Answering our cry for help

If you spend any time on social media, and look beyond the cartoons, the cat videos, and the memes, you will find bite-sized human stories.

I once read a status update from the friend of a friend… a 17-year-old young woman who seems to have the whole world right before her— she has friends, she is a good student, she is a musician and an athlete, and is about to begin the college safari.  Yet her status update seems to came out of the fog like an SOS.

It reads: “I feel as if the weight of the whole world is on my shoulders.”

Another time, I ran into another old friend on Facebook who told me that the job he worked in for that last decade or so has just disappeared. Poof! Now, here he is, in his early- to mid-fifties, on the hunt for work. He says on his status that he is trying to see this as an opportunity and not as a setback, but it is not easy.

And nearly every day I read a new prayer request for a person facing surgery, some crisis, or transition, or for a person grieving a loss.

These electronic cries for help are quiet cries for hope in a life filled with uncertainty.  You do not need a computer or broadband to find this theme in human experience. It’s been in art and literature, even Scripture, since the very beginning. In fact, it shows up whenever people of faith look around at the world they inhabit.  Today’s scriptures included.

But there is a response, and, in fact, an antidote in today’s Scripture. In fact, if there is a common theme in today’s lessons, it is this: that we are called to rejoice in the midst of uncertainty.

All of the Scripture and music in today’s Lessons & Carols, tell us that the promised Messiah is coming—and that they should get ready.

Advent is a season of rejoicing and anticipation. We are being reminded to rest in God, because God has done, and is doing, great things for us, that God is with us now, and God’s future is always unfolding.

The challenge is to rise to the occasion without forcing the issue.

To that seventeen-year-old friend of a friend, I would point to John the Baptist, who carries the voice of the anointed one but is comfortable enough in his own skin to know that he is not the messiah. I would say to her, you have so much ahead of you, the one thing you don’t have to worry about is being the Messiah. You are not there to save the world, let alone your parent and loved one’s images of you. You are called to be the best “you” that you can possibly be. That is more than enough voice that prepares God’s way for us.

To the one who feels that life is becalmed if not beached, I would direct them to the scripture, music, and songs of hope, of faith that we heard today. Especially to those looking forward, to the words of Isaiah bringing words of hope and comfort to a people displaced by war and turmoil. But especially, I would point to the relationship between Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, who when they realize that God is doing great things in both of their lives break out in prayer and song as they discover the nearness and greatness of God in their lives.

Advent reminds us that God always meets us where we are, as we are, and exactly at the point of our greatest need. And that God who meets us, is ready to walk with us through all of life, no matter what it brings us, and not only bring us home, as the full person that God made us to be… ready to serve, ready to love, ready to follow and walk with Jesus every step of the way. Today, we have heard the story of God’s saving work, of how God meets us where our need is the greatest, and how God in Christ accompanies us to the fullness and richness of life promised in the coming of Jesus at Christmas. This is what we await, and this is what God does for all of us every day.

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Bulletin for Worship for the Third Sunday of Advent December 17, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on December 17, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on December 17, 2023.

Faith beyond the "a-ha!"

It happens to all of us. Sooner or later, we will learn or discover something that changes everything, but it is still too big for us to comprehend. We have an “a-ha!” moment but “a-ha!”  turns out to be some combination of awe, wonder, confusion, and incomprehension all at once. In last weeks Gospel, we heard Peter “get it” but he didn’t “get it” all at once. It will take time for all the pieces to come together.

Well, Peter isn’t alone. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I “get it” but “don’t get it” all at once. It happens to all of us.

We heard in last week’s Gospel how Peter was able to confess and say out loud that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Peter is “the rock.” He got it. And yet Peter does not understand.

In today’s Gospel we hear that Peter could not bear the idea that Jesus would be arrested and then die at the hands of the very people he is here to save. As soon as Jesus proclaims Peter as the Rock on whom the all of the gathered saints will rest and, Jesus tells Peter that his thinking is backwards; that he is the tool of the devil. Why?

For one thing, Peter came from a world that expected the Messiah to be something quite different than what we’ve heard through a few millenia of Sunday School, sermons, and Christmas Contatas. The conventional wisdom was that the Messiah would be a political leader sent by God to liberate the Jewish people from their occupied and dispersed state. Instead, Jesus shows that the Messiah liberates people from their separation from God, each other, and creation. That’s a big mental and spiritual leap: to move from the idea that Jesus was a prophet to being the Messiah is one thing, but to re-imagine what the Messiah does is something else.

I think the same thing happens for us. We think we understand something because we’ve had the light-bulb go off, only to find that we are immediately thrust into a new set of questions. The “a-ha” answers a bunch of questions and solves a whole host of problems. And also shows off the world in a new, and sometimes troubling light.

Allow me to share three stories.

C.S. Lewis thought he understood pain. He wrote and lectured about the problem of pain. In his book of the same name, he talked about pain in two ways: in terms of the consequences of people’s choices and also about how God allows pain to help us grow. Living through two world wars seemed to verify his point of view—that pain comes from either human choice or from divine purpose. Then the unexpected happened: this Oxford don and lifelong bachelor, fell in love with Joy Davidman, a Jewish-American divorcee who had converted to Christianity partly due to Lewis’ writing. They met in 1953 and in 1956 she became ill with cancer. They were married in 1957 and she died in 1960. This is when Lewis learned about two other truths about pain: that we are drawn to our choices, like love, because we are always looking for something more; that sometimes pain happens; and, finally, that not just religion but all of life is an act of faith. He wrote about all this in his little book A Grief Observed under an assumed name, which ironically was gifted to him several times over by friends concerned about his own complicated mourning.

