Sermons - Saint George's Episcopal Church, Arlington

Redemption Through Jesus’ Grief

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 18:09:59 +0000

I clearly remember a sunny morning when I was six years old. I was so pleased I had dressed myself for the first day of spring in bright pastels—a pink and yellow velour top and blue pinafore dress. I came bounding into the kitchen to show my parents, and the last thing I recall is standing in the doorway with the sun in my eyes. After that, all I remember is hearing that Murmur, my great-grandmother, had died.

Everything crumpled. The sun and birdsong and all the hope that comes with spring caved in. Our Murmur was gone.

Murmur always loomed large in my sense of who my family is. As a young woman, she emigrated from western Sweden on a passenger steamer, she worked as a seamstress sewing furs in Chicago, then Minnesota. When her husband and young son died from tuberculosis, she and her young daughter moved back to Sweden for some time. Immigrating has always been complicated, and rarely linear. Eventually, they returned. I’m named for this amazing woman, who, standing four feet something, has always been to me a paragon of strength and love and perseverance.

She’s the first person I loved and lost to death.

This was the day that death entered my world.

I have two other memories of that first day of spring. At Kindergarten, my teacher found me crying, and I distinctly recall coming up with a silly excuse for my tears. I couldn’t give voice to the true reason for my pain. Saying out loud that she had died would have been unbearable.

Then, later that day, as I was playing outdoors, I came across a little bird lying dead on the ground under a tree. Seeing the earth reclaim her body brought on a fresh wave of grief and tears. I wept for Murmur, for this beautiful little bird, and for all life that is fleeting and fades.

In today’s gospel lesson, we find Jesus weeping at the death of a friend whom he loved dearly. Lazarus has been ill, his sisters sent for Jesus, and he purposely did not go to heal him. The Evangelist John presents Jesus’ divine nature, power, and knowledge of the future as less confined by his humanity than he appears in the other gospels. He knows that he could save Lazarus and he knows that he will die—why then did he stall?

This story eventually resolves into a happy ending—so if Jesus knew Lazarus would rise, why then his tears? And for those of us who have lost loved ones for good, what kind of consolation is there in this account of a short-lived death?

The story opens by identifying Mary as the one who later anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair, a symbol of her recognition of Jesus and a foreshadowing of his burial. This took place later, just six days before his crucifixion—the reference here casts this story in the light of Jesus’ death, and resurrection. Today’s narrative closes by noting that many who accompanied Mary at the raising of Lazarus believed in Jesus. She sees Jesus for who he is and brings other to recognize him. Mary’s witness frames this lesson.

But to back up. Lazarus is ill, and his sisters send for Jesus to come and heal, as he has so many times before. But to their distress, he tarried in traveling down to Bethany in order, he says, to bring Glory to God and that the Son might be glorified. His intent is to offer not only healing, but also a sign of his divine nature.

This part of the story often rubs people the wrong way. To those who have lost loved ones who were their everything, the very center of their being, this apparent flippancy in the face of the sisters’ grief feels bewildering. Just Friday, I spoke with a woman whose sister was born with mental disabilities and suffered a debilitating physical illness that led to an early death. This woman, in her pain, doesn’t see a loving God who cares even for the sparrow. To her, understandably, God feels far away and far too slow. So often, we call out of the depths and seem to be met by silence.

At this point in our story, Jesus has recently fled being stoned in Jerusalem and is at the Jordan river, where John had been baptizing. When the sisters send for him, his followers try to dissuade him from returning to Judea. Thomas’ makes clear that the disciples anticipate they will be killed if they go. This is a scary time, and for as much flak as we give the disciples for abandoning Jesus at the end, here they summon the courage to accompany him.

In Bethany, many have come to console the sisters at their home, where Mary remains while Martha goes to meet Jesus with the words,

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Is this an accusation? A statement of faith in his power to heal? Both? It’s not clear, but in the course of their conversation she confesses that Jesus is the Messiah. Soon she returns home to extend Jesus’ call to her sister, and Mary rushes toward him, and echoes her sister,

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus sees them crying, he is disturbed in spirit and deeply moved, and he weeps.

And once again, a variation on the same question:

“Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

I wonder whether the refrain in this story might be the most frequent cry we level against God in our distress. If you were here. If you wanted to. If you cared. You would not have let them die.

But nature keeps taking its course, and for the most part, we don’t experience God intervening in such dramatic ways natural processes. Despite the consequences, this is a good thing because it allows for humanity to live in a universe that functions according to laws that they can come to comprehend. A world that functions according to natural laws allows for human freedom and free will. This is a blessing.

At the same time, it comes with a cost and elicits questions why God doesn’t intervene more visibly. In this liturgical year, our church has held three funerals with another on the horizon, and we walk with many more who suffer from illness or mourn the death of loved ones.

In Bethany, we see Jesus weep with those who mourn the death of one whom he loved. He grieves their loss and shares in our sorrow when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I wonder whether he also weeps for the death he soon will face and for the pain it will cause those who love him.

The events in Bethany are out-of-the-ordinary—a miraculous sign that works on many levels. Lazarus entombed with a stone rolled in front of a cave together with the reminder of Mary’s oil offers a preview of Jesus’ immanent burial.

When the dead man comes out, bound with strips of cloth, Jesus’ command, “Unbind him, and let him go,” has broader resonances of our liberation from sin and death through his saving grace. Lazarus’ resurrection prefigures Jesus’. Lines from today’s story run all throughout our funeral liturgy.

By entering into human brokenness and death, Jesus redeems what he takes on and restores us to our intended purpose, offering new life and resurrection to all people.

In telling Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life,” he places the power of resurrection directly in his person, rather than in a future event alone. In Jesus, all things, even life and death, take on new meaning, such that those who believe in him, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in him will never die.

Next Sunday, Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday. I urge you to join us for services that walk us through Jesus’ welcome into Jerusalem, his last supper with his followers where he models what it means to serve, his betrayal, trial, abandonment, and crucifixion, and at last, his glorious resurrection. If you want to understand how life and death are transformed in Christ, there is no better way than walking with him and the Church through Holy Week.

God’s Love Poured Out in Conversation

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 18:08:44 +0000

Jesus and his disciples are returning home from celebrating the Passover in Jerusalem. On their way, they stop to visit John in the wilderness of Judea and participate in baptizing people who come to them for purification.

The Gospel relates that John also was baptizing at some springs where the water was abundant, and some of his followers come to him worried that Jesus’ disciples are baptizing more people than they are.

John’s response to his fretting and competitive followers sets up today’s story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well. John reminds them that his role is to prepare the way, and he builds on the ancient metaphor of God as a bridegroom to describe himself [quote] as, “the friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him [and] rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice.”

The Old Testament prophets often identify the people of Israel as God’s bride. The marriage metaphor highlights the bond between them and symbolizes God’s love and joy in their covenant (e.g. Is 62:5). In rejoicing over the arrival of the bridegroom, John recognizes Jesus as the Messiah. John proclaims that his joy is fulfilled as the wedding day arrives—but just who in this allegory is the bride?

There is a strong trope in Hebrew Scripture of spouses meeting at wells: Abraham and his second wife, Keturah; his son, Isaac, and Rebekah; their son Jacob and his wife Rachel, and later Moses and Zipporah. When those who had grown up hearing the Torah heard Jesus asking a woman for water, their ears would have perked up—this was a pattern they recognized, and with the disciples in the story, they would have been astonished—and probably pretty uncomfortable—about Jesus in this situation.

Like Moses and Jacob, Jesus arrives at the well having fled escalating tensions. In Jerusalem, he had cleansed the Temple of vendors, and in Judea, Pharisees join John’s followers in grumbling about the number of people coming to Jesus to be baptized. Wearied by the discord, Jesus is heading for home by the most direct road, which runs through hostile territory.

Samaritans and Jews shared the Torah and traced their ancestors to the ancient Israelites, but different experiences of conquest led them to diverge culturally and religiously, resulting in mutual enmity.

Today’s lesson begins with Jesus tired out by his journey in a place where he isn’t welcome. He is weary from his pilgrimage, weary from friction on many fronts early in his ministry, weary from walking through the dry and barren wilderness, and as the sun comes to its zenith, he sits down by the ancient well. He is tired and he is thirsty. Fully human in his need for water. Fully divine in what we come to see of his outpouring of love.

The Samaritan woman, too, has come for water, and her story suggests that she, too, arrives worn out by her life’s journey. Like the disciples, she is surprised by this Jewish man at the well asking for a drink. She responds with a question that launches them into the longest conversation we hear Jesus have; the longest conversation recorded in Scriptures.

Her first question is why he overlooks their differences—she knows that as a Samaritan she would be seen as unclean—but Jesus evades this concern to speak on another level as he offers her something he calls living water. She retorts with more questions: “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”

I love this woman for her courageous questions, for naming what they share in common—their ancestor Jacob—for her fortitude, her skeptical stance toward this strange man, the way she engages him in theological arguments, and her perseverance in seeking to understand.

How, without a bucket, do you propose to give me water?

In her questions, we hear echoes of the Exodus as the Israelites murmured against Moses, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” What could they possibly have thought as Moses stood there in front of the rock at Masseh and Meribah? Moses, you have no bucket; how do you propose to get water from a rock?

This is struggle to see how God will come through is an all-too-familiar story. How often, when are tired from the journey, do we find it hard to continue holding out hope that we will receive what we need to sustain us.

When Jesus speaks of living water—which in Greek can mean both water that gushes from a spring and also water that gives life—he moves the woman from the literal level of meaning to the spiritual. What is so striking is that when he offers this living water that gushes up to eternal life, and she accepts, he straightaway names the wound that has most pained her. She asks for living water, and he asks about her husband.

Traditional readings have often shamed her, but we find no condemnation in the words of the Evangelist or Jesus. This is no story of “go and sin no more”. Women at this time did not have the legal power to end marriages, and Jesus does not chastise her for the relationships that have ended. There are any number of reasons for her past. Maybe she was repeatedly widowed and passed along among her dead husband’s brothers, according to the “Levirate marriage” practice of the day. Or maybe she was abandoned for infertility or a disability or all that comes with a history of being mistreated. We just don’t know.

The lack of specificity, like the lack of a name, allows readers from all sorts of backgrounds to identify with her more easily. Whatever the cause, her dignity has been compromised, and surely, she has felt abandoned time and again. What we can be certain of is that she has experienced deep pain and grief. This cannot be the life she’d hoped for.

And now, at high noon, here she stands with Jesus, both weary from their journeys, and he sees her. He sees how she hurts and what she yearns for. And in their conversation, she also sees him. She is so moved by him that she returns to the city calling out, “Come and see” this man who had seen her. And once again, we get one of her questions that betray her perceptiveness: might this be the Messiah?

This woman becomes the first evangelist to bring others to recognize Jesus as the Savior.

As we find throughout the Gospels, Jesus puts a new spin on the old stories of the Hebrew Bible. In the old stories, meetings at wells led to marriages, and the metaphor of a bride referred to Israel. Here, Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman symbolizes an expansion of God’s mission to all nations and people of all backgrounds. A new kind of covenant is being forged.

This is a God whose grace and gifts we don’t always recognize right away.

To return for a moment to John’s followers. Their misguided competitive focus hits close to home. How often are we as the church focused on numbers more than on considering what God is accomplishing among us. On how God is moving in every person who comes in search of something greater than themselves. On how God is moving to draw all people to himself and to bring about reconciliation. On how God is moving in people whom we rather avoid.

This a God who welcomes questions from skeptics. A God who comes to us in our unresolved pain and yearning. A God who has come to journey alongside us in our tiredness. A God who pours out his healing love on all who will stay in a conversation with him, even when they’re not at all sure where it might be heading.

Temptations in the Wilderness

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 19:07:48 +0000

Jesus is on the brink of beginning his public ministry of preaching, teaching, healing, and stirring things up when the Spirit of God leads him out into the wilderness, to be tested. We are not told why, but presumably this time of trial served to prepare him for all he would face, particularly the temptation to avoid the final walk to Jerusalem and the cross.

His forty days in the desert follow directly upon his baptism, when the heavens opened, God’s Spirit descended like a dove and alighted on him, and a voice from the heavens proclaimed, “This is my Son, the Beloved.”

The next voice he hears is the voice of the devil echoing these very words. The first two temptations begin with the provocation, “If you are the Son of God,”

If you are the Son of God, then save yourself;

If you are the son of God, surely, he will save you from physical harm.

Jesus counters all three temptations with words borrowed from Moses. More specifically, he quotes verses from Moses’ farewell speech to the Israelites as they prepare to enter the Promised Land. Moses himself would not enter this land of milk and honey, and in the last book of the Torah—the Book of Deuteronomy—concludes the story of the Exodus with his passionate call for Israel to remember to love and obey God’s law.

Jesus responds to his first temptation with words with Moses’s exhortation not to forget God’s faithfulness. Moses reminds his people that God led them for 40 years in the wilderness, “in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna … in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut 8:2-3).

In quoting this last line, Jesus follows Moses’ exhortation to remember the Israelites’ salvation history, and he places his trial in the context this story. Baptism carries connotations of an Exodus, and the forty days recall the forty years.

Moses specifies that God’s intent in leading them was to break their sense of self-sufficiency. The aim of Jesus’ fasting is not to demonstrate piety or strength of character, but to come to a deeper understanding of his utter dependence on the Father. Soon, early in his ministry, he will teach his disciples to pray to God for their “daily bread” (Mt 6:11). In praying the Lord’s Prayer, we come to surrender illusions of self-sufficiency, we come to surrender to God’s will, and plead to be spared being led into a time of trial.

In the first trial, the devil doesn’t actually offer him anything, he just encourages some thoughts that have probably crossed Jesus’ mind: “use your power to make things easier for yourself. You’ve held out so long, you really need this. It’s just a loaf of bread—what could be so wrong with that?” Familiar voices.

This first line of attack is a basic human need and serves as a reminder of Jesus’ full humanity. It is important that unless Jesus faced a real struggle, this would not be a story of temptation.

Soon temptations are compounded. Even as he’s starving, he is led to Jerusalem where the devil quotes from Psalm 91 to suggest that if Jesus jumping from the pinnacle of the temple, will demonstrate his confidence in God’s promises: God won’t let anything bad happen to you! Angels will catch you! It’ll be fine! The temptation is to equate being loved by God with always being safe.

The Psalms actually seem to make this equation a lot – if I am righteous and favored by God, then things will go my way and my enemies will be defeated. The Psalms are in fact more complicated than that; that’s a sermon for another day. The point here is that the devil misleads by taking lines of the Bible out of context. The misuse of Scripture can cause some of the most profound harm that we can do.

In actuality, Scriptures overwhelmingly testify that living as God’s people, with love, justice, and mercy, is hard, and sometimes dangerous, and most certainly does not guarantee prosperity or safety. In the second trial, Jesus responds “No. I won’t test God – I won’t make God’s goodness conditional on my personal safety and wellbeing.” God is good whether we prosper or suffer. Living by faith does not require miracles but rather trust that the One who called the people out of Egypt will see them through to the end of the journey.

The final temptation is the promise of power over all the kingdoms of the world if only Jesus shift allegiances. But Jesus resists earthly power with another quotation from Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him” (Deut. 6:13). Soon Jesus would proclaim the coming of the kingdom of heaven to all those who follow him in the way of righteousness, but this is a difficult trek. The temptation to unite all the world under a single peaceable kingdom in an instant and to forgo betrayal and death must have been real.

Last fall, an exciting conversation arose about the meaning of evil and Satan in our LCF group—a group for newcomers and those who would like to deepen their faith and understanding of God and the Church. We were reflecting on our Baptismal liturgy, specifically the renunciations. We “renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God” and also “the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.”

Our catechism doesn’t give a definition of the devil. The adversary, or accuser, which is what Satan means in Hebrew, is one who challenges a person’s faithful relationship with God. Some sided with Augustine’s view that evil is only the absence of good. In this case, evil and the devil don’t have being in themselves. The argument is that we are quite capable of all sorts and degrees of evil behavior without any intervention or encouragement from supernatural beings. Others ventured that there seems to be an intelligent being who is the source of evil.

Today’s lesson presents us with the idea of evil personified, but overall the gospels do not present the devil as a “person” or “creature” in a simple or straightforward sense. In John’s gospel, the devil never appears as a fully realized character; in the other gospels he is at times singular and at other times “horribly legion.” At times, the devil appears as parasitic speaking through Jesus’ disciples. To complicate things further, our cultural conceptions of a devil are informed more by the poetry of Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost than the Bible. Siding with St. Augustine in rejecting the existence of a supernatural devil does not detract from the temptation Jesus faced. Whether the voice he heard was the inner dialogue of all humans or a devil, he faced genuine trials and resisted.

These 40 days in the wilderness were only the beginning of temptations, and serve as something of a preview for his Passion. When he is arrested, he refuses to be rescued either by violence or by angelic intervention (26:52–54). At the crucifixion, passersby and religious leaders taunt him: you’re the Son of God? Prove it. Come down from the cross. Doesn’t God even care enough to rescue you? (27:38–44). But Jesus trusts God to see him through to the end of the journey, and when he dies, the centurion proclaims, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (27:54).

Our greatest temptation is to forget who we are and whose we are. Continually we forget or forsake our identity as baptized Christians. This is why Lent is so important. It is a time when we recognize our illusions of self-sufficiency and seek God’s forgiveness and grace as we are reminded that through Christ we too are children of God.

God’s Ardent Pursuit of Us

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:05:29 +0000

Ash Wednesday 2026

Joel calls on trumpets to sound an alarm on God’s holy mountain and for the people to tremble in terror “for the day of the Lord is coming, it is close at hand”.

This phrase “Day of the Lord” recurs all through prophetic Scripture to describe events when God appears in a powerful way to confront evil and save his people. As the prophets look back on their people’s history, they identify particularly striking manifestations of God as a “Day of the Lord”. They appeal to these memories of God’s faithfulness as evidence of hope that in the present as in the past, God will, once again, defeat evil and bring salvation.

Joel follows this prophetic trend of drawing on the past as he heralds a coming “Day of the Lord”. If you’re wondering why he calls on his people to tremble in terror even as God is on his way to save them, you are following. There is an incongruity at the very heart of his prophecy, and wrestling with this tension yields insights into God’s ardent desire for reconciliation with humanity, regardless of what we have done or left undone.

While our first reaction might be to dismiss passages that liken God to a cavalry charging his own people, stay with me as I unpack why I find assurance of God’s love and compassion here, and why I find in this prophecy such a fitting start to Lent.

Joel was among the later prophets who wrote after Israel’s return from Babylonian Exile, and he references a multitude of earlier prophets from Amos to Zephania. What sets him apart from these predecessors is that he never accuses Israel of any specific sin.

His focus is on announcing that God’s judgment is near, but he never says why. Perhaps he doesn’t name specifics because other prophets already had. Or perhaps he doesn’t identify transgressions because he is more interested in dwelling on God’s nature and what it might look like to begin healing our relationship with him, however ashamed or estranged we may feel. In any case, the lack of specificity allows for a broad range of applications, including in our time.

The book is short—a mere three chapters—comprising poems that are powerful, puzzling, and rooted in earlier Scripture. Joel turns to Exodus and the prophets to make sense of the tragedies of his day, and in reflecting on God’s long history of faithfulness, he finds hope.

The first two chapters feature parallel poems. In the first, a swarm of locust has devastated Israel, recalling a long-ago “Day of the Lord” directed against Egypt, when Moses sought to free his people from enslavement. The eighth plague brought grasshoppers that

“covered the surface of the whole land, so that the land was black, and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees… in all the land of Egypt” (Ex 10:15).

The difference is that in Joel’s time, God sends the locusts against his own people.

The second poem mirrors the first by prophesying a ‘Day of the Lord’ that is to come. What initially appears to be another wave of locusts on the horizon soon shifts through an array of cataclysmic images.

Joel begins,

The Day of the Lord will be

a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness!

Like blackness spread upon the mountains
a great and powerful army comes;

Poetry allows for nuances and layers of meaning that translations can obscure. Where we have “blackness upon the mountains”, the Hebrew has darkness at dawn’s early light. While surely daybreak is a form of darkness, it is a darkness whose hours are numbered. A darkness on the cusp of dissipating.

For Joel, this darkness represents an imminent invasion. The Hebrew word translated “army” can simply mean “people”. In verses omitted from our lesson, the impending danger is said to be “like war horses, as with the rumbling of chariots, like warriors, like armies, like soldiers” suggesting that we are in the realm of metaphor that might apply to any number of threats. All we know is that that a powerful force is encroaching, and this is no foreign aggressor, but rather God himself is at the helm of the charge against his own people.

Richard Dawkins, a scientist and public intellectual known for his irreverent critique of religious belief writes, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it,” and describes him as a vindictive, bloodthirsty, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Truth be told, I often hear from Episcopalians who find themselves somewhere in this same camp, intent to draw clear lines between they perceive as the wrathful God of the Old Testament versus the gentle and forgiving God of the New. I hear widespread discomfort with depictions of God that are too intense. Modern sensibilities prefer a tamer God.

But cherry-picking parts of Scripture that appeal to us while rejecting others runs a real risk of making God into our own image. When we limit God to what we can make sense of, we stop short of encountering him in manifestations that are unsettling, yet hold transformative potential.

When we come across Biblical depictions of God that don’t fit with our views of him, I urge you to dig in deeper rather than dismissing them out of hand. The Bible is an entire library written in very different settings across a stretch of about 1500 years, and we are wise to be wary about generalizations. In fact, we find in the OT internal critiques of earlier interpretations of God’s nature and will. In quickly dismissing aspects of the OT God, we are in danger both of anti-Semitism and of missing out on glimpses of his glory. Jesus continually interprets Hebrew Scripture to reveal God’s nature. If we are to grow in our knowledge and love of God, we might reconsider what we initially find foreign and jarring.

Joel sees God as sweeping in with power to save his people from self-destruction. The imagery is echoed in John Donne’s sonnet “Batter my heart, three-person'd God.” For those of us who are not keen on the military metaphor, I would argue that the range of incongruous metaphors from locusts to darkness to cavalries suggests that the particular images are not essential to Joel’s message. What is crucial is the assertion that when we turn from God, he pursues us ardently, and he does not give up.

In Joel’s words,

“Yet even now, says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart”

“Yet even now” suggests even after all this time that you’ve turned your back, even after all that you have done that has grieved him, even now, he longs for connection. Joel emphasizes that this invitation to return is rooted in God’s graciousness and mercy.

Even as we feel overwhelmed by regrets and resist being seen as we truly are, God won’t let us be. Through his prophet he calls us surrender to him and to give up those things that are self-destructive and feed our illusions of self-sufficiency.

Today as we embark communally on a season of turning with fear and trembling to look candidly at our personal and societal transgressions, we pray for mercy as our defenses that hold God at bay crumble. And while the prospect of surveying ourselves is terrifying, take courage, beloved community, for the day of the Lord is near. We turn with Joel to Exodus and the prophets to make sense of the tragedies of our day, and in reflecting on God’s long history of faithfulness, we finds hope. Hope that God continues to counter evil and bring salvation.

The Danger of Hypocrisy to the Church and Ourselves

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 19:06:23 +0000

Isaiah gives voice to a scathing critique of the hypocrisy that is rampant among his people.

God exhorts the prophet, “Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Like a shofar!” Broadcast how his people have breached trust, how they have trespassed, how they have embraced and seized what is not theirs and failed those who are in need.

And what angers God here, more than how his people have turned from him, is the illusion they project of following him.

Day after day they present themselves as people who seek God and delight in his ways,

“as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness

and did not forsake the ordinance of their God”

“As if”.

The first part of Isaiah’s prophecy is a denunciation of those who have violated their relationship with God, in particular those who, in his words, fast without seeing, and after calling out for truth he goes on to outline how they might begin mending this catastrophic breach.

This prophecy is a condemnation of all who engage publicly or privately in religious practices while lacking integrity. In this case, he calls out those who fast but miss the mark, and he enumerates a number of entangled issues contribute to their falling short.

A key problem is that even as they fast they remain focused on themselves, and while they make a show of their piety, they exploit those upon whom their livelihood depends. Their negligence of the poor, lashing out, quarrelling, fighting, and striking betrays that even in fasting they remain stuck in destructive habits. What should be a deeply transformative spiritual practice is, in fact, superficial masquerading.

So why are they even bothering to fast? What motivates them? Perhaps they hold a transactional view of pious behaviors—if they do x they will find favor with God regardless of whatever else they do or leave undone. Or perhaps, they do something good to cancel out something regrettable. Or perhaps, as their lying in sackcloth and ashes suggests, their fasting is for mostly show. An effort to fool others, to fool themselves, maybe even to fool God. It’s probably some murky combination of all three factors. Whatever the intent, the prophet admonishes pious practices fall short of transformation. To be clear, this is no wholesale condemnation of fasting, but rather a pointed critique of distorted practices that have only the veneer of piety. “Such fasting,” Isaiah is clear, “will not make your voice heard on high.”

When I wear a collar, I seem to invite strangers in hospital elevators and grocery stores to share their views on God and church. When I’m tired and people tell me that they don’t believe in “organized religion”, my first thought is, “yeah, me either--we’re really not that organized.”

But if I can keep quiet a minute and ask what it is that the person in front of me doesn’t believe in or doesn’t like, to ask why it is that they’ve left church or have kept it at arm’s length, the answer is usually hypocrisy. They have been disillusioned by pious words and practices that are at odds with the rest of how self-professed Christians live. There is grave danger when their intent is transactional, when fasting doesn’t come with a cost, and when seemingly pious such words and behaviors manipulate and harm. There is no greater threat to the church than hypocrisy.

And while religious hypocrisy has a history older than the prophets and is certainly not only an American phenomenon, home is a good place to start airing dirty laundry. I’ll start us off by naming forms hypocrisy takes among leaders in Christian circles and leaders of our nation who claim to be Christian.

“Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a shofar!”

Shout out the hypocrisy of those who preach and campaign on traditional family values under the guise of protecting children while they turn a blind eye to those held in detention centers and block incriminating files held by the Justice Department.

Shout out the hypocrisy of those whose Scripture affirms that all are made in the divine image while deny dignity to humans from other backgrounds and stir up fear and loathing toward queer children of God.

Shout out the hypocrisy of those who sing praises to the Prince of Peace while threatening and perpetuating endless wars and violence.

Of those who disguise colonization as proselytizing and charity.

Of those whose Prosperity Gospel justifies lives of extravagant luxury.

Of those who send missionaries abroad but refuse to accept strangers into their own land or discover something new about through them.

Of those who promote God’s kingdom while turning away asylum seekers.

Of those who preach grace and mercy while instilling fear and detaining immigrants.

Shout out, do not hold back, lift up your voice and call out the hypocrisy of those who lament the arrest, kangaroo court trial, and violent death of their Savior under Roman law, while defending a justice system infested with police brutality, telling incarceration rates, corruption, and damning double-standards.

Or maybe, it’s hypocrisy among those whom we have known intimately—of parents or a pastor who act one way in church and another way at home or in the world.

Self-righteousness paired with a lack of integrity is what gives rise to Isaiah’s biting appraisal of a people who live “as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God.”

There is no defending the Church from those who are disillusioned by hypocrisy. The credibility of Jesus has been marred by the double-dealing of those who claim to follow him. Each of us has experienced two-facedness that can chip away at our faith, if not leave us feeling utterly gutted.

And while we can easily get swept up in the fervor of outrage, if we allow ourselves to sit in silence and listen for the Spirit, instances our own hypocrisy are likely to surface. Often as a whisper at first, but soon blaring like a shofar we would prefer to stifle with distractions. Not always, but outrage can be a form of distraction.

The picture in the first part of Isaiah’s prophecy as in our own times looks bleak, but following the truth-telling there’s a shift that ushers in hope: God remains in conversation even with those who have betrayed him in hollow acts of piety, and he offers guidance on how to fast in earnest. Fasting entails giving up something that we generally consider essential to our wellbeing.

Through the prophecy, God invites us to a new form of fast in which we forfeit something of our own as we participate in the struggle to lose bonds of injustice, free the oppressed, share our bread with the hungry, house the homeless poor, and clothe those in need. And true fasting comes at a cost, we cede one source of strength – though we also gain another.

In our surrender of self-reliance, the prophecy promises,

the light shall break forth like the dawn and you will be healed.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.

Repentance as Reorientation

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 19:04:24 +0000

In Matthew’s Gospel, the earliest scenes of Jesus as an adult establish his mission: the Messiah whom the prophets foretold has come to usher in God’s reign, he has come to continue the prophets’ call to repentance and reconciliation with God, and he has come to invite people from all backgrounds and walks of life to walk with him.

At this point in the story, Jesus has been baptized by John, tempted in the wilderness, and now, today’s reading begins with the arrest of a prophet who entreated his people to bear good fruit, and who called out a corrupt political ruler for immorality and violating the law.

This is the first we hear of John’s imprisonment, but Matthew saves the details and motives for his arrest for later. Here the focus is on Jesus. Here, we learn of John’s arrest because it serves as the catalyst for Jesus’ public ministry.

Hearing that John has been arrested, Jesus withdraws to his native region, but he does not return home. He leaves Nazareth some twenty miles west of Lake Galilee, and moves to the bustling town of Capernaum. Capernaum was a vibrant place with people from all over the world. It was situated on the lake and along an important international trade route that connected Egypt with Syria and Mesopotamia along the Mediterranean coast. The reference in our reading to “the road by the sea” is to this historic route, the Via Maris. Fishing and farming industries thrived here, and the town teemed with Roman soldiers and administrative officials, like Matthew the tax-collector, who would become a disciple. This town, at the intersection of so many people and cultures, is the place Jesus where makes his new home and where he launches his public ministry.

Besides being a good place to encounter a broad range of people, a place where word would spread far and wide, for the Evangelist, the location is important in establishing Jesus’ identity as the Messiah. As we’ve seen in the birth narratives, Matthew continually returns to the theme of pointing out how Jesus fulfills what was foretold in the Hebrew Bible, especially by Isaiah.

The prophecy that Matthew partly quotes and partly paraphrases comes from the Old Testament reading appointed for today. The context in the original is a bleak, war-torn ancient Israel under threat from Assyrian invasion. Partway through naming their racked reality for what it is, Isaiah’s tone shifts radically to a powerful message of hope. For those who were in anguish, there will be no more gloom. A "great light" is dawning with the arrival of a child who will bring peace and justice. This Messiah will reign over God's people, and fulfill promises of divine presence and deliverance.

Jesus’ mission is deeply rooted in the long story of God’s salvation, in the prophecies of old, and also of the ministry of John. Others have prepared the way for his ministry, and his identity as Messiah is confirmed by their words that came before him.

Beyond these deep roots, what stands out in Isaiah’s prophecy is that something new is dawning. As foretold, the Messiah has come to this region that is home to Gentiles, or in another translation, he has come to “Galilee of the nations.” This is a radical expansion in the mission of God to people of all ethnic backgrounds. In Matthew’s Gospel, his ministry primarily takes place in this region, and by its end, Jesus extends his power to the disciples in Galilee (28:16). True to its prophetic nature, this passage looks back at where God and his people have been, that looks around at where they are, and looks forward in hope of continuous reconciliation.

Matthew is truly the master of narrative patterns and framing that carry significant implications about who Jesus is, what his ministry is about, and what it means to follow him.

As noted earlier, John’s arrest is the catalyst of Jesus leaving home and embarking on his mission of preaching, teaching, and healing. There are several terms for “arrest” in Greek, and it’s noteworthy that the word for John’s imprisonment is the same that Matthew uses when Jesus is betrayed and handed over. In fact, Matthew really doubles down on this term that recurs 21 times in the few chapters of his passion narrative. The upshot is that right from the beginning, Matthew casts all that follows in the light of Jesus’ eventual arrest.

Moreover, partway through his ministry, this same word reappears when Jesus warns disciples about the consequences of following him: heads up, he tells them, they too can anticipate being handed over, betrayed, and imprisoned (Mt 10:17, 19, 21).

So right from the beginning, Matthew places Jesus’ ministry in several broader contexts: the fulfillment of ancient prophecies, his eventual arrest, and John the Baptist’s ministry.

Back on Advent 2, we heard John in the wilderness proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Mt 3:1-2) and preparing the way of the Lord, who shares this very same central message. This call for repentance was not original to John but was the standard Jewish means of reconciliation with God. “Repent” in Greek literally means “to change one’s mind”, but in this culture the term was loaded with overtones of its Hebrew counterpart, “turn” or “return”. The word does not entail feelings remorse but rather a concrete change of direction and action. “Reorient yourself; turn your gaze, and act on it” catches some of the connotations.

While “repent” is the first word in this summary of their preaching, this turning of one’s mind is actually a reaction to what has already taken place: the kingdom of heaven has already come near.

Let that sink in for a moment: the kingdom of heaven has already come near.

Reconciliation between God and humans does not begin with us, but rather with God, who in his mercy continues to take the first step in drawing near. John and Jesus, following the prophets of old, invite an active response. If we are to come to know God, our attention needs to shift from life as we have known it, from our own plans, our aspirations of self-sufficiency, and the places we have sought security and control.

As we look around at the world and our own lives, this is very good news. The kingdom of heaven has already come near, and we are invited to be transformed.

As Jesus walks by the sea, he invites two the sets of brothers to follow him.

What follows in the Gospel makes clear that this moment of answering Jesus’ call did not entail a recognition of who he was. All throughout his ministry, even to the very end, his followers are continually uncertain about who Jesus is and what he is doing. I’ve come across endless speculations of why the brothers left their nets, and while we can imagine various scenarios, I find that Matthew’s minimalist rendition is powerful in its omission of explanations.

Jesus did not entice them with a system of beliefs or practices, but rather there was something extraordinarily compelling about this man. God had come to dwell among them, and while they are a long way from understanding this, there is something about Jesus that leads them to take a risk, to leave their nets that symbolize any security they had, to turn their attention, and to embark on the long path of discovering who Jesus is and what this means for them.

Beloved community, the kingdom of heaven has already come near. What nets are you being called to leave behind? And how is Christ calling you to come to know him better through participation in his living body, the Church?

The Holy Family’s Flight to Egypt

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 19:02:59 +0000

Partway through college, I lived for a year in Cairo studying Arabic. Kamal, the father in my host family, had been raised Presbyterian; my host mother, Iman, was from a Coptic family. On Saturdays, we piled into a Nasr Fiat and drove from their apartment at the western edge of Cairo, across the Nile and through countless neighborhoods to Heliopolis, a suburb east of the city, where Iman’s parents lived. All afternoon and into the night we would talk and share stories and meals with her extended family. I will always be grateful that this family took me in, humored me as I mangled their language, showed me their culture, and shared their lives.

It was the late 90s, a world where phone calls were made from booths and emails were sent only from internet cafes, which made for such different ways of living with others and communicating. Google wasn’t a thing yet. I soon discovered my map wasn’t much help in this ancient city of winding streets, often without names. Egyptian Arabic is not a written language, forcing me out of my comfort zone of book learning. Cairo taught me so much, not least to keep my eyes and ears open, to engage with strangers and very different ways of seeing the world, and to talk even when I didn’t know all the right words, or when words weren’t coming out quite the way I’d intended.

In the entryway to the grandparents’ house hung a large framed painting of Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus with a donkey and date palm in the foreground, while the three pyramids of Giza featured prominently behind them. I found this picture absolutely captivating, in part, because it opened my eyes to a new way of seeing Jesus and the Holy Family in the context of a different culture and against the backdrop of a far greater swath of history.

Previously, my imagination of their flight to Egypt was largely shaped by Renaissance paintings with their stark contrast between darkness and light, particularly Caravaggio’s and Reubens’ depictions of Mother Mary tenderly cradling her infant. Their clothing and the countryside reflect the artists’ time and place--turn of 17th century Europe.

But here, in Heliopolis, among this family who traced their faith back to the decades following Jesus’s Resurrection, to the tradition that St Mark himself had brought the faith to Egypt, I came to see another facet of Jesus.

In the oldest neighborhood of Cairo, a fourth-century church—Abu Serga—stands on the site of a cave where the Holy Family is said to have rested on their journey. All around are the old walls of the Roman fortress, that according to tradition, Joseph helped build when he needed work in this foreign land.

In The Chosen—a multi-season TV show on Jesus’ life that I commend to you—is a scene where Jesus speaks with a woman from Egypt he and his followers meet on a road. The series is deeply grounded in Scripture and incorporates imagined elements that offer insights and interpretations to round out stories.

In this scene, Mary Magdalen has been making small talk with a woman wearing a distinctive necklace. Jesus asks her if it’s Egyptian. Yes, she grew up there. At this point Jesus shifts to speak to her in her native language, Coptic to respond, I grew up in Egypt, too. He says the necklace reminds him of things he saw there when he was a child. She introduces herself as Tamar from Heliopolis, and he replies, “Jesus of Nazareth. Peace to you, sister.” When they bid farewell, the disciples can’t hide their surprise: “You speak Egyptian?” and he relates the story of his early years that we heard today.

When the kings and the princes have gone home, an angel comes to Joseph in a dream and tells him to take the child and his mother, and seek sanctuary in Egypt. They leave under the cover of night. As the contemporary English poet—and my former priest—Malcolm Guite begins his sonnet on the Holy Family’s flight,

We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,

Or cosy in a crib beside the font,

But he is with a million displaced people

On the long road of weariness and want.

For even as we sing our final carol

His family is up and on that road,

Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel,

Glancing behind and shouldering their load.

It seems the king continued in pursuit of a child he perceived as a threat to his power, and they remain abroad some years.

When Herod dies, the angel again appears to Joseph in a dream, telling him to return to Canaan, but to a place considerably north of Bethlehem, near lake Galilee in Nazareth. In one sense they are returning to their own people, but it’s not their home. This is a story of a young family seeking refuge from violence, repeatedly compelled to uproot their lives, cross the wilderness, cross borders, and do their best to make a home so far from home.

As in Luke’s narrative we heard on Christmas Eve, Matthew’s telling underscores how Jesus’ family and birth upended expectations and inverted the values of the world, then and now. The Christ began his earthly journey on the road, and he is present even now with displaced people, “on the road of weariness and want.” He continues to travel with those crossing wastelands of rocks and sand, and with those crossing the rocky seas in search of shelter and safety. If we are to looking to encounter Jesus and grow in our love and knowledge of him, we’re likely to discover him on the road with migrant people.

Matthew’s Gospel reverberates with echoes of the Hebrew Bible as he weaves in phrases and patterns from Genesis and Exodus, and identifies fulfillment of prophecies. With this backdrop he is making claims about the Christ, and in this expanded context, multiple layers of meaning emerge.

