Tag Archives: love

On Collars, Conversations, and Casual Clothes…

10 Wednesday Sep 2025

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Photo credit: https://medium.com/test-everything/everything-you-never-wanted-to-know-about-clerical-collars-2faa4b84c092

One of our favorite family errands is making the Costco run:  grabbing bulk supplies and some special treats to stock the house for the coming weeks.  My experience these days is mostly functional:  get in, grab items on the list, avoid being tempted by impulse purchases caused by yummy samples, and get home.  But last week I ended up near the warehouse while still in my clergy collar and decided to make a run anyway.  I do not know if it was the collar or it was a full moon, but I could not seem to get out of the warehouse without myriad encounters:  from the older gentleman who started with a question about bread and from whom I had to drag myself away ten minutes later because I think he was working out some loneliness; to the customers who either stared at or asked me directly about my collar; to the employee at check out who, without one word about my attire, asked me to pray for the staff that day. 

I have been thinking about how different that day in the store was from days when I do not wear a collar – wondering how folks might see me as a safe person to share their questions, wonderings, and concerns with or without a collar.  For some, the collar is a visual cue toward receptivity – a signal that I am a pastor even outside the church walls.  I suspect that once my collar is off, I am not necessarily putting out “Come talk to me – I welcome your thoughts, cares, and ponderings” vibes. 

Every Sunday in church we talk about taking the church out into the world.  Our dismissal says, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”  My shopping experience made me wonder how much I limit that loving and serving.  Do I only love and serve the Lord when I’m in the mood?  Is my selective loving and serving obvious to others?  In other words, am I somehow actively shutting down loving, faithful care in daily life by masking my identity as a child of God by wearing my “casual clothes”? 

I invite your pondering with me this week about how loving and serving the Lord might mean cultivating a receptivity to loving, open, caring conversations with friends, family, and strangers (especially strangers!) alike.  We all need down time from being on at work or in our family or our volunteer roles.  But perhaps this week, we can experiment with using some of our “ordinary time” for unusual encounters – seeing people as they really are, listening more meaningfully when people reach out, pausing when others indicate they could use some of your time.  I cannot wait to hear how the shift in your week goes!

Sermon – Luke 14.1, 7-14, P17, YC, August 31, 2025

03 Wednesday Sep 2025

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Tables are a funny thing.  Tables are where families gather and catch up about how their day was.  Tables are where a young adult eats their first solo meal on the plate they got at the local thrift store and where a much older adult gets lost in thought looking at the China pattern their grandmother chose as a new bride.  Tables are where friends gather in laughter and storytelling, and where formal introductions are made over so many forks you do not know which one to choose.  Tables are where the cool kids, the nerds, or the jocks sit in the cafeteria, and where students ask the terrifying question, “Is this seat free?” 

Tables were no less meaningful in Jesus’ day.  Much of Jesus’ ministry and the stories we know from Jesus happened around tables.  As scholar Debie Thomas describes, “Though the Gospels record [Jesus] receiving and accepting many dinner invitations during the years of his ministry, those mealtime scenes usually ended in drama, provocation, or scandal.  Once, a woman of dubious reputation caressed his feet under the table.  Sometimes he interrupted a meal to heal sick people on the Sabbath.  Often, he ate with dirty hands, shared a table with riff-raff, and drank more than his enemies considered respectable.  Worst of all — he said things.  Blunt, embarrassing things that no one cared to hear.”[i]

Today’s gospel includes one of those same uncomfortable encounters at a table.  Jesus has been invited to dinner by the one of the leaders of the Pharisees – an honor, to be sure.  But after watching the other guests jockey for the seats of prestige – those seats closest to the host – Jesus begins to tell a parable – or at least, Luke’s gospel says Jesus tells a parable.  What Jesus says sounds more like advice – and his advice, on first glance, sounds oddly manipulative.    “When you go to a wedding sit at the lowest-honor seating so that you can be honored when the host insists you move up to the prestigious seat.”  Somehow humbling yourself will let you be exalted, but I’m not entirely sure how authentic one’s humility is if they are being humble just to be exalted. 

