Jamie Parsley's Blog, page 25

21 Pentecost

 

October 17, 2021

 

Isaiah 53:4-12; Mark 10:35-45

 

In the name of God, Creator+ Redeemer and Sustainer.  

 

A few weeks ago, I planned to preach about the recent death of a very influential person in the Church.

 

Sadly, I got sick and didn’t preach about him, although I published that sermon on my blog.

 

But I didn’t want to forget to do so.

 

I’m talking about Bishop John Shelby Spong, the former Bishop of Newark, New Jersey.

 

But he was also a very, very controversial person in the Church as well.

 

Bishop Spong was very much the personification of a “liberal” in the Church.

 

And through his many best-selling books, he laid out some very unorthodox beliefs.

 

He denied such things as a fundamentalist view of the Bible, bodily resurrection, the virgin birth of Jesus, a theistic God, the traditional views of the afterlife, and the traditional concepts of heaven and hell.

 

Now for some of us here at St. Stephen’s these are not all that controversial.

 

And many of us loved Bishop Spong.

 

When I first came to St. Stephen’s, there were a few people here who quoted him often in their sermons on Sunday.

 

One time, one preacher even just read a letter of Spong’s as their sermon.

 

I certainly respected Bishop Spong.

 

I voraciously read every book he published as soon as it came the press.

 

And Bishop Spong in many ways introduced me to the Episcopal Church.

 

I first heard about him when I was in my early 20s.

 

I was working at a United Methodist Church in Arthur, ND.

And the pastor there, Pastor Ray Baker, had a bottom shelf of Bishop Spong’s book on a shelf that were hidden behind the door to the office.

 

I remember borrowing his copy Resurrection: Myth or Reality? And was legitimately shocked.

 

I was floored to hear Bishop Spong say that when Jesus died on the cross, his body was taken down and thrown to the dogs, and that is why there is any empty tomb.

 

I want to be very clear: I do not agree with him on this view.

 

In fact, I never agreed with him on many other theological points he made, which I often felt were sensationalist in certain ways.

 

But what was refreshing about Bishop Spong was that he would’ve respected that opposition.

 

Still, I was encouraged to pursue my interest in the Episcopal Church, knowing that there is a wide spectrum of belief here at that could enclose people to such an extreme as Bishop Spong on one end and conservative thinkers on the other, as well as those like me who were squarely in the center of it all.

 

I can say with all honesty, that I am thankful for Bishop Spong and his voice in the Church.

 

But as you can imagine, someone like Bishop Spong also had a few people who did not agree with him.

 

Actually, there were a lot of people who were downright threatened by what Bishop Spong wrote about.

 

And as a result, he made a lot of enemies.

 

There is a very famous story about one of these people.

 

At the funeral for Bishop Spong’s first wife, Joan, who died in 1988, he was shocked when, during the service, he felt himself being pummeled.

 

He turned around and realized it was an old lady hitting him with her purse.

 

She was finally subdued and escorted out of the church.

 

As she left, she was heard to say, “I wanted to do that to that SOB for years!”

 

No matter what you and I may have thought about him—whether you agreed with him or not—we all have to admit one thing:

 

Bishop John Shelby Spong was a true disciple of Jesus.

 

And in many ways he was needed in the Church.

 

Sometime we need people who can rile us up, who can get under our skins, who can nudge us out of our complacency.

 

Certainly, we find some of this happening in our Gospel reading for today.

 

Today’s Gospel story is one that I think we can all somewhat relate to this story.

 

We have all had our own Jameses and Johns.

 

We’ve all had them as co-workers, or fellow students, or simply fellow parishioners.

 

I’ve definitely known some priests like this.

 

They are the ones who—while we quietly labor, quietly do our duties—they sort of weasel their way up the ladder.

 

They jockey for position.

 

They are the ones who try to get a better place in line by butting in front of everyone else.

 

They are the ones who drive us—who work and sacrifice and try to do the good thing—they drive us crazy.

 

Or maybe…and maybe none of us want to admit it …maybe, they are the ones that we relate to the most in this morning’s Gospel.

 

Maybe we are ourselves at times are the James and the Johns.

 

Maybe we ourselves are the Sons or Daughters of Thunder.

 

Whatever the case may be, the fact is James and John are really missing out.

 

Like some of the other apostles, they just don’t get it.

 

They don’t quite understand what Jesus is getting at when he is talking about the last being first.

 

They don’t understand him when he says that we are called to serve and not be served.

 

They just don’t understand that simple virtue of humility.

 

Their view of Christianity—their view of where they stand in relation to Jesus—is a constant jockeying for position.

 

And many of us to this day feel the same way in our own lives, in our work and in our faith lives.

 

There are many people who look to the Church in this way.

 

For many people in the Church, the Church  is simply a place that is here to serve them.

 

They feel that Christianity is all about being served by the Church.

 

Guess what?

 

I hate to break the news to you.

 

It is not.

 

The Church is not here to serve those of us who are in the Church.

 

It is our duty as followers of Jesus, as members of the Church, to serve.

 

What today’s Gospel shows us is that Jesus is calling us to something much bigger than we probably fully understand.

 

I think a lot of us—even those of us who come to church every Sunday—sometimes look at Christianity as a somewhat quaint, peace-loving religion.

 

We dress up, we come to church on Sunday, we sing hymns, we hear about God’s love, we receive Body and Blood of Jesus in the Bread and Wine, and then we go home and…and we don’t think about it again until the next week.

 

But the Christianity of Jesus is not soft. It is not just a whitewashed, quaint religion.

 

Bishop Spong certainly believed that with all his heart.

 

 The Christianity of Jesus, as we hopefully have all figured out here at St. Stephen’s, is a radical faith.

 

It is a faith that challenges—that makes us uncomfortable when we get comfortable, that riles us when we have become complacent.

 

It is a faith that works well here in church, on Sunday morning, but also should motivate us to get up from these pews and go out into the world and live out the faith we have learned here by serving others.

 

And it is this fact that many of us might find a bit frightening.

 

Like James and John, we all want to gain heaven.

 

We all want a nice place beside Jesus in that world-to-come.

 

I want that place!

 

But few of us want to live out our faith in all that do and say right now. And even fewer of us are ready to be servants—to be slaves for others.

 

We don’t always want to serve the lowliest among us.

 

We don’t want to suffer like Jesus suffered.

 

We don’t want to taste from the same cup of anguish that Jesus drank from on the night before he was murdered.

 

And we sure don’t want to be humble sometimes.

 

I will admit, I am in that boat a lot.

 

 I sometimes don’t want to be a servant or slave to others.

 

I don’t want to suffer like Jesus suffered.

 

And although I might try—and not always that hard—I am not so good at being humble sometimes.

 

But we all, I think, at least here at St. Stephen’s, are trying.

 

We all making the effort in some way.

 

As followers of Jesus, we are reminded that we are called truly to be servants to each other and especially to those who need to be served.

 

We are asked as followers to do something uncomfortable.

 

We are asked to take a long, hard look at the world around us and to recognize the fact that there are people living in need in our midst.

 

And we are called to serve them.

 

And in those moments when we ourselves may need to be served, many of us have discovered that serving others is sometimes the best antidote for that need.

 

What we cannot do is ignore those in need.

 

When I ignore those in need, when I don’t serve, when I don’t stand up against injustice—I am made very aware that in that moment, I am not following Jesus.

 

If I don’t do those things, but I still stand up here and call myself a Christian, then I have truly become a “Son of Thunder.”

 

And, for most of us, that is exactly what it sounds like when we want the benefits of our faith, without making the sacrifices of our faith.

 

In those instances, we truly do sound like a low, distant thunder.

 

We cannot bulldoze our way into heaven by riding roughshod over those we should be serving along the way.

 

For us, as followers of Jesus, our job is simply to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves—and when we do, in our lives, in our work, in the way we perceive the world around us, then a natural humility will come over us.

 

In those moments, we do recognize that God is in control.

 

Not us.

 

What is more humbling than that realization in our lives?

 

We are not in control of anything ultimately!

 

Again, here is another example of this radical Christianity.

 

It carries through in how we serve each other. Christians are not expected to bring anyone to God through an arrogant attitude.

 

We are not expected to come charging into people’s lives, making them tremble before us in fear.

 

We are not expected to thump our Bibles and wave the Words of Jesus before people in a desperate attempt to win souls for God.

 

We aren’t forcing God on anyone, nor should we.

 

In doing so, we dominate people.

 

We coerce them into believing.

 

But if we simply serve those Jesus calls us to serve, with love and charity and humility, sometimes that says more than any Sunday sermon or curbside rant.

 

Think of the words Jesus could use.

 

He could use, “power” to mean “dominance,” or “oppression” or “force.”

 

But he doesn’t.

 

Rather, Jesus uses the words “serve” and “servant”

 

In all of this, Jesus is telling us that we are to be servants—servants not only to God, but to each other as well.

 

I, as a priest, who stands here at this altar at each celebration of the Eucharist —I am not the only one called to be a minister of God.

 

We are all called to be ministers of God.

 

By our very baptism, by the Eucharist we share at this altar each Sunday, we are called by God to serve each other.

 

We are not here on Sunday morning to be served—to be waited upon, to be lavished with gifts.

 

We are here to serve.

 

And it is this sense of service that we must take with us out of here into the world.

 

James and John eventually figured this out.

 

They went on from that day and served Jesus in the world.

 

Eventually , they would both die for Jesus as martyrs—as very witnesses to Christ by their deaths.

 

So, for those of us who get angry at the daughters and sons of thunder in our lives—let us be patient.

 

For those of who recognize ourselves as a son or daughter of thunder—just relax.

 

God always finds a way to break through our barriers—if we let God.

 

It is this breaking through, after all, that makes our Christianity so radical.

