The stone that keeps it all together

(Updated) Whenever I hear today’s Gospel story, I imagine one of those classic movie-trailers, where a narrator speaks with an ominous bass voice:

"In a world where God planted a vineyard, but where the tenants harvest terror, (insert here a dramatic pause for quick takes of mayhem and destruction) there seems to be no hope. But they can’t imagine what’s in store for them…when the Master returns!"

Jesus loved to use images that people could relate to. He talked of shepherds and sheep, women baking bread and cleaning house, builders building and travelers on the road. And vineyards! He loves images of vineyards like the ones in the Gospel of Matthew. Today’s lesson is a simple story but there’s a whole lot going on, so let’s look at the story one piece at a time:

This vineyard represents the world God made. It is the place where we are and where we live our lives. The question is what are we going to do with the vineyard we’ve been given?

The story goes that a landowner plants a vineyard, puts up a fence, dug a wine press, and erected a watchtower. This is like God at creation where God separated the water from the land; put creatures and people on the land; and gave us talent and the skill and then told us to take care of creation and use our creativity and smarts to do good things.

We are the tenants of creation, and the stewards of God’s farmland, just like how in Jesus’ day, the job of the tenant of the vineyard was to work the land on behalf of the owner.

In today’s Gospel, we hear that these particular tenants do a decent job. They took good care of the land. They enjoy it. The rub comes when they decide not to share, but to keep everything they harvest for themselves. They forgot whose vineyard it is and who they work for.

So, the landowner sent servants to collect what the vineyard has earned. This is like God who sent his holy prophets to his people. And yet the people didn’t listen. They rebelled, and sinned, and transgressed the law – again and again and again.

At last, the owner sends his son, saying, “They will respect my son.” Of course, they don’t. In their greed and pride, they kill the heir. Having done that, they have finally incurred enough of the owner’s wrath that he sends in the police—or more precisely the army—to evict the tenants. After kicking them out (cue the quick takes of the hero taking on the thugs), he hires new stewards to care for, and probably repair, the vineyard.

Clearly, this whole story is an allegory written to help a young church, a generation or three removed from the actual ministry of Jesus, understand the how and why of God’s salvation. They are making a case for not only why the covenant with the Jews is now extended to Gentiles, but it’s also making a case that, if we’re not careful, we could just as easily lose it all.

Ever since this Gospel story was first recorded two millennia ago, a debate has raged in the church: which is more important, charisma or order? Which would we rather have, the discipline of order—knowing the rules and who’s boss—or openness to the charism of the Spirit of God? Sometimes the battle has been my kind of order is better than yours, and I know it because God told me so (nyah)! Matthew seems to be landing on the side of order (unlike Luke who is All Spirit All the Time), and, frankly, I think that this time Matthew is on the wrong side of the argument.

Let’s go back to the story and I’ll show you why.

The landowner’s son in today’s Gospel represents, of course, Jesus. And Matthew has Jesus telling this story on his journey to the cross. Jesus is in Jerusalem and Matthew shows him teaching in the temple, where he’s overturned the seller’s tables and thrown the moneychangers out on their ears. The bad guys are incensed and, twirling their mustaches and looking evil, are plotting Jesus’ demise. Matthew’s church remembers Jesus’ story not just for the melodrama but mainly to describe what God has been up to in Jesus and in building up his church.

And then we hear Jesus changing metaphors and calling himself a stone…a stone tossed in the trash hear because it isn’t the right shape…but instead becomes the keystone, the cornerstone of something entirely new. Again, Matthew is not only describing Jesus but the whole church. It is not just Jesus who was rejected given up for dead, but lots of people. And all of them are being used by God for something new.

The early church liked the image of the rejected stone winning out, because it appears in the Gospels and in 2 Peter, in other words from very early in the church’s life and for a long time after. And we’ve heard it, too, over and over again – in stories, in sermons, in the examples of faithful people in our lives and in our everyday experiences. And yet, despite the repetition, we go right on doing what we’ve always done! The good news is that God never gives up on us.

In Christ, God comes to broken, stubborn and ignorant humanity, and gives us forgiveness, direction, hope, power, and strength to keep on learning, growing, and trying anew.  The rejection and apparent defeat of the cross is not the end of the story. Jesus’ resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit God shows us that we are still writing this Gospel story. God’s story and ours are not over yet. There is still time for change, still time for new plot lines, still time to introduce new characters.

Today is the 800^th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, and his feast is observed in several traditions besides Catholicism, including, among others, the Old Catholic Churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Churches, the Church of England, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Episcopal Church. Pope Leo XIV wrote of Francis: “His life was one of continuous self-emptying: from the palace to the leper, from eloquence to silence, from possession to total gift…. In the poor, he saw brothers and sisters, living images of the Lord. His mission was to be with them, and he did so through a solidarity that overcame distances and a compassionate love.” Francis’ poverty was both intentional and relational: he chose to live with the poor, his intentional poverty convicting society of the sins of unintentional poverty imposed on our neighbors. “His holiness,” Leo wrote, “sprang from the conviction that Christ can only be truly received by giving oneself generously to one’s brothers and sisters.”

