Category: sermon

Courage to Believe: Sermon for Easter 3

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As a young kid, I attended a Christian school run by the Church of Christ denomination.  When I was in the second grade, my teacher, Miss Terrell, taught us about guardian angels. 

I’ll never forget what she said:  “Wherever you go and whatever you do, your guardian angel is always with you, watching you.” 

The reason I’ll never forget what she said is because it absolutely terrified me!  What she was describing was some kind of supernatural surveillance state! 

It was made worse by the fact that, when you’re 7 years old, you suddenly become very body aware. I spent countless hours worrying that my guardian angel was watching me use the bathroom! 

As the weeks passed, it got even worse. I started having nightmares about stoney-faced angels glaring at me, with swords in their hand.  I was convinced angels were hiding in my dark closet, ready to crawl out and get me as soon as I fell asleep. I can’t even count the number of times I ran to my parents’ room and crowded in between them on the bed.  

But even there, I couldn’t get relief. The angels were following me. Always scowling and always threatening to cause me harm.  

There was no escape. “Wherever you go and whatever you do, your guardian angel is always with you, watching you.” 

One evening, I finally fell asleep in my own bed. In the middle of the night, I woke up and noticed a warm light emanating from the end of my bed.  

There at my feet was what appeared to be a little girl, about my age. She was dressed in a white chiffon robe, and glowing like the sunlight at golden hour from head to toe. Though appearing like a child, she had an intense, warm presence. 

I sat up in bed and looked into her face. She didn’t say anything, but looked back at me knowingly. Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of peace washed over me. I laid back down and fell asleep.  

After that encounter, I was a different person. I was never afraid of angels again.  

The next morning, I told my parents what I had seen. Though skeptical at first, they kept an open mind. When they realized I was cured of my terror, they came to accept that something really had happened. 

At school that day, I drew a picture of myself sitting up in bed, with the angel standing at the foot of the bed.  When Miss Terrell asked me to describe my drawing, I told her about my night. 

And you know what’s funny?  She didn’t believe me. 

At the time, I was incredulous! How could the person who told me about angels not believe what I had seen and experienced? 

— 

Now, as an adult, I understand it better. I can muster more sympathy for Miss Terrell. 

The truth is, I think most of us have trouble believing that unlikely or miraculous events really happened, even when they happened to us. 

We don’t trust our instincts. We think we must have gotten something wrong: maybe we misunderstood or misremembered. Maybe we were too young or too tired or too gullible.  

And even if we do leave room for the possibility, what does that mean for all the times the thing we prayed for didn’t happen? 

In a culture dominated by rationalism, denial seems like our best option. Because, if we actually dare to believe in a miracle, people will think we’ve lost our minds! 

— 

Today we meet the disciples as they grapple with their own tangled up feelings of joy, fear, and doubt in the face of a very unlikely event. 

And we watch, as they try to muster the courage to believe, and then proclaim, that something miraculous has really happened. 

— 

To get a better understanding of what’s going on, let’s put this passage in context: 

At this point in Luke’s story, the women have talked to angels at an empty tomb, and two men have encountered a strange man on the road to Emmaus. 

After breaking bread with this apparent stranger, Luke tells us that “their eyes were opened, and they recognized” that it was Jesus. ‘They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road.’”  

Even before they consciously recognized that it was Jesus, they sensed his presence in their heart. But, in the space between their heart and their rational mind, doubt wedged its way in. And in the time it took to interpret their experience, the story was already starting to get fuzzy. 

So, when the two men tell their friends about their dinner with Jesus, it is easy for everyone in that room to be skeptical. 

Even after Jesus shows up, in the flesh, still bearing wounds, they’re not convinced. They’re still afraid to trust themselves. They’re still afraid of what everyone else will think. 

It’s easier, in some ways, to tell themselves they’re losing their minds, than it is to admit that their friend came back from the dead.  

Sometimes, it’s easier to believe in ghosts than in God. 

— 

Like those first Christians, we catch glimpses of the Divine, but we’re so quick to shut our eyes again. We hear stories of miracles, but we’re so eager to chalk them up to coincidence. 

We come to church each week for communion, praying for Christ to be “known to us in the breaking of the bread.”  But then we leave, not expecting this divine encounter to fundamentally change our lives. 

Whether you have personally had a mystical experience or remarkable vision, you have been invited to come to the table, where Jesus offers himself. 

Here at the communion table, Jesus says,  “Look! It’s me, bread made flesh, wine made blood. Look! It’s you, the Body of Christ, still transforming the world.” 

Like the disciples, we encounter the resurrected Christ whenever we reach out our hands and accept the bread of heaven.   

Our first task is simply to show up and experience this gift of Christ’s presence.  

Our next task, as the disciples will attest, is the harder one: to take the risk of believing that Jesus is present with us, and capable of changing our lives. 

— 

Our Scriptures speak to the timelessness of doubt – they remind us that skepticism is so very human. And Jesus, who lived and died as one of us, knows what it feels like to be human.   

He knows that believing in a miracle is just as anxiety-inducing as it is wondrous.  He knows that proclaiming resurrection puts us at terrible risk in a society more bent on death than on life. 

And the truth is, we can’t explain the mechanics of the Kingdom of God. Try as we might, we can’t rationalize divine encounter or divine transformation.  

The life of faith can’t be wrapped up in a tidy proof. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. 

Here, at the table, Christ calls us to leave a little room for possibility. He challenges us to expect a divine encounter. And to trust that God is near when our hearts begin to burn within us. 

Each week as we gather, we are learning how to believe in the miracle of resurrection. 

With our minds broadened to the possibility of hope, we have the strength to venture back out into a world of so many unknowns, and trust that God is transforming it. 

— 

Eat this bread, drink this cup. Leave a little room for a divine encounter. As the disciples can tell you, it might just change the world. 

I Demand to See the Body: Sermon for Easter 2

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When I first looked at this week’s scripture readings, I struggled to understand exactly how they fit together.  

At first glance, our Acts reading and our John reading don’t draw out one particular theme.  

How does “Doubting Thomas” fit together with…starting a commune? Like most things, it turns out that these scriptures don’t benefit from oversimplification!

So I kept thinking… 

It’s the Easter season, so it’s customary to continue in our story with the now resurrected Jesus visiting his disciples and friends. 

And on this day, we hear the story of Thomas, who, apparently, lost his invitation to the dinner party.  And thought he had missed his chance to see Jesus, in all his resurrected glory.  

Ok, so, that story’s squared away for now. 

But the tricky part of the way we read scriptures in the Episcopal Church is that, even though Thomas is always right here, waiting for us, on the Second Sunday in Easter, the other passages move around in a three-year cycle.  

That means that this is the only time in three years that today’s Acts passage is paired with the story of Thomas. Though a bit complicated, the lectionary cycle gives us several ways to encounter the unfolding story of Christ and his church. And to make connections we may not have noticed before. 

All that to say: when I dug deeper into today’s readings, the thing that stuck out to me was the fixation on bodies. 

Not dead bodies, but living ones. And, not just any body, but the Body of Christ. 

— 

With that in mind, let’s get back to Thomas… 

Thomas is an important part of the resurrection narrative, because he’s just like us. 

He says what everyone is thinking, even if they won’t admit it:  “I’m not gonna believe that Jesus rose from the dead, until I see it for myself! Show me the evidence!” 

And Jesus readily complies. A week later, Jesus returns and immediately tells Thomas: “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 

Thomas doesn’t need to touch Jesus after all.  

In the presence of Jesus’ living, breathing, resurrected body, this body that still holds the battle wounds of death, in that moment, Thomas believes. 

And Jesus is more than willing to help him believe. 

Jesus goes on to say: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 

Because of that statement, Thomas has been forced to bear the nickname, Doubting Thomas, for the last 2,000 years.  

But it seems clear that Jesus isn’t condemning him for wanting to see the body. 

Rather, Jesus is graciously acknowledging that it is hard to believe in him without any evidence. 

Jesus gets it.  

If the Gospel of John were turned into a play, this would be the moment where Jesus breaks the fourth wall.  It’s almost as if he’s looking out into the future and speaking directly to us. 

We are the ones who “have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  

But can’t there more than that? Like Thomas, I want evidence: 

  • I want proof that Jesus is who he says he is.  
  • I want examples of how God is acting in the world, now.  
  • I want Jesus to show up and start pointing to all the things he’s up to,  
  • So that I can believe that he really is paying attention. 

And I wouldn’t say I want any of these things because I don’t have faith. 

It’s just that the world is a tragic place.  

It is full of horrific violence that never seems to end.  Of illness, grief, fear, and so much anxiety.  There are too many people struggling to survive.  And too many people making their survival impossible. 

Sometimes it seems like nothing will get better. 

But, Thomas demanded to see the body of Christ and Jesus consented. In doing so, they both taught us that it is ok to make that demand. 

Well then, I demand to see the body.  

— 

Where is Christ’s body for us, today?  

Our Collect, which paraphrases the Scriptures, says that we have “been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body.”  

If we are part of Christ’s body, that means that we encounter Jesus, quite literally, in one another. 

In other words, WE are the living, breathing, resurrected body of Christ, for one another.  We bear the battle wounds of our own difficult lives,  and we allow one another to witness those vulnerabilities.  

— 

At first glance, this strange proposition doesn’t feel the same as Jesus showing up for Thomas. 

But, when I think about it, I can honestly say that the reason I’m still a Christian is because people in the church kept showing up and loving me. 

When I felt abandoned, they stepped forward and said, “here I am.” 

And every time I have demanded to see evidence of God working in the world,  I have only needed to turn to my right or to my left,  and observe my siblings in Christ doing that work. 

The church at its best makes believing in Jesus not only easier, but compelling.  Because we actually do catch glimpses of Christ when we reach out our hands in care for one another. 

— 

And that’s why the Acts passage has something to say about our Gospel. 

In Acts, we see how the early church showed up as Christ’s body for one another. They participated in a radical experiment to give up their personal property and share “everything in common.” In doing so, they ensured that no one in their community struggled to survive.  

As theologian Will Willimon puts it, this community showed the surrounding culture that: “The church takes care of its own, thus creating in its life together a kind of vignette, a paradigm of the sort of world God intends for all” (Interpretation Commentary on Acts, 53). 

While the church has never managed to broadly sustain this kind of communal living situation, this passage reminds us that being Christ’s body in the world is a serious undertaking. Just as we have received love from others, we must make it our job to share that love with others. 

It’s not always easy.  

In fact, this job of caring for one another as Christ’s Body is both the heart of our faith, and the hardest thing to do. It requires us to see ourselves as one part of the bigger whole.  It forces us to always imagine what is possible, instead of giving up when things feel too hard. It puts us in situations of risk and discomfort, because to be like Jesus in this world means showing up, even if the doors are locked. 

