Everything for God's Purpose

Revised and updated.

Today’s Gospel lesson reminds me of an old story about the richest man in town.

Once upon a time, there a was a small town, and the richest man in town lived in a big house on a big hill overlooking the town, he was driven around in a big car, and he wore the best clothes, and ate the best food. If you were new to town or passing through and knew nothing else about this man, you knew he was the richest man in town. Well, one day the church in town got a new pastor and the church needed a new roof. The young pastor said to his vestry, “why don’t we ask the guy in the big house on the hill to contribute to our building fund? I’ll bet he could pay for the roof and maybe more!” The board members looked at each other knowingly, but shrugged and said, “sure pastor, give it a try.”

So, he goes up to the big house on the big hill and rings the doorbell, introduces himself to the butler and, after leaving him on the front porch for a while, he lets him in and brings him to the study of the wealthy man, who demands to know what the young pastor wants.

After explaining the church’s need for a roof and their list of deferred maintenance items, he asks the man to donate to the church. The rich man thinks for a moment, and says, “Well, I’d like to help, but I don’t think God wants my money.”

Puzzled, the pastor asks him how he knows that.

“Every week,” the rich man says, “I take a pile of cash, and I throw some it up in the air, and I tell God you can keep whatever you want, but it always falls back on the floor. So clearly God doesn’t want it.”

Sometimes, we have a hard time reconciling our money and our faith. Today’s Gospel is another example of that.

At this point in the Gospel of Matthew and in Jesus’ ministry, people are approaching Jesus with all kinds of questions. Some came to learn and some were there to challenge. And some folks posed questions meant to trip Jesus up with the hope that he would seem silly. Matthew’s Gospel tells us that the Pharisees got together with the Herodians because as much as they disagreed with each other, they both were suspicious of Jesus.

The people who approached Jesus represented two very different groups. The Pharisees did not want to give any money to their pagan oppressors and so were opposed to paying taxes to Rome. On the other hand, King Herod’s position of power, as king of Israel, came courtesy of the Romans, so even though the taxes were widely considered to be oppressive, the Herodians had a vested interest in keeping the Roman’s happy and that meant ‘pay the taxes.’ In their way, the Pharisees and the Herodians each reflected the horns of the dilemma.

These two groups wanted to know where Jesus landed… whose side he was on. The question they pose, “according to the Law of Moses, is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” was meant to tease that out.

Would Jesus side with the Herodians (pay the taxes!) or with the Pharisees (keep the money…or at least put it one of the temple charities instead of shipping it off to Rome).

What was Jesus to do? Speak against the tax which would anger the Herodians and lead to a charge of treason against Rome? Talk up the tax which would anger and alienate most of the crowds that followed him, because they hated the Roman occupiers of their nation?

Well Jesus went another way. Think ahead to when Jesus would chase the money changers out of the outer courts of the Temple. They were in business because anyone making an offering at the Temple was required to exchange Roman currency for Temple coins, but for a price, kind of like those currency exchange booths at airports. You see, carrying the image of Caesar, who claimed divinity for himself, into the Temple was considered sinful idolatry. And there was money to be made at the table where Roman money was exchanged for temple money and back again. 

Which is why, when Jesus asks for a Denarius, at least one of his questioners reaches into his pocket or purse and hands it to Jesus. He shows how bound up they all were -- especially his challengers--  in a system that kept them down when he proves that at least one of the questioners was a hypocrite. 

Actually, I kind of envision a bunch of people in the crowd all producing a Denarius all at the same time! The coin Jesus asked to see was a silver Denarius with the image of Caesar on one side, and on the reverse, the image of a woman named Pax or personified peace. The coins were little portable graven images.

Jesus then asks the question that everyone in Israel could have answered without a coin in hand, “Whose head is this and whose title?” We don’t hear it in English, but word for “head” in the Gospel is “icon,” a Greek word better translated as “image.” The word “title” is better translated as “likeness.” When they answer Jesus’ question, saying that the image and likeness are “Caesar’s,” Jesus replies that they are to give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. After all, it’s his coin anyway, who cares?

Then Jesus gives the punch line: “give back to God the things that are God’s.”

I’ll bet when Jesus said this, immediately, everyone starts calculating in their head exactly how much we are supposed to give back to God.

Now before you pull out your phone’s calculator app, think about the word “icon” or “image” and the word “likeness.” Whose likeness is on the coin? For us, it’s Washington or another dead president. But whose likeness is on… us?

Jesus’ answer pointed his challengers to their Sabbath-school lessons: In Genesis 1:26-27, it says, “And God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness,’” and goes on to state, “God created humankind in his Image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

The principle is this: Just as the coin has Caesar’s icon on it and so belongs to him, so we are made in the image and likeness of God, so we are God’s.  Jesus says “tax schmax! What we owe to God is far greater and far more important!”

This text is often used to talk about stewardship in terms of what you give to the church. But this is not a passage on the tithe. Tithing is good, and it is basic standard of giving for the Episcopal church, and I agree that we should all strive to meet that. But if giving 10 percent of our income is the only thing we do, then we would fall well more than 90 percent shy of the mark.

