Trust. Follow. Believe.

 When I first saw the readings for this particular Sunday, I thought I would find myself touching on the horrors happening in the Middle East. I had heard a story the week before on NPR about the religious extremists in Israel who are hell bent (and I mean HELL bent) on seizing lands where non-Jews have been living for centuries and using God's promise to Abram in Genesis 12 as their justification. 

I was ready to talk about the dangers of taking the Scriptures literally, instead of seriously, and how that plays out in cruel and deadly ways for many people, not just Palestinians and the Lebanese. 

But that's not where I went. I kept thinking about the amount of trust it took not just for Abram...and also Sarai who didn't get a say in any of this...and also Matthew to do something they'd probably never dreamed they'd do: just drop what they were up to and follow God.

When God's Spirit gets ahold of you, good luck trying to get away. 

And the same thing is true of realizing when it's time to move on from a job, or a relationship. And so that's the path the Spirit had me follow. A path which I think was better suited for my St. Barnabas population in southwest Georgia.

See what you think. 

And while I'm at it: I will be taking a break from preaching for two weeks. My bishop is coming one Sunday, and my seminarian is preaching the following one. Yay! 

Texts: Genesis 12:1-12; Matt 9:9-13; 18-26

+++

When we meet someone new…and we’re first introduced to each other…after “hi, my name is”…the typical small talk conversation moves to a couple of other topics:

Where are you from?...and

What do you do?

These are probably the safest and most generalized questions to ask when we’re first getting to know another person.

They’re also questions tightly tied to our identities.

Where we’re from helps set the stage of explaining the external forces that have shaped and formed us.

Where we grew up…the north or the south…the far west…the Midwest…outside the country all together…sets the tone for what kind of culture we know…customs we’ve practiced…and common understanding of history…and even terminology for various objects.

Does the supermarket have paper bags or paper sacks?

Are you thirsty? Do you want a “soda”? Or is it “pop” or do you call all carbonated beverages “Coke”?

And are you getting that drink out of the refrigerator or the ice box?

What we do…meaning how we earn money…can serve as a springboard for more conversation…especially if we’ve had similar jobs…or know someone who did that same thing.

Maybe the person has a career that sounds interesting or fun.

Or maybe they’re in school…which gets to what grade are you in? Or what’s your major?

So much of who we are seems to get enmeshed in where we’re from and what we do…that those two things become central to our identities.

So when we strip away one or more of those things…suddenly we feel…odd or out-of-place.

I know that I went through that experience when I left journalism.

I remember once…a few weeks before my last day…waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with the question, “If I’m not Susan Gage of Florida Public Radio, then who am I?”

If I wasn’t going to the Florida Capitol building…or the State Supreme Court…or working in a production studio at the Public Broadcast Center…where am I going? What am I doing?

Leaving behind a career and temporarily relocating to a goat farm in Gainesville Florida required me to let go of what I did…and who I thought I was…as I followed a new path…trusting that it was the right thing to do.

Trust and being willing to follow is at the heart of the Genesis reading.

We hear that God tells Abram to leave his country. Leave his father’s house. Take his family with him. God blesses Abram and makes promises to him that Abram’s name will be great…and a great nation will come from him.

Let me just pause here a moment to give some background.

Up until now in the Book of Genesis…God has done all this work of creating a marvelous world…with lots of beautiful waters and land producing fruit…birds and sea creatures…and lots of critters running around in the woods.

And God creates human beings…with reason and skill and the charge to take care of creation.

And by the end of chapter eleven of Genesis…humans have shown themselves to be disobedient…and murderers.

God had flooded the world…promised Noah that wouldn’t happen again…and still…the people kept trying to be God building a tower of Babel…that God knocked down and confused their languages.

So… this moment with Abram…and these blessings…was God’s way of having something of a “do over” with humanity.

And amazingly…we hear…”Abram went as the Lord told him.”

There was no questioning.

No arguing.

No “but what if this doesn’t work out?”

Abram listened to God.

And something about God’s voice…God’s blessings…resonated deeply with this old man…that he knew to just go.

Leave behind the place…leave this land of his identity…and go.

Now he did take others with him.

Scholars suppose that Lot was along for this adventure because he was younger…and maybe Abram thought Lot was going to have all the children…since Sarai was supposedly barren.

And this barren Sarai was also an important traveler with Abram.

Without her…there would have been no future…no Isaac.

Without her…there also wouldn’t have been the Egyptian handmaid Hagar.

And without Hagar…there would have been no Ishmael…the offspring that tradition holds as a prophet of Islam.

We might imagine that when she heard the news that they were picking up and moving…Sarai probably gave Abram a side-eye…and shook her head with a chuckle and a “Really, Abram?”

And we can also imagine that God blew a soft breeze across her face and gave Sarai some assurances to trust that this uprooting from everything she’d known…and all that was familiar…would be for the good.

