Our Everyday School of Prayer

A long time ago, in a hospital far, far away, I was a student chaplain making my evening rounds on a surgical floor. In those days, people were admitted the afternoon or evening before their scheduled surgery, so we’d make rounds to visit those folks often in the evening during the time between the meal and before sleep, often after the visitors had gone home. And you know what? There was a whole lot of praying going on.

Usually not the formal, spoken prayer, but the stare-at-the-ceiling, not really paying attention to the television, kind of prayer. You know what I mean.

It took a little fortitude to call on these folks cold, because no matter how I dressed (clerical collar or necktie, lab coat, clerical suit, or business casual) patients would size me up and decide who I was and what I was about and act accordingly. And that was okay… because this sizing up was theirs, not mine. Besides, of all the professionals coming to see patients in hospital, I was the one guy  that the person had the right to say “go away” to… and I’d go.

So when I was welcomed, the conversation was up to them and some would guide that conversation for the two of us. Some would dodge talking about their upcoming procedure choosing instead small talk or “what about them (pick your team and sport)…? Or tell me about their spouse, kids or grandkids, or work, or… whatever.  Some would tell me about their illness and procedure in great detail. And rarely, some would talk about whatever anxiety of the moment was on their mind or heart (and it was not always medical!). A few would nod and grunt me out of the room. Once a guy shooed me away before I even entered the room saying, “I don’t need no [blankety-blank] priest!”

Whatever happened, it was all good.

Typically, I would ask if the person would like a prayer… or I’d see if they’d ask. Every now and then, a person would ask me the question that the disciples asked Jesus in today’s Gospel: “Teach me how to pray.”

Now this is a tricky question. Because as a chaplain, I was not there for me, but for the person. And so, I had to learn how to rest in my own tradition and authority while at the same time allowing the person to set the tone and direction. Patients will put up with “Father Know-It-All” for only so long, because it ain’t about me, right? So I’d encourage them to tell me what they wanted to know. Often, the question was serious, along the lines of: “I know this is a big moment and I don’t know how to put this into words.” Or, “I'm in crisis and I need the rituals of my tradition. or upbringing.” Or, “I want to remember a prayer from my childhood but all I am coming up with is table-grace.”

I brought this question to a colleague and fellow student chaplain because I was asked by a patient, who was Jewish, who  was asking me, a Christian priest, how to pray. My friend and classmate, who was a rabbi, said, “It’s okay. You’re the follower of a small-town rabbi, right? Follow his lead!” In other words, pray the prayer that Jesus taught.

In the Gospel of Luke, we hear Jesus say:

“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.

And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

The disciples saw that whenever their teacher and Master had exhausted himself doing good, he would withdraw from the crowd in order to pray. And they had seen the results of those prayers in his life-transforming deeds and in the calm he exuded seemingly from every pore.

“Lord, teach us how to pray!” They too wanted that peace and strength, the utter assurance that Jesus had in doing the will of his Father.

And Jesus doesn't just offer Prayer 101, he gives us a Master Class. The simple and profound words that Jesus taught have become known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” Over the centuries countless faithful have uttered them together and in solitude and utter them still. These words rise up and blend into an endless prayer of praise, of supplication, of doxology. Their simplicity is interwoven with many layers of meaning that has influenced many Christians.

My first real exposure to the depth of the prayer came after my Confirmation through a little book that came my way written by Igor Sikorsky, aviator, maker of flying boats, and the inventor of the helicopter. In it, he contemplated the Lord's Prayer in both Matthew and Luke as it impacted his faith and his work. The prayer has inspired many faithful people, lay and ordained over the millennia to go deeper in their prayer. Today, I am indebted to the Rev. Katerina Katsarka Whitley for her commentary on the Lord’s Prayer in Luke, which I share with you here:

Jesus started by showing them that first they must know whom they are addressing. The Greek word for prayer used in the gospels means “a wish, a request toward” someone. Luke’s version that we heard is pared down, simpler than the prayer found in Matthew’s gospel. The one we know best grew out of Matthew’s version, and has some points that were added by ancient authorities over time. Yet, the core is the same.

“Our Father…” There this word can be loaded because they had the terrible misfortune of living with a bad father. And many of us were blessed with loving and caring fathers and we have no difficulty in identifying the Creator with the word Father. God, who is father and mother, understands all of this.

“Hallowed be your name.”  We are addressing the Holy of Holies, the all-sacred one. Jesus reminds us that when we address God we are in the presence of holiness.

“Your kingdom come.” Jesus’ teaching is filled withs image of God’s reign. It’s like a mustard seed, or a little yeast in a big loaf, or a woman looking for a lost coin, or a shepherd looking for a lost sheep. The kingdom of God that Jesus teaches us to pray for is one where justice prevails, and where love conquers. In the kingdom of God everyone is of equal value. And Jesus teaches us to pray that the Kingdom of God may it come to us in our time and in our place.

“Your will be done.” We long for a world where God’s will is done as automatically and ordinarily as happens in heaven. God’s will is not done by putting it up on a marble pedestal, in the public square. Statues or framed copied of the ten commandments in classrooms or courtrooms will not save us. All of that is for show; about telling us to be obedient to the State, the Culture, or “The Way Things Are.” Jesus warned us about this, and to watch out for praying just so we can prove how pious we are. True prayer is between us and God. Even when we pray together in unison, in church, we are connecting to God and to each other as a people of God.

This then is the first portion of prayer: where we acknowledge God as Father/Mother, as Creator, as Holy, where God’s rule of love and justice are natural and at home.

The second part of the prayer is a simple request for what sustains life. Bread was the essence of nourishment in the ancient world. Having bread meant one was not hungry. Not having bread meant starvation. Instead of the word ‘bread’ imagine praying “Give us the necessities for living because everything else is superfluous.”

