May 31, 2026, Trinity Sunday, Reflections on Matthew 28: 16-20 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

“The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

It’s Trinity Sunday when we celebrate a doctrine of the church. There are designated Sundays for a couple of Christianity’s central doctrines — the Incarnation which we celebrate at Christmas and the Resurrection which we celebrate at Easter — and these are directly related to the life of Jesus.  But this is different.  It doesn’t come out of Holy Scripture. It comes out of our deep desire to better understand God and all that God is.

There are times when I meet someone new and inevitably the conversation turns to “so, what do you do?” And when I say I’m a priest in the Episcopal church, many times there is a follow-up question: “Episcopal? What’s that?” And in answering, I share many things about us including that we are Trinitarians – that we honor and worship God who is in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “Ohhh” comes the response. Frankly, the Trinity is sort of a conversation killer. It smacks of “churchiness” which is tragic because the reality of the Trinity is anything but that.  The reality of the Trinity is that it is personal, creative, awe-inspiring and empowering. 

Reginald Heber was a Bishop of Calcutta during the first part of the19th century. At the time, India was what was referred to as a crown jewel in the British colonies. It was large and populous. So Bishop Heber, because of his deep commitment to mission and reaching out into the world, accepted the call to go to India. He saw a rich mission field in front of him.

And during his short time there, he remained committed to the people. He traveled extensively to care for them. He helped create a Hindustani dictionary.  And to make certain that people were welcomed into worship, he baptized and confirmed everyone he could everywhere he went. He observed with great dismay the abuses within the rigid caste system of India and was not shy about addressing those abuses.

But before he was Bishop of Calcutta, though, he was the Vicar of a parish in the western part of England called Shropshire. He was known as a writer and a poet. He collected texts for hymns that were organized around the church year, very much like our hymnal 1982 today is organized. And one of the texts for which he is best known is the text of the hymn we sang for our Processional, “Holy, Holy, Holy” with its text that speaks to the mystery and the magnificence of the Trinity.

If there were a Biblical text that might have deeply inspired Bishop Heber it might have been the text that we hear today from Matthew’s gospel.  The work that the disciples must do could not be clearer. Jesus wasn’t speaking in metaphor or telling a parable. It’s crystal clear – baptize everywhere you go, bring them into relationship with God, and teach them everything I taught you.

The concept of the Trinity wasn’t articulated as such until Tertullian coined the word in the early third century. Certainly there were hints before: The fact that God refers to God’s self in our Genesis reading as “we,” not I. There’s Paul’s wonderful closing benediction in his second letter to the Christians in Corinth: “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all evermore.” And, of course, Jesus’ Great Commission in the final ending of Matthew’s Gospel that we hear today: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

These are the building blocks from which the historic doctrine of the Trinity was carefully crafted in the fourth and fifth centuries. We assert that there is one God — not three Gods, but one — in three Persons — all of the same God-substance, the God-essence, and all eternal. 

There are all sorts of metaphors out there to try to explain the Trinity.  You’ve probably heard some of them – the water (which can be liquid, frozen or steam but all still water). Or the clover with its three leaves on one stem. St. Augustine gave us the metaphor of the tree:  the root is wood, the trunk is wood and the branches are wood.  So they are one wood, one substance but three distinguishable entities. And from it come leaves, fruit, flowers.

Perhaps we can approach this from another angle. What would we understand God to be without one of them?  Remember that we baptize just as Jesus instructed – in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  But what if we baptized people only in the name of God the Father?  What would we be missing?  It would deny the very work of and person of Jesus Christ and the on-going work of the Holy Spirit.  It would not be a full picture of who God is. You would be immersed into the fullness of a very powerful and mysterious God but also a detached God – a God who creates but for whom? For what purpose?

What if we baptized people only in the name of Jesus? “I baptize you in the name of Jesus. Amen.” That would miss the person of God the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, the very source of our being and that part of God that is beyond our logic and reason.  It would also miss the Holy Spirit, the on-going presence of God with us today to energize and inspire us.

What if we said, “I baptize you in the name of the Holy Spirit.”  Well then we’re missing the awesome creativity of God and the redeeming work of Jesus Christ: God with us. God in human flesh. We would miss the part of God who rose from the dead to overcome our sinfulness.  Let’s not leave that out! 

You cannot go out into the world, according to Jesus without all that, without all of it, without the whole being of God.  Even if we don’t understand the mechanics behind it, we can be confident that we are powerful, connected, redeemed and empowered through this three in one God dwelling within us. 

And that’s a tremendous gift for those of us who are less interested in the intellectual exercise of the Trinity and more concerned with living our lives. The Trinity is often depicted as a triangle, each person of the Trinity taking one of the sides of equal length. And the center space, where they all overlap is open and ready for us, a place to put ourselves in Holy Presence especially when we are feeling isolated, angry, hopeless, or just plain tired. In this mystery of the Trinity is the palpable reality that there is a God who knows who we are, where we are on our faith journey, and what we need.   

In our gospel today, there is one word that stands out, one that sums it all up. It may be the shortest work in the gospel lesson. And it’s “go.” Go! The fact is that we’re not going to solve the problems of the world with a lot of water, by getting everyone wet. That’s not the point of baptism. It’s for us to go! Go out and meet people, go out and tell them what magnificent gifts await them. Give them the chance to see God at work in their lives.  Give them the chance to understand what is life-giving and ask questions – discipleship building questions - that we need to reflect on this day:

Do we always allow ourselves to see the glory of God, to see the awe and majesty of God everywhere we look in all the world around us?

Do we stop, do we take note of the ways in which God is acting?  And then, are we willing to put aside out own need to solve our problems? 

Or when we come to Jesus in the dead of night and to ask, to plead for our needs, are we willing to open ourselves to hearing in a new and different way - God’s Way - to answer those needs? And when those answers don’t seem apparent to us, are we willing to trust that the Holy Spirit will come and will renew us and will fill us and reveal to us God’s answer, the answer that will allow us to get up and try again.

It is that awe, it is that mystery and majesty, that realization of God’s great power and endless love and grace continuing to love us through the difficulties and joys of the world that should take our breath away.

The words that Reginal Heber gave to all of Christianity should be our song and prayer every day: “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God almighty. There is none beside thee, perfect in power, in love and purity.”  Amen.

May 24, 2026, The Day of Pentecost, Reflections on Acts 2:1-21 and John 20:19-23 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

`In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.

And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.

Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' "

John 20:19-23

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Three times a year the people called Israel were required according to their faith to come before the presence of the Lord.  Their understanding of this requirement, for those who lived anywhere near Jerusalem, was that they should come to the Temple. These three occasions during the year were the Celebrations of Passover, the Celebration of Shavuot, which in Greek is Pentecost, and the Celebration of Sukkot. Passover was the celebration of their release from bondage in captivity in Egypt. Pentecost was the time of celebrating when they received the law, the Torah, by Moses on Mt. Sinai, and the gathering of the first fruits of the harvest.  And Sukkot was a kind of ingathering of the late harvest of the year. These three occasions were the times that they came to the temple to bring their offerings and present themselves to God.   

Life had not been simple or uncomplicated or especially peaceful. They had been taken over by different groups of people, they had been driven off their land into exile.  They had a difficult time being in the land that they felt they were promised.  And so many of the people called Israel found themselves over time living in a number of different places – places they had fled for safety.  That meant they lived within other cultures, other traditions.  They learned to speak other languages where they lived. 

        So when the people called Israel would gather again in the temple, when people would come back to Jerusalem from the places where they had settled, they came back with all of the languages, all the cultural acquisitions and all the things that had shaped them where they had made their home.

        We hear in our lesson from Acts of the Apostles the impact of what happens when the people now make their way back to Jerusalem.  Together again as they are beginning to celebrate the Pentecost, they have come with everything they are now from all the places that have shaped them and holding onto their Jewish traditions. 

          But at their core, they have come to this place, in order to appear before the Lord and to bring their gifts.  There they are – those who have emigrated back, people who are pilgrims alongside the folks who have lived through all of this and continued to make Jerusalem their home. 

If the memories of what happened just 50 days before aren’t still fresh for them it would be a surprise.  Because the last time they were all gathered into Jerusalem for the Passover, we know that they experienced the unexpected execution of their beloved teacher, rabbi and friend.  We have to wonder if in their own minds they aren’t at least a little anxious, if they aren’t asking themselves what could happen now?  Are they kind of frightened about what might happen just 50 days later? 

And as they’re gathering, these people from all these places, who speak so many different languages, who have been formed by all these different traditions – start hearing something very different.  They might know a few others people who speak their languages, but they are not expecting a bunch of Galileans, to be speaking their language – to be sharing the word of God with them in a way that they can understand.

They realize they’re hearing something new. What is this?  How can this be? How is God doing this? 

Now notice how it is that the Holy Spirit comes into Jerusalem: the Holy Spirit does not come in quietly.  We see in our gospel lesson from John today that Holy Spirit comes in quietly. Jesus bids them peace and then breathes the Holy Spirit onto the disciples in that room, it’s a quiet thing. But in Acts, the Holy Spirit does not come quietly into Jerusalem. But loud, big, booming, roaring in.  Getting everyone’s attention. Shaking everything up. This shows how the Holy Spirit can work in our lives – the Holy Spirit come quietly but also can come in and shake us up so that we’re not quite the same again. 

        So Peter is trying to explain to them how it is that this day has come to pass.  And he does so using words that should be familiar to them, he goes back to the words of the prophet Joel. God says that God is going to pour God’s Holy Spirit upon you – no matter who you are: men and women, slave and free, young and old. No matter who you are or where you are, God can pour that Holy Spirit upon you and make you brand new.  So here we see everyone beginning to process what it means for God to be at work – in new ways, in unexpected ways, breathing life into a body of people in a way they never expected.  Because God does that. God does exactly that.

We’re filled with all these incredible visuals of this day in Jerusalem, and we think … what does all of this say to us today as we continue to be shaped in our world by the work of God?  One thing it should say to us is that unexpected thing – that God sometimes comes in unexpected ways; God might be speaking a language we don’t think we understand, that God might be doing something that we never expected God to be doing.  And we have to be ready for that.  We have to be ready, no matter what, to move with God into the place where God wants us to be.  

But it says something about the community of believers doesn’t it? All these diverse people with diverse experiences and languages and ways of living, the one thing they do have in common with one another is that love of God. They share that.  Even if they don’t communicate well with each other in any other way they are there and they are present because they share that love of God just as we are all here and present today sharing that love of God.

Like them, we are all diverse.  We all come from different backgrounds and traditions. We all come to the language of God is very different ways. But none the less, we come together to be nourished by the word, by fellowship with one another.  We come to grow together as children of God.   

And any artificial boundaries that separate us fall away because what is important to us, what is real to us, is our love of God.  And we come together to find our way to go forth into the world and serve God as the Holy Spirit empowers us and moves and refreshes us.

I hope the Holy Spirit is coming to each of us today in just the perfect way that makes sense to us – whether it’s shaking us up of coming on the blessing of peace. Either way, let us ask ourselves – what is God calling ME to do to make a difference?  What is God calling US corporately to do to make a difference?   

Too often we think that we can’t do enough because we think of ourselves as solitary, individual beings. I can’t do that because I’m not big enough, I’m not strong enough, I don’t control enough or I don’t have enough resources at my disposal. But every single one of us is capable of effecting the life of another person in a mighty way.  

In John’s gospel Jesus offers, along with the breath of the Holy Spirit, his peace. We are carriers of God’s peace. And sometimes it’s only just by saying a kind word that we are able to show God’s love and help others find their way to God.   

We’re really not that much different from that early community. All brought together with one hope and one aspiration of a shared love of God.  And from that, the Holy Spirit breathes on us the knowledge that when God’s people all say “evil cannot triumph over God, it is real.”  But we have to believe that with the power of the Holy Spirit nothing is impossible. 

So my prayer for us this day, is that we take this image we have from this early community – this rag tag bunch of folks that come from everywhere who don’t even speak the same language, we take that image and we say to the world that nothing is greater than God’s love for all of us. Amen.

May 17, 2026, The Seventh Sunday of Easter, Reflections on John 17: 1-11 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

If you think back to what you were doing this past Thursday, I wonder if it was an average day? It was a special day in the life of the church. It was the Feast of Ascension. It always occurs 40 days after Easter – so every year it falls on a Thursday. And because it’s in the middle of the week I’m afraid it gets overlooked, sort of a foot note. So I thought I’d spend a little time on it today. Because it is a meaningful part of our faith. It is the time when Jesus gives the final charge to the disciples and disappears from their sight for the last time.

This is how it’s described in Luke’s gospel:

“Jesus said to his disciples, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you-- that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.” 

In the accounts of the Ascension—when we picture Jesus being lifted up into the clouds, it is easy to feel a sense of loss. We might imagine the disciples, standing there with their heads tilted toward the sky, and feel a twinge of sympathy for them. It seems like the end of an era. It feels like they were left behind. But Luke tells us they were joyful.

And if we look closely at the Scriptures, we understand that the Ascension was not an ending; it was an inauguration. It was not a departure that left us orphaned, but a departure that left us energized, a profound shift that solidified our intimate relationship with God and an eternal lifeline to God. That lifeline is in prayer.

The Ascension fundamentally changes who we are praying to and how our prayers are received. When Jesus ascended, he took his place at the right hand of God where, the writer of Hebrews tells us, he "always lives to make intercession for us."

Think about what that means for our prayer lives. Whether we pray in the quiet of our room, or if we cry out in the middle of a crisis, whether it’s during our Prayers of the People or as part of our Eucharistic prayers, we are not shouting into the void. Whatever form our prayers might take – our beautiful liturgy or our sometimes imperfect, faltering, and confused prayers – whatever form they take, they are embraced by the ascended Christ, who gathers them into his own perfect relationship with God the Father.

We might even say, with a nod to country western singer Garth Brooks, that because Jesus is seated in heavenly places, he is our friend in high places. He is the Great High Priest who knows our human weaknesses and pleads our case before God. Augustin of Hippo put it this way – Jesus ascended in order that we may ascend also. Because he ascended, we have confidence that our prayers are heard.

And because Jesus is fully God and fully human, his Ascension means that humanity has now entered the very presence of God. Before Christ, the way into the holy of holies was blocked. He belongs to our world but also to another world a place on the horizon that is somehow both within reach and just beyond our reach. Those appearances end at the ascension when Jesus makes the transition from that place of horizon to the realm to God’s that touches all space and all time.  But through his life, death, resurrection, and Ascension, Jesus "has opened the way into the Heavenly Kingdom".

It’s different with us. We are here, right here, right now.  We can’t be anywhere except in Whittier in this moment. We are limited to this dimension of time and space. But God can touch upon all space and time. But with the Ascension, the ascended Christ is now able to connect the whole life of the church across time and space. The Ascension is the guarantee that human flesh and human voices are welcome in the divine sanctuary.

In a very real way, when we pray, we are joining with the ascended Christ in the heavenly realms and participating in the life of God, right here and right now. Ascension leads us to our next season of the church.  It is the prelude for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The disciples are left with great promises and blessings, and leave in joy to continually bless God in the Temple.

