Jamie Parsley's Blog, page 2

Dedication Sunday

 

September 7, 2025

1 Kings 8:22-23,27b-30;

+ This past week, our candidatesfor the next Bishop of North Dakota were in the state.

 

On Tuesday St. Stephen’s showedup in force for the Meet and Greet at the Cathedral.

 

Several of the Candidates came upto me and said, “Wow! There are A LOT OF St. Stephen’s people here!”

 

We made up half of the gatheringof three congregations in town!

 

Then on Wednesday, we hosted abreakfast and tour of the church for the candidates before they left for a tourthrough the rest of the diocese.

 

After they ate, I showed them thechurch and explained to them how far St. Stephen’s had not only come in thelast 69 years, but also with in the last 15 years!

 

They were (I think) genuinelyimpressed with us.

 

And I even heard from them andothers who were there at the Clergy Meet and Greet on Thursday which I helpedfacilitate, that they were genuinely impressed with St. Stephen’s and all thatwe stand for and have been an advocate for.

 

We should all be very proud (in aholy and healthy way) about who we are and what we are.

 

It is this kind of place that wecelebrate today on our Dedication Sunday.

 

Why not, right?

 

It’s all very exciting.

 

I love Dedication Sunday.

 

And you know what I love evenmore than Dedication Sunday?

 

I especially love our scripturereadings for today.

 

I love all this talk of abuilding being God’s house.

 

I think we sometimes forget thatfact.

 

We forget that this is God’shouse.

 

God, in a very unique ways,dwells with us here.

 

But this is Sunday is more thanall these physical things.

 

It is about more than just abuilding, and walls, and vestments and paraments and holy water and incense.

 

It about us being theHouse of God.

 

It is about us being thetabernacles in which God dwells.

 

It is about us and our service toGod and others.

 

And you know what it’s really allabout.

 

It is about LOVE.  

 

Yup, it’s gonna be another lovesermon.

 

Years ago, I read an amazingbiography of the American poet Denise Levertov, I came across this wonderfulquote, from another poet, St. John the Cross:

 

“In the evening of our lives, wewill be judged on love alone.”

 

Later I heard a friend of minecomment on that quote by saying

 

 “we will be judged BY love alone.”

 

I love that!

 

That quote has been haunting mefor years.

 

And it certainly has beenstriking me to my core in these days leading up to our Dedication Sundaycelebration.

 

If this congregation could have amotto for itself, it would be this.

 

“In the evening of our lives, wewill be judged on(or by) love alone.”

 

Because this, throughout all ofour 69 year history, is what we are known for at St. Stephen’s.

 

Love.

 

We are known for the fact that weknow, by our words, by our actions, by our faith in God and one another, thatit is love that makes the difference.

 

And by love we will, ultimately,be judged.

 

That’s what the Church—thatlarger Church—capital “C” Church— should be.

But sometimes we forget what the Church should be.

This morning, there are manypeople here who have been wounded by that Church—the larger Church.

I stand before you, having beenhurt be the larger Church on more than one occasion.

And for those of us who are here,with our wounds still bleeding, it is not an easy thing to keep coming back tochurch sometimes.

It is not any easy thing to be apart of that Church again.

It is not an easy thing to callone’s self a Christian again, especially now when it seems so many people haveessentially highjacked that name and made it into something ugly and terrible.

A Christ-less Christianity.

And, speaking for myself, it’snot easy to be a priest—a uniform-wearing representative of that human-runorganization that so often forgets about love being its main purpose.

But, we, here at St. Stephen’s,are obviously doing something right, to make better the wrongs that may havebeen done on a larger scale.

We, at St. Stephen’s, (I hope) havedone a good job over these last 69 years of striving to be a positive exampleof the wider Church and of service to Christ who, according to Peter’s letterthis morning, truly is a “living stone”—the solid foundation from which wegrow.

We have truly become a place oflove, of radical acceptance.

 As

 God intends the Church to be.

 

In these last 69 years, this parishhas done some amazing things, some truly radical things.

 

It has been first and foremost inthe Diocese of North Dakota in the acceptance women in leadership, when womenweren’t in leadership, when in fact there was open opposition to women servingas acolytes or Wardens or Lay reader or Deacons and Priests.

 

It was first and foremost in theDiocese in the acceptance of LGBTQ people, when few churches would.

 

It was the first parish in thisDiocese to do something as simple as changing its liturgy—the words of theseservice we use to worship God—to use language.

 

Doing so has been a source ofconsolation for people who have struggled with the false image of a vengeful,fearsome white male God.

 

And instead has shown us a trulyloving God who is so much bigger than all the images we can put on God, whichlimit God and make God in our image, rather than us in God’s image. 

 

How many countless people whohave been hurt or abused by the church have spiritually limped through thatdoor and found a home here?

 

And not just a welcoming home.

 

But a home that includedthem, that saw them as one and equal with everyone else here, that not onlytold them, but showed them that they were truly loved Children of a loving,accepting God.

 

 Seeing all this we needto give the credit where the credit is truly due:

the Holy Spirit.

Here.

Among us.

In our reading from First Kings today, we hearSolomon echoing God’s words, “My name shall be there.”

God’s very Name dwells here.

As we look around, we too realize that this istruly the home of God.

We too are able to exclaim, God’s name dwells here!

And, as I said at the beginning of my sermon, by“the home of God”  I don’t mean just thisbuilding.

We’re the home of God.

Each of us.

We are the dwelling place of the Most High.

After all—God is truly here, with us, in all thatwe do together.

The name of God is proclaimed in the ministries wedo here.

In the outreach we do.

In the witness we make in the community ofFarg0-Moorhead and in the wider Church.

God is here, with us.

God is working through us and in us.

Sometimes, when we are in the midst of it all, whenwe are doing the work, we sometimes miss that perspective.

We miss that sense of holiness and renewal and lifethat comes bubbling up from a healthy and vital congregation working together.

We miss the fact that God truly is here.

So, it is good to stop and listen for a moment.

It is good to reorient ourselves.

It is good to refocus and see what ways we can moveforward together.

It is good to look around and see how God isworking through us.

Many of the ministries that happen here at St. Stephen’s go on clandestinely.

They go on behind the scenes, in ways most of us(with exception of God) don’t even see and recognize.

But that is how God works as well.

God works oftentimes clandestinely, through us andaround us.

This morning, however, we are seeing very clearlythe ways in which God works not so clandestinely.

We see it in the vitality here.

We see it in the love here.

We see it in the tangible things, in our altar, inthe bread and wine of the Eucharist, in our scripture readings, in our windows,in the smell of incense in the air, in our service toward each other. In US.

But behind all these incredible things happeningnow, God has also worked slowly and deliberately and seemingly clandestinelythroughout the years.

And for all of this—the past, the present and thefuture—we are truly thankful.

God truly is in this place.

This is truly the house of God.

WE truly are the house of God.

This is the place in which love is proclaimed andacted out.

So, let us rejoice.

Let us rejoice in where we have been.

Let us rejoice in where we are.

Let us rejoice in where we are going.

And, in our rejoicing, let us truly be God’s owntruly loved people.

Let us be God’s people in order that we mightproclaim, in love, the mighty and merciful acts of God to those who need tohear them and experience them in their own lives. Amen.

 

12 Pentecost

 

August31, 2025

 

Luke 14:1, 7-14

+ As we gather to meet our bishop’s candidates this week, I have found thatpeople in this diocese are talking about bishops a lot lately.

 

Namely, former bishops of ourdiocese, others bishops they have known.

 

We all have “bishops on the brain”right now.

 

Well, for me, there’s one bishopI talk about quite often.

 

If you know me for any period oftime, I will invariably bring him up at some point.

 

In fact, on Tuesday, it will bethe 56th anniversary of his death.

 

He was one of the mostcontroversial bishops in the Episcopal Church.

 

I am speaking of course aboutBishop James Pike, the Bishop of California.

 

And he is one that will likelynot ever see again in the Church.

 

He was controversial certainly.

 

He was an alcoholic, he was aphilanderer. He consulted famously and very publicly mediums.

 

He was brought up on heresycharges in the Episcopal Church because he wrote books about his disbelief inthe Trinity and the Virgin birth of Jesus, among other controversial issues ofthe time, like abortion and the ordination of women in the Church.

 

He was definitely ahead of histime.

 

I quote him often because wasjust so…quotable.

 

56 years ago around this time, heand his third wife headed out in the Judean desert looking for the Qumrancaves, where the Dead Scrolls were found.

 

They were unprepared for thedesert. They brought a bottle of water and that was about it.

 

At some point their car brokedown and they decided to go out and search for help.

 

They split up.

 

His wife was found by an Israeliarmy patrol.

 

But Bishop Pike could not befound.

 

Several days later, he was foundbeside a pool of water.

 

He had fallen from a cliff andfractured bones and died of exposure the day following the car breaking down.

 

It was a sad end to a troubledman.

 

He was an arrogant man, a proudman, a fractured man.

 

And someone we are still talkingabout 56 years later.

 

As we should.

 

The great Episcopal theologianWilliam Stringfellow, and his partner Anthony Towne wrote a biography of Pike.

