Loving Service Helps Us Learn and Do the Work of Jesus

You call this “good news?” Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is ill, and then Jesus and his merry band show up, probably unannounced, but here she is...as sick as a dog. 

So what happens? Jesus heals her. He takes her by the hand and lifted her up, the Gospel says, and the fever left her.

Terrific...! She’s all better! And.... then she serves them dinner.

One minute, she’s lying in bed with a fever, the next minute, she’s fetching drinks and dishing out food, hoping she’s got enough for all these hungry followers of Jesus who just showed up!

Where is the “good news” for Simon’s mother-in-law?

This does seem awkward to us… but look closely at the passage and we find something else going on. The word Mark’s Gospel uses for “serve” is the Greek word diakonos, which means “to wait tables.” Okay. So?

Everyone in Mark’s church and in the churches who share his Gospel who heard this story, when they heard the Greek word for “service”—diakonos – their ears would have perked up and they would have looked at each other with a knowing look. Because the word diakonos was an important word among those early Christians. Diakonos gives us the name for the Sacred Order of Deacons.

(“Hi, Kevin! How ya doin’?”)

To “deacon” for others meant much more than waiting tables, even if that was included. (Notice how Deacon Kevin sets the table for us at the offertory before Holy Communion!) Mark’s description of serving another opens up what is meant by "deacon." Way back in the first chapter of the gospel, Mark used the same word to describe the way the angels ministered to Jesus after his forty days of prayer, fasting (and temptation!) in the wilderness. And Jesus uses the word “diakonos” to describe his ministry when he says: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Jesus described his own life and ministry on earth as service -- diakonos. Jesus told his disciples that were not going to big shots on top of the heavenly heap, but that they were to be deacons for God. Their work for God would be menial. The disciples’ service to others would be difficult. Yet, the life of service Jesus described as a life of diakonos, a life of being a servant minister, is at the heart of Jesus’ ministry, the disciple’s ministry, and ours as well.

Which puts what happened in Mark’s Gospel in a whole new light. Simon’s mother-in-law had a life-changing encounter with the Messiah. Jesus came into her house and touched her. In Jesus’ life-changing touch, Simon Peter’s mother-in-law was healed, made whole, and returned—reconciled!—with her family and community, and out of a loving response to a loving God who loved her first, she took up the life of service.

Way before her son-in-law would be handed the keys to the kingdom, she taught him what it means to learn and do the work of Jesus… through diakonia… through service.

You know, way before there were priests in the church, there were deacons. And even before the Apostles would learn how to be apostles, there were people doing diaconal service.

For those of us who have felt the touch of Jesus in our lives, we find ourselves alongside Simon’s mother-in-law in this story. Mark describes Jesus going to her, touching her, and healing her in the past tense. Jesus took her by the hand and lifted her up and the fever left her. These are all described as actions that are over and done with.

But Mark said that Simon’s mother-in-law served them using a different verb tense—the imperfect tense. This imperfect tense means that she began “deaconing,” has continued to deacon, and, as far as we know, is out there “deaconing” still.

The imperfect tense refers to an action that is begun but not completed. This one shift of verb tense means that she began to serve them and continued to serve them. Her service was not a one-time, over-and-done-with action, like cooking a meal. Simon’s mother-in-law began to serve Jesus and his followers. But the meaning of her actions was transformed by Jesus’ healing touch. She did not serve and minister to them because of some duty. She served out of love. Simon’s mother-in-law became as much a follower of Jesus as any of his disciples. Simon’s mother-in-law was not ordained – no one was, at this point. Yet The Gospel of Mark describes her using language that makes her the first deacon in Christianity. She was the first person to have their ordinary diakonos, or service of others, transformed into servant ministry.

Are you looking for a life-changing encounter with God? Perhaps it has been a long time since you have felt that healing touch. If so, you have come to the right place. Right now, right here, you can put your trust in Jesus to begin your own life-changing journey, as you discover the grace, mercy, and love God has for you.

And in discovering that grace, mercy, and love, you will discover the blessings of God in service.

The Early Church called persons ordained deacons to care for the physical needs of the congregation. Both men and women were ordained as deacons. This order of ministry takes the care and compassion of the church into the community and brings the needs of the community to the attention of the church. And you know, in the history of the church, there were deacons way before they invented the office of priest. And, looking at Peter’s mother-in-law, shows us that diaconal work was done way before the apostles were commissioned!