Next week with Jesus ascended to heaven, we will celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. So we might say it is Ascension that triggered the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. And how did the early Church receive the Spirit? They received the Spirit through prayer.  In the reading from the Book of Acts that we heard today, right after the Ascension, the disciples returned to Jerusalem and went to an upper room. And what did they do there? They "continued with one accord in prayer and supplication". For ten days, they waited and they prayed. Their prayer bridged the gap between Christ's departure and the Spirit's arrival.

Today it is the Holy Spirit that translates our deepest longings and groans when we do not know what to pray for, aligning our hearts with the will of the ascended Christ.

If there comes a time with you feel more separated from God than connected, remember the Ascension. Remember that your Savior Jesus is not a distant, historical figure, but a reigning King who sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for you every single day.

The angels asked the disciples in the first chapter of Acts, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" The answer is that we look to heaven because that is where our King has gone, and where we are called to follow in hope.

Let us be a people of hope through prayer. Let us use the incredible, unhindered access we have to God's throne. And as we pray, let us draw near to the ascended Christ, confident that he is with us, he is for us, and he is preparing a place for us.

Let us pray.

Gracious and reigning Lord Jesus, you ascended into glory, not to leave us, but to lift us into eternal life with you. Thank you for opening the way to the presence of God and for interceding on our behalf. We look for the coming of the Holy Spirit, that we may pray with confidence, with joy, and with expectant hope, until the day that faith becomes sight. In the Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

May 10, 2026, The Sixth Sunday of Easter, Reflections on John 14:15-21 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Jesus said, ” If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Our gospel lesson today has something we don’t always hear from Jesus: simple, concise sentences by Jesus that go right to the heart of his life and teaching.  There’s no confusion about it: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  This is part of what is called the Farewell Discourse. Coming quickly to the close of his earthly ministry, he can only speak of love and the assurance that the God he knows so intimately as Father will continue to accompany them through an advocate, a revelation that God’s love is what is most true.  More about the advocate later.

Notice what Jesus does not say. He does not say, “If you fear me,” or “If you want to impress me,” or “If you want to earn a place with my Father.” He says, “If you love me.” He’s urging them to a mindset of willing obedience, evidence of a transformed heart, a heart that longs for nothing more than a relationship with God that grows closer and more intimate every day.  In the life of faith, full obedience to God is not the price of admission; it is the fruit of love.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ command is to love as he has loved.  One of the verses we cherish but didn’t hear in this reading is John 13:34: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

The love Jesus wants his hearers to embrace is not some abstract philosophical concept, but a lived reality revealed in the life, relationships and actions of a simple Nazarene who lives among them. He feeds the hungry, touches lepers, heals the sick and speaks and acts towards women and foreigners with care and respect. It is love in service and compassion.   

This love is also in his fierce opposition to those who abuse his vision of the value of each person and the importance of an ethic of mutual regard and care.  Instead of power as domination, Jesus invites those who meet him to imagine power that has as its goal keeping top of mind the well-being of all persons regardless of social status.  To “keep” his word is to receive it so deeply that it begins to keep us: it directs our choices, restrains our tongues, softens our hearts, and re-orders our priorities.

So here’s a question for us to consider: Thinking back over the last week, if someone examined your week, what would they conclude that you love most?  Where did you put your time and energy?  Would your actions demonstrate a love for Jesus?  The love of Jesus shows up in subtle ways:

• Love of Jesus shows up in truth-telling when a lie would be easier.

• Love of Jesus shows up in forgiveness when bitterness would feel justified.

• Love of Jesus shows up in compassion when indifference would be more convenient.

• Love of Jesus shows up in worship when distraction would be more comfortable.

And then Jesus does something tender. Knowing how quickly we turn obedience into self-reliance, he immediately promises help: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate… to be with you forever.”

The Spirit is also called “the Spirit of truth.” Not “truth” as an idea, but truth as a Person’s faithful presence. The world cannot receive him, Jesus says, because it “neither sees him nor knows him.” It’s not that the Spirit is weak; the problem is that the world has trained itself to recognize only what can be controlled, measured, purchased, and managed. The Spirit cannot be owned, only welcomed.

But Jesus says to his disciples, “You know him.” How? How can they possibly know this Spirit, this advocate? “Because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” I think Jesus wants to make the point that a life of faith is not powered by willpower; it is sustained by indwelling. We do not grit our teeth into holiness—we are carried into it by the Spirit who lives within God’s people.

Then Jesus speaks to a deep fear underneath all our questions about faith: the fear of abandonment.  “I will not leave you orphaned,” he tells us. An orphan is someone without protection, without a name to claim or a home to return to. Jesus looks at his anxious disciples and promises: “You will not be left exposed. You will not be left alone. You will not be left without a Father.”

He continues: “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” The cross will be real. The absence will feel real. But it will not be the last word. Jesus will rise, and his risen life will become the source of our life. His love is both the source of our lives and the goal of our lives.

Alan Paton in his novel “Ah But Your Land is Beautiful” describes a scene that may illustrate this life-giving power of love and the assurance that God’s love discloses what is most true. In South Africa during the apartheid years, when laws prevented black south Africans from mixing with whites, there was a funeral for a while South African official who had working within the system to humanize life for the oppressed.  But black South Africans were turned away from the funeral service despite the wishes of the family. It was a terrible insult.  A black pastor, Isaiah Buti, visited a local white chief justice, who he had reason to believe was a friends of his oppressed people. Pastor Buti asked the justice to participate in the upcoming Maundy Thursday service where the congregation would observe Jesus’ practice of foot washing. Would the justice wash the feet of Martha, a member of the pastor’s congregation and an employee of the chief justice who cleaned his house and took care of his children?  The chief justice readily agreed though he did ask that his participation in the service not be announced ahead of time.

When the time came, the chief justice washed Martha’s feet, dried them, and before he rose to return to his seat, gently kissed both feet. It was a gesture that set healing in motion, because in that simple extra-expression of care, he disclosed the truthfulness and life-giving power of God’s love.

Word did get out what the chief justice had done. His personal and professional life was adversely affected. But he had no regrets, because he too experienced the life-giving power of love that helps us recognize our neighbors. 

Love as Jesus commands us to love is difficult and can feel overwhelming. But what if we start with one concrete act of obedience this week—one apology, one act of generosity, one boundary that honors holiness, one step toward reconciliation. Love grows legs when it is practiced. And then see if the Spirit is not just a temporary visitor but a real and tangible presence in your life, giving you the courage and humility to become a witness that points to love that leads to obedience. We are not orphaned. We are loved by the Father, accompanied by the Spirit, and indwelt by the living Christ.

If you are tired, hear him: “I will not leave you orphaned.”

If you are confused, hear him: “I will give you the Spirit of truth.”

If you are wondering whether you truly love him, pray with surrender: “Jesus, I want to keep your word. Help me.”

Amen.

May 9, 2026, The Rite of Healing Service with Holy Eucharist, Reflections by the Reverend Bill Garrison

We just heard a relatively short but meaningful gospel. It takes place towards the end of Jesus’ last evening with his friends. Judas has gone out to betray him. Jesus has told Peter that he will deny his friend three times before the cock crows. The Passover candles are burning low. Jesus is reaching out to them for one last time. He talks about the Holy Spirit, the advocate, who will be coming to comfort and be with them in his absence.  But more than that he talks about love, love for each other. This is the direction we will be heading this morning. But first a couple of funnies about love. First up here is a letter to a lady’s husband.

Dear Herbie, I know it was our joint decision for you to go off to the army for the year, but it’s so hard not having you here. We are married. Doesn’t it make sense that we should be together? I’m so miserable without you. It’s almost like you are still here. Love, Anne

Now a story about what not to do when the love of your life is mad at you.

Bob was in trouble. He had forgotten his wedding anniversary. His wife was angry. She warned him. "Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE!"

The next morning, he got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway. Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway and brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand-new bathroom scale. Bob has been missing since Friday.

Ok, time to get serious.

Love is a central theme in the New Testament. It is a central theme in the theology of Christianity. It often is thought of as the primary answer to every question.

I, along with a great many members of the Episcopal Church, listened to our Presiding Bishop speak about love a week or so ago. This is a man I have the highest respect and regard for. He has appeared on the national news many times and is one of the leaders sought out on matters of national interest. In fact, I relatively recently saw him interviewed regarding churches that were choosing not to follow distancing and rules relative to the size of groups meeting. He handled himself well as he always does. I am quite proud of him as a spokesperson for the church.

Anyway, those of us in attendance recently listened to him talk about the importance of love. He said that every decision to be made in life would best be made if run through the lens of love first. And I think he is right. I just don’t know how to do it with any kind of consistency. Do you?

One of the things in life I am convinced of is that God loves us. In fact, God is crazy about each one of us. We are after all God’s creation and God has proven over and over again the incredible love God has for us. It abounds in the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures, and it is the primary point in the Christian Scriptures. Just two weeks ago we talked about the 23rd Psalm as a metaphor for God’s love for us. And the words of John say it all. “for God so loved the world that He gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” That’s a pretty awesome gift, even more so than something that goes from zero to two hundred in six seconds.

And God did even more than that in the person of Jesus Christ. He gave us a blueprint for living. He taught us about the importance of compassion, of common sense, of relationship with God and one’s neighbors, about servant leadership, and most of all about love. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” And Jesus even left us a commandment about love. We are to love each other as he has loved us. In this way others would know we are his disciples he said.

Now I will confess to you I often feel a great burden of guilt over all of this. I know my life and the life of those around me would be greatly enhanced if I could follow his commandment as he did. But so far in my life here on earth I have come up short on a continuing basis. I guess that’s one of the reasons we have saints. They don’t seem to fail at loving others as much as the rest of us seem to do.

What saves me is my recognition that I am not Jesus Christ. I am not fully human and fully divine. Jesus is and I am not. I cannot do this alone with any kind of consistency. I need help. And that is where the Holy Spirit, the advocate, comes into play. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would be here to help us and if we are willing to acknowledge the spirit’s presence, we can begin to make some progress in the “loving others” area. Note please I said progress, not completion. We must reconcile ourselves to a lifelong struggle in this area.

So here is my suggestion. Loving is easier with people we like or already love. But even with them loving can become an impossible chore at times. People we don’t love, like, or know is just that much more difficult. The Holy Spirit can help us. For me I try to make a triangle out of this loving issue. Me on one side, them on another, and the Holy Spirit on the other. Things change when God is truly involved. God is crazy about this person and crazy about me. With that in mind all things become possible. God can intervene and help us.

And this brings me to the most important issue of the day. Do we love ourselves? I don’t know that loving others is even possible very often unless we do.

Now I am not a psychologist. But I am going to posit that self-regard is incredibly important to the formation of a well-integrated person. So many of us, in fact I imagine most of us, struggle with our own self-image to one degree or another. Dealing with that is just as important as learning to love others as Jesus loved us.

In 2008 during the economic debacle of that time I was involved with a group of folks attempting to find a new job after having lost their last one due to the economy. We talked a lot about the interview process. I used a metaphor that seemed to hit home with them. We talked about asking another person if they would like to go out on a date with you. I gave two examples. In the first the asker said something like this. “If you have nothing to do Friday night, and you probably do, but if you don’t what would you think about going to dinner or something with me? I mean I hope I am not offending you in any way so please feel free to say no if you don’t want to but I thought I would ask.”

Now here is the second example. “Hi. I have to tell you that I am completely taken with you and find you one of the most intriguing people I have ever met. I really would like to get to know you better. Would you like to get together Friday night? I think we would have a great time together.

I think the answer to which is the better approach is pretty obvious don’t you? Today we have a different context we are dealing with but the metaphor still applies. Today I want to tell you that second example is God contacting each of us. God is constantly in contact with each of us asking us for a date.

Let me continue. See if you can wrap your head around this truth, one you  have heard several times before but probably could use a booster shot about. God loves us, each of us, in ways we can’t even imagine. Think of how you feel about a brand-new baby, an important baby to you, one that makes your heart feel like it might burst. The love you feel is a drop in the ocean compared to how much God loves you. And if God is that crazy about you doesn’t that mean something? Doesn’t that mean something important?

God is the creator of the cosmos and the creator of each of us. We are the apple of God’s eye. Can’t we understand God sees something we don’t? Perhaps it’s just that we are, that we exist, that God thought it worthwhile to create us and thinks we are pretty cool. If God feels that way about us perhaps it would be a good idea to reconsider our self-image. And if we do that, then working with the Holy Spirit we might have a chance to fulfill the commandment of Jesus, loving others as he loved us. Hmmmm. What do you think?

May 3, 2026, The Fifth Sunday of Easter, Reflections on 1 Peter 2:2-10 and John 14:1-14 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Fifth Sunday in Easter

John 14:1-14

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

1 Peter 2:2-10

Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:

“See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious;

and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner”,

and

“A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;

once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

One of the true gifts that we’re given in the lectionary in these weeks following our celebration of the resurrection of our Lord are incredible stories of the early church and the issues with which the early church was wrestling – and the common threads through all the readings of fear, anxiety and uncertainty.

We’ve seen a lot in these last few weeks about how the early church is struggling to make itself known, to understand its identity, to come out of hiding, to go and do the work that God has called the church to do.

And so we have to understand something about this community that is the early church. We have Jewish converts to the faith, we have Gentile converts, and all these folks now have to come together to live together in some meaningful way.  And to understand that whatever may have happened to them before, and however they may have hurt one another before, and however they may have wronged one another before, now they are called into a new existence as people of God united together. 

Today we have among our lessons one of the best examples of pastoral letter writing that can be found anywhere in the New Testament - which is from 1 Peter. Some scholars think it’s Simon Peter, others question that and think the author is someone else. But regardless, this author is writing to a community that is coming to know itself very, very differently.  For the Jewish converts that had believed forever that the Messiah was coming for them and them alone having understood that Jesus that walked among them come to everyone – Jew and Gentile, clean and unclean. This Jesus had come to everyone.

So their sincerely held understanding about being the chosen people and their relationship with the Messiah. Well now they are having to understand that in a new way. 

And for the Gentiles, who have never been a chosen people, it’s coming to understand that maybe, just maybe, the arms of God are big enough to wrap around them also. That’s a lot for folks to come to live with in those days when they’re still struggling with the Messiah was here and now the Messiah is gone.

So we have this marvelous text that is written to young, fledgling Christian communities, to try to say to them – this is what you’re really about, this is who you really are.  And the way the text is structured we might think that this is written to the Jewish converts.  Because he’s quoting from the law of Deuteronomy, from the Psalter, from the Exodus story to help them understand what it means to be a chosen people. These are familiar words to the Jewish converts to the faith. They’ve heard these words form the scrolls forever. 

But what about the Gentiles? Have these words ever been used to help them understand that yes, God’s love includes to you too?  What a powerful tool we have here!  The very words that may have been used to marginalize, the very words that may have been used to exclude, the world that have been used somewhere, sometime to put someone down – these are the words that are being brought back to say we are redefining this world.

