Sermons – Page 5 – Word In Process

Trinity Sunday

Trinity Sunday – June 16, 2019 – Trinity, Winchester

Today is Trinity Sunday, a principal feast of the church and the titular feast of Trinity Episcopal Church in Winchester. It is a deep joy to be a part of a congregation so steadfast in faithful witness to God’s work in the world.

I’m not sure that a sermon is the best place to expound upon complicated doctrinal teaching, even on Trinity Sunday. In-depth exploration of the doctrine of the Trinity is probably best suited for adult formation, Bible study, and late-night conversations with nerdy friends.

We can’t even begin to scratch the surface of the Trinity in next 10 minutes. The Trinity was yesterday, is today, and will remain tomorrow a great mystery.

Even scholars who devote their lives to studying Christian theology will never quite grasp it. This is not to say that we shouldn’t ask questions about it, study it, or discuss it. In fact, we should!

Labeling this core component of our faith a “mystery” should not be an excuse not to think about it, wrestle with it, or intelligently argue about it. Quite the contrary, our beliefs are strongest when they are joined with knowledge. Learning and holiness must be linked. Prayer and study. Faith and reason.

But look who I’m telling… You know what it means to critically engage your faith. During the program year we meet weekly for both Sunday School and Bible study. A couple of weeks ago, when Amy and I suggested taking a summer hiatus, you told us you didn’t want to.

You said you wanted to keep meeting each Tuesday afternoon to talk about God and explore your faith. What’s more, you chose to forgo our typical lectionary-based Bible study in favor of a more challenging course that involved reading a scholarly book about biblical narrative.

Trinity Sunday may be the only day on the liturgical calendar that focuses on a complex theological doctrine, but at Trinity Church in Winchester we have challenging, mind-bending, faith-fueled conversations all year long.

When you think about it, it’s fitting that we are called “Trinity.” To be named for this inexplicable doctrinal mystery says something about us. It says that we are ready and willing to have challenging conversations.

This is not new to Trinity. Some of you remember that more than a decade ago you had one of the hardest conversations of all. When some members of the parish walked away to start a new venture outside of the Episcopal Church you made sure that Trinity parish remained steadfast in faithful witness. You remained committed to one another and committed to exploring your faith.

Today is about more than making sense of a complicated theological doctrine. Today is about remembering who we are together and why you—as members of Trinity Episcopal Church— are in relationship with one another.

The Trinity—one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is in itself a divine model for relationship. God is three, constantly relating to each other, in one. We are constantly reminded of this divine relationship in our liturgy, from “Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” all the way to “The blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

The Trinity reminds us that Christianity, before it is anything else, is a relationship. Before it is faith, or belief, or creed, or doctrine, or catechism, or morality, it is first and foremost a relationship with God who knew us and loved us before time and who knows and loves us still.

Christianity is a relationship with God who came as the Son in flesh to sanctify our human nature and who lives among us still. Christianity is a relationship with God who as the Spirit fell in tongues of fire on the disciples and who sustains the church still.

Christianity is a relationship with God who teaches us what it’s like to be in a relationship with each other, and the rest of creation. Without God we couldn’t live this life together. We couldn’t tolerate each other’s quirks or deal with each others’ personalities.

Without God we couldn’t have kept this little ship afloat. Without God we wouldn’t be greeting new faces at the door or welcoming back old friends. Without God we wouldn’t be able to gather in the Parish Hall for heady conversations and faith exploration.

No, without God we would not have this wonderful parish.

And without God we would not be equipped for the ministry of the future. We would not be equipped for our growing food pantry, or our renewed commitment to evangelism, or our close relationships with our fellow STEM congregations.

Without God we would scarcely have the courage to walk into each new day, calling this community’s attention to the signs of God all around.

I guess it’s a good thing we have God, then—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—because I, for one, would hate to miss this.

Sermons

St. Justin

Feast of St. Justin – June 1, 2019 – St. Mary’s Convent, Sewanee

I know a lot of people with PhDs.

In college, in seminary, and even out and about in the Episcopal Church, I have met (and even come to like!) a lot of folks who went to school for a long, long time.

Funnily enough, most of the folks I know with PhDs won’t admit to being smart.

When I was discerning my call to the priesthood a college professor on my parish discernment committee told me, “With each degree I earn, the less I feel like I know.”

Her admission makes a kind of sense.

Advanced degrees are about specializing in certain disciplines. The deeper you dive into a specific subject area, the less time you have to focus on other things. There is a whole world of knowledge that you are not studying.

My other high-achieving friends agree; earning a PhD is humbling. It makes one keenly aware that there is always something more to learn, a different question to answer, a new problem to solve.

Today we celebrate Justin Martyr, another learned man. Sort of a PhD in his own day. His appetite for knowledge was immense. He was educated in various schools of Greek philosophy including stoicism, platonism, pythagoreanism, and peripateticism (whatever that is!).

Alas, even with such a strong command of philosophical knowledge, Justin did not find wholeness until one day when he met a disciple of Jesus who revealed to him the testimony of the prophets. Following this encounter, Justin became a Christian and dedicated himself to God.

He even founded a school in Rome and wrote ardent defenses of the Christian faith. His faith in Jesus became so strong that he refused to renounce it, even when it meant the loss of his mortal life.

