Epiphany 1 & The Baptism of our Lord, 26-A: Systemic change as ministry

Lectionary: Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17 

En el nombre de Dios, nuestra luz y nuestra vida... 

In the name of God, our light and our life. Amen. 

We are now liturgically in the season of light, of enlightenment. By its very nature, the Season of Epiphany is a season of movement: from one experience to another, one understanding to another.

The word Epiphany means revelation, and it points to that “aha” moment when our understanding has been divinely and suddenly expanded and clarified. The movement in this season is one of transformation.

This season celebrates that the light of Christ, that is to say, the revelation of Christ, is given to us again. Year after year, we receive the gift of insight upon insight, of another profound realization that transforms our experience of our relationship with God, the world, and ourselves.

And when I say, “we,” I mean, we as individuals AND as a people. When we, the church, representatives of Christ on the earth, receive the gift of transformed knowing and experience given to us by the love that created, forms, and sends us, we see the actions in the world around us differently.

The light of Christ enlightens us so that we can see with the eyes of God - a skill that takes time, support, and intention to develop. That’s what the church is meant to provide.

Seeing with the eyes of God means loving all whom God has created – all – even our enemies, persecutors, and those who aim to do us harm. It isn’t easy, I promise, but it is what Jesus commanded us to do in Mt 5:44.

John the Baptist’s ministry was transformative because Jewish people didn’t get baptized – proselytes did. A proselyte was a person in the process of converting to Judaism, and Baptism was a ritual purification for them. Remember, unless one was ritually clean, one couldn’t participate in worship. John instituted systemic change, however, by baptizing everyone as a symbolic act of repentance and forgiveness of sin.

We need to remember that Jesus approaching John for baptism was shocking, as evidenced by John’s confused response. As we look at this story today, questions often niggle in the back of our minds... why would Jesus need to be baptized? From what sin would he need to be washed clean?

The answer was simple, as Jesus said: it is proper, which is suitable, even required, to fulfill all righteousness. Baptize me, Jesus is saying, because God is about to reveal the true and right relationship between humanity and divinity.

The gospel writer then describes how Jesus saw the heavens opening up to him as he came up out of the birth-water of Baptism into a new life. From the opened heavens, the spirit of God descended on Jesus the way a dove does: gently. And a voice from heaven affirmed this intimate connection, revealing what right relationship between divinity and humanity is: the spirit of God co-existing within the human body in a cooperative, symbiotic relationship.

St. Teresa of Avila describes this divine-human unity, saying, "it is like rain falling from the heavens into a river or spring; there is nothing but water there and it is impossible to divide or separate the water belonging to the river from that which fell from the heavens." ("Interior Castle," 235)

Do we believe that? If we do, then no human body should be subjected to abuse, neglect, disrespect, or exile because all humanity exists in this revealed relationship with God. It always was so, but became demonstrably and undeniably so at Jesus’ baptism.

When Jesus served, he didn’t just heal and redeem individuals – he wasn’t out saving us one at a time. Jesus brought redemption to the whole world for all time. His ministry actions led to systemic changes in the church, government, and the hearts of people. Our ministry actions should be doing the same in our time.

Many of you know that I was an advocate for adults and children who suffered domestic and/or sexual violence during the 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s. Back then, marital rape was not considered a crime in every state (not until 1993), and there were no stalking laws until a few years later.

The Violence Against Women Act (known as VAWA), enacted in 1994, represented systemic change, federally acknowledging domestic and sexual assault, dating violence, stalking, and, later, human trafficking as crimes and offering compensation and assistance to the victims. More importantly, VAWA provided funding for community response programs and training for law enforcement and the judiciary to help transform their understanding of and response to these crimes.

What we learned as advocates in those decades was that addressing each criminal act didn’t change much. We knew we had to get upstream, as the saying goes, ahead of where the bodies were falling into the river, to stop the continuing destruction.

Change happened, I’m happy to say, when the entire system transformed its understanding of and response to these crimes. Lately, as I watch the unfolding of the Epstein scandal and the frequent blaming of victims of all sorts, I realize that we still have a long way to go before justice is rolling down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing river, as the prophet Amos said (5:24).

I love the prophets – especially Isaiah. If you read the entirety of Isaiah (or any prophet), you see a transformation of his understanding as his spiritual proclamations transition from anger over injustice to clarity about the divine establishment of a new way of being and the hope that engenders.

God, who spoke creation into being in Genesis, continually speaks a new reality into being, as we hear in Isaiah: “See the former things have come to pass, and the new things I now declare...” In this new reality, the faithful servant brings forth justice as a light to the nations, opening the blind eyes of the powerholders in the existing system, setting people free from darkness and imprisonment of all kinds: poverty, vulnerability, threats and oppression by people in power over them. Systemic change.

Transformed understanding and experience are the fruits of the season of Epiphany, gifts that take us from where we are in our spiritual understanding to where we need to be to be useful to God as co-creators of the new thing God is doing in and among us now. Transformed understanding and experience are the gifts Jesus gave us at his Baptism by John in the Jordan River.

