So, what now?

So, what now?

The weekend isn’t over yet, but we’ve had the fireworks, the parades, the speeches, and while we might have a cookout or two left, the 250^th Independence Day of the United States is in the books. So, now what? Where do we go from here?

Or, as my favorite TV president, Jed Bartlett, would say, “What’s next?”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve sensed a strange ambivalence about this year’s celebration. It’s been fifty years, but I remember the exuberance of the bicentennial in 1976 and the run-up to it. Yeah, it was the seventies—big hair, big cars, disco, and punk rock—but the buildup for the party was well underway when I finished high school in 1975 and all through my freshman year, until the big do the following summer. Yeah, I know about hindsight and all that, but as I was working a summer job cutting grass, moving chairs, and mopping floors at my home parish, all around that inner-city church there was celebration. (And hype! Don’t forget all the bicentennial themed marketing!) Today? Sure, there have been some America 250 or Freedom 250 banners (indicating the two competing committees running the show), but last night’s fireworks were more or less on the same schedule as last year’s… and I just can’t shake the feeling that there just wasn’t as much energy around this as before. As a Washington native, I am astounded at how few people showed up for the what ought to have been the party of the decade. There have, of course, been at least two exceptions (three, if you count Tayor Swift’s wedding to Travis Kelce on Friday): we’ve been watching the world cup taking place around the US which, as I said last week, has been great fun and I’ve really enjoyed seeing the geeky and enthusiastic crowds that showed up trackside or at train yards to watch the Union Pacific 4014 Big Boy steam locomotive as it made its way across the country from California to Philadelphia.

Maybe “250” doesn’t have the same panache as “200.” But I wonder, do we really know what we’re celebrating? It could be that in ’76 we were, in addition to celebrating our nation birthday, we were also blowing off steam after a really difficult period of war, political upheaval, civil unrest, and scandal. It seems to me that, as a nation, we are experiencing today the same kind of spiritual mindset that caused Paul to write to the Christians in Rome two millennia ago.

Paul wrote to Christians in Rome with breath-taking honesty, about his spiritual life. “I do not understand my own actions,” he says. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” It’s a basic human truth, built into all of us.

I’m not speaking individually, as Paul did, but about us as a nation. We know that we need to come together, to bridge our differences, build on our variety and our capacity for good; but inevitably, we divide into camps, zero in disagreements, and anxiously blame other people for our problems. We can’t talk honestly about our history, because too often when we do, we either ignore what makes us uncomfortable, re-write what went wrong, so that instead of learning from our past  we anxiously takes sides and pick fights. As Paul said, we want the best, but we lean into the worst.

It is hard to follow Jesus faithfully amidst all the noise and bickering. So how does God respond? Well, for one thing we are given a gospel that calls us to hear, listen and rest.

Think about how noisy today’s Gospel is. It’s full of kids playing in the street with little or no supervision, calling out to each other, quarreling, pretending, singing songs, and playing toy flutes.

Jesus says that this is exactly how we are. “…To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’” (Matthew 11:16-17).

Near my house is a lovely playground in a beautiful, forested county park. And when school is out, it is wild. Kids from the very small to middle schoolers are running, jumping, climbing, and generally making a racket. And, if any of you have ever worked with or raised children, you know that sometimes that exuberance can also lead to chaos, even conflict.

In the Gospel, Jesus talks about children in the town market who call out “let’s play wedding!” or “let’s play funeral” to companions who will not join them. We’ve seen this, when one kid comes to another and asks, “wanna play?” and the other kid says “Nah!” and runs away.  Jesus said the generation that rejected both John and Jesus were the same way.

We don’t know how to ‘play nice.’ People said John the Baptist’s way was too hard, but they also said Jesus’ way seemed too easy. (Matthew 11:18-19). But both John and Jesus announced the Reign of God, but is it a wedding or a funeral? Should we feast or fast? Do we rejoice or repent? Should we follow John’s way or Jesus’? Well, the answer to that question is “yes!” Both! We have been invited in our faith and baptism to come play. We have been set free from what holds us back.

So, what now? How do we use the freedom that God has given us?

For the last 250 years, we Americans have debated what freedom means. I remember growing up, my elementary school has framed prints of four Norman Rockwell paintings called “The Four Freedoms,” based on Franklin Roosevelt’s January 1941, State of the Union message: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear.

The Scripture readings appointed for today suggest that there is a still deeper question. Not simply, “Are we free?” but “What are we doing with our freedom?”

Political freedom and spiritual freedom are not the same thing. The Apostle Paul understood that. In his letter to the Romans, Paul says something startling: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” I suspect most of us know exactly what he means!

