Sermon – Luke 15.1-10, P19, YC, September 11, 2022

05 Wednesday Oct 2022

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Today is an interesting day for Hickory Neck.  Unofficially, this is our Kickoff Sunday.  Sunday School starts up today, the Nursery reopens for the first time since the pandemic began, we are blessing bags for those who want a good start to the school year (or maybe a good post-summer start for work), our Choral Scholars are back from summer break, and our festive Community Picnic is this afternoon.  And some of us are making our way back to church after summer adventures – or even after a long hiatus caused by the pandemic.  All of this is an occasion for great joy.  But amid all this scheduled and experienced celebration is a shadow.  We cannot look at today’s date without thinking of what September 11 will always mean to our country.  We have been mourning this week the loss of the long reign of a faithful, graceful, exemplary, though like us all, flawed, Queen.  And we are ever in the shadow of political divisions, racism, and violence. 

But scripture tells us today that joy is always a bit countercultural.  We are told right at the beginning of today’s Gospel, as Jesus is at table fellowship with both insiders and outsiders, tax collectors and Pharisees, sinners and scribes – certainly an occasion for inclusive joy – there is grumbling.  Despite Jesus’ invitation into joy, there is tension about who is in and who is out, and what proper faithful living should be like.  As I have read and reread this text, I have wondered where we find ourselves:  from whose perspective are we to read this text?  Are we tax collectors and sinners who have been welcomed to the table?  Are we faithful followers who are grumbling and stingy with God’s grace?  Are we sheep owners and coin holders who have lost things entrusted to us?  Are we sheep or coins who are left alone so that another one can be saved?  Are we lost in our faith journey?

As many of you may know, Hickory Neck finds itself in an interesting time and place too.  Unlike some churches, we found the pandemic to be an incredible time of growth.  I remember seeing and meeting many new faces during the last two and a half years.  Initially I was concerned about our newcomers because they were meeting Hickory Neck at this strange in-between time.  I could not introduce them to someone who had been here for many years because many of those members were staying home out of fear for their health and safety.   They could not see the fullness of our programming, our ministries, or even our welcoming coffee hours.  And yet, slowly but surely, despite the absence of those things, our newcomers ceased to be newcomers and became beloved members of our church.  Meanwhile, after about a year or two, many of our long-timers began to return to in-person gatherings and suddenly realized the room was full of people they did not know.  We were two communities of people, both fully the body of Hickory Neck, and yet, we were not yet one body. 

What has slowly been revealed is how astounding this new reality is.  Despite a long physical absence, and despite not being able to see the “stuff” of our community, somehow, the core values of Hickory Neck remained and allowed all of us to blossom into this new thing.  Hickory Neck has always been a place of our four core values:  of Hospitality, of Nurture, of Evangelism, and of Creativity.  That core identity has attracted a new community of the faithful, has sustained a continuing community of the faithful, and continues to reach our online community of the faithful, showing us that no matter what the world is throwing at us, Hickory Neck’s life, ministry, and witness is so compelling that we are thriving and responding to the movement of the Holy Spirit.  And if that is not cause for joy, I don’t know what is!

Now I know these two parables talk about repentance of sinners.  And we can talk about our need for repentance another time.  Even scholars confess that sheep and coins are incapable of repentance.[i]  But what Professor Charles Cousar reminds us is these parables are not meant “to call sinners to repentance, but to invite the righteous to join the celebration.”[ii]  I know there is a lot weighing us down in the world, things we mourn happening to us and things for which we have cause for repentance.  But today, I invite you into joy.  Joy for all the goodness that is in your life right now – however big or small.  Joy for all the surprising blessings we have experienced in the last two and half years.  Joy in the life and vitality of this Church that we call home.  The words from Jesus are clear today, “Rejoice with me!” – today, tomorrow, and for all the days to come!  Amen.

[i] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus:  The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York:  Harper Collins, 2014), 36.

[ii] Charles B. Cousar, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 73.

Sermon – Isaiah 58.9b-14, P16, YC, August 21, 2022

05 Wednesday Oct 2022

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Last night, we baptized Becky Breshears in the waters of the Chickahominy River.  When most of us think of baptism, we imagine the baptism of an infant or child, someone for whom godparents make promises to raise in the life of the faith, much like we did with baby Olivia a few weeks ago.  The sacrament of baptism for a child is certainly considered being fully initiated into the family of Christ, but we make pronouncements and promises on behalf of the baptized.  And as the baptized grows up, we continue to shepherd and guide her, answer her questions, and help her claim her faith as her own.  There is an endearing, almost romantic, notion to baptism, full of idealism and hope. 

At least, that seems to be true in Episcopal Churches, where we quite primly and gently pour water from beautiful fonts over the heads of babies – the messiest part being if the water accidently runs into the baby’s eyes.  Of course, adult baptism is totally normal in our tradition too, we just do not do adult baptism as frequently.  When we do adult baptism, we become much more like other denominations, who have always understood baptism to be a mature proclamation of one’s own faith.  In some ways an adult baptism is more exciting because an adult baptism is not about something we hope and pray will develop into a faithful life, but adult baptism is the fully developed proclamation now – a set of pronouncements and promises on one’s own behalf.  An adult baptism is bold, dramatic, and, especially in instances like last night, much messier!