That same trust and obedience shows up in our Gospel this morning.

Matthew is sitting in his tax booth…doing his calculations…figuring out how much he might tack on to this person’s bill so he could have a nice take-home sum of money.

Along comes Jesus.

Jesus sees what Matthew is doing.

He walks up to the tax booth…looks at this tax collector and simply says, “Follow me.”

And without hesitation…without thinking about it…or even asking any questions…Matthew dropped his life of serving the Empire…and extorting his fellow Jews…and follows Jesus.

Something about this simple command was so strong and persuasive that Matthew was willing to trust and abandon his career to start down another path.

Maybe Matthew had been feeling uneasy about this job.

Maybe the years and years of scorn and rejection from his community had left him feeling alone.

And now Jesus looked at him…saw him…and spoke words that told him, “You don’t need to do this. You are loved. Follow the Love.”

And not just Matthew…but we hear how Jesus then sits with a bunch of tax collectors…and other outcasts along with disciples as they have a big ol’ dinner party at Matthew’s house.

The respectable ones…the Pharisees…see what’s happening and are aghast.

They don’t dare say anything directly to Jesus…so instead they want to know from the disciples why he’s hanging out with this bunch of no-good lousy creeps.

The Pharisees only knew what Matthew and the others did for a living.

They’d seen them in their tax booths…and concluded they were their enemies.

But Jesus saw in Matthew not just a tax collector.

He saw a more complete identity: a person with more potential… a man whose whole self was greater than the sum of all those external labels on him…someone rejected by society and most importantly… a beloved child of God…worthy of love.

Like Abram…like Sarai…Matthew heard the call and followed…not knowing where it would lead…but trusting that it was all going to be OK.

And in following he discovered that he had a place at God’s table.

It takes a lot for us to trust and leave behind things familiar…our homes…our families…our vocations.

There’s always a risk involved in such decisions.

But sometimes…there is a stirring inside of us…a sense that we must make a move…or at the very least attempt to change course.

And being willing to take risks without absolute certainty of success is a lot about what it means to have faith.

Again…in the Gospel reading…the synagogue leader didn’t know for sure that Jesus could bring his apparently dead daughter back to life.

But he acted on a desperate hope to seek Jesus for help.

The bleeding woman wasn’t 100-percent certain that touching was his clothing the one medicine that would stop her pain. But she reached out anyway.

Listening and trusting…following and believing.

These are the starting points of hope and faith and trust that God is a God of Love…and mercy.

When we feel moved to follow a new path…or make any major change in our current life…there’s no guarantee of success.

There will be difficulties…and some degree of growing pains that come with making a break with the old and starting something new.

But the promise that God makes is that we are never going at it alone in life…and that God is with us as we step out in a new direction.

Trust. Follow. And most importantly beloved: believe…and stick with that source of Love.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

"Love: The Essence of the Trinity"

 

Even though I had a seminarian assigned to us, and he is still serving at the altar with me on Sundays, I still went ahead and preached on Trinity Sunday.

The joke is that Trinity Sunday is one of those sermons that the senior most priest punts on and assigns to the younger associate. Nobody really wants to tackle the doctrine of the Trinity in a sermon. And I'm not sure how many in the congregation are that interested. 

However, it is billed as "Trinity" Sunday; so to say nothing would also seem a little strange. 

As I told one of our members, since I am part-time and therefore don't really have the time to do all the weekly classes and other activities normally done by the priest, I use my preaching time to drop in some teaching. That's what I did here with this sermon. 

And the direction in which I moved gave me a chance to say, once more, an important truism about God in this particular moment in the life of the less-than-United States of America. See if you catch it.

Texts: Gen. 1:1-2:4a, BCP

+++

If we crack open the Bible…and go looking for an entry titled “The Holy Trinity,” we won’t find anything.

Yes, we find words about God the Father.

We know Jesus as the Son of God.

And just last week, we were celebrating the God the Holy Spirit.

Even though our Gospel names these three…there’s nothing that calls them the “Holy Trinity.”

Open the Book of Common Prayer…and we find in the historical documents in the back of the book that Article One of the 39 Articles adopted by the General Convention of 18-01 tells us:

“There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the Maker and the Preserver of all things both visible and invisible.  And in unity of this Godhead is three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

Or there’s the Creed of Athanasius…which goes to great lengths to outline the Trinity…as “one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost…but this Godhead is all one…the Glory equal…the Majesty co-eternal.”

I’ve heard sermons…and I’m sure you have too…where a preacher attempts to take all that language and put it into a visual or some concrete concept.

The Holy Trinity is like a three-leaf clover.

The Holy Trinity is like water…which can be liquid, or frozen, or vapor.

The Holy Trinity is like the sun…star…light…and heat.

