Category Archives: Sermons

Sermon – Luke 24.13-35, E3, YA, April 23, 2023

30 Tuesday May 2023

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In 2015, Jamil sat in a hospital room distraught.  His newborn daughter, Alma, had suffered a stroke during childbirth, and had been whisked away to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.  Doctors and nurses had been tending to her around the clock.  And then, in the haze of the hospital stay, at about one o’clock in the morning, a doctor came into their hospital room and shared some difficult news about Alma’s treatment plan.  And here’s where the story gets interesting:  “‘…instead of just delivering the news compassionately and leaving, [the doctor] just pulled up a chair.’  The two men talked for about 90 minutes — a wide-ranging conversation in which the doctor told Jamil about his own struggles as a new father, and shared his thoughts about parenthood.”  Jamil recalls of Dr. Petersen, “It was as though he hit the pause button on this torrent of pain and anguish that we were feeling.” [i]

Sometimes we have a hard time remembering what the first Easter and Eastertide felt like for the followers of Christ.  We read Luke’s gospel today, but in all the gospel narratives of that first Easter, we discover not a sense of victory and responding alleluias.  We find fear, confusion, and resistance.  In Luke’s gospel today, the women have already discovered and reported the empty tomb, and Peter even had run to confirm the amazing news.  Today we pick up the story as Cleopas and another disciple of Jesus have packed up and are heading back home to Emmaus.  They do not believe the women and the inability of Peter to see the risen Lord makes them even more incredulous.  As they unknowingly talk to Jesus along their walk to Emmaus, they express their despondency acutely, “…we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”[ii]

We too get trapped in post-Easter uncertainty.  We had a glorious Holy Week and Easter Sunday here at Hickory Neck, and even enjoyed a healthy crowd last Sunday.  This past week we started our Gratitude Gatherings, which have been full of joyful pondering about all that the Holy Spirit is doing among us.  As we turned our conversations to our hopes for Hickory Neck, I have heard a similar thread:  a longing to know what is next.  We have walked through all sorts of identity changing years of late:  from new leadership, to welcoming, nurturing, and then sending on the Kensington School, to wading through a pandemic and becoming a hybrid community, to the promise of a sabbatical in just a month’s time.  As we have talked about our hopes for the future, we have many dreams and desires; but it also feels like we are standing at a precipice.  We have that feeling of goodness and blessing, and also that unsettling feeling of wondering where God is taking us next. 

When Jamil sat with Dr. Petersen for an hour and half in the midst of his grief and anxiety, he says, “‘I just felt like I couldn’t control anything…I was feeling this loss of autonomy, of agency.  And then I just remember [Dr. Petersen] not leaving.’  Petersen’s honest conversation about the ups and downs of fatherhood reminded [Jamil] that he wasn’t doing this alone.”  Jamil says, “Afterwards I stopped thinking about the suffering that we were going through and started thinking about, OK, well, what do we do for Alma next?”[iii]

Jesus does not leave Cleopas and the other disciple in the despondency.  He walks with them.  He listens and he shares the salvation narrative with them.  And as if that were not enough, Jesus “leaves them free to continue on without him.”  Like he always does, he gives his followers free will.  And when Jesus is invited to stay on, Jesus does.  Only then – in the sacrament of breaking bread, blessing bread, and distributing bread – only then are the disciples’ eyes opened.[iv]  Jesus tarries with the disciples until they can ask the question that the followers in our Acts narrative ask today, “What should we do?”[v]

That is our invitation at Hickory Neck in these coming weeks and months.  We are invited to sit with Jesus – to not let him depart, but to continue walking, talking, and eating together at his table.  We are invited in these weeks of Easter and sabbatical, to keep gathering together, to listen in the midst of our busy lives, to be open to how Jesus is warming our hearts with his presence.  That is where our hopes and dreams become redefined.  That is where we become renewed and delivered from our fears and anxieties.  That is where we can let go of what has been and take up what we are to do next.  Jesus is with us – and his presence is a glorious promise for warmed hearts and renewed spirits.  Amen.

[i] Laura Kwerel, “Jamil was struggling after his daughter had a stroke. Then a doctor pulled up a chair.”  My Unsung Hero from Hidden Brain, NPR, April 17, 2023, as found at https://www.npr.org/2023/04/17/1167802053/jamil-was-struggling-after-his-daughter-had-a-stroke-then-a-doctor-stepped-in on April 19, 2023.

[ii] Luke 24.21

[iii] Kwerel.

[iv] Cynthia A. Jarvis, “Homiletical Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 423.

[v] Acts 2.37.

Sermon – Matthew 28.1-10, ED, YA, April 9, 2023

30 Tuesday May 2023

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I have a friend who does one of the most unconscionable things in life:  she flips to the end of every book and reads the ending first before going back to the beginning to start.  When she first told me about this habit, I was mortified.  How could you ruin the suspense, ignore the carefully crafted character development, and destroy the experience of imagination so callously?  For her, the answer is simple.  She needs to be assured that everything will turn out okay – the only way she can trust the journey the author will take her on is if she knows how the journey will end.  Now I have certainly read my fair share of books whose ending made me furious, so I get her logic.  But I have yet to be converted to her method, even by the bad endings.