But adult baptism, especially in the Episcopal Church, are not about proclaiming one has her faith life all figured out – that she has some sense of earned clarity and certainty that has led her to baptism, as if baptism is the end of a journey of discernment.  Quite the opposite; baptism is a beginning for Episcopalians.  The baptized does not proclaim she knows all there is to know about faith and salvation.  Instead, the baptized claims that she is starting a new journey with Jesus, with a community of faith who walks with her.  And part of the act of baptism is giving the newly baptized tools to walk that journey.

That’s why I love the lesson from Isaiah today.  Instead of scripture capturing a moment (like a baptism), scripture today tells us what the baptized journey will be like.  Isaiah describes five things that are critical to the life of baptism.  First, the faithful will “remove the yoke from among you” – or in modern language, be an agent of economic liberation for the oppressed, not taking advantage of others.  Second, the faithful will refrain from “pointing the finger,” or take responsibility for one’s own actions, not accusing others but acting to change the self.  Third, the faithful will “refrain from speaking evil,” because “speech, when it is careless or deceitful, can be destructive and injurious.”[i]  Our words have power and are to be used for good.  Fourth, the faithful are to “offer food to the hungry.”  The life of the faithful is a life of self-sacrifice and sharing what we have learned to call our own.  And finally, we are to “satisfy the needs of the afflicted” – not just helping others or solving their problems but letting the disadvantaged “define their own needs and letting them set the criteria for deciding whether our help is effective.”[ii]

What the prophet Isaiah tells us is that as the faithful, we structure our lives differently than the secular, self-interested world might have us live.  That includes honoring even the sabbath – this holy day, not as just a day to go to church (though I hope you all will regularly – either in person or online), but also to be a day of honoring God through letting go of the self and focusing on the Lord and on the cares of those in need.   That’s why in our gospel lesson Jesus’ actions of healing others on the sabbath is so controversial – because Jesus reminds us the sabbath is a day of selflessness, healing, and giving glory to God.

Last night, Becky committed herself to that life, and we, as fellow baptized recommit ourselves this very day, to a life lived differently – a life lived in the light of Christ.  The prophet Isaiah tells us that when we live faithful lives, our light shall rise in the darkness, the Lord will guide us continually, will satisfy our needs in parched places, make our bones strong, and we shall be like a watered garden – a spring – whose waters never fail.  We shall be repairers of the breach, restorers of the streets to live in. 

Earlier I used the language of self-sacrifice.  What the Holy Spirit does in baptism and what the Church tries to continue to do on every sabbath is relocate the self from the center of our universe and place us firmly within a community of faith who cares for one another while placing God in the center of our universe.  When we take that step in baptism or renew the step our parents took for us, and in gathering in weekly worship (whether gathering in person or gathering virtually), we commit not to having this faith thing figured out – but just that we want to live a life where our parched places are always quenched through the living waters of baptism, and where our lives become bigger than they have ever been – where our lives shine the light of Christ in the darkness.  Amen.

[i] Jon L. Berquist, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3, Supplement for P16 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 4.

[ii] Berquist, 4.

Sermon – Lk 11.1-13, P12, YC, July 24, 2010

05 Wednesday Oct 2022

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The single most common topic I have been asked about in the course of my ministry, year in and year out, through crisis, through joys, through transitions, and change, young and old have approached me asking for one thing:  teach me how to pray.  The request is simple, yet complicated all at the same time.  You see, when someone asks me how they can pray a reel begins in my mind, flashing all the experiences of prayer I have seen in my lifetime:  the healing prayers that splayed someone to the ground in the Pentecostal church of my early childhood; the United Methodist prayers spoken extemporaneously from the heart; the hippy campus minister who always started prayer with silence so long you wondered if he had fallen asleep; the prayers written to accompany the prayer beads my fingers strung together; the stiff Episcopal collects that seem at the same time formulaic and beautiful; saying the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish, trying to keep up with the native speakers; silent prayers in the middle of the night as I seethed in my anger at God, with no words left; praying into a telephone that doubled as a speaker in the retirement home’s dining room; resorting to digital Pop-Up Prayers when a pandemic forced us into isolation.  When asked, “teach me to pray,” where can I possibly begin?!?

When the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray, Jesus’ mind seems to be all over the place too.  Jesus begins his lesson with the actual text of the Lord’s Prayer.  Jesus says, “When you pray, say this…”  But Jesus does not stop his lesson there.  Jesus goes on to teach the disciples through three small vignettes. 

In the first vignette, the disciples hear about the man who refuses his friend bread in the middle of the night because he has already gone to bed.  The disciples learn through this funny battle of wills that their posture in prayer is to be persistently inquiring.  In fact, the word used in our translation today for “persistent” is also translated by some scholars as “shamelessness.” [i]  In the second vignette, the disciples are told in the instruction to ask, seek, and knock that God responds to their inquiries.  They learn here that their posture in prayer is a posture of action.  Prayer is to express their need to God, to search out God when they feel abandoned, and to cry out to God with a loud knock.  The final vignette compares the care of a parent with the care of God for the disciples.  The disciples learn that God’s love for them is greater than the instinctual, caring love of a parent for a child.  The disciples experience that abundance when they enter into a prayerful relationship with God. 

