Pentecost, 26-A: Widening the circle of love

I invite you to go to the Emmanuel YouTube channel to see this sermon delivered live at the 9:30 am service.

Lectionary: Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:25-35, 37;1 Corinthians 12:3b-13; John 20:19-23

 

Peace be with you. (The people respond: And also with you.) Por favor, tomen asiento. Please be seated. 

I always enjoy the Pentecost tradition of speaking the gospel in many languages all at once. It enables us to experience the limits of our ability to manage sensory input, to hear and understand in the midst of cacophony. At the same time, it offers us the opportunity to marvel at the gift of our diversity.

I've always wished I could be one of those people who could speak multiple languages. Alas, I never had time or opportunity in my life to pursue that dream, but God led me toward another dream I hadn’t even had yet: learning the language of Spirit. Discerning the voice of God, and teaching others how to do that, is the foundation of my ministry.

Discernment is a spiritual gift, and it takes practice. It also takes a community. In the Episcopal Church, discernment is always practiced individually AND in community in a dynamic trinitarian dance of myself, God, and my community. If God is left out of the dance, the path becomes dark and destructive.

Many of us remember, with lingering incredulity, the 1978 Jonestown Massacre, the tragic event where the phrase, “drinking the Kool-Aid” was born. It’s hard to believe that so many people could be led to blindly follow a bizarre ideology proffered by an obviously deranged man and cling to the hope of his promised reward held up like a carrot.

Sadly, it happens a lot. Nazi Germany under Hitler, for another example. Shadows of this are becoming more and more apparent in our world today, which is why practicing and teaching the gift of discernment matters.

In our Collect, we asked God to give us right judgment in all things. Judgment is both discernment and decision. Our discernment is that we see and understand as God would have us do amid the cacophony around us so that we can decide faithfully, responding to the voice of God rather than the voice of the world.

When you hear the word judgment, is that what you hear? Or do you hear the church-driven cultural meaning? If you look up the word judgment in the dictionary, the 2nd definition is: a misfortune or calamity viewed as divine punishment.

This is shockingly sad, and we must repent of that as Church. Why? Because it’s unfaithful, unscriptural, and uncharacteristic of the God of love. God’s judgment always was and still is salvation, rescue, reclamation of all by the forgiveness of sin, which is anything that divides us or disrupts our loving relationships with God, one another, and ourselves. This divine judgment was demonstrated and inaugurated in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ.

Our habit of making judgment into a fear of divine punishment perverts a word that should offer us the ultimate comfort! Why have we done this to ourselves? It’s heart-breaking to me. On this wonderful day of Pentecost, when the Spirit of God enters us in a real, sensory, and spiritual way, let’s commit to repent of that habit.

The gospel from John reflects divine preparation for the event later described in the Book of Acts – an event that left everyone amazed and perplexed. John tells of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to his close-knit community hiding in fear in a locked room.

Unhindered by the earthly barrier of locked doors, Jesus stands among them. Amazed and perplexed barely covers how they must have felt.  Jesus says, “Peace be with you” and shows them his wounds, so they’ll know it’s really him.

The followers rejoiced when they recognized him, so Jesus says again, “Peace be with you” to calm them. Then, breathing his own Sprit, the Spirit of the Triune God, into them, Jesus says, as God has sent me, I now send you.

Breathing is a powerful and symbolic word that harkens back to the creation story in Genesis where Creator God breathed life into humans. Now God in Christ, is breathing a new life, a spiritual life into humans – for a purpose!

At our Bible study, one of our members asked, “Is the Spirit of God really in me?” The answer is a resounding YES! It is! Our whole goal, especially on this Pentecost Sunday, is to awaken to the truth of that and ponder what It means for us.

Then comes the strongest admonition I’ve ever heard Jesus give: “if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any they are retained.” Despite what you may have heard this is NOT Jesus giving authority to humans to forgive or not forgive the sinful acts of others. That remains the realm and authority of God alone.

It IS Jesus warning these disciples (and us) that since the reconciliation of the whole world to God by the forgiveness of sin has been inaugurated by Jesus’s death and resurrection, there is something important for them (and us) to remember as we are sent into the world to continue this work. Here it is: when we forgive as radically as Jesus did from the cross, all who are held in the bondage of sin are set free. When we do not forgive, we perpetuate the power and destructiveness of that sin in the world. We must, therefore, be careful and faithful in how we choose to respond.

Last week, I was at the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander (AANHPI) celebration where the bishop of Idaho, Jos Tharakan, gave a personal testimony about being the parent of a daughter, and how he might respond if a man came into his confessional and said he’d sexually assaulted that daughter. Bp. Jos said that he’d offer him absolution since he confessed, then he’d leave the confessional, go to the man, and shoot him.

Shocking, right? But also relatable. Bp. Jos clarified that he wouldn’t ever really do that, but he’d want to! Then he reminded us of the difference between reacting and responding.

He’s right, and while Bp. Jos didn’t elaborate that night, I will now, especially as we approach our gun violence prevention efforts.

Reactions are reflexive. Often motivated by fear or anger, even righteous anger, a reaction like the one Bp. Jos described is totally human, but we must practice restraint so that a thoughtful, faithful response can be formed in us. This is why Jesus repeated, “Peace be with you” to the disciples.

In the midst of a cacophonous, excited, emotional state, we must pause to discern how to see and understand what’s happening as God would have us do, and hear God’s guidance for how we are to respond. Shooting another child of God is never the answer, as justified and effective as it may seem, but a faithful response only comes to us when we pause, enter that dynamic trinitarian discernment dance, and listen.

