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Sermon – Isaiah 43.1-7, Luke 3.15-17, 21-22, E1, YC, January 12, 2025

12 Wednesday Feb 2025

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Some Sundays, Church is a bit hard.  Every Sunday, even the ones in Lent, are considered resurrection celebrations – days where we take a break from all that weighs on us and we celebrate the gift of a Savior.  But some Sundays turning our hearts to joy is difficult.  We may be mourning a loss, or watching a crisis like the fires near Los Angeles this week.  We may be struggling with anger or fear, or worried about an estranged child, or precarious relationship, or how we are going to make ends meet.  And yet, Sunday after Sunday, the Church says, “Rejoice, and again I say, rejoice!” 

That contrast is experienced brilliantly in our Old Testament lesson today.  The reading from Isaiah is the perfect pairing for our gospel lesson where Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit descends like a dove, and the voice of God speaks, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  The echoes of the prophet Isaiah are those words to Jesus.  God says to the people in Isaiah’s time, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine…you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you…I am with you.”  On the surface, these words sound like joy upon joy.  Who would not be thrilled to hear such affirmation and respond with songs of praise and jubilation?

But here is what you might not realize about chapter 43 of Isaiah.  At this point, the people of God are in exile in Babylon.  God is not speaking to0 the generation of people who were driven out of the land of promise into Babylon.  These words are spoken to the children and even grandchildren of those first exiles – some of whom were born in exile and only know the land of promise by legend.[i]  These words sound lovely, but must have been hard to hear.  The exiles may have even asked, “If God is with us…how did we end up in Babylon?”[ii]  God is speaking to a people who have likely lost hope or lost belief that God is even with them anymore.  Because if God is with us, how can suffering be? 

Today we will baptize two young boys – one, August, who is too young and innocent for such questions yet, and the other, Jonathan, who is just old enough to start asking the big questions:  who is God?  What is baptism?  If you are a priest, can you bless the water I drink too?  On a Sunday when we might be struggling to bring the joy with the world burning and freezing around us, a baptism might be just what we need.  Baptism is all about identity making – baptism is the moment we are acknowledged as full members of the body of Christ – as children of God.  Baptism is the day the church says, “You belong to God.” 

And so, when God says through Isaiah, “I have called you by name, you are mine…you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you…I am with you,” God means you.  Even the pronoun used in the text is the second-person-singular – as if God is speaking to each member of the community.[iii]  So you, Bob and Betty, are precious in God’s sight.  You, Nancy and David, are called by name and are God’s.  God loves you, Jonathan and August.  As one scholar writes, “Our sense of belonging comes not from the acceptance of our peers or the status of our communities but from the One who claims us and will never let us go.  What makes us worthy is not our individual achievements or the size of our congregational budgets, but God’s gracious love.”[iv]

In the ancient church, baptism looked a little different than it does today.  They did not have beautifully carved and crafted fonts with small amounts of water poured over heads or sprinkled among people.  The early Church had a deep, cruciform shaped pools with stairs on either end of the cross length.  So the candidate would walk down into the water at one end, totally submerge under the waters, and then emerge on the other end.  The symbolism was that your old self died in the waters of baptism, and you were born into the life of Christ, emerging from the womb’s water a new person.

We may not submerge Jonathan and August, but we do understand them as born anew today.  And in fact, each of us here today are born anew too as we reaffirm what happened in that new birth for us.  That’s how we tangibly grasp onto the hope and celebration of a resurrection Sunday – even in the midst of fire and freeze.  We grasp onto hope as the Church reminds us who we are and how we will be.  We promise today to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers.”  We promise to “repent and return to the Lord, to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.”  We promise to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves and to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”  Whether we brought joy with us today, or we are in need of joy, the Church promises that if we keep trying to live into those baptismal promises, live into that identity of beloved children of God, we will find our way into believing and feeling the truth of those words from God.  “I have called you by name, you are mine…you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you…I am with you.”  Amen.     

[i] Julia M. O’Brien, “Commentary on Isaiah 43:1-7,” January 12, 2025, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/baptism-of-our-lord-3/commentary-on-isaiah-431-7-6 on January 10, 2025.

[ii] Valerie Bridgeman Davis, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 221.

[iii] Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 219.

[iv] W. Carter Lester, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 222.

Sermon – Matthew 2.1-12, EP, YC, January 5, 2025

12 Wednesday Feb 2025

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Many Episcopalians find their way to the Episcopal Church from another way – another denomination or even no faith at all.  One common theme among those making their way to the Episcopal Church is that they are fleeing a faith that is “black and white,” or “either/or.”  They find comfort in the Episcopal Church because the Episcopal Church embraces the “gray,” or the “both/and.”  The appeal of those other traditions is obvious – there is no ambiguity or need for discernment in a “black and white” faith.  Something is either right or wrong.  That kind of clarity is refreshing in a world that is always complex, complicated, and ambiguous.  But our Episcopal tradition does not offer the comfort that comes from absolutes.  Our tradition helps us find comfort within, not despite, the complexity and ambiguity of both our sacred and secular lives.

