January 28th, 2024: Reflections on Mark 1:21-28 by The Reverand Mother Lyn Crow

Ancient words of our faith
Handed down to this age
Come to us through sacrifice
Oh heed the ancient words of Christ
Ancient words ever true
Changing me and changing you
We have come with open hearts
Oh let the ancient words impart

           Sometimes stories in scripture can be a little difficult for us moderns to relate to.

          I mean, if you really listen to them, there can be this sense, with some of them, that they are no longer relevant because of their world view.

          Take today’s gospel for instance, with its story about a demon-possessed man.

          In the ancient world, demons were considered to be the curse of all maladies:  physical illnesses, as well as psychological, emotional, and spiritual problems.

          The people of the ancient world believed that spirits were always intervening in human life, sometimes for good, sometimes to cause mischief, and sometimes for evil.

          Spirits had the power to control human behavior and the only one more powerful than these spirits was God.

          Archeologists have discovered a book that was read in the synagogues called The Testament of Solomon.  It lists the names of all the spirits, what they do, and how to counteract them.

          For us, citizens of the present century, stories about demons may seem a bit primitive. 

Today we look to medical science to cure our physical ailments.

We speak of mental illness and chemical imbalance and we are blessed to have modern ways of treating the physical and mental ailments that the ancients called possession by demons.

But as Kathleen Norrin says in her book, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith:

“I suspect exorcism still has a place in our lives.  Who has not felt the sudden lifting of what seemed an unbearable burden, the removal of what for too long had been an unsurmountable obstacle?  Who does not have something deep within that they would wish to exorcise so that it no longer casts a shadow on their capacity to receive and give love?”

          If we can relate to what Kathleen Norris has to say, then today’s gospel has relevance for us.

          For in today’s gospel, Jesus lifts what is an unbearable burden for the demoniac. 

He brings him back to wholeness so that once again he has the capacity to receive and give love.

          This gospel story is the first miracle in Mark’s gospel.  Isn’t it interesting that it is the story of an exorcism? 

          And why would Mark choose to tell this particular miracle first?

          Because he had a point to make.  By placing this story first in his gospel, he is making an announcement about who Jesus is.

          Jesus has power and authority over spirits.  And who is the only one who has power over spirits?  God!!

          So by telling this story right off the bat, Mark is revealing that Jeus is the Messiah.

          The unclean spirit in the story recognizes who Jesus is – he calls him the Holy One of God.

          And he recognizes Jesus’ power and authority:  “Have you come to destroy us?” he asks.

          And Jesus replies, “Be silent and come out of him.”

          Jesus not only has power over the spirits, but he can silence them.

          Not only can he lift unbearable burdens and remove unsurmountable obstacles, but he can silence the destructive screams and murmurings deep within us that threaten to destroy us and that keep us from being able to receive and give love.

          That’s the message for us in today’s gospel.

          And we all have those demons at one time or another in life.  We’ve all had or still have burdens and obstacles and destructive voices in our heads that threaten to take away our peace.

          In her book, Kathleen Norris talks about her own demons:

“When I think of the demons I need to exorcise, I have to look inward, to my heart and soul.  Anger is my best demon, useful whenever I have to go into Woman Warrior mode, harmful when I use it to gratify myself either in self-justification or to deny my fears.  What are your best demons?” she asks.  “To name them for what they are and how they bring suffering, is half the battle.”

          The other half of the battle is to stop fighting the demon on our own, admit we are powerless over it, and ask for help from the Only One who has the power and authority over it.

          Our demons could be fear, addiction, depression, compulsion, prejudice, pride, greed, jealousy, lying, anger, laziness, being critical or judgmental, selfishness, lack of forgiveness, lack of acceptance or lack of self-esteem.

          I think my best demon ever was the one I tried to do battle with when I was 29 years old.  Its name was depression.

          My parents and sisters chose to shun me because I decided to go to work two days a week and put my two children in day care.

          It felt as though everyone I loved had abandoned me.

          I fell into a deep depression.  Up in the middle of the night, riding my bike all around town – very agitated.  No peace.

          Very fearful – lots of thoughts about death.

          So afraid, I couldn’t close the door of the BR because of claustrophobia.

          At work my boss called me in, “I don’t know what’s going on in your life but if you don’t get it together I’ll have to let you go.”

          On the freeway – I remember the exact spot I cried out:  “O God help me”

          I’d attended church my whole life but something happened that had never happened before – I became aware of the Presence of God in the car with me.

          Over the next 9 months I experienced that Presence – I journaled it all.

          Jesus healed me – the demon left me and I began to experience joy again.

          There is a story about a monastery in Europe, perched high on a cliff several hundred feet in the air.  The only way to reach the monastery was to be suspended in a bsket which was pulled to the top by several monks, who pulled and tugged with all their strength.  Obviously, the ride up the steep cliff in that basket was terrifying.  One tourist got exceedingly nervous about half-way up when he noticed that the rope by which he was suspended was old and frayed.  With a trembling voice he asked the monk who was riding with him in the basket how often they changed the rope.  The monk thought for a moment and answered, “Whenever it breaks.”

          There are times when inside ourselves we feel as though we are the one suspended in that basket hanging by a half-frayed rope.

          The good news is that we are not at the mercy of the spirit that got us there and we do not have to wait until the rope breaks.

          We have Jesus on our side.  Jesus – just waiting for us to ask for help.  Just waiting for us to cry out “Oh God help me because I can’t help myself.”  Just waiting for us to admit that we can’t do it alone.

          So today’s gospel asks us a simple question.

          What is your demon?  What burden needs to be lifted and what obstacle needs to be removed?  What is it deep within you that is casting a shadow over your capacity to receive and give love?

          Give it to Jesus today – ask for his help.  Listen to what he says to you and you too will be amazed at his power.  You too will say to yourself “What is this?  He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him!”

January 21st, 2024: Reflections on Mark 1:14-20 by The Reverand Hartshorn Murphy

Critics of Christianity are fond of pointing out that the gospel writers are inconsistent in telling their stories.  They don’t agree with one another, therefore Christianity is a fraud.  But the four evangelists were not filling out witness statements at the local police station.  They were less reporter than they were editors – collecting and shaping the stories their communities had handed down and treasured about Jesus.  These stories do not so much compete with one another as they complement one another and so we hold them in tension with one another.

          As you may have heard last week, in the reading from John, it’s hinted that Jesus had been a disciple of the Baptist.  We can’t know how long this apprenticeship lasted, but it may have been quite a while.  A Rabbi’s disciple was expected to learn his master’s “Mishnah”, his teaching, through memorization;  the word literally means “study by repetition.”  The student learned the Rabbi’s favorite scriptures, and his interpretation of Jewish history and tradition.  But not only what was said but how – the emphasis, the inflection, the tone of voice – so that to encounter the disciple even years after the Rabbi’s death, was to encounter the Rabbi himself still alive.  It’s not surprising that when Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do the people say that I am?”  They respond, “You are John the Baptist.”

          In the gospel of John, at some point, Jesus drifts away from his mentor John and begins his own work.  In the other three gospels, Jesus’ work only begins after John’s arrest and martyrdom.

          Matthew tells us that Jesus “withdrew” to the Galilee.  The Greek is actually stronger;  it’s closer to “retreated.”  After John’s arrest, Jesus and two other of John’s disciples retreated north to the relative safety of the Galilee.  These disciples were Philip from Bethsaida and Nathaneal from Cana, where Jesus will in time attend a wedding and turn water into wine.

          Jesus preaches John’s message in the local synagogues.  In those days, synagogues were more like community centers where men would gather to study and argue scripture and to conduct community business.  They were not places of worship.  The Sabbath was simply a day of rest.  Worship in synagogues will emerge later in reaction to the Christian practice of Sunday worship.  In the synagogues, any Jewish male of age could speak…

          As Mark tells us today, Jesus’ message was John’s message:  God’s reign on Earth is coming soon.  Repent – change your ways – so that you may enter in.

          Perhaps it was at the synagogue in Capernaum that Simon and his brother Andrew and James and his brother John actually first met Jesus.  In time, Jesus will move into Simon and Andrew’s family home and will receive financial support from these men’s family fishing business.  These six then:  Nathaniel, Philip, James, John, Andrew and Simon – soon to be nicknamed “Rock” – will make up half of Jesus’ “Talmidim” – literally “the instructed.”

          Jesus and his disciples will continue to teach John’s “Mishnah” and to call people to the Baptist’s practice of water immersion as a sign of a commitment to change.  But quite early, Jesus will discover the gift of healing and will discontinue the baptisms.  The message about the Kingdom of God will shift as well.  No longer is the Kingdom nationalistic and racial but more and more it is moral and even universal.  Not a few were scandalized when Jesus seemed to suggest that even Pagan Gentiles might be welcomed into God’s Kingdom.

          Jesus’ healings and exorcisms will draw large crowds while the disciples were tasked with being fishers of people – to build the Jesus movement, the “Ecclesia” – literally the “gathering of those summoned.”  We just call it “church.”

          So what’s the learning here?  Perhaps it’s that the peasants of Palestine needed and responded to Jesus’ healing work and in it, found hope for the future during dark times.

          For the most part today, people do not seek a cure from their diseases and infirmities in churches.  Admittedly, when traditional Western medicine and then alternative treatments fail, people may seek a miracle in places of worship.  Most churches do not claim, in all humility, to possess Jesus’ gifts of curing illness even while some tele-evangelists do.

          But with all this being said, nevertheless there is a pervasive spiritual illness in our land.  Evil spirits that possess the soul of America and its name is despair borne of cynicism and its progeny is fear.

          But the Christian message is that of hope.  We need to ask ourselves:  “If a stranger wanders inside these doors, would they leave more hope-filled and less consumed by fear?”

          I’m not talking about the caricature hope and false denial of what one of my colleagues calls the “dry tooth Christians.”  But rather a genuine hope grounded in faith – the word means “loyalty to Christ” – which enables us to live more courageous lives.  Dr. King, whom we celebrated last week, said this:  “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope… If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps you moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”

          Or as Paul wrote to the Hebrews living under persecution in Jerusalem.  “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”  (Hebrews 11:1)

          Now the second learning is this:  John came out of the Qumran community near the Dead Sea.  A semi-monastic group, they were folks who had abandoned the decadence of Jerusalem and lived together, sharing all things in common.  They practiced water immersion for forgiveness of sin and longed for the coming of a Son of righteousness.  John was called by the Spirit to come out of the desert and gather a following committed to living differently.

          After John’s execution, Jesus gathered followers – “Come, and follow me” – and expanded John’s work.  After Jesus’ martyrdom, Paul and the Apostles were faithful to Jesus’ great commission – to gather people into communities of hope and love.

          In this atomized age – an age of counterfeit intimacy on a 3X5 inch screen and ever deepening division, isolation, and anxiety, you St. Matthians are challenged to invest more deeply in meaningful community here.

          That strange Greek word I used earlier – “Ecclesia,” the gathering – is insufficient in these times.  Perhaps we should reclaim the language of the Free Church of Berkeley in the 1960’s – the church as “The Liberated Zone.”

          Why did the brothers leave their nets to follow Jesus?  Why did the people hang around even after the healings and after the bread and fish were consumed?

          It was because in Jesus, they found a living icon of hope, that the dream of God for all of us – no exemptions – was living still.  Amen.

January 14th, 2024: Reflections on John 1:43-51 by The Rev 'Mother' Lyn Crow

Here we are, Loving One, Mystery, Light
Beginning to quiet ourselves
Beginning to be still

Remembering you created us
To flourish in your Love
Remembering an old desire to grow in you

We long to be more than we are living now
We long to live all we can become
But, fearful, wonder how we can

We try to choose the best and truest path
But stumble in our living and in our choosing
We want to handle things ourselves

We’d rather make it on our own
And besides, trusting you, God,

Can be very hard
But we need more Light, your Light,
To see the ways ahead

We need more wisdom, yours, to choose the way that’s well for us
Here we are beginning willingness
Beginning to trust, to open ourselves, our lives, and our decisions
To your illuminating Light

Here we are, Loving One, ready to begin.

Amen.

I love that prayer by Nancy Bieber

Today, one line stands out to me:  “We try to choose the best and truest path but stumble in our living and in our choosing.”

I can imagine Philip and Nathaneal praying those words

And, in response, Jesus said to Philip, “Follow me”

And Philip said to Nathaneal, “Come and see”

And each of them chose the best and truest path

Each of us at one time or another has chosen the best and truest path

We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t on that path

So the challenge in our faith isn’t how do I choose the best and truest path

It’s how do I stay on the best and truest path?

In the beginning of the journey, Jesus says to a potential disciple:  “Follow Me.”

And Jesus continues to say to us:  “Follow Me”

How do we do that?  How do we stay on the best and truest path?

I would propose that Jesus says “Follow Me” through what I call “holy nudges.”

 Holy nudges are those big and small ways that Jesus says,

 “Come, follow me.”

 It’s those moments when you feel suddenly compelled to: make a phone call, send a card, knock on a door, pay for someone else’s meal, say a prayer.  Holy nudges.

My daughter had a holy nudge one day on her way to work.

As she was driving down a busy four lane street, two lanes in each direction, suddenly she had an urge to pull over.  She didn’t know why.  As she slowly came to a stop at the side of the road, she saw a two year old toddler walking along in a deep ditch running alongside the road.  She scooped her up in her arms and there weren’t any houses nearby, but there was a store. So she carried her to the nearby store where she found her parents, who hadn’t yet noticed she had wandered away.

A holy nudge is also one of those moments when a topic or theme keeps coming up in your mind.

It may come as a sudden insight (I had so many, I filled a red three ring binder with them)

 Or it may come in the form of renewed energy – when we suddenly feel a passion and energy about something, and feel a pull to follow through

 A holy nudge may come during a time of prayer, worship, or reading scripture, or it may come at a very ordinary time, like when you are making your bed or doing the dishes.

 Sooner or later, if we are on the path that Jesus calls us to, we will get a nudge.

 In fact, on the journey, we will experience many nudges in our lifetime.

 It has to be.  This is the way we are trained by the Spirit to follow Jesus.

 In some way, Jesus is like a mother eagle as she teaches her young to fly.

 In the Sinai, eagle nests are high on the top of the cliffs.  At the right time, the mother bird nudges her chicks out of the nest.  This causes the chick to free-fall off the cliff.  If the eaglet doesn’t discover how to fly, the mother eagle swoops down and catches the young on her wing.  She flies around with the chick on her wing to give it the sensation of flying.  This is repeated until the young one learns to fly.