 

So, let us serve God.

 

Let us serve each other in whatever ways God leads us to serve.

 

By the very fact that we are baptized and fed with Jesus’ Body and Blood in the Eucharist, we live out our service in the world.

 

And when we do, we just may find that the thunder we hear is the thunder not of arrogance or pride, but rather the thunder of the kingdom of God breaking through into our midst.

 

Let us pray.

 

Loving God, help us as we seek to quiet ourselves, as we seek to follow Jesus, as we seek to serve and not be served, for in doing so we know that your Kingdom will truly come and your Reign will truly begin. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen

 

20 Pentecost

 

October 10, 2021

 

Amos 5:6-7,10-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10.17-31

 

In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer,+ and Sustainer.

 

I have to admit.

 

As Episcopalians—as liturgical Christians—we have advantages and disadvantages.

 

Just like anything else in life.

 

And, depending on where you stand, our lectionary—our assigned scripture readings for Sunday morning, is either an advantage or a disadvantage.

 

I as the Priest or anyone who preaches here I do not just get to randomly pick whatever scripture I want on a  given Sunday.

 

There are assigned readings.

 

And we have no real choice in those readings.

 

So, the congregation sometimes has to sit through readings that are sometimes not readings we might want to hear for a particular Sunday morning.

 

And let me tell you, sometimes those scriptures are not easy to preach.

 

Today, we get the full range of scriptures.

 

We first of all get this beautiful poetic gem in our reading from the Hebrew scriptures.

 

I love the prophet Amos.

 

“Seek good and not evil,” he tells us this morning.

that you may live.

And so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you…

hate evil and love good,

and establish justice at the gate…”

 

Beautiful!

 

That could be the motto for us here at St. Stephen’s.

 

Our reading from Hebrews also is just lovely:

 

“Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

 

I could preach a couple sermons just on that one alone.

 

But then…

 

Then!!!!

 

Our Gospel reading for today.

 

Did you listen closely to this morning’s Gospel?

 

Were you uncomfortable with it?

 

I was uncomfortable with it.

 

We should be uncomfortable.

 

We all should be uncomfortable when we hear it.

 

Jesus is, quite simply, telling it like it is.

 

It is a disturbing message—at least, on the surface.

 

I stress that: on the surface.

 

He makes three hard-hitting points.

 

First, he tells the rich man who calls Jesus “good” to sell everything he has and give the money to the poor.

 

Second, he compares wealthy people getting into heaven to a camel going through the eye of a needle—a great image really when you think about it.

 

Finally, he tells his disciples that only those who give up their families and their possessions will gain heaven, summarized in that all-too-famous maxim: “the first will be last and the last will be first.”

 

For those who have—who have possessions, who have loved ones, who have nice cars and houses and bank accounts and investments,--these words of Jesus should disturb us and should make us look long and hard at what we have and, more importantly, why we have them.

 

But…is Jesus really telling us we should give up these things give us security?

 

Does it mean that we should rid ourselves of those things?

 

Should we really sell our cars and our houses, empty out our bank accounts and our savings and give all of that money to the poor?

 

Does it mean, we should turn our backs on our families, on our spouses and partners, on our children and our parents?

 

Does it mean that we should go poor and naked into the world?

 

Well, we need to look at it a little more rationally.

 

We’re Episcopalians, after all. We’re rational!

 

Because, when Jesus talks about “riches” and giving up our loved ones, he’s not really talking about what he seems to be talking about.

 

When Jesus talks of these things, he’s not really talking about what we think he talking about.

 

He’s not really talking about the securities we have built up for ourselves.

 

What Jesus is talking in today’s Gospel is about attachments.

 

Or more specifically, unhealthy attachments.

 

Having “things” in and of themselves are, for the most part, fine, as long as we are not attached to them in an unhealthy way.

 

Jesus knew full well that we need certain things to help us live our lives.

 

But being attached to those “things” is a problem.

 

It is our attachments in this life that bind us—that tie us down and prevent us from growing, from moving closer to God and to one another.

 

Unhealthy attachments are what Jesus is getting at here.

 

And this is why we should be disturbed by this reading.

 

Let’s face, at times, we’re all attached to some things we have.

 

We are attached to our cars and our homes.

 

We are attached to our televisions and computers and our telephones.

 

Some of us are attached to our mid-century furniture.

 

And, even in our relationships, we have formed unhealthy attachments as well.

 

Co-dependence in a relationship is a prime example of that unhealthy kind of attachment that develops between people.

 

We see co-dependent relationships that are violent or abusive or manipulative.

 

People, in a sense, become attached to each other and simply cannot see what life can be like outside of that relationship.

 

And as much as we love our children, we all know that there comes a point when we have to let them go.

 

We have to break whatever attachments we have to them so they can live their lives fully.

 

It is seems to be part of our nature to form unhealthy relationships with others and with things at times.

 

Especially in this day and age, we hear so often of people who are afraid to be alone.

 

So many people are out there looking for that “the right one”—as though this one person is going to bring unending happiness and contentment to one’s life.

 

Some people might even be attached to the idea of a relationship, rather than the relationship itself.

 

We’ve all known people like that—people who are afraid because they are getting too old to settle down and still haven’t found that right person in their lives.

 

It seems almost as though their lives revolve around finding this ideal person when, in fact, no one can live up that ideal.

 

See, attachments start taking on the feeling of a heavy baggage after so long.

 

They do get in the way.

 

They weigh us down and they ultimately make our life a burden.

 

And they come between us and our relationship God and our service to others.

 

The question we need to ask ourselves in response to this morning’s Gospel is this: if Jesus came to us today and told us to abandon our attachments—whatever it is in our own lives that might separate us from God—what would it be?

 

And could we do it?

 

Because Jesus is telling us to do that again and again.  

 

What the Gospel for today hopefully shows us that we need to be aware of our attachments.

 

We need to be aware of anything in our lives that separates us from God.

 

Jesus today is preparing us for the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

We cannot enter the Kingdom of God and still be attached to those unhealthy things in our lives.

 

Because as we enter the Kingdom, we will be distracted, looking back over our shoulders.

 

 

The message is clear—don’t allow your unhealthy attachments to come between God and you.

 

Don’t allow anything to come between God and you.

 

If Jesus came to us here and now and asked us to give up those attachments in our lives, most of us couldn’t to do it.

 

I don’t think I could do it.

 

And when we realize that, we suddenly realize how hard it is to gain heaven.

 

It truly is like a camel passing through the eye of the needle.

 

For us, in this moment, this might be a reason to despair.

 

But we really don’t need to.

 

We just need to be honest.

 

Honest with ourselves.

 

And honest with God.

 

Yes, we have attachments.

 

But we need to understand that our attachments are only, in the end, temporary.

 

They will pass away.

 

But our relationship with God is eternal.

 

This is what Jesus is getting at in today’s Gospel.

 

So, we can enjoy those “things” we have.

 

We can take pleasure in them.

 

But we need to recognize them for what they are.

 

They are only temporary joys.

 

They come into in our lives and they will go out of our lives, like clouds.

 

All those things we hold dear, will pass away from us.

 

Let us cling instead, to God and to the healthy bonds that we’ve formed with God and with our loved ones—with our spouses or partners, our children, our family and our friends.

 

Let us serve those whom we are called to serve.

 

And let us serve them fully and completely, without hindrance.

 

Let make the attempt to see that what we have is temporary.

 

Let us be prepared to shed every attachment we have if we need to.

 

And when the day comes when Jesus calls us by name, we can simply run forward and follow him wherever he leads us.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, we look forward with joy to your kingdom. Help us to shed whatever hindrances present us from entering. Help us break our attachments so we can approach you, face to face, and enjoy your Presence. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.

 

 

19 Pentecost

 

October 3, 2021

 

Mark 10.2-16

 

 

+ Now, I know many people think I am this kind of High Church priest.

 

And that’s …well…very true.

 

I am solidly an Anglican, through and through.

 

And proudly so.

 

But, for any of you who know me well, you know that I come from a long, long line of Protestants, specifically Lutheran and I have deep grounding in that tradition.

 

And, when peeling the onion that is Fr. Jamie, you will find a pretty solid Protestant core, despite all my joking otherwise.

 

One of the Protestant sects that has always appealed to me (and this might come as a surprise to many of you) is the Quakers, or the Society of Friends.

 

You would not think a denomination that is completely and totally non-sacramental and non-liturgical would hold any appeal to someone like me, a very High Church Episcopalian who loves liturgy and the sacraments!

 

But, as I just said, I have this vein of Protestantism in my core.

 

And I really love the simplicity of Quakerism.

 

In fact, I learned to love Quakerism through a dear Quaker friend of mine.

 

Mary Gardner was a very wonderful and accomplished novelist who was a dear,Mary Gardner and me a few years ago
dear friend of mine.

 

She, for many years, was a Quaker, though she was also a pretty solid skeptic on most supernatural issues.

 

Sadly, dear Mary ended up dying of Covid last Christmas, a loss that I still feel very deeply.

In fact, I thought of Mary many times during my own bout with Covid last month.

 

Mary taught me so much about Quakers and how to live a truly Quaker life.

 

And through Mary I came to love the silence and contemplative aspects of Quakerism.

 

I love their pacifism.

 

I love the fact that, historically, they were on the forefront of so much social change in society.

 

I love how they strive for a truly experiential and relational connection with God—with the Light within, as they call it.

 

And I love how the Quakers embody in their faith and in their lives a very simple, child-like faith.

 

It’s this last point that is especially appealing to me.

 

And I also personally find it difficult.

 

To me, cultivating such a relationship with God without the structure of liturgy and the sacraments seems particularly daunting.

 

But there are days when I want that Quaker-like faith.

 

I want that simplicity.

 

I want that silence.

 

I want that child-like relationship with God.

