10 Pentecost, 2025-C: In the name of Love

Lectionary: Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

En el nombre de Dios, nuestra luz, nuestro amor, y nuestra vida… 

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

So… that’s a tough set of readings we have today. Good news, eh? Actually, it is… if we have eyes to see and ears to hear it.

I want to begin by pointing out my favorite phrase in our Collect today, because it is a VERY important part of what we believe. “Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work” …the fruits of HIS redeeming work.

Somehow, we moved from receiving the fruits of his redemption to working to achieve our own or someone else’s redemption, even though we believe and profess that redemption is a gift from God and not something we can achieve for ourselves.

Christians are not called to worry about our own or anyone else’s salvation. Our faith assures us that Jesus has already accomplished that once for all, for all time. Our life here on earth isn’t about getting to heaven after we die, but about bringing heaven to earth while we live.

Currently, we are living in a time of alarming hypocrisy by people who call themselves followers of Christ. There are prophets among us speaking out right now, and they’re being treated now as prophets always have been - with avoidance and contempt.

But we must listen to these prophets who are telling us honestly where and how we got off the path of love and onto a path of destruction. It’s easy to see - we know the signs and we hear the cries - all over the news and social media.

A couple of people complained to me this week that they hate when we read the prophets because they’re so dark and full of threats and punishment. To which I replied, I love the prophets - they are such a source of hope and some of the most truthful storytellers in our Scripture.

Prophets are only called by God to speak when things are going way wrong, when the path God’s people are on will lead to destruction or death. Through the prophets, God reminds the people how to get back on the path that leads to life.

Prophets don’t hold back when speaking the truth. We also have to remember that the prophets in our Scripture were from a culture of storytellers, whose readers weren’t listening literally as most modern Christians do.

The story being told in Isaiah is a love song about God’s care of and devotion to the people, represented as the vineyard. God provides the people with everything they need to thrive out of pure love for them. “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” God asks.

But, as Isaiah explains, “…the vineyard… is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!”

This is about as honest as our Scripture gets. God gave us everything we needed to bring about justice, but we created war. We were given all we needed to be in right relationship, but we created suffering.

Whenever and wherever we see bloodshed in our world today or hear cries for help, cries of hunger, or cries of suffering, we know we, God’s people, have not used the gifts God has given us faithfully. The prophets are the ones who remind us to open our eyes and see the reality of the world we have created.

The prophets don’t hold this truth up just to leave us wallowing in misery and hopelessness. They always show us the hope, which is God’s faithfulness to us, despite our faithlessness to God and one another.

When we see and hear the reality in our world, we return to God with something like the prayer in our Psalm: “Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven; behold and tend this vine; preserve what your right hand has planted… Restore us, O LORD God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.”

And God does - every single time. If you read the prophets to the end of their stories, they always end with God responding in tender love for us, protecting and restoring us even when we are caught in a mess of our own making.

This has happened over and over throughout our history as God’s people, which is what the letter to the Hebrews is reminding us. Too many to recount, the author says.

The genius of this letter, however, is how the author connects these stories to faith. It is through faith that, for example, David conquered Goliath. In this storytelling culture, David represents the tiny community of the people of God in Israel who fended off Goliath, who represents the huge, military-supported machine of the Philistines, who were driven by territorial ambition to attack Israel.

If we were to tell this story today, we might say that David represents Ukraine and Goliath represents Russia. Same story, different time.

Our collective narrative is replete with these stories, and that gives us hope. As we see this playing out in our world today, we have a great cloud of witnesses who will testify to us about the faithfulness of God who makes us all Davids, able by God’s grace, to defeat whatever Goliaths we face.

Will people suffer in the meantime? Yes, but by faith we lay aside every weight, every fear, every thought of abandonment, and we run our race with perseverance looking to Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

Which brings us to our gospel story and one of Jesus’ most challenging teachings. He begins with: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”

Many of our fire-and-brimstone siblings in Christianity would have us believe that Jesus came to purify the world by burning and destroying the enemies of God. Then, of course, they decide who those enemies are. In our world today, this list would include LGBTQIA2S+, anyone who is “woke,” immigrants, refugees, the poor… you know the list.

But they have failed to hear the story being told by Jesus. What does fire mean every time we hear it in our Scripture? We’ve done this enough times that most of you know… fire means the presence of God.

Jesus is prophesying the redemption he is bringing as the Incarnate Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity who took on human form. Jesus IS the fire, the presence of God on earth.

Then Jesus says, “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Baptism is the ritual, the outward sign of the inauguration of a spiritual transformation, and Jesus is going all out (a better translation than stress) and give everything, even his life, for it to be completed!

Then the really hard part of this teaching - Jesus says, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” This spiritual transformation, Jesus warns us, will divide households.

Some will follow Jesus’ way, letting go of their own power and privilege in order to raise up those who don’t have either, while others will demand they lift themselves up by their own bootstraps. Some will share from the abundance they have, while others will be indignant that the have-nots don’t deserve any rewards they haven’t worked for. Some will recognize all others as siblings in the family of God, while others will hate, denigrate, and oppress those whose skin color, religious practice, gender identity, or language is different from their own.

Many of us already experience this happening among our friends and families. Jesus’ way, the way of Love, will divide families and communities.

The world has always had Goliaths who vociferously defend their destructive path. And Christian Nationalists among us today are even calling their way Jesus’ way. To them, Jesus says, “You hypocrites!”

The way of Jesus is a way of love, generosity, selflessness, kindness, forgiveness, and the sharing of resources with all who need. It does not need or seek earthly political power. Anyway, God’s family includes all nations, peoples, and languages as Isaiah says.

