September 26, 2021

Pentecost – Proper 21

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22; Psalm 124; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

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

By the age of nine or ten, I had learned how to make off color remarks and judgmental statements of others that today I find embarrassing at best, horrifying at worst.  I don’t remember what my nine-year-old self said to my Jewish neighbor, but it was offensive enough for my her to tell her grandmother, and soon, the grandmother of my Jewish neighbor to whom I had espoused an ignorant, stupid, and anti-Semitic statement was standing at our front door. 

I panicked, out of embarrassment, tried to run away, but there was no escape.  I had to face her. I was so afraid.  I sat down next to her, and she rolled up the sleeve of her blouse.  On her forearm I saw a series of numbers which she explained were a form of identification she received as a young woman at the Auschwitz concentration camp, the largest in Europe.  She told me her story, a story I never knew, and I apologized for what I had said.

If a historian were to ask what had inspired the kind of anti-Semitic hatred as seen in Europe during the time of World War II, the answer would be simple.  (1) The Christian church and its embarrassing history of hate-filled violent acts against Jewish people.  As evidence, look no further than a popular propaganda poster from 1933 which featured the great Catholic reformer Martin Luther with a swastika behind him and an inscription which read “Hitler’s fight and Luther’s teaching are the best defense for the human people.”[1] But the church cannot take the credit for fueling Nazi zeal to eliminate Jews alone.   Hitler also drew inspiration from his study of American history and the genocide of indigenous people in America, as well as such elements of American history like manifest destiny and slavery.[2]

This brings us to the book of Esther.  Shamefully we hear only one small part of this book, and so my homework for you is to read the entire book today – it’s ten chapters, and worth your time.  Esther is a story of a dynamic strong woman of Jewish faith.  She finds herself in a foreign land and manages to prevent the annihilation of her people.  She is like other Jewish heroes in the Bible who find favor in foreign courts, such as Joseph who serves under pharaoh in Egypt, or Daniel who serves under Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon.  Unfortunately, Esther’s heroism isn’t fully examined in today’s reading, and we miss much of her story with just the little we hear today.   

However, there is a happy ending – Esther subverts Haman’s evil plan to annihilate the Jews in Persia, and instead he suffers a tragic end, while Esther becomes Queen of Persia.  It is a happy ending, no doubt, but is it historical?  Is Esther true?  I would say that yes, Esther is true, but maybe not historically accurate, which might describe more of the Bible than any of us might be truly comfortable with. 

Ignorance, misinformation, and biased hatred have existed for centuries, and sadly, exist within us.  But so also does Esther’s strength, her courage, and most importantly – her faith.  To close I suggest one more book to you to read – it should be required reading – “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl.  In this book he describes, profoundly, his experience as an Auschwitz survivor, and the hope he was able to find there.  I believe the hope he found in Auschwitz and the hope Esther found in Persia were the same.  That same hope is within you.  Read Esther to find it.  AMEN.

[1] https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-5/protestant-churches-and-nazi-state

[2] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler

September 19, 2021

Proper 20

Proverbs 31:10-31; Psalm 1; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37

The Rev. Jeff Bohanski

Christ stands before you and peace is in his mind.

Christ stands before you and love is in his eyes.

Christ stands before you and strength is in his hands.

At some point this week I read somewhere, something like, as one reads the Bible, the Bible should be in one hand and the newspaper should be in the other hand. I take that to mean that one should bring the Gospel – the Good News – with them into one’s world.  So, it was with me this week as I prepared for this homily.

Last Sunday evening I laughed when I read these readings.  I laughed because, of course this first-grade teacher would have these words of Mark to preach on.  These words where Jesus tells the twelve “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

After reviewing the readings, I mapped out my week.  Monday and Tuesday evening I would work on my online class all first-grade teachers across Texas are required to take this year. Wednesday I would finish the assignment and thus on Thursday I would have a free and restful day off.  I went happily to bed confident that my plans for my week had been neatly mapped out.

Monday morning, I woke up and learned things had changed.  I heard tropical storm Nicholas was now expected to turn into Hurricane Nicholas and it was headed straight for Houston.  Victor and I quickly reviewed our hurricane ready list.  When I got to work, I learned I would still have half my class missing because these missing children were still in quarantine due to a Covid-19 exposure from the previous week.  At that point I clearly saw that even my lesson plans for the week were going to have to change.  It was then I remembered and gave thanks for having found this verse a few weeks ago:

Christ stands before you and peace is in his mind.

Christ stands before you and love is in his eyes.

Christ stands before you and strength is in his hands.

Tuesday morning around 1:30, we were awakened to the sound of a great big BOOM!  With great disgust we watched the ceiling fan slowly grind down to a halt.  We saw this because our backyard neighbor’s patio lights were still on and were shining brightly through the cracks in our blinds.  I rolled over, put the pillow over my head and as calmly as I could I recited my verse in my head and went back to sleep.

The next morning, I realized that with no electricity I wasn’t going to finish my online class.  So, I decided to work on this homily instead.  I reread our reading from Mark.  This time, the words “…and when he was in the house, he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’” drew my attention.  I visualized Jesus in the house with the twelve asking that question.  I wondered what it was like in that house that day.  It was then the words of my verse popped into my head.

Christ stands before you and peace is in his mind.

Christ stands before you and love is in his eyes.

Christ stands before you and strength is in his hands.

With these words in my head, I once again reread the Gospel.  As I read, I could see in my mind’s eye this Jesus, the Christ, with peace in his mind, love in his eyes and strength in his hands, teaching the twelve.  He was teaching them the difficult lesson about how he will one day be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.  I could see this Jesus who was peacefully, lovingly, strongly teaching them the difficult lesson that those who want to lead must put others first and serve as he serves. 

I could see this Jesus pick up the child and look longingly at the twelve, hoping for them to receive his peace that he knew they will one day need, look longing at them wanting them to feel the love he had for each of them even though they could not see it, longing for them to feel the strength he had in his hands that he knew one day would be punctured by nails. 

My friends, I invite you to embrace this Jesus who I believe longed for the twelve that day.  Embrace this Jesus who also longs for each of us.

Today I hear many voices in the world that don’t embrace this peace giving, loving bestowing strength sharing Jesus who was in that house with the twelve.  There are voices who say people who don’t look like you are out to get you, people who don’t think like you are stupid, people who don’t speak like you are out to take your job, people who don’t vote like you should be denied the vote, people who don’t love like you should be cast out, people who don’t pray like you aren’t going to heaven, people at the border looking for a better life should be walled out.

My friends, I invite us all not to listen to these voices.  I invite us to instead look at people who don’t look like us, who don’t think like us, who don’t speak like us, who don’t vote like us, who don’t love like us, who don’t pray like us as people who are also worthy of that peace, love, and strength I believe Jesus brought into that house where he was with the twelve that day. 

This week did not go according to my plans.  This week I learned that many of my problems of the week won’t go away if I embrace Jesus.  This time we lucked out with Hurricane Nicholas.  We survivors of the winter storm and of Hurricane Harvey know there will be more storms where we won’t luck out.  I know my online class will be a stress that won’t go away until it’s completed in May.  But I also know if I embrace the peace giving, loving, and strong Jesus who was with the twelve in that house that day, the Jesus who longs to bring me peace, who longs for me to know he loves me, who longs to share his strength with me, I know my problems will be easier to bare. 

Christ stands before you and peace is in his mind.

Christ stands before you and love is in his eyes.

Christ stands before you and strength is in his hands.

September 12, 2021

Proper 19

Proverbs 1: 2--33; Psalm 19; James 3: 1-12; Mark 8:27-38

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

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

On most days, I like to read Forward Day by Day, which is a small daily reader for the Episcopal Church that offers a daily reflection.  When I read it this past Thursday, the reflection was all about the Martyrs of Memphis.  The Martyrs of Memphis were a small group of brave individuals who cared for the sick and the dying in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1878.  During that year, 1878, a pandemic of yellow fever spread through Memphis.  When the order to quarantine was issued, reports indicate that half of the population fled.  Of those who remained in Memphis, nearly ninety percent became infected and five thousand people in the city of Memphis died. 

 A group of Episcopal nuns and priests remained to tend to the sick.  They included Sisters Constance, Thecla, Ruth, and Frances and the Revs. Charles Parsons and Louis Schuyler, among others.  The author of the reflection I read wondered about the courage of this group – how did they have the strength and the fortitude to honor their call to risk even death to offer love and care to those dying from yellow fever?  Despite their selfless and noble efforts in bringing comfort and care to the sick, each nun and each priest caught the fever, and died. 

Yet, their death was not the last word.  Today a chapel dedicated in their honor stands as part of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Memphis.  The chapel stands not as a monument to their courage – although it is obvious that none of the Martyrs of Memphis were deficient in that area.  Rather it is a reminder to all of us that God calls us to do the same.  Many were the nurses and doctors who gave their lives trying to save those with Covid.  There is not a chapel dedicated to their selfless acts of service – yet. 

Jesus called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “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.”   A cynic might argue that the Martyrs of Memphis and all the deceased nurses and physicians who contracted Covid just lost their lives.  Yes, that is true – they lost their lives.  But I would submit that they lost them for Jesus’ sake.  They lost their lives trying to save others.  Is there any cause more noble, or more holy than that?    

Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus promise us that taking up our cross to follow him will be easy or safe.  Also, nowhere in the Bible does Jesus ever promise material gain for our faithfulness.   What Jesus promises is abundant life.  Abundant life does not mean a life of comfort, ease, or financial security, as the lives of the Memphis Martyrs clearly demonstrate.  Abundant life is rather the kind of life you get when you put the needs of others in front of your own. Abundant living is achievable only when you pick up your cross and follow Jesus. 

Here again our cynic friend might say “what is abundant about working in horrible conditions, fighting disease and death with no end in sight?”  The cynic is right – in the world’s view, there is nothing abundant about this.  The world tells us to lay down our crosses and get comfortable in our recliner chairs instead.  But in God’s eyes – the person who is courageous enough to take up their cross daily – that is living abundantly.  When you take up your cross, you won’t get what you deserve.  You will get something much better.  You’ll get God’s mercy.  AMEN.

September 5, 2021

Proper 18

The Rev. Clint Brown

Exactly 529 years ago this week, an observer from outer space, roving over the North Atlantic with their telescope, would have spied (without being terribly impressed, I would imagine) three small sailing ships beating a westward tack somewhere to the west-southwest of the Canary Islands. We know that Columbus’s little fleet of caravels – the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria – were at that moment on a collision course with destiny, but if our space observer had stopped to remark about them at all to a companion, there would have been no reason to think they carried any special significance. They would not have known that, in the history of the world, never before had any ships yet attempted what these three were attempting, nor would they have been able to appreciate how consequential this would be for the subsequent history of planet Earth. In our minds, Columbus’ first voyage is the quintessential story of discovery, of braving the unknown despite the prevailing wisdom of the age. For us it is an object lesson for how without risk there is no reward, and how when nothing is ventured, nothing is gained. This is the way discovery has always worked. 

