Jamie Parsley's Blog, page 30
November 22, 2020
Christ the King
November 22, 2020
Ezekiel 34.11-16, 20-24; Matthew 25.31-46
+ Today is of course Christ the King Sunday.
Now, as most of you know, I have issues with authority.
I bristle at talk of rulers and kinds (and Presidents).
But for some reason, I don’t have much of an issue with the idea of Christ as King, despite my deep-seated issues with authority.
I love this idea of God as Ruler.
And, as you know, I love preaching about the Kingdom of God.
Jesus did it all the time.
The Kingdom of God is a good thing to preach about.
But, it’s an important Sunday for another reason.
It is the last Sunday in that very long, green season of Pentecost.
Today, for the Church, it is New Year’s Eve.
The old church year of Sundays—Church Year A—ends today.
The new church year—Church Year B—begins next Sunday, on the First Sunday of Advent.
So, what seems like an ending today is renewed next week, with the coming of Advent, in that revived sense of longing and expectation that we experience in Advent.
Today, we get a great reading from the Prophet Ezekiel.
We hear God saying things through Ezekiel like,
“I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.”
And (I love this one)
“I feed them with justice.”
We also get to hear Jesus tell us that story of the sheep and the goats, echoing in many ways our reading from Ezekiel.
Now, I actually love this parable—not because of its threat of punishment (which everyone gets hung up on), not because of its judgment.
I love this story because there is something beautiful and subtle going on just beneath the surface, if you take the moment to notice.
And that subtle aspect of this story is this:
If you notice, the reward is given not to people who work for the reward.
The reward is not given to people who help the least of their brethren because they know they will gain the reward.
The reward is granted to those who help the least of their brethren simply because the least need help.
The reward is for those who have no regard or idea that a reward even awaits them for doing such a thing.
Now I don’t think I need to tell anyone here who the least of our brethren are.
The least of our brethren are the ones who are hungry, who are thirsty, who are naked, who are sick and who are in prison.
I think this ties in beautifully to our own ideas of why we do what we do as followers of Jesus.
I preach this a lot!!
Why do we do what we do, we must ask ourselves?
Do we do these things because we think we’re going to get a reward for doing them?
Or do we do these things because by doing them we know it goes for a greater reward than anything we ourselves could get?
In our Gospel reading today, we find that the Kingdom of God is prepared for those who have been good stewards, who do good for the sake of doing good.
It is prepared for those who have been mindful of what has been given to them and have been mindful of those around them in need.
It is a great message during this stewardship time
For us, we need to realize that the Kingdom is prepared for us as well.
It is prepared for us who have sought to be good stewards without any thought of eternal reward.
For us who strive to do good for the sake doing good.
It is prepared for us who have simply done what we are called to do as followers of Jesus.
To love God, and to love others.
That is why we do good.
For us, in our own society, we find that these same terms found in Jesus’ parable have a wider definition.
Hungry for us doesn’t just mean hungry for food.
It means hungry for love, for healing, for wholeness.
Hungry to be included, and treated as equals.
It means hungry, also, for God.
Thirsty doesn’t just mean for water.
Thirsty for us means thirsty for fairness or justice or peace.
And thirsty for God.
Naked doesn’t just mean without clothing.
It means, for us, to be stripped to our core, to be laid bare spiritually and emotionally and materially, which many of us have known in our lives.
We have known what it means to be spiritually and emotionally naked.
To be sick, doesn’t necessarily mean to be sick with a disease in our bodies.
It is means to be sick in our hearts and in our relationships with others.
It means to be sick with despair or depression or anxiety or spiritually barrenness.
And we all know that the prisons of our lives sometimes don’t necessarily have walls or bars on the doors.
The prisons of our lives are sometimes our fears, our prejudices, our anxieties, our addictions, our very selves.
To not go out and help those who need help is to be arrogant, to be selfish, to be headstrong.
To not do so is to turn our backs on following where Jesus leads us.
Because Jesus leads us into that place wherein we must love and love fully and give and give freely—of ourselves and of what we have been given.
It means to “feed with justice,” as God tells us in Ezekiel.
I like that because that is definitely what we have all been striving to do here at St. Stephen’s.
We practice our radical hospitality to everyone who comes to us in any way.
And, I think, we accept everyone who comes to us fully.
Here, we not only welcome people, but I think we allow people to be the people God created them to be—without judgment, without prejudice, just as the Kingdom no doubt will be.
And is.
Again, that brings us back to Jesus’ parable.
The meaning of this story is this: If you do these things—if you feed the hungry, if you give drink to the thirsty, if you welcome the stranger, if you clothe the naked, if you visit the sick and imprisoned—if you simply respond to one another as loving human beings—if you do these things without thought of reward, but do them simply because you, as a Christian, are called to do them, the reward is yours.
The Kingdom is not only awaiting us in the next world, on the other side of the veil.
The Kingdom, when we do these things, is here.
Right now.
Right in our midst.
As Christians, we shouldn’t have to think about doing any of those things.
They should be like second nature to us.
We should be doing them naturally, instinctively.
For those of us who are hungry or thirsty, who feel like strangers, who are naked, sick and imprisoned—and at times, we have been in those situations—we find Christ in those rays of hope that break through into our lives.
It is very similar to the hope we are clinging to in this moment as we enter Advent—that time in which the Light of Christ is seen breaking into the encroaching darkness of our existence.
And we—in those moments when we feed the hungry, when we give drink to the thirsty, when we welcome the stranger, when we clothe the naked, when we visit the sick and imprisoned—in those moments, we become that light in the darkness, that hope in someone else’s life.
We embody Christ and Christ’s Kingdom when we become the conduits of hope.
So, as we celebrate the end of this liturgical year and set our expectant eyes on the season of Advent, let us not just be filled with hope.
Let us be a true reflection of Christ’s hope to this world.
Let us be the living embodiment of that hope to those who need hope.
And in doing so, we too will hear those words of assurance to us:
“Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for….”
I am going to close today with the prayer they pray at All Saints, Pasadena on this Christ the King Sunday.
It’s a beautiful prayer.
So, let us pray,
Most Gracious God, who in Jesus of Nazareth showed us an alternative to the kings, queens and emperors of history, help us to revere and emulate Jesus’ leadership: To love, and to seek justice for all people. Help us to recognize the true grandeur and life-changing power based in loving you and all of our neighbors. In Christ Jesus with you and the Holy Spirit, may we co-create a world ruled not through domination, but in that radical and all-powerful compassion and love. Amen.
November 15, 2020
24 Pentecost
Stewardship Sunday
November 15, 2020
Matthew 25.14-30
+ Today, of course, is Stewardship Sunday.
It is the Sunday when we begin this short but very important season of Stewardship.
It is a time in which we look hard at ourselves and ask ourselves the important questions of what St. Stephen’s means to us, and how we contribute of ourselves and our resources to St. Stephen’s.
For some churches, stewardship time is a difficult time.
It is a time of uncertainty.
It is a time when people kind of groan and inwardly complain.
