Grace – Page 2 – Word In Process

Discovering Repentance

Tuesday in Proper 10C – July 16, 2019 – Matthew 11:20-24 – St. Mary’s Convent, Sewanee

It seems Jesus’ ministry isn’t going so well.

All the ground he’s trod, all the sermons he’s preached, all the miracles he’s performed, and folks in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum still don’t get it. He is understandably frustrated, perhaps because he knows that his earthy ministry wanes with each passing day.

Don’t you get frustrated when, despite your best efforts, things don’t go according to plan? My friends who are school teachers help me understand classroom woes from their perspective.

How many times do I have to tell you not to touch that?!

How many times do I have to remind you to keep your hands to yourself?!

How many times do I have to say, “No talking in the hallway!”?

How much worse must the Son of God feel when, after giving God’s people glimpses of the Kingdom firsthand, they turn away from God’s saving grace?

We cannot imagine what it’s like to be Jesus, but we do know a thing or two about what it means to be human. It turns out, Jesus knows a little something about that, too. He knows that it includes getting angry.

For this reason, passages like this one can be difficult to hear. It’s hard to make sense of an angry Jesus. We are taught that God is good, loving, and merciful. So, why is he condemning the people of these towns to hell?

Perhaps we need to think on it some more. What is Jesus’ anger—or any anger, for that matter—really about? Deep down, why does the teacher get angry when the students don’t follow the rules? Is it frustration because they just don’t seem to listen? Sure, but why?

I’d bet that a big part of it is sadness. Sadness that other human beings—especially cute, young, impressionable human beings—are capable of willfully doing wrong.

To experience the Gospel, yet turn away from it unrepentant, is tragic. In today’s gospel Jesus mourns that. “Why must my father’s children put themselves in this position?!” If we could answer that question, I guess we’d finally stop doing it.

Alas, we still separate refugee families at the border. We still elect blatantly racist leaders. We still celebrate the founder of the Ku Klux Klan in the great state of Tennessee.

Why do we persist in sin? Because we are children of Adam’s fallen race? Because we are weak-willed and can’t help it? Because it’s just plain more fun to be bad than good?

I’m honestly not sure I have the answer. As a preacher, I’m humbled to find myself in this position quite frequently. This may be disconcerting to some of you, while others might find it comforting, a sign that we really are all in this together, that no one is perfect.

At any rate, while the motivation for our sin is not always clear, what is clear from today’s lesson is that Jesus mourns the fact that we don’t hold ourselves accountable for our sins. Perhaps the better thing for us to focus on today is not why we sin, but what it looks like to hold ourselves accountable when we do sin. In other words, what does it look like to repent?

I’m not talking about self flagellation. I’m talking about amendment of life. Repentance is built into our liturgy, but the question is, is it built into our daily lives? It should be! We need to acknowledge where things are broken, admit our culpability, and take steps to fix them. That’s what God created us to do.

So, what’ll it be? Apologizing to an old friend? Investigating sustainable living practices? Eating better? Divesting from companies that harm the general welfare? Thinking critically—instead of alphabetically—at the ballot box?

Those are just a few examples. Only you and God know what’s next for you, but whatever it is, first you’re going to need some strength. So before you get started, come to the table, take, and eat.

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 hard work of the Gospel

Commemoration of Thomas Bray – February 15, 2019 – Isaiah 52:7-10; Luke 10:1-9 – Chapel of the Apostles, Sewanee

It is always a joy to have the opportunity to preach to a seminary community, even if, or perhaps especially when, the subject matter is a bit tricky.

When I first noticed that we were commemorating Thomas Bray today, it took me a minute. Then it came to me, “Oh, right, the SPCK guy.” That is, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. You know, like the “book depot” down in Cowan.