So, then what is going here?  Well, Luke’s labeling this as a parable is helpful.  Though Jesus does not tell a narrative or story, like we know most parables present, we know by the use of the word “parable” Jesus is speaking directly about something with a deeper level of meaning.[ii]  Jesus is not giving social advancement advice.  He is calling into question the entire social order and contrasting that social order with the kingdom of God.  As scholar David Lose would argue, in this parabolic advice, Jesus is calling all social orders into question, saying that “…these things are not of God.  Jesus proclaims here and throughout the gospel that in the kingdom of God there are no pecking orders.  None.  Zero.  Zilch.  And while that sounds at first blush like it ought to be good news, it throws us into radical dependence on God’s grace and God’s grace alone.  We can’t stand, that is, on our accomplishments, or our wealth, or positive attributes, or good looks, or strengths, or IQ, or our movement up or down the reigning pecking order.  There is, suddenly, nothing we can do to establish ourselves before God and the world except rely upon God’s desire to be in relationship with us and with all people.  Which means that we have no claim on God; rather, we have been claimed by God and invited to love others as we’ve been loved.”[iii]

I think that realization of the deeper level of what Jesus is saying is why what Jesus says next is even more unnerving.  Jesus says the next time you have a meal, not to invite your friends or your family or even your rich neighbor.  You are to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  In other words, our tables are meant to be a welcome space to outsiders. 

Dan Clendenin tells the story of family wedding.  When the young couple got married, “…they wanted to invite their entire church, but budgetary constraints prohibited that.  Instead, after the service they had the local police block off the main street in downtown Waco, Texas.  Guests danced in the streets and enjoyed refreshments from a Baskins Robbins ice cream cart.  The gazebo in the concrete park next to the theatre sheltered the wedding cake.  …[The groom] had made friends with a number of homeless men who lived under a bridge.  As a pastor [he] would employ these men for odd jobs at his church.  ‘Coyote,’ the leader of his homeless friends, came to the wedding in his usual attire of jeans with holes in the knees, a scraggly beard, and unwashed hair.  He organized his friends to clean up the streets after the wedding, then sat on the curb with a big smile and smoked a cigar.  Another guest was [the bride’s] next door African-American neighbor.  The little girl loved to spend time with [the bride], and really wanted to come to her wedding.  So the mother, the daughter, and the grandfather all came.  The 70 year-old grandfather was soon the center of attraction as he went out on the street and danced to the music.  Soon the college girls were vying to dance with him.  As passersby strolled by and inquired about what was happening, they too were invited to the wedding.  There were guests dressed in their nicest clothes alongside guests who wouldn’t feel at home at a formal occasion.  However they dressed, on this occasion every person felt welcomed as an honored guest, just as God himself welcomes us to himself, and invites us to welcome each other.”[iv]

This year, Hickory Neck is planning to launch a third worship service.  The dream for that service centers around a table too.  The guest list does not really include any of you here (no offense!).  We are hoping to create place settings for those who do not have a church home.  We do not expect to invite people who are friends, family, or even rich neighbors – though we certainly would not turn them away.  And although all our services gather around tables to share the Eucharistic meal, this service will literally be conducted around a dinner table – a table that feeds us physically but also spiritually.  Where all sorts of folks can gather, can share in community, can learn about this radically good news of Jesus’ love, and can shape disciples who invite the wideness of God’s kingdom.  Like all experiments, I am not sure how the experiment will go.  But today’s text reminds me of why we want to center that space around tables.

Of course, endorsing this new ministry doesn’t get us off the hook.  We do not leave Jesus’ parable (or parabolic teachings) today with a promise of a ministry that absolves our call to love like God loves.  Although Hickory Neck is hoping to model a communal way to live into the gospel, Jesus still offers us a personal invitation to think about our own tables this week.  “Jesus asks us to believe that our behavior at the table matters — because [our behavior at the table] does [matter].  Where we sit speaks volumes, and the people whom we choose to welcome reveals the stuff of our souls.  This is God’s world we live in; nothing here is ordinary.  In this realm, the strangers at our doorstep are the angels.”[v]  Our work this week is not quick-fix, one-time work.  Our work is the on-going work of welcome, love, reverence, and humility.  We do that work one table at a time – and all with God’s help.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “Table Manners,” August 21, 2016, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/1070-table-manners on August 29, 2025.

