Sunday, December 22, 2024

4 Advent

Micah 5: 2-5a; Canticle 15; Hebrews 10: 5-10; Luke 1:39-1:45

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

If you were to open a Bible and read the beginning of 1 Samuel (quick question – how many of you all think 1 Samuel is in the New Testament?  How about the Old Testament?).  If you read the beginning of 1 Samuel which is in the (Old) Testament, you would find in chapters one and two of that book a story about a woman named Hannah.

Hannah’s story follows a common literary motif in Old Testament literature, which is the motif of a woman who is initially unable to conceive a child, but through prayer and surrender to God, becomes pregnant.  This same motif applies to the Biblical matriarchs like Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel – all of whom you can read about in the book of (Genesis).   Didn’t any of you all go to Sunday School?   

Hannah was married to a man named Elkanah and the Lord had “closed her womb” as it is written in 1 Samuel 1:6.  After praying for a child, Hannah conceived, and gave birth to her son, Samuel.  After Samuel was weaned, Hannah brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh.  Shiloh was about twenty miles north-northeast of Jerusalem and was central to Israelite worship at the time. 

Hannah left Samuel in Shiloh in the Lord’s service.  This was not child abandonment, but rather Hannah’s faithful practice of dedicating her first born child to God’s service.  Samuel grew up there as a servant of the Lord, and became the last judge over Israel.  It was Samuel who anointed Saul as the first king over Israel.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

Hannah brought Samuel to Shiloh because she promised that if God permitted her to bear a child, she would dedicate him to God’s service.  And that is what happened.  When she brought Samuel to Shiloh, the Bible says she offered a song, which is recounted in 1 Samuel 2 – called the Song of Hannah. 

It is a song of thanksgiving for a divinely initiated change of fortune.  In this song, Hannah sings these words “The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts.”  Those words may sound familiar, as they mirror another song we hear today, the song of Mary, or Magnificat, where Mary jubilantly decrees that the Lord has “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.” 

If you were to read the song of Hannah along with today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke – the song of Mary, you would likely find that both songs hold much in common. I hope that it is interesting, or at least helpful to establish some context for all of us as we hear Mary’s song today.  Like all songs, Mary’s appears to draw inspiration from Hannah’s song, a song which predates Mary’s by some 600 – 900 years. 

I know you all are thinking two things right now: (1) what does all this have to do with the fourth Sunday of Advent, and (2) when is this sermon over?  The sermon will be over soon.  And Hannah has everything to do with Advent 4.  We are three days away from Christmas, the day in which we celebrate another rather unusual birth.  The point of Mary’s song is that the world will be fundamentally different as the result of the child to be born in Bethlehem. 

I know – your eyes might start to roll when you hear a priest say that (you may be thinking “that is what Jimmy says every year – Christmas means everything is different blah blah blah but the problem is that nothing is different.  Things are not different; they have just gotten worse.  By the way, what was it I forgot to pick up at the grocery store last night?”)  Okay, I will get out of your head now. 

Here is what I mean: Mary’s song points us toward the reality of Jesus’ birth as an act of God intruding into our world.  And when God intrudes into our world, everything changes.  But we are so good at building solid defenses against such acts by God.  We put up our spiritual, emotional, psychological barricades to prevent God from intruding into our lives because we do not want anything to change.  Even if we are miserable.  At least if we are miserable, the misery is familiar to us.  We would rather stew in our own self-manufactured misery than have to do something much harder – like change.

God intrudes into our world to change us, because we are unable to change ourselves.  That is what Mary’s (and Hannah’s) songs are about – the joy we fall into when we let God change us.  The joy we step into when we get smart enough to sit in the back seat and let God into the driver's seat.  The joy we feel when we let everything change.  AMEN.

Sunday, December 8, 2024

Advent 2 (Year C)

Baruch 5:1-9; Canticle 16 The Song of Zechariah; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

The Rev. Clint Brown

[John the Baptist] was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practice justice toward their fellows and piety toward God, and so doing join in baptism.

 So says Josephus, the first century Jewish historian, who was a contemporary of Jesus, Paul, and the early Christian movement, and who often serves as an important nonbiblical witness to many of the things reported in the Gospels, including Jesus. But this terse sketch is misleading and doesn’t do justice at all to the outsized personality with which we have to deal today. Josephus may serve to corroborate the Biblical account, and we are glad of that, but what he leaves out, of course, are all the juicy interesting bits: the manner and circumstances of John’s birth and that he ate bugs and wore camel’s hair and that he was, to put it mildly, a pretty eccentric fellow. John the Baptist cuts a very strange figure, indeed, as he crosses the stage at this time of year, and we have need to reckon with this odd, unsettling companion to tidings of comfort and joy and cozy nativity scenes.

For all the reverence we pay him, we might start out by realizing that John the Baptist is not the type of person you would want to invite to your Christmas party. To begin with, he was an ascetic who imposed on himself a severe self-discipline, so you’d be hard-pressed to expect him to bring much (if anything) to your party. And whatever he did bring, you would probably not want to eat it. And he likely wouldn’t show up, anyway, because he clearly was not a fan of big urban areas and places with a lot of people, preferring to keep to the countryside and, particularly, the wild desert region around the Jordan. And, in terms of personality, it is fair to say that he was prickly and provocative. As a preacher, we know that he drew enormous crowds because of his unique brand of “fire and brimstone,” but whether that was because they agreed with his message or were just there for the show is an open question. (It’s likely to have been a mixture of both.) But one thing is for sure. John the Baptist was (and is) an interesting and irresistible character and there are important reasons for us to pay attention to him.

On the scant evidence available, scholars hypothesize that John was probably a priest, descended from a family of radicalized rural priests who had been pushed out of the power center at Jerusalem. As such, they were highly critical of the Jerusalem priesthood who, as far as they were concerned, were sell-outs and more preoccupied with the forms of ritual than its spirit. They would have nursed a grave concern to see Israel purified and returned to its roots. And as an outsider, reared by outsiders in this atmosphere of suspicion and grievance, it is natural for us to suppose that the young John would have grown into manhood with something of a chip on his shoulder, and this may account for his abrasiveness and zeal for reform. But be that as it may, what is most important for our story is that John is an outsider with an outsider’s way of looking at things. What his contemporaries were blind to, either because of their comfort or because of their distractedness, John was able to see clearly. And what John wanted most was to break through his contemporaries’ apathy and indifference with the shattering news that the God of Israel was not done working. The time of God’s visitation was at hand. And while everyone was busy looking one way, salvation was coming from the other, and John understood perfectly that his role was to point to that very special something that was just over the horizon.

Once we get past our initial shock about him, we can appreciate that John’s role is vital – no one else can do it – because he helps us to do two things at once: to look back and to look forward. Looking back, John reminds us, as he did his contemporaries, of the great prophetic heritage of Israel and that we, like them, are situated in the midst of a much larger story. The coming of the Christ is not a surprise, it is something announced and foretold. It is something expected and part of a grand plan. We are to recognize in the mighty acts that will soon unfold that God has a plan for history, indeed is the Lord of History, and, for those who are seeing in front of them something less than ideal – like the occupation of their homeland by Rome’s legions, say, or, for us, the continuing specter of injustice – this is an intervention worth celebrating.

And in terms of looking ahead, what John is saying is that the knowledge of God’s imminent intervention requires a response. How ought we to meet Christ as our king? And for this John gives us one word: “repent.” Admit that you are in need of rescue. Own the fact that you can’t save yourself. Give in and let go. The coming of Jesus should matter to you, and John wants to make sure you know why. I’m reminded of an observation made by C. S. Lewis. To achieve progress does not always mean moving forward. Sometimes, he said, what “progress” looks like is turning around once you’ve realized your mistake and backtracking to the crossroads where you made the wrong turn. Only then can you truly say you are moving in the right direction. That is where we are on the Second Sunday of Advent. We have a choice to make. Either we choose to barrel on as if there’s absolutely nothing happening that ought to concern us, or we stop and consider that what is coming into the world is going to change it and us forever and we have some serious preparation to do. Clearly to continue, obstinately, in the former way would amount to nothing less than pride and a kind of foolishness and, ultimately, insanity. So it turns out that the crazy guy wasn’t so crazy after all. Only a crazy person would knowingly continue walking on a road that they knew would lead them off a cliff, which means you’d be crazy not to listen to John the Baptist.

Sunday, December 1, 2024

1 Advent

Jeremiah 33: 14-16; Psalm 25: 1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21: 25-36

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  AMEN. 

            In my twenty years as a priest, I have preached many sermons, and I keep paper copies of most of them.  When I perused my file for the first Sunday in Advent to see what I preached on the last time we had these readings three years ago, my sermon on the first Sunday in Advent 2021 was on Psalm 25.  Since I know you all remember everything from that sermon three years ago, I did not want to be redundant and preach on the same reading this time.  So, instead, I want to talk about our reading from 1 Thessalonians. 

            First some history.  There was an ancient equivalent of I-10, the interstate freeway that runs east to west across the United States.  I-10’s ancient forerunner was called the Via Egnatia, named after the Macedonian proconsul Gnaeus Egnatius.  Like I-10, the Via Egnatia ran east west across the Balkan peninsula from Byzantium (modern day Constantinople in Turkey to the city of Apollonia on western coast of Greece on the Adriatic Sea.  Regrettably, there were no Buc-ees along the Via Egnatia, but it was an important highway that linked many cities and insured the commercial prosperity of the cities on its path, including the city of Thessalonica.  Thessalonica was the capital city of the Roman province of Macedonia, and was dedicated to following the Roman imperial cult, which was simply the practice of worshiping the Emperor as God.   The emperor at this time was a man named Claudius.

Paul arrived in Thessalonica following a bad experience in nearby Philippi (another city that is on the Via Egnatia).  Once in Thessalonica, he did what Paul does, which was to establish a church there.  Following the establishment of this church in which those attending proclaimed Jesus as Lord and God rather than the Emperor, uproar and civil discord broke out in Thessalonica.  You can read all about this in your Bibles in chapter 17 of the book of Acts. 

            Paul was forced to leave Thessalonica because of the controversy his church introduced there, which was simply elevating Christ over Claudius as the true Emperor and true king.  Paul went south to Athens, and after some time passed, he sent his co-worker Timothy back to Thessalonica to see how things were going with the church he established there.  While Timothy goes to Thessalonica, Paul goes to Corinth, and waits for Timothy there.  Timothy returns to Corinth with good news about the church in Thessalonica, but also reports that that people in that church are a bit anxious that Paul has not returned to visit them. 