Bp. Jos offered one more bit of wisdom I’ll share with you today because it speaks to the letter to the Corinthians which reminds us that we are all one. Bp. Jos said that as a bishop in the church, he has the authority to tell his flock who they can hate, so he gives them permission to hate any person who is not created by God.

On that first Pentecost, the disciples were speaking to people from many nations, races, and languages, people who practiced religion, and people who didn’t, men and women, slaves and free people. God didn’t ask them to speak only to those worthy to hear, or qualified to hear, or even to those ready to hear.

God's guidance was: speak to the people I have brought near to you and watch me act through your faithfulness. So, they did… and all who were gathered could hear and understand the good news being spoken to them. No one could explain how it happened, only that it did happen.

Our dismissal every Sunday sends us into the world as it is today, to continue the work of reconciliation by the forgiveness of sin, begun by Jesus. We will confront some things those first disciples encountered, like the horrible treatment of immigrants. We will also confront things they never imagined, like the cruel treatment of LGBTQIA2S+ people.

Image by Hildgard of Bingen:
God, Cosmos, and Humanity, 1150 AD

Yet, God has been at work in the world all along, guiding us to widen the circle of love to include all those whom God has made, to speak love to all God brings near to us. We can expect the pushback to continue from those who call themselves Christian yet openly justify hating and killing other children of God. They won’t like it when we speak this good news, but we’ll keep speaking it anyway, trusting God to be present in the dynamic trinitarian dance and work through our faithfulness bringing God’s plan of redeeming love ever closer to its completion.

Peace be with you. (The people respond: And also with you.) And there we have the perfect example of a reflexive spiritual response born of practice in community. Amen.

6 Easter, 2026-A: It all boils down to Love

Lectionary: Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:7-18; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

This sermon was updated following a funeral on Saturday, so I've taken down the pre-recorded video and invite you to go to the Emmanuel YouTube channel to see it delivered live at the 9:30 am service. The updated text is below.

 

En el nombre de Dios: trinidad en unidad. In the name of God, Trinity in Unity. Amen. 

Our gospel today is the next section of Jesus’ farewell discourse, and like last week, we are reading from his teaching given at the Last Supper in order to reflect on it from the perspective of his resurrection.

This part of Jesus’ teaching begins with “If you love me you will keep my commandments...” Is Jesus saying that his love is conditional to our obedience?

At first glance, it might seem like that, but I don’t think he is. In the first place, the word we translate as “if” isn’t a conditional in Greek. It’s a word that implies a future possibility which experience determines. And the word “keep” refers to preserving, maintaining, or continuing something. 

It isn’t talking about obeying at all. That’s a whole different word in Greek.

So we might restate what Jesus said like this: When you love me, you will discover that you will maintain and continue what I have enjoined you to do. Then the question becomes, what did Jesus urge us to do? The answer is: to love.

Love one another as I have loved you. (Jn 13:34) Love your enemies. (Mt 5: 44) Love.

Once, when he was asked which was the greatest commandment, Jesus held up two: to love God with all our hearts, minds, strength, and souls (Deut 6:5), and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Lev 19:18) . On these two, he said, hang all the guidance and inspired teaching.

Granted, keeping those two commandments isn’t easy to do, especially in the midst of the kind of grief of loss the disciples would experience when he was gone from them, a loss he said would happen “in a little while.” So he promised them another comforter, translated here as Advocate, both words being accurate even in their distinction.

We can sense when people near us are beginning to panic. We can see it in their faces and body language. We can feel the energy of it building like static electricity around us. Perceiving this among his disciples, Jesus speaks directly to it, saying, I will not leave you comfortless or alone with no one to love you, take care of you, protect you, and celebrate you. I am coming to you - to comfort you and support you forever.

As with our gospel reading last week, we are invited to contemplate this teaching of Jesus with spiritual understanding. One day, Jesus says, we’ll get it! We’ll know that God is in Jesus, who is in us, and we are in him, and through him, we are in God. 

Get it?

I remember when I was in my seminary Greek class, and we were all feeling so overwhelmed by how vastly different Greek was, from the alphabet to the layers of meanings, and the many conjugations and tenses. Our professor assured us that one day, we’d just get it, and he snapped his fingers.

Oh sure, we thought. Easy for him to say! But he was right. One day, it suddenly all fell into place and the learning began to happen at lightning speed, like a vortex was opened.

Jesus was promising the same thing… On that day you will know that I am in God, and you are in me, and I am in you. When you know that, deeply... spiritually, you will walk the path I have begun and you will be able to preserve and continue this way of being in the world. You will know love, divine love. You will know that you are loved by God, and by me, and I will be revealed to you in ways you couldn’t have understood before, and it will change everything! 

The knowledge Jesus is talking about here is that intimate, innate spiritual understanding that comes from living as the next born of the coexistence of humanity and divinity I preached about last week.

I want to return to one important phrase Jesus said: I am coming to you. Then Jesus speaks of the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth.

Last week, Jesus claimed himself as I AM (God), the way, the truth, and the life. All of this time, Jesus has been trying to guide the disciples into knowing him as God Incarnate – a tough thing to comprehend - even now. In this gospel moment, Jesus is introducing the third person of the Trinity – even harder to comprehend – but so important.

Jesus is God who is Trinity in Unity. One God. Three persons. ONE GOD. 

Jesus says I am coming. The Spirit is Jesus, who is I AM (God). And Jesus does come again – in a big way - at Pentecost and breathes his own divine spirit into those first followers and ever since into us. That was not what anyone was expecting, but God has a very long history of accomplishing God’s plan of love outside our expectations and beyond our understanding.

