Starting at the edges

Nothing really winds me up like buzzwords. People throw around jargon like candy attempting to sound smart without saying very much. Then these words end up in popular usage in places like television, in commercials, in seminars, and in speeches… and it really gets me going… people saying things without really much meaning. It happens in business, in church, and in politics. And when I hear buzzwords, I just want to sigh.

One of today’s most popular buzzwords is “disruption.” They tell us that their product, widget, or process is “disrupting the widget industry… and you should go out and buy it!” Well, friends, disruption is not all it’s cracked up to be… and usually when people are saying it, they don’t really mean it. They say “disruption,” but they mean “more of the same… but all shiny and looking new!” Like a brand-new car body resting on a chassis designed in the 1930’s.

The fact is that real disruption, real innovation, real invention is usually pretty upsetting. That’s why people resist it so much. Not long ago, the idea of flight was reserved for birds, bugs, and balloonists. The funny thing is that after two centuries of invention and innovation, with all the great gadgets we take for granted, very little has changed about how people are. Humans are very inventive in applying all our new gadgets into the ways we’ve always done things.

Change, real change, is hard! It requires a shift in perspective, in habit, in our thinking, and attitude. That’s why it requires not just discipline but grace, vision of what we want to be and the humility to start over… and hearts that listens for God.

Jesus’ first century image for “disruption” was what happens when one tries to put new wine into old wineskins. You know what you get? You end up with a thirsty person standing in a puddle of wine holding a broken, leaky wine sack. No, Jesus said, if you are going to do something new, it needs to be all new!

God is doing something new, Jesus says, and it will neither look, feel, nor operate the same way as how things have operated before. In todays’ Gospel we have three examples: Jesus calls Matthew the tax-collector to follow him; he heals a woman who has experienced a constant hemorrhage her years, and along the way he raises a dead little girl back to life. 

The Gospel puts these three stories together to answer a simple question: what will following the call of God be like? What is God doing in Jesus? In Christ, God is bringing healing, wholeness, and reconciliation to all God’s people.

But God does it differently that how we expect. Our old habits, our old ways of seeing, our notions of good order and how things “have to be” are going to turned upside down. This new wine will not fit in the old containers. The containers can’t take it!

Watch what Jesus is doing and see how he is at once making new wine and creating new wine containers in the lives of the people he meets.

When he walks up to Matthew in his tax-collecting booth, he is meeting a man who, contrary to popular perception, was probably not terribly well-off nor prosperous, but neither was he well-loved nor respected by anyone, including the employer who hired him. You see, in Jesus’ day, the Roman government hired locals to collect the taxes. The contractors would then hire the 1^st century equivalent of day laborers to do the actual collecting. They’d keep a shekel or too, the contractor would keep his cut and pass along the rest to the local Roman official, who probably kept his cut, and so on and so on.

Jesus found Matthew in a booth, where he probably collected tolls or levies from the merchants and travelers using the Roman road. There was no Sun Pass, there was Matthew.

Matthew was probably pushed around by his boss who had the contract, who wanted him to gather as much as possible. The people paying the levy were probably not so nice to him. And when he went home, his Jewish neighbors probably wanted nothing to do with him. Which is why we find Matthew hanging out other folks who, like himself, made their living on the wrong side of the tracks: thieves, extortionists, prostitutes, and other Jews in the employ of Rome, not to mention those people who made their living doing often important but unsavory work that respectable people didn’t talk about.

So when Jesus calls Matthew, he calls one of the most unlikely, least respected persons imaginable to be one of his followers. And he doesn’t even tell him to clean up his act first! No lecture, no harangue, just an invitation to follow.

What a strange thing to do! Why does Jesus risk his own good name and the reputation of a fledgling ministry on the likes of this reprobate … this quisling… Matthew? Jesus is about to show us why in the two healings that follow.

While Jesus is eating and drinking with Matthew and his notorious friends, word comes that a little girl, the daughter of a leader in the local synagogue, has died. He begs Jesus to lay his hand on the girl so that she may live.

Let’s stop here for a minute: notice that the person who approaches Jesus is a leader of the local synagogue. In other words, the Senior Warden! Probably a member of the first century equivalent of local Rotary club and business roundtable. He must have loved his daughter very much and he must have been very scared, because this very respectable person just cross to the wrong side of town to find Jesus in this literal den of thieves! And notice that he approached Jesus while other local religious leaders—maybe his friends and colleagues—are standing outside tut-tutting and shaking their heads.  The passage doesn’t say so, but the implication is that his faith must have been very strong!

Jesus goes with the dad to care for his girl, with Matthew presumably following Jesus for the first time, which leads to another unexpected healing encounter.

Hidden in the crowd of the curious, a woman who has suffered her whole life from some kind of hemorrhage… most likely a disorder that affected her since puberty… was watching Jesus walk by.  The person was not only ill, but she was excluded from ordinary company, including other women, certainly she was never going to marry, and was probably also practically separated from her family. Because by the custom of the day, anyone she touched would be ritually unclean and therefore she risked not only condemnation but also fear-driven violence on a daily basis. But when she touches Jesus’ cloak as he passes, she is healed. Notice that Jesus doesn’t recoil in horror. He is not worried that he might catch her ritual cooties. Instead, he meets her gaze, commends her faith, and then blesses her saying “your faith has made you well.”

When Jesus finally arrives at the official’s house, it’s too late. The girl has died, and the mourning rites have begun. He assures them that all is well, but instead of saying “Watch this guys…!” or “hold my bier!” he observes that she is only sleeping. They all laugh... except apparently the desperate parents and family and a few followers who are holding their breath. After shooing away the professional mourners and after all the hub-bub has calmed down, he takes her by the hand and gently bids her to wake up. And she lives!

If you want to know why it is that we friends, followers, and apprentices of Jesus care about the poor, the sick, and those society would consider strange, weird, or different—if you have ever wondered why we find ourselves hosting recovering addicts in our buildings who might never walk into our worship spaces, or feed or clothe folks in need through our various ministries, or why we speak of love and compassion when the world revels in hatred, fear, and division, this is why: it is what Jesus did. He comes to us in the midst of our complicated lives and sits, chats, and eats with us. He touches us where we experience the most pain. He meets us at the point of our greatest need. He comes into our lives and homes and our hearts and brings life. He sees faith in us when others might only see fault and invites us to follow him.