We know the experience of wanting to do one thing and finding ourselves doing another. We want to be patient, but we lose our temper. We want to be generous, but we cling tightly to what we have. We want to forgive, but we carry old grievances. We want to love our neighbors, but fear and prejudice get in the way.

And what is true of individuals can also become true of nations. We can proclaim liberty while tolerating (or even propagating) injustice. We can celebrate equality while excluding some of our neighbors. We can speak of human dignity while turning away from those who are suffering or most vulnerable. We can honor freedom while failing to ask whether everyone truly has the opportunity to flourish.

The founders of this country understood that free societies require “virtuous” citizens. That’s why the government stays out of religion by giving belief space to breathe. It’s also why we have public education and libraries. Paul goes even deeper, though. The problem is not simply that people sometimes make bad decisions. The problem is that there are forces within us that distort us from becoming the people God created us to be.

The Christian faith has never allowed us to imagine that freedom alone is enough. Freedom is not an end in itself. The question before us is always: freedom for what?

That’s when Jesus enters the conversation when he says in today’s Gospel, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

Notice what Jesus does not say. He does not promise victory, nor power, nor wealth. He doesn’t preach national greatness or that our side will win. He promises rest.

I’ve always been intrigued that in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson lists the things people pursue, as God-given, inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the “pursuit of happiness.” I suspect that Jesus’ notion of “rest” and Jefferson’s idea of “happiness” might be related.  Look at Jesus’s vision of a healthy society. Instead of wealth, power, military strength, economic growth, influence, Jesus asks: Are the weary finding rest? Are burdens being lifted? Are people being treated with gentleness? And then Jesus invites us to “Learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart.” What’s fascinating to me that when Jefferson, a Unitarian-leaning Anglican, took scissors to the Bible, cutting out all the miracles and stuff he thought unscientific, the part of Jesus’ teaching that we read today is one of the things he left in! Jefferson apparently like Jesus’ ethics more his healings.

Miracles or not, Jesus’ vision of God’s reign presents a different vision of life than our competitive dog-eat-dog, go-go-go way of living that we think of is normal. And it is a very startling vision by comparison. We don’t typically celebrate gentleness and humility in public life. We admire strength. We admire confidence. We admire winning. But Jesus, who said that the truth will set us free, points us toward humility, not coercion; carrying burdens, instead of crushing enemies, in short, Jesus teaches an ethic of love.

That, I believe, is what Christian freedom ultimately means: not merely freedom from something, but freedom for something: freedom for love, freedom for compassion, freedom for justice, freedom for mercy, freedom for building communities where every person knows they belong, freedom for participating in God’s work of healing the world.

So, on day 1 of America’s 251^st year, where do we go from here? What shall we do with this hard won, still unfolding, freedom.

Shall we use it only for ourselves? Or shall we use it to build a society where burdens are lighter, where the weary find rest, where the vulnerable are protected, where strangers are welcomed, where the hungry are fed, the imprisoned visited, and the homeless are sheltered? Shall we exercise power with humility, and live so that love of neighbor is more than a slogan?

The Gospel never asks us to reject our love of country, but it does ask us to measure every nation—including our own— and the actions of our citizens and leaders against the character of Jesus Christ.

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe wrote this for year's Independence Day,

Churches like ours, protected by the First Amendment and practiced in galvanizing people of goodwill, may be some of the last institutions capable of resisting this administration’s overreach and recklessness. To do so faithfully, we must see beyond the limitations of our tradition and respond not in partisan terms, but as Christians who seek to practice our faith fully in a free and fair democracy. 

We did not seek this predicament, but God calls us to place the most vulnerable and marginalized at the center of our common life, and we must follow that command regardless of the dictates of any political party or earthly power. We are now being faced with a series of choices between the demands of the federal government and the teachings of Jesus, and that is no choice at all. 

This is not the same kind of patriotism that has guided our church since its founding in 1785, but this July Fourth, it may be the most faithful service we can render — both to the country we love and the God we serve.

Jesus tells us that real, lasting power comes through service and that greatness is found in our mercy. We are invited to learn from Jesus; who is “gentle and humble in heart.” And having begun to learn from Jesus, while doing his work of love, and praying every day that God will give us the wisdom to use our freedom well, we may, with God’s help, become more and more the kind of people, and the kind of nation, that more closely reflects the gentle and humble heart of Christ himself.

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 9A), July 5, 2026, at St. John's Church, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (9A).

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Confronting the powers that be

He was called the “Tank Man” or the” Unknown Rebel.” Remember him? Way before our own No Kings Day, 37 years ago, in the spring if1989, students, intellectuals and ordinary laborers protested in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, joining others all over China demanding change in what was called "The Pro-Democracy Movement. They wanted greater democratic reforms, and most of all they wanted an end to the corruption that was a daily part of life in China in 1989. By June, the government had had enough. They sent in the army to break up the massive protest. The Unknown Rebel was a young man who was filmed singlehandedly stopping a column of tanks sent to the Square to break up the demonstration.

