Living By Our Faith: Sermon for Proper 22C

Today we complete the five-week liturgical season of creation in the Episcopal Church. The season is planned so that it concludes with the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, which is celebrated yesterday, on October 4.

In yesterday's Beacon, I shared with you all a sweet story of St. Francis preaching to the birds about gratitude. In his Sermon to the Birds, the Saint noted that the birds receive everything they need for their not just survival, but flourishing, from the abundant creation God provides in all its complexity. If you remember, in the story the birds then flew into the sky, formed the shape of a cross, and then divided into four groups and flew away, each group in a cardinal direction, to share the gospel of Christ all over the world.

Francis's love of nature, and the way that his spirit was nurtured by the natural world as a living testament to God's mind-blowing love for us, is quite famous, and so tender. No wonder he is that patron saint for creation.

The readings we hear today however, are the readings regularly scheduled for this week, not the propers for our saint. And yet it is interesting to examine the way that the life of the saint intersects with our readings we just heard about having faith in God in the face of injustice.

For there was another side to Francis than just a tree-hugging nature lover. His story is also an incredible conversion story. In his youth, he had been a wealthy young man, born into a wealthy merchant family, and he lived the life of a playboy-- a kind of work hard, play hard kind of existence. He also became a soldier and fought in the Crusades, killing in the name of Christ as European armies attempted to win the Holy Lands from the control of Muslims. He was captured and imprisoned, became very ill, and was released to return home to recover. It was during the recovery that Francis began experiencing his first visions of the presence of Christ in his life. Francis abandoned his wealth, his privilege, renouncing them all, and soon became a wandering preacher who lived by begging from town to town, occasionally gathering followers as he went along.

Francis looked upon a church that at the time was a sponsor of warfare through the Crusades-- He himself knew that first hand. And yet the more that he preached and lived a life of poverty and simplicity in solidarity with the poor and the marginalized. He also realized that the gospel of Christ called him to renounce violence. As he went from town to town, he would great people by saying, " "Pace e Bene!" -- "Peace and goodness to you!"

He devoted himself so firmly to the cause of nonviolence and the renunciation of war that in 1219 he trailed behind crusaders heading for the next wave of fighting, and spent a year walking from Italy to North Africa, where the Sultan who led the Muslim armies was encamped. After pleading with the Cardinal who led the Christian armies to stop the violence and killing, and being turned back with scorn and derision, he then managed to gain an audience with the Sultan to urge the same thing, impressing the Sultan greatly by his humility and piety.

Francis did not succeed in his mission to either side, and the wars continued to rage on. Yet this aspect of the saint's life is where we see a connection with the readings that we have just heard. In our reading from Habakkuk, we hear yet another prophet they're crying the oppression of the poor and the lack of justice that is available in the land. God answers the prophets lament in the first half of our first reading by reminding The prophet, and all who listened to him, that God's will and God's justice are not based upon abstract principles of winning and losing, especially not of power and the will to use it. Instead, God joins the prophet in Condemning the perversion of justice that is pervading the government of Israel. Our brief reading ends with this observation: "Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith."

This declaration leads directly into the opening verses of our gospel passage. In the opening verse, we hear are apostles exclaim, "Increase our faith!" Jesus then goes on to tell the apostles that if they had the faith the size of a mustard seed, they would be willing to accomplish great things. It mustard seed of course was one of the tiniest of all seeds, then and now.

Surely, the apostles have faith that size. Surely the crowd's following Jesus have faith that size. Surely we can have faith that size, faith in a God who calls us to work for justice and to fight against oppression, even in the face of our position by the world all around us, just as Saint Francis himself faced in preaching a gospel of nonviolence, yes, but also a gospel that called Christians to be willing to place everything on the line who could not in the cause of those on the margins, those who were most vulnerable, those who could not speak for themselves, and who would not be heard, even if they had tried.

Jesus's message, amplified by servants like Saint Francis, is just as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago. Especially now, as we are plunged into a world in which the nihilistic pursuit of power and wealth justifies or, kidnapping, violence, and even contemplates genocide.

Jesus's entire life of ministry on this earth was lived in the pursuit of embodying God's justice-- which is not based on punishment and violence, but on love and mercy and grace. It is a life that we who follow Jesus are also charged with taking up as our calling: like Jesu, to give of ourselves and of our resources to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, welcome the stranger and the homeless, and transcend barriers.

This is the heart of the gospel, this is what Saint Francis sought to embody in his life, and what we are called to embody in ours. We are not called to silence and apathy in the face of the pain and suffering that swirls around us. We are called to seize hold of our mustard seed faith, to plant it in the soil of the love that God has for each and every one of us, and then to share that faith in action abundantly by standing up for those who are unable to stand up for themselves. We are called especially to renounce a gospel of hatred, a gospel of destruction, a gospel of exploiting human and beast and forest for the profit of only a few.

On the day Saint Francis died, he said to his followers, "We have only begun to practice the gospel." Seven hundred years later, those words still ring true, and yet we have the assurance that God calls us into relationship with each other through even the tiniest amount of faith, faith which is in itself can achieve miracles. Amen.

Readings:

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-10
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

Preached at the 505 on October 4 and the 10:30 Eucharist on October 5, 2025.

Living and Giving: Sermon for Proper 21C, September 28, 2025

    
When I was in Santiago, Cuba, a few years back, I noticed little statues of poor Lazarus in the doorways of churches, with coins scattered around the statues, left by people who were themselves praying over an illness of someone they loved. There's a photo of one I saw on the cover of today's bulletin. It was one way of these churches NOT ignoring those in need lying at their gates. The money was then collected and used for those who had need. It's a quaint little superstition, and it leads to money being collected to help the poor. But it IS a superstition.

The problem with this, if you really take this kind of thing seriously-- and some people do-- is that it is engaging in what is called “magical thinking.” One type of magical thinking is called superstition—where you see a baseball player always eating chicken before a game, or avoiding stepping on the baseline, or not shaving during the play-offs, because he believes it will bring him luck. Sometimes this kind of thing is light-hearted.

I once knew a strict Baptist woman whose house had been on the market for so long that she went and bought one of the specially made St. Joseph figurines and buried it head down next to her “For Sale” sign—and boom- the house sold. She was aghast—and her world was rocked. It’s a real thing, too, here in St. Louis. Don’t believe me? Just google “St. Joseph sell your house.” The thing is, when your house does sell, you are expected to bring St. Joseph into your house and give him a place of honor at your new home. She worried that when her Baptist friends would come over, they would be shocked to see a Catholic saint sitting on her mantle, so she made a little chef's hat for him as camouflage, since he was wearing an apron and holding what looked like a lump of dough in his hands. Voila! Now he was Imo, of Imo's Pizza!