Take our gospel lesson today.  We could easily read the Epiphany story, the story of the visitation of the Wise Men or Magi, and make easy, defendable categories:  Herod is bad, the Magi are good.  But before we dig in too deeply in that dichotomy, we are going to be good Episcopalians this morning and look into the gray.  We start with the Magi.  There is something quite magical about these wise people of thought.  Their magic is not in how they used their mental capacities to track a star to find the Messiah.  What is magical about the Magi is their response to finding Jesus.  Matthew tells in the literal translation that the Magi “rejoiced with a really, really big joy.”[i]  These Magi, who know very little about the life, death, and resurrection of the king of the Jews feel something, feel really, really big joy in the Christ Child because they, unlike most of us, have “mastered the art of hoping in God.”[ii]

Ellen Davis, Old Testament scholar, explains there is a Proverbs verse that helps us understand the Magi.  Proverbs 10.28 says, “The hope of the righteous is gladness.”  She goes on to explain, “Those who train their sights on the faithfulness of God, ‘the righteous’ – they already experience joy even before they see their hopes fulfilled, even if they never live to see (in this world, at least) the clear fulfillment of all that God has promised…That is the kind of joy that burst forth that night on the streets of Roman-occupied Bethlehem, like flowers springing suddenly out of stone pavement.  It was joy that takes root in nothing more (or less) substantial than hope itself.”[iii]

The Magi’s hope does not teach us that because God is born in Jesus all is right in the world.  I am not sure any of us would believe that anyway, given the current state of the world.  Instead, as Davis explains, “Christian hope is something very different from the natural feeling of elation that comes when things are going our way.  No, hope is not a feeling that ebbs and flows.  Rather, it is a way of living that we choose; and gradually, day by day, we learn to be graceful in it.  Hope is a way of living beyond our own limited vision and natural fears, a way of living into God’s faithfulness and there finding fullness of joy forevermore.”[iv]

Now, we could easily stop our interpretation there, and say, “Don’t be bad like Herod, be hopeful and righteous like the Magi, and all shall be well.”  But remember how I told you about the ambiguity of the Episcopal Church?  Let’s go back to Herod – the supposed “wrong” to the “right” of the Magi.  We know Herod is a horrible, power-hungry, paranoid ruler.  We are told that when these foreigners come out saying a new King of the Jews has been born, Herod is afraid.  He’s not scared of a baby – he’s scared about the threat to his power.  And so, he pulls together his own biblical scholars in secret, and then talks to the Magi in secret to get them to find this baby – not so that he can worship him, as Herod claims, but so that he can kill the threat to his power.  And when that does not work because the Magi go home another way, we find out in the verses following our text today, that Herod has all the boys in Bethlehem under the age of two murdered – just to make super sure that his power is secure.

But the problem of making Herod out to be the villain is we skip over one key point.  The text says, all of Jerusalem is frightened by this new king too.  As Davis explains, “Herod could not have secured the deaths of all those children, if he were the only one who was afraid.  Matthew is pointing to the clearly documented fact that fear is contagious, and [fear] readily crosses party lines…Fear spreads like plague through an unhealthy system, infecting not only those who are powerless to defend themselves – the Jewish families in Bethlehem – but also infecting the relatively powerful, the ruling elite in Jerusalem, who sensed (with that gut-gripping fear that comes in the middle of the night) the fragility of the base on which their power rested.”[v]

So, before we try to simplify again – Magi are good, Herod (and the people of faith in Jerusalem) are bad,” Ellen Davis encourages us to see another way.  She says, “This is not a simple picture of them and us, as we would prefer to believe.  Rather, if we read the story deeply and honestly, I think we will identify both with fearful Jerusalem and with hopeful Magi; for they both reveal aspects of our own situation that we have not seen clearly before…there is judgment for us in that picture of Herod and all Jerusalem.  Matthew holds [that judgment] before us like a mirror, challenging us to acknowledge our fear, to recognize the violence that springs from fear and will doubtless perpetuate [violence].  Yet Matthew does not consign us to despair.  For alongside that mirror is a second one – you might call [the second mirror] a glass of vision, for [the second mirror] show us something a little ahead of where we are now.  [The mirror] shows what we as a church can and will look like if we stand against the tyranny of self-perpetuating fear.  We will look like the Magi.”[vi]

I cannot think of a better time to read this “both/and” text, this “gray” text where everything is not so rigid as we might prefer.  Many in our communities are full of fear right now – fear from what the changes of a new administration will do in power, fear of violence like the wonton killing of those in New Orleans this New Year’s, and even fear of financial instability in these volatile times.  We do not honor the Magi today because their message is “Just have hope and all shall be well!”  Instead, as Davis argues, Matthew, “challenges us to be the community of resistance that the church has been…from the beginning.  [Matthew] challenges us as a church to examine and deepen our understanding of the systems that generate fear for ourselves and others.  He challenges us as a church to find ways out of those systems – not to despair, though the systems are large and powerful, but to find and commit ourselves to the small steps by which we may depart from the country governed by fear and go by another road to our own country, that place we call the kingdom of God.  Matthew’s Gospel challenges us to live boldly in the hope of the Magi, so that having rejoiced with them at the first coming of Christ, we may at his second coming know fullness of joy forevermore.”[vii]  That may not be the “right/wrong” word you were looking for this morning.  But I think the beauty of the gray of Holy Scripture today is exactly what we need.  Amen.

