Sermons from St. Paul's Cleveland Heights: Recent Episodes
St. Paul's Cleveland Heights
On the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, the Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached. Download a copy of the sermon here.
On the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, the Rev. Dr. Stephen H. Applegate preached. Download his sermon here.
On the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Lauren Dockery preached. Download a copy of the sermon here.
On the First Sunday after the Epiphany, the Rt. Rev. Jeffrey Lee preached. Download a copy of the sermon here.
On the Second Sunday after Christmas Day, the Rev. Rose Anne Lonsway preached. Download a copy of the sermon here.
The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey Lee preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday of Advent. Download the sermon text here.
On the Second Day of Advent, The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey Lee preached. Download a copy of his sermon here.
The Rev. Rose Anne Lonsway preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the First Sunday of Advent. Download a copy of the sermon here.
The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Last Sunday after Pentecost. Download a copy of the sermon here.
The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey Lee preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost. Download a copy of the sermon here.
The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey Lee preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost. Download a copy here.
The Rev. Patricia Rose preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on All Saints' Sunday. Download a copy of the sermon here.
The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey Lee preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost. Download a copy of the sermon here.
Our guest, The Rev. Canon Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost. Download a copy of her sermon here.
The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey Lee preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost. Download the text of the sermon here.
The Rev. Rose Anne Lonsway preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost. Download a copy of the sermon text here.
Guest preacher The Rev. Dr. Brian Wilbert preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Download a copy of the sermon here.
The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey Lee preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost. Download the text of his sermon here.
The Rev. Patricia Rose preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Download the text of the sermon here.
The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Download the text of the sermon here.
The Rev. Rose Anne Lonsway preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Download the text of her sermon here.
St. Paul's parishioner, Karen Carter, preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Download the text of her sermon here.
The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost. Download the sermon text here.
The Rev. Nathan Self preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost. Download the sermon text here.
The Rev. Rose Anne Lonsway preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost. Download the text of the sermon here.
The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. Download the sermon here.
The Rev. Patricia Rose preached at the celebration of Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist on the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. Download a copy of her sermon here.
Guest preacher, The Rev. Nathan Self, preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost. Download the text of the sermon here.
The Rev. Rose Anne Lonsway preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost. Download the sermon text here.
The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost. Download the sermon text here.
The Rev. Patricia Rose preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost. Download the text of the sermon here.
Rev. Patricia references these scenes in her sermon.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist and Holy Baptism on the Third Sunday after Pentecost. Download the sermon text here.
The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday after Pentecost. Download the sermon text here.
On this Trinity Sunday, the Rev. Peter Faass preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the First Sunday after Pentecost.
Download the sermon text here.
On the Day of Pentecost, The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Download the sermon text here.
On this Baccalaureate Sunday, graduating seniors Linnea Koops and Clara Lyford preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Seventh Sunday of Easter.
To read the text of their sermons, click here.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Sixth Sunday of Easter. Download the text of the sermon here.
The Rev. Patricia Rose preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday of Easter. Click here to download a copy of the sermon.
Guest preacher, The Rev. Leeann Culbreath, preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday of Easter.
The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday of Easter. To download the sermon text, click here.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday of Easter on April 7, 2024. To download the sermon text, click here.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Easter Day. Download the sermon text here.
The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence preached at our celebration of the Liturgy of the Palms and the Holy Eucharist on the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday. Download the sermon text here.
The Rev. Patricia Rose preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday in Lent. Download the sermon text here.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday in Lent. Download a copy of the sermon here.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday in Lent. Download the sermon text here.
"For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it."
Names are important. In fact, my name is the entire reason I have my dog. Years back, I was in search of a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. I was scrolling through the webpage of a breeder who had some pups for sale, and I knew I wanted a black and tan cavalier. As I was scrolling, I reached a certain puppy and stopped, shocked. I could not believe my eyes. There in front of me was a black and tan puppy with the name Gabriel. I made a call, and a week later, I was the proud owner of a black and tan Cavvy with my name. Though I have been tempted, I have never changed his name. After all the whole reason we've enjoyed each other's company for ten years is our shared name. I have him because of how he was named.
Names were even more important in the time of Abram and Sarai. Names were more than just a label. They were a descriptor. They told a lot about the person who had the name. Names contained identity, vocation, purpose. God thought so highly of names that he changed Abram and Sarai's names. But we will come back to that.
I want us to first look at the text from Mark because I think this story of Jesus and Peter shows us something important about God. Peter has always been one of my favorites. Peter is the guy who was always doing too much. He's the guy who tried to walk on water. He cut off the ear of a Roman soldier in defense of Jesus. He told Jesus that he would never deny him, only to do it not once, not twice, but three times. Peter might be called impulsive or reckless. But here's what I love about Peter: He was never afraid to get close, to wonder, to question, to doubt, to love. It was Peter who was the first person to identify Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. In fact Peter does this only a couple of verses before we pick up with him in the Gospel text today. And yet just two verses after he makes this confession, he rebukes Jesus. In a matter of just seconds, he is a confessor who then rebukes the Son of God. And while Jesus in very clear terms tells Peter to be quiet, Peter will go on to become the Rock. Don't forget his name wasn't always Peter. It was Simon. It was only changed to Peter by Jesus, who called Peter the Rock upon which the Church would be built.
I think what we learn from Peter is that if we have the courage to get close to God, our lives just might be changed. Our very names might change. Our purpose might change. Abram and Sarai chose to stay close to God, and God changed their names too. We see this closeness that Abram had with God when he laughed in God's face when God told him he would have a child, would be the father of nations. One does not laugh at the Creator of the Universe if they are not close to the Creator of the Universe. In this story, Abram become Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah. God changes their names as a sign of reward for their trust in God and God's promise. It is important to note here, too, that God's name is also changed. God identifies God's self with the name El Shaddai, or "God the Almighty". Abraham and Sarah have stayed true and faithful to God, and God has not only changed their names, but also his very own name. We see these name changes in other stories, too. Jacob wrestled with God, and his name was changed. Our very own patron's name was changed from Saul to Paul, as God changed Paul's life and called him to new work.
Lent invites us to get close to God. Lent invites us to practice courage and dare to wrestle with God, to doubt, to trust, to wonder, to laugh at how much God loves perhaps even us because it hard sometimes to even believe. Lent invites us to see ourselves in a new way by being honest about who we are and how we are in need of God's grace.
So, how do we do this? How do we get close to God? Jesus tells us. We take up our cross. He says, "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it." We take up our cross by taking up all of ourselves: the good, the bad, the parts we are proud of, the parts we are ashamed of. We risk giving up the comfort of what we know to step into what God is calling us to- to risk coming in contact with the power of God's love and grace. We offer all our fears, our shame, our sin, and our pride to God. We take up our cross and we follow Jesus.
As we begin the second week of Lent, I challenge us to sit with God, to exercise courage. To get close. To find a spot and bring our whole selves to God. Take some time this week to sit in the silence. Be bold.
God, what might you want to change my name to this Lent?
God, where are you calling me?
God, I am scared. Where are you?
God, what new thing are you asking me to do?
God, how can I do your work in the world?
And if we do this, we just might hear God speak to us. We just might feel God's love and grace wrap all of our fears and shame, and doubt, and speak peace to our hearts. We just might hear God give us a new name.
The Rev. Patricia Rose preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the First Sunday in Lent.
In our secular calendar, the First Day of Lent can fall as early as February 4 and as late as March 10. Its occurrence this year on February 14 has been the source of some amusement. Indeed, an email I received this morning from the Plain-Dealer came with this subject line: "Happy Ashentine's Day." This comedic concurrence of Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day has also given rise to Internet memes that look like this: [holds up three large wooden "candy hearts'" with the following inscriptions painted on them, to look like Valentine's Day Candy Hearts: "Repent," and "U R Dust," "Ash 2 Ash"]. What makes these images so comical is the apparent contradiction. The unspoken implication is that Valentine's Day is a joyful holiday, while Ash Wednesday decidedly is not. The suggestion is that Cupid conjures warm and fuzzy emotions, while Ash Wednesday, with its reminder of our mortality, is cold and depressing. The subtext is that Ash Wednesday, with its emphasis on sin and repentance, has nothing to do with love. And my friends, I assure you: nothing could be further from the truth. Much like Valentine's Day, Ash Wednesday finds all its purpose and meaning in a loving relationship - our relationship with God, the Source of all Love.
The hallmarks of a loving relationship are truthfulness and trust. Those who love us are the ones who can speak truth to us, and because we trust them, we can hear them when they speak the truth. On Ash Wednesday, the truth is spoken to us in love. In a moment, each of you is going to be invited to come forward to receive a reminder of this truth: that your time on this earth is finite. That this earthly life we share is but a sojourn. To speak plainly, today you will be reminded that you are going to die. Of course, we all know this to be true, so you would not think a reminder would be necessary. But this message is an eminently counter-cultural one. The world we live in conspires to have us ignore this truth, if not outright deny it.
The ways our culture does this are subtle, and we don't always notice them. But take, for example, the explosive growth of the anti-aging market. As a consequence of the pandemic, and all the time we've spent looking at our faces on Zoom, the appetite for botox is growing by leaps and bounds among Gen Z (who are all still under the age of 30). Indeed, the TikTok hashtag #antiageing has more than 8 billion views. Which is to say that from a very young age, the world tells us we should do everything in our power to mask our mortality. But today your clergy, ministers of the Gospel who care deeply about your spiritual life, are going to send you a very different message. We will look into your eyes and speak this truth to you in love: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
The world wants you to forget this, but the Church invites you today to remember that the God of love molded you from the dust. And when your earthly pilgrimage is over, your bodies will return to that very dust until they are remade at the day of resurrection. You will each receive a token of this reminder in the form of cross-shaped dust clinging to your foreheads, in the very place you were anointed with a cross on the day of your baptism. Just like that baptismal cross, this cross reminds you that you are a beloved Child of God. A Child of God who will return to dust, but whose density is eternal life with a loving Creator. A truth spoken in love and marked on our foreheads.
Then, after we have received our ashes, we will all get on our knees, either in body or spirit, and we will pray a special confession of sin called the Litany of Penitence. Most Sundays, we pray a general confession. One that acknowledges in language broad and sweeping that we have fallen short of loving God and our neighbor. But in this Ash Wednesday Litany of Penitence, we use language vivid and precise to affirm the particular ways we have fall short of living the great commandments. We will lift our voices together to enumerate sins of pride, greed, and indifference. We will admit that we have failed to offer forgiveness as freely as we're received it. That we've ignored the depth of human suffering and denied our privilege. That we have failed to care for our fragile island home, the earth that God entrusted to our care.
Ash Wednesday is a day to speak the truth in love. To come clean about our shortcomings, and not just our personal shortcomings, but the systems of oppression that are so much bigger than we are, in which we participate, nonetheless. And by acknowledging the cosmic power of sin, we are liberated to hear a message of profound grace and love: that our God, as the prophet Joel reminds us, is "gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love." While hardly a traditional Valentine's Day custom, this confession of our sin has everything to do with love. At the end of our Litany of Penitence, Jeanne, a priest in the Church of God, will stand before us and speak another truth in love: that God's mercy, compassion, and forgiveness is poured out freely and abundantly upon us. As we leave this place to continue our Lenten journey, we can do so unburdened by the weight of sin to share the love we have received this day with others.
Beloved friends in Christ: Today, on this First Day of Lent, we begin a 40-day journey together. This Sunday, that journey will take us into the wilderness with Jesus, as he goes head-to-head with the powers of sin and darkness. After walking faithfully together these next several weeks, our Lenten journey will bring us to the holiest week of the Christian year. We will follow Jesus to the Upper Room, where he will give us food and drink that leads to eternal life. We will follow Jesus to the foot of the cross, where he will freely give his life for us. We will keep vigil at the tomb as we mourn his death, before joyfully greeting the empty tomb on Easter morning to proclaim that he has conquered death forever, so we are free to live. It is the greatest love story ever told, and today it begins with sacred truths spoken in love and written on our hearts. Happy Valentine's Day. And blessed Lent.
We have two great passages from Scripture for this Last Sunday after the Epiphany. In 2 Kings, we hear about the prophet Elijah passing the mantel, passing his prophetic authority on to Elisha. In the Gospel of Mark, we hear the story of the Transfiguration, when Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him up a high mountain and Jesus was transfigured before them. I'm going to focus today on 2 Kings, but I will bring the Transfiguration into our discussion.2 Kings inspires renewal in our everyday lives. Let's take a look at the journey that Elijah and Elisha took together. They traveled to Gilgal, Bethel, Jericho, and then the Jordan River. These locations weren't just convenient stops along the way. These places are named because they are theologically significant. The first stop was Gilgal. The Israelites had wandered for forty years in the wilderness, then Joshua led them across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. That night they camped in Gilgal. Joshua directed twelve men, one from each tribe, to take a stone from the Jordan River and bring it into the camp as a memorial. Joshua told the people that the stones will be a reminder for all people that the Lord our God dried up the waters of the Jordan so the Israelites could cross over. Our God is a living God.The second stop on the journey was Bethel. Do you remember the story about Jacob's Ladder in the Book of Genesis? "Jacob came to a certain place and stayed there for the night. ... He dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, 'I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. ... Know that I am with you.' ... Jacob called that place Bethel" (28:10-19). Our God is a living God.The third stop on the journey was Jericho where the Israelites entered into battle for the first time after they crossed over into the Promised Land. God told Joshua exactly how to enter into the battle and he did as he was told. He led the people in marching around the walls of the city for six days with trumpets blaring. On the seventh day, they marched around the walls seven times. At the prescribed moment, Jacob told the people to shout out and they did. Indeed, the walls came tumbling down and the Israelites captured the city. God told Joshua exactly how to make it happen. Our God is a living God.The fourth stop on the journey was the River Jordan. Again, it is through the Jordan that the Israelites crossed over from the wilderness into the Promised Land. Truly, is there a better, more fitting spot for Elijah to be taken up into the heavens, into new life? Actually, there is. Elijah struck the water of the River Jordan, the water parted, and Elijah and Elisha crossed over. They crossed over into an unnamed location - not a famous, historical site - a non-descript, everyday location. From this place, "Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven." Our God is a living God...in our everyday.Next, let's take a look at the theme of silence. To start, let's go back to 1 Kings to remember a powerful story about silence. "God tells Elijah, 'Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.' Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave" (19:11-13). Elijah heard God in the silence. Elisha learned well from his mentor. In today's passage from 2 Kings, a group of prophets in Bethel and a group of prophets in Jericho warn Elisha that the Lord is going to take Elijah away. Both times, Elisha tells them to keep silent. It was not a time to jump to conclusions, to make premature decisions. It was a time to simply be present, to listen in the silence, to let God lead.Here we should take a moment to consider Peter's reaction to the Transfiguration. Jesus takes Peter, James and John and they go up a high mountain. Jesus is transfigured before them, "his facing shining like the sun, his clothes dazzling white." Then, Moses and Elijah appear. Moses lived 1200 years prior. Elijah lived 800 years prior. Yet, there they stood. That would be a lot to take in. Peter makes a rather nonsensical statement: "Lord, if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." On the one hand, what I love about Peter's response, is that he is showing us the fruits of his faith...he knows that these two are Elijah and Moses. Think about that. They lived centuries prior. There were no photos available. He just knew it was them. Yet, his response was nonsensical. When we set his response against Elisha's response requesting silence, we see how Peter was missing out on the significance of the moment: Jesus is being revealed as the Messiah.The story of Elijah passing his prophetic authority onto Elisha encourages us to find time for silence in our every day. In the silence, in setting aside all the details of the day, we make room to hear our living God, the still small voice inside of us that leads us into all truth, gives us the peace to endure all challenges, inspires new beginnings; imbues hope. Don't forget Elisha's persistence. In Gilgal and Bethel and Jericho, Elijah told Elisha to stay there. But, Elisha kept insisting he would not leave Elijah and continued to follow him; he continued until he got what he believed he needed to carry out his ministry. We can persist in making time for prayer, for sitting in the silence, desiring to hear that still small voice that will inspire our life. Amen.
