Beware the Gospel of Silence

This is an anxious time to be a preacher in the United States.

Over the past few weeks, I have been cautioned from various quarters from being too "political" in my preaching. This caution has come either directly to me or in a generalized way from colleagues, friends, and faith leaders.

Then came Bishop Marianne Budde's sermon in the Washington National Cathedral, (also here and here) where she directly asked the President, by name, to exercise mercy in the application of his administration's policies towards migrants, LGBTQ+ persons, women, and others who are frightened by the policy drift of the incoming administration. The response to her sermon was outrage. 

Nothing says "anxiety" to me as when a preacher in her own pulpit, a Bishop in her own diocese, gave a sermon that touched on at least five of the seven cardinal virtues (temperance, charity, justice, prudence, and patience) followed by a plea for mercy, in line with Jesus' words on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:7)-- and is blasted for it! The President and his supporters angrily dismissed her as being "mean," "aggressive" and (worst of all...) "boring." 

Even among those who agreed with her words, there was anxiety. Some have said that if only Bishop Budde had not addressed the President by name or had not spoken to him directly, then the message would have been better received. Or that this service of prayer following an inauguration was the wrong time for this message. (Uhm... have you ever heard an ordination or commissioning sermon that ends with a "charge" from the preacher to the ones being ordained or commissioned? That was what was going on here.) Others have said that she should have been praying for the President and not criticizing him... which raises the question: "praying for what?"

Now, I have never endorsed or advocated for a specific candidate for any office from the pulpit. I have prayed at civic events including city and county council meetings and taken part public civic events in my capacity as a local pastor.  In my preaching, I will focus on the ethics and morals of policy when it is called for, and will talk about justice, peacemaking, health, and poverty as moral and ethical issues and how we as Christians can address them. I also pray for every President and Governor by name when I preside at liturgies and when I say the Daily Offices everyday, regardless of how they or I vote.

The problem is, as the National Catholic Reporter noted after the sermon, the fact of the matter is that everything a preacher says or does these days is being interpreted through a partisan lens. We preachers are in a situation where saying nothing is deemed "safe." And if the preacher addresses basic ethics and morality, then they are seen as being excessively partisan. Unfortunately, the consequence of this silence is that our congregants are left without guidance or hope... which may be the whole point of the backlash.., to intimidate preachers into silence. 

I find that the urge to "tone it down" is especially troublesome when compared to other preachers who can't stop themselves from going full-on partisan when they praise the President for being God's Chosen One, or something very much like that.

But when it's our turn, we are told to "tone it down." But "tone it down" how much? What good is it to our congregations, or anyone else, when all we are preaching is a gospel of silence?

What's particularly strange is that many of the same people who attacked Bishop Budde were also lining up to see a movie about Dieterich Bonhoeffer, cheering as he opposed Hitler even to the point of participating in an assassination plot. Never mind that the film, like the book it was based on, massively distorted Bonhoeffer in order to make him into a model modern Evangelical culture warrior, these audiences cheered all the more for precisely that reason.  

To be fair, some of the folks counseling us preachers to "tone it down" are conscious of the anxiety many parishioners themselves feel in this 24/7 news cycle media barrage. Being forced to drink from a fire hose of bad, divisive, or chronically biased news--and the work of constantly sorting out the good from the bad information--is very tiring. The concern is to not add the pulpit to the list of over-stimulating and partisan media inputs. That's a fair concern... as far as it goes. 

So... what are we to make of this? And what pastoral and theological guidance shall we give?

We are not alone in our anxiety. Looking at the popular news, I wonder if those whose preaching is full-on supportive of the current administration and praising to high-heaven the person of the President, and who brush aside questions about the ethical and moral consequences of the administration's policies, are themselves experiencing their own kind of anxiety: the anxiety of not being welcomed into the halls of secular power-- or worse, the fear of being cast out for not being supportive enough! 

As I said, these are anxious times to be a preacher. Or a listener for that matter!

But this is not new territory. We've been here before. It shows up over and over again in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. The tension is at least as old as the Bible itself. Think Moses and Pharoah, Nathan and King David, Amos and the High Priest Amaziah. 

For guidance, I found myself going to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham jail. 

To truly understand the context of Dr. King's Letter, one must read the public appeal from the eight clergy (seven Christian-- including two Episcopal bishops-- and one Rabbi) who wrote a letter to King-- who was not addressed by name --and published it in The Birmingham News on April 13, 1963. 

Dr. King's response is a long one, but it is rich with the theological analysis that undergirded this element of the Civil Rights Movement. The most famous portion of the letter was this:

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

The letter is worth meditating on in it's entirety, especially in the discussion of just versus unjust laws, the refutation of the plea from white moderates for "patience" even after a (then) 340 year history of slavery and oppression, and his discussion of the legal means established to maintain that history and the structures that supported and benefited from it. 

That was an anxious time to be preacher of the Gospel, too. And we've had others. It was only five years ago when we endured an on-going controversy over The 1619 Project.  Of course, preachers were anxious throughout the entire period of the Civil Rights Movement, and since then we've had to contend with the ongoing domestication of the Rev. Dr. King by emphasizing one line in one speech ("I Have a Dream") but ignoring the theology and analysis that went before it and undergirded the March on Washington where that speech was given. 

And while nearly every big city has a Martin Luther King Street, Boulevard, or Avenue, we forget that that very same 1963 March on Washington was about both civil and economic rights: the plea for jobs and economic empowerment was central to the event. Recall that at the time of King's assassination in 1968, he was in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers. 

One only has to read the sermons and essays coming from Christian preachers in the period leading up to the Civil War to see that very same anxiety at work. 

Which leads us to the pastoral rub... one that our anxiety prevents us preachers from addressing: our congregants are both spiritually hungry for a Gospel that informs our experience, and also turn to us preachers and pastors for guidance as to how to navigate these times. 

And did I mention that some of us are afraid of the backlash, no matter which way we go? (I know I am!)