All this to attempt to explain and defend a doctrine first articulated by the early church father Tertullian who minted the expression of the Trinity as God in Three Persons.

Tertullian was defending the Chrisitan understanding of God’s three-fold nature against those who insisted that God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were all the same one person without distinction in their form.

Tertullian insisted that God was one with three distinctions…but what the three shared was the same one essence.

His writings on the Trinity would later become the basis for the Council at Nicaea developing the credal statement that we still say to this day.

That’s a very quick lesson on church history and where to find the Holy Trinity on paper.

Because we humans seem invested in certainty…and rationality.

But really… all of these are noble attempts to intellectualize…synthesize…and boxed-in something that ultimately can’t be “understood” in that way.

To understand the Holy Trinity comes down to how we experience and relate to God…as that one Essence:

And that one essence is Love.

Love…as the hymn writer Benjamin Webb says, “O love…how deep…how broad…how high.”

We can see that when we look at the Genesis reading from this morning with this first creation story.

And yes—we have two: this one and the one that follows with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

We hear in this version:

In the beginning…when things were all an indistinguishable mish-mash of stuff…God looked at this chaos and began… speaking.

Not with violent words…or angry commands…or even with force.

God speaks…God breathes out in quiet…gentle…tones “Let this happen.”

Let there be light and dark.

Let there be sky and sea.

Let there be sun and moon and stars.

Let there be fruits and plants.

With each breath…with each invitation…all fell into place…as one beautiful masterpiece.

C.S. Lewis in “The Magician’s Nephew” imagined this Genesis moment as a song that his God character…the lion Aslan…sings creation into existence.

Again…not with some loud clanging noises or even an especially melodious tune.

But a mostly wordless song of various tones…deep bass notes that seem to come from unknown depths…causing lush fields of grass that covered the ground and ran up the mountains…trees emerging from the earth and eventually animals and two-legged creatures appearing.

A different musical imagination of “the beginning.”

As the Genesis writer describes this work of creation…we can see God forming this world in an intentional and interdependent way.

First make the habitat…the seas…the sky…the land with vegetation.

Now bring about the life forms…sea creatures and birds…wild animals.

Finally…God makes human beings.

All of these dependent on each other…living in relationship to each other.

And it was the creation of humanity where our church father Tertullian said he could find the scriptural evidence of the Trinity.

The text…even in Hebrew…has God using a plural pronoun.

“Let us make humankind in our image…according to our likeness.”

God did not say “Let me do this and make them in my likeness.”

It’s us… and our…God the Three Persons…interdependent and in relationship.

They were there and they made humanity in the image of them.

And I don’t think that necessarily meant just bodies with faces…arms…and legs.

This creation of humankind…you and me…were made in the likeness of God…meaning we were created in God’s essence…from Love….out of Love…and for the purposes of Love…to Love.

To care for all these creatures.

Enjoy and nurture this planet with its lands and seas with the same love and support that brought us and all of creation into being in the first place.

Do this with Love for that Love that so loved the world that that same Love sent the Son into the world to live as one of us…give us a down-to-earth…incarnate…vision and understanding of Love…and to show us that no powers or principalities can defeat those who put their faith and trust in Love.

And this Love remains with us…as the breath in our bodies and that Spirit wind at our backs…so that we have the means to extend this Love to each other.

Not just the people who are sitting here in this room.

Treat everyone we encounter…with love…dignity…and respect.

Because this Love isn’t exclusionary.

No one nation or people are held as better than or more important to God.

This Love is universal…to those who believe and even those who don’t…and the ones who doubt.

It’s there for all…with no asterisk or black-out dates.

Love…this three-fold Love… is with us always…seeking relationship with us.

As we go out into the world…may we remember that this essence of Love which is in us…with us…and around us…is the way…the truth…and the life that we now share with others.

In the name of our Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

 

 

 

One Love, One Language: Pentecost Year A

One of the blessings of living in an interfaith marriage is coming to know and appreciate the customs and traditions of Judaism. In turn, I can take the things that I see in our "faith parent" and connect them for purposes of deepening the understanding of Jesus for my congregation. It is also good to have been a public radio reporter in my former work life. I still listen to the news, and read news headlines, and follow news podcasts. It helps me to then point to the ways things in Scripture are still speaking to us even here in the 21st Century. Proof positive that the Holy Spirit is still with us, and poking us in the rib cage with sharp elbows, as one of my spiritual directors once said. 

Text: Acts 2:1-21

+++

Take a moment and imagine this scene.

The city of Jerusalem was full of people.

Jewish pilgrims from every region had come bearing sheaves of wheat for Shavuot…this agricultural festival.

They were bringing the gifts of the first fruits of their harvest to the temple in thanks to God and celebrating the moment when God gave Moses the Torah on stone tablets at Mount Sinai.