In all three instances in today’s Gospel, people who lived on the fringes, separated by custom, choice, or circumstance from their communities, were reconciled and brought back into the lives of their families, communities, and daily lives in the company of Jesus.

What does it mean that Jesus called a hated tax-collector and quisling to follow him? It is so that he can live, and work and walk with dignity, respect, and wholeness as a person of God in community.

What does it mean to be made whole and healed and no longer living at the edges of society subject to the alternating vagaries of human pity and condemnation, as the woman was? It is to discover that one’s faith makes us whole and returns us to the family of God! 

What does it mean to experience new life? It is like Jesus coming into your home, and against all expectation, taking you by the hand, and inviting you to get up and live.

Following Jesus changes us. Jesus takes what we have always thought to be true and normal and expected and turning it upside down, inside out and giving it new life. It's not disruption, it's reconciliation! Grace, faith, baptism, sacramental living, and Christian community together all give us a new container—a new wine skin! — to live as Christ’s own forever. We are all called, welcomed, healed, and given new life because with Christ, our faith heals, reconciles, and makes us well.

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Second Sunday after Pentecost (Prober 5A), June 7, 2026, at St. Mary's, Dade City, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for The Second Sunday after Pentecost (5A).

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Spiritual energy put to work

A Sermon on the Second Anniversary of the Partnership between St. John's Episcopal Church and St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Clearwater, Florida

My first encounter with these machines happened on the highway. One day about twenty years ago, I was motoring up the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the Pocono Mountains, when I passed a convoy of extra-long trucks escorted by vehicles with flags and flashing lights. Each flatbed truck had a huge white piece of equipment on it, gleaming like a modern sculpture. What these trucks were carrying was the finished parts for a huge wind-turbine…high-tech windmills. Today, if you drive south out of Wilkes-Barre, PA, through a town called Bear Creek, you will catch a glimpse of a few rows of these huge white propellers on tall towers sitting on top of a mountain ridge slowly turning as they produce electricity. Amazing, isn’t it? That we can take the energy of the wind and turn it into electricity!

Equally amazing are the number of homes and businesses around here that have solar panels on their roofs turning the energy of the sun into electricity or hot water or both. In fact, recently, driving across Florida on Route 60, I saw rows of solar panels sitting on top of one of those mountains of trash where the big green trucks empty their dumpsters! These panels were not only providing electricity, but they were powering the process that was turning the methane from all that trash we throw away into fuel that goes back to homes, schools, hospitals, and other places, powering generators making even more energy.

Everyone is talking about energy…where to get it and how to use it. Whenever I fill up my car with the gas made from the fossils of ancient plants and animals, I am made aware that the cost of energy has gone up. But something else occurs to me. 

Just as cats always find the sunniest spot in the room to warm themselves and plants always lean towards the sun, humans are pretty good at harnessing energy. One of our human ancestors took the potential energy in wood and either with help from a random lightning strike or from learning to bang together two pieces of flint, made a campfire for cooking. Someone first harnessed the energy of the wind to sail a ship or used a rushing river to turn a wheel to grind grain into wheat or drive a loom for cloth.  We’ve unlocked energy from gas and coal to make things go. Now we’ve come full circle, with these great wind turbines that use the wind to make electricity.

Energy is all around us.  But how do we put it to work?

Our lessons today give us three pictures of energy put to work. In one, we see potential spiritual energy. In another we see spiritual energy put to work. And in another we hear about the spiritual engine that makes it all go “vroom!”

In the Gospel of John, the disciples are in the upper room on that very first Easter evening, when the Risen Jesus gives them the breath of the Holy Spirit and the authority to use it. That’s the first picture.

In Acts, we see the second image. The disciples along with other people from throughout the world were gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish festival of Pentecost when “Fiery tongues appeared on them, and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit." The Spirit ignited a new movement and a new people. The energy of the spirit was released and suddenly these people had power to reverse the curse of the Tower of Babel to overcome the languages of division and competition with a new language of God's love and Spirit. The potential energy of the spirit was released and the church was born!

In the third image, the Apostle Paul reminds us that everyone of us, no matter how different, no matter our differing skills, experiences, and gifts, are brought together of the Holy Spirit for God’s work where we live, work, study, and pray. And when we’re in tune, this spiritual energy really goes “vroom!”

One of the most ancient hymns of the church goes like this, "Come, Holy Spirit, our souls inspire...and lighten with celestial fire." It’s too bad that we generally reserve this hymn to ordinations, because it is a prayer that the energy released on that first Pentecost day might continue to burn within the whole church. It is a prayer that God's spirit will continue in each of us and in the whole Body of Christ, so that we might live our faith with zest and commitment and do the work of mission boldly and imaginatively.

The promise of Pentecost is the potential spiritual energy that every person of faith carries is ignited by the Spirit into a deeper, more powerful, more effective Christian living.

One of my favorite stories of potential spiritual energy turned to the actual work of God is of John Wesley, a priest of the Church of England in the 18th century. (You’ll pardon me if on a day we celebrate this partnership between Lutherans and Episcopalians, if I talk about the founder of the Methodist movement?) Anyway, Wesley was a faithful but cautious minister. He studied. He prayed. He wrote. He was thoughtful and earnest. He went to Georgia to minister to English colonists in that rough and wild colony. And you what else he was? Boring! Not to mention stiff and judgmental. The folks in Georgia were so impressed with his earnest, serious preaching that they took an offering... and bought him a one-way ticket back to England!

On the ship, a dejected Wesley, sad and perplexed that his sober, thoughtful, and very earnest ministry had been such a flop, he remembered meeting another group on the way to Georgia when he was coming to America. They were Moravians, and he remembered their energy and fervor. So, on returning to London, he sought them out. And he found them in prayer and song in a little storefront in London, on Aldersgate Street, when something happened. As Wesley recalled, He felt his heart "…strangely warmed...," set afire in a new way with the very Spirit of God. His faith and imagination for the Gospel were ignited for a new beginning of ministry, a ministry of teaching and preaching to ordinary people in the places where they lived and worked, proclaiming a Gospel of renewal and service that extended throughout England and abroad. This new energy brought a new reformation and awakening throughout the cities, mill towns, and mines that had sprung up during the industrial revolution and was changing England.