Because this world in which Christ is the cornerstone, this world that God has redefined to say that all are within the reach and love of God. This world includes you.  You who have been outcast you, too now, are now part of the Chosen People. You are part of the nation that is God’s nation. You, too, are beloved of God.

But there’s more to it than just the privileged saying “we are the chosen ones.”  Because that is not the story.  We are chosen, the letter writer says, for a reason, for a purpose.  We’re chosen so that we can go out proclaim the goodness of God. To be called out of darkness and into light, means that there is a responsibility not just to bask in the light but to draw others to the light as well.  And understanding that privilege with the responsibility that is attached to it is meaningful and powerful. And that’s the good news today.

So what does it mean to us today to hear today that we are the chosen of God?  How do we begin to contextualize that in our own existence? 

I want to share a story with you, something from history. It’s about a woman named Irena Zendler. In early 20th century Poland, a young woman, Christian and daughter of a physician and musician mother, raised in privilege in Poland.  And then her world turns upside down.  When in 1939 her country was occupied by destructive forces.

She has been raised in a family that has taught her always what it means to be committed to people and to be committed to God. Her own father dies caring for patients with typhus. So the example has already been set for her: we live for much more than ourselves and our own pleasure and our own comfort. 

In 1939 when her country has been occupied, she sees what’s happening around her.  By this time she has been trained as a social worker. She asks for permission to go in and out of the Warsaw ghetto. As a social worker, she’s able to see to the welfare of Jewish people who are trapped in the ghetto.

Time passes and she watches people being deported to death camps. And she realizes that as a social worker, she has the opportunity to do something that not many others have a chance to do. So she and others organize an underground network.  And she goes into homes of Jewish families in that ghetto and says to them “you need to give me your children.” 

Now imagine hearing that. Imagine being a mother or father and having someone say “you need to give me your children if you want them to live.” Imagine all the emotions running through your mind and your biggest question for her – “how do I even know that I can trust you.”

One by one, she begins smuggling children out of the ghetto however she can.  In tote bags, in boxes in carts, however she can get them out, she begins smuggling children out of the ghetto.  All told she and her compatriots smuggled 2500 children out of the Warsaw ghetto.  At great personal risk. She was captured, threatened and beaten. She was undeterred.  2500 children later, she had written her legacy.

Now what – we would ask – would cause any rational person to do what Irena Zendler did? What would cause her to take that kind of risk?  Who would put themselves in that kind of danger for one person they didn’t know, much less 2500 strangers?  With the only tie being the tie of human connection.  What would make anyone do that? 

Maybe it was the belief that we live our lives for something bigger and greater than ourselves. To claim ourselves as the chosen, to claim ourselves as the royal priesthood bears with it incredible responsibility. And it’s not a light undertaking. It’s a little unnerving. It is to say that we live our life with Christ as our cornerstone. It is to say that we walk to path that Christ walked first. And we pattern our lives as much as we can after one who loved us enough to give his life for us.

It is to say that when we see others, who have been pushed to the margins and the fringes we know inside of ourselves that we are called to pull them out and not to leave them there. Because loving as God loves, loving as Jesus loves means we put ourselves in harm’s way – as we saw this in our Acts lesson today - by loving the way that God loves.

Yet, to be God’s chosen people means exactly that. And we put ourselves on the line even for those we don’t know, that don’t look like us, or talk like us, or love like us or agree with us. We put ourselves on the line even for those we don’t know because what is important and valuable and good is to be able to show the love of God to everyone we meet. It’s not enough for us to say that we have been called out of the darkness into the light if we not trying to bring others into the light with us.

So we who are called, we who are chosen – we who are God’s beloved. Our path is to show the way, to show others how much they are beloved by God. It is a mighty calling.  And we are up to the challenge.  Each and every one of us, each and every day. Amen.  

April 26, 2026, The Fourth Sunday of Easter, Reflections on Acts 2:42-47 and John 10:1-10 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Fourth Sunday in Easter                                            

Acts 2:42-47

Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

John 10:1-10

Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

We catch up with the disciples in our lesson today from Acts. We find them in a much different place than we found them in the gospel lessons of the last two weeks.  Immediately after Easter, the disciples were locked in a room in fear for their lives and we heard about Thomas, the only one who had missed out on seeing Jesus. And then last week we find two apostles making their way out of all the fear and heartache they’ve witnessed walking on the road to Emmaus, just trying to go somewhere else.

Today we find them today in a totally different environment.  Now we find them openly and obviously performing signs and wonders as they’ve always been empowered to do, even if they didn’t quite believe that they could. They’re actually healing and preaching and teaching. And the whole community is in awe of this. Because they can see God alive and active and moving right there among them.  And it’s a powerful statement to everyone watching. Because now they know that this story they’ve heard about Jesus having died and risen – now they know it’s true and that God is acting in their midst. God is right there.

          And so these early believers begin doing what they need to do which is embracing the apostles teaching – being in fellowship, breaking bread together, being in prayer together. This community has united around the truth that they have taken to heart as their own. 

And something incredible happens. In the midst of all this, they realize that their faithfulness is kind of contagious. As they begin worshipping together in the temple and growing in community with one another, other people are joining them.  And we’re told that God blesses this by bringing more and more and more people into the fold. Because the community of faith that they are becoming is stronger than the people and processes that would oppose it.

Now if we believe the things that we read from places like Pew Research Center and other groups that keep statistics on various things, you hear over and over that the Christian church is in decline – in the United States and all over the world. We hear, especially here in this county, that the number of young people that claim any religious affiliation at all is lower now than at any time in our country’s history. 

And that’s frightening – because those are folks that have not connected to the lover of souls, to their creator and the one who gives them life and breath and the one who will be with them when everyone else has failed them.

There are experts who have lots of suggestions about how we grow church – like build a gym, a work out facility. People will come to work out and get healthy, they say. Or -- put a coffee kiosk in your narthex. They won’t have to stop at Starbucks on the way to church, they’ll just pick up a cup right here and settle right into the pews. Or create a great mobile app to download study tools while the service is going on to help them learn. That’s what we hear. That’s how you build church – right?

Well, I never want to put the Holy Spirit in a box.  I’m sure each of those ideas would work out well for some church somewhere. But I wonder. I think actually that the early followers of Jesus had a better idea about how to build church, how to form them as sheep and shepherds than today’s so-called experts. What can we learn from them about building church in our current context?  In our gospel lesson today, Jesus uses sheep and himself as the shepherd to describe the flock and their relationship to him and also each other. So we might say that our Acts lesson is a church building lesson also.

I’m going to go off script a bit and remind us of the parable of the Lost Sheep.  You’ll remember that one sheep, in the flock of 100, goes missing.  And the Good Shepherd leaves to go search for it. Each one is precious, and so he goes in search of it.  But what about the other 99? Sheep left on their own don’t wander off in 99 different directions, that’s not their nature. Instead, they group together. They are matrilineal creatures. They find grass together, they huddle together at night and in storms with the strongest on the edge and the most vulnerable in the center. One or two might peel off but not that far. So in talking about sheep and a shepherd, it’s a perfectly lovely metaphor for community that Jesus has given us today.

One of the things we see going on in the ancient community is that they are sharing their lives together, growing in faith together, learning together and serving together. God did not intend us to isolate from one another. This is the truth that belies the “spiritual but not religious” claim. 

I ran into a parishioner in Temecula at a restaurant that I hadn’t seen in a very long time. He told me that he and his family chose to watch the service from National Cathedral in Washington DC each Sunday, that it was a lot of trouble to get dressed and get to church just a couple miles from where they lived. And as magnificent as that service at National Cathedral can be, it’s not possible for them to have community with the congregation 3,000 miles away. They had no formation as people of God, no support, with their sisters and brothers in Christ. They get the flavor of worship but at arm’s length. To be part of Jesus’ flock is to be community.  

What happens here is that it’s the place where we get fed – not only spiritually but also we are fed at this table physically. We are nourished by the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we are sent forth from this place to go out into the world to meet people that do not yet know our God and what it means to be God’s beloved people.  So many good things happen here, within these walls, on this campus.  It can’t be replaced by an arm’s length engagement.  

What else can’t be replaced is what happens when we walk out of here.  Because if all we do is come to take in, to absorb and if we don’t go out and share the love and care of this community with the world, we’ve only gotten half the message. When God sends us out of here and into the world, then we become the messengers for our just, merciful, loving God. And our God works through all of us. Through our hands, our hearts and our labor, our God works in the world.

We also come away with something else that that early community understood: we’re told that they owned everything in common that they used their resources to help if anyone had a need.  We hear those words today and it sounds extreme to us.  But the point here is the knowledge that the love and abundance of our God won’t ever run out. We won’t run out of God’s mercy, God’s love or God’s resources.  

So when our own hearts look at our brothers and sisters we see that if one person is struggling, we are all struggling, if one person among us is sick we are all sick. If one person among us is homeless we are all homeless.  We are all God’s beloved sheep. We are all given a chance to be Shepherds.

Each of Whittier’s city council meetings are attended by a man named Tom.  He’s well known to the staff and council members who greet him when he arrives.  He always goes immediately to sign up for a timeslot to address the council, rolling up to the desk in his wheelchair. His topic is the same each time: the trees. When it’s time for public comments, Tom makes a thoughtful, cogent presentation about the benefits to the city of the trees – the science, the beauty and the tradition with a final plea to keep the trees. They don’t exactly listen to Tom with rapt attention.  But he is acknowledged by the mayor. 

Now I don’t know if Tom is religious, but he has clearly been called to shepherd the flock in this particular way that honors God’s creation for the benefit of God’s people, to the building up and benefit of this community.

So we can believe all the rhetoric about the decline in Christianity. We can believe that the church is dwindling and there’s really nothing we can do.  OR we can believe that we can do a lot.  We can believe that when we leave here today, that there will be one moment that we stop to help a brother or sister in need.  And when we do, that rewrites the script. Because just like those apostles who had no idea they could perform signs and wonders we can too. We all have those gifts from our God to be able to perform all kinds of signs and wonders in this world.  We just have to unleash them. 

Today is a great day for us to believe that God is active and working through each of us.  Today is a great day to believe that someone who does not know our God needs to hear from us. And that we can change lives. Jesus promised that we would be known by the love we share with one another. And that is how we will always be known. May it be so. Amen.  

April 19, 2026, The Third Sunday of Easter, "Issue the Invitation" by the Reverend Jeannie Martz

About 20 years ago, I attended a clergy conference at a beautiful retreat center in rural Louisiana.  The priest who was in charge of the arrangements for our worship was very artistic, and he would create wonderful settings and backdrops for our times of prayer and meditation.  One afternoon, we all came into the chapel to find a small dining table in the middle of the room.  One of the chairs was down on the floor, another forcefully pushed back.  On the table a glass of wine was spilled and there was half-eaten food on the plates.  It looked like a scene of sudden violence and I immediately thought of Norway.

              I realize that this may seem to be a bit of a non sequiter, but when I was in college, my mother and I took a trip to Scandinavia.  While we were in Norway, in Oslo, we visited the city hall, which had been built since World War II.  The building had a large central two-story atrium, with murals commemorating various historical events at ceiling level all the way around.  Of these murals, I remember only one – and it’s one I will probably never forget.

              The mural showed a family’s living room in the evening.  The mother was seated in an armchair next to a lamp, knitting; a little boy played with a toy train on the floor at her feet.  They were both looking over their shoulders towards the door, startled; the door the father had just opened – only to be pushed back as armed Nazi soldiers burst into their home.

              That sudden raid was the first thing I thought of when I saw the tableau in the chapel, with furniture overturned, wine spilled, and a meal interrupted; and yet, as it happens, this scene wasn’t violence.  This wasn’t anger.  It wasn’t aggression.  This was Emmaus.

              Speaking for myself, I’m so used to the familiar cadences of the Risen Lord making himself known to the disciples “in the breaking of the bread” that until that scene in the chapel, I’d lost touch with the shock factor, with the intensity, with the whole jaw-dropping “Oh my God!” aspect of that moment of revelation.  And yet, think of the context.  Think of what the disciples, including Cleopas and his companion, who were part of the greater group of Jesus’ disciples, had just been through.

              Here in our Gospel reading, this is still Easter Day, still only two days after the worst day of the disciples’ lives (not to mention Jesus’); the day when their hopes, their dreams – their whole future as they saw it – had been shattered as Jesus’ lifeless body had hung on the cross.  In their conversation as they walk now, still numb and disbelieving, they’re going around and around and around, replaying events, replaying rumors, replaying all the “might have been’s,” as we tend to do in times of pain and of grief.  Luke doesn’t tell us where exactly they’re going, but I think it’s probably safe to assume that they’re going home, disconsolately returning to a life of routine, of ordinary tasks and ordinary responsibilities; a life in which they will, as the poet T.S. Eliot once wrote, “learn to avoid excessive expectation.” (F, L, H, 419)

              “Once bitten, twice shy.”  “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  These sayings reflect our emotional truth:  if we’ve been hurt, and especially if we’ve been hurt badly, we’ll take steps to protect ourselves from being hurt again.  We’ll take steps to “avoid excessive expectation.”

              And then, out of the blue, along comes this stranger who joins them, asking them a question that to their ears sounds almost flippant, because the literal translation of what he asks them is, “What are these words that you have been pitching back and forth to each other?”  (NIB, Luke, 477)  They stop, looking sad, Luke says; but then Cleopas verbally pushes back at the stranger, basically asking him what rock he’s been living under since Friday:  “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem that doesn’t know the things that have taken place there in these days?”   “Poia?” asks the stranger.  “What things?” – and here Luke treats us to a little bit of irony.  As one author points out, “…[W]hereas [Cleopas’] question assumes Jesus is the only one who does not know of these earth-shattering events, he is [in fact] the only one who does know the meaning of all that has happened.”  (Ibid.)

              Still not recognizing Jesus, the disciples proceed to fill their new companion in on everything that’s come to pass, and in the process they make what must be one of the most poignant comments in all of Scripture:  “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

              But we had hoped…we had hoped the treatment would work.  We had hoped the job would come through.  We had hoped there would be a baby.  We have all hoped, and we have all known the pain of hope denied.  

              In response to their sad tale, the stranger begins to teach them about the Messiah, drawing upon Moses and all the prophets, opening the Scriptures to them in a new way.  As the little group approaches Emmaus, the stranger walks ahead, but it’s getting to be late in the day and the two disciples invite him to stay with them; to relax, share a meal, and have more conversation.  They “urged him strongly,” Luke says, and so he joins them – and in this very ordinary setting, with Luke using the same wording as he has with both the feeding of the 5,000 and the Last Supper, the stranger takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to his companions.  As he does so, their eyes are suddenly opened and they recognize Jesus in their midst. 

Cleopas jumps up so quickly that his stool tumbles over, the other disciple jerks in surprise and spills his wine, and Jesus vanishes from their sight.  No longer hungry, the two leave their meal behind and immediately head back to Jerusalem to rejoin the other disciples and to tell them everything that has happened – how the Risen Jesus “has been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

              It’s no accident that the very first promise we make in our Baptismal Covenant is that we will “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship;” that we will continue “in the breaking of bread and in the prayers.”  We know that Christ is revealed in the everyday life of a community, especially a community of faith – revealed in the communal meal, communal discernment for ministry, communal worship; revealed in shared joys and shared sorrows; shared stories and shared prayers.  Christ is revealed in the quality and in the intentionality of the relationships we have with each other and with the world – a point Bp. John Taylor emphasized as the presenter at our final Thursday Lenten program here at St. Matthias. 