 

And it is this child-like relationship with God that Jesus is commending to us in our Gospel reading for today.

 

Our Gospel reading for today is wonderful.

 

As people were bringing children to Jesus, he says,

 

“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

 

So, what does Jesus mean when he talks about the Kingdom of heaven and children?

 

Well, he is talking quite bluntly, I believe.

 

He is making it clear that we need to simplify.

 

We need to simplify our faith.

 

We need to clear away all the muck, all the distractions, all those negative things we have accumulated over the years regarding our relationship with God.

 

Now, to be fair, the Church and Religion in general have piled many of this negative things on us.

 

And that is unfortunate.

 

Too often, as believers, we tend to complicate our faith life and our theology.

 

We in the Episcopal Church get caught up in things like Dogma and Canon laws and rules and Rubrics and following the letter of the law, and getting caught p in committees and sub-committees and sub-sub-committees. (Episcopalians love to micro-manage)

 

In the Roman Catholic Church, we find these strange “cults” of Mary and the saints that really do not promote a deeper faith, but rather only a shallow, somewhat plastic kind of faith, while getting too caught up in rigorous views of issues like contraception and abortion and moral living.

 

In many Protestant churches,  we find that the Bible itself is held up as a kind of idol, it is held up in such a way that it eclipses the fact that we are called to live out what we learn scripturally and not just impress one another with our scriptural prowess and knowledge.

 

All the churches get so caught up in doing what we are told is the “right thing,” that we lose sight of this pure and holy relationship with God.

 

We forget why we are doing the right thing.

 

For Jesus, he saw what happened when people got too caught up in doing the right thing.

 

The scribes and Pharisees were very caught up in doing the right thing, in following the letter of the Law.

 

I actually like talking about these two groups of people—the scribes and the Pharisees.

 

They have received a very harsh judgement in the long arc of history.

 

But we need to remind ourselves that, at their core, these were not bad people.

 

They were actually well-intended people, trying in their own way to live out the Law, as they were taught.

 

It was the job of the scribes to write down and copy the scriptures, a daunting job in those pre-printing press days.

 

As a result of copying scripture again and again, they of course came to see themselves as experts of the scriptures.

 

And they were.

 

The Pharisees saw their job as interpreting the Law and the scriptures for people.

 

They tried to make sure that the letter of the law was followed and that all those complicated rules we find in the Levitical law were followed to a T.

 

They did this because they thought it was what was supposed to be done.

 

In the course of their trying to do the right thing, they ended up losing sight of the heart of the Law and Scriptures and only concentrated on the letter of the Law and scriptures.

 

But in doing so, they lost sight of God, which is easy to do when you’re so caught up on the dots and dashes of the words, and not on what those words actually mean.  

 

They lost sight of the meaning behind the Law.

 

Jesus is telling them—and us—that we need to simplify.

 

We need to refocus.

 

We need to become like children in our faith-life.

 

Now that isn’t demeaning.

 

It isn’t sweet and sentimental.

 

Becoming children means taking a good, honest look at what we believe.

 

As followers of Jesus, it does not have to be complicated.

 

We just need to remind ourselves that, if we keep our eyes on Jesus, he will show us God.

 

Following Jesus means knowing that God is a loving, accepting and always-present Parent.

 

God is our “Abba.”

 

Our job as followers is to connect with this loving Parent, with “Abba,” to worship and pray to God.

 

Our job is to be an imitator, like Jesus, of this loving, all-accepting God in our relationship with others.

 

When we do that—when we become imitators of our loving God, when we love as God loves us—the Kingdom of God becomes present in a very real and profound way.  

 

But the fact is, the Kingdom of God is not for people who complicate it.

 

The Kingdom is one of those things that is very elusive.

 

If we quantify it and examine it too closely, it just sort of wiggles away from us.

 

If we try to define what the Kingdom is, or try to explain it in any kind of detail, it loses meaning.

 

It disappears and become mirage-like.

 

But if we simply do what we are called to do as followers of Jesus—if we simply follow Jesus, imitate our God and love one another—the Kingdom becomes real.

 

It becomes a reality in our very midst.

 

And whatever separations we imagine between ourselves and God and one another, simply disappear.

 

This is what I love about being a follower of Jesus.

 

I love the fact that despite all the dogmas and structures and rules the Church might bring us, following Jesus is simply that—following Jesus.

 

It is keeping your eyes on the one we’re following.

 

It means doing what he did and trying to live life like he lived life.

 

It means worshipping like him a God of amazing and unlimited love.

 

Yes, that sounds very simple.

 

But it can also be very difficult, especially when we still get caught up in all the rules and complications of organized religion and the letter of the law of the Bible. .

 

And we do get caught up in those things.

 

Because following Jesus can be so basic, we find ourselves often frustrated.

 

We want order.

 

We want rules.

 

We want systematic ways of understanding God and religion.

 

Simplicity sometimes scares us.

 

Becoming childlike means depending on God instead of ourselves.

 

Becoming childlike means shedding our independence sometimes, and we don’t like doing that.

 

Sometimes complication means busywork.

 

And sometimes it simply is easier to get caught up in busywork, then to actually go out there and follow Jesus and be imitators of God and love others.

 

Sometimes it is easier to sit and debate the fine points of religion, then it is to go out and actually live out our faith in our lives, and to worship God as our Abba.

 

But, as Jesus shows us, when we do such things, when we become cantankerous grown-ups, that’s when the system starts breaking down.

 

We when get nitpicky and bitter, we have lost sight of what it means to be like Jesus.

 

That’s when we get distracted.

 

That’s when we get led astray from following Jesus.

 

That is when we “grow up” and become cranky, bitter grown-ups rather than loving, wonder-filled children.

 

It is good to be wonder-filled children.

 

It is good to look around us at the world and see a place in which God still breaks through to us.

 

It is good to see that God lives and works through others.

 

So, let us be wonder-filled children.

 

Let us truly be awed and amazed at what it means to follow Jesus.

 

Let God be a source of joy in our lives.

 

And let us love each other simply, as children love.

 

Let us love in that wonderfully child-like way, in which our hearts simply fill up to the brim with love.

 

Let us burn with that love in a young and vibrant way.

 

Being a Christian—following Jesus—means staying young and child-like always.

 

Following Jesus is our fountain of youth, so to speak.

 

So let us become children for the sake of the Kingdom.

 

And when we do, that Kingdom will flower in us like eternal youth.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy and loving God, you are our Parent, our Abba, and we are your children. Instill in us a simple faith, a child-like faith. Open our eyes and hearts to know you as children know their parent. And let us live our faiths with quiet simplicity and upright dignity, now and always. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

 

A Letter from Fr. Jamie Regarding his Covid Diagnosis

 

September 23, 2021

 Dear St. Stephen’s family and friends,

 As most of you know by now, I tested positive for Covid on Monday September 20 after experiencing very severe Covid symptoms. To say I was deeply frustrated is an understatement, considering the fact that I am fully vaccinated and I was very careful regarding wearing masks, hand washing, hand sanitizing, etc. Of course, in my particular case, I also have issues with immunity from my cancer diagnosis 20 years ago and knew that this was real possibility all along.

     Still, I wouldn’t wish Covid (and especially this variant) on my worst enemy. It has been a particularly arduous experience. At one point, during the worst of it, my temperature spiked to 104.4. The headache was truly the worst of it all. I had very little (i.e. no) appetite and experienced bone-weary fatigue. If this is what it is like WITH the vaccine I can't even imagine how bad it is without it.

     I received an antibody infusion on Tuesday morning and within 48 hours started to feel much better.

     I will be quarantined in my home until Tuesday September 21.

     This coming Sunday, September 26,  Senior Warden John Baird will officiate at Morning Prayer and Jean Sando will preach. The baptism originally scheduled for this Sunday will be rescheduled.  

    My hope is that beginning on Saturday I will be able to start working on a regular basis from my home office. If there are any pastoral needs or emergencies that arise, please do not hesitate to contact me by cell or email, or contact Deacon John.

           I would like to stress: PLEASE do not underestimate this variant of Covid. It is truly terrible! If you’re vaccinated please still wear your masks and be very, very careful. If you are not vaccinated, I cannot stress the importance on getting the vaccine. Without the vaccine, many of us at St. Stephen’s would be experiencing what I have just endured. It is only natural that there will be a small percentage of people who are vaccinated who will still actually get Covid. I am grateful that the symptoms I received were lessened because of the vaccine. I am especially thankful for the antibody treatment and the great care I received from so many healthcare workers who are working tirelessly right now.  

     I especially thank you all for your prayers, your best wishes, the many, many phone calls, text messages, Facebook messages, emails, etc. And I also thank everyone for the offers for groceries and other necessities.

     Thank you especially to our organist James Mackay who stepped up at the last minute with a Deacon’s Mass bulletin on September 19 when I was unable to celebrate Mass, and Deacon John Anderson who of course was able to pitch hit for me.

     I ask your continued prayers as I recover. I am still very weak, have no sense of taste or smell and have moments of overwhelming fatigue.

Please know I pray for each of you as well and that you will all be protected from this awful virus. Let us pray that this pandemic will finally end soon.

-peace,

            Fr. Jamie+

 O Lord, your compassions never fail and your mercies are new every morning: We give you thanks for giving our Fr. Jamie both relief from pain and hope of health renewed. Continue in him, we pray, the good work you have begun; that he, daily increasing in bodily strength, and rejoicing in your goodness, may so order his life and conduct that he may always think and do those things that please you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

 

17 Pentecost

 

September 18, 2021 

 

Jeremiah 11.18-20; Psalm 54; James 3.13-4,7-8a;

 

+ Last Sunday morning a very important person in the life of the Episcopal Church, in in many of our lives, died.

 

Bishop John Shelby Spong, the former Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, died.