 The author of Exodus 19:4 has obviously watched this and it inspired the verse in which God reminds the Israelites:  “You have seen how I bore you on eagle’s wings.”

 Jesus does the same to us, nudges us out of the nest and into ministry, carefully watching over us and bearing us up as we learn

 And so if we are seriously on the path, we begin to get, and to listen, and to respond to the holy nudges of Jesus

 It takes three distinct attitudes to hear and respond to the nudges:

 a.    Willingness – the want to-s

b.    Attentiveness – paying attention to our thoughts, emotions, our bodies, the people around us, the circumstances in our lives

c.   Responsiveness – the decision to respond to the nudge, to act

 Every day, every moment, Jesus says to those of us already on the path – Follow Me

 That call requires us to be courageous:

 a.   To allow ourselves to be pushed out of the nest

b.   To quiet ourselves enough to hear Jesus

c.   To trust that God will be there with us through our failures and our successes

d.   To open ourselves to God’s wisdom and illuminating Light

e.   To be willing to hear and follow the holy nudges of God

f.     To continue to hear Jesus saying Follow Me

 Lord, grant us the courage to say, I will follow you wherever you go.

January 7th, 2024: Reflections on Mark 1: 9-15 by The Rev Hartshorn Murphy

Today’s story tells of a pivotal moment in Jesus’ journey: his baptism by John the Baptist. Coming out of the river Jordan, Jesus has a vision. He sees the hard dome of the heavens rent open and God’s Spirit descend on him, like a dove. And he has an audition – a voice he alone hears – “You are my son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

The gospel writers do not speculate on what this singular spiritual experience meant to Jesus. And Jesus is not given the leisure to think on it overly long. That same descending spirit – like a dove transformed into a hawk – drives Jesus into the wilderness. The wild place which Jews avoided for it was the place where spirits roamed free.

Mark does not tell us the details of those forty days. For that we turn to Matthew and Luke, who had collected a story about Jesus’ desert retreat. In Matthew & Luke’s telling, perhaps a better word would be to call it a “vision quest.”

In Native American tradition, a young man goes on a vision quest to seek wisdom about his path in life. Similarly for Jesus, these forty days were an opportunity to sort it out. What does it mean to be a son of God? What is the faithful way? What is the Father asking of me – to continue my mentor John’s work or something else?

And the power of evil, Satan, seizes this opportunity and comes to him.

Now Satan, in Jewish mythology, is a trickster. He seduces humankind to make wrong choices and then acts as a prosecutor with God. For example, in the Eden story, Satan seduces Adam and Eve with cunning: “Did God really say you cannot eat this fruit? Not sure why. I mean, God made it and God is good so the fruits gotta be good too, right? Maybe you misheard…”

What Satan does, as told by Matthew and Luke, is to present Jesus with seductive options for accomplishing God’s mission.

But let’s be clear. The temptations are metaphors.

The first involves food. Jesus, fasting, is very hungry. The round desert rocks resemble fresh loaves. Satan says, “Turn these stones into bread.” The temptation here is to reach the people through works of charity. In a time of deep need – fully 90- 95% of the people were living at a subsistence level – feeding hungry people would enable Jesus to reach them with the good news of the Kingdom. But humankind cannot live by bread alone.

The second path is worldly power. Satan says, interestingly enough, that all the kingdoms of the world are my possession. “I can give them to you.” The temptation here is political power. “As the King of Israel – I can make that happen, Jesus – you could command the people to follow God’s will. Coercion is more efficient than persuasion.” But power corrupts and ultimately warps the one who wields it, and the message delivered by brute force is more bad news than good.

And lastly, in a vision, Satan takes Jesus up to the very top of the temple – 151 feet high – and tells him to jump. “When God saves you, the people will believe and follow you.” The temptation here is to prey on people’s superstition. Spectacle.

Magic. But superstition and fear is not the same as faith.

Now, Luke tells us that Satan then withdrew until a more “opportune time.” These temptations will reappear, again and again. Jesus feeds a crowd on a hillside with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. In response, the crowd sought to force him to be their King and Jesus makes a hasty retreat.

Generosity, too easily, becomes dependence.

On the Sunday before Passover, Jesus provocatively entered into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. The peasants scatter palms, shout Hosanna, and proclaim him Son of David – that is, the rightful King. The placard on the Roman cross proclaimed his guilt: King of the Jews.

When Jesus exorcized demons and cured the sick, his critics will say that he did those things by the power of Satan, not God.

And finally, hanging on the cross as death draws near, bystanders call out “come down from the cross, save yourself and we’ll believe.” Bring the magic, Jesus.

My point here is simply that the temptations Jesus endured in the wilderness were ever present archetypes of power. A compassionate leader would exercise power in compassionate ways, right? Theoretically. Possibly? Ideally?

But that was not God’s way. God does not coerce or manipulate or trick. The God revealed in the life of Jesus is a God of love who exercises power through weakness, as a babe in a manger, and vulnerability on Calvary’s hill.

What lessons are we to take from all of this? In movies and television and books, the power of evil is presented as overwhelming and pervasive and terrifying. Recall the Exorcist? But that’s fiction. The power of evil lives in seduction – to choose the wrong path. But the choice is never between good and evil: Shall I help save starving puppies by donating to SPCA or shall I knock the little old lady over the head and steal her disability check? No. The choices we struggle with are either one of saying Yes or No; or if it involves a choice, it’s between seemingly good things. To say it better, in the real world, it’s so often between good and good enough.

How do we make the faithful choice? Teresa of Avila suggests this: when we have a tough choice to make, pray about it and then lay the tentative decision at the foot of the cross; leave it there and walk away. Some time later, come back and explore your feelings around that tentative choice. God communicates with us in our guts, not in our heads. Discernment is this: if you feel a sense of consolation, of peace, it’s the right

choice. If you feel a sense of desolation, of unease, it’s the wrong choice. In your baptism, you received – as Jesus did – the gift of the Holy Spirit. You, too, are God’s beloved son or daughter, and the Spirit will lead us in the right pathways.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Paul, from his letter to the Christian community in Rome: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’, it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ…” Romans 8:14-17a.

And Jesus himself said: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” John 16:13.

The Feast of Christmas, December 25th, 2023: Reflections on Mark 1:21-28 by JD Neal

Christmas, the Apocalypse

Christmas Day 2023

Isaiah 52:7-10 / Hebrews 1:1-4 / John 1:1-14

Today is Christmas: the day when we celebrate the birth of Jesus some 2,000 years ago.

The day that Christ was born as a squalling, squirming baby boy to a poor, young Galilean woman named Mary; the day that God came among us, entering into the world in a new and unexpected way — the day of revelation.

During Advent and at Christmas, it has long been the Church’s practice to anticipate and celebrate not only Christ’s first coming as a baby to that manger in Bethlehem, but also Christ’s second coming at the end of all things to make all things new. In otherwords, Advent and Christmas are times when we not only look back to Christ’s birth 2000 years ago but also look forward to anticipate and celebrate the Apocalypse.

Now, I know that this word, ‘apocalypse’, conjures up all sorts of images of the end of the world: of end-times disasters, and raptures, and nuclear destruction, and all sorts of post-apocalyptic stories that have been cranked out in books and tv shows and movies these past several decades — but the word itself, ‘apocalypse’, is a greek word that simply means, ‘to reveal.’ That’s how our book of ‘Revelation’ at the end of the Bible gets its name. An ‘apocalypse’, in biblical terms, is not a time when the world blows up in some catastrophic event, but a time when the true nature of things is revealed. When Christ returns, John’s book of Revelation tells us, the world will be laid bare and all things will come to light.

The Church has traditionally tied Christ’s first and second comings together in this way because it knows that whenever God shows up, things change: lies and pretense and distractions all fall away, and, for those willing to receive it, the truth is laid bare, reality comes to light, often in ways that we do not expect — and the Christmas story is no exception to this rule. In other words, the Church’s tradition tells us that Christmas is the Apocalypse — or at least an apocalypse. So that’s our question this morning: if Christmas is an apocalypse, how does it ‘reveal’ something to us, what does it tell us about the way of things?

A poor baby boy is born in an animal’s stall in a cave in the Judean desert, his mother is a social outcast due to her seemingly illegitimate pregnancy, and the father who would raise him is a humble builder — hardly the most respectable of origin stories for a Messiah — but John looks at this scene and writes that the Word of God has come into the world, that light and life and God’s own glory have burst onto the scene. What does John see?

The Jews of Jesus’ time expected the Messiah to be a powerful figure, a politician, a warrior, one who would be born and raised in the houses of kings — that’s why the Magi go looking for him at Herod’s palace when they arrive from the east — but here he is: the Messiah wrapped in rags in an animal’s feeding trough. When God comes to his people,

God shows up far from the halls of the rich and powerful, nor is he tucked, safe and secure, in a suburban nursery. Christ is born into a place that no one expects him to be, looking nothing like he ‘should’ have, and yet in him all the fullness of God has come into the world.

You see, Christmas reveals the truth about God. It tells us that God is not some white-bearded judge floating up in the sky waiting with a frown to punish us for everything we do wrong, nor is God some distant creator who put the world together and has since left the building, leaving us to our own devices. Christmas reveals that God is Immanuel, God with us, the God who knows us from the inside, who enters into our world in all its mess and pain and beauty and meets us in the midst of it all, coming to us in order to offer us hope, healing, new life. Christ is no stranger to our griefs and our joys, and so Christ can be our companion in the darkest and brightest moments of our lives.

Christmas also reveals that God does not value the things that we often value. Wealth, power, security — all the things that the Jews expected their Messiah to bring them, and that our whole culture teaches us to prioritize — are not a part of the Christmas story. God scorns these things and those who prioritize them, appearing instead in an unexpected place, born to unexpected people, identifying himself with and making himself known to the least of these — revealing that if we are to become the people of God, we must have our value system turned upside-down. If we look for God, for the life/meaning/joy/purpose that God brings, then we must learn to look in places we do not expect. We must be willing to lay aside our own status, our own quests for power and security and comfort, and be willing to look for God instead in places of great discomfort, insecurity, and need — our own and those of our neighbors — we must be willing to follow God in the path of self-giving love, so that we become the sort of people who recognize God when he comes to us.

When Jesus is born, he is born to a people who have suffered exiles and wars, who have lived long under occupation and oppression — he is born, in short, into a world like ours, one that feels often full of pain and injustice. When Jesus comes, he is born not just in the middle of the night physically, but into the midst of centuries-long darkness of God’s people waiting and longing for freedom and restoration. He comes in a way that his people did not expect, but he comes, bringing light and hope to a people living in darkness and the shadow of death — whether or not his people understand or receive him.

This too is the revelation of Christmas, that however dark things may seem, whatever pain or despair threatens to overtake us, God comes — often in ways we could not have anticipated or would not have chosen — but he comes and enters into our darkness to bring new and unexpected life. Like Easter, Christmas reminds us that the darkness of the world is never at the heart of things, never the deepest reality. This is the ‘apocalypse’ that we celebrate today: no matter how bleak our world may seem at times, death and darkness do not have the last word, for Christ comes to us again and again — the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.

So, my friends, as we celebrate and enjoy the Christmas season, may Christ be born anew in us this day. May we have eyes to see the unexpected movements of God all around and the courage to follow where he leads, and may we, with Christ, become those who proclaim joy and hope in the face of despair, and light in the face of darkness.

Amen.

December 17th, 2023 Reflections on John 1: 6-8, 19-28 by The Rev Hartshorn Murphy

John’s ministry begins about the year 27 C.E. (Common Era).  Out of the desert wilderness, John is called by God as the last of a long line of Hebrew prophets.  He is compelled to speak for God to God’s people – not as opinion or as commentary but with authority.  In his preaching, the intensity of the desert sun burns;  his soul is on fire.  In John’s ministry the valleys of ignorance are filled with truth.  Mountains of pride are brought low.  The crooked paths of corruption are found wanting and the rough road of despair is paved with hope.

            John’s message was clear.  The old world is passing away, the New Age is near.  The Kingdom of God on earth is at hand.  Repent!  Now this is not our Christian understanding of the word “repent” – to feel sorry.  Repent, in those days, meant to “return.”  The image was as if one was walking the wrong way, realized it, and then turned 180 degrees around and came back to God’s ways.  I’m reminded of our original Garman GPS, which always gave me directions to turn seconds after missing the turn and then angrily declaring “recalculating!” and having me backtrack.

            The message was to seek forgiveness for wrongdoing.  For the Jews, the word “khata”, sin, meant things done which missed the mark.  The image was one from archery, right?  It was to go astray from how God would have us live our lives.  We need to change.

            As the penitents gather, he warns them to come with sincerity, not just out of fear of a coming judgment at the close of this age.  Nor should you presume on the righteousness of your ancestors;  their sanctity will not save you and your racial arrogance is no security.

            Don’t tell me about your roots;  tell me of your fruits!

God will still be God if all the Hebrews perish from the earth.  Indeed, God can raise up a New Israel from the stones on the road.  But if you come with sincere hearts – come and wash!

            Now there were two kinds of ritual baths in Jewish practice.  One was for proselytes.  Gentile converts to Judaism were required to wash away their Gentile-ness.  The second kind were those required by The Law of Moses to wash away impurity so that one could be restored to the community of God’s chosen people.  For example, a ritual bath after sex, after a nocturnal emission, after menstruation, after childbirth, after any contact with human blood or a person with skin lesions, a corpse, a foreign idol and so on.  But John’s immersion seemed to emphasize sanctification – the forgiveness of a debt owed to God for our wrongdoing.

            But it was not magic, right?  It was rather symbolic of a desire to be realigned to God.  Those who heard John’s message asked, “What shall we do?”  John told them to confirm their repentance, their turning, by behaving in observable ways.

            To the peasants he said, “If you have two tunics,” – tunics were the undergarment, cloaks were the outer garments.  “If you have two pairs of underwear, give one to the person with none.  The same with food. If you have enough to eat, give some to your neighbor who doesn’t. Stop being so greedy.”

