Who will go?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now that is what I call a call! 

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

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

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

So Jesus decides that a demonstration is in order. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who will be the first to throw out the net? 

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

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

It sounds simple, but it’s a start. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Remote and In-Person, It's All Embodied Church!

Today, an Op-Ed in the New York Times, written by a priest in the Anglican Church of North America, the Rev. Tish Harrison Warren, put forward the thesis "that the time has come to shut off hybrid and remote worship and to encourage people to come back into physical churches for worship." 

At the parish where I am priest in charge, we follow a hybrid approach. About 40-50 of us gather in person on Sunday, and others take part via Facebook Live and YouTube, with the numbers of views hovering around 65 to 100 every week. It's small potatoes, yeah, but it is now at the heart of how this community functions.

My experience as a Christian communicator, parish priest, and hospital chaplain informs my belief that this technological shift is not only long overdue but is consistent with the practice and ministry of the Church since the beginning of the Christian era. Furthermore, just as we cannot dispense with books, musical instruments, or writing, we cannot simply dispense with technology simply because it has limits, temptations, distractions, or challenges. Tech changes Christian community... and gives us tools to communicate the Gospel! This isn't to say it's either automatic or easy.

Personally, I don't think we can put this genie back in the bottle. Even if the pandemic should magically end tomorrow, we have been habituated to a new way of interacting that is here to stay. We must find ways to embody Christian community and communicate the Gospel in the ways the culture understands.

In light of that, I am posting here the letter that I wrote to Pastor Harrison Warren in response to her piece (which is exists behind the NYT paywall) that I forwarded through the portal at the NYTimes website where her essay appeared. Since comments were not open on the column itself, I chose to write her through that portal. I await her reply.

(An earlier version of what follows also appeared in the Facebook site of "The Episcopal Café," where I was a once a regular columnist and an editor.)

Dear Pastor Harrison Warren,

I read with interest your Op-Ed Column in today's New York Times. I am sure that by now you have received many bouquets and brickbats from those in and out of the wider Anglican world about what you wrote. I appreciate the vulnerability of putting oneself "out there" whether it's in the pulpit or in the newspaper to both proclaim the Gospel and to reflect on theology in public spaces. 

I am sad to say that, as an Episcopal priest with nearly forty years experience-- with almost fifteen of those years as a clinical chaplain in both secular and Catholic healthcare settings as a Board Certified Chaplain, also have served congregations, large and small, rural, suburban, and urban, and who is now serving as priest in charge of a small south Florida congregation-- that I found your column today to be both wrong-headed and unhelpful.

While I do appreciate the ideal that the best worship is found in community, and that it is essential for communities of Jesus' modern disciples to encounter Christ in worship among crying babies, the stranger, the homeless, the poor, and so on, in what may appear to us as random encounters, this does not mean that we should shut off the tools of remote worship now that we are passing through this phase of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an ideal world, I believe, as you do, that all of God's people should, whenever possible, physically gather in one space at the same time, certainly on the Lord's Day around the Eucharistic table. Such a hope is at the heart of the doctrine of the Christian Hope: that we will all gather at the Throne of the Lamb in eternal praise, basking in the glory of God! Our Eucharistic theology reminds us that every Eucharistic gathering points us to both mystical bonds we share in Christ and to the promise that we will all one day gather at the banquet feast of the Lamb. So to me, to write off all those who still might need to worship remotely... even the homebound and shut in!.. is to me beyond shocking! It is callous and belittling.

Way before this pandemic, during my time in hospital ministry (particularly when I was a chaplain in a Roman Catholic hospital), we broadcast the Mass on closed-circuit television to patients throughout our hospital. On days when we could not hold Mass in our own chapel, we would broadcast the daily Mass from one of the Catholic cable networks. In both instances, broadcasts were followed as soon as possible by the rounds made by deacons or, more typically, lay eucharistic ministers. If LEM's, deacons, or staff chaplains could not see every patient who might have wanted communion, or if the patient was unable to receive, we understood that the grace of the Sacrament was still present and available to the faithful (as the rubrics of our own 1979 BCP clearly state).