Jesus says that everything we have and everything we are belongs to God because we bear the image and likeness of God. In our faith and in our baptisms, we’ve been grafted into God’s vineyard, made part of God’s household, and are adopted into Christ’s family.

Jesus is teaching us that everything, 100% of what we have… and who we are… is to be used for God’s purposes.

Your house, use it for God’s purpose. Your car, use it for God’s purpose. Your credit, your stuff, and your savings are to be used for God’s purposes. Yes, clothe yourselves, have safe shelter, go from place to place safely and comfortably, save and spend wisely, enjoy and maintain what you have… and share it, knowing that it all belongs to God and God wants you and all you have to be used for God’s purposes! I am not saying to sign everything over to the church… that’s what cults and religious con-artists say. I mean that are to use we have for God’s purposes. 

So, what does that mean? Well, for starters: love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself. 

It also means caring for the world that we are placed in, taking care of the only planet we have and listening to the scientists who study and teach us about the place we call home, and which we charged by God from the very beginning to nurture and care for.

And, I must add, giving Caesar his due means also to hold Caesar accountable. In our country, that means vote, show up, tell your elected representatives at every level, local, county, state, and federal, what's going on and put the pressure on so that they act-- not for the sake of the wealthy donors, but for the people they represent.  Giving Caesar what is due Caesar and God what is God's comes together when we advocate for the powerless, the poor, the forgotten, and for the everyday ordinary citizen. That's why the Church can seem like such a gadfly sometimes, because if we don't speak up and work for the weakest and the poorest amongst us, who will? 

Jesus was not preaching benign disengagement, and we know that because he spoke to the wealthy and powerful, he rode into Jerusalem as a different kind of king, and on the cross he experienced the full wrath of the state, only to defeat both in resurrection and ascension, capped off with Pentecost. Reminding those in power that God is in charge and cares for all people and the whole creation, ain't easy, but it sure is biblical. 

You have been made in the image and likeness of God. In baptism, you have been marked as Christ’s own forever. What God wants is nothing less than to come and abide in your heart. God loves you. God keeps your picture in the divine wallet and on the heavenly refrigerator. Jesus did not care about the tax, because his real concern was that we live into being the image and likeness of the God who lovingly created each and every one of us.

We begin to live into the image and likeness of God by conforming our living to be more like Jesus’ life. Giving back to God through the church does matter—and so does paying our bills and our taxes—but it’s only the beginning.

To live more fully into that image and likeness of God that is in you, give your heart back to God – for it is God’s anyway. Our money is our power for good. Our voice is our power for good. We are called to use them for good. Our money allows us to care for ourselves, for our family, friends, neighbors, and even the stranger or the person across town or the globe who we’ve never even met. Our voice, our time, our creativity, our smarts and our skills are just as much our power for doing good. We choose to live and do business ethically. We don’t hoard out of fear, but we trust that God is at work even in the hidden places of our lives and is making us whole. Our time, talent, and treasure are the tools the people God use to do the work of God for the people gives to us.

The answer to the question “What are the things that are God’s which we are to give back to God?” is both simple and awesome all at once. The answer is, “You.”

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost: October 18, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for 21 Pentecost (Proper 24A) Sunday, October 18, 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here.

Imitating the Logos Everyday

They say that in some cultures and in some places, taking a photograph of a person is thought to take a piece of the soul away from the subject. I don’t know about that, but I have noticed that when one sees a well-done portrait or photograph of a person, something of the personality, something of the essence of the subject is captured and communicated through that image.

This is what the Gospel of John means when he uses the word “Word” to describe Jesus Christ. When Jesus is described as “the word,” we are seeing translation of the Greek work logos. “Logos” is more than vocabulary. It’s not the hint in a crossword puzzle. Instead, “logos” is the very image, the exact, real presence of the subject. in this case God’s own self who is made present, visible, and real to us. John is saying that Jesus is the perfect expression of the Living God.

Imagine a time before photographs, a time before movies, television, or even newspapers. All we had were each other’s words. The Gospels were invented in an age when the written word was nearly magical because it had the power to actually represent the presence of the writer. People who could write had an important job because they had to transcribe the speaker’s words exactly, with no interpretation, editing, or comments, not even footnotes. And the people who could read had an equally important job… they were conveying the living presence of the writer to people who might be far away in time or distance from the writer.

So, for example, when Paul wrote his letters to the churches, he was in a way sending himself, his voice, to those early churches. Even the Gospels were more than written records of the comings, goings, and teachings of Jesus; hearing about Jesus from Gospels was like sitting around the campfire hearing the story. This is why in Jewish tradition the scrolls of the Hebrew Bible are so important even after the invention of the printing press: they are the record of the first people who told The Story, written out by hand as it was spoken the first time.

The Gospels kicked it up a notch from the Epistles because they are meant to convey what it was like to see, hear, and experience Jesus just as if you were there in person seeing Him for the first time.

So when John uses the word “Word” in the first chapter of John’s Gospel it’s much more than a clever pun. The writer carefully chose this word to talk about Jesus. Jesus is the perfect Logos, the perfect Word, but without transcription error.