[ii] Luke Timothy Johnson,The Gospel of Luke:  Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 3 (Collegeville, MN:  The Litrugical Press, 1991), 224.

[iii] David Lose, “More Than Good Advice [or] Why Jesus Gets Killed, Pt. 2,” August 22, 2010 as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/more-than-good-advice-or-why-jesus-gets-killed-pt-2 on August 29, 2025.

[iv] Daniel B. Clendenin, “Jesus Does Dinner:  Food for Thought for Guests and Hosts,” September 7, 2007, as found at https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/3637-20070827JJ on August 29, 2025.

[v] Thomas.

Sermon – Luke 10.25-37, P10, YC, July 13, 2025

24 Thursday Jul 2025

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I don’t know about you, but gospel readings like the one we heard today immediately put me at ease.  Episcopalians aren’t particularly known for memorizing scripture, but we do know stories.  And the Good Samaritan is definitely one of the stories we know.  We know these stories so well that we sometimes tune out, maybe imagining, like I did, the time when we were kids and the Sunday School teacher had us dress up and act out the story.  And we are not the only ones.  There are whole churches, charitable organizations, nursing homes, and hospitals named after the Good Samaritan.  We love this simple story about how to be like the Good Samaritan and not like the lawyer, priest, or Levite.

The problem with these familiar stories is that our familiarity dilutes the power of the stories – and perhaps our ability to situate ourselves in the characters of the parable.  Some scholars even try to rename this parable to something like, “Jesus and the Lawyer.”[i]  The lawyer is the first person we miss in this narrative.  We know he is trying to trick Jesus, so he must be bad.  We admit he knows the law, or Torah – to love God and love neighbor.  His second question is where the trouble comes.  The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor?”  The question seems simple enough, but the trouble comes from what he doesn’t ask, “Who is not my neighbor?  How much love are we talking here, Jesus?  Can you be specific?  Where can I draw the line?  Outside my front door?  At the edges of my neighborhood?  Along the cultural and racial boundaries I was raised with?  I mean, there are lines.  Aren’t there?”[ii]  And before we get too high on our “I know loving neighbors means loving everyone” horse, think about the last time you got angry about politics and what “those people” are doing or saying. 

Our next issue is pointing the finger at the priest and Levite.  I have heard and read all kinds of explanations about why these two men might have walked on the other side of the road from the dying fellow in need of help.  I have heard people explain that priests and Levites must be careful about ritual purity.  I have heard that as religious professionals they were being upper-class snobs.  I have heard they were late to temple, in a rush to do their jobs.  Unfortunately, according to scholars, none of those justifications work.  The purity laws would not have prohibited these guys from helping – from touching, maybe, but not from helping.  And despite being known leaders in communities, the roles of priest and Levite were mostly inherited, and not a vocation like we know now.  And the text tells us the men are walking away from Jerusalem.  They’re definitely not late for work.  The real problem is simple:  the two men simply do “what is all too ordinary:  [they] fail to act when [they] should.”  In fact, both men were required to attend to the fellow in the ditch, dead or alive.[iii]

Martin Luther King, Jr. on the night before his assassination preached about this parable.  He said, “I’m going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It’s possible that those men were afraid….And so the first question that the priest [and] the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’…But then the Good Samaritan came by, and he reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”  King went on, “If I do not help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?”[iv]  The real issue with these two men is they only thought about themselves and failed their neighbor.