Henri Nouwen was a spiritual director, a priest, and a scholar. He thought he knew about the mystery of life in Christ, about how suffering can put us in touch with the cross and peer into the resurrection. He decided to put aside the trappings of success to live alongside adult mentally retarded persons in a community called The Arch. His experience of living with people whom society cast aside and who would never succeed, be wealthy or famous, showed him the fullness of life and of love.

Frances Perkins was raised a New England Congregationalist and became an Episcopalian as an adult. She witnessed the devastating Triangle Shirt Waist Factory fire that killed 125 workers, mainly women and children, and in response studied Social Work at Columbia University and would become the first woman to in the Cabinet as U.S. Secretary of Labor during the Roosevelt administration. She led the development of Social Security and Unemployment Insurance and worked out labor and management relations during the war years. During her time in government, she took regular retreat and spiritual direction at an Episcopal monastery and lectured on scripture, theology, and Christian social responsibility in her parish in Manhattan. Perkins experienced God’s grace through Sacramental living in all creation. For her, to live in a loving relationship with God was to participate in the work of grace for all people, especially to working people and the poor.

Paul’s letter to the Romans presents a picture of the Church that is grounded in Christ Jesus. Much more than doctrinal uniformity, Christian community is shown when people change and call out of each other their very best selves. But this change just doesn’t fall off of trees.

Over and over again we hear stories of people who are firm in their faith—who have an “a-ha!” and get it. They are converted from one kind of life to a new life in Christ. And then something else happens, something they cannot avoid, and they are converted again.

This is one thing we learn from Peter. When we follow Jesus Christ, we will be changed. And we will be changed again and again.

Many Christians think that change must happen all at once, and then is locked down. Once and done! Often we fear that our faith will be in vain if we are anything less that 100% certain about everything. But this keeps many people from fully engaging God in Christ, because their need for this kind of certainty keeps them from experiencing the kinds of change the Spirit brings. The thing is that life in Christ does not require us to know all the answers. Faith is trust. Faith is knowing in a different way, over and over again.

The Gospels give us a picture of Peter as the icon of a Christian in motion. And he is so like us! He could not bear to hear that Jesus would suffer and die. In his heart he knew that Messiahs aren’t supposed to do that. But the more he followed Jesus, the more he ‘d learn that for God to transform and make whole creation and heal the rift between us and God, that God would break the rules over and over again.

Peter will discover that faith is fundamentally hopeful. Starting with his confession of faith, the rebuke he heard from Jesus, and moving through transfiguration, arrest, crucifixion, resurrection, the Gentile mission and on and on, would learn again and again that the light bulb, the aha!, is never the end, but is always a new beginning.  He will discover that faith always looks forward.

That kind of faith gave him—and gives us! — the capacity to absorb everything new God taught him. Faith gives us the capacity to move from certainty to openness to change this is how God builds a church that engages and transforms the world.

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Bulletin for Worship for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost, September 3, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost, September 3, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on September 3, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on September 3, 2023.

We all need watering

Have you ever been tired and thirsty? I mean dog tired and bone dry? And I don’t mean just physically thirsty or tired. Have you ever been so inwardly tired and thirsty that no matter how much sleep you get or how much you have to drink or eat, nothing seems to refresh us or fill us? That’s what we have today, in today’s Gospel: Two thirsty people who meet at the well one day. One gets a drink of water (well, at least he tries to!) and the other gets a drink of life.

One comes up to get a jug of water…but is deeply thirsty inside. The other is tired and thirsty and needs a drink…and is the well of life.  The woman at the well has the water, but she is thirsty. Jesus who is thirsty, knows the woman’s thirst and because he is the Christ, he quenches it where it really counts…down deep in her spirit. It shows that we all need watering!

This is one of those Gospel stories where there’s a whole lot is going on. But it is a lot like another encounter Jesus had…the one we heard last week, the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus. In the Gospel of John, we are being taught that to know Jesus is to know God; and to believe in Jesus—to trust him, to understand him, to listen to him—is to know God in a way that changes us from the inside out. Which is why he puts together these two stories of these encounters from two very different people.

The first one, in John chapter 3 is with Nicodemus. The second one is with the woman at the well in Chapter 4.

Here is a piece of trivia for you that will, I am sure, astound and amaze your friends: There are only three times that Samaritans appear in the Gospels: twice in Luke and once in the Gospel of John.  But those Samaritans, they sure do get around! Whenever you hear about a Samaritan in the Gospels, a little light should go off and say “Difference Ahead!”

Remember that last week we heard the famous encounter between Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus? He came to Jesus and learned that if he was to really understand what God was up to, he would need a new identity, a new way of being, a new way of seeing and knowing both God and the world. This new identity, if he took it on, would feel like being born from above. It would feel like the breath of God.

Today, we hear of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well and we hear the same thing again: if she is to really know how to worship God in Spirit and truth, then she will have to put on a new identity…one grounded in God. This would feel like drinking new, fresh, cold water from a well that never ends. It would be refreshing and clean and new.

