November 7, 2021

All Saints’ Day

The Rev. Clint Brown

Early in the second century, the Roman governor of the province of Bithynia in Asia Minor, a man by the name of Gaius Plinius Secundus, also known to history as Pliny the Younger, wrote to the Emperor Trajan about his problems. He had the usual troubles of a governor: workers’ strikes, municipal scandals, political disaffection, but also religious unrest. Many of the temples, he reported, were becoming more and more deserted, many services had been discontinued, and the trade in the buying and selling of animals for sacrifice for the health and well-being of the god-emperor had dropped off considerably. It was all the fault of some troublemakers that his informants had identified called Christians. They were a secret society that could be up to no good and who were almost certainly disloyal to the emperor. So a number of these Christians were rounded up and brought before Pliny for a trial. It turned out that upon examination there was insufficient evidence pinning them to any criminal activities. They were religious zealots and cranks, perhaps, certainly obstinate and inflexible, but, on the whole, more of a nuisance than a threat.

In the course of his examination, Pliny found out something about the practices of these Christians, what they did when they came together. They were accustomed, he learned, to meet on a fixed day of the week very early in the morning to sing hymns responsively to Christ “as to a god,” and to bind themselves by a solemn oath, not to some nefarious crime or seditious plot, but simply an oath to keep the moral law. Later they took a harmless meal together and then went home. All this was naturally confusing to Pliny, what Christians actually did when they met on Sunday, but all of us have no difficulty in recognizing some of the elements of what is now called a Communion service, and, as I speak, there are millions of Christians just like us engaged in just such a service of worship right now.[1] And so it has been for all the centuries, Sunday after Sunday, without fail, in great cathedrals, in country churches, or wherever two or three could gather. We have never stopped coming together to remember.

History is an important value to Christianity. Our faith does not rest on a set of philosophical principles but on a relationship with a person – a historical person – what he did, who he was. We, therefore, are trying to continuously make present what is past, continuously holding up in front of us the reality of the Incarnation. God became flesh and dwelt among us, in time, as a part of history. Our insistence that we read from the Bible connects us to the past. The fact that our bishops are ordained in the apostolic succession connects us to the past. Our recital of creeds and ancient songs connects us to the past. The forms of our prayers and even some of the very words that we speak in our liturgy are often traceable to the very earliest documents that record such things. Yes, we Christians are very interested in maintaining continuity with our past, and so it makes sense that we would devote a Sunday each year to all the saints, remembering the heroes of the faith.

In the Book of Hebrews there is a remarkable passage in which the unknown Jewish-Christian author is writing a word of encouragement to an unknown group of Christians. After citing numerous notable examples of faithful men and women in the Old Testament, the writer reflects, “All these won a glowing testimony to their faith, but they did not then and there receive the fulfilment of the promise. God had something better planned for our day, and it was not his plan that they should reach perfection without us” (Hebrews 11:39-40, J. B. Phillips translation). What that means is that the faithfulness of those faithful men and women of old is only completed by our willingness to pick it up and carry it forward. If we do not do our part, their efforts will have been in vain. That is why we cannot forget the past or the heroes of the faith. We depend on them; they also depend on us. So as you kneel at the altar rail today and carry forward for one more week that sacred act of memory that we Christians have been doing since the beginning, take notice of the saint to your right and to your left, but also see the rail extending into eternity on either side with all the saints bowing with you in one great act of communion and know that the past has been made present once again.

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

October 31, 2021

Proper 26

The Rev. Clint Brown

Assist us, O Christ, to know you; and in knowing you to love you; and in loving you to grow increasingly into your likeness. Amen.

Theme: Law and stewardship

Rules. We don’t much like rules in our culture. We like rebels. Our favorite stories are not of men and women who accept what is, but those who dare to color outside the lines. We are a nation founded on rebellion. The men and women who first arrived on our shores were either restless adventurers seeking fame and fortune, or religious dissidents who were seeking a new land in which to practice their faith far from the prying eyes of the authorities. We fought a revolution in order to assert the basic human right to self-govern. Throughout our history, whenever there was trouble, we could always move further West. The grit and independence and audacity of the pioneer is in our DNA. And so it is that we prefer the underdog story, the little guy taking on the big guy, David versus Goliath. If David or Rosa Parks or Robin Hood had listened to the prevailing wisdom, if they had conformed to the rules, in other words, we would never have heard their name. It’s the bad boys and girls who write themselves into history much more often than the teacher’s pet.