Following Jesus’ way invites us to give all we have as we trust God to redeem. We must also open our eyes, ears, hearts, and hands to the reality around us.

Wherever heaven isn’t happening on earth, there is where we need to be, bearing the light and love of Christ, serving our neighbor, lifting them out of pain, poverty, hunger, oppression, judgment, cruelty, and loneliness, and into peace and harmony in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. We do this as a faith community, and as members of our local, regional, and global communities – all of us working together in the name of Love. Amen.

9 Pentecost, 2025-C: Called to be awake

Lectionary: Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Psalm 50:1-8, 23-24; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40

Our readings today are very sacramentally focused and lead us to ask, why did the ancient Jewish people gather to worship? Why do we?

The answer is simple, and the same for both of us: to foster a sense of unity within the covenant community. In a covenanted community, both God and the people make promises. God promises to be present with us and to act to redeem all things until, ultimately, the will of God is happening on earth as it is in heaven. We promise to cling to God’s promises and to one another while God works that reality into being.

We also promise to be present for God just as God is present for us. It is by being present to God that we can discern God’s will for us and for the world - in each moment - as the big picture of God’s plan of redemption unfolds in earthly history. This takes faithful vigilance because since God is responsive to the world, God’s path forward will change and adapt, and we can only know the path of God by being continually present with God.

One of the most important and functional ways we remain present with God is through services of worship which use prayer and ritual. In the ancient world, services at the local synagogue offered sacrifices for atonement or peace, or festivals celebrating the stories of their redemption by God. They were gathering places for community events and education, and central not only to the religious and community life of the ancient people, but also where legal issues were judicated and the political life of the Jewish people was shaped.

The temple in Jerusalem remains an iconic earthly symbol of the unity of Jewish people everywhere. Each time the temple was destroyed it was devastating to the people but did not deter their moving forward in faith. The same might be said about our churches. We love them, tend to them, worship in them, but if destroyed, as happened to some of the churches in my former diocese of WNC, the people and their service to God continue on.

Worship, however, isn’t enough by itself to fulfill our part of the covenant with God. In the story from Isaiah, God is kinda yelling at the people, saying, ‘Don’t come and worship me while you continue to do evil.’ Evil here refers to dividing the people into two classes: the rich and powerful, and the poor and weak, with the rich class heaping heavy burdens and suffering on the poor, oppressing them.

God knows we are masters of defending the systems we create even when they oppress some among us, because we are benefitting. So, God invites the conversation, ‘let’s argue this out,’ and here is where God’s eternal promise is lifted up again: even though your sins are like scarlet, they shall become like snow… In other words, God will forgive us.

When we accept God’s forgiveness and amend our ways, we will live in peace and enjoy God’s abundance. When we don’t, we will be destroyed by the consequences of our own choices.

The Psalm repeats this message using a court metaphor where God is witnessing against the people of Israel who do not keep their part of the covenant. They forget God and in doing so, lose sight of their only path to redemption. But those who remain present with God will continually witness God’s redeeming love in action.

The letter to the Hebrews was written to early Jewish Christians who knew the stories of the faith of their Jewish ancestors. They could see the big picture of God’s plan of love and connect themselves to those promises fulfilled now in Jesus Christ. It is a beautiful exposition, clarifying that faith is living in expectation of the fulfilment of God’s promises, even though we may not see it happen during our time on earth.

The gospel of Luke was written about 60-70 years after the resurrection to a group of mostly Gentile Christians who were new to these stories and promises. This group of converts was being persecuted and the promised second coming seemed not to be coming at all.

Fear and doubt were creeping in and without a strong historical tether to the stories of their forbears in faith, they were becoming frightened. We can imagine then, how very comforting Jesus’ words were: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

The reign of God, or as our Scripture calls it, the kingdom of God, is both a ‘where’ - in heaven and earth, and a ‘when’ - all that was, and is, and is to come. It is a living, developing, eternal reality. The Greek word, βασιλεία, translates as God’s reign and control over the whole cosmos. It’s also the time when God’s will is being done on earth as it is in heaven.

As we look around at our world today, we see rampant destruction and escalating wars, starvation, appalling poverty and oppression, financial duplicity, and obsessive selfishness. It doesn’t look much like God’s βασιλεία yet, does it?

I’ve mentioned before that we live in a time called the “already, but not yet.” Jesus has already redeemed all creation for all time. It has already happened but is not yet complete.

We have been chosen to be partners with God to work toward the completion of this process, and we have work to do. Each of us has been created and gifted for our part in that work. In order to fulfill our purpose, we must choose to open our eyes to our gifts, then nurture and develop them so that God can use them to bring about the βασιλεία of God.

And Jesus offers us four (4) bits of advice on doing that… 

1. Sell what you own. Jesus advises us to be unattached to any earthly thing that gives us security or identity. We can have them, but we can’t give them priority over God or neighbor. The test is: would we willingly detach from it if God asked us to?

2. Give to the poor. Money = power. Jesus calls us to use our power as he used his: humbling himself and giving his life for the sake of our redemption. Now we are to do the same for the sake of those who have no power: the refugee and immigrant, the poor who work and those who can’t or don’t, the mentally ill, people in the midst of war, our veterans who gave so much serving us, the hungry and oppressed here and around the world – the list is a long one . Give until no one has priority over or is esteemed better than anyone else. Be forewarned, though, the world doesn’t respect those who give up power. It panders to those who accumulate it.

3. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” This, Jesus tells us, is how we will know where we really are in our effort to love God, other, and self. What kind of wealth do we spend our time, attention, and gifts storing up? This is an especially difficult balance for a church which must have money in order to be a community who serves – but where is the focus? Is it on the church’s survival? Or is it on building and strengthening a community that prays, listens, and serves the needs of the world?

