Tag Archives: Holy Spirit

Sermon – Acts 2.42-47, E4, YA, April 26, 2026

29 Wednesday Apr 2026

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“The meltdown started with a small thing — a bag of [lollipops].  Rachel Damgen’s four-year-old son wanted one.  She said no.  It was a few years ago, in the middle of the pandemic, when it was not unusual for her to be home alone for an 11-hour stretch with her two young kids. She was struggling with the isolation.  Small obstacles felt outsized…”  That meltdown, where she too ended up crying on the floor, “…was a turning point.  With their extended families far away in other states, she and her husband, Chris Damgen, began asking themselves if there was any way to reconfigure their lives in order to optimize for more support and community.  The answer they found was cohousing.”[i]

According to research, “The cohousing movement started in Denmark in the late 1960’s.  Today [cohousing is] an international movement.”  In the United States there are almost 200 cohousing communities across 36 states.  “Cohousing participants commit themselves to live intentionally in community.  Families live in private housing, but share public spaces, responsibilities, meals, resources, activities, and events.  Shared care for children and the elderly is often part of the mix.  Neighbors collaborate to plan and manage their communities.  Decisions often require consensus.  Cohousing is one response to the lack of social equity that the political scientist Robert Putnam of Harvard documented in his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000).  Putnam showed how many people today feel disconnected and isolated.  We’ve accumulated what he called a growing ‘social-capital deficit’ that leaves people in our culture longing for a ‘more collectively caring community.’”[ii]

That same collectively caring community is what Luke describes in the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles today.  The scene takes place after the event of Pentecost, when the early church is forming and growing under the leadership of the apostles.  The reading first tells us some very basic tenants of life as a Christian – a new follower of Jesus.  We are told that after they are baptized, they do four things:  they devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching (so, what we might call Bible Study); to fellowship (think about small groups, Men’s Breakfast, or what some Episcopalians call the eighth sacrament, Coffee Hour); the breaking of the bread (for us this is weekly communion, but they also mean the actual sharing of meals after the ritual of communion); and the prayers (this is both the formal and informal prayers that were breathed in and out of daily life).  I imagine all those things sound very familiar and are things you too like about life in Church.

But then comes the twist from Luke that probably made each of you squirm if you were listening.  Luke tells us, “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.  Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.”[iii]  They sold their possessions and goods and distributed the proceeds to all.  Now, I know what you are thinking, “Here we go – here comes the financial ask to the Stewardship Campaign.”  Well, take a deep breath.  That’s not where we’re going.  Well, not totally.

Professor Willie James Jennings helps break open this radical way of living.  “It is not a new thing,” he says, “that people would offer up their possessions to a noble or religious cause…A different order of sacrifice is being performed here, one that reaches back to the very beginnings of Israel…  A new kind of giving is exposed at this moment, one that binds bodies together as the first reciprocal donation where the followers will give themselves to one another.  The possessions will follow.  What was at stake here was not the giving up of all possessions but the giving up of each one, one by one as the Spirit gave direction, and as the ministry of Jesus made demand.  Thus anything they had that might be used to bring people into sight and sound of the incarnate life, anything they had that might be used to draw people to life together and life itself and away from death and the end of the reign of poverty, hunger, and despair – such things were subject to being given up to God.  The giving is the sole purpose of announcing the reign of the Father’s love through the Son in the hands of communion together with the Spirit.”[iv]  In other words, coming into the life of Jesus and the walk of faith transforms the whole life – how one spends one’s time and how one regards and shares their treasure.  Those newly baptized into the newly forming Christian community were not just declaring faith in Jesus, or joining a Church:  their entire lives and way of being was transformed. 