Sure, some of our hearers want us to bless what is. And others want us only to keep our spirituality very personal and friendly. But many others are itching to participate in God's work in their lives, in their homes, their workplaces and their schools. Preachers can lead without haranguing and can care for our members without platitudes. 

And if the purveyors of blessing the status quo can speak openly, then why must the preachers of a Gospel honoring our whole baptismal covenant or preachers who call us to act  in Christ's name for justice, equality, and inclusion, "tone it down?" 

But you think we're anxious? Read again the Rev. Dr. King's words in his letter to the Birmingham clergy when he compares their apparent anxiety to the lived experience of African- Americans in their city, and in the nation.

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

No doubt about it. This is another anxious time for preachers! 

But do you want to know where the real anxiety resides? It lives in the hearts of people who must daily decide how to faithfully live the Gospel without shame, code-switching, or fear. Our anxiety pales by comparison and as pastors we must be ready to address that. Our congregants cry out for both pastoral leadership and compassion. Our congregants yearn for our support and practical guidance. They seek sermons and pastoral leadership without slogans or platitudes. We owe it to our communities to present a practical, living, Gospel where we can together learn and do the work of Jesus everyday with hope, courage, and power.

These are anxious times for preachers, and this is no time to preach a gospel of silence.

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Here is a sermon for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany by the Rev. Kevin Mort, Deacon, of St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater

Who will go?

A sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C

Whenever I hear the reading from Isaiah 6 that we just heard… you know, the one beginning with the phrase “In the year that King Uzziah died…,” I can’t help but think of my ordination liturgy. Because this is one of the Old Testament lessons set aside for the ordinations of priests and it was the one read on the day of my own ordination by my dad in his best Armed Forces Radio / Mercury Theater speaking voice. 

The image is a terrific fit for ordinations, which (like my ordination to the Diaconate) often take place in Cathedrals, or in parish churches in small towns (as was my priestly ordination). Either way, it’s an occasion to haul out the best china, polish the best silver, set out the best linens and put on the very best reception that the parish can muster. And trust me… I’ve been to a lot of these, and they are always impressive feeds!

In Isaiah, the Prophet has a vision where we see the Lord, lofty and uplifted on a throne. In a scene that could been drawn by Alan Rohan Crite himself, the  angels have all opened their hymnals and are singing S124 (by David Hurd), S129 (by Robert Powell), S130 (by Shubert) or maybe my personal favorite, S114 (by Healy Willan).

The earth shakes (I’m sure with thunderous organ music, undergirded with a good 16’ subbass or maybe like the 32' Contra Violone as in the National Cathedral). 

All the while, the room is filled with fragrant smokey incense from which an angel picks up a coal from the thurible… the incense pot… and touches it to lips of the Prophet.

But that only happens after the assembly hears the thunderous voice of God asking which one of them will go out and speak the word of God to the people…. Everyone looks around until someone (only one someone, the Prophet Isaiah) waves their hand with excitement saying “Me! Me! Me!” Or in Bible-talk, “Here I am; send me!”

Now that is what I call a call! 

Well, even in the Bible, not every call is so… high church.

Sometimes Jesus’ call happens where we live and work. Take, for example, Peter and his fisherman companions Andrew, James, and John in today’s Gospel. 

Peter was a hard catch. It is clear that Jesus thought he would be a terrific disciple, but Peter was—up until now—a skeptic. When brother Andrew, who had already been following Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, told Peter about having seen the Messiah when he saw and then followed Jesus, Peter’s response was “nah!” Actually, it was “hah!” From Nazareth, you say? Nothing good ever comes from Nazareth! Hah!

So Jesus decides that a demonstration is in order. 

You know the story… heck, we just heard it! Peter—who isn’t Peter yet but is still known by his birth name, Simon, along with James and John are busy fishing. Notice that while they are out hauling nets, Jesus is on the shore… on their shore, no less!... preaching to a large crowd. Simon is throwing net after net and comes up empty and he comes ashore as Jesus is finishing up talking. I’ll bet he was hot, tired, and probably a little grumpy. Jesus turns to Simon and says go put out your boat and let down your nets one more time. Simon protests. While you’ve been yapping to that crowd, we’ve been out here working! Can’t you see that there’s nothing to catch? We’ve worked all night long and… Nothing! Nada! Zip! Zilch! But Peter sees Jesus giving him that “look,” so I imagine Simon sighing a sullen “oh-kay” and heading out again, if for no other reason than to prove this travelling rabbi wrong.

But when Simon throws out his net, it is filled near to bursting with fish! So much so that Simon cries for help from James, John and his other friends. They caught so many fish that they filled two boats!

This got Simon’s attention. He falls to Jesus’ knees in both awe and repentance. Jesus stands Simon up and says to him “You think that was something? You just wait! Soon, you’ll be catching people!”

When the Gospels of Mark and Matthew tell the story of how the first disciples were called, they just say that Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw Peter, Andrew, James, and John, fishing from their boats, called out “Follow me!” and off they went. But Luke’s Gospel, tells us the rest of the story. Hmm. I wonder why?

Well, Luke’s Gospel and his sequel, the Book of Acts, talks over and over again about encounters with Jesus and his followers that changes lives! We are given a picture of a Gospel message so compelling that people literally drop everything and walk in the way of Jesus.

That call, that invitation, might seem a little overwhelming. I mean, there is so much to do. And life is just so busy. We, like those first followers, were tired, overworked, and not a little bit harried. But Jesus invites us, even in our tiredness to “put out into the deep water.” It’s crazy. But, hey, what have we got to lose? 

Now there’s a catch to this catch. If we are hearing this from the standpoint of scarcity – seeing a church that is not quite as full as we wish—or nostalgia, remembering a church that seemed so much more full once upon a time, or if we are a church committee member looking for how to “sell” our product, we might be disappointed. If that’s all we want, chances are the nets will continue to come up empty. Learning and doing the work of Jesus is the work of the church, not simply adding to the Sunday attendance.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have chaired diocesan evangelism commissions in two dioceses, and trained vestries and church members in the proven techniques of adding and incorporating people into parish communities. That being said, I believe that what’s really important is how we communicate the Gospel in all its colorful fullness to everyone everywhere as they are where they are. 