4. Jesus’ last bit of advice is a familiar Biblical theme: Be awake. Be ready. To illustrate this, Jesus tells the parable of the master (God) who shows up unexpectedly and - even more surprisingly - serves the one who serves, translated as slave (us). Be ready, Jesus says, because God will come to you - the one who serves - sit you down to eat, and serve you. I can’t think of a better description of our Holy Communion – if we’re awake to it – and we are called to be awake to it.

God chooses each one of us and calls us into this worshipping community to nourish us, strengthen us, and send us into the world to be co-creators of the βασιλεία of God, until everything is on earth as it is in heaven.

I close with a prayer from the Iona community. Let us pray. 

[O God] For your love for us, compassionate and patient, which has carried us through our pain, wept beside us in our sin, and waited with us in our confusion. We give you thanks.

For your love for us, strong and challenging, which has called us to risk for you, asked for the best in us, and shown us how to serve. We give you thanks.

O God we come to celebrate that your Holy Spirit is present deep within us, and at the heart of all life. Forgive us when we forget your gift of love made known to us in our brother, Jesus, and draw us into your presence. Amen.

7 Pentecost, 2025-C: One foot in each realm

Lectionary: Hosea 1:2-10; Psalm 85; Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19); Luke 11:1-13

En el nobmre del Dios quien es nuestro creador, redentor, y santificador....  In the name of God who is our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.Amen. 

One of the greatest influences in my spiritual life was my Puerto Rican grandmother, Mercedes. Her nickname was Chere, cherished one, and she was that to me. My grandmother didn’t finish the 3rd grade, but she was one of the wisest people I’ve ever known.

You have often heard me recount her wisdom to me: ”If it doesn’t bring you joy, stop doing it.” This has guided my whole life, including my ordained ministry, and it’s why I was led to stay as your rector. I experience true joy being among you as one who serves.

My grandmother’s spirituality was complex, but her connection to God was solid and simple. She was a holy woman, a practitioner of herbal medicine, a victim of abuse, and possessor of the softest skin on the planet.

When I was a child, my grandmother told me that I was a holy woman too, a healer, and she instructed me to remember that as holy ones, we must live with one foot in each realm - the realm of heaven and the realm of earth.

My siblings in Christ, we are all holy people. And as we pray in our Collect, “may we pass through things temporal, but lose not the things eternal”... just a fancier way of saying what my grandmother said.

The Episcopal Church is an Incarnational Church. We focus on the incarnation of God in Jesus and what that means for us. In our baptism, we acknowledge our oneness with Christ who joined his divinity to our humanity. Jesus is the first-born of this reality and has made us the next-born of it.

We are, in our earthly bodies, temples of the heavenly Spirit of God. As we heard in the letter to the Colossians: “For in [Jesus] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him…”

What we do with that reality remains our choice. Our Old Testament story from the prophet Hosea illustrates for us what happens when we ignore the heavenly realm and focus on the earthly realm, which tempts us to believe that we have power and privilege. All of the earthly rulers in the OT who believed that fell to the consequences they created: destruction of themselves and the people they were entrusted to lead.

The Hosea story takes place in a time when Israel was divided into the northern kingdom of Israel (where Samaria is) and the southern kingdom of Judah (where Jerusalem is). This split happened right after King Solomon had turned away from God and fallen to ruin. His son, Rehoboam, took over as king.

It’s a hard story to read, but one of its main messages is clear: when one community has two opposing factions, the whole community is harmed. Think of our own Civil War. We died on both sides of that war, and the fallout from it lives on in our own divided northern and southern “kingdoms” to this day. We still haven’t healed. We’re still arguing over flags, memorials, and “heritage.”

That’s why it’s so important to remember that while we live in the earthly realm in this moment, we also exist in the heavenly realm eternally - both at the same time. It’s when we approach the earthly realm without consciousness of the heavenly realm that we begin to perceive our neighbors as “other” or worse, as our enemy.

The way we maintain awareness of the eternal realm is through prayer. Prayer is not about asking the great Santa in the sky for what we want. I love the wisdom of Janis Joplin’s parody on prayer: (sing it with me!) “O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz…” The car, of course, representig any outcome we seek in the earthly realm.

In our gospel story, Jesus encourages us to knock on God’s door and ask for what we need, “Ask and it will be given you… for everyone who asks receives.” Then he tells us what we will receive, and it’s not a Mercedes Benz.

What we do get is so much more than that! We are given the Holy Spirit, consciousness of the heavenly realm in us. That awareness assures us that God is present, guiding, and redeeming - in this moment and for the good of all.

Many of you have experienced this with me in the ancient practice of healing prayer with anointing. I usually offer this kind of prayer when someone comes to me with a medical or mental health issue and asks for prayer.

I have had a healing ministry since my childhood - something my grandmother recognized in me. I didn’t know what it meant or how to use it until a professor in seminary helped me ground this ministry in my faith. What I’ve learned over the years is exactly what Jesus is talking about when he teaches the disciples to pray.

When we pray, we intentionally and consciously enter into the heavenly realm, while remaining firmly in the earthly realm. We don’t escape our humanity, which God declared very good in Genesis (1:31); we magnify it! As Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my Spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” (Lk 1:46)

We go into prayer knowing that God already knows what we need and is already at work on it. The earthly outcome we seek may or may not happen, but we are assured that God will not give us a snake or a scorpion.

Prayer, as Jesus taught us, begins with our consciousness of the heavenly realm, which is imminent and intimate. Jesus uses a word that is plural, meaning both Father and Mother, but is also intimate and familiar: like Papa or Mama, which would have shocked his listeners to attention. Papa/Mama, your name, your nature, is holy.

