Prayer 3043: On the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre

God of Justice and Mercy,
we kneel before you in humble prayer
acknowledging our sins and divisions,
emptying ourselves of our pride
asking your aid as we seek your wisdom.

Give us the courage
to seek the truth where it is under assault,
and to seek to repair the breaches in our communities.
As children of truth,
may we acknowledge and repent
where we have profited from the lie,
and work to right the wrongs of our past
which have continued consequences today.

Holy One, we mourn for those
who lost their livelihoods and their lives
to the evil of racism, violence, fear, and envy.
We mourn for those who were forced into silence
by the demands of their tormentors
to preserve the edifice of power
founded upon the rock of exploitation and threat.

May we stand alongside the survivors
and work for true justice
as the foundation of peace and fellowship.
May we call for redress and reparation
to mend the fabric of community
and demand equity for the wronged.

Blessed Lord, give us the will
to put our shoulders to the wheel of unity
that is your vision for our lives together.
Help us to persevere
in the pursuit of righteousness and integrity
that is our duty to one another
as your children, O God of Our Ancestors.

Grant us the blessing of hope, O Eternal Light,
and rest your protection on those
whose cry is to You.

Amen.

Entangled Loves: Sermon for Trinity Sunday B

 

It’s a blessing that Trinity Sunday falls the day before the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre. On May 31, 1921, a white mob attempted to lynch a black man accused of rape in an elevator in downtown Tulsa. Even though the police were dubious about the entire story, they arrested the young man. The Tulsa evening paper called for him to be lynched. Black veterans showed up at the jail determined to protect him, and a gunshot went off when a white man tried to seize one of their weapons. 

 

Within the next hours, forty square city blocks of one of the most prosperous black communities in the United States was reduced to rubble and ash. Twelve hundred buildings—churches, homes, businesses-- were destroyed, some by firebombs thrown from airplanes. Machine-gun fire raked streets filled with those trying to escape. Probably 300 African Americans died, bodies dumped into the Arkansas River or unceremoniously into unmarked mass graves. Although at first Tulsa’s leadership was appalled, soon, the story of that terrible time and the truth of the deadly consequences of division and hatred were buried, unmarked, as well. The estimated death toll of that day makes May 31, 1921 the day of the worst act of domestic terrorism in United States history.(1)

 

This massacre began with the great evil of division—the sin that denies our common bonds as humans, that encourages murderous jealousy and greed, that tries to divide us so that we are isolated and weak.

 

It is an unfortunate fact that we humans often find it easy to tear things down into their constituent parts. We categorize and separate. But to take a step back and see how all is connected, and to feel that as a reality, is a spiritual as well as a imaginative challenge. Yet scientists are discovering all the time how things we formerly thought were separate are actually united in community.

 

And so it is with us. We have a tendency to break ourselves off from the rest of creation as humans, and then we have the tendency to divide ourselves up further still, by race, language, gender, sexual identity. Chop, chop, chop. Some people even use the Bible to justify such division.

 

But creation tells a very different story, and science is just now beginning to catch up.

 

Physicists now talk about something called quantum entanglement. This is a phenomenon where when a group of particles come into proximity or relationship with each other, they remain influenced by each other even after being separated by distance. Though they separate, they behave as a singular whole. Ironically, many of these same physicists who are also people of faith see the similarity – including the difficulty of describing what this means—in the concept of the Trinity. 

It also reminds us of how even fleeting relationships can change us and remind us of our essential similarities. Even botanists are now seeing similar unifying principles where once only separateness was admitted.

 

In Fishlake National Forest in Utah, in the south-central part of the state, near Kanosh, just east of Interstate 15, south of Salt Lake City and Provo, there is one of the oldest and largest organisms on earth, nicknamed Pando. He covers over 106 acres, but Pando is estimated to weigh 13 million pounds, so he certainly is both more visible and largest in term of weight than any living thing found so far on Earth.  He is also 80,000 years old, born in the Pleistocene epoch, during the last Ice Age. He spent the three-fourths of his life before humans ever stepped foot on this continent approximately 15,000 years ago—indeed he has been alive for half the time that homo sapiens has roamed the planet. He survived and flourished at about the time of a massive die-off that killed three-fourths of large mammals in North America.

 

He (for he is male) is a colony of Quaking Aspen that has been named “Pando” (Lat. “I spread”) by the scientists who have studied him since his discovery in 1968. Above the surface of the ground, he appears as if he is simply 47,000 individual trees. However, under the surface of the ground, Pando is actually one genetically identical organism that spreads via vegetative reproduction, developing a complex and expansive root system that from which shoots rise to pierce the surface of the ground. 

 

Probably there were other seeds that sprouted on that same day and in the long years since. Yet Pando was born at the right time, and in the right place, and with the right characteristics for survival and endurance, as the rest of his generation have themselves subsided back before memory. As he grew, he raised his arms toward the sun, and with all the other trees of the forest, he sang songs of joy and praise before God, dancing in the breeze like David before the Ark. 

 

Pando was already old and wise by the time that stories of Moses were being passed from generation to generation at the juncture of Asia and Africa, thousands of miles away. He had barely begun living alongside humans by the time, half a world away, a wandering teacher named Y’shua began calling disciples along the banks of a small sea called Galilee. 

 

And Pando is not a solitary example. We are now finding that trees talk to each other through their root systems even across species. The beat of a butterfly’s wing on one side of the world can generate a storm on the other. All of this leads to one thing: Separation is an illusion. It also leads us to deny the nature of creation, and the nature of God. Being is relational. Our lives are entangled with others even when-- especially when-- we can't see it.

 

Trinity Sunday is our dedicated yearly reminder—hopefully we think about this more than once a year—that community lies at the very center of God’s inner reality. When the Bible insists “God is love,” it says so because at the heart of the mystery of God lies the Trinity: Holy Spirit, Son, and Father, all drawn together in mutual love that the flows outward to all creation. I deliberately wrote those in a different order than that to which most of us are accustomed, because even as some theologians affirm that each "person" of the Trinity is equal, there often seems to be a preferencing for God the Father to always come first, even though scripture itself often uses other orders. 