We were grateful to have welcomed Keisha Krumm, Executive Director of Greater Cleveland Congregations (GCC), to the pulpit. Keisha has an MDiv in Christian Community Development from Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary. Watch her sermon on our website.
On this day, we mark the feast of our patron, St. Paul. On the Church's calendar, our patronal feast falls on the 25th of January, but the prayer book allows for a patronal feast of a parish to be moved to a Sunday so that it can be celebrated in a more robust way. We are doing that today in this combined service, and I am so happy to see the nave so full. What a way to celebrate St. Paul and this parish named for him that we love so much and are blessed to be a part of!
After Jesus, Paul might just be the most well-known person in Scripture. Indeed, Paul claims more writings in the New Testament than any other author. We would be hard-pressed to find someone who had as much of an influence on the spread of our faith as Paul did. So, I thought it might be good- if you'll indulge me- to mark this feast of our patron St. Paul by going through a top five of his most well-known words.
Our first stop on this top five list of comes from his second letter to the Church in Corinth. Paul writes that "we walk by faith, and not by sight." I find this phrase an interesting one, for it was in Paul's own conversion experience that he actually lost his eyesight. In today's text from Acts, we hear Paul's call story, but with a few details left out. In a more full account of the call story in the ninth chapter of Acts, we learn that Paul was without sight for the first three days after God stopped him in his tracks and called him to preach and teach the good news of Christ. Paul learned in all of his trials, on days when things did not make sense, on days when he could not see any further than to take just one step forward, Paul knew to see with his spiritual eyes, to trust in God's grace and love to get him through. And we know that, too. On the dark days, in the dark nights of our souls when it may be hard to see or feel God's presence, to see God with us and in us through the eyes of faith.
The second well-known verse I want us to look at is in the first letter to the Thessalonians, fifth chapter. "Give thanks in all circumstances, for it is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." And this wasn't the only time Paul encouraged us to give thanks. Paul admonishes the early Church to give thanks, to live in a state of gratitude, more than 35 times. Paul knew the power of gratitude. Paul lived a hard life and was even imprisoned at times for preaching the Gospel, but he knew the power of offering thanks to break chains - literally break his own chains while imprisoned - and set him free from his circumstances. And we as St. Paul's Church follow our patron's call to gratitude by gathering here, week in and week out, to offer thanks to God as a community for God's work in our midst, on the good days and the bad days. And that gratitude changes us. It makes us able to do God's work in the world.
Our next stop on our journey through Pauline wisdom is in the fifth chapter of Romans. Paul says here that "Hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. If Paul had a firm grasp on gratitude, he had an even firmer grasp on hope. Paul mentions the word hope over fifty times. And hope was central to the message of Jesus, too. Though it's not mentioned by word in today's Gospel reading, the overall theme is indeed hope. Jesus is telling his disciples that accepting to follow him is sometimes going to be tough. He says he is sending them out like sheep into the midst of wolves. I love how Jesus does not mince words here. He cuts straight to the chase and says that this work is going to be hard. You will be judged, and perhaps even imprisoned. BUT. When you worry about what to say, what to do, don't worry. Don't fear. Your hope is in God, who will give you the words to say, give you the strength to carry on. Your hope is in God, and that can't be taken away from you.
Our fourth stop on our journey is found in Paul's letter to the Church in Galatia. Paul writes, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." In this well-known passage, Paul is pointing to perhaps the best news in the Good News of Jesus: that we are all one. In Christ, all division cease, walls that divide us are torn down. We participate in this reality every week in this space when we come to this altar, to receive from one bread and one cup. In that one bread, in that one cup, we are all made one in Christ Jesus. We don't always get it right. We do fail. And that is precisely why we return week after week to be fed and reminded again and again that in Christ, we are all one.
Finally, in this list of Paul's greatest writings, his greatest must be, without a doubt, his treatment of love. In his first letter to the Church in Corinth, he writes, "[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." Love endures all things. At the end of the world, love is what will be left standing. In all our own trials, love is what will get us through. When we are confused and tired and don't know which way is up, love will point the way. In grief and loss and hardship, love is there to comfort and bless. In the depths of the worst that life can give us, love whispers hope. Even in the grave, love gives us voice to make our song alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. At the end of the age, love wins.
Now, I know Paul can be controversial. Paul lived in a time and place very different from our own, and some of his writings reflect that. And we are also lucky to be named for this saint who wrote and taught about seeing through the eyes of faith, offering thanks to God in all things, clinging to hope, seeing all as our equal, and loving above all else.
A patronal feast can be a time for a parish to take stock of what has been in the last year and plan for what is to come. I encourage us to do that work today: to ground all we do in this new year in faith, gratitude, hope, equality, and love. Thanks be to God for the witness of St. Paul, and thanks be to God for all of you in this place. Amen.
The Rev. Patricia Rose preached during our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany.
One of the many things I love about The Episcopal Church is that its liturgies bring order to my chaotic life. The predictable pattern of prayer, scripture, and song creates a refuge where I find serenity in an otherwise tumultuous world. Whether it's a service of the Holy Eucharist, or a service of Choral Evensong, our ancient liturgies are both comfortably familiar and always new. This is profoundly true when it comes to our lectionary. That is, the calendar that determines the passages of scripture we read at each service. In some Christian denominations, the pastor selects the readings for worship. But our common lectionary - rather than subjecting us to the whims of an individual pastor - binds us to other liturgical communities around the world, as we all read the same passages on the same day. The Sunday lectionary, the one that determined our readings for this morning, is structured in a three-year cycle: Year A, Year B and Year C. As we live through these cycles, over and over, the readings take on new meaning each time we hear them.Today, for example, is the Second Sunday after the Epiphany in Year B. The last time we heard these readings was the Sunday I preached my first sermon at St. Paul's. On that day, I stood at a lectern right over there and stared into a camera, as the pews sat empty. That day also came right on the heels of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The concerns weighing on my heart that day. The concerns that colored my hearing of these scriptures then, were concerns of political unrest and violence, and the deadly ravages of COVID. Today, as I hear them, there are different concerns weighing on my heart. Today, my concerns are for the young people of our community, because of distressing events that transpired over the last week in local schools.For starters, this past week was a volatile one for the community of Shaker Heights High School. A combination of events including intruders to the campus, physical confrontations, and a 'stay-put' order - all exacerbated by disinformation on social media - meant that by Friday, students were instructed to stay home as classes were conducted online. Meanwhile, at Cleveland Heights High School, the first day back from winter break began with grief counseling and mental health support. Because during the break, a 15-year-old sophomore tragically lost her life to the plague of gun violence. As one parent wrote to me on Friday, "What I'm thinking about most this morning is how [our society has] normalized [all this. Our kids] honestly aren't surprised by any of it anymore and that breaks my heart." Indeed, these events, all too common in the lives of our youth, are heartbreaking. They are sobering reminders that we must pray for the young people of St. Paul's and their school communities. We must pray that their schools might be peaceful, safe havens of learning. And that we, the adults in their faith community, might be never-failing sources of encouragement and support for them.With these concerns for our youth at the forefront of my mind, as I read today's scriptures this time around, I found myself fixated on the young boy, Samuel, from our Old Testament passage. In this story, God calls the young Samuel's name, repeatedly, night after night. But Samuel doesn't realize the voice belongs to God because, as the passage tells us, "The word of the Lord was rare in those days." And the reason the "word of the Lord was rare" is that corruption had become rampant in Israel. In other words, young Samuel had no reason to think God would speak to him because the adults who came before him had made such a mess of things, God had more-or-less stopped speaking! The good news is that God doesn't give up on Israel, despite their corruption. God does not abandon God's people. Instead, God decides to do a new thing. God decides to start over and call a new prophet and priest to inaugurate a new era: this young boy, Samuel. But, in more good news, God doesn't give up on the adults either. The old man Eli has a critical role to play in God's plan. The elderly priest Eli, the one whose "eyesight had begun to grow dim," enables young Samuel to recognize God's voice. Without Eli Sameul would not have been able to answer God's call. He could never have uttered those faithful words, "Speak, for your servant is listening." As one observer notes, "It takes both the attentiveness of the young Samuel's ears and the wisdom of the old priest's heart and mind to birth this new office in the service of the Lord." My friends: this is a hopeful story of communal discernment. A story of what it looks like to listen for God's voice in inter-generational community. And it is a story that affirms the young people in our midst as full participants in the life of our community. It reminds us that God speaks to them, just as God spoke to Samuel. That God calls them to important tasks. The reason we baptized five infants and toddlers last Sunday - the reason we initiate young people into the Body of Christ - is that we affirm their full humanity. We acknowledge that God is working in their lives from the moment of their birth in ways we cannot fully understand. They are not half citizens, but full citizens of the community of the New Covenant.On this Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, perhaps God is calling us, through Samuel's story, to renew our commitment to the young people of our community. To renew our commitment to loving them, supporting them, and nurturing them amid a world that is volatile, unpredictable, and often scary. God calls our young people to participate in his work of redemption. And from time to time, they'll need our help to recognize God's voice. It is indeed good news that God did not give up on Israel. God did a new thing, through the ministry of a young boy. Just as he did when he sent us his Son, Jesus Christ. The One who meets us week after week in the stories of Holy Scripture. Stories that bring order to the chaos of our lives. Amen.
The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.
The land may vary more; But wherever the truth may be-- The water comes ashore, And the people look at the sea.
What is it about water? This poem by Robert Frost (Neither Out Far Nor In Deep) rings so true. There is something mesmerizing about water. How many of us have sat on a shore and gazed out on a lake, or ocean, or sea? Water is calming in the repetition of the tide; it is captivating during a storm; it imbues peace in its glassy stillness. Perhaps we are drawn in by the depths because water is so integral to life and points us to the vastness beyond our selves. Our gaze taps into our desire to be one with our Creator. "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).
Today, we are baptizing five young people: at 9, Poppy Garg, Rosemary Garg, Danica Mersek and Miles Mersek; at 11:15, Walker Mead. We are welcoming them into the body of Christ, into the community of Christ. We baptize with water. In the time of John the Baptist, washing with water was performed ritually as an outward sign of cleansing the inward self. John the Baptist pathed the way to a more profound baptism when he proclaimed the coming of Jesus Christ: "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." After Jesus' death and resurrection, Christians adopted Baptism as a way of incorporating new Christians into the Church. Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ's body, the Church.
The film Water, is part of a trilogy of films, Fire, Earth, and Water, by acclaimed screenwriter and director, Deepa Mehta. Water is set in India in the 1930s. The film is based on a custom, drawn from a patriarchal reading of the Hindu Gospel, of separating women from their families upon the death of their husbands. Water is the story of Chuyia, a seven-year-old girl whose husband dies - yes, a seven-year-old girl - and she is sent to live out her life in poverty among strangers in a widow's colony. This film, at times challenging to watch, is an achingly beautiful love story.
But, at its heart, it is a story about water, and worth a watch to resonate with the power of this theological reality. The widow's colony is located on the river, Ganga. The river is central to the lives of the widows' and to the lives of the people in the surrounding village. The film opens with a person who is frail being helped to drink water. We see people bathing in the water and being refreshed by the water. We see the water being used to grow food and vegetation, for cooking and for cleaning clothes. We see the water being used for transportation and for recreation. And, we see the other side of water. We see rain pouring down during a storm, a source of death and destruction. We see bodies being prepared for Hindu burial in the water. In this film, a life is saved. The weaving of the plot, of love and death and new life, with the images of water impresses upon us the great power that water holds over our lives; impresses upon us the theological significance of death into life through water.
Today, our brief passage from Genesis gives us just enough of the Creation story to enlighten the Gospel message. "In the beginning, the earth was a formless void. God said, 'Let there be light.' God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night." God took the formless void and brought order out of chaos. We have Night and we have Day. Just as God delivered the cosmos from chaos, God delivered the Israelites from the wilderness. They had wandered for forty years. But, after Moses death, God directed Joshua to lead them into the Promised Land. From chaos to order, from anguish to hope, from death to life, the Israelites left the wilderness and entered the Promised Land. And, how did they cross over? Through water, through the River Jordan. A millennium or two later, Jesus made a point. "In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan." Through Baptism, with water, a compound so integral to life and death, we die to ourselves and rise to new life in Christ.
Let's not forget the Holy Spirit! "Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." After Baptism in water, we seal with Chrism - scented oil previously consecrated by the Diocesan Bishop - we seal by making the sign of the cross on the child's forehead. Anointing is the promise of the Holy Spirit, who nurtures and inspires our lives. This promise is no small matter. We are being empowered to accomplish the work of Christ, to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are being empowered to transform the world one day at a time, one interaction at a time, respecting the dignity of every human being. In the Gospel of John (16:13), Jesus says, "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth." In Acts 1 (vs. 8), Jesus tells the apostles, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses ... to the ends of the earth." In 1 Corinthians 12 (vs. 7), Paul tells us, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." For the common good. Through Baptism, dying to selfish ways and rising to new life, we are brought into union with Christ, with each other and with the Church of every time and place. Recognizing our faith as a life-long journey, we enter into a bond of unity to love one another, to overcome all divisions, offering different gifts, skills and perspectives for the common good. Today, we reaffirm our baptismal vows acknowledging with joy and gratitude that we belong to God, that Jesus lived among us so that we would know God in our lives, and that Jesus showed us how to live with one another in God's love. What is it about water? Belonging...possibility...new life....
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Word. Speech. It's the way we know each other- the way I know you, and you know me: by the words that we use to speak, to describe things and places and thoughts. The Word, that way we know God (God's things, and places, and thoughts): The Word was with God. Hidden from us- God, Source of all being- we did not yet know.
He was in the beginning with God. And has been with God since the very beginning, since before time and space, since before things and places and thoughts. Before all things came to be, before the first tick of a clock, before the first sunrise, before the first day or month or year, God was, and the Word was, right there with God. In the dark void, the Source of Life was.
