October 19, 2025, “To Not Lose Heart”, Genesis 32:22-31, Psalm 121, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, Luke 18:1-8 by J.D Neal

Our gospel reading this morning begins with a very important little word: “then” — “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” This word, ‘then’, stuck out to me as I began preparing to preach this week, because I’d not really noticed it in past readings of this passage. When I’ve read this parable in the past, I’ve read it as another teaching about how we’re supposed to approach prayer (which it is), but I’ve not paid attention to the context. “Then” means that this parable is told in the context of a larger scene, that it’s a continuation of something already happening — why does Jesus tell this story now, and who is he talking to? Is there more going on here than a general teaching about persistence in prayer?

If we look back a few verses, we’ll see that Jesus is talking to the disciples. After being asked by a Pharisee about when and how the Kingdom of God would appear, Jesus turns to his followers and begins to speak directly to them. In unnerving language, he tells them that ‘the days of the Son of Man’ are coming, but that they will be different than expected. This language is from the book of Daniel, and the ‘day of the Son of Man’ for Jesus’s audience would have been a sort of shorthand for the people’s Messianic expectations — the day of God’s triumphant appearance in the world, when he would expose and destroy the corruption of Israel’s oppressors, liberating and bringing justice to his chosen people. Jesus tells them that these times are coming, but that they will come with suddenness and with terror, like Noah’s flood or the rain of fire that consumed Sodom & Gomorrah. When the Son of Man is revealed, Jesus says, it will happen after he has been rejected by his people, in a time of terror and violence, when many will be lost. When the disciples ask where this will happen, Jesus simply answers, “where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather,” — and then our gospel reading begins.

Luke’s audience, reading these words around the end of the first century, would recognize that Jesus seems to be talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD, when the city, the temple, and the nearby region were besieged, starved, and brutally destroyed by Roman armies. Jesus is warning his followers that they were about to enter a time when political and religious turmoil would become even more intense than it already was and would begin spilling over into violence, when injustice in the land would finally reach such a fever pitch that it would bring about its own destruction in a catastrophe terrible enough to be compared to Noah’s flood and the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah, and that somehow ‘the Son of Man will be revealed’ in the face of all this. ‘I will be with you and God’s justice will be revealed’, Jesus is saying, ‘but it won’t look like it at first. Dark days are ahead, and I want you to be ready.’

To prepare them, he tells them today’s parable, ‘about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.’ Why this? Why now? Destruction is going to rain down on the disciples’ world, after they wait for almost four decades for Jesus to return, and instead of telling them to go stock up on canned goods and potable water, to build a bunker in the desert caves, to pass out pamphlets and preach from street corners about the destruction to come, or to stockpile swords and bows to protect themselves from what is coming — instead of all this, he tells them a story about a stubborn old widow and a corrupt official. He tells them that this woman fought for justice to be given to her by a judge who didn’t care about justice, who ‘neither feared God nor had respect for people.’ She was so tenacious and persistent in her appeals that the corrupt judge finally granted her justice, just to keep her from continuing to bother him. And, he says, the disciples should be like her, because if she could get justice from this evil judge, how much more will God grant them justice when they cry out to him in prayer with persistence and faith. The parable ends with Jesus asking the disciples a question, almost wondering aloud: “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” The question is striking — why wouldn’t he find this kind of faith on the earth? 

The widow, we’re told, is a picture of what it means to ‘pray always’ and to ‘not lose heart.’ She stands in a long line of faithful women in the Scriptures who cultivated the kind of faith that endured in the face of long suffering and waiting. She is like Sarah, who was promised a child in her old age and waited something like 25 years before she saw that promise fulfilled, like the widowed prophetess Anna, who spent decades in the temple fasting and waiting to see God’s chosen Messiah until toddler Jesus arrived there, or like Elizabeth and Mary, who each believed that there would be a fulfillment to the promises they received of a miraculous child, despite the doubt and ridicule they would have endured from their community. The list goes on and on; the Scriptures are full of faithful women who cling to God’s purposes and God’s promises, in spite of the opposition, exhaustion, and long waiting that they faced. The widow is also like Jacob, who is willing to wrestle for an entire night, fighting for hours and hours through weariness and pain, blood and sweat, ferociously demanding a blessing from God until he gets it, even though that blessing comes with a shattered hip and a limp that would mark him for the rest of his days. 

I think as we remember some of these examples, we start to see why Jesus wonders if he will see this kind of faith. I have had seasons, sometimes even long ones, where my prayers are frequent and consistent, where my rhythms of prayer nourish and uphold me day in and day out, and God feels close, but this is only the beginning. To be like Jacob or one of these women — to have a faith that continues in prayer, that believes God will make good on his promises, that he is still working and moving and bringing justice, even if I can’t see it, even if I have to wait months, years, decades to see it — to have a faith that cries out for God to act and believes, insists that he will show up, even in the face of great grief or pain or darkness — to have a faith like this that prays ‘and does not lose heart’ — this is something else entirely. Many of you know how different it is, how hard it is, to not lose heart when it seems like your prayers are falling on deaf ears, when injustice continues unchecked, when your pain drags on and it would be so much easier to just stop believing, to say ‘I guess it isn’t God’s will’ and to explain away God’s silence, when the waiting goes on and on and continuing to pray in earnest feels unbearable. Some of you know the kind of faith that Jesus is describing, because you have wrestled through the dark with God, clinging to him through long suffering, loss, and grief, stubbornly insisting that the love of God will have the last word, no matter how long it takes to see it.

 This is the kind of faith that Jesus is talking about, the kind of faith that his followers will need, the kind of faith that could nourish a community and sustain them through the long waiting, adversity, and destruction that Jesus is warning his disciples they will face. This is the kind of faith that Jesus says will bring about God’s justice, will see God’s promises fulfilled, will reveal the presence of God in the midst of a land that appears to have been forsaken by God. 

This is also the kind of faith that we need, and that Jesus is inviting us, as his followers, to cultivate in our time. I’m sure it’s not lost on any of you that the world we live in doesn’t sound all that different from the one I’ve been describing in the years leading up to the destruction of the temple. We too know what it’s like to look around and see increasing political and religious turmoil, to open up our phones and be met with another story of hatred or of the lust for power bubbling over into some fresh injustice enacted upon the vulnerable, to be shocked and exhausted in the face of another act of devastating violence — and for so much of it to be cloaked in the name of God. Like the disciples in Luke, we also live in a time when it is not always easy to discern the presence and love of God in the world around us, let alone to know how to respond faithfully, to follow him through the turmoil of these darkening days. The Spirit holds out this gospel to us today — we too must become like the widow, because if we learn to pray and to not lose heart, to cry out for God to show up and to follow him where he leads, to stubbornly trust that he will fulfill his promises no matter how hard things get, then we too will become the instruments of God’s love and justice in the midst of a darkening world.

May we each become like the faithful widow, learning to pray always and, by the grace of God, to not lose heart. Lord have mercy. Amen.

October 12, 2025, Reflections on Luke 17:11-19 by The Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

There are many stories in the Gospels about Jesus healing people. Beautiful stories. This passage that we hear today has another side of Jesus. Although people are healed of their physical illness, the point of the story is on how those who are healed respond. The point is gratitude and the healing found in it.

Our first clue that it isn’t strictly a healing story comes early on. Ten lepers approached Jesus and asked him for mercy. Instead of doing something or saying something that tells us that healing is happening or has happened, Jesus gives them a command: “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” The actual healing of the lepers then occurred as they traveled away from Jesus, away from the center of the narrative. The healing happened “offstage” leaving Jesus standing in the center.

“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed turned back praising God with a loud voice.” This one man reentered the scene. He came back to Jesus and offered thanks. This expression of gratitude met with Jesus’ approval and he asked what happened to the other nine who did not return. “Were not ten made clean? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Note that the other nine did what they were told by Jesus to do. It’s hard to find fault with that. They weren’t disobedient. Yet clearly it’s making the decision to pause, to turn to God is what the key. So what is it with this one guy? What made him different from the other nine?

All ten of the lepers were faithful enough to go on their way to the priests even though there had not yet been dramatic or definitive healing.  All ten believed enough to start a journey that might have resulted in disappointment and derision. All ten had a mustard seed’s worth of faith in a mighty, healing God. Yet the text tells us that only that one “saw that he was healed.”  Did the others not notice?

They had more to gain from continuing on their way to the priests. For them, the priests were the vital next step in the process – their way back, their way to life. The Samaritan had no such incentive. What hope was there for a Samaritan in Jewish rituals?

Remember that Samaritans were despised in Jewish society. This man was caught up in active animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans going back hundreds of years. They had been one people, but changes and tensions wrought by exile and return put them at odds regarding beliefs about scripture, worship, what it means to be holy. Think Protestants and Catholics in Ireland, Muslims and Serbs in Bosnia, rival street gangs in Los Angeles and you’ve got the picture. Sadly there are many, many apt comparisons.

Not only that but Jesus’ encounter with the lepers takes place in the “region between Samaria and Galilee,” a potentially hostile locale at the border, neither inside nor outside Jewish territory.

Everyone in this story is outside their comfort zone except Jesus who knows that people who are forced to survive on the margins of society see things differently from those in the center. They may be less invested in and less worshipful of the status quo. They also may be more open to change when the current structures are of little benefit them.

Instead of seeing healing as way to return to an old life, he saw it as a miracle from God - in a place and time where miracles were likely in short supply. His only possible response was praise.

The Samaritan kneels at Jesus’ feet, face in the dust in gratitude and wonder. And it’s then, for the first time in the story, that Jesus speaks words of healing: Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well.”

This raises an important question: Is there one healing in this story for the Samaritan or two? Jesus final words to him might be an affirmation of the healing from leprosy that already happened. But could it be that there is for this man a new level of healing that goes more than skin deep?

Only the Samaritan remembered and connected the gift with the giver.  He demonstrates a faith that claims relationship with God and cannot and will not remain silent in response to what God has done in his life. Expressing gratitude is not a precondition for being healed by Jesus.  All the lepers find themselves healed of their skin disease. However, the Samaritan turns around and comes back. He turns towards God.

Is there a second healing?  I believe there is: and it is a restoration of wellness that comes through the Samaritan’s relationship with God. He has found peace, joy and wellness -- gifts that can be ours each day as we too give God thanks and praise.

Our earthly lives are a similar journey, somewhere between Samaria and Galilee, between illness and health, between rejection and acceptance. We are all travelers on the way. Because of the frailty of our bodies we will all succumb to illness at some point in our lives. Because of the devices and desires of the human heart, we will all suffer from the fear and distrust that separates us from our neighbors and from God.

And we all know that not everyone is healed of their illness. We pray, we beg, we ask God for healing for those we care so much about and for ourselves.  And still we find ourselves saying good-bye, heartbroken and disappointed. And wondering where God is. Wrapping our lives in gratitude throughout our lives is the antidote, when there is a cure and when there is not.

To practice intentional gratitude is life-giving.  It can also change a congregation’s life.  When Christians practice gratitude as the abiding mindset in their lives, they come to God open to receiving the goodness that is the very essence of God.

We acknowledge intentional gratitude in our Eucharistic prayers asking God to forgive us for coming the Eucharist – which means “thanksgiving” by the way – for solace only and not for strength, for pardon only and not for renewal.  The work that God calls us to do as believers changes from duty to a gathering of grateful hands and hearts. God created us for grateful joy!

This story of one who returns, drops his face in the dust and gives thanks points us to some truths: first, to stifle gratitude may prove as unnatural as holding one’s breath. Second, “Go on your way, your faith has made you well” is no longer a problematic saying, one that seems to apply to others and not necessarily to us and our circumstances.  Instead it is a description of a life of blessing for us and sending for the church to go into the world living as people thankful and blessed.

As we go on our way, we rejoice and give thanks, for in giving thanks in all things we find that our extraordinary God is indeed in all ordinary things. Rather than remaining within the darkness of our despair and keeping ourselves at a great distance from others, God calls us to come close. God awaits our cry for mercy and responds by making us whole, by restoring us to life with others. God keeps scanning the horizon, looking for those he has already healed, who will realize one day that they too are already forgiven, that they too are already being made whole, who will return and give thanks and praise to God.

In his memoire All I Could Never Be, Bev Nichols, recalls an experience of gratitude in his garden. “It was inevitable, I suppose, that in the garden I should begin, at long last, to ask myself what lay behind all this beauty. When I had the flowers all to myself, I was so happy that I wondered why at the same time I was haunted by a sense of emptiness.

It was as though I wanted to thank somebody, but had nobody to thank; which is another way of saying that I felt the need for worship. That is, perhaps, the kindliest way in which a person may approach his or her God.  There are endless theories on the origins of the religious impulse, but to me, Nichols says, it is simpler than that. It is summed up in one person at sundown, watching the crimson flowering of the sky and calling out to the great expanse before them — ‘Thank you. Thank you.’”  Wellness restored, peace and joy found in turning towards God.   Amen.  

October 4, 2025, Reflections on Luke 16:19-31 by The Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Did you notice the cover art on the bulletin?  When I came across it as I was preparing this week, it just made me laugh. And I wanted to share it with you.  A little faith can have a huge impact. I think that’s what Jesus wants us to understand in this metaphor of the mustard seed.  Even a little faith, deployed fearlessly in love, can do great things.

A mustard seed isn’t a soft marshmallow-y kind of thing. It’s solid. Small but solid. Jesus’ words are meant to encourage the disciples by reminding them of what they already know, those solid moments of faith: Holy Scripture is full of examples of the strength of small groups of faithful people, and the power of seemingly small or insignificant people.

Remember David?  David slew the giant Goliath with a slingshot, against all odds. The rock that flattened Goliath was no doubt larger than a mustard seed. But it was just one rock aimed high by one boy with solid faith. And it was enough.

Remember the Canaanite woman seeking healing for her daughter. In a mustard seed-sized moment, she summoned enough courage to get in Jesus face to remind him that even the dogs eat the crumbs from under their master’s table and so her daughter and her illness were worthy of healing. “Woman, great is your faith,” Jesus told her.

In Acts, when the first followers were known to gather in small clusters and pray and share all things in common, great numbers came to them and became followers:  mustard seed-sized faith in themselves and their fellow Christians on the journey was all it took for others to see and be drawn to them.  So the message of faith’s victory is consistent in the Bible. And yet, the tasks seem overwhelming. How can a mustard seed of faith meet any kind of test?

The Order of the Daughters of the King has a motto that speaks beautifully to this:

For His Sake…I am but one, but I am one.

I cannot do everything, but I can do something.

What I can do, I ought to do.

What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do.

Lord, what will you have me do?

It’s a worthy question.

I belonged to an interfaith clergy group in Temecula. They met monthly and frequently invited a speaker.  One month, there were two ladies from an organization that provides shelter and services to women with children. They tossed out incredible numbers: hundreds of families housed, thousands of meals served, tens of thousands of after-school snacks, bars of soap, disposable razors, Bibles, ping pong games, tutoring hours and all manner of things provided.

It was impressive…and a little bit discouraging. Driving back to the relatively small Episcopal church I was serving, I knew we could make a positive impact on the needs of the community but nowhere near like I’d just heard. I felt small. “Lord,” I asked “what will you have me do?”