            Tax collectors also came.  The word “tax” is misleading.  A better word is “toll.”  Rome wisely bid out the privilege of being chief toll collector for a region.  Zacchaeus was one of these.  You remember the story, he was a short, little man. Wanting to see Jesus, Zacchaeus climbed a tree – a safer place to see Jesus than in the midst of a crowd.  These chief tax collectors recruited, typically, homeless men who could get no other work, to collect the tolls.  Tolls for crossing boundaries – goods entering or leaving a district, the use of a main road, crossing bridges, boat landings – it was a system ripe with corruption.  To them, John said, “Be content with your commissions.”

            And finally, soldiers.  These were not Roman troops, but Jews employed by the Puppet King Herod Antipas, who ruled the Galilee.  These men were despised for supporting the oppression of the Jewish people.  To them, John says, “Stop extorting folks and blackmailing them by threatening to turn them into the Roman authorities.  Be content with your pay and your rations” – an ideal the Roman Emperor advocated as well.

            This is not radical stuff.  John does not condemn an unjust tax system or challenge men to be conscientious objectors.  Asking folks to be a little less obsessed with their own survival and to share with others also suffering was not a new thing.

            But the people were intrigued by John.  In his fearlessness in condemning the hypocrisy of the powerful, John became a hero and the people wondered if he might be The One Who Was to Come.  But John says, “No, I am not worthy to be a slave to Him in tying His shoes.  I baptize you with water.  He will baptize you with fire.”

            The gospel writers added the words “and the Holy Spirit” to reflect the experience of Pentecost, but for John, who was so strident, only one more severe than himself would make sense.  No, for John, The One Who Comes will burn the world with an unquenchable fire.

            Jesus became a disciple of John and shared with him a passion for the Kingdom of God – but over time, their paths would diverge, even if John had not been executed.  In Jesus’ ministry, water immersion for purity was replaced with meals shared together celebrating that, by grace, we are already pure.

            John frightened the people to repent.  Jesus loved them and invited them into a new imagination.  John spoke to the individual while Jesus called people into deeper community.  John anticipated a great cataclysmic event which would change the world.  Jesus sensed that the Kingdom would be built by persuasion – soul by soul – of those willing to live, give, love, suffer, and even die for it.  For his disciples, it meant celebrating partial victories and suffering temporary defeats – but always persevering in hope.

            So, John’s role as a forerunner was limited but certainly not irrelevant.  The gospels are not biographies of Jesus but are rather the drama of God’s call to transformation of ourselves and the world – and in that play, someone must set the stage so that when the star enters stage right, all is ready.  That someone was John The Baptizer.

            And this is the question which remains throughout the ages:  What do we need to be converted from and converted to.  What is the amendment of life needed in us as we prepare the stables of our hearts to receive the Christ child again.  Amen.

December 10th, 2023: Reflections on The Second Sunday of Advent by The Rev Lyn Crow

As we continue on our Advent journey and we prepare ourselves so that God can be born again in us, I have a question for you:

Do you feel safe with God?

If you are like most of us, the answer is yes and no.

You might say we have an on again off again relationship with God.

When we experience grace, we feel safe.

But then we remember our humanity, our flaws, and we falter. We hear John the Baptist’s cry to repent and we think maybe God won’t forgive us.

Maybe we’re fooling ourselves about mercy.

It’s no wonder that happens. Some of the stories in the Old Testament have planted in us a wariness about God.

In these stories, if you displease God, you get swallowed up by the earth, you are struck by lightning, you suffer famine, pestilence or God kills your first born or requires you to kill your first born.

(This part is a paraphrase) [I remember when my daughter Carrie was about 5 years old and I went into her room and I found her, sitting on her bed, pulling her eyelashes out, one by one and placing them in a little pile. I realized that she was exhibiting some sort of awful stress so I sat down next to her, put my arm around her and gently asked her, “Honey what’s wrong?”  She asked me “Mommy, if God asked you to kill me, would you do it?”  She had heard the story of Isaac and Abraham that day in Sunday school and was trying to understand it. Obviously there are some stories in the Bible that should not be told to 5 year olds!  Carrie and her eyelashes represents the child in all of us.]

So when we hear the Good News of God’s love we want to believe it, we long to feel safe.

But what do we do with all those disturbing Old Testament stories?

What if we see the Bible as a book about humanity’s growing understanding of the nature of God?

In early civilizations including the Ancient Middle East, the understanding of God was-if you are good, God will be pleased and will make good things happen to you.

If you are bad, God will make bad things happen to you.

There are lots of places in the Old Testament where we read of this kind of thinking.

But then we get to Job. Job was a good and righteous man, yet bad things happened to him.

Throughout the Old Testament we see humanity struggling  to understand God and to answer the questions-

What is the nature of God?

Can I feel safe with God?

Finally God decides to enter our reality- to reveal God’s nature to us.

And what is revealed is a God of love and compassion- a God who forgives, forgives his friends who betray and desert him and deny him.

A God who forgives even as he is dying-forgives the ones who kill him.

“Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Even after this revelation, on occasion we see writings in the New Testament in which the author slips back into an Old Testament way of thinking about God.

Paul is the most notorious. He slips back into legalism now and then. But then he remembers again- “Oh, yeah, that’s right, it’s about grace.”

The Bible is a collection of books that reveal humanity’s growing understanding of the nature of God. And it is the story of individuals who grow in understanding of God. 

Haven’t we all at some point in our journey had something bad happen and asked “Why did God do this to me?”

And haven’t we somewhere in our minds at times, thought that we could earn God’s favor by being good? And haven’t we all at times had an “aHa” moment when we experience God’s grace and said, “ Oh I get it, it’s a gift, God loves us all.”

And haven’t we all, like Paul, had moments when we forgot the good news and have to learn about grace all over again.

So this Advent, I want us all to feel safe with God.

Safe enough to say, “Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.”

I want us to remember this Advent that God does not love us because we are good, but God loves us because God is good.

And when we let the reality of those words sink in-we feel safe.

We think God will love us if and when we change. But the truth is God loves us and then we are empowered to change. What makes us want to change and able to change is God’s love.

If we really believe that, then we will feel safe with God.

Today’s scriptures are full of Good News images of God.

Listen to Isaiah- Comfort, comfort my people.

Let me take care of your brokenness, just receive my love and grace, surrender to it.  Then the change you long to see in yourself will be possible.

I was recently at the airport and I saw a mother and a toddler waiting for their plane. He was running around, had lots of energy, running between the seats, around the people.  He tripped over a briefcase and hit his head on the seat. His mom didn’t scold him for running around, she scooped him up and cradled him in her arms, clutching him to herself. She kissed his bruised forehead and repeatedly was saying, “There, there, Mommy’s right here.” The more he cried the more she spoke the comforting words.

God is like that young mother who scoops up and kisses her injured child and speaks words of comfort, “There, there, Mommy is here.”

Comfort, comfort my people.

We can feel safe with God--we are loved unconditionally.

In that case-- Maranatha, come Lord Jesus, God be born in us again-we are safe with you.

October 22nd, 2023: Reflections on Matthew 22: 15-22 by The Rev Valerie Hart

It’s interesting to see that issues and debate about paying taxes are not a new concept. Two thousand years ago religious leaders asked Jesus whether it was lawful to pay a specific tax.

Of course it was a little different back then. In fact, it was a lot different back then, because the Romans to whom the taxes were being paid were an occupying force. The Romans, unlike some of the earlier empires, were pretty smart in terms of economics. Other empires used to conquer a land and take their people into exile. Then they would burn and destroy everything. The Romans, however, would conquer a land, put in a puppet king or leader of some sort, and then build up the infrastructure. They would put in roads and build aqueducts to bring in water (there are still the remains of aqueducts and roads from Roman times in Israel today). They would do this so that the people could make money, the economy would thrive and the wealth could be heavily taxed and sent back to Rome.

This tax was not being paid to a government that was there to care for the people of Judea; the tax was going to Rome to pay for soldiers, to pay for the people who would arrest them without any reason - the ones who had complete and total power over them. So it is understandable that the people did not like the idea of being taxed by Rome.

But there was an additional problem with the particular tax that was being considered in this Gospel reading. There were lots of taxes sent to Rome, but for this particular one there was a question of whether it was religiously lawful or not. It was a tax that was called the temple tax. And the temple tax was that every male, every year, had to give a certain amount to the temple in Jerusalem. It wasn’t optional. It wasn't based on income. Some of it was used to keep the temple going, but most of it was given to Rome because Rome taxed the temple.

That made the priests and the Herodians who were part of the puppet government responsible for sending this money off to Rome. A very complicated situation. The question was, the problem was, that Caesar had made himself a god. He declared himself a god and declared that people had to worship him. You may have heard about this in early Christian history when the Christians refused to worship the emperor and therefore had to die. That is why the Christians were so persecuted. They wouldn’t burn incense to the emperor.

We get kind of a sense of this in some of the personality cults like in North Korea where whoever happens to be in charge becomes like a god and is worshipped. But Caesar went so far as to say he was a god. So, if you were paying money to the temple and some of that money was going to pay a “god” were you blaspheming? Were you going against the ten commandments that said you were not to support any other god?

The Pharisees, along with the Herodians, asked Jesus, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

Of course, this was a trick question because if Jesus said pay the tax then the people who don’t want to have to pay the tax would be upset and his critics could say Jesus is saying we should break the law of Moses. If he said don’t pay the tax they could go to the Romans and have him arrested for inciting people to not follow the Roman law. It was a no win situation.

The reason that this is such a memorable response from Jesus is that in the face of this impossible question he took it to another level.

He said, “Give me one of the coins that you use to pay this tax.”

Take note that Jesus did not pull one of these coins out of his pocket, he asked these religious leaders to supply one. You've probably seen pictures of romans coins and there is one on the cover of the bulletin today. These coins were a piece of metal that has been stamped with the picture of the emperor on it.

 So Jesus took the coin and said, “Whose picture is this?”

They responded, “The emperor's.”

Well there is a problem here, because these Pharisees who handed him the coin are carrying around a picture of an idol. You are not supposed to make any kind of idol. No graven images. So he caught them in their hypocrisy.

Then he said, “Give to the emperor what is the emperor’s and to God what is God’s.”

This is just money. This is just a piece of metal with a picture of somebody on it. You can give that to Rome. It’s not of real value. It has no deep and true value.

Jesus took it to another level by asking what is our duty? He is saying that we need to think about what is truly important. Caesar, Rome, and the emperor represent all those things that are contrary to God. All those idols in our lives - all those things to which we give our love and attention.

Or should we be giving our attention to God who we heard so beautifully described in the Psalm today:

Declare God's glory among the nations and God's wonders among all peoples.

For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; God is more to be feared than all gods.

As for the all the gods of the nations, they are but idols;

but it is the Lord who made the heavens.

---

Ascribe to the Lord, you families of the peoples;

ascribe to the Lord honor and power.

---

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,

let the whole earth tremble before God.

Our God is the God of the whole universe, the creator of everything – everywhere. It is a living God as Paul said in his letter, “You turned from idols, to serve a living and true God.”

Now what are we to give this living God? God doesn’t need anything. God doesn’t need our money, and even though it is pledge season, God doesn’t really need our pledges. The church might, but God doesn’t. God doesn’t need animal sacrifices. God doesn’t need anything. God is God.

But there is one thing that God can’t create just by willing it. You see God is also described as love. And love needs to love and be in relationship. The only thing that we can give God that God can’t give God's self is love, faithfulness, commitment, relationship, because we give that out of our free will. Out of our free will we chose whether to follow God, to do what we can for this God that loves us, or we put our energies and our faithfulness and our love into something that is dead. Caesar claimed to be a god, but he is dead. So the choice is, do we put our energies into that which is dead or into that which is the living God?

Certainly we can give to the emperor what is the emperor’s. Jesus is saying yes we need to take care of the things of the world. Yes, you need to go to work. You need to make sure you have enough to live. There are certain responsibilities, things you need to do. No problem with that. Of course we live in this world. We need to brush our teeth, we need to feed our bodies, we need to care for our children - and there is nothing wrong with that.

 The problem is when things become an idol. I took a course in seminary called Bringing Biblical Humor to Life. It was a great course and helped me see the Bible in a whole new way. One of the things that the professor said was that an idol is something you can’t laugh about. Something that you take so seriously that there is no room for humor.

What is it in your life that has become an idol? That has become more important than love, than healthy relationships, than service. Is it your work? Is it respect? Is it power? Is it a 401K? Is it your retirement plans? Is it your fishing boat? Is it the football team? Or your cell phone? A particular news source? MSNBC? Fox News? A web site? A political leader? Alcohol? Drugs? Gambling? Facebook? What in your life takes away from your commitment to God? What sucks you in and pulls you away from life and from love?

When Jesus said render unto the emperor what is the emperor’s and to God was is God’s he meant that at every point of our lives, at every moment of our lives, we make a choice. We make a choice to give our energies and our faithfulness and our commitment to God, to life, to love, or we chose to give our energy and our commitment, our time, to idols, to death. To that which is not life enhancing.

There is an ancient spiritual practice of every night before going to bed to reflect upon your day. What did you do during the day that was life affirming, that was of God, and what did you do that was life denying, that was not of God? Not to judge them. Not to judge yourself. Just to notice and become aware and gradually become better at choosing love, at choosing life instead of death.

Choosing God instead of idols.

October 8th, 2023: Reflections on Matthew 21:33-46 (The Vineyard belongs to God) by The Rev. Judith ("Jude") Lyons

Dear God, help me find the Good News to preach to your faithful people at St. Matthias Episcopal Church. Please God, Give me the words. Amen.

I don’t know about you, but I need to hear the Good News about who God is and that God’s kingdom is here and near. I need to hear it a lot.

I try to stand back and gain some perspective.

I try to use my life-long study of, and love of history to give me a way to understand what is happening

in our country today, but my efforts don’t seem to lift this gloom that surrounds me every time I turn on the television,

or the radio, or glance at a newspaper,

or scroll through my phone, or talk with my children, grandchildren, siblings, friends, or even strangers waiting to play pickleball!

I don’t think I’m unique in this. Am I?

So I prayed to God to help me find the Good News To share with you this morning.

I asked God to give me the words…. And God did.

It’s right here in our opening collect. You might want to turn to it in your bulletin.

The collect says:

Almighty and everlas1ng God.

Well, that’s good news –

God is mightier than we could ever be …

solo, in a group, in a country, on the earth, in our fragile home; and…God is eternal, always, forever, everlasting.

You are always more ready to hear… than we to pray. This is my second favorite line, such good news, and so true. God is “always”, not sometimes, but “always ready,” “always willing”, and “always able” to hear, to listen

to my worries, whining, fears, doubts, anger and all the rest. “Always”.