For Episcopalians, the sacrament of Baptism is an outward sign, just as Jesus’ baptism was an outward sign, of the inward and spiritual grace of our union with God in Christ. (BCP, 858) We don't understand Baptism as a form of ecclesiastical fire insurance, that is, as a go-straight-to-heaven card for when we die.

In fact, it isn’t about what happens after our death at all. It’s about how we live.

Our ministry, like the ministry of Jesus, must be characterized by humility, hospitality, mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Like Jesus, we must break bread with foreigners, sinners, curmudgeons, narcissists, and all others who are brought near to us by God.

Boldly proclaiming a new revelation of God’s mercy and forgiveness, Jesus offered all people he encountered, including the religious and governmental leadership that ultimately killed him, forgiveness, which sets us all free from the bondage of sin. So must we.

Jesus generated systemic change by expanding the boundaries of God’s kingdom to include the least and the lost, the outcast and disrespected, the oppressed and the oppressor. So must we.

As I said, it isn’t easy. Thankfully, we do this together, and we have our sacrament of Baptism to guide us on our way.

I invite us all now to stand in body or spirit and renew the vows of our Baptism.

Epiphany, 2025-A: Given to the light

Lectionary: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7,10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

En el nombre del Dios único, santo, y viviente…. In the name of the one, holy, and living God. Amen.

In Spanish ‘to give birth to’ translates literally as ‘to give to the light”: “para dar a luz”… Isn’t that wonderful? To be born is to be given to the light.

When we baptize a child of God, they are born again, of water and spirit, as Jesus taught us in John 3:3. As their baptismal candle is lit from the Paschal candle, the priest proclaims: “receive the light of Christ…” and we remember the power of this light.

This liturgical action isn’t us giving them a keepsake candle. It’s us giving them to the Light. THIS is being born again, despite what other religious voices may have told you.

We are all given to the Light who gives us the freedom and responsibility to develop, nurture, and steward all of the gifts of God in creation and in one another… to participate as co-creators in the plan of God’s reconciling love. 

If there’s any time we know we are co-creators with God, it’s when we participate in or witness the birth of a child. During the birth there is that moment when the baby passes from the dark, protective environment of the womb, into the light of the delivery room where we stand ready to receive the gift of this new life. In that magical moment, our hearts thrill with the joy of it.

Amazingly, that joy doesn’t fade. Every time we see or hold that baby, that same thrill overtakes us as we marvel at the miracle we are holding: a tiny human, so precious, so beautiful, and the love that binds us is visceral and cumulative. The more we are in each other’s presence, the stronger our bond of love grows.

Today is the feast of the Epiphany, which marks the end of the season of Christmas. One day, I hope we are among the Episcopalians who follow the celebration of Holy Eucharist on Epiphany with the de-greening of the church and a burning of those greens. It’s beautiful symbolism – and who doesn’t love a good bonfire?!

Think about it - to stand in the presence of the great light of an Epiphany fire, and to feel its warmth is to make truly manifest the message of this day. It connects us to our forebears who followed the light throughout their exile, until they arrived at the promised land; and the shepherds who followed the light of a star to find the Christ-child.

It also points us toward our future – a future as uncertain for us as it was for our forbears; a future that requires us to get up and keep moving relying totally on the Light to guide us.

Standing in the presence of the great light of an Epiphany fire connects us to the experience of the magi, who, as Matthew tells us, traveled so far to visit the newborn Messiah, that it likely took them about two years. Two years!

These magi were Zoroastrians, astrologers who studied the stars and interpreted dreams. Matthew calls them magi, the source of the words magic and magician, casting them as sorcerers – definitely not a welcomed group among faithful Jewish people of the time.

According to Zoroastrian belief, every person is connected to a star. This presence of this particular unusual and magnificent star signified the birth of an unusual and magnificent person. It was so compelling to the magi, that they packed up their camels, loaded up their treasure chests with gifts fit for a king, and headed out to Jerusalem to find the person connected to this star.

Although the hymn tells us there were three wise men or magi, all we actually know from Scripture is that the magi brought three gifts – gold, a symbol of earthly wealth and power, frankincense, a symbol of spiritual power used in the anointing of kings and priests, and myrrh, an expensive plant extract used by royalty as perfume and medicine, and to prepare a body for burial.

When we chalk our doors on Epiphany we use the letters C, M, and B which some say refer to the traditional names of the three wise men: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, but these names didn’t turn up until the 5th-century in a Greek manuscript and later in a 6th century mosaic in an Italian church. The letters C, M, and B, actually refer to the Latin phrase, “Christus Mansionem Benedicat” which means “Christ Bless this House.”

Back to the story… When the magi found the Holy Family, their hearts thrilled with joy. Why? Zoroastrians weren’t awaiting a Messiah as the Jewish people were. Neither were they seeking freedom from oppression. These were rich, powerful Gentiles – outsiders to the message and detached from the prophecy being fulfilled.

Mary and Joseph welcomed the magi into their home, violating protocol by doing so, and when the visitors saw Jesus, they knelt before him and paid him homage – an astounding gesture of servitude. In this moment, the revelation of God in Christ brought divine unity where there had been centuries of human division, crumbling the walls that divided the Jewish people from the Gentiles, the rich from the poor, and the powerful from the vulnerable.