            This is the context for Paul’s writing his letter to the church in Thessalonica – a letter which is called “1 Thessalonians” in your Bible.  We hear a small part of this letter today from its third chapter.  In these verses, Paul writes that he has heard Timothy’s encouraging report of the status of the church.  Our reading today is part of Paul’s response where he is writing to encourage this church as it professes love and worship of God in a city known for its loyalty to the imperial cult of emperor worship.

            Even in the beginning of church life, churches needed an encouraging word.  Not much has changed in two thousand years.  We still need to be encouraged.  I am reminded of words a Presbyterian minister and author, Frederick Buechner once said about preaching.  He said that a good sermon should comfort the afflicted.  But it should also afflict the comfortable.  We are beginning a new year of church today.  We are in Advent, which is a season that invites us into both comfort and affliction.  Marie Curie, the Nobel Laureate award winner in Physics and in Chemistry, once said, and I quote, “I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.”  For anyone who has ever tried to lose weight, learn a new language or musical instrument, Curie’s words should resonate. 

            Progress for most of us is often slow.  So be encouraged this Advent.  Things did not move quickly during Paul’s lifetime, either.  We have so much to be grateful for, so much to be encouraged by, and so much to be patient for.  AMEN.  

Sunday, November 24, 2024

Feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle (transferred)

 Deuteronomy 30:11-14; Psalm 19:1-6; Romans 8b-18; Matthew 4:18-22

 The Rev. Clint Brown

In honor of St. Andrew, the first one called, I have decided to preach today on what I am calling the logic of mission, for, as Christians, I think we all know and understand that evangelism is an expected part of the job. It’s not enough that we care about our own ticket to heaven. Knowing what Christianity stands for, we want to be giving it away. So, this morning, let me take a few moments to demystify what is, let’s be honest, not an Episcopalian strong suit and talk a bit about mission. There is, as I see it, a rather simple logic to mission, of which there are four logical moves.

The first is to ask ourselves, in an honest way, “Do I truly believe this?” And, if the answer is yes, then it follows that some things about your life must change. If we’re sold on the gospel, if we believe that it matters, then we should act like it. We should talk different. We should move through the world different. We should think different. And our model in this is Jesus Christ. To the best of our ability, a Christian’s goal is simply to be trying to be more and more like Jesus. And the way all this ties back into mission is that to live this way intently and sincerely should – indeed, it cannot help but – be attractive to anyone sitting on the outside looking in. This, it seems to me, is the logic of mission: belief – belief that prompts change – a change that is modelled on Jesus Christ – and, finally, a change that is so recognizably Christ-like that it can’t help but be irresistible. In my view, any evangelistic effort or program or intention that does not come from a place of lived authenticity – that does not put the onus on us to live compelling and persuasive lives – slides all too easily into gimmickry and a corporate model approach to mission which I find repugnant to the spirit of the gospel.

So having made this sketch of the logic of mission, let’s take each of these moves now in turn and provide some detail. Going back to the first move, the first thing that we must settle is belief. Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and, if so, what difference does that make? On any given Sunday, even as I look out at all of you today, I know there is a potentially vast range of postures and attitudes toward Jesus represented here: from the skeptical, guarded, and perhaps even hostile; to the middle-of-the-road, apathetic, mechanical, and perfunctory; to the fervent, expectant, and devoted. The fact is that when we open the doors of St. Andrew’s it is to all kinds of seekers and seeking. Our job is to facilitate an encounter, and our work here is meant to have relevance. It is supposed to change lives. And if the gospel is at all convincing, and I believe it is, then it will not let us go or leave us unchanged.

To be confronted with the reality of Jesus is, you see, meant to be calamitous. We are supposed to feel a bit like the ground has shifted from under our feet. We are meant to feel shaken, curious, unsettled, and convicted by the example of Jesus Christ, a life lived in such perfect and resolute obedience to God. And also moved by the entire recorded experience of God’s people handed down to us in the Bible. The message proclaimed from this pulpit and this altar every Sunday is all meant to point to one thing – the crucified and risen Son of God – and then to call us to follow, just like Andrew.

Jesus is especially to be found here – at church. The church is both a hospital and a school. It is the place to be healed and equipped. Here is where every hungry seeker is provided with food for the journey. And it matters a great deal to me, as I’m sure it does to you, that at St. Andrew’s no one is denied a seat at the table. But understand that whatever you do here is only completed by what you do out there. On the six other days of the week, do you make the Golden Rule your mantra? Do you make prayer and reading your Bible a habit? Do you seek out opportunities to give and to serve? Are you careful and honest in your self-examination and confession of sin? All of these are the marks of a mature Christian faith. All of these make your faith attractive to others.

I trust, by now, that you see my main point. When it comes to flagging attendance and a general disapproval of the church by the culture at large, we Christians need to accept more of the responsibility. The narrative is not just of a culture moving on in an increasingly secular direction and grown hostile to the gospel. It is also that we have failed to be convincing. As you have often heard me lament from this pulpit, the reason more people don’t want to come to church is that they have been disappointed by too many Christians. And so I say that there can be no effective witness for Jesus, in these difficult times, without Christians taking very seriously their responsibility to live radically altered lives following the example of Christ – deeply committed to love, deeply serious about service, deeply compassionate, deeply hopeful.

Whatever that looks like for you, I’m going to leave for you to answer for yourself, but I do challenge you to consider this: If you were hauled into court, and you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? The Hasidim tell the story of a disciple who said to his teacher, “Teacher, I have gone completely through the Torah. What must I do now?” And the teacher said, “Oh, my friend, the question is not, Have you gone through the Torah? The question is, Has the Torah gone through you?” I would like to think that I could plead guilty.

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Proper 28

The Rev. David Nelson

How do we put our trust in God? This is the question in today’s scripture, and this is question we continue to ask today.

Today’s gospel gives us a clue. There was an enormous complex in Jerusalem known as the Second Temple. It was an ancient marvel, perhaps somewhat like a person 2,000 years ago seeing NRG stadium. Many believed that the Temple was the dwelling place of God. The Temple symbolized God’s strength and protection. Psalm 18 declares, “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust.” The disciples of Jesus are impressed with the Temple. But could they put their trust in this building?

Jesus was not impressed. This was surprising since Jesus was a devout Jew. This might be somewhat like an Episcopal Bishop today being unimpressed with the amazing National Cathedral. The suggestion that this grand Temple would become a pile of rubble must have been confusing.

Jesus was rarely impressed with the large displays of power. He preferred the little things: the mustard seed, the cup of water to the thirsty, or two small coins offered by a poor widow. The disciples were trusting in the power of the Temple, but Jesus knew better. He bluntly told them that it will be destroyed. This would indeed happen about 40 years later when the Romans crushed a Jewish revolt and destroyed the Temple. The destruction of the Temple put Judaism in a crisis. Where do we put our trust if the dwelling place of God was destroyed? Where is God our rock, when the rocks of the Temple have crumbled to the ground?

While there were many different responses in Judaism, I want to highlight two. First, the religious leaders known as the Pharisees, pointed toward to the Torah. The Torah contains the first five books of the Old Testament, and also refers to a way of life. It is important for Christians to understand that following Torah is about a relationship with God. The Pharisees trusted in the Torah, as did many others.

The followers of Jesus were Jewish. They followed the same Torah and trusted in God. This leads to a second path forward, captured in a famous passage from John’s gospel.

Here’s the context. The disciples of Jesus were afraid of going through hostile territory. Jesus assures them that they can trust him. He says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, there is no other way to the Father except through me.” While many debates have ensued about religion based on these words, Jesus was not talking about religion at all. What 99% of people who quote this passage don’t realize is that Jesus is actually referencing Old Testament Scripture.

Let me explain. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

He didn’t just make up those three concepts. He was referencing the Scriptures, specifically the Psalms. The Psalms refer to God’s way frequently. Psalm 119 alone uses the word “way” 17 times. The Law or the Torah was called the Way. Jesus is telling these Jewish believers to follow his way, which like the Torah, is trustworthy.      

Next, Jesus said, “I am the truth...” Once again, Psalm 119 declares, “Your law is truth.” Again, the law or Torah is the way and the truth. The disciples knew they could trust Scripture. Now Jesus was saying that he is the living reality of truth.

Finally, “I am the life.” Once again, this has a scripture background. Psalm 119 includes this verse, “I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law.” The psalms often poetically wax about how God’s law leading to life.

The psalms are clear. The Torah is the way, the truth, and the life. The disciples already believed these Psalms which proclaim the Torah as the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus wants more. Now they must put their trust into something greater—or more accurately—someone greater, Jesus. Jesus will guide them in the way, Jesus will give them the truth, and Jesus will show them life abundantly. They can trust in Jesus, and so can we.  

Where do we put our trust? We live in times where it’s hard to answer that question. Our modern world is confusing and difficult to navigate. Many can feel anxious and afraid of what will come next in our 24/7 news cycle where most of the news is bad news, while good news feels in short supply. I have never met a person who followed the news constantly and then concluded, “I trust it’s all going work out.” Jesus doesn’t promise the disciples that the world is safe. Jesus faced corrupt politicians in the Herod family and Pilate. He knew the Temple would be destroyed, and that he would pay the ultimate price for living as the way, the truth, and the life.

We will face struggles in every time and place. Jesus taught the disciples not to put their trust in temporary power, like Temples, or even earthly success. Let us put our trust into something deeper, more specifically someone deeper. Jesus brings us to the way, the truth, and the life. May we put our trust in Jesus, who can lead us in the right way, provide us with truth, and guide us more deeply into abundant life.  Amen.  

Sunday, November 10, 2024

Pentecost – Proper 27

1 Kings 17: 8-16; Psalm 146; Hebrews 9: 24-28; Mark 12: 38-44

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

So, I have bad news and I have good news.  Which do you want to hear first?  The bad news is that in this sermon I am going to talk about the election.  The good news is that I am also going to talk about stewardship!

Here is what I want to say about last week’s election, and I am going to be brief.  There are people in our congregation who are celebrating that Trump was elected president.  There are also people in our congregation who are really hurting because Trump was elected president.  And we are one community. 

And as one community, we care for each other, we love each other, we hold each other accountable, just as we hold our elected officials accountable.  In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul writes these words in chapter 12, verse 15: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.” As I said in my article in last week’s email (which I know everyone here reads) compassion is the only way all of us move forward to a brighter future for ourselves and for our children, and we do that together.

