March 14, 2021

The Fourth Sunday of Lent

John 3:14-21

The Rev. Joann Saylors

If you were to ask a random stranger to quote a Bible verse, any verse in the Bible, you’d probably get the same kinds of goofy responses the hosts of the late night shows get when they ask questions of people on the streets.  But if you instead asked them to name a Bible verse you’d have better luck.  Lots of those random strangers would come up with John 3:16. We see it in all sorts of places. Mostly not as a quote of the text but as that citation of chapter and verse. Just the name “John” followed by the number “3,” a colon and the number “16.” It appears on signs people post on their front lawns, billboards, printed on the bottom of paper cups and shopping bags.

It’s really popular in sports. Fans hold up John 3:16 signs at sporting events. Heisman Trophy winning football player Tim Tebow printed the reference in his eye black, initially in the 2009 college football national championship.[i] Tebow later claimed that "John 3 16" was Googled 94 million times during the game.[ii] He wore it most famously in 2012 at what became known as “the 3:16 game,” where Tebow threw for 316 yards in a playoff upset against the Pittsburgh Steelers. [iii] Not just football. Professional wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's marquee catchphrase ("Austin 3:16") originated as a reference to John 3:16. [iv]

On Amazon.com today, you can find books with 3:16: The Numbers of Hope, by Max Lucado or The Other 3:16s, by Malinda Fugate. Shoppers in the know don’t even need to hear “John” to get the reference.

It’s a significant verse. Martin Luther once called it “The Gospel in Miniature,” saying that the very heart of Scripture and the message of Christ is found in the passage. Beyond the citation the words are also familiar. I suspect many of us memorized the King James version in Sunday School or confirmation class: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The very heart of our faith – that God loves the world so much that God gave us Jesus. The phrase “John 3:16” is a hyper-summarized citation of the Good News that may be simple to cross-stitch, but is awfully complicated to live.

John 3:16 is in the middle of a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, a prominent Pharisee who has sneaked out to meet Jesus at night, so as not to be seen. In verse 10, shortly before the passage that we heard this morning, Nicodemus has found Jesus’ teaching confusing because it demands that he let go of all that he has accomplished and understood. He will have to instead become like a newborn, ready to engage the world on completely new terms. And this new understanding then implies a need to change. Some things are hard to grasp, not because they have a lot of words or are conceptually subtle, but because they ask so much of us. We don’t really want to understand, because if we understand, we are called to be or do something different. We are called to believe.

God loved the world so much that God gave the Son so that we may believe and have eternal life. Is it something we really want to understand? What if it calls us to “believe” this Good News, that in Jesus “lifted up” – it can also be translated as “exalted” - God offers the world salvation rather than condemnation? We might say that believing simply requires us to agree intellectually that all of this happened in just the way the story describes. To believe in our minds that Jesus died and was raised to save us is easy to comprehend, and it requires almost nothing of us. But such an intellectual kind of belief isn’t really what God is asking from us, is it?

God is asking us to let ourselves be persuaded and then transformed by our belief. We tend to say “faith,” rather than “belief,” to mean that knowledge at the level of our souls, deeper than our minds. Faith changes us and how we live.

The people of God wandering in the desert with Moses sound whiny and ungrateful. “We detest this miserable food,” manna that God had provided. The psalmist also speaks unflatteringly of the people God has gathered. “Some were fools and took to rebellious ways; they were afflicted because of their sins. They abhorred all manner of food and drew near to death's door.”

They are us. And the God who loves us didn’t abandon them or smite them, and as far as we know, wasn’t even tempted.

Martin Luther once said, “If I were as our Lord God … and these vile people were as disobedient as they now are, I would knock the world in pieces.”[v] A very human response.

God, though, offered the means of healing. First, the serpent lifted on the pole to save the Israelites from poison and death from the serpents. And later, Jesus, lifted on the cross to save us from sin and death.

God loves us. And that is Good News for us, for all of Christianity, and for all of the world. God loves us. And God forgives us.

Our life as Christians is based on having faith in God’s love and forgiveness for each and every one of us. When we truly have faith in this deep and abiding truth, our lives begin to change. We strive to be the very image of God in which we are all created – by loving others as God loves us. We try to love as God loves – unreservedly and sacrificially. We take responsibility for our actions, and we seek healing for those against whom we have transgressed.  We admit we have done wrong, and we work to do better.

The God who loves every single person and creature asks us to do the same. The God who forgives, makes reconciliation the priority, and repairs the world’s injuries invites us to do the same.

We hurt each other all the time. We hurt others by our words and actions, and we allow others to be hurt by unjust systems and structures. And we are hurt by the world as well.

The work of repair is the work of the Church and the work of each member of it. We are partners in that work with many others outside the church, and we are not unique in doing it. The voice of the Church can be indistinguishable from those others in the task of repair of those systems. We all want to avoid doing harm and we want to fix what we have broken or the systems that break others.

Where the Church’s voice stands out from the world’s is in understanding the need for repair of relationships, and for forgiveness and reconciliation.

As Christians, we are called to forgive because we have been forgiven. And we will continue to need forgiveness.

I’ve been praying through the devotional guide produced by Episcopal Relief and Development this Lent. In Friday’s offering, Bishop Phoebe Roaf of West Tennessee speaks of forgiveness: “One aspect of lament is recognizing that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Both victim and perpetrator are equal at the foot of the cross. This is a hard truth to acknowledge for those who have been victimized. The goal of repentance is not to blame the victim but rather to accept that brokenness is part of the human condition….Perhaps that is why Jesus instructed his disciples to ask for forgiveness and to forgive those who injured them in the Lord’s Prayer. If we desire forgiveness when we have fallen short, we are called to forgive others. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting the incident or waiving your right to restitution. Neither does it entail allowing yourself to be repeatedly abused. What forgiveness facilitates is a release from the anger and pain so that we can move on with our lives.”

Lent is a time to reflect on where we have fallen short, and we are good at recognizing where we need to repent. But when we focus on what we have done to others, we can overlook the harm we do by refusing to forgive. Healing the world includes healing ourselves.

Being hurt by someone, particularly someone you love and trust, can cause anger, sadness and confusion. Dwelling on hurtful events or situations allows grudges filled with resentment, vengeance and hostility to take root. And we lose valuable and enriching connectedness with others. If we aren’t careful, we carry anger and bitterness into every relationship and new experience.

We stop being able to love others in the way God loves us, maybe loving anybody in the way God loves us. And that, my sisters and brothers, is death. The death that God sent Jesus to overcome.

In your Lenten self-reflection, take time this week to consider. What do you need to let go of? Whom do you need to forgive? Where is God asking you to repair a tear in the world by bringing reconciliation into your own relationships?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Let us live to make it so.  Let us love. Let us heal others. And let us forgive. AMEN.

[i] “John 3:16,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_3:16, accessed March 12, 2021.

[ii] “Tim Tebow Shares John 3:16 Story,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILz_9KRwzB8&t=18s, accessed March 12, 2021.

[iii] Wikipedia.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Martin Luther, “Of God’s Works,” CXI Table Talk or Familiar Discourse. Tebow later claimed that "John 3 16" was Googled 94 million times during the game. He wore it most famously in 2012 at what became known as “the 3:16 game,” where Tebow threw for 316 yards in a playoff upset against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Not just football. Professional wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's marquee catchphrase ("Austin 3:16") originated as a reference to John 3:16.

March 7, 2021

The Third Sunday in Lent

Exodus 20: 1-7; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22

The Rev. James M. L. Grace

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

 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them.”  Exodus, chapter 20, verse 4.    

I remember years ago in seminary; I had an exam in my old testament class.  The exam covered that first five books of the bible, of which today’s reading from the book of Exodus, is one.  I did not prepare for this exam as well as I should have, and certainly was not prepared for one of the questions on the exam which asked me to list, in order, all ten of the commandments. 

You would think that I would have known them, memorized them, committed them to my heart.  Alas, I could only name 6 of the 10.  That commandment about not making an idol.  I could not remember that one.  In one of my many less-than-astounding seminary moments, I received a 77 on that exam.  Not one of my better moments!

Some twenty years later, I recall that moment because of its irony: one of the commandments I could not remember to name on my exam (do not make for yourself an idol) was the same commandment I broke upon receiving my average exam grade.  How might I have broken a commandment, you ask?  It is simple. 

You see, back then, like now, there were many idols to which I would willingly bow down to.  In seminary, an obvious one was academic excellence.  I wanted all A’s.  There is nothing wrong with that, you might be thinking, that is what all students should want.  Heck that is what I hope my own kids get on their report cards.

There is nothing wrong with good grades, of course, but there is something wrong with them when they become idolatrous, when they begin to matter more than God.  In seminary, had I spent as much time in prayer as I did in study or worry about grades, then this would not have been a problem.  But it was.  And it was even more problematic because I could not see it. 

I got carried away with the competitive side of seminary – who gets the best grades, who gets placed in the best congregations, who gets the best hospitals to do their chaplaincy work.  “You shall not make for yourself an idol.”  Oh, the many idols I had.

Oh, the many idols we have.  We carry so many idols around with us, that even with limited seating in the church it is a sheer miracle all of us can fit in here with all the idols we bring in here with us.  I will just name a few to get us thinking about them.  How about the idol of your political leanings – how your views are right, and those who disagree with you are wrong?  How about the idol of your certainty – how right you are, and how knowledgeable and important you are?

People of course aren’t the only ones with idols.  Churches have plenty of them, too.  A very common church idol is tradition – not that tradition is necessarily bad – it isn’t.  But when a church is unable to turn its head from the past in order to engage the future, then that church suffers from idolatry of its history.  Do you know what the last seven words are of a dying church?  “We have always done it this way.” 

I will share one of my idols, and it is the idol of need for agreement.   I sometimes feel that a true sign that God is active in my life is if I am in agreement with others.  Of course this is not true.  Agreement becomes an idol to me when I assume agreement is necessary for progress.  It isn’t.  You and I can disagree and progress can still be made. 

