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On Claiming Your Why…

05 Wednesday Nov 2025

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In one of my executive leadership courses we read about the “five whys.”  Developed within the Toyota Motor Corporation, the process is a problem-solving process meant to get to the deepest root causes of a problem by asking the simple question, “why?” repeatedly.  While this was intended for manufacturing processes, the “five whys” found its way into all industries as a way to help teams focus on the root of any situation. 

I have often said that at church, understanding your “why” is really important.  Using a system like the “five whys” to get to the root of a challenge before the Vestry, or a situation before the staff, or even to problem before lay leaders, discerning the real “why” before us helps us address the issue at hand at a deeper, much more relevant manner.

This autumn, our parishioners have been sharing their “whys” with our congregation about why supporting ministry at Hickory Neck Church is so important.  Through short video testimonies we have heard all kinds of whys, learned about the impact of ministries in our faith community, and been able to see the deeper meaning people are finding in our spiritual home.  Why would we want to know that?  Well, as we consider how we want to support the church with our time, talent, and treasure, knowing our whys helps us convert our giving from obligation to gratitude.  Once we understand our why more deeply – and the whys of fellow members – we begin to see the wideness of God’s mercy in this place, and begin to feel more committed to supporting this place that blesses us and others so richly.  Slowly, we see we are not being pressured to give, we are being invited into a vibrant, life-changing, purpose-making place that we can enable with the resources God has given us.

We’ve shared the case for Hickory Neck, we’ve heard from fellow parishioners, and now, we are invited to ask our “five whys” about this place we have come to call our spiritual home.  I look forward to hearing about the abundance and grace you find when you ask your “five whys” this week.  I suspect your whys might inspire my own!

On Finding Commonality and Church…

01 Wednesday Oct 2025

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Last weekend we took one of our daughters to her first concert.  It was not a band or even a genre of music I particularly like.  But she had been obsessing over every concert venue.  When the band came within an hour of our town, coupled with a big birthday this year, we couldn’t refuse.  So, off we went, playing chaperone to one of those fun life milestones.

While I cannot say that I came to fall in love with the band, what did not escape me was the beautiful experience of that night.  Feeling like a total outsider, I watched as everyone around me joined in commonality.  I watched as people belted out memorized lyrics, and they mimicked famous moves and gestures of the band, and as they shared excitement as each new song began.  I watched people who did not know each other exchange comradery and joy with total strangers.  I watched parents smile at the adulation of a younger generation.  I watched many disparate parts come together as one in that singular moment.

Now I would never claim that Church, especially a church in my denomination, has the same electric, communal energy as that night of raw, unfiltered passion caused by music, but I like to dream that some things like that night happen every Sunday.  We gather every Sunday as a disparate group too:  young parents, frazzled by life; retirees, finding their purpose in later life; singletons longing for a place of belonging; couples or families praying they are not alone in their experiences.  Those who are joyous, those who are grieving, those who are anxious, and those who are feeling good gather every week – not for a favorite band per se, but certainly for a favorite activity.  We gather to remember something bigger than ourselves as individuals, to ground ourselves in something better than what sometimes feels like the daily grind, to find oneness in the one bread and one cup.

Though I would never claim my church feels like going to a band’s concert, I do think Church offers a weekly dose of beauty, of commonality, of belonging, and of joyful purpose.  For those who are not regular church-goers, or even for those who have been hurt by the Church, I understand why you would keep your distance.  But when the Church is at her most Christ-like, the Church offers a weekly gift that might be a source of healing from all those hurts, isolations, and divisions of life.  If you ever want to give it a try, know that this community welcomes you here.

Sermon – I Timothy 6.6-19, Luke 16.19-31, P21, YC, September 28, 2025

01 Wednesday Oct 2025

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Parenting is probably the most difficult of the vocations God has given me – not simply because parenting can be physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting, or because of the heftiness of the responsibility of shaping decent human beings who will have an impact on the world, or because parenting forces you to justify every belief and value you hold.  Those alone would be daunting enough.  But parenting is also a difficult vocation because of the way parenting evolves:  from those early days of helping this creature learn the basics for survival, to those young days of helping children wonder and ask the big questions of life, to those middle days of clarifying family, faith, and individual values that will guide their behavior and choices, to those later days of gently reflecting on those ultimate things of life – of what really makes for a life of meaning and purpose.

In many ways, our scripture lessons lately have felt like listening to a parent trying to help us figure out what this whole life thing is all about.  On the surface, our lessons today are straight of central casting for a stewardship talk – we’ve really teed up the parishioner who will share his testimony today with everything he needs.  From Amos who foreshadows what will happen to those who spend their lives luxuriating in lavishness, as if luxuriating is an end in and of itself; to Paul’s letter to Timothy who warns how dangerous a love of money can be, distracting us from things of ultimate significance; to our gospel lesson which starkly depicts the eternal significance of how wealth can make us so blind to the needs of others that we condemn ourselves in the life beyond this life.  The lessons this week seem to serve up the ultimate stewardship sermon:  the place of money in our lives is so fraught with spiritual consequences, you should just give that money to the church so that you do not have to worry about a fate like those in our lessons today!

And while our budget for next year might appreciate such a lesson, much like parenting has varied phases, so does the church’s teaching of us.  The one line of all the weighty lessons on wealth from today that has been hovering in my mind comes from Paul’s first letter to Timothy.  In the last line of the portion of his letter we heard today, Paul says we “are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for [ourselves] the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that [we] may take hold of the life that really is life.”  So that we may take hold of the life that really is life.  The verb in the Greek translated as “take hold” is a not a gentle verb – taking hold is better translated as to grasp desperately.[i]  So we are to grasp desperately to the life that really is life. 

