January 12, 2020

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The Rev. Bradley Varnell

I want to focus on someone we rarely talk about in the Episcopal Church: the Holy Spirit. To be fair, it is not just an Episcopal problem. The Holy Spirit has long been thought of as the “forgotten third” of the Trinity. Christians love to talk about the Father and the Son, but we can sometimes get squeamish when mention of the Holy Spirit comes up. Our lessons today each give pride of place to the Spirit in the life of Jesus, whose baptism we remember today.

John was baptizing people for the forgiveness of sins. He was inviting people to repent and turn to God, and washing them in the Jordan river of their past sins and failures in order for them to live new lives. Baptism is for sinners and John, it seems, doesn’t think Jesus qualifies. Jesus should be baptizing John, not the other way around. But Jesus is not deterred, he insists. So, he’s baptized, and as we heard the skies open, God announces Jesus as his son, his beloved, with whom he is well pleased, and the Spirit alights on Jesus.

Our readings from Acts and Isaiah fill out the scene at the baptism. The prophet Isaiah speaks of the servant of God upon whom God has put his Spirit in order that he might bring forth justice. While Peter in Acts preaches to Cornelius and his household, telling them that Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power after the baptism of John. Both these lessons urge us to see what’s happening in Matthew as a decisive, important moment in the life of Christ.

Some have interpreted Jesus’ baptism as him just setting an example or as a kind of pre-figuring of the cross and resurrection.  All this may be true, but it fails to take seriously what’s going on. Jesus isn’t just setting an example, he’s not just providing a template for what a sacrament will later look like, and he’s not just foreshadowing the end of the story. No, Jesus begins his public ministry today, Jesus is revealed to be the Son of God by the voice of the Father, and Jesus is equipped by the Holy Spirit to live out his human life in the power of the Spirit. Today, Jesus receives the Spirit in his flesh, in his human nature, and this Spirit is what enables Jesus Christ to do all those things that make his reputation spread. The healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, the casting out of demons, Jesus does these things through the power of the Holy Spirit, which he received at baptism.

Jesus was fully God, and fully human. In the baptism of Jesus we see his humanity on full display. Jesus’ humanity, which is the humanity of God, is anointed by the Holy Spirit so that his humanity might be a conduit of the grace and power of God. The Word of God takes on human nature and the Spirit of God empowers that human nature for its mission. All of this is done for the purpose of the glory of God. At the baptism of Jesus we see Son, Spirit, and Father coming together, we peek into the heart of God: we see the Spirit resting on the Son in order to empower the Son to do the work of the Father. Just after the scene in our lesson today, we hear how the Spirit led Jesus up from the Jordan to the wilderness, where he is tempted. Baptism, anointing, and out into the wilderness to begin his ministry.

All this happens, keep in mind, at the baptism of John, at Jesus’ participation in this washing away of sin that many have shared in. Jesus himself didn’t need this baptism, Jesus, as the letter to the Hebrews tells us, is without sin. Nonetheless, he chose to share in something that would identify him with sinners, that would put him in solidarity with sinners. Jesus chose to stand in the place sinners stood, to share in their death to sin.  Jesus stood with sinners, so that we sinners might stand with him. Jesus enters John’s baptism for the forgiveness of sin and transforms it. It becomes the site of his commissioning, of his sending out, of his anointing, of his empowering for ministry. Baptism is no longer about washing away out past, it is about being anointed for our future.

In just a few minutes, we will reaffirm our baptismal vows, as is traditional on the feast of Jesus’ baptism. These vows are beautiful and quite powerful, but they can obscure the deeper reality, I think, of what happens in baptism. Yes promises are made by us, but more than that promises have been made by God! In baptism, God has promised to wash away our sins, to wash away our allegiance to ways of life that are sinful and fallen, and to equip up with his Spirit to live in a new way, as a new people. In baptism, we turn our back on a world of death, and we are given God’s Holy Spirit to keep our backs turned, to live into the promises we have made – or that have been made on our behalf.

Jesus’ own life bears witness to the kind of new reality that is available to us in the power of the Spirit. We too, in virtue of our baptism, have been given gifts that testify to God’s Kingdom. This is key: Jesus’ acts of power weren’t about offering proof that he was god, they were about bearing witness to the inbreaking of God’s reign. You and I have been given the Spirit of God in our baptism for the same purpose. We are called to be the conduits of the grace and power of God in our world, making known through the acts and movements of the Spirit that God’s kingdom is breaking in, that it’s coming to bear on our every day lives. Sometimes, this may mean that the dead are raised! Other times, it may mean that someone who was unforgivable is forgiven. Both are miraculous, and both are possible because of the Spirit.

Jesus’ baptism shows us that Jesus is fully human, that he, like us, was anointed by the Spirit for mission in the world. We have not been given the Spirit of God to sit at home and twiddle our thumbs! We’ve been given the Spirit of God to go boldly out into the world, responding to the evil and sin all around us and within us, with the good news that sin and death have been dethroned, that they are no more.  Our baptism, like Jesus’ baptism, has empowered us to perform might acts of power that make known in our world that God is moving, that God is creating, that God is declaring new things. Amen.

January 5, 2020

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The Second Sunday After Christmas

Jer 31:7-14

Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a

Matthew 2:1-12

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

Over the course of the next year we’ll be hearing a lot from the Gospel of Matthew, so we will be hearing quite a lot about the “The Kingdom of Heaven,” which is one of the key teachings of Jesus throughout this Gospel – it is used thirty-two times over the course of Matthew’s twenty-eight chapters. The Kingdom of Heaven is the core of Jesus’ teaching. Though it isn’t mentioned today, our Gospel lesson is important in helping us understanding what exactly is at steak when Jesus speaks about “The Kingdom of Heaven.”  