Our Jewish forbears handed to us an apocalyptic expectation of a day when the world would end, when the Messiah would come down to earth on a cloud to give a final judgement and end the world. The vestiges of that live on in current Christianity, but God had something else in mind, and Jesus accomplished it in a way that exceeded all human understanding, hope, or desire.

First, the final judgement has already happened through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus when the Triune God judged that the whole world would be reconciled to Them by the forgiveness of sin. 

In this gospel, which is ahead of the crucifixion and resurrection, the disciples could never have imagined what was about to happen. Jesus is preparing them for the unexpected, unanticipated thing God was about to do saying, I will leave you, but I am coming to you – and he did – as the Spirit of Truth, the Third Person of the Trinity.

The second coming has been and continues to be accomplished by the Trinity of God. As we say in our Advent wreath candle-lighting prayer, Christ is coming. Christ is always coming.  That’s why Jesus compels us in this gospel to live as he urges us to live, no matter what happens around us. 

I am coming, so love one another as I have loved you. (Jn 13:34) Love your enemies. (Mt 5: 44) Love. 

Beloved Dame Julian of Norwich, Medieval mystic, speaks of this so eloquently. Here are her words: 

 “I desired in many ways to know what was our Lord's meaning. And fifteen years after..., I was answered in spiritual understanding, and it was said [to me]... Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love. Remain in this, and you will know more of the same.” (Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter 86)

Icon written and copyrighted by Anne Davidson and commissioned for my ordination. Used with permission.

This is the love in which “we live and move and have our being” as Paul quoted from the poets of his time… the love who “holds our souls in life and will not allow our feet to slip” as the psalmist says. It all boils down to love: divine, eternal, sacrificial, joyful, mutual love.

This doesn’t change the fact that we will know suffering, doubt, and darkness throughout the course of our lives. In addition, we may get it, as Jesus said we would, then lose it again, and get it again, over and over in the course of our lives.

Knowing this love with spiritual understanding means that we will never be alone in any of the “changes and chances of this life.” (BCP, 133) We will never be comfortless. We will always be, as Dame Julian says, clothed in the love of God, which “wraps and holds us… enfolds us for love and will never let us go.”

We also have each other. Prayer not only “fastens us to God,” as Julian says. It also fastens us to one another, connecting the love of God in you to the love of God in me. Those connections are real, and through them God acts to change the world, working in and through us.

Since Julian of Norwich has been so present in this reflection, let’s close with the prayer assigned to her feast day, which was on May 8. Let us pray: Lord God, who in your compassion granted to the Lady Julian many revelations of your nurturing and sustaining love: Move our hearts, like hers, to seek you above all things, for in giving us yourself you give us all; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

5 Easter, 2026-A: Pondering God in us

Lectionary: Acts 7:55-60, Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14 

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

I’m a big fan of classic English literature. I love how the characters in those stories sat in reflective thought for hours just pondering. For example, in Charlotte Brönte’s novel, “Villette” the main character, Lucy, spends three hours reflecting upon a single conversation she had with Dr. Bretton. (
Smith, Elder, & Co, UK, 1853)

Three hours! Can you imagine? There is wisdom in this, though. Taking time in reflection often leads to a fuller understanding.

It’s a lost art I wish we would reclaim, and church can help us do that. As it happens, our lectionary writers provide us the perfect opportunity today by leading us to revisit the Last Supper, even this far into the 50 Days of Easter, and reflect deeply on what is being re-presented.

Before the resurrection, the disciples heard Jesus’ words, but we’re told, they didn’t fully understand them. After the resurrection, everything Jesus said and did has new, more profound meaning. The church is invited to spend some time listening deeply and letting God guide our understanding, because these events will be the foundational guide for our life choices, just as they were for those first disciples.

Last Sunday, Good Shepherd Sunday, we heard Jesus claiming himself as the gate, who, as Susanna+ preached, is a different kind of gate – a gate that opens out to welcome in, instead of closing in to keep others out. This week, Jesus says that no one can come to God except through him.

This statement has often been used by the Church as an exclusionary text. Unless you are Christian, or a particular kind of Christian, you cannot enter. Sadly, that totally misunderstands who Jesus is, as the second person of the Trinity, and does harm by excluding the very people Jesus died and rose to reclaim.

By using the I AM statements in this gospel, Jesus is claiming his divinity, which is now intimately and innately tied to his humanity. I AM is the name God used to identify God’s self in Exodus. In Jesus, the fullness of the Trinity of God is now revealed to us in human form.

By this revelation, Jesus invites us into a new relationship, one that moves us beyond a literal, earthly understanding and into an expansive, spiritual understanding. The literal listeners, symbolized by Thomas in this story, ask, ‘Where are you going? How can we know the way?” In other words, how do we follow you? Remember, this is before Thomas has touched the divine wounds in the resurrected Christ.

Jesus responds with amazing compassion, gently addressing the very human hesitance to move from earthly to spiritual understanding. He clarifies that what he is speaking about isn’t a location, but a relationship: “where I AM, there you will also be… because I AM in God and God is in me… If you know me, you know the fullness of God also…” Trust me, Jesus says, but if you can’t trust me, trust the works themselves. They, too, reveal God.

You’ll notice I changed the word “Father” to “God” when quoting this gospel. The reason is, the centuries-old habit of the church using the term “father” exclusively for God has led to both a denial of the feminine aspect of God and the diminishment and value of women. The outcome, with which we are still contending today, is the ongoing subjugation and exploitation of women and others who lack power or privilege: children of all genders, LGBTQIA2S+, immigrants, the poor, and the vulnerable.

