Author Archives: jandrewsweckerly

Sermon – Jeremiah 31.31-34, Psalm 51.1-13, L5, YB, March 17, 2024

27 Wednesday Mar 2024

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In just a couple of weeks, Hickory Neck will gather for what is my favorite service of the entire year:  the Easter Vigil.  Now I know, you may be thinking, “But what about Easter Sunday?” or even “But Christmas Eve is the best!”  For me, the very best of the Episcopal Church happens at the Easter Vigil.  The lights are turned down low, a fire erupts as we sing the haunting Exultet, we read stories from scripture that feel like the ones you would tell around a campfire, we baptize new Christians, and then, with bells and singing, the lights come up as we ring in Easter.  The rest of the service feels like celebrating Eucharist for the first time – with the news of the empty tomb and feasting at the family table.

Part of why I love the service so much is those stories we hear by the fire:  what we often refer to as the salvation narrative.  In these stories we hear how we were created in God’s image and made for goodness, and then we hear how time and again we fail to live up to that goodness, but time and again, God meets us where we are, renewing God’s covenantal relationship with us, forgiving us, and getting us back on our feet to serve the world in God’s name.  The repetition of God extending that grace again and again and again, no matter how grave our failings, can make any participant begin to think that maybe, just maybe, we stand invited to receive that hesed or as we translate the Hebrew, that lovingkindness, of God.

Although we do not hear the text from Jeremiah on Easter Vigil night, today, on this fifth Sunday in Lent, just a week before we start the descent into the cross and the grave of Holy Week, we get one last reminder of the kind of redemption that waits on the other side of Easter.  I do not how recently you’ve been reading Jeremiah in your spare time, but just as a refresher, Jeremiah is one of those books that is generally filled with bad news.  Israel disobeyed the law of God, and, as a consequence, they are overthrown by outside forces, the walls of Jerusalem fall, the temple is destroyed, and the Israelites themselves are banished to Babylon.  The situation is bleak, and the prophet Jeremiah has a lot to say in judgment of the people.[i] 

But today, all the way in chapter 31, we get what is called “The Book of Comfort,”[ii] in Jeremiah where, after much shame and judgment, the people are promised a new day where there will be a new covenant between God and the people.  This time, they won’t have to wait for teaching, and they won’t have to store the commandments in a holy place.  The holy word of God will be written on their hearts – able to go with them anywhere, to be not just in their minds or in their temple, but on their very souls – they will be God’s and God’s will be theirs.  For a people utterly destroyed, who have lost their spiritual home in addition to their literal home, this is good news indeed.

When I was in seminary, we went to Chapel everyday – sometimes multiple times a day.  The rhythm of regular worship meant that not only did the liturgy get written into your body, so did the space.  You began to know the particulars of certain seats – which ones experienced more of a draft and which pew had someone’s initials carved in and aged over.  You knew how certain steps would creak when someone would ascend the lectern and you have seen the pulpit sway with a particularly vigorous preacher.  But mostly, you had stared, for years at a time, at the window behind the altar, around which were painted the words, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.”  Consciously and maybe more subconsciously, those words became ingrained in our minds seeing them every day. 

A year and a half after I graduated, that chapel burned down, along with that wall that had been seared into my mind.  I remember feeling bereft – like a part of me had died with the loss of that building.  Even today, when I visit the campus, worshiping in the beautiful new chapel, I still grieve when I see the preserved ruins where an outdoor altar remains.  It took me a long time to realize that although my heart ached for the physical space, those words – those words that Jesus spoke, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel,” were gone from the world – but not from my heart.  Though I might miss the building – in the same way so many of us missed the buildings of this campus in those early years of the pandemic, the experience of God is written in my heart.

As we walk this last week of Lent, and as we begin next week to walk steadily through Holy Week, perhaps with sins weighing on our hearts, or feelings of being a failure at faith or at life in general, or even just the restlessness that can come when we find ourselves disconnected from any kind of relationship with God, our worship today is all about renewing that covenantal relationship with God.  Even in our psalm today, we prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” – those same words a priest prays before she consecrates the sacred meal.  The psalm tells us the very nature of our God is “steadfast love and abundant mercy, a God who is eternally ‘for us’ with the endless love of a mother for her child.  The God who is everlasting love will never abandon us, no matter what our guilt says.  Steadfast love and abundant mercy heal us not only of the stain of sin, but also of the lie of our worthlessness.”[iii]  So likewise, Jeremiah confirms that encouragement.  As one scholar explains, “God will write the capacity for keeping the covenant on the inward hearts of the people.  Hope for such transformed wills will lie with God’s grace, not in any hope for human perfection.”[iv]

Your promise today is blessing upon blessing – blessing of belonging, of permanence, of mercy and lovingkindness.  The invitation today is then up to you.  What will you do with that renewed covenantal relationship?  How will walk differently this week with the covenant of God written on your heart?  How will you treat your neighbors differently, yourself differently, and your God differently?  The blessing is yours to keep deep in your soul.  And the blessing is also yours to share with a world that needs that blessing so very deeply.  Your work this week is to find your unique place to share that blessing.  Amen.

[i] Woody Bartlett, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 123.

[ii] Jon L. Berquist, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 123.

[iii] Elizabeth Webb, “Commentary on Psalm 51:1-12,” March 17, 2024, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-psalm-511-12-6 on March 14, 2024.

[iv] Samuel K. Roberts, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 126.