“And forgive us our sins…”  We need to forgive. In every gospel, Jesus shows us our need for forgiveness. The plea to be forgiven is followed by the most surprising element of this prayer:

“. . . as we forgive those who sin against us” reminds us that God’s forgiveness is deeply connected to our ability and willingness to forgive. We need God’s grace to forgive our fellow human beings, and the grace to recognize and accept God’s forgiveness of our own sins. Some translation says “debts” instead of “sin.” “Those who are indebted to us,” may also be taken literally. In the ancient world, being indebted financially was very serious, just as our modern world is built around the management and industry of debt. In Jesus’ day, debt could mean life or death. Jesus knew that in Hebrew scriptures, Mammon was a powerful idol, just as “the Market” is a powerful idol today, and those who cannot forgive debts because they worship money cannot possibly comprehend the free, unmerited, and total grace and forgiveness of God.

“Do not bring us to the time of trial.”  Trials are frequent and no one is spared. We pray to be shielded from trials and temptation, but when they do come, they must be faced. When we are tried, we are tempted to take the easy way out, to avoid the hard choices. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Let this cup pass from me,” but he was not spared, and he faced his death, convinced of the will of his Father, enduring death and the grave on the way to resurrection.

Jesus’ prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, is the profound and simple prayer that binds us together as we worship. In our parishes, with our ecumenical and interfaith friends, with followers of Jesus all over the globe and throughout time. This is the prayer that forms the basis for all our prayers. In it, Jesus shows us that we are both known and being heard.

In the parable that follows, Jesus reminds us in the Gospel that we are like the persistent child crying out to a parent. A parent responds to the child’s plea, he tells us. And Jesus encourages us to be persistent and not give up, because God’s will for us is good.

Do you want to know how to pray? Do you want to know what to pray? Here is Jesus' school of prayer. We've been chewing on what he taught us ever since. Every time we say it, we are being invited by Jesus to go deeper.

And that's important, because prayer is more important than ever… if you don’t believe me just turn on the car radio, the T.V., or open the newspaper app in your phone. Every day we are bombarded with stories of terror and harm and killing in our world. So it is good to remember that every day, all over the globe, millions of faithful people are praying Jesus’ simple prayer every minute of the day: “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” And every day, we join with them when we pray Jesus’ prayer whether we are alone or together. Listen as we pray together:

Father in heaven.

Your name is holy.

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

And lead not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 

+ + +    + + +   + + +

Scripture for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, July 27, 2025

Website for Church of the Good Samaritan (Episcopal), Clearwater

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here

Here is the bulletin for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, July 27, 2025, the Church of the Good Samaritan, Clearwater, Florida.

Here is the livestream of the liturgy. The sermon begins at XX:XX

Dressing for the Banquet

If you want to understand how we got much of what is in the Bible, think of the party game "Telephone." You know, the one where people sit in a circle, and someone tells a story… whispering it in their neighbor’s ear, who repeats it to their neighbor, and so on around the circle until it comes back to the first person. The fun is hearing how the heart of the original story gets garbled and changed as it moved around the circle.

Knowing that, we can maybe relax a bit after hearing today’s dramatic… and violent!... parable!

Understand that Jesus’ story is here being remembered by Matthew and his church after having been remembered by the people who heard Jesus, and the people who heard people who heard Jesus, and the people who heard the people who heard the people who heard Jesus, and… you get the idea! I suspect that Jesus’ original parable about how God’s covenant is for everyone has, through a first century version of the game Telephone, become something quite (well… how do I say this nicely?) weird!

It might have been easier if we did as some have attempted and just cut out the weird, jarring, far-out, or disturbing parts of the Bible. The problem is that, as strange as this is, it's still Scripture. It may feel like a game of Telephone, but the Holy Spirit is still part of the process. So now what?

I think it is helpful to recall that during the time between Jesus’ teaching and Matthew writing it down, the early church was bogged down in an argument. Even though God has expanded the Covenant to include all kinds of people—varieties of Jews and a myriad of Gentiles are all now members of this new Christian movement, they are beginning to repeat the same mistakes that Jesus tried to fix. The weirdness of this passage partially reflects the pinch these early Christian communities felt. 

Come with me as we walk through this passage.

Imagine that you were lucky enough to get an invitation to the Coronation of King Charles III last spring. You would have received a card that might have read “the Lord Chamberlain has been ‘commanded by the King’ to invite the holder to the Coronation at Westminster Abbey at 11 a.m. on May 6 in the Year of Our Lord 2023,” or something like that. And notice that the King would not have enticed you with the nice buffet afterwards. Would you have said “no?”

Well, that’s exactly what happens in Jesus’ story in Matthew’s Gospel today. The king really wants these people to come, but they could not have cared less!  They are not interested in the food, and they don’t want to dress up. Not only that, some are also so annoyed, so bothered by the invitation that they berate, beat, and sometimes even kill the messengers! This is an outrageously weird story!

Okay, but it’s weird on purpose. Imagine that what we have here is really The History of God’s Salvation…For Dummies!  It was written by and for Matthew’s church a few decades after Jesus may have said something kind of similar. I think that the parable that Jesus originally spoke might have sounded something like this: “God invited people to something great, to be God’s people and a light to the world. Only people didn’t respond as expected. So now God has invited everyone—not just one people or one nation or one group, everyone! —into the reign of God, and the promise of God's reign has been extended to the ones who have accepted the invitation.” Or something like that.

