Jamie Parsley's Blog, page 27

Pentecost

 

May 23, 2021

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Acts 2.1-21

 

+ We are of course celebrating Pentecost today.

 

It’s a very important day in the life of the Church—a day right up there with Christmas and Easter.

 

It is, essentially, the “birthday” of the Church.

 

It now 50 days after Easter.

 

The word “Pentecost” refers to the Greek word for 50.

 

And it’s connection with the Jewish feast of Shavuot (which ended on Tuesday) is pretty clear.

 

Shavuot is a wonderful and important Jewish feast.

 

Shavuot 50 days after Passover.

 

The belief is that, after fifty days of traveling after leaving Egypt, the nation of Israel now has finally arrived at Mount Sinai.

 

And on Shavuot, the Torah, the “Law,” the 10 Commandments were delivered to them by Moses.

 

Shavuot is also a the feast on which the early Jews offered to God the first fruits of their harvests.

 

Now that is particularly meaningful to us Christians and what we celebrate on this day of Pentecost.

 

It is meaningful that the Holy Spirit came among us on this feast in which the first fruits were offered to God.

 

After all, those first Christiana who gathered in that upper room in our reading this morning from Acts, were truly the first fruits of the Church.

 

And let’s not forget that those first Christians were also Jews, gathering to celebrate the festival of Shavuot.

 

God chose to send the Spirit on those first followers of Jesus on just the right day.

 

Still, like nuclear power or electricity, God’s Spirit is sometimes a hard thing for us to grasp and understand. 

 

The Spirit can be elusive and strange and sometimes we might have a hard time wrapping our minds around the Spirit.

 

But it is clear from the words of Jesus before he ascends back into heaven what the role of the Spirit is for us:

 

 "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

 

So, Jesus will leave—at the ascension, he went physically back up to heaven.

 

We will not be able to touch him and feel him and listen to his human voice again, on this side of the veil.

 

But God is leaving something amazing in Jesus’ place.

 

Jesus is gone from us physically, but God is still with us.

 

In a sense what happens with the Descent of God’s Spirit upon us is the fact that we now have the potential to be prophets ourselves.

 

You hear me talk about this all the time.

 

The same Spirit which spoke to Ezekiel in our reading this morning, which spoke to Isaiah, which spoke to Jeremiah, which spoke to Moses, which spoke through Jesus, also can now speak to us and be revealed to us just as it spoke and was revealed to those prophets from the Hebrew Bible and through Jesus.

 

That is who the Spirit is in our midst.

 

The Spirit we celebrate today—and hopefully every day—is truly the spirit of the God that came to us and continues to be with us.

 

It is through this Spirit that we come to know God in ways we might never have before.

 

God’s Spirit comes to us wherever we may be in our lives—in any situation or frustration.

 

God’s Spirit is with us, as Jesus promised, always.

 

Always.

 

For those of us who want to grasp these experiences—who want to have proof of them—the Spirit doesn’t fit well into the plan.

 

We can’t grasp the Spirit.

 

We can’t make the Spirit do what we want it to do.

 

In that way, the Spirit truly is like the Wind that came rushing upon those first disciples.

 

So, how do we know the Spirit is working in our lives?

 

Well, as Jesus said, we know the tree by its fruit.

 

In our case, we know the Spirit best through the fruits God’s Spirit gives us.

 

Remember what the feast of Pentecost originally was? The feast of Shavuot?

 

It was the Jewish feast on which the first fruits were offered to God.

 

In a sense, what happens on our Pentecost, is God returning those fruits back to us.

 

On the feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the fruits the Spirit of God gives to us and we can be thankful for them, and, most importantly, share them in turn with those around us.

 

The Spirit comes to us and manifests itself to us in the fruits given to us by the Spirit.

 

For me, the Spirit of God comed to me not in a noisy, raucous way, but rather in a quiet, though just as intense, way.

 

The Sprit of God as I have experienced it has never been a “raining down” so to speak, but rather a “welling up from within.”

 

The fruits of the Spirit for me have been things such as an overwhelming joy in my life.

 

I have known the Spirit to draw close when I feel a true humbleness come to me.

 

When the Spirit is near, I feel clear-headed and, to put it simply, happy.

 

Or, in the midst of what seems like an unbreakable dark grief, there is suddenly a real and potent sense of hope and light.

 

When the future seems bleak and ugly, the Spirit can come in and make everything worth living again.

 

We experience God’s Spirit whenever we feel real joy or real hope.

 

As Jesus says in today’s Gospel, the Spirit of God is a Spirit of Truth.

 

We experience God’s Spirit when we strive for truth in this world, when truth comes to us.

 

In turn, we are far from God’s Spirit when we let bitterness and anger and frustration lead the way.

 

We frustrate God’s Spirit when we grumble and mumble about each other and hinder the ministries of others in our church, when we let our own agendas win out over those who are trying also to do something to increase God’s Kingdom in our midst.

 

We deny the Spirit when we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

 

No doubt everyone here this morning has felt God’s Spirit in some way, although we might not have readily recognized that experience as God’s Spirit.

 

But our job, as Christians, is to allow those fruits of the Spirit to flourish and grow.

 

For us, we let the Spirit of God flourish when we continue to strive for truth and justice, when stand up against the dark forces of this world.

 

The Spirit of God compels again and again to stand up and to be defiant against the dark forces of this world!

 

On the feast of Shavuot, the scripture we heard from Ezekiel today is read.

 

Again, remember, those first followers of Jesus on that first day of Pentecost would have heard this scripture that same day as well.

 

It is an amazing scripture and an amazing vision.

 

In it, God’s Spirit revives the bones in the valley.

 

What appears to be dead and lifeless is given life by God’s life-giving Spirit.  

 

And that reading ends with these very powerful words that speak so clearly not only to the Jewish people, but to us as well.

 

Ezekiel says,

 

Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

 

God’s Spirit is placed within us so that the graves of our lives may be opened, and we can stand in that place to which God has lead us.

 

That dynamic and life-giving presence of the Spirit of God speaks loudly to us.

 

Certainly we have seen God’s Spirit at work here in our congregation as we celebrate a bountiful harvest—the growth and vitality here.

 

We see the Holy Spirit at work in the ministries we do, in the love we share with others, with the truth we proclaim as Christians, even in the face of opposition.

 

We experience this Spirit of truth when we stand up against injustice, wherever it may be.

 

This is how God’s Spirit comes to us.

 

The Spirit does not always tear open the ceiling and force its way into our lives.

 

The Spirit rather comes to us just when we need the Spirit to come to us.

 

Often the Spirit comes to us as fire—an all-consuming fire that burns way all anger and hatred and fear and pettiness and nagging and all the other negative, dead chaff we carry within us.

 

So, this week, in the glow of the Pentecost light, in the Shavuot glow with the Law written deep in our hearts, let us look for the gifts of the Spirit in our lives and in those around us.

 

Let us open ourselves to God’s Spirit and let it flow through us like a caressing wind and burn through us like a purifying fire.

 

And let us remember the true message of the Spirit to all of us.

 

Whenever it seems like God is distant or nonexistent, that is when God might possibly be closest of all, dwelling within us, being breathed unto us as with those first disciples.

 

On these feasts of Shavuot and Pentecost—these feasts of the fruits of God—these feasts of the fire of God—let us give thanks for this God who never leaves us, who never stops loving us, but who comes to us again and again in mercy and in truth.

 

Let us pray.

 

Come, holy Spirit, come!

Come as holy fire and burn in us,
Come as holy wind and cleanse us,
Come as holy light and lead us,
Come as holy truth and teach us,
Come as holy forgiveness and free us,
Come as holy love and enfold us,
Come as holy power and enable us,
Come as holy life and dwell in us.
Come, Holy Spirit, and increase in us your gifts of grace
Convict us, convert us,
Consecrate us, until we are wholly yours
And Transform us into the image of Christ. Amen

7 Easter

 

The Sunday after the Ascension

 

May 16, 2021

 

John 17.6-19

 

 

+ Well, as you know, the mask mandate was lifted by the CDC on Thursday.

 

I will be releasing updated protocols today after asking for feedback from our Vestry today.

 

It is a time to be cautiously optimistic about our future.

 

And, as I’ve been saying for several weeks, we need to start thinking about moving into “post-pandemic” mode.

 

We are in a kind of plateau right now.

 

We are in a flat, open space between where we have been and where we are     going.

 

So, what does that mean?

 

How do we do that?

 

What does the post-pandemic world—and more specifically, the post-pandemic St. Stephen’s—look like?

 

Well, I don’t know.