Now, the final challenge in the parable is the Samaritan.  We all know him as the “Good Samaritan,” but even that nomenclature is problematic.  You see, Samaritans and Jews experienced a great deal of tension.  They have had a long rivalry about where the proper temple is and who has authority.  Just a chapter before in Luke we read about how the Samaritans do not welcome Jesus and the disciples are ready to rain down fire upon the Samaritans.  This does not necessarily mean Samaritans are less influential or wealthy.  This is a tribal feud – an “us versus them” conflict.  And as much as we might identify with the Good Samaritan as the example we always follow, the truth is the Samaritan is not us.  He is the last person you would think of as the “good guy” in Jesus’ day.  We have to hold on to that reality because anyone hearing Jesus’ parable in his day would have been shocked by the introduction of the Samaritan – especially one who behaves much better than “us.”[v]  Scholar Amy-Jill Levine reminds us of the storytelling “rule of three.”  For anyone hearing Jesus’ story, when he talks about a priest, then a Levite, the hearer would have anticipated an Israelite being the third character in the story.  Levine says, “Instead of the anticipated Israelite, the person who stops to help is a Samaritan.  In modern terms, this would be like going from Larry and Moe to Osama bin Laden.”[vi]

So, to help us hear this familiar parable in a fresh way, I want to turn back to scholar Amy-Jill Levine.  Doctor Levine is a Jewish New Testament scholar – and yes, you heard that right – a devout Jew whose career has been in the study of Jesus.  She retells the parable like this:  “I am an Israeli Jew on my way from Jerusalem to Jericho, and I am attacked by thieves, beaten, stripped, robbed, and left half dead in a ditch.  Two people who should have stopped to help pass me by:  the first, a Jewish medic from the Isreal Defense Forces; the second, a member of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.  But the person who takes compassion on me and shows me mercy is a Palestinian Muslim whose sympathies lie with Hamas, a political party whose charter not only anticipates Israel’s destruction, but also depicts Jews as subhuman demons responsible for the world’s problems.”[vii]

Before we can be Good Samaritans or Good Hamas Members or Good Jews, Jesus is inviting us to get real clear on who our neighbor is.  As scholar Debie Thomas suggests, “Your neighbor is the one who scandalizes you with compassion…Your neighbor is the one who upends all of your entrenched categories and shocks you with a fresh face of God.  Your neighbor is the one who mercifully steps over the ancient, bloodied line separating ‘us’ from ‘them’ and teaches you the real meaning of ‘Good.’”  What shall I do to inherit eternal life?  Do this.  Do this and you will live.”[viii]

I do not know who you are so deeply in conflict with that you have written them off as unacceptable neighbors.  I do not know whose hand you would recoil from if they extended their hand in help.  I do know who you have deemed unredeemable or unforgivable.  But Jesus’ parable is not a safe, cute parable about how to be a good person.  Today’s parable is an invitation to recognize how deeply difficult loving your neighbor is because the definition of neighbor is uncomfortably expansive with Jesus.  And once you concede this parable of the Good Whomever Makes You the Most Uncomfortable, Jesus invites you to love them anyway.  In the same very way that Jesus loves you – unconditionally, bountifully, and full of mercy and grace.  Amen.

[i] Fred B. Craddock, Luke: Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1990), 149.

[ii] Debie Thomas, Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections of the Life of Christ (Eugene, OR:  Cascade Books, 2022) 126.

[iii] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus:  The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York:  Harper One, 2014), 98-101

[iv] Levine, 102.

[v] Thomas, 127

[vi] Levine, 103.

[vii] Levine, 114-115.

[viii] Thomas, 128.

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

18 Wednesday Jun 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

18 Wednesday Jun 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sermon – Luke 24.1-12, EV, YC, April 19, 2025

18 Wednesday Jun 2025

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Tonight, we celebrate one of the most ancient, and in many traditions, the most important liturgies of the Church.  This is the festival of the resurrection of our Lord – despite what you may have learned about Easter Sunday.  Tonight is the night that we liturgically mark that shift from Lent and the Passion to our Lord and Savior’s Resurrection.  The church gives us this incredible gift tonight, and our job is to hearken back to an innocent sense of awe as we realize what God does through Jesus Christ.