 

And in it, they wrote thishaunting piece:

 

The death to self in Christ was neither doctrinal abstraction ortheological jargon for James Pike. He died in such a way before his death inJudea. He died to authority, celebrity, the opinions of others, publicity,status, dependence upon Mama, indulgences in alcohol and tobacco, family andchildren, marriage and marriages, promiscuity, scholarly ambition, the lawyer'sprofession, political opportunity, Olympian discourses, forensic agility,controversy, denigration, injustice, religion, the need to justify himself.

By the time Bishop Pike reached the wildernessin Judea, he had died in Christ. What, then, happened there was not so much adeath as a birth."

 

That quote has haunted me andobsessed me for years.

 

And so has Pike to some extent.

 

This man who was not humble byany sense of the word, gained a strange sense of humility by the time he died.

 

And that shows that Bishop Pike,rather than being someone we scoff at and condemn in our way, is actuallysomeone who shows us a way forward on our Christian journey.

 

Humility.

 

The last person we would thinkwould give us a lesson on humility would be James Pike. 

 

But he is doing so today.

 

Because Humility is what we findin our Gospel reading for today.

 

For those of us who werelistening closely to this morning’s Gospel—and I hope you were—we might findourselves struggling a bit with Jesus’ words.

 

I know I certainly do.

 

And if we aren’t struggling—ifthose words don’t make us uncomfortable—then maybe we should be.

 

They are uncomfortable words,after all.

 

Jesus is making clear to us that,if we neglect the least among us, if we consistently put ourselves first—if welet our egos win out—we are truly putting ourselves in jeopardy.

What we do here on earth—in this life—does make a difference.

 

It makes a difference here, andit makes a difference in the next world.

 

It makes a difference with thosewe neglect.

 

And it makes a difference withGod.

 

And we should take heed.

 

We shouldn’t neglect those whoare least among us.

But probably the most difficult aspect of our Gospel today is when Jesussummarized everything in that all-too-familiar maxim:

“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselveswill be exalted.”

Jesus is not pulling any punches here. He is as clear as day.

Humble yourselves. If you do so, you will be exalted. If you are arrogant andfull of yourself, you will be humbled.

I know this might come as a completely surprise to those of you who know me,there have been times when I have been a bit arrogant.

There have been times when I havebeen a bit full of myself.

 

And I can tell you that each timeI have, I have been very quickly put in my place.

 

I have been humbled in thoseinstances.

 

As I rightly should have been.

Humility and pride are too often huge issues for all of us Christians, whetherwe are laypeople or clergy.

 

For those of us who have spent agood part of lives in church, we have known too many arrogant, self-centered,conceited Christians in our lives.

 

They sometimes are on the Vestry,in the pews, in the kitchen, or in the pulpit, or at the altar.

Pride is an ugly thing.

 

It doesn’t do anyone any good,especially the prideful one.

 

But to be fair, it’s easy enoughto do.

 

It’s easy enough to fall in thatugly trap of pride.

 

I’ve done it.

 

We all have.

 

When we encounter those pridefulChristians, we need to be careful how we deal with them.

 

Because we need to remindourselves: “there but for the grace of God, go we.”

Pride is an easy trap to fall into as Christians.

 

We know we are loved by God.

 

We know we, as followers ofJesus, through our Baptisms, have a special place in relation to God.

 

It’s easy sometimes to feel smugand self-assured.

 

And when we are fully immersed inChurch work, it’s easy for us to think that the success or failure of theministry of the Church depends on us as individuals.

Earlier this summer I preachedabout lone wolf ministry.

 

Lone wolf ministry doesn’t work.

 

And Jesus certainly neverintended his followers to be lone wolves.

 

Discipleship means community.

 

Still, we do it. We fail at this.

 

I do it more often than I care toadmit.

We’ve all heard it, “If I didn’t do it, who would?”

“If I didn’t do it, it’s just not going to get done.”

And sometimes, this might be true.

 

But, it is a dangerous road totake when we start thinking everything revolves around us. That our opinion isthe only right opinion. (It’s NOT)

And for clergy, they are in an even more vulnerable place.

 

As clergy, we occasionally findourselves being praised and treated with a sometimes undeserved respect.

 

And although I have found myvocation to the priesthood to be a very humbling experience, there are timeswhen we might find ourselves feeling very smug over a job well done.

That’s true with all of us, as Christians.

 

It’s easy to fall into that uglytrap of believing everything is about us as individual.

 

It’s easy to convince ourselvesthat the world revolves around us and only us.

 

Life, after all, is a matter ofperspective.

 

And from our perspective,everything else does in fact revolve around us.

But our job as followers and disciples of Jesus is to change that perspective.

 

Our job as Christians is to,always and everywhere, put God first.

 

It is not all about us.

 

We are just a breath.

 

We are just a blink of the eye inthe larger scheme of everything.

 

We are born, we live, we die.

 

And then we are gone.

 

And, without God, that is all wewould be.

 

There would be no hope, therewould be no future, there would be no us, without God.

God gives us our definition.

 

God gives us our identity.

 

God gives us our purpose.

 

And this is what Jesus is gettingat today, when he talks about the humbled being exalted.

 

Who knows better than Jesus abouthumility?

 

He, the divine Son of God, whowas humbled himself to the point of actually being betrayed, humiliated andmurdered, knew a few things about humility.

So, when we find ourselves falling into the pride trap, we need to stop andremind ourselves to put God first.

 

When we find ourselves seeing theworld as revolving around the all-mighty ME, we do need to stop and remindourselves that God is at the center of our lives and, as such, our worldrevolves around God.

 

After all, as we hear in that beautiful readingfrom Hebrews, God says to us, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

As long as God is with us—as God’s light is shiningthrough us—we can simply be who we are without trying to be something we arenot.

When we find ourselves shining with the glow ofself-pride and self-contentment, let us remember that the light shining throughus is not my light or your light, but the light of God and that any reflectionothers have of our works is accomplished only through that light.

When we find ourselves becoming prideful, let usstop and listen to the voice of Jesus as he says to us, “those who humblethemselves will be exalted.”

God wants us to be exalted.

God wants to exalt us.

But this can only happen when we come before God inall humility, as humble disciples of Jesus, serving our loving God in thosepoor and needy people around us.

This can only happen when we place God at theforefront of our lives

So, let us put God first.

Let us humble ourselves before God.

And let the light of God’s love shine through us inall that we do.

Amen.

 

 

11 Pentecost

 August 24, 2025

 

Isaiah 58.9b-14;Hebrews 12.18-29

 

+ Last week in ourGospel reading, we heard Jesus talking about a baptism by fire, and how fire isa sign to us of God’s amazing and all-inclusive love for each and every one ofus.   

 

Last week, Imentioned that when were baptized in those waters, we were also baptized in thefire of God’s spirit, into the fire of God’s all-consuming love.

 

And what do you know?Today, in the Letter to the Hebrews, we hear another fire reference to God. Wehear,

 

“indeed our God is aconsuming fire.”

 

In baptism, werealize how much of a consuming fire God actually is.

 

As paradoxical as itseems, we realize that in those waters, a fire was kindled in us. God’s firewas kindled in us.

 

And, to be aChristian, to be a follower of Jesus, means being aflame with the fires of ourbaptism.

 

But if we left itthere, we might still not understand the true ramifications of our baptism.

 

One thing you allknow I enjoy doing here at St. Stephan’s is inviting people to explore otherareas of the Book of Common Prayer, other than just our section concerning HolyCommunion.  

 

So, let’s do so againtoday.

 

Let’s take a look atthe Catechism again.  

 

There we get theanswer to the question:

 

“What is HolyBaptism?”

 

If you look on page858—there you will find the somewhat definitive answer.  

 

On page 858, we findthis answer:

“Holy Baptism is the sacrament [a sacrament is an outward sign of God’s inwardgrace—the outward grace in this sense being the water] by which God adopts usas his children and make us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, andinheritors of the kingdom of God.”

It’s a really great definition of what baptism is.

So, in baptism, we becomelike Christ.

Holy Baptism is notthen just a sweet little service of sprinkling water on a baby’s head anddedicating them as we would a boat.  

 

It is a service inwhich we are essentially re-born.  

 

If anyone ever asksyou, “Are you a born-again Christian?” you can tell them, in no uncertainterms, that yes you are.

 

You were re-born inthe waters of baptism.

 

It is the service inwhich we recognize that we are truly children of a loving God—a God who trulyloves us.  

 

We have been washedin those waters and made alive in the fire of God’s love and madenew—specifically we have become Christians in being baptized.

But, the one point I really want to drive home this morning is that last partof the definition from the Catechism. In baptism we become “inheritors of thekingdom of God.”

We are given aglimpse of this Kingdom of which we, the baptized, are inheritors in ourreadings from both Isaiah and Hebrews today.

In Isaiah, we hearthe prophet saying to us:

“If you remove theyoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if youoffer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then yourlight shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.”

Now, that’s some beautiful poetry, if you ask me.

“…your gloom [shall] be like the noonday.”