The Tank Man stood in front of the tanks, and when the lead tank tried to drive around him, he moved and stepped in front of it again, bringing them to a halt.  Eventually, students from the crowd dragged him away because they were afraid that he would either be shot dead by soldiers or run over by the tanks. We don’t know what became of the Unknown Rebel, but his act became known around the world via news reports and television. He became the symbol of liberty: a free man standing alone but firm against oppression. Time magazine included him as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20^th century.

One spring day in the year 30, in the city of Jerusalem, the local governor of the vast Roman Empire, named Pontius Pilate marched into the city, leading a column of imperial cavalry and foot soldiers. He came through the front door of the city, the West gate, backed up by the greatest exhibition of Roman military power he could muster.

That same day, a rabbi from Nazareth, a wandering preacher and teacher with a gift of both public speaking and, it was said, healing, gathered his followers and marched in the city through the east gate riding a young colt. Jesus came in the side door, effectively the service entrance of the city, and was greeted by the peasants and ordinary people of Jerusalem who carried leaves of palm and other trees, and spread their cloaks, garments, and household carpets (if they could afford them) in his path.

The Imperial procession was a demonstration of power. The Roman government came up to Jerusalem from their own city built by the sea, called Caesarea Maritima, and whenever there was a major festival in the religious heart of occupied Israel, he’d head up the mountain to Jerusalem to remind the locals of the might and power of Rome, with trumpets and drums announcing his arrival accompanied by a legion of soldiers to keep order. Just in case.

Jesus’ small procession, on the other hand, was at once a pitiful thing that in its shabbiness and impressive in its spontaneity, mocking the imperial procession across town. So, while there were no soldiers, no banners, no trumpets, and no drums, there was a crowd of people carrying tree branches and leaves, crying out “Hosanna.”

Have you ever wondered what “hosanna” means in English? I think most of us assume it’s a cry of praise, like “Hallelujah!” Actually, it’s a prayer. It’s a cry for deliverance. Hosanna means “free us!” The crowd is crying out to Jesus, Hosanna! Hosanna free us, we pray you! Deliver us! Save us from Pilate, from Herod, and Caesar and all of the misery of Rome! 

Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem was a prophetic act that underscored the conflict to come. The humility of his triumphal entry signaled that God’s power, God’s forgiveness, God’s reign did not rest with big golden idols, powerful armies, and impressive soldiers, and not even the established religion of the Jerusalem establishment could overshadow Jesus’ humble people’s procession. Jesus was showing that God was sovereign over everyone. God is bigger even than Rome, even of emperors who considered themselves sons of the gods, and that God arrives not in power, but in humility and in service.

Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem was a proclamation that God’s reign is here, present and available to all people, a tangible concrete answer to the grinding oppression of Roman occupiers, and the dulling drudgery of life lived without hope, purpose, or power. Jesus knew that when they saw him riding into the city, everyone would have thought of the prophecy in the Jewish Bible, where a king rides into the city in humility. Jesus arrives as a king of peace.

Pilate’s procession, on the other hand, signified human power and human glory that is established with violence and maintained by force. Jesus proclaims the reign of God, established by a Covenant with God’s people, and maintained by love.

No one really knew what to expect. Some people thought that Jesus would lead a revolt. Others through he’d take over the Temple and call down angelic armies. Of course, none of it will go as planned—or so some thought. Jesus did not rally the people to throw off the chains of oppression. There is no revolution. And while Roman soldiers did not scoop up the people who greeted Jesus... this time!... the authorities exerted their power, just the same. 

Before the week is out, Jesus will be arrested and the might of Rome and the power of the official Temple religion—which was at the heart of the religion and economy of Jerusalem— will fall on the head of Jesus. He dies a public, criminal, traitor’s death on a cross, outside the very gates of the city he rode through, not even a week later.

Normally, that would be the end of the story. We might have remembered Jesus’ entry into the city with the same sorrowful appreciation that we have for the Tank Man. Yes, it was stirring to see one man stand up against the tanks…but the tanks still won. And no one knows whatever became of the brave young man. It might have been stirring to see Jesus’ peasant parade in contrast to the Roman legions. But the legions, it appears, still won.

But the legions did not win, not in a final sense! And what was defeated was not an army or a government or a corrupt merging of power and religion. What was defeated was death. What was defeated is sin. What is defeated on the cross is every human attempt to make things serve in the place of God. What is put down is every complex structure, every kind of manipulation that both make us seem to be in control of our little universes, but which hide the fact that we are God’s creatures and responsible to God and each other.