              The Golden Rule is key to our intentionality, he said, and every major faith tradition has its own version of this critical behavioral guidance.  Because we are to “do unto others as we would have them do unto us,” Christ is revealed, or Christ is denied, in how we treat other human beings, and in how we treat all of God’s Creation. 

You may remember that in my sermon last week, I shared Sojourners’ founder Jim Wallis’ memory of a guest speaker at his high school who rather loudly and forcefully pointed out to individuals in the audience that they were “the only Jesus someone would see.”  Each of us is the only Jesus someone will see; and that is both a privilege and a tremendous responsibility, because we’d better be sure that the Jesus we’re showing the world is a Jesus that Jesus himself would agree with.

In this day and age, and more and more frequently in voices online and in the news, the Jesus that is now being lifted up seems to be the vengeful warrior Jesus who appears in chapter 19 of The Revelation to John. 

John writes, “Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse!  Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.  His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself.  He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God.  And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.  From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.  On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords.”  (Rev. 11-16)

A few words about The Revelation to John, which you may already know.  Revelation is probably the most well-known example – and perhaps the most notorious example – in the Bible of a distinct type of literature known as “apocalyptic” literature.  Apocalyptic literature has to do with the end times, and it can sound pretty scary, with its fantastical beasts, symbolic imagery, and general cosmic upheaval.  Interestingly enough, and perhaps counter-intuitively, apocalyptic writings are actually messages of hope.  They are written reassurances to communities and groups that are being persecuted that they will ultimately be delivered; and that in God’s time, the righteous will prevail.  Apocalyptic writings insist that God is in control, that what the persecuted are fighting on earth is happening simultaneously on the cosmic level; and that the results will work out just as they’re supposed to, no matter how dire things seem to be at the moment.

Now, because most of these situations of duress and persecution on earth were politically related, and messages of hope generally portrayed the defeat of the power group in question, apocalyptic was written in a kind of literary and numerical code imagery that the good guys could understand, but that the bad guys couldn’t – so The Revelation to John is actually coded good news for first century Christians who were being persecuted by the Roman Empire. 

What’s not so good, however, is anyone lifting the heavenly warrior with the blood-soaked robe out of the text and context of Revelation and claiming that that highly specific image of Christ is the image of Christ.  There are two other images of Christ in Revelation in addition to the warrior, and by far the dominant image of the three is Christ as the Lamb who was slain for us; Christ as the Lamb seated upon the throne of heaven.  And, in fact, what is revealed to John again and again and what he returns to in his writing again and again, is a repeating vision of the perpetual, ongoing worship in heaven – the worship of the Lamb.

The warrior Christ is a limited Christ, limited by the meanings we attach to John’s text and, perhaps, limited by the comfort we may get from having a Christ in this guise.  Christ the Lamb, who as the Good Shepherd has already laid down his life for the sheep; Christ the Lamb is much more consistent and coherent with the message of the Christ of the Gospels:  the Christ who takes, blesses, breaks, and gives; the Christ of the Gospels who walks with, who teaches and heals, who inspires and empowers – and who waits.

Going back to Emmaus, one pastor has highlighted Jesus’ seeming to indicate that he’s going to keep on walking.  She writes, “Drawing near to their destination, Jesus leaves [the disciples] free to continue on without him….His love is such that we are always free to turn our backs upon him, close the door of our hearts against him, bolt our minds shut in fear of what inviting him in might involve.  Here he makes no ethereal entrance as in John.  An invitation must be issued.”  (F,L,H,423)

An invitation must be issued.  Jesus may be right outside that door of our hearts, poised to come in; but he doesn’t force himself upon Cleopas and his companion and he doesn’t force himself upon us.  We have to want him to share our table, to share our lives.  We have to want him to pitch his tent among us and abide with us.  We have to want the pleasure, and the honor, of his presence – and we have to invite.

Maranatha!  Come, Lord Jesus!

Amen.

April 12, 2026, The Second Sunday of Easter, "You…are the only Jesus someone will see" by the Reverend Jeannie Martz

Ever since Jesus invited Thomas to touch the wounds in his hands and in his side, and Paul began to proclaim that those who die with Christ will be raised with Christ, we Christians have speculated endlessly about our own resurrection bodies.  More specifically, we’ve wondered what we will look like resurrected.

              Will we look like we do now, or will we be featureless beings of light, like in the 1985 movie “Cocoon”?  Will we be resurrected at the same age as we are when we die?  (Will there perhaps be a little less of our resurrection body than of our earthly one?)  Will we recognize our loved ones who’ve gone before when we’re resurrected with Christ, and will our loved ones recognize us?

              When the Christians in Corinth ask Paul questions like these, he replies, pulling no punches, “Fool!  What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.  And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.  But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.  Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.”  (1 Cor. 15:36-39)

              And, for those who have seen or read “Project Hail Mary,” there’s another flesh altogether for astrophage!

              After pointing out that “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed star differs from star in glory,” Paul concludes by saying, “So it is with the resurrection of the dead.  What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.  It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.  It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.  It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.  If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.”   (1 Cor. 15:42-44)

              Twenty centuries later down the pike, it’s intriguing to see how Paul’s vision of our resurrected glory and our connectedness with Christ is enhanced (and supported) by some of the advances in various scientific disciplines in the last twenty to twenty-five years.  Drawing on the known steps in the formation of our solar system as well as the incredible set of physical principles that all came together just so, so that life could be sustained on our planet; and also drawing on the discovery that the DNA in every single living organism in all of creation is made of exactly the same ingredients and speaks exactly the same language, with the only difference being the order the particular genetic words are in, Christian geneticist Francis Collins has written, “Nearly all of the atoms in [our] bod[ies] were once cooked in the nuclear furnace of an ancient supernova – [we] are truly made of stardust.”  (The Language of God, p. 68)

              St. Paul and Dr. Collins notwithstanding, however, the final answer to our questions about what our resurrection bodies will be like is the same now as it was back in the first century:  we don’t know.  We don’t know what our resurrection bodies will be like because our only experience with the resurrection of any body is the resurrection of Jesus’ body.

              It doesn’t help our confusion that each of the Gospel writers treats Jesus’ own physical expression, as well as his appearances to others after his resurrection, differently.  Mark, of course, says nothing, because his Gospel ends with the women running away from the empty tomb in fear, themselves saying nothing to anyone.  In Matthew’s Gospel, the resurrected Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” when they come to prepare his body for burial, and we’re told that the women are allowed to “take hold of” his feet as they worship him, which certainly indicates a tangible reality.

Luke in his Gospel also stresses the tangible and physical nature of Jesus’ resurrected body, but he adds something else:  in Luke’s account, as Jesus shows himself to his followers, he invites them to touch him, and he specifically asks them to take a look at his hands and his feet.

              This emphasis on Jesus’ hands and feet, on the wounds from the nails as well as from the sword thrust in his side, this emphasis comes to a head here in today’s passage from John.  Ironically, in spite of Mary Magdalene’s news that she has already “seen the Lord” in the garden outside his tomb, and in spite of Jesus’ appearance among them even with the door locked, it’s not the sight of Jesus himself that reassures the disciples.  John is very clear that it’s the sight of Jesus’ wounds that dispels their fear. It’s the wounds themselves that convince the disciples that he’s real.  “Then,” John writes, after Jesus has shown everyone his hands and his side, “Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” 

              And, of course, it’s those same wounds, those same gaping wounds of crucifixion that Thomas wants to see and wants to touch before he himself will consent to believe.

              That Jesus’ wounds are permanent realities in his resurrected body is supported both by the Gospels and by Christian art through the centuries.  Any authentic representation of the Risen Lord must show the marks of the nails in his hands and his feet and, usually by implication, the sword wound in his side as well.  Granted, the degree to which the graphic nature of the wounds is depicted varies widely from culture to culture and from Christian denomination to Christian denomination, but even so, the wounds remain.

              As one writer has said, “[Jesus’ wounds] proclaim his boundless love for his own (Jn. 13:1).  Because they declare his obedience to the Father and his scorn for the evil one, they are his marks of victory forever.”  (Smith, p. 25)

              They are his marks of victory forever.

              Even so, with all this being said, we still don’t really know what our own resurrection bodies are going to be like!

              But…consider this – a story I’ve told many times before, but I don’t think here at St. Matthias.  Some years ago, Jim Wallis, the founder of the Sojourners organization wrote a magazine article in which he talked about the impact a visiting Christian speaker had had on him when he was back in high school.  According to Wallis, the speaker came to the podium, looked around the auditorium, zeroed in on the first of several unsuspecting students, one of whom was Wallis himself, and pointing his finger at each of them in turn, boomed out again and again, “YOU…are the only Jesus someone will see!”

              You…are the only Jesus someone will see.

              In line with both the speaker’s assertion and today’s Collect that the followers of Jesus, those who have been “reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body,” ARE the ones who show Jesus to the world, let me say this as well:  WE are the only Resurrection someone will see. 

We don’t need to wonder about our resurrection body; we ARE the Resurrection Body.

              Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has written, “The believing community manifests the risen Christ:  it does not simply talk about him, or even celebrate him.  It is the place where he is shown.”  (Resurrection:  Interpreting the Easter Gospel)

              Another pastor has said, “Jesus is not satisfied to come and die with us.  He defeats death, walks out of the tomb, and drags us out with him.”  (William Sappenfield, LP, “Resurrection,” 8)

              We are not just the Body of Christ in the world, we are the Resurrection Body of Christ; we ARE, all of us, living evidence of God’s glory and of God’s power at work transforming the world.  Jesus has dragged us out of the tomb with him, and now our life is in him; but to fully understand this, we need to talk about his wounds again.

              One of the stumbling blocks, one of the scandals of the faith, for early believers was accepting that the humiliation, the pain, and the human cruelty inherent in Jesus’ death on the cross were inseparably entwined with his resurrection glory and couldn’t be set aside.  One of the stumbling blocks was accepting that this human messiness is now, through the cross, part of who God IS.  The wounds of the risen Christ are the marks of hatred experienced; of pain felt; of tears shed; of injustice, and of oppression, and of death – just like the wounds that we ourselves bear.

              We too, for better or for worse, carry in our bodies and in our spirits the marks of hatred experienced, and of hatred expressed; the marks of pain felt, and of pain inflicted; the marks of tears shed, and of tears caused.  We too have suffered injustice, been oppressed, and have died to hope – and we too have been unjust to our neighbors; we too have oppressed brothers and sisters; and we too have killed off the hope of others.

              Thank God for Easter!

              Easter and the resurrection of Jesus turn all of this shameful, painful human messiness upside down.  In the resurrection, Jesus’ wounds are transformed, to the glory of God; and our wounds, our wounds which are so NOT the glory of God; in the resurrection our wounds are transformed as well, transformed like his into marks of victory over death and over fear and over despair.

              A side note about Thomas, and about John’s Gospel:  in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, individual miracles are primarily recognized and experienced by people who already have faith.  Think of the healing miracles where Jesus says to the one who is newly healed, “Your faith has made you well.”

              John is different.  What the other three Gospels call “miracles,” John calls “signs,” and in John, signs do two things:  first, rather than only being available to those who already have faith, in John signs LEAD people to faith, they BRING people to faith; and then, not only do they bring people to faith, signs also point to a greater truth, a truth beyond the signs themselves.

              When Thomas, who in his anger and in his pain has chosen to be apistos, or one without faith; when Thomas is shown the sign of the wounds in Jesus’ resurrected body, he tells us exactly what he sees:  he sees beyond the wounds themselves to the greater truth of the fullness and the glory and the love of God that the wounds reveal; and he responds with the most powerful and most complete confession of faith that is found in all of John:  “My Lord and my God!”

              No less than the glorious and transformed wounds of Jesus, in the resurrection our own wounds are taken up into the being of God, because in God, nothing is wasted – not even our pain.  In the power of the Spirit which Jesus breathed on the disciples, in the power of the Spirit which will be poured out at Pentecost, in the power of the Spirit which empowers each of us for ministry, we and our wounds are transformed in the Resurrection Body, consecrated by God for God’s purposes.  We and our wounds are consecrated by God to be signs for others, signs of prayer and of compassion; signs of justice, and of service.  We and our wounds are consecrated by God to BE God’s Love at work in this hurting world.

              In his 1888 poem “That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection,” Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote:

               “In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am at once what Christ is, since he was what I am,
and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond.”

With our wounds, through our wounds, and through the transforming wounds of Christ, we are stardust; we are immortal diamond; we are the Resurrection Body; and in the power of God’s Holy Spirit, we can, and we must, be Resurrection and new life – Resurrection and new life for the ultimate healing of the world. 

Amen. 

Alleluia!

March 29, 2026, Palm Sunday, Reflections on Palm Sunday by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Have you ever driven down a road thinking you were heading to one destination only to wind up someplace else? It happens to lots of us. I learned that lesson many times in my moves to progressively larger and larger places. Growing up in a small town you don’t need directions because you just grow up knowing where everything is. Nothing changes very drastically or quickly. Then I lived in a college town which was also easy to navigate since everything centered on the campus and the students. 

But then I moved to a real city – Los Angeles – where streets like Wilshire and Sepulveda stretched for miles across the entire county. I’d go somewhere for a job interview or to meet a client and I would get directions like “when you see downtown, go east on the Pasadena freeway.” No one told me that the Harbor Freeway, the Arroyo Seco Freeway and the Pasadena Freeway were the same freeway.

          Now this was in the days before GPS and Google maps. I kept a Thomas Guide – remember those? - in my car. But what good is a map when you don’t know what road you’ve gotten yourself onto in the first place?

So one of the many things I learned during my formative Los Angeles days was to give myself extra time just to get lost and find my way again. Because often I thought the road was taking me in one direction when in reality I was headed in another direction altogether.

And that brings us to today, to Palm Sunday. I have to wonder if the crowd that day on that first Palm Sunday wasn’t a little like that also. We know today’s story so well so that it is easy for us to think, just like those in Jerusalem long ago, that Palm Sunday is taking us one place when we’re really on another road – a road we might not have chosen, a road we might not have planned on.  Perhaps an unwelcome road. That’s the point of what we do today.

We began outside waving palm branches. Like the crowds when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, they were ready for change. Oppression weighed heavily upon them, like the Egyptian captivity from which their ancestors had been delivered.  It was Passover week and emotions were running high. The people were hungry for deliverance from another tyrant, from the Roman empire.

Here is Jesus who had healed people, fed people, raised them from the dead, rebuked Pharisees, confounded theologians and captivated the hearts of the people. So when they saw him, they took him for the triumphant king who had come to free them. And they took up the cry, the one we echoed – “blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosannah in the highest.”

But the road Jesus was on that day was not going to take him to a castle or a fortress. Today’s passion gospel reminds us of where that road led. The road to Calvary is a composite of humanity’s most difficult moments, a litany of things that harden our hearts, that live rent-free in our heads and separate us from God. 