John says the Word does two things in Jesus Christ. First, the Word was made flesh and lives among us. Second, the Word brings light where there was darkness.

And he says that people who hear the word and recognize the light…who believe in Jesus…receive power from God to become God’s children…and we continue to witness to the Light and communicate the Word.

What does it mean to reveal the Logos, the Word, to the world?

Let's start with Christmas. We are celebrating the generosity of God, and entering into that generosity is the key to keeping our spirits up when times are down.

If you look at the history of the Church, we find Christians and Christianity are at their very best when they entered into generosity, which gave them the power to move heroically and confidently through difficult times.

Think about it. Have you ever wondered how it was that the Christian church grow so fast in its early years? It wasn’t because Christians all had one set of clear doctrines—they were centuries away from agreeing about how to talk about God, and still were working out the implications of Jesus’ incarnation, death, and resurrection, and the Church was centuries away from deciding what books would be included in their scriptures. Some people think that the Emperor Constantine had enough of all the different expressions of Church in his empire, but by the time Constantine converted… or semi-converted in the year 313 (because it’s not clear that he was ever baptized and if he was, it was probably on his death-bed) Christianity had become so widespread throughout the Empire, that was he merely bowing to that fact. In other words, he was counting votes.

Still, even with official recognition, there was a lot that had to be worked out... the Church had no single creed, no unified liturgy, no agreed upon Scripture. The funny thing is that, even with all that imprecision, the Church grew so much that the Roman Empire effectively shrugged and said “Well, we can’t beat ‘em, so we’ll join ‘em.” How come?

I believe that Christianity grew so fast mostly because Christians were known for their unusual compassion for those around them, especially toward those who were not members of their faith. From the Book of Acts onward, we see that they raised money on one continent to aid those on another continent, never for a moment presuming to think that mean little thought, that charity begins at home. They knew that charity begins when we help people that we not only don’t know but might not even care for, just as the Good Samaritan did for the injured stranger, just as Jesus did by leaving his heavenly home for our sake. 

Around the year 250 a plague struck Alexandria, Egypt, and killed more than half of the population. People who could afford it, got out of Dodge as fast as they could—except the Christians. In a time of panic and danger, they stayed in town and cared for the sick and dying, and some of them paid for that generosity with their lives. And what happened? People joined the church.

Throughout the empire, Christians were known to patrol the garbage dumps, but they weren’t looking for antiques or things to salvage and sell. Those dumps were where people placed infants they didn’t want, and the church got a reputation for saving lives that others had put in the trash. And people joined the church.

Again, in the Alexandrian community, those who lived on the church’s dole would often go entirely without food one day a week so that they, too, would have something to give others showing how generosity begets generosity; and, along the way, people joined the church.

It turns out the Word is not merely spoken it is imitated. The way we encounter the Word made flesh is to imitate the Word made flesh.  And the way we imitate the Word made flesh is to do acts of kindness, mercy and generosity—especially when times are hard, even to people we don't know or who are different than we are.

Throughout my ministry I have seen that in action in parish communities just like this one. I see here how you gather up unused or surplus food from I-don’t-know-where, and then open the doors, put up a sign and give it away. My last parish, St. John's in Clearwater, hosts a group called Good Neighbors who does this on a county-wide scale. They gather food that stores and restaurants would otherwise throw in the dumpster and sends it feeding programs, community meals, and shelters in Hillsborough and Pinellas County. I’ve seen churches where members fan out to deliver meals on wheels, who tithe their pledges to a different community mission or charity every month, who bring in boxes of books to give to kids who don’t have books of their own to read. I’ve seen parishioners in churches just like this take their beautiful poinsettias to their homebound and shut in members or to nursing homes to give to people who have no one to give them a Christmas gift or visit.

The list can go on and on, and it will because time and again, we discover and demonstrate the Word made flesh by imitation. Our prayer, our worship, our study, our life together and the way we care for each is how we find Him dwelling amongst us. And the more we imitate the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, the more we ourselves find ourselves living in Christ’s image, becoming a reflection of God’s love who then practically and usefully share the presence of God to others.

As baptized people, as followers, friends, and apprentices of Jesus Christ, we are a living picture that shows off the very substance of God to a hurting, waiting world.

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Scripture for the First Sunday after Christmas, December 28, 2025

St. Chad's Episcopal Church, Tampa, Florida 

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here

God's reign on earth as in heaven

This last Sunday of the Church’s year is often called “the feast of Christ the King” and while that might sound strange, in fact, you pray that Christ will reign in glory all the time, don’t you? Yes, you really do!

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, as a group or on our own, we pray that God’s will and God’s Kingdom will happen on earth as it happens in heaven.

Nice idea. But exactly what would that look like?

Well, I suppose it depends on what your idea of heaven is.