So let’s start by granting that rebellion does have its place. And some of the most important work we can do is to question the reasonableness and justice of laws and constraints and to push against them. This is the American genius. But before assuming that freedom requires the casting off of every restraint, let us look to Scripture for a counterpoise. For we read in Scripture that God is actually very interested in Law. God establishes a relationship with Abraham, at the very beginning of our history, based on a contract or covenant. Abraham is expected to do certain things and so is God. Fast forward to the Exodus, and Yahweh again meets his people, making fully explicit that to be his people they must follow a code of conduct, the Ten Commandments, that will define who they are and what they are to do. This presents us with the other side of the law coin. Laws are not always arbitrary, meaningless, or burdensome restraints. The psalmist says that it is in God’s law where true freedom is to be found, and this is because God’s commandments are always purposeful, protecting us, defining for us what fullness of life looks like. Like any set of rules, they are a code for what we value.

And so we come to the great teaching from our Gospel lesson today. A man asks Jesus what are the rules to build a life on – what is essential – what is nonnegotiable. “‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’…and, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mark 12:29-31). Neither commandment was an innovation of Jesus. They are both found in the Torah, in the Book of Deuteronomy and the Book of Leviticus, respectively.[1] The demand these commandments place on us is to give our whole selves. We are to offer our whole selves to God – mind, heart, soul, and strength – and our whole selves to one another. These rules are sacrificial. They are a self-offering. And therefore, as offerings, they are costly. We are to submit ourselves to them at the cost of accepting limitation and constraint. Like Ruth, we allow duty and obligation to take precedence over whatever benefit we might have expected to gain from complete liberty.

And it is worth mentioning, as we are in the season of stewardship, that stewardship follows this exact same sacrificial logic. To pledge 10% of your income – or whatever you finally discern to give during this year’s campaign – to commit to giving anything is an exercise in bumping up against God. “But God” is the steam that makes the wheel of sacrifice turn. I could keep all my money, but God is owed a part. I could stay home on Sunday morning, but God is owed my time. I could ignore all my responsibilities and think only of myself, but God expects more of me. I could vilify the person who voted differently from me for President in the last election, but God loves them just as much as me and requires me to love them in the same way as I love myself. Right now, as you sit in your seat, there could very well be a part of your life that you are withholding from God – from God’s scrutiny or judgment – but God asks for that, too. All these things represent sacrifice, bumping into the reality that God has a claim on our lives.

“Whosoever will come after me, let [them] deny [themselves], and take up [their] cross, and follow me (Mark 8:34, KJV). That’s the final word for Christians. It’s what we’ve signed up for. At our baptism we committed to the cruciform life – the life shaped not by success, not by possessions, not even by the right, we would say, to define ourselves – but by the cross. We submit to Christ’s Lordship because we recognize that we are no longer our own. We were bought with a price (1 Cor 6:20; 7:23). Of course, we chafe a little from time to time under the burden of Christ’s law, of always having to function within its constraints, of having to love our neighbor, live unselfishly, give and give again. Christ’s law is not easy; its demands are great. But for us there is no choice, for we dare not accept the benefits of our Lord’s Passion without also accepting its cost.  

[1] Deuteronomy 6:4; Leviticus 19:18

October 24, 2021

Proper 25

Mark 10:46-52

The Rev. Francene Young

Before a sermon, I spend hours reading other sermons and looking for ideas.  I usually have some direction, but sometimes it is hard to flush out.  When reading other sermons, the idea or sermon that brings tears to my eyes, is the one I focus on.  Based on a sermon by the Rev. Brett Blair, I offer the following reflection:

Blair starts out talking about Helen Keller.

“Helen Keller, so brave and inspiring to us in her deafness and blindness, once wrote a magazine article entitled: Three days to see."

In that article she outlined what things she would like to see if she were granted just three days of sight. It was a powerful, thought provoking article. On the first day she said she wanted to see friends.

Day two she would spend seeing nature.

The third day she would spend in her home city of New York watching the busy city and the work day of the present.

She concluded it with these words: "I who am blind can give one hint to those who see: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you were stricken blind.'