For the church to be the Body of Christ that God means it to be, we don’t just need deacons or priests and a bishop here and there—as important as our jobs might be, we aren’t the whole church. No, God needs more students, nurses, educators, engineers, scientists, plumbers, policemen, pharmacists, librarians, moms, dads, grandparents, and so on, people who are set on fire by the power of the Holy Spirit to learn and do the work of Jesus. And in God’s economy, the work of deacons and priests, and even lay ministers like the altar guild and vestry members, and sextons, administrators, and musicians, is to support and build up and encourage the ministry of all the baptized. The ministry of deacons, priests, and bishops does not let the rest of the Body of Christ sit back as passive consumers of faith. Every one of us has our own unique way to live into this call, according to the gifts the Holy Spirit has given us.

The Gospel invites us to follow the example of this early disciple, Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. After we have come to know Jesus and have experienced the forgiveness and healing he offers, we are called—motivated! -- to respond to the love God has shown us by sharing that love with those around us. And, as you share God’s love, you are living into your own vocation as a minister of the Gospel as a teacher, attorney, real estate agent, artist, musician, salesperson, mechanic, doctor, volunteer, parent, grandparent, spouse – whatever, all learning and doing the work of Jesus as baptized people of God!

And as we share the love and grace we have known in Jesus when we offer that listening ear, that kind word, and that helping hand, we experience more and more the love of God flowing through us. Far from a chore, this is diakonia, this loving service that helps us learn and do the work of Jesus every day.

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Bulletin for Worship for 5th Sunday after Epiphany, February 4, 2024 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany, February 4, 2024

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on February 4, 2024.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on February 4, 2024

Having what it takes

Do you think you are good enough to be one God’s saints? Do you think you have what it takes?

What a strange question! Saints are really holy people, right? Only special people, who meet strict criteria get to be called saints, right? We pray to Saints, we name churches for them. Sometimes cities, or colleges or hospitals. Right now, we are surrounded by idealized images of saints in the stained glass that adorn this church.

You know what? The word “saint” appears in the New Testament 62 times and that the Apostle Paul used the term 44 times and not one of them refers to a hospital or college? In the New Testament, every follower of Jesus is a Saint, or in Greek "hagios", one of the holy ones.

Yes, that’s right. You are one of God's saints.

So what makes a saint a saint? St. Paul says Baptism is the mark of sainthood. The writer of the Revelation to John has a heavenly vision. He wrote, "I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;"

We are called “saints” because of God's continuing incarnate presence among his people through Jesus Christ and in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; it is God who is intimately and fully holy, it is God who came in the flesh, who not only lived and walked among us and still dwells in the midst of His people. That presence permeates the entire community of faith.

As Presiding Bishop Michael Curry once reminded us when he said,

God came among us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to change the world, to change it from the nightmare it often can be into the dream that God intends. He came to change the world, and we have been baptized into the Triune God and summoned to be disciples and followers of this Jesus and to participate in God’s work, God’s mission of changing and transforming this world. We are the Jesus Movement now….

…We are part of the Jesus Movement, and he has summoned us to make disciples and followers of all nations and transform this world by the power of the Good News, the gospel of Jesus.

What makes God's people holy is His presence in and with us. It’s not our behavior, which, we must admit, is often less than perfect, that makes us saints but it is our living identity as Jesus’ people that makes us saints. There are many examples of people transformed by the love of Jesus. One well known story is about the Rev. John Newton who former slave ship captain who became an ardent abolitionist and an Anglican priest. He wrote the famous hymn “Amazing Grace” in 1764, that describes the truth that it is God's gracious presence in the midst of His humanity that makes sainthood possible.

"Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see."

With God's loving grace we can grow to be the people God made us to be…to live into the sainthood we have been adopted into!

In the second half of today’s reading from Revelation, God's voice thunders from heaven, "See, I am making all things new." God is making a promise to us. 

I think I’ve told you before about how, when I was in high school and college, I experienced two movements that was sweeping the churches: the Jesus Movement, and in particular the movement that swept through the Episcopal Church (and many other churches). People who were once part of a church known as “God’s Frozen Chosen” were experiencing the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including but not limited to speaking in tongues, and ecstatic prayer. Well, this was new to me and I loved going to those churches and prayer meetings and I learned so much from them. But the truth is that I made a rotten charismatic… and still do! I am just too tightly wound, I guess! The truth is that the only time I’ll ever pray with my hands up will probably be during a bank robbery.

I used to feel guilty about this, thinking that I wasn’t holy enough or that somehow I was closing out the Holy Spirit. But a wise woman reassured me that it was okay…that God was not finished with me yet.