If you think that heaven is like all those cartoons and jokes … filled with puffy clouds, where everyone has a halo, wings, and a harp, after getting through pearly gates and past the heavenly Maître d, then I guess then you either want heaven to be really peaceful and quiet with harp music over the loudspeakers—or maybe you want a place to get away from it all.  And how would that show up on earth? Probably in a kind of religion that says we don’t ever talk about things that are hard: like poverty…or war… or sickness… or ethics…. We'd just speak comfortable things, focusing only on ‘being saved’ or spiritual gifts without ever thinking about the ethical demand that grows out of following Jesus, and the grace and power of the Holy Spirit to live a transformed, compassionate, active life of service and prayer.

If you think that heaven is filled up with people who think and act just like us, then I guess that heaven will look a lot like our Facebook pages, and wouldn’t that be a sad, boring thing? Imagine eternity living itself out in pretty familiar ways, as we do right now. We would only watch what we like, hang out only with people just like us, and with folks that pretty much believe and act the way we think they’re supposed to. I don’t know about you, but I doubt that this what Jesus had in mind when he taught us his prayer, or when he talked about the ones who enter into God's reign in today's Gospel.

And how we view heaven and God’s reign has an impact on our everyday ethics and behavior because if you think heaven is only going to be filled up with people who do right or believe right or think right, then you probably think that life today should be managed and governed only by people who do, believe, and think the right way—however you define that!

The problem with these approaches is that we end up spending a lot of time trying to manage how other people believe, feel, think, and act. We want to make them straighten up and fly right.

Another problem is that this turns our biases, prejudices, and assumptions into different kinds of idols. Because we try to get heaven (and God) to conform to our image not the other way around

But if we really believe what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, then our prayer is that God will act and be present in our lives every day just as God is present and at work in heaven. What will that look like?

Well, let’s ask Jesus—or at least today’s Gospel lesson! — where Jesus asks simply “did you do on earth what God does in heaven?”

We tend to think of God’s final judgment as something big, and cosmic and grand. We think of God sorting out the good from the bad. What I love about this story is that Jesus’ sets it up exactly as how we would expect it—and then turns it upside down!

In today’s Gospel, we see that Christ returns in glory surrounded by angels. And he separates the nations into those who will enter heaven and those destined for eternal punishment.

And what’s the criteria for entrance?

Is it right belief? Nope!

Is it belonging to the right religion or denomination? Nyet!

Is it doing the right ritual at the right time? Uh-uh!

In this passage, the criteria for entrance into Heaven turns out to be simple kindness. How simple? So simple that the people being welcomed—or not—did not even notice that they had the opportunity to act.

When did we feed you? When did we clothe you? When did we care for you? When did we visit you?

Jesus’ answer: when you took care of anyone who was hungry or naked or sick or in prison or alone or in trouble.

The Bible Scholars may laugh me out of the room, but I see this passage in Matthew 25 as a kind of commentary on the Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter 6. It is an image and description of how God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

One of my all-time favorite movies is “42”, the story of Jackie Robinson (played by the late Chadwick Boseman) and his first season with the Brooklyn Dodgers as the first black player in Major League Baseball in the modern era (since Moses Fleetwood Walker played for Cleveland in the 1880’s). Today’s Gospel made me remember a scene in the film when Branch Rickey, the manager of the Dodgers, played by Harrison Ford, gets a call from Herb Pennock the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1947. Pennock wants Rickey to leave Robinson in Brooklyn, saying that if Robinson comes to Philadelphia, the Phillies won’t take the field.

Branch Rickey asks Pennock “You think God likes baseball, Herb?

“What - ?” replied Pennock. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” shouts Rickey into the phone before slamming it down, “someday you're gonna meet God, and when he inquires as to why you didn't take the field against Robinson in Philadelphia, and you answer that it's because he was a Negro, it may not be a sufficient reply!”

At this time of the rolling year, I start following my personal annual tradition of re-reading Charles Dickens’ famous little book A Christmas Carol. I especially like to hear the version acted out as a one-man show by Patrick Stewart (not the TV movie), while I drive.

One of the things that stands out for me every time I read it, either in print or on audio, Dickens idea of hell. Hell is not a place where “goats” and “sheep” (as they are called in Jesus’ story today) are separated into camps but someplace far scarier. Instead of going to fiery pits, A Christmas Carol describes the eternal wailing and gnashing of the condemned, the "goats," if you will, happening right here on earth.

As Marley’s ghost leaves him, warning of the three spirits yet to visit him, a shaken and startled Ebenezer Scrooge looks out the window of his bedroom and sees a world where “the air was filled with phantoms,” all carrying chains, cash boxes, safes, and bags of gold, wailing “mournful dirges.” And they wail because they see poverty and want all around them and wish to intervene for good but have lost forever the power to do so.

Marley’s ghost moans his plight, holding up his own chain that bind him, explaining: “I wear the chain I forged in life.... I made it link by link, and yard by yard….” He says he forged the chain in life and that Scrooge's own spiritual chain was even longer and heavier than his.

“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” 

I think about that scene as every day and every week we pray that simple, radical prayer that Jesus taught us and which we learned as children. And in that prayer, we pray that what God wills in heaven will be done on earth.  Unlike Marley’s ghost, we have the power right now to intervene for good.