Of the Mind and of the Heart…

15 Friday Mar 2024

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Photo credit: https://www.everypixel.com/image-8567765057447502976

A couple of weekends ago, my husband and I found ourselves kids-free, walking the local downtown area.  As we strolled along, we observed other families – parents pushing strollers, parents supervising kids learning to ride their bicycles, parents pausing family walking for educational moments.  Watching the other families brought back a flood of memories of those stages of our lives – the fond, endearing moments as well as those moments when we felt like we might crack.  But what was not familiar was what we were experiencing that day:  the children having plans of their own, making choices to be with friends over being with their parents.

My husband and I used to work with families at our church who were going through those very changes:  the phase of life where the children’s primary influence shifts from parents to peers.  It is a good and natural phase, but one we observed was much harder for parents than for the children.  But teaching and knowing something is quite different from experiencing something – from watching your own children do the very thing you have taught other parents about.  That moment is the clarity that comes from taking an academic subject and having it become a very real, emotional subject.  Suddenly, I could see the future of the relationships with our children in a much more tangible way.  And there was some sadness, some joy, and lots of somethings in between.

As we make our way past the halfway mark of Lent and we see the approaching journey of Holy Week, I have been thinking a lot about the learned experience of faith and the felt experience of faith.  Often we Episcopalians are creatures of the mind – studying repentance and forgiveness, participating in liturgies that shape the penitential nature of Lent, and even talking to others to learn about their Lenten experiences.  But knowing about Lent can be quite different from living Lent – facing all those things we preferred to keep in the “academic” box and instead having to move them into the “lived” box. 

My prayer for you as your Lenten journey approaches the climax of Holy Week and Easter is that you let yourself feel all of it.  My prayer is that you allow that much more vulnerable version of yourself to gather next to Jesus and keep walking forward – as the imperfect person you are, accompanied by the perfection of the Savior who makes this journey possible.  I look forward to hearing how letting down those walls of self-protection and letting in the grace, love, and forgiveness of God shapes these last days of Lent.  Know that I walk with you!

UJCCM Ecumenical Service Sermon – Matthew 5.17-19, Deuteronomy 4.1-2, 5-9, March 6, 2024

15 Friday Mar 2024

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This sermon was preached at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Norge, VA as part of a seven-week pulpit exchange between ecumenical churches during Lent.

I do not know what your experience with Holy Scripture has been.  I grew up in the South where Scripture was meant to be memorized, and at the very least you needed to know the Ten Commandments by heart.  As someone who is pretty terrible at memorizing scripture, you can imagine how tortured my childhood was.  When I was in grade school our Sunday School teacher quizzed us for weeks, making sure we were memorizing the Ten Commandments.  I vividly remember that dreaded day when each of us had to stand up in front of our peers and recite all ten.  My friend Nathan went before me and recited them perfectly.  My hands started to sweat, and I was fidgeting in my chair.  I could only imagine the whispers around church when everyone found out the minister’s kid (yes, I’m a preacher’s kid!) could not remember all of the Commandments.  I felt like a failure before I had even begun.

For those of you in parishes that follow the Sunday lectionary, you likely heard the Ten Commandments this past Sunday.  The scripture lessons appointed by the lectionary today continue the conversation about the commandments.  In Deuteronomy, Moses is preparing the people of Israel for the Commandments he is about to enumerate in the next chapter.  Meanwhile, in Matthew, Jesus proclaims that he comes to fulfill the law and that whoever breaks the least of the commandments will be least in the kingdom of heaven.  In the verses following the ones we heard tonight, Jesus goes on to describe some of those Ten Commandments more fully. 

But Jesus’ harsh standards about those Commandments are unnecessary really.  All we need is a slow reading of the Ten Commandments, or the Decalogue as they are often called, and we realize how woefully unfaithful we are.  Any deeper dive into the commandments probably has our hands sweating like that little kid in Sunday School.  Likely the only commandment most of us have avoided is the murdering, although we have probably wished we could murder someone at least once.  But all the others sneak in and tempt us.  We may not have stolen something large, but we have probably taken home a pen, paper clip, or notepad here and there from work.  If we have not committed adultery, we have certainly coveted someone else, which the Commandments say is equally bad.  We may think we have avoided creating idols, but when we realize the centrality of money in our lives, we discover that money has become a god for us.  And keeping the Sabbath – forget about it!  We are lucky if we make our way to church three out of four Sundays.  And even when we make it to church, we immediately whisk ourselves away to our busy schedules afterwards – even if those schedules are only packed with watching games or hanging out with friends.  We rarely take a true break in our week for a full day with God.  We prefer Jesus’ summary of the commandments much later in Matthew’s gospel to, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself,”[i] because his summary allows to avoid thinking about all the specific ways we sin against God and our neighbor.  In our minds and in the minds of many, “the Ten Commandments have somehow become burdens, weights, and heavy obligations.”[ii]  We sense their burdensome weight on our shoulders, and we feel like our bodies and our spirits are being physically pushed down by God.

What may help us tonight, then, is to take a step back and look at those troubling commandments and laws that Jesus came to fulfill.  The Decalogue does not start out with the preface, “Here are ten rules that you will obey.”  Instead, the commandments begin with a “breathtaking announcement of freedom: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.’”[iii]  God is not the overbearing parent who is saying, “You will do what I say because I am the boss.”  Instead, God is saying, “Remember that you are free.  Remember that I brought you out of a terrible place and now, you are free, my beloved ones.”  As a freed people, God is simply reminding them of how freed people live – in relationship with God and in relationship with one another. 