I understand that you might say that is totally different from a "Zoom Mass," a service on Facebook Live, YouTube, or whatever, except that you wrote in your column:

Our worship is centered not on simply thinking about certain ideas, but on eating and drinking bread and wine during communion.

“Christians need to hear the babies crying in church. They need to see the reddened eyes of a friend across the aisle,” Collin Hansen wrote in his Times essay about online church. “They need to chat with the recovering drug addict who shows up early but still sits in the back row. They need to taste the bread and wine. They need to feel the choir crescendo toward the assurance of hope in what our senses can’t yet perceive.”

I find the sentimentality at the heart of this both understandable and unhelpful. I understand the desire--and the call-- to gather with all God's people and especially with those who are at the edges of society or who, because of their illnesses, find themselves disconnected from Christian community. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer groups the various kinds of rites of reconciliation (Ministry to the Sick, Confession, and so on) together for just this reason. But to extend from that the technology behind remote worship is in and of itself harmful to Christian community is a logical leap that cannot be sustained. 

One might as well as say that the Apostle Paul should never have depended on epistles delivered by couriers via Roman ships and Roman Roads, or that Henry VIII's 1539 decree that the Great Bible be left open and available in every English parish church somehow separated people from the word of God because there was no one there to interpret it. In fact, we know from history that this those letters and roads were a blessing to the work of the Apostle and the early church. We know that those open Bibles were a hallmark of the English Reformation and that many people were blessed precisely through that widely distributed technology that allowed ordinary people to be able to read or hear the Word of God delivered in the plain language of the people. 

All through the Church's history, the Church has experimented with the technologies of their age in the service of the Gospel, from the Roman road, to the printing press, to radio and television, to the internet. 

My experience of evangelicals has been that they as a group are generally more open to technological innovation and experimentation. So I wonder if something else might be at work in your narrow understanding of "embodiment?" 

At the same time, I worry that hidden not-so-deeply in your column is a kind of judgmentalism and perfectionism that weakens your pastoral theology, not to mention showing off a kind of weak, tepid, ecclesiology... as if somehow the Body of Christ and the Action of the Holy Spirit might somehow not stand up to the rigors of Zoom!  At any rate, I am concerned that it reveals a kind of cruel perfectionism, of a theology of Church that depends only on the gathering of like minded (and physically able) persons in the same local space...which might certainly seem to limit the action of God!... and in so doing manages to write off centuries of Christian pastoral theology, practice, and tradition in the service one small facet of a greater ideal that somehow the only valid worship is worship where people can interact in the same physical space. 

I understand that in a consumer culture, where convenience is king, the kind of solitary encounters with a screen is a poor (but very tempting!) substitute for an embodied and sacramental community. But in the case of my little congregation, we have found that the hybrid nature of in-person and remote worship has by every metric drawn us closer together precisely when the pandemic (and society generally) wants to pull us apart. 

And this is at the heart of my disagreement with your op-ed essay: the Body of Christ is served by the wise stewardship of all kinds of technology. How these new, and often old-but-reimagined, technologies get used in the service of the Gospel will require experimentation, learning, trial and error, and creativity. 

No, it's not time to end hybrid worship, as you suggest. I suspect that in fact, we've only scratched the surface of what God has in store for us! And the best is yet to come!

Faithfully yours!

Andrew+

Losing is winning

In the dog eat dog world of the schoolyard, one of the most frequent insults kids hurl at each other is “loser.” As in, Joey so-and-so is a loser, or your big brother is a loser. And, even after all these years, these insults sting. They sting because we'd all rather win than lose. I remember a coach when I was a kid who used to say to us ten-year-old ball players, “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.”

I know now how wrong he was, but along the way I learned that this is also the logic of bullies of all ages. Ridicule the weak and vulnerable. Stigmatize them. Tell others not to waste their time hanging out with losers, but instead join the bullies in their sham fellowship of viciousness and false superiority.

Of course, it isn’t just kids on the playground who do this. Office, family, and civil politics is filled with this kind of behavior.

We all love to be associated with success. Around here, I’ve learned that we live in “Champa Bay.” But notice how we stopped talking about the amazing 100 games won by the Rays. Why? Because they did not make it through the playoffs! By this calculus, and for most people, the most remarkable record in baseball means exactly “zip.”