Wise men from the east, most likely Zoroastrian astrologers, follow a star all the way from what is now Iran and find themselves standing before King Herod the Great, informing him that they are seeking the newborn King of the Jews. King Herod is not happy. Scripture says that he was frightened – and with good reason. Herod the Great has ruled Judea for over thirty-years, inaugurating the Herodian dynasty and supplanting the Hasmoneon family as kings of Israel. However, he is not popular. He is close to the Roman occupiers of Israel, and his rule is dependent on them, they are the ones who named him King of Judea. During his rule he has allowed non-Jewish forms of entertainment in Israel and seems less than committed to the religious rights, rituals, and uniqueness of the Jewish people. Though he claims to be a member of God’s chosen race, the Pharisees and Sadducees are less sure of his membership. On top of all this, his taxation schemes have put an incredible burden on the poor of Judea as Herod sought to finance his lavish building campaigns.

At the time of Jesus’ birth, Herod’s reign was coming to an end and the future was uncertain. Challengers to the throne were not uncommon and Herod had more than one of his sons assassinated in order to preserve his power. The last thing Herod wants to hear are some foreign astrologers who come announcing the King of the Jews. So Herod is afraid.

Herod helps the wise men out, sends them on their way, but requests that they return to him after finding out where this King is. The wise men travel to Bethlehem and find the newborn messiah with his parents and Scripture says they are overwhelmed with joy – a stark contrast to the fear of Herod. The wise men worship the messiah and offer him gifts, before leaving for their home country “by another road,” having been told by an angel to not to report back to Herod.

The wise men are faced with a choice between two kingdoms: the Kingdom of Herod and the Kingdom of Heaven. What Kingdom will they support? What King will they be accountable to? See, both Herod’s kingdom and the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom which Jesus was born to announce and to establish make equal claims. Both demand loyalty, both demand obedience, both demand everything we have.

 Over the course of time the church has often fallen into a way of thinking that says what belongs to the kingdom of heaven, what Jesus is concerned with, what Scripture addresses is our souls, our spiritual lives, the private interplay between us and God. The other stuff, our bodies, our minds, our political and social lives these belong to the Kingdoms of the world: to our nation, our family, our political party, our ideology, etc. etc. This kind of dichotomous thinking is why so many good, faithful Christians could support American slavery for centuries. Scripture’s witness to freedom, to liberation was spiritualized – Scripture didn’t actually want people’s bodies to be freed, it just wanted people’s souls freed. So, Christians felt no pangs of conscience speaking on Sunday morning of how in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, and then going home to plantations where there were in fact, enslaved and free.

Because we convinced ourselves that Jesus’ kingdom was just about the spiritual, good Christians and good slave owners, good Christians and good colonizers, good Christians and good Nazis, good Christians and segregationists. You see the pattern. But our Gospel today shows us that Jesus’ kingdom is as real as Herod’s, that it demands as much from us as any other kingdom of the world. Christ asks that we give our souls, our bodies, our minds to the Kingdom of Heaven, that we seek to conform our entire lives – not just the spiritual parts, not just the Sunday morning parts – to Jesus Christ. We are to live in our bodies and in our souls as citizens of the Kingdom of God. We are to be strangers in a strange land everywhere else.

This doesn’t mean we withdraw from society and establish communes. But it does mean that we, like the wise men, must make decisions. It means discerning what course of action is most faithful to the king we serve. The wise men didn’t protest, they didn’t make a display of subverting or ignoring Herod, faithfulness to Christ doesn’t require a scene. They quietly went to their own country by another road. To be loyal to Christ means we must be prepared to go against the grain, that we be prepared to travel “by another road.”

It means that we live lives that don’t serve

… the kingdom of America

…or the Democratic party

…or the Republican party

…or the Episcopal Church

…or kingdom of your family

or your friends

or your bank account

It means living and serving the Kingdom of Heaven and its King.

Jesus comes bringing the Kingdom of Heaven into our world, Jesus comes challenging the kingdoms of the world, exposing them for what they are: kingdoms built on violence and death.  Jesus’ ministry from beginning to end shows us that the Herods and Caesars and Pontius Pilates of the world, the religious and political powers of the earth will secure their kingdoms through violence if need be. Herod is confronted with the arrival of the newborn King, and just a few verses after the end of our lesson we learn that in response he orders the slaughter of the innocence. All boys two-years and younger in and around Bethlehem are to be killed. Herod takes precautions to get rid of any potential threat to his Kingdom – even if it means others have to die in the process.

Violence is deeply embedded in the kingdoms of this world, whether we think the violence is licit or not. Just a few days ago with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani we were offered an example of the way violence is used to ensure our security, our safety, the continued existence of our kingdom. My point isn’t that the assassination was the will of God or wasn’t the will of God, but simply that that kind of violence is part and parcel of a fallen world. Often times violence – physical or otherwise - will appear and will be the most prudential option available to us. In a broken, sinful world that makes sense. It makes sense that violence or its threat are the fundamental tools for securing our kingdoms.

But Jesus comes bringing a different kingdom, a peaceable kingdom, a kingdom that does not need to use violence or coercion to stake its claim, that does not rise or fall on the political maneuvers of its rulers. Jesus comes and offers us a different way, he offers us a Kingdom secured only by God himself.  

In just a few minutes before we welcome Victoria into the household of God through baptism, you and I will reaffirm our baptismal vows. We will remind ourselves and each other that through baptism, we belong not to any king of this earth, but to the King of Kings. We will promise, with God’s help, to live our lives – our spiritual lives, our political lives, our personal lives – in light of Jesus Christ; to strive, by the grace of God, to be ambassadors of the Kingdom of Heaven to this world. Our job isn’t to create the Kingdom on heaven, we aren’t called to vote it into office, this Kingdom isn’t a code word for a “Republican majority” or a “democratic majority.” This Kingdom is totally and completely a work of God in our world.