This is the phase of parenting where I find myself:  how do I teach my children what the “life that really is life” is?  In a world that very much feels like the passage from Amos, telling us that “life that really is life” is a life so comfortable you can set your goal as luxuriating in peace, or in a world that so values individualism that we are trained not to let our gaze linger on people like Lazarus or to even know their name for that matter, or in a world that seems to jump from one political controversy to the next, destabilizing our moral compass, how are we supposed to even know what the life that really is life is?

Award winning journalist Amy Frykholm, inspired by that simple phrase “the life that really is life,” traveled to a tiny city in southern Mexico, Fortín de las Flores, after reading Sonia Nazario’s book Enrique’s Journey.  The book details the story of a Honduran man trying to make his way into the United States by traveling on top of a freight train.  His story is not all that unique – the 20,000 residents of Fortín see people like him all the time.  What is unusual about Fortín is how they respond to these migrants.  Instead of responding with fear, or with self-protection, or even with a blind eye, the people of Fortín act as a place of mercy.  Actively making their way to the trains to deliver food, water, and supplies every day – food left over from their food trucks which are just barely making enough for their own families to survive, water poured into zipped baggies they can toss them to the tops of trains, and even sweatshirts or winter hats because they know that after the stop in Fortín, the migrants will face the brutal cold of a trip through mountains.  When journalist Frykholm asked them why they cared for these strangers, most of the residents just looked at her like she was asking a silly question.  A resident of Fortín who had lived in the United States understood her confusion.  He said, “‘The central value of this society is compartir,’ [the Spanish word for “sympathize”] …as he carried a bag of oranges toward a train that had briefly stopped not far from the hotel.  ‘Even a business is primarily a place from which to share.’”[ii] 

The wealth the rich man has in our gospel lesson is not bad in and of itself.  The wealthy man is not even an evil man – he does not actively do anything bad to people like Lazarus.  The danger in the wealthy man’s life is how he does not see,[iii] how he presumes his wealth is simply a blessing for him to enjoy from God.  Debie Thomas writes, “It has taken me a long time to recognize how insidious this notion of ‘blessing’ really is.  How contrary [the notion of blessing] is to Jesus’s teachings.  When I was growing up, no one ever told me that by locking human suffering out, I was locking myself in.  Locking myself into a life of superficiality, thin piety, and meaninglessness.  As our reading from [Paul’s letter to Timothy] puts it this week, the refusal to confront my own privilege, the refusal to bear the burdens of those who have less than me, is a refusal ‘to take hold of the life that really is life.’”[iv]

That is our invitation today – to desperately grasp on to the life that really is life.  Fortunately, scripture does not give us this hefty command like a parent sending out their grown child with one last bit of advice.  Paul wrote this letter not just to Timothy but to the community of faith.  Paul wrote this letter to the community of faith because Paul knew they could not grasp desperately to the life that really is life without some companions on the journey – without a village of people whose central value is compartir.  We gather with people every week because we need a community who can hold us accountable to our values and who can challenge us when loose track of what a life that really is life is.  Sometimes the community will do that by looking at us like we are asking a silly question; sometimes the community will do that by inviting us to be generous givers; and sometimes the community will do that by sitting us down to open up wisdom for us.  But mostly, the community will partner with us because each one of us is desperately trying to grasp onto that life that really is life too.  Together, we create our own little Fortín right here in Toano, witnessing with simplicity the life that really is life – together.  Amen.

[i] Stephanie Mar Smith, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Pres, 2010), 110.

[ii] Amy Frykholm, “Life That Really Is Life,” September 21, 2025, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/3969-life-that-really-is-life on September 26, 2025

[iii] Charles B. Cousar, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Pres, 2010), 119.

[iv] Debie Thomas, “The Great Chasm,” September 22, 2019, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/2374-the-great-chasm on September 26, 2025.

Sermon – Luke 14.25-33, P18, YC, September 7, 2025

10 Wednesday Sep 2025

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Having been born and raised in Georgia and North Carolina, saying living on Long Island was a culture shock would be an understatement.  But one of the things I came to love about living on Long Island was the directness of communication.  Now do not get me wrong, having been raised in the South, I know all too well that when your mom says, “You’re wearing that?” or your grandma says, “Don’t you want to wear lipstick?” or your friend says, “Well those new shoes are utilitarian,” they are not actually saying what they mean.  On Long Island things are much clearer.  Instead, you’ll be told, “Don’t wear that,” “Put on some lipstick; I’ll show you which one,” and “Those shoes are awful.”  The words always sting, but at least you know you what people think.

Today’s gospel has me convinced some of Jesus’ relatives were from Long Island.  In these short eight verses, Jesus says if we want to follow him, we will need to sell our possessions, carry our cross, and hate our parents, spouse, children, siblings, and even life itself.  I have to say, on this Kickoff Sunday, on the day we return to the fullness of Hickory Neck, and we feast and laugh and worship together, I could have used a little more southern-speak from Jesus today.  Jesus could have at least saved the hard sell for Stewardship season!

But as we start putting our calendars together for the fall, as our children sign up for the extracurricular activities, and as we think about what ministries we may want to try at Hickory Neck this fall, I suppose there is no time like the present to get real.  This is a season of hard choices.  I have talked to parents just this week about how to find a common date for the kids given all the scheduling challenges.  As we adults have mapped out our own calendars, we have realized there are things we can say yes to and things to which we have to say no.  In our own family, there are times when we have to bring in a third adult to help us juggle four people’s commitments.  This is a season of hard choices.  This is a season of conflicting priorities.