Caring for one another as Christ cares for us means we can’t give up on each other. And we can’t give up on building a better world. 

— 

The good news is, we’re not giving up. 

Just this week, I have spent hours learning about the history and hopes of this place. And I have been energized by your faithful labor and persistent care for one another.  

Limb by limb, the Body of Christ is being made visible. And the Holy Spirit is urging us to continue the work. 

Of course, the church has never been perfect. The Body of Christ has, perhaps, never been as visible to us as it was to Thomas. Because of this, there will be struggles and disagreements and roadblocks. We will have our doubts.  

But we can demand to see the Body. We can ask for Jesus to reveal himself, and expect to see him, quite literally, in one another. 

So, look for Jesus and expect him to show up. He’s already here. 

Amen. 

At the Fault Line of the Resurrection

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A Sermon for Easter

I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the Lord…

shot of hill country in texas with bird flying over
Photo by J. Amill Santiago on Unsplash

This morning, we join Mary and the disciples at the threshold of the tomb.

As we poke our heads into that dark cave in the hill country outside Jerusalem, we brace ourselves for the stench of death, and find it empty.

In the long hours after Jesus died, we were trying to be strong. But the absence of a body finally breaks us. Our worst fear already came true, when the man who promised he would save us, died on the cross. But now, Jesus is really gone, and it feels like a second death.

Now, hope is dead. And there is no possibility of closure, only the bodily ache of despair.

But, just as we are hit with a fresh wave of grief, we turn our faces toward the blinding light of the morning as a mysterious messenger beckons us:

“Do not be alarmed! Do not weep! The longing you have held in your body, the fear and the hope, the promises you were foolish enough to believe – all of it has been redeemed! All of it has been transformed!”

Against all odds, Jesus Christ was dead, and now he is alive.

Here we are again, this Easter morning, standing at the threshold of the tomb, gazing into an empty burial chamber in amazement. Daring to believe in resurrection.

We stand at the doorway between darkness and light, fear and hope, death and life. Here, at the threshold, our perspective is broadened. We finally have the vantage point to understand the truth of all things: Here, in this space between all we thought we knew, and all that Christ is making new, the way we order the world breaks down. The dichotomies no longer make sense. In view of the risen Christ, “even the darkness is as light.”

At the empty tomb, we see everything with new eyes. NOW, we live in the ambient light of the Savior, the living Word, who created all things and redeems all things.

There is no need to fear the future. Because Jesus Christ is risen, and all things grow toward his light. In fact, there is no need, even, to hope. Because what our ancestors have hoped for since Eden has already come true.

We’re not yearning for the old days, or waiting for better ones. Heaven has come to earth, and paradise is here!

New life bursts forth at the threshold of a tomb in Judean hill country.

Here in Austin, we are intimately familiar with thresholds, in the geological sense. That’s because we quite literally live on a fault line. The city is built on a geological landmark called the Balcones Escarpment.

map of fault lines and zones in Texas
Balcones, and the Mexia-Talco-Luling Fault Trends, where black lines are faults, the blue shaded area is the Claiborne Group, yellow is the Jackson Group, and tan is the Wilcox Group (Image: Public Domain)

As Austin resident Stephen Harrigan put it in a 1987 article for Texas Monthly,

“The Balcones Escarpment…is geology’s most fateful mark upon the surface of Texas, a bulwark of cracked and weathered rock that extends in a pronounced arc from Waco to Del Rio. It is the Balcones that creates the Hill Country, that sets the stage for the Edwards Plateau and the High Plains beyond. The cotton economy, for our schematic purposes, ends at the base of the escarpment, where the rich blackland prairie…runs literally into a wall. Above that mass of limestone there is only a veneer of soil, and the country is hard, craggy, and scenic—cowboy country. The distinction is that sharp: farmers to the east, ranchers to the west.”

On the east side of town where we are right now, you can still see traces of fertile farmland. Each day when I come home, I have to be extra careful not to track fine, black dirt into my living room.

But just a few miles west, the landscape suddenly transforms into hill country. The ground rises up in stops and starts to reveal red clay and rocky passes.

The first time you drive west toward Lake Travis, you might find, like I did, that “amazement seizes you” at the sudden shift in perspective.

Like the Psalmist, maybe you’ll exclaim:

“This is the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

The landscape here, not unlike the culture, is a juxtaposition of abundance and want, softness and hard living, simultaneously quaint and exhilarating.

But you should know that the Balcones Escarpment isn’t the only interesting thing about the fault line. The result of a violent collision of earth that occurred 20 million years ago, the Balcones Fault Zone also produced the Edwards Aquifer.

Basically, when the ground was pushed up into hill country, it was also pushed down into deep ravines and caves. Rainwater flooded these hidden caverns, forming underground springs that provide water to local waterholes, the Colorado River, and the households of most of Central Texas.

These aquifers are literally what make life possible here.

So, if you’re having trouble finding the fault line, just look to where green things grow and people gather. Amid the tumult, and against the odds, life is nurtured and sustained, right here, at the threshold.

Like so many who settled here before us, the perspective of this place might grip you.

Living here, at the site of a geological wonder, you are living proof of a bigger truth: that the ways we sort the world, into good and bad, salvageable and broken, safe and dangerous, habitat and wasteland, no longer make sense in view of the fault line.

From this vantage point, we see things differently: All of it is redeemable. All of it holds hidden possibility. All of it can be made new.

At the fault line, you realize you no longer need to let yourself down easy. You no longer need the old stories or the doubted promises. Things can be bigger, and better, and more beautiful than you imagined.

Here at the threshold, life is bursting forth.

Today we worship in a church, formed at a geological threshold. And we stand with the disciples, at the fault line of the resurrection.

We have held the black earth of the east while gazing up at the red hills to the west. We have drunk the pure water from aquifers borne of violent shifts below the surface.

We dare to proclaim that the old things can be made new. We insist that life is persistent, growing in crevices and dusty hills, against all odds.

We have seen with our own eyes how the death of an old world can create the conditions for abundant life.

And if all this is true, just about the ground we stand on, how much more is in store for us, who proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the redeemer of the whole world!?

On Easter, we declare that, even in darkness, life is bursting forth!

And so, we proclaim: Alleluia!

“O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?”

Christ swallowed up death and shifted the tectonic plates. Resurrection is here.

Two thousand years after the disciples peered into the empty tomb, we still bear witness to the Risen Savior.

We still dare to be faithful, in a fickle and distracted world. We still dare to believe in the reconciliation of all things, and all people. We still dare to see the bigger picture.

A dead man crossed the threshold of a tomb. Now, we know that life is always possible. Even death carries the seed of resurrection.

I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the Lord.

Amen.

A Honeybee Knows How to Take Up Her Cross: A Sermon

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Readings here

This is the last sermon I’ll give here at this church, my first home for ordained ministry. So, I felt a lot pressure about what I would say. When you’re standing up here week after week, all eyes on you, it’s easy to forget that the sermon is not about the preacher, as much as feels that way sometimes.

The sermon is intended to be, always and without exception, about the eternal relationship between God and God’s people. In other words, it’s about the Gospel, the good news: That we are not alone, and that we are always cared for by the Creator of the universe. 

The sermon moment, within the context of a service, functions as both a conversation and a pause. 

  • It is meant to illuminate the readings that we just heard proclaimed by fellow members of the Church. 
  • But, it is also meant to give the right amount of time and weight to those readings, so that we’re not just reading them as rote parts of the service, but understanding that they are still speaking to us.

Strictly speaking, it doesn’t matter if the sermon is entertaining or well-spoken. What really matters is that both the preacher and the people are open to the Holy Spirit speaking, in both the words and silences of this moment. I’m saying this now, because I think it’s easy to forget the point of all of this talking. 

What we’re trying to do in worship is remember that we are still being called to join up with God and carry our cross, just as Jesus says in today’s reading from Mark. 

—

So, let’s talk about what it means to carry our cross…

I grew up in a tradition that was hyper-fixated on the cross. 

We sang songs about Jesus’s death on Christmas morning. The preacher preached on Jesus’s death on Easter, the day of Jesus’ resurrection. In fact, it would have been very abnormal if we got through a whole service, at any time of year, without being reminded that Jesus “died on the cross for our sins.” 

That’s not to say that this isn’t an important part of our story as Christians: 

We worship a God who suffered unjustly, and who was willing to bear our burdens, knowing that we could not bear those burdens or be reconciled to God by ourselves.

But, the issue is that, when you’re hyper-fixated on the gruesome death of Jesus, you will really have no choice but to read today’s Gospel reading as a command for Christians to suffer and die.

But that just can’t be the whole story! Because, if the cross is only about death, then we’re completely missing the Gospel. Where’s the good news? With help from theologians James Cone and Kathryn Tanner, I have come to believe that the good news is not that Jesus died. 

The good news is that, against all odds, Jesus lives. 

That means that, when he tells us we should take up our crosses and follow him, he’s not telling us it’s time to walk toward death. 

He’s actually telling us: “it’s time to walk toward life”: Abundant life that defies the scarcity of the world. Eternal life that rejects the short-term thinking of our economic and social system. Life beyond quick fixes, substances, and consumer goods.Big thinking, not small thinking. A total transformation of the world that leads, ultimately, to a natural paradise called the new creation. 

—

When Jesus shocks his disciples in this moment by telling them to take up their crosses, they’re in the same boat as us in some ways. Surely, all they could think about was crucifixion. But, we know that crucifixion was never the whole story. 

So, as we’re being called to take up our own crosses, we better get clear on what that means. Because we serve a risen Savior, to take up our cross is to bear burdens for the sake of beauty, abundance, community, love, belonging…and hope. 

We’re not people with a death wish. We’re people with a life wish. 

Without a desire for life, there is no benefit in suffering. There would be no benefit in strife. There would be no benefit in living counter-cultural lives of sacrificial love in society that couldn’t care less about others. There’s no benefit unless the work that we do here, for and with each other, leads toward the whole world living abundantly.

—

And that’s why I want to talk about honeybees. 

I can’t leave this place without talking about my very favorite critter. 

And I really do believe that honeybees have something to teach us about crosses, sacrificial love, and abundant life…

Unlike their indigenous cousins, honeybees live in highly structured communities called hives. The hive is made up almost entirely of female bees. These bees are called worker bees, and they do exactly what their name implies. 

They work. On every possible task at every level of their community. 