Today is the last day of Christmas. And the message of Christmas is that Christ has come bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to a world filled with Herods. Like the wise men we have heard the good news of the birth of the King, and like the wise men we have to decide – will we serve this king? Amen.

December 15, 2019

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Advent 3

Isaiah 35:1-10

Canticle 15

James 5:7-10

Matthew 11:2-11

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

Advent is an altogether different season for the church. Unlike Easter, or Epiphany, or even Pentecost, Advent is a season that doesn’t focus on a past event in the life of Christ or the Christian community. Instead, it is a season that invites us to look forward. Traditionally, Advent has been a season of looking forward to and preparing for the four last things: heaven, hell, death, and judgement. In Advent, we focus on what is to come in our lives and the lives of the world. Today, I want to talk about my favorite Advent theme: judgement. At Christmas we recall Christ’s first coming in humility and vulnerability as savior, while in Advent we look forward to his second coming in power and glory as judge: the judge of the world, and the judge of you and me. 

Every week we, along with Christians from around the world affirm in the Nicene Creed that Jesus Christ will come “to judge the living and the dead.”  Judgement is one of the more unsettling articles of Christian faith. It sounds, well, judgmental, exclusionary, aggressive. Do we really want a God who judges?

Generally, we don’t mind judgement – especially if we’re judging others. What I’ve often found is that we don’t mind a God who judges the same people I judge. It’s when the idea of God’s judgement against me comes up that people get uncomfortable. I think it’s uncomfortable primarily because we see how judgement works in our world and we apply that to God. We see how one fault or indiscretion, one bad decision or flippant word can result in the harshest judgement. For many of us, the only kind of judgement we can imagine is aimed at retribution or punishment. And so when we speak of God’s judgement that’s what we have in mind.

Difficult as it may be, I think the judgement of God is one of the great hopes the Christian story offers the world. But it’s also a difficult thing to talk about and imagine. Can judgement really be good news to a world that is filled to the brim with judgement? Of course, the church over the years hasn’t helped – it has often peddled this kind of judging God. A God who sits on high gleefully hurling people into eternal damnation. But I don’t think that’s the nature of God’s judgement we find in Scripture.

Today’s New Testament reading, from the letter of St. James, is a helpful guide to thinking about the judgement of Christ. It’s a brief book – only five chapters long, and it can be easily read in one sitting, in about half an hour or so – and it is filled with talk about judgement. “See, the judge is standing at the doors,” our lesson reminds us. But St. James’ isn’t offering a generic reminder of the coming of God, he’s offering a word of hope. The passage immediately before our lesson today is important in helping us think through St. James’ words and what they might mean for us and our relationship to God’s judgement. St. James writes:

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your heart in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.

St. James then continues,

          Be patient therefore beloved, until the coming of the Lord…

  St. James writes his words to a community that has suffered oppression and injustice. A community of folks who have been wronged. He encourages them to patience…not because silence or passivity are to be lauded in the face of wrongdoing, but because Christ the judge is coming to right the wrongs committed against them. The judgement of Christ isn’t punitive or retributive, it’s rectifying and restoring. God’s judgement enables the people St. James address to be patient, to push through, to endure through their suffering, because at the coming of Christ they will ultimately, finally, and eternally be lifted up.

     The coming of the judge is Gospel, it’s good news because in the coming of God’s judgement the goodness and holiness of God encounters our sin and our brokenness, the world’s sin and brokenness, and overcomes them, transforms them. The good news of God’s judgement for the people of St. James’ letter is that at the coming of Christ the imbalance between rich and poor that is being experienced is overcome. The poor will no longer be victims of abuse because the justice of God means the poor will be lifted up, their wounds healed, their wrongs righted.

And the rich…what about the rich? They have “laid up treasure for the last days” and not the imperishable kind. God comes to judge sin and evil, to say “no” to those things that prevent us and our world from experiencing fully the love of God. As God says no to sin and evil, the poor, the victims of sin and evil are lifted up and those who have benefited from sin and evil, those whose lives are successful because others are being victimized – well, they will take a tumble. The judgement of God means, in the words of the Blessed Virgin, that the mighty are cast down from their thrones – but it’s because those thrones are built on the backs of others. The good news of God’s judgement for the rich is, I believe, that they will see the hurt they have caused. The rich are not cast down into hell, they are brought down, as it were, to stand face to face with the people they have harmed, and they will be invited to repent, to seek forgiveness. The grace of God rights wrong – but not without the participation of the wrong doers.

“But see, the judge is standing at the doors.”

God’s judgement is coming for you and for me, for our world and our communities. The judgement may be hard, but it will be good. In our Gospel today Jesus says that “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” These miracles are the result of the judgement of Christ. Jesus says no to all those things that oppressed the people, that kept them on the margins. Jesus said no, so that they might have life fully. Christ will come and say “no” to sin, evil, and brokenness in our world and in us. You and I will stand before Christ, and he will say “no” to all those things that keep us from experiencing the fullness of God’s life. The judgement of Christ will lift some up and cast others down – but whether we’re going up or going down, we will all be transformed, opened up to the life of God, invited to love one-another as God loves us.

The key to the judgement of God is remembering that God’s judgement is for us, not against us. Our God is a God who loves, who cares, and who acts. God’s judgement isn’t the retributive act of a small deity out to point out our flaws. God’s judgement is the act of God to restore, to heal, to make right what is wrong. Advent is a time to remember that one day the ways things are will give way to things were created to be. We wait for the day when, in the words of Isaiah, “everlasting joy shall be upon our heads, we shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” We wait for Jesus. We wait for the day of judgement.

Amen.

November 17, 2019

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Proper 29                                                                                                              

Isaiah 65:17-25

Canticle 9

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Luke 21:5-19

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

 

May only your word be preached, and may only your word be heard. Amen.