On most weeks, I meet with a close friend who has very little in common with me.  We come from different ethnic backgrounds, our political views completely opposite from one another, and we of course both know that.  What I appreciate about spending time with this person is that in our conversation, I learn from him about his beliefs, he learns from me.  And it is not always easy.  He will say some things and I quietly think to myself “do you really believe that?”  He probably feels the same.  But as different as we both are – he reached out his hand to help me during a time of need.  I love this man.

The point is – talking with people who think differently reminds me to not craft idols out of my beliefs. As we move into the third week of Lent, I invite you to write down a list of three idols in your life that place above God. If you are honest, that should not take very much time at all to do. Pick one of those idols. Offer that idol to God in your prayer. Ask God for the strength and the courage to give it up, or at the very least to give you eyes to see it for what it is – an impediment, a crutch, something you do not need any more. AMEN.

February 28, 2021

The Second Sunday in Lent

Romans 4:13-25 | Psalm 22:22-30 | Mark 8:31-38

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

Jesus didn’t come into the world to start an organization, he didn’t come offering pithy teachings that we could incorporate into our lives. Rather, he came to inaugurate the rule of God in our world. Jesus’ mission is bound up with the kingdom of God coming to earth as it is in heaven. In his life – his teaching, his healing, his exorcising – Jesus brings the love of God to bear on the world around him. That’s what made Jesus so incredibly threatening. Jesus didn’t simply preach love, Jesus acted in love. Jesus allowed the love of God to impact the world around him. Through Jesus, the love of God made its mark on the world: causing the blind to see, the lame to walk, to possessed to go free. Jesus preached the kingdom of God in a world controlled by kingdoms of sin and death. Jesus was the crack in the foundation of the empires of Rome and Herod.

The disciples put a lot of hope in Jesus. Just before today’s reading, Jesus asks them “who do you say that I am?” Peter replies straightaway: you are the messiah. Now, there were expectations of messiahs. Messiahs were triumphant, they were winners, they cast off the enemy and liberated the people. If Jesus is the messiah, then Peter and the disciples know what to expect! Or so they thought. Today, Jesus teaches them what it means for him to be the messiah: it means he will end his earthly career in suffering and death. Jesus isn’t the kind of messiah they are expecting, and so Peter rebukes Jesus! The audacity!! You’re going to rebuke the messiah because you don’t like what he’s doing? It’s an impressive move on Peter’s part…and, I think, one that we should sympathize with. How often are we like Peter? Rebuking Jesus, or challenging Jesus, or just ignoring Jesus in favor of our own visions and fantasies of what Jesus should be like. The danger which Christians must always avoid is making Jesus into our mascot. The living Jesus is not someone we can conscript to support our own ideologies and prejudices, rather he is the living, free Son of God who demands that we become like him, not the other way around.

It is for this reason that Jesus lays out in stark clarity what it means for others to follow him. To be his follower is to follow in his footsteps, to tread a path filled with suffering and death. If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. If we want to call Jesus our Lord, our master, our messiah, then we must walk the walk. We must share Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God and we must allow ourselves to be so given over to the love of God that it makes waves in the world. This is why Jesus must die in the first place. Jesus must die not because he is bound to some blind fate, but because the life Jesus lives, the love Jesus shares, the hope that Jesus inspires will always lead to suffering and death in a world filled with sin and evil. When love moves from mere sentiment to action, it’s always threatening to those who have closed themselves off to love, those who have traded love for power and security. Our world, simply put, does not easily respond to the free, life-giving, liberating love of God.  This love turns things on its head, it destabilizes us, it calls the ways things are into question, and challenges us to let go of fear in favor of love. The love of God does not remain in a box or in boundaries, it spills over! It makes a mess of the worlds we have so meticulously created – bringing in the outcast, the undesirable, enemies and friends!

If we want to be more than admirers of Jesus, more than members of his fan club, if we want to follow him, then we have to love so deeply, so fully, so recklessly that it will cause waves. We must become like Jesus. This will involve suffering – suffering with others and suffering for others. It will also involve death – the crosses we pick up are not the inconveniences of life, they are the deaths which the love of God leads us to. Deaths to self, deaths for others. Metaphorical deaths and physical deaths. To suffer and die is simply to follow Christ. It’s part of the package. It doesn’t mean it’s good, it simply means that that’s the reality of the world we live in. The Christian hope is for a day and time when death and suffering will be no more because the love of God will be all in all. The love of God overcomes suffering and death, not by avoiding them, but by exceeding them. In the words to his disciples today, Jesus says the Son of Man must undergo great suffering…be killed, and after three days rise again. Peter seems to have missed the “rise again” part, and so do we. Jesus can face the future before him, he can bear the costs of his mission because the God he loves and serves will not let suffering and death be the final word. So it is for us, the courage to love God and love others with the passion of Jesus doesn’t come from a belief that God will then protect us from the bad things, but from the trust that God will not abandon us to suffering and death.

The world does not need more members of the Jesus fan club or more admirers of Jesus. The world needs more followers. The world needs more people who are so committed to the rule of God in the world, to the healing and wholeness which the love of God brings that they are willing to venture to the edges of society to bring that message, that they are willing to confront the powers of the world, willing to accept suffering and death for the sake of Jesus and his gospel. This path will cost us our lives, but better to lose our life for the sake of sharing the love of God than gain a world that is so afraid of love that it would kill it. Amen.

February 21, 2021

The First Sunday in Lent

1 Peter 3:18-22 | Psalm 25:1-9 | Mark 1:9-15

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

Verse 1 of Today’s Psalm grabbed me. To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you…at the heart of the spiritual life is this simple, yet incredibly difficult move: putting our trust in God. Throughout the story of Scripture what we see and hear over and over and over again is the struggle of God’s people to trust God fully and completely. To totally hand over their lives to God’s ways and God’s laws. The prophets speak out repeatedly against the people’s inability or unwillingness to remember that God is faithful, that God will keep God’s promises even when everything seems to speak against that. The story of Scripture over and over and over again shows us that God is trustworthy. One of the reasons Christians return again and again to the Bible isn’t because God is somehow stuck there, but because the Bible is a record of God’s people doubting the promises which God has made and God, time and again, showing up and keeping his end of the bargain. The Bible is a record of the trustworthiness of God.

Scripture also shows us what trust means. Often it seems we use trust and belief interchangeably. I trust in God because I believe God exists. But this isn’t how Scripture works. Most people in the United States – most people in the world – believe in God or some higher power. Yet how many of us trust God? How many of us move beyond accepting the existence of God and trusting that this God is who Scripture and tradition says he is? Belief doesn't always ask much of me. My belief in gravity doesn’t really make any claims on my life, doesn’t really guide how I live my life. It’s a given, I accept it, and I go on. Trust, on the other hand, seems to ask a lot of me. Trust makes certain demands – if I trust someone, I act in a particular way. If I trust John to print the bulletins, I don’t come up here on Sunday morning and print them off myself. If I trust my friends when they say they love me, I tell them when they’ve hurt me, instead of assuming that their desire is really to make me feel bad. Part of trusting someone is trusting that what they say matches how they act. And so, it is with God: the spiritual life is an invitation to trust that what God says matches what God does. It live in light of the fact that the God who speaks and acts in Scripture, in the people of Israel, in Jesus Christ is not a God who deceives us, but a God who only speaks the truth.

In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus is baptized, Mark tells us that “as he was coming up out of the water, he [Jesus] saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘you are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.’” Before Jesus was tempted, before he began his ministry in Galilee – he was baptized and heard God say to him “you are the beloved, with you I am well pleased.” Mark makes the point that it is Jesus who sees and hear this, not the crowd, not John, just Jesus. Jesus hears these words and immediately the Spirit drives him into the wilderness and the start of his ministry. Jesus spends 40 days in the wilderness tempted and tried. We don’t hear much about this period in Mark, but part of the temptations, as we see in Matthew and Luke, are temptations to cease trusting God and rely instead on his own power. Jesus withstands these temptations, spending 40 days living more deeply into the reality that he is the beloved. I like to imagine that Jesus spent all this time learning what it meant to trust that he really was beloved by God.

Jesus leaves the 40-days and immediately begins his ministry in Galilee preaching the Good News of God, healing and casting out demons. Throughout his entire ministry Jesus’ life is one long witness to what it looks like to trust, at the very core of your being, that you are beloved by the Father in heaven. Jesus is what it looks like to not simply believe in God, but to trust God. This isn’t always easy, even for Jesus. One of the most poignant, human points in the story of Jesus’ life is his prayer in the Garden of Gesthsemane. Jesus knows death is approaching, he prays to God to rescue him, but even though Jesus wishes his future could be otherwise, Jesus still trusts in God. The disciples, too, struggle to trust. As Jesus is crucified those closest to him flee in terror…yet at his resurrection Jesus doesn’t castigate them, rather, he invites them, once again, to trust in him.

Believing God exists can provide little comfort in the hard moments of life. What gets us through isn’t the knowledge that God is in his heaven, but that God has left the heights of his existence to journey with us when the power goes out and the water stops. The crucifixion looked like the end, but it wasn’t. Trusting God doesn’t stop the worst from happening to us, but it does give up hope, confidence that the worst doesn’t stop God.

Trust isn’t something we simply will, though. Trust is something we give ourselves over to. In many ways, trust is a gift from God, one that we have to learn to accept. Trust invites us to let down our walls and our guards and our need to be in control. Trust in the God of Scripture requires we cease trying to be our own gods. This Lent, my hope is that we all come to a deeper trust in God, that we allow the story of God revealed in Scripture to shape us to look more and more like Jesus – people who live out of trust in God, who allow that trust to unleash the love of God in the world. The greatest Christians living and dead aren’t the ones who have elaborate belief systems, or who know the most theology. They are the ones who have a quiet trust in God, a trust that enables them to move mountains. Jesus came, lived, taught, died, and rose again not to give us a nice theology we can think about, or a group of people to hang with on Sundays, but to show us what it means to live lives trusting that we are God’s beloved. That life of trust may lead to death – but the God we are invited to trust in, the God who calls us beloved, is not stopped by death. The life which trust makes possible is life without end, and it is this life that we are invited to. Amen.