We are intrigued by successful. We study the secrets of highly successful people. The tabloids in the supermarket aisle talk about the successes and scandals of the rich and famous. In politics, we love to back a winner to the point that the news covers politics in much the same way the sport pages cover those teams.

Human beings are always trying to move up on the scale of importance. And we are told from an early age that no one really remembers the runners-up and that if we will only feel fulfilled if we are successful, if we are winners. That’s who are valuable, important, and powerful.

Alas, people of faith are not immune. If one wanted to, one could read church history like a comic book where super-heroes (or super-reformers) do battle with super-baddies who want to hold the church back. But this is not how God’s kingdom unfolds; in fact, God’s way in the world is quite the opposite.

In today’s Gospel, two of Jesus’ closest followers, James and John, thought they were backing a winner. They thought that they were on God’s inside track, because they had been following Jesus since way back in Galilee.

So, one day, James and John come to Jesus with a request. I love how they approach him. They think that they so clever when they say, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask,” as if they could box Jesus in. It’s like they’re children going to their mother and saying, “I want you to promise to do whatever we ask you to do before we tell you what it is. You’ve got to promise first. You’ve got to swear you’ll do it.” It’s a sure-fire signal that someone is up to something.

But Jesus cuts through their baloney when he just nods his head and says “uh huh” and asks “What is it that you want me to do for you?” Just get to the point, boys, what do you want?

With an amazing lack of shame, James and John ask Jesus “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

Ah. There it is. Naked ambition. James and John see Jesus destined for glory, and for them, that means power. They imagine Jesus as a powerful ruler, maybe someone who is going to crack some heads and take names, snatching power from the Roman Empire itself. They see Jesus as a powerful warrior King, seated upon a throne of glory, with his attendants seated beside him. James and John are asking Jesus to promise that when he becomes a powerful king that he will remember them and give them a couple of choice positions in his court. To them, Jesus is a winner, someone on the way up in the world, and they want to go along for the ride and get a couple of choice positions of power and prestige in their imagined Kingdom of God.

Even though they left family and profession to follow Jesus, they just did not get it.

Jesus tells them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” Basically, Jesus is saying that his disciples do not have the first clue as to who he is or what his whole mission is about. Jesus did not come to crack heads, take names, and take power. His power was not like the power that earthly rulers used.

No, the cup he drinks is the cup of suffering; the cup of his blood poured out for others.

The baptism with which Jesus is baptized is his passion and death.

Basically, when Jesus talks about his cup and his baptism he is talking about his cross. Jesus’ enthronement, his earthly throne, will be the cross. So, of course James and John don’t really know what they are asking for when they request to be on Jesus’ left hand and his right hand.

Remember who in fact will be on Jesus’ right and left at his crucifixion? Yup, two thieves. And only one of them got what was going on. So how could James and John possibly imagine the enormity of that being on his left and his right in glory really mean?

Jesus comes by it naturally. Remember the song his mother Mary sang? “He will cast down the mighty from their thrones… he will lift up the lowly and the rich will be sent empty away.”

So they (and we) are not following a king into a castle, but we are following Jesus the Messiah and Savior to his cross. This is not backing a winner, at least by the standards of the world, because by that measure James and John are hanging out with a loser.

Christ is showing his disciples that true greatness is not found in climbing to the top and exercising power over others; but, true greatness, true leadership is found in self-emptying, and in self-giving love. Unlike worldly rulers who lord it over others, Jesus tells his disciples, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

A few years ago, I read a book and saw a TED talk given by Simon Sinek, who is one my favorite people who thinks about leadership and groups. In his book “Leaders Eat Last,” he tells this story about Captain William Swenson who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions on September 8, 2009:

On that day, a column of American and Afghan troops were making their way through a part of Afghanistan to help protect a group of Afghan government officials, who would be meeting with some local village elders. The column came under ambush, and was surrounded on three sides, and amongst many other things, Captain Swenson was recognized for running into live fire to rescue the wounded and pull out the dead. One of the people he rescued was a sergeant, and he and a comrade were making their way to a medevac helicopter.

