received a war telegram letting him know that Charlie had been severely wounded and might be paralyzed for the rest of his life. 

On Christmas Day, this widowed father of six, with a war raging through the nation, and his oldest son nearly paralyzed, heard the bells of the churches pealing.  As Justin Taylor writes, Longfellow felt a war within his own heart.  He  could see for himself that there was no peace on earth.  He could hear the destructive sounds of war,  and yet, the sound of the bells promised peace on earth, goodwill to all.  As Longfellow kept listening to the bells, he heard something beyond the sounds of the bells themselves.  He heard the sound of hope in the midst of despair. 

And so Longfellow wrote “I heard the bells on Christmas Day.”  This poem is a testimony of this child of God’s ability to hear in the sounds of those Christmas Day bells the hope that we can hear as children of God,

the hope we hear in a sleeping child’s soft breathing,  the hope of a kind word spoken into fear or sorrow,  the hope that can rise in our hearts when we listen to music, the universal language, hope even in the sound of bells,

hope beyond the hatred and division of our times, hope that we someday, even in our differences, will all be one in God’s love. 

The love and the hope that we experience as children of God change us into better people as we continue to grow in God’s love. 

And so we find ourselves wanting to share that love and hope, because God’s love and hope for this world are too great to hoard—we cannot contain the immensity of either. 

God’s love and hope flow through us out into the darkness of the world, and we become witnesses, like John the Baptist, who  testified to the light and glorified God.    

We children of God become the messengers that announce peace and bring good news.  With God we bare our arms and fight the injustices around us.  God gives us the power to offer the comfort on God’s behalf, the comfort that can come only from God, because we know that God is in the world and is always coming into the world in new ways, and  bringing love, light, and new life. 

And through the years, as God sustains our hope and enriches our love for God and for one another, the light of God’s love in our lives will shine ever more brightly.

God will set us, God’s children, on fire with love that can and will  shine out with God’s radiance.  And this fire of God’s love brings life and the light that illumines and transforms our minutes and our hours into the nearer presence of God in and through our love for one another.  We can see and hear and know that we too are part of the eternity of God’s love.    

And so the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 

And so, yes, we care, these thousands of years later, that a baby has been born, and that angels are singing, and that shepherds are telling the good news of all they have seen and heard, that a star is shining, and that Mary is pondering all of these things in her heart. 

For unto us a child is born, and if we choose to follow him, we too will sing, and tell out the good news, and shine and ponder it all, and get reborn for the love that never ends. 

 

Resources:

https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/baby-vision-development-first-year

https://www.theraineys.org/post/i-heard-the-bells-on-christmas-day

 

Sermon, Nov. 27 – Advent 1 – Be prepared for the unexpected day by seeking to do good

The signs of ending are all around us now.  Thanksgiving has come and gone, the sweet sounds and smells and sights of the Christmas season have arrived.  Before you know it, 2022 will be history, and we’ll wake up to a new year. 

But all is not ending. 

Yes, in so many ways our lives reflect “end times,” but we Christians know that the end times point us toward new beginnings, and that even in the endings, God is making all things new. 

And that is what the season of Advent is all about.  As we stand in the debris of the old year, we seek out the hope, and look deep into the future with eyes of faith, knowing that “Christ will come again.” 

That’s one of the most mysterious, powerful and life giving things about Jesus—he died, but death did not destroy him.  He is risen, and in his risen life, is with us at all times and in all places, if only our hearts are open to him.  But  best of all, and this is the looking into the future part, Jesus will come again.

Jesus will come again, not only to the quiet welcoming places that we prepare for him in our hearts, but Jesus will come again in glory, to make all things on this earth right at last, to bring God’s just and peaceful reign to replace the messes we have made.  Heaven will come on this earth. 

So we Christians look for the completion of God’s rule here on earth, and we prepare not only our hearts, but we also work to prepare the world around us as well, in the ways that we can.  Like those who farm, we do what we can to prepare the earth for the new growth and life that is on the way when spring comes once more. 