February 14, 2021

Last Sunday of Epiphany

2 Kings 2: 1-12; Psalm 50: 1-6; 2 Corinthians 4: 3-6; Mark 9: 2-9

The Rev. James M. L. Grace

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

            I would not be surprised one day to find out that in heaven there is a large, warehouse-like room, like a Costco.  In this large heavenly storage room would be shelves as high as the eye can see stocked with the millions of purple boxes containing blessings that had gone unnoticed and unappreciated by all of us throughout our human lives.  Can you imagine how large a warehouse containing all our unnoticed and unappreciated blessings would need to be? 

            For me alone, it would look like the warehouse at the end of the film Raiders of the Lost Ark, where a government employee boxes up the Ark of the Covenant for storage, wheeling it down an aisle of some nameless government storage facility.  That is what I imagine the size of this heavenly storage room must be.  Vast.  Never ending. 

             “The god of this world,” St. Paul writes, “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  That verse comes from today’s reading in 2 Corinthians and is unique in this regard – it is the only place in the entire New Testament where Satan is labeled a “god of this world.”

            I am drawn to the image of blindness in the verse, this inability that all of us have to notice the blessings in our lives.  Several weeks ago, I was running in Memorial Park, and I ran beside two other people running together.  On one person’s running shirt were two words: “blind athlete.”  The person running next to the blind athlete was their guide – telling them essentially where to run.  They were running the Houston marathon.  Can you imagine the amount of trust and faith you would need to have as a blind athlete to run 26 miles?  I cannot. 

            And yet I am reminded that we are all blind.  St. Paul understood blindness.  He himself was blinded on the road to Damascus, only to have his sight regained when he learned that the love of God conquers all hate.  I am reading the Pulitzer Prize winning book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson for a future book club here at St. Andrew’s.  Wilkerson establishes a daring premise – which is that many of us are blinded to an American caste system “based upon what people looked like, an internalized ranking, unspoken, unnamed, unacknowledged by everyday citizens even as they go about their lives adhering to it and acting upon it subconsciously to this day.”  The invisibility of the American Caste system, Wilkerson argues, “is what gives it power and longevity.” 

Like the grit, tenacity, and faith of a blind marathoner, Isabel Wilkerson courageously has unveiled something my eyes were blind to.  The book and the runner help to refocus my vision on the unchanging truth that you cannot shut out the light of Christ.  It persists.  It runs, it writes, it will not allow for blindness.  St. Paul’s sight was restored to him after three days. 

During the Cold War, the East German government built a large broadcast tower in East Berlin, intending it to be a visual symbol of the superiority of their communist system.   Berlin residents on both sides of the wall, however, noticed something about the tower the architects never intended.  During the day, sunlight was reflected from the massive seven story, stainless steel sphere near the top of the tower.  More specifically, the sunlight was reflected as a bright cross visible for miles across the divided city.  Those living in West Berlin quickly dubbed the bright shiny Christian cross upon the East Berlin tower in communist as the “pope’s revenge” – a divine retaliation of the communist government’s practice of removing crosses from East Berlin churches and turning churches into museums of atheism. 

The embarrassed East German government tried painting the stainless-steel sphere on the Berlin tower to eliminate the cross, but to no avail.  When President Reagan spoke in front of the Brandenburg gate on June 12, 1987 demanding that Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall, he spoke of the efforts to eliminate the unintended cross, saying, “there in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed.”  When I visited Berlin in 2018, I was happy to see that crosses returned to East Berlin churches, and a gleaming cross is quite visible on the Berlin Radio tower.

I want to revisit that vast warehouse, full of unclaimed blessings.  How much is there that God has provided for us – untold blessings, just warehoused away, collecting dust, because we are unwilling to open our eyes and arms to receive them?  What would it take to remove the veil from our eyes so that we might see those blessings, see them the way a blind athlete sees possibility in running a marathon?  What kind of vision would that require? 

It would require of us, like St. Paul, to ask that the scales be removed from our eyes – that we would see the bright gleaming cross of Christ shining above a godless land. 

I cannot say it any better than Alice Walker does in her novel The Color Purple when Shug Avery says, “I think it pisses off God when you walk by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it.”  Life is too short to fill a heavenly warehouse with more purple boxes full of unnoticed blessings.  Covid is not an excuse.  There is blessing in this world.  Find it, relish it, open your eyes to it.  Thank God for it.  AMEN.

February 7, 2021

The Fifth Sunday After Epiphany

1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39

The Rev. Jeff Bohanski

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Let me start this morning with saying that it is my honor and blessing to be standing here in front of you this morning on this, the second to the last Sunday of Epiphany, this Sunday that some would call Protodeacon Sunday.

As many of you know, an Epiphany is a sudden understanding of something.  Every Sunday in Epiphany we hear an epiphany story, a story of a sudden bright understanding of God or of Jesus the Gospel writer wants his readers to have. 

I see epiphanies happening in my first-grade class a lot.  My favorite first-grade epiphany is a reading epiphany.  It’s when a child suddenly and completely understands that letters make sounds, sounds make words and words have meaning.  The meaning of the word hits the child like a bolt of lightning.  The child knows he or she can read!

Over the years I have found that my favorite first-grade epiphany reading moment happens during the restroom break.  Invariably a child, usually a boy, runs out of the restroom and yells at the top of his lungs, exclaiming, “Mr. Bohanski, someone wrote sh… !”   I usually jump in before the child has a chance to finish the sentence and say, “Congratulations, you are reading!  But remember, just because you can read that word doesn’t mean you can say that word.” 

Today’s epiphany story happens in the first chapter of Mark.  That in itself is important because the author is laying the foundation for the message the author wants to give his readers.  Mark tells these healing stories in chapter one because he wants his readers to know now, in the beginning of the Gospel who Jesus is and what it means to be his followers.

Now let me recap the story.  The story takes place in Capernaum on the same sabbath day where Jesus had just healed a man with an unclean spirit.  He had given orders to an unclean spirit to come out and be silent.  After the healing Jesus and his disciples leave the synagogue and go straight to Simon and Andrew’s house where Jesus is informed that Simon’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever.  Jesus goes to her, takes her hand and lifts her up.  The fever leaves her and she begins to serve them.  Later that evening more sick people in need of healing and people with demons in need of exercising were brought to Jesus.  The next morning Jesus was nowhere to be seen.  Finally he was found praying in a deserted place.  Many people are surprised at Jesus’ response.  He says, “Let’s go.  Let’s go do this somewhere else.” 

I believe, the author of Mark is first telling his readers that Jesus is God’s son, the one who demonstrates he has power over the physical world when he heals the sick, the one who demonstrates he has power over the spiritual world when he gives orders to demons and they obey him.  Mark wants his readers to know that it is this powerful Jesus who wants to come into their worlds, into their current state of life to lift them up like he did with Simon’s mother-in-law in her house and transform them.  No questions asked.  Jesus wants to encounter them.  Jesus wants to encounter us.

The second question is, what is a faithful Christian supposed to do?  This week I learned that when the author of Mark wrote the sentence, “She began to serve them.”, he used a word we translate as deacon.  So Mark is saying the faithful response to an encounter Jesus is to deacon, is to serve as Simon’s mother-in-law served.  As faithful Christians we are all called to serve one another, to deacon one another.  Be like Simon’s mother-in-law the first deacon, the protodeacon, the one who faithfully demonstrates she follows Jesus by serving others.

So this week, as I pondered Simon’s mother-in-law and how she served in her faithful response to her encounter with Jesus, I could imagine the rest of the people in the town of Capernaum who Jesus healed and exercised doing the same as Simon’s mother-in-law had done.  They were “deaconing”.  They were serving.  As the week went on, I began to see with my minds eye a town filled with joy, a town where no one bashed each other on Facebook but instead posted positive memes.  I could see with my mind’s eye a town where people were caring for one another despite their race, creed, sexual orientation, their gender identity or struggle with their gender identity.  I could see a town where no church would exclude a minister for being in a same sex relationship.  I could see a town where people lovingly listened to one another.  I could see a town where someone could express their grief and another would listen and be with that person in their grief.  As I envisioned this new Capernaum I thought, perhaps that is why at the end of this story Jesus says, let’s go.  These people of new Capernaum have got the message, others need to hear it. 

So this week, I invite us all to open ourselves to this powerful healing and exercising Jesus, who like with Simon’s mother-in-law, wants to come to us, take our hands and lift us up be in relationship with him, just as we are.  I invite all to, with God’s help, to serve, to deacon one another whether we are at home or at work.  Whether we are with people whom we agree with or with people we don’t agree with or we are with people who look like us or people that don’t.

Finally, I invite us all, me included, to love God and respond faithfully to God’s love by serving one another like Simon’s mother-in-law, the protodeacon did.

January 31, 2021

The Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8: 1-13; Mark 1: 21-28

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

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

            Jesus healing a man with an unclean spirit.  What a strange story, one that in 2021 seems…dated, old-fashioned, am I right?  On December 26, 1973, a movie called The Exorcist opened in movie theaters across the country and as one critic wrote “all hell broke loose.”  The film’s story of young girl possessed by a demonic presence generated such interest amongst the American public that people stood in line outside movie theaters to watch it – even while braving 6 degree temperatures, rain, and sleet.  I didn’t see The Exorcist until twenty years after its release, in the 90s.  Years later when attending seminary in Alexandria, VA, I was walking through nearby Georgetown, where that movie was filmed, and I found myself carefully walking down those famous steps from the film’s ending.    

            The church in recent times has struggled with the concept of evil, in dealing with stories like that from the Gospel of Mark today.  Often the very concept of exorcism seems more an anachronistic embarrassment than valid ministry.  The Episcopal Church itself does not have a liturgy for exorcism. The closest the church gets are a few words on exorcism in The Book Of Occasional Services which basically amounts to “if you have questions, call the Bishop,” which I interpret as “no one really takes this seriously.”  

            Whenever afforded the opportunity to preach on the story about the possessed man in the synagogue whom Jesus encounters, I have opted out.  My decision to be silent on these and other Gospel stories dealing with possession was two-fold.  On one hand, I didn’t understand them.  Second, I wasn’t sure what to say about evil personified in spiritual terms as demonic or unclean.   I found it safer to domesticate these stories in some way – to strip them of their spiritual nature and seek medical explanations for the behavior people purportedly possessed with unclean spiritus exhibited.