Despite the frightening and terrible killing of Jesus two months earlier…the city’s residents had lived with and become accustomed to the brutality of the Roman government.

Shavuot was a chance to carry on with their holiday rituals as normal.

In the home of Jesus’s disciples…they also had gathered with a lot of people.

They entered this celebration with that glimmer of hope that they’d received.

Jesus…who they had thought was dead…had been resurrected.

Their sorrow had been turned to joy.

They’d experienced that God’s Love is more powerful than a Roman cross…and had seen Jesus ascend into heaven.

He’d blessed them and told them that another comforter would be with them soon.

So they huddled together…they prayed and talked.

Maybe another rabbi would show up in this crowded room…another one who would keep them moving in the way of Jesus.

A strong wind suddenly blows through the whole building.

Over each disciple’s head is a flame…a fiery tongue.

And as they feel this rush of air…the disciples find that they’re speaking in a new languages.

They’re using foreign phrases…as they talk about the amazing works of God.

But this wasn’t some incoherent babbling.

The strangest thing happened: people were hearing clear as day one message: “God is love let the whole earth rejoice in it!”

No need for interpreters or universal translators.

Everyone was hearing with the ears of their hearts…the same message in the way they could comprehend and understand it.

As people looked on at this scene…listening to these Galileans speaking so plainly in other languages…the crowd was a mix of wonder …and cynicism.

Naturally there were skeptics who were scoffing at the whole thing:

“Obviously, these guys have been drinking alcohol!”

That’s when Peter jumps to his feet.

“No we aren’t drunk! It’s the middle of the morning and we haven’t been doing shots at 9am!”

They might not have been lit in that way…but they were lit.

Lit up with the knowledge…and the wisdom that had been with Jesus.

They were filled with the same juice that fueled the passion of the prophets.

And they’d been reveling in same the wind that blew over the waters and existed with God from the beginning of time.

If they were drunk on anything…it was the Spirit of God.

And Peter…the guy who had retreated in fear at the time of Jesus’s arrest…was so intoxicated that he was now standing up and speaking with authority.

He told these pessimists that what they were witnessing was the fulfilment of God’s promise as spoken by the prophet Joel:

The spirit has come…and a new promising future is possible for all people.

Even in a time of uncertainty…and living under a Roman government that killed with impunity…God’s Holy Spirit has come and will surround them always.

The Spirit that arrived in the Upper Room continues to be that powerful wind that gives breath to those who need some more encouragement to be bold…and to dream…and have visions of a future not yet realized but is still possible.

It’s the energy that keeps us from sinking into complacency and depression and holds us up when others try to drag us down.

And it’s that force that challenges us to get out of our comfort zone and give us that proverbial kick in the pants to do our part to make a difference.

That’s the spirit of Pentecost.

And there is no time greater than now for us to start showing up…and speaking up.

I was listening to an interview with Bishop Deon Johnson…the Episcopal Bishop for the diocese of Missouri. Some of you might be familiar with Bishop Deon from Facebook. He frequently publishes prayers and intercessions that get shared on social media.

The bishop and his husband…who is Mexican by birth… became unwilling participants in the brokenness of our immigration policy.

They were in Mexico in 2024…at a routine interview for green card holders…when the immigration officer told them that Bishop Deon’s husband was being detained.

They were told that he needed to stay in Mexico for a year…even though he hadn’t lived in the country since he was a child.

As we might imagine…this caused a lot of fear and stress for everyone in the family…the bishop…his husband…and their two children.

They complied…finding an apartment for him in Mexico…and finding ways to keep the family in touch via Facetime.

They lived through the trauma…only to find out at the end of it all that everything they’d just been through had been unnecessary.

After nearly a year…a different immigration official looked at the husband’s record…and said there’d been nothing wrong with his green card status in the first place.

Needless to say… Bishop Deon was understandably angry about the whole thing.

And yet…out of that hardship…not only had the Spirit kept the family together…it had started to do other work beyond their immediate struggle.

Their experience raised the awareness among Missouri Episcopalians to the fears and concerns felt by all their black and brown neighbors…especially those who aren’t native English speakers.

Some congregations moved to organize ways to help immigrants.

It also opened up important conversations with Bishop Deon.

There had been some church members who weren’t happy to have a bishop who is black… gay and a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Hearing that he was solo parenting at this time and needed to get home to his kids….and that’s why he couldn’t do all the typical activities when he would visit a congregation struck a nerve.

It helped soften some people’s hearts as they now saw him not as some scary “other” and fictionalized version of a black gay man…but as an incarnation of God’s beloved…a fellow sibling in Christ.

And the experience…as terrible as it was for their kids… turned their older daughter into an outspoken activist for her St. Louis high school classmates who worried that ICE was coming for them and their families.

The interviewer asked if this immigration trauma had made the bishop question his faith and naturally, he said no, it had not.