We live in a world that often advertises promises of perfection, but the fact is that saintliness is much less about perfection and much more about transformation. We who are God's saints are saints both by grace and by choice. We followers, friends, and apprentices of Jesus are constantly learning how to follow Jesus as we do the work of God, as we allow the holy presence of God be a transforming influence in our life.

One of the things I have discovered over the years about how to learn and do the work of Jesus is to let go of our outsized expectations of perfection. Sure there are skills to learn: how to pray, how to read scripture, how to listen to others, and how to form holy habits. At the same time, we are also called to have an open and ready heart. And that comes from learning to improvise, punt, to live with limitations. All these teach us that sainthood is not about externals, piety, or looking good. Sainthood comes with baptism, and how we live it by learning and doing the work of Jesu

I remember a children’s sermon I heard as a kid, and I’ve repeated this image a few times in this parish. In the sermon, the priest pointed to all the wonderful stained glass windows that were in that church (here you have wonderful etched windows but the image still holds….). What was said in that children’s sermon is that we, you and me, are all like these windows: we are people through whom the light shines.

When I was in Seminary, I remember hearing Dr. James Fenhagen, the late Dean of General Seminary, speak about the Church in American culture. He said that modern Christians tended to have hard crusty exteriors but soft inner cores. The problem is God call us to have a solid core, grounded in Scripture, tradition, and reason, and a soft exterior, a heart for all God’s people. As baptized said, we build that solid core by being disciplines who engage in prayer, the study of Scripture, spiritual direction, and sacramental living, which shapes into who and what we are, deep in our souls. All this helps us to have a genuinely compassionate, welcoming, and embracing faith that expresses God’s love and care to the people God gives us every day.

Remember that famous old English hymn, "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God?" The last verse brings home the point

"They lived not only in ages past,

there are hundreds of thousands still,

the world is bright with the joyous saints

who love to do Jesus' will.

You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,

in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,

for the saints of God are just folk like me,

and I mean to be one too."

I have to confess I am not there yet but, as that wise woman reminded me long ago, we are on the way. Being a saint is a being a person of hope… hope is faith that looks forward. And the saints of God who surround us in a fellowship of love and prayer tells us that we are not along in the journey. God isn't finished with us yet. And, yes, you do have what it takes! God is making all things new, even people like me and like you.

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Bulletin for Worship for the Sunday after All Saints, November 5, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the Sunday after All Saints, November 5, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on November 5, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on November 5, 2023.

"O God, Thy sea is so great and my boat is so small."

Stop me if you've heard this one.

One day, a priest, a rabbi, and an imam are out taking a hike in the forest. They see that they need to cross a wide stream, but there is no bridge for miles in either direction, and they have no boat. The rabbi, shrugs, and steps out and walks across the stream to the other side. The imam looks at the priest, and says “Well, if he can do it, I can do it,” and he walks across the stream to the other side. The priest looks up and down the stream, and then across. The rabbi and the imam shout to him “Are you coming or not? We don’t have all day!” The priest sighs, shrugs, and says “Well, if they can do it, I can do it!” So he steps out and… sploosh!... he’s in the water, sopping wet. The rabbi says, “What? You didn’t see the rocks?”  

So….

Can we please give Peter a break?  After all he did walk on water!  He did ask to have Jesus call him and he did step out. And he certainly got further on his walk on the water than I… and probably any of us… ever would. And even when he got frightened and began to sink, he did reach out to Jesus for help.

Not a bad performance, don’t you think? In fact, I’d say that Peter’s actions was something of a miracle! Certainly compared to the priest in my little story!

We tend to think of sinking Peter. And we say in our hearts—see? He has no faith! He couldn’t do it! It’s like that other joke about this incident ending up in the newspaper and the headline reads, “Apostle Can’t Swim!” In my minds ear, I can hear the other apostles now, kidding Peter endlessly about this and busting his chops with remarks like "you know what happens when you put The Rock on the water? It sinks!”

But in all this we forget that everything that Peter did that day was an act of faith!

That doesn’t make stepping out towards Jesus in the midst of a storm any less scary, or his impromptu swim any less important, because his experience teaches us that our faith lives best is when we focus on Jesus. But when we get distracted and feel overwhelmed, the best we can do is cry “Lord, help us!”

So, I have another riddle for you: Why did the disciples cross the lake? To get to the other side!

When the early church remembered Jesus’ miracle, they could identify with it immediately. Not because they were sailors or fishermen, but because the new, young church was like a being in a small boat on a big sea in the middle of a storm.  So, in the Gospel of Matthew (as in Mark, whose outline Matthew follows) “going to the other side (of the lake)” means going from a safe place to a new, foreign or unknown place of mission—and this was by definition a risky and stormy trip.