But more than that, it’s just so wonderfully practical.

When we followJesus—when we love God and love our neighbors—we are truly saying, “Yes, we areinheritors of the Kingdom of God.”

But, what does it mean to be an “inheritor of the kingdom of God?”

Being an inheritor ofGod’s kingdom means living out those promises we make in our baptismalcovenant.

It means proclaimingby word and example the Good News of Christ—that good news being Love God/loveothers.

It means seeking andserving Christ in all persons and loving everyone as we desire to be loved.

And it means strivingfor justice and peace.

And it means respectingthe dignity of the every human being.

And by doing thosethings, we are truly being the inheritors of that kingdom.

We become like Christ.

We become Christ tothose who need Christ in this world.

 

This is what it meansto be a Christian.

It is not just saying, “I accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior”

It is not justsaying, “I belong to the one true Church, and that there is no salvationoutside of this Church.”

It not denying peoplethe Body and Blood of Jesus in the Eucharist because they don’t believe what webelieve.

It is not doingterrible things in this world over and over again, then thinking we can justsay, “oooops, sorry” and then go back and do it again.

It does not mean justbeing nice and thinking good thoughts all the time.

Being a Christian means both believing and then acting like one.

Being a Christian meansacting like Jesus—it means being like Jesus n this world.

Being a follower ofJesus means that we understand fully that something truly wonderful and amazinghappened to us when we were baptized.

In that baptismalfont in which we were baptized we were truly “buried with Christ in hisdeath.”  

In those waters, weshared “in his resurrection.”

And through thosewaters—and that fire of God’s love that was kindled in us in those waters—wewere “reborn by the Holy Spirit.”

This is not light and fluffy stuff we’re dealing with here in baptism.

It is not all aboutclouds and flowers and sweet little lambs romping in the meadow.

It is not just “feelgood” spirituality.

It is the greatestevent in our lives.

It was alife-changing moment in our lives.

And this God weencounter today and throughout all our lives as Christians, as inheritors ofthe God’s Kingdom is truly, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews tells ustoday, “a consuming fire.”

God doesn’t let ussit back and be complacent.  

God is not all rightwith us when we do bad things in this world, when we don’t respect the “worthand dignity” of others.

God is like a gnawingfire, kindled in that holy moment of baptism, deep within us.

God shakes us up andpushes us out into the world to serve others and to be the conduits throughwhich God’s kingdom—God’s very fire of love—comes into this world.

Baptism is a radicalthing.  

I don’t think wefully realize that sometimes.

It changes us and it transformsus.  

And it doesn’t justend when the water is dried on our foreheads and we leave the church.

It is something welive with forever.

In Baptism, we aremarked as Christ’s own forever.

Forever.

For all eternity.

And nothing we can docan undo that.

That’s why I lovebaptism so much.

That’s why it’s soimportant to remember our baptism.

My hope is that whenwe look at the font here at St. Stephen’s (whether we were baptized in it ornot) we will see it  with special appreciation and will be able torecognize, in some way, the beauty of the event that happens here on a regular basis.

My hope is that, whenwe dip our fingers into that bowl of water and bless ourselves with thatblessed water, it will remind us of that incredible day in which we too werebaptized.

I hope we can alllook at that place in which baptism happens here at St. Stephen’s with a deepappreciation of how, we too, on the day of our baptism, were changed, how God’sconsuming fire was kindled in us  and how we  became childrenof a loving, inclusive God and “inheritors of the kingdom of God.”

We are inheritors of that unshakable Kingdom of God. 

 A

ll of us areinheritors of that Kingdom.

 

No matter who we are.  

 

For that fact let usbe truly thankful.

 

Let us, as the authorof Hebrews says to us today, “give thanks, by which we offer to God, anacceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consumingfire.”

 

And let us, in turn,share that consuming fire we have inherited from our God with others. 

Amen. 

 

 

 

10 Pentecost

 

August 17, 2025

Jeremiah 23.23-29; Hebrews 11:29-12.2; Luke 12.49-56

 

+ Jesustells us today in our Gospel reading that he did not come to bring peace, butrather he came to bring division.

 

What?

 

He saidwhat now?

 

He didn’tcome to bring peace?

 

The Priceof Peace didn’t bring peace??

 

Not anice thing to hear from Jesus.

 

We wantJesus to bring peace, right?

 

But themessage of loving God and loving ALL people is, let’s face it, a divisive one.

 

It will,and trust me, has split families and societies and even the Church.

 

Let’s behonest: his message, of loving God and loving one another, is a message thatdoes divide.

 

We, whoinwardly stiffen at it, we rebel.

 

We say,“no.”

 

We freezeup.

 

But,Jesus makes this very clear to us. It is not our job, as his followers, tofreeze up.

 

It not anoption for us to let our blood harden into ice.

 

For, hecame to bring fire to the earth.

 

To us,his followers.

 

When wewere baptized, we were baptized with water, yes.

 

But wewere also baptized with fire! With the fire of God’s Holy Spirit that came tous as we came out of those waters, just as the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus inthe waters of his baptism.  

 

And thatfire burned away the ice within us that slows us down, that hardens us, thatprevents us from loving fully.

 

That firethat Jesus tells  us he is bringing to this earth, is the fire of hislove.

 

And it willburn.

 

Now, formost of us, when we think of fire in relation to God, we think of the fires ofhell.

 

In fact,if I believed in an eternal hell, which I do not, I think it would be a placeof ice, far removed from the burning inferno of God’s love.

 

Again andagain in scripture, certainly for our scriptures for today,  fire inrelation to God is seen as a purifying fire, a fire that burns away the chaffof our complacent selves.

 

Fire fromGod is ultimately a good thing, although maybe not always a pleasant thing.

 

The fireof God burns away our peripheral nature and presents us pure and spirituallynaked before God.

 

And thatis how we are to go before God.

 

But thisfire, as we’ve made clear, is not a fire of anger or wrath.

 

It is afire of God’s love.

 

God’slove for ALL people—not just those who we think God should love.

 

It thefire that burns within God’s heart for each of us.

 

And thatfire is an all-consuming fire.

 

When thatconsuming fire burns away our flimsy exteriors, when we stand pure andspiritually exposed before God, we realize who we really are.

 

The factremains, we are not, for the most part, completely at that point yet.

 

That firehas not yet done its complete job in us.

 

While westill have divisions, while we allow ourselves to stiffen in rebellion, when weallow our own personal tastes and beliefs to get in the way of Jesus’ messageof love, we realize the fire has not completely done its job in us.

 

Thedivisions will continue.

 

TheChurch remains divided.

 

For us,as followers of Jesus, we are not to be fire retardant, at least to the fire oflove that blazes from our God.

 

Asunpleasant and uncomfortable it might seem at times, we need to let that fireburn away the chaff from us.

 

And whenwe do, when we allow ourselves to be humbled by that fire of God’s love, then,we will see those divisions dying.

 

And willsee that the Church is more than just us, who struggle on, here on this side ofthe veil.

 

We willsee that we are only a part of a much larger Church.

 

We willsee that we are a part of a Church that also makes up that “great cloud ofwitnesses” Paul speaks of in today’s Epistle.

 

We willsee, once our divisions are gone and we have been purified in that fire ofGod’s love, that that cloud of witnesses truly does surround us.

 

And wewill see that we truly are running a race as followers of Jesus.

 

Paul isclear here too: that the only way to win the race is with perseverance.

 

Andperseverance of this sort is only tried and perfected in the fire of God’slove.

 

Yes, thisis the Church. This is what we are called to be here, and now, as followers ofJesus.

 

This iswhat we, baptized in the fire of God’s love, are compelled to be in this world.

 

So, letus be just that.  

 

Let us bethe Church, on fire with the love of God, fighting to erase the divisions thatseparate us.

 

Let us bethe prophets in whom God’s Word is like a fire, or a hammer that breaks arock—or ice—in pieces.

 

And whenwe are, finally and completely, those divisions will end, and we will be whatthe Church is on the other side of the veil.

 

Wewill—in that glorious moment—be the home of God among God’s people. Amen.

 

8 Pentecost

August 3, 2025

 

Luke 12:13-21

 

+ A few weeks ago in my sermon, I mentioned that I revised my willabout a month ago.

 

It was a good thing to do.

 

It has been almost 13 years since I revised it.

 

And a lot has happened in 13 years in my life!

 

But doing so, reminded me of one of my duties as your priest.

 

I’d like you to take a look at a section of the Prayer Book thatI’ve showed you before, but I’d like to draw your attention to once again.

 

On page 445, you will find something very interesting.

 

It says this,

 

The Minister of the Congregation [that’s me] is directed toinstruct the people [that’s you], from time to time, about the duty ofChristian parents to make prudent provision for the well-being of theirfamilies, and of all persons to make wills, while they are in health, arrangingfor the disposal of their temporal goods, not neglecting, if they are able, toleave bequests for religious and charitable uses.

 

I always encourage people—no matter where they are financially intheir lives—to make out a Will.

 

And now that we have an endowment here at St. Stephen’s, I alsoencourage people to remember St. Stephen’s in their wills.