Another example happened during the Nazi occupation of Denmark more than eight-five years ago. Every day, the Danish king, King Christian the Tenth, rode his horse through the streets of Copenhagen, surrounded by applauding crowds. The occupation forces told him to stop, but he told the Germans that he would risk death to keep the swastika from flying over his castle, and they relented from displaying their flag there. They apparently did not want to provoke an uprising by arresting or killing their king. So, while they flew the Nazi flag from as many flagpoles as they could, it was never raised over the King’s palace. His defiance turned the king into the cornerstone of the remarkably successful Danish resistance.

The Danish resistance movement featured school children, amateur saboteurs, and clergy working with underground networks who kept the Nazi killing machine off balance for years. The Germans wanted normalcy in Denmark, even as the resistance movement worked through not only their refusal to fly flags, but also though strikes, work slowdowns, and all kinds of passive civil disobedience—as well as blowing up something every now and then, and helping downed Allied fliers—to deny them that. How successful were they? Well, one indicator of their success was how relatively few Danish Jews ended up in the Nazi killing machine because a significant number were hidden or transported to safety in neutral Sweden through the help of their fellow citizens.

Today, we live in a world that thrives on division and rage. Even Christian preachers, I am sad to say, will traffic in this kind of stuff because they think it will fill up auditoriums and eyeballs to their broadcasts and social media sites (and dollars in their pockets!). But these characters are forgetting something as they build their measly empires. They are forgetting the One who brings us together, holds us together, and how God really works in constructing his house and planting his vineyard.

You see, a cornerstone is not just a pretty brick decorative sometimes installed with great ceremony but  functions by balancing the weight of two adjacent walls, so that together they hold up the structure instead of falling over under their own weight or when the wind blows hard. Similarly, an arch stands up because the pressure of two stacks of stones meet at the keystone, which turns what otherwise would be the momentum to collapse into the strength to hold up a wall even when we punch a hole in it for a doorway or a window. Just so, sometimes two oppressed or conflicted groups, or a seemingly unorganized group like a congregation, achieves unity because they want to realize the same audacious vision because Christ is the keystone and their solid foundation.

Jesus ups the ante when he reminds us that this keystone was plucked out of the rock pile. Discarded but now essential.

So, what’s your story? How has God turned the pressure points in your life into the building blocks of a renewed life? How has God flipped over your heart and turned loss, chaos, worry, or hopelessness into an everyday holiness that undergirds your life, however slight it may appear? Who in your life of faith has built you up and helped you stand even when things seemed to be falling apart around you? Over and over again, just like today’s Gospel images of vineyards and cornerstones, Jesus shows us that God takes what has been cast aside, trashed, stolen, or ridiculed and turns it into a lively, growing, transforming life of faith. All of us are invited—called—to take part in God’s work in God’s world, in God’s vineyard. But most important of all, it turns out that we are the very harvest we work for.

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost: October 4, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for 19 Pentecost (Proper 22A) Sunday, October 4, 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Work and Grace in the Vineyard

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A minister died and went to heaven. You know…the usual picture: He is standing in a long line of potential saints waiting to be vetted by St. Peter at the pearly gates. He looks ahead of him and sees a strange assortment of people, in particular the guy right in front of him, a guy named Mort, a New York taxi driver. He was short, unshaven, wearing a ball cap and a stained t-shirt. He smoking a cigar and spoke very gruffly with words like “Hey! Will ya hurry it up, up there?” and “I ain’t got all day!” 

The pastor thought, as he straightened the lapel on his black clerical suit, this should be interesting.

When Mort finally got to the lectern, he was warmly greeted by Saint Peter, who reached into an ornate jeweled box, and gave him a beautiful white and golden robe, a jeweled crown and with the words “Well done, good and faithful servant,” as he was led into heaven, with angel choirs singing as he was ushered in. 

Then the minister stepped up. Peter looked the pastor up and down over the top of his spectacles, with a “hmph.” Read over the list, uttering a series of grunts and clicking his tongue as he went. Sighing, he signals the pastor forward without looking up. Reaching down into a cardboard box on the floor, he gave the minister a terry cloth bathrobe, a pair of worn out fuzzy slippers, and a paper crown. He was then handed off to a tired old angel with a flashlight and a kazoo who just looked at him and grunted, and played an off key tune as he’s led to a side door. 

“Hey!” the pastor protests. “What’s the deal? I am a priest of the church! I preached the word of God and cared for the church! That … guy!... ahead of me gets the crown, the white robe, and the scepter…, and… and all I get is…is…this?”