I do not actually think Jesus is being harsh in today’s gospel.  I know we sometimes get so used to the inclusive, loving, embracing God that we forget that following Jesus is not all rainbows and sunshine.  Jesus, like our beloved Long Islanders, is not harsh – just honest.  And Jesus is not saying there will be no health, healing, and wholeness; no justice, mercy, and grace; no forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life.  But Jesus is saying those things will cost us.  All those rainbows and sunshine we will receive come at the cost of redistributing wealth, of being faithful even when being faithful gets us ostracized from our social circles, of being intolerant of injustice, even if doing so risks our most valued relationships with others.

If we can agree that Jesus is just being honest, understanding why he is setting such a high standard can be helpful.  Starting with one of the trickier things Jesus says today may be best.  Jesus says in the final verse today, “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”  We all know that Jesus talks about money perhaps more than any other subject in scripture.  Jesus talks about money so much because Jesus knows the power money has over us.  Jesus tells us to give up our possessions, to stop worrying about what is mine because my obsession with owning, possessing, or claiming things as my own can make me think ownership is my exclusive, inviolable right.  Jesus knows having possessions can make me think all things are my own:  my money, my time, my comfortable lifestyle, my political or religious beliefs, my closest relationship, my independence.  Jesus knows when I get possessive, I cling to things that are not God, and create habits in myself leading me to smother, not love; to exploit, not steward; to hoard, not appreciate.[i]

Several years ago, on the podcast “On Being,” Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie retells an old Talmudic parable.  In the parable there is “a ship that is sailing, and there are many cabins.  And one of the people in the cabins on the lower floor decides to dig a hole in the floor of his cabin, and does so, and sure enough, the ship begins to sink.  And the other passengers suddenly discover what’s going on and see this guy with a hole in the floor.  And they say, ‘What are you doing?’ And he says, ‘Well, it’s my cabin.  I paid for it.’  And down goes the ship.”[ii]  What this parable and what Jesus are trying to do is help us see that possessions tempt us to live like the man in the cabin – to believe our ownership negates our relationship to others.  Our possessions can create an obsession with “me, me, me,” with a disregard for the “we” to which we belong as followers of Christ.

Jesus goes on to say in verse 27, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”  Part of Jesus’ cross is a redefining of the “we,” we were just talking about.  After some time being a member here at Hickory Neck, most of us start to move from third person to the second person language.  Instead of saying, Hickory Neck is committed to faith formation and serving neighbor, we start to say, “We are committed to faith formation and serving neighbor.”  The sense of belonging we find here takes us out of “me and my” language and “they and them” language and puts us into “us and we” language.  So, when Jesus talks about carrying our cross as Jesus invites today, he is not just talking about personal sacrifice.  Jesus is also asking, to whom and for whom we are responsible.  Jesus is widening the circle of “my people,” to consider who the people are we will love, welcome, serve, and for which we would make sacrifices.  Jesus is asking us to take on the task of widening our “we” to be broader and riskier than we have previously embraced.  By taking up our cross, we are saying the whole ship, not just my cabin on the ship, but the whole ship has an irrefutable claim on my life.[iii]

Jesus’ brutal honesty though comes right at the beginning, in verse 26.  Jesus says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”  Hate is a strong word – a word we have banned in our home, especially when talking about other family members.  I will not be going home today and telling our children they can pick up that word again.  But I do think Jesus uses a powerful word because the power of discipleship will involve taking on some powerful experiences.  We will need to be willing to hate some things about this life.  We will need to ask which customs, beliefs, or traditions we have inherited we need to renounce to follow Jesus.  We will need to look at what baggage we need to abandon, what ties we must loosen, what relationships we must subordinate.  What scholar Debie Thomas says is “Jesus spoke his hard words about ‘hating’ one’s family in a cultural context where the extended family was the source of a person’s security and stability.  Jewish families in first century Palestine were self-sustaining economic units.  No one in their right mind would leave such a unit behind in order to follow a homeless, controversial preacher into some uncertain future.”  What Thomas asks us to consider is what sources of modern-day security and stability we trust more than we trust God.[iv] 

So, where do we find some Good News in all this sobering honesty?  Why would we do all this hard stuff?  We do all the hard stuff of discipleship because of the rainbows and sunshine.  We give up a sense of possession, we take on crosses, and we renounce things we have loved because we have experienced the rainbows and sunshine of Hickory Neck:  we have experienced life-altering community here; we have experienced love, joy, and blessing we did not know we needed here; we have experienced purpose, meaning, and value here.  We also take on Jesus’ intense notion of discipleship because we have experienced the rainbows and sunshine of the world around us:  we have experienced the profundity of loving our neighbor as ourselves; we have experienced the blessing of seeing God in someone we thought unworthy of our love; we have experienced being transformed by walking right out of our comfort zones into life-giving discomfort zones.  We accept the invitation of illogical discipleship because of the more cosmic rainbows and sunshine of faith:  of being known and accepted by a loving, living God; of the promise of forgiveness of our most heinous sins; of the reality of eternal life made possible through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  Once we start thinking about the rewards of the life of discipleship, the cost seems surmountable.  Once we look at the depth of Christ’s rainbows and sunshine, letting go of possessions, taking up crosses, and hating the stuff of life that only brings death seems much less scary.  Once we realize we may not be able to do whatever we want to in our cabin, we realize we have a ship full of people ready to hold our hands as we take on the burden of discipleship together – because the burden is easy and the yoke is light.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “What It Will Cost You,” Journey with Jesus, September 1, 2019, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2346 on September 5, 2025.