Then God rescued me as God always does. That afternoon, a young man came to the doors of the church and asked if he could have some water and sleep that night under the eaves of the church. Of course I said yes. I got him the water, some fruit and snacks and invited him to use the restroom.

He told me that he had walked several miles in the last few days, how tired he was and how vulnerable he felt.  He said, “but then I looked up and saw the cross [on top of the building.] I was so relieved. I knew I was close to a church and that I’d be safe there.” 

That little bit of faith, that tiny mustard seed-sized faith, was all he needed. And it was reassuring to me that a place to rest, a few bottles of water and some food from our little church were all that he needed to reinforce his faith that God would provide for him and that everything was going to be okay. 

Like the Daughters, like David, like the Canaanite woman, and the traveler on his way, we can all say “Lord I’m here, I’m ready. I have a mustard seed – I’m not afraid to use it. So Lord, what will you have me do?” Amen.

The Sixteenth Sunday in Pentecost, September 28, 2025, Reflections on Luke 16:19-31 by The Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Jesus said, "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, `Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.'

But Abraham said, `Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.' He said, `Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house-- for I have five brothers-- that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.' Abraham replied, `They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.' He said, `No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' He said to him, `If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Not long ago while I was driving to a pastoral call. And I came up to a red light at busy intersection where a man was standing precariously on a small center median and holding a sign saying “hungry anything helps.”  Now sadly that’s not an uncommon sight. But what was striking about this particular man were the physical challenges he had. He appeared to suffer from cerebral palsy or something similar. And so his ability to be out in that heat – it was a very hot day - and to move quickly to a car if someone wanted to hand him a dollar or two was clearly very difficult for him. He moved slowly.

The light changed. I was not in the lane next to him but was one lane over and a couple spots back from a pickup truck that I could see was loaded with a couple lawnmowers and some rakes and other equipment. So I assumed the driver had a lawn mowing service and was out taking care of customers.

When the light changed to green, the man in the truck was the first vehicle in the lane. But he didn’t move. He had lowered his window and was clearly having some conversation with the man holding the sign. The two chatted for what seemed like a a good long while.  And the man in the truck, reached over to the passenger seat and picked up a foil wrapped package, looked like maybe his lunch. He handed that out that window as the man with the sign made his way over to him. Then the driver reached back and got a bottle of water and handed that out the window to him as well. And with some parting words, the mane with the sign and the gifts he’s just received made his way back to the center median.  And the man in the pickup truck drove ahead.

Now all this was happening while the light was very green. And impatient LA drivers, who normally would have been honking like crazy, shouting and yelling at the driver of the truck. But this day in this place, nothing.  No one honked, no one yelled.  No one did anything but watch this scene unfold.

There was a sign on the side of the pick-up truck with the name of the company and phone number and I wish I’d thought at the time to jot it down or take a quick photo. Because I’d really wanted to call him.  And to thank him – not for sharing his food.  Because lots of us share something when we see folks in these situations. And goodness knows we at St. Matthias offer food to our neighbors in need at least 5 days a week.

I know people who routinely carry a few one dollar bills in their car to give to out.  And one friend carries some fast food gift cards to give. Because she figures that if someone is homeless, giving them an hour or two to go inside and being able to get something to eat while getting out of the heat or the cold, depending on the season, and having a place to rest might be better than giving them anything else. Everyone has their way of responding.

So I didn’t want to call and thank him because he gave the man food and water. I wanted to call and thank him for making everyone at that intersection that day have to stop, and have to pay attention to someone that otherwise might have been completely overlooked.

We have a wonderful collect in our Book of Common Prayer that reminds us to be attentive to those who could easily be forgotten.  And this poor man was one of those people who could easily have been forgotten but for a landscaper who dared to sit under that green light and carry on a conversation with him and share what he had. 

Why is that important?

Let’s take a look for a moment at our lesson from Luke’s gospel today. This is the second of two parables in the 16th chapter of Luke that Jesus recounts that start with the words “there was a rich man..”   He is an unidentified rich man, because we never seem to get his name. But in neither of these parables do things go well for the rich man. The rich man in the first parable that we heard last week is told, you can’t serve God and money.  You have to choose. One leads to life, one leads to death. Make a choice.

Today, the rich man, who has lived a full life, a wonderful life, somehow has not encountered poor Lazarus who lies just outside his gate. We don’t know the full story so we have to consider a couple scenarios: one is that he’s a really busy person who was inattentive, just didn’t realize Lazarus was there. He’s the oblivious type. That’s probably the best case scenario.

The worst case scenario for the rich man is that he was willfully negligent.  He knew Lazarus was there, he knew that a poor, hungry, sick man lying at his gate. He sees him but he just doesn’t feel like there’s any reason for him to be bothered by that fact. 

But regardless of how the story unfolds, Lazarus suffered terribly while the rich man did well. When everyone had died, there’s a conversation across the chasm. It’s not pretty, or comfortable. This is not the text we really love to encounter is it?  Luke has some hard, hard texts. This is one of them. What does father Abraham say to the rich man? “You’ve already had yours. Lazarus suffered greatly at your gate and he will be comforted now.” 

It’s hard to hear. It’s hard to think that maybe our inattention to the needs of others has consequences. But I think that is exactly what God is trying to tell us. Our inattention to the needs of others has consequences for them and for us.

And so, Lazarus has gone off to live for eternity in comfort with Father Abraham. The rich man says, “send him back, because my brothers need to know this. My brothers need to know what fate they will suffer if they don’t pay more attention.”  And Father Abraham dismisses this request out of hand. “They’ve had the prophets. How did they miss this?”

          The scriptures are filled with all kinds of reminders to us about God’s expectation that we will care for those around us. If we miss it, then we need to be more attentive. We need something to draw our attention to God’s call to us to serve all of God’s people. We need something to remind us. And maybe what we need to remind us isn’t the Lazarus of our time, because that may not do it. Sadly there are so many, the need is so great it can become numbing.

But maybe what we need to remind us is the guy in the truck holding everyone’s attention, ignoring the green light. The guy in the truck who draws our attention to a man that most folks would have driven by and not noticed at all.  We need that person who just brings to mind that we have been called to do and to be more than we ever expect to do and to be.

Next Sunday our Bishop will visit and confirm or receive members into our faith community.  And what a joyous time that will be! The Bishop will lead the confirmands and all of us in the Baptismal Covenant.  And one of the questions will be “will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” The final question is “will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”  In other words, will you be attentive? Will you look outside your own gate and if you see Lazarus there, will you respond in love?

All of the questions asked in the baptismal covenant start out “will you…”  Of course they point us to the future and our future commitments. “Will you?” it asks. We’re not so concerned about the past but very much about the future. Confirmation is not a destination. It’s not an end point. It’s the beginning. It’s not so much about the journey so far – that’s significant for each of us, about how we have been formed. But confirmation is about the journey to come. “Will you…” the Bishop with ask.  And our answer to each question is “I will, with God’s help.”  We acknowledge that we all we do to expand the Kingdom of God here on earth is blessing by God and seen by God.  God is paying attention.

Every day that we continue to live and our spirits continue to grow and our lives continue to grow we’re in a new place. Next Sunday, take it all in – and ask yourselves “how is God calling me to live out that baptismal covenant? How do I help people in this place and beyond our doors? 

God has blessed and privileged this parish St. Matthias, to be able to be a pillar in the worshipping community here in uptown Whittier, to minister to all the people we encounter on Sunday mornings and all week long. This is our privilege – to be called, to be here and to serve.

We make it possible to help more and more of God’s people to find God’s love and God’s grace. It is Jesus who erases those chasms, who calls us to serve the world in his name and to draw others to him.  Amen.

The Fifteenth Sunday in Pentecost, September 21, 2025, Reflections on Luke 16:1-13 by The Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, `What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

I’ve never actually done a count of this myself but I’ve heard it said, from reliable sources, that the topic that Jesus most frequently talks about is – can you guess? – love. What comes in 2nd? The second most often talked about topic by Jesus is money. That was a surprise to me. I would have guessed forgiveness or healing.  But it’s money, wealth, what we do with it, where we do right and where we go wrong. And that includes this parable today. I think this parable connects something very ordinary in our day-to-day lives with the extraordinary nature of God.  And Jesus wants us to consider how our handling of earthly wealth prepares us for handling spiritual wealth. 

The hard part about this parable is figuring out who is the good guy here? It’s not at all clear. The rich man is probably an absentee landlord who fires his manager on a rumor of bad behavior and yet expects him to continue working by giving an accounting of what he’s done. Not much heroic here. 

Then there’s the lazy, self-serving manager out to save his own skin by cuddling up to the people he’s been cheating all these years. We listeners lean forward to the end because we want to see this scoundrel get what’s coming to him. And when the masters finally speaks, we’re shocked. He congratulates his for being so clever.

The ending is anything but satisfying because instead of being defeated, he triumphs. His plan succeeds. His former boss praises his ingenuity.  Adding to the listener’s dismay, the parable ends with Jesus saying “The scoundrel gets it, the believers do not.” This guy of questionable character and ill repute understood something that the children of light couldn’t grasp: this man understood how to use what was entrusted to him to serve a larger goal. Believers take note, Jesus teaches: how much more must the children of God understand the riches entrusted to their care?

With the end in mind, the manager redeemed whatever he could about his present situation.  He understood that, in order to end up where he wanted to be in the future, how he handled today counted big time.

Solomon wrote in his proverbs: Where this is no vision, the people perish. (Proverbs 29:18) This parable of the manager speaks especially to those times in our lives when we have lost the big picture. Who are we are people of God? How do we understand ourselves and what are we called to do? At those times when we have lost our vision of who we are and what are mission is, the treasures in front of us are not treasures at all.  They are simply things that have no larger value, are objects to be used, misused and manipulated. 

Here is another way to read this text. See how it resonates with you:  Among those in the crowd when Jesus tells this parable are the Pharisees who Luke characterizes as “lovers of money.”  Leaders of God’s chosen people, keepers of the treasurers of God, they were like the dishonest manager. They had lost their vision of who God had called them to be. They had traded their call to be God’s people to becomes servant of the treasures of the present day. Controlled by wealth, by money, by strident voices, by complacency, they had blended into society and lost their vision.  To these Pharisees Jesus says ‘you can serve this present age and love its treasures or you can love God and serve him in this present age. But you cannot do both. One leads to death. The other leads to life.’  Jesus has put them on notice that they have lost their vision of who God is and who they are as children and servants of God.

Their lesson is not lost on us 2,000 year later: Jesus warns us that we, too, are susceptible to losing focus. We don’t remember our shouts not too long ago of “he is alive” and instead we whisper our faith.  We stop believing that Jesus was resurrected and life was made new. Somewhere along the way it becomes easy to serve all the pressing demands of people, of schedule.  Somewhere along the way the vision for God’s call becomes cloudy and muddled. We stop hearing God’s voice and join the crazy survivor-take-all mentality. The challenges seem so much bigger than the answers. So we huddle up in an effort to save whatever is left and forget about living for something great. We have buried our treasure.

The Coventry Cathedral in England has a welcome sign outside their church. It’s a big sign. Whether you’re there for the first time or a regular attendee you can’t miss it. This lovely sign is the antithesis of buried treasure – it is the living, loving treasure of their call – in spite of what they’ve been through. Coventry is a village that during WWII was bombed along with its ancient cathedral nearly out of existence by the Nazi regime. It was a village of no strategic value at all in the conduct of the war. In bullying fashion, they leveled it because they could. And goodness knows countless treasures were lost. 

The current cathedral stands next to the ruins of the ancient one.  This is what the welcome sign says:

Jesus’ praise of the manager is not an endorsement of unethical behavior; rather, his praise of the manager is an affirmation of his personhood; of his identity as a beloved—albeit broken—part of the Body of Christ, just like all those folks that are welcomed to Coventry Cathedral. And he tells this story to point us to the ones we’re to be most concerned are about, our neighbors - the ones living on the margins, longing to emerge from the shadows of poverty; if we are to remember always that our treasure is the chance to offer welcome and relief to those most in need. 

And at the end of the day, perhaps Jesus is calling us to second-guess ourselves; to err on the side of mercy and forgiveness and authentic welcome. Because when we do the Kingdom becomes just a little bigger, and the Body of Christ becomes just a little stronger.  Amen.

The Fourteenth Sunday in Pentecost, September 14, 2025, "Rejoice!", Luke 15: 1-10 by The Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Fourteenth Sunday in Pentecost                                                                                Luke 15:1-10

All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."

So he told them this parable: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

"Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, `Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

When I spent time as a seminarian in El Salvador, we lived in a house that backed up to an elementary preschool. Each morning we heard one of the teachers playing guitar and the children singing “Yo tengo gozo, gozo, gozo en mi Corazon!”  “I have joy, joy, joy in my heart.”  And they weren’t singing standing still, hands politely folded. They were dancing, bouncing around, with loud voices, grinning ear to ear.  And they would sing as they entered the school.  That’s how they started their day, like a fiesta of joy. I used to imagine that Jesus was watching over them also smiling, maybe also dancing. And making sure each of those sweet lambs found their way into their classroom.

Today we have a couple stories that are sometimes referred to as the Parables of the Lost.  Perhaps they’re called that because all of us can relate to loss, we can remember a time when something precious to us was lost or missing. 

The first parable is about a lost sheep and the second a lost coin.  But neither one will stay lost for very long because these are stories of restoration, return and the joy of finding.  Note that Jesus mentions “joy” and “rejoicing” 5 times in just 10 verses. That’s what these stories are all about. That’s what’s important here. 

Though each parable ends with celebration, they begin with the grumbling and discord. Too many tax collectors and sinners are coming to Jesus so his opponents are grumbling about appropriate behavior and appearances. They seem to be singing their own worn out chorus of legalism – “if you were really one of us, you would comply with our laws and norms!  We are separate for own protection! We’ve never done it this way before!”  They see Jesus’ offer of hospitality to sinners as dangerous, irreverent and just plain unpleasant. These grumbling people were religious people, and seem pretty sure that they themselves were safely in God’s sheepfold, safely deposited into God’s change purse.

Notice that Jesus does not dismiss them; he doesn’t give up on the grumblers. He tells them stories that only the most miniscule of hearts could fail to be moved by the compassion of a shepherd so caring that he not only finds the one lost sheep but also carries it home. The echoes of the prophet Ezekiel must have sounded in their memories: “For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.” (Ezek 34:11)  And they are led by Jesus to imagine the devotion of a woman so committed to her search that she will burn the midnight oil itself to find the one missing coin.

All of us, including those grumblers, have known the anxiety of losing things, because everyone loses something sometime. No one is exempt from the pain of losing something made precious by time, devotion or love. Armed with these experiences, we go to great lengths to prevent a repeat of them: we install doorbells with cameras to keep an eye on things when we’re not home, we microchip our pets, we download apps onto our cell phones to track them if they go missing, we employ Amber Alert systems to locate lost children and the elderly. Jesus, I think, knows that when confronted by the anxiety of loss, we humans will burn nearly every resource to gain the return of that which was loved.