You and I don’t have armies to show all the wily ways we put ourselves between us and God. We don’t need legions to find ways to hide ourselves from our deep-down fears that we are not who we wish we were. Human beings are adept at denying the ways we forget about our neighbors, ignore those in need and exercise our own self-doubt and try to control our own deep longings. We don’t need armies or governments or even big companies to hide ourselves from God’s purpose of love, compassion, care for one another and creation. It doesn’t take much for us to run away from the fundamental call to follow God’s way, to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and our neighbors as ourselves. We do it in big and small ways all the time.

Jesus marches in the side door of the city against all of this as well. He is still marching in, showing us all the ways in which power--personal and political-- is used not for good but for ourselves, not for good but for evil. He processes into our lives and addresses the many ways that we put ourselves—our fears and our pettiness and our selfishness--in between us and God. He processes in and reveals the pitiful but deadly ways that people use power not for service but for personal glory. Jesus parades into the service entrance and willingly goes to the cross.

And when he does, he shows us that God’s reign is present right here, right now, and that the cross marks the ultimate end of death’s reign over us, the end of our separation from God and each other and creation, the end of the power of sin.

We don’t know what happened to the Tank Man all those years ago. We don’t know if his quiet protest finally did any good. But during this holy week we will walk with Jesus along the way, we will accompany him to the garden where he pours out his soul and his doubts, we will accompany him to the upper room where he will break bread with his friends and wash the feet of his followers even the ones who will deny and betray him; we will walk with him to the cross and we will greet him as he rises from the darkness of death and walks in to the light of new resurrected life. 

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Here are the Scripture readings for Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion, March 29, 2026

Here is a reflection connecting No Kings Day (March 28, 2026) and Palm Sunday.

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

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here

So... Who's next?

The Big Story of the Past Week is how two of the main television networks just shut down two late-night comedians for doing their craft... Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel. There is a video going around of a speech by John Stewart at the Kennedy Center reminding us that comedians are the "banana peel in the coal mine" (a wonderful image!), and that those in power are particularly sensitive to being made fun of. More precisely, tyrants hate being laughed at.

So, in addition, to suggesting that now might be a very good time to revisit and watch closely the film (and play) "Cabaret," and doing all we can to support and hold up not just free expression in the arts, but also holding up it's sibling, a free and unfettered press. 

We in the work of ministry, both lay and ordained, ought to be particularly watchful. Because, make no mistake, we're next. If not next, then we're at least on the list.

It's strangely odd and ironic (not to mention moronic), that the folks cheering on the powers that shut down both Kimmel and Colbert, are often in their way super-duper religious, and not so long ago they were cheering on a movie about a pastor and theologian, Dieterich Bonhoeffer, who was not only jailed, but later executed, for talking back to (and organizing against) the German fascist regime under Adolf Hitler. But their take on Bonhoeffer is deeply flawed and distorted, because for Matraxias (and his gang of a-historical preachers) to make this work outside the cinema, they have to make the actual tyrant into the good-guy, and  make the culture into the tyrant. Sure, mentioning this might strain Godwin's Law to the breaking point, but it is nonetheless true.

So, if it's comedians today will it be clerics tomorrow?

I'm not trying to be dramatic here. I mean, I am sure that last January 20th, the President would have happily taken over and shut down the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Washington, DC (aka the "National Cathedral") because the Episcopal Bishop of Washington spoke of the need for mercy and her prayer that the newly inaugurated president would exercise that cardinal virtue in his administration. 

His reaction? He said, "It was boring." Yeah, right. Sure. He always says that when the critique has hit home, except that instead of yawning theatrically during the sermon, he gets mad and stewed about it. Just replay the video and look at the people sitting around the president, who were watching him carefully, weighing his reactions as frightened children do around an abusive parent. Because the problem is that when El Jeffe gets mad, he gets even, and he will not be happy until his opponents are both humiliated and annihilated.

Just look at the recent cabinet meeting when (and not for the first time) each member of the cabinet took turns praising the president for his wit, wisdom, intelligence, and vision. No honest assessments here, and the only bad news for this crew will be whatever the boss wants to hear.

Which brings me back to my question... who's next?

Pastor Martin Niemöller's poem, "First They Came," comes to mind, and if you haven't already thought of it or don't know it, take a moment and read it here. 

The bottom line is that when the networks have been cowed, the comics silenced, the press shackled, and those in power even down to the most local level have all lined up in obedience, who will speak about ethics, morals, justice, and who will speak for the powerless, the imprisoned, and the silenced? 

Sure, there are plenty of clerics who are thrilled that voices that offend them (or make fun of them) are knocked off the air. But that's only biblical, just look at the all the court prophets who sidled up to the kings of Israel and Judah, while the biblical prophets were put to death or chased into the deserts. As someone once said, "they have their reward." 