[i] Ellen F. Davis, “Stargazers,” January 5, 2003, Sermons from Duke Chapel:  Voices from “A Great Towering Church,” William H. Willimon, ed. (Durham, NC:  Duke University Press, 2005), 337.

[ii] Davis, 338.

[iii] Davis 338.

[iv] Davis, 339.

[v] Davis, 340. 

[vi] Davis, 341.

[vii] Davis, 341.

Sermon – Luke 2.8-20, Blue Christmas, December 21, 2024

12 Wednesday Feb 2025

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Christmas is a funny thing.  Christmas is simultaneously soft and loud, comforting and unsettling, hopeful and demoralizing.  Some of that paradox comes from the Christmas story itself, but some of that paradox comes from our hopes and memories of Christmas verses our lived experience of Christmas.  I remember all the loveliness of Christmases past:  of familiar foods shared, of gifts exchanged, of the aunts and uncles verses cousins football games in our grandparents’ yard.  But as I aged, the veneer wore off:  aunts and uncles divorced, hurtful things were said and done, and older generations began sharing the “behind the scenes” version of our Christmases that I never knew – and wished I didn’t know now.  And, slowly, I began reshaping what Christmas meant for the next generation – with a sense of certainty about what I wanted them to experience and a sense of anxiety that they might someday lose the magic of a once special time. 

We hold this Blue Christmas service every year because somewhere in the midst of shopping, caroling, worshiping, and partying, our world – both the secular one, with Hallmark movies and glossy advertisements, and sometimes even our sacred one, with familiar carols and perfect pageants – our world offers us dissonance.  In the merry making, there is little room for the parts of us that are not merry – whether those parts are due to lingering Christmas grievances, visitations from the grief fairy when we least expect her, economic pressures and worldly anxieties, the open wounds from the brokenness of our country from a nasty political year, or relationships that are broken or are limping along.  The world and even the Church rarely makes space for our inability to fully embrace the merriness of Christmas. 

As I pondered this disconnect this year, I stumbled on a reading from Gertrud Mueller Nelson.  Nelson describes about this time of year – of this season of shortened days and lessened light, “Pre-Christian peoples who lived far north,” she writes, “and who suffered the archetypal loss of life and light with the disappearance of the sun, had a way of wooing back life and hope.  Primitive peoples do not separate the natural phenomena from their religious or mystical yearning, so nature and mystery remained combined.  As the days grew shorter and colder, and the sun threatened to abandon the earth, these ancient people suffered the sort of guilt and separation anxiety, which we also know.  Their solution was to bring all ordinary action and daily routine to a halt.  They gave in to the nature of winter, came away from their fields and put away their tools.  They removed the wheels from their carts and wagons, festooned them with greens and lights, and brought them indoors to hang in their halls.  They brought the wheels indoors as a sign of a different time, a time to stop and turn inward.  They engaged the feelings of cold and fear and loss.  Slowly, slowly, they wooed the sun-god back.  And light followed darkness.  Morning came earlier.  The festivals announced the return of hope after primal darkness.

This kind of success – hauling the very sun back:  the recovery of hope – can only be accomplished when we have the courage to stop and wait and engage fully in the winter of our dark longing.”  Nelson goes on to say, “Perhaps the symbolic energy of those wheels made sacred has escaped us and we wish to relegate our Advent wreaths to the realm of quaint custom or pretty decoration.  Symbolism, however, has the power to put us directly in touch with a force or idea by means of an image or an object – a “thing” can do that for us.  The symbolic action bridges the gulf between knowing and believing.  It integrates mind and heart.  As we go about the process of clipping our greens and winding them on a hoop, we use our hands, we smell the pungent smell that fills the room, we think about our action.  Our imagination is stirred.

Imagine what would happen,” Nelson adds, “if we were to understand that ancient prescription for this season literally and remove – just one – say the right front tire from our automobiles and use this for our Advent wreath.  Indeed, things would stop.  Our daily routines would come to a halt and we would have the leisure to incubate.  We could attend to our precarious pregnancy and look after ourselves.  Having to stay put, we would lose the opportunity to escape or deny our feelings or becomings because our cars could not bring us away to the circus in town.[i]”

In some small way, that is what tonight does.  Tonight, we take the wheel off our cars, and place the wheel in the wreath right here in this little chapel.  We take away our ability to bustle about, and we sit.  We sit in the dark, we sit in our discomfort, and we sit in our un-merriness.  We take time, listening to a story about some shepherds who were similarly uncomfortable in the dark of night, dirty among their sheep, in the fields – doing their daily, maybe sometimes demoralizing, work of shepherding.  We pray, we mark our specific sense of loss or pain with the lighting of candles, and we bless our lack of merriment – we receive permission to tarry for a while in the darkness.  We do that all because we know that after today, the light will start to come a little earlier, will start to last a little longer, and will start to kindle hope in us.  We may not yet be ready to leave this place, glorifying and praising God like those shepherds.  But we are able to receive the gift of this sacred inside time, knowing that light is coming – that days are coming when we, too, will remember joy, and life, and praise.  We tarry here because this is where we also find hope.  That is the Church’s gift to you tonight – space and a tiny little sliver of hope.  Come, gather by the wheel, and tarry a bit longer.  Amen.