But the prosperity gospel is bad enough in terms of its thinking that we human beings can manipulate God to do what we want by way of any magic formula. Even worse is the idea that if wealth and health and good fortune is a sign of blessing, then the obverse must also be true. The poor, the ill, the dying must be being cursed by God. They must have brought their misfortune on themselves through sin. This second belief also then removes the expectation that those who do have wealth should do anything to help the poor, since to do so would be violating God's will. I know it sounds crazy--but I have heard this come out of the mouths of a lot of people in my life when questioned about their beliefs.

Our circumstances in life are not the result of God's blessing or cursing us. Bad things happen to kind people. Good things happen to hateful people. And none of this is the result of actions by God. And the worst thing about the prosperity gospel is that it leaks out into our secular life-- just replace the word God for "my own hard work." Even when it is obvious that no matter what, community goods helped them get there.

Amos is addressing a society that is at peace and experiencing great prosperity-- for a few. The words Amos speaks are pointed in addressing a kingdom that is enjoying newfound wealth and peace-- and yet also experiencing a huge chasm in their common life due to that wealth. Where once all lived basically equal lives, now the rich have summer homes and winter homes, and devote themselves to feasting on fine foods, while the poor labor day by day, and are not themselves receiving their fair share of the prosperity. Interestingly, it is also a time when religiosity among the wealthy also flourished-- even while they violated the very heart of the Torah by believing themselves to be a separate class, especially favored by God. Amos, speaking for God, derides and condemns the way the rich exploit the poor in the harshest of terms.

In our gospel fable of the rich man and the beggar at his gate, Jesus chips away at the edges of this kind of thinking, just nibbling around its corners, as it were.

Let's be clear: Jesus is telling a fable here. He is using tropes and characters that are familiar to everyone at his time. We are tipped off by the use of the term "Hades," a Greek concept which good Jews did not believe in. They did believe in Torah and the Prophets, however. Prophets like Amos, who also is being used by God in our first reading to criticize a society that has strayed from a community model of caring for each other to an individualist model of a tiny wealthy upper class hoarding most of the wealth while the great mass of workers barely scrapes by. Somehow that seems like a scenario that we might recognize.

Jesus symbolically condemns the prosperity gospel by using his fable to condemn those who do not use their means to care for those less fortunate. The difference between the two symbolic characters Jesus creates in Luke 16 could not be more stark-- nor could we miss the signs of whose side Jesus is on. Each day the rich man averts his eyes from the beggar, beset by open sores, at his very own gates, as he goes about preparing his daily feasts. The rich man is nameless, but the poor man is named "Lazarus," meaning "God Is My Helper." Yet, from our perspective, we hear the name "Lazarus" and think of Jesus's friend whom Jesus raised from the dead.

Speaking of death, the one thing both men share is that they are mortal. When both die, there is a stark reversal of circumstance. Suddenly, and for eternity, the beggar is in the bosom of Abraham in ease and honor (recalling Jesus's observation from August 31 about humility in choosing places of honor), while the rich man is in torment. The rich man reinforces why he is in torment with his continued attitudes that Lazarus should serve him, as the rich man tries to convince Abraham-- from Hades-- to make Lazarus tend to soothe his suffering or become an errand boy to warn the rich man's brothers of what fate awaits them if they ignore the divinely sanctioned claims of those in need all around them. That rich man stepped over the poor beggar every day. And ignored the need staring him in the face. The need that Torah commanded him to alleviate. The same teaching that Jesus lays upon all who follow him. It's not enough to pray that God helps those beset by poverty or illness. God has made us God's agents in the world to do that ourselves, as we claim to be the Body of Christ in the world.

Yet is this a story about death-- or about life? I think we DO miss the point if we think following Jesus is about taking care of ourselves and "going to heaven" after we die matters more than how we try to live like Jesus. Whether we believe in heaven or hell-- or Hades-- or not, the fact is that what we do with our lives matters, and how we respond to the human needs and suffering we know exist all around us-- is what matters.

How we recognize the divine image in everyone-- rich or poor, saint or sinner, citizen or migrant, even friend or foe-- matters. It matters because the most important part of the life of faith is not in what we believe, but in what we do when that belief takes root within us, in all its implications. At the heart of the life of following Jesus, not just "believing" in him, is the concrete and mindful ways we truly seek to live in unity with each other, regardless of race, class, origin, or wealth-- and especially, for the way we care for the "invisible" ones lying at our very gates.

Jesus asks us that question every day. Every day is a day to work toward recognizing the mercy and grace God offers us, and let that mercy and grace come to full flower in the way we use what is most precious in this world for the benefit of those most ignored and forgotten.

As Creation itself reminds us, the way of life is the way of giving. Nature is in balance when each creature in the web of existence gives as much as it takes. This is the path of life, abundant for all, which God first gives each of us. In order to live a life abundant, we are called to give abundantly. Not so we will win a prize. So that we live a life of meaning and purpose-- and follow in the way of Jesus.

Amen.

Readings:

Amos 6:1a,4-7
Psalm 146
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31

Preached at the 505 on September 27, and at the 10:30 Eucharist on September 28, 2025 at St. Marton's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Wealthy in Soul: Sermon for Proper 20C, September 21, 2025

The Unjust Steward, by Nelly Bube, Kazakhstan

Once there was a man who had two sons, and his younger son came to him and asked for his inheritance to be settled upon him now. So his father gave him his share, and the younger sone went off to a foreign country, where he promptly spent all he had on wild living, food drink, parties, and a questionable entourage of hangers-on. And just then a great famine came over the land, and soon he was forced to caring for swine, being paid so little that he fed himself with the starchy pods used as pig food.

Finally, he thought that he was going to die so he decided to return home and ask to be taken on as a servant in his father's house. He carefully rehearsed his crafty speech, testing how he could weasel his way at least into steady employment.

But as the young man approached his father's estate, and while he was still a great way off, his father saw the dust of his travel, and ran to him, with his servants. Before his son had gotten six words out the father embraced him, and cut off his son's carefully planned speech, weeping for joy and relief. Through his tears, the father ordered the servants to dress him in finery, and ordered a great feast to be prepared, because his son who had been lost was now found.....

Oh wait. That's the wrong story for this weekend, isn't it? Let me start over....

Once there was a man who had a manager he suspected of being dishonest. So he called the manager before him, and tells him he will lose his job, and demands from him an accounting of all his dealings in his employer's name. The dishonest manager panics once he was out of his employers presence, and realized he had nothing to show his employer-- except for his dishonesty.