Moving on from the election to everyone’s favorite topic – stewardship. Here again I will be brief.  Today we wrap up our six-week stewardship campaign through the act of blessing our pledges at the altar before the Eucharist.  As of this Friday, 108 pledges totaling $767,000 have been returned.  Nine of those pledges are from people who decreased their pledge from last year, twenty of those are pledges that remained the same as last year, nine of those are new pledges, and seventy are increased pledges.  Awesome!  We’re seventy-nine percent toward our pledge goal of $950,000.

If you haven’t yet returned your pledge to St. Andrew’s, you have a pledge card conveniently placed into your service order.  Fill that card out today, place it in the envelope, and drop it into the collection plate when it passes you by later on in the service.  Your pledge to St. Andrew’s is vital.  Every year our operating budget starts at zero, and it is only through the generosity of your pledge that our ministry here is possible.  St. Andrew’s is not subsidized by the Diocese of Texas.  We count on your pledge to sustain all the ministry of this parish.

Ok.  Now here is my sermon.  Today we have a reading from the Gospel of Mark in which we hear about the widow who gave two small copper coins and placed them into the charity box at the Temple.  An important, but sometimes overlooked, point of this story is that this woman was uniquely vulnerable as a widow.  In a heavily patriarchal society, to be a widow meant that you were essentially powerless. 

Jesus notices the widow and contrasts this poor, widowed, vulnerable woman with the scribes who walk around in long robes, (like I’m wearing), and who have the best seat in the temple, (like I do).  Jesus is very clear to put forward the widow as the example we all should follow, meaning that the path toward God is through vulnerability, sacrifice, and surrender – rather than self-aggrandizement. 

Here is my last point, and this is what I really hope you take away from this sermon.  Jesus identifies with the widow, not the scribes.  Why?  I think it is because the widow had something the scribes completely seemed to lack – faith.  Faith that even if she gave up two copper coins, God would provide for her, God would take care of her.  Think about that for a moment.

As God cared for the widow (I believe) so God will care for you.  But in order for God to care for you, it seems that you (and I) first need to have the hope, the faith, and the trust to allow God to do so.

With all the material possessions that you have, are you able to place your life into God’s hands the way a poor widow did two thousand years ago?   If not, then perhaps it’s time to remove your long robe, come down from your seat at the banquet, and learn – maybe for the first time – how trustworthy God is with your life.  AMEN.

Sunday, November 3, 2024

All Saints (Year B)

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9; Psalm 24; Revelation 21:1-6a; John 11:32-44

The Rev. Clint Brown

My family was a camping family and, in a way, camping trips always look the same. Whether you’re sitting around the campfire chatting long after dark, biking or canoeing, fishing or swimming, playing badminton or horseshoes with the cousins, making s’mores, going for a hike, or just listening to the wind blow through the trees, the idea is to be out among nature with all its healthful benefits and enjoy a simpler time with people you care about. But I have to say, it was always the chance for independence afforded by this setting – the chance to go off by myself alone to walk and explore – that I most cherished.

And so it was for one of my rambles that I was first handed a compass and taught how to use it. The needle, I was told, always points north. Set a course in any direction and hold the needle fixed and you will find your way. Well, this was like offering Christopher Columbus three ships to sail the Atlantic or your teenager the keys to your car on a Friday night. A whole host of possibilities opened before me, not least of which the prospect of no longer having to stay on the trail. Excitedly and eager to try for myself this newfound power, I went off a little bolder than before. At an attractive place that looked suitable for exploration, I intrepidly turned off the road and left it behind…and it was exhilarating. But I must have gone a lot farther than I thought because, when I turned around to retrace my steps, I didn’t find the road where I expected it, and, for the first time in my life, I knew what lostness felt like. A terrible feeling crept into my stomach, and I broke into a sweat. I took out the compass. Now came the test. I had headed more or less due east, so the road must surely be somewhere up ahead if I kept going west. So I pressed on. Was I right? Did I really know where I was? Did I really know what I was doing? Was I ever going to find the road? Well, to my very great relief, I did find the road eventually and turned toward camp. And, to be honest, this was the most important part of the whole experience, because it was my time to reflect on what had happened. I had to admit that I had been really scared and not at all sure of myself…and yet the compass had worked. It did always point north. Everything that I had been told about it was true, and it had proven to be completely trustworthy. It didn’t matter one bit how worked up I had gotten, sticking to the course had guided me straight and true. And that, my friends, is the moral of this story. My little misadventure is a lot like life for a follower of Jesus. We do not lack moments when we are doubtful and unsure, even sick to our stomach for worry or lack of certainty, but, for us, the needle always points to one thing. Jesus? Yes. But, more to the point, resurrection. It is the truth that resurrection lies beyond our every misstep and ill judgement and every injustice visited upon us, that is the greater truth.

There is, in our lectionary readings for All Saints today, the unmistakable emphasis on resurrection. It’s as if to say, If we’re going to stick with Jesus, what can we expect? And the Bible is clear. Our destiny is resurrection. You’ve heard of “peace of mind”? Well, the Christian possesses the ultimate peace of mind. Jesus has conquered death. The powers of hell have been vanquished. All that is ugly and unjust and wrong in this present age has been defeated – a fait accompli. The reckoning may not come today, it may not come tomorrow, but we know the score in the end. This world will be judged, and that is a good thing because it will be judged righteously by the only one worthy to judge.

The final question of the Catechism reads: “What, then, is our assurance as Christians? Answer: Our assurance as Christians is that nothing, not even death, shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Whatever your current darkness may be – whatever wood you find yourself lost in – there is a compass I’d like to give you. Its needle is always pointing one way – to resurrection. And to see the possibility of resurrection in everything is what it means to live the life of a saint. Amen.

Sunday, Ocotber 6, 2024

Proper 22

Genesis 2: 18-24; Psalm 8; Hebrews 1: 1-4, 2: 5-12; Mark 10: 2 - 16

The Rev. James M. L. Grace

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

            There are going to be two parts to this sermon today.  The first part is on stewardship, and the second will be a brief comment on the Gospel.  So, stewardship.  Every fall, for a six-week period, St. Andrew’s raises funds for next year’s operating budget.  At our Vestry meeting last month, the Vestry heard from the treasurer and Finance Chair that this year’s fundraising goal is $950,000.  That is a seventeen percent increase over last year’s goal, which was $815,000.  Because of your generosity last year, we surpassed that goal.  I believe we will surpass our goal again this year.

            The stewardship materials which I know you all are excited to pick up today in the Oak Table Room explain, in detail, why our ask this year marks a substantial increase from last year.  And I am going to share those reasons with you, so that you also hear it directly from me.  First, two points.  1) In light of war in Israel and Ukraine, and hurricane damage on our eastern coast, asking for your financial support may appear, well tone deaf.  One hundred percent of today’s loose plate collection will go to Episcopal Relief & Development for hurricane relief.  2) Our family has already submitted our pledge, and we increased it seventeen percent.  Some of you all will be able to do the same, some less, some more.  The point is – I am not asking you all to do something I have not already done myself.  Here are the three main reasons for the increase: 

1)      Over a year and a half ago, a car on 19th street accidentally jumped the curb and drove through the wrought iron fence which surrounds a playground used by church and school children.  While school children were on the playground when the car broke through the fence,  no one was injured.  The damaged section of fence was rebuilt.  However, another car could just as easily go through it again.  That is why we have that orange water wall barrier around the fence currently, but that was never intended to be a permanent solution.  We have a design for a vehicle resistant protective fence barrier that will go around the playground on 19th street.  The church and the school will split the cost for it, and our treasurer and Finance Chair determined that the church should fund our portion of the new fence out of our operating budget this year, rather than include the expense with the other capital campaign work.  Doing so frees up dollars for other capital improvements on our property.

            2)  In 2023, we embarked upon a strategic planning process which called for innovative programs and ministries.  Last year was too early to budget for them, but as we move into 2025, we are attaching tangible costs to items this plan calls for, such as our already established Saturday Night service, Movie on the Lawn, the Celtic Festival, etc. 

            3) – We need to protect the investments we are making at St. Andrews funded by the Capital Campaign.  This includes higher insurance premiums to cover items such as our new organ.  We have maintenance plans on our new HVAC units which will extend the life of these assets, but that maintenance has a cost associated with it.  We are expecting to see increases in utility costs and insurance premiums next year.  Our Diocesan assessment – that is the money this parish pays the Diocese of Texas every year to support Diocesan ministry will increase ten percent next year to almost $57,000.   To state what is already obvious, nothing is getting cheaper.    

            That is all I want to say about stewardship, for now.  I recognize that most of what I said offered little in spiritual value, and likely came across as boring to many.  The difficult place of a Rector in a parish is that they must operate in two mindsets, simultaneously.  One of those mindsets is that the church is a business.  The other mindset, paradoxically, is that the church is not a business.  And both are true. 

            A paradox, which I define as simply two statements that seemingly contradict each other and are yet both true, really defines the life Jesus lived.  He was a provincial outsider, and was respected and despised by religious leaders at the same time.  It never seemed to bother him.  In the Gospel today, Jesus pulled outsiders around him – this time – children, and said that to be part of God’s creation, we have to set aside our analytical minds, our rational selves, and receive it with a beginner’s mind, a child’s mind.

            Last week I was on a retreat with other Episcopal clergy, and we canoed and portaged a fifty-mile loop of lakes and trails in Southern Canada.  We had ample time to converse about our parishes, our work, and the Bible.  At some point we were discussing the story of the Exodus, in which the Bible says Moses famously parted the Red Sea, enabling the Hebrews to safely pass through.  My clergy friends shared their interpretations on the story, and used science and archaeology to explain the Exodus event.  Then they asked me what I believed about it.  I told them that I believed Moses parted the Red Sea.  “Oh come on Jimmy, you don’t really believe that do you?”  “Yeah, I do.”  I have spent so many years not believing it, because I was basically trained not to believe it in seminary, but through reading the Bible again and again, I believe God set aside my need for certainty or logical explanation.  It does not matter to me if Moses really parted the Red Sea or not, because I know it is true, whether or not it actually happened. 

            We are stepping out in faith, with a really high, ambitious fundraising goal.   For many of you all, the sticker shock of a $950,000 pledge campaign seems a lot like an impassible sea we have no way of getting around.  Friends, we are not raising this money.  God is.  God is doing all of it, and I can say with great certainty, this stewardship campaign is going to go either of two ways: it is either going to go God’s way, or it is going to go God’s way.  Either way, we win. What may seem impossible or insurmountable

 to us today, looks quite different from God’s perspective.  God finds a way through, every time.  AMEN.  