A vulnerable, active, abundant relationship with God sounds wonderful and easy enough.  The problem is the relationship Jesus describes is not easy.  We find it difficult to be continuously vulnerable, active, and overwhelmed by God in prayer.  In fact, we find simply remaining in prayer with God difficult.  When I was in seminary, I had a group of lay persons from my field education parish who met with me once a month to help me reflect on my ministry at the church.  One of my committee members, Joe, was notorious for keeping me on the spot in these meetings.  “So, Jennifer, how is your prayer life?” Joe would always ask me.  The first time he asked me that question, I stammered through some sort of reply about corporate and individual prayer.  But Joe wanted to know the specifics of what my prayer life entailed.  Joe’s monthly prodding was the first real experience I had with accountability in my prayer life.  Finally, after about a year of asking me about my prayer life, I asked Joe about his prayer life.  Joe explained that the reason he always asked me about my prayer life was because he struggled with his own prayer life.  His pushing me was a way of also pushing himself.  He knew that if I struggled to keep an engaged prayer life, he could gain some camaraderie in his own struggle; and if I was feeling particularly connected to God in prayer, he would be challenged to engage God with more intentionality.

The mutual support that Joe was unknowingly creating is the promise of our Gospel lesson today.  First Jesus gives the disciples words:  the Lord’s Prayer.  Once they own those words, they have an assuring entry into dialogue with God.  And once the disciples have that entry, they are assured of God’s presence in the prayer relationship.  God is the faithful friend, who gets up in the middle of the night to answer prayer.  God is the responding God who will answer, be present, and open doors through the prayer relationship.  God is the parent that our parents can never fully be because God’s love is more abundant than the disciples, as humans, can ever be.  Jesus does not promise that God will respond to the disciples’ prayers in a particular or specific way.  The disciples are not promised riches or earthly gain through a life in prayer.  But Jesus does promise that God will respond, will stay present with the disciples, and will love the disciples abundantly. 

Despite all the modes of prayer I have witnessed over time, perhaps the best advice is to start where Jesus does with the words of the Lord’s Prayer.  Jesus affirms for us today that if all you can pray is the Lord’s Prayer, then pray the Lord’s Prayer.  The vehicle of the Lord’s Prayer has the power to take us to that point of vulnerability with God.  The vehicle of the Lord’s Prayer has the power to push us to action, seeking God by asking for those basic needs, knowing that God provides beyond those needs.  The vehicle of the Lord’s Prayer has the power to remind us of the abundance we already experience – of daily food, of forgiveness of sins, of salvation.  Jesus’ words for you today are words of encouragement.  Your relationship through prayer with God is going to require you to be vulnerable and to engage, but your relationship through prayer with God will be marked with abundance.  And if you feel overwhelmed by that promise, then start today with these words, “Our Father, hallowed be your name…”  Amen.

[i] James A. Wallace, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 291.

Sermon – Luke 10.38-42, P11, YC, July 17, 2022

05 Wednesday Oct 2022

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Sean is the primary income earner for his family, and his wife cares for their two small children.  Sean came home after a long day at work to find the house in utter chaos.  Out of exhaustion and disappointment, he asked his wife what she had been doing all day.  She curtly responded, “Keeping our children alive.”  Sean, properly chided, went to the kitchen to start making dinner.  Hannah had been sitting in the staff meeting listening to her supervisor being praised for the success of the PR event last week.  She had put in hours on that event, and her supervisor did not mention her creative and physical input at all during the meeting.  Susan complained to a fellow co-worker on the way back to her office, rolling her eyes about how self-centered her supervisor can be.  That afternoon, her supervisor sent her an email that apologized for not mentioning her name at the staff meeting; he had been distracted by a death in the family.  Sam had been working at the Habitat construction site for a couple of months, and rarely saw the homeowner who was supposed to be putting sweat equity hours into her home.  One day, Sam complained to the site supervisor about how the homeowner must be falling behind on her sweat equity hours.  The site supervisor explained that the homeowner had a rare disease the prevented her from doing physical labor, so she had been doing her hours in the Habitat office.  In fact, the supervisor had heard that she had been so productive, that the office staff was struggling to find enough work for her to do. 

Just like Sam, Hannah, and Sean, holy scripture today is going to, as pop singer Lizzo would say, get us into our feelings.  I am not sure if Martha and Mary’s story gets me into my feelings because the story involves women arguing about stereotypical gender roles, or if Jesus’ lack of support and criticism of Martha is so biting, or if I just see too much of myself in Martha, but this story puts all my defenses on high alert.  If Martha and Mary’s story today has you similarly anxious, uncomfortable, or defensive, do me a favor and take a deep breath. 

Starting with the text will help.  On the surface, this is a story about an older sibling, Martha, taking on all the household work while the younger sister, Mary, sits with Jesus, enjoying the luxury of learning from Jesus while Martha does all the work.  But in verse 40, the translation we have says Martha is distracted by her many tasks.  Now according to scholars, the Greek translation actually says something more like, “Martha is ‘distracted by much ministry.’”[i]  This is not a critique of stereotypically gendered work women must do.  Martha is not just distracted by preparing food, cleaning the house, and making beds for disciples.  Martha is doing the sacred, faithful work of hospitality – a crucial act of ministry.  Later, Jesus says Martha is “worried and distracted by many things…”  Here, the Greek word for “worry” is “‘strangle’ or ‘seize by the throat’ and ‘tear.’  The root meaning of the word ‘distraction’ is a dragging apart of something that should be whole.  These are [two] violent words.  Words that wound and fracture.  States of mind that render us incoherent, divided, and un-whole.”[ii]