This is all to say, Justin found wholeness only when his quest for knowledge was complemented by his encounter with the divine.

There is always going to be a vast amount of knowledge yet unknown to us. That’s a good thing. It keeps us motivated to learn by considering new perspectives. Faith benefits from the expansion of the mind.

Another holy man of the calendar, John Wesley, used to talk about the union of knowledge and vital piety. That is, knowledge and faith. Learning and holiness. Truth and love. It’s not one or the other. It’s both of them together.

Knowledge alone cannot save us. Salvation is found in our relationship with God in Jesus Christ. That relationship, both individually and corporately, gives our pursuit of knowledge order, discipline, and focus.

In Christianity Justin did not simply find the knowledge he was looking for. He also found a communion with the One who put his quest for knowledge in perspective and gave his life deep meaning.

In Christianity Justin found the God who established with him—and who establishes with each of us—a bond so strong that Becky Wright (one of my favorite PhDs) might even call it “absolute, rock-solid, covenant loyalty.” In response to that loyalty, Justin went all in. Even to point of death.

As mere mortals, like Justin, there is no way we can match God’s loyalty to us, but we can do something. We can take the knowledge we do have, the knowledge of our life-giving relationship with Jesus, and we can share it with all whom we meet.

For that there is no PhD required.

Sermons

Knowing God

Fifth Sunday of Easter – May 19, 2019 – Acts 11:1-18 – Trinity, Winchester

Today’s collect has a great first line. “Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life.” That phrase has stuck with me since we first read it together at Bible study on Tuesday.

To know God is everlasting life. That packs a punch.

It suggests that our relationship with God is not casual. God is not a mere acquaintance or a distant relative. True knowledge of God is not futile or easily acquired. Rather, true knowledge of God is the result of a life spent experiencing God, listening to God, and responding to God.

Faithful Christians have been doing just that for centuries. In today’s lesson from Acts, the Apostle Peter recounts a vision by which he comes to deeper knowledge of God.

Peter sees God’s great picnic blanket lowered to the earth carrying animals considered to be unclean. Nevertheless, the voice of God commands Peter to kill and eat. Peter politely refuses, but three times God assures him, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

After the vision, the Spirit leads Peter to the home of a prominent Gentile where he begins to preach. The Holy Spirit falls on all who are gathered there, just as it had on the disciples on the day of Pentecost.

Through this vision and the subsequent events God reveals that his kingdom is available even for those outside of Judaism.

It seems simple enough to us. Jesus came for everyone. Gentile, Jew, slave, free, black, white, gay, straight, woman, man, non-binary. (The list goes on.) But imagine a Jewish believer in Jesus’ time. It would have sounded preposterous that a Gentile could receive the word of God.

Jewish followers of Jesus were uniquely suited to receive the Good News of the Messiah. They were children of Israel, decedents of Abraham. Christ was the fulfillment of what had been foretold by their prophets in their Bible.

Since the Jews were God’s chosen people, the idea that Gentiles could be included in a salvation they had not-so-long-expected didn’t make much sense.

Gentiles did not live by the law. Their men were uncircumcised, they consumed forbidden food, and they didn’t perform ritual acts of washing before table fellowship. How could they all-of-the-sudden be a part of the in-group?

At this point, it’s tempting to draw an unflattering analogy between these early Jewish followers of Jesus and Christians today who refuse to acknowledge that the love of God is for anyone but them.

It’s been done before.

“The Jews were too legalistic! They were so focused on their law that they couldn’t see that God was trying to do something bigger and better! Don’t be like them!”

Let’s not fall into that trap. It would be hypocritical. By criticizing Peter for eating with Gentiles, Jewish followers of Jesus were not saying anything different than what we might say today.

“How can Baptists be Christians? They only do communion twice a year, and when they do do it they use grape juice! It’s unconscionable! It’s not biblical! It’s simply not done!”

Have you ever noticed that no matter what denomination they belong to, Christians tend to find Jesus firmly aligned with their beliefs, as if they have the market cornered on Christianity.

Christians get stuck in an either/or mentality. They see things as mutually exclusive. If you don’t have Eucharist every Sunday, then you’re doing it wrong. If you don’t only offer baptisms on major feasts, then you’re doing it wrong. If you don’t perform “last rites” immediately before death, then you’re doing it wrong.

When we engage in that kind of exclusivity we miss the point. Just because we have chosen to follow Jesus in a particular way, doesn’t mean that all the other ways that people follow Jesus are wrong.

There are, of course, some ways of following Jesus that are wrong. If your idea of following Jesus involves speaking hate, or excluding people who are different from you, or taking it upon yourself to damn others to hell, then you are absolutely wrong. But just because some ways are wrong, doesn’t mean that every way but ours is wrong.

God did not send Peter a vision to tell him that Jewish food laws were irrelevant or that the old covenant was thereby invalid. God is simply telling Peter that knowledge of God is not limited to people who observe the food laws or practice circumcision.

In the Episcopal Church we do certain things in certain ways for certain reasons. God is not calling us to abandon our rituals of common prayer. God is calling us to understand that God is not exclusively limited to them.

That’s right, Gentiles can also experience God. And for that matter, Baptists can, too! God is bigger than the Church. One set of rules or guidelines simply cannot capture all knowledge of the divine.