In Nicodemus, we saw a man who was at the heart of traditional Judaism, a leader of the Jewish temple council who would have to put on this new identity. The woman at the well is a person, a so-called foreigner, whom Jesus should not even be talking to, who would have to take on this new identity.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. Jesus comes to the woman at the well at noon.

Nicodemus begins the conversation with Jesus. But at the well, Jesus is the one who starts the conversation.

Nicodemus has deep a theological conversation with Jesus. No big surprise there. They are both rabbis and they are peers. Today, Jesus has an intense theological conversation with a woman, far from the center of Jewish life and tradition!

We don’t know where Nicodemus goes after his talk with Jesus, John’s Gospel doesn’t say, but the woman goes and brings a whole town to Jesus.

In John chapter 3, we hear Jesus talk about the spirit blowing where it will and for the need for people to be born from above.  Today, in John chapter 4, we hear of the spirit welling up inside of us and quenching our deepest spiritual thirst.

Both the woman at the well and Nicodemus understand that Jesus is a prophet. They both understand that he has special insight and a connection to God.  Nicodemus knew that…he heard the stories that tickled his curiosity. But for the woman at the well, this was new information. She needed a little help. Let’s see what happens here.

Tired from his journey through Samaria, Jesus sits down at Jacob’s well, but he has no cup or bucket with which to draw water. The disciples have gone off to buy food and has left him alone.

Enter the woman, carrying a bucket—actually, both a bucket and a water jar.  She is about to fill this heavy clay jug…about a meter high, holding  between 5 and 10 gallons of water, and then carry it back to her village in the middle of the day. That is five pounds per gallon plus the weight of the big clay jar. In the first century, as in much of the world today, hauling water is woman’s work. In most of the world today, people—mainly women—must walk one, two or more miles two or three times a day to get safe, usable water. Jesus asks her for water, he is doing what is normal. He is a man asking a woman for water. Because getting water is woman’s work.

But she and Jesus get into a discussion as deep as that well and as important as his conversation was with Nicodemus. They talk about their different backgrounds, their different religious traditions. And while she can give Jesus some water, he is offering to quench a much deeper thirst in her.  He meets her at the point of her greatest need…and he breaks down a few barriers in the process.

Jesus knows her story…he knows her heart…but he is meeting her as an equal.  No matter how matter how complicated her past is….it doesn’t matter. She can drink from living water. No matter what mountain she thinks God is to be worshipped on, she can worship in spirit and truth.

She may be the opposite of Nicodemus in every way…there are alike in the way that really matters: they are both in need of life deep down inside. They both need birth from above and living water.

And as different as the two people are, there is one difference that counts: she not only gets who Jesus is, she is the one who does something about it. She is the one who tells people.

To this day, the Samaritan woman is honored in many cultures. In southern Mexico, La Samaritana is remembered on the fourth Friday in Lent, when water flavored with local fruit and spice and is given to commemorate her gift of water to Jesus. The Orthodox know her as St. Photini, or Svetlana in Russian, which means "equal to the apostles," and she is honored as apostle and martyr on the Feast of the Samaritan Woman.

She is remembered because when she recognizes the Christ her identity changes. She leaves her water jar behind and goes and finds her friends and neighbors.

And another funny thing happens in this story: did you notice? Jesus never got his drink of water!

Or did he? We see here that as Jesus breaks down the barriers of gender and nationality and the woman is bold enough to both remind Jesus of what separates them -- he a Jew and she a Samaritan -- and of what connects them -- their ancestor Jacob, a whole lot of thirst is being quenched. Even in her audacious verbal sparring with Jesus, she experiences him as prophet and, more than that, the Messiah. And she takes that news to her village, her family, her people. Both in the encounter and in the telling, she is changed from the inside out.  

And she quenches his thirst, as the living Word of God, to bring God’s love, power, and saving grace to all people, even people outside of his own community of faith.  Two people met each other at the well and quenched thirst that really matters.

We all need watering. And it comes in a variety of ways. On another day, also about noon, Jesus will face death and again confess his thirst. On that day, only vinegar will be offered -- in mockery. The gift of his living water will not be apparent to the one holding that sour sponge. But today, when Jesus and the Samaritan woman meet at the well, they conspire to bring life out of death. The water they offer each other, water that quenches the thirst of body and soul, holds the gift of life for all.

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Bulletin for Worship for the Third Sunday in Lent March 12, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Scripture Lessons for the Third Sunday in Lent, March 12, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's Clearwater, Florida on March 12, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on March 12, 2023.

A Martyr's Song in an Age of Rage

I am looking ahead a few weeks to commemorate a little-known martyr who (as I write this) doesn’t appear on the Episcopal calendar, and he hasn’t even appeared on Lent Madness (yet!).

It all started a few years ago, when Peg and I went to worship at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in Charleston, South Carolina, and to our surprise we were privileged to witness the commemoration of an Episcopal saint, a bishop, a witness for racial equality and a martyr: Bishop William Alexander Guerry (July 7, 1861 – June 9, 1928).

Guerry was a South Carolinian and was consecrated bishop coadjutor on September 15, 1907 and later became the eighth diocesan bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina on April 22, 1908. Before that, he served as a parish priest and then as Chaplain and Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.