[i] Gertrud Mueller Nelson, To Dance With God: Family Ritual and Community Celebration (Mahwah, NJ:  Paulist Press, 1986), 63, as quoted in An Advent Sourcebook, Thomas J. O’Gorman, ed. (Chicago:  Liturgy Training Publications, 1988), 141-142.

Sermon – Malachi 3.1-4, A2, YC, December 8, 2024

12 Wednesday Feb 2025

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The professional choir at the parish I served as a curate would perform Handel’s Messiah every Advent season in preparation for Christmas.  I remember my first Advent the Rector told me about the performance with excitement and anticipation, and all I remember thinking was, “Oh goodness!  Do I have to go??”  Do not get me wrong, I love Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus as much as anyone, but that piece is only about three-four minutes long and is only half-way into the three hours of singing that Handel’s Messiah takes. 

Music is a funny thing in Advent.  Since we hardly ever hear music at this service, you may not remember the hymns designated for singing in Advent.  But most people I know who regularly attend services with music do not really love Advent music.  Unlike familiar, comforting, endearing Christmas carols, Advent hymns are “discordant, unsung, and unpopular in many congregations.”[i]  I have known choir members whose skin crawls from Advent music, and I imagine some of you are here today because the idea of a whole service dedicated to Advent Carols which we will hear at 10:00 am sounds like torture. 

The problem might be that Advent music is not as catchy as Christmas music.  But I think there is a deeper truth to our distaste of Advent music.  The music of Advent points to the themes of Advent:  of apocalyptic demands to be alert, doing acts of righteousness to be right with God; of judgment so stringent to be compared to a refiner’s fire and fullers’ soap; of needing to bear fruit worthy of repentance so as not to be chopped down and thrown into the fire; and of bringing down the powerful from their thrones and lifting up the lowly.  None of that is quite as catchy as a holly, jolly Christmas.

Perhaps the issue is that Advent music tries to do the same thing scripture does.  In 1741, Handel wrote to a friend of his masterpiece Messiah, “‘I should be sorry if I only entertained them.  I wished to make them better.’  The composer challenges [us] to go beyond feeling good to doing good.”[ii]  The same was true for Malachi.  Malachi brings good news of a messenger coming to prepare the way of the Lord and that we will be purified enough that our offerings will be pleasing to the Lord as they once were before.  But Malachi also reveals the fearful questions of the people.  “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”  These are just two of the twenty-two questions in the fifty-five verses of Malachi.[iii]  But they are questions we all ask if we are paying attention during Advent.

I remember when I was pregnant with my first child, women poured pregnancy stories over me.  A camaraderie of sorts began to build, the state of our friendship altered because we were now going to share something we had not before.  But what I always noticed about those stories is whenever I expressed my nervousness about labor, their eyes darted away, and they made wistful promises about how anything resembling pain would be forgotten.  The more their warm countenances shifted to wary, twitchiness, the more I suspected labor would be a painful reality.

The same is true for the infant we will welcome once again on December 24th.  As much as we cry out, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” as much as we sing of “Silent Nights,” and as much as we dream of “Joy to the World,” our Christmas celebration comes with a price – the price of preparation, of messengers making the way for joy, of fire burning away all that corrupts us.  Advent is not about entertaining us.  But, much like Handel hoped, Advent is meant to make us just and better, so that we might be right with God when that infant is placed in the arms of the Church.  Advent is for Malachis, for Zechariahs, the father of that coming messenger, and for you and for me.  And although we may feel like we have been refined enough to last a lifetime after the last election season, the refining God is doing now in each of us means, as one scholar assures, we will “be re-formed in God’s image, and [that re-forming] will be good.  No matter how we feel about it now.  No matter what we may be afraid of now.  When we are refined and purified as God promises, it will be good.”[iv]  As much as we may dread that awful Advent music or loathe those heavy, foreboding stories of Advent, we do so together, knowing that we are being refined tougher, so that, together as a community, we will welcome the Christ Child with open, ready arms.  Amen.

[i] Deborah A. Block, “Pastoral Perspective, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1  (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 30.

[ii] Block, 30.

[iii] Block, 26.

[iv] Seth Moland-Kovash, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1  (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 31.

On Blooms of Hope…

13 Wednesday Nov 2024

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Photo credit: Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly; permission required for reuse

I have written before about how I am not good with plants.  If the term “brown thumb” was invented for anyone, it was likely me.  I have been known to even kill a cactus.  I am so resigned to this reality that when someone gifts me a potted plant, even one with blooms already on it, my immediate reaction is guilt about how short a life the plant can expect in my care.

So, imagine my surprise when a similar gift from last Christmas, a Christmas cactus, began blooming today.  I was so shocked, that I went online to learn about the plant’s blooming practices.  It was in this research that I learned I have been doing everything wrong.  The research says the plant should never be in direct light (it is sitting in the full blast of the sunrise every morning); it says you should only water the plant when the top two inches are dry (I am pretty sure I water it weekly no matter what); and it says the plant should be kept in a cool, humid space (nope, and nope).  So, despite all my mistakes, despite how this plant should likely be dead by now, here this cute plant is blooming for the first time. 

