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.

The Water Will Lift Us Up: Sermon for the Baptism of the Lord, January 12, 2025

   

My parents, having grown up in the oil fields of the central plains and in the cotton fields of southwestern Oklahoma, were determined to make sure their kids knew how to swim, having each lost classmates and cousins to drowning. Therefore at the age of seven, off we went to one of the big municipal pools that the City of Tulsa built when it was flush with oil money, and into Polliwog class I went. It was the summer my One Granny lived with us after breaking her collarbone. So she and my Mom and my siblings were sitting in the bleachers.

The problem was, no one had asked my Granny if she was cool with seeing me learn to swim. She was NOT. The first time they asked us to put our faces in the water and make motor boat noises I heard One Granny screaming to “get that baby out of the water!!!!!” Meaning me. There was no dang way I was putting my face in the water with all that going on. My instructor tried a new tack: they told me to lay back in their arms and try to float on my back—No face in the water necessary.

And so I did, and she told me to relax and inflate my chest with air, and tilt my head back. I was fine—until my instructor dropped her arms. One Granny screamed again, I tensed up like a coiled spring, and, having absolute zero body fat at the time, I immediately sank butt first to the bottom.

That trauma took a while to get over. And that’s why I flunked Polliwog class three times that summer. I didn’t trust the water to hold me up.

I was thinking of this when I was contemplating this week’s gospel, and about how much baptism varies across Christianity nowadays. I don’t remember my own baptism at Southern Hills United Methodist Church, but I do remember those of my siblings. No immersion required. Water was poured over our foreheads and tops of our heads. Invocations of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were said. A little dab of fragrant oil was applied to our foreheads. babies were patted dry and handed back to their parents. And just like that, we were members of the Universal Church, the Body of Christ.

The baptism John offered in the river Jordan was for the repentance of sin, but it was not a “one and done” act back then. It was more like a ritual bath that people took to be purified, or to be healed. It was also an act the purified priests for ministry and kings for governing.

Especially since we practice infant baptism, we don’t emphasize baptism as solely a way to wash away sins—although it is certainly in the baptismal covenant, and it is good that it is there, because when we repeat those words we acknowledge that sin and evil are very real—as if the last many years haven’t reminded us of that already.

We emphasize that the action that washes really away our sins, instead, is true repentance to God—turning away from the easy sins, like complacency or pronounced powerlessness in the face of evil, and determining instead to deliberately choose life and witness that God is greater than human contempt and selfishness. In other words, baptism is NOT a “get of jail free” card. It is instead a covenant and commitment to a way of life in which we take very seriously our sinfulness, yes, and commit to frequent admission and repentance of those sins, but in which we are also assured of God’s grace.

Yet there are still some parts of the Christian Church that teaches that baptism washes away one’s sins. And you know, a question arises: if Jesus is without sin, why does he undergo baptism? This was a question that plagued the early church.

Maybe that’s why the actual baptism of Jesus in our gospel appears offstage. But what Luke does say is that Jesus goes to see his cousin, who is pointing out that the people who are coming to him are society’s marginalized, because they are scorned by those around them, Even Joh has just spent a pretty long while calling them “broods of vipers” and accusing them of living lives that did not tend to others. Of being selfish and self-centered and relying on their descent from Abraham rather than on making a real effort to encounter God through prayer that fuels action, action that makes visible he wonders of God without fancy signs from God.

And so it is fascinating that Jesus turns up here, and that he calmly takes his place in line with these acknowledged sinners. But this is actually Jesus’s very first step into his public ministry—and he does it by taking a step into the midst of human frailty and imperfection. Here is the Son of God, taking a common stand with us flawed human beings.

Thus on a personal level, the story of Jesus’s baptism reminds us again that Jesus stands alongside us, just as we stand alongside him in those waters, and we too, through baptism, hear God’s powerful, loving voice proclaim us God’s beloved, precious children, in whom God is well pleased. Through the story of the baptism of Jesus we hear today, we hear a story of being named and claimed by God.

No, Jesus didn’t go down into those waters for repentance. Jesus did go down into those waters so that WE could remember how important it is for us to seek to repent and the renew our commitment to walking with Jesus in the Way of Love. In seeking baptism, Jesus models for us the obedience of discipleship. In going down into the same waters to which we are all drawn in baptism, Jesus leads the way. Not just leading the way, actually, but standing alongside us in solidarity with us.

Now, it’s true that most of us do not remember our own baptism. But it’s important to note that we begin to live into this truth: Baptism formalizes a relationship with God in which God too, declares us God’s children. In which God too names us as beloved and precious. In which God too declares God’s delight with us. Several times a year we repeat the baptismal covenant, and in doing so, we recommit ourselves to that ongoing relationship with God, and I hope and pray that each time we do that together, that we all take seriously the renewal and conversion to which we are called in our baptism.