Sitting on this side of the experience…Bishop Deon spoke confidently of how his faith was so grounded in hope that it once more showed that resurrection and Easter follows those Good Friday moments.

As he put it…”There will always be those who are more in love with power over others than being in love with God’s Love.” But God’s love…and God’s spirit will have the final say.

And that’s the key thing for us.

When we stick close to that source of Love…and drink from the living waters of God…we not only become the witnesses of Love…but water bearers to those who are thirsty for a church that embodies mercy…compassion…and justice.

And with the power of the Holy Spirit…we are given the strength and the ability and the joy to do our part in making this a better place for everyone.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Show the Way

 

We are undergoing a type of revolution here in the United States. The "Supreme" Court's decision in the Callais case out of Louisiana, stripping away the final portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has led to a cavalcade of Southern state legislatures hastily redrawing their Congressional districts in an effort to disenfranchise black voters. 

Blacks tend to vote for Democrats, and the Republican Party is desperate to use any means possible to stop the inevitable thrashing they're about to get in the wake of this horrid regime and its greed and grift at the expense of working people.

On Saturday, May 16th, thousands assembled in Montgomery, Alabama for All Roads Lead to the South. This was a rally to motivate all people of goodwill to stand up and fight for the rights of black and brown people to have their voices count at the ballot box this election year. I had really wanted to go, but having done so much driving lately...and the prospect of having to do seven hours round trip to Montgomery and then have the energy to drive back and forth to Valdosta the next day....nope. The spirit was willing but the flesh said, "Are you nuts?!"

But the evil being done in state legislatures, and my own grief still present at the loss of friends, was very much on my mind as I read through the scriptures assigned for this Sunday after the Ascension. Rather than isolated one pericope, I found that the Spirit was drawing on pieces and parts from three of the four.

See what you think.

Texts: Acts 1:6-14; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; John 17:1-11

 +++

I recently reconnected with an old colleague and friend from my days working in radio.

In our back-and-forth exchange…she shared with me an interview she had done with her husband for the StoryCorps program.

StoryCorps is an independent audio production company that travels the country by silver bus.

They set up shop… usually for a couple of weeks in a location… and offer to record people who want to share their stories about anything…and then StoryCorps distributes a copy of the recording to the participants.

The originals are housed at the National Archives in DC.

Some of those recordings are also played on National Public Radio on Friday mornings.

My friend had signed up with her husband to meet with StoryCorps when they came to her city.

And they reminisced about how they met.

As part of their discussion… they talked about death.

He was much older than she was…so the presumption was that he was going to die first.

He told her that when he died…he wanted her to be happy…and to do whatever things would make her happy.

“But what if I’m not going to be happy when you’re gone?” she asked.

“Well, you’re going to have to figure that out, kiddo.”

He did die…about six years ago.

And my friend is still striving to figure it out…and to find happiness in a life without her beloved.

Grief…and the sense of a profound loss…of a spouse…a lover…a job…or even fundamental rights…can plunge us into a liminal space.

The world keeps spinning on its axis…but we don’t feel as though we’re traveling at the same speed as everyone else.

It’s that odd time of knowing that something has ended…and yet we are stumbling our way toward the beginning of something new.

That’s the place where we find the disciples right now…as we move from the season of Easter…and the joyfulness of the resurrection… and head toward Pentecost…and the next act in God’s dream for the world.

This past Thursday…the fortieth day after Easter…we marked the Feast of the Ascension…which we heard about this morning in the Book of Acts.

Jesus’s time on earth has come to an end…and like the prophet Elijah…he is lifted up and away… to take his seat at the right hand of God.

Our Gospel lesson from John this morning recalls Jesus’s concluding prayer for his friends…a final appeal to God to watch over them…be with them…protect them from the storms of life that will come their way.

Jesus has done all he could do in his time on earth.

Now it’s their turn to figure it out.

It’s also our turn.

As we have listened to these words of Scripture today…and over the past many weeks…months and years of our lives…we’ve been given countless lessons in how to live into Love.

All the prayers…the hymns that we sing…and this meal that we share at this table…they’re all meant to reinforce and remind us that we already have the tools in our proverbial toolbelts to do the sometimes frustrating…and yet important and joyful work of repairing the breeches in the world around us…loving our neighbors…no matter who they are…in the way that we want to be loved…cared for…and treated.

We heard Jesus’s prayer in John’s Gospel…but Luke’s account of the ascension gives us some more color around that moment with disciples as he left them for the last time.

Luke tells us that Jesus spent his last hour opening their minds to understanding the Scriptures…connecting the dots between the prophets of the Old Testament…and everything he had shown and taught them.

And just before he ascended into heaven…he was offered them a blessing.

But rather than being in despair…Luke says Jesus’s friends “returned to Jerusalem overwhelmed with joy.”