            Rather than saying the man in the synagogue was possessed by the devil, I found myself more comfortable saying  “the man in the synagogue was mentally ill, perhaps schizophrenic, or bipolar, and Jesus healed him.”   That is a miracle to be sure – but it downplays any kind of outside spiritual forces.  I don’t believe that way anymore, and I want to be careful how I say this – but I do believe in possession. 

            Now, before you write me off as a lunatic – allow me to explain.  The power of possession is that it is subtle, and it is most powerful when we are not even aware of it.   Consider someone who is a narcissist.  A narcissist holds themselves in such high esteem that they literally believe they can do no wrong.  They are possessed with an untrue image of themselves – an inflated image which convinces them that they are better than everyone else.  This image isolates them, and the demon of their narcissism creates nothing but loneliness, pain, and sadness.  Because it is subtle, the demon of narcissism closes your eyes to that, while others see it clearly.   

            If that example of possession is not persuasive consider this one: an alcoholic, by definition, is possessed with a lie, one which states that they can control their consumption of alcohol.  Medical, psychological, and behavior evidence points to the contrary, and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says that left untreated, there are three outcomes for the untreated alcoholic: jails, institutions, or death.  Still not convinced possession is real?  

            I offer one final example.  In the twentieth century, a first-world country that identified as Christian (one half Lutheran and one-half Catholic) orchestrated the systemic murder of over six million people – including the developmentally disabled, lesbian and gay, along with countless members of the Jewish faith.  What force could possess Christians to commit such horror?

            Holocaust Remembrance Day was last week, and it brings its solemn message to us yet again: Lest We Forget.  Lest We Forget that we are not immune to outside forces which have the power to possess us.  All of us are possessed in some way.  The political divisiveness in our country boils down to an unavoidable truth which is that many of us are possessed with the idea that our political party is right and good, and the other is sinister.  How does this possession serve us?  How does it make us better people?

I conclude with an answer to the problem of possession and evil, and it comes straight out of the Bible.  It is not enough for us to merely stand against it.  We don’t just get to separate ourselves from it.  Instead, we look to Jesus on the cross, crucified.  Like Jesus we do not capitulate to the evil around us, but rather we absorb it.  We become it so that we can transform it.  That probably makes very little sense to you.  I don’t say that to be condescending.  Absorbing evil so that we can transform it doesn’t make sense to me either, but it is what Jesus did, and it is what I am trying to allow Jesus to continue to do through me. 

I hope you take an honest look at what might be possessing you – your cell phone, your social media, your job, even your religious beliefs.  Invite Jesus in and let Jesus draw what is unclean out of you.  Invite him to exorcise your heart.  A warning: it is never comfortable when we invite Jesus in and ask him to transform our heart.  But it is the only to live a life worth living, one that is free of possessions.  AMEN.

January 24, 2021

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Mark 1: 14-20

The Rev. Canon Joann Saylors

I am one of those people who tends not to notice visual details in the landscape around me.  When I’ve been out riding around with my husband in areas we go all the time, I can't tell you how many times I've said, "Huh.  When did that building go up?" or "Huh.  Where did that building go?", only to have him say, "They've been building that (or tearing that down) for eight months." 

 It will be happening right beside me, on the side of a familiar, well-traveled road, and I manage to drive by without even noticing.  I guess I'm so focused on what's coming up, whether it’s on the road or in my life, that I stop seeing what's around me.  Even the big things.

 I wonder how long Jesus stood there before he spoke to Peter and Andrew.  I imagine them hard at work, casting their nets, over and over.  Commercial fishing is back-breaking work, and dangerous enough to require all of your attention.  It's not like that image of a guy sitting on the end of the dock with a line in the water, eating a sandwich.  It's hard, physical labor, and if you don't catch, there goes your income.  So Peter and Andrew would have been completely absorbed in their task, and Jesus could have been there a long time, standing quietly, waiting for them to notice him.

 Same thing with James and John.  They were doing a different kind of work that day, mending their fishing nets.  It would have taken all their attention in a different way, looking down, tying knots, focused on details very close to them.  So Jesus could have stood there for a while, too, patiently, silently, waiting for them to look up and see him.

 And when James and John did look up, whenever Peter and Andrew noticed him, Jesus simply said, "Follow me."  That completely shook them out of their routine, brought them right into the moment and to what - well, who - was before them.  It had to. Because they left everything, nets, boat, father to follow Jesus. And both pairs, Mark says, did it immediately.  No taking time to think about it, no excuses for why they couldn't go, no calculating what going with Jesus would do to their income, or their dating lives, or whatever.  None of that. Immediately they left and followed him. I hope James and John at least said goodbye to their father.  Otherwise there he'd be, standing there, mouth open, staring after them and wondering what had just happened.

 Or maybe Zebedee had a sense of it.  Maybe he looked up and saw what his sons saw, heard what his sons heard, and gently pushed them toward Jesus.  Not counting the cost, not wondering who would help him fish, but encouraging his sons to be disciples, to follow their call.

 Once they looked up and paid attention, Peter, Andrew, James and John recognized that they had a new vocation and they embraced it.  Immediately.  That's not really like my conversion experience.  I didn't have a dream, or a vision, where I saw Jesus in front of me, inviting me to follow.  There was no "immediately" at the beginning of my journey.  I'd like to say there was no taking time to think about it, no excuses for why I couldn't go, no calculating what going with Jesus would do to my life choices. But that's not the way it happened.

 I mean, Jesus was right there before me; God was in my life in all sorts of ways. I just didn't notice until much later, in hindsight.  There were opportunities. My best friend in elementary school was Southern Baptist, and every time we went to her church, I was invited to come forward for a conversion moment. I went two different times, which you aren’t supposed to do, but there were no bright lights or scales falling from my eyes. Just pressure to fit in. Later, I was confirmed as a young teen, and, as an adult, I wandered in and out of lots of churches. But I was mostly focused on my life, my security, and my future.  It took me a long time to look up.

 I haven't seen any studies on this, but I think there may be more of us who come to follow Jesus like that.  I don't doubt the reality and power of the conversion moment, because I've talked with people who had them, but my experience has been that they are more the exception than the rule.  I think more of us take a while to get there, and move in a series of steps.  That kind of conversion is real and powerful too.

 Which is why I am grateful that the passage from Mark is grouped with the story of Jonah in our lectionary, because Jonah’s conversion is more of a process. Although, weirdly, the part we mostly remember from Bible stories isn’t in our lectionary at all. The book of Jonah begins with a section called “Jonah Tries to Run Away from God.” That’s where God tries to send Jonah to Nineveh, so Jonah jumps on a ship going the opposite direction. Which leads to God’s trying to get Jonah’s attention with a storm. His shipmates figure that out and, at Jonah’s instruction, toss him overboard. Interestingly, that is their conversion moment. Jonah’s comes after he is swallowed by a big fish, while he is praying inside its belly. Ultimately the fish spits him out, and we pick up the story today with God speaking to Jonah a second time, now that he is paying attention.

That long and epic voyage feels a lot more like my story was than any sort of “Come and see.” “OK,” “Immediately!” “OK.” But really, I’m not sure it matters. Because, perhaps disappointingly, we don’t get Brownie points for being the first ones to raise our hands with the right answer. Following Jesus isn't really about that moment of decision, after all. 

I’m not saying it isn’t important.  Making a commitment is essential, but it's just the beginning.  Following Jesus is a lifelong vocation.  The vocation that comes before all the others, and the vocation that shapes all the others.  It's the vocation that calls us out of our routines to see Jesus, over and over.  It's not one moment of yes, it's a whole series of yeses.  Yeses that wear away the bits of our lives that obscure the image of God in us.  All kinds of yeses, different for each of us.  Yes to speaking words of healing and prayer instead of hurt.  Yes to going far out of our way to deliver groceries to someone shut in.  Yes to carving out time from other possibilities for prayer and Bible study, or writing a note to a family who has lost a loved one.  Yes to working for justice or peace. Yes to whatever way God is calling us to serve.

 You've all said yes at least once.  You're listening this morning, after all.  I don't know if that was an easy yes or a hard one.  Yeses come in both flavors. And the way to get to where you can say yes to the difficult parts of following Jesus is to say yes first to the easy parts.  That creates a pattern or a habit.  First you see Jesus and hear the call, whatever it is, you discern that it is in fact God calling, and then you say yes.  You say yes again, and again.  Sometimes there are no’s sprinkled in there.  But you keep saying yes.

And God keeps offering more chances to say yes.  Every day I get more chances.  Some choices are easy – get up to pray or roll over and go back to sleep?  Some are more difficult. Like invitations to reach out to people who really frustrate me. Or examining myself instead of judging others, tempting as that is. But when I say yes. What seems hard becomes do-able and what seems insurmountable becomes surprisingly possible.

I’ve found that the wonderful thing about saying yes is that it makes Jesus easier to spot.  If anything takes me out of the distractions of worry, and fear, and self-sufficiency and makes God manifest in the world around me, it’s saying yes.  Over and over.  And it makes me much more attuned to what God is doing in the world, how Jesus shows up in the lives of people around me.  Not to mention my own life.  Often that happens when I’m looking where a friend or some other wise spiritual guide is pointing.  “Don’t you see?  That’s God working.”  The Holy Spirit is moving - in that funny coincidence you can’t quite dismiss.  God is there - answering your prayers, just in ways you didn’t expect.  Jesus is there - in that story all over Facebook that restored your faith in humanity after a really bad day.  Every single one of us has these moments.  We just need to look up and see Jesus.

As Church, we need each other to be able to do that.  No scientist makes a discovery without depending on the work of the other scientists who have gone before, and none of us becomes a better follower of Christ without depending on His work, and the model of the saints who surround us, in this realm and the heavenly one.  They are the ones who have gone before and will go along to help you see, and the ones to whom you will return the favor.  It’s what we promise at baptisms: to do all in our power to support one another in our lives in Christ.  Epiphany is a season celebrating God’s being made known, and together we can enjoy a life where we come to expect epiphanies all around us.