In our reading from Isaiah today the prophet reports the words of God to the people of Israel, newly returned from Babylonian exile. Israelites have come back to their homeland, but things are not like they were. Jerusalem and its temple have been destroyed. The people are back – but they have come back to a society in tatters, land devastated, cities and temples torn down.

God promised to bring Israel back to the land God had given them, but he is not finished. God has brought them back, but he has not brought them back to give them the glory of what was, he has brought them back to give them the hope of what will be. “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” says God, “the former things” the exile, the destruction of the temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, the suffering of the people “shall not be remembered or come to mind.” God promises a future where “no more shall the sound of weeping be heard” in Jerusalem, “or the cry of distress.” This future will be filled infants and the elderly who will live out full lives, “one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,” and “one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.”  The people “shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity.” God promises a future where all of creation – man and woman, adult and child, lion and wolf and lamb and ox will live fully and freely to be all that God has created them to be. The threat of life cut short – by death or exile or illness or suffering is done away with. In the midst of a shattered present, God speaks words of a future brimming with life.

I was thankful to have these words this week. As I sat down to write this sermon on Thursday, the first reports of the shooting in Santa Clarita, California were rolling in. It’s the fifth news-worthy mass shooting in the US since I came to St. Andrew’s just shy of four months ago. Hearing the story of another shooting brought home the reality that we, like the Israelites, live in a shattered world. We are living in a world that is sick, a world that is broken, a world that isn’t ok. A world where kids can get shot at school, a world where someone, a child, can be filled with so much hurt, so much anger, so much grief that he sees violence against others as his only option is not a world that’s alright.

God’s words come to us just as they come to the people of Israel. God promises us what he promised Israel: a world where the former things – the shootings, the bombings, the terrorist attacks, the natural disasters. Where the bullying, and the broken homes, and the abuse, and the suffering of life shall not be remembered or come to mind, a world where life will not be cut short, and where even the most natural of enemies – wolves and lambs – will come together. God promises us a world where “they shall not hurt or destroy.”

This world, a world where wolves and lambs lie down together, where weeping and distress are done away with, is the world that Jesus has brought into being. What was promised in Isaiah has come about in Jesus Christ. The crucifixion of Jesus is the testament to the nature of our world. When confronted by Jesus, by the love of God in human form, humanity decided to kill him. In the cross we see most fully and most completely how broken our world is. But the cross is not the end of the story: Christ is resurrected. In Christ’s resurrection the promise of a future beyond weeping and distress, beyond suffering is made concrete. Christ is our sure and certain evidence that God will not leave the world as it is. The Resurrected Lord is a testament that the shards of our world will be gathered up and knit together.

There is an obvious issue, though. There is still distress. There is still weeping. If I put a wolf in a pin with a lamb, good chances someone’s getting lamb chops for dinner. Christians live with a tension: on the one hand, we proclaim that in Christ the new world has dawned, that God’s future is made present. On the other hand, we also proclaim that this new world, that God’s future is not fully realized. Already and not yet. We might think of our predicament in theatrical terms. The first coming of Christ, his death and his resurrection is like the release of the first trailer for a long-awaited movie. It’s proof that the movie has been made and it builds anticipation of what will come, while not being the fullness of what is promised. The second coming of Christ, the full realization of God’s promised future in our world is the premiere. It’s the moment we’re all waiting for.

About that day and hour, as Scripture says, nobody knows.  We don’t know when Christ will return and when the future heaven and earth will be fully revealed. The premiere date is to be determined. So, we wait. But our waiting isn’t passive. We gather together each week, citizens of a world where death seems to reign, where weeping and distress are more common than we would like to admit or acknowledge, and we remember that this is not all there is. We remember that there is hope. That there is a promise. We remember what has happened in Jesus Christ. We remember that he has made us participants in his resurrection through baptism, we remember that Jesus shares his life with us every week through Holy Communion. We remember, and we tell the story, over and over again, of a God who loves our broken world and has set out to mend it, the story of a God who has become human, who has suffered as a human, who has died as a human, and who was raised to new life, a promise to all of us that God’s future will triumph even in the face of death.

Remembering and telling may not seem like a lot – but I think in a world filled with story after story of death and suffering, remembering and telling a story of life beyond death, life that overcomes death, life that cannot be contained by death is a radical, powerful act. Remembering and telling prevent us from succumbing to the narrative that this is just how it is and how it has to be. Remembering and telling kindles in us the ability to hope when hope is gone, when hoping seems stupid. Remembering and telling fires our spirits to imagine a world different, radically different, from the world as we know it now.

As we come to the table today, in the shadow of another tragedy, as we live with more proof that our world is not as it should be, come with hope: hope that God’s promises are sure, that God will not forsake us, that the God who has come once before will come once again, hope for the day when a new heaven and a new earth are made real, hope for a time when all we will know is the unsurpassable joy of the Kingdom of God. Come with hope, and then leave as messengers of hope for a shattered world, messengers that God has a future.

In the name of the One God who is Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

October 20, 2019

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Pentecost – Proper 24

Jeremiah 31: 27-34; Psalm 119: 97-104; 2 Timothy 3: 14 – 4:5; Luke 18: 1-8

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

 

Let us pray.  May only your word be preached, O God, may only your words be heard.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

            Other than the heat, the swarms of gnats and wasps, it was a lovely place.  I am describing a part of Big Bend National Park out in West Texas, where I spent part of last week on retreat with some other clergy friends of mine.  After a day of hiking in the West Texas desert, when it was time to set up camp, and enjoy a beautiful sunset, that’s when all those gnats and wasps arrived.

            The gnats were an annoyance, but the wasps were a bit scary, particularly because one of my colleagues was allergic to wasps.  So allergic, in fact, he brought an epi pen with him in case he was stung and went into anaphylactic shock.  He did not volunteer this important information until there were about four wasps on his arms and some swarming around his legs, so his timing wasn’t great.  And neither was his packing, as he said the epi pen which he brought just might have expired.  It was when he began explaining to me how to send an “SOS” message on his portable GPS that I started to have reservations about this trip.