Sunday, September 29, 2024

Proper 21 (Year B)

Numbers 11:4-6,10-16,24-29; Psalm 19:7-14; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50

The Rev. Clint Brown

In 2003, the author Mark Kurlansky published a book called Salt: A World History.[1] Although I have yet to read it (in fact, it’s been sitting in my Amazon cart for quite a long time), for obvious reasons it came to mind as I was preparing for today’s sermon. Its publisher’s blurb describes its subject like this:

The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions.

Salt features, too, in numerous phrases in English which you’ll no doubt recognize.

·         “Salt of the earth” we know well, as it originates from Christ himself. These days it is understood to describe someone who is very honest, kind-hearted, and reliable. It is the very preciousness of these qualities that suggests the link to salt as an ancient commodity.

·         “To rub salt into a wound” means to make a person suffer more from something that is already bothering them. Its origin is ancient Rome, when it was thought a good practice to open any wounds on the body and clean them with salt. You can imagine how that felt!

·         To be “worth one’s salt” is to deserve your job, position, or financial income. This is because you work hard at it and are good at it on your own merits rather than owing it to relationships or special treatment. This expression again points to Rome. “Sal” in Latin means “salt,” and “salarium,” meaning “salt money,” is where our word “salary” comes from. Roman soldiers were paid a “salary,” you see, a sum of salt money, so that they could buy this precious mineral and stay physically healthy on their long treks across the empire. At times, they were even paid directly in salt. So a soldier not worth his salt was one who, literally, had his salary reduced.

·         To take something “with a grain of salt” we say when we know not to take it seriously or believe it completely, perhaps because we know (or can sense) that it may not be trustworthy or accurate or adequately reasoned.

·         An “old salt” is an aging, experienced sailor who, from his leathery skin, squinty eyes, deeply etched face, and no-nonsense handling of a boat, you know just from looking that he needs no instructions and commands your full confidence.

·         To say that someone is “salty” is to describe their anger or annoyance about something, e.g., “The clerk was very salty about me paying with a check instead of cash.” I had a friend in seminary who would advertise his saltiness on a daily basis by posting images on his door. They covered a range of saltiness from congenial, salt-free tap water to reduced sodium soy sauce to regular soy sauce to, at the very top of the scale, a picture of the Dead Sea. It was his way of saying, If any living thing dares to swim in these waters, it will surely die!

·         A “covenant of salt” you’ve perhaps never heard of before. This is an agreement or arrangement that lasts a long time. Its basis is the use of salt as a preservative. “There is a covenant of salt between the two companies that they will not compete with each other in some markets.”

·         Finally, to say that you are being sent “back to the salt mines” means that you are returning to work and that you are not too happy about it. In ancient times, the salt mines were places of dangerous, often deadly hard labor and so this work was reserved for those of the lowest ranks, such as convicts, slaves, and prisoners. The salt mines were not where you wanted to be.

These are but a sampling[2] of some of the unique ways in which salt has impressed itself into our culture, even into our language. What salt lends as an image are the key ideas of valuableness, the quality of being a preservative, and the notion of pungency, or the fact that salt, once added to a dish, gives itself unmistakably away.

If I were to take all these ideas and try to find an application for us, I think that what Jesus is getting at when he talks about salt is that the Christian life is meant to be good for something, not good for nothing. Salt must have an effect whenever it is used. That is its nature. In the same way that salt seasons a dish so that it is qualitatively different, we are to make an impact on our environment. If salt preserves, we ought to promote justice and peace. If salt is precious, so are the Christian virtues. In short, I think that God’s vision for our lives is that we be part of the solution, not the problem. We are meant to be out in the world as a force for good, flavoring it with our good works, improving it with our industry and our virtue, preserving it with our peace. “Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets!” (Numbers 11:29), cried the prophet Moses. That charge is upon each of us.

Think of the many contexts in which you move – your family, your work, your school, your clubs and organizations (your church!), your gym, your friend groups, your walking through the grocery store, your driving down the street. How can you season any or all of these contexts and make them better than you found them? Your enemy, you will find, is not your belief that this is a worthy pursuit, but your forgetfulness, your apathy. It will be to move through the world as we are so prone to do absorbed in yourself and miss the opportunities all around you to be the salt of the earth.

You ask how important this is? Well, Jesus suggested that it would be better to cut off a part of your body rather than see it cause someone to stumble. You are responsible for both your action and your inaction. So let’s be salty! Not the annoyed and always put out kind of salty, but the pleasant and helpful kind. Remember, we are meant to be part of the solution, not the problem. There are things that we can do. We are meant to flavor the dish. So go be salty.

[1] Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History (Penguin: New York, 2003).

[2] For more about the ones I’ve mentioned and to read about others, see the website https://eslvault.com/salt-idioms/.

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Proper 19  

Isaiah 50:4-9a, 22-28; Psalm 116: 1-8; James 3:1-12; Mark 8: 27-38

The Rev. James M.L. Grace 

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  AMEN

            If you all glanced at the Weekly Voice, which is St. Andrew’s weekly email full of parish news that comes out each Wednesday (shameless plug – you can sign up to receive it by scanning the QR code on the announcement page) you may have seen my article.  In that article I described an experience I had in seminary attending an interfaith service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2002.  If you have ever been to the National Cathedral, you know it is a large structure, and on the day of that service, there was no empty seat. It was standing room only. 

            From my seat, I watched the procession of dignitaries and clergy from all a variety of faith traditions including Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc.  These interfaith leaders all took their places near the altar within the National Cathedral.  The preacher for the service that day was The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu, who was the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town in South Africa.

            His sermon was, as you might imagine, perfect, impassioned, righteous. Bishop Tutu spoke of the prophet Isaiah, who wrote that one day, Yahweh, the God of Israel, would end all human conflict.  Writing in verse 4 of chapter 2 in Isaiah, the prophet says that Yahweh, the God of Israel will beat swords into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks, and that nation shall no lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”   It was a powerful, beautiful sermon preached by a man who had lived through conflict, who had confronted apartheid.  I do not know how else to describe his sermon but say his words had weight. 

            I left the service at the National Cathedral profoundly changed.  I had hope.  As you might expect this “pink cloud” or “honeymoon” experience of unity and optimism about peaceful existence amongst people of all nationalities and faith went away pretty quickly.  Back at my seminary, I heard classmates say awful things about the religion of Islam.  These were people studying to become priests, and when I heard what they said, I could not manage it. 

            One evening I went out to dinner, and went to use the restroom.  I passed by one of the stalls, and stopped immediately when I saw graffiti written above the toilet.  Written above the toilet was one word: “Muslims” with an arrow pointing toward the toilet bowl.  I have no idea who wrote that, but I wondered – was the guy who wrote this call himself Christian?   

            Today we hear from the author of the letter, James, who cautions us about the power our words have.  Venerable legend attributes authorship of this letter to James, the brother of Jesus.  In excerpt we have today, James writes that “the tongue is a fire, it stains the whole body, it sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.”  While he wrote these words over two thousand years ago, he might as well have been writing about the debate we had earlier this week between two candidates for the presidency of this country.

            It is easy to harbor prejudice against someone or a group of people – so long as we generalize – or even better – marginalize them.  Then we can really be certain of our prejudices.  All Muslims are violent terrorists.  All Christians are gun toting, pro-life advocates who support capital punishment.  All supporters of former President Trump are idiots.  Vice-President Harris is a Marxist. 

            All of these prejudices work – and thrive – as along as we never meet an educated and devout Muslim.  As long as we never encounter a Christian who is pro-choice, and marches against capital punishment and gun rights.  As long as we never encounter a Trump supporter who is well-read, kind, loving, and devoutly Episcopalian.  As long as we ignore claims from leadership within the communist party of America that finds nothing Marxist or Communist in Vice President Harris’ agenda.  Let me be clear: prejudice never survives experience.   

            Author Stephen Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People gives us a straightforward way to hedge against prejudice of all kinds and to harness our tongue.  He says – do not say anything about a person who is not in your presence that you would not feel comfortable saying directly to their face.  Let me say that one more time:  do not say anything about a person who is not in your presence that you would not feel comfortable saying directly to their face.    If we do that, our chances increase that we will speak with integrity and love, rather than judgment or hate.  We will beat the sword of gossip and lies into a plowshare of honesty and love.  We transform the spear of hate into a pruning hook of peace.  This, my friends, is how we change the world.  AMEN.  

Sunday, September 8, 2024

Proper 18

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

I am a nerd.  That is probably obvious to everyone here. One of the more recent nerdy-things I did was watch every Star Wars film, animated series, and live action series in chronological order.  According to the internet that constitutes roughly 160 hours of viewing time – about 6 and a half days.  Like I said, I am a nerd!

The entire Star Wars series ends (at least currently) with the film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.  This film begins, as most Star Wars films do, with the yellow text three paragraph prologue to the film, which crawls from the front of the screen and fades to the back.  The Rise of Skywalker’s prologue is rather odd as it begins with this line: “The dead speak!  The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of revenge in the sinister voice of the late Emperor Palpatine.”  For nerdy Star Wars fans like me, this line was weird, since there was no mention of the Emperor or his potential return in the previous film, Episode VIII.  It seemed forced, rushed, and at best, a lazy narrative addition for a film series not sure which direction it was heading.  Disney executives received some rather harsh criticism over this abrupt change in plot for the film, and hurriedly threw together what was in their minds a logical explanation, which was this: if you played the open world shooter game Fortnite, at the end of one of the levels you would hear a message from the Emperor who basically said, “I’m back, baby!”  Logical, right?  Relying on a video game to reveal a major plot development point in a billion-dollar entertainment franchise. 

I am about to do kind of the same thing with this sermon.

This sermon actually begins with the article I wrote in last week’s Weekly Voice.  An honest show of hands – how many people did not read my article in last week’s Weekly Voice?   How many people have no idea what the Weekly Voice is?  So in that article, I wrote about the book of Ezekiel, which is a book in the Hebrew Bible in which the prophet has the unfortunate role of sharing some unbelievably shocking news, namely that destruction is heading towards Jerusalem and it is unavoidable. Not great news, right?  Ezekiel was right - destruction came under the name of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, whose army destroyed Jerusalem and its holy temple in the year 587 BCE. 