 

None of us do.

 

But I do know that, just as somehow we got through the darkest day of the pandemic, so we continue to move forward and do what we’re called to do in the wake of this pandemic.

 

When these things happen—when bad stuff or times of major change happens, I always say: look, at how the Spirit of God moves in our midst.

 

I do believe that we are finding ourselves moving into a place, yet again, that is very similar to place those first followers of Jesus were in right about now in their following of Jesus just after Jesus ascended to heaven.

 

They are being prepared for the movement of the Spirit of God in their lives.

 

This week, in our scripture readings, we move slowly away from the Easter season toward Pentecost.

 

For the last several weeks, we have been basking in the afterglow of the resurrected Jesus.

 

In our Gospel readings, this resurrected Jesus has walked with us, has talked with us, has eaten with us and has led the way for us.

 

Now, he has been taken up.

 

We find a transformation of sorts happening.

 

With his ascension, our perception of Jesus has changed.

 

No longer is he the wise sage, the misunderstood rebel, the religious renegade that he seemed to be when he walked around, performing miracles and upsetting the religious and political powers that be.

 

He is now something so much more.

 

He is more than just a regular prophet.

 

He is the Prophet extraordinaire.

 

He is the fulfillment of all prophecies.

 

He is more than just a king—a despotic monarch of some sort like Caesar or Herod.

 

He is truly the Messiah.

 

He is the divine Son of God.

 

At his ascension, we find that he is, in a sense, anointed, crowned and ordained.

 

He does not just ascend back to heaven and then is kind of dissolved into the great unknown.

 

He ascends, then assumes a place at God’s right hand.

 

At his ascension, we find that what we are gazing at is something we could not comprehend before.

 

He has helped us to see that God has truly come among us.

 

He has reminded us that God has taken a step toward us.

 

He has showed us that God loves us and cares for us.

 

He has shown us that the hold death held on us is now broken.

 

He has reminded us that God speaks to us not from a pillar of cloud or fire, not on some shroud-covered mountain, not in visions.

 

But God is with us and speaks in us. We are God’s prophets now.  

 

The puzzle pieces are falling into place.

 

What seemed so confusing and unreal is starting to come together.

 

God truly does love us and know us.

 

And next week, one more puzzle piece falls into place.

 

Next week, we will celebrate God’s Spirit descending upon and staying with us.

 

For the moment, we are in this plateau, caught in between those two events—the Ascension and Pentecost—trying to make sense of what has happened and trying to prepare ourselves for what is about to happen.

 

But things are about to really change.

 

Man, are things about to change!

 

We are caught between Jesus’ ascent into heaven and the Spirit’s descent to us.

 

See, plateaus are not bad things.

 

A plateau offers us a time for to pause, to ponder who we are and where are in this place—in this time in which everything seems so spiritually topsy-turvy, in this time before the Spirit moves and stirs up something incredible.

 

This week, smack dab in the middle of the twelve days between the Ascension and Pentecost, we find ourselves examining the impact of this event of God in our lives.

 

And God has made an impact in our lives.

 

The commission that the ascended Jesus gave to the apostles, is still very much our commission as well.

 

We must love—fully and completely.

 

Because in loving, we are living.

 

In loving, we are living fully and completely.

 

In loving, we are bringing the ascended Christ to others.

 

And we must go out and live out this commission in the world.

 

When we do, the ascended Christ is very much acting in the world.

 

When we think about what those first followers went through in a fairly short period of time—Jesus’ betrayal and murder, his resurrection and his ascension—we realize it was a life altering experience.

 

Their lives—their faith, their whole sense of being—was changed forever.

 

They would never be who they were again.

 

That is where we are right now as well, right here in this plateau in the pandemic.

 

We find ourselves simply moving through the life-altering events with bated breath.

 

Only later, when everything has settled down, will we have the opportunity to examine what had just happened to us.

 

And it is then that we realize the enormity of the changes in our lives.

 

For those first followers of Jesus, it seems like they didn’t have much of a change to ponder their life-altering experiences.

 

As soon as one life-altering experience happened, another one came along.

 

Just when they had experienced Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, they encountered this outpouring of God’s Spirit in their lives.

 

The waters, it seemed, were kept perpetually stirred.

 

Nothing was allowed to settle.

 

That is what our ministry is often like.

 

One day, very early in my career, I came to that realization myself.

 

I’m sure Deacon John knows this to be true as well.

 

Ministry is perpetually on-going.

 

There is never an ending to it.

 

It’s always something.

 

One week brings another set of opportunities, set-backs, trip-ups, tediums, frustrations, joys, celebrations.

 

These are things those first followers of Jesus no doubt struggled with.

 

Yet we, like them, are sustained.

 

We, like them, are upheld.

 

We, like them, are supported by the God who welcomed the ascended Jesus, whose work we are doing in this world.

 

In those moments when our works seems useless, when it seems like we have done no good work, the God who brought Jesus back still triumphs.

 

We all remember that song by the Beatles, “Eleanor Rigby.”

 

I remember how sad I used to feel when I heard them sing about Father Mackenzie, how he

 

“…wipes the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave.

No one was saved.”

 

You know what?

 

It feels like that sometimes.

 

But those moments are moments of self-centeredness.

 

Those moments are moments when we think it all depends on us.

 

On ME.

 

Our job, in this time between Jesus’ departure from us and the return of the Holy Spirit to us, in the post-pandemic era that we are entering, is to simply let God do what God needs to do in this interim.

 

We need to let the Holy Spirit work in us and through us.

 

We need to let the God who brought Jesus to heaven be the end result of our work.

 

When we wipe our hands as we walk from the grave, lamenting the fact that it seems no one was saved, we need to realize that, of course, it seems that way as we gaze downward at our hands.

 

But above us, the Ascension is happening.

 

Above us, Jesus, seated at God’s right hand, is triumphant—as Prophet of prophets, of King of Kings, as the High Priest of all priests.

 

Above us, in that place of glory with God, Jesus triumphs—and we with him.

 

Above us, God’s Spirit is about to rain down upon us as flames of fire.

 

All we have to do is look up.

 

All we have to do is stop gazing at our dirty, callused, over-worked hands—all we have to do is turn from our self-centeredness—and look up.

 

And there we will see the triumph.

 

And as we do, we will realize that more were saved than we initially thought.

 

Someone was saved. We were saved.

 

Jesus has ascended.

 

And we have—or will—ascend with him as well.

 

He prays in today’s Gospel that we “may have [his] joy made complete in [ourselves].”

 

That joy comes when we let the Holy Spirit be reflected in what we do in this world.

 

So, let this Spirit of joy be made complete in you.

 

Let the Spirit of joy live in you and through you and be reflected to others by you.

 

When we do, we will be, as Jesus promises us, “sanctified in truth.”

 

We will be sanctified in the truth of knowing and living out our lives in the light of the ascension.

 

We will be sanctified by the fact that we have looked up and seen the truth happened above us in beauty and light and joy.

 

Let us pray.

 

Loving God, we rejoice today in the fact that you have brought your Son Jesus to be seated at your right hand. Prepare us as we wander about in this plateau in our lives, so that we can truly receive your Spirit and all the gifts that comes with Pentecost. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

 

 

6 Easter

Rogation Sunday

May 9, 2021

 

1 John 5.1-6; John 15.6-17

 

+ OK.

 

Most of you have hearing my sermons for a long time now.

 

You know I am a pretty simple preacher.

 

I have about two subjects I pretty consistently and passionately preach about.

 

And those two preaching subjects are?

 

That’s right.

 

Love and baptism.

 

And in our scripture readings for today, we get both.

 

(I’ll spare you baptism today in this sermon)

 

You know, for all my preaching about love, you’d think I was some kind of hippie or something.

 

There’s really nothing hippie-like about me.

 

Well, I am vegan.

 

And I am a pacifist.

 

And I protest a lot about things.

 

Geeesh…maybe I am a hippie after all.

 

Yes, I love to preach about love.

 

Today, we get a double dose of love in our scriptures.

 

Jesus, in our Gospel reading, is telling us yet again to love.

 

He tells us:

 

“Abide in my love.”

 

A beautiful phrase!

 

And St. John, in his epistle, reminds us of that commandment to love God and to love each other.

 

Now, as you hear me preach again and again, this love is what being a Christian is all about.

 

Can I stress that enough?

 

Every Sunday, without fail, I preach that from this pulpit.

 

It is not about commandments and following the letter of the law.

 

It is not about being nice and sweet all the time.

 

It is not about being “right” all the time.

 

It is certainly not about being morally superior!