Sometimes I think Easter Sunday is a bit like flipping to the end of the book.  We want to know Jesus rises from the dead, forgives our sins, and restores us to the promise of eternal life.  But that is not where the story starts today.  We are told that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go to see the tomb.  These two women do not come to prepare the body with spices like in the other Gospel narratives.  They just come to see the stone-cold reminder of death and lay down all that has been.  In any death, there is a flurry of activity – the realization of pending death; the calling in of loved ones to say goodbye, or in the case of sudden death, the shocked gathering of grief; the funeral plans and details so complicated all your brain can do is make one decision at a time; and then the receiving of condolences and public marking of goodbye.  But in any death, eventually everyone leaves, and the mourning are left doing what Mary Magdalene and Mary do – going to sit at the tomb with the stark reality of all that has happened.[i]

In some ways, that is our posture as a church today.  If we participated in Holy Week at all, we walked the last meal of Jesus, his washing of feet, his agonizing prayers, his betrayal and denial, his torturous death, and the finality of his tomb.  Of if we participated in Lent, we walked through the depths of our sinfulness, doing the hard work of repentance, even being reminded we are dust and to dust we shall return.  Of if we go to church on a regular basis, we know that Jesus is just the final act of God in response to the ways the people of God broke their covenant with God again and again – ignoring prophets and sages, ignoring the sins of their ancestors, ignoring all the blessings and glimmers of hope from God and instead doing our own will, not God’s will.

Once you know that whole narrative, humbling dragging our baggage of misbehavior, misdeeds, misguided wills, then the story we hear today is not just a “and then they lived happily ever after” ending.  Today’s story is profound, unbelievable, and, as the text says, literally earth-shattering.  What God in Jesus does today is entirely undeserved, nothing we are remotely entitled to, and utterly full of love, forgiveness, and grace.  When we carry the weight of that entire book we have been reading, then today’s text is the very reason we say alleluia over and over again today.  Today’s text is the reason we make our way to this place, whether we have never been here before, are not entirely sure we want to be here, whether our faith journey has begun to be renewed here, or whether this place feels like home for us.  Today’s text is the reason we have any hope at all in this conflicted, messy, seemly unsavable world.

But here is the funny thing about this beyond happily ever after ending:  this is not the end.  After the earth is literally shaken at its core, the appearance of an otherworldly angel, and even an encounter with the risen Christ, the story goes on.  Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go witness to the other disciples.  We are told they go with fear – even though both the angel and Jesus tell them to not be afraid.  We are told they go with joy – because even though this new thing is terrifying, this new thing is terrifyingly joyful.  We are told they run – run to share the best beginning they have ever heard.

That is our invitation today.  In Christ’s death, we hear the best beginning we have ever heard.  Knowing all that we know of the prelude, we know that this is terrifyingly joyful news.  But this is news that we are invited not just to share, but to run and share.  I do not know to whom you need to run to today.  Maybe someone in your life needs this terrifyingly joyful reminder of resurrection.  Maybe someone you have never met before is waiting for you to run into them.  Or maybe you just need to run into your downtrodden self and remind yourself of this good news.  When the clergy today says, “Let us go forth into the world rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit, alleluia, alleluia,” our response is not just a verbal one.  Today we are invited to run and share the good news!  Amen!

[i] Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, “Dear Working Preacher:  The Foundation of Christian Hope,” April 2, 2023, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/the-foundation-of-christian-hope on April 5, 2023.

Sermon – Gen., Ex., Ez., Zeph., Mt. 28.1-10, EV, YA, April 8, 2023

30 Tuesday May 2023

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If you have ever longed for a way to explain or express your faith to someone or even to yourself, this night, Easter Vigil, is the best articulation or encapsulation of our faith.  If ever you were hoping to showcase to a friend the best example of Church, this is the night in which the Church is at the Church’s fullest.  This night has everything – the drama of the Pascal fire and candle, the haunting beauty of the Exsultet, the narration of our salvation history, Baptism and Eucharist, and all the joy that comes with Easter.  After this night, the rest of our Easter celebrations pale in comparison.  This is the night. 

The challenge of Easter for us is that not only are we quick to forget the darkness of the past week, but also we are tempted to only celebrate what God has done in Jesus Christ, and not celebrate how extraordinary what God has done in Jesus Christ is in light of what God has done throughout all time.  Easter Vigil pulls us out of that desire to be narrowly focused and thrusts us back into the full story that is our story – the story that makes Jesus’ resurrection all the more powerful.  Easter Vigil gives us the opportunity to step out of the empty tomb, and to immediately recall all the other things that God has done for us – the ways that God has repeatedly delivered us – and to understand at a much deeper level the significance of this night.

Tonight, we hear five of the nine possible readings we could have read which narrate our salvation history.  First, we hear the creation story – that story wherein God takes a watery chaos and creates the earth and all that is in the earth:  the lights, the waters, the birds, the animals, the ground and vegetation, humanity, and Sabbath.  We hear again and again how God creates and how that creation is good.  We hear in this first reading the tender lovingkindness of God, the abundance of creation, and the glory of God.  Second, we hear the dramatic story of the flood, where our sinfulness drives God to flood the earth.  But the flood story is also a story of God’s mercy – a God who loves so much that God cannot totally annihilate God’s creation.  After the flood, God promises to never again harm creation so deeply.  Then we hear the Exodus story – that story where God takes God’s people out of slavery, frees them from Egypt, and guides them through the Red Sea to the final destruction of pharaoh’s army.  Despite the people’s groaning, their illogical desire to return to slavery rather than to trust in the Lord, and the people’s unworthiness of such grace, God saves the people, delivering them from bondage and death.  Next, we hear that haunting story from Ezekiel, where the prophet breathes breath back into a valley full of dry bones – the dry bones of the people Israel, symbolizing God’s restoration of Israel.  Finally, finally, we hear the Zephaniah story of the gathering of God’s people back together from exile – that story in which God promises to return God’s people to the Promised Land, to deliver them from their suffering at the hands of oppressors, and to restore their fortunes.  As an exiled people, who quite frankly deserved the loss of their land because of the ways they deserted God, this promise of being regathered is more than they could ever hope for or imagine.

In light of this salvation history – this snapshot way of showing how lovingly God creates us, how lovingly God forgives us, and how lovingly God returns to us time and again, despite our grievous sins – we then turn to Jesus’ story.  We see that as God’s people we have benefited from the many times that God has delivered us from oppression and suffering caused by our sinfulness; but in this final act by God, the giving of God’s Son Jesus Christ to suffering, persecution, and death, we see that Jesus’ resurrection means that we not only have a God that delivers us from the bondage of death in this world, but also we have a God that delivers us from bondage of death in the life to come.  Instead of taking away one more earthly oppressor, God takes away the oppressor of death – granting us forgiveness of our sins and eternal life.  This narrative, the story of the empty tomb is the last stop in that salvation narrative for us. 