 

Wills are more than just a means of giving away our earthlypossessions when we die.

 

They truly can be a practical expression of one’s faith and apositive acknowledgement of our own mortality and dependence upon God.

 

 

For me in having a will, there was a sense of accomplishment inknowing that what I have will be distributed to those people and thoseorganizations that I know would appreciate them and benefit from them.

 

And it was also a relief to be able to put in that Will suchpractical instructions as my funeral arrangements (which, as you me say timeand again, I highly encourage everyone to consider and write down in some wayor form).

 

But the real reason we make out a will is because of this onesimple fact: we cannot, whether we like it or not, take what have with us whenwe shed this mortal coil.

 

I hate to break that news to you.

 

None of the money we have made and saved and invested will go withus when we pass from this life.

 

Our cars, our houses, our books, our art, our stocks and bonds,our fabulous 1950s furniture will not go with us as we pass through the veil.

 

OK, maybe that part about the fabulous 1950s furniture onlyapplies to me and Steve Bolduc.

 

But you see where I am going with this.

 

Which the whole reason we make Wills. 

 

We make Wills to give us a sense of security about what we haveand where it will go when it is no longer ours.

 

We like to know where these things we worked so hard to get willgo.

 

Still, having said all that, I have never been comfortable talkingabout Wills and money.

 

It’s such a personal thing.

 

 

Which, I know, is completely pointless.

 

In this morning’s Gospel we find this “someone” in the crowd who isfretting over his possessions, it seems. 

 

And this “someone” just hasn’t quite understood what Jesus issaying when he says “do not be afraid,” which is what he was telling them rightbefore this particular incident.

 

But as easy as it is to judge this poor person quarreling with hisbrother—as much as we want to say—“look at that fool, bringing his financialconcerns before Jesus,” the fact is, more often than we probably care to admit,this is the person we no doubt find ourselves relating to.

 

In this society that we live in, in this country in which we livein, we naturally think a lot about money and finances.

 

We spend a lot of time storing our money, investing our money,making more money and depending on money.

 

 None of which, in and ofits self, is bad.

 

People often think the old saying says, “money is the root ofevil.

 

But what the aphorism really says is, “LOVE of money is the rootof all evil.”

 

And that is bad.

 

For those who don’t have much, they worry about how to survive,how to live, how to make more.

 

For those with money, they worry about keeping the money theyhave, making sure their money isn’t stolen or misused.

 

And we don’t just worry about the money in our lives.

 

We worry about all our material “treasures.”

 

We worry about protecting our possessions from robbers, or fire ornatural disaster.

 

We insure them and store them and we spend time planning how topass our treasures on after we die.

 

We are concerned about what we have and we might even findourselves looking for and seeking those things we don’t have.

 

And there is nothing inherently wrong with any of this either.

 

It’s good stewardship to take care of that with which God hasblessed us and take care of those things.

 

What Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel is not so much theseissues—it’s not money per se, or the “things” in our lives.

 

What Jesus is talking is something worse.

He is talking about greed, or as older translations used,covetousness.

 

Greed and covetousness are not the same thing.

 

They are actually two different things.

 

Greed involves us—it involves us wanting more than we need.

 

Covetousness is wanting what others have.

 

Covetousness involves envy and jealousy. (And envy and jealousyare two different things as well, but we won’t get into that today)

 

Covetousness involves looking at others and wanting what they havedesperately.

 

And at times, we’ve all been guilty of both of these things.

I’m certainly guilty of covetousness.

 

I want to covet Steve Bolduc’s very cool 1950s aqua blue clouchthat he found in his basement.

 

In our society, we are primed to be a bit greedy and we are primedto covet.

 

Look at some of the ads we see on TV.

 

We are shown products in such a way that we actually come todesire them.

 

And they are shown in the context of some other person enjoyingthem so much that we should want them too.

 

And, in this society, we are primed to want more than we need.

 

We’re all guilty of it.

 

And we should be aware of this fact in our lives.

 

And in being aware of this, we need to keep Jesus’ words close toheart.

 

Because Jesus is clear here.

 

There are two kinds of treasures.

 

There are those treasures we have here on earth—the ones weactually own, the ones we might need and the ones others have that we want(like 1950s aqua blue couches)— and the ones we store up for ourselves inheaven.

 

And, let’s be honest, those treasures we are expected to store upfor ourselves in heaven are not the easiest ones to gain for ourselves.

 

They are not the ones we probably think about too often in ourlives.

 

Jesus isn’t too clear in today’s Gospel exactly what thosetreasures are, but it won’t take much guessing on our part to figure them out.

 

The treasures we store up for ourselves in the next world arethose that come out of loving God and loving each other.

 

But we have to be careful when considering what it is we arestoring up for ourselves.

 

It is not the idea that good deeds will get us into heaven.

 

We need to be very clear here.

 

Jesus is not at any point saying to us that what we do here on earth is going to guaranteeus a place in heaven.

 

But what he is saying is that we don’t get to take any of ourpossessions with us when we leave this world.

 

All of it will be left behind.

 

Every last thing we have right now in our lives—every previous thing—will be left behind when we die.

 

However, Jesus says, if you do these good things in your life, youwill be closer to heaven.

 

You will not “win” heaven by doing them.

 

But…by doing good things for one another, you will be bringingheaven closer into our lives.

 

I can’t stress enough how important it is to take care of thetreasures we have on earth.

 

We should always be thankful for them.

 

And we should be willing to share them as are needed.

 

And to take care of these those things that are meaningful to us—likeSt. Stephen’s.

 

Our job as Christians is to take care of our possessions here onearth—with whatever God granted to us in our lives.

 

Considering what we heard from our Book of Common Prayer earlierwe know that we are encouraged to look after our earthly treasures and to sharethem in a spirit of goodness and forbearance.

 

By arranging for our Wills to be made, by being generous with ourgifts and with the instructions we give our loved ones who survive us, we aretruly responding to today’s Gospel.

 

By being generous with our gifts , and by being generous to thosewho share this earth with us, we are building up treasures in heaven.

 

We are not “buying” our way into heaven.

 

We are just striving to do good on this earth, as faithfulfollowers of Jesus and as beloved children of a loving God.

 

And striving to do good does build up those treasures in heaven.

 

In all of this, let us listen in a way the anonymous person intoday’s Gospel did not.

Let us listen to Jesus’ words of “do not be afraid.”

 

Do not be afraid.

 

Do not be afraid of what will happen to the possessions you haveon earth.

 

Do not let fear reign in your life by letting greed andcovetousness rule your lives.

 

Do not get all caught up in the things you have, or the thingsyour neighbors have.

 

Or those things you don’t have but really want.

 

Instead, let us love our neighbor as we would love ourselves.

 

And let us love our God who provides for us everything we canpossibly need.

 

And let us know that that same God whom we love and who loves usin return has a special place prepared for us which is full of riches beyondour comprehension.

 

For, as Jesus makes clear in pointing out, our lives do “notconsist in the abundance of our possessions.”

 

We are more than our possessions.

 

We are more than what we have.

 

In that place to which are going, we will go naked and empty-handed.

 

We will go shed of all attachments and possessions.

 

We will go there shed even of our very bodies.

 

But we will go there, unafraid.

 

And we will go there gloriously and radiantly clothed with hopeand joy and love.

 

 

 

7 Pentecost

July 27, 2025

 

Luke 11.1-13

 

+ So, let’s start with a hard question.

 

Are you ready?

 

OK.

 

How many times, through the entire course of your life, have you prayedthe Lord’s Prayer?

 

Just think about it for one moment.

 

Do you have an answer?

 

Can you answer it?

 

Or. . . is the answer something like, “as many stars as in thesky.”

 

If that’s your answer, that’s a good answer.

 

Because, let’s face it, we pray the Lord’s Prayer a lot.

 

We will do it today in a few moments.

 

We pray it almost every time we gather in church.

 

We pray it at every wedding we do.

 

We pray it at every funeral.

 

We pray it at the graveside when we bury our loved ones.

 

Many of us pray it on our own every day.

 

For those of us who pray the Daily Office, we pray it at leasttwice a day.

 

But, as much as we pray—maybe because we pray it so much—we sortof take it for granted.

 

We pray it without thinking about it. 

 

It is an important prayer for us, so important in fact that it isthe actual answer thot her question Jesus receives from those disciples askinghim how to pray.

 

Now, I love the Lord’s Prayer.

 

I hope we all do.

 

But let’s face it, so many of us take for granted.

 

But if you ever really study it, you will see it really is thevery perfect prayer.

 

And it definitely has its roots in classic Judaism.

 

Last week I talked about the Shema—the summary of the Law, whichis basically, Love God, Love others as yourself.

 

Every Jewish male prays that prayer twice a day, once upon awakening,once upon going to bed.

 

But there is another prayer that is  required to prayed three times a day in Judaism.

 

It is called the Amidah.

 

The Amidah is the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy.

 

And it was so important that is was prayed three times a day everyday since the First Century.

 

Jesus’ prayer—the Lord’s Prayer—is essentially a summary of theAmidah.