And I mention this because I want to ask the question, “Where is Jesus?” in our Gospel lesson today. It turns out that, he too, is in uncharted waters, both in a literal and figurative sense. Figuratively, he has just shown his willingness to step outside the bounds of tradition, by challenging the scribes and Pharisees. Last Sunday, he debated with them about what constitutes cleanliness and asked, rightfully, what do the exacting and oppressive rules of tradition, the mere forms of religion, have to do with what really matters – the disposition of the heart? Jesus is opposing the tried and true and calling it to account, and, in so doing, staking a claim as a reformer. Like an explorer, to be a reformer is an uncomfortable place to be. Like an explorer, you find yourself far from home.

And now, in our passage today, we shift from the figural to the literal. We are told that Jesus has journeyed outside familiar territory to somewhere in the region of Tyre, gentile territory, a ways away from home base, so to speak, in order to have a little R&R; but what ends up happening, of course, is that “he could not escape notice” (v. 24), and now, in this place far from home, Jesus finds that he himself is the learner challenged by the faith of a foreigner, a Syro-Phoenician woman. Literally and figuratively, then, Jesus has stepped outside the known borders, and this reminds us again that dislocation is what sets the conditions for discovery.

And why is that? Why is finding that we are not in Kansas anymore so beneficial? Because dislocation makes us uncomfortable, and discomfort, as any educator will tell you, is the necessary ground for learning. To be a good teacher you have to push your students out of their comfort zone. You have to introduce enough stress that they are challenged and stretched, but not so much that they can’t cope with it and they give up. Learning happens at that place where you are forced to bend but not break.

As we study Scripture, this ought to be happening to us all the time, because the priorities and values of God’s Kingdom should feel foreign to us. If left to our own devices, they are unlike the ones we would choose. Did you hear the challenge of James today, when he called us out on our instinct – and “instinct” is the right word because it is like second nature to us – our instinct to show deference to the rich and powerful among us, paying more attention to the one wearing gold rings and fine clothes than to the poor man sitting under the overpass? Doesn’t it make more sense to pay attention to the one from whom I might expect some kind of return for my effort? I recognize myself in that calculus; I hope you do, too. But James is clear, isn’t he? The poor are richer because theirs is a faith that is sure of its need for God, and that is the true riches.

This disconnect between my values and my behavior is something that makes me uncomfortable…and that is the point. To achieve new understandings, I have to be brought to new spaces and places, and nowhere is this better captured than in the words of another famed navigator, seaman, and explorer, Sir Francis Drake, to whom there is attributed this marvelous prayer, with which I’ll close. It is called, appropriately, “Disturb us, Lord.”[1]

Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we have dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push into the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.[2]

[1] This prayer is notoriously difficult to pin down in terms of its authorship. For more on these difficulties, see Joshua Horne, “Francis Drake’s Prayer: Fact or Fiction?,” Discerning History (blog), November 22, 2014, accessed September 3, 2021, http://discerninghistory.com/2014/11/francis-drakes-prayer-fact-or-fiction/.

[2] Text drawn from Joshua Horne, “Francis Drake’s Prayer: Fact or Fiction?,” Discerning History (blog), November 22, 2014, accessed September 3, 2021, http://discerninghistory.com/2014/11/francis-drakes-prayer-fact-or-fiction/.

August 29, 2021

Proper 17

Song of Solomon 2: 8-13; Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

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

            In the book of James today we hear these words: “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above.”  This morning I want to talk to you about giving – more specifically – I want to talk about stewardship.  I know, what a terrible way to begin a sermon, right?  We have a Hurricane brewing in the gulf, we have the tragedy of lives lost in Afghanistan, not to mention Covid – and I want to talk stewardship.  Just how tone deaf am I? 

            Yes it seems very tone deaf to talk stewardship at a time like this, but I would also say that if global stability and peace were a necessary prerequisite for us to talk about contributing money to St. Andrew’s, we would likely never have that conversation.  And, the issues I referenced – Hurricane Ida and Afghanistan are stewardship issues.  What I mean is that we are taking a collection today – all cash donations today will be split.  One half will go to Hurricane Ida response, wherever it lands, and the other half will go to Afghan Refugee resettlement in Houston.  You may also write a check – notate “Afghanistan” or “Hurricane Ida” in the memo, and we will send the funds out this week.  So, give generously. 

            I have just three things I want to say about stewardship this morning and then I promise you I am done.  The first is this: each of us has been given an amazing and miraculous gift from God.  What is this wonderful gift you might be asking?  What is so amazing and wondrous that God has given to us?  Our lives.  Inside each of our bodies is a heart that is estimated to pump blood through our bodies 2.5 billion times during our lifespan.  To put that into some context, during the time that you have been in church this morning, your heart has already beat some two thousand times.  Remarkable, isn’t it? 

            My second point on stewardship is this – an appropriate response to the gift we have received, is gratitude.  How many of you woke up this morning feeling grateful that you were alive?  Did you say “good God, another morning” or did you say “Good morning, God!  What can I do for you today?”  Gratitude is essential.

            So, the first two points on stewardship: (1) God has given us a miraculous gift – our lives.  (2) Our response to God’s gift should be gratitude.   My third, and final, point on stewardship is this – gratitude is why we give.  We don’t give out of obligation, or because we feel that our arm is being twisted – we give because we want to. 

            Earlier this week, I was asked by a person if the church would be able to pay the September rent on their apartment for reasons I don’t need to get into.  I was able to say yes to this person, and to pay the rent, because you all have given dollars to something called a Rector’s Discretionary Fund which I get to use to fund requests like this.    

            In the coming months ahead, all of us will hear, in no uncertain terms, about the importance of financial stewardship to St. Andrew’s.  What that means is that each year, St. Andrew’s budget starts at $0.  As the finance committee budgets, they do so based on what you all prayerfully discern will be your financial pledge to St. Andrew’s for next year. 

            That’s all – three points on stewardship: (1) God has given us a miraculous gift.  (2) Our response to God’s gift is gratitude.  (3) We express gratitude by giving away freely what God has given us.  Financial stewardship is not an obligation, it is an opportunity.  AMEN.

August 22, 2021

Proper 16

John 6:25-69

The Rev. Francene Young

Since July 25th, our Sunday Gospel readings have been from John 6; the Bread of Life Discourse. We start with Jesus feeding the 5000 with two fish and five loaves before heading off to Capernaum at the time of the Passover. Walking on water to calm the seas for his frightened disciples were sailing toward Capernaum.

Some in the crowd of 5000 chase after Jesus to Capernaum looking for more of this miracle bread. Jesus challenges them for seeking only food to fill their stomachs and tells them he is the BREAD of LIFE (uh?)

On the third Sunday, Jesus tells them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” After chasing Jesus down to try to make him their new King of miracles, the people began to complain about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’? I think we have heard this rejection before coming from Jesus’ own family members who said he was crazy!

The last Sunday, Jesus proclaims, “I am the LIVING bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Jesus begins to foretell of his personal 2 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 sacrifice on the cross for our sins, but this to a bit too farfetched and difficult to understand.

Now last week, I talked about Soul Food. Food that feeds the soul providing some type of comfort in tough times. Let me give a brief history about SOUL FOOD.

Adrian Miller, is a lawyer and culinary historian. He is currently the executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches and, as such, is the first African American, and the first layperson, to hold that position.

Miller’s first book as a culinary historian is titled “Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time, For this book, he was won the James Beard Foundation Award for Scholarship and Reference in 2014. He has been nicknamed “The Soul Food Scholar.”

In his first book, Miller writes that Soul food is a coined term that captures the humanity and heroic effort of African-Americans to overcome centuries of oppression and create a cuisine that deliciously melds the foods and cooking techniques of West Africans, Western Europeans, and Native Americas. When you hear the words “Soul Food” what do you 3 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 picture?

At another time, I would ask you to shout them out loud, but due the circumstances, let me name a few: fried chicken, smothered pork chops, okra, Oxtails, Chitlin’s, coconut cake, peach cobbler, as well greens with salt pork, or ham hocks, black-eyed peas, and cornbread—These dishes have sustained generations of people.

For many, these dishes celebrate a heritage of culinary genius, community-building, and resourcefulness. Yet there are some who reach the opposite conclusion and criticize soul food as an incredibly unhealthy cuisine that needs a warning label, or as slave food that is unworthy of celebration. While it is true, many of the items on this list are not as good for us as they used to be, since few of us are laboring long hours in the fields to burn it off, I must admit, they do satisfy a hungry palate!

The story OF SOUL FOOD begins here in the antebellum South where millions of West Africans, forcibly removed from the home countries and enslaved, created one of America’s earliest fusion cuisines under difficult circumstances. 4 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69

On a typical day, the field slaves rose to eat a breakfast of buttermilk and crumbled cornbread. I remember eating this with my mom when I was a kid. Somewhere long the journey, I dropped that from my menu.

The term soul food became popular during the 1960s.

Black power advocates, at the time, were seeking to unify African Americans across class, geography, and varying experiences and saw our Soul Food as a powerful connector.

During my first year in boarding school, I was given this book as a gift from a classmate. IT IS TITLED SOUL FOOD and was published in 1969. The book is 49 years old. I keep it in a zip lock bag because it has started falling apart. I dare say that even my Bible is not in this condition.

For the last four Sundays and today, Jesus is telling the people that HE IS THE BREAD OF LIFE. HE IS THE TRUE LIVING BREAD. 5 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 TRUE LIVING BREAD THAT CONSTANTLY FEEDS AND SATISFIES THE SOUL. Jesus is offering us himself as the TRUE BREAD FOR the soul. The TRUE LIFE GIVING SOUL FOOD.

It is the Living Bread, the Living Soul Food that is the very presence of Christ within us. It encourages us, forgives us as we forgive each other, offers hope, and it restores life, now and offers eternal life. In receiving Christ, by eating the Bread (both figuratively in faith and literally in the Eucharist) we find nourishment and refreshment for our souls. Our deep hunger is satisfied as we eat this Bread. Eat this Bread and you will live, he promises. But even more than that, eat this Bread and I will abide with you, and you will abide with me.

Retired Bishop Larry Goodpaster writes; 6 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 “To abide is to know that no matter what comes our way, we will not be deserted nor left to face whatever the matter is on our own. Christ comes to live within us, to take up residence in our spirits, and promises not to leave. He wishes to abide in us and therefore we in him through the Bread of Life.” The LIVING BREAD; THE TRUE SOUL FOOD.

In the letter from Paul to the Ephesians that we read today, Paul tells the Ephesians to Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

You might be asking 7 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 “What has this to do with SOUL FOOD or the THE LIVING BREAD.” As I see it, it is only after we have allowed Christ to abide in us and know that we are in HIM can we muster enough strength and courage to put on the full armour of God and STAND FIRM.

I have been personally struggling with how to stand strong with everything going on in this world. Covid continues, the fall of Afghanistan, fires in California, hurricanes on the East Coast. It makes one afraid to get up in the morning.