The word Jesus used in this gospel, which has been translated only as “father,” has multiple and layered meanings and opens up to us the vastness of the nature of God. The word actually translates as nourisher, protector, upholder; nearest ancestor, progenitor of a people, the founder of a race or tribe.

Jesus, the Christ, who proclaims himself as “I AM,” God, is our progenitor, our nearest ancestor. Through Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, we have been given a new relationship with the Trinity of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, who dwells in and acts through humanity.

Jesus was the firstborn, the progenitor of the state of coexistence of divinity and humanity. We are the next born of it, because where Jesus is, there we are also. Jesus, who is God, dwells in us and we in him.

When we ponder these words of Jesus, they reach deeply into us, moving us beyond our earthly understanding and into a deeper, truer, broader spiritual understanding. This will definitely take some time, probably more than a single 3-hour ponder session.

Moving into this new relationship with God will require us to open ourselves as we reflect, and to respond to God each time They tap us on the shoulder and call our attention to Them. When we do, our understanding grows, matures, expands... and we realize that the truth God is revealing to us will affect every decision we make and every action we take.

The story of the stoning of Stephen is a perfect example of how earthly ears resist hearing the truth of God. The world will kill speakers of the truth to maintain the status quo, the agreed-upon storyline.

I remember when I was about five years old, and I would try to tell my family and the nuns at my Catholic school about my spiritual experiences of God: how the trees sang a song of heaven to me; how forest critters, including snakes, drew close and hung out with me like family; how the healing power of God opened my awareness to illness and injury in other people’s bodies, or how God my Mother would hold me in her lap and heal me from the continuing abusive experiences in my childhood.

I learned very quickly that these were not welcomed discussions, especially my experience of God as Mother, which I had before my Christian educators taught me that God could only be Father. It didn’t stop these experiences from happening - it only stopped me from talking about them.

It’s probably no surprise then how much I love the maternal metaphor in Peter’s epistle, where he says: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk.” Long for the nourishment at our Mother's breast, that leads to a spiritual understanding that will work and live in cooperation with earthly understanding because by it we “grow into salvation.” In other words, by it, we mature in our eternal and temporal relationship with God.

If ever you “have tasted that the Lord is good…[Peter says] let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, ...a holy priesthood…” Like Jesus, Peter isn’t talking about a location when he says “be a spiritual house,” and he isn’t talking about an ordained office when he says “be a holy priesthood.” He’s talking about the fullness of the human-divine relationship that is in all of us, because of Jesus.

The spirit of Jesus lives in us, and that truth affects how we hear Jesus say,” the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these.” It’s hard to imagine doing greater works than Jesus did - raising the dead, healing the man born blind, calming the storm on the sea… but only when we listen with literal ears and from an earthly understanding.

In fact, we’re already doing these works. Whenever we accompany someone through a time of transition as they let go of their old life or their old self, or a loved one, and step into a new life, God, who dwells in us, is doing Their work raising the dead back to life. When we speak the truth of God in Christ by our lives or using words, and someone finally gets it, God has done Their work in us, bringing sight to the blind. When we walk willingly into someone’s nightmare, bearing the peace of Christ to them by our very presence, God has worked through us to calm the storm in their life.

Jesus concludes this portion of his farewell discourse with a statement that truly deserves reflection: “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.” Jesus isn’t promising that we can have whatever we want. Quite the opposite.

Jesus is promising that when we enter into the intimate, innate relationship with God who dwells in us, what we desire will begin to reflect God’s desire, and the will of God will be done on earth as it is in heaven by God in Christ who works in and through us.

I pray we all spend time reflecting often and deeply with the one who is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life in us so that we will be guided by God in every circumstance and teach our young ones how God’s will is accomplished on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

2 Easter, 2026-A: Room to doubt

Lectionary: Acts 2:14a,22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31 

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

After a powerful Holy Week, followed by glorious Easter celebrations, the overwhelming joy continues for us today as we are blessed to Baptize Vera Blair Nash and welcome her into the part of the body of Christ at Emmanuel. The joyful innocence of a child always invigorates our hope, but more importantly, Vera’s presence among us gives us a holy purpose: to notice and nurture her unique gifts, then provide her ways to practice and use them as she grows in her faith.

As Vera’s family of faith, we will affirm our responsibility and our joyful duty to teach Vera to live in accordance with her faith. Vera will learn that from her experience of our words and our lives. She will discover that formation is a life-long process by witnessing us continually evolving and growing in our faith as Jesus continues to be revealed to us.

Like Thomas in our gospel, Vera also will be given room to doubt. In the Gospel story, the disciple Thomas missed Jesus’ first appearance in the locked room to which the disciples had fled in fear. He missed Jesus breathing his Spirit on them. He missed Jesus’ teaching about what that meant; and when the others told him about it he didn’t believe them. I won’t believe a thing you say, Thomas insisted, unless I see it for myself.

Like Thomas, so many of us just aren’t there at first. Doubt is a natural part of the path of faith and it is to be embraced, not denied, as Thomas witnessed for us. There are times each of us may wonder what our friends know and experience about God that we don’t, and it may leave us feeling different or alone, even in the midst of our faith community.

The Good News in this gospel story, however, is that Jesus will come to us, just as he did for Thomas. Jesus will meet us at the place of our doubt and invite us to touch the divine.

We don’t know if Thomas actually touched Jesus or if he was transformed simply by his encounter with the living Christ, but Thomas’ response gives voice to a universal sigh that echoes through the generations each time someone is penetrated by a true experience of unity with God in Jesus: My Lord and my God!