It is the Good News of Jesus that people are hungry for! And that shows up in all kinds of ways: practical, compassionate, and attentive. 

Letting people know and experience the life-changing love of God in Christ takes all kinds of forms. It might be a feeding ministry to the hungriest and poorest of our community. Or visiting the homebound or shut in or those who living out their last days in a nursing home, hospice, or group home. Or having coffee with that grumpy old widower at the corner café. Or bringing the Sacrament to people who are unable to join their sisters and brothers in Sunday worship for reasons of health, family, or work. And it might be in standing up for the people whom society wants to marginalize, blame for all our problems, or just toss aside—even if we wouldn’t normally be caught dead being seen with them, or if they come from the wrong neighborhood or from a faraway country, with our without papers-- and standing with them, standing tall and proud with them-- anyway.

A disciple is a friend and apprentice of Jesus Christ. And being a disciple of Jesus means learning and doing the work of Jesus every day.

Jesus tells his first followers that they will become fishers of people… that’s the goal of discipleship. As baptized people, you have an incredible opportunity to reach out and become fully present about your surroundings. Weatherman Al Roker always says, “Now let’s see what’s happening in your neck of the woods.” God is inviting us to learn and do the work of Jesus, to experience what’s happening in our part of God’s vineyard, our neck of the woods.

But in these harsh and divided times, who will go? 

Who will raise her or his hand and say “me! me! me!” 

Who will be the first to throw out the net? 

You know, it may be that the most important way to say “yes” to God’s invitation and Jesus’ instruction might simply to smile and to look into the eyes of your neighbor. Our Gospel moment may just be a fleeting personal, face to face connection, and not through a screen. That little I-Thou moment may be just what the doctor ordered for the weary soul of a stranger. 

Maybe the next time you are at the grocery store or waiting to be seated at a restaurant, you can communicate the Gospel simply by intentionally smiling or saying hello to that cashier, bagger, server, or someone in your orbit.  It is likely that both of you will be enriched by that activity. You may even connect with someone who will eventually join you in being a fisher of people. There is no special person assigned to this work. We are all up for the task whether we consider ourselves introverts or extroverts.

It sounds simple, but it’s a start. 

Because fishing for people is not about “selling” our Gospel message… it is about giving and showing the love of Jesus and inviting people to share, even for a moment, in the saving, hallowing presence of God. We baptized people are living Sacraments, outward and tangible signs of inward and spiritual grace. Know it or not, we all point to Jesus. 

And just as Jesus called and invited the fisherman to go into deeper water, so we are called and invited to wade in to everyday life and be the face of Christ to those who seek Him, as we look for the face of Christ in the people God gives us every day.

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Scripture for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C, February 9, 2025

Website for Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, Dunedin, Florida

Here is the bulletin for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, C, Feb. 9, 2025 for the Church of the Good Shepherd, Dunedin, Florida.

Here is the livestream of the February 9, 2025 9 a.m. liturgy at Good Shepherd, Dunedin, Florida.

The Word is Best Spoken When Imitated

It is said that in some cultures and in some places, the taking of a photograph is thought to take away a piece of the soul of the subject. 

Which is why, if you ever find yourself among the Amish of Central Pennsylvania or Southeast Ohio. they tell tourists not to take snap shots or videos of the locals. 

Well, I don’t know about that, but I do know that when one sees a portrait of a person that is done well you’ll see that the artist has somehow captured in pigment and paint something of their personality, something of the essence of the subject. 

So when the Gospel of uses the word “Word” or “Logos” in describing Jesus, it is much more than simply a phrase. Nope. John’s Gospel is saying that Jesus is the very image, the perfect expression of the Living God, in human form. Not a disguise, not a ghost, nor a projection… Jesus is the living fullness of God and the fullness of humanity in a single person, undiluted. 

Jesus is the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity in a single person, undiluted.

John’s Gospel says that since before Creation, Jesus is the perfect expression of the living God and in his distinct identity co-equal and of the same substance as the Father and the Holy Spirit,. That’s why the Gospel of John deliberately echoes the opening line of the Book of Genesis in what Deacon David just read for us. 

Whew!

But wait! There’s more! John’s Gospel came from an age where the written word was seen as having such power as to actually represent the presence of the writer, so John chose his words carefully. Jesus is the perfect Logos, the perfect Word, but without transcription error. And the Light that Jesus brings into the world did not stop with Jesus. 

When John says that the Word was made flesh and lives among us, that the Word brings light to where there was darkness, he is talking about not only the person of Jesus but the work of the Holy Spirit through the continuing witness of the people who believe and follow Jesus. Like you and me and everyone else who is a follower of Jesus.

Yup. You and me and all Christians everywhere reveal the Logos… the Word… of God! 

What does it mean to reveal the Logos, the Word, to the world? What does it take for people to come to belief and know the life that Christ brings? How is the Gospel communicated especially in hard times?

It turns out that we Christians are at our very best when we move heroically and confidently through difficult times. The season of Christmas celebrates the generosity of God, and entering that generosity is the key to keeping our spirits up when times are down.

Have you ever asked yourself why it was that Christianity grew so fast in its early years? It wasn’t because the emperor Constantine semi-converted in the year 313—Christian numerical growth had already happened, and he merely counted heads and bowed to that fact. It certainly wasn’t because Christians all had one set of clear doctrines—those first Christians were centuries away from agreeing about how to talk about God, and what books were in their scriptures. Yet in the midst of incredible religious imprecision, the Church grew like wildfire. How come?