It turns out, Bray’s story is bigger than a book store. In 1696 he was invited by the Bishop of London to oversee the Church of England’s work in Maryland. Though Bray was only in America briefly, he founded 39 lending libraries and numerous schools, recruited priests to work in local parishes, advocated for the ordination of a bishop for the American church, and championed the need for educated clergy and laity. This is to say nothing of his work for English prison reform and the abolitionist movement.

But that’s not all. In 1701 Bray founded yet another society–this time the SPG, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Among its goals: to promote Christianity abroad and to bring Christianity to the non-Christian races of the world. If that language creeps you out, good. It should.

Reading Holy Women Holy Men gives one the sense that Bray was a simple country parson who happened to have a deep concern for and understanding of “Native Americans and Blacks.” That language should make you uncomfortable, too.

Once you understand the baggage associated with evangelizing slaves and saving the souls of native peoples, the feet of those messengers Isaiah mentions don’t seem quite as beautiful.

Unfortunately, Christianity has long been a vehicle for enforcing Western ideals on people who already have their own traditions, values, and norms. No person or culture is a “blank slate” waiting for a missionary to come write down the name of Jesus.

Pausing to commemorate Thomas Bray gives us the opportunity to be honest about the somewhat sordid history of Christian mission. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel owned slaves, mutilated their bodies, and exploited their labor.

To ignore past exploits like these is to deceive ourselves. Worse than viewing our history through rose-tinted glasses is forgetting to take those glasses off. Soon they become blinders that keep us from seeing our own sins.

We’re not in this business to ignore hard truths, past or present. We’re in this business to do the hard, complicated, often ambiguous, but powerful work of the Gospel. God has given us the Gospel of Jesus, and God has called you to proclaim it. Our past sins don’t excuse you from doing that. In fact, they make it all the more necessary.

It’s hard to be a Christian. If it were easy, we wouldn’t have to evangelize! Yet, here we are, ready to go out in the midst of wolves, even from house to house, proclaiming the peace of the Lord. Some folks think we’re crazy, but I like to think of it more as being faithful to a God who is faithful to us.

So get up, and go out to do the work that God has given you to do. When you fail, be honest about it, come back, present yourself at the Holy Table, and receive the grace of God.

Sermons

Fulfilled in your hearing

Third Sunday after the Epiphany – January 27, 2019 – Luke 4:14-21 – Epiphany, Sherwood

Today we encounter Luke’s description of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. After he is born, baptized, and tempted in the desert, Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, travels through Galilee.

Reports of his presence begin to spread throughout the region, and while he is in his hometown of Nazareth on the sabbath day, he goes to the synagogue.

There he participates in the days “lectionary” reading, taking up the scroll of Isaiah and reading the appointed lesson. This happens to be a very important lesson. I know you just heard it, but I don’t think we can ever get too much of the Bible, so I’m going to read it once more.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

The phrase “the year of the Lord’s favor” refers to the Year of Jubilee, an Ancient Israelite practice occurring every fifty years. According to the book of Leviticus, every fiftieth year all debts would be forgiven and financial slates wiped clean. Property would revert to its original owner and slaves would regain their liberty.

Leviticus 25 says, “You shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.”

In addition to financial freedom, the Jubilee Year was observed as a “sabbatical” year. There was to be no working of the land. Instead, the Israelites were to live off of the overabundance of crops that God provided during the previous year.

“You shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.”

The Jubilee Year was a year of rest, both for the people and for the land. It was a time for the Israelites to give thanks to God. It was a time to remember that they were first and foremost members of God’s kingdom and brothers and sisters to one another.

It sounds like an admirable tradition, but it also sounds like an impractical tradition. You might be wondering, “Did they really do that?” If you are, you’re not alone.

God’s law might have laid out a plan for Jubilee, but as we well know, the Israelites were not always the best at following God’s instructions. They did, from time to time, turn away from him, cast idols, and fight amongst themselves.

Why should we expect the Jubilee Year to be any different? Could they really have forgiven all the money owed them or ceded their property to its heredity owner? Well, perhaps not, but that’s really not the point.