If you have Netflix, you might have seen a recent documentary called “Amy Bradley is Missing.” It’s the story of a family that went on a Caribbean cruise to celebrate their daughter Amy’s college graduation. The mom, dad, son and daughter had a fun day on shore followed by an evening of entertainment.  Mom, dad and younger brother when to bed around midnight but Amy told them she wanted to check out the disco.  She danced until after midnight and left the disco with one of the band members. She was never seen again. The documentary traces the events that followed, the searches, the sightings and give various theories for what might have happened to Amy.

As you watch, you notice the clothing and hair styles and realize Amy has been missing a very long time. Since 1998. It’s been more than 10,000 days. Her family has searched for her each of those days. In the documentary, her mother, Iva, pleads with the viewers for the one clue they need to find her. It’s just heartbreaking.

Because in our economics, we’d say it’s just been too long.  You’re not going to find her or find out what happened to her. Just accept that and move on with your lives. But not the Bradley family:  They are convinced that Amy is alive and trying to come home. They are certain they will find her and that there will be rejoicing. And I pray there is. That level of faith is extraordinary. That level of relentless pursuit of your beloved is God-like. Because God always believes that the one lost soul is worthy of the search, worthy of being found.

These side-by-side parables remind us that God is vigilantly searching until all are found.  Jesus is offering a grand invitation to a fiesta of joy, saying all the while, “Rejoice with me.” God still yearns to gather us all up, so that not even one more person ever feels lost, as if they have to do it on their own, as if they’re not worth a cent, because even just one is precious to God.

Maybe it’s significant that when the woman finds the coin that had been lost, she throws a party for all her friends. Can you hear the dissonance in this: the woman may be thorough, but she’s not miserly. She may be meticulous, but she is not a wizard of home economics. She found one coin, and then spent who knows how many to throw a party! Is it irony or is it grace?

When the lost is found, the heart explodes with joy. It is joy so loud and rejoicing that even the angels take note. Of course, Jesus folds the point of his teaching back to the original charge. Just as a shepherd and a woman can rejoice over one object, heaven itself rejoices when one lost soul is found.  All of us fall short and get lost along the way. 

If we are the coins in the story, so precious to God that even just one is worth everything, and the occasion of finding just one is cause for great celebration, then we are God’s coins, and our lives are to be spent in the cause of seeking and finding and celebrating. God doesn’t just tuck us away in some safe-deposit box, a heavenly coin collection waiting for our value to increase. God says, let’s have a party and let’s have it now. Let’s be joyful now. Let’s live joy.

Because joy lives in human hearts, deep down in hearts that have been fine-tuned by God’s grace to trust a God who is so caring that whenever 1 of 100 is missing, the search is not abandoned, because God never stops believing that even one lost soul is worthy of being found.

The joy is God’s too. Jesus says, “Just so, I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents that over 99 righteous people who need no repentance.” No matter how lost the people become and by whatever means they lose their way, the promise is never exhausted: the lamp is burning.  The shepherd is searching, God is watching and believing that the lost shall be found until the journey home is complete by every lost, struggling soul.

In our worship, we practice God’s economics. We gather, acknowledging that all we are and all we have comes from God, belongs to God, is loved by God, can be given and offered and spent for God. We offer our time, our talents, our money, and the produce of our hands and our minds in God’s service here in this place, out in the neighborhood, and in the world.

Our ministries are varied, but each one is valuable, each one is important to God, because even just one enables us to continue God’s work of seeking and finding and celebrating.  Even just one. Even just you. Even just me. Precious to God. And precious here, in God’s house, in God’s family.  Amen. 

The Thirteenth Sunday in Pentecost, September 7, 2025, "Becoming Disciples", Deuteronomy 30: 15-20, Psalm 1, Philemon 1-21, Luke 14: 25-33 by J.D Neal, Seminarian

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. ” “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

If you’ve been around St. Matthias the last couple of years, you’ll know that I’ve had the honor of somehow always ending up preaching on particularly hard or strange gospel readings, and it looks like I get to keep my streak! Or perhaps Jesus is just often saying things that are confronting and challenging, things that cut us open and speak to our core, if we can manage to listen. Regardless:

What are we to make of these words from Jesus? Are we really meant to hate our parents, our children and siblings — all the people we are usually taught to love most — before we can become disciples? Is our life meant to be full of suffering, full of ‘crosses to bear’ to be truly a Christian? Do I really have to sell or give away all of my stuff? In a few short sentences, Jesus has managed to threaten our relationship to most of the things and people that we cling to for comfort, security, and meaning. Most of us spend most of our time and energy trying to accumulate more possessions or trying to love or be loved by our parents and families, not to forsake them or give them away.

I’m going to tell you up front: Bad news; I can’t make this pill easy to swallow. I can’t do some exegetical or mental gymnastics to take the teeth out of this reading — it is meant to challenge and unsettle us — but what I can do is try to open up the reading a bit, to remove some misunderstandings and try to help us see things a bit more clearly as the gospel, the good news, that it is.

So let’s begin by looking at some context. If you were here last week, you would’ve heard a reading about a parable Jesus told when he was at dinner with some Pharisees, about how those who try to exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. He goes on to tell them to invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” to their banquets, if they want to be blessed. After this, Jesus keeps going with the theme and tells another banquet parable about how most of those invited to God’s banquet end up rejecting the invite because they’re too busy and distracted with their own business and possessions, and so those who end up at the banquet are the poor and disenfranchised. In other words, today’s reading is in the midst of a chunk of teachings where Jesus is subverting expectations about who is “in” and who is “out” of God’s Kingdom, about who is included in the family of God. Spoiler alert — it’s not who his listeners expected. I think today’s passage is meant to be read as a part of this larger context about what kind of person fits in God’s people.

First, some grammar: The word we translate, ‘hate’, here is miseo in Greek. ‘Hate’ is a bit of a misleading translation. In our usage, ‘hate’ usually means that we feel intense or passionate dislike for someone, that we wish them ill, that we would be glad to see harm befall them. Miseo can include these feelings in the right context, but it might more appropriately be translated as ‘disregard’ or ‘rejection’, a ‘turning away from’. Jesus isn’t telling us that we have to ‘hate’ our families and wish them harm, but rather that we have to radically re-prioritize our relationships to our parents, children, siblings, and even our own life, if we are going to follow him. We have to be willing to ‘turn away from them,’ to regard them as secondary to following the way of Jesus. This does not mean that we are not supposed to ‘honor our father and mother’ a la the 10 Commandments, but that the way that we love and honor our families is reshaped by a fundamental love and allegiance to Christ.

Something similar, I think, is happening with our relationship to our possessions at the end of the passage. Jesus says “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” The greek for ‘give up’ here literally says ‘say goodbye to.’ Now, let me be clear, I think God very often asks us to quite literally give up or give away many of our possessions, and that we are simply lying to ourselves if we read the gospels and dismiss the possibility that God might ask us to give up all of them some day. More fundamentally, however, I think that Jesus is saying that we cannot follow him without holding all of our stuff with open hands. Our money and resources and influence and comforts and prized possessions are gifts that we steward — resources to be leveraged in answering the calling of God to love our neighbors. Holding on to them in any other way makes them a stumbling block, something that gets between us and God, and if we keep reading Luke & Acts or look at the history of the early church, we see that from the beginning, the followers of Jesus are defined and known by the ways that they sacrificially give and share their resources, holding them in common and using them to care for those in need rather than clinging to them for comfort and security.

These interpretations may be clarifying, but they do not let us off the hook! Sure, it’s nice to know that we don’t have to ‘hate’ our families, but I’m sure many of us know how agonizing it can be when we have to ‘turn away’ from our families, when our values and sense of what is right — of what it means to love God or others — comes into conflict with the thoughts, feelings, or beliefs of those who raised us (or who we raised). Similarly, while God might not be asking you to literally give away every single thing you own today, I’m confident that we all know the struggle and internal conflict that comes when we see someone in need who we have the resources to help but are afraid of the vulnerability that comes with giving away our ‘stuff’, of the fear that can accompany giving up our money or resources, especially when we feel like we’re in a tight spot ourselves.

The verbs throughout this passage are in the present tense, and my understanding is that in Greek, the present tense is usually the present progressive tense. This means that when Jesus talks about ‘hating father or mother’ and ‘giving up your possessions’, he’s talking about a continuous, ongoing action, about a choice that we make over and over everytime our commitment to loving God and neighbor rubs up against our desire for security in our possessions or desire to be loved by our dear people. Imagine if we became the kind of people who really listened for the voice of the Spirit every time we faced one of these conflicts — what might God ask of us? Would we be willing to say, ‘yes’?

This reading is bookended by Jesus’ declarations about those who “cannot be his disciples”. Sometimes when we hear this language it can be tempting to think of this as an exclusion, as Jesus saying “no, you’re not allowed to be my disciple”. The Greek, however, simply says “you are not able to be my disciple,” and I suspect that this is about our capacity, our ability to follow Jesus. I think Jesus is saying, if you do not ‘hate father or mother’, if you do not ‘say goodbye to your possessions’, you are not capable of being my disciple, because that is simply what is required in order to follow me, in order to be a part of God’s people. Who will be there at God’s banquet? Who will follow Christ into God’s Kingdom? Not the rich and powerful, not the religious leaders, not those who stand on stages and give big speeches or go on and on about ‘Christian values’, but anyone and everyone who is willing to count the cost and give themselves to the way of Jesus with everything they have. Anyone and everyone who is willing to figure out how to love their neighbors as themselves, to reach out and care for those in need, even if it causes tension in their relationships, even if it costs them the comfort and security of their possessions.

And why does Jesus insist on this? Because this is the way to abundant life, to the true joy and peace and community that is offered in the Kingdom of God. Learning to love this way is how we become the kind of people that can receive the life that God in Christ is offering to us.

Like Moses in Deuteronomy, Christ has set before us today life and blessings in the invitation to be his disciples. May his Spirit empower us to become the sort of people who choose to receive them.

The Twelfth Sunday in Pentecost, August 31, 2025, Reflections on Luke 14: 1, 7-14 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

There’s a board game that’s been around forever called Chutes and Ladders.  I think everyone has played this at some point in their lives either as a child or as a grown-up with a child.  Since it is a game for little ones, it’s simple and straightforward to play: You spin the arrow and move around the board. As you go, you hope for ladders and to avoid the chutes and slides. Land at the base of a ladder and you get to advance all the way to the top beyond where even the highest spin can take you. Land at the bottom of a chute and - oh no! – you have to slide way down, back to a place you’ve already been.

Chutes and ladders gives us some insight into the culture in which Jesus lived. Scholars tell us that first century culture operated under the binaries of honor and shame. This basically meant that people’s behavior was shaped either by the threat of being publicly shamed or the promise of being publicly honored.  And not just your shame or honor but the shame and honor of many people who mattered to you. Our individualistic culture makes it a little harder to feel the import of that, of how terrible a setback it was to be shamed or how being honored moved you forward in a big way. It was akin to Chutes and Ladders

I sometimes wonder why these upright religious folks kept inviting Jesus to dinner parties, because he always caused a ruckus. At a dinner party at another Pharisee’s house, a disheveled and disreputable woman crashed the party, threw herself at Jesus feet, and began weeping. The host of the part got very upset, but Jesus apparently told everyone that she had done a beautiful thing.

He may be he’s invited so they can rip him up, take his temperature.  But Jesus, in the end, always takes theirs. And today he’s done it again. In today’s story, when we hear Jesus is invited into the home of a Pharisee for a meal. You just know there is going to be trouble. 

Jesus arrives, maybe he makes a little small talk, and then he watches how the guests jockey with each other for a seat at the cool table. They called it a table of honor but it’s the same thing. You know they’re all doing that delicate dance that has all the subtlety of a junior high cafeteria where everyone wants to sit and be seen at the cool table with the cool kids.  

So Jesus watches this for a while, and then he launches into a story, which basically skewers the pretensions of all the guests. He says, “When you get invited to a banquet, don’t seat yourself in a place of honor, because someone more important than you may come along, and then you will be asked to give up your seat, and you will be disgraced in front of the whole party.”

It’s like Jesus, too, has played Chutes and Ladders and is telling them: you will find yourself at the top of the chute and you will have to slide from the seat of honor all the way down to the seat of shame. Oh what a long, lonely walk it is from the first table to that one in the back near the swinging door to the kitchen.

And then, to make sure they do not confine this thinking to dinner parties, Jesus utters the great saying, “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Those who make their own honor the goal of their lives will be ashamed of themselves in the end. And those who are humble, repeatedly putting others first, will experience the true, deep and lasting honor of the Kingdom of God.

On the one hand, this is very practical advice, the kind of thing you might find in a Poor Richard’s Almanac. Humility – true humility – is always the best mindset. It is preferable, Jesus says, to let others recognize your achievements than to address them yourself.

And on the other hand, these parables go much deeper than practical advice. They speak to the arc of our lives.  What if the point is not about climbing all the right ladders of achievement and prestige?  What if our true purpose is to slide down as many chutes as possible in compassion and companionship, standing with our neighbors? 

Psychiatrist Robert Coles tells a story about his first encounter with Dorothy Day, the great social activist, who was living and working with the poor in the slums of New York City. Coles was in Harvard Medical School at the time, proud of his status, and also proud that he had volunteered to work with Dorothy Day in helping the poor. He arrived for his first meeting to discover the famous Day deep in conversation with a dirty and disheveled street person. When she noticed Coles had come into the room, she asked him, “Did you want to speak to one of us?”

Robert Coles was astounded by Dorothy Day’s humility. She had identified so completely with what society would call a “nobody” that there was no distinction between them. Coles said it changed his life. And, he said, he learned more in that moment than in his four years at Harvard.

He saw in her a groundedness, a genuine humility. And I think we’d so ourselves a favor to understand genuine humility: it is open to new learning combined with a balanced and accurate assessment of our strengths, our imperfections and our opportunities for growth.

Genuine humility does not deny or downplay ourselves, our gifts or our accomplishments. It does not embrace low self-esteem or meekness. It does not let people walk all over us.

It is not taking on a certain posture of lowliness in order to try to curry favor with God. Indeed, the God who created us with all our strengths and challenges looks to us to utilize those strengths while working out those things that challenge us. 

True humility involves understanding our contributions in context, in relation to both the contributions of others and our own place in God’s Kingdom. True humility says “I’m here to get it right, not to be right.”

I started today talking about a game, Chutes and Ladders and I’ll finish with another, slightly more challenging one: Jeopardy.  Ken Jennings won $2.5 million dollars playing 74 consecutive games. Now he’s the host.

During a recent taping of the show while they were resetting the stage, Ken asked the studio audience, “Any other questions for me while we have a moment?” A gentleman asks him. “Do you ever finish a particular Jeopardy episode and at the end realize “boy, that contestant don’t know a darn thing?” Ken laughs out loud. Then he replies, “I lost to a lovely lady from Ventura named Nancy. She knew Final Jeopardy and I didn’t. And you know what she thought? “That guy doesn’t know a darn thing.”  True humility. Ken let’s others sing his praises. And he pokes fun at himself. Because he knows he’s smart guy and he knows what he did. And also he know he still has more to learn.

We can’t free ourselves from the status system. Jesus points that out by assuming that there will always be a table and there will always be fighting for higher positions at the table. Where we have a choice is where we choose to sit. And if we ask, Jesus to be with us to help us take the lower seat, help us to embrace groundedness and save us from false humility.