Then he says, "Your kingdom come…" Kingdom is a hard word for us in 21st century America. We rebelled against our last king and established our freedom from earthly kings along about 1776. But kingdom is a word we inherit from our Jewish forebears and it refers to God’s reign over all that is because God created, redeemed, and sustains the whole cosmos and all of us in it.

Give us this day our daily bread… God’s provision, whether in the form of earthly or spiritual nourishment, is for what we need right now. The bread reference points us back to the manna in Exodus, which would spoil at the end of each day, encouraging the Israelites to learn to trust in God’s continued provision.

Every exodus is a process of rebirth, moving us from where we are to where God wants us to be, and that takes time. This is especially hard on our modern sensibilities. We want to make a plan and get it done - but that’s focusing on the temporal.

We are called to "Trust in the Slow Work of God,” as Jesuit priest and paleontologist, Pierre de Chardin wrote in his poem by that name. I’ve linked this poem to this sermon and I highly recommend you read it.

Jesus followed his teaching on prayer with a parable about persistence in prayer. This parable has three main characters: 1) God, 2) the host, and 3) the neighbor. This harkens back to Jesus’ recent teaching on the summary of the law: love God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.

Dr. Amy Jill Levine, Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University, says the command to love your neighbor as yourself would translate better as: love your neighbor who is a human like you. Think about that and our current treatment of our immigrant neighbors, the poor and people of color among us, or those in any war-torn area of the world. So we must be persistent in prayer not just for ourselves but for the sake of the whole human community.

When we persist in prayer, we remain conscious of our unity in the love of God. This is what Episcopal theologian and racial unity activist, Dr. Catherine Meeks, calls development of our “inner community” where there is no other, no stranger, no enemy.

Prayerful consciousness enables us to be in a state where God’s heavenly realm can manifest through us into the earthly realm. As my grandmother said, we must always live with one foot in each realm.

When it seems like God isn’t present, doesn’t know or care about what we need, or isn’t responding, our prayerful consciousness reminds us that what seems like God taking too long may actually be God working with another soul or souls for their reconciliation. As we heard last week, God’s plan is for the reconciliation of the whole world, even the wicked tyrants.

God is counting on us to be faithful and prayerful, keeping one foot intentionally in each realm, while this larger plan of love is manifested - on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

6 Pentecost, 2025-C: Go prayerfully into the Presence

Lectionary: Amos 8:1-12; Psalm 52; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42

En el nombre de Dios, quien es nuestro creador, redentor y santificador...

In the name of God, who is our Creator, Red

I often remind people what seems obvious: we are the church, people of God, which means we are a people of prayer. Prayer, as we know, often uses words and symbols, but these are signs that point to something bigger. They always point to God’s plan of love being actualized.

For example, when we see a cross, it means so much more than two planks of wood fastened together. It’s more than an ancient Roman tool of execution. For us, the cross points to Jesus’ sacrifice of himself for our salvation. It is the symbol of Jesus’ victory over the power of sin and death. While it looked like the death of hope, it was actually the divine doorway to new life.

People of God look for the larger meaning behind the words, symbols, and events of our time. We know they point to something bigger, for in them God is continually revealing how God’s ultimate plan of love is being actualized.

Our Old Testament story begins with God showing Amos a basket of fruit, asking, ‘What do you see, Amos? What do you perceive from this?’ Amos replies, “I see a basket of summer fruit.”

It might be helpful to know that the “basket of fruit” reference is a wordplay in Hebrew. The word that translates as basket of fruit sounds like the word that translates as “the end.” God asks Amos, ‘What do you see?’ and Amos says, “the end.”

Today’s story continues from the reading from last week when Amos was prophesying against the way the people in the northern city of Bethel (which means house of God), so how the people of God were living. In response, the king, Jeroboam, told Amos to leave and never return. As Amos left, he shook the dust from his feet, saying, 'The worst things you can think of will happen to you unless you change your ways and get back in line with God’s will for all,' which is what the plumbline meant. God set the plumb line, the way of living, among them, and the prophet declared that God would never again ignore the people’s errancy. The high places, including their altars, will be destroyed, the rulers will die in the violence they have precipitated, and every bad seed they planted will destroy all who follow their ways instead of God’s way.

Today’s story picks up by affirming that God, in fact, does see what’s happening among them. God repeats, “I will never pass you by,” which means 'I am in the midst of you;' and what God sees is that they are living lives that are unjust and discompassionate.

Hear this, God says: I see you trampling on the vulnerable, and oppressing the powerless. I see you practicing financial deceit so that you can build your own wealth. I see you snatching suckling babies from their mothers and putting my beloved ones in cages. I see all of what you are doing, God says, but you don’t see me.

You are bringing yourselves to the only end you’ve made available to you: your own undoing. When that starts happening, you’ll realize how wrong you’ve been, and you’ll look for me to save you, but you still won’t see me. You have so perverted my Word to support your evil schemes that I have been made irrelevant, invisible, and unavailable to you.

The psalm picks up the theme of calling out the tyrants for their cruelty. “You love lying more than speaking truth. You love all words that hurt.” Now, I am not God, but I can see the very issues discussed in the psalm playing out in our world today, and if social media and the many requests I’ve had for pastoral conversations are any indicator, I’m not alone in this.

That’s why I love the Psalms. They speak so truthfully to our frustration, our sense of powerlessness, and desperation for justice. The author cries out, ‘O that God would hear our prayer and utterly demolish you wicked tyrants, topple you, and root you out of the land of the living.’