Jesus’ summary of these commandments later in Matthew is helpful, especially in that the summary reminds us of how we are to attend to our relationship with God – which is presented in those first four commandments, and how we are to attend to our relationship with people – what those final six commandments teach us.  But Jesus’ summary can allow us to forget how interrelated these two relationships are.  As one scholar argues, the Commandments teach us more specifically that, “having ‘no other gods before me’ means that money, sex, and power will not wiggle their way into the altars of our lives, and thus will not be used to exploit others.  Keeping the Sabbath is a reminder that all of creation is a gift and we have a responsibility to be wise stewards of it…‘you shall not murder’ suggests that others are gifts who bear the image of God for us.”[iv]  Those Ten Commandments show the people of God how life should be structured as a freed people, and how that life is an intertwined life of relationships between God and one another.  Out of those commandments comes a way of being.  Out of those commandments comes a full understanding of liberation.  Out of those commandments comes the path of life – a life that reminds us that not only does Jesus come to fulfill the law, but as Stanley Hauerwas argues, “…our discipleship of Jesus entails our fulfillment of the law.”[v]

Several years ago, a hoopla arose around an Alabaman judge who wanted the Ten Commandments posted in his courthouse.  In response, many Alabamans posted small plastic signs in their yards with the Ten Commandments written on them.  I remember visiting my family in Alabama and seeing the signs everywhere.  At the time, I rolled my eyes.  I could not imagine what good posting those rules up all over neighborhoods could really do.  Were they meant to teach others about being a person of faith, or were they meant to be a way of flaunting their Christian identity (and yes, in Alabama, those posting the Ten Commandments were Christian, not Jewish)?  At the time, they seemed to me to be self-righteous or at least condescending.  But as I have been thinking about those silly signs this past week, I have begun to wonder if there is not something to them.  What if instead of being a finger-wagging at the neighborhood, the posted signs are a way for each resident to claim on which path they hope to live – what law they are trying to fulfill through their own life.  What if instead of saying, “You all need to live like this,” the signs say, “I need to live like this.”  What if the signs are a way of saying, “I am liberated by God and want to try to live on the path of life.  Help keep me on that path – and join me if you like!”

Our liturgy tonight in some small way is doing the same thing that those signs had the potential of doing.  Our liturgy tonight, both in our prayers and in our scripture reading, invites us to remember that we are liberated by God, that we have been given the path to life, and that we can rejoice in those gifts tonight.  Our liturgy tonight invites us to shrug off our perceived burdens and to step into the warmth and love of the law and commandments.  Our liturgy tonight invites us to create our own metaphorical plastic yard sign that will remind us to live on the path of life, to do the work of fulfilling the law, and to invite others along the path through our witness of Decalogue-living.  Amen.

[i] Paraphrase of Matthew 22.37-38.

[ii] Thomas G. Long, “Dancing the Decalogue,” Christian Century, vol. 123, no. 5, Mar. 7, 2006, 17.

[iii] Long, 17.

[iv] Craig Kocher, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 78.

[v] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew: Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 66.

Sermon – John 2.13-22, Exodus 20.1-17, L3, YB, March 3, 2024

15 Friday Mar 2024

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Today’s gospel lesson is one of those lessons in Scripture that is so vivid we find looking away difficult.  All four of the gospels have this story, and three of the gospels use this story to convey Jesus’ righteous anger about how the practice around temple worship and obligatory sacrifice has led to monetary abuses.  Matthew and Luke even have Jesus calling the whole enterprise a den of robbers.  The story evokes images of Jesus flipping tables, or in today’s version, swinging around a whip like Indiana Jones.  We often recall this text when looking for evidence of Jesus’ righteous anger at injustice. 

But John’s version of this story takes us down a different path from the other three gospels.  First, John places this story in a very different place in his narrative.[i]  Unlike the other gospels who place this story toward the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, John places this incident in the second chapter, right after the miracle in Cana.  And in John’s version, Jesus does not lay into the moneychangers in quite the same way.  Instead of financial injustice, Jesus seems more concerned that those gathered have missed something critical – in the obligatory administering of sacrifices at the physical temple, they have missed the fact that God is no longer tied to the location of the temple – and instead is found in the temple of Jesus’ body.  For John, the incarnation, the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, is central to the entirety of the good news and in this story specifically. 

We are in a season of flesh.  Lent is that season when we experience Jesus in deeply enfleshed ways.  What our Lenten disciplines or practices do for us is help us remember that we are a people of flesh and our God was willing to take on that flesh to transform our lives.  We do not often talk about the profound reality of an enfleshed God, but I recalled a hymn this week that opens up the reality.  Brian Wren’s hymn Good is the Flesh says, “Good is the flesh that the Word has become, good is the birthing, the milk in the breast, good is the feeding, caressing and rest, good is the body for knowing the world, Good is the flesh that the Word has become.”  The hymn goes on to say, “Good is the body, from cradle to grave, growing and aging, arousing, impaired, happy in clothing, or lovingly bared, good is the pleasure of God in our flesh, Good is the flesh that the Word has become.”[ii]  Now I do not know about your own spiritual language, but I cannot think of anything that talks about Jesus’ flesh so vividly.  The closest I have come has been in imagining the vulnerability of that enfleshed body in the cradle.  But capturing what being enfleshed means for all of life – from cradle to grave – somehow opens up John’s words about the temple of Jesus’ body.  God takes something we often associate with sinfulness – and transforms that flesh into something good.  “Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,” are powerful words that shift how we experience the fullness of Christ’s humanity.