Now let’s take another breath.  This story is not about who is the better sibling, whether women’s work is inferior to men’s work, or even about judgment of identity for us Marthas in the room.  This is a story about how all of us have ministries – ministries of discipleship that involve learning and action, of studying the Word and showing Christian hospitality to strangers, of speeding up and slowing down.  What Jesus is really concerned about is our intention around our discipleship.  The question is not if we are doing God’s work, but how we are doing God’s work.[iii]  According to Debie Thomas, Martha is in “such a state of fragmentation, a condition in which she cannot enjoy [Jesus’] company, savor his presence, find inspiration in her work, receive anything he wishes to offer her, or show him genuine love.  Instead, all she can do is question his love…fixate on herself…, and triangulate.”  Martha seems to think she can “invite Jesus into her life – and then carry on with that life as usual, maintaining control, privileging her own priorities, and clinging to her long-cherished agendas and schedules.”  And unfortunately, “That’s not how discipleship works.”[iv]

Perhaps after we have taken one last long breath, we can let go of our feelings and start to ask some questions.  How are we approaching our ministry these days?  Are we so wrapped up in our assumptions about other people’s behaviors that we have forgotten to look at our own?  Have we invited Jesus into our lives, but only under our own set of requirements and strictures?  After we have gotten into our feelings, Martha, Mary, and Jesus invite us today to take that breath and refocus[v].  Maybe we need to take some more time at Jesus’ feet, praying, reading scripture, coming to church, or joining something like Faith and Film.  Maybe we need to look at those dinner plates as an invitation to prayer, holding dear the bodies that will be fed by our labor.  Maybe we need step out of our controlled kitchens and go serve up a meal at Meals on Wheels or at From His Hands.  Jesus graciously handles our feelings every day.  But Jesus also knows that when we start looking at how we are doing our ministries, the real, life-giving, whole-making discipleship will come.  Amen.

[i] Amy-Jill Levine and Ben Witherington, III, The Gospel of Luke: New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2018), 297.

[ii] Debie Thomas, Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, Oregon:  Cascade Books, 2022), 51.

[iii] Matthew L. Skinner, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C., Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 265 and 267.

[iv] Thomas, 51.

[v] James A. Wallace, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C., Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 265.

Sermon – Luke 9.51-62, P8, YC, June 26, 2022

05 Wednesday Oct 2022

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This past week Simone and I visited the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta.  One section that caught our attention was about the Freedom Riders.  There is a wall of mugshots of those Freedom Riders who were arrested.  We began talking about why white people were riding buses down to the South, especially noting how many of those pictured were white male priests.  Then came the question, “Would you have ridden down as a priest?”  I have been pondering that question ever since.  Echoing in my mind was the recording of a woman’s voice who said something like, “I was excited about the cause and rode down with the others.  But when I saw those beaten and almost burned to death, I realized I could die.  I was so afraid.”  As her words brought home the reality of those Riders, I looked at the words right in front of me from Martin Luther King, Jr., written on the back of a bus seat, “No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.” 

In our gospel lesson today, Luke tells us Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem.  These may seem like throw-away words, but they are at the crux of the entire tumultuous reading today.  In setting his face to Jerusalem, Jesus knows that he will die and, as brother Martin says, what he is dying for.  All the nonsense of everyday life fades away, and Jesus is alive, knowing he will die and why that death must come.  And so, when the Samaritans refuse to receive Jesus, Jesus turns and goes to another village – despite John and James thinking they should call down fire upon the offending Samaritans.  When others ask to follow him, Jesus tells them they will face rejection, the loss of a sense of home, even the privileges of tending to the sacred parts of life, like burying and caring for loved ones.  There is a cold-hearted laser focus that comes to knowing what you would die for.

Jesus’ followers are not to be blamed.  John and James are suddenly violent.  They have just seen Elijah on the mountain of the Transfiguration.  Elijah himself rained down fire upon those who rejected the Lord.  And the potential followers of Jesus are not off-base either.  That same Elijah, when asked in our Hebrew Scripture reading today if Elisha can kiss his father and mother goodbye, gives Elisha permission and waits for him to settle his affairs.[i]  Even without biblical precedence, these are normal human emotions.  When someone rejects me, my Savior, and everything I believe in, anger and even retaliation is a human reaction.  When I agree to sacrifice everything for Jesus, closure with family and a healthy parting is a normal human desire. 

But that’s the thing about following Jesus.  Jesus invites us out of the id part of our brain and into the super-ego.  The question becomes for us how we can manage to do that.  I go back to that quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.  “No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.”  Jesus knew what he would die for.  To phrase that differently, Jesus knew for whom he would die.  As scholar David Lose says, there is a “single-mindedness of purpose that is prompted by God’s profound love for humanity and all the world…This emphasis on God’s all-encompassing love is highlighted in these passages by the rejection of violence against the Samaritans:  it is not simply contrary to Jesus’ vision but incompatible with his very identity and mission…Everything,” Lose argues, “friendship, familial connections, piety, discipleship – looks different when viewed through the lens of God’s sacrificial love.”[ii]

This week our US Congress and our US Supreme Court released some decisions that had some dancing with glee in support, and some who are ready to rain down fire.  And those opposing views are likely both in this room, maybe sitting beside you, certainly watching with you online, and very soon to be kneeling at this very altar with you.  I can guarantee that each of you holding opposing opinions believe that your opinion is the right one.  We can either sit here, or watch this space virtually, and begin raining down fire upon one another until we burn up all of us.  Or, we can remember to turn our faces to Jerusalem, to take on the single-mindedness of purpose that is prompted by God’s profound love for humanity and all the world.  We need to do that in this space because unless we can figure out how to make a way through division while being rooted in the profound love that is in this place, we will never be able to go out into the world and navigate friendship, familial connections, piety, discipleship through the lens of God’s love. 