This is the night – when we remember what God does for us at the Red Sea.  This is the night – when we recall that Christ died for our sins.  This is the night – when we proclaim that Christ has broken the bonds of death and given us eternal life.  And we remember all of that this night through our actions – the lighting of the Pascal candle, the reaffirmation of our baptismal covenant, and the receiving of bread and wine.  We hear the word of God, and we respond to the word of God through our liturgical actions. 

And so what does God call us to do in light of this night?  Rejoice now!  The whole earth – that earth that God created – rejoices because darkness is vanquished through Jesus Christ.  The heavenly chorus rejoices – shouting for the salvation fulfilled and completed in Christ the King.  The Church rejoices – we resound as a people, being glad for all that God does for us through Jesus Christ.  Like our ancestor the prophet Miriam who led the women in dancing and song, we too are bursting with praise and thanksgiving.  We praise God in song, prayer, and proclamation because we are so overwhelmed with the abundance of God’s love and grace for us.  We rejoice now, because like the Israelites on the other side of the Sea, we are awed by God, and can only offer our adoration.  We have no way of paying God back or thanking God enough.  And so, with great adoration and awe, we rejoice now.  And we leave this place, bursting with joy as we share the salvation story of all that God has done for us.  Rejoice now, Mother Church!  Alleluia!  Alleluia! 

Sermon – Mt. 21.1-11, 26.14-27.66, PS, YA, April 2, 2023

30 Tuesday May 2023

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This Lent, our ecumenical brothers and sisters from Upper James City County gathered for worship every Wednesday night, slowly walking through Matthew’s Palm and Passion Narrative – in fact, our last gathering will be this Wednesday at Hickory Neck.  The idea of walking slowly through the Passion was most of us have to navigate Palm Sunday in ways that do not do the massive amounts of scripture justice:  some of us only read the Palm narrative, saving the passion for Good Friday; some of us only read the portion of the Passion narrative that includes Jesus’ trial before Pilate through crucifixion; and the crazy Episcopalians read both the Palm and Passion narratives like a fire hose, overwhelming us with “Hosannas!” and heartache[i] all in one breath.  When we started Lent, I thought reading these narratives in seven segments, with a sermon for each one would make them more digestible – make me feel like I could contain their grief and shame in small portions.  But even as each sermon mingled sin and grace, sorrow and comfort, heartaches and hosannas, I still felt overwhelmed by enormity of the story – perhaps even more overwhelmed than when we just take the texts all at once, like chugging down bad-tasting medicine.

I have been thinking about contrasts of this day – the high of waving palms and proudly welcoming our king, to the low of betrayal, denial, and complicity in Jesus’ death – and I realized what makes me the most uncomfortable with the contrasts of this day is that how similar this day is to every day we live.  We watch in horror as tornados lay waste to homes, praying for the victims, while not acknowledging or doing anything about the fact that those who will likely suffer the most are the poor, who can only afford land in the most tornado-prone locations and whose homes are the least safely constructed because that is all they can afford.  Or we make supportive posts on social media about International Transgender Day of Visibility, and yet we do not work with our legislature, schools, and workplaces to ensure the transgendered children of God’s legal and physical safety.  Or we read about another mass school shooting in Kentucky – one that includes the life of a nine-year old daughter of a pastor – one that is just the latest in a list of school shootings so long you’ll spend minutes scrolling the list – and then go about our lives not doing anything to change things, just praying that hopefully that won’t happen to this pastor’s nine-year old daughter.  And all those events happened in just this past week.

Palm Sunday feels like whiplash – a contrast in hosannas and heartache.  But what makes that whiplash so unsettling is that we live that whiplash every single day.  And what makes that whiplash even more painful today is we do not get to point our fingers at others, shaking our heads in a high-and-mighty fashion.  No, those who wave palms on Sunday and call for crucifixion on Friday are each of us.  No, Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denial are ours.  No, Pilate’s weaseling, ignoring of warnings from his wife, and his attempt to clean his hand is ours.  No, the faithful who plot against Jesus and demand Jesus Barrabus over Jesus the Messiah are us.  All the work we have done this Lent – from the Great Litany, to our penitential order, to songs of our sinfulness – all of that work gets relived today, and we experience viscerally what our sinfulness does – our sinfulness leads to the degradation and death of Jesus, the conscription of each of us into denying goodness, the witnessing to our children of what failing to be faithful means.

So how in the world do we leave this place today with even an ounce of hope?  How do we look our failings in the eye, at how very low we have sunk, both in Jesus’ day and in our own day, and walk out of here renewed for hosannas?  Well, as the great theologian Mr. Fred Rogers would say, “Look for the helpers.”  Mr. Rogers always said when something is scary, or frightening, or full of tragedy, looking for the helpers can give us hope.[ii]  And believe Mr. Rogers or not, there are helpers in our text today.  The crowds are helpers to Jesus in the Palm narrative as they proclaim his identity with joy and vigor.  Judas becomes a helper as he returns his silver pieces that are used to create a burial place for foreigners.  Pilate’s wife, a foreigner and uninterested party, becomes a helper when her dream warns her about Jesus.  When forced to carry a cross, Simone of Cyrene becomes a helper.  A centurion becomes a helper when he, despite being a part of the crucifixion, also admits Jesus’ divinity.  Joseph of Arimathea becomes a helper when he boldly asks for Jesus’ body and buried Jesus.  The Marys and mothers become helpers as they keep watch and guard over Jesus, witnessing their devotion and commitment to Jesus.

