Tag: bible

Call to Feed the Hungry Sunday Sermon

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The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord,
and you give them their food in due season.

Today’s scriptures can be summarized by that prayer many of us learned as children: “Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat!”

In our Isaiah passage, we join with the exiled people of Judah as they contemplate what it might look like to return to Jerusalem after war, destruction, and exile. In the face of so much suffering, there’s an implicit question that the book of Isaiah hopes to answer: “Will God keep his promises?”

In the brief section we red today, Isaiah speaks in the voice of God, leaving no doubt as to the answer: “Yes.” In fact, God will not just restore his people to their previous life, he will lead them to a place without want, where no one is thirsty, hungry, or forced to beg for what they need.

This is a place where anything you have – no matter how small – will buy whatever you need. Empty out your pockets and hand God the penny, the paperclip, the lint, the old receipt. And, in return, you will receive wine and milk and bread.

Now, we know that, despite Isaiah’s prophecy, peace in Jerusalem didn’t last forever (at least not on this side of the new heaven and the new earth). But that doesn’t make these words any less important. Because – regardless of the present circumstances – they tell us exactly what God’s ideal world looks like.

They tell us what God understands as perfection. And God’s perfect world is one in which no one is hungry. It is one in which having enough food to eat isn’t based on how much money you have in your pockets. And it is one in which our basic human needs are put front and center. God’s presence is first and best understood through his provision. We know God’s love when we are fed.

We are confronted with God’s ideal world again in Matthew’s telling of the Feeding of the 5,000.

At the beginning of this story, Jesus has just learned that his cousin, John the Baptist, was beheaded. In grief and fear, he retreats from his ministry to get some alone time, when he is confronted by a needy crowd. As day turns to evening, the people are starting to become restless with hunger. So, the disciples – undoubtedly exhausted themselves – invite Jesus to send the crowds away to buy their own food.

But Jesus knows something more is possible. The people are hungry. It’s the perfect time to show them what God’s ideal world looks like.

So, he takes five little loaves and two little fish and raises his hands and breaks the bread in an image that reminds us of Holy Communion. Then, he hands it to the disciples to pass around until everyone is full. And they all take home leftovers that night.

The scale of this feast is what makes it a miracle. But the basic premise of it – feeding the people in front of you – is just common sense for the Son of God. Because Jesus knows that God’s presence is first and best understood through his provision. We know God’s love when we are fed.

It is a rare Sunday when the bishop asks you to preach on a specific topic. It is rarer still when the bishop asks you to preach on a policy issue. But the Episcopal Diocese of Texas has designated this day as “Call to Feed the Hungry Sunday.”

Along with our interfaith partners, Episcopal churches across the state are sharing an urgent message today: No one should go hungry. And everyone deserves to be fed.

In Bishop Doyle’s own words:

“When Jesus fed the five thousand, he did not turn people away. On August 2, we are invited to do the same — to open our doors, gather our communities, and raise our voices for the millions of Texans who depend on SNAP to eat.”

SNAP, which stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is a government program that ensures that low-income families can buy the basic food they need not to go hungry. While SNAP itself began in 2008, federal food assistance – often called “food stamps” – has been around since 1939.

But before all that, there were charities…

In fact, the first government aid programs came out of a political environment influenced by Christian charity, particularly the “Social Gospel” movement. This movement was rooted in a Christian social ethic of care for the poor. It was set up by churches to assist people flooding into cities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Of course, those “Social Gospel” Christians didn’t invent charity. They were following the example of their first-century Christian siblings.

We know from our scriptures and historical records that the first Christians were known to feed the hungry. In fact, their entire mode of worship was centered around a shared meal – called a “love feast” or “agape meal” – that included Holy Communion. In First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul reminds church members in Corinth to wait for everyone to arrive before they start eating, to make sure that the late-arriving, working poor have access to a hearty meal.

So, we see that, in their worship, the first Christians were enacting God’s ideal world by making sure that no one went hungry.

Following in their footsteps, when SNAP benefits were put on hold last fall, the church sprang into action. Here at our church, we donated hundreds of pounds of food to our local food pantry, launching a food drive in less than a week.

At the same time, our day school converted one of their “Little Free Libraries” into a “Little Free Food Pantry,” and we couldn’t keep food on the shelves. In fact, we still can’t keep food on the shelves. I restocked the pantry on Monday afternoon and by Tuesday morning, only 4 cans remained.

I don’t know if you know this, but many food pantries limit families to receiving food only once per month. The restriction is a practical one – there simply isn’t enough food to go around.

According to the Episcopal Health Foundation:

“Hunger affects 5.4 million Texans, including children, seniors, working families, and people in our own pews. Each month SNAP helps about 3.5 million of our neighbors put food on the table. Our churches and food ministries do extraordinary work, and they cannot meet this need alone. SNAP provides 90% of food assistance in Texas. Churches and charitable organizations provide the other 10%.”

Food ministry is perhaps the defining work of the church throughout the ages. It is central to our worship. It is what we are known for. It is who we are. And that is the reason why the church has a stake in the future of food programs in this country. After all, it was Christians who first advocated for and inspired these programs, knowing that the scale of need necessitated a response bigger than the church discretionary fund and more systematic than the local food pantry.

Programs like SNAP are not perfect – and certainly, there may be a better solution than what we have right now – but they can still help us in the work we are called to as Christians.

Today we are confronted with the same question that Christians throughout the centuries have been trying to answer: How does God invite us to respond to his love and provision?

Just like the disciples at the Feeding of the 5,000, God calls us to “take and eat,” and share, until everyone is fed. To this end, the Diocese of Texas is asking us to encourage our representatives to fully fund SNAP. They are asking us to sign on to their Call to Feed the Hungry.

Of course, we know that the fulfillment of our Gospel call will take more than a single program or policy. Above all, our faith invites us to respond, from a variety of gifts and a variety of places, to the fact of such great need, not out of obligation, but from our own gratitude.

Because we have experienced God’s love through his provision of “daily bread.” So, we give with open hands and receive without shame, knowing that God’s ideal world is one in which all are fed. Amen.

Learn more about the Episcopal Diocese of Texas’ Call to Feed the Hungry here.

Putting Out Fires One by One | 4th of July

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“O God, deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name” (Rite II, Prayer C, Book of Common Prayer).

If you read the e-news this week, you’ll know that I went down a rabbit hole about disasters that endangered church buildings. The whole thing was triggered by a photo that was floating around social media this week. In the photo, a crucifix hangs on the wall above the altar of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Highmore, South Dakota. In an otherwise dark room, Jesus and the cross are perfectly illuminated by a light streaming in from above.

According to the story that was shared with it, a tornado damaged the roof of the nave, causing it to split in a nearly straight line across the length of the room. Through that crack, sunlight beamed through, spotlighting the suffering Christ. It is a powerful image. And, to my great relief, it has been verified as authentic since my email went out on Thursday.

There are other reports of storms destroying communities, but leaving crosses and steeples curiously untouched. For example, when a tornado hit a church school in Illinois in March, only the chapel was left undamaged. A school employee commented to local news:

“…today, with all the damage and destruction around us, Christ continues to be at the center of our building, untouched, and being the shining light of hope and faith in our…community.”

In other cases, the church itself was destroyed, but there were still signs of Jesus there. In one case, after the bombing of Coventry Cathedral during World War II, the roof caved in, and two charred beams fell into the nave, forming the shape of a cross. That cross now rests on an altar constructed from the rubble of the original building.

Perhaps all of these stories are “making mountains out of molehills”… It would be reasonable to chalk them up to mere coincidence. After all, for every miracle, there is its opposite – a time when nothing remained, no phoenix rising from the ashes, no “proof through the night that the flag was still there,” as it were.

But there is still power in these images, because they convey something that is true, no matter what the damage looks like after the battle is over. When disaster comes for us, Jesus Christ is here. He will not flee when the going gets tough. He will remain, and help us rebuild.

…

There’s another story about a church’s survival that takes a different path than the ones I just shared. In this case, the church wouldn’t have survived had it not been for human intervention. I learned this story while on pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral in the summer of 2022. Canterbury Cathedral was founded in 597 CE, and has stood as a Christian place of worship through war, famine, fire, and plague.

During World War II, it was targeted by German forces, not because of its usefulness to the war effort, but because of its connection to the identity of the British people. As journalist Christopher Morley is credited with saying: “Wars are won in the mind before they can be won on the field.” The German air force believed that, if they could destroy major cultural sites, they could destroy the morale of the British people – and give their country a pathway to victory.

The people of Canterbury knew ahead of time that the Germans were coming, So the Dean of the Cathedral coordinated a response with the help of his parishioners. Early in the morning on June 1, 1942, several parishioners camped out on the roof of the cathedral. One of them, Tom Hoare, recalled the experience:

“We could hear the roar of the planes overhead and when we looked up we saw flares shoot up into the sky from them, and explosives and incendiaries began to fall. They seemed to be coming down like hailstones.”