 

And early Christians, who were closer to their Jewish roots thanwe are, actually prayed the Lord’s prayer three times a day every day, like theAmidah was prayed three times a day in Judaism.

But, let’s take a moment to actually look at this pray we pray allthe time.

 

It begins, as we all know, with

Our Father.

 

Jesus sets a tone here.

 

God is not being referred to as Lord, or Yahweh or Holy One.

 

Jesus refers to God on intimate terms.

 

God is our Father, our Abba, our Parent.

 

He then references that fact that God is in heaven.

 

Pretty straightforward.

 

Hallowed be your Name.

 

That’s a very Jewish way of praying.

 

Blessed is your Name, O God.

 

Your Name is holy and blessed.

 

Your name, O God, is sacred.

 

Then we come to your Kingdom come.

 

In this we know that God’s Kingdom is what w are striving for, andthat it is our goal as followers of Jesus to bring that Kingdom into our midst,now—not just later.

 

God’s Kingdom comes into our midst when we love God and loveothers as we love ourselves.

 

Your will be done.

 

This is our completely surrender to God.

 

It’s not our will that we are trying to accomplish in prayer.

 

It is God’s will.

 

And one of the hardest things we can do as followers of Jesus isto accept God’s will.

 

We know that all prayers are answered, as you’ve heard me say manytimes.

 

The answer however is just not always what we might want to hear.

 

Our God is not Santa Claus in heaven, granting gifts to goodchildren, nor is God a projection of our own parental expectations (to whichmany of us act like spoiled children).

 

God always answers our prayers, but sometimes the answer is “Yes,”sometimes is “not yet,” and, sadly—and we have to face this fact as maturepeople in our lives—sometimes the answer is “No.”

 

And I can tell you from my own experience, the greatest moment ofspiritual maturity is accepting that “no” from God.

 

But, that is, of course, the petitionary aspect of prayer, andvery rarely do most of us move beyond asking God for “things,” as though God issome giant gift-dispenser in the sky. 

 

(I am telling you this morning, in no uncertain terms, that God isnot a giant gift-dispenser in the sky. Sorry!)

 

That’s what it means to be pray for God’s will to be done, notonly here on earth, but also in heaven.  

 

Then we get to the part about bread.

 

Give us today out daily bread.

 

In Jewish culture, bread is the essence of our wellbeing.

 

It is what sustains us and feeds.

 

And it is so vital, so holy, that bread should never be discarded,it’s believes, because it shows ingratitude to God.

 

Bread here means more than just a loaf of bread.

 

It means all the blessings and sustenance we receive from God.

 

Give us, we pray, what we need to sustain us, to keep us vital anddoing what we must do to love and serve God.

 

Forgive us our trespasses.

 

We of course need repentance.

 

We know we fail sometimes.

 

We know we fall short.

 

Those are our trespasses.

 

And when those things happen, we need to ask forgiveness for themfrom our God (and from those we “trespass” against).

 

And it’s not just enough to ask forgiveness for ourselves.

 

We also must forgive those who trespass against us—who fail us,who hurt us, who wrong us.

 

This is important.

 

It’s hard to forgive.

 

I sometimes don’t want to forgive those who have wronged me.

 

But it’s not healthy to carry around those grudges.

 

It’s not healthy to be angry and bitter about past hurts.

 

Because pain like that festers.

 

We must forgive others as well.

 

Then we get to this kind of elusive petition.

 

Save is from the time of trial.

 

Trial?

 

What does that mean?

 

Well, trial is a tome of resting, or temptation.

It is the moment when we find ourselves on the “left hand of God,”as you’ve heard me talk about regularly through the years.

 

In this petition we acknowledge that we are often weak andvulnerable.

 

It is God who is the one who can save us from the dark moments of thislife.

 

Finally, we get to evil.

 

Deliver us from evil.

 

This one you might think is an easy one to figure out.

 

And it kind of is.

 

But it’s also hard.

 

The Hebrew word for evil is ra.

 

Ra means danger or misfortune as well as evil.

 

When we ask God to deliver us from evil, we are not just thinkinghere of the so-called “Devil” or sin.

 

We are also asking God to deliver us from misfortune, from a badperson, or a bad injury, or illness or doubt.

 

Deliver us from all the bad things that happen in this life.

 

As we can see, the Lord’s Prayer is really kind of the perfectprayer.

 

It encompasses every thing we need to pray about.

 

The point of all of this, of course, is that Jesus is making clearto us how important it is to reach out to God regularly in prayer.

 

In prayer we come to a meeting place with God.

 

And in that place of meeting, we come to “know” God.

Jesus is clear that prayer needs to be regular and consistent and heart-felt.

 

Certainly, prayer is essential for all of us as Christians.

 

If we do not have prayer to sustain us and hold us up and carry usforward, then it is so easy to become aimless and lost.

Prayer essentially is simply about us opening ourselves to God, responding toGod, seeking God and trying to know God.

 

Prayer doesn’t need to be hard.

 

We do not do it only when we are pure and holy and in that rightspiritual state of mind.

 

We pray honestly and openly when it is the last thing in the worldwe feel like doing.

 

We pray when life is falling apart and it seems like God is notlistening.

 

And we pray when we are angry at God or bitter at life and all theunfair things that have come upon us.

 

So, let us go hear what Jesus says to us our Gospel reading fortoday.

 

Let us be mindful of this incredible prayer he taught us.

 

Let us actually pay attention to those words and petitions we findin the Lord’s Prayer.

 

And let the prayer become the prayer always being prayed withingour hearts.

 

Through prayer, let us go to meet God.

 

Through prayer, let us seek God.

 

And definitely, through prayer, let us strive to know God.

 

God is breaking through to us, wherever we might be in our lives.

 

Let us go out to meet the God who is our father, our Abba, ourParent, who feeds us, who sustains us, whose Kingdom we long for and whodelivers us again and again from the evils that sometimes assail us.

 

When we do, it is then that we truly come to know our God.

 

Amen.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 Pentecost

July 20, 2025

Colossian1.15-28, Luke 10.38-42

 

+ If you’re anything like me, youare sometimes not all that proud to call yourself a Christian.

In this day and age, the very term “Christian”sometimes means something diametrically opposite of what we actually believe andpractice.

The term has been highjacked andmade into an ugly word, associated with such things as racism, sexism,homophobia, transphobia, etc.

There’s a lot of talk recentlyabout “Christless Christianity.”

And boy! Do I see that on a regularbasis!

Many of us find ourselves trying toskirt the identification as “Christian.”

We say, instead, “I’m Episcopalian.”Or “I’m Anglican.” Or “I’m a progressive Christian.”

We add often, “we’re not like thoseChristians.”

I often say I’m a liturgicalChristian, hoping that helps (it often doesn’t).

But, one of the things I love aboutbeing a liturgical Christian, especially in the Episcopal Church, and here atSt. Stephen’s is  that we worship withall our senses here.

We worship with our ears—with musicand bells.

We worship with smell, with theincense we use at our Wednesday evening Eucharist.

We worship with taste, with thebread and wine of the Eucharist.

We worship with sight, with thebeauty of the art on our walls and in our altar and in the hangings here.

Even in baptism we use our senses—withthose basic elements of water and fire (in the candles) and oil. 

And in our icons and religious art.

And in this way, we are payingspecial homage to the Eastern Orthodox roots within our church.

In Eastern Orthodoxy, icons takespecial place in the worship service.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church,ikons are pictures which are sacred because they portray something sacred.

They are a “window,” in a sense, tothe sacred, to the otherwise “unseen.”

They often depict Jesus or Mary orthe saints.

But they are seen as something muchmore than art.

They are seen as something muchmore than pictures on the wall.

They are also “mirrors.”

And that is important to remember

That term Ikon is important to usthis morning because we encounter it in our reading from Pauls’ Letter to theColossians.

In that letter, in the originalGreek,  Paul uses the word “eikon” todescribe the “image” of Christ Jesus.

Our reading this morning opens withthose wonderful words,

“Jesus is the image of theinvisible God…”

Image in Greek, as I said, iseikon.

But eikon is more than just an“image”.

Ikons also capture the substance ofits subject.

It captures the very essence ofwhat it represents.

For Paul, to say that Jesus is theikon of God, for him, he is saying that Jesus is the window into the unseenGod.

In fact, the way ikons are “written” (which is the word used to described howthey’re made), God is very clearly represented.

But not in the most obvious way.

God is represented in the goldbackground of the ikon, which is the one thing you might not notice when youlook at an ikon.

That gold background represents theLight of God.

And that light, if you noticepermeates through the faces of the subjects in the ikon.

So, when we look at any ikon, itour job to see God in that ikon.

God shining through the subjectwhose face we gaze upon.

God, who dwells always around usand in us.

For me personally, I do need thingslike icons in my own spiritual life.

I need help more often than not inmy prayer life.

I need images.

I need to use the senses God gaveme to worship God.

All of my senses. 

I need them just the way I needliturgy and scripture and incense and vestments and bells and good music andthe bread and wine of the Eucharist.

These things feed me spiritually.

In them, I am actually sustained.