I suspect that it was the same energy that caused Martin Luther to post his 95 theses on the cathedral door in Wittenburg, or Thomas Cranmer (inspired by Luther!) to turn the ancient prayers of the Church into language that ordinary folk could use and understand. That same spiritual energy inspired revolutionaries and reformers from Katharina von Bora (Martin Luther's spouse and a sharp theological mind in her own right) to Frances Perkins (The Episcopal lay woman who was FDR's secretary of Labor through the Depression and WW2, and the architect of the New Deal and Social Security) to the Rev. Dr. Sister Helena Barrett (first openly LGBT person to be ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church) and the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray (first black woman-- and probably the first trans person-- ordained to the priesthood, an attorney, and a founder of the National Organization of Women) —women whose names don’t usually appear in confirmation catechisms or seminary textbooks—to shake up the church and move us forward into new Godly territory.

I don’t know if you realize this, but we are experiencing that, too. Right now. Besides showing us that the Holy Spirit can speak both Lutheran and Episcopalian, you along with Christians all over the globe, are turning potential spiritual energy into amazing acts of courage, hope, and compassion that makes a real difference in the lives of people and communities.

You might accuse me of hyperbole. I mean what difference can a hundred or so Christians sitting on the border between two Florida cities possibly make in the mission of the whole Church, let alone in our cities? Well, for starters, all of us can take the wind and fire of the Spirit that was ignited in our faith and baptisms, which is fed and banked as we practice the sacramental life, and put it to work. The same Creating Spirit that brooded over creation, spoke through the prophets, and lit up the Church still guides, inspires, nudges, directs, renews, and advocates, re-making us into the people God meant us to be, bringing mercy and compassion and hope to the people we encounter every day.

And that brings us to today’s third image of Pentecost in Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Christians. Here we learn what makes the whole thing go “vroom!” What makes the potential energy of John’s Gospel become the spiritual work of that first Pentecost in Acts is this turbine called the Body of Christ? “There are varieties of gifts,” Paul teaches, “but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.” We are the ones God uses to turn spiritual energy into holy work, and we are the ones whom God uses to make the lights go on in people’s lives.

Look at what happened when two different faith communities confronted by different yet daunting issues with their buildings, not to mention working through visions for ministry that would inevitably lead them outside the boundaries of conventional denominational wisdom, decided to come together to experiment with something different. Needless to say, we had to work past some skeptical side-eyes from the folks in both our judicatory’s home offices who each proposed more, shall we say, “time-tested” solutions.

But along the way, you’ve demonstrated that what Paul told the Christians in Corinth is true: we have a variety of gifts, activated by the same Holy Spirit, that builds up the whole body of Christ. Every day the Gospel is communicated to a hurting world in creative and new ways by two communities who are choosing to live out Christ’s love experimentally, inquisitively, and faithfully. In a world that thrives on division and is motivated by self-interest and the interest of our chosen in-group, this is a very big deal! The coming together of St. John's and St. Paul's in partnership demonstrates how the power of the Holy Spirit is unlocked and becomes new vision, new energy, and new hope.

For a long time, the task of uniting churches was mainly about bringing people in the same traditions together that for a variety of reasons has gone their separate ways. In America, traditions split over slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, or which had different ethnic or national roots even if they shared the same theological tradition, needed to be brought back together. The ELCA itself is a product of that… bringing together the descendants of a variety of nationalities, all Lutheran, into a new American church. Even so, not all Lutherans signed up for the project.

The Episcopal Church, along with Anglicans around the world, had other fish to fry. Was the church going to high or low? Urban, suburban, rural or frontier? Privileged, middle, or working class? Catholic or Evangelical? And we, like many of sister and brother traditions, needed to work out that ordained leadership did not, after all, have to be exclusively straight, white, or male. 

And we weren't alone. There were other uniting projects over the last century, among them Presbyterians, Methodists, and the United Church of Christ, to name a few.

But more recently, we’ve discovered a different path: instead of building a new super-church; we've discovered the power of creating partnerships and practicing mutual recognition. We are learning that different churches from different traditions don’t have to chuck their heritages or even their denominations… the important thing is that we work together, pray together, share communion together, but to do that, we need to stop arguing about whether “our” sacraments, rituals, and ministers are more “real” than "yours." 

Lutherans, in my opinion, led the way, choosing to celebrate 500 years of Reformation by entering into communion relationships with as many traditions as possible. Episcopalians have joined in and now count full communion relationships with not only Lutherans, but Moravians, and (God willing) Methodists, and are in conversations with other groups, and such as Presbyterians and other Reformed traditions. Recently, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally went to Rome to meet and pray with Pope Leo XIII. We've got a way to go, because it's long hard work to knit together a fabric that has been torn for centuries, but for the sake of mission it's work worth doing.

Along the way we are finding that instead of needing to be one big blanket church, we are like a quilt lovingly stitched together out of a variety of cloths.

The truth is that none of us can go it alone, either as individuals, congregations, or traditions. We still pray the ancient prayer of Pentecost, "Come Holy Spirit, our souls inspire and lighten with celestial fire...." We all have in us the energy, the power, of the Holy Spirit. The Risen Jesus breathed on the disciples on that first Easter and gave them and us the Holy Spirit as well as the authority and mandate to go into the world and get to work. That same spirit is given to each of us and is sealed in us at baptism. 

No matter the path that brought us here, our prayer is that this spiritual energy will be unleashed. We yearn for God’s power to be let loose and light up our hearts and all creation to make a real difference in the world. It turns out that God has a turbine, an engine, to make that work real and alive, and that is us! We, the body of Christ no matter our flavor or tradition, are the ones whom God uses to let loose God’s energy and make it all go “vroom!”