 

Why does this matter? Because it puts a sharp point to the lie that our lives within God are hierarchical, solitary, individual, or self-centered. God’s essence is joyful community, equality, affirmation, sharing. The relationship within the Trinity is often described as a dance, and there’s even a fancy word for that: perichoresis.  God’s very self exists in love, kinship, and community, and we are called to be children of God. Further, God draws us into the loving relationship of God through Jesus as Incarnate One in particular. 

 

There’s a story of a monk who was asked by a man if Jesus Christ was his personal savior.

 

“Nope,” the monk replied. “I like to share him.”(2)

 

Sharing is at the heart of God. It is at the heart of the life of faith. And it is at the center of the web of life and love that makes up the universe.

 

We are made in the image of God, and whatever that vague phrase might mean, it has to mean that we are called, with our free will, to choose to live a life worthy of God. To live a life in which we see the concept of the Trinity as a beautiful mystery, yes, but as a beautiful challenge to us all to let love’s call sing out in our lives. If we might truly take hold of the truth that our lives were meant, from the time of creation, to be entangled with each other in love, fellowship, and kinship, how might we be changed?

 

Through Christ, the Beloved Son, we are taken into the very heart of God. We are called to inhibit the same spaces and graces that Jesus himself inhabited as one of us. And it IS possible to love that much and that freely. It’s countercultural, but it is possible. We are called to live as Jesus lived, here on earth, yes—a life that had a beginning and an ending. 

As theologian Mary LaCugna states:

 

“Living trinitarian faith means living God’s life: living from and for God, from and for others. Living trinitarian faith means living as Jesus Christ lived, in persona Christi: preaching the gospel; relying totally on God; offering healing and reconciliation; rejecting laws, customs, conventions that place persons beneath rules; resisting temptation; praying constantly; eating with modern-day lepers and other outcasts; embracing the enemy and the sinner; dying for the sake of the gospel if it is God’s will. Living trinitarian faith means living according to the power and presence of the Holy Spirit: training the eyes of the heart on God’s face and name proclaimed before us in the economy; responding to God in faith, hope and love; eventually becoming unrestrictedly united with God. Living trinitarian faith means living together in harmony and communion with every other creature in the common household of God.”(3)

 

We are all one, held together by the love of God that is the heart of God. May we rejoice in our entangled lives, and our entangled loves. Only then will we know the peace and justice of God.

 

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 am online Holy Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

• Isaiah 6:1-8
• Romans 8:12-17
• John 3:1-17
• Psalm 29

Citations:

1) See Tim Madigan, "Remembering Tulsa: American Terror" in Smithsonian Magazine, April 2021, at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/tulsa-race-massacre-century-later-180977145/

2) Related by Scott Cairns, in "The End of Suffering," in Image Journal, Issue 52, 2006, at https://imagejournal.org/article/the-end-of-suffering/  

3) Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life, 400-401.

Prayer 3042: For Trinity Sunday

Blessed Trinity,
we turn our hearts to You
that you may lead us into community and grace:
hear the prayers of your people,
O Life-giver, Creator, and Savior.

Move over the chaotic waters of our souls,
O Spirit of Renewal,
and create within us new life
woven together in silken threads of faithfulness.
Breathe your justice into us, O Creator,
as we proclaim our origin in your precious Word
and seek the path of our Living Savior.

Teach us to look into our own hearts
with honesty and integrity
that we may purify what needs to be reformed
and strengthen our will to love without limits.

Draw us deeper into your divine dance,
O Holy Three, Mysterious One,
our lives entangled with each other
and with all creation,
that we may rejoice in each other
as reflections of the love at God's very center.

Merciful One,
cast the mantle of your truth upon our shoulders,
and embolden us to be your witnesses.
Grant the cooling balm of your lovingkindness
over all those who seek shelter and care,
as we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 3041: Rooted in God

God of Abundance,
we lift our hearts to You
to be filled with holiness and hope
as we journey through this day,
praising You with all our being.

Mold us, O Creator,
Lead us, Lord Jesus,
Teach us, O Spirit of Truth,
that we may seek the path of true peace
founded on justice and reconciliation.

May we labor with joy this day
to seek the glory of your Name
by our faithfulness,
by our compassion,
by our walking gently with one another.

Draw us under the cool green shade of your love, O God,
and may we welcome all
to come join us there,
beneath the canopy of grace
You stretch over us,
and especially over those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Wonder at the Center: Speaking to the Soul for May 27, 2021

The writer Annie Lamott observed that there are three basic prayers: “Help!” Thanks!” and “Wow.” She wrote a book about it.

Scripture attests to that as well, especially in the psalter. But it reorders Annie’s list a bit. “Help!” certainly comes first in most people’s experiences, and “Thanks!” certainly follows. But “Wow,” as an expression of wonder, seems most appropriate and necessary as the middle. We pray for God’s help; God rides in clothed in might and yet hearing our humble, often unsteady plea, assuring us that no need is too small for God’s notice; and after that brush of divine presence, then we give thanks.

“Help!”
“Wow!”
“Thanks!”

This morning, we hear of the glory and wonder of God in Psalm 29. If you step back, and look at Psalm 28, you find a plea for help. In Psalm 30, you find thanksgiving for help. Psalm 29, one of the oldest psalms, declares God’s power and glory.

The first surprise to most listeners is that this psalm mentions other gods, sometimes translated as “heavenly beings” or “mighty ones.” It’s plausible. But what if, as Calvin translated, “gods” instead means mighty rulers here on Earth, those who think they are god-like? Then this psalm could be looked at as a call for humility in the face of divine power, to “know our place” within the created order.

We are compelled here, to recover the “wow!” within our lives, especially our spiritual lives, a welcome reminder. Many people, both within and without communities of faith, have lost a sense of wonder and awe in the world around us. Especially as adults, we too often are prone to try to explain away or domesticate mystery in our lives, to brush it off in an attempt to declare ourselves the masters of our surroundings.

Even in our spiritual lives.

Too often, we try to put God into a nice tiny little box—maybe only polishing God up and bringing God out on Sundays or special occasions. If we do think about God’s power, it’s often only when we are in trouble, and want God to “save” us. Yet even there, we try to erect fences around our relationship with God. Save us—give us help– but please don’t demand anything of too unguarded of us as we go about our busy, world-focused lives.

Yet God will have none of it, as we are reminded of God’s power in Psalm 29. God’s mere voice is emphasized again and again as a physical force that reordered nature—which is only logical for the One who spoke creation into being from disorder. Psalm 29 tells us God’s voice is one of splendor and explosive force. We hear the repeated descriptions of the power of that voice, nine times over in these few direct verses.