Matthew ends this story by telling us that the magi, who believed in the power and significance of dreams, heard in a dream that they should not return to Herod, so they went home a different way, risking retaliation by a politically powerful human.

In our world today, we are so distracted and diverted by electronic voices, but we always have the choice to make time to hear the voice of God for us. Then, hearing the voice of God in a dream or in prayer, we must choose whether or not to heed it, knowing it might mean risking retaliation by human political authority.

It helps that our weekly reunions on Sundays and Wednesdays continually strengthen the bonds of love that unite us to God and to one another as a parish family. Together we can make choices that might frighten us to make alone.

It is often during these weekly reunions that being in the presence of God in Christ brings us to our knees – metaphorically or actually. In the presence of the powerful love of God in Christ, we too can open our treasure chests (again - metaphorical or actual) and freely give gifts that reflect what we’ve been given.

I’m willing to bet that we’ve all had moments when our hearts thrilled with joy. Honestly, one of those experiences would be enough to last a lifetime, but the love of God for us is so lavish that we get these thrilling moments of connection to God and one another often, throughout our lives, and each time they happen, they strengthen the bonds of our love.

The Feast of the Epiphany calls us to remember that the light of God in Christ continues to break into the world and compels us to get up and follow wherever it leads, to do our part as co-creators with God, giving all that we are and all that we have to this Light. Amen.

Christmas, 25-A: We are the manger

Lectionary: Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96, Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14(15-20) 

En el nombre de Dios: creador, redentor, y santificador… 

In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen. 

For whatever reason, when we think about the birth of our Savior, we picture it happening in the dark of night. I think of the hymn Silent Night, which we will sing later in this service.

I don’t know if art gave that to us, or if we reasoned that the natal star signifying Jesus’ birth would be seen at night or if it actually did happen at night. However we got there, it seems a perfect picture.

Darkness is such a powerful spiritual symbol. It’s a place of quiet in which God creates. In the deep, dark soil of the earth, God transforms a seed into a fruitful harvest. In the dark quietness of a woman's womb, God creates new life.

Darkness is attractive to us. We sleep in the dark, restoring our bodies and minds. In darkness, the world is at rest (unless they are at war). 

We love a candlelit dinner or prayer service, like our weekly Taizé service. The quiet calms us. The peace enters us. God enters us.

Darkness can also seem frightening. Unable to see our surroundings can put us off balance and make us afraid to move.

That’s the beauty of darkness, though. When we’re off balance or can’t move, we have the opportunity to walk by faith, not by sight. In the darkness, we can rest in the faith that God loves us, protects us, and is always waiting to be known to us in a new way, which is what Christmas is all about.

Culture tends to judge darkness as bad and light as good. Even church culture often does that. But there can’t be one without the other, so instead of holding them as opposing, we can appreciate them as symbiotic, mutually beneficial.

Without darkness, the light would overwhelm us. Without light, the darkness would swallow us. Both are of God and both give us life.

One of my favorite modern-day theologians, Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor, gave a lecture in 2013 at the Rothko Chapel in TX. Seeing the paintings in that chapel in person, Barbara+ noted that what stood out for her were the deep royal blues, violets, and the gold she saw. She said, “The darkness of these panels is the luminous kind, and not the bossy kind. They don’t tell me what to see. They make room for me to see whatever I see, even if that is gold in the dark.” (Source) (Image: Philip Jonson)

Christmas is this luminous kind of darkness that opens us to see the gold.

The world teaches us to be afraid of the dark. God demonstrates to us that darkness is sacred, fertile, and life-giving. The world teaches us to fear and sometimes scorn our humanness, but by becoming one of us, Jesus revealed to us our own sacredness and the sacredness of all humanity. This was the reconciling work Jesus started and asked us to continue in his name.

How are we doing with that? Have you seen the news lately? Do we respect, protect, and honor the dignity of every human being as we vow to do in our Baptism?

I’m a real fan of British and Russian literature: Bronte, Austin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky. Part of what I like, apart from the brilliant writing, is the cultural mirror it provides. Humanity may not be where we should be yet, but we’ve come a long way from the entrenched classism of the19th century Golden Age… or have we?

Whenever we hear rhetoric that dehumanizes or denigrates anyone or any nation, language that elevates one group above another, we have turned away from our faith in the reconciling work of Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God, whose birth into the human race, we celebrate today. Whenever we glorify earthly or military power or coerce of people through threats of destruction or starvation, we have turned away from the way of love established by the Prince of Peace who is born in us again at Christmas.

Christ was born in a manger more than two millennia ago. He is born again today in us.

We, individually and a a church community, are the manager where Christ is born today because we are the dwelling place of God in the world. The reason God is born again in us this day is so that we might live into our divine purpose, which is to bear the love of God into the world until all people, all nations know that God’s love is real, present, more powerful than anything or any way devised by humans, and already working to redeem all things, all people, all the time.