We know when it will happen: when denominations are held hostage, threatened, and taken to to court for doing what faithful people do, then we'll know.

It's already been tried here and there on the micro level. Like the recent wrangle between a Christ Episcopal parish in Tom's River, New Jersey, when the local mayor tried to use eminent domain to take over the church's property because he did not want the feeding and sheltering of the homeless which would mess up his plans for an expanded park in his beach front town. He apparently wanted the church property used for pickleball. His plan didn't work, but it's a hint at things to come.

It looks like it's only a matter of time before the current administration tries to use to the power of government to regulate, reign in, and control religious expression. It probably won't happen quickly, but there will be indicators along the way. 

We'll know by the clerics who are invited into the White House and those who are not. That's already happened.

But soon it will spread in other more subtle ways. When the government starts handing money to religious service groups that they agree with, instead of ones that are simply neutral-- or who speak out against things the government might do or say. 

Or when denominations are black-balled or punished because their preachers or conventions say things they don't like or go places they don't want them to go. 

Or when the government picks and chooses for churches what ethical and moral issues they may (or may not speak to), and pressures them into how they may act on it (as when, in some states, clerics could go to jail for officiating at inter-racial marriages). 

There are plenty of examples all through history, including our own, of faith communities and their leaders jailed, run out of down, and executed for going against the prevailing faith of the moment. It's not out of the question. 

And to tell you the truth, my own denomination and it's English forebears have been down that path. My own denomination does, after all, come from a state church tradition. And our forbears have both been jailed by their religious enemies, working in cahoots-- heck! who were the government! (Remember Oliver Cromwell, as well as the New England Puritans?) My tradition also participated with the government in religious coercion (think the so-called Indian Schools in both the US and Canada run by Episcopalians and Anglicans). So we don't come to this debate either cleanly or naively.

Which bring us back to the question: if it's comics today, who's next? Artists? Musicians? Writers? Scientists? Journalists? If that's the case, then theologians, clerics, and the everyday faithful will not far behind.

Many folks say that religion enjoys a special, even a favored, space in the public square. And some don't like that. Every now and then, we'll go through a cycle where someone grouses about the tax-exemption for houses of worship and their ministries. Churches, synagogues, mosques, of all stripes and varieties can be (if they do the paperwork... it's not automatic... and mileage varies by state and municipality) tax-exempt along with charities, private schools and universities, not-for-profit hospitals, and so on. 

Despite the claim that this is an unconstitutional favoring of government towards religion, if you look closely, it's not really. The people who don't like this set up forget that the point of the charitable tax-exemption is that these institutions--both religious and secular-- do a civic good that government cannot or should not do. 

At the same time, the critics have a point, but only if the exemption went only to particular traditions or denominations leaving the rest out. But every religious group can benefit from this if they choose... which is why some unscrupulous folks sell mail order ordinations and set up religious-looking groups as they try to rake in the dough without either oversight or taxation in their desire to cash in.  

[Hey, look, I live in Clearwater, Florida, where L. Ron Hubbard set up shop, so I know how this can play out in the extreme! Keep in mind that one of the first signs of a religious charlatan is that they deliberately avoid interacting with other faith groups except when they want to cherry-pick members. They want all the perks and none of the accountability. Our local group ain't the first to play this game, but they do it on a grand scale! But I digress.]

Anyway, that's the risk you take when you treat everyone the same. Most of the folks claiming the various religious exemptions are sincere and ethical. Some are not, which gives the rest of us a bad name. But as, Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker, with great power comes great responsibility. Religious groups who claim the exemption have the responsibility to use that privilege to do social and civic good. 

One of those responsibilities means promoting civil conversations about public ethics. The government doesn't tell us what to believe, how to worship, how we organize ourselves, and whom we select as our ministers, precisely so that we can be free to talk about morals, ethics, justice, and meaning freely and without coercion.

The rub comes when people in power do things that are immoral, unethical, unjust, and coerce others into either cooperation or silence. If the government starts doing that, who will speak up? If not the faith community, then who? Naturally, there are journalists, activists, scholars, citizens, and even (occasionally) politicians. But the faith community, no matter their tradition or beliefs (even non-theistic faiths) have a particular skill set  in ethics (or they ought to!) so they have an important role in freely and firmly speaking on these issues in the public square. 

Yeah, but, I hear you say, religious groups don't not always agree... to which I say, that's kinda the point!

So when certain things happen, especially when the pace picks up, we need to pay attention.

It was not an accident the day that President Trump decided to use the power of the military and police to clear a crowd and march across the street to St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square. [Also see here.] 

Nor is it an accident that he sells Bibles interwoven with civic documents and embossed with his signature. 

And it is not happenstance when he gathers ministers and evangelists (most of whom have a television, broadcast, and internet presence) to gather around him in a show of prayer. 