That’s okay, dear ones, because God continues to reveal himself to us, and each time he does he invites us into a deeper knowledge of him.

It might be in the form of the Holy Spirit guiding the General Convention to affirm the ordination of women or the sacredness of same-sex relationships.

It might be in the still, small voice that encourages our bishops to stand up against senseless gun violence and the laws that perpetuate it.

It might be in any number of things. Maybe even in something that happens to you this week.

Some say this is sacrilege. They say that everything we need to know was given to us in the Bible. The Bible may contain “all things necessary to salvation,” but that does not change the fact that God continues to help us interpret it.

I think some folks are scared that if we say that God still speaks to us that it will negate the things that God has already revealed. That’s simply not the case.

The fact that God continually guides us into deeper knowledge of our sacred texts does not mean that the texts have reached their expiration date. It means that God’s help is required in order for us to continuing mining their depths.

Deeper knowledge of God comes as a result of our participation in the life of God. Sure, there will be times along the way when we realize that we don’t know God completely. That’s a good thing.

It keeps this faith thing interesting.

It reminds us that God is God and we are not.

It keeps us coming back again and again to meet God in prayer, scripture, liturgy, and sacrament.

In other words, it keeps us in eternal life. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

Sermons

Show yourself to be alive

Fourth Sunday of Easter – May 12, 2019 – Acts 9:36-43 – Trinity, Winchester

During the Easter season we hear quite a bit from the book of Acts. Acts chronicles the early days of the Church, the first communities of faithful disciples, and the early apostles, like Peter and Paul, who led them.

Speaking of, you may remember that the official name for Acts is “The Acts of the Apostles.”

An apostle is one who is “sent out.” Just as the first apostles were sent out to proclaim the resurrection, Christians continue that work today. That’s what it means to believe in “one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” which we confess each Sunday in the words of the Nicene Creed.

Our Church is apostolic because its members are sent out into the world to bear witness to the power of resurrection and to the glory of the Risen One.

In our tradition bishops are said to be apostles of the Church. As Episcopalians, our bishops (men and women, black and white, gay and straight) are living, breathing reminders of the apostolic faith.

They represent the corporate nature of our faith. Administratively, liturgically, and pastorally, they remind us that the church is bigger than our parish. Most of all, they are the chief witnesses of Jesus Christ in our communities.

You also share in the apostolic faith because you are a witness to the living Christ, the Christ who not only was raised, but the Christ who is risen, this Jesus who is among us now.

In today’s passage we encounter a model for our Christian witness in the Apostle Peter. Yes, Peter was eventually Bishop of Rome, but before that he was just an ordinary believer, called by an itinerant Rabbi who once bid him, “Follow me.”

Tabitha, the only woman referred to as a disciple in the entire New Testament, is dead. In the wake of the tragedy, the other disciples send for Peter. He comes quickly, finds the widows of Joppa in mourning, clears the room, and kneels in prayer. After summoning Tabitha to “get up,” he “shows her to be alive.”

The disciples send for Peter in their time of grief because he is a comfort to them, and he represents a link to Jesus. But while the disciples may view Peter as a link to Jesus, Peter doesn’t come to Joppa to bring Jesus with him. In fact, when Peter arrives, he finds the Spirit of Christ already there.

In the fragrant oils used to wash the body; in the bitter tears the mourners shed; in the very clothes the widows wear, symbols of the love and life of their dear friend Tabitha, the Risen One is already present.

That’s how it often is, isn’t it? In times of sorrow, when we gather at the bedside of an ailing family member or at the funeral of a loved one, God is already there.

The vicar may come to anoint a sick parishioner, but she does not bring Christ with her, she comes to show us that Christ is already there.

The bishop may come to preside at the funeral, but he does not bring Christ with him, he comes to point to Christ where Christ always is.

The mourners may come in droves from all around to give their condolences, but they do so not because they alone can bestow Christ. They do so because Christ calls them to where he already is. They do so to continue the work of resurrection.

Likewise, by raising Tabitha, Peter continues the work of resurrection. Peter shows us that Jesus is with us. Resurrection was not a one-time event; it is a continuing reality available to us all, even today.

As sweet as that sounds, there is always more work to be done. Just because we know that Jesus is always present, doesn’t mean everybody does. In fact, a lot of people don’t, so you need to tell them.

You are sent out to proclaim Christ. It’s your job, not to bring Jesus with you wherever you go, but to call attention to Jesus where he already is.

That’s hard work, primarily because there are people in the world who think the Church is dead, who think God is dead. They look around and see a world torn apart by school shootings, capitalist greed, and rumors of war. They say things like, “If God is good, then God must not be around anymore.”

I’ll admit, it seems those people have a point. Some days even the most hopeful among us are assaulted by this world’s convincing ubiquity of despair. As long as we stay silent, that’s exactly where folks are going to stay. We must not stay silent. We must not stay silent because we are Christians sent out to continue the work of resurrection.

Even in the freezing cold winter of the soul it is our duty to turn over every rock and leaf looking for life and saying “Show yourself to be alive!”

There are even those in this very community who accuse this very church—Trinity Episcopal Church—of being dead. For whatever reason some folks have it in their head that we have gone astray.