My vision is sustained.

My sense of smell is sustained.

My sense of touch is sustained.

My sense of taste is sustained.

My sense of hearing is sustained.

And when it all comes together, Itruly feel the holy Presence of God, here in our midst.

I have shared with you many timesin the past how I have truly felt the living presence of God while I have stoodat this altar, celebrating Holy Communion.

I have been made aware in that holymoment that God is truly present and dwelling with us.  

The Sacred and Holy Presence of Godis sometimes so very present here in our midst.

I can’t tell you how many times I have gazed deeply into an icon and truly feltGod’s Presence there with me, present with a familiarity that simply blows meaway.

And for those of us who arefollowers of Jesus, who are called to love others as we love our God, when wegaze deeply into the eyes of those we serve, there too we see this incrediblePresence of God in our midst.

In other words, sometimes the ikonsof God in our lives are those who live with us, those we serve, those we arecalled to love.  

This, I think, is what Paul isgetting at in his letter.

We truly do meet the invisible Godin this physical, visual, sensory world—whether we experience that presence inthe Eucharist, in the hearing of God’s Word, in ikons or the art of the churchor in incense or in bells or in those we are called to serve.

For years, I used to complain—and it really was a complaint—about the fact thatI was “searching for God.”

I used to love to quote the writerCarson McCullers, who once said, “writing, for me, is a search for God.”

But I have now come to the realization—and it was quite a huge realization—thatI have actually found God.

I am not searching and questingafter God, aimlessly or blindly searching for God in the darkness anymore.

I am not searching for God becauseI have truly found God.

I found God in very tangible andreal ways right here.

I found God in these sensory thingsaround me.

Certainly in our Gospel reading fortoday, Mary  also sees Jesus as the eikonof God.

Martha is the busybody—the lonewolf.

And Mary is the ikon-gazer.

And I think many of us have beenthere as well.

It’s seems most of us are sometimeseither Marthas and Marys,

But, the reality is simply thatmost of us are a little bit of both at times.

Yes, we are busybodies.

We are lone wolves.

But we are also contemplatives,like Mary.

There is a balance between the two.

I understand that there are timeswe need to be a busybodies and there are times in which we simply must slowdown and quietly contemplate God.

When we recognize that Jesus istruly the image of God, we find ourselves at times longingly gazing at Jesus orquietly sitting in his Presence.

But sometimes that recognition ofwho Jesus is stirs us.

It lights a fire within us andcompels us to go out and do the work that needs to be done.

But unlike Martha, we need to dothat work without worry or distraction.

When we are in God’ presence—whenwe recognize that in God we have truly found what we are questing for, what weare searching for, what we are longing for—we find that worry and distractionhave fallen away from us.

We don’t want anything to comebetween us and this marvelous revelation of God we find before us.

In that way, Mary truly has chosenthe better part.

But, this all doesn’t end there.

The really important aspect of allof this is that we, too, in turn must become, like Christ, ikons of God to thisworld.

In that way, the ikons truly becomeour mirrors.

When we gaze at an ikon we shouldsee ourselves there, reflected there.

We should see ourselves surroundedby the Light of God.

We should see the light of Godpermeating us and shining through us.

We should become living, breathingikons in this world.

Because if we don’t, we are notliving into our full potential as followers of Jesus—as unapologeticChristians.

So, let us also, like Mary,  choose the better part.

Let us be Marys in this way.

Let us balance our lives in such away that, yes, we work, but we do so without distraction, without worry, withoutbeing the lone wolf, without letting work be our god, getting in the way ofthat time to serve Christ and be with Christ and those Christ sends our way.

Let us also take time to sitquietly in that Presence of God.

Let us sit quietly in the presenceof God, surrounded by the beauty of our senses.

Let us be embodied ikons in ourlives.

Let us open ourselves to the Lightof God in our lives so that that Light will surrounded us and live within usand shine through us.

And, in that holy moment, we willknow: we have chosen the better part, which will never be taken away from us.

 

5 Pentecost

GoodSamaritan Sunday

 

July13, 2025

 

Luke10.25-37

 

+I have shared with you many times that I am no natural-born preacher.

 

Ihave never felt like I’m a very good preacher.

 

Thiswas only confirmed by a near-apocryphal stories we all know here at St. Stephen’s:

 

DonnaClark shares that on her first Sunday at St. Stephen’s some ten years ago,after Mass, she was down-stairs at coffee hour in the undercroft.

 

Aparishioner who has since moved out East (one who I knew well and was close totheir family) say down at her table and announced: That was the worst sermon I’veever heard in my life!

 

Idon’t doubt it.

 

But,for all my homiletical lacking, let’s face it: I’m a consistent preacher.

 

Forthose of you who listen or read my sermons week in and week out, you know thatmy “themes” are pretty basic and consistent.

 

Yes,there might be variations on those “themes,” but, in their core, there isreally only one main “theme” to everything I preach.

 

LoveGod. Love others. That’s pretty much it.

 

Whichis why our Gospel reading this morning is an important reading.

 

No,I’m not being emphatic enough.

 

It’snot just an important reading.

 

Itis, in my opinion, the single most important reading for us as Christians.

 

And,for those of you who have known for me for any period, you know how I feelabout what is being said in today’s Gospel.

 

Forme, this is absolutely  IT.

 

Thisis the heart of our Christian faith.

 

Thisis where the “rubber meets the road.”

 

Whenanyone has asked me, “What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?” it is thisscripture I direct them to.

 

Whenanyone asks me, must I do this or that to be “saved,” I direct them to thisreading.

 

Thisis what it is all about.

 

So,why do I feel this way?

 

Well,let’s take a look this all-important reading.

 

Wehave two things going on.

 

First,we have this young lawyer.

 

Lawyerhere meaning a interpreter of Judaic Law—the Law of Moses, found in the Torah.

 

Hecomes, in all earnestness, to seek from Jesus THE answer.

 

“Whatmust I do to inherit eternal life?”

 

Whatmust I do to be “saved?”

 

This,after all, is the question we are ALL asking, isn’t it?

 

And,guess what?

 

He—andall of us too—gets an answer.

 

But,as always, Jesus flips it all around and gives it all a spin.

 

Jesusanswers a question with a question.

 

(Avery rabbinic thing to do)

 

Heasks the lawyer, “what does the law say?”

 

Theanswer is a simple one.

 

And,in Jewish tradition, it is called the Shema.

 

TheShema is heart of Jewish faith.

 

Itis so important that it is prayed twice a day, once in the morning, once atnight.

 

Jesushimself would have prayed the Shema each morning upon awakening and againbefore he went to sleep at night.

 

Ido it. I pray the Shema in the morning on waking and before I go to sleep atnight.

 

It’svery good spiritual discipline.

 

Itis important, because it is the heart of all faith in God.

 

So,what is the answer?

 

Theanswer is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, , and withall your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.”

 

Ourheart.

 

Oursoul

 

Ourstrength

 

Ourmind.

 

Inother words—our very essence.

 

Andadditionally, “and [love] your neighbor as yourself.”

 

Then,Jesus says this:

 

“dothis, and you will live.”

 

Irepeat it.

 

Dothis—Love God, love your neighbor—and youwill live.

 

This is what we must do to besaved.

 

Nowthat sounds easy.

 

ButJesus then complicates it all with a parable.

 

Andit’s a great story.

 

Everyonelikes this story of the Good Samaritan.

 

Weeven commemorated it in our very first stained glass window. 

 

Afterall, what isn’t there to like in this story?

 

Well…actually…inJesus’ day, there were people who would not have liked this story.  

 

InJesus’s day, this story would have been RADICAL.

 

Thepart of this story that most of us miss is the fact that when Jesus told thisparable to his audience, he did so with a particular scheme in mind.

 

Theterm “Good Samaritan” would have been an oxymoron for those Jews listening toJesus that day.

 

Samaritanswere, in fact,  quite hated.

 

Theywere viewed as heretics, as defilers, as unclean.

 

Theywere seen as betrayers of the Jewish faith and Jewish Law.

 

(Remember,he’s speaking to a lawyer---an interpreter of Jewish Law).  

 

So,when Jesus tells this tale of a Good Samaritan, it no doubt rankled a fewnerves in the midst of that company.

 

With this inmind, we do need to ask ourselves some very hard questions.

Hard questionswe did not think we would be asked on this Good Samaritan Sunday.   

You, of course,know where I am going with this.

So, here goes:

Who are theSamaritans in our understanding of this story?

For us, the story only really hits home when we replace that term “Samaritan”with the name of someone we don’t like at all.

Just thinkabout who it is in your life, in your political understanding, in your ownorbit of people who you absolutely despise.

Think of thatperson or persons or movements that simply makes you writhe with anger.

The Ice Agent

The thief.

The homophobe.

The transphobe.

The libtard

The adulterer

The drugaddict.

The snowflake.

The MAGA/Trumper

The communist

The white supremacist.

 

The atheist.

The nazi.

The socialist.

The fascist.

Whoever may bethe current President of the United States.

Those are yourSamaritans!

Now, try to putthe word “good” in front of those names.