 

Bishop Spong was an influential person in the Church.

 

But he was also a very, very controversial person in the Church as well.

 

Bishop Spong was very much the personification of a “liberal” in the Church.

 

And through his many best=selling books, he laid some very unorthodox beliefs.

 

He denied such things as a fundamentalist view of the Bible, bodily resurrection, the virgin birth of Jesus, a theistic God, the traditional views of the afterlife, and the concepts of heaven and hell.

 

Now for some of us here at St. Stephen’s these are not all that controversial.

 

And many of us loved Bishop Spong.

 

When I first came to St. Stephen’s, there were a few people here who quoted him often in their sermons on Sunday.

 

One time, one preacher even just read a letter of Spong’s as their sermon.

 

I certainly respected Bishop Spong.

 

I voraciously read every book he published as soon as it came the press.

 

And Bishop Spong in many ways introduced me to the Episcopal Church.

 

I first heard about him when I was in my early 20s.

 

I was working at a United Methodist Church in Arthur, ND.

And the pastor there, Pastor Ray Baker, had a bottom shelf of Bishop Spong’s book on a shelf that were hidden behind the door to the office.

 

I remember borrowing his copy Resurrection: Myth or Reality? And was legitimately shocked.

 

I was floored to hear Bishop Spong say that when Jesus died on the cross, his body was taken down and thrown to the dogs, and that is why there is any empty tomb.

 

I never agreed with him on that one or many other theological points he made, which I often felt were sensationalist in certain ways.

 

But I was encouraged to pursue my interest in the Episcopal Church, knowing that there is a wide spectrum of belief here at that could enclose people to such an extreme as Bishop Spong on one end and conservative thinkers on the other, as well as those like me who were squarely in the center of it all.

 

In this past week, I can say with all honesty, that I am thankful for Bishop Spong and his voice in the Church.

 

But as you can imagine, someone like Bishop Spong also had a few people who did not agree with him.

 

Actually, there were a lot of people who were downright threatened by what Bishop Spong wrote about.

 

And as a result, he made a lot of enemies.

 

There is a very famous story about one of these people.

 

At the funeral for Bishop Spong’s first wife, Joan, who died in 1988, he was shocked when, during the service, he felt himself being pummeled.

 

He turned around and realized it was an old lady hitting him with her purse.

 

She was finally subdued and escorted out of the church.

 

As she left, she was heard to say, “I wanted to do that to that SOB for years!”

 

Sometimes…when one makes stands, who stand firm, or makes comments or takes positions that differ from others, you’re gonna have enemies.

 

Sometimes, just for standing up and saying “no” to people, you are going to have people dislike you.

 

Or sometimes, you just are not able to do for others what they need you to do for them.

 

And, as a result, they despise you for not being who they need you to be for them.

 

It’s hard.

 

It’s painful.

 

It’s extremely painful.

 

And sometimes, when those people are people you care for or who were close friends or family, it is even more painful.

 

But, let me tell you this: we don’t make it through this life without a few enemies, without a few people who just not going to like us.

 

Enemies in the Bible were dealt with differently, as we no doubt have discovered.

 

And often times, some harsh language was directed at those people who were considered enemies.

 

On those occasions, we do sometimes come across language in the Bible that we might find a bit—how shall we say—uncomfortable.

 

The language is often violent.

 

It is not the language good Christian people normally use.

 

We get a peek at this language in our scriptures readings for today.

 

Our reading from the Prophet Jeremiah is a bit harsh, shall we say?

 

“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,

let us cut him off from the land of the living,

so that his name will no longer be remembered.”

 

For many us, as we hear it, it might give us pause.

 

This is not the kind of behavior we have been taught as followers of Jesus.

 

After all, as followers of Jesus, we’re taught to love and love fully and completely.

 

We certainly weren’t taught to pray for God to destroy our enemies, to “cut them off from the land of the living.”

 

And not just destroy our enemies, but our enemy’s children (that whole reference to the fruit of the tree).

 

We have been taught to pray for our enemies, not pray against them.

 

None of us would ever even think of praying to God to destroy anyone. I hope!

 

But the fact is, although we find it hard to admit at times, we do actually think and feel this way.

 

Even if we might not actually say it, we sometimes secretly wish the worse for those people who have wronged us in whatever way.

 

I like to think that, rather than this being completely negative or wrong, that we should, in fact, be honest about it.

 

We sometimes get angry at people.

 

We sometimes don’t like people.

 

And sometimes WE are the enemy to other people.

 

And let’s truly be honest, there are sometimes when we might actually just hate people.

 

It’s a fact of life—not one we want to readily admit to, but it is there.

 

Sometimes it is very, very hard to love our enemies.

 

Sometimes it is probably the hardest thing in the world to pray for people who have hurt us or wronged us.

 

So, what do we do in those moments when we can’t pray for our enemies—when we can’t forgive?

 

Well, most of us just simply close up.

 

We turn that anger inward.

 

We put up a wall and we swallow that anger and we let it fester inside us.

 

Especially those of us who come from good Scandinavian stock.

 

We simply aren’t the kind of people who wail and complain about our anger or our losses.

 

We aren’t ones usually who say, like Jeremiah, “let us cut [that person] off from the land of the living!”

 

I think we may tend to deny it.

 

And I think we even avoid and deny where the cause of that anger comes from.

 

Certainly, St. James, in his letter this morning, tries to touch on this when talks about these violent “cravings” which are “at war within us.”

 

It’s not pleasant to think that there is warfare within us.

 

For me, as a somewhat reluctant pacifist sometimes, I do not like admitting that there is often warfare raging within me.

 

But it is sometimes.

 

So, what about that anger in our relationship to God?

 

What about that anger when it comes to following Jesus?

 

Well, again, we probably don’t recognize our anger before God nor do we bring it before God.

 

We, I think, look at our anger as something outside our following of Jesus.

 

And that is where scriptures of this sort come in.

 

It is in those moments when we don’t bring our anger and our frustrations before God, that we need those verses like the ones we encounter in today’s readings.

 

When we look at those poets and writers who wrote these scriptures—when we recognize her or him as a Jew in a time of war or famine—we realize that for them, it was natural to bring everything before God.

 

Everything.

 

Not just the good stuff.

 

Not just the nice stuff.

 

But that bad stuff too.

 

And I think this is the best lesson we can learn from these readings than anything else.

 

We all have a “shadow side,” shall we say.

 

I preach about this all the time.

 

We all have a dark side.

 

We have a war raging within us at times.

 

And we need to remember that we cannot hide that “shadow side” of ourselves from God.

 

Let me tell you, if you have war raging inside you, you definitely cannot hide that from God.

 

Sometimes this dark self, this war, is something no else has ever seen—not even our spouse or partner.

 

Maybe it is a side of ourselves we might have not even acknowledged to ourselves.

 

It is this part of ourselves that fosters anger and pride and lust.

 

It is this side of ourselves that may be secretly violent or mean or unduly confrontational and  gossipy.

 

Sometimes it will never make an appearance.

 

It stays in the shadows and lingers there.

 

But sometimes it actually does make itself known.

 

Sometimes it comes plowing into our lives when we neither expect it nor want it.

 

And with it comes chaos

 

As much we try to deny it or ignore it or hide it, the fact is; we can’t hide this dark side from God.

 

It’s incredible really when you think about it: that God, who knows even that shadow side of us—that side of us we might not even fully know ourselves—God who knows us even that completely still loves us and is with us.

 

Few of us lay that shadow self before God.

 

But the authors and poets of our scriptures this morning do, in fact bring it ALL out before God.

 

These poets wail and complain to God and lay bare that shadow side of him or herself.

 

The poet is blatantly honest before God.

 

Or as St. James advises,

 

“submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and [God] will draw near to you.”

 

When these ugly things crop up in our lives, bring them before God.

 

Let us deal with them in humilitybefore God.

 

The fact is: sometimes we do secretly wish bad things on our enemies.

 

Sometimes we do wish God would render evil on those who are evil to us.

 

Sometimes we do hope that God will completely wipe away those people who hurt us from our lives.

 

It is in those moments, that it is all right to pray to God in such a way.

 

Because the fact is—as I hope we’ve all learned by now—just because we pray for it doesn’t mean God is going to grant it.

 

I say this over and over again: God grants all prayer, correct.

 

But there are three possible answers to prayer.

 

Yes.

 

No.

 

And not yet.

 

And if you pray for bad things to happen to your enemies, God is probably gonna answer with a big fat “NO.”

 

But that doesn’t invalidate the prayer.

 

God knows what to grant in prayer.

 

And why.

 

The important thing here is not what we are praying for.

 

It is not important that in this Psalm we are praying for God to destroy our enemies.

 

What is important is that, even in our anger, even in our frustration and our pain, we have submitted to God.

 

We have come before God as this imperfect person.

 

We have come to God with a long dark shadow trailing us.

 

I have heard people say that we shouldn’t read these difficult on Sunday morning because they are “bad theology” or “bad psychology.”

 

They are neither.

 

They are actually very good and honest theology and very good and honest psychology.

 

Take what it is hurting you and bothering you and release it.

 

Let it out before God.

 

Be honest with God about these bad things.

 

Even if your anger is directed at God for whatever reason, be honest with God.

 

Rail and rant and rave at God in your anger if you have to.

 

Trust me, God can take it.

 

But, these scriptures teach us as well that once we have done that—once we have opened ourselves completely to God—once we have revealed our shadows to God—then we must turn to God and turn away from that shadow self.

 

We must, as St. James says, “resist the Devil.”

 

Hatred and anger and pain are things that, in the long run, hurt us and destroy us.

 

At some point, as we all know, we must grow beyond whatever anger we might have.

 

We must not get caught in that self-destructive cycle anger can cause.