But I also hope that you remember that those waters anointed you, each of you, as God’s precious child. As Beloved. As someone in whom God takes great delight in. In the waters of baptism, all hurtful names that have been attached to us are also washed away, and instead, we are reminded of our worth and our preciousness in the sight of God. I am convinced this is a message the world is desperate for, a message that offers regeneration and renewal for those who are willing to believe that God loves us that much.

We are called as Christians to follow Jesus into the waters of baptism, and to ourselves be opened to the power of the Holy Spirit within our own lives. It’s an amazing journey parents commit their children to when they are baptized, and not to be taken lightly. It will require the remainder of our lives to be shaped by, and it’s one that lays out for us the requirements for living a fully human, fully God-directed life—a life of integrity. A life of resistance to evil. A life described in our baptismal covenant as requiring faith, a commitment to learning and intellectual rigor, a determination that the good of community and the protection of the vulnerable within that community is the greatest obligation of the command to love God.

It is seeking to serve Christ in all persons, especially those the world despises, and that we might be prone to despise ourselves. It is a reminder for us all about the power of prayer, and how vital it is for our spiritual life to engage in a practice of prayer, of conversation with and listening to God. The heavens open- releasing the Holy Spirit to guide Jesus’ ministry. And when we pray, we enter into that sacred space too between heaven and Earth.

The problem for many of us modern Christians is that the stories of Epiphany are chock-full of the kind of experiences that we modern Christian do not experience—and maybe we long for them, or maybe we like our lived neat and tidy in which most days we give God a passing notice, but on our own terms.

Most of us do not experience theophanies or epiphanies very often. I mean, the only burning bush I have ever seen was in a garden store, and that name was just an allusion to the brightness of the shrub’s leaves—no actual bursting into flame required. Most of us, except my mother, do not admit to hearing the voice of God. But that voice is there. We just need to be willing to listen. And remember that the story of Jesus’s baptism reminds us that God has shared in all our experiences, and calls to us in love to BE an Epiphany for other people—all by the power of our baptism and our prayer life.

We can trust that the water will hold us up.

Amen.

Preached at St. Martin's Episcopal Church on January 11-12, 2025, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

Readings:

Isaiah 43:1-7

Psalm 29

Acts 8:14-17

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Stars and Bars: Sermon for Proper 14C

This weekend, we celebrate the baptism of young Will Ross, the infant son of Sean and Cary, baby brother of Elliott. Baptism is a time of great joy, a time of commitment, of expanding the circle of the community, of welcoming the newest member of the Body of Christ into a life of joy, love, worship, and compassionate service as a disciple of Jesus. Alongside Will and his family and godparents, we commit ourselves once again to renewing our commitment not just to Christ but to each other and to the Ross family. It’s a glorious time of new beginning and of celebrating not just a new life, but the hope, joy, and beauty we image for him and his beloveds throughout his life, and for all his beloveds.

It is, indeed, a glorious time for new beginnings, a time of wonder.

God knows many of us need a good dose of wonder and amazement to bring us light and life. Wonder and amazement helps us see beyond the stresses and distractions that can cause us to forget our belovedness, our rootedness in the kin-dom of God.

We DO live in a time of wonders, after all. Just a couple of weeks ago, on July 11, the James Webb Space Telescope transmitted its first pictures back from Earth from its own spot orbiting the Sun 930,000 miles from Earth. One of the first images it transmitted was of a cloudy area known as “The Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula. (1)

The image is dotted with spectacular six-pointed stars against a midnight blue and black backdrop. A gossamer curtain of red, orange, and rust colored clouds hangs across the bottom 2/3 of the image, and hundreds of stars of various sizes shine out of and through the veil. The image practically pulsates with light and life, giving the appearance of movement. And indeed, this is a place where, even better than in Hollywood, stars are born. This area is a veritable star nursery out on the edge of our own Milky Way galaxy about 7600 light-years from Earth.

This incredible photograph immediately brought to mind one of my favorite paintings—The Starry Night, painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1888. Van Gogh painted this painting in the small town of Saint-Remy de Provence while housed in an asylum there. The sky was the one visible from his east window. He then added a cypress tree on the left edge of the painting, and part of the town only visible from another perspective to anchor the lower part of the painting. And of course, over the town, the stars and the moon pulse and vibrate with a vitality that draws the viewer’s eye directly into painting.