And, then, God shakes God’s head at me and smiles when I finally remember to pray.

The collect goes on to say:

You give more than we either desire or deserve.

Well, This is fabulous news.

God knows our hearts, knows our desires better than we do and gives us more than we deserve.

This is good news because “Deserve” is not in God’s vocabulary! “Deserve” is not one of God’s measuring sticks.

God gives unconditionally and without ceasing –

Because God love us without considering what we deserve.

Then the writer of the collect goes on to pray:

Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy.

Oh, We need your mercy, Jesus, more than ever – as a people, as a church, as a society.

Forgiving us those things

of which our conscience is afraid.

This is my first favorite line.

Forgive us those things of which our CONSCIENCE is afraid – not some generalized fear of physical pain or discomfort But… forgive us for our cowardice,

our fear to act or say what we know is true and right.

That takes my breath away as I reflect on all the ways I have been afraid to live my conscience, to speak up, to take a stand.

Ringing in my ears is:

“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

The collect collects our thoughts into a bundle at the beginning of our worship together

to help us become present to the presence of God,

right here, right now, in this place.

The collect works to open our hearts and minds To prepare us to listen to God’s word,

And to share the Good News of the Gospel in a troubled world.

It is Matthew’s Gospel that we have been working our way through this Fall.

It invites us to place ourselves in the scene with Jesus, where we find ourselves in the middle

of a chaotic, dangerous, and violent world, much like or own.

Jesus is no longer teaching from a hillside in Galilee;

He is in Jerusalem – over-crowded with merchants, refugees, radical insurrectionists, armed Roman soldiers everywhere, religious pilgrims, beggars, students, teachers, and the imposing religious leaders.

Are any of you watching The Chosen on television?

Season IV of The Chosen will air in January. I love it. I’ve seen the first three seasons, more than once.

It offers us a vital and vivid portrayal of the world

in which Jesus and the disciples lived. It is as real as our own.

We are allowed in, on the ground, in the crowd, surrounded. Jesus, completely aware and unafraid, continues to teach and heal,

meeting head on the religious leaders, as they try to find a way to arrest him. Decked out in their distinctive garb, they shout:

‘By whose authority do you do this?’

I sort of want Jesus to shout back “by whose authority do YOU do this…certainly not God’s” But Jesus has his own, calmer way. He tells a story.

Every commentary I read this week said

that our Gospel today isn’t really a parable; it’s an allegory. Jesus is not at all vague about who is who in the story.

Each character or set of characters represents something very specific.

--The landowner is God.

--The vineyard is God’s creation, lovingly and carefully made

with the best of all that is needed to flourish and grow and feed and prosper.

--The tenants are the religious leaders, and by extension… us. As tenants, we are to tend the land, care for the crops, Love and protect one another

and share what God has given us. Giving back to God or first fruits.

--The servants are the prophets. The landowner sends them to collect the harvest, To remind us who God is, what God has given us,

and to demonstrate that we give thanks

by giving God the first fruits of the harvest.

So far, so good. What happens next? The tenants beat and kill the servants.

They/we take matters into our own hands. We are the masters of our own destiny.

We decide we are the owners.

We did all the work, we tilled the land, we deserve to keep the harvest.

That landowner has other vineyards, he doesn’t need this one;

this one is ours; we’ve earned it.

Then, even more servants arrive, posing an even bigger threat to us

and have the nerve to tell us what we owe God. So we kill them too.

And the landowner, who has patiently

given us chance a[er chance, now sends his son. And here the story takes a weird turn.

Astonishingly, the landowner says, Surely, they will respect my son.

Really?.... How can this landowner be so clueless?

The son arrives,

we see him coming and someone among us says

If we want to inherit this vineyard, we need to kill the heir.

Well, that’s just crazy.

In what world do you inherit a vineyard when you’ve killed his son?                Hmmmm?

What begins as a simple allegory turns into something absurd.

And, yet….. How absurd is it?

I’m haunted by the parallels to our current absurdity.

The attempt to take ‘back’ the country by any means necessary, by death threats to judges, witnesses, opponents, vice presidents and on and on, in the absurd belief that this restores the country to its righful owners. Owners??

Or the absurd idea that the kingdom of God has entrance requirements based on race or gender or preference,

There are no entrance requirements!

All that is needed is the key

of willingness, love and humility before God.

This story has made me think a lot about ownership

--- particularly its false promises of security and stability.

I’ve thought about whole towns, indeed, whole civilizations wiped out by natural disasters or war.                     Gone.

We’ve seen it on our televisions.

The devastation of floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes The bombed out buildings erasing a city

None of what was owned survived. Not much is even remembered.

And yet we fight so desperately for what we think is OURS, what we think we DESERVE,

what we are sure we’re ENTITLED TO.

I am grateful for what being a Christian has taught me About the good news of God’s love

and the promises of the kingdom.

The understanding that all is a gi[ from God

For our time here on earth,

That we are stewards of the gi[s given. We may sign a deed or buy some property,

or become a citizen, but all is ultimately temporary.

Those of us who are old know this in a special way

as we watch loved ones and their things, once so precious, fade from view.

The good news, however, is that even now, even here, in this chaotic, confused, and dangerous world

We are still stewards, still caretakers, still bearers of light and hope

still loved unconditionally

Still voices for justice and truth.

And it is with a growing humility that we have come to understand And to say to others when we can-- The vineyard belongs to God.

Almighty and everlasting God

Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy,

Forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid,

And giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask. In the name of Jesus and The Good News, we pray.                  AMEN

September 10th, 2023: Reflections on Matthew 18:15-20 (Conflict Resolution) by The Rev. Hartshorn Murphy

Jesus never intended to establish a church, despite the reading on August 27th about Peter being the Rock, the foundation, of that church.   The Jesus movement was a thoroughly Jewish reform movement!  And so it is highly unlikely that these words read today go back to Jesus.  But that being said, as always, the Spirit of the Lord is not missing here.

Conflict.  Conflict in an ancient middle east tribal culture was dangerous.  Easily, a disagreement could escalate into violence, which would often lead to a generations-long clan feud.  The Hebrew scriptures which mandate an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Exodus 21:23-26) sounds barbaric to our ears, but was actually quite progressive.  It established the principle of proportionality.

The conflict resolution scheme in today’s gospel sought to set out a process to minimize conflict within the church.  This is for us insiders.

When Matthew says “If a brother sins against you,” he’s speaking of an interpersonal offense of one member against another.  When that happens you should, as the aggrieved member, go to the other person in private.  Why?  Because the goal here is, in this oriental culture, to avoid losing face.

If that strategy fails, you are to go to your brother or sister member with 2-3 negotiators in a semi-private conversation.

Hebrew Law clearly mandates that it takes the testimony of at least 2 witnesses for their testimony to have standing.  Further, the penalty for bearing false witness – the 9th of the 10 Commandments – was severe.  Verse 19, “If two of you agree about anything”, the Greek word literally means “litigation”.  So this is serious stuff, for what they decide is legally binding.

But if that fails, let it be taken before the whole church community.  We’ve obviously moved from a private conversation, to a semi private one, to now a very public one.  Verse 18 reads “whatever you” – and here the word you is plural – “whatever [y’all] bind or loose, God ratifies.

In the text on August 27th, the power to loose or bind was given to Peter and in that context it meant to Discontinue or Retain Jewish cultic practices:  circumcision, Keeping the Sabbath, eating Kosher, etc.,  in Matthew’s Jewish Christian community in Damascus.

In this story, Loose or Bind means to settle a conflict between two members by absolution (Loosening) or condemnation (binding).  In the worst case scenario, the unrepentant members are to be excommunicated.

Today, to us, reared in a very individualistic culture, we can barely comprehend the seriousness of such an adjudication.  Let that person be to the community like a tax collector or a Gentile.  That is, to be an outsider – which is more evidence that this passage likely does not go back to Jesus, who treated tax collectors and Gentiles with compassion, right?

But to be an outcast in a group oriented culture was like a death.  It meant loss of a network and loss of community support.  It meant being accounted among the enemy.  This is grave business indeed.

The passage ends with the assurance that when in this process, when 2 are together privately or 2-3 more semi-privately, or the whole assembly is together, Jesus’s Spirit is there, and God will ratify the resolution of the conflict.  No appeal.

How many of you don’t mind confrontation, raise your hands…  Most of us try to avoid confrontation as much as possible.  The word itself means “with face.”  I well recall my son’s Godmother, who was a school psychologist, saying to me that it was important to literally get down on my son’s level, to look him in the eyes, when administering punishment.  To get in someone’s face is an intimate but also a deeply vulnerable act.

Over the years, as a Pastor, I have occasionally dreaded conversations I would just as soon avoid.  Times when things that needed saying or things frankly, I might not want to hear, hung heavy.  But in those fraught moments, this last verse always bubbled up – Jesus is here, here to enable these difficult conversations, to enable reconciliation if not agreement.

A story from my ministry scrapbook.  At a Vestry meeting back in 1998, our senior warden at the time challenged us to do something – I wish I could remember what.  Sarah, God rest her soul, was a deeply religious person; working part time and living simply in order to be free to serve as a volunteer chaplain at the hospital.

In response to Sarah’s bold challenge, Susan, the Vestry member who was elected to preserve the prerogatives of the choir, said “Well, that’s easy for you to say Mother Superior!”  Nervous twittering…  But something unanticipated:  Sarah said “Susan, why did you say that to me?”  Her response: “Oh, I was just kidding…”  “No, you weren’t & that really hurt my feelings & I want to know why you said that to me!”   Even angels on the head of a pin stopped dancing and were still.

            In the end, Sarah said “We don’t need to resolve this tonight, but we do need to because I can’t sit at this Vestry table with you with this between us.”  Susan was absent at the next Vestry meeting.  The Vestry sent a letter since phone calls weren’t being returned, asking Susan to come to the next Vestry meeting.  A public offense needed to be resolved publicly.  Susan would come late on Sundays, ascend to the choir loft and then depart before the last organ note sounded.  In the end, Susan sold her home and moved to San Diego.  To this day, I cling to the legacy of Sarah’s spiritual maturity and courage.

            The Rev. Denis Brunelle arrived at St. Luke’s Long Beach in the mid 1990’s.  He found a parish tradition of hosting the works of local artists along the aisles of the sanctuary.  One of these “shows” was strongly anti-war and a few members found the images disturbing.  They complained publicly including to the local press.  A difference of opinion within the church had become a scandal in the larger community.  Denis, who had been a Roman priest, was not a novice in dealing with conflict.  He tried persuasion but to no avail.  Later, he revoked the licenses of those who were eucharistic ministers, saying “Your ministry is an extension of my own and we are not at peace with one another at this time.  Please refrain from stirring up conflict in the congregation and community.”  That disciplining was but tossing gasoline on a grass fire.

            Finally, Denis excommunicated these people and our bishop supported this severe action, hoping this would lead to repentance and amendment of life.  Not so much.  What happened?

            The excommunicates threatened to sue the Rector for slander and defamation of character because the prayer book states that persons could be excommunicated who exhibit a “notoriously evil” life.  Denis hung in there and over time, the malcontents left.  Exhausted and stressed, Denis resigned but left behind a healthier parish for his successor.

            In both these stories, the goal of restoration and reconciliation was not met but, in both instances, the effort was righteous.

            Where was God in all of this?  I remember (because I’m an old man), the deep conflict over women’s ordination back in the 1970’s.  The moderates suggested tabling the whole issue indefinitely because, they said, God’s voice could not be heard over all the shouting.  A group of faculty from Nashotah House Seminary held a meeting at my parish in Milwaukee and then they issued a paper declaring that they saw no theological impediment to the ordination of women.  They further declared that in the midst of conflict and strife is precisely when the Holy Spirit speaks.  Read your Bibles…

            How has St. Matthias handled conflict in the past?  More importantly, what is your plan for handling it in the future?

            How can I be so confident that there will be strife and conflict?  Simple.  Look around.  You’re human.

                                                                                                            Amen.

September 17th, 2023: Reflections on Luke 15:11-32 (Prodigal Son) by The Rev. Hartshorn Murphy