            But, the sun set, and with its setting, the gnats and the wasps eventually found their way elsewhere.  The cool desert breeze returned, and the soft moon and gentle stars appeared in the deep blue sky.  We were fine.  Recalling that experience last week leads me to these words we hear in 2 Timothy this morning, where the author compels young Timothy, to be “persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable.”

            On my trip last week, I wore a bracelet, made of pipe cleaner and a few beads with letters on them which spell out the word “hope.”  I made it in Rhythms of Grace as one of our activities during that service, and I have worn it for several weeks as a reminder to carry hope with me no matter where I am.  No matter if the present moment is a favorable one, like right now, or an unfavorable one, like last week out in the desert with all those swarming insects. 

            The way I try to persevere in all situations, good and bad, is through prayer.  I keep a prayer list, and many of your names are on it, and I do my best to pray that daily.  But prayer is more than that – for me in my prayers, I somehow find a way to connect with God and that connection with God offers me hope, so that whether the time is favorable or unfavorable loses its importance, because what becomes most important to me, when I am praying faithfully and regularly, is being grounded with God, with having a real relationship with Christ.  That’s what matters, that’s what gives me hope, ultimately.

            The focus in 2 Timothy on persevering through favorable or unfavorable moments in life is also true for this church, at this moment.  It is not a secret that we are in our annual stewardship campaign, in which all of us are asked to prayerfully consider our financial commitment to St. Andrew’s for next year.  For many of us, an annual stewardship campaign might count as one of those “unfavorable” moments for which we are called to persevere through.  I am guilty of feeling that way, at times.

            I said from this pulpit two weeks ago that I would use the next few sermons to unpack a bit about our stewardship this year and explain why this campaign is asking more from all of us.  And so, I want to take a few minutes to talk about why this year’s pledge goal is significantly higher than in years past.  The reason is because of feedback I and other leaders in the church have received from many of you about an overall desire to see current ministries grow and new ones develop.  Ministries take people to lead them, and in a church of this size, it is more common for ministries to be staff led rather than volunteer led.  Don’t misunderstand me, there are plenty of volunteer ministries in the church, and there will always be.  That said, your Vestry has called for three additional staff positions for 2020 so that current, and new ministries can grow: they are, in this order, bringing our Director of Music and Organist to a full-time position, hiring a youth minister, and acquiring additional needed support in the office.  

            Over the coming weeks, I am going to talk about these in reverse order, beginning today with support in the office.  Admittedly, a conversation about needed office support staff does not make for a riveting sermon, I get that.  But you all also need to know that while we have a full-time parish administrator, there is much she is not able to do because the work demand has grown substantially in the last few years.  Our parish treasurer is a volunteer and is currently spending 6-10 hours a week pro bono on church work, but it is not enough time to complete all that needs to be done, because he has a full-time job.  We need additional, paid office support.  Because this person will be dealing with confidential and private information like social security numbers, compensation amounts, insurance and HR needs, it’s not appropriate to designate this position as a parish volunteer opportunity. 

            Now I am the first to admit that this position is not glamorous in the way that a full-time Director of Music and Organist or a youth minister might be, but the Vestry, your Finance Committee, and I believe this staff support is critical to establishing a strong foundation to support our current ministries as they grow and new ones as the emerge.   In following weeks, I will speak more about the full-time Director of Music and Youth Minister roles.

            Whether the moment is favorable or unfavorable – the need is great.  I believe tt is a favorable time to be at St. Andrew’s.  I believe it is favorable to Ponder Anew, What the Almighty Can Do.  AMEN.

October 6, 2019

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Pentecost – Proper 22

Lamentations 1: 1-6; Lamentations 3:19-26; 2 Timothy 1: 1-14; Luke 17: 5-10

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

Let us pray:

Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God! Deuteronomy 32: 1-3

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

That prayer was from the book of Deuteronomy, and is attributed to Moses.  Rarely do I offer scripture back-to-back in a sermon, but will do so now, it is a verse we heard earlier in the service from the book of 2 Timothy, in which Paul says: “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”

            Two weeks ago, many of us who live in the Heights neighborhood noticed a dark column of smoke emerging from the Woodland Heights area.  Fire engines raced to the scene to discover that a historic Heights church, St. Mark’s Methodist, was tragically on fire.  While the fire was contained to their education building, the smoke damage affected a much larger area inside their church building.

               Because of the fire, several groups that regularly meet at St. Mark’s started reaching out to other congregations to see if they could hold their meetings elsewhere.  One of those groups, a Wednesday evening Alcoholics Anonymous group called St. Andrew’s, and asked if we had space for them.  We did, and they started meeting here last week. 

               I went to the very beginning of their first meeting here last week to welcome them – a group of over fifty people gathered in our parish hall.  The meeting began with a moment of silent reflection followed by a prayer, and during that moment of silence I heard someone whisper “God is here.”  After the prayer, I welcomed the group, and then left. 

               It struck me that for the few minutes I was in that room, how much it felt like church to me.  I guess that’s what happens when you get a group of drug addicts and alcoholics together talking about how God has saved them from the urge to drink or to use.   This church hosts meetings like that one five times a week.  And they are big groups. 

               I also realized that what we do here on a Sunday morning, is but one small part of what occurs in this building throughout the week.  Church happens here not just on Sunday mornings, but Monday – Friday with our other congregation – the one we call St. Andrew’s Episcopal School.  I am aware all the time when I observe how carefully and lovingly St. Andrew’s School teachers carefully minister to our learners, that there, too, church is going on. 