That plant has reminded me of two things today.  First, that plant has reminded me of the ways that God can work for good despite me.  I do not have the gifts, interest, or time to lovingly help plants thrive.  But God has taken my measly offerings – the occasional remembrance to water the plant without any recollection how long ago I watered it last, the guilt that has kept me from throwing the plant away before now, and the half-hearted attempt to at least give the plant sunlight – God has taken these offerings and transformed them not just to survival, but to thriving.  I am humbled by a God who can produce good despite me.

Two, I am also struck by the fact that this plant is just one tiny example of the small goodness that surrounds us all the time.  The last week has been a rough one, especially in a congregation and a community that is very “purple” politically.  Though we are quite civil with one another, emotions have been all over the spectrum and I have been struggling to see where the hope is.  But the truth is hope and goodness have been around me this whole time.  I certainly see hope in this plant who is thriving despite me – and looking quite beautiful, indeed.  I see hope in the ways people are caring for one another – asking how people are really doing, and finding ways to offer solidarity and comfort where possible.  And I see hope as parishioners increase their giving to the church in a time when budgets are stretched and prices are rising.  We could find counter arguments for all those instances – reasons to be wary or suspicious or doubtful.  Or we can choose to notice the blooms opening slowly all around us.  I am not entirely sure what God is doing these days, but I have to tell you, I feel confident that God is here, bringing us comfort and signs of hope.  And that will suffice for today.

Sermon – 1 Kings 17.8-16, P27, YB, November 10, 2024

13 Wednesday Nov 2024

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On this Consecration Sunday, the day we offer and celebrate our gifts to support the ministry of this beloved community, the lectionary seemingly delivers the perfect text – the widow’s mite.  One might guess the lectionary shapers designed the lectionary just for a day like today – so that the sermon might be a nice a tidy story about how you too might give sacrificially.  But that story – and that sermon – are not our gift today.  After the tumultuous election week we have had, our gift lies with another widow – the widow of Zarephath from the first book of Kings. 

The widow of Zarephath is both a woman and widow, and as you know by now, that makes her doubly vulnerable in Elijah’s day.  In fact, although our translation says she is a widow, the original Hebrew actually adds, “…the word ‘woman’ in apposition before ‘widow.’  Verse 9 could literally be translated as, “Rise and go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there.  Look, I have commanded a woman, a widow, to sustain you.”[i]   The widow is also the mother of a child who is dependent upon her, so she has needs beyond her own.  If we read a bit further in Kings, we learn she is not normally poor – even as a widow, she owns a home that is large enough for an upper chamber.[ii]  And, we know she lives in Sidon, which means she is a foreigner, and that she likely worships Baal.

But to fully understand this widow we have step back even further.  The reason Elijah wanders into Sidon needing food is because he is fleeing Queen Jezebel, another Sidonian woman who has convinced King Ahab to build temples to Baal, and who threatens to kill Elijah.  So, we already see two different treatments of Elijah by two different Sidonian women.[iii]  But the other big piece of information is there is a drought in the land – and the lack of water means a threat to life – in fact, any poverty the widow of Zarephath faces is because the drought has dried up the food supply.  But drought also has theological significance in this story.  “…the condition of drought is the result of the Israelite King Ahab’s disobedience.”[iv]  As Old Testament Scholar Ellen Davis explains, “Overall, from a biblical perspective, the sustained fertility and habitability of the earth, or more particularly of the land of Israel, is the best index of the health of the covenant relationship.”[v]  In other words, if there is a drought, the people of God have really messed up!

Now sometimes stories from the Bible feel so foreign, that even with context like we just learned, we do not really feel like we can relate.  But if we really think about the widow of Zarephath and her context today, we find much more relatability than we might like to admit.  We certainly know the reality of people of means suffering financially.  In fact, a recent story from Forbes said that over 75% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.[vi]  That’s a lot of folks eking out a living with last bits of grain and oil.  We also know something about fighting about authority and ultimate values – where we put our trust.  I would say the dramatically different reactions to the election this week are a classic example – from people who are relieved by the election results to people who feel so marginalized they do not feel like they can even stay in relationship with their neighbors.  Our church too is living donation to donation – with the annual threat of budget deficits – and is now facing the reality of what being a politically diverse community means – how we will not just respect differences but how we will actively serve Christ as one.  I think we are all too familiar with what being in a theological drought is all about.

So, what happens to this woman widow in Zarephath?  As she faces the ludicrous request of Elijah to feed him when she is literally about to feed her son and herself their last meal before they die of starvation, Elijah says, “Do not be afraid.”  I confess, when I first read those four words this week, “Do not be afraid,” I was pretty upset.  That’s God’s answer to this theological drought we are in?  This hurting, deeply divided, seemingly irreparable place?  Do not be afraid?!?  Now, the good news is I stayed in the text.  As I kept studying, I stumbled on a commentary in which Professor Robert Wall said, “‘Do not be afraid,’ is not meant to comfort one facing death but rather to inspire confidence that [Elijah’s] God keeps promises of salvation made.”[vii]  Elijah’s God keeps promises of salvation made.  And as if to support the good professor’s insight, Elijah goes on to say in the text, “For thus says the LORD the God of Israel:  The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth.”[viii]  God never says the jar will be overflowing or we will have so much we will need a second jug.  But God does say we will have enough.