All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. And the Source of life, breathed over the dark void, and out of the darkness was born life and breath; sun, moon, and stars; sunrises and sunsets; and days and months and years. Time itself was born from the Source of Life, from divine creation.
What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. And for the first time, the Source of Life had breath and form, lungs and eyes, leaves and roots, gills and scales, skin and hair. This life that burst forth was full of so much power and came from a Source so far beyond our knowing. It was light and love. And light and love literally lit up the sky and lit up all things that God had made.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. The dark void does not get the last word. Light speaks to our fear of the dark, the unknown- that primal fear we first got to know as a child. It is touched by the warm light of God and is met by the Word who looks into the eye of the dark storm and speaks the words: "Peace be still. Do not be afraid."
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. God did not send a king or a governor or a high priest. God sent an average man named John, a man who had grasped the life changing love of God and wanted to share that love with all those who came to him. This man named John pointed to the Word as someone greater than himself, pointed to the Lamb that would take away the sins of the world.
He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. John knew he wasn't the Light. But he had been called by God to point the world to the light, to the Word- the Word who came from God and was God. He did this so that all might experience the power of love to turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, to raise up what had been cast down, to make new that which had grown old.
He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the Light. And here is perhaps the best news of Christmas: We are not the Light. We are made of the Light, but we don't have to be the Light. We don't have to be the Source. Only God is that. We participate in the light, and we point others, like John did, to the light. We sometimes fail, and God's love and light is not overcome by our failures. Our work is simply to show the Light to the world.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. Was coming. Not came. Not comes. But was coming. Movement. Motion. God was on the move. God's love was breaking through all the walls and defenses and barriers and self-doubt we put up to keep God's love from changing us, transforming us. God's love does not rest. It pursues, it heals. It comes to us week after week in bread and wine, and it comes to us in this season in the heartbeat of the Christ-child.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. And how could we? The hymn says our hearts were tuned toward strife and so we refused Love's overture. In Christ, God invited us into the holy dance of love. And yet, we were terrified of love so pure, love so sweet. We were made for love and by love, and yet we refused to dance.
But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. But! This word but, this is the Word. In Christ, God says, "But wait! There's more!" In Christmas, our hearts can be tuned to sing God's grace. If we sit in the darkness, in the silence, God in the Christ-child comes to us, bends down, and whispers in our ears: You are my child. You are loved forever and ever.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us. God's speech, the way we know God, became words spoken by THE Word. In Christ, God took on flesh and skin and hair and teeth and feet and hands. And with all of that flesh, healed the world. The Word lived with us. An old source says God leapt from his throne to become one of us. God ran to us. God ran to be one of us. God lived among us, and God still lives among us.
And we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son. Having seen God in the Christ-child and tasted God in bread and wine, and heard God in the chirp of a bird, and smelled God in the aroma of a meal shared with friends, and touched God in the soft fur of a pet or the embrace of a loved one, we know God. In all that we do, God is with us. Emmanuel.
Full of grace and truth. In Christ, God has filled the world. God filled all things. In the gaps where we fall short, God's grace makes up the difference. In places of darkness, God's truth speaks light. God's very Word is grace and truth. God's Word, God's speech- how we know God's things and places and thoughts- God's Word is found in grace and truth. Joy to the world, the Lord has come, full of grace and truth.
Our National Parks are magnificent. Two of my favorites are Arches and Bryce Canyon, both in Utah. The stone formations in Arches National Park are 65 million years in the making. The longest arch has an opening of 300 feet; the tallest arch has an opening of over 100 feet. As you hike up to these immense stone formations, the views through the arches are stunning. Once you arrive and walk through the arch, you feel somehow absorbed into the limitless sky. Bryce Canyon is a whole different geological wonder. The elevation is over 8,000 feet. The stone formations in this park remind me of sandcastles. When I was young, we often went to the beach for vacation. My sisters and I would go down to the water's edge, fill our pails with water and then scoop in some sand. Perhaps you recall doing the same. You reach into the bucket, pull out a glob of wet sand, and then let it drip-down onto the dry sand, building up a cone shape. That's where my mind goes with these spectacular stone structures in Bryce Canyon. They are sandcastles in blazing color: orangey-red spires soaring into the sky.
Many of us feel a connection to the divine in nature. The most powerful experience I have had, beyond the beauty of Arches and Bryce Canyon, was in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The moment I walked up to the rim of the Canyon overlooking the waterfalls, I was overwhelmed by the expansive beauty. At that moment, there were no words, only awe for the existence and wonder of our Creator; a moment when we are keenly aware that the world is just so much bigger than our individual selves. The majesty of the Divine in nature is powerful. The intimacy of the Divine in our heartache is lifesaving. Jesus is our Savior.
Madeline L'Engle, the beloved author, writes in her poem First Coming :
"He did not wait till the world was ready, till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady, and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time. He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime, turned water into wine.
He did not wait till hearts were pure. In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame he came, and his Light would not go out."
Jesus was born into an oppressive society. King Herod the Great was in power, appointed by Rome to rule Judea, Samaria and Galilee as a police state. He was a murderer: ruthless and vindictive. In addition, he imposed burdensome taxes on the people, largely boosting the wealth of the rulers. Herod's brutality was a shroud over Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' birth. Jesus entered-into our brokenness.
Some of our most intimate experiences with the Divine are in difficult times. I know this is true for me. Certainly, I experienced some uncertainty and anxiety as I made a turn from a consulting career to parish ministry. Before I even realized I was discerning a change, I had a prescient dream directing me down this new path. In the dream, I was in a storm and trapped in a town where all the streets were flooded; there was no way out. Yet, I had this sense of urgency that I needed to find a way out as soon as possible. For three days, I frantically searched, but all the streets were impassable. Then, on the third day, seemingly suddenly, I found a way out, one clear road that would take me out of town, though all the other streets were still flooded. This one way out was now so obvious - I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen it before. Dreams are an avenue of inspiration from God. Once I made the "aha" connection, Jesus' presence during this career transition was comforting.
Jesus is with us through uncertainty and anxiety, and Jesus is with us through loss. I cried through the months leading up to my divorce and through the months following, and Jesus' compassion gave me the courage to look to a new day. Jesus is with us through grief. One year ago, I lost a dear friend to cancer. My last visit with her one week before her death was both beautiful and heart-rending. That night, I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and I was filled with God's presence and somehow, my friend was there with us. I experienced perfect Love, perfect Peace. Jesus was born into an oppressive society, into heartache. He came into our brokenness and lived fully in his humanness. He gets us; he lived our emotions. He continues to enter-into our brokenness, with empathy for the human condition. What is your sadness? With compassion and unceasing love, Jesus enters-into our heartache. He journeys with us through the healing process; he comforts and gives us the courage to see a new day.
On the night of Jesus' birth, an angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds in the fields keeping watch over their flock. "The angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.'" Good news...of great joy...our Savior has come. Jesus shepherds us through all of life, helping us to endure and thrive. So, we give thanks, by loving as we are loved. Through our healing, we are able to care for and enrich the lives of others. Creation is inherently revealing God through the grandeur of nature and the intimacy of relationships. We are forever companioned, forever loved...with God's grace, forever loving. And, so, we come before the Christ child, in wonder of the Divine Love, and we sing out, "Joy to the world! The Lord is come." In her poem First Coming, Madeleine L'Engle concludes:
"We cannot wait till the world is sane to raise our songs with joyful voice,
For to share our grief, to touch our pain, He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!"
"Who are you?" This question that the crowd asks of John the Baptist in today's gospel is one that I have asked myself many, many times over in the last ten or so years as I have discerned a call to ordained ministry. It's a question that on some days I have been able to answer with certainty, and other days the answer has not come with such confidence. You see, I have lived most of my life with a stutter. I still have it. I've done a lot of work on it, and some days my speech is more fluent while other days my stutter is more pronounced. There's more to the story, but just know for now, my stutter has been a cause for pause. In answering the call to serve God and the Church as a priest where speaking occupies such a central part, I have tried to answer the question "Who are you?" with every other option. "God, I can't possibly do this work. Let me do anything else!" But when God calls us to something, God pursues us. And no matter how many times I have answered the question "Who are you?" with a shaky voice as I have discerned this calling, God has always answered the question with confidence. "I have called you, and you are mine."
This idea that God calls people to service who we might least expect is common. While we don't know any of John the Baptist's call story, I do wonder how John may have responded the first time God called him. "John, I am calling you to baptize and call people to repentance. This work will prepare the way for my son who will come into the world, a person who is greater than you." I imagine John may have told God "No!" a few times himself, or said "Please let me do anything else!" After all, John had his life planned out. He would spend his days eating locust and honey and sew his own clothes made from camel hair. These days, we might call John "crunchy". He'd probably be wearing socks with his Birkenstocks. I wonder how John might have wrestled with God when God called him to wilderness work.
Whether or not, we know how John initially answered God's call to baptize and preach repentance, we know that John did answer the call. And we hear in the gospel this morning, not John questioning his own call, but the crowd. They ask him "Who are you?'' And the real questions behind the question is "Where are your credentials?" "What gives you the right to baptize and teach and preach repentance?" "Are you the prophet?" "Are you Elijah?" You see, the priests and Levites sent to question John did not expect someone like him to be performing rites of purification and teaching. These were jobs left usually to Temple professionals like themselves. John's type was the last kind of person they expected to be doing the holy and important work of God.
And John answers them, "I am not the prophet. I baptize with water, but the one coming after me, (who John already knew to be the Christ), is someone you won't recognize either. If we go back a few verses in John from the ones we heard in our Gospel today, we read "He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own,and his own people did not accept him." God sent God's son into the world, and the world did not know him. The world did not recognize God made known to us in the person of Jesus. In the person of Jesus, God did something new. God is always doing something new. God is always challenging our perceptions. God is always asking us to find God's self in places we don't expect.
And God is always stirring. The collect for today, the Third Sunday of Advent, begins "Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us." And I can't think of a text that embodies this stirring up more than the Song of Mary. She says that God has shown God's strength, but not how we might expect. He has scattered the proud in their conceit and honored those who are humble. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones of power and saved and given special place to those who are usually left out. He has sent the rich away empty and given the resources of the rich to those in need. In all of this, God has flipped the world as we know it upside down. And God did this in the person of Jesus, who John the Baptist points to as the one who will come after him.
Part of our work in this season of Advent is to prepare our hearts to be stirred by God's power so that we may receive Christ when he comes- so that we don't miss Christ at Christmas when we might be looking for someone or something else. So, where do we find God? We look to the places that make us wince. The places that stand out. The places that are different. Next week, we will find God on a cold, silent night in a trough made to feed barn animals, wrapped in strips of spare fabric. We will find God in Christ not in strength, but in the weak, helplessness of a newborn child. God will come to us in our beautiful church, yes, but also in a barn, bugs flying around, mice nesting in the corner. We will find God tended to not by hired help, but by shepherds- field hands who have heard the call of God to come and find God's self in a place they least expected. God's love drew them to that place on that holy night, and God's love still draws us go to places where we might at first say no.
As we prepare for Christmas, are we open to finding Jesus in a stinky, bug-infested barn? Are we prepared to answer God's call to us even if we feel unprepared? Are we prepared to allow God's spirit to call us and equip us for the work to which we are called?
Stir up your power, O Lord, and come among us. Transform our hearts and help us to receive you in places where we expect, and in places where we least expect. Call us to those places and save us in those places. Amen.
I love the season of Advent. It's probably my favorite season of the liturgical year. But this year, the Advent calendar is causing me a bit of stress. As you may have noticed, Christmas Day falls on a Monday this year, as it does every six or seven years. As a result, the Fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve both fall on December 24 - which presents a challenge to churches that want to keep both observances. At St. Paul's, we will celebrate the Fourth Sunday of Advent at one 10 a.m. service, and Christmas Eve beginning in the afternoon at 4 p.m. If attendance data from the last time this occurred is a reliable guide, very few people will keep Advent 4, and most will opt to come only for Christmas Eve. But this year, I'd like to challenge you, the faithful people of St. Paul's, to prove history wrong. Let's pack the church for the last celebration of Advent at 10 a.m. on December 24! After all, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the Blessed Virgin Mary is the star of the show. And I am sure you will agree that it is meet and right to dwell with the Mother of our Lord for an hour or so, before she gives birth to the Savior of the world.Indeed, it is a shame when Advent gets cut short, because our society already pushes us to move right past Advent and begin celebrating Christmas in November. To repeat a statistic I shared with you last year, according to one music streaming service, the song "All I want for Christmas is you" by Mariah Carey had already been streamed 5 million times the day after Thanksgiving. But in an act of counter-cultural defiance, we liturgical Christians insist on walking the way of Advent before we celebrate Christmas. And as my favorite preacher in the whole world Fleming Rutledge reminds us, the season of Advent "begins in the dark." By this she means that, before we embrace the light and joy of Christmas, we confront the world's darkness in Advent. In the season of Advent, we look squarely at the problem evil without flinching and acknowledge the suffering in our world - the wreckage of wars, poverty, and natural disasters. Advent calls us to confront the dire consequences of sin and our participation in it. In the words of this morning's Collect, in Advent we pray for God to "Give us grace to heed [the prophets' warnings to repent and] forsake our sins." At this point, you may be thinking that rushing straight to Christmas doesn't sound like a bad idea after all! You may be wondering: what's so great about a season that focuses us on the world's brokenness? What is to be gained from such an honest look into the dark? And the answer, Advent tells us, is nothing less than our freedom and liberation. Recall the very first words we prayed in today's worship service: "Blessed are you, holy and living One. You come to your people and set them free." This promise of freedom means that we do not have to live in denial. We can confront the world's brokenness, not with despair, but with hope. Because the good news of the gospel - the good news of Advent - is that God is coming to set us free from all that holds us captive. In Advent, we hear the voice in the wilderness calling us to make a straight path through the desert, because God is on the move. This voice, this herald of good tidings, announces that God is about to solve the dilemma of human sin once and for all. In Advent, we prepare ourselves for God's rescue operation - the "once and future coming of Jesus Christ." His first coming in the manager at Bethlehem, and his future coming in power and glory.This story of God's intervention is announced each year in Advent by a locust-eating, camel hair-clad prophet named John the Baptist. And every year, we meet John the Baptist on not just one, but two Sundays (yes, he'll be back next Sunday for part two!). John the Baptist, you could say, is the star of Advent. Although the actual John the Baptist would resoundingly resist being called the "star" of anything because, as he says over and over, his role is to prepare the way for the real star, which is Jesus. This John, the greatest among prophets, speaks of himself only by pointing away from himself - to the One whose sandals he is unfit to untie. "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me," he says. To quote my favorite preacher again, Fleming Rutledge tells us that this wild man John the Baptist is defined by his location. And John's location, she writes, is on a frontier: "a frontier of ages." Yes, John bridges two ages: the gap between the Old and New Testaments. He straddles two worlds, proclaiming judgment on the former age while also pointing toward God's redemption in the age to come. Rutledge reminds us that John is both the last and the first: "the last and greatest of the Hebrew prophets but the first person to belong to the arriving age of the Kingdom of God." And today, on the Second Sunday of Advent, this frontier dwelling prophet invites us to repent. To turn away from sin and toward a promised future of liberation and freedom. John's message about the inbreaking of God's kingdom is a message of profound hope and promise, but even as he preaches hope, John refuses to let us off the hook. In his call to repentance, he reminds us that whether we realize it or not, we too are part of systems of suffering in the world. In a moment, in our Confession of Sin, we will acknowledge this when we pledge to "repent of the evil that enslaves us," including "the evil done on our behalf," those systems that benefit us while oppressing others. And even as we affirm sin's hold on us, we cling confidently to the Advent hope that God can and will deliver us from this evil that enslaves us.Today, the great herald of hope John the Baptist calls to us from his place on the frontier between two ages, as he announces God's rescue operation. Much like John, we are an Advent people defined by our location. And our location is a on a border between Christ's first coming and his second. And on this Advent frontier, we live not in despair, but in confidence and hope, that Jesus, the Messiah, the One John the Baptist came to proclaim, will indeed come again. So, get ready. Prepare the way! God is on the move. Amen.