The destruction of Jerusalem, by the way, is a major plot point of the Bible.  It is revisited time and time again in multiple books of history and in prophets.  It is not relegated to some cryptic message you get after winning a video game.  It is at the very heart of the Bible.  Areas surrounding Jerusalem celebrated the city’s destruction, because Jerusalem had become even more corrupt than its neighbors.  One of those neighbors was the city-state Tyre to the north, on the Mediterranean coast.  Tyre rejoiced and delighted in Jerusalem’s destruction, because inhabitants of Tyre viewed Jerusalem as a commercial competitor.   In their mind, Jerusalem’s destruction would only enrich Tyre and its surroundings. 

After laying waste to Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar moves his army north to – guess where – Tyre.  For the next thirteen years, Nebuchadnezzar’s army laid siege to Tyre.  Even after thirteen years, the Babylonians are unable to take it.  Tyre, unlike Jerusalem, was able to resist the instrument of God’s punishment – Nebuchadnezzar.  It is for this reason (and likely others) that places like Tyre were despised by Jewish people in Jerusalem – including, much later, Jesus. 

In the reading form Mark’s Gospel, Jesus visits this same city – Tyre – the city Nebuchadnezzar failed to capture.  And once in Tyre, Jesus is approached by a woman whose daughter is sick.  The Bible says her daughter had an unclean spirit within her.  In your sophisticated twenty-first mind, you might laugh, rebuff, or feel embarrassed by the mention of an unclean spirit.  If you are put off by the language, consider a substitute.  Instead of “unclean spirit” think depression, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, agoraphobia.  Whatever it was this woman’s daughter had, she was desperate to help her daughter. 

If you have ever lived through one of your children struggling, you understand this woman’s tenacity.  Jesus knows this woman is an outsider.  She is not Jewish.  She lives in the wrong place – Tyre.  He is not meant to help her, he believes.  And he says as much, telling her that he has come only to help people just like him – people who were Jewish, not backwoods gentiles like her.  In distressing form, Jesus calls the woman a dog.  And her response to him could not have been any more brilliant.  She says “yes, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  If this was ever a “mic drop” moment in the Bible – this one qualifies. 

I believe that woman ministered to Jesus – she helped him wake up and discover that he was called to help all people – not just Jews like him, but even people from places like Tyre.  Tyre – that city the prophet Ezekiel dedicates not one, not two, but three full chapters to God’s pronouncement of judgment upon.  The city God seems to have written off, the city from which no good can possibly come, is the very place Jesus awakens to his full mission.  Like Jesus in Tyre, we all are not fully awake to reality around us.  The places in your life – like Tyre – where you least expect to find transcendence – are exactly where you need to be going.  AMEN.

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Proper 17 (Year B) - Baptisms

The Rev. Clint Brown

Early in the second century, the Roman governor of Bithynia, known to history as Pliny the Younger, wrote to the Emperor Trajan about some of his administrative problems. He had the usual troubles: workers’ strikes, scandals, disaffection, and the irritating and persistent specter of religious unrest. The temples, he reported, were becoming more and more deserted, many services had been discontinued, and the trade in the buying and selling of animals for sacrifice for the health and well-being of the emperor had dropped off. It was all the fault, he said, of some troublemakers his informants called Christians. They were secretive, which meant they were clearly up to no good, and which also meant they were almost certainly disloyal to the emperor. So Pliny had a number of these Christians rounded up and brought before him for examination. But, as it turned out, there was really very little evidence to pin on them for any criminal activities. They were zealots and cranks, perhaps, a bit obstinate and inflexible, but, on the whole, more of a nuisance than a threat.

During the course of his examination, Pliny found out something of the practices of these early Christians, what they did when they came together. They were accustomed, he learned, to meet on a fixed day of the week very early in the morning to sing hymns to Christ “as to a god,” and to bind themselves by a solemn oath, not to some nefarious crime or seditious subterfuge, but simply to keep the moral law. At the end of their gatherings, they partook of a common meal and then went home. Naturally, all this left the governor rather more confused than how he started, but, for us, we recognize something quite familiar, what appears to be a proto-version of what we now call a Communion service, and, as I speak, there are millions of Christians just like us engaged in just such a service right now. 1 And so it has been for centuries without fail – Sunday after Sunday, year after year – in catacombs and houses, great cathedrals and village churches, during war and peace, famine or abundance, persecution or comity; wherever two or three have been able to gather, we have never stopped coming together to remember.

“[Take] care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children” (Deuteronomy 4:9). Thus says the prophet Moses. History is an important value in our tradition. Our faith does not rest on a set of principles like some other religions or secular institutions, but on a relationship – with a person – a person of historical fact – what he did, who he was, why it matters. Our job then is to continuously make present that past, continuously holding up before us the reality that God became flesh and dwelt among us, in time, as a part of history. That we insist on reading the Bible connects us to that past. That our bishops are ordained in the apostolic succession connects us to that past. Our recital of creeds and ancient songs connects us to that past. Indeed, the forms of the prayers and even some of the very words we speak today in this service are traceable to the very earliest documents that record such things. Yes, we Christians are very interested in remembering and maintaining continuity with our past, and so it is that, today, we carry forward that work by baptizing two new members into the Body of Christ.

1 All of the above is a paraphrase of C. H. Dodd, The Founder of Christianity (London: Collins, 1971), 3-4.

In a scene from the Gospel of John, we see, in a condensed way, how it has been for us from the very beginning.

…among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus (John 12:20-22).

Our story is the story of one person who tells another person who tells another. For every Christian there has been some Philip, some Andrew, who has made the introduction; someone who has stood as an intermediary between the claim that Christ has on our life, on every life, and our finally coming to see and know him as Lord for ourselves. For a lot of us that looked like today. Our parents were Christians who decided that the Christian way would be our way. For others of us we have taken a more circuitous path, coming to Christ on our own volition and deciding that this is what we want to be. But all of us have had our Philip or our Andrew, and all of us are a Philip or Andrew for someone else. People are watching. They are deciding whether to be a follower of Christ based on you. How would you rate yourself? Is it a little bit obvious that you are a Christian? A lot obvious? Or is this perhaps the first time you have evenconsidered the question?

So there are actually two things happening today. The first, of course, is that there are baptisms. We are making new Christians today. But the second is that we are being reminded that the purpose and promise of our baptisms is never done – never ended. We all have things to do. We are remembering. We are transmitting. We are looking back. We are moving ahead. The Church represents a continuity – and the Church goes on.

Sunday, August 25, 2024

Proper 16 Year B - Episcopal School Sunday

John 6:67-68

Jamie Martin-Currie, Head of School

Today’s Gospel got me thinking about how people make decisions. Various sources suggest that the average adult makes 30 thousand daily decisions, including what we will eat, what we will wear, what we will say, and how we’ll say it. Most of these happen automatically and simultaneously.

People go through various processes to make life decisions. Some people filter big decisions through their values. Some people make life decisions using processes influenced mainly by emotions, biases, reason, and memories. I appreciate the collaborative way Episcopal entities make decisions, even though consensus-seeking is almost always excruciatingly slow.

In John’s Gospel, when the people in the temple choose to turn away from Jesus after he tells them he is the bread of life, it doesn't seem they used any process or procedures. They did not gather any facts or think about the consequences but simply decided on the spur of the moment. Nope, I don't get that Bread of Life metaphor. I am out of here.

But, when the twelve disciples were asked if they would also leave Jesus, Peter said, “Who else would we follow? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." The disciples had answered the call to follow Jesus, and they were not about to turn back now. It seems they had actually considered the long-term outcome of that decision.

Every new school year, children and their parents face many decisions. Which after-school activities do we enroll our children in—piano, soccer, or ballet? Which softball league do we join? What if your children’s school friends play soccer on Sunday mornings, and they want to join them. 

The difficult decision in this scenario is weighing the benefits of church vs. sports. I wonder if parents systematically decide the outcome of these decisions or bother to filter them through their values.

Is it easy to bring your children to church on Sunday? No. Following God can be kind of difficult. Many people have already given up on it. Some parents will start with excellent intentions to stick with being a family who attends church on Sundays. Then, as the school year continues, they may fizzle out. A parent here recently told me their teenager was too busy for Sunday PM youth group. Are your teenagers choosing TikTok and YouTube over Youth Group? If so, how do you think they made that decision?

My parents chose golf over the church when we moved from Meyerland to Sugar Land, which naturally affected my adolescent choices and the friends I made at a new school. Only two other kids were in my confirmation class at the tiny Episcopal church near our new home. I missed our church's Sunday night youth group, but Mom and Dad were too tired after 18 holes of golf to drive me into town. I kept wondering about my St. Mark’s, Bellaire youth group friends. They were different from the new friends I made in Sugar Creek, but I didn’t know their phone numbers or how to contact them. Who would even take me to see them? And if anyone ever reached out from St. Mark’s, I would have never known.

My father’s dream was to live on the golf course, and I got that. But I didn't understand why Mom and I didn't go to church anymore. When I asked my mom, she answered, “Jamie, I’m really more spiritual than religious.” I  thought, seriously? Organized religion is in your DNA! Your parents were married at Christ Church Cathedral, the cross on top of Palmer is in honor of your father’s years on the vestry, you and dad eloped at St. Marks’, Bay City, and you were my Sunday School teacher growing up until we moved here. 

You can guess what happened next: I left the church. Until my late 20s, when I felt I was missing something, I finally wandered into a significant urban Episcopal Evensong service, opened the prayer book, smelled the brown-edged vintage pages, heard the choir sing, and wept.

Soon, I began working there. I have served the Episcopal denomination ever since. All of my BFFs work for the Episcopal Church, where I found my Christian friends.

Hopefully, you have found your Christian friends right here. These relationships can be like no other.