Of all the books of the New Testament, Matthew is the book that draws the two Testaments together. This Gospel, written for Jewish readers, is making a case that Jesus was the long-expected Messiah fulfilling of the ancient promises of God to his people.

When Matthew cites the prophet Hosea, “Out of Egypt I have called my son,” he draws conclusions about fulfillment that are quite foreign to us. It’s helpful to remembers, as the Scottish theologian William Barclay observed, Matthew was writing, “not to convince a twentieth century Scotsman; it was written to convince a first century Jew” (pp. 8-9). This Gospel invites us to encounter Jesus in a different context from our own, and to see him from the perspective of another culture with different ways of thinking and speaking and viewing history.

Today’s passage reflects a multitude of stories from Genesis and Exodus, and holding them up together creates a fuller picture of the Christ. The names of his father, Joseph, son of Jacob, hearkens back to the Patriarchs. Both Josephs were saved by dreams, and both landed in Egypt, where their people were protected.

At the same time, Matthew establishes parallels between Joseph and Moses. The angel’s words, “those who were seeking the child’s life are dead” repeats the Lords words to Moses pertaining to Pharaoh (Ex 4.19), and Matthew depicts Jesus as reliving Israel’s escape from enslavement. In the chapters that follow, Jesus will spend 40 days in the wilderness echoing the years his people wandered in Sinai.

As the Season of Christmas draws to a close, Matthew challenges us with pictures of Jesus that are anything but “cosy in a crib beside the font.” As we head into a year with Matthew, let’s accompany each other in coming to see Jesus where we least expect him as we walk together through struggles and joys. Come, let us encourage one another in keeping our eyes and ears open, in engaging with strangers and very different ways of seeing the world, in talking even when not sure we have the right words. Come, let us venture together keeping eye out for the Christ taking on unexpected forms in Scripture, Sacraments, and song, and in each other. Come, let us adore him as we journey, “with a million displaced people/On the long road of weariness and want.”

The Beginning of Jesus in the Gospel of John

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 19:01:44 +0000

“But tell me this, and speak truly, who are you, and where do you come from? What city is yours, and who are your parents? At the outset of Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, asks a stranger this series of questions, which form a refrain all throughout his journey from youth to adulthood and also through his father’s long journey home from war.

These inquiries which echo through the oldest epic poetry, are the same questions we ask today as we get to know each other. Where do you come from? Where do you live? Who is your family? We ask in search of a context in which to see each other and in search of connections.

Our answers are often short, at first. And as we form relationships, we slowly disclose more. Different people will draw out different aspects of our stories. And over time, as we tell and retell, we come to see things about our origins, our people, and places, and how they have shaped who we.

The same is true in stories of the Christ. St. Matthew begins his Gospel with a genealogy of Jesus from his father, Joseph to the time of the Babylonian exile to King David to Father Abraham. St. Luke begins with Jesus’ mother and her family. Her cousin, Elizabeth, descended from the daughters of Aaron, Moses’ brother. Elizabeth is the wife of a priest and mother of John the Baptizer.

But when we come to the Fourth Gospel, the Evangelist plays with the conventions of biographical introductions and reframes how we come to know the Christ, the Messiah, who was foretold by the prophets. St. John begins much further back than Moses and Abraham, before time, before all things came to be. The first first words of his Gospel echo Genesis: en arche, “in the beginning”.

“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the face of the deep.” Genesis tells a story of what was before time, when all was formless and dark, when a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. The word translated ‘wind’ can also mean ‘breath’ or ‘spirit’. Formation and transformation come about through breath, through speech. God says, “Let there be light, and there was light”.

John recalls the creation story to recall who the Christ is and from whence he comes. This Christ does not have a beginning, but rather he is a beginning. All things came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being. The poetry of John’s prologue identifies the Christ as the Word of God, which was uttered to create, and separate, and name.

The books of Genesis and John both begin with poetry, and I venture that this is because, as T.S. Eliot observed, “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood” (Excerpts from Dante, 1929).

The images of darkness and light, water and world and word, flesh and life offer glimpses and reflections and echoes of a God whom we come to know through his breaking through silence and darkness.

The beauty of poetry is that it speaks to us on many different levels at once. Echoing the creation of light and life, John identifies the Christ with the God of Genesis. And at the same time, he points to a new creation that is ushered in by the Incarnation. While Genesis tells of matter put into motion by the breath of God, St. John tells of how God revealed himself in a new way through becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

This parallel between the creation and the Incarnation is recognized by the Scottish hymnwriter James Montgomery, as he addresses, “Angels, from the realms of glory,” who wing their flight o'er all the earth,

“Ye who sang creation's story,
Now proclaim Messiah's birth”

God’s first creation was light, and Montgomery notes that when these angels come to the shepherds in the depths of night, they receive a parallel message: “God with us is now residing; yonder shines the infant light.”

Tolstoy tells a story about a cobbler, Martin, who struggled with the darkness that descended when he lost his wife and children to illness. While he found consolation in reading the Gospels, in the lonely silence he wrestled with questions of how there could be a God who would permit such suffering. “Is there even a God?”, he wondered.

One night, he heard the voice of Jesus, saying that he would appear to him the following day. Martin wakes up early, and as he works at his bench, he catches a glimpse of an old man, Stepanitch, outside his window shoveling snow. As Martin stiches, the old man leans his spade against the wall, apparently resting, or trying to warm himself. “What if I called him in and gave him some tea?” Martin thinks, “the Samovar is just on the boil”. He invites him in, and they talk.

Later that day, Martin opens his home to a cold and hungry mother with an infant. He feeds her cabbage soup, asks her about herself, and gives her a cloak. That evening, Martin steps outdoors into the snow, to broker a peace between clashing neighbors.

Darkness falls, and as he lights a taper and reaches for his Bible, he hears the voice again.

“Martin, Martin, don’t you know me?”

“Who is it?” mutters Martin. And one by one, he sees the faces of all whom he reached out to serve. Tolstoy concludes the tale, “and Martin understood that his dream had come true, and that the Savior had really come to him that day, and he had welcomed him.

How do any of us know that there is a God, that he yearns for us, and that he came as Jesus to dwell among us. In Scripture and looking back at my life, I find a pattern of God communicating before we understand. He dwells among us, and we come to know him through conversations, encounters, stories, poetry, creation, the arts, and relationships, especially in caring for those in need.

On this fourth day of Christmas, we give thanks for the Incarnation. It is right to worship God by offering music, flowers, other gifts of beauty, as well as symbols of our harvest and labor in the bread and wine. But the celebration is just the beginning of the work of Christmas.

The words of Howard Thurman, an educator, theologian, and mentor of civil rights activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr. warrant repeating that we might take them to heart and internalize them this Christmastide:

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among others,

To make music in the heart.

My prayer for each of you, is that you may grow in this new year in the love and knowledge of God, a God who breaks through the darkness in creative ways, time and time again. My prayer is that that you may recognize him in others. And my prayer is that you might reflect his light as we embark together on the work of Christmas.

“Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives” (Collect of the Day).

Proclaim God in Christ!

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 21:52:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Karin J Ekholm, November 16, 2025

You may have heard that some time ago, NASA identified a giant meteor heading toward earth that was likely destroy all life. There is nothing like the literal end of life on earth to get people to church, and as a Baptist pastor, a Roman Catholic Father, and an Episcopal priest gathered Saturday morning for coffee, their conversation quickly turned to what they would preach the next day in the face of imminent end times.

The Baptist would preach on John 3:16—"For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life”—Pastor Chuck would bring people to be born again!

Father Joseph decided on Matthew 16—"on this rock,” our Lord says to Peter, “'I will build my church.” What mattered most was to remind his Roman Catholic flock that there is one true church in Christendom and of the importance of being right with Mother Church.

Finally, when they turned to the Episcopal priest she replied without hesitation, 'I will preach on the lectionary readings of the day.'”*

This task, my beloved community, this task of confronting what the lectionary throws at us, is the challenge and blessing of how we as a Church encounter Scripture together week after week. Some blissful Sundays, all four readings instantly speak to us, warming our hearts and filling us with wonder, love, and praise.

Other weeks, we might catch ourselves halfway through the Psalm wavering in spirit with a drastic shift from blessed assurance to vindictive cries. Our heart was in it, but suddenly we’re not so sure about the words we’re reciting. At times all of us half-heartedly mutter, “the Word of the Lord?” in response to perplexing or troubling passages that we struggle to reconcile with a God of love.

And then there are a string of Sundays as we approach Advent, when the lectionary throws one curveball after another. How is it that Jesus could promise to his followers who would be betrayed by love ones and persecuted, even to death, that not a hair on their heads would perish?

And what message can we find in these prophecies that feel foreign and unrelatable to us in our DMV worries late in 2025? How do the prophecies and promises in these ancient readings offer assurance in the face of pain, suffering, and mortality? Especially of those who have no power and of those whom we love so dearly?

Jesus and his followers have completed their long journey to Jerusalem we’ve been following since Pentecost. He’s teaching in the temple and proclaiming the good news as religious leaders question his authority and seek to trap him. Within days he will be betrayed and arrested. The end is at hand.

But at this point, the crowds are still enthralled by his teaching, and detractors remain guarded. Jesus engages in confrontations, and he publicly criticizes local authorities for being preoccupied with status and exploiting the poor. It’s in the thick of these escalating tensions that we find Jesus’ companions looking about and admiring their flashy surroundings.

By all accounts the newly-renovated temple really was magnificent. Herod had expanded the walled complex of buildings and plazas, and a contemporary, Josephus, relates that as the stones plated with gold reflected the sun, God’s dwelling resembled a snow-capped mountain.

As Jesus’ followers sat listening in courtyards under colonnades, I picture them looking something like a flock of tourists at the Jefferson Memorial. They are a long way for home, it’s been a long day, and during a lull, some turn their attention to the massive stones that must have lent a sense of grandeur, stability, and permanence.

Yet, as Jesus warns, these structures would soon be thrown down. Indeed, within decades, the Roman Empire destroyed Jerusalem to quash insurrections. On one level, Jesus’ prophecy that not one stone will be left upon another was soon be fulfilled, but on another level, his teaching is more universal.

Those listening think that he is speaking of some form of deliverance from God, and their first questions are about signs and timing. But notice that Jesus doesn’t answer these queries, except to counter expectations that the time is near. When he speaks of kingdoms rising, plagues, famines, and celestial signs—he borrows language from apocalyptic literature—but this is not where he lingers. The end of the temple would not be the end of the world. As Eugene Peterson renders these lines in The Message, “When you hear of wars and uprisings, keep your head and don’t panic. This is routine history and no sign of the end.”

Here—as throughout his ministry—Jesus defies popular hopes for swift deliverance. He defies hopes that God would run interference to save his people from an oppressive and exploitative empire. In fact, Jesus confirms that imminent threats are at hand: the temple will tumble, persecutions will follow, and the closest of relationships will falter.

Where is consolation or hope in any of this? What has become of the new heaven and new earth that the Prophet Isaiah heralded, where the sound of weeping or cry of distress shall be heard no more, where our work is not in vain, and the wolf and lamb shall feed together?

Are these but empty pipe dreams to sooth the suffering? Was Marx onto something in identifying religion as “the opium of the people" that provides an illusory escape and prevents them from addressing the material cause of their oppression?

In our time, when church attendance is no longer a societal expectation, why do you keep coming? To be lulled into serenity by the beauty of the music and ceremony? To cling to a pacifying illusion? Or do you come because two millennia later, you recognize our world in Jesus’ prophecies: we are bombarded by news of wars, insurrections, and earthquakes. Hunger threatens. Dreams are shatter by diagnoses and job cuts. Relationships and plans fall apart. These are natural consequences, don’t look for signs here, Jesus says.

But in the midst of the uncertainty and heartache, I find it deeply reassuring that Scripture does not gloss over the agony but offers guidance in times of trial and tribulation. We are not promised smooth sailing, but we are assured that in the midst of the storm we are not alone. When the world seems to crumple we are given opportunities to preach in words and through deeds.

The Baptist and Roman Catholic in the joke had clarity on the central message of hope they would convey as the meteor approached. While the lectionary requires us to wrestle with difficult passages, Scripture also calls each of us to “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). When everything’s falling apart, what account of your hope might you offer? Where have you seen God, and what witness can you bear?

While I give thanks that we are spared the persecution of the faithful in other times and places, make no mistake, we are inundated by voices that claim the authority of Christ while their words and deeds run counter to his message of radical love. Our Baptismal liturgy requires of us all, “to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ” (BCP, 304), and in this time of clanging distortions of the Gospel, you are called to bear witness.

If this terrifies you more than toppling towers, then I have good news for you:

I hear and see you proclaim God in Christ all the time.

You proclaim God in Christ when you reach out to someone you do not know after services.

You proclaim God in Christ when you volunteer to hand out food to the hungry.

You proclaim God in Christ when you proclaim that members of the LGBTQ+ community are made in God’s image and diversity are a reflection of his creativity and beauty.

You proclaim God in Christ when you gather at the bedside of the elderly and infirm to sing, pray, sooth, and laugh together.

You proclaim God in Christ when you accompany each other through the valley of the shadow of death as you sit with the dying and those who weep, listen to stories, and bear witness to the blessed hope of everlasting life.

Do not be afraid, for when darkness encroaches Jesus provides words and wisdom as long as we keep showing up. His Spirit sheds light as long as we keep wrestling with Scripture. Proclaiming our faith is not a matter of erudite apologetics, but of discovering what keeps you coming to church. Through these practices you will prepared to counter distortions of the Gospel, offer an account of your hope, and by word and example testify of the Good News of God in Christ.

* My version of a joke told by the Dean of Virginia Theological Seminary, the Very Reverend Ian S. Markham, PhD.

Joining Our Voices with All the Company of Heaven

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 18:50:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Karin J Ekholm, Feast of All Saints ~ November 2nd, 2025

“I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers” (Ephesians 1:15-16)

“Saint” here, in Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, refers simply to members of the Christian community. Throughout the epistles, this is how the term was used, though later it came to be limited to persons whose lives were perceived as heroic. This morning, we celebrate the Feast of All Saints or All Hallows. Feasts always begin the prior eve, in this case, Hallowe’en, and over time, the Church set aside another day to remember that vast body of the faithful who are unknown in the wider fellowship of believers. These three days of Allhallowtide are a time of remembering those who have passed by lighting candles, visiting cemeteries, and special prayers. In my family, since the death of my grandma, we have added fourth day of remembering on her birthday, October 30th.

This past week, grandma Elsie would have been 101. My sister, cousins, and I live far apart from each other, but every year, wherever we are, we do one of the things she loved best: we eat ice-cream. This year, my son and I honored grandma with vanilla ice-cream and a pie we baked from apples that we picked at an orchard off I-66.

Marco is thirteen so he never met his great-grandmother, but I tell him stories about her, how she was born to Swedish immigrants in Minnesota, how her father and brother died from tuberculosis when she was a toddler, how then she and her mother, Karin--a seamstress whom I was named for--returned by boat to rural Sweden where they stayed until grandma Elsie was a teenager.

I have shown Marco little black-and-white pictures of her wedding day with a big bouquet of roses and grandpa in a WWII uniform. She was only 19, and looking at the pictures I wonder whether she knew of the mental health struggles that plagued my grandfather from the days of the war until he passed. In all my memories of my grandfather, he was contending with depression, but my father remembers him as a strong man who worked for Mayflower moving company, who was active in youth ministry at their Swedish Covenant Church, and who was occasionally hospitalized for depression. Midcentury Swedes didn’t talk about personal matters, and I can only imagine how hard these times were for my grandparents as they raised three children.

My mother is from rural East Texas, and she was one of eleven children. She tells stories of picking watermelons and sugar cane, bottle-feeding a calf, and how her mother, Fay Nell, sewed their undergarments from flour sacks. Her father was an orphan of the Great Depression. Hard lives and hard work took a toll on her parents, and they died in their early 50s, some years before I was born. Though I never met them, as girls, my sister and I pretended to call her on the telephone and talk with her in heaven. I don’t know we started, but it helped me in my longing for connection with a grandmother I knew only from photographs and stories.

Many forms of longing attend memories and stories of loved ones who have died: we might wish we could go back in time to be with them again, even for a moment, or that we could show them where we are now. We long to tell them how much we love them, to thank them for who they made us or to apologize. Often our relationships with those who have died were complicated, and a lot was left unresolved when they departed. Knowing what we know now, we yearn for more time to tell them what we couldn’t say back then.

Many of you have related memories of family members and loved ones who have died. It means a lot to me when you share these stories. It’s important we remember those who have gone before and that we recognize how they made us who we are. Talking about the dead is important for our wellbeing, it helps build and strengthen our relationships with each other, and it plays an essential role in how we understand ourselves as spiritual beings and members of God’s Church.

Our culture puts considerable pressure on us to establish an identity as though it were a product that we can construct. The truth is that we are shaped largely by the people we have known and by our understanding of God, who has revealed himself in relationship.

God so loved each of us that he came as a human to show us how to love and live in community. When we celebrate Communion today, we remember Jesus’ final dinner with his closest companions. Our opening prayer recalls that after he was betrayed and crucified, Jesus “overcame death and the grave, and by his glorious resurrection opened to us the way of everlasting life.” The prayer goes on to petition that at the last day we be brought with all God’s saints into joy of his eternal kingdom. Because Christ overcame death, we live with the assurance that we will be reunited with those whom we have lost.

But this prayer not only remembers Jesus’ sacrifice as we look forward in hope, but importantly, also speaks to the present. We offer praise and proclaim that we join “our voices with Angels and Archangels and with all the company of heaven, who for ever sing this hymn to proclaim the glory of your Name: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.”

C.S. Lewis referenced this prayer when he observed that while Christians are divided on “praying to the saints, we are all agreed about praying with them” (Letters to Malcolm, letter 3). I find deep consolation and spiritual strength in knowing that even here and now we are joined with this great cloud of witnesses in song and prayer.

We are shaped by how we pray, and we sound new depths of community when we come together in prayer. In learning about the lives of saints and sharing stories, we discover a magnificent diversity of ways in which to reflect God’s love. As Lewis keenly observes,

“How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints” (Mere Christianity, 190).

At the heart of Luke’s gospel is the story of the great reversal by which God scatters the proud in their conceit, casts down the mighty from their thrones, lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty. Every one of us is invited to participate. As nearly 42 million Americans lost access to food aid, affordable healthcare is threatened, and electricity prices soar as the days grow colder and darker, we the Church are the hands and feet and ears and voice of Christ, caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, and walking alongside those in sorrow.

Beloved community, many of you have experienced the loss of people who were at the very center of your lives. Today is a day to remember them, to share stories about them, to find encouragement in their example, to receive Christ’s assurance that those who weep will be comforted, to pray with and for them, and to give thanks for the hope we find in life everlasting. Join in their song and carry on their ministry by bringing your unique self, shaped by the people you have loved, to reflect God’s grace and mercy, and to participate in the blessing of his great reversal.

Ensnared by Contempt

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 17:52:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm, October 26, 2025

We live in a culture saturated with contempt. On all political sides, we sense fear of what might become of our country, and in sincere efforts to stop what feels like the dark encroaching of catastrophe, we have stopped engaging in good faith. It has become almost impossible to have meaningful conversations across our differences. In the extreme, outrage takes pride in superiority and dehumanizes others.

In the summer of 2024, the media host Jack Posobiec and ghostwriter Joshua Lisec published a book titled Unhuman. Their central claim is that their political opponents do not hold the status of human beings — that they are, as the title says, “unhumans” who are waging war against all that is good and decent.

Posobiec, who has a long history of promoting white supremacist content, is hardly on the fringes of public discourse. He has garnered well over three million followers on X (formerly Twitter), and JD Vance and Tucker Carlson are among several powerful voices who promoted his book in which he hails far-right nationalist leaders, including Augusto Pinochet and Francisco Franco, as political models for today.

In his discussion of Franco, Posobiec characterizes the Spanish Civil War as, “a righteous, justified war for the sake of the cross—that is, for the honor and glory of Jesus Christ.” He condones violence for the advancement of Christian nationalism and insist on the complete dehumanization of political opponents. The book is rife with contempt for those whom he dismisses as “unhumans,” and in reading, I, in turn, find myself flooded with contempt for Posobiec’s views.

If we were to meet, one of the few things might have in common would be the thought,

“God, I thank you that I am not like that person.”

Today’s Gospel reading posits a challenge to all of us who find ourselves in a continual state of outrage over the current political and social climate in our country.

Jesus tells a parable to an unidentified group who were confident in their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else. In the story, two men in Jerusalem of the same faith go up from the city to the Temple to pray. The hearer is expected to recognize the Pharisee as a devout person—an insider—and the tax collector as a stereotypical sinner—an outsider. But we learn something more about who these two men by the way they pray.

The Pharisees were a Jewish movement that emphasized the importance of obedience to the law of Moses. Their attention to ritual was part of a larger effort to encounter God’s holiness in everyday life. They debated how exactly Jewish values should express themselves in a changing cultural landscape, and their emphasis on interpreting the law and providing practical guidelines helps explain why they were continually interacting with Jesus. In fact, many followers of the Jesus’ movement were Pharisees (Lk 13:33, 19:39; Acts 15: 5, 23:6).

In this particular story, the Pharisee is a man who sees himself as having followed the law, which required observant Jews to separate themselves from others to maintain their purity before God. When the Pharisee in the parable stands by himself in the Temple, he is taking a position that reflects his identity.

The tax collector, by contrast, stands “far off”, a position that anticipates his confession of unworthiness before God. Tax collectors were targets of scorn both for colluding with the Roman oppressors and exhorting a fee on top of tolls, tariffs, and custom fees owed to the Empire. We are to see this man as unjust, treasonous, and exploitative. His position, posture, and prayer reflect that he knows this about himself.

The narrator’s initial characterization of the Pharisee as regarding others with contempt is confirmed by his own words. While he ostensibly offers thanksgiving, his is a self-serving prayer thanking God that he’s not like other people, including the tax collector. His prayer brims with virtue signaling: in a string of “I” statements he boats how he outdoes others in religious practices. His rigorous fasting and tithing are evidence of his piety, and he may, in fact, be doing all the right things.

The tax collector cannot even bring himself to adopt the customary prayer position of looking up to God with hands raised. His head is bowed in shame and he beats his breast as a sign of remorse or grief. It seems he has good reason to cower before God.

While the Pharisee asks nothing of God, the tax collector identifies as a sinner and begs for clemency. His prayer echoes the opening words of Psalm 51, “Have mercy on me, O God”, and we find echoes here of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where the younger son who broke his father’s heart and squandered his inheritance is welcomed upon his return with open arms and a celebration, while the dutiful brother is ensnared by contempt.

Recently, when our LCF class reflected on the latter story, some of us who identified with the responsible elder brother conceded that we found it difficult to accept that the reckless brother is welcomed and feted. The same might be said for the men praying in the Temple.

In the end, the tax collector is justified while the Pharisee is not, though the rationale for this judgment is not altogether clear. After all, it seems that the Pharisee had done what was expected of him. The parable leaves the hearer with questions to ponder.

Does his separating himself from others separate him from God?
Does his lack of humility or confidence in his own virtue exclude him from God’s grace?

The final coda generalizes the teaching and prevents us from disparaging any one group. The point of the parable is not to call out Pharisees but rather to invite internalization by every reader because it speaks to something deep within the heart of every human. What comes from God can so easily be turned into self-accomplishment; our striving to do the right thing can so easily turn into conceit.

While the Pharisee functions as an embodiment of contempt and arrogance, in looking down on him we fall prey to the very contempt that the story warns against. The story compels us to confront the attitude of the Pharisee in our own hearts. In our outrage we will find ourselves cut off from our neighbor and from God. As long as we fixated on judging others as wretched, we will struggle to recognize our own dependence on grace. The antidote to dehumanizing others lies in the humility and the recognition of our own need for mercy.

While this parable taken in isolation might suggest that we should focus only on our own shortcomings and not call out injustices of others, this interpretation skews the story by taking it out of the larger context. Luke’s gospel is characterized by great reversals calling out for transformation. From the Song of Mary’s proclamation that the humble shall be raised up, to the Beatitudes and Woes, and all throughout the parables, we discover God continually reaching out in mercy to draw near the poor, the marginalized, and the stranger. The Gospels cannot be reconciled with dehumanizing contempt or supremacist agendas.

In the words of the prophet Micah, as inscribed on the signs outside our church doors, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Navigating the tension between justice, mercy, and humility entails continual discernment. The former Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, has said that we need to learn to stand and kneel at the same time. What he meant is that we, as Christians, are to stand for what we believe is right and to challenge injustice, but to do so with a humble spirit that recognizes the inherent dignity and humanity in every person.

Made Whole in Thanksgiving

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 17:55:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm, October 12, 2025

Jesus is on the road with his followers from his home in Galilee to celebrate the Feast of the Passover in Jerusalem. Between the northern region and the holy city lay Samaria, home to an ethnic group despised by their neighbors. Midway on their journey, they pass through something of a No Man’s land. In the middle of nowhere, they come to a village that neither group claims as their own.

As they approach, Jesus hears his name called out from a distance. At first, he doesn’t see who’s calling, and when he does, he recognizes their suffering. These men were outcasts who had banded together in their common affliction. Jesus’ reputation as a healer had preceded him, and when he arrives, they stand at a distance and lift up their voices to plead for mercy. Beyond the physical pain, this skin diseases forced them to live outside their community and warn others of their status by shouting, “Unclean, unclean!”.

Biblical purity codes also barred them from participating in religious life and entering the Temple. If their condition healed, a priest would perform a ritual, including an animal sacrifice, cleansing, and anointing with blood and oil, to declare them ritually pure again and welcome them back into the community. For the afflicted and their loved ones, this was a return from the valley of the shadow to new life. Here on the road to Jerusalem, we receive a foretaste of Jesus’ abandonment, death, and return to life.

Unlike other healing stories, here Jesus does not cure immediately, but rather he sends the afflicted ahead to the Temple. Their departure suggests trust in Jesus, and in following his charge they are made clean as they journey. It seems they’re already some distance away, and only one—a Samaritan—turns back, glorifies God with a loud voice, falls on his face at the feet of Jesus, and gives thanks.

This is a striking image of conversion—of a man a returning after an encounter with Christ to recognize the source of his transformation and salvation. The Turning back signals recognition of Jesus’ divinity and a complete change in the direction of the lives of those affected. While roads, journeys, and travelers who return transformed feature across the New Testament, they are especially prevalent in St. Luke’s telling of the salvation story.

The Samaritan whose life had been marked by calling out a warning to identify himself as unclean and who called out from a distance for mercy, now turns back belting out praises to God in a loud voice. He can’t contain himself in the joy of his salvation. Imagine his new-found freedom to approach another person, the loss of shame from being ostracized, and the hope of being welcomed back into community and religious life. I picture him singing songs and Psalms of thanksgiving at the top of his voice as he runs, healed, to the feet of Christ.

The original Greek describes him as falling on his face, and in this act of profound reverence and surrender, he gives thanks. Jesus receives him with queries about why the others did not return to give glory to God. These questions bear powerful implications: Jesus recognizes the foreigner for understanding something the others failed to see, and he identifies as divine. Here in the middle of nowhere in the space between regions, God reveals himself journeying alongside those on the margins and outcasts. Alongside those who have lost their home and call out from a distance for mercy and compassion.

In the reading that directly precedes this passage, which we heard last week, Jesus teaches the apostles of the power of faith. Here, as he sends the Samaritan on his way, he identifies faith as the source of his being made well. While the other nine were healed in body, it seems that in returning to Jesus, the Samaritan receives a further blessing of being made well. The word translated “well” also means “made whole” or “saved”—beyond health and the freedom to re-enter society, he has been further transformed by recognizing Jesus and giving thanks.

The word here for give thanks is “εὐχαριστέω” from which we derive the term Eucharist, the Sacrament which we are transformed and drawn close to Christ in praise and thanksgiving.

Our liturgy and rituals have deep roots in the Passover and Exodus, though symbols are given additional layers of meaning. There are also strong parallels between the healing of the Samaritan and the celebration of Holy Eucharist.

In the first half of our service, we recognize our need for the cleansing, deliverance, and healing of our hearts. Our prayers describe the Eucharist as a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise, and we prepare for the Feast by bringing symbolic gifts of our labor and sustenance to the altar. Our liturgy begins by bidding all who have gathered to lift their hearts in thanks, and at the center of our Eucharistic prayers, lies the Great Thanksgiving. Here we recall salvation history and recognize the Triune God dwelling among us who creates, heals, and sustains. The process of this recitation stirs our hearts to praise. Truly, praying shapes believing.

The “Amen” to the Great Thanksgiving is the people’s affirmation of the prayer and the culmination of the service. For Episcopalians, it is in the moment when the assembly recognizes the truth of the spoken prayers that the gifts on the altar are transformed. We gather at the foot of the cross of the resurrected Christ to receive him.

Like the Samaritan, we are healed, cleansed, and drawn close to God by his mercy. The moments when we recognize Him are filled with praise and thanks. And when we struggle to see him, giving thanks for what we remember fosters faith. In many ways, these days, we find ourselves in an in-between space filled with uncertainties and enmity, and week after week return to the Altar to be reminded and strengthened on our journey. Gratitude is a spiritual practice. By turning our attention back to our baptismal identify as people who are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever, we are made whole and sent into the world to love and serve and bear witness to the risen Lord.

The sacrifices we bring to the altar include symbols of many kinds. We bring not simply a harvest of wheat and grapes but bread and wine, the products of human art. We also bring a monetary offering in thanks for what we have received. The plate is blessed as a symbol of the funds you pledge in the faith that they will be used to the service and glory of God.

As we enter Stewardship season, commit to praying about what portion of your income you will offer as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving on Gathering Sunday. Stewardship campaigns are not fundraisers for a good cause, but rather an invitation to participate in the spiritual practice of thanksgiving.

Giving to the church—the living body of Christ—is an opportunity to give thanks for God’s self-revelation and recognize the many blessings of this life. Just as we encounter Christ in the elements of bread and wine, we come to know and glorify him through giving generously from the fruit of our labor with hearts overflowing. And as the grateful Samaritan, we are blessed and transformed every time we turn back to Christ with praise and thanksgiving.

In the Shelter and Shadow of God

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 17:56:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm, September 28, 2025

In the wake of World War II, a German prisoner of war filled with the shame of his nation, found that the Psalms, "voiced the cry of his own heart." Jürgen Moltmann had grown up in a secular family with no religious background. He had surrendered to British forces in ‘45, and during his captivity a chaplain gave him a small army-issued New Testament and Psalter. It was through the Psalms that he found his eyes opening, “to the God who is with those ‘that are of a broken heart.’”

At the age of sixteen, he and his whole school class had been drafted into the German Army and put in anti-aircraft batteries in nearby Hamburg. That summer, the Allies firebombed the city in a campaign code-named Operation Gomorrah. Over the course of ten days 40,000 people, mostly civilians were killed. One of these nights, a bomb claimed the life of a close friend who had been standing at his shoulder. In the midst of the terror and carnage, Moltmann, for first time in his life, found himself calling out to God.

Following the war, he spent three years in POW camps in Belgium, England, and Scotland, where he and fellow soldiers first heard of their country’s crimes and atrocities. As he learned the truth about the Nazis, he experienced an inconsolable grief and burden of guilt, and he saw how other prisoners collapsed inwardly and often fell sick from loss of hope.

In the evenings, as he walked the perimeter of barbed wire for exercise, Moltmann circled a small hill topped with a hut that served as camp chapel. Over time, this site became for him a symbol of God’s presence in the midst of suffering. Later he observed that he found God “even behind the barbed wire—no!” he corrected himself, he found God present, “most of all behind the barbed wire.” (Experiences of God, 6f.)

The portion of Psalm 91 appointed for today presents three voices in conversation about God’s abiding presence in times of trouble. The Psalmist opens with a poetic depiction of the person who lingers in the shelter and shadow of God. In a land that consists mostly of open, dry and rocky wilderness a resting place shielded from sun and foes was a matter of survival.

Following this brief introduction, there is a shift in narrator. The person dwelling in safety, now speaks, and we listen in as they address the Lord. This second speaker recognizes the source of their security, affirms their trust, and offers eight evocative metaphors for how God is present and active in the midst of human anguish and anxiety.

The graphic catalogue of dangers—hidden traps, arrows, terrors, pestilences, plagues, and sickness—calls to mind memories of pain, peril, and loss, and names many of our deepest fears. While series such as these are usually punctuated by petitions to form a litany, this Psalm is entirely devoid of requests. There is no pleading “Lord, hear our prayer” or “Lord, deliver us”. Instead, the speaker conveys absolute assurance that none of these hazards can cause harm.

The effect is to instill confidence and courage in their trust that

God liberates those who are hunted, ensnared, and infirm.
God embraces and encloses like a mother bird sheltering her young beneath her wing.
And, God’s faithfulness, like a shield and buckler, serves as a buffer between us and assailants of all kinds.

And yet, our lives and the news daily seem to belie that God intervenes to ward off dangers. Good people suffer violence, injuries, and diseases. People who trust in God experience poverty and hunger. People who call on God are broken in body, mind, and spirit. What are we to make of the Psalmist’s trust?

In the final three verses, the speaker changes again, and we hear directly from God who offers assurance that he will respond when called upon. As the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann observes, the Psalter rarely exhibits extended one-way speech. More often, Psalms are characterized by dialogue and shifts in perspective. God’s reply assumes that people will experience suffering and hardship, and he might even be offering a gentle corrective to the second speaker.

God does not offer immunity from danger, but he promises to be present in times of trouble. No one is exempt from suffering and shame, but in our struggles, we remain bound to him in love. As Moltmann observes, this sense of God’s presence in the face of pain and humiliation found its fulfillment in Christ crucified.

Moltmann died last year, at the age of 98, one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the past century. The central question that motivated his work was how to respond in the aftermath of such evil committed by one’s own people. For him this meant wrestling with the question how to find a life and hope ‘after Auschwitz’. What is the equivalent question we might ask on this side of the Atlantic?

The year as Moltmann was born, a black man named Raymond Byrd was taken from a jail and lynched by a white mob in Wytheville, Virginia. One of the black men guarding the county jail that night had a child twelve years later, John, who grew up to ask questions about what happened, why it happened, and who was involved. Over decades, John Johnson interviewed locals, including one of Byrd’s daughters, who shared stories, photographs, documents, and artifacts, and he also researched the stories of other Virginians who had faced the same fate.

A few years ago, Johnson was befriended by Saint George’s Men’s Group, and he came to preach from this pulpit. He too, died last year, and next Sunday at Choral Evensong, we as a community will honor Johnson, the stories he told, and the victims of racial violence. Come. Come to recognize what took place, to remember, and to consider in the context of worship, how to find life and hope after Wytheville.

Hope, Moltmann observed, “does not make people serene and placid; it makes them restless. It does not make them patient; it makes them impatient. Instead of being reconciled to existing reality they begin to suffer from it and to resist it” (EG, 12)

If there is one thing I have learned from walking alongside those in the valley of the shadow of death, from the stories of saints, from those on wrong side of history, and from dark nights of wrestling with Angels, it is that God is present, especially behind the barbed wire, in firestorms, prisons, hospitals, and at the lynching tree. And with Moltmann, “I am convinced that God is with those who suffer violence and injustice and he is on their side. He is not the general director of the theater, he is in the play.”

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 14 Sep 2025 20:31:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia, Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost/Retirement Sunday, September 14th, 2025

Wow, this is amazing! Thank-you so much to each and every one of you for being here today. It looks like Easter! You all know how much I LOVE a packed church, and what a lovely gift you have given me in making that so today. Thank-you, from the bottom of my heart, thank-you. And I am so grateful to our family for being here today, our children, granddaughters, son-in-law, my brother, sister-in laws, and nephew. I can feel the love from everyone, lots of love, my love for you, your love for me and for Robbie, and most importantly, the love that all of us have for God and for this wonderful faith community. We have dwelled in that love for the past 15 years and it has been such a blessing, but that love story actually began many years ago….

Once upon a time, 1908 to be exact, long before high-rises and Metro lines, long before affluent residents with graduate degrees, a humble, faithful group of working-class people in the little villages of Ballston and Clarendon started worshipping together on the porch of someone’s home. They had a priest from the Falls Church, just a few miles away, who led services for them, but they wanted a church in their own neighborhood. They worked hard and raised money and Saint George’s Episcopal Church was born. Over the years, various rectors have served for a period of time, partnering with the parish to do God’s work. Each period has brought its own joys and challenges. World War I, World War II, the vicissitudes of life only a few short Metro stops from Washington, and many changes, both inside and outside the church. The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and Saint George’s opening her doors for people to sleep on the parish hall floor who were here for the Poor People’s March on Washington. Women beginning to serve in lay leadership roles starting in the late 1960s, the first women ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church in 1974, a new Book of Common Prayer in 1979, the founding of Iglesia San Jose in our chapel, the first Spanish speaking mission in our diocese, which is still going strong today, the election of the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church in 2000, and through it all, Saint George’s has wrestled with all of the questions of societal change and all of the questions of faith that those changes pose. The Reverend Hedley Williams, who was the rector here from 1945 to 1973, during many of the changes, external, and internal, said this about Saint George’s.

“Always in turnover, always in ferment, like yeast. New people, new ideas, give no chance to get stale or in a rut. Saint George’s seems to have room for all points of view.”

These words still ring true today. Saint George’s is still a vibrant, engaged, faith community, that maintains our down-to-earth, unpretentious way of being, that has been with us since our founding, as we strive to live out our Christian faith in our own day and time, putting into practice Jesus’ commandment to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, working for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every person, especially people who have different ideas and beliefs than we do. And that is exceedingly important, especially when we are living in an era when people are increasingly resorting to violence against those with whom they differ. As people of faith, we are called to do the hard work of loving others and striving for the common good.

The foundation of our life together in Christian community is our love for Jesus and our love for one another. Saint Georgians are easy to love, which is why there have only been four rectors here since the 1940s. The Reverends Hedley Williams, Bob Hall, Ron Crocker and me. And whomever you call next will be welcomed into that love, just as you welcomed me. As Saint Paul reminds us today in his First Letter to the Church in Corinth,

What then is Hedley? What is Bob, or Ron or Shearon? A spiritual leader is important in any given church community, but it’s not about us, it is about the ministry that God has called us ALL to do in sharing the good news of Jesus with a world very much in need of the healing love that he offers us. And as you enter this transition period, it is especially important to remember that it takes everyone, each and every one of you working together.