 

We must not allow those negative feelings to make us bitter.

 

So, when we are faced with these difficult scriptures and we come across those verses that might take by alarm, let us recognize in them what they truly are—honest prayers before God

 

Let these scriptures—these lamenting and angry, as well as the joyful, exultant scriptures—be our voice expressing itself before God.

 

And in the echo of those words, let us hear God speaking to us in turn.

 

When we do, we will find ourselves in a holy conversation with God.

 

And, in that holy conversation, we will find that, even despite that shadow side of ourselves, God, who is Light, who is love, accepts us fully and completely for just who we are.

 

Let us pray.

 

Compassionate God, help us in the journey of this life to avoid becoming bitter and angry by the presence of our enemies and their efforts to undermine our efforts. Help us to love those who do not love us, to forgive those who hurt us and to live our lives in love and peace rather than in bitterness and frustration. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

 

 

Dedication Sunday

 

September 12, 2021

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

+Today, we are of course celebrating our Dedication Sunday.

 

We are commemorating 65 years of service to God and others.

 

We are welcoming a new member.

 

We are welcoming back a member who moved away and has come back.

 

We are beginning regular coffee hour for the first time since March of 2020.

 

It’s all very exciting.

 

When I look back on our Dedication Sunday one year ago, I am amazed at how far we’ve come.

 

It was, to say the least, a very bleak Dedication Sunday last year.

 

The fact is, on this Dedication Sunday, we are in a different place than we were then or definitely one year before that, on Dedication Sunday 2019.

 

Not everyone is back here this morning.

 

We are not where we were then.

 

And it has been slow.

 

The pandemic is still with us, because there are people who are listening to half-truths and outright lies regarding this pandemic and its vaccine.

 

And as a result of those half-truths and lies, we are, yet again, masked this morning.

 

Thanks, QAon!

 

Thanks, Anti-Vaxxers!

 

We have taken a step or two backward on our way out of this pandemic.

 

And it is frustrating.

 

We are not the same as we were before all this began.

 

And that hurts.

 

Now, I am grateful for all that St. Stephen’s has done since the pandemic.

 

It has been incredible!

 

When I look at how other congregations ground to a halt, we did not.

 

When churches closed down, we went viral.

 

We didn’t miss a Sunday mass during the pandemic, thanks to Livestream (it will be one of the few times I will ever thank Livestreaming)

 

And haven’t missed one since.

 

We even had our Labyrinth renovated and managed to get a brand new organ in the midst of this all.

 

And I am, once again, amazed by the resilience of St. Stephen’s, and for Deacon John and the lay leaders we have here who have stepped up.

 

So, it’s important on this Sunday to really listen to what our scriptures are speaking to us.

 

It’s good to hear all this talk of a building being God’s house.

 

As many of you know, I am a huge Leonard Cohen fan.

 

Leonard Cohen, for those of you who might now know who he was, was an incredible Canadian musician, song writer and poet.

 

You probably know his very popular song, “Hallelujah’

 

I preach about him every so often, because he has been very important o in my life.

 

Cohen was a well-known Zen Buddhist, but he was also a very committed Jew.

 

Once, many years ago, when I was in Montreal, a friend took me to the synagogue Cohen had been a member of.

 

The name of the synagogue was Shaar Hashomayim, which is Hebrew for “The Gate of Heaven”

 

As in “This is none other than the House of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven.”

 

I always loved that name and what it stood for!

 

I think we sometimes forget that this place also is God’s house.

 

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

 

But this Sunday is more than all these physical things.

 

It is more than just being a building, and walls, and a tower and bells and vestments and dossal screens and paraments.

 

It about us—all of us—being the House of God.

 

It is about us being the tabernacles in which God dwells.

 

It is about us and our service to God and others.

 

And you know what it’s really all about.

 

It is about LOVE.  

 

Years ago, I read an amazing biography of the American poet Denise Levertov, I came across this wonderful quote, from another poet, St. John the Cross:

 

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

 

Later I heard a friend of mine comment on that quote by saying

 

 “we will be judged BY love alone.”

 

I love that!

 

That quote has been haunting me for years.

 

And it certainly has been striking me to my core in these days leading up to our Dedication Sunday celebration.

 

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

 

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

 

Because this, throughout all of our 65 year history, is what we are known for at St. Stephen’s.

 

Love.

 

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

 

And by love we will, ultimately, be judged.

 

It is not an easy thing to call one’s self a Christian, especially now after this traumatic event we have all lived through, with so many people having essentially highjacked that name “Christian” and made it into something ugly and terrible.

 

It’s not easy to follow Jesus, whom so many Christians have re-formed into a white, blond idol of themselves—a nationalistic Jesus who carried a gun in one hand and a flag in the other.

 

The great German theologian (and one of my heroes) Dorothee Soelle calls “Christo-fascism.”

 

I call it “Jesusolatry.”

 

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

 

We, at St. Stephen’s, (I hope) have done a good job I think over these last 65 years of striving to be a positive example of the wider.

 

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

 

As God intends the Church to be.

On October 1, I will be commemorating thirteen years as your priest here at St. Stephen’s.

I can tell you, they have been the most incredible thirteen years of my life.

Personally, they have been, of course, some very, very hard years.

As a priest, they have been years in which I have seen God at work in ways I never have before.

This congregation has grown and flourished in incredible ways!

And it’s amazing!

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

The Holy Spirit.

Here.

Among us.

Growth of this kind can truly be a cause for us to celebrate that Spirit’s Presence among us.

It can help us to realize that this is truly the place in which God’s dwells.

God is truly here, with us, in all that we do together.

The name of God is proclaimed in the ministries we do here.

In the outreach we do.

In the witness we make in the community of Farg0-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, when we are doing the work, we sometimes miss that perspective.

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

We miss the fact that God truly is here.

And that this is the House of God and the Gate of Heaven.  

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 move forward together.

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

In a few moments, we will recognize and give thanks for now only our new members but for all our members and the many ministries of this church.

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 and around us.

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

We see it in the continued growth of St. Stephen’s.

We see it in the continued vitality here.

We see it in the continued love here.

We see it in the tangible things, in our altar, in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, in our scripture readings, in our windows, in the smell of incense in the air, in our service to9ward each other. In US.

But behind all these incredible things happening now, God has also worked slowly and deliberately and seemingly clandestinely throughout the years.

And for all of this—the past, the present and the future—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 and acted 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 own people.

Let us be God’s people in order that we might proclaim, in love, the mighty and merciful acts of Christ, the living and unmovable stone, on whom we find our security and our foundation.  

Let us pray.

Holy and loving God, bless us on this 65thanniversary of our founding, and help us to continue to do the good works you have instilled in us. Let us love as you command us to love. Let us include all those who seek us out. And let your holiness and life dwell here with us in all that we do and say. We ask this in name of Jesus, our foundation. Amen.

15 Pentecost

 Sept. 5, 2021

Isaiah 35.4-7a; Psalm 146; James 2:1-10,[11-13],14-17; Mark 7.24-37

 +

 So, I know you have been asked this question before:

 

 “What command do you suppose is the most repeated in the Bible?”

 

Do you remember?

 

If you don’t, don’t worry.

 

I’m, not grading anyone. I promise.

 

But think about it a bit.

 

What command do you think is the most often repeated command in the Bible?

 

No doubt, the first thought to come to you is probably one of the ten commandments, I’m sure. “Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.” Or “You shall have no other gods.”

 

If we look beyond the Ten Commandments, we might try to find a few others that sound good.

 

Certainly, we might think about the command Jesus gave us,  “Love one another as I have loved you.”

 

I can just imagine what people outside the Church might think when they are asked about what is about most repeated command.

 

No doubt they will think of something that begins “Thou shalt not…” and includes some sort of shame.

 

Or certainly with all the issues going on in the Church today, they’ll think of a commandment that has something to do with sex, since that’s all the church seems to be able to talk about oftentimes.

 

But none of those are the most often repeated commands.

 

The most often repeated commandment in both the Hebrew scriptures and New Testament is  “Do not be afraid.”

 

Certainly it was, by far, the most often repeated commandment of Jesus in the Gospels.

 

But we do encounter it quite often as well in the Hebrew scriptrures.

And sure enough, in our reading this morning from Isaiah, we do in fact find it here.

 

“Do not fear,” God tells us through the prophet Isaiah.

 

Those are soothing words to most of us, because, let’s face it: we all feel fear at times.

 

We live in scary times.

 

There is a pandemic still going on.

 

There are neo-Nazis and white supremacists and people who have been deceived by lying and false science and conspiracy theories.

 

There is still hatred it his world, there is still so much anger and bigotry and racism and homophobia and ableism and sexism in our world.

 

And I’m not even going to get into what’s happening in Texas right now because I will be up here all day.

 

 There is illness, there are setbacks, there is frustration and there is a whole lot of hurt out there in the world and, and not just out there, but right here in our midst as well. 

 

As much as we want to think the world is nice and happy and wonderful, it isn’t always.

 

The world we live in is not always a pretty place.

 

So, most of us are longing to hear God say to us , “Fear not.” We want God to command us to put aside our fears.

 

The fact is, it sounds easier than it actually is.

 

After all, when anyone usually says something like this to us, we shrug our shoulders and roll our eyes and think, “Right. Sure. Easier said than done.”

 

We can tell ourselves all we want to not fear but the fact is the fear will probably remain.

 

However, it is more than just a matter of saying it.

 

We need to believe in our fearlessness and we need to live out in our lives.

 

Those words—Fear not—need to be the “call words” for us throughout our entire lives.

 

We need to be reminded of again and again in our lives. 

 

No matter how much we claim our own braveness, we do feel real fear.

 

And we’re not the only ones.

 

Isaiah and the people he was prophesying to in our first scripture reading from today knew a few things about fear.