How successful the Israelites were in their efforts to keep the Jubilee Year is immaterial. What’s more important is that God’s plan for the year of jubilee existed in the first place. God’s vision of Jubilee illustrates his desire for his people to live virtuous lives, regardless of how successful they were at following through.

The same is true today. God desires healthy, productive, sinless lives for each of us, but that doesn’t mean that we are always going to meet the mark. God’s puts forth the goal, but we fall short. That’s a given. We fail. That’s the way life goes. Even so, God loves us, and God forgives us.

God does not bestow his grace on you based on how well you follow the rules. God’s gives grace freely. I promise, there’s not a thing you can do about it! The fact that God gives his chosen people instructions for holy living proves that God’s grace is abundant. God has always been on our side, and God will aways be on our side.

Proof of God’s support for us lies in the final sentences of today’s Gospel, “And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. That day, though most in attendance would not believe it, the scripture was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Jesus, God incarnate, is the physical manifestation of God’s plan for all people. God came in the person of Jesus to give us the knowledge and love of God in a more intimate way that we had ever experienced it before. Jesus came to tell us that God is on our side and that God will always be on our side, so much so that he took on our frail human nature.

Jesus still comes to call us back into community with one anther and to proclaim the “year of the Lord’s favor.” We are divided by love of money, power, and status, but Jesus tells us that what unites us is stronger than what divides us. We are children of God. Our bond in Jesus Christ is worth more than what the materials of the present age could ever offer us.

Our duty is to live into our identity as children of God, following Jesus’ example. Our duty is to share God’s love with one another and to live like the siblings in Christ that we are. Our duty is to live peaceably with one another, even when we disagree. Our duty is to forgive one another. Our duty is to respect one another because each of us is made in God’s image.

God wants all good things for you. He’s here today to offer them to you in the breaking of the bread and the proclamation of his Word. A Word that, even as we speak, is fulfilled in your hearing.

Sermons

Trust and see

23rd Sunday after Pentecost – October 28, 2018 – Psalm 34:8 – Trinity Church, Winchester, TN

Psalm 34 verse eight says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are they who trust in him.”

These are comforting words, but they are also hard words to hear after recent events. After yesterday’s shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburg, PA the only thing I can taste is our country’s steady diet of hate speech and blood.

The King James Version puts it like this, “O taste and see how gracious the Lord is: blest is the man that trusteth in him.” Ralph Vaughn Williams wrote a choral anthem using this version. It’s often sung at churches during communion.

I’ve had that anthem stuck in my head all week. That’s the good thing about preparing sermons, sometimes the good stuff gets stuck in your head, and you can’t let it go. I’m not talking about an errant Billy Joel tune or a Cranberries single from 1993; I mean the really good stuff, the stuff that makes you ask, “Where is God in all of this?” The stuff like, “O taste and see…”

It makes me wonder: how do we taste God’s goodness? What does grace taste like?

The eucharist is the one part of our common life when tasting seems the most relevant metaphor for our relationship with God. We put the bread and the wine in our mouths, literally tasting the body and blood of our Lord. But can you really taste God’s grace via wafer and port wine? And can you taste the grace even better if instead of a wafer you use homemade communion bread, the kind with honey mixed in the batter?

For that matter, is God’s graciousness found in bread alone? Or is it also in grandma’s homemade cookies? The ones we look forward to when we spend the weekend with her, the ones many of us will never taste again? Maybe.

Or perhaps divine goodness is the taste of street tacos made by a Mexican vender who you’re not quite sure is in this country illegally, but he has that look. Nonetheless he sells you food because he needs to feed his family. I do wonder.

Maybe God’s goodness is like eating an orange. When you peel it, it releases that fresh scent that lingers under your fingernails for hours, even days, reminding you that God is always near. It could be.

The second half of this verse gives us a clue about what it means to taste God’s goodness. It says, “happy are they that trust in him.” “Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are they that trust in him.”