Not moping.

Not handwringing.

They were overwhelmed with joy.

That’s such an interesting observation.

And yet it makes sense.

Because something had shifted in them.

Deep in their hearts they understood that this ending of Jesus’s earthly ministry wasn’t an end….like “Well, that’s over!”

No, his spirit…his words…his mission was with them…and in them…in the same way that it’s within us.

We are the new hands and feet and mouths of Jesus.

That’s really good news…especially as we face the challenges that are before us.

The author Anne Lamott used a phrase in a recent Substack article that resonated with me, “Life is getting so much lifeier than I was prepared for.” (“Gold” from Hallelujah Anyways, May 2, 2026 on Substack).

She was writing about all the things happening at the global level of life as we know it: wars…billionaires using and abusing people and systems…and…while she didn’t name this one… I would add to her list the breakneck speed at which Southern state legislatures are undoing all the heavy lifting of the civil rights movement.

Add to those troubles…the more personal things that affect us: the surgeries…the troubling diagnosis…the death of loved ones. And Lamott says, “that’s more lifeier than I was prepared for.”

But even with those realities that sometimes can come at us in rapid fire succession…we aren’t hopeless when we remember and return to the root of our being: the Love of God that is in us…with us…and around us always.

That’s what our Epistle reading from the First Letter of Peter is driving at.

Peter acknowledges that ordeals will test and challenge us.

We are going to face health crises…and bad days at work…and gerrymandered political maps that deepen the rifts between us…and make us turn on one another.

As Peter so aptly put it: “Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8b)

But when such trouble arises…we must resist it…and stay steadfast in our faith.

One of my favorite theologians…Howard Thurman…wrote that “the evilness of evil isn’t about destroying the body or reducing cities to rubble;

Its real target is to corrupt the spirit and give the soul the contagion of inner disintegration.” (Thurman, Essential Writings, quoting The Meditations of the Heart, 110-111).

Now.... I admit…when something big has happened that makes it seem as if the ground beneath my feet is shifting every which way…I find it hard to remember to slow down…and as Peter says “Humble myself,” meaning…enter that prayerful place… and lean on God to seek help.

Or…more accurately…I get so caught up in my own mental wrestling that I forget that God is waiting and ready to remind me of those things that I already have learned.

So when I have finally have worn myself out with my thrashing…I ask for God’s guidance…and taking some deep breaths…I make my plea to the Holy One:

To tell me again those truths…that the real nature of God is love.

And Love is stronger than hate.

Help me to hear those words… so that it fills my heart and mind with balm of God’s peace.

Ground me in the goodness that is always there…

Open my eyes to take in the wonder of God’s artistry in the rising and setting of the sun and the song of the birds in the trees.

And with my soul now calm and the noise in my head quieted down…again show me the way so that I may help lead others with strength…courage…and kindness…so that I may

not be a stumbling block to those seeking the freedom that comes from God’s love.

As Pentecost draws near may our hearts and minds be primed as we seek God’s peace…and hope…so that we’re ready to do the work of Love that’s before us.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

The Transforming Power of Love

 

This has been a particularly rough patch for me personally. I have lost two friends, one a year older...the other a year younger than me... this past month to cancer.  In between mourning and funerals was the latest Mickee Faust cabaret, a celebration of new ministry in Valdosta at Christ Church, and my spring clergy conference on the Georgia coast. Following that, I traveled to last week to Fayetteville to participate in the funeral of my younger friend, the Rev. Leslie Roraback. And after our service at St. Barnabas this past Sunday, I drove through a massive traffic headache on I-75 to get to back home to Tallahassee to attend the memorial service St. John's held in honor of Leslie who had been their associate rector.

I didn't know if I would have the ability to write a sermon through exhaustion and tears. But I did. And I have a feeling that I had a couple of angels who were hovering over my shoulders to help me get it done in fits and starts. See what you think.

Texts: Acts 7: 54-60, John 14:1-14

 +++

Following Jesus is not for the faint of heart.

To actually walk the walk…and talk the talk…of the one who keeps pointing the way to Love takes practice…patience…and an ability to handle the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the sea of troubles that will come.

Now I want to be clear: to follow Jesus and to live out our Christian faith in this world does not necessarily put us in mortal danger.

Despite what some might want to say and trumpet on any number of social media platforms…we Christians of the United States are not a persecuted minority.

This is not Somalia or North Korea.

Even with the declining number of people attending churches in this country…. Christians still have an out-sized statistical advantage over other religious groups.

And we are still ahead of that growing number of people who say they don’t have any religious affiliation at all.

Of course…that could change…in part because of the way those who claim to be Christian are behaving…making gods of out of other “things”…and not following Jesus.