The gospel assures us that whenever we fall into doubt or gloom, Jesus will come to us. It may be that he comes to us through a friend who reaches out, or maybe in a quiet moment of prayer, or in a dream while we sleep. In whatever way it happens, we are assured that Jesus will meet us where we are, invite us to reconnect, and restore us to wholeness.

When Jesus breathed on the disciples, he repeated the act of the Creator God in Genesis who breathed life into the first humans. As he did this, Jesus said, "Peace be with you." This isn't just a word of comfort to the disciples. It's a gift of wholeness.

The word is shalom, and the new life being breathed on them was the very substance of Jesus' own Spirit which connected them. This was their moment of reconciliation to God in Christ and it's a synergistic moment. They are the exactly same as they were, only completely different. Their humanity has now been united to Christ's divinity and that changes everything. The next step is to learn how to live with one foot in both worlds, as my grandmother used to say: one on earth and one in heaven.

Then Jesus taught them how to do just that. What you do on earth happens in heaven. If you forgive what separates and divides on earth, it will be reconciled in heaven. If you don’t, it won’t. The onus is on the disciples to forgive as Jesus forgave. This is not ecclesial power given to some to wield over others, but rather a call for all to work for the reconciliation, the reconnection of all, by the forgiveness of sin.

The world had just crucified Jesus, yet from his cross he forgave them, reconciling even his executioners, and all those who supported them, back into the community of God’s love. We, those upon whom Jesus has breathed his own spirit, are now to do the same. We must love as Jesus loved, and forgive as Jesus forgave.

As we watch the news, we realize how big an ask that is... which, again, is why we do this together, as a community of faith. It takes all of us together to accomplish this.

The world is in a state of tumult at the moment, a monumental transition, as I called it on Easter Sunday. We will survive it. Of that I’m certain.

As we navigate our way through it, we do well to consider: what are we witnessing to our children? How are we preparing them to endure the hard moments they will face one day? In addition, what do those outside of our faith community learn about God’s love by looking at us? What is our true witness?

I am grateful to be serving with a congregation devoted to inclusion, hospitality, service, and justice. I believe we do reflect the life and teachings of Christ here – in all our imperfection. Into this family, we now bring Vera, God’s gift to us.

Given her name, I anticipate that Vera might be bringing us truth – truth we might need to know; truth that might change us. Who knows? God knows and gives us the grace to spend the time with her to find out.

8:00 am: Amen. 

9:30 am: I now invite Vera’s family and godparents to bring Vera to the font for Baptism.

Easter 2026-A: A "Holy Birthing"

Lectionary: Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Colossians 3:1-4; Matthew 28:1-10

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

¡Feliz Pascua! Happy Easter!

Today, we celebrate a holy birthing happening among us - again. The seeds of new life that God planted in us and that we have nurtured through the season of Lent are ready to emerge from the womb of God, live in the light, and bring forth fruit. It’s a sacred cycle we follow year after year, contained within the story of our salvation.

New life, resurrection life in Jesus, is our promise from God in Christ. And it’s about the life we are living now, not one we hope to live after our earthly bodies die.

In the story of our beginnings, Moses led the suffering people of God out of oppression in Egypt into freedom in Canaan. Moses was a prophetic voice ushering in a monumental change in the politics and religion of his time, one that echoes in our present time.

Amid the recent unrest in America and around the world, I’ve been hearing a familiar quote repeated. It is often attributed to The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but he was actually quoting abolitionist, Theodore Parker, who in 1853, said: “the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Parker was a prophetic voice ushering in a change toward justice in the form of freedom for enslaved people in America – which happened when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed into law in 1861. 

One hundred years later, Rev. Dr. King’s prophetic voice ushered in change in the form of equal opportunity and protection of the law, and freedom from discrimination for all people regardless of race, sex, religion, age, and disability. The Civil Rights Act was signed into law in 1964, followed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, recently repealed.

Each of these examples illustrates for us how difficult and slow monumental transitions can be. They also uphold for us how hope endures.

Theologian Walter Bruggeman says, “Hope is subversive.” I agree. When people hope for something better, they are challenging the status quo, and that makes those in power and those benefiting from the status quo nervous, just as Herod and Pilate were when Jesus challenged their status quo. When that happens, those in power gear up and close ranks to protect the established system.

Like most prophets, Rev. Dr. King’s message was subversive because it was a message of hope, of inclusion, of God’s unfailing love for all people. He assured us all that, despite the entrenched practices of the established system, we could bring about change and live together as one people, in freedom and in unity. We were heading there until this present backlash. 

Each age strives to bend the moral arc of the universe closer to justice. The longer we do this, the closer we get, despite the backlashes.

One day soon, the oppressed and the oppressor will be reconciled and live together in unity and harmony, each person’s dignity will be respected, and all of creation will be stewarded faithfully for the gifts it offers, not exploited to profit a few.

How do I know this? Because Jesus has promised it and God is accomplishing it. 

Our part is to embody the subversive hope we have in Jesus Christ in the midst of global wars and instability, resource hoarding, climate destruction, and the denigration and abuse of LGBTQIA2S+ kin, immigrants, women, and children around the world.

Our Baptism calls us to seek peace, justice, and respect the dignity of all people, remembering what Peter said, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God. You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--who is Lord of all.”

It is our purpose and responsibility as Christians to witness and live as bearers of Christ’s love in this transitional moment in history. It isn’t easy – and often, it isn’t safe either, as the deaths of Rene Goode and Alex Pretti confirm. Yet, we are not afraid because deep in our spirits we continually hear Jesus’ comforting words to the Marys at the empty tomb: “Do not be afraid.”