Once we reconnect with the goodness of God’s flesh – the incarnation of Christ – then we begin to see all of Jesus’ ministry immersed in the flesh of life.  Scholar Karoline Lewis reminds us Jesus’ fleshy life was important, “Because a woman at a well, whose body was rejected for the barren body it was, experiences the truth of neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem; because a man ill for 38 years, his entire life to be exact, whose body has only known life on the ground, is now able to imagine his ascended life; because a man born blind, is then able to see, and to see himself as a sheep of Jesus’ own fold; because Lazarus, whose body was dead and starting to decay, found himself reclining on Jesus, eating and drinking, and with his sisters, sharing a meal once again.”[iii]  Not only is Jesus’ incarnation good, making flesh good, Jesus’ ministry is about blessing, healing, and restoring physical bodies. 

Once we connect with the goodness of God’s flesh, and the power of Jesus’ fleshy ministry, we are forced to see something we do not always feel comfortable with – the goodness of our own flesh.  I do not know about your journey, but my experience in church has not been one in which the church tells me how good my body is.  In fact, today’s inclusion of the ten commandments, not once, but twice, usually reminds me of the opposite – of the myriad ways my body is sinful:  from the words that come out of my mouth, to the ways in which I hurt others and take things with my body, to the ways in which I covet things and other bodies.  And those sins do not even touch the ways in which I hear the message that my body is imperfect – how my body is not the right height or shape or gender, how my body is not fit or strong enough, how my skin color, hair, or nails are not quite the ideal.  But if God takes on flesh and says, “Good is the flesh,” and if that enfleshed God engages in a ministry of blessing flesh, then surely part of what we remember today is how good and blessed our own flesh is – how God made our flesh for good. 

Now, here comes the tricky part.  Once we realize “Good is the flesh,” that ministered to the flesh, that our flesh is beautiful and revered, then we are forced to make yet another leap – that the flesh of others is also beautiful.  Those bodies we would like to subjugate, regulate, and decimate are no longer able to be separated from the goodness of God’s flesh or our own flesh.  Barbara Brown Taylor argues in An Altar in the World, “‘One of the truer things about bodies is that it is just about impossible to increase the reverence I show mine without also increasing the reverence I show yours.’  In other words, once I value my own body as God’s temple, as a site of God’s pleasure, delight, and grace, how can I stand by while other bodies suffer exploitation, poverty, discrimination, or abuse?”[iv]

This week at Hickory Neck has been all about that kind of work.  As we welcomed guests through the Winter Shelter, we affirmed the goodness of all flesh – of God’s flesh, of our flesh, and especially the flesh of those who have no shelter, who work hard all day but cannot secure housing, who live lives of uncertainty, of insecurity, of scarcity.  Once we recall the incarnation of Christ, the dignity of our own incarnation, our work immediately becomes to honor the incarnation of others.  We certainly accomplished the work of honoring flesh this week through the Winter Shelter.  But as we keep walking our Lenten journey, we will struggle with our bodies.  Even our collect today says, “we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul.”  Our invitation this Lent is to struggle with claiming our body as good – and using the goodness of our flesh to bless other flesh.  Our repentance this week is not just of the sinfulness of the flesh, but we repent this week of the ways in which we do not honor how “Good is the flesh that the Word has become.”  Amen.

[i] Joseph D. Small, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 92.

[ii] I found this hymn in the commentary by Debie Thomas, “The Temple of His Body” in Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, OR:  Cascade Books, 2022), 63. 

[iii] Karoline Lewis, “Body Zeal,” February 26, 2018, https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/body-zeal as found on March 1, 2024.

[iv] Debie Thomas, “The Temple of His Body” February 28, 2018, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=1675 as found on March 1, 2024.

Sermon – Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16, Mark 8.31-38, L2, YB, February 25, 2024

15 Friday Mar 2024

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I remember in those first months of parenthood, an older mom and educator shared a bit wisdom with me.  “Remember, that your primary job as a parent,” she told me, “is to foster the independence of your child.”  At the time, her advice seemed a little strange – nothing about making the child feel loved, or reading to them every night, or creating safe space:  just fostering independence.  What I did not realize at the time was how incredibly difficult and grueling the work of fostering independence would be.  For starters, fostering independence in your children means giving up control – something I tend to like having.  And as if that is not hard enough, fostering independence means being the victim of your children’s own desire for control.  I cannot tell you the number of times I have been walking in my house muttering the words, “I am raising independent children.  I am raising independent children.  I am raising independent children.”

I think why this aspect of parenting is so tricky for me is parenting gets to the heart of one of the eternal struggles we have in life – and certainly with God:  our desire for control.  So, we should not at all be surprised to discover that during Lent, that is what both our Old Testament and our Gospel lessons are about:  ceding control.  We can start with Abraham’s story.  This is actually the third time Abraham has been promised a son – or at the beginning of our text, he is still Abram, not Abraham.  But we’ll get to that later.  Abram struggles like we do with control.  When he and Sarai are not pregnant at 75, or 86, or now 99 years old, he’s pretty sure God is not going to make good on God’s promise.[i]  So, Abram takes matters into his own hands and has a child with Hagar, Sarai’s servant, hoping he can make Ishmael the inheritor of God’s promise.  Abram and Sarai just could not trust and cede control to God about becoming pregnant themselves, especially since God’s promise is so ludicrously abundant.  In fact, in the verse immediately following what we read today, we are told Abraham falls on his face and laughs at God.  That is how ludicrously abundant God’s promise is for progeny. 

Of course, Peter is not much better when he needs to trust Jesus.  Jesus tells the disciples in Mark’s gospel that he will suffer and die to fulfill his role as the Messiah.  But Peter, and quietly the other disciples[ii], physically grabs Jesus and rebukes him.  The things Jesus is saying are not the way Peter or the others expected a Messiah to function for good.  As one scholar explains, they signed on for a crown, not a cross.[iii]  But Peter’s grasping rebuke of Jesus is about as literal of resistance as one can get:  an utter unwillingness to cede control of how salvation through the Messiah will work.  And so, Jesus says those stingingly harsh words, “Get behind me Satan!  You are thinking not as God thinks, but as human beings do.”[iv]  Peter and the disciples are no better at trusting and ceding control to God than Abraham is.