Today is the beginning of a new church year: the first Sunday of Advent. Of course, during this season of Advent, we are awaiting the birth of our Savior, Jesus coming into this world to make tangible for us God's mercy and love. Also, this season is a reminder to us that we are always awaiting Christ's second coming, "the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory." Jesus Christ will return marking the completion, the fruition of the Kingdom of God on earth. The readings for this first Sunday of Advent focus on the second coming, a day of judgment. Christ will "...gather his elect...from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven." We don't know what this day will look like, what will happen, or what will come next. We don't know the when, though some have made predictions.
Back in the 1800's, the Millerites, followers of a farmer named William Miller, decided that the world would end on April 23, 1843, based somehow on an interpretation of Scripture. Many gave away their possessions. When the day arrived and Jesus didn't, the group disbanded. More recently, scientist Richard Noone decided that May 5, 2000 would be the day that the alignment of the planets and the thickness of the Antarctic ice mass would lead to global icy destruction. In 2006, minister Ronald Weinland, self-described as the end-time prophet of God, proclaimed the second coming would happen by the end of 2008. We don't know the-when and that is precisely how it is laid out in Scripture. Jesus is not telling us when. Rather, we are being encouraged to live as though Christ's return is imminent.
When the Gospels were written, people did expect Christ to return any day. We just heard in the Gospel of Mark, "Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place." Now, it's been 2,000 years. It's easy to see how most of us have moved on from this prospect of completion - not in any way a part our everyday awareness. But, what if it was? What if we lived our everyday lives expecting Christ's imminent return?
In the passage from Isaiah this morning, the people are crying out to God, "O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence." Do you hear the desire for God in these words? This Scripture passage is set in the time after the Israelites have returned from being in exile in Babylonia, but while the temple in Jerusalem still lies in ruins. They are trying to cope with the devastation. They cry out to God, "Please come." The passage concludes with the people acknowledging their dependence on God. "O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand." In other words, we know we need you. This passage points to the power in weakness because when we acknowledge our dependence on God, our need for God, we open ourselves to God inspiring our lives; we open ourselves to God's desire for our lives.
I love the metaphor of the clay and the potter. I read an article about pottery explaining the time and patience it takes to craft a piece of pottery (https://en.vogue.me/culture/therapeutic-pottery/). A ceramicist covered in the article says, "It's taught me a lot about letting go a bit and not expecting perfection." God, our potter, has infinite patience with our imperfections, actively waiting for us, always ready to inspire us as we are able to open are hearts to God. In this season of Advent, we are encouraged to be actively waiting for God, full of expectation for the gift of God living among us.
Just as God has infinite patience, so we need to be patient in crafting our relationship with God through prayer. "Leo Tolstoy tells the story of three hermits who lived on an island. Their prayer [to God] of intimacy and love was simple like they were simple: 'We are three; you are three; have mercy on us. Amen.' Miracles sometimes happened when they prayed in this way. The bishop, however, hearing about the hermits, decided that they needed guidance in proper prayer, and so he went to their small island. After instructing the monks, the bishop set sail for the mainland, pleased to have enlightened the souls of such simple men. Suddenly, off the stern of the ship he saw a huge ball of light skimming across the ocean. It got closer and closer until he could see that it was the three hermits running on top of the water. Once on board the ship they said to the bishop, 'We are sorry, but we have forgotten some of your teaching. Would you please instruct us again?' The bishop shook his head and replied meekly, 'Forget everything I have taught you and continue to pray in your old way'" (Richard J. Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home, New York; HarperCollins Publishers, 1992, p. 80).
There is no right or wrong way to pray and there are no quick paths to developing our relationship with God. We need to give time to our prayer life. Advent lends itself to contemplative prayer, sitting quietly and simply being present to God. Desiring God is a part of our nature. But, we have to make the space to recognize our connection to the Divine. When sitting quietly before God, we are acknowledging our dependence on God, our need for God. We are desiring God to be our Savior, our source of comfort, mercy and inspiration - our perfect Love.
We don't know when the Second Coming will happen, what it will look like, or what will come next. But, we know it will be Good News. As we heard in the Gospel passage, "From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near." If we live thinking that the Second Coming might happen at any time, might we be inspired to focus on developing our relationship with God, so that we come to that day without regret for what we squandered - time, talent, treasure, relationships, priorities - but rather we come to that day with hearts filled with joy for the love coming among us. After all, in that moment, it will be crystal clear what actually matters in life. Amen.
For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep and will sort them out.
On this day, we gather in time on a threshold: the last Sunday of the Church year, the feast of Christ the King. We end today what we began a year ago on the first Sunday of Advent 2022, and we prepare to begin again next week on the first Sunday of Advent 2023. In this last year, we have walked through the story of salvation. We heard the prophets call us to repentance and then celebrated the birth of God into this world in the person of Jesus. We heard stories about Jesus healing the sick and even raising the dead. This past spring, we walked with Jesus through the week of his Passion- Holy Week- that lead to his death and then resurrection and then ascension. We celebrated the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and all summer and fall, we have continued to hear about the love of God made known to us in Jesus that still lives and moves in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. And today, on the last day of our journey, before we begin again, we celebrate Christ the King. It is a feast that ends our journey and begins a new one. The feast acts as a threshold to bridge us from what was to what will be.
But lest we are tempted to think that the Kingdom of God, ruled by Christ the King himself, looks like a familiar earthly Kingdom with all the trappings of a royal court, an army, a castle, crowns, fine robes, and power, we are given stories today in our texts that include sheep and goats. Kind of startling, isn't it? On a day when we celebrate the Kingdom of God and the reign of Christ, the Church gives us barn animals.
In Ezekiel, we hear that God will search for God's own sheep and will sort them out-- sort here meaning that God will count the sheep, see who is missing, and check on sheep that might need special attention. "I will bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak." God will also not only sort and help the sheep, God will also supply all of the needs of the sheep. "I will feed them with good pasture. There they shall lie down." God's promise here is that God's sheep will live from a place of abundance. And then my favorite part- "I will feed them with justice." God's will make things right. God will rescue the sheep from all harm. "I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged."
If we turn to the Gospel, we hear Jesus using sheep and goats to further talk about God's will and work in the world. He tells us that those who give of themselves to take care of the least among us- the hungry, thirsty, sick, imprisoned, estranged- will be rewarded with eternal life. And in a dramatic act, Christ the King, will separate the sheep from the goats. He will separate those who helped and those who didn't. (Something to note here: there are only two options. Either we help those in need or we don't. Jesus doesn't give us an option to be passive. Either we are serving him by serving others or we aren't. These words can be tough to hear. Brandon reminded us in his sermon last week of the risky business of discipleship. Jesus doesn't mince words here about our work as his disciples.)
But this parsing out is not a condemnation- even if Jesus's words here are pointed and may feel harsh. This parsing out is an invitation to dream about a different kind of Kingdom, one very different from the kingdoms of this world- a Kingdom that is reimagined. If we look closely enough, these texts about sheep and goats- barn animals- are actually perfect assignments for today's feast of Christ the King. Jesus is not giving us a list of who's in and who's out- who makes the cut and who doesn't. Jesus is rather giving us a list of the citizens of the Kingdom of God- who the people are that make up the rule and reign of God. He is telling us what the Kingdom of God looks like and who the Kingdom of God looks like. And in stern words, Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is made up of folk who took the time to feed the hungry, quench the thirst of the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, and heal the sick.
In this invitation to dream, to hope for a new world in which all are fed and clothed and healed, Jesus asks us "Who among you are hungry? Thirsty? Naked? Imprisoned? Sick?" He is asking us to take care of these people, yes, but he is also inviting us to ask ourselves who else is hungry and thirsty? Perhaps hungry and thirsty for justice and peace and an end to war and conflict. Who else is naked? Perhaps the unhoused in need of a home, house, to cover their life and provide them with safety and security. Who else is imprisoned? Perhaps a prisoner to addiction because addiction to something external is the only way they know how to cope with the pain this cruel world has dealt them. Who else is sick? Perhaps those with little or no access to healthcare, victims of a system that often only serves those who can afford care.
Today, we will baptize Chloe into the Body of Christ, the Church. And in this act of baptism, we will invite Chloe into this dreaming with us about what is possible in the Kingdom of God. Chloe's parents and godparents, affirmed by our support, will take vows on her behalf to make sure she is raised up in the faith and joins in on God's work already happening around us in the world. Into this imagined Kingdom that is not fully here, but to which we continue to strive and work toward, we baptize Chloe.
And here is the good news--it is by taking care of Christ by taking care of the most vulnerable, the sheep, we have eternal life. We experience an encounter with Jesus in the eye of the hungry, in the handshake of the thirsty, in meaningful conversation with the lonely, in the liberation of the prisoner. This imagining rests on the threshold of a feast- a feast that leads into our hope: the season of Advent, a season of preparation as we wait for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. For we are not left to imagine this Kingdom into being on our own. Jesus walks with us. We are not left to building this Kingdom on our own. Jesus picks up the hammer and nails and invites us to dream and work this Kingdom into being alongside him.
Newcomers to The Episcopal Church quickly discover that we have special names for just about everything. This big room we're in right now is the "nave," while the foyer at the back of the nave is the "narthex." This colorful cape I'm wearing is a "chasuble," while the napkin we use to wipe the rim of the chalice is a "purificator." And I'm sure you've noticed in your bulletin each week that certain prayers are identified as "collects." [Side note: If you want to see me go full-blown liturgy nerd, ask me sometime about collects.] For now, I'll simply say that each Sunday in the Church Year has its very own Collect. And in more than one past sermon, I have professed - with all sincerity - that the collect for that Sunday was my favorite. But, really, I swear: today's Collect is truly my favorite Collect in the entire Prayer Book.
I love today's Collect for its focus on the Holy Scriptures. It reminds us that the scriptures are a gift from God. In a carefully curated crescendo, it describes how we are to engage the scriptures with all our senses: "Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them." In other words, scripture is the very food of our spiritual lives. Nourishment for our souls, just like the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist. And most importantly, this collect assures us that by feasting on God's holy Word, we will find the "hope of everlasting life" that Jesus offers us.
However...if you were listening carefully this morning, you'd be excused for thinking twice before taking a bite out of these particular scriptures. Yes, you did hear the Prophet Zephaniah say, "I will bring such distress upon people that...their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung." All I can say is, we only heard the beginning of Zephaniah this morning. I promise - it has a happy ending! I'd like to focus instead on our gospel passage, which is equally as distressing at first glance. In these final three weeks of the Church Year, the Gospel of Matthew is serving up some intense, fire-and-brimstone parables that set the stage for the season of Advent. Each of these three parables shares a common goal. Their purpose is to teach us how we are to live in anticipation of Judgement Day. How we are to live as faithful followers of Jesus, until he comes again.
In their attempt to impart this wisdom, they each use the same literary device. They cast their central characters into two distinct categories: those who choose the right way to live, and those who choose the wrong way. Those who find favor on the Last Day, and those who end up weeping and gnashing their teeth. Last week, we met the foolish bridesmaids who ran out of oil for their lamps. Then there were the wise bridesmaids who went oil shopping early, so their lamps kept burning until the Bridegroom's return. Next week, two distinct groups of livestock will take center stage in our parable, but I'll leave it to Gabriel to remind you whether you want to be a sheep or a goat.
For today, we're dealing with two "good and trustworthy" servants and one "wicked and lazy" servant. As the parable goes, their master parcels out large sums of money to each servant. Keep in mind that in ancient times, one "talent" was equal to around 20 years' worth of earnings. So, the first servant who received five talents received more than a lifetime of wages from the master! This servant, and the one who received two talents, or 40 years' wages, doubled their money. As a result, they were found "good and trustworthy" and invited to "enter into the joy of their master." But the servant who buried his single talent in the ground was "thrown into outer darkness."
Now, I don't know about you, but I find this parable incredibly disorienting. When it comes to investing, I value prudence and risk aversion. So, I really want the master to applaud the third servant for his caution. Sure, the other two servants doubled their money, but what an incredible risk they took! We don't hear what would have happened if their luck had gone the other way and they had lost it all. But here's the problem. If I try to turn this parable into a story about prudent investing, I miss what Jesus is trying to tell me about discipleship. Because the economy of his kingdom has a totally different set of values
Jesus did not live a cautious life. Indeed, the life and ministry of Jesus is one big story of a high-risk venture. At this very moment in Matthew's gospel, Jesus has left the safety of Galilee for Jerusalem, confronted the antagonistic religious authorities, and will soon face off against the Roman Empire. And this risk-taking behavior will cost him his life. Jesus risks everything to proclaim the inbreaking of God's kingdom. With reckless abandon he feeds the hungry, cures the sick, and blesses the meek. He goes all in for the sake of a world where the lowly are lifted up and the last are made first.
If we have ears to hear today's parable, we'll discover that risk-averse living is simply not an option if we want to be disciples of Jesus. That, in the economy of God's kingdom, the greatest risk of all, is choosing not to risk anything. In other words, if we insist on playing it safe, if we let fear get the best of us, we might miss the everlasting life - the abundant life - that Jesus promises us. Because loving as Jesus calls us to love is risky business.
My friends, where, in your life, are you burying your talents in the ground? Where in your life is fear holding you back from doing the work of the gospel? As a community of Jesus followers, we should consider what wisdom this parable has to offer us in this moment in our life together. Particularly after raising such a large sum of money. As we prepare to spend our capital campaign talents, we have earmarked more than $500,000 for outreach - for kingdom building work. How would we spend this money if we let this parable serve as our blueprint? If we were to hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest this scripture, what might we be willing to risk for the sake of God's kingdom?
Lauren Dockery, our Director of Children & Youth Ministries, preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Patricia Rose preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on All Saints' Sunday.