Despite the fact that he spent his whole ministry, other than his training at the General Theological Seminary in New York, in the South in an age of segregation, Bishop Guerry came to believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was Good News for all people, and this led him to believe that the Church must reflect the visible unity of all God’s people in how we ordered our common life. So, in 1914, he proposed that his Diocese should elect a black bishop suffragan for South Carolina to be responsible for the ministry to African American Episcopalians. He wanted to ensure that all people, regardless of race, were full participants in the community of Christ’s people in the diocese.

While the idea of a separate jurisdiction would sound regressive and divisive to our ears; for its day, this was a radical proposition and was met with considerable opposition! His proposal failed big time in the Diocesan Convention that year. Instead, the majority white (and, of course, all male) convention chose instead to separate the African American community of the Diocese into a “Missionary District for Negroes,” which practically and effectively separated Black Episcopalians from the rest of the diocesan community until the arrangement was abolished in the mid-20th century.

But that is not the end of the story.

On June 2, 1928, an Episcopal priest of that diocese, the Rev.  J. H. Woodward, entered Bishop Guerry’s office at St. Philip’s Church in Charleston, enraged at the Bishop’s message of racial equality and reconciliation. He made an appointment with the Bishop and during the conversation he pulled out a pistol and shot Guerry in the chest, before killing himself. 

Most of the news reports of the day and the little bits of history written since then have described the Rev. Woodward as “mentally deranged.” While that might have been the case, it is equally clear that this priest had organized his “derangement” around the idea of violently preserving white supremacy. Before the meeting, he had openly and publicly attacked the bishop’s position on advancing racial equality in South Carolina, and especially on his proposal to install a black suffragan bishop in the diocese. Woodward wrote that the bishop, given his way, “would root out the principle of white supremacy in the South” and clearly planned his attack accordingly. Guerry is reported to have forgiven Woodward before he died.

It's odd to me that the martyrdom of Bishop Guerry is rarely talked about in the Episcopal Church.  June 7^th is not an official feast or commemoration in this church except in his own diocese, even as Guerry has been listed by the Archbishop of Canterbury as one of the church’s modern martyrs.

At the Cathedral that day in 2018, the diocese dedicated a portrait and Chapel to Bishop Guerry and the congregation sang this hymn:

(1)   The martyr’s song still sings every day, every day.

The martyr’s song still sings every day.

The martyr’s song still sings as heaven’s echo rings

So none will miss the sound of that song every day

So none will miss the sound of that song.

(2)   Hate’s raging ways live on, every night. Every night.

Hate’s raging ways live on, every night.

Hate’s raging way live on and kill the prophet’s song.

Will we not right the wrong with our song, with our song?

Will we not right the wrong with our song?

(3)   The Shepherd’s witness lives every night. Every day.

The Shepherd’s witness lives every day.

The Shepherd’s witness lives in all who dare forgive.

Like One who long ago sent from heaven did come down.

Now wears the martyr’s crown every day.

As a person who has dedicated his life to doing public theology in the public square, as well as pastoring and teaching faithful people in everyday living, I found Bishop Guerry’s example and witness profoundly moving and humbling. And even years later, I marvel at the holy coincidence of how I wandered into the Cathedral “just” for Sunday worship and instead heard about his story for the first time!

As I work through the realities of the concurrent sins of racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism, and confront my own tendencies towards these within myself, I am guided by Guerry’s example.

And ever since, I’ve also been struck by the continued ugliness in much of our present public discourse. The unrepentant coarseness emanating from the highest levels of leadership dismays me. I expect our civic and religious leaders to call out the best in us, instead many wish to cultivate the worst. It is awful enough when people cheer on the bad behavior of a tv character, but when people—in my experience, good ethical people of good character—line up behind these antics perpetrated by an elected official, it makes me tired, sad, and worried, and as we run up to elections on both the state and national level, I am seeing this kind of rhetoric only ramp up, especially as we witness legislation enacted that bans one kind of speech and encourages other kinds of speech designed to stir up people’s anger and emotions.

I know I am not alone. As I talk to people around the parish, around the City, and even (on-line) from around the country, there is a growing anxiety about the growing level of vitriol out there, and not only on the airwaves and internet, but in everyday interactions. What’s an everyday Christian to do?

I am not against debate or divergence about complex issues among people of good faith. When deciding big things, disagreement, even passionate debate, ought to be expected! But when the goal becomes “my side must win at all costs” and even worse, when we believe that the only victory is to utterly “own” or destroy the opposition and to leave them humiliated, then not a whole lot is going to get done. And if we can’t disagree with civility, then we cannot compromise, and if we can’t compromise then we are frozen, nothing gets done and then all we have left is our frustration and our anger.

Christian witness in this atmosphere does not arise from mimicking or blindly aligning with the culture’s values. Mindless chants and only rooting for “our side” doesn’t accomplish anything, except for maybe raising our blood pressure. Oddly, rage can be addictive as it excites our endorphins and makes us want more to rage about.

What’s the answer?

Well, we can start with the Apostle Paul’s reminder to the Christians in Rome to not be conformed to the world and instead letting God’s Holy Spirit to transform our minds (Romans 12:2).