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This is the Bulletin for Pentecost Sunday, May 24, 2026 at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater, Florida and St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Clearwater, Florida

Here are the Scripture Lessons for Pentecost Sunday, Sunday, May 24, 2026.

Learn more about the Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Learn more about the Florida-Bahamas Synod of the ELCA here.

It’s all about the shepherd!

My mother used to tell me that it was one thing to be ignorant, it’s something else to open your mouth and prove it. I think this applies to Good Shepherd Sunday…where all over the Christian world, preachers like me will open their mouths and tell you with great authority what they don’t know about sheep.

And I am not exempt from this. I mean, to tell you the truth, everything I know about sheep and shepherding I’ve learned from old Warner Brothers cartoons involving Wile E. Coyote and a sheepdog named Ralph.

The funny thing is that we preachers get so distracted by the nature of sheep and their behavior that we forget that the passages that show up every Fourth Sunday of Easter—traditionally Good Shepherd Sunday—are not really about the sheep. They are all about the shepherd.

It’s a classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees, or the not seeing the sheep for the flock…. Oops! There I go again!

It’s all about the shepherd!

Jesus describes himself as a shepherd. As the good shepherd…as distinct from all those bad shepherds out there…and thieves and wolves and things that are generally bad for gatherings of sheep.

He says in today’s Gospel that the good shepherd can enter the sheepfold. What’s a sheepfold? Okay, I had to look this up. A sheepfold is kind of pen, or corral, used to gather up the sheep at night. And the sheepfold is guarded by a gatekeeper who checks to be sure that only shepherds enter the gate. And I guess in those days, sheep only heard and responded to the voices (and research shows, to the faces!) of their own shepherd, so instead of branding them they’d…. Oops. Sorry. My bad! I forgot. Old habits, you know.

It’s all about the shepherd.

In getting to the heart of this passage, it does not help that not only have modern, urban, preachers been misunderstanding sheep and shepherding, there is also a tendency to make the passage into an allegory that neither Jesus nor the Gospel of John intended.

So, what did John mean when he says “sheepfold?” The sheepfold in this passage represents… (wait for it) … a place to keep sheep at night. That’s right. It is not heaven and it’s not really the church. This passage is not about those who try to get into heaven by jumping the turnstiles or entering the theater without a ticket. If it were, he’d be talking about sheep sneaking over the gate after curfew. No, this passage is not about heaven. It is about the Church. This passage is a riff on Christian leadership, and this riff is not directed at the bosses (although they need to listen, straighten up, and fly right!) but is actually directed at the congregations… the ordinary followers of Jesus… so that they will be able to suss out genuine, competent, accountable leaders, from the hucksters, charlatans, and the kind leaders who think that leadership is all about them.

So, yeah, it’s all about the shepherd. But here's the thing: the shepherd is all about the sheep!

One of my favorite teachers about leadership is a guy named Simon Sinek, and one of his maxims (which is also the title of a book and a TED talk) is that “Leaders Eat Last.” His thesis is that the first job of a leader is the care and safety of the group being led. Good officers wait for the soldiers, sailors, and marines who do the actual work to eat first, even if all they get are the leftovers, if any food at all. That's because a good leader puts the safety and welfare of the group ahead of his or her own status, safety, or privilege. For me, an effective leader not only sees to the safety of the group but is also a person who brings out the very best in those around them. People will follow, will work towards the goal or mission of the group, as long as they know that their leaders are caring for them and giving them the tools to succeed.

John’s gospel reminds us that Jesus, our savior, puts the sheep— that’s us— first.

Jesus taught using illustrations that were familiar to his hearers. They knew about shepherds…at least the ones who lived in the country did...and he was talking about the nature of his ministry and the relationship between God and God’s people.  John’s Gospel, which comes along quite a bit later, remembered Jesus’ teaching but began to think about both the nature of who Jesus is, and the nature of Christian community and Christian leadership.

How are we, as community, supposed to live as followers of Jesus in this period between resurrection and return?

John’s Gospel teaches us that Jesus is the Good Shepherd—and so he is speaking about the nature of Christian community. We who are members of the flock, herd, household, body (pick your image of the church) need to be wary of all the things that can distract us by the temptation to follow the wrong voice. Embedded in this Gospel is the warning that some people will pretend to be doing good when they are really looking out only for themselves.

Boy! It sure is a good thing that this was only a first-century problem, right?  I mean, there is no one out there today competing for our attention, right? No one out there wants to sway us into doing something harmful, right? It’s a good thing that people in power or influence, always keep our focus on the main things, right? And, certainly, all our leaders never, ever, appeal to the worst that is in us or our deepest fears or set us against one another in order to build themselves up! Not in our modern, enlightened 21^st Century world!

Nathan Dungan, founder of Share, Save, Spend—a ministry that teaches everyday Christians about money and meaning— reminds us that every day the typical American is exposed to over 5000 advertising exposures. That’s not 5000 products, 5000 exposures. From the car logo on your steering wheel to the brand name on your jeans to an ad on tv or on the side of the bus…we are exposed to over 5000 advertising messages every single day. And what’s their goal? To make you feel that the only way your heart will be satisfied will be to open your wallet and buy this or that gadget, thingee, or food item. And that you want their thingee or service more than all the others vying for your attention.

Anybody raising a kid these days knows that they will know what the different fast-food logos are and what they are for before they can even read…before they can even form complete sentences! 

In our world, the bad shepherds may not be climbing over the fence, but they have surrounded the sheepfold with billboards and flat screen televisions. They dominate the airwaves and want to always be the lead story, even if the headline is unkind. The news may be fake, they say but they sure love the attention! 

Only we have a choice. Think about going to a ball park…  We can read all the ads plastered all over the outfield wall and scoreboard, or we can watch the game and root for our team. I don’t know about you, but when I go to the ballpark, I go for the game.not for the signs. The fire works after the game and singing Sweet Caroline is great, but it's the ball game I'm watching. And when it’s on tv, the ads are a good time to… do other things.