We won’t need to make a big show of it. We will know our true worth. We will know deep in our bones that our worth is not determined by where we sit, but by whom we are loved. And we are loved by Jesus. Amen.

The Eleventh Sunday in Pentecost, August 24, 2025, "Everything you need, you brought with you" by the Reverend Jeannie Martz

Not too long ago, I read a book by author Daniel Kraus called Whalefall, published in 2023.  The New York Times calls Whalefall “A crazy, and crazily enjoyable, beat-the-clock adventure story about fathers, sons, guilt, and the mysteries of the seas.”

As a former scuba diver, I loved the book because diving and underwater scenes are a big part of the story, and it brought back some great memories.  I’ll probably read it again, savoring the underwater imagery and the various family relationships.

              (Once upon a time, my kids would say about a TV program or a movie, “You’ll love this, Mom – it’s about religion.”  Then they moved on to, “You’ll love this, Mom – it’s about relationships.”  They’d probably still say that today!)

              In any event, the story of Whalefall takes place just south of Monterey, and as I read, I kept googling all the places mentioned and the geographical claims the book made, and I found they’re all completely accurate.  I had no idea that there’s an underwater canyon twelve miles offshore between Carmel and Point Lobos that’s ninety-five miles long and over a mile deep, about the size of the Grand Canyon – and this underwater canyon is part of a greater canyon system that reaches depths of almost 12,000 feet.  You gotta know some interesting stuff lives down there!

              Needless to say, the underwater canyon plays a part in the book, as does how much air the “beat-the-clock” character has left in his tank.  On a recreational dive, which is defined as being less than 100’ in depth, a diver goes into the water with 3000 psi, pounds per square inch, just like tires, of oxygen in their tank.  They head gradually for the surface at no less than 500 psi, not ascending any faster than their bubbles, and they should be back on the boat with 300 psi left after a 3 minute safety stop at 15’.

              As I said, I loved the book.  I literally couldn’t put it down.  I sent a copy to my longtime dive buddy back in Florida, but her reaction was the same as my former mother-in-law’s reaction to hearing me preach for the first time:  “Well.  That was interesting.”  Eh – so I guess my dive buddy’s not into relationships!

              The reason that I’ve spent this time talking about Whalefall is that once the “beat-the-clock” diver, whose name is Jay, gets into the predicament that shapes the book, a recurring theme is, “Everything you need you brought with you.”  Everything you need you brought with you.

              Everything you need you brought with you in terms of experience; in terms of old lessons long-forgotten; in terms of confidence; in terms of what you can make do with.  You already have everything you need to help you survive, even if you don’t know it.  Now, hold onto this assurance for a bit.

              There is a link between Whalefall and this morning’s reading from Luke, the healing and restoration of a woman crippled and bent over for 18 years, but I need to lay some groundwork for the link.  Last Sunday, Rev. Carole’s sermon highlighted that Gospel reading’s focus on the cost of discipleship, on the price we may be called upon to pay as disciples of Jesus – the disruption and division we may face in all of our own most intimate relationships, as well as our social relationships and connections.

              Today’s Gospel passage begins a new section in Luke, within the greater context of Jesus “having set his face towards Jerusalem,” but last week’s tension is still present.  What we hear about today is Jesus’ third and final healing in a synagogue on the sabbath, and the leader of the synagogue’s angry reaction to that healing is a foretaste of the hostility to come in Jerusalem.  As is characteristic of Jesus’ healings, the one who is healed, woman or man, is restored not only to health, but also to wholeness, to personal dignity, and to acceptance back into their community. 

As one commentator says, “The proof of the woman’s restoration is immediate.  She is able to stand straight, and she praises God – the only proper response to God’s redemptive power.”  (NIB 273)

              In light of this comment, how apt is today’s psalm:  “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless God’s holy Name!”

              Being crippled, possibly by arthritis or osteoporosis, the woman would have been marginalized in her world, unable to perform the most basic of household tasks and responsibilities; an object of scorn, literally unable to even look anyone in the face.  In her healing in the synagogue on the sabbath, in her being unbound after 18 long years, one author says, in words we may well need to hear today, “Jesus teaches that concern over the suffering of fellow human beings takes precedence over obligations related to keeping the sabbath.”  (NIB, 273)

                            Concern over the suffering of fellow human beings takes precedence over the phrasing of the commandments delivered from God to Moses on Mt. Sinai.  Concern over the suffering of fellow human beings takes precedence through Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.  Concern over the suffering of fellow human beings takes precedence over anything school boards might want to place on the walls of their classrooms, because Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath.

              We already have everything we need.  Hold onto that.

              I don’t know if this description of ministry originated with Fr. Bill or if it predates him, but reading this morning’s passage from Isaiah totally resonates with St. Matthias’ own mission directive, “Let us go forth in the name of Christ, doing the loving thing.”  “If you remove the yolk from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry, and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.”  Do the loving thing, even when the forces of the world turn against you.  Even when the forces of the world increase the suffering of our fellow human beings.  Do the loving thing.

              This is part of what we need.

              As I mentioned a moment ago, today’s reading from Luke is the start of a new section in his Gospel, a new section in Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem.  The previous section, which includes the beginning of this final journey, has been filled with instruction; filled with Jesus teaching us, and giving us, everything we need. 

              Six weeks ago, we heard the story of the Good Samaritan.  At the conclusion of the story, the injured man’s neighbor is correctly identified as “the one who showed him mercy,” the one who treated him compassionately; and Jesus tells his listeners to “Go and do likewise”; so first among what we need is DO: do have, and do act, with compassion.  Do the loving thing.

              The following week, our reading was about Mary and Martha of Bethany, and this story provides a balance for the instruction to do.  Live a life of active compassion, of doing the loving thing, but balance that doing with sitting, with spending time simply be-ing in the presence of God, open and attentive and listening.  Our first strength is DO; our second strength is SIT.

              After this, Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, and Jesus responded with what we know today as the Lord’s Prayer.  Our third strength is prayer, and as a fellow clergyperson once pointed out, the disciples made this request, “teach us to pray,” because they wanted what Jesus had – they wanted that same intimacy with God that they saw in Jesus…and so as a way into this intimacy, he taught them this prayer.

              Far more than rote words, Jesus’ prayer is actually a leap of radical trust.  To pray the Lord’s Prayer is to put ourselves voluntarily, to put ourselves of our own choosing, into God’s hands, acknowledging our complete dependence on God alone, not only for our salvation, but also for our daily existence and wellbeing.

              DO act with compassion; SIT attentively in the presence of God; and PRAY to have a deep and abiding trust in God.  Three things we need.  Three strengths we have.

              The following week our Gospel passage focused on greed, as we heard Jesus tell the parable of the Rich Fool, the farmer whose crop is so huge that he builds new barns to store it and keep it all for himself, only to be told by God that his life will be required of him that very night and all his grain will be stuck in probate for years, and no one will get it.  “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions,” says Jesus to those who listen.

              Now, admittedly, this is a very counter-cultural message, because the world argued for the defining importance of material wealth in Jesus’ day and the world continues to argue for the defining importance of material wealth now. 

              And yet, the life of faith is not defined by what we have, even when we have a lot; the life of faith is a life shaped by God, not by things and impulses and feelings.  As Scottish evangelical Oswald Chambers wrote in the early 1900’s, “There is only one Being Who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.”  (in My Utmost for His Highest)

              This being said, our fourth strength is letting go of our fear of letting go.  Don’t be afraid.  Don’t be afraid to stand empty handed before God, because at that moment of complete vulnerability, the “last aching abyss” of our heart will be satisfied; and we will find our true identity, our new life, our real life; our life with God in Christ.  So don’t be afraid.

              Two weeks ago, that’s exactly how our Gospel passage began:  “Don’t be afraid.”  I once heard someone say that “Fear not” or “Don’t be afraid” appears in Scripture 365 times, this person’s theory being that God knew we’d need to hear it every day.  So – “Don’t be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom….For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  One author writes, “What Jesus enjoins [here]…is an orientation toward the whole of life as abundant gift from a generous God – a gift that can, therefore, be given away with abandon.”  (F, L, H, 337)

              “Stay alert,” says Jesus, “for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”  Stay alert to our surroundings, we claim as our next strength, open to where the Spirit of a generous God will lead us.

              As I mentioned, last week’s reading from Luke was a warning of the potentially apocalyptic upheaval that his presence can trigger.  As another commentator says, “Although the kingdom of God is characterized by reconciliation and peace, the announcement of that kingdom is always divisive because it requires decision and commitment.”  (NIB, L, 266)

Decision and commitment.  Because Jesus took the initiative in healing the unnamed woman in today’s Gospel, because he called her forward without any request or action on her part, her healing has been called “an act of radical grace.”  (Craddock, 384)

An embrace of God’s radical grace is the final strength we claim today, the final strength we recognize as we make the decision to commit; the decision to commit to God, and to work for the coming of God’s kingdom.  Like Jay the diver in Whalefall, we are bringing what we already have to the serious work of life in Christ:

DO act with compassion.

SIT attentively in God’s presence.

PRAY to have a deep and abiding trust in God.

DON’T be afraid.

STAY ALERT to our surroundings, open to where the Spirit of a generous God will lead us.

EMBRACE the radical grace of God.

 And come to the surface when you’re down to 500 psi.

Amen.

The Tenth Sunday in Pentecost, August 17, 2025, Reflections on Luke 12:49-56 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

father against son and son against father,

mother against daughter and daughter against mother,

mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

In 1913, there was a tiny town in Alabama called Loachapocka.  Loachapoka became the site for the very first school built in the south by Julius Rosenwald.  If you haven’t heard of him, Julius Rosenwald was part owner and then president of Sears. He was a man who, at the turn of the 20th century, had amassed a great fortune. Historians say that he was a relentless businessman. But he was also a generous philanthropist.  He was constantly on the lookout for ways he could contribute to try to make the world better.

Just before 1913, Julius became aware of the fact that most African Americans had no place to receive an education.  And that really weighed heavily on him. So he reached out to the one person who he thought would be able to give him guidance about this – a man named Booker T. Washington. At the time, Mr. Washington was in the process of setting up The Tuskegee Institute, a world-renowned college committed to offering access to education to those with the least opportunities people who had no access to education. So these two men got together and started to brainstorm about how they could be a force for good in the world where it was most needed.

And Booker T Washington said, “I’ve got a plan for you. It’s really the rural areas that are the most hard hit.”  He invited Julius Rosenwald to come to Alabama, to partner with him and get something positive done. Over the next 20 years Julius began funding the building of schools.  Over 5,000 of them in 15 states. From Maryland to Texas.

Historians say that over 700,000 Black students were educated in those schools from 1913, when the first one was built, until sometime in the 1960’s when schools were desegregated following the historic Brown v Board of Education decision and passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Seven hundred thousand students! That’s equivalent to the current population of Denver.

We talked last week about the Great Cloud of Witnesses – those who inspire and challenge us including Jonathan Myrick Daniels. Julius Rosenwald and all the communities that came together with him in partnership to see over 5,000 schools come into being and be centers of education, now stand in that tremendous cloud of witnesses. They were witnesses to the plight of those who were languishing without education, witnesses to what it means to be faithful especially to those who it would have been so easy to ignore. They became part of a great cloud of witnesses who realized that giving of themselves to something bigger than themselves that would outlast themselves really mattered.  

Our lesson from Hebrews today is where that beautifully descriptive term – great cloud of witnesses - originates. The historical context, we believe, is that it was written to a fledging group of Christians who were struggling with what it means to follow God in the face of persecution.  

No one promised that following God would be an easy road.  And that’s what we see in this sort of roll call in the lesson.

It was not easy for the children of Israel who came into bondage in Egypt and had to escape, or those who came into Canaan, or for those that we hear about: of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets – and all whom were persecuted for the love of God, who were persecuted for loving neighbor as themselves.

And yet they left behind a legacy, they left behind something for all of us today.  We are privileged to walk in the path that they have carved out for us. Had it not been for those pillars of the faith, for those willing to sacrifice, who saw the need to care about something bigger than themselves - if not for those who chose God over the world.

Can you imagine 100 years ago, that Julius’ task was not easy, that it caused great division – within communities, friendships, families. It’s a hard thing sometimes loving our neighbors. And it causes division between those who want to stay in places of comfort, who want to avoid conflict, who cannot abide those who are ready and willing to do the loving thing.  Jesus warns us that there will be tension between those who chose love and those who deny:

father against son and son against father,

mother against daughter and daughter against mother,

mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

That great cloud of witnesses includes something else – the joy we have at leaving a legacy for those who come behind us.

Kathryn Bigelow was first woman to win an academy award for directing.  And her comments to reporters were striking.  “This really isn’t about me,” she said.  “It’s about all the people who came before me to make it possible for me to stand here today. And it’s about all the people who will come after me. Because of what happened here today, there are women who now know that something is possible that they never dreamed would happen for them.”

And that is us today. That’s all of us. Jesus asks us to read the signs of our lives, in our world, he asks us to interpret the signs of our present day and to do it through the eyes of God’s love and compassion.  To see the destitute, the lonely.  We share the responsibility together to believe in what is bigger than us,­ to care for all those who come after us and know that we will be the cloud of witnesses to lift them up.

Today we are going to celebrate reading in a very special way and a very special reader.  We are going to present Olivia Becerra with her very first Bible.  Olivia is growing up – maybe too fast for her family’s liking.  At her baptism, promises were made on her behalf by her parents and godparents to keep the lessons of the apostles for themselves and to teach them to Olivia.

And now it’s time for her to take on some of that responsibility for herself – to become a student of God’s word and immerse herself in it. We celebrate this time in her life with her, this coming of age.    

God calls us to ask ourselves how we will be remembered.  Whatever we are able to do to improve the life of another human being, God calls us to do that.  And as we give thanks for those who came before us, for those on whose shoulders we stand in order to have a better view of God’s Kingdom, let us always remember that there are those, like Olivia and all our children, who come after us.  And that we are their light and their path to an ever greater knowledge, and ever closer relationship with God.  Amen.

The Ninth Sunday in Pentecost, August 10, 2025, Reflections on Luke 12:32-40 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Jesus said to his disciples, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

I must ask myself a dozen times a day, “what time is it?” Maybe you do as well.  We look at our watches. We know instinctively where the clock function is on our computers or phones. Most of us – to some degree of another – watch the clock so that we can be on time, so that we aren’t late. We do this for lots of reasons. But I think usually it’s because we want to show respect – respect for the other people we’re going to meet, respect for our own and their busy calendars with lots to do that day. We realize that the event can’t start until everyone is present. And we don’t want to be the one holding everyone up or the one who is left behind. We don’t want to miss out. 

And the other question we ask ourselves before a meeting or event is – am I ready? Have I done the necessary prep work to function at a high level?  If I’m an athlete, have I been to practice that week? Did I pay attention to my coach? If I’m a student going into an exam, have I studied, did I do the homework?  Did I pay attention in class and take decent notes? Am I ready? At least, am I as ready as I can be?  And maybe we won’t know the answer to that question until after the meeting, after the exam, after the game?  But we can prepare.