Peter looks up from his book, sighs, and says “Look, here in heaven we look for results. When you preached, people slept. When Mort drove, people prayed.”

We all want life to be fair, especially to us. When we don’t get what we think we deserve, we feel cheated and resent the unfairness, the person getting what we wish we had, and the one giving out the prizes. 

The essence of Jesus’ teaching today is that God gives his grace and favor equally. We learn that God welcomes both those who are new to the Church and those who have observed the rules, rites, and traditions for a long time with equal fervor. This is never an easy lesson to hear: that the logic of country clubs, concerts, and fine restaurants, is not God’s logic. The economy of grace is different than the one we’re used to. Matthew remembered Jesus’ story because he was dealing with an early Christian community that was filled with two distinctly different groups of believers: Jewish Christians who carried with them both the covenant of the patriarchs and prophets alongside the new covenant in Jesus Christ. And there were recent converts, many of them Gentile who were Gentiles unfamiliar with the heritage and lineage of Israel. 

The early church had to cope with this. Much of the real estate of the New Testament, particularly in Acts and in Paul’s letters, are taken up with this question. Do the followers of Jesus who were also Jews, members of the Original Covenant People, have a higher standing in the community and before God than these new, Gentile, converts?

In our day… which is better? We “cradle Episcopalians” or people from other traditions who’ve come to our church and tradition late in the game? Or, even more, what about those folks who come to our church “just” for the 12-step groups, or the feeding programs, or to the Thrift Store? Or who just walked in the door not knowing anything about this churchy stuff?

Well, when you put it that way… I suppose we have to admit that the doors are open to everyone. And that God’s welcome and grace extends to strangers, visitors, newcomers, and long-timers alike. 

And there is an ethical component to this as well. If we start deciding who deserves or needs God’s grace and love more than others, then we not only risk putting ourselves in the place of God, but we start to neglect the health of our own souls and spirit as well as the spiritual lives of those seeking after God.

But there is still that nagging question of fairness. We can’t shake it! We struggle with fairness in the workplace, at school, and in our daily living. We hear it from kids complaining about “fairness” to grown ups wanting their piece of the pie.

We also struggle spiritually. Some religions have a hierarchy of heaven depending on how good or well-behaved you are or believe that what you are in this life depended on how good or bad you were in the last. Some traditions, even some Christian ones, set up a kind of hierarchy of grace that will determine how quickly one can get into heaven or if you’ll be stuck in a cosmic waiting room. Whatever. We can’t seem to get past the idea that God only loves us in proportion to our goodness. 

But Jesus has a different idea. He says that there is plenty of work in the vineyard. And it is all important work. Furthermore, there is plenty of grace to go around, too. The vineyard is big enough for all of us…long timers and newcomers both!

There is a message of comfort and hope to the late comers. So often I have heard people tell me that they wish they could pray, receive the sacrament, have faith, but they tell me, often with a sad shake of the head and a touch of resignation, that it is too late for them. But it’s never too late! What we learn from Jesus today is that whether we come to faith and come the vineyard early in the day or late, we are all called in and we all receive the same reward. It is not too early and it is never too late for any of us.

And there is a calling to and a message for long-timers: God wants all of us to share in his bounty, to apart of the family of God and community of Christ’s people. And while we are tempted to think of ourselves as more deserving or more worthy because of time served, that is not the point. The vineyard, God’s kingdom, is for everyone. And our job is not be gatekeepers or bouncers at the club, but inviters, ushers, and greeters, beckoning and welcoming people in.

Those of us who have been walking the faith walk longer than others have a job, and that is to help invite people into the vineyard before the day is done, give support and help to those who are new to the vineyard, and assist those who come after us, as well as those who are old hands, to become proficient workers in God’s vineyard. 

When we help someone to pray, or help them discover their gifts, or are present to someone in trouble and when we as a community are open to the enthusiasm and energy of people who, out of all expectation, have been called into the vineyard, then we are adding measure upon measure to the riches we have already received. 

Jesus teaches us that there is plenty of work in the vineyard

, that we all share the same wage—new life in Christ—no matter how long we’ve been at it, and that all of us, no matter how new or experienced we are, we all have much to learn, prayers to make, gifts to share, and lives to touch as the friends and apprentices of Jesus that we are.

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The Scripture for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 20A, September 20, 2026

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

Bulletin for the liturgy at St. Mary's, Dade City, FL

Reconciliation is the Main Thing (Part Two)

I know what Jesus says, but the truth is this: there are times when I don’t want to forgive! I want to get even. I want my day in court. My pound of flesh. I want everyone to know I’ve been wronged, and I want the one who hurt me to get what’s coming.