As you think about the blessings you’ve received, and contemplate how to return those blessings to God through your pledge and giving to this church and elsewhere, as you think about how you might use your time, talent, and treasure for God’s purposes think about the lesson of today’s Gospel. God has given you the tools, the grace, the means, and the power to participate in God's reign, but has left us the choice to take that up in practical ways every day. 

Notice that in Dicken's story, one of the things that changes for Scrooge after his conversion is his relationship to money. Instead of hoarding it and, in a way, fearing it; his wealth becomes his power for good.

How we respond to the people God has given to us will depend largely on how we use our treasure, time, and talent for good. In the story, Scrooge's money becomes, after his conversion, the way that he touches the lives of not only the Cratchits, but his city and community. His transformation is halting at first but grows, as illustrated in how he joins in with the worship of his local church at Christmas, how he repents to the two 'portly gentlemen,' and how he helps the Cratchits, at first in secret and then in a renewed relationship. Dicken’s describes the effect of his spiritual transformation in terms of both his ethics and his generosity, as well as his personality.

For Jesus, the key to the kingdom—what makes God’s kingdom and God’s will happen on earth just as it happens in heaven-- is so simple that we can overlook it…. Or we can just as easily practically and usefully participate in God’s reign by serving the ones described in today’s Gospel: the hungry, the sick, the lonely, the naked, the homeless, the imprisoned. Here is the mark of God’s work being done on earth as in heaven. It is when people act in kindness, have the eyes to see God’s face in the people God gives to us, the ears to hear God's voice in them, and the willingness to be God’s hands, feet, and voice, to those who seek him and cry out for justice and compassion. 

Every day we pray to live and do God’s will, no matter where it takes us; and every day we have the power in our own small ways to do just that.

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Bulletin for Worship for the Last Sunday after Pentecost (aka "Christ the King" or "The Reign of Christ"), November 26, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the Last Sunday after Pentecost, November 26, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on November 26, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on November 26, 2023.

God's gifts, God's purposes, Our action

I have a question for you: What the heck is a talent?

We hear the word all the time. In our culture, a talent isn’t money but a skill, perhaps an aptitude that we cultivate, train, and use, like artistic or musical talent, or a person with a talent (or head) for money. But that is not what Jesus is talking about here.

So what is a “talent?” Well, you know those billboards for the lottery… the ones that have the size of the current jackpot in great big numbers. That’s a talent. If you suddenly had in your hand enough money to equal the average annual salary times twenty… that’s a talent.

So imagine if you hit the jackpot. What would you do?

Now the servants in Jesus’ story did not hit the jackpot. They were people that the master had come to trust, and in the story he entrusted them with what amounted to a winning lottery ticket—with one proviso. Make it grow. Make it grow on my behalf, he said. And then give it back.

Imagine if someone gave you a big pile of money and said to you, “I am going away now,” you take this big pile of money and make it grow and when I come back I will collect what you’ve made. What would you do?

The three Servants in Jesus’ story had some things in common. For one thing, the master trusted them all. He believed them to be responsible. And he thought he knew them well enough to give them as much as they could handle, but not too much. So the master must have thought the third servant had some skills, some gifts, some ability—because even though he was given the smallest amount, it was not chump change. He gave the guy twenty years of average daily wage to play with! That would be about a million dollars in today’s money!

So if you were in the position of any of these people in the story, what would you do?

Thinking about that third Servants reminded me of a news story from a few years ago. It came out of California where a person bought a house for himself and his young family. The previous owner was an elderly man who had died, having outlived his wife and whose grown children now lived far away. As the new owner began to renovate his home, he found envelopes full of cash squirreled away in nooks and crannies all over the house. Now wouldn’t that make for an interesting show on HGTV?

Soon these envelopes became a pile and that pile amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The old man didn’t trust the banks. He didn’t invest the money. He kept the cash a secret so no one would steal it.  He hid them for the rainy day that never came. His children said he lived in near poverty his whole while working every day he could.

Now the new homeowners had a dilemma. His lawyers would have told him that all that money was theirs to keep. The contract on the sale of the house said so…all the contents of the house were theirs. But the couple knew that the man did not save all that money to go to some stranger who happened to buy his house. No, instead, they decided to give it back to the man’s children for them to use.

Heartwarming story, but what made this man hide all his money in the first place? What made him keep it a secret from even his children? What made him live as a pauper while riches were only an arm’s reach away?

Fear.  Fear and a kind of backwards faith that says something bad is going to happen and is always just around the corner.

In today’s Gospel, Matthew’s church is trying to figure out how to live in that very long, uncertain time between the resurrection and Jesus’ return. They’ve remembered a teaching of Jesus and applied it to their own church. They remembered Jesus teaching us to never to bury or hide what we have been given. But here they were, only fifty or sixty years into the history of the church and already had developed a disturbing tendency to stand pat and let things work themselves out.

Their memory of Jesus’ story reminded them not to squander the bounty God has showered on his people; and, most of all, to remember that Christ trusts us to carry out his mission…to be Christ’s people, Christ’s representatives in the world!