What I love about this parish is that it’s intimate enough that the children and youth have many spiritual aunts and uncles in these pews who know their names. My prayer is that you keep in touch with these young people as they venture out into the world so that they are never far from this Episcopal foundation St. Andrew’s staff has provided. Amen

Sunday, August 18, 2024

Proper 18 (Year B)

Proverbs 9:1-6; Psalm 34:9-14; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58

The Rev. Clint Brown

When I was a boy, I had the good fortune to know and spend time with a small covey of great aunts still living, and I know that when you hear their names, you will know that they were of a certain place and era. There was Aunt Geraldine and Aunt Evelyn and Aunt Clementene and Aunt Martha, and, if they had been still living, I could tell you about Aunt Callie and Aunt Odos, Aunt Gladys, and my own great-grandmother Alma Agnes – six sisters and two sisters-in-law, eight in all. Now of those I knew, Aunt Geraldine was the type to say whatever came to her mind – and to do so constantly – perhaps you know the type? – while Aunt Evelyn was her complete opposite, so quiet and unassuming that you were as likely as not to forget that she was even there. Aunt Clementene was one of the largest personalities I’ve ever known, while Aunt Martha, though I was assured she had mellowed considerably through the years, was still slightly terrifying to me as an adolescent boy. What brought us all together during my summer breaks was ceramics at my grandmother’s house. It was something that the sisters all enjoyed doing together, and I was sure, even then, that I was a witness to something special. In the morning, we sat around folding tables under the carport cleaning greenware or glazing bisque or modeling rose petals out of clay in our hands, and then lunchtime would arrive – which was usually no fancier than tuna fish salad, chips, and sweet, sweet iced tea (Southern style) – and whatever conversation had been going on outside was now carried over into the dining room. I heard stories about growing up during the Great Depression and all the changes that they had seen in their lives. They told stories about each other, of course, and shared their memories about this or that event from their past. Curiously, now that I think about it, I don’t remember politics ever once coming up, which suggests a strong contrast with today, when we seem to think that that’s the only way we can define ourselves, and which further suggests to me that there are, in fact, many more important things we might talk about – or worry about – when given an opportunity. Around that table, I heard about less distracted times when hardships, endured together, taught you to depend on one another, and it was from this table talk that I first came to appreciate the wisdom that the fewer needs you have the less you have to feel stressed about. And now, long past the time when they have gone, the great aunts live on in me whenever it happens that I am to take the measure of a person’s character, because what counts for decency and honesty and courage for me is how well that person stacks up against the great aunts and their kind of beautiful living that I got to know sitting with them around a table.

In the Book of Proverbs, it says that we are invited to Wisdom’s Feast. “Wisdom…has set her table. She has sent out her female servants; she calls from the highest places in the town, ‘You who are simple, turn in here!’ To those without sense she says, ‘Come, eat of my bread… and walk in the way of insight’” (Proverbs 9:1-6). The benefits of Wisdom’s feast I think anyone can appreciate, but it seems all too clear to me that most of us, most of the time, are too distracted to even show up. But what happens if you’re not at the table? I can’t help but think about my great aunts and what wisdom I would have missed had I not been there. What connections to my past would have been lost to me? The challenges I would have failed to overcome lacking their example. This is the price of skipping Wisdom’s feast and not showing up at the table.

There are lots of opportunities in your life to be at tables. There’s the dinner table where you and your family can try to sit down more often for meals together; the table of some family member you haven’t seen in a while; there is the lunch table at work where you can get to know your colleagues better; there’s the cafeteria table at school; there’s the council table at City Hall; the committee table where you might contribute your unique perspective; the diplomacy table where words replace swords in the resolution of disputes; the voting table where you choose who will administer your will as one of the sovereign “people;” there’s the table over which you extend your hand to serve a plate of hot food to a needy person; and, most important of all, there is the Lord’s Table here at church. All these are tables where significant and life-changing meetings can take place; all these are places where wisdom can be found. But the thing about tables is that they only matter if you sit at them. What happens if you’re not at the table? And the answer is nothing; or, rather, something but something that lacks you and whatever unique contribution only you could have made.

If you ask me, “What is Wisdom and Wisdom’s feast?” I will answer that it is connection: connection to each other, and, most significantly, connection to God. When you are not at Jesus’s Table, you miss the reminder about who you are. Here at the altar, we are reminded of our values. It is a reminder to our over-worked, over-scheduled, over-the-top-living selves that what we’re actually called to as followers of Christ is a life of sacrifice. “…and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51b). The sacrifice of Christ’s body on the cross is the heart of Christ’s wisdom, and it translates into our participation in it, too. Because that’s what the bread on this altar represents. That is Wisdom’s feast. Sacrifice is the dish meted out to us at this Table. I’m certain that you give careful attention – as you should – to how to pay your bills, satisfy your boss, meet deadlines, and carve out whatever time’s left over for recreation, but how much thought, over the course of a week, do you spare to think of all these things in terms of sacrifice? “Sacrifice” is the lens through which we are to see our lives and it is what transforms our efforts from meaningless self-serving into a self-offering. Self-offering is the wisdom and the feast to which you’ve been invited today whether you realized it or not. It is the feast on display every Sunday here at this altar. So let us, therefore, keep the feast. Amen.

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Pentecost – Proper 14

1 Kings 19: 4-8; Psalm 34: 1-8; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6: 35, 41-51

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

When I was a teenager, one day I hiked up Camelback Mountain in Phoenix, Arizona with my father.  It was sometime during the summer, it was the middle part of the day, and the sun’s heat bore down on us.  We did not adequately prepare for the hike, meaning we did not carry nearly enough water, and by the end of the hike, I had a mild heatstroke from the heat and the dehydration.  Since then I have been hypervigilant about carrying enough water, never wanting to repeat what I experienced at Camelback Mountain.

However, I also have an incredibly short memory, and last week I went for a hike in the Rocky Mountain National Park, and – you guessed it – I did not bring enough water.  It wasn’t a terribly long hike, but it was long enough for me to run out of water and for an hour or two my mouth was very dry, and the heated dust kicking up from the trail irritated my throat.  Obviously, this was a first world problem – I was thirsty only for a few hours.  Once we got back to the cabin, I drank a lot of water, and I was fine.

Regardless, the experience left me thinking about water and thirst.  More specifically I wondered how many people in the world contend with water scarcity as part of their daily lives.  So I did some research, and found an article which referenced a recent report from the United Nation on global water insecurity.  According to the United Nations report, approximately two billion people around the world do not have access to clean or safe drinking water[1].  That means that about one out of every four people on our planet deals with water scarcity on a daily basis.   

We are going to do something about that today.  We are going to donate all of our loose plate cash and coin collection along with designated checks to The Water Project.  The Water Project is a non-profit organization that provides clean, safe, and reliable water across many projects, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa.  The Water Project has a four-star rating on Charity Navigator, which is the highest rating that web site gives to non-profits for how they use funds they receive to go directly toward their mission.

Today St. Andrew’s will help make clean water a reality for people we most likely will never meet.  That is a miracle.

As a church, St. Andrew’s not only is wanting to treat physical thirst, but also to do something about the spiritual thirst - or dehydration – from which all of us suffer.  Next week on Sunday mornings we will begin a series of classes for adults, youth, and children that cover a variety of subjects at the 9:30 hour.  At our 10:30 service next week we will begin children’s chapel which will follow the children’s sermon.   We have Bible studies for men and women starting this Wednesday which offer opportunities to explore the Bible in community.  We are doing this because we are all thirsty people.  We all thirst for what is real, we thirst for truth. 

Next month St. Andrew’s will begin a service on Saturday evenings at 5:30 PM, for people thirsting for God, but who don’t necessarily find God very easily on Sunday mornings.  You can read more about these, and many more offerings at St. Andrew’s in this year’s Fall Ministry Brochure.  Please pick up a copy, read it, and see where you can find water to nourish your spiritual thirst.

A final, and brief, word on today’s scriptures from 1 Kings and the Gospel of John.  In the reading from 1 Kings we encounter the Hebrew prophet Elijah who has fled from the evil king Ahab and his wife Queen Jezebel.  Elijah is hungry, tired, and thirsty.  He says is ready to die.  What does God do?  God door-dashes food and water to him!  God provides the food and water Elijah desperately needed. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says that whoever believes in Him will never thirst.  Jesus is our spiritual water source.  It is always available to us, but we have to be willing to drink. 

 And to close out this sermon, when we can finally admit to God how honestly hungry and thirsty we are, God will feed us and offer us the water of life.  And that - that is where our spiritual journey truly begins.  Don’t forget the water project.  Be generous.  AMEN. 

[1] U.N. report finds 1 in 4 people don't have access to clean drinking water : NPR

Sunday, August 4, 2024

Proper 13 (Year B)

Exodus 16:2-4,9-15; Psalm 78:23-29; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35

The Rev. Clint Brown

“The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-12). Not too long ago, the church celebrated the feast day of St. James the Apostle (July 25), and I thought we might take this scripture at its word and look at the life of St. James and what we might learn from his example. Saint James the Apostle is the James of the famous trio, “Peter, James, and John,” that we hear mentioned so often in the Gospel stories. He was a personal witness to the Transfiguration, the raising of Jairus’ daughter, and of Jesus’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion. James and his brother John were fishermen, the sons of a man named Zebedee, and they were among the very first to join Jesus’s band of followers. They were also, apparently, rather impulsive and hot-headed, for Jesus gave them a nickname, “Boanerges,” which means “sons of thunder.” Evidence of their impetuosity is provided by Mark who mentions their extraordinary request to sit at the positions of honor on either side of Jesus when he came into his glory (Mark 10:35-40). In response, Jesus tells the brothers that they will indeed drink the cup that he is to drink and be baptized with the baptism with which he will be baptized, meaning, of course, that they, like him, are to be killed for their convictions. This came true for James in the year 44 when he became the first of the Twelve to suffer martyrdom. In that year, King Herod Agrippa, to make a show of strength for the Romans and to please the Jewish leaders, rounded up several members of the church and had them all executed. James was stabbed to death with a sword (Acts 12:1-2).

But that is not the end of the story of St. James, for his afterlife is at least as compelling as his earthly life. According to an old tradition, after his execution his body was taken from Jerusalem to a city in Spain called Compostela, and, in time, the shrine holding his bones became one of the three great pilgrimage sites of the Middle Ages. There were stories of miracles happening there and not just ordinary people, but kings, princes, and popes made the journey to Compostela to pay their respects to the saint and to make their petitions. The pilgrim routes leading to Compostela extended all across Europe in every direction, even as far as Russia and Scandinavia, and, yes, even today you can follow in their footsteps. Many people find themselves drawn to the idea of pilgrimage still and follow those same ancient footpaths to see St. James for themselves and to find spiritual meaning in the effort.

This idea of pilgrimage is a reminder that life itself is a road, and the most important thing about a road is its end, where it goes. If the road of life has no real end or goal, it is meaningless – it is a circle or a swamp or a wilderness, not a road – but, as Christians, we do not accept this bleak outlook. We do not believe in a meaningless existence or the idea of an accidental universe in which we are just complicated bunches of atoms that have come from nothing and return to nothing. For us, this is not the most convincing explanation of reality. We believe there is something more. We believe that life is a road, and a road has a destination.