As bad as blindness is in the 21st century, it was so much worse in Jesus' day. Today a blind person at least has the hope of living a useful life with proper training. Some of the most skilled and creative people in our society are blind. But in first century Palestine blindness meant that you would be subject to abject poverty. You would be reduced to begging for a living. You lived at the mercy and the generosity of others. You were an outcast and considered blind due to some sin or punishment of your parents or you. 

Little wonder then that one of the signs of the coming of the Messiah was that the blind should receive their sight.

When Jesus announced his messiahship, he said: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has sent me to recover sight to the blind."

The story this morning of the healing of blind Bartimaeus would suggest to us that there are three kinds of blindness. Let’s briefly examine each one.

The first kind of blindness is represented by the beggar sitting by the road leading to Jericho. Mark tells us that his name was Bartimaeus.  His name means son of Timaeus.  Makes me wonder if Timaeus was known in the community and because his son his blind, son of Timaeus is considered an outcast and sits by the side of the road, begging.  Just a thought?  But we really know nothing much about him:  his age, length of blindness or what caused his infirmity. Nothing is said of his family, or friends if he had any.  We know him only as blind Bartimaeus.

I cannot begin to imagine physical blindness. I remember taking a tour of the Buffalo Bayou Cistern on Sabine Street not too far from here.  It was a special exhibit.  Before going in (pre-covid) they warned you of the initial total darkness.  But I had no concept of total darkness.  Once inside, and the lights went out, I remember looking around in all directions but my eyes were totally useless.  I could not see my hand when I held it up to my face. I actually felt a little nauseous, at first.

Those brief moments of total darkness in the Cistern were the closest I ever came to complete blindness.  Not seeing anything!

When Jesus came down the roadside, surrounded by his disciples, “body guards” as Jimmy referred to them during our Bible Study, Bartimaeus sought his help.

Yet, that day, even in his blindness, he saw more clearly than did the crowd. Bartimaeus saw more clearly than Jesus’ own disciples. He knew who Jesus was by calling him “Son of David”.  He knew that Jesus could release him from the prison darkness. He knew that faith in Jesus could restore his sight. He was blind but he saw more than those with physical sight.

Day after day the world passed by Bartimaeus not really seeing him, not really caring about him. He heard the sound of camels, the shouts of children, the gossip of the women, the business talk of the men but he saw not a thing.. So he simply sat there. Day after day. Until one day he cried out: Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

While reading about Bartimaeus and his calling out to Jesus, I kept humming to myself  “Pass me not O Gentle Savior.”  I was pleased to find that Blair referenced this in his sermon.  Who wrote it?  I researched and found that Fanny Crosby, blind white woman poet and writer who worked in missions in NYC, while physically blind Fanny wrote the words: “Pass me not O Gentle Savior, hear my humble cry. While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry.  While on other thou art calling, do not pass me by””

Jesus, hearing the cry of Bartimaeus, STOOD STILL.  Called out to the crowd that earlier tried to silence him and said “Call him to me.”  Jesus asked him “Want do you want me to do for you?”  The same question he asked The Sons of Thunder last week who sought power. 

Bartimaeus asked only to” let me see AGAIN.“ Jesus said: “Your faith has made you well.”

The first blindness then is represented by Bartimaeus. It was a physical blindness.

The second kind of blindness in the story relates to those who followed Jesus; his own disciples. When Jesus began his way into Jerusalem, he told the twelve of the dreadful things that would soon befall all of them. It was not the only time he spoke of the coming agony. Three times, Luke records, that Jesus tried to warn them. On the first occasion Luke writes: But they understood none of these things. On the second occasion he writes: But these sayings were hid from them. On the third occasion Luke records: But they did not grasp what he had said.

Thus the disciples suffered from a kind of blindness as to the nature and person of Jesus. They loved him passionately, but they did not understand him. They were spiritually blind. They had sight, yet they were unable to FULLY see. They were blind as to the meaning of the events that were happening around them.

The first blindness was that of Bartimaeus. Physically he could not see.  The second blindness was that of the disciples before the resurrection. Their eyesight was alright, but they could not see the true nature of Christ.

And there is a third kind of blindness is ours.  It is the blindness of you and me. Bartimaeus lacked eyes. The disciples lacked knowledge. But we have both and we still are sometimes unable to see. This third type of blindness, Blair calls the  blindness of taking for granted blindness.