 

It is about following Jesus—and following Jesus means loving fully and completely.

 

It means loving like Jesus loved.

 

And following Jesus means obeying him and doing what he did.

 

And what did he do, what did he preach? 

 

He preached:

 

Love God.

 

Love each other.

 

Yes, I know.

 

It actually does sound kind of…hippie-like.

 

It sounds fluffy.

 

But the love Jesus is speaking of is not a sappy, fluffy love.

 

Love, for Jesus—and for us who follow Jesus—is a radical thing.

 

To love radically means to love everyone—even those people who are difficult to love.

 

To love those people we don’t want to love—to love the people who have hurt us or abused us or wronged us in any way—is the most difficult thing we can do.

 

If we can do it all.

 

And sometimes we just can’t.

 

But we can’t get around the fact that this is the commandment from Jesus.

 

We must love.

 

Or, at the very least, strive to love.

 

For me—maybe I’m just simple.

 

Maybe I’m just a simple priest, up here in North Dakota.

 

I am at this incredible parish that, on first appearances, might seem like some quirky gathering of eccentric Christians.

 

But underneath it all, it is this strange, powerful spiritual powerhouse of a parish.

 

It is a parish that embodies solidly this command of Jesus to

 

“Abide in my love.”

 

Maybe not perfectly.

 

Maybe not in a classic sense.

 

But certainly in its attempt to do what we are called to do.

 

Call me simple but abiding in Jesus’ love leaves no room for homophobia or racism or sexism or any other kind of discrimination.

 

You can’t abide in love and live with hatred and anger.

 

It just can’t be done.

 

When Jesus says “Abide in my love” it really a challenge to us as the Church.

 

And, as you hear me say, again and again, the Church IS changing.

 

And it should!

 

Certainly, the Church has changed in the wake of Covid.

 

The Church of the future, whether we like it or not, has to shed those old ways of abiding in anger and fear and hatred.

 

The Church of the future needs to constantly strive to abide in Jesus love.

 

If it does not, it’s gonna die!

 

It will become an outmoded, hate-filled cesspool that will eventually destroy itself.

If it becomes a place led by an insular, self-selected, privileged few, then it will die on the vine.

 

And if it does, then so be it!

 

Now, for me, I won’t stop following Jesus.

 

I won’t stop loving God and other. Or trying to anyway.

 

Because if that’s the place the Church becomes, I know it is not the place Jesus is leading me to.

 

And hopefully none of the rest of us either.

 

And if that’s what the Church becomes, it will, in fact, stop being the Church.

 

If the Church becomes a place of hatred or anger, I doubt many of us would remain members of that church.

 

This is why the Church must change.

 

This is why the Church must be a place of love and compassion and radical acceptance.

 

Because the alternative is too frightening for me.

 

And we see it all the time around us us—this alternate Church, this Anti-Church.

 

A Church in which hatred and racism and sexism and homophobia is preached from its pulpits.

 

A place in which there are debates about denying people the Body and Blood of Christ of Holy Communion because people don’t believe exactly what a particular Church believes.

 

This coming Thursday, we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus.

 

On that day, he was physically taken up from us.

 

But what he has left us with is this reality of us—his followers—being the physical Body of Jesus in this world.

 

We can only be that physical Body of Jesus when we abide in his love.

 

When we love fully and radically.

 

There’s no getting around that.

 

There’s no rationalizing that away.

 

We can argue about this.

 

We can quote scriptures and biblical and ecclesiastical precedence all we want.

 

We can throw around canons and rubrics and diocesan provisions al we want.

 

None of that furthers the Kingdom of God.

 

None of that is abiding in Jesus’ love.

 

Abiding in love is abiding in love.

 

And abiding in love means loving—fully and completely and without judgment.

 

To be Jesus’ presence in the world means loving fully and completely and radically.

 

Call that hippie-like.

 

Call that heresy or a simplistic understanding of what Jesus is saying or part of the so-called “radical liberal agenda.”

 

I call it abiding it in Jesus’ love, which knows no bounds, which knows no limits.

 

So, today, and this week, abide in this love.

 

Let us celebrate God by living out God’s command to love.

 

As we remember and rejoice in the Ascension, let our hearts, full of love, ascend with Jesus to God’s side.

 

Let them soar upward in joy at the fact that God’s Holy Spirit is still with us.

 

And we when we love—when we love each other and God—God’s spirit will remain with us and be embodied in us.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, as we prepare for the celebration of your Son’s Jesus’ Ascension to your right hand, so may our hearts and souls ascend to that place where we can rest alongside you, in that place of light and rest, in Jesus’s Name, we pray. Amen.

5 Easter

 

May 2, 2021

 

Acts 8.26-40; 1 John 4.7-21; John 15.1-8

 

+ Friday was the 5th anniversary of the death of one of my heroes—someone I talk about on a regular basis here at St. Stephen’s and…well…everywhere.

 

On April 30, 2016, Father Daniel Berrigan died.

 

I mention Fr. Dan on a regular basis in my sermons and in my personal life.

 

He was one of the greats of the Church.

 

Born in Virginia, Minnesota on May 9, 1921 (yes, his 100th birthday is coming up quickly so be warned: you may be hearing a LOT about Fr Dan around that time), Fr. Dan was a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, a poet, writer, playwright, which all seem very quaint and nice.

 

But Fr. Dan is most known for being a vocal pacifist and anti-war protester.

 

During the 1960s, along with his brother, Phillip, who was also a priest (though he later left the Priesthood), he was a vocal protester against the war in Vietnam, which got him in a load of trouble.

 

He was one of the so-called “Cantonsville 9,” who, on May 9, 1968, broke into the draft board office in Cantonsville, Maryland, took 378 draft files, brought them to parking lot, poured homemade napalm on them and set them on fire.

 

This action got Fr. Dan on the FBI’s Most Wanted List (the first priest to make that list). It also  got him on the cover of Time magazine, and, when he was eventually caught, spent time in prison.  

 

For those of you who might not know Fr. Dan, or his brother Phillip, please do some research on them.

 

But he is one of my heroes, and every so often you will see me post a very famous poster of him on my social media, which shows Father Dan in handcuffs, flashing a peace sign, with a large caption that reads DISOBEY.

 

But with Fr. Daniel’s 100th birthday anniversary coming up and with the anniversary of his death on Friday, there are a lot of stories going around about Father Daniel.

 

One of the best that I saw yesterday on Facebook was this one.

 

A man shared the story about how, when he was 18 or 19, he called 411 to asked for the number for Daniel Berrigan.

 

Sure enough, he got through, and Berrigan graciously took the young man’s call and answered his questions for about an hour.

 

“One answer,” the man said, “transubstantiated my understanding of humanity and forever changed my life.”

 

At one point the young man asked, “Fr. Dan, if you were a contemporary of Jesus…”

 

To which Fr. Dan interrupted and said, “Well, I am. Aren’t you?”

 

I am a contemporary of Jesus.

 

Are you?  

 

That is what we need to be asking ourselves today and for the rest of our lives.

 

Jesus is our contemporary.

 

In this Easter season especially, how can we say we aren’t?

 

Jesus is our contemporary.

 

He is alive and present in our lives.

 

Right now.

 

Right here.

 

Yes, he is alive and present in that aumbry up there.

 

In a few moments, he will be alive and present in the bread and wine our Eucharist.

 

He is  alive and present in the words of scripture that we just heard.

 

And he is alive and present in each of us this morning.

 

Just as it did for Fr. Daniel Berrignan, so such a perspective changes and affects us.

 

It makes us different people.

 

So, how do we do this?

 

How do we live as contemporaries of Jesus in this world?

 

We do it by simply being who we are.

 

We do it by simply walking alongside Jesus in this world, by being his follower, by being his very presence in this world.

 

In that wonderful, amazingly powerful reading we have today from 1 John, what do we learn about God?

 

We learn that “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”

 

God is love!

 

How incredible is that??

 

And in today’s Gospel, we find Jesus giving us a glimpse of what it means to be a contemporary of Jesus.

 

“I am the vine, you are the branches,” Jesus tells us.

 

The effective branch bears fruit.

 

Our job as Christians is to do just that.

 

It is to bear fruit.

 

Right now.

 

Not at some point in the future.

 

Right now.

 

Bearing fruit means we make a difference in the world.

 

It means that we embody a God who is love.

 

Bearing fruit being effective as Christians.

 

Now, being an effective  Christian isn’t only about following private devotions, and reading the Bible by ourselves.

 

Being an effective  Christian isn’t about coming to church to be entertained.

 

Or to feel the Church owes me something.