So this season is full of joyful expectation.  And in gratitude, each Sunday we offer to God our gifts of bread and wine, which God in turn offers back to us, filled with God.  

And with great thanks and praise, as we take the bread and wine, we offer our own God filled lives back to God, imperfect as our lives are, and will continue to be. 

Today’s psalmist lived many centuries before Jesus, but the psalmist knows the same joy that we feel when we come into God’s presence and offer ourselves to God.    

“I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” 

Pilgrimages to Jerusalem were marked with great joy.  Even as the people headed for Mt Zion, they knew that all would not be perfect when they got there.  But–even  as they were jostled, even in the noise of people gathered in a city, even in the dust and dirt of the streets, the people could see beyond what was true at the moment about their surroundings to what could and would someday be. 

They knew that Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity with itself…. So the pilgrims prayed for its prosperity, prayed for the peace of Jerusalem, for peace within its walls, and quietness within its towers.  

Peace has always been in short supply, and prosperity comes and goes, BUT we too know that someday, God’s peace will reign, not just in Jerusalem, but over all the earth.  

Just not in our lifetimes, we say resignedly, and that’s why we need this season of Advent.  

Because yes!  God’s peace can and will reign in our lives, and in the world around us.   Advent reminds us first of all that we believe that this promise is true, and second, that as people of faith, we are to be on the lookout for God’s love breaking into this world yet again, and over and over again,  a never ending gift.  

The Apostle Paul, who expected the return of Jesus sooner rather than later, has some great advice for us as we wait.  

Paul wants us to be prepared.  So here’s some advice he has for those in the Roman church, and for us too.  

Don’t sit around in your pajamas, as tempting as that might be.  

Get up and get dressed, and don’t put on just any old thing— 

Paul says to put on the Armor of Light.  

The Armor of Light has both inward and outward properties.  

Wearing the Armor of Light means that we can see more clearly within ourselves.  The shadowy places in our lives, the places that need some work, get lit up.  We can see, all too clearly, the areas that need attention, the dust in the corners, the repairs that need to be made in our lives, the interior work that we need to do to prepare for God’s fuller presence in our lives.  

And second, the Armor of Light pushes away the darkness out in the world around us.  When we are feeling overwhelmed by news of the latest mass shooting, or the intransigence of war, or even just aggravated by the little annoyances of life,  the Armor of Light shines a ray of hope into all that darkness.  We wear those bright rays of hope.  People who look at us can see light, and be encouraged, and find some hope in the darkness.  

Last Thursday in its Thanksgiving edition,  The Washington Post published a section called “Inspired Life,” Section F of that day’s paper.  The section consisted of various inspiring stories that the editors felt illustrate the best of us.  

To me, one of the most inspiring of all the stories was the one called “Costumed strangers make Halloween wish come true for boy with cancer,”  originally published September 22, 2022.  

Can Halloween costumes become Armor of Light?  Yes!  

So here’s the story, which takes place in Hamilton, Ontario.    Alexandros Hurdakis was one year old when he was diagnosed with brain cancer, and now, at age five, the doctors could do nothing else to save the child.  

His parents asked Alex what he still  wanted to experience in the time he had left.  He said that he wanted to see monsters on Halloween, because he remembered the fun he’d had visiting a haunted house a few years ago. But he was too sick to travel.  

So a neighbor decided to build a haunted house in Alex’s back yard, and then she got on Facebook invited neighbors to show up in costume.   The post exploded with people offering to help make a special day for this little boy.  

On September 14, the day of the event, close to 1000 people showed up, parading through the streets dressed in spooky costumes.  Inflatable decorations lined the streets, and the police officers and fire trucks showed up too.    

Alex loved it all. 

No one put that day into these terms, in any of the articles I read,  but this verse from Isaiah fits what happened that day. “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”  That’s what all of the people did who came out to bring joy to a little boy and his parents.  They were walking in the light of the Lord.    

Alex’s father said that “at the most painful point in his life, he and his family are feeling gratitude for all of the support.  We’re very blessed to live in a community like this.”  And Arian Clark, who lost her daughter at age three to cancer, said that “it’s humbling and heartbreaking to witness this community come together every single time to support families like ours.  I had chills, I cried a lot, I smiled a lot.  This place, I swear, there is nothing like it.”  