  • They take care of the larvae and clean the nursery. 
  • They feed and care for the Queen. 
  • They kick out the pesky male drones when the drones are no longer useful.
  • They clean up all of the trash, and maintain the various chambers. 
  • They keep guard at the hive door and fight off wasps and other predators. 
  • They make a place for the retired, elderly bees.
  • And of course, they gather nectar from flowering plants to turn into nutrient-dense honey. 

Along the way, they pollinate the world’s fields, forests, and agricultural land.

The majority of a worker bee’s life is spent in the darkness of the hive, hidden from the public eye. They work their way through the system from juvenile to adult bee, and carry out their tasks with precision.  They communicate and collaborate extremely effectively.  And the result is a well-oiled machine.

—

After a few weeks attending to internal tasks, the worker bee is finally ready to leave the hive. 

She will spend the next weeks flying up to 60 miles per day on her tiny wings, to find just the right pollen and nectar to bring back to her community. These will be turned into the bee equivalent of bread and drink, called “bee bread” and honey.

Some nights she will sleep inside a flower, too far away to reach the hive. But when she returns, she will communicate using a complex body language called the waggle dance. Now an expert harvester, with a daily view of blue sky and flowering field, she shares what she has learned with her community.

In two weeks, she will likely be dead.  Her wings, beating 230 times per second, will break down from the rigor of flying. Or, she may be killed by pesticides, bad weather, or other creatures.  If she survives, she will be welcomed back into the hive as a retiree.

Even though her body is broken, her labor was not in vain. 

Her hive is buzzing and buoyant because of her labor, and the labor of her community.

—

Each worker bee carries her cross, keeping order and caring for young and old in the hive, before flinging her body out into a worldthat is beautiful and dangerous in equal measure.

She knows her job is important, even if her contribution is small.  She will produce one and a half teaspoons of honey in six weeks of hard labor — her entire lifespan. But a commercial hive of 50,000 bees will produce up to 100 pounds of honey each year, with 60 of that produced in excess of what the hive needs.

—

A honeybee knows how to take up her cross. 

She knows how to take care of her community. How to share the burden and carry the load. 

A honeybee knows how to look to the wisdom of her tradition, and learn new tasks with humility. She knows that it’s worth it to take the risk, and even to take a fall. Because the outcome is abundantly sweet.

And, meanwhile, in all of her doing for her own community, she has also pollinated the world. 

She launched herself out in service to her hive, and that small act of courage made it possible for all of God’s creatures to eat, to be well, to do more than survive. Her whole life given for a spoonful of honey that makes each life just a little bit sweeter.

A honeybee knows what it means to live abundantly.

—

It’s serendipitous that our Old Testament reading today is about the covenant God makes with Abraham.

God promises Abraham that his descendants will be numerous, and blessed with abundance. Over 200 years later, God will lead Abraham’s great-great-great-grandson, Moses, and his people out of the land of Egypt.

God reiterates his promise then, saying that God’s people will inherit a land flowing with milk and honey. A land overwhelmed with so much life that it produces decadent foods in excess. 

And that’s what we come here to remember: That the journey may be difficult. The crosses may be heavy. And there will be heartache on the way. 

But there is so much life at the end. And there’s so much life, here, right now. 

No matter what task you are called to in this hive: 

  • Whether it is to tend or clean. 
  • organize or build. 
  • lead or support.
  • Rest or fly. 

The cross you bear will bear fruit. The cross you bear will produce in excess. 

Don’t be afraid to bear it!

You are following in the footsteps of the One who created the honeybee, and You. 

This is why we carry our cross. This is why we do what we do: Because there is exponential sweetness in God’s promises.  And, because in the midst of death, there is life…abundant life.

Amen.

The Pinnacle Epiphany: A Sermon on Transfiguration

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Readings here

Early last week, I wrote an entire 1,200 word sermon.  

But this weekend was Diocesan Council. And it wasn’t just any Council Meeting. This year, the Episcopal Diocese of Texas is celebrating 175 years. 

Over 600 of us – lay and clergy – listened to story after story of lives being changed, and people doing incredible things in the name of the Gospel, over the Diocese’s 175-year history.  

  • Three religious leaders who blocked the bridge to Galveston to keep the KKK from rallying there.  
  • A white Episcopal priest who risked being lynched to stop the lynching of a Black man.  
  • The first woman priest ordained in Texas, at nearby Epiphany, in spite of a protest in the middle of the service.  
  • And then, the recent news, of millions of dollars being distributed to support scholarships, health access, and community programs.  

These were stories of people putting their bodies on the line, and their money where their mouth is. 

— 

I don’t know how y’all have been feeling lately, but I really needed to hear stories of hope. 

I had a breakdown on Thursday night, thinking about the death toll in Gaza, and the drowned mom and kids at the border, and all the other scary, terrible, evil things humans do to one another.  

I kept asking:  

  • What should I do?  
  • How should I act?  
  • How will I know when God is calling me to risk everything for the sake of what’s right?  

I was thinking of all those heroes and martyrs who came before me.  

The Christians who hid Jewish families during the Holocaust, the Civil Rights leaders who persisted through death threats.  My neighbors in Charlottesville who held the line in the face of white supremacists.  And even the Hebrew prophets, who yelled and yelled the words of God, even when everyone called them crazy.  

Sometimes I worry that my practice of religion is too sanitized.  

That I’m too comfortable.  

I can talk the talk, but what good is that, if I’m not living like a person who believes in resurrection?  What good is sound theology if I’m more worried about my reputation than the new creation?  

I don’t think I have a martyr complex, but I do revere the martyrs.  I do think there are things worth risking everything for.  

But what does that matter if I’m not the one willing to put my own body on the line? 

I say all this to give you some taste of the real agony I was feeling.  The guilt, the inadequacy, that sense that I want to do the right thing. But I’m not sure how to even know what the right thing is.  

When are we called to be prophets? When are we called to be pastors? When are we called to be…people? 

— 

With all this in my head, I listened to these diocesan stories, of lives being changed and people doing incredible things in the name of the Gospel. 

And during Hour 5 of yesterday’s 6-hour meeting, I realized I would need to re-write my sermon.  You could say I had an Epiphany about an Epiphany. 

— 

The Transfiguration reading we just heard is the bookend to the Season of Epiphany, that begins with the Wise Men finding the human God in the form of a toddler in a working class family. 

This first Epiphany is that God came down from glory and became human. Not a king, but a carpenter. 

Then, in the Transfiguration, we follow this human God up a mountain for another surprise.  This time, the man Jesus is revealed as the glorified Christ. The eternal Son of God, shining with an other-worldly glow. 

The Transfiguration is generally thought of as a pre-cursor to Christ’s final appearance after the resurrection. Here, in the middle of his earthly ministry, Jesus has invited three of his most trusted disciples to witness the full truth of his nature. 

Some scholars suggest that the optics of the Transfiguration are so similar to Jesus’ appearance after the resurrection, that this event was actually written back into the story after the fact.  

— 

But there’s a more interesting story to tell about the similarity between the Transfiguration and the Resurrection. 

While the Gospels don’t name the mountain Jesus and his friends climb, we often assume it’s Mount Horeb, which is the same as Mount Sinai.  

Christians associate the Transfiguration story with Mount Horeb, because of the text’s mention of Moses and Elijah:  

  • Moses encountered God and received the Ten Commandments on Mount Horeb. 
  • And Elijah flees to Mount Horeb to escape his call, when God shows up and speaks to him in a whisper. 

My friend Ora explained to me that, in Jewish theology, these encounters with God on the mountain are thought to exist outside of time, in God’s eternal timelessness. 

This means that you could think of every divine encounter on Mount Horeb as simultaneous events. God is always present there and always speaking – and the message is always the same. 

So, in this passage, when we are invited to encounter Jesus on the mountaintop, what we are witnessing is neither a story about a past event nor a pre-cursor to a future one.  

In a reality beyond our understanding, the Transfiguration is, and has always been, happening, now. 

When we bear witness to the Transfiguration, we are having an epiphany in the truest meaning of the word. 

  • We are “perceiving the essential nature of a thing.”  
  • The thing, in this case, being God.  

We are seeing the full glory of the eternal and always resurrected Christ, who was and is and is to come.  

Our eyes are fixed on hope incarnate, in the flesh. On the living sacrifice.  On the Word who spoke Creation into being, and still whispers new creation all around us. 

“Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.” 

This is the Epiphany to end all Epiphanies. The pinnacle epiphany.  

Not only that God was a baby in a manger, or a man on the move.  But that God, in Christ, is bigger than the whole human story. And yet, he is an eternal and ever-present part of the human story. 

— 

The Epiphany I had during Diocesan Council was that you and I ask a lot of very good questions about the world’s suffering, and our responsibility to alleviate it. 

But the answer doesn’t arrive in words. It arrives in an Epiphany.  

It arrives in God made flesh, and flesh transfigured as God. It arrives as the person of Jesus Christ. 

— 

If we want to do brave and risky things for God, we already have the action plan we need.  

“Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.” 

If we don’t know what to say or how to act or when to do risky things for the Gospel, we look to Jesus.  We might be asked to follow stars or hike up mountains – to take beatings, leave our nice things behind, and journey to places far beyond our comfort zone.  

But we’ll know when it’s right, because we’re looking to Jesus.  We have witnessed him there, in the timeless place of God, in his full resurrected glory.  We are assured that he is with us, has always been with us, is present in primordial winds that still blow through the streets. 

Evil creeps in, but it can’t win. Because we have seen Christ’s glory face to face.  

We know what hope looks like and no one can convince us otherwise. 

When we get back down the mountain, we’ll know what to do.  Because the Transfiguration is the pinnacle epiphany, eternally revealing the truth of things.  

And maybe the world will kill us for it. It killed Jesus, after all. 

But God whispers an epiphany on that mountaintop that echoes through eternity: 

Have you not seen? Have you not heard?  

We’re a resurrection people. 

Amen. 

Divine Reassurances and Difficult Questions: A Sermon on Mary

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Advent 4, Year B – Readings here

For the past couple of months, I’ve have been slowly making my way through a book series about Jesuit priests who travel through space to meet singing aliens.

While these books, The Sparrow and Children of God, sound pretty lighthearted in their premise, they are actually extremely intense. They follow a Jesuit and linguist named Emilio Sandoz through the thrill of discovering alien life, the tedium of the long journey to another planet, the awe of taking that first step into completely foreign territory, and the surprising joy of engaging meaningfully with another sentient species.

Throughout the books, Sandoz is depicted as a person of wavering faith. Though he has devoted his life to God, he still grapples with life’s most difficult existential questions.

Questions like: Am I really doing what God wants me to do? Where is God in all this suffering? How can beauty and pain exist simultaneously?

But here’s the question the story seems to ask more than any other: If I had known what I know now, would I have followed God’s call on my life?