This is our space, right next to the people we may have been vilifying as “them” this week, where we can find the single-mindedness of purpose that is prompted by God’s profound love for humanity and all the world.  This is the place where we can come alive because we know what we’d be willing to die for.  This is the place where Jesus can prepare you to go back out into the world with new lenses, provided by the people sitting beside you, who will help you see how to live in the world through love.  Amen.

[i] Amy-Jill Levin and Ben Witherington, III, The Gospel of Luke:  New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2018), 271.

[ii] David J. Lose, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 195.

Sermon – Luke 8.26-39, P7, YC, June 19, 2022

05 Wednesday Oct 2022

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Today we will be commissioning five of our members into a new program at Hickory Neck called Stephen Ministry.  These individuals have gone through six months of training, with over 50 hours of class time, homework, and practice preparing for this new role.  Stephen Ministry uses the tagline, “Christ caring for people through people.” The idea is that a parishioner going through crisis or a major transition can be assigned a trained Stephen Minister, a person who will meet with them regularly for a season to offer support, care, and listening ear.  The Stephen Minister does not solve issues, but is a companion on the journey.  Care receivers may be looking for this confidential support through an illness, the death of a loved one, divorce or a job loss, or any number of painful life experiences.  The Stephen Minister walks with us, prays with us, listens and hears us, reminding us that we are all broken, and through Jesus we can be made whole.

I think that is why I love that we get the wonderfully bizarre story of the Gerasenes today.  The Gerasenes have become care providers of sorts, but in today’s lesson we learn they are scared.  They have developed a system for dealing with the possessed man of their village.  They know when to bind him and when to abandon him.  They know he is dangerous, and unclean, but they have figured out how to keep the town safe.  He is the identified patient of the town – the one who has the “real” problems.  By identifying the demoniac as the patient, no one else has to look at their own demons – the ways in which each of them are “vulnerable to forces that seek to take [them] over, to bind [their] mouths, to take away [their] true names, and to separate [them] from God and from each other.”[i]  So, when Jesus casts out the impossible demons, and sends them to their death through their herd of swine, and the townspeople find the demoniac healed, clothed, and sitting in his right mind at the feet of Jesus, they do not celebrate or thank God for healing.  Instead, they stand afraid of the power of God.  Now that the demoniac is healed, they are afraid this Jesus will see their demons or challenge their feigned health.  In response, they do not ask for an explanation, but ask Jesus to leave.  Their fear leads to paralysis.

To be fair, fear is a natural and sometimes necessary emotion.  Fear helps us develop a healthy sense of preservation.  Fear allows us to make necessarily cautious decisions.  Fear can keep us safe.  But fear can also lead to paralysis, and perhaps more importantly, to a lack of trust.  And when we are talking about God, a lack of trust evolving from fear gets us into trouble.  We start doubting the graciousness we know God intends for us.  We start avoiding the very work that will give us joy and fulfillment.  We start losing our sense of connection to God – who happily emboldens us when we allow God to do so. 

We see in the Gerasenes’ story the goodness that can happen when we work through our fear.  Despite the fact the townspeople are fearful of Jesus’ power, Jesus brings about healing anyway.  And knowing the people of Gerasene may continue to be fearful, Jesus has the former demoniac stay behind so he can testify to the salvific work of God.  As one scholar points out, “The story ends with Jesus commissioning the healed man to stay where he is and serve as the first missionary to his townspeople — the same townspeople who feared, shunned, trapped, and shackled him for years.”[ii]  Jesus does not scold, shun, or shame when he is asked to leave.  Jesus keeps holding out hope in the face of fear – Jesus holds hope that the townspeople might be healed like the demoniac is healed.  Jesus loves graciously and expects transformation in the face of hopeless fear.      

We commission lay ministers today who are more like the healed demoniac than the Gerasenes.  They have experienced brokenness and pain in their lives, and they stand in the light of Christ’s healing, ready to walk with us Gerasenes in our fear.  Maybe our fear is in acknowledging our brokenness, when we would much rather just ask Jesus to leave.  Maybe our fear is sharing our vulnerability, especially when we feel like we are coping “just fine, thank you very much.”  Or maybe our fear is the unknown path of what we may need to go through to get to healing, health, and wholeness.  If a man possessed with legions of demons can come out the other side whole and healed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, surely Jesus stands ready to handle whatever demons we have.  Whether we take a Stephen Minister along that journey with us, or we simply hear God longs to wash us with grace, kindness, compassion, and love, our invitation today is let go of all the scary brokenness around and in us.  Yes, letting go is scary.  But God shows us over and over again how when we let go of our fear, God is there with abundant, wonderful, powerful love.  And just in case we doubt that love, God offers us companions on the journey.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “Legion,” June 16, 2019, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2259-legion, on June 18, 2022.