So the cheat called in his boss's biggest debtors. He cuts deals with his master’s debtors, accepting 50-80% of what they owe in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the debtors. He does this so that he will be welcome in their homes since they are now in his debt for doing them this favor and could perhaps be convinced to take him in. He rehearses his speech carefully to the debtors, and and the debtors, being no fools, take that deal. By the next morning, the payments are in hand. The manager goes in front of his boss expecting to be fired. But instead his boss interrupts him, and congratulates him on his shrewdness and on clearing those old debts off the books-- kind of like when a company sells its unpaid bills to a collection agency.

Two stories about debts and money both touching on the ways of this world in which we live-- at least outside these doors. Two stories with absolute parallels in their structure. Both of the wasters of money never seem to show any real remorse-- they're so used to manipulating to get what they want. Both remorselessly pursue their own gain-- until it catches up with them. But the funny thing is, one of these stories is far more likely to be the subject of a stained glass window than the other. It's hard to imagine having a church window with the motto saying something like "Buy yourself false friends to help cover up your theft," or "Do unto others BEFORE they get a chance to do unto you." Not exactly the golden rule in action.

Only one of these stories reflects grace, and love, and forgiveness. Only one of these stories reflects the kingdom of God we call for every time we pray the Lord's Prayer.

We already spend too much time living in a dog-eat-dog world like this every day of our lives. Why in the world would we want to import that into our lives as followers of Jesus?

At first glance, Jesus seems to praise the actions of the dishonest manager. "The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light..." Jesus says. Can Jesus be praising the philosophy of "if you can't beat them join them" that unfortunately governs all too much of our relationships with each other? Or is Jesus actually condemning this kind of double-dealing?

Perhaps what Jesus is saying is that wealth is so corrupting that we just need to examine its crippling power in our lives: after all, we hear, “No slave can serve two masters…. You cannot serve God and wealth.” The thing is, it seems that great wealth NEVER satisfies. No matter how many zeroes are used to describe a person, which shouldn't be a way to describe a person at all, really. In the last 200 years, we have had our first multi-millionaire in 1812, our first billionaire a century after that, and last week it was announced that perhaps in two years the world will soon have its first trillionaire.

And yet, it seems like very few of these people know true peace. Despite all they have, they consume away. Enough is never enough. Imagine being able to spend a million dollars a day for the rest of your life. What would you do with such great wealth? Here's a sobering fact: if the world's richest man right now spent one million dollars a day of his fortune, without making any more money, it would still take him 1300 years to spend it all-- one THOUSAND, three HUNDRED years. Make it ten million dollars a day, and it would still take 130 years. And yet we are socialized to chase after them, despite the fact that the goalposts keep being moved in that rarified air, leaving more and more behind in anxiety, if not abject destitution.

Is that what Jesus advises us to try to do too? Or maybe we are missing a key point. Jesus doesn't call us to be children or students of this world. Jesus calls us to be children of the light. We, as followers of Jesus, are called to be prodigal, or extravagant, in love, in faith, in trust, and in compassion in all aspects of our lives. Not in the art of the deal.

What does being a child of the light mean? Is manipulation, double-dealing, selfishness, and greed at the heart of the kingdom of God? Or is it about being wealthy in soul, generous in spirit, and grateful for knowing the love of God and each other in our lives?

Isn't living our lives rooted in faith, and its mirror image, trust, the basis of the kingdom of God? Aren't we called to live by a covenant with God, a sacred pact, that places love of God and love of each other, at the center of our lives?

As we look at our candidate for baptism, we see someone whose life centers on trust. On security. On knowing that she is loved and cared for and treasured, exactly as she is. Even when squirmy. Even when grumpy. Even when hangry. At her stage in life, she lives by faith-- faith in those around her to love and care for her, faith in yummy snacks, and a desire for a good long nap. The dream of us all, am I right?

The covenant we make with God in baptism, and that we will all re-affirm in just a few moments, calls us to act in opposition to the calculus of this world, that creates winners only by creating hundreds of times more losers. It moves from general renunciations of the corrupting influences of this world, to promises about what we believe, through faith, and how specifically we live out that faith as children of the light. Not by trying to maximize our profits, as Amos condemned, but by living as prophets of Jesus, as witnesses and emulators of his example.

It means taking seriously the collect we prayed just a few minutes ago, in this Season of Creation: Grant us, Creator God, to put wealth to use in relieving the suffering of others; so that we might hold fast to the love that endures; through Jesus Christ the Wisdom of Creation, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings:

Amos 8:4-7
Psalm 113
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 16:1-13

Preached at the 505 on September 20, and the 10:30 Eucharist on September 21, 2025, at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Ellisville.

Lost and Found: Sermon for Proper 19C, September 14, 2025

Parables of the Lost Coin and the Lost Sheep, Gary Roulette, 2013

Does God change God's mind?

There are those who claim God does not-- that God has already foreordained everything that happens-- and they often voice this idea, almost without thinking about what they are saying-- at the most inopportune times, such as when a calamity has occurred. "It's God's will," they will say, and sure, for some, that provides comfort. But I heard someone say that at a funeral for a toddler who had died in surgery. The parent erupted with a quiet fury and grief. "I don't believe in a God who would do such a thing." And I told him when we talked later that I didn't believe in that God either.

People who believe that God never changes God's mind also have a tendency to believe that God has already decided who is going to Heaven and who is going to Hell-- even before those people are born. To most of us, this exposes the enormous flaw in their thinking. First how can they discount the dozens of incidents in scripture and in experience when God is shown to be seeking us out, since God always initiates revelation?

Then there's this: If God already knows if we are going to be believers and disciples or stumbling blocks and unrepentant doers of evil, then what is the point of our lives? And frankly, is there really any need for God at all? Is there any sign of God's love, God's grace, or God's mercy if God can set in motion the eternal torment of millions of people without care? Is it any wonder that so many people have turned away from this very common depiction of God?

No. The foundational characteristic of God is love and care, seeking relationship with us, and seeking our flourishing. The intricate abundance of creation itself is testament to that. Stories like the one we hear in our reading from the Book of Exodus makes it clear that God does indeed change God's mind-- and also provides evidence that God has NOT foreordained everything that happens. It also implies that intercessory prayers are not just a waste of breath, as Moses pleads for his stubborn, and spiritually lazy, people. God does NOT, actually, lead us into temptation-- we can find it on our own, thank you very much. We humans have got it favorited in our spiritual GPS.

This is a word I think many of us desperately need to hear after a week from Hell, here in America. Wednesday, September 10 saw a heinous, repugnant, targeted assassination of a far right political activist, Charlie Kirk, on the campus of a university in one of the most conservative areas in Utah. It was a profoundly unAmerican and evil act. Jesus instructed us to pray for our enemies and those who hate us. Not deprive them of life.