Then in the midst of a dreaded morning, I happened upon a story in the July-August Issue of Christianity Today titled “The Girls Who Would Not Bow.” It is the story of almost 100 of 276 Nigerian Girls who were kidnapped from their boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria by Boko Haram in 2014. Their faith gave them the strength to put on the Full Armour of God and survive. Their Whispered Prayers, Hidden Bibles, Secretly Scribbled Verses feed the Inside the Resilient Faith of the kidnapped Girls. Due their faith in God, they would not bow to Boko Haram. They STOOD FIRM. THEY STOOD THEIR GROUND. 8 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69

The story written by journalists Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw. There is a subtitle: HOLDING ON TO FAITH

As reporters for The Wall Street Journal, we set out to try to understand the riddle of the hostages whose plight captivated the world in 2014: What had it taken to free them? What were the consequences of that deal? And, perhaps most importantly, how had they survived? As we plunged further into the secret world of drone surveillance and hostage talks, we confronted a leviathan of a story As we interviewed some 20 of the young women, we discovered something about the beating heart of this story that much of the foreign coverage had missed. We saw clearly how the THE WILL OF THESE teenagers to survive was inseparable from their faith. Most of the students were Christians.

These young women had endured three years of captivity, deprivation, and pressure to convert to Boko Haram’s creed by holding onto their friendships and their faith. At the risk of beatings and torture, they whispered prayers together at night, or into cups of water, and memorized the Book of Job from a smuggled Bible. Into secret diaries, they copied Luke 2, because they saw themselves in Mary’s ordeal of giving birth to Jesus. They transcribed paraphrases of psalms in loopy, teenage handwriting: “Oh my God I keep calling by day and You do not answer. And by night. and there is no silence on my part” (22:2). 9 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 They came of age in captivity, pressured daily to marry fighters and embrace Boko Haram’s creed in return for better food, shelter, clothing, and soap. By their second year, many were badly malnourished. Months of hunger and vanishing rations had left some of the women unable to stand without help. Their guards had refused to share meals or even jugs of water— except for washing before prayer. Boko Haram itself, though running low on rations, still promised what little food it had to those who agreed to convert and marry into the sect. More than 100 of the girls refused. Many of them had been members of choirs in their church, and all of them knew the words to a hymn from Chibok they sang when their guards were out of earshot: “We, the children of Israel, will not bow.”

I share this story to illustrate that while physically hungry, these teenaged girls holding on to the TRUE SOUL FOOD OF JESUS THROUGH SECRETLY PRAYING, WRITING AND SINGING, PUT ON THE WHOLE ARMOUT OF GOD AND STOOD THEIR; SINGING WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL; WE WILL NOT BOW. MOST OF US WILL NEVER FACE THIS TYPE OF HARDSHIP; WE MAY FACE OTHERS BUT CONTINUING TO 10 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 BE OPEN TO THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THROUGH THE LIVING BREAD; JESUS CHRIST, WE, TOO CAN PUT ON THE FULL ARMOR OF GOD AND STAND FIRM AGAINST THE CHALLENGES WE FACE. As I think about the strength of those Nigerian girls, I can almost hear them singing into their cups of water “ I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back; no turning back.”

August 15, 2021

Proper 15

1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14 | Eph. 5:15-20 | John 6:51-58

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

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So at first I was drawn to the Ephesians reading by the admonition it contains to live wisely. I had a professor who often ended lectures in seminary with that: live wisely, he’d say and we’d run off to whatever was next. But then, over this past week, as COVID cases increased, and as this new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came out basically saying the world just is going to get warmer, I found myself drawn to another phrase in Ephesians: the days are evil. The days are evil – filled with small evil and large evils. In the midst of these evil days the people of Ephesus are encouraged to live and act with wisdom.

The way to combat the evil around us is through the power of wisdom. But we have to ask what wisdom. The wisdom of the economy and market? The wisdom of the technocrat? The wisdom of the powerful? Wisdom comes in all sorts of shape and sizes and if we are live wisely – whether in Ephesus or in Houston – we have to have a standard. In another one of his letters – to the people of Corinth – Paul provides the kind of wisdom we are to live according to. In 1 Corinthians 1 Paul writes that we – Christians – “proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jewish people and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power and the wisdom of God.” Jesus is the wisdom of God. Jesus is the practical guide for life in the midst of evil days. In Jesus we find God’s wisdom for living in the world filled as it is with sin and suffering. Jesus, the wisdom of God, shows us what it means to live wisely in evil days.

In Ephesians, wise living looks like singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody to the Lord while giving thanks to the Father. To live wisely, in other words, is to live in light of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Wisdom, in the face of evil days, consists of singing songs, of praising God, of holding on to the truth that in the cross of Christ God has overcome evil once and for all. Knowing that Christ has triumphed over evil allows the Ephesians – and us – to rejoice in the face of evil. To laugh in the face of evil. To live in the truth that despite the evils we may face and endure, they will not triumph.

This is wisdom. This is living wisely. Because it is living in light of the knowledge that Jesus faced evil and lives, that Jesus lives on the other side of evil. Because Jesus lives, as the Gospel song says, we can face tomorrow. Because no matter what tomorrow brings, Jesus is on the other side awaiting us.

The church is called to be the body of Christ in a world that is literally on fire. In evil days weare called to be a people who shout of the goodness of God, who orient our lives in light of the hope of the resurrection. The wisdom Christians are invited to live out lives by is a wisdom that is won through cross and resurrection. It is wisdom that refuses to live as though God cannot – or has not – overcome death.

The days are evil. We don’t need to ignore that. There is incredible suffering in our world, in our neighborhoods, in our families. Christians can’t turn away from that. Nor can our hope, our joy, come by ignoring this suffering, these evils. Our hope isn’t based on a saccharine, Pollyanna attitude, a belief in the inevitability of progress, or the innate goodness of humans. Our hope hope is based on the promise of God, the God who broke into a world filled with evil days, who lives those days, died in those days, and rose again on the other side of those days.

Live wisely. Live in light of the future we hope for, the future God has promised. There is an apocryphal saying, attributed to Martin Luther. He (is supposed to have) said “if I knew the world were ending tomorrow, I’d plant a tree.” By most logic, that would be a fool’s errand, a waste of time. By in light of Christ, in light of faith in the God who raised Jesus, it is a beautifully wise act. Because the God who created us will not allow death and evil to be the final words. God is a God of life, and to plant a tree at the end of the world is a deeply defiant act that testifies to God’s promise. So plant, water, hope, sing songs! Because the days are evil, and we have to face that, but in facing the evil of our days, we do not despair, because Jesus is risen. The days are evil, but there will come a day when Jesus returns in glory and evil is wiped away, and the presence of God, the glory of God will cover the world like the waves of the sea. Live in these evil days, not as unwise people, but as wise, as people who have been promised, by God himself, to never leave you or forsake you. Live in the faith that the evil days are nothing compared to the joyful day of the Lord that awaits us. AMEN.

August 8, 2021

The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 | Ephesians 4:25-5:2 | John 6:35, 41-51

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

Jesus has just performed this incredible miracle. He’s fed over 5,000 women, men, and children with just five loaves of bread and two fish. He has demonstrated in a remarkable way the extent of his power, his connection with God. It’s this scene that serves as the backdrop for today’s Gospel, and that helps provide a key for what’s going on today. See, Jesus has just provided for the physical needs of an incredible number of people, but in our Gospel lesson today he seems to minimize that. Jesus has given people – 5,000 people! – food. But that is a small feat in comparison to what else Jesus can give. Jesus offers not just bread and fish, but the bread of life. Jesus doesn’t just satisfy physical hunger, but, more importantly, satisfies spiritual hunger.

The challenge of our gospel lesson today is to see the deeper gift of Jesus. The healings, the exorcisms, the feedings, all of these practical, material miracles point to a deeper reality: Jesus is from God, the power of God flows through Jesus and is found in Jesus. What Jesus offers includes health and wholeness, freedom from demonic powers, and the satisfaction our physical hunger only as a means of leading us to the deeper reality: Jesus meets us in our spiritual needs, our soul needs, offering us life. Jesus didn’t come simply to feed folks, he came to give people life.

In all these miracles Jesus satisfies the people’s needs and desires for a greater purpose: to invite them to wake up to an even deeper need, an even deeper desire, the need for God and the desire for life with God. It’s hard to imagine but part of what Jesus is doing today is challenging us to recognize that there is a need deep than our need for food. Jesus challenges us to stop being impressed by the multiplication of bread that will satisfy for a time, but that will ultimately lead to death, and to wake up to the better food he offers: himself.

Jesus is the bread from heaven, like the manna the Israelites ate in the wilderness after they were freed from slavery in Egypt. This manna was a sign of trust! It was a reminder of God’s ever-present help. God provided the bread all through their wanderings until they came to the promise land. So too with Jesus. Jesus is the bread from heaven, a sign of God’s help and mercy. Like the manna, Jesus is offered as we wander in our world, as we seek to return to the God who created us. Jesus nourishes our souls for the journey. He nourishes our hearts.

One of the challenges of faith in the 21st century is believing that souls matter, that they must be fed. We live in a busy world, with many competing demands, and, if we stop and think about it, we live in a world that so often forgets the soul. It forgets how the soul can thrive and how the soul can shrivel, it forgets how the soul live and how the soul can die. It forgets how the soul can be healed and how the soul can be harmed. If we’re not careful, we, Christians, can get lulled into that trap. We can forget that our soul needs to be cared for, we can imagine that all this around us – church, liturgy, music, sacraments, scripture – all just exist to provide good examples for morals, or community, or as a kind center for positive thinking. But that’s simply not true. All of this, this entire faith, the church throughout the world only exists to draw each and every one of us to Christ, the bread that nourishes our souls, to pour the good news of Christ into our souls like water onto dry ground. Jesus fed the 5,000 – but greater than that, he brought souls to life, and gave them a life that cannot end.

Jesus is the bread of life. The one who satisfies hunger and thirst. Some of you may be familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it’s this model of imaging the various needs of humans and its organized to show the most important, foundational needs at the base, on which others are built. It helps us see what must be in place for all the complex needs of humans to be met. But, it’s foundational level is physiological needs: food, water, shelter, etc. I think what Jesus invites us to open our eyes to today is the truth, or at least the possibility, that there is a deeper need that our physiological. There is spiritual need. We have a need for Jesus, for the Gospel, for the truth that we are loved and supported at every moment by the creator of the universe.

How is that need met? Much like our physical needs to have our spiritual needs met requires sustained habits. I need water and food to survive, but that doesn't mean a sip here and a bite there. Water and food are daily necessities if I’m going to thrive as a human, if my basic human needs are to be met. The same is true for us spiritually. Jesus, our necessity, can’t be someone we come to here and there. Daily we must turn to him in prayer, through reading Scripture, through worship, through the sacraments. If we would have our soul thrive, our soul live we must tend it. And we can only tend it by eating the bread from heaven, the bread which satisfies our deepest need: Jesus Christ. Jesus offers himself to each and every one of us. Not a guru, or a guide, but as the very way – the only way – our deepest needs can be met. Do not be satisfied with the bread of this world, because you have been offered more. Come to Jesus, come to the bread of life, come taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen.