Apparently, I am not the only person who associated these two images in my mind, because someone has actually taken the painting and the image from the telescope and superimposed them upon each other. The result is astonishing. (2)

And come to find out, scientists agree that Van Gogh’s iconic masterpiece, from a period of personal turbulence in his life, also reflects the turbulence of molecular clouds like that in the Carina Nebula, the churning birthplaces of stars. And so, for the first time ever, I am about to quote from Physics magazine in a sermon. As they recount it:

A student at the Australian National University, Canberra, [James] Beattie studies the structure and dynamics of molecular clouds—the birthplaces of stars—whose churning eddies often make him think of the Dutch painting. He recently put that resemblance to the test with help from Neco Kriel, a student at Queensland University of Technology in Australia. Using techniques developed to analyze the patterns of simulated molecular clouds, the duo compared art and reality, finding that both display the same turbulent features. While it may only be a happy coincidence that Van Gogh’s sky contains star-related patterns, the presence of turbulent motifs is common in paintings, likely due to the abundance of turbulent phenomena in our everyday lives. (3)

Looking only with his naked eye—but most importantly, the eye of his imagination, Van Gogh captured not only an evocative representation of his own inner anxiety and hope; he also depicted a quality of the heavens above us that can currently only be seen by use of powerful telescopes. It truly is miraculous!

Here, truly, we have an example of art imitating life. Perhaps we need that reminder. For many of us, after all, we also live in turbulent times. In just the few days since NASA posted that image of the Cosmic Cliffs, the Midwest and Kentucky has been inundated with severe storms and floods, while the West, under its years-long drought, continues to burn and even cause fish kills, all while the reservoirs that make life possible there begin to empty out. We’re still in the midst of the COVID pandemic, washing over us wave after wave after wave. The economy can’t seem to make up its mind as to whether these are the best of times or the worst of times. Turbulence, indeed.

And it is in this situation that perhaps we can hear anew the gospel message Christ gives us in today’s reading from Luke. Sadly, our lectionary skips over the verses in between this week’s and last week’s reading. Because they would help center us even more fully in the message Jesus is giving us, I want to remind you of them, and not just because they include one of the Rev. Shug's favorite images.

Here’s what we missed after last week’s parable of the rich fool:

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. (Luke 12:22-31)

As someone who could probably medal in the Olympics of worrying, these verses have always been very helpful to me. The verses we then heard in our gospel reading a few moments ago reinforce this missing passage.

So let’s look at the assigned verses for this week. Once again, like last week, the topic is priorities and the trust that is required to have them in the right place.

One of the great cures for worry and despair, I have found, is action. And here Jesus gives three commands to his followers, that makes that point clear to all of us:

1. Do not be afraid.
2. Sell your possessions and give alms.
3. Be ready for action, with lamps lit for a journey even in the dark.

Remember the classic trio of faith, hope, and love (or charity)? Here they are again! Look at the commands again. In other words:

1. Have faith.
2. Have charity.
3. Have hope for God’s kingdom here on earth.

1. Have faith- do not be afraid. Did you know that the command “Do not be afraid” occurs 67 times in the NRSV version of the Bible, 49 times in the Old Testament alone? Fear prevents us from thinking and seeing reality and instead causes us to react instinctively. Once we are not afraid, we can ACT. Specifically, in this reading, Jesus reminds us of God’s providence and love for us. Following the command not to be afraid, three command verbs are specifically used: sell, give, make. Sell your possessions, give to the poor, make a purse for your REAL treasure—life in God here on earth, which you will have so abundantly you will need a purse for it.

2. Have charity. The action that flows from conquering our fear is to show our love for neighbor, which the kingdom of God will be grounded upon, by taking care of others. That’s what alms are for. Give to those who can give nothing back. Your reward will be from God for putting your priorities and actions in the right place. Once you have faith, act upon that faith by focusing on others, especially the poor. Just as the opposite of fear is faith and trust, the opposite of fear is being openhearted. This involves more than just charity, however, but a total realignment of the values human societies are all-too-often based upon. The foundation of God’s kingdom is justice and generosity.

3. Have hope. Be ready for “the master’s” return—here Jesus is talking about when the kingdom of God will be established here on earth and “he will come to judge the living and the dead.” We do not know when that will happen, but it is clear that we have a part to play in establishing it—we must act to bring it into being. This is another tie to the Hebrews reading, by the way—the audience was despairing that the Parousia—the return of Christ from Heaven discussed in the Baptismal Covenant and the Creeds—had not occurred yet. Thus this gospel reading could be addressed to the same audience there, as well.

Jesus seeks to encourage us in our continuing life of faith—encouraging us to not just grit our way through, to not just endure when times can seem difficult, but to see life, joy, and hope even in the midst of turbulent times.

Van Gogh’s painting can actually help us here, too. In order to create this luminous picture, he chose to creatively arrange the sections of his painting. The town at the bottom was not visible from the vantage point from which he painted—but he added it anyway. And down in the center, so often overlooked, is a glowing white ember of the village church—whose church bells soothed him so often during each day and night. 

But an even more significant choice Van Gogh made is in what he DIDN’T paint into the image—the bars on the window of his room in that asylum. He looked through them, and beyond them, in order to capture the throbbing turbulence and yet also hopefulness of that night sky. As we see from the picture from the Webb Telescope, that turbulence also represents new life, new stars, coming into existence.