[ii] Amichai Lau-Lavee, “First Aid for Spiritual Seekers,” On Being with Krista Tippet, July 13, 2017, as found at https://onbeing.org/programs/amichai-lau-lavie-first-aid-for-spiritual-seekers/ on September 5, 2025.

[iii] Thomas.

[iv] Thomas.

Sermon – Luke 12.13-21, P13, YC, August 3, 2025

27 Wednesday Aug 2025

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One of the last things that happens when you graduate from seminary is the staff from the Church Pension Group comes to talk to you about money management.  They help you understand how retirement funds work for clergy, encourage you to make sure you are doing some additional savings and investment planning, and remind you that, like tithing, how you manage your finances is a witness to your congregation about being good stewards.  Each year, you are encouraged to be a smart investor through email reminders.  We even go to a wellness conference a few times over the course of our ministry to make sure we are tending to our financial wellness in addition to vocational, spiritual, and bodily wellness.  The repeated lesson to clergy is to be good stewards of our financial resources.

You can imagine how your clergy and anyone schooled in financial stewardship hears today’s parable from Jesus.  At first glance, this is a story about smart financial management.  A man has a bumper crop – the land produces so abundantly he cannot fit the excess crops into his current barns.  Knowing the land is fickle, maybe even having taken some notes from our ancestor Joseph who prevented a seven-year famine by stockpiling during a seven-year boon, the man decides he will just have to build a bigger barn to hold all the extra crops.  His actions do not sound that far off from what any investment counselor might tell us to do – store the excess away so that when a rainy day comes, or even when retirement comes, we can still “eat, drink, and be merry.” 

But, like any good parable, there is a plot twist:  the day the newly enlarged barn is finished is the same day the man will die.  All those plans, hopes, and dreams for a secure retirement are gone.  He never gets to enjoy the fruits of his labor.  He never gets to retire in comfort.  He never gets to eat, drink, and be merry.  Our immediate reaction to this tragedy might be to proclaim how life or God is not fair.  But into our protest, Jesus says, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

These last words from Jesus are ones that sting.  Jesus reminds us that being a good steward of our resources means lots of things:  being smart with our money, saving for times of famine, giving to the church, and caring for our neighbor.  But most importantly, being a good steward of our resources is not just about sound financial practices.  Being a good steward of our resources is also about managing our relationship with our money – and more specifically, managing our relationship with God in relation to our money.

Now some of you may be thinking, “Here she goes.  She’s going to tell me how I need to give more money to the church to right my relationship with God.”  The good news is I do not think Jesus is looking for a specific corrective – as if to say, “Do not be like the man with the barns:  give your full ten percent to the church and all will be well.”  No, what Jesus is trying to do is help us see that our relationship with money matters.  Unlike a polite Southerner, Jesus never shies away from talking about money.  He is constantly warning us about the potential of riches to corrupt our relationship with God.  The answer to what the rich man should do may not be specific, but we get some obvious clues about what Jesus means by being rich toward God.

Going back to the story is particularly helpful.  The most obvious thing we see happening in the parable is the wealthy man has become completely self-absorbed and ego-centric.  Listen again to the words of the parable, “And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”  The list is long:  What should I do?  My crops, my barns, my grain, my goods, my soul.  All the words of the wealthy man are self-referential.[i]  Nowhere does he talk to God.  Nowhere does he talk to his family or a trusted friend.  Nowhere does he consult his property manager, or the local priest – the whole conversation is with himself.  Further, he never praises God for the abundance.  He never acknowledges that the land has provided.  He never even considers sharing his abundance.  He is self-interested, self-protecting, and self-centered.  All that focus on the self comes from a relationship with money and with God that is simply out of whack.

So how do we avoid the slippery slope that leads to self-centeredness and greed, luring us to constantly redefine how much is “enough”?  What exactly is being rich toward God?  Jesus tells us the answer to our quandary throughout Luke’s gospel.  As one scholar explains, “Being rich toward God entails using one’s resources for the benefit of one’s neighbor in need, as the Samaritan did (10:25-37).  Being rich toward God includes intentionally listening to Jesus’ word, as Mary did (10:38-42).  Being rich toward God consists of prayerfully trusting that God will provide for the needs of life (11:1-13, 12:22-31).  Being rich toward God involves selling possessions and giving alms as a means of establishing a lasting treasure in heaven (12:32-34).”  In other words, “Life and possessions are a gift of God to be used to advance God’s agenda of care and compassion, precisely for those who lack resources to provide for themselves.”[ii]

I served on a church board many years ago that received a surprise bequest of about 1.3 million dollars.  The bequest came from a woman who had seemed to be of little consequence.  Each year she had probably given the charitable group about $25 a year.  We assumed that was about all she could do.  When the gift came in, we were stunned.  After some prayerful discernment, we elected to put one million into our endowment, to ensure that we could keep helping ministries in our diocese.  But we designated the remaining three hundred thousand for us to try new and innovative ministries – and luckily for us, there was already a proposal on the table that we thought we could not afford:  a food truck that would take food around to the homeless in one of our cities, and maybe even host a social worker and or nurse.  I do not know what sort of life this woman led or how she managed her money.  But even in death, her richness toward God was obvious to us all.