Today’s gospel reading is called “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” “Prodigal” is not a word we use much anymore. The word means wasteful or lavish. It’s a story of a landowner who has 2 sons. One day, the younger son asks his father for his share of the inheritance now. It’s a provocaOve request. It was literally saying, “ I wish you were dead so I could get my bequest now.” As the younger boy, he was, by Jewish law, enOtled to 1/3 of the land while his older brother-the firstborn- would receive 2/3rds. The father relents; allowing his young son to rejoice in his victories and suffer his own defeats in life. The land is divided, the boy sells his porOon and departs to a “far country”- Italy, Babylonia or North Africa were likely desOnaOons. There he squanders his money living lavishly. But when a famine comes upon the land, he’s in trouble. Desperate, he hires himself to a GenOle farmer and is given the job of caring for the swine. Near starvaOon, he is enOtled to a porOon of the slaughter but Jewish law forbids it and so he finds himself eaOng the tough carob pods he’s been feeding the pigs. One day, he comes to his senses. It’s almost as if he were standing beside himself and seeing how far he’s fallen: he can’t possibly fall any further. He resolves to go home. He’s willing to face the ridicule of his village and the wrath of his family of which he is unworthy. Perhaps he can make amends by repaying his father. Maybe, if he’s lucky, his father needs another hired hand. There were 3 levels of workers on large estates. The bondsmen were like slaves but by Jewish law, had so many enOtlements that they were almost family. Secondly, there were those who worked under the bondsmen. These servants were on the circumference of the family. Thirdly, and on the lowest level, were the hired laborers. Hired for the day, they could be dismissed without excuse or noOce- their lives were one of desperaOon. But maybe, just maybe; there’s a place among them for this wayward boy. Along the long miles home, the boy rehearses his confession over and over in his mind- but while sOll a long way off, his father sees him. How so? We have to assume that each day the father climbed the highest hill in the area and watched the road, in a sad hope that his dear son might come home. Holding on to hope, the father knew not where hos boy might be, or if he were sOll among the living, but sOll, he waits and watches. Seeing him through the morning haze, he runs to claim back his boy. In oriental cultures, elders don’t run. It’s not dignified to grab up your cloak and run. The boy begins to stammer out his well-rehearsed speech but his Dad interrupts him with his own tearful greeOng. He tells his servant, who has now caught up with his Master, “Go and get my best robe.” This garment was rarely worn as it was reserved for honored guests. The father places his signet ring on the boy’s finger as a sign that he has his father’s trust and authority. Finally, shoes- because only slaves go around barefoot. Returning home, he orders the calf barbequed-it’s enough to feed the whole village who are invited to rejoice with the Master at his son’s return. The elder boy comes in from the fields. He hears the music and asks the servant “What’s the deal?” When he hears the news, he’s furious. He confronts his father with his bi'er complaints. To bo'om line it here: he’s saying, “I’ve lived a virtuous life but I get no reward, but this son of yours”- noOce, not my brother, but this son of yours- “he’s wasted your money” (and he slanders his brother by saying the money was spent on prosOtutes). “This life of vice you celebrate.” Selfrighteous much? The father refuses to take sides between his boys. He says to his older son, “all I have is literally yours but your brother who was lost is found, he was dead but now he lives- come in and celebrate with us!” And boom. The story abruptly ends. Each listener has to make up their own conclusion. What will the older son do? What would you do? This parable was told against the Pharisees. The context, way back in verses 1-3 of this 15th chapter of Luke; see the Pharisees complaining that Jesus is sharing a meal with tax collectors and sinners; which was to confer on them honor and equal status to himself, a Rabbi. For the self-righteous Pharisees, God has no place for sinners. A popular folk proverb said, “There is joy before God when those who provoke him, perish from the world.” Now, they would acknowledge that God could be merciful but only following some heavy groveling. But that God not only accepts sinners but goes out of his way to seek them out, like a shepherd seeking a lost sheep or a rich landowner running to embrace a wanton son? Outrageous! But unOl they could come to rejoice in the restoraOon of sinners, they would themselves remain estranged from God and woefully ignorant of God’s true nature. And thus the parable should not be called the Prodigal Son but rather, “The Loving Father”. My father was born on Independence Day in 1908 in Selma, Alabama. His life, growing up a Black man in the Jim Crow south, was tough. His grandfather, a Jewish banker, had built a house, for his mula'o mistress, in the colored secOon of town. At the insOgaOon of the wife, the Klan terrorized my dad’s family and ulOmately firebombed the family home. My dad, his brother and sister, fled north. He “dealt” with his family trauma, as did his brother, with alcohol. It didn’t make him a bad father, but rather an emoOonally withdrawn one. And the fear which stalked his dreams was passed on, unbeknownst, to me. In 1997, I began a new ministry as Rector of St. AugusOne’s, Santa Monica. On my first Sunday, I stood up to preach and looking out at a packed church of white folk, I heard my father’s voice; “What are you doing? You don’t belong here. You’ve go'en beyond yourself. Get out now.” But then I heard another voice, saying “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine.” (Isa 43:1-4) Whatever failures or disappointments you have come through in your family. Whatever abuse or neglect. From fathers or mothers who demanded too much or expected too li'le. Whatever brokenness is yours, I invite you to see with me the father in today’s story as he runs, with tears streaming down his face, stumbling over the uneven road, to claim back his child - for in this story, you are that child, I am that child - who has far too olen “squandered the inheritance of the saints and wandered far in a land that is waste.” (BCP pg. 450) But our God ever stands, paOently waiOng and watching for our coming home. For “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”

St. Augustine of Hippo

September 3rd, 2023: Reflections on Romans 12:9-21 and Matthew 16:21-28 by The Rev. Vienna McCarthy

A good friend looks out for you.

A good friend will tell you if you’re about to make a mistake, even if it might upset you.

A good friend will try to stop you from getting hurt.

Right?

On the whole if we were to tell a friend of ours to look after themselves, that they probably shouldn’t put themselves in harm’s way, and they responded by calling us Satan, we might be a little taken aback.

Peter probably did feel a little confused. He’s *literally just* recognised Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God. And he’s *literally just* been told by Jesus that he is going to be the rock, the foundation, for the community of Christians that will be called the Church. He probably feels a little like our psalmist this morning…

Then Jesus starts talking about how he’s going to have to die, and Peter thinks that no, surely, the Son of God doesn’t *have* to die, he doesn’t *have* to do *anything* he doesn’t want to do. He tries to talk him out of it, to protect him.

And Jesus calls him *Satan*.

Now it sounds harsh, but Jesus is actually calling us back to that encounter with Satan in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry. In those forty days of lonely fasting Satan tempted Jesus, three times, inviting him to embrace his divine nature and eliminate his suffering. Three times, Jesus refused to comply.

Peter’s motivations on this occasion are presumably very different, but it’s fascinating that in seeing who Jesus is, in recognising him as the Son of God, both Peter and Satan immediately jump to saying basically the same thing.

If Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, why not  just … make the bad things go away?

But even though Peter’s coming from a place of friendship, and hope in what Jesus as he Messiah is going to achieve, and probably also a great degree of affection for Jesus — despite all that, Jesus says that he is nevertheless a stumbling block. Because Peter is tempting Jesus to act out of *self-preservation*, to save his own life and not have to suffer death.

Elsewhere in the Gospels we get these hints that Jesus is, actually, tempted to escape the suffering he knows he’s going to have to face. In the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry, but also right at the end, in Jerusalem, when he’s praying alone in the garden of Gethsemane. But in both cases Jesus ultimately knows that he *can’t* act out of fear and self-preservation.

Not because he’s not *able* to. Of *course* he could have prevented himself from being arrested, put on trial, crucified. But despite the temptation, he didn’t. He voluntarily went to his death.

Because he knew he had to. That it was necessary.

We’ll get onto what that might mean in a second. But what’s crucial to notice is that on this occasion, Jesus makes it clear that there’s something about his sacrifice that his followers are not just supposed to *allow* — they’re also supposed to *emulate* it. To take up their own crosses. Because “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for ((Jesus’s)) sake will find it.”

If you try to save your life, you won’t be able to — you will lose it. But if you let go, let go of that instinct to put yourself first and protect yourself, then you may well save your life after all.

What Jesus says here — to Peter but also to us, listening in — it goes against all our instincts. Our nature is to look after ourselves, and keep our loved ones out of harm’s way. We probably feel like these are good instincts, so Jesus’s words to us are pretty shocking if we’re actually paying attention.  Because he says that if we live to the fullest degree that our instincts tell us to – if we live in fear, focusing first and foremost on protect ourselves and not looking out for others – if we live like that, Jesus says we won’t end up saving our lives. In fact we’ll *lose* them.

Lose them to fearful self-preservation.

Now Jesus knew that if he went to Jerusalem to preach God’s message of unconditional love and reconciliation, the religious leaders and the political authorities *would* kill him. His death wasn’t some arbitrary method cooked up to appease a wrathful father in heaven. No — his death was necessary at least in part because it was inevitable. But Jesus also trusted that through this death, God would save his life — and not just *his* life, but the whole world. He trusted that although it would look like he had lost his life, God would save it, would raise him from the dead, establishing his victory over death forever.

We’re talking about things that theologians and prayerful people have argued over for millennia — the question of why Jesus had to die, and what exactly his death achieved, and how it all came to pass. There aren’t any easy explanations that will clear it all up for us — if there were, I’m sure Jesus would have told Peter himself, instead of offering him a riddle.

I won’t go into all of that now — if you’re sticking around after the service we can have a chat about it over ice cream…

But the central thing to hold onto from his words today, I think, is this. Because Jesus was willing to act not out of fear, but to act out of love — not out of self-preservation, but self-offering  — *because* of that, he gained *everything*.

That’s one of the paradoxes at the heart of the Christian faith, and it’s the paradox we’re called to put at the heart of the Christian life. To truly live, Jesus says, we have to deny ourselves – take up our own cross, be willing to make sacrifices, and follow Jesus in the way of love.

Jesus was talking about his own literal cross, his own literal death. For us today, the broader invitation we have from Jesus here is to live — but to live in a different way. In fact, it’s the way that Paul described in our reading from Romans this morning. If you want to know what it would look like to take up your cross and follow Jesus every day then take your bulletin home and work through that Romans reading again slowly.

Paul says:

Be kind to the people who make your life difficult.

Don’t just focus on how *you’re* feeling, but have empathy for other people.

Don’t think you’re better than anyone – spend time with people who maybe won’t make you look good.

Above all, forgive the people who wrong you. Give up your claim to being in the right. 

Live in peace with all.

All of these things Paul talks about – they’re about relinquishing the need for self-preservation, the need for control, to be respected, to be safe. They’re what happens when we live out of love instead of fear.

Now whoever or whatever you think Satan is, it seems to me that there is an evil force in this world that don’t want us to live this way. More and more we’re encouraged to hate the people who hate us, to ignore the cries of people who suffer because they probably deserve it, to fear the outsiders who take our security and our jobs, to reject the people who betray weakness, to cut the people who disagree with us out of our lives. Living out of fear means building ourselves up at the expense of others, cutting ourselves off *from* others, and there are so many voices in our world that are calling us to live this way.

If we want to take up Jesus’s call to follow him, we can’t be swept along by it. By the fear and the need to protect ourselves. But we also don’t need to be afraid. Because by Jesus’s cross, by his journey from death to life, he’s shown us that what the world sees as weakness, God will turn to strength. That it’s in losing our lives that we’ll discover we’ve found them.  

If we follow Jesus, if we follow in his Way, what he offers us is abundant life. Life without the exhausting pursuit of self-preservation. When we live out of love instead of fear, we won’t need to protect ourselves.  Because in the cross of Jesus, God is with us, wherever our path takes us. In this life and in the next.

August 27th, 2023: Reflections on Romans 12:1-8 and Matthew 16:13-20 by The Rev. Vienna McCarthy

The question of who we say we are — or rather, finding out how to answer that question — is perhaps our culture”s foundational concern.

When we’re kids, we wonder what we’ll grow up to be. We search, through school and college and work, searching for a role that will define us, and who we are.

And we look to relationships, with a partner, with parents, with children, and the roles we fulfil in all of those places.

Who do you say that you are? What comes to mind if you’re introducing yourself, or describing yourself? Your work, past or present? Your family roles? Your culture, or your ancestors’ cultures? The things you love to do? The people you feel most at home with? The church you belong to, even?

Which of those things makes you who you truly are?

The Gospel this week presents us with a different question.

Not, who do I say that I am, but who do *you* say that I am?

And who do I say that *you* are?

Identity, and role, and relationship — all of those things are important. But here in this exchange between Peter and Jesus, we have an example given to us, of those definitions not coming from our own self-identification, but by seeing and being seen by someone *outside* of ourselves.

Peter goes first. He is asked directly by Jesus — “who do you say that I am?” At this point in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus and his disciples have been travelling through a while, moving through different cities, with Jesus teaching and healing and telling parables and announcing the imminent reign of God. This is what Peter has seen.

Jesus hasn’t been proclaiming his identity explicitly — *telling* people who he is. But in all those things he’s been *doing*, he’s been revealing who he truly is, for those who have eyes to see.

And so despite not having any evidence for Jesus’s messianic identity, Peter is able to see Jesus for who he is. Flesh and blood, physical realities, haven’t convinced him — Jesus says that Peter sees a spiritual reality in Jesus, the man he calls teacher. Despite all the times Peter has misunderstood, or got it wrong, he is able to truly see Jesus in that moment.

And then notice what Jesus does in response. Jesus sees *him*. He sees Peter. Not for the person he is in this moment — a small-town fisherman who left everything behind to travel with Jesus — but for the person he will become. Greater than anything he probably believes he is capable of. The rock, the foundation, upon which Jesus will build his church. His community. His living body.

In fact the name Peter, which Jesus gave to him the moment Peter began to follow him, means originally “rock”. There is a sense that Jesus has *always* known this about Peter. That the moment he cast his eyes on him, he saw his true self, and gave him this name, a name that hinted at what he was going to become for the early group of Christians trying to live and grow as a brand new church.

But it’s in *this key moment* in Jesus’s ministry, at a point when he is still keeping his true identity hidden from many of the people he’s ministering to, that Jesus and Peter model for us this interchange, this almost *choreography*. Seeing Jesus, being seen by Jesus.

They model for us what it looks like not to define ourselves as individuals, but to define ourselves through community with others. Discovering who we truly are in allowing ourselves to be seen by another person. And not just seen, but known. Recognised. “Who do you say that I am?” And then, seeing and knowing and recognising the other, in turn.

Peter and Jesus are showing us an example of how we can be with one another, like Paul describes in our epistle reading. Paying attention to the gifts we see in others, and naming them, and encouraging them. But in this exchange in our Gospel reading today, they’re also showing us, more fundamentally, how we know and are known by God.

It can be scary to place our identity in the hands of another. Especially if we have experiences of not being seen for who we really are — if we’ve been excluded, or been the victims of prejudice. Many of us have these experiences in different ways. In the Church of England, I’ve had colleagues who didn’t believe I could be a priest because of my gender — they saw in my a limitation I didn’t see in myself, a limitation I didn’t believe Jesus saw in me either. It’s painful, to feel like you’re not being seen for who you truly are.

Perhaps this is why Jesus invites Peter to go first. Who does Peter say that Jesus is? Who does he see when he looks at him? He invites Peter to start the exchange.

Because who Peter sees is the Messiah. The one the Jewish people were all waiting for, the one whose salvation has been proclaimed by prophets and psalmists. To see Jesus for who he is, for Peter, is seeing someone who is worthy of our trust, someone who cares for those who are laid low, who brings joy and gladness to those who suffer.

I wonder who you say Jesus is? Who do you see when you look at him?

When I look at Jesus, I see someone who trusted women with some of the biggest responsibilities of all. From his mother who directed him to begin his miracles at the Wedding at Cana, to the Samaritan woman who evangelised to her whole hometown, to Mary Magdalene charged with bringing the first announcement of his resurrection, Jesus constantly defied his culture’s attempts to overlook women, to imagine them as lesser agents than men.

He treated all people with the same unconditional love, the same patience, the same understanding. I trust him.

But I wonder who *you* say Jesus is?

Who is it that you follow, and worship?

Because all of us are invited to join this dance, this back and forth, of discovering or remembering who Jesus is, and through this gaining the courage to allow ourselves to be seen by him in turn. And not just seen, but called to become the people God sees us becoming, just like Peter.