So this week’s gospel gives us a lot we can relate to. Some things in it are not so clear: wedding celebration traditions and the conventional expectations of the relationship between masters and slaves that are assumed in Jesus’ teaching are lost on us. But Jesus’ bottom line transcends time and culture and is always applicable: be watchful, be ready. Live consistently in such a moral way that you are always ready to give account to God of how you live.  Live love. Join with current saints and those through time who have built up God’s kingdom on earth.  And do it fearlessly.

As a church, we commemorate the lives of some of these witnesses. This week one of those who we remember is Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian and witness for civil rights.

Jonathan did not set out to be among the Great Cloud of Witnesses.  But he did set out to follow God’s call to him. After graduating from Virginia Military Academy, he felt called to the priesthood. So he enrolled in the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a deeply spiritual man and there is every reason to think that his life would have been an inspiration to many. Jonathan could look forward to a long life as, perhaps, a parish priest. He would be in his 60’s now, approaching retirement, having probably baptized, married, counseled, and buried a large number of parishioners. He would have had plenty of opportunities to live out his faith.

But while he was in seminary he felt a restlessness. The Holy Spirit had intervened as the Holy Spirit often does. In March 1965, Jonathan Daniels heard a televised appeal by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., asking for workers to come to Selma, Alabama, and help secure the right to vote for all citizens. Jonathan’s initial impulse to answer this call was strengthened during the singing at Evensong of the Magnificat, the beautiful song of Mary, also found in Luke’s Gospel.

“He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.”

Jonathan told his friends that he knew he had to go to Selma. “The Virgin’s song was to grow more and more dear to me in the weeks ahead.” Here we see a living example of a faithful witness – Mary, the mother of Jesus - inspiring a modern day faithful witness – Jonathan even though they were separated in time by nearly 2,000 years.

Jonathan went to Selma, where he lived among those he was called to serve as they struggled to claim their right to vote. On August 14th, Jonathan and several others were jailed for participating in a picket line – confined to the sweltering heat of a windowless jail in August in the deep South. They were released six days later and walked to a store to buy cold drinks. Ruby Sales, a black teenager, was the first to reach the door. She was met by a man armed with a shotgun who cursed her as he lifted the barrel of the gun. Jonathan pushed her aside to shield her and took the blast of the shotgun point-blank in the chest. He died on the spot.

In his book, Brightest and Best, Sam Portaro theorizes that the man who threatened Ruby Sales that day in August had been taught all his life to fear and hate anyone who looked different from him. He had been taught that to respect the rights of a black person — even one merely trying to buy a bottle of soda pop from a neighborhood market – would in some way, diminish his own life.

Jonathan Daniels, on the other hand, nourished by Holy Scripture and the sacraments, encouraged by faith in the transformative power of God and the teachings of Jesus Christ, was filled with faith, hope, and love. On that top step of the little store in Selma, Portaro writes, “fear met faith, greed met hope, hatred met love.”

Jonathan’s death shocked the world. It also galvanized the movement that he had joined with the desire to bring about the kingdom of God, to prepare the world for the coming of the Master.

The forces that were at work in Selma in l965 are at work in the world today. Our lives are complicated. We, too, struggle with the presence of fear and greed and hatred, even as we thank God for the gifts of faith, hope, and love.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews calls on us to hold fast to Jesus, that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, that we may lay fear aside and run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith.” 

Faith and action cannot be divorced. Fear must turn to trust, and trust must grow into faithful action, building the kingdom that it is God’s good pleasure to give us.

Jonathan’s call and path were unique to him. We are not all called to the same path or witness. We are not all called to place ourselves in mortal danger. But we are all called to be responsible for what we are and what we do. We must have our lamps lit and be dressed to serve. That preparation and the conviction that we are in our own unique ways living into our call to serve drives out all fear and frees us to do our part in the work of building the kingdom that God promises to give to us.

As Episcopalians we have a beautiful roadmap in our baptismal covenant:  we must be ready to live out our baptismal vow to put our whole trust in grace and love, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. And last but never least, we must strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. We must be about the work of the faithful even if we don’t feel like Jesus is going to come knocking anytime soon. 

And if we are caught up in our faithful action when the Master returns we will be blessed. In Jesus’ parable, the slaves who were up ready to serve the late-returning Master were rewarded with the Master cooking them a meal and sitting with him at the table. In this we too shall be blessed. What a glorious day that will be.  Amen.

Saturday Healing Service — Meditation on Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Saturday Healing Service Meditation                                     Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-- and Sarah herself was barren-- because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Mediation by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

The epistle today gives a chance to think about how we use the words “belief” and “faith” – two terms that are often used interchangeably, but there's an important difference.

Belief is an intellectual acceptance of something as true. Each Sunday we reconfirm our beliefs when we say the Nicene Creed – “We believe in God the Father, we believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, and we believe in the Holy Spirit.” These expressions of belief were intellectually discerned long ago by our spiritual ancestors. And as we recall and repeat them now, they come from our mind much more than from our heart.   

Faith is a heart function. Faith builds on belief adding trust and a willingness to act often in the face of uncertainty. You can't have faith in something you don't believe exists or is true. Faith is a deep commitment that involves trust, reliance of the teachings of Jesus and the promises of God.  It involves action, even in the absence of proof. We believe in God. We have faith when they pray, seek guidance, and live their life according to their understanding of God's will.  It is by God’s grace, through faith, that we receive salvation.

There was a popular saying years ago “Keep the Faith” to encourage us through difficult times.  Faith in God - the goodness of God and the love of God for us - is what keeps us going in the face of life’s challenges.

Does that resonate with you?  Does that make sense?

Here’s a little bit of seminary Greek for you. The Greek word for faith is pistis (PEES-tees.)  Paul frequently uses the word pistis in his writings – 25 times in Romans alone. Pistis had a checkered past in the culture of the early church. In Greek mythology, pistis was one of the spirits who escaped Pandora’s Box. 

Do you remember the story of Pandora’s Box? Pandora was the first woman created by the gods. Zeus gave her a sealed container as a gift, warning her never to open it. Pandora, though, just couldn’t help herself. She was so curious, she opened the container releasing all sort of things into the world. The good things, like faith - pistis, fled back to heaven while the evils were turned loose humanity. Though Pandora quickly closed the box, only hope remained trapped inside. The story was meant to encourage obedience and suppress curiosity.  But also to reinforce hope.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus wonders “will the Son of Man find faith on earth?” He’s speaking into the Hellenistic culture that believed the spirit of pistis had already departed.

The book of Hebrews was written in part to combat such despair and to encourage new Christians who were having trouble holding onto hope when Jesus did not return soon after his ascension. Along comes the author of Hebrews to give us a valuable definition of faith: “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

So many times we receive the things that in faith we ask God to grant us: the baby is born, we get the job, the treatment works.  Sometimes things take longer and like the folks in Hebrews waiting for Christ to return, our people are still waiting for and longing for an answer from God. 

But it’s a complicated sort of “dance”:  In faith we are assured that God has our best interest at heart, knows what we hope for and holds our future. It’s not easy to follow God when we’re not sure about that, when we can’t see where God is leading us, when we do not see in action that hard evidence that we crave. We might begin to wonder whether God is watching over us. We hope that God is watching. We see loved ones grow ill and pray, in faith, that God will hold their future. Then every once in a while, something happens - something special – that strengthens our hearts and reminds us why we believe. We need these moments, given by God’s grace, to renew our faith.

The wonderful theologian, Frederick Beuchner, points out that faith is better understood as a verb than a noun, as a process rather than a possession. It is “on-again-off-again” rather than “once and for all.” Faith is not being sure of where you’re going but going anyway.

I think what gives our faith real strength is the belief that Jesus Christ is Lord of all and like a good friend, a best friend, is looking out for us both as individuals and as a community. 

And isn’t that the blessing of our community of faith – that in the “on again off again” of our lives, we can rest in faith, knowing we have each other to go on the journey, knowing that by grace God watches over us and in love Jesus walks with us no matter what.

Amen.

The Eighth Sunday in Pentecost, August 3, 2025, "Do, sit, pray, let go – and don’t be afraid, because you are loved" by the Reverend Jeannie Martz

Eighth Sunday After Pentecost, August 3, 2025

Proper 13, Year C

The Rev. Jeannie Martz

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Irvine CA

Whatever Episcopal church we’ve been worshiping in, over the past three Sundays, the Gospel readings from Luke that we’ve all been hearing have given us an outline of the Christian life, an outline of life lived faithfully.

Three weeks ago, we heard the story of the Good Samaritan.  At the conclusion of the story, the injured man’s neighbor is correctly identified as “the one who showed him mercy,” who treated him compassionately, and Jesus tells his listeners to “Go and do likewise”; so the first point in the outline is DO:  do have, and do act, with compassion and mercy.

              Two weeks ago, our reading was about Mary and Martha of Bethany, and this story provides a balance for the instruction to do.  Live a life of active compassion, but balance that doing with sitting, with spending time simply be-ing in the presence of God, open and attentive and listening.  Point one, DO; point two, SIT.

              We heard point three last week when Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray like John had taught his disciples, and Jesus responded with what we know today as the Lord’s Prayer.  Point three is PRAY, and as a fellow clergyperson once pointed out, the disciples made this request, “teach us to pray,” because they wanted what Jesus had – they wanted that same intimacy with God that they saw in Jesus…and so as a way into this intimacy, he taught them this prayer.

              Far more than rote words we can all recite in our sleep, this prayer is actually a leap of radical trust.  To pray the Lord’s Prayer is to put ourselves voluntarily and of our own choosing into God’s hands, acknowledging our complete dependence on God alone, not only for our salvation, but also for our daily existence and wellbeing.

              DO act with compassion; SIT attentively in the presence of God; and PRAY to have a deep and abiding trust in God. 

Why this emphasis on a faithful lifestyle?  Because as we also hear Jesus say today, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions“ – or, in the words of The Message translation of Scripture, “Life is not defined by what [we] have, even when [we] have a lot.”

              The world, of course, argues otherwise, and says that we are very much defined by what we have.  It argued otherwise in Jesus’ day too, because at that time material wealth was seen as being a sign of God’s favor, as tangible evidence that the wealthy person was already doing and sitting and praying, was already in a right relationship with God; and Jesus’ listeners would have said that rather than being a fool, this morning’s farmer was both wise and prudent to stockpile his bumper crop, and to plan for his future as he did.

              The world argued for the defining importance of material wealth then, and the world continues to argue for the defining importance of material wealth now.  Here in our day both smart money and our culture tell us that more is better, that more will keep us safe from economic downturns and financial surprises, that more will keep the unpredictable chaos of life at bay; and the world tells us that what we have, and how much of it we have, and certainly whose label is on what we have, that this is what defines us; this is what determines our real value in the world around us.

              The old clichés and bumper stickers have long told us that when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping; and that he or she who dies with the most toys wins; and as a culture, we’ve taken these clichés so much to heart and learned this lesson of material accumulation so well that as a result, some years ago author and lifestyle consultant Marie Kondo built a whole consumer industry around helping us to de-clutter our lives and our homes, around helping us get rid of our stuff; and I’m sure that if asked, she would encourage the rich farmer to go through his crops one by one and keep only those that bring him joy.

              (This is one of Kondo’s signature pieces of advice about how to identify what to keep and what to pitch in one’s own home.)

              As one commentator says of today’s Gospel reading, “This inordinate craving to hoard as a guarantee against insecurity is not only an act of disregard for those in need but [it] puts goods in the place of God,” and of course, putting anything in the place of God is, by its very definition, idolatry.  (Craddock, pp. 360-361)

              Paul also identifies hoarding and greed as idolatry, as “seeking” not “where Christ is” – and he’s right.  We are idolatrous; we worship a false god any time our seeking for more and more siphons off the energy, the adoration, and the devotion – or the doing, sitting, and praying – that belong to God alone.

              We worship a false god any time that we think the object of our seeking is also the definer of who we are – and our false god doesn’t even have to be money or things or accomplishments.

              Sadly, idolatry can also focus on painful things, on wounds or emotions or experiences that we choose to cling to and savor and identify with in an unhealthy way, never moving through them, but instead hoarding them and running our fingers through them, keeping them in the storehouses of our hearts and living out of them or lashing out of them again and again and again.

              The ancient Greeks were correct to say that it is as easy to satisfy the hunger of greed as it is to fill a bucket that has a hole in it.  Whatever we try to fill the bucket with, whatever we try to satisfy the hunger with, there’s never going to be enough…and the Christian life is not defined by what we have, even when we have a lot.

              All our old behaviors, all our old priorities are now obsolete, says Paul; the things we clutch at and garner and hoard in our barns as we “set our minds…on things that are on earth” -- these are all illusions, they’re not part of the action going on around Christ.  Our new life, our real life is “with Christ in God”, and so these practices that we thought brought joy to the “old self” can be set aside and discarded.  They are illusions, and we need to become dis-illusioned.

              Back in the early 1900’s, Scottish evangelical Oswald Chambers wrote, “Many of the cruel things in life spring from the fact that we suffer from illusions.  We are not true to one another as facts; we are true only to our ideas of one another….It works in this way,” he went on to say.  “[I]f we love a human being and do not love God, we demand of [the one we love] every perfection and every rectitude, and when we do not get [what we want] we become cruel and vindictive; we are demanding of a human being that which he or she cannot give.  There is only one Being Who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.”  (in My Utmost for His Highest)

              As the author of the book of Ecclesiastes, the one who in today’s reading calls himself “the Teacher;” the Teacher writes – and here I’m reading from the contemporary Message translation again –  “Oh, I did great things:  built houses, planted vineyards, designed gardens and parks and planted a variety of fruit trees in them, made pools of water to irrigate the groves of trees….I piled up silver and gold, loot from kings and kingdoms….Oh, how I prospered!  I left all my predecessors in Jerusalem far behind, left them all in the dust.  What’s more, I kept a clear head through it all.  Everything I wanted I took – I never said no to myself.  I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing.  I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task – my reward to myself for a hard day’s work!  Then…[then] I took a good look at everything I’d done, looked at all the sweat and hard work.  But when I looked, I saw nothing but smoke.  Smoke and spitting into the wind.  There was nothing to any of it.  Nothing.”  (Eccles. 2:4-10, selected)

              The life of faith is not defined by what we have, even when we have a lot; the life of faith is a life shaped by God, not by things and impulses and feelings.  The life of faith is a dis-illusioned life, it’s a life that recognizes, as Paul says, that in our renewal in Christ, “there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.”  (Col. 3:11)

              And as Oswald Chambers reminds us, only Christ can sate our hunger for more, only Christ can “satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart”; only God in Christ can “give us THIS DAY our daily bread” – and yet admitting this, admitting to ourselves the deep need we have that we can’t fill ourselves can be really scary.

              I once heard someone say that “Fear not” or “Don’t be afraid” appears in Scripture 365 times, this person’s theory being that God knew we’d need to hear it every day.  Well, let’s go for leap year and make it 366 – and this is point four of our faithful life outline:  don’t be afraid.

              Don’t be afraid to let go of storing up and of seeking more; don’t be afraid to let go of toys, to let go of wounds, to let go of the fear of letting go.

              Don’t be afraid to stand empty handed before God, because at that moment of our greatest dis-illusionment, no illusions or self-protections or self-deceptions left, at that moment we will find our true identity, our new life, our real life; our life with God in Christ.  Don’t be afraid to stand empty handed before God, because that’s where our new life is, and we can’t take advantage of it without being empty handed, without being honest with ourselves about our total dependence on God.