As these incendiary – or fire-starting – bombs landed on the cathedral’s roof, the men quickly smothered them with sand, then used garden shovels to toss them onto the church lawn nearly 200 feet below. By the time the blitz ended, one-fifth of the city of Canterbury was in ruins. 1,800 buildings were either seriously damaged or destroyed, and 43 people had died. But these parishioners, known as the “firewatchers,” are credited with saving the cathedral from total destruction.

Maybe this kind of intervention doesn’t qualify as a miracle. But it certainly qualifies as an Act of God. Because, it was the action of the Body of Christ – his blood pumping through the hearts of parishioners as they waited for the bombs to drop, his love sustaining them as they put out fires, one by one. This was what saved the cathedral that night.

“By the dawn’s early light,” they could see that the cathedral was still there. And it reminded the people of Canterbury that they were still there. Even amid unimaginable violence and destruction, they could use their hands and feet and minds and relationships, to save something that mattered.

They would remain. And they would rebuild. And they would receive the bread and wine in that old church, because Jesus was still with them.

…

Yesterday, the United States of America celebrated its 250th birthday. There are dozens of patriotic songs to mark the day – including the National Anthem, which I have quoted throughout this sermon. These songs tell stories of victory, miracles, and cultural pride.

As Christians, we are loyal to Jesus before all others. So, in this church, we strategically avoid theming church services around national identity. But, it is still true that we are tied to this country – by virtue of living in proximity to one another, under one flag.

Whether we trace our roots back to indigenous people or the 13 colonies; whether we moved here last year or our family has lived here for generations; whether our family came here voluntarily or by force – we are a community. Our survival depends on the goodwill of our neighbors, our representatives, and the generations of people who came before us. We have common things to save, and common things to lose. So, we are responsible, in some way, for the preservation of this country.

But, too often, we are told we are powerless to make an impact. Most of us aren’t military commanders or politicians. Most of us aren’t lawyers or celebrity activists. We’re not movers-and-shakers.

But that’s ok. Because the firewatchers of Canterbury teach us that we don’t need to be any of those things to make a difference…A church committee can beat a blitz. Willing hands, some sand, and a shovel can save a cathedral. A community can stand beneath the shadow of warplanes and the blare of sirens, and still not accept that all hope is lost.

This land, our land, is worth saving simply because we live in it. Even though we live in hard times, And even though we see politicians stirring up trouble and perpetuating hardship and wars that nobody asked for, we don’t have to give up.

Chapels rise above the rubble, charred beams form crosses, roofs split and spotlight Jesus. Simple, Christian folk win wars by putting out fires one-by-one. Acts of God are happening all around us, demonstrated by the courage and persistence of normal people doing small things. Empowered by Jesus – and sustained by the body and blood of his Holy Communion – we are living miracles, praying for miracles and working miracles in the world around us.

So, come to table. For solace and for strength, for pardon and for renewal, knowing that you are equipped to serve the world in his name. Amen.

Caught up in Christ: Romans, Sin, Baptism

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As you’ve probably heard, during the next few months, the clergy of this church will be preaching with a special focus on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Our hope is that we’ll all get to the end of this season with a better understanding of the Apostle Paul, the first-century Church in Rome, and what this ancient letter has to say for us today.

You may recall that, over the last few chapters, Paul has been working out a theological position, which he describes as “justification by faith.” The church in Rome seems to be struggling to understand how to integrate Jews and Gentiles into shared life under a new identity which will come to be known as “Christianity,” At this time, following Jesus is simply called, “The Way.”

The congregation in Rome is asking: “What does it mean for a non-Jew to be brought into the promises of the God of Israel?” “How should these Gentiles behave?” “And which laws should they follow?”

Paul says that the only measure by which a Christ-follower is judged is “faith.” Rather than ethnically prescribed laws or rituals, this is the thing that will unify all people who follow in the Way of Jesus. So, to be “justified by faith” is to be brought into the promises of God – not by proving ourselves worthy – but by turning to God with the expectation that we will receive his grace – his “unearned favor.”

Today, we continue in Romans 6. At this point, Paul is offering a necessary point of clarification to “justification by faith.” Because, he realizes that, by telling people that they don’t have to follow God’s laws in order to receive his grace, he might have opened the door to a…well, moral free-for-all.

“Hold up!” he says. “Just because God doesn’t choose to save you based on how well you behave, it doesn’t mean that we should change the words of that folksy hymn to: ‘they will know we are Christians by our hedonism.’”

With that in mind, for the next couple of chapters, Paul decides to focus on the concept of sin.

But, what does Paul mean when he uses the word, sin? I think, for most of us, sin is thought of as a personal offense. Sin is about “me” making a mistake because of some shortcoming within myself – which means the entire responsibility is on me to fix it. (As a Type A, eldest daughter, Enneagram 1, I confess that I live a lot of my life as if this is true.)

But, for Paul, sin cannot be fully understood as a consequence of personal weakness. Scholar Brendan Byrne says that Paul understands sin as “a ‘power’ tyrannizing the human race” (Brendan Byrne, Sacra Pagina: Romans).

In other words, sin is, in some ways, external to “you” or “me.” It is like a parasite that can get ahold of you and make you act against your sincerely held values. It is temptation that takes innocent needs and desires, and twists them into something ugly, instead of life-giving. And it is systemic – in that, it can ensnare a community, a nation, and even the world in its distortions.

Sin can make people of goodwill act against the will of God. And Paul doesn’t think that it’s something any of us are meant to overcome on our own. Its power can only be diminished by a greater power. And for Paul, this is the power of Jesus.

Paul uses the example of Baptism to describe how Jesus em-powers us to overcome the forces of sin. Paul says that baptism is more than a symbol of good winning over evil. For him, baptism is the mechanism by which Jesus instills us with the power to resist sin, and follow in his Way.

It’s easier to understand this if you know that first-century baptism was “full-immersion” baptism. An attendant would have assisted you in stepping down into a baptismal pool, before dunking you in the water. Then you would have emerged, fully soaked, and walked up a different set of steps to leave the pool. In this movement down, and then up again, it was understood that you were spiritually entering your own grave, and then rising from the dead – following the same pattern as Jesus.

Even though we follow a different practice today, the meaning is still the same. In the act of baptism, we descend into our own – and Christ’s own – death, and ascend into the promise of resurrection life. We approach our baptism as wanderers and leave it as pilgrims in the Way of Jesus. And, from that point on, our lives are ordered by the sacrifice and glory of Jesus, enabling us to follow in his footsteps with the assurance that we already know the way.

The powerful mystery of all this is that Jesus is not just an example to us, but an eternal presence with us.

As Byrne puts it: “Christ does not lose his individual personal identity but, nonetheless, as risen Lord and “life-giving spirit,” he somehow “contains” within His person, in a communal sense, the messianic community destined for salvation.”

Caught up in Christ, we become not just a partner with him, but a part of him. We are knit into the tapestry, caught in the web, held in the arms, and adopted into the family of God. From this foundation of love, our lives are transformed. We are no longer pressed down by the power of sin and death, Because we have caught a glimpse of our own resurrection.

For Paul, we are justified, and we receive grace, through fragile, human faith. But the sign of that grace is our life transformed by power of Jesus, which helps us resist evil, choose good, and return to him in repentance.

Contrary to popular belief, Christianity is not about tracking who is right and who is wrong. It’s not about relentless guilt and punishment for our shortcomings and our sins. It is not a divine test that we are doomed to fail. Of course, we will still make mistakes. We will still get caught up in manipulation, half-truths, and self-serving tendencies. We will still let fear burden our decisions. We will still sin.

But, Christianity is about this: Sin doesn’t have power over us anymore. Sin is “dead to us.”

And we are alive! In the creative, abundant, beautiful life of Christ. As a part of his resurrected life, we counter the power of sin by trusting that joy, love, and forgiveness form the pattern of life in his kingdom.

Our daily task is to be present to Christ’s power that is already within us, so that we can follow in his Way more completely: trusting that his “grace is sufficient” to turn our lives around, to heal the things that are broken, and to restore us to his family.

The struggles and temptations of this life are not ours to manage alone. The power of Christ is in us. And, in Jesus, even death leads to new life.

Amen.

Jesus at Your Dinner Table

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When I was a teenager, I spent three summers on the road in a touring worship band called New Way. Auditions were held every fall at the state youth convention. Then, the following July, after a week of rehearsal bootcamp, the band – teenage singers, brass players, a drummer, guitarist, bassist, and keyboard player – packed into a charter bus – and the tour began.

For two or three weeks, our friendly bus driver hauled us over more than a thousand miles of Florida highway. One year, we even went all the way up to Nashville to participate in the national youth convention.

Our venues were churches. We played at little churches in the swampland of central Florida; big churches in West Palm Beach and Sarasota; old churches in Jacksonville and Tallahassee; and the school cafeterias and auditoriums of church plants in Tampa, rural Alabama, and beyond. The premise seems pretty glamourous for just a regular kid from Florida. But there were many cost-saving measures.

For one, kids were split into work committees: Some unloaded baggage, some were roadies, some ironed the concert uniforms, some organized the snacks, and still others were on a prayer team. One year I was the head of the ironing committee…and that’s why I don’t iron anymore!