Along the way, someone added on to the original parable the part about the king who killed the party-poopers and destroyed their city. Why? To tickle the ears of Matthew’s church and invite them to think about how Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman Empire in 70 AD, and with it the end of Temple-based Judaism, and also how the Roman city of Pompei, the most cosmopolitan, artsy, and secular city in the Empire, was wiped out when Mount Vesuvius blew its top soon thereafter. To drive home the point that “Shape up and fly right! God is not fooling around!”

But wait! There's more! You know those servants who were sent out to bring in everyone, both the good and the bad? They would remind those Early Christians of what we would call—from the last chapter of Matthew—the Great Commission, where Jesus tells us to “Go into all the world, baptize and teach!” So the Christians in Matthew’s church would have understood that God has sent Jesus Christ, who lived and died and rose again, and empowered the Church to go into all the world.

End of story, right? "They" are out. "We" are in. Hooray for us! Let the party begin!

Not so fast, sports fans! You may have been invited off the street without warning, but are you dressed for the party? The real sour note of this story (for us anyway) is the part about the guest who has been hauled in from the street and then is suddenly thrown into the eternal cosmic dumpster fire. Why? For not having the right party clothes handy! What’s up with that? 

Preachers have been trying to wiggle out of this for generations, with some commentators saying some malarky like "well, hosts kept party garments ready for guests and these jokers just didn't put them on" or some such silliness. [Sigh!] All that does is disguise the fact that this part makes us squirm. They don't want Jesus to sound so, well, mean! And I get it! We love the welcome part of the first part of the story, even with the special effects, but the “where’s your wedding gown?” part…? Not so much!

Well, it is very weird and I think it's meant to be weird-- but for a reason! I suspect Matthew's church heard and understood why it was weird... otherwise they would not have kept the story in their Gospel! The problem is that we are not in on the joke.

Or are we?

When I hear about the wedding garment, I think about a very old tradition that many Christian churches do when someone is baptized -- even today! The candidates (even babies) have their old clothes removed and after they are baptized from head to toe, they put on new clothes. The newly baptized are dressed in a brand-new white party suit!

So, I wonder if the wedding garment in Matthew’s Gospel might not point to this new clean white baptismal garment that would have been well known in the early church? I don’t know. In any event, I think that the Gospel is telling us that we are not party crashers but invited guests!

So, how do we dress for the party?

Today’s Epistle to the Philippians suggests an answer. Paul wrote this letter from prison. And he urges his friends to be reconciled, calling on his companions in Christ to rejoice and to stop worrying. He says, “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” he is not just saying have a positive attitude, he is saying "put on Christ" -- like that baptismal garment! What we choose to wear outside does affect how we are inside, and how we are inside shows up outside. We have a choice. If we choose to be faithful, to come to the party, we also choose how we are, the kind of garment we put on.

Like a teenager trying to find just the right outfit for the big night out, we might find ourselves trying on several new outfits over the course of our lifetime and our life in Christ. Putting on the “wedding garment” is a life-long process. It is a process that includes intentional prayer, intentional stewardship, intentional service, and intentional worship. As Christians grow and mature, as faith becomes more and more woven into our being, we develop new holy habits of sacramental living, reading, and learning scripture, discovering the skills of prayer, and the joy of generosity. As we do this, we find that we have, in fact, put on—and are putting on every day—the wedding garment! Every day, we are more and more dressed for the party!

Thinking about the wedding garment reminds me of a poem by the 17^th Century Anglican priest George Herbert. He wrote this poem just before or just after the King James Bible was first published 400+ years ago. He describes the ritual of a priest putting on his vestments in the quiet of the sacristy before a celebration of Holy Communion. But he is also talking about every Christian who in faith and baptism has not only accepted God’s invitation to new life in Christ but has also chosen day by day to put on the wedding garment. The poem is called “Aaron.”

Aaron

Holiness on the head,
Light and perfections on the breast,
Harmonious bells below, raising the dead
To lead them unto life and rest:
Thus are true Aarons drest.

Profaneness in my head,
Defects and darkness in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where is no rest:
Poor priest, thus am I drest.

Only another head
I have, another heart and breast,
Another music, making live, not dead,
Without whom I could have no rest:
In him I am well drest.

Christ is my only head,
My alone-only heart and breast,
My only music, striking me ev'n dead,
That to the old man I may rest,
And be in him new-drest.

So, holy in my head,
Perfect and light in my dear breast,
My doctrine tun'd by Christ (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest),
Come people; Aaron's drest.

+ + +   + + +   + + +

Bulletin for Worship for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, October 15, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, October 15, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on October 15, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on October 15, 2023.

Old dogs. New Tricks.

There’s an old 'Far Side' cartoon that shows a dog on a unicycle, riding on a high wire, and he is juggling while holding a cat in his mouth, balancing a fishbowl on his head, with a hula hoop around his waist.  The caption reads, “High above the hushed crowd, Rex tried to remain focused. Still, he couldn't shake one nagging thought: that he was an old dog and this was a new trick.” 

So, here’s the question: is the old saying correct? Are old dog always unable to learn new tricks?

Now, I don’t know about you, but I am inclined to think not. I mean, my spouse has periodically reported to me her sense that I can be rather particular and habitual in my preferences. Every now and then I find myself muttering something like “who’s been messing with my stuff?” And I must admit that I firmly believe that God intended for a certain order in the universe…after all, if God wanted us to change he would not have put pre-sets on the car radio! But appearances can be deceiving. So can assumptions. And a close, if grudging, reading of today’s Gospel, leads me to think that Jesus does, in fact, believe that “Yes! You can teach old dogs new tricks!”