I’m holding in my hand a nail. It’s also a reminder of where the road led that day. I invite you, as you come up for communion today, to take a nail from this basket. Carry it with you this week, during Holy Week, in your purse or pocket. And let it represent for you that thing that you need to leave at the cross, that thing you need to hand over, to let go of and just hand over to, that missing piece that you believe might make you whole – like a broken relationship that is in need of reconciliation. Perhaps with someone in your family, at your workplace or maybe even here in church.

What is that thing in your life that you need to leave at the cross?  What sharpness do you hold onto that causes pain, sorrow or grief?

I invite you to grab hold of one of these nails today. And come back on Good Friday and pound it into the cross that will be here.  At the altar.  The cross of Jesus Christ.  He knew where the road was taking him that Palm Sunday so long ago and he stayed with it anyway. From the gates of Jerusalem, through the streets of the city, into the halls of judgment. Down the dark alleys of hatred out to the other side to the place of the skull.  He traveled it then and he travels our own roads with us. And he promises to stay with us. That is the road of this week.

So I invite you to take a nail and hold onto it all this coming week. Feel it’s weight, it’s grit. It just might poke you a few times. It might feel colder and harder than you thought it could. Hold onto this nail. Let it live with you this entire week.

And then bring it back on Good Friday to pound it into the cross and leave it here, leave it all here.  And wait for Easter morning. Amen.

March 22, 2026, The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Reflections on John 11: 1-45 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

In the heart of San Salvador, in the old city, there is a square known as Plaza Libertad. It is surrounded on three sides by imposing government buildings and embassies. On the fourth side stands a church, Iglesia El Rosario. It is a structure so plain and industrial it could be mistaken for an abandoned warehouse. Only a simple metal cross on the roof hints at its sacred purpose.

In February 1977, thousands gathered in Plaza Libertad to protest injustice—first 15,000, and then within days nearly 50,000. As tensions rose and the military presence grew, protest leaders appealed to the newly appointed Archbishop of El Salvador, Óscar Romero: “Please come. Your presence could prevent violence.”
Romero replied, “I will pray for you.”

The violence came. When the National Guard opened fire, people fled into the church seeking refuge. What had been a sanctuary became a place of terror. A bullet pierced the tabernacle holding the consecrated sacrament, the bread and wine that are the mystical body and blood of Christ. But the sanctuary light at the tabernacle did not go out. El Rosario, sacred space bathed in filtered light and dotted with sculptures of the ancient church mothers and fathers, was now consecrated by the blood of those who died there, their memorial in the shattered glass of the tabernacle.

And in the story of Oscar Romero, this moment matters deeply— because he did not come.

El Salvador, a small, beautiful country along the Pacific, has long been marked by struggle—between powerful elites and the poor seeking dignity and justice. In this tension, the Church itself was tested. Many voices were silenced. Many disappeared.

As a young Salvadoran priest, Romero was cautious, reserved, even aligned with the powerful. He was considered a “safe” choice for Archbishop—bookish, predictable, unlikely to challenge the status quo. But transformation often begins where we least expect it. He had a close friend from his seminary days, Rutilio Grande, a priest deeply committed to the poor. Romero admired him but also worried he went too far. On March 12, 1977, news reached Romero that his friend had been murdered. That day, Romero did answer the call to come.

Those present report that Romero stood for a long time over the bullet-riddled body of his friend staring in silence. He later said "When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, 'If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.’ ”  Rutilio Grande was dead. Oscar Romero came alive.  It took the murder of a friend to open his eyes, to allow him to look both inward and outward at the work he had to do.  A piece of him had to die with his friend so that something new could be born.

That night, Romero did do something new—he listened. He sat with the poor, the grieving, the wounded, and heard their stories. The people he had once dismissed, he now turned to in humility. The people at last saw in their Archbishop the face of Jesus. And in that turning, something in Romero died, and something new was born.

This is where his story meets the Gospel—the story of Lazarus.

The gospel story, the ancient Lazarus story, is Jesus’ supreme miracle, demonstrating the power of God over even death.  And in doing so, it is one of transformation and restoration.  This story is rich in images but the one that guides the transformation of Oscar Romero, and Lazarus and all us as we come to the end of this wilderness journey of Lent, are Jesus final words – “unbind him, and let him go.”  Let him go.  Let him go – to embody the gospel promise of life made new, let him go – to be a messenger of hope, let him go to show the hope of restoration for those who are watching and waiting and in incredible need. Let them see restoration happening.

I think each of us at one time or another in our lives know we need to go in a new direction.  But we are afraid of letting go of the familiar, of letting go of life patterns even those we know are unhealthy: certain propensities we have like a need to control, an inability to forgive, a need to be right or the need to constantly be liked. It is precisely these things – things that may seem impossible to ever set aside, that need to die. From time to time, we need to wonder about these things and then to ask, “what part of me needs to die. What do I need to leave in the tomb and be restored?” 

And then – we need to listen, to hear Jesus voice, his LOUD voice, calling to us to come out – to come out to the life we desire, the life that is open to greater possibilities, to parts of us the need to be revived – our gentler, kinder, childlike selves; our convicted, energetic selves where we can move forward in our lives in strength.  The dead parts of our lives are just not meant to stay dead.  But instead, they are like dormant seeds just waiting for the sunlight of God’s lifegiving word. Waiting – and, like Lazarus, listening for God’s call to us.

It might seem like those dead parts are completely beyond the reach of God. That’s probably how it seemed to Martha and Mary. Lazarus was dead.  You can’t get more dead than being in a tomb for 4 days.  Many Jews believed that the soul hovered around the body for 3 days.  So Lazarus, in this gospel, is dead in every conceivable way. But God’s word can awaken us in the most common and the most extreme circumstances. 

Obviously we don’t hear God physically speak to us.  But we very well may have an intense understanding of God at work in soft whispers or the gentle nudge of a human or furry friend. Or maybe more forcefully – like a very bunt comment from a stranger or a friend that startles us; in an intense prayer experience that floods us with peace; in a passage of Holy Scripture that hits us like a thunderclap – even if we’ve read it may times before. Or in the stories told by the poor and abandoned that Oscar Romero heard in the painful aftermath of the death of his friend, Rutilio Grande.  In those moments, we may be moved like never before to forgiveness, generosity, self-lessness and love. We may be moved like never before to a place of restoration with our God. 

After the murder of his friend, Rutilio, Oscar Romero began to speak boldly against violence and injustice. He stood with the poor. His weekly radio homilies named the suffering of the people—disappearances, torture, killings—and called for justice and peace. In his final broadcast, he spoke directly to the soldiers:
“In the name of God… I beg you, I command you: stop the repression.”

The next day in the small church near his home, while he was setting the table to celebrate the Eucharist, he was assassinated. A single bullet ended his life.

Here is the irony about Oscar Romero: death did not silence him. He became more alive than ever. He personifies today the ethos of the Salvadoran people more than ever. The memory of his courage uplifted and inspired them and continues to do so today. Not only does he continue to be the voice of the voiceless but also the name of the nameless.  Because to remember Romero is to remember the thousands of innocent and defenseless people who suffered for the cause of human dignity and peace but who can never be publicly known. And for this he is beloved. 

Death did not silence him. It unbound him.

On this last Sunday in Lent, we remember that we began this journey on Ash Wednesday with a call: to fast from what separates us from God, and to feast on what draws us closer.

Feast on the Christ within each person.
Feast on compassion.
Feast on truth.
Feast on hope.

As we stand on the threshold of Easter, we hear again the voice of Christ:

Come out.

Come out of what binds you.
Come out into the life you are meant to live.

Amen.

March 15, 2026, The Fourth Sunday in Lent, Reflections on 1 Samuel 16:1-13 and John 9:1-41 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

1 Samuel 16:1-13

The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.”

Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” He sent and brought him in.

Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.

John 9:1-41

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

“Do not look on his appearance or the height of his stature for the Lord does not see as mortals see. They look on the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart. With these words Samuel is tasked entrusted with determining who will be successor to King Saul. Saul had ceased to walk in the ways of God and the Lord sent Samuel to a man named Jesse because one of Jesse's sons would, in fact, become the successor for Saul.

As Samuel arrives Jesse lines up his sons - seven of them - and they all begin to pass before Samuel. But one after another, strong though they may be, kingly looking though they may be, Samuel isn't getting any indication from the Lord that any one of them is THE one. It's not until the youngest one, an afterthought of a son who's off tending the sheep, appears that God makes God’s choice known.  And what a puzzle that turns out to be: he doesn’t seem to be enough in any way.  He has somehow managed to be invisible.

Choosing young David is a disruption to the natural order of things in the ancient world. We see it so many times in Holy Scripture but it's still a disruption to the order of things that we don’t expect. We do recognize that we humans tend to make decisions based on outward appearances.

I wonder how a child who has been bullied because he looks different than everyone else would hear that “the Lord looks at the heart.” Or perhaps someone who has been excluded because they are differently abled, I wonder how they might feel knowing that God sees us differently. But also knowing that down there in the trenches – they know that their peers may still see them as “less than” if they're even visible at all.

Now for a moment I want us to fast forward to our lesson from John's Gospel and a story of someone else who has been pushed to the margins, someone else who, for all intents and purposes is invisible. A man who was born blind. He has been the blind beggar in his community his whole life. And the assumption of everyone around him is that there must have been sin. We can safely assume that the disciples are not the first to ponder this. Likely there have been whispers and gossip since the day this young man was born – a certainty that there was a deep abyss of sin in this family that resulted in his blindness. The community’s debate was not if there was sin, only who was sinner.  And there was no debate about his forever role in the community: he was the blind beggar. They are all comfortable with him in that role, in that forever place -- until Jesus came along.

Jesus it the disrupter of the accepted order of things in the name of God, in the name of Love. Jesus, the son of a mighty and loving God, in giving this man his sight demonstrates something that might be a little frightening for the people. Jesus shows them that this man that everyone supposes is the culmination of his or his family’s sin is worthy of God's favor, that he’s worthy enough to be given his sight, worthy enough to be given a brand new life script and a brand new life path. 

When Jesus gives this man the gift of sight, he not only receives physical sight but spiritual sight. He begins to understand that God the Son has revealed the power of God for him and through him. He begins to understand he is no longer held captive by the limiting thoughts of himself, his family and others. He’s set free. But the community is left behind. They can’t fathom that God could really have been at work through this young man. And they drive him out of the community rather than celebrating the work that God has done.

The world seems to thrive on identifying what’s wrong with our neighbors, with labeling things, with challenging things that seem to be disordered rather than focusing on strengths and abilities.

The challenge for us is to see past the superficial. Just as the Lord spoke to Samuel and to see possibilities, to see God at work and to celebrate that. And that requires us to see the Divine in one another and ourselves rather than labels that we have used identity what is wrong, the labels used to limit.  When we focus on seeing the Divine in one another, and also in ourselves, our whole world is the better for it. When we look past the superficial, we understand that this gospel story is about life without Jesus contrasted with life with Jesus. It is a story of before and after – the darkness, the confinement, the stuckness of life before an encounter with Jesus versus the lightness and freedom of life after an encounter with Jesus. The life that God wants for each of us.

  This Lenten season provides us with a special invitation to see the divine light in all of God’s creation, to see as God sees and to embrace that light. The Pharisees and the young man’s family shut their eyes to the light in self-defense. That may be the intuitive thing to do. But this text encourages us to open our eyes wide. We will not be blinded by the light. We will be saved. Amen.   

March 8, 2026, The Third Sunday in Lent, Reflections on John 4: 5-42 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

A Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

There’s a small town of about 2,000 outside of Houston called Kemah. It’s one of those places where everyone knows everyone else.  So when a man that no one knows appears on a street corner that gets people’s attention. Everyone wants to know who he is.  He’s there every day, every night, rain or shine. He’s always there. He’s pacing around as though he’s looking for someone or something. And this goes on for nearly three years. People want to know but no one asks.   

Finally one day, a café owner named Ginger decides that she will ask. She figured that she had passed him at least four times a day in her comings and goings over the last three years.  And it was time to know what was going on with him. So she pulled up to him. And before she could say anything, he extended his hand and said “Hello, I’m Victor.”

At that moment he became a man with a name, a man with a story to tell. Victor struggled with mental health problems. He had never completely well. He lived with his mother in Houston.  When she reached the point where she felt she could no longer care for him she drove him out of town, to that corner, dropped him off and left.  And because he didn’t want to miss her when she came back, Victor stayed on that corner waiting and waiting and waiting for his mother to return. 

When Ginger hears this story, she gets ideas about how Kemah can wrap their arms around this stranger.  She gets the word out on social media that he needs everything especially access to doctors and therapists and medication. Victor gets what he needs. Victor was transformed – healthy and whole he was able to communicate.  He gets on his feet, gets a home and then needs a job. Ginger thinks “well, I have a restaurant” and puts him to work.  And Victor turns out to be one fantastic cook. And people love to come and eat his food.

This all happened because one woman stopped in the midst of her life to find out what was going on with a stranger on the corner. And when she did that, she didn’t just bless him.  She brought God’s blessing on an entire community that rallied together to make a difference.

The story of Victor and Ginger and the town of Kemah is a wilderness story and not all that different from the story from John’s gospel that we hear today, of ancient people in their own wilderness and the need for living water.

The people in Sychar in Samaria have no expectation of seeing a Jew at their well. Jews didn’t hang out with Samaritans. We know from all of our ancient historians that Jews and Samaritans really didn't get along terribly well. And even though Samaria right in the middle between Galilee and Judea, and the most direct route between them was through Samaria, Jews were more likely to take a long detour out of their way. They would go out of their way to avoid an encounter with Samaritans.

Factor in Jesus. Instead of taking a detour, Jesus goes straight through the heart of Samaria. This unexpected Jewish man at the well in Samaria where he encounters a Samaritan woman. She's not expecting to see him. She's not expecting any Jewish man to be at that well -- let alone one who's asking her for a drink of water. Because she knows their purity laws probably just as well as they do.  So, of course, she is stunned when this man asks for a drink of water. “Are you kidding? You'll be defiled if I touch water that’s consumed by you.”

And here comes the moment that he introduces her to something entirely different. He starts talking to her about living water. Clearly she has a story -- because the thing women did was to come to the well first thing in the morning to get their water for their chores. They wouldn't be coming in the middle of the day.

But Jesus begins to tell her all about her life, her deep wilderness – all the wrong paths, all the pain, all the abuse that has made her an outcast. The gospel writer doesn’t give her a name, she’s a nobody – but not to Jesus.  He engages her in conversation, takes her seriously and spends several days in her village. 

Whatever hurtful things others have said, however she has been treated - or mistreated - by anybody else, it’s not what she encounters with Jesus. He will not turn her away. Jesus looks upon her with compassion with kindness and patience. Jesus has looked upon her with this invitation to be immersed into God living, into life with God and being found in the Holy Spirit.