Our 15 years together have been such a blessing to me. God has done many things through our life together, growing in our understanding and expression of inclusion as a Gospel value, the renovation of our nave, which made our worship space more accessible to all, and the installation of our new organ that helps us to lift our voice in joyful praise to God. And all of this in addition to baptisms and weddings and funerals and ordinary Sundays when we came to church and prayed, sang, listened to Scripture, received communion, shared our joys and challenges with friends, and went home with the peace that passes all understanding that we didn’t have when we got here that morning.

Paul reminds the Church in Corinth that Christian community is a partnership. The basis of the Church is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the people of each age build upon that foundation that was laid over two millennia ago.

My prayer for all of you today, my friends, is that you will continue to build on that firm foundation that Jesus laid, and so many others have built upon, continuing Saint George’s witness through your faithfulness, gratitude, generosity, and most of all, love. And as you have heard me say many times before, faithfulness, gratitude, generosity and love are spiritual practices. Faithfulness looks like showing up, coming to church even when you don’t feel like it, because that is when we need each other the most. Showing up with all of your questions, your doubts, your belief, and seeking the wisdom that 2,000 years of Christian tradition offers. Gratitude looks like thanking God for the gift of each new day and expressing thanks to the people in our lives in very specific ways every day. Generosity looks like having a kind and giving spirit toward others and giving as generously as you are able of your time and money in order for Saint George’s ministry to continue to grow and thrive. And love looks like worshipping God and caring for the needs of others, knowing that every person we meet bears Christ ‘s image, and trusting, trusting with all your heart, that God really can overcome hatred through the power of love.

Because love is much more powerful than hate. It is the greatest force in the universe. God created the world and all of creation out of love. Love binds everything together. God made us out of a desire to be in relationship with us and longs for us to live in peace with others. Jesus came to show us what that looks like. And we do our best to walk his path of love, but life is hard, life can be very hard, and there is so much in this world that tries to pull us away, that pulls us away from that loving center that is deep within each of us, where we hear that still small voice that tells us, “I delight in you. You are my beloved.” We forget, every week we forget, so we come back to church on Sunday to be reminded again, and again, and again, that we are the apple of God’s eye and that we are called to operate out of that love as we work for justice and peace in this world that Jesus came to save.

I feel confident, my friends, that you will continue to love one another until your new Priest-in-Charge is called in early 2026, and far into the future. I know you will love and support your gifted Associate Rector, Mother Karin, as she loves and supports you. I am confident that you will encourage our wonderful wardens, Liza Lowe and Victor Tolomeo, our treasurer, Lisa Green, the Priest-in-Charge discernment committee, chaired by Darren Hekhuis, and all of our amazing ministry leaders, along with our talented, committed staff, Dr. Ben Keseley, Jenice Jones-Porter, Elena Keydel, Wardell Mills, James Petway, Maurice Williams , Malek Wyatt and our livestream director, Kevin Crawford. God is leading Saint George’s into a hopeful future as you continue to love God and love each other. Thank-you, my dear friends, for the love you have shown Robbie and me these past 15 years.

“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth…The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose…For we are God’s co-workers, working together….For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 3: 4-11

Works in Progress

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 17:58:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Karin J Ekholm, September 7, 2025

Next week, my high school class will gather to mark 30 years since our graduation. As scans of old film photographs are shared on WhatsApp, I find all kinds of memories surfacing and I’m noticing things I didn’t know at the time. Middle and upper school was a time of many transitions for me. Most of my younger years we lived in a small town in southern Germany, when it was still divided from the East by a wall. We then spent some time in England before returning to Vienna, Austria, where my parents had lived when I was born. My junior year, I moved schools again, locally this time, to attended a United Nations-sponsored school with students from all across the globe. While I cherish these opportunities, that was a lot of changes for a young person trying to figure who she was.

Beyond these moves, this was a time when it felt like everything in the world was changing. The Iron Curtain came down with unexpected speed, the Soviet Union split into independent nations, Northern Ireland was wracked by violence, and our neighbor, Yugoslavia, was engaged in a bitter civil war. We acutely felt the weight of this political and social unrest and wondered where the world was headed.

In midst of all the tumult and uncertainty, I took a pottery class at school, and I vividly recall finding solace and a sense of deep calm in learning to throw on the wheel.

I took pleasure in every step: kneading the clay, cutting a slap, forming a ball, centering it on a wheel, drawing the mass outward and upward to form a vessel, and glazing finished pieces. But I think what I loved most was the feeling damp of clay in my hands when it was in motion and perfectly centered.

Often, this state of balance lasted for only a moment. Almost-finished pieces could be knocked off kilter in an instant or damaged in transitions from the wheel to the drying rack to the kiln, and then the whole process would start again with kneading the clay, cutting a slap, forming a ball, and so on.

In today’s reading from Hebrew Scripture, God leads Jeremiah to a potter’s shed to observe him working at the wheel. The prophet relates how, “The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.” The Lord then interprets this image for him: the potter at work is a metaphor for God forming his people.

Throughout Scripture, God is depicted as an artisan. At the beginning of Genesis, there are two Creation stories. In the first, when all was formless and dark, Creation begins with the breath of God sweeping over the face of the waters and the Word forming light. Through a process of separation, bodies of all kinds are formed and finally, God creates humans in his image. In another telling, he forms man from the dust of the earth and breathes life into him. Our liturgy recalls this story on Ash Wednesday, as we are reminded, "dust you are and to dust you shall return."

Like Jeremiah, Isaiah compares humans to clay and God to a potter (64:8), and other prophets liken God to other kinds of craftsmen. The Psalmists, too, praise him as a maker who formed the heavens, the mountains, and living beings. Most notably, the Psalm appointed for today describes God as knitting, weaving, and writing humans into being.

In our times, as science and reproductive choice are under attack, I want to stress that this is poetry. St Augustine’s guidelines on interpretation remain relevant today as naïve readings of Scripture are wielded against research-based evidence and health care. St. Augustine taught that when observations contradicts Scripture, we are to interpret the latter metaphorically. Interestingly, Galileo referenced Augustine’s argument in the 17th century, when he faced mounting threats for positing that the earth revolves around the sun. Psalm 139 presents a poetic recognition of God as creator with a focus on how intimately he knows us.

There is another reason for emphasizing the prevalence of poetry in Scripture. Poetry, with its figurative language and metaphors, has the capacity to convey meaning on multiple levels and often in a deeper sense than more straight-forward prose. In part, we come to know God who exceeds our understanding through analogies to things in our realm of experience. God is like a potter throwing at the wheel, a sculptor of clay figurines, a knitter, weaver, author, and poet breathing life into matter, forming, and re-forming his people as communities throughout the history as well as in the lives of individuals.

The prophecy Jeremiah receives is one of divine judgment of a people who have turned against him through engaging in social injustices, false prophets, and idolatry. God sent him to warn the Kingdom of Judah and to prophecy the siege of Jerusalem and Babylonian captivity as consequences for breaking covenant. At the same time, Jeremiah’s ancient message offers teachings about God and his relation to humanity in our time. The good news in this reading is that when his work turns out badly, the pieces are not discarded, but rather, the potter begins again using the same clay and perseveres in forming and re-forming until his vessels seem good to him.

Our God who knows our deepest longings, knows our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls, from our first breath to our last, loves every one of us, regardless of what we have done or left undone. There is profound comfort in the company of those who love us in spite of our gaffes and weaknesses, and how much more so does this hold in the case of our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

Yes, Jeremiah’s prophecy is a call to repentance and transformation of our hearts, minds, and actions. Each of us individually and as a church are works in progress. But no matter what we have thought, done, or said, God is already working to form and re-form us in a way that seems good to him.

Drawing on my experience at the wheel so many years ago, I imagine God centering and continually re-centering us as we veer out of balance and resist his guiding hands.

There is beauty in this portrayal of God as artisan of many trades. And as beings created in his image, we too are made to create objects from physical materials or words or sounds.

In these times of so many changes and transitions—the departure of our beloved Rector, the arrival of the new program year, and all the political and social unrest in our country—I invite you to consider two questions:

In which aspects of your life are you experiencing God’s hand holding, centering, and forming you?

As his beloved child, created in his image, what kinds of making bring you joy, calm, and a sense of being who you were made to be?

In the months ahead, hold onto these, and consider how you might share them to contribute to God’s ongoing formation of his people through this church.

Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 17:11:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia , August 31st, 2025

It is such a joy to be together today on this Labor Day week-end, as we mark the end of the summer season, and look forward to the fall and all that God has in store for us. We celebrate this morning, with a new song in our hearts.

One of the things that I most appreciate about this time of the year, as summer draws to a close and we start getting glimpses of cooler fall days, is that we can appreciate the beauty of creation more fully. As those of you who have been at Saint George’s for a while know, my favorite way of experiencing the gift that God gives us in creation is by hiking in the mountains. I love everything about it- the trees, the running streams, the wildflowers along the way, and then finally getting to the pinnacle and looking out on the vast expanse of all that God has done and continues to do in God’s infinite creativity.

It is little wonder that the author of the text of one of the most popular hymns ever was a hiker too. The Reverend Henry Van Dyke wrote a poem entitled “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” in 1907 when he was visiting Williams College in Massachusetts. He was there to preach a series of sermons and one morning at breakfast he gave the president of the college his poem with a note that said, “Here is a hymn for you. Your mountains (the Berkshires) were my inspiration. It must be sung to the tune of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” It is easy to see how Van Dyke heard Beethoven’s music playing in his imagination as he gazed upon the Berkshires and contemplated the beautiful mystery of God’s work in creation. This poem was the result.

All thy works with joy surround Thee, Earth and heav’n reflect Thy rays,

Stars and angels sing around Thee, Center of unbroken praise.

Field and forest, vale and mountain, Flow’ry meadow, flashing sea,

Singing bird and flowing fountain, call us to rejoice in Thee.

Today we think of these words and the music as being inseparable. But it was not always so. Ludwig van Beethoven composed the music in 1824, 83 years before the poem was written. Beethoven died just three years later, and interestingly, Beethoven had another poem moving around in his imagination when he wrote his music. “Ode to Joy” was a poem written by Fredrich Schiiler 40 years earlier, in 1785. Beethoven took Schiller’s words and rearranged them to correspond to the music for the final movement of this Ninth Symphony. It’s amazing to think about how the artistic process works. God creates the astonishing beauty of the earth, a poet is inspired by it, and then his poem inspires another creative genius to set it to music years later, and then another poet writes a different poem set to that music. And as if that wasn’t enough, Edward Hodges, the organist at Trinity Episcopal Church in New York City, adapted it to become the hymn as we know it today. People loved Beethoven’s music and Van Dyke’s words so much that they clamored to have it become part of the Church’s canon of hymnody. First Schiller, then Beethoven, Van Dyke, and finally Hodges, all of these men using their gifts for our inspiration and God’s glory. Many iterations of the creative process, inspired by the Creator of the mountains and sunlight and trees and the Creator of each one of us, who are all given gifts to be used to praise God and to serve the human family.

And just as Beethoven made this music the finale of his Ninth Symphony, Joyful, Joyful, we adore Thee” will be the finale of our service today. We will sing it right before we go out into the world to love God and serve others.

Joyful, Joyful is the ultimate in inspiration. It touches us at a very deep level, beyond thoughts and beyond feelings. It touches us at a spirit level. It gives voice to a foundational joy that cannot be shaken, a joy that cannot be taken away from us because it is a gift from God. It is the joy in knowing that God’s intention for all of creation, including humankind, is love and harmony, no matter what kind of strife we are experiencing, personally or communally. Today we very aware of all of the chaos and turmoil in our government and around the globe, and yet “Joyful, Joyful “makes our spirits sing.

A few years ago, a man who felt that his life had been transformed by this work created a film entitled “Following the Ninth: In the Footsteps of Beethoven’s Final Symphony”. In an interview with NPR’s Melissa Block, Kerry Candaele described how he had studied and documented the effect that “Ode to Joy” has had on people around the world. Every year in Japan, 10,000 people practice it all year in German, and then sing it together in December to ground them in hopefulness as the new year begins. In Chile, protestors sang it during the 1970s outside of prisons where people had been tortured to let them know that a community was waiting to welcome them when they were released. One of the men who had been tortured said that hearing all of those people singing outside the prison was “like having a colorful butterfly in his heart” to give him hope. In Tiananmen Square, in the early 1980s, protestors played “Ode to Joy” through loudspeakers to drown out government propaganda. Yesterday, I watched a video of a flash mob in a European city square a few years ago that started out with an elementary age girl in tennis shoes playing her school-issued recorder. Then she was joined by a cellist in a tuxedo, then an oboist in street clothes, violinists, on and on, and finally a choir. More and more people of all kinds stopped to marvel at what was happening as the music grew and grew, and for a few moments, a few beautiful moments, everyone got a glimpse of eternal glory and how things can be in the here and now.

“Ode to Joy” takes on even more meaning when we know that Beethoven wrote this profoundly inspiring music when he was in the depths of despair about his deafness. Here, this incredible genius had lost his hearing, and yet was able to create some of the loveliest music in the world, music that he could only hear in his imagination. This exquisite composition came out of his intense suffering, his spirit working with God’s Spirit, bringing light out of darkness. And Beethoven only knew how much people loved it by watching their applause after it was performed.

“Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” is an enduring gift to us, an expression of God’s desire for all of us to live as one human family. And it is particularly meaningful to sing it as part of worship as Christians. We sing it to remind us of who we are, created in God’s image, and called to be reconcilers in this broken world, never despairing and ever hopeful.

Beethoven’s Ninth was his greatest work and it came out of great suffering. Christ’s greatest work was giving us life through his suffering. As followers of Jesus, we sing “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” with a very particular and profound gratitude for all that has been done for us, the cross and the Resurrection, a gift freely and graciously offered, so that we can live in joy, even in the darkest of times.

Thou art giving and forgiving, Ever blessing, ever blest,

Wellspring of the joy of living, Ocean depth of happy rest!

Thou our Father, Christ our Brother, All who live in love are Thine;

Teach us how to love each other, Lift us to the joy divine.

Sources:

The Hymnal Companion, Volume A, Hymns 1 to 384, Ed. Raymond Glover, New York: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1994, pp. 375-376

Kavanaugh, Patrick, Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 1992. Pp. 55-62

NPR.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/ 2014/ode-to-joy-as-a-call-to-action

Generosity as a Spiritual Practice

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 24 Aug 2025 17:11:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia, Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, August 24th, 2025

As most of you are aware, I will be retiring on Sept 14th. Words cannot express what a privilege and joy it has been to be your rector, pastor, priest, and friend for these past 15 years. This past Friday afternoon, a parish email went out from our Senior and Junior Wardens, Liza Lowe and Victor Tolomeo, sharing the news about our new process for calling your next clergy leader. In the past, churches almost always called an interim rector to be with a parish during a time of transition. They normally stayed 12 to 18 months while a search for a new long-term rector was taking place. Increasingly these days, another model is being used, especially in healthy, financially stable, growing churches, like Saint George’s. This model involves a shortened search process of 3 to 6 months that results in the calling of a Priest-in-Charge. After two years, the priest can become rector, if they and the vestry discern that they are a good long-term fit. In the vast majority of churches in our diocese, the priest-in-charge does become the rector. In this paradigm, there is still a thorough, thoughtful, prayerful search process conducted by a discernment committee, made up of members of the congregation, as well as members of the vestry, with lots of input from the congregation, and guidance from our diocesan transition minister. This process is what Saint George’s will be using as we go forward and the discernment committee is already preparing to begin their work so that Saint George’s will hopefully have a new Priest-in-Charge in early 2026. The vestry voted on the members of the committee last Wednesday night and they are Darren Hekhuis (chair), Joan Pepin, Allison Otto, Mike Giaquinto, Anna Alt-White, and Becky Fulton, along with Elliott Branch and Victor Tolomeo from the vestry. This is an exceptional team, all of whom are former Senior Wardens, ministry leaders, or both. And they bring a plethora of spiritual gifts to this work. We are very blessed.

The discernment team will be commissioned during our services on Sept 7th and they are already getting prepared to begin their ministry of calling your new clergy leader. As hard as it will be for me to say good-bye to you all in mid-September, I am so very thankful that this groundwork is already being laid by our wonderful wardens and vestry. During this time of transition, Mother Karin will be leading services and providing pastoral care, with support from other clergy. And our entire staff, ministry leaders, wardens and vestry will be ensuring that our ministries go forward throughout the fall. And everyone, each and every of you, has a role to play during this time of preparation and great expectation.

The continued health and vitality of Saint George’s depends on two things, the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, and your generous response. I am very confident that the Holy Spirit will be with you every step of the way. The Spirit will be moving in and among you, and I have no doubt that you will respond with an open heart. That is the kind of community Saint George’s is. That is who you are. The Holy Spirit has blessed our community with a beautiful charism, an authentic, welcoming, joyful way of being, and that is very precious, and has to be tended and nurtured by everyone in order to continue to flourish.

Two Sundays ago we reflected on the importance of gratitude in nurturing our relationship with God and with other people. Gratitude is a foundational spiritual practice that is the alpha and omega of our life of faith. And it is important to give God thanks and to give other people thanks, in very specific ways, every single day. It is good for our souls, it is good for our mental health, and it is good for our relationships.

Generosity is a corollary of gratitude. It too is a spiritual practice. They go together, gratitude and generosity. When we live out of a grateful place, it puts us in a generous mindset and heart space. The great thinkers of various religious traditions have emphasized generosity in their teaching over the millennia, and Christian tradition puts a huge emphasis on the importance of being generous. The first and foremost expression of generosity is generosity of spirit. Having an open and giving posture toward others. Generosity of spirit involves being gracious, making space for other people, and having an abundance outlook. And it’s really hard to do, because so much in the world around us works against it. That’s why we have to practice it every single day in very specific ways. Having a generous spirit really can transform the world, relationship by relationship.

Jesus shows us what generosity of spirit looks like in the Gospel today. Jesus was completely grounded in his life with God, and open and highly attuned to the needs of other people, especially people on the margins. Jesus saw the woman who had been unable to stand up straight for 18 years. He saw her when she came into the synagogue where he was teaching and he stopped everything to meet her needs. Oftentimes in the accounts of Jesus’ healings, the person asks, or their friends or families ask on their behalf, but nobody asked in this instance. Jesus simply saw the need and met it. That happens all the time at Saint George’s. People see a need and quietly and graciously meet it.

If we have generosity of spirit, it manifests in being generous in our actions toward others. The Holy Spirit calls us to offer the individual people in our lives the gift of time, focus and energy. And we are also called to do that for the communities we are a part of, and especially our church community. Everyone offering their gifts of time, focus and energy to support our ministries this fall is essential, especially during this season of transition. And that looks like coming to church faithfully, supporting our ministries with your time and talents, and being generous in your financial support. Jesus talked about money a lot in the Gospels. And that’s because how we spend our money reflects our values. Some people are able to give more than others, and that’s o.k. Giving as generously as we are able is the key. And doing our best to take the next step on our generosity journey is also important. Our stewardship season will begin in October and you will get a letter from our stewardship co-chairs, Mike Giaquinto and Clayton Swope, thanking you for your giving in the past, and asking you to consider going a step further, as you are able and willing. And I feel very confident that everyone is going to do their very best to do that because Saint George’s is important to you. Many people have various organizations that they contribute to that do good things in the world. And my hope is that you will put our church community at the top of that list, both for the good we do in the world through our food pantry and social justice ministries, and for the spiritual undergirding that Saint George’s gives all of us to be God’s people in the world, enabling us to bring a spirit of generosity to our families, our workplaces and our world. That is something you can’t quantify, but it is immensely, immensely important. We need strong, inclusive, welcoming churches. So many churches are struggling these days, but thanks be to God, we are doing well, and we have to support Saint George’s in order for that to continue.

One of the things that candidates will ask about during the Priest-in-Charge search process is Saint George’s finances. And they will do that because they know it is one important measure of health and vitality. And they will already be aware that there is an incredibly generous spirit here, through what they know about us already, what they read in the strategic plan that we completed a few months ago and the other materials that will be prepared. Most of all, they will be able to tell right away from talking with our amazing discernment committee, and hearing about what committed lay leaders we have who are eager to partner with their priests in doing the work of the Gospel. I certainly had that experience when I talked with the search committee 15 years ago and knew right away that you all were my people. And I am confident that the Holy Spirit is already working to bring you together with a new clergy leader.

The Spirit has good things in store for Saint George’s and God’s Spirit will continue to inspire, comfort and lead you into the future. My prayer today is that you will support and encourage Mother Karin, the wardens, vestry, discernment committee, and staff, and that a spirit of generosity will grow and grow during this season of transition and great hopefulness.

In the words of our Collect of the Day: Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

A Long Walk Toward Peace

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 15:50:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Karin Ekholm’s Sermon on Luke 12:49-56 on August 17, 2025

In today’s Gospel reading, we are confronted with some hard sayings of Jesus. He has been just teaching his disciples in parables and reassured them tenderly, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” He has exhorted them to sell their possessions and give alms, and told them not to worry about food or clothing, for “your Father knows that you need them.” To those who seek his kingdom, these things will be provided as well.

And then, abruptly his tone shifts as he warns his followers that to those “whom much has been given, much will be required,” and exclaims,

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”

And he answers his own question, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” with a definitive “no!”—he has come to bring division, and he proceeds to enumerate the many ways households will divide over him.

These proclamations come as a surprise, especially in the third gospel, which mentions peace more than any other. Luke’s narrative begins with Zechariah’s prophecy of a Messiah who will “guide our feet into the way of peace,” and angels heralding peace on earth at the Incarnation (1:79; 2:14). Throughout his ministry, Jesus gives blessings of peace to people of all kinds; when he sends out disciples, he instructs them to begin by offering peace; and in his last days, weeping for Jerusalem, he laments the people’s failure to recognize the things that make for peace (e.g. 8:48; 10:5; 19:42). And finally, when Jesus appears to the eleven following the Resurrection, his first words are “Peace be with you” (24:36). Those of us who would have answered his rhetorical question in the affirmative can hardly be faulted for thinking Jesus came to bring peace to earth.

Today’s reading offers a seemingly harsh perspective that appears to contradict what he says elsewhere. What are we to make this Jesus who comes to bring fire and division? What has become of his peace that otherwise features so prominently?

Reflecting on what is meant by “peace” might help us address these questions. The Greek word for peace is εἰρήνη—it’s where we get the women’s name “Irene”, and it comes from the verb "to join together into a whole". Peace is a wholeness formed from essential parts, not simply the absence of conflict. In fact, at times, peace emerges only through conflict. This may follow when justice is denied, when people deprive others of social or economic worth, or when one party refuses to repent.

The film “The Long Walk Home” dramatizes the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on individuals and relationships during the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56. The boycott, which aimed to challenge the city’s segregation laws, was sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks. Fifty thousand persons participated at a real cost, and finally, after thirteen long months, the boycott resulted in the integration of Montgomery's buses. The movie focuses especially on the relationship of two women: Odessa Cotter (played by Whoopi Goldberg), a Black nanny and housekeeper, and her white employer, Miriam Thompson, an affluent housewife.

Odessa, in solidarity with the boycott, chooses to walk to and from work, a long and exhausting nine-mile journey. She regularly attends evening worship services with her family, even as her feet and her body ache from the long walks, and those assembled pray for protection in the face of mounting tension, including the historic attack on Martin Luther King’s home.

Initially, Miriam does not question societal norms in interactions with Odessa, visits with friends at the club, and in her relationship to her husband, Norm. At Christmas dinner, as her extended family discusses the boycott Norm, is at first dismissive of concerns social unrest could grow. When he remarks that he doesn’t think Odessa will cause problems, his brother, Tunker, a hardliner, responds,

“You’ve got a good family…good community. When was the last time you locked your door at night? Never! If you give in what do you think is going to happen to this city? What do you think will happen to this family? If she'd rather walk, let the soles of her feet bleed 'til she begs to ride that bus."

Tunker’s fearmongering succeeds on Norm, who soon joins the White Citizens' Councils, a historic network of supremacists, and demands that his wife defer to his views. Miriam, in contrast, through her relationship with Odessa, gradually begins to recognize the prevailing injustice. As Miriam awakens, she slowly comes to sympathize with the boycott and defy the demands of her husband, family, and society.

The film focuses equally on Odessa’s home life. At home, her family prays nightly at dinner, “Watch over our souls tonight, and help us to live your word tomorrow.” One evening, her husband and children, who are pained by how she is exploited, are taken aback when she adds, “And, Lord, please watch over Miriam Thompson, too.” In the days ahead, both women, together with Miriam’s young daughter, participate in taking a stand, in the face of escalating threats, against oppression in the form of Norm, Tunker, and the men of the Citizen’s Council.

As daughter stands against father

And father against daughter

Wife against husband

And husband against wife

Brother-in-law against sister-in-law

And sister-in-law against brother-in-law

we recognize the division Jesus prophesied.

Jesus’ catalog of conflict among families echoes lines from the prophet Micah. Micah is especially known for condemning oppression and social injustices, especially the exploitation of the poor by the powerful, and for exhorting his people to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8, 7:6).

In the time of the Hebrew prophets and of Jesus, people expected the coming Messiah to bring peace. But peace that fails to do justice to all involved is not true peace. Jesus knew that as he confronted established religious and social patterns, conflict would develop. Family members and communities would clash.

In 1950s Montgomery as in the DMV in our time, true peace can’t exist when people are marginalized and disenfranchised from society. We have a responsibility to examine the positions that gives us privilege and authority. We are called to step outside of what’s comfortable and into the way of Jesus, who spent his life serving marginalized people around him, welcoming people who were different, and empowering those who didn’t fit.

As we awaken to the injustices of the systems that have sustained us, we are likely to face significant pushback AND to find ourselves in need of grace and transformation. The good news is that the fire Jesus brings refines and transforms all it touches into light and God’s likeness, and the Spirit intercedes to gradually bring about healing, wholeness, and true peace.

Gratitude, Gratitude, Gratitude

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 17:13:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia, Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, August 10th, 2026

It is wonderful to be together this morning during this season of summer vacations. Many of us are getting back from trips to be with family and friends. Some of us are thankful to have times of quiet solitude. But whether we are alone or with those we love, vacations allow us to get into a different rhythm, and hopefully a slower one, if only for a few days or weeks.

Times of relaxation can be opportunities to get in touch with gratitude. When we slow down, we see things that we don’t normally see when we are rushing around and distracted. When I am working with a couple prior to marriage, we talk about the importance of gratitude as the foundation for a healthy, lasting relationship. All of us would probably agree that gratitude is an important concept in life, but putting that concept into everyday practice can be another matter all together. What couples promise to do when getting married at Saint George’s is to set aside time every day to check-in with each other, to turn off cell phones, televisions, children, and work concerns, and to be present to one another. Lighting a candle makes this time holy. And each partner tells the other one or two things that they are genuinely thankful for about the other. They do this so that they will hopefully establish a pattern of expressing gratitude for the rest of their lives.

I really appreciate you taking out the trash after dinner.

The way you read that story to the kids tonight really made me smile.

Thank-you for calling me today to tell me how great I am right before that gnarly meeting you knew I was dreading. Your love really got me through.

Sometimes we think the ones we love know how much we appreciate them, but we have to express it in order for it to truly be experienced. It affirms the other person and also reinforces it for ourselves and solidifies the relationship. Whether that relationship is with a partner, a spouse, another family member, or a dear friend. It is so easy to fall into patterns of not expressing appreciation, and slowly but surely things start disintegrating. It is subtle at first, but the rif grows and grows until it becomes a giant chasm. We have to put time and energy into our closest relationships in order for them to flourish. And all of those expressions of gratitude over the years really help us to work through difficult patches. Taking each other for granted isn’t an option.

It is the same way in our spiritual lives. Christians are called first and foremost to be “gratitude practitioners”. If we tend by nature to look at things negatively, we need practices that will help us get in touch with joy. If we tend by nature to be joyful, we need practices that help us stay in touch with joy. In our service of Compline in the Book of Common Prayer, we have a prayer asking God to “shield the joyous.” Joy needs to be protected and nourished. It is a precious thing. It can also be a fragile thing.

Being grateful for our blessings is really good for our overall health and well-being, especially during times of high stress, and we are certainly in such a time right now. In an article published in the Harvard Mental Health Letter (November 2011), the authors talked about research done by two psychologists, Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California, and Dr. Michael McCullough of the University of Miami. They had one group of people write about things that they were grateful for during the week and they asked another group to write about daily irritations or things that displeased them. After 10 weeks, those who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives than those who were focused on sources of aggravation. They also had fewer visits to doctors. Another researcher, Dr. Martin Seligman, of the University of Pennsylvania, did a gratitude study focused on early memories. When participants wrote and personally delivered a letter to someone in the past whom they had never properly thanked for their kindness, everyone’s happiness scores dramatically increased, both the giver’s and the recipient’s. This practice had far greater effect than any other psychological interventions, with benefits lasting a month.

Expressing thankfulness is really good for us and good for the people around us. It is little wonder that expressing gratitude is so important in developing our faith. It heals us, and restores us to ourselves and to God. Every Sunday we come together to “lift our hearts” to God and express thanks in the Great Thanksgiving of the Eucharist.

I love singing these words with you every Sunday! It is totally the highlight of my week. We sing them with the whole company of heaven. People have been praying these or similar words for thousands and thousands of years, first our Jewish forebearers, then the early Christians, and now us. That’s a long history of gratitude. And not just gratitude in general, but expressing gratitude to God, the Source of all that is right and good about life in this world and the life of the world to come.

When we say these words, we are reminded that the Source of joy is outside of ourselves, and yet we can experience that joy deeply and truly within ourselves. Does this mean that we are pretending that everything is wonderful, that everything is perfect? Are we deluding ourselves about the cold, hard facts of life? No, we are praising God and in that very act of thanksgiving, God is sanctifying all that is, and helping us to deal with hardship. We can’t always change whatever is happening in our lives, but we can change our relationship to it. We can operate out of a grateful center, grounded in God, as we respond to whatever challenge we are facing.

We are a community of gratitude practitioners at Saint George’s. We are called to do everything with a profound thanksgiving for all that God has done for us since the beginning of creation and all that God will do in the future. We come together every Sunday, whether we feel like getting out of bed or not, to say thanks for the gift of life, and to do that as a community of faith. We feed the hungry and work for justice because we want to share our blessings. We do everything because we are grateful and want to express our thanks. It is good for our mental health, it is good for our souls, and it is good for the world. Whatever is happening, there is always something to be grateful for. Gratitude gives us joy, it grounds us and centers us in all that is good and true and blessed. And being in a community of gratitude practitioners helps us to know that we are not alone. We give thanks to God for our own life and for the life of the world, as we lift our hearts to the Lord. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.

How can I give up on you?

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 16:52:00 +0000

Rev. Dr. Karin Ekholm, August 3, 2025 at St. George’s on Hosea II:1-11

We grow up hearing stories about ourselves from loved ones who fondly remember us from a time beyond our own earliest memories. Stories of our birth, how we were good or fussy eaters, our first words, first steps, first birthday cake, and the cute ways we pronounced and expressed things. Memories of these moments are told over and over during our childhood and throughout our lives. There is something very touching in recognizing how someone has known and cared for us so long, and to see how they take delight in recollecting these times. The very act of sharing these stories communicates affection. This lore, moreover, forms our understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the person who remembers.

The Prophet Hosea offers a poetic image of God as parent looking back with tenderness on happier days. The passage conveys God’s love and care for an infant, whom he calls “Israel” and, later in the passage, “Ephraim”. During this time, in poetry, both names were applied to the northern kingdom.

Israel in the north and Judah in the south had once been a single realm formed from the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and after the death of Solomon, they split into two kingdoms. Hosea was a native of the north who began his prophetic activity around the middle of the 8th century, during the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II. But within a few years, the king’s death resulted in violence, struggles for the throne, and considerable social instability.

This period of internal turmoil coincided with the rise of the Assyrian Empire, which doubled in size under Tiglath-Pileser III to become the largest empire in history up to that point. At the time of Hosea’s prophecies, Assyria had launched military excursions and exacted tribute from Israel. Soon the kingdom was utterly defeated. A fifth of the population was taken captive and sent to Assyria or deported to vanquished territories far away. Those left behind came to be known as Samaritans.

This is the context in which Hosea prophesied. Nowadays “prophesy” indicates a message that foretells the future, in Scripture the meaning is broader. In the Hebrew Bible, the term was understood as God communicating with his people through chosen individuals. While words of warning or consolation about the future are sometimes part of prophesies, their primary purpose was to point out how things really stand right now. An appropriate response to grave circumstances requires right discernment about what’s wrong. Hosea’s urgent task was to call people to see the new situation in the northern kingdom for what it really was.

In their despair over the political crisis and fear of Assyria, people were losing hope that the God of their ancestors would save them from danger. To minimize risk, they began to worship multiple Gods. In our passage, YHWH grieves that they “kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols.” “Baal” means “lord” in various Semitic languages, and was used as a title for deities, especially the Canaanite storm and fertility god. In a land dependent on rain-fed agriculture, this was their pantheon’s most significant deity.

To the people of the northern kingdom, the current political upheaval and anxiety was understandably at the forefront of their attention, but the prophet locates the central crisis elsewhere: they have turned their backs on God, forsaken the covenant, and broken the first two Commandments.

God responds through Hosea with a lament that begins with sweet recollections. The people of the northern kingdom are represented as a son who was born into slavery in Egypt and whom God led to freedom.

“it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,” God says, evoking an image of holding out fingers for a toddler to gasp as he learns to teeter and totter.

When God recalls taking him up in my arms, we picture a tired or wriggly child comforted by an embrace.

God’s self-comparison to “those who lift infants to their cheeks” brings to mind moments of delight in the softness of a baby’s hair and the sweet scent of their skin.

And finally, this is a God who bends down to them to feed the child.

For Hosea’s original hearers, these were the actions of a mother. Today, when fathers are as likely to be the caregiver for young children, these words are unlikely to have the same impact, but his contemporaries would have recognized the God of Israel portrayed as a loving mother.

One of the ways we understand our relationship with God is through the lens of human relationships. Last week, I focused on Jesus identifying God as our father. Every metaphor has its limits, and when we speak of God, all of our language and imagery falls short. Masculine God-language is an incomplete articulation of who God is, and images of God as maternal are sprinkled throughout Scripture. God is a birth-giver in Deuteronomy, a comforting mother according to the Prophet Isaiah, and Jesus describes himself as a mother hen who longs to gather her little ones under her wings. Hosea’s prophesies offer multiple images of God that point at a greater reality that does not neatly fit our categories. Among them is this remarkable, extended metaphor of the motherly love of God for the northern kingdom.

But these sweet memories are pained. Ephraim, an early runaway, keeps ignoring her voice and dashing toward danger. And here God shifts from remembering her child to addressing him directly with variations on the question: “How can I give up on you?”

Here we witness God engaged in an internal struggle, and in the end, mercy and compassion prevail. The theologian Ellen Davis astutely observes that this divine love that pains God “that might sharpen easy and bland assertions that God is love” (Davis, 241). This is a fierce love of one whose scattered children are gathered by a lion’s roar.

Although the prophecy is very context specific, it speaks powerfully to people in every time and place of what God is like. The metaphor illuminates the tender care of God who bends down to be with us, to feed us, and to lift us up.

God continues to call us by name and to bend down and reach out, both through the community of believers and the Holy Sacraments. Today, by baptism, Jordan Nahsima will become a child of God. This metaphor stretches back to Exodus and forward to the gospel proclamation that “to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). This child is loved by God with the tender affection Hosea describes, and today she is welcomed into God’s family.

And as a family God calls us to the table for the meal that gives us life and strength trusting that this motherly love of God will continue to touch us, feed us, hold us, heal us, and make us whole.

Lord, Teach us to Pray

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 15:55:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Karin J Ekholm, Sermon on Luke 11:1-13 at St. George’s on Sunday, July 27, 2025

The very thought of prayer fills many people of faith with uncertainty. We fret that we’re not saying the right things, we feel sheepish in bringing daily concerns to God, who surely has much bigger problems to deal with, and we’re ashamed when we find ourselves distracted or realize our hearts are not really in it. For many, being asked to pray aloud is unnerving, not least because we worry that our words and sentiments aren’t as eloquent as those of others. And most unsettling are the times when God feels distant—far away in a heavenly realm—and doubts creep in whether he pays us attention or really answers prayer.

And yet, our presence here this morning attests that something in us holds out hope that God is both available to us and that he is committed to sustaining and restoring creation in response to our petitions. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ followers have watched him retreat to quiet places to pray, and the request for instruction suggest that they, too, feel some uncertainty about how to speak to God.

In Judaism during Jesus’ time, both formal and spontaneous prayers were offered in the temple, synagogue, and home. Poetic prayers like the Psalms generally follow a formula that begins by invoking God, offers praise, lament, or petitions, and ends with the hope of divine response. In Hebrew Scripture and the Gospels, we also find examples of individuals speaking with God more conversationally, typically in a time of crisis. These, likewise, generally begin by affirming YHWH’s character, especially his sovereignty, mercy, and justice, and plea for aid.

Jesus carries on the legacy preserved in the Hebrew narratives of addressing God in life’s decisive situations. Luke’s Gospel portrays him praying at his baptism, choosing disciples, at the transfiguration, in Gethsemane, and at his crucifixion. In continuing the practice of lament and thanksgiving, Jesus was revered as one who modeled the essence of Hebraic prayer.

While the Lord’s Prayer combines praise and petitions—for sustenance, forgiveness, and deliverance—that are rooted in earlier Jewish prayers, Jesus also innovates by incorporating distinctive perspectives. The first word “Father”—marks Jesus’ biggest break from tradition. In Hebrew Scripture, God is very rarely called ‘father’, and only in poetic passages like the Song of Moses and Prayer of Isaiah in reference to God’s adoption of Israel as his people (Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 63:16). The metaphor was limited to this context.

Throughout the Gospels, however, we find Jesus identifying God as his father in a way that was shocking to contemporary listeners. From the time he is 12 years old and refers to the Temple in Jerusalem as his “Father’s house” (2:49) to prayers in Gethsemane and his dying words, Jesus affirms an unprecedented intimacy with the Creator as “Abba”—“Father”.

What is perhaps more surprising is that he identifies God as Father of all. Earlier in Luke, he charges his followers, "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (6:36), and now, he teaches them to pray accordingly. This was an invitation to a bold shift in how people perceived God and their relation to him. Addressing God as father says as much about those praying as it does about the divine. Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, observes that Jesus essentially instructs us, “to affirm that we stand where he stands, [with] ‘Our Father’. Everything that follows is bathed in the light of that relationship” (Being Christian, 63).