How does one respond to such an awesome reminder of God’s wondrous might? The psalm reminds us that our proper response to God is “Wow!” Listen, for in verse 9: “And in the temple of the Lord, all are crying, ‘Glory!’” And then the psalm concludes by predicting the saving help of God, leading to the deliverance gratefully received in Psalm 30.

We sometime do not know how to pray, or the words we think we need. Psalm 29 reminds us not to worry about that. Just recover the sense of awe and wonder that is in the middle of all our encounters with the Holy One, who loves us enough to call us again and again, and that is more than enough.

Help! Wow! Thanks!

The center of prayer is the embrace of wonder and awe.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on May 27, 2021.

Prayer 3039: Spring Rhapsody

God of the Honey Bee,
God of the Lark,
God of the Aspen Grove,
we join with all your creatures
in a chorus of praise and worship.
We are upheld by your almighty hand;
all that we have and are is yours,
and we bow in gratitude before you.

May we echo the humble thanksgiving
sung out by cicada and tree frog,
who praise You and your provision without ceasing.
May we find delight in the labor you set before us,
as the hummingbird does.
May we lift our arms to you in praise
like the oak as it stretches skyward.
May we constantly sing your praises
like the wind that weaves through pine-needle
and sets them to resonating in joy.

May we open our hearts to your guidance
for our own sake and the sake of the world,
led by wisdom of the Spirit of Truth,
enlightened by the example of the Prince of Peace,
rooted deep in the verdant garden of the God of Life.

Holy Trinity, One God,
envelop us in your mercy and grace this day,
and place the kiss of your blessing
upon those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 3038: For recovery from illness

Bright Morning Star,
be our signal and our guide through this day.

Grant us the wisdom to seek out your truths, O God:
may they melt upon the tongue,
sweeter than honey,
and nourish us in righteousness and integrity.

Give us a thirst for justice, blessed Jesus,
and a will to persevere in goodness,
standing alongside the oppressed,
and led by your example of compassion and grace.

O Great Physician,
guide the hands and the hearts
of all medical staff and caregivers,
as they perform their sacred tasks of healing.
Pour out your strength, O Giver of Life,
to those who seek healing and recovery.

By your sustaining hand, O Merciful One,
help us to tend to the needs
of the hungry, the homeless, and the suffering,
and grant your peace and comfort
to all for whom we pray.

Amen.

Speaking to the Soul: Sermon for the Feast of Pentecost

There is a viral video that is making the rounds right now. A young woman decides to tell a story to her dog, named Zeus. But this story uses all of his favorite words, including “park,” good boy,” “handsome boy” “I love you,” and, the big one, “snacks.” Apparently at the sound of the first favorite word, her dog gets very excited and attentive.

But as the story goes along—and it’s not a long story—the dog realizes that these words are not promises, but instead are, from his perspective, a cruel joke. You can see the dog sitting there, thinking, “Park? We’re going to the park? Wait-- why are we not going to the park?” 

“Good boy? WHO’S the good boy? I am the only good boy! Who is this other good boy, because it can’t be me; she’s not petting me. Why does she keep sitting there and talking and not following through on her promises?”

With each new favorite word woven into the story of her imaginary trip to the park saying “I love you” to some unknown “handsome boy” and munching on “snacks,” the dog gets a stunned, shocked look on its face. The words lack any follow-through, and the dog realizes he’s been had. He finally stalks off in disgust as his owner keeps prattling on, and snickering at his response. As she ends the story with lots of uses of the word “snacks,” the lowest blow of them all, the dog has had too much, and starts barking—which in his language obviously means, as a toddler I once knew would say when she was disgusted with someone, “Shut up, you crazy lady. You’re drunk.”

In our story from Acts today, through a gift of the Holy Spirit, Jews from all over the Mediterranean and Middle East, gathered for an important Jewish festival in Jerusalem, suddenly hear the gospel of Jesus proclaimed in their own languages. Even though the people talking obviously are not native to their homelands and languages. These complete strangers, natives of dozens of lands in which Jews had been scattered during their many exiles, hear about a story of incredible power, filled with wondrous words, words of promise. And just like poor Zeus, when some of them hear this amazing gospel, itself filled with wonders too great to keep in, some of the listeners react in disbelief and suspect, despite the early hour of the morning, that those who are speaking to them in a frenzy of joy, are drunk.

In the reading from Acts 2:1-21, we are reminded of the power of words in the response of the disciples after the power of the Holy Spirit comes over them, giving them the gift of language. In a blink they are outside, in the streets, doing exactly what the disciples were told to do in our gospel reading—they are out in the world, testifying to the power of God as revealed in Christ to the people they encounter there. It’s probably the most excitement you and I have ever heard coming out of a church meeting.

In a kind of reverse of the curse of the Tower of Babel, now these disciples, many of them simple country folk, have just learned to speak other people’s language. I think that’s an important point for us too in the Church today: we are called to speak to people in their own languages first, rather than expect them to immediately understand the language of Christianity.

But the disciples’ first new language came as a challenge even earlier, for them as well as us. As soon as those early disciples answered Jesus’s call to follow him, they had to learn the language of Jesus—a strange language, then and now, awash in a grammar of grace rather than a grammar of vengeance.

This language, this grammar of grace, was filled with strange ideas, in which the greatest is the least, the least is the greatest, in which forgiveness and grace are more important than being right or self-righteous. Even after Jesus’s life on Earth was done, we can see that the disciples were still trying to make sense of that language. And we are too. We ourselves as Christians 2000 years later also continually work at acquiring that same language-- and it’s still just as alien and difficult for us as it was for them. The power of the Holy Spirit is here to help us continue learning Jesus’s counter-cultural grammar of grace and reconciliation.

The Holy Spirit, Triptych by Filippo Rossi

The Spirit hovered over the waters at creation, and God spoke goodness into the world. The Spirit breathed the Church to life at Pentecost, and blew those disciples out into the streets with the explosive power of love and truth to proclaim the good news to those who most needed to hear it—and in their own languages. The Spirit hovers over us even now, hoping to reinforce the goodness in our hearts. The Spirit is always trying to speak to the soul, using a language that we understood instinctively in childhood, but often have allowed to slip away as our hearts sometimes harden and we become more “worldly-wise.” That’s why the language of love that God imprinted on us at creation, during Jesus’s ministry and again at our baptism, often seems like a foreign tongue. It’s hard for us to trust in words like “grace,” “mercy,” and “forgiveness” for ourselves as being real, much less for us to speak and live them out to others.