The next thing we can do in response to this tense and crazy season is to remain calm even when the air is filled with cruel and fear-fueled words. And to do that, we must pause. When you’re angry, pause. When you’re scared, pause. When you’re tempted to join the angry mobs of people, even if it’s “only” on-line, pause.

And as you pause, pray. Give yourself a little bit of space to invite the Holy Spirit into these very valid concerns that an election like this one will bring up in our hearts and see what God would have us do. After we’ve prayed, then we can begin to listen and embrace those around, especially those who disagree or differ from us.

I found a prayer by Pope Francis based on the famous prayer of St. Francis of Assisi to be especially helpful. It was written for World Communications Day, which this year is Sunday, May 29, 2022, just a few days before the anniversary of Bishop Guerry’s death:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. 
Help us to recognize the evil latent in a communication that does not build communion. 
Help us to remove the venom from our judgements. 
Help us to speak about others as our brothers and sisters. 
You are faithful and trustworthy; may our words be seeds of goodness for the world: 
where there is shouting, let us practice listening; 
where there is confusion, let us inspire harmony; 
where there is ambiguity, let us bring clarity; 
where there is exclusion, let us offer solidarity; 
where there is sensationalism, let us use sobriety; 
where there is superficiality, let us raise real questions; 
where there is prejudice, let us awaken trust; 
where there is hostility, let us bring respect; 
where there is falsehood, let us bring truth. 
Amen.

It is important that we listen in our hearts and minds to what is going around us and give to God what it stirs up in us. It is equally important to know who has the power to bring peace and in whose name we have been commissioned in Baptism to be peacemakers. Remember, no human being anywhere—no cleric, no politician, no public figure, no celebrity, nor anyone else on the media or in society—is the Messiah. Only Jesus is our Savior and Messiah! No human leader will ever solve all our problems, but God is the source of our hope and calling! And certainly, no human leader can give us inner peace, that can only come through the grace of the Holy Spirit!

As Ambassadors of Reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:11-21), we are not passive by-standers. Jesus calls us to actively love the world, and to actively care for the sick, the wounded, the outcast, the lost, and the least. That neither begins nor ends at the ballot box nor with the talking head on tv. It begins at the foot of the cross, gathers us around the font and the Eucharistic table, and sends us into the world carrying Christ’s endless and never-failing love.

Following Jesus is a partnership

If you are on social media and want to follow someone, all you have to do is click a button. The algorithm does all the work! Nothing could be easier, right?

The truth is that being a good follower is hard work.

Ask a dancer. Have you ever seen those wonderful old movies—those movie musicals with all the dancing? It is said that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heels! The legendary couple made partner dancing look effortless, but learning to dance, and dance well, takes effort, patience, humility, and grace.

An Episcopal priest, The Rev. Kerra Becker-English, tells the story of a dancer, a woman who danced ballet and modern jazz who was getting married to a lovely fellow… who had never danced a step in his life! They decided to take ballroom dance lessons, so they’d be ready for their first dance at the wedding reception. She thought her fiancé would do all the work, and that for her it would be a piece of cake.

Well, ballroom is not ballet and following is harder than it looks. Just ask Ginger!

Becker-English writes: “It takes practice to maintain balance through a double turn. It takes instruction to learn all the elements of achieving correct hip action for a Cha-Cha and then be able to do it without clutching on to a partner’s arm for dear life. A good follower must be well balanced, because even the very best dance partner cannot maintain balance for two. The best dance partner in the world can’t make your steps for you.”

Following in life, in dance, being a follower of Jesus requires attention, commitment and a sense of one’s own self. 

Today, we are halfway through Mark’s Gospel and Jesus is talking about being a follower. The disciples have come to a part of Palestine peopled mainly by Gentiles, people outside the Covenant. In the Gospel, Jesus asks them what they’ve heard… what are people saying, who do they think Jesus is. I suspect that many people they met in their travels also asked them that question: who is this Jesus? Is he a prophet, a teacher, or one of the Old Testament sages come back to life? So, Jesus asks them who do they think they are following? Peter immediately pipes up and says that he is following the Messiah!

Good answer, Peter! Now, Jesus asks, what does that really mean?

If the disciples thought that Jesus would just carry them into a kingdom where they would have all the spiritual rewards with none of the work; well, they are in for a surprise!

Because, Jesus says, the Messiah will have to be rejected by his people and the religious leaders, handed over to the authorities, executed, and then on the third day rise from the dead. Jesus is headed to the cross, and his followers will have to go there with him.

Peter cannot believe his ears! HHHHe pulls Jesus aside to tell him just how wrong he is! "Get behind me, Satan," Jesus says back to the guy who just a minute ago said he was the Messiah. “You are thinking in human terms, but not thinking about the ways of God.”

Then Jesus gathers everyone round and tells them what kind of Messiah they are following: "If any want to become my followers," he tells them “Let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel, will save it."

Fifty-two years ago yesterday, this parish community decided to follow Jesus in a special way. Along the way, you have learned time and again that following Jesus requires a lot more than clicking a button. You have discovered that no one can do the steps for you. You’ve learned how to go where he goes and do what he does in the way that he does it.  Sometimes backwards. And, yes, I suppose, sometimes in heels. Who knew that your birthday would, 32 years later, become a day of tragedy, grief, and remembrance… the coincidence of these anniversaries is a reminder of the Gospel ministry you bring to a hurting world.