That was bad enough. But consider that before that vile incident, there were 31 incidents of gun violence already that day, which resulted in 11 deaths and 21 injuries. After the assassination, there was another 27 incidents of gun violence all across this nation, with 9 dead and 22 injured. These numbers include an incident in St. Louis in which a 15-year-old was shot and injured at a McDonalds, and a ten year old child was shot and injured in his own bedroom when someone sprayed his apartment complex with more than 40 rounds in St. Joseph. These numbers exclude those killed by police without shooting anyone, of which there were 8 incidents and 8 deaths.

On a single day, 67 gun violence incidents, resulting in 29 deaths and 42 injured. And since 2022 firearms have been the number one cause of death in children ages 1-19. More than car crashes. More than cancer. And yet the elected leadership of this country lacks the will to act to reduce this scourge of gun violence, and we do not hold them accountable for it.

Did God foreordain or "allow" these things to happen? Of course not. In every case, human beings made the choice to buy a gun, pull a trigger, often multiple times, and attempt to take a life.

The stories from Exodus, and our Gospel, show a God who is deeply invested in God's relationship with God's people. A God deeply involved in human flourishing. A God who is affected when we choose to worship our own wills, when we set ourselves in the place of God, thinking we should have the power of life and death over other persons. A God who knew that those around the Israelites who worshipped human-made idols usually appeased those idols with acts of cruelty, even human sacrifice.

Trying to imitate those around them, the Israelites had made for themselves a golden calf, made by their own hands from their own golden jewelry and plate. They then claimed that that calf was God-- a God they could reduce into a small statue, a God they thought they could contain. A God who could be ignored most of the time while they did what they wanted. They worshipped a God of their own making. And that is always the danger, then or now. For far too many in this country, guns are a golden calf, and they are worshipped above human life.

No human-made system, no tool, no possession should be placed over our love and obedience to God, to the debt of forgiveness and mercy we owe God. Placed side-by-side, these two readings remind us to place our relationship with God first in our lives, and to make our relationships with each other centered around restoring the lost and the vulnerable to their place within our community, and being willing to sacrifice ourselves to do that.

God can change God's mind, and God calls us to change our hearts, especially our inaction in the face of violence, dehumanization, and exploitation of others.

Being a disciple means getting our priorities, and our hearts and wills, aligned with those of God: "thy kingdom come, thy will be done," we will pray soon. Love of God, and obedience to God's will for us to truly love each other, are to take priority over self-centeredness and estrangement. We are never to substitute the works of our hands or the systems we've devised as objects of worship in place of God, not economic theories, not money, not power, not tools or weapons, not tribalism, not our own delusions of grandeur and invincibility nor our fears and insecurities over the love and lordship of God in our lives.

Our gospel poses an important question for all of us: what is the value of a person, a single living, breathing human soul? What should we be willing to risk or to spend or regulate to prevent the loss of innocent life, or to reclaim those who have turned away from God's command that we love each other and instead worship one of the many modern idols like guns, or political power, or wealth, or prejudice, or contempt for creation? How can we truly take these questions seriously, and how might it affect our views on violence, on justice, on respecting the dignity and worth of every person?

Our gospel indeed insists that God does not, in fact, will anyone to be lost, anyone to be forsaken, and God will exert every effort into calling us back when we have turned aside and wandered off, or worshipped other things. Instead God is portrayed as a shepherd who leaves the 99 behind to go find the one who is lost. God is also portrayed as a woman who searches unceasingly for a single lost coin.

And so the emotional arc of today's readings shifts from rejection by the Israelites, anger by God, pleading by Moses, grumbling by the critics of Jesus, to God and the heavens rejoicing. Rejoicing, because Jesus, the Son of God, exemplifies the life of faith as one that reaches out to the lost, standing up for the vulnerable and oppressed, even to the point of self-sacrifice. That is the path of a disciple and believer in the peace he preached and the path he called us to follow.

Our communities, and our nation, are in crisis. We are in crisis because we have rejected the love that is at the center of human flourishing. We were made for God, and we were made for each other. The love and interdependence that sustains us, and all creation, requires us to melt down the golden calves that we've built, and instead recover our own humanity and will to stand together. Let us pray for that revival within ourselves. Pray, yes, for the strength to ACT-- then act to live our faith boldly and for the blessing and well-being of us all, friend or foe, saint or sinner, in the name of love, and in the name of our Savior.

Amen.

Readings:

Exodus 32:7-14
Psalm 51:1-11
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10

Preached at the 505 on September 13 and the 10:30 Eucharist on September 14, 2025 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Ellisville.

The Momentum of Love-- Sermon for Proper 18C, September 7, 2025

    

There's a sweet little video making the rounds right now. About a month ago, at the halftime for a WNBA game in Las Vegas, the team held a baby crawl race. Ten babies were lined up by their dads on one end of the court on the top of the key, and encouraged to crawl to their moms on the other end of the court. It was NOT a short distance. One little girl really took off, crawling steadily and with great concentration.

Just past midcourt, she suddenly stopped, scooping up one of the stuffed animals that were being slid onto the court as incentives. How could she continue, and keep the toy? In an amazing bit of problem-solving, she then stood up wobbily clutching the stuffie, and took her first little steps for all the world to see. The crowd went wild, and even the other mothers nearby celebrated as she hesitatingly but unfailingly walked into her mama's ecstatic arms.

I think about how determined that baby was--- to stand up on a slick basketball court in her stocking feet, while people all around her were cheering, clapping and screaming, flashes going off all around her-- and then she walked all the rest of the way. She was willing to take those first steps certain of her mom's loving embrace at the end. 

I think she was propelled by the momentum of love. Now she's internet famous, and she has brightened the days of millions of people who have watched the video. This kid is a risk taker, no doubt about it.

Our readings from Philemon and Luke are also about taking risks, and taking our first steps for living out our call to be disciples of Jesus, rather than mere worshipers of him, no matter the cost.

The brief letter to Philemon is notable, because in it, Paul demands, while pretending to ask, that one of his wealthy converts, Philemon, free an enslaved young man who had run away from Philemon and made his way to Paul, imprisoned at the time. Paul not only asks for the freedom of the slave, but asks that Philemon henceforth treat the formerly enslaved young man as a brother. At that time in the Roman world, slaves cost between one year and ten years' worth of the daily wage, a denarii.

Then in our gospel, Jesus, turning his face toward Jerusalem, tries to let the enthusiastic crowd following him know what the risks and costs of discipleship can be. The word "hate" here may be better translated as "turn aside from." This may sound harsh indeed.

The admonition to deny ourselves and take up our cross to follow Jesus is just as scary to us as it was in the time of Jesus’s earthly ministry. The idea that we have to be willing to suffer for our faith seems especially harsh here, too, especially after we have been hearing some harsh words from Jesus the last few weeks.