Every day, we witness the kidnapping, torture, trafficking, and even execution of people by those working to protect the status quo. Is it any wonder God is guiding us into a major transition, a holy birthing, that will upend this status quo and open to us a new way to live together?

Jesus is the source of our subversive hope, and the Holy Spirit is the energy within us that keeps us bending that arc toward God’s justice. The eternal, living presence of God, whose mercy endures forever, is always with us, in us, redeeming all things - sometimes before we even recognize the need for it. In fact, that’s often how we recognize the need for it.

On that first Easter, when Jesus stood up in the grave, shook loose his burial linens, and left that tomb empty, he transformed every future transition for humankind. By overcoming death and the grave, Jesus opened to us a new life - life in the eternal, real presence of God, making every human transition a holy birthing infused by divine life.

The transition Jesus ushered in that first Easter, and every one since, is the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. That’s one of those phrases we say a lot, but do we know what we mean? For us, the kingdom of God is a state of being, a way of existing where God’s love is preeminent, guiding us and uniting us in that divine love.

God is sending us again - today - into the world, as prophetic voices of love to challenge and transform the established systems that oppress, harm, and destroy God’s creation. As we head out, it helps us to remember the example of Peter, who was sent by God, not because he was so astute (right?) but because he was faithful, allowing the holy birthing within him to bear fruit.

Look at Peter’s legacy! God created him, gifted him, and sent him to live out his purpose. And Peter did that – in all his imperfection – and changed the world.

So can we, because God chooses us too in all our imperfection. We have one vital purpose as the Church, the Community of the New Covenant established by Jesus: to restore all people to unity with God and each other through prayer, worship, proclamation of the Good News, and by promoting justice, peace, and love. (BCP, 855)

Reconciled people live in harmony and unity with one another and with God. The goal of the moral arc of the universe, its terminus, is accomplished through faithful, perseverant, reconciliation of the whole world to God - including the tyrants, oppressors, and destroyers of life and nature among us.  They are created of God too, broken, dying souls, beloved of God, who need our prayers. As Jesus said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Mt 5:44) Praying for accountability is an act of love that can set them free.

We gather every Easter to claim the holy birthing God is doing in us. Then we take that new life and proclaim out loud, by our words and our lives, the powerful truth that God is love, a love that never dies, as Jesus demonstrated that first Easter, and that God’s love is for all people and all of creation.

The monumental transition we are currently in will lead to more difficult days ahead. The status quo isn’t easily changed, but it does change, and it’s happening again – right now. We don’t know exactly what form this transition will take, any more than the prophetic voices who went before us did in their time, but that doesn't matter, because our faith assures us that God is love, Christ is risen, and the Holy Spirit dwells in us, enabling us to keep bending that arc toward God’s justice for all.

I close with portions of a prayer poem by Sister Joyce Rupp called, Holy Birthing. I’ve changed it from first person singular to plural. 

 “Holy Midwife, 

you rejoiced at the birth of creation. 

We hold up to you the intuited mystery 

of something new being birthed in us. 

It has no face, no name, no sound, no shape. 

We only know that something unperceived 

is meant to come to life 

inside the womb of our deepest selves. 

 ...Help us to be attuned to the contractions of our spirits, 

to relax when we ought and push when we must. 

Encourage us to believe in what we cannot yet see. 

...Let us have faith in something good slowly taking shape 

and be trusting enough to stay in the birthing process. 

Let us be willing to endure the sweat and the groans 

and to cheer wildly when new life comes bursting forth.” 

 (Joyce Rupp, Prayers to Sophia, Soren Books, 2010, p 18)

Amen.

4 Lent, Laetare Sunday, 26-A: Receptive God-Consciousness

Lectionary: 1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41

The live delivery of this sermon can be found on Emmanuel's YouTube channel.

 En el nombre de Dios, que continúa reconciliándonos en su amor... In the name of God, who continues to reconcile us into Their love. Amen. 

On Laetare Sunday, we pause and assess our Lenten experience. Many of us have given up something to experience emptiness or added in something, like a spiritual practice, to build a new habit to strengthen our God-consciousness.

We have worked to focus our attention and intention – and today we take a breath and see where we are. How is our journey into God-consciousness going so far?

Our readings today equip us to notice God-consciousness through the dynamic relationships of earth and eternity, body and spirit, darkness of understanding and enlightenment. When taken as parts of a single story, the lectionary provides a cohesive, balanced look at God’s loving, continuing plan of reconciliation.

The Old Testament reading illustrates the dynamic relationship of earth and eternity. God and Samuel have regular conversations in which God guides Samuel’s understanding and actions.

Samuel, grieving the rupture of his relationship with Saul, who continued to disobey God and go his own way, had to tell Saul that God had taken away his kingship, making the two spiritual friends into earthly enemies.

God tells Samuel to go to Bethlehem and anoint a new king, a son of Jesse. To get there, Samuel has to pass through Saul’s territory, and he knows Saul will try to kill him if he does. So, God gave Samuel very Episcopalian guidance: worship together. You will be united in your worship – and they are.

The process of choosing the next king illustrates for us that a) God will always show us the way to go; b) it will probably not be what we expect; and c) God sees what we can’t because God looks on our hearts. God chooses David, the youngest and therefore, least important in ranking of Jesse’s sons. Samuel obeys, accepting this surprising choice, and anoints David as king.

The writer of this story uses two very important symbols: the shepherd and anointing oil. In those days, a king was considered a shepherd and a host. They were called to serve and protect their flock and provide for their needs. David was already keeping earthly sheep and now would shepherd God’s people. Earth and eternity...