We too, can spend our life looking at the bars, or looking at the stars. We can spend our life looking on a darkened town—or we can see the brave, resilient church that shines out day or night, a church that has no idea how much its mere presence alone encourages those who encounter it.

Jesus calls us to faith, to hope, to charity, to look for and embrace the wonders all around us. To embrace the wonder of a new member of the Body of Christ, as we will now do.

Amen.

Preached at the 505 on August 6 and at the 10:30 Holy Baptism on August 7 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Ellisville, MO.

Readings:

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

Citations:

1) Picture of the Cosmic Cliffs from NASA is found at https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-cosmic-cliffs-glittering-landscape-of-star-birth

2) Van Gogh's The Starry Night Combined with the image of the Cosmic Cliffs found at : https://www.reddit.com/r/deepdream/comments/w4d916/starry_starry_night_nasas_cosmic_cliffs_from_the/

3) Article from Physics magazine quoted at https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/45

The Witness of Intention: Sermon for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 21B)

Our readings today have stories of enemies, jealousies, and rivalry coming through them. There are some harsh images in the harsh for such a beautiful day. But certainly relatable in the fractured, divided time in which we live.

In the first part of our gospel, the apostles see someone not affiliated with Jesus nonetheless doing the deeds that Jesus promised his disciples they could do—casting out demons and healing people of their suffering. This is not a story of a magician (code word for pagan) performing magic that was. In competition with the Jesus movement. No—it clearly states that this person was acting in Jesus’s name.

Debie Thomas talks about the fact that what the disciples are complaining about is that, to them, proper procedure is not being followed-- and God knows Episcopalians in particular are allll about procedure sometimes. The disciples here are all standing around saying “Who is dis guy???” and feeling that he or she is stealing their thunder. They have completely lost sight of the fact that this person, acting in Jesus’s name, is doing Jesus’s work, and is bringing about hope and healing where previously none existed. She puts the issue this way: rather than not being a known follower of Jesus, they are complaining that he is not following THEM and placing himself under their supervision.(1)

Jesus's answer to them is the phrase that jumps out to me as being important to hear right now: Whoever is not against us is for us.

In 2021, we just memorialized the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York, Virginia across the river from Washington DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, probably on the way to DC had the passengers and remaining crew not risen up and interfered. A somber anniversary, one reminding us of a day that changed us in so many ways, some good, and some bad.

One of the things I remember from those somber days come to me in flashes: the relief I felt when my dear friend’s daughter who had been in Manhattan on a business trip finally arrived home days later. The sacrifices of first responders. The rapt attention of students as we processed what had happened in the days and weeks that followed. The concerts. The anxiety and even tears of kids whose parents or siblings were in the National Guard or Reserve, and who got their orders for Afghanistan. The long lines to donate blood. The concerts to support the families who had lost loved ones.

But one of my memories that touched me deeply was the prayer service held on September 23 in Yankee Stadium for the missing and the dead. Representatives from the Jewish, Roman Catholic, Sikh, Muslim, Greek Orthodox, and various Protestant leaders, as well as famous musicians, joined together to pray and remember. It was a beautiful coming together, a defiant declaration of kinship and love in action in response to the attempt to divide and destroy.

However, one of the ministers who took part in that truly interfaith prayer service was later censured by his denomination. They saw praying with non-Christians as akin to fully approving what they called “paganism”—itself a provocative word. In the end, their arguments ran along the lines of “By praying with Muslims, you prayed to the Muslim (small- g) god.” Their claim was that the Muslim god is different.

Yet here is the first reality we have to consider: different languages by definition use different words. In Arabic, the name Allah simply means “God.” Christians who live in places where Arabic is the language also pray to “Allah.” But secondly, do we really want to claim there is more than one God—all in contention with each other? Or do we not proclaim each and every time we worship liturgically, that there is ONE God, revealed for Christians through Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, true, but one God and Creator of all that is?

To my mind, the objection against praying with anyone who doesn’t believe EXACTLY what you do is, really, as we would say back home, “There ain’t no such thing.” There’s a famous saying—wherever you have two Episcopalians in a room, you have five opinions.” We belong to a branch of the Jesus movement that embraces that ambiguity and openness to matters of practice. We consider intention to be a vital consideration in judging the rightness of an action. And that’s what we hear in our gospel today.

Note the complete details of the situation: someone is performing deeds of healing who has not been previously seen following Jesus. And yet listen carefully to the words used to describe those healing actions: they are being performed “in Jesus’s name.” Whoever they are doesn’t matter—the reason they are doing these things DOES. They are healing and restoring for the glory of God, and God’s dream of healing, reconciliation, restoration, relief, compassion. For the restoration of people to community. For shalom: peace, wholeness, being at ease. As testimony to Jesus’s teaching and witness and example. Whether they’ve completed all the classwork or joined the right clubs doesn’t change the love behind their actions in the least—it might even make it MORE praiseworthy.