Well, here we are, once again: the Pharisees are plotting to entrap Jesus. Last week, Brandon preached on the passage earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, where the Pharisees ask Jesus, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" Jesus replies, "Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's." The passage concluded, "When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away." In the intervening passage between last Sunday and today, the Sadducees take their turn at trying to entrap Jesus. The Sadducees were a priestly sect that did not believe in resurrection. They propose a scenario to Jesus. What if there are seven brothers, each dies childless, each leaves his widow to the next brother. In the resurrection, of the seven brothers, whose wife will she be? Jesus tells them that not only do they not understand Scripture, they don't understand the power of God. I'll leave the interpretation of this passage for another day. But, just know that when Jesus tells the Sadducees, "God is not God of the dead, but of the living," the Sadducees are astounded.
Today, we hear the verses following the Seven Brothers story. Jesus has silenced the Sadducees and now the Pharisees are trying again. Jesus stumps them with a line of questioning about the Messiah being both the son of David and the one that David calls Lord. "The Messiah is both in the line of David and transcends his lineage" (Tim Beach-Verhey, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 4, p. 216). The passage concludes, "No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions." First, last week, the Pharisees were amazed. Then, the Sadducees were astounded. Now, the Pharisees are speechless and done asking questions. Jesus has made his point. He is saying, "Listen to me. I speak with ultimate knowledge and authority. I am offering you Good News. Love your neighbor as yourself." It's not a new message for Jesus' antagonists, nor for his followers. The Old Testament passage this morning from Leviticus ends with these words: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord." God's loving message is as old as time. We are not fully loving God if we are not loving what God loves. God wants us to know that the path forward to healing this broken world is loving our neighbor as our self.
We can be overwhelmed by the divisiveness in Washington - the lack of moral character - the thirst for power that voids all desire to collaborate in decision-making. We can be overwhelmed by the wars in the Holy Land and Ukraine, the animosity, the depravity. Yet, we need to remind ourselves that living in the light of Christ has always been countercultural. The arc of the moral universe is long. Just as Paul encouraged the Thessalonians to remain faithful, we encourage one another to live as we are meant to live, cultivating the Kingdom of God, trusting that when we love our neighbor as ourselves, the seeds will grow, however long it might take to come to fruition.
I am serving on the Board of Trustees for Bexley Seabury Seminary. I was at a Board meeting a couple of weeks ago. Bishop Doug Sparks, Bishop of the Diocese of Northern Indiana, who is the President of the Board, told a story from his childhood. He is a twin. When he and his sister were four years old, their father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and was placed in an institution where he lived for the next ten years until his death. Doug and his sister attended a Catholic School. He remembers the sadness and trauma of being teased about not having a Dad. Of course, his Dad couldn't show up for any of those parent-child events at school. One day, when Doug and his sister were in 3rd grade, the priest came into the classroom and announced that he was taking Doug and his sister to see their Dad. Bishop Sparks talked about how amazing that moment was for him, the moment the priest named his Dad in front of the whole classroom. He made his Dad known. That's how we love as Christ loves us. Upholding the dignity of every human being. Even more broadly, putting ourselves in the other person's shoes. Always remembering that a person's life experiences is the context for their beliefs and actions today.
Loving our neighbor as our self is not always easy. We have different personalities, different perspectives - at times strikingly different points of view. We come together in this faith community to support one another. We come together for forgiveness, renewal, refreshment, and inspiration to live our everyday lives in the light of Christ. Well, I do need to shake my head just a bit that after nine months of raising money to support the Walking in Love Capital Campaign, and just one week after a wonderful celebration of a successful campaign, I now have the privilege of kicking off the Annual Campaign. Just as a reminder, a capital campaign focuses on the longer-term needs of the church. With the proceeds of the Walking in Love Campaign, we will be able to address major infrastructure needs that come around once every 20, 50, or even 100 years. In addition, we will grow the church's endowment funds to ensure the long-term health of the parish by generating investment income that will sustain the ministries of the parish for generations to come.
Though annually, we receive investment income from the endowment, and we have a few other sources of other income, 70% of our annual budget comes from our annual pledges. Our pledges ensure that worship, music, pastoral care, education, outreach, and fellowship will continue to thrive throughout the coming year. This is a pivotal year for us at St. Paul's because we are losing two of our largest pledges due to life transitions, which amount to more than 10% of total pledges. I ask that you prayerfully consider your annual pledge this year to help us cover our annual operating needs: all ministries and programs, clergy and staff salaries, outreach to our community and the wider world, facility maintenance and utilities, and Diocesan and wider church support. We come here seeking God, desiring to understand how to live our lives with God, how to live as we are meant to live, loving our neighbor as our self. Living in gratitude for God's love in our lives, we give to support the ministries, which nourish us individually and as a community. As always, I am so grateful for your gifts of time, talent, and treasure, and so grateful to be on this journey with you. Amen.
When I was in high school, a teacher once accused me of being "obsequious." Having not yet encountered this word in my SAT prep, I was forced to look it up in the dictionary (which, in the pre-smartphone age, meant I had to find an actual dictionary). You can imagine my indignation upon learning that an "obsequious" person relies on excessive flattery to ingratiate themselves with someone important. In other words, my teacher had used a fancy word to call me a kiss-up! Adding insult to injury, I learned that an "obsequious" person is, by definition, insincere. Disingenuous. Which is to say, it's a perfect word to describe Jesus' rivals in the passage we just heard. These obsequious opponents greet Jesus with words of fawning, insincere flattery. "Teacher," they say to Jesus, "we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth." But their true intention is to entrap Jesus. Their words are full of praise, but their hearts are full of malice.
In our Gospel passages the last few weeks, this tension between Jesus and his adversaries has been building. Remember, today's scene takes place only days after the events of Palm Sunday. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey and was greeted with cries of "hosanna," as the crowds proclaimed him the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. From there, Jesus moves to the Temple, where we find him today - at the very center of Jewish religious life and power. Teaching and telling parables, about a kingdom where the last will be first, and the first will be last. Understandably, those in positions of power are starting to feel threatened. So threatened, in fact, that an unlikely alliance has formed between the Pharisees (the religious elite), and the Herodians (friends of the emperor). Opposition to Jesus, it seems, turns enemies into friends. In only a matter of days, they will arrest Jesus and put him to death. But today, they test Jesus with cunning words in the form of this question: "Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?"
If he answers "yes," Jesus will appear sympathetic to the Roman Empire. That would alienate his Jewish followers, who are the victims of Roman oppression. If he says "no," he'll expose himself to charges of sedition. And that would give the Roman authorities a reason to arrest him. Jesus appears to be trapped. Except, Jesus refuses to play by his questioners' rules. He declines to answer yes or no, and instead asks them a question: "Whose head and title is found on coin used to pay the tax?" "The emperor's," they reply. "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's," Jesus says, "and to God the things that are God's."
Jesus successfully evades their trick question. But what does his answer mean for us? For a long time, Jesus' answer has been used to justify the separation of our lives into two distinct spheres: the civic realm and the spiritual realm. By calling us to "render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God," Jesus clarifies the relationship between obedience to the state and obedience to God. Many argue that his response suggests you and I have a dual allegiance: "to the teaching and commands of God, on the one hand...and to the government...on the other."
But if I'm honest, I find this interpretation deeply unsatisfying. It's too simple and tidy. And Jesus was neither of these things. If we cling too tightly to a separation between our civic and spiritual lives, we deny God's claim on the entirety of our lives. It's true, we live now as citizens of an earthly kingdom governed by earthly laws. But as citizens of God's kingdom first, our work is to bear the fruit of his kingdom even now, during our sojourn on earth. And this is a timely topic for us today, as we are weeks away from an election. And in that election, I trust that we, as people of faith, will cast our votes in a way that reflects our most authentic understanding of how best to love God and our neighbors, which is our highest spiritual calling.
Our participation in civic systems is not removed from our spiritual lives or divorced from the convictions of our faith. It is a place where we can become instruments of God's peace, God's justice, God's righteousness, and God's love. We see this clearly in our work with Greater Cleveland Congregations, where we work alongside other communities of faith for positive social change, often through engagement with those in positions of political power.
So, if this passage is not about bifurcating our spiritual and civic lives, what is its message for us today? Well, let's go back to where we started - with Jesus' obsequious opponents. Before Jesus even attempts to respond to their question, he calls out their hypocrisy, as he does over and over throughout the gospels, particularly in his ongoing disputes with the Pharisees. Contrary to a common misperception, Jesus is not here or elsewhere criticizing the Pharisees for their religious beliefs. Jesus was a faithful Jew and no doubt had great sympathy for the Pharisee's devotion to Torah and its teachings. He condemned them not for their beliefs, but for their hypocrisy. For their false righteousness. For their false persona. For coming to him under the false pretense of being concerned about matters of faith when they just wanted to get rid of Jesus and preserve their own power. The intentions of the Pharisee's hearts did not match the faith they professed.
Jesus calls us to different way of living. He calls us lives of integrity. Lives of authenticity. Lives of wholeness. Jesus denied any claim on that coin because it bore the image of Caeser. Instead, Jesus claims us as the currency of his kingdom because we bear the image of God. We are God's currency of peace, justice, and love, in a world torn asunder by the evil fruits of war, hatred, and violence. Indeed, we are gathered here today to be nourished by God's Word and sacrament to cultivate lives of faith that lead to good works. May we leave here today, renewed for the work of building God's kingdom on earth. Amen.
The Rev. Patricia preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost.
"The one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully," Frederick Buechner. Frederick Buechner, the beloved writer and theologian, gets us started this morning with our reflection on Scripture. "The one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully."
This morning's Scripture, the Old Testament passage from 1st Isaiah and the Gospel passage from Matthew fit neatly together. And, both radiate judgment. In Isaiah we hear, "My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it." In Matthew we hear, "There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country." In both cases, the harvest did not go as planned. In Isaiah, the gardener expected the vineyard to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. During this era of 1st Isaiah, the twelve tribes of Israel were split into two Kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. The fall of Jerusalem was triggered, in part, by infighting between these two kingdoms. The vineyard yielded wild grapes; God's loving cultivation of the vineyard is rejected. In Matthew, God sends his messengers to receive the fruits of the harvest, but the tenants (the religious establishment) first kill the slaves (the prophets) and then kill the son, Jesus. God's messengers are rejected. Judgment sets in. In Isaiah, we hear, "Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down." In Matthew we hear, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone...Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls." Judgement - a harsh, difficult message.
The problem is we do lose our way. The garden is so carefully prepared: cleared of stones, planted with choice vines, tended to with a watchtower. The environment is prepared for growth, for enriching, abundant life and yet, we lose our way. Once upon a time, there was a corporation named Enron and there was a Big 8 Accounting Firm named Arthur Andersen. Enron was an energy, commodities and services company. During the bull market of the 1990s, Enron traded derivative contracts for any numbers of commodities: electricity, coal, paper, steel, even the weather. By 2001, they were executing trades worth about $2.5 billion a day. And then, the boom years ended. Competition increased, the company's profits shrank, and executives began to rely on dubious accounting practices to hide the troubles. Arthur Andersen was Enron's auditor. When the SEC began investigating Enron, some misguided employees at Andersen started shredding documents. In December 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy. In June 2002, Andersen was found guilty of shredding evidence, and lost its license to engage in public accounting (Peter Bondarenko, Enron Scandal, Encyclopedia Britannica).
I worked for Andersen in the 90's. I remember interviewing someone who had applied for a position, and he asked me a question I had never gotten before. He was wondering about the long-term prospects for this organization. I remember thinking what a strange, rather uninformed question. Andersen was a model of integrity and stability. Why wouldn't it be around forever? Well, that young man turned out to be rather prescient. What I find so disturbing about this historic event is that, between Enron and Andersen, 100,000 employees lost their jobs and billions was lost in retirement and pension funds because of the decisions made by a few. We are accountable to one another.
The garden is so carefully prepared: cleared of stones, planted with choice vines, tended to with a watchtower. We are given the foundation for just and right living, and yet, we lose our way. The Wagner-Steagall Housing Act was passed into law on September 1, 1937. This law established the U.S. Housing Authority (USHA), a loan-granting agency to build low-cost housing around the country. At that time, mortgage loans required a 30-50% down payment with terms of just 5-10 years. With USHA, down payments were reduced to 10-20% with terms of 20-30 years - affordable housing.
More than one million African American men and women served in the US armed forces during World War II. Yet, on returning from serving our country, they were denied these loans over fear that their presence in communities would devalue real estate. Thus, the term redlining: a policy of refusing to make federally insured mortgages in areas with significant African American populations, areas coded red on maps used in determining loan worthiness. Being denied these loans reverberates into future generations. Black people were pushed into the rental market. As housing values increased in white neighborhoods, the wealth gap grew between white and black people. Wealth accrued through home equity is passed down to the next generation. The average black family has 1/8 the net worth of the average white family. We are accountable to one another.>God is just, and we are called to live as God intends, with justice and righteousness, with compassion and love. There are consequences of living outside of God's intentions. Directly, we hurt one another. Indirectly, allowing systems of injustice, we abandon one another. In Scripture, the words of judgment are harsh, meant to capture our attention, meant to draw us back into this divine love song. The passage from Isaiah opens with these words: "Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard." God wants us to experience the goodness of justice and righteousness, of compassion and love. The harsh words of judgment are warning us of the consequences of living outside of God's intentions. Within our souls, we will be unsettled, lonely, empty. But judgment is not the end game. Judgment is the door opening. Judgment invites us back into a place of being right with the world. God wants us to know the peace, which surpasses all understanding. "The one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully." Amen.
"O God: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure."These words from today's opening Collect are prayed every year on this Sunday. It's one of my favorite collects in the entire Prayer Book because I love the imagery of running to obtain God's promises. And friends, let me tell you, I am not a runner. At all. But, abundant and eternal life in the Kingdom of God? Heavenly treasure? I'd like to think these are promises I'd be willing to run after.
I've been thinking a lot about God's promises lately because in just the last week at St. Paul's, we held three funeral services. Three beloved members of the St. Paul's community - George Shook, Gary Mitchener, and Bob Emmet - were celebrated and commended to God's eternal safekeeping from this sacred space. Even if you did not have the privilege to know these men during their lifetimes, we are all impacted by their deaths as members with them of the Body of Christ. The grief that accompanies their loss, and the joy at their entrance into the nearer presence of God, are present with us in this moment in the life of St. Paul's.
Funerals are powerful reminders to us of God's promises. The burial liturgy of our Prayer Book finds all its meaning in the hopeful promise of resurrection to eternal life. It reminds those of us still on our earthly pilgrimage that Jesus has conquered death forever, which frees us to live with confidence and boldness now. We are emboldened to embrace the abundant life that Jesus promises us even now, in this life. Most of us think of eternal life in terms of time: as life that never ends. And, indeed, it is that. But eternal life, as it is described in scripture, refers not only to never-ending life with God on the other side of the grave. Eternal life refers also to a quality of life that is available to us even now. A participation in God's divine life that is available to us in this life, through Jesus. In the gospel of John, Jesus says, "This is eternal life, that [you] may know...the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom [he] has sent." Each Sunday celebration of the Holy Eucharist is an opportunity to renew our commitment to know Jesus and to seek this eternal life. Each Sunday we are invited to live deeper lives of faith. To live as more intentional followers of Jesus. To make an honest appraisal of our lives and consider whether we are running or simply ambling along on our journey of faith.