Matthew is telling the story of what Jesus… and how he rescued Peter… so that his church can remember what it takes to weather whatever storm we experience.

And we all experience storms. It can be a personal storm—a conflict, facing a dilemma, dealing with a difficult illness or the loss of a job. Or it can be a corporate storm—in a workplace, a family, a neighborhood or even a church. Whatever the reason and whatever the place, we are all familiar with storms. We deal with them as best we can. We try to keep the water out and try to stay afloat, even if we don’t make any headway.

Jesus walks across the water and through the storm to come to the disciples. Some paintings I have seen of this shows a serene Jesus walking across the water as peacefully as a stroll down a lane on a summer day. But I think that when Jesus walked across the water, he got wet. The storm was all around him and the wind was still wailing. The powers of the storm and the wind and sea tried to overwhelm him, but could not. He walked through the storm, not immune from its effects and fully immersed in its reality. He was not overpowered by it.

He would do that on the cross. He would face everything evil and sin has to offer, including death. He would die a true and real death, just as he faced a true and real storm on the sea that day, and he would rise from the dead. In walking on the sea in the storm, he is not just demonstrating his power, he shows us that the storm is real and that the storm does not deter or stop him.

Notice that it is only after Jesus gets into the boat, helping a wet and chastened Peter, that he stills the storm. So there are three miracles here: Jesus walks on the water. Peter walks on the water. Jesus stills the storm.  But first, people got wet.So, let’s give Peter a break. And let’s give ourselves a break, too.

There are moments (at least) when we are all of us people of “little faith.”  Martin Luther has an accurate description of us:  he said that they, and we, are Simul justus et peccator  which means "simultaneously saint and sinner".  Peter is a lot like us: a lion of the faith with a heart of gold who is at the very same dense, fearful, and reactive.

The disciples  are just like us--- faithful people on a difficult journey. A journey beset by storms and it is in the middle of the very real storm comes a very real Jesus to meet them at the scariest moment.

At the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, there is a little plaque that was given the new, young president by Admiral Hyman Rickover, who commanded the US Navy’s Submarine Service. It sat on Kennedy's desk during his presidency and it was the same plaque Rickover gave to every new captain of every boat in his command. It reads: “O God, Thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.”

Every Christian will experience storms. Baptism does not make us waterproof! We will get wet! In fact, to do the ministries we are called to do, we will be sent into some pretty thick weather! But Jesus comes to us, and he is with us in the storm. We cannot still the storm or walk on water alone. But it is Jesus who has power over the storm. The storm will not defeat Jesus—and so the storm will not defeat us! Only sometimes we have a hard time believing that! And we people of little faith, we are at once saints and sinners, need only reach out to Jesus and say “Lord, save me!” and he is there in the midst of the storm to rescue us. 

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Bulletin for Worship for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost, August 13, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost, August 13, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on August 13, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on August 13, 2023.

Sacrifice, Welcome, and God's Hospitality

One of the most important moments in my early Christian life took place in an ice storm a long time ago. Perhaps in the Florida sun that we enjoy or in the early summer heat wave now moving across the rest of the nation, the idea of a world coated with ice might sound inviting, but as anyone who has experienced one can tell you, ice storms are no joke. 

It was a lesson in hospitality and in sacrifice.

Anyway, there was this huge ice storm one winter when I was a junior in high school, and it caught our youth group by surprise. We were locked into the parish house of my home parish in the Dutch Point section of Hartford, Connecticut, originally for an overnight retreat of Christian formation and fun, but which ended up with us being frozen in and unable to leave. 

It turns out that by some miracle, our building was the only one in our neighborhood with electricity and heat but that everyone in the homes in the projects around the parish were blacked out and cold. We as a group decided that we could not just hunker down alone—we had to help. So, we went out in pairs—a bunch of suburban kids—into the projects around the church that we were usually told to stay away from, knocking on doors inviting people out of their dark apartments into the warm shelter of the parish house. We scrounged food to make soup—truly a kind of stone soup—and we scrounged blankets and linens. Eventually, the clergy and adult advisors called someone (on old-style rotary dial phones!) who got the Salvation Army or the Red Cross (I can’t remember who) to bring us cots and blankets and food. Over 48 hours, we teens and other adults from the congregation learned a lesson about receiving the stranger and the cost of discipleship.

Here was the transaction: we who were comfortable learned to share our comfort with others.