“The priest is going to talk about money!”
But for us at St. Stephen’s, it’s never really like that.
For us, here, people LIKE to be members here.
And people here LIKE to help our congregation out.
People here like to step up to the plate.
Why?
Because people can see what we do.
People can see that although we are not a mega-church, we are not a giant church, we do make a big difference.
We are a place where we don’t just “talk the talk,” we very much “walk the walk.”
We don’t just pay lip service to our commitment to making a difference in this world.
We actually work hard to make a difference.
And let me tell you, we have done so even this past year, during the worst pandemic we have ever had.
Although we, like every church, had to adjust to the pandemic, we also knew that we had to still provide something for people.
We still had to DO something.
Although we closed for public worship, we quickly adjusted to online worship and, without a beat, provided Mass each Sunday and Wednesday, even in the darkest, most frightening days of pandemic.
And because we did, as we heard from many people who tuned in, we provided some comfort, some sense of normalcy, even then.
Of course, behind the scenes, we also struggled.
We weren’t certain at times how to do what we needed to do.
None of us were tech-savvy.
We didn’t even have a tripod at first.
All we had were our phones and, thankfully, our Facebook group.
But before we knew it, we worked it all out, and we were able to provide Mass for people.
And even during the pandemic, we also did the ministry we needed to do.
People’s pastoral concerns were met, although at a distance.
We still did funerals, and baptisms and weddings, although all of them were done in new and innovative ways.
We even welcomed 5 new members into our congregation.
And we even were able to celebrate the ordination of our first Deacon during this time.
Plus, we renovated and made fully available one of our most public and visual ministries for the public, our labyrinth, which has also provided spiritual substance to people during the pandemic.
What does all of this show us?
It shows us that we are not a lazy congregation.
We could’ve been.
We could’ve closed our doors.
We could’ve chosen not to do virtual worship.
We could’ve postponed the baptisms, the weddings and said no to the funerals.
We could’ve just stopped.
But, when the going gets tough, we all rose to the occasion.
We did the ministries that needed to be done.
And we served Christ and each other the best we could.
All this talk of laziness ties in well with this strange, difficult parable for this morning.
We get this parable of the talents, of money lent and the reward awaiting those who were entrusted with the money, complete with its not-so-subtle wag of the finger at us.
Trust me, I did not purposely pick this scripture for this Stewardship Sunday; it just happened to come up in the lectionary today.
But, man, is this parable is a very good story for us today!
Most of us can relate to it.
We understand how good it is to have people invest money for us and to receive more in return.
It certainly speaks in a very special way to us in this strange, scary and unstable time in which we are living at this moment.
But, this parable isn’t really about money at all, as we probably have guessed, just as Stewardship I just about money either.
The parable is about taking what we have—and in the case of today’s reading Jesus is talking about the Gospel—and working to expand it and return it back to God with interest.
We, as Christians, are called to just this: we are called to work.
We are called to do something with what we’ve been given.
And the worse thing we can imagine as Christians is being called by that ugly word I mentioned earlier:
“lazy.”
Lazy.
See. The word cuts like a razor.
I hate that word!
None of us want to hear that word directed at us, especially regarding our faith.
It is that shaming admonition we hear in this parable: “You wicked and lazy slave!”
It’s not what we want to hear.
Rather, we want to hear:
“Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”
Over and over again in Scripture, we find this one truth: God is not really ever concerned with what we have; but God is always concerned with what we dowith what we have.
And we should always remind ourselves that it is not always an issue of money that we’re dealing with when we talk about what we have.
The rewards of this life include many other things other than money—an issue we sometimes forget about in our western capitalist society.
The fact is, God is not always concerned about who we are or what we do.
God does not care about our ego.
God does not care about your ego!
But, God is always concerned with what we do with who we are and what we have.
And when we’re lazy, we purposely forget this fact.
When we’re lazy, we think we can just coast.
We think we can just “get by.”
We think we can just give lip service to our gratitude and that is enough.
We expect others to do the hard work while we sit back.
But it isn’t enough.
To be "good and trustworthy” is to take what we have and do something meaningful with it.
By doing something good, we are showing our gratitude for it.
In these two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, we might find ourselves thinking about all the things in our lives we are thankful for.
And we should be expressing our thanks to God for those things.
But what God seems to want from us more than anything else is to let that thankfulness be lived out in our lives.
Yes, we should give thanks to God with our mouths.
But we must give also thanks to God with our actions.
Today, we are reminded that, essentially, from that first moment when we became Christians in the waters of baptism, we are called to live out our thankfulness to God in our very lives, in what we do and how we act.
Our thankfulness should not simply be the words coming from our mouths, but also the actions we do as Christians.
As Christians truly thankful to God for all we have been given, we are to live a life of integrity and purpose and meaning.
Integrity.
Purpose.
Meaning.
And standing up again and again to what is wrong.
We show our thankfulness to God in our stewardship—in the fact that we are thankful by sharing what we have been given.
By sharing the goodness we have been given.
And in that sharing, we find the true meaning of what it means to be gracious.
In that sharing, we find purpose and meaning in our lives.
In that sharing, we find true contentment.
We all have our treasures in this life.
We all have these special things God has given us.
It might be our talents, it might be our know-how, it might be a blessing of financial abundance.
It might just be our very selves.
We have a choice with these treasures.
We can take them and we can sit on them.
We can store them away and not let them gain interest.
And in the end, all we have is a moldering treasure—which really isn’t a treasure at all.
Or we can take a chance, we can invest them and, in investing them, we can spread them and share them.
During this stewardship season, the message is not “Give”
The message of this stewardship time is “be grateful.”
Even in a pandemic.
Be grateful to God for the treasures of this life.
These are the things we have—our talents, our God-given abilities, the material blessings of our lives—and to be truly thankful for those things, we need to be grateful for them and to share them.
We can’t hoard them, we can’t hug them close and be afraid they will be taken from us.
And we can’t go through life with a complacent attitude—expecting that others are going to take of these things for us.
We must share what we have.
And we must share what we have with dignity and self-assurance and with a graceful and grateful attitude.
We must be gracious
We must not be the lazy slave who hoards what is given him, afraid to invest what he has.
We must instead be like the wise servant, the one is alert and prepared, the one who is truly gracious.
That is what Stewardship is really about.
It is about giving of ourselves, even when the times are tough.
And it is about making sure that we at St. Stephen’s can continue to do that and be that place in the future.
So, let us be the wise servants this Stewardship season.
Let us continue to step up to the plate and do what we must do.
Let us make sure that we as a congregation can continue to be a place of safety, of integrity, of holiness and love, when times are good and when times are bad.
Even during a pandemic.
Let us give thanks to God for all that St. Stephen’s does and is and continues to be.
And let us make sure that we can continue to be this radical place we are, this unique and eclectic and Holy Spirit-filled place we are.
And let us all do what we are called to do in our service of God and one another.
And if we are, we too will hear those words spoken to us—those words we all truly long to hear—“Well done, good and faithful one…enter into the joy of your master.”