But it’s not just the secular world that does this. You may have heard some radio or TV preacher who will, at one time or another, tell everyone who will listen that the rapture is coming any moment now! According to Google, we may have already missed it… apparently the last date-time prediction for  the big 'The End' was for September 23, 2025. So, either the predictors were wrong (again) or maybe it actually happened, and if it did we’ll just have to go on doing what we do—imitating Christ by learning and doing the work of Jesus—you know by caring for the poor, the sick, welcoming the outcast, and proclaiming Good News—until that bus arrives again.

As I said, we live in a world of loud, persistent voices vying for our attention… trying to distract us from the main thing. So, what do we do?

Remember…it’s all about the Shepherd.

The Gospel today reminds a few things about who Jesus is and about what good Christian communities do to stay together.

First, Jesus teaches with authority. In the Episcopal Church we hold out a balance of scripture, tradition, and reason as the basis for what we teach and believe as a community. The Good Shepherd…and good Christian leaders…use their authority for the good of the community, based on what the church has learned and known over time and in community.

Second, the good shepherd knows us and meets us where we are. The voice of the Shepherd… Jesus… brings peace. And also, the shepherd guides us as we move around in the proverbial pasture that is the world.

The good shepherd is not found in the distractions and intrusions of the world. The shepherd is found in Christian community. Do you experience too many voices, too many distractions in the world? What do you do? Instead of bouncing from one thing to another, go to the place where the Good Shepherd is found. Go to the place where the community of the faithful is gathered and in that community, you’ll find the Shepherd…Jesus, who leads us and cares for us wherever we go.

The third thing we can do is to begin to intentionally live the sacramental life—a life grounded in scripture, in Eucharistic sharing, in prayer—both alone and in groups, as well as in worship—a life focused on the shepherd and also remembering that the Christian life is not meant to be lived alone but in community is the way to sort through all the competing voices in the world. There are some good places to start, like either picking up a Forward Day by Day either in print or online, which will take as us through the daily readings the Church set out for us, and give us a meditation connected to today’s readings. A group Bible study, or prayer group, or even one of the places where the Daily Office is prayed on-line are great tools, too.

Over the years, I have found a pattern modeled on the one set out by a monastic, Benedict of Nursia, to very helpful and also grounds me in our Anglican tradition. That pattern is regular holy eucharist, the daily prayer of the church, and personal devotion. I also like to pray the morning resolve that is found in every Forward Day by Day. The great thing is that there are many tools out there that help us along the way.

Which is a good thing because, as we've said, the world is a very noisy place. Full of distractions. It’s hard to deal with those distractions alone. But as baptized members of the community of Christ’s people, we are not alone. We are gathered into a community of people who are also on the way. And the larger community of the church, all over the world today, and in every place since the beginning, has given us the tools to succeed. Most of all, we are all known, cared for and led all along the way by a faithful shepherd, Jesus Christ.

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for 4 Easter, Year A, Sunday, April 26, 2026 at Church of the Good Samaritan, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for 4 Easter Sunday, April 26, 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

No Short Cuts

Have you ever wished for a short-cut? You know, you’re driving someplace and wish you could just fly over the cars ahead of you like a magic carpet. Sometimes I’m driving and hear myself pray “Oh, God! Give me a sign.” Even a big green one will do!

In the fifty days of Easter, we hear all about Jesus’ resurrection appearances. And, you know what? Jesus never takes a short-cut. People’s eyes are opened, sure; and, yeah, people see the Risen Jesus. He speaks to them. He eats with them. But he never jumps in front of them arms wide saying “ta-da!” He doesn’t resort to cosmic card tricks or spiritual gimmicks. While some of us (like me!) would love that, and, sure, Jesus wants us to see and know that he is risen but look at how he goes about it. In the Gospels, the risen Christ accompanies folks and that changes the way they see.  And I don’t know about you, but looking back, I find that Jesus has been walking me my whole journey long, it’s just that I didn’t see it at the time. I’ll bet that that is true for you, too.

In today’s Gospel from Luke, look at what happens on the road to Emmaus. Two people, Cleopas and a friend, are headed home after a very hard day, actually a very hard week. It’s late afternoon on the very first Easter Day, the actual day of Jesus’ resurrection. But they don’t know that yet. All they know is that they have experienced some very disturbing things. Just a week before, they saw Jesus ride into Jerusalem in triumph. They saw him in the Temple. But they also saw Jesus get arrested, publicly tried, humiliated and then executed. What started out as a week filled with hope became a very sad and sour Passover celebration because they really hoped that Jesus would be the one to liberate the people from the very people who killed him.

But that’s not all: there’s news that two women saw that Jesus’ tomb is empty, and that they saw angels who told them that he is risen; two of Jesus closest followers checked it out and found the tomb empty; and now the grapevine is alive with rumors that Jesus had predicted that he would rise from the dead!

I suspect that for Cleopas and his companion it was all just too much…a real emotional roller coaster…and so many questions…it was, I suspect, too painful and too strange. Who can blame them for wanting to go home to someplace familiar, someplace quiet. But home is about seven miles outside of Jerusalem, so they have a long afternoon walk ahead of them.

As they head home, Jesus joins them and walks with them. And even though they don’t recognize him, he doesn’t jump up and say “Hey, guys! It’s me!”  Instead, he listens to their story. He listens to the news…and he listens to their hearts.

Even when he begins to open the scriptures to them, he does not tell them who he is. He explains what God has been doing through the whole history of the people of Israel. Most of all he shows them how scripture ultimately points to and is understood best through Jesus.

When they get to their house, Jesus does this little maneuver like he is still going on to the next town or tavern…when they invite him in to stay with them. Even now, Jesus doesn’t impose…he waits for them to invite him in.

Then, and only then, does he take the initiative, picking up the bread set before him and says the ancient Jewish blessing, then he breaks the bread and as he shares the bread, now—now! —they understand!

Notice how Luke’s Gospel bookends the passion with a meal at both ends of the passion. First, there is Jesus’ last supper in the upper room, where he says “This is my body” and now, after the resurrection, in Emmaus it is sealed with a meal. It is only after encountering the Risen Jesus that the Last Supper – and the Holy Eucharist that grew out of it – makes any sense at all. Instead of a testimonial to the dear departed founder, it is a living sign of the living, risen Christ.