If we are not careful, we can to take life and all we have for granted.  If we are not careful, we can become blind to the preciousness of life, we can become blind to the preciousness of our loved ones until it is threatened or curbed for us. If we are not careful, we can lose sight of Jesus in our lives.

Whether publicly known or not, we all have a cloak, like Bartimaeus that needs to be shed so we can get up, callout to Jesus, Son of David, do not pass me by!  And When Jesus asks, What do you want me to do for you, we need to be ready to reveal the answer that he already knows. 

As imperfect humans what do we need to own and hand over or shed (like Bartimaeus’s cloak).  Is it a strained relationship, guilt, shame, envy, greed, anger, unresolved emotional wound?  You name it.  Are we too proud, too independent ( I can do this myself)!

Whatever it is we can cry out like Bartmaeus  “SON of DAVID have mercy on me and we can pray like Fanny Crosby “pass me not O Gentle Savior.”  

We can ask Jesus to not pass us by, but hear our cry, however loud or faint.

SO for those of us who are blind and acknowledge our blindness, there is hope.

For Jesus came to heal the blind. It happened to Bartimaeus. It happened the disciples. It can happen to us.

How do we go about it? All that is necessary is that we cry out as did the blind beggar centuries ago: Pass me not O Son of David, hear my humble cry.  While on others you are calling, do not pass me by so that from you, Lord, I may receive my sight, again.

Amen.

October 17, 2021

Pentecost – Proper 24

Job 38: 1-7, 34-41; Psalm 104: 1-9, 25, 37b; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45

The Rev. James M.L. Grace

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

Many years ago, I went to Las Vegas - that bustling city of virtue and proper moral behavior – entered a casino and sat down at a blackjack table.  I pushed a $25 chip onto the table as my bet before the cards were dealt, and, I am embarrassed to say, I said a prayer: “God, if I just win this hand, I will give all the money to charity.”  The cards were dealt, and I lost my $25.  Did God answer my prayer?  You bet.  The answer was – don’t ask me to bend the rules for you.  Life is not, and never will be fair. 

Earlier this week I had a conversation with a parishioner here who recently retired and is now in the hospital.  This person told me, through tears, about their frustration with the fact that they had worked decades, done everything right, and now upon retirement, are finding themselves in a hospital dealing with an array of medical issues.  Who would want such an outcome?  Who among us would say “I can’t wait to work my whole life towards retirement so I can spend it in a hospital room?”  No one.  This person said, “why me?”  The answer to that question, this person already knew, was “why not me?”  Why should the rest of the world suffer, but I get a free pass?

            The reality that life is not fair, and that unexplainable suffering exists in the world are two primary themes from our reading in Job this morning.  For those who are not familiar with the story of Job – I will offer a summary.  Job is a virtuous man, a wealthy landowner, and the patriarch of a large family.  In a moment, Job loses everything he has: his health, his possessions, his family – everything is lost.  Job is at a loss as to why this happened to him, unaware that behind-the-scenes God has allowed Satan to cause all this hardship on Job, as a means of testing his faith. 

Job, still at a loss to explain or understand the meaning behind all this hardship, demands an explanation from God.  God does not explain the meaning of Job’s suffering, but instead challenges Job with a series of questions that lead Job to see a larger picture than his own suffering.  The purpose of God’s questions to Job that we read today, are to draw Job outside of his own suffering.  Job learns a tough lesson here – Job learns that even though life is not fair, and suffering not always explainable, God is still good, and God is still trustworthy. 

This is not an easy lesson to learn – to love and trust God even while your life is falling apart – but it is a lesson that once learned, changes our lives.  Once we learn to trust God through unfairness and sickness and sadness, we are no longer spiritual infants – we have matured into spiritual adults. 

In my conversation with that same parishioner earlier this week, this person said, “I think I know what God is telling me – suck it up.”  The parishioner laughed when they said it.  Perhaps that is what God is saying to Job – but I think there is more.  It’s not just “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” but it is more like God saying – look beyond yourself and your own suffering, see beyond it – and your suffering will lessen.