By definition a father is one who provides, loves, nourishes and wisely guides his dependents. Those whose human fathers failed them might resist the association with God, and for some, the gendered language poses an obstacle to affection. What’s important here is the intimacy Jesus claims for himself and extends to his followers. By introducing this prayer with the words “we are bold to pray” our Eucharistic liturgy recognizes the audacity of Christ’s invitation.

Williams observes that through this prayer we allow Jesus to pray in us, and as we come to understand Jesus better, what we want to say, “gradually shifts a bit more into alignment with what he is always saying to the Father” (62-63). In faithfully praying his words, our perspective and desires are gradually transformed.

However, the closeness of the father imagery is sometimes felt to be in tension with the distance of a heavenly kingdom. For many, the notion of a God who resides in another realm remains a real stumbling block to recognizing that he has any bearing on the world and continuously reaches out in love.

Where we believe God is has important implications for how we pray. A film about Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador who was martyred in 1980, offers a poignant observation on this question. The movie traces the progression of Romero from a socially conservative Roman Catholic who enjoyed the privileged life of a bishop to becoming a prophetic activist for the poor and critic of the military government of El Salvador in the late ‘70s, which cost him his life.

His transformation occurred largely through his friendship with the Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande, for whom working for human rights and the dignity of the poor, marginalized, and exploited was essential to the Christian faith. In an early scene in the movie, Bishop Romero has accompanied his friend to observe a voter registration drive led by young people from Grande’s parish. Romero expresses concern when he overhears political views that strike him as radical, and he is so flustered he stammers, “Some are saying that you are a sub-subversive.”

Father Grande responds, “Remember who else they called such names.” And to make sure we don’t miss the point, he continues, “Jesus is not in heaven somewhere lying in a hammock. He is down here, among his people, building a kingdom.”

Christianity has always held in balance two seemingly opposing attributes of God: he is both other, independent of matter, time, and space, and intimately involved with the created world. What may appear a contradiction to us in fact illuminates something about God’s nature that is captured by Jesus’ prayer and Grande’s observation. God’s heavenly kingdom is not a location but a way of relating. “Your kingdom come” is a plea to be transformed that we might participate in God’s ongoing work: to provide daily bread to the hungry, forgive those who are indebted, and bring liberation from forces that corrupt and destroy. These petitions are spoken in first person plural. St. Gregory of Nyssa notes that I receive my daily bread when no one is made poor because I am rich. The resolve to work for justice along with reconciliation is essentially part of living out the Lord’s Prayer. Through praying the prayer of our Lord, may we allow Jesus to pray in us and become who God has made us to be: a people who live in right relationship with God, each other, and creation.

There is Need of Only One Thing

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 20 Jul 2025 14:20:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Saint Geore’’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia, Pentecost 6, July 20th, 2025

“…Martha welcomed (Jesus) into her home. She had a sister named Mary , who sat at the Lord’s feet…But Martha was distracted by her many tasks…”. Luke 10: 38-42

In today’s Gospel, we hear the familiar story of Jesus’ visit to Martha and Mary’s house. Martha immediately goes into action providing hospitality for Jesus and the disciples, while her sister Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to his teachings. When Martha complains about her sister, Jesus tells her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.”

I always feel a little sorry for Martha when Jesus responds this way. She’s the one making things happen. If she didn’t prepare food and take care of everybody, who would do it? And there was an expectation, a requirement even, to provide hospitality in ancient Judaism. Martha had listened to the stories of her faith tradition and put them into practice. Just like Abraham had welcomed visitors in the desert, providing a place of safety, rest, and sustenance, after a long journey, Martha had welcomed Jesus. Showing hospitality, especially to strangers, was central to faith and ethical practice. So, Martha was doing what was expected and required of her. And Jesus and his disciples needed the care she provided. Their survival depended upon the kindness of others.

Mary, on the other hand, sat at Jesus’ feet, taking on the posture of a student, a disciple. She hung on Jesus’ every word, trying to absorb his teachings. And Jesus welcomed and encouraged her. He said that she had chosen the better part, which would not be taken away from her. That was a really radical thing for Jesus to say about a woman. He celebrated her eagerness to learn and her attentiveness to his teachings. And he praised her for her ability to recognize the extraordinary opportunity that she was being given, and having the courage to do something that was outside of the social norms of the day, with his blessing. Mary didn’t let busy-ness distract her from spending time listening.

If there is anything that is the word of the day in our culture, it is distraction. We are in 24/7 overdrive, constantly bombarded by news blasts, advertisements, texts, phone calls, emails and the incessant demands of competing voices vying for our attention. It is sometimes challenging to hear God’s voice in the cacophony of other voices.

The particular distractions that we deal with today are relatively new, but the need to keep our priorities straight is not. And doing that requires a lot of determination and self-discipline. The ancient monastics developed practices to help them order their hearts and minds, practices that helped them to listen for God’s voice. And they still do that today. Their days are very structured. They pray multiple times a day. They sit at Jesus’ feet, listening to Scripture, and worshipping together, just as Mary did. And they eat together and work together and provide hospitality to people who come for retreats, just like Martha did. Mary was the contemplative one and Martha was the active, service-focused one. And both are important. Jesus isn’t admonishing Martha for providing for them. I am sure he was grateful for that. He was encouraging her to think about the spirit with which she was doing everything she was doing. She was overwhelmed by her busy-ness and not thinking about why she was doing it. And she was resentful of her sister who had immediately understood that when Jesus began teaching, this was the opportunity of a lifetime, and stopped everything, to sit at Jesus’ feet. Dinner could wait. Mary had a singular focus on what the most important thing was in that moment.

We need both and there is a Mary and a Martha in each of us, although we generally tend toward one or the other. Christians are called to active service, both inside and outside the church, caring for others, providing hospitality to strangers, particularly the most vulnerable. We are called to work for justice and to be Jesus’ hands and heart in this world. I am constantly amazed by all of the people who volunteer in our food pantry, work in our refugee ministry, support our siblings at San Jose, participate in our race and reconciliation work. These faithful people spend hours and hours each week to make everything happen. We need Marthas. They are the people who make things go. And we also need the Marys, the contemplatives, the folks who pray for all of us. Did you know that we have people who take the prayer list home and pray for every single person on it, every single day, whether they know them or not? They are the people who read and study Scripture and really try to sit at Jesus’ feet when they are doing that. And we are all called to do both. To dwell deeply with Jesus in prayer, worship and study, and then to live that out in active ways. It is a great circle. Prayer and Service, prayer and service, prayer and service. Mary and Martha, Mary and Martha. The only way that we can keep a right spirit about the work that God calls us to is to have it always be rooted and grounded in our love for Jesus. Martha needed to be refreshed after all her work, so that she could go back to it without resentment and a clear sense of why she was doing what she was doing. And Mary couldn’t sit at Jesus’ feet forever. She needed to get to work after that. “Ora et labora” is the motto of Benedictine spirituality. They are both considered sacred. Prayer and work. Both are essential, in a monastery, in a church, and in our daily lives. When we ground out work in prayer and discernment, it gives us an attitude of gratitude about our work, rather than getting resentful. Martha could have asked Mary directly to help her, rather than complaining about her no-load sister.

When I think about our life here at Saint George’s, it takes a lot of people to make all of our ministries go. Our worship services alone require a huge number of people each week. Acolytes, ushers, readers, Eucharistic ministers, intercessors, flower guild members, altar guild members, the choir, it’s a big, long, list. Liturgy is the work of the people and it is vitally important work. And all of our other ministries flow out of worship. Our food pantry is feeding more and more people each day, with the upwards of 100 people coming at lunchtime every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And a big team of people manage all of the different aspects of food pantry, the ordering, the inventory management, the volunteer scheduling. It’s a huge operation. The leaders spend hours each week. And everyone who comes to our doors is received with a spirit of hospitality, just as surely as Martha opened her door to Jesus, welcomed him in and fed him. And our food pantry ministers do that with a clear sense of focus and purpose that springs from prayer and worship. And the Lord answered Martha, ….”there is need of only one thing.”…. Love. Love for God that leads us to love others.

Go and Do Likewise

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 18:16:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Karin Ekholm, July 13, 2025

Reading: Luke 10:25-37

Two years ago, I spent the summer at Washington Hospital Center in DC completing my certification as a clinical chaplain. Our training took place on the ground. Once we received our badges, a tour, and instructions on how to charge the pager, we were assigned to various floors and put on shifts in the trauma unit.

The educational component took place through conversations with a cohort and supervisor in which we reflected together on pastoral encounters with patients, their loved ones, hospital staff, and first responders.

Two people played a special role in my formation, both are Muslim women, who wear headscarves and serve a population that is mostly Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, or not religious.

One was my supervisor, who shared a striking teaching from her tradition: “A visitor walking to visit a sick person will be wading in the mercy of God,” and as they sit with the patient, they are “immersed” in his mercy. These images certainly reflect my experience of God’s palpable presence among the sick.

The second woman was a psychologist who had recently come from Iran and was completing advanced chaplaincy training. One day, she arrived late to lunch, worn out from a busy shift in trauma, and as soon as she sat down, her pager sounded. I urged her to eat, I’d take this call.

The patient carried into the trauma bay on a stretcher was badly wounded and profoundly agitated. Among the cacophony of shouts from medical staff and police, I heard the words, “Good Samaritan”.

The patient was an African American man, Sam, who had been biking to work in the sweltering noon heat. He had come across a man lying on the sidewalk, and when he knelt down to help, the person on the ground was startled and turned on him.

Sam suffered serious injuries, and spooked by the assault, he fervently resisted medical care. Although he was in critical condition, he warded off aid. When the head nurse realized he wasn’t making progress, he enlisted the help of another. She responded to Sam’s changing needs by cycling through various approaches—soothing, bartering, tough love, and even humor—until he felt safe enough to let the team treat him.

Once his pain was managed, what he wanted most was a turkey sandwich with mayo. I’m pretty sure she broke unit rules, but she worked it out, and deftly used the sandwich as a bargaining chip. Once his wounds were treated, he was propped up and ate in peace.

In our culture, the label “Good Samaritan” is commonly applied to someone who helps strangers in distress, and while this is certainly a worthy deed, the parable Jesus tells conveys much more than bidding listeners to lend a hand to unknown persons. In fact, the words “Good Samaritan” aren’t in the text. The story is not as straightforward as often presented, and its point cannot be boiled down to a maxim or ethical teaching alone. To discern the meaning of the parable, we need to approach it with an eye to the framing story of the lawyer who wants to test Jesus.

In this society, lawyers were professional experts in Jewish law, whose task it was to interpret and give applications for everyday life. The word translated “test” carries a negative nuance of probing to expose weakness, and signals that this is not a sincere inquiry into what it takes to inherit eternal life.

As was customary for Rabbis, Jesus turns the question on him to ask what the Law teaches. The lawyer gets it right, but Jesus doesn’t react to praise him as a star student, but rather responds by essentially saying, “you know what is required, now live it out.”

Rather than “do this and live”, the lawyer strives to assert himself by continuing to test Jesus. There’s irony here. He wants to keep talking rather than doing the hard work of love in action.

As someone who has spent a lot of time in school and longs too much for affirmation that my right answers are right, I’m sympathetic to the lawyer’s plight. And besides, he’s a lawyer, so of course he has a follow-up question to clarify things. These two commandments to love God and neighbor are so all-encompassing and broad, I can see why he wants limits placed on who qualifies. Whom, exactly, is he called to love as himself? The parable is Jesus’ response to this particular question.

The beauty of parables is that the evocative imagery lingers in our minds, prompting us to continue uncovering layers of meaning. These stories invite us to identify with different characters, and this requires that we appreciate the dilemma of those who passed by the wounded man without helping.

Priests’ primary duties revolved around temple rituals, including offering sacrifices and conducting religious services, and Levites supported this work. In Luke’s Gospel, they are generally portrayed in a positive light (1:5; 5:14; 7:14). Jesus’ audience knew that these people were restricted by purity regulations from contact with polluting elements, including human blood. The problem was that their duty to perform sacred functions in the Temple on behalf of the people seemed to be in conflict with the Torah’s call to charity.

Other factors may have been fear that they, too, might be attacked. Or perhaps, they were unsure of the wounded man’s ethnic heritage, and like the lawyer, opted for safety over an unqualified interpretation of the Mosaic command “to love your neighbor.”

By recognizing the conflicting duties of the priest and Levite, we see that this parable as more complex, and these characters become more relatable. Who among us does not regularly find ourselves assessing which responsibilities and duties outweigh others. To whom do we most owe our attention and resources? Few things burden us quite like second-guessing how we once allocated our time, talent, and treasure.

The third man who comes along surely recognized the danger of stopping to help—the thieves might still be lurking behind boulders—and he, too, had things to do once he deposited the wounded man at the inn.

What would have been most shocking to listeners is that Jesus identifies him as a Samaritan. While both Jews and Samaritans stemmed from ancient Israelite roots, they developed distinct views on sacred sites, scriptures, the law, and the anticipated Messiah, which led to a complex and often hostile relationship.

To the lawyer, a Samaritan would be the last person who would act compassionately. When Jesus asks who the neighbor was to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers, the lawyer won’t even name him as a Samaritan, but rather answers, “the one who showed him mercy.” And for the second time, Jesus replies, “go and do.”

Jesus’ charge is to prioritize acts of mercy above all other obligations, regardless of risk, regardless of whether we have any connection or affection for those in need. Such behavior is anything but sensible, it’s unlikely to garner approval from society, and will come at considerable cost of time, labor, and resources. And yet, this is ultimately the answer to the lawyer’s initial question of what it takes to inherit eternal life. Loving God and loving human beings is inextricably bound, and loving God entails that we act mercifully towards every person we encounter.

This parable is more than a moral lesson: it is about the transformative power of God at work in all whom we meet on the road, a power that brings us into fullness of life—eternal life—even here and now.

I experienced something of this fullness of God’s love and mercy in the face of risk at Washington Hospital Center: in the compassion of Muslim chaplains who cared for people of other faiths and ethnic backgrounds, of nurses who worked tirelessly to mend bodies and honor the dignity of those whom they treated, and of Sam, a man marginalized by society, who paid a real price for reaching out to help a man lying on the road.

In the words of Jesus, “Go and do likewise.”

Sharing the Good News of God’s Kingdom is Important, Urgent and Risky Business

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 14:18:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia, Pentecost 4, July 6th, 2025

“Whoever listens to you, listens to me, and whoever rejects you, rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” Luke 10:1-11,16-20

This 4th of July week-end is a time to be reminded of the humanitarian principles upon which our country was founded, freedom, democracy, and equality. It is also a time to remember that we are all immigrants or descendants of either immigrants or slaves, unless our ancestors were Native Americans. One of the great strengths of our common life is the diversity upon which it stands. And those foundational ideals have of course never been fully realized, we have never achieved a perfect union, our values have been tried and tested, and yet those enduring ideals have always called us back home. Our founders had white men of European ancestry in mind when they framed our democracy, but the full rights of citizenship and participation in our common life were later extended to include African Americans, women, and other previously marginalized groups. Our concept of who is included in our democracy has expanded over the years, enriching and strengthening us.

It has often been said, and attributed to various world leaders over the years, that the true measure of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable members, the poor and the dispossessed. And that idea is very resonant with us, not just as Americans, but as followers of Jesus. Scripture is replete with admonitions to care for the sick, the orphan, the widow, prisoners and those from foreign lands. Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” Jesus himself was poor and he relied on the generosity of others. When we care for the needs of vulnerable people, we are caring for our Lord. Caring for the vulnerable in our society is not optional for Christians. It is an essential, foundational, fundamental aspect of discipleship. And we share that belief with our Jewish and Muslim friends.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the 70 he has appointed to prepare the way for him to bring the good news, “Whoever listens to you, listens to me, and whoever rejects you, rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” Up until this point in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has been proclaiming the Kingdom of God only to the Jewish people, but now he travels through Samaria and extends his preaching, teaching and healing to the people there, people who were akin to estranged cousins of the Israelites, so this represented a first step in spreading the Gospel to all people.

And there is a definite sense of urgency in today’s Gospel. In the early days of his ministry, Jesus had called 12 disciples to assist him in his mission, but now he calls 70 to prepare the way for him as he travels through Samaria on his way to Jerusalem, where he will be crucified. Time is of the essence, which explains the urgent and ominous tone. “Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.” Sharing the Good News of God’s Kingdom is important, urgent and risky business. Today we too are called to prepare the way of the Lord and announce the coming of his kingdom and exhibit courage in doing that. The bill that was just passed by Congress and signed into law last Thursday cut over a trillion dollars from the Medicaid and SNAP program and will deprive millions of poor Americans from receiving adequate healthcare and nutrition. It also added billions for the deportation of immigrants, creating an even greater climate of fear. This new law has been roundly denounced by mainline Chrisitan denominations, The Episcopal Church, the Catholic Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the list is very long. Why? Because it is directly counter to Jesus’ teaching about how we are to love God and love our neighbors s as ourselves.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King spoke prophetically in the 1960s, in the heat of the Civil Rights Movement, with words that resound loudly today.

"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. ..If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace and for economic and racial justice, it will forfeit the loyalty of millions and cause men everywhere to say that it has atrophied its will. But if the church… will (recover) its great historic mission, will speak and act fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will enkindle the imagination of mankind and fire the souls of men, imbuing them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice, and peace. Men far and near will know the church as a great fellowship of love that provides light and bread for lonely travelers at midnight."

That is why we stand up for people who are being deprived of human dignity. We speak out because benefitting the rich at the expense of the poor is morally wrong. We speak out because inhumane treatment of immigrants is wrong. Our Lord and his family were refugees. After Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, his mother and father escaped to Egypt when King Herod ordered that all of the male babies were to be killed. Protection of vulnerable people, children, the elderly, the sick, prisoners, people fleeing persecution, is at the very core of our faith. And we are called to be the conscience for our nation when we have lost our way.

But we do not lose heart. We go forward in faith, hope and love today, continuing to pray and work for justice and peace, as Jesus called us to do, remembering that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, as MLK reminded us. The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations will continue to advocate for policies that support vulnerable people. Our diocese will continue to work for racial justice. Here at Saint George’s, our food pantry will continue to feed those who come to our doors. Our refuge ministry will minister to the needs of people fleeing violence and oppression. We will continue to support our sister congregation San Jose in very concrete ways. In all of these ways, we carry on the work of the 70 in today’s Gospel, preparing the way for Jesus, who shows us how to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves.

Following Jesus in Times of Transition

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 13:55:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm, June 29, 2025

Jesus has concluded his ministry in his home region of Galilee, embarked with his disciples on his final journey to Jerusalem, and as they are walking along the road, they encounter a series of three would-be followers. The first and third approach Jesus and volunteer to follow him. The second, in contrast, is called by Jesus, and although this person recognizes him as Lord, he accepts the invitation with a caveat: he has important things to do before they go.

We know nothing about the would-be followers, not their hometown, age, social status, profession, or what became of them. The effect of St. Luke’s succinct narration is that the focus falls on Jesus’ reply. In every case, he answers with evocative sayings that pose something of a puzzle:

"Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head"
"Let the dead bury their own dead”
"No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God"

These responses have the ring of proverbs, and they belong to a special category of sayings in classical rhetoric, known as ‘chreiae’ (pronounced KRE-ya). These were pithy precepts attributed to a particular person and spoken in response to an observation or question. Their intent was to illustrate a lesson or principle in an impactful and memorable way. In our story, Jesus’ words are indeed striking, both because they seem rather harsh and because his use of figurative language leaves the listener with something to figure out.

The first would-be follower spontaneously offers unconditional allegiance, only to be met by Jesus’ sobering reply that drives home the gravity of discipleship. It is in our nature to long for home—or for a home. Yet Jesus warns that following him entails a transient life. The Son of Man lives as a wanderer who has no home. Even animals are better off.

In his book On the Road with Saint Augustine, James K. A. Smith considers what it means to be ever in transit, particularly for us in the 21st century. We crave a place where we belong, where we can rest, where we are home, and this fundamental desire makes us vulnerable to the lie, “You belong here”, told to us by everyone from Disney to Las Vegas. In the process of following Christ, we come to recognize with St. Augustine, that God has made us for himself, and our hearts are restless until they rests in him.

Smith suggests that Christianity entails what he calls a “refugee spirituality”. This means that we remain “unsettled yet hopeful, tenuous but searching, eager to find the hometown we’ve never been to.” He joins the call of theologians reflecting on people driven from their homes by circumstances beyond their control, and in asking how we might we learn from them about God and ourselves. Jesus’ response to the would-be follower suggests that we might find an image of the Christian life in those who sleep under bridges, in camps, and in small boats crossing the sea.

But who in their right mind would sign up for perpetual homelessness? The first encounter suggests that if we understood what it means to follow, nobody would join on their own initiative. We’re mistaken if we think that we’re the ones who decide to step forward, as if it were a journey we map out for ourselves. Following always occurs in response to Jesus reaching out and calling us to participate in his ongoing work. Followers are born not by expressions of ardent desire or decisions made in the abstract, but rather in the course of concrete action.

We find another volunteer in the third would-be follower, the difference is that he approaches Jesus with an explicit condition. He will join as soon as he bids farewell to loved ones. On first reading, this seems perfectly reasonable, and yet, Jesus’ response indicates that he’s missed the point. By insisting on his own terms, he undermine what it means to be a follower. By positing conditions, he finds himself in tension with his purported leader and himself: his desires are conflicted.

Jesus draws on an agricultural metaphor to offer an image of this struggle: it is impossible to participate in the ushering in the Kingdom as long as one’s gaze is fixed elsewhere. As we discover in riding bikes or driving, we drift when we take our eyes from the road ahead. If someone is plowing a field and looks back, they naturally turn. This admonition is directed not against historical understanding, but rather exhorts the listener to surrender whatever parts of their past keep them from following the Way.

Finally, we come to what seems the harshest of the three encounters: Jesus’ extends an invitation, and while the would-be follower recognizes him as Lord, he asks to bury his father before they depart. Why might Jesus possibly object? What does he even mean by the words, "Let the dead bury their own dead"?

In first-century Judaism, the deceased were generally buried the same day they died, which suggests the problem is not one of time. There is a larger teaching at stake. In Hebrew Scripture, a proper burial for one’s father was a strong obligation that fell under the commandment to honor one’s father and mother. Even temple priests, who were required to maintain ritual purity by avoiding contact with the dead, were compelled to bury their fathers. Heard in this context, we recognize that in this response Jesus is making a claim about himself vis-à-vis the Law. As we find throughout the Gospels, when the Mosaic law acts as a barrier between Jesus and a person, and it must be broken.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and theologian reflects on this passage in a book on what it means to follow Christ. Some years earlier, after completing his doctoral thesis, he had come to the States where he taught at Union Seminary and met African Americans pastors preaching the Gospel of social justice. Soon he returned to Germany, where he played a key role in the Confessing Church that opposed the Nazi rise to power. While he received offers that would have allowed him to leave Germany, he believed it was his duty to stay to offer resistance and participate in the restoration of the church after the war. In the mid-1930s, soon after a colleague was arrested and their seminary was closed by the Gestapo that Bonhoeffer published his book titled The Cost of Discipleship.

Here he reflects on this passage in St. Luke, and more broadly, on what it must have meant for first-century Jews to encounter Jesus. “Until that day,” Bonhoeffer observes, “everything had been different. They could remain in obscurity, pursuing their work as the quiet in the land, observing the law and waiting for the coming of the Messiah. But now he has come, and his call goes forth. Faith can no longer mean sitting still and waiting—they must rise and follow him” (p.62).

In our own lives, we are facing significant transitions. The challenge posed by change is that we often do not know what questions to ask and how to proceed. Like the would-be followers, we might be enamored by Jesus’ work and teaching, but have no sense of what it would look like to participate in proclaiming the Kingdom.

These encounters with would-be followers occur at a crucial pivot in St. Luke’s narrative, as Jesus embarks on a new stage of his mission, as he turns from Galilee and sets his face to go to Jerusalem. From this Third Sunday of Pentecost until the end of October, we are on the road with Jesus and his followers, where he speaks to them in parables of the Kingdom of God. By placing the three encounters with would-be disciples at the outset of the travel narrative, we begin to see that living the Way consists not in private feelings or beliefs so much as participating in the work Christ through his Church. Growing in faith requires us to step out, to leave the comfort of home and illusions of control, and to recognize that God has made us for himself, and our hearts are restless until they rests in him.

The Holy Spirit Leads Us into the Future

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:23:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Pentecost 2, June 22nd, 2025

“The Holy Spirit Leads Us into the Future”

“But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith….There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3: 23-29

This past Wednesday, the wardens and I sent out a parish email letting everyone know about my retirement on Sept 14th. This announcement was the culmination of many months of careful discernment. I have been praying and thinking about this for a long time, and as hard as it is to be preparing to leave you, I feel very confident that it is the right time for both Saint George’s and for me. I will be turning 65 in August and Saint George’s is in a very healthy place. The vestry just approved our new strategic plan, we have experienced amazing growth over the last several years, there is so much joy and vitality, our lay leadership is strong and committed, and our staff is wonderful. The Holy Spirit has brought all these things together to make this the right time for a transition. Saint George’s is poised to go into the future, moving from strength to strength. We will have 3 more months together, which will give us time to prepare for a smooth transition and it will also give us ample time to say good-bye to each other, as hard as leaving you will be for me. That is so often the way it is with discernment. When the Holy Spirit has called us to a new direction in our lives, it is very challenging to let go of what has been in order to embrace the future, but we have the assurance that Jesus is with us as we step out in faith. And that my dear friends, is everything.

And as the Spirit leads Saint George’s into the future, we know that grace will flow abundantly. Our diocese has a well-defined transition process. An interim rector will be called by the vestry and that person will begin shortly after I leave. A search committee will be formed and the vestry will call a new rector in a year or so. Your continued health and vitality will be a creative partnership between you and the Holy Spirit, God’s action and your loving response. There are 3 things that will help to keep this wonderful community strong and enable you to continue to flourish. And they are faithfulness, generosity and love. Faithfulness, generosity, and love, three things that Saint George’s excels at. You know what these things look like because you are already doing them. Faithfulness looks like continuing to come to church and praying every day, praying for each other, praying for Saint George’s transition, and praying for this hurting world. Generosity looks like giving of your time to support God’s work here, it means continuing to give financially as generously as you are able, which undergirds the ministry here and beyond. Love looks like treasuring your relationships here at Saint George’s, asking how people are really doing when you see them each Sunday, and checking on people when they aren’t here. Our life here at Saint George’s matters. It matters more than ever. What we have here is very precious and it has to be tended and nurtured, by each of us as we follow Jesus. And when we leave this place each Sunday, we take Saint George’s spirit of graciousness into an increasingly hostile world. As we do that, our reading from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians shines a bright light on our way.

“..the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith….As many of you were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves in Christ . There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3: 23-29

Paul is writing to his friends in the churches he founded in Galatia to remind them that when they were baptized, their life in Christ became their new identity. The distinctions of race, class, and gender no longer separated one from the other. There was no more hierarchy. And that was very good news to people, that inclusive message was a huge draw for disenfranchised people living in the highly stratified and codified social structure of Roman culture. In the church, everybody mattered. Everybody. No one was “less than” another.

The early Christians started out as a subculture within Judaism, but by the time Paul wrote the Letter to the Galatians, non-Jewish converts, were starting to outnumber Jewish ones. So the central issue in Galatians is what the relationship was between faith in Jesus and adherence to the law of Moses. Should Gentile Christians have to fulfill the requirements of the Hebrew law? And Paul argues vehemently, that no, absolutely not. The law was given to the ancient Israelites so they would not go astray, so that they would remain in right relationship with God, but after Jesus came into the world, all of that changed. Instead of having access to God by following all of the rules, we now have access to God through faith in Christ. Through baptism, “there is no longer Jew or Greek,” only followers of Jesus, loving each other as he loves us.

In Galatians, Paul was trying to help some of the earliest Christians understand how radical their new life in Christ was. And that is what we strive to do here at Saint George’s, 2,000 years later. We believe that inclusion is a Gospel imperative. Every single person who walks through our doors is a beloved child of God. We try to create a gracious and loving space for everyone. And we invite people to experience Christ within this space, to come to faith in him and grow in faith in him over time. Everybody matters. No one is less than. Jesus love is a universal love and following him means that we are called to love others as he loves us. And each church has her own way of living that out. The Holy Spirit has blessed Saint George’s with a particular spirit of authenticity, joy, love for one another and service to the world. That spirit is exceedingly precious. My prayer for you is that you will continue to cherish it, nurture it, and never take it for granted.

“…There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3: 23-29

Hope in Troubled Times

Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 13:40:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Karin J. Ekholm, June 15, 2025

I am immensely grateful for the call to serve at St. George’s as your Associate Rector, particularly during these sorely troubled times.

We are inundated these days with news of violence, especially toward people who have long been deprived of dignity and the freedom to live and work in peace. This continual flood of assaults occurring globally, nationally, and locally can feel overwhelming, and more and more, I hear despair that there is anything we can do to counter these powers that corrupt and destroy.

In our baptismal covenant, we vow to strive for justice and peace among all people, but what might this look like in our daily lives? In times like these, where do we turn for wisdom, strength, and endurance? Where do we find hope?

Our second reading today comes from St. Paul’s epistle to the church in Rome during times of great political flux and social unrest. The Apostle penned the letter in the mid-50s when Emperor Claudius—who had expelled the Jewish people from Rome—was succeeded by Nero, who allowed them back and later persecuted them. Among these ethnically Jewish people, some were followers of Christ.

In addition to pressures from the outside, the early church contended with internal strife. As a new community made up of people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, they struggled acutely with questions of what it means to serve as Christ’s body and how the Spirit might work through them to restore all people into right relationship with God and each other. Much of St. Paul’s correspondence deals with conflicts and factions within the fledgling church, particularly questions about the extent to which Gentiles needed to assimilate to Jewish traditions and law.

Today’s reading comes from the very center of the epistle, and serves as a hinge between what has been and where God is calling his people to follow. The upshot of this passage is a promise of hope to those who are oppressed and hurting. The hope to which St. Paul bears witness is no naïve sentiment or Pollyannaish optimism, but rather derives from recognizing God’s loving presence in times of suffering.

Understanding what such hope looks like requires us to follow several steps of an argument. While at first it might seem unclear where St. Paul is heading, it all comes together to offer a promise of genuine hope.

In the first half of the letter, he contends that all humans—those who followed the law and those who did not—have fallen short. God’s merciful response was to send Christ to lead humanity back into right relationship. Being justified by faith means that we are brought back into right relationship through Christ reaching out to us in love.

In today’s passage, St. Paul delineates the fruits of right relationship, including our hope that we share in the glory of God. Throughout Hebrew Scripture, God’s glory is synonymous with his presence. Our hope therefore lies in the recognition that God dwells among us. Our hope is based not in striving, but in the promise of God’s abiding love.

St. Paul’s language of boasting in hope may sound odd to modern ears—after all, he has just affirmed that we are redeemed through grace, not merit. But phrases like these are a pointed reminder that St. Paul and members of the early church were persecuted people whom society continually sought to degrade and eliminate. In exhorting the oppressed to boast in what God has bestowed on them St. Paul affirms their dignity. Boasting in hope and suffering strikes me as a profoundly countercultural action, a form of resistance to more conventional objects of vaunting, like status, belongings, and achievements.

To be clear, in charging the church to boast in suffering, St. Paul never claims that God causes suffering. Rather his point is that suffering is redeemed and transformed through Christ. The word that is translated ‘suffering’ comes from the Greek term for a pressure that holds down, hems in, and restricts. The recognition that God abides with the oppressed and afflicted, is what leads us to grow in hope. This is a hope that does not disappoint, St. Paul observes, because it is rooted in God's love that has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

We read this passage today—on Trinity Sunday—because it conveys something of the threefold manifestation of God in relation to humanity. St. Paul is not presenting a doctrine—that came three centuries later--but rather he is contending with practical questions of how our understanding of ourselves and our relationship to God and one another is transformed by the mission of Christ and the Spirit.

In recent months, as I visited, interviewed, and talked with members of St. George’s, I have been deeply encouraged and filled with hope by what you’ve shared of your experiences of worship, formation, social justice, outreach, and fellowship. The Spirit is clearly at work through this community, and I can’t wait to get to know each of you and to learn how to accompany you on your journey and support you in your ministry. My sense of call to the priesthood was in large part motivated by my experience of God’s presence in a special way when people share their stories and insights into what they hear in the stories of others.

Before seminary, I spent two decades as a cultural historian with a focus in history of science and medicine, teaching undergraduates and graduate students. Though I loved my research and teaching, I could not shake the sense that I was being drawn in another direction. Five years ago this month, during the protests that followed the brutal killing of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Rayshard Brooks, I entered a period of discernment that led to my ordination a year ago today. In seminary, an especially formative time was the summer that I spent as a chaplain at Washington Hospital Center in the trauma unit and neonatal intensive care, where are large portion of the patients I saw came from economically and socially oppressed communities. It was here I came to a real understanding of St Paul’s claim that we grow in character and hope through God dwelling in the midst of adversity.

Striving for justice and peace for all people and finding hope in troubled times begins with listening to each other’s stories and recognizing God in them.

Juneteenth this Thursday marks the 160th anniversary since the last of enslaved people were finally freed, and yet, the legacy of Jim Crow and systemic racism continue to oppress and deprive their descendants of dignity.

I encourage you to observe this holiday by listening to stories that can be hard to hear. I commend the current exhibit at the Renwick Gallery of narrative quilts by black women artists that tell stories through images, words, and artifacts stitched in fabric. Closer to home, I encourage you to watch—or rewatch—members of this church courageously sharing their stories at a forum hosted by our Racial Reconciliation Committee five years ago (Linked here). Or you could start reading for the summer book club on racial oppression.

These are troubled times, and though things feel overwhelming and uncertain, do not despair for God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. As Christ’s living body, let us continue to listen to one another, and to our communities beyond church, with an ear to discern how God is calling us to participate in his work of striving for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every human being.

The Holy Spirit Comes

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 13:25:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, The Day of Pentecost: Whitsunday, June 8th, 2025

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting…” Acts 2:1

Today is the Day of Pentecost. Pentecost is such an awesome feast day! It falls 50 days after Easter Day and is the culmination of the Easter season. And we hear this wild story from the Acts of the Apostles about a violent wind and flames dancing on the heads of the disciples. They were suddenly able to understand each other, even though they were speaking different languages.

Prior to this, the disciples had been waiting. Jesus had told them after his resurrection and before he ascended to heaven, that they would receive power from the Holy Spirit to continue his ministry in the world. They could have all just gone home to their private reflections about everything that had happened. And a lot had happened. They had been with Jesus during his ministry, they had grieved his death and marveled at his post-resurrection appearances to them. They had watched in amazement as he ascended into the clouds. But the disciples didn’t disperse to go back to the life they had before Jesus. Instead, they did what he had told them to do. They stayed together to make sense of things in community. They didn’t lose heart. They went to an upper room in Jerusalem and prayed and waited. And they waited and prayed. Not wringing their hands, locked in fear. No, they prayed expectantly, hopefully. They trusted and believed that Jesus would send his Holy Spirit. And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the Spirit filled the room, and they received a vision of a new heaven and a new earth. And in that instant, Peter realized that the ancient words of the prophet Joel had been fulfilled:

“I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.”

Just as Joel had prophesied, hundreds of years before, Peter foresees a day when all things will be brought to their fullness. That last great day, when God’s purposes for the world will finally be realized. When all things will be brought to fruition. Where all of humankind is brought into God’s very presence. When everyone is made whole. When all of creation is healed. When human potential has been realized. When all people are united and God is all in all.

What a beautiful vision! What a wonderous hope! And not only that, but Peter sees that they are getting a glimpse of that in the here and now. Just as God brought Jesus into the world to change everything, God is now sending the Holy Spirit to inspire them, to empower them, to carry on Jesus’ radical work of loving the world that killed Jesus, of loving the world that doesn’t always love back, of loving a world that resists love, that tries to stamp out love, but that so desperately needs love, a world that hungers and thirsts for the healing that love brings. That’s what the Holy Spirit rained down on everyone in the upper room that day. This group included Jesus’ mother Mary, his brothers, Peter, and all the many other disciples that day in the upper room on Pentecost. And they went forth after that ecstatic spiritual experience to found the Church.

Today, we too are longing for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We yearn for inspiration, we hunger for empowerment, we thirst for unity, and we cry out for a transformed world. The disruption, chaos and confusion in our public life have left so many people dispirited and hopeless. The loss of jobs, the shameful treatment of many immigrants and refugees, the erosion of our sense of the common good, the divisiveness and strife.

As challenging as this time is in so many ways, it also provides an opportunity to see visions and dream dreams of a transformed world where everyone is valued as a beloved child of God.

When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in the upper room, there was such a commotion that people from all over Jerusalem came to see what was happening. Many of the people who came lived there and others had traveled from far and wide to celebrate the Jewish Feast of Pentecost. Pentecost was originally observed 50 days after Passover and it’s purpose was to give thanks for the spring barley harvest. It was also a commemoration of the giving of the law to Moses.

The Acts of the Apostles describes the first Christian Pentecost as a universal event. It is the beginning of the spreading of the Good News of Jesus to the four corners of the earth. The beautiful Jerusalem cross on the altar is a visual way to communicate that – the large cross in the middle- with the four smaller crosses in the quadrants representing the reach of the Gospel around the globe.

So Pentecost, as Acts describes it, is a reinterpretation of what had come before. Christianity coming forth from the rich tradition of Judaism. As Christianity developed, many practices evolved that were rooted in Jewish practice. Just as the Jewish faithful celebrated Pentecost 50 days after Passover, Christians began celebrating Pentecost 50 days after Easter. Easter is our Christian Passover, when Jesus passed from death to new life. And our celebration of Pentecost each year reminds us that we are empowered to carry on Jesus’ work. And his work, the work of preaching and teaching and social justice and pastoral care and outreach, never changes – that work is HIS work and the Spirit empowers us to continue it in our own day and time, just in different ways. The Holy Spirit is always, always calling us to innovation and creativity.