Jesus does so much on the road with these two people but look also at what he does not do. He could have reassured them…instead he walked with them through their pain.  When he teaches them from the scriptures, he could have imposed himself on them…instead, he lets the word marinate—they remember it as “[burning] in their hearts.” When he picks up the bread, he doesn’t say “Hey, guys! Watch this!” No, instead he simply blesses it and gives it. Jesus never short-circuits the process but allows the encounter to unfold at its own pace until at last…they see!

There are no short cuts on the road to Emmaus. And thank God for it because in letting their encounter with the Risen Christ bubble up, these two followers of Jesus see for themselves that he is alive not by intimidation or magic or manipulation but by participation. They are participating in their own encounter with the Risen Jesus.

This is a lesson that we need to learn over and over again. We live in an age where so much communication is “directed,” tested, and designed to illicit a particular response. It’s hard to even go buy a loaf of bread and a carton of milk without feeling like we are some kind of Pavlovian dog, enticed and steered towards a particular thing or outcome. We are so media-addicted that we even have a president who came up in sales, hosted a game show, and communicates by social media. It hard in this world of relentless information to imagine what it is like to simply be accompanied by Jesus, who respects our dignity enough to allow each of us respond to the Spirit in our own way.

I suspect that when the eyes of Cleopas and friend were opened, it was like a flash of light. A moment of insight when everything suddenly made sense! It felt new and exciting. A great and marvelous “A-ha!” And that is wonderful! Ask any teacher who sees student light up with recognition when they get it. They will also tell you that these eye-opening moments come after long, sometimes painful, cultivation.

That “A-ha!” comes at the dinner table, when Jesus takes up bread and offers a blessing.  I wonder if Cleopas and his friend had any idea when their journey began that their unexpected dinner guest would become their host.

In remembering this encounter, the Gospel of Luke invites us to connect the Eucharist we do in our communities, whether a simple meal around a table or a High Mass, with what Jesus did not only on the road, but also in the upper room, the cross, and resurrection as we walk with Christ on our journey of faith.

Early Christians were sometimes called people “of the way.” I like that because we are all on the road, and that road takes us to the cross and from there to an on-going, always new encounter with the Risen Jesus. All of us are walking home. We may wish for a shorter route and we might be disappointed that it’s not always a mountaintop experience, because in fact most of our journey is rather, but wonderfully, ordinary. A saying attributed to St. Benedict of Nursia goes “Always we begin again.” But however we journey, we never walk alone. Jesus walks with us…even if we don’t know it…and we travel in Christian community. Luke’s Gospel shows us that the way Jesus walked with the two on the road is exactly the way he walks with us on our journeys.

Look at us! Here we are, gathered from all kinds of places--our homes, our families, our work and our school--and we all have a story. We have stories of poignancy and possibility, stories of victory and setbacks. We bring all of that when we gather as the people of God around a table… yeah, a little fancier, and we are arranged a little differently than our meals at home… but gathered around a table just the same.

A few years ago, my wife and I joined a group of Episcopalians and other people of faith, in walking the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St. James, from east to west across northern Spain. In following this ancient pilgrim path, every one of us were invited in our way to both seek and walk with Christ. Our hosts for this pilgrimage were folks from The United Thank Offering (you know, the blue boxes!) and the Iglesia Española Reformada Episcopal, the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church. Their goal was to establish a chapel in Santiago, Spain, so that pilgrims who’ve walked the Way of St. James might be able to receive Communion… the traditional end of a pilgrimage… but who might have felt excluded in the Catholic Basilica at the end of the pilgrim way. The Anglican Pilgrim Center exists today just a few steps away from the traditional end of the route.

Every pilgrim on the Camino keeps a “passport” that is stamped along the way and is given a shell signifying their journey. As I walked the pilgrim way, I found myself singing the South African liberation song “We Are Marching in the Light of God.” On the first part of the journey, I imagined being Cleopas and his friend walking with Jesus. For the rest of the journey, my meditation turned to imagining Cleopas and friend racing back along the way they just came to tell Jesus’ friends and apprentices “We have seen the Lord!”

In our sacramental living, we are tuned to see God at work all around us. Our eyes are opened.  We see the risen Christ. More important we know the Risen Christ and show the Risen Christ.

So now we go back into the world, renewed, reconciled, recreated…exactly as we were and yet totally new, and we will tell our friends “We have seen the Lord!” … that he is known to us in the breaking of the bread. It’s true: there are no short-cuts on the road to Emmaus but that’s okay because all along the way, the Risen Jesus is walking right beside us. 

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for 3 Easter, Year A, Sunday, April 19, 2026 at Church of the Good Samaritan, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for 3 Easter Sunday, April 19, 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Learn more about the Anglican Pilgrim Center here.

Easter Lilies in the Morgue

Do you have an Easter story? You know, a story of how you’ve encountered the Risen Christ, or at least seen mercy, hope, and compassion in a surprising way, something that reminds you of or points you to Jesus? I’ll bet you do! Time and again, I have heard people share with me their Gospel stories! Allow me to tell you a favorite Easter story of my own.

A long time ago in a hospital far, far away, I was a chaplain where the Sisters who ran it were very intentional about communicating their Catholic mission and identity. Which meant, among other things, that my colleagues in the pastoral care department did many activities throughout the hospital during Lent.  And it was the job of the On-Call Chaplain over Easter weekend to come in on the evening of Holy Saturday to lead in the transformation of the hospital lobby, other public spaces, and chapel from the austerity of Lent and Holy Week to the festivity of Easter.

The first time I had to do this, I came back to the hospital on Easter Eve, after attending a local parish’s Easter Vigil. The job included gathering up various Lenten displays and putting up the white hangings in the Chapel, changing the veils on various crosses around the building to white (and there were a lot!), and putting out Easter lilies and tulips and spring flowers in the main lobby, the chapel. and some other places around the building. That meant that we ordered lots and lots …and lots!... of flowers!

I commandeered a handcart and, along with other chaplains and some volunteers, we started our rounds.