How can this be good news? It may sound to us at first glance like Jesus is telling us to be willing to throw our lives away—after all, the cross was a symbol of criminality and death. Trust me, to Jesus’s followers, crucifixion was no empty metaphor.

After all, the cross, when Jesus speaks of it in our gospel passage today, was a ROMAN execution method used for those who threatened their death-grip on power. It stood for brutality. It stood for the power of empire to crush and literally squeeze the breath out of those who opposed that power of domination and brutality. How can it be that, in too many people's minds today, they cynically and hypocritically claims that the gold crosses they wear around their necks gives them the power to do the same thing to others?

Theologians from Paul up through today remind us that, after Jesus's execution and resurrection, the cross has been transformed from a symbol of shame to a symbol of the victory of love over death, thanks to Jesus’s willingness to embrace it. That cross has been transformed into a symbol of God’s grace-- and we as Christians must be willing to fight to keep it that way, rather than let it be transformed into a symbol of those who embrace the cruelty and violence of the Roman Empire among us now, just as the Ku Klux Klan attempted to pervert the cross in its campaigns of terror.

And that’s important for us to think about as we try to make sense of what Jesus is saying. Jesus is not asking us to embrace death, but instead, to truly embrace a life grounded in God, who loves us no matter what. To be willing to sacrifice, and in sacrificing, to strive to trust in God completely-- which is an aspiration for us all, given the cynical, even cruel world in which we live that makes us mistrustful of almost everyone and their motives. Jesus is asking us to be willing to use our God-given lives for the good of others and for the good of the world. As we begin today to observe the Season of Creation,

Deep in our hearts, many of us have a hard time believing that God’s love is that limitless for us. It is a fact that every love we experience in our lives changes us in some way. Choosing to embrace God’s love for us will change us, too.

Now, change can be a scary thing. It’s scary, because any real change in our lives involves embracing a death of our former selves- letting go of all that is familiar to us, that made us who we have been in the hope that we will become something better.

It’s like when we went to the circus when we were kids. I was always fascinated by the trapeze artists. Sure, there was a net stretched below them. But even with that, I was always amazed by their willingness to let go of the first trapeze, and for several heart-stopping moments to be clinging to nothing at all as they tumbled through the air. There was always a moment when their hands were empty, with nothing but a net far below. But through trust in the laws of physics and their own skills, they have the courage to let go-- and are rewarded with the ability to fly.

Our own lives are often just as risky at times too. We move from one swinging perch to another throughout our lives, as we develop and grow. In between the letting go and the grasping, there are those heart-stopping moments when we are holding on to nothing. But without the momentum of love, without opening our hands, we have no way to grasp the new life-change coming toward us. This is also true of our lives as followers of Jesus. Unless we empty our heads, hands, and our hearts in a similar manner, letting go and emptying ourselves of all that has tied us to the way we have been and the way we were, we cannot take hold of the abundant new life to which we are called through the loving voice of Christ.

Listen. We are given the gift of each day from God. We are given the abundance of the Earth for our flourishing, and for the flourishing of all the living beings who depend upon it. We are given the gift of this parish and its ministries as gifts of God to us and to the world. Caring for each of these things will cost us, but it's a cost worth paying.

Jesus calls us to use each one of those days as much as possible making the most of that life by living our lives for God and for others. It means that the only life worth living is one in which we are willing to be transformed by the power of God’s grace to live for others.

Jesus stretched his arms wide upon that cross as God Incarnate to remind us that God’s arms are themselves stretched wide to encompass the entire world—no exceptions. Jesus stretched his arms wide upon that cross as a fully human person to remind us that we are all capable of loving each other that much, that abundantly. God loves us into being and breathes love into us from the moment of our births, and we are called to try to breathe that love and grace into a world that, through our own human folly and selfishness, is gasping for it. We just have to be willing to take the risk of love, and take that first step onto the path of discipleship, without fear and with an open sacrificial spirit. The momentum of love will propel us forward.

Amen.



Readings:
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33

Preached at the 505 on September 6 and the 10:30 Holy Eucharist on September 7, 2025 at St. Martin's Church in Ellisville.

The Best Place-- Sermon for Proper 17C, August 31, 2025

Luke 14 Banquet Mural, by Hyatt Moore

I'm not a big fan of commercial country music radio. I hardly ever listen to it, to be honest. Maybe it was all those gazillions of miles driving 75 miles an hour over the Plains to Grandma's house, trapped with my siblings in the back seat of a 1969 Lincoln Continental with suicide doors as Conway Twitty wailed about heartbreak on my dad's 8-track player up in front, trying not to barf from the smell of the can of vienna sausages my mom had just opened in the front seat. I don't know.

But when I think of the emphasis in our readings about humility, there are two country songs that come to mind.

The first one is by Mac Davis from 1974. Who knows-- I might've even heard it in that same back seat back then. It's called "It's Hard to Be Humble." It starts out with the chorus, like this:

Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble
When you're perfect in every way
I can't wait to look in the mirror
Cause I get better lookin' each day
To know me is to love me
I must be a hell of a man
Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble
But I'm doin' the best that I can

My friend and mentor Brooke Myers used to quote this chorus in one of his sermons, and it always made me laugh out loud. But then the second verse was always my favorite, especially if you remember that Mac Davis was thought by many people to be a pretty good looking guy:

I guess you could say I'm a loner
A cowboy outlaw, tough and proud
Well, I could have lotsa friends if I wanted,
But then I wouldn't stand out from the crowd
Some folks say that I'm egotistical
Hell, I don't even know what that means
I guess it has something to do with the way
That I fill out my skin-tight blue jeans

Whoa, Nelly! I may not like commercial country, but I do like songs that can make you laugh, and think at the same time.

It's human nature to want to stand out from the crowd. but it often isn't the way to be liked, not really. NOBODY is perfect in every way, but that shouldn't be cause to target them, either. Preening and showing off certainly isn't not the best way to get your priorities straight, as our fable at the children's message made clear. You know what I mean?

Our reading from Luke's gospel this morning, and the proverb which Jesus is probably quoting that made up our first lesson, is a reminder about priorities-- namely, who should get to BE the priority. Who should be the object of our attention. And Jesus and his opponents have a very real disagreement about that, at a foundational level.

I may have mentioned before that, whenever I am looking at our lectionary readings, I always want to go and see the verses that are omitted, because I think context is always crucial in understanding the intention and mood of the text. And in this case, the five verses that are omitted I think are important for our understanding today.