That’s the truth. And I know I am not alone. The problem of course, is what happens when we organize our lives around our injuries— when I start to build my living around all the ways that I have been denied my due, and all the ways I have been injured—then it becomes quickly apparent that my life will bear the fruit of anger, of fear, of resentment. And that’s why Jesus says what he says about forgiveness.

Forgiveness happens when we choose to no longer organize our lives around the things and the people who have hurt us.

What the late Presbyterian pastor and religious writer, Frederick Buechner said of the deadly sin of anger applies to forgiveness as well:

“Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”

But it is not magic. Forgiveness doesn’t come with the snap of a finger. Forgiveness is a journey and a discipline.

I remember an example of this from two decades ago, when five Amish schoolgirls were killed and 11 others were wounded by a gunman in Pennsylvania in 2006. What made this stand out from the rash of school shootings that have infected our country (and our unresolved trauma from 9/11/2001!), was that the Amish community not only comforted the shooter’s wife and children, but they also forgave the perpetrator. But what was even more astounding was the anger, the revulsion, and the vitriol that the Amish received from their “gentile” neighbors, the media, and even from preachers, because they forgave even as they mourned the deaths of their own innocent children.

A more startling example happened in 1948. Pastor Yang-Won Sohn’s two teenage boys were shot for being Christians by a rioter in Korea. Yang-Won not only forgave the shooter but arranged his release from prison and adopted him as his own son.

Were these people crazy? How can people forgive such heinous crimes against innocents? It messes with our minds. Yes, Jesus said forgive, but there must be an upper limit and these crazy people must have crossed it.

But Jesus said, forgive not seven times, but 70 times seven. OK, let’s count it up; we must be way beyond that limit now. But put away your calculators and be honest. We know that when Jesus said “Seventy times seven” he meant “always.” You must always forgive.

And then Jesus told a parable about the wicked slave who is forgiven a huge sum by his master but then shakes down a fellow slave and throws him in prison for being owed just a fraction. We hear in the story that the wicked slave gets his just punishment. “Good,” we may say. “He surely deserved that!” But notice that the wicked slave was not punished for back debt, but because he did not forgive. Jesus is very serious about this forgiveness thing.

The Apostle Paul reminds the Romans about another side of forgiveness. He reminds that how we treat each other because of our differences defines the quality and nature of our life together. So, some eat anything they want, others are vegetarians; they must not despise each other. Well, that’s easy enough. We can do that.

Some may worship God on one day, some on another; do not despise one or the other. Another easy one – we can do that! To each his own, we say!

But then Paul asks, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister?” meaning, why do we pass judgment on everybody else? Perhaps because we so often see immense hurt and evil in our world and we want to see justice done. We cannot imagine why people maim and kill innocent people. We cannot understand the sickness of domestic abuse, trafficking of young men and women and children, the horror of genocide. These evils need to be dealt with. They need to be eradicated from the earth, and humanity deserves to live in peace and safety. Forgiveness? Was Jesus being naïve when he said, “Seventy times seven?” Actually, no. Remember that even as Jesus was being executed, he prayed that God would forgive his tormentors and executioners “for they don’t know what they are doing.”

So, how do we start? We might look once again at the Amish. Their ability to forgive came from the center of their theology, which is the Lord’s Prayer. They believe it when they say, “…As we forgive those who trespass against us….” Over and over, Amish leaders tried to explain that to journalists and others who could not believe the parents of the dead little girls could forgive. The Amish in that community made quite clear that forgiveness did not take away the pain of the death of their children. It also did not take away the requirement that the perpetrator be held accountable. They were choosing not to build their lives around hatred for the person who caused that pain.

Forgiveness doesn't say, "It’s like it never happened”—that’s amnesia.

And forgiveness doesn't say, "well, nobody could have expected you to do any better"—that’s condescension.

And forgiveness doesn’t mean that one who injured us is freed from accountability—that’s cowardice.

Forgiveness puts demonizing the other person out of bounds. When we demonize another person, we deny their moral agency, as well as their fitness for being loved. In suggesting that the others are incapable of moral action—by turning them into monster-- we lets them off the hook. In so doing, we give away our power for good.

The truth is that when we are hurt and we want to hit back and we want to make the other person suffer but to choose not to, we have taken control of the situation but not in arrogance but in mercy and love. When we make the hard choice to stop organizing our lives around the injury, we are freed from the shackles of living in the past, feed from the fetters of living the injury over and over again, freed from the prison of rehearsing the hate.

You see, forgiveness doesn’t let the other person off the hook. Forgiveness frees us to continue to live faithfully and ethically.