Halloween costumes pushing away the darkness of death, people taking time and energy to bring joy to a devasted family, that’s a whole community putting on the Armor of Light and bringing into reality, if only for a short time, the reign of God that is to be on this earth.  

In today’s gospel, when Jesus is talking with the disciples before his death, he speaks of the time when he will return, a time that not even he knows.  He makes it clear that in this world, life goes on from day to day, some days more memorable than others.  We go about our ordinary activities and forget that nothing about our lives is ordinary! 

And then, something happens—that something could be a blinding revelation, or the quiet advent of unexpected grace, maybe the sudden awareness you haven’t had in a while of the beauty of the late afternoon golden light turning everything to fire and light as the sun sets. 

So this is the season to be prepared—for the things that we count on happening, our days coming and going—our family times of celebration, our care for the people around us, our putting on the Armor of Light in the ways unique to each of us.  

But this is also our season to be prepared for the completely unexpected, for in a split second our lives can be changed beyond recognition, or even ended.  

But when we have prepared for that unexpected day, by seeking to do good, we can accept whatever comes with peace and in praise and in gratitude for all that has been, for it’s all from God. 

We can give thanks for all that is, and yes, give thanks even now for the unknown things yet still to come, for Jesus will be part of it all.     

 

Sermon, Oct. 23, 2022 – Pentecost 20

In one of America’s best loved pieces of literature, Dorothy Gale and her dog, Toto, get swept away from Kansas in a tornado and end up in the magical Land of Oz.  Dorothy meets some steadfast friends along the way as they all follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City, where they hope to meet the wizard and have their wishes granted.  Dorothy’s wish is to get back home to Kansas. 

The person who wrote Psalm 84 longs to get home  to God’s house. The temple in Jerusalem serves as the pilgrim’s spiritual home, for God’s presence in that place is especially powerful.   After all, people have gathered there  over centuries to pray and to praise God.   In the temple,  the pilgrim hopes to encounter God more fully as the people offer sacrifices, ask for forgiveness, and pray and worship together. 

When the pilgrims finally reach the temple, what joy!  For in the temple, where even the birds come to rejoice in the living God, the pilgrims forget how hard the journey was.  They join in praise and thanksgiving for finally arriving at the longed for destination. They realize all over again that there is no other place in the world like this home in God where God welcomes us in.      

In addition to the poetic description of all of creation joining in praise to God in God’s house, the psalmist describes the journey to that house.     

Not only will the pilgrims making the journey find God present at their destination, but they will find God going all along the way with them as well.    

And God’s presence with them gives them the strength to make the journey. 

Now it’s our turn.  We are pilgrims, making our own journeys through this life.

Psalm 84 gives us some things to keep in mind as we travel.

First, the psalm reminds us that our ongoing goal and destination in this life is to be in the presence of God. 

God is our North Star.  To travel toward God gives us direction, focus and purpose. 

Nature itself follows the direction of our Creator. The psalmist says that the sparrow has found a house and the swallow a nest where she can lay her young by the side of God’s altars.   Every created thing is interconnected with every other part of creation, and all of creation is in God’s care.  Nature witnesses to the presence of God and responds to that presence.    

Have you ever noticed how sunflowers turn their faces toward the sun and move with the sun as it travels across the sky?  Or how prayer plants spread their leaves during the day, and then roll them up at night?  God has given the natural world its own direction, focus and purpose.  The natural world is much better about living into God’s plan for creation than we people tend to be! 

Second, we do not make this journey alone.  In Biblical times, pilgrims traveled in groups to the temple in Jerusalem for the big religious festivals. The temple was always packed with all sorts of people.  In today’s gospel, both a Pharisee and a tax collector have gone up to the temple to pray.  The one who had contempt for the other was focused on himself rather than on God—he lacked God as his true North.  If he had been focused on God rather than himself, he would have had compassion toward his fellow sinner. 