Or when he goes to the Museum of the Bible and declares that the government ought to "encourage" an hour of prayer per week. Which begs the question, would that 'encouragement' look like and who would design, promulgate, and enforce it?

Then, to top it all off,  there is his strange image of Trump dressed as a Bishop on an official White House web site. He said he was only joking. As Pope Leo pointed out, he is sending a message.

The message is as clear as the recent cancelling of Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, and the taking over of the Kennedy Center. He was crystal clear during the cabinet meeting where the time was spent lavishing praise on the President. He showed his hand in his reaction to Bishop Marianne Budde's sermon at the National Cathedral on Inauguration Day. It's very clear that as far as the White House is concerned, the only messages that should come from stages, screens, and pulpits are ones approved by the Administration... and these must always compliment the president.

Imagine! Imagine when the power of government is used to regulate what is preached, taught, and worshipped in your local congregation. Sooner or later, someone will decide that the price for the privilege of being a charity, a school, a university, or a faith community will be constant and consistent fealty to The Leader. 

In this kind of world, the cost of disobedience won't just be taxation... it will be regulation. And regulation requires monitoring. And monitoring means the end of the trust that is the heart of a healthy civic life. 

The question is: who's next?

Grace over bondage

It’s probably safe to say that the typical Christian in today's world doesn't read an entire book of the Bible in a day. And even safer to say this usually doesn't happen before lunch.

Well, I want to congratulate our lectors this morning, because that’s exactly what they did! Yes, you, too, can go home astound your friends and family by telling them “I read a whole book of the Bible today!”  Or, you can flop down in the living room chair and exclaim “Whew! Today I sat in church long enough for them to have read a whole book of the Bible today!” That’s got to be worth something! Yessiree! Our lector read a whole of Paul's Letter to Philemon, (well, except for four verses that the lectionary people cut out for some strange reason, but that’s close enough.)

Okay, okay, Philemon isn't a long theological treatise like Romans or Galatians. It’s not a double-barreled letter like 1^st and 2^nd Corinthians. By comparison, it’s kind of a bookmark. Or more precisely a bookplate. But it gives Paul and a few other early Christians a very human face because it sheds light on a culture that is so very different from ours and a glimpse of how real, live early Christians actually lived their lives.

Here's the story: Onesimus was a slave, and he was a Christian. Philemon was a Christian, too. But Philemon owned Onesimus. Apparently, Onesimus ran away or else did something against Philemon's wishes. And after Onesimus ran away he somehow ended up working with the apostle Paul.

Paul is schmoozing Philemon, laying it on thick, because he wants Philemon to let Onesimus go so that he would have the freedom to travel with Paul. Was sending Onesimus home to be freed and reconciled or would he face the music instead?

Notice that Paul is not above a little Christian arm-twisting, because even though the letter is written to one man, you know that the entire congregation or cluster of congregations around Ephesus, where Philemon lived, was watching to see what he would do. Would he welcome Onesimus home as a brother in Christ or take him back as a runaway slave and punish him? Of course, Philemon could have split the difference: welcome Onesimus home as a Christian slave with little or no punishment. But that’s not what Paul was asking…he wanted Onesimus to come back to Paul a free man.

Okay. That’s nice. So what? This letter is so short that it’s practically a bookmark in the New Testament. The average Christian doesn’t even know it’s there. And, besides, the letter’s context is so totally and completely different than ours that it might seem totally irrelevant to us. (By the way, in the ante-bellum South, slave owners hated this letter and either twisted it justify themselves or wished it was cut out of the Bible entirely!)

But look again. Here are three people (Paul, Onesimus and Philemon) struggling to live out their faith while being challenged by it over and over again. There’s an awful lot packed into a couple dozen Bible verses!

I don’t know about you, but what Jesus says in today’s Gospel makes me pretty uncomfortable, too. He says that when we follow him, we are to hate—hate! —family, kinship, possessions, and everything we hold dear. What Jesus means is that it will take work, discipline—and practice! — to put Christ at the forefront of our living and following Jesus will challenge our priorities and change our decision-making. If you don’t believe me, ask Philemon.

Paul is asking Philemon to put aside his pride and treat Onesimus as a brother in Christ. It doesn’t matter if Philemon is right and has custom (and the law!) on his side. Paul in fact sets that all aside when he to writes Philemon these words, “I am sending him back to you, no longer as a slave, but as a beloved brother.” Look at what Paul is doing. He does not appeal to Philemon on the basis of law, but on the basis of love, in verse eight, he says: “Though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love.”

Paul is asking Philemon as a true Christian to accept Onesimus back as a brother in Christ, and not as a slave under the law! Paul is asking Philemon the slave-owner to receive Onesimus, as a Christian brother. Paul is asking Philemon to choose grace.