As he begins his ministry, Jesus will call people from every walk of life to follow him. In fact, Jesus is very careful to deliberately include in his band people who are from opposite walks of life. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that when Jesus goes out to look for disciples…people to serve as not only his followers but his students and apprentices… he does not go to the places you’d expect. Not the synagogues, nor the Temple and certainly not to where religious people study to be religious professionals. Instead, he goes to less obvious, but perhaps more welcoming, places. He goes down the seaside, and he finds fishermen and laborers. He will seek out tax-collectors (like Matthew) and political radicals (like Simon the Zealot). In short, he went after people who went along to get along and people who raged against the machine. His followers will include women who own property and have standing in their community like Mary and Martha of Bethany and there will be women on the “outside” who were prostitutes or who needed healing, like Mary of Magdala who might have been in both situations. He will draw to himself great Rabbis, like Nicodemus, some of whom would only visit Jesus at night, and even Roman soldiers, like the Centurion whose slave needed to be healed.

But for all their diversity they will have one thing in common. They will be, as it were, old dogs learning new tricks. That’s discipleship for you! Jesus shows us that his disciples are not just students, but friends. And being a friend and apprentice of Jesus Christ is like being an old dog who is learning new tricks.

They say it can’t be done! We old dogs are just too stubborn and too set in our ways! They tell us that we have become too used to doing things the way things have always been done them to really, deeply change.  Well, that may be so…but Jesus has this way of meeting us at exactly the point of our greatest need and, if we choose to listen to his call and follow him, he will take us to places we never imagined.

God is in the creation and transformation business. All through the Bible, we encounter stories of God encountering a person and calling them to go to new place and do something new. There’s Abram, called in old age to be the beginning of a new, chosen people and given a new name, Abraham. David was a shepherd boy picked to be the King of Israel. And so many more! Each one is a story of God starting something new and unexpected. God’s call changes them and empowers them so that when they respond to God’s call, other new beginnings can take place.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus walks up to Peter, Andrew, James, and John while they are working and says “follow me! I will make you fish for people!”  These two sets of brothers are doing their jobs, probably doing the same job their fathers did and their father’s fathers did…they were fishermen…going through the rituals and habits of working life that they had always known, living off the rhythms of sea and land. And Jesus is going to teach them something new…he is going to teach them some new tricks.

They will follow Jesus and discover that God is at work in the lives of ordinary people everywhere, drawing people into new, reconciled, healed relationships. They will see that God’s grace is not limited to the special few but available to everyone. They will experience God’s special favor growing beyond the people of the Covenant and extend to everyone, everywhere. They will find that death is not the end of life, because in Jesus’ resurrection, God has conquered it. Over and over again, they will see and meet people who they probably believed were outside of God’s family be welcomed into it.

And along the way, they will learn how to tell their story of faith. They will learn how to heal. They will learn how to pray. They will learn how to understand the scriptures and they will learn how to teach and how to lead. They will learn a whole bag of new tricks.

We are all called to be disciples. We are all called into friendship and apprenticeship with Jesus Christ. We might think that we have learned all there is to know, and that life consists of putting one foot in front of another, bumping from event to event, maybe even from crisis to crisis. But God knows something more about us, that we are capable of so much more both in our hearts and in our actions. And so, he starts with us as we are, where we are, and calls us to do and be more.

Like Peter, Andrew, James, and John, we are like old dogs always being taught new tricks.

Not that all old habits are bad. (This is not just the old dog talking…!) Habits can help us cope and help us function when things are unpredictable. That’s why firefighters, nurses, doctors, and paramedics learn protocols. Spiritual directors teach us how to cultivate holy habits of the heart. This is how God uses how we are already wired for God’s greater purpose.

The temptation is to always do things the way we’ve always done them; or, when we find something that works, to stick with it, and never, ever learn to listen for where the habit is taking us. We are tempted to make something exciting and new into something repetitious and routine. As I said, God knows this about us, and so takes even that built-in tendency and gives it a kind of judo throw. God will take our need for routine and give us the tool of prayerful rhythm, and worshipful time. God will give us the ability to create habits and the ability to reflect. And these, strangely enough, these very habits can become some of the tools of our transformation.

As we develop a habit of prayer, of listening for God, we will change our perspective and develop new vision. As we become used to the idea of serving others, we will begin to see the face of Jesus in faces we would not expect. As we become used to living in community, we will be renewed by finding that we are not alone but accompanied in meaningful ways through all of life’s changes and chances.

God teaches us new tricks all the time. The challenge is for us to listen to when Jesus calls. He will meet us at the point of our greatest need, and find us in our most ingrained habits, our most stubborn opinions, and our most unwavering assumptions and call us to something new. It will feel strange. Like being called away from something we’ve always known into something exciting and real.

There are times when it feels as if it is all we can do to keep juggling what we have always juggled. It can be disturbing to hear God take us in new directions. It might seem like we are adding a fishbowl or a spinning plates to the mix. Following Jesus’ call only starts out feeling like teaching an old dog new tricks, when in fact, it is an invitation to go with God turning our need for habits into a marvelous adventure of possibility, service, and transformation!

+ + +   + + +   + + +

Bulletin for Worship on January 22, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Scripture Lessons for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, January 22, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's Clearwater, Florida on January 22, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on January 22, 2023.

Persistently, Steadily Walking the Way

Last Wednesday, as I walked the half mile between St. John’s Church and our partner school Belcher Elementary School, I remembered that it was just three years ago this week that Peg and I joined other Episcopalians from around the country on a Pilgrimage sponsored by the United Thank Offering. The pilgrimage took us across northwest Spain following El Camino de Santiago.

On the short walk to and from Belcher, I engaged in conversation with students, parents, teachers, firefighters from the Largo Fire Department, and Mrs. Dawn Lewis, the new principal at Belcher Elementary.  And it occurred to me again, just as it did three years ago, that Jesus must have done most of his teaching while walking across Palestine, Galilee, and other parts of the Holy Land.