Jesus said that the two great commandments are to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  If our destination in this life is God, not only will we welcome the company of others, but we will be willing give help to our fellow travelers.

Jesus told a story about a traveler going from Jerusalem to Jericho. Bandits attacked the traveler and left him for dead.    A priest and a Levite, probably both headed to the temple in Jerusalem, passed by the man lying in the ditch and didn’t even bother to stop.  Then the Samaritan came along, bound up the man’s wounds, and provided for the man’s ongoing care while he recovered. 

Jesus didn’t say what the Samaritan’s destination was, because Jesus didn’t need to say it—the Samaritan’s ultimate destination was God.   So the Samaritan cared for the man in the ditch and in doing so, became the hands and heart of God as he did what he could for his fellow traveler, making God present and available to the man who needed help.    

The pilgrim whose destination is God is a truly blessed person.  The psalmist points out that blessed people are people who rejoice.  We come to church to give thanks and praise, as we say every Sunday at the beginning of the Great Thanksgiving.  “It is right to give our thanks and praise!”  Or, if you love the traditional words, you can say, “It is meet and right so to do,”  to give thanks to God. 

Psalm 84  also has some wisdom for how we should live out our last days as we complete our earthly journeys.  Looking back, we can see that God has gone with us throughout our journeys in this life. 

Today’s Epistle reading from 2nd Timothy reports some of the Apostle Paul’s last words.  Paul has spent his life proclaiming the gospel, and now his work is done.  He has fought the good fight, he has finished the race, he has kept the faith. God has gone with Paul through his life, which has been full of danger and challenges. Paul knows that God  continues to go with him as Paul prepares for his own death.   Paul says, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom.”   

Now, Paul is going to God, the righteous Lord who will give him a crown of righteousness, and not only a crown for Paul, but also to all who have longed for God’s appearing. Paul has not made the journey alone.  God has gone with him, and so have countless others who have followed God faithfully during their time here on earth.

So we faithful people long for our  home in God.    Home is where the heart is.  There’s no place like home.

At the end of the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy says goodbye to the companions who have kept her company on the way, and then, following Glinda’s directions, she clicks the heels of her ruby slippers together as she says over and over, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” 

In the next scene,  Dorothy slowly opens her eyes. She’s at home, in her own bed.  Her Aunt Em and her Uncle Henry and four friends hover over her, and she tells them about where she’s been, that most of it was beautiful, but all she kept saying was that she wanted to go home, and at last they sent her home.  Dorothy says to Toto, “We’re home, home, and this is my room and you’re all here and I’m not going to leave here ever again because I love you all.  There’s no place like home.” 

God has brought us here today, and we are  home in this place.  God goes with us through our journeys in this life to our eternal home in God.   And so we wait with happy expectation,  for we will all be there, and we won’t have to ever leave that place of love and gladness in the fullness of God’s presence. 

There really is no place like home. 

“How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts!  My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.” 

Sermon, Pentecost 18, Oct. 9, 2022 – Jesus and the Ten Lepers

Today’s scriptures remind us that faith and gratitude go hand in hand when we respond to God’s healing power at work in our lives. 

In today’s gospel story, Jesus is in the region between Galilee and Samaria, heading for Jerusalem.  Both Jews and Samaritans must have lived in the village that Jesus entered.  But even if they did live together in the same village, they probably stuck to their own groups.  After all, the Jews looked down on the Samaritans, and I would imagine that the Samaritans did not care to be around the Jews either.  

But all of them, both the Jews and Samaritans, avoided the lepers and stayed away from them.  Jewish law required that these people with a fatal skin disease that slowly stole away their bodies and finally their lives had to stay away from those who were well.  The lepers were avoided by everyone.    

A Samaritan with leprosy must have felt doubly cursed and outcast. 

Maybe the Samaritan leper in today’s gospel lingered in the back of the group as the others called out to Jesus asking for mercy.  The Samaritan must have wondered if this Jewish healer would extend mercy even to him, a despised Samaritan.    

Maybe he was surprised when Jesus did not cull him out because he was a Samaritan, unworthy of healing.     