Today’s Gospel is the second of two parts. We heard the first part last week. In this part of Matthew, Jesus is telling his closest followers (and through Matthew, telling the early Church and us) that even though discipleship is costly, we are called to practice hospitality.

Matthew recalls Jesus’ words in a very specific context. The Gospel of Matthew is written to a congregation composed of Jewish Christians, Gentiles who were initially attracted to Judaism (called “Judaizers”) who then became Christians, and were in community with other Gentile Christians who did not come through Judaism but probably knew something about the traditions and practices. It was also a community under threat of persecution and where following Jesus was often a risky, life or death proposition. 

At the very least, choosing to follow Jesus could mean that the Jewish believers severed relationships with family who might consider them traitors and apostates. For the Gentile Christians, it meant following customs that seemed strange at best (selling your possessions and sharing them in common, perhaps) or bizarre (such as claiming to eat the flesh and blood of your founder in the Eucharist). So this is the context of Matthew’s remembrance of Jesus’ words: following Jesus might be costly.

So when Matthew recalls another part of Jesus’ teaching:

Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me

And whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me 

God will honor whoever receives a prophet;

God will honor whoever receives a righteous man,

And God will reward anyone that shares even a cup of cold water with one of God’s own.

He is reminding us of what Jesus taught: Discipleship is costly, but we never have to bear the cost alone. 

On the other hand, sometimes we try so hard to please God that we go over the top. One of the lessons from today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures may be that, as writer and Presbyterian pastor Frederick Buechner once wrote, that sometimes we bend over backwards so much to please God that we flop over and fall right on our faces. 

The story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac is, to me, a case in point. Abraham listens for God. Abraham is told to dedicate his son to God, but hears that in terms of literally sacrificing his son. In a world where human sacrifice was fairly common especially in those days before Judaism took hold, perhaps his mistake might be understandable. But in his zeal to be as faithful as he can be, Abraham nearly gives up the son he waited  his whole long life for… until God intervenes with a useful alternative. 

Today’s Gospel in conversation with today’s reading from Genesis reminds us that being a friend and apprentice to Jesus will, at the very least, cause us to examine and change our relationship to everything: money, society, what is meaningful work, our relationships, even family. And rather than go over the top, our life of faith causes us to open our hearts, even when this seems perplexing to those around us.

At most, being a friend and apprentice to Jesus may cause conflict with people, even those close to us, who do not understand the life of faith. For others, ordinary Christian faith can become a radical act that might cause us to become outcasts from the very people and places we hold dear.

And for those of us for whom our belief is not a life-or-death matter, we must be ready to receive with hospitality those for whom faith in Christ is costing everything.

For those whose faith is costly, there is a home. We may be the home for those who have none for Jesus’ sake. 

That is why we care for the sick, the outcast, the hungry, the jailed, for the refugee, for the lonely amongst us.  That is why we host Good Neighbors  and 12-step meetings—we are food for the hungry and a safe place for those seeking sobriety. 

Our use of our relative wealth and relative comfort to support and hold up those for whom Christian faith is a costly, chosen sacrifice is a living example of the fullness of the body of Christ in action.

Jesus knew that faith is not always easy. But for those whose commitment to God might cause them dislocation there is not only a home in heaven but there is shelter here. Who knows? Our church, our prayers, our resources may be the shelter and safe-place that might mean life for a person whose faith has cost everything!

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Bulletin for Worship for the 5th Sunday after Pentecost, July 2, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the 5th Sunday after Pentecost, July 2, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on July 2, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on July 2, 2023.

Hang in There

"Hang in there."

Today’s Gospel has a strange way of saying it—it sounds kind of threatening doesn’t it? -- but that is the bottom line: It is a hard time and place to be faithful, and remaining a faithful follower of Jesus will be hard, even costly, because following Jesus changes everything but in the Gospel today, Jesus also encourages us to “hang in there.”

Jesus is telling his disciples that life as one of his faithful followers will be at times complicated, even difficult. And the ethical choices one might face—must face— as a follower of Jesus, will at times put us at odds with other people, even the people closest to us.

Today’s Gospel lesson is a strange one, and not only for its tone.  Most of these sayings of Jesus that we hear today, appear in only two of the Synoptic Gospels… here and in Luke … but they show up in different places and in different contexts, which is very unusual because most of the time the outlines of the first three Gospels track each other pretty consistently. Yeah, Matthew, like Luke, builds out on the outline that Mark gave them, and sometimes each Gospel has material that is unique to each book… but to have the same sayings and similar teachings show up in different places and in different contexts makes my ears perk up.