It’s hard for manyof us to find anything “good” in any of these people.  

For us, to facethe fact that these people we see as morally or inherently evil could be“good.”

We—goodsocially-conscious Christians that we are—are also guilty sometimes of beingcomplacent.  

We too findourselves sometimes feeling quite smug about our “advanced” or “educated” waysof thinking about society and God and the Church.  

And we toodemonize those we don’t agree with sometimes.

As you allknow, I, for one, am very guilty of this

Itis easy for me to imagine God living in me personally, despite all theshortcomings and negative things I know about myself.

 

Iknow that, sometimes, I am a despicable person and yet, I know that God isalive in me, and that God loves me.

 

So,why is it so hard for me to see that God is present even in those whom Idislike, despite those things that make them so dislikeable to me?

 

Forme, this is the hard part.

 

TheGospel story today shows us that we must love and serve and see God alive ineven those whom we demonize—even if those same people demonize us as well.

 

Beinga follower of Jesus means loving even those we, under any other circumstance,simply can’t stand.

 

Andthis story is all about being jarred out of our complacent way of seeingthings.

It’s also easy for some of us to immediately identify ourselves with the GoodSamaritan.

 

We,of course, would help someone stranded on the road, even when it means makingourselves vulnerable to the robbers who might be lurking nearby.  

 

Right?

 

ButI can tell you that as I hear and read this parable, I—quite uncomfortably—findmyself sometimes identifying with the priest and the Levite or Lawyer.

 

Iam the one, as much as I hate to admit it, who could very easily, out of fearor because of the social structure in which I live, find myself crossing overto the other side of the road and avoiding this person.

 

AndI hate the fact that my thoughts even go there.

 

See,this parable of Jesus is challenging and difficult.

 

But…

 

Somethingchanges this whole story.

 

Somethingdisrupts this story completely.

Love changes this whole story.

 

Whenwe truly live out that commandment of Jesus to us that we must love God andlove our neighbor as ourselves, we know full-well that those social andpolitical and personal boundaries fall to the ground.

 

Lovealways defeats our dislike—or hatred— of someone.

 

Lovesoftens our hearts and our stubborn wills and allows us see the goodness andlove that exists in others, even when doing so is uncomfortable and painful forus.

Now I say that hoping I don’t come across as naïve.

 

Iknow that my love of the racist will not necessarily change the racist.

 

Iknow that loving the homophobe will not necessarily change the homophone.

 

Iknow that loving the Nazi and the Fascist are definitely not going to changethe Nazi and the Fascist.

 

AndI was to be VERY clear: love does NOT mean acceptance.

 

Itdoes not mean accepting their hatred and their bigotry.

 

Trustme, I know that loving certain politicians (whose names I will not mention,despite the fact that the IRS has now given me permission to do so) is notgoing to change those politicians!

 

Butyou know what?

 

Itdoes change me.  

 

Itdoes cause me to look—as much as I hate to do so—into the eyes of that personand see something more—despite their shortcomings, despite their hatred.

 

Itdoes cause me to look at the person and realize that God does love this persondespite their failings and their faults—just as God loves me despite myfailings and my faults.

These are the boundaries Jesus came to break down in us.  

 

Andthese are the boundaries Jesus commands us to break down within ourselves.

 

“Whatmust I do to inherit eternal life?” the lawyer asks Jesus.

 

Andwhat’s the answer?

 

Loveis the answer.  

 

Wemust love—fully and completely.

“Do this,” Jesus says, “and you willlive.”

 

Whatwill save us?

 

Lovewill save us.

 

Loveof God.

 

Loveof one another.

 

Lovingourselves.

 

Lovingwhat God loves.

 

Lovewill save us.

 

Lovewill liberate us.

 

Lovewill free us.  

 

Jesusdoesn’t get much clearer than that.

 

Becauselet’s face it.

 

Weare the Samaritan in this story.

 

Weare—each of us—probably despised by someone in our lives.

 

Iknow I am!

 

We,to someone, represent everything they hate.

 

Thefact is, God is not expecting us to be perfect.

 

Godworked through the Samaritan—the person who represented so much of whateveryone who was hearing that story represents as wrong.

 

Afriend of mine once shared a story about how he was in Memphis when he came acrossa church that met in an old movie theatre.

 

Onthe marquee was written:

 

IFGOD CAN SPEAK THROUGH BALAAM’S ASS, GOD CAN SPEAK THROUGH YOU.

 

IfGod can work through the Goos Samaritan. let me tell you, God can work throughyou and me.

 

Wedo not have to be perfect.

 

Trustme, we’re not perfect!

 

Andwe will never be perfect.

 

Buteven despite this, God’s light and love can show through us.

 

Solet us reflect God’s love and light.

 

Letus live out the Shema of God—this commandment of God to love—in all aspects ofour lives.

 

Letus love.

 

Letus love fully and radically and completely.

 

Letus love God.  

 

Letus love each other.

 

Letus love ourselves.

 

Letus love all that God loves.

 

Letus love our neighbor.

 

Whois our neighbor?  

 

Ourneighbor is not just the one who is easy to love.

 

Ourneighbor is also the one who is hardest to love.

 

Lovethem—God, our neighbor—and yes, even ourselves.

 

Andif we do that, you and I—we too will live, as Jesus says.

 

Andwe will live a life full of the light we have reflected in our own lives. 

 

Andthat light that will never be taken from us. 

 

 

 

 

4 Pentecost

July 6, 2025

Luke 10.1-11, 16-20

+ This past week, as you may have heard, Jimmy Swaggart died.

 

Swaggart, for those of you who don’t know, was one of those notorioustelevangelists from the 1980s who spewed some pretty terrible things, and thenhad a very public fall from grace.

 

If you ever doubted my “the chickens always come home to roost”analogy, look no further than Jimmy Swaggart.

 

Personally, however, my father was a huge fan of Swaggart.

 

Swaggart spoke for men (and probably some women too) of myfather’s generation.

 

He was macho.

 

He was tough.

 

He could sing a kind of countrified Gospel music.

 

He could be funny.

 

And, before his scandal toppled him, he was knew how to use hiswinning personality to rake in a LOT of money.

 

This is nothing new in the church, after all.

 

Church history is filled with people like Swaggart—bigger thanlife personalities who made it all about them.

 

I have known too many church leaders who have  made it clear to me that it was because ofthem—because their winning personality, or their knowledge of church growth, ortheir years of expertise—that a particular parish or diocese flourished.

 

 

It’s an unfortunate trap leaders in the Church fall into whenthey believe that a congregation’s success depends on them as individuals andtheir own abilities of ministry—and, mind you, I am not just talking aboutpriests here. Lay leaders in the Church have fallen into this trap as well. Ihave known some of those lay leaders as well, trust me.  

Maybe to some extent it’s true.

 

Maybe some people do have the personality and the winningcombination in themselves to do it.  

 

But for those who may have that kind of natural personality, Istill have to admit: it all  makesme wary.

 

It’s just too slippery of a slope.

 

We are dealing with similar personalities in today’s Gospel.

 

In our Gospel reading for today, those seventy that Jesus choseand sent out come back amazed by the gift of blessing God had granted to themand their personalities.

 

They exclaim, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”

 

In and of its self, that’s certainly not a bad thing to say.

 

It’s a simple expression of amazement.   

 

But Jesus—in that way that Jesus does—puts them very quickly intheir place.  

 

He tells them, “do not rejoice in these gifts, but rejoicerather that your names are written in heaven.”

 

Or to be more blunt, he is saying rejoice not in yourselves andthe things you can do with God’s help, but rejoice rather in God.

 

The burden of bringing about the Kingdom of God shouldn’t besolely the individual responsibly of any oneof us.  

 

Even Jesus made that clear for himself.

 

Just imagine that stress in having to bring that about.  

 

Bringing the Kingdom of God into our midst is the responsibilityof all of us together.  

 

It is the responsibility of those who have the personality tobring people on board and it is the responsibility of those of us who do nothave that winning personality.

For those of us who do not have that kind of personality, it is ourresponsibility to bring the Kingdom about in our own ways.

 

We do so simply by living out our Christian commitment.

 

As baptized followers of Jesus, we bring the Kingdom into ourmidst simply:

 

By Love.

 

We do it by loving God and loving each other as God loves us inwhatever ways we can in our lives.

 Bringing the Kingdom of God about in our midst involves more than justpreaching from a pulpit or attending church on Sunday.

 

Spreading the Kingdom of God is more than just preaching onstreet corners or knocking on the doors. 

 

It means living it out in our actions as well.

 

It means living out our faith in our every day life.

 

It means loving God and each other as completely and fully as wecan.

 

But it does not mean loving ourselves to the exclusion ofeverything else.

 

It means using whatever gifts we have received from God to bringthe Kingdom a bit closer.  

 

These gifts—of our personality, of our vision of the worldaround us, of our convictions and beliefs on certain issues—are what we canuse.

 

It means not letting our personalities—no matter how magneticand appealing they might be—to get in the way of following Jesus.

 

Our eyes need to be on God.