But Jesus sees all the lepers  and tells them all to “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”  It was on the way to the priests that all ten lepers were made clean.  I suppose the other nine went to the priests as Jesus had told them to do, because they wanted the priests to examine them and to formally declare them clean.  With the priests’ blessing  they could return to whatever was left of their former lives.  

The Samaritan did not ever make it to the priests.  When he saw that  God had healed him, he needed no other validation.   He was free at last, and so he turned back to thank Jesus,  shouting out his praise and thanksgiving to God.     

Out of the group of the ten lepers, only the Samaritan recognized that God and Jesus were part of the same healing fabric of love and mercy that had just enfolded him and made him clean, and his gratitude knew no bounds.  

As the leper threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him, Jesus took note that the other nine had not returned to say thank you.    Only the Samaritan had made the connection that Jesus, the healer, was doing God’s work and had returned to give thanks to God for the healing he had received through Jesus.  

In the parallel Old Testament reading, Naaman, a commander in the Syrian army, cursed with leprosy, is washed clean when he follows the prophet Elisha’s instructions and bathes in the Jordan River.  

After his healing, Naaman returns to the prophet to say thank you before he returns home.   Like the leper that Jesus healed, Naaman realizes that the healing power that came to him through Elisha is the healing power of God.  Out of gratitude, Naaman becomes a follower of the God of Israel, the One who has brought him healing. 

But what about offering faithful gratitude to God when life brings hardships our way—when pain slows us down, or when we don’t get the physical healing we had hoped to receive, or when our lives don’t play out in the ways that we had expected.  

There’s one more person in today’s Old Testament lesson that I just have to mention because she is one who must be full of faithful gratitude to God even though her life has taken an unexpected turn and she has ended up in slavery. 

Although she only has a bit part in the story, without her, Naaman may never have been healed of his leprosy and come to know God. 

This is the young girl serving Naaman’s wife, who says to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria!  He would cure him of his leprosy.” 

This young girl, unnamed in the story, has certainly endured hardship.  Imagine being snatched from your family, taken from your familiar surroundings into a foreign land, and then being made to work for the family of the commander of the army that has carried you into captivity. 

And yet, despite these hardships that have been imposed on her, this young girl willingly shares the information that will lead to the healing the person who is ultimately responsible for her hardships! 

Scripture doesn’t tell us anything else about the girl, but I believe that her faith in God and her gratitude to God that she was even alive allowed her to give thanks in her current circumstances and to be generous toward a person  that she could have chosen to hate.      

The girl sees beyond her own difficulties and sees and cares that Naaman is a person in need of healing.  She can see that Naaman’s healing will not only benefit him, but also his whole household as well. 

Wouldn’t you love to know more about this young girl and her story?  I would!  But scripture, as it does with so many of the people that inhabit its pages, leaves the details of this girl’s story to our imaginations. 

But her faithful gratitude, which has led to her incredible generosity toward her captor is obvious.    

That’s the kind of faithful gratitude I want, the gratitude toward God even in the hard times, that encourages me to share God’s merciful love with those around me. 

We have all endured rough times and find that gratitude can be in short supply when we are suffering.   

And yet—when we have faith that God is with us, then gratitude for God’s goodness will well up in us like a healing balm, even in the roughest times of our lives.         

Hank Dunn, a hospice chaplain, writes that “if there is one attitude that can sustain us through the most difficult of circumstances, it is ‘the attitude of gratitude.’  This is the ability to give thanks for the gifts in one’s life, not necessarily because of the hardships, but in spite of them.  In other words, we are not grateful that we have a life-threatening illness (or whatever the hardship is), but we are able to give thanks while we have a life threatening illness”  (or whatever the hardship is that we are enduring).  

Cultivating gratitude reminds us that a power greater than ourselves is at work in this world, a power working on our behalf.  We can depend on this power to sustain and heal us even in the hard times.  