We start with Jesus being invited to a Pharisee's house for a sabbath dinner. The fact that it's the sabbath becomes important when hearing the omitted verses:

2 Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had edema. 3 And Jesus asked the experts in the law and Pharisees, “Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath or not?” 4 But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him and sent him away. 5 Then he said to them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?” 6 And they could not reply to this.

So, just like last week, we have a healing on the sabbath. But it's from THAT action that Jesus then begins watching the scrambling of the guests for seats at the table.

In the gospels, especially in Luke, meals were also often where Jesus shocked the living heck out of his hosts-- and often seemed deliberately challenging, even rude to them. Letting "loose" women wash his feet with their hair. Criticizing his hosts' manners. Eating with dirty hands. No wonder they were watching him. Notice that this also was on a sabbath--- another day in which Jesus was prone to what his opponents though was scandalous, even blasphemous behavior. It's a wonder he got invited to dinner at all. It was almost like their curiosity always got the better of them-- which makes sense, what with all the miracles and "what-not." Ha ha ha.

Just like last week, we also get to see the salty side of Jesus. This is not a mamby-pamby Jesus. This is a Jesus who has every right to be frustrated. His opponents invite him to a meal, deliberately place a sick man in front of him on the sabbath, and then watch closely to see what he does. If anyone has ever been around people who are just LOOKING for a reason to play "gotcha" with you, and I certainly have, it's annoying and exhausting and sometimes dangerous to be in situations like that.

So no, Jesus was not always a "nice person." This is a reminder he is fully human, and that's a comfort to me. Jesus had a willingness to challenge authority, even when it was unpopular. Jesus came to proclaim a gospel that was new-- that's why it's called Good NEWS, after all. And that gospel was radical because of its emphasis on grace and mercy over judgment and legalism.

This follows nicely after last week's frustrated comment by Jesus that he had come to create division within families and communities. While many people were starving for that proclamation of grace, others were threatened by it. Because grace is, by its very nature, NOT bound by human notions of justice, where "justice" is used as a synonym for "punishment." As it is currently being used by far too many people today.

Getting back to the story, and I don't know about you, but especially after last week's cure of the woman on the sabbath, I smell a set-up. Could it be that they were watching him carefully because they deliberately placed this suffering man in Jesus's path to see if he would "violate" the sabbath again by curing him?

Jesus sees through the charade, so he pauses before curing the man, and places a Biblical question before his hosts, who of course were expert in the Torah: is it lawful to cure people on the sabbath? After they stare at him, he cures the man and sends him on his way. But then Jesus cites verses from the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy that allowed exceptions to the sabbath injunction to rest.

So back to that idea that Jesus is not always "nice--" whoa, you should be able to smell the snark from here as our own gospel picks back up. Jesus watches all the guests sitting down for the meal, and he starts innocently musing about people placing themselves in places of honor-- probably just as people are scrambling around for seats. Then he tells the host not to invite the rich, or the well-connected-- out loud! In front of the guests, who probably are-- wait for it-- exactly that.

This meal is a vehicle for Jesus to explain about how we should not have distinctions among each other, and be humble within the community. It is better to humbly accept a lowly position than get above ourselves and be rebuked for putting on airs. Arrogance is destructive to community and breeds resentment.

Another way of putting it is this: “The first must be last.” This statement is expressed by Jesus in all four gospels. Thus, we are confronted with an important reminder, indeed. It is reminding us how far our priorities are from those of the kingdom of God. The highly hierarchical world of Palestine in the first century CE is not how the kingdom of God is supposed to be. Thehighly hierarchical world of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" of today is just the same.

So many of us are heartsick at the callousness and cruelty that has taken root in wide swaths of our world right now. The joy people take and the laughter as people are torn from their loved ones-- that sense of smug satisfaction that too many people feel when watching the suffering of others-- all the while thinking that they themselves are somehow immune from being targeted themselves.

What if we considered Jesus's urging to be welcoming and humble in light of the admonition that starts our Hebrews reading? "Let mutual love continue." And we do that by being hospitable. Look with empathy upon people in prison. Don't chase wealth over relationships.

It's normal to want "the best place" if we can get it. but Jesus says the best place is alongside others, opening ourselves to getting to know each other. Because when we get to know each other, it becomes a whole lot harder to dehumanize each other, and think that we are not dependent upon each other for all the good things in our lives, from our groceries to clean streets to entertainment-- a particularly good reminder of respect and mutuality on the Labor Day Weekend.

This brings up the second country song I was reminded of as I considered today's scripture message to us. It's from about ten years ago. It was sung by Tim McGraw, who seems to be a pretty grounded person for a country music star, and was called Humble and Kind. It was sung like a father giving advice to his kids. It included advice like

Hold the door, say "please", say "thank you"
Don't steal, don't cheat, and don't lie

It closed with this admonition:

Don't take for granted the love this life gives you
When you get where you're going don't forget to turn back around
And help the next one in line
Always stay humble and kind.

I love that last stanza especially. "Don't take for granted the love this life gives you." We constantly walk around with our dukes up right now. We constantly live in a state of anxiety, or dread, or suspicion, or anger-- even if it's righteous anger. And a lot of those emotions have to do with the world's insistence on scarcity, and how that fear then makes us see each other not as fellow-community members, but as competitors.

Jesus calls us to a better place. A place of fellowship. A place of appreciation. A place of opening our eyes and seeing the love that this life gives you-- and giving us the desire to want to share that love and pass it on.

That's the best place. Opening up our hearts, humbly and joyfully, to the love this life gives you. Sitting and celebrating and loving alongside everybody else.

Amen.

Readings:

Proverbs 25:6-7
Psalm 112 
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

Preached at the 505 on August 30 and the 10:30 Holy Eucharist on August 31, 2025 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Ellisville.

Peace, Love, and Interdependence: Sermon for Proper 9C, July 6, 2025

It's summertime in the Northern Hemisphere, which means it's travel time. School's out, sun's out, and the beach -- at the lake, at the gulf, at the Great Lakes-- beckons for many of our members here at St. Martin's. And even if we are going to someplace new, someplace that isn't our "home away from home," many of us have travel on our mind. This weekend's holiday is no exception to this tendency.

The thing is, I love to travel. I don't love getting ready to travel.

I don't know about you, but for me the challenges of a trip begin before the trip commences, starting with, "What do I bring?" You don't want to bring too much and have to schlep stuff you won't use from hither to yon and back again. On the other hand, you don't want to get caught without something you need and have no way to get it on the road. You want to be ready for emergencies. You don't want to be a pack mule.

This is important even in our modern era, when the actual journey part is usually assisted by plane, train, or automobile. When people traveled mostly on foot, when the journey often took longer than the time at the destination, when there wasn't a motel or hotel or even a yurt available in every town, traveling lightly while having the resources you needed on the road was an even more particular art.