 It’s funny.  “Follow me” has come to be language we use for Twitter or Facebook when we want to know everything someone says, hear everything they want to share about their lives.  We get to choose who we follow, people who amuse or inspire us or people who reinforce our worst instincts.  Jesus doesn’t have a Facebook account, at least outside of memes, but he is asking us to follow him.  When the world feels so heavy, what with pandemics and politics and too much family time and anxiety about the future, don’t let cynicism or fear blind you. Don’t get so distracted that you miss seeing Jesus.  Because “come and see” happens all the time. Notice him there in front of you and say yes.  Then say yes again, over and over. 

Follow Jesus, and bring a friend along, because I promise, it’s the journey of a lifetime and a journey you won’t regret.  AMEN.

January 17, 2021

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

1 Samuel 3:1-20 | John 1: 43-51

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

Holy God, your Word is life. Grant us to hear your word, that we may live. In your name we pray, Amen.

Samuel, a teenager at the most by this time in the story, is told by God what God plans to do to Eli and his sons because of their sin, blasphemy, and wickedness. God will bring an end to Eli and to his sons. They will no longer provide spiritual leadership in Israel. Samuel lays in the temple until morning, unable to sleep after hearing the shocking, sad news that the man who has for all intents and purposes raised him, who has taught him to minister to the Lord, who has enabled him to understand that the Lord was speaking to him will die. The burden of this truth weighs on him. Yet when Eli demands a report, Samuel doesn’t sugar coat things, he doesn’t hedge what God said, he doesn’t nuance it. “Samuel told him everything, and hid nothing from him.” Samuel shares God’s plan to bring the House of Eli to an end. Eli, to his credit, doesn’t hem and haw. He doesn’t fight, he doesn’t argue. He accepts that the Lord is sovereign, that the Lord is good. And the actions of the Lord, even when difficult, even when they reveal our failures and shortcomings, are nonetheless, good.

Samuel and Eli do not run away from the truth of God. Samuel speaks it and Eli hears it. There’s no hint of moral superiority or self-righteousness on the part of Samuel, nor is there any sense that Eli wishes to argue with God’s judgement. There is a radical, shocking willingness by both men to stand before the truth and with the truth in naked vulnerability.

The story of Samuel and Eli is one we would all do well to sit with for the next few days. It is a story of truth telling and a story of what is required to tell and to hear the truth. God comes to Samuel, but it is only with the help of Eli that he can answer God. God speaks judgement against Eli, yet this is only known through the voice of Samuel. The truth of God which both men encounter is only encountered amid their relationship with each other. Samuel needs Eli to hear the truth and Eli needs Samuel to hear the truth. Neither will know the word of God, neither will hear God speak, without the other.

The people of God have traditionally been in the business of the truth. “The truth will set you free,” after all. But in the last several years it has seemed to me that the relationship necessary for truth hearing and truth telling have frayed. Unlike Samuel and Eli, it seems that we live in a culture where we are more and more unwilling to hear uncomfortable truths and speak uncomfortable truths. One would hope that the church would be an exception to this, but I’m not sure that’s the case.

See, if we can take our story today as a guide, hearing God’s truth doesn’t come from an unbiased, unmediated third party. Unfortunately, God isn’t simply gonna relay a private message to you and I. God, rather annoyingly, is going to use other people. People like Samuel. Samuel was young, he didn’t know what the voice of God might sound like, he’s not the kind of person you would expect God to appear to. Yet…that’s exactly what happens. God by passes the elderly priest, and goes to the young man who can’t tell the difference between the voice of God and a call from down the hall. Sometimes we will be like Samuel. Called by God to speak a hard word to someone. And sometimes we will be like Eli, called to hear a hard truth from someone.

It seems that in the last little bit we have all become increasingly unwilling to hear hard truths and speak hard truths. We are so blinded by the rightness of our ‘side’, that the other can have absolutely nothing to say to us. We hear something that’s hard and our immediate response is to either dismiss it, nuance it, argue against it, or simply say we’re the exception. Instead of speaking the truth to those we know and exist in relationship with, we cut people out, or post snide memes and comments on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, assuming that that is sufficient to tell the truth.

But Samuel and Eli show us another way. Samuel and Eli speak and hear the truth in the context of relationships of care and accountability. They know each other. They care for one-another. Though it may be difficult, nevertheless, Samuel speaks the truth to Eli, and though he may want with everything in him to escape the judgement of God, Eli doesn’t hide from the truth.

Christians have been bound by our baptism to Jesus Christ, who is the truth. We have committed ourselves to living in the light of truth, and we can only do that if we live lives of humility, lives which are open to hearing and speaking the truth. The last few months have revealed a lot of truths, in my opinion. Truths about America’s racism, truths about the way in which our legal and justice systems continued to oppress black and brown folks, truths about the economic inequality that make much of our lives possible, truths about how deeply divided we are, perhaps to our very core, as a nation. We could all squirm from these truths, keep them to ourselves, or ignore them all together, but what Christ has called us to, what we see in the story of Eli and Samuel, is that we are to accept the truths we hear, as uncomfortable as they are. We are to share those truths. We are live in the confidence that God speaks in and through the most surprising voices, and we are to trust that God who speaks through these voices is Good. Change in Israel only comes when someone is able to speak a hard truth and when someone is able to hear it. May it be so for us. Amen.

January 10, 2021

1 Epiphany

Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1: 4-11

The Rev. James M. L. Grace

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

            Probably like many of you, I spent Epiphany (which was last Wednesday) closely watching the news.  With you, I watched as protestors pushed beyond barricades at the Capital.  Together we saw America’s constitutional process interrupted, the seat of our democracy desecrated, and the power of that democracy tarnished.  Capital police officers were clubbed, and one officer, Brian D. Sicknick (who supported President Trump) is dead.  The assault on our nation’s Capital and the disrespect shown inside its chambers was, to quote former President George W. Bush, “sickening and heartbreaking.”  Prior to January 6, I believe the last time there was an assault on our nation’s capital was during the war of 1812, over two hundred years ago.

            In the days since, I have wondered how this assault might have been handled differently, if the assailants were not largely Caucasian.  What would the response had been if the mob were undocumented Latinos, or a mob of African Americans?  Jimmie Briggs, a black author wrote of the assault in Vanity Fair, saying that “despite the mobsters extraordinary disregard for the rule of law, for agents of law enforcement, and for social norms regarding government, government property, and government processes, a near mythical graciousness was shown to the insurrectionists.” 

            Occasionally when I preach or write about political matters, I will receive an email or a call or a letter, asking that I limit my preaching to the realm of the religious or spiritual, and leave politics out of it.  With a moment like last Wednesday, my response can only be that either our faith has something to say to our world, or it does not.  Either as Christians we are called to make the world a better place or we are not.   Which is it? 

            What happened in the Capital was not a reasonable response to the concerns about a presidential election.  It was madness.  But it was also deeply revealing of how broken we are as a country, and how desperate our need is for God’s grace and wisdom.  The number of protesters taking selfie pictures of themselves in our nation’s capital is revelatory of the selfishness we as a nation are contending with. 

            As your priest, it has been challenging leading this congregation through a season of divisive politics the likes of which I have never seen before.  If we are to learn anything from the events of last Wednesday, I believe it is a lesson that we are all familiar and which we all neglect.  

            It is humility, and it is sorely needed on both sides of the political aisle.  And it is needed here – right now – with us.  A helpful litmus test for all of us to consider if we should be more humble is this – take your pulse.  If your heart is still beating, you could benefit from being more humble.  The left and the right sides of our political aisles simply cannot be reconciled to one another until both sides humble themselves to the point where they are willing to listen, to take the cotton out of their ears and put it in their mouths.    

Our printed national currency bears the motto “E Pluribus Unum” which translates to “out of many, one.”  That phrase is attributed to Roman lawyer Cicero who said that a Republic is made up of many diverse individuals who make up one unit.  Echoing this sentiment centuries later, on June 16, 1858, Abraham Lincoln, famously stated upon his acceptance speech as senator from the state of Illinois: “a house divided against itself, cannot stand.”  Spoken just three years before the Civil War, Lincoln’s words were as true then as they are now.

            Our democracy is fragile, and our arrogance is threatening its very livelihood.  As a nation, we must learn humility.  How do we learn humility?  Lots of ways – life experience, our children, conversations with those who hold different views than ourselves.  We also learn humility through prayer.  There is of course very little that any of us can offer that will change the outcome of events nearly 1,400 miles away in our nation’s capital.  But we can pray and we can vote.  We can use this moment in our history to return to God, to begin praying again.  Like some Episcopalians, you might find yourself saying “but I don’t know how to pray.”  That is fine.  That is why we have a prayer book.  You may have one if you do not own one.  Throughout its pages are prayers written for every circumstance in your life. 

            Prayer and humility over time, will open yourself to receiving God’s providence – the appearance of God’s care and direction.  Friends, we are in Epiphany, the season in which we proclaim the appearance of Jesus to all people.  The appearance of God’s care and direction, of Christ, is what all of us need.  Humble yourself.  Pray.  Use this time to reflect how Jesus is apparent in your life.  In a moment of a national crisis, where is the Son of God to be found?  AMEN.

December 24, 2020

Christmas Eve

Hebrews 11:1-2; Psalm 98; John 1:1-14

The Rev. James M. L. Grace

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

            While the Gospel of John is not my favorite Gospel (it is Mark, by the way), John’s Gospel has the best beginning of any Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  The only way to improve on that opening is if the Gospel writer would have instead written “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”

            That first sentence (from John’s Gospel, not Star Wars) begins with the phrase “In the beginning.”   We hear that same beginning in another book in the Bible – the first book – Genesis, which begins like this: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” 

            So, we have two beginnings – one in Genesis, one in John.  In beginning the Gospel this way, the Gospel author is making a subtle, yet important point, and it is this – Jesus has existed since the beginning.  That means that Jesus existed as part of God before his birth to Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem.  In the same way that Jesus continued to live after his death, he was alive before his birth. 