Our Bishop, Deon Johnson, said this about Christmas: 

“As we walk once more to the manger, we do so in a world marked by division, fear, and deep uncertainty. This is nothing new. Jesus was born into a time much like our own, a world shaped by anxiety and unrest, where the powers of authority were firmly in control, where fear was weaponized to still and to silence. And yet, God chose not spectacle or force, but vulnerability. God came among us as Emmanuel, God-with-us, disarming the powerful through the ordinariness of love made flesh, redeeming the world not from above, but from within.”

We are partners with Christ in this continuing work of redemption. In the ordinariness of our flesh dwells the powerful, transforming love of God. I think Marianne Williamson was right when she said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” We are powerful beyond measure, not because of us, but because of God’s spirit in us.

Tonight (today), I invite us all to bask in the Christmas experience as we worship. After sharing the holy food of Communion, we will pause, dim the lights, kneel before the Lord (in our bodies or our spirits), and sing Silent Night. As we sing (or listen), we have the opportunity to open ourselves to enter the luminous darkness where we find that the love of God in Christ has entered us, making us all holy, sacred, reconciled, and powerful through him.

Christ is born in us this day. Alleluia! 

Merry Christmas! Amen.

Advent 4, 2025-C: Extraordinary faithfulness

Lectionary: Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

 

En el nombre de Dios, creador, redentor, y santificador… In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen. 

Extraordinary faithfulness. This was a term used by one of our Bible studiers this week as we engaged our readings for today. Mary and Joseph both showed extraordinary faithfulness in recent gospel stories - last week with the angel’s in-person (so to speak) visitation to Mary, and this week with the angel’s visitation to Joseph in a dream. 

The question came up: Will we do now what Mary and Joseph did then? It’s a good question, which we’ll get to shortly.

First, let’s take a look at our Collect because it speaks to how Mary and Joseph lived extraordinarily faithful lives. The Collect begins: “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, with your daily visitation…”

What do we hear when we hear the word “purify?” If we look at how Jesus used this word during his ministry (think about the Beatitudes we read recently), we learn that to be pure is to be completely aligned with the will of God.

Our readings today give us a clue about what God’s will is. God is ready to do a new thing, to be known in a new way, and God needs us to stop thwarting that plan, as Ahaz did, and get on board with it, as Joseph did.

In the reading from Isaiah, the Jewish people have been besieged by war, but their King, Ahaz, who is visited by God, can’t or won’t respond faithfully because he has put his obedience to the human-made rule of not putting God to the test ahead of God’s current call to him.

Seeing this, Isaiah issues a prophecy: “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” This isn’t a prophecy about Jesus. It’s about a boy born then whose identity we don't know, but we do know the outcome of the prophecy: God acted through the boy, and by his adulthood, the city and the nation were saved.

In our gospel story, this prophecy is referenced and connected, but taken even further. The angel tells Joseph that he is to name the son born of Mary, Jesus, Jehosua, which means YHWH (God) is salvation, for he will save his people from their sins.

Jesus isn’t the first person in our Scripture with this name. The first Jehosua, Joshua, who succeeded Moses as the leader of the Israelites, led his people to military victory, saving them from their enemies.

This Jehosua, Jesus, will save the people from their sins. This matters because that’s something only God can do. This Jehosua, Jesus, is not just a man in whom God is acting. This Jehosua is God.

In the gospel story, Joseph is presented as a faithful Jewish man. His betrothed, Mary, has turned up pregnant and he knows it isn’t his. In his day, the law required Joseph to divorce Mary, that is, to nullify their contract to marry. The law also required that Mary be stoned to death as an adulterer.

Joseph, being a decent man, considers disassociating from Mary quietly, ostensibly, not outing her as pregnant, in order to spare Mary’s life and her family the shame. Anyone who’s ever lived in a small town, however, knows it won’t be long before the whole town knows the whole story.

An angel, speaking to Joseph in a dream, tells him that Mary has not been unfaithful to him or their contract. The angel then quotes Isaiah to him, assuring him of God’s presence in this moment.

If he consents to participate in what is being asked of him, Joseph will pay a heavy social, religious, amd interior price. His consent will require him to let go of his expectations and all of the religious guardrails that gave him security. He will have to trust, and launch into something new and unknown - with Mary and Mary’s baby - as protector and usher of this new thing God is doing in the world. 

Extraordinary faithfulness.

Looking back at last week, the same is true for Mary. The angel is asking her to become pregnant before she marries, putting her very life at risk. Mary asks the obvious, ‘How would that work?,’ then accepts the angel’s explanation that it is God at work in her. Mary consents, surrendering her whole life to God’s care. Mary had to let go her own expectations for how her life would be and the religious and social guardrails that safeguarded her. She would have to deal with the shame-filled rumors that would follow her and head off with Joseph into something new and unknown. And she did!

Extraordinary faithfulness.

When Steve and I were newly married and trying to start a family - it wasn’t easy. I suffered multiple miscarriages and was feeling desolate and afraid.

I had quit working full-time in marketing to reduce my stress, hoping that would help my body hold on to a pregnancy. We finally did have two babies, 13 months apart! God’s abundance (ha!).