 

Being a Christian isn’t only about our own private faith.

 

And let me tell you, it certainly has nothing to do with feeling safe and complacent.

 

Being an effective Christian means living out our faith—fully and completely, in every aspect of our life.

 

And living out our faith as followers of Jesus means that we must be pliable to some extent.

 

And we must be fertile.

 

We must go with change as it comes along.

 

We must remain relevant.

 

Now that doesn’t mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

 

In fact it means embracing and holding tightly to what we have do well.

 

We still celebrate our Holy Eucharist.

 

We still celebrate and remember our baptisms.

 

In fact, we recognize what an amazing and revolutionary act baptism is.

 

No where do we see how revolutionary baptism is than in our reading from Acts today.

 

This has been a very important scripture to me for some time.

 

The introduction of the Ethiopian Eunuch is vital for us—especially those of us who are a sexual minority in this world.

 

The Ethiopian Eunuch is a marginalized person—a person who is not allowed to be
fully included in the Jewish fellowship because of the castration that was done to them.

 

But for Philip to accept this person--who by Jewish Law could not be considered fertile, who would by some be seen as a barren branch--and baptize them and include them in the fellowship of Christ is a story of radical acceptance and inclusion.

 

Of course, the Ethiopian eunuch is important to Transgender people, who relate to the Eunuch.

 

But the Eunuch is important to people like me who are asexual, who definitely relate to the Ethiopian Eunuch.  

 

In the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the eunuch is actually named and seen as a saint.

 

They are given the name St. Bachos and in the Easter Orthodox Church St. Simeon (sometimes referred to together as St. Simeon Bachos).

 

In this story we saw how radically inclusive and revolutionary the act of Baptism can be.

And should be.

I will still be wearing these vestments at Mass. And, sometimes, funny hats.

We will still cling and hold dearly to the Book of Common Prayer

And to our music.

And to our organ

And to our ministries.

We respect and honor and celebrate our tradition, our history, our past.

But it also means that we sometimes have to take a good, hard new look at why we do these things and how we do these things.

And what these things mean to us and to the world around us.

Being a Christian means following Jesus—not just “believing in Jesus” and worshipping Jesus.

Following Jesus means knowing that he is here—he is or contemporary.

Too many Christians today equate being Christian with just worshipping Jesus.

Now, you know this has been a big issue in my life recently.

I’ve been preaching about this quite a lot lately.

This is one of my BIG frustrations with the Church, and one way in which I see that Church desperately needs to change.

If we worship Jesus without following and obeying Jesus, without seeing him right here right now as our contemporary, then we not just hypocrites, we are idolaters!

We cannot worship Jesus and then treat others like crap.

 

If we do, we fail as Christians. And we fail Jesus.

 W

orshipping Jesus without following Jesus is a cop-out.

 

Following Jesus means letting Jesus lead the way.

 

It means allowing the vine to sustain us, to nourish us, to encourage growth within us, so we in turn can bear fruit.

 

As baptized followers of Jesus, as Christians and Episcopalians who are striving to live out the Baptismal Covenant in our lives, we know that to be relevant, to be vital, we must be fruitful.

 

Following Jesus means that we will follow him through radical times of change.

 

And by being fruitful and growing and flourishing, we are making a difference in the world.

 

We are doing positive and effective things in the world.

 

We are transforming the world, bit by bit, increment by increment, baby step by baby step.

 

We are being the conduits through which God who is love works in our lives and in the lives of those around us.

 

This is what it means to follow Jesus.

 

That is what it means to be reflectors of God’s Love on those around us.

 

This is what means to be a positive Christian example in the world.

 

And when we do this, we realize that we are really doing is evangelizing.

 

We are sharing our faith, not only with what we say, but in what we do.

 

That is what it means to be a Christian—to be a true follower of Jesus in this constantly changing world.

 

That is what it means to bear good fruit.

 

That is what is means to see Jesus as our contemporary.

 

So, let us do just that.

 

Let us bear fruit.

 

Let us flourish and grow and be vital fruit to those who need this fruit.

 

Let us be nourished by that Vine—by the One we follow—so that we can nourish others.

 

Let us be contemporaries of Jesus.

 

Right here.

 

Right now.

 

Because he is here—alive and present—right here.

 

And let not be afraid of these “new ways” of “doing” Church.

 

Rather, let us be rejuvenated and excited by these changes.

 

There is a bright and glorious future awaiting us in the wake of this pandemic.

 

It might not be the world we knew before.

 

But it is full potential joy and true hope.

 

Certainly, there is a bright and glorious future awaiting us here at St. Stephen’s.

 

And there is a bright and glorious future awaiting all of us who are following Jesus as his contemporaries in this world.

 

We should rejoice in that.

 

And we should continue to live out that faith with meaning and purpose.

 

Let us, in the words of our collect for today, always recognize Jesus “to be the way, the truth and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life…”

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, mercifully grant us peace in our days. Help us to see and recognize Jesus here beside us as our brother, our friends, our Savior and our contemporary. Help us to follow him and, in doing so, help us to be led by him to you, our God who is love, who with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns. Amen.

4 Easter

 Good Shepherd Sunday

April 25, 2021

 

Psalm 23; John 10.1-10

 

+ Today is, of course, Good Shepherd Sunday—the Sunday in which we encounter this wonderful reading about Jesus being the Good Shepherd.

 

Everybody loves this Sunday because…well…everybody loves the Good Shepherd.

 

This is probably one of the most perfect images Jesus could have used for the people listening to him in that day and age.

 

They would have “got” this.

 

They understood the difference between a good shepherd  and  a bad shepherd.

 

The good shepherd was the shepherd who actually cared for his or her flock.

 

They looked out for them, they watched them.

 

The Good Shepherd guided the flock and led the flock.

 

She or he guided and led the flock to a place to eat.

 

This is an important aspect of the role of the Good Shepherd.

 

The Good Shepherd didn’t just feed the flock.

 

Rather the good shepherd led the flock to the choicest green pastures and helped them to feed themselves.

 

In this way, the Good Shepherd is more than just a coddling shepherd.

 

He is not the co-dependent shepherd.

 

Today is not Co-Dependent Shepherd Sunday.

 

The Good Shepherd doesn’t take each sheep individually, pick them up, and hand-feed the sheep.

 

Rather, she or he guides and leads the sheep to green pastures and allows them feed themselves.

 

The Good Shepherd also protects the flock against the many dangers out there.

 

The Good Shepherd protects the flock from the wolves, from getting too near cliffs, or holes, or falling into places of water.

 

Let’s face it, there are many dangers out there.

 

There are many opportunities for us to trip ourselves, to get lost, to get hurt.

 

We all need a Good Shepherd to help us avoid those pitfalls of life.

 

Of course, the journey isn’t an easy one.

 

We can still get hurt along the way.

 

Bad things can still happen to us.

 

There are predators out there, waiting to hurt us.

 

There are storms brewing in our lives, waiting to rain down upon us.

 

But, with our eyes on the Shepherd, we know that the bad things that happen to us will not destroy us, because the Shepherd is there, close by, watching out for us.

 

We know that in those bad times—those times of darkness when predators close in, when storms rage— the Good Shepherd will rescue us.

 

More importantly the Good Shepherd knows their flock.

 

They know each of the sheep.

 

If one is lost, they know it is lost and will not rest until it is brought back into the fold.

 

In our collect for today, there is a wonderful reference to the Good Shepherd.

 

In the prayer, we ask God:

 

“Grant that when we hear his voice, we may know him who calls us each by name…’

 

Jesus sets the standard here for us.

 

Yes, we are called.

 

But, in our calling, we then, in turn, are, of course, to be good shepherds to those around us.

 

We are called to serve, to look out for those people around us who need us.

 

We are called to lead others to those choice places of refreshment.

 

We are called to help and guide others.

 

And, most importantly, we are called to see and know those people we come into contact with in this world.

 

We are not called to simply exist in this world, vaguely acknowledging the people who are around us.

 

We are to be actively engaged in the world and it the lives of others.

 

How often do we walk around not really “seeing” anyone around us?

 

We are called to actually “know” the people we are called to serve.

 

The God Jesus shows us is not some vague, distant God.

 

We don’t have a God who lets us fend for ourselves.

 

We instead have a God who leads us and guides us, a God who knows us each by name, a God who despairs over the loss of even one of the flock.

 

We have a God who, in Psalm 23, that very familiar psalm we have all hear so many times in our lives, is a God who knows us and loves us and cares for us.

 

But God accomplishes this love and knowledge through us.

 

We, by being good shepherds, allow God to be the ultimate Good Shepherd.