This series of readings we’re in the middle of, from Matthew’s Gospel — you might have noticed that Peter features quite often. And you’ll probably also notice preachers like me saying again and again that he is flawed, or immature, or confused. I think a few weeks ago I called him ‘puppy-like’! I say this about Peter all the time because it’s *so important* that the first followers of Jesus weren’t chosen because they were amazing people, clever or well-behaved or devout. They were the opposite of that. In fact after doing well in today’s reading, it really doesn’t long for Peter to mess up again.

But Jesus sees who he will become for that really church, the first Christian community finding their footing after the revolution that was his resurrection from the grave. Jesus sees who Peter for who he *truly* is.

We can be afraid of others defining us because we are afraid of being made *less* than who we are. Confined, or misunderstood, or ignored.

But in Jesus God always sees the *whole* of who we are. Not defining us by our achievements *or* our faults. Seeing us only as divine children of our heavenly creator, who loves us and lives in us.

When we know this deep within ourselves, we can live as a community who sees one another through that lens, that perspective. This is what the Church is. And *as* the Church we’re called to go out and see the whole world through the very same lens.

Which we can only do, probably, with the confidence that comes from knowing that we are children of God, beheld always by that divine compassion.

And we can only do *that*, if we turn to look at Jesus, and meet his gaze.

So who do you say that he is?

Who is Jesus to you?

August 13th, 2023: Reflections on 1 Kings 19:9-18 and Matthew 14:22-33 by The Rev. Vienna McCarthy

How do you treat someone you love who makes a mistake?

Three weeks ago, Stephen and I decided to foster a dog from the animal shelter. We came home with a nine-month-old puppy, Juniper, who was found, microchipped but alone, wandering out on the streets. They think she was abandoned.

Now all puppies have to learn how to socialise well, and be safe with people and other creatures. But for Juniper this is sometimes especially difficult. As a stray she probably had to defend herself, and fight for her food. She’s not used to having a safe home, and people who won’t leave her to fend for herself.

Sometimes she makes mistakes. Sometimes she doesn’t do what we expect her to do, or what we need her to do. She reacts to a barking dog who only wants to play, or tries to tug something out of our hands.

And in those moments, we have to decide — how do we respond? Does this kind of behaviour deserve punishment? Or does it deserve compassion? Correction, maybe, but love?

Now, loving a rescue puppy is one thing. There are harder tests out there. And we get an example of that in our reading from the Hebrew Bible this morning, in the prophet Elijah.

When we meet Elijah, he’s overwhelmed and tired. He has a job given to him by God — to take care of the people and help them follow God’s laws. But he’s feeling burnt out. No matter how much he tries, the people of God aren’t doing what they need to do. They’re turning to idols instead of depending only on God. And it sounds like Elijah’s just… done.

So he runs away to this cave, which is where we meet him. At Mount Horeb. And he is ready to make his complaint to God.

Now if Mount Horeb sounds familiar to you — it may not, but if it does — it’s because it’s one name for the place where God speaks to Moses and gives him the Ten Commandments, which the Israelites are now struggling to follow.

Elijah is going back to where it all began with Moses. Or at least, he’s going back to a nearby cave.

And after God asks what he’s doing there, God invites Elijah to step into the place of Moses, on top of the mountain.

And as God does this Elijah has an experience of God that is quite different to the burning bush and the pillar of smoke that Moses encountered.

There is wind, and a great earthquake, and a fire, but God’s presence isn’t in any of those things.

God’s presence is in the silence that follows. Sheer silence.

Or some translations say a “still, small voice”.

Elijah is angry at the Israelites. Perhaps he expects God to be angry too, to send punishment or plagues. And certainly, God in this story decides to take action. But his response isn’t out of fiery, earth-shaking anger. It’s something quite different.

Some context. The first book of Kings, where this story comes from, was written a while*after* these events  — when the Israelites had been exiled by the Babylonians, sent out from the land God had gifted to them.

You could say it was written when the Israelites were in a kind of storm.

And we know from the Scriptures that the Israelite people were asking themselves: how could this have happened? How could God have allowed it, when God had promised them through Abraham and Moses to give them this land forever, and take care of them?

And this story of Elijah in the cave — this is a kind of explanation given for the predicament they find themselves in. According to Elijah, this has all happened because the Israelites have messed up, turned away from the promises they made to God.

In the language of the Bible, they’re “not righteous”. Being “righteous” means being right with God, keeping the promises and following the laws. And they’re not doing that.

But here’s the thing. In this story, God announces that he’s doing a new thing.

God may not, right now, be in the earth-shaking forces of nature that will force their enemies to flee, as the Egyptians fled after the parting of the seas. God is not driving the Babylonians out by the sword. Instead, God is with his people in the small voice, in the silence. But out of that, God will make things right.

The Israelites will not, ultimately, be abandoned to the consequences of their actions. Because they are God’s beloved people. He will stay with them.

This is a story we get repeated throughout the Scriptures — a cycle of promise, followed by failure, followed by forgiveness. It happens in big ways and small ways. And if we fast forward to the Gospel reading we find it again, in the middle of another storm with the disciples.

When Jesus comes towards them, walking on the surface of the waves in the middle of the storm, he says to them:

“Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

…except actually, he doesn’t say exactly that.

In the Greek he says “Take heart, I AM”. Just the words I AM — ego eimi. This little phrase is used in the Hebrew Bible to allude to the name of God. God is the one “who is”.

So when Jesus says take heart, ego eimi — take heart, I AM — he is announcing the presence of God. Not in the storm, in the power of the wind and the waves, but in him. In Jesus, in the still and small voice in the midst of the storm.

And the disciples are still afraid, but it’s Peter who in that toddler-like way of his bounds to the side of the boat and asks if Jesus will command *him* to walk on water.

He is ready to hear what Jesus wants him to do. And so when Jesus says “come”, he leaps out of the boat and begins to walk.

And then as is often the case with Peter and the other disciples, when the reality of the situation dawns on him, he gets cold feet. Or in this case, wet feet. He starts to get afraid. And he starts to sink.

But even though Peter’s struggling not to be afraid, struggling to follow the command Jesus made, Jesus reaches out to help him. Of course he does.

In Jesus, God has commanded Peter to do a thing. “Come,” he said. But Peter, because he is human and makes mistakes — Peter has utterly *failed* to do the thing. But he is still rescued by Jesus, and kept safe.

*This* is the pattern we see repeated throughout the stories in the Scriptures. Time and time again we see that the love that God has for all of God’s people isn’t only given in return for playing by the rules.

The Israelites, the religious authorities, the early followers of Jesus — they all fear that God’s love is conditional, and transactional, given only to those who do what God wants them to do.

But these stories all reiterate the foundational truth, that in Jesus God’s love is *never* conditional on that. *Never* withdrawn because of our guilt, or our weakness.

As Paul says, quoting the Hebrew prophet Joel: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

God does have a high calling for us — to live in love, following the way of Jesus. But we don’t become righteous, or *right with God*, by doing everything that’s expected of us perfectly. We are right with God because we, and the whole world, are beloved by Christ.

We make mistakes, but there is nothing we need to do to absolve our guilt and appease God. It’s all taken care of. We are loved.

Does that feel real to you? I hope it does. Sometimes the reality of the grace of God is hard for us to hold onto, especially if like our puppy Juniper we’ve been conditioned to see the world a different way. We can keep on coming back to the idea that surely — *surely* — there is something we need to do in order for God to accept us. There are rules we need to follow, or else we’re out.

But this is the radical love of God in Jesus. It’s a love that the Scriptures make clear to us that God has for the whole world.

It’s a love that accepts us first, and holds out a hand to catch us in the water, and pulls us back to safety.

It’s the still, small voice of Jesus, quieting the storm.

June 18th, 2023: Matthew 9:35 by Reverand Hartshorn Murphy

Jesus said to his disciples: The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” The harvest Jesus refers to is that time -coming soon- when the Lord of the harvest will intervene in human history to establish his kingdom on earth. God’s people are scattered. They are leaderless and burdened. They are like sheep without a shepherd. Our task is to gather the lost sheep of Israel.

          In Hebrew, the word is “amhaarez” which means “the people of the land.”  The Pharisees dismissed them as too ignorant to understand The Law, much less to rightly keep it. These peasant people, to Jesus, were ripened grain, a vast harvest withering in the field.

          So Jesus gathers the 12 disciples to begin this work. In those days, disciples were required to learn their rabbi’s Mishnah, his public teaching. The word means “learning by rote repetition”. Not just the words, but which words were emphasized, the tone of voice and the inflection, the physical stance. To encounter a disciple years after his master’s death, was to in fact, encounter the master himself. In addition, Jesus’ disciples had learned Jesus Kabbalah-his prayer practice- a deep contemplation in which the practitioners experienced more deeply the presence of God.

          I mention Jesus’ Mishnah and Kabbalah because without that understanding, Jesus’ commission to his closest disciples would seem unfeasible. They are to preach good news and to do what Jesus does: cure the sick, cleanse the lepers, which is not Hansen’s disease, but any scaly, flaky skin condition- cast out demons and raise the dead. We can’t say with any certainty whether the raising of the dead is to be understood literally or metaphorically. We today say that someone was “dead” but has “Come alive” and perhaps we should understand this directive as such.  We simply can not know. But these acts of healing and exorcism were not an ends but a means. They were signs. Signs are things which point beyond themselves.

          If any of you have renewed your driver’s license lately, in preparation you likely studied the driver’s handbook. One of the sample questions asks you to identify what a sign means by its shape, the words have been omitted. If you came to an intersection and saw that red octagonal metal sign covered with graffiti, you have a pretty good idea of what to do. And if you ignore that sign and an officer pulls you over, your graffiti defense won’t work. The sign has a meaning beyond the word printed on it.

          Curing the sick, casting out evil spirits and bringing people out of the darkness of despair to a place of hope-like coming alive again-for Jesus and his followers, these were signs which confirmed the message. The Kingdom of God is coming into the world.

          So what would be the nature of this New Age? Jewish mythology believed that the Age of the Messiah would bring an end to hunger as crop yields would be phenomenal- 30 fold, 60 fold, a hundred fold as Jesus proclaims in one of his stories (Mark 4:20). Fruit bearing trees would bear fruit year round. Each Jewish man would sit under his own fig tree, studying the Torah all day and munching on fresh figs. Women, you would bear a child each year- but without pain such that they could return to the fields immediately after giving birth. A pretty male centered fantasy to be sure. But wait! That’s not all…

          The other nations of the earth would stream to Mt. Zion. Many Gentiles would convert but those who did not would be enslaved to serve the Jews or resisting, would be slaughtered. Jerusalem, not Rome, would be the center of the earth.

          Jewish martyrs would be raised from the dead and live again. In Ezekiel 37:1-10 we find the story of the valley of dry bones in which bones come forth from their graves and sinews, flesh and breath comes to them. Carefully re-read Matthew’s gospel when you can. In it, when Jesus dies, the graves of the righteous dead are opened and the formerly dead stroll about the streets of Jerusalem (Matt. 27:51-53).

          The New Age is breaking in.

          This nationalistic hope explains one of the distressing features of this reading. The disciples are to go nowhere among the Gentiles or the Samaritans. They are sent only to the lost house of Israel.

          The gospel writers composed their narratives sometime between 40-60 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. They were at pains to explain how a Jewish reform movement was becoming more and more a Gentile church. And so we see the directive “go no where among the Gentiles” reflecting the earthly Jesus and then at the end of Matthew, the directive of The Risen Christ. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19)

          And how were they to go?

They were to go without any money in their belts, no bags of food, no spare underwear, no shoes and no staffs to defend themselves. They would go in vulnerability right down to the souls of their bare feet.  They were to go 2x2 against the solidarity of the roads. And they were to depend on the kindness of strangers. On entering a house they were to say, “Peace be to this house” and if the householder received them, they were to stay in that house and not move about seeking better accommodations. And they were to eat whatever was put before them whether kosher or not. But if you are not welcomed, you are to “shake the dust from your feet.” What’s that all about?

          It was the custom that when Jews had cause to enter Gentile territory, prior to crossing the boundaries into the Holy Land, they would “shake the Gentile dust” from their feet so as not to contaminate the land with heathen soil. To “shake the dust” publically from a Hebrew home was to declare that home “not Israel”. It would be a testimony against them on the day of judgment. God’s condemnation will be worse for that house then it was for Sodom and Gomorrah; towns which were proverbial warnings of God’s judgment. Don’t get hung up, just move on.

          They themselves had received from Jesus without having to pay therefore they were not to seek payment from anyone, as other healers did when they cured illness or freed those beset by evil. Their short missionary journeys were to be guided and enabled by God’s free grace alone.

          In a former life, I served our diocese as Archdeacon for congregational development. One of the 40 churches I supervised was St. Christopher’s in Trona. (Raise your hand if you know where Trona is?) Trona is near Death Valley. It was a company town. When founded, plots of land were offered free to any denomination willing to build. In the later 1980’s I went to make a visitation. I stopped in the only diner for breakfast and asked my waitress, “Can you tell me where St. Christopher’s church is?” She responded, “St. Christopher’s? hmm- I don’t know, but I’ve only been here about 10 years.” Let’s ask Mabel; she’s been here for 35 years.”  “Hey, Mabel, where’s St. Christopher’s church?” A long pause. A wrinkled brow, “Gee, I never heard of it- but it’s probably over that way” she said pointing. St. Christopher’s had been there from the very establishment of the town- but remained somehow incognito for its entire existence. No missionaries had apparently gone beyond its door to proclaim- well, anything. Trona has gone from a population, at its height of 7,000 to about 87 today. The town is dying, St. Christopher’s had long ago effectively died.

          Churches are to be an oasis of the Kingdom. As the Free Church of Berkley called it in the 1960’s “ a Liberated Zone.” The toughest question any church must ask itself: “If we were not here, would anyone even notice.”

June 11th, 2023: Ruminations on Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 by Reverend Hartshorn Murphy

We gather week by week, in this place, in order to break things. We break the bread so that we may share in the body of Christ. We break open the scriptures, which come to us from a time and a place so different than our own. And sustained by word and sacrament, we seek to break open our imaginations so that we might walk through life as Christ’s ambassadors. To be a disciple of Christ is to be transformed by God’s grace so that we might in turn work with the Spirit to transform the world, so that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

            Today’s reading from Matthew, at first glance, seems to be three unrelated incidents from Jesus’ work in the Galilee.  This morning, I’d like to briefly reflect on each one but then ask what theme, what learning, comes from them.