The brilliance of this move is that Paul neither breaks the law of the land nor the law of the gospel. He says, “Yes, go back to your former home, but as new people in Christ.”

I love this little letter because it shows us what faith looks when the rubber meets the road. And it also shines a harsh light on the goings on in today’s world. I mean, what issues and relationships try our faith today? If someone were to appeal to us on the basis of faith to change something in our lives, what would it be? And what would be the effect of that change? In a world where people get wound up over everything from migration to wealth and poverty, to how we might deal with school shootings and who go mildly berserk over how we memorialize the victims of night-club massacres-- I mean, painting over cross walks at 3 a.m. Really?-- what Paul is asking of Philemon cuts to the quick. 

And just in case you think that I or someone in the Episcopal Church chose this passage just to needle us, remember that this letter was written two millennia ago and was added to the lectionary fifty years ago. After all that time, the promise of this little letter shows us that the deeper we go in our Christian living, and the more we conform our lives to Christ, the bigger the change we will see, the greater the challenges we’ll feel, the more lives we will touch with grace and hope.

So, how did it turn out? What did Philemon do? What happened to Onesimus? We don’t precisely know but we have some clues. 

There's some evidence in the early Christian church that there was a "Bishop Onesimus" in the city of Ephesus in Greece, a church founded by Paul. The story goes that this Bishop was so grateful for the witness and Christian love of St. Paul that he preserved many of his epistles. And to prove his bona fides to collect Paul's epistles, he included this little letter showing how he was freed from one life and set on course for something new.

Today we’ve had a taste of what first century Christianity was like in the first decades after Jesus’ resurrection.  And guess what? It doesn’t look all that different from what people like you and me must deal with every day!

Imagine what would happen if Christians today approached each other and our tough choices with the same sense of prayer, compassion, risk, and hope that Paul, Onesimus and Philemon exercised together! What would life be like if following Christ was more important in our everyday living than kinship, politics, country and custom? Would it be easy? Probably not! Ask Philemon! Would it be life-changing? You bet! Ask Onesimus! Would it make a difference? Look around! Because right here, right now, is what faith looks like where the rubber meets the road.

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Scripture for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18, Year C, September 7, 2025

Website for St. Chad's Episcopal Church, Tampa, Florida

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here

Here is the bulletin for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, September 7, 2025, St Chad's Episcopal Church, Tampa, Florida.

When is the right time to show mercy?

How do you like your church? Do you like it all bubbly and spontaneous? Or do you like it orderly and predictable? Throughout its long history, the church has been a little bit of both.

The famous mid-20^th century theologian Paul Tillich said that church history can be understood as a movement between charisma and order. He said whenever charisma—the need to stir things up—and order—the need for stability and predictability— meet up, that’s when the Holy Spirit shows up!

And that is what we see in today’s Gospel. The tension— the conflict! —between order and charisma.

To tell you the truth, my heart kind of goes out to the leader of the congregation, who was just trying to maintain order when Jesus healed the woman on the Sabbath in the middle of a worship service.

More than once in my ministry, I have found myself in the position of that local synagogue leader.

Two of my former parishes hosted soup kitchens in small industrial cities, and every now and then one of our soup kitchen guests would show up at Sunday worship, all scruffy and rough from living on the street. It was… well, let’s just say it was challenging. And uncomfortable.

So I kind of get where the leader of the synagogue in today’s Gospel was coming from. I mean, here was this itinerant rabbi from God-knows-where walking in and offering to heal someone without so much as a by-your-leave. The leader hadn’t read ahead to the ends of the Gospel of Luke yet, so what did he know?

But even if he was trying to do the right thing, he was going about it in the wrong way.

Instead of going to Jesus and asking him directly what he was up to, he goes to everyone…well, more accurately every man… in the congregation and complains “Couldn’t she have waited until after the sabbath to be healed?” he asks.  “Couldn’t she have gone someplace else besides the synagogue?”

I mean, the whole thing wasn’t even her idea! The man is mad at Jesus, but he blames the woman! Never mind that she didn’t even ask to be healed in the first place! After 18 years, she was probably pretty used to being stooped over like a bent matchstick. Jesus invited her to come over to him. It was all his idea!

So, the Leader of the Synagogue has committed a trifecta of wrongs: first, he triangulates—instead of talking to the person he’s mad at, he brings in a third party, the congregation; second, he focuses on the wrong person—the woman and not Jesus; and third, he stirs everyone up in the process.  All in all, he brings out the worst in everyone except maybe Jesus and the woman who was healed…and she was apparently too busy praising God to notice all the hoo-rah going on around her!

So let’s cut through the triangulation, the grumbling and the blame-game, and go right to the Leader of the Synagogue and ask him some questions. We can’t do it face-to-face, but let’s pretend. Besides, given what’s going on in the world right now, they are questions worth pondering anyway.