August 1, 2021

Proper 13

2 Samuel 11:26—12:13a; Psalm 51: 1-13; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6: 24-35

The Rev. Jeff Bohanski

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

Today is August first.  For me, August first is an important date because one year ago today I was ordained a deacon at Christ Church Cathedral. 

For teachers across Houston and the rest of the country, August first means we are about to start another school year.  This year I am really looking forward to going back.  This year we will be one hundred percent face-to-face.  Computers will once again be a tool to teach, not a means of delivering education.  I can’t wait!  I want to interact with the children in the class again.  I want to see again with my own eyes the joy in my students’ faces when they learn something new.  I once again want to hear with my own ears my favorite exclamation ever uttered by a child, “I can read that!”  I want to interact face-to-face with children learning again!  I want to ask questions with children who are in front of me.  Questions like: “Why?”  “How do you know?”  “Tell me about. . .” “Can you show me how you got your answer?”  In teacher language, these are called opened ended questions, questions that draw a learner into a deeper learning relationship.  In a learning environment, questions are good.  Questions lead to deeper learning and a relationship with the teacher.

In John’s Gospel we just heard, Jesus was asked a question by some people who have literally missed the boat.  Jesus was asked, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”  Have you ever wondered why Jesus doesn’t answer this question?  I mean, he could have easily given a short quick answer like: “Last night, you knot heads, while you were asleep.  Last night when your bellies were filled with bread and fish.”  But Jesus didn’t.  Instead, he kindly went on to teach them about manna from heaven, that believing in him is God’s work, and he goes on to inform them that he, Jesus, is the bread of life and those who come to him will never be hungry or be thirsty again.  (One can almost see the misunderstanding people scratching their heads asking themselves, “What is he talking about?”)

I must admit I’ve always found this bit of Jesus not answering the people’s question to be puzzling.  That is, until last night.  You see, as I was reviewing this sermon, I remembered that throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus gives or shows signs that he is the Messiah, the Christ, the one sent by God, the one who is establishing a new covenant.  He gives signs by his actions which are his healings, his forgiving of sins, his washing the feet all his apostles, and his walking the way of the cross.  These signs are directions of what it means to be one of his followers, what it means to be a member of the Kingdom of God and what the Kingdom of God is to look like.

Then it struck me that perhaps this entire passage of Jesus’ interaction with the misunderstanding people is a sign of how the Kingdom of God is to work.  By not answering their simple question, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” – a question Jesus could have easily answered and moved on—Jesus kindly drew the misunderstanding people into a sort of a tutorial relationship about the meaning of the sign of the loaves and fishes. A tutorial where questioning is good.  Thus, the sign here is how Jesus kindly draws people into a learning loving relationship, a relationship where one can ask questions. Where one can have a learning loving relationship with God. Perhaps this is how Jesus wants the Kingdom of God to work.  Everyone is included in asking questions.  Everyone is welcome to ask questions.  All are kindly welcomed in love, to learn, and to grow with Jesus.

This summer I had the opportunity of spending an evening in an upscale hotel.  In the hotel there were areas set aside for guests who were willing to pay a few extra dollars.  These areas had more comfortable seating, easier access to waitstaff and a better view of the beautiful scenery we were all there to enjoy.   While the hotel was very nice, and everyone I encountered was very pleasant, I could not shake a feeling of discomfort.  Weeks later it occurred to me that my discomfort came from my understanding of how the Kingdom of God works.  This hotel demonstrated that some were more welcome than others.  Those who paid more fees were more welcome than those who paid less fees. This not how the kingdom of God works.  In the Kingdom of God all are welcome, the understanding and the misunderstanding.  In the Kingdom of God no one needs to pay extra fees for a closer relationship with God. 

I wonder what our world would be like if everyone would embrace this sign of the misunderstanding people.  The sign of how Jesus kindly invited the misunderstanding people into a loving learning relationship where questions were allowed.  A relationship where learning is allowed, where one does not need to be fully grown or to fully understand to enter the kingdom of God. One can come as one is. 

I wonder what our world would be like if everyone looked at each other as people who Jesus is willing to take into a special tutorial like he did with the misunderstanding people.  I wonder what our world would look like if we looked at that person who we most disagree with or has hurt us or has cut us off in traffic as one who is also loved by Jesus.  Loved by Jesus enough to be invited into a loving learning relationship where questions are allowed. I wonder if the world would be more kind.

Welcome to the Kingdom of God, a kingdom where everyone is loved and welcomed to learn, to ask questions, and to grow with Jesus.

July 18, 2021

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

THE REV. CANON JOANN SAYLORS

Reading today’s Gospel lesson – really, reading all of Mark’s Gospel - makes me think, “You know, Jesus is kind of a workaholic.”

Up to this point he’s been preaching, teaching, healing, driving out demons, sending out the disciples - doing everything at high speed, because everything he does he does “immediately.”   By this point in his ministry, he’s got to be tired.  And ditto for the disciples.  They’ve been on crazy out of town trips, staying with people they barely know – that’s always exhausting – and teaching, healing, and casting out demons themselves. 

Which is what makes one verse in our text so stand out for me: "And he said to them, 'Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.'" Rest. A break from all the bustle and activity. Rest. A chance to renew, to stop, to slow. Rest. An end of work, if only for a little while. Rest. An opportunity to stop doing that you may simply be. Rest. What a beautiful word!

So much is packed into Jesus' simple invitation and I have been a little surprised at my own very strong reaction to it. Maybe it’s because I’m about to start several weeks of time off. Maybe it’s that I have filled my life – for years, I suspect, but especially lately –  with so much activity, so much work, so many obligations that the very idea of rest is enough to grab and take hold. Don't get me wrong: this isn't a complaint. I love my life and would rather be busy than not. Anyone who knows me much at all would back me up on that.  But upon reflection – in the time stuck in traffic on 610 – it struck me. Somewhere in all the moving and learning and doing and traveling and visiting and all the other things that make up my blessedly hectic life, I may have forgotten how to rest. And I suspect that I'm not alone.  Maybe you know someone like that too.  Maybe you are someone like that. And I don’t even have children with schedules to manage. But I’ve seen my sister’s life. She’s a busy physician, and she juggles a lot of hours of work with all the support for activities that ambitious high school and now new college students have to juggle. The family goes from super early to crazy late. Trying to find one week to travel together in the summer is an ordeal in itself. So much for that family to do! And all families. They don’t have the time, in other words, to rest.

We're all familiar with commandment #4: keep the Sabbath holy. But lots of us interpret that as one in a list of nagging “do not’s” or with the assumption that keeping Sabbath just means coming to church. Professor Rolf Jacobson points out that this commandment would have been unbelievably good news when it was given.  Think how a teaching like that would have sounded to people who were recently slaves, whose time was never their own, and who never, ever had a guaranteed period of rest. "Wait a minute," Jacobson imagines them saying, upon hearing the 10 Commandments read, "You mean we get to rest? We even have to rest?! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

I wonder why we don’t think of it that way. After all, more and more of us find ourselves trapped in a place a little bit like where the ancient Hebrews toiled. But there’s one important difference. Our bondage is self-constructed and self-imposed, which makes it a lot harder to notice, much less change. We are bound to ideas about success, which means we don’t put limits on our work. We are bound to ideas about our children having every opportunity possible, and so we schedule them into frantic lives and wonder why they have a hard time focusing. We are bound to the belief that what will help our churches grow is more ministry, more programs, more work.

But “he said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.’”

This is not just an invitation to take an afternoon off or go on vacation -- though those may be important elements -- this is an invitation to loosen our shackles and climb out of the cages we've constructed from a culturally-fed belief that more is the ticket to success of whatever kind and that work is the ticket to more.  This is an invitation to rest - in God.

The lectionary puts together two pieces of Mark’s Gospel but takes out what is in between them:  the feeding of the 5,000.  We’ll pick it up next week from John’s Gospel instead.  And what is the feeding of the 5,000 about but God’s abundance?  About God taking the little bits each of us brings and to create great things?  In God the not-enough becomes the more-than-enough.  We have all we need and then some.  And that's the key thing about Sabbath rest, I think --it invites a chance to step back and stand apart from all the things that usually drive and consume us that we might see this abundance.  We have space and time to detect God's presence and providence and blessing, to experience a sense of contentment, and to give thanks.

But stepping back like that is hard to do. No wonder the Psalmist says quite honestly in Psalm 23 that the Lord didn't simply invite rest but rather confesses that the Lord "makes me lie down in green pastures." We are a people that desperately need rest yet resist it. And so the Lord has to command it.

“He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.’”

Ok, God says so. Rest. But then, if you’re like me, you hear that command, you agree with it in theory, but you have a hard time actually following it.  So I look for loopholes.  I say things like, ok, that’s all good, but that’s not what Jesus is modeling in our passage today.  The disciples get back and they don’t even have a minute to eat, because of the crowds coming to see Jesus. Sure, Jesus invites the disciples to rest, and they retreat into the wilderness, but the crowd gets wind of it and actually beats them there.  So Jesus skips the rest period and starts teaching.  And the missing part of the text, as I said, is Jesus feeding 5,000 people.  That may well be all about God’s abundance, but where’s the rest in it? 

Is God sending a mixed message?  Does Jesus really get to say one thing and do another? Good questions, if I do say so myself. And here’s how I think Mark’s Gospel answers them.  Jesus does believe in rest and in Sabbath.  Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and he’s not interested in abolishing it.  We have stories of Jesus being in the synagogue on the Sabbath. We also have stories of Jesus' struggles with religious leaders over how the Sabbath is to be observed. He seems to focus more on faithful behavior than on the exactly the right way to do Sabbath. Earlier in Mark's Gospel, Jesus teaches that Sabbath is a gift.  It is a day to be freed from our labors to enjoy the creation and the Creator. He says, "The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath."  The invitation of Jesus to his disciples to retire to a place where they can rest, take a deep breath, bond with one another and share in telling their stories is important for their well-being.

Jesus cares about rest. But even more than that, Jesus believes in caring for others.  He is, after all, the shepherd to the flock, including the lost sheep.  The commandments are a way God relates to us and cares for us, not an end in themselves.

So Jesus does take time to rest and to pray, he just doesn't do it when others are hungry or in need of healing. 

After the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus sends his disciples ahead of him while he goes up on the mountain alone to pray.  And this is a rhythm we see throughout his ministry, back and forth between serving and Sabbath.  Time to care for others is followed by time to rest and hear God.  That rhythm gets interrupted and those things get mixed together when the sheep most need their shepherd, but it’s still the underlying pattern of Jesus’ life, as it is meant to be the pattern for ours.