 

We were commissioned to be good shepherds by our very baptisms.

 

On that day we were baptized, we were called to be a Good Shepherds to others.

 

Anyone can be a good shepherd.

 

Certainly, priests and pastors have long clung to this image and applied it to their vocation.

 

And, they should.

 

We’ve known the good shepherds in our clergy and lay ministers.

 

I hope I have been a good shepherd to the people I have been called to serve.

 

And we’ve all known the bad shepherds.

 

Bad Shepherds (or hired hands, as we heard in our Gospel reading for today) who have been clergy, or  lay leaders, or political leaders or business leaders.

 

Just the other day, a former member of St. Stephen’s who moved elsewhere reminded me of a situation that I had to endure very publicly with a bad shepherd.

 

10 years ago I was asked to preach at an Easter Vigil Mass at another church.

 

There was another clergy person there.

 

And I preached at that mass about a recent book that had been published by Rob Bell—a very controversial book, but one that was very meaningful to me.

 

My sermon, however, was not controversial by any sense of the word.

 

I didn’t preach any heresy.  

 

However, after I finished and sat down, this particular clergy person got up, and before leading us in the Creed, proceeded to “correct” my sermon.

 

And he wasn’t nice about it.

 

He was condescending.

 

And he was downright mean about it.

 

And he blatantly reprimanded me, right there, in front of everyone, without actually addressing me, by the way, though I was sitting right there.

 

Now, I had never seen anything like that in all my years in the Church.

 

In fact, to this day, I have never seen anything like that.

 

I’ve never seen anyone actually do such a thing.

 

And there have been times when I have had preachers here with whom I have disagreed, with whom I have been not happy.

 

But I would never have even considered “correcting” them here in front of everyone afterward.

 

And I remember sitting there, essentially being bullied and reprimanded and, frankly, humiliated, in front of an entire congregation—at the Easter Vigil, nonetheless!—feeling as though I had left my body.

 

(That often happens when really difficult things happen to me in my life)

 

I can tell you that if I hadn’t been in such shock about it, I would’ve stood up and walked out of that church.

 

And in fact this former parishioner, and I think one other St. Stephen’s member who was there, actually did get up and walk out in anger and frustration.

 

This, to me, was an example of really  bad shepherding.

 

Even if my sermon was so bad, so theological incorrect (which it wasn’t—you can still read it on my blog), there were other ways to handle it.

 

But, it wasn’t, after all, about the sermon.

 

It was about me, and about what he felt about me.

 

And I can tell you what he intended to do worked. It hurt. Deeply.

 

This was a concentrated effort to correct and humiliate a person in front of everyone.

 

In a church.

 

At the Easter Vigil!

 

Bad shepherds/hired hands undermine and, chip by chip, destroy the work of Christ in this world.

 

But, today, we don’t have to worry about those bad shepherds.

 

We know that bad shepherds, and those who allow them to be bad shepherds, in the end, get their due.

 

The chickens always come home to roost.

 

Today, we celebrate the Good Shepherd—the Good Shepherd that is showing us the way forward to being good shepherds in our own lives.

 

Because in celebrating the Good Shepherd, we celebrate goodness.

 

We celebrate being good and doing good and embodying goodness in our lives.

 

So, on this day in which we celebrate the Good Shepherd, let us be what he is.

 

Let us live out our vocation to be good shepherds to those around us.

 

Let us truly “see” and know those people who share this life with us.

 

And let us know that being a good shepherd does make a difference in this world.

 

Let us make a difference.

 

Emboldened by our baptism, strengthened by a God who knows us and love us, let us in turn know and love others as we are called to do.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, our Good Shepherd, you know us. You love us. You call us each by name. Guide us and direct us in the ways in which we should go. And, in doing so, strengthen us to go where we must. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

3 Easter

 

April 18, 2021

Luke 24.36b-48

 

+ For any of you who know me well, you know that I have my fair share of obsessions.

 

That’s what you get when you get a poet for your priest.

 

After all, poets definitely have obsessions.

 

That, in my opinion, is what makes them poets.

 

Now, one of my obsessions is a strange one.

 

Well, all of my obsessions are probably strange to someone.

 

Or to most people.

 

But one of my many obsessions is…ghosts.

 

I love ghost stories.

And most of you know about my weird obsession with Casper the Friendly Ghost

(Remember how I once wanted to get a tattoo of him on my arm?)

 

And weirdly enough, it is one of things I am sometimes called to deal with as a priest.

 

I know. I know.

 

Haunted houses.

 

Ghosts.

 

Already I see people rolling their eyes.

 

But it’s all part and parcel of the job.

 

I actually have several stories that I could share—and a few that I can’t—abut one that I especially hold dear us this one:

 

When I was a new priest and was asked for the first time to come in to a family’s house and deal with what seemed to be paranormal activities, I honestly didn’t know what to do.

 

I was a fairly fresh priest.

 

I thought I knew all the answers.

 

I’d already been through the wringer a few times.

 

But, I was a bit unprepared for this.

 

I was serving at Gethsemane Cathedral here in Fargo at the time and Bishop John Thornton, retired Bishop of Idaho was serving as sabbatical Dean.

 

I loved—and still love—Bishop Thornton.

 

He’s one of my pastoral heroes.

 

I learned so much about being an effective priest from Bishop Thronton in the short time I knew him and served with him.

 

Well, on this particular situation, I went in to his office and told him I was asked to deal with this ghost situation.

 

I said to him, “Bishop, what should I do? I don’t know if I really believe in ghosts.”

 

The Bishop leaned back in his chair and with a  twinkle in his eyes, said, very nicely, “Jamie, who cares what you believe?”

 

I was shocked by this.

 

That wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear.

 

But he very quickly added. “It doesn’t matter what you believe, Jamie. If these people think they have a ghost, go in and bless their house. If they need you to be an exorcist, be an exorcist. If they need you to be a ghostbuster, be a ghostbuster. Whatever they need you to be, be that for them. For that period of time you’re with them, believe whatever they believe. Bless their house. Drive out whatever they think they have. And then once you get back in your car and drive home, if you still don’t believe, then don’t.  The key is this: be what they need you to be.”

 

It was the best answer I could’ve ever received.

 

So, I went.

 

I blessed their house.

 

And sure enough, whatever the issue was, it never made itself known again.

 

Call me Father Ghostbuster!

 

Bishop Thornton’s advice was by far the best advice I ever heard.

 

It simply blew me away.

 

It has also been advice that I have been able to apply to many other situations in my pastoral career. 

 

And I can tell you, I have been asked, again and again to go in and deal with such issues.

 

I still don’t know what I believe for certain about ghosts.

 

But, as Bishop Thornton made clear, it really doesn’t matter what I believe on this issue.

 

But there’s no getting around the issue of ghosts.

 

In today’s Gospel, we find Jesus’ followers experiencing something they believe to be a ghost.

 

But the experience they have is also much more incredible than any experience with a ghost.

 

It much more life-altering.

 

The Jesus who stands before them—the Jesus they know had been tortured and murdered, the Jesus who breathed his last and actually died—now stands before them.

 

However, this Jesus is no ghost.

 

He is flesh and blood.

 

They can touch him.

 

They can feel the wounds of his death.

 

They can hold him.

 

And he can eat actual food with them.

 

The Jesus who appears to them, who actually lives with them, is someone they no doubt cannot even begin to understand.

 

If they thought what he said and did before the crucifixion was amazing and mind-boggling, now it is even more incredible.

 

This Jesus we encounter in today’s Gospel is just as incredible to us.

 

And perhaps maybe even more so.

 

For the people of Jesus’ day, they could actually accept the fact that things happened beyond their understanding.

 

For us, we tend to rationalize away anything we don’t understand.

 

And the idea of someone who has died suddenly appearing before us—in the flesh, with wounds—and eat with us—is more than incredible.

 

It seems impossible.

 

And as we hear it, we do find ourselves beginning to rationalize it away.

 

But rationalize as we might, the fact remains: Christ is still present to us in the flesh.

 

Certainly, we find Christ present in the physical elements of bread and wine of the Eucharist

 

But we, the Church, those who have collectively come together to follow Jesus, to live the Christian life, to live out what Jesus taught us—we are also the physical body of Jesus in this world still.

 

We, with our wounds, with the signs of our past pains, with all that we bring with us, are the embodiment of Jesus in this world.

 

We are the ones who, like Jesus, bring a living and loving God to people who need a living and loving God.

 

We are called to embody God’s love, to embody God’s compassion, to embody—to make part of our very bodies—a God who truly accepts and loves all people.