 

Isaiah’s message for today  came in the midst of a message few people wanted to hear.

 

He was telling those people that the world they knew and cherished was about to come to an end.

 

Armies were amassing, ready to overtake the lands of Judea and Israel and send its people off into exile.

 

Most people who heard Isaiah, of course, didn’t believe him.

 

How could we—God’s chosen people—be driven out of this land that God led our ancestors to?

 

As you can imagine, prophets were not always popular people.

 

They were popular when the prophecies foretold good times.

 

But those prophets of joy and happiness were few and far between.

 

Most of the prophets were prophets because they were the vessels through which God wanted to warnpeople.

 

More often than not, a prophet was one who had to stand up and say, “unless you repent, punishment will come upon you.”

 

Let’s face it, none of us would want to hear that—especially from someone who claims that God told them to tell us that.

 

And I’m sure none of us would want to be in the prophets place either.

 

Imagine for a moment, having a prophecy of a future disaster that is about to befall an entire nation.

 

Would you seriously want that responsibility?

 

Would you want the responsibility of saying to people, “Listen, if you don’t turn away from your wayward habits, there is going to be some major destruction coming your way.”

 

These poor prophets were not lucky. Yes, God chose them and spoke to them in a special way.

 

But the words God spoke to them became yokes to them. They became weights on their shoulders.

 

They had many years of toil ahead of them as prophets—struggling under the weight of God’s words in their life.

 

And often the reward many of them received for their toil was exile and occasionally violent deaths.

 

Isaiah, it is popularly believed, died after being put inside a hollow log and sawed in half for what God compelled him to speak.

 

So, even Isaiah knew the power fear had over people.

 

But in the face of these stark realities, in the face of the stark reality of the exile that awaited the people of Judah and Israel, God was still able to speak through Isaiah that somehow, despite all the bad things that were about to happen, ultimately, God would prevail.

 

Even in the face of the invasion by foreign armies, God was still able to say to those people with real conviction, “fear not.”

 

This call is not some “pep rally” cry. God isn’t telling them not to fear just so they rally and win the big game.

 

The “fear not” from Isaiah is a command of real integrity.

 

It is a command of true bravery and real spiritual strength.

 

God is saying to them through Isaiah that, yes, terrible things are about to happen to you, but what is more important than these terrible things?

 

God is.

 

God is more powerful than anything that can possibly happen to you.

 

So, even in the face of overwhelming defeat you can truly not be a slave to fear.

 

Let’s face it: fear is crippling. It is a prison. Fear blocks us from carrying out what God calls each of us to do.

 

If fear rules, we cannot live our lives with any sort of fullness.

 

If fear rules, God becomes an afterthought.

 

God loses out to fear if we let fear control our lives.

 

Certainly, we all must face our hardships in life.

Now, maybe violence in not in our futures (I hope it isn’t in any of our futures), but we do all have much to face in our lives before our own journeys are over.

 

We all have much to be afraid of at times.

 

We still have to get through this pandemic.

 

But in those moments, the words of God cut through those uncertain futures like a blinding light.

 

“Fear not,” God is saying to us still.

 

Nothing you suffer from this time forward will be hidden from your God, who loves you.

 

Nothing you have suffered so far can be hidden from God. God knows what you’ve been through and what you will go through.

 

God is not turning a blind eye to you in the face of these hardships.

 

Why? Because you are valuable.

 

Just as we hear throughout scripture that we should not fear, we also hear that we are valuable.

 

We are precious in the eyes of God.

 

Each and every one of us is important to God.

 

In a sense, fear is an illusion.

 

Fear is somewhat like a nightmare.

When we are actually going through the nightmare, it seems so real—so horrible. But when we awake, the nightmare just sort of fizzles in our memories.

 

That is what fear is like.

 

When we are afraid, there is nothing else like it.

 

It dominates our lives.

 

But when we are beyond the fear, we forget in many ways how terrible it was.

 

God came to us and told us “Fear not.”

 

God came to us and said to us in our uncertainty those words we  long to hear.

 

“Fear not.”

 

So, let us take to heart what God is saying to us in the prophecy of Isaiah and through the words of Jesus and through all of scripture: fear not.

 

Rather, let us rejoice.

 

Let us rejoice in God’s love and presence.

 

And let us know that nothing can separate us from a God who longs to know us and to take our fear from us.

 

Let us pray.

 

Loving God, you command us to flee from fear and to trust in you; do not leave us disappointed. When we do so, come to us when we call, comfort us when we sorrow. Give us hope when all seems bleak. And let your Light shine through any darkness or dears that mat encroach upon us. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

12 Pentecost + St. Mary the Virgin

 

August 15, 2021

 

Luke 1.46-55 

 

+ As you all know, I belong to a very strange, very mysterious sub-culture in the Church.

 

Or maybe I should call it counter-culture.

 

I am a very proud, very unapologetic follower of this strand of belief.

 

And although there are some people who instantly look down their noses at it, or quickly stereotype anyone who claims this brand of Christianity, I proclaim it loudly and gladly.

 

What I loudly and boldly profess is that yes, I am…an Anglo-Catholic.

 

Actually, it’s not much of a secret.

 

I’ve always been VERY open about that.

 

And you can tell I’m an Anglo-Catholic by the way I celebrate Mass or the things I say or the theology that I preach from this pulpit.

 

Though, to be fair, I am probably a bit unorthodox to many Anglo-Catholics I know.

 

But that’s all right.

 

For some people, when I say Anglo-Catholic, some negative images might pop up in peoples’ minds.

 

Thoughts of spiky, overly-conservative, misogynistic forms of Anglicanism immediately come to mind.

 

And there is a validity to that.

 

That has been a part of the tradition.

 

But, I quickly have to add that there’s also another very long and just as important progressive strain of Anglo-Catholicism as well.

Some of the greatest progressive, social and justice-minded people in the Anglican Church throughout history were Anglo-Catholics.

It was the Anglo-Catholics who labored in the slums of East London in the nineteenth century.

Throughout history famous Anglo-Catholics have also included none other than people like poets Christina Rossetti and T.S. Eliot, one of the greatest Archbishops of Canterbury (in my humble opinion anyway), Michael Ramsey and Frances Perkins, who was Secretary of Labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the U.S., just to name a very few.

And modern Anglo-Catholics encompass such people as South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

 

Anglo-Catholics have a rich liturgical history, as most everyone knows.

 

We call the Eucharist “Mass,” we like incense and vestments and all the other “smells and bells” that go along with so called “High Church liturgy.”

 

But they also have a rich spiritual history.

 

Two areas of Anglo-Catholicism that I cherish above all others is the centrality of belief in the Blessed Sacrament—and in the True Presence of Jesus in the Bread and Wine of Holy Eucharist—and in the honor shown Mary, the mother of Jesus.

 

Which is why, today, although it is Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, I have chosen to preach about the Blessed Virgin Mary today.

 

Because August 15 is also her feast day.

 

And also because of the fact that I really love Mary!

 

For us, today the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin.

 

It is also called the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Feast of the Dormition (or going to sleep) of the Theotokos, the God-bearer.

 

This feast day has a long history in the Church, and it is one of my favorites.

 

And today, on this feast, I choose to preach about Mary because she has a lot to teach all of us as Christians.

 

But first, we do need to acknowledge a few things about Mary.

 

One of the big things is the fact that Mary makes a lot of us non-Roman Catholics a little nervous.

 

Let’s face it, when most of us non-Roman Catholics think of Mary, we think of how the Roman Catholics honor her.

 

Visions of statues in backyards, or on dashboards of cars or on the side altars of churches no doubt go through our minds.

 

After all, as my very Lutheran grandmother would say, those Catholic “worship” Mary.

 

Every Roman Catholic I know—and every Anglo-Catholic, including myself—vehemently denies that they worship Mary, though they certainly do not deny that they honor her greatly and place a quite a bit of importance in her intercession.

 

But I think that stigma of Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox having the market cornered on the Virgin Mary is still very much a reality in the Christian church as a whole.

 

So, what about us Episcopalians?

 

Well, for Episcopalians such as myself—for Anglo-Catholics—we see a Church without due reverence for Mary to be a pretty bleak place.

 

In many Episcopal churches I’ve visited, there are statues or paintings of Mary.

 

As we do here at St. Stephen’s.

 

I even know of many Episcopalians even here at St. Stephen’s—including, yes, yours truly—who pray the Rosary on a regular basis.

 

I also pray the Angelus, which honors the Angel Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin Mary to announce that she will bear Jesus, every single morning when I wake up.

 

So, I am adamant in my view that we should reclaim Mary’s role in our life as Christians.

 

We should not fear her, or let her be pigeon-holed in some dusty corner that we imagine belongs only to Roman Catholics; nor should we “worship” her or hold her any higher than she merits.

 

Still, she is, without a doubt, a vital person in our Church and in who we are as Christians.

 

Mary continues to speak to us, not in supernatural visions necessarily as she did to St. Bernadette, but in her words recorded in scripture.

 

So, as you can see, we Episcopalians do honor Mary greatly and we love her dearly.

 

The fact is, all of us who are Christians should honor her and should remember at times how important she is to our faith in Christ.

 

It is a good thing to honor Mary and who she is.

 

And certainly it’s nothing new in the Church as a whole.

 

The honor paid to Mary goes back to the very earliest days of the Church.

 

In fact, it goes back even further.

 

In the Gospel of Luke, we hear Mary say, "From this time forth, all generations shall call me blessed."

 

Certainly that prophecy she made on that very momentous day when the Angel Gabriel came to her and told her she would bear the Son of God has come true.

 

As you know, each Wednesday at our 6:00 p.m. Mass, we usually commemorate a different saint, mostly those saints that we honor in the Episcopal Church, but sometimes a fun, obscure saint no one has ever heard of.