But the most impactful thing we did on the road was rely on the “hospitality of strangers.” At each venue church, a group of parishioners prepared the welcome meal. Then, after the concert, we were split into small groups to be housed at the parishioners’ homes.

The number one rule of New Way was to accept hospitality without complaining. No matter if the food tasted like mothballs, or the bedding was scratchy. Whether the parishioner talked your ear off, smelled funny, woke you up too early, or made you your least favorite breakfast – the only acceptable response was, “thank you.”

We were at their mercy – and sometimes it felt like a sacrifice. But in the end, what I learned from all these peculiar people with their peculiar lives was that accepting hospitality is just as important as giving it. Because, in the act of accepting hospitality, you humble yourself for long enough to really honor the giver’s intention – their heart, their sacrifice, and their dignity.

“Thank you” says, “You have been a blessing to me.” Warts and all.

…

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus invites Matthew, a tax collector, to join his new way. Unlike many of Jesus’ followers, Matthew is not poor or marginalized in the typical sense. As an employee of Rome, he has higher civic status than most of his Jewish community. And the nature of his job means that he can set his own fee when he collects taxes and that commission he collects likely makes him a rich man. But these two aspects of his job make his community distrust him.

As scholar Danny Zacharias points out:

“…tax collectors were viewed as traitors within Jewish society. Working for Rome, they were associated with economic oppression, often collecting excessive taxes to benefit the empire and themselves. Matthew’s presence at a tax booth signifies his active role in this system—yet Jesus sees him, calls him, and invites him into his circle” (Working Preacher).

As Christians, we talk a lot about welcoming everyone and caring for everyone. But, oftentimes, I think the “everyone” in our mental image is someone who looks nothing like Matthew. When we think about who needs to be cared for, we often think of the sick, the poor, and the homeless.

But Jesus makes clear in his calling of Matthew that “all are welcome, no exceptions.” In other words, you don’t have to have the right identity or credentials in order for Jesus to seek you out. He will always seek you out – the way the world sees and judges you doesn’t change his mind.

Matthew’s identity as a tax collector is already a remarkable part of this story. But it doesn’t stop there…

As soon as Matthew drops everything to follow Jesus, the narrative jumps ahead to a shared dinner at someone’s house. While the text isn’t super clear on exactly whose house it is, most scholars believe that Matthew isn’t dining at Jesus’ house. Jesus is actually dining at Matthew’s house.

It would have been scandalous enough for Jesus to simply hang around Matthew. But receiving food and drink from Matthew is a bridge too far for their community.

As scholar Andrew McGowan puts it:

“…in dining with prosperous sinners, Jesus takes the more vulnerable position of guest. Scrupulous, observant Jewish diners would have been concerned about receiving food or drink from those liable to be impure, because their own ritual status would be at risk. It was not problematic in the same way to share one’s own (pure) food” (Andrew’s Version).

Because Matthew was involved in a lifestyle seen as impure by his community, they thought this impurity would basically “rub off on” others. In choosing to go to Matthew’s house anyway – and in choosing to accept his peculiar hospitality – Jesus is not just saying, “I tolerate you” or even “I accept you.”

He is looking at this lonely rich man and saying something no one ever says to a tax collector: “Thank you. You are a blessing to me.”

Can you imagine the sheer relief Matthew must have felt in Jesus’ acceptance of his dinner invitation? That this holy man would dare to have something of Matthew “rub off on” him? That Jesus would look past the gossip and the dirty glances, risking his own reputation, to be at the mercy of a lonely tax collector?

I imagine that Matthew’s initial acceptance of Jesus’ invitation to “follow him” was a self-conscious one. What if those who witnessed his faithful response thought he was doing it just for show? What if they dismissed him the way we sometimes dismiss people as “not a real Christian” – because his life was so different from their own?

When Jesus “deigns to be his guest” – as the Easter hymn says – he frees Matthew from self-consciousness, by taking him seriously. He becomes a part of Matthew’s household. And, in this, he recognizes his God-given dignity.

And this is what Jesus still does for us.

…Where do you see yourself in this story?

Are you like Matthew, beaten down by others’ judgment, but still working up the courage to say “yes” to his call? Are you like his community, trying to protect a God who doesn’t need protection, by determining who is in and who is out? Are you like Jesus, ready to humble yourself to accept love and care from someone who is different from you?

Do you trust that God will make you family anyway?

The beauty of God’s family is that everyone is invited to the table. Rich and poor, young and old – no matter your gender, your appearance, your profession, your identity, or your language. Jesus sees your heart, open in hospitality, and he wants to come to the potluck.

He wants to join you. He wants bless you, so that you may be a blessing. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Amen.

That the Lord would put his Spirit on them | Pentecost

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“Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

Today’s readings, taken together, give us a sense of the character of the Spirit of God, who is always on the move.

In Numbers, she rests gently, like a butterfly, on the heads of elders surrounding Moses, as God prepares the tired and hungry Israelites to receive a feast in the wilderness. In the Psalm, she is sent out, like a dove, to create new life, adding to the number of varied and marvelous creatures of the earth. In John, she flows out, like water, from the hearts of Jesus’ followers, providing refreshment to those without hope. In Acts, she erupts – like gale-force winds and rampaging wildfire – causing the disciples to tumble out of the isolation of their gathering place.

And, of course, she speaks – in dead languages and living ones – uniting the people in Jerusalem, not in a common language, but in common understanding. Flowing and flying and rushing and disrupting – the Spirit is not the gentle presence we might imagine. To paraphrase theologian Will Willimon: where the Spirit is, something is coming to life (Acts: Interpretation, 30).

(Just so you know, I am using feminine pronouns for the Holy Spirit today because the Hebrew word is in a feminine form. That doesn’t mean that the Spirit is a woman – it just means that the Spirit is not an “it.”)

Our scriptures make clear that the Spirit of God has been present since the beginning of time: The Spirit is where God is. But until this day in the Book of Acts – which we call Pentecost – the Spirit was thought to be something that might land on you for a little while, and then depart. And, if the Spirit of God was “on you,” you would almost certainly begin to prophesy.

We see it in our Numbers reading: “Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied.”

But what does it mean to prophesy?

First, let’s define some terms. To prophesy is to proclaim a message from God. The person who prophesies is called a prophet. And what the prophet proclaims is called a prophecy.

Rabbi Abraham Heschel says that:

“The prophet is no hireling who performs his duty in the employ of the Lord…The fundamental experience of the prophet is a fellowship with the feelings of God, a sympathy with divine pathos, a communion with the divine consciousness which comes about through the prophet’s reflection of, or participation in, divine pathos” (The Prophets, 31).

What he means by this is that the prophet is so close to God that it is as if they share the mind and heart of God. They become more than a messenger or mouthpiece for God – because the Spirit resting on them connects them to God’s reality.

In other words, the Spirit enables them to look at the world with the vision of God – and this new vision reveals the smallness of their human point-of-view: the pride, competition, and needless division that leads to conflict on the ground.

This new vision forces the prophet to “tell it like it is” with divine clarity. It compels them to tell the truth. And from this truth-telling, an opening is made for something new.

…

When the Spirit of God arrives like a storm at Pentecost, she lands on the disciples – not as a butterfly – but as fire. Hot, burning, and wild – the disciples move like sparks, tumbling out into the street where they start to speak at least 15 languages. They surprise themselves before shocking the crowds.

It is the Jewish Festival of Weeks in Jerusalem, and a jumble of people from many places are in the street to celebrate God’s gift of the law to Moses.

When the disciples speak, the chaos of their outburst has the surprising effect of unifying the crowd. Because, suddenly, everyone can understand what the disciples are saying. In fact, the disciples are even speaking dead languages – almost as if the Spirit is calling all of history to attention.

And then, from the chatter, one clear voice rings out. It is Peter! Jesus’ friend who put on a brave face when Jesus was with him, but denied him three times as soon as he was alone. This man Willimon calls “cowardly” is now speaking boldly in the public square – the Spirit has gotten ahold of him!

He uses the words of the prophet Joel to frame this event as evidence of the old prophecies coming true. “Don’t you see?” He says: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”

He also uses Joel to proclaim that the Kingdom of God has come near, through the person of Jesus Christ: and “all who call on his name will be saved.”

The Spirit of God is on the move once again – connecting humanity to the heart of God. And now, she is available to all, without reservation or limitation, and without an expiration date.

As Willimon puts it: “…in Jesus the Christ, there is a power loose in the world which is power for them.” (36).

This miracle of many languages proves Peter’s proclamation. The people in the crowd are from different places, have different concerns, and speak different languages. But all of them understand God calling to them, because the Spirit uses the language of their hearts to bring them into the very heart of God.

And there, they are brought into the unity of the Body of Christ.

…

We are blessed beyond measure to be a congregation that relives the miracle of Pentecost every time we get together.

On any given Sunday, we worship together in two or three languages: English, ASL, and even Spanish. With the help of our human interpreters – and the Spirit of God – we are able to participate, together, in the life and love of God.