Early on in the first book, Sandoz has an experience of God so profound that those witnessing it say his face was shining like a saint. But that moment of spiritual certainty is overshadowed by years of tragedy, loss, and physical disability. Sandoz spends the rest of his life wondering what it could mean to have received divine reassurance that God has a plan for him, but to still be grappling with the confusion, doubt, and discomfort of not really knowing what will happen next.

Because I have been living in this alien world with Emilio Sandoz for so long, I can’t help but imagine Mary grappling with the same divine reassurances, and the same difficult questions.

But before I get into that, let me give you a bit of background on what we might call the “Mary Discourse.”

For the past few years, it has been trendy for preachers to riff on the popular Christmas song: “Mary, did you know?”

The song, which we’ll actually hear during the Offertory, goes like this:

Mary did you know
That your baby boy
Would one day walk on water?
Mary did you know
That your baby boy
Would save our sons and daughters?

Did you know
That your baby boy
Has come to make you new?
This child that you’ve delivered
Will soon deliver you.

Though the song was released in 1991, a parody called “Yes, I freaking knew” was shared online in 2019. That song uses all the same words from the original, except each repetition of “Mary did you know?” turns into an exasperated declaration: “Yes, I freaking knew.”

The parody song set off an ongoing conversation about what, exactly, Mary knew when she consented to God’s call on her life. We know that almost immediately after Gabriel’s visit, Mary sings a song about empires falling, and God keeping God’s promises. We call it the Magnificat.

But even though her words are forceful and prophetic, we often talk about Mary as meek, mild, and mostly silent. In other words, there is a disparity between her own words and the church’s historical characterization of Mary.

I mean, look at the hymn we just sang (“The angel Gabriel from heaven came”):

Out of 4 verses, Mary only gets one verse with a speaking part. This, despite being the one who bore Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World, in her own body! The fourth verse has the nerve to give us a speaking part, which doesn’t really seem fair to Mary, since we weren’t there for any of it.

I think the “Yes, I freaking knew” parody is right to point out that Mary wasn’t just a passive part of the story. At some level, of course she knew that saying yes was a big responsibility, with world-changing repercussions.

For us today, Mary is not a “most highly favored lady” because God sent the angel Gabriel to have a little chat with her. We remember her today because she boldy said YES to God’s call on her life.

Today’s passage is all about what it looks, sounds, and feels like for God to call us to something, and for us to respond.

The narrative follows the structure of a classic call narrative. Like the Old Testament prophets and patriarchs, Mary is brought into the terrifying presence of God’s messenger, who shares a bewildering and improbable message:

You will bear the son of God. You, little old Mary, from a region about the size of Houston, Texas, are being asked to consent to something that will risk your future, for the sake of the whole world.

This experience must have been unlike anything Mary could have imagined for herself, a young, poor woman from a marginalized religious group. Like Emilio Sandoz encountering an alien world for the first time, I imagine that Mary felt equal parts joy and wonder as Gabriel told her that the story of salvation was, at last, coming to pass.

She knew, in that moment, that God was at work in the world. And everything would be different.

In the near presence of God, of course she said yes: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

So, it seems clear that Mary freaking knew, at the moment of her call, that she would play a part in God’s plan. Jesus was coming and nothing would ever be the same.

But could Mary have possibly known…everything?

Could she have known the jumbled beauty and pain of childbirth? Could she have known that Jesus, once he was grown, would put her own people at odds with one another, almost immediately? Could she have known the intricacies of his ministry, and the difficulty of navigating the needy crowds? Could she have known the intense horror and grief she would feel when her son was murdered by the empire?

As Mary sat at the foot of the cross, her son gasping his presumed last breath, do you think she really knew what saying yes to God would mean? Do you think she wondered if she had lost the plot somewhere along the way?

Indeed, even after Jesus’ resurrection, the fledgling church looked nothing like the empire-destroying world Mary sang about in her Magnificat.

Are you there, God? It’s me, Mary.

At the end of Christ’s earthly ministry, I wonder if Mary secretly pondered a question she dared not say out loud: If I had known what I know now, would I have followed God’s call on my life?

I don’t mean to be bleak, but in this last reflective moment of Advent, I do mean to be honest.

When we, like Mary, say yes to where God is leading us, we can never really know what that means for our future. In following Jesus, we are not promised a roadmap. We are not guaranteed glory or safety or a simple life. We are not even promised rational answers to our existential questions.

But, what we are promised is that everything will change, for the better.

As we look forward to celebrating God coming near to us, in the form of a human named Jesus, what we can know is this: It wasn’t enough for God to be at work in the world, in a vague and distant way. It wasn’t enough for God to be just out of arm’s length.

No! For our sake, God wanted to be a baby we could hold, a person we could embrace, a fellow citizen in an unjust empire, a cousin who cries with you at your kitchen table, a friend who tells jokes and calls you on your crap, a son who loves his mom.

We worship an incarnate, em-bodied Savior who calls us, like Mary, to use our own body, mind, and spirit for the sake of the transformation of the world.

He reminds us that, even in our human frailty, we are stronger than we know. Empires will be toppled, and the lowly will be lifted up. And God is, truly, with us.

When we answer the call of the Gospel, we can never really know where Christ will lead us.

But I hope, when Jesus’ tiny hands reach out to you from the manger this Christmas, you can hold him close to your heart, and say: YES.

Amen.

The Kingdom of God, the Kingdoms of this World

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A sermon given on the second Sunday of Advent – Readings here

The story of Isaiah takes place over 2,500 years ago. But, because Isaiah’s ministry takes place within a complicated and violent political drama, it still resonates with us today.

Rabbi Abraham Heschel says that:

“the years in which Isaiah began his prophetic activity were the beginning of a most critical period for both Israel and Judah.”i

The threat of military invasions from multiple nations loomed at every border. Vigilante groups took up arms, overstepping the political hierarchy, and stirring up resentment and rage in the population. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had already been suppressed. And now, parts of Judah had been taken over by Edomites and Philistines, who had taken advantage of the chaos to bolster their own political influence.

And then things got even worse. Jerusalem was under siege.

As King Ahaz tried to figure out a way to save his people, and his land, from increasing devastation, Isaiah asked for a meeting.

In chapter 7, Isaiah gives the king a prophetic message:

“Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint, because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands…It will not come to pass…If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.”ii

Isaiah tells King Ahaz that the invading armies will leave, and the influence of these antagonistic nations will decrease in time, but Ahaz has to be patient, and wait. He has to believe that God won’t abandon his people.

It’s simply not enough for Ahaz.

He allies with the powerful Assyrians, asking them to send troops and supplies to Judah to help them win the war. He chooses military might over God.

Heschel responds:

“No other ruler would have acted differently. The state was in peril, so he appealed to a great power for military aid. Isaiah offered words; Assyria had an army…

The future of the country was in peril. The king would have had to justify to his people a refusal to ask for help.

So Ahaz decided that it was more expedient to be “son and servant” to the king of Assyria than son and servant to the invisible God. He took refuge in a lie.”iii

The lie was that military power, and not God, could save his people.

The consequences were devastating.

While Ahaz did achieve temporary peace in Judah, it was at a cost to his own personal faith and, eventually, to the survival of his kingdom. Caught up in the thrill of his political alliance with Assyria, he continuously failed to listen to Isaiah’s warnings of destruction.

By the time Ahaz’ son, Hezekiah, took the throne, Assyria was demanding more and more tribute in exchange for their protection. And in the following years, Hezekiah broke ties with Assyria. He allied with Egypt and Babylon, in an attempt to reduce Assyria’s influence.

This was the fatal flaw.

In the coming years, the Kingdom of Judah lost every last bit of its freedom. God’s people were in exile.

This history matters, because it is the context from which today’s Isaiah reading comes to us.

In fact, most of Christianity’s messianic prophecies take place, not in a context of peace, but of utter destruction.

Burned out buildings, streets filled with rubble, air filled with the cries of dying children, and weeping parents. Hostages taken; futures taken. Rage and despair everywhere you turn.

This image of war hits close to home. We can see with the eyes of Isaiah, because we have been inundated with these scenes for two months in Israel and Palestine, nine months in Sudan, and two years in Ukraine.

In fact, the violence is happening all over, every day, and has always been happening, since the beginning of human history.

We continue to live in a world where rulers, civilians, and people of faith are being asked to make impossible decisions, sometimes for our own survival.

But, even while recognizing that there is a real threat, Isaiah asks us: will we choose God or political power?

When we justify the death of civilians, we are not choosing God. When we choose to ignore the suffering of God’s beloved children, we are not choosing God. When we convince ourselves that might makes right, we are not choosing God.

In times of war, we are justified in being afraid.

But Isaiah insists that being afraid can’t justify “taking matters into our own hands.” Because that kind of fear denies the power of God.

Our streets are full of the blood, and the cries of people who bear the image of God. And we are, all of us, complicit. Because we have forsaken our own prophesies. We have forgotten that only God can bring lasting peace, in a kingdom where Christ’s eternal light erases every shadow.

Advent is a time of reckoning with the reality that we are caught between the Kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God.

The prophets call us back to this reckoning, even as they sing songs of future peace.

In the beautiful passage we read today, Isaiah reminds us that God yearns to make all things beautiful. He tells us there’s a voice that calls us to clean up the rubble, and make the path straight, so that we can walk, as refugees, to the paradise God has for us.

This voice is personified, in the Gospels, by John the Baptist. He declares that God is speaking “peace to his people,” but we can’t hear it over the bombs. He dares to call people to get ready, repent, and turn away from the kingdoms of this world, so we will notice when Jesus shows up.

Jesus is on his way, and when he gets here, the distance between Heaven and earth comes crashing down into a single plane. When God shows up, everything is different. Everything is made new. Thank God, the prophets are getting us ready!

And thank God for Advent, the season that’s meant to shake us up.

This season reminds us: there is no peace if we keep choosing violence. There is no garden if we keep choosing grenades.

It’s time to say no to the kingdoms of this world, and choose the Kingdom of God instead.

Our prophetic texts tell us that God is ready for us to return.

Jesus Christ, the incarnate God, will scoop us up in his arms and give us a hug. He will stroke our hair and tell us he understands – deep in his bones – what it feels like to fear, what it feels like to be displaced, what it feels like to yearn for peace.

But our prophetic texts also ask us a very important question. And now is the time to answer it:

Are we ready to repent?

Amen.

Hear, Read, Mark, Learn, Inwardly Digest

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A sermon given on the 25th Sunday after Pentecost – Readings here

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; grant us that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our savior Jesus Christ.

What I just read is the original version of today’s Collect. The “Collect,” which is really the same word as “collect,” is the gathering prayer that the Celebrant reads at the beginning of each service.