She’s so excited by this encounter with Jesus, she goes back and tells anyone who will listen, “you need to come and meet this man, this extraordinary man, who I do believe is the Messiah. I believe he is the Promised One. Come and see for yourself.” And notice that it’s essentially an unfinished sentence: “He told me everything I have ever done...” she says. The end of the sentence is unspoken but clear: “… and he loved me anyway.”

That’s the good news of living water, the very presence of God. This is what Jesus offers her in himself – this constant wellspring of life-giving presence of God that cares not one whit about what has happened in her past but desires only for her the blessings of forgiveness, mercy, compassion, love - if she will only accept it in humility and gratitude recognizing it for the gift that it is. No one has ever offered this to her before. This is her way out of her wilderness.

Her problems are not going away. She’s still a Samaritan woman living a hard life. But now, with the gift of living water, she has the knowledge of God’s powerful love for her to sustain her. And that changes everything. This is her story, this is our story. And it’s the story we need to tell.

Like the Samaritan woman, we all come to the well over and over again to draw water. But I wonder if we think we’re doing this alone, if we don’t see the man sitting at the well or hear his message. Can we see that Jesus does not look down on her. Instead Jesus says that the Samaritan woman has something that he needs. There is something she can do for him.

Hearing this news she is liberated from all that weighs her down. He enters into a relationship with her first. He gives her value. He gives her purpose. He gives her new life by simply letting her know there is something she can do for him. We wonder if we might approach the poor and broken-hearted as he does. Just as Ginger approached Victor – and find his hand extended in greeting.

As we move steadfastly toward Holy Week we remember that as the story nears its conclusion on the cross, Jesus is still thirsty. He is still thirsty today. And we are that Samaritan woman. We come to the well again and again. And again and again Jesus asks us for a drink.

We know the kinds of things for which he thirsts.  Are we ready to bring him a drink? Are we ready to talk with him? And make our full commitment to him?  Jesus is sitting before us right now. He is tired, very, very tired. He asks us to give him a drink. What will we do?

Amen. 

March 1, 2026, The Second Sunday in Lent celebrating the Feast of Saint Matthias, Reflections on John 15: 1, 6-16 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Feast Day of St. Matthias 2026                                                     John 15:1, 6-16

Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

Today we are celebrating the Feast Day of our namesake, St. Matthias.  His actual day is February 24th and the anniversary of the dedication of our current church building by the Bishop of Winchester, England.  There’s a stained glass window in the narthex that memorializes this.  Why a Bishop from England?  No one is sure, but a quick review of weather in Winchester and Whittier on the 24th showed a significant difference: 30 degrees and freezing rain in Winchester; 89 and sunny in Whittier.  Who can blame the poor English bishop for wanting to spend the feast day of St. Matthias, and perhaps the whole winter, in sunny southern California?

But let’s see what we can learn about Matthias.  It doesn’t take too long to exhaust what we know about him from scripture – he’s mentioned in only a few verses in the Book of Acts that we heard today.  Essentially, the Apostles felt the need to keep their number at 12, the number of disciples chosen by Jesus. Judas was dead.  After they had prayed for divine guidance, Matthias was chosen by “casting lots” – a term for throwing dice, flipping a coin or some method through which the Divine Will was believed to act.

Beyond that, what we know – or more accurately what we speculate - about Matthias comes from tradition.  And a muddy tradition it is. Even his name is variable: the historian Eusebius calls him "Tolmai" instead of Matthias. In various texts he’s confused with Zacchaeus or a follower of Paul named Barnabas. And some scholars believe that Matthias is the same person as Nathanael in the Gospel of John who Jesus spotted sitting under a fig tree.

Like many of the early apostles, Matthias was reportedly arrested for publicly preaching  Jesus Christ as the son of God.  Jewish leaders seized him and sent him out the city where he was stoned or possibly beheaded.  Another version of his life story says that he lived a long life and died a peaceful death.

Whatever or whoever he might have been in ancient times, Matthias currently is known as the patron saint of various disparate groups.  He is the patron saint of gamblers often depicted holding a pair of dice referring back to the way he was chosen.  He is also the patron saint of tailors, carpenters and miners. Why is a mystery but ions of him often show him holding an axe. And he is associated with hopefulness and perseverance, an anchor of faithfulness in the establishment of the church and so is pictured with an anchor.   

While we will never know actual facts of the life or ministry or the circumstances of the death of our namesake with any certainty, we do have a chance to look through the eyes of faith at the portion of scripture where he’s selected as an apostle and in the absence of facts perhaps we can learn some truth about his story.

We know that he was chosen after Jesus had ascended into heaven leaving his disciples with the Great Commission: to go into the world to make disciples of all nations.  In Luke it says that the disciples observe Jesus ascending into heaven and return to Jerusalem joyfully.

What awaits them there?  They have become, through the betrayal and suicide of Judas, a group of eleven.  They are facing what we might call “the terror of the empty chair,” being in the presence of the chair that had been Judas’ during 3 years of Jesus ministry. One of their own is gone leaving an empty space, lingering traumatic memories and feelings of sadness, confusion, and even anger. Ancient Judaism strictly forbade suicide. Life as they understood it was a divine gift. We do not belong only to ourselves, they believed, but to God making self-killing an infringement on God's ownership and an affront to God.

Jesus does not instruct them to find a replacement for Judas. But he does emphasize their relationship to him and to each other. In the lectionary reading for St. Matthias, from John 15, Jesus calls them his friends in a tender message the night before his death, virtually the last time they are all together. He tells them not to be downhearted. He assures them that he is going to God who sent him, that he will prepare homes for them.  He calls them friends.  In calling them his friends, he wants them to be Christ-minded even more than likeminded. This is love in action but is not unique to Jesus and his immediate circle of followers. It is characteristic of all of Jesus’ friends - even those outside the immediate circle of and extending to other followers of Jesus.  People like Matthias.

There’s a lovely story about a mom who was driving a van full of teenage girls to Camp Stevens for the week. It was a long drive with lots of traffic on a Friday afternoon. The girls were really hyped up, sassy and a little geeky.  After a few hours of this, the mom had to admit she was looking forward to the quiet ride home.

They had stopped for snacks and supplies. And when they arrived at camp, she insisted that the girls take the many bags of groceries into the kitchen.  From there, she assumed they’d be off without a word to find their rooms and claim upper bunks. Instead, she found them in the kitchen putting everything away, snacks organized, beverages in the fridge.  She said, “I’m impressed – good job!  And thanks.”  “It’s okay,” the ringleader replied flipping her hair and striking a pose, “that’s what friends are for.” 

That is what friends are for. Friends are gifts given by God who cleverly and persistently loves us in the ordinary settings and everyday people of our lives.  Friends accept us, care for us, make us laugh, challenge and even inspire us to be better.  In telling his disciples that he no longer calls them servants but friends, Jesus is suggesting, I think, that even as he leaves, relationships matter and friendship is a primary setting in which we love one another and grow in the skills needed to refresh the world with our way of life.  Jesus as friend models the best of human love.

So Jesus never specifically instructs them to replace Judas and become 12 again.  But in the midst of the trauma of Judas’ loss, there is work to do and healing is needed.  The terror of the empty chair needs soothing. And I have to wonder if Matthias wasn’t the one chosen to fill out their ranks, because he was just the perfect person to take that chair, that he had a personality that exuded care and concern, that he could bring a spirit of comfort and healing that the other candidate could not. 

There is real healing in friendship. Genuine connections provide emotional support often serving as a buffer against anxiety, loneliness, and depression. Friends help process trauma, offer perspective, and provide a safe space to rebuild trust. This was the role created by the Holy Spirit for Matthias.

Most of us would accept help unpacking groceries any time or an invitation to be friends on social media, but the richness of being a friend of Jesus in relationship with other friends of Jesus provides the setting for learning together the various practices of Christian love.

We’re invited into that kind of relationship. I can’t help but wonder if the most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationships we maintain and the accompanying influences, life qualities and connection in love produced by those friendships.

As he lay down his life for his friends, this is what Jesus asks us to give our attention to: growing in the love and goodness of God, able to astound others with our Christ-centered way of life; loving others as we have been loved. That’s what friends are for.   Amen.

February 22, 2026, The First Sunday in Lent, “IF YOU’RE TIRED OF SIN, STEP IN”, by Reverend Jeannie Martz

I’ve always been a big fan of the Arthurian legends, the stories and tales of the first king to unite Britain, especially as these stories have been expanded upon by contemporary writers such as Mary Stewart and T.H. White.  Weaving together the pagan worship of Old Rome and the emergence of Christianity in post-Roman Britain, the legends of Arthur are stories about human nature, about our gifts, our flaws, and our dreams – and as such, they are stories that are timeless.

          Using the vehicle of Broadway, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s 1960 musical “Camelot” is a retelling of a portion of Arthur’s story, and its original cast included Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, and Robert Goulet.  I mention all this because one of the songs from “Camelot” provides such a marked contrast to the Great Litany and the season of Lent that I feel bound to tell you about it.

          The song is called “C’est Moi” – which is French for “It is I”.  “C’est Moi” is the introductory song for Robert Goulet’s character of Sir Lancelot, and in this song Lancelot sings about the characteristics, both physical and spiritual, which are to be desired in a knight of the Round Table; all the while, of course, identifying these characteristics in himself.  Having said that a knight’s soul should be restrained and immune to the ways of the flesh, Launcelot asks, “But where in the world is there in the world a man so untouched and pure?”

          “C’est moi, c’est moi; I blush to disclose, I’m far too noble to lie.  That man in whom these qualities bloom – c’est moi, c’est moi, ‘tis I.  I’ve never strayed from all I believe, I’m blessed with an iron will.  Had I been made the partner of Eve, we’d be in Eden still!  C’est moi, c’est moi the angels have chose to fight their battles below – so here I stand, as pure as a prayer, incredibly clean, with virtue to spare…the godliest man I know – c’est moi!”

          This is a classic song from a character who is blind to, and therefore doubly vulnerable to, the dangers of temptation; and in fact, in the legends as well as in the musical, Lancelot falls in love with Guinevere, Arthur’s queen, and she with him…and in their love, and their betrayal of King Arthur – which neither of them wanted – in these, lie the unraveling and the downfall of Camelot, the end of Arthur’s united peace, and the death of the dream of the Round Table.

          One author has suggested that “Lenten penance may be more effective if we fail in our resolutions than if we succeed, for its purpose is not to confirm us in our sense of virtue but to bring home to us our radical need of salvation.”  Before his story was done, and much to his own surprise, Lancelot’s iron will and his sense of virtue both lay in shreds; and he found that, like all of us, he too was in radical need of salvation.

          Temptation, sin, and the lasting consequences of sin – plus a glimmer of hope - are the themes of this First Sunday in Lent.  

Scripture talks about temptation in two different ways.  The first is as a “strong inclination to do evil,” evil being understood quite starkly as any action that is contrary to God’s will; “a strong inclination to do evil” even though, and even when, we know that God wills good.  This is “the temptation of Adam,” the temptation of pride, the temptation for us to go our own way, do our own thing, assert our own will, rather than God’s; to claim our own will as being the greatest good – at least for us!

          The second kind of temptation in Scripture is testing, the testing of the strength of our commitment to God.  This test of spiritual strength is Lancelot’s temptation, and it’s also the temptation that Jesus wrestles with in the wilderness in Matthew’s Gospel today.

          We know from all the Gospel accounts that throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus was constantly dealing with crowds and disciples who completely misunderstood the nature of his messiahship.  He too has had to wrestle with his messiahship and come to a resolution about it – and this forty days in the wilderness immediately after his baptism is the time and the place of his struggle.

          Will he be the messiah that the people are waiting and praying for, the messiah of power and of conquest? Will he be the political zealot who will rebel against Rome and take Israel back to independence and glory?  Will he be the Son of God who commands armies and goes into battle, supported by the adulation and the worship of the people?

          Or will he be the Son of God who listens to his Father and who lives the opening words of the Shema, Israel’s ancient confession of faith:  “Hear, O Israel:  The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”  Will Jesus be a servant messiah, a suffering messiah, a spiritually powerful but politically power-less messiah who will lead people not to the world’s glory, but to the glory of the cross?  Which set of desires, which set of expectations will Jesus fulfill? 

          The point has been made that even though the Gospels describe Jesus’ temptations as separate events that seem to happen consecutively, like scenes in a play, it’s far more likely that these 40 days were filled with continual testing, continual temptation, a continual going back and forth, with Jesus being surrounded by what one author has called “a kaleidoscope of possibilities” as to his identity as Son of God.

          This kaleidoscope of possibilities is much more what we face in our lives too.  Rarely are we “assaulted” – to use the wording of the collect – rarely are we assaulted on only one front at a time, and rarely are our choices as clear as Jesus’ seem to be today.

          Along the lines of clear choices, the story is told of the Anglican vicar who noticed that his Evangelical minister neighbor was having some success at drawing new people into his church through the use of an outside notice board with various slogans or exhortations on it, and the vicar decided to try the same thing.  He put up his own board and, after a great deal of thought, wrote on it, “IF YOU’RE TIRED OF SIN, STEP IN.”  You can imagine his distress when he went outside the next day and saw that someone had added “BUT IF YOU’RE NOT, PHONE PADDINGTON 04655.”

          In our own temptations, we don’t usually get the luxury of choosing between the lady and the tiger, between clear good and clear evil.  Our struggles tend to be more along the lines of bad versus worse, or good versus better.  Which of several is the least of the evils?  Which of our choices will lead to the least harm or the most good?  Ethical positions get murky in these days of sharply divided politics and national interests; of emerging AI technology and how to use it to do good rather than to harm; of the noise and the reach of podcasters and social media influencers; and of increasingly sensitive economic and global relationships; and I think for many of us, the path of responsible Christian behavior in the midst of all the conflict and all the chaos can sometimes be difficult to discern.

          Loving us, God has given us freedom, the freedom to give in to, as well as the freedom to resist, temptation; and in this freedom to choose our own way, we are constantly being challenged by the world around us to remember and claim our baptismal identity and values, as well as to remember and claim our responsibility to the world around us; responsibility that our identity, our values, and our freedom bring.

          C.S. Lewis has written, “All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual:  the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting; the pleasures of power, of hatred.  For there are two things inside me,” Lewis says, “competing with the human self which I must try to become.  They are the Animal self and the Diabolical self.  The Diabolical self is the worse of the two….Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.”

          As Jesus did literally, during these forty days of Lent each of us is called to go into the wilderness spiritually, the wilderness of solitude where we have no one to confront, no one to struggle with, but ourselves and our temptations:  our Diabolical selves, self-centered, rationalizing, putting ourselves forward at the expense of others, strutting about in pretense and illusion.

          This call into the wilderness can be scary, and I’m just as reluctant to take the plunge as anyone else.  On the plus side however, in 1 Corinthians 10:13 Paul says that “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone.  God is faithful, and [God] will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing [God] will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

          This is a reassuring promise that Paul makes, but it’s also challenging.  It’s challenging because this promise that we’re not alone in being tested, and that God will see us through our time of testing; this promise means that none of us has a legitimate excuse not to go into the wilderness…but at the same time, herein lies the single biggest temptation we face as Christians:  as we perhaps reluctantly turn towards the wilderness armed with Paul’s words, we’re faced with the temptation to not believe him and to not believe the promises of God; to not believe that God is with us in our test, or in our illness, or in our loneliness and our pain.  We’re tempted to believe that “God’s there” for everyone else but not for us, tempted to believe that we won’t in fact find God “mighty to save.”