A lot of this worry about what to bring has to do with vulnerability. Lacking something important while on a journey makes one feel vulnerable. Traveling light also means embracing the necessity of depending upon people you don't know. Lacking understanding of a new place and new people makes us feel vulnerable.

The world in which we live tries its best to convince us that vulnerability is a condition to be avoided at all costs. That vulnerability is uncomfortable at best and frightening at its worst, because this world also tries to convince us that there is not enough, that those around us are threats rather than kindred. And travel involves getting outside the comfort zone of all that is familiar and certain. Travel encourages, even requires, vulnerability, even after the packing decisions have been made.

Travel means encountering strangers, and embracing being a stranger yourself. It means encountering strange roads, strange food, strange accents or strange languages, strange customs. The happy traveler is a humble traveler, one who embraces the strangeness and the vulnerability as a chance to grow and learn about others in the encounters that await-- and at the same time learn about themselves. Embracing that kind of being present and open to new experiences teaches us that without vulnerability, honest relationships are impossible, too.

In our gospel portion today, Jesus is still not long into his public ministry, but he has already attracted enough followers that he can choose 70 of the best and brightest and give them a special task. He will send them out ahead of him, two by two, because it's always best to have a wingman. These disciples will be reconnaissance teams, preparing the way, as Jesus himself and his followers travel around the countryside, encountering new people and new places creating a new community.

Now, Jesus is a master at traveling light. He noted in last week's gospel that, although foxes had holes and birds of the air had nests, Jesus as the Son of Man had no place to lay his head. Jesus and his friends and followers share everything they own in a common purse. And it seems like they rarely spend more than a night or two in the same place. Many of us may hear Jesus make that comment about foxes and birds and his relative homelessness, and feel a pang of sadness, or maybe even anxiety. But what if we understood that comment as key to his ministry, and ours-- meeting people where they are, and meeting people as someone just like them? Someone who deliberately meets people humbly, with genuine interest. Someone who embodies one of my favorite sayings about interpersonal relations from Ted Lasso, by way of Walt Whitman: be curious, not judgmental.

Perhaps this can help us make sense of his instructions to his 35 pairs of evangelists to travel lightly. In doing so, disciples travel knowing that they don't just bring good news to the places that they travel-- they also depend upon the kindness and hospitality of those same strangers. Disciples are to come into these new places modestly, humbly-- and in return, when welcomed, exchange peace and blessing with those they encounter. Disciples are to come being curious, not judgmental.

Central to Jesus's gospel is real, loving connection. Jesus may only stay a few days or hours in one place, but the relationships he builds with us are meant to be enduring. To be real. To last a lifetime-- and beyond. Encountering people in all walks of life, but especially those who often get overlooked, those on the margins, encountering them as people who have as much to give to us as we do to them, that is the key to sharing the good news.

Jesus calls his disciples to share peace-- and share it even before they know anything about the house they’ve just entered or the beliefs of those living there. Peace that is more than peace—it’s shalom. It’s well-being, completeness, a greeting, a farewell, and everything in between. Peace, based on justice and mercy, takes a random group of strangers and forms them into community.

We can only share the good news of Jesus, not impose it on others. Not coming in and forcing people to be exposed to snippets of scripture, assuming that we have some thing "they" don't. Instead, the life of peace and justice, which surely we all deserve, means living alongside each other, opening ourselves in vulnerability, in bravery, without resorting to privilege. The heart of the gospel is that the relationship between Redeemer and those needing redemption is rooted in mutuality and interdependence. Like all lasting relationships, the good news of God's love is not rooted in transaction, in profit, in exploitation, but in openness, egalitarianism, and vulnerability.

The list of what they, and we, as disciples are NOT to take in witnessing to the gospel is pretty long. It's meant to remind us of what is really important. It centers our lives as Christians in humility, open-heartedness, and vulnerability. These are not weaknesses. They are gifts in service of discipleship. Gifts at the root of not creating barriers between ourselves and those we meet with protective layers of status, wealth, power, or privilege. 

Once again Jesus is reminding us that the gospel is always counter-cultural, but especially in our time and situation right now. Jesus reminds us today that, in the quest to share the Good News of God's Commonwealth existing right now around us, we are called as followers of Christ to proclaim something better, and make it visible by bringing it to people, to all people, where they are.

That is what we proclaim here in this place, both as a community and a parish, and as individuals. In all our ministries, and all our partnerships, such as with Circle of Concern which we celebrate today, and all our relationships, we are in the business of creating community bound by love, mutual respect, and celebrating the dignity and worth of all. We proclaim the power of the truth of interdependence to make us all stronger, freer, and more connected. There is no independence without interdependence. It is interdependence that makes us great. Our commitment to each other is the great ideal that makes us one people out of many-- not just as a nation, but as the Body of Christ.

Saint Augustine summed up the purpose of life as this. He said, "The glory of God is a human being fully alive." The greatest asset we have is ourselves, and our wide-open, vulnerable hearts. To see through the eyes of Christ the truth: that when the forces of empire keep trying to come up with new ways to divide and conquer, they are trying to distract us from the incredible power we wield for good when we wield the power of love, the power of relationship across differences, when we wield the power of community. In a world in which loneliness has become an epidemic here in the western world, community-- that starts with the willingness to see each other as beloved children of God no matter who we are or where we are from-- is the real superpower.

You know, that's one of the greatest gifts of travel, after all. To leave all that is familiar, and expand our horizon of the known world beyond our own selfish interests. We then see not only what we all have in common but see the incredible beauty of diversity. How can that kind of epiphany not also change us, and make us fully alive? As the lyrics of our opening hymn reminded us, when we encounter new places and new people humbly, we suddenly see the people around us not as potential threats, or strangers, or competitors for what scarce resources, but as members of our one community-- the community of creation. To see our neighborhood as not defined by boundaries but by sharing what we have in kinship.

As travelers on this earth, as disciples, what Jesus urges us to leave behind in our ministry pales in comparison to what we ARE to share, and share abundantly: peace, followship, true community, healing and reconciliation. Jesus reminds us that the key to witnessing to the Good News of Jesus starts with remembering that that Good News is rooted in community, in relationship, in embracing vulnerability, and most of all in humility. We start by acknowledging that we are not arrogantly leading people from poverty or ignorance and sin from a position of superiority, but meeting people where they are in an interchange of respect and mutuality.

This is our Good News. This is our song. This is our prayer, our dream, our holy shrine. And isn’t this what we see the world around us longing for, right now?

Preached at the Saturday 505 and the Sunday 10:30 Eucharist on the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, July 5-6, 2025.