This particular Collect was written by Thomas Cranmer, the first Archbishop of the Church in England, after it split from the Catholic Church.

Cranmer lived and died during a significant moment in the church’s history. Not only did he write and compile the first liturgies written in English, he was also among the first generation to have access to printed copies of the Bible.

Before the invention of the printing press, laypeople sometimes had access to Psalms and selected Gospel readings in their own language, and they had probably memorized some scripture. But services were in Latin, and most people were totally dependent on their parish priest to provide religious instruction.

So, when Cranmer sat down and wrote today’s Collect, he wasn’t just saying something everyone already knew about the importance of reading the Bible.He was making an argument that very few people could have made before the sixteenth century.

It wasn’t so much that people of his time didn’t understand that “all scriptures were written for our learning.”

After all, the Scriptures themselves say that in Second Timothy:

“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”

So, people understood that Scripture was an important tool for accessing the story of God. But, for the first time, they actually had access to ALL scriptures, in the context of the whole Bible, translated in a language they could understand.

And, as literacy increased throughout the sixteenth century, they could even READ them.

Knowing this gives us a better appreciation for the significance of Cranmer’s words. It’s not simply a reminder that Scriptures are a nice thing that we have. It’s a revolutionary argument that we have a responsibility to engage with them.

To hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

And through this practice, we expect God to speak.

Now, expecting God to speak is an easy thing to do when the Scriptures are pleasant. When it’s the angel saying, “Do not fear” and Jesus saying, “You are blessed. In other words, it’s easy to hear the voice of God when the Scriptures sound like a lullaby.

But what do we do with scriptures like today’s Gospel reading?

As Deacon Dawn pointed out last week, this reading – as well as the one before and after it – are disturbing. In fact, the genre is literally apocalyptic. With all this talk of outer darkness, and weeping and gnashing of teeth, they sound very inconsistent with a God whose primary trait is love.

Today’s reading, the Parable of the Talents, is pretty well-known, because preachers like to use it as a reminder to give money to the church. But, I had a hard time getting over its ickiness…

First, there’s the disturbing language of a “Master” and his “slaves.” Then, there’s the impatience and cruelty of the Master. And maybe I should also point out, that the most obvious moral is that we are all supposed to invest in the stock market? If you’re not sure what the heck is going on here, you’re not alone.

In reading my trusty commentaries this week, I actually laughed out loud a couple times, as the scholars went in circles trying to make perfect sense of the story.

They could say a few things with authority: Context clues suggest that we’re supposed to think of the Master as Jesus and the slaves as the Christian community. The scholars also point out that the amount of money – or “Talents” – given to each slave was enormous, up to 15 years’ worth of wages.

But in the end, they don’t exactly know what to do with all the ins and outs.

For example:

Why was the slave who buried his talent, entrusted with less in the first place?

Why didn’t the Master tell anyone what his expectations were?

Why was he so mad with that poor guy who didn’t actually lose any of the money?!

And maybe, most significantly, why does the text completely contradict Jesus’ words, “the last will be first, and the first will be last”?

Instead, it says:

“For to all those who have, more will be given, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”

It is at the end of all these questions that Cranmer’s words should come back to us. If it’s true that all scriptures are written for our learning, that means that we don’t have to clean up the messy parts of our Scriptures to benefit from them.

They don’t have to be perfectly clear to teach us something.

Cranmer suggests that when we’re confused or disturbed by certain Scripture passages, which he calls “dark mysteries,” the thing to do is: hear them, read them, take notes, learn from others, and inwardly digest.

In other words, we should spend more time with them. We should stay with them. We can treat the Bible like an old friend. We can talk it out, fight it out, ask lots of questions, settle into the silences, and find our way out to the other side.

We can trust that there’s something good and life-giving in the relationship we have with the Bible.

This week, I decided to put Cranmer’s advice to the test…

I spent quite a bit of time reading, marking, and learning, and I’m happy to tell you that I have digested something. That’s not to say that I won’t hear something completely different the next time I encounter the passage. And it’s also not to say that I have discovered the true meaning of these apocalyptic words.

But, for today, this is what stands out:

“I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.”

What resonates, for me, in this story is the fear. Just like the man who buried his talent, I live with so much of it. The fear that I’m not enough, and don’t have enough. The fear that I’ll be misunderstood, and that all my Jesus talk is making it hard to make friends. The fear that living into the subversive values of a God who walked toward death in order to gain life, is too great a sacrifice for me to bear. The fear that maybe I’m wrong, about a lot of things.

I am afraid to take what Jesus has given me, and do something with it.

Does that mean that Jesus is going to, just, discard me like the man in the story?

Well, here’s where the digestion comes.

I remember that this passage is a parable. Nothing happened to the guy who buried his talent. Because he never existed.

This is a moral story, a warning, but it’s not a historical fact.

And that leads me to the next realization: None of us are the guy who gets chewed out by the Master. Because, unlike the Master, Jesus has provided us with instruction for how to live.

We’re not being left in the dark – we know that Christ has called us to love God, and love our neighbors as ourselves.

We know that we have been called to share that love, until the whole world is made new.

We know that we’re not supposed to suffocate love by burying it, silencing it, and never mentioning it again.

By the very nature of him telling the story in our Scriptures, Jesus is not the unjust Master. Like a good coach, Jesus is telling us that it’s imperative that we rise to the challenge of the Gospel. And the time is now.

With that in mind, the overwhelming cry of this story isn’t that we’re all gonna be tossed into outer darkness, because we’re not great with money. The overwhelming cry of this story is actually a lullaby, disguised as a command:

“Do not fear!”

The story is telling us in the strongest terms that when everything gets apocalyptic, we can no longer afford to fear.

Love doesn’t grow if we bury it. Love only grows when we spread it around.

In the face of the world’s brutality, we are understandably impatient. Sometimes it’s hard to find comfort.

But Cranmer reminds us that the Scriptures are always there, just like an old friend. If we give them a chance, they will find a way to comfort us. They will speak the honest truth when no one else will. They will challenge us on our crap, stop us in our tracks, and command us to pull our heads out of the sand.

Hear them, read, mark, and learn.

At first, you might experience a little indigestion. But trust the process. With God’s help, you will digest.

Amen.

The Parable of the Pumpkin Patch

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A Sermon given on the 20th Sunday after Pentecost

My brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown… 

For the past few weeks, we’ve been slowly reading our way through Paul’s Letter to the Philippians.  And, while I have often noticed how beautiful the theology is, I also kinda felt like…there’s the Apostle Paul being Paul again:  being a little dramatic, using way too many words,  and going on and on about himself, blah blah blah. 

— 

But this week’s passage felt different. 

The first thing I noticed about it, is that Paul mentions two women by name: Euodia and Syntyche. Paul refers to these women, along with a man named Clement, as co-workers in the “work of the Gospel.” 

But it’s not all compliments.  It seems that Euodia and Syntyche have had some kind of practical or theological disagreement that was impacting their community.  And Paul is gently reminding them to find common ground and to remember that they are united in the Body of Christ. 

Still, the overall tone is warm and intimate.  These people are his friends.  It is clear here, and throughout the whole letter, that Paul really loves this community. 

The second thing I noticed is the lightness and joy that comes across:  “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!” 

One commentary suggests that “joy is the principal theme of the letter,”  with some variation on the word joy appearing 16 times in only 4 chapters. 

It’s interesting to note that Paul is in prison while he writes this.  Imagine having all that joy in a prison cell! 

And yet, Paul is joyful,  because, when he looks at the church in Philippi, he sees Christ fully alive and at work in the world. He sees the Kingdom of God being made a reality through the hard and humble work of its people. 

— 

Inspired by the Letter to the Philippians,  I thought about spending my sermon prep time this week writing my own letter.  I was going to call it “A Letter to the Gracians.” 

But I think a parable will serve all of us better. So, without further ado, here’s:  The Parable of the Pumpkin Patch. 

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a pumpkin patch.

On Tuesday evening, a significant number of parishioners, neighbors, and friends showed up in Grace’s front yard to unload pumpkins for our first annual pumpkin patch. 

It is safe to say that we did not know what we were in for. 

When Gail and I schemed up a plan to launch a pumpkin patch fundraiser, we truly did not understand that we were signing up to receive, like, 2,000 pumpkins! We were mostly thinking about how CUTE the front yard would look, scattered with gourds.  I was thinking about the chance to meet and mingle with our neighbors.  And Gail, good treasurer that she is, was thinking about the bottom line. 

But there we were, faced with a literal truckload of pumpkins, with no choice but to get them off the truck. 

The first hour was rough.  

We didn’t have much of a system, and we didn’t know how to organize ourselves.  The people handing down pumpkins from the truck were doing literally back-breaking work.  And there was no end in sight. 

At one point, some of us panicked and tried to come up with a magic alternative. 

What if we waited and did it in the morning?  Mmm, how would that actually solve the problem? 

What if we hired people?  Uh, sort of counterproductive to the point of a fundraiser! 

What if we…had more friends? I quickly texted my local clergy friends with an SOS!  A few others did the same.  

Then we put our phones away and got back to work. 

Faced with collective anxiety about the horrible situation we had landed ourselves in,  we were forced to make a game plan. 

First, we needed to face our individual limitations.  No one should end up in the hospital over a pumpkin patch. 

Next, we needed to work together.  We couldn’t afford to operate as individuals anymore.  We had to be a united, and disciplined, super organism – acting as one Body. 

We started an assembly line – a human chain that extended to the middle of the front yard.  First, a person on the truck would hand a pumpkin to someone on the ground.  That person would hand it over to the person to their left.  Then it would be handed off to the next person, and the next person, until it got to the end of the line,  where it would be gently placed in the grass. 

This process repeated like that until all 1,151 bulk pumpkins were out of the truck. 

As we worked together:  

  • People on the sidelines offered encouragement and good humor. 
  • The mechanic across the street sprinted over, and helped us move pallets. 
  • My friend and her son showed up, and joined the assembly line.  
  • Former school parents and neighbors quietly appeared, and took their place in the process. 
  • One person, noticing how late it was getting, came back with pizza and drinks for everyone. 
  • And, at one point, a complete stranger walked off the sidewalk and offered to help. 

The people on the truck continued in their back-breaking work, and we kept passing pumpkins.  But now there were more of us. 

As the hours wore on, our muscles ached. Our feet hurt from standing.  Our backs would never be the same.  

But for some reason, as time went on,  the laughter increased. The frustration subsided. The assembly line joyfully counted off, as the pumpkins were passed down.  And kids skipped around the growing patch. 

— 

We were burdened by this task of unloading an ungodly number of pumpkins.  And yet, “joy had become the principal theme” of the evening. 