And what was remarkable about this day is, by sheer coincidence, one of the medevac medics happened to have a GoPro camera on his helmet and captured the whole scene on camera. It shows Captain Swenson and his comrade bringing this wounded soldier who had received a gunshot to the neck. They put him in the helicopter, and then you see Captain Swenson bend over and give him a kiss before he turns around to rescue more. Sinek asks the question:

“…where do people like that come from? What is that? That is some deep, deep emotion, when you would want to do that. There's a love there, and I wanted to know why…? You know, in the military, they give medals to people who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may gain. In business, we give bonuses to people who are willing to sacrifice others so that we may gain.” 

So, Sinek asked those in military service, "Why would you do it? Why did you do it?" They all say the same thing: "Because they would have done it for me." This jives with my experience of every educator, nurse, EMT, firefighter, and cop that I have ever ministered to as a chaplain. It also jives with my experience as a parish priest in ordinary extraordinary communities just like this.

The challenge is that this deep sense of trust and cooperation are feelings, not instructions. As Sinek says, “I can't simply say to you, ‘Trust me,’ and you will. I can't simply instruct two people to cooperate, and they will. It's not how it works. It's a feeling.” Sinek’s observation points to what is at the core of what we are doing here today: because at the heart of Christian leadership is servanthood.

In the Gospel today, Jesus spells out of what the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ means for his disciples and we, his baptized people. Jesus really isn’t interested in the ways of worldly rulers but is actually more concerned about how his followers imitate the behavior of the world in the community of his followers. So the sting of Jesus’ words and the shock of recognition that James and John felt is surely also be felt by us, especially those of us in lay and ordained leadership, and all the baptized who are called to take up their crosses and follow Jesus.

At a time when the Church as we have always known is struggling, instead of trying to be “number one,” or falling back on rosy nostalgia, we are called to sling our towels over our shoulders and do the work of servants, following the example of the One who came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Bulletin for Sunday service found here.

Link to Sunday service found at St. John's Clearwater FL website here.

 

A dynamic and glorious in-between time

A sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 16, 2021 at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater, Florida. 

This is a very strange moment in the Church year, don’t you think?

Here we are smack dab in-between Ascension Day (when we remember the Risen Jesus returning to the nearer presence of God) and Pentecost (when God the Holy Spirit openly descending upon the Church). It is a very strange, in-between time!

So, was this gathering of Jesus’ people merely a Church-in-waiting. Or worse, was it a church asleep? Was this very young, very small Church described in Acts today merely “on hold” waiting for the Spirit to come and kick them into gear? Not at all!

The great theologian Paul Tillich once wrote that the whole history of the Church can be understood as a movement between charisma and order, an oscillation between activity and rest, and where these meet (or are in tension) is where the Holy Spriit lives!

This is helpful in sorting out the paradoxes that arise when we compare the various Gospels on this moment in the life of the early Jesus movement.:

Matthew’s Gospel shows us Jesus giving out marching orders--go into all the world, proclaim good news and baptize new Jesus-people.

Luke remembers things a tad differently. In Acts 1:4, the apostles are told to go to Jerusalem and to “stay in the city, where they will receive power from on high.”

Which, if you look at the themes of each Gospel, is kind of strange.

Matthew organized his Gospel like a little Torah with Jesus setting out a new law, but he recalls the Great Commission as Jesus’ last words on earth—Go into the world to baptize and teach!

Luke, on the other hand, who is all about the movement of the Spirit and the flames of Pentecost, talks today in Acts about the disciples having committee meeting to get organized!

And John spends serious Gospel real-estate reporting Jesus’ prayer that the ones who have encountered the eternal logos live in a community that mirrors Jesus in their common life.

So, perhaps, the time between the ascension and Pentecost was really a grace-filled, active moment in their life together. Could it be that once again God is challenging our expectations?

The Anglican priest John Wesley, who founded the Methodist branch of the Jesus Movement, talked a lot about grace in his preaching and teaching. The great hymn “Amazing Grace” summarizes Wesley’s teaching quite well.