              And why not be afraid?  Because no less than all of creation, we too belong to God:  we are the adopted sons and daughters of the God who loved all things into being; we are the baptized, and as the baptismal rubrics in the Prayer Book make clear, “The bond which God establishes in baptism is indissoluble.”  Indissoluble; permanent.  A bond of relationship initiated by God that cannot be broken, ever – no matter what we do, think, say, wish, or feel; and no matter what anyone else does, thinks, says, wishes, or feels.  By God’s own choice, God sticks with us, and God sticks to us, in a bond more solid than Gorilla Glue.

              Some of us may remember that expression that Rudyard Kipling used to introduce his Just So Stories for children, “O best beloved”; more recently – although still 18 years ago – others among us might remember how in the 2007 book The Shack, the character of God would invariably say, when someone’s name was mentioned, that she, God, was “particularly fond” of that person.  Each of us is God’s best beloved, and God is particularly fond of each and every one of us.  And so we can be brave, not afraid; we can dis-illusion ourselves; we can allow our lives to be shaped by God.

              At one point in the Broadway musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” the humble milkman Tevye, the main character, sings about what his life would be like if he suddenly became rich.  He’d get a big house, he says, with a tin roof and wood floors.  He’d get flocks of chickens and ducks and turkeys and geese, his wife would have a double chin and lots of servants, and he’d have the admiration and respect of all the townspeople.  Finally, at the end of the song, he says longingly, “If I were rich, I’d have the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray, and maybe have a seat by the eastern wall.  And I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men several hours every day.  That would be the sweetest thing of all.”

Do, sit, pray, let go – and don’t be afraid, because you are loved; and because this love will never let you go, this love that God has for you and for me and for everyone else and always will – don’t be afraid, because this is the sweetest thing of all.  

Amen.

The Eighth Sunday in Pentecost, August 3, 2025, Reflections on Luke 12: 13-21 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, `What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, `I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, `Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

It’s not fair! How many times have we heard those words in our lives, in our work and homes. It’s not fair. He got something I didn’t get. She got something I really wanted. Is there something in our human nature than when we look round and see someone else that has something we thing we might want – and we learn this at a very early age. “I want that. Give me that.” I’m not sure we ever shake this off.

And particularly among siblings. From the earliest siblings recorded in scripture, we see that there are some tension. When Caine realizes that the sacrifice that Abel makes to God is more acceptable than his own sacrifice, he has his own moment of “that’s not fair” and “I want that.”  And is so upset that he decides to take his brother’s life. The very first siblings recorded in scripture.

And this business of inheritance – that’s its own sticky wicket. Because we can stay in the book of Genesis, we don’t have go any further in scripture, to find that difficult story of Jacob and Esau. Remember them?  Jacob was the younger of the twin brothers. 

But birth order matters in the ancient world. And so Jacob need to be the older twin so badly that he thinks “I will lie to my father, I will cheat my own brother, I will do whatever I need to do to get the birthright and the patriarchal blessing.” So the existence of sibling rivalry in our world today can’t be too surprising if those things existed in ancient times.

And somehow the death of a parent, in some families, seems to bring out really poor behavior. There are media reports of these things all too often: recently in a family named Burgess, where there was an allegation that one sister had unduly influenced their mother to change her will, the family spent the entirety of their inheritance arguing in court for years. In the end, there was nothing for anyone. Except maybe the lawyers. Proving the old saying that some people are so poor that all they have is money.  And then they don’t even have that.

And so we have this interesting lesson from Luke’s gospel today. This very interesting lesson about a man who isn’t getting what he thinks he should get from his father’s estate. He believes his brother should be giving him more. He asks Jesus to intercede on his behalf.

What we know about the ancient world and inheritance is that the older son usually got a double portion of the estate. So if you were the younger son you got about a third and your older brother got two thirds roughly.  Depending on what the inheritance looks like, it could leave you living well or in poverty.  So we gather that a younger son who is unhappy with his share comes to Jesus to say “I don’t have enough. Tell my brother to give me more.’ Jesus refuses to get into the middle of this family squabble.

Instead Jesus uses it for a wonderful teaching moment. That’ much more than about inheritance.  We don’t really know what happened in this family.  We don’t know why this young man thinks he should get a bigger share – maybe he was more faithful or more helpful to his dad.  Maybe he’s just greedy. But we know that he’s asking for more, he doesn’t have enough.  And Jesus, in the way he loves to teach, tells a parable.

A rich man – whose bounty is so tremendous after a bumper crop, has so much, his barns can’t hold it all. So he’s thinking to himself, what do I do now? I have all this abundance. I know, I’ll tear down my two small barns and build bigger ones. And if I do that, I won’t have to work for quite a while, for years. And I can just relax. This is so good. Notice he doesn’t ask himself “who might I give some of this grain to? Who didn’t have such a good crop this year? No, there’s none of that.

He runs into a problem. Because who shows up to have a chat with this guy?  God shows up. “You fool,” God says. “This very night your life be will demanded of you. And whose gonna get all this stuff when you’re gone?”  That’s a big question for this man.  Because he is so consumed with how do I hang on to everything I’ve got. It’s mine!”

Theologian Walter Brueggemann during his lifetime preached about the whole idea of living in fear of scarcity. A lot of us understand this. Our parents or grandparents lived through the depression and then through the rationing times of the second world war.

There was a fear that you might wake up one day and desperately need that one thing that you let go of the day before. Now you’re in the world of hurt that you dreaded and tried so hard to prevent. So the idea of scarcity was a real one for them.

But when we allow ourselves to live in fear of scarcity rather than in anticipation of and in thanksgiving for abundance, it causes us to live our lives in ways that are not life-giving. We are so concerned with holding onto things that we can’t envision how God would have us take care of all God’s people.

And when our lives have been demanded of us, when our time is done what’s going to happen to all our stuff? We’ve been so carefully hanging onto it. I’m as guilty as anyone, I’ve got family heirlooms I attach great importance to them. Because they’re all I have left of my family. And I don’t feel good about it. But what is going to happen to all that we have amassed when our time here is done?

Mitch Albom wrote a book called “Have a Little Faith.” It’s about a minister in the inner city who had a rather circuitous route getting into the ministry. But now he’s been called to a church where he has nothing. Is literally in a church that is missing part of the roof and it’s the middle of winter. Snow is coming in.

But rather than living in a mindset of scarcity, he lives in a place of abundance. “I know God has got this. I know God is going to care for us. I know that we’ll be able to take care of the next hungry person what comes to us, that needs a place to sleep – I know we can take care of them. I know this because I trust in the Great Abundance of God.”

That is such a rich and life-giving place to live. Because it acknowledges that what we have really isn’t ours in the first place. We have what we have because we are stewards entrusted to care for these things while we are here. We have it because of God’s goodness, we have it because of God’s graciousness.

When we approach life from that standpoint, when we approach life from that place, suddenly this fear of not having enough is replaced with a sense of “God will provide.” As Jesus says in the verses that follow this passage today, look at the ravens. They don’t have a store house or barn, they don’t have any of that, but they eat every day. They eat every day because of God’s Great Provision. It is as true for us as it was true for those who heard Jesus tell this parable 2,000 years ago.

We have been entrusted with tremendous gifts that make a profound difference in God’s world for God’s people. And when we live with the assurance of the real inheritance – that the real inheritance is not about our stuff, the real inheritance is about the life that we will go on to live eternally with God. When we live our lives with a sense of that reality and that richness and that abundance, we see everything differently.

We see the ministry that we do 5 days a week on our St. Francis patio “Doing the Loving Thing” providing food for the hungry, water for the thirsty on these very hot summer days, and hats, gloves and scarves during the cold winter months – that we provide to over a hundred people every week.     

We do that and we’ll still eat, and stay hydrated in the summer and warm in the  winter. We’ll still be fine. We will still know God’s love and provision.

So I invite all of us this day to give up the notion that there’s a scarcity of anything. Because in God there is no scarcity. I invite us to believe in God’s abundance.  I invite us to believe that God puts us here to care deeply for one another.

When we do that, when we put our focus not on material things, but on the life we will live eternally with God, our outlook about everything we do becomes lighter, more joy filled. Our lives are more reflective of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.  We feel God working in and through us. And we live as people abundantly blessed every day of our lives. Amen.

The Seventh Sunday in Pentecost, July 27, 2025, Reflections on Luke 11: 1-13 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial."

And he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.' And he answers from within, `Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.' I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

I feel confident that many of us gathered here today might count the words of the Lord’s Prayer among our earliest childhood memories. And likely, some of us began saying those well-known and beloved words with our parents during bedtime prayers, or with our aunties and grandparents even before we remember saying them in church on a Sunday.

And as children, we didn’t know what the words meant. We only knew that we’d been taught that this is what we say when we approach God in prayer. As we got older, we began to engage the process of what these words really mean.  What do they say to us? And what are we hoping for as we begin to say them?

The words of the Lord’s Prayer took on new meaning for a friend of mine a few years ago.  On a Friday morning, she went for what was supposed to be routine physical exam.  It was supposed to be all over and done within an hour so she could get on with her day.  She was excited about plans she had for the weekend. But an abnormal image appeared on a scan. And she said that it seemed everyone and everything went into high speed motion around her. There were worried looks and expressions of concern.

And a doctor finally said to her, ”we need to schedule an appointment for you with a specialist this afternoon.”  She had never been so frightened in her life. She had a 4-year-old, and a not quite 2-year-old.  And the notion that she might be leaving them sooner than she ever imagined was terrifying. There were a lot of tears - tears as she was trying to figure out how to tell her spouse. Tears as she was trying to make sense out of what was happening. Tears about how she was even going to get through the next couple hours as she waited for the specialist

But no words. She couldn’t find any words. She describes herself as “a prayer.” But in that moment, she could find no words. Alone in a sterile hospital exam room, it took a crisis to bring her to prayer, to ask for God’s help and acknowledge her need for God’s help. And in the depth of that lonely, despairing moment when she craved comfort it was finally a few bits of the Lord’s Prayer that she could summon, But those were enough to dry her tears and lift her in strength. She repeated over and over: “for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory.” 

Now if we were looking at scripture and looking for an example to rely on when we are in need of renewal and strength and are preparing ourselves for the work God has given us, we really don’t need to look very far.  Because all of our gospels, especially Luke’s gospel, talk about the times that Jesus needed to be with God in prayer in order to continue the journey.

There were some specific times that Jesus knew he needed to stop and pray, that he needed the strength and the peace that could only come from seeking God in prayer: after his baptism; as he was choosing the 12; as the Pharisees were besieging him; as people were seeking him out to be fed and to be healed. He knew that in order to do the work that God required of him he would need lots and lots of prayer.

Yet sometimes I think we forget that. Sometimes we think we can handle all sorts of things on our own without the strength that comes from that intimate relationship with God. The disciples had observed Jesus stepping away to pray. So they ask him to teach them to pray.

Notice what Jesus tells them:

Our Father, holy is your name. We hear a lot these days about Jesus as “personal savior.”  But that would have been a foreign notion to the disciples and the larger Jewish community, and out of character with Jesus’ teachings. It is all about community, not about individuals. “Our” Father, not my father.

Your kingdom come. We’ll come back to that in a minute.

Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins as we ourselves need to forgive all those who are indebted to us. That’s hard sometimes isn’t it?

So Jesus has set up this marvelous model for the disciples to understand what it means to go to God in prayer. And he adds one more thing: you need to be persistent.  God has no need for us to be persistent, we need that. We need to persist in prayer to realize that intimate connection with God.

I want to spend some time on the whole idea of “thy kingdom come.”  To utter those words in the 1st century Roman Empire world was to actually say something that was fairly subversive. To the culture’s way of thinking, there’s only one kingdom and that’s the kingdom of the empire. And there’s only one king and that’s Caesar. And to suggest that there is a place that is far bigger and better and more important, those are dangerous words to say in Jesus’ time.  And yet this is where he begins his petitions.

Your kingdom come. Not this one. Not this one in which we are surrounded by poverty and disease and violence. No, not this kingdom but your kingdom, God. Your kingdom where the impoverished and the marginalized know your mercy and your love and your justice. Your kingdom, God. Your kingdom come. Jesus teaches the disciples – and us – the pray boldly, courageously and expectantly.

We hear that and it almost sounds a passive event. Like one of these days we’ll be walking along and God’s kingdom will just fall on our heads.

There’s so much more to understanding what Jesus is telling the disciples here. It’s more than a passive waiting. It’s an engagement with God that helps us understand as people of God that God’s kingdom coming, comes through us.  Through the work of our hands and the love of our hearts – that is how God’s kingdom comes.

And only when we are filled up and strengthened to prayer can we understand how God can use us to allow God’s kingdom to come into being.

Mother Teresa once said that she stopped believing that prayer changes things. She stopped believing that when she reached an understanding that prayer changes us.  And that we, in turn, change things. This reminds us that we have a role. We are not passively watching the world go by. We have a very real role to play in helping everyone understand God’s love and mercy. If we are not the ambassadors of this, if we don’t radiate God’s love and mercy in all we do, then where is the hope? 

In a few minutes we are going to baptize our friend Jordan. In baptism he will be adopted into the family of God and welcomed by all of us.  We will offer him the care and support he needs to become the very best version of himself before God that he can be. 

The prayers that will be offered for him reflect those same qualities of God’s kingdom come.  We will pray that his heart be always open to God’s grace and truth, that he be filled with God’s holy and life-giving spirit, that he will love others in the power of the Spirit and, finally, that he will go into the world in witness to God’s love. This is a hopeful day, a special day. 

Jordan, I’m guessing that until today, July 27th wasn’t particularly important to you. That is was just an average day in the middle of summer. But all that changes today.  July 27th will never be the same.  It will always be your baptism day – a day to celebrate just as you celebrate your birthday or wedding anniversary. It will be forever a day of joyous remembrance and renewal. 

This is where hope lives.  We don’t need to wait for a crisis for all of us to understand our need for God and our need for one another.  We only need to persist in praying boldly in strength and commitment to being builders of God’s kingdom.  Amen. 

The Sixth Sunday in Pentecost, July 20, 2025, Reflections on Luke 10: 25-37 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

As Jesus and his disciples went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

This story of Mary and Martha – especially Martha’s portion - reminds me of the Thanksgiving dinners that Bob and I hosted at our house for our family for decades. Early in our married life the family consisted of about 16 people which filled our little townhouse.  As time went on, at its max, we had almost 40. We lost some family member along the way but there were marriage and births and friends that were like family. And we had a larger home, thanks be the God. Preparation for these dinners was over the top.  

But it all actually started before we got married with the wedding register for gifts. This is the process of picking out china and crystal and silver and serving dishes and linen napkins and table cloths. Pretty things you want and that they tell you you’ll need. And then very kind people purchase these things for you as wedding gifts. And then, well, you have to use them. And they are so pretty and shiny, and your dinner guests ooh and aah at how lovely it all looks.

Days before Thanksgiving, I would shop for hours and then cook for days all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes. There were To Do lists, and lists of lists. Finally it was Thanksgiving day, with crazy busy last minute things to do, guests arrived to be served. Timing of keeping cold things cold and hot things hot was the most important thing in the world. Making sure that everyone was full and happy. It was a feast.