This verse implies that you really have to trust in something before you taste it. That’s true, isn’t it? Taste and trust are certainly related. You do have to trust something in order to taste it, even if it’s implicit trust.

When I was growing up and one of my older sisters took a bite of something that didn’t taste so good, often she would recoil in disgust and then look at me, smile, and say, “Hey Warren, try this.” Heck no! I wasn’t going to try something she thought was disgusting. I wasn’t going to taste it because I no longer trusted that it would be good. If you don’t trust that something is going to taste good, you don’t eat it.

When you buy a bag of salad at the grocery store you blindly trust that it doesn’t contain dangerous bacteria like E. coli. Maybe trusting God is like the trust you place in a bag of lettuce. You don’t see the faceless company that packed it; you don’t know exactly where it came from, but you take it home and eat it anyway. You assume that it’s purpose it to provide nourishment for your body. You don’t often consider what might be wrong with it. You just trust it, so you taste it.

There is beauty in that trust. There is beauty in the trust that allows you to taste the lettuce, the trust that allows you to nourish your body, the trust that keeps you from becoming a paranoid mess. That trust is beautiful, and it’s not unlike the trust that allows us to taste God’s goodness.

Sometimes we go around worrying so much about the possibility of the bad, that we never experience the good. If you live in fear, you’ll never be able to recognize all the ways that God’s grace is already working in your life and in the world around you. When you live in fear–and not trust–everything tastes bitter.

I’m afraid. I’m afraid for the welfare of our nation. As the military marches to meet thousands of peaceful immigrants, I’m afraid of what will happen.

I’m afraid when terrorists send pipe bombs through the mail to kill the people they disagree with. I’m afraid of what that will lead to.

I’m afraid in an era when politicians say they would rather put their opponents in jail than have reasonable debates with them.

Yes, I’m am filled with fear, and the only taste that fear leaves in my mouth is bitterness.

Over lunch on Friday a friend (who is much older than me) said, “This is the worst I’ve ever seen this country. I thought all that Nixon stuff was bad. It was nothing like this.” That left a sour taste in my mouth, so I took another bite of my food, but it was bland and unsatisfying. Nothing could get the bitter taste of fear out of my mouth.

When I get a bad taste in my mouth I want to rinse it out immediately. When I swallowed cough syrup as a kid I always wanted to chase it with Sprite or fruit juice to overpower that gross cherry flavor, but I find it hard these days to get the disgusting taste out of my mouth. Day after day I look for something to eliminate the bitterness, but I don’t succeed. There are of course cheeseburgers and large pizzas, but those only help temporarily. They only quell the taste of fear for a few hours. I need sometime more permanent than that.

When news comes that eleven Jewish worshipers were gunned down in their temple, all I can taste is fear, and I need something really strong to wash that taste away.

I need that beautiful trust that allows me to experience God, and I think that late yesterday afternoon, I just may have found it. I was listening to Bishop Gene Robinson’s sermon at the internment of Matthew Shepard’s physical remains in the Washington National Cathedral. Bishop Robinson gave me a powerful reminder. He gave us all a powerful reminder: we are not alone. And Matt, said Bishop Robinson, was never alone. Even on the night he lay dying, tied to a fence post, his God was with him. It’s too easy to forget in days like these that God is with us.

Bishop Robinson told the story of the first police officer to arrive at the scene of Matt’s death. The police offer reports that as she approached Matt’s body she didn’t notice it at first, but there was a deer laying beside him, and it looked as though the deer had been there all night long. When the deer noticed her, it looked her straight in eyes before running away. Recounting the event the officer said, “That was the good Lord, no doubt in my mind.”

Matt was never alone. Even amidst the horrible tragedy of his own death, God was with him. God is with us always. That’s something we can trust. We can trust that even on a freezing-cold Wyoming prairie, tied to a fence post, God was there. Even on the floor of a synagogue, amidst blood and dead bodies, God was there.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God. God will always be right beside you, even if it’s to welcome you home. You can trust that.