Today is a particularly good Sunday to consider this, because it is the last Sunday of our Capital Campaign. And as this critical chapter in our communal life comes to an end, we are reminded of the incredible generosity of this community. It's a powerful testament to this generosity that we've raised almost six million dollars, and this moment in our lives together is indeed something to celebrate. It's also a moment to renew our commitment to living lives rooted in Jesus and seeking the kingdom of God. To live more deeply into our baptismal vows to follow Jesus as Lord, to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ, to love our neighbor, and to work for justice and peace.
Indeed, today's Gospel passage points us to this choice. In it, Jesus tells us a parable about two sons whose father sends them to work in his vineyard. The first son refuses to heed his father's command, but in the end, he changes his mind and goes to work in the vineyard. The second son responds favorably to his father's command but then never follows through. As far as the parables of Jesus go, this is a blessedly simple one. The first son says the wrong thing but does the right thing; the second son says the right thing, but his actions fall short of his words. The moral of the parable can be summarized rather succinctly with this common expression: actions speak louder than words.
When Jesus told this parable, he was speaking to the Pharisees and religious leaders. The insiders. The people who were adjacent to wealth and power. People, let's be honest, who are more like us than we might care to admit. So, we would do well to hear Jesus' parable as not only an invitation, but also a warning. As we steward this wealth we have so quickly amassed, we should ask: will we be like the son who talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk, or will we go to labor in the vineyard with renewed fervor? Will we embrace the values of Jesus' kingdom not only with our lips, but in our lives? Will we, the stewards of great wealth, confront social and economic inequities and other injustices and do our part to build the kingdom of God? Will we say yes to God's promise of eternal life? Faithful stewardship of our financial resources is the ongoing, never-ending work of the faith community. Fortifying our buildings and replenishing our endowment is something we do first and foremost so we can participate in God's mission. So the question our Gospel poses to us this morning is this: which son will we be?
The Rev. Patricia Rose preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost.
This past week, as I am sure many of you heard or read in the news, the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland rolled out a new policy on "Issues of Sexuality and Gender Identity." In short, this policy forbids gender diversity and expression in diocesan schools and parishes and very explicitly denies LGBTQ people as authentic expressions of God's creation. While this is hardly a new teaching in this religious tradition, the new policy is more explicit, and has, in the words of the Plain-Dealer headline, "pushed [our] region into a growing debate among the nation's Catholics over LGBTQ issues." I want to acknowledge that I know this policy is painful for members of our own community, particularly those who have children in parochial schools. It's also disheartening for all of us who care about Christian witness in the world. Our witness at St. Paul's and in The Episcopal Church proclaims the innate dignity and worth of LGBTQ+ people as created in God's image. And in these moments, it can feel like our witness is being drowned out by louder, higher profile voices.
As people of faith, the tough question we might ask ourselves is this: Why does God allow these messages to be proclaimed? Why does God permit voices that deny the very personhood of God's precious creation? Particularly when these messages have real, tragic consequences, including an increase in depression and self-harm among young people? Put another way: If God is control of our lives and the events of human history, why does God - the God of love - allow people to speak oppressive messages in his name?
I don't have a simple answer for you, but I suggest our reading from Genesis has something to say in response to these questions. I invite you to listen again to the words that Joseph spoke to his brothers in this morning's passage: "Even though you [my brothers] intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good..." With these words, Joseph declares that God has taken the evil actions of his brothers and used them to achieve God's purposes. To better understand how God has done that, we need to know more about Joseph's story because this morning's passage comes at the end of a long, colorful saga.
You may remember, either from the Bible or Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, that Joseph was one of the 12 sons of Jacob, the great patriarch of Israel. And many years earlier, Joseph's brothers, in an act of jealousy and hatred, sold him into slavery. But God rescued Joseph from slavery and made him a prominent official of the Pharoah. And in this position, Joseph used his power to rescue the people of Israel by feeding them during a great famine. And now, all these years later, these brothers have been reunited. And, in a highly emotional, dramatic moment, they have been reconciled to each other.
In today's passage, Joseph weeps over the sin of his brothers, but he offers them forgiveness, and even promises to care for them and their families. In the end, their flagrant disregard for their brother's life did not have the final word. Their hateful intention for Joseph's life could not prevent God from using Joseph to preserve a great nation. "Even though [they] intended to do harm to [him], God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people..."
Joseph's words point to a concept in theology known as providence. Providence is the belief that God has a grand plan for the world and for each one of our lives. Providence declares that by God's power and sovereignty, God is actively at work in human affairs every day. Providence is the belief that God orders all things and that the events of human history somehow fit together to accomplish God's glorious purpose. What makes this complicated, of course, is we still must account for the harmful and evil events our world. If God is a loving God, and God is in control, we naturally wonder why these things need to happen at all. If we had more time this morning, we'd now turn our attention to topics such as sin and free will, but suffice it to say, this tension is not easily to resolve. God's ways are simply beyond our understanding. But Jospeh's statement - "Even though you intended to harm me, God intended it for good" - suggests that God can and does take the evil perpetuated by sinful humans to achieve good. Scripture's message to us this morning, quite simply, is that God can always, in the end, wrestle good out of bad. And in that - God's providence - we can put our hope.
So back to this policy that has Cleveland in the headlines. It would be easy for us to turn this into quarreling between Christians of different dominations. I want to be clear that my point in focusing us on this policy is not to encourage an "us" versus "them" debate. St. Paul warns us in today's passage from Romans not to "pass judgment on [our] brother or sister," reminding us that judgment is in the hands of God. I was grateful for the words of our Bishop Anne Jolly this week who, when commenting on the policy, said this: "While this news...has a deep emotional and real impact in our communities, I personally prefer to make statements about who we are and what we believe rather than pitting us AGAINST someone or something." Which is to say that our response, rather than a condemnation of the messenger, should be to love larger and louder. In response to a message that seeks to deny the innate goodness of God's creation, we should be inspired to preach our message of inclusion, wholehearted embrace, and unconditional love with voices more resounding, as we affirm the diversity of the human family in all its forms.
Bishop Anne went on to say, "Our hearts break when people are hurt by the church, marginalized by the church, and told they are not worthy of God's love as they are." So let us continue to preach love and put our trust in the God of resurrection. Because it is in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ that we see most clearly and most profoundly that God can indeed transform the evil, death-dealing ways of humanity into a proclamation of good news. Amen.
The Constitution of the United States is in the news quite a bit these days - what it says, what it means. Let me offer just a few highlights from our government's charter. "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ... All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States. ... The executive Power shall be vested in the President of the United States of America. ... The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. ... This Constitution and the Laws of the United States shall be the supreme Law of the Land." We have a binding document in the pursuit of a perfect Union. Yet, as we know all too well, laws are-violated. In fact, laws are more-effectively-violated by those who have power, exposing the limits of laws. Our hope for justice, for freedom, for safety, for prosperity is carrying out these laws of the land in the context of Christ's love. As we hear in Romans this morning, "Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law." In the Gospel passage, Jesus tells us, "...whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Christ's love inspires right enactment of law. Love is no small matter. Christ's love - I'm focusing not on the sentimental love for those who are dear to us, but the selfless love for those with whom we differ in any number of ways - Christ's love is our hope for a perfect Union.
The Church has an important mission: working with God to transform the world in the light of Christ. Jesus tells us that all commandments are-summed up in these words: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Loving our neighbor - friend, colleague, stranger - is vital to a just society, and, yet, loving is not a simple task. You have to watch the news only for a short time to know that we, as a society, have a whole lot of work to do in learning how to love one another. And, we can be real with our selves individually. For our own well being, let's stop long enough to reflect on our own behaviors and recognize that we come up against disagreement regularly in our everyday lives. Animosity has creeped into our culture. Let's be aware of our emotions, so that we can be deliberate in listening, and learning and collaborating and caring; so that we are deliberate in loving.
And, so, we come together in this faith community to support one another in deliberate loving, to inspire one another to live the lives we are meant to live, in relationship with one another, in the light of Christ. We are-invited to cast off the yoke of individualism and enter into a profound commitment to others, a discipleship of fellowship. This fellowship will not always be easy. At times, we will disagree. At times, we will be offended. But, our faith does not prioritize right vs. wrong. Our faith prioritizes relationship. So, here, in this faith community, we commit ourselves to forgiveness and reconciliation, so that we keep our hearts open to one another, so we can faithfully collaborate in ministry. Life is challenging for any number of reasons. And, at this point in time, we have an added layer of divisiveness pervading our culture. We are frustrated. We are disappointed. We are tired. The rest you are looking for is in Christ. The hope you are looking for is in Christ. A discipleship of fellowship in the light of Christ is life-giving.
We learn about God's covenant with God's people, God's promise of love, throughout Scripture. We hear in Isaiah (54:10): "For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord." Every Sunday, in Eucharist, we receive the "Blood of the New Covenant." We enter into Christ's covenant, who forgives our sins and offers us new life. Covenant is deeply rooted in our faith. As we kick off a new program year, let us enter into covenant with one another to create a discipleship of fellowship.
I offer five elements for our covenantal life together. First, let us worship together, and as much as possible, in person. There is synergy in coming together. Relationships among us deepen as we recognize our common desire to love God, and our dependence on one another. We are supporting and inspiring one another on our faith journeys. Second, let us assume the best in one another and trust that we can be authentically ourselves with each other. Every-one-of-us is-loved by God in our uniqueness. Third, let us forgive one another. We all need forgiveness. God forgives us, and so we forgive. Fourth, let us give ourselves to this community, sharing with each other our talents and resources. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Luke 12:34). Fifth, in gratitude for being-nurtured in our faith, let us share Christ's love in the world. Worshipping, trusting, forgiving, sharing, loving.
Loving is no small matter and not a simple task. Let us remember these words from John's Gospel (15:11), when Jesus is urging us to abide in his love. Jesus says, "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete." Discipleship does ask something of us, being deliberate in loving. Within a discipleship of fellowship, we share the journey, we lighten the load for another, we inspire one another, and come to the joy that is God's peace. Through a discipleship of fellowship, we bear witness to the world of Christ's love. What a respite from the divisiveness. What a gift to the world. Amen.
This past Monday, I went for a long, meditative walk around the grounds of St. Paul's. I savored each of our gardens in all their splendor. I paused at each memorial tree and read the names of the beloved departed in whose memory they had been planted. I lingered in the memorial garden to honor those who have been laid to rest there. I meditated in the courtyard, at the statue of St. Francis, also erected in loving memory of a parishioner. I perused the exhibit in the South Wing that tells the story of our 175-year history. As I came back out onto the lawn, I beheld the majestic stone belltower soaring high above the neighborhood. And in that moment - in a most profound way - I felt the weight of St. Paul's legacy.
My Monday evening stroll was inspired by these words we just heard from the prophet Isaiah: "Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug." With these words, Isaiah calls us to remember our history. To remember our ancestors. To remember where we have come from. "The rock from which [we] were hewn and the quarry from which [we] were dug." Isaiah first spoke these words to the Jewish people living in exile. To a people whose present condition made it hard to see their future. To a people most likely convinced that God had forgotten them. Isaiah implored this captive people to hold firm in their faith by looking back at their history. To their ancestors, Abraham, and Sarah: a once-hopeless, elderly, barren couple who miraculously conceived a child, and gave birth to a great nation. Isaiah wanted to remind these weary exiles that their origin story pointed to a promise - a promise that they would one day be numerous and prosperous again.
To be sure, our situation is not as dire as that of those exiles forced to "sing the LORD'S song upon an alien soil." As a wider Church, though, we are like them in one respect. We, too, long to be numerous and prosperous again. But everywhere we look, we are confronted with a story of dramatic decline. A story that has been playing out in mainline churches far and wide for decades, but one that was greatly accelerated by the pandemic. And there is no denying that we, at St. Paul's, are part of this story. To paint the picture in numbers for you, last year we held twice as many funerals as we did baptisms.
Against this backdrop, we are taking prudent steps, and there is a campaign well underway to safeguard what our ancestors built. As Jeanne announced weeks ago, when the capital campaign went public, $4 million had already been raised. And now, we're further along toward our goal of $6 million. You could say we're taking the words of the prophet Isaiah quite literally! We have looked to the rock from which our community was hewn, and we are working hard to preserve that rock. The very rocks in whose shelter we gather week after week to be nourished by Word and sacrament, so we can participate in God's mission.
There is a different kind of rock, however, that features prominently in our scriptures today. And this rock comes from our gospel passage. According to Jesus, it is the true rock on which his Church is built. And, in case you missed it, this rock is not a building. As they are walking in the district of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus confronts his disciples with these arresting questions: "Who do people say that I am?" And, more importantly, "Who do you say that I am?" The apostle Peter - always the first to speak - gets the answer correct for once, offering this confident reply: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And this, Jesus reveals, is the rock on which his Church is built. A confession of faith. A personal testimony about Jesus. A declaration of Jesus' identity. This does not diminish the importance of our buildings. But it clearly suggests that as we shore up our coffers, as we work to preserve our building, as we strive to build a rock-solid financial foundation, we must always keep our focus on the rock of the Gospel: our confession of Jesus as the Messiah and Son of the living God. All the financial capital in the world cannot ensure our future and cannot guarantee our flourishing unless we live daily in the light of this question from the lips of Jesus himself: Who do you say that I am?
We are a community of good students, and many of us might be tempted to answer this question by quoting a creed, or by pointing to a page in the Prayer Book. But as one writer points out, "we cannot build our faith lives on hearsay alone. At some point, the question of who Jesus is, must become personal." We should each hear Jesus speaking directly to us this morning: "Who do you say that I am?" The truth is, you don't have to be like Peter and give the perfect answer. We'll soon discover - next Sunday in fact - that Peter isn't the A+ student for very long. Answering Jesus' question is the work of a lifetime. But you do have to be willing to live the question, and to answer it for yourself. To be willing to encounter Jesus in the words of Holy Scripture. To seek him in service to the poor and the oppressed. To take his broken body into your hands, week after week in the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Thanks to ministry of those who maintain the St. Paul's archives, the wisdom of our forebears is now available to all of us. And as I was combing through those archives this past week, I discovered a sermon delivered by a former rector many years ago, on the eve of another capital campaign. To the faithful gathered here on that day, he said this: "Our vision for St. Paul's is that this will be a parish of seekers...[Seekers] after the truth of God's love for his creation as perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ. If you are not at that point in your faith, stick around..." May God give to us - the faithful gathered here today - the strength and courage to continue living into this vision. And may God bless us with the willingness to live Jesus' question. For in seeking to answer it - in seeking to know him - we are sure to find true prosperity. Amen.