Luckily the Church helps us hearken back to that innocent sense of awe through the structure of the liturgy.  I like to think the Church’s work in the Easter Vigil as being like that grandfather in the movie The Princess Bride, who visits his sick grandson to read him a fantastic tale.  In that movie, the grandson is skeptical – that in fact his grandfather might be planning to read him a boring or sappy story.  But the grandfather insists that this story is one of the greatest stories ever told – a story that his father read him, that he read to his son, and now, he would read to him, his grandson.

The Church is like that grandfather to us tonight, who gathers up the grandchildren around him, and says, “Let me tell you a story.  This story is greater than any other story you have ever heard.  This story is full of intrigue and surprise, full of the primal elements, full of drama and passion, and full of twists and turns you will not expect.  Do you want to hear the story?”  And before the grandfather can even begin, we, the grandchildren, are waiting with bated breath.

“Once upon a time, before there was time, or people, or even land or sky, the earth as we know the earth was a formless void – filled with watery chaos.  God created the world as we know the world, and proclaimed that creation, ‘good.’  Sometime later, that world fell into sin and God used water to cleanse the whole earth through flood.  To the one person God saved, God promised to never do such destruction again and made a covenant of protection.  Much later, the people of God were fleeing a horrible fate – an awful leader who had enslaved the people.  This time, God once again manipulated the water – both to save God’s people and to destroy those who wished to destroy God’s people.  On the other side of the sea, on dry land, the people rejoiced.  Later, the people fell away from God and although God was grieved, God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel.  God told Ezekiel to reassemble the dry bones of God’s people, and to breathe new life into them.  And the people lived again.  Much later, when the people had become dispersed and disheartened, God proclaimed new hope.  God proclaimed that God would gather God’s people again and would eliminate their despair.

“But after all of that – after creation and floods, after the division of the sea and the giving of new life to old bones, even after promising to save the people – after all of that, yet still the people of God lived in sin and in separation from God.  And, knowing no other way, God did something so unexpected, so wonderful that we could never repay God.  God sent God’s Son to live and breathe among us, to show us the way of faithful living and the way to eternal life.  And as if that were not enough, that same Son was betrayed by his friends, mocked and reviled, and killed on a cross.  That was a dark, painful time – darker and more painful than anything the people had known before.  And so, the people of God did the only thing they knew to do:  they mourned, they hid in fear, and a few brave women went to tend to this precious gift they had been given, making his death as sacred as they knew how. 

“But something amazing happened – something no one ever anticipated.  The Son of Man, the Prince of Peace, the Messiah, Jesus was not there.  And the disciples went from east to west, sharing the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.”

At the end of the film The Princess Bride, the grandfather finishes the book, and tells his grandson to go off to sleep.  The once skeptical grandson hesitantly addresses his grandfather, “Grandpa?  Maybe you could come over and read it again to me tomorrow?”  His grandfather smiles and responds, “As you wish.”  Those words are significant because in the story the grandfather tells, the main characters say, “As you wish,” as their code word for, “I love you.”  Tonight, we too hear the story of our salvation, the great sweeping of our history with our Lord, and the salvific work of our Savior Jesus Christ, and we too find ourselves strangely warmed, longing to perhaps hear the story again.  And to us, the Church says, “As you wish.”  Amen.

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

18 Wednesday Jun 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sermon – Matthew 5.17-19, UJCCM Ecumenical Service, March 26, 2025

18 Wednesday Jun 2025

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Several years ago, I was in a Bishop Search process.  Ordinarily, I do not recommend the process – in fact, I often actively discourage the process, because in our Episcopal tradition, the search is very public, exacting, and takes a toll on your parish, even when they are cheering you on and supporting you.  But if I enjoyed anything from the experience, I enjoyed the opportunity to take a wider look at the Church – a wider look at this endeavor we are all undertaking, called being Christian.  One of those defining identity moments happened in one of the public interviews.  A church member at one of the local churches said to me, “Our current bishop is very active politically.  Would you as a bishop continue that political activity, or would you focus on following Jesus?” 