Only a day or so before, we Chaplains along with many folks from the hospital community had walked through these very same halls in a special way. At that hospital, we did The Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. But instead of staying in a chapel, these Stations were scattered throughout the building—we went to places where people met suffering, pain, hope, fear, loneliness, death and new life. These stations were in the places where people ministered to human frailty, sometimes with awesome technology and just as often with compassion and simple touch. These were the places where divine healing met human need in everyday ways so often that, if you weren’t careful, they would become mundane.

These were the places Jesus walked. The cross stands at the intersection of brokenness and hope. And just two days before, on Good Friday, we walked with Jesus to places where suffering and compassion could not be plainer. At the hospital, we did what a lot of parish church do on Good Friday, placing a plain, rude wooden cross in the sight of all and, in venerating that cross, we confronted all the ways we separate ourselves from God, each other, and creation.

Anyway, back at that hospital all those years ago, when it came time to get those Easter flowers, and they were gone! They were not in loading dock, no one moved them to the chapel, or our offices. They were not tucked away in some corner. Where could they be? I mean how could you lose a half dozen pallets of flowers?  After much searching, I called security.

The guard was expecting my call. He said, “I’ll show you.”

We met and took the elevator to the basement, to a dark hall in the oldest wing of the hospital, a hallway that few people walked. We came to an unmarked door. The guard sorted through his wad of keys and opened the door and we entered the morgue.

Just before he turned the knob, he said to me “Don’t worry, Chaplain, there had been a body in here tonight, but now it’s gone.”

He was right. When he opened the door, there was no dead body. But there was an explosion of flowers! Everywhere there were lilies, daisies, tulips, and spring flowers. They covered the examination table, the counters and overflowed and even the drawers meant to hold bodies, like the ones you see on shows like NCIS, had flowers on them.

A place of sterility was filled with color! The medicinal “laboratory” smell was overcome with the perfume of blooming flowers.  A place of death had become a nursery.

It turns out that the housekeepers had brought the flowers to the morgue because they arrived a day early and they thought they’d keep longer in the coolness of the morgue. “I hope you don’t mind,” the guard said.

So that’s my Easter story, or at least one of them. Easter lilies in the morgue. What’s yours? The thing about these stories is that they don't have to be specifically religious or even mention Jesus by name. But what happens points you in a Godward direction and may even spark a change inside of you. So, where have you encountered the risen Christ or seen signs of resurrected life?

Remember, that as we hear the Easter story, we are not celebrating an empty tomb, much less a morgue. Seeing an empty tomb does not bring life. An empty tomb does not change anything. The Easter story centers on women who came expecting to find a body and instead the found an empty tomb, a vision of angels, and then encountered in person the real, live Risen Jesus. That encounter, theirs and ours, is what we celebrate today.

All the Gospels agree that Mary of Magdala was among the first to meet the Risen Jesus, which, if you think about it, is a very strange choice as the first messenger of Good News because they say she was once possessed by demons. Not the best of credentials. But she was in very good company. Mary of Magdala fits right in the parade of people we’ve seen as we’ve read the Gospel of John all through Lent. The people who met the Christ were changed: such as Nicodemus, the inquisitive but fearful rabbi; or the outcast and troubled woman at the well; or the beggar blind from birth. And then there was Lazarus, the dead man who was brought back to life!

All these people encountered Jesus at the point of their deepest need… and they were all changed!

In Matthew’s Gospel, we hear how Mary came to the tomb to grieve and to care for the dead body of her dead friend, teacher, and healer.

What she encounters is an earthquake, and an angel descending from heaven… it reminds me a little bit of Jacob’s ladder, as if a doorway has opened between heaven and earth… who is dressed in lightning and heavenly glory, who comes down, moves aside the rock door and takes a seat. The angel invites them to go inside and look at the empty tomb and then instructs them to go to Galilee where they will meet up with the Risen Jesus.

In John’s Gospel, something similar happens but first they run to tell the disciples of the empty tomb. Mary runs to the disciples, and Peter and the Beloved Disciple both race each other back to the tomb. They find it just as she said—empty, vacant. Bandages on one side, and the face-cloth neatly folded on the other side. But that is all. The two disciples leave, perplexed. Mary stays behind at the empty tomb, weeping even more.

It is Jesus who comes to her and ministers to her, only she doesn’t recognize him at first. She supposes him to be a groundskeeper who might know something. She is looking for her friend. It is only when he utters her name that she understands.

“Mary” he says. She knows that voice. She knows that person who reached out and touched her heart and cast away whatever was eating away at her life. Her fear is at once replaced with relief, healing and courage.

I love these Easter morning journeys. Can you see your journey reflected in hers?

I don’t know about you, but I see so much of my own spiritual journey in Mary’s zig-zag journey to meet the Risen Christ. So often I come to this space, these sacraments, these liturgies and want only to dwell on the empty spaces in my soul; along with my fears, disappointments, and sense of endless busy-ness. I expect, I demand, that they be filled! But too often I try to do that on my terms, in my way.

The way that works for me is that I tell God what I want God to do for me. I tell God how it is. Sure, I may bring my expectations, my pride, and my pain, but I can’t let go of them. Because I really need them to define who I am. So I tell God to either bless them or fix them. And it’s a pretty safe bet that if nothing happens, I will either blame God or maybe chalk it up as “another blankity-blank learning experience.” Either way, my fears are reinforced, my prejudices stiffen, my attitudes harden.

It's like coming to an empty tomb. Or to a morgue filled to the brim with flowers. I may or may not see Christ in all that. It depends on how I look at it.

So let me tell you where I have met the Risen Christ. I have met the Risen Christ in the person of a grown man who spent his whole life in a state institution for the developmentally disabled but was then moved into a group home and then an apartment—who taught me that Jesus comes to us like a child, even when they are not.

I have met the Risen Jesus in the face of young girl who had brain cancer and literally had half her brain removed, who told me in clear, cheerful words “After the rain comes the rainbow.”

I met the Risen Christ in a quiet man, a man who knew how to listen with his whole heart who asked me once what I was running away from and what I really believed. 

I have seen the Risen Christ in a room full of people who’ve regularly meet in parish halls and classrooms to share their stories and support each other in their recovery from addiction one step at a time.

The Risen Christ has met me in people who have not been intimidated by my anxieties and busy-ness and have prayed me through difficult times.