But being trusted can be scary. We don’t want to disappoint. We don’t want to mess up. We don’t want to lose what we’ve been given. And if that fear takes hold…if that worry about what might happen becomes front and center…if thinking about potential disapproval or judgment takes hold of our hearts…then we become helpless. If we are overwhelmed by worry, we become afraid of risk or what’s around the corner. Gosh! Who can blame the third servant for burying his treasure in the garden and hunkering down?

That is our challenge even today. We have so much that we love in the Church that we want to hang on to. But changes comes so fast that we often don’t know how to sort it out! We have so many responsibilities—there is so much Gospel work to be done! —but find ourselves saying “what if?” We might be tempted to hunker down, hide our gifts, become helpless.

Pope John XXIII, the Pope who convened the Second Vatican Council sixty years ago that set not only the Roman Catholic Church but all Western Churches on the course to meet a changing world, once said this about the Church: he said that we are not the curators of a museum, but we are instead the cultivators of a flourishing garden.

Gardening is hard work and requires planning and preparation and attention, and you have to get your hands dirty.

And one other thing: gardens are for growing, not for burying our treasure.

Jesus’ parable says that the master trusted each servant with an amount in proportion to their abilities. I believe we have all been given what we need and the place to act on those gifts, and that God trusts us to use those gifts faithfully.

But we get scared, which is why we tend to focus on that poor third servant in Matthew’s Gospel and forget about the other two Servants who are complimented for their work and welcomed into the joy of their master. What they receive is not a promotion with a fat paycheck but something much more important. Their faithfulness means that they enjoy a deeper relationship with God.

So what are your gifts? Are they something to be protected and hoarded? Or used for God’s purpose?

If we understand that everything that we’ve have, not just our money, but everything, is a gift from God to be used for God’s purposes, then our whole outlook changes!

The lesson here for the average friend and apprentice of Jesus is this: our money, our stuff, our time, and our abilities, are our power for good! So receive what God has given you with joy, and then use it—even it means some risk—in a way that returns that blessing to God and to God’s people. Don’t stand pat—do something big and audacious and risky and wonderful for God!

We live in an uncertain time. We don’t know how the economy will unfold so we hang on to everything we can. The temptation is to risk nothing and go for safety. And I am not just talking about money here., but how we organize our living. If we organize our living around what we are afraid of, we might hide from other people, and not bring our best selves into our living. In short, we bury what we’ve been given.

The antidote is to live joyfully in the blessings God has given us in Christ Jesus; to use the abilities and resources God has given us to be God’s hands and feet in the world; and to build on the blessings and assets we have to cultivate our lives in service to God and to the world starting right here, right now.

In Christ, we have been a given a gift beyond expectation or imagining. Now, comes the fun part, using what we have for God’s purpose, God’s glory, for the good of God’s people and God’s creation!

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Bulletin for Worship for the 25th Sunday after Pentecost, November 19, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the 25th Sunday after Pentecost, November 19, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on November 19, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on November 19, 2023.

Met at the point of our greatest need

Zacchaeus had an image problem. His name meant “righteous, pure one,” but no one believed it. He stood barely five feet tall with his shoes off, there’s nothing wrong with being short—and that wasn’t his problem anyway! He was head tax-collector for the Roman in the town of Jericho and this made him both the richest man in town and the least popular. Everyone assumed that he was so rich because he was skimming off the top of what he collected.

When Jesus came to town, nobody would make room for him to see, so he shinnied up a sycamore tree so he could see something more than just the backs of other people's heads, and that's where he was when Jesus spotted him.

"Zacchaeus," Jesus said for all to hear, "get down out of there in a hurry. I'm having dinner tonight at your house!" All of Jericho must have been stunned. I suspect that Zacchaeus was too. It’s a wonder that he didn’t just fall out of the tree in shock!

And he was not the only one stunned and surprised, but probably not in a good way.  If Jesus were running for office and they had attack ads in the first century, you can almost hear the ominous music and the deep bass of the voice over artist saying: “Jesus eats with tax-collectors. Jesus. Wrong on taxes. Wrong for Judea.”

But in fact Jesus knew what he was doing. When Jesus called to Zacchaeus and invited himself to dinner, he shows us just who it is that God is seeking, who God welcomes into the reign of God, and what God wants us to be. Most of all Jesus is invites us to see the world through God’s eyes and shows us God’s over-the-top generosity and grace.

That’s the heart of Jesus’ message in the Gospel of Luke. All through this part of the Gospel, we see Jesus seeking out people who live on the fringes of society and the community of faith. We hear Jesus welcome little children (18:15-17). Then Jesus welcomes a rich man who has followed the law his whole life but can’t let go of his wealth and instead walks away sad (18:18-30). Jesus heals a blind beggar (18:35-43). Finally, in today’s Gospel, Jesus welcomes and eats with a rich scoundrel that no one likes, Zacchaeus . Luke’s Gospel is telling us that if Jesus can welcome into God’s reign children, blind beggars, and scoundrels, then surely he has room for the likes of us.