Wesley taught that grace is the active, dynamic action of the Holy Spirit. Today in Acts we see “prevenient grace,” the grace that goes before us and readies the heart and mind for the “saving grace” that strangely warms our hearts and sets them on fire. We are next led to “sanctifying grace” which comes as we grow in holiness of life and into the full stature of Christ.

We’ll celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit in power next week. But today’s lessons remind us that the Holy Spirit didn’t just hang out in the bull pen waiting for her turn at bat! While yakking and praying in tongues is exciting and might make what we hear today seem kind of boring—it is the same Spirit moving each time!

All through Acts we see this pattern of how the Spirit works: Moments of great energy and moments of prayerful rest. After they draw straws to choose Mathias (order) then Pentecost happens (charisma)!

Soon the fast-growing early church discovers that the widows and orphans are being left behind. So, they stop and decide how to care for each other (order), appointing the first Deacons to care for the neediest among them (charisma).

Then they go into the entire known world, bringing in people they never imagined into this new young church—Gentiles who never knew about Judaism who want to follow Jesus! And that charismatic innovation will cause them to stop and figure out how to include Gentiles who loved Jesus and were filled with the Holy Spirit just as much as they did!

Acts shows us that even in the earliest church, they had to learn both charisma and order. They needed charisma to enliven. They needed order to make sense of the charisma.

We learn that the Holy Spirit is more than the power of God to excite, the Spirit of God also brings order out of chaos. The dynamism of God both creates and nurtures. It is neither destructive nor accidental.

The Sunday after the Ascension (today) and the Feast of Pentecost (next week) together teach us this basic truth of Christian life: the constant cycle between charisma and order is where the Holy Spirit shows up!

Charisma gives us the gifts of the Spirit which are our gifts of ministry. The fruit of a life lived in the Spirit shapes and re-shapes our character. The power of the Spirit energizes us. Charisma creates vision and energizes Christian living.

But charisma alone can be chaotic and disruptive. Jesus was always calming down erratic disciples and chaotic spiritual expressions in the form of demons or demagogic religious leaders.

We need order. We need grounding in community, and a steady rhythm in life. Order provides us a framework within which to grow. That is why Christians need a rule of life—a framework within which to build our spiritual lives. In our culture of impatience for anything except the next new thing, we need to hear, mark, learn and inwardly digest scripture, sacrament, and prayer.

But order alone can be stifling. Jesus told that to the religious folks of his day all the time! We need the spirit’s action to nurture and activate us.

The whole life of the Church throughout history can be seen as this movement between charisma and order. And in the tension where charisma and order meet is where we find the Holy Spirit!

Another of my spiritual heroes is a woman named Frances Perkins. She come from a wealthy New York family and one day witnessed the terrible fire at the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory in Greenwich Village. Dozens of women and children died because the workers were locked into the burning building with no escape. This experience changed her and she went to Columbia University to become a social worker. From there she worked to reform labor laws, end child labor, promote tuition-free public education. As FDR’s secretary of labor, she was the first woman cabinet member and invented social security, food stamps, and during World War II, she organized both industry and labor to function effectively together. She was a faithful Episcopalian of the Anglo-Catholic variety, who received Communion at least weekly, and took retreat every single month with a group of Episcopal nuns. As a lay person she preached in New York City and Washington churches on the direct link between prayer, the sacramental life, and a life of service.

Frances Perkins’ life and ministry demonstrated how both charisma and order reveals the Holy Spirit.

In the book of Acts, after the drama of resurrection and ascension, the Spirit caused the disciples to stay in the city where they prayed and chose a new apostle. And then the Spirit stomps on the gas and drives them into the world, speaking a variety of languages and exercising a variety of spiritual gifts. And then they come together to raise up people to care for widows and orphans. And so it goes… charisma, order, charisma, order… and in that movement, we see the Holy Spirit at work, moving forward the Gospel of Christ with grace and power. 

Our worship and sacramental life, our study of scripture and our common prayer, our parish life in community sets the stage so that the Spirit can work in us in power. The Spirit is manifested in how we feed the hungry, care for the poor and the lonely, how we pray and worship, and do all the fun stuff together! 