Both as a parish as well as Christians and citizens, we’ve had to learn to be careful about whom to follow.

As we look back this weekend on the terrible attacks on 9/11 twenty years ago, we don’t have dig very deep to find two kinds of religious followers at work. One type of follower were the nine men who decided to heed their leader’s message of defiant grievance into destruction and death. And there is another kind of follower… and there were many that day! … who died or put themselves on the line caring for the suffering, the frightened, the deceased, and the first responders.

We know about the nine… the ones who hijacked those four planes and died causing so much death and suffering. But while nine men chose evil, many hundreds of others when the chips were down chose to do the good.

Maybe this weekend you’ve heard of Fr. Mychal Judge, a New York City fire chaplain who ministered on 9/11 to the people who ran toward the danger to rescue those in harm’s way, while at the same time he cared for the dead, the injured, and the frightened. Judge was killed in the North Tower from debris from the collapsing South Tower of the World Trade Center.

The weekend we commemorate another follower of Jesus, Father Alexander Crummell, a priest and a “saint” in our Church whose feast day was also yesterday. He became a priest in 1844 even though the General Convention’s seminary, General Seminary in New York, would not accept him as a student and even though the Episcopal Church very nearly did not ordain him because of his race. He spent his entire ministry battling the racism of his day and raising up black men and women to serve the church and proclaim the gospel.

Or remember, too, yet another follower of Jesus, Henry Thacker Burleigh, who is remembered today on our church’s calendar. Burleigh was perhaps the foremost stage baritone of his day. An Episcopal layman, he was almost turned away from his church’s choir in New York City because he was black, but for the intercession of the wealthiest Episcopalian in New York, J.P. Morgan. He sang at St. George’s, recorded spirituals, and trained many other singers in vocal technique for over half-a-century. He showed us that “in Christ there is no east nor west, in Him no south or north but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth.”

On this octave of a world-changing tragedy, and our parish anniversary, it is good to contemplate what it means to follow Jesus. We learn from the Gospel and the examples before us today that following Jesus means that we act together, as Christ’s adopted baptized people in community, to discover our gifts and give them back to God and God’s people wherever they may be found. Following Jesus requires us to be attentive to Christ who leads us, maintaining our balance and being ready to go in new directions.

Following Jesus is neither mindless nor passive but is the concrete way we choose to act with Jesus every day in all our relationships.

And following Jesus is costly because it requires something from us. Following Jesus requires us to be challenged and to change.

I heard a story about Archbishop Desmond Tutu when he was still Archbishop of Cape Town South Africa. At the height of the anti-apartheid struggle there, when Christians were suffering and dying for justice and redemption, Tutu used to gather his staff around him every morning for prayer. And often as he was closing, he would ask, "If being Christian became a crime, would there be enough evidence to convict us?" The archbishop said this to his staff because they were not simply leaders in an important social struggle for dignity and freedom; they were followers of Jesus Christ insisting that God's reconciling love transcends anything that tries to resist it. Being leaders was not enough: people had to experience them following Jesus in their service and living if their leadership was going to be taken seriously. True Christian leadership is grounded in service and companionship.

Following Jesus is a partnership. It is Christ who leads; and we, as effective followers, are called to maintain our balance, observe what’s going on around us, and be ready to go where Jesus goes, even to the cross. Even to resurrection.

Ordinary people communicating extraordinary grace

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

What a strange question! Saints are really, really, holy people, right? Only special people, who meet strict criteria get to be called saints, right? You need a committee of really smart people, theologians and church historians, to see if a person qualifies to be a saint… and those applicants have to have answered prayers where their intercession was specifically invoked and where miraculous things happened. We pray to Saints, we name churches for them and sometimes cities, or colleges or hospitals. Even now, as we sit in this church we are surrounded by idealized images of saints in the stained glass that adorn this church. It’s a pretty high bar!

The Episcopal Church has a calendar of saints and here at Trinity Church, we commemorate them on Wednesdays at our Noon Eucharist. Saints like Anselm of Canterbury, the theologian; St Francis and his sister St. Clair of Assisi; and, of course, the apostles like Saints Andrew, Peter, John and all of the rest. More recently, named saints have been added to our calendar like Martin Luther King, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyrs, and Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement.

We commemorate many saints alongside our Roman Catholic siblings, but some are unique to us as Anglicans: like George Herbert, the English priest and poet; Julia Chester Emery, an American Episcopalian who founded the United Thank Offering, and another Episcopal lay-woman, Frances Perkins, a pioneering social worker who, among other things, created Social Security and the Department of Labor.

But in the Christian scriptures, the use of the word “saint” is used much more broadly. The word “saint” appears 62 times in New Testament and the Apostle Paul used the term 44 times-- and not one of these times does he refers to a person for whom a hospital, college, parish, or parochial school might be named. In the New Testament, every follower of Jesus is a Saint, or in Greek "hagios", one of the holy ones. Yes, that’s right. You are one of God's saints. Now how can that be?