It was a LOT, so we made the decision for me to say at home. This was a huge emotional risk for me: becoming financially dependent on a man again (even though this one was good and worthy of my trust).

Living without my salary meant we couldn’t keep up with our country-club lifestyle. When Christmas came around, we couldn’t load the living room with gifts as we’d done before.

It became clear to us that we had been trapped in the societal commercialization of Christmas: the decorations and parties, presents for everyone, ensuring our kids had the “it” gift for the year… It was exhausting and expensive.

So, we made a decision. We stepped out of the rat race of commercialized Christmas and refocused on what Christmas means: the love of God being born in us in a new way. How could we experience and share that?

We decided to connect with loved ones and make memories, rather than buying gifts. We informed our extended families and friends that we were no longer buying them presents. Instead, we would spend time doing something fun - making memories to last a lifetime. We wondered if our friends would abandon us and our strange new way, but they didn’t.

This new way gave us a sense of freedom we still enjoy. It also has given us so many cherished memories, something we value far more than any trendy new gadget or toy.

Moving outside of accepted expectations and established societal and religious structures can be scary and lonely. We need support. We need each other, and God makes those connections for us.

Last week I led a retreat at a church in VA where I met a woman of extraordinary faithfulness. Two of their members, young immigrant women with proper documentation, had been illegally arrested by ICE, and sent to detention in FL. (News article) The church was (and is) reeling from the injustice and terrified for the girls’ safety.

The rector found herself fighting against an unjust system outside of her knowledge, experience, and expectations as a rector. She gave her ‘yes’ to God and suddenly had a whole new job, on top of leading her church.

On the edge of burnout, she texted me: “I’m jaggy and cranky, over-tired and worried. I’m usually good but somehow the potential deportation to certain death of women I love has taken my normal self care off the table.“

My reply to her was: “Give all you have without fear. God’s abundance is enough and will carry you through. Please listen to your body and trust the moments of rest God sends you. All shall be well. You have been chosen.”

“The Holy Spirit did a good thing when she connected us. [the rector said]. I was expecting something amazing for our Vestry and congregation …but I wasn’t expecting a soul-friend at the same time.”

Society looks out for itself. God looks out for us. 

 Knowing which expectations and societal or religious structures to walk away from or fight against requires discernment: time in prayer with God, listening for the voice that tells us when, how, and where to go. As we prayed for in our Collect: Purify our conscience, Almighty God….

Inviting God to purify our conscience is a daily practice, not just an Advent thing. We must intentionally, prayerfully, and daily enter God’s presence so that God can guide us just as God guided Mary, Joseph, and so many others in the stories of our faith.

So… back to the question: Will we do now what Mary and Joseph did then? Will we a) listen for the voice of God, b) ponder the request God makes of us with open hearts, c) let go of our expectations and guardrails, and, d) respond with our yes?

I pray, for the sake of the world Jesus loved and gave his life for, that we will. Amen.

Feast of Christ the King & Baptism, 2025-C: Transformed by forgiveness

Lectionary: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Canticle 16; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43 

En el nombre de Dios, por cuya compasión tenemos redención mediante el perdón de los pecados… 

In the name of God, by whose compassion we have redemption through the forgiveness of sin. Amen.

Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King as we prepare to baptize Leo Sanford.

As people who have the freedom of a democratic republic in our DNA, the term “King” can be a bit of a disconnect for us, but remember that for the ancient Jewish people, the King was a Shepherd… like David, whose role is to love, protect, and guide the people of God.

As Jeremiah notes, some human kings weren’t loving or protective, but the redeeming love of God is greater than all of that and is a certainty. When Zechariah set out John the Baptist’s divine purpose in Canticle 9, he proclaimed ours too. We, too, my children, are prophets of the Most High. We are to give people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sin. That’s the key.

Sin separates us and leads to violence, hatred, and harm. Jesus, who is the Christ, reunites us, making us one again. So it might make a little more sense now that our gospel for this day comes from the passion – the crucifixion - because that is where the very notion of kingship is transformed.

Great kings in our salvation history, like David, brought peace and harmony, but none has brought eternal redemption except for Jesus, and he did it in a way that no one saw coming. It wasn’t by being a great ruler or a great warrior, but by the forgiveness of sin.

I want to pause for a moment to reflect on what “sin” is. Most of us talk about sin as those things we do that are wrong or harmful. That’s partly right.

Theologian Karl Barth talks about sin as a state of separation from God. In that state of separation, we choose to do things that are wrong and harmful. So, it’s kind of like the disease versus the symptoms. We know there is a disease by the presence of its symptoms. We can treat the symptoms, but unless we cure the disease, we aren’t healed.

Jesus brought us redemption by the forgiveness of sin by bringing down all that separated us from God and one another. Jesus didn’t just treat the symptoms; he cured the disease. This is our King.

In his most miserable, painful, humiliating moment as a human, Jesus prayed, and his prayer takes our breath away: “Father, forgive them…” At our most miserable moments, when we are being unfairly treated, when those with power over us are acting corruptly, is this our prayer?