Sure, in his day walking was how one got around; but Jesus was also on a pilgrimage, a journey. He was heading toward the cross… where he would fully and finally confront evil, human sin, and our separation from God at its source.

But imagine that! Listening to Jesus not in a pew or a classroom but while walking with him on The Way! His words unfolding with every step, approaching the next hill, the next curve in the trail, or the next village.

And Jesus covers a lot of ground, doesn’t he? Today Jesus talks – as always – about justice while at the same time, he talks about prayer and also about faith. Jesus connects what we often separate: faith, prayer, and justice.

Because faith is not just about ideas… and it is not about keeping our heads in the clouds… the life of faith is a life on continual re- orientation towards God.

That makes prayer more than just a spiritual shopping list… prayer is an expression of relationship, and an openness to hearing.

And, in that light, justice is the practical expression of the ethical and moral content of our faith and prayer.

To be honest, for a big chunk of my life I thought that faith was only about believing the right things about God in the right way. Keeping the faith was something we did by guarding a treasure of beliefs and handing them down, intact and unchanged, in a kind of lockbox. The problem with that kind of faith is that it ends up being something that you have in your head. Worse, that kind of faith can tempt us to want to protect it against the world, when God means our faith to equip and strengthen to go into the world!

Throughout my journey of faith, I’ve discovered that getting the content right is important but will only get you so far because at the heart of faith is a relationship with God, a relationship that changes us, transforms us and grounds us.

Luke introduces today’s Gospel story as being about the need – our need – to “pray always and not to lose heart.”

When Peg and I walked The Way of St. James from Sanmartin to Santiago in Galicia, in northwest Spain, we found ourselves walking on paving stones made smooth by the feed of uncounted pilgrims from all over the world who for hundreds of years made this journey of prayer, contemplation, and renewal. And all along the way we discovered many little shrines and other places to pray. Once, we came across a little one room chapel which was tended to by a blind solitary monk. He was there every day to pray for every pilgrim who walked past. Every pilgrim!

I stopped in and he prayed for me. On a whim, I told him in my (very) imperfect Spanish that I was a priest and asked if I could give him a blessing. In response, he put his hands together in the manner of a prayer. What a gift he offered to me and all those other pilgrims!

There were times when I felt that maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew. Even on the last day when the goal was in sight! I had walked about 85 or so kilometers and only had 15 to go to reach the center square in Santiago… only seven Camino markers!.... but they were going to be up one very long hill and down another even longer hill. I learned early that in many ways going down a steep hill paved with stones was more difficult than going up. I was not sure if I could do it.

Now, all through the walk, there was this purple bus the UTO had chartered, and it would meet us at pre-arranged points. It was there, frankly, to offer respite in case the blisters or joints or muscles got the better of one. For some of us, this was a necessary precaution.

So, there I was. Feeling tired and achy, and even though (as I said) the end was in sight, I have to say that that big purple bus looked mighty good! I stopped, leaning on my walking poles staring at it, trying to decide. When another walker came and stood beside me and joined me in my silent rumination. And then she said, “Let’s go! If we don’t finish this piece, we’ll always wonder.” With that word of encouragement, we both turned away from the bus and set off on that last bit of trail.

The lesson in faith for me was to have the trust to take the next step. To persist in that faith, and to wrestle with the resistance that is part and parcel of the journey.

The widow in today’s Gospel is one of my favorite biblical characters. She is a boxer in the tough ring of life, and she was not at all afraid of the judge in Jesus’ story. She didn’t care about his reputation. She was perfectly willing to go round after round with him if that’s what it took for her to get a measure of justice. She reminds me of a wonderful medieval image of The Blessed Virgin giving the devil a punch in the nose. She also reminds me of Mary Magdalene, the woman who was the first to meet and encounter the Risen Jesus and the one who brought the Good News to those incredulous Apostles.

Do you wrestle with God? Jesus encourages us to have a relationship with God that is like this woman with the judge. We are invited to wrestle with God like Jacob in the desert. The wrestling is a profound act of faith.

Do you sometimes feel tired and spiritually achy, unsure of whether we can go that next mile. The woman in Jesus’ parable encourages us to make that next step, to continue on The Way.

Because God never gives up on us! But the question remains, are we willing to go all the rounds with God? Are we willing to walk the whole way? Jesus is teaching about faith and prayer and not losing heart… while he is on the way to Jerusalem…on the way to the cross…and while we know now that resurrection is on the other side of that, we also know from personal experience that the resurrections God gives are not always apparent while we are busy living life.

“Prayer is not an optional exercise in piety.” We Episcopalians understand that prayer is the bedrock of effective action. Our liturgy is itself a form of prayer engaged with Jesus Christ that moves from living word, to table fellowship, to action in the world. Our pattern of daily morning, evening, mid-day and night prayer, our worship as a community, our engagement with God in music, art, and our senses, and our regular Eucharist are like those little shrines that we encountered on our pilgrimage. They refresh us, encourage us, and remind us why are on this pilgrimage.

One of the earliest names given to the first members of the Jesus Movement was “The People of The Way.” We are People of The Way, especially each time we decide to stay on the path, to continue the pilgrimage even when we feel worn to a nubbin. Because making that next step is the way that we open our hearts to the strength and power of God.

Be persistent in your prayer, Jesus says in today’s Gospel!  Go every round with God. Beat a path to God’s door.  As the late preacher and writer Frederick Buechner said years ago, persistence is key, "not because you have to beat a path to God's door before [God will] open it, but because until you beat the path, maybe there's no way of getting to your door."