The Damgen family moved into a cohousing complex in Oregon.  Moving into the community was a game changer – both for their mental health and for the health of their family.  They decided to have a third child because they knew the community would support them.  Rachel described a day where one sick kid had finally fallen asleep when another kid needed to be picked up.  Within five minutes, she found a neighbor who could sit in the home while the sick kid slept so she could run to the school.  Kids and elders play and visit together in the common spaces, pets are enjoyed across family lines, and, as one older widow in the community attests, the community helps conquer loneliness and isolation experienced by many in America.[v]

Now, I’m not saying we all need to move to Oregon or we all need to time travel to those early days with Peter and the apostles.  But what I am saying is being a part of Hickory Neck and being a faithful Christian means not just engaging the practices of learning, fellowship, communion, and prayer.  If we take the life and witness of Jesus seriously, our entire lives are transformed here.  How we regard others, how we regard our possessions, and how we regard our worth is changed.  As Matt Skinner says, “Deep care and concern are unavoidable fruit of Easter faith.”[vi]  When Jesus says in our gospel from John today, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly,”[vii] Jesus gives that abundant life that through the vehicle of the Church and the Holy Spirit.  The shared gifts, the shared community, the shared sense of care and love is abundant in this place because we inherit the fruit of Easter faith.  Our invitation is not to go and do more work to inherit abundance.  Our invitation is to see the abundance all around us, to celebrate and share that abundance, and to invite others into that overflowing abundance with us.  Amen.

[i] Katia Riddle, “How to be not lonely? ‘Cohousing’ is an answer for some people,” December 1, 2024, as found at https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/11/29/nx-s1-5210688/lonelieness-epidemic-social-isolation-parenting-cohousing on April 25, 2026.

[ii] Dan Clendenin, “Life Together,” April 30, 2017, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/1362-life-together on April 24, 2026.

[iii] Acts 2.46-47a.

[iv] Willie James Jennings, Acts (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 39-40.

[v] Riddle.

[vi] Matthew L. Skinner, Acts:  An Interpretation Bible Commentary (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2025),50.

[vii] John 10.10b.

On Seasons of Discernment…

22 Wednesday Apr 2026

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In my role as pastor and parent, I have recently walked people through all kinds of discernment:  about denominational affiliation or specific church membership, ranking college options, deciding on coursework for the next school year, discerning the right candidate for a job or the right job for a candidate, hunting for a home, pondering the journey of fertility, developing strategic initiatives, exploring new models of ministry, and even casting a vote in a special election.  Discernment across these varying life situations has some commonalities.  People feel a sense of anxiety about making the right choice, they experience the tension of the in-between or the liminal time between one reality and another, they feel the thrill of possibility and the hope of something unexperienced, and they feel a fear of the unknown and the inevitability of change.  There is almost a weightlessness or that tightness of the chest when one unconsciously holds their breath.  An end of discernment is definitive, but the results and the consequences are not always known.

When one is in discernment, there are lots of best practices:  mapping out the pros and cons to methodically sort out the decision, reading about the experience of others, conducting research with people who can testify to their experience or at least be a sounding board, and for those who are religious, lots and lots of prayer.  Part of the reason I am privy to these seasons of discernment for so many people is that I join the process as a companion.  In some instances, I suspect that those who are discerning come with a hope that I will just tell them what to do.  But ultimately, we both know that this kind of discernment really has to lie at the feet of the one deciding – and in my case with a lot of prayer for divine wisdom and inspiration.

Perhaps the hardest part of discernment is figuring out when you’re done.  In some instances, there is a deadline – a day the application is due, a cutoff for registration, or election day.  Discernment with a deadline is gift.  Though it can feel like more pressure, there is a concrete ending.  Open-ended discernment means self-imposing some guidelines about when you have listened enough, read enough, prayed enough, and worried enough.  There is often too much room for self-doubt and second-guessing.  But even in those instances, decisions still must be made.