And because of this, we know that barriers don’t have to be burdens. We know that the Spirit doesn’t privilege some languages, people, and cultures over others: She will always speak in a way we understand – even when her call is beyond words.

We know that Jesus made a Way for us to join in the hard and joyful work of his kingdom. And we know that, in our own ways, we are called to prophesy.

Drawn into the heart and vision of God, we are called to tell the truth about what we have seen in this place, even and especially when it defies the world’s tired old stories. So that an opening is made for new life to grow amid the world’s decay.

…

No matter what brought you here today, know that you are unconditionally and endlessly loved by the God who existed before the world began, and you are held by the Spirit who rushed in like the wind to get to you.

And no matter what anyone says, you are called to participate in God’s own life. You are called to give water to those who thirst, in body and soul. And to follow the Spirit, who is always on the move.

But you are not called alone. Above all, you are called to participate the Body of Christ – which is to say, the church. Here in the church, we are delighted to discover surprising unity in our differences, and reassurances that these differences are not insurmountable.

Our differences are a gift of the Spirit. By softening the barriers between us, they make us brave like Peter. They allow us to speak in the multi-lingual voice of God, which transcends the smallness of our individual points-of-view, a nd beckons us back to the heart of God: to the source of Love that will be our salvation.

Amen.

You are his body

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Rubens painting of Teresa of Avila, public domain

“And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.”

Today in the church year, we find ourselves living, again, in the absence of Jesus. As our Acts passage describes, after his resurrection and his appearance to the disciples, Jesus leaves earth and goes up to heaven. We call this event “The Ascension.” It is commemorated with a feast day that takes place 40 days after Easter Sunday – if you’re doing the math, that was last Thursday.

If you remember the events of Good Friday and Easter, you’ll recognize the pattern in this story…

When Jesus departs – first by death and then by ascension – the disciples are initially thrown into confusion. Strange messengers appear to remind them that Jesus will be back. The disciples – both men and women – regroup in the upper room of a house. They pray and wonder about all that has occurred. In the absence of clarity about the future, all they can do now is wait for something to happen…

In the first case, the risen Lord appears to them less than 48 hours after he died. The women run with joy from the tomb and Thomas touches the wounds on Jesus’ hands and side.

In the second case, the Holy Spirit descends on them. According to my rough calculation, the day of Pentecost arrives about a week after Christ’s ascension. This time, Jesus doesn’t show up in human form. But through the Spirit, God becomes present in the hearts, minds, and bodies – in the humanity – of his followers and friends.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…We haven’t gotten to that part of the story yet – and we won’t for another week. So, let’s wait here with the disciples for awhile.

Since we are living well after the arrival of the Holy Spirit, our faith teaches us that the Spirit lives in us today. In that sense, our wait is over. But, honestly, it can be hard to know what that even means. What comfort is it to us to know that some wispy “vibe” of God lives in us when we know that Jesus once walked alongside his disciples? What comfort is it to know that Thomas touched his scars, but we cannot?

It’d be so much easier to endure the suffering of this life if Jesus was here, in the flesh, grabbing our hand and pulling us in the right direction. In the absence of Christ’s body, it can feel like we’re living in the absence of God. Or, if not exactly absence, maybe something like benign negligence.

Sure, maybe the emptiness of Good Friday is behind us. And maybe we trust that Christ is alive, and seeking us out, and advocating for us. But life can be demoralizing. It’s not always easy to keep the faith when a loved one dies or a family member gets shipped off to war. When the diagnosis rolls in. When the bills pile up. When things don’t go the way we planned.

It’s not easy to keep the faith when we are faced with an unknowable future – and Jesus’ own response to our concern is “because I said so.” Or rather, as he says in Acts: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.”

We may not always feel that our lives are filled with the glory of Pentecost: all flame and wind and possibility. There are seasons of life that feel like this week in our liturgical year, when Christ has gone up and the Spirit has not yet come down. There are Sundays when we huddle together in this room and pray – not because we know what’s coming, but because we don’t.

What I’m saying is: it’d be nice to see Jesus every once in awhile.

In John, Jesus prays to God the Father, describing his absence in this way:

“All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

This is a remarkable claim for Jesus to make. He is saying that his glory – which is the very power of God – has now been passed on to his followers.

“It’s ok,” he says, because even though Jesus is no longer in the world, his God-(em)powered people are in the world.

And after that remarkable claim, he prays that our lives will reflect the full glory made evident in the inseparable relationship between God the Father and God the Son – that we will be folded into that relationship “as one.” In other words, even though we are still earthbound, he is inviting us into the identity and relationship of the Triune God.

Which means God is here, because YOU are here. Even when it feels like God is absent, our beating hearts, discerning minds, and moving bodies ever proclaim his presence. His presence is not a feeling or “vibe,” it’s simply reality.

One of my favorite descriptions of this reality comes from a sixteenth century poem by Spanish nun, Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks [with]
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

You are his body.

To be Christ’s body is different from working on behalf of Christ.

Jesus doesn’t say that you’re a paid employee of the Kingdom of God, who got the job despite your lack of qualifications. It’s not your job to make a list of “Christian obligations” and then strain to check all of them off. It’s not your job to ignore the hard parts of life. It’s not your job to keep it together when your world is falling apart. It’s not your job to try to convince yourself that you can make it work.

It’s ok if it feels like Jesus is absent, and the Holy Spirit doesn’t feel like enough. You are Christ’s body anyway.

And to be Christ’s body is to let God root around and take root in you. To know that the light is already lit. And to take a deep breath in and remember that the Spirit of God is ruah – it is the air you breathe.

To be Christ’s body is simply to trust that Christ lives and moves in you. You don’t have to grin and bear it. You only have to pray “Thy Kingdom Come” and respond to the Spirit that is already working in you.

Yes, in some ways, we are still waiting. We are waiting for the second coming of Christ. We are waiting for the perfect paradise of God. We are waiting for answers to our questions. We are waiting to hold onto Christ’s hand. But we are not waiting for Christ to be known to us, here, in the flesh. Because we are his body. It is not a job we take on. It is who we are.

So, we gather in this room and we pray that what is closed in us will open. We pray that light will break through, and peace will fill our hearts. We pray that we will inhale God and exhale love. That Our eyes will be full of compassion. Our hands will be open in blessing. And our feet will take us in the Way that leads to the Kingdom of God.

Amen.

I highly recommend the Teresa of Avila quote set to music, particularly this version

Lucky to be Blessed

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This sermon was given in a trilingual (English, Spanish, American Sign Language) service of Holy Baptism.

Readings here

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work. Amen.

When I read today’s scripture readings, my first thought was: “Oh my gosh! We are so lucky to have a story about Baptism and a story about Communion on the same day! Especially on a day when people are getting baptized at the Hill!”

But I couldn’t even finish the thought before the internal voice that channels my mother kicked in and corrected “lucky” to “blessed.” Growing up, my mom always reminded me that, as Christians, we don’t believe in luck, because luck is attributed to chance or fate.

“When something good happens,” she said, “we should understand it as a blessing.” In other words, good things are evidence of the grace of God, who is actively participating in our lives and invested in our wellbeing.

I think my mom is probably right. It is a blessing – a divine gift – to revisit these wonderful Bible stories on the very day that two of our own will be baptized. Because the actions that take place in these stories directly connect our current faith practices to Jesus Christ and to the very first people who were called Christians. And beyond showing us where we came from, these stories open our eyes to the fact of Christ’s ongoing presence in our practices.

So, let’s get into it…

In Acts, Peter – who just moments ago was hiding in a locked room – has encountered the living Christ and has taken to the streets to spread the good news. He says: “Let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

The crowd is so moved by his proclamation that they ask him, “What should we do? How do we join up with this Jesus you speak of?” And Peter replies: “Repent and be baptized.” “Vuélvanse a Dios y bautícese.” Acts tells us that “about three thousand people” were baptized that day!…(Can you even imagine how long that took!?)

Jesus wasn’t there in the flesh that day, but the Holy Spirit showed up in full force.

In Luke, we go back in time a little bit, to the first day of the resurrection when two disciples join up with an apparent stranger on the road. Even though these disciples know who Jesus is, they do not recognize that this man is Jesus, until he eats with them.

The Gospel tells us that he blesses and breaks the bread. It’s an action that reflects the Last Supper; the special way he breaks the bread can only mean one thing: they are in the presence of Jesus Christ!

Just as they recognize him, Jesus disappears. And then, one of them says: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” “¿No es verdad que el corazón nos ardía en el pecho?”

Jesus wasn’t there in the flesh anymore, but they recognized him in the broken bread.

When I first read today’s scriptures, I was swept up in the wonder in these stories. The confident conviction of Peter, who had, up until this point, been afraid to admit that he knew Jesus at all. The enthusiasm of the crowd, and the enormous number of baptisms. The confusion turned to delight, of those disciples who met Jesus on the road.

And the common theme of both: that Jesus is present and doing good and gracious things even when we can’t see him.