In some way or another, I think most of our Lenten disciplines, most of the sinfulness that we are praying about or working on in Lent is rooted in this very issue: our issues with control and trusting in God.  We are so deeply rooted in the American ethic of working hard, achieving your goals, of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and realizing your own destiny that we leave very little space for God in our lives.  We love being endowed with free will, so the notion that we should just trust God or even give up control to God feels like a fool’s errand.  Having this ethic deeply seeded in our core identity, we, as one scholar argues, arrogantly “assume that we know what must be done, so that even a word from Jesus himself cannot dissuade us.  Blinded by our prejudices, presuppositions, and preconceptions of the way things must be, we would not be convinced otherwise, even were someone to rise from the dead!”[v]

Before we get slapped in the face five weeks from now, when Jesus actually rises from the dead, how might we begin to take a harder look at the illogical nature of our resistance to God?  I like to turn toward Abraham.  I’m going have you do what they do in my mom’s evangelical church, and turn back to the Word of scripture found in your bulletin, and grab a pen (or at least a pen in your imagination).  We’re going to look back over that text and literally or mentally circle every word of abundance in this Genesis text.  We find words like, “exceedingly numerous,” “multitude of nations,” “multitude of nations,” (again) “exceedingly fruitful,” “nations,” “kings,” “throughout their generations,” “everlasting covenant,” “offspring after you,” “bless,” “rise to nations,” “and “kings of peoples.”[vi]  Abram turned Abraham may not have much to say in how this covenant with God will unfold.  But everything we read about this covenant is not just blessing, but abundant blessing.  This covenant is oozing with generosity and indulgence.  The abundance of God’s covenant is embarrassingly, overwhelmingly over the top.  Even Abram’s name change is a marker of this abundance.  The Hebrew for Abram is “father;” the Hebrew for Abraham is “father of a multitude.”[vii]

I do not know what you are holding back from God these days.  I do not know where your lack of trust in God is making you grasp onto a sense of control, as though you know better than the Almighty.  But our texts today are inviting us to let go of the death grip on the way we think things should be, and to make space for the ways God is showing us how things can be.  We will not get our say in the matter necessarily – no amount of struggle will make things better.  But the promise is that when we give our lives over to Christ – when we put our trust in the God whose covenants are not just okay – or even pretty good – but are shockingly, unimaginably abundantly awesome, we are promised very good things indeed.  Some of those good things will be so good we find them laughable.  But that is just because our imagination and our abilities to produce abundant goodness are not like God’s.  But God gifts them to us anyway.  Our invitation is to open our hands and receive them.  Amen.

[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 51.

[ii] Jouette M. Bassler, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 71.

[iii] W. Hulitt Gloer, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 71.

[iv] NAB, NJB translations as provided by Bassler, 71.

[v] Gloer, 71.

[vi] This notion of abundance in the text presented by Karoline Lewis in “#950: Second Sunday in Lent – Feb. 25, 2024,” Sermon Brainwave Podcast, February 18, 2024, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/950-second-sunday-in-lent-feb-25-2024 on February 23, 2024.

[vii] W. Sibley Towner, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 55.

On Letting the Dust Settle…

21 Wednesday Feb 2024

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Photo credit: https://ymi.today/2015/04/when-dust-settles-in-the-sunlight/

Oftentimes, I think are two version of church:  the version that is consumed and the version that is fully knowledgeable of all the details and intricacies that it takes to create the consumable experience.  In the former, one comes to church, prays prayers, sings beautifully written songs, hears scripture, engages with a sermon, consumes communion, and is commissioned to go out and live the Gospel.  Of course, there may also be the juggling of children, the scramble to get there on time, and the focus needed to fully engage all that is “church,” and not be distracted by life whispering in the background. 

For the latter – the version of church that is fully knowledgeable, the experience of church happens through a filter.  In that experience, you are juggling the personnel details (did the lector show up, how the procession should line up based on who is serving, whether a choir member is late and didn’t get to rehearse fully), you are painfully aware of the hours of planning that went into the bulletin (the liturgical and musical decisions that were made to create a seamless experience), and you are mindful of all the administrative details (did the altar book get marked, which cruet has wine and which has water, do we have enough wafers for the number of people in church, did we remember all the announcements, and on and on).  People in both categories consume church in equal amounts, but the buzz behind the experiences may be different.

As someone who falls in that latter category, I have been especially grateful for Lent this year.  Our staff worked really hard to have all the liturgy planning completed early this year.  That is a fantastic feat, but it also means this winter has been extremely busy and detail-filled.  Even the start of Lent was chaotic.  On Shrove Tuesday, you are eating and merrymaking, and less than 24 hours later, you are spreading ash on people’s foreheads and making sure they have a meaningful Ash Wednesday.  By that Sunday, you are chanting or saying the very long Great Litany on the first Sunday of Lent, and by that Monday, you take a gulp of air once you realize you have done it – Lent has begun.

What all that preplanning has meant for me this year is that gulp of air is an invitation to trust the planning and to now live into Lent.  Instead of my head being abuzz with details, now I can sit down and clear out space to be with God – to do a meaningful assessment of my relationships with God, self, and neighbor, and see what invitations arise about what in those relationships needs repentance, repair, or rejoicing.  In essence, I suppose I shift now to being a consumer of church for a time.  I get to do the prayer, fasting, and alms giving that Lent invites without all the intricacies that began the season.