Readings:

Isaiah 66:10-14

Psalm 66:1-8

Galatians 6:(1-6) 7-16

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

A Poem, A Proverb, A Painting, A Prayer: A Lenten Journey-- Day 38: Friday after the 5th Sunday in Lent

Today’s Theme: Confluence

Poem: Whether They Know Thee or Not
Whether they know Thee or not
all creatures of the world
now and forever-without-end
bend but toward Thee.
All love for someone else
is but a whiff
of Thy perfume:
none else can be loved.
--------------- Fakhruddin ‘Araqi, 13th century Sufi contemplative poet


Proverb:
"Between God and the soul
there is no between."
---------------- Dame Julian of Norwich (ca. 13430 after 1614), 14th century mystic, anchoress, author of the first English- language books by a woman


Painting: The Confluence of the Bushkill and the Delaware, Kay WalkingStick, Cherokee artist, 2016

     


Prayer: Be One in Unity
Give us a blessing so that our words and actions be one in unity,
and that we be able to listen to each other, in so doing,
we shall with good heart walk hand in hand to face the future.

In the presence of the outside, we are thankful for many blessings.

I make my prayer for all people, the children, the women and the men.

I pray that no harm will come to them,
and that on the great island,
there be no war,
that there be no ill feelings among us.

From this day on may we walk hand in hand.
So be it.
------ Frank Fools Crow (1890-1989), Lakota leader and medicine man

A Poem, A Proverb, A Painting, A Prayer: A Lenten Devotional-- Day 37: Thursday after the 5th Sunday in Lent

Today’s Theme: Perception


Poem: Complex Phenomena

The rules of chaos are simple: a mountain

is never a perfect cone. A lake

is never really a circle. A drop

of dew is not a microcosm.

No. Flowers wither.

Dust collects. There is

the relentless return of what we

do not want. Everything inclines

to disorder. But then how

to explain this grove of orange trees

planted so close branch nuzzles branch,

the whole world in permanent rows?

An illusion, of course. When

the present for most of us lasts only

3 seconds. But then how to

explain the man blind from birth who

sees a person and believes he sees

a tree on legs? How did he find

the conceit to link such disparates?

The tactile vision of his past creates the

chaos of his present sightedness.

His world, newly angled, is no longer

reasonable, but still he relies on what

he knows. He names what he sees, revising

phylum, genus, class as he goes,

sometimes standing quite still, eyes closed

in order to recall the harmony of things.

-----------------Jill Peláez Baumgaertner, Cuban-American professor, poet, editor, essayist, from What Cannot Be Fixed, 2014



Proverb:
“What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are.”

---------------C. S. Lewis 1893-1963), Irish convert to Christianity, Christian apologist, author, lecturer and poet


Painting: Birch Forest, Gustav Klimt, 1903

    

Prayer: Thou Art Not As I Have Conceived Thee

Lord, it is nearly midnight and I am waiting for You
in the darkness and the great silence.
I am sorry for all my sins.
Do not let me ask any more than to sit in the darkness
and light no lights of my own,
and be crowded with no crowds of my own thoughts
to fill the emptiness of the night in which I await You.

Your brightness is my darkness.
I know nothing of you and, by myself,
I cannot even imagine how to go about knowing you.
If I imagine you, I am mistaken.
If I understand you, I am deluded.
If I am conscious and certain
I know you, I am crazy.
The darkness is enough.

----------------Thomas Merton (Father Louis) (1915-1968), writer, poet, contemplative, ecumenist, and Trappist monk

A Poem, A Proverb, A Painting, A Prayer: A Lenten Journey-- Day 36: Wednesday after the 5th Sunday in Lent

Today’s Theme: Solidarity


Poem: A Word on Statistics
Out of every hundred people

those who always know better:
fifty-two.

Unsure of every step:
almost all the rest.

Ready to help,
if it doesn't take long:
forty-nine.

Always good,
because they cannot be otherwise:
four—well, maybe five.

Able to admire without envy:
eighteen.

Led to error
by youth (which passes):
sixty, plus or minus.

Those not to be messed with:
forty and four.

Living in constant fear
of someone or something:
seventy-seven.

Capable of happiness:
twenty-some-odd at most.

Harmless alone,
turning savage in crowds:
more than half, for sure.

Cruel
when forced by circumstances:
it's better not to know,
not even approximately.

Wise in hindsight:
not many more
than wise in foresight.

Getting nothing out of life except things:
thirty
(though I would like to be wrong).

Doubled over in pain
and without a flashlight in the dark:
eighty-three, sooner or later.

Those who are just:
quite a few at thirty-five.

But if it takes effort to understand:
three.

Worthy of empathy:
ninety-nine.

Mortal:
one hundred out of one hundred—
a figure that has never varied yet.

---------------- Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012), Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner, translated from Polish by Joanna Trzeciak



Proverb:
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

--------------- Aristotle


Painting: Christina’s World, Andrew Wyeth, 1948

    

Prayer: To Flourish in Justice

God of Mercy,
we bow before You,
grateful for your abundant grace,
laying our cares at your feet in faith.

Holy One,
make us like green olive trees in the house of the Lord,
comforting those in need of shade and embrace,
nourishing those whose hearts hunger for compassion.

God of Justice,
make us steadfast in our willingness
to stand alongside our kindred in solidarity
against hate,
violence,
and prejudice in any form.
May we never be silent, O God,
in the face of injustice or exploitation,
but embody the Way of Love
and shield the vulnerable among us.

Blessed Redeemer,
we rest within your abiding compassion,
and ask your sheltering, healing hand
to be placed over those for whom we pray.

Amen.

------------------Leslie Barnes Scoopmire, 2020

Prayer: Grace in Grief

     

God of Compassion,
we center ourselves in silence before you,
   laying our sorrow at your feet.

Walk alongside us in the days to come
   as our companion in grief
as we travel this hard road
   on this unwanted journey.

Help us forgive 
      and be forgiven 
   of all that is left undone,
   of all that cannot now be done,
with grace for our loved ones
   and grace for ourselves.
Let us fasten on what can be done
   with tenderness and gratitude.

Strengthen us to release the imperfections of love
   and the fragility of relationships
      with gentle hands.

Lift the boat of our hearts
   by the sea of our memories of laughter and joy,
      and carry away any bitterness with the tide of compassion.

O Mothering God,
Let us grieve as Jesus grieved 
   and weep as Jesus wept.
Help us cradle our memories,
   as Mary cradled the body of her child.

In assurance and trust, let the gift of your Spirit
   lead us to hold fast to our faith
      in the communion of saints,
      the forgiveness of sins,
      the resurrection of the body
      and the life everlasting
through Jesus Christ our Savior and Redeemer.
Amen.

----------------Leslie Barnes Scoopmire

Today is the first anniversary of the death of my younger brother Bill.