The reason that Christianity grew so fast was mostly because Christians were known for their unusual compassion for those around them, especially toward those who were not members of their faith communities. The Book of Acts shows us how they raised money on one continent to aid those on another continent, never for a moment presuming to think that mean little thought, that “charity begins at home.” They knew that charity does not begin at home. It begins with helping the people you don’t know and might not even care for, just as the Good Samaritan did, just as Jesus did by leaving his heavenly home for our sake. 

The first Christians let the gospel train them, as St. Paul said in Titus 2:14 (which we read on Christmas Eve), to be a people zealous for good deeds. That’s a religious way of saying that they were really and truly into serving the world, the whole world. They knew that God’s taking flesh in Jesus for the sake of the whole world wasn’t an event in the past. It was the pattern for their own lives every day. 

What does that look like? Cast your mind back to about the year 250 when a plague struck Alexandria, Egypt, and actually killed more than half of the population. The people who had resources got out of Dodge as fast as they could—except the Christians! In a time of panic and danger, they stayed in town and cared for the sick and dying, and some of them paid for that generosity with their lives. People joined the church.

Throughout the empire, Christians were known to patrol the garbage dumps, but they weren’t looking for antiques. Those dumps were where people placed infants they didn’t want, and the church got a reputation for saving lives that others had put in the trash. People joined the church.

Again, in the Alexandrian community, those who lived on the church’s dole would often go entirely without food one day a week so that they, too, would have something to give others. People joined the church. 

In 1873, a group of Episcopal nuns from the Sisterhood of St. Mary went to Memphis, Tennessee, to start a school for girls at the Cathedral. Instead they landed in the middle of an epidemic of yellow fever and so they began to care for the sick. Yellow fever returned in 1878, this time with a vengeance. While everyone who could fled the city, the sisters stayed behind to continue to minister to the sick. Sister Constance and six other Sisters of St. Mary, and a number of Memphis clergy ministered to the victims of the deadly disease. More than 5,000 people died, including several clergy and laity along with Sisters Constance, Thecla, Ruth, and Francis. Known as the Martyrs of Memphis, they are commemorated in the Episcopal calendar every Ninth of September.

It turns out the Word is best spoken when it is imitated. If you want to encounter the Word made flesh then we must imitate the Word made flesh. And the way we imitate the Word made flesh is to do acts of kindness, mercy and generosity—especially when times are hard! 

I know a parish… can you guess which one?... that routinely takes over a laundromat in a less than fashionable neighborhood of our city, to wash the clothes of people who don’t have even the small change to do that for themselves. You know who you are.

Once a month, another group of Christians, Episcopalians and other flavors of Jesus’ people, gather in parking lot across of the Clearwater City Hall at Peace Presbyterian Church, to provide a free breakfast and a boxed meal to the homeless and anyone else who shows up… no questions asked. 

Sometimes this parish turns your sanctuary into a Carpenter’s workshop (get it?) so that church and community volunteers can build, assemble and deliver beds so that children in the Tampa Bay area who are currently sleeping on the floor can have a cozy, comfy bed of their very own, along with the bedding, mattresses, and even teddy bears to go with them.

Nearly every parish in this county, and many across the Diocese, have adopted a local school, as you have adopted Sandy Lane Elementary School, a local Title I school. The backpacks, school supplies, coats, uniforms, and classroom supplies and the messages of gratitude that you provide to the teachers and staff, along with the staff luncheon you put on, are a tangible support and “thank you” to the teachers, educational professionals, and staff at that school.

The list can go on and on, (just look at the website!) and it will. In a parish known for generosity and caring, we discover that in our prayer, our worship, our study, our life together, that the way we know the Word made flesh to be dwelling amongst us is when we imitate the Word made flesh in great and small ways, every day. And the more we imitate the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, the more we discover a life full of grace and truth and light.

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Scripture for The First Sunday after Christmas, Year C, December 29, 2024.

Website for Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Clearwater, Florida

Here is the livestream of the December 29, 2024 10 a.m. liturgy at Holy Trinity, Clearwater, Florida.

Here is a reflection on the Gospel for 1 Christmas C, John 1:1-18 by Bishop Nicholas Knisely of Rhode Island.

Once again, the world is coming to an end!

The world is coming to an end!

Well, that’s the general feeling I get listening to the various pundits, politicians, and preachers…I have to admit that it does look pretty bad. 

But is the world really coming to an end? 

Well, no more than usual.

But after hearing the little apocalypse from the Gospel of Luke this morning, you might think that Jesus was saying the same thing. But his point is not to scare us to death. Instead, he reminds us that, as bad as things might look, God is always with us. 

Martin Luther was once asked “What would you do if you heard that Jesus would return tomorrow?” Luther said that he would plant a tree. For in all likelihood, the rumor would be untrue. Remember, Jesus also said that no one knows the hour or day when he would return except the Father. So by planting a tree and the Lord did return, he would find Luther taking care of the earth.

Luther’s tree reminds us of the tree in Jesus’ parable, “Look at the fig tree and all the trees, as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”

Jesus calls us to look at the signs all around us. 

What do look for? Do you, like some candidates, look for signs of doom… or do you look for signs of hope?

Leo Tolstoy, an author whom we tend to associate with The Great Big Novel, once wrote a very short story about a cobbler who prayed for a dramatic revelation of God. The humble shoemaker wanted a voice from heaven; or, better yet, a big show in the sky or something like that. 

Instead he got everyday sightings of God as love in action, in charity, justice, and compassion toward the people the cobbler met each day. 

Yes. We look forward to the time when Jesus will return in glory and wrap up all of history, heal all creation and reconcile all people, the living and the dead, to himself. But remember, we Christians also believe that in Jesus we find the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity in one and the same person, undiluted. That’s the Incarnation that we celebrate on Christmas.

In Christ, the really big has already come down to earth and walked among us. And he has already defeated death and sin on the cross. And he has already opened the way to heaven in his resurrection and made us his children, heirs, and companions in the Holy Spirit and in baptism.