Now notice something here: Zacchaeus did not change jobs. He apparently did not stop being a tax-collector. When Jesus called another tax-collector named Levi, also known as Matthew, to be an apostle, he dropped everything and followed Jesus. Today’s Gospel reminds us that not everyone who followed Jesus put aside their occupation. Instead, some people put their money and their words together in God’s service. In the Gospels, the followers of Jesus don’t just say “hey, Jesus, thanks! That’s nice.” In the Gospels, the followers of Jesus act! They put their words and actions together.

I have a theory, and that is that while most preachers (including me!) have seen this story solely as a conversion story, I now think of it as a "coming out" story. I have come to think that Zacchaeus was, in fact, as righteous as his name implies, but it took his encounter with Jesus demonstrate that he was really serious about it– and for others to put aside their judgements and see him as the faithful follower he was. When he said that he would return many-fold any money that was fraudulently taken, he was not buying his salvation but declaring his honesty before God, before Jesus, and before a skeptical crowd. It turns out that his generosity reflected the faithfulness and change that was already going on inside of him—if there was no yearning for wholeness and reconciliation, then why would have risked climbing that tree? When Jesus entered his home, he discovers salvation—being made whole by God.

I suspect that Zacchaeus’ journey towards God… was well underway when he got up in that sycamore tree. But it took a while for people—not just Zacchaeus but all the people who knew him, or thought they knew him—to catch on.

Zacchaeus sought Jesus. Jesus sought and affirmed Zacchaeus. And his affirmation of faith and repentance and the salvation that Jesus proclaimed in Zacchaeus’ house made him whole… his inner search and struggle for faith and acceptance met the outward expression of repentance and generosity.

The big take away from today’s Gospel is this: When we seek Jesus, we find that Jesus is seeking us. Jesus meets us precisely where we need to be met, at the point of our greatest need. When we seek Jesus we are allowing him to the most vulnerable part of our selves so that his saving love might heal us. In meeting Jesus, we are changed from the inside out. And when we change we act.

For one thing, as Zacchaeus shows us, our relationship towards our possessions and our things changes. We move from people who uses our stuff to protect us against, or at least distract us from, pain or to compensate for whatever feels short or incomplete or unlovely in our lives.

The other take away is that Jesus’ invitation to this person on the fringe revealed a faithfulness that no one could see because it did not occur to them that people on the fringe even deserve salvation.  

So, there are two lessons going on here that we can all use in our Christian living:

First, faithful people show up in unexpected places. When Jesus met people at the fringes of respectable society, he was calling out and raising up people living as faithfully as they could but who, up until then, were marked as “outsiders” because of their status, their nationality, their way of life, or their occupation. He was telling them that their faith, no matter how outside the norm, makes them whole.

Second, Zacchaeus learned (and then taught us) that everything we have comes from God. Our task is to use what God has given us for God’s purpose. So, as our faith grows, as we learn and do the work of Jesus, we can choose to use our time, our talent, our things, and yes, our money, for God’s purposes.

And what is God’s purpose? That we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. We love our neighbor. And more than that, that we love one another the way Jesus loves us. With everything we have. Jesus’ love for us is sacrificial and meets us where we are with what we need.

So, are you a student? Use what you have for God’s purpose. Do you have a place to live and food to eat? Use it for God’s purpose. Do you have talent and skill? Use them for God’s purpose. Do you have a profession or a responsibility? Be ethical, competent, and generous…use it for God’s purpose. And what is God’s purpose? The Catechism in our Prayer Book says that our purpose is “To restore all humanity and creation to unity with God and each other in Jesus Christ.” As you orient your stuff to God’s purpose, you will discover how to learn and do the work of Jesus in your everyday living!

That’s what was going on for Zacchaeus. He went looking for Jesus and found Jesus looking for him. Jesus invited himself into Zacchaeus’ home, because Zacchaeus made room in his home and heart for God. 

It’s funny, isn’t it? We might not know how much we’ve changed until we find ourselves out on a limb looking for Jesus looking for us. And when we make room for Jesus, we find that Christ is already at home in us.

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

Here is a link to the Scripture readings.

Here is a link to a video of the sermon.

Here is a link to a video of the liturgy.

"We ain't poor!"