+ + +   + + +   + + +

Here is a link to the bulletin for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost  at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater

Here is a link to the Scripture readings.

Here is a link to a video of the sermon.

Here is a link to a video of the liturgy.

Pray and work; activity and rest

There is an old joke about a man and woman dancing at a Catskills singles resort. “I’m only here for the weekend,” the man says. To which the woman responds, “I’m dancing as fast as I can!”  

Many of us can relate. We live in a time where we are expected to do as much as we can with as little as we can as quickly as we can. So here we see Jesus’ friend Martha dancing around her house as fast as she can, trying to get things ready for her honored guest, and trying, in her own way, to make the most of their time together.

My hunch is that Mary’s was not normally in the habit of entertaining visitors by sitting at their feet while her sister does all the work. Martha’s complaint to Jesus suggests that Mary’s behavior was not normal for her. It sounds to me as if Martha was saying to Mary by way of Jesus “snap out of it!”

We identify with Martha because she is in the business of activity… and anxiety: the two chief preoccupations of our age! People who call themselves “Marthas” often wear this title as a kind of badge of honor. And that is a good thing: it shows that they are interested in doing the right and good thing at the right and good time.

What’s different is that Mary apparently stopped what she was doing to attend to Jesus.  In speaking to Martha, Jesus does not deny the value of who Martha is, or of what she is doing. He does not placate her by saying everything is all right and that there is nothing to do or to worry about. Jesus’ solution to Martha’s anxiety is to offer a different way to approach the moment.

Jesus is not against activity or work or even going out of one’s way—otherwise he would not have told the story of the Samaritan who stopped to care for the injured stranger that we just heard last week, a story which comes right before this. What Jesus cares about the focus and center of our activity.

The anonymous 14th-century author of a spiritual discourse called The Cloud of Unknowing, speaks about Mary and Martha as repre­senting the Two Ways of Prayer. The author says:

“My friend, do you see that this whole incident concerning Jesus and the two sisters was intended as a lesson for active and contemplative persons of the Church in every age? Mary represents the contemplative life and all contemplative persons ought to model their lives on hers. Martha represents the active life and all active persons should take her as their guide.”

This is a very helpful commentary for me. Instead of pitting the two sisters against each other, the usual approach to this passage, we see the two sisters serving Jesus in two different kinds of prayer. One active and one restful, both serving Jesus. And this is the lesson the two sisters, these important followers of Jesus, gives us: in our walk with Christ, we all have periods of activity and rest.

The healthy Christian life depends on being active some of the time and having periods of renewal at other times.  That’s why we set aside a Sabbath Day…a day of rest, yes, but more important, a day of renewal that reminds us that we are God’s people animated by God’s spirit living in a world of God’s creation. In setting aside at least a day a week to focus on the worship of God, we take a break from the usual rat-race and we remind ourselves of who the center and source of our living, work and play is.

Have you ever noticed how Episcopalians and other Christian traditions divide up time? Our day (grounded in prayer—Morning Prayer, Noonday, Evening Prayer, and Compline), our week (grounded in the Sabbath… and organized around a daily and weekly calendar plus Saint’s Days) and our year (organized by the seasons of the Church year) are all built around prayer and work, or as the Benedictines say, ora et labora... prayer and work. Our Prayer Book way of organizing time teaches us that God’s time is a rhythm of activity and renewal. That means that to be balanced and healthy we will have Martha-time and Mary-time.

I call this the “do-be cycle.” Instead of saddling Martha with the guilt and shame of working through Jesus' visit, or secretly shaming Mary for abandoning her post, let’s look instead at the “do-be cycle.” We need to do. And we need to be. Doing without being is empty. Being without doing is wasteful. We need to both do and to be. Sing it with me.

Do-be to the left.

Do-be to the right.

Do-be, do-be, do-be with all your might!

Do-be, Do-be!

Society has forgotten both the tune and the rhythm! When so much is open or available 24/7, every day and every night is the same. Our world is one of endless media input and for many people a forty-hour week is a baseline for work not the limit!

Recently, I saw a New Yorker cartoon of two people in bar who are chatting and holding their drinks. The man, who is talking to a woman through one of those doggie cones you get at the vet, says “It keeps me from checking my phone every two seconds.”

The busiest shopping day in all those big box stores is…right now! Sunday morning! For many, Sunday becomes the free day to catch up…catch up on the chores, catch up on the laundry, catch up on the shopping, catch up on some sleep, catch up on some football—and that does not even count the work we bring home whether it is grading papers or checking our e-mail…because in our day and age, we are expected to be efficient and productive, all the time!  

Jesus and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing assume something quite radical. And that is everything we do can be (and is) prayer! Jesus enters our living, he feeds us, meets us where we need him the most and helps us rest.

Everything—or work or our rest—can be an offering so that in all things God may be glorified. Everything can reveal God’s love, power, presence, and grace to us and those around us. But for ora et labora, “Pray and work,” to function, for our work to truly become prayer, we must hold God at the center of all that we do, and we have to keep Christ at the heart of who we are.  We have to do and be!

If we are to make Christ the center of our work, we must take the time to let Christ be at the center of our renewal. Martha may be setting the table for Jesus, but the other part is when we, like Mary, take the moment to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen. Both are acts of service.

An ancient custom of hospitality in England holds that when a sovereign comes to your house, while in your home, it is no longer yours but hers. A sovereign becomes the host under any citizen’s roof.  So, remember that, should Queen Elizabeth ever pop over to your house for tea, your house literally becomes her house. Think about that. The idea shows up in a common table grace that many of us learned as children where we invited Jesus to be our guest, but if this ancient royal custom teaches us anything it is that when let Jesus sit at our table, we invite him to be our host and for us to be his guest!  We invite him to let him feed us. We invite him to care for us and our needs. We invite him to refresh us and teach us and treat us as the honored wayfarer, so we can continue the journey renewed, refreshed, and reoriented.