For all the devastating failings of humankind, even in the darkness of this massive amount of text, there are still hosanas to be found among the heartache.  Our invitation this week, as we continue to journey through lightness and dark, is to not just look for the helpers, but to become helpers outside these walls.  Our lives do not stop resembling the chaos of hosannas and heartache today.  But we can be helpers who shine light in the darkness, who bring hosannas to the table.  Witnesses found their way on this darkest of days many years ago.  Now, our turn to shine light begins.  Amen. 

[i] Karoline Lewis, “Dear Working Preacher:  Hosanna and Heartache,” March 26, 2023, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/hosanna-and-heartache on April 1, 2023.

[ii] Fred Rogers, “Fred Rogers:  Look for the Helpers,” posted by Alex Forsythe, excerpted from Television Academy Foundation’s interview, as found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LGHtc_D328 on April 1, 2023.

Sermon – John 9.1-41, L4, YA, March 19, 2023

29 Monday May 2023

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We are in the midst of award season.  Just last weekend, the Oscars grabbed our attention with surprising wins and disappointing losses.  This week College Basketball’s March Madness has us riveted again, with expected wins, surprising upsets, and underdogs to encourage.  Despite the vested interest I may have in some of these “award” events, I find myself most drawn to the human responses.  At the Oscars, and most award shows these days, they split the TV screen with the five nominees in order to help us capture the suspense and joy of the moment.  Later, in replays and online chatter, our attention gets redirected to those who do not receive awards:  were they gracious in their loss, do they visibly show their disappointment, or do they struggle to conceal their emotions?  The Big Tournament is not much different.  Every game could either be the last of the season or the last of a career for some students.  Like clockwork, players whose teams do not advance show a variety of emotions:  from the gracious loser who can genuinely say “good game,” to the victor, the player who looks angry about the loss – perhaps most angry at themselves, or the player who just breaks down in tears at a season or career suddenly gone. 

The worst part about the award season though is our reaction to those human responses.  We say things like, “She should have been happy to just be nominated,” or “Someone should have taught them about being a good sportsman?”  Our shift from understanding to a finger-pointing-should happens almost instantaneously.  Sadly, when we are given the vivid stories we have been given these last three weeks in John’s Gospel, we do the same thing in Scripture.  I can imagine the thoughts that were bouncing around in our heads during that long gospel lesson:  How could the disciples, of all people, assume someone sinned just because he is blind?  How dare those parents just abandon their son – they should have been leading the healing celebrations! And those hard-headed Pharisees?  They should relent with what Jesus is trying to show them.  Before we realize, we have turned into that Pharisee from Luke’s gospel who prays loudly, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector!”[i]

The challenge when we moralize this story about the blind man is that we tend to place ourselves dishonestly in the story.  Either, we relate most to the blind man, perhaps even recalling when God has brought about some transformation in our lives or when we have followed Jesus even when we were judged or outcast; or we read the story as an outsider looking in – as if this is a story unrelated to our own journey with Jesus.  In other words, this becomes a story about those people.  But John’s Gospel will not let us do either of those things today.  You see, John’s whole gospel is about belief.  Just two weeks ago we talked about belief when we read John 3.16 – whosoever believes in him.  But, according to scholar Karoline Lewis, “…believing in the Gospel of John is synonymous with relationship with Jesus.  To state that he believes in Jesus means that the formerly blind man is in relationship with Jesus.”  Lewis goes on to say, “When we say, ‘Lord, I believe,’ we are not only making a confession of faith but making a claim of the true presence of relationship with Jesus…To acknowledge belief as a relational category may very well transform much of how we think church and faith need to be.”[ii]

The Pharisees, the folks whom we are most like in this story, cannot be moved into this belief as relationship with Jesus.  They are confident in their own truth:  they follow the God of Moses, they know that no one but God heals on the sabbath, they know blindness is caused by sin (even the disciples agree with this one).  They resist God doing a new thing:  they demand to know Jesus’ origin, they grill the formerly blind man not once, but twice, and they even do a background check with this man’s parents.  They are proud:  when the formerly blind man asks if they might be asking so many questions because they want to follow Jesus too, and when Jesus suggests they are the blind ones, the people of faith scoff and hold their ground. 

Now, I know putting ourselves in the place of the Pharisees may feel a little too-Lent-y today.  We know we need to be repenting of our confidence in self alone, our hardhearted resistance, and our pride and vainglory.  But surely, we are not that bad, right?  Instead of assuring us that we are not, I want to assure us of something else.  The blind man’s journey to belief is just that.  At the beginning of our story today, he cannot see Jesus at all.  But he can hear Jesus and he does respond by going down and washing away the mud.  When he is first questioned by his neighbors, he honestly says he doesn’t know where this Jesus guy is.  When questioned by the religious authority about Jesus’ identity, he only slowly makes his way to belief by claiming Jesus must be a prophet.  When pushed even further, he reviews the truth of his experience, slowly realizing that maybe, just maybe, he is disciple of this stranger.  Finally, in his conversation with Jesus after being kicked out of the synagogue, he says, “I believe.”  Or in other words, “I have and want a relationship with you.”  The formerly blind man’s relationship is not immediate,[iii] he does not come to relationship confidently, and he struggles to understand.  But he does struggle.

Our invitation today is not to go home feeling guilty about our hardhearted, self-centered, pride and resistance.  Our invitation is to see and hear how God can transform our resistance to the new things Jesus is doing.  The journey will not be easy – we will have people question us – in fact, we may question ourselves.  We will not know the answers, we may be afraid, and we may be cutoff from what we thought was our place of belonging.  But what the formerly blind man reminds us today is that belief, relationship with Jesus, is a journey.  Amazing things will happen – my goodness, how amazing that a man blind from birth can find new life.  But new life really comes as we walk as disciples of Christ, following Jesus when those around us, and even we ourselves, resist.  Our invitation though is to keep listening, knowing that slowly, our blindness will be lifted too.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

[i] Luke 18.11.

[ii] Karoline M. Lewis, John:  Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 132.