I wonder where you are finding yourself at the beginning of this second week in Lent.  How are you creating spaces where the buzz of life, the swirl of life’s details, and the burdens of the everyday can be set aside to connect with God, self, and neighbor?  How are you finding meaningful ways to repent, repair, and rejoice?  I cannot wait to hear how this Lent is reigniting your faith journey!

Sermon – Mt. 6.1-6, 16-21, AW, YB, February 14, 2024

21 Wednesday Feb 2024

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This morning, I got a fun text from a friend.  “Happy Ash Valentine’s Day!” she exclaimed.  I have seen all sorts of humor about the confluence of Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday this year.  From questions about whether the clergy might be making the sign of a heart instead of the sign of a cross with our ashes tonight (sorry to disappoint those of you who were hoping that wasn’t just a rumor); to a meme from the National Church that says  “You can’t have VaLENTines with the LENT”; to actual candy conversation hearts that say “U R Dust,” “Ashes 2 Ashes,” or “Repent” instead of the traditional “Be Mine,” “True Love,” or “Kiss Me.”  Even my own daughter petulantly asked me, “Do we always have to celebrate Ash Wednesday on Valentine’s Day??”

Though the humor has been fun, what lurks under the surface is a discomfort with talking about death – especially on a day meant to be for celebrating the happiness of love.  But part of my job as a priest is to bring a certain sobriety about death to the world – no matter the day.  That is not to say that I am a party pooper or that I don’t like a good box of chocolates myself, but my role as a priest is to name the truth about what happens in death – earthly death and reunion with our Lord in eternal life.  In fact, the Church is one of the few places left in the world that openly and regularly talks about death.  In a world that encourages anti-aging treatments, who has desensitized us to death as we have moved away from an agrarian lifestyle, and whose medical advances have extended life much longer than before, we learn that death can be conquered and should be fought at all costs.

Pushing against this secular understanding of death, the Church gives us Ash Wednesday – even on Valentine’s Day.  The Church looks at our flailing efforts to preserve life and as we humbly come to the altar rail, rubs gritty ash on our heads and says, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  There is no, “Don’t worry about death; you’ll be fine!”  Instead, those grave words, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,” echo in our heads, haunting our thoughts.  Every year the Church reminds us of the finite amount of time we have on this earth – even on a day seems like we should be talking about love and life.

This is why I love Lent so much.  The Church dedicates forty days to a time where we cut to the chase and honestly assess our relationship with God.  We take a sobering look at our lives, a sobering look that could be reserved only for the time of death, and we discern what manifestation of sinfulness has pulled us away from God.  Our Prayer Book defines sin as “the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.”[i]  Lent is the season when we focus on repentance from our sin – not just a feeling guilty about our sinfulness, but eagerly seeking ways to amend those relationships and turn back toward resurrection living.  What most people get only at the time of death, we are given every year at the time of Lent:  a time of sobering realignment. 

This is why we get Matthew’s gospel lesson on Ash Wednesday.  As we begin our sobering Lenten journey, the gospel lesson names disciplines and practices that can help us along the way.  Jesus names those ancient practices that have brought people back to God for ages – giving alms, praying, and fasting.  Each one of these practices has ways of bringing us closer to God by shaking up our normal routines.  Of course, any Lenten practice can have the same effect.  Giving up caffeine, reading a daily devotional, or reconnecting with nature are equally valid ways to shake up our routines enough to notice the ways in which we have become more self-centered than God-centered.  Although Jesus names the disciplines of alms giving, prayer, and fasting, the actual discipline itself is not the issue for Jesus.  The issue is our intentions in our practice. 

This is why we hear Jesus labeling so many people as hypocrites in our gospel lesson today.  Jesus is less concerned about what disciplines we assume and is more concerned about the authenticity behind those disciplines.  Jesus is not arguing that private acts are authentic and public ones are inauthentic by nature.  What matters is the desire and motivation behind these practices.  We have all seen this in action.  One of my favorite comediennes jokes about this very behavior in one of her shows.  She talks about how people sometimes use prayer requests as a means of gossip.  In one of her jokes, she has the gossiper of the church inviting people into a prayer circle so that they can pray for someone in the church who just got pregnant, even though the news was supposed to be private.  We all know the kind of hypocritical behavior Jesus is addressing.  This kind of behavior will never get us to the sobriety we need to right our relationship with God and others.

Of course, any kind of practice we take up this Lent can be corrupted.  The giving up of a particular kind of food can be more for weight loss than a connection to God.  The taking up of a volunteer activity can be to fulfill a requirement for something else.  Whatever we do this Lent, that deprivation or incorporation is meant to help us restore our relationship with God, other people, and all creation.  So, when we give up a food, instead of glorying in the fact that we lost a few pounds, we can see how that food has become an emotional crutch that keeps us from leaning on God and others.  When we take on a new prayer routine, we slowly begin to see how little time we give to God in our daily lives.  Whatever our practice, Jesus is concerned that authenticity be at the heart, so that we can more readily prepare for Good Friday and Easter.[ii] 

And so, in order to shake us out of our self-centered, sinful, distant ways, especially on a day for love, Ash Wednesday gives us death.  Ash Wednesday grittily, messily, publicly reminds us of our death, and then leaves us marked so that we can humbly enter a Lenten reconnection with God.  Ash Wednesday throws death in our faces so that we can wake up in a world that would have us keep striving for longevity of earthly life or superficial happiness instead of striving for intimacy with God here and now.  This Ash Wednesday, our ashes are the outward reminder of the sobering journey we now begin, because only when we consider our own death can we begin to see the resurrection glory that awaits us at Easter.  My prayer is that our journey this Lent is not one of painful guilt or loveless deprivation, but instead one of glorious reconnection with our creator, redeemer, and sustainer.  Amen.      