But if we can take anything away from the stoning death of Stephen…the first deacon and martyr of the church… it’s that when we have the courage to speak from a place of faith in Jesus…not everyone is going to receive it…and we may find ourselves facing hostility because of it.

Because the way…the truth…and the life that Jesus calls us to is one that doesn’t fit with what the culture counts as strength.

Jesus was about teaching us to keep looking beyond labels…and recognize the divine spark that lives in all creation…both humans and animals and even in the plant life around us.

The more we seek connection to one another…the closer we are getting to that vision…that dream of God…where we might stop falling into the trap of wanting to dominate others in order to feel as though we have some self-worth.

Now the interesting thing about Stephen is that he apparently was very good at living into his faith…and doing the task that he was given to do: to love and care for the Hellenistic widows of Jerusalem…helping to feed them as well as the other widows in the city.

The whole reason the apostles made Stephen and a few others into deacons was because the needs of both native Jews to Jerusalem and the Greek-speaking population were so great they needed some extra help.

But by Stephen doing these acts of charity…and being faithful… he aroused the jealousy of some.

And…just like with Jesus… Stephen’s detractors trumped up charges against him…and got some people to lie about him to the council.

But unlike Jesus…this man…described as having the face of an angel…decided to launch into a lengthy…detailed lecture…tracing the history of Israel…and the way that the people turned on Moses and the prophets.

And then he capped it off with accusing the council members of being stiff-necked and killing Jesus.

While his speech was passionate…it wasn’t the best way to win friends and influence people.

Just in the same way…screaming Bible verses into a bullhorn and condemning people to hell if they don’t profess a belief in Jesus is not the best kind of evangelism.

In fact…it’s pretty repulsive to most people.

There’s a reason so many have turned away from the church since the days of the Baby Boomers.

So this diatribe of Stephen’s wasn’t his best moment…and still…it ended up serving a greater purpose.

His killing was an awful and extreme act of retribution.

And…just as it did at the crucifixion…the attack on Stephen sent the disciples scattering.

And out of those ashes came new growth.

The disciples…coming in contact with others outside of Jerusalem…began to quietly and carefully…share the story of Jesus.

Philip would encounter the Ethiopian eunuch who…upon seeing a pool of water…asked “What is to stop me from being baptized?”

The same happens with Peter who finds the Roman centurion Cornelius and his family in Caeserea.

And as we heard this morning…standing in the crowd that was attacking Stephen was Saul…who would undergo his own massive conversion on the road to Damascus…and would become the prolific New Testament writer Paul.

What others did as an act of evil…God salvages and Love transforms it for good.

I think about these moments such as this one with Stephen…and the crucifixion of Jesus.

I note that in both cases…they didn’t give in to bitterness.

Even as others are attacking them and killing them…they still kept their eyes fixed on Love.

For Jesus…he prayed Psalm 22... a psalm of lament that ultimately keeps the heart fixed on God who is merciful.

For Stephen… he had that vision of Jesus at the right hand of God… and his faith and trust in Jesus’s ways led him to pray for forgiveness for those persecuting him.

I think about how anchoring ourselves in our faith…tapping into that lifeblood of Love that is around us…is our true superpower in times of trouble and turmoil.

It has helped me and so many others when things in the world seem so bleak…or unjust and out of whack with that vision that God has of us living in harmony with each other and the rest of creation.

I’m wondering who else might have had that experience?

Have any of you experienced something that felt like a set back of some kind…and through some form of prayer or even pleading to God… that you found your way through that time of trouble?

(Leave a moment for this. If nothing comes…move on.)

The thing is that we are always going to face challenges and difficulties. And Jesus knew that would happen big time for the disciples.

That’s why John records his extended goodbye speech to them…starting with this famous portion with “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

Those who have learned from Jesus…and listened to Jesus…and absorbed all that…have all that they need to survive life’s tempests as they come.

When we partake of the bread and the wine at this table…we’re not only receiving into our bodies the elements that bring us solace….but this meal is about giving us the strength and renewal to face the challenges put in our path.

Love is the feast served at this table.

Keep that in mind this morning as you receive the bread and the wine…and may it feed us so we are ready to feed the world.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

Whose Voice is Calling?

 

I have a travel mug I carry with me every Sunday that says, "Be careful or you'll end up in my sermon." I showed that to our cat when he was being a pest. And it has now come to pass that he was the kicking off point for my sermon about listening for that voice that calls us into service, into action, and into love. 

At a time of war, we need more of that. See what you think.

Text: Psalm 23; John 10:1-10

+++

Anyone who has ever owned a cat knows that cats are cute…furry…and loving creatures

They’re also the most willful critters known to humankind.

Our current cat…Romeo…is no exception.

Just as it’s been with our prior cats…Romeo has a cat door and he can go in and out as he pleases.

But at nightfall…we want him inside. Even though we live in a downtown neighborhood…there is still wildlife that comes out at night…foxes and other potential predators.