A road got you to church this morning. It had to start with an intention – you had to decide you wanted to come – and then you had to take a step out of your front door to bring that intention to life. From where you started at your front door to here, you can, as it were, trace a line. There have been many such lines in your life. Some journeys have been clearly mapped out for you, such as the transition from school to working life or youthful dependent to tax-paying adult, but we all know that the road of life is rarely that straightforward or clearly marked. Life has been made interesting – and unnerving – not by its predictability but by its surprises and twists and turns. But what has unified it all, in all its apparent disorder, is intention. You have intended to live the best life possible. You have intended to live out of certain values and convictions and to make real certain hopes and dreams. There has been an aim. One must always have a destination in mind, even if, for the moment, it’s to stumble around before a clear one emerges. As William James wrote: “It is the ending that is fixed; the path may be modified indefinitely.”

I’ll leave you with one other image and that is of a lighthouse. No matter how dark or stormy or how far the wind might blow you off course, the light of the lighthouse remains fixed. You can keep turning the prow of your ship toward it and keep moving in its direction and soon you will find yourself coming into the harbor. No matter how zig zag the course or the number of course corrections it may take, as long as you are fixed on that one point of light, you will eventually find yourself coming to a safe harbor. Jesus is the lighthouse. Jesus is the harbor. If life is a road, make sure Jesus Christ is its destination. Amen.

Sunday, July 28, 2024

Proper 12

2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145:10-19; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21

 The Rev. Jeff Bohanski

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my

heart be acceptable in your sight,

O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.  Psalm 19:14

I like to pray these last of Psalm 19 when I speak at this pulpit because the Dietrich Bonhoeffer family prayed them regularly.  I’ve read that the family prayed Psalm 19 on New Year’s Eve when the clock finished chiming twelve.  They also prayed Psalm 19 as part of their family’s birthday celebration ritual.  The Bonhoeffer family made the words of Psalm 19 their words in prayer. I use these words and strive to do the same. The Bible teaches us to pray.  The Book of Common Prayer is mostly scripture.

I must admit, this week I struggled with the words in these readings this week.  I didn’t feel much like eating bread.  I didn’t want anyone to be in my boat but me.  I was having my own pity party.

After the power came back (Which was a week after hurricane Beryl), we noticed we had two water issues.  So, this week we’ve been dealing with contractors, plans of action, and our insurance company.  We’ve spent countless hours waiting for workers to show up in their awful time windows, you know, “We’ll be there between 12:00 and 4:00, but we’ll call when we are on the way.”  Poor me.

Then there was the rain.  I bet you are as tired of the rain as I am.  I heard yesterday that Houston has had over 11 inches of rain just this month! This weekend we went to a downtown hotel so we could enjoy a nice swimming pool in order to celebrate Victor’s birthday.  Of course, it rained!  We only had a couple of hours in the pool as it rained then stopped and started again.  It was cool day — a mere 80 degrees. It was not the hot sunny July day we had hoped for. Poor, poor me.

This week I’ve had a difficult time being in the house because it looks and feels like a warehouse. The guest room mattress is propped up against our dresser. We have to move the mattress to get clothes from the dresser.  We’ve had an endless parade of workers parading through the house pounding and removing Sheetrock. We have a gaping hole of about 5 feet by six feet in our guest room ceiling. Don’t get me started about the noise a drying fan makes. I couldn’t walk outside because it was always raining! I know these are first world minor problems, but poor, poor, poor me.

So, I struggled to write this sermon.  Struggling is not necessarily a bad thing.  We struggle in all our relationships.  Why shouldn’t my relationship with God and Scripture be any different? I think struggle can be a sign of honest life.

Anyway, yesterday I revisited the podcast, Working Preacher’s Sermon Brainwave for some last minute inspiration. In this week’s podcast one of commentators mentioned that in John’s telling of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes story a boy is mentioned. She suggested a person preaching on today’s readings might spend time thinking about the boy.  She wondered out loud who the boy was.  She asked what he felt or thought of when he remembered the day as an adult. This special day when he gave his lunch of fish and bread to Jesus and Jesus fed the great crowd with it. 

This morning I’d like to add my two cents about the boy. My first thought was about my father.  He would say that he had an aunt that would say children should be seen and not heard.  He remembered how he had to be extra quiet when this aunt was visiting. 

I know Jesus didn’t and doesn’t feel the same was as my father’s aunt did concerning children. I know Jesus believes children should be seen and heard. Children are full members of our community. I believe Jesus most likely looked at the boy with great love and kindness.  I bet when the boy met Jesus’ gaze and felt his love, he offered his small lunch of bread and fish freely and with great joy. I’m sure the boy was quite proud he could help Jesus. And I’m also sure Jesus hugged the boy and said, “Well done good and faithful servant.”

The Miriam-Webster dictionary gives the definition of of righteousness as: acting in accord with divine or moral law; free from guilt or sin. I believe the boy was righteous. He fully experienced Jesus’ full and complete love and showed it by giving his bread and fish freely with love.  Look what Jesus did when a boy gave out of love for Jesus.

I wonder if the lesson of the boy in my ponderings is that we are called by Jesus to bring ourselves and our stuff to Jesus.  The boy brought himself, gave his gift and Jesus fed the great crowd.  We can bring ourselves and our fears, our sorrows, and our stress to Jesus. He will love us for who we are and change our fear to courage, our sorrows into comfort and our stress into peace. We can bring him our struggles, our frustrations, fears, anger, and anxieties and he will love us for just who we are and be with us.  Our feelings, our stuff will become bearable. 

I like to think Jesus’ invitation to the boy is our invitation. My friends, I invite you to individually and collectively to bring you, yourself and your issues to Jesus and his love will make you whole. His love will give you/us strength.  I invite us all to walk in Christ’s love.  Amen

Sunday, July 21, 2024

Proper 11 B

Ephesians 2:11-22

The Rev. Canon Joann Saylors

In the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Shalom.

Aloha. For any of you who have been to Hawaii and heard it in place of hello or goodbye, you probably know that it actually means peace, love, respect as a way of life.

Shalom is Hebrew for aloha. Well, sort of. It also is translated as peace and can be used as a greeting or a way to say goodbye.

But shalom has a deeper meaning than peace, certainly more than the absence of conflict. The root of the word shalom is shalem, which means “wholeness” or “completeness.” Complete happiness, total harmony with self, God, nature and others. Wholeness in relationships with parents, children, grandchildren, job, neighbors. Both shalom and shalem were important words for Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who taught people to walk in the paths of peace.

Shalom was also an important word for the Apostle Paul, who began his letters with a consistent phrase: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father.” He also put statements about peace in the conclusions of his letters, each slightly different. Here are a few:

·       Romans: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”[i] 

·       2 Thessalonians: “Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways.”[ii]

·       2 Corinthians: “Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.”[iii]  

·       Colossians: “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.”[iv]  

And, of course, the letter to the Ephesians, which includes the text we heard this morning. It was written in response to the conflicts of the day. Because the early Christians were fighting with each other about all sorts of things.  There were the fights about circumcision and about whether it was ok to eat foods sacrificed to idols. Fights about leadership, whether they should follow the eloquence of Apollos or the intelligence of Paul. They were fighting about speaking in tongues, whether there could be religious ecstasies or whether they should follow rigid dogma. They were fighting about how to live together. In other words, the early Christians were fighting about what it meant to follow Jesus, and Paul responds with shalom. “Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”[v] “For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us, abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace.”[vi]  

Through the cross, Jesus is offering salvation through faith in him, not rigid adherence to religious traditions and dogma. He unites those who believe in him, thus making what had been divided peoples, be they Jew and Greek, slave and free, or rich and poor – one community. “He came and proclaimed peace to [those] who were far off and peace to those who were near.”[vii]

 The will of God is that we are to enjoy lives of wholeness, internally and with others.  God calls us to peace within our families, between our neighbors, at work and school, in government, with our enemies. Everywhere. In every place in our lives, we need and want peace. And God wants it for us. 

What is God’s shalom?  It is an attitude of the heart.  Peace is God’s Spirit living inside of us, within us.  When God lives inside of us, we are drawn to peace. We desire harmony.  Not that we can’t or won’t disagree, but that we speak our truths in love and respect for all of God’s creatures. Aloha.

Shalom is shalem, and shalem is totality.  

God’s peace can permeate all the realities of our lives. 

So we can come to terms with our mortality. 

We can make peace with our fallibility, even while we fight the diseases that attack us.

We can reach a place of shalom with our bodies growing older, our bodies falling apart. 

We can respond to God’s call to make peace with our relationships, our divorces, our ex-spouses, our children, our parents, the situations in life that we don’t like. 

Shalem. Shalom. God’s peace affects the totality of life.

God’s peace is not merely a theological construct or a mental ideal; shalom is for living our real lives. 

We don’t find God’s peace by running away from the problems in our lives. 

We won’t reach wholeness by just heading off on a vacation to Tahiti, where the only decision you need to make is what time you get out of bed in the morning and what time you get back in.  

Nor does shalom mean retreating what one writer calls an “emotional Disneyland,

where everybody sweeps up the mess behind you and the mess in front of you.” That is not God’s peace.  

Peace, as I’ve said, is not the absence of conflict.

God’s peace is not running away from real difference by joining a church where everybody has the same ideas that you have and therefore everything is fine.

It isn’t avoiding people with minor and major differences of opinion by choosing to be only with your friends who think and act just the way you do.

God’s peace doesn’t let us escape from the chaos and the conflict all around us and inside of us.

Instead, shalom is what lets us be in the chaotic situation called life and still find God’s peace within us and between us.

Shalom.  Peace. Shalem.  Totality.  

God’s peace includes kindness, empathy, hope, and connection. It requires us to offer all of ourselves to God and for the world.

To live peace and to make peace.

Now I don’t have easy answers for how to be a peacemaker, only the understanding that we are each called to be one.

But I do believe in some essential things we can bring to our relationships that at least offer the possibility of moving in a peaceful direction.

First, we need curiosity, a genuine interest in people’s lives and stories. A willingness to say, “I want to hear more about that,” and mean it.

To ask questions about why people think what they think and believe what they do out of genuine interest rather than judgment.

And then to actively listen, a skill that most of us need to learn and practice.

Peacemaking also requires time together to build trust and connection.

It requires vulnerability.