            That is why this Gospel begins with the phrase “In the beginning.”  The author is saying that Jesus has always existed with God.  That is why John’s Gospel refers to Jesus as “the Word (with a capital w).”  The word “word” translates into Greek as logos.  That word sounds strange to us today. 

            But when the Gospel was written, the word logos was more familiar.  Logos meant more than “word.”  Logos meant something that was perfect, constant, eternal.  So, when John writes “In the beginning was the logos,” the author is saying that Jesus is this eternal word, who existed before his birth, and exists after his death. 

            John’s cosmic description of Christ was a bit controversial for the day, so much that the Gospel of John almost did not make it into the Bible.  There is no familiar Christmas story in John’s Gospel.  We do not hear about a manger, angels, shepherds, or wise men.  Instead, we get this grandiose description of Christ as God’s eternal word. 

            Tonight, we celebrate Christmas Eve and honor the mystery of Christ’s birth.  While Christmas celebrations seem normal to us today (even during a pandemic) Christmas has not always been celebrated. 

            It was not until December 25, 336, (about three centuries following the death and resurrection of Jesus) that we have an actual record of a Christmas service.  I do not believe this to be accidental.  Christmas became important around 336 because that was the time in which people were finally able, after much argument, to agree on exactly who Jesus was.  And who was Jesus, did they decide?  They decided that Jesus was fully human, born of a mother, and that Jesus was simultaneously fully divine. 

            To help solidify this agreement of the church, liturgies and services were formed to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  They called them a “Christ Mass,” from which we get Christmas.  One of the church leaders that attended these early church council meetings was a bishop named Nicholas of Myra.  Nicholas was known not only for his work in the church, but also for his habit of secret gift giving.   Bishop Nicholas of Myra’s reputation as a gift-giver earned him enough of a reputation that Nicholas (or Saint Nick as we might call him) became the prototype for that jolly man in a red suit and white beard who will slipping down your chimney tonight. 

            Today we celebrate Christ Mass. We hear that “In the beginning was the Word.”  God’s word is often called the Bible, but if we are to understand the Gospel of John correctly, the word of God is not a book – it is a person, it is Jesus the Messiah. 

            The gift of Christmas is Jesus himself.  It is a free gift, given not only on Christmas, but every day, because God’s word never ends.   AMEN.

January 3, 2021

The Second Sunday after Christmas

Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a | Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

Our Gospel lesson today skips over 3 verses that, to really get the fullest picture possible of the lesson, I think we need. Verse 16 begins: when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time he had learned from the wise men…This scene is what has traditionally been called the murder of the Holy Innocents. We skip over this scene because the Feast of the Holy Innocents, who might be considered the first martyrs, falls just a few days after Christmas and this portion of Scripture is read there.

The death of the Holy Innocents, of all the children under two years in Bethlehem, is the driving force for the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. Herod’s bloodlust is fueled by the threat which this “new born King” poses to his own reign and to the rule of Rome in Israel. Herod has a cushy job and he wants to keep it, so he’ll do whatever he must to secure his position.

Over the course of Advent some parishioners and I spent time reflecting on the Four Last Things, and one of the four last things is judgement, my favorite one. We often think of judgement in punitive terms. We judge someone and make an evaluation of them, we judge someone and pass a sentence on them. Those are certainly real parts of judgement, and they’re found in Scripture, but judgement, particularly the judgement of God, has some different nuances. In Scripture judgement is about bringing the truth to light. Judgement, God’s judgement, reveals reality. Think of a courtroom, in a good, functioning, just justice system the purpose of a judgement is to declare what the truth is. That’s why you are judged then sentenced. A court passes judgement as to what the reality of a particular case might be. This is how judgement is often used of God in Scripture. And this is the judgement which Christ, by his birth, has come to bring down on us. Christ has come to judge the world, because Christ has come to show us the truth of our world.

The flight into Egypt is a moment of judgement. As the Holy Family flees to safety, as the innocents of Bethlehem are slaughtered, the judgement of God is revealed against Herod because we see the truth of Herod’s rule, of Rome’s rule. The flight into the Egypt shows the very nature of Herod’s cushy job, the cost the good order of kingdom requires.

What the judgement reveals, however, is complex. We look at Herod and see in him one of the bad guys of the Gospels. But if we step back and think for a moment, we see that he was a man who had a job to do, he was a ruler, the king, his job was to protect Israel, his people, the Romans who he served, from threats to their interest. He had laws to uphold. Kings cannot, as a matter of course, simply allow would-be usurpers to just…wander about. Herod was made aware of a threat and took care of it. Sure, the threat was a newborn, but he was a threat nonetheless. The judgement of God reveals not simply that great evil exists, but that so often, great evil exists and is perpetrated under the guise of “doing one’s job” of “doing one’s duty.”  The judgement of God reveals how evil is often not something we add on top of our lives and work, but is something imbedded within it.

This story not only judges Herod, but every government, every. There has been no nation on earth, no power, no empire that has not, in some way secured itself by the blood of innocents.  How many enslaved Africans had to die for us to build America? How many Native Americans had to die to make room for our manifest destiny? How many women, men, and children were sacrificed in the engine of progress as the lives of the comfortable were made even cushier?

As Christians, we are called to be a people who open our eyes to the violence of the world, who do not shrink back when the innocents are killed. And there are too many instances of innocent slaughter to name everyone. But there are two that hit close to home for me, and that I think a fitting to mention on this day in which we remember the Holy Family’s flight. First, is the Syrian refugee crisis, entering its 11th year, in which millions have been displaced around the world.  Second, is immigration at the southern border, where many fleeing violence and instability in central America – including many children – have sought some form of sanctuary in the US. These people fleeing violence are no different than the Holy Family. They bear witness to the judgement of God, to the truth which God in Christ continues to reveal. When we see these people as “problems,” as “blights” as “threats” we close our eyes to the truth. But in his coming among us, Christ has invited us to open our eyes to the light, to see the truth, and boldly face it, knowing that it is only in finding the truth, and living into the truth that we will be free.

Christ came into the world at Christmas as king, savior. This has dramatic, far-reaching implications for us. If we are to be Christians, to be citizens of heaven, subjects of Christ, then all other allegiances must be relativized. Christ has come into the world and shown us the nature of our governments, he has revealed to us the way in which human systems depend on violence to secure themselves. We live in that violent world. We live as beneficiaries of the violence that has made our country and our world what it is, we live as beneficiaries of the violence that even now happens to make our lives possible. Christ has called us to see that violence. To stand against it. To speak out for the innocents. Christ has given us a new way, a different way, to be in the world. To be citizens of a kingdom not maintained by the violent securing of power but maintained by the self-giving love of God for all God’s creatures.

 Amen.

December 25, 2020

Christmas Day

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

Poor, ordinary shepherds are accosted by the glory of heaven, as an angel announces to them good news of great joy: the messiah, the savior, the hope of Israel and the world has been born.  They are given a sign: a manger, bands of cloths. The terror of the moment is ratcheted up now as the barrier between heaven and earth blurs, and the shepherds are greeted with the entire host, the entire army of angelic beings praising God and singing. In a moment it is gone. They are returned to the ordinary. To the dark field. To their sheep.

The shepherds set out to confirm what was spoken to them and, sure enough, they find the sign promised to them: a baby, wrapped in bands of cloth, lying in a manger. All who hear this word are amazed, and for good reason. The messiah? In a feeding trough? The savior, surrounded by donkeys and goats? Certainly not. It's amazing, not in its wonder, but in its ridiculousness. The hope of the world amid livestock.

Surely the shepherds knew how shocking, how surprising this scene was. Could they have believed it without the backing of heaven's army? Nothing about the scene at Bethlehem speaks of a miraculous savior appearing. Jesus doesn't shimmer with a heavenly light. Mary doesn't recline in beatific serenity. Joseph's halo is nowhere to be found. All that's found is a newborn: perhaps asleep, perhaps fussing. A new mother, exhausted from the pain of labor. A new father, terrified of this new little person who is his to protect. Not the kind of scene often found on our Christmas cards. Yet here, so the angels say, so the shepherds believe, is the hope of humanity. Here is the savior of the world. Here is God in human flesh.

Yet the shepherds believe the word of the angels, they trust that this ordinary place is the site of the extraordinary. Here in a manger lies the savior of the world. Here in a manger lies God himself. As they approach this exceedingly ordinary baby, they approach the Holy One of Israel. In Bethlehem they find what the angel reported and that is enough for them. As the great theologian Hans Von Balthasar has said about this episode: "the sign fits!" They rejoice, they praise God, they celebrate this great miracle - the birth of Jesus Christ. Emmanuel. God with us! Not because of some miraculous proof that confirms that Jesus is actually the messiah. But simply because what the angel said was true.

Jesus outgrew the manger, but Jesus has not outgrown his penchant for showing up amid the ordinary. Jesus continues to be found in the most ordinary, shocking, surprising places. Jesus is found in his body, the church. In the women and men who make up our parishes and congregation. Jesus is found in the sip of wine and taste of what is "technically" bread. Jesus is found in the stories and laws and letters of a book so profoundly ordinary at times that Christians have shuddered to think God could be found there. These may not be an animal's feeding trough, but they are as ordinary a place as that first Christmas. They are as surprising a place to find our salvation and hope as any. Like the shepherds we approach them and we don't find anything shining or miraculous. We find things shockingly ordinary.

Christmas calls us to put aside our penchant for imagining how God should be encountered. At Christmas, we are reminded that God shows up in his own way. Sometimes with great fanfare, sometimes without. We cannot know in advance. All we can know is that Jesus has promised to be present in these things. That we would find him there.

December 20, 2020

The Fourth Sunday of Advent

2 Samuel 7: 1-11, 16; Canticle 15; Romans 16: 25-27; Luke 1:26-38

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

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

            “Oh, the places you will go!”  “What great things are in store for you.”   “I want you to be a Bishop one day.”  These are all things which have been communicated to me over the years since I was a child.  They are the normal platitudes of high school, college, or seminary commencement addresses: a bright future lies ahead for you, you will have great success, etc.  Many of you might have been fed the same diet of platitudes, and some of you might feel the burden such platitudes can carry.  You might be wondering – “is this all there is?  I expected and wanted so much more.” 