Studies have shown that specific activities can help us to cultivate gratitude. The writers of  an online article about gratitude published by Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School,  list some common sense things that we can do to cultivate gratitude on a regular basis—to thank others who have blessed us by expressing our gratitude for what they have done; keeping a list of blessings we’ve received each day in a gratitude journal; counting our blessings; praying and meditating.  

And most important—to remember to give praise to God for our blessings, both great and small, to acknowledge God as the source of our blessings.  

So today, as a way of practicing gratitude right now, let’s pray together the General Thanksgiving found on page 836 in The Book of Common Prayer.   The Rev. Dr. Charles P. Price, a long time professor at Virginia Theological Seminary, wrote this beautiful prayer of gratitude for our current edition of The Book of Common Prayer.    

Let us pray.  

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have
done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole
creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life,
and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for
the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best
efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy
and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures
that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the
truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast
obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying,
through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life
again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know Christ and
make him known; and through him, at all times and in all
places, may give thanks to you in all things.   Amen. 

Resources:  The Book of Common Prayer 

Hatchett, Marion J.  Commentary on the American Prayer Book.  New York, New York:  The Seabury Press, 1981.  

Dunn, Hank.  Light in the Shadows:  Meditations while living with a life threatening illness.  Copyright 2005 by Hank Dunn.  

https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier

Sermon, Pentecost 16, Sept. 25, 2022

Sermon, Proper 21, Year C 2022 Season of Creation

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells the dramatic story of poor Lazarus, starving and covered with sores,  and the rich man who ignores Lazarus in this lifetime. 

Both men die, and the tables get turned.  Lazarus ends up resting comfortably on the bosom of Abraham, and the rich man finds himself in Hades, where he is tormented in the flames. 

Barriers play an important part in this story. 

The first barrier is the rich man’s gate.  The rich man kept his gate shut.  Inside his house, he led a life of luxury, ignoring the needs of the world right outside his gate. 

The second barrier is the great chasm fixed between heaven and hell. 

This barrier keeps the rich man who is now in Hades from receiving any relief from his agony—Abraham tells him that “between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”  My mind conjures up a huge dark space, so deep that I can’t even see the bottom, and so wide that the other side is invisible because it’s so far away. 

In Bible study, we talked about this chasm.  Is there a point at which God fixes a chasm that cannot be crossed?  Was the rich man doomed forever?  We know that God is a God of mercy and forgiveness.  But is there a cut off point to God’s tolerance of our shortcomings? 

But this story does not say that God put this chasm in place.  The chasm has been fixed, but by whom? 

In hearing this story again this year, I think this chasm has been fixed by the rich man.  The rich man’s closed gate became a chasm which no one passed through to help Lazarus and Lazarus could not pass through the shut gate on his own.  Too sick and hungry to do anything else, Lazarus lay outside the closed gate and died.   

And now the gate, which has become a chasm, unsurprisingly remains in place in the next life, (you reap what you sow and suffer the consequences of your actions).   The  rich man no longer has control.  The gate has turned into a chasm that he can’t cross.  Now he experiences the side of the chasm he wishes he weren’t on, one of deprivation and torture. 

Since this is the Season of Creation, we certainly could apply this story to our own relationships with the earth, and how we tend to shut ourselves off from the earth around us.  In our day to day lives, we go out of our houses, get into our cars, drive to where we are going, and go into another building. And then repeat to get back home, often never even setting foot on the earth itself.  Often, our eyes are closed to what is going on in the natural world.  Our hearts are shut to its agonies, many which we have caused. 

We forget that the earth has a life of its own and that we belong to the earth. 

The Church itself teaches us that we are part of this earth.  Our most profound Christian symbols are earthly—as we come into the Church we are baptized in water, we share bread made from ingredients that came from the earth and also from its creatures.  The bees make the honey that BJ mixes into our communion bread.  Our wine comes from grapes that grew on vines planted in the earth.

At our burials we hear these words, “We are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return.  For so did you ordain when you created me, saying, ‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return.’   All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song:  Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” 

Jesus described himself with these earthly things—saying “I am living water,” “I am the bread of life,”  “I am the vine, you are the branches.”  Jesus belonged not only to God, but to the earth. And  Jesus himself reminds us that we are connected to the earth, and how essential that connection is in our relationships with God.   