From the earliest years of the Church of England’s separation from the Roman church, its great theologians held to a doctrine called “adiaphora.” It comes from the Greek word meaning “indifferent.” It doesn’t mean that one is indifferent to matters of theology, but suggests that in worship practices that are essential versus those that are not. If you visit parishes within our diocese, you will see a wide variety of ways to worship on Sunday: some use incense, and some do not. Some only pray in Elizabethan language, and some use a much more modern vernacular. Some have loads of glorious artwork, like we do, and some have a plain brick building and plain white walls. Even within a parish, you will see some people genuflecting and others not; some people dressed to the nines and others coming as they are. All matters of preference, not commandment. But you will always see people seeking to understand how to walk in the path of Jesus.

It is intention that matters, and intention that witnesses to the glory of God. When those religious leaders of a wide variety of faiths gathered in those dark days twenty years ago, their intention was not to put forward some sort of competition to see whose practices were the greatest, much less the “only.” They were insisting that people of all backgrounds were lost on that terrible day, and that people of all backgrounds could join together in laying their devastation and also their resilient faith on the line together. That as members of the only race that matters— the human race-- the wounds of one person affect us all. The death of one person affects us all. What better way to deny the goals of those terrorists to destroy us and to divide us than to come together faithfully and deny their attempt to use death as a tool by re-committing ourselves to life, to decency, to the respect and dignity of every person—including those who pray, and even vote, differently than we do?

That last phrase might sound familiar to you, especially today. It is one of the eight questions we answer in our baptismal covenant: Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

And indeed, those questions we affirm each time we renew this Covenant, from the first time or for the hundredth time, describe what truly is important in matters of our religious or spiritual life. Continuing in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers means Living a life of commitment to others and to your own development: it means committing ourselves as individuals to being part of a worshiping community that you may continue to grow deeper in your life of faith. Persevering in resisting evil means it is NOT better to apologize than to ask permission, it means listening to your conscience and being guided by it to avoid hurting others and having to make amends later. Proclaiming by word and example the good news of Jesus means realizing that all that those who call themselves Christian say and do is a testimony to the world of who Jesus is. It means that everything we do, we do in Jesus’s name—including the times we do things we ought not to do. Nothing makes Jesus look as bad to a world deeply unfamiliar with Jesus’s radical love and acceptance more than seeing his followers openly behaving as if they have no intention of embodying his values, either. When the Church violates Jesus’s example, we can’t be surprised that the world turns away in disbelief. Seeking and serving Christ in all persons means being among those who challenge us, who reject us, who are different from us, and yet seeing Christ’s face shining out from their faces, calling us to embrace him through embracing them.

Jesus’s gospel is radical BECAUSE it challenges the life to which we are accustomed. Jesus’s gospel is radical because its power in centered in being a person for others, and not for ourselves; in giving, rather than taking; in seeing the interconnectedness of all life in God’s good creation rather than fighting against everyone else as a competitor and enemy for scarce resources and privileges. Jesus calls us to transformation of our transactional natures. And that is absolutely counter-cultural. The fact is, if you are not confounded at least ten times a day as you attempt to live this life of following Jesus, you are not paying attention. We live in a world where our leaders have proclaimed in times of crisis, “Whoever is not with us is against us,” and there are times when that is true—like when we are silent in the face of violence and oppression. When we proclaim, as one religious leader did recently, that of course we are against sexual abuse committed by ministers, but not if it destroys our denomination to openly investigate that abuse. (2) This axiom is useful when applied to harmful behavior. Jesus is looking at good works in his comment, though. 

When Christians are more interested in claiming they belong to an exclusive club than in engaging in the hard work of loving people, you get alienation of the world from God’s dream of fellowship and amity among people. Mahatma Gandhi, who was no slouch when it came to standing up for the powerless and living a spiritual life with intention, once was asked by a missionary what would help bring more Indians to embrace Christianity. He suggested that Christians, from missionaries to political leaders, begin to live more like Jesus Christ. Consider that for a moment. If you think that is not practical, then admit to yourself that Jesus will never be the solution until Christians stop being part of the problem.

When someone is accomplishing the reconciling and loving work that Jesus embodied, whether they have all the right credentials or not, they are advancing Jesus’s life and mission in the world. That’s what we commit to do today—and every day. As we celebrate the welcoming of our newest Christian today, sweet little Clementine, we stand around her and promise to teach her how to live like Jesus. 

And the way we best do that is by doing it ourselves, knowing that she is learning by watching us. 

What a gift.

Preached at the 10:30 service, held in limited number in person for a baptism, and broadcast online at 10:30 am on September 26, 2021 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.