Let’s take that image a step further: in our baptisms, we invited Christ into our lives, into us. Jesus our guest is now Jesus the host: he enters our living, he feeds us, meets us where we need him the most and helps us rest. In our Eucharist, Christ sits at the head of the table. We allow him to nourish us in our common life, in our worship, in our times of quiet and prayer, in times of retreat, and even in a few minutes reading Forward Day by Day or saying the daily devotions found in the prayer book, and in how we order our schedule and our common life.

So, we need not choose between the image of, productive Martha or the prayerful Mary if we remember the Benedictine motto of “ora et labora”—pray and work, we can embrace both! When we daily recall that our work is our prayer, and our prayer is our work, then we will recover the balance required to sing (and live!) “do-be, do-be, do-be.” 

+ + +   + + +   + + +

Here is a link to the bulletin for the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost  at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater

Here is a link to the Scripture readings.

Here is a link to a video of the sermon.

Here is a link to a video of the liturgy.

How big is God?

How big is God?

From time to time, I would ask this question of kids. And sometimes they’d shrug, and sometimes they’d shout back “Big!” 

Hmm, I’d say. “This big?” (holding my fingers and thumbs apart) 

“Bigger!” 

“Ok, this big?” (holding hands apart) 

“No! Bigger!” they’d all shout.

“Okay, then. How about this big?” (hold arms wide apart) 

“Bigger!” …. you get the idea!

This exercise reminds of that last scene in the 1997 film Cosmos, where astrophysicist Dr. Eleanor Arroway, played by Jodie Foster, meets a group of school kids in front of the deep space array of radio telescopes in New Mexico, talking about how big space is and about the possibilities for intelligent life "out there." A lot of Christians, especially Episcopal ones, love that film because it asks all the Big Questions and shows pretty well how scientists go about answering it with a sense of awe and mystery and respect, which we Episcopalians deeply share. To paraphrase (in a way that the original author, the late Dr. Carl Sagan, might object): for me, God is there, and God is real, because if God weren’t, “it’d be an awful waste of space.”

So how big is God? And how would you go about describing God? I have nearly a truckload—literally! -- of books on that subject, but in the end not even all those books even scratch the surface!

In ancient times, cultures dealt with this in a variety of ways. Some divided up God into bite-sized chucks. Some cultures had a particular god for a particular locale or tribe. Others, like the Greeks or Romans, divvied up their gods by function: a god of love, a god of evil, a god of thunder (with or without the hammer!) and so on.

Some limit God solely to the luminous or transcendent, who is so far away that if the divine is knowable at all… it is only through certain specific skills or disciplines, or perhaps for the very few with some kind of "special" knowledge.

As Seinfeld once said “Not that there’s anything wrong with that…” but, these only scratch the surface.

The Hebrews had the triply scandalous notion that there is only One God; that the One God is both holy and at the same time immanent (a fancy word for "not far away") living in a covenant relationship between God and God's people; and that it is the job of God’s people is to make God known to the world by following God’s ways. In some Jewish circles, it's understood that the observance of the law and the prophets is really for and on behalf of us all!

Of course, Christianity holds this concept too, but with a different emphasis on the syllahble.

Christians believe that the One God came to earth and joined with humanity in the person of Jesus Christ and his incarnation, and that the One God is made present to us in the person of the Holy Spirit, and that the One God creates and reigns over all creation God, in the Christian context, is at once accessible, complex... and busy! It is by the grace of God combined with our God-given curiosity and imagination that brings it all together.

I know a lot of folks who just can’t wrap their minds around the Trinity: it’s either too big, too esoteric, or because—no matter how much you reassure them that it’s not—it sounds to them like Tri-Theism. But here it is: there is One God, undivided. And we see all of the fullness of the One God and all of the fullness of all of humanity in the person of Jesus Christ; we see all the Fullness of the One God in the Father; and we see all the fullness of the One God in the Holy Spirit.

But wait! There’s more! 

The One God is with us, near and immediate, involved in everything we do and experience while, at the very same time, setting us free to think, make choices, and to act, in response to God or to our impulses or both…!

The One God has a moral and ethical core which is at the heart of our own moral and ethical longings, our own sense of meaning, but is at the heart of creation itself, which is once free and subject to the laws of physics and nature, but also endless its minutiae and its expansiveness.

We see the One God expressed in a Trinity—a Unity of persons—and where each person of the Trinity each witnesses to the One God in the integrity of their persons. Where God is at once transcendent and knowable by us who are created and living in God’s own image.

I know: Ka-boom! Mind blown. 

Wasn’t that fun?

Once, many years ago, a friend of mine, who is a Unitarian Universalist minister, invited me into his church in Southeast Ohio on Trinity Sunday to talk about, or debate with him, the Trinity before his congregation, remember, of Unitarians in all their variety. My point was that in the early church, when these things were being debated, it was the Trinitarians who were the true Unitarians by emphasizing this dynamic unity!

I don’t think I changed any minds, but it was a whole a lot of fun!

So how do you get at it… how do we make sense of the Trinity? Well, the theology helps even if it is a little, uhm, complex. And we have a wonderful Catechism in the Book of Common Prayer that can walk us through that. 

Some people choose to ignore the whole subject… by glossing over the complexity. Others dodge the intellectual bullet by making the debate about something else, misrepresenting the Trinity and then, presto!, refuting the very silly idea that they just made up.