As we were discussing these readings in Bible study this week, we reflected with a sense of wonder what it would be like to have those around us really understand what we are saying. Too much that we say gets lost along the way from one person’s mouth to another person’s ear. And the more people become different from us, the worse that lack of understanding often becomes. And yet here are these followers of Jesus, seized by the Spirit, pouring out into the streets and speaking and being understood by people who come from vastly different cultures from those of the disciples.

But that’s exactly what we are called to do as the Church. We are called to speak to the soul of each precious person we encounter, and hear the echoed whisper of that goodness and love vibrating from them—especially when it’s hard for us to do so, when we allow our differences, our fears, or our suspicions to divide us rather than strengthen us. Words do matter when we are speaking to the soul, and the word is Love.

As I talked about last week, story is one of the most powerful forces in the world—and story is bound up in language—language that can hold nothing back, or language that can attempt to limit access to the good news. And we have to give up the idea that we can domesticate Jesus for our own purposes, or that we should hold the Holy Spirit at arms’ length because we fear being seized by love and sent out into those streets just like those disciples all those years ago.

Language is powerful—just as the wind that is often a symbol for the Spirit is powerful. Language can help span divides, soothe grief,-- and spark conflagrations too. Especially when language is used to divide, to wound, to taunt, or to assault the very basis of the truth, as we have experienced these last few years.

We are called, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, just like those disciples, to the proclamation of the power of love.

Willie James Jennings, in his commentary on the Book of Acts, call this moment, “The beginning of the miracle of Pentecost, the revolution of the intimate. This is the beginning of a community broken open by the sheer act of God, and we are yet to comprehend the extent to which God acts and is acting to break us open. Indeed it will be a community created by the spirit precisely in the breaking open.”(1) The gospel launches a revolution of the intimate, because in speaking of the love of God, we are called to be vulnerable and unguarded in sharing the story of God’s unifying love in a world that only profits by division and turning us against each other in competition or downright hatred.

The story we hear today is the story of the first great promotion of the gospel of Jesus since his execution and resurrection. These last 50 days, they had been an insular little community, locked behind doors, afraid even though the assurance that Jesus most often gave were assurances to not be afraid and instead be at peace. He said those two things—don’t be afraid and peace be with you—so that the disciples would be able to share in Jesus’s work, and he offers us the Spirit to help us now. 

Sharing in Jesus’s work of redemption, reconciliation, healing, and salvation in the here and now is, after all, the entire point of being a follower of Jesus. It’s not just to hoard away the gospel or cut off people from its promises. Our work, just like those disciples, is to go out and speak the good news to all we meet in language that they understand. It’s to let the Spirit lead us without fear.

Let’s face it—we are very much like those disciples locked away in that upper room. We too have been locked away out of fear for a very long time—it seems like forever—as this pandemic has come in waves and surges at us. Yet take a step away from this most recent scenario, and you could say that the institutional church is very much in the same spot.

Too often, we in the big-C Church sit back and wait for seekers to come to us, ignoring the fact that most of those who have turned their backs on religion have heard its practitioners using language that scapegoats others, or that emphasizes selfishness over mission in the world. Too often some who claim the name of Christ try to lock away the gospel. They talk more about who is not allowed in, about who is NOT allowed to be treated as full members of the Body of Christ. They even talk about withholding communion from people. They talk in the language of control and power, rather than in the language of good news about Jesus.

But on this birthday of the Church, we are being asked to take seriously our call to allow the Holy Spirit, as our companion in the Way of Jesus, into our hearts and then send us out into the streets.

To go out into the streets seek out those different from us. We are called to share our story—the story of how Jesus has changed your life and mine through his love, his healing, his transformative welcome of all. We are called not just to use beautiful words, like that poor dog heard from the lips of his owner, but to follow through with fulfilling the promises those words offer. Because the best words always are tied to actions.

We are called to meet people where they are, and speak the truth of love, especially in the face of hatred, paranoid division, and falsehood. We are called to care for the vulnerable—even the vulnerable ones we do not know. We are called to talk about mercy and grace, remembering the mercy and grace we ourselves know have received repeatedly, from God and others. Full stop.

If we talk about forgiveness, and we must, we ourselves must model forgiveness and mercy, bringing it to life in a world too given over to anger, suspicion, and nurturing grievances until they swell and explode like road kill in the summer sun.

If we talk about salvation, and we must, we have to model the kingdom values of Jesus—the grace that doesn’t keep score, but instead gives freely and generously to everyone, whether the world would count them as among the “deserving” or not. We must not look for the least we can do, but the best we can give.

If we talk about love, and we must, we must embody love. This is especially important in this time of division and hate, and in this time when too many openly scorn any idea that we have obligations to each other to act in ways that protect each other, even at our own inconvenience or sacrifice. The church, of all places, should be a place of concern for those we encounter, a place that strives to protect the weakest and most vulnerable, a place where we maintain our parishes not as locked rooms but as launching points to go out and proclaim the gospel in a language all will understand, however long that take.

We may not be perfect at it. We ourselves are still learning Jesus’s language of love, community, and reconciliation today. But it is the language that alone can unify creation as God intended from the beginning. It is the language of salvation, but not salvation for selfish ends. Rather, this language calls all disciples, them as well as us, to find the vocabulary for helping to repair the world and our relationships within it, with each other and ultimately, with God. This idea of responsibility of faithful people to repair the world is what our Jewish brothers and sisters call tikkun olam—the repair of the world.

In a world that focuses on the temporary, we are called to speak of the eternal. In a world that focuses on transaction in all relationships, we are called to transformation and embrace. As disciples, we are called to embrace rather than shun the power of the Holy Spirit, and speak to the soul. Let us dedicate ourselves, this Pentecost Day, to speaking—and embodying-- the miracle of love.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 am Holy Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, on the Day of Pentecost, May 23, 2021.

Readings:

• Ezekiel 37:1-14
• Psalm 104:25-35, 37
• Acts 2:1-21
• John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

Citations:

1) Willie James Jennings, Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible), p. 27.