Now we all know that the county our ecumenical group is situated in is decidedly “purple” politically.  I haven’t really asked your clergy about your individual churches, but I know Hickory Neck is also a very “purple” congregation – I often joke that if you took a look at the bumper stickers in our parking lot you would wonder how in the world we peacefully worship every Sunday.  In fact, my own church members have often heard me say that we don’t preach politics, we preach Jesus.

The trouble with that dichotomy is that although Jesus was not a democrat or a republican, he was inherently political.  He lived and breathed in a politically loaded time – something with which we are very familiar.  And although he may not align with our current political parties in the United States, his actions and words have political ramifications on how we live as Christians. 

Now why in the world, on this Wednesday right in the middle of Lent, in the middle of our beloved peacefully ecumenical gatherings would I bring up something divisive?  Well, I blame Jesus.  The gospel lesson we just heard from Matthew is only three verses long.  But in order to understand what is going on, we need to step back just a bit to recall where we are in Matthew’s gospel.  Chapter five of Matthew starts with the beatitudes, and is just the beginning of what we call the Sermon on the Mount – Jesus’ sort of treatise on how to be a Christian – or even more clearly, the answer to “What would Jesus do?”  So, Jesus sits down for an extra long sermon (or at least long for Episcopal standards – I know some of your traditions love a good 30-minute to hour-long sermon!).  He starts with those beloved beatitudes, letting us know where true blessing lies.  He then moves on to talk about being salt and light as disciples in the world.  And then he talks about the law in the portion we heard tonight.

Before we get too far, we have to remember that conversations about the law (not the Roman law, but the very law we heard about in Deuteronomy tonight) – conversations about the law needs to be very careful.  Many a scholar has tried to use this passage to argue the supersessionism of the Chrisitan Church over the Jewish people – as though by Jesus saying he came to fulfill the law that now Christians supersede the Jewish people as God’s chosen.  Jesus has been confusing followers for centuries by this statement – theologians as distinguished at Thomas Aquinas tried to separate the types of law, arguing that we need to follow the moral law, but not the juridical or ceremonial law of the Old Testament.[i]

That is not what Jesus is arguing in these three short verses.  Jesus never intended to bifurcate the faithful in such a way.  Just like Jesus was not saying be a republican or be a democrat, Jesus is saying be a person of faith.  In the verse following what we read today, Jesus says, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Just like in our day, the faithful of Jesus’ day lived in a politically charged time.  As Stanley Hauerwas explains, “…too often Israel sought to be faithful in a manner that would not challenge the powers, and in particular the power of Rome.  The Pharisees quite understandably tried to observe the law without that observance being recognized as subversive to those who ruled them.”  Like in our day, they were not claiming a particular party, but claiming the faith.  Not preaching politics, but preaching Jesus.

But here’s the problem with that way of life – and quite frankly, the dichotomy that the person in that interview asked me about.  The kingdom of God cannot avoid being subversive.  We know this because Jesus was so subversive that he was crucified – because instead of “…violently overthrowing the old order Jesus creates a people capable of living in accordance with the new order in the old.”[ii]  What does that mean exactly?  Stanley Hauerwas tells us that fulfilling the law means creating a way of life that is unlike the world.  That way of life is voluntary:  you cannot be born into it, but can only join by repenting and freely pledging allegiance to its king (Jesus).  And the next generation is not automatically admitted – every member joins of their own volition.  Two, that way of life creates a mixed community:  racially, religiously, economically.  And finally, that way of life is, well, a new way of life.  Jesus, “…[gives] them a new way to deal with offenders – by forgiving them.  He [gives] them a new way to deal with violence – by suffering.  He [gives] them a new way to deal with money – by sharing it.  He [gives] them a new way to deal with problems of leadership – by drawing upon the gift of every member, even the most humble.  He [gives] them a new way to deal with a corrupt society – by building a new order, not smashing the old.  He [gives] them a new pattern of relationship between man and woman, between parent and child, between master and slave, in which [is] made concrete a radical new vision of what it means to be a human person…”[iii]

I do not know what your Lenten discipline has been this year.  Given the weight of the political environment, the anxiety floating around in the atmosphere, and the sense of radical challenge, doing things like giving up chocolate or screen time or meat has not felt, well, meaty enough for me this year.  I think part of the challenge has been the sober, somber nature of Lent has felt so congruent with the sober, somber nature of everyday living these days.  Perhaps why Lent feels so heavy is because I can see no way to answer that dichotomy of a question, “Will you be political or will you follow Jesus?” 