We don’t choose between work and rest, we balance them.  Each is important in its appointed time.  Being intentional about rest is being intentional about ministry. Ministry is just…work, when it hasn't been informed by the community's taking time to be still and know God. How can we have the strength do those many frankly challenging things God calls us to do and how can we discern how to do them faithfully if we don't pause to rest in God?

We should and will go forth from here to serve.

Let's just make sure that we heed Jesus' invitation from time to time too. “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.”  Alleluia.  Alleluia.  Alleluia.  AMEN.

July 11, 2021

The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

Ephesian 1:3-14 | Ps 24 | Mark 6:14-29

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

We love choices in America. We like choosing our favorite bands, our favorite toothpastes, we like choosing from an array of options on a menu, or whether to watch a new movie or binge an old show from the comfort of our living rooms. In many ways American identity, and the American understanding of freedom is bound up with the idea of choice. To be free is, ultimately, to be free to choose. We are a people who love duty, as long as we choose duty. Choice reigns supreme – especially in our religious lives. Gone are the days where virtually everyone who was born into a particular tradition – Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, what have you – died in that same tradition. The Pew Research Center has documented increased shifting among religious adherents. About 40% of people who belong to a particular denomination or church tradition didn’t grow up in that tradition. Many of you are part of that 40%, as am I. We choose to leave one faith behind for another, or perhaps for no faith at all. The key is we choose. We choose our churches and traditions, just like we choose any number of things in our lives.

I think this ability to choose, to follow your beliefs as they evolve is a gift in many ways, but it also can lead to a danger. We’re often brought up and taught the goodness of choices, and it can lead – and in America I think it has dangerously led – to a place where the chooser is the be-all, end-all. The stuff of life – from cereal brands to Sunday morning – become subject to my choice and will, my choice and will become what matters. They are the ultimate goods. Everything else becomes subject to my choice. Even God. God becomes one thing among many which we can choose or not choose. God is meaningful if I choose God. And God is not meaningful if I don’t choose God. I’ve seen this creep into some forms of religious life, especially among clergy, a kind of what’s good for you is good for you mentality. Our churches, traditions, and worship are great for people who choose it, but if people don’t choose it that’s certainly fine for them. They aren’t missing out on anything or losing anything. They just made a different choice.

In this scheme God doesn’t stand apart from us as the giver of all meaning, God becomes one choice among many, who has meaning only because we have chosen to give God meaning. I think this is wrong, and sinful. And I think our first lesson today helpfully reminds us of the proper role of choice and choosing in our relationship with God.

Throughout our lesson from Ephesians the author is at pains to emphasize that it is GOD who makes the important choice in the God-human dynamic. The author says that before the foundations of the world we were chosen by God, destined for adoption. It is not we who choose God (or don’t choose God). It is God who has chosen us. God has chosen us to live and love. To know him and worship him. God has made the choice to make us his children, heirs with Christ, inheritors of the divine life. We may act as though we can choose or not choose God. Worship him or set him aside, but that is just an illusion. God doesn’t begin working on you and me when we choose him. Whether we choose or not, God is at work in our lives. Holding us together, keeping our universe going, speaking life into every atom of our being. God has chosen us, before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless to live for the praise of his glory. We don’t get to pick God. But we can choose how will we respond to God. Will we choose to acknowledge God’s choice, God’s work, God’s destiny or will we choose to ignore it, to live our lives resisting God’s decisions to call us into adopted childhood?

This choice isn’t just for a few folks – the choice which God has made is a choice for all people. Every one of us, every person who has lived, is living and will live on this planet was chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before God. To resist this choice, to work against it, to ignore it, is to live against the grain of the universe. Before the world was, God chose us. To resist that choice is to resist a decision older than creation, older than the universe itself. It is resist God’s decision to know us, to love us, to be with us and for us. It is to resist God’s decision to love us with everything God has.

The knowledge that God has destined us for himself is, I think, good news. The fact that it is God’s choice, not ours, that determines our relationship with God means that no doubt, no fear, no wandering around can separate us from God. God has made the choice to be with us, to be for us, to be our God. And you and I cannot change that – your lack of faith, your abundance of faith, doesn’t make God choose you more or less. Before the foundation of the world you were chosen. And God has waited centuries and millennia to know you, to love you, to show you what it means that you were chosen by him. Rest in that choice. Rest in that security. God has chosen to know you. To be your God. So let him. Amen.

July 4, 2021

Proper Nine

Deuteronomy 10: 17-21; Psalm 145; Hebrews 11: 8-16; Matthew 5:43-48

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

Two hundred and forty-five years ago today, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the Second Continental Congress delegates from thirteen states signed the Declaration of Independence, a document which at the time expressed the ideals upon which this country was founded and the reason for its separation from England.

Can you imagine being the King or Queen of England 245 years ago?  Your sorting through all your letters and come across an envelope from America and you say what’s this?  And your advisor looks at it and says, “oh that’s nothing, that’s junk mail from America, throw it into recycling!”  But you don’t and you open it and read the Declaration of Independence!  That would be an interesting day at work if you were the king or queen of England, wouldn’t it?

In all seriousness, the Declaration of Independence is a masterfully worded document that expresses ideals that America has yet to reach: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  That’s a powerful vision, isn’t it?  In the two hundred forty-five years since, America has pushed toward this ideal, sometimes struggling, sometimes succeeding – abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage.  Our nations success in the past gives me hope that we do have the strength as a nation to live into the vision written onto paper all those years ago. 

I believe that sometime in our future, the dream of life and liberty and happiness put down on that paper will become real.  That’s my hope for my country.  Maybe we will see it happen in our lifetime – who knows?

There’s a great book in the Bible called Hebrews.  We heard a little of it today, from the 11th chapter – the famous chapter on faith.  In this chapter are some of the most eloquent verses to be found in the entire Bible.  They talk about Abraham and Sarah, and their son Isaac.  They are some of the most eloquent verses to be found in the entire Bible. 

The faith they demonstrated was not dependent on a favorable outcome for them.  Abraham and Sarah are considered heroes of the faith not because they had a super-human amount of faith that would be impossible for any of us to have.  They are heroes of the faith because they believed, just like you or me, in God’s guarantee of the future, even if they wouldn’t live to see it happen.  As Hebrews says, they saw the promises, but only from a distance. 

That’s like those people in Philadelphia two hundred forty-five years ago.  They had an idea, they had hope in a future that they believed God was a part of, a future they could see only from a distance.   That’s like us today, who look around and see the world as it is and not as it should be, and our faith compels us to get to work building the world God wants.

I saw a cartoon the other day and it was a person talking to God and the person said, “God I just don’t understand why you allow all the crime, all the hate, all the homelessness, all the child abuse, all the drug addiction in your world.”  And God’s response?  God simply says, “Funny…I was going to ask you the same question.”

We are here in this country today because of the vision people hundreds of years before us had.  Were they perfect?  No.  Is our nation perfect?  Of course not.  But it is our job as citizens to strive to form a more perfect union.  

The fact that we are in this church today, is due to the vision and sacrifice of people long before all of us.  People sacrificed and saved and gave money to build this church.  In the decades since, people have sacrificed and saved and gave money to maintain these buildings, and to maintain the church’s debt-free status.  In the last seven years since I have been here, you all have stepped up in big ways to support financially our growing ministry together. 

And we’re going to continue being faithful to God’s call to serve.  Like Abraham and Sarah, like the authors of the Declaration of Independence, we here now are called into action.

What will this church do today or this year to affect the lives of people who will come here fifty or a hundred years from now?  Several months ago a parishioner approached me and asked, “what is the long term plan for the care and maintenance of our church?”  That is a question this person probably wished they didn’t ask me, because my answer was putting that person on a long-term planning committee whose job it is to find the answer to that question.

Today we celebrate not just our nation’s independence, but we celebrate a vision – a vision of what this nation can be, what this church can be, and who God is calling each of us to be.  AMEN. 

June 27, 2021

The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost

2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Psalm 130; Mark 5:21-43

The Rev. Jeff Bohanski

Lord, open my mouth and my lips shall proclaim your praise.  Amen

 In the Gospel we heard this morning we heard what some scripture scholars call a Markan sandwich, a story within a story.  Today’s passage takes place almost directly after the story we heard last week; the story of Jesus asleep in the boat, when he was woken-up and he calmed the storm.  Our Lectionary, this morning, skipped over what Jesus had done next, healing the demoniac in the country of the Gerasenes. 

This story takes place upon Jesus’ return from the other side of the sea.   Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue busted through the crowd begging him to come to his house and lay hands on his very sick little girl, so that she may be made well.  Of course, Jesus agreed to come.  On the way to Jairus’ house a woman reached through the crowd, touched Jesus and she was healed by merely touching his garment.  On meeting the woman, Jesus lovingly said to her “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.” As this was happening, people from Jairus’ house broke-up this moment to report the death of the little girl.  Jesus, seeing the look on the grief-stricken father’s face tells him to have no fear but believe.  Jesus immediately continued his journey to Jairus’ house.  When they arrive, he entered the house with Jairus, the little girl’s mother, Peter, James, and John.  Jesus took the little girl’s hand and told the little girl in Aramaic, “Talitha cum,” which means “little girl, get up!”

In my preparation for this sermon, I read a commentary by N.T. Wright who is a leading biblical scholar in England.  In his commentary, Wright brings up an intriguing question.  He asks, why would Mark, who is writing his gospel in Greek addressing a Greek speaking audience keep these Aramaic words of Jesus? –  words that required translating.  In other words, why not skip the Aramaic altogether.

N.T. Wright provides an answer to his question.  He says, we will never know for sure, but perhaps these ordinary spoken words made such a deep impression on Peter and the rest of the apostles that when even they retold the story afterwards, they used these crucial words in Aramaic (words of the ordinary people).  Wright suggests that by using these Aramaic words, Mark is demonstrating that the life-giving power of God is breaking into the world and working through the ordinary experiences of humanity.

It makes me wonder that perhaps these ordinary Aramaic words were left in by Mark because he wanted to show us, his readers, how God loves us.  Mark wants to show that God has come into the world to love us on our ordinary human level. 

Perhaps Mark is demonstrating that God’s love for us is like the love of an ordinary doting father for his little girl, who is the joy of his life, his little princess.  Perhaps Mark has left in the ordinary Aramaic to demonstrate we are God’s little princesses, his joy, his special little child, the Apple of his eye.  Perhaps Mark is telling his readers that God wants to have a loving, life-giving relationship with each of us like a doting father would have for his little girl.  Like Jairus’ little girl who Jesus woke-up with all tenderness.  “Little girl, get up!”  A love with no questions asked.  No questions about one’s ethnicity (we are one race – the human race), one’s gender, one’s sexual orientation nor one’s gender identity. Just the love of a Daddy.