According to St. Paul what makes a saint a saint is Baptism. Being a person who believes in Jesus and says so out loud, and who participates in Christian community is a saint. In John’s heavenly vision in Revelation,

“… (he) heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them…’"

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

Five years ago, the Episcopal Church got a new Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry of North Carolina was installed at the National Cathedral in Washington on the feast of All Saints. Before his election, he said:

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

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

What makes God's people holy is His presence with and in us. It’s not our behavior, which is often less than perfect, that makes us saints but our living identity as Jesus’ people that makes us saints.

But let’s be careful here: in recognizing that we have already joined the glorious company of the saints in light by virtue of our faith and baptism, doesn’t mean that God has merely blessed our built-in biases and our life-long habits. As we hear in the Revelation of John today, God's voice thunders from heaven, "See, I am making all things new." We saints are being made new every day!

I recently saw a story that made me re-think and refine an understanding of sainthood that I carried around for years. It is the story of an encounter between a priest and Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, who died in 1980 at 83 years old. She was a champion for the poor and the working person and a bold activist for peace. During the 1970s, some priests were experimenting with the liturgy—trying to make it more accessible to ordinary people. One afternoon, a priest came into the soup kitchen where Dorothy Day was working. He wanted to offer a liturgy for the homeless, so he went into the kitchen and grabbed a mug from the pantry to use for the chalice. 

Day prayed throughout that mass and after the liturgy ended, she quietly got up and started to cleanse the vessels. Then, she walked outside with the mug carrying a shovel. 

A man followed her and asked her what she was doing. It is said she kissed the mug and then buried it. She told him that it was no longer a mug, but a chalice. It was no longer suited for coffee because it had held the Blood of Christ. She didn’t want anyone to mistake it for a mug again because once something holds the Body of Christ, it is no longer what it was. When the mug held the Blood of Christ, it changed its vocation forever. It could no longer hold anything less than Christ again.

Recently, our siblings in the Roman Catholic Church have been moving Dorothy Day through the process to make her a saint in their church. Which is ironic because she very firmly stated that she did not wish to be called a saint, lest she be trivialized. Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin wrote about this strained relationship:

"Dorothy’s own relationship with saints was anything but cynical. Both her daily speech and her writings were filled with references to St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Teresa of Avila. She treasured their stories. For Dorothy these were not idealized super-humans, but her constant companions and daily guides in the imitation of Christ. She relished the human details of their struggles to be faithful, realizing full well that in their own time they were often regarded as eccentrics or dangerous troublemakers."

“We are all called to be saints,” Day wrote. “We might as well get over our bourgeois fear of the name. We might also get used to recognizing the fact that there is some of the saint in all of us. Inasmuch as we are growing, putting off the old man and putting on Christ, there is some of the saint, the holy, the divine right there.” In other words, Dorothy Day regarded sanctity as the ordinary vocation of every Christian—not just the goal of a chosen few.

At a sermon I preached a few years ago I said that we were holy vessels disguised as cracked coffee mugs or jelly jars. Thinking of Dorothy Day’s lesson, I want to amend that. Once, we were common mugs. Simple, functional, practical, and good people. We had a capacity to hold good things. But with our baptisms, when Christ entered our lives, we became much more. We became Chalices. We started to hold divinity Himself within our hearts. Now that we have held the Body of Christ within our bodies, we are no longer common, but rather extraordinary, even as we live in an everyday world.

One of the things I have learned about how to “do” and “be” church in 2020 is that for all the improvisation, re-learning, limitations, and new habits we’ve taken on, we are being taught valuable lessons in everyday sainthood.

We are discovering how we are being changed on the inside and how that changes how we are with each other. So now we don’t just care about our own health or own prerogatives, but when we choose to wear a mask and wash our hands, we are learning to care for our neighbor—even ones we’ve hardly or never met! We’ve learned this year that not being prejudiced is enough to heal the centuries-old wounds of our society, but we are learning to be actively, and practically, anti-racist. We’re discovering (God willing!) that our politics is not just about giving into our fears but how we as a society looks out for each other and brings us together.

I remember a children’s sermon I heard as a kid, and which I’ve repeated a few times in this parish. You and me and all the saints are just like these windows: we are people through whom the light shines. God is making all things new, and we, who have taken on Christ in baptism are now holy vessels—chalices—who communicate Christ every day.

Good Adventure to You!

Whoa, Nellie! Did you hear last Sunday’s Gospel. Boy, oh boy, Jesus really ups the ante, doesn’t he?

In the portion of the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew (5:21-37), Rabbi Jesus takes what we’ve always known and take for granted and ups the ante. He makes it more intense, more real, and in so doing drives us into the heart of the matter.  So while his teaching might have sounded like an appeal to perfectionism, he is in fact urging to think… really think… about what it means to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

So, Jesus says, “you’ve heard it said that ‘you shall not kill,’ but I say don’t kill your neighbor with hateful, disdainful, or dismissive thoughts.”

And, Jesus says, “you have heard it said ‘don’t commit adultery,’ but I say don’t use the gift of your sexuality to use, abuse, or objectify another person.”

Then Jesus says, “it is customary for a man to decide when, where, and how to divorce his wife; but don’t let your power be an occasion to cause another person’s sin.” Okay…I’ll admit. I just threw the Apostle Paul’s interpretation of love and the Law into the Gospel… but I do that because the problem in Jesus’ day was that men held all the cards when it came to marriage, and Jesus was calling men out on making their spouses disposable. So, I think Jesus is saying, in effect, “you’ve heard it said that men can divorce his wife whenever he wants, but I say to you ‘don’t make people disposable.’”