Now I must underscore something that is very important and central to a full understanding of Christian forgiveness. Safety is a crucial component. Safety is all important. The fact is that abusive people often manipulate their victims into continuing their reign of emotional or physical terrorism but sneering things like “but what about forgiveness? I thought you were a Christian!” Please do not fall into that trap! Remember my definition of forgiveness: no longer organizing our lives around the injury? That means that sometimes we need to create a safe space, get away from (maybe far away from!) the perpetrator.

And when we are around people who, for whatever reason, bring out the worst in us, the forgiving thing to do is create the safe space that will not draw us into that destructive spiral.

In a few minutes, just after we recall Jesus’ gift of himself on the cross and just before we break the bread, which is also his body that feeds us, his body, we will pray the Lord’s Prayer. And we will all say, “as we forgive those who trespass (sin) against us.” As you let that prayer marinate in your heart, think about what the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said about forgiveness:

“The simple truth is, we all make mistakes, and we all need forgiveness. There is no magic wand we can wave to go back in time and change what has happened or undo the harm that has been done, but we can do everything in our power to set right what has been made wrong. We can endeavor to make sure the harm never happens again.”

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Here are the Scripture Lessons for 16 Pentecost (Proper 19A) Sunday, September 13, 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Meeting Jesus in the Storm

Here’s a riddle for you: Why did the disciples cross the lake? To get to the other side!

In Jesus’ day, the Sea of Galilee was a stormy place to sail anyway. It is actually a lot like sailing across the Great Lakes of North America. Water behaves differently on big inland fresh water lakes than they do on open oceans. The least bit of wind can create quite a tempest.  So, when the disciples were going across the water it was very rough going very quickly and they were stuck in the middle all night long, trying to make headway against a storm with an itty-bitty sail and oars.

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

Matthew is telling the story of what Jesus because the young church knew that they were sailing through a storm.

Around here, we know about storms. Not far from my house, there’s a sign on the road to the airport that is on a pole 15 feet high. It says that the storm surge from the bay will reach or cover that sign.

Many of us in these parts listen closely to the weather in hurricane season, put together a storm box in case the power goes out, know our flood zone by heart, and keep “go bags” at the ready in case we are told to bug out.  Mostly, we deal with them as best we can. We try to keep the water out and, if necessary, try to stay afloat, even if we don’t always make headway.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus walks across the water and through a storm to meet the disciples. Some paintings I have seen of this shows a serene Jesus walking across the water as peacefully as a stroll down a lane on a summer day. But I think that when Jesus walked across the water, he got very wet, and he probably looked like three miles of bad road when he finally did climb into the boat. The storm was all around him and the wind was still wailing. The powers of the storm and the wind and sea tried to overwhelm him but could not. He walked through the storm, not immune from its effects and fully immersed in its reality. The miracle is that he was not overpowered by it.

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

As he comes to the boat, the disciples see him and are afraid because they don’t know what to make of what they are seeing. But Jesus says to them the same thing he said on that third day in the upper room on that very first Easter: “Do not be afraid!”

Jesus comes and he brings peace, but the storm doesn’t stop. Not right away.  Which leads us to the rest of the story:

Oh, Peter. Poor old Peter!

We tend to give Peter short shrift because Jesus’ words to him after he is rescued sound to our ears like a rebuke: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” We hear the words “little faith” and think “no faith.” We humans are very binary, very “1” or “0” about almost everything. We expect ourselves to either have the kind of faith to move mountains and accomplish the impossible, or to have no faith at all. The truth is that we are all somewhere in between. We are all people of “little faith.”  Martin Luther said that we are simultaneously saints and sinners.  Which is why we identify so much with Peter, because he is a lot like us: a lion of the faith with a heart of gold who is at the very same dense, afraid, and reactive.

The disciples are not spiritual klutzes who can’t shoot straight. They are faithful people on a difficult journey, and Jesus meets them in the midst of storms.

We forget that Peter did in fact do what Jesus did. He walked on the water! Until, well, he didn't. Still, I'll bet he walked farther than I would have, that's for sure!

St. Brendan the Navigator

Being a Christian is all about imitating Christ, and Peter wants to be like Jesus and do what Jesus does. He asks Jesus to call him and he answers the call. Only the storm is real, and as Peter moves into the storm, he says “uh-oh!” But even as he is sinking, even as he feels overwhelmed, Peter still calls out to Jesus. And Jesus helps Peter and brings him back to the boat. Safely aboard the boat, still beset by the storm, Jesus stills the storm. 

How many of us have done exactly the same thing? Who among us has never bitten off more than that we can chew spiritually?

Every summer for about thirty years, I go to Icon Camp, where I gather with other artists, most of us amateurs to paint an icon—an ancient Eastern Christian form of religious art found in Russian and Greek churches. We take a week to gather at a monastery where we paint, pray, eat, kibbitz, and then paint some more. 