As honest as this prayer is, we need to remember that God’s plan of love is for the redemption of the whole world to God – even the wicked tyrants. Seeking an outcome that seems just to us is common, but outside our lane, as they say.

The desire for justice, as frustrating as it is, reflects God’s own desire burning in us. How blessed we are to be so frustrated, for it is evidence that we are sharing God’s heart of love. So then, what is our recourse until the justice we desire is actualized? To go prayerfully into the presence of God, where our hearts can be moved from “demolish them utterly” to “I trust in the mercy of God for ever,” as we see in the Psalm. Only then will our responsive actions be faithful.

The news has been so disruptive to my peace lately. In my busy-ness, I’ve had to be intentional about stopping to pray and rest in the love of God, to listen for my Savior’s voice of comfort, to be strengthened by it and led back into peace – into Christ’s peace. I’ve had to make time to sit at the feet of my Redeemer, like Mary did in our gospel story, or risk being sucked down into the whirlpool of the chaos of the world.

This story of Martha and Mary from the gospel of Luke is often discussed in ways that pit Martha against Mary in a competition for holiness. I often hear people say, “I’m a Martha” or “I’m a Mary.” The truth is, we’re all both.

Why our translators changed the word here from ‘the good part’ to ‘the better part’ escapes me and is part of the reason we hear this as a competition. Mary didn’t choose a better part than Martha. When Jesus called Mary’s choice good, he was saying it was admirable, deserving of respect and approval, and he gave it all of that.

Martha’s frustration in this story is that her ministry teammate, Mary, isn’t doing her usual part as they offer their gift of hospitality to Jesus and the disciples. The burden of their whole ministry falls to Martha who tries to go it alone but finds herself bitter and resentful about it.Note to church leadership: this is such a great description of a potential trap regarding ministries in our churches.

Jesus responds with a soothing: Martha, Martha… you are worried and distracted by many things, but there is only one thing that really matters. Look, Mary has chosen the admirable part and it will not be taken from her.

Choice is a sign of our freedom. Jesus affirms this for Mary, a woman of her time who wouldn’t have been allowed in the inner sanctum of the temple to worship, but had the right to choose for herself, and she chose to listen to and be with Jesus.

To all of us who are worried and distracted by many things, Jesus assures the Martha within us, and it sounds something like this: Be still sometimes, all you Marthas. Just be with me. You have no praise to earn, no expectations to meet. You are already beloved. Come and be with me. I will fill your emptiness, restore your hope, and prepare you for your work in ministry.

I often say this is like breathing. We can’t just breathe in or just breathe out without passing out. We must have a rhythm of both. Likewise, we can’t breathe out our ministries until we have breathed in Jesus.

One of the things I love about our diocese is that there are deeply spiritual, prayerful people, and also passionate advocates for justice and peace. While all of us have both qualities, some among us may be more inclined to advocacy than to prayer, others to prayer over action, but as a whole community, we have it all. Our task is to keep a balance of inward forming and strengthening of our souls and outward actualizing through service.

The church, like the house of Martha and Mary, is a center of holy hospitality. Each week, we breathe Jesus in together. We make and share the holy food of Communion with our friends and ministry teammates. Then, strengthened and restored by Word and Sacrament, we are sent into the world to love and serve in the holy name and loving way of Jesus.

There is so much injustice, insult, and damage to life out there, but if we try to serve without first making time to sit in God’s presence, we may end up doing more harm than good. 

So, for this moment, let us rest at the feet of our Redeemer, where we will receive the only thing that really matters. Amen.

5 Pentecost, 2025-C: The neighbor is YOU

This sermon can be watched live on our YouTube channel at 24:49.

Lectionary: Amos 7:7-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37 (Proper 10, Track I)

En el nombre de Dios, cuyo camino es un camino de amor, vida, restauración, sanación y comunidad armoniosa… In the name of God, whose way is a way of love, life, restoration, healing, and harmonious community. Amen.

I begin today with our Psalm, which has a superscription that it was written by Asaph, a Levite and musician, appointed by David to assist with liturgy. This Psalm contains the surprising notion of a council of heaven consisting of other gods, a strange thing for a religion steadfastly devoted to there being only one God.

The word “gods” as used here did mean divine beings, but also referred to human magistrates, judges, who were socially elevated by power, prestige, and authority. It is these that God declares corrupt, saying. “How long will you judge unjustly and show favor to the wicked?” It’s important to note that ‘wicked’ means those who deserve the punishments they are imposing on the underserving.

God then issues clarification on the true responsibilities of those magistrates: “save and rescue the weak and the orphan, defend the humble and needy, and deliver them from the power of the corrupt leaders who walk in wrongdoing. They have made the whole world unstable; the foundations of the earth are shaken. They think themselves immune to the consequences of their actions, but, God says, they will fall and die like any other ruler.

Most importantly, in this psalm God reminds those in positions of power and authority: ALL of you are MY children. The psalm concludes with a plea: Arise, O God, and rule your way. Save and rescue the weak and the orphan, defend the humble and needy, and deliver them from the power of the wicked leaders. Then all the nations of the world will belong to you.

That is my prayer today.

A similar theme is played out in the OT reading. Amos is prophesying against the way the people in the northern city of Bethel are behaving. In response, the king, Jeroboam, tells Amos to leave and never return.

As Amos leaves, he shakes the dust from his feet saying, the worst things you can think of will happen to you unless you change your ways and get back in line with God’s will for all, which is what the plumbline represents. God set this plumb line, this way of living, among them, and the prophet declares that God will never again ignore the people’s errancy. The high places, including their altars, will be destroyed, the rulers will die in the violence they have precipitated, and every bad seed they planted will destroy all of you who follow their ways instead of God’s way.