Readings:

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
Psalm 124 
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50

Citations:

1) Debie Thomas, “Hosts, Not Bouncers,” at Journey with Jesus, 19 September 2021.

2) See the comments by Joe Knott, member of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, paraphrased in this article.

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

Tearing Back the Heavens: Sermon for the Baptism of the Lord

As I began to ponder these readings at the start of 2021 and the start of this week, there were two things that my mind associated with these passages. One was Call the Midwife, the wonderful British series on Netflix that my husband and I have become absolutely besotted with during the COVID19 pandemic. The other is a book that I began reading last week called The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis, a series of essays edited by Anglican priest/scientist John Polkinghorne.

The former is a touching bit of entertainment. The latter is a work that combines theology and science in attempting to make sense of God’s ongoing work of creation in history. But they both share one common viewpoint: there is no new life without cost.

In Call the Midwife, young mothers in the postwar East End of London labor—usually with the assistance of midwives’ encouragement as their only pain relief, to bring their babies into the world—a world that is filled often with poverty and misery as well as the strength of the human spirit. As I learned when I became a mother, even with all the advantages of modern medicine, there is a real reason why they call childbirth “labor.” And as I learned in the years afterward, all of parenting should rightly be called “labor,” too. The labor that brings life new life into being is not simply a static moment in time, nor does it occur without pain and suffering as well as joy and love. All is bound up together, and is ongoing.

In The Work of Love, and in the work of W. H. Vanstone, whose writing inspired the essays within, multiple writers attempt to illuminate the ways in which science and theology shape our understanding of a God who is ever-creating, ever engaged with the world that was and is and is to come. As organisms evolve, their evolution cannot be explained by natural laws or selection alone, for, as anyone who ever watched the movie Jurassic Park knows, randomness is also shot through all creation, and some may attribute that randomness to God.

Science aligns with scripture in revealing to us a dynamic picture of a world involved in continuous and incessant change. Creation—the creation of new life—is not limited to a single moment in time, but is ongoing—as our friends in New Zealand insist in their prayer to God who IS CREATING the heavens and the Earth. God's action as Creator is both past and present as well as future: it is continuous. The scientific perspective of a cosmos, and in particular that of the biological world, as developing continuously in time. So it is in nature, and so it is within us, God IS creating ever anew within us, and asking us to be partners in that creation is one of God’s greatest compliments to us.

And any time there is change, any time there is transformation, there can also be resistance. Thus I and all of us were brought up short by the events of Wednesday in our nation’s capitol. We witnessed the forces of resistance to change, specifically the forces who cling to notions of superiority based on race and privilege, abandon their claims to lawfulness and order and instead engage in destruction, violence, and subversion.

I went from contemplating the beauty of the opening words of Genesis to seeing the ugliest impulses generated in our political life play out before my horrified eyes. Unbidden, the opening words of Psalm 130 echoed through my head and heart as I watched the chaos in our national capitol unfold: “Out of the depths have I called to You O Lord: Lord hear my voice!”

As I watched the forces of chaos, conspiracy, and division rampage through the halls of democracy, all I could think of was the depth of the waters into which our nation was treading. But sometimes profound shocks can lead to a shaking off of the willingness to accept the banal, everyday evils that creep and infiltrate into our moral framework.

Deep waters, which in Genesis are the canvas upon which creation springs forth, became a murky symbol of loss of control and danger. From my TV screen, I heard person after person, on both sides of the aisle as the events of the day spiraled more and more out of control, protest that “this is not who we are.”

But we can’t fool ourselves. When violence, intimidation and murder are elicited from a mob this easily, we must face the uncomfortable truth that, yes, somewhere within us, this IS who we are.

But it is NOT who we are called to be.

In our gospel reading, Jesus leads us by example into the waters of baptism to give us the courage and endurance to strain toward who we are called to be. In Christ, we are called to be one people, united by our common heritage as being beloved children of God. The waters of baptism are the waters of creation, of new life that is centered in hope, faith, and embracing the miracle of the panoply of life all around us. The waters of creation from which we all spring, the waters of baptism which are the gates to eternal life for which we all thirst, call us to resistance against the anarchy, intimidation, and mob rule that swirled violently around us, and continues to threaten unless confronted.

Repeatedly in so short a passage as we see in our gospel today, border after border, barrier after barrier will be ruptured, but ruptured not in the name of violence and oppression, but in the name of LOVE and true justice. The Jordan River itself is the boundary between the wilderness and the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. It is on that border, that marginal space, that John the Baptist stands, enticing the people to repent and be baptized.

What’s fascinating to not here is that our reading today takes place beginning a mere four verses into Mark’s gospel. Jesus here is a cipher—John gets the more thorough treatment: we hear him described by how he dresses and what he does. What he says gets described, even if not quoted directly. Jesus gets no description at all. Jesus is silent. What Jesus sees is described, but that is only possible if someone else saw it too.