So in that light, a person alert to the signs of the times looks, as in Tolstoy’s story, for God’s saving power all around them.

Like many people, the moment I know that we’ve moved from Advent to Christmas happens when I hear on the radio the King’s College, Cambridge, choir of men and boys sings the service of Nine Lessons and Carols. Maybe you’ve heard it? It is broadcast by the BBC all over the world.

It begins when one of the choir boys sings in a clear treble voice “Once in Royal David’s City.” 

Have you ever thought about what it takes to get to that moment? Certainly, as the old joke goes about how one gets to Carnegie Hall, "Practice, practice, practice!” 

Much preparation musically and technically happens before that broadcast happens. But did you know that the boy who actually sings that unaccompanied solo doesn’t know he’s the one until about ten seconds before airtime?

Many boys have practiced and prepared. But it is at the moment that the college’s director of music looks that one boy in the eye and gestures for him to step forward. 

Can you imagine being that boy? I mean, the poise… the cool… the steady nerve! If it were me, I expect that I’d fall over sideways!

But remember… the one chosen to sing is only one of many. A whole troupe of choristers have prepared for this moment and have the grace (and the sportsmanship!) to continue to sing with the ensemble with all their hearts, even knowing that they weren’t the one picked for that particular solo.

This is for me a wonderful picture of Advent waiting and Advent fulfillment! It tells us that it is in the preparation where we are formed and grow as followers of Jesus. It is the pilgrimage we undertake where our hearts are made ready for God. It is walking with Jesus that we become his friends and apprentices.

So instead of being distracted by all the anxiety about the end of the world-- or in creating a perfect 'holiday season experience' -- enter into Advent and open your heart to God! Make room for the arrival of Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Advent is our time to prepare ourselves in heart, mind, and soul for the coming of the Savior. 

Even with all the busy-ness of the holiday season, this is our chance to learn to lean into God's promises and to use that energy and work for God's purposes; not in an anxious chasing after the "perfect holiday" but as a chance to learn and do the work of Jesus every day!

Advent waiting reminds us of the pilgrimage that every faithful Christian walks, to find Christ and to communicate Christ to a world aching for wholeness, purpose, and hope. In Advent, we discover that God is more and more doing on earth what God does in heaven. 

Anybody can be a voice of doom. That’s easy! It takes no skill at all!

But what we long for is a voice of hope and healing! We Christians are at once preparing …and in our baptisms and Eucharistic community... and we are picked out by God to be Jesus’ voice of hope to people longing for healing and peace, so let's sing!

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Scripture for The First Sunday in Advent, Year C, December 1, 2024.

Website for The Church of the Good Shepherd, Dunedin, Florida

Here is the livestream of the December 1, 2024 10 a.m. liturgy at Good Shepherd, Dunedin.

Hope is faith that looks forward

A long time ago, I was a hospital chaplain in Appalachia, and I would from time to time find myself working with a patient and family from a country Pentecostal church, which was a very different culture of faith than what I was used to.

Once, I accompanied the family of dying patient who prayed fervently that God would heal the patient. They would pray with certainty that God would reach out and heal this person's illness and pray that the person would walk right out the door. Their preacher led them in laying hands on the dying man, commanding the disease to leave him, invoking God to make the man get up and walk… all while the numbers on the monitors showed a slide towards death.

My training taught me to be quiet, but my brain and my gut would be in turmoil. I said to myself—and sometimes doctors and nurses said to me-- “This preacher is setting them up for a fall! Raising their expectations like this is certain to cause upset when the patient eventually dies!” We worried that they were in fact teaching people, especially the children, to hate God because God was apparently not doing what they wanted.

But when the patient died, something remarkable happened. The group went from fervently praying that God would heal the person to joyfully praising God! 

It was like flipping a light switch. No anger at God, no earth-shattering disappointment (that I could see) but praise and singing that Jesus had taken the person home. 

I was perplexed, so I asked a fellow chaplain on our staff, who was himself Pentecostal, what was going on. 

First, he gently chided me for ignoring the teaching of my own tradition’s Book of Common Prayer, which have prayers for both healing and those for preparing for death printed side by side. These are prayers filled with hope! 

He also suggested that perhaps I was both rationalizing and being a bit judgmental, hearing their prayers as a kind of magical thinking, and their praises after the death as a kind of denial of death.

Okay, I'll admit to that. 

“So, what is really going on then?” I asked him. He said that their theology is grounded in hope. A faith that believes “Everything will be all right.” 

In their view, God is in charge of everything. And God, through the cross and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, will make everything all right. They embodied what we call “The Christian Hope.”

The doctrine of the Christian Hope is essentially this: God will make everything all right. 

Don’t believe me? Just look at our Prayer Book tradition, our Catechism, today’s Scripture lessons and, if that’s not enough, look at our own experience.

When a child falls down and skins her knee and comes to us in tears, what do we say? “Everything will be all right.”

I have heard it said in hospital settings: we say it to the anxious and the sick and even the dying. But most remarkably, it’s often said to us by the patients we care for and worry about. 

Time and again I’ve seen it. Just we can’t find the words to comfort them, time and again they comfort us! “Don't worry about me,” they will sometimes tell us. “Everything will be all right.”

And that what the scripture lessons we hear today, and over the next five weeks, remind us: God will make everything all right.

Today’s lesson from the Book of Daniel, which was written to persecuted Jews experiencing a war against yet another invader. The last book of the Old Testament, the Book of Daniel assures us that God is going to save God’s people and vindicate their suffering. The message is: “hang in there. God will make everything all right.”

The 13th chapter of Mark that we just heard, is often called ‘The Little Apocalypse’ because like Daniel and Revelation, it uses strange images and dire predictions to encourage us to remain faithful during rough and dangerous times. Mark remembers and brings forward Jesus' words to Christians, who thirty to forty years after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, were living through the Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire in 66 to 70 AD. That revolt would end badly with the sacking of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, the scattering of the Jews as a dispersed people. It would also move Christianity from a sect of Judaism into something bigger as more and more Gentile Christians would join up. 