And then, hours later, the guests were gone and we were alone with piles of dirty pots and pans, plates and cups; a mountain of dirty table linens. But we had a system, and we were usually done cleaning up by about 1:00 A.M. The next day we were so exhausted, we didn’t move unless it was to get another Tylenol.

But that wasn’t the worst hurt.  The worst hurt was realizing that I was so busy I hadn’t spent time with my people. I didn’t know how my nephew’s new job was going or who my niece’s best friend was in her new school or how my sister-in-law’s trip to China had gone.

So one year we switched it up. We used paper plates and plastic cups. And we made it a potluck. The plastic forks didn’t match. And we’re probably the only family in town eating Beef and Broccoli and strawberry ice cream for Thanksgiving. But we gained so much – time to listen, to laugh, to complain and commiserate – all things families do together.  

So that’s a vivid illustration for me personally of this conflict of good that we hear in the gospel lesson today. Martha wants to honor Jesus by making sure that everything was prepared exactly as it should be, all the details attended to, all the lists checked off, all the food just right, all the drinks just right, And Jesus is like “look, I appreciate it. But I would take bread and water… and you.” 

In trying to honor our guests with our actions, which we hoped we were those Thanksgiving and it’s a good thing to do that, we discovered that we really honored our guests much more with our attention. So at some point, if our impulse and the right desire to honor others by our actions interferes with our attending to them, then we are ripe for hearing Jesus words, “look the only thing that matters is for you to sit with us. That’s the only thing.” That’s the one thing.

So it’s a spiritual principal. It’s a call to discern spiritual balance. We do a lot for our families, for our neighbors, for our parish. So many of you do so much. You have such giving beautiful hearts for serving others. But if and when our commitment to practicing the serving side of our Christianity interferes with our prayer life, our reflective life, then we’re out of balance.

And that’s when we hear Jesus saying, “I would like to share with you a word, I would like to listen to you. I would like to hear about your hopes, your needs, your confessions, your desires. And I want to speak to you. I want you to hear from my word through the inspired scriptures.”

Holy Scripture originated in and is grounded in God through Jesus, for us and for our learning. The lesson this morning from Genesis – how sobering is that? Don’t we need to hear this story and picture Abraham frantically around arranging hospitality only to be brought up short by the news from the messenger that Sarah will have a son?

The Psalm this morning is a powerful one setting out the criteria of righteousness to which we might aspire for ourselves and look for in the leadership of others.

We get to hear the rich theology in the Colossians of Jesus as the earthly image of the invisible God, the fullness of God, the first fruits of the new creation. All these really warrant our attention.

But prayer is especially important. That we do not sacrifice our prayer life is important especially as Episcopalians. One of our core principals is the concept that our faith is shaped through our praying. Anglicans have long embraced the idea “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi,” which simply means, “praying shapes believing.”  You will become in belief whatever you give your prayerful heart to. 

Our hunger for a deeper, richer, ongoing life in communion with God demands that we be able to hold in tension things that often seem to be contradictory.  Any attempt to be with God, whether in the course of our prayer, in worship or the course of our daily lives has to be lived in the light of some sense of paradox:

God is within us and God is around us.

Jesus is with us and Jesus has ascended into heaven.

God’s kingdom has come and the kingdom is still to come.

These are the paradoxes of our life with God. The paradox of prayer is this: we perform these acts of worship that are not actually for us. We do these things for God but we are the ones who are changed. We offer songs of praise, prayers of thanksgiving, we chant the ancient psalms and it is we who are moved to joy.

Holy actions and holy attentions -- both are important. It’s a paradox, this Mary-Martha story, that we can live with and not let ourselves be bothered or dismayed by it. We are at times both contemplative Mary and servant Martha. And -- we have to attend to the first things first. This week as I prepared for this sermon I heard not “Martha, Martha” but “Carole Carole.” Jesus also calls your name. And adds a beautiful invitation for you, “choose the better part. Stop and be with me in prayer.”   Amen.

The Fifth Sunday in Pentecost, July 13, 2025, Reflections on Luke 10: 25-37 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.[a] ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 26 He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ 27 He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ 28 And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ 30 Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii,[b] gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ 37 He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

On a morning in April of 2010 a 31-year-old Guatemalan immigrant by the name of Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was walking on a street in Queens. The streets were familiar to him. New York had become his adopted home. He found day work as he could. Many nights he slept on those streets. But he knew his way around. 

That morning as the city was starting wake up, and people were going about their day, he happened to witness a woman being attacked by a man.  And clearly wanting to stop the attack, Tale-Yax interceded and jumped in to try to spare her any further harm.

In so doing, he himself was attacked by her attacker. She took the opportunity to get away and took off running. Her attacker then stabbed Tale-Yax and took off in the other direction. And Tale-Yax stumbled a few steps before falling on the sidewalk of that NY street.

For one hour and twenty minutes, New Yorkers walked by Hugo Tale-Yax on that sidewalk. Well, most of them walked by. One actually stopped and kind of turned him over to see what was going on. And then kept going. Another guy took out his cell phone and took a picture of him. And then he too kept walking. By the time someone actually decided to call the police and the police arrived it was too late. And Tale-Yax had died.

This story fascinated our nation. There were headlines everywhere, people wondering how could something like this happen?  The only reason we even know that it happened was because there happened to be a surveillance camera mounted on a building in front of this scene and the entire hour and 20 minutes was recorded on that surveillance camera. 

And there - kind of like Adam and Eve laid bare before God - humanity was laid bare in its inability to come to the aid of a man who had risked his life to come to the aid of someone else, a stranger.

Now everyone had lots of questions from reporters, to theologians, to psychologists, to people who worked with immigrants. Everyone had lots of questions about how this could happen.  And there were groups wanted to throw in their two cents about why it happened the way it did.

People who work with immigrants said, well people who are immigrants themselves might have seen him but might have been so afraid of the police that they didn’t want to get involved.

Psychologists thought well maybe New Yorkers have become so numb to seeing drunk, homeless people lying on the street that that it just didn’t phase them. And they probably thought he was really okay and that he just needed to sleep it off.

And then there were people who called it a symptom of city living. So many people saw him as they all rushed by on their way to school and work and the gym and all the places they were going, they thought surely somebody would call police, somebody else would be the one to call police and get help. Because surely somebody else sees besides me this.

But however it unfolded, there he lay on the sidewalk: a modern day Good Samaritan himself with no one to come to his aid.

And then we as people of God begin to ask ourselves questions: like how does that happen? What would we do?  Does scripture help us, does it inform us to help to process, to form an understanding about what happened on that street that morning.  Yes – it does.  Scripture informs us in lots of ways.  We can acknowledge that.

Even before the people called Israel struggling to get to the Promised Land they’d already gotten commandments from God about loving God and caring for one another. Six of those first Ten Commandments were about living in right relationship with one another: honoring parents, living faithfully with our spouses, not lying, not coveting or stealing what which does not belong to us, not killing each other.  All those things tell us about right relationship.

No fewer than a dozen times in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy are the people called Israel told how it is that they are to provide for the least among them. If you see the widow, and the alien, and the orphan you are to care for them.

Why are you to care for them?  Because God took care of you when you were enslaved and suffering. Today we might say “thou shalt pay it forward.” You were cared for and now you are to care for everyone else. That is our legacy.

Scripture is filled with the commandment to us to love and serve our God and one another. What went wrong that day in New York?

We turn to our gospel lesson today from Luke. We see a lawyer asking Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life. And Jesus might be thinking you’re a lawyer, don’t you know this?  Surely you know this. And the lawyer responds yes, we’re to love God, we’re love our neighbor as ourselves. So Jesus says you know, so go do it. And all will be well. Just do the loving thing!

And then the lawyer, as we’re told in the text is seeking to justify himself, presses further by asking so “who is my neighbor?”  And we’re wondering as he asks this question if he asks, is it that he already knows that he is struggling so deeply within himself to love someone that he can’t love, that he’s hoping that Jesus is going to give him a cover and an out.  That Jesus is going to excuse him; that Jesus is going to say that person that you’re struggling with so much, that’s not really your neighbor. Don’t worry about it.

But instead Jesus comes back with an unlikely story: a man who has been beaten by robbers and left to die along a busy road. Two holy men walk by and cross and pass by on the other side. That’s not how that should happen, holy men are not supposed to walk away.

And then there is a Samaritan. Context is critical here. Remember that Jesus is telling this story in the Galilee, probably to an overwhelmingly Jewish group of listeners.

And we know from even a cursory read of scripture that there was great animosity of the Jews towards the Samaritans. What we don’t always hear – is that the feeling was mutual. Samaritans despised the Jews. In about 115 BC, Jews had destroyed the Samaritan’s temple, their holy space on Mount Gerizim.

The Jews were so overjoyed at what they did, the anniversary of that destruction became a holiday that was celebrated annually. Samaritans continued to worship on Mt. Gerizim. They worshipped in the ruins. They had a near constant reminder of the death and destruction wreaked on them and the terrible treatment that they receive at the hands of the Jews before and since that destruction.

In Jesus’ story, one of their own comes upon a terribly injured Jew. A Samaritan who might think - well so what if a Jew suffers and dies?

So of all the people for Jesus to hold up to the crowd as someone who does something to be imitated, a Samaritan is not the one. This isn’t the way this story is supposed to play out for these listeners. But it does. It is the Samaritan, the one who doesn’t look like the injured man, the one whose dialect is probably different from the injured man, the one who probably has the most to fear because the injured man might reject him.

It’s the Samaritan who stops. The Good Samaritan is moved with pity and takes the injured man, gets him off this dangerous road so that nothing else can happen to him. It’s a Samaritan whose actions Jesus tells the lawyer to imitate. Go and do likewise. Go and be like this Samaritan.

We are called today to go and do likewise.  We are called to go and show mercy.  We are called to go into place where we are least expect to show up, among people who least expect to see us. And no, we may not look like them, we may not sound like them, or dress like them.  But we are called to show mercy. 

We are called to take risks, open our hearts and our lives to those who need us.  To bandage the wounds of the injured, shelter the homeless, demand justice for the persecuted. To walk along with those who are grieving and hurt, to shine the light of Christ to the lost. We are called to go and do likewise. 

The harvest is plentiful. The opportunities are numerous, even overwhelming. Where will we go this day?  Who among God’s people will we serve? Amen.   

The Fourth Sunday in Pentecost, July 6, 2025, Reflections on Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, `Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, `The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, `Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.'

"Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."

The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

This weekend is a special one, but especially last Friday. We celebrate our country, our “one nation under God.” And we are given in the gospel today this story about the disciples going out into the world on a mission of preaching, healing, and teaching. They have from Jesus the authority to cure the sick, exorcise demons, bestow peace and announce that the kingdom of God is near – and all that means. Mercy is near. Compassion is near. Forgiveness is near. Love is near. Healing is near. Peace is near. 

Here is a story about how being a citizen of One Nation Under God and the beautiful, exquisite nearness of the Kingdom of God played out for a young man named Harry.

When the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Harry was a 16 year old boy living in a small town. He joined the army. He was too young. But you could get away with things in 1917 that you can’t in the data driven world of today. He was sent to France with the famous Rainbow Division.

Harry had a skill that at that time was considered high tech. He knew how to drive. He worked after school delivering groceries. And a year earlier, the grocer had traded in a horse and cart and bought a delivery truck. And Harry had learned to drive it. The army assigned him to be an ambulance driver. 

Now ambulance drivers worked at night. He went to the front, to the battlefield and collected the wounded, loaded them in his ambulance and drove them to a field hospital. He had to do all this by the light of the moon and the stars driving over narrow dirt roads with rocks and potholes. His ambulance had headlights about the equivalent of a couple candles.  But even that was a risk of giving away his position. So he made his way mostly in the dark.

The war was being waged in the French countryside. And the local farmers were upset that the nations of the world were making war on their lands, ruining their crops, destroying their homes. One night, as Harry was driving his ambulance, an elderly French farmer came running out onto the road, shouting in anger at him and waving a rake. By the time Harry saw him it was too late. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t down shift and brake quickly enough. He hit the farmer and he died.

The story gets crazy and complicated here – a swirl of local laws, irate family, American MP’s. Harry found himself being court martialed. He’s now 17 years old. A man is dead. And he’s looking at decades, maybe his whole life, in chains in a military prison. At the end of the presentation of evidence, Harry sat alone in a cell scared or dejected.

A colonel came in with 2 MP’s. This is it, Harry thinks. I’m going to prison. But the colonel says to him, “You’re all done here. This thing is over. Son, the good Lord above did not put you on this earth to spend your life in a cell.  You’re going to another unit. Here’s your paperwork. Go with these guys.” Harry was hustled out of the building to a new life. Harry had never seen this colonel before and never saw him again.

At the end of the war, Harry went back home and married Stella, the prettiest girl in town. He managed to buy an old truck and he started a business moving furniture. Stella answered the phone and kept the books while Harry drove, loaded and unloaded the truck. 

By the time he died in 1969, his company had 10 offices in 6 states and Canada.  He employed about 300 people who were able to make a good living supporting their families. Harry and Stella had a daughter who married and had 2 children. None of that would have been possible if it wasn’t for this unknown colonel.

 When I think of the best of America, when I think of One Nation Under God, I think of him – a man who was so reflective of the qualities we know of God.  Seeking nothing for himself he embodied God’s mercy, compassion, peace, reconciliation. He was ready and willing to use his authority to bring all those things to bear on behalf of one pitiful little corporal in a world of trouble, to recognize that a great injustice was about to occur and have the courage to step in and use his authority to turn darkness to light, to rescue and redeem, to heal and to teach.

Harry lived up to those same qualities. He was known as a guy who would give you a second chance, who would stand up for the little guy or gal having a problem. He hired folks no one else in town would hire. He gave away almost as much as he made. When a customer couldn’t pay their moving bill he gave them more time or accepted in trade what they had to give. That’s how his granddaughter ended up with a Shetland pony. 

He wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes. But he never forgot the values shown him and never forgot to show them to others. It’s those things that we as Americans are called to remember and celebrate this weekend.

In our lives as Christians and citizens we don’t always remember to embody the best of us, the things that make us great as a people. We fall short of showing mercy and compassion. We don’t always look out for the good of the other person. We don’t always do the loving thing as God would have us do. But the Good News is that every day we have a chance to start again. We have a chance to be like the 70 followers of Jesus, to go out into the world peaceably, with the message that the kingdom of God is near.

In a world seemingly filled with vitriolic behavior and language, we who believe that there is a better way to be in the world are called to go out in what often feels like being a lamb among the wolves. Lambs into the midst of wolves: it is a vicious metaphor that conjures up violent acts of being torn limb from limb by a hungry pack. 

And I think this is why Jesus asks us to go lightly. The disciples were told to take no purse, no way in which to accumulate wealth. They are not to go among the people seeking or accepting anything from them other than hospitality. They were and we are to be totally reliant on what they know about God. 

Jesus said take no purse, bag, or sandals. In order to get the job done, they could not be weighed down the distractions of material possessions. Instead he instructed them to carry only a message of peace. As Jesus described it, peace is more than a good feeling: it is a community created gift of God that requires a reciprocal response.  It not only reflects a calmness of spirit but points to reconciliation and healing.