It is interesting that these moments of baptism and breaking bread are not so uncommon: we all wash ourselves, we all eat. But they are somehow made holy and blessed when Jesus enters the picture. In other words, they are made “sacraments.”

And this is why we still practice these sacraments today – because we believe Jesus shows up in them.

The sacraments are, as our prayer book puts it,

“…outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.”

In some churches, there are said to be seven sacraments. In the Episcopal Church, we generally say we have two: Baptism and Holy Eucharist, our prayer and participation in Communion.

While there are many ways that Christ shows us grace throughout our lives – whether through relationships, experiences, or something else – we believe that these two particular actions are places where Christ’s grace is always and immediately apparent.

That means that these actions, these sacraments, are more than a symbol of transformation. And they are more than a memorial to something that happened a long time ago. When we cleanse ourselves in the waters of baptism, and when we eat the bread and wine at communion, we are – through a divine mystery – encountering the living presence of Jesus Christ. Here at the font, and here at the table, we are brought into the eternal blessing of God. And something essential about us is changed by our participation in them. Even though we don’t see Jesus – the eyes of our faith are opened to life and hope beyond the here and now.

And, to get even more mystical, whenever we participate in the sacraments, we are also in the presence of the “great cloud of witnesses.” These are the ancestors of our faith, living and dead, who are part of the eternal family of God. The 3,000 people who were baptized that day in the book of Acts rejoice as two more join their ranks today. The disciples whose hearts were warmed in Christ’s presence will dine with us at the Eucharistic feast.

Even if we can’t see Jesus, the Body of Christ is here. And we pray that he will continually open the eyes of our faith so that our hearts will recognize his presence.

We’re so lucky that luck isn’t the thing that determines goodness in our lives. We are blessed, instead, by these sacraments, And we can be “sure and certain” that Christ’s grace is freely given to all who wish to receive it. We are blessed to witness to the new life in Christ of these dear ones being baptized, who will also join with us and the great cloud of witnesses at the shared table of Christ today. Amen.

A Locked Door & a Word of Peace

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‘When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”’

In today’s Gospel reading, we get an inside look at the disciples’ doubt, joy, and faith as the resurrected Jesus greets them with a word of peace. One Anglican priest sharing online noted that Jesus’ introduction here – rooted in the Jewish greeting of “shalom” – is essentially the same as our tradition of “passing the peace.” (Which, of course, we got from Jesus.)

Jesus basically says, “The peace of the Lord be always with you.” But instead of mumbling a dutiful, “And also with you,” the disciples are completely transformed by this greeting. They are in the presence of the Prince of Peace, and so peace has become more than a greeting – it is real. Heartened by this new reality, they are about to change the world.

Jesus knew that this would happen. In fact, he promised it only a few days before.

In John 14-17, in what some call his “farewell discourse,” Jesus says:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” – John 14:27

And later in that passage, he says it more bluntly:

“I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world.” – John 16:33

Still, the disciples had reason to doubt. In the space between his farewell discourse and his greeting in the locked room, a lot has happened. In fact, we re-lived most of it last week during our Holy Week services:

Jesus is arrested while praying, ridiculed by his own people, and charged with heresy against God and treason against the Roman emperor. He is assaulted by soldiers, spat on by passersby and finally, killed in a public execution.

His body is prepared for burial. And he lies dead in a tomb. And then, a couple of disciples come weeping to the tomb and find it empty. Finally, Mary Magdalene rushes to the house where the rest of the disciples are staying and announces, “I have seen the Lord.”

In the time after Jesus’ promise of peace, his followers, friends, and family have experienced everything but peace. Fear, yes. Horror, yes. Grief, of course. Existential despair, everywhere.

In the felt absence of Jesus Christ, life has been, well, Hell. In the chaos of those days, I wouldn’t be surprised if not one disciple remembered Jesus’ promise of peace. Their nervous systems were short-circuiting. They were afraid of being arrested as accomplices by the local authorities.

But maybe even worse, their lives had lost a sense of purpose. After all, they had hitched their wagon to a grand cause: the salvation and transformation of the world. They had abandoned fishing boats, families, social norms, and even common sense – and now their leader had died in shame. And they were hiding behind a locked door.

Though Mary Magdalene insisted she had seen the risen Lord, the disciples weren’t sure what to think or do. And can we blame them?

But that evening, Jesus showed up again. We don’t know if he walked through a wall or poofed into the room. But there he was, standing among them, with visible wounds in his hands and his side where the nails and spear had punctured his skin.

It’s probably for the best that he showed up like this, as weird as it was. The terrified disciples probably wouldn’t have let him in if he had knocked on the door, afraid that it was some kind of terrible trick.

And the first thing he says is “Peace.” And as he utters the word of peace, his disciples let out the breath they have been holding since he died and they breathe in the Holy Spirit. And they rejoice, because they know that Jesus kept his promise.

Peace is Jesus’ calling card. It was made real in the upper room by the presence of the living, breathing Jesus Christ. And it is made real today by the Holy Spirit that lives in us. It is the thing that enlivens us to pursue the path of life, and the way of Christ.

But what does Jesus mean when he says he gives us peace?

The scriptures reveal that Christ’s peace is not merely the absence of conflict. It is a transforming presence that calms fear, steadies the nerves, and makes people courageous beyond their own potential. It is an active force that propels trembling and tired people out of their locked rooms and into the light of day. It is stable ground that – like a loving parent – motivates us to go out into the world seeking better things for ourselves and our neighbors.

In drawing people to look toward the living Christ, this peace puts our disagreements into perspective. It leads us to recognize that resentment, conflict, and violence are distractions that keep us from living lives of purpose and transformation.

Importantly, Christ’s peace is not the same as “keeping the peace.”

This is obvious in Jesus’ own life. In every act of love – in every shared meal, invitation, and miraculous healing – the family of God got bigger and his enemies grew more numerous. Though he rejected violence, he became a target for violence. He proclaimed peace, and got killed for it.

And this is evident in the disciples’ lives. As soon as they encountered Jesus in that room, they threw caution to the wind, ran outside, and told everyone the good news. Christ’s peace had emboldened them, and many around them would dismiss them as crazy.

This is the paradox of the peace Jesus gives: It doesn’t make all our problems go away; in fact, by emboldening us, it might put us in situations of increasing conflict. But, Christ’s peace also puts our problems in their proper place, which is in view of the risen Lord, whose path leads to abundant and beautiful life.

Throughout our lives, we may find ourselves hiding behind locked doors. For many of us, this time contains real threats to our lives, livelihoods, and wellbeing. And there are real costs to insisting on peace in a world corrupted by war and conflict. Who wouldn’t be afraid?

But, even in the isolation of our hiding places, Jesus will find us. He will poof into the room or walk through walls if he has to. And the first thing he will offer is real “Peace.”

So, when we greet one another with “peace” today, I think we should really take it seriously. Because “the peace of the Lord” isn’t just a cute little thing we say to one another on Sunday morning. It is a sign that Jesus is really here with us. Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is really living in each of us. And even in our fear, we can become each other’s cause for joy.

This peace we offer one another is the stuff that will embolden us to lead lives of purpose. Because we know and feel and rejoice – that Jesus lives.

Amen.

The Strife is O’er | Easter Sermon

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The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation.

One of the best things about being a priest is something you might not expect…If I want to, I get to pick the music. And every Easter, I make one particular request: we have to sing “The Strife is O’er.”

The hymn uses an old 16th century tune called “Victory,” written by Palestrina for use in a sung mass. Victory is a fitting title for a song that uses the imagery of war to describe Christ’s victory over the last enemy, which is death itself. The words were translated from Latin by Francis Potts, a priest and hymnwriter who wrote many hymns before and after becoming deaf in his 50s. The “Alleluia” refrains were added later.

Like many of our Easter hymns, the words of the song are joyful and emphatic:

The strife is o’er, the battle done;
the victory of life is won;
the song of triumph has begun.
Alleluia!

But what makes this hymn so distinctive is the proclamation that it makes in the first line of the first verse: not “Christ is risen” or “Welcome happy morning,” or something to the effect of “Come on, get happy” – But, “The strife is over.” It recognizes from the very start that we poor humans have indeed endured great “strife” and that sometimes we need someone to tell us – in explicit terms – that “the strife is over” before we can even entertain good news.

The hymn unfolds the story so that we can come to joy on our own terms, in our own time. Each verse builds on the last, taking the singer from the battlefield, with its legions of deathly, dark forces, to the grief of Christ’s violent death. Then, down to Hell itself – where Christ frees the lost from their chains. And to Heaven, where all are restored to the paradise of God.

Finally, the hymn invites us to understand that our very participation in the song is evidence of the resurrection, which has freed us to live in the hope of our own new life in Christ…

Lord, by the stripes which wounded thee,
from death’s dread sting thy servants free,
that we may live and sing to thee.
Alleluia!

And then, at the very end of the hymn – having crossed the threshold of the tomb – we find ourselves in the bright presence of the risen Lord. And we can’t help but declare Alleluia to close out the song. (Alleluia means “Sing praise to the Lord.”)