The Spirit is teaching us new ways of taking Jesus’ message to the four corners of the earth. Here at Saint George’s, the Spirit has inspired incredible growth and vitality and we are looking toward the future with great expectation. You should have received an email last Sunday afternoon outlining the new strategic plan, a plan for implementing our communal vision for the future, and we are doing that during a very turbulent time in our nation. Our last strategic plan was also completed during a very challenging time. It was May 2020 and we were in the thick of the pandemic. And that is significant, the fact that both of these hopeful, aspirational plans were forged during a time of great angst. When things are hard, it helps us to see what is most important, to clarify our values. And right now, especially now, we see the importance of being an inclusive, loving, joyful, justice-seeking community of faith. Our life together in Christ is more important than ever, offering us an alternative narrative for our lives and for the world that Jesus came to save. Our 2025 plan is about making God’s new dream for us a reality. We all had an opportunity provide input, the vestry, ministry leaders and congregation.

Themes the committee heard during this process included people’s eagerness to get more involved at Saint George’s, to engage in fellowship and small group faith formation, to minister to the world through outreach and social justice opportunities, and deep appreciation for Saint George’s liturgy, music, and children and youth. I encourage you to review it. Like any good plan, it is both aspirational and actionable.

The Holy Spirit is at work in the world and here at Saint George’s. God’s Spirit has always been at work. In the beginning of creation, the Spirit moved over the deep and brought forth all kinds of new life. That same Spirit came upon Mary when she was a young girl, and through her, sent Jesus into the world to show us the way of life. The Holy Spirit came upon the first Christians and brought forth the Church. And the Spirit is alive and well today, inspiring us to live the rich tradition we have inherited in new ways, sharing God’s all-embracing love with the world. Here in June 2025, in the context of political and social upheaval, a new thing is coming into being through us. We are dreaming dreams and seeing a new vision for the hopeful future that God is calling us to.

“I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.”

That We All May Be One

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 14:05:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Easter 7, June 1st, 2025

This week-end marks the beginning of Pride month and the Episcopal Church is celebrating it in a variety of ways, all across the country. Yesterday, the Episcopal churches here in Arlington joined together to sponsor a table at Arlington Pride, with a lot of support from Saint Georgians, and this afternoon we’ll host a Pride Evensong, highlighting LGBTQ+ composers and offering prayers that speak to God’s all-embracing love for humankind. Expressing our affirmation, support and love for our LGBTQ+ siblings is so important, especially right now, when there are so many attempts to roll back the progress that has been made over the last many years in our country toward full inclusion.

The Episcopal Church has been formally welcoming and affirming LGBTQ+ people since 1976, when General Convention adopted two resolutions stating that (and remember this is the language of 1976) “homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church, and that they “are entitled to equal protection of the laws with all other citizens. So affirmation both as Christians and as citizens of our country.

Today, almost 50 years later, the Episcopal Church continues to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, and LGBTQ+ people now serve as lay leaders and as clergy; deacons, priests and bishops. God’s work is the work of justice, both inside and outside the church. In today’s Gospel Jesus prays that “ we all may be one.” And in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles we see one example of what that looks like.

The Acts of the Apostles is such an interesting book. It is actually a continuation of the Gospel of Luke. In the Gospel of Luke, we hear about Jesus life, death, resurrection and ascension, just like the other Gospels, but in Luke, there is a particular emphasis on Jesus’ ministry to the poor and marginalized. The writer of Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. So scholars today refer to Luke-Acts, as one book with two parts, the first about Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation, and the second about the early evangelists, who continued Jesus’ mission to the marginalized and oppressed.

In today’s story, we hear about the healing of a slave girl who was being doubly abused by the people who thought of themselves as her owners. First because she was enslaved and second because she was being used to make a lot of money for her owners with her fortune-telling. The girl’s owners are angry when their lucrative money-making scheme is interrupted, so they take Paul and Silas before the civil authorities and accuse them of disrupting the peace. It was unlawful for Jews to make converts of Romans. They are flogged and then thrown into jail, but even in jail they continue to witness to their faith with prayers and hymn singing. They are in prison, their bodies battered and bleeding, but their spirits are free and unharmed. It’s hard to imagine singing songs of thanksgiving to God after being beaten, locked up and shackled, but they knew that they had a choice about how to respond, and their response was to trust in God as they endured this horrible injustice. But they didn’t let this injustice go unchallenged. Immediately after our reading, the magistrates send word that Paul and Silas should be released, apparently thinking that they had probably learned their lesson, but Paul tells them that he is a Roman citizen, which meant that he had been unlawfully treated, because Roman citizens were protected under the law from being flogged. One of the themes throughout the Acts of the Apostles is trying to establish that Christian faith should be tolerated in Roman culture. And that one could be both a faithful Christian and a Roman citizen, seeking justice within the Roman legal system, knowing that God’s perfect justice would one day come to fullness.

As we celebrate Pride this week-end, we are reminded that we too are called to pray and to trust in God’s provision, while also speaking out against injustice in the world. One of the little-known but hugely important pioneers in helping us understand the importance of activism outside and inside the church was Pauli Murray. The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray lived from 1910 to 1985 and was one of those people who seemed to have lived more fully in one life than is possible, and suffered so much hardship and persecution that is difficult for us to imagine. Murray was a human rights activist, legal scholar, author, labor organizer, poet, multiracial Black, and was also most likely transgender before that language for her/his experience existed. She/he was the first Black person to earn a law degree from Yale, a founder of the National Organization for Women and the first Black person perceived as a woman to become an Episcopal priest. Murray was ordained to the priesthood at the National Cathedral when she/he was in her/his 60s and lived here in Arlington during that time. Murray had this to say in her/ his autobiography about ordination.

“All the strands of my life had come together. Descendant of slave and of slave owner, I had already been called poet, lawyer, teacher, and friend. Now I was empowered to minister the sacrament of One in whom there is no north or south, no black or white, no male or female – only the spirit of love and reconciliation drawing us all toward the goal of human wholeness.”

Murray was echoing our Lord’s prayer today when he prayed that “we may all be one”. The slave girl in the story from Acts was freed, even though she may not have known that she needed to be freed. The jailer almost killed himself because he knew he was responsible if Paul and Silas escaped, and yet he was healed after they shared their faith with him and he saw that he no longer had to be afraid once he chose to follow Jesus too. And they, both the prisoners and the jailer, were reconciled, the jailer washing their wounds, and Paul and Silas washing him in the water of baptism. And then they shared a meal together, a eucharistic celebration, rejoicing in the freedom that only God can give.

I leave you with the collect for the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray’s feast day, which is July 1st.

Liberating God, we thank you for the steadfast courage of your servant Pauli Murray, who fought long and well: Unshackle us from the chains of prejudice and fear, that we may show forth the reconciling love and true freedom which you revealed in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Sources: https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2025/05/30/episcopal-churches-to-celebrate-pride-month-throughout-june-to-affirm-support-lgbtq-people/

https://trinitychurchnyc.org/stories-news/episcopal-saint-remembering-pauli-murrays-life-and-work

https://www.paulimurraycenter.com/who-is-pauli

Jesus Loves You

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh — Sun, 18 May 2025 20:26:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Easter 5C – Youth Sunday & Last Day, 5/18/25

Readings: Acts 11:1-18 (Salvation offered to all), Revelation 21:1-6 (New Heaven and New Earth, John 13:31-35 (Farewell Discourse and New Commandment)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

“Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'”

I mean, c’mon, really God? Not only on Youth Sunday, but my last Sunday with you, this is the Gospel lesson appointed? If you had any doubts that God has a poetic sense of humor, let them be dispelled.

Let me be clear, this is not my farewell discourse, it is Jesus’s, and unlike some of us, I promise you that Jesus is not leaving you for Raleigh. But seeing as how I too am with you only a little longer, there are a few things I would like to tell you, St. George’s, and I’m not going to give a farewell speech, I am going to do the thing you called me here to do – which is to preach and proclaim the Gospel. You know, one of my deepest joys of being a priest with you has been the opportunity to spend time with people at every season of life, from the tiniest infants just days old to people who have been on this earthly journey for two and even three times longer than I have.

And one of the most beautiful and tender things that I have noticed in these visits is that the beginning and the end of this life are often very similar. Specifically, the things that we are taught as children tend to be the things we remember with greatest clarity in our old age. During a recent visit to a retirement home, I stopped in the rec room where a group of residents from memory care sat gathered around a piano singing the words to the familiar childhood song, Jesus Loves Me.

Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so,

little ones to Him belong, they are weak but he is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me,

yes Jesus loves me, the bible tells me so.

Here was a room full of people, eighty, ninety, and even one hundred years old; people who had lived lives marked by both joy and struggle, people who had seen the world change and challenge them in ways they couldn’t imagine; people who had had impressive careers and people who had lived quiet modest lives; people who had raised children of their own; children whose names they now struggled to remember, and yet they had not forgotten this one thing: Jesus loves them. Jesus loves them. This they knew.

That room full of people, just like every single child in this church, became my Sunday School teachers in that moment. And in that moment it became incredibly clear to me that the most important thing we are to do for one another, the most important job we have in this life, is to let others know every chance we get how much God loves them.

Jesus’s final command to his disciples was to love one another. It’s the simplest and most difficult thing in the world. And in order to do this, we have to remember for ourselves, how much God loves us. Jesus says “just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” In order to show others how much they are loved, we must first understand how much we are loved.

This part of knowing God’s love for us can be the hardest, especially for us adults, especially if we have not been told enough, maybe by our parents, certainly by the world, the God loves us. And this where God gives us an incredible and paradoxical gift. Children are often the ones who show us how to love as Jesus does with the greatest purity. Children show us how to embrace God’s love like no other group of people.

The child who runs into the room and hugs the first person they see. The child who shares a tearful apology when they know they’ve done wrong. The child who forgives without hesitation, without a shred of resentment. The child who fiercely defends the ones whom they love.

The love that us adults spend a lifetime trying, failing, and trying again to perfect, is the love that comes so naturally to a child. They are our teachers, with Christ, of God’s unshakeable love. They are God’s way of reminding us of our belovedness.

Every morning when I see my six-month-old daughter smile at me when she wakes up, it’s as if God himself is telling me again that he loves me. The girl doesn’t know anything. She hardly knows who I am, and yet her smile says I love you, just as Jesus is saying he loves each and every one of you, every moment of your lives. And when you are struggling to remember this, I want you to look to a child.

Look to a child and remember that in Gods eyes, you are like that child. Loved beyond words by a parent who held you at your birth, holds you in your life, and will hold you again, even when only thing you can remember is the thing that matters most – Jesus loves you.

And as he has loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are his disciples. Amen.

The King of Love My Shepherd Is

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 11 May 2025 20:23:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Fourth Sunday of Easter: Good Shepherd Sunday, May 11th

This past Thursday, the world watched expectantly as white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. A new pope was announced and there was great excitement all around, from Roman Catholics, from other Christians, from people of various faith traditions, as well as people with no religious affiliation. And this fairly universal exaltation had a lot to do with the context we are living in. With the rise of authoritarian, nationalistic leaders across the world, it was so wonderful to see a significant world leader who embodies another way. Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo 14th, is widely heralded as a humble, intelligent, deeply faithful man, who brings a global perspective and is profoundly devoted to the needs of the poor, the displaced and the marginalized. He is an American, who also chose to become a citizen of Peru, demonstrating his solidarity with the people he ministered to for two decades. He sees that we are all one human family and that everybody matters. He is a good shepherd. He is also a symbol of hope, peace, mercy and compassion. And the world needs these things, hungers and thirsts for them, especially right now. The pope brings tremendous moral authority to the world affairs, an authority that is rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and has implications for all people.

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, which always falls on the Fourth Sunday of the Easter season, the season when we reflect on Jesus’ resurrection in various ways, a tradition we share with our Roman Catholic siblings and many other Protestants. And it is always good to celebrate what we have in common with other Christians, while also acknowledging our differences. We can all gather around this ancient image of Jesus as our Good Shepherd, an enduring metaphor for God that is rooted in our Jewish heritage, and that is cause for rejoicing.

Our hymnody and readings today coalesce around the Good Shepherd, in anticipation of that last day that the Revelation to John describes, when “a great multitude, from every nation, tribe, people and language” will be gathered around the holy one who “guides them to springs of the water of life and will wipe away every tear from our eyes.” So we live this life rejoicing that one day we will be with God in fullness and that all people will finally be united in all of their diversity in a God who is pure love.

Our processional hymn today was “The King of Love My Shepherd Is”. It is a hymn that is such a wonderful part of our Anglican tradition. I often tell Ben that I want it sung at my funeral, that and about 12 other hymns. He’s probably tired of hearing me say it, but it really is one of the best of the best of Christian hymnody. It was written by Father Henry Williams Baker, a priest in the Church of England in the early 1800s, who was the Editor in Chief of “Hymns Ancient and Modern,” which is the most popular hymnal ever complied. A lot of our hymnody comes from it. When I was researching the background of the hymn, I discovered that In addition to his hymn-writing, Father Baker also wrote a collection of prayers called “Daily Prayers for the Use of those who have to work hard”. I found that title pretty funny, but when you think about it, it all goes together, themes of life being hard and our need for a Good Shepherd to lead us through. The last thing that Father Baker said before he died, according to his best friend, were the words from the third verse of “The King of Love my Shepherd is.”

Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed,
but yet in love he sought me;
and on his shoulder gently laid,
and home, rejoicing, brought me.

That really tells us all we need to know about the Good Shepherd. He loves us no matter how often we wander off looking for greener pastures or an easier life, he brings us back home and claims us as his own, overjoyed that he has found us. That is how God sees us and how God sees everyone. Imagine my friends, what a world it would be, if we could understand how much God loves us and loves every person on this good earth that God created.

In the Episcopal Church, our understanding is that that truly does mean everyone., without exception. That all of us are equally in need of forgiveness. That we all reflect God’s goodness and love, in varied ways. Diversity is woven into the very fabric of creation. We are created in love FOR love, we are created to love God and to love those whom God loves, the human family. That is the journey that Jesus shepherds us through in this life and brings to fulfillment in the next. Deepening our love for him, deepening our love for others who look and think like us and those who do not, and taking a posture of humility on the journey, recognizing that there is so much we still have to learn about how to love. We learn to love by emulating the one who leads us to green pastures and comes looking for us when we are lost. Jesus.

So this week, as we face our various trials, we can also rejoice that we are not alone as we face them. I pray that you will have a song on your lips as you do.

The King of Love my shepherd is.

His mercy faileth never.

I nothing lack if I am his.

And he is mine forever.

Jesus, Quietly and Loudly

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh — Sun, 04 May 2025 22:51:00 +0000

Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Easter 3, Year C , 5/4/25

Readings: Acts 9:1-6, (7-20), Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Happy Easter! It is indeed still the season of Eastertide, which we will continue to celebrate until the Feast of Pentecost. We celebrate Easter for so long not just because we need some extra cheer after the forty days of Lent, although this is certainly true, but we celebrate it because scripturally speaking, Jesus is still with us! Jesus is always with us of course, but we also tend to forget that the resurrection is not the conclusion of Jesus’s time on earth, after rising victorious from the empty tomb, Jesus stuck around awhile, forty days, to be precise, before ascending into heaven. This has always been a curious notion to me, that Jesus would linger for that long after his principal work was finished. Why was that?

We get some clues by taking a look at what he spent his time doing while he was here. For one, he continued to teach his disciples about the Kingdom of God while giving them specific instructions as to how they are to carry out his work, saying feed my lambs, tend my sheep, and follow me. In essence, he stayed to commission them to act as he did for the benefit of the rest of the world, particularly those who never knew him during his earthly sojourn. When I lived in Germany I remember being particularly struck when I learned that the noun for Christian is ‘ein Christ,’ literally a Christ. Not a follower of Christ, but a Christ. I love this idea that each of us, by virtue of our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection, therefore become a little Christ in the world, and this was the message that Jesus was imparting to his disciples. He would no longer be here physically, and thus would depend on his disciples to act as Christ in the world so that others may know him.

But in order to do that, Jesus had to make certain that his disciples really understood that he had risen, and so the other reason for why he lingered was so that they, and us thousands of years later, could be sure of this. And scripture today recounts two very different and miraculous ways in which Jesus chose to appear to the apostles which I think are illustrative of how we also come to know the resurrected Christ in our own spiritual journeys. These encounters represent two poles on a spectrum of how we encounter Jesus.

Jesus’s first appearance is described in Paul’s bombastic road to Damascus experience. Paul, then known as Saul, a pharisee and persecutor of the fledgling Christian community was traveling to deliver letters to the synagogues, instructing that any followers of Jesus be bound and brought to Jerusalem, likely to meet a similar fate as Jesus himself. And as he did so, Jesus appeared to him out of nowhere, asked him why he was persecuting the Church, struck him blind, and then restored his sight after commissioning him to be an apostle in His name. Now as terrifying as this event might be, it’s also a type of encounter with Jesus that many of us would be grateful for. For how could there be any room for doubt if Jesus appeared to us like that? And of course, Jesus certainly does to some.

During my time in seminary, I remember feeling envious of my classmates who described similar experiences of having been slapped in the face by a divine encounter. By having physically seen or heard something which they understood as God, calling out to them with utmost clarity. Because that simply has never been my experience of encountering God.

And for this reason, I absolutely love the second account of Jesus’s appearance, which we hear in John. The disciples find themselves out fishing on a boat when they spot a vaguely familiar man watching them from the shore. He calls out to them “children, you have no fish, have you?” And the disciples, not knowing who this strange man could be, reply “no,” they have not. Then, Jesus pulls a familiar trick, he tells them to cast their net off the other side of the boat, and as they do so, the net is miraculously filled, and so are their hearts and minds with the knowledge that their Lord has returned to them.

The reason why I love this story so much is because of the contraposition of Jesus’s familiarity and unfamiliarity. Unlike Paul’s harrowing encounter with Jesus, in which Jesus’s identity is unquestionably clear, it takes the disciples a while to catch on that Jesus is really there. We can imagine them squinting and straining to see this man, perhaps hoping it is him, but in the back of their minds telling themselves that they really shouldn’t get their hopes up. [After Jesus’s crucifixion perhaps they were wondering if Jesus ever really was with them, or if this whole encounter was just a fever dream that they woke up from and went back to their familiar posts, fishing.]

Isn’t that so often the case for us? We hope and squint and pray that God would reveal himself to us. We hear stories of God miraculously appearing to others, but there’s a lingering doubt that perhaps this resurrection business is just a lovely story.

But if we take time to reflect back on times of need in our own lives, I think we could easily identify moments when we were like the disciples in the boat. When Jesus showed up for us, was present with us, even helped us during our struggle, even if his presence went unrecognized in the moment.

In a few moments we are going to witness the birth of a new ‘little Christ’ coming into the world through the sacrament of baptism. And what baptism reminds us of is two things. First [Beckham], God is promising to always show up for you. To help you and to love you as one of God’s own children forever. And second, all of us gathered here are promising to help you seek Jesus and to recognize his love for you no matter how clearly or how quietly he appears. And you, Beckham, will forever be a beloved partaker of the resurrected life in him. Amen.

Building the house

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 22:52:00 +0000

Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Easter 3, Year C , 5/4/25

Readings: Acts 9:1-6, (7-20), Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Easter Sunday

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 20 Apr 2025 22:53:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, The Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter Day,April 20th, 2025

“…I have seen the Lord….” John 20:1 -18

Alleluia! Christ is risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia! ) These are the words of Easter, the joyful, hopeful, beautiful words of Easter. We come together today to hear those words anew. They were first uttered by the earliest Christians 2,000 years ago, and we hear them afresh every Easter morning. And this Easter we are especially eager to hear them. We see Good Friday everywhere we look. So how are we to be Easter people in this Good Friday world? How can we give voice to Christ’s resurrection and all that it means, love and compassion, peace and forgiveness, courage and justice? How do we live as people of the Resurrection when the counter forces of evil are very much at work, the voices of hatred and violence, lies and vengeance, injustice and cruelty?

The very first Christians became followers of Jesus because of the resurrection. That was it, pure and simple. It is often said that the Gospels are long prologues to the resurrection. They tell the story of Jesus’ life and ministry, his healing, his teaching, his preaching, and all of these things are very important, but they are shared through the lens of the resurrection. And the Church is here, 2,000 years later, still proclaiming, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

The Gospels were written years after the first Easter. They came about in the context of worshipping communities, gathered to remember Jesus and to celebrate his resurrected presence with them through the bread and wine, through reading Scripture, through the physical things that helped them to experience him, together. They understood themselves as the beloved community, gathered in Jesus’ name, to recall his words to them about how to live as people of justice, mercy, compassion, and love. All of the death-dealing ways of the world, all of the forces that had conspired to kill Jesus, no longer had power over them, because the life-giving ways of God had brought forth Jesus from the dead.

Yesterday morning, I was typing away on my sermon for today, and my son Andrew walked in and asked if I was looking forward to having more people than usual at church on Easter, to which I replied, “yes, of course, you know I live for a packed-out church, my son.” He said, “Well, I know a way to get EVEN MORE people there than usual.” “How’s that?”, I inquired. “I could pitch a tent in front of the church tonight, with a sign on a pole outside the tent that says “the line starts here”, and I could stand there in a suit so people would think they might not get in tomorrow.” I told him I thought he had been watching too many episodes of Portlandia, but the thought that people would be cuing up ahead of time because they wanted to celebrate Easter together so much, that they would camp out overnight to make sure they got in, is a pretty cool one, I have to admit!

We have awesome news to share, my friends! It really is that good. And it is news that our world, our country, and everyone we know needs to hear, especially now. The news that all people are created in the image of God and called to live in beloved community. The news that Jesus taught, preached, healed and proclaimed the good news to the poor and oppressed. The news that Jesus died at the hands of a vicious regime, the Roman Empire, desperately trying to stamp out all possible threat to their power and exert military control over their subjects, but that earthly power did not have the last word. And the biggest news of all, that God raised Jesus from the dead and inaugurated a new way of being in this world. The way of mercy and compassion, the way of love and forgiveness, the way of courage and truth-telling.

One of the things that struck me during the Good Friday Passion reading this year, was the poignant exchange between Jesus and Pilate, just before Pilate condemns Jesus to death. Jesus tells Pilate that “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice”. And Pilate asks, “what is truth?” These cynical words are some of the saddest in Scripture. Pilate saw truth as something that was malleable, something that could be changed to suit his need to stay in power and reinforce the might of the Roman Empire. But Jesus gives voice to God’s eternal, changeless truth, the truth of his kingdom that is not from this world, a truth that we come to know by listening for his voice and learning to distinguish it from opposing voices. As his followers today, we do that by developing a relationship with him, through being a part of the beloved community, through worship, prayer and service to others. And Jesus meets us exactly as we are and invites us to be more than we think we can be.

The risen Lord invited the first witnesses to the empty tomb to become more. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb on that first Easter morning, while it was still dark, and ran to tell Peter and the beloved disciple that the stone had been removed from Jesus’ tomb. The two men run to the tomb and the Gospel says that Peter sees, and that the beloved disciples sees and believes, but does not fully comprehend, and then they return home, understandably overwhelmed and not knowing how to process everything. And there was a lot to come to terms with. Peter really loved Jesus, he had been such a faithful disciple throughout Jesus’ ministry, but he ended up denying Jesus on the night of his arrest, not once, not twice, but three times. He knew that as one of Jesus’ disciples he could get rounded up too. He was not there for Jesus in his darkest hour and the weight of that, the shame of it, was a lot to bear. The beloved disciple was particularly close to Jesus and had laid his head on Jesus’ chest at the last supper. He had been faithful to Jesus to the end. He was there at the cross as Jesus died a gruesome death. Jesus even entrusted his mother to him as he was dying. He had, it seems, understood Jesus’ teachings more fully than the others, but even he didn’t fully comprehend the enormity of what had happened when he and Peter saw the empty tomb and burial clothes. Mary Magdalene didn’t understand at first either, thinking that grave robbers had taken Jesus away. But she stays at the tomb, grieving the loss of her dear teacher. Mary Magdalene also stood with Jesus as he was crucified, the only other time that she appears in John’s Gospel. Outside of the resurrection accounts, she is only referred to in the Gospel of Luke as one of the women healed by Jesus who becomes his follower and contributes to his support. And yet Mary Magdalene has the privilege of encountering our Risen Lord first. And that perhaps is simply because she is present. She is there to see him after the others have gone home, but it takes a while for reality to dawn, for darkness to turn to light. She sees him but doesn’t know it is Jesus until he calls her name. That is the moment when she knows who Jesus is. Earlier in the Gospel of John, Jesus is pictured as the good shepherd, the one who knows each of his sheep. He calls them by name and they recognize his voice. He knows his own and his own know him.

Being seen and known by God is a wonderful and scary thing. We long to be known, to be seen, to be loved. We all do. And we are known and seen and loved by God. But love makes us vulnerable and that is why being known by God can also be scary. Can we really trust that God loves us, even those hidden parts of ourselves that we work so hard to disguise or ignore or deny, those aspects of our lives that we would rather not have exposed, the places of shame and despair? But God shines light on it all, the noble things about us and the deepest, darkest things. Bringing it all into the light, is how the healing happens. Peter was hot-headed and impetuous, but he really loved Jesus and wanted to do the right thing, even though his courage failed him. Mary Magdalene was caught up in grief and confusion, but she stayed the course. And Jesus loved them all. They each went forward forgiven, healed and renewed, as they and others formed the early Church. They shared the good news of Christ crucified and risen far and wide and we are here today because they saw, believed and eventually came to comprehend the enormity of what had happened. They became people of the Resurrection over time.

We too are called to be Easter people. We are a beloved community, gathered in Jesus name, week after week, Sunday after Sunday, listening for the good shepherd’s voice. We gather to seek the truth, we gather to experience Jesus’ love and forgiveness together and then go out to continue his work in the world, treating everyone with dignity and respect, welcoming the outcast and the stranger, and advocating for the common good. Jesus died FOR US. Jesus rose FOR US. And Jesus lives IN US. That truth is what enables us to live as resurrected people in a Good Friday world. Standing with the marginalized, the oppressed and the persecuted. And asking Christ to help us see his image in everyone we meet, in friend and stranger, in those in whom he is easy to see, and in those whom it is very hard to see.

“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” And that, my friends, is the good news that we are called to proclaim this day and forever more. Alleluia! Christ is risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!)

The King, the Priest, and the Messiah

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 22:55:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Palm Sunday, 4/13/25

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

There is no doubt that Palm Sunday, also known as Passion Sunday, is one of the most paradoxical liturgies in the Church year. We begin with the jubilant liturgy of the palms, rendering all glory, laud, and honor unto Jesus at his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But then, before we have had a chance to settle into the joy of the occasion, Jesus is crucified.

Now there is a good and practical reason for this abrupt liturgical transition from triumph to sacrifice, but this was never actually the original intent of Palm Sunday. Historically, Palm Sunday, which is our entryway to Holy Week, was a day to dwell in the triumph of Christ our king and messiah and the telling of his Passion and death was not to come until Good Friday. However, as social norms changed and our schedules became busier, the clergy began to look around the pews and realize that not everyone was making it to Good Friday – and I ascribe no shame here, only gentle invitation. But this created a theological conundrum, because as we know you cannot have resurrection without passing through crucifixion. Without Christ’s death on the cross, the empty tomb is not only missing a body, it’s missing its meaning. And so to remedy this problem, churches gradually began to squeeze the Passion Gospel into Palm Sunday, leaving preachers, such as myself, scrambling to make sense of these two powerful images of Jesus’s triumphal arrival and gut-wrenching departure all in one fell swoop.

However practical this solution may have been, it also shortchanges us from basking in the theological richness of Christ’s arrival at the start of Holy Week. So today I would like to remedy that, by not preaching on the Passion. For that, I’d like to invite you to do one of two things. First, is to come to the service of Good Friday if you can. It will be right here at noon. But if you cannot do that, then I invite you to take home today’s bulletin, and carve out some time on Friday to read through the account of Jesus’s passion again. Make time to dwell with Jesus at the foot of the cross. I promise, that if you do this, your experience of Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday will be all the more glorious.

So, back to these palms. What does Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem mean and why is it worth celebrating all these centuries later? The key to understanding Jesus’s triumphal entry is in the refrain of the crowd as he rides into town on a donkey:

"Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!"

Now what this proclamation is, is essentially a paraphrase of Psalm 118. And Psalm 118 is a prophetic psalm heralding the arrival of three things a king, a messiah, and a priest. These are the three titles that the crowd is thus conferring upon Jesus at his arrival. With the benefit of historical hindsight, this may seem obvious; Christians have been proclaiming Jesus as king, Messiah, and great high priest for centuries now, but it’s important to remember that at the time, to call someone, especially someone like Jesus, even one of those titles, was deeply scandalous. Scandalous even to the point of death, which we know is what happened. Why was that?

Let’s start with Jesus’s kingship. Well for one, crowning Jesus as king was a problem because there already was a king, King Herod who was deputized by an even higher ruler, the Roman Emperor, to oversee the region of Judea. So to welcome Jesus as a king and hail him with royal fanfare and palm fronds, the symbols of victory, was tantamount to insurrection. Not only that, the strangeness of this king Jesus would have been perceived as a mockery of Herod and of Caesar. And frankly, it was. The fact that Jesus was riding a lowly draft animal, a symbol of peace, and looking like a common shepherd signified God’s total inversion of what it meant to be powerful. It was a repudiation of violence and domination and a proclamation of humility and servanthood that were to be the instruments of Christ’s royal reign.

But what about Christ’s priesthood. In psalm 118 after the hailing of a heavenly king-figure, the text goes on to describe one who would “bind the festal procession with branches up to the horns of the altar” (v. 27). Now to contemporary listeners this would have been understood as a reference to only one altar – the altar in the holy temple in Jerusalem at which only one priest, the hereditary high priest of the house of Levi, had the privilege of offering sacrifice on behalf of the people before God. So to claim that this obscure, rabble rousing rabbi from the provincial region of Galilee (think Virginia Beach or Radford County) was going to assume the highest religious office of the land, was akin to heresy. And reversing expectations yet again, not only would Jesus become high priest, he would also become the sacrifice. The offering before God that would wipe the slate clean and open for us the gateway to heaven.

So at this point, Jesus, with the support of the people, has dethroned the king and defrocked the high priest and if all that were not enough, they have one more title to bestow upon him – the most dangerous and incredible one of all. Jesus is proclaimed as the Messiah. In Matthew’s Gospel the crowd cries out “Hosanna to the Son of David,” a title which could only mean one thing – the long-awaited anointed one of Israel (21:9). However, this time, instead of the emperor, instead of the high priest, it’s the people’s turn, even our turn, to be shocked.

You see, the common expectation was that the Messiah was the one whom God would send to liberate the Israelites from hundreds of years of dominating powers. The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and most recently, the Romans had all occupied Israel and her people and the Messiah was expected to be the one who would finally turn her shame to glory. But what the people of Jerusalem did not know that day, was that God had even loftier plans. For this Messiah had come not just to liberate the Israelites from their oppressors, but Christ Jesus had come to liberate each of us from sin and death. A messiah for the entire world.

The drama of Holy Week concludes in the way it begins today, with triumph. First a triumphal procession into Jerusalem, and finally, a triumphal resurrection of Christ our king, our high priest, and our Messiah, who wins for us redemption from death by his own death on the cross. And that is the story to be continued this week. Amen.

Bread and Roses

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 22:55:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Lent 5C, 4/6/25

Readings: Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:4b-14, John 12:1-8

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,

A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,

Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,

For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!

This is the opening stanza of a poem by James Oppenheim, penned at the height of the labor movement and women’s suffrage movement at the turn of the 20th century. This famous slogan “bread and roses” had become a rallying cry for women and workers and it encapsulates a particular philosophy, a theology even, of what is necessary for human flourishing. Daily bread, or food and water, is of course, the bare minimum required to sustain human life, and each day that we have food on the table is a blessing from God indeed, which we know is not afforded to every human being in this world. However, it is also true that even when this lowest common denominator of being fed is satisfied, living hand-to-mouth is a far cry from life in abundance.

Rather, to live the abundant life which God wills for us also involves some roses. That is to say, God desires a standard of human dignity beyond the satisfaction of our base levels of need. To have opportunities for such things as leisure, beauty, education, and the ability to offer something back of what we have been given, is far from extravagance – it is a target of human community worthy of God.

In today’s Gospel we find Jesus at the house of Lazarus some days after Jesus had raised him from death to life. And once more we find Lazarus’s sisters at their familiar places; Mary at Christ’s feet and Martha preparing a meal in the kitchen. But this time, rather than receiving the words of the good teacher, Mary is doing something incredibly tender and intimate on Christ’s behalf. She gingerly anoints Jesus’s feet with nard; a costly oil traditionally used for the preparation of a body for burial, perhaps oil left over from Lazarus’s death some days prior.

Whether she knew it or not, Mary’s act of compassion was both a foreshadowing of Christ’s own death and a loving act of defiance; a countering of death’s stench with the sweetness of resurrection anticipated. And yet even the most selfless acts of mercy are not without their detractors. Judas, the disciple who would later betray Jesus, raises the ostensibly reasonable objection that Mary’s compassionate gesture is a lavish waste. This oil, worth a whole year’s wages, could be sold and the money given to the poor. Now, even if Judas’s objection was motivated by his own self-interest, the argument is worth considering. To turn the question to ourselves, why not sell this organ, these windows, our silver Communion vessels, and offer them to the poor? Is this not the same commandment our Lord gave to the rich young man who sought the Kingdom, yet placed a higher value on his riches?

To this question, Jesus issues the scandalous reply “leave her alone… you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” At first, it shocks the ears. It sounds callous, flippant even. Could our Lord really mean this? I think he could. And if we recall the poem by Oppenheim, it suddenly sounds less scandalous. Remember those necessities for human flourishing? Bread and roses. Food for the body and nourishment for the soul. I’d like to tell you what I think Jesus is gesturing towards in a story that happened to me.

I was once a member at an historic parish in downtown Boston that was world-renowned for its music ministry. For half of the year and at great expense, they employed a professional chamber orchestra and a choir of staff singers to perform Bach cantatas during the liturgy. After receiving Communion, parishioners would file back to their pews and the ensemble would gather in the chancel to play some of the most arrestingly beautiful music that the Western world has ever produced before the priest gave the dismissal.

And just like Mary’s lavish anointing of Jesus, this ministry was controversial; one bishop had even attempted to stop the music, arguing that the congregation spent Sunday mornings worshipping Bach, rather than the Risen Lord. And in my early days of attendance, I too found myself wondering whether these cantatas were the most Christlike means of stewardship, when one often had to walk through encampments of the homeless to reach the church’s doors.

That is, until one day, I took a look around to really notice my fellow companions in the pews. To my left I spotted a man who I knew was a professional music critic and a regular at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and there seated next to him was another familiar face – an unhoused woman, surrounded by her bags of worldly belongings, who I’d often see shaking her cup outside of the local metro stop. People whose realities were worlds apart, and yet here, both of them were, shoulder to shoulder, eyes closed, heads tilted upward, as heavenly choruses washed over them, lost in wonder, love, and praise. The sight nearly brought me to tears. Here sat the disinherited and the highly favored – and I’ll let you decide who was which – bound by a common human need – for bread and roses. It was a vision of what I imagine heaven must look like.

And this was a common sight on any given Sunday. The rector, who ensured that the parish also hosted the most robust outreach ministry in the neighborhood, advocated beautifully for the necessity of both of these ministries – Bach and bread. It was the only place in the city where someone like that unhoused woman and many others like her who worshipped with us could receive a warm meal and experience this variety of lavish, soul-nourishing beauty, free of charge.

It is easy to perceive the resources we spend on offering beauty to God and the resources we spend on meeting the physical needs of our brothers and sisters as being at odds with one another. And it is true that we must always be mindful of the balance between the two. But after worshipping at that parish in Boston and hearing the words of our Lord to Judas and Mary, I am all the more convinced that offering our first fruits to God and to the poor is part of a common cause which makes us worthy of the promises of Christ.

Our rector, like Mary at Jesus’s feet, understood the benefit of smashing open that jar of oil. She understood that our offerings to God should be befitting of the poor, and our offerings to the poor should be befitting of God. That is why Jesus permitted Mary this extravagant gesture. That is a picture of the abundant life which God wills for us to share in.

So as we go marching, marching to the cross and empty tomb.

And are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses.

Let our Good Lord hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses! Amen.

A kiss, a ring , and a robe

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 22:56:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 30th, 2025

Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32

“…So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him…”. Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32

If there is one story that communicates the essence of the Gospel, it is the Parable of the Prodigal Son. This story is absolutely stunning in it’s beauty, it’s poignancy, it’s power, and most importantly, it’s truth. It’s deep truth about us and about God.

This parable is particular to the Gospel of Luke. Luke has been called the portrait painter of the Gospel, and for good reason. His storytelling creates clear images in our minds. And not only clear images but images that evoke powerful emotions. It is little wonder that Rembrandt, the Dutch master who was perhaps more effective than any other painter in history at expressing the depth and complexity of human experience, chose to portray today’s story in breath-taking splendor. Rembrandt was a master of color and light. In his painting of the Return of the Prodigal Son, he shows a repentant son, kneeling at his elderly father’s feet. The son’s clothes are tattered, his head is shaved like a slave and he is barefoot. The father looks upon his son with absolute love and forgiveness, and he lays his large, gentle hands on his son’s shoulders. The father and son are bathed in a warm, glowing light, a light that shines not just ON them, but comes from deep WITHIN them. The painting captures a moment of stillness, grace, and profound gratitude. This son was LOST but now is FOUND.

There is no greater joy in life than finding someone whom we deeply love after they have become lost to us. I imagine the father in this story praying for his youngest son to return to him, LONGING for him, physically ACHING for him-perhaps begging that he be given the opportunity to see him one more time before he dies. And yet, in his darker moments, despairing that that day might never come. I can imagine the father going back to that horrible day when his son came to him and demanded his inheritance as if his father was already dead. That painful day, when out of love, out of respect for his son’s freedom, as hard as it was, he gave it to him, knowing that his son’s arrogance and sense of entitlement was going to take him far away. And the father’s worst fears were realized. His son did go far away. He became completely lost, lost to his family, lost to his community, and lost to himself. But no matter how lost he became, the father never forgot about him, never stopped longing for him, never stopped loving him. The light that shines in and around them at this moment of reunion is the light of reconciliation. But even as joyful as the father is when the younger son finally returns, the reconciliation is not complete.