If there is any subtle message to adults and youth in our country today, it might be the quiet specter of upward mobility.  We all hear it don’t we?  The television advertisements this time of year which feature happy family gatherings with lots of presents under the tree, tables full of food.  Those images may or may not match with your reality.  The world, and sadly, the church at times reinforces the idea that we should be seeking promotions in our work, and increases in our salaries. We should be seeking out larger homes to live in.  This is not the Gospel, nor do I believe it is God’s plan for us.

            There is that phrase – “God’s plan.”  Often those words – “God’s plan” are used to describe marvelous and wonderful things God has planned for us.  I rarely hear someone tell a patient dying of cancer “what a wonderful plan God had for you.” I want to be clear – I personally believe God has a plan for all of us, and it has nothing to do with upward mobility.  God’s plan for all of us is personal growth.  This is not easy, it is often painful, and in the growing up process we learn things about ourselves we do not like.   That is okay.  Remember that the path which seems to offer the greatest challenge is the one most likely to lead you in the right direction. 

            God had a plan for Mary.  When the angel Gabriel appeared to her to inform her of the perplexing news that she was to give birth to God’s son, she uttered some of the most profound words in all the Bible.  She said, “Let it be done to me according to your word.”  Notice what Mary does not say.  She does not say, “let it be done to me according to your word, but don’t let it cost me my health.”  She does not say “let it be done to me according to your word, but don’t make it too hard, or make it cost too much money.”  She does not say “let it be done according to your will, but can I get something out of it too?” 

            Mary simply accepts the angel’s words, accepting what God gave her to do.  She does not ask for more or less, she just receives what God gives.  She does not ask God to make things other than the way they are.  How many of us do the same in our lives?

            When you are faced with a serious financial predicament, or if the results of the biopsy are unfavorable, what do you say to God?   Do you say, “get me out this problem” or do you say, “let it be done according to your word?” 

            I have heard it said before that religion is something for people who are scared of hell, and that spirituality is for people who have already been there.  If you have experienced a living hell, then you are well acquainted with those hard emotions of uncertainty, pain, and torment.  I have.  For a long time, I looked back on my hell experience as wasted time.  Now, with some perspective, I see that my own personal hell was a blessing.  It was a blessing because it led me to understand the grace of Mary’s words: “let it be done according to your word.” 

The spiritual life is not a life of upward mobility, it is the opposite.  It is the life of downward mobility, of emptying yourself, losing your ego, of walking through your own hell and living to tell about it - whatever you want to call it.  Mary was chosen as God’s mother because she understood this.   She let go.  She was willing.  “Let it be done with me according your word.”  Let it be done.  Let it be.  AMEN. 

December 13, 2020

The Third Sunday of Advent: Year B

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 |Psalm 126| John 1:6-8, 19-28

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

Priests and Levites leave Jerusalem and come to the wilderness by the Jordan to see John and investigate what he’s up to. They wonder who he is and why he’s doing what he’s doing. Could he be the messiah? Maybe Elijah? Maybe the prophet? In other words, could John be the hope of Israel? John, however, is not the hope of Israel. John is simply a witness, testifying to the light which was breaking over the whole world. John is simply the voice calling out in the wilderness: make straight the way of the Lord!

To better appreciate what John is doing I think we have to pay attention to what comes just a few verses after our lesson, starting at verse 29. John sees Jesus, he looks and he says “behold here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, ‘after me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me. I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason - that he might be revealed to Israel.’” John did not know Jesus was the light he was bearing witness to. John knew that someone was coming, that a Messiah was on his way but John didn't know the who, the what, or the when and still John was in the wilderness baptizing and preaching calling the people of Israel to lives of repentance, calling the people of Israel to turn back to God, to make a space for God's salvation to arrive in the person of the Messiah.

John was in the wilderness, in this place where God had acted again and again in Israel’s history. John was there preparing for God to act once more, but John himself didn't know the details.  John was called to be the forerunner, to remind the people of the promises of God, promises to never forsake them, promises to be with them, promises to liberate them. So, John is out here preaching and baptizing and the pharisees send Levites and priests to go out and see John. They ask, “who are you? Are you the one we're waiting on? are you the one who we’re waiting on?” And all John can do is point away from himself and say “no, I am not the one, but one is coming after me.” And I imagine the priests and the Levites saying, “Well, who?” and John saying, “I don't know.” And then they say, “Well, when?” and john saying, “I don't know.” And then they say, “Well, where?”  and John saying, “I don't know.”

John doesn't know the details John simply knows that God will act. John was undoubtedly raised in the synagogue and in the temple where he heard the stories that the Jewish people told again and again, stories of heroes, stories of salvation, stories of deliverances large and small. John grew up knowing that the God he worshiped was a God who promised to save and who made good on those promises. So, John could look forward and know how God would save again.

John the Baptist figures prominently in the advent season. He gets two out of the four weeks of advent devoted to him. We kind of think of advent as this season of preparation for Christmas but we spend a lot more time on John the Baptist than we do on any kind of christmassy theme. We spend so much time because John reminds us of where we are in our history. Advent is a season in which we remember that God came once, and that God will come again. It’s a season in which we remember how God has delivered his people once before and will deliver them again. In advent we look to John the Baptist because he is the embodiment of what it means to live as an advent person, and whether we are in the season of advent or not, we are called to live as advent people.

John shows us that we are to be a people who proclaim the coming of God, who proclaim the mighty acts of God for our salvation and our restoration and our fullness. We, like John, are called to be a people preparing the way of the Lord, preparing for the coming again of Christ in glory to judge the world and to set all things right. That's why week after week, year after year, in pandemic and out of pandemic the church worships. We worship in order to remind ourselves of the God who has acted and the God who will act.  Week after week we come and we hear the story of Scripture so that we will remember what God has done, so we can claim the promise and the hope that what God has done for others God will do for us and for those who come after us.

  John was nurtured by the faith of Israel and it was that faith that allowed him to proclaim even when he didn't know the fullness of the story that God was going to act. We too must ground ourselves in our own story, the story of scripture and the story of the Saints. Our job as Christians is to live lives that proclaim what God is going to do. We are to proclaim justice, to practice forgiveness, to dispense grace.  We are to look boldly to the coming again of Jesus Christ, to await with hope the day when God will act to bring to fullness every work of justice, every cause of joy, every gesture of mercy, the day when God’s salvation will flow over our world like a rushing river, when God will be all in all, and when death and suffering and sin will be more. That is the hope of advent. That is the hope of Jesus. That is the hope of our faith. Amen

December 6, 2020

The Second Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85: 1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3: 8-15a; Mark 1:1-8

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

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

            During college, which seems like forever ago, I worked several different jobs.  The job I enjoyed the most was working as an on-air personality for a music radio station in Austin.  I used to work the graveyard, or overnight shift, and at the top of every hour we had to do the station identification, which was something radio stations back then (and now) were legally required to do. 

            The station I worked for had an array of various station identifications you choose from, most of which were pretty funny.  My favorite was one that began with these words: “Jesus is coming.  Look busy!”  And then it would roll into the station identification: “107.7 KNNC-FM Austin, TX.” 

            Whenever we are in the Advent season, I think of that Station identification, primarily because Advent is all about that expectant waiting for Christmas – the big day.  The season we are in -Advent -  is about waiting for the birth of the Christ child, but it is also about waiting expectantly for his return.  I used to not like Advent much at all, which was because I was not very good at waiting.  Life has taught me the importance and value of waiting, and now Advent is one of my favorite seasons. 

            Our reading from 2 Peter today addresses this problem of waiting.  It was written sometime around 80 – 90 CE.  That date is important, seeing that it was written some 50-60 after the date of Christ’s death and resurrection.  At that time, Christians believed Christ’s return was imminent.  Some of them had been waiting 50-60 years for it.  Have you ever waited that long for something?

            The scholarly term for this long period of waiting  is “delayed Parousia.”  That is a fancy way of saying “someone who is running extremely late to the party.”  It appears that Christians living during the first few decades after Jesus died expected that they would see him return during their lifetime.  This, as we know, did not happen.  They spend many years “looking busy” waiting for Christ to return. 

            Perhaps people were beginning to lose faith, since his return seemed nowhere on the horizon.  These circumstances might help to explain why the author of this letter quoted Psalm 90, verse 4, which says “a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past or like a watch in the night.” 

            In other words, 2 Peter does not answer the question of “how long do we need to look busy until Jesus returns?”  It does remind us, more importantly, that to God a thousand years are like a day.  God’s time is not like ours. 

            The purpose of Advent, and of God’s timing, is not for us to try and force our own solutions.  They never work, anyway.  Instead, the purpose of Advent, and God’s timing, is to lay our entire lives at God’s feet, and to remember that we are not in control of our time, we don’t get to call the shots, we don’t get to tell God when to show up.  Instead, Advent teaches us humility.  We learn to wait.  We learn to trust.  God will show up.  God will appear when God is ready to do so.  AMEN.  

November 29, 2020

First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; Mark 13: 24-37

The Rev. Jeffrey Bohanski

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Let me be the first person to welcome you to the new year of 2021! Happy New Year!

Nope, I have not had too much communion wine!  Today marks the first day of the new church year.  The new liturgical year always begins with Advent.  I read somewhere that the first Sunday of Advent is always the Sunday before our parish feast day, Saint Andrew’s Day.

I think Advent is the season of the church year that goes most counter to what the culture is doing at the time.  Everywhere one goes one sees Christmas decorations being put up.  People are buying gifts.  I heard online shopping has dramatically gone up this year due to Covid-19.  Now, I must admit I’ve already done most of my Christmas shopping online already.  The cooking shows, always popular in my house, are now all about making the perfect Christmas foods.   

While the world wants to start celebrating Christmas like a Hallmark TV Movie where all the hope is placed in the perfect new love, the perfect Christmas gift and the perfect Christmas party, today in church we talk about death and the end times.

In today’s Gospel we heard the author of Mark give an account of a conversation Jesus had with his disciples as they were leaving the temple concerning the end times.  In the story Jesus uses words from Daniel and Isaiah to talk about the forth coming disaster that will befall Jerusalem.  These words would have been well known to Mark’s community, a community expecting Jesus’ return to be eminent. One may wonder, where is the hope in that?