Besides, the Gospels show us all the time that following Jesus can upend life as we know it, even in households. New Testament Scholar Deirdre Goode points out that “household divisions can be as a result of following Jesus and … this [might one of the] the cost(s) of discipleship…. (for example), Zebedee is left in the boat when his sons follow Jesus. Why this happens is left to us to figure out. It might be a decision to advance the kingdom through a network of fishing people, and (older?) tax collectors, given the short length of Jesus’ ministry in the Decapolis.”

We know that Peter has a wife, and that Jesus healed his mother-in-law. Sometimes brothers and sisters joined Jesus together, while others stayed at home.

Technicalities aside, both Gospels give us the same two messages: “Following Jesus changes everything” and “hang in there. Even when it’s hard, hang in there.”

We don’t live in a society or a culture that actively arrests and persecutes Christians, but more and more we live in a society that mis-understands and mis-characterizes the nature of faith. And it is not only secular people who do the misunderstanding. Faithful people can mangle things up, too.

Which, if you think about it, is not terribly surprising since many in the culture lump all Christians (and all faithful people for that matter) into one big, bin of generalities and prejudices. Don’t believe me? Remember how, after 9/11, many in society lumped all Muslims together as if they were all like the nine who hijacked and crashed those aircraft? Some prominent Christian evangelists still do that. And if you have ever had to preface your faith in Christ by saying something like “I am a Christian, but I am not like those Christians…” then you know what I mean.

The fact of the matter is that being a faithful follower of Jesus sometimes cuts across the grain of how our culture works.  That happens when following Jesus touches every part of our living and changes everything. And that can be hard.

But hard as it is, it is the way of blessing not only for his followers, but for the people they will encounter, who will be healed, who will be affirmed and blessed, who will be reconciled to God, each other, and find new community.

In the Gospel Jesus is about to send his twelve very naïve and inexperienced disciples out to do what Jesus does. And as he does, gives tells them to “hang in there,” which means persevering in the face of resistance. And he doesn’t sugarcoat the dangers of the mission; he gives it to them straight: “Some folks will welcome the Good News, others won’t. Some will resist the message and the change that comes with it. And you’ll be the target of their resistance.” Then, like a good pastor, he reminds them that God is with them and is at once powerful –pronouncing judgments that yield life or death – and faithful. In resting on the faithfulness of God, the disciples have what they need in order to endure whatever fear, rejection or violence they may encounter.

Jesus is also forming their character. He is showing them who they truly are – children of God-- and what they are capable of when their lives are aligned with God’s grace. They will become agents of healing and reconciliation; they will learn to hold on to truth even when the going gets tough – by remembering God’s character, God’s faithfulness, God’s goodness. As God will hang in with them, they will learn to hang in with each other, and even with themselves.

Hanging in there, as Jesus says, did not come easily for Jesus’ followers. It took years of walking, listening, and learning with Jesus, eating with him, watching him heal others, speaking truth to power, listening to his teachings, and overhearing his prayers for them to become the kind of men and women who were willing to lose their lives as martyrs, testifying to God’s shalom, God’s peace, in a world still enraptured by powers and principalities. Christian identity and character formation are lifelong processes.

To be a disciple is to be a friend and apprentice of Jesus Christ. To be a Christian is to learn and do the work of Jesus. It is often not easy, and is frequently misunderstood. Sometimes even the people nearest and dearest to us will scratch their heads and shrug their shoulders at our life of prayer, our devotion to scripture, our sacramental living, and wonder why we ground our identity in a baptism that many of us don’t even remember. But as hard as it is, Jesus has two things to say: “hang in there” and “I am with you always.”

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Bulletin for Worship for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, June 25, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, June 25, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on June 25, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on June 25, 2023.

Ready or not, we are sent!

It is early in the Season after Pentecost and already we are hearing in the Gospel about Jesus sending out his disciples in pairs to preach, heal, confront evil, and proclaim Good News. A big job! Representing Jesus, to teach, preach, heal, and cast out evil. So, were they ready? Not in the least!

But this was more than on-the-job training, it is the first expression of the Church going out to the rest of society offering the Good News to a hurting and broken world.

These disciples had been learning from Jesus. Now they were going to go do the work of Jesus… all by themselves…or at least in teams of two!

But were they ready? No way! They often did not understand the fullness of what Jesus taught. Except for whatever they might have learned in their local synagogue or in their households, they were not learned men in the formal sense. They had set aside their regular jobs to follow Jesus and to learn from him. But now it was time for them to live what they learned.