I wonder where you are on your own discernment journey.  You may be thinking, “Oh, no big decisions for me.  I just keep living each day.”  But the truth is, we are constantly moving in and out of discernment throughout life.  Opportunities percolate up, invitations arise, diagnoses appear, and the Holy Spirit always seems to be whispering in our ears about what’s next:  a new ministry invitation, a person you can help, a book or a play that can shake up your worldview, or some other thing to keep you on your toes.  Knowing the reality of constant discernment, our invitation is to create habits that buttress our discernment.  That may mean tending relationships that are healthy homes for grace-filled discernment, developing practices for logically sorting through decision points, and, most importantly, nurturing a healthy relationship with the Holy Spirit so that when God is whispering in your ear, you’ve tuned yourself to the right channel to eliminate static.  My prayers are with you as you build your discernment toolbox.  And I can’t wait to hear what the Holy Spirit is doing! 

Sermon – 1 Samuel 16.1-13, L4, YA (10 AM), March 15, 2026

15 Wednesday Apr 2026

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Once upon a time, about twenty years ago, we built this New Chapel.  We intentionally chose chairs instead of pews so that we could have flexible space – so that we could creatively use and reorient this space, freeing us for the movement of the Spirit.  And sometimes that arrangement is fully realized:  when we clear every chair out of this space for our guests in the Winter Shelter, when we bring in tables for Flip Flop Mass, or when we make this space an event space for Galas and Murder Mysteries.  But even when we’ve tried new accommodations for our growing choir, they have mostly been within the same space – not involving total changes like you likely experienced this morning. 

Leading up to today’s worship, I anticipated some angst.  I knew the choir would be happy, but I wondered:  Where would the households who normally sat there sit?  Who would be displaced when someone sat in their usual spot?  How would the movement of the pulpit change the experience of worship for someone who stayed in a familiar spot?  How long would the disorientation last and how many times might we have to adjust today’s arrangement before we find a new “Hickory Neck normal?”  I have watched you over the years, and I have seen parishioners graciously try to hold a pleasant face when the seat they normally like is taken – especially when the only seats left are on the dreaded front row!

At Hickory Neck, we tout one of our core values as a sense of curiosity – an openness to change.  That was one of the most attractive qualities about Hickory Neck when I was first being considered for the position of Rector here.  In truth, an openness to change and experimentation in churches is rare – a place more often associated with the line, “That’s how we’ve always done it.”  That openness has been a lifeforce for us:  as we’ve changed liturgies, as we’ve welcomed a school onto our property, as we navigated the changes and chances of a pandemic, and as we’ve navigated systemic economic and generational shifts.  That openness is a sacred inbreathing of the Holy Spirit and that openness is life.

And that kind of openness to change is not always easy or natural.  Just look at one of our main characters from the Hebrew Scriptures reading today.  Samuel has been the master of change.  He was deeply opposed to the notion of Israel’s desire for a king.  But God asked Samuel to anoint a king and so he anointed Saul as king.  Saul started out as a good king, but began to fail in the role.  And so, God told Samuel that Samuel would need to anoint a new king.  Samuel obeys again, but not without resistance.  At the beginning of the lesson for today, we find God scolding Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul?”  Samuel, who never wanted a king to begin with, became attached – got used to the new “way we’ve always done things.”  And in the face of change, we find Samuel grieving. 

Though we at Hickory Neck might be models of change management and followers of the movement of the Holy Spirit, that does not mean we do not have feelings – that we do not occasionally find ourselves grieving change.  Whether we are adjusting to sharing our property (did you ever notice the children at play signs we installed?), or lamenting the lack of touch during and since the pandemic (ever have someone reach out to hold your hand unexpectantly here?), or dreading the rearrangement of flip-flop mass (remember all the mosquitos, the poorly functioning mics, and the road noise when we gathered outside instead?), or that silly, almost primal, gut punch when something as simple as a seat you’ve been accustomed to is occupied and you need to sit in an unfamiliar space at church.