The Four Pentecost Winds: Speaking to the Soul, May 20, 2021

Water,
Still and burnished as a mirror,
Until the Holy Breath breathed words
Over the unformed void
Stirring it up,
Singing to it like a mother to her child:
Earth brought forth from her slumber
Hallowed and cherished and tumbled
By that divine Spirit, restless in creativity.

An ark,
Adrift after an eternity of rain,
Buffeted by the waves
That once again were driven and formed
By the Wind of God into subsidence, until
Bumping ashore on a high hill
To begin again.

A prophet
Feels the mountains shake and nearly split
At the press of that same gale,
But now
Lays down his mantle
And jumps astride that zephyr
As it carries him from the bonds of earth.

Hearts
Of the faithful
Locked behind doors
Cannot withstand that Spirit
When She lights upon crown and brow,
Set minds aflame like wildfire through dry sage
Breathing tongues of truth
That carry them out into the streets, rejoicing.
That same Spirit
Split the heavens at His baptism
Split the Temple curtain at His death,
Stirred and soothed the grasses
Where his pierced feet pass at His rising.
Break open the turbulent hearts
From the men and women who still are willing
To let the Spirit fill them like a sail
And carry them out rejoicing,
Four Strong Winds
of God.

God is still speaking new life
Into goodness and blessing,
Carrying us over the waters of chaos.
Make us brave as Elijah,
Bold enough to ride
The wild goose a-winging heavenward,
Obedient and yielding to God’s love
That takes us where it will,
Stirring the waters of baptism,
Revealing among us a new Creation,
If we consent to be filled.

Fill us and renew us
Knit together as one
As Christ’s Body,
In Love’s Name,
O Spirit of the Living God.

A version of this poem was first published on Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on May 20, 2021.

Prayer 3032

Blessed Creator,
who knit all that is out of love and holy wisdom,
we place ourselves within your truth today,
and seek your guidance as your children.

Lifting our hearts in gratitude,
may we be filled with righteousness
in the service of our neighbors,
and glorying our kinship with all the Earth.

May we be seekers after your Word,
joyful workers within your vineyard,
and ministers of your healing love.

May we walk the good road
you have laid out for us, Lord Jesus,
O Bread of Life and Fountain of Wisdom,
that we may be a blessing
and bring honor to your holy Name.

Mover of Obstacles,
Light of Our Hearts,
gather all who seek you
beneath the soft wings of your mercy,
and grant your blessing, O Spirit of Healing,
to those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 3031: For Elliott

Most Blessed Savior,
we worship You and give you praise,
as we turn to you again to rest in your truth,
our model, our brother, our teacher, our guide.

You call us to you in generous welcome, O Christ,
offering the sweets of your wisdom
to all who seek truth, justice, and healing.
We ask for your healing hands to rest upon us today,
curing us of all malice, fear, and faithlessness,
implanting within us the seeds of justice, hope, and unity
that we may flourish and witness joyfully
to the powerful love of God in the world.
Good Teacher, may we be receptive disciples
and walk in your paths of compassion.

Spirit of Wisdom,
guide the hands and the minds of all healers today:
bless doctors, surgeons, and nurses
as they care for the vulnerable
and promote the healing and welfare
of even the littlest ones.
Strengthen those who watch and wait,
and grant your angels charge
over all who seek your respite and comfort
that they may know your abiding presence and protection.
We especially pray for these
who seek your help and your comfort, O God of Hope.

Amen.

Prayer 3030: A Prayer of Trust

Most Merciful God,
we praise You for your sheltering hand
that has guarded us through the storms of the night.
Glory be to You, O Source of All Being.

Lead Us, O Shepherd of Our Souls
deeper into the broad plans of righteousness,
and guide us to cool shade of compassion
that we may care for one another
as Jesus calls us to do.

Let us examine our hearts,
and the action against all injustice,
especially those from which we benefit.

May we lay down our weapons
and put on the armor of kinship and obedience
in pursuit of the gospel of hope and love.

Bless those who pursue righteousness and charity,
and grant us a thirst for integrity and truth.

Spirit of the Living God,
send your angels to envelop
in a cloud of protection
all those who call out in need,
especially those for whom we pray.

Amen.

And Then a Miracle Occurs: Sermon for Ascension Day B

There’s a cartoon I really love that I saw years ago, I’m not sure where. It is one of Sidney Harris’s great cartoons depicting something about science—in this case, physics. It depicts two male professors standing in front of a blackboard. One professor has obviously spent hours working on some sort of physics problem, with formulas and scientific notation to the left and to the right. But it’s in the middle that he is stuck. He has now called in one of his colleagues to help him. In the middle of all the notation, there's a single phrase in English in all caps. “THEN A MIRACLE OCCURS.” The second professor points at that phrase, and wryly comments, “I think you should be more explicit here in step two.”

I thought of that cartoon as I was thinking about our readings for Ascension Day and as I was doing my research, which is called exegesis, as I prepared this sermon. Here at the end of the Easter season, we preachers get a lot of really hard stories to try to explain or make vivid in our preaching. To be honest, the entire span of Easter can be really hard to make relevant to people who live in such a secular, supposedly scientifically flavored world. Actually I feel like I should put asterisks around that last phrase given the refusal of a good chunk of the public to believe in even the simplest scientific things like, you know, medicine. And the scientific method. And logic.

But anyway. For a preacher, the whole sweep of Easter is like that cartoon, especially step two. I mean, think about the events we hear about that just do not make ANY sense on their surface: Resurrection. Jesus being unrecognizable by even his closest friends, popping up in locked rooms all the time like a ghost, which itself isn’t a very reasonable explanation either. And now Jesus zooming around on clouds.

Telling important truths about how to live one’s best life, how to treat others ethically and justly and end up actually benefitting from it, trying to keep people from being turned off by the word “sacrifice,” is hard enough already. But tell those truths while they are all wrapped around “and then a miracle occurs,” and everyone becomes all skeptical about that detail and completely tosses aside the real point of the story.