I don’t even need to go into detail about the myriad ways that we are in the process of creating a chasm between us and the rest of life on this earth, one that we will someday no longer be able to cross.  Like the rich man, who wouldn’t open his gate and then found out that he couldn’t cross the chasm of his own making, we are in the process of creating something that we can no longer undo.  Even if we someday decide that we want to open our gates to the earth, many of the things that we have destroyed are gone or will be gone forever.  One example we are all aware of is the decline of the monarch butterflies, now on the endangered list, along with many other creatures that are endangered or already extinct. 

When my daughter Catherine and I went to Hawaii several years ago and visited a botanical garden, we saw a native plant of Hawaii that is being kept alive only by human beings, who must pollinate it by hand, for the moth that once pollinated this plant is now extinct.  And someday the plant will go the way of the moth, when human beings decide to stop pollinating it. 

I find myself easily discouraged by what is happening to the earth around us, wanting to look away, as the rich man looked away from poor Lazarus, lying at his gate.  How much more pleasant it was for the rich man to step over this problem in his path, to go inside and shut the door, and never give the tragedy at his gate another thought.  How easy it is for us to shut ourselves away from the ongoing environmental tragedies around us.

Today’s scripture reading from Ist Timothy provides some guidance for us on to how to keep our gates open, to avoid putting impassable chasms in place.  We will do well to keep these reminders in place, not only in our relationships with God and with one another, but with the earth itself. 

The first thing to remember is to rely on God rather than on ourselves.  We are to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness rather than to focus on the what the writer calls “the uncertainty of riches,”  for loving money more than God leads, in the end, to ongoing pain. 

To live a life of faith is a challenge.  The writer describes taking up this challenge as fighting a good fight—“Fight the good fight of the faith.”  For if we fight the good fight of the faith, our relationships with God and with one another will grow stronger.

And as we live faithfully on the earth, we find ourselves fighting good fights—taking the time to engage with the earth and to  be proactive in our care for it, and to admit the ways that we benefit at the expense of the earth and to try to correct the things that we do that are ultimately hurting the earth and the creatures around us.  

The last paragraph of the reading of today’s lesson from 1st Timothy also has some great advice, not only for our relationships with God and with one another, but with the earth itself. 

The author says that we who are rich are to do good, to engage in good works, to be generous and ready to share, so that we can take hold of “the life that really is life.” 

For us Christians, the life that really is life is a life open to God, open to one another, and open to the earth.  Open gates, open hands, open hearts.

At the end of the story that Jesus tells, the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to the house of the rich man’s father to tell his brothers what has happened to him, so that they can be saved from the torment that the rich man is experiencing. 

But Abraham says that the brothers already have the message—all that they have been taught through Moses and the prophets. 

What ever happened to the brothers?  Did they somehow figure out what they could do differently, based on the information they already had?  We will never know, because like so many of the stories that Jesus tells, we are left hanging.  The story is open ended. 

We are like those brothers of the rich man. 

What will happen to us? 

Like the brothers, we need to be warned. 

But we’ve already been warned! 

Can we and will we do things differently, based on the warning signs already surrounding us? 

Can we and will we do things differently, based on what God tells us to do in our relationships with one another? 

Can we and will we do things differently based on how scripture tells us to care for the earth of which we are only a part?

As followers of Jesus, how can we be living water, the bread of life, and the vine, sustaining and bringing forth new life around us? 

And we must remember that  we are but dust, and think of what we can do to contribute to the lives of one another and of the earth which will go on long after we have died, but in what condition? 

What will we leave behind for our children and our children’s children?  Open gates, open hands, open hearts, bringing new life and  bridging the fissures that we’ve already started  creating? 

Or will we leave behind a chasm that has been fixed, so that even those who might want to pass over it cannot do so? 

God has provided us with all the information we need to keep our gates, hands, and hearts open to one another and to the earth.   

What we do with that good news is up to each one of us.