 

That is what it means to be Jesus in this world.

 

We are not called to be ghosts.

 

We are not called to be vague Christians, who sort of float around and make echoing ghostly statements about our faith to people hoping they will somehow “accept Jesus.”

 

We are called to be living, loving human beings embodying a living, loving God, serving living humans beings who, like us, are broken and in pain.

 

Just as Jesus shared what was given to him, so are we to share what is given to us.

 

We who have known the love and acceptance of our God are called to, in turn, share this love and acceptance to others.

 

And when we do, we are the body of him who we follow.

 

We can’t do the ministry we do if we are just ghosts.

 

We are not going to help anyone is we are wraiths and specters of God in this world.

 

The God we embody and carry with us is not some ephemeral thing.

 

The God we serve is real.

 

And when we go out and serve others as Jesus, we make God physical.

 

We make God real.

 

We make God’s love real.

 

And that makes all the difference.

 

That changes things.

 

So, let us carry out this mission together.

 

Let us be the body of  Jesus in the world.

 

And as the Body of Jesus, let us be the conduits through which we bring God to those who need God.

 

Let us sit down and eat with those with whom we serve and those we serve.

 

Let us never be ghosts.

 

“…a ghost,” Jesus says to us, “does not have flesh and bones…”

 

But we do.

 

And we are called to use our flesh and bones to serve others.

 

Let us never be vague Christians who float about transparently.

 

But let us be physical Christians, showing our wounds to those who are wounded.

 

And as the body of Jesus in this world, we can do what Bishop Thornton reminded me Bishop John Thornton
to do when I was a new priest:

 

we can be whatever we are called to be in a particular situation.

 

We, as the physical Body of Jesus, can adapt and mold ourselves to those situations in which we can make God present in those areas in which God needs to be present.

 

If we do so, we are doing what Jesus calls us to do.

 

If we do so we will find that we are not frightened, and that whatever doubts will arise in our hearts really, in the long run, won’t matter.

 

Rather, by our presence, by love, by our acceptance, we will do what Jesus did.

 

We will drive away, once and for all,  every one of those ghosts of fright and doubt.

Let us pray.

 

Holy and loving God, help us to embody Christ in this world. Help us to be the hands, the feet, the face of Christ to those who need your love, your acceptance, your full inclusion in this world and in your Kingdome. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 Easter

 

April 11, 2021

John 20.19-31

+ If you know me for any period of time, one of the many weird things you will hear me talk about is my affection toward atheists.

 

And I’m not talking about it in some negative way.  

 

I genuinely like atheists, and I definitely empathize with those who do not believe.

 

I do not see that atheists and Christianity are necessarily diametrically opposed to each other.

 

And I know that’s an extremely unpopular opinion from both Christians and atheists.

But I stand firmly on this topic.

I’ll be honest.

What disturbs me about atheist theology isn’t its (often rightful) anger toward Christianity and organized religion, its rebellion, its single-mindedness about how wrong religion is.

What disturbs me about atheism is how simple it is—how beautifully uncomplicated it is.

Tomorrow will be the 60thanniversary of amazing event.

On April 12, 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.

Soviet propaganda at the time proclaimed that the first words from Gagarin from space were, “I see no God up here.”

There’s even a famous poster showing Gagarin floating above the spires of the

churches of Russia, and the words “No God” in Russian as a caption

The fact is, this was proved to be wrong.

Gagarin never said it.

In fact, there are stories abounding that Gagarin was actually a secret Orthodox Christians (If you want to google it, you find yourself going down some interesting rabbit holes).

But, let’s face it—it’s just so easy to not see God anywhere.

It’s easy to look up into the sky and say, I see no God.

It’s easy to believe that science has the only answers and that everything is provable and rational.

(And just to be clear, I am fully 100%  pro-science, by the way)

I almost—ALMOST—envy atheists.

And when I hear any of my many atheist friends state their disbelief in the white-bearded male god who sits on a throne in heaven, I realize: if that is what they don’t believe in, then…I guess I’m also an atheist.

In fact, any God that I can observe by looking at in the sky, or into the cosmos is definitely a God in which I don’t believe.

I don’t want a God so easily provable, so easily observed and examined and quantified and…materially real.  

I don’t believe in a God that is so made in our image.

I don’t believe in a God that is simply a projection of our own image and self.

Who would want that God?

We might as well go back and start worshipping the pantheon of pagan gods our ancestors worshipped.

We might as well start worshipping trees and rocks again.

It’s actually so easy to say there’s no God.

It is easy to say that we live in some random existence—without purpose or meaning.

And let me tell you, I also have major issues with the prevalent form of Christianity we see in this county and in the world right now.

I think many of here—or who are watching this morning—feel the same way.

Many of us have been hurt and abused by the bastardized version of Christianity that is now being promoted as the ONLY form of Christianity that is “valid.”

Trust me.

I get!

And I guess that’s why I’m kind of envious of atheists.

That’s why I jokingly say: “there but for the grace of the God in which they don’t believe go I.”

For us, however, as Christians, it isn’t as easy.

Being a Christian is actually quite hard.

I hate to break that news to you.

Believing is actually hard.

Yes, we do believe in the existence of God.

And we believe in a very physical representation of God in the person of Jesus.

We are now in the season of Easter—a season in which we celebrate and live into the reality of the Resurrection of Jesus,

But that event is based on some incredible evidence.

We are believing what a group of pre-Enlightenment, Pre-rational, Jewish people from what was considered at the time to be a backwater country are telling us they saw.

But we believe because we know, in our hearts, that this is somehow true.

We know these things really did happen and that because they did, life is different—life is better, despite everything that happens 

We believe these things in true faith.

We didn’t see Jesus while he was alive and walking about.

We didn’t see him after he rose from the tomb.

We don’t get the opportunities that Thomas had in this morning’s Gospel.

Doubting Thomas, as we’ve come to know him, refused to believe that Jesus was resurrected until he had put his fingers in the wounds of Jesus.

It wasn’t enough that Jesus actually appeared to him in the flesh—how many of us would only jump at that chance?

For Thomas, Jesus stood there before him, in the flesh—wounds and all.

And only when he had placed his finger in the wounds, would he believe.

It’s interesting to see and it’s interesting to hear this story of Doubting Thomas.

But, the fact is, for the rest of us, we don’t get it so easy.

Jesus is probably not going to appear before us—in the flesh.

At least, not on this side of the Veil—not while we are still alive.

 A

nd if he does, you need to have a little talk with your priest.

 

We are not going to have the opportunity to touch the wounds of Jesus, as Thomas did.

 

Let’s face it, to believe without seeing, is not easy.

 

It takes work and discipline.

 

A strong relationship with God—this invisible being we might sense, we might feel emotionally or spiritually, but we can’t pin-point—takes work—just as any other relationship in our life takes work.

 

It takes discipline.

 

It takes concentrated effort.

 

Being a Christian does not just involve being good and ethical all the time.

 

Many, many atheists do that too.

 

Most atheists I know are ethical, upright, good people too.

 

Most atheists I know are committed the same ideals most of us are committed to here this morning.

 

And they are sometimes even better at it all than I am sometimes, I’ll admit

 

But, being a Christian doesn’t mean just being ethical and “good.”

 

(Though we should all still be ethical and “good”)

 

Being a Christian means living one’s faith life fully and completely as a Christian.

 

It means being a reflection of God’s love, God’s Presence, God’s joy and goodness in the world.

 

It means that we might not touch the wounds of Jesus as Thomas did, but we do touch the wounds of Jesus when we reach out in love to help those who need our love.

 

We should be a walking, talking, living presence of God.

 

God should be in our very core, our very marrow.

 

Even if the God we are embodying is a mystery of us.

 

Even if the God we embody is not seen.

 

 

“Blessed are those who believe but don’t see,”Jesus says this morning.

 

We are those blessed ones.

 

We are the ones Jesus is speaking of in this morning’s Gospel.

 

Blessed are you all.

 

You  believe, but don’t see.

 

We are the ones who, despite what our rational mind might tell us at times, we still have faith.

 

We, in the face of doubt and fear, can still say, with all conviction, “Alleluia!”

 

“Praise God!”

 

We can’t objectively make sense of it.

 

Sometimes all we can do is live and experience the joy of this resurrection and somehow, like sunlight shining in us and sinking deep into us, we simply bask in its glory. 

 

Seen or unseen, we know God is there.

 

Yuri Gagarin this morning knows that to be true.

 

Our faith is not based on seeing God here in front of us in the flesh or proving the existence of God, or finding scientific proof for the Resurrection.