When I was working on my doctorate, I went to England to study. I visited a place called the Cathedral at Coventry. During WWII, this cathedral was bombed by the Nazis because under it was a hidden arsenal. When you go to the cathedral now, you see that they didn’t clear away the rubble of the original cathedral; they simply built the new cathedral and attached them with a walkway. So it’s one cathedral: the bombed-out shell and the new place of worship; and every day at noon they hold a prayer service in the bombed-out shell. It’s a very powerful experience. Photo credit: Valori Mulvey Sherer

When you walk into the new cathedral, the very first thing you see, built into the tile on the floor, are these words: “Father forgive.” I can still feel in my body the power of the first moment I saw that.

Anyone who’s been awake or watching the news lately might notice that our beloved human family is sorely “divided and enslaved by sin.” In our effort to address this discomfort, we often react like the soldiers and the criminal who call upon Jesus to save himself. Make this pain go away. Take a pill. Kill an enemy. Eat chocolate. Do whatever it takes – just make it stop… And sometimes we can… for a while, but we’ve only addressed the symptom. The disease remains.

As Jesus was dying on that cross, he certainly had the power to make it stop, to make it go away, but as the soldiers mocked him, and the religious leaders scoffed at him, and one of the criminals crucified with him derided him, Jesus forgave. This is what Christ our King does.

Jesus forgives, and by doing so, he has “set us on a course that will bring all of us together again under God’s gracious rule.” Baptism marks the beginning of our journey on that course.

In Christ, we are made family through Baptism, which calls us to continue the reconciling work of Jesus until the whole world recognizes its citizenship in the kingdom of God and lives as one body, one spirit in Christ.

It’s the kind of work that will take a village – or as we call it, a church. We need one another, and we need to share the nourishment of Word and Sacrament regularly together because that is what strengthens us and unites us. Church is where we learn and practice forgiveness so that we can take it out into the world, which remains divided and enslaved by sin.

To do that, we must be willing to notice sin – to notice when we are not one, where, how, and why we are separated. Then we must be willing to remember that we are imperfect vessels made perfect by God alone. We are imperfect communities enlightened by Christ the King who dwells in us, setting us free from all that separates us, guiding our feet into the way of peace.

In our church family, we learn and practice how to love, how to keep hope, and how to serve. We remember the stories handed to us from our forebears and teach them to our children.

Today, we will baptize Leo Sanford, initiating him fully into Christ’s body, the church, making him the newest Christian in our Episcopal branch of the family tree. As his faith community, we promise to support Leo, accompany and guide him, as he grows in the Spirit toward the full stature of Christ. It’s a beautiful journey that we are blessed to take together. Amen.

Note: Following the sermon, Leo, his parents, godparents, and family, along with the children of Emmanuel, are invited to come forward to the font for the Baptism.

23 Pentecost (Proper 28), 2025-C: Jesus' Way of Love

Lectionary: Isaiah 65:17-25; Canticle 9; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19 

En el nombre de Dios, cuyo camino de amor es nuestro camino de vida… 

In the name of God whose Way of Love is our way of life. Amen.

Today’s readings offer us one of Jesus’ most important teachings covering so much of our basic belief – who he is, who we are because of who he is, and how we live because of the presence of his spirit in us.

Here’s the background…

The temple Jesus and his disciples are standing near in our gospel story is the 3rd temple built in Jerusalem. The first, built by Solomon, was destroyed by the Babylonians who sent the Jewish people into exile. When they returned from exile, they built a second temple, inferior in quality and aesthetic to Solomon’s temple, but it’s what they could manage with their post-exilic resources.

This second temple was destroyed by Herod who built a bigger, better, more lavish temple in its place. It was massive - 15 stories high, with huge gold plating on the outside, so when the sun shone it was too bright to even look at it! The inside was furnished lavishly as well. This third temple represented the epitome of earthly wealth, power, and splendor. 

This is the temple Jesus predicts will be thrown down in the days to come, not one stone being left upon another. The question is: is Jesus talking about the actual building or what it represents? Knowing Jesus, it’s both.

But there’s another temple being referenced here. The temple of God is the dwelling place of God, so this third temple is Jesus himself, the Incarnate Word. And if we believe in what Jesus did at Pentecost, breathing his spirit into us, there’s yet another temple: us. This is one more instance of Jesus talking about a single, tangible, earthly reality while at the same time, deepening and broadening it to include comprehensive, cosmic, and eternal truth.

On this, his final journey to Jerusalem, Jesus is continuing to teach his disciples how to live in the world as followers of his Way of Love.

The destruction of their beloved, historic building, even with the promise of a bigger and better one, is disconcerting. Many of us had a similar experience recently when bulldozers tore down the east wing of our White House. (Photo credit: Jacquelin Martin/AP)

Like us, the Jewish people hadn’t been informed or consulted about it. A single powerful figure, in this case, Herod, made the decision, made plans for rebuilding, and chose the timing on his own, so part of the discomfort was the surprise of it, and seeing the walls come down felt like a cultural ravaging. In addition, some voices complained that while the building was aesthetically beautiful, it was spiritually bankrupt, intended to cover up Herod’s hypocrisy and growing oppression of the Jewish people over whom he was tetrarch.