Mark reminds us of Jesus' words to not to put our trust in big buildings made with big stones by human beings—not in places, institutions, or even cherished traditions—but in God.

Jesus reminds us in Mark that God will make everything all right— but perhaps not in the way we expect. 

This is how the Bible speaks to people who are uncertain, who are suffering right now, and who are looking for hope right now.

We don’t have to listen too hard to hear that people today asking the same questions as they did in the time of Daniel, Jesus, and the early church. People still ask “what is God doing?” and “will I/we be okay?”

Here is how the Gospel we hear today answers that question: God will make everything all right. 

It is important because it is true. 

But remember, the truth that God will make everything all right should not make us complacent. We are not called to be helpless victims, but through our faith and in our baptisms and our sacramental living we are called—given power!—to work and pray to care for God's people especially in their suffering!

Saying “everything will be all right” does not mean that we do nothing! When children have fallen down and skinned their knees or hands and blood is all over the place, parents don't just say, "Everything will be all right." There may be bandages and antibiotics applied from the medicine cabinet. There may even be a fast trip to the emergency room. Why? Because parents do all in their power to make sure will be all right for their suffering children.

"How can I make ends meet, when more bills are coming in than income?" We do everything we can… change how we shop, economize, sign on for an extra shift. And God's promise is still the same: “Everything will be all right." 

"I'm having surgery tomorrow and I'm scared." Our presence and prayers—and the skill of those caring for us—say "Everything will be all right."

"The tests for cancer came back positive."

"Everything will be all right."

“My home was damaged or flooded during the hurricane.” 

“Everything will be all right.”

"My brother was just deployed to a war zone."

"Everything will be all right."

"My parent just died."

"Everything will be all right.

It’s not magic. It’s not pie in the sky nor is it wishful thinking. This is the day in and day out life of faith, and it requires time and effort and cultivation within our hearts and minds. 

And trust. Trust in God that everything will be all right.

Hey! God knows truth is that we might experience turmoil and pain and confusion along the way. The life of faith means that we steer into the wave of our hurt and fear and not steer around it. Jesus shows us in everything from his temptation to his healing to his walking with his disciples daily, God’s faithfulness and God’s power and love is healing with us in all we do. Jesus knows all this and remember he carried all of it to the cross. It’s on the cross, where everything that separates us from God, each other, and creation is taken up by Jesus, and dies with him and is left behind in that empty tomb.

We are in a season of hope. As we come to the end of the church’s year and move into the new year in Advent, we are reminded of the power of Christian hope. All of the Scripture lessons for the next six to eight weeks are about hope. 

What is hope? Hope is faith that looks forward!

As Jesus’ disciples, his followers, we learn and do the work of Jesus everyday.

Which is why hope is not passive. It is active! The Christian Hope is the confidence that God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit will fill all things, heal all things, complete God’s purpose for us and all creation. 

The Christian Hope is that God never, ever, leaves us alone.

The Christian Hope is the knowledge that God gives us everything we need to live abundantly right now as the people God made us to be.

We are a hope-filled people who participate with God in the church’s mission which is to restore humanity and creation to unity with God and each other in Christ Jesus.

You show off that Mission in many ways: just open your bulletin. Laundry Love. Build a Bed. Backpacks and your ministry to Sandy Lane Elementary. Your Eucharistic Visitors and the ways you care for one another. Your music, Bible Study and even your Sunday Breakfasts all show off the many ways that you as a community learn and do the work of Jesus.

So you see…we participate every day in God’s hope-filled future! Hope is faith that looks forward. 

We are not sitting on our hands and waiting for God to vindicate us someday. We are already vindicated! Jesus’ life and ministry show us that God is with us. Jesus’ death and resurrection show us that death is conquered. Our baptism and Eucharist show us that we are God's own people. Our community shows us that we are not alone. And our care for each other and for those people God sends to us reveal to us and the community that God is here and is at work. 

We are a people of hope… hope is faith that looks forward, and everything will be all right!

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Scripture for Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28), Year B, November 17, 2024.

Website for The Church of the Holy Trinity, Clearwater, Florida

Here (8 a.m.) and Here (10 a.m.) are the livestreams of the November 17, 2024 Liturgies at Holy Trinity, Clearwater.

Work. Rest. Pray.

I just came back from an iconography workshop. Every year, for almost the last thirty years, about two dozen people gather at a retreat house near Scranton, Pennsylvania, to learn a little more about this ancient form of religious art whose roots are in the eastern Orthodox churches. An icon expresses a religious truth artistically. The idea of an icon is that it is a window to heaven not because it is realistic but because it points beyond itself to God’s reality behind it. Many aspects of the icon are highly stylized from how Jesus and the saints are portrayed to how color, light and line are used. In some circles, the iconographer is said to “write” an icon—not paint or create one—because they are communicating something about the logos, Jesus.

So when an iconographer writes an icon, she or he is to be steeped in prayer. Every line, every stroke of the brush is to be a prayer—at least that’s the ideal. Certainly God can communicate through an icon reproduced by a printing press, but either way, if the person viewing an icon can allow it to be a window to the divine, a first step in their praying, then it certainly helps that the artist is also steeped in prayer.

This creates a tension: a tension between spirit and action. Between “doing” and “being.” There is a tension between doing it “right” and focusing on the prayer. Last week, I shared the room with people who have wonderful ‘hands’ and well-tuned ‘eyes.’ They work with a precision and clarity that I only dream about.  I really want to be like these people when I grow up! We all strive to be technically better iconographers. But when the conversation in the room begins to get too technical, when people are beginning to spend too much time “futzing” over getting one little line just so, when then tension rises because we aren’t “good enough”, I find that Father Peter, our teacher these last three decades, has this way of turning up the music—maybe a Taize chant or one by Orthodox monks or something that brings us back to the center.