Here’s what we know though.  Even though Samuel grieves what has been, what he has invested in, what he has risked his reputation for, Samuel follows God’s call anyway.  We cannot underestimate that response.  Samuel was not just overcoming feelings, Samuel was also taking a tremendous risk.  Samuel articulates as much when he tells God Saul will kill Samuel if he finds out he’s anointing a new king.  “To anoint a new king while the old one lives would be seen by Saul as treason…”[i]  Even the elders of the city where the new king will be anointed are trembling when they greet Samuel.[ii]  The danger is palpable, and yet, Samuel goes and he anoints.  And not only does he anoint a new king, he anoints the most unlikely – certainly not the son of Jesse he expected as the first seven sons were presented.

What I love about this story is that this is not just a story that recalls that old timey hymn, “Trust and obey, for there’s not other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”  No, Samuel’s story is what scholar Donald Olsen calls a dance in leadership.  Olsen explains, “Samuel heard God speak and his first response was protest and inquiry.  Samuel wanted to understand the parameters and responsibilities, the realities and consequences, and gain assurance that God understood them too.  At times, God responded with more detail or altered plans, giving the impression that it was cocreative process.  At other times, God responded, ‘We will cross that bridge when we come to it.  Go!’  Samuel now acted in knowledge and faith, walking where God directed and doing as God instructed.  God’s call was not to blind obedience, but cocreated purpose, toward which Samuel walked at a steady and healthy pace.”[iii]  In fact, when describing the cocreative process, the dance of leadership in the church, Olsen adds, “Perhaps that is why David liked to dance so much; he was dancing out the details with God.”[iv]

We are in a season of cocreation, of dancing out the details with God too.  Whether we’re dreaming new ways to envision our property to ensure revenue streams for future generations of Hickory Neck, whether we are addressing immediate budget gaps with creative funding sources that can buttress our generous annual pledging, or whether we are simply rearranging furniture, the work we are doing not simple obedience, but a beautiful dance of working out the details with God.  That dance means God will push us out of our comfort zones, that sometimes God will give us insight and sometimes God will just tell us to go, and that sometimes we and others will do things that initially seem scary.  But what we know, and why we value curiosity and change so much at Hickory Neck, is that dancing with God means moving in ways that release joy and satisfaction in ways that our bodies cannot find outside the dance floor.  Amen.

[i] Carole A. Newsom, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 101.

[ii] Newsome, 101.

[iii] Donald P. Olsen, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A., Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 102.

[iv] Olsen, 102.

On Risking Failure and Facing Fear…

03 Wednesday Dec 2025

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I was listening to a podcast this week that was talking about how, as they mature, adults have a harder time trying new things because they have a deeper understanding, and perhaps fear of, failure.  Children don’t have this same hesitancy.  They try new things, figure out what works and what doesn’t, and keep at it.  There is a freedom in their development that allows them not to hold back or be afraid, but to keep trying out new experiences and challenges.

As one of my daughters ages, she is heading into that in-between time where she doesn’t have the same innocent willingness to try and fail, and is starting to understand that failures or inadequacies are sometimes noticed by others negatively.  She is trying out a new extracurricular this fall, and hated the first session.  As we headed into the second session, she pulled out all the stops about why she shouldn’t have to go back:  she wasn’t good enough, people weren’t nice, she would bring down the group through her inexperience.  In a moment of weakness, I almost caved.  I know how big those feelings are.  I palpably remember the anxiety that kind of experience brings, and I wanted to protect her from that hurt. 

When she came out of the second practice, she was a different person.  She was smiling, had a lightness to her step, and a warmth about her.  “That was fun!” she said.  As I listened to her describe the session, I was overwhelmed with two realizations.  First, I realized how close I came to cutting off a growth experience – how she would have never had learned the feeling of what it means to push through fear and find joy.  And second, I realized I needed to take a long look at where I am cutting off growth experiences in my own life.  Masked with the label, “wisdom,” how often do I fail to risk?