Where the opening Alleluias seem to have been tacked onto the song as an afterthought, the closing ones feel more honest. They give us permission to try out joy for ourselves. We thought death was the end of the story, but it was only the beginning of a new story, one that is freed from the finality of death.

In the unfolding story of resurrection, our whispered alleluias are set loose to become loud shouts. If we let Alleluia into our weary hearts, we will feel it reverberating there, doing its work to untangle the knots of despair. If we let ourselves embody the buoyant freedom that Christ has made real, we won’t be able to stop proclaiming good news with reckless abandon.

If even death has been defeated, nothing can hold us back. Nothing can keep us from writing more verses to our Easter song. The worst has already come to pass. The strife is now over. And no enemy, obstacle, intrusion, or limitation stands between us and abounding, sustaining, ever-expanding possibility.

For 2,000 years, Christians have been proclaiming that a man who was God died and rose again.

This is an absurdity by some people’s reckoning. It seems to them an act of grace to deny the existence of living, breathing hope in the face of life’s suffering.

But Jesus’ resurrection “is a truth universally acknowledged” by those first disciples whose testimony lives on in the writings of the New Testament. The women who visited the tomb in the hour between darkness and dawn found an angel and an empty grave, while the empire’s watchmen quaked in their boots. Then, they ran into Jesus himself and grabbed ahold of his feet, bowing in reverence and holding onto the one they never thought they would hold again. And the men who crouched in hiding in the upper room touched the death-scarred hands of a living Savior.

But that’s not how the story ended. The Gospel of John tells us that: “…there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

There are many other things that Jesus did, and he hasn’t stopped yet…

Through two thousand years of war and calamity – drought, flood, fire, and plague – as empires rise and fall, the people of God keep encountering the living Christ, just as alive as he was that first Easter morning:

  • Responding to our prayers,
  • Appearing in our dreams,
  • Comforting the dying,
  • Soothing the suffering,
  • Nourishing us at the table,
  • When all hope is lost – a light that shows a way forward.

The world itself cannot contain the books that the people of God could write about the living Christ – showing up in our well-worn stories of death.

Christ is alive – two thousand years of testimony attest to it. And if Christ is alive, though death may be the story of our day, we can turn the page.

And we will find, in the end, that “the strife is over.”

And we are free…Free to live in defiance of the predominant story – which is that death is the end of our story. Free to live like Easter people. Which is to say, to live like Christ, who knows the stench of death and moves toward life anyway.

We are free to add new verses to the song of Christ’s victory over death and the grave. We are free to live, not merely in the memory of those old testimonies, but in our own resurrection stories.

The strife is over. The tomb is empty. And the risen Lord is waiting to meet us on the road.

Alleluia! Amen.

In the Dusk of Another Dark Day

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Yesterday morning, I woke up earlier than usual to a mysterious sound. In my half-asleep stupor, I listened carefully without taking out my earplugs. I deciphered that the static I was hearing was rain. When I took out my earplugs, I could hear the rain falling hard and fast. It was drowning out the noise of rush hour traffic on the highway and quieting the morning tune of songbirds.

I stayed in bed for a while. And at first, I was relieved by the arrival of needed rain after months of drought. But then, I remembered the last time morning had brought this kind of rain. And I began to cry.

On July 4th last year, the rain was just like this – except it lasted longer. And in the Hill Country, it rained much harder.

That morning, I expected to wake up to last-minute planning for the neighborhood Independence Day party, But instead, I woke up and invited people to a prayer vigil.

About six of us sat together, right here, huddled in a circle, constantly checking our phones for news. By the end of the day, it seemed like all of us knew someone who had died. The blessing of rain had become a curse. And the people of this congregation were suddenly on-call to an unfolding nightmare.

Not a week goes by that we don’t talk about the floods: in clergy meetings, conversations with parishioners, or whispered updates between friends. It has changed the way the clergy preach and pastor. It has changed the way we as a congregation grieve. It was, perhaps, our church community’s darkest day.

Today, we are living in Christianity’s darkest day. We are living in the shadow place – the day that God-incarnate died.

And I’m tempted to say, like so many have said before, that the brutality of Christ’s death is hard to stomach. But, in fact, it’s the easiest day for people like us to understand.

No matter our circumstances, we have all been battered by loss and grief. None of us can avoid it. And all of us, if we let ourselves, can draw out the pain we still carry in our hearts as the result of some great loss.

And so, it is easy for us to place ourselves in the story of Jesus and his friends, during those hours before his death: through the waiting and the hoping, the worry and the fear, and the sinking feeling in our gut, when we realize the worst has come true.

Good Friday is one of God’s greatest gifts to us. It is the day where we are given gratuitous permission to wake up to rain, and cry. A day where we are given free rein to sit in sackcloth and ashes and to mourn the death of hope itself.

It is also the day that the disciples become mourners with us – at the foot of the cross. And all the grief in every heart, and throughout all generations, is still held right here at the cross, the sorrow so deep it once caused darkness to cover the earth.

That darkness is God’s own grief. And God is still found in the darkness. At the cross, God swallowed us up into his gravitational pull, stretched out his arms, held us close, and said, “I am right here with you.”

Held in the arms of God, we find one another, a family bonded by great loss, but also great love. Here at the cross, in the dusk of another dark day, we find a safe place to lay our burdens down.

And soon enough, when our eyes close in sleep, we will cast off the memory of rain, and perhaps dream about the rising sun(son).

While we still were sinners

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For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person– though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

The Young Adults’ Bible Study, which meets here on Thursday nights, recently began studying First Corinthians. In our first week, we learned that First Corinthians, like many letters in the New Testament, was written by Paul in the first century. Paul was a former persecutor of Christians who became one of Christianity’s most significant preachers and evangelists. His letters – passed down to us through the Bible – contain a mix of personal history, community instruction, and theology.

Paul was not one of Jesus’ original disciples, but he had an experience of Jesus Christ speaking to him in a flash of light while in the middle of one of his Christian persecution campaigns. It left him literally blind, until God led him to a local church member named Ananias, who reluctantly, but faithfully, prayed that he would be healed in body and soul.

That series of encounters – first with Christ in the flash of light, then with faithful Ananias – changed the course of Paul’s life. Once Christianity’s biggest skeptic, he became its biggest advocate.

As I mentioned, many of the letters in the New Testament were written by Paul, including Romans, which we read from today. Often called epistles, these are real letters that Paul wrote to churches throughout the Greco-Roman world. This world, the world the church was born into, was chaotic. It was marked by extreme class hierarchy, religious oppression, and a head-spinning amount of dynastic drama.

Whether Paul is writing about conflict resolution or the nature of God, we know that he was crafting his message to encourage real people to rise to the challenge of their time and place. And over time, we have also understood that these messages still say something to us. After all, humans are gonna human and we are still subject to many of the same problems as those first century Christians.

Today in Romans, we find ourselves in the middle of one of Paul’s theological speeches. Paul has just made an argument that faith – not works, status, or heritage – is what makes someone eligible for inclusion in God’s promises. Scholar Andrew McGowan suggests that Paul’s use of “faith” in this context can be understood as “trust.”

So, Paul is explaining to the church in Rome what happens when we trust in God. He says that, though life is hard, we can trust that God will transform our suffering. Suffering will build endurance, endurance will build character, and character will lead to hope.

And, Paul says, this hope is not flimsy or aspirational – because it is built on what has already come to pass. Christ has already saved us and filled us with the Holy Spirit, And we are empowered to live, act, and love in his name. No matter what hardship we endure, we are reconciled with the God of the universe and we can trust that his power will be made known in our brokenness.

As Paul points out, we are, indeed, broken…

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Christ didn’t float down from heaven on a cloud, invite the most beautiful, moral people to his cause, then die for them because they were so pure and sweet and holy. He started his ministry in a farm town, actively avoided befriending the righteous Pharisees, invited hated tax collectors into his friend group, and boldly welcomed a heretical woman (at the well) into the salvation of God.

Paul rightly points out that “rarely will anyone die for a righteous person.” And yet, even for us, Christ was willing to die. Jesus lived and died, and lived again, for a whole bunch of beat-down, bothered, and broken people. And that is more than reason enough to trust him to be with us even when things feel beyond repair.

What’s more, in Christ’s death, he invites us into the same self-sacrifice. In his dying, he showed us that reconciling with God requires being reconciled with all of humanity: ungodly and godly alike, “bad” guy and “good” guy alike. He showed us that empathy, forgiveness, and love are the tools of reconciliation – and they require us to let go of the idea that some people are more deserving of it than others.

This mindset is particularly apparent when we talk about death. And death has been all over the news this week.

In the past few days:

  • I read about the girls’ elementary school that the U.S. bombed in Iran, killing at least 160 people – with at least 300 other civilians and leaders killed in other parts of the country.
  • I read about six U.S. soldiers who died – we didn’t count the other country’s dead soldiers.
  • And I looked at the faces of the four people who died in last Saturday’s mass shooting in Austin – the fourth death being the shooter.