If you live like you believe that God is always with you, and if you let yourself trust God, then you will get a taste of God’s goodness; you will experience God’s grace. And that grace will wash the taste of fear right out of your mouth.

Really. You’ll see.

Sermons

Storms

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – June 24, 2018 – Mark 4:35-41

I had the privilege of serving the people of Christ Episcopal Church in Tracy City, TN today. Here’s my sermon.

In today’s Gospel Jesus’ disciples are afraid. They are in the middle of the sea of Galilee in a crowded boat when a terrible squall gathers and jeopardizes their very lives. These men are not strangers to this lake. Before Jesus called them to fish for people they fished here often, no doubt risking the occasional storm for a good catch.

But today is different. Today the waves are so big that they spill into the boat which sinks lower and lower into the water. Today the situation is out of control. Today they are afraid. Jesus, however, is not. The same waves that terrify the disciples have rocked Jesus to sleep. He’s lying down on a cushion in the back of a boat, resting after a long day of telling parables.

The rain and the wind don’t phase him. This scares the disciples. When their fear turns to anger they lash out at him. “Wake up!” they yell. “We’re about to sink! Don’t you care what’s happening to us?! Don’t you care that we are at the very brink of death?”

Storms are fearsome things. You know that. I know that. Storms gather frequently atop this mountain. We’ve even had a few this week. Dogs run under beds to hide from the thunder, children hug their mothers for fear of the lightning.

We often use the metaphor of the storm to describe times of adversity in our lives. A stormy time in life is a time of sickness, divorce, or money troubles. I am reminded of a cartoon man in a television commercial. When depressing times come into his life, storm clouds gather over him, thunder rumbles, and rain falls on him. As life gets better the clouds part, the sun shines, and peace and contentment return.

We all recognize stormy times in life, but we don’t always recognize the different kinds of storms. There are two kinds of storms in our lives. There are external storms and internal storms.

External storms are storms that occur outside of us, storms that are inflicted upon us. These are political storms, economic storms, storms of immigration policy, natural disasters, car accidents, gas prices, and bitter partisan disagreements. These are the storms we face when we get fired from our job or lose a loved one. These storms result in intense arguments, lost money, or personal injury.

But there are also internal storms, storms that arise inside of us. These storms cause anguish and confusion. These are storms of mental illness, low self-esteem, or intense guilt. These are storms that lead to depression and lack of faith. These storms result in doubts and fears that we cannot always express.

When we face external storms it is easier to assign blame, pass the buck, or seek solutions from others. But inward storms leave us even more vulnerable. Often, no one knows they are brewing but us. Inward storms are hard to talk about, hard to understand, and hard to admit to.

The disciples are facing an outward storm, a struggle with a force of nature beyond their control. They get frustrated because Jesus is so calm. They lash out at him—“Don’t you care that we are perishing?!” When Jesus quiets the storm an eery, dead calm falls over the green water. The men in the boat are relieved. Their troubles are gone. (Or so they think.) The disciples think they are home free, but Jesus knows better. Jesus knows that their fear isn’t just about the tempest. This is about what’s going on inside of them.

Jesus scolds them, “Why were you afraid? Do you still not have any faith? After everything I’ve taught you??” Some translations put it this way— “Why are you such cowards? After all the parables I’ve told you, and the miracles I’ve performed, have you no faith? Did you really think I would let you die?”

Of course Jesus cared that the disciples were in danger. And he did something about it. Jesus always cares about the storms in our lives. And Jesus knows that just like the external storms that rage around us, we often face interior storms—we don’t feel whole, and we lack faith because we are not sure who in the world to listen to. We’re not sure who our friends are. We’re not sure who has our best interest at heart. And when we struggle with these things, we lose track of ourselves. And we lose track of God.