They say that we are not real Christians. They say that we don’t believe in the Bible. They say that we associate with sinners. They say that we are trying to spread certain “agendas.” They say that we don’t care about Jesus as much as we care about politics. They say that no one even shows up here on Sunday morning.

We know that none of that is true, but their words make it clear that we have more work to do. The good news is, we have the eternal power of the resurrection to help us do it.

Just like those early days of the church when Peter raised Tabitha from the dead, these are crucial times for our parish, and our Church, and indeed Christianity itself. It’s going to take each one of us, sharing the Good News of the resurrection, to show this town, this nation, and this world, that we go on living in spite of it all.

Maybe that’s why God raised Tabitha from the dead. God knew that there was so much to be done that he wasn’t quite ready to spare another disciple just yet. Maybe that’s why he sent Peter to say, “Get up.”

Maybe that’s why he sent Jesus here today to say, “Get up, and show yourself to be alive.”

Sermons

Easter Sunday 2019

Easter Sunday – April 21, 2019 – Acts 10:34-43; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; John 20:1-18 – Trinity, Winchester

Easter is a day on which we typically don’t pay much attention to our scripture readings. Like Christmas, we already know the story. We come wearing bright colors (and maybe dressed a bit nicer than usual) to sing glad hymns and shout “Alleluia!” My job is to remind you to never underestimate the power of scripture, no matter how familiar you may think it is.

Each of today’s readings gives us a sense of the fullness of the eternal life into which we walk with the Risen Christ, this day and all the days of our lives.

From the Acts of the Apostles we hear Peter’s brief message of God’s peace in Jesus Christ. Peter tells us that we carry on as witnesses to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

From 1 Corinthians we hear Paul working out one of the Church’s first theologies of Jesus’s death and resurrection. “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”

Paul tells us that just as we die daily in our sin, we are also continually raised by virtue of the fact that we have been baptized into the life of Christ, who claims ultimate victory over sin and death.

From the Gospel according to John we hear an account of this very morning involving Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.

I commend to you each of these readings (and the psalm!) for further study. However, this morning I want to focus on this rich gospel account.

It reads to me almost like a game of human pingpong. Back and forth, back and forth. To and from the tomb. Stay with me here…

Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb. Startled that the stone has been rolled away, she runs away from it. She tells Peter and John, who decide they need to see it for themselves, so they run back toward the tomb.

They find the tomb empty, as Mary said they would. They see the linen grave clothes lying inside, but there is no body. Then they go, you guessed it, away from the tomb, back to their homes.

Somewhere in the course of these events (the scripture isn’t clear) Mary makes her way back to the tomb as well.

All three of these characters have different reactions to what they observe at the tomb. The gospel tells as that, after seeing the grave clothes, John believed Jesus had been raised. That’s remarkable, really. He had no gospel account to clue him in. It was all unfolding right there before his very eyes.

We’re not quite sure about Peter. Maybe he gets it. Maybe he doesn’t. Perhaps he has some more thinking to do.

Mary, on the other hand, doesn’t get it at all, which is totally understandable. Thinking his body has been carried away, she remains at the tomb to cry and lament the fact that she has lost Jesus, her Lord, for a second time.

At this point, some of us might be tempted to identify with one of these biblical characters. You know, the sort of thing we do with Mary and Martha when we hear the story of Jesus visiting their home in Bethany. We tend to ask ourselves questions like, which personality is analogous to mine?

There’s a danger in that, I think. It limits your perspective on the story. In fact, I think we can identify with all three of Jesus’ disciples in today’s gospel.

We are all John. We are all Peter. We are all Mary Magdalene.

We are John when we see something, and believe it. We are John when all the puzzle pieces finally fall into place. “Oh, I get it now.” We are John when we arrive on Easter morning without one shadow of a doubt that Jesus is risen.

We are Peter when we are unsure. Sometimes it just takes a little longer to sort this stuff out. I am reminded of a young girl, maybe about four years old, who went to church with her grandmother one Easter morning. Her grandmother explained to her the Easter story, including Jesus’ death on Good Friday. “Then, on Sunday morning,” the grandmother said, “he came back to life!” The little girl glanced up with a look of pure innocence, and said, “Yeah right!”

Finally, we are Mary when our grief overcomes our ability to make sense of eternal life. When someone we love dies, grief often overcomes our senses. We don’t have the ability to perceive what’s right in front of us, even if that something is the presence of God.

Friends, we are all in different places on our Christian journey at different times, and that’s okay. Even on Easter. Whether you run toward the empty tomb with an open mind, or run away from it in disbelief. Whether you need to take a break and come back later, or if you just need a little more time outside to cry. The good news is, the Risen One is always by your side.

Although you may not always perceive him, he is there waiting to call your name—even when you least expect it—and to give you the confidence you need to run from the tomb one final time proclaiming the living God.

Sermons

The Great Vigil of Easter 2019

The Great Vigil of Easter – April 20, 2019 – Luke 24:1-12 – Trinity, Winchester

Maybe you noticed, there are no shortage of readings to preach from this evening. And we only read five of the nine suggested readings and responses. Some Christians go all night long, praying, reading, and fasting until the sun comes up. We won’t be here that long tonight, but there is something to be said for that tradition.

After all, the longer one sits in the darkness of the vigil the sweeter the triumphant “Alleluias” sound when they finally do arrive.