If Mark were a journalist, he wouldn’t be a very good one. If Mark were a cameraman for an NFL game, he would be fired, because his camera is on the tight end, dutifully blocking away on the end of the offensive line, instead of the quarterback, and the quarterback has just decided to keep the ball and call his own number.

So, if we are to learn anything about the incident, we have to focus on that tell-tale line: “He saw the heavens torn apart.” In the Jewish depiction of the world, the heavens weren’t just a place of fluffy clouds. The heavens set a cap on the universe. The barrier between heaven and earth was there for the protection of humanity, for the establishment of order.

In the Jewish scriptures, when the heavens were torn apart, as in Isaiah 64, it was so that God could come down-- and mixed into the hope for this was a healthy dose of fear. The Jewish cosmology perceived the sky as a dome that held back flood waters and the armies of heaven, when they were stirred. Tearing open that dome would destroy the order and categorical purity of the universe. Similarly, this was also akin to the curtain in the Temple that set apart the holy of holies to be torn in two, for it was said that to enter through the curtain was to enter back into the first day of creation—a place outside of time and space, before the universe itself was formed (taking us back to our first reading). This, of course, is related as happening after Jesus’s death on the cross.

For the heavens to be torn open, God would be tearing the roof off the universe for the purpose of coming down—a prospect that reorders the barricades of power in the human world as much as in heaven. And so what then traverses the gap in the dome?

The Holy Spirit. It “descends like a dove upon Jesus,” we are told. Those of us who are familiar with doves have seen their heavy bodies descend onto the lip of a birdbath or upon a branch—it’s like watching a heavy cargo helicopter touch down. But the Greek here doesn’t say the dove alights on Jesus—it implies that the Holy Spirit ENTERS into Jesus.

Thus we are reminded that the Incarnation represents a rupture, a breaking through of God’s power and glory and power into our walled off little reality. Here is the subversive heart of Christianity. The incarnation is not about order. The incarnation is about reordering, and about opening ourselves to the in-breaking of the Holy Spirit in all its power and unpredictability. The in-breaking of God destabilizes all our attempts to hold God at a distance, to control God to fit our own needs, to make God our wish-fulfilling servant rather than the other way around.

God’s in-breaking into the human experience as represented here today by Jesus's baptism reminds us that God's justice destabilizes notions of human justice and order. Jesus submits to baptism in the Jordan not because he needs to confess his sins but so that he can align fully in sympathy for and alongside us, frail fragile human beings who do need to confess our sins and repent.

Jesus’s ministry on earth is ever oriented away from pacification of evil or tamping down our proper response to injustice and oppression. No, far from it—Jesus comes to set the captives free, to proclaim liberty and favor tot the oppressed, to heal those suffering in body or spirit rather than casting them out or claiming that they deserve their fate as some sort of punishment. Jesus is a Man for Others. Jesus becomes flesh to show us how to orient our priorities toward the Other in our midst too—to really perceive their suffering, to respond with compassion and empathy, and to work for God’s justice to be implanted on earth. God's justice emerges as a call or a demand for responsibility to the Other.

For we are called as Christians to follow Jesus into the waters of baptism, and to ourselves be opened to the power of the Holy Spirit within our own lives. It’s an amazing journey parents commit their children to when they are baptized, and not to be taken lightly. It will require the remainder of our lives to be shaped by, and it’s one that lays out for us the requirements for living a fully human, fully God-directed life—a life of integrity. A life of resistance to evil. A life described in our baptismal covenant as requiring faith, a commitment to learning and intellectual rigor, a determination that the good of community and the protection of the vulnerable within that community is the greatest obligation of the command to love God.

It is seeking to serve Christ in all persons, especially those the world despises, and that we might be prone to despise ourselves. It is about understanding that when people riot in the name of “law and order,” what they are really trying to impose is peace without justice, a peace founded on injustice and the denial of rights to others in the name of protecting their own rights. What they are trying to impose is oppression and tyranny. It is a mockery of true justice, a demand for control that merely seeks to overpower and terrify rather than enlighten.

This is not a gospel passage for the faint-hearted. But neither are the times in which we live. Jesus is transformed by his experience in the Jordan to immediately get up and do battle with evil, for here is what the next 2 verses after our gospel reading say: And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now is not the time to embrace the powerful ongoing creation within us that began at our baptism. Now is the time to reject the demagoguery that seeks to conquer the power of the people through division in favor of remembering the shared sacrifice, integrity, justice and compassion that is the foundation of virtue, generosity, and decency.