I know an old man whose wife died and he was left as a young single father. He did everything for his children. Woke them up, made their breakfast, sent them off to school. After work he sewed their clothes, bookmarked bedtime stories, and prepared dinner. When they went to college he sent them care packages, and made special preparations for holiday celebrations. But now they are grown, scattered across the country, and he rarely sees his grandchildren. Adding insult to injury, when Father’s Day rolls around, no one calls. No greeting cards come. He feels lost, utterly scorned. The storm clouds gathered. “Those ungrateful kids! Am I no longer a father?” he wonders. “How did it come to this?” His entire identity is wrapped up in the children. But now that’s in jeopardy. A part of him is missing.

This is familiar territory to many of us. Sometimes, like the disciples, like the old man, we don’t know who we are. The danger of not knowing who we are makes external storms difficult to face, and we make bad decisions.

The old man was afraid that he’d be alone forever, so he tried getting a cat for some company. But he hates cats, so that didn’t work. Finally he remembered his own father’s preferred bandage and reached for a bottle. Again and again he drank until he couldn’t stop.

The disciples are stunned, shocked, and surprised by their circumstance. The storm caught them off guard. There were literary knocked off their usual course. They were not sure what would happen or how they would cope facing this new disruption. All they could do was fear.

Jesus tells them not that he doesn’t care about the external storms in their lives, but that as long their internal storms rage, as long as they don’t know who they are—or whose they are—they will not prepared to deal with the challenges that come their way. We can become so consumed with our fear, our anger, and self loss, that we fail to recognize that Jesus claims us as his own and no one can change that. The external storms make us doubt our worth. We’d rather argue and complain and blame others (to make them look worse than us) than we would say a prayer or read a our favorite passage of scripture, a passage that reminds us just how much we are loved.

Through his death Jesus gave us the power to do much more than assign blame, point fingers, or panic. Through his death Jesus gave us the power to live BECAUSE we are loved as much as God loves anyone. In living we no longer have to fear death. Jesus rose so that we might know, remember, and trust the power of God.

That day on the lake the disciples knew Jesus was with them, but they forgot about his saving power and his calming presence. So he had to remind them.

So it is with us. Jesus is always with us. Jesus always loves us. Jesus is always there to remind us of his saving power and his calming presence. Jesus is always at hand with a grace that gives us the ability to know ourselves more surely, to calm us in adversity, and to know who we are, and whose we are.

Jesus has already done the hard part. Our job is to remember that.

Sermons

God had heard me, too

Friday after Proper 29 – December 1, 2017 – Psalm 142

Listen to me preach the sermon here.

I don’t need to tell you all that God can handle your anger. If you’re mad, tell God about it. You want to keep the lines of communication open.

The psalmist gets it—

I cry to the Lord with my voice; to the Lord I make loud my supplication. I pour out my complaint before him and tell him all my trouble.

Sometimes we also get a sense of it—without even thinking about it.

On Tuesday morning I hustled to Becky Wright’s office after Morning Prayer, I did that thing where I kind of presumptively open the door as I knock on it and stopped dead in front of her chair. She looked up at me from her laptop and, in that way she does, which I’m sure I don’t need to explain, she said, “Hello.”

And I said, “I’m frustrated, and I need to tell someone. I woke up this morning and read the news. Now I’ve got all these horrible things whirling around in my head, and I’m fed up with this country and with the people in it and with the stuff they say. I guess I just need a safe space to say that.”

She immediately nodded in solidarity, and when I got a little more specific in my complaints, she identified with me. Then, she assured me that I wasn’t alone.

When I was through I exhaled, and the mood of the conversation lightened. As I stared down at the pile grievances I had just dumped at her feet, a few of the great blessings of my life flashed before my eyes, and I began to relax.

As I left she said, “Come back anytime.”

And as I walked down the hall I felt that wonderful sense of relief that comes from being freed from the isolation of your distress.

That’s called grace.

Suddenly in dawned on me. I thought I was just talking to Becky, but God had heard me, too.