I wonder what growth opportunities are being presented to you today.  It doesn’t have to be something big or dramatically different.  Part of creating an openness to growth means being open to the little invitations – talking to a stranger when that’s not something you would normally do, reaching out for support when you don’t like feeling dependent upon someone, saying yes to an invitation to something that is not at all in your comfort zone but you admittedly have never tried to know for sure.  Those yeses prepare us for the yeses the Holy Spirit desires in each of our lives.  Those invitations are often God’s quiet invitations into God’s joy.  Those experiences are often pathways to the incarnate Jesus in your life.  I can’t wait to hear what you say yes to this week!

On Seeing Joy…

18 Wednesday Jun 2025

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Those who have young children, or are friends with families with children, know that a big part of parenting is running your kids to activities – sports, dance, music, or whatever other passion the kid has (or the parent wants them to have).  The more children there are, the more running and coordinating there seems to be.  When I talk to most parents, that shuttling and coordinating is something that occupies big spaces in their brains and emotional energy – myself included!

These next two weeks, our family is in the thick of that mode of being with our little one.  She has started a fun summer day camp, her dance recital is this weekend (the culmination of a year of work), and next week she gets to do a half-day basketball camp and start summer cello lessons with a beloved teacher.  My normal response to such a load is feeling overwhelmed by the details.  But this week, I have had an odd sense of objectivity about it all.  Over the course of two weeks, this kid will get to experience all the things she loves in life:  play, dance, basketball, music, and relationship.  I have been marveling at how awesome it is to have so many soul-feeding things in such a short span of time.  It is like a concentrated dose of joy-making and I find myself getting to bask in the glow of her happiness.

Watching this special time for her has made me wonder how we are structuring our own busy calendars.  Summer is often a time of special trips and adventures.  But I am not sure what is calling to me is the planning of extraordinary things to fill our hearts.  Instead, what I sense is calling me is to name the extraordinary in the ordinary life I have crafted for myself.  If I value relationships, how are those relationships feeding me right now?  If I value the health of my body, how am tending to my body?  If I feel enlivened when I am rooted in God, how am I connecting with God these days?

I wonder what ways the Holy Spirit is calling you into joy through the abundant gifts surrounding you.  I wonder what beautiful things in your life you have been remiss in giving gratitude for lately.  I wonder if this week, you might take out that planner, or calendar, or set of sticky notes on the fridge, and start reframing those things that feel like obligations as things that God has gifted you for your joy.  I cannot wait to hear where you are finding abundance!

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.

On the Risk of Anticipation…

12 Wednesday Mar 2025

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So, what does a Dancing with the Williamsburg Stars competitor do after the competition?  Well, in my case, you get back in the studio!  Before the competition even began, I already knew I wanted to keep dancing.  I was having such a great time stretching my mind and body learning new things that I knew it was a good physical, and spiritual, discipline I wanted to maintain. 

Now, you may be wondering how in the world ballroom dancing can be categorized as a spiritual discipline.  The truth is, I encounter the sacred in ballroom dance all the time.  I talked about it once before HERE.  This week, as I started my first post-competition class, we went back to basics, learning the rumba and cha-cha.  There’s a certain humbling that comes with learning a new dance that I had forgotten from when I started months ago.  As we progressed through the class, I felt like I was slowly getting the hang of the technicalities – that is, until we started turns.  At one point, my instructor said, “Stop anticipating!”  He reminded me that he would show me where to go, but if I anticipated what he was going to do next, I would mess up our unique dance.

Those two words have been rattling around in my head.  Stop anticipating.  You see, I am a planner by nature.  Anticipation is my jam.  I am constantly thinking ahead, wondering about decision trees and the potential impact of each branch.  I like thinking about the larger system and strategically guiding my parish in our next steps.  So, the idea of stopping anticipation seems anathema. 