Those words from Elijah, those words that often introduce an oracle of salvation[ix], are words for us too.  Do not be afraid.  I know those four words may feel impossible for some of us today.  Many of you have already told me about your literal fears:  either your fears about the economy before the election or your fears for your rights and dignity after the election.  But those four words are our promise today – that God keeps promises of salvation made.  Like Elijah promises the widow, so God promises to you today that your jar of meal will not be emptied and your jug of oil will not fail until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth.  So, even in our fears, we make promises to the church about what time, talent, and treasure we can share to ensure our ministries remain vibrant and thriving.  In our fears, we keep coming to church and engaging with neighbors who differ from us more meaningfully than we did before.  In our fears, we trust in our God, no matter what civic leaders are in place.  Because our jar will not be emptied and our jug will not fail, we can trust that we will have enough – enough for ourself, enough for our neighbor, and enough for the church.  We can say yes, just like the widow of Zarephath on the verge of death.  We can say yes.  Do not be afraid.  Amen.

[i] David G. Garber, Jr, “Commentary on 1 Kings 17:8-16,” Working Preacher, November 10, 2024, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-2/commentary-on-1-kings-178-16-9 on November 8, 2024.

[ii] Denise Dombkowski Hopkins, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word Supplemental Essays, Year B, Batch 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 6.

[iii] Hopkins, 4.

[iv] Garber.

[v] Ellen F. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 8, as quoted by Garber.

[vi] Emily Batdorf , “Living Paycheck To Paycheck Statistics 2024,” Forbes Advisor, April 2, 2024 as found at https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-statistics-2024/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGcVSVleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHSkGQLYo1Mye_ETSWURRZckm0B5EKB226F-g1znt-H6_s6kt5j5eFvxjvw_aem_OKcSGHZduH78GmIJSrYAZw on November 8, 2024.

[vii] Robert W. Wall, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word Supplemental Essays, Year B, Batch 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 3.

[viii] 1 Kings 17.14.

[ix] Ronald J. Allen, “Considering the Text: Week Six, Twenty-Fifth Sunday After Pentecost, 10 November 2024”  Center for Faith and Giving, as found at centerforfaithandgiving.org, 41.

Sermon – John 11.32-44, AS, YB, November 3, 2024

13 Wednesday Nov 2024

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I imagine if you were to poll a group of priests, most of them would say that one of their favorite liturgies in the Episcopal Church is the burial office – not because of the painful journey of grief and loss that leads to such an office, but because of what the liturgy and its scripture lessons accomplish.  In the midst of personal pain and gut-wrenching bereavement, the Church shows up with scripture lessons that point us toward ultimate things – that remind us of the ultimate source of hope for the faithful:  the promise of resurrection and eternal life.  Grief can upend your entire center, leaving you feeling lost.  But scripture, the burial office liturgy, and our faith are like a tether that hold us steady – that hold us close to Christ when Christ can feel absent.

Our lessons today on this feast of All Saints are all lessons traditionally recommended for a burial office – ones that have given us hope as we have lost spouses, parents, children, friends, and spiritual mentors.  They are lessons that give us hope for that feast of rich food and well-aged wines, where death is swallowed up forever, and God wipes away our tears.  They are lessons that promise that death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.  They are lessons that depict a Jesus deeply disturbed and deeply moved by our suffering. 

So why all this focus on end things?  Why this focus on ultimate things?  For one, as we honor the saints who have gone before on All Saints Sunday, these are lessons that remind us of what the Church has always believed about life, death, and eternal life in Christ.  As we will later recall in the service those souls closer to our own journeys and tie ribbons on the altar rail in their memory, the Church wants us to be ever confident in where those souls are and where we will go too.  And as we reaffirm our baptismal covenant today – that reminder of how in baptism we go down into the baptismal waters and die to self and come up again born anew in Christ, we are reminded that we are a kingdom people, living in resurrection not just in eternal life but in the here and now.

I am especially grateful for this feast of All Saints, on this day of remembering ultimate things, as we head into a week that feels especially weighty and consequential.  Not only are we each feeling our own anxieties and fears about how this presidential election will go (probably not all agreeing about which way would be best), I was also reminded yesterday as I watched the investiture of our new Presiding Bishop Rowe, that the rest of the world joins in our anxiety.  As a primate from South Sudan reminded us, our presidential election this week does not just impact us, but has ripple effects in countries around the world. 

Into this global anxiety, in this conflicted country, commonwealth, and county, we are gifted the same thing the Church gifts us with at every burial and every reminder of the saints:  the reminder of ultimate things.  We are reminded that in celebration and catastrophe, God is with us, wiping away tears.  We are reminded that in victory and defeat, death holds no power over us.  But maybe most importantly, we are reminded in anxiety, in relief, in hope, and in hope vanquished, Jesus is by our side, deeply moved and ever ready to continue showing us God’s glory when God’s glory feels long lost.