At this point, we almost need a moment to catch our breath as we realize how apropos this is for our time! Thankfully, we have the letter to the Colossians, which reminds us, that Jesus has rescued us from the power of dark leaders, and in him we have redemption by the forgiveness of our sins. 

But what does this promise really mean? What is redemption by the forgiveness of our sins?

First, as familiar as this particular phrase is, it appears only in the letters that most scholars agree were not written by Paul. This letter to the church in Colossae was probably written by a student of Paul’s, maybe even by Epaphras, who founded this Christian community. It was written to encourage them to be strong in their faith in Jesus as religious leaders around them argued over whether or how to combine their Greek philosophies and Jewish rituals.

Redemption is a reclaiming. God finding us when we’ve lost our way and returning us to divine safety. Any parent who has lost a child at a store or public event knows the joy this sort of reclamation enkindles. Sometimes, the child is blissfully unaware they were even lost or in danger. The metaphor works spiritually too. 

…by the forgiveness of sin… This is key for us. As we heard in the psalm, we are all children of the Most High. God pardons all we may have done while we were lost and rejoices when we are found and reclaimed – as per Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son.

It’s a hard concept, really, because it pricks our sense of justice – usually applied to someone else’s sins. This is where our gospel story comes in and it completely obliterates our tendency to live from an “us and them” perspective

The lawyer in this story is an expert in Jewish law. His question: “’What must I do to inherit eternal life?’” is meant to challenge Jesus’ understanding and interpretation of Mosaic law.

We could spend the next three hours discussing just this question, but I have an appointment after church, so instead, let’s just look at a couple of the important points it contains:

First, I ask you: who is the subject of this question? The lawyer. He wants to know what he must do for himself. How does he inherit eternal life? It sounds like a prize or reward, doesn’t it?

So then, what is eternal life? Despite the Church’s habit of treating eternal life as an afterlife reward for good behavior, eternal life is very simply living – right now – in the presence and purpose and will of God who is eternal.

Sensing the challenge, Jesus turns the tables on the lawyer. You’re the expert. What do you say is written in the law?

The lawyer knows the answer, and even shows some familiarity with Jesus’ own interpretation of the Torah by connecting the same dots Jesus was publicly connecting: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind [from Deuteronomy 6:5], and your neighbor as yourself. [from Leviticus 19:18]”

Right, Jesus says, do this and you will live. But the lawyer needed more. Don’t we all?

He asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

A man was traveling alone on a road known to be filled with violent thieves. He is, unsurprisingly, attacked, robbed, and left for dead.

Jesus doesn’t tell us if this man is Jewish, Samaritan, or a foreigner. Since he was stripped of his clothes, and was unconscious so he couldn’t talk, his identity category remains unknown.

Both a priest and a Levite, considered to be learned and trusted religious leaders, come along and see the man. Both go around and past the dying man, and go on their way.

Then a Samaritan man comes along, sees the dying man and is moved with pity. Jewish people in the region hated Samaritans, reviling them as unclean, mixed-blood, half-breeds who don’t worship right. Even though the Samaritans knew and kept Jewish law, they were hated by folks like this lawyer and Jesus’ other listeners.

The Samaritan tends to the man and carries him to a safe place where he pays for medical care and lodging for him, promising to return and pay more if more was needed. In this Samaritan man, pity, which is a feeling, became mercy, which is an action.

Notice what Jesus asks next. It wasn’t, was this dying man a neighbor deserving mercy? He asked, which of the three who saw him was a neighbor to him.

The lawyer replied, “the man who showed mercy.” I wonder if the lawyer’s habit of hate for Samaritans rendered him unable to even say the word “Samaritan” in his response…

Jesus said to him: Go and do likewise. Do, Jesus said. The lawyer was used to knowing, interpreting, and teaching. Jesus here tells him to act on what he knows is true: that loving neighbor as self is an action, commissioned by God.

Thus, Jesus not only obliterates the division between “us and them” for all time, for we are all children of the Most High, he also turns the focus from the suffering to us who see it.

Therefore, as we watch the endless news reals, and scroll through story after story of people suffering the consequences of corrupt leadership around the world, we remember that we are called to be a neighbor, to show mercy to anyone who is suffering, weak, alone, poor, or needy.

We remember that God tells us to do that because we have been reclaimed by God, who sought us out, took us in a divine embrace, and holds us close. This is eternal life, and it’s ours right now. We don’t have to do anything to inherit it. We have only to live it.

Let us pray our Collect again, changing the person from “they” to “we.”

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that we may know and understand what things we ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

4 Pentecost, 2025-C: Essential humility

Lectionary: 2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Galatians 6:(1-6)7-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

En el nombre del unico Dios, santo y vivo. In the name of the one, holy, and living God. Amen. 

Our readings today highlight how essential humility is for us as followers of Jesus. We begin with one of my favorite OT stories, the healing of Naaman.

Naaman is a privileged and powerful military commander who has leprosy, a disease that slowly eats away at a person. When the leprosy progresses, he’ll lose his position of power because in those days, a person with leprosy was exiled in order to keep the disease from spreading. Leprosy was thought to be punishment for sin, so not only were they exiled, they were also shamed and blamed.

Hearing about Naaman’s condition, a young Israelite slave girl (notice the vulnerability in each of those descriptors: young, Jewish, slave, female) who served Naaman’s wife offers some advice: Why doesn’t Naaman go see the prophet of God in Samaria? He could cure him.

So the King of Aram sends his military commander to find this prophet, carrying with him lots of expensive gifts. Naaman announces his importance by arriving with military pageantry. But Elisha doesn’t even come out to greet him. Instead, he sends a lowly messenger to tell Naaman to go and wash in the River Jordan seven times.