This week as I read and reread this Gospel, the statement Jesus uses, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not.” have stuck with me.  “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not.” Everything will pass away; the decorations, the gifts, the foods, the parties, and yes even our loves will pass away.  Jesus’ words will not.  Now this I find hopeful.

Yesterday someone posted on Facebook an old ‘70’s picture of the marquee for “Robby’s Restaurant,” a local fast-food establishment in my home town of Stevens Point, WI.  I sent a screenshot of the picture to my brother and sisters on our family text thread.  For a good part of yesterday morning we posted memories we all had of our grandparents taking each of us to “Robby’s” for lunch.  We shared the memories of the fun we had with my grandparents eating our burgers, dipping our fries in our vanilla shakes like my grandmother enjoyed doing, laughing, carrying on, enjoying life and how they made us each feel special.  Memories of eating “Robby’s” burgers and fries for lunch with my grandparents are some of my favorite childhood memories. 

Today, “Robby’s Restaurant” is no longer there.  It went out of business long ago when major fast-food chains came to town.  Come to think about it, the restaurant that replaced “Robby’s” is also long gone.

My grandparents are no longer with us, they both passed away over forty years ago.  My grandmother died first when I was in middle school.  A few years later when I was in high school my grandfather died.  I remember being with my whole family at my grandfather’s bedside when he died.  I remember sometime during that day my father told us that death is part of life.  Dad told us that he remembered when his grandfather died and then he added, today is the day his father died and one day he will die.  As a high school kid I didn’t quite get that that statement implied that one day I will die.  I know that now.  In fact, Victor and I already have our niche in the Palmer Columbarium ready, one day, to receive our ashes. 

Robby’s, my grandparents and great-grandparents have passed away, the house has been sold and changed dramatically.  This building we are in or are streaming into will one day pass away.  Palmer’s Columbarium will even one day pass away.  All these things will pass away but the words of Jesus will not.  Words like, I love you, I forgive you, be healed, love one another as I have loved you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, forgive seventy times seven, feed my sheep,  do not let your hearts be troubled, I am the way the truth and the life.

In a few minutes we will all recite the Nicene Creed.  We will say together:  “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. . .”  I wonder how I would be judged for living according to these words of Jesus.  I know I am very grateful to be able to ask for and receive forgiveness for the times when I have not loved my enemies, prayed for those who have persecuted me, allowed my heart to be troubled,  when I did not trust in God’s complete and abiding love and when I did not feed his sheep.  These words of forgiveness I find most hopeful.

Let me again wish you a happy new year.  Let me invite us all this Advent to embrace more fully the fact that heaven and earth will pass away but the hopeful words of Jesus will not.  Words like I love you, I forgive you, I heal you, love one another as I have loved you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, do not let your hearts be troubled, I am the way the truth and the life.  And when we fail to embrace Jesus’ words let us all repent and return to God, with God’s help.  Amen

November 25, 2020

Thanksgiving Eve 

Deuteronomy 8: 7-18; Psalm 65; 2 Corinthians 9: 6-15; Luke 17: 11-19

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

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

            I am going to go ahead and state what is completely obvious to all of us, which is that this will be a Thanksgiving unlike any of us have experienced before.  Usually each year for Thanksgiving, our house is full of people – friends and family, young and old, behaved and misbehaved.  It is always a joyful day. This year it will be much quieter as it will just be our family. 

            What is true in our home will certainly be true across countless other homes across our country.  And to be fair, while I am saddened by that, I also am reminded of something very important in the reading we hear from 2 Corinthians.  The apostle Paul writes these words: “the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”

            Paul is taking an image that was widely familiar to people at the time – sowing seed – and applying it to life.  I personally have never sown seeds before.  I’ve planted them, but never sown them, so the image is not a familiar one to me.  Perhaps it is a familiar image for you.

            The point Paul seems to make here is one we already know – we get what we put into life.  And that is certainly true in all things – especially so in rendering our thanks.  If we do not take time to say that we are thankful – even in a as strange a moment of time in history as this moment certainly is – we are not going to feel thankful. 

            When we give thanks and when we really mean it – not just pay lip service to it – our personalities will change.  That is something COVID-19 does not have the power to take away from Thanksgiving.  Sure COVID can make gathering difficult.  But COVID does not have the strength to rob us of our gratitude.  It is not that powerful. 

            So this Thanksgiving, I am going to try to do what the apostle Paul asks of us  - to be reckless in bountifully sowing gratitude and thanksgiving for the miracle that is the simple fact that we are alive and able to offer thanks.

            Earlier today in our Memorial Garden, I baptized a baby.  What an astounding thing.  To impart a blessing upon such a new life.  I was reminded of how freely God gives to us.  There is no limit to God’s giving, there is no limit to God’s blessing.  Like the sower scattering seed across the land, so to does God scatter blessings all around us.  We have so much to be thankful for. 

In closing, I will in a few moments walk down the aisle carrying holy water, and will sprinkle it upon your hands, if you desire.  Like the water I poured upon the forehead of an infant, the water sprinkled upon your hands reminds you they are holy, and that you are holy.  Sow bountifully, reap bountifully, live bountifully.  AMEN.

November 22, 2020

Christ the King

Ezekiel 34: 11-16, 20-24; Psalm 95: 1-7a; Ephesians 1: 15-23; Matthew 25:31-46

The Rev. James M. L. Grace

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

            What is the difference between a fat sheep and a lean sheep? It is not the obvious – their size.  It is something else, and it is this – the difference between the two types of sheep is that that one is obedient to God, while the other was not.  That is one of the ideas I take away from the reading of Ezekiel today.  In the reading, Ezekiel compares two kinds of sheep: ones that are overfeed, boisterous, and who push the smaller sheep around.  Then there are the lean sheep – the ones who get pushed around by the larger ones.  Of the two, lately I have resembled more the fatter sheep, not because of my behavior, but because of my diet.  Last night I ate two ice cream sandwiches called, appropriately “fat boys.”  I also have discovered a fondness for double stuffed Oreo cookies, which my wife reminds me are not the epitome of health.    

            There is a lesson here for all of us.  The size of the sheep – big or small – does not matter.  Their strength – or lack of it – does not matter.  What separates the sheep in God’s eyes is one very simple question: which sheep are obedient?  Which sheep humble themselves before their shepherd? 

            When I was younger, I thought obedience was such – such a drag.  It was boring.  It was not fulfilling.  There was not much fun to it.  People obedient to God struck me as not living life to the fullest. 

            Perhaps embarrassing to admit, but true.  There was a time in my life where being the fat sheep was what I thought was expected of me.  “Take what you can.”  “Look out for yourself – no one else will.”  “Work hard.  Earn money, and money will buy you happiness.”  Push others around, take advantage of them, manipulate them.  Those characteristics define much of American masculinity.  I tried them – and it made me miserable.  You can easily see why. 

            At a certain point in my life I began to appreciate… obedience.  And, over time, I learned that the bravado of the fat sheep was a charade.  At the same time, the small obedient sheep began to allure me.  I found their humility attractive, because their humility was grounded in a deep and abiding faith in God – a faith that, although baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal church, I did not yet know how to have.  

            Over time I have been privileged to discover that obedience before God is one of the most gratifying things I have ever encountered.   I believe this may be Ezekiel’s point.  God favors the obedient outcast, not because they have had such a hard go of it – but because obedience is the love language of God.  If you have not tried right sizing your ego, I suggest you give it a try.  See what it feels like.  Find out for yourself if God really favors the humble. AMEN.  

November 15, 2020

Proper 28

Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18; Psalm 90; 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11; Matthew 25: 14-30

The Rev. James M. L. Grace

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

The other day a friend shared a story with me about her child’s first communion.  At the time of the story, my friend was a member of the Catholic church, where services of first communion are more common for young children than in the Episcopal church.  In any case, she said that as she watched her child receive communion for the very first time, she began to cry, and the tears she shed were not tears of joy.  They were tears of sadness.

 Why the tears of sorrow?  Shouldn’t a child’s first communion be a happy occasion?  An occasion of celebration?  Why the sadness?  My friend explained to me the purpose of her tears – she was afraid that her son would grow up with the same idea of God as she was taught by the church.  What kind of God was this?  It was an angry God.  A God that demanded obedience.  A God that was quick to extend the hand of punishment, rather than mercy.  That is the kind of God my friend grew up knowing.  And that was the image of God she thought her son would receive.  Which is why she cried at her son’s first communion.

 It is true that this image of God is contained within the verses of our psalm for today – psalm 90.  Verse 7: “we are afraid because of your wrathful indignation.”  Verse 9: “when you are angry, all our days are gone.”  Verse 11: “who regards the power of your wrath?  Who rightly fears your indignation?”  Those verses identify God as vengeful, angry, and full of wrath.  Not exactly popular images of God in 2020.

 While that concept of God is not particularly helpful, neither is its opposite: the image of God as the cosmic all-allowing ultra-tolerant best friend.  This “God as my best friend” portrayal of God seems more popular today, instead of its angry counterpart.  Why? 

 I think it might have to do with human pride.  Our modern society, in my opinion, has such an over-inflated sense of itself, that the fear of God has lost its relevance.  Our technology, our government, our knowledge, our economy has permitted us to ascend to a point where an angry God who humbles us has lost its value. We would much prefer God to be like - like a docile lap cat, that will sit and purr quietly and ignore us, while we go along with our important business.

I am not making light of harmful God concepts.  I lived for a long time in fear of an angry God.  And it is indisputable that God’s wrath and anger has been used to justify persecution and harm to those whom Christians deemed as outsiders.   All I am saying, is that we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Maybe we need both: the disciplinarian God and the friendly God – two sides of one coin.  There is purpose in the difficult language of the psalm – at the very least it humbles us, it reminds us we are not God.  Psalm 90 starkly confronts us with our mortality and that at the end of the day, all of us are accountable to God.  Those are reasons to shed tears – not tears of sadness, but tears of joy.  AMEN.