Darkness is a powerful thing.

Christian metaphors of light and darkness often give us the sense that darkness is bad. It often represents the absence of God, but the truth is, darkness was always part of God’s plan.

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…Then God said, “Let there be light.’” And there was. God separated the light from the dark, and it was good.

Yes, darkness was always part of God’s plan.

In Abraham’s darkest hour, as he bound his son and raised his knife, God sent an angel to bless him with the light of his countenance. Because you have obeyed my voice “I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.”

In their darkest days in the wilderness God sent a pillar of fire to light up the night and protect the Israelites from the Egyptian army. He even parted the dark waters, so that they might pass through to the light of their salvation.

In the darkness of exile God sent the prophet Ezekiel to tell his chosen people that he would bring them up from their graves and give them the light of new life.

Surely darkness was always part of God’s plan.

From Thursday night when we stripped the altar, through Friday evening when we venerated the cross, there has been within these walls and within our hearts a shroud of darkness.

Still covered in darkness, many of us returned this morning to do the things people do when confronted by death. We busied ourselves by sprucing up the church, as for a funeral, making sure everything was just right.

Even tonight began in darkness. Our celebration of Jesus’ glorious resurrection from the dead begins in the quiet shadows of the evening.

Yes, darkness was always part of God’s plan, you see, because if it weren’t for the darkness, we wouldn’t be able to see the light.

Sitting in the darkness tonight we could see signs of light all around us: the glorious splendor of the new fire; the radiant light of the paschal candle, that marvelous and holy flame that focuses our attention on the Risen One; even the Exsultet is a light to our ears, a love song from Mother Church to the triumphant Christ.

The salvation history narratives, ancient stories of our faith, enlighten our memories, and the faint whiff of fresh lilies enlightens our senses.

It is in the darkness we see the fullest expression of resurrection light. Nowhere is this more prevalent than through the sacrament of Holy Baptism. Tonight as we gathered around the font to renew our baptismal promises, we were sprinkled with the water of abundant life.

Our reading from Romans reminds us that we were baptized into Christ’s death so that we might rise with him to new life. In other words, in order to see the light of resurrection, we have to know the darkness of the death of Jesus.

From the very beginning God has been telling us, teaching us, showing us that darkness is part of God’s plan. At the dawn of creation. In the wilderness. By the Red Sea. In the valley of dry bones. Even at our baptism.

As people of faith, we need to recognize that darkness is a part of our journey, but we must never mistake it for our destination.

That’s reserved for resurrection light.

Sermons

Good Friday 2019

Good Friday – April 19, 2019 – Trinity, Winchester

Pontius Pilate entered his headquarters and asked Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate said to him, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above.” —John 19:9-11

*****

Pilate asks Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus remains silent.

This utterly baffles Pilate. “Don’t you know that I have the power to either release or crucify you?” Jesus replies, somewhat calmly as I imagine it, “You have no power over me unless it was given to you from above.”

“You have no power.”

Jesus is right. Pilate has no power. It is easy to see why Pilate thinks he has power over Jesus. In his mind, he can either have Jesus killed or he can set him free, but in reality, it’s not so simple. Nor does Pilate have power over the angry mob outside. He has no control over the hate welling up in their hearts and spewing from their lips.

Something far greater than human power is at work in the events of Jesus’ arrest and trial. Evil forces conspire to create divisions that Pilate and the angry crowd are completely unaware of. Only Jesus recognizes them as the work of Satan plotting to get exactly what he wants.

Jesus sees Satan at work in the mob mentality. Tensions arise and instead of trying to discover their underlying causes, the group casts all the blame on one person: Jesus. They identify him as a scapegoat. He has been putting some crazy ideas in the minds of the poor, the widowed, and the sick. They consider him the source of their problems. If they can only kill Jesus, then all of their problems will go away.

Satan still works like this in the world. Truth be told, I get nervous throwing around words like “Satan.” Some of you might wonder, “What in the world is he talking about?”

I’m talking about systematic evil in the world. All around us the devil’s scandals run riot. Some develop quickly, others over long periods of time. They carry us unknowingly along with them, and all the while we are complicit in evils of which we are often unaware. [1]

This was the story of the United States during the Civil Rights Movement. “If only that black family would move back to their side of town! People would walk around the neighborhood again. Parents would let their children play in the yard. We could leave our doors unlocked.”

It’s still the case today. “If only we could keep the immigrants on that side of the border! Our jobs would be safe, our economy would be thriving, and our streets would be free of crime.”

That’s not the only example of our modern tendency to scapegoat. Think about the human impact on climate change or the societal acceptance of school shootings. Even as we cry out for solutions, systemic forces of evil keep us from working together to find them.

We would much rather attack each other than work together to solve the problem. “If we got rid of Trump, everything would be so much better!” “If Nancy Pelosi disappeared, we wouldn’t have these problems anymore!”

As toxic partisanship takes over the political landscape it’s nearly impossible to have civil dialogue. Fear has become our only motivator. When we respond out of fear, we vilify people who are different from us. We lose sight of the real issues and instead mistake each other for the problem. We begin to think that if we can suppress our rivals, then all of our problems will be solved. [2]

As long as that’s our attitude, then the devil has us right where he wants us. As long as Satan keeps us afraid of each other, then we’ll forget about God. As long as Satan keeps us focused on destroying each other, then we won’t notice Jesus hanging over there on that tree. And as long as the devil keeps us at each other’s throats, then we can ignore the fact that we hung him there.