Today our lessons and our liturgy are powerful reminders that we have a sacred duty to live into our baptismal covenant.  That may not sound like much of a balm – maybe the command to honor our baptismal covenant feels more like homework than comfort.  But we are never baptized just into comfort.  We are baptized through comfort to live radical lives as Christ’s disciples – where we share the good news of God in Christ, where we gather in weekly worship and communion, where we seek and serve Christ in all persons, and where we strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being.

Yes, this time feels so weighty on our shoulders that we feel like we may collapse under the weight of this time.  But the Jesus who weeps for Lazarus is the same Jesus who told us his burden is easy and his yoke is light.  The Jesus who is deeply disturbed is also the Jesus who troubles the water – the waters in which we died in baptism and rose to new life.  The Jesus who walked alongside Martha and Mary is the same Jesus who walks alongside you and me.  Our invitation today is take that baptismal covenant seriously – with the heft of ultimate things like death and resurrection and eternal life.  We stand in those baptismal waters this week, and we invite others to join us.  Those waters are our source of strength this week.  Amen.

Sermon – Mark 10.17-31, P23, YB, October 13, 2024

13 Wednesday Nov 2024

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As we kickoff stewardship season today, I know what you must be thinking, “Wow!  Jennifer went all-in on scripture this week – she’s really trying to get us to make a big pledge this year!”  And while I would love for you to make a generous pledge this year, you know from how much I complain about the assigned lectionary over the course of the year that I had no part in choosing today’s gospel.  And, if I’m really being honest, if I could choose a passage to kickoff stewardship season, I would not have chosen this text from Mark. 

“Why?” you might ask.  Mark’s story about the wealthy man seems like the perfect tee up for stewardship.  The sermon simply could be, “You heard the words from Jesus directly – sell what you own and give the money away – preferably to your favorite local church.”  But I would not have chosen this text or that sermon – not because this text is so extreme (trust me, I am not asking you to sell everything you own), but because this text goes deeper than money.  Jesus in this text is not just challenging us to be generous givers, Jesus is asking us even bigger questions about salvation and the very nature of our relationship with God.

This story is repeated in all three gospels.  In Luke’s gospel, the man is described as a “ruler,” and in Matthew he is described as “young.”  “But for Mark he is just a regular guy, although with ‘great possessions.’”[i]  In other words, this guy is just like you and me.  Just like you and me, he is trying so very hard to live a faithful life.  Just like you and me, he is already doing the basics – loving his neighbor by following those ten commandments about how we treat one another.  And just like you and me, he is faithfully striving to live a better life – he has sought out this Jesus to learn more and to discover how to order his life so that he can be in right relationship with God.  Jesus gives him, and us, an answer – the way to right that relationship with God – to follow those ten commandments that tell us to both love neighbor and love God – is to right our relationship with money. 

As one scholar explains, “The problem is not wealth per se but our attitude toward [wealth].  As we accumulate riches, we are tempted to trust in our possession and our powers of acquiring them, rather than in God, for our ultimate security and comfort.  Even honestly acquired and generously shared wealth can thus lead to pride.  That is why it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.  It is hard to let go of the immediate basis of our security and comfort – and the more we have, the harder [letting go] gets.”[ii]  And so Jesus gives us today the ultimate spiritual discipline – to untangle our relationship with money from our relationship with God:  to see our material blessings not as a badge of honor for righteous living or hard work, but as a tool for sharing the love of Christ – an instrument to demonstrate our love of God through how we use money.

Now, I do not know what your relationship with your wealth is.  Growing up, our family did not have very much of it.  We had what we needed, but some of what we needed was gifted by a neighbor dropping off a basket of produce or a bag of hand-me-down clothing.  I knew if I wanted to go to college, I was going to need to earn some scholarships and financial aid.  The challenge with that kind of upbringing is that, as you come into your own, you realize you are now responsible for ensuring you have enough wealth not to need those gifts from neighbors and institutions.  You have to earn that wealth.  And the danger in knowing your earning of wealth is dependent upon your own blood, sweat, and tears is that you begin to think of everything you have as earned by yourself as opposed to being gifted by God – as though the gifts and talents you have were not gifted by God and enable you to then earn the wealth you need to purchase the rewards for your hard work.  And when we read stories like today’s gospel, we start to get a pit in our stomach – that small, nagging, gnawing feeling that we too might walk away grieving if Jesus were to tell us our relationship with money was interfering with our relationship with God.

That small, nagging, gnawing feeling is what leads the disciples to ask, “Who, then, has any chance at all?”  And here is where the grace comes.  Jesus basically says, “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself.  Every chance in the world if you let God do it.”[iii]  In other words, we can right our relationship with wealth, we can become peoples of generous giving only through God.  Now Jesus is not saying giving generously will not be hard.  What Jesus is saying is, “You can do hard things.” 