I am happy to report that Jessie Dodson is firmly grasping the baton in the handoff as Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Ohio--there are two of us for the next couple of weeks. She and I overlap this month before I step aside on September 1. I'll continue to serve as a volunteer Chancellor, which I did for several years before joining the staff.
This the first of two Gospel readings about Jesus and a boat in stormy weather. The other one has Jesus on the boat with the disciples and he's asleep and then wakes up and calms the waters. This is the other one: Jesus is NOT on the boat with the disciples. Why? Because he has just fed the 5,000 with five loaves and two fishes. Our reading today refers to it briefly-- "Jesus dismissed the crowds" and went up to pray. He was probably protecting the disciples from the many who may have wanted more miracles. So he "made" the disciples get on a boat and go "on ahead" to the other side.
While Jesus is praying, a storm comes up on the Sea of Galilee, and the disciples are in the boat "battered by the waves," "far from the land," and "the wind was against them." A trifecta of maritime misery--no wonder the disciples are afraid.
My newest son-in-law grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania and Sandra and I had the pleasure last week of spending time in the place where Brandon grew in a family of sailors. I asked his uncle - who's sailed throughout the Great Lakes -- what's is like to be on Lake Erie in rough weather. He said that it's very treacherous because of the relatively shallow water of Lake Erie that creates a higher frequency of waves. When a storm kicks up, the distance between the wave crests is shorter and creates steep troughs--unlike rolling ocean swells, or even the wave action on the deeper Great Lakes. He described a particularly difficult night sail from Buffalo to Erie against the wind during a storm. Lake Erie is 100 times larger than the Sea of Galilee, but has about the same average depth as Lake Erie, so I can imagine what that might be like, and some of you may have had the same experience.
The point is that the disciples were in a tight spot--they were scared and full of doubt. Peter, Andrew, James, and John were all experience fishermen, however, and they would probably not have been out on the water when a storm was brewing--especially at night. So no wonder that they thought they saw a ghost when Jesus comes towards them on the water. But when the ghost speaks, the disciples realize that it's Jesus and he tells them: "take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." So what is Peter's reaction? He says "Lord, IF it is you, command me to come to you on the water." Notice the "IF"-- Peter seems to be asking for Jesus' credentials. He's still afraid. As we approach the Scripture today, I wonder how we might feel in a similar situation and how might this story speak to us, especially if we find ourselves in a period of chaos and instability.
Peter is indeed the focus of this story--just as he was last week with the Transfiguration. He often seems to be the one who says or does the most human things, as he did on the mountaintop when he said the first thing we need to do is to build three tents. Or here, when he says to Jesus: "Command me to walk across the water to you." Why does he respond that way?
Consider these observations about Peter from two Luther Seminary professors. Rolf Jacobson suggests that, instead of leaving the boat, why wouldn't Peter just have asked Jesus to perform another miracle? Like calm the storm? Remember--they had all just seen him with 5,000 dinner guests a few hours earlier. Instead, Peter says " Command me to walk across the water to you." Having been sent on the boat by Jesus, and perhaps feeling abandoned by Him, Peter's first desire; his first response to the crisis, says Jacobson, is to want to be close to Jesus.
Professor Karoline Lewis says that the absence of Jesus from the boat causes the disciples to be terrified because they may be asking: "Is Jesus going to leave them?" We can imagine ourselves on a boat during an actual storm, or being buffeted by another kind of uncertainty from job insecurity or a health challenge. We may be fearful that Jesus is going to abandon us in our time of distress.
So Peter does step off the boat towards Jesus, starts to sink, and cries out "Lord save me!," and Jesus immediately catches him and calms the waters. "You of little faith," Jesus says, "why did you doubt?" All the disciples worship Jesus at that point, saying: "Truly, you are the Son of God." Peter and the others learn that Jesus didn't abandon them.
Bishop Jake Owensby of the Diocese of Western Louisiana, observes that this experience teaches Peter "that Jesus is with him in the storm" and is also with us "in the midst of things-- even our worst things." We are not alone in those times.
Let's turn to the Elijah, who finds himself in a dire situation on dry land. He is very much alone and uncertain about the future because he has just defeated many false prophets who were loyal to Queen Jezebel, and he is on the run, fearing for his life. Queen Jezebel wants to take her revenge on him.
He is by himself, in distress, and is told by the Lord to stand on the mountain "for the Lord is about to pass by." There follows a great wind, an earthquake, and fire, but the Lord is not there in any of these. It's only in the "sound of sheer silence" that causes Elijah to cover his face--he is overwhelmed by the presence of God....."
For those of us at a certain age, it's hard not to hear the phrase "sound of sheer silence" without thinking of Simon and Garfunkel, their iconic song, and the initial lyric: "Hello, darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again..." But here, Elijah is in listening mode.
I found it helpful to learn that there are several other less distracting translations to that phrase. In several versions, the scripture reads: "a still small voice" (King James and Revised Standard Versions). Others use the phrase "a sound of a low whisper," a "gentle whisper," "a soft breath," or even "a gentle blowing."
These other translations help me understand that God is not only in the powerful forces of nature, but also is in the gentle presence of a still small voice or a gentle blowing. Elijah eventually received his instructions from God, but he needed to wait for the wind, earthquake, and fire to pass.
The common thread running through these translations is the presence of God that we can discern when we pray or when we are still. My predecessor as Canon to the Ordinary, the Rev. Alan James, once preached a children's sermon - which obviously resonated with this adult -- when he said that praying is like using a walkie-talkie. You press the button to talk, but, you have to release the button to hear God's response. We don't always get an immediate response when we release the button, but it's important to listen in order to hear the still small voice.
Dire situations will come again to us in each of our lives. Perhaps you find yourself in one this very day. Our Scripture speaks to these moments.
Wherever we may find ourselves in need, we can realize and take comfort that God is always with us; we are never alone -- whether in the storm or in the still small silence. Amen.
The Rev. Leah Romanelli DeJesus preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Transfiguration Sunday.
"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." As a child of the 1980s, this song by REM was part of the soundtrack of my youth. It has returned to the forefront of my mind on several occasions in recent days. I imagine this has something to do with the smoky haze from Canadian wildfires making it impossible to ignore that our neighbor to the north is literally on fire. Then there's the endless stream of headlines reminding us that, from Arizona to Italy to India, people are sweltering under the record-breaking temperatures sweeping the globe. Meanwhile, war rages on in Ukraine, the political fabric of our nation continues to disintegrate, and developments in Artificial Intelligence conjure dystopian scenarios almost too frightening to contemplate. It's reasonable to wonder: is this the end of the world as we know it? And just how are we supposed to feel about it?Apocalypse may not be the easy-breezy summer sermon topic you were expecting this morning, but I am convinced we don't talk about it enough - which is unfortunate because the Church has a lot to say about it! Indeed, the Christian scriptures and Christian theology place this topic at the center of our faith. The Church's proclamation is that the world as we know it will one day come to an end and be restored to a state of perfection at the second coming of Christ. The apocalyptic book of Revelation describes that final day in these comforting words so often read at funerals: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away." And in this new creation, God will wipe every tear from the eyes of those who mourn, and death will be no more. Now, I am aware that the subject of judgment day and the second coming makes most Episcopalians uncomfortable, and there's good reason for this. This doctrine of our faith has been tainted by fundamentalists more interested in predicting the exact date of Jesus' return than anticipating the peace and tranquility his return will bring. But the solution is not for us to avoid or relinquish the second coming, but to reclaim it as a hopeful promise of restored creation. A promise of that future when war and fighting will come to an end once and for all. This is a message of good news the world needs to hear.Our reading from Matthew points us toward this final day in a passage often called the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Here, Jesus foretells a day of final reckoning when evil will be defeated once and for all, and the seeds of sin will be thrown into a fiery furnace. Underneath the language of fire and brimstone is a profound message of grace. But I'd like to focus our attention this morning on the words of our patron St. Paul and his letter to the church in Rome. Paul's Letter to the Romans is by many measures his greatest contribution to the canon of scripture. It is his magnum opus, and more than any of his letters, it expounds upon core theological concepts of the Christian faith, such as sin and righteousness, faith and works, and justification and election.In today's passage, Paul speaks to the tension of living in between the first and second comings of Christ. He uses the analogy of a woman in childbirth to describe the experiences of adversity that lead to new life. And he anticipates our promised future when "creation...will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." With these words, Paul reminds us that although our present reality is one of death and decay, our destiny is liberation and glory. Just as Christ has been raised from death to eternal life, so, too, one day will we. And the earth will one day be remade into the paradise of Eden. You and I are to wait for this day, Paul instructs us, not in despair, but in "hope," and, Paul says, with "patience" for that which we do not yet see. If we want to know what it looks like to wait in "patient hope," we must look to the life of Jesus - the one who shows us that the sufferings of our present cannot compare with the glory of our future. The one who shows us that in our struggle the Holy Spirit is working in us and through us to make all things new. And when it comes to the state of our planet, an epic struggle is indeed underway. There's no denying that we have failed God who entrusted us with the sacred responsibility of caring for the earth, our "fragile island home." We see the painful evidence of that failure all around us. And as people of faith, we are called to confess the sin of that neglect and commit ourselves to the work of ecological justice. There is no shortage of faithful Christians and Christian communities leading this important work. And in their work, they struggle daily in the face of apathy, climate change-deniers, and the sheer scale and magnitude of a global crisis. But...we do not lose hope. As Dean Andrew McGowan of Yale Divinity School put it this week: "our hope, like birth-pangs, is not an escape from suffering but a new perspective on what is being achieved in us and in the world, despite how things may appear." Today, it may appear like we are losing the struggle to save our planet. It may appear like the end of the world as we know it. But underneath the stench of decay and the smoke of destruction, the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead is making all things new by his Holy Spirit working in us. God will one day restore us and all of creation to glory. This is God's promise to us. This is our great Christian hope. Amen.
Living God of abundance whose name is Love, we, your people, pray your message of love and grace would root in our hearts so we can do your work and will in the world in the name of Jesus Christ, we pray Amen.
Something you may not know about me it's that in my many adventures in different kinds of church work, I was once an intern at the camp and retreat center in the Diocese of Hawaii called Camp Mokuleia. It is very much like Bellwether - they lead nature education programs for locals, offer hermitages for folks on personal retreats, host summer camps, and even have an organic farm that provides fresh produce to the kitchen. The only difference is that the ocean is less than 100 feet from the property. I worked closely with 3 other interns while I was there. We were responsible for running the programs and the summer camp sessions - but our biggest responsibility was the farm. We planted, tended, and harvested bananas, papaya, herbs, lettuce, squash, and tomatoes. I learned about tropical produce, soil pH, permaculture, and so much more. One of my favorite things was learning about compost. (I have horror stories about turning a compost pile and a roach crawling up my pant leg and getting rotten banana goo between my toes because I wore flip-flops to turn the compost.) I was always amazed that stinky rotten, decaying food scraps can mix with brittle, dried-out, lifeless plants to make good soil.
I still love composting so much that my New Year's Resolution this year was to create a compost pile so healthy that it does not freeze this winter. I check my pile every single day. I turn it at least three times a week. I'm obsessively careful about the balance of carbon - or brown dead things, to nitrogen- which is the green (usually rotting) things. I've recruited neighbors and friends to bring lawn clippings to my house when I need extra green and to bring drier lint and brown paper bags (which I have shredded by hand) when I need more brown. I'll let you know how it goes, but all of this is to say- that good soil has been a lot on my mind this year! So, I don't think it was a coincidence that I was assigned to preach today on the Sunday we hear not only the Parable of the Sower from the Gospel of Matthew but also this passage from Isaiah about God using the rhythms of nature to bring abundance and joy. I've got good soil on my mind!This parable is puzzling to me as a former farmer. This so-called sower or farmer is flinging seeds all willy-nilly in the parable. On a path, in the rocks, among the thorns, and finally, in the good soil where plants can eventually take root, sprout, grow strong, and flourish into an abundant harvest; so, why does the sower waste the seeds by flinging them in places where we know they can't grow?
You'll notice some verses in this chapter that we skip in the reading today. In this brief section left out of the lectionary, the disciples come to Jesus and ask him, "Why are you teaching these people in confusing parables?"
Jesus replies with a quote from the Book of Isaiah: "Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled today. These people can't hear, and they can't see, and they can't understand. Their hearts have grown dull. And they won't turn to me to be healed." This quote comes from an early chapter of The Book of Isaiah, chapter 6 when the prophet is rebuking the People of Israel and Judah for betraying their covenant with God. The leaders are worshipping idols and refusing to support the vulnerable in their community - the orphans, the immigrants, and the widows.
By quoting this chapter from early Isaiah, Jesus compares the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel to the people in front of him some 800 years later. They are incapable of understanding, just like their ancestors.
Please follow me because I want to jump back into the parable. You'll see that when the lectionary picks up again in the chapter, Jesus is (uncharacteristically) explaining the parable to the disciples. He says, "The people who hear the word and do not understand it have it snatched away by the evil one. The people who rejoice in the word but are still too caught up in the world as it is, are like the seeds planted on the rocks where they cannot take root and the message cannot come into their hearts and grow strong. People enamored by the trappings of the world hear the message, and it is choked out by the things they love."
In the metaphor of the parable, these seeds are messages of good news and hope. And the 4 places where the seeds are planted - the path, the rocks, the thorns, and the good soil - are like states of mind or ways of living. They are environments that can be hostile or nurturing to the seeds of God's work in our lives. So, what are we to do if we are not in the good soil state of mind when The Spirit moves, and a good word comes our way? We all have times when we are confused by Jesus and his message. Or when we are excited and inspired by a message on Sunday morning, but by Monday afternoon, we can't quite remember what we felt and heard so clearly the day before. Sometimes we are in a place where the worries of this world so overcome us - our homework, our retirement funds, the political divisions of our government, our personal safety - that we can't pay attention or even believe in a message of love from Jesus. So, again, what are we to do if we are not in a good soil state of mind?
This question brings me back to the Book of Isaiah. Not the chapter that Jesus quoted from the beginning of the Book of Isaiah, but the lesson we heard today that Julia/Laurie read from chapter 55. By chapter 55, the prophet Isaiah is finished rebuking the people for their evil actions, and he begins to imagine a glorious reconciliation when the people decide to repent. God says, through Isaiah, "The rain and snowfall from me, and they do not come back until the water has nurtured the seeds that the sower sowed. The waters make grain to make bread and feed the people. Anything I send out does not come back to me empty. ... There will be joy and peace! Trees will clap mountains will sing. Thorns will become lovely trees, and briers will become myrtle."
What a hopeful message of renewed life. It reminds me of a simple quote from Richard Rohr's book of reflections on the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous called Breathing Underwater. Rohr says, "God never shows up without an invitation but always makes a way to be invited." Implying that even the devastation of addiction can be God's created invitation to someone dodging a spiritual path. And as troubling as it may be to think about the devastation of addiction as a gift, it is a prime example of how God works with whatever we give. Much like the rotting food scraps and dried-out lifeless plants that become rich nutrient soil, God takes what feels disgusting or abhorrent to us and uses it as an invitation to make something new. God's love CHASES after us because God longs to gift us new life and a new ability to understand the good news of love and grace in the world. What God sends down will come back just as God intended.