If preaching a sermon on suffering and unfairness isn’t your cup of tea, probably my conclusion this morning won’t be, either.  I close with a word on our stewardship campaign, which beings next Sunday.  I have good news.  Before this year’s campaign even formally kicks off, fourteen people have already pledged online.  Among those who have pledged include: seven vestry members, three staff members, and four other parishioners who wanted to get a head start.  The total of their fourteen pledges is over $100,000 towards next year’s budget.  This is good news.   If you want to get your pledge in early, visit the giving tab on our website and you can pledge safely online. 

And that’s all: stewardship, suffering, and Job – everybody’s favorite sermon topics!  AMEN.

October 10, 2021

Proper 23

The Rev. Clint Brown

Assist us, O Christ, to know you; and in knowing you to love you; and in loving you to grow increasingly into your likeness. Amen.

Theme: “Take all that you have and be poor.”[1]

There is a Jewish folk tale about a rabbi who thought to test the honesty of his disciples, so one day he called them together and posed the question: “What would you do if you were walking along and found a bag of money lying in the road?” The first disciple answered, “I’d return it to its owner,” to which the rabbi thought, “This one answers too quickly; I must wonder if he really means it.” The second disciple said, “I’d keep the money if nobody saw me find it.” And the rabbi thought, “This one has a frank tongue, but a wicked heart.” Finally, the third disciple said, “To be honest, I believe I’d be tempted to keep it. So I would pray to God to help me resist the temptation and do the right thing.” “Aha!” thought the rabbi. “Here is the man I would trust.”

Like this story, there is a distinct note of truth-telling in our readings today. Job, the Psalm, are hardly giving us a view of things through rose-colored glasses. We are confronted with the many-sidedness of life, especially its unpleasant, more bitter aspects. To live bravely, we need this, to do the work of getting square about the way things really are. So it is that we hear Job acknowledging just how fraught and inexplicable we often find life to be, how we would plead our cause to God if only God would show up to the inquest. Psalm 22, quoted by Christ Himself on the cross, captures, in a way to which we can all relate, the despair and downright confusion that pervades our experience of life and its undeserved trouble. With its contrasting hues of light and dark, alternating between hope and hopelessness, it paints, in an unvarnished way, how the life of faith is an unsettling and far from straightforward affair.

Because faith is challenging and problematic in a precarious and hostile world, most of us have found a shortcut. We have found a way to carefully define, circumscribe, compartmentalize our religion. We know that we are better off for having it, but it doesn’t pay the bills or put food on the table, does it? When it comes to who to trust with my life, my ultimate trust for my security and my protection lies with me, and, in that respect, I am just like the rich young ruler. I am basically a good person. I keep the commandments. I treat others decently. I do the best I can with what I’m given. When I come to Jesus, I feel pretty sure that the good rabbi will give me an A+ for my efforts. After all, look at how shiny and well put together I look. But Jesus, looking at me, loves me and sees right through me, and says, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor…” (Mark 10:21). Jesus confronts me with the devastating truth of why am I even coming to him if I don’t actually believe I have need of him?

One of the cardinal truths of the spiritual life is that the more we tighten our grip on whatever guarantees security in this world, the more of real value slips away. No wonder, then, that Christ cautions us about the danger wealth poses to our spiritual health. The law of love, by contrast, says that the more we give away ourselves and our things, the more and better we thrive. Another story illustrates the point. The story is told that the great Phillips Brooks once visited a church that had burned, leaving the congregation feeling hopeless and demoralized. When asked what he would do in these circumstances, the great Bishop replied—“The first thing I would do would be to take up an offering for foreign missions.” That is not what I expected, and yet there is something very right, isn’t there, about this? The obvious concern was not the most important concern. And so it is for us. I – you – we – each of us are our most obvious first concern, and yet Christ would have us call that into question, our instinct for self-preservation, and deny ourselves, and see to the needs of others before our own.

“Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell all that you own and give the money to the poor.” But then he continues, “and you will have treasure in heaven…come, follow me’” (Mark 10:21). If we stopped at the first part, we would only know and feel miserable about what we are losing and miss the great gain. Christ’s challenge to us is a mercy, not meant to deprive us but to enrich us. We are asked to confront the bankruptcy of our position, that the way we are living – armored up with stuff, living small and scared – is no way to live at all. The poet Wendell Berry has written, “Take all that you have and be poor.” If you were to ask me, What is the best way to relate to all the many privileges I have? then I would sum it up in the words, “Take all that you have and be poor.”    