One year, we worked on an icon based on today’s Gospel. Part of the work that week was to do a study of Jesus’ hand grasping Peter’s wrist in the midst of a maelstrom. That study is the heart and focus of the larger icon. That study was not just a lesson on artistic technique but also a reminder of the three miracles described in today’s Gospel: Jesus walks on the water. Peter walks on the water. Jesus stills the storm.  But first, before all that everyone (Peter and Jesus included) gets wet.

And no matter what, Jesus calls us, watches us, and rescues us.

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

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost: August 9, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for 10 Pentecost (Proper 14A) Sunday, August 9, 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Jesus' manna moment

So, I have a question: was Jesus a foodie? Or did he just like dinner parties and big bashes?

I ask this because so much of Jesus’ teaching and even some of his miracles happen while there’s food around. Think about it: after the opening poem in John’s Gospel, the first thing we see is Jesus at a party turning water into wine. During another dinner with a bunch of religious leaders and lay people, a women crashed the party and washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair? Remember how, during his sojourn in the desert, Jesus is tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread—but, as hungry as he was, he doesn’t do it? On the other hand, when Jesus had dinner with Matthew and his tax collector friends, some of the local clerics and lay leaders grumbled about his gluttony? And, of course, there’s the last supper in the upper room where he washed his disciples’ feet and then celebrated a Passover meal with them! Remember how the risen Jesus appeared after the resurrection to the disciples as a group, around that very same dinner table, and how another time, the Risen Jesus cooks his fisherman-followers breakfast over a campfire?  After walking along the Emmaus road with a pair of sad, grief-stricken followers of Jesus, they didn’t recognize his risen self until he breaks bread with them in their own upper room.

So many encounters over so many meals! I guess we shouldn’t be all that surprised that Jesus would choose to feed a big crowd of people who came to hear him with baskets and baskets of food that he blessed and multiplied out of a kid’s bag lunch.

The miraculous feeding with the loaves and fishes must have on made an impression on Jesus’ followers, because it shows up six times in all four Gospels. Six! All the Gospels have at least one account of this, but Matthew and Mark have two… when Jesus fed 5000 of mainly Jewish listeners, and 4000 mostly Gentile folks in a place called the Decapolis. 

This repetition is a very big deal!

The people in the four early church communities that gave us the Gospels remembered these miracles not just because they were spectacular, but precisely because they were repeated. My hunch is that miraculously feeding lots of people from a small grocery bag was a regular, or at least not infrequent, part of Jesus’ preaching and proclamation. It sits right up there with the various healings and his way of teaching.  Jesus demonstrates the abundance of God’s love, grace, and care for all of us in that is once practical and spectacular: by feeding hungry people.

There feedings were Jesus’ manna moments. Not just once, as with the miracle of the manna in the wilderness in Exodus, but time and time again. And just like Moses’ miracle in the desert, Jesus feeds the people both freely and abundantly every single time.

Today, we associate the Eucharist with the very stylized but spare meal that we do in church every week. But in the early church, the line between a festive dinner, often called an Agape meal, and the Eucharist was almost indistinguishable. Sometimes early Christians got so carried away with the festivity, that the parties could get out of hand. At one point, the Apostle Paul had to remind the Christians in Corinth not only to settle down, but also that the folks who could afford catered meals had to look out for (and share with) people who could only bring a small casserole or loaf of bread.

Eventually, the Eucharist got separated from the banquets, so that today we celebrate, in a very ritualized way, the infinite grace imparted using only a tiny piece of blessed wafer and a sip of sacramental wine. After that, we proceed to the parish hall for coffee, iced tea, and yummy treats, or sometimes to a wonderful meal.

I will never forget how my first parish had a community meal (aka, a soup kitchen) six days a week, and that every week a Eucharist preceded it every Wednesdays at noon. That simple celebration was often attended by the same people who both served the food and those who shared the meal. For a lot of these folks, that meal was their only meal of the day, and that service was their only church. And for them, the two meals, both the one in church and the one in the dining room, were deeply linked. They couldn’t have one without the other.

Today’s Gospel reminds us that the grace imparted in the Eucharistic meal and the grace seen in the feeding of the five thousand are both practical expressions of God's never-ending, generous love.

But more than that, Matthew’s church remembered how Jesus fed the 5000 and put in their Gospel story an act of practical reminiscence. Because when Jesus took this small offering of food, blessed and broke the bread, and gave it to his disciples to hand out, he demonstrated what all of Jesus’ images of small seeds growing into big shrubs, yeast rising into loaves, someone finding treasure hidden in a field and buying it, a woman turning her house upside down to find a lost coin was really all about. The feeding of the five thousand was for them, and us, a living demonstration of those little kingdom parables.  Jesus showed us that the kingdom of God is all around us all the time, and that God's grace abounds not only in sanctuaries but in fields, on hill tops, and in the homes, farms, and shops of ordinary people. The reign of God is found in lunch boxes as well as in temples. Jesus shows us we are all called to love, care for, and feed one another, and that in God’s economy the smallest acts of kindness and compassion makes all the difference in the world.