But the more I thought about it, every good thing that has come about in my ministry was nothing I actually anticipated.  In my current parish, I might have conducted a needs assessment with the community, listened to my parish’s desires, and researched a particular new ministry.  But what I didn’t anticipate was an outside group needing space to do the exact ministry we were contemplating.  I might have envied other parishes with digital ministries, but what I never anticipated was a worldwide pandemic that would launch my church’s own digital ministry.  I might be dreaming with my parish about alternative revenue streams and the repurposing of our spaces, but what I didn’t anticipate was three conversations that fell into my lap in the course of three weeks about potential partnerships.  When I finished the planning and stop anticipating, God happened each time.

I wonder in what ways your anticipation is blocking the movement of the Holy Spirit.  In what ways are you anticipating a left-hand turn, only to discover, God is over the to right, ready for you, if you can just stop anticipating?  For those of you who are lifetime planners, I know this is hard spiritual work.  Perhaps this Lent, you can join me in my prayer, “Lord, help me stop anticipating.” 

Sermon & Annual Meeting Address – 1 Corinthians 12.12-31a, EP3, YC, January 26, 2025

12 Wednesday Feb 2025

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One of the things we do on Annual Meeting Sunday is install new Vestry Members.  Even though only one third of the Vestry rotates on and off each year, I always remind Vestries that we become a new, changed body every year.  Each of those nine members bring different gifts, talents, and insights.  Each of those members shifts the tone and tenor of our work, and helps us dance a little bit differently.  I was reminded of this reality last week.  When talking about a retiring Vestry member, another member said, “What’s so cool about him is that he does not speak often, but when he does everyone gets really quiet because the insight he offers is so profound.”  That feedback was entirely true – and that feedback reminded of me of another Vestry member much earlier in my tenure at Hickory Neck who would do the same thing – come in toward the end of a conversation with an insight none of us had seen but was entirely needed.

That is the funny thing about bodies – we need all our parts to be the best versions of our bodies.  I think that is why Paul leans into the metaphor of a body to describe the followers of Christ in first Corinthians.  As one scholar writes, “The human body has 206 bones, 693 muscles, and about 6 pounds of skin, along with ligaments, cartilage, veins, arteries, blood, fat, and more.  Every time we hear a sound; every time we take a step; every time we take a breath, hundreds of different parts work together so that what we experience is a single movement, our minds and bodies working as one unit.  Even the great engineers struggle to achieve anything like [the body] in mechanical form.  The human body represents one of the most complex systems in existence.”[i]

For Paul, that super complex system represents the body of Christ – the way each part of the body (or in this case, each member of the church) is not just a belonging member, but is a member whose participation is vital – the whole body is thrown out of balance when we are not all using our gifts.  Scholar Raewynne Whiteley explains, “Every single person in the church matters – the homebound elderly, babies, those with disabilities, and well as the generous givers and hard workers.  This is a reality we can name, which has less to do with equality than with wholeness.  Only with all our members can the body of the church be whole.”[ii]

This last year, we saw what wholeness looks like at Hickory Neck.  Tech team members and pop-up prayer leaders who stream worship online connect us to homebound members, overstretched families who cannot make their way to church but want to pray with us, and those unchurched in our wider community who want to see if they have a place in this body before braving the doors that open to super friendly (sometimes overwhelmingly so) Hickory Neckers.  Retirees who live far from their families and have very little interaction with children in the daily lives connect with children whose own grandparents may live far away and whose parents may be frazzled just by trying to get the family in the car on Sunday mornings.  College students who love to sing but maybe have an estranged relationship or no relationship with the Church connect with a community who cares about the poor and hear sermons from clergy that help them think about faith and politics a little differently. 