God’s grace prepares us, changes us, teaches us. The Holy Spirit uses our craving for order and our hunger for charisma to ignite us, and our parish community! And in that rhythm of rest and action we become vital messengers of Christ’s life-changing grace and world-changing power!

Here is a video of the Liturgy for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 16, 2021 at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater. (YouTube)

Here is a video of the Sermon only. (Vimeo)

Grafted into the Vine

One of my spiritual heroes is Pope John XXIII, and one my favorite stories about him involves a group of visitors to the Vatican who were being escorted by ‘The Good Pope’ on a tour of the “back office,” where, in addition to the wonderful artwork and beautiful architecture, the real work of the Curia takes place.

Marveling at the busyness of the place, one of the visitors asked the Pope how many people worked at the Vatican. To which he replied, “Oh, about half.”

In our day and age, we are used to thinking in terms of “productivity.” What is efficient and effective? ‘They’ (whoever ‘they’ are!) say that Americans are among the most productive people in the world.

We know what this means, right? We’ve all experienced it. Productivity usually means employing as few people as possible to do as much work in as little time as possible, where people are commodities and units of production, which can feel quite dehumanizing.

Ironically, one of the lessons of the pandemic appears to be that lots of people get more done working from home than in the traditional cubical farm. But we’ve also been reminded that we also depend on the toil of many low-wage workers who toil in farms, warehouses, stores, and health-care facilities, often at great risk with little reward.

Never was the collect found in our Prayer Book’s night-time prayers known as Compline more apt:

O God, your unfailing providence sustains the world we live in and the life we live: Watch over those, both night and day, who work while others sleep, and grant that we may never forget that our common life depends upon each other's toil; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I am new to this faith community—and I am so glad to be among you!  Based on my experience in other places like this, I would venture to say that before the pandemic fully half, conservatively a third, of the people who would be in church or watching us on-line worshipping with us —those who want to be with us-- were not here because of job or life demands. They could be scheduled to work on Sunday or have brought work home. And it may be that they are so out-straight during the week, Sunday is the only time they have to shop, wash clothes, tend to their households, and be with their families.

God knew what God was about when a Sabbath was built into God’s time—and it was not so that we could do the laundry or go to Publix or Winn-Dixie! While this might be a change in routine, it is not sabbath rest.

St. Benedict understood this when he created his rule for monastic communities. The very busy life of a Benedictine monastic was routinely and deliberately interrupted several times a day (and night!) so that they could come together, pray, and, yes, recharge.

Without a time to rest, recharge, to tend to one’s basic needs and to tend to our inner lives, we are drawn away from the wholeness and fullness of life that God intends for us. Besides, without sufficient rest and sleep, we tend to go a little cuckoo.

There are many images of discipleship in the New Testament. Sometimes we are called “the body of Christ.” Other places we are known as “the Household of God.” Last week we were likened to a flock of sheep tended and cared for by an attentive, loving shepherd. Today we hear Jesus talk about us as being part of a vine.

In this image of the Church, we are described as being “fruitful,” which is first-century, lingo for “productive.” But not in the way you might think!

Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.” If God is going to get rid of unproductive vines and prune fruitful ones, how do we know we are being fruitful? How does a Christian know that she or he is being effective?

Some Christians tell us that being fruitful is the same thing as multiplying our numbers. They look at today’s lesson from Acts and say “See? Philip was making a new convert!”

But look again. Philip initiated a new disciple, a new follower of Jesus. In their encounter, Philip met a spiritual hungry person who was also the very picture of an outsider—an Ethiopian (that means African…black), who was also a eunuch (involuntarily sexually mutilated and at the same time permanently barred from temple Judaism), and an official of a foreign court—and Phillip taught him, prepared him, and then baptized him.

The “fruit” here is not found on a ledger but in the changed life of a person who discovered God’s love and wanted to learn and do the work of Jesus. And here, just as the Gospel teaches, being fruitful is a sign that each branch abides—lives—in the vine.

What’s important here is the relationship we have to the vine. If the branch is detached from the vine, it not only is not producing fruit, it’s dead!