Like Euodia and Syntyche and Clement, and so many others at the church in Philippi, we, at the church of Grace, had become co-workers, struggling beside one another in the work of the church. 

In taking on that work, we were noticing the miracle of helping hands,  showing up just when we needed them. 

We were feasting on slices of pizza, that had appeared like manna in the wilderness. 

We were aching and bruised and tired, and maybe a little annoyed.  But together, we had made something happen that we never could have accomplished by ourselves. 

And we rejoiced, because, we had seen what was possible when we lived into our baptismal response: “We will, with God’s help.” 

We had done it, together, with God’s help. 

— 

Beloved, the world is overcome with hatred, disaster, violence, and death.  

But we can rejoice.  

Because we know what’s possible when the Body of Christ acts like a Body.  When we work together as a super organism, we can accomplish insurmountable tasks.  

We’ve seen it with our own eyes! And if a few dozen people can transform a front yard into a pumpkin patch, just imagine what the whole church can do to transform the world’s ugliness into beauty, and its barrenness into bounty.  

Amen. 

Walk the Little Way

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A Sermon for the Feast Day of St. Therese of Lisieux

Gracious Father, who called your servant Therese to a life of fervent prayer, give to us the spirit of prayer and zeal for the ministry of the Gospel, that the love of Christ may be known throughout all the world; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 

Today is the feast day of St. Therese of Lisieux. 

Therese isn’t very popular in Episcopal circles, but the Catholic women I know tell me that she was an important part of their faith formation. I first learned about her in 2021, from a lay preacher at my summer internship. 

But, good news for all of us!  Therese was officially added to the Episcopal festival calendar in 2022.  

I like to think of her as my unofficial patron saint, because her feast day was the day before my ordination to the priesthood last year. But that was just the icing on the cake. Therese keeps showing up in my life. So much so, that I was surprised that I hadn’t already talked about her in a sermon! 

In my experience, sometimes the saints seem to follow us around, and it’s a good idea to try to figure out what they’re trying tell us. So, think of this sermon as a bit of sleuthing on my behalf. 

What is Therese trying to tell us? 

— 

Before I get there, I just want to say that the lives of saints are interesting to me,  because even though they get lumped together as VIPs in God’s kingdom, their stories are really more about how GOD works in our messy humanity. 

And no one story follows the same path. Some saints are from wealthy families,  others come from poverty. Some are known for their mystical visions, and others for their peculiar ways of life. Some are famous during their lifetimes, and others become popular after their deaths. 

But all of them have one thing in common: at some point, they get infected by the Jesus bug, and it leads them to places they never could have imagined.  

Through danger, illness, abandonment, and every kind of complication, the saints become saints, because no one can deny that God is working in their life. 

In that sense, sainthood directs us to notice God at work in every kind of person and in all kinds of ways. 

The lives of the saints show us that faithfulness, and not status, is what matters to God. 

St. Therese of Lisieux

— 

So, what’s Therese’s story? 

Therese became a discalced Carmelite nun in 1888. She was 15 years old.  

(The word “discalced” literally translates to “without shoes.” The discalced Carmelite order practices extreme simplicity of living. They devote their lives to prayer and contemplation.)

Therese was born into a wealthy merchant family, but things were far from good. When she was 4 years old, her mother died of breast cancer. As a young child, she was frequently bullied by a girl at her school. When her older sister entered the convent, Therese began to suffer from tremors and other anxiety symptoms. If she were alive today, we would probably say she lived with depression and anxiety. 

Before becoming a nun, Therese suffered from years of spiritual doubt, as she continued to grieve the death of her mother. She describes the hopelessness she felt in her autobiography. One Christmas Eve, she sat down to open presents, and was overcome with what she describes as the “joy in self-forgetfuless.” She was finally able to move forward. 

Therese entered the convent shortly after. 

In the convent, she struggled to make friends. She described these experiences as deeply painful. But she was determined to pray for those who persecuted her, and even spent extra time with people she didn’t like. 

Her humility and endurance in the face of difficult relationships puzzled people. But it ended up shaping her life toward sainthood. 

— 

Therese is best known for developing a spiritual practice called “the little way.” When you walk the little way, you think of each little act as an offering to God. You don’t worry about trying to impress others, or apologize for not being perfect. 

Therese described it this way: 

“The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.” 

Because of the little way, Therese had no patience for ego-driven choices. She rejected opportunities to rise through the ranks at the convent, and focused on reading the Gospels, instead of the popular theology of the day. 

Over time, she came to understand that her shortcomings “did not offend God.” She said: “My way is all confidence and love.” 

Therese died from tuberculosis at the age of 24. But thanks to her spiritual autobiography, many people were compelled to practice the little way. 

— 

Now that I’ve said all that, I have to admit that I have been avoiding Therese. 

That’s because, in Catholic imagery, Therese is often represented as a dainty young woman surrounded by pink roses. For more than a century, the strength of her life has often been misrepresented by the church. 

Instead, she has served as a symbol of female meekness and juvenile ignorance. She has been depicted as the opposite of empowered. 

On the surface, she is everything I reject in my life, as a Christian and a priest, who happens to be a woman. 

If the churches I grew up in respected the saints, I’m sure I would have been force-fed Therese as a way to keep me in line. As a way to remind me that a woman’s place is among chubby-cheeked babies, humming a sweet hymn, and wearing a pink ribbon in my long hair. 

But I think this is part of the reason Therese has been following me around.  

Not because I need to learn a lesson about femininity from Therese. But, so I will be forced to soften that judgmental impulse to condemn her for boxing me in. 

Therese’s personality and teachings may have aligned with the gender politics of the church, but she wasn’t boxing anyone in! Therese was the way she was, because God had transformed her grief and rejection into a path to spiritual liberation. 

She lived and ministered exactly as she was, because she was confident that Christ loved her and fully welcomed her. She was actually fully empowered, because she wasn’t trying to impress anyone. 

Her gift to the church is not that she was quiet and sweet, though there’s nothing wrong with those traits.  

It is that she spent her ministry being honest. 

— 

In the Gospel today, Jesus reminds the chief priests and elders that their intellect and fancy titles don’t give them special access to the Kingdom of God. 

No, the inheritors of the Kingdom are simply the faithful ones. They are the prostitutes and tax collectors, who don’t deny their need for grace. Like Therese, they understand that their “shortcomings do not offend God.” 

Those who have lived with grief, illness, abandonment, and bullying don’t really have the luxury of putting on airs. When you’ve been through Hell and back, you no longer have the patience to pretend like everything’s ok. 

This radical honesty leads to incredible clarity. Those who have lived in the valleys of life are often the first to notice that Jesus is the Savior. They are the first to believe that the Kingdom of God is near. 

While the privileged and unburdened ones are talking the talk, the survivors are actually walking the walk, even if they come limping. 

There are so many who have walked the walk, along the little way. Some of them are in this room today. 

And, through your little acts of kindness, patience, and endurance, you have been invited into the Kingdom of God. You are taking part in the healing of the world. 

— 

So, what is Therese trying to tell us? What is Jesus trying to tell us? 

Maybe…Keep the faith. Live your life with the confidence that Christ loves you, that he welcomes you for who you are, and has a way of transforming your suffering into love. 

Believe that every small step toward Christ builds the kingdom. Your faithfulness makes a difference, even if nobody else notices. You may not have much to give, but YOU are enough.  

You are not being asked to contort who you are to fit the expectations of the world. You are being invited into the fullness of all Christ made you to be. 

Walk the little way.

Jonah, Road Rage, Uncomfortable Reckonings

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A Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost

Lectionary Readings here

I recently saw a post on social media that said, “If your preacher always makes himself the hero of the story, stop going to that church.” 

In that case, after I tell you this story, I hope you’ll realize that you can definitely stay at this church…

Last week, I was leaving Meyerland Plaza and heading back over to Grace with the altar flowers. As I’m sure some of you know,  they have been doing construction on West Loop South for what feels like forever. 

To get back through town, I needed to continue straight through the intersection,  so I dutifully took my place in the middle lane: (pregnant pause) the CORRECT lane.  

But I noticed that whenever the light turned green, the lane was inching forward at a glacial pace. After sitting through two stop lights and getting nowhere, I started to become agitated. That’s when I realized that people were getting into the left turn only lane and the right turn only lane, then cutting people off IN THE INTERSECTION, in order to proceed straight through the intersection. 

Let me say that again: THESE TERRIBLE, HATEFUL PEOPLE WERE CUTTING OFF GOOD PEOPLE LIKE ME, FOR THEIR OWN SELFISH CONVENIENCE!! 

When I finally got to the intersection, I adopted a defensive posture.  No one was going to cut me off!! 

Unfortunately, I am not actually an aggressive driver. So, the car in the left lane, and the car in the right lane BOTH managed to cut me off,  then proceeded to cut each other off while I watched. 

At that moment, I did the only thing I could do: I LAID ON MY HORN.  

I yelled at them and called them names. I insulted their intelligence and wished for their suffering! 

And then, I congratulated myself for being the only righteous person on the road in Houston. 

— 

Why are these kinds of situations so infuriating? 

It’s because the whole thing is deeply unfair! Why should I be penalized for doing the right thing? Why should they be able to do something illegal, and even dangerous, and just…get away with it? 

Actions are supposed to have consequences, but no one seems to care about that anymore. 

— 

aerial view of person swimming in the sea
Photo by Dmitry Osipenko on Unsplash

See, this is why I love Jonah. Jonah gets it. 

At the beginning of his story, God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn them that the city is going to be destroyed because of its wickedness.  

Jonah feels good about this message.  

He is being asked to tell this to the capital city of Assyria, the most powerful and cruel empire in the region. 

And this isn’t just ancient gossip. 

By the time the Book of Jonah is written, Assyria has destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel and exiled thousands of Israelites, who will never get home again.  

For Jonah and his readers, it is obvious that Nineveh deserves to be destroyed. And Jonah, a man with a strong sense of fairness, is the perfect man for the job. 

The only problem is, Jonah knows God too well.  

He knows God is “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” So, he knows that once he gets to Nineveh, God will let them get away with it, at the teenist, tiniest sign of self-awareness. 

So, Jonah runs away.  

But, by God’s grace,  a big fish swallows him to save his life, and spits him out on dry land. 

Jonah gets to Nineveh, he says his piece, and God spares the whole city. 

— 

In light of Israel’s suffering, God’s pardon of the Ninevites is so unfair it makes my stomach turn.  

I’d like to get back in my car, lay on the horn, and never let up. 

Jonah himself is so upset that he throws up his hands and asks God to kill him.  