 

Because we actually have known God, right here, right now.

 

God has been embodied in us.

 

We know God, and feel God, and taste God in the bread of the Eucharist.

 

We know God through love—love of God and love of one another.

 

Blessed are we who believe but don’t see now.

 

The Kingdom of Heaven is truly ours.

 

Alleluia!

 

Easter

 

April 4, 2021

 

+  Last year, all through Lent as we were going through those ugly, terrible first days of the pandemic,  I looked forward to Easter with a sense of real hope.

 

But…I have to say, I was disappointed.

 

Last Easter, coming as it did in the midst of some of the darkest, most uncertain days of the pandemic, was a miserable, bleak Easter.

 

Those words—“miserable” and “bleak”—should never been used in the same sentence as the word “Easter.”

 

But it was a sad and bleak Easter last year.

 

Last Easter, we had nine people in church—our Senior Warden Jean and Junior Warden Jessica, our soon-to-be-Deacon John, our organist James, our cantor Michelle, Paul Sando who was manning the camera, Katie Sando and Kristofer Sando,  and myself.

 

We livestreamed that Easter Mass the best we could because everyone else was home safe and quarantined.

 

It was difficult Easter to say the least

 

But. . . here we are! One year later.

 

Easter!

 

And it is a new year.

 

Last Sunday, on Palm Sunday, I felt, for the first time in over a year, real hope that we were coming to the end of this long, terrible time.

 

Last Sunday was the first Sunday when we had a good number of people in church.

 

Today, we are truly hopeful.

 

Today, definitely makes up for last Easter.

 

Today, this is what it is all about.

 

Hope and light and a feeling of real renewal.

 

I have never made a secret of this fact…but, I LOVE Easter.

 

Some people are Christmas people.

 

Some people are Easter people.

 

I’m definitely an Easter person.

 

Easter, after all, is all about life.

 

Real life.

 

Unending life.

 

A life that does not end.

 

It is about the dawn that comes after a very long night.

 

And it is about our response to that life.

 

But what’s even better about Easter in my opinion is that, unlike Christmas, which when it’s over it’s over (people put out that Christmas tree the day after Christmas), Easter happens again and again for us who are followers of Jesus.

 

We get to experience it and all it represents multiple times over the year.

 

Certainly every Sunday we celebrate a mini-Easter.

 

And every funeral is also a celebration of Resurrection and all that Easter represents.

 

And why shouldn’t we celebrate it beyond this season?

 

When we celebrate Easter, we are celebrating life.

 

Eternal life.

 

The truly wonderful Christian writer, Rob Bell, once said,

 

“Eternal life doesn’t start when we die. It starts now. It’s not about a life that begins at death; it’s about experiencing the kind of life now that can endure and survive even death.”

 

I love that!

 

Resurrection is a kind reality that we, as Christians, are called to live into.

 

Right now.

 

And it’s not just something we believe happens after we die.

 

We are called to live into that Resurrection NOW.

 

By raising Jesus from the dead, God calls us to live into that joy and that beautiful life NOW.

 

The alleluias we sing this morning are not for some beautiful moment after we have breathed our last.

 

These alleluias are for now, as well as for later.

 

We are essentially saying, Praise God for the life unending that God has given us!

 

These alleluias, these joyful sounds we make, this Light we celebrate, is a Light that shines rightnow—in this moment.

 

We are alive now!

 

Right now!

 

We have made it through a dark and terrible time.

 

Easter and our whole lives as Christians is all about this fact.

 

Our lives should be joyful because of this fact—this reality—that Jesus died and is risen and by doing so has destroyed our deaths.

 

This is what it means to be a Christian.

 

Easter is about this radical new life.

 

It is about living in another dimension that, to our rational minds, makes no sense.

 

Even, sometimes, with us, it doesn’t make sense.

 

It almost seems too good to be true.

 

And that’s all right to have that kind of doubt.

 

It doesn’t make sense that we are celebrating an event that seems so wonderful that it couldn’t possibly be true. It doesn’t make sense that this event that seems so super-human can bring such joy in our lives.

 

Today we are commemorating the fact that Jesus, who died and was buried in a tomb and is now…alive.

 

That God raised Jesus from the darkness of death, and he is now alive.  

 

Fully and completely alive.

 

Alive in a real body.

 

Alive in a body that only a day before was lying, broken and dead, in a tomb.

 

And…as if that wasn’t enough, we are also celebrating the fact that we truly believe we too are experiencing this.

 

Experiencing this—in the present tense.

 

We are already living, by our very lives, faith in God and our faith in in the eternal, unending, glorious life that God shows in the resurrection of Jesus.

 

We will live because God raised Jesus to life.

 

Now as wonderful as this all seems, the fact is, we aren’t deceiving ourselves.

 

We’re not a naïve people who think everything is just peachy keen and wonderful.

 

We know what darkness is.

 

We have all made it through a very hard year together.

 

We know what sickness and dear are.

 

We know what suffering and pain are.

 

Most of us here this morning have had our share of losses in our lives.

 

We know the depths of pain and despair in our lives.

 

What Easter reminds us, again and again, is that darkness is not eternal.

 

Illness and death are not eternal.

 

Pandemics are not eternal.

 

Covid is not eternal.

 

None of those things will ultimately win out.

 

Light will always win.

 

This Light will always succeed.

 

This Light will be eternal.

 

I am honest when I say that part of me wishes I could always live in this Easter Light.

 

I wish I could bottle this joy that I feel this morning.

 

But the fact is, this Light will lose its luster faster than I even want to admit.

 

This joy will fade too.

 

But I do believe that whatever heaven is—and none of us knows for certain what it will be like—I have no doubt that it is very similar this the joy we feel this morning.

 

I believe with all that is in me that it is very much like the experience of this Light that we are celebrating this morning—an unending Easter.

 

And if that is what Heaven is, then it is a joy that will not die, and it is a Light that will not fade and grow dim.

 

And if that’s all I know of heaven, then that is enough for me.

 

The fact is, Easter doesn’t end when the sun sets today.

 

Easter is what we carry within us as Christians ALL the time.

 

Easter is living out the Resurrection by our very presence.

 

We are, each of us, carrying within us this Easter Light we celebrate this morning and always.

 

All the time.

 

Easter is here!

 

It is here, in our very souls, in our very bodies, in our very selves.

 

With that Easter Light burning within us, being reflected in what we do and say, in the love we show to God and to each other, what more can we say on this glorious, glorious morning?

 

What more can we say when God’s glorious, all-loving, resurrected realty breaks through to us in glorious light, and transforms us;

 

So, what do we say?

 

We say, Alleluia!

 

Christ is risen!

 

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

 

Holy Saturday

 

April 3, 2021

 

Matthew 27.57-66

 

+ This morning of course is a liturgically bare and solemn morning.

 

We gather today in a church stripped to its barest bones.

 

The Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is gone—the aumbry’s door lies open, the sanctuary light is extinguished and is gone. 

 

The crosses are veiled in black shrouds of mourning. 

 

It is a bleak and colorless place.

 

It is a time of mourning.

 

It is a time of loss.

 

This liturgy purposely, intentionally, has the feel of a burial service. 

 

And liturgically we ponder the fact that Jesus’ murdered and tortured body this morning lies in a tomb.

 

Despite all this, as I have said many time over the years, I truly do love to participate in the liturgy this morning. 

 

I love to preach about Holy Saturday.

 

I love to talk about it.

 

I love to mediate on it throughout the year.

 

And I guess I do because it’s kind of an ignored day.

 

For the most part, Holy Saturday is not given a lot of attention by a majority of churches, at least here in the U.S.

 

In places like Mexico, it is a big day.

 

Holy Saturday in Mexico is also called Judas Day and it is on this day they burn effigies of Judas Iscariot. 

 

It is called Judas day because it is popularly believed that Judas committed suicide early on this day. 

 

Now, Judas has become one of the most maligned and hated figures in human history.

 

His act of betrayal is seen as the ultimate form of treason and cowardice.

 

And of course, the tradition has always been that Judas, after he went out and hung himself, went to hell. 

 

The end of the story.

 

There have been a few traditions about what happened to his body. 

 

One says that he was the first one buried in the Potter’s Field that was used by the money he returned to the Priests.

 

It is also said, to this day, that any body buried in that Potter’s Field decomposes within twenty-four hours.

 

So, like that, Judas—the symbol of deceit—disappears completely, without a trace. 

 

It’s a sad end to a sad man.

 

But there is a little glimmer of hope in all of this. 

 

Today, on this Holy Saturday, we also think about a popular tradition in the Church that you know I really love.