Let us pray.
Abundant God, you provided us always with just what we need; we ask you during this Stewardship time to continue to provide this congregation of St. Stephen’s with the resources we need, with the time and talent needed, to do the work you have called us to do, to be a place of love and acceptance to those who need shelter, to embody those principals in this often dark and uncertain world, and to make a difference among those who need us; we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
November 1, 2020
November 1, 20201 John 3.1-3+ In case you might have not...
November 1, 2020
1 John 3.1-3
+ In case you might have noticed it, today is a very, very special Sunday.
All Sundays, of course, are special.
But today is even a bit more special, if you haven’t noticed.
Out in the Narthex, we do have the All Saints altar.
We have the Book of Remembrance, with the names written in it of all our departed loved ones.
People have been sending in the names of their departed loved ones for us to remember at Wednesday night’s All Souls Annual Requiem Mass.
Here in the Nave, we have the white paraments on the altar, and of course I’m all decked out in white as well (as you can see).
And we are celebrating even a bit more than we usually do.
In just a few moments, we’ll renew our Baptismal vows.
You’ll get sprinkled with water.
We’ll take joy in our baptism.
See, it’s a Sunday to celebrate.
Which, as you all know, I LOVE to do.
I love to celebrate.
I will look for any little opportunity to celebrate.
But, today we have plenty to celebrate.
First, we are celebrating the saints.
We are celebrating all those saints that we know of, like the Blessed Virgin Mary and our own St. Stephen.
We are celebrating the saints we have remembered in our beautiful windows.
We celebrate those saints because they are held up to us as examples of how to live this sometimes difficult life we live as Christians.
And, as those saints would no doubt tell us, it is hard to be a Christian sometimes.
It is hard, as we all know, to follow Jesus, and to do what Jesus tells us to do—to love God and love others.
It is hard to be, as John says in our first reading for today, the children of God, as Jesus himself is the Child of God.
The saints have shown this fact to us.
They have shown us how to be these very children of God.
We celebrate that today.
We celebrate, by our baptismal vows, that we are loved children of a loving and accepting God.
We are also celebrating the saints we have personally known.
We are celebrating the saints we have known who have come into our own lives—those people who have taught us about God and shown us that love does win out, again and again.
The saints in our own lives are those who have done it, who have shown us that we can be successful in following Jesus, even if they weren’t always successful at times in their own lives.
But, before we go any further, we do need to ask ourselves: what is a saint?
Well, this past week I came across this great story on Facebook.
It is about the great Dorothy Day, who is also being considered for canonization in the Roman Catholic Church.
This story is one we can relate to here.
During the 1970s, in those days after Vatican II and the liturgical reform that Churches like the Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church were going though, some priests were becoming rather casual with the liturgy. One afternoon, a priest came into the soup kitchen in which Dorothy Day was working. He wanted to offer a Mass for the homeless. He went into the kitchen and grabbed a coffee mug to use for the chalice.
Dorothy, although frustrated at the irreverent use of houseware for the liturgy, prayed throughout the mass with the priest. After the liturgy ended, she quietly got up and started to cleanse the vessels. Then, she walked outside with the mug and a shovel.
A man followed her and asked her what she was doing. It is said she kissed the mug and then buried it. She told him that it was no longer a mug, but a chalice. It was no longer suited for coffee- it had held the Blood of Christ. She didn’t want anyone to mistake it for a mug again. Once something holds the Body of Christ, it is no longer what it was. When the mug held the Blood of Christ, it changed its vocation forever. It could no longer hold anything less than Christ again.
The story goes on to say this:
“We were common mugs. Simple, functional, practical, and good people. We have a capacity to hold good things. But when Christ entered our lives, we became more. We became Chalices. We started to hold Christ—who is fully divine--within our hearts. Now that we have held the Body of Christ within our bodies, we are no longer common, but rather extraordinary.”
That is what a saint is.
A saint is a common mug that has holds within it the very Presence of Christ, and by doing so is transformed into something different and wonderful.
That is what we celebrate the saints.
That is what we celebrate today.
And when we start pondering who a saint is, we then can start looking at ourselves.
We can find the saints are not only in church, in stained glass, or on ikons, or their relics we put out.
No, rather we find saints looking back at us from our very mirrors.
We are the future saints.
We celebrate ourselves today—we, the future saints gathered here to worship God.
Together, we strive to follow Jesus, to love God and each other and to serve those we encounter.
That is what it means to be future saints.
Often, as we have known, saints are hidden from us.
Saints often are the ones we least expect to be saints.
But we have all known saints in our lives.
This morning, on this All Saints Sunday, and on a fairly regular basis, I think about the saints who have worshipped with us here at St. Stephen’s.
Today, we are reminded that they are still with us.
I occasionally look out and I can see still them with us at times.
I can still see Harriet Blow’s wheelchair.
I can see Betty Spur in that back pew.
I can still see Greg Craychee as an acolyte up front.
I can still see Angel Brekke and Betty De La Garza and her mother Georgia Patneaude, Jim Coffey here with us, smiles on their faces.
And for those who might not know who these people were, it’s just a reminder that ordinary people worshipped in these pews and in this building over the years and are now gone, but are still, in so many ways, with us.
And that, is why we celebrate the saints.
That is why we celebrate the saints with the different commemorations we have of them at our Wednesday night Masses throughout the year.
That is why they are in our windows.
And that is why we celebrate them especially on Sundays like today.
We celebrate the saints because they lead the way for us.
They show us how to live this sometimes difficult life as Christians.
They show us in their successes and they show us in their failures.
And we celebrate the saints as well because we too are the saints.
We are the future saints, who will one day be gathered around the altar of the Lamb, where we will partake of that glory without end.
There is something that you hear me preach about regularly, especially at funerals.
I often mention that “veil” that separates us from those who have gone on before us.
I mentioned that that veil is actually a very thin one, even though it often seems like a very thick curtain
But there are moments when that veil is sort of lifted and we can see that very little actually separates us from those saints who have gone on before us who now dwell in the nearer Presence of God.
This morning, we are actually able to see that veil lifted.
Of course, we see it lifted every time when we gather at the altar to celebrate the Eucharist, and God draws close to us.
At the Eucharist, those saints who are now worshipping God in heaven and those who are worship God here on earth—we are, in that one holy moment, together.
The distance between us, in that moment, is brought close.
And we catch a clear glimpse of what awaits.
This is not some isolated act we do, here in St. Stephen’s Church in north Fargo on this morning in November of 2020 in them middle of the worst pandemic any of us have ever known, in a country divided and frustrated and anxious as it awaits the results of a very contentious and all-important Presidential election.
Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we do it with every Christian on this earth who also celebrates it.
And when we celebrate the Eucharist, all we are doing is joining, for this limited time, the worship that is going on in heaven for all eternity.
We are reminded this morning that our true vocation as Christians is to be chalices, to carry within us the very Presence of Christ.
Our inheritance is to be children of our loving God.
We are all called to be saints.
It is a wonderful vocation we are called to.