[i] BCP, 848.

[ii] Lori Brandt Hale, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 24.

On Ashes, Valentines, and Ultimate Things…

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

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Photo credit: https://abidingpresence.net/newsfeed/2018/2/8/holiday-mashup

“Happy Ash Valentine’s Day!” my friend wrote this morning.  At first the greeting made me chuckle, especially given the number of grimaces and eye rolls I have received this year about how the Church has to celebrate Ash Wednesday on a day that is supposed to be about love.  Truth be told, I am not even sure how many faithful will even come to church tonight instead of going out to dinner or staying in for a cozy night with loved ones. 

But what I loved about that greeting today was how it married the two notions:  that you can celebrate love and death all at the same time.  In the same way that the Church soberly says, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,” the secular world, despite the obvious consumerism of the day, uses this day to soberly say, “No really.  I love you:  I love you my friend, I love you my co-worker, I love you my classmate, and I love you, my beloved.”  These two days, at their root, are meant to talk about ultimate things:  love and death.  And as a priest, when I walk individuals and families toward death, there is nothing but love hovering around.

I wonder if the confluence of Ash Valentine’s Day might be an invitation for us this Lent.  How might you use these next forty day to meditate and act on those things of ultimate significance?  How are tending your relationship with God in a way that acknowledges that relationship’s ultimate significance?  How are you loving your neighbor in a way that honors the ultimate significance of their dignity?  How are you caring for yourself in a way that shows the ultimate significance of your identity as a child of God?  I don’t know if you need some silly candy conversation hearts that remind you that you are dust – or if you need ones that remind you that you are truly loved.  Either way, I hope this Ash Valentine’s Day is a day you can enter into Lent with significance, remembering you are loved. 

Sermon – Mark 1.29-39, EP5, YB, February 4, 2024

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

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You may or may not know about me that I became a mom and was ordained at the same time.  I was seven months pregnant when the bishop ordained me.  Needless to say, there is ongoing debate about whether Simone is also a deacon since she was in utero at the ordination.  But what becoming a mom and becoming ordained at the same time has meant is the patterns of the two vocations are interwoven for me.  So just like on any given day in ministry, my plan for the day can get upended with a phone call, a drop-in visit, or a text, so is the precarious nature of parenting.  I can be in the middle of preparing dinner when a friend-crisis erupts at home for one of the kids.  I can be driving a kid to practice, only to learn from the backseat that the kid is struggling with a bully.  I can be trying to write a sermon, and another kid bursts inside with a bloody knee.  Some folks might see those parenting and pastoring moments as “interruptions” to a day.  But as someone who became a pastor and parent at the same time, that constant feeling of pushed and pulled, interrupted while trying to charge ahead, and even rerouted entirely is part and parcel of living my vocations faithfully.

I think that is why I find our gospel lesson today so compelling.  Jesus has just come off the casting out of demons in the temple that we heard about last week, with everyone awe-struck by his teaching with authority.  Then, today he just tries to go to Simon’s house to chill out, when he is immediately notified about Simon’s sick mother-in-law.  After healing her, Jesus tries to settle back down, but by sundown, the whole town is at the door, asking for healing and cures – which Jesus graciously offers.  In the wee hours of the morning, Jesus goes out to a deserted place for a moment of peace and prayer, and Simon and the others interrupt his moment for more work.  Jesus rallies the troops and off they go, proclaiming the gospel and casting out demons.  Even Simon’s mother-in-law, as soon as she is healed, begins serving Jesus and his disciples.  Not to be confused with some sort of subservient, sexist expectation that women should serve men – no, the word used for what Simon’s mother-in-law does is the same word used for what deacons do:  she serves.  In fact, she is the first deacon in the New Testament[i], and as such, teaches us that life following Jesus is just like following along in this story about a day in the life for Jesus – you are constantly pulled and pushed, invited into service in whatever ways that service shows up on your doorstep.

Yesterday I was a part of a bishop’s election.  Sometimes I think the way we elect bishops is almost cruel – for the community where the candidate serves, they are both incredibly proud of their priest, but also incredibly anxious that they may lose their priest.  All sorts of emotions and concerns get stirred:  maybe my priest doesn’t want to be here anymore, maybe my priest is neglecting her job here, maybe my priest doesn’t care about me or our church.  But getting lost in those anxieties misses what is happening in a bishop’s search.  The priest is simply doing what he or she does everyday:  listening and responding to the call of ordained life, wherever that call pushes and pulls.  Sometimes that means hopping in a car to get to the hospital immediately; sometimes that means stopping the crafting of a report, article, or sermon to listen to a hurting soul; sometimes that means talking for an extended time with a stranger at the grocery store, the gym, or the bus stop because your priesthood doesn’t belong just in the church walls.  But sometimes that means saying yes to serving on a board for workforce housing, saying yes to a bishop’s request that you serve the diocese in a particular way, saying yes to raising funds for your seminary – and even saying yes to discernment to the episcopacy.  Just like there are countless balls to juggle in parenting, there are countless balls to juggle in ordained life.  That’s just what we do when Jesus calls us – we serve.