Naaman is highly insulted and angry. ‘That’s it? I thought the prophet and his God would put on a great show of healing magic because – well, it’s me! And why would I go to the Jordan River when we have all the best rivers in Aram.

It isn’t until Naaman humbles himself that he’s healed. In that moment, power is redefined for all who read this story and have ears to hear it.

The unnamed slave girl in this story exemplifies what Jesus is teaching his followers about being laborers for God’s harvest. She notices Naaman’s weakness and tends to him. His physical weakness is the skin condition, but his real weakness is spiritual: his attachment to having and wielding earthly, coercive power.

There are plenty of Naamans among us today. There always have been and probably always will be.

It’s important to note that the unnamed slave girl didn’t need to tend to Naaman. She could have let his disease progress. It’s likely that his downfall would have led to her freedom. But she was a laborer in God’s harvest, one in which every fruit, every person is worth serving.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is sending 70 followers into the harvest, but first he tells them to pray for themselves: “…ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” The reason is, prayer is where we learn and practice humility. It’s where we surrender ourselves and our wills to the will of God.

Praying before they went would help the 70 remember that it’s God’s harvest, not theirs. God has done the work: planting the seeds, growing them in the womb of the earth in secret, nourishing them, and bringing them to ripeness, ready for harvesting.

They are sent two by two - because we don’t do the work of God alone. We also don’t carry expensive gifts as Naaman did. We carry only the peace of Christ, which unleashes God’s powerful, redeeming love into the world.

Jesus sent the 70 to share his peace with everyone they meet – everyone, that is, who will receive it - because some won’t. When that happens, Jesus tells them to shake it off, as Taylor Swift would say, and walk away, allowing God to work that reconciliation another way at another time. What happens to those who refuse Christ’s peace is God’s business, not theirs, but do tell them, Jesus says, that the kingdom of God has come near to them.

In Galatians, this point is taken even further. Paul talks about those living outside the love of God as lost, and teaches us that when we find someone who is lost, we “who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.”

Followers of Jesus must never be tempted to violence, coercion, or contempt. We must, instead, always remain open to the grace of the Holy Spirit, because by that grace we will not only remain devoted to God, but our unity and tenderness for one another, even those who challenge us, will be complete, and in that completeness God’s love restores them.

When they returned, the 70 were excited to tell Jesus about what happened: “In your name even the demons submit to us!” When we hear that, we often think of otherworldly beings who tempt, damage, or possess humans. But demons are also humans who are fierce and skilled in making their evil, selfish, destructive plans succeed – usually by coercive means.

Even these demons submitted to the peace of Christ brought by the 70 followers. In response, Jesus cautions them to remember that it is the unity of their spirits with God’s Spirit and their wills with the will of God, they should celebrate, not a newfound power over anyone or anything. That power belongs to God alone.

“Do not be deceived,” Paul says in Galatians, for “God is not mocked.” In other words, you can’t claim God’s power as your own. “If you sow to your own flesh,” what you will reap will be your own corruption. 19th century historian and moralist Lord Acton said it like this (I think you’ll find this familiar): "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

Jesus calls them wolves and instructs the 70 to go out like lambs among those wolves. We don’t need to be powerful. We need to be humble, remembering that any power we carry into the world belongs to the Lord of the harvest, and God’s power doesn’t destroy – it transforms, reconciles, and re-creates. Therefore, we don’t grow weary in doing what is right, and whenever we have the opportunity, we work for the good of all. “All, all, all, all, all” as Archbishop Desmond Tutu said.

Being lambs among wolves feels rather appropriate right now, doesn’t it? When modern day demons are working to destroy the vulnerable among us, we want to fight back, by pushing against their power with our own, but that will get us nowhere. We need to be like the 70 Jesus sent out carrying nothing but his peace. The demons submitted then, and they will submit now.

Do we trust that?

It’s hard to be humble in the face of violent power, but thankfully, Jesus modeled that for us too - at his trial before Pontius Pilate. What followed next, his crucifixion, seemed like the end of hope, but it was, in fact, the doorway to a new life – resurrection life in Jesus.

Do we trust that?

Our task right now is to learn and practice humility together. In order to do that, we need to consider how we understand humility. Humility comes from the Latin word humus which means grounded… from the earth. When we are humble, we are grounded in our faith and self-aware.

Humility is not self-deprecating - quite the opposite. Humility is an appreciation of our gifts and talents in relationship to God by whose grace we have them. In humility, we remember that we are from the earth, created and sent by God with a divine purpose to complete during our time on earth.

And what is that purpose? To be devoted to God with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection, bearing one another’s burdens with gentleness, and tirelessly co-creating a world where all of God’s beloveds know they are valued and will be cared for. A world where everyone’s sackcloth is turned into joy.

Then we, the ones God is sending in our time, will praise God without ceasing, giving thanks forever for God’s grace, mercy, love, and faith in us to serve. Amen.

Pentecost, 2025-C: Continuing prophetic witness

Lectionary: Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104:25-35, 37; Romans 8:14-17; John 14:8-17

 

Last week, the clergy of our convocation gathered at Emmanuel for a Clericus (which simply means a gathering of clergy), led by our bishop. Among the many concerns we discussed were the issues of serving victims of the tornado in the long haul given FEMA aid remains unattained and among reports that folks in some zip codes are being refused insurance referrals for construction help, inaugurating a modern form of redlining.