So, let us—the future saints of God—truly celebrate today.
Let us celebrate the saints who have gone on and who are still with us in various ways.
Let us celebrate the saints who are here with us, right now, on this joyful morning.
And let us celebrate ourselves, as we look into our future with God with delight and true joy.
Let us pray.
God of all ages, you are truly glorious in your saints; fill us with the Presence of your Christ, so that we, mere houseware that we are, may be chalices of your Presence to those around us who need your Presence; we ask this in the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen.
November 1, 20201 John 3.1-3+ In case you might hav...
November 1, 2020
1 John 3.1-3
+ In case you might have noticed it, today is a very, very special Sunday.
All Sundays, of course, are special.
But today is even a bit more special, if you haven’t noticed.
Out in the Narthex, we do have the All Saints altar.
We have the Book of Remembrance, with the names written in it of all our departed loved ones.
People have been sending in the names of their departed loved ones for us to remember at Wednesday night’s All Souls Annual Requiem Mass.
Here in the Nave, we have the white paraments on the altar, and of course I’m all decked out in white as well (as you can see).
And we are celebrating even a bit more than we usually do.
In just a few moments, we’ll renew our Baptismal vows.
You’ll get sprinkled with water.
We’ll take joy in our baptism.
See, it’s a Sunday to celebrate.
Which, as you all know, I LOVE to do.
I love to celebrate.
I will look for any little opportunity to celebrate.
But, today we have plenty to celebrate.
First, we are celebrating the saints.
We are celebrating all those saints that we know of, like the Blessed Virgin Mary and our own St. Stephen.
We are celebrating the saints we have remembered in our beautiful windows.
We celebrate those saints because they are held up to us as examples of how to live this sometimes difficult life we live as Christians.
And, as those saints would no doubt tell us, it is hard to be a Christian sometimes.
It is hard, as we all know, to follow Jesus, and to do what Jesus tells us to do—to love God and love others.
It is hard to be, as John says in our first reading for today, the children of God, as Jesus himself is the Child of God.
The saints have shown this fact to us.
They have shown us how to be these very children of God.
We celebrate that today.
We celebrate, by our baptismal vows, that we are loved children of a loving and accepting God.
We are also celebrating the saints we have personally known.
We are celebrating the saints we have known who have come into our own lives—those people who have taught us about God and shown us that love does win out, again and again.
The saints in our own lives are those who have done it, who have shown us that we can be successful in following Jesus, even if they weren’t always successful at times in their own lives.
But, before we go any further, we do need to ask ourselves: what is a saint?
Well, this past week I came across this great story on Facebook.
It is about the great Dorothy Day, who is also being considered for canonization in the Roman Catholic Church.
This story is one we can relate to here.
During the 1970s, in those days after Vatican II and the liturgical reform that Churches like the Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church were going though, some priests were becoming rather casual with the liturgy. One afternoon, a priest came into the soup kitchen in which Dorothy Day was working. He wanted to offer a Mass for the homeless. He went into the kitchen and grabbed a coffee mug to use for the chalice.
Dorothy, although frustrated at the irreverent use of houseware for the liturgy, prayed throughout the mass with the priest. After the liturgy ended, she quietly got up and started to cleanse the vessels. Then, she walked outside with the mug and a shovel.
A man followed her and asked her what she was doing. It is said she kissed the mug and then buried it. She told him that it was no longer a mug, but a chalice. It was no longer suited for coffee- it had held the Blood of Christ. She didn’t want anyone to mistake it for a mug again. Once something holds the Body of Christ, it is no longer what it was. When the mug held the Blood of Christ, it changed its vocation forever. It could no longer hold anything less than Christ again.
The story goes on to say this:
“We were common mugs. Simple, functional, practical, and good people. We have a capacity to hold good things. But when Christ entered our lives, we became more. We became Chalices. We started to hold Christ—who is fully divine--within our hearts. Now that we have held the Body of Christ within our bodies, we are no longer common, but rather extraordinary.”
That is what a saint is.
A saint is a common mug that has holds within it the very Presence of Christ, and by doing so is transformed into something different and wonderful.
That is what we celebrate the saints.
That is what we celebrate today.
And when we start pondering who a saint is, we then can start looking at ourselves.
We can find the saints are not only in church, in stained glass, or on ikons, or their relics we put out.
No, rather we find saints looking back at us from our very mirrors.
We are the future saints.
We celebrate ourselves today—we, the future saints gathered here to worship God.
Together, we strive to follow Jesus, to love God and each other and to serve those we encounter.
That is what it means to be future saints.
Often, as we have known, saints are hidden from us.
Saints often are the ones we least expect to be saints.
But we have all known saints in our lives.
This morning, on this All Saints Sunday, and on a fairly regular basis, I think about the saints who have worshipped with us here at St. Stephen’s.
Today, we are reminded that they are still with us.
I occasionally look out and I can see still them with us at times.
I can still see Harriet Blow’s wheelchair.
I can see Betty Spur in that back pew.
I can still see Greg Craychee as an acolyte up front.
I can still see Angel Brekke and Betty De La Garza and her mother Georgia Patneaude, Jim Coffey here with us, smiles on their faces.
And for those who might not know who these people were, it’s just a reminder that ordinary people worshipped in these pews and in this building over the years and are now gone, but are still, in so many ways, with us.
And that, is why we celebrate the saints.
That is why we celebrate the saints with the different commemorations we have of them at our Wednesday night Masses throughout the year.
That is why they are in our windows.
And that is why we celebrate them especially on Sundays like today.
We celebrate the saints because they lead the way for us.
They show us how to live this sometimes difficult life as Christians.
They show us in their successes and they show us in their failures.
And we celebrate the saints as well because we too are the saints.
We are the future saints, who will one day be gathered around the altar of the Lamb, where we will partake of that glory without end.
There is something that you hear me preach about regularly, especially at funerals.
I often mention that “veil” that separates us from those who have gone on before us.
I mentioned that that veil is actually a very thin one, even though it often seems like a very thick curtain
But there are moments when that veil is sort of lifted and we can see that very little actually separates us from those saints who have gone on before us who now dwell in the nearer Presence of God.
This morning, we are actually able to see that veil lifted.
Of course, we see it lifted every time when we gather at the altar to celebrate the Eucharist, and God draws close to us.
At the Eucharist, those saints who are now worshipping God in heaven and those who are worship God here on earth—we are, in that one holy moment, together.
The distance between us, in that moment, is brought close.
And we catch a clear glimpse of what awaits.
This is not some isolated act we do, here in St. Stephen’s Church in north Fargo on this morning in November of 2020 in them middle of the worst pandemic any of us have ever known, in a country divided and frustrated and anxious as it awaits the results of a very contentious and all-important Presidential election.
Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we do it with every Christian on this earth who also celebrates it.
And when we celebrate the Eucharist, all we are doing is joining, for this limited time, the worship that is going on in heaven for all eternity.
We are reminded this morning that our true vocation as Christians is to be chalices, to carry within us the very Presence of Christ.