Matthew’s Gospel is showing his community and us what Christian discipleship is all about. Notice the motivation for Jesus’ ministry and his sending: as he traveled around Palestine, he was moved by the people’s need for hope and healing. Matthew says that they were “harassed” and “helpless.”

Compassion means to “walk with someone.” It is something that can be taught, yeah, but it does not come out of one’s head but from the heart. The compassion Jesus felt what in his gut. And it is from this deepfelt concern that he called his disciples to him and sent them out in pairs to proclaim the nearness of God’s reign. He gave them everything they needed to heal, restore, cleanse, and liberate those to whom they were sent. He warned them that there would be resistance as well as welcome. Some people would be angry, even hate them, and chase them out of town. And yet, they were encouraged to endure all this with God’s help.

We’ve all been sent on a similar mission, you know! In our baptisms, and when as adults (or at least as older teens) we publicly affirmed our baptismal vows in front of the Church and a bishop at confirmation or reception… and every time we’ve renewed our baptismal covenant… we’ve promised to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ…,” “to seek and serve Christ loving our neighbors as ourselves…,” and to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being….” (p. 305, BCP)

So we’ve been sent, just like those first disciples!

But discipleship is not just a job filled with to-do lists and skill sets. It is a life of grace. And just as Jesus chose his twelve disciples, Christ calls us and we follow him. As the disciples were Jesus’ friends and his apprentices, so are we! We are also friends and apprentices of Jesus Christ!

Discipleship always begins with and is rooted in divine love. And we are being called out as the Church, as a community. We don’t walk alone, but we are sent out tougher! Indeed the Greek word for “Church” – “ecclesia” – is composed of the words “ek,” meaning “out,” and “kaleo,” meaning “called.” So to be the Church is to “be called out.”

Being a disciple is living a life, called out to minister in Jesus’ name as his friends and apprentices living under God’s grace and power.

Notice that the call to be a disciple is never about the disciples themselves. Christian discipleship is always about engaging with and living for others. We share what we have been given with others. William Temple, who was Archbishop of Canterbury during World War two, once noted that the Church is a unique institution, because it exists specifically for the ones who not already it’s members. The Church is a proclaiming community of disciples—friends and apprentices of Jesus Christ—who in our word and in our actions and in our ethics seek to make a practical, useful difference in the world.

This is why discipleship and mission go hand in hand. You can’t have one with the other. Like the disciples, we learn and we do the work of Jesus.

Of course, disciples don’t just go “out.” They return and share and tell what they have seen and heard and done. They will pray together and learn together and they will care for each other as they learn to  do Christs work both in community and in the world.

Today, in our first lesson, we heard about how this worked when Abram receiving the divine visitors into his home. While Abram generously and compassionately offered the three men food and drink, he also received, even if unexpectedly, blessings from them that would completely change his life—and the life of Sarah his wife, who, after all, did the actual work of hospitality!

This shows us that we cannot give without being open and humble to receive. The Christian life is a a life of offering to others what God has given us, and a life of receiving unfolding layers of grace. Because when we engage with others, Christ encourages us to receive as well. That’s why listen and learn from the people to whom we are sent. Discipleship—living as friends and apprentices of Jesus-- is a life of humility, openness, receiving, learning, listening, and genuine dialogue.

It can be risky to be a follower of Jesus sent into the world. That’s why we don’t do it alone. Jesus sent his students and friends out in pairs for a reason. We need each other. None of us has everything we need to do the work God has given us to do. . inally, our Lord also reminds the twelve that discipleship involves vulnerability. We can be proud of our calling as disciples, but we cannot forget that it is always a risk-taking business. Those who follow Jesus, because they strive for peace and justice, often find themselves in trouble with the powers of the world. Yet, we are never alone.

I heard a story that was told by the late Rabbi Harold Kushner, who wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It was the story of a mother who sent her son to the store to buy a loaf of bread and few basics for their lunch and dinner. She gave him some money, gave him a list, and sent him out the door. Well, morning turned into noon which turned into the afternoon and he did not appear. Finally, the boy returned with the groceries and the change from the purchases.

“Where were you?” she asked. “I was so worried!”

“Well,” he said, “as I was walking home, I saw Bobby and his bike was broken, so I helped him fix it.”

“I see,” said the mother, “but you don’t know anything about fixing bikes!”

“No, but I helped him cry about it.”

We are sent by Jesus in to a complex and complicated world. Are you ready? We are given the task of communicating the Gospel to friends and strangers, in familiar places and in new. Do you think we’re ready? I think that God thinks we are… we’re ready right now!