And who knows? You, an ordinary person, an everyday Christian, may not only have seen the Risen Christ when you have least expected it... you might have encountered a moment of healing, or peace, or acceptance even at the moment when it did not seem remotely possible. The Risen Christ, in my experience, has this habit of showing up when we need God's love and power the most, but when we expect the least. And you might also be the face of the Risen Christ to someone who needs it … and you might not even know what a miracle you are to that person!

The Risen Jesus is made is known in baptismal waters, broken bread and poured out wine--and in the faces of the people God gives to us. The Risen Jesus is made known by people just like us, who hear him call us each by name, and allows us weep with the joy being known and who helps leave our empty places in an empty tomb. Because he is not there. He is risen!

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here. The Easter message by Bishop Douglas Scharf of SW Florida is here.

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe's Easter message is here.

This sermon is based on ones that were previously given on April 9, 2023 at St. John's in Clearwater, FL and on February 22, 2018 at Trinity, Easton, PA.

"Faithful one! Come out!"

“Faithful one! Come out!” That is what “Lazarus” means, “faithful one,” and so when Jesus calls into the tomb of his dead friend, he is saying, “Faithful one! Come out!”

Lazarus had been dead four days…Jesus got word of his illness but stayed where he was for two days. Before Jesus could get to his house, Lazarus died. When confronted with his grieving, weeping friends, Jesus goes to the grave of his friend, and after a time a grieving himself, he has the stone removed from the tomb and he calls his dead friend back to life. 

“Faithful one! Come out!”

All through Lent, we have been listening to Jesus in the Gospel of John telling the people Jesus’ meets and us what it is like to be a person who believes and follows Jesus Christ. What is like to be a person who meets God in the person of Jesus Christ? What is it like to have our life changed by God?

Well, let’s check the list the Gospel has set out for us:

It is like being born again, Jesus tells Nicodemus.

He also tells Nicodemus that it is like feeling the wind and knowing that it is moving but we don’t know from where it comes from.

Jesus tells the woman at the well that it is like drinking from a well of water that never runs dry. 

John tells us that believing and following Jesus is like coming out of blindness and into both sight and light.

Today, we find out that believing and following Jesus is like being dead and now being alive.

When Jesus calls out to his friend, “Faithful one! Come out!” the Word of God, is calling to the faithful of God to wake from death, as from sleep, and come out. And Jesus shows us what we have to wake up from.

Raising Lazarus from the dead is Jesus’ Ezekiel moment. In our lesson from Hebrew Scripture this morning, Ezekiel dreams that God will knit together “dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones” into a living, restored people of God who hear and live the word of the Lord. Jesus calls us out of darkness and death into life. When Jesus stands outside the grave of his friend, he is giving his last and greatest sign that he is here to animate, breathe life into, humanity.

What Jesus told Nicodemus in the dead of night comes to pass at the grave of Lazarus, who is not only raised from death but also experiences a kind of re-birth.

This is not just theory nor a metaphor to Jesus. It’s personal. Jesus’ friends, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus are all real people from a real family who are experiencing real grief, real anguish, and…real death. So the idea, the concept, of God bringing life to God’s people comes to life when he meets the tears of the two women and the reality of Lazarus’ death.

It’s personal, and the people all around Jesus are handling Lazarus’ illness and death in their own way. They are all over the map. The disciples don’t get it—some think that Lazarus is asleep, and when they learn he is dead, in a fit of fatalism they shrug their shoulders and say “then let’s all die together!” Lazarus’ sisters, Martha and Mary, are grief-stricken and maybe just a little angry and perplexed. Listen to how they both confront Jesus when he finally shows up: “If only you were here, our brother would not be dead!” Yeah, they get the theology. Martha knows that they’ll see Lazarus at the final resurrection, but Mary is not there, not really. In this moment, she only knows her loss.

And there were a variety of responses from the crowd of mourners, as well. Some were grieving the death of a friend and hurting for his sisters. Others were disappointed that they didn’t get to see Jesus heal Lazarus. And, in the ‘No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Department,’ some would be angry when Jesus does revive Lazarus from death. There’s a part of the passage in the Gospel of John that we didn’t hear this morning where Jesus’ enemies begin to plot against both Jesus and Lazarus as a result of this miracle.  So, yeah, Lazarus’ resuscitation leads directly to the cross for Jesus.

Looking at all those responses, it strikes me that Lazarus’ resuscitation is a kind of spiritual Rorschach Test for us. We all look at the same splotch, the same story, but what we take away from Jesus and Lazarus may tell us something about our own faith journey.

Jesus has waded into the stew of life, and while he raises Lazarus, it will be Jesus’ own death and his own resurrection that will allow us to come out of our own tombs and know life. Jesus cries to all of us “Faithful one! Come out!”

Notice that when Lazarus comes out of the cave, he is a dead man walking. He is bound up in the bandages and coverings they put around the dead. He was dressed for death. He needed to be unbound and released to rejoin the community, and he could not do that alone.  We need each other to remove the shell, the bandages, the clothing of death. It turns out that to be born anew we need help. We require Christian community.

How we live together, how we pray together, lift each other up, welcome one another, challenge one another, allow others to experiment, and support each other all help us crack the old shell, remove the bandages, so that we can live a little more as the people God made us to be.

Jesus—who has himself experienced life and endured the grave--stands at the foot of our cave; Jesus opens our tomb and says to all of us, together and alone, “Faithful one! Come out!” And when we come out, we find ourselves among people who with prayer, support, sharing their faith stories, and who encourage us when times are hard, who unwrap us and dress us for living.

What started for us in our baptisms continues every day. Sometimes we find that we have re-entered our tombs, our dark places, our hidey-holes and have to be called out. 

Here is a glimpse of what the resurrected life we share in Christ through baptism is like. It is like having dry bones knit together into new life. It is like coming back to life. It is like having bandages removed from one’s body and one’s eyes. It is like being set free. 

All of us have been called out of death. Now, faithful ones, come out!

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Here are the Scripture readings for 5 Lent A, March 22, 2026

Here is the website for St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida 

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here