[iii] Karoline M. Lewis, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 119

Sermon – Matthew 27.1-23, Ecumenical Lenten Series, March 15, 2023

29 Monday May 2023

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When the clergy of our Ministerium gathered and decided to slowly walk through the passion narrative, a narrative that most of us normally consume in one service – either on Palm Sunday or Good Friday – I thought it would be great fun to dive deeply into the text, tarrying longer on the parts that seem to whizz by otherwise.  I was excited to find hidden gems, or maybe moments of grace and goodness.  But I confess, so far, the deep dive has been harder than I imagined.  I have begun to wonder if we churches do not read the entire passion narrative in one sitting because we know how hard the text is:  so we read the text in its fullness, like chugging awful tasting medicine in the hopes of getting the foul experience over with as quickly as possible.

Of course, when I started reading our portion of the text for this evening, I thought maybe there was hope after all.  The text starts off with such promise.  The very first words from the New Revised Standard Version are, “When morning came…” or, even more promising, in the paraphrase from The Message, “In the first light of dawn…”  Immediately, my mind filled with the words from that old hymn, “Morning has broken,” with lyrics like, “Praise for the morning!… Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden… Praise with elation, praise every morning, God’s recreation of the new day!”  Surely the inbreaking of light will mean the inbreaking of hope and renewal.  Those things that happened in the cover of darkness:  Judas’ betrayal, disciples unable to keep watch and pray with Jesus, disciples scattering as Jesus is arrested, false testimonies, and finally, the gut-wrenching betrayal of faithful Peter – surely in the first light of dawn, in the sweetness of the wet garden, the light will drive away the darkness.

But the morning light of this text does not overcome this day – at least not in the ways the light comes Easter morning.  First, we have to walk through the darkness and light of Jesus’ final day.  We start with Judas.  What feels like redemption is coming for Judas.  The NRSV says Judas repented, but this is not the same word used to describe what Peter does.  Matthew is quite careful not to use the same word in the original Greek for repentance.  Instead of the word for “repent” or “turn around,” the word in Greek for Judas means “regret or “change one’s mind.”[i]  Somehow, Judas’ actions happening in the first light of dawn makes them more devastating.  His hanging himself brings up for us all sorts of feelings, and quite frankly, some of the Church’s more damaging teachings about suicide.  But in Judas, darkness and light get muddled.  Theologian Stanley Hauerwas argues, “What Judas did is not beyond the forgiveness enacted in Jesus’s crucifixion.  Indeed, Judas’s betrayal can be remembered because it is not and cannot be the last word about Judas’s life or our own.  The last word about Judas or us is not ours to determine because the last word has been said in the crucifixion.  The challenge is not whether Jesus’s forgiveness is good, but whether any of us, Judas included, are capable of facing as well as acknowledging that, given the opportunity, we would be willing to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.”[ii]

In the light of day, as the morning comes, the text seems to tell us that the darkness of night might be dispelled after all.  Pilate’s wife appears in the midst of Jesus’ trial – something that no other gospel describes – and tells of how Pilate should have nothing to do with Jesus.  She, like so many others has been warned in a dream:  the magi early on in Matthew, Joseph, Jesus’ father, and now Pilate’s wife.  In all these cases, while people scheme to destroy Jesus, even Gentiles receive communication from God in dreams to preserve Jesus’ life.[iii]  But today is not a day of Easter light – or a day of near misses like in Jesus’ birth.  Instead, the darkness overcomes.  Even though Pilate knows Jesus is innocent, he cannot muster the political strength to follow what he knows is right.  And so, Pilate, whose name in own creeds remind us that Jesus was killed in a specific time and space, becomes complicit with the darkness even as the light of morning tries to break through.

The final mingling of darkness and light comes as the crowds get swept into the guilt of this day.  Pilate cleverly offers the faithful an alternative – to release Jesus the Messiah or to release Jesus Barrabus, the murderous rebel.  Caught up in the fervor stoked in the darkness, the people’s demand of Barabbas’ release feels like all the light goes out of the story.  Those words, “Let him be crucified,” feels like the shroud of darkness and our human failure is complete.  But even in this darkest moment, all light is not lost.  What we forget in this moment is that when Jesus dies, Barabbas goes free.  Scholar N.T. Wright tells us, “Barabbas represents all of us.  When Jesus dies, the brigand goes free, the sinners go free, we all go free.  That, after all, is what a Passover story ought to be about.”[iv]

We will not get the brilliance of that old hymn, Morning Has Broken, until Easter.  God’s recreation cannot happen until the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Famed preacher Thomas Long tells a story about a congregation who many years ago built a small and secluded chapel for prayer and meditation.  Inside that little chapel, they placed twelve wooden chairs, each inscribed with the name of one of the disciples.  You want to know which of the chairs is the most heavily worn from use?  Judas’ chair, like stone step that shows its overuse, is the most worn, the most relatable, perhaps the most hopeful for visitors to that old chapel.[v] 

We are not at Easter in this Lenten journey.  In fact, most of our days even outside of this ritual time feel closer to the darkness of Lent than the lightness of Eastertide.  But that does not mean that all our days do not have glimpses of light.  Even on this darkest day, when Jesus’ fate is sealed and the worst thing will happen, light keeps fighting through.  Whether in Judas’ remorse, whether in the witness of outsiders around us, or whether in the grace given to those who do not deserve grace, even on this darkest of days, the morning comes. 

Our invitation this Lent is to open our eyes to the light.  Judas, Pilate’s wife, even Barrabas invite us to seek the light, to name the light, to be the light.  We will never master the perfection of Easter Sunday where the sweetness of the wet garden makes us praise with elation.  So maybe our song this night is not Morning has Broken, but another gospel hymn, Walk in the Light.  When the darkness threatens to overcome, we raise our voice, “Walk in the light, Beautiful light, Come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright, Shine all around us by day and by night, Jesus is the light of the world.”  Jesus is here, in our sinfulness, in our resistance, in our hardheartedness, giving us beams of light to walk in – beautiful light where mercy shines bright.  We can walk in the light together because Jesus is that light.  Amen.