            The first story is the call to Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector. The title here is misleading, a better description would be “toll collector”.  Those who did this work bid for the job and paid Rome the tax upfront and then sought to recoup their money and hopefully make a profit. The toll was levied on crossings--goods entering, leaving or being transported across a district. Those using bridges, entering through gates or using a boat landing. If you were using a cart to carry goods, the toll collector would tax you for how many wheels were on your wagon.

            The tax man was considered to be a sinner because the money collected facilitated the Roman occupation of the Jewish homeland.

            And yet, here we see Jesus sharing table fellowship with Matthew and other toll collectors and with “sinners”, which meant the peasants who were lax in observing the minutiae of Jewish law. And so the Pharisees bitterly criticize Rabbi Jesus. To share a meal with those outside the law was to be identified with them and thus be unclean yourself.

            In response, Jesus quotes a proverb “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick” and then from Hosea 6:6: “God desires mercy not sacrifice.”

            Now to be clear, the rabbis of Jesus’ time would not criticize people for caring for the poor, the outcasts and sinners. But they welcomed repentant sinners.

            The significance of this story is that Jesus seeks out those who were considered lost. We are reminded of the story of the shepherd who leaves 99 of his sheep safely in the sheepfold and goes seeking the one who was lost and rejoicing, carries it home to safety.

            The second story is of a woman who had been suffering from a bleeding disorder for 12 years. Considered ritually unclean- the flow of blood had to be ended for 8 days in order for her to take the Mikveh, the ritual bath, she approached Jesus from the rear. She thought if I could but touch the fringes on his cloak- the blue tassels Jews sewed on their garments to remind themselves of the commandments- if I could but touch his fringes I could be made well.

            We are reminded of Paul’s letter to the Hebrews. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Her faith had made her well.

            The third story is the raising of Jairus’ daughter. Matthew has changed Mark’s story. In Mark, Jairus says “My daughter is at the point of death”. Matthew is more dramatic: she is already dead. For a Rabbi to be in the presence of a corpse was shocking. And yet, Jesus goes; even though he would be himself naturally unclean for 7 days.

            In Hebrew mythology, when someone dies, the soul lingers near the body for three days, hoping to be reunited with the body. In the Lazarus story, Lazarus has been dead for 4 days. His reanimation is no resuscitation, right? The Lazarus story only appears in John’s gospel; so we can say that the raising of Jairus’ daughter is Matthew’s Lazarus story.

            What all three of these stories tell is a story of restoration. Tax collectors, bleeding women and sick people were separated from their communities as family and tribe feared contamination through associations with those who were unclean.

            Glenn is a cross dresser. His adopted name is Millie. The back story is that Glenn acted in his son’s High School play- Millicent the Magnificent- in which the dads dressed in women’s clothing. For Glenn, soon to be Millie, something fell into place. Years later, she joined a support group at St. Augustine’s called “Androgyny” and at some point, the conversation turned to religion. Someone told her that she would be welcomed at St. Augustine’s. She responded  “You don’t get it. I’ve been kicked out of more churches than I care to admit.”  That person responded, “No Millie, you don’t get it. They really want you here.”

            I came on the scene in 1997; long after this event. Millie would come to the church office on Fridays to assemble the Sunday bulletins. It was her way of giving to the church because she was living in deep poverty. She and I would have thoughtful conversations about the scriptures. I looked forward each week to the inquiry she’d bring.

            Months later, my first Lent. I didn’t recognize Millie in church. The reason was this: her Lenten fast was to forego dresses and make-up and come to church in men’s clothing. While others gave up chocolates or potato chips; Millie was sacrificing something precious to her sense of self. The whole congregation rejoiced on Easter Sunday when Millie walked down the aisle in her best Laura Ashley and sporting a beautiful Easter bonnet.

            My favorite Millie story is this: on Shrove Tuesday, we’d have a Mardi Gras party, which required extensive decorating of the parish hall. Our hospitality chairwoman, Jennifer, told me this story weeks afterwards. After setting up, Jennifer went into the Ladies room to change into her costume. And while she was putting on-or taking off, I can’t remember which- her pantyhose, she fell into a delightful conversation with Millie, who had been helping with the set up. Jennifer told me that later that night, after supper and as we were cleaning up, that she briefly thought: “Wait a minute. Millie is a guy.” But immediately, the realization, “Oh, it’s only Millie.”

            Millie found complete acceptance in a community that loved her for who she is, not in spite of who she is.

            When a columbarium was established at the church, the vestry voted unanimously to reserve a free niche for Millie. That even in death she would be surrounded by those who love her.

            These are perilous times. All across our nation, hundreds of laws are being passed to inflict unnecessary pain on trans kids and their parents;  cynical strategy by politicians to raise money and get votes. To inflict unnecessary anguish on parents who are trying to do their best for their child in a fraught situation is shameful. That some of our brother and sister Christians cheer these actions is tragic.

We break bread to share Christ’s body. We break open the Scriptures to hear Jesus’ call for compassion to literally feel the pain of others.

            Can we not but open our imaginations to both welcome and defend the vulnerable, with no exceptions, and labor to bring hope and healing to this broken land.

                                                                                                Amen 

April 30th, 2023: The Good Shepherd: Voice, Gate, Abundance by Reverend Judith ("Jude") Lyons

This is a day which the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Good Morning!  My name is Jude, and I am so happy to be here with you on this warm Good Shepherd Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter.

Good Shepherd Sunday –the Sunday that celebrates one of the most beloved images of Jesus for believers and non-believers alike.  There is a reason why the 23rd psalm brings comfort at memorials for those who haven’t been to church in decades.  And there is a reason we return to it year after year, deepening our understanding, helping us to breathe easier in its loving calm.

There are three words from John’s Good Shepherd Gospel today I’d like to unpack:  Voice, Gate, and Abundance.

The first asks: What is the Voice you follow?  Is it authentic?

I have friends – my age – who post something they have made or care about on Facebook and then despair over the comments, count how many likes, and then change what they wrote or made to gain approval from those they follow.

I know people, from BOTH parties, who say, boldly, that they never listen to or read anything from that other party, because that other party lies. They themselves listen to the voices of truth.

And I know people who say that unless your branding, marketing, messaging speaks with one voice, you will not be heard and you will have no influence, so how you manipulate your voice is what matters.

What is the Voice that you follow?  Is it authentic?

 My father was a radio personality in the 40‘s and 50’s.  Some of you may be old enough to remember— He was an announcer for Edgar Bergan, Phil Harris, Kay Kaiser, Jack Benny, and he was even the announcer in 1954 for the academy awards hosted by Bob Hope.

 His own show, for which he was best known, was “The Whistler”, a wonderful mystery program with a haunting whistle at the beginning.  My father had a powerful, well-trained voice radio voice.

 At that time, all actors aspired to achieve The American Standard Voice used by all the best actors and announcers. Today that voice sounds mildly British, with soft R’s and crisp diction: “Our” or “Power”.

Character actors, of course, learned to create comic voices that –more often than not-- were stereotypical, in ways that today we might find offensive, but the Radio- Television voice, the American Standard voice, was the sound associated with class,with education, with sophistication.

It was beautiful, soothing, predictable, and respectable.

It homogenized the sound; it standardized the voice.

We learned to trust that trained, created voice.

We thought the best voice, the most Authentic Voice was stripped of ethnicity, personality, emotion, location … difference.

Listen:

“Last night for dinner I had two desserts.” 

“Today is Good Shepherd Sunday”

“The plane crash killed 5 people and their dog.”

The words are different, but the sound is the same. The sound is disconnected from the person speaking. Disconnected from its context and its meaning.

I exaggerate, but only a little.

Is that what we mean today by Authentic— stripped, bloodless, predictable?

I don’t think so. At least I hope not.

The sheep follow the shepherd because they recognize and trust his voice. It is unique to the shepherd, it is authentically his. Not some standardized shepherd voice, but his own unique sound.

David made up songs and sang them to his sheep.

Jesus spoke, laughed and probably sang too.

An authentic voice is a voice we trust, a voice that is connected to the heart and soul of a human being a voice that helps us to know, a voice that gives comfort, a voice that includes. a voice that generates in us a desire to follow, a will to follow, we make a choice to follow.

And---the voices of those we love are imprinted in us forever.

My father died in 1966 at age 50, and just thinking of him now, I can hear his voice.

 How do you hear Jesus’ voice?

Allow your imagination to hear as the disciples hear, in the present moment.

The disciples heard his words, but they followed, like sheep, his voice.

 As a side note, Barbara Brown Taylor has written that sheep get a bad rap, promoted in part by cattle ranchers who found sheep unmanageable and therefore stupid. She explains that sheep are not stupid; they are different.  Cattle are herded from behind pushing and forcing the cattle forward with loud yells, sticks, ropes, whips, horses and dogs.

 Sheep tend to scatter and run away in fear.   Sheep are led from the front, they recognize their shepherd’s voice, and they follow. 

Jesus walks out of the pen, his sheep recognize and trust his voice, he walks in front of them and they follow. 

Jesus hikes up the hillside and the people follow.

Jesus has always led by attraction, not force. 

Force is how humans understand the world. 

Jesus is different, and he leads us to be different with him. 

The question remains, What is the voice that you follow?

Is it the voice of manipulation, pressure, insult, seduction, marketing, fear, enticements--

Or Is it the voice of Jesus, of God? 

Is it authentic? 

Does it ask but not insist?

It is interesting that in our Gospel today Jesus never says “I am the Good Shepherd”. 

There are 7 “I am” statements in John, and the one we hear today is “I am the Gate.”

Word Two:  Gate.

Historians note that sometimes shepherds were an actual gate!  Pens were built with high walls of stone, sometimes topped with prickly branches to discourage climbing over, and there was an opening to enter and exit.  Occasionally there was a real lockable gate, but when there wasn’t, the shepherd lay down across the opening to protect the sheep from predators and thieves.

 So when Jesus says his sheep “will come in and go out and find pasture,”  I enjoy imagining Jesus laying down across the opening with some straggler sheep walking over him!

Perhaps, today, we might extend the metaphor  to think of a gate not as a door that opens and closes, but more like a bridge, a gateway, Jesus says I am the bridge, I am right here, with you, listen for my voice, particularly when so many other voices are so loud, listen for my voice, you know it, you do, even when you think you’ve forgotten, you know it, follow me toward the still waters of love and peace.

And this takes us to word three:  Abundance.

Abundance---overflowing, more than enough, plenty, all you could ever need or want, miles and miles of it, abundant love, for everyone!!!

Jesus says, “I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly.” Which means: ‘I came that you may be so filled with love and beauty and gratitude and wonder, that it feels like your heart will burst in excitement to share it with others.  I came to open your eyes to the love of God to a depth beyond your knowing, to the life hAre and now And the life beyond this one.’

Jesus does not say I came to force, punish or shame you  so that you will obey, conform, or deny yourself pleasures, or that you should all be the same. Nor does he say that living life abundantly has anything to do with wealth or things.

Jesus knows that being able to silence the voices of the world in order to hear his voice, is not a mere switch we can turn on or off.

 Jesus knows that the struggles we face are real, the fear and pain we feel are real, the temptations for an easy fix are real, and that all of us can get tired and lost and lured in the direction of an inauthentic voice, even a dangerous voice.

 But the voice of our Good Shepherd, the voice of Jesus is always singing, always calling to us, ready for us when we lend an ear.

 Today’s Gospel reminds us, yet again, to ask ourselves if the Voice we are following is of God?

Jesus invites us to strengthen our hearing by following him over the bridge, to feel again the abundance of God’s gifts to us, to give us love and hope for another day.

AMEN 

January 15th, 2023: The Second Sunday After the Epiphany - Sermon by The Rev. J.R. Lander

John’s introduction of Andrew and Simon Peter is unique among the Gospels. While in Matthew, Mark and Luke, these first disciples are called in and around the Sea of Galilee. We first meet them as fishers, somewhere near the town of Capernaum. In John, however, these two are first disciples of John the Baptist. We meet them near where John was baptizing near the Southern end of the Jordan River.  John had just been telling the pharisees that he was not the Messiah, but rather the voice in the wilderness. Now, when John tells his two disciples that Jesus is the Lamb of God, they begin to follow Jesus.

Interestingly enough, the first question these two disciples ask Jesus is not “Who are you”, “What are you doing,” “Where are you going,” but rather they ask“where are you staying”.

The Greek here is the word “meno”, a word which can also be translated as “abide”. 

Meno is also used in other places in John.  Where we read “The word became flesh and lived among us”, the word translated as “lived” is also meno. Later in chapter 14, Jesus tells his disciples he is preparing an abiding place for them…. Also meno.  Later in the same chapter, Jesus tells them he will abide with his disciples…. Also meno. 

Thus a central act of Jesus in John is abiding…  living with…. Being present with.  It isn’t doing, or speaking, or saying…. It is simply being with.

We so often focus on “Doing” something. We want to make something, produce something, create something. We don’t consider just being. We don’t focus on how people are. We don’t just sit with them. When someone is sick or suffering, we ask “How are you doing?”

But Jesus is simply being present.

Yet is it such a simple thing… just to be present? Is it really so easy? I think it isn’t.

When my mother was dying last year, I flew home to be with her. On her last day, she was unconscious. She was on a external respirator, which forced air into her lungs. The seals on her face where so strong that it had cause bruising and bleeding. In fact, they had covered the area around her face in bandages so that it would cause more pain. Every time it forced air into her body, it cause her entire body to convulse.

I sat with her for about four hours. We turned on music. We called other family so they could say goodbye to her. But after four hours, I couldn’t take any more. I couldn’t sit with her any longer. It brought up too much pain for me… pain of her suffering… pain of our broken relationship… pain of my anger toward her… pain of my frustration with her. I could only be with her for so long. 

To be present isn’t really an easy thing. To be present means we have to sit with our fears, our anxieties, and our pain. To be present is actually to be vulnerable. It is to let our guard down, to let our walls down, and to open up to the other. 

To be present is something we so fear that we build up walls, literal and figurative. We live in a world of such walls… walls to keep ourselves in and others out. Whether these walls are around our homes, our neighborhoods, our nations, or even our hearts…. We keep building them. Truly being present is so frightening to us that we build those walls when the other needs us the most. 

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī was a 13th century Sufi Muslim poet and mystic from what is now Iran. Among the many writings we have of his, we have the following:

“Run from what's comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I'll be mad.”

“Run from what's comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I'll be mad.”