Our inheritance is to be children of our loving God.
We are all called to be saints.
It is a wonderful vocation we are called to.
So, let us—the future saints of God—truly celebrate today.
Let us celebrate the saints who have gone on and who are still with us in various ways.
Let us celebrate the saints who are here with us, right now, on this joyful morning.
And let us celebrate ourselves, as we look into our future with God with delight and true joy.
Let us pray.
God of all ages, you are truly glorious in your saints; fill us with the Presence of your Christ, so that we, mere houseware that we are, may be chalices of your Presence to those around us who need your Presence; we ask this in the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen.
October 25, 2020
21 Pentecost
October 25, 2020
Leviticus 19.1-2, 15-18; Matthew 22.34-46
+ Last week, in my sermon, I preached about the Shema.
The Shema is a profession of faith from the Deuteronmony 6.5-9 that goes like this:
Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
The Shema is the prayer all Jewish men are required to pray twice each day, once in the morning and once at night.
Although I’m of course not Jewish, I also do that.
I also pray the Shema each morning upon waking up and each night before bed.
It’s a good spiritual practice.
But it’s more than that.
It’s the heart of what we believe as followers of Jesus and believers in the God of Jesus.
For me, as you all know, as you have heard me preach over and over again from this pulpit over the many years I’ve been with you here, this is what it’s all about.
This Gospel reading isn’t just a summary of the Law.
It is a summary of Christianity itself.
This is what we must do as Christians.
Plain.
And seemingly simply (but maybe not so simple).
Now, I once was scolded a bit—this was at another congregation, mind you—for preaching too much about love.
“You always preach about love,” this parishioner told me.
Yup.
I sure do.
And if it was meant as a criticism, I do not take it that way.
I wear it proudly as a badge of honor.
Because the fact remains that this is essentially all Jesus preached about as well.
And it it’s good enough for him, it’s sure good enough for me.
The gist of everything Jesus said or did was based solidly on what we hear him summarize in this morning’s Gospel.
In fact,
Every sermon and parable he preached, was based on what we heard today.
Every miracle, and even that final act on the cross, was based solidly on what we heard this morning.
In today’s Gospel Jesus is clear.
Which commandment is the greatest? he is asked.
And he replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love you neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
He can’t get any clearer, as far as I’m concerned.
And it is these two commandments, both of which are solidly and unashamedly based in love, that he again and again professes.
Every day of his adult life, Jesus prayed this prayer.
It was the basis of his entire spiritual life.
And this commandment, along with the commandment to love others, is the basis for his entire teaching.
When he says, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” we can also add the Gospel.
The Gospel, along with the Law and the prophets, is based on these commandments.
And so is our entire faith as Christians.
I don’t think I can get any clearer on this.
I hear so often from Christians—not a whole lot of Episcopalians, but other Christians—that their faith as a Christian is based solely on accepting Jesus Christ as their “personal” Lord and Savior.
I have no problem with that in actuality.
Our Baptismal promises in the Book of Common Prayer are based on accepting Jesus as our Savior as well.
In the Baptismal promises we are asked that all-important question:
“Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?”
And, of course, we do.
But, for Jesus, the real heart of the matter is not in such a professions of faith.
He never commands us to make such statements for salvation.
What he does command us to do again and again, to love.
To love God.
And to love one another.
And, as you’ve heard me say, Sunday after Sunday from this pulpit, when we fail to love, we fail to be Christians.
Any time we fail in these two commandments, we fail to be Christians.
We turn away from following Jesus and we turn away from all that it means to be a Christian. I think the organized Church sometimes misses this fact.
And we, as Christians, sometimes miss this fact as well.
We sometimes think: maybe this is too simple.
Love God, love others.
It’s just too simple.
Well, first of all: it is not.
It is not easy to love God.
It is not easy to love Someone who is, for the most part, invisible to us.
And, as we struggle with all the time in our lives, it is not easy to love others.
I don’t need to tell anyone here this morning that is sometimes very hard to love others.
So, it is not too simple.
But we still want something more occasionally.
We sometimes fall into the trap of depending on things like dogma, or the Law, or Canons (or Church Laws), or any of the other rules that define it all for us specifically.
Certainly, when we start doing so, we enter dangerous territory.
The fact is, all of those things, confessional statements, dogmas, church laws or any of those complicated rules, are pointless if they are not based on these two laws of loving God and loving others.
If anyone wants to know what Christians believe and who we are, these two Laws are it.
They define us.
They guide and direct us.
And when we fail to do them, let me tell you, they convict us and they judge us.
So, yes, I know I am guilty of preaching the same thing all the time.
But I do unashamedly.
I do so proudly.
I do so without any sense of remorse.
Here I stand.
Because all I am doing when I preach about loving God and loving others, is what Jesus did.
I am following Jesus when I preach those laws.
But more importantly than preaching about them, I hope we can all strive to live those laws in our lives,
I try to in my own life as Christian and as a priest.
I try to help others to do that as well.
So, let us love unashamedly.
Let us love without limit.
Let us love radically.
As our reading from Leviticus tells us, “let us be holy” because our God is holy.
Let the love that guides us and directs and, yes judges us and convicts us, be the one motivating factor in our lives.
Let it be the foundation and basis of each ministry we are called to do.
Let love—that radical, all-encompassing, all-accepting love—be what drives us.
And let us—each of us—be known to everyone by our love.
Let us pray.
Holy God, help us in our following of your Son Jesus that we me might embody and fully live out the Law of loving you fully and loving others with a true, all-encompassing, all-accepting love. We ask this in his name. Amen.
October 18, 2020
The week of October 19
Wednesday, October 7
6:00 p.m. – Holy Eucharist
Fr. Jamie, celebrant/ preacher
Deacon John, assisting
Friday, October 9
Fr. Jamie’s day off
Sunday, October 11
11:00 a.m. – Holy Eucharist
Fr. Jamie, celebrant/preacher
Deacon John, assisting
James Mackay, organist
Michelle Gelinske, cantor
Our Sunday Eucharist service is now open to public worship. Our Masses will continue to be livestreamed for those who are not yet ready to come back to public worship:
Livestream: https://facebook.com/groups/52039214842
Or on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcdWKCnCHmviajkFX5p-xGg
Or posted to our webpage: https://ststephensfargo.org
Prayers for the Election Season
This election season has been one of the most contentious of modern times. Many of us feel helpless. But there are things you can do.
First, VOTE. Go out and vote.
Second, PRAY.
Forward Movement has put out an important resource for the Election year. I invite you to use this resource in your prayer life as we head toward the election:
A Season of Prayer: For an Election
A Season of Prayer: For an Election
This election season has been among the most contentious in recent memory. But whatever our politics, as Christi...
Mark your calendars:
Oct. 23-24 – Diocesan Convention
Oct. 25-31 All Saints Octave
In the Octave, we are called first to remember with thanksgiving the lives of the Saints. Second, we are called to imitate them. And third, we are exhorted to desire that Christ should move us now that we might join them in the Kingdom when our journey here on earth is done.