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost: August 2, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for 10 Pentecost (Proper 13A) Sunday, August 2 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

So, what now?

So, what now?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Hospitality is the Heart

“Welcome!”

Everywhere we go, someone or some place is welcoming us. We put out welcome mats. Some stores have greeters whose only job is to say "welcome" to customers as they enter. Go into a restaurant and you might hear, "Good evening and welcome! Table for two?" Just up the road here on Belcher Road one sign welcomes us to Largo if you’re going south, and across the street another sign welcomes us to Clearwater as we drive north. The ring master at the circus starts the show wearing his top-hat and tails, saying "Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and girls! Welcome to the greatest show on earth!"

Welcome is a lovely word with a long history, compounding two familiar words, "well" and "come," though with slightly different meanings than what we use today. The root of "well" could mean something like "wellness" or "well-being," or can be a kind of blessing to “be well.”  "Come" is from an Old English word for one who arrives—no surprises there. So, in its earliest sense, "welcome" is an invitation and a blessing to be received into the goodness of this new place, where one has just arrived.t

Making one feel welcome is not as simple as offering a word. Preparing to welcome someone is an art that takes thought, intention, and discipline. Some practitioners of hospitality are always ready with the accoutrements of welcome: an appropriate beverage, the right food at the right time, a comfortable chair, a few thoughtful and respectful questions of the guest. An effective welcome courteously wipes away the strangeness or awkwardness of a new setting and makes one feel at home.

And during the past few weeks we've seen the power of welcome in cities all over the US have welcomed soccer, er... football!... teams from all over the globe to the world cup. I've loved the images of Japanese players enjoying barbeque in Kansas City, the Scottish Tartan Army in Boston, and we can thank the Dutch in Houston for planting in us that joyous earworm as we dance to the left and to the right. It was such a good time, that the Scots even wrote a public thank you note to the people of Boston (after drinking all their beer)!  

For Jews and Christians, hospitality has always been at the heart of who we are. The call to welcome the stranger is anchored in the Torah and was a part of the measure of the Hebrew community's faithfulness to God. Jesus both received hospitality and taught his followers to be hospitable.

Welcome is built into the geography and culture of the Holy Land. We are used to our planes, trains, and automobiles, but for most of human history people travelled at a walking pace. And if you were going from Europe or Asia Minor to Persia, the Nile Delta or Africa, or back, it meant that one went on foot… or maybe by horse or camel… through a narrow strip of land with the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the desert or mountains to the east. One of the reasons that Israel and Palestine is “holy land” is that it exists on a vital land bridge between three continents. Geography is one reason that so many ancient empires coveted that territory so much. And because the whole world seemed to walk through, hospitality was baked into Hebrew culture from the start.

Of course, travelers on this land bridge were rarely family. These were folks unknown to the community. They were aliens and foreigners, people who ate different foods, wore different clothes, spoke different languages, worshipped different gods. Opening one's home could be risky but survival depended upon hospitality. Today we'd describe such a thing as out and out foolishness. So, while our homes might have welcome mats, we also have locks, doorbells, peep holes, and even cameras that broadcast to our phones when a person is at the door. It’s been true since the dawn of time, that’s why there were also walled cities in ancient times. We humans might need hospitality, but we also fear the stranger.

In biblical times, hospitality was central to Hebrew identity. Remember the story of Jesus born in a manger? Or Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan? The risk did not define the people; their hospitality did, because hospitality is central to the character of God.

Early Christian communities were also welcoming and hospitable. Paul reminded the Romans to offer hospitality to the alien, and in the Letter to the Hebrews we are reminded to show hospitality to everyone because, you never know, you might be entertaining angels in disguise. In Acts, the early deacons practiced hospitality throughout the community, bringing welcome to those in need. And in Matthew's community, hospitality is a measure of the faithfulness of the people. Welcoming prophets, righteous ones, and disciples (whom Matthew’s Gospel called "little ones") was a disciplined practice of the young churches.

In her book Amazing Grace, Kathleen Norris tells the story of a nun who, although she had Alzheimer's, still asks to be rolled in her wheelchair to the door of her nursing home so she can greet every guest. Said one nun of her sister in ministry, "She is no longer certain what she is welcoming people to...but hospitality is so deeply ingrained in her that it has become her whole life.” Norris writes that "in monastic spirituality…, only people who are basically at home, and at home in themselves, can offer hospitality...hospitality has a way of breaking through our insularity.”