Not showing off all your insecurities and personal weirdnesses as soon as you meet someone,

but understanding that everyone’s life is different and none of us have it all figured out, so we need to learn from each other.

Choosing not to stay superficial or walk away.

Recognizing that there are essential things we all share:

our needs for a safe place to live, enough to eat, dignity, autonomy, and love, and a desire for a better world.

And seeking to find those commonalities in one another.

And finally, perhaps most importantly, making peace requires a recognition of our own brokenness.

We have to begin there, with the understanding that we are finite and God is not,

that we cannot fix everything, even in ourselves, and that we need help. We need a savior. Jesus.

That recognition is a place of humility, and it is the place God enters to heal us.

If we don’t want to ask for or accept help, even when we need it,

we end up building walls instead of breaking them down.

The world doesn’t need more walls. The world needs peace. The world needs wholeness.

The world needs us to go out there and build that. Shalom.

[i] Romans 15:13 (NRSV)

[ii] 2 Thessalonians 3:16 (NRSV)

[iii] 2 Corinthians 3:11 (NRSV)

[iv] Colossians 3:15 (NRSV)

[v] Ephesians 4:32 (NRSV)

[vi] Ephesians 2:14-15 (NRSV)

[vii] Ephesians 2:17 (NRSV)

Sunday, July 14, 2024

Proper 10

Amos 7:7-17; Psalm 85:8-13; Ephesians 1:14-29; Mark 6 14-29

The Rev. Jeff Bohanski

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my

heart be acceptable in your sight,

O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.  Psalm 19:14

Victor and I lost power about 9:30. The lights had been flickering since 4:00 AM.  We were up in the study watching the wind and the rain when we heard a really weird metallic boom and then the power went out.  This time there was a dead quiet in the house that hadn’t been there before.  The house felt dead.  All we could do was sit. Sit, watch, wait and pray as the hurricane passed over us. 

That was a week ago.  Since then, we’ve been staying with a friend who has power.  We are thankful to have a great view of our powerless house from her living room.  We’ve been fortunate that we sustained no major damage that we know of yet.  I guess we’ll find out more information about that when the power comes back. We are very thankful.    

Friday, when we were at home cleaning, the water pressure died.  The pressure did not go down to a slow trickle, but it just died.  One moment we had water and the next moment we had no water.  We couldn’t believe we were now standing in the midst of a powerless and a waterless house.  It was awful. We felt like crying. We slunk back to our neighbor’s home dejected.

As I tell my story and as I listen to other people’s stories, I notice our story is also a part of a much larger story.  Our story is part Beryl’s story.  How we tracked it across the southern Caribbean Ocean and up to Houston. How it passed Houston, became a tropical storm and went up into the Midwest as a strong line of thunderstorms.  It finally it went off the continental shelf into the Atlantic as a strong low pressure system.

My loss of power story is also part of a larger story. A story of how a power company is regulated and how the state manages the power grid.  My story is also part of the larger story of how dependent we have become on our technology and how vulnerable we are when the power goes out. Your story is not just your story.  Your story is also part of a bigger story.  Your story is our story. 

Paul’s opening chapter of Ephesians is a telling of how Jesus is part of a larger epic of creation.  Jesus is not merely God made human, but he is and was part of creation.  Paul tells us he was there at the beginning.  That God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ. We, as humanity, are children of God.  All of us.  Together.

So, it is not just one’s own personal relationship with Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Father that is important. It’s also our communal relationship with the God that is important.  Notice how we will use the “we” form of the Nicene Creed. We are in life together; we practice faith together. We are also part of the greater story, the universal catholic Church. 

We read the prophets.  Amos. He was the older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah. He was active, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, around 800-701 BCE.  He accurately foretold the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel.  In the passage we read today, God showed Amos a plumb line. 

I am by no means a builder. But I do know something about plumb lines.

In another lifetime, I was in Mexico City.  During my time there I visited the Metropolitan Cathedral. Upon entering we learned the building was under construction.  After many centuries the building had gone off level. It was in danger of falling over.  Hanging from the main central dome we saw a very long, very thick plumb line.  At the end of the line was a huge weight.  On the floor there was a dot.  The dot indicated the center of the cathedral.  We were told when the weight came back to be right on top of the dot, the cathedral would be level. That day the weight was about six feet from the dot.  The cathedral was very off level.   

Amos informed Israel that she was very off level, like the cathedral. She was in danger of falling. In fact, she would fall if she did not fix her foundations squarely on God’s foundation, not on a foundation of their own making as she was doing.  This is Amos’ story, and I believe their story is our story.  I think we are called to pay heed to Amos’ words and embrace Paul’s words.  I think we are called to build our foundation on God’s foundation. A foundation of love and Grace. To embrace our adoption as God’s children through Jesus Christ. I think we do this individually and communally. 

This week I have experienced fear.  My fear was calmed through prayer. My individual prayer and communal prayer via technology and with people around me.  This week I’ve experienced frustration and upset.  I have found peace when I have confessed my feelings to Jesus, God who became human, and who walked through the grave.  I have also found relief by acknowledging my feelings to myself and with those around me.

I believe the Christian Walk is a walk we walk alone; we walk with God, and we walk with our community.  I believe our individual story is also part of our collective story.   I believe we are called to build our lives on a sure foundation of God.  We do this individually and we do this together.

So, separately and together, let us walk faith and life together as adopted siblings of God almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sunday, July 7, 2024

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 9, Year B)

Ezekiel 2:1-5; Psalm 123; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13

The Rev. Clint Brown

What had happened was that the world had been turned upside down. For four hundred years, the people of Israel, huddled together on their little inheritance of land between the mighty empires of the north and that of Egypt to the south, had precariously maintained an independent nation-state. Under David and Solomon, it had reached its greatest extent and had traded, conquered, forged alliances, and seen great building projects and cultural efflorescence. But it was not to last for long. At the death of Solomon, it split into a northern and southern section – two kingdoms, Israel and Judah – each going its own way in dealing with the growing tensions within, but, especially, without. The larger states that surrounded them had recovered and would not continue to leave them unharassed and free to control their own destinies. The end came for the northern kingdom in the year 720 BCE when the Assyrians overran it and made it a vassal. The southern kingdom withstood the onslaught and struggled on, but only for another century and a quarter. When its end came, at the hands of the Babylonians, it came in two waves. The Babylonians first attempted a relatively benign form of control, carrying away only the priestly elite and the nobles into exile, but when that failed to quell rebellion, they let the axe fall. In the year 586 BCE, ten years after the first deportation, the Babylonians returned with their siegeworks, leveled the city of Jerusalem, and deported – this time in their thousands – most of the remaining population. Poor King Zedekiah they blinded, but not before slaughtering his sons before his very eyes. The Davidic line was thus extinguished. Yahweh’s temple was destroyed. The people were uprooted and displaced from the Promised Land. The world had been turned upside down.

Although, as it turned out, the actual captivity and displacement would last for only about 50 years, its impact far exceeded its relatively brief span. For one thing, it initiated the worldwide Jewish Diaspora that has continued, in one form or another, to the present. Out of this diaspora emerged the synagogue system, which can be thought of as a kind of “portable temple,” setting Judaism on its trajectory to becoming the primarily Scripture-based religion with which we are most familiar. And the Bible is uniquely a product of the Exile. Most of the Old Testament came into its final form during this period and the Exile hangs like a pall over it. The Babylonian Exile represented such a psychological wound that the entire Old Testament can be read as a response to it, and, therefore, the shadow of the Exile hangs over the whole Bible. One might say that it is the Bible’s interpretive key.

One of the many directly impacted by the Exile and struggling to understand it was the prophet Ezekiel. He was a priest and had been carried off to Babylon during that first deportation ten years earlier. According to his book, he was relocated to a settlement along the river Chebar, a little south of the city of Babylon, and it was here that he had an incredible vision – both an explanation for what had happened and an expectation of what was to come – and what he and his great contemporary Jeremiah came to understand was that exile may seem to be something imposed from the outside by external forces, but what it really is, ultimately, is a condition of our own making. There is no finger of blame to point when we are in exile except toward ourselves, for we suffer only the consequences of our own actions or inactions. It is a theme running throughout Scripture – individual responsibility – but now it has gained a new prominence and explanatory force. “Hearts of stone” will be replaced by “hearts of flesh” is Ezekiel’s memorable image for the kind of individual transformation he envisions (Ezekiel 36:26-27). And so the most revolutionary of the ideas to come out of the Captivity in Babylon is that our lives are lived in a constant state of exile because of sin. Sin expels us from the Promised Land just as it expelled us from Paradise, and that is why exile is best understood as a condition of our own making. “Hear or refuse to hear” (v. 5), change or refuse to change; this is the choice, then as now, with which Ezekiel presents us today.

A few centuries after Ezekiel, another prophet arose in Israel preaching this selfsame message of responsibility, and one day, while visiting his hometown, he found his own neighbors and kin dismayingly unreceptive. In fact, he found that “he could do no deed of power there” (Mark 6:5). Why was that? Was Jesus incapable? Hardly. Or did he sleep wrong and wake up with his miracle meter not fully charged? Not likely. No, what seems to be happening in this story is that Jesus can do no deed of power, not from want of power, but because, from these people who should have known better, he has received no invitation. Presumably, the people of Nazareth felt that they didn’t need anything, that they were fully capable of helping themselves; and, since there was nothing wrong with them, they had no need of a miracle. I wonder, is that us? Are we grown so sure of ourselves, so self-righteous, so self-centered and self-sufficient that we have become blind to our own need for a savior? This, to my mind, qualifies as being in a state of exile.

But this exile does not have to be a permanent condition because, as we now know, exile is self-imposed, and therefore, self-corrected. God desires our return, like the prodigal. God also desires our invitation. Recall that Ezekiel’s vision ends with restoration. Yahweh does not abandon his people; he leads them in a new Exodus back to the Promised Land. But the way back from exile, for them and for us, must always be through repentance and the steady unmasking of our delusions and the toppling of our false gods. If we all will but seek to uncomplicate and simplify, making fewer demands of others and on our natural resources; if we will displace ourselves as the ruler of our lives and live more trustingly, discovering that we are all in this together, then we will find ourselves coming out of exile. It is just good common sense that the fewer obstacles we place between ourselves and God, the closer God will be and the closer we will be to our true selves. The great American novelist, poet, essayist, activist, and farmer Wendell Berry put it like this: “Take all you have and be poor.” The way out of our exile is simply this: to take all that we have and be poor.