[1] Wendell Berry, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” from The Country of Marriage (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2013), 14.

October 3, 2021

Proper 22

Mark 10: 2-16

The Rev. Canon Joann Saylors

I know of people who avoid church on the day this Gospel lesson is read. And I get that. I doubt there is anyone here who has not been touched by divorce in some way. I myself am the daughter of divorced parents; I have a sibling, stepsiblings, and cousins who have been divorced. And having to hear a sermon, or even a scripture, about being an adulterer because you are divorced is hardly a way to learn that God loves you.

But you came [or tuned in] today – maybe you just didn’t know what was coming – so I hope you haven’t already tuned out. I am sorry for whatever pain divorce has caused in your life, even if it was the necessary and right thing to happen. Because sometimes it is. Regardless, at some level, there is always pain in divorce. No one says on their wedding day, “Boy, I hope I get divorced someday.” Endings are hard. This passage has been used at times to constrain marriage to heterosexual couples, to judge people whose marriages have ended, and to pressure people to stay in abusive relationships. But this passage isn’t about those things. It is actually about compassion.

The very first words in the text: “Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’” The Pharisees are not looking out for anyone’s well-being; they are trying once again to trip Jesus up. Jesus does what he often does. First he refers them back to Torah, and then he shows that the bar for how we treat one another has been raised. He does this over and over in the Gospels. The law of Moses instructs us to forgive; Jesus calls us to forgive 70 times seven times (Matt 18:21-22). The Old Testament defines justice as reciprocity – an eye for an eye – but Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek instead (Matt 5:38-40). The 10 Commandments instruct us not to murder, but Jesus says unrighteous anger is just as bad (Matt 5:21-26). Here, with regard to divorce, Moses offers a certificate solution; Jesus says just don’t do it.

In fact, any law of Moses has to be followed or expanded in the context of the new commandments to love God with all of our being and to love one another as Jesus loves us. And so we look at divorce, but let’s look at it in the way it would have been seen in the first century. Marriages were usually arranged by the parents of the couple, partly because of the couple’s young age and partly because of the large sums of money and goods that changed hands. Total fidelity was demanded of the wife in marriage. If she was caught with another man, both could be put to death. But note the husband was not so tightly bound: if he had an affair with a single woman, that was not adultery. Divorce would be another possibility if a wife was accused of adultery, especially where the evidence was not clear cut. In this case the woman would forfeit her dowry. False accusations were not unknown, where men wanted the goods but had no interest in the woman, who would likely return in disgrace to her parental home. Women had no means of initiating a divorce, regardless of the husband’s behavior.

So it is in this context that we see what Jesus does. Where the Pharisees are challenging Jesus’ knowledge and interpretation of the Law, Jesus turns the conversation towards God and towards God’s nature of gathering humanity into communities. We, of course, often, do the opposite. The new Creation which Jesus initiates is not brand new, but a return to the original creation of God’s world. Divorce is an example of our turning away rather than gathering, but the ending of a marriage is only one example of a wider problem. Jesus calls himself the bridegroom, and our sin, our turning away, is a form of divorce.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry he preaches and teaches and models the message that we are meant to be reconcilers, healers, and gatherers. Not only of those within our own tribes, but of neighbors, strangers, enemies. Of everyone, in all the nations of the world. Never does he say instead that we are to build walls, or separate ourselves, or connect only to those we look like or agree with.

Bishop Doyle writes, “God is drawing people who are different together and Jesus is clear that we are the ones who defile these relationships. We defile marriage relationships and we defile communal relationships. We do this by turning away from the "other." We are drawn away from the "other" into relationships that boost our power, our voice, and our authority. We engage in relationships that diminish the "other" with whom we are bound.” i

That is the real pain from divorce, as it is with so many of our relationships. Not the divorce itself – that is simply the grave marker when a marriage has died – but our behavior. We act in ways that push us further apart from our spouses, but also from others that we love and from others with whom we vehemently disagree.

How many times have we heard about the increasing divisions and demonizing in our culture? How toxic levels of conflict seem to arise around any topic where not everyone gets their own way? We talk about the decline of civil engagement, endlessly, but that isn’t the only division in our public lives. Division is also about people who steal from another for their own gain, kill another out of spite or revenge, and enslave another for profit. Sure, that’s those other people, those criminal types, but we all play a role in increasing divisions.