In all of these stories, the public has made their best effort to sort the casualties into deserving and undeserving, innocent and perpetrator, ungodly and godly. We have tried to find justification, if not for the deaths themselves, then for a reason for our grief in some cases and our anger in others.

I dare not make a judgment call. And I dare not suggest to you that your own feelings are unjustified. We have reasons to weep and reasons to rage – and so often our weeping and our raging are just two sides of the same grief.

But Paul reminds us: while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Christ’s death collapsed the dichotomy – that the only sinless human would die for victim and perpetrator alike is scandalous to our way of thinking; that Christ would dare lump us into the same salvation as the “bad guys” is insulting.

And yet, Christ died. And yet, he invites us all into eternal life. And yet, he calls us to be reconciled, if not in our mortal lives, then in our eternal ones.

While we may not be able to “fix” the sin and death that has already occurred, our reconciling activity now – our empathy, forgiveness, and love – can transform the violence in our hearts into peace that may very well change the course of the future.

To do this, we must build trust with God and one another…

It is no coincidence that Paul, the man who speaks so eloquently about trusting Jesus, first encountered Christ through an act of “blind” trust. While totally vulnerable, he sought out a stranger for healing. And Ananias, equally blindsided, responded to God’s call.

Paul, a faithful Jew, would have been justified in wishing Ananias dead for distorting sacred religious teachings. Ananias, scared for his life, would have been justified in ignoring God’s call to heal Paul. Who was the “good guy” and who was the “bad guy” depended on your point of view.

But they each trusted Christ – and it led them to each other. And it is that trust that led Paul to the church, and his letters, and these words that still instruct us to lay down our pride and reconcile: with God, with one another, with the world.

In the end, our only justification is in Christ. And in Christ, there are no good deaths. There are no true enemies. There is only fumbling humanity – weak and ungodly as we are – taking a step toward one another, and finding God there. Amen.

Be salty. Stay lit.

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Readings here

Last weekend, I was at a community choir event when I saw an older man wearing a sweatshirt that read: “Be salty. Stay lit.” My first thought was, “I wonder if he knows that passage is coming up in our lectionary next week!”

It’s always fun to see the Bible “out in the wild.” When I was in seminary, an author – I can’t remember who – talked about reading scripture in random parts of town just to see if the context changed the meaning. For instance, I imagine that reading about Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate in front of a courthouse would be an interesting experience.

During the pandemic, one of my fondest memories was reading Psalm 84 during an outdoor service, as the birds sang around us in the trees:

Even the sparrow finds a home
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.

When I saw that man’s sweatshirt – “Be salty, stay lit” – I was in a warehouse venue space singing with a bunch of musical theatre nerds. But only a day earlier, I was outside a very different warehouse. And I couldn’t help but think about it then.

On that day, I went to pray with a group of other Christians in front of a warehouse-turned-immigrant detention center. Though we were on public property, as we sang and prayed, we were increasingly being surveilled by federal officers. And by the time I opened my eyes and turned toward the building, the anti-terrorism agents had arrived. When our service ended, we quietly scrambled back to our cars; but I spent the next few days worrying that they were coming for me.

When I read, “Be salty, stay lit,” on a man’s sweatshirt the next day, I was in a context of raising my voice in song. But I couldn’t stop thinking about raising my voice in song at that other warehouse – about what it meant to live my faith boldly and in public.

What do these words call us to? Let’s see if we can figure it out…

Our Matthew reading today is just a little piece of a much bigger teaching, which we often refer to as the Sermon on the Mount. It comes immediately after the Beatitudes, which we talked about last week. And what follows it, is a series of teachings that expand the Ten Commandments.

A Torah scholar in my Bible study group points out that the Sermon on the Mount is a direct reference to Exodus, with Jesus paralleling Moses and the “crowds” paralleling the Israelites. In addition to the Exodus reference, the “city on a hill” language in our passage is a direct reference to Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 2, the prophet reveals God’s vision for all people:

In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”

In these subtle and not-so-subtle parallels, Jesus is revealing himself as the fulfillment of the story of the God of Israel. He is in the direct line of its patriarchs and prophets, and intends to follow its ethical and religious commands.

Up to this point in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has been focused on his own identity and call. But in these verses about salt and light, we receive his first instruction to “the crowd,” This crowd includes all of us, who gather before the altar of Christ today.

How he phrases his first call to action is surprising. Instead of telling us to “do” something, he tells us that we “are” something.: “You are salt, and you are light.” In other words, you are called to rise to who you were made to be, to use your intrinsic properties – your gut, your conscience, your mind, your body, and your soul – for the good of the Gospel.

You are the salt of the earth. As a matter of who you are, you have the power to preserve and sustain those around you; to make things good or to make things rotten; you have the power to make the roadway safe or slippery; you have the power to bring healing.

You are the light of the world. Like a spotlight in a darkened theater, you have the power to make meaning for others; to direct their gaze to where the real story is taking place; you expose what was in shadow; how you move and what you focus on shows others what really matters.

So…will you be discerning? Pouring out your life-sustaining salt to provide for those around you? Or will you be careless? Using too much or too little in ways that cause rot and bitterness?

Will you be bold? Shining a light that casts away the dark shadows of sin and death in this world? Or will you be distracted? Putting a spotlight on unimportant things that distance you and others from the love of God?

You are salt, and you are light – you were made to share the good news of God’s freedom, abundance, and love. Your choice is not to become, but to properly use your intrinsic call.

In the earliest versions of our strategic plan, our mission statement said that we wanted to be a “community lighthouse.”

As a congregation literally sitting “on a hill,” we want to be like a light that pulls people away from danger, and toward safe harbor. When we workshopped this, a few people noted that the image of a lighthouse made no sense in our landlocked context. So, you’ll see our current form of the mission statement reads a little bit differently:

Rooted in Christ’s vision of reconciliation, mutual care, and love of neighbor, the Hill is a beacon of God’s love in southeast Austin.

A beacon can be a lighthouse, but it’s broader than that…The basic definition of a beacon is: “a fire or light set up in a high or prominent position as a warning, signal, or celebration.” But I came across an alternate meaning online. A beacon can also describe “a hill suitable for a beacon of fire or light.”

I believe the desire of all of our hearts is to make this church on the hill suitable for a beacon of fire or light. We want this place to be a home to the Holy Spirit, so often depicted as fire. We want it to be as life changing as the burning bush, from which God called Moses to deliver his people from slavery.

We want the light of Christ to remind us that we are salt, and we are light. So that we can act as beacons that shine a light on the lost and endangered, and help them find safety. And, so we can invite others “to taste and see that the Lord is good.”

As we let our strategic plan guide us in the coming years, today’s scripture reminds us that God has already made us exactly who we need to be for this world, in this moment.

Our choice is not about becoming a beacon. It is about turning our spotlight on the story of God, as it is revealed to us through the patriarchs, prophets, and commandments. And in the incarnate Christ – whose first act of ministry was to heal the sick, the suffering, and the lost.

Be salty. Stay lit. Amen.

Thanks to Andrew McGowan’s substack, Warren Carter for The Working Preacher, my colleagues, and my Bible Study group for the insight.

One Little Choice After Another: Epiphany

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Readings here

Happy are the people whose strength is in you! 
whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way. 

When I was a kid, I used to love reading those “Choose your own adventure” books. Maybe you’re familiar with them… 

These were short chapter books geared to preteens. You started off by choosing your character. Would you be a spy? A scientist? A doctor? 

Then, the story began. After a few pages of hijinks and intrigue, you would have the option to choose between two or three tracks, based on some kind of question or pivot in the story. Would you follow the shadowy figure down the dark tunnel or run out of the cave? Would you operate on the patient, or wait and see? 

Based on what you chose, you would be prompted to go to a certain page in the book. There, the story would continue on, until, through a series of choices, you finally reached the end. 

An enthusiastic neuroscientist on the internet mapped these stories and their many twists and turns. And he found that “Choose your own adventure” books could have as many as 44 different endings! It’s amazing that one little choice after another would eventually lead you to a place far beyond where you started. 

When I started thinking about these books last week, it was just a passing thought. It came about because, in this week’s lectionary, the preacher could choose between three different Gospel readings, all having to do with the end of the nativity story.

Let’s say we were characters in the story of Jesus. We would have already been visited by angels and beheld the Christ-child lying in a manger. We would have sung Silent Night and been enveloped in warmth by the body heat of sheep and goats,  as they settled into the hay surrounding the holy family on that first Christmas night. 

But today, we had to make a choice. Did we want to: A, Escape Herod’s wrath by journeying to Egypt?, B, Lose 12-year-old Jesus at the synagogue in Jerusalem? Or…C, Follow the star with the wise men to give him gold, frankincense, and myrrh? 

Unfortunately, I’m not really giving you a choice…Sorry, but I had to write a sermon! So, I went with C. And the reason why is because the Wise Men’s story has all the high stakes and intrigue required for a “Choose your own adventure” book. They journeyed far away from their home,  disobeyed a violent king,  and chose to believe in a prophetic sign from a God they didn’t even worship. 