The process I’ve learned over the years goes something like this:  Paint (or “Work”). Rest. Pray.

And since the workshop is also a retreat at set intervals, we’d stop painting and gather to pray. The music we listened to as we worked was also prayer. We were working hard, our goal was to master some skills around color and line and to come home with an icon…and our goal was also to pray and be open to the presence of God.

Work. Rest. Pray.

Jesus was doing that for his disciples. One definition of the Church that I like is that “we learn and do the work of Jesus.” In today’s Gospel, we hear how Jesus’ friends and apprentices did just that. They were sent out in pairs to heal the sick, proclaim Good News. They were learning from Jesus. Now they were doing the work of Jesus for the first time.

And… wow! They came back chattering about their experience: audiences hung on their every word; demons jumped out of possessed people at their command; sick people were made well. They were pumped, excited, and they wanted more! So what does Jesus do?

Does he give them a workshop on how to hone their skills?

Does he raise the quota of how many sick people are to be healed and how many people are to hear them preach?

Nope. Instead, he calls them to take some time alone to pray.

Now the work did not go away. People followed them wherever they went, because the need was that great! But Jesus insisted: Work. Rest. Pray.

It turns out that a healthy spiritual life – and an effective ministry and a vital congregation—consists of periods of activity and periods of rest. We need both in order to be healthy, whole, and—yes—happy Christians.

God calls us to do certain things: care for the sick, serve the poor, feed the hungry, speak truth to power and good news to the oppressed.

God also calls us to rest: to learn from God’s word, spend time in prayer, love God with our whole heart, mind, and strength. To be fed sacramentally.

A healthy, maturing Christian life is found in an oscillation, the balance between activity and rest.

And the fulcrum between that movement between activity and rest is faithfulness. God doesn’t want us to be busy just to be busy. God wants us to be faithful!

The reason Jesus calls us to pray is that God wants us to be faithful! And that means lining up everything we do, our sleeping and our waking, our work and our play, and all our relationships, around our attentiveness to God.

Have you ever seen or ridden on a see-saw? A see-saw is nothing more than a lever, with two weights on either end, in most cases two kids. And they go up and down, up and down. How high and how fast depends on how the two kids work together and how well balanced they are. But a see-saw, as with any lever, won’t work without a fulcrum. Otherwise, it’s just a board with two bored kids aboard.

In the Christian life, we leverage God’s grace, multiply God’s blessings, see how God’s love can really work in the world by our application of our effort (on the one hand) and the depth of our prayer (on the other). But the fulcrum, the thing that really makes the see-saw or any lever work, is our faithfulness.

The apostles were sent out in pairs not only to extend Jesus’ work, but to increase their faithfulness. What drew people to Jesus and his apostles was not the power of their miracles but the depth of their faithfulness; the hunger that the disciples met in the folks they encountered was a hunger for faithfulness.

The fulcrum, the balancing point, between our activity and our rest is our faithfulness.

Remember that old joke? The one that goes “Jesus is coming! Look busy!” It reminds us that we Christian leaders are tempted to think that the only happy Church is a busy Church, and that the only really valuable Christian is a busy Christian. It is not God who tempts us to think that God only really loves us when we are busy.

God loves us. That’s a given. And what God desires for us is not busy-ness but faithfulness.

Do you want to know the first sign that your spiritual life is out of balance? When just the thought of coming to church makes you feel tired. Or when the only reason you can justify setting aside a few hours on a Sunday morning is because you have a job.

When we cannot carve out a block of time to just be, to listen, to read scripture, to think, to pray, then we are too busy. When we cannot come into this space without taking time to pray or at least sit in silence but instead get caught up in whatever “to-do” list we carry around, then we are too busy, too distracted. In short, we are out of balance.

Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t have work to do. Why just last week, at that Iconography retreat, the cook got sick and couldn’t be there, so we all had to step up and pitch in. None of us starved and we all learned something from practical acts of service like washing the tables or cooking up main dishes on short notice. This is a lesson the monastic tradition teaches us: ora et labora which means “prayer and work.” Our work is prayer. And prayer is our work.

The Christian Life is filled with moments of activity and moments of rest. We need both. Ora et labora.

That means learning how to be present to be here now. It will means learning how not to get so focused on our “to do” lists that we lose touch with the part that needs to pray, to sit, to listen.

Make no mistake: I love a busy church! I love a congregation that’s involved! I love a congregation that makes a tangible difference in the community! I love a church that gives its very best—and not second best—to God!

And give our very best means choosing to be a faithful church not just a busy church!

The point of all the committees, all the giving, all the sign ups and all the activity, is so that we—and anyone in the community-- can come here and find the space to pray. And if “all” a person does is come into the community and “just” pray… “just” give themselves to God even for a few minutes… then you have done your work well!

What makes the Church different from a social club, a charitable organization, a non-profit, or even a business is not how busy we are, how slick or how entertaining, or how relevant we are. We can’t beat the culture on those terms anyway. And that’s okay because they cannot offer what people really hunger for.

What makes the Church the Church is how faithful we are. Our world is deeply hungry and the Church is uniquely positioned—divinely positioned—to meet spiritual hunger. People long for hope, meaning, companionship, direction, purpose and love—people are hungry for faithfulness.

And the fulcrum between activity and rest is faithfulness.

What I learn every year when I go to the iconography retreat is that we work hard, learn a skill, stretch ourselves—and we also stop and pray, and we listen for God, in order to cultivate what God really wants from us: faithfulness. And over the years I’ve discovered that when every paint stroke, every line drawn, is a prayer. And this is the beginning of learning how to be present to God in the here and now, in the fulcrum between activity and rest.

So remember: Work. Rest. Pray. Ora et labora.

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Scripture for Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, July 21, 2024.

Website for Grace Church, Tampa Palms, Florida

Feeding Jesus and Being Fed

You’ve got to love it! The Crucified, Dead, Buried, and now Risen-from-the-Dead Jesus shows up in front of his friends and followers and what does he do? 