Jonah is having a real existential crisis. One commentary says that “the prophet prefers death to living in a world with no recognizable order of justice.”1

— 

(Sigh.) That’s it. 

It is difficult to live in a world with no recognizable order of justice. Where bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Where the ones who are RIGHT don’t get any recognition, and the ones who are WRONG seem to flourish.  

Where innocent people are let down, pushed down, and shot down. Where we are collectively burdened by pain, addiction, and trauma.  

And still, God seems to keep pardoning the perpetrators! 

“Yes, God, sometimes we are angry enough to die.” 

— 

But, God is begging us to stay! God keeps calling us back to Nineveh. God keeps calling us back to the vineyard. We have a vital role to play! 

— 

At the end of Jonah, God asks the question:  

“And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”  

Near the end of the Gospel reading, Jesus poses some questions, too:  

“Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’” 

It’s true. Life isn’t fair, and that fact is infuriating at times. 

But, across the scriptures, God reminds us, gently but firmly, that we are not the arbiters of justice in this world that God has made. 

— 

But let me make something clear. God isn’t saying it’s wrong to recognize injustice. 

We all know that this world is full of profound suffering. We have witnessed the oppression of our fellow human beings, and the degradation of the whole creation. We have felt the effects of carelessness and malice in our own lives. 

God agrees with Jonah that Ninevah’s behavior deserves punishment.  

Just as Jesus, in telling his parable, knows it’s not fair that all the laborers were paid the same wage. 

As disciples of Christ, we have a responsibility to carefully attune ourselves to injustice. We do the work of God when we protest, advocate, and respond.  

— 

But, the Book of Jonah makes it clear that we are called to name what is unfair, not so that God can destroy the bad people, but so God can redeem the whole creation! 

After all, we know that God is a creative and creating God. God is in the business of making all things new. 

A divine response to unfairness does not look like scorched earth. It looks like a vineyard in harvest. It looks like grace. And we have ALL been given undeserved and excessive grace. 

When we recognize grace in our own lives, we are humbled to understand that all of us have been unkind, unfair, and even unjust. 

Maybe we’re not always Jonah. Maybe, sometimes, we’re Nineveh. 

Maybe it’s time to repent. 

— 

In our quest for fairness, it is time for us to ask ourselves, honestly, if we want our enemies to be destroyed, or if we want the world to be transformed. 

Because we don’t get to have both. 

If our guiding ethic is for bad people to suffer, we will always be fleeing Nineveh. We will always be living in the dark and claustrophobic belly of the big fish. 

From that vantage point, we will never get to see the world transformed. We will never get to be a part of the beauty of the new creation. We will have settle for the lonely company of our own self-righteousness. 

The only way out of our darkness is to accept that life in God is deeply unfair… We may not understand it, but we know that God has called us to the work of transformation.

So, there’s only one question left to ask: Where is God calling you that you don’t want to go?  

Amen. 

Where Keys Are About Opening Doors

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A Sermon for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost 

This week’s lectionary is a treasure trove of stories and lessons.  

We have baby Moses being sent down the Nile in a basket after two midwives named Shiphrah and Puah lie to Pharaoh in protest of an unjust law.  

We have the Romans passage about being members of the Body of Christ, which has, probably, been the number one image that has informed my understanding of the church. 

And then we look again, and we get to the Gospel passage, which is basically the moment that Jesus founds the church, with Peter as its first minister! 

So much glorious theological content!  

— 

Paolo Emilio Besenzi: Saint Peter, Creative Commons License

And yet, this whole week, I have been fixated on the fact that Peter is a nickname. 

Maybe this has been obvious to you when you read your Bible. But for me, I think I have always kind of glossed over the fact that when “Simon, who is called Peter,” is labeled that way, this isn’t some ancient naming system that I simply don’t understand. 

This is just your normal nickname…Which is to say, it’s basically an insult cloaked in intimacy. Like my nickname growing up – Leah Whiner – it’s a name that describes your worst quality. 

And this is the reality: Peter is not a complimentary nickname. (My apologies to any Peters in the room.) 

In fact, it’s not really a name, strictly speaking. Peter comes from the Greek word for rock or stone: petros. And in other places, we’ll sometimes see it translated as Cephas, which is simply the Aramaic word for stone or rock.  

While today’s Gospel passage seems to suggest that being called “the rock” is a good thing – after all, Jesus says, “upon this rock I will build my church” – there seems to be near universal-consensus among biblical scholars that being called rock is more like being called rocky. Rough around the edges, unpolished, and difficult. 

I picture what a person must look and act like to be given this name by the Son of God, and I don’t see a man with nicely coiffed hair and smooth skin, wearing a tie and a Sport coat. 

To be honest, what I picture is my old friend in Charlottesville, who lived outside, and who hadn’t held down a job in at least a decade.  

This is a person who is disruptive to polite society. Someone who has sunbaked skin and dirty clothes, and doesn’t think too much before he acts. A person who always seems to be saying and doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. 

Someone nicknamed Peter would disturb those of us who want to live “respectable” lives.  

I have a hunch that he wouldn’t pass a background check. So why in the heck is Jesus giving him keys? 

In naming Peter as the first apostle and the foundation of the church, Jesus is making a rather bold statement, and I would argue that it hearkens back to the Beatitudes. 

“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!” 

When Jesus calls this leather-skinned fisherman, uneducated, rough-and-tumble, Peter, “blessed,” and when he hands over the keys to the kingdom, he is proving that he was serious when he called the poor, the persecuted, and the grieving “blessed.” 

In naming Peter as the rock and the cornerstone of the church, we are to understand that the church that Christ is building is not a polite, genteel place where nice, middle-class people bless the huddled masses outside their door.  

No! The church IS the huddled masses! With rocky Peter holding the key. 

This means that the church is only the church because sloppy, unsophisticated, outsiders are named as the blessed ones of Christ! 

— 

Those first Christians were called to be proud of the fact that their lives and their bodies did not reflect the values of polite society. 

They were called to build a world where keys are about opening doors, not closing them. 

I think we get so hung up on slick branding and marketable programs that we forget that the church was never meant to be a sparkling diamond in Jesus’ heavenly crown. It is meant to be rocky and rough around the edges. 

And “Christian living” was never meant to make us more palatable or polite. It is meant to make us ungovernable. 

— 

In a society obsessed with decorum, with not rocking the boat, the church has too often become a willing partner.  

  • We have cut off the hair of indigenous children and forced them to learn English.  We have moved our soup kitchens into church basements, hidden from the sight of stained glass and polished stone altars.  
  • We have segregated our worship. 
  • We have cooperated with the authorities.  
  • We have allowed our siblings to suffer,  
  • while we thank God we’re not like them. 

I mean, think about it:  

If a weirdo like Peter walked into churches across America today, how many Christians would call the police on him? 

It’s a sobering thought. 

— 

And yet, where the Holy Spirit moves, the church has also been sanctuary…. 

Here are the stories that give me hope: 

In Nashville in 1985, Catholic priest Charles Strobel noticed people sleeping in their cars in the church parking lot.  

He invited them into the church every night that winter. With other local churches, he founded a winter shelter called Room in the Inn. Today, there are dozens of similar programs across the country. 

In Martha’s Vineyard in 2022, an Episcopal church provided emergency shelter to migrants caught up in a cruel political stunt. The church had access to cots, because they participated in a program modeled after Room in the Inn. 

Across the country, churches are defying city ordinances and feeding their hungry neighbors, while absorbing thousands of dollars in fines. 

And in my former home of Charlottesville, VA, Maria Chavalan-Sut, an undocumented asylum-seeker fleeing violence in Guatemala, sought sanctuary in a Methodist church.  

Federal officials threatened her with over 200 thousand dollars in fines. But she, and the church, persisted. Maria lived inside the church for three years before Customs Enforcement granted her a temporary stay. 

After years of advocacy, in 2022, her children traveled like Moses on the Nile, as unaccompanied minors.  They were reunited with her there in the church. Maria and her kids now have their own home, and she sells tamales at the City Market. 

Here is the church, acknowledging blessedness. 

— 

How often have we considered the fact that we’re here, in church, today, because 2,000 years ago rocky Peter opened the door to let us in? 

By the same token, how often do we remember that you and I are not named as the keyholders of the Kingdom of God? That it is, in fact, not up to us to offer sanctuary?  

The doors have already been unlocked, and the people have already been called blessed. Christ has already invited everyone in.  

The question is: are we going to figure out how to see it through, or are we going to try to stop it? 

— 

Thanks to our friend, Peter, we know that the church is a place for outcasts, not insiders. It will always be messy in exactly the way humanity is messy. 

And this Body, with its many members, will always be caught up in the struggle of admitting that our good, respectable, “Christian names” don’t mean anything to a Savior who prefers nicknames. 

When we, really understand that, it becomes common sense to make room for anyone else who walks through these open doors. 

Through our baptismal vows, we have followed Peter through the unlocked doors of the Kingdom.  

We now claim to live according to the values of the Kingdom of God: to proclaim the Gospel, love our neighbors, and respect the dignity of every human being.  

To do life together. Even though it can get pretty rocky. Amen. 

Transfiguration Sermon: Carried up the Mountaintop

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Readings here

The Transfiguration is an experience of Christ’s glory, and the disciples’ vulnerability. 

While Jesus is “wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening,” the disciples are exhausted from the long hike. While God’s voice booms from a cloud, “This is my Son,” the disciples are “terrified.” 

In the presence of Christ’s divinity, the disciples are more aware than ever of their fragility.  

And this is a very good thing. 

mountains and tree range during golden hour
Photo by Artem Sapegin on Unsplash

And it isn’t the only time something like this happens. God seems to have a thing for the mountains. Several times in our Scriptures, vulnerable humans are compelled to follow God onto steep and difficult trails.  

They are called to experience God on the mountaintop. 

God appears to Moses to give the Ten Commandments, and Moses’ face literally shines like the sun for days afterward. Elijah runs away from a blood-thirsty king, and God whispers peace to him in a gentle breeze. The disciples, of course, see the glory of God in Jesus Christ. 

These mountaintop stories help define what it means when people talk about having a “mountaintop experience.” 

When we talk about “the mountaintop,” we tend to mean: a moment of clarity, abiding peace, and often, a direct experience of God. When we’re on the “mountaintop,” we may feel that we have a birds’ eye view all of a sudden. We have a sense of who we are and what we are meant to do. We may also feel a sense of relief or wonder.

Importantly, though, the mountaintop moment is never an occasion for OUR glory. We don’t get to an experience of God by our own efforts. And it’s not about the adrenaline rush of a job well done. 