We bully one another in hopes of making ourselves look better. We stop speaking to each other over petty or even major disputes rather than opening ourselves to staying in relationship. We stop listening to one another in conversations because we are too busy planning ahead what we will say. We move into increasingly segregated and gated communities to achieve an illusion of safety or exclusivity. We stereotype, painting whole groups of people with a broad brush, instead of recognizing that no group is monolithic and celebrating our differences by engaging with individuals. We stay inside our churches and engage in ministries that benefit ourselves first, instead of going out to see the other places God is already at work and joining in. We don’t prioritize getting to know our neighbors and their needs.

It is no accident – it is never an accident – what follows next in Mark’s Gospel. It is a concrete example of what Jesus is saying. We sometimes hear that text and think it is meant to show us how a gentle Jesus tends the sweet little child, but that idea softens the radical nature of what Jesus is actually saying. Our modern understanding can confuse us, because the translation seems to indicate Jesus switching the subject somewhat abruptly away from divorce to focus on children. But we are thinking of children as we know them, members of the family even before they are born. Remember, though, that things were different back in the first century, when children ranked lower than that of women. For Mark’s listeners, children would have been regarded as non-persons, or at least not-yet-persons, possessions of the patriarch of the household. As Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry writes in his article, “How Christianity Invented Children,” “High infant mortality rates created a cultural pressure to not develop emotional attachments to children. This cultural pressure was exacerbated by the fact that women were more likely to develop emotional attachments to children — which, according to the worldview of the day, meant it had to be a sign of weakness and vulgarity.” ii Children didn’t contribute much to the family’s economy, couldn’t offer honor or respect in the way someone of higher status could, and couldn’t increase a family’s prestige. So they were ignored, abandoned, exploited, enslaved, and abused.

Gobry continues, “Christianity's invention of children — that is, its invention of the cultural idea of children as treasured human beings — was really an outgrowth of its most stupendous and revolutionary idea: the radical equality, and the infinite value, of every single human being as a beloved child of God. If the God who made heaven and Earth chose to reveal himself, not as an emperor, but as a slave punished on the cross, then no one could claim higher dignity than anyone else on the basis of earthly status.” iii

Jesus is making what would have been an unbelievable statement that children are just as beloved to God as everyone else is, and thus should be just as beloved to us. Women, children, all those who are overlooked and abused and exploited and treated as less than human are welcome in God’s Kingdom and should be welcome in our kingdoms, as large as our nations and as small as our hearts.

Children are not born prejudiced; it is something they learn. Before they internalize the messages, conscious or not, of hierarchy and exclusion between those who are different, such divisions are meaningless. They see and point out differences – most of us have had or seen the experience of a child asking an awkward question at full volume in a public place – but it is in innocent curiosity, not hatred. Like children, we are meant to revel in diversity within God’s greater unity that is the Kingdom of God. We enter God’s Kingdom by building relationships, by joining our lives to one another across difference, overcoming scorn, anger, and hatred.

Jesus prayed for his disciples that we might all be one, as he and the Father are one. We are called, then, to explore what “unity in Christ” means, and how we can be people of faith in the midst of a divided and demonizing culture. How can we bring water to the fire instead of gasoline? How does “agreeing to disagree” affect our ability to proclaim the gospel, heal, and reconcile? How can we call on the teachings of Jesus to model risky, compelling, and deep conversations that do not end in division? I don’t have ready answers to those questions, but it is necessary that we ask them.

Faith insists we do that. “What God has joined together, let no one separate.” What Jesus says here also completes our rite of marriage. If those whom God has joined together are the whole of Creation, let us not only avoid putting them asunder, but actively knit them back together. Let us be faithful citizens in the reign of God. AMEN.

i C. Andrew Doyle, “Some Thoughts on Mark 10:2-16,” Hitchhiking the Word, Saturday, July 24, 2021, https://hitchhikingthebible.blogspot.com/2012/10/proper-22bordinary-27bpentecost-19.html, accessed September 28, 2021. ii Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, “How Christianity Invented Children,” The Week, April 23, 2015. https://theweek.com/articles/551027/how-christianity-invented-children, accessed September 29, 2021.

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.