Though we may be tempted to finger-point at the self-centered man of means, Jesus knows that money has the power to corrupt all our relationships with God.  And unfortunately, the consequences are not limited to our relationships with God – our ability to live lives rich toward God impacts our neighbors too.  The good news is we have a community of faith sitting right next to us who can be our support system as we work to turn our hearts and our riches to God.  Now I know we all value being good Southerners, but this time, Jesus is pushing us out of our cultural norms and patterns.  In order to turn our hearts and riches toward God, we are going to need to start talking with our friends about the place of money in our lives and in our relationship with God.  We are going to need to talk about our struggles and failures.  And we are going to need to celebrate our victories and successes.  We are basically going to need to become a giant support group for becoming rich toward God.

Pastor and scholar David Lose tells a story of a “congregation who invited families to not buy any unnecessary new thing for six months in order to break the culturally-induced habit of trying to buy happiness.  But they didn’t just invite people to do this, they formed a culture in which they supported each other.  They read and talked about a common book on abundant life, they kept in touch via small groups and email, they shared where they were succeeding and struggling and what they were learning.  In short, they formed a community so that they could stand against the all-too-human and culturally supported belief that if we just had a little more we’d be happy.”[iii]

I do not know what model or what goals are going to work for each of you.  But I do know that just by our very citizenship in this country, in this time of scarcity thinking and fear mongering, we face more temptation toward greed than in probably any other country.  If we are going to follow Jesus, to avoid a life of self-centeredness, and claim a life of being rich toward God, we are going to need each other.  Whether you want to form a small group or just find a trusted friend, this is the important work Jesus invites us into today.  My guess is that building up a community of support that is rich toward God will create much more opportunities to eat, drink, and be merry, than any bigger barn could ever give us.  Amen.

[i] Audrey West, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 312.

[ii] Richard P. Carlson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 315.

[iii] David Lose, “What Money Can and Can’t Do,” July 29, 2013, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2668 on August 1, 2025.

Sermon – John 16.12-15, TS, YC, June 15, 2025

18 Wednesday Jun 2025

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Most of you know that I grew up the United Methodist Church.  My first meaningful exposure to the Episcopal Church came through an ecumenical mission trip led by the Episcopal Campus minister at my university.  We spent a semester being shaped by Episcopal liturgies, and the community in the rural Honduran village we served was primarily Roman Catholic by tradition.  On one dark night, as we closed a long, physically demanding day in prayer with our team and village members, I watched as a large portion of those gathered crossed themselves at the words, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”  My weary, dirty, displaced self suddenly felt the urge to cross myself too.  The urge to cross myself was a longing – a longing that brought up the guilt of what my Methodist teammates might think of me suddenly doing something that was decidedly not Methodist – but also a longing for a physical, tangible way to grab onto God – to feel intimately connected and related to God.  I am not even sure I understood what crossing oneself meant, but there was an aching deep in my chest for an action that could make me feel not only related to the trinitarian God we were all worshiping, but also to the hodgepodge collection of people of faith who had gathered.

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday – the only Sunday in the whole church year focused on a Christian doctrine as opposed to an event or a piece of scripture.  Each of the three years in the lectionary focused on Trinity Sunday attempts to utilize a piece of scripture that somehow relates to the persons of the Trinity, but because the concept of the Trinity is not explicitly articulated in Holy Scripture, each year we just get a taste of this strange doctrine we all profess, even though most of us, even theologians and scholars over the centuries, struggle to articulate.[i]

Given the lack of a “Trinity 101” text in scripture, I am grateful we get this passage from John’s gospel today.  We are still in the Farewell Address of Jesus – that very long speech in John’s gospel that Jesus makes as the disciples gather for their last supper with Jesus that we have been reading from for weeks.  We know this is the long address that is often circular and convoluted in nature.  In this particular piece of Jesus’ address, he is telling them again about the coming of the Holy Spirit, or the Advocate.  Jesus explains how the coming Holy Spirit will share Jesus’ truth, which is, in fact, truth from God.  In this circular explanation of how the disciples will still experience relationship with God, we see something deeply relational between and among the persons of the Trinity. 

As scholar Debie Thomas explains of this text, we “…see that God is communal.  It’s one thing to say that God values community.  Or that God thinks community is good for us.  It’s altogether another to say that God is community.  That God is relationship, intimacy, connection, and communion.  …God is Relationship, and it is only in relationship that we’ll experience God’s fullness.”[ii]  Perhaps that is what I was longing for that dark night in that rural village – relationship.  I was longing for a deeper relationship with God – but equally profoundly, a relationship with fellow people of faith.  Sure, maybe making the sign of the cross is just a gesture.  But in that moment, the gesture was a physical manifestation of the relationship found in the triune God, and found in Christian community.

When we can see that the triune God is community, relationship, intimacy, and connection, something about that convoluted explanation of Jesus begins to click not only about the Trinity, but also about our everyday lives.  If the very nature of God is communal and relational, then our invitation is for our lives to also reflect that triune nature.  That means, when we are here, gathered across differences, across divides, and across diversions, we are doing the sacred work of relationship.  That means when we are out in our community, caring for those in need, using our God-given gifts in our vocations, and loving stranger and loved-one alike, we are doing the sacred work of relationship.  And that means when we following the news to learn more about civic life outside these walls, when we are engaging our political representatives in honest dialogue, and when we are praying for the peace this world needs, we are doing the sacred work of relationship.

That is the beauty of honoring the Trinity today.  Jesus teaches us today that the very nature of God is relational – a relationship that is accessible vertically through our relationship with God.  Jesus also teaches us today that the sacred relationship found among the Trinity is also accessible horizontally through all those made in God’s image – in other words, through every human being God has gifted to us.  Our invitation today is to let that crossing of vertical and horizontal create in us a vehicle of God’s love and grace.[iii]  That longing for relationship is fed here so that you can feed that longing in others.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Resurrecting the Trinity,” May 23, 2010, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/resurrecting-the-trinity on June 13, 2025.