 

Lately we have been honoring powerful women saints in the Church.

 

And it has been wonderful.

 

Because, let me tell you, there are many, many powerful women in the Church’s history!

 

But all of them pale in comparison to Mary.

 

Mary is by the far the most honored saint in the Christian Church.

 

As she should be.

 

By honoring her in such a way, we are helping to fulfill the prophesy of Scripture.

 

And we should never forget the fact that she should be so honored.

 

But who is Mary really?

 Well, when we meet Mary, she is a simple Jewish girl.

 

It’s believed that she was about fourteen when she became pregnant and bore Jesus, which, at that time and in that place, would not have been by any means unusual.

 

Outside of that, not a whole lot is known about her life.

 

We know for certain of the words she spoke to the angel Gabriel, to her kinswoman, Elizabeth (which we have learned in our Wednesday night masses was probably Mary’s Aunt, sister to Mary’s mother Ann), when she visited her not long before she gave birth.

 

But outside of the words we hear in the Gospels, there isn’t a whole lot we know she said.

 

The only other instance in which her words are recorded are at the wedding feast at Cana, when she instructs the servants there, regarding Jesus, to do “whatever he says to you.”

 

Which are pretty important words!

 

But the story of Mary becomes very interesting in the years following the Gospels.

 

It is here that we see the fulfilling of her prophecy.

 

It is here that we find that she truly does become blessed for all generations.

 

If we don’t believe that, then let’s take a look at the Creed which we will recite together in just a few moments.

 

Besides Jesus, there are only two other people mentioned in it.

 

The first is Pontius Pilate.

 

The other is Mary.

 

It specifically says, he was “born of the virgin Mary."

 

That’s an important phrase.

 

On one hand, what this phrase says to us is that Jesus was really a human being.

 

He was born of a woman, just like all of us were born of a woman.

 

He did not simply come down out of heaven like an angel, or like the gods of the Romans or Greeks.

 

He was born, like any other human being.

 

And he was born of a Jewish woman.

 

To be Jewish, one has to have a Jewish mother.

 

It is through the mother that one is a Jew.

 

So, through Mary, we know and acknowledge the fact that this human Jesus was Jewish, which also is very important.

 

On the other hand, the phrase tells us that although he was born like us of a woman, unlike us he wasn’t born in an ordinary way.

 

He was born of a virgin.

 

This virgin birth puts a whole new light on who Jesus was and who he claimed to be.

 

He was like us.

 

He was a human being, like us.

 

But he also was not like us, because he was at the same time the divine Son of God.

 

And that’s probably the most important aspect of all of this.

 

Mary bore the Son of God, the Messiah, to the world.

 

In an ordinary way.

 

But in a very important way.   

 

So, we can see how important Mary’s role is in our own views of what we believe.

 

In a sense, she appears to us as a kind of “hinge” in our understanding of Jesus.

 

Without her, Jesus would not have been able to come to us.

 

She literally bore Jesus to us.

 

And in this way she is the prime example for us.

 

It is a good thing to honor Mary, but more importantly, we should imitate Mary.

 

That “Yes” that Mary said to God when the Angel offered the opportunity to bear Christ was an important “Yes.”

 

It was the most important “yes” for us who follow Jesus.

 

Without that “Yes,” where would we be?

 

And just as Mary said “Yes” to the angel when Gabriel brought her  good news, we too should be saying “yes” to God.

 

And, in saying yes, we too can bear Jesus within us, as she did.

 

We too can carry Jesus within us and bear Jesus to this world.

 

Like Mary we can bring to those who need Jesus and long for Jesus.

 

We too can carry Christ into the world and let him be known through us.

 

Just as Jesus found in Mary his first earthly dwelling-place so, following Mary’s example, Jesus can continue to dwell on earth within each and every one of us as well.

 

In this way, Mary continues to be so vital and meaningful to us.

 

This powerful woman has taught us to be powerful as well, but to do so even in very humble ways.

 

See.

 

Mary really IS important.

 

And we should be grateful for her and for example in our lives.

 

So, let us do what Mary did.

 

Let us bear Jesus to the world as she did.

 

Let us carry him within us where us go.

 

Let us say “Yes” again and again to God in this world, and in all that God asks of us, even if doing so is difficult.

 

And when we do, we know this fact:

 

When we say Yes to God, our Yes will allow God’s Light and presence to be known through us to everyone we encounter and serve.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, when you call us, make us strong, like Mary, to say “Yes” to all you ask of us. Let our “Yes” by a powerful “Yes” in our lives and in the lives of those we are called to serve. And by saying “Yes,” let us bring Jesus into this world again and again, presenting him to those who long for him and need him; in whose name we pray. Amen.

11 Pentecost

 

August 8, 2021

I Kings 19.4-8; Ephesians 4.25-5.2

 

+ Occasionally in our Sunday scripture readings, we find a story that kind of perfectly matches our own faith journey, or a situation in our own lives.

 

I think that’s why people find such consolation in scripture.

 

Very often, we can find our own lives reflected there.

 

Well, one of the stories from scripture that truly resonates with many of us is our very short reading this morning from the Hebrew scriptures.

In our reading from 1 Kings, we find the prophet Elijah in the wilderness.

In that wilderness, after traveling a day’s journey, he asks God to let him die.

In fact, we find him praying a very beautifully profound prayer, despite its dark tone.

Elijah prays, “It is enough: now, O Lord, take away my life…”

Actually, it’s pretty theatrical.

But, if we’re listening closely, that prayer should actually cause us to pause uncomfortably for a moment.

It’s actually quite a shocking prayer.

But it is brutally honest too.

Anyone who has been in the depths of depression or despair knows this prayer.

Anyone who has been touched with the deep, ugly darkness of depression has probably prayed this prayer.

“It is enough. Now, O Lord, take away my life.”

Now, some people would be afraid to pray this prayer.

Why?

Because they’re afraid God might actually answer their prayer.

Well, in the case of Elijah, God actually does.

Wait, you’re probably sayinjg.

No. God didn’t answer Elijah’s prayer.

Elijah lived.

Ah, yes, but actually, God did answer the prayer.

In the midst of his depression, in the midst of his anguish, in the midst of the wilderness of not only his surroundings, but his own spirit, God really does answer the prayer of Elijah.

But…it is not answered in the way Elijah wants.

The prayer is answered with a beautiful “no.”

And we all have to understand and accept that sometimes “no” is the answer to whatever we might be praying for.

But before you think this is cruel—before you start saying that God’s “no” is a cruel no, follow this short, short story of Elijah all the way through.

Yes, God answers Elijah with a non-verbal no.

But God still provides even after the no.

For Elijah, an angel appears and feeds him in his anguish and in that wilderness.

Elijah is not allowed to die.

But he is sustained.

He is refreshed so that he can continue this journey.

This is a beautiful analogy for us, who are also wandering about in the wilderness.

I think many of us have probably come to that time in our lives when we have curled up and prayed for God to take our lives from us, because living sometimes just hurts too much.

We too, more often than not, in our despair and pain, cry out to God.

 

We ask God to relieve us of this anguish.

 

“Take this away from me, God,” we pray.

 

Or, on really bad days, we pray, “Take me away from this pain, God.”

 

“Let me die.”

 

When that happens, God’s no is not the final word.

 

The final word is God’s sustenance.

 

The final word is that fact that, even in our anguish, even in our wilderness, even when we are exhausted and worn out and so depressed we can’t even function, God still provides us with Bread.

 

Maybe not actual bread.

 

But with the Bread of Life.

 

A Bread that truly sustains, that truly refreshes.

 

God provides us with what we need.

 

As much as we may relate to this story of Elijah in the wilderness, we also have this reading from Ephesians this morning

 

Now, I will say this about our reading from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians: it is one of the most difficult scriptures I have ever had to deal with in my life as a Christian.

 

Every time I have heard it or read it, I feel myself sort of (and this is a very evangelical term)…convicted.

 

In the mirror of this scripture, I feel inadequate.

 

I see my own guilt staring back at me.

 

St. Paul lays it on the line.

 

“Be angry,” he says. “But do not sin.”

 

OK.

 

Yes, I can do that.

 

Trust me, I’ve been angry plenty.

 

So, be angry, but don’t act maliciously on your anger.

 

“Let no evil talk come out of your mouth...”

 

Shoot!

 

I was doing so well up to this point.

 

But, this is hard.

 

“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit…”

 

We grieve the Holy Spirit when we let those negative, angry words out of our mouths.

 

When we backbite and complain.

 

When we bash others when others aren’t there.

 

What harm can it do? we wonder.

 

They can’t hear it.

 

But the Holy Spirit hears it.

 

And those negative words do make a difference.

 

They make a difference with God.  

  “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice” Paul writes, “and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”

 

Ok. Yes. We understand all of that as followers of Jesus.

 

But, then, as though to drive home his point, he puts before us a challenge like few other challenges.

 

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

 

“Be imitators of God,” Paul says to us.

 

Be imitators of the God of love we worship.

 

Be imitators of the God of love who loves each of us fully and completely.

 

Be imitators of the God of love who loves us for who we are, just as we are, even when we lash out with our angry words at others.

 

Be imitators of the God who hears our prayers and answers us by feeding us with a life-giving bread in the wilderness of our lives.

 

For me, this has to be the most difficult thing about being a follower of Jesus.

 

There are days when I want to be angry at those people who have wronged me and hurt me.

 

There are days when I want to get revenge on them and “show them.”

 

There are days when it feels almost pleasurable to think about “getting even” with those people and “putting them in their place.”

 

It’s so easy and it feels so good.

 

And it makes the pain of betrayal less.

 

That is certainly the easier thing to do—at least for me.

 

But driving that anger and hatred and frustration from me is so much harder.