Perhaps we can begin to instead embrace the transformative power of God to aid us and to enact creation within us in becoming a beloved community, guided by values of shared burdens, shared dreams, and shared sacrifice for the common good. The Spirit is calling us to reclaim our humanity—in the name of Jesus to stand for right, integrity and honor. Creation and its drive for life over the forces of death is washing over us anew. Let us wade into the waters of a new creation, and labor for a new birth of freedom and justice in our communities.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 online worship service at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, in time of COVID19 restrictions.

Readings:

Genesis 1:1-5

Psalm 29

Acts 19:1-7

Mark 1:4-11

Prayer 2907: The Baptism of Our Lord

Holy God,
who revealed your wisdom to us
through your Son our Savior Jesus Christ:
hear our prayers, we pray.
Help us to seek out
and welcome Christ into our hearts and minds.
Help us to follow the light of your love, O God,
to walk in holiness with each other.
Make us more faithful to your word,
and more true and loving to our brothers and sisters.
Forgive us
for the times we have failed to honor You and each other,
and set us back upon the solid ground of faith.
Thank You, O Spirit of Hope and Healing,
for bending near to us:
comfort these,
beloved and precious,
who turn to You in all their needs.


Amen.

Being Who We Are Called to Be: Speaking to the Soul, January 7, 2021

Genesis 1:1-5

Mark 1:4-11

Yesterday was a day when we teetered on the brink of deep waters—waters that, if they were to close over our heads, threaten to overwhelm us and all that we hold dear. Since there has already been too much of that kind of loss during these last nine months of pandemic, the events many of us watched unfold yesterday felt almost too intense to be borne. I went from working on exegesis on the readings assigned for this Sunday on the baptism of Jesus, to being glued to my television and twitter for much of the afternoon. I went from contemplating the beauty of the opening words of Genesis to seeing the ugliest impulses generated in our political life play out before my horrified eyes. Unbidden, the opening words of Psalm 130 echoed through my head and heart as I watched the chaos in our national capitol unfold: “Out of the depths have I called to You O Lord: Lord hear my voice!”

As I watched the forces of chaos, conspiracy, and division rampage through the halls of democracy, all I could think of was the depth of the waters into which our nation was treading. Sometimes, though, profound shocks can lead to a shaking off of the willingness to accept the banal, everyday evils that creep and infiltrate into our moral framework.

Deep waters, which in Genesis are the canvas upon which creation springs forth, became a murky symbol of loss of control and danger. From my TV screen, I heard person after person, on both sides of the aisle as the events of the day spiraled more and more out of control, protest that “this is not who we are.”

Such statements are more than just a bit of empty protest. When violence, intimidation and murder are elicited from a mob, we must face the uncomfortable truth that, yes, somewhere within us, this IS who we are. There is a size-able portion of our population that denies kinship with those who differ from them, who see difference as threat. The fact that this is done by people who also claim identity as Christian is a problem that affects all of us who profess to be disciples, because their very public identity becomes a net the watching world casts over all who proclaim the name of Jesus. The ties that bind become a snare that we strain against to escape.

But that admission is the necessary first step to repentance and redemption. We are too prone to lash out at perceived threats. Admitting that tendency can help us shed our old skin and embrace who we are called to be. And that is exactly the rebirth at the center of baptism— giving us the courage to let go of our instinctive defensiveness to embrace the new life we are called to in Christ.

In our gospel reading for Sunday, Jesus leads us by example into the waters of baptism to give us the courage and endurance to lean toward who we are called to be. In Christ, we are called to be one people, united by our common heritage as beloved children of God. The waters of baptism are waters of creation, of new life that is centered in hope, faith, and embracing the miracle of the panoply of life all around us. The waters of creation from which we are born, the waters of baptism which are the gates to eternal life and for which we thirst, call us to resist the anarchy, intimidation, and mob rule swirling violently around us yesterday.

Where can we find solid footing for what today may bring? Perhaps these events can finally drive us to reject demagoguery in favor of remembering the shared sacrifice, integrity, justice and compassion that is the foundation of virtue, generosity, and decency. Perhaps we can begin to instead embrace the transformative power of God to aid us in becoming a beloved community, guided by values of shared burdens, shared dreams, and shared sacrifice for the common good.

Almighty God,
we boldly proclaim your Holy Name
and lift our hearts to You in praise.

Living Savior,
our brother in baptism,
our model for holy living,
we embrace you with all our might:
lead us and guide us as your beloveds.

May we make straight the way of the Lord
by all we can contribute as your witnesses,
and represent the gospel of love and inclusion
in all we say and do today.

Draw us to enter joyfully, O Lord,
into the discipleship to which you lovingly call us
through the waters of baptism and beyond.

Purify our wills to reflect your lovingkindness
and help us turn aside from all evil,
embracing instead the pure truth
that calls us to be advocates for others,
walking in integrity and bold ministry in the world.

Spirit of the Living God,
fall afresh on us and bless our common life and labors today,
and let the peace and comfort of God
rest like a dove upon all those for whom we pray.

Amen.