Some great miracle? Nope!

Some great act of power? Nah!

He asks for something to eat. 

It’s as if he came in the door after a long day, plops himself in the recliner and says, “Whew! That crucifixion and resurrection is hard work! What’s for dinner?”

Today’s passage from the Gospel of Luke highlights the physicality of Jesus’ risen self. Jesus shows up in person. He shows the disciples the wounds in his hands, feet, and side. And—I love this—he asks them for something to eat. The Risen Jesus chides the disciples' disbelief. I am not a ghost, he tells them. This is Jesus…not a vision, nor a hallucination, but a real person with a real body. 

Today’s story parallels another story in this same chapter of Luke’s Gospel… Jesus’ encounter with Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus. In both instances, the disciples recognize Jesus as the risen Lord when he ate with them. 

To some of us, maybe, the risen Jesus may be an idea, a story, a symbol, or a memory. But to Jesus’ friends and followers, it was a reunion, a face-to-face encounter, with the same Jesus whom they saw arrested, beaten, executed on the cross… and was demonstrably deader than a doornail! 

But no more!

In these two encounters, Jesus shows that what they are seeing is true by eating with them. Which makes sense, because before his arrest, torture, and execution, this is what Jesus did with them all the time as they went around Palestine teaching and healing. He ate with them. 

And even today, we see him in this most ordinary, tangible way. At the Last Supper and in the Holy Eucharist, Jesus gave us a way of recalling him to our presence and, by eating from his body, to become his body. 

Every day the Risen Jesus shows us that God redeems and makes holy every sphere of our existence: the physical, the rational, and the social elements of our existence are all addressed in Jesus’ resurrection.

The first thing that God redeems and makes holy is the physical world. Our baptism into the church and the promise of resurrection means that we are to value the physical world that God has placed us in and made us part of.

We are to care for the creation and care for our bodies and care for each other, even strangers and people we’ll never meet in person. We are to have environmental concerns and health concerns; the biological and physical sciences are part and parcel of our participation in God’s redemption. We are not to abandon the world we live in, but we are to improve it in whatever small ways we can. 

Another thing that God redeems in the resurrection is the way we know and see the world. Because we encounter the risen Jesus in sacramental living, in prayer, and in the changed lives we both encounter in others and experience ourselves, we discover that God works on every part of our knowing. Rational thinking and faithful being are not polar opposites, always at war, but different ways of knowing the fullness of the creation we live in and care for.

Finally, the physical, risen Jesus redeems our relationships. Christians do not abandon the social world we live in, but we are called to improve it whenever we can, working against evil and promoting justice. The fact that our bodies will be redeemed and raised emphasizes our need to be involved in the world in a positive way. We are not escapists, merely biding time until time ends, but we are involved, letting Christ live in us and grow in us until we are raised with him in glory and we see him as he is and we share in his eternal joy.

In today’s Gospel we find Jesus eating another meal with his disciples. He made eating and drinking together the primary way of experiencing the Resurrection. He uses eating and drinking to teach us and draw us to him. He uses this most universal way people affirm and experience relationships in community. We eat with Jesus. We eat of Jesus. We eat his body, and we become his body. 

Maybe you remember my definition of what a disciple is? A disciple is “a friend and apprentice of Jesus, who learns and does the work of Jesus every day.” So you are all friends and apprentices of Jesus. And you are all learning and doing the work of Jesus.

But lots of people call themselves followers of Jesus... how do you know an actual disciple when you see one?

Well, as the old proverb (that most people get wrong, by the way!) reminds us: "The proof of the pudding is in the eating!"

Clergy and Eucharistic Ministers are the ones who distribute communion, giving bread and saying, “The Body of Christ.” And, if you think about it, we all distribute the Body of Christ in all kinds of ways. 

Imagine when you give a check to the church or a worthwhile charity, placing it in the treasurer’s hand and saying, “The Body of Christ, given for you.” 

Imagine delivering Meals on Wheels or giving a meal to a needy stranger in downtown Clearwater, saying “The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven” when you place the meal in the hands of that homebound senior. 

Imagine visiting a person in prison, extending an encouraging word of love and adding, “The Body of Christ.” 

Imagine teaching the truths of God to a Church school class or in a Bible Study, or prayer group, and concluding by saying, “This is the Body of Christ, given for you.”

Imagine sharing the Word of God in Bible Study, in prayer, daily devotions, or as part of the Daughters of the King, as an act of sharing the Body of Christ.  

Imagine spreading the Good News to those who do not know the Lord, telling others about the joy you find in your faith, and declaring, “Share with me the Body of Christ.”

Imagine being the quiet listening presence to someone who is lonely or in pain, and as you pray with them, recall that we are, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, “Now we are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.”

Jesus rose from the dead, not a ghost, but flesh and blood, in person– his personality, memory, relationships, compassion, and humor intact. Everything he knew is risen and made whole and new and holy. Saint Paul reminds us that when we were baptized, we were all baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection. So as baptized people, we all share in his resurrection, and every day we show off the risen Jesus to everyone we meet. And God uses everything we are, and everything we have, and all our skills and talents and memory–all of us!-- for God’s purpose: to restore all people to unity with God, creation, and each other. 

So, people of St. John’s, Clearwater, my companion friends and apprentices of Jesus, as we gather around this Eucharistic table, as we dash over to the parish hall for delicious nums-nums, and before I turn in my keys and as you get ready for your next era of ministry in service, remember this: in everything you do as a community and as individuals, feed others in Jesus’ name. 

In so many great and simple ways, we reflect the words of St. Augustine, who wrote: 

You are the Body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken. You are to be blessed, broken, and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and the vehicles of eternal love.

And may God go with you in all you do!

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Bulletin for Worship for the Third Sunday of Easter Sunday, April 14, 2024 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for Easter 3-B, April 14, 2024

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida for April 14, 2024

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on April 14, 2024