[ii] Thomas.

Sermon – John 16.12-15, TS, YC, June 12, 2022

05 Wednesday Oct 2022

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When I was in seminary, I audited a class entitled, “Living Biblically:  Money, Sex, Power, Violence, and The Meaning of Life,” – perhaps the best title for a class ever.  The class spent the quarter studying Jesus’ words and actions for some clues.  Sadly, I did not leave the class with all the answers.  But the one thing that stuck with me from the class was this:  when looking for answers to “What would Jesus do?” you have to look at not only what Jesus says, but also what he does.  That may obvious, but what we slowly began to realize is that what Jesus says and what Jesus does are often opposites.  So, if you look at what Jesus says, you find some pretty harsh words about how to live life and who is to be judged.  But if you look at what Jesus does, you find him living a much more permissive and forgiving way.  We came to see Jesus as one with high standards, but a low threshold for forgiveness and grace. 

That is why I find our gospel lesson today so comforting.  Our lesson from John is part of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse – his last words during that Last Supper.  After a long discourse, Jesus finally utters these words today, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”  You can almost hear the frustration in his voice, as if he is saying, “I wish I could explain everything to you now fully, but I just can’t.”  Despite the sense of incompletion, Jesus promises something better than they could possibly imagine:  the Holy Spirit.  All of the things that they cannot understand now, all of the things Jesus cannot say, will be revealed to them through the Holy Spirit in the years to come.  Though Jesus will be physically absent from them, Jesus will be continually present with them through the Holy Spirit, revealing truth and perhaps even revealing what would Jesus do. 

What I find comforting about this passage is not simply the promise of God’s presence; what I find comforting is that truth is not locked away in some book or some person from two thousand years ago.  Truth is accessible here and now through the Holy Spirit.  We call our scriptures the Living Word because the Holy Spirit enlivens the Word and speaks truth to us, even today.  This is also why we still have the community of faith– because the Holy Spirit creates for us fresh encounters with the revelation of Jesus.[i]  Jesus knew that our changing circumstances would bring new questions and challenges that would require us to think afresh, perhaps even questions about money, sex, power, violence, and the meaning of life, and Jesus promises the Holy Spirit will help us. 

On this Trinity Sunday, I am grateful that we get this passage.  Although we just had a festive celebration of Pentecost with our festive red, the Church is not always great about talking about the Holy Spirit.  We have no problem with the Trinitarian combination “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” but the last “person” in that combination is a bit illusive for us.  I think the challenge is that we are a little bit afraid of the Holy Spirit.  We are afraid someone is going to start acting strangely and then claim they are slain in the Spirit.  We are afraid that “the movement of the Holy Spirit” is just code for the movement a particular person or group wants.  We are afraid our worship will become some seventies, hippie version of God to whom we cannot relate.  I know we are afraid, or at least uncomfortable, because I cannot remember the last Episcopalian who began a prayer addressing the Holy Spirit as opposed to God or Jesus.

But this is how I know that the Holy Spirit is still present among us, guiding us to all truth.  One of the primary areas I see the movement of the Holy Spirit is in the practice of preaching.  I always say somewhere between the preacher and the congregation is the Holy Spirit.  Preaching does not work without the Holy Spirit.  I cannot tell you the number of times I have sat down after preaching a sermon and thought the sermon was probably the worst I have ever preached.  But without fail, the sermons I think are the worst often receive positive feedback.  I also cannot tell you the number of times I have gotten into the pulpit with a specific message in mind, only to have a parishioner tell me later about how something I said was so meaningful to them – only I swear I never said what they think I said.  Somehow the Holy Spirit helps the preacher to glean truth, and the Holy Spirit helps the congregation to glean truth.  Those truths may not be the same truths, but they are truths that lead us closer to God – which is what Jesus promises in our gospel lesson.

Of course, revelation does not only come through preaching.  Revelation comes throughout our lives together.  The revelation of the Holy Spirit comes in that friend, coworker, or schoolmate who says something so profound that their words stick with you for weeks, and leads you into deeper prayer.  The revelation of the Holy Spirit comes in Bible Study or in an outreach activity when some experience leaves you with a profound sense of the holy in your life.  The revelation of the Holy Spirit comes in the mouths of our children, who say the most sacred and surprising things that open up new truth in unexpected ways. 

This is why we dedicate an entire Sunday to celebrating the Trinity.  Without the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, we would not experience our spiritual journey in the same way.  Perhaps we are not truly comfortable labeling the Holy Spirit in our lives or praying to the Holy Spirit, but that does not mean that the Holy Spirit is not present in our journey – making that journey possible in the first place.  We take today to celebrate the mysterious nature of all three persons who make up the one substance of the Trinity[ii] because only through this relational nature of the Trinity is our faith enlivened and truth revealed.  So today, your invitation is to figure out your invitation.  Perhaps your invitation is to pray with a person of the Trinity that you have been avoiding for a while.  Perhaps your invitation is to listen for the ways that the Holy Spirit is revealing truth to you.  Or perhaps your invitation is to see the movement of the Holy Spirit through others this week.  On this Trinity Sunday, there is no way of avoiding invitation.  The question is which invitation is for you?  Amen.

[i] Eugene C. Bay, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 46.

[ii] Philip Turner, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 44.