There are also branches that live connected to vine, and they may even produce wonderful leaves in their season, but they bear no fruit. These branches will either be pruned to come back to fruitfulness and maybe even cut away. This might be a warning to we Episcopalian and mainline Christians, who have been doing what we’ve been doing for decades on end, and have lovely leaves but maybe meager fruit.

What shows off the health of the vine is the fruit it produces in its branches.

John’s Gospel was the last of the Gospel’s to be completed, and this final edit probably happened in the early to mid-second century… about 75 years of so after Jesus’ ministry. This Gospel is filled with images that are meant to help us meet Jesus as if for the first time. It is also filled with instructions and images that tell us how to be the church. Today, we have an image of the church as a grapevine in a vineyard. It is an image of relationship.

I believe that St. John the Evangelist—for whom this congregation is named! —wanted his hearers to live as a healthy branches, deeply connected to Jesus the true vine, healthy, dynamic, and growing. Jesus is saying that a fruitful church is a community in relationship.

This image of the Church invites us to be interdependent, nourished and connected to Christ together, to care for each other for God’s purpose. So how do we know if we are being ‘productive’ or ‘effective’ in the way Jesus meant? Here a few clues:

Holy time: It’s not how busy we are that determines our worth; the quality of the fruit we bear depends on the quality of our relationship to God in Christ.

A rhythm or pattern of prayer: We are a praying people: we are taught, helped, and encouraged to pray more in community.

Generosity is a spiritual gift empowering us to use everything we have—our time, talent, and treasure—for God’s purpose.

Our care for the sick, the outcast, and the lonely.  Our life as Christian community is deepened as we actively share in the essential dignity of every person God has created and gives us,

When we do works of mercy and justice, we discover the face of Christ in those we serve.

Fruitful and profound worship grows out of the way, we, as a people, and as a community—a vine, if you will—are nurtured in relationship to Jesus Christ.

But we can’t do any of this without Rest. Why do we find it so difficult to rest? Why does it take us so long to disengage? Have you ever noticed that we are only really relaxed towards the end of vacation?

Saint Benedict of Nursia, in his famous monastic rule, tells the monastics that as soon as they hear the bell for prayer, they are to "close shop" right away! Why? It takes time and effort to move from the world of labora to the world of ora. Even in the monastery, leaving the field or workshop and going to the oratory took time, and so sitting in silence was necessary to center and prepare themselves before the abbot knocks on the choir stall to call them to stand together to pray.

And that is why I was taught by my parents, as many “cradle Episcopalians” were, to kneel in silent prayer as soon as one enters the Church. I am grateful that this act of getting re-connected to God was routinized by my parents because I, like many of us, find it a challenge to stop and rest!

Today’s Gospel reminds us that the Church is a living thing and that we baptized folk are "grafted onto the vine." We were not organically connected before, but in baptism were grafted and the connected into to the life-giving sap so that through our common, eucharistic life, now we are part and parcel of the vine-- the church, the life of Christ!

Being grafted into the vine is a nurturing, generative act. A friend of mine told me about how, growing up in Appalachia, his great-grandfather grafted onto one apple tree the shoots from four different apple trees to become the most amazing apple tree he ever saw! He said that it was like going to a fresh market on that one tree!

Think about St.John’s and the rest of the Church in light of what Jesus is saying here about inclusion. Here we are, this part of the Episcopal Branch of the Jesus Movement and what do we see? A rich assortment of vines and fruit. All colors, all genders. all languages and cultures. We branches are connected to Jesus by virtue of our baptisms, and we are fed through our eucharistic life, and together we witness to the risen Christ. We branches are watched over and tended to by God the vintner. In God’s vineyard, we are at once co-vintners with God and we are the vines producing fruit for God’s work and the benefit of humankind.

This is challenging work. It will call us all to new depths of open caring and genuine commitment. The poor we meet, the people we care for, and the students we support will change us, make no mistake! It will at times feel as if we are being pruned and tended. But that’s okay! It’s what vineyards are for.

When John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council almost 60 years ago, his words recalled Jesus’ Gospel words when he said, “We are not on earth to guard a museum, but to cultivate a flourishing garden of life."

Here is a video of the Liturgy for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 2, 2021 at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater. (YouTube)

Here is a video of the Sermon only. (Vimeo)