Oil was used for anointing because it symbolized power and dedication to a holy purpose. When David was anointed as king, he was consecrated for a holy purpose in a manifest way – just like we do at Baptism, Confirmation, and ordinations. Body and spirit...

Once consecrated for his holy purpose, David went on to defeat Goliath and lead the people of God into an era of peace and prosperity. He became the icon of a faithful king, a true shepherd and host of the people in his care.

We move from this story into the wonderful Laetare meditation of Psalm 23 where God is our king, our shepherd and host. Please close your eyes if you feel comfortable and enter the experience of this beautiful psalm.

God says, come, lie down on this soft grass beside this peaceful pond and rest your weary soul. We obey, noticing that our breathing slows, our faces relax, the knots in our stomachs and tension in our chests release.

Please, everyone, take a deep breath in - filling yourself with the grace of God. Now breathe out, releasing all your stress. Stay in that peace for just a moment. (pause)

Then God comes to us, takes us by the hand, and leads us to a beautiful table which has been carefully set for us, but not just for us. As we look around the table, we see those who trouble us also seated there. Yet, somehow, the divine peace within us remains, and we relent from judging, questioning, or even desiring to exclude them.

There we all are, sitting together at a table covered in fresh linens. The fragrance and beauty of the flowers and food fill our senses.

It’s a family meal. Everyone there is included, protected, and provided for. Our cups are truly running over, and joy abounds within us and all around us.

Then, God anoints each of our heads with oil. As you breathe, feel the finger of God marking you, consecrating you, and filling you with God’s own loving power and a holy purpose. This is God’s promise and provision for all.

If your eyes were closed, open them now as we enter the less well-said invitation to live as children of light found in the letter to the Ephesians. The author meant well, but got caught up in earthly judgment, shame, and behavior.

Despite that miss, the light of Christ is real and true. Jesus came to enlighten the darkness of our understanding, just as the disciples and others were enlightened in the gospel story.

This story begins with the disciples asking Jesus about sin, using the example of a blind beggar they pass, probably on their way to the temple to worship. The blind man, being ostracized, would have been begging outside the temple precincts. These people of God are not united in worship.

The common belief was that the man’s blindness from birth was punishment for sin that either he committed while still in the womb or his parents committed before his birth. So, who sinned? the disciples asked.

No one did, Jesus replies. This isn’t punishment for sin. It’s a context for experiencing God’s grace – an opportunity for revelation and right relationship.

Then Jesus takes the dust of the earth, the substance from which we are made in Genesis, and just remembered on Ash Wednesday, and he mixes it with his spittle, living water from his own body. He rubs it on the man’s eyes and sends him to wash in the pool of Siloam.

The man’s obedience to Jesus contrasts with Saul’s disobedience to God. As a result, the eyes of his body are opened, but more importantly, so are the eyes of his spirit.

This sets everyone off. He’s an unworthy nobody, an obvious sinner!

The religious leaders argue with the now-seeing man, eventually deporting him. Focused on rules, order, and authority ( masculine principles, btw), they fail to see what this once-blind man now sees. Banishing him enables them to reassert the status quo.

Jesus sees this and clarifies God’s eternal plan being fulfilled in this moment in him: “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”

This blind man, who was reviled and exiled for his assumed sinfulness, was the only one being receptive (a feminine principle) to the grace being given to him, and that enabled him to enter into God-consciousness, to “see” the truth, worship Jesus, and believe. The religious leaders were not receptive, and Jesus calls them out as being intentionally blind, which he says is sin, because their presumed knowledge becomes a stumbling block to God’s grace – intentionally disrupting the unity of the family of God.

When we operate from God-consciousness, our perspective is always guided by God’s love for all. Our actions are always guided by God’s love for all.

As we complete our final week of Lent, let’s refocus our attention and intention and open ourselves to be receptive to the grace God is giving us, so we, like the blind man, will truly see, believe, and live as children of the light of Christ. Amen.

3 Lent, 26-A: Identity of Belonging

Lectionary: Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42

 

 En el nombre de Dios, a cuya familia todos pertenecemos...                                                                         In the name of God, in whose family all belong. Amen.

The clergy of our diocese met in retreat last week. Our retreat leader was Jake Owensby, former rector here at Emmanuel and current bishop of WLA. It was lovely to get to know Bp. Jake and hear stories about Emmanuel from him and other clergy whose spiritual journeys are connected to us. 

Listening to them affirmed my belief that this parish is really good at something that scares most Episcopalians into silence: evangelism! You are – but we’ll get to that a bit later.

The foundational thought I took away from Bp. Jake’s talks was this: for followers of Jesus, our self is received, not achieved. I’m not even sure he said that, but I wrote it in my notes because it spoke in my spirit.

Who we are is a dynamic reality – both in our bodies and our spirits. Watching ourselves, our children, and grandchildren grow, we witness the dynamic nature of our bodies. There is continual change and progress. Right now, my youngest grandchild, who has quickly become a pro at walking, is beginning to talk: baby-gibberish, but spoken with true intention. The words are not far off.

The same is true for our spirits. Baptism welcomes each of us into the family of God in Christ. Then we spend our time and gifts helping each other grow, moving from what we were taught as children toward a more mature, interconnected understanding and experience of God, other, and self.

Continual spiritual change and movement toward... what? The answer may not be what you think.

You see, we aren’t living our lives hoping to behave well enough to receive the prize of eternal life after we die. Eternal life is already within us for we have been baptized with the living water Jesus describes to the Samaritan woman at the well.