And then Jesus says, “you have heard it said ‘don’t swear falsely.’ But I say to not only tell the truth, but avoid obfuscation and hair-splitting, but let your speech and your conversation be authentic.” As Jesus says, “Let your ‘yes’ be yes, and your ‘no’ be no.

I must admit that I get a little panicky when I hear Jesus talk like this. Everything about this passage makes our modern-day alarm bells go off: Rules! Judgementalism! Perfectionism! Ack!

Okay. We need to take a breath and think about Jesus’ words differently. Let’s start where Jesus started: Remember what he said were the two Great Commandments? Love God with all your being… heart, soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.

We are so tempted to nod sagely as say “You’re so right Jesus.” But in this Gospel, Jesus moves into new territory essentially asking “what does loving God and loving neighbor really mean? How would it look?”

And that would mean that our “yes” would be an authentic yes, and our “no” an honest (if sometimes sad) no. That our word would reflect our authentic self.

It would mean that we would treat our neighbors, our family members, our spouses, and loved ones with respect and dignity.

It would mean that we would so honor our sexuality and value intimacy that we would work for honest and authentic relationships, even if that means being vulnerable and giving up our prerogatives in the name of love.

It would mean not just avoiding killing (or doing any kind of obvious evil) but respecting and preserving the dignity of every human being in every encounter and relationship we have.

You see, to really understand Jesus, we must understand that merely following the rules is not enough; faithfulness that changes lives, that changes hearts, comes from the willingness to change from within. Holiness means developing an inner congruity where our actions reflect our heart and our heart is molded by our actions. It is choice renewed every day to seek God in the everyday and (this is very important!) to see the image of God in every person we encounter every day. It is the choice to accept the grace to move from reactivity to attentiveness, from self-centeredness to companionship, from isolation to community. It is a life-long process of lining up our everyday choice and ethics with Jesus’ (and Moses’!) basic command to love God with all our being, and to love our neighbor with everything we’ve got.

We are so tempted to turn this passage into a screed about perfectionism, or to make the Christian life so personal that it is reduced to a mere hobby. Perfectionism has a way of writing off other people or at the same time we must avoid a fake piety that only pumps up our egos and confirms our worst impulses. Instead, Jesus is giving us a glimpse of what it means to live within the reign of God’s peaceable kingdom.

I am humbled by the example of the martyred Bishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. Soon before his assassination in 1980 by hit squad sent by his right wing government to silence him for his encouragement of the poor and his condemnation of the rich and powerful, saw this passage not as a placebo to quiet the yearnings of his oppressed flock, but as the basis, the cornerstone, for their quest for justice, dignity, and equity. To live lives grounded in the command to love God and love neighbor, means to accept the dignity and worth of the people God sent Jesus to liberate. If you listen, really listen, to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, then you will find that rather than passivity, Jesus wants our participation in every aspect of God’s redeeming work.

When the powers that be heard that Bishop Romero was conferring on the oppressed people of El Salvador the dignity that Jesus taught, and later confirmed in his passion, death, and resurrection, they sent soldiers to kill him at the altar during Mass.

A friend and colleague of Romero’s, a Presbyterian minister the Rev. Jorge Lava-Braud, looks at Jesus’ beatitudes through the lens of his native language, Spanish. He says:

Let me take advantage of my native language, Spanish (the language of God and the angels), to get more deeply into the meaning of beatitude. In Spanish the word is translated bienaventuranza, literally "good adventure to you." We all know that adventure means risk, the courage to defy the odds, the refusal to play it safe. 

Listen, then, to how the Beatitudes would sound if we turn them into bienaventuranzas and if we paraphrase a bit: 

Good adventure to you whose hearts are genuinely with the poor: you are under God's protective rule. Good adventure to you who are without power: the whole world shall be yours. Good adventure to you who are hungry and thirsty for justice: your cup will be filled. Good adventure to you who look for truth with singleness of heart: you shall see God. Good adventure to you who work for peace: you shall be called children of God. Good adventure to you who are persecuted for the sake of justice. You, too, are already under God's protective rule; rejoice, be very happy, when others say evil things about you falsely because you are mine. God is preparing a great reward for you. Don't be surprised, prophets have always been an endangered species. 

I think the key to understanding this passage, perhaps Jesus’ hardest teaching on the Sermon on the Mount today, to really take part in “the good adventure.” Remember that for Jesus everything begins and ends with those first two commandments: “Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Once we decide, really decide, to allow in God’s grace, to listen for God, and to live our lives in concert with God, then Jesus will cause us to confront ourselves: to replace the parts of us that always wants to win with a commitment to love; to look at the parts of us that always wants to be gratified, and to be present in simplicity; the parts of us that always want to be in charge and at the center of things, and to choose to live as servants; the parts of us that always are worried that we’ll be forgotten or written off or discounted, and rest in the knowledge that God is always with us. Confronting those parts of us requires honesty and a gentle heart, so that we may listen and look for God in our relationships, in the world around us, and in the people God gives us everyday. To discover that God’s love, holiness of living, and justice are all part of God’s “good adventure.”

Blessed are you! Bienaventuranza!