For a Laugh:
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Beginning Sunday October 25, anyone planning to att...
Beginning Sunday October 25, anyone planning to attend Sunday morning Mass will no longer have to contact Senior Warden Jean Sando to reserve a place.
We ask that anyone planning on attending Mass to please continue to wear a face mask and practice social distancing.
Pews will continue to be blocked off to keep distance between pews, and once the limited seating in the nave is filled, we will allow seating in the narthex.
Fr. Jamie and the Vestry of St. Stephen’s
20 Pentecost
October 17, 2020
Matthew 22.15-22
+ Last week, in our Gospel reading, I was blunt—and honest—with you.
I told you then that I did not like the parable we were told by Jesus.
It was a difficult story that, by today’s standards, would’ve been torn to pieces by critics.
But if we’re patient in our faithful listening to these Gospels, we can almost be assured that for every one story we might not like—like last week’s story—there will be one that we really get.
Today, is one of those Gospel readings.
I like this Gospel reading.
In it we find Jesus being confronted by the Herodians and the Pharisees, both of whom are enemies of each other, but for this brief moment, they are ganging up on Jesus.
I love it when Jesus and the Pharisees go head-to-head.
Actually, I feel kind of sorry for the Pharisees.
They think they’re really smart and clever, but they’re really not.
They begin their argument with a compliment of course.
Yes, that’s the way to begin.
They know: a compliment will truly throw off the person you are about to trap.
But Jesus is too smart for them of course.
He turns their question back on them. Jesus asks about the coin.
He asks about a coin he, if you notice, does not carry.
Nor does he ever touch it.
As we know, Roman coins were ritually unclean in the Jewish culture.
The emperor Caesar was viewed as a god, and that made them unclean to good, pious Jews.
Using the coin as his reference, he lets them have it.
Give to God’s what is God’s, he says.
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
I can’t think of a better scripture for us during the election season, especially this particular one.
It seems he is making a clear distinction between the religious and the secular to some extent.
He seems to be making that distinction between God and government.
But…not really.
The real point he is making here can be found when we put it all in perspective.
Jesus and every good, loyal Jewish male there on that day—including the Pharisees— was required to pray a prayer every day.
Jesus no doubt prayed that prayer that morning, as did every devout Jewish male (and no doubt many Jewish females) that day.
The prayer is a simple prayer.
It’s called the Shema
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”
The Shema is, of course, the summary of the Law.
It is a summary of all belief for a Jew. It essentially renders to God, what is God’s.
But if you listen closely to what the Shema says, you realize: Jesus’ statement really isn’t an either/or statement.
He’s simply saying that once what is God’s is rendered to God, there is nothing else.
There are no other options for those of us who belong to God.
For those who love God with all their heart, all their soul and all their might, there is nothing else.
Rendering anything to Caesar’s is simply not an option.
For us, it is a matter of realizing we don’t have the option of turning our Christianity on and off.
We are always followers of Jesus, we are always children of a loving God, in everything we do.
Everything we do and say begins and ends in following Jesus.
We don’t have the option of being a Christian when it suits us and being secular when it doesn’t.
We are a follower of Jesus all the time—in everything we do and every aspect of our lives.
And it is important to remind ourselves of this.
So what does it mean to live a life in which we give to God what is God’s?
It meant to do what we do best as Christians.
It means to love fully.
It means loving God fully.
It means loving others fully.
It means loving ourselves fully.
It means living that love out in our lives.
For this love that we have received from God is God’s love.
And we must render that love to God and to others.
I know.
It sounds so simple.
It sounds so basic.
We wonder why we ever thought it was hard or why others thought it was hard.
But it is a lot harder than it sounds.
Rendering the things that are God’s to God is not easy.
It is much, much easier to render the things to Caesar that are Caesar’s.
It is easy to let the establishment stay established.
It is easy to be chameleons to some extent, to change ourselves to suit whatever situation may arise so that we can quietly fade into the background, or so we can hold on, for a moment, to the control we have worked to maintain.
It is easy to be a Christian on Sundays but to be a regular person the rest of the week.
It is easy to say we’re Christians, but it’s not always east being a Christian.
But for us, who follow Jesus, being anything other than a follower of Jesus is a sell-out.
It truly is a turning away from Jesus and all he stands for.
It is, essentially, a way in which we turn our Christianity on and off like a switch to suit our own personal needs.
It is hard to be a Christian in every aspect of our lives.
It hard to love God in all things.
It is hard to love our neighbors in all things.
It is hard, very often to love even ourselves in all things.
But that is what it means to render to God the things that are God’s.
It means giving to God all that is God’s.
And we belong to God.
We are the conduits of that all-loving, all-accepting God.
We are the bearers of that radical, all-powerful love of God.
So let us truly render to God what is God’s.
Let us live out our lives in the love we have received from God.
Let us live fully in this holy and all-consuming love, sharing what we are nourished on here with everyone.
And with God’s love within us in this way, let us be that radical Presence of love and acceptance to all those we encounter.
Let us pray.
Holy and loving God, help us in what we render to you, that it will be fruitful and will further the Kingdom you have established here among us; we ask this in the name of Jesus your Son. Amen.
October 11, 2020
19 Pentecost
October 11, 2020
Isaiah 25.1-9; Matthew 22.1-14
+ I believe I’ve shared this with you before, but in case you haven’t heard it, I’ll tell it again.
When I was finishing up my Master of Fine Arts some twenty+ years ago, I did my critical thesis on my view that there were two types of writers.
There were those writers who were on the inside looking out.
And there were those who were on the outside looking in.
If you think about it, it’s actually quite true.
Think about your favorite writer or poet or playwright or novelist or filmmaker or theologian.
Think of about their perspective on life or the world.
And you can guess about where your favorite poet-priest is on that spectrum (it’s not hard to guess)
If you examine them closely you will see that they are either on the inside looking out, or on the outside looking in.
And since the writer’s perspective is all-important to literature, these perspectives are vital.
Essentially then there are the “insiders” and the “outsiders.”
It was fun for me to explore these two perspectives in literature for that thesis.
But, later, as a priest, I have discovered that these perspectives—literature itself—truly does reflect reality.
As you look at your own life, you no doubt think you have a pretty clear understanding of where you stand on that spectrum.
You probably think either that you are the outsider or the insider.
But, I always caution people on this.
Don’t be quick to claim one or the other, because this perspective might change in your life.
Circumstances might often put you in the opposite perspective.
Or sometimes, your own choices put you in that perspective
I’ve seen it happen again and again.
And I see it very clearly in our Gospel reading for today—a reading that caused a great amount of personal struggle this past week.
And “struggle” is definitely the right word for this reading.
It’s a weird story, to say the least.
It’s just such a pointless story isn’t it?
I know, I shouldn’t be saying that about a parable.
But, to be honest, I just don’t like it.
The structure is so off.
There’s almost nothing, at face value, worth redeeming.
I just don’t like the story.
But…let’s not throw it out yet.
Let’s not completely abandon this story just because we find it unpleasant.