We lost one feline friend to some unknown animal attacker…so we’ve been cautious ever since.

As the days grow longer and warmer…Romeo is happier spending more hours outside.

He enjoys going into the area behind our house to hunt for geckos in the many oak and magnolia leaves…and then falling asleep under a bush or the porch of the abandoned house behind ours.

Quite often…when I am coming home late at night…I’ll find that he hasn’t come home yet.

Isabelle will tell me that she tried to call for him…but…well…cats are willful.

It happened again this past week…when I got home at almost nine o’clock.

Romeo still hadn’t come home.

Isabelle and I were talking about his bad boy behavior…and how cute and annoying he can be about not coming back at night.

I was still unloading things from the car…and carrying on this conversation about Romeo outside when I heard the tell-tale sounds of something leaping over dead branches and onto the leaves in the backyard.

In trots Romeo…coming over to me to rub his white and black furry body against my shins.

He had heard my voice.

And now that both parents were home…he was ready for his dinner and the chance to curl up on chair in the office.

It’s funny how pets respond to the voices of their owners.

Because of the bonds we form with them…and the relationship and trust that we build with them…they come to know…and love us.

Shepherds build that sort of relationship with their sheep…which is the reason why we see so many references in the Scriptures to “Shepherds” and “Sheep.”

One of the most well-known of those is in psalm 23…”The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters.”

We get that sense of the Shepherd who cares for the sheep so completely.

We, as those sheep, feel that love when we lay our trust on God.

Interestingly…one of the commentators I was reading suggested that we should have read a different psalm for today: Psalm 118, which figures prominently in Palm Sunday and Holy Week.

“Open for me the gates of righteousness; I will enter them; I will offer thanks to the Lord.”

It is a bit odd that on this Fourth Sunday of Easter…the Gospel passage we heard from John is not the part where Jesus refers to “I am the good shepherd,” but rather “I am the gate” of this enclosure where the sheep are kept safe.

And it’s also important to know where our Gospel lesson falls within the broader context of John’s Gospel.

If we think back many weeks ago during Lent…when Deacon Karyl would present to you some very lengthy passages of John’s writings…one of them was the healing of the blind man.

We might recall that Jesus and the disciples came across this man on their journey…and the disciples were like, “Who sinned to cause this man to be blind?” and Jesus said, “Nobody sinned, now watch this.”

He put mud on the man’s eyes and told him to wash it off in Siloam and—voila—he was no longer blind.

That started a whole controversy…the formerly blind man keeps getting interrogated…and when he made a confession that Jesus clearly was not some demonic force but rather a healer…this man got kicked out of the synagogue.

Jesus and this man were then reunited…and the man says he believes and worships Jesus.

Standing by and witnessing all of this is a group of Pharisees who hear Jesus declare that he “has come for judgment so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.”

The Pharisees take offense at this…and Jesus basically says to them…these representatives of the establishment religion… you’ve become blind. You’ve allowed too many “things” to become paramount to the one thing that matters: God is Love.

Not rules.

Not power and prestige.

God is Love.

God is the gatekeeper…and I am showing the people the gate.

If you follow my voice…if you take in the lessons I am teaching you… and put these into practice… this gate will swing open to you.

And once you move through this gate…you will find that green pasture…that abundant life with the love and care of Psalm 23.

That’s what happened with that blind man in the chapter before in John’s Gospel.

Not only did he come to see…but as all those other voices kept pestering him and badgering him about his miraculous healing…the voice he ultimately listened to and believed was Jesus.

Because the voice of Jesus spoke in a tone that conveyed mercy…compassion…and love.

Or…to put it another way… it was words of the unconditional love that provides health…healing… and hope.

This has been one of the greatest offerings that I’ve seen here at St. Barnabas as well as our wider Episcopal Church.

Now…I grew up as an Episcopalian…so this is the one Christian tradition I’ve known my whole life.

I have seen it’s good… it’s not so good…and I have experienced the wounds of when it has been downright bad and ugly.

But I have also seen and known our denomination to be that one place…that flickering light of Christ… for those seeking a relationship with God that is loving and not rule-bound or—worse—some terrifying abusive Father.

I have heard the stories of so many people who kept searching for a place where they felt safe and could start to relate to God through Jesus…the Jesus who was that shepherd of the Middle Eastern tradition…leading people out of their despair and into a journey with Love.

A true and lasting Love that keeps saying, “You matter.”

This is the message we are to share with all the various people we encounter in our lives.

There is a God who loves each one of us deeply and wants us to extend that love to others.

There is a place where you can be loved and accepted as the beloved child that you are.

There is health…healing…and hope with unconditional love and it begins with each of us who will listen for it…and hear it calling our names.

Come and see.

Take and share.

In the name of Our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.