[i] Douglas R.A. Hare, Matthew, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1993), 314.

[ii] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew: Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 230-231.

[iii] Thomas G. Long, Matthew:  Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 312.

[iv] N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 178.

[v] Long, 310.

Sermon – John 3.1-17, L2, YA, March 5, 2023

29 Monday May 2023

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For the next four Sundays in Lent, our lectionary has us step away from the gospel of Matthew – the primary gospel for Year A in the lectionary – and take up the gospel of John.  Each of these Sundays will be a study in story and character:  today we read of Nicodemus, next week the Samaritan woman at the well, then the healed blind man, and finally the Lazarus story.  What I love about the use of the Johannine stories this Lent is they are centered on characters – people – trying to figure out this whole Jesus thing.  They are not passages like John’s flowery beginning:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…[i]” 

Over the next four weeks, instead of pouring over John’s convoluted text, we will be using John’s stories and characters to help to illuminate that text.  But like any story, we have to be careful about the lure of familiar stories.  Today is no exception.  Right away, John begins to tell us what we presume is everything we need to know.  “There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.  He came to Jesus by night..”  Immediately, our brains start firing:  this is going to be one of those stories of silly leaders who should know things, but clearly do not.  And Nicodemus is sneaking in under the cover of night:  clearly Nicodemus is embarrassed, unsure, and probably a bit shady.  Two sentences in and we have this all figured out.  Forget how Nicodemus is so dimwitted he can’t understand what Jesus means by being born again.  We hear all the hints and triggers, and we’ve written the sermon before I said a word to you.  Moral of the story:  don’t be like Nicodemus; live in the light of Jesus, because God so loved the world.  Done!

But when we live in a black and white world – or this case a day and night, or darkness and light, world – we miss all the gray where we reside in our faith journey.  No doubt, Nicodemus visits Jesus from the shadows.  But we have to remember, given Nicodemus’ position, approaching Jesus publicly would have been “difficult, perhaps even dangerous…in the bright light of day.”[ii]  Truth be told, Nicodemus is not so different from any of us.  Nicodemus is “a successful and self-confident man, he plays a leadership role in his community.  He is spiritually open and curious, yet also rational.  He approaches Jesus directly and tries to figure out Jesus’ actions and social networks.  He is committed and curious enough that he makes an appointment to talk to Jesus face to face.”  Now, he may not be ready to go public, and so he, “…makes the appointment in the middle of the night, when he can keep his faith secret, separated from the rest of his life.  His imagination is caught by Jesus, but he wants to compartmentalize whatever faith he has.”[iii] 

Knowing Nicodemus has compartmentalized his faith, and knowing he is a bit skeptical, and knowing, eventually, he really does not get what Jesus is saying, the text today invites us not to judge or belittle Nicodemus, but instead see ourselves in him.  Before you get indignant about how maybe you have been born again through baptism, or how you can describe a moment when you were saved by proclaiming your belief in Jesus, I want you to remember one redeeming thing about Nicodemus today:  He is curious.  Nicodemus could have stayed even further in the shadows, he could have not approached Jesus at all, he could have said nothing when Jesus cryptically talks about being born from above.  Instead, Nicodemus stays curious.  Nicodemus may not be able to fully understand Jesus, but he follows his curiosity about Jesus.  Our instinct may be to hear judgment about Nicodemus, but what our text wants us to hear is “God blesses the curious because they are ready to learn and experience something new.”  The curious are blessed because “they can be truly born again.”[iv]

You may have heard John 3.16 today, listened to Nicodemus’ seeming failure, and thought you were going to be told to just believe today.  Diana Butler Bass explains that the word “believe” in John 3.16 comes from the German word for “love.”  To believe is not to hold an opinion.[v]  In fact, believing is “not so much about what one does with one’s mind as about what one does with one’s heart and one’s life.”[vi]  Your invitation today is not to avoid the patterns of Nicodemus, living in the light by just willing your mind to believe in Jesus.  Your invitation is to follow Nicodemus on the path of curiosity that will lead you into the life of love.  To help us on this journey toward curiosity and the life of love, I share this benediction:

Blessed are we in the tender place
between curiosity and dread,
We who wonder how to be whole,
when dreams have disappeared and
part of us with them,
where mastery, control, determination,
bootstrapping, and grit,
are consigned to the realm of before
(where most of the world lives),
in the fever dream that promises infinite
choices, unlimited progress, best life now.

Blessed are we in the after,
forced into stories we never
would have written.
Far outside of answers to questions
we even know to ask.

God, show us a glimmer of possibility
in this new constraint,
that small truths will be given back to us.
We are held.
We are safe.
We are loved.
We are loved.
We are loved.
Amen.[vii]

[i] John 1.1-5.

[ii] George W. Stroup, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 70.

[iii] Deborah J. Kapp, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 68.

[iv] 10.

[v] As explained by Debie Thomas in Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, OR:  Cascade Books, 2022), 34.

[vi] Stroup, 72.

[vii] Brenda Thompson and Jessica Richie, Bless the Lent we Actually Have:  Sermon Guide (KateBowler.com, 2022), 9.

Sermon – Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21, AW, YA, February 22, 2023

01 Wednesday Mar 2023

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I have always felt Ash Wednesday is one of the most sobering days of the Church year.  One might think funerals are more sobering, but every burial office is an Easter celebration of resurrection.  On Ash Wednesday, we are pulled out of the hubbub of the ordinary, the busyness of days, and thrust into the stark reality of our sinfulness and inevitable death.  The priest lays out the invitation to a holy Lent; we feel the scrape of ashes on our foreheads with the foreboding words of our beginning and our end – no matter how old we are; we pray a litany of penitence, remembering our grievous sins.  And as if those acts are not enough, we hear from Matthew’s gospel how even when we engage in repentance, we must be careful not to engage in the wrong way.  Ash Wednesday strips us of all pride, confidence, and sense of accomplishment, and lays before us our weaknesses, failings, and vulnerabilities. 