Let’s take a look at the story of the Ascension as an example. The action here may possibly begin on Easter Day in Luke’s telling--- but that strips out all the post-resurrection stories from John, so best not to dwell too much on that. It’s clear he changes his mind by the time he writes the Acts version, and states that it is 40 days after Jesus’s resurrection, which is why Ascension Day always falls on a Thursday in actuality. Our reading from Luke answers the questions many of us had at the beginning of Acts: what was Jesus doing to those 40 days after his resurrection? He was opening the apostles’ eyes to the scriptures, just as he had done to the disciples he had met on the road to Emmaus earlier.

Too often we get caught up in the how and the where of this story. HOW did Jesus go up? WHERE did he go, exactly? I actually read something about the Jesus Seminar denying that this had happened at all. One member, supposedly ordained, talked about how Jesus even right now would only be in the vicinity of the constellation Cygnus (The Swan). Even if he was moving at the speed of light. And then there was some blathering about Einstein thrown in just for fun.

I mean, what? Really? THAT’S what you are going to focus on? High school physics?

The “how” of this event can be a distraction. But when people keep trying to pop the balloon of wonder when it comes to faith, it sometimes gives me a pain in the neck. It also shows that for all their supposed sophistication, they do not understand, as Jesus did, that we live our lives by scientific laws, yes, but we TELL our lives through the power of story, which is more powerful and influential than the power of a thousand supernovas. Stories are the most powerful thing in the human imagination. People have laid down their lives for the sake of a story. Story is about the meaning we make of our lives. And it seems awfully easy to completely mishear and therefore misinterpret this story we receive in two complementary forms today a story that is in service to a bigger story.

Here’s the deal. The apostles and disciples in Luke’s telling saw a vision of Jesus ascending upward. In their understanding of the universe, there were three important places: Earth; below the Earth, and above the Earth. God’s realm existed above the Earth, which is pretty vague. It’s like someone asking you how to get to Clayton from Wildwood, and you pull out a map of North America and wave in a general rightward direction around over it. Not helpful.

And the ascending wasn’t the first time scripture had recorded such an event: the Prophet Elijah had ascended as well, had been lifted bodily to heaven, and he was provided a really impressive chariot of fire. Talk about theatrics! Talk about tearing apart the heavens! This thing is so amazing that the rock band Journey wrote a song about it, and they are hardly known for their production of Christian pop music. In the story we hear from the person who wrote both Luke and Acts today, Jesus simply steps aboard a cloud and up he goes. AFTER, one last time, reminding his beloved friends what is really important. After reminding them what the scriptures really mean, and what they are to do, which is to proclaim the good news of God’s love and care for creation to all the nations on the earth. To not just stay where it is comfortable, but to go out and witness to strangers about who God is as revealed through Jesus.

The brief account at the end of Luke has the disciples rejoicing and worshiping at this sight, and then going to the Temple. In Acts, it’s more subdued. Up Jesus goes, and the disciples just stand there astonished. They’re left standing there with their jaws sagging open. They’re rooted to the spot—until two men in white robes, meaning angels, basically tell them to snap out of it and get on about their business. Top stop being spectators, and to start being witnesses.

It’s the “getting on about our business” part that we, as Jesus’s disciples in this time and this place have inherited as our solemn obligation and, I would say, even our joyful work.

What is the business they—and we—are supposed to be getting on about?

It’s about telling the story. To be witnesses, not spectators.

Telling and living out in our own lives, proudly and without shame, the story of what really matters.

Not a discussion of particle and wave and energy equals mass conversion squared. But the story of God—a God who I believe set up all those natural laws and often bent down and whispered into Einstein’s ear to give him a nudge in the right direction, seeing as how he was a prophet in the way he shook physicists loose from a whole lot of what they thought they knew for certain.

Don’t just stand there, looking to see what other parlor tricks God has up God’s proverbial sleeve. Go out and tell the story. Go out and tell people WHY Jesus matter. Start with in your own life. What has Jesus done for you? And please don’t start with following him means you have a great place to hang out with your friends on Sunday mornings. That’s NOT the story either.

What has Jesus done for you, and for the whole world, and why does it matter? Because once you tell THAT story, you become a PART of the story.

After we pull ourselves out of the weeds that these ancient stories can lead us, especially when we don’t think about the overall picture, we remember that the Christian life is NOT one of passively sitting around and singing hymns, as great as those are, or looking at stained glass windows, as beautiful as those are, especially around here. No the Christian life is one of witness. It’s one of evangelism – oooh, that scary word again. Evangelism we can accomplish by words, or by actions in living out the love of God in our lives every single day as if God was watching us, as that Bette Midler song repeated.

What’s the truth of the story we are called to tell and more importantly be a part of? Some people want to make it about sin and shame. But that’s NOT the story. That’s the setting of the story, not the story itself.

Jesus came to show us how to be fully human and yet fully holy as the way of getting the absolute best out of life—the most peace, the most satisfaction, the most happiness, the most justice.

He did this by reminding us of the importance of compassion, as he went about healing, and he healed people because he truly saw them and the burdens they carried, and didn’t turn away but instead stepped forward to help lift the weight of those burdens of every stooping shoulder.

He came to remind us of the importance of humility as a virtue, and of repentance and forgiveness in healing up all the broken relationships we encounter: within our current selves and our childhood selves, between our families and friends, among our neighbors and even with the strangers we encounter. Our gospel states our call straight out: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in Jesus’s name to all nations” and “You, as my disciples, are witnesses of these things.”

Repentance and forgiveness
to be proclaimed in his name.
Salvation in the restoration of creation
to the beauty and balance breathed into it
at its dedication as good.

Jesus did not leave us bereft,
but clothed us in power from on high--
not the power of compulsion,
or fear-mongering
but goes to bring our joys and sorrows
into the very center of the Triune God.

What a glorious opportunity we have! What a joyful, hopeful message we have to share! The heart ascends with Christ.
Jesus goes because his work is complete. He now turns it over to us. And our work is ongoing. We share with Jesus the ongoing work of creation, of healing, of love in a world that sorely needs it. We can walk away from this story today, and walk into being part of the healing of all the world’s pain, by both telling the story, and then LIVING OUT its principles of compassion, of hope, of generosity, of reconciliation, of justice.

That’s when the miracle occurs.

AMEN.

Preached at the 10:30 Online Eucharist in Time of COVID19 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:

Acts 1:1-11 

Psalm 47

Ephesians 1:15-23

Luke 24:44-53

Prayer for Ascension Day: Speaking to the Soul for May 13, 2021

Blessed Jesus, we praise you
and lift our hearts to be filled by your Spirit.
May we be ever-joyful witnesses of your truth
and embody your wisdom and healing
in the world always.
May we know you as our companion,
our brother, our teacher, our guide,
our Savior who dwells in us, and we in you.