In fact, the mountaintop moment almost always comes in the midst of hardship, when things aren’t going well at all. After all, Moses had been wandering around the desert with a whole bunch of complainers for years, Elijah was fleeing certain death, and the disciples had inadvertently taken up with a rabble-rouser. 

And down the mountain, there’s no guarantee that we won’t find ourselves in hardship again. 

Still, the mountaintop experience stays with us, because it is a place of God’s glory and our vulnerability. Up there in the clouds, we find our greatest peace, because we surrender to the fact that we are not in control. And when we look back on the experience, we are comforted to remember that God sometimes feels very close. 

Though we are terrified, we can say, like Peter, “It is good for us to be here.” 

— 

In the interest of vulnerability, I think it’s time to tell you about my own mountaintop experience. Now, anyone who witnessed it would say I was in the valley of the shadow of death. Or – at least – Daniel was. 

But I know that Christ was revealing himself to me. 

Early last year, my family and I took a leap of faith, when I signed the contract to become Grace’s curate.  

I had never been to Houston, I have no immediate family in Texas, and we had always thought we would move back to Virginia, after I finished seminary. 

But the Lord works in mysterious ways… 

— 

April turned to May, and I graduated. 

A month later, we loaded up the U-Haul and started the 2,000 mile journey from Connecticut to Texas.  

Daniel hadn’t been feeling well for weeks, but we didn’t think it was anything serious. But, two days into the three-day journey, he woke up in the middle of the night, doubled over in pain. He could barely tell me what was wrong.  

I rushed him over to the hospital in Slidell, Louisiana and, after hours of waiting and dozens of tests, the nurse looked at Daniel with concern and said: “You are very sick.” 

Daniel had a perforated colon. We didn’t have health insurance. The U-Haul was due back tomorrow. The cats were tearing up the curtains in our hotel room. Daniel might have to have surgery. There might be complications. I was supposed to meet the movers at our house. Daniel was very sick. How would we pay for all this?!! Why would God make me move to Texas, if this was going to happen?! 

At this moment, we were not on a mountaintop. 

We were six feet above sea level in Slidell, Louisiana…

—

But then, like Ezekiel’s dry bones, God started re-membering the Body of Christ. And the body started moving.  

Like diligent worker bees, people started descending on us from near and far.  

Without even asking, the local Episcopal priest showed up at Daniel’s bedside. It turned out that a friend in New Jersey sent him our way.  

Within hours, hundreds of people were praying. Within days, dozens had given us money to tide us over. 

The people of this congregation – total strangers at the time – had already raised enough money to pay our up-front medical bills. Two bishops from the Diocese of Texas called to check in. 

A parishioner and his family spent Father’s Day driving from Houston to Slidell to pick up the U-Haul. The rector coordinated with the movers, and pretty much everything else. 

The diocese figured out how to backdate my insurance, so that it would cover our hospital bills. 

While all of this was happening, the surgeon was insistent that Daniel would need surgery, which in hid case, could lead to sepsis, and even kidney failure. 

But, the air around his hospital bed was buzzing with the voices of prayer warriors, near and far. The surgeon let him wait one more day. And one day later, the infection was clearing, and the perforation was closing. A day after that, he was discharged.  

On the sixth day after his hospitalization, we were at home in Houston. 

On the seventh day, we rested.  

It was good for us to be here. 

— 

While we were in the valley, without us even noticing, the Body of Christ had carried us, up and up, until we were on the mountaintop. 

A place of God’s extravagant glory and our profound vulnerability. A place of healing, and fear, and peace, all mixed in together. A place of bounty, a place of grace. 

Everything in our life was suddenly transformed and transfigured, not because we had done anything to “get right with God,” but because the Body of Christ – in the people of God – had done everything to lay us at the feet of Jesus, where healing could be found. 

— 

Through months of transition for my family, not to mention for this parish, the mountaintop has sometimes been hard to hold onto. 

But then I remember the way we were carried. 

And I thank God for teaching me, at the beginning of ordained ministry, that my vulnerability is for God’s glory. That I don’t need to be perfect or put together to do the work of God. And neither do you. 

And this is the lesson of the mountaintop, I think: 

That Christ calls us into his body to use our own bodies to care for one another,  to advocate for the oppressed, the grieving, and the overburdened. to keep tender hearts in the midst of the world’s hardness. 

That Christ calls us to share the good news that a transformed and transfigured world is coming, and is already here, present in the prayer warriors and prophets and sages. In other words, all of us – regular, vulnerable people called to come down the mountain and shine with the light of God’s glory. 

And, the lesson of the mountaintop is that Christ calls us to go to the valleys. He calls us to carry the valley-dwellers through the desert and over the rivers, away from death-dealers and liars and abusers and cartels, into the warmth of one another’s arms, as we seek higher ground together. 

Together, we climb the mountain.

And when we get to the mountaintop, we lay ourselves at the feet of the Jesus, where healing is happening every day.

Steadfast Faith

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Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Across the nation, churchgoers are faithfully showing up for worship, and clergy are faithfully attending to their flocks.

After years of pandemic disruptions, many of us are finally starting to feel like we’re “back to normal.” And if you walk into most any church on Sunday morning, it certainly looks that way.

But, under the loud proclamations of Amen and Alleluia, you can hear the whispers. People are talking…about church decline.

Since 2010, the Episcopal Church has lost about 350,000 members. Historic parishes face closures, while others find new ways to worship in the midst of an ongoing clergy shortage.

Many of our congregations have yet to bounce back from pandemic declines. And we continually wonder how to bring people back to the church, as 3 in 10 adults now identify as nones – or those with no faith practice at all.

Church statistician Ryan Burge goes so far as to declare that “the death of the Episcopal Church is near.”

But others argue that our new reality presents possibility. In his book, People of the Way, Episcopal priest Dwight Zscheille argues that our context today looks much more like the world Jesus walked in, than the established “Christian nation” of the last two-hundred years.

Our neighbors are struggling, and many are deeply skeptical that the church could offer anything at all.

Maybe resurrection is just around the corner?

No matter where you land, there is no doubt about it: These are uncertain times for the church.

And I think we need to let ourselves feel the anxiety that comes with admitting this to ourselves. It’s ok to admit that we’re scared.

But it’s also good to remember that God isn’t in the business of abandoning people. And I can say this with confidence, because it’s written throughout our Scriptures.

When we immerse ourselves in the story of our ancestors of our faith, we realize that we’re not alone. When we encounter the Bible and enter the story, we end up finding a whole cast of characters who understand what it feels like to be scared.

And, we come to learn that there was never a time in the history of God and God’s people, that faithful people didn’t whisper and worry about their future.

This uncertainty is immediately obvious in the story of the Exodus, as the people of God face hardship and hunger in the wilderness. In fact, in today’s reading, we encounter the Israelites at a rare moment of clarity and peace.

But it’s also apparent in today’s Gospel reading…

The section begins with an observation:

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like a sheep without a shepherd.”

Jesus looks into the downturned faces of his followers and immediately understands their distress. He decides that he is going to do something about it…

He calls twelve apostles for an important mission: they are commanded to “Go!” Go out and proclaim that the Kingdom of God is near!

In other words, Jesus responds to the uncertainty of his followers with the certainty of the Kingdom.

Especially in light of church decline, I think it’s worthwhile to consider what this passage may be teaching the church today.

What can we learn about the church’s call by studying the apostles’ mission?

I want to focus on three attributes of Jesus’ instruction: power, place, and relationship.

First, let’s talk about power. Who empowers the apostles to do the work of the Kingdom?

Matthew is clear that they have been empowered by Christ. They didn’t get together, discuss it among themselves, and then launch mission programming. Their authority comes directly from Christ, who calls them, provides them with diverse and miraculous gifts, and lays out the framework for their journey.

In the church today, it is easy to think we get our power from the institution – or perhaps from various experts inside and outside the church. It calms our anxiety to get the ball rolling ourselves.

But Jesus reminds us that he is the one who empowers the church. We must spend time in discernment and prayer so that we know where the Holy Spirit is leading us.

The work of the church depends on our understanding that Christ is the one who calls, equips, and sends us.

Ok, so now let’s talk about place. Where are the apostles instructed to go?

Matthew is unique among the Gospels in that Jesus instructs the apostles to go only to “the lost sheep of Israel.” In other words, their fellow Jews.

Scholars note that this is just as much a geographical instruction as it is a religious one. They are to stay in a certain place. Jesus isn’t asking the apostles to go on an international mission trip, or waste time trying to convert people with whom they have little in common. He is telling them to go to their neighbors – to the people who live nearby and share some context.

With that in mind, the church today might ask: “Who is my neighbor?”

When it comes to living out the mission of the church, we can remember that it is good to focus on those who live in close proximity to us. In the Book of Jeremiah, God instructs his people in exile to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you.”

We build the Kingdom of God right where we are, seeking to provide for the needs of all who live among and around us.

The work of the church is local, inclusive, and attentive to our neighbors.

Finally, relationship. How do the people in this story relate to one another and to Jesus?

The apostles are empowered because they are deeply connected to Jesus, not just as followers but as friends. And they are sent to a particular place so that the community of the Kingdom can take root.

But, even more telling is that Jesus tells them to travel light, and not request payment. This is because their mission isn’t transactional, it is relational. When the apostles are sent out empty-handed, they are granting others the dignity of showing up for them. They are making it clear that even though they have been empowered and equipped by Jesus, they are still vulnerable and in need of good food, and a place to lay their heads.

They are still human. The apostles and the “lost sheep” are part of the same flock and Jesus is the shepherd.

When we think about what it means to be the church, we must prioritize relationship. Christ’s kingdom is one in which all people are beloved – it’s not an us-versus-them. Kingdom-building requires the humility to know that we need other people.

So, being the church is about expecting our neighbors – regardless of what they look like, how they act, or who they love – to become our friends.

The work of the church transforms us through the hard and beautiful work of loving one another.

Of course, all that being said, we know that our Scriptures aren’t merely prescriptive. They’re not a rulebook for life. They’re the first part of the story of how God-incarnate disrupts our normal life, because God loves us too much not to intervene.

They tell of the eternal story we enter through our Baptism, and within which the Holy Spirit whispers.

Like those first Jesus-followers, Jesus reaches out to us and offers the certainty of the Kingdom of God. Like those first apostles, we have received power through the Holy Spirit to foster communities that are being transformed by the hope of the Gospel.

So, when someone says “The death of the Episcopal Church is near,” we can counter with, “The Kingdom of God is near.”

Because, even in these uncertain times, there’s no doubt about it: We are still being called. No matter what comes our way, the work continues. In Christ, we are continually being empowered to proclaim good news, cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.

So, let the Amen and Alleluia ring out over the doubt! The church is alive because Christ is alive!

Amen! Alleluia!