We are called, and given the power, to do everything that Jesus did. We have been given the tools to be present to others, to meet them at the point of their greatest need, to assist them in navigating tough moments, and most of all to simply love and support them. And when we do as Jesus did, even a little bit, we present Jesus’ face, Jesus’ presence, Jesus’ power, Jesus’ love, to a hurting and lonely world. It may only be a hug, or a meal, or ride to the doctor, or a listening moment over lunch or in the break room but these are the moments that communicate Jesus most deeply and most practically, in ways that make a real difference in the lives of harried, distracted, lonely people.

Jesus trusted his followers to do all this and more. They probably didn’t feel ready, but he gave them the power to change lives just the same. And as he did with the twelve, God does with us. God trusts us to learn, live, and do the work of Jesus.

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Bulletin for Worship for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, June 18, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, June 18, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on June 18, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on June 18, 2023.

It's All About the Shepherd

My mother used to tell me that it was one thing to be ignorant, just don’t open your mouth and prove it. Well, today, all over the Christian world, preachers like me will open their mouths will prove, in great detail and with great authority, that they know nothing about sheep! Myself included.

The truth is that everything I know about sheep and shepherding I’ve learned from old Warner Brothers cartoons involving Ralph Coyote (not to be confused with Wile E.) and Sam Sheepdog who both punch in to work on a time clock before a day of mayhem.

The funny thing is that we preachers who get so distracted by the nature of sheep and their behavior forget that the passages that show up every Fourth Sunday of Easter—traditionally Good Shepherd Sunday—are never about the sheep. They are always 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 the shepherd. The good shepherd. Who is very different than all those bad shepherds, not to mention the thieves and wolves and others who are bad for sheep gatherings.

Jesus says in today’s Gospel that the good shepherd can come and go through the sheepfold. What’s a sheepfold? Okay, I had to look this up. It’s a 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 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!

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 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 dodging the turnstiles or entering the theater without a ticket. If it were, he’d be talking about sheep sneaking in over the gate after curfew.

And no, this passage is not about heaven, who’s in and who’s out.

It is about the Church. Specifically about the nature of Christian community. This passage is a riff on Christian leadership and a warning to Christian followers to choose wise leaders.

So the Church is the place where the sheep go for protection and safety. And it’s all about the shepherd.

John’s Gospel teaches us that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. And that we need to be wary of all the things that can distract us, take us away from the church and the life of faith, and cause us to follow the wrong voice. Most of all, the Gospel warns us that some people will pretend to be doing good when in fact they are really looking out only for themselves.

Fortunately, this is only a first century problem, right?  I mean, there is no one out there today competing for our attention, right? There’s no one out there who wants to sway us into doing something harmful, right? There’s no one out there using the language of our faith to trick us into prejudice, fear, and tribalism, right? No! Not in our modern, enlightened 21^st Century world!

Right!

But let’s not just focus on the obvious. The typical American is confronted by over 5000 advertising exposures. Every. Single. Day. From the car logo on your steering wheel to the brand name on your jeans to the ad on tv or on the back of the bus…we are exposed to over 5000 advertising messages a 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.

Anybody raising a kid these days knows that they will know the different fast-food logos are and what they are for long before they can even read…before they can even form 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.  We live in a world of loud, persistent voices vying for our attention… trying to take us away from the main thing. 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 of all, Jesus teaches with authority. In the 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.

The image of the Church we hear in the book of Acts today reminds us of the real, practical ways in which from the very beginning, Christians gathered into communities to hear again the voice of the Shepherd and to care for each other.

Second, the Good Shepherd knows us and meets us where we are. The Shepherd guides us as we move around in the proverbial pasture that is the world. Do you experience too many voices, too many distractions in your daily lives? Jesus says that 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. In that community you’ll find the Shepherd…Jesus… who leads us and cares for us wherever we go.

It is the sacramental life, lived in community…a life grounded in scripture, in Eucharistic sharing, in prayer—both alone and in groups, as well as in worship-- is all about the Shepherd. Focusing on Jesus the Good Shepherd will help us sort through all the competing voices in the world.  And together here, in our little sheepfold, is where we learn to know Jesus’ voice and follow him. This is where we learn and do the work of Jesus.

The world is a noisy place, full of distractions. As a people of God, we are not alone, but are a community of people gathered in Jesus’ name. We are a people who are “on the way.” And together we keep an eye out for the Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who knows us, cares for us and leads through our complicated and distracted world and brings us safely home.

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Bulletin for Worship for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, April 30, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Scripture Lessons for 4 Easter A, April 30 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on April 30, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on April 30, 2023.