[ii] Debie Thomas, “The Trinity: So What?” June 9, 2019, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/2251-the-trinity-so-what on June 13, 2025.

[iii] David Lose, “Trinity C:  Don’t Mention the Trinity!” May 17, 2019, as found at https://www.davidlose.net/2016/05/trinity-c-shh-dont-mention-the-trinity/ on June 13, 2025.

Sermon – John 17.20-26, E7, YC, June 1, 2025

18 Wednesday Jun 2025

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One of my favorite biblical scholars is Karoline Lewis.  She is one of the hosts of a preaching podcast I listen to, and through listening to her over the years I have found her to be insightful, funny, passionate, and deeply attuned to where the Word of God meets our daily lives.  Lewis is a New Testament scholar whose expertise is especially in the gospel of John.  In fact, her commentary on the Gospel of John is my go-to commentary anytime I am exploring John’s gospel.          

The irony in my deep appreciation for Karoline Lewis is that her passion and love for the gospel of John is almost in equal balance to my dislike for the gospel of John.  Where she finds deep beauty and meaning in John, I often find a jumble of words that are so repetitive and circular that I get lost.  Even when I have prepared a sermon for and studied a passage of John for the entire week, when I get to the moment of holding that gospel book and proclaiming John, I find myself second guessing myself, “Wait.  Didn’t I just read that sentence?  That sounds like what I just said a second ago – did I repeat a line?” 

Today’s gospel from John is a classic example.  We find ourselves at the end of Jesus’ farewell address to the disciples before his crucifixion and death, and within that address, at the end of his high priestly prayer.  In this prayer, Jesus prays several phrases in that typical Johannine circular language, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us…so that they maybe be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one..”  The good news is that Lewis and other scholars seem to agree that what Jesus is praying in his circular, convoluted way for is unity.  As scholar William Herzog suggests, “What matters most for John is that the experience of the indwelling remains available to the community, for the unity of the Johannine community is based not on dogma but on a communal experience of indwelling that is analogous to the relationship between Jesus and the Father.  This is what the community witnesses to the world.  Their mission is to keep this experience of faith alive in the community, so that they can offer it to a broken and fractured world.”[i]

Now, while unity is a theme we can get our heads around, unity is a practice we seldom live or experience.  Disunity is our lived experience.  One look at the deep, seemingly irreconcilable differences between political positions would be enough for any of us to understand how fantastical unity sounds.  But disunity is not just in the wider world.  Just this week in Discovery Class we were talking about how theological differences around the sacraments are what created the array of denominational differences within the Christian body – the reason why some of us are not welcome at the communion table in other denominations.  And that does not even address the differences of opinion the various churches hold on the role and place of women, LGBTQ members, and people of color.  But the lack of unity gets even closer to home right here at Hickory Neck.  I have long touted the unity of Hickory Neck across political and theological differences.  The unifying symbol of us of gathering together around the table has instilled in me a deep belief that if we can be one in communion, surely unity is possible in the world.  But even I, in the last six months have wondered if external pressures would prove that our unity is not as a strong as I think. 

That is why, for this one time in particular, I am grateful for John’s repetitive circular language.  Jesus’ final words of prayer today are, “I made your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”  As one scholar says, “The last word is love.  Jesus does not call for doctrinal unity, organizational unity, or political unity.  So often, Christ’s prayer for his disciples has been used to sanctify those ends, and even to justify the harsh imposition of artificial unity.  Yet this prayer is for unity that grows out of the love of God, received and shared among his followers, leading to an experience of unity in love between Jesus and his followers, and with the one from whom Christ comes.  In moments of communion, surely the debates about the nature of God and humanity, the questions of whether divine grace or human will is the means of unity, all of these must fade away, leaving only the burning vision of a cross and the words, ‘For God so loved the world…’”[ii]

My fear that the unity I have witnessed at Hickory Neck would unravel was perhaps based on the idea that we could humanly will our unity to stay together.  But John’s gospel today reminds me that the only reason we are not unraveling is not because we have willed our unity, but because the love we have found in Jesus – the same triune love experienced within the three persons of the trinity – is what holds us together.  Jesus’ prayer today is not a prayer for those disciples who heard the prayer.  Jesus’ prayer today was for us – the future generations who would exist only through the love that the divine has given us – that circular, sometimes confusing, but ever convincing love in us and through us.  Our work is in that last part – that love going through us.  The love of Jesus for us in this prayer is not just for us – but is the gift that emanates through us out in the world.  As Lewis says of this prayer, “Jesus is no longer in the world.  The incarnation is over.  Jesus has been resurrected.  He ascended to the Father from whence he came.  But we are still in the world.  Jesus’ works are now in our hands, and Jesus is counting on us to be his presence in the wake of his absence.”[iii]  That charge would be daunting if not for Jesus’ prayer of promise – we can be that presence because the love that was in Jesus is now in us, breathing, transforming, and blessing the world through love.  Amen.

[i] William R. Herzog, II, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 545.

[ii] Peter J.B. Carman, “Theological Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 544.

[iii] Karoline M. Lewis, John:  Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2014),214.

Sermon – John 18.1-19.43, GF, YC, April 18, 2025

18 Wednesday Jun 2025

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There is something about Good Friday and the passion narrative from John’s gospel that is gruelingly convicting.  On most days we do a pretty good job of convincing others and ourselves that we are fine – that we are working hard, trying to love and serve others, and be a faithful follower of Christ.  But if we are honest, part of what is so hard about facing Good Friday is that facing Good Friday means facing ourselves – facing our failures, our sinfulness, our lack of ability or even willingness to actually follow Jesus. 