Last fall, one of our families had a long conversation during stewardship season.  As a couple, they handle finances independently in some areas and together in others.  Their giving to church was one of those in the areas they handled independently from one another.  After hearing a testimony from a fellow parishioner, they sat down to look at the numbers – and realized their giving didn’t reflect their theology of money.  And so, they decided to make some changes – to right-size their household budget to reflect the deep relationship with God they knew they had but that they weren’t reconciling within their wallets.  That kind of reconciling work was not easy – but their relationship with God and their membership in a faith community helped them know they could do hard things.

 This year, we have already been talking about ultimate things – about measuring what matters in our lives.  You have heard stories from parishioners about what this community means to them, and how they have come to understand that intimate relationship between their relationship with God and their relationship with their wealth.  Even talking about that small, nagging, gnawing feeling was hard for many of them.  But each one of them knew they could do the hard thing because Jesus enabled them to do so.  They knew, through God, all things were possible.  Their testimonies, Jesus’ words today, and our own desires for greater intimacy with God are the tools that enable us to do hard things:  to examine our relationship with wealth, to examine our relationship with God, and to examine our fears and feelings that hold us back from the freedom that comes from trusting in God and not in our own bootstraps.  Jesus is very plain today.  You cannot pull off right relationship by yourself.  But with God – with God, all things are possible.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

[i] David B. Howell, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 164.

[ii] James J. Thompson, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 166.

[iii] Mark 10.27 as quoted in The Message paraphrase (Eugene H. Patterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs:  NavPress, 2002).

On Measuring What Matters…

09 Wednesday Oct 2024

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This week we’ve been working intentionally on shifting my daughter’s propensity to complain.  She can have the best of days or afternoons, but at some point in the retelling of what happened, she’ll inevitably find something to complain about – what someone said, what someone did, or how she perceived something.  This week I threatened to start a daily tally of everything that came out of her mouth, putting her words in two columns:  positive things and negative things.  I told her we would see which column won at the end of the day.  I was honestly making an empty threat (who has time to monitor every word that comes out of a kid’s mouth?!?), but something about my threat registered with her.  The next morning, she was all positives – thanking me for mundane things, celebrating small victories, noticing the good.  When I picked her up from school that day, she proclaimed, “Actually, today’s been a really good day!”  We celebrated what a wonderful experience both she and I had had that day, noticing what her intentionality had done.

I’ve been thinking about our experiment and have been recalling all the times I have taken on a discipline of gratitude – all the times I have fallen into the very same patterns as my child.  There have been times when I have used my prayer beads, only praying prayers of thanksgiving instead of petition.  There have been times when I have used my journal to find at least three things at the end of the day for which I can give thanks (some days that was harder than others!).  And there have been times when I have read books or heard testimonies about the powerful transformative practice of gratitude.

These last weeks, gratitude has been challenging to come by.  I have been watching helplessly as countless homes, businesses, churches, roads, and whole towns have been washed away by hurricanes – only to be bracing for the impact of another one today.  I have been praying with friends and community members recovering from freakish events:  being hit by car, road rage gun violence, and random violent targeting.  I have listened to the anxieties of parishioners, completely consumed by worry about the presidential election less than a month away. 

This Sunday, our church will kick of stewardship season, as we ponder what really matters in our lives.  As we have already been reflecting this year, we are a community blessed with abundance.  We could certainly go down the road of scarcity, detailing all the things we are longing for or missing.  But instead, we are entering an intentional time of noticing:  noticing the abundance around us, noticing the blessings that embrace us, noticing the goodness and love of God in our lives.  I am looking forward to the gift of a season of gratitude – of celebrating the good and honoring the abundance of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  I am hopeful that each day in this stewardship season, we can begin to turn our hearts from pain, and find the way, even if in something miniscule, to be able to say, “Actually, today’s been a really good day!”  I invite you to join us in the celebration of what matters!

On Looking for Helpers…

02 Wednesday Oct 2024

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Last week I was on retreat in western North Carolina.  We were east enough that Hurricane Helene mostly dealt us wind and rain, and we only lost power and water for about seven hours.  But as we prepared to return home, the news was trickling in that the impact further west was bad – inconceivably devastating.  As I headed east making my way home, signs indicated the highway I was traveling was completely closed in the other direction and that all travel to western North Carolina was forbidden.

On the sobering home drive, as I contemplated all who were suffering and how mostly unscathed I was, a familiar sight appeared:  a line of electric company trucks driving westward.  Having grown up mostly in NC and having been on Long Island during Superstorm Sandy, I felt that familiar overwhelming sense of relief when you see those trucks after a storm.  Help was on the way.  Trucks with their workers from all over the place were dropping everything in their lives to offer up the gifts God gave them to help others.  I knew those in western North Carolina would feel a similar palpable relief to see those glorious white trucks, and I offered a prayer of thanksgiving. 

Fred Rogers used to say, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers.  You will always find people who are helping.’”  No matter how much we bemoan our divisions and the political toxicity in our country, it is the helpers that give me hope.  That line of white trucks was a reminder to me that goodness is all around us, even when hopelessness feels like it may drown us. 

I wonder what signs of hope you might be able to spy this week – what glimmers of light are breaking through the clouds if you open your eyes.  Or perhaps the Holy Spirit is beckoning you to be a helper – to be one of those signs of hopefulness in the ways that only you can.  I cannot wait to hear the stories of how God is showing up and birthing hope.