Three years ago, during Holy Week of 2016, the House of Bishops issued a statement to the church reminding us to reject hatred and fear. They wrote, “We reject the idolatrous notion that we can ensure the safety of some by sacrificing the hopes of others.” [3]

Their sentiment is, unfortunately, still relevant. Even in a country that stands in the shadow of the lynching tree, we continue to turn against our neighbors. As long as we seek safety and security at the expense of others, and as long as we engage in dialogue only with those who agree with us, then we have not learned our lesson.

It’s as if we have forgotten about Good Friday. It’s as if we’ve forgotten that today is a crucial part of our Christian story. Today Jesus teaches us one of his most important lessons: fear has no power.

Today Jesus refuses to play by the devil’s rules. Today Jesus refuses to lower himself to cheap scare tactics and manipulation. Instead, he does the one thing that Satan never expected. He gets up on the cross and he dies.

He dies.

Not because he’s weak. Not because he’s stupid. Not even because his Father willed it. No, Jesus does not die out of guilt or necessity or coercion.

Jesus dies out of love. Jesus dies to show us what it looks like when you refuse to fight fear with fear.

By dying Jesus upends our worldly expectations. By dying he teaches us that what we consider to be power is not power at all. By dying he teaches us that no matter how afraid we are, we cannot solve our problems by eliminating our neighbors; by dying he teaches us that fear never gets the last word; by dying he teaches us that love triumphs over death. By dying Jesus teaches us that we have no power to save ourselves.

No matter who we persecute, no matter who we lock up, no matter who we expel, we can’t save ourselves.

Only God can do that.

[1] Rene Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001), 41.

[2] Ibid., 38-41.

[3] The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, A Word to the Church (Holy Week 2016).

Sermons

Maundy Thursday 2019

Maundy Thursday – April 18, 2019 – Luke 22:14-30 – Trinity, Winchester

On the night he was betrayed, in an act of ultimate servitude, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and sat down at table with them, the very friends who would betray him. Even as he faced death, due in part to their actions, he served them a meal that would become the source of his relationship with them long after his earthy body was gone.

Imagine with me, if you will, the scene. Jesus is going around the table offering himself to each of his friends. “This is my body, this is my blood.”

To James and John, who have been with him from the beginning, “This is my body, given for you.” To Andrew and to Thaddeus, “This is my blood, shed for you.”

To Matthew, Bartholomew, Philip, and Simon, “I am broken for you.” To Thomas, who always was a bit of a glass half-empty guy, “This is my body. You will believe.” Then Peter. Jesus knows he will deny him. Even so, he hands him the bread. “Remember this, Peter.”

And lastly, Judas Iscariot. The man who is about to set this whole thing in motion. “Take, eat, remember me.”

These twelve are about to fall asleep on him. One will deny him and one will sell him out. But he wants them to know, even though they cannot quite understand it yet, that he will always be with them. No matter what.

Just as Jesus shared this holy meal with his apostles before his death, he shares it with us tonight in the fullness of his resurrection. Alas, betrayal, it seems, is in our blood, too. Like the first disciples, we still falter, we still fail. These twelve turned their back on Jesus, but our hearts still dare to overthrow him.

If you need examples, I’ve got plenty. We don’t always love our neighbors as ourselves. We reject our brothers and sisters because they are different from us. We unwittingly contribute to the destruction of the earth and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We don’t recycle. We tell racist jokes, and, when given the chance, use people as stepping stones to our own success. We spend our money on sex, drugs, and war, while the least of God’s people starve and freeze in the streets.

Our failure is so ubiquitous that we even built into our liturgy formal ways to acknowledge it: “Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed.” “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table.”

These prayers are about admitting that we mess up. We are not worthy to approach the Lord’s altar and receive his body and blood except through God’s great mercy. We can’t get there on our own merit, and yet Jesus still bids us come.

It makes me think of the final scene of the movie Places in the Heart. Maybe you’ve seen it. The whole cast of characters sits together in the pews of a little country church passing trays of bread and wine.

The viewer is surprised to see that every character in the movie is present and accounted for in the final scene. Not only the main characters, or the pious characters, or the innocent characters. The congregation of the faithful is not even limited to the characters that remain living at the story’s end. The scene includes everyone. Living and dead. White and black. Young and old. Betrayed and betrayer.

In one pew sits a husband next to the wife he cheated on. In another pew sits the local sheriff along side the young black man who was lynched for accidentally shooting him.

This must be the definition of “mystic sweet communion” if there ever was one. Even with all that baggage of sin, betrayal, and broken trust, all are welcome at God’s table.

Even you. Even me.

Jesus invites us to his holy table not because the Eucharist magically inoculates us from the temptation of sin, but because it calls us back into relationship with God. Jesus genuinely wants our company. No matter what we do or how far we stray, Jesus calls us into deeper relationship because he loves us—all of us—no matter what.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine acting so lovingly toward anyone who would do me so much harm. Serving them a meal certainly seems a step too far! Holding a grudge, shutting people out, and refusing to forgive them sounds much more like our culture these days.