Today, Across the Diocese of Texas we are celebrating the feast of Pauli Murry, the first African American woman ordained to priesthood in The Episcopal Church.  According to a biography provided by the diocese:

•    Anna Pauline Murray was baptized in 1911, a seventh-generation Episcopalian.  She was orphaned at an early age when her father was beaten to death by a white man following the prior loss of her mother. 

•    Murray’s career was imbued with Christian principles, particularly a thirst for social justice. But it wasn’t an easy road. Prejudice dogged her for most her life. The University of North Carolina rejected her because of race. After graduating from Howard University, Harvard Law rejected her because of gender.

•    This experience led her to recognize the connections between racism and sexism before many others did, a condition she called “Jane Crow.”  She later became the first African American to earn a Doctor of Juridical Science degree from Yale Law School.  As a lawyer, Murray argued for civil rights and women's rights.

•    Thurgood Marshall called her 1950 book, States' Laws on Race and Color, the "bible" of the civil rights movement. It was the foundation of his arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. the Board of Education, which declared segregated schools unconstitutional. 

•    In 1971, Ruth Bader Ginsburg named Murray as a coauthor of a brief in Reed v. Reed, a groundbreaking case on gender discrimination.

•    As an activist Pauli Murray attempted to desegregate buses and helped organize sit-ins a decade before the civil rights movement. She later served on President Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women. She co-founded the National Organization for Women in 1966.

•    Even as she advocated for women, Murray struggled to understand her own sexual and gender identity, sometimes describing herself as having an "inverted sex instinct." She was briefly married to a man and had several deep relationships with women. In the 1950’s, she met Renee Barlow, who became her long-term partner. Although Murray publicly identified as female, she sometimes considered herself a male.

•    Renee Barlow died in 1973, with Murray at her bedside, reading the 23rd Psalm. Murray planned the memorial service. The priest praised its beauty and asked her if she had ever thought about being ordained.

•    Murray soon left academia and entered General Theological Seminary and earned a Master of Divinity. Again, it was not an easy path. The Episcopal Church did not yet ordain women; and she was not well received by many seminarians. Nevertheless, she persisted. On January 8, 1977, at age 65, Murray was ordained at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

•    Cancer cut short her ministry of healing, and Pauli Murray died at home on July 1, 1985. The General Convention added her to the church’s calendar in 2012.

I believe a person like Pauli Murray could only draw her strength, her tenacity, her endurance, her courage, and her ministry of healing from her faith and her loving, life-giving relationship with God.  I believe Pauli Murray is a great example of someone who like Jairus’s little girl, was at some point in her young life woken up by Jesus’ loving embrace and continued to draw on that special Daddy’s love her whole life.  A love with no questions asked.  No questions about one’s ethnicity one’s gender, one’s sexual orientation nor one’s gender identity. Just the love of a Daddy.

My prayer for us all this morning is that we all, (online and here in this church) like Jairus’ little girl, and like Pauli Murray take Jesus’ offer to wake-up in God’s daddy’s kind of complete and abiding love that God has for us all.  Amen.

June 13, 2021

The Third Sunday after Pentecost

1 Samuel 15: 34-16:13; Psalm 20; 2 Corinthians 5:6-17; Mark 4: 26-34

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

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

I would like to ask you a series of questions that you do not have to answer verbally, but I want you to answer them mentally, in your mind.  And they are all questions about desire.  When you were nine years old, what was your heart’s desire?  What mattered most to your nine-year-old self?

What about when you turned twenty-one?  Was your heart’s desire the same at twenty-one as when you were nine?   One final question – what is your heart’s desire now?  What do you want most at whatever age you are?  Is your heart’s desire the same now as it was when you were twenty-one?

For most people, our desires change over time.  They do not remain constant as we age from nine to twenty-one to whatever age we are now.  In the psalm we read today, psalm 20, we encounter a verse which reads “May the Lord grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans.”  

The psalm is considered a “royal psalm” meaning that it was written to ask for God’s help for Israel’s ruler.  All the language in the psalm is geared toward asking God to bless and prosper the king and the land.  It was a prayer to prosper the king – if the king is happy, everyone is happy – maybe.  It is like some of the prayers we offer in church when we pray for our elected officials and for our government. 

When the author of the psalm writes “may the Lord grant you your heart’s desire and prosper all your plans,” the author is asking God to bless the king.  So, if this psalm is political, which it is, what purpose does it have for us?  Would God consider granting your heart’s desire, even though you are not a king or ruler? 

For many people today, God has been replaced as the provider of one’s heart’s desire by something more tangible: Amazon.com.  Jeff Bezos, the founder, has made billions of dollars by delivering what people think are their heart’s desires to their front doors. 

What do you desire?  I have a friend. And he told me once that when he was 18 years old, he asked God to grant him his heart’s desire.  At the very mature age of 18, my friend’s heart’s desire was to be surrounded by beautiful women.  There were some additional nuances to that desire that I will leave unsaid since we are in church, but you get the idea.    But here’s miracle – God answered his prayer. 

God did not answer it the way my friend wanted God to answer it, nor did God answer it in a timely manner, but some thirty years later, my friend found himself surrounded by people – just not women, in fact they were all men.  Men wearing Harris County Correctional Unit uniforms.  Seems a far cry from an answered prayer, doesn’t it?  It was not.

See by the time my friend found himself in jail, he had a debilitating crack cocaine addiction, and doing time saved his life, and now he is sober, happily married, and retired.  He is helping other people, and that is his true heart’s desire.  He just did not know it when he was eighteen, but God did.  God helped him to find his true heart’s desire. 

At the end of the day, I believe that our true heart’s desire is the same for all of us: our deepest desire, our deepest longing is to be in friendship with God and help others.  Our deepest desire - once we grow out of our selfish needs for acquiring more stuff and wanting more praise and recognition – our honest deep desire is to live usefully and to humbly follow our God.  Period.  End of story.  That is what truly matters, above anything.

There is very little in life I have certainty about – but I am certain about this.  The verse in that psalm is true.    God will grant you your heart’s desire, and God will fulfill your plans.  I have seen God do it in my life.  I have seen God do it in some of your lives. 

But there is a secret to this that most people do not know.   If you really want God to prosper your plans and fulfill your heart’s desire, you must do one thing.  One thing.  And here is the secret: you have to get out of God’s way.  You have to get out of yourself.  You have to sacrifice your ego.  And if you can do those things, God has a lot of use for you, and God will fulfill the deepest of your heart’s desires.  AMEN.

May 30, 2021

Trinity Sunday

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

Isaiah 6: 1-8; Psalm 29, Romans 8: 12-17; John 3:1-17

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

It is hard for me to imagine even saying this, but today – May 30, I am now the father of a sixteen-year-old son.  Sixteen years ago today, our son James was born in Alexandria, Virginia, a few days after my graduation from seminary, and a few days before my ordination here in Texas. 

I am thinking of birth today for two reasons – (1) it is my son’s birthday, and (2) birth is an obvious theme in today’s Gospel reading for us.

The story is a familiar one to us, that of Nicodemus, who seeks Jesus out to have a conversation with him.  There are several things that are important to note about Nicodemus seeking Jesus: (1) John tells us that Nicodemus went to meet Jesus “at night” which suggests that Nicodemus wished not to be seen speaking with Jesus, and (2) Nicodemus was a pharisee which literally means “separated one.” 

In the Gospels, the pharisees are often presented as some of Jesus’ main opponents, so the point is – it was unusual for Nicodemus to seek Jesus out.  They occupied very different positions in society at that time, and it seems that Nicodemus wanted to seek out Jesus very privately to potentially avoid shame or embarrassment.  Think about someone in your life whom you know, but you do not want other people to know you know, and that might be kind of like what is going on between Nicodemus and Jesus. 

And Jesus says to Nicodemus, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”  Nicodemus does not fully understand what Jesus is saying, and he responds, “how can anyone be born again after growing old?”  This is not Jesus’ point, of course.  He is not talking about physical rebirth, but wants Nicodemus to go deeper. 

Jesus says that to be people of God, we need to be born of the Spirit, to be born from above.  What does that even mean?  Jesus tried to explain it to Nicodemus, but Nicodemus could not understand it.  And neither do I, fully.

Although I do not understand what exactly “being born from above” means, I know what it feels like.  It feels like true freedom.  I am drawn to what I recently read in James Hollis’ book Living an Examined Life, in which he wrote that “the first half of life, for most of us is a giant, unavoidable, mistake.”  Think about that! 

For me, being born from above means stepping into a second half of life that has nothing to do with age, but rather has to do with awareness and becoming truly free.  As St. Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians, when we become adults, it is time to put away childish things.  This comes close to what I believe Jesus is saying to Nicodemus that we must be born from above. 

Elsewhere in the same book James Hollis says this: “the two greatest threats to ourselves are inside of us and they are (1) fear and (2) lethargy.  Hollis writes: “every morning we rise to find two gremlins at the foot of the bed.  The one named fear says, “The world is too big for you, too much.  You are not up to it.  Find a way to procrastinate again today.”   And the other gremlin, the named Lethargy says “Hey, chill out, you’ve had a hard day, watch TV, zone out, numb yourself..  Tomorrow’s another day.”

If you are born of the earth, then Fear and Lethargy are ultimately your masters, and you are the slave.  Many people live this way.  To be born from above, means to chose love instead of fear, it means to choose action instead of lethargy. 

There is a lot of action going on at this church over the next month and a half.  We are renovating parts of our shared space because they need our attention, and action is necessary.  This will be, I hope, the beginning of a new face of St. Andrew’s that it will share with the community.  There will be people who oppose this – who speak in the guise of fear, who say “we don’t have enough money to do this, we don’t deserve to do this.”  And I am sure I will hear lethargy speak up: “why are we doing this now?  Let’s not move into action, let’s appoint a committee to talk about doing something next year.” 

Once you are born, there is no going back to being physically born again.  The same is true with being born from above – once you move into the second half of life, the life of the spirit, the life where you leave fear and lethargy behind, there is no going back.  Once you have experienced freedom, why would you want to return to your prison cell?  AMEN. 

May 23, 2021

Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

The Rev. Canon Joann Saylors

Good morning. It’s great to be back with you, and great to be here for the birthday of the Church. Maybe. I said that about the Ascension, too. Also, arguably, the calling of the disciples. Or the Last Supper. The Church has a lot of birthdays for scholars to debate. I’ll come back to that.

Certainly today is a feast day, and joy abounds. Pentecost, from the Greek word for fifty. A major feast of the Church. But aside from special church practices – red t-shirts, balloons, doves, reading the Gospel in multiple languages – why does it matter? What takes us beyond just the day itself in our faith journeys?

On the day of Pentecost, when the fifty days of Easter had come to an end, Christ's Passover was fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, manifested, given and communicated as a divine person. The Advocate promised by Christ entered the believing community to guide and protect us until the Jesus returns.

Let me say here that Pentecost is not the birthday of the Holy Spirit. The scholars do agree on that one. As the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is co-eternal with the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit was there for Creation: remember that the Spirit, God’s breath, moved over the waters. And we hear about works of the Spirit throughout the Hebrew scriptures. We say it every week in the Nicene Creed: the Holy Spirit, the giver of life, has spoken through the prophets.