As we settle into the idea that I will in fact being staying in ministry with you, I see this “Day in the life of Jesus” from Mark’s gospel today as an invitation.  As Debie Thomas describes, our invitation today is to “spend our days as Jesus spent his…living graciously and compassionately in this vast and often terrible in-between.  To offer the comfort of our steady presence to those who suffer.  To encourage those in pain to hang on, because the work of redemption is ongoing.  To create and to restore community, family, and dignity to those who have to walk through this life sick, weak, and wounded – without cures.  To make sure that no one who has to die – and that’s all of us in the end – dies abandoned and unloved, if we can help it.”[ii]  That means as we at Hickory Neck step away from this time of discernment, we do the work of that first deacon, Simon’s mother-in-law.  We get up and we get back to work:  caring for one another, serving our neighbors, sharing the good news with those who need a good word.  Though this call to serve may feel like a frustratingly interrupted time of prayer, in fact, the interruption today is the perfect reminder of the life of Jesus:  being pushed and pulled, interrupted and redirected, and in moments like this – seeing the beautifully sacred in the midst of all our very human feelings.  I invite you today to take my hand, so we can get back to the work of the kingdom.  Amen.

[i][i] Gary W. Charles, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 335.

[ii] Debie Thomas, Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, OR:  Cascade Books, 2022), 75.

Sermon – Mark 1.21-28, EP4, YB (Annual Meeting Address), January 28, 2024

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

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Before our family left for our cross-country trip during this summer’s sabbatical, I had been warned by a fellow parishioner.  “I never really understood the word ‘awesome’ until I saw the Grand Canyon,” she told me.  The word awesome seemed so underwhelming – maybe because we use the word for things that are less than awesome – an awesome movie, an awesome meal, an awesome day.  But as I stood at the rail, overlooking the massiveness of the Grand Canyon my brain scrambled.  It was as if my brain could not comprehend the sheer vastness of the view in front of me – how far does the canyon stretch?  How deep is the bottom?  How long did it take those specks that must be hikers to get there?  Or maybe, more deeply, how did God conceive of such an indescribably beautiful thing.  As tears welled in my eyes at the Grand Canyon’s inconceivability, I finally understood the word:  awesome.

In today’s Gospel, that is the reaction of the crowd to Jesus.  Jesus comes into the temple on the sabbath and teaches like no other teacher has.  The teachers they know “always say, ‘as Moses said,’ or ‘as Rabbi so-and-so said.’  Jesus [speaks] with a quiet but compelling authority all of his own.”[i]  And the people are astonished, awestruck, amazed.  And their amazement does not stop with Jesus’ unique authority in his teaching.  They see his unique words carry with them power to make the unclean clean.[ii]  Like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, their minds are scrambled.  They cannot understand this new thing.  They are just beginning to taste what one scholar describes as “One of the salient characteristics of [the Gospel of] Mark…the motif of surprise, wonder, awe, and fear…reactions [that] embrace all aspects of Jesus’ ministry…”[iii]  Those gathered today watch Jesus and can clearly say he is awesome.

This past year of ministry at Hickory Neck has struck me in a similar way.  I have stepped back many a time and looked at this community with a sense of awe.  I have told you repeatedly that one of the core values of Hickory Neck is our sense of curiosity – our willingness to try new things.  I talk about that core value a lot because that core value is extremely uncommon in churches.  Put more simply:  our core value of experimentation and playfulness is awesome.  I watched as your Sabbatical Team and your Vestry this past year embraced the idea of mutual sabbatical with gusto, confidence, and playfulness.  I watched as this parish didn’t just look at sabbatical as an obligation or a burden to bear, but as an opportunity to grow, try on new things, and encounter God in fresh ways.  I watched you learn, laugh, and love.  I watched you push yourselves and encourage one another.  I watched you grow in your relationship with God and one another.  And the view was awesome!

But I also watched you in the hard things this past year.  I watched as you grieved, struggled in your faith, and said goodbye to dear friends – all while embracing and comforting one another.  I watched our Stewardship Team take on a hefty deficit budget and decide to try a new approach to stewardship that felt uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and hard – and yet ended the year not only not incurring a deficit, but only using 8% of the savings we planned to use.  I watched as your Vestry held itself accountable to strategic goals the Vestry set for itself and I watched the Vestry struggle through hard questions of process and systems – and I saw the Vestry grow into the fullness of their leadership.  I watched a community struggle with decreased volunteerism and long-held preferences for the “way we have always done things,” – and I watched our community step boldly into doing things differently.  And I have to tell you, even (and maybe especially) in the hard stuff of ministry, the view has been awesome!

We started 2023 as almost two communities:  those long-timers who have been a part of Hickory Neck for ages but were away during long portions of the pandemic; and those newer members who made their way to Hickory Neck during- and post-pandemic who didn’t have a clue how things had “always been done” but knew they have found something special in this community.  One of our hopes had been that these two communities within a community would use our time of sabbatical to form a new Hickory Neck – to build a new way of being that involved shared leadership, creative ministries, and fresh encounters with the sacred.  I stand here today in wonder as I look at Hickory Neck a year later and I have to tell you:  the view is awesome!

We head into 2024 with some revenue challenges, with some needs for increased participation and leadership, and with the tensions that always exist in a growing church.  But we also head into 2024 with a renewed sense of wonder and awe in all that God is doing in this place.  From reenergized ministries to the wider community:  hosting the homeless, building beds for the children in our community who haven’t had a bed, feeding the hungry, and clothing those who struggle; to fresh, creative ministries that we have never tried before:  a children’s music ministry that will launch this summer with a chorister camp; to invitations to grow closer to that Jesus who is truly awesome – through liturgies, study, and service.  God has incredible things in store for us this year:  and the view is awesome!  Amen.    

[i] N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 11.

[ii] Gary W. Charles, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 311.

[iii] John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 2 (Collegeville, MN:  Liturgical Press, 2002), 79.