I confess that the last four months, one of my coping mechanisms for facing the state of our country has been to read, listen to, and watch less news.  I was finding that my mental health was getting diminished the more time I spent reading, listening, and watching the news, so I just stopped.  I filled the void with music, or people, or movement, but not with knowledge.  That has been my method of coping, to shut out the ugly, painful, and evil, because the alternative has felt overwhelming – so overwhelming that I can scarcely put together words around my devastation about who and how we have become, especially as people of faith.

But coming here, listening to John’s words, engaging in the Good Friday liturgy feels like the exact opposite.  Listening to that passion narrative feels like standing in an ocean of sinfulness, failures, and all that is not of God, and having waves of devastation hit us over and over and over again.  If we are really listening and really being honest with ourselves, all of the bad of this story is not bad that others do – but bad that we have all done at some point in our lives.  We grieve over Judas because we too at times have thought we knew better than Jesus and took matters into our own betraying hands.  We grieve over Peter because we too have prioritized our survival instinct over faithfulness.  We grieve over Caiaphas because we too have argued our way through the ethics of choosing the lesser of two evils instead of not choosing an evil at all.  We grieve over Pilate, seeing how hard he tried to do the right thing, because we too have caved under peer pressure and fear.  We grieve over the chief priests who are caught up in anger and the desire to remove a thorn from their sides because we too have often wished that someone difficult would just go away.  We grieve over soldiers who follow orders even when they know they are doing wrong, because we too have towed the company line.[i]   

Coming to church on Good Friday is our way of turning the news back on, sitting in the ashes, being fully and honestly ourselves in ways that we rarely do because doing so is painful, vulnerable, and scary.  But doing so also opens us up.  When we allow ourselves to face the fullness of human depravity – the fullness of our own depravity that we try so desperately to hide – we open up a path in the darkness to the light.  We agree to this exercise of turning on the news because we trust that the Church can empower us into another way – can help us find light and life in the ocean of darkness and death. 

When I was training to become a priest, I spent a summer serving as a chaplain in a hospital.  The days were long, and you never knew what situations would be thrown at you – from folks making their way through routine surgeries, to people in the ICU unable to communicate what landed them there, to people holding vigil with a beloved (or dreaded) family member.  I remember one day in particular getting paged up to a floor for someone approaching death.  When I arrived, the nurses told me the family had left for the day, but the patient of the family would likely die in the next hour.  The family lived further than an hour away, and had asked that someone sit with her in their stead.  The nurses had decided I was that someone.  And so, I sat, with someone whose story I did not know, whose faith and piety was unknown to me, and, at that point, with no knowledge of what the moment of death actually looked like.  And so I sat, uncomfortably called to a task I felt completely ill-equipped for, and yet, by my identity as Christian, was called to perform.

In that horrible ocean of Good Friday, there is light in our darkness.  Despite all those faithful people who failed Jesus so horrifically and fully, four people hold vigil.  They show up.  They stay.  And, eventually, by doing exactly what you are doing today – sitting in the inconceivable darkness of Good Friday – they see a glimpse of light.  Three Mary’s (Mary, Jesus’ mother, Mary wife of Clopas and sister of Mary, and Mary Magdalene) and the beloved disciple stand near the cross.  They do not protest, they do not fight, they do scheme.  They hold vigil by Jesus, facing the evil of the crucifixion of the Messiah, and they stay.  They do not run away, they do not cover their ears or eyes, the do not try to mask the ugly in something pretty.  They bear witness together, gathering at the foot of Jesus’ cross, staying fully open to the awfulness of the cross.

In that moment of gathering – of not really doing something other than being present – something transformative happens.  Jesus says some of the words we label as the Last Words of Jesus.  Jesus says to his mom, “Woman, here is your son.”  And then he says to the beloved disciple, “Here is your mother.”  What commentators say about these words is that Jesus created the new family unit with these words.  Now, I get a little skittish when we call church communities families because families are so incredibly complicated and the term “family” can be so loaded – often with negative connotations.  Instead, I might say that, in his abandonment and death on the cross, Jesus creates a path of light – a way to find companionship, community, and Christ – through relationships with Jesus at the center.  Peter Gomes describes the moment beautifully.  He says, “…what we find…is Jesus redefining the concept of family:  What it is, who belongs, and what it does.  It should not surprise us that here on the cross…he now reorganizes human affections.  He redefines human relationships, creates a new family, and in the center of it is to be the remembrance of him.  This is a family that is made not by blood, not by the old way, but by love and care:  that is the new way.”[ii]

On the one hand, this new definition of our relationships is beautiful in and of itself, and perhaps that beauty can sooth all the grief we talked about surrounding this scene.  And, on the other hand, there is a charge in this gift, in this path of light.  For months I have been trying to figure out what the call to us as Christians is at this time – especially for the “family” or “community” here at Hickory Neck that is so diverse in its political expression.  What unites us, that community that we have formed for centuries gathering around the common table is found in this moment in Good Friday.  In the turmoil and divisiveness of this time, Jesus reminds us that we are obligated to one another.  We are parents and children.  We are lovers and loved.  Even, and especially, with those people with whom we have no blood connection to – we are bound to one another in Christ.  And it matters when members of our gifted community are being persecuted, are being made afraid, are being made “other” – are essentially being booted out of our community of love.  In this turbulent time, we cannot run off, we cannot avoid, we cannot seek the lesser of evils.  We can gather at the cross and bear witness – bear witness to the encompassing love of Christ and the community to whom we are now obligated to love too.  In a world where we may feel like there is no way, Jesus breathes words of love and life into every one of us – words that cannot be contained in our own lungs and hearts and souls.