Pentecost is a feast we share with our Jewish sisters and brothers, at least in part. I was in seminary before I realized that there was more to the day than what we heard in the Book of Acts. It had never occurred to me to ask WHY people were gathered on that particular occasion. The disciples, sure, they gathered in rooms all the time, but why had the crowds gathered? They were actually there for the Jewish feast of Shavuot, which is …wait for it… 50 days after the harvest offering at Passover.

We didn’t come up with the name “Pentecost.” By Jesus’ time, it had also come to commemorate God giving the Law, the Torah, to Moses at Mount Sinai. Pentecost, then, in the broadest sense, is a celebration both of God giving the Word and of God giving the Spirit. The Ten Commandments is a Pentecost movie!

We talk a lot about gifts coming from God. On Shavuot, Jews mark not just the giving of the Torah by God, but their acceptance of the Torah. Some Jewish writers have compared the exchange to a marriage or other sacred covenant. One way the holiday is observed is through the reading of the Book of Ruth, the story of a woman who converts to Judaism and accepts the Torah. And the Christian Pentecost celebrates not just God sending the Holy Spirit to the gathered community, but also their accepting the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The gifts accepted at the first Christian Pentecost have different meanings to different Christians. Some interpret what was received as the spiritual benefits of accepting Jesus that bring a more meaningful earthly life. Others — especially those Christians known as Pentecostals — believe the first Pentecost offers all followers of Jesus “the gifts of the spirit” — speaking in and interpreting tongues, the ability to prophesy, the power to heal by touch, the ability to discern spirits. Pentecostals believe those things are available to all Christians, starting with the first ones, but only those who accept them are able to fulfill the work and destiny that God has laid out for them.

We believe that it is the gift of the Spirit to each one of us that helps us confess Jesus as Lord, serve God, pray, and live like Jesus. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, names the fruits of the Spirit that make us more like Jesus: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Gifts that keep on giving.

But Pentecost has always been about more than gifts to us as individuals. From that first Pentecost until now, it has always been the belief of the Church that the Holy Spirit directs and guides us both collectively and individually. When we call Pentecost the birthday of the Church, it’s because the gift of the Spirit made to the believing community equipped and empowered the apostles to go out among the people and begin to spread Jesus’ message.

The day of Pentecost is a celebration of God's hand guiding the Christian community through the trials and decisions that had been and will be presented to it. In the Book of Acts we see this new Church struggling to come up with answers to the existential problems it faced: Who should be admitted to the believing community? Is it necessary to obey the purity and food laws of the Torah? What roles, rights and duties should Church officials exercise? These were problems that vexed the early community, and the descendants of those problems still vex us today.

The stories throughout Acts testify to a community struggling to organize itself in the best possible and most inclusive way. The most faithful way. It was only with the belief that its members were acting with some guidance and grace from God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, that the early Church had the confidence to make the necessary decisions about who and how to be, then live into them.

Throughout Paul’s letters, we hear of faith communities struggling to understand the doctrine and practices of following Jesus. We hear Paul preach against conflict, selfishness, factionalism, pride, and immoral behaviors. Paul’s letters, inspired by the Holy Spirit, held up a model of faithful behavior for the churches to whom they were written, the churches that they were sent on to, and the very diverse mix of churches who have studied them ever since.

The problems experienced by the early communities are as real today as they were to the apostles and disciples who knew Christ. There was bitter division in the early Church about who should be allowed to join the community. Some proposed much more inclusion; others more restriction. This is not so different from the conversations around immigration or homelessness or race in the U.S. and around the world.

Like those who objected to the admission of the Gentiles, we have our negative terms for those we wish to exclude. Think about “undocumented person” versus “illegal alien.” Or “unhoused” versus “homeless.” We all know there is power in language we use around race. “Those people.” Too often that means “those other people not like us and not as valuable as people like us.”

That sort of us vs. them mentality doesn’t stay outside the doors of the church. We see congregations who say they want more young families, but don’t really want children in worship. Or say they want to be hospitable to the community, but only if the community will pay for extra cleaning services after their meetings. Or schedule vestry meetings at a time when no parent of younger children could possibly commit, despite a plea for new leaders. We use exclusive terms like “genuflect” and “rector” and “vestment” that can inhibit people from participating in our community, because it’s so hard to keep asking what things mean.

When we start to see a need to open our arms and take down our walls, that is the prompting of the Spirit. When we find ways to let go of our precious judgment so we truly see other people as beloved children of God, that’s the Spirit. It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that we treat those we put into the category of “other” as our sisters and brothers in Christ.

The early Church also faced questions of ethics. How can Christians live into the image of God? In the wake of Church scandals and the appalling words and actions of many who profess themselves followers of Jesus, the unchurched and de-churched have come to see greed, selfishness, and tribalism as normal Christian behavior. As we watch the politicization of caring for the vulnerable, the rise in social apathy, and elevation of rights without corresponding responsibilities, we should ask ourselves: what sort of life do we lead when we let the Holy Spirit guide us? How could we as the Spirit-led Body of Christ point back to an understanding of the common good? Can we model Jesus’ “love thy neighbor” command as a way of life attractive to those who are weary of selfishness and exploitation?

Led by the Spirit, the Church after Pentecost tried to structure itself as a caring and just community. If we are being led to do the same, we are doing a good job of hiding it. A recent Barna study revealed that 62% of lapsed Christians said the #1 quality they look for in a person with whom to discuss faith is ‘non-judgment.’ But only 34% said they know any Christians who possess this quality. It’s a gift of the Holy Spirit that allows us to listen, to see our own brokenness before that of others, and to love instead of judging.

Fortified and encouraged by the belief that the Spirit of God guides us, the Church from its very beginnings has continued to evaluate its attitudes and teachings in the light of new contexts and cultures. We will continue to ask new questions, find new answers, and the Spirit will guide us to adapt in faithful ways that honor the past. Pentecost may be a feast with its roots in the past, but the power it gives to change the Church and to change the world is perennial.

It’s no accident that just after we profess our beliefs in and about the Holy Spirit in the Nicene Creed, our next statement is, “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.” Because the birthday of the Church is a work of the Spirit, a gift for the apostles of the past, present, and future.

When we are made new Christians by water and the Holy Spirit, a cross is marked on our forehead with the words “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever.” It’s a little Pentecost moment every time, as the Church is reborn whenever the Body of Christ adds a new member. We may not hear a violent wind or see tongues of fire, as they did at the first Pentecost. But we can trust that God will send the Holy Spirit to guide and protect us. It’s up to us to accept the gift, and then go where she leads us.

AMEN.

May 16, 2021

The Seventh Sunday of Easter

1 John 5:9-13 | Ps 1 | John 17:6-19

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

I’m guessing y’all have seen the Marvel movies, right? Spider-man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, all that. They’re quite good. They’re so good, in fact, because of how well they create the cinematic world where the stories take place. All these little bits and pieces work together to form this coherent whole. The writers and directors have gone to great lengths establishing a universe where superheroes are just a part of life. 

I thought about the Marvel movies and the Marvel Cinematic Universe reading this passage from the Gospel for today. Jesus, praying to God, repeats twice that his disciples, just like him, do not belong to the world. Sometimes we use “world” as interchangeable with “earth.” That’s led to some bad readings of the Bible, readings that make it seem like Christians are somehow better than or above the planet. That’s not right at all – we are deeply, deeply bound up with our planet. So what if “world,” like Jesus uses the word, means something more like “world” when we talk about the Marvel movies. Worlds are something we create, we fashion them. They have histories and characters, rules that govern them. What makes the Marvel movies or the Lord of the Rings books or whatever sci-fi or fantasy thing we’re enjoying so great are the worlds they create.

I think, in some ways, like authors and directors, we humans create our own worlds. The earth is a given, but the world or worlds we create on this earth are determined, in large part, by us. We create the worlds we live in.  Worlds are what happen when humans encounter nature and each other. We take the raw materials around us – human and otherwise – and form them into something meaningful. Ways of living together, eating, the hows and whys of worship and government, the traditions that mark time and transition, all of these and more go into creating our worlds.

The worlds we create, much like the worlds of our books and movies, are worlds filled with hurt and harm. Humanity can produce incredible good, amazing beauty, right alongside unspeakable, almost unfathomable evil. That’s why Christians talk about a fallen, sinful world: no matter the worlds we dream up, we can’t seem to escape creating worlds touched by evil, by death, by destruction.

So, Jesus has entered into the worlds we have created, to save us from our worlds, by inviting us into a world created by God. This world, which the Gospels call the Kingdom of God, breaks into ours. Jesus is the crack, the break. Through Jesus healing, mercy, forgiveness, - eternal life enter our world! God’s world presses on us. The resurrected Jesus is our escape, not from the earth, not from our bodies, but from ways of living that are marked by sin and death. Jesus invites us out of the worlds we have created into his new world, from the kingdom of death to the kingdom of God.

Jesus does not belong to the world, because Jesus does not belong to sin or to death. His life, as Easter reminds us, cannot be stopped by death. Jesus does not belong to our world, and by grace, neither do we. In our baptisms, we change our address! We no longer live in the worlds which humanity has made, but in the world which God has made. This is the true world, the world we were made for. This world is one of peace, mercy, forgiveness. It is a world in which God is worshipped and our neighbors loved. This is a world that is overflowing with life, with justice, with abundance! This is the world – this is the kingdom – which God is bringing to bear on the old worlds of sin and death. And you and I are called to be a part of that.

Belonging to this world, preaching this world, will often put a target on our backs. God’s world simply produces enemies, folks who are more invested in the world as we have made it than the world as God intends it. The fight against slavery and for civil rights is a case study in this, but it’s something we all have to be aware of. Each of us, in some way, is invested in the world as it is, we have to ask Jesus for the grace to die daily to the temptations of this world, and the strength to turn our hearts to the world which he has brought.

The church must also wrestle with this. Plenty of good Christians, plenty of good Episcopalians stood by while abolitionists and protesters fought for the end of slavery and the granting of equal rights in the US. The church in America has spent much of its life seeking to be acceptable to the world it finds itself in, and it has led us to a point of massive decline, decline that will probably be accelerated by the pandemic. If want to continue as a church, if we want to have a church to give to our kids, godkids, and grandkids, we need to start preaching and proclaiming the world that Jesus Christ has brought, bearing witness in our lives to that world. Jesus said we do not belong to the world of sin and death. We belong to another world, and we have to act like it. As we come back together there will be a strong temptation to “go back” to normal. But what if that’s not what we’re called to, though? What if God is calling us to imagine what we can be? What if God is calling us to imagine new kind of parish life, a parish life where the world of God, a world of mercy, grace, and love is boldly, unapologetically, proclaimed? We may be hated, we may even be crucified, but that can only be a prelude to resurrection. Amen.