 

Being an imitator of God—a God of radical acceptance—is much harder, much more difficult.

 

To be an imitator of the God of love takes work. Hard, concentrated work. 

 

But, in the end, it’s better.

 

Life is just so much better when the darkness of anger is gone from it.

 

Life seems so much less dangerous when we realize everyone is not our enemy.

 

Life is so much sweeter when we refuse to see a person as an enemy who sees us as their enemy.

 

Life is just always so much better when peace and love reign.

 

Yes, I know. It seems so Pollyannaish.

 

It seems so naïve.

 

It seems as though we are deceiving ourselves.

 

But, the fact is, it takes a much stronger person to love.

 

It takes a very strong person to act in peace and love and not in anger and fear.

 

It takes a person of radical strength to be an imitator of a God of radical love.

 

The strength it takes to maintain peace in a time of strife is more incredible than anything we can even imagine.

 

I have had more than one former enemy become my friend, or at least my acquaintance, because of the effort to maintain peace rather than to antagonize.

 

Not always.

 

But a few times, peace has changed people’s hearts.

 

Peace can do that.

 

It can change people.

 

But first it has to change us.

 

We, as followers of Jesus, as imitators of God, need to rid ourselves of the thorns and brambles of hatred and anger so we can let the flowers of peace blossom in our lives.

 

But it begins with us.

 

It begins with us seeing ourselves for who are—loved children of God attempting to imitate that God of love.

 

So, let us be true followers of Jesus in all aspects of our lives.

 

Let us strive to imitate our God of peace and love in everything we do.

 

Let us, in imitating our God, also reach out and feed those who are in their own wilderness.

 

Let us let peace and love reign in our hearts and in our lives.

 

Let that peace and love overcome all that anger, the hatred, the frustration that seems to reign in most of the world right now.

 

And when we let peace and love reign, we will find that it permeates through us.

 

Everything we do is an act of peace, is an act of love to others.

 

And that is what being a follower of Jesus in this world is.

 

That is the sermon we preach to others.

 

That is the message of God’s love that we proclaim in our very lives.

 

That is true evangelism.

 

And that is what each of us is not only called to do by Jesus, but commanded to do by him.

 

“Live in love as Christ loved us,” Paul says to each of us.

 

When we do, that love will change the world.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy and loving God, help us to imitate you, to embody you in this world. Help us to embody your love and acceptance in all those we encounter in our lives. And by doing so, help us to change this world for the better. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

 

 

10 Pentecost

 

August 1, 2021

 

Exodus 16.2-4, 9-15; Psalm 78.23-29; John 6.24-35

 

+ Do you remember those Snickers commercials from a couple of years ago?

 

You know the ones.

 

In it we see Betty White playing football with a bunch of young guys.

 

At one point, poor Betty gets tackled.

 

One of the guys then comes up to Betty, and says, “Mike, you’re playing like Betty White out there.”

 

A young woman—Mike’s girlfriend, we presume—  then comes over to Betty and gives her a Snickers bar.

 

She eats it and magically she turns back into—Mike.

 

We then see Abe Vigoda gets tackled.

 

At the end of the commercial we hear, “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”

 

I loved that commercial!

 

But we all know that feeling.

 

We are not us when we’re hungry.

 

We do get grouchy and snippy when we’re hungry.

 

We mumble and we complain.

 

And we’re unpleasant to be around.

 

We are not “us” when we’re hungry.

 

Which explains my attitude all the time.

 

After all, the jokes goes, all I live off is grass and twigs—stupid vegans! 

 

Those commercials and that line could very well have been used on some of the people in our scriptures readings for today.

 

Certainly today, we get some complaining in our scripture readings.

 

In our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures—from Exodus—we find the Israelites, in their hunger, complaining and grumbling.

 

In some translations, we find the word “murmuring.”

 

Over and over again in the Exodus story they seem to complain and grumble and murmur.

 

To be fair, complaining and grumbling would be expected from people who are hungry.

 

But in their hunger, God provides for them.

 

God provides them this mysterious manna—this strange bread from heaven.

 

Nobody’s real clear what this mysterious manna actually was.

 

It’s often described as flakes, or a dew-like substance.

 

But it was miraculous.

 

Now, in our Gospel, we find the same story of the Israelites and their hunger, but it has been turned around entirely.

 

As our Liturgy of the Word for today begins with hunger and all the complaining and murmuring and grumbling and craving that goes along with it, it ends with fulfillment.

 

We find that the hungers now are the hungers and the cravings of our souls, of our hearts.

 

Now, this kind of spiritual hunger is just as real and just as all-encompassing as physical hunger.

 

It, like physical hunger, can gnaw at us.

 

When we are spiritually hungry we also are not “us.”

 

We too crave after spiritual fulfillment.

 

We mumble and complain and murmur when we are spiritually unfulfilled.

 

We too feel that gaping emptiness within us when we hunger from a place that no physical food or drink can quench.

 

In a sense, we too are like the Israelites, wandering about in our own wilderness—our own spiritual wilderness.

 

Most of us know what is like to be out there—in that spiritual wasteland—grumbling and complaining, hungry, shaking our fists at the skies and at God.

 

We, like them, cry and complain and lament.

 

We feel sorry for ourselves and for the predicaments we’re in. 

 

And we, like them, say to ourselves and to God, “If only I hadn’t followed God out here—if only I had stayed put or followed the easier route, I wouldn’t be here.”

 

We’ve all been in that place.

 

We’ve all been in that desert, to that place we thought God had led us.

 

I’ve certainly had it happen to me in my own life.

 

There were times when I went so self-assuredly.

 

I went certain that this was what God wanted for me.

 

I was sure I had read all the signs.

 

I had listened to that subtle voice of the Spirit within me.

 

I had gauged my calling from God through the discernment of others.

 

And then, suddenly, there I was.

 

What began as a concentrated stepping forward, had become an aimless wandering.

 

And, in that moment, I found myself questioning everything—I questioned myself, I questioned the others who discerned my journey, I questioned the Spirit who I was so certain spoke within me.

 

And, in that emptiness, in that frustration, I questioned God.

 

And guess what I did then.

 

I turned into Betty White.

 

I complained.

 

And I lamented.

 

Lamenting is a word that seems kind of outdated for most of us.

 

We think of lamenting being some overly dramatic complaining.

 

Which is exactly what it is.

 

It is what we do when we feel things like desolation.

 

Like hunger, few of us, again I hope, have felt utter desolation.

 

But when we do, we know, there is no real reason to despair.

 

As followers of Jesus, we will find our strength and consolation in the midst of that spiritual wilderness.

 

We know that manna will come to us in that spiritual desert.

 

And that manna, for us, is the Eucharist.

 

The Eucharist sustains us and holds us up during those desolate times.

 

All we have to do, when we can’t seem to do anything else, is partake of the Eucharist.

 

To come and eat and drink of the bread and wine of holy Communion.

 

And when we do, we know that God’s presence in this “bread of God” will be there for us.

 

This Bread we share and the wine we drink is the very “bread of God.”

 

This is what Eucharist is all about.

 

This is why the Eucharist is so important to us.

 

Several years ago there I was a book that I read that I recommended to many people.

 

It was Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell.

 

Now, I love Rob Bell.

 

And I love this book, though I don’t like the title.

 

But it is a book about the Eucharist.

 

And there was a wonderful passage Bell shares.

 

He posts several difficult questions, any one of which we have no doubt asked at some point in our journey.

 

“Where was God when I tested positive?

Where was God when I was suffering?

Where was God when I lost my job?

Where was God when I was hungry?

Where was God when I was alone?”

 

“The Eucharist,” Bell says, “is the answer to the questions.”

 

Where was God?

 

God was right here.

 

Right here, with us.

 

And continues to be.

 

Because we have the Eucharist, no longer can we accuse God of being distant.

 

Because, God has come to us.

 

The God of Jesus has come to us.

 

And continues to come to us in this meal.

 

Again and again.

 

Here, we truly do eat the Bread of angels.

 

Here, we do partake of the grain of heaven.

 

This is our manna in our spiritual wilderness.

 

In this Eucharist, at this altar, we find God, present to us in just exactly the way we need God to present to us.

 

In our hunger, God feeds us.

 

In our grumbling and complaining, God quiets us.

 

After all, when we are eating and drinking, we can’t complain and grumble.

 

And unlike the food we eat day by day, the food we eat at this altar will not perish.

 

When we are hungry, we not really “us.”

 

But in this meal—in this Eucharist—we truly do become us.

 

The real us.

 

The us we are meant to be.

 

In this Eucharist, in the Presence of Jesus we find in this bread and this wine, we find that our grumbling and murmuring and complaining have been silenced with that quiet but sure statement that comes to us from that Presence we encounter here:

 

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus says. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

 

In the echo of that statement, we are silenced.

 

Our grumbling spiritual stomachs are silenced.

 

Our spiritual loneliness is vanquished.

 

Our cravings are fulfilled.

 

In the wake of those powerful words, we find our emptiness fulfilled.

 

We find the strength to make our way out of the wilderness to the promised land Jesus proclaims to us.

 

“I am the bread of life,” he says to us.

 

This is the bread of life, here at this altar.

 

And, in turn, we become the bread of life to others because we embody the God of the one whom we follow. 

 

“Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

 

So, let us come to the bread of life

 

Let Jesus whom we encounter in this Bread and wine take from us our gnawing hunger and our craving thirst.

 

And when Jesus does, we will be given us what we have been truly craving all along.

 

Let us pray.

 

Go of Jesus, God of Salvation, you hear us even when we grumble and complain and murmur.  And even then you provide for us bread in the wilderness, your Bread, the Bread of Heaven, the Bread of angels. We thank you for feeding us and making us whole. And we ask that you may strengthen us in this food we eat to go out and feed others so that they too made be whole. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.