If we did that every time we read the scriptures…well…I’ll just leave it there.
First of all, it definitely seems that Matthew has an agenda in this story.
Obviously Matthew is directing this to his fellow Jewish believers.
And when we see it from that perspective, it kind of starts making a bit of sense.
So, let’s reframe the story a bit:
The first guests, as we discover, are Israel.
The first slaves represent the prophets, who were also beaten up and killed for trying to tell them what God wanted.
The second slaves are the apostles.
And, if you notice, the second group of people are very different than the first group.
That’s because they’re the Church.
At this point, “everyone” has been invited.
“Everyone” is a very important clue to this story.
“Everyone” means everyone.
So, what Matthew is trying to have Jesus tell us is that Israel ignored God’s message, and as a result, the Kingdom was given to others.
Last week, I preached about how sobering that thought is—the fact that the Kingdom of God can be given to others.
So, we have these slaves going out and inviting.
The apostles were called by Jesus to do just that.
They were called to invite everyone—not just the elite.
Not just the best guests.
Not the fancy wedding guests.
Everyone.
To echo my original thought: for Jesus, everyone is invited to be an “insider” in the Kingdom of God.
You don’t have be on the outside looking in to this Kingdom.
That’s great. That’s wonderful.
But, what happens next in the story is the real pivot here.
The second coming happens.
This is the “final judgment.”
The King arrives!
Now, that sounds great.
We’re all looking forward to the Second Coming.
We’re all looking forward to the King—Jesus—arriving.
But wait….
It’s not all pleasant and beautiful.
Why?
Because someone gets thrown out.
This poor guy who isn’t wearing a wedding robe gets thrown out.
What?
Wait!
Didn’t Father Jamie just say that Jesus invites everyone to be an “insider” in the Kingdom?
So, what’s this now?
If everyone gets invited, who cares if someone is wearing a robe or not?
Now it sounds terrible to us.
But, but, but…
Let’s keep it in the context of its time.
At that time, not wearing the wedding robe that was provided to the guests was an insult.
It was essentially a way of saying that, Yes, I’m here at the wedding, yes I’m going to eat and drink, but I’m not really going to participate.
I’m going to get what I need out of this, but once I do, I’m gone.
I’m not really going to make a commitment to this feast.
I’m going to be a bad guest.
And this is the real gist of this story.
Now, we’ve all known bad guests.
We’ve seen them at weddings.
We’ve had them at parties.
We’ve seen them here in church.
They’re people who come and take and take and take, and expect the host (or hosts) to do everything for them, but then don’t participate.
They stand off to the side, and complain, and backbite and fold their arms when something doesn’t go THEIR way.
They nitpick and complain over and over again about every little detail.
They refuse the wedding garment—they refuse the gifts that have been given to them.
Now, the good thing about this is that, it’s all about choice.
We all have a choice.
We choose to go to “the wedding.”
We choose to be a good guest or a bad guest.
God did not make us into mindless robots.
But there are ramifications to what we choose.
My motto for life, as you have heard me say a million times, (especially recently) is this:
the chickens always come home to roost.
The fact is, by not wearing the robe, we’re not really present.
We’re saying “no” to the King.
For us, it’s kind of the same.
We can be here.
We can sit here in our pews or watch at home.
But we don’t haveto be a part of it all.
We can be obstinate.
We can cross our arms and critique everything about the sermon or the liturgy or the music or the way the altar is set up, etc.
We can close our minds and hearts and be bitter and complain.
We can nitpick or backbite or stomp our heels because we don’t like it.
We can “choose” to be the outsider.
We’ve all known those kind of people in the church.
You know what, sometimes I am that person in church.
I, the priest, am often that way in regard to the larger Church at times.
Sometimes I am obstinate, and I complain about things.
I’ll confess: I pride myself on being the “outsider.”
After all, I’ve been an outsider for a long time.
It’s a choice I made.
And there are consequences to that choice.
I can be continue to stand aloof, my arms crossed and frown at everything.
Or I can be a part of it all.
And not just here, in church on Sunday.
As we know, it’s a lot more than just church on Sunday that makes us Christians—that makes us good or bad Christians.
Ultimately, it is about what we do out there.
If we are jerks to people, if we are close-minded, if we judgmental, if we’re sexist and homophobic and mean-spirited, or if we support fascists and Nazis, then we’re not really doing a good job as Christians.
If we refuse to love, we’re refusing the wedding robe.
The fact is, everyone is invited to the banquet.
I say it again and again.
We’re all invited.
And, here’s the rub:
it really isn’t hard to get in.
At all.
But sometimes it is really hard to be a good guest at the banquet.
Sometimes, we really just don’t want to participate.
Sometimes, you know what, I just don’t want to be a part of it.
Sometimes it’s just easier to cross my arms and pout in the corner.
Sometimes it’s just easier to critique and complain and find fault.
Sometimes it’s easier to not love and respect others.
Because, we’ve so often not been loved and not respected by others.
Sometimes, we’re just used to being on the outside looking in.
And sometimes it’s just hard to make the transition to being an “insider” after being outside for so long.
And that’s our choice to react like that.
But it’s not what is expected of us.
We’ve been invited to the banquet!
We have an easy “in” to the banquet!
We are invited, finally, to be an “insider.”
We should be glad!
We should be excited.
We should don that wedding robe and do whatever else needs to be done to be a good guest.
Because, here’s the other stark reality of it all:
It’s not fun being the outsider.
I can tell you that by first-hand experience.
It is not fun being all by one’s self on the outside of the party, looking in at everyone who’s there.
But, that’s sometimes where we put ourselves.
That’s where we often go to pout and feel bad about ourselves.
Luckily Jesus, who truly does love us, who truly does want us at the banquet, never lets us stay out there—outside the party—for long.
Jesus does not let us stay the “outsider” for very long.
The invitation from Jesus keeps coming.
“Come in,” he says to us. “Come in from the cold. Come in from the dark. Come in and join my party.”
Because, it IS a party.
And all he have to do accept the invitation.
All we have to do is put on the wedding garment.
That’s all the bad guests had to do to rejoin the party.
So, let’s do just that.
Let’s put on the wedding robe.
Let us not cast ourselves off into the exterior.
Let us not alienate ourselves with our bitterness and anger.
But let us join the banquet in love.
Let us heed the invitation.
Let us celebrate, and be joyful and be glad.
That’s what our Host wants from us.
And when we do, we can truly echo those words we hear today from Isaiah:
“This is our God, the one for whom we have waited…
Let us be glad and rejoice in our salvation.”
Let us pray.
Holy God, gracious God, as we await anxiously the coming of your Kingdom, help us to make welcome all those who seek this Kingdom especially to those who are on the outside looking in. Only then, when we are all gathered together with you, will w actually be your Kingdom; we ask this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
October 4, 2020
18 Pentecost
The Feast of St. Francis
Matthew 21.33-46
October 4, 2020
+ I’m sure you’ve noticed, but there is a lot of zealous people out there, especially in this election year.