I do not know where this path of light in the darkness will take us.  I do not know how Jesus is calling you to be mother or father or son or daughter.  I do know that even in the darkest of days, Jesus sees light in you.  Jesus sees goodness in you.  Jesus see possibility in you.  And if we have nothing left to celebrate, we can walk out of here today commissioned in love and light.  Amen.

[i] Jim Green Somerville, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 300, 302.

[ii] Peter J. Gomes, The Preaching of the Passion:  The Seven Last Words from the Cross (Cincinnati:  Forward Movement Publications, 2002), 32

Sermon – Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21, AW, YC, March 5, 2025

18 Wednesday Jun 2025

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If I were to say to you that there are two services that attract the most non-members each year, which two services would you guess?  Christmas and Easter?  In part, you could be right – there are definitely a lot of guests at Christmas and Easter.  But proportionately, when talking members and non-members, I notice we get more guests at Blue Christmas and Ash Wednesday – especially if we include Ashes to Go in our Ash Wednesday count. 

So what about Blue Christmas or Ash Wednesday is so appealing to someone who doesn’t regularly attend church?  Having just been a part of Ashes to Go in our parking lot with lots of guests, I think there is something very real, honest, and vulnerable about services on Ash Wednesday that do not always happen on a Sunday or especially on festivals like Christmas and Easter.  On Ash Wednesday, the church gives us permission to bring our real, broken, hurting, mortal selves to a space, to acknowledge our fragility and hurt, and to bless the fullness of our selves – the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Now to some, this may feel a little too self-centered.  As we impose ashes, the choir will chant from Psalm 51 tonight:  “Wash me through and through from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin.  For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.  Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight.  And so you are justified when you speak and upright in your judgment.”  Perhaps that is the appeal of this day – the opportunity to take a moment for the self and really ponder where we are with God and this life.  Those ashes will be grittily spread on my forehead, the penitence and fasting are my work to do, and death is mine alone to face.  Everything about today is about my own journey with God.

Stephen and I were just debating about this reality for Lent in general.  We are making plans for Holy Week and we have a service with gospel songs and meditations.  I was excited about the possibility of the service and Stephen quipped, “It’s a little self-centered, don’t you think?  What about worrying about others and the rest of the world?!?”  The truth is, the season of Lent that we start today and end on Good Friday is sort of a both-and experience.  This is a season we are called into self-examination and repentance.  AND, this is also a season where we examine the sinfulness in the world in which we are complicit.

That both-and experience is what Jesus was worried about in our gospel lesson today.  Jesus talks a great deal about personal piety and not showing off in front of others – to not to let others seeing you give alms, pray, or fast.  But as I studied Matthew again this year, I reread something that 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 all 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 during the pandemic was our inability to gather in person.  I loved that we had and continue to have an online community – especially for our homebound, our busy members, or for those meeting 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 the 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 only 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 only invited into solo, parallel journeys.  But also, our journeys are strengthened and made possible through the companionship of community.  You are not alone.  We are in this together – all y’all.  And Jesus lights the way for us all.  Amen.

[i] Karoline Lewis, as described on the podcast, “Sermon Brainwave:  #889: Ash Wednesday –Rebroadcast from February 22, 2023,” February 25, 2025, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/889-ash-wednesday-rebroadcast-from-february-22-2023 on March 4, 2025.

On Ashes and Dust…

05 Wednesday Mar 2025

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Phot credit: https://www.yamaha.com/en/musical_instrument_guide/pipeorgan/maintenance/

Last year our parish was donated a new pipe organ.  We have been eagerly waiting for the deconstruction of our current organ and the installation of the new one.  The time has finally come, we said a prayer of blessing on the current organ, and we have been waiting and watching as the process begins.  Ideally this wouldn’t be staring just days before Ash Wednesday, but I suppose there is no “perfect” time to deconstruct your worship space.

Knowing we are in a liminal time of deconstruction and reconstruction, I had not thoroughly thought through the impact this time would have on our experience of Ash Wednesday.  But walking into the Chapel this morning, seeing the pipes mostly gone, and the guts of our current organ exposed, I was hit by a sadness I couldn’t quite place.  Almost 20 years of music from that organ has filled our worship space, countless talented individuals have made the organ sing, and even more moments of sacred encounters with God have happened through that instrument.  Seeing the organ exposed today did something that left me unsettled. 

Photo credit: https://annkroeker.com/2011/03/09/there-back-again-my-first-ash-wednesday/

When I necessarily turned my attention to preparing for tonight’s Ashes to Go and Ash Wednesday service, I realized what was so unsettling.  Ash Wednesday is all about reminding us of our mortality, our finitude, and our vulnerability before God.  When those gritty ashes are scraped across my forehead and I am told that I will return to dust, that texture and those words linger with me.  So too, as that organ case sits gaping and open, with dust motes floating in the air, our worship space has suddenly become the perfect metaphor for entering a Holy Lent.

I wonder what gaping holes Ash Wednesday is exposing for you.  I wonder where your spiritual life is feeling dusty and in need of some care.  As always, you are most welcome to engage at Hickory Neck Episcopal Church for some tending – to find a connection with God that might be missing, to heal some holes that have been exposed for too long, and to find a place of belonging, because, believe me, you are not alone.  Welcome to Lent.

Photo credit: Stephen Trumbull; reuse with permission only