          It’s been said that the Devil’s greatest triumph is convincing people he doesn’t exist.  I’d say rather that the Devil’s greatest triumph is convincing us that God’s grace doesn’t exist for us.  Because Jesus tells us again and again not to be afraid, the Devil’s greatest triumph is, in fact, our fear:  convincing us not to pray because of our fear that God might not be there to listen; convincing us not to give to others because of our fear that we won’t have enough for ourselves; convincing us not to come to church, not to receive communion, not to live as a member of the Body of Christ, because of our fear that at the end of the day, we’re not good enough for God to love us.

          “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” says Paul…and the Devil’s greatest triumph is convincing us that Paul is a liar.

          But Paul doesn’t lie; and God doesn’t lie.  It’s the Devil who is the liar and the father of lies, and we have the whole witness of Scripture and the life of the communion of saints to testify to that, and to support us in that. 

The wilderness, both literal and spiritual, is a place of risk and of fear…but we are the baptized; we are marked as Christ’s own forever, and if we dare to enter this wilderness during these forty days, we will never be alone.

          “IF YOU’RE TIRED OF SIN, STEP IN” – step into the wilderness, step into Lent -- because in the wilderness of Lent…lies hope.

                                                              Amen. 

February 18, Ash Wednesday, Reflections on Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21 by the Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Ash Wednesday                                     Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

Jesus said, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

"So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

"And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

"And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

It’s been about 15 years since I helped my father move. He and my mother had lived in the same house for 35 years. But their lives had changed. Our family had changed.  My mother was in an assisted living facility where she could get the care she needed.  My father was isolated in their big house with maintenance he just wasn’t interested in taking care of. So it was time to sell it and “rightsize.”  We used that term – rightsize – rather than downsize. They were blessed in this house with an abundance of closet space and storage space and places to tuck away those precious things that had always seemed like necessities, things we all clung tightly to, that no one could bear to part with.

35 years is a really long time to be in one place. And so when we began the rightsizing to move my father to his new home, we realized just how much stuff they had managed to collect. Too much stuff!  All had to be sorted -- stuff to go with him, stuff to go with my brother, stuff to go with me, stuff to be given to my mother’s friends, stuff to be donated, stuff to be sold, stuff to be trashed. A decision had to be made about Eevery. Single. Thing. And as we opened those large, spacious closets and began taking out things that had been tucked away, there were just armloads of things that I knew would not survive this move. Of course at the time that we were accumulating them, it seemed like we could never rid of them.

Faced with our new reality as a family and wondering “what are we really going to do with all this stuff?” the only answer was - it was time to let it go, it was time to shed ourselves of it. It was time to rid ourselves of it.  So that all of us – my father, my brother and I - were taking to our respective homes only the things we would actually use. And we were sharing the things we no longer needed with others.

But there was one more really big benefit to all this purging and shedding. And that was when we got to my father’s new place, and we began looking around, we thought you know that chair that’s always been in the living room, what if we recovered it and put it in the bedroom?  That could go somewhere else. Wouldn’t it be nice if that table that used to be in the den found a new purpose in the office instead? 

And suddenly we realized that all these few precious things that we had that had survived the purge, when we were faced with a blank canvas, that they had a new life and a new purpose. And that we had a new way of seeing them and a new use for them.

We hear the words from the prophet Joel in our Old Testament lesson today reminding us of the of the coming of our Lord, a wrathful time, a hard time, a day of gloom but a day for us to remember something important.  And that is that our Lord is slow to anger and abounding in great mercy and love.

And that what we are to do, Joel tells us - Joel tells the people called Israel -  we are to repent and return to the Lord. We are to be intentional – very intentional - about how we live and walk with our God. We are to shed those things that separate us from a close walk with God. And surround ourselves with those things that make it possible for us to know and love God and our neighbor even better.

And so as we begin this Lenten journey, there are questions that we have for ourselves. To take this 40 day walk with Christ, what are the things that we have that should not survive this journey?  What are the anxieties and fears and things that have stressed us that keep us from the kind of relationship with God that we truly need? How do we purge those, how do we shed them?

How do we shed from ourselves any anger, and bitterness and rancor and hatred and suspicion that we feel towards others?  How do we strengthen relationships that have been fractured?  How do we go from pushing away to hands reaching out. 

How do we shed those things that cause us to walk a path that is not God? How do we dig out of the crevices of those closets the hurt, the bitterness, the wounds – the things that have separated us from loved ones and neighbors. How do we take those out of the closet once and for all and put them away? 

This is the time, during these 40 days, for us to be intentional about how we live in relationship with one another and with our God, determine for ourselves our new reality.  And the amazing thing about purging those things that cause us to live in ways that we should not, is that we make room in our lives for God to fill us.  We make room for God to give us a new canvas – a new way of being and a new way of seeing. So that we can strengthen our relationships. So that we can know more about what it means to walk in love.  So that we can love what God loves, the way God loves – fully, joyfully, fearlessly.

What do you need to shed during these 40 days?  And how can we re-imagine ourselves whole, complete, walking with our God, walking in love and community with those around us.

Having shed these things, having “rightsized” ourselves and made space for God, preparing ourselves for the Easter Feast to come, with what can we fill this space? I believe we are invited to take on…

There are many versions of this practice but Bishop Jose Luis Bhupesi suggests this path:

We can fast from “gossiping”. But don’t stop there. Take on making an effort to talk well about the person you were going to gossip about;

Fast from “using rough words or a rough tone” and take on “speaking gently” to the very people who might be intimidated by you because of your past relationship with them;

Fast from “complaining about everything and everyone” and take on making sure you “count your blessings”;

Fast from “any type of violence or violent speech” and take on “being gentle, being a peacemaker;”

Fast from asking “what’s in it for me” at the time someone needs your help and take on “being supportive”, a selfless supporter of those who will benefit with it;

Fast from “the need for revenge” and take on “praying for your enemy” as Jesus expects from his disciples.

The God of steadfast love and abounding mercy and grace continues to invite us into these “take on” relationships.  God implores us to walk the path that is the God path.  To find our meaning through love. Amen.

February 15, 2026, The Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Reflections on Matthew 17: 1-9 by Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

There are a lot of what we call “mountaintop experiences” in scripture.  They are places where God is revealed to a pillar of our faith. So it’s appropriate on this last Sunday in Epiphany as we’re getting ready to go into the season of Lent that our texts are all about these revelations of God on a mountain top.

Remember that it was at the top of Mt. Ararat that Noah’s ark came to rest. And Noah received a covenant from God that never again would God flood the world and cause such total destruction.   

And then there’s Abraham at the top of Mt. Mariah thinking that he is sacrificing his second son, Isaac. Instead God provides a ram in the thicket and Isaac was spared. That’s certainly a revelation of God on a mountain top. 

Elijah has a couple of those revelation experiences on a mountain top. First on Mt. Carmel where Elijah that the God YHWH, his God, is the one true God.  And then again at Mt. Sinai, in the silence, Elijah has a revelation of God and of God’s plan for his life. 

Moses gets a couple mountain top revelations of God.  He receives the law on how the people called Israel will live in relationship with God and one another. He goes up into this consuming fire, incredible brightness to be in the nearer presence of God where the law is revealed to him. But it’s also on a mountaintop, Mt. Kisco, that Moses goes to find the land that has been promised to the people, to be able to look upon it and learn from God that he will never enter it.

There are many mountaintop revelations of God. So today we hear about how God is being revealed on a mountain top to some disciples who climb up the mountain with Jesus. 

Peter, James and John have gone with Jesus not expecting this to be an unusual day. But suddenly Jesus is before them – his clothes are dazzling white – and they realize that some deeply felt change has happened to their teacher. 

So this is one of those moments when we can put things into our own context.  What do we do when we’re in a moment that we are surprised, in incredible moments that are not going to be repeated? We know it’s the most incredible moment ever -- what do we do?  We take a selfie.  We grab our phone.  We want to do our best to record the moment. Well, today we hear Peter’s version of a selfie: “I got it Jesus, I’m going to build three booths. We need to capture this moment.  You’re on this mountain with Moses and Elijah.  We need to capture this so we can remember this moment forever.”

And it sounds really great, because we do want those awesome moments to live on.  But sometimes we are so busy capturing that moment that we forget to actually be attentive to what’s going on. We lose the very essence of what is happening in that moment.

But in mid thought, just as Peter’s trying to figure out how he’s going to construct these three booths, God starts speaking words that are very familiar to us because they are the exact words that God speaks in Matthew’s gospel when Jesus is baptized. “This is my beloved, my son with whom I am well pleased.”  The exact words are heard again.  Suddenly everything’s been interrupted by God’s very presence with them. It’s so incredible that they are literally knocked off their feet.  Now they are fearful. 

So God has told them to listen to my Son and what’s the first thing Jesus tells them? Don’t be afraid. If our response to being in the near presence of our God is to be fearful, then the reminder for us in this gospel to us all is not to be afraid.  The reminder to us all is to allow God to speak to us fully so we can hear, so we can know what it is that God wants us to do. Because God has great plans for all of us. 

And as much as Peter and James and John might have wanted to stay on that mountain and just be in the presence of Moses and Jesus and Elijah and see these pillars of their belief in that transformed state - as much as they might have wanted to linger in that moment and not let go of it, they couldn’t. Every mountain top experience needs to come to an end. 

Several years ago I attended a retreat weekend when we still had the Benedictine monastery in Santa Barbara – and I met two ladies there that spent every weekend and some entire weeks on retreat.  They just so loved that mountaintop experience that they would find a church, or some organization who was doing a retreat and sign up.  They had applied for a retreat in New Mexico at Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation.  Apparently in their application that had proudly listed the many retreats they had attended. The response they got from the Center for Action and Contemplation lived up to the “action” part of their name.  It was a rejection and an encouragement to them to “come down off the mountain.” 

Peter, John and James had to leave, they had to go back down that mountain. And what they had to go back down the mountain to the throng of people waiting for Jesus. They need him. They want to be healed, they want to be made whole. So they’ve got to come down the mountain to the people waiting for Jesus, for just a touch from him.

They had to come down from the mountain to Jesus’ reminding to them yet again I’m only going to be with you a short while longer. I will die and rise again. I’m going to be betrayed by the people I love. They had to come back down the mountain to that.   

They had to come down the mountain, back in their own existence to live among the ones who want to persecute them and take their lives just for being followers of Jesus. 

Coming back down the mountain is not always a wonderful thing. We don’t always want to come back out of the high, out of the euphoria, out of all the wonder – we don’t always want to come out of that to live in reality. 

But yet, that is what we are called to do. We are called to come back down the mountain, no matter how wonderful that moment has been.  What’s awaiting us is the work we are called to do by God.  And sometimes it’s not a lot of fun. Sometimes it’s lonely. Sometimes it’s frightening to be surrounded by all the things that face us when we come back down. 

There are so many people who are counting on us.  There are people counting on us who have had that mountain top experience, who have been filled to overbrimming with the presence of the Holy Spirit and to have come to them transformed into new beings and ready to walk God’s walk with them.  We’re setting an example for those who do not yet know our God.

That’s what it means to live faithfully in this life. They’re watching us, they’re watching our every move. How do we live after we have enjoyed that moment, how we share God’s love on this planet with all of God’s creation after we have enjoyed that mountaintop.  That is what God calls us to do, to be examples, to be disciples to make disciples. This is how we finish Matthew isn’t it? With the great commission – go out and preach and teach and make disciples in my name.

So today we come back down, we come off the mountain. We’re going to spend the next 40 days with Jesus:  a little of it in the wilderness, a little of hearing him preach and teach and heal.  We have a chance to be really intentional in our relationship with our God.  Setting an example for the faithful to follow us.  We will share the story of God’s goodness and grace. We will walk in the goodness of God’s love.  Amen. 

February 14, 2026, Saturday Evening Healing Service, Reflections on Saint Valentine's Day by Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Who was St. Valentine?  A 3rd-century bishop or priest or perhaps a wealthy citizen in Rome. Today is his feast day which is associated with a tradition of romantic love.  His story is a sweet and sad one.

He was from Terni, in central Italy. While under house arrest of Judge Asterius, and discussing his faith with him, Valentine told him about Jesus. So the judge put Valentine to the test. He had a daughter who was blind. If Valentine succeeded in restoring the girl's sight, Asterius would believe and he would do whatever he asked. Valentinus, praying to God, laid his hands on her eyes and the girl's vision was restored.

Immediately humbled, the judge asked Valentine what he should do. Valentine replied that all of the idols around the judge's house should be broken, and that the judge should fast for three days and then be baptized. The judge obeyed and went so far as to free all the Christian prisoners under his authority. The judge, his family, and his forty-four member household of adult family members and servants were baptized.

Valentine continued his ministry to persecuted Christians, though, was later arrested again. He was sent to the prefect of Rome, to the emperor Claudius himself. Claudius took a liking to him until Valentine tried to convince Claudius to convert to Christianity. Claudius refused and demanded that Valentine either renounce his faith or he would be executed.

Valentine refused to turn away from his faith. So he was executed on February 14, in 269 CE.  Before his execution, Saint Valentine wrote a note to Asterius's daughter, the girl whose sight had been restored, which was signed “from your Valentine” which is said to have "inspired today's romantic missives".

That story is pretty much lost to history. What survives is the cultural pieces that go into acknowledging the day.  Now it’s a lot more about Hallmark and See’s Candy and 1-800-FLOWERS than St. Valentine.

As a child growing up in the 1960’s, it was an annual ritual to give little cards with cute pictures and clever sayings to school classmates.  I put a picture of those on the cover of the bulletin. Like so many things now, you can find photos of them on-line if I include in the search the word “vintage.”

I remember the excitement of going to the drug store with my mom and picking out a box of these little valentine cards.  There were a few sets of 30 or so cards to choose from – it was such fun picking them out.

It was fun – picking out the cutest card for your best friend, picking out a card with a cat for your friend who liked cats.  Writing that note – “to my best friend Lucy from your best friend Carole.”  There always came that moment – when you had to address a card to a classmate you really didn’t like.  Or you thought didn’t like you. 

What to do…?  Just skip them figuring that they wouldn’t notice that a card from you was missing? Or just go ahead and write “to Chuck from Carole” and steel myself for the fallout. Chuck was loud and a bully. And I was shy and sort of artsy. I tried to stay away from him. And hope for the best.

On Valentines Day all the kids brought show boxes they had decorated with a slot in the top. We all played mail carrier, delivering a valentine to the other students.   And that night I remember sitting on the floor of the living room opening each little card, reading who it was from.  It was amazing being surrounded by these colorful little missives of care free fun and “love.”

I wonder if they still do this in elementary schools – this practice of love. I know how it made me feel, but what do children think about love?  And why does it matter?

A group of researchers asked that same thing.  And then they asked seven-year-olds, “what does love mean to you?”  The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone might imagined. See what you think...