There is very little middle ground in this election year.
There is no end of people giving very impassioned opinions.
Just take a quick perusal of Facebook. Or the News. Or outside your window.
And, for the most part, being zealous for something is not a bad thing by any means.
I would rather have someone zealous for an opinion with which I might not agree than know someone lackluster.
At least the discussion will be interesting.
In fact, today is the feast day of one of the truly great zealots for Christ in the Church, none other than the great St. Francis of Assisi.
Francis was a fascinating man, and truly one of the most favorite saints in the Church.
He is known as an animal lover, which is why we are blessing our pets on this day.
He was known as a lover of peace.
He has the reputation of a kind and gentle person.
But, Francis was a zealot in his heart of hearts.
He was passionate in his love for God, in this following of Jesus, in his care for the poor.
Some—including his own family—thought he was a fanatic.
And maybe he was.
He heard the voice of Jesus tell him:
“Rebuild my Church!”
Which he did.
But that passionate love he had for God and for others is something we still are celebrating in the Church 794 years after his death.
So, this morning, I am going to ask you a very important question:
What are you zealous for?
For what do you have real zeal?
Will anyone be talking about your zeal 794 years from now?
I know. Yes, some of us have real zeal for sports.
And certainly, here at St. Stephen’s, I know there is a lot of zealousness for political opinion and causes.
As do I.
I am very zealous politically, and theologically, and spiritually, and poetically.
You all know that.
If I have an opinion on something, you’ll probably know it in no time at all, even if you might not agree with it.
Trust me, I am full of zeal!!
But zeal is a word we don’t use too often anymore.
And, at least in this part of the country, we are, for the most part, uncomfortable with zeal.
Zeal equals emotion—or should e say over-emotion—for us.
And certainly zeal involves an emotional attachment to something.
Now, as I said, it is not a bad thing by any means to be zealous.
It’s good to be challenged occasionally (respectfully, of course).
It keeps us on our toes.
And it humbles us.
Well, this morning we definitely have one of those parables that challenges us, that keeps us on our toes.
It may even make us a bit angry and that definitely forces us to look more closely at ourselves.
Let’s face it, it’s a violent story we hear Jesus tell us today.
These bad tenants are so devious they are willing to kill to get what they want.
And in the end, their violence is turned back upon them.
It’s not a warm, fuzzy story that we can take with us and hold close to our hearts.
The Church over the years has certainly struggled with this parable because it can be so challenging.
At face value, the story can probably be pretty easily interpreted in this way: The Vineyard owner of course symbolic of God.
The Vineyard owner’s son of Jesus.
The Vineyard is symbolic of the Kingdom.
And the workers in the vineyard who kill the son are symbolic of the religious leaders who will kill Jesus.
From this view, we can see the story as a prediction of Jesus’ murder.
But there is another interpretation of this story that isn’t so neat and clean and finely put-together.
It is in fact an uncomfortable interpretation of this parable.
As we hear it, we do find ourselves shaken a bit.
It isn’t a story that we want to emulate.
I HOPE none of us want to emulate it.
But again, Jesus DOES twist this story around for us.
The ones we no doubt find ourselves relating to are not the Vineyard owner or the Vineyard owner’s son, but, in fact, the vineyard workers.
We relate to them not because we have murderous intentions in our heart. Not because we are inherently bad.
But because we sometimes can be just as resolute.
We can sometimes be just that zealous.
We sometimes will stop at nothing to get what we want.
We are sometimes so full of zeal for something that we might occasionally ride roughshod over others.
And when we do so, we find that we are not bringing the Kingdom of God about in our midst.
Zeal can be a good thing.
We should be full of zeal for God and God’s Kingdom.
We too should stop at nothing to gain the Kingdom of God.
But zeal taken too far undoes the good we hoped to bring about.
The most frightening aspect of our Gospel story is the fact that Jesus tells us that the kingdom can be taken away from us.
It can be given to others.
Our zeal for the kingdom has a lot to do with what we gain and what we lose.
Our zeal to make this kingdom a reality in our world is what makes real and positive change in this world.
At the same time, zeal can be a very slippery slope.
It can also make us zealots.
It can make us fanatics.
And this world is too full of fanatics.
There are plenty of good examples of fanatics in this world right now, from the far right Evangelicals to those poor people in North Korea who are held hostage to a brain-washed ideology.
This world is too full of people who have taken their religion so seriously that they have actually lost touch with it.
This story we hear Jesus today tell us teaches us a lesson about taking our zeal too far.
If we become violent in our zeal, we need to expect violence in return.
And certainly this is probably the most difficult part of this parable for most of us.
For those of us who consider ourselves peace-loving, nonviolent Christians—and we all should be that kind of a Christian—we cringe when we hear stories of violence in the scriptures.
But violence like the kind we hear in today’s parable, or anywhere else in scriptures should not just be thrown out because we find it uncomfortable.
It should not be discarded as useless just because we are made uncomfortable by it.
As I have said, again and again, it is not just about any ONE of us, as individuals.
It is about us as a whole.
If we look at the kind of violence we find in the Scriptures and use it metaphorically, it could actually be quite useful for us.
If we take some of those stories metaphorically, they actually speak to us on a deeper level.
If we take the parable of the vineyard workers and apply it honestly to ourselves, we find it does speak to us in a very clear way.
Our zeal for the kingdom of God should drive us.
It should move us and motivate us.
We should be empowered to bring the Kingdom into our midst.
But it should not make us into the bad vineyard workers.
It should not make into the chief priests and Pharisees who knew, full well, that they were the bad vineyard workers.
A story like this helps us to keep our zeal centered perfectly on God, and not on all the little nitpicky, peripheral stuff.
A story like this prevents us, hopefully, from becoming mindless zealots.
What it does allow and commend is passion.
What it does tell us is that we should be excited for the Kingdom.
True zeal makes us uncomfortable, yes.
It makes us restless.
It frustrates us.
True zeal also energizes us and makes us want to work until we catch a glimpse of that Kingdom in our midst.
This is what Jesus is telling us again and again.
He is telling us in these parables that the Kingdom of God isn’t just some sweet, cloud-filled place in the next world.
He is telling is, very clearly, that is it not just about any ONE of us.
It is not about our own personal agendas.
The Kingdom of God is right here, in our midst.
And the foundation of that kingdom, the gateway of that Kingdom, the conduit of that Kingdom is always love.
Love of God, love of neighbor, healthy love of self.
This is what Jesus preached. That is the path Jesus is leading us on.
This is the path we walk as we follow after him.
And it is a path on which we should be overjoyed to be walking.
So, let us follow this path of Jesus with true and holy zeal.
Let us set out to do the work we have to do as workers in the vineyard with love in our heart and love in our actions.
And as we do, we will echo the words we heard in today’s Gospel:
“This is what the Lord is doing; it is amazing in our eyes.”
Let us pray.
Holy God, give us true zeal for your Kingdom. Instill in us a fire that will burn brightly to lighten our path so that we may do what we must do as we follow your Son, Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.