For in the shadows, in shades of darkness, there lurks another figure, the father’s older son, looking in on this scene in absolute disbelief and disdain. How could this possibly be? How could his father take his good-for-nothing brother back after what he had done? How could he treat him like royalty when his brother had disowned them? How could his father have anything to do with him much less treat him like the crown prince? A ring, a robe, a kiss and even a fatted calf! This whole time he had been the loyal one, HE had worked his father’s land, he had done everything that was expected of him. This ridiculous old man had lost all sense of justice, all sense of propriety, RUNNING out to meet his no-load brother. He was consumed with rage. But beneath his anger was a deep hurt. Watching his father shower his brother with love absolutely pierced him to the core. Didn’t his father love him more than this reckless brother of his? Why hadn’t his father ever treated him this way?

This story begs the question, “which brother is the prodigal?” We always think of the younger son as the prodigal. Prodigal means “wasteful” and tradition has long referred to the younger son that way. He did do something truly heinous. There is no getting around it. He wasted his inheritance. He was disrespectful. He was deeply hurtful. There is a big, long list of his transgressions. But he also came to himself. He realized his wrongdoing and committed to do something about it. The older brother was a prodigal in a different way. He had never forsaken his father outwardly. He had been dutiful. He had done what was expected of him. But he wasted another inheritance. He squandered his father’s love for him. He had stayed, he had worked, but he had not loved his father in the unconditional way that his father loved him. There was no joy for him, only duty. That perhaps is an even greater tragedy, not realizing how deeply someone loves us and being unable to return that love.

All of us see ourselves reflected in this parable, whether as the impulsive younger brother or the indignant older brother. Many of us think about our siblings. These dynamics are fairly universal. Jesus told parables because they can be interpreted on many levels. We come in at the self-recognition level, the level of the siblings, and then we are invited to go deeper-going deeper by asking who the main character of the story is. The main character of the parable is not the younger brother. It is not the older brother. The main character is the father.

And it is important to remember who Jesus is speaking to when he tells the parable. He is addressing it to the Pharisees, the judgmental, dutiful adherents of the law. Jesus tells them this story in response to their grumblings, their indignation at Jesus for welcoming the sinners and outcasts and eating with them. He tells them this parable to help them to understand that grace far outweighs judgment, and that sin takes a lot of different forms. Both the younger and the older son had been sinful. They had cut himself off from the father. But the father loves them and wants to be reconciled with him and with each other. Jesus told this story, to paint a picture for the Pharisees- to help them see what the Kingdom of God looks like. They are invited to walk into the picture and God gives them the freedom to choose how they will respond. Each of us is given that freedom. We can choose to stay in a place of alienation, either clinging to our self-righteousness, or staying locked up in our self-centerdness, OR we can make the courageous decision to start the long journey home, knowing that when we arrive, the father does not ask us to grovel at his feet. No, the father runs to greet us with a warm, loving embrace, a kiss, a ring and a robe. For all of us become lost to our true selves, but we are never, ever lost to God. And once we have experienced that kind of all encompassing, soul deep love, the love born of forgiveness, that love that only God can perfectly offer us, we are invited to share that merciful love with others, and in the process, become more and more like the father. Amen.

Putting on a new mind

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 22:57:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Lent 3C, 3/23/25

Readings: Exodus 3:1-15 (Moses and the Burning Bush 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Luke 13:1-9

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

How do we respond when tragedy befalls us? The answer Jesus gives is to repent. What in the world could our good Lord mean? I do think our initial shock at this answer comes from a misunderstanding of what it means to repent, which is what I’d like to explore with you today, because I think repentance is really a remarkable gift, not a punishment.

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells of two contemporary instances of tragedy which would have been familiar news stories to his disciples. In the first instance, Pontius Pilate, the same Roman governor who would go on to crucify Jesus, orders the execution of a number of Galileans for an unspecified charge. In the second instance, eighteen people were killed after an unsteady tower collapsed on them. One is an example of disaster effected by human hands and the other is simply a freak accident.

In both cases, Jesus poses the question “do you think these people perished because they were worse sinners than anybody else?” And the answer is definitively – no, they were not. This part, I believe, is straightforward enough. Jesus is effectively overturning a theology of transactional grace in which God is imagined as a divine Santa Claus, keeping a tally of good deeds, to be rewarded with presents and treats; and bad deeds, to be rewarded with persecution and natural disaster. Bad things happen to good people and we ought not blame others or ourselves for previous misdeeds when such instances occur.

We are all sinners after all, and God’s deepest desire is not to punish us, but to save us from the punishment we so often inflict on ourselves and our neighbors through our sin. We know this because in the Old Testament, God, in the burning bush tells Moses of his plan to liberate the Israelites from the cruelty of the Egyptians. God does not blame the Israelites for being enslaved, but promises to enact their liberation.

But then, after overturning this theology of transactional grace, Jesus says something perplexing which seems to contradict his previous contradiction: “but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did” (Lk. 13:3). Hmm. So which one is it Jesus – is tragedy not a punishment for our sins or must we repent to avoid tragedy? If the answer is the latter, that tragedy will befall us if we do not repent, then I think we are all in big trouble and it’s also an incredibly unpastoral answer.

Unless, Jesus is inviting us to reconsider our understanding of repentance. You see, there are two commonly held meanings of what it means to repent. The first comes from the Latin verb repentere, which means literally, to turn away. To turn ourselves, body, mind, and soul, away from that which is sinful and towards the love of God. This, I believe is a very lovely and useful understanding of repentance, but not at all in this instance. I can’t imagine a situation in which someone came to me for pastoral care in the midst of a crisis and I told them “well, have you considered turning away from your sinfulness?” No! Absolutely not.

And this is not what Jesus is talking about either. Rather, the Greek work Jesus uses when he calls on us to repent is metanoia. And metanoia is a difficult word to translate into English but can be understood as meaning ‘to change ones mind,’ or even better, ‘to put on a new mind.’ This is what Jesus is telling us to do when we repent, to put on a new mind; to reorient our understanding of our relationship to God and the world around us. To believe and act as if we are beloved children of God and so are those around us. That is the repentance Jesus is inviting us into.

So what exactly does this new mind look like? For one, we know it is not a mind in which God is actively out to get us for falling short. Jesus has already refuted that understanding of God. Instead, Jesus invites us to set aside a mind which asks “what is God doing to punish us” and put on a mind which asks “what is God doing to save us?”

And to answer this question, what is God doing to save us, Jesus offers a beautiful parable. A man grows angry at his fig tree for not producing figs and orders the gardener to cut it down. The gardener responds by challenging the man, saying “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down” (Lk 13:19).

Now who is who in this parable? In light of Jesus’s words about putting on a new mind, I’m inclined to believe that we are the fig tree which is struggling to bear fruit. And we struggle to bear fruit either because of our own sins or the sins around us which have made the soil hostile to growth. The man who wants to cut the fig tree down can be seen as the worldview, the mind, which sees only punishment without opportunity for grace, which is perhaps the mind we hold about ourselves at times. And the gardener, the wise and patient gardener, is of course our good Lord, who wants more than anything else, to save the already struggling fig tree from perishing entirely, which he does by pouring nutrient rich soil – grace upon grace – at its roots so that the tree may live.

If this is what repentance looks like. If this is what putting on a new mind about what God is trying to do in our lives, then I will be first in line to repent. Our Lenten repentance is about opening ourselves to receiving the grace which our Lord is heaping at our feet. And to do this, we also need to pull up a few weeds, to remove a few stubborn stones that are blocking our root systems from receiving God’s grace in its fullness. And in doing this, we are able shed the old leaves, the old mind, and put on a new one that is marked by the fruit of grace. That, thank God, is gift of we have in repentance. Amen.

Abrams Covenant and Ours

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 22:58:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Lent 2, Year C, 3/16/25

Readings; Genesis 15:1-12,17-18 (God’s Covenant with Abram), Philippians 3:17-4:1 (Citizens of Heaven), Luke 13:31-35 (Blessed is the One who Comes)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

One day God asked the Archangel Michael to give a report on the state of things on earth. After conducting his research, St. Michael sheepishly shared that things were not going very well. 90% of the people on earth were behaving very badly and seemed to have little confidence that God could do anything about it. The other 10% were doing pretty well. They were trying their best to live a godly, righteous and sober life but were feeling discouraged and unsure of what God’s will for them was. So God, in His infinite wisdom, came up with a plan. He told St. Michael to send a group text message to the righteous 10% with instructions on what to do so that the other 90% would have a chance to amend their ways and follow him. And do you know what that text message said? I don’t know, I didn’t get it either.

In today’s Old Testament lesson, we find Abram, the great forefather of our faith, in a very similar situation of awaiting clear instructions from God. It’s a circumstance I think all of us are familiar with; one of wanting to do God’s will and wanting some assurance that God actually has a plan, but not being sure what that will or plan really is. And so we turn to God for some assurance, some clarity and guidance.

At this point, Abram is early on in his journey of following God. A few chapters earlier, God had called Abram away from his familiar, native land, and promised that if he followed Him, God would give Abram three things: land, offspring, and a blessing on his household to the end of the ages. Now it’s important to know that what these three things represented was far more than material assets, a better Ancient Near Eastern stock portfolio, if you will. In ancient times, much as now, where you belonged, who you belonged to, and which God you worshipped were essential things that made up the core of who you were as a person. So what God was essentially offering Abram was a new identity in Him. To use the words of St. Paul in today’s epistle, God is offering to make Abram a “citizen of heaven” (Phil. 3:20).

And more than that, God wanted Abram to share in this new mission of making God’s name known to the world, which we know Abram accepted because we are all here worshipping God’s Holy Name as citizens of heaven today.

However, at some point in Abram’s journey, doubts began to creep in about whether this God was trustworthy. After giving up everything he ever knew to follow this God on this new mission, Abram still hadn’t received any of the things God had promised him and we can imagine that he was wondering if he too had missed a text message. It was at this crucial moment of uncertainty that God came to Abram in the most peculiar way, in a vision. And in that vision, God first reassured Abram, saying “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great” (Gen. 15:1). God then reminds Abram of His promise by saying “look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them… so shall your descendants be” (15:5).

However, this verbal assurance is not enough for Abram, and he asks God how he is to know that these promises are true? And God tells Abram to go gather five animals and make a sacrifice to Him, which Abram does. Then, after this sacrifice, Abram falls into a deep sleep and God appears to him again, and this time a peculiar ritual takes place. A smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, symbols of the presence of God, pass between the animals and God tells Abram that he has entered into a sacred covenant with him. A covenant which shall be inherited by his descendants forever.

Friends, let me tell you, we are inheritors of this covenant to this day. And a covenant is made up of two parts: the first part is God’s promise and the second part human responsibility. And our responsibility in this covenant is faithfulness to God. We show this faithfulness through our prayers; through our repeated act of showing up for God in worship, in devotion, and in the actions which proclaim God’s holiness to others.

However, as we know by the naughty 90% in St. Michael’s report, humans are notoriously bad at upholding our end of the covenant. God knows this. God also knows that we are prone to doubt and need regular assurance that we have not been abandoned. And so God’s ultimate act of assurance to us was to send His only son to become the final covenant sacrifice for the redemption of the world. Rather than asking for repeated sacrifice to pay our dues as heavenly citizens, God became the sacrifice, thereby securing a place in heaven for all the faithful.

And if you still have doubts about that, about whether Christ has really made good on the covenant for us, then let your doubts be your Lenten offering to God, like Abram did. God so desires a relationship with you and is always delighted to hear from you in prayer, no matter what you lay before Him. And I truly believe that if you take time to bear your heart to God, especially in doubt, then God will reveal Himself to you in the way you need it. God may not text you directly, though I’d never rule it out, but God will find a way to reach out to you and make His assurance known. Maybe in visions and dreams, maybe in nature or in worship, and maybe through the places and people He has given you. One way or another, God is reaching out his arms of love to assure you that His promise is forever.

So send your messages to God this Lent, and don’t forget to check yours. Amen.

“Enduring in the Wilderness of Chaos and Confusion”

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 22:59:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, First Sunday in Lent, March 9th, 2025

“Enduring in the Wilderness of Chaos and Confusion”

“After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil…”. Luke 4: 1-13

Every year, on the First Sunday in Lent, we hear the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, from either the Gospel of Matthew, Mark or Luke. And in all three, Jesus is led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness immediately after his baptism. As he comes up out of the water, Jesus hears the Voice of God, saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well-pleased.” In that moment of profound grace, Jesus knows who he is and what he has been called to do. He knows that he is one with God and that God’s love for him is everlasting and that God has a mission for him to share that love with the world. Jesus’ baptism is a moment of ecstasy, a transcendent experience, a spiritual high. But Jesus is not allowed the luxury of dwelling there. The Spirit immediately leads him into the wilderness to be tested. All three gospels make the explicit connection between Jesus’ baptism and his time in the wilderness. Jesus’ clarity about his purpose and mission at his baptism is immediately put to the test before he begins his ministry.

Jesus’ 40 days in the desert recalls Israel’s 40 years of wilderness wandering in the Old Testament, when God frees the Israelites from bondage in Egypt in a most dramatic way. Moses holds his hands up and God parts the Red Sea, allowing the Israelites to escape and they rejoice as Miriam and the other women lead them in praise and dance for all that God has done for them. Moses leads the way, toward the land that God has promised them, a land flowing with milk and honey. But then the hardship and testing begins and it lasts for 40 years. (Forty in Bible speak means a really long time.) And the Israelites complain. They doubt that God will provide for them. They start worshipping false gods, thinking that if God is going to allow them to suffer, they will find another god who will offer comfort and an easier life. They rail against Moses, whom God has commissioned to lead them and to remind them that God is faithful. And despite the Israelites’ waywardness, their looking for answers in all the wrong places, their trying to take matters into their own hands, their failure to trust in the one true God, God still provides for them. Not in the way that they wanted, but in the way that they needed. Every day God rains down manna from heaven, just enough to feed them that day, no more, no less. In fact, if they take more than enough for one day, it spoils. They learn to trust that God will give them enough tomorrow, just as God has given them enough for today. And they go forward, day by day, step by step.

In the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, he too is tried and tempted, just as his ancestors had been tested, but unlike them, Jesus does not lose his faith. He does not look for an easy way out. Remembering his baptism, remembering his connection with God, he stays the course and does not give into temptation. He does not lose faith that God would provide for him. He trusts that the Spirit has not abandoned him in the wilderness. God has not left him to bear everything alone. The Spirit leads him there and is with him, guiding him, and giving him strength to endure.

We all need the gift of endurance right now. We are in a wilderness of chaos and confusion. This is a collective time of trial, as we wonder what each new day will bring, stress from the news, stress for those of you in the federal workforce, fear of losing your own jobs, concern for those whom you work with or are responsible for. People do not deal well with uncertainty and instability. So it is especially important to stay rooted in our faith. The “peace that passes all understanding” is the only thing that is going to get us through. Trusting that God’s Spirit is with us right now is key. The Spirit didn’t just drop Jesus off in the desert and abandon him. The Spirit gave him strength and sustenance and God’s Spirit will do the same for us. Like the Israelites, we will be given manna. We need to ask God for just enough grace for each day. Just enough for each day. This is not the time to be thinking too far ahead. Today’s trials are enough for today.

When Jesus was tempted by Satan he had passages of Scripture that came to mind that enabled him to withstand the particular temptation he was faced with. (Interestingly, all of his responses were from Deuteronomy, one of the books that describes the wilderness journey of his ancestors.) Jesus was absolutely starving after so long without eating, and Satan told him that since he was the Son of God, all he had to do was to command a stone to turn to bread and it would, but Jesus refused saying, “One does not live by bread alone.” When Satan tempted him with worldly power, he replied “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” When the devil tempted him to throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple to prove that he had the power to call down angels to protect him from harm, Jesus replied, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Temptation is all around us right now. Fear and insecurity about the future provide fertile soil for the seeds of temptation. And we need very practical ways of staying centered and focused and faithful. Just as Jesus had passages of Scripture that helped him withstand the wiles of the devil, memorizing key Bible verses is a primary way for us to resist despair, cynicism and hopelessness.

One of the oldest prayer forms in Christianity, which has even older roots in Judaism, is Lectio Divina, divine reading. It was given this name by Saint Benedict over 1500 years ago. He said we are to pray with Scripture as a cow chews its cud. As we meditate on a biblical passage, we chew on it, getting spiritual nutrients from it. The words of Scripture become part of us, as they work their way down from our heads to the center of our beings. It’s simple. You just pick a passage and read it slowly and meditatively three times, narrowing it down each time until you have a mantra, a few words or lines that you come back to throughout the day, when a new, unsettling thing is reported in the news or happens at work. Today’s psalm is great for that, repeating throughout the day, “Lord, you are my refuge and strength.” “Lord, you are my refuge and my strength.” “Lord, you are my refuge and my strength.”

Times of trial can either weaken our faith or strengthen it. My prayer for all of us today is that we will be strengthened, just as Jesus was strengthened. That during these 40 days of Lent we will find sustenance in coming to church and meditating on passages that can give us the grace we need to meet each day. Amen.

Running up that hill

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Last Sunday after Epiphany, Year C, 3/2/25

Readings: Exodus 34:29-35 (Moses on Mt. Sinai), 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 (Removing the Veil), Luke 9:28-36, [37-43a] (The Transfiguration)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Today is the last Sunday of the season of Epiphany, which is a season focused on helping us see the ways that God shows up for us tangibly in the world. It begins with the first Epiphany experience, when the Magi visit the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Christ child after His birth and it ends with this mysterious event known as the Transfiguration, which we hear of today. Now before I get into the Transfiguration, I want to say that it’s always been fascinating to me to think about sacred geography; that is, where spatially God shows up for us. Throughout scripture you’ll notice a common pattern of God revealing Himself to us in two specific places – deserts and mountaintops.

Now, in a theological sense, deserts and mountaintops are really opposite extremes when you think about it. Deserts are harsh, low places of isolation, scarcity, and solitude. In scripture deserts are often employed as a literary device to mirror outwardly the inner landscape of those who find themselves wandering there. Take for example the Israelites, who wander in the desert for forty years, wondering if God has abandoned them, or Jesus who is tempted by Satan in the desert before he enters Jerusalem to be crucified.

Then, on the other end of the spectrum, we have mountaintops. These are high places which convey a sense of awesome closeness to God. Literally and figuratively, they change our perspective of the world by drawing us up and away from the commonplace smallness of daily life and reorient our view to a horizon that is vaster and more majestic than life as we know it on the ground. Thus, it’s no surprise that a mountaintop is the setting in which the disciples Peter and John see Jesus for the first time, transfigured as who he truly is – the Son of God. It is a moment of awe and exaltation.

Now for most of us, the majority of our lives are spent somewhere between deserts and mountaintops. Between the extremes of desolation and exaltation. And don’t get me wrong, God is no less present to us in our quotidian life. However, it’s been my experience that humans are more inclined to either seek or to see God in during those high highs or low lows of life, than we are when things are simply normal.

So whether you find yourself in a desert, or on a mountaintop, or somewhere in between this morning, I have good news for you. God is eager to meet you in this very moment. And in fact, sometimes the desert and the mountaintop moments are closer than they might appear.

Our Old and New Testament lessons are both prime examples of this. In Exodus, the Israelites have been wandering in the desert for decades now and have been wondering for some time if God is ever going to lead them out of this terrible place and into the Promised Land. In their desperation, some have abandoned the faith and turned to other gods to save them. Then, in that critical moment when hope is in the balance, God calls their leader Moses up to this mountaintop to renew His covenant with them. After communing with God directly, Moses’s once ashen face becomes shining with God’s glory, which is then reflected upon the people, restoring their hope that God never faltered from His plan to save them.

Then, in Luke’s Gospel, in the passage immediately preceding another mountaintop moment, Jesus foretells of his suffering and death to his disciples. It’s important to remember that at this point, the disciples had already given up everything familiar to follow Jesus, and now, they are told by the man whom they believe to be the Messiah that he is going to be executed like a common criminal. Surely, like the Israelites in the desert, this caused some of the disciples to wonder if they have been led astray, for what kind of a Messiah dies? And if he does, does that mean that they are risking the same fate by following him? As if anticipating these fears, Jesus then takes Peter and John up Mount Sinai where He is revealed in the Transfiguration as who he truly is. More than a kindly teacher or a prophet, Jesus is the Son of God. And if Jesus is then Son of God, then surely there is something better in store for his followers than deserts and death.

These two passages are mirror images of one another, and they both speak to the power of Transfiguration – of God’s ability to reorient our sight from a low place of desperation to a high place of confident hope, where we can see a horizon which leads to victory.

Now truthfully, there are times when that mountaintop seems out of reach. Or even if we can see the mountain, perhaps we have been walking in the desert for so long that our legs don’t have the strength to carry us up. When that’s the case, I can tell you that we always have a darn good hill. And that hill is right here. This altar is a holy hill at which transfiguration happens reliably for us at every single Eucharist.

And every single time Rev. Shearon and I celebrate the Eucharist from behind it, our gaze is fixated upward and outward at that window right behind you. Turn around for a moment and take a look at it. Do you see what that is? That’s the Transfiguration. And when we are celebrating the Eucharist, I often imagine an invisible golden string connecting what’s happening in this bread and wine to what the disciples are witnessing happen in Jesus. These elements are transfigured into the real presence of the Son of God before us. We might not always perceive it in the way that the Moses and the disciples did when they saw God face-to-face, but if we open our eyes and our hearts wide enough, we might just catch a glimpse of that mountaintop from this hill.

And if we can climb up this hill to catch a glimpse of Jesus, then we can make it to the next hill. And if we can make it to the next hill, then we might just find ourselves a little closer to that mountaintop, and from that mountaintop we can then see that at the periphery of the desert which once seemed so vast and consuming, there is a lush and verdant garden, where streams of living water will wash away the dust from our tired bodies, and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is waiting to receive us with radiant love.

So come, climb this hill with me another day and rest in God’s glory. Amen.

On Turning the Other Cheek

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 01:31:00 +0000

Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Epiphany 7, Year C, 2/23/25

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Love your enemies and turn the other cheek. This is perhaps one of the most difficult teachings of Christ presented to us in all of the Gospel. When I first read these words last week I thought that this is either the worst possible timing for this Gospel lesson to appear, when country, and neighbor, and even household is so bitterly divided, or it is the Gospel we need desperately to hear now more than ever. Love your enemies and turn the other cheek.

What does this even mean and how can we be expected to respond in a way which seems so passive when we encounter flagrant violations of human dignity? How can the same God who repeatedly liberates His people from the Egyptians, the Philistines, and the Babylonians, now appear to tell us to accept the injustices we receive with meekness, and while we’re at it, go ahead and love the person who is slighting you. How does this make sense?

Truthfully, it does not make sense at all. At least not according to any conventional meaning of ‘common sense’. For if Christ came to share common sense with us, a common ethics which the culture of the world already teaches us, well we could all pack our bags and call it a day. But instead of common sense, Jesus is inviting us, asking us, begging us, to see the uncommon sense which will liberate us from a commonplace way of living that traps us in cycles of retribution, violence, and embitterment.

So let’s first take a look at what common ethics Jesus is calling us away from. In first century Roman Palestine the common ethics were a two-tiered ethics of retribution, justice, and hierarchy. If you were a Roman citizen, the rule was an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If a person of equal standing to you committed a crime against you, that person was to be punished in a way equal to the crime. This is essentially the law and ethics we still operate under today. It’s an ethics of retribution, tit for tat. However, in ancient Rome, not even this baseline ethic of retribution was equally applied – there was an even lower moral standard of treatment for those who were not Roman citizens.

For instance, the law allowed for a Roman citizen to strike a non-citizen on the cheek with legal impunity. And if the non-citizen were to try to reciprocate the blow to the Roman, well then, the punishment would be imprisonment or even death. So it would seem then, that for Jesus and his mostly Jewish disciples who were not Roman citizens, the only two options were to a) try to fight back against the Romans using the same commonplace logic of retribution, which would likely lead to them losing their lives, or b) accept the injustice and move on with the status quo while their hatred for the Romans continued to consume them.

According to common sense, these appeared to be their options, that is, until Jesus presented to them a third and uncommon option. An option which really is an entirely different ethical worldview. One predicated on love and mercy for your oppressor rather than retribution. This is the option to turn the other cheek. Now in spite of how it sounds, loving your enemy and turning the other cheek is actually far from passive acceptance. Christ is not asking us to turn a blind eye to the slight, he is asking us to turn a mirror to it.

Just imagine for a moment what such an encounter might look like and let’s imagine we’re the ones doing the striking. We strike someone on the cheek and, instead of responding in the way we might expect, with outrage or further violence, they instead, turn and present the other side of their face to be struck.

Even if we were incredibly angry, how might that make us feel? For most of us, it would cause a deep feeling of shame to see our hostility exposed in such a measured way.

Now imagine if the person being struck went a step further and then told us that they loved us, even though they did not approve of the way they were being treated. This is the most uncommon and astounding part. And let me be clear, loving someone in a scriptural sense has nothing to do with rosy feelings of affection. Jesus does not say we must feel fondly for our enemies. Rather, loving an enemy is about seeing them the way that God sees them, as beloved children, even when their anger and hatred is directed towards us. Loving our enemies as God does, does not mean passively approving of what they do, it means being proactively compassionate to their own sources of hurt and anger so that we are better equipped to stop them from destroying us and themselves in the process.

What loving our enemy and turning the other cheek is really about, is turning the mirror of God’s love towards the source of the harm. Because if we’re turning harm back towards harm, we know that only further harm will come. This is not something any of us can easily do alone and so we must call on God’s grace, the grace of a Lord who forgave his persecutors, even on the cross.

And let me be honest with you, the most difficult part about this practice of turning the other cheek, of turning the mirror of God’s love upon violence, is that it does not guarantee that the other party will stop. We know, and God knows, that sometimes the wound is so deep in our enemies, that even seeing the face of Christ reflected to them is not enough to keep them from trying to harm us. Jesus was still crucified.

However, this does not mean that Jesus is calling us to a fruitless practice, because loving and forgiving and praying for our enemies is as much for the benefit of our own souls as it is for the souls of our enemies. Any form of hatred which we allow to infect our hearts will eat us up. And God knows that the only effective way we can safeguard ourselves from hatred is to let our hearts become so filled with love that it pours out onto the cheeks of our enemies even as they strike ours. So if you cannot love someone you hate for their sake, then please, I implore you, to love them for yours. This is the uncommon sense Christ is calling us to.

And if you’re like the many of us struggling with this practice of loving your enemy right now, that’s okay, it simply means you are human. A human who is loved beyond measure by a God of uncommon grace, and you have at least an entire church full of people who are here to support you in receiving that grace – for yourself, and even for your enemy. Amen.

Thank you for your service

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 23:46:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 16th, 2025

“Thank-you for your Service”

“…Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,

whose trust is the Lord.

They shall be like a tree planted by water,

sending out its roots by the stream.

It shall not fear when heat comes,

and its leaves shall stay green;

In the year of the drought it is not anxious,

and does not cease to bear fruit….” Jeremiah 17: 5-10

When we were traveling around the country with my husband Robbie’s naval career, people would often stop him and say “thank-you for your service.” I was always really touched by that because it demonstrated that he was seen, valued and appreciated for his dedication to our country and peace-keeping around the world. People still tell him thanks to this day and it is always a blessing when they do. People in the military are often away from home for long periods of time, they work long hours and their lives are sometimes at risk. Our family went through a lot of times being concerned for Robbie’s safety and missing him when he had to be away, but we knew that what he did was important. It was for a larger purpose.

I was very interested to learn this week that our federal government employs 2 ¼ million military personnel and it employs an equal number of civilians, another 2 ¼ million. Over half of the civilians work for Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense and Homeland Security. Civil servants are so important, but the general population of our country does not always realize what vitally, important roles civil servants perform. Many of you are civil servants and contractors supporting our government and have given years of excellent, dedicated, sacrificial service. You could have chosen a more lucrative career, but you did not because you wanted to serve our country. You are lawyers, scientists, administrators, policy-makers, national security professionals, and foreign aid workers, to name a few. Your work affects the farmers who grow our food, the development of life-saving drugs, the safety of the roads we drive on, the support of veterans, the protection of vulnerable groups, the feeding of people around the world, and so much more. Thank-you. Thank-you for your service. Thank-you for all that you have done for so many people, most of whom will never know that you are the ones behind the benefits that we all receive that we so often take for granted. Thank-you. I am very grateful for you and your commitment to serving others. Please know that we see and value and honor your service.

Some of you have lost your job, some of you are anticipating losing your job, and some of you are responsible for a lot of other people in your workplace whom you are trying to support, even in the midst of concerns about your own future. Thankfully there will be many of you who do not lose your job but whose workplaces will be still be vastly changed. That is a lot of trauma. There is so much suffering right now. So much pain, fear, anger, disillusionment and a sense of abandonment. Our whole region is so focused on the federal government. It is the center of gravity, even for non-government employees, and a lot of people feel like everything is falling apart around them.

What we have to remember is that as Christians, our TRUE center of gravity is God. The Lord is the center of gravity. He holds all things together. He holds us together, individually and collectively, through thick and thin, and especially during times of extreme stress. In our reading from the prophet Jeremiah today, we hear this.

“…Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,

whose trust is the Lord.

They shall be like a tree planted by water,

sending out its roots by the stream.

It shall not fear when heat comes,

and its leaves shall stay green;

In the year of the drought it is not anxious,

and does not cease to bear fruit….” Jeremiah 17: 5-10

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust IS the Lord. When everything seems to be falling apart around us, we trust that God is with us and will show us the way, even when all seems dark. Jeremiah was writing during a time of tremendous suffering for he and his people. The beautiful city of Jerusalem was their beloved home and it was suddenly destroyed by Babylonian invaders. Exile and alienation is their new reality. All of their points of reference for everyday life are gone. And Jeremiah asks them, “How will you respond ? Will you respond as people who live in the desert, where everything is desolate and barren and without hope, or will you respond as though you are trees, trees planted beside a flowing river rooted and grounded in trust in God’s provision? “

Trusting that God will provide is the absolute hardest thing to do when everything around us looks so bleak. When we feel the wolves circling us and when we feel the wolves circling the people we love, whether they are in our family, our circle of friends, or our co-workers. Human beings are social creatures. What affects one, affects us all, whether we are aware of it or not.

A few years ago I read the Pulitzer prize winning book, the Overstory, by Richard Powers. Being a major tree lover, I was fascinated to read about the interconnection between human beings and trees, and also the nature of relationships between trees in a forest. I learned that trees live in communities and communicate with each other through their root systems. If there is a threat, one tree sends out warning signals to the other trees. And if one tree is sick, other trees send out nutrients to restore it to health. There is a sense that what affects one affects all.

This scientific understanding of interrelatedness really helps to give Jeremiah’s tree metaphor more depth and breath. God created the earth and all its creatures to be interconnected and mutually supportive.

“…Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,

whose trust is the Lord.

They shall be like a tree planted by water,

sending out its roots by the stream.

It shall not fear when heat comes,

and its leaves shall stay green;

In the year of the drought it is not anxious,

and does not cease to bear fruit….” Jeremiah 17: 5-10

Trees are a lot more resilient when their root system are well-developed and they are not alone. We need to put our faith in God and in this community right now. Whatever happens with the government, we are going to be alright. And we have a choice about how we respond. Things are hard, but God is with us and will show us a way forward. And we have to remember that no one can do this alone. During times of upheaval, we need support, especially the support of our church friends who will hold out hope for us when we are not feeling hopeful, people who will be with us in our struggles and reminding us that all will ultimately be well.

One way that we put meat on those bones is through our small groups. If you are not already in a small group, think about joining one, even if you don’t consider yourself much of a joiner, especially if you don’t consider yourself much of a joiner. Our house churches are one of our small group ministries. We have 9 house churches now. They were formed during the pandemic when we were all isolated and afraid. And people are isolated and afraid now. These groups meet each week, either on Zoom or in-person, for one hour. They share joys and challenges, study Scripture and pray together. The format is simple, but the connections are powerful, like trees sending out nutrients to each other. The idea for these groups comes from the early Church, when people met in homes, during a time of persecution, worshipping together, praying together, and supporting one another. Our house churches help to keep the root system of Saint George’s strong and resilient as we weather storms together. (We are forming new ones specifically for federal workers right now and our existing ones are always open to new members.) The house churches, along with all of our other small groups, are providing much need support and spiritual grounding. They are a way of putting on our own oxygen mask to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others. If you want to know more about our house churches or other small groups, please email Father Paddy or myself, and we’d be glad to connect you. Both of us are also only an email away if you want to talk and pray, one-on-one.

Saint George’s is also mindful of other groups, in addition to federal workers, who are at risk right now. Our social justice and outreach ministries are always hard at work, responding to the needs of our larger community , and they are attuned to groups of people who are especially at risk right, so be on the look-out for this Thursday’s Dragon Bytes for ways that you can sign-up to support refugees and immigrants, particularly San Jose, our Spanish-speaking sister congregation. Volunteering with our food pantry is also a great, hands-on way to minister to others, and honor the face of Christ in everyone we meet. We are called to take care of ourselves and take care of one another, trusting in God’s provision for all of us.

“…Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,

whose trust is the Lord.

They shall be like a tree planted by water,

sending out its roots by the stream.

It shall not fear when heat comes,

and its leaves shall stay green;

In the year of the drought it is not anxious,

and does not cease to bear fruit….” Jeremiah 17: 5-10

Re-membering the Body

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 01:26:00 +0000

Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Epiphany 3, Year C, 1/26/25

Readings: Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 (The gift of the Law), 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a (One body, many parts), Luke 4:14-21 (Proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Friends, I can’t tell you how good it is to be back with you today, and if you are visiting or new, then welcome. In case you have forgotten, my name is Paddy Cavanaugh, the associate rector at St. George’s, and for the past three months I have been on paternity leave with my wife Winnie, who gave birth to our first daughter, Mary Winston, in October. Since then I have been wrapped in a blanket of wonder, love, and praise, at the miracle which new life promises.

I believe this new arrival of joy is timely because I realize that I am rejoining you at a very precarious time in our national life. There is anxiety in the system. And if I’ve learned anything about anxiety, it’s that it does nothing beneficial for our physical, mental, or spiritual wellbeing. It does not help us to change circumstances for the better. So let’s try, as best as we can, to let go of whatever is troubling us this morning, and just set it right there before the altar and let God handle it.

Now. Let me tell you, there’s little else in this world than the arrival of a brand new human being to remind us of our human obligation to one another. For each of our bodies are given life by the bodies of our parents which, were in turn given life from the God of all creation. And at heaven’s gates we will all be recognized as nothing less, and nothing more than God’s children. Neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, Republican nor Democrat, nor anything else in this world, other than what we truly are – which is beloved children of God.

And more than that, we as Christians, have been made members of the one body of Jesus Christ our Lord, who was crucified, died, and risen for the salvation of this world. And as members of Christ’s body, St. Paul eloquently reminds us that “if one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” (1 Cor. 12:26). This means that we are to love and care for one another and each other’s children, as if they were our own. Both the neighbor we love and the neighbor we struggle to love. For if we are not praying for the salvation of our enemies, whomever we believe them to be, then we are not praying for our own salvation, and we become trapped in a bitter cycle of enmity against our own body.

This is the difficult vocation to which we have been called. And in the coming years we will call on God’s strength and the love of one another to live it out. And remember that you do not have to bear the burdens of this world on your own. You have everyone down here and up there to bear them with you.

And so, Rev. Shearon and I decided that we wanted to read to you the pastoral letter sent by our Bishop, Mark Stevenson, this week, to remind us of the support and unity we have in Christ’s body. Bishop Stevenson says:

My Dear Siblings in Christ in the Diocese of Virginia:

I sit at my desk at the end of a momentous day; a day in which The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was remembered and celebrated across this nation and around the world, and a day in which this nation once again transferred authority from one democratically elected president to another.

Like many of you, I have watched and listened to speech after speech today, and public prayer after public prayer. I have been listening not just with the ears of an American citizen, but also with those of a disciple of Jesus, the Son of God. And while I am thankful for the safe and clear practices of democracy, I must say that I am troubled by much of what I heard in respect to how I am called to live as a follower of the One who defined power as love for others, and love as sacrifice of self-interest.

As Bishop and chief pastor of the Diocese of Virginia, I feel led to be direct about a couple of things in the days before us: First, every human being will be respected in our churches, regardless of race, creed, gender expression, nationality, or in any other category or classification of humanity. Every human being will be respected from our pulpits, in our pews, and through our ministries. Rhetoric in the public square that dehumanizes any person or group of people, or is designed to strike fear in people’s hearts, is contrary to the gospel and is to be called out as such.

Further, we are to remember that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were themselves refugees, fleeing for their lives for a season. And, as Jesus points out without equivocation in Matthew 25, how we treat the stranger and those in need has a direct bearing on our relationship with God in heaven. Given these things, we must provide safety to the fearful and stand boldly against tyranny of speech or action.

And, I must say that the use of Christian language, or of any scriptural language, to advance a case that God values one nation in this day and time more than another is contrary to the gospel. For God so loved the world, not one people, that he sent Jesus to bring salvation.

My friends, Jesus is Lord – no one else. The Holy Spirit is the source of wisdom and comfort – not any political affiliation. Our Father in heaven is love and life – not any earthly ruler. We are the beloved of this God. All of us. And while none of us is worthy of that love, my prayer is that we do our best to honor it by our very lives.

Love Jesus. Embody justice. Be disciples. For we are the Diocese of Virginia.

Yours in Christ,

Bishop Stevenson

Friends, we are one body, one body in Christ. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Amen.

“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.” Isaiah 62: 1-5

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 02:12:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Second Sunday after the Epiphany, January 19th, 2025

“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.” Isaiah 62: 1-5

Today we remember the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK was a prophet, very much in keeping with the Old Testament prophetic tradition. In our reading from Isaiah today, the prophet speaks to a people who had been in captivity in Babylon for many years and are now experiencing a kind of PTSD. They are divided, disillusioned, and lack a common vision. Some have stayed in Babylon. Some have returned from exile to their homeland. And a new generation has been born after their return that do no share that earlier experience of captivity with their parents and grandparents.

“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.”

Isaiah has been called by God to be God’s mouthpiece, reminding the Israelites that God is with them and that God liberated them from oppression and will continue to be with them as they establish their new identity. Throughout Isaiah, the prophet reminds his people of God’s deliverance in the distant past when their ancestors were led out of bondage in Egypt to the Promised Land, and that because of God’s salvation in the past, they can trust in God’s deliverance in the future. Their suffering now will not last forever.

“You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall be no more termed desolate; but you shall be called My Delight is in (you)... for the Lord delights in you.”