When would be a good time to show mercy? Tomorrow, maybe? After all, today is a day of rest. We don’t want to do work on a day of rest. After all, even God rested on the seventh day, right? But as Jesus said, even the most observant of Jews will lead their animals to the feeding trough, milk their cows, and gather up the hen’s eggs on the Sabbath. Why? Because animals don’t know about the Sabbath and they don’t care. If you don’t believe me, ask any hungry cat or dog at about 5:30 or 6 am. All they know is that it’s time to be fed or walked and they don’t know or care about your customs, calendars or your need to sleep in. And, you know what? feeding, watering and milking your animals on the Sabbath was all allowable in Jewish law. It was the right and sensible thing to do. 

Jesus asks: if it is okay to show mercy to your livestock on the Sabbath, then why can’t we show mercy to a daughter of Abraham on the Sabbath?

Put another way, when is it a good time to show mercy? Now is a good time to show mercy. Right now. That’s when.

And where is the right place to show mercy? Underneath his complaint about the Sabbath, the unhappy man who stirred up the congregation with his grumbling about the place of the healing is saying something like “This is a house of worship, not a clinic, take it outside.” But Jesus’ invitation to the woman and healing her brokenness tells us that if our worship doesn’t drive us to mercy, then we are not really worshipping God at all! If our worship doesn’t call out compassion, then we are not listening. If our rituals only reinforce our fears then we are only huddling against the cold instead of turning ourselves to God.

So… Where is the place to show mercy? Here is the place to show mercy. Right where we are, right now.

Over four hundred years ago, the first slave ship arrived in an English colony, landing in Virginia with a cargo of about twenty slaves purchased either in Africa or in Brazil, after having been brought over from East Africa by Portuguese merchants. This began a trade in human beings that fed not only the plantations of the Southern states, but eventually the mills and cloth factories in the North. The slave trade not only staffed the plantations across the South but made bankers, investors, inventors, ship-builders, and ship owners in the North quite wealthy. Of course, no one can speak for the spiritual lives of anyone other than ourselves, but I suspect that many a devout Christian took part in the buying, selling of these persons, and benefited from their labor.

A few years back, the Bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island, Bishop Nick Knisely, led his diocese in study, prayer, confession, and repentance for their part in the slave trade and the way the Church in Rhode Island benefitted from the mills, shipping, and banking that depended on the slave trade and made some wealthy and employed many others. (Read more here.)

It took over three hundred years for this country to abolish slavery, and it took a war to do it. And in the century and a half since then, we are still sorting out its meaning and repenting from the consequences.

When Bishop Knisely did this, for the most part, he got a lot back-patting atta boys. But there were some—not a few—people whose families got wealthy from that industry, and Universities, hospitals and private schools who all had wings or halls or scholarships named after people who owned those ships and those trading houses and held shares in stocks that once speculated in human flesh. And they weren’t too happy. It was a long time ago, they said. That was then. Why bring it up now? 

Like the leader in the story today, too often we hear people say that now was not time, and church was not the place, to talk about such things. But Jesus’ response now is the same as it was back then: the time for mercy is now. And the place for mercy is here.

Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus’ words were so effective that no one dared challenge him again. Sure. If only. That’s only true if you ignore big chunks of the Passion.

People still challenge Jesus right down to today. They still get annoyed and grumble. They still blame the victim and look for scapegoats. Jesus was condemned to death and went to the cross because human beings will look anywhere, anyplace in order to keep what scares them at arm’s length.  And it still happens today.

We hear the same complaints: why here? Why now?

You know why we have these responses, right? Fear! Fear is the opposite of faith. But there are always people who use our fears to build up their power. There are people who only feel big and strong when everyone around them is terrified, or angry, or shouting. Like the Leader in today’s Gospel who stirred up the crowd with his grumbling—and he didn’t even have the internet and Twitter and the media—who build themselves up by bringing out the worst in everyone else.

It’s true. We do live in an uncertain and often dangerous world, and we do everything we can to maintain some order and create some safety, but here we are living smack dab in the place where charisma and order meet! And that is the place where the Holy Spirit is found! And, as Jesus demonstrates over and over again in the Gospel of Luke, we can show mercy where we can. We might not be able to save every victim of disaster, or stop the suffering of this world, but we can reach out with healing to the person right in front of us, the stranger God gives us, or the sick, injured, or lonely person in our midst.

So…. When is the time to show mercy? Now is the time to show mercy!

Where is the place to show mercy? Here is the place to show mercy!

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Scripture for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, Year C, August 24, 2025

Website for St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Dade City, Florida

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here

Here is the bulletin for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, August 24, 2025, St Mary's Episcopal Church, Dade City, Florida.