And that is just the everyday Sunday at Hickory Neck.  If we are to believe Paul’s metaphor that we are a complex body of parts that need one another, we need only to look at the long list of moving parts in our community in the last year:  from 5 baptisms, 2 first communions, 11 confirmations/receptions/ reaffirmations, and 1 wedding; from 19 members of Discovery Class, 25 participants in Godly Play classes at the Kensington School, and countless volunteers during the Winter Shelter; from a brand new Choir Camp with 20 children, guest concerts with well over 100 attendees each time, to a guest choir of 38 high school students from New Jersey; from over 13,000 points of pastoral care from clergy, an increase in pledges by over $17,000, and an increase in average Sunday attendance by 8%.  This is a complex community, who is not only content with daily operations but is ever trying new things like a Cursillo Eucharist, St. Patrick’s Day Liturgy, a children’s Chorister program, Holy Vino fundraiser, a new organ, a Finance Committee, and even a priest as a dancing star in Williamsburg.  When Bishop Haynes visited us in 2024, and said we are a vibrant, thriving community, this is what she meant.

Now, there is an inherent tension about being a body with varying parts, as Paul reminds us.  As scholar Karen Stokes explains, “There will always be differences with a congregation – differing opinions, experiences, priorities, needs – and it is dangerous to try to play down those differences in the interest of some superficial harmony.  When this natural diversity within a congregation is not allowed to be expressed openly, subtle judgments are communicated:  when the ear gets the message that it would really be better if [the ear] were an eye, when the foot realizes the community values hands more highly.”[iii]  If we do not let the uniqueness of each part be celebrated, when we face changes, anxieties can increase.  And Stokes goes on to say, “Anxiety lessens once’s ability to be imaginative, creative, and self-reflective, and instead causes reactivity, defensiveness, even paranoia”[iv] 

We have been talking a lot the last couple of weeks about our finances and our need for increased revenue to support our vibrant, varied ministries.  Those conversations have brought up a lot of anxiety.  After nine years at Hickory Neck, I have come to recognize that every January is similar – talk of finances gets all of us anxious.  As I have been marinating on Paul’s body metaphor and thinking about the miracle of such diverse parts working so harmoniously together, and as I reflected on 2024 and how we started with anxiety around budgets twelve months ago and managed to power through a tremendous year of vibrant ministry, I find I am looking toward 2025 with renewed confidence.  Perhaps this is the time of year when we are reminded that we are not all ears or feet or eyes.  We will not see ministry the same or hold the same opinions.  Even though we might approach ministry differently, we are all here to see the body do what the body of Christ does best – love God, love self, and love neighbor. 

Just a few weeks ago, I was talking to a first-time visitor who was looking for a new church home.  She heard about Hickory Neck from another new family to Hickory Neck and was able in that one Sunday to see a place for her family here.  That experience tells us all something powerful:  we may be a body that is complex, and beautiful, and sometimes anxious because of our differences; but we are also a body who honors how every person who comes through that door is a part we did not even realize we were missing and who we are thrilled to welcome into their unique contribution to our whole.  Having seen church communities who are not open to new body parts being added, I can tell you, having that experience made me realize we are a beautiful, complex, fabulous body, made possible by the gifts of the Spirit, who works in and through each of us.[v]  Our work this year is to let the Spirit use us to be awesome ears, eyes, feet, tendons, and muscles.  I cannot wait to see what the Spirit does with this fabulous body in 2025!  Amen.

[i] Raewynne J. Whiteley, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 279.

[ii] Whiteley, 283.

[iii] Karen Stokes, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 280.

[iv] Stokes, 280.

[v] Whiteley, 283.

On Looking for Helpers…

02 Wednesday Oct 2024

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Photo credit: https://www.power-grid.com/der-grid-edge/electric-vehicles/midamerican-rolls-out-three-all-electric-utility-bucket-trucks/#gref

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.

Sermon – Mark 6.1-13, P9, YB, July 7, 2024

17 Wednesday Jul 2024

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I realized recently that one of things I often say when I am asked how my family is doing is to offer a halfhearted compliment, “Everyone is staying in their lane.”   I think I started adopting that minimum standard, “staying in your lane,” because I have learned over the years how little control I have as a parent.  I may not be able to control what things my kids are interested in, I may not be able to control how well they perform in school, and I may not be able to control how they handle interpersonal relationships.  But if each family member is “staying in their lane,” then that means I have at least controlled their meddling with one another, their active misbehavior, or their making a scene anywhere else. 