Isaiah describes a covenantal relationship between God and God’s people, an everlasting bond, and God promises to restore their dignity, which is their birthright. Isaiah brings them this word of hope, this word of expectant justice, when their name will be changed from “Forsaken” to “God’s Delight.”

Martin Luther King Jr would have been 96 years old on Jan 15th. He was martyred when he was 39 years old, after being the primary face and voice of the Civil Rights Movement in this country during the 1960s, a movement that very much understood itself to be a continuation of God’s everlasting commitment to God’s oppressed people. Martin Luther King and the many brave women and men of the civil rights movement would not keep silent. And faithful people of every generation are called to stand up for justice and to work for equality through non-violent means.

Today we too are called to stand up for justice and peace. The Episcopal Church has long advocated for the rights of those who are marginalized because it is one way we live out our baptismal promises to “strive for justice and peace among all people and promote the dignity of every human being. When we reaffirm our baptismal covenant, as we did last Sunday, we are reminded that it is important to put our faith in action, just as the ancient prophets called people to do in their day and time. The particular social context is different from age to age, but the timeless, covenantal love of God and our call to love our neighbor as ourselves never, ever changes.

Many in our country are lamenting the erosion of empathy in our culture and that is one of the many reasons that the Church is so very important. We are reminded every Sunday, in a myriad of ways, that it’s not all about us. Every person is precious in God’s sight.

“You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall be no more termed desolate; but you shall be called My Delight .. for the Lord delights (in each of us).”

As Christians, we are called to minister to the oppressed and lift up the down-trodden because God is particularly and peculiarly interested in the marginalized, the oppressed, those that our society often sees as “less than”. People of color, people who identify as LGBTQ+, people who are poor, people who have mental health challenges. We are all especially aware of the threat to undocumented immigrants right now. In God’s eyes, there are no “less-than” people, only God’s beloved ones. Martin Luther King Jr understood this. Our faith is not only about our own private salvation, although it is most certainly that as well. It is primarily about the salvation of the world. And God’s kingdom starts now. It is not just something that we are rewarded with when we die. It is also about bringing the kingdom now, being God’s agents in the world and working to make the world look more as God intended, a world that Jesus came to show us, a world where we love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, a world where we see ourselves and everyone we meet as the apple of God’s eye.

“You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall be no more termed desolate; but you shall be called My Delight.. for the Lord delights in you.”

Like the prophet Isaiah, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr saw a day when God would bring everything and everyone to fullness, where everyone would be seen as a precious child of God in whom God delights. On August 28th, 1968, King gave the speech that captured our nation’s imagination in an indelible way, filled with scriptural images of the journey to freedom fueled by God’s vision for all people. And a call to remember our founding principles as a nation that have yet to be fulfilled for everyone. As he stood at the Lincoln Memorial and looked out into a crowd of 250,000, King gave one of the most memorable and enduring speeches in our nation’s history, a speech that would reverberate around the world.

But this part of the speech, the key line that is etched in people’s consciouses, was not part of his prepared remarks. We have Mahalia Jackson, the Gospel singer, to thank for the “I have a dream” portion. She stood up from behind the podium where MLK was speaking and said,

“Tell them about the dream, Martin. Tell then about the dream.”

And in that moment, he left his manuscript behind and improvised the most powerful and memorable section of all.

…”Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

So this week-end as we remember MLK’s legacy, we are all reminded that the work he called us to is the same work today. The journey is long and arduous, and the work will never be finished this side of heaven, but continue it we must. Our responsibility as people of faith has not changed. God’s call for justice is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. That clarion call was issued by the prophet Isaiah thousands of years ago and it still resounds today.

“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.”

“ The Journey of the Magi”

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 03:46:22 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Second Sunday after Christmas, January 8th, 2025

In their book, “The Christmas Journey,” author Sally Fisher and illustrator Douglas Sardo, offer an imaginative retelling of the story of the three kings from today’s Gospel. Fisher’s inspiration for the tale was her visits to see her grandmother in New York City at Christmastime. Every year, as she was growing up, they would go the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the famous Christmas tree and creche. The 20 foot tree is magnificently lit and looms over a gorgeous nativity scene with a multitude of life-like figures and glorious angels hovering above on the tree. The figures depict Naples’ multi-cultural population in the 18th century. After Fisher and her grandmother shared this annual ritual, they would go back to her grandmother’s apartment and she would tell her granddaughter her own story of the journey of the tree, the angels, and all of the people and animals beneath the tree. Fisher’s book is her remembrance of the tale that enchanted her so much, a story that sparked her own curiosity and wonder about how to make meaning of today’s Gospel. What follows is my retelling of her story. I shared it with you for the first time several years ago. Wonderful stories are worthy of being told over and over again. They invite us to come along and learn something new every time we hear them.

The first of the three kings is Jaspar, a handsome young man who rules a kingdom in Africa. Jaspar is a man of action. He dreams of heroic deeds, and he longs for a chance to prove himself. He wants to make his mark on the world. Melchior is the oldest of the three kings. His kingdom is somewhere beyond the Red Sea. He is completely focused on the life of the mind. His favorite intellectual pursuit is astronomy. He is so consumed with his scientific studies that he spends very little time with other people. In fact, he thinks of people as a distraction. And the last of the three kings is Balthasar, ruler of a land called Godolia. He is in the mid-years of life and he is busy, busy, busy. His passion is the pursuit of beauty, so a lot of his activity revolves around acquiring beautiful things for his palace. He also loves his wife and daughter dearly and his favorite thing is showering them with lavish gifts.

The one thing that all of these men have in common, other than being kings, is that they love to gaze at the night sky. Jaspar, the youngest one, looks at the sky and wonders how he will be able to make an indelible mark on the world and become famous. Melchior, the eldest, wants to understand the universe; he is determined to solve the mystery of the movement of the sun, moon and stars. Balthasar, the man in the middle, ponders the stars as a way of relaxing after his endless days of frenetic activity. Each of them sees a new star one night and they are so captivated by it that they each suddenly decide, for some reason that they cannot fully explain, that they have to embark upon a journey, to discover where the star leads. Jaspar wonders if it could lead him to his heroic destiny. Melchior thinks that he might be able to find another scholar who can explain the star to him. Balthasar looks at the star and suddenly thinks that he needs to change his life, but he doesn’t know how, and this thought fills him with a strange combination of hope and confusion. They each set out on their journey, for their different reasons, with their royal entourages, their families, and servants and provisions, and after many individual adventures, they discover each other when their three routes converge one day. And their initial suspension and alarm upon meeting one another turns into a decision to go forward together, after they realize that they all saw the new star on the same night and all have the same goal to discover it’s source.

Together they realize that the world is so much bigger than any had ever imagined and make all kinds of discoveries, some good and some not so good. They go to Jerusalem and enter the court of a Herod, a king more powerful than all three of them put together. They realize that he is conniving, and fearful that the star might mean a king destined to become even more powerful than he has been born. They go forth from there, and just as their provisions are about to run out, they come upon some shepherds who offer them hospitality and a sumptuous peasant’s feast of olives, cheese, bread, wine and fellowship. They sleep on the ground for the first time in their lives, the kings next to the shepherds. And suddenly angels fill the sky, shedding a beautiful, soft light on the earth, singing, “A child has been born who has been sent from heaven to bring peace and goodwill into the world. This child can be found in the village of Bethlehem, in a poor, broken-down place in the ruins, lying in straw, surrounded by animals.” The shepherds and the kings get up and set off immediately, the shepherds leading the way. When they reach the place that the angels had told them about, Melchior removes his crown and places his box of gold in the straw and thinks “From the first night I saw the new star, I began to realize that I have been mistaken my whole life. I have tried to live apart from others. I thought the world was full of evil, while the starry night was perfect. Since then I have met people who can teach me so much…And look at this infant; he will not even learn to walk without the help of adults! Human beings must help each other.” He even decides to share his love of astronomy with his grandchild. Young King Jaspar walks up and presents a jar of myrrh. He suddenly realizes that his desire to become a hero in other people’s eyes was a selfish goal. “A whole life of small kindnesses would be a very great thing.. even if it would never make him famous.” Balthasar lays his jewel-covered chest at the baby’s feet. He thinks the mother, father and child “look so beautiful that they seem to glow from within.” He now understands that “the beauty of that moment can only be beheld, and then remembered.” He no longer has the need to fill every moment of every day with busi-ness and sees that the purpose of beauty is to lead us to the sacred.

The three kings talked for many days as they began their trip home, knowing their lives had been changed forever, and yet understanding that they would be changed even more as they pondered all that had happened. Something very old, something older than time itself, had been revealed to them in the face of the little child, something universal and yet very particular and personal, a gift specific to each of them, an enduring treasure to be savored and shared. And today, they offer that gift to us anew.

Poetry, beauty and wonder

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 00:49:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, The Nativity of Our Lord: Christmas Day 2024

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined…For a child has been born for us, a son given to us…”. Isaiah 9: 2-7

Poetry, beauty and wonder. That is what this morning is about. Our souls long for the profound mystery at the heart of Christmas, the gloriously impossible reality that God’s power and God’s love came to us as a little child. God’s ways are clearly not our ways. We come together today as people who walk in a land of deep darkness. There is so much right now that threatens our sense of well-being. But into that deep darkness, a light has shined, “for a child has been born for us, a son given to us.”

There is nothing more poetic, more beautiful and wonder-filled than the birth of a child. But what precedes that glorious moment when a new life comes into the world is pain and suffering. Luke tells us that Jesus was born in the usual way. Mary and Joseph weren’t spared anything--the pain or the joy. They were given an unspeakably precious gift, the gift of raising an extraordinary child in an ordinary world. A child who would teach them that every moment of this life is shot through with glory—if only we have eyes to see and hearts to perceive it. God’s wonder is present in these two impoverished, oppressed Roman subjects, giving birth to their son in a stable far from home—and God’s beauty radiates from the face of the little one whom they call Jesus, and we will call Emanuel, “God with us”.

One of my greatest joys as a parish priest is to welcome children into this world and to bless them after their birth. There is a freshness, a newness, a particular kind of beauty that pervades everything when a child is born. God is present in a very palpable way, just as God is very present when we are about to transition to eternal life. These times of birth and death are times when everything comes into perspective if we are present to God’s purposes in this world. We become aware of fundamental truths that we are often blind to in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. We suddenly know how very precious life is, the sacredness of relationships, the transforming power of love and the deep mystery at the heart of the universe. We become aware of the holy.

Our remembrance of Christ’s birth this morning puts us in mind of these things, those things that are worthy and good and true. And we not only remember, but re-enter that moment in history and know in the depths of our beings that everything that went before and everything that is to be, is changed because of the birth of an extraordinary child who grew up to be an extraordinary man who changed the world forever.

This morning reminds us of the potential that we all have to embrace what Madeleine L’Engle calls the “gloriously impossible” wonder of God and to use that power to transform the world.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

We need this morning. We need to know that there is hope for this world—because there is. Jesus came to us to be our light in the darkness and to help us be his light in the world until all things are one day brought to perfection. That is part of the glorious impossible—that we can be agents for God’s redemption of this world. Mary and Jospeh could have refused their divine commission, but they did not. Instead, they embraced it, letting their fear be transformed by God’s power working in them. This world can be a very hostile environment for God’s work. That was true when Jesus was born, and it is true today. But God continues to be born. God came to us in vulnerability and tenderness that first Christmas and God comes to us this morning to bring us peace and strength. Mary and Joseph were infused with courage to bring light and life to the world, and we are too. Birthing God into this world is hard work but it is vitally important work, a creative process that gives our lives meaning and purpose.

Like stars against a midwinter night sky, the light shines brightest when the darkness is deepest. A sense of disquiet surrounds us—concerns about our world and our country, concerns particularly for the vulnerable among us. But this disquiet cannot pierce our core, our center where God dwells. Throughout the ages God has worked in and through desperate circumstances with a mysterious combination of strength and tenderness. We look into the face of the Christ child this bright Christmas morning and see hope for ourselves and hope for our world. And if we have the eyes to see it and the hearts to perceive it, we can envision a world transformed by the power of divine love.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined…For a child has been born for us…and his is named Wonderful Counselor…, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9: 2-7

Christmas Sermon

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh — Wed, 25 Dec 2024 01:31:00 +0000

Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Christmas Eve Service, Year C – Christmas I, 12/24/24

Readings: Isaiah 9:2-7, Titus 2:11-14, Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Good evening St. George’s and merry Christmas! It is a joy to be back with you on this night. For those of you who are new or visiting – welcome. I’ve been away for the past few weeks celebrating a small nativity of my own with my wife Winnie. In October we welcomed the arrival of our first child, Mary Winston, who is right here in the pews with us tonight. There is nothing like a fresh new baby to bring the miracle of Christmas to life, is there?

Though, as we know, giving birth to a child in modern America is a far cry from the rustic nativity scene described by St. Luke. Instead of riding a donkey to a dingy stable, we took our CR-V to Inova Fairfax Hospital. There we were greeted not by shepherds, the lowliest of the low, but by highly skilled nurses and doctors. Instead of the grunts and snorts of pack animals, we were lulled by the truly incessant beeping of an EKG machine. And finally, rather than an angel bringing “good news of great joy for all the people,” we received quite an impressive medical bill from a claims adjuster.

However, there is one part of the modern nativity experience that remains totally unchanged across millennia. After the haze and frenzy of labor subsides, for just a moment, time stands still. As I gazed down at my newborn child, swaddled under a heat lamp like a baby chic at the county fair, that ancient feeling known to Mary and to every parent from the beginning of time descended upon me. It is a feeling of most profound wonder at a life yet unlived coming into being. A life I hope and pray will be filled with joy and purpose; fulfillment, and connection; wonder and awe.

And interspersed in the elation of that moment of wondrous possibility, comes also the anxiety of knowing that life will bring heartache and pain. Struggle which I know I cannot spare her from, as much as I might try.

In the few minutes that this little girl had existed, it felt like I had caught a glimpse of a lifetime – of her life, and of every life. And before the nurse whisked her away to the nursery, I thought to myself. This must be a glimpse of what God feels in every moment He looks down at us.

Now, why am I telling you this? It’s a lovely story but I know you all came here to hear about Jesus’s birth, not Mary Winston’s, and as wonderful as I think she is, I’m under no illusion that Mary Winston is Jesus. However, I do believe that the experience of her birth, and the birth of every child, does speak volumes about why God chose to come to us in such a peculiar way on that first Christmas. Why instead of coming in power and great might, did God come to us as the fragile infant Jesus? When you think about it, it’s odd isn’t it?

Well let’s start with what we know about God. If it’s true that God is our loving parent, as I believe He is, then I believe it’s also true that God experiences an even fuller and more perfect version of the love and heartache that I did when God looks down at us. Therefore there can be no doubt that God desires even more strongly that we experience all of the richness and be spared all of the pain that this life brings us. So what is an all-powerful and all-loving parent like that to do to bring us both fullness and safety?

One option would have been for God to simply remove the possibility of sin and suffering from us in the first place. In the primordial nursery, the Garden of Eden, God could have child-proofed every sharp object, removed that meddlesome serpent and that seductive fruit so that His first children, Adam and Eve, never had the option of becoming estranged from His love in the first place. But God, being no divine dictator, knew that to remove the possibility of making choices that lead to pain, would also mean to remove our agency to choose love. God’s first gift to us, after life, was freedom.

Another option to spare us from our worst impulses would be to set up rules and guidelines to steer us more closely towards the life of love intended for us – and God of course did that. The Ten Commandments, the teachings of the prophets, and our conscience are those guidelines for us. But as any parent who has caught their child with their hand in the cookie jar knows, rules will be disregarded, and we will come up with the most inventive reasons for disregarding them.

So what was God to do? I’ll tell you; this is what God did. God, knowing that what we needed far more than a heavenly helicopter parent, decided to run down from heaven towards us, not in strength and power to discipline us, but in the weakness of the Child Jesus. To give us himself, as us. Not as an abstraction, but as something – someone – we could have a relationship with on human terms. God, in the birth of his Son, Jesus Christ, came to share a life with us, living as fully human, and fully divine.

God became human, not in the flawed sense that we are, but in the sense that were made to be, so that through Jesus’s life we might know how to love each other as God does. And God in Jesus remained divine so that when we fell short of that love, God would be so fully united us as to cure us from all sickness and sinfulness through his sacrifice. A sacrifice to cure us even from death.

The infant Jesus, whose wondrous birth we celebrate today, is the hinge between heaven and earth – the ultimate reconciliation of us children with our loving parent. At Jesus’s birth all time stood still. As the angels shouted their cries of glory, the yoke of our burdens, the bar across our shoulders, and the yoke of our oppressors had already broken.

And as that ancient feeling of love and wonder descended upon Mary as she gazed down at her child, that same look of love shown forth upon her; upon all of us from a little child. Tonight we celebrate the birth of that little child who is both God and human. A God who looks down on each of you, right now, with more love than you can imagine. Amen.

“We are Mary”

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 20:28:32 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 22nd, 2024

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed.. ”Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb….And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Luke 1: 39-55

`Today’s Gospel is the beautiful story of two women caught up in the mystery and wonder of God. Both are carrying sons who are divinely commissioned by God to bring about God’s purposes for the world.

Elizabeth is carrying John the Baptist, the one who will prepare the way for Jesus. And her cousin Mary, is pregnant with Jesus, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. Both are miraculous pregnancies. Elizabeth was thought to be beyond child-bearing years, and yet she and her husband are expecting a son. And Mary, her much younger, unmarried cousin, is carrying a child that she conceived after an angel announced that she would be bear God’s Son. Mary and Elizabeth are participants in God’s work of salvation, and when they meet, they are immediately aware that their lives are intertwined in a way that goes beyond their understanding.

After learning that she will bear Jesus, Mary travels 80 miles from her home in Galilee to the Judean hill town where Elizabeth lives. Mary was no doubt overwhelmed and afraid and needed support from Elizabeth. And Elizabeth’s joy at seeing her and her recognition of the significance of the child Mary is carrying, is the confirmation that Mary needs.

There is nothing like the support of an older, wiser spiritual guide when we are discerning what God is doing in our lives. I often think of my spiritual director as my Elizabeth. I have met with her once a month for the last 24 years, ever since my first year of seminary. She has supported me, prayed with me, challenged me, and often confirmed that a certain direction that I felt called to was correct. We all need people to sure us up when we are seeking to be faithful but feeling uncertain about whether we are on the right path or not. God sometimes calls us to do hard things and we need courage and encouragement to stay the course. Mary had said yes to the angel when he had announced that she would bear God’s Son, but there was no way of knowing how things were going to unfold, but she certainly knew that it was not going to be easy. Mary is the very finest example we have in Christan tradition of courageous, costly discipleship.

Very early on in Christian tradition, Mary was envisioned as the new Ark of the Covenant. The ark carried the presence of God in the Old Testament and Mary was seen as the new ark because she held God in her body for nine months and her child would give us the new covenant, God’s very self. That is an incredible thought, that Mary, an imperfect human being, housed God in her womb. Elizabeth recognized this and marveled at this joyfully. And Mary’s response to Elizabeth’s epiphany is the song that Luke puts on her lips, expressing the profound wonder and majesty of God and foreshadows Jesus’ redemptive work in the world.

“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me and holy is his name… He has brought down the powerful form their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things.”

In addition to being understood as the new Ark of the Covenant, Mary also came to represent the universal Church. Like Mary, the Church is an imperfect creation, but our call is to embody God and to continually bring Christ into the world. The advent of Jesus coming as a baby 2,000 years ago was a one-time historical event, but the Church’s vocation, our purpose, is to bear God over and over again. That happens as we hear Scripture, as we celebrate the Eucharist, as we pray for the world. Mary was no doubt in continual prayer with and for her son from the time he was in her womb until his death. God chose her, in her imperfection, for her faithfulness, her righteousness, her strength and courage. God chooses us, the Church, for the same reasons. And God chooses us as individuals as well.

In the Orthodox Church, Mary is known as Theotokos, Mother of God. She is represented with arms outstretched in continual prayer, with Christ at the center of her being and his hands raised in blessing. She is the model of the church. Her vocation is our vocation. The 13th century German theologian and mystic Meister Eckhart took this thinking to the next level. He said this.

“We are all meant to be mothers of God…for God is always needing to be born.”

He said that there was an empty place inside of us where we can access God, but we have to clear away distractions in order to hear God’s incarnate Word speaking to us in that secret place deep inside of us, but that when we do, Christ is born again. He said this at the beginning of one of his Christmas sermons.

Here, in time, we are celebrating the eternal birth which God the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity, because this same birth is now born in time, in human nature. St. Augustine says, “What does it avail me that this birth is always happening, if it does not happen in me? That it should happen in me is what matters.” We shall therefore speak of this birth, of how it may take place in us. —Meister Eckhart (1260–1327)

Meister Eckhart is speaking to us across the ages. As we look forward to celebrating the Feast of the Nativity in two days, we ask God to prepare a place inside each of us, a quiet, holy space to birth Christ and to bear him to others.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say , Rejoice.”

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 17:20:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Third Sunday of Advent, December 15th, 2024

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord

is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving

let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will

guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 4-7

On this Third Sunday in Advent, there are no more fitting words than “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say , Rejoice.” Christmas is just two weeks away and we look forward to gathering on Christmas Eve for beautiful worship services, either here or with family and friends elsewhere, to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity, and the coming of Christ to be with us in the flesh. There is no greater joy than that. And this afternoon, we will get a sneak preview of Christmas with our Lessons and Carols service, where we will be together with fellow Saint Georgians and with people from the larger community to experience this lovely treasure from our Anglican tradition. If you didn’t get a chance to see our Minister of Music, Dr. Ben Keseley’s, Dragon Bytes article in video form this past Thursday, I highly recommend watching it when you get home today. Ben recorded it inside the organ chamber and it’s both educational and funny. I was especially interested to learn that the first Lessons and Carols service was held in 1880 on Christmas Eve at 10 pm and was intended to keep people “out of the teeming public houses,” a.k.a. rowdy, crowded bars.

This Third Sunday of Advent is traditionally called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin word for “rejoice”. Advent was originally thought of as a “mini Lent” back in the day, and this third Sunday was meant to give people a short break from their penitential practices in order to focus on the joy of anticipating Christmas.

Today we hear Paul’s words from his Letter to the Philippians, reminding us of the joy that is always available to us, whatever our circumstances. Paul wrote these words in chains from a dank, cold, unforgiving Roman prison cell. And they were meant for Christians in Philippi who were not exactly having a jolly time. There were divisions among the leadership of this house church in Macedonia and there were divisions about whether following Jesus was primarily about grace and love or about the strict adherence to the law. These internal threats, along with the ever-present external threats to people trying to live a Christian life in a brutal Roman culture, made Paul’s words especially important, and also ironic. How could Paul talk about “rejoicing” when there wasn’t a lot to be joyful about given the facts on the ground?

In an essay by theologian James Evans, Evans talks about how the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis describes joy using the German concept of “Sehnsucht”, which is translated as “longing” or “yearning”. Theologian Barbara Holmes picks up on this same idea when she talks about the “common presumption that black church worship practices are characterized by enthusiasm, adoration and praise.” She points out that what people outside that tradition may not realize is that what is at the heart of the joy in much of the African American worship experience is a “deep longing”, an unshakeable trust, an unspeakable joy that defies expression.

The joy that Paul talks about is rooted and grounded in our faith in Christ, and celebrating ahead of time the realization of God’s promises of justice and peace. Joy comes from within us and has nothing to do with the specifics of our circumstances. It expresses the longing and conviction that all things will be made right and that conviction allows us to claim joy in the here and now.

Oftentimes during this season of Advent, people are feeling at odds with our culture’s emphasis on being festive. People who are grieving the loss of someone near and dear to them, have an especially hard time. Our family is grieving right now, after the death of my father-in-law this past Tuesday. He lived a long, loving and faithful life and yet we feel his death acutely. We were with him in his last few hours, praying and telling him how much we loved him, until he was finally released into the fullness of God. When we walked out of his room a little while later, we were met with the sound of a newborn baby crying, and I was struck by the poignancy of that particular moment in time. This new baby, fresh from God, and my father-in-law, having just returned to God. Both were longing and yearning for life in its fullness. My father in law’s joy is now complete, and knowing that is a great comfort, in the midst of our grief.

We cannot fully live into the joy that God intends for all of us unless we acknowledge the things that work against it, namely the anxiety we all experience in its various forms. Paul tells the Philippians “not to worry about anything”, but rather to pray about everything and give thanks. If we trust that God will provide for us, if we pray about everything that is burdening us, it helps to alleviate our worries and to be able to claim the joy that God intends for us. Sometimes it feels as though we are actually being assaulted by the cares and concerns of the world, and that is when it is particularly helpful to remember Paul’s final words of wisdom about “the peace of God which passes all understanding, guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” There are times when we feel so vulnerable, that it helps to picture Jesus literally standing guard, standing between us and the things that are threatening to rob us of joy and protecting us from harm. It may be a doubt or a fear, worrying about something in the future, or a regret from the past.

My prayer for all of us this day is that we will rejoice in the Lord always and remember that joy is something to be shared. Rejoicing in the Lord is a communal enterprise. We need each other. We need to put ourselves in spaces where we can connect with the peace that passes all understanding. Today we gather in the joy of anticipating Christ at Christmas and in the joy of Christ at work in us every day.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord

is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving

let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will

guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Luke 3:1-6 2nd Sunday of Advent Rev. Lisa Hufford

The Rev. Lisa Hufford — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 02:40:00 +0000

This summer my husband Nick and I traveled through West Virginia for a week-long summer vacation. We entered West Virginia on highway 55 (US 48) headed toward Blackwater Falls State Park. As we drove on Rt 55, I was in awe at how flat and smooth the road was as we headed across the mountain range. The highway led us over tree covered valleys with beautiful rushing streams and rivers. As we gazed up at the mountaintops we saw hundreds of windmills that I am told power Northern Virginia. This highway through these rugged mountains, forests and streams was awe inspiring. It reminded me of the Isaiah 40 passage in our gospel reading that speaks of making a level, straight and smooth path so the glory of the Lord will be revealed.

When we arrived at the various State Parks in West Virginia, we found these gigantic swings in picturesque places with the words “Almost Heaven” engraved above them. It was a take on a verse of a song sung by John Denver, “Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River.”

As I thought about all this, I recognized that the wilderness, in places like the West Virginia mountains, the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, or dark skies wilderness areas where you can see the brilliant stars of the Milky Way are places where we encounter the awesome grandness of God’s creation and our place in this universe.

Let me return now to Luke. In chapter 1, verse 80, we learn that John grew and became strong in spirit in the wilderness, until the day he appeared publicly near the Jordan River. His time in the wilderness helped form John to become God’s messenger to prepare the way for Jesus, as was mentioned in our readings from Malachi and Luke.

Our gospel text today describes the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry. It is interesting that Luke begins his account by the naming of Roman and religious leaders of the day. Herod, who was actually Herod Antipas, who later beheaded John the Baptist, is in this list of leaders. Caiaphas, who turned Jesus over to Pontius Pilate to be crucified, is in this list along with Pilate. While this list provides a historical context for John’s ministry; it also clearly demonstrates that John and Jesus were conducting their ministries at a time when they were opposed by powerful, adversarial leaders.

John’s message in these first 6 verses was pretty straightforward. He was proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins as the way of preparing a way for the Lord to come, so “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

Now some might wonder why we are talking about sin, just a few weeks before we celebrate the birth of the holy child. Sin is a word we don’t speak of much in this day and age, especially at this most festive time of year, when we are stringing lights, decorating our homes, and buying gifts.

When we do think of sin, many of us imagine behaviors such as stealing things that do not belong to us, lying, cheating on our taxes, or having an extramarital affair. In our secular culture, sin is thought of as something bad that we did. But, we rarely speak of sin being part of our fallen human nature. Years ago, I was talking with my step-father-in-law Del Anderson, who was a national director of social work for the Veterans Administration Hospitals, about an individual I was dealing with whom I suspected had a narcissistic personality disorder.

Del said to me, “You mean you're dealing with someone who is selfish and self-centered, and spends the bulk of his time focusing on himself.” I responded, “Yes, that’s the problem.” Del shook his head and said, “It is simply amazing how many people struggle with that SIN.”

I could hardly get over how I, the clergy, had named the problem as a mental health issue, while Del, who spent his life working with mental health issues, named the problem as SIN. Yet, sin had been part of Del’s vocabulary since he was a young boy, growing up in the 1920s as the son of a Lutheran clergy. Del understood how to talk about sin.

However, today we rarely speak of sin. Most of us have lost the original and theological meaning of sin, which involves allowing the power of darkness to separate us from God and our neighbor. Sin is not only a set of behaviors to be avoided. Sin can also be a way of life, often inspired by our insecurities, fears, and our crazy need to feel in control. Sin stands in opposition to faith and trust that God loves us, and will provide for us. Sin is that force that causes us to grasp at the reigns of control, ceasing to let God be God, and the Lord of our lives. Sin creates distance between us and others. Sin is able to destroy entire nations, communities, churches, and families as it erodes away our trust in God and our trust in one another.

Some sins are so embedded in our culture that we hardly recognize them as sins. These include things like racism, sexism, scapegoating groups of people like immigrants, certain religious groups, or people with disabilities. Sin is a major problem for all human beings.

The reason we talk about sin in Advent is because SIN is the reason we need a SAVIOR. If we lose the language of SIN we lose the language of SALVATION. The good news is Jesus, God in flesh, came and lived among us to save us from our sins and death and to restore our relationship with God. Without an awareness of sin, who needs the good news that Jesus came to forgive our sins and unite us with God and one another?

John the Baptist’s job was to prepare the way of the Lord. John knew that to prepare the way of the Lord, he must help people recognize their sins and call them to repent.

The word REPENT is more clearly understood when we examine the original Hebrew and Greek meanings of the word. In Hebrew the word for repent is shub. Shub means to turn around, to turn back or to return to the right way. When teaching children about the word repent, I often used a big U-turn sign as a visual aid. In Greek the word for repent is metanoein. Metanoein also means to turn back, but adds the concept of changing one’s mind, or coming to a new way of thinking.

Of course changing our way of thinking is not possible if we have an inflated view of ourselves, and we blame others for our troubles. In order to change our thinking we must have some humility and an honest understanding of ourselves and our role in the affairs of the people and the world around us. We can gain this understanding of ourselves through prayer and through interacting and listening to others around us. Hopefully we will not need to go through a change in our thinking and actions like Ebenizer Scrooge did in Charles Dickens' “Christmas Carol,” but you get my drift.

Repentance involves more than simply saying I’m sorry. Repentance includes placing God at the center of our lives and trying to love God and our neighbor in the same way that God has loved us. Repentance means allowing the Holy Spirit to reshape our thinking and doing, so that we become holy instruments revealing God’s love to the world.

This reshaping of our thinking and doing can involve things like feeding the poor, housing the homeless, and loving and caring for all those around us.

John sealed peoples’ repentance for the forgiveness of their sins, by baptizing them with water. In essence John was cleaning them up to be ready to meet their Lord and to experience the salvation of God.

As you prepare to receive Christ this Advent, carve out some time every day to spend in prayerful conversation with God. We have daily devotional books at the back of the sanctuary that you can pick up on your way out. When I began a practice of daily prayer I found this sort of aid very helpful. I would read it while I drank my morning tea and then pray.

The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer has devotions for different times each day and scripture readings at the back for every day of the week. If you google The Book of Common Prayer, you will find this wonderful resource online and you can use it on your smartphone.

I also love Brother Lawrence’s short book, The Practice of the Presence of God. Brother Lawrence was a Carmelite monk during the 1600s.

Brother Lawrence liked to pray and converse with God throughout the day as he went about his daily routines and work. Being someone who loves to walk and pray at the same time, Brother Lawrence provides me with significant insights in how to experience God’s presence throughout my day.

Blessings to you as you prepare to receive Christ in your heart this Advent.

Amen.

Hope in Uncertain Times

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 01:04:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, 26th Sunday after Pentecost, November 17th, 2024

Wow, this has been quite the last couple of weeks! The aftermath of the presidential election has left some of our fellow Americans feeling completely elated and triumphant, and others altogether bereft and discouraged about our future as a nation. And most people in Arlington and here at Saint George’s are in the latter group. Roughly 80% of voters registered in Arlington voted for Vice-President Kamala Harris and roughly 20% voted for President-elect Trump. But whomever we voted for, whether we voted with the majority of Americans overall or whether we voted with the majority of people in Arlington, we can all agree that this is the most consequential election of our lifetimes to date. When people are having a hard time agreeing on much of anything right now, we can all generally agree about that, whichever political perspective we are speaking from, that this election signals a major shift in direction. There will be a lot of changes and yet we do not know for sure what initiatives will come to fruition. There is so much uncertainty right now and human beings do not deal very well with uncertainty. So it is especially important for us to be reminded of how we are called to live as Christians during this time. And our reading from Hebrews today has a lot of wisdom to offer us.

“Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10: 23-25

The writer of Hebrews sees a problem. A lot of people in their congregation are beginning to think that Jesus’ death and resurrection doesn’t make any difference in the world. They look around and see that not much has changed post-Easter. Sin is still a thing. Evil is persistent. Corrupt power structures remain in tact. This community of early Christians is also being persecuted for their faith. The world they live in does not support them, in fact actively thwarts them, in living as the Gospel calls them to live. They are tired, worn out, discouraged and beginning to lose hope. And losing hope is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a follower of Jesus. So the writer of Hebrews,, the pastor of this congregation, offers them a sermon on the nature of Christian hope and encouragement to hold onto hope at all costs and to keep coming to church. Hope is everything. It drives us forward. It helps us to persevere when nothing around us is giving us a reason to be hopeful. Christian hope is not the same as a blind, sunny optimism. It is not dependent upon our external circumstances. It is a gift from God, rooted, grounded and grown in the soil of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The writer of Hebrews describes Jesus as “our great high priest”. He is the one who perfected the ritual sacrifices of the temple offered to atone for sin. By entering into the messiness of human existence, and giving himself over to be killed at the hands of a corrupt and evil system propagated by the civil and religious authorities of his day, Jesus judged that system to be null and void. He is the great high priest who ends the need for temple sacrifice once and for all because he IS the sacrifice. The sacrifice OF love, FOR love. Not because God wanted his own Son to be a sacrifice, but because the evil powers of this world demanded that sacrifice, and by offering it, Jesus freed us from it. The death dealing ways of this world no longer have dominion over us. He is risen. Jesus liberated us and we stand WITH him, loved, forgiven, and precious in God’s sight. And therein lies our hope. It is a hope that does not come from this world. It is a hope that lives in our heart and sings in our spirit, even in the darkest of times. Good Friday and Easter Day inaugurated a new era of liberation. And yet we live in this liminal time between Jesus’ resurrection and the final realization of God’s perfection of the world on the last day, that day that is approaching, but we do not know when it will come. So we wait- eagerly, expectantly. And until that day, we strive to live as Jesus lived, loving God, loving each other, witnessing to our faith, and coming together as the church to be strengthened and encouraged in our work for justice and peace in this world. And God is with us, empowering us through the gift of hope.

In the immortal words of poet Emily Dickenson,

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

Hope is what will keep our spirits alive, whatever the future holds. Hope is what will help us to keep our hearts open. Hope will enable us to be gracious to others, even and especially when we disagree with them. It helps us to believe that things can change as we work to find even the smallest patch of common ground to stand on. We have to find ways to connect with people who think differently than we do and who have different life experiences from us. We must continue to work for justice and peace for all people, rising each morning to greet the day and asking God to renew our hope, the source of which is within us and beyond us. Our lives are rooted in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and in expectation of the day that he will finally come again to bring all things to perfection, to make all things right. Coming together in worship every Sunday, the very act of gathering in Jesus’ name, is such a powerful thing. When we gather, we remind each other of what God has called us to and our time together reinvigorates us for our ministry in the world. And week in and week out, we hold out the vision of a new heaven and a new earth that will finally, one day, be realized.

“Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together…but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10: 23-25

For All the Saints

The Rev. Shearon Sykes Williams — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 02:46:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, All Saints Sunday, November 2nd, 2024

Today is All Saints Sunday, the day in the church year when we focus on what it means to be knit together in the communion of saints. We are reminded today that we live our lives in the here and now mindful of all the faithful people who have gone before us. Those people are still with us as our heavenly cheerleaders, encouraging us and helping us onward. Today I am mindful of faithful Saint Georgians who have died. I remember seeing them at church every Sunday and hearing what was going on in their lives. I can still see where they sat, and recall the ministries they served in. I remember visiting them and sharing communion when they weren’t able to be in church anymore. I really miss them but take comfort in knowing that they are with us still. I am also aware of family members, my grandparents, my father, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law. You may be mindful of people in your own life who have died. Even if it has been a while, their memory is still alive, and not only that, they are very much alive in a spiritual sense. Every Sunday in the Eucharistic Prayer we praise God with the angels, archangels and all the company of heaven. They are the company of heaven , all those who we love but see no longer, and that is a comforting and empowering thought.

We are all going through a lot right now, as a country, and as individuals, and the faithful departed went through a lot of trials and tribulations too. They persevered in the midst of world wars, economic hardship, social inequities, loss and disappointment, relationship issues, crises of faith. You name it. The particulars are different, but they made it through and we can too. When I think about my maternal grandmother, growing up dirt poor, with an 8th grade education, which was actually pretty good for girls in rural areas in the south in the early 1900s. I think about her marrying my grandfather, raising children and subsisting on the proceeds from their small, yearly crop. I’m amazed that she was the generous, loving, and joyful person that she was. She had a lot of reasons not to be. But the bedrock of her life was her faith. She knew that Jesus was with her every day, helping her to get through. She talked about it sometimes, but mostly she showed it. And her trust in him was everything, which is why she always fed anybody who showed up at her door, and was always grateful for her blessings. She knew she was rich even though she was poor. And when I went to visit her every summer, we would go to Red Bud Baptist Church. She was there every Sunday. And even though she could not carry a tune, she did not care. I remember as a little girl standing beside her as she belted out the hymns like nobody’s business. That’s when her faith really sang out, from her head to toes. She has long since been in the communion of saints and it gives me a lot of comfort to know that she is singing away (although she probably sounds a lot better) and that she is still with me today. You probably have people in your own life who influenced your faith who have died. Today we give thanks for your person and my person, your people and my people. And if you didn’t have people who gave you models of faithful living, we give thanks for the people who have gone before who are there for all of us. Each of us has their support, every single one of us, every day of our lives.