So how do these two passages speak to each other? We know of Jesus' knowledge and love of scripture, so I can't imagine that he accidentally made up a parable that so closely resembled Isaiah 55 - where the sower plants seeds and thorns become fruitful. Jesus knows that he may be flinging parables into the ears of people who cannot understand his message, but he also knows that God will not stop moving until all of us are ready to live in the good soil state of mind. God's power eventually breaks down rocks into minerals that will nourish the soil. God's love dries out the thorns to balance the rotten thoughts to make good soil. God's grace blows like the wind and pushes the good soil onto the path until it is covered and ready to nourish a seed.
Jesus knows that our state of mind can and WILL be changed. God is making good soil in you. When you're ready, you, too will hear the message. Amen.
Let's go back for a moment to the day we commemorate as Palm Sunday. The last week of Jesus' life was the week of Passover, a sacred week for the Jewish people when they celebrate their liberation by God from slavery in Egypt. In Jesus' day, the Roman governors would come to Jerusalem for the major Jewish festivals to instill order. On that first Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt. The crowds gathered and they paved the road with palm branches and they praised God shouting, "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!" But, while Jesus was riding into Jerusalem from the east on a donkey, Pilate was riding into Jerusalem from the west on a war horse. Banners, drums, armor and weapons flanked Pilate and his soldiers. Pilate's procession proclaimed imperial power and violence. Jesus' procession proclaimed peace, the kingdom of God. Just picture the one entrance against the other. How clearer can the message be? With a peaceful certainty, Jesus is standing up to the power of the Roman empire with a message that turns their whole understanding of life upside down: man's power and might and glory will always fall short of the peace of God.
Listen once again to what we heard from Zechariah this morning. "Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations." Zechariah prophesied Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem: man's power and might and glory juxtaposed with God's peace.
Scripture describes God's peace in these well-known, soothing words from this morning's Gospel: "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Most of Jesus' listeners were farmers, or were well acquainted with farming, so time and again Jesus used farming language to explain the Gospel message, to describe God's love. A yoke is the wooden beam across the shoulders of oxen, which distributes weight evenly to make it easier for the oxen to carry or pull heavy objects. Jesus says, "My yoke is easy." A yoke-that is easy is well fitting. What is well-fitting for Jesus? God's love. Jesus invites us in to God's love. "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke - take God's love - upon you and you will find rest for your souls."
Jesus seems most present to us in times of need. I know this is my experience - perhaps it is for you, also. Indeed, the consistent message of the Gospel is about caring for those in need. You might recall the story of Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth, when he unrolls the scroll and reads, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, [and] to let the oppressed go free." Jesus came so we would come to know this peace, so we would experience this peace, which emanates from God's love. He came to give us the peace, which will sustain us through all of life's challenges. We might be sad, disappointed, uncertain, weary. Jesus is saying, "Turn to me. I am the peace which comforts. "Take my yoke upon you and you will find rest for your souls." Jesus' message goes further. Too many of us are powerless, marginalized, hungry, thirsty. God's peace, which sustains us, also gives us the strength to care for others in need, to provide justice and righteousness for all.
I so enjoyed being at John Kennedy's wedding a little over a week ago. John and Emma were beaming. The wedding was beautiful; they put so much thought into planning the service. John and Emma share a love for Thomas Merton, the great theologian and mystic. On the back of the service bulletin was an excerpt from the book Love and Living, a collection of Merton's essays and meditations. Though on the back of a wedding bulletin, this meditation on love is about more than romantic love. It is about agape love, transcendent love, which unleashes the fullness of life. Merton writes, "Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone--we find it with one another. We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own isolated meditations. The meaning of our life is a secret that has to be revealed to us in love, by the ones we love. And if this love is unreal, the secret will not be found, the meaning will never reveal itself, the message will never be decoded.... We will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love--either with another human person or with God. Love is the revelation of our deepest personal meaning, value, and identity. But this revelation remains impossible as long as we are the prisoner of our own egoism. I cannot find myself in myself, but only in another. My true meaning and worth are shown to me not in my estimate of myself, but in the eyes of the ones who love me."
Let us fall in love with God. God's transcendent love will draw us to one another. We become most fully ourselves through loving others. We are-created to love, to want the best for one another, to want others to be their fullest selves. William Goettler, at Yale Divinity School, writes, "The saving word of the Gospel is best understood when it is located in the midst of the experience of the powerless and the disenfranchised" (Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 3, p. 214). Jesus told us and showed us over and over again: heal the sick, feed the hungry, deliver the oppressed. Let us turn to Jesus. Let us take up his yoke, find rest for our souls, and so find the strength to strive for justice and peace among all people. Amen.
It's hard to believe this is the last time I'll preach to you as one of your parish priests. As many of you have reflected back to me over these past few weeks, we knew this day would come when I'd leave, but it's still such a hard, bittersweet thing. As my tears have evidenced over the past few Sundays, I've loved you with my whole self over these past five years. The decision to leave was difficult, and yet I feel a deep sense of call to my new role on the Bishop's staff as Canon to the Ordinary.
I was grateful to find a partner in reflection this week when I turned to the words of Jesus in our Gospel from Matthew today. This is the third week in row that we've been reading from the 10th chapter of Matthew in what's known as the "Missionary Discourse." This chapter includes Jesus's sending words to his disciples before they go out to pursue their ministries and missions.
So, I thought, what better way to honor the end of this pastoral relationship than to refer to Jesus's own words of sending? If we review the Missionary Discourse, we can see that Jesus was creating what some have called a kind of "Christian handbook." He called together his disciples and gave them authority to do the ministry ahead of them: to cast out unclean spirits and cure diseases. He told them, wherever you go, tell the good news (10:7), reminding people that the Kingdom of heaven has come near. He told them to seek out welcome, and if they found a place where they weren't welcome, to "shake the dust of their feet" and go on to the next (10:14). "Be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves" (10:16), he told them. He made sure they knew that things would get difficult - that relationships would suffer, and they may face danger, but that it would all be worth it in the end. Your reward will be great, he told them.
Then we get to the reading for today, which is the end of his words of sending. Here, Jesus chooses his final words to share with his disciples before they begin their mission work...and what are they? They are words of welcome:
"Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me."
In our three-verse reading, Jesus says the word "welcome" 6 times. Welcome, welcome, welcome. As some of you know, one of the main ministry focuses for me these past five years has been on welcoming and incorporating newcomers. As I look at you, I see the faces of the many people who've joined this community in recent years. I didn't really know it when I got here, but that ministry of welcome became the core of my work here. In the conclusion of his discourse, Jesus speaks of the rewards of this kind of ministry. As I've shared with some of you, especially some of you who've shared in this ministry with me, welcoming newcomers has been an incredibly rewarding part of my work and life.
Sitting down with someone, sharing the stories of our faith and life, welcoming them into this vibrant community, helping them find their place here in their new spiritual home. It's been a profound privilege to be a face of welcome into a church as wonderful as this one.
So, I'm struck that Jesus emphasizes such welcome as the last bits of wisdom he shares. Now of course welcome looked different in the 1st century Middle East. Practices of hospitality vary widely by culture and place. But Jesus reminds us that, no matter what context we exit or enter, welcome is the first and last thing... Prompting us to reflect on how we welcome, and how ourselves are welcomed, because Jesus ultimately reminds us that whenever we welcome each other, we welcome Jesus.
The past few weeks have been full of reflection on what it has been like and what it's meant to live in Christian community at St. Paul's for these past five years. I've reflected on the big things: like the unmatched glory of Christmas at St. Paul's. I remember my first Christmas Eve here when the donkey decided that the moment of his big entrance into the Nave was the exact moment he needed to go the bathroom. There I saw in the back of the sanctuary, a crowd of huddled ushers and parents, scooping up donkey poop as we sang Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.
Or I reflected on the first Sunday after we closed the building for the covid lockdown. Jeanne and I sat here on these steps and recorded a video for you all in an empty sanctuary. I remember the fear, the adrenaline, and how completely unreal it all felt.
Then there were the amazing, transition-marking moments too. The many, many funerals officiated - the lives of beloved saints celebrated and laid to rest. The baptisms administered - like the one where the baby slapped me in the face as I doused her head with holy water. And the weddings too - especially the incredible opportunity to officiate the wedding of our own rector Jeanne to her husband Gary.
This building - this community - has held five years chockful of love, loss, and relationships. It was in this building, right after staff meeting, that my water broke as I went into labor with our second son. Here, where dreams of ministry grew, relationships were planted, and lives changed. Big moments, all of these.
But what strikes me as I reflect on Jesus's parting words to his disciples is that he focuses not on the big moments. Instead, it's the small gestures that matter: the cup of water that's offered to one of "the little ones," as he calls the disciples in our reading today.
"Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple-- truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward," he says (10:42).
This is the very last thing Jesus says to his disciples before sending them out to do the "work God gave them to do" in the world. Not a charge to do great, life, or culture-changing things. But a reminder - a last word - to take care with their small gestures of kindness and welcome. Be kind to one another, young and old alike, swift to love. Offer even the smallest gesture of hospitality to one another: a cup of water to someone who needs it.
I take comfort in this reminder from Jesus, not only as I reflect on the past, but as I look forward to what's next for each of us. As we set out on our separate paths of ministry, we remember the parting words of Jesus: we begin and we end with welcome. Welcoming each other into community. Allowing ourselves to be welcomed. Offering kindness to one another, those who fit in and those who don't, those who are young and those who are old, those who are like us and those who are different.
So, as we part ways, I thank you for the welcome you gave me, and Joe, and Abe and Bax. And I pray that you will continue to welcome people into the gift of this spiritual community: showing kindness. Offering hospitality, sometimes in grand fashion, and sometimes in small gestures, like a cup of water.
For by doing this - by welcoming each other - we welcome Jesus himself. And we know - because we have already experienced a glimpse of it together - that our reward will be great. Amen.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Nancy Hildebrand preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist on the Day of Pentecost.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our service of Confirmation and Holy Eucharist on The Seventh Sunday of Easter: The Sunday after the Ascension.
Graduating high school seniors, Parker Roeder and JR Wagner, preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist service on the Sixth Sunday of Easter.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday of Easter.
The Rev. Molly F. James, Ph.D., preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday of Easter.
The Revs. Brandon Ashcraft & Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday of Easter.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday of Easter.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist service on Easter Day.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our Seven Last Words of Christ, Community Ecumenical Service.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday in Lent.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday in Lent.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday in Lent.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the First Sunday in Lent.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist during our Ash Wednesday service.
The Rev. Paul Daniels preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Last Sunday after Epiphany.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany.
The Very Rev. Andrew McGowan, Dean and Professor at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany. McGowan is the author or editor of six books, and his scholarly work focuses on the life of early Christian communities and contemporary Anglicanism.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the First Sunday after the Epiphany: the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Feast of the Holy Name.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach offered a sermon, read by the Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson, for our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Christmas Eve.
The Rev. John Kennedy wrapped up our Advent sermon series "What Are You Waiting For?" during our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday of Advent.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson continued our Advent sermon series "What Are You Waiting For?" during our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday of Advent.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft continued our Advent sermon series "What Are You Waiting For?" during our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday of Advent.
The Rev. John Kennedy kicked off our Advent sermon series "What Are You Waiting For?" this past Sunday. Listen to learn more about the season and explore with us what it is you're waiting for in this "time in between."
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson offered a sermon, read by the Rev. Jeanne Leinbach, for our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on All Saints' Sunday.
Bill Powel, St. Paul's parishioner and Canon to the Ordinary and Chancellor of the Diocese of Ohio, preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson and Lauren Dockery offered a dialogue sermon for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. John Kennedy offered a sermon, read by The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach, for our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday after Pentecost.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our celebration of Holy Eucharist and Holy Baptism on the Day of Pentecost.
Our Bishop, The Rt. Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, preached at our celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Seventh Sunday of Easter. Following his sermon, he administered the sacrament of Confirmation.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Sixth Sunday of Easter.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at our Morning Prayer service on the Fourth Sunday of Easter.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday after Easter.
The Reverends Jessie Gutgsell Dodson and John Kennedy preached in dialogue on the Gospel Lesson, John 20:19-31, for the Second Sunday of Easter.
The Reverends Jessie Gutgsell Dodson and John Kennedy preached in dialogue on the Second Lesson, Revelation 1:4-8, for the Second Sunday of Easter.
The Reverends Jessie Gutgsell Dodson and John Kennedy preached in dialogue on the First Lesson, Acts 5:27-32, for the Second Sunday of Easter.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our celebration of Holy Eucharist on Easter Day.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday.
The Rev. Mark Andrew Jefferson, Ph.D. preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday in Lent. He is Assistant Professor of Homiletics and the Associate Director of the Deep Calls to Deep Preaching Program at Virginia Theological Seminary.
The Rev. Mark Andrew Jefferson, Ph.D. preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday in Lent. He is Assistant Professor of Homiletics and the Associate Director of the Deep Calls to Deep Preaching Program at Virginia Theological Seminary.
The Rev. Mark Andrew Jefferson, Ph.D. preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday in Lent. He is Assistant Professor of Homiletics and the Associate Director of the Deep Calls to Deep Preaching Program at Virginia Theological Seminary.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday in Lent.
The Rev. Lizbeth Tulloch, Chair of the Companion Relations Development Committee for the Diocese of Belize, preached at our celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday in Lent.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at our Morning Prayer service on the Second Sunday in Lent.
Leah Romanelli DeJesus, our seminarian, preaches at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the First Sunday in Lent.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at the celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at our service of Morning Prayer on the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany.
The Reverend Canon Patrick Malloy, Ph.D preached at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany. This Sunday was Theological Education Sunday, a day set aside in the Episcopal Church to focus on our search for knowledge and understanding of God. To mark this occasion, we welcomed Canon Patrick Malloy, former professor of liturgy and academic dean of the General Theological Seminary in New York, as our guest preacher. Canon Malloy currently serves as the Sub-Dean and Canon for Liturgy and the Arts at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany.
The Rev. Jessie Gutgsell Dodson preached at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Third Sunday after the Epiphany.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at our celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday after Christmas.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at our Festival Holy Eucharist service on Christmas Eve: The Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday of Advent.
The Rev. Nancy Hildebrand preached at our service of Morning Prayer on the Third Sunday of Advent.
The Rev. Jeanne Leinbach preached at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Second Sunday of Advent.
The Rev. John Kennedy preached at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the First Sunday of Advent.
The Rev. Brandon Ashcraft preached at the celebration of Holy Eucharist on the Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King Sunday
Lauren Dockery, our Director of Children and Youth Ministries, preaches at our service of Morning Prayer on the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost. READ MORE