 

You know I love it, because I peach about it regularly.   

 

The Harrowing of Hell, of course, is the event in which we imagine Jesus, on this Holy Saturday,  descending among the dead in hell and bringing them back. 

 

Most years on Holy Saturday I preach about the Harrowing of Hell and reference the famous icon of Jesus standing over the broken-open tombs pulling out Adam from one tomb and Eve from the other.

 

I always place that icon somewhere in the church.

 

But there is another image I would like to draw your attention to—a more interactive image.

 

That image is, of course, the image of the labyrinth.

 

Of course, we just renovate dour labyrinth, and it has become a popular place for people to walk.

 

But, one of the many images used in walking the labyrinth is, of course, the Harrowing of Hell. 

 

When you think of the labyrinth, you can almost imagine Jesus trekking his way down to the very bowels of hell.

 

There, he takes those waiting for him and gently and lovingly leads them back through the winding path to heaven. 

 

On this Holy Saturday, I also like imagine that one person Jesus greets and leads back is, of course, the new-arrived Judas. 

 

Judas was, after all, one of the closest of the apostles.

 

And Jesus knew from the beginning what Judas was going to do.

 

In a sense, Jesus needed Judas to fulfill his destiny on that cross.

 

I can imagine, then, that Jesus, upon reaching the bowels of hell on this day, sought Judas out especially, embraced him and quietly led him out, along with the others.

 

It’s lovely to imagine and, whether it’s true or not, I like to cling to that image.

 

The image of the Harrowing of Hell—the image of the labyrinth—never becomes more real for me than when I imagine myself as Judas, at that very center—shivering there in the dark, bracing myself for an eternity of separation from others and from Jesus.

 

I imagine myself as the Judas who deserves to have his effigy burned, who deserves to be maligned and shown as the epitome of treason.

 

And in that dark, cold, lonely place, I, like Judas, am amazed when I see that glimmer of light in the darkness.

 

I, like Judas, am filled with a steadily-growing joy as the light grows larger and bolder and I realize that within that light is God in Jesus.

 

I, like Judas, am overwhelmed in that moment when Jesus comes to me in my desolation and my isolation and reaches out to me to embrace me and lead me away from that prison that I have made for myself by my foolish actions and cold-hearted ways. 

 

The great Episcopal theologians, William Stringfellow (one of my theological heroes) one wrote in his wonderful book, A Simplicity of Faith:

 

“Hell is the realm of death. Hell is when or where death is complete, unconditional, maximum, undisguised, most awesome and awful, unbridled, most terrible, perfected. That Jesus Christ descended into hell means that as we die (in any sense of the term die) our expectation in death is encounter with the Word of God , which is, so to speak, already there in the midst of death.”

 

I love that quote.

 

What we see in the Harrowing of Hell, in Christ’s descent to hell, is that  God is so powerful that even the depths of Hell—that not even death or destruction or despair—are not out of God’s reach.

 

Even there, God can come.

 

Even there, God’s Light can permeate.

 

Even there, God can break open the walls of the prison of hell and can let that freeing Light shine.

 

After all, God will never forget us.

 

God will never abandon us.

 

That is how powerful God’s love is for us.

 

Now for some people this belief is heresy.

 

For some this belief is universalism.

 

Maybe it is.

 

And if it is a heresy, then I stand here guilty before you.

 

But, the fact is, I believe this is truth.

 

I believe it in my core of cores.

 

I believe it with every ounce of my faith I have in me.

 

The God I love and serve will never forget us or abandon us.

 

The God I have come to know in my life is not a God of eternal punishment.

 

The Christ I follow has power to come to us, even it the farthest reaches of hell, and take us by the hand, and lead us out.

 

This, to me,  is what Holy Saturday is all about.

 

Even dead and lying in a tomb, Jesus still manages to make a difference—to do good.

 

Even when it seems like the ultimate defeat has occurred, the ultimate victory is going on, right under the surface.

 

Holy Saturday is that glimmer of light in the darkest places of our souls.

 

And that light that is about to dawn on us tomorrow morning—that light of ultimate and unending joy and gladness—is more glorious than anything we can even begin to fathom in this moment.

 

So let us this morning, strain into the dark.

 

Let us look with hope and joy toward that light that is approaching us.

 

And when we see him, there, in that light, coming toward us with his arms outstretched, let us run to him with that Easter joy.

 

Let us pray.

 

Loving God, how many times have we called out from the depths of our own hells. How many times have we raised our voices from the pits of despair in which we have found ourselves? And each time you have been faithful to us. Each time you have heard our cries. Each time, no matter how separated we might feel from you, even there, you send us Jesus, to come to us and to gently lead us back. We are thankful on this Holy Saturday for the fact that you will not forget us, but that you will send us help, even in the depths of the deepest hell; we pray gratefully in the name of Jesus, who comes to us in our deepest moments of personal darkness as a bright shining light. Amen.

 

Good Friday

 

April 2, 2021

 

+ I preached last Sunday about how I kind of dreaded Holy Week this year.

 

I dreaded it—I still dread it—because of today.

 

This moment.

 

This dark, silent moment.

 

What I have been keeping with me this week is that the story of Jesus, for us as followers of Jesus, is our story too.

 

What we commemorate today isn’t just something that happened then, back then, in the distant past, to someone else—to Jesus.

 

It is where we are too.

 

This is our story.

 

And it is happening now, right now, for us.

 

This is our story.

 

This is our death.

 

This is the death of those we love the most.

 

This too is our story.

 

This is the part of the story we don’t want to be ours.

 

This bleakness.

 

This stripped away austerity.

 

This violence.

 

This…death.

 

We have reached the lowest point in this long, dark week.

 

Everything seems to have led to this moment.

 

To this moment—this moment of the cross, the nails, the thorns.

 

To this moment of blood and pain and death.

 

To this moment of violence and utter destruction.

 

We are here, in this moment, not finding much comfort, not finding much consolation.

 

We have known in our lives what this despair is.

 

Yesterday, I put up a beautiful metal piece representing Mary standing at the foot of the cross.

 

I donated this piece to St. Stephen’s in memory of my brothers, Jeff and Jason Gould.

 

Jeff died in 2013, Jason died last summer.

 

I did so, because the art piece reminded me of my mother.

 

In fact, every time I see the representations of Mary at the cross—especially these that we have here in our Stations of the Cross—I see my mother, and the grief she experienced when Jeff died.

 

It was a deep and terrible grief.

 

And I know that she would’ve experienced that same grief had she lived to see my brother Jason’s death.

 

What that piece I donated yesterday to St. Stephen’s—what these Stations show us, what this whole day shows us is that this is our story too.

 

What Jesus shows us in his life—and death—is that we are not alone.

 

We don’t go through all this alone.

 

Jesus went there too.

 

And because Jesus did, God knows what we are experiencing in this awful thing called death.

 

Today—in the death of Jesus—we see that this is also the death of our loved ones.

 

And it is our death as well.

 

And nothing fills us with more fear than this.

 

This is why, in this awful moment, we know despair.

 

In this dark moment, our own brokenness seems more profound, more real.

 

We can feel this brokenness now in a way we never have before.

 

Our brokenness is shown back to us like the reflection in a dark mirror as we look upon that broken, emaciated body on the cross, or held in the arms of his mother.

 

But…as broken as we are, as much of a reminder of our own death this day might be, as overwhelmed as we might be by the presence of death in our lives at times, so too is the next 48 hours or so.

 

What seems like a bleak, black moment will be replaced by the blinding Light of the Resurrection.

 

What seems like a moment of unrelenting despair will soon be replaced by an unleashing of unrestrained joy.

 

What seems like an eternal brokenness will replaced by complete wholeness.

 

Yes, we might die, but God is not dead.

 

Yes, we might be broken, but God will restore all that is broken.

 

Just as God restored the broken Body of Jesus, so God will restore us and our loved ones as well.

 

In short order, this present despair will be turned completely around.

 

This present darkness will be vanquished.

 

This present pain will be replaced with a comfort that brings about peace.

 

This present brokenness will be healed fully and completely, leaving not even a scar.

 

God will prevail even over even…this.

 

Even death has no power over the God of unending life!

 

This is what today is about too.

 

This is what our journey in following Jesus brings to us.

 

All we need to do is go where the journey leads us and trust in the one who leads.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, be with us. Be with us as we journey along this path that Jesus walked to the cross. Help us to see that this path is our path too. But, let us also see that we are not alone as we walk. You are with us as we walk alongside Jesus. And that, in following him to the cross, we follow him also the glory that lies beyond the cross. We ask this in his name, amen.