Upon hearing Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the temple, the disciples asked if this would be the start of the “end time.” What would be the sign? How would they know?

End-time teaching, also called apocalyptic teaching, was common, and we need to remember that Jesus’ followers started as followers of John the Baptist, who was an apocalypticist.

Apocalypticism was originally meant to provide hope and comfort in the midst of hopelessness and suffering, but fear, mostly stoked by religious leaders, distorted it into a threat that has been wielded against the very people it was designed to comfort - then and now.

Repent, John would exhort the people. Change the way you are living for this is an age where good and evil are in a battle. We could say the same about now, couldn’t we?

But we don’t repent in order to be rewarded with the other good people or to avoid punishment with the other bad people. We change the way we live so that we can live more fully in the Way of Love, as a people reconciled by Jesus to God and one another.

My proclamation of the Good News is this: God always acts with love, out of love, and toward love. When there is suffering, whether due to natural or human-made disasters, God is present, aware, and already acting to redeem.

Has there ever been a time in history when there was no suffering, or plagues or famines? …No natural disasters or wars? No. Neither, it seems, has there ever been a time in history when people weren’t trying to figure out how to survive an apocalypse.

Jesus says, when you see dreadful events happening, “Do not be terrified... the end will not follow immediately.” The epistle writer urges the church in Thessalonica (not very well, lacking wisdom, but his point is good), who had been waiting for the apocalyptic second coming of Jesus that never happened, not to be idle – not to sit back and just wait for the end to come. Do your work, the writer says, “do not weary in doing what is right.”

Jesus says, prepare to be betrayed, even by family and friends because of your association with me and my way. When that happens, use it as an opportunity to witness.

An example of how transforming witnessing can be is found in an old Indian story about Maskepetoon, a Cree Indian chief, whose father was murdered by a Blackfoot Indian during an ongoing war. When the two tribes gathered to forge a peace treaty, one of the warriors present was the man who had killed the Chief’s father. Maskepetoon, who had only recently been converted to Christianity, went up to the man who murdered his father and said, ‘You killed my father…now you must become a father to me... wear my clothes, ride my horse [and] tell your people that this is the way Maskepetoon takes revenge.’ (Photo credit)

That’s a far cry from how the world generally responds. One of the best examples of how the world usually responds is Inigo Montoya from the movie "The Princess Bride" who repeatedly said, “Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!”

As followers of Jesus’ Way of Love, we are called to be steadfast in our faith, aware that along this Way we will meet up with inhospitable neighbors, friends and family who betray us, enemies, and injustice at the hands of earthy authorities.

Our faith assures us, however, that God is always with us, in us, redeeming all things. That assurance enables us to live our lives in peace – the kind of peace that isn’t attached to circumstances, which may be good or bad at any moment in time.

We live with the peace that our salvation, the final judgment of God, has already happened in Jesus, and it is a judgment of forgiveness, reconciliation, and abundant love. Therefore, freed from the need to earn our place in eternal bliss, freed from the need to judge and fix other people, we can be kind and generous toward everyone. We can be gentle with ourselves as we grow in our faith and gentle with others who are growing too.

As we grow in faith, we also grow in wisdom, so we can hold our tongues when we want to lash out - especially on social media.

The keynote speaker at our convention yesterday, Dr. Catherine Meeks, said, “Think about someone who gets on your nerves. Then think about how much they are like you;” reflecting something about you to you, like a mirror.

That is wisdom.

Jesus’ Way of Love is a path of agape love - love that reflects God’s love for us, love that puts the needs of the other first. It’s the kind of love Jesus demonstrated for us on the cross.

As followers of Jesus’ Way of Love, we are already in the life eternal, because we are bearers of the
eternal presence of God here, now, and forevermore. Jesus has come again - into us - at Pentecost.

So, we don’t live in order to get to heaven one day. We live to bring heaven to earth right now.

Like the church in Thessalonica, we just need to get on with our work loving one another, feeding the hungry, sheltering the unhoused, clothing the poor, protecting the exposed and oppressed, and visiting the lonely.

We must grow together until we can love even the ones we don’t want to love – because we know that everyone is God’s child, and therefore, our kin in the family of God. As Dr. Meeks said, we made up all the categories that divide us, so we can unmake them.

Let’s get to it. Amen.

All Saints Day, 2025: Committed to shine

Lectionary: Daniel 7:1-3,15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1:11-23; Luke 6:20-31

En el nombre de Dios: creador, redentor, y santificador… 

In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.

On this, one of my favorite feast days in the liturgical year, our lectionary features the Beatitudes. This teaching from Jesus is rich with history, symbolism, and current application, but it helps to study it deeply. First, a little context…

Our reading begins at verse 20. In verse 12, Jesus went out to pray on a mountain. ‘Going up a mountain,’ as you may remember, is Bible-talk for ‘going to be with God.’

Luke says Jesus prayed on the mountain all through the night. Night and darkness symbolize the state of unknowing from which we are enlightened by God.