               Whether it is a group of men or women who faithfully meet weekly for Bible Study, a Sunday morning congregation, children and adults rehearsing at choir practice, volunteers distributing food to Meals on Wheels recipients, or a group of recovering addicts sharing their experience, strength, and hope with each other – all of it, is church. 

               So much happens here in this building, it is so inspiring to me – what happens here.  As the Apostle Paul says “I am not ashamed of the Gospel” in today’s reading from 2 Timothy, neither am I ashamed to talk with you all in the weeks ahead about what this church is doing, and what its needs are.  Starting next Sunday, St. Andrew’s will do what many other churches do in the Fall, and we will have our annual stewardship campaign, which means we will be asking everyone to make a financial pledge to the church for next year. 

               The theme of the campaign is  “Ponder Anew, what the Almighty Can Do,” which is a verse from hymn 390 in our Hymnal entitled “Praise to the Lord.”  This year’s campaign pledge goal is $625,000, a twenty percent increase over last year.  That goal is ambitious.  It is what former Bishop Claude Payne would call a “BHAG” a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.  Your Vestry and your Finance Committee believe it is an achievable, and sustainable goal.

               Why the 20% increase?  I will be sharing more about that in a series of upcoming sermons that explain our stewardship goals in much greater detail.  During the Stewardship season in Faith Matters, this is what we are talking about for the next five weeks.  I hope you come to those classes so you can learn about what has brought St. Andrew’s to this moment.  If you are on our church mailing list, will also receive one of these envelopes in your mailbox.  The temptation, now that you know what it looks like, will be to not open it!  Please open it, read it, pray about what your contribution will be to St. Andrew’s for 2020.

               Every year St. Andrew’s revenue line starts at zero dollars.  Our ministries and staff, are funded from all of our pledges.  The Vestry has approved a budget for next year that is ambitious, but it is a budget that is based upon the feedback of many of you and reflects much of what you all have been asking from this church for the last two years. 

               Today I will close with these words from 2 Timothy today, God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.  I am not ashamed – I am excited – to “Ponder Anew, what the Almighty Can Do.”  AMEN.

September 29, 2019

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Proper 21

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

Futures are very important. The futures we imagine shape how we live our day to day lives. As much as we idolize ‘living in the moment,’ the reality is that we have to have some conception of what’s to come in order to live well now. Right - if my future holds running the Houston marathon, that’s got to impact the choices I make today: will I go for a run, or will I finish binge watching Project Runway? Futures shape our present day lives, but they also inspire the hope that give us the energy, the drive to push on in our day to day lives. When we lose sight of our future, when the future is no longer a possible for whatever reason, we lose our hope, and when we lose our hope, we lose the thing that keeps us pressing onward.

We have a much more high-stakes example of the importance of the futures we imagine in our first lesson from Jeremiah today. Jeremiah is imprisoned by the king of Judah in Jerusalem, as the city is under siege by the armies of Babylon. It is only a matter of time before the army of an empire overruns the small, Jewish kingdom of Judah. In the midst of all this, in the midst of invasion, with threat of displacement and destruction, of life as he knows it being completely turned upside down hanging over him Jeremiah is faced with a choice: the Word of God comes to him and announces that his cousin will be coming to offer him a field in his home village, Anathoth. Hanamel, Jeremiah’s cousin, is offering the field under the right of redemption, an ancient Jewish practice that required a person selling a piece of land, to first offer it to their next of kin. It was a practice designed to keep ancestral lands within the clan. It preserved a family’s heritage and inheritance.

But it’s not just Hanamel making an offer, God is in the midst of all this. In the midst of destruction God invites Jeremiah to do something that to onlookers can only appear as absolute stupidity, or perhaps a result of the madness and trauma that war and invasion bring. This offer makes no sense given what’s happening. Just imagine - armies are invading, you are locked up in the king’s palace, and you’re being sold a field in your hometown. It would be like being offered a condo in downtown Damascus today. There is nothing about Jeremiah’s situation that should lead him to buy the field in Anathoth, except for God.

God invites Jeremiah to make this purchase not because it’s a good real estate deal, but because it is a sign of hope to Jeremiah and to the Jewish people that despite how bad things look, despite the present moment, God is still God. To paraphrase one of the commentaries I read this week, God invites Jeremiah to make a down payment on the future. God invites Jeremiah to live in light of what will be. Israel is falling down around him, but Jeremiah invests in the future life that God will give to Israel. And God does give Israel a future. Babylon overruns Israel. It exiles thousands and thousands. It destroys the Jerusalem temple. But eventually, the Israelites return, they rebuild their temple, and slowly, but surely, they reclaim the life they knew in their land.

The good news is that the God of Jeremiah is our God too. Jeremiah reminds us that the God we worship is a God who has a vision for the future and so is a God who invites us to hope. He’s a God who time and time again makes a way where there appeared to be no way. He’s a God who isn’t limited by our present. Jeremiah offered hope to his people, and he offers hope to us. We may not have the armies of Babylon to worry about, but we have climate change, current and potential wars, political turmoil, lack of trust in political institutions, the global refugee crisis, the resurgence of white nationalism and racism. Mortgages and rents, the economy, the opioid crisis, student debt. We have plenty of things in our individual lives and our communal life today that can make the future look bleak. But God invites us to hope, just as he invited Jeremiah to hope.

Hoping isn’t just a matter of thinking hopeful thoughts, though. It’s about living in light of what we hope. Jeremiah didn’t just think that God would restore Israel. He acted in light of his hope by buying the field in Anathoth. Christians through the years have rightly been criticized for hoping so much in the future that we forget about the present. Ignoring suffering and injustice and hurt all around us. That’s not being hopeful. That’s being selfish. As Christians, we’re invited to live in light of our hope in God’s future where there is no more pain or suffering, a future where there is justice and peace, a future where broken relationships are mended, a future where God’s love is known and felt by all, where God’s life flows through our lives, where everyone is included. A future where God makes everything right. This means we’re invited to work to make things right today, in our lives and in our world. When we work for justice, for healing, for redemption, for the good, we’re living in light of God’s future. We’re bringing God’s future to bear on our present. This doesn’t require dramatic acts! Jeremiah lived into God’s future by buying some land, by completing a real estate transaction. A kind word, an offer of forgiveness, choosing to laugh when you just want to cry, giving out a helping hands bag, these and so much more are little ways we live in light of God’s future, these are ways we live into the hope we have in God. These are ways we share hope with others.