I have always regarded Ash Wednesday and our Lenten experience as the ultimate self-directed season.  The ashes on our foreheads remind us of how we came into this world alone and we will go out alone.  The disciplines we assume this day for the next six weeks are catered to our own journeys, focusing on what we have discerned we personally need to right our own relationship with God.  When I confess, I am struck by memories of grievances I have committed – images and feelings flashing before me as a particular set of words hits close to home.

But as I read Matthew’s convicting gospel this year, something brought me up short.  All those warnings Jesus makes, “Beware of practicing your piety before others…whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet…when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites…whenever you fast, do not look dismal…”, all of those warnings are not in the singular.  They are actually in the plural.[i]  So the words are more like, beware of practicing you all’s piety.  Or maybe in southern speak, “when ya’ll pray…” Jesus is not criticizing or singling out you or you or me.  Jesus is singling out the community of the faithful.

That may sound like semantics, but there is something quite dramatic about Jesus speaking in the plural versus the singular.  Every week in Sunday services, we confess our sins.  But we confess them communally.  Communal confession is an extraordinary event.  While we may feel lost or despondent about our inability to live in the light of Christ as individuals, when we communally confess, a room of voices is saying with you, “Me too!”

One of the things I grieved the most during the pandemic was our inability to gather in person.  I loved that we had and continue to have an online community – especially when people write things in the comments, greet one another, or meet Hickory Neck for the first time.  But our necessary isolation during the pandemic naturally led to a pattern of looking inward – sometimes so much so that we forgot we are not alone – that there is a whole community of faith who is walking this journey with us and struggling just as we are.  There is something quite powerful about listening to the voices of 7-year-old next to the 77-year-old – the person who looks so put together next to the person who is clearly struggling – the dad with children next to the widow – all confessing together.  Week in and week out, those myriad voices remind us we are not alone.

Tonight’s service very much calls us into reflection and repentance.  But our invitation tonight as we enter Lent is to remember that the act of reconciliation and redemption does not happen alone.  We all are invited into a holy Lent.  We all are invited into prayer, fasting, and alms giving.  We all are invited to remember we are dust.  In person, online, and hybrid together, we are not invited into solo, parallel journeys.  Our journeys are strengthened and made possible through the companionship of community.  You are not alone.  We are in this together.  And Jesus lights the way for us all.  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, as described on the podcast, “Sermon Brainwave:  #889: Ash Wednesday – February 22, 2023,” February 17, 2023, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/889-ash-wednesday-february-22-2023 on February 20, 2023.

Sermon – Matthew 17.1-9, LEP, YA, February 19, 2023

01 Wednesday Mar 2023

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Historically, Lent has been my favorite season of the Church year.  I know to many people they enter Lent with a feeling a dread:  everything feels more somber, the music seems, to quote an unnamed choir member, dour, and the defeat of the cross looms large, literally shrouded in black the whole season.  But for me, those are the very things that make Lent so rich.  I love an intentional time of reflection, I enjoy music that speaks to the mourning of our souls, and I appreciate how the starkness of Lent feels like an honest mirror, reflecting the starkness of our humanity.  There is a physicality to Lent that feels authentic and important to a sincere spiritual journey.

Despite how that has been historically true for my own journey, this year, I find myself grudgingly walking toward Lent instead of purposefully and gratefully entering Lent.  Perhaps after many years of pandemic living I have had my fill reflecting on sinfulness and suffering.  Or maybe my excitement about our mutual sabbatical has me itching to get started on the joy instead of journeying through the work.  Or maybe there is self-work I have been avoiding, and I am not thrilled the Church year is taking me to task.  Whatever is happening, I find myself wanting to linger in Epiphany, to team up with Peter and make some dwellings for all the goodness that has been revealed to us since Christmas.  I find Peter’s words, “Lord, it is good for us to be here…” echoing in my ears as a plea for basking in the warmth of the transfigured Jesus for just a while longer.

In the Gospel lesson from Matthew today, when Jesus appears before the disciples with Moses and Elijah, in clothing dazzling white, Peter’s impulse in many ways indicates how Peter “…’gets it.’  He discerns the presence of God is there and seems to be making an attempt to rise to the occasion.”[i]  And as scholar Debie Thomas concludes, “Peter is absolutely right.  It is good to set aside times and places for contemplation.  It is good to gaze upon Jesus, whenever and however he reveals himself to us.  It is good to move out of our comfort zones and confront the Otherness of the divine.”[ii]  Who among us has not been an amazing retreat, had a powerful moment through music, or literally been on a mountaintop and felt a holy connection to God like nothing else?  We too have wanted to not just to linger a little longer, but maybe build some dwelling places to stay for a long while.

But as Debie Thomas also reminds us, “….it’s not good to fixate on the sublime so much that we desecrate the mundane.”[iii]  I remember many years ago reading The Quotidian Mysteries by Kathleen Norris.  In her book, she describes her journey to find the sacred in the mundane:  in folding laundry, washing dishes, even cleaning up the altar after church.  For the longest, she resented that work, especially knowing how often women are regulated to this mundane work.  And yet, slowly, she began to discover what Peter discovers today:  that no matter how glorious those mountaintop experiences are, they are not the fullness of experiences with the sacred.  As one scholar explains, “In this story the ascent to the heights of the mountain and ‘peak’ experiences of encounter with God is followed by descent into suffering and service in the valley of need where God’s calling beckons.  Ascent and descent are inextricably bound for the followers of Jesus, just as they were for him.”[iv]