That is what seems to be bothering the folks in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth – Jesus is not staying in his lane.  At the beginning, there seems to be a modicum of respect for what Jesus is teaching in the synagogue – they compliment the wisdom he seems to have gained and the healing acts he has performed.  But the compliments end there.  Then the questions begin.  Where did he get this wisdom?  Isn’t he the carpenter’s son?  Isn’t he the son of Mary – a question dripping with criticism, as you would usually only refer to someone’s parentage through the father, not the mother.[i]  In other words, the people of Jesus’ hometown are basically saying, “Stay in your lane, Jesus!”

Passages like this can be so tempting for us.  We read about Jesus’ hometown and think, “Those silly folks from Nazareth!  They cannot see what God is doing right in front of them!”  As if “those” people and finger pointing is what the gospel calls for.  But when we start wagging our fingers at “those” people, we forget one kernel of truth about scripture:  we are always “those” people.”  Anytime something someone does in scripture makes us uncomfortable or sanctimonious, scripture is speaking straight to “us” not “those people.”  So, the people of Nazareth aren’t the only ones telling Jesus to stay in his lane.  We tell that to Jesus all the time.  When the Holy Spirit is calling us try a new ministry that feels daunting, we are tempted to tell Jesus to stay in his lane and let us do things our way.  When Jesus puts people in our lives that push us out of our comfort zones, we grumble to Jesus to stay in his lane and stop sending us prophets – I mean, annoying people.  When we hear that still, quiet voice speaking truth to us in places we like to keep in a box, we cut Jesus some nasty side-eye and tell Jesus to stay in his lane.

But as scholar Debie Thomas says, “The call of the Gospel is not a call to stand still.  It is a call to choose movement over stasis, change over security, growth over decay.”[ii]  Just last Sunday, we started a movie series about changemakers.  Last week, the film was The Philadelphia Eleven, the story of the unsanctioned ordination of the first eleven women in the Episcopal Church.  The vitriol of the bishops, clergy, and lay people who were opposed to those women’s ordination was shocking to the ears.  From the clergy person who stated with confidence, “Women can be anything they want – except a priest in God’s holy church.”  From the woman who lamented the ways those women had violated what God calls women to be and do in the world.  To the bishops held a public, scathing trial of the three male bishops who dared to ordain the first eleven.  The Philadelphia Eleven had waited time after time for the Episcopal Church to change – to chose growth, change, and movement instead of decay, security, and stasis.  And when the church refused to let these women out of their lane, the stepped out of their lane anyway.

Scholar Thomas concludes, “The scandal of the Incarnation is precisely that Jesus doesn’t stay in his lane.  God doesn’t limit God’s self to our small and stingy notions of the sacred.  God exceeds, God abounds, God transgresses, God transcends.  The lowly carpenter reveals himself as Lord.  The guy with the tainted birth story offers us salvation.  The hometown prophet tells us truths we’d rather not hear… [Jesus] will call out to us, nevertheless, daring us always to see and experience him anew.”[iii]  Our invitation today is let Jesus out of his lane in our life:  to not hold his lane as sacred, and to open ourselves to the ways his transgression of lanes is helping us to experience Jesus in new and fresh ways.  Maybe we do that in weekly worship, opening ourselves through song, prayer, and scripture to fresh experiences of God.  Maybe we come to the film series or Bible study this summer to see where God is exceeding, abounding, transgressing, and transcending.  Or maybe we let go of whatever boundary we are holding here at Hickory Neck to see what happens when we ask Jesus to please cross out of his lane.  The promise for us is a fresh experience of Jesus in our own day, time, and place.  Amen.

[i] Efrain Agosto, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 3 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 215.

[ii] Debie Thomas, “Hometown Prophets,” June 27, 2021, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3058-hometown-prophets on July 5, 2024.

[iii] Thomas.