Sermon – Acts 2.1-21, PT, YC, June 5, 2022

05 Wednesday Oct 2022

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At Hickory Neck, one of our core values is creativity.  We have an openness to experimentation that has served us well throughout this pandemic.  You might have noticed our Acts reading today was a little different – allowing us to sample the idea of what it might have been like to hear the chorus of languages on that famous Pentecost Day.  In the past, we experimented a little differently – with all the languages at one time, so that a cacophony of noise filled this space.  I LOVED the experience every year.  However, some found the cacophony to be more an experience of noise as opposed to joyful noise.  So, we experimented again this year with another way to stimulate our imagination about this significant day in the life of the Church.

As I have been thinking about our experimentation with hearing today, I stumbled on the work of theologian Willie James Jennings.  Jennings argues about Pentecost, “…we must see more than a miracle of hearing.  …The miracles are not merely in ears.  They are also in mouths and in bodies.”[i]  Jennings argues that just as important as everyone hearing in their own tongues at Pentecost was the miracle of speaking in tongues.  Now I do not know how to recreate our Acts readings by randomly choosing five of you to spontaneously speak another language.  We’ll have to experiment with that next year.  But I am intrigued by why Jennings thinks the speaking is just as important as the hearing.  Jennings argues that when you can speak in the language of another group of people, you can “speak a people.”  He says, “God speaks people, fluently.  And God, with all the urgency that is with the Holy Spirit, wants the disciples of his only begotten Son to speak people fluently too.  This is the beginning of a revolution that the Spirit performs.”[ii]

During a year of volunteer AmeriCorps service, you learn to live a little differently.  I stayed in a campus ministry building on campus for free in exchange for cleaning and locking up the building every night.  I lived on a shoestring budget and managed to get by with support.  One day, I was sitting on the loading dock of the Food Bank where I was working next to older teenager, Jayden.  We had just done a lot of work with fresh produce.  He lived in a group home that was a frequent shopper at the Food Bank.  Together, we sat on the dock, sweaty and exhausted.  As our conversation meandered, we began to talk about our homes – him in the group home and me in the home that was also a job.  When I explained my arrangement to him (which I had admittedly resented sometimes – I mean who likes cleaning toilets and pest control?), he looked dreamily out into the sky in front of us and sighed, “I hope I can find a place like that someday.”  Now, Jayden did not speak a foreign language.  The Holy Spirit did not make another language burst out of my mouth.  But Jayden and I were from very different worlds – me a recent college graduate and him unsure of his fate after he aged out of the group home.  But sitting on that loading dock, the Holy Spirit allowed me to “speak a people” – to break down the walls of language so that we could sit as equals and ponder the wonder of God and express our deepest desires with vulnerability. 

Pentecost is an invitation for the Church to learn to speak a people.  Now that does not mean you need to go sign up for foreign language class – though that certainly would not hurt.  And that does not mean you need to go volunteer for a year – though that would not hurt either.  But what speaking a people means is finding ways to meet people where they are, hear their stories in their own “language,” and share the love of God that you have received so abundantly.  Speaking a people may also mean that you do not use your mouth as much as your body to show forth love and light. 

And just in case you are hearing this invitation today and thinking, “That sounds like the work preachers should be doing, or evangelicals are better at doing,” remember what happened at that festival of Pentecost.  The text tells us, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”  As scholar Karoline Lewis reminds us, the text says “all” of them.  Not some of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.  Just like John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit, and Mary was filled with the Spirit, and Elizabeth, and Zechariah, and Simeon.  All of them were filled.[iii]  And just in case you find yourself saying, “But those were famous people, a long, long time ago.  How can I do that?”  The answer is right there in verse four.  “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”  The Spirit will give you the ability to speak a people.  The Spirit will give you the ability to listen deeply and speak meaningfully.  The Spirit will make a way for those powerful, vulnerable moments of truth and love.  So, when you hear that dismissal today, “Let us go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit, alleluia, alleluia,” your answer can be an emphatic, “Thanks be to God, alleluia, alleluia!”  Amen.

[i] Willie James Jennings, Acts, Belief:  A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 29.

[ii] Jennings, 30.

[iii] Karoline Lewis, Sermon Brainwave:  #847: Day of Pentecost (C) – June 5, 2022, May 29, 2022, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/847-day-of-pentecost-c-june-5-2022 on June 2, 2022.

The Grace of Seasons…

01 Wednesday Jun 2022

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Photo credit: Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly. Reuse with permission.

I have been working on some continuing education classes for about a year and a half.  I just had a three week break and during that time was able to quickly read three fluffy novels.  The funny thing is, during that same time, I kept watching friends talk about the most recent book they were reading and feeling jealous, thinking, “I never have time to read!”  But I realized during this break between semesters that I will eventually have time and I do still love to read; this is just a season of life when my reading is a little limited to the academic variety. 

That realization got me thinking about seasons of life.  I remember a season with newborns when I did a ton of reading because I was hooked up to a breast pump for about 2 hours a day.  I remember a season before COVID when I traveled distances for meetings and was able to catch up on podcasts and phone calls, feeling more knowledgeable and caught up on the day’s news.  I remember multiple seasons of parenthood when I thought I would never survive something, only to look fondly upon that season later. 