Other try to defend it by just going to the Creeds; but in a bland kind of “The Creeds say it, I believe it, that settles it!” way. To me, this is kind of the theological equivalent of plugging your ears and saying “la la la!”

I mean, look, it's hard. If I only heard some of things people have been told about the Trinity from various pulpits and Sunday school classrooms over the years, I wouldn't believe it either!

Okay. So how do we get at it?

In participation. We get at the Trinity by living faithfully every day with an inquiring and discerning heart.

I have discovered in prayer, holy silence, and meditation, that an open mind and heart helps. And yes, meditating on the Apostles and Nicene creeds line by line, is a good thing to do. I’ve done it in retreat and as a prayer and journaling exercise.

I have found in art, literature, dance, theater, cinema, music, and science that imagination also helps.

Imagination invites us and allows us to experience the fullness of God… and imagination opens us to hear and be challenged by God’s call. To open our minds, our hearts, our wills, and our imagination to fullness of God, is to hear God’s voice just as God called out to the young Samuel while he was trying to sleep.

I think that we need to let the artistic and poetic side of the brain in on the conversation when we contemplate the Trinity: this is a place for poets, musicians, and artists as much as it for systematic theologians, scientists, and apologists.

The Holy Trinity, through the sacramental life, scripture, life in community, prayer and contemplation, invites to a life steeped in holy imagination. Not making things up... but resting in God, listening to the traditions of the Church and paying attention to world around us.

Allow me to demonstrate.

Think of your favorite hymn.

Got it? Terrific!

Now think about the text of that hymn… how does it speak to you? What aspect of God does that text activate in you?

One hymn that stands out for me is an American hymn called “Wondrous Love” which begins:

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul?
What wondrous love is this, O my soul?
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul?

The third verse goes:

To God and to the Lamb I will sing, I will sing,
to God and to the Lamb I will sing,
to God and to the Lamb who is the great I Am,
while millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing,
while millions join the theme, I will sing.

I think that meditating on your favorite hymns is one way for you to know how God best makes Godself known to you… and to know how you might most easily approach God! It isn’t foolproof—but when it come to meeting the God of all Creation, what is?

It’s still a very good place to start.

So let’s try it. Turn in your hymnals to Hymn 409 (in the Episcopal Hymnal 1982). This is another one of my favorites. First of all… the tune. What can top this magisterial score by none other than Franz Joseph Haydn? This hymn paints a picture of in music and text of the wonder of creation, evoking “the spacious firmament with all the blue ethereal sky….” Let’s sing the third verse, which is the punchline:

What though in solemn silence all
move round the dark terrestrial ball;
what though nor real voice nor sound
amid their radiant orbs be found;
in reason's ear they all rejoice,
and utter forth a glorious voice,
for ever singing as they shine,
'The hand that made us is divine.'

Oh, yeah! It’s oh so very 18^th Century, isn't it? But then so were the folks who wrote our constitution! When you sang it, did you see a picture, painted in your minds eye, of God revealed in… and the source of… everything? Or, as we might say, God the Father!

Turn to Hymn 435. King’s Weston is a marvelous tune by the great Ralph Vaughn Williams, describing and extolling the Lordship of Christ. In six verses, the hymn sums up how we understand who Jesus is and what God is doing in and through him. The hymn invites us to come to him in love, wonder, and joy.

Let’s sing verses 2 and 5:

Humbled for a season to receive a name
from the lips of sinners unto whom he came,
faithfully he bore it spotless to the last,
brought it back victorious, when from death he passed.

In your hearts enthrone him; there let him subdue
all that is not holy, all that is not true;
crown him as your Captain in temptation's hour:
let his will enfold you in its light and pow'r.

A lovely little hymn about the Holy Spirit is hymn 513, written by Father Carl P. Daw, Jr., an Episcopal priest, it appeared for the first time in the Hymnal 1982. It beautifully evokes both the power and the intimacy of God the Holy Spirit. Let’s sing verse 1:

Like the murmur of the dove’s song,
like the challenge of her flight,
like the vigor of the wind’s rush,
like the new flame’s eager might:
come, Holy Spirit, come.

Finally, let’s contemplate the fullness of the One God in Trinity of Persons through this well known and magnificent Reformation hymn Nun danket alle Gott, “Now Thank We All Our God,” Hymn 396, singing verse 3 together:

All praise and thanks to God
the Father now be given,
the Son and Spirit blest,
who reign in highest heaven
the one eternal God,
whom heaven and earth adore;
for thus it was, is now,
and shall be evermore. 

Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday of what some call “ordinary time” or the Sundays after Pentecost. But there is nothing ordinary about our Creating, Redeeming, and Empowering God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! 

We have now entered a season of contemplation and action. We will spend the summer and next fall learning to follow the teachings of Jesus. We listen for the Spirit to move us to do them! Day by day we stand in awe and humility before the presence of God, as we learn to know and walk with God. We do that in lots of ways: Baptism and Eucharist, Scripture and prayer, Holy Service and Holy Companionship. We do this in concert with the Church Catholic in all time and places. God has given us imagination, intellect, art, music, science, and more to bounce off the witness of Scripture and the life of the whole Church and see God working and alive… and then we only catch the merest glimpse of God’s love, God’s power, God’s majesty….

Blessed with holy imagination, we find that in all that we do, in all whom we love, in all our creativity and inquiry, and in all our care for each other and creation, that our loving, living, Triune God is active in all of us and in our world.

In the Trinity, we see that the fullness, the love, the intimacy of God is bigger than the universe, and as near as our hearts.

+++ +++ +++

A sermon for Trinity Sunday, May 30, 2021 at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater, Florida

Here is a video of the Liturgy for Trinity Sunday (Facebook)

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