We also discussed serving vulnerable populations like people of color, LGBTQIA2S+ folks, and immigrants. Our bishop is, as you know, an immigrant himself. He is also a black, married gay man, making him a member of several vulnerable populations currently under fire in this cultural moment. He is married to a hispanic immigrant, and their family has already suffered from the arbitrary interpretation and enforcement of immigration law.

This led us to a discussion about the need for churches to be prophetic. Those of us who can must speak out on behalf of those who can’t, those who are being silenced, disappeared, ambushed, and dismissed to the margins.

Bp. Deon wisely reminded us that being prophetic doesn’t always require doing something flashy, but consistently doing the small things that demonstrate the truth we hold as Episcopalians.

And what is that truth? We can find it in our Baptismal vows on page 304 in the BCP: to gather and break bread together, prayerfully nourishing the bonds of our community of faith so that we can proclaim by our words and our lives the Good News we know; to persevere in resisting evil and repent, that is, return to God, whenever we sin; and to seek and serve Christ in ALL persons, respecting their dignity as we strive for God’s justice and peace. No small task.

There are two things we need to accomplish this: God and each other. Every Sunday we celebrate the love of God that binds us as a community of faith. We nurture ourselves with the spiritual food of Scripture and Holy Communion. Today, on the Feast of Pentecost, we celebrate the truth that we have God in us – individually and communally.

The story of the first Pentecost found in the Book of Acts is a familiar one, as are the images associated with it – the small tongues of fire emanating from the dove-like Holy Spirit, hovering over the heads of the gathered faithful. We imagine those same tongues of fire hovering over our own heads. To embody that, we wave a dove over us during our opening procession.

Fire, as you have often heard me say, is Bible-talk for the presence of God. The tongues of fire are small bits of the Almighty Themself, being given to imperfect, unfinished humans, who are motivated and equipped to serve by that very presence of God that rests on them.

Our remembrance of this event each liturgical year is an opportunity for us to reopen our awareness to the truth that God is co-existing with us and what that means. These tiny pieces in each of us, when taken together, become a powerful force for love, a prophetic, revelatory vision of the living God. We become more together than any of us can be alone. This is church.

Whatever gifts we have, individually and as a community, are evidence of the presence of God within us. One of our responsibilities as a church community is to be the place where each person's gifts are discovered and nurtured. We then discern what our collective gifts are so that we can use them to serve the world according to God’s purpose and plan for us.

Our churches also work together in community, which for us, is the Diocese of Missouri. All of us serving God synergistically - better and more faithfully than any one of us can serve alone – and we have plenty to do.

In Scripture, we learn that it didn’t take long for some of those disciples upon whom the spirit of God descended to be edged out to the margins of the community once again. As the fledgling church began to form its institutional identity the new wine of this Pentecost reality was shoved back into the old skins of the Jewish temple system, edging women, slaves, the poor, and others right back to the “outer courts” of the community. The doors that Jesus had flung open began to close, and that initial institutional system evolved into the one we have today, a system that continues to reflect an ancient ethnic and patriarchal advantage.

In the novel, “The Healing” by Jonathan O’Dell, set on a cotton plantation in pre-Civil War Mississippi, a young slave girl named Granada is apprenticed to a mixed-race, midwife and healer named Mother Polly. Mother Polly was purchased by the master to intervene in the cholera epidemic, which was wiping out his “stock” of slaves. Knowing abolition was on the horizon, the master wanted to treat his slaves well enough so that when freedom became an option, they’d have no need of it – a condition Mother Polly called being “freedom stupid.”

When Granada complained to Mother Polly that she didn’t want to leave the plantation to go to freedom-land, she asked, “Where was it, anyway?” It isn’t a place, Mother Polly told her, it’s a way of being.

This story is such a great metaphor for the church. Church isn’t a place. It’s a way of being. We don’t go to church. We are the church, the body of Christ in the world.

In the reading from Acts, Peter quotes the prophet Joel who declares God’s intention to pour out Their divine Spirit onto ALL flesh: sons and daughters, men and women, old and young, slave and free. This is that time, Peter proclaims. Emmanuel family, I proclaim to you now, this is still that time because God is still redeeming. God is always redeeming.

Like young Granada, however, so many in the church, unable to comprehend the magnitude of the freedom of God’s spirit and trust its power to transform us, our community, and even the world, choose to be “salvation stupid,” turning away and choosing to fall back into a spirit of fear as St. Paul said.

We look back at the pre-Civil War era and wonder how Christians could ever have believed that kidnapping and enslaving humans, snatching babies from their mother’s breasts, and children from their innocence; working people to near exhaustion, and killing them as if they weren’t humans, was in any way in keeping with Jesus’ commandments to love. Looking at our current news reports leads me to wonder the same thing about us today.

Thankfully, God is still redeeming. God is always redeeming until “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” God continually sends forth God’s own Spirit to create and re-create the world; and God has chosen us as partners in this work, making manifest on earth the eternal truth that God is love, and we ALL are God’s beloveds.

This is a tremendous gift, one that often overwhelms us, but when we gather together, the bits of God’s Spirit in each of us unites with the bits of God’s spirit in all of us, and the fullness of God is made manifest through us on the earth.

Even with all our imperfections, we can, by the grace and Spirit of God, be prophetic and revelatory of the loving God we serve in small and big ways. One small way we are doing this is the display of PRIDE flags on our church property. We used to have one flag on a pole next to a metal sign out front. That flag was stolen, and our pole was destroyed. In response, we screwed PRIDE flags onto the two metal signs on our property that are awaiting refurbishment. Those signs will soon have permanent PRIDE flags as a continuing, prophetic witness to our love for our LGBTQIA2S+ siblings in Christ.

Happy birthday to the church in our continual becoming... and Happy PRIDE Month. Amen.