Our faith journey can be a lot like that too.  We all have seasons – seasons when we feel a bit too busy for regular church attendance (thank goodness for those recorded livestreams!); seasons when everything is clicking and some piece of scripture we read totally connects with something happening in our life; and seasons when we are too angry, sad, or unsure to even engage God in prayer.  The nice thing is when we can recognize that we are in a season, we can remember the hard stuff will not last forever, and good stuff will change and shift into new and different good stuff. 

I do not know what kind of season you are in right now.  Maybe you are in a season of grief, of feeling a lack of control, or in a rut of what feels like failures.  Maybe you are in a season of new life, of exciting possibilities, of new opportunities.  Maybe you are in a season of stability and are hoping nothing rocks the boat.  I invite you to talk about that season with God.  Whether you need to curse the season, give thanks for the season, or plead for a new season, somehow just naming the experience of the season is enough to lift its power and help you see grace in it.  That is my prayer for you today.

Sermon – John 17.20-26, E7, YC, May 28, 2022

01 Wednesday Jun 2022

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On this last Sunday of Eastertide, we finally arrive at what is referred to as the High Priestly Prayer in John’s Gospel.  We have heard the stories about the empty tomb, Jesus’ appearances to the disciples, stories about how they are to be a people of love, and Jesus’ ascension into heaven.  As our final lesson, as is true for every seventh Sunday in Eastertide in the three-year lectionary cycle, we hear the final prayer Jesus says before his trial and crucifixion.  In this year’s section of the High Priestly Prayer, Jesus asks for one thing:  unity.  He prays the disciples and all the people who will become believers may be one.

As I have watched our country over the last week, we as Americans, and most definitely we as followers of Christ, have been showing anything BUT unity.  You would think a mass shooting of children would have brought us together.  And maybe for a moment, we were united in action – deep grief and despair at the loss of young life.  We all seem to be of one mind in one area only – that none of us wants our young school children to die.  But as soon as the tears subside and we open our mouths, any conversation about what our response should be sends us flying to opposite camps, no one staying in the same room to talk about a uniting action to protect life.

I have always been so very proud of the ways that Hickory Neck is a place where people of all political persuasions gather at a common table.  You only need to take a look around the bumper stickers in the parking lot to know we are not of one mind when talking politics.  But we are of one mind about Jesus – and so we sit next to people who likely voted for a different political candidate than we did, we pray next to people who go to opposite rallies than we do, and we kneel at the altar rail, rubbing elbows with someone who we, outside of church, might refer to as “those people.”  I cannot tell you the number of people who have asked me, “How in the world can you do that?  How do you even preach the gospel in such a diverse room?”  Usually my answer is pretty simple – we focus on what unites us – the one thing we all long for:  a place at the Table where all are welcome.

Now, I say that all that time, and usually people leave me alone about that answer.  But I think secretly, they are thinking, “Ok!  That sounds all well and good but just wait – there is no way you can keep up that ruse.  Something is going to give!”  And in many ways, they are right.  We live and witness in a precarious reality.  That’s why I think what Jesus does in this prayer today is so very important.  We often define “unity” as everyone being of the same mind.  But that is not what Jesus means in John’s gospel.  As scholar Karoline Lewis explains, “Their unity is not a made-up concept but is based on the unity between the Father and the Son.  Answering the question of what this unity looks like gives us the definition of what unity is.  For this Gospel, unity with God means making God known.  [Unity] means being the ‘I AM’ in the world.  [Unity] means knowing that, in the midst of all that would seek to undermine that unity, you are at the bosom of the Father.”[i]

So how can we be the “I AM” in the world?  What does being at the bosom of the Father look like when we all want to protect life but cannot seem to find a way forward?  Scholar Meda Stamper qualifies that unity comes through love.  She says, “This love clearly cannot depend on feelings of attraction, desire, affection or even liking.  [Love] is a behavior-shaping attitude toward the world, which is both a gift we cannot manufacture and a choice to live into the promises of that gift that is already given.  We cannot paste [love] onto ourselves.  Like branches of a vine, we live in something larger than ourselves, in which we are nurtured to bear fruit by the Spirit dwelling in us (about which we read in the Pentecost passage for next week).  But because we are more than vines, we also become more loving by choosing to follow Jesus’ model and teachings (13:14-15) about what love is: tending, feeding, bearing witness, and breaking barriers for love—societal barriers and also barriers we set up for ourselves, including some that we may think make us rightly religious but which do not make us loving.”[ii]

The way forward to be a people of unity through love starts here at Hickory Neck.  We certainly have taken the first step by assembling a group of people who are united in relationship with God even though we are not united in political persuasion.  But that is the tremendous blessing:  we have a place to start.  The only way we are ever going to make our way to the unity Jesus wants for us is to gather in our dis-unity and find a way forward through our relationships.  The reason we are facing a carbon copy of Sandy Hook ten years later is because we never sat down with people of a different mind about gun control.  We simply did what we always do – we divided into camps about the right solution, and then locked horns in a stalemate that led to little change.  Our gospel this Sunday invites us into a different way.  Our gospel invites us into true unity through our relationship with God and one another.  Only when we agree to not just rub elbows at the altar rail, but also rub elbows at houses of legislature will we find a way of tangibly witnessing the love of Jesus  – so that we are one as the Father and Son are one.  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014), 213.

[ii] Meda Stamper, “Commentary on John 17:20-26,” May 29, 2022, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/seventh-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-john-1720-26-5 on May 27, 2022.