“When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK."

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."  (That’s from 6-year-old Nikka – I could have used that advice when I was addressing that valentine to Chuck.  We could use a few more Nikka’s I think.)

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore."

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken."

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Bradley Cooper. But she’s fibbing."

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you."  What an image!

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget to do that."

So children talk about love as tangible actions, deep feelings, and simple, powerful actions. Love is made manifest to them through acts of service, about feeling safe, about deep comfort and shared presence like smiling even when you’re tired. They express love through hugs, kindness, sharing, and simple gestures, learning from family examples and pets, seeing it as warmth, safety, and unconditional acceptance.

Why is this important to us?

Jesus encouraged us to "become like little children." In little ones we see the necessary “heart posture” for entering the kingdom of heaven: total humility, dependence on God, and trusting faith instead of self-sufficiency. In a culture that prizes status, Jesus highlights that the greatest in heaven are those with the humility of a child.

Just as little ones depend on parents for survival, we must rely on God for strength, provision, and spiritual life, crying out to God for God’s strength and wisdom and peace when faced with fear or weakness.

Jesus was not advocating for childishness or immaturity, but rather a "childlike" spirit—a shift from pride to humble dependency.

In doing so we might just fine that Love is the ultimate medicine.  Science and ancient wisdom agree: love is a powerful force for healing. Whether it’s through heartfelt connections, mindful breathing, or simple acts of kindness, love has the ability to reduce stress and strengthen your heart.

The HeartMath Institute has discovered that the heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart—influencing emotions, thoughts, and even physical health. In fact, research shows that your heart’s rhythm changes based on emotions like love, compassion, and gratitude.

The heart produces oxytocin, a powerful hormone associated with bonding, emotional healing, and stress reduction. Whether you’re hugging a loved one, practicing self-love, or expressing gratitude, you’re actively supporting your immune system, lowering blood pressure, and even improving digestion.

Love isn’t just about romance—it’s also about self-compassion, forgiveness, and connection. Practices like meditation, gratitude, and heart-centered breathing can help us recover from the emotional bruises of PTSD, anxiety, and emotional wounds. Engaging in acts of kindness and compassion allow our bodies to respond with a surge of positive biochemicals that boost well-being.

Research suggests that people who regularly practice love and kindness have healthier hearts and longer lifespans.  That’s the way God made our bodies, that’s our incredibly compassionate God in action, accompanying us through times that are difficult to help us recover from times of grief.

So today, take a deep breath, focus on your heart, and let the love of God lead the way. Amen.

February 8, 2026, The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Reflections on Matthew 5: 13-20 and Isaiah 58:1-12 by Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

Fifth Sunday in Epiphany                                                      Matthew 5:13-20

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Isaiah 58:1-12

Shout out, do not hold back!

Lift up your voice like a trumpet!

Announce to my people their rebellion,

to the house of Jacob their sins.

Yet day after day they seek me

and delight to know my ways,

as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness

and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;

they ask of me righteous judgments,

they delight to draw near to God.

“Why do we fast, but you do not see?

Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”

Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,

and oppress all your workers.

Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight

and to strike with a wicked fist.

Such fasting as you do today

will not make your voice heard on high.

Is such the fast that I choose,

a day to humble oneself?

Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,

and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?

Will you call this a fast,

a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,

to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up quickly;

your vindicator shall go before you,

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke 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.

The Lord will guide you continually,

and satisfy your needs in parched places,

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters never fail.

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of streets to live in.

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

We don’t often hear during sermons about our Old Testament readings but I thought we’d spend some time with Isaiah today.  Biblical scholars date the last chapters of the book of Isaiah to the time that the people called Israel were returning from their exile in Babylon. So the text that we have from the Old Testament today is part of those eleven chapters that tell us what was going on in this community as the people return to their land.

It’s hard for us to imagine in our context what that life must have been like.  These people who are called Israel who were exiled when Babylon took over their land, are coming back to a place some 70 years later that is ravaged. For the oldest among them, home is not the home they remember any more.  For those born in exile, it is nothing like their elders described to them.  The temple that had been the center of their life and their worship is gone. Communities have been destroyed.  Friends and family may have resettled somewhere else and are unlikely to come back.

So they are beginning all over again on this land.  And trying to figure out what the world will look like for them now that they’re starting all over. But one thing that is a constant for them is the practice of worship.  Even coming back into this ravaged place, they begin to do the rituals of worship that have become the rhythm of their lives – not unlike they have a pulse and a heartbeat.

But something seems amiss for them. Because they step back into this rhythm of worship and it seems like God isn’t paying any attention.  “Why aren’t you listening to us? Don’t you see we’re fasting, don’t you see that were doing what we’re supposed to do? That we’re giving ourselves to you in worship? It seems, God, like you’re not paying attention to us.”

And God has a lot to say in response to that. God says “Yes, you’re fasting. You are going through the rhythm of the ritual of worship.  But is also seems like you’re quarreling and fighting among yourselves, it seems like you are oppressing your own workers.” That’s not what giving yourselves to God is supposed to be about. 

What happens when these people start going through the motions, but they forget who God is and what God is?

I want to take a moment and go back to the first offering to God that is recorded in scripture.  And how sometimes our best intentions don’t go the way we think they are supposed to go.

Remember the very first act of offering recorded in scripture is Cain and Able. Cain who is the one of the two brothers who grows things from the ground, of his own volition, kind of out of nowhere, we’re not told what his motivation is, he decides that he’s going to give an offering to God out of the things he has grown from the ground

So off he trots with the fruit of his labor to offer to God.  And Able sees his older brother and decides to do the same thing. Able raises animals, so he takes a fatling and offers it to God. “Here’s my offering, here’s my act of worship.” 

And what happens?  It seems that God likes Able’s offering a little better more than God likes Cain’s offering. And God warns Cain not to allow himself to succumb to this darkness that is in his heart. “Don’t do it!” But he does. Cain gives in to the darkness, to his anger. And he takes his brothers’ life. All of this around an act of worship that somehow has gone all wrong. 

Even from that very first offering, our own motivations aren’t always kept in check are they?  So we go through our lives, we go through the ritual. We do what we are in the rhythm of doing but do we ever stop to ask consider how God might react? 

God tells us in Isaiah, God isn’t really interested in how we go about the rhythm of our worship.  What DOES God ask?  To look around, to be aware. Do you see any hungry folks around you that haven’t been fed?  Do you see any workers around you that are being oppressed? Do you see folks around you that need clothing? Do you see someone around you who is suffering from injustice. Do you see…? Because that’s the act of worship I’m looking for, God says, I’m looking to see how we love one another, how we respond to those around us who are in need.  And God says “if you do that, well then you have honored me.”

Something else – God makes some very weighty promises around that. You will be the light. Your light will shine forever. People will know what I’m about. People will know my goodness, my love, my grace because they will see that light emanating from you.  That’s what God says.  God promises that the people called Israel. “I will be with you, I will guide you I promise that.  I will make you the foundation for generations to come.  I promise that. But I’m counting on you.  I’m counting on you.” 

I’m not sure that there has been a point in our world history where God is counting on us more than right now. God needs the light and love of God to be radiating throughout the world.  It begins with every one of us.  It begins with everyone of us every day.  What have we seen that we knew down to our very core that was wrong and yet we fail to speak?  What bad joke did we hear at the expense of marginalized people and we failed to say no, that doesn’t work for me.  When did we see people who were being cheated, who were being pushed aside, when did we see that - and not speak up?  When did we see someone in need around us and think next time...  

What God wants from us is our hearts, what God wants us is for us is our commitment.  What God wants from us is to see the world as God sees it – filled with God’s creation made in God image and likeness and worthy of God’s love. That is what God wants us to see.  It’s what God implores us to see every single day. 

Because we are tasked with being the light in the world.  We hold so much in our hands and there is so much for us to do to show God’s love to everyone.  And every day becomes a new day for a new commitment from us – individually, and as a community. Every day becomes a new day for us to say - we are standing with those in need. We are standing with those who have been pushed to the margins. We are standing with those who do not know the love of God.  Because our light makes a difference. Our light draws them in. Our light brings them home. 

So today I ask you -- think as you go out into the world about the faces of God’s children that you see.  How can we be light?  How can we be love?  Because every day there is a new opportunity for us to show God’s love, to show God’s mercy, to show that God has been faithful and loving to us from the beginning of time. Someone you’ll meet today needs to know that.  From us.  Amen.

February 1, 2026, The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Reflections on Matthew 5:1-12 by Reverend Carole Horton-Howe

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe

In 1950 a tiny hospital in the deep south, somewhere in Alabama opened its doors to patients.  What was significant about this tiny hospital – it only had 9 or 10 beds - was that it was the only hospital in the state of Alabama at that time that had been created to serve the medical needs of African-Americans - in the entire state.

It actually was formed when the Catholic diocese of Alabama decided that it was long past time for there to be a hospital that would serve people of color in the state.  And so, it was founded largely through the efforts of that diocese.  And they named it after St. Martin de Porras, a Peruvian man, who had himself given much of his life for the care of others.

De Porras story is a complicated one: his father was a Spanish nobleman and his mother was a slave.  So he belonged to no world.  He didn’t belong to the world of European nobility nor did he belong to the world of enslaved people.  But everywhere he went he was immediately judged and rejected based on his outward appearance that revealed that his mother was of African descent.

His heart was a heart that longed to help others even as a child. When he saw others who had even less that he had, he would feel compelled to try to help them.  And by the time he was a teenager he just knew he was called to the priesthood. So he presented himself to the Dominican Order in Lima, Peru and said, “God has called me and I wish to become one of your brothers.”   They looked at him with the skin and features that once again revealed that his mother had been a slave and they said “no.”

Martin was determined and continued to believe wholeheartedly that this is what God called him to do and be.  He kept going back and kept going back to them.  And finally they said, “okay we will make you a lay brother of this Order.”  And so he lived out his life with that Dominican Order cooking and cleaning and laundering.  But he was never ordained a priest.

His commitment was to those who had nothing.  He saw them with eyes and a heart that made him want to help everyone he encountered them.  And so he gave food to the hungry. He took care of the sick.  And he took away all those distinctions around race, and ethnicity and social class.  If you had a need, he was going to take care of you.

This was how he lived out his life, making visible to the church, those had been invisible to those who had been marginalized church, those who had never been known to the church.  That was the way that St Martin de Porras lived out his life.  So it’s no surprise that this tiny hospital in Alabama that was created to serve invisible, marginalized people was named for someone who committed his life to doing that work.

The poor, the sick, the disenfranchised are always around us.  But so often they are not visible to us. We move about living our lives and far too often, the invisible among us continue to be invisible.

So for a few minutes I want us to step into the first century world of Jesus Christ.  He starts his ministry by calling a few fishermen to come and join him. And the first thing he does is not to go to the temple authorities, to the elite, and schedule meetings with them and say, “I’m here, let’s get on with taking care of everyone.” No, that’s not what he does.

His first order of business is to go among the poor, and the sick and the marginalized and the disenfranchised who have been put down, pushed away and ignored – that is his first order of business. 

And what an incredible message he has for them: blessed are those who are poor in spirit, blessed are those who are mourn, blessed are those who are hungry and thirsty, blessed are those are being persecuted in this oppressive society in which we live.

Blessed are you.  Because if you have been living your life believing that you are invisible, if you have bought into the idea of this narrative that you are unimportant, unloved and uncared for, there is good news – the good news is that you are not invisible to God. The good news is that God sees you, God knows you, God loves you.

Jesus has delivered this incredible message that those who have believed that they are not part of God’s plan, now he tells them they are legitimate, they are part of God’s plan.

That had to be one of the most dangerous messages that the Roman empire could expect someone to deliver.  Because when you have subscribed to the theory that you are no one and that your life matters to know one, you make the oppressors’ job really easy. But the oppressor’s job isn’t easy when you truly believe that you are a child of God and that your presence and your voice matters. 

And Jesus has become an enemy of the state from Day I for delivering the message that no one in the empire wants to hear.

How do all these people who have been pushed aside for so long, how did they hear that good news “I am somebody, I am a child of God” when the whole of your life you have heard the opposite?  What a joyful day that had to be for the throngs of people who have come to Jesus to be healed, to be made whole and to be restored to community.

The saints who have come before us have dared us to see the world with compassionate eyes. They have dared us, as the church of Jesus Christ, to see the world as a place filled with God’s beloved. To see the world as a place where we are stakeholders with our sisters and brothers and where we are called to lift the fallen, to love those who have believed that they are unlovable and to share the message of God in Christ.  They have dared us to be that bold.

Are we? Are we bold enough to follow saints like Martin de Porras? Are we bold enough to look upon those who are being told they are nothing and nobody and to say to them, “your life matters.  And because your life matters to God, it also matters to me and I will put myself out there.”

In light of the violence that so occupies our hearts and minds these days, the Bishops of our Episcopal church published a letter yesterday morning. It’s written to all Americans and signed by more than 150 Episcopal Bishop’s.  It addresses the events happening in communities across the country but especially in Minneapolis. 

Many of you have expressed concerns about what you are seeing and how, as people of faith, we are to respond.  So I want to share a portion of this letter from our Bishops who ask what they believe is the core question facing America — whose dignity matters?  Here’s what they say:

“What happened a week ago in Minnesota, and is happening in communities across the country, runs counter to God’s vision of justice and peace.

We cannot presume to speak for everyone or prescribe only one way to respond. For our part, we can only do as Jesus’ teaching shows us. We call on people of faith to stand by your values and act as your conscience demands.

We must keep showing up for one another. We are bound together because we are all made in the image of God. As bishops in The Episcopal Church, we promise to keep showing up — to pray, to speak, and to stand with every person working to make our communities just, safe, and whole.

Every act of courage matters. We are committed to making our communities safer and more compassionate:

So children can walk to school without fear. So families can shop, work, and worship freely. So we recognize the dignity of every neighbor — immigrant communities, military families, law enforcement officers, nurses, teachers, and essential workers alike.

In the face of fear, we choose hope. Safety built on fear is an illusion. True safety comes when we replace fear with compassion, [replace] violence with justice, and [replace] unchecked power with accountability. That’s the vision our faith calls us to live out — and the promise our country is meant to uphold.

The question before us is simple and urgent: Whose dignity matters?

Our faith gives a clear answer: Everyone’s.

Retired Bishop Steven Charleston wrote of his desire to recognize that we are living through a time when anger and blame are epidemic. And he offers something we can all do together: being Spiritual Medics.

“I have committed myself to be a Spiritual Medic in these days of chaos. I hope you will join me and become one too. If you do, here is what you will commit to for the duration of the turmoil:

To sustain the healing of creation.

To connect with others with intentionality.

To pray protection each day at noon.

To help diminish suffering.

What these four commitments mean will be up to each of you, and every other medic, to decide. There is no hierarchy. All are welcome and all needed.”

So on this day of blessing, we look upon our sisters and brothers with the teachings of Jesus in our heads and hearts, with the saints behind us cheering us on and saying “let them know how much God loves them, let them know how much God cares. We all have value, we all have worth.”  Amen.