You draw our eyes heavenward
to call our hearts into assurance,
knowing you are never far from us.
Draw our hearts instead toward each other:
let salvation reach to the ends of the earth
and to the full blooming
of our lives in Christ.
May we work with You, O Loving Creator,
enlightened by your Holy Spirit,
to share the good news
of renewal and hope.

Holy One of Blessing,
God of Mercy and Faithfulness,
sustain us by your grace
and grant strength and comfort
to all those in anxiety or pain,
we humbly pray,
resting in the assurance of your care.

Peace be upon us,
and upon all for whom we pray.

Amen.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on May 13, 2021.

Image from the Drogo Sacramentary.

Prayer for the In-Between Time: Speaking to the Soul, May 6, 2021

In peace, we rest in You, O God;
In hope, we lift up our hearts,
safe within your gracious pasture,
in the shelter of your healing hand.

Early in the morning we rest in You,
O God who calls us to stillness
as a mother soothes her fretting child.
Your love is a balm to the soul, O Strong One,
and your constant presence a salve to the spirit.
Time will not be held,
but keeps spinning on
in the roseate dawn
agate pink parting the gossamer night.
Blessing us by offering us wisdom.

May we spend this day
meditating upon your promises,
O Life-Giving Spirit,
O Womb of Creation,
O Creating and Compassionate One
who calls us tenderly by name.
Somewhere someone watches;
somewhere someone weeps;
somewhere someone hopes for a word that may never come–
Yet you, O Loving Savior,
are with them all.

Turn our hearts toward those around us, Lord Christ,
and lead us in your way of peace.
Make us a blessing this day
to the seeking and the vulnerable,
and lead us in compassion and mercy
in response to the light you call into being in all.
In the gloaming of the glistening fields
waiting for the embrace the evening
lead us into deeper faithfulness, O God,
as the Earth turn her face toward night .
Extend the awning of your help to all who call out to You,
O Lord Our Shepherd,
and grant the blessing of your grace to all those for whom we pray.

Amen.

This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on May 6, 2021.

Skipping Stones: Sermon for Easter 5B

We all knew that 2020 was a tough year for entertainment. Movie theatres were shuttered; Broadway dimmed its lights. Sports were hit especially hard: Major League Baseball and the NFL played abbreviated seasons and still saw outbreaks among the players, and the NHL operated under bubbles in Canada. Thanks to the pandemic, the NBA’s season from start to finish covered 355 days. But for rock-skipping, one sport’s loss was another sport’s gain, and the Mackinac Island Championships last year were even featured on ESPN.

Yes, there are rock-skipping championships for grownups, and one of the quirkiest is on Mackinac Island in Lake Huron. Each year there is a tournament where grown men with nicknames like “Hard-Luck”, “Mountain-man,” and yes, unimaginatively, “Skip,” bend themselves double to send six rocks dancing across the waves in search of glory, a trophy, and 48 pounds of Mackinac Island fudge, which is considered a year’s supply in someone’s bizarre accounting. 

From the first "plink" to the "pittypat" of a smoothly spun stone launched at an optimal 20 degree angle at its release, a team of judges, with their tongues firmly in their cheeks and away from that fudge, count each distinct contact of stone and wave. Competitors still upright after hurling their stone stand squinting, praying to avoid a “gerplunk” in which the stone drops into the water like a, yes, rock; or an “agnew,” in which the stone hits a bystander, a judge or, worst of all, a real person wondering what the heck these weirdos are doing. 

At the very least, rock skipping seems to provide the answer to the question from Monty Python of whether witches float, and someone asks what also floats? Suggested answer? Bread, apples, and very small rocks. And ducks.

As for myself, I am, when it comes to rock-skipping, a purist. I believe in rock skipping for the simple joy of it, unsullied by the taint of competition. Rock skipping brings back a combination of childhood nostalgia and sensory memory: the feel of of finding your likely stones on rocky banks, inhaling the tangy scent of muddy lake water, and hearing Grandpa yelling at us dang kids to stop scaring the fish away.

Yet I have found the purest test of stone skipping was on still water, especially a pond on a still summer’s day, with skill and arm strength alone propelling that rock forward. Sometimes, the best part was after the stone had sunk beneath the surface in silence. Then, we could count the overlapping rings where rock and water had met. On days like that, we would reverently wait as the rings moved ever outward, their edges growing finer and thinner, until the surface of the water was once again smooth and undisturbed. We’d often let out a little sigh as the surface became glassy like a mirror rather than blurry and rippled once more. And then after a few moments, one of us would start the process of finding and launching a well-shaped stone all over again, just so we could admire that throw and the chain of beautiful rings linked and then wisped away like smoke. In my life skipping stones has been more of a contemplative practice.

Sometimes, then and now, I would think about how skipping stones can be a metaphor for life. The interplay of stones and water violates all illusions of predictability: here’s a heavy thing that just for a little while levitates and dances over the most yielding of surfaces. Sometimes we are the rocks, uprooted from where we’ve been hanging out by something beyond our control, suddenly spun and flung out and plunged into an environment we’ve never considered and didn’t ask for. Other times, we’re the placid body of water, minding our own business until some fool comes along and starts trying to disturb the calm surface we’ve so carefully cultivated.

As I grew older, I realized that there have been many people who have skipped across the surface of my life—random encounters with strangers in which, for some reason, eyes meet and notice is taken, and some small kindness is offered, some pleasant conversation is exchanged, some finding of common ground is recognized. Maybe it lasts only a few minutes. But we walk away reminded of the divine spark that rests within each of us and flares to life when we truly see each other and honor each other rather than hoping we avoid eye contact, when we recognize our commonalities rather than our differences or indifferences.

In our reading from Acts today, we hear the story of just such an encounter, as the Holy Spirit skips like a stone across the surface of the lives of Philip and an exotic stranger, leading them to plunge into a small body of water in an act of discovery, joy, and faith.