If you are feeling a bit of dread about Lent this year too, there is hope in the text for all of us.  As the disciples are cowering in fear, Jesus does something incredibly mundane.  Jesus touches the disciples, whispering words about not being afraid.  Stanley Hauerwas tells us, “Jesus’ touch is significant.  By touching them Jesus reminds them that the very one who is declared by a voice from heaven to be the Son is flesh and blood.  In this man heaven and earth are joined”[v]  But also in that touch, we are reminded that although mountaintop experiences hold a significance in our hearts, our work is really about “…finding Jesus in the rhythms and routines of the everyday.  In the loving touch of a friend.  In the human voices that say, ‘Don’t be afraid.’  In the unspectacular business of discipleship, prayer, service, and solitude.  In the unending challenge to love my neighbor as myself.”[vi] 

By all means, take this last Sunday in Epiphany to enjoy the spectacular:  the music with drama and flare, the stories of otherworldliness, the excitement of intimacy with glory.  Celebrate and enjoy the spectacular today.  And, know that your invitation today is also to relish the unspectacular.  Our lives are spent in the valley between the mount of transfiguration and the mount of Calvary:  the valley where Jesus walks with us, helping us see the spectacular in the mundane.  If you are feeling unsteady, remember Jesus’ hand is on your shoulder – either metaphorically or through the touch of someone else with you in the valley.  This week, Hickory Neck joins together down this mountain and into the valley of Lent.  Maybe the valley won’t be so mundane if we walk together.  Amen.

[i] Anna Case-Winters, Matthew.  Belief:  A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), 213.

[ii] Debie Thomas, Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, Oregon:  Cascade Books, 2022), 111.

[iii] Thomas, 112.

[iv] Case-Winters, 215.

[v] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 155.

[vi] Thomas, 112.

Sermon – Matthew 5.21-37, Sirach 15.15-20, EP6, YA, February 12, 2023

15 Wednesday Feb 2023

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As a teenager, in my rural southern United Methodist Church, our Sunday School class each week was an in-depth Bible Study of some book of the Bible.  I have a distinct memory of one particular class where a condemning text arose about divorce.  My Sunday School teacher herself was divorced and was happily and healthily remarried.  I remember being aghast and indignant about the text, questioning my teacher about how divorce could be seen in such a condemning way, holding in my mind how beautiful my teacher’s current marriage was.  Her response to me was a defeated admission of judgement for herself and her husband that would not be remedied.

Once upon a time, I might have told you that faulty biblical interpretation like this is what drove me from the Methodist church to the Episcopal Church.  But the truth is, there have been many a times when Episcopalians do not fare much better.  When confronted with gospel lessons like we have today from Matthew, most Episcopalians are more likely to either brush hard texts under the rug, or minimize and point you to something shiny, like “It’s all about love, so don’t worry about that pesky Biblical passage.” 

Instead, today I invite us to acknowledge that Jesus’ words in Matthew’s gospel are hard.  When Jesus tells us we cannot approach the altar without being reconciled in our broken relationships, or that our natural urges are so destructive we should gouge out our eyes, or that divorcing or lying are gravely dangerous offenses, we get nervous and even defensive.  Where is that Jesus of love we like so much?  Is not this a place where we claim all are welcome?

In order to understand scripture today – in a way that is neither defeatistly resigned nor superficially glossed over – the discomfort we may be feeling today is actually a good thing.  The first thing you need to know about Jesus is that he was a skilled rhetorician.  Much of what you hear today about ripping eyes out and cutting off hands are used not literally, but figuratively to point to something very important:  the central importance of relationships in the community of the faithful.[i]  Jesus wants to shock and provoke, to unsettle and destabilize, because he wants to invite a reorientation.[ii]  I find theologian Stanley Hauerwas’ explanation the most helpful.  He argues, “Jesus does not imply that we are to be free of either anger or lust; that is, he assumes that we are bodily beings.  Rather he offers us membership in a community in which our bodies are formed in service to God and for one another so that our anger and our lust are transformed…Jesus is not recommending that we will our way free of lust and anger, but rather he is offering us membership in a people that is so compelling we are not invited to dwell on ourselves or our sinfulness…If we are a people committed to peace in a world of war, if we are a people committed to faithfulness in a world of distrust, then we will be consumed by a way to live that offers freedom from being dominated by anger or lust.”[iii]

Now I can tell you about how progressive Jesus words are about divorce since women were socially and economically marginalized by divorce at the time,[iv] or I could address anger, lying, or lust.  But all of these four vignettes are meant to point our attention not to the salacious nature of Jesus’ words, but what Jesus is trying to do for us.  Being a part of Hickory Neck or the wider body of Christ means our bodies are part of Christ’s body – that, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer suggests, we are so in communion with Jesus’ body that our infidelity is not just a sin against our own body, but against Jesus’ body.[v]  We come here not just to reassure our own selves, and to find restoration for our souls, but also to be a part of something bigger.  To become disciples, finding a purpose much bigger than our naturally self-centered ways, means becoming part of the larger body of Christ – a body that mends broken relationships, restores others to wholeness, and values the dignity of every human being.

The good news is that you do not join that body of discipleship alone.  Everyone of us here is on the journey to being a different kind of human than the outside world would have us be.  In fact, the reason we do this work together is we are better together than we ever could be on our own.  We hold each other accountable, we keep working on reconciliation when we fail, we offer grace and love in our very humanness.  The choice is ours.  As Sirach aptly describes today, the choice is always before us – the choice of life or death, of fire or water.  Our invitation today is to choose relationship – to choose the life of discipleship that joins us to the body of Christ, that roots us in the love of Christ, and enables our work of light in the world.  We cannot do the work alone.  Our invitation is to choose the love and light of Christ that we find his body, the Church, and in the relationships we find here.  Amen. 

[i] Ronald J. Allen, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 359.

[ii] Anna Case-Winters, Matthew.  Belief:  A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), 84.

[iii] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006),  69.

[iv] Case-Winters, 81.

[v] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as referenced by Hauerwas, 70.