We are called now to do what Jesus was doing at the well: connecting with someone from whom he had been disconnected by the dictums of religion and society. In that newly forged relationship, Jesus gave and she received, a new way of understanding herself, God, and her neighbor.

Here’s the context. The religious authorities are getting nervous because Jesus’ ministry in Judea has become even bigger than John the Baptist’s was. Under threat of arrest, Jesus decides to return home to Galilee. It’s a 3-day-long journey that takes them through the Samaritan city of Sychar, where they pause for food and rest.

The relationship between the Jewish and Samaritan people was quite hostile then, and the place Jesus stopped was a place of shared religious significance: Jacob’s well. If we’re open and aware, we will always find something in common with the opposition, won’t we?

Jesus is sitting at Jacob’s well at about noon, when a Samaritan woman comes to get water. Why she’s getting water in the heat of the day is unknown.

Maybe the woman didn’t want to meet up with the other women of the village because she was ashamed of her personal circumstances. Or maybe, they excluded her - in a Bridgerton kind of way.

Her circumstances, revealed by Jesus, have to do with her husbands – 5 of them – and the man she’s with now is not her husband, meaning they are living together, but are not married. Even by today’s standards, that would turn religious and societal heads.

We don’t know her story. We don’t know why she is in this circumstance, but if we follow Jesus’ lead, we don’t need to. Jesus doesn’t judge her for it, and neither should we.

Let’s look at a few other things Jesus doesn’t do in this story. He doesn’t exclude the woman at the well according to all of her categories: Samaritan, woman, married 5 times, living with a man who isn’t her husband. He doesn’t ask her to repent or change the situation of her life. He also doesn’t stop her from proclaiming the amazing news he hasn’t even told his disciples yet – that he is the Christ, the Messiah of God.

The woman at the well, who has no name, no fame, and no legacy except in this story, is the first person to whom the Christ reveals himself in this gospel. She is the first evangelist, the first person to share the good news of salvation in Jesus, the Christ.

All of this happened because Jesus bridged gaps created by the world, gaps that divided women from men, Samaritans from Jewish people, those judged to be unworthy from those who believe they are worthy. Jesus eliminated those gaps by making a personal connection at a place that mattered to both of them: Jacob’s well, where God saved the people by providing an abundance of water that gushed up out of the well. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that he offers water that will gush up to eternal life!

She seems to get it! Bp. Jake joked that that’s why Jesus chose women. They got it faster than the guys did. Maybe, but the important thing is, she left her water jar to go home and tell of her encounter with the long-awaited Messiah.

Gathering water was a function women performed. It was part of their identity – and she left that behind, because in Jesus, our identity is determined by who we are: the beloved of God, not by what we do or how society sees us.

This is really good news for us today. In our current culture, both religious and societal, wealth is a source of glory for those who have it, while poverty is a source of shame. The rich overtly blame the poor for being poor.

Blaming them enables those in power to separate themselves and construct a self-contained universe of us and them, the worthy and the unworthy. The list of un-worthies in each era reflects the prejudices, insecurities, and malice of the powerful of the time.

Eventually, they demonize and dehumanize the poor, immigrants, women, and any others they deem to be unworthy, which justifies them arresting, detaining, and even torturing them. Susanna+ preached powerfully last week, reminding us that “identity must rest in promise and belonging to one another.”

This was the shift Jesus demonstrated with the Samaritan woman at the well. Our identity as people of God, as followers of Christ, is received, not achieved, and is grounded in the promise of eternal life and belonging. There are no barriers for anyone in the family of God.

Over and over again in his life and ministry, Jesus brings down these barriers. Sadly, it took the institutional church very little time to put many of them right back up.

Holding the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in your minds, receive what some of our most revered “church fathers” have said about women: 

• Clement of Alexandria (180 A.D): With women, “the very consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of shame.” (Pedagogues II, 33, 2) 
• Thomas Aquinas (13th century): “Woman is defective and misbegotten.” (from his most acclaimed and foundational Christian work: the Summa Theologica, 1 q. 92.a. 1, completed in 1273)

If you think this doesn’t continue to affect women in the church, think again. This anti-feminine bias lives in the bone marrow of Christianity. The Church – and by that I mean the Christian Church – with its elevation of males and male principles over women and feminine principles, starting with the story of Eve being the cause of sin, evil, and pain for humanity, played a significant role in the circumstance we now find ourselves in: discovering the nature and extent of trafficking and abusing our girl children and other vulnerable groups. And I truly believe, the Church has the responsibility and the ability to lead the way of transforming this by faithfully following our Savior.

Jesus demonstrated the dynamic interdependence of masculine and feminine principles – both created of God and meant to abide together in unity and harmony. It is from this divine union that we work together as partners with God in redemption. Our current priority as the Church is to reestablish this lost balance and restore the unity, harmony, and peace God intends for us.

The Samaritan woman at the well was transformed by her encounter with the grace of God because Jesus valued her and restored her to the community of the family of God. Through this woman, her whole community was restored as well.

And this brings us back to evangelism. Evangelism is doing what the Samaritan woman did: opening ourselves to receive a new, divinely-bestowed identity grounded in promise and belonging, then making connections with others, especially those the world judges as unworthy, and sharing this good news through our lives, our stories, and our ministries.

That is the great charism I and others find is present here at Emmanuel, and that is encouraging and gives me hope.

I close with a prayer from our clergy retreat, written by our bishop. Let’s pray: “Enduring presence, goal and guide, you go before and await our coming. Only our thirst compels us beyond complaint to conversation, beyond rejection to relation. Pour your love into our hearts that, refreshed and renewed, we may invite others to the living water given to us in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”