But the truth is, even when we can’t bring ourselves to be civil, much less forgive; even when we can’t imagine serving a meal to those who betray us; Jesus sees our choices, knows who we are, and loves us anyway because he understands what it feels like to be a human. We don’t have to serve a meal. Jesus offers us his meal.

All we have to do is come. Receive God’s grace right from the source. It will transform your life. It will wash away your sins. It will free you from sin and death.

All you have to do is come.

Well, there is one more thing. When you’re finished, go forth, and make him known.

Sermons

The Promise of Sunday: In Praise of Jesus and Grandma Hayes

April 10, 2019 – John 20:1,11-18 – Keystone United Methodist Church, Kansas City, MO

I had the honor of preaching these woefully inadequate words at my grandmother’s funeral last Wednesday morning. May she rest in peace and rise in glory. Alleluia! Alleluia!

Marjorie Helen Hayes, 1929-2019

——

After Grandma’s death, I posted a picture on Facebook of her with Leslie, Erika, and me. Of all the comments that began to appear beneath it, I was struck most by those from folks who noted what special memories they knew we had created with her.

They were not wrong. All of her grandchildren have special memories of her. Mark, Leslie, Ashley, Erika, Ana, Michael, Greg, and I will always treasure those memories, as will her children, Mike, Jane, and Steve, and everyone who knew her.

Pictures, like the one I posted, or the three Greg posted, or any others you may see, are merely windows into brief moments in our lives with Grandma Hayes. They each offer but one glimpse of the countless memories we made together.

So it is with any eulogy or remembrance or funeral sermon. You cannot fit in the space of minutes the memories that took a lifetime to create. We are blessed to have those memories, and thankfully we have our whole lives to keep sharing them with one another.

I bet every person in this room has a different memory of Marjorie to share. When I started listing my memories of grandma I thought about playing table games like Memory, Uno, and University of Kansas Monopoly.

Walking to the Red Bridge Baskin Robins late on summer evenings also came to mind. As did watching college basketball, listening to her clap her hands and cheer at a decibel only a golden retriever could hear. “Go-go-go-go-go!”

I also thought of her taking a cookie sheet out of the oven with her bare hands and drinking tea at a temperature scientists once thought impossible to reach this far from the sun.

Memories of grandma are a powerful thing.

This week while thinking of grandma, the phrase “Okey dokey, Doc” kept ringing in my ear, and I began to refer to wearing only socks while at home as going around in my “stocking feet.” Yesterday, before I left the house, I reached for my “dark glasses” instead of my sunglasses. Before I went to bed, a midnight snack of cinnamon apples sounded good. If grandma were here, I thought, she’d let me eat them in bed.

Finally, I thought about making buttermilk pancakes from scratch and serving the homemade syrup hot on the side. I bet hearing the words “bran muffin” could take any of her grandchildren back to a Saturday morning at Grandma Hayes’ house.

When I imagine such a morning, it is always spring time; the windows are open, the fans are spinning. There is a beautiful flower garden in the back yard, just this side of the creek. She is getting ready to put “beer can chicken” on the grill, the thought of which is especially delightful because it is accompanied by the irreplaceable image of her actually having to approach the cashier at Sun Fresh with beer in hand.

Her Camry is in the driveway. The garage door was left open because she might use the car again later. Even though she walked four miles this morning between the hours of 5:00 and 6:00 a.m., she has already mentioned something about walking around the block before dinner. The Royals are playing, so the TV is on, but it’s muted and the commentary is provided by the radio blaring in the kitchen. As I watch, I am eating chocolate chip cookies from the freezer.

Later in the evening, she calls her neighbor across the creek to let her know that the back porch light is still on. She also checks on Josephine next door because it’s starting to get hot, and Josephine doesn’t like to use her air conditioning. Finally, she calls Hatsy to ask if she saw a certain comic strip in the paper. Not to worry. She clipped it out for her.

As she sits down to plan her Sunday School lesson, which no-doubt will run five minutes over and include some sort of homework assignment, she microwaves another mug of tea, using the same bag from earlier.

The next morning, Sunday morning, we end up right here. Grandma is sitting in the balcony like she always does. I am sitting next to her. For Grandma, this is the best day of the week. She looks forward to greeting the fifth and sixth graders in her class, teaching them about the Bible, and sharing the love of God with them.

She also looks forward to seeing her church family and to contributing to the life of this community. The worship service fills her soul for the week ahead. Some people used to joke that she sat in the balcony so she could keep track of attendance, but I think it was actually because that was the least conspicuous place to sneak in five minutes late.

As we sing the closing hymn and the pastor raises a hand for the benediction, I feel a sense of sadness. My weekend with grandma is coming to an end. Soon, my parents will take me home. (I bet you remember what it’s like to go from grandma’s house back to your house.)

For this reason I, for a long time, associated Sundays with sadness and apathy. You know that Sunday feeling, don’t you? “Uh, I’ve got to go back to work tomorrow.” Sunday is the day when the realities of life slowly return to us. Sunday is the end. The end of the weekend, the end of time with grandma, the end of freedom from the obligations of work and school. At least, that’s what I used to think, but then I realized what Grandma had been teaching me all along. Sunday is just the beginning.

Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away…

That was only the beginning.