Welcome as a practice of hospitality doesn't just happen. It must be taught. But such lessons don't come easily in our society. Some years ago, when I was serving as a hospital chaplain, I used to go around filling in for small churches. In nearly every case, the congregations were warm and welcoming… and also set in their ways. And occasionally, as sometimes happens when you see the same folks week after week, a congregation might get a little rusty in the art of welcome.

I remember going to one church for the first time and had no idea how they did things. I chatted with the organist and a lector, but after I put on my vestments, I found myself all alone in the sacristy with no idea how to find the sanctuary or where to procession formed. I opened a door, thinking it led into the church, and found myself outside and before I could turn around, the door closed. Locked. So, I went to the front of the church, thinking at least I could go in the front door, and, wouldn’t you know, the big red doors facing the busy main street under an “Episcopal Church Welcomes You” sign, was also locked. I could hear the opening hymn start up, and the tower bell rang over my head, but I couldn’t get in! It looked like it was going to be a very short service that Sunday! I knocked as loudly as I could… pounded on the door, actually. Finally, a fellow in choir robes opened the door, looked at me as if I had grown two heads, and asked, “What are you doing there? We never use this door!”

Hospitality isn’t just about being nice, and it’s more than putting out a welcome mat. It's a matter of attention: attention to those barriers, impediments, biases, and obstacles that we construct through habit and tradition, that can be barriers to the good news, a deterrent to participation in the church, and a distraction from abundant life in Jesus Christ.

The Greek word for stranger—xenos – is also the word for guest and host. In this age of contemporary tribal warfare, of Balkanization and gated communities, most of us are aware of the term "xenophobia," or fear of the stranger. This fear leads to nationalism, racism, and even genocide.

But, on the other hand, Jesus' call to welcome another is a call to “xenophilia,” or love of stranger. With xenophilia, the stranger is also the guest, and in the Gospel of Luke, welcoming the stranger is how the risen Christ is made known after that long walk on the Emmaus road, becoming both the guest and the host.

Hospitality is a skill that is taught. It all begins with practice, by simply doing hospitable things. The best hosts simply bring who we are, what we have, where we are, as graciously as we are able. Sure, that might mean putting out the best china, silver, and linens; at other times it may simply be a cup of coffee in a disposable cup and a cookie. In every case, it is the gesture itself, the practice, that shapes the character of the encounter, and the participants, into a story of grace that is the essence of the moment.

Often, we learn such lessons by experiencing just how involved hospitality can be. A coarse blurt of honest feelings might let off some steam in the moment, but it rarely serves the target of our discharge, or ourselves for that matter. But a gracious welcome can transform not only a moment but a life. A thoughtful pause, a quiet nod, an encouraging, courteous word of welcome can make Christ's presence known and perhaps even help one hear God's call.

I learned this a long time ago when I was a brand-new deacon and priest. I served a church in a small city that had seen it’s mills and factory close and leave town, the parish ran a six-day a week noonday meal that was free to everyone, as well as a food pantry, a fund for emergency fuel-oil, and hosted several twelve-step groups. The parish also served a small group of special needs adults who used to be housed in big institutions, but who now lived in nearby apartments or group homes.

One of those folks was a guy named Billy, who was always the first one to arrive at church, waiting for whoever would unlock the doors on Sunday mornings. Billy had no filters and no ‘off’ switch. The previous Rector taught him to light and put out the candles for the early Sunday Eucharist, and to serve the altar, which he did very faithfully. But this also meant that every Sunday the early service was a kind of liturgical improv because one never knew exactly when an item would come next, or what it might be. Remember that lack of an “off” switch? From the moment he came to the time he went home, he talked, hummed, sang, or would parrot whatever car or motorcycle drove past the church during the service. It was simply how Billy was wired.

And I have to say, it drove me bananas! Raised, as I was, in a household where church meant a certain decorum, I was not prepared for this! But my supervisor, a retired Cathedral Canon (whom Billy called ‘Kenny’), never seemed to mind. He took every curve ball in stride.

One day, after a particularly wild Sunday that severely tested my stamina, I went to my mentor and asked him how he did it. How could he handle Billy so calmly and graciously, while I was so wired from not knowing what would come next.

After a moment’s thought, the Canon said, “Well, Andrew, he’s Jesus.” At first, I felt about two inches tall, but that wisdom changed everything for me. It was from there that I began to develop what has become a regular prayer for me:

“Grant us the grace, O God, to see the face of Jesus in the people you bring to us; and also give us grace to be the face of Jesus to those who seek Him.”

Welcoming another requires attention to the other. The welcome Jesus invites us to share is an act of grace, vulnerability, and love because we must set aside our discomfort around difference or strangeness and choose instead to accept the grace of meeting another of God’s children as they are. And in that meeting, we are reminded what Jesus taught us: that in giving even a cup of cold water to one of Jesus’ little ones is also caring for Jesus himself.

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 8A), June 28, 2026, at St. John's Church, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (8A).

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.