I do not think our invitation tonight is to leave this place planting our red or blue flags.  In fact, our invitation might just be carrying our purple flags out of this space while helping others see and experience Jesus.  The new way of life that Jesus laid out for us – of forgiving, suffering, sharing, empowering, building, relating – is not unique to one political party.  Our invitation is to support that new way of life through Jesus in all political parties – republican, democrat, independent, or whatever else you may be feeling tonight.  That new way of life is so subversive that members of your own party may challenge you, and like a Pharisee, you may want to be a Christian while not rocking the boat.  But following Jesus means rocking the boat.  Following Jesus means loving neighbors, caring for the less than, respecting the dignity of others.  Following Jesus means sometimes following him out of the boat into some scary, stormy waters.  But if we can sit together in this room – as Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Baptists, Mennonites, Roman Catholics, and Disciples of Christ – surely we can step into those waters together outside of this room, witnessing another way…together.  Amen.

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew: Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 65.

[ii] Hauerwas, 67.

[iii] Hauerwas, 67-68.

Sermon – Luke 9.28-43, TRS, YC, March 2, 2025

05 Wednesday Mar 2025

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As I spend time with parishioners, staff, clergy leaders, and folks outside the community one common question keeps emerging, “What do we do?”  As we watch divisions deepen – something that seemed impossible given how deeply divided we already were, and as we watch a dismantling of how our country has operated for ages, and as we argue about what is best for our country, I have heard us asking, wondering, struggling with that question, “What do we do?”  The question is mirrored in the story of the transfiguration in Luke’s gospel today too.  Sleepy disciples who are supposed to be praying with Jesus on top of a mountain are jolted into alertness upon seeing Jesus in dazzling brightness, talking with long-gone Moses and Elijah, saying something about Jesus departing.  John and James are stunned into silence, but Peter answers his own question of “What do we do?” by proposing they build some dwellings – for surely remaining here in God’s glory is what he thought they should do.

Though we tease Peter about his not fully “getting it” when we wonder what we should do, I find myself mimicking Peter these days.  When I am asked, “What do we do?” my immediate and probably over-simplified answer is “follow Jesus” – not follow Republicans or follow Democrats; not follow supporters or follow opposers; not follow these Christians or follow those Christians.  Simply follow Jesus.  The problem with my answer of following Jesus is that the answer is so simple the answer leaves us with more questions than actual answers. 

That is why I am so grateful for Luke’s gospel today.  What this passage from Luke’s gospel does is tell us that following Jesus means, One, “…we must be clear about our identity;” two, be “resolute in our mission;” and three, be “intentional in our spiritual formation.”[i]  So, clear on our identity, focused on mission, and intentional about our spiritual formation.  Let’s dig in to this passage to find more clarity.

To follow Jesus, we need to be clear about our identity.  As scholar Jeffery Tribble argues, in Luke’s gospel, “The transfiguration bears witness to the identity of Jesus Christ.  By God’s action in the transformation itself and in the words of the voice of heaven, a theological statement is made.  Jesus Christ is declared to be the Chosen Son of God.  The disciples heard the declaration:  ‘Listen to him!’  The Christ event – his incarnation, passion, death, resurrection, ascension, gift of the Holy Spirit, and promised second coming – is the defining script for our local performances of the gospel.”[ii]

So what does that mean?  What is our identity here at Hickory Neck?  We define that identity using the acronym HNEC.  H stands for Hospitality:  We are committed to creating an environment where all experience an on-going sense of welcome, acceptance, and belonging.  Our hospitality is responsive to the unique needs of each generation, creating a community of mutuality, respect, dignity, and connection.  N stands for Nurture:  We are committed to nurturing the unique ministry of every individual so they can fully realize their baptismal covenant and participate in the life of the church, using their God-given gifts both within and outside the parish.  E stands for Engagement and Evangelism:  We are committed to responding to the needs of the wider community, sharing the love of Christ with our neighbors, and shining Christ’s light in the world.  And C stands for Curiosity:  While cherishing our particular history and Anglican identity, we are committed to being open to the movement of the Holy Spirit, being playful with one another and the wider community, while taking joy in one another.  So, our identity is about hospitality, nurture, engagement, and curiosity. 