Hope for those of us who worship the God of Jeremiah isn’t saying ‘it’s going to be ok.’ Hope for those of us who worship the God of Jeremiah is saying ‘things aren’t ok, things suck, but God is God, and God has a future for us.’ One of the reasons we come together every week, is to remember this. Week after week we come together, and we hear stories of how God has, time and time again, come to the rescue of his people. Restoring them, liberating them, finding them. God invites us to live into hope for a future where all is restored, where all are liberated, where all are found.

Amen.

September 15, 2019

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Proper 19   

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14; 1 Timothy 1: 12-17; Luke 15: 1-10

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

 

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

Earlier this week, I lost my wallet.  It was an unsettling feeling as anyone who has ever lost a wallet understands.  It was while driving one of my kids to football practice when I realized where I might have placed it.  I called my wife, explained to her that I had lost my wallet, and then said, and - this is going to sound weird – asked her “could you check in the garbage can?” 

Earlier in the day, I had unloaded some garbage from my car, placed it into our garbage can.  When I am preoccupied in thought and not always paying attention, I will do things like, throw my wallet into the garbage along with the hamburger wrapper from Whataburger or whatever else ends up in my car.  Thank God she checked, and she successfully found my lost wallet.  This is an important insight into our marriage: I am good at misplacing things; my wife is much better at finding them. 

To rejoice over something that we have found, we must first experience losing it.  To lose something is rarely pleasant for us, and yet loss is a necessary part of our existence.  To live means that we will lose things – some things superficial, like a wallet.  We will lose things very close to us – parents, animal companions, children, relationships, dreams. 

Today we hear two stories about about lost things – a lost sheep and a lost coin – which invite us to consider the strange paradox that sometimes the way God gives us things is by us losing them.  I will give you an example.

Twelve years ago, I sat with my mother during the final days of her life which she spent at the Houston Hospice.  During that time, I told her everything I needed to tell her.  I told her I loved her, I thanked her for being such a wonderful, loving mother to me, for supporting me through really difficult times.  When she died a day or two later, I did not feel as if there was any unfinished business between us. 

As many of us know, grieving the loss of someone is very hard work.  For me, it was draining physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Losing something so close to us is painful.

I know that Jesus understood loss, and the pain it created in the human heart.  Jesus lost one of his close friends John the Baptist.  He wept at the grave of another close friend, Lazarus. 

But I also think that Jesus understood loss as a pathway that can draw us closer to God.  I believe that is why he tells these stories of a lost coin and a lost sheep so that we might understand that losing things creates a space for us to receive God in a powerful way.  When the woman loses a coin, she lights a lamp and searches all over the house until the coin is found.  When the shepherd loses one sheep, he leaves the group to find the one that was lost.  These stories point to the reckless abandon which God demonstrates upon finding what was once lost.

I believe God demonstrated such reckless abandon to find me.  Prior to losing my mother, I struggled to believe, or to trust in heaven, and in life after death.  Years in seminary, which I thought would offer qualitative proof that resurrection was real, failed to do so.  I wanted proof, I wanted answers, and nowhere I looked could I find either.  Early in my priesthood, I officiated at many funerals where I wondered if I believed the words I was saying about Christ raising the dead to life.  I’m not proud of that, but it is the truth. 

That struggle for certainty and proof finally ended when I lost my mother.  I can’t explain what happened exactly, except to say that I no longer needed proof that there was life after death, I know longer needed answers to my questions.  In losing my mother, God with reckless abandon, found me, and I experienced, perhaps for the first time in my life, true peace and serenity.  Or to put in another way, I received a peace in losing my mother, a trust, that she was in Jesus’ hands, and that she would be okay.

For whatever reason, before her death, I struggled to believe this.  I wanted desperately to believe in heaven and life after death, to be like other Christians I knew who seemed to have no problem believing these things. When my mother died, so also died my need for proof, my need for evidence.  When the student is ready, the teacher appears.  I wasn’t ready before she died, but somehow, I was after.  I learned at her funeral (where I did believe the words of the liturgy the priest said, and believe them still), that sometimes we have to lose something close to us to find God. 

 As Jesus says elsewhere in another Gospel “those who want to save their life will lose it, those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” 

Only in Jesus is loss really a gain for everlasting life.  What are you willing to lose for the sake of Christ’s sake and yours?  AMEN.   

September 8, 2019

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Proper 18
Jeremiah 18:1-11, Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17, Philemon 1-21, Luke 14:25-33

The Rev. Bradley Varnell, Curate

Jesus’ message today is stark. This large crowd of women and men and children are following him to Jerusalem, and he stops them, turns to them, confronts them head on and he lays out his terms: to follow him you’ve got to hate your family, hate your own life, and pick up the cross. Not exactly the most uplifting pitch you’ve ever heard. Jesus’ words today challenge us to take stock, to make a decision, to consider whether or not we are willing to pay the price of following him. To follow Jesus will cost us. But hidden under Jesus’ startling words is the good news, the great news that the cost is a small price to pay for what we receive in turn.