May 9, 2021

The Sixth Sunday of Easter

Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5: 1-6; John 15: 9-17

The Rev. James M.L Grace

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

Good morning and Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, happy Mother’s Day out there to every person who has been born.  If you were a baby once, you get to celebrate Mother’s Day!

I would like to spend a few minutes this morning talking about our reading from 1 John today and would like to do so through a story.  This is a story about something I experienced roughly two weeks ago. 

A friend of mine reached out to me two weeks ago and asked if I would go over to her house and say a prayer with her.  She is about my age, is a mother of several children and was getting ready to have major surgery.  She was going to have a hysterectomy.  As I walked into her home, I became aware of the irony of it being so close to Mother’s Day, and her having the apparatus of her motherhood removed from her body.  

Her family members and I gathered around her, placing our hands on her shoulders, and prayed.  The next day she had the surgery, she came through fine, and is healing now.  We talked last week, and I wished her a happy Mother’s Day. 

She expressed gratitude for the doctors, optimism, and hope, and I left the conversation with this feeling that despite what my friend had just gone through surgically, that she seemed stronger after the surgery than before.  This sounds ridiculous – but she continues to give birth even after this surgery – creating hope and joy.

Birth against all odds is the story of scripture, filled as it is with stories of women barren since birth, who by a miracle discover life growing within them – an act of God. 

There is a mysterious line in our scripture reading from 1 John today in which the author writes these words: “whatever is born of God conquers the world.”   What does that mean?  For me it means, what a person wiser than I once told me, which is that inside the will of God, there is no failure.  Outside the will of God, there is no success.”   Or to put it another way, God did not bring you this far to bring you this far. 

There is still new life ahead.  It does not matter if our bodies are biologically not up to giving birth anymore, all of us, no matter our age or ability have new life, new insights, new wisdom to share with the world.  

When the author of 1 John writes those words “what is born of God conquers the world,” I do not believe that we are to assume that means we should forge our own paths and use God as a sledgehammer to knock down others and further our own agendas.  What I believe the author means, is that it does not matter if you are a woman who has had a hysterectomy – it does not matter if you are man, it does not matter what your gender identification is – because we all have the same job – to join with God and get to work getting born. 

If we trust God, what you and I create will have God’s blessing on it.  If what you or I create is contrary to God, you better believe God will thwart our efforts, as God did with the builders of the Tower of Babel. 

Whatever God brings into the world, will triumph against all odds.  That is our job by the way – to be co-creators with God.  To build something.  And there is risk to that – there is risk of failure of course.  At this church I have heard people share with me their fears of failure, which I completely identify with.  We are all afraid of failing. 

And while that fear of failure runs deep for many of us, I submit a fear greater than that is our fear of success.  What if we really accomplish something?  What then? 

One final word on this verse.  Anything that is born, even born of God, must one day be weaned.  Whatever is born must become self-supporting.  This weaning process is difficult for us, and many of us refuse it.  No one likes to be weaned.   But we cannot mature – we cannot grow – until we are weaned, until we are deprived of comfort and certainty.  Once we are on our own, once we face our fears with courage, trusting God to go before us and clear our path, then we will conquer any adversity that comes before us.

Bob Dylan once said, “He who isn’t busy getting born is busy dyin.’”   God is into living, not dying.  God is birthing within you right now at this moment – something wonderful to give to the world.  All you must do is figure out what it is, allow God to deliver it, and watch the world change.  Happy Mother’s Day.   AMEN.

May 2, 2021

The Fifth Sunday of Easter

The Rev. Bradley Varnell

1 John 4:7-21 | Ps. 22:24-30 | John 15:1-8

The heart of our passage today is the ultimate necessity of Jesus Christ for us.  “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” Strong words from the Lord today. And hard words, in many ways. For us to live, for us to bear the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of resurrection, requires we receive our life from Jesus. He lays it out for us: if we don’t have him, we have nothing. We’re just dried branches for the kindling.

To abide in Jesus is just to act towards the Lord as he acts towards us. Jesus abides in us and we are to abide in him in the same way! Jesus, resurrected and ascended, is present to each and every one of us. Not in a general way, but in a specific, personal way. Jesus Christ is present to us right now. He is in the midst of us, closer to us that we are to our own breath. There is never a time, never a moment when we who have been baptized into the body of Christ are apart from Jesus. He’s there in our good moments and our bad moments. He’s there when we’re at church and he’s there when we’re at home. He’s with us in our moments of sorrow and with us in our moments of joy. That’s Jesus abiding in us. He abides in us by being with us. By sharing his life with us in every moment.  So, for us to abide in him, we return the favor. Just as Jesus is present to us, we must be present to him. In our moments of sorrow and joy, in church and at home, at our best and at our worst we must turn our attention to Jesus just as he always has his attention turned to us, we must share our life with him.

Think of it like a turning to look at a friend. You can do a lot with a friend side-by-side, with them in the same room as you. But looking at each other squarely in the face, turning your body and your eyes and your focus to each other changes things. There’s a level of attention and intention that arises when we look at each other in the face. It’s a posture of sharing. That’s what it means for Jesus to abide in us and we in him: we turn spiritually to face Jesus as he is turned to face us. We turn to each other to share our lives with one another.

This is what the Christian life is all about. Everything we do – prayer, Scripture, sacraments, fellowship, worship – all of it is about correcting our spiritual posture, turning from all the other things we pay attention to, all the other things we abide in, towards Jesus. Because without turning to Jesus we simply will not live. We shrivel up and die, like branches pruned from the vine.

Jesus calls us to abide in him because in him is life. Not just eternal life, life in heaven, but life that be lived right now, today! Life that is possible only when we know the forgiveness of God, the mercy of God, the grace of God, the incredible, overwhelming, world-creating love of God. That is the life which Jesus the vine offers to us, to the branches. We don’t receive this by thinking about Jesus or talking about Jesus, but only by abiding in him, by sharing with him, by knowing him personally as he knows each of us personally. The branch doesn’t think about the vine, or talk about the vine, the branch simply receives what the vine has to offer. So too with us: it’s not that thinking and talking about Jesus are unimportant! They’ve very important. But they’re only important insofar as they help us know Jesus more personally, to receive from him all that he has to offer.

Our faith isn’t about our buildings, our music, our liturgies. It’s not even about the good works we do, or the theologies we write. Our faith, at its core, is about the truth that Jesus Christ has come to give us life. He abides in us and invites us to abide in him so that we might live. If you have not turned to Jesus, if you have thought about him, spoken about him, but not abided with him and in him, start today. As we receive communion Jesus gives himself to us physically in the bread and wine of Eucharist to abide in us. As we receive him, let us turn our hearts to him, and as we go out into this next week and the weeks ahead, let’s keep our hearts turned to him. Share your life with him in prayer, let him share his life with you in Scripture. Receive from the heavenly vine all that he has to give us – you won’t regret it. Amen.  

April 25, 2021

The Fourth Sunday of Easter

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

Acts 4: 5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 10:11-18; John 10: 11-18

Good morning St. Andrew’s.  As the photo on the front of your service bulletin indicates, today is Good Shepherd Sunday.  We hear readings today, such as the 23rd psalm and the Gospel which speak of the Lord as our shepherd. 

In the Gospel Jesus clearly explains the difference between a hired hand and a good shepherd.  A hired hand is someone who shows up to do a job, but they are there primarily to get a paycheck.  The hired hand doesn’t really have much passion, or interest in the work they are doing. There’s not much in the way of long-term involvement.  When things get tough, the hired hand usually runs away. 

That’s different from a good shepherd, who shows up with compassion, who is passionate about the work they are doing.  The good shepherd doesn’t leave when things get tough – but stays present, takes care of the sheep. 

The story of the Bible is pretty simple – it is the story of God showing up in our lives as a good shepherd.  A God who is faithful, compassionate, and with us every step of our journey.   

While God always shows up as the good shepherd in our lives, how do we show up?  Are we good shepherds to others, or do we show up as the hired hand, just wanting to know what’s in it for me? 

I will tell you that every morning I wake up, the voice of the hired hand starts getting real loud in my head.  And what I hear, again and again, is “you aren’t good enough.”  “You must produce something.  You must do something to earn your affirmation and your value.”  That’s what my hired hand says.  I know what he looks like (and it is a he) – he’s short and likes to yell a lot and his bark is much bigger than his bite. 

What does the hired hand in your head say to you?  I get into trouble when I start believing what the hired hand who lives in my head says to me.  I let the hired hand’s voice drown out the voice of the Good shepherd who says “you are enough.  You are loved fully by God.”  That’s what my good shepherd says.  “You are loved, you are enough.”

The world is much more interested in hired hands by the way.  Hired hands tend to be the movers and shakers in the world.  They get big deals done, they make money, they have all the outward trappings of success.  We are taught from childhood that the path to material success lies in being a hired hand, rather than in being a good shepherd.

Good shepherds, on the other hand, usually don’t have an easy life.  Recall the first characteristic of a good shepherd in which Jesus says “the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”  Our culture applauds hired hands while it crucifies good shepherds.  If you need a reminder of that, look no further than behind me – Jesus, crucified on a cross.  That cross, ironically, was a gift to St. Andrew’s from Good Shepherd Episcopal Church. 

The voice of the good shepherd is hard to hear, but it will speak to us if we allow it.  I will share one story of what I believe to have been an occasion of the shepherd speaking.  I am leading a book club on a book entitled Caste which argues that there is a hidden hierarchy of social and racial ranking in America.  

One of the parishioners in the class (I call us the “Casteaways”) said that when she sat down to read the assigned chapters for last Sunday on race relations, she sat down on her couch convinced she was not a racist.   After reading the chapters, she said she got up from the couch and owned the hard truth that she was after all, racist.  She described it as a moment “of scales falling from her eyes” like Paul after he was blinded. She spoke a truth many of us are afraid of doing – acknowledging the deeply embedded layers of “hired hand” thinking that all of us have to some degree. 

That’s the shepherd’s voice – asking us to go deep and look at ourselves and examine our faults with courage so that we can become better people.  The hired hand won’t stick around for that kind of inward soul work. 

I will close today with an illustration of a Good Shepherd I have been unable to remove from my mind this week – George Floyd was a Good Shepherd to me. 

You may be thinking to yourself that Floyd had a criminal background – he had chemicals in his body, was using counterfeit money, and you’re right.  But that doesn’t matter to me.  Because this week I keep thinking about that other Good Shepherd, the one brought before the crowds and Pontius Pilate.  Remember what they said about him?  He was a criminal, a threat, an abomination.  He should be crucified.  And he was.  It wasn’t until that Good Shepherd died that the eyes of the Roman soldier standing at the cross were opened, and he said “truly this was God’s son.”

I am embarrassed to say that it wasn’t until Floyd’s death until my eyes were finally opened to the problem of race in our country.  My eyes could have opened so much sooner. And I believe they would have, if I wasn’t spending so much time with hired hands.  I will be walking with the good shepherd, from now on.  I understand the price, and to me, there is nothing more valuable.  AMEN.