Grandma knew the Easter story and she lived it every day of her life. To say that grandma’s faith was important to her would be an understatement. Her faith gave everything else in her life a sense of order.

She was the first person ever to talk to me about Jesus like it was normal to talk about Jesus. The way she lived her life, as someone who loved others unconditionally, was a testament to her relationship with him.

Grandma once told me that during the hardest times of her life, when she, like Mary Magdalene, stood weeping and alone outside of the tomb, “Jesus found me like a friend, took me by the hand, and never let me go.”

That sure puts things into perspective. There are people in this world—Christians even—who will go on and on about how they found Jesus. And they’ll ask you if you’ve found him yet, too. But that’s not quite right. Grandma knew the truth: you don’t have to find Jesus, because Jesus has already found you.

That doesn’t mean life is a piece of cake. There will be hard times for all of us, no exceptions. Times when you think God has abandoned you, when it feels like Good Friday every day. But then one day you’ll look up and recognize that he’s been with you all along.

That’s called Sunday.

Her whole life, Grandma was teaching me—and you—the promise of Sunday. You can find it here, in the house of God, anytime you come, just like Grandma did. It’s Sunday here all the time. Not because it feels good to be here; not because you have good memories here; not even because Marjorie was here. It’s not Sunday because the stained glass is so pretty or because the organ sounds so impressive. No, it’s Sunday here because this is where you come to meet Jesus.

To this altar Marjorie came every Sunday to receive the body and blood of Jesus from whom she found the deep and abiding love necessary to keep on going. You might not have realized it when you came in, but today is Sunday. Today is Sunday because Jesus is alive, and because Jesus is alive, Marjorie lives with him. If you ever have trouble believing that, just remember how strongly she did.

Today, in this place, our lives begin again, renewed by the promise of the one who conquers death. Marjorie may no longer sit in this balcony, but she will always look down from the eternal balcony, celebrating with us when we rejoice, encouraging us when we struggle, supporting us when we are weak, comforting us when we hurt, but most importantly, she will continue loving us—all of us—more than we could ever ask or imagine.

Sermons

Passion/Palm Sunday

Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday – April 14, 2019 – Luke 22:14-23:56 – Trinity, Winchester

Both the story of Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, which we read on the Square, and the passion narrative, which we just read together, are familiar to us. Even though they come from different gospels each year of our lectionary cycle, these passages offer us a version of a story that is important to repeat, no matter how well we know it.

This story is important to repeat because it gets right to the crux (pun intended) of our faith: Passion. Death. Resurrection. We’ll put that last part on the shelf for a few more days. Today we get right to the passion and death.

After walking as with Jesus in celebratory fashion into the Holy City, we get right down to brass tacks. All of the sudden, it’s later in the week, and we dive headlong into the rest of the story: arrest, trial, death.

We all know Easter is coming, but we must live through Christ’s passion first because it makes his death real, and that makes eternal life more meaningful.

Thursday and Friday night we will again recount Jesus’ arrest, trial, and death. Let’s be clear, the purpose of hearing these stories today is not to give you an excuse not to come this week. It’s just that the Church really wants to make sure you get the point. Plus, more scripture is never a bad thing, right?

Hearing the scriptural account of Jesus’ betrayal and crucifixion, without quite making it to resurrection, keeps us cognizant of the fact that life—even Jesus’ life—includes suffering. This morning’s holy cliff hanger is, in some paradoxical way, comforting to us because it shows us that God has first-hand experience of human pain.

We mortals are well acquainted with suffering. Human experiences are filled with pain, tragedy, and sadness. The passion narrative shows us that God identifies with us even amidst these hard realities by sending a son who suffers right along side of us.

We tell the story of Christ’s passion this morning and this week, not for the sake of the stories themselves, but because they point us to Jesus. They point us, ultimately to his glorious resurrection, yes, but first to the pain that he endures.

The suffering of his passion was only possible because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Think back to the first Sunday after Christmas when we talked about important truths of the incarnation. Christmas, we said, is a season, not a day. It is the season of the incarnation. You already know that, but today I want to remind you that that season never ends.

On Epiphany, it was still Christmas because the incarnate one was with us. Through these forty days, it has been Christmas all along because God has walked with us in the flesh. Even now, at the outset of Holy Week, it is Christmas. The trials and tribulations of the upcoming week are only possible as a result of the incarnation.

Flesh and blood are never more relevant than during Holy Week. The incarnate one walked among us in the flesh unto the point that we rejected him in the flesh. Even on Palm Sunday we preach Christ because he became human and dwelt among us.

You might not have expected to come to church on Palm Sunday to hear about the mystery of the incarnation, but here it is. I promise, I’m not making it up. It’s right there in Paul’s letter to the Philippians.

God became human to show us the true strength of God. Though he was in the form of God, he “did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death–even death on a cross.”

Because of this, God exalted him “and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend . . . and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

In other words, because Jesus was humble, he was exalted. Because Jesus deigned to be one of us, we confess him as Lord. Because he was obedient then, now he reigns supreme. Because he died, he lives forever.

It doesn’t really make sense at first, does it?

That’s why we have to keep going over and over these stories year after year, until they finally sink in, until their reality takes hold of our hearts and we finally see the full manifestation of the incarnate one.

Even on the cross.