I imagine that that water alongside that road 2000 years ago was just as smooth and undisturbed as the sun reached its zenith. Most people had the sense to travel in the cool of the morning. And for the last several weeks, things had been in a turmoil in Israel, as if boulders had been tossed into the Sea of Galilee, all because of the work and the execution of a strange Galileean rabbi. His life and his death had created a lot of waves. The authorities were hoping that now that he and his little band were properly cowed, the tumult could cease and, at least on the surface, things could calm down once more.

They thought they had put an end to him and his so-called “good news,” which was nothing but a bunch or tricks and rabble rousing—at least from the leaders’ perspectives.

They did not count on the Holy Spirit. People often don’t. But here the Holy Spirit reaches down and plucks Philip out of what he has been doing, out evangelizing among the Samaritans, even though they were outsiders. Instead, the Holy Spirit sends an angel to tell him to go stand by that wilderness road leading from Jerusalem, even if the heat of the day made that sound crazy.

And instead of an empty road, along comes an ornate chariot, and in that chariot is an astonishing, arresting sight: a court official from Ethiopia, practically the ends of the known world, treasurer for the Queen herself, reading aloud from the writings of the prophet Isaiah. His dark black skin, his voice, and his smooth face implied that he was a eunuch and a foreigner—the ultimate outsider. Yet here were the words of the prophet Isaiah coming from his lips! His sumptuous clothing, carriage, and the fact that he was in possession of a scroll of a prophet indicated his wealth, sophistication, and power. His status as a eunuch made him non-binary in a world that insisted on either/or for everything, and made him not quite male in a world in which only males mattered.

But the Holy Spirit cares for none of these things, then or now. The next thing Philip knows, he has called out to the stranger, skimmed across that road and is clambering alongside the eunuch, first explaining the passage he was reading, and then the good news, or gospel, of Jesus. The passage from Isaiah becomes a stepping stone and a skipping stone at the same time, drawing together seeker and disciple despite all barriers. The gospel of Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophetic promises that all nations, and people of all whom humans might exclude through physical or national prejudices, would be drawn to God, and it is through Jesus that that happens.

Who knows how long Philip spoke? But no matter what, the eunuch heard, and believed. It was at that moment that the gospel of Christ, once confined among mostly the poor of Galilee and Jerusalem, suddenly spun across the surface of that Ethiopian’s life and began to expand from disbelief to certainty. The gospel spins out to the edge of the world, carried to someone as different from those early church member as he can be, in every single way.

“Here is water!” the Ethiopian exclaims. “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Was it a demand? Or was it a plea, expecting rejection? Either way, Philip had no defense. He had no objection that seemed to stand any more, although others might point to his counterpart’s exotic status, his foreignness, his mutilated body, any number of things. But we do not hear any resistance from Philip. It’s shocking, after all, this profligate power of love that breaks down any and all barriers. It was one thing to preach the good news to the Samaritans—at least they were distant kin and neighbors of the people of Israel. But this man was an “other” and a stranger and outsider in every possible way.

Too often, we tend to avoid encounters with those around us, much less the forming of real relationship. We are too prone to hold ourselves aloof from those different from us—maybe through contempt, maybe through suspicion, maybe through fear of being vulnerable. All of those things could have prevented this encounter between these two very different people—but God broke through. And so without hesitation, this unlikely pair enters the water beside the road—and as they emerge, both are changed by the encounter with each other, which is also an encounter with God. Where these two men might have approached each other with hesitancy if not outright disdain, they instead become kindred in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, each praising and testifying to God in the aftermath, each flourishing as branches of Christ the true vine brought together by the love God has for all humanity.

Even this early in the Book of Acts, we see the gospel’s reach expanding and spreading like those interlocking ripples on the surface of the water—and Paul, Apostle and champion of the Gentiles, hasn’t even been converted yet—that’s the very next story. This story sets the stage for Paul’s mission, as the Church finds its way to being insular or inclusive—a question that hangs over every Christian parish to this day: Do we sit back and wait for people to come to us, or do we go out and let the love of God break down all barriers and divisions?

Here we see the interlocking rings fanning out from the gospel as it dances improbably like a skipping stone. The disciples at first confined their preaching to fellow inhabitants of Israel, then to co-religionists living all around the Mediterranean. Then the ripples grew wider, and entered into Samaria, and now into the court of the ruling family of Ethiopia. God has been made visible in the most unlikely of places by the unlikely meeting of these two very different people, and neither one of them emerges from that water unchanged. For the Ethiopian, there is a new understanding of God, who sends Jesus to us despite the cost to show us the way of living that brings not just existence, but LIFE. For Philip, further proof that God shows no partiality and the gospel will break free and take root beyond any barriers humans might try to use to control it or limit it. But the Holy Spirit is asking us to skip across our resistance, our hesitancy, and be willing to spread let the gospel by our love, and let that love radiate out from us like ripples on water.

Love cannot be caged. The Holy Spirit will carry the gospel where she will through the discipleship of you and me, and those until it breaks loose of all barriers our prejudices and fears may try to erect around it. As today’s epistle so insistently reminds us, twenty-nine times over, the basis of true worship of God is rooted in love. Love as action. Love that does not exclude but calls all things and all beings to share in the joy of eternal life rooted in the now. Not in limiting the good news only to certain times or certain people, but in encountering each other with joy, empowered by the good news of Jesus, so that we recognize the bonds of love that are meant to link us all together. Like a stone skimming across the surface of the water, the gospel touches down where it will, and the effects of that good news ripple ever outward with no signs of abating.

Can we likewise welcome the Spirit’s dance over the still waters of our lives, stirring up joy and faith, come what may? Can we welcome the stirring up of our hearts’ waters for the sake of a world that desperately needs the good news of a God whose love binds us all together? The Ethiopian’s question hangs over us as well: What is to prevent us from embracing our baptism, from embracing the gospel and being transformed? Isn’t that transformation the meaning and essence of Easter and resurrection itself?

Love calls us forward and calls us to dance over the waves. Despite all barriers we might like to erect and despite all resistance we may have to being vulnerable to the promise of God’s love for us all. We have nothing to lose but our fear.


Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 online and limited in person service of Holy Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Ellisville, MO on May 2, 2021.

Readings:

Acts 8:26-40

Psalm 22:24-30

1 John 4:7-21

John 15:1-8

Citations:

1. Details about the Mackinac Island Stone Skipping Championship can be found here: https://stoneskipping.com.

2. For more on the physics of skipping stones, go here: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.2631