To truly abide with the other is to live dangerously.

Years ago, when in a sermon I used this very quote, some members of the congregation accused me of hypocrisy. I lived in a very nice house, not far from Alki Beach in Seattle. On one level, they missed the point of what I was saying. They took it too literally.

Yet, on another level, they were quite right. I, like so many, often take the safest and easiest route in my life. Yet I believe Jesus is calling us to more, to struggle, to go deeper.

St. Matthias has a long history of being present. Before I came to be with you, I told some friends I had in town that I would be coming here. They are self-described heathens, with no faith traditions. But they knew about St. Matthias because of the Soup Hour.

For nearly four decades St. Matthias has opened its doors to feed those in need. Yet since the pandemic began, this has ended to be replaced by a bagged lunch and some assistance at the gate. 

I am not sure if the Soup Hour will ever return as it was. And that may be OK. Everything has a time and a season, as we hear in Ecclesiasticus. The energy and passion for what was may have died. That may very well be clear in the $90k deficit we face for the current year. But God’s call for us to be present hasn’t ended. It is more vital now than every. 

Part of this transition period is for St. Matthias to discern how it will be present in Whittier in the future. Over the next several months there will be opportunities for you to join in the conversation, to help dream about St. Matthias’s future. The Soup Hour, even in its current form, may not be this congregation’s future. It isn’t a secret that Dottie will at some point retire. Dottie’s ministry among us has been so dedicated to this presence. So how will her presence and love be carried forward? Who will take her place?

In truth, no one person can take Dottie’s place. And maybe no one person should. The Soup Hour ministry began through the work of lay members of this congregation, not staff. I wonder if we as a parish have become too dependent on staff for this and other ministries. I believe that the future of ministry here is dependent on your leadership, not staff leadership. And you can do this. One area that this congregation shines in lay leadership is pastoral care. Pastoral Care here is driven by lay people. The future of St. Matthias now requires more of you to step up and take on responsibilities here.

Over the next two months, We are going to be calling on you to step up and take on leadership in this congregation. In the short term, we need candidates for the vestry. In the longer term, we need leaders to step up and join teams focused on Formation, Outreach, Finance and Buildings/Grounds. Your wardens and staff carry too much of this burden on their shoulders. It is time for you step up and be present in this leadership.

The words from Rumi are more powerful in light of these challenges. Live where you fear to live. Abide where you fear to abide. Be present where you fear being present. Take risks. Be bold. Tear down walls. And sit with each other. Given the challenges we face, it would be easy to throw up our hands in defeat. It would be easy just to walk away. But God calls us to something different, something greater, something harder. Are you willing to step up? Are you willing to be here, to be present here, to abide here?

December 25th, 2022, Christmas Sermon by The Rev. J.R. Lander

In 9 BCE, an altar was dedicated in Rome to the goddess Pax, or Peace. It was built in honor of Augustus’s return from 3 years fighting in Gaul and Hispania. It is sometimes known as the beginning of the Pax Romana, or the Roman Peace. The Pax Romana spanned around 200 years and marked a period of Roman supremacy in the Mediterranean and Europe. 

The Roman concept of peace wasn’t the same as ours, where there is no war or violence between parties. Instead, it meant a time when Roman power was so supreme that no one could rival it. And it was a peace that primarily benefited the wealthy and powerful. It was a time when trade could flourish, as trade routes were safe and secure. While it certainly was better for the poor than periods of war, it was not a period that benefitted all equally. And more than that, it was a peace that by definition depended on the power and strength of the Roman Empire. It was a peace which was secure only because one empire ruled over many different nations and religions.

A key part of the unity of this empire was the imperial cult, where Roman emperors were seen as divine and to be worshiped. Augustus was chief among them. Stories even circulated that Augustus’s mother had been intimate with the god Apollo, suggesting that Augustus had been the product of a divine birth.

When Rome conquered a people, they were allowed to worship their own gods as long as they also worshipped the Roman imperial divinities. Jews had been given an exception to this, but that exception had been withdrawn by the time the Gospel of Luke was written. So to be part of the Pax Romana was not an easy peace. It meant a loss of independence, freedom, and even identity. Rome was the aribert and guarantor of peace, and to threaten Rome was to threaten that power and that peace. And that peace primarily benefited the rich and the powerful, both those in Rome and those around the empire who supported Rome. 

The Roman Empire credited Augustus with the dawn of this period of peace, hence the construction of the Ari Pacis. It would be fair to call him a prince of peace. He was seen as divine, and even thought to be the product of a divine union. 

And it is in this context that the evangelist we know as Luke wrote this Gospel. It’s important to remember that by the time this was written, long after the life of Jesus, the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. The central symbol of Jewish identity had been wiped off the face of the earth, by the supposed divine power of Rome. And while the wealthy of the empire were benefitting from Roman power, the poor and those who refused to acknowledge that power were suffering.

So in the context of this world, the person of Jesus comes into the world as a poor child in ancient Palestine. 

We could get caught up in trying to tell the story of Jesus’s birth in Luke’s gospel as history, but it isn’t and the writer didn’t intend it to be.

We actually don’t know anything for certain about Jesus birth. And it certainly didn’t happen as either Matthew or Luke wrote. But the facts of the story aren’t important, What is important, however, are the truths that the writer and evangelists were attempting to share

At the heart of that truth is God’s love for the poor, the oppressed and there persecuted. He was born into a poor family from a hilltop town. How big Nazareth was at Jesus’ time is up for debate. But it wasn’t a major city. And we know that Joseph was a manual laborer. So we know that he came from a poorer family.

Luke’s story emphasizes this. This child was of a poor family. How vastly difference this is from the Roman imperial source of peace… Caesar Augustus and his heirs. Luke emphasizes that this child was born of divine origin. The church has understood this as being God becoming incarnate in this child… God becoming one of us in the form of a poor, helpless child, from a small out of the way hill top village. 

For us, God did not come in glory, but rather in humility. God did not come in power, but rather in poverty. God not come in strength, but rather in weakness. 

What a statement to say that God has joined humanity in the midst of our weakness. We use the word “incarnation” to describe God becoming human in Jesus. Incarnation literally means “in the meat” or “in the flesh”. In Jesus, God joins in the messiness of our lives. He isn’t born in a palace, but rather the messiness of life. He is not born as one greater than us, but rather is born as one of us. 

And for Luke, the promise of salvation is primarily for the poor. The first people who hear of this miraculous birth are the shepherds in the field. In the ancient world shepherds were most often women or young boys from extremely poor families. They lived on the edge of society. They made their living protecting the sheep from predator animals. They were uneducated, weak, and often forgotten. But here the writer has the angels come and announce the birth of this child to them. This child, this savior, this Messiah… he comes in the form of a poor child and will bring salvation primarily to the poor and the outcast. 

Christmas for us brings a lot of nostalgia. We are surrounded by our Victorian era inspired decoration, and Christmas traditions which bring us joy and happiness. That is good and fine. There is nothing wrong with our traditions, as long as they bring us that joy. Filling our homes with greens and lights, sharing gifts with those we love, singing lovely carols… that’s all wonderful.

Yet at the same time we must also remember the fundamental truth that our Gospels share with us. This child, this God-incarnate, this helpless infant… this baby became human among and for the poor, the oppressed, and the outcast. The promise of his birth is the antithesis of the powerful and the elite. His glory is found in a humble stall. The hope he brings comes not with might but with love. 

As we celebrate this beautiful night, in all the glory of our traditions, let us remember the origin…. God incarnate in a helpless poor child…. God incarnate whose message is for the weak….  God incarnate whose salvation is first for the forgotten and oppressed. 

To end, I wish to offer you the following, offered by the new Bishop of Connecticut and written by Quinn Caldwell, Pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church in Syracuse, New York:

What Are You Here For?

By Quinn G. Caldwell

If you came to this place expecting a tame story, you came to the wrong place.

If you came for a story that does not threaten you, you came for a different story than the one we tell.

If you came to hear of the coming of a God who only showed up so that you could have a nice day with your loved ones, then you came for a God whom we do not worship here.

For even a regular baby is not a tame thing. And goodness that cannot threaten complacency and evil is not much good at all, and a God who would choose to give up power and invincibility to become an infant for you, certainly didn't do it just you could have dinner.

But.

If you came because you think that unwed teenage mothers are some of the strongest people in the world.

If you came because you think that the kind of people who work third shift doing stuff you'd rather not do might attract an angel's attention before you, snoring comfortably in your bed, would.

If you came because you think there are wise men and women to be found among undocumented travelers from far lands and that they might be able to show you God.

If you came to hear a story of tyrants trembling while heaven comes to peasants.

If you came because you believe that God loves the animals as much as the people and so made them the first witnesses to the saving of the world.

If you came for a story of reversals that might end up reversing you.

If you came for a tale of adventure and bravery, where strong and gentle people win, and the powerful and violent go down to dust, where the rich lose their money but find their lives and the poor are raised up like kings.

If you came to be reminded that God loves you too much to leave you unchanged.

If you came to follow the light even if it blinds you.

If you came for salvation and not safety, then: ah, my friends, you are in the right place.

Source: "All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas" by Quinn Caldwell

The Feast of All Saints (Transferred) - The Sermon from November 6th, 2023 (The Rev. J.R. Lander)

In 2004, science fiction author David Mitchell released his novel “Cloud Atlas”. In 2012, it was turned into a film by the same name. The book received great reception, and even Bill Gates even included it in his list of must reads. Cloud Atlas is story of reincarnation, and redemption. It is highly complex novel, with 6 interwoven stories that span time and space. David Mitchell describes is own book as follows:

“Literally all of the main characters, except one, are reincarnations of the same soul in different bodies throughout the novel identified by a birthmark ... that's just a symbol really of the universality of human nature. The title itself Cloud Atlas, the cloud refers to the ever changing manifestations of the Atlas, which is the fixed human nature which is always thus and ever shall be. So the book's theme is predacity, the way individuals prey on individuals, groups on groups, nations on nations, tribes on tribes. So I just take this theme and in a sense reincarnate that theme in another context …”

I find Mitchell’s own description is a dark one. I think it misses the redemption that is also very present in each of these stories, if incomplete. Human nature does have recurring patterns of greed, abuse, and murder; but it also has repeating instances of humans fighting for justice. And the stories Mitchell created each have an example of justice being sought, and hope being given.

The central character in one of these stories is Sonmi-45, a human clone & slave-worker. Her entire life is meant to be spent at a fast food restaurant in a post-apocalyptic Korea. With the helps of others, she escapes and becomes aware both of her servitude and oppression forced upon her by others. She is ultimately arrested & executed as a threat to the corporate state that rules her time. Yet before she dies, she recounts her story to an archivist. As part of this she says the following:

“Our lives are not our own; from womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness we birth our future.”

Now I do not share Mitchhell’s dark worldview, nor do I believe in incarnation. But I have found this quote speaks to me, and to our Christian understanding of redemption. I have found that it speaks to the interconnectedness that we understand as Christians to those who have gone before us, those who are now, and those who will come after.

Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints’, which actually falls on November 1st. It is followed by its companion Feast of All Souls’. Through these two feasts we remember and celebrate the lives of all those who have gone before us…. Those we know, and those we do not know; those whose names are recorded in history, and those whose names are lost; those who are famous and those who are forgotten.

The origin of these feasts is a bit murky. The early church did celebrate the lives of martyrs, those who gave their life for the Christian Faith. This was made official in 609 by Pope Boniface IV, who declared a celebration of all martyrs on May 13th. In the 800’s, Churches in Ireland, England and Bavaria began to hold a celebration of the lives of all Saints’ on or around November 1st. By the 9th century this had become official in the realms ruled by the Frankish king Charlemagne, and spread through all of the Western Church within a couple of centuries.

In the Celtic world, this Feast seems to have been an adaptation of the Celtic Samhain festival. This was a harvest festival that marked the beginning of the darker time of the year. Cattle was brought down from summer fields, sheep were slaughtered to be frozen for the winter, and grains were stored. And in the midst of all of this, thanksgiving was given for the bounties of the warmer months.

In the Celtic world, this festival was also a liminal time. Celts believed that the veil that separated the worlds of the living and the dead was very thin. And in this liminal time of year, this thin veil became somewhat porous. Ancient gods, faeries, and the dead were believed to come across and bring a bit of havoc to the living. The living sought to appease these spirits by leaving out food & drink, lighting bonfires, and even dressing up in costumes.

The church used this pre-existing festival and turned it into a celebration of those who have died, and were not with God. Though adaption of this feast, the church used its traditions to teach the faithful about the promise of Christ’s salvation. This liminal time of year became a celebration of our connectedness to the faithful who have gone before us.

This connection between the living and the dead was understood throughout Christianity, long before the adaptation of the Celtic festival. In the first couple of centuries of Christianity, The church established a practice of celebrating Eucharist on the tombs of saints and martyrs. This practice evolved into the tradition of placing relics of saint in the altars of churches. Placing relics in altars is still the practice in Roman Catholic Church, and of Anglican churches in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. It is a reminder that when we celebrate the Eucharist, we believe that we are connected to the faithful in every generation. Eucharist is an eschatalogical act, connecting us with the end of time when all will be gathered at God’s feast. Having a physical remnant of a holy saint, a saint believed to be in the presence of God, helps us understand that connection between the living and the dead.

All of this speaks to the Christian hope of redemption. We believe that life does not end with death. We believe there is hope of salvation, and that we are still connected with those who have gone before. It is at the heart of the Eucharist, it is at the heart of Christian hope. It is at the heart of Jesus’ promise.

But that connection isn’t simply about our interconnectedness with the dead. We believe that we, as the Church, are part of God’s endeavor of redemption. Through the Church, God is redeeming the broken world. Through us the world is transformed… hope is given, justice is sought, peace is made.  This is us, as the Church, sembodying that which Jesus speaks in the eatitudes… the blessings and “woes” we have just heard from Luke. The Church, across time and space, at its best, lifts up the lowly, feeds the hungry, loves the reviled, serves the poor, and embraces the stranger. 

As we celebrate this day those we no longer see, remember those who have died whose names we know, and give thanks for the countless ones whose names are not known, let us remember that we are connected in ways we cannot fathom.  Let us remember that the works of our hands, however small they might seem, are part of God’s much larger plan. Let us give thanks for the saints in every generation who have served God in their lives, and pray that we might do the same.

“Our lives are not our own; from womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness we birth our future.”