It has been said that dogs have masters but cats have staff. I learn this every time I visit my daughter’s house and her cat pretty well decides whether I am worthy of attention or not. Since I am not on the feeding staff of that household, my utility is quite limited.  My grand-doggy on the other hand definitely has a master, and she pretty well listens to whatever my son tells her, but whenever I visit, my main purpose is give scritches until she says to stop (which is never!). In both cases, the animals pretty well have my number.
If I am a member of my grand-kitty’s staff and if my grand-doggie has psyched me out, I kind of suspect that they have done the same to their resident humans. I wonder… who owns whom?
I don’t think this question is limited to dogs and cats. Given the time and attention my stuff demands from me, I wonder if in fact my possessions don’t own me. If they don’t, in fact, own us all?
Think about it.  What happens when your car breaks down on a very busy workday or if your roof springs a leaks or what if your computer crashes in the middle of a project? Having a reliable computer, an operable car and a water-tight roof is a good thing—a worthwhile investment to be sure—as my dad used to say, if you you’re your tools to care for you then you’d better take care of them!
It works that way spiritually, too. Jesus warns us in today’s Gospel to be aware of all kinds of greed—for life consists of much more than the abundance of possessions. Another way to say this is: if we want our things to do their job, then we’d better care for what’s inside us first. First the heart…then the stuff.
Jesus said that to a man who came asked him to sort out a question of a shared inheritance. Now going to a rabbi to sort out a dispute was a fairly common in the first century. In still happens in Judaism. The late Jewish theologian and sociologist Martin Buber recorded the teaching of the Rabbis of 17^th and 18^th century Russia in a book called “Tales of the Hasidim” recording the stories of Rabbi Baal Shem Tov., today, especially in Hasidic and some Orthodox communities, stories are still a main way that faith is taught.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is doing what Jesus does, he tells a parable—in this case a story typical of the rabbinic tradition. It went like this: a rich man had some fields and one year he had a bumper crop. So he says to himself “Self, why not store up all this extra grain in new and bigger barns and live off of the proceeds?” So that’s exactly what he does. He ate, he drank, he was very merry until, whoops, the next day he died.
Jesus asks: What good did all that preparation and investment do in the long run? Not much.
Jesus tells the crowd, the man with the inheritance (and us), “Beware of storing up treasure outside but being poor inside.”
The man in Jesus’ story is a kind of a "Functional Atheist." You know, a person whose everyday practice and behavior happens without reference to God or to faith. Notice that when the man discovers he has way more grain that he can either use or sell, he takes his own council. He does not bring his situation to God and he does not take it to his community. He says to himself “build bigger barns!” The rich fool may protest that he has always believed in God, but when it comes to managing his life, dealing with possessions and planning for the future, he lives as though there were no God.
He also forgets the purpose of his abundance which is to share it with others; to use it for the good of all. By hoarding his abundance, he squanders the opportunity his good fortune brought him to share that good fortune with others. He revels in his stuff, but does not feel blessed, and so he has no blessing to share!
Contrast this with another story in the Bible about a person who managed a bumper crop—Joseph. A person that everyone in Jesus’ hearing would know about. Remember from the Book of Genesis and the musicial: “Joseph, he was Jacob’s favorite son of all the family Joseph was the special one?” Joseph was a man given to dreams and their interpretation. It was a gift from God that gets him in a heap of trouble. Through a series of misadventures he lands in jail, where he hears that Pharaoh had a dream of abundance and scarcity. Joseph rightly interpreted Pharaoh’s dream and was then tasked to manage Egypt’s abundance in advance of the famine. Joseph, in contrast to the foolish rich man in Jesus’ story, was doing God’s work for the benefit of many.
Now Jesus knew that when he told his story to the man who came to him, that people would think of Joseph. They knew their Bible, that’s for sure! They’d understand that the Rich Man in Jesus’ story forgot that his abundance was a gift from God. The man in the story is the opposite of Joseph because he was out of tune with God and who hoards his gifts instead of sharing them.
Jesus is telling us that things are not the problem. Money is not the problem. The root of all evil is not money— the saying is actually “the love of money is the root of all evil.” It is our attitude towards money and our attitude towards our things, our time, and our talent that can either create heartache or generate blessing. Our stuff and our money can be our power for good… or our main distraction.
As Jesus said—beware that we don’t get so busy with the having things, that we forget whose and for whom they are.
Heartache or blessing. Scarcity or abundance. No matter how much we have, we have a choice and chance to be in control. The solution is here—in our hearts and our attitude and our mindset.
Allow me to share a story of my own. It comes from Florence Ferrier about a social worker somewhere in poverty-stricken Appalachia. It's called "We Ain't Poor!”
The Sheldons were a large family in severe financial distress after a series of misfortunes. The help they received was not adequate, yet they managed their meager income with ingenuity -- and without complaint.
One fall day Ferrier visited the Sheldons in the ramshackle rented house they lived in at the edge of the woods. Despite a painful physical handicap, Mr. Sheldon had shot and butchered a bear which strayed into their yard once too often. The meat had been processed into all the big canning jars they could find or swap for. There would be meat in their diet even during the worst of the winter when their fuel costs were high.
Mr. Sheldon offered their visitor a jar of bear meat. She hesitated to accept it, but the giver met the unspoken resistance firmly. "Now you just have to take this. We want you to have it. We don't have much, that's a fact; but we ain't poor!"
Well, what's the difference between not having much and being poor? Mr. Sheldon’s answer “was that when you can give something away, even when you don't have much, then (as he would say) you ain't poor. When you don't feel easy giving something away, when you hang on to it, even if you’ve got more than you need, then you're poor, whether you know it or not."
When we know that everything we have is provided by God, and that everything we have can be used for God’s purpose then we will be rich when we use tap into the gift of God’s generosity, it seems ungracious to doubt that our needs will be met without our clinging to every single morsel.
 Jesus and Mr. Sheldon both teach us something about where real wealth is found: wealth is found in an abundant and generous heart.

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

Here is a link to the Scripture readings.

Here is a link to a video of the sermon.

Here is a link to a video of the liturgy.