When it was day, that is, when divine inspiration had come, Jesus called his 12 disciples to himself and led them down the mountain to a flat land, symbolizing the movement from divine to earthly experience.

There they encountered a great multitude of people from the surrounding Jewish and Gentile areas. These people came with spiritual torments and physical wounds. They came to hear Jesus and seek healing from him.

And Jesus healed them – all of them: Jews, Gentiles, maybe even some Romans. Jesus healed them all. This is Jesus showing the disciples whom to serve: anyone and everyone; and how to serve them – by going where they are, entering into relationship by talking with them, and being a conduit of God’s healing love to them.

This is where our Gospel story picks up. Having healed the multitude of people from all that ailed or tormented them, Jesus looks at his disciples and, in the beautiful words of the Beatitudes, teaches them how to understand what they just saw - how to be his disciple - and this lesson applies just as much to us today as it did to them back then.

The saints, whom we honor and remember today, are exemplars of faithful discipleship for us. 

Jesus begins with: “Blessed are you who are poor.” The word blessed does mean happy, but it also means exalted. You will be lifted up into the glory of God.

‘Poor’ refers to those who cower or hide themselves out of fear, like Adam did in the creation story in Genesis. The poor may hide from God out of guilt or fear, or they may hide from their earthly oppressor. Jesus teaches that what blesses the poor is that they know they need what they don’t have, whether that is a spiritual or a physical need. Blessed are you who know you need what you don’t have… 

…for yours is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is where and when God’s presence, power, and glory are – which is everywhere, something we know when the eyes of our hearts are enlightened. Being exalted into the kingdom of God provides us with the power and protection of God, so we don’t need to cower or fear any longer.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, who long for relief from suffering or isolation, who desire closeness to God or another. God promises that, in the kingdom of God, you will be satisfied.

Blessed are you who grieve and shed tears. God promises that, in the kingdom of God, you will triumph in joy.

We often think of joy as happiness, but it isn’t. Theologian Frederick Buechner offers a clarifying teaching on the distinction between the two. Buechner says, “Happiness is man-made—a happy home, a happy marriage, [etc.]… We work for these things, and if we are careful and wise and lucky, we can usually achieve them. … moments of joy…[are] not man-made and we… [can] never take credit for … them. They come when they come. They are always sudden and quick and unrepeatable… Joy is always all-encompassing; there is nothing of us left over to hate with or to be afraid with, to feel guilty with or to be selfish about… joy is a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes. Even nailed to a tree.” Source: originally published in The Hungering Dark

This is the joy Jesus promises. What we need is joy, but what we work to achieve is happiness, and it’s never enough.

Blessed are you, Jesus says, when you are hated, separated, excluded, or defamed on account of the Son of Man (referring to himself and his way of being in the world). Rejoice that day and frolic in joy because your reward is great and rests in the dwelling place of God (which is what heaven means).

This is not a promise of a future reward. Jesus is talking about a present reward, right now, while we are here on earth. Our joy is a result of living as the dwelling place of God. That is how heaven happens on earth. It’s us! We are the means by which “on earth as it is in heaven” happens.

Then come the woes… Jesus says, Woe to you who are rich. This isn’t a condemnation of people who have money. Jesus is grieving for those who don’t know what they don’t have – or don’t care. He’s grieving for those who aren’t humble or hungry because they don’t realize they’re trading divine joy for earthly happiness.

Then comes the really challenging part of Jesus’ teaching: “Love your enemies.” 

Let’s pause here and remember that Jesus is a Jewish rabbi who lived 2 millennia ago. In that time and in his religious context, “love” referred to loyalty, loyalty to relationship, as I mentioned in my sermon last week. This kind of love protects, respects, and cares for the other, even an enemy who seeks to harm us.

The disciples don’t know it yet, but just as Jesus was showing them whom to serve, he is now preparing them to understand the non-violent humility they will see Jesus model for them at his arrest and crucifixion, described 12 chapters hence.

Jesus sums up his teaching with what has come to be called The Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” The Greek word translated as “do” also means “commit.” Rabbi Jesus is reminding us to commit to the other as a human being, created of God in the image of God, deserving of respect and dignity, just as we would want them to commit to us in the same way.

If we were suffering or hungry or broken, we’d be desperate for hope and healing. Jesus has given that to us by giving us himself. Now it’s our turn to do likewise.

The many saints we remembered today in our Litany are examples to us of how Jesus’ teaching can be lived in the world. The best part is that they too are committed to relationship with us. They remain just a prayer away, always ready to share the gift that shone so brightly in their lives, to light our way in our lives.

We are not alone. The saints are with us. God is with us.

God, who made us, loves us, and redeemed us, dwells with in us now. As we grow in our faith, we come to learn our shortcomings and failings, and we confess them together in our weekly worship.

Then, knowing ever more clearly what we don’t have, we humbly ask God to give it to us, so our lights can shine as brightly as the saints we remember today: “Almighty God… give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly commit to you.  Amen.

(All Saints icon purchased for use from Kelly Latimore Icons.)