Jesus invites those in the crowd to be his disciples. To go where he goes. But that means they will have to carry the cross, like Jesus must carry the cross. To follow Jesus is to be willing to face death in some way. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a martyr under Nazi Germany, famously wrote “when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” For some Christians in the past and present, like Bonhoeffer, following Jesus has meant a willingness to face literal death. But for all Christians, following Christ means a willingness to die to those things that would keep us from Christ and from living as citizens of God’s Kingdom. Followers of Christ have to die to selfishness, to bitterness, to greed, to sin. Followers of Christ must make loyalty to Christ more important than any other loyalty.

This is quite the demand. But that’s part of the very nature of discipleship. Discipleship was a deep, intimate, trusting relationship between a master and the disciple. In ancient Israel for a teacher to have disciples wasn’t a strange thing at all, it was the norm, it was how knowledge and insight and wisdom and practice were all passed on. Disciples devoted themselves to spending time with the master, to learning how to think and act like him, to building a relationship with him. Being a disciple wasn’t just about gaining head-knowledge, it was about being formed and shaped into a certain kind of person. It was learning to be like someone. Disciples of a master didn’t just attend classes a few times a week, they lived and breathed with the master. Their lives and the lives of the master became intertwined. Where he went, they went.

This, of course, had a cost. People had to leave their homes and families, they had to order their life around this other person. They couldn’t be a disciple on their terms. They had to make their teacher, their master the priority.

So Jesus is asking those in the crowd to make him the priority in their lives. More important than family. Even more important than their own lives. Now, he’s engaging in a bit of prophetic hyperbole to get his point across. Think of a wedding ceremony – the couple promises to forsake all others. The promise isn’t about abandoning every relationship other than the one with their spouse, the promise is that of all the relationships a person has, this new relationship, this marital relationship takes precedence. Jesus says hate your family, hate your life but his point isn’t that we should harbor some kind of disdain for others or ourselves, rather his point is that he should be our priority, he should be the center of our lives, the one we love most.

But why? Why make Jesus the center? Why follow him where he goes? Why make him our teacher and master? Because Christ has fully and completely animated by the love of God. Christ’s life is all about the love of God and sharing God’s love for others. To follow Christ, to be his disciple is to devote ourselves to becoming people who are more and more animated by God’s love, it is to become people who, like Christ, can share God’s love with others. Discipleship is about learning to walk in the way of God’s love.

At Duke we often sang a song during communion called “We are One in the Spirit,” the chorus goes “and they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” The mark of Christians is that we love like Christ loves – but that’s easier said, or sung, than done. The hard work of devoting ourselves to discipleship, to following Christ, is how we learn to love like Christ loves.

Jesus asks us to make him the center of our life, to put him and our relationship with him first before our families and ourselves, not so we can forget our families or forget ourselves. It’s so we can learn to love our families and love ourselves better, so that we can learn to love our families and ourselves like Christ loves them and us. We carry our crosses and follow Jesus so that all those things that stop us from loving as Christ loves can be crucified, so that we can learn how to love as recklessly, as freely, as abundantly, as extravagantly as he loves us. Can you imagine what our lives, our families, our parishes would look like if we could love like Christ loves? It would change our world.

But we can only love as Christ loves us if we know Christ. And we can only come to know Christ by spending time with him. This is one thing I’ve been thinking a lot about in the last few months. I spent a lot of time studying religion and theology – in undergrad and then at seminary – and I feel like I know a lot of facts about Jesus, but I think I could know Jesus – the living Jesus, the resurrected Jesus – better. What I’m realizing in my own spiritual life is that I can’t just think about Jesus or know facts about Jesus. I’ve got to know the living Christ. Facts about Jesus don’t love me, don’t love us, but Jesus does.

We’re all busy though. We’re all running in what seems to be hundreds of different directions, with many commitments vying for our time and it seems downright selfish of Jesus to ask for more. So many of us are strapped for “more” to offer. We’re running on empty. There’s barely enough time to spend with family and friends – and now we’ve got to fit Jesus in? So, what do we do? How do we set off to follow Jesus, to go where he goes? Well, we start small. We do what we can. 

We start by inviting Jesus into our lives – not just on Sunday. Jesus can’t be the center of our life if Jesus isn’t involved in our lives. But it’s our lives he wants to be the center of – our lives in all their busyness and messiness. I’ve often been trapped by the idea that I have to be “holier” or “more Christian” for God to really be invested or involved in me – but it’s just not true! God isn’t waiting for us to get somewhere for him to be present with us. He wants to meet us right now, wherever we are.

So we invite Jesus into our lives, this requires, though, that we talk to him – we pray to him. These don’t have to be elaborate prayers found in the prayer book, though they can be. Prayer can be simple notes to God that we send off. We can pray at meals, as we begin our day, as we go into school or a meeting, as we hang out with friends – simply asking Christ to be with us, to help us love like he loves in these settings and with these people. These prayers can happen in the little spare moments we already have.

Part of inviting Christ into our life is making Scripture a part of our life. Scripture is the word of God, that means God speaks through its pages – by sitting with Scripture we can begin to hear God better, as God uses the words that have shaped Jews and Christians for thousands of years to shape us.  Spending time with Scripture is super hard for me, personally, but I’ve found the daily office in the prayer book to be really helpful in giving me a guide for reading the Bible. A Psalm a day is also a great way to begin a Bible reading discipline, but there are many other ways to spend time with Scripture: there are apps, and Bible reading guides. Bible studies here at church. Forward Day by Day is another wonderful print and electronic resource that provides a small verse and brief reflection for each day of the week. Scripture is a gift, and what matters most is finding what works for you in exploring it.

Prayer and Scripture are small ways we can begin inviting Jesus into our life. These are little steps we can take to spend more time with the one who will teach us how to be more like him, how to love ourselves and others like he loves. These are ways we can begin building our relationship with Christ. This will take time, but good relationships always do. Like any relationship, there will be ups and downs, starts and stops, seasons where it is easier, and seasons where it just seems impossible. But like the best relationships, sticking it out is worth it.

Amen.