Blogger Shelagh Braley has made it her mission to travel light.  She’s seen the same thing at airports among her fellow travelers that we all have – people lugging huge bags that are bulging with possessions, so heavy it’s a wonder the plane can take off.  And then on arrival seeing people at baggage claim jockeying for position to get their bags as soon as they fall down the shoot of the carousel, straining to lift them and dragging them to the curb. What heavy burdens they are! 

Braley decided this was not for her. She decided to lighten up, to become a travel minimalist. And she has a questionnaire for us to determine if we might be one also:

Do you assign more value to experiences than possessions?

Do you feel more comfortable when your environment is uncluttered?

Do you assess what brings value to your life and make adjustments in your possessions, relationships, time and money, to make room for peace, growth and new practices?

If you answered “Yes” or are thinking “I’d like to answer Yes”, you’re on your way to being a travel minimalist.

Some of what matters most in life is universal: Relationships matter, whether that be family, friends, or a significant other. Taking care of ourselves matters—body, mind, and spirit—and this includes having something that we are passionate about that gets us out of bed in the morning. Cultivating relationship with the God matters, along with caring for others as Jesus did.

So I wonder if Jesus didn’t intend to send out the 70 apostles in the gospel - and us as well – as both material and spiritual minimalists. Belief and minimalism go hand-in-hand. Jesus lived a simple, minimalist lifestyle. He didn’t own many possessions. He spent his time with family and friends. He traveled continually to help others by teaching and healing.  And he spent a lot of time in prayer.

If we go at our task following a modern expression of the work of the 70, we set ourselves up for success just as Jesus did for them.  We are certain to experience those qualities that are the best of us that reflect God into the world that we celebrate this weekend.

We go lightly – knowing we are forgiven of all our sins and have to power to forgive others.

We go lightly - knowing that just as God’s mercy has been shown to us we can be agents of that same mercy.

We go lightly -- among lambs, wolves and everything in between to assure those we meet that through the love and peace of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God has come near.

So as you reflect on the celebrations this weekend of our national life, take just a minute to remember the 70 and their mission of taking the Kingdom of God into the world – starting with a greeting of “peace” offered in the name of the Prince of Peace for all.  Remember the colonel who said “no” to injustice. Remember all those lives of courage and commitment to living as one nation “under God.” And resolve that in this coming year we too will all be agents of peace.  Amen

The Third Sunday in Pentecost, June 29, 2025, Reflections on Luke 9:51-62 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Galatians 5:1,13-25

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

1 Kings 19:15-16,19-21

The Lord said to Elijah, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place."

So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, "Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you." Then Elijah said to him, "Go back again; for what have I done to you?" He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.

Luke 9:51-62

When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

One of the saints of St. Matthias was the Rev. Shirley Rose. She was also a mentor and friend. Shirley served in many capacities, first as a DRE - Director of Religious Education, later as a priest and even later as St. Matthias’ Interim Rector.  St. Matthias and the Rev. Chet Howe supported her in her call to ordained ministry.  In the 1980’s this was a courageous thing, a loving thing.

I met her after she retired and moved to Orange County where she helped out at St. George’s.  She was no longer driving at that time but still have many friends in Whittier that she wanted to visit. I volunteered to drive her – thrilled to pieces to have that time in the care with her. She told me stories about St. Matthias which she loved with all her heart – the joys, the challenges, the connection with the Whittier community:

After the rector retired, and Shirley became the long term interim all was not well. There were hurt feelings, the camps in the congregation and deadly parking lot conversations. Shirley told me she knew they could not more forward unless and until there was healing AND a willingness to engage in a process of reconciliation.  Looking back, she was so thankful that they did, that they showed courage once again – that together they focused on healing.

Looking in the rearview mirror can be useful. Learning from the experience of our spiritual ancestors shows us a precious, thread that connects us to God, to them and to each other.  This morning we’re encountering 3 texts from our scripture that speak to this notion of how we can be informed by what has gone before, how we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us give us a closer, better view of the Kingdom of God. 

Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia is clear and concise about what they are to do. We look at this letter we see something very interesting about how he positions this letter. But we have to understand something about Paul. Before his conversion, before he became a follower of Jesus, he was a devout and faithful Pharisee. So had spent much of his life becoming an expert in Jewish law and customs. He knows the law inside and out. And that knowledge shapes and forms him and shapes and forms his teaching.  

One of the things we see in this passage is that the whole law can be summed up in one sentence, “love your neighbor as yourself.” I wonder that he left out the part In Deuteronomy which is “love God.”  He’s quoting from Leviticus when he tells them to love your neighbor as yourself. Not to be critical of Paul, but it is the love of God for us on which we can model our love of others. 

And he goes into a litany of all the transgressions that come about when we fail to both love God and love neighbor.  Because we act out of self- interest.  We don’t act in a way that respects the world around us. We act in a way that serves only our own interests.  We act with greed, envy and covetousness.  We act in ways that marginalize our neighbors. And we both literally and figuratively sell out our neighbors and feel okay about it.

And what Paul says to the followers in the church in Galacia is that this is not the way we want to be.  We want our actions to be guided by love. When our actions are prompted solely by love, something happens. Something divine takes over and carries us forward.  All those divisions around us fall away. In letting go of our own interests we act with patience and generosity and kindness. Those are the things we want to lift up.  But we do have to decide to make an affirmative effort to be constantly renewed and informed by love our neighbor.

Our Old Testament reading is short but powerful. We don’t get any backstory in the relationship between Elijah and Elisha – just this seemingly climactic moment.  But it’s enough to provide us with conflicting context with our gospel.  Here is Elijah’s call to Elisha to take on the mantel or authority of the prophet is willing to leave his life behind and follow Elijah. But first he asks to go home, to kiss his father and mother good-bye. Elijah grants that wish. He seems to vacillate, knowing God’s command to him but feeling the weight of the burden he’s put in Elisha. Go back, he tells him “for what have I done to you?"

Jesus responds quite differently to a similar request as we’ll review in a minute. We are on notice, I think, that the demands of sharing the work of building the kingdom with Jesus are greater than demands put on anyone at any earlier time in history, even the ancient, legitimate prophets who suffered greatly.

Luke’s gospel sounds sober and a little harsh.  We don’t expect Jesus to respond to people quite as harshly as he does and yet there is a reason that he responds in the way he does. So here is Jesus with his face set towards Jerusalem. Because he knows what is ahead. Jesus knows what he is going to be called to do.  And nothing can turn him away from going where God needs him to go and from what he needs to do.

In our own lives we face significant times of transition.  Early in our faith development, we ae often focused on learning more about Scripture, the church and what it means to be a child of God. We revel in the knowledge that we are loved fully and completely by a wonderful, caring Savior. We share together in the marvelous fellowship that is the body of Christ.  We feel renewed, nurtured and fulfilled.

As our faith grows and matures, our life in Christ merges with our life in the world.  We come to realize that living by the Way of Jesus Christ is more than just a private endeavor, no matter how meaningful.  In order to have true meaning and integrity, it must be part of our being.  No matter what our gifts or imperfections, the mature Christian must willingly walk alongside Jesus, even if that journey compels us to make difficult choices that living solely in a more secular existence might otherwise avoid. 

So when a man says “I need to go bury my father” and Jesus responds back to him “let the dead bury their own dead” it’s not because Jesus doesn’t understand the rituals and traditions of his people or is dismissive of them. He knows them quite well and he respects them. And he also understands that when you are responding to God’s call, you cannot lose sight of what God means for us to be doing. Never lose sight of it.

We cannot set aside God’s mission for us to engage in lengthy goodbyes and lengthy rituals with people. We can’t lose sight of God’s mission for us so we can stay in our own heads. Jesus is telling us to keep God’s desires top of mind ahead of everything else. 

And we need to be mindful of those rear view mirror view and experiences and lessons that have shaped us and brought us to that place. The lessons in faithfulness that we have learned from those around us who have helped us grow. The lessons in love that we carry with us because as people of God we know the unconditional love that God gives us that we are then to go out and give to the world - when it’s easy to offer than love and especially when it isn’t. That’s a lot to carry.

We encounter these three texts at a particularly interesting point in our world. When self-interest seems to absorb so many. When so many seem to have lost that rearview image of God …  loving us, calling us, pleading with us: Hear my voice. Know that I am present, I am there.  And in the midst of all the things that vie for our attention, that want to tear at us, that make us want to turn our face away from the way God wants us to go, we are indeed called to remember.

We are called to remember the commandments, we are called to remember to love God and neighbor to act as people who are informed by the love that we experience every day from our God. We are called to remember Paul’s teaching to the Galatians.  That informs and shapes and tells us how we are to live in community with one another.  And when that drives us, suddenly those walls begin to fall away.

We experience so much angry rhetoric, divisive action, rancor and fearfulness that we might lose sight of those moments when we come together. It doesn’t have to be that way. We can be free. We can choose reconciliation. There are places where we can agree, where we can come together. When we allow those moments to drive us forward, when we lead with our hearts, there is no end to the good we can do. There is no chasm we cannot cross when we are motivated and empowered by love. Amen.

The Second Sunday in Pentecost, Sunday, June 22, 2025, Reflections on Luke 8:26-39 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Second Sunday in Pentecost                                                                      Luke 8:26-39

Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me" -- for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

There was a human interest documentary series for several years on CNN created by journalist Lisa Ling. The series was called This Is Life. And she brought to the world stories about people doing interesting and incredible things in circumstances far beyond what most of us experience. She is a courageous and skilled interviewer who inserts herself respectfully into unfamiliar places and then questions those she meets with compassionate curiosity. And they tell her their stories. It occurs to me that Lisa would make an excellent Stephen Minister.

The story that most resonated with me, possibly because it’s right in our own backyard, was called “Locked Angeles,” a play on the city name, in which we go with Lisa inside the Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles. We learn that each night it houses about 18,000 inmates. And of those, 30-40% suffer with some sort of mental illness. They don’t belong in jail, a deputy tells Lisa, but in the absence of a true treatment facility, they end up there. 

We see inmates in blue prison jumpsuits chained to tables in common areas just far enough apart that they cannot touch the man next them.  We hear inmates in solitary cells shouting, raging, kicking the walls.  And into this setting comes Deputy Sarah Medina. Calmly she goes to a raging inmate’s door and asks him, “what’s the matter?  Why are you so upset?”  We can’t exactly make out his reply but it involves some language we don’t use in church. “Are you hungry?” she asks.  “If I get you some food will you settle down?”  In a few minutes she returns and slides two brown bags through the slot into his cell.  “I got you 2 boxes of cereal and 2 milks.”  He screams at her that he doesn’t want breakfast. She replies “that’s all they’ve got right now. I’ll bring lunch when it’s ready.”  More verbal abuse in which he threatens to hit her in the face. “Okay,” she says calmly to him, “I’ll come back.” I’ll come back. She’s not giving up on this guy.

In a moment of comic relief, she walks past an inmate who tells her, “you’re too old for me.”  “Yeah,” she says, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Lisa asks her if she feels afraid. “Every once in a while,” Deputy Medina replies. “But I love what I do. I enjoy trying to make a positive difference in people’s lives who are hurting inside. Most of the mentally ill here are homeless. They’re bipolar, manic depressive or schizophrenic. You’re gonna have a lot of angry people yelling all day, kicking doors all day. We’re trained to de-escalate a situation, using our words and finding out why. When you get down to it,” she says, “it’s just in how we speak to them.” 

It’s as though Deputy Medina spends her days continually encountering the Gerasene man inhabited by Legion who we hear about in the gospel lesson today – so much raging, so many chains and shackles, and pain. So much emphasis on attempts to control but never to heal.  And in the midst of it, Deputy Medina is listening, reasoning, the personification of calm. Doing her best to do good. In the midst of chaos and pain, she is the calm and healing presence.

When Jesus steps out of the boat, he steps into a life and death scenario. The Gerasene man runs to meet him.  He is in every way unclean starting with the fact that he is a gentile. This man is scarcely human any more – at least that’s what the people seemed to think. So much so that he lives among the dead.

In the gospel, just as in the LA jail, everyone is anxious, everyone is acting out.  The only one who is calm and focused on goodness, healing and love is Jesus. 

Jesus does a lot of healing in the gospels. There are a number of stories of healing those who are ill with demons.  But we learn early on in this story that the need of this man for healing is like no other.  We hear Jesus ask the demon its name to gain control over it: Legion is says.  Legion would put the listeners of this gospel story in mind of a Roman legion: 5 - 6,000 armed and trained killers. This isn’t an ordinary demon, this isn’t an ordinary healing.  It’s an out and out battle.

Jesus dispatches the demon and restores this tortured man to life.  And what is the response?  Don’t we expect the next line in this scripture to be something about the people being in awe, of rejoicing, a banquet, a great celebration of some kind?  But it’s the opposite. The community can’t take it. This disruption of the status quo by this strange rabbi and healer, Jesus, and the loss of a herd of pigs – even though one of their own is restored to them - is too much.  So they tell Jesus to get out.  And he does.  Now who is saturated by death and misery and neglect? Now who’s in the tombs? 

I wonder, what in our world today are our tombs? And what keeps us in them?  What has us bound up in fear or anger and keeps us from community with one another?  Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, anxiety about the future, hanging on to the past – everything that flows out of fear.  The list is Legion. 

When we have become comfortable with the way things are, when we have accepted as normal the destructive, death-dealing experiences of our lives and in the world, it is precisely then that Jesus’ presence is more important and most powerful.

Luke’s gospel points to Jesus’ healing as the absolute power of God over the chaos of natural and human disasters. It is a power stronger than a Legion of evil. It is a power that will prevail. This power of Jesus will work in each of us this very moment and every day, finishing and polishing, transforming us if we’ll let it.

We sometimes say lightheartedly “God isn’t finished with me yet.”  I think there is more truth in that than we sometimes realize. We are always being made new. St. Paul says that if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. So anything is possible, no matter where we are in our lives. We are constantly being created and recreated and transformed and loved. We are not left stagnant or forgotten, all possibilities are open to us. 

This is not our personal prerogative alone.  Just as Jesus went to the Gerasene, we as his followers today are called to step out of the boat and to take the healing and liberating love of God to broken and desolate people and places, to those whose lives are bound by forces beyond their control. Indeed the missional language of healing has been a part of baptismal and confirmation vows since antiquity. Those being baptized, among other things, renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against the love of God.  To be baptized is to commit to getting out of the boat with Jesus.

It is the life and example of Jesus that offers us a path to healing, to hope, and wholeness. Fear may still holds us back. Healing can be scary because it means a different way of life, a new reality.

But the Good News today is that God never intended for us to exist in those tombs. God imbued each of us with dignity and worth and purpose.  God calls us to discover God who, in the face of death, whispers new life for ourselves and all our neighbors.  Where ever we are in our lives, there is always hope and always possibility, always the fullness of the love, the peace, the energy and joy of being one in Christ. 

Go, he says, to us, the living. Armed with the broad embrace of God’s love for all people, owning our role in God’s powerful work in the world, we must resolve to love our way into a different tomorrow, to reject with everything we say and do anything that diminishes anyone’s dignity and humanity. And then go home and declare what God has done for us. Amen.