 

We can’t be doing that when we’re busy preening in the mirror,praising ourselves for all God does to us and through us.   

 

The Church does not exist for own our personal use.  

 

I, for example, am not your free therapist.

 

And the Church is not you group therapy.

 

If we think the Church is there so we can get some nice littlepat on the back for all  the goodwe’re doing, or as an easy way to get us into heaven when we diem I hate to tellyou but we’re in the wrong place.

 

And we’re doing good for the wrong intention.

 

The Church is ideally the conduit through which the Kingdom ofGod comes into our midst.

 

And it will come into our midst, with or without me asindividual.

 

But it will come into our midst through us.

 

All of us.

 

Together.  

 

The Church is our way of coming alongside Jesus in his ministryto the world.

 

In a very real sense, the Church is our way to be the hands, thefeet, the voice, the compassion, the love of God to this world and to eachother.

 

But it’s all of us.

 

Not just me.

 

Not just you as an individual.

 

It’s all of us.

 

Together.

 

Working together.

 

Loving together.

 

Serving together.

 

And giving God the ultimate credit again and again.

 

Hopefully, in doing that, we do receive some consolationourselves.  

 

Hopefully in doing that, we in turn receive the compassion andlove of God in our own lives as well.

 

But if we are here purely for our own well-being and not for thewell-being of others, than it is does become only about us and not about God.  

 

And in those moments, we are sounding very much like those 70who come back to Jesus exclaiming, “look at what we have done!”

The message of today’s Gospel is that it must always be about God.

 

It must always be about helping that Kingdom of God breakthrough into this selfish world of huge egos. It means realizing that when weare not doing it for God, we have lost track of what we’re doing. We have lostsight of who we are following.

 

So, let us—together—be the hands, the feet, the voice, thecompassion and the love of God in the world around us. Like those 70, let us beamazed at what we can do in Jesus’ name.

 

But more importantly let us rejoice!

 

Rejoice!

 

Rejoice this morning!

 

Rejoice in the fact that your name, that my name—that our namesare written at this moment in heaven.

 

Amen. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 Pentecost

 June 29,2025

 

1 Kings19.15-16,19-21; Galatians 5.1,13-25; .Luke 9:51-62

 

+ This past week I started the process of doing something I am not excited todo:

 

I started to revise my Will.

 

I had not realized that my Will was out ofdate until I actually started going through it.

 

My last revision of my Will was in 2012.

 

That was a long time ago.

 

And my life has changed considerably sincethen.

 

It was a wake-up call when I realize thatfour people mentioned in my will are no longer alive, and that two bequests Imade in that Will are to places that are no longer operational.

 

That is probably a sign that you should reviseyour Will

 

And it’s a good reminder for everyone to soon a regular basis.

 

And, when doing so, to consider our brand-newEndowment Fund in your estate planning.

 

It’s not fun to think about things like Willsand funeral arrangements and the final disposition of one’s material goods.

 

And if you’re anything like me—and I hopeyou’re not—you can easily find yourself obsessing over these things a bit.

 

It’s a control freak thing.

 

I’m aware of it.

 

But being that kind of person means I reallyhave issues with what Jesus is telling the young man in our Gospel reading fortoday.

 

We hear Jesus say, Let the dead bury theirown dead.

 

What?

It’s an unusual statement.  

 

It almost boggles the mind when you thinkabout it.

 

And yet….there is beautiful poetry in thatphrase.

 

We hear this saying of Jesus referencedoccasionally in our secular society.

 

It conveys a sense of resignation and puttingbehind oneself insignificant aspects of our lives.

 

Still, it is a strange image to wrap ourminds around.

Let the dead bury their own dead.

What could Jesus possibly mean by this reference?

Does it means we shouldn’t bury our loved ones?

 

No. This statement from him, as always, has adeeper meaning—and really only starts to make sense when we put it in thecontext of his time and who his followers were.

 

When we find this man talking about having togo and bury his father, and Jesus’ response of “let the dead bury their owndead,” we might instantly think that Jesus is being callous.  

 

It would seem, at least from our modernperspective, that this man is mourning, having just lost his father.

 

The fact is, his father actually probablydied a year or more before.  

 

What happened in the Jewish culture at thattime is that when a person died, they were anointed, wrapped in a cloth shroudand placed in a tomb.

 

There would have been an actually formalburial rite at that times.

 

And of course, Jesus himself would later beburied exactly like this.

 

This initial tomb burial was actually atemporary interment.

 

They were probably placed on a stone shelfnear the entrance of the tomb.

 

About a year or so after their death, thefamily gathered again at which time the tomb was re-opened.

 

By that time, the body would, ofcourse,  have been reduced to bones.

 

The bones would then be collected, placed ina small stone box and buried with the other relatives, probably further back inthe tomb.

 

A remnant of this tradition still exists inJudaism, when, on the first anniversary of the death of a loved one, the familyoften gathers to unveil the gravestone in the cemetery.

 

There’s a wonderful liturgy in the NewZealand Prayer Book that I’ve used many times for the blessing and unveiling ofa gravestone.

 

Which I think a very cool traditionpersonally. 

So, when we encounter this man in today’sGospel, we are not necessarily finding a man mourning his recently deceasedfather.

 

What we are actually finding is a man who iswaiting to go to the tomb where his father’s bones now lie so he can bury thebones.

 

When we see it from this perspective, we canunderstand why Jesus makes such a seemingly strange comment—and we realize itisn’t quite the callous comment we thought it was.  

 

As far as Jesus is concerned, the father hasbeen buried.

 

Whatever this man does is merely an excuse tonot go out and proclaim the kingdom of God, as Jesus commands him to do.

Now to be fair to the man, he could just be making an excuse, which reallyunder any other circumstances, would have been a perfectly valid excuse.

 

Or he could really have felt that his duty ashis father’s son took precedence over this calling from Jesus.

 

Certainly, in Jewish culture, this would bean acceptable way of living out the commandment of respecting one’s parents.

 

It doesn’t seem as though he doesn’t want tofollow Jesus or proclaim the Kingdom.

 

He doesn’t flat-out say no.

 

He simply says, not now.

 

In a sense, he is given the choice betweenthe dead and dried bones of his father or the living Jesus who stands beforehim.

Jesus’ response, which may sound strange to our modern, Western ears, isactually a very clear statement to this man.

 

He is saying, in a sense: “You are attachedto these bones.

 

Don’t worry about bones.

 

Break your attachment, follow me, proclaimthe goodness and love of God and you will have life.

 

Follow me

 

TODAY.

 

NOW.

 

How many times have we been in the same placein our lives?

 

How many times have we looked for excuses toget out of following Jesus, at least right now?

 

We all have our own “bones” that we feel wemust bury before we can go and proclaim the Kingdom of God in our midst byfollowing Jesus.

 

We all have our own attachments that wesimply cannot break so we can go forward unhindered to follow and to serve.

 

And they’re easy to find.

 

It’s easy to be led astray by attachments—tolet these attachments fill our lives and give us a false sense of fulfillment.

 

It is easy for us to despair when the badthings of life happen to us.

 

Despite bad things in the world or in our ownlives, we as Christians just need to remember: the kingdom of God still needsto be proclaimed.

 

Now.

 

And not later. Not after everything has beenrestored. Not when everything is good and right in the world.

 

Not after we have calmed down.

 

The Kingdom needs to be proclaimed NOW.

 

Now.

 

Even in the midst of chaos.  

 

Even when those crappy things happen, westill need to follow Jesus.

 

We proclaim the Kingdom of God by standing upand speaking out against those forces that seek to undermine basic humandignity.

 

We proclaim the Kingdom of God by living outour Baptismal Covenant in this world.

 

We proclaim the Kingdom of God by loving Godand loving others—loving people enough to stand up for their rights, theirhealth, their worth. Their dignity.

 

Let us remember that this is not some sweet,nice, gentle suggestion from Jesus.  

 

It is a command from him.

“Let the dead bury their own dead. But as for you, go, and proclaim the kingdomof God.”

We proclaim the kingdom, as we all know, by loving God and loving each other.

 

You can’t proclaim the kingdom—you can’tlove—when you are busy obsessing about the dead, loveless things of your life.

 

You’re not proclaiming the Kingdom when youcomplain about things, but then don’t DO anything about them.

 

We who are following Jesus have all put ourhands to the plow.

 

We put our hands to that plow when werebaptized, when we set out on that path of following Jesus.

 

Now, with our hands on that plow, let us notlook back.

 

Let us not be led astray by the attachmentswe have in this life that lead us wandering about aimlessly.

 

Let us not be led astray by our anger.

 

But, let us focus.

 

Let us look forward.  

 

Let us push on.

 

Let us proclaim by word and example the lovewe have for God and one another.  

 

And when we do, we are doing exactly whatJesus commands us to do.

 

Now is the time.  

 

Stand up.

 

Speak out.

 

Proclaim that Kingdom.

 

And make it a reality in our midst.

 

Now.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, you are a God of justice; send yourSpirit as a fire into our hearts and into our mouths that we may speak outagainst injustice in this world. And in doing so, let us know that we areproclaiming your Kingdom. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.