But who were these so-called Wise Men  and what convinced them that this was an adventure worth choosing? 

While our translation of the book of Matthew refers to them as “Wise Men,” the Greek word for these mysterious people “from the East” is “magoi,” which comes from the more ancient semitic word, “magus.” You might be familiar with the English translation, “Magi.” 

Mentioned in the Bible and in Babylonian texts, “Magi” referred to a group of people who worked as magicians, astrologers, and psychics. The book of Daniel uses the term in a list of ineffective dream interpreters called upon by King Nebuchadnezzar. In the book of Acts, the same term is used to refer to “false prophets.” 

While some cultures may have looked upon “Magi” as wise and holy men,  the Jewish and Early Christian traditions certainly did not. As far as I could tell in my research, this story is the only positive portrayal of Magi in our scriptures. It’s too bad our translation hides that fact. Scholar Daniel J. Harrington draws on the specifics in our Gospel reading to describe these particular magi. They are likely Persian priests using Babylonian star-charting and bringing gifts from Arabia or the Syrian Desert. 

In other words, they are about as “foreign” as anyone could imagine, true outsiders by every cultural, religious, and geographical definition. For its first hearers and witnesses, the Magi’s presence in the story of Jesus must have been shocking. In a very literal sense, they didn’t belong in it. 

Nevertheless, the Magi entered the story… 

Like a “Choose your own adventure” book, they made one little choice after another  that would eventually lead them to a place far beyond their imagination. 

Here was the first choice:  Would they “travel afar” – away from home, culture, and recognition – or would they stay put? They chose to go… 

On their way, they were called into King Herod’s court. Accustomed to working for powerful rulers, they told him what they had seen in the stars. Herod told the Magi to continue on their way, and to report back on what they learned. So, they made another choice. They kept going… 

When they finally arrived underneath that bright star,  they were filled with “overwhelming joy.” Their spirit recognized that they were in the presence of an unlikely Savior. A child who had been born not just to save the Jews, but the whole world, including them and their people. 

Now, they had another choice to make. They had received warning in a divine dream not to return to Herod. But they had made a promise to him, and backing out on it was risky. 

Was it worth the risk to disobey the direct orders of a powerful ruler just because they’d had a crazy dream? They were so convinced of God’s presence in the person of Jesus that their choice was clear: they went home by another route. And that divinely directed choice, along with Joseph’s decision to flee, likely saved Jesus’ life. 

Which is wild when you think about it: These crackpot foreigners, along with Jesus’ stepdad, saved the one who would save the world. 

It didn’t have to end this way. The Magi always had a choice. It would have made far more sense for them to stay home in the comfort and safety of a culture and worldview that accepted them. After all, even if Jesus was some kind of “king of the Jews,” what could that have meant to a foreigner, an outsider, or a false prophet? Still, they went. 

They could have gotten to their destination, seen toddler Jesus throwing a temper tantrum, and rejected the sign in the stars. Instead, they worshipped him as a king. 

They could have colluded with King Herod, and found their reward in the royal court. But they fled back home like thieves in the night, to find their reward in household of God. 

There were 44 other possible endings to their story, all of them more reasonable than this one. But this was the adventure they chose. And because these pagan foreigners followed the star to a podunk town called Bethlehem – where they, inexplicably, found God, we are reminded of two things: 

The first is that God makes himself known in unexpected people and places. The Magi are in good company with other unlikely Bible characters: unbathed, bug-eating prophets; tax collectors and fishermen; eunuchs, mouthy women, and Samaritans. 

These “side characters” become exemplars and heroes when they enter the story of God, defying cultural norms and common sense. And we would do well to look for God in the faces of outcasts, weirdos, and strangers, too. 

And that leads us to the second thing: No matter who we are, where we come from, or what other people say about us, we all get to make choices that bring us into the story, so that we may encounter the “overwhelming joy” of Jesus.

On this adventure with Jesus, we might find ourselves in strange places, among people who don’t seem very much like us. We might find ourselves in contexts way beyond our comfort zone. But we can trust that God will guide us, and we can trust that we will have the courage we need to make the next daring choice on our way. 

The Magi teach us that the life of faith is just one little choice after another. Until we find ourselves knocking on a door and finding Jesus on the other side. 

Amen. 

Someday at Christmas

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And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 

Readings here

As a lifelong choral singer,  I have always been a bit of a Christmas-song snob. And it’s only gotten worse since I became an Episcopalian, and learned about the Season of Advent. Because, as the snobbiest of Christmas-song snobs know,  it’s simply *not done* to sing Christmas music before December 25th. 

So, when Christmas songs start playing on the radio in November, I simply refuse to indulge in the merriment. Instead, I try to stop up my ears and ignore all the clatter about rocking around the Christmas tree, kissing Santa Claus, and filling the world with cheer. But this year, something shifted… 

It has been a hard year. I think I can say that without needing to qualify it. Many of us have borne witness to unimaginable loss and lived with prolonged grief.  We have seen our neighbors struggle. Some of us have lost jobs, or struggled to get one. Many of us have lost much more. 

This fall, when the Christmas music started playing, I noticed my ears perking up. In the midst of the world’s heaviness, I found myself wanting to entertain the idea of Christmas cheer, even if the songs were silly and it was, strictly speaking, not Christmas yet. I was desperate for something that would pull me out of my wallowing. 

So, with cautious hope – or perhaps desperation – I began really listening to Christmas songs, both secular and sacred. And I noticed that songs that had seemed silly and naive before were starting to sound different in my ear. 

But one in particular stood out… 

At a community choir concert earlier this month, I was fortunate enough to hear an arrangement of the Christmas classic, “Someday at Christmas.” Released by Stevie Wonder in 1967, this song was part of the soundscape of Christmas before I was born. But, I had never really paid attention to the words,  until this year, when 200 men began to sing in the big sanctuary of a church downtown: 

Someday at Christmas men won’t be boys 
Playing with bombs like kids play with toys 
One warm December our hearts will see 
A world where men are free 

Someday at Christmas there’ll be no wars 
When we have learned what Christmas is for 
When we have found what life’s really worth 
There’ll be peace on earth 

In the unified voice of 200 men, among the crowd of 300 concert goers, this shmaltzy pop song that has whined over the din of Christmas shoppers for 50 years, became something more. Each verse expanded a vision of the world just as big and beautiful as the prophecies of Isaiah: 

“Break forth together into singing, 
you ruins of Jerusalem; 

for the Lord has comforted his people, 
he has redeemed Jerusalem. 

The Lord has bared his holy arm 
before the eyes of all the nations; 

and all the ends of the earth shall see 
the salvation of our God.” 

And yet, at first, the choir sang from a tentative place: a place of desperation, or of hope nearly gone. They seemed to speak of a far-off someday. It seems that their hope had dimmed with each new grief and tragedy in our world, just as mine had. 

For awhile, I closed my eyes and listened to those hushed voices sing. But then, something caused me to open my eyes and re-focus my gaze. I looked up and noticed that there was a cross at the front of the sanctuary. It had been there the whole time, taking up the whole back wall behind where the singers stood. 

Suddenly, the cross and the music all came together, hitting me like a flash of light. It was as if the full spectrum of faith was being revealed in that room. The desperate prayers whispered in hard times, the cautious hope of someday, the comfort of kind voices filling the room with song. And the empty cross, rising above it all. 

The tone and tempo of the music shifted then, and those 200 voices crescendoed into a bold and forceful sound that made the wooden pews vibrate: 

Someday at Christmas man will not fail 
Hate will be gone and love will prevail 
Someday a new world that we can start 
With hope in every heart 

Quiet desperation had given way to a tangible proclamation of hope. And someday had transformed from passive prayer to bold certainty. As the sound reverberated through the room, all 500 of us gathered there could literally feel hope resonating in our bodies. In the ringing out of unified voices, over the course of many verses, hope had become incarnate. 

Words had become flesh. 

What was this, if not the miracle of the incarnation, playing out in our time and place? That words of hope could fill up a room and inspire everyone to believe. That things hoped for could be made real through living, breathing, singing humanity. 

This is the miracle of the incarnation, on that Christmas long ago: Jesus Christ, the Word and Lyric that made the world, came to us as a lowly human to be united with us. And to make the world around us vibrate with his tangible presence,  

In the face of life’s suffering and loss,  the incarnation reminds us that a young mother was so close to God, she could hold him in her arms, and a cross could not keep holding him. And, because of this, we will be held forever in the arms of God. 

And this is the miracle of the incarnation still: Christ came down to earth – and hope now has a fighting chance. Because the fulfillment of all our hopes lives among us, and in us. 

Against all odds, and against common sense, the hope of the world was born this day in a little, hill country town called Bethlehem. Sleeping in a food trough for animals,  delivered in the usual way, and arriving without pomp or glory. 

But, the air was thick with the singing of angels. Their glorias made the wood of that little barn vibrate. And tired shepherds carried the tune as they ran like fools to the manger. 

As time went on, the singing got louder. Until, on every tongue, in the presence of Jesus Christ, the hope of “Someday” was changed to “Today.” 

Amen.