So, being clear first about our identity, we must secondly be resolute in mission.  The transfiguration reveals the redemptive mission of Jesus Christ.  With Moses’ presence pointing to the exodus event and the communal responsibly to teach the statutes and ordinances, and with Elijah’s presence pointing to the end times, Jesus’ work of continued redemption is clear.  As Tribble says that “…in the transfiguration event Jesus is clear about his mission, which continues the redemptive work of God from the exodus through the end times.”[iii]

What about us, then?  Hickory Neck actually has a mission statement.  The mission statement reads, “We foster a loving, welcoming Christian Community with a uniquely intergenerational approach to worship, fellowship, and formation, helping us to develop a relationship with God and each other.  Nourished in community, we share the love of Christ Jesus by caring for each other, serving neighbors in need, and seeking justice and peace for all people.”  If I had to “make it plain,” I would use these eight words, “Love inside these walls, love outside these walls.”  When we are puzzling our way through what we should be doing in these profound times, our mission is simple:  love inside these walls and love outside these walls.  Now I know that sounds very pie in the sky – I have been known to roll my eyes a few times when someone says, “It’s all about love!”  But here’s the thing:  no matter what political or theological view you have, I can guarantee you that someone in this room disagrees with you.  How will you love them?  And when you are out in the world, all kinds of policies and moves are being made that may feel like they do not matter because they do not impact you directly – at least not yet.  How will you make sure that you and we as wider community are making sure love reigns?  There is a lot happening outside these walls that are done in the name of the redemptive Christ.  Your work is to discern which of those activities are actually following the identity and mission of the Jesus we are talking about this very day.

And that leads us to the third thing we invited to do to follow Jesus:  to be intentional in our spiritual formation.  I don’t know if you noticed, but Jesus took James, John, and Peter up that mountain not to heal, or to work, or even to witness the transfiguration.  Jesus brought them up to pray.  Whether in this passage or in the many verses to come, we know from holy scripture that “throughout his ministry Jesus was faithful in spiritual disciplines that would bring him into the presence of his Father.”[iv]

Tribble reminds us that “Professing faith in Christ in one thing, but living our Christian faith requires greater depth and breadth in our spiritual formation.”[v]  If we are in fact a congregation that doesn’t preach politics but instead preaches Jesus, then our work collectively is to know Jesus.  That means if you are not already in Bible Study, or reading scripture at home, or listening to a podcast about scripture, now is the time to dust off that book (or app) and get going.  That means if you are not one who is too comfortable with prayer, or only use prayer when you have an emergency, now is the time to start flexing your prayer muscles – whether you work your way through the Book of Common Prayer, whether you set aside daily time for prayer, or whether you start using those prayer beads, now is the time to step away with Jesus in prayer.  I remember reading about a conversation between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in which the two of them were competing about who got up the earliest for prayer.  Both of these deeply spiritual men knew that the only way they could do any good work was to deepen their spiritual formation.

The good news is that we are heading into a season in the church where all of this work is enriched, supported, and encouraged.  In the season of Lent, we are encouraged to be intentional about our spiritual formation.  In Lent we work to become very clear about our identity.  In Lent we become resolute in our mission.  If you are feeling that overwhelming sense of “What do I do?” in these times, the Church invites you to follow Jesus.  The Church invites you to be focused on identity, mission, and formation.  And this Church specifically creates the structure for you to do just that.  Your invitation is to join us!  Amen.

[i] Jeffery L. Tribble, Sr., “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 452.

[ii] Tribble, 452.

[iii] Tribble, 454.

[iv] Tribble, 454.

[v] Tribble, 456.

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).