One of the great things about All Saints Sunday, among the many, is getting to sing For All the Saints. It was written especially for All Saints Day, so we only normally sing it once a year on this feast day and sometimes at funerals. It was written by William Walsham How. He lived in the 1800s and was an Oxford graduate who eventually became a bishop in the Church of England, but he definitely did not think of himself more highly than he ought. He turned down a lot of prestigious appointments, but finally accepted the position of Suffragan Bishop of Bedford, which gave him responsibility for the very poor in the East End of London. He was apparently exceptionally down-to-earth and the people he worked with loved him dearly. Children were especially drawn to him. People called him “the children’s bishop” or the “the bishop of the poor”. He wrote a lot of hymns as a means of infusing more joy and vitality into worship. For All the Saints is his greatest hit.

For all the saints who from their labors rest,
who Thee by faith before the world confessed;
Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

All Saints Sunday puts our hopes, our fears, and our dreams in a larger context of faith. It reminds us of our destination when we die, when we will experience a new heaven and a new earth. It also reminds us that we are part of that new heaven and new earth right now. As Christians we are called to live as if it is already a reality, knowing that we will only fully know it when we see Jesus face-to-face. We are called to witness to our faith. We are called to resist evil and make a conscious decision to follow Jesus every day. We are to work for justice and peace. We are called to honor the dignity of every human being: People who look like us and don’t look like us. People who are poor and people who are rich. People who believe in Jesus and do not believe in Jesus. People who are loving and people who are hateful. That is what we are all reminded of today as we prepare to baptize little Joseph Aplin Mathai and renew our own baptismal covenant. Joseph is being brought into the fellowship of faith and marked as Christ’s own forever, and that is a wondrous and powerful thing. So today we pray for Jospeh and his baptism and we pray for ourselves, that we will always remember that we too are marked as Christ’s own forever, and we are never, ever alone, in our joys or in our struggles.

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Seeing and Believing

Ben Keseley — Sun, 27 Oct 2024 23:51:00 +0000

Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Pentecost 23, Year B, Track 1,10/27/24

Lessons: Job 42:1-6, 10-17, Hebrews 7:23-28, Mark 10:46-52

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

While reading Mark, I sometimes wonder if sight is overrated. Generally we regard sight as the most valuable of the senses. Some 2,400 years ago, the philosopher Aristotle ranked the five senses in hierarchical order, and praised sight as the most noble of them all. No doubt he was influenced by his teacher, Plato, who wrote that sight was the foundation of all knowledge in a work called Timaeus, which some biblical scholars associate with our Bartimaeus, the blind beggar in today’s Gospel lesson, whose name literally means ‘Son of Timaeus.’ This is possibly an ironic head nod to the wisdom of an unsighted man overturning the wisdom of a man praising sight.

Whatever the case may be, sight is often afforded a nearly divine status. We say that “seeing is believing,” right? But what about when our sight fails us? Not physically, as in becoming blind, but when sight actually obscures the truth from us. Artificial Intelligence is a prime example of this. We can see all manner of things on the internet, particularly in the lead up to this election, which seem to depict reality, but are actually engineered to do the opposite; to manipulate our vision to confirm the version of reality we or others want to believe.

And the truth is, we’ve already been rather good at using sight to confirm our biases for thousands of years. Take for example the crowd in today’s Gospel reading. As Jesus arrives into town, they see this man, Bartimaeus, physically. They know that he is there, and yet they fail to actually see him. To see his worthiness of Jesus’s attention. Their value system has told them that people who are blind and poor are not worth being seen, especially by people like Jesus, who they believe to be a king, and so they shush Bartimaeus as he cries out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” For what kind of king has time for a blind beggar?

Then we have Bartimaeus himself, who is the archetypal inversion of the crowd. He is a blind man who does not see Jesus, physically, and yet believes he is worth being seen by him. And we know, that Bartimaeus, like the crowd, also believes Jesus to be a king because of the way that he addresses Jesus. He calls him Jesus, “son of David;” David being the heroic king of Hebrew Scripture who saved Israel from the Philistines and established a famous monarchy. Now what kind of king do we think Bartimaeus might have believed Jesus to be? We can’t know for sure, but we do know that before his death and resurrection, Jesus was often, even by his own disciples, regarded as a king who would raise up armies and triumph with force over their Roman political enemies. A king who would be very much like Caesar himself, only stronger and Jewish.

If Bartimaeus believed Jesus to be a king like that, it’s doubtful that he would have cried out to him as he did, for why would a king like Caesar have time for a beggar like Bartimaeus? But for whatever reason, perhaps having heard of Jesus’s miraculous healings in other villages, Bartimaeus believes that here is a king who has both the power and interest in healing him. And thank God – literally thank God, Jesus the Son of God, that he was right. And because of his faith, he is healed.

So to recap, we have a crowd who can see but does not believe in this blind beggar’s worth. We have a man who cannot see but believes this king Jesus can heal him, and we have Jesus, who both sees the blind man and believes him worthy of healing.

Let’s pause for a minute and ask ourselves – in which of these camps are we?

I’ll be honest, I am usually among the physically sighted yet spiritually blind crowd. The one whom Helen Keller may have been referring to when she purportedly wrote that “the only thing worse than being blind is having sight, but no vision.” And in defense of the crowd, I think there is a way of reading this where they are too preoccupied with excitement about seeing a new political savior who can possibly deliver them from the intractable mess than they in, than are believing that this savior could be different than the types of candidates they are used to. Their sight obscures their vision. And as they strive to see what kind of king Jesus is, what Jesus essentially does is turn the mirror on their sight and to show them what they really needed to see: a blind beggar reaching out in faith. The one who was regarded as least is the one who reveals the truth for us all. The truth of who Jesus is and the truth of what our faith is about.

Yes, the miracle Jesus performed for Bartimaeus is certainly remarkable, but what I think is far more remarkable is the miracle he did for the crowd. This story is as much about Jesus restoring sight to a believing blind man as it is about Jesus restoring belief those with sight but no vision. And through Bartimaeus, we too are invited to share in that vision of faith. A vision in which the lowly are exalted, in which leadership looks like servanthood, and in which we can see with greater clarity than we ever imagined, the love which God has for us.

So whatever happens next week at the polls, I want you to remember that we still have our king who sees us, who loves us, and who longs for us to keep our eyes fixed, with steadfast faith, on the glory of his loving reign. Amen.

An Attitude of Gratitude

Ben Keseley — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 00:20:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Twenty Second Sunday after Pentecost, October 20th, 2024

This past Friday, the sports world was shocked to hear the announcement that UVA basketball coach Tony Bennett was retiring. Bennett is one of the “winningest” coaches of all time. He has had a stunningly successful career. He is also widely regarded as a person of deep integrity. He said that he could longer continue because he did not believe in the direction that college sports were going and feared for the well-being of his athletes within a system that was becoming more and more like professional sports. Coach Bennett said that he knew it was time to acknowledge that he was not equipped to take the program forward in this new environment, describing himself as a square peg in a round hole. Bennett had 5 pillars that he based his program on. Humility, passion, unity, servanthood and thankfulness. Bennett said this in an interview with UVA News when he first started. “The first principle is humility. Don’t think too highly of yourself. The second is passion. Don’t be lukewarm. Our third is unity. Basketball is one of the greatest team games there is because there can be individual talent, but boy, if (we) come together, (we) can be so good together... And we can overcome more tough situations. The fourth is servanthood. Whatever your role is, be a servant to the team and make your teammates better. The last one is thankfulness. Be thankful certainly when there’s great success, but also be thankful for what you’ve learned through the hard times, because there’s great wisdom in those experiences.” Humility, passion, unity, servanthood and thankfulness.

Coach Bennett is channeling Jesus in today’s Gospel. James and John want glory and honor, prestige and power. And Jesus tells them,

“You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Mark 10: 35-45

Jesus has just finished telling his disciples that he is about to suffer and die. In fact, he has told them not one, not two, but three times. And yet they have not heard him. Being his disciple is about servanthood, not glory, not honor, not prestige and not power. Servanthood.

Coach Bennett is a person of deep Christian faith, faith that he by all accounts, does not force onto other people, but when asked about, he shares. He works with a very diverse group of people, religiously and otherwise, and he is widely admired for having a strong moral compass and respect for everyone, whatever their creed or life experience. And he has been open about the fact that his five pillars come from his faith. They are also values that can be universalized. And these values are hard to live out because we are all so egocentric and we live in an egocentric, polarized culture. Rather than being focused on seeking the good of all, we are very “me-focused”, “us and them” focused. That is why Bennett and others who believe in working for the good of all with humility, passion, a spirit of unity, servanthood and thankfulness, really stand out. That is what Jesus calls us to and it is hard to do. It’s hard because it involves sacrifice. It means making room for others, rather than taking over the room.

As we approach this highly consequential presidential election, we are all thinking about what we want in our leaders. And as Christians, we discern how we are going to vote based on the level of integrity that we perceive the candidates to have, as well as how their positions on issues best reflect our values. Which candidate best demonstrates humility, passion, unity, servanthood and thankfulness? Which candidate is most committed to respecting the dignity of every human being and working for the common good? No human being models these qualities or these intentions perfectly. No one. And yet we are called, as people of faith, to make a choice based on our understanding of how Jesus wants us to live, making the best choice we can as imperfect people living in an imperfect world. An imperfect world that Jesus calls us to love with a sacrificial love. An imperfect world in which he calls us to work for justice and peace. An imperfect world in which we are called to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves.

The election is two weeks away and anxiety is very high, so it is important to remember to breath. To spend time each day in prayer and thanksgiving. It is so easy to get focused on our fears and everything that is wrong in our world. But we can’t let fear rule our lives and we need to ask God to help us to live hopefully. Focusing on what we are grateful for reorients our hearts and minds and improves our spiritual, emotional and physical health. It also helps us to work for change out of a healthy place, rather than an angry, fearful place. Gratitude is the key to the kingdom of God.

Gratitude is a spiritual practice. When we can look at the world and see all of its broken places, when we can look at our own lives and see all the things that are wrong, and still be grateful for all that God has done for us and all the work that God is going to do through us, we know that we are making progress on our spiritual journey..

Having an attitude of gratitude is everything. And that is why we make our financial pledges to Saint George’s every year. When we make our pledge to support God’s work in this place, it is an act of faith, hope and love. Making our pledges is a spiritual practice. Jesus talked about money a lot in the Gospels. He knew that money can have too much power over us, and if we learn to give a portion of it away, it has less power over us and more power to effectuate good in this world. A number of years ago, we started sending stewardship letters that thank each person or family for their generosity in the past and ask them to take the next step in growing in generosity in the coming year, and the response has been so wonderful. Saint Georgians are exceptionally generous. A few weeks ago, I was visiting a parishioner who isn’t able to come to church very often anymore, and this person shared how they were amazed that they were now giving far more than they ever thought possible, just by giving a little more each year, and how grateful they were for that. Giving is so good for us. Giving helps us to stay humble. Giving helps us to express our passion for the work God is doing in and through Saint George’s. Giving helps us to work for the unity God calls us to. Giving helps us to model servanthood. Giving expresses our thankfulness. And thankfulness is everything.

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Where is God in suffering?

Ben Keseley — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 00:23:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Pentecost 21, Year B, Track 1, 10/13/24

Lessons: Job 23:1-9, 16-17 (Job’s Complaint); Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Last Sunday Reverend Shearon preached an excellent sermon on the faithful Christian response to suffering, and today I’d like to continue that thread by exploring the question of what, then, is God’s response to suffering?

Or to put it quite frankly, where is God when we need him? It’s the question we have all surely asked at some point in life. Perhaps when turning on the news and seeing play by play coverage of the tragedy du jour. Hurricanes, the Holy Land, Ukraine. Or perhaps it arises when we encounter the depths of despair in our own life. Job loss, illness, anxiety and depression. In those moments, where is God? How could a God who is both perfectly loving and all-powerful not intervene to alleviate suffering? This question is perhaps the biggest obstacle to faith that humankind has encountered and it’s a question as old as time. In the book of Job, written some twenty-five hundred years ago, Job expresses this sentiment of divine abandonment with bitter clarity:

Oh, that I knew where I might find him,
that I might come even to his dwelling! (Job 23:3)

"If I go forward, he is not there;
or backward, I cannot perceive him;

on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him;
I turn to the right, but I cannot see him. (Job 23:8-10).

Where is God? We could spend far more time than any of us have this morning, or in this lifetime, pondering the myriad responses to this question that have been offered throughout human history. But in the few minutes we have I’ll try to tell you what I have found in my own searching to be the most hopeful and assuring answer to the question of where is God. And that answer, I believe is Jesus.

Now before you tune out and say of course if I come to church the preacher is going to tell me that Jesus is the answer. In seminary we had a running joke that if you were ever stumped by a question on a test, the answer is always Jesus. It sounds trite, I know, but let me tell you why I believe that Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, really is God’s response to the problem of suffering.

You know, one of the unique claims of Christianity that distinguishes it from other world religions is the incarnation. The belief that God, through Jesus Christ, actually became human. And not only did God become human in Jesus Christ, God therefore experienced the fullness of what it means to be human. The joy, the struggle, and through the cross, the depths of abandonment and suffering. St. Paul stakes this claim when he writes:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are (Heb. 4:15).

Theologian Jurgen Moltmann describes the incarnation and suffering of Christ as God’s act of divine solidarity with human need. Now let me tell you, this is a radical and controversial idea. For years, Western theology had taken for granted the notion of God’s impassibility – that God, being God, is immune to suffering. Yet Moltmann, in the wake of the Holocaust and WWII, was one of the first to challenge this idea by proposing that God could only be the good and loving God we believe him to be if he shared in the anguish and estrangement that we, God’s children, experience.

Through Jesus, we can imagine that God, rather than being some kind of divine manager, is crossing the picket lines to stand in solidarity with oppressed workers. God, rather than being just the physician of sick bodies and souls, is also the suffering cancer patient, lying in the hospital, hoping that the next infusion will save them.

God’s full and unconditional identification with human suffering is also laid bare in the parable of the rich young man, when Jesus scandalously declares that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” And then, in the very next sentence, Jesus replies to his disciples’ astonished cry of “who then, can be saved” by saying that “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’ Even God can drag that stubborn, self-serving, billionaire camel through that needle’s eye, and perhaps in the process liberating it of its gilded shackles. (Mk 10:25-27).

In the same breath, Jesus expresses solidarity with the poor while extending the possibility of salvation to the oppressor.

So if the answer to the question of ‘where is God in suffering?’ is indeed that God, through the incarnation of Christ Jesus, fully shares our suffering, where does that leave us? Because it only partially satisfies the problem. Even if God is in solidarity with us, we’re still suffering.

The answer here, I believe, is that through suffering itself, God liberates us. Moltmann puts the Cross of Christ at the center of human history, and as we know, there are two parts to the cross of Jesus. The first part is Jesus’s full sharing in the pain and abandonment that we as humans experience. That bitter cry of dereliction “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Ps 22:1) is Jesus’s divine solidarity with every moment of anguish this life brings us. But the second part – the remarkable and impossible part of this story – is the resurrection.

In the resurrection Jesus gathers up all of the soreness, anxiety, depression, heartache, and physical pain that we carry, and transforms it into glory. In the resurrection Jesus points us to a reality where suffering, and even death, is shared by God and overcome. The death and glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ our Savior is the response to suffering God offers us. In this sense, suffering is merely a prelude to hope in God’s triumph through divine solidarity. And, therefore, the Christian response to suffering, is not despair, but hope in God’s ultimate victory won for us.

So, the next time you find yourself crying out like Job “Oh, that I knew where I might find [God], oh that I might come even to his dwelling,” I want you to remember this. God has come to dwell with you. Jesus is crying out with you, and Jesus will turn those cries into shouts of glory, glory, glory. And if you don’t have it in you to believe that right now, then I and others who love you will believe it for you. Amen.

Ben Keseley — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 00:52:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, October 6th, 2024

“Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” Job 1:1; 2: 1-10

How can we profess that God is good in the face of all the human suffering we witness every day? Wars rage around the world, people die from starvation, and hurricanes wipe out whole communities. The list goes on and on. Some suffering that we experience in life is the result of our own actions. And that requires us to take responsibility, asking for God’s forgiveness and the forgiveness of those we have hurt and asking God to help us live differently going forward. But so much suffering in this life just happens to us. It has nothing to do with anything we have done and is totally undeserved. That is the central dilemma that he Book of Job explores.

Job is an upright and righteous man. And God has blessed him. He is wealthy, heathy and happy with his life. He has a large family, and lots of land and livestock. He is well respected in his community and widely regarded as a deeply faithful man. But then one day, a heavenly council comes before the Lord and Satan, or more precisely, the Satan, meaning the prosecutor or the adversary, takes on the challenge of testing Job, this upright, righteous and blameless man. And it will be a big challenge. Immediately before today’s reading, Job’s children have been killed, and his lands destroyed. And what is Job’s response? He falls to the ground and worships, saying “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” So Satan knows he has a big task ahead if he is to entice Job to turn away from God. Satan proceeds to cover Job in horrible, painful sores from head to foot. And still Job persists in his faithfulness. “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?”

I don’t know about you, but I cannot honestly say that I always have that response. The normal human response to extreme hardship is to ask “why”? Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to someone I love? Why is this happening in the world?

We are generally programmed to operate within a reward and punishment paradigm. If we do the right things, we expect to be rewarded. If we do the wrong things, we expect to be punished. So, when things happen that are not cause and effect, it throws us into a tailspin. But when we can stop living out of that angry place of “I don’t deserve this, why is this happening” and move into a place of “Lord, I don’t understand why this is happening, but please be with me in my turmoil and help me to get through”, we know we are making progress. Sometimes it takes a while to make that transition, but if keep our connection with God and other faithful people, it can happen. It’s not easy, but it is the way that we find meaning, support and a path forward.

Back in 1981, Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” It was an immediate bestseller and quickly become a classic because of how difficult that path is. And it came out of his own intense suffering. Rabbi Kushner wrote this book in the aftermath of his son’s death. His son was diagnosed with a degenerative disease when he was 3 years old and died at age 14, after years of suffering for both he and his family. And it’s important to note that Rabbi Kushner did not name the book “WHY Bad Things Happen to Good People” but when. Even though it is completely natural to ask “why” during times, it is wasted energy to spend too much time in that head and heart space. The title “WHEN Bad Things Happen to Good People” suggests that we know suffering is going to happen. We can expect it because it is part of the reality of human existence. The more fruitful question to ask when undeserved suffering comes our way is “how can I respond to this horrible circumstance in a way that is lifegiving?”

There was a parishioner some years ago that I visited in the months before his death and he suffered horribly during that time. And every time I came to visit and we shared communion, he had a big smile on his face and told me how much he was looking forward to being with God when he died. He wasn’t being pious or self-righteous. He was just being genuine. He would also tell me how terrible his pain was and how much he was going to miss this life, but he didn’t spend time wondering why he couldn’t just die a peaceful, painless death. He was accepting of his situation and hopeful at the same time.

There is a difference between acceptance and fatalism. When we accept, we are in a trusting place with God and others, a hopeful place that we will get through and find meaning in time. Fatalism is about being resigned and hopeless. It cuts us off from God and others, whereas acceptance connects us to others and allows them to support us.

When we sit in the ashes with Job, holding our situation with open hands, we become attuned to the mystery of God and of the vast universe of which we are a part. It takes us out of our self-centeredness. And our dualistic, black and white thinking. It helps us to see that we trust in a loving God and recognize that our loving God also allows suffering.

Some of the suffering we endure is because of the effects of the poor decisions of other human beings. God allows for that. God does not control us like puppets. We have choices in this life. And some of our suffering is a result of the freedom of creation. The universe was given life by our Creator and that life continues to evolve. Volcanoes suddenly erupt and as a result they sometimes kill people, but that doesn’t mean that God desired that to happen. And that is a lot to get our heads and hearts around.

That is one of the main reasons we come together in Christian community every Sunday. When one of us is suffering, we offer hope. When we hear the story of salvation in the Eucharistic prayer, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” It puts our trials, tribulations and joys in a much larger context and it helps us get through. When we worship each Sunday, we are aware that people have worshipped in this nave since 1958, and the first Saint Georgians started worshipping in our chapel in 1907. People have been bringing their hurts and sorrows, their hopes and dreams, into this sacred place for 117 years. That’s a long time. That’s two world wars, a major economic depression, vast social change and a lot of sickness and death. It also represents an incredible amount of faithfulness, love and joy. Shared faithfulness. Shared love. Shared joy. Shared meaning.

That is an aspect of stewardship that we often don’t think about. When we hear stewardship, we usually first think about money, and money is certainly important. We want to support our ongoing life for years and years to come, and financial support is a foundational part of that. But it is also vitally important to care for our life together in other ways, by developing relationships with others and really listening to their joys and sorrows and sharing our own. That happens in our small group ministries, our house churches, our 20s 30s group, our men’s group, our LGBTQ+ group. It happens on special trips where people are spending a lot of time together, like during the choir’s Gloucester Cathedral residency and the youth service trip this past summer. It happens when people work together in our food pantry, bringing sustenance and hope to others while also feeding our own souls. It happens in our race and reconciliation ministry as we work to create the Beloved Community God intends for us. When we make our pledges each year, on All Saints Sundays, Nov 3rd, we are supporting that life, our life of worshipping God, upholding one another through thick and thin, exploring the big questions of human existence, and offering life to the world beyond our doors. And that, my friends, is a beautiful, hopeful, wondrous thing.

The Lightbulb Theology of Stewardship

Ben Keseley — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 00:42:00 +0000

Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Pentecost 19, Year B, 9/29/24

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

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

The dean of Virginia Seminary has a habit of opening his sermons with a joke, and he even wrote a book about Episcopal humor, which I’d highly recommend, so I thought I’d take a proverbial page out of his book today.

How many Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb?

It takes three – one to look up the prayer for the changing of a lightbulb, one to contact the vestry liaison for lightbulb transitions, and one to write a thank you note to the donor of the previous lightbulb.

I like this silly joke very much because of how well it captures some of our Episcopal idiosyncrasies, and also because it provides a perfect starting point for exploring our scripture lessons at the start of stewardship season, when we turn our attention to how all of us can sustain our common ministry and mission in the coming year and beyond. So I’m going to let the joke guide the theology of this sermon.

Let’s start with the person finding the prayer for the changing of the lightbulb. I believe that if he were alive and a member of this parish today, this person would be St. James. In today’s epistle James offers delightfully precise instructions as to what one can do should they find themselves in a variety of different spiritual circumstances. For instance, if you are suffering, pray; if you are not suffering, give praise; if you have sinned, confess; if someone is sick, intercede for healing. I love when scripture presents us with these rare moments of total clarity as to what we can do to live out our faith in daily life, and the Episcopal Church seems to have taken this passage seriously too, because if you turn page 810 of the Book of Common Prayer, you can find a list of 81 unique prayers for nearly any occasion – prayers for guidance, for our country, for healing, for families, and even a prayer for rain. If you ever find yourself at a loss for words and in need of prayer, I’d highly commend what our tradition has to offer us by way of prayer, and in fact it’s the focus of the Sunday School lesson crafted by Bernie Piper today.

And I think prayer, in the many different forms it takes, is at the heart of what it means to be good stewards of the Church. Prayer is in fact the primary privilege and responsibility of the Church. Gathering to offer our thanks and praise to God each Sunday and then supporting one another and ourselves through prayer and devotion throughout the week is our reason for existing as a community. St. James understands that prayer is at the core of the Church’s ministry, which is why he sought to provide guidance on the various ways we can strengthen our communal commitment to God and one another through it. So as we enter into stewardship season, the first thing that we ask of you is your prayer. Prayer that all of us here would continue to pursue the Church’s mission this year with, courage, joy, and creativity.

Next, we have the person to contact the vestry liaison for lightbulb transitions. It’s no secret that Episcopalians are fond of upholding the governance and good order of the Church through our myriad of committees, subcommittees, lay ministries, delegates and liaisons. While to some this may seem an overly bureaucratic way of organizing the Kingdom of God, the truth is that I think we’ve all found ourselves in groups that lack a sense of organizational clarity, where no one seems to know who is responsible for what. And this lack of organization both impedes the effectiveness of a group’s mission and adds a layer of unnecessary anxiety and frustration among those who belong to it. A wise mentor once told me that one of the keys to good ministry is good structure, and I couldn’t agree more.

And this is where the second lesson for stewardship season lies. As I sat down to write this sermon I counted at least thirty-five distinctly organized opportunities to engage in a ministry at Saint George’s. From choir, to worship, to children & youth, to social justice & outreach, to formation, administration, and opportunities we don’t even know about yet; there are an untold number of ways for you to offer your unique gifts in service of God and neighbor.

And if you feel that you aren’t the right person for the job, that someone else, someone more learned or devout or capable should be leading the ministry of the church, I’d like to remind you of Jesus’s words in the Gospel today. When the disciples come to him complaining that someone they don’t know is exercising ministry in his name, he rebukes them. He tells them not to impose arbitrary stumbling blocks in the way of one another or themselves which impede our calling to minister in Jesus’ name.

As you may know by now, one of my soapbox talking points in life is that every single person is called to ministry. You, by virtue of your baptism, are licensed for ministry in the Church. You may not be ordained ministers, but you are ministers no less, and this world depends on all of us to continue the ministry hope, healing, and teaching, which we inherited from Jesus Christ himself. So friends, this stewardship season I invite you to claim your call to ministry, or renew that claim, wherever that may be, because in doing so I think you will find a new dimension of purpose and fulfilment in living out that call.

And finally, we have the person to write the thank you note to the donor of the lightbulb. And this one really touches me actually because the reality is that every single thing in this building – the cross over this altar, the roof over our head, the crayons in Sunday School, the cup of noodles handed out at the food pantry, even the screws in our chairs can be traced back to specific faithful people.

Everything here that helps us to better give glory to God was given first, through God’s grace, and second by someone who allowed God’s grace to work through them. And while sometimes we can feel awkward about speaking candidly about the necessity of money to pursue God’s mission in this world, I don’t think we really need to. For money is simply another tool at our disposal to accomplish the work of justice, mercy, and love that God is calling us to. It’s a tool just like this microphone, just like that lightbulb that needs changing. And friends, if we can use all the tools at our disposal – our prayers, our ministry, and, our treasure – then we can keep that light burning for another thousand years. Because that old parish hall lightbulb shines light of Christ. Amen.

“A capable wife who can find?”

Ben Keseley — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 00:44:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 22nd, 2024

When I was in seminary, I had a professor who always said that when you are trying to decide which reading to preach on to “find the passage that begs a lot of questions and preach on that.” And our reading from Proverbs today certainly does that. “A capable wife who can find?... She is far more precious than jewels. She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms strong…She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue….”

There is no doubt that this passage from Proverbs is based on patriarchal assumptions of biblical cultures 3,000 years ago. One of the aims of Proverbs is to teach young men how to live wisely within a social order where choosing a capable wife was very important. And the woman described is strong, resilient, resourceful, industrious, loving, and generous. She is a good wife, a good mother, managing the household as well as business affairs beyond the household, while caring for the needs of the poor. So, on one level, this portion of Proverbs instructs young men to be careful in choosing a wife and gives them the qualities to look for, qualities that will endure.

Our cultural assumptions today are quite different from that of Proverbs. We don’t believe that women have to be wives and mothers to be valued. Gender roles are not so defined. And we recognize that women’s lives have meaning and purpose beyond the domestic sphere and that married women are not solely defined by their husbands and children.

Proverbs does not envision a world where people have the freedom to choose whomever they want to share their life with. There was no understanding of sexual orientation or gender identity. So the question for us today becomes, is there any wisdom in this passage for progressive, inclusive Christians who celebrate the dignity of every human being, the equality of women and the variety of families that we feel called to create? I believe the answer is yes. Because the ultimate aim of Scripture as a whole, and Proverbs in particular, is to show us how to live faithfully, how to live wisely, how to live in deep mutuality with others and especially how to live a life that is productive, kind and giving. It is important for partners to support one another, for parents to support children, and it's important to have a stable household, whatever our household may look like. So, on one level of interpretation, Proverbs gives us relationship guidance, and on another level, it gives us an image of Divine Wisdom. And this I think is where things get especially interesting.

In the earlier parts of Proverbs, Divine Wisdom is personified as a woman who invites people to a feast so that they may learn how to lead godly lives by coming to the table to seek God’s guidance. Early on in Christian tradition, theologians saw this as an image of the heavenly banquet and a foreshadowing of the Eucharist . The female figure of Wisdom who invites everyone to the feast was identified with Christ, who came into the world to show us the way to God. In the beginning of John’s Gospel, he picks up on this idea and tells us that Jesus is the Word, the Logos, through whom God both created the world and redeemed the world. So we have both a male and female image for Jesus, Word and Wisdom. Listen to the words of our Eucharistic Prayer today. The prayer is relatively new, but it is based on this ancient understanding of Jesus as both Wisdom and Word, female and male. And this is important because we need a variety of metaphors for God. God is the God of many names and yet no name we can ever give God is enough because God is beyond all names. No language can ever capture the majesty and mystery of the Triune God we worship.

The passage we have today about the capable wife falls at the end of Proverbs and refers back to the image of the wise woman who invites everyone to a feast to learn how to live a godly life. The woman in today’s reading provides an example for all of us of how to live a faithful life, seeking God’s will in humility and being faithful to our closest relationships. She summarizes the virtues of wise living discussed throughout Proverbs and encourages us to follow her call. Ultimately, this woman is much more than a normal person. She points us to God. She encourages us to choose a lifelong commitment to seeking wisdom, a choice we have to reaffirm every day. As theologian Kathleen O’Connor observes, the husband in today’s reading is a stand-in for all of us, everyone who is devoted to finding Wisdom. This wife embodies the right attitude at the heart of a life lived in faith, the “fear the Lord’ which does not mean to live in worry and anxiety but live in awe, wonder, gratitude and humility before God. And when we have that posture toward life, it benefits all of the communities that we are a part of. We come together today to seek wisdom in all things, and to ask God to show us the path of life.

“ …She is far more precious than jewels. She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms strong…She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue….”

Crumbs of Grace

Ben Keseley — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 00:09:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 8th, 2024

“Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Mark 7: 24-36

In today’s Gospel, Jesus has just had a dust-up with the Pharisees, the religious authorities who were always challenging his teachings. Jesus has just called them hypocrites and chastised them for failing to “love thy neighbor as thyself,” as the law of Moses demands. Then Jesus leaves the predominately Jewish region where he has been preaching and teaching and heads to a mostly Gentile, or non-Jewish area. He wants to keep a low profile, according to Mark, but the news of his healing ministry has preceded him, and a Gentile woman approaches him and throws herself at his feet. She is desperate because her little girl has an “unclean spirit”. This could have been a physical illness, a mental health issue or something else. We just know that the little girl was seriously unwell in some way and that her mother is beside herself with worry. She has heard that this wandering preacher heals people.

Anyone who has ever loved someone who was extremely ill, be it a child, a partner, a parent, a friend, anyone who has ever felt desperate to get help, can relate to this mother’s plea. When we love someone so completely, so wholeheartedly, we would do anything for that person that we can possibly do. And we are vulnerable in those moments, looking for kindness and understanding from the people we seek out who might be able to help. That, I think, is why we find Jesus’ response to the woman in the Gospel today so jarring, and shocking. We worship a compassionate and loving God, and we have a Savior who shows us the depths of God’s mercy. And yet, today Jesus tells this heartsick, anguished mother, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

There have been various interpretations of this passage over the years. Many scholars have said that at this point in Jesus’ ministry he understood his mission to only be to his own people, the people of Israel. And those outside of Judaism were considered unclean because they were not included in the covenant that God made with the Israelites. But as Jesus’ ministry evolved, he came to understand that his mission was to all people, and this woman helped him to see this. Other theologians have focused on the extraordinary response that the mother gives Jesus, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Mark’s Gospel doesn’t say, but when Jesus decides to help her, he seems to be rewarding her for her faith and humility, even though he first rejected her as being “other”. I believe that both are true. Today’s Gospel speaks to a mutuality between this unnamed woman and Jesus. They need each other. She calls forth a deeper self-understanding in him, that his vocation is so much bigger than even he had understood it to be at first. And she desperately needs him to heal her little girl whom she loves more than life itself. He calls forth strength in her. This woman has faith in Jesus and she represents the spread of the Gospel to people beyond Israel. The Pharisees challenged and rejected Jesus because of their arrogance and pride, but this woman challenged him while also expressing faith in him. “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” I am always bowled over by her response. To have the presence of mind and the boldness to say this. She is challenging him in a very humble way. She has no pretense or pride, but she also won’t take no for an answer because Jesus is her last and greatest hope for her daughter.

The Syrophoenician woman is a great model for us. In our moments of desperation, turning to God in prayer is the best thing we can do for ourselves and for our loved ones. Sometimes we don’t feel like God is listening and that our prayers are not being answered, but this woman reminds us to persist, to ask God for what we need and our prayers will be answered. The answer just may not be as we expected or on our timeline. We don’t control the outcome, God does. Sometimes things turn out exactly as we had hoped, as in today’s Gospel. Other times they turn out differently. But healing always happens in some way, whatever the answer and whenever it comes. Often healing occurs in the form of a deep peace that settles in us, an unexplainable knowing that all will be well, no matter what, because God is with us. Sometimes God gives us the courage to face a difficult path forward. And even when death does come, we know that we face the darkness befriended, that Jesus is there with us. We are never, ever alone in our struggles, whatever they may be. Sometimes we don’t know what kind of faith we really have, until we are broken open by grief or hardship.

I have been extraordinarily blessed over the years to walk with people in challenging times. And I am always amazed when we can pray together and have a palpable experience of Jesus there with us. It is a mysterious and wondrous thing. God is with us in joys and challenges, but we often know Christ in a visceral way when we are at our wits end and we feel profoundly grateful for every morsel of grace that he gives us. “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

How dear to me is your dwelling place

Ben Keseley — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 15:48:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 25th, 2024

How dear to me is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! Psalm 84

Hello, my friends! It is so good to see all of you! I am very happy to be back with you after my sabbatical. My time away was wonderful, refreshing in so many ways. We had time for travel, time with family and friends, time in creation, and time at home. I came back on Tuesday and wow, what a lot of great happenings to get caught up on! The top hits of the summer seemed to have been the preaching series, the youth service trip and the choir residency in Gloucester. So much life, so much joy, so much for which to give thanks. And speaking of thanks, I am grateful to all of our lay leaders who ensured that our various ministries thrived this summer, as always. One of the hallmarks of Saint George’s is our strong lay leadership. People really “own” their ministries and understand that God’s work in this place and beyond is important. That commitment is really what makes things happen around here. If you are on the newer side, you would be amazed at all of the things that go on every day of the week, large and small, and all of the people who work so tirelessly to live out our call as God’s people in this place. I am especially grateful to our staff and vestry, and particularly our wardens, Karla Walter and Liza Lowe, who continued to exhibit such steadfast leadership this summer. And I am beyond thankful to and for the Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, our Associate Rector. I knew before that Father Paddy is wonderful, but we all know, on an even deeper level now, that we are exceedingly blessed to have such a loving, committed and exceptionally capable priest in Father Paddy. And knowing that I was leaving you in such good hands enabled me to relax into my sabbatical and not worry about things here.

There were many blessings of the summer for me. I was able to sink into God’s goodness in a variety of ways. One of my favorite ways to experience God (outside of church of course) is to be in the mountains. And Robbie and I were blessed to be able to go to the French Alps, taking the Aguille du Midi lift 12,000 feet up to see summit of Mont Blanc. It was absolutely breath-taking and I had a profound sense of the wonder and majesty of God’s creation. There were so many moments throughout the summer of finding God in different experiences. And about a week ago, I woke up one morning, and heard the words of the Eucharistic prayer singing in me, calling me back to the altar and calling me back to you. The psalm for today speaks to that longing for God that we all have.

How dear to me is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!

My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.”

Psalm 84 is a pilgrimage hymn. It expresses the joy of a faithful person on their way to the temple in Jerusalem. The psalmist loves God so much that they imagine living there, like a bird who has found her home at the altar and has made a nest there.

Psalm 84 has been important in both Jewish and Christian liturgy through the centuries. It is appointed for use in the dedication of churches and is a regular part of the Sunday lectionary. So it serves an important formal liturgical function. Psalm 84 also serves a pastoral function. It has given faithful people throughout the centuries hope and solace in difficult times. On October 1, 1944, 602 men, almost the entire male population of Putten a town in the Netherlands, were rounded up by the Nazis and taken to concentration camps in Germany. They knew they were going to almost certain death. Only 48 of them returned at the end of the war. As they were being taken away, they sang Psalm 84. A memorial is held every year on the anniversary of what came to be known as the Putten raid,, but no speeches are made. A crowd simply gathers at the appointed time and a choir sings Psalm 84 as wreaths are being laid, recalling the witness of those men so long ago.

“How dear to me is you dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!”

Why did these men sing Psalm 84? Maybe some of them were in their church choir and were used to signing it. Maybe some of them had memorized it at home or in Sunday school. Singing it as they were led away wasn’t planned of course. Noone knew that they were going to be taken away that night. But as these things go, one person felt it rising from their soul and they gave voice to it. And as they did, others joined in, and it grew and grew, reminding them that God was with them always, and that even if they died, God was with them and they would be in God’s presence forever, singing God’s praises with all the company of heaven.

How dear to me is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!

My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.”

Stories about people being courageous and faith-filled as they are being led into the darkness, are inspiring because they remind us of how we want to be when the chips are down for us. Where do we turn when things get really hard- when death is close at hand or when we experience disappointment and defeat? What rises from our spirits? Anger, fatalism, fear? Or do we go to that deeper place, under all of those very understandable emotions, to that internal temple where God dwells in each of us. Faithful responses come forth from us in crisis moments when we have spent year after year in church, worshipping with others, and carrying on the tradition of saying/chanting psalms that began centuries ago. Faithful responses come from spending time in prayer and giving voice to our longing for God, that longing that surpasses all other desires in this life.

On the Sundays that we were home this summer, I visited different Episcopal churches. And it was wonderful to experience other faith communities and give thanks for their gifts and their particular way of being, and it made me even more thankful for you, the people of Saint George’s. We are blessed with a wonderful charism, a beautiful spirit of authenticity, joy, and commitment to the pilgrim way, and giving voice to our longing for what is really real in this life.

How dear to me is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!

My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.”

The sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young;

by the side of your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.

Happy are they who dwell in your house!

They will always be praising you.

Happy are the people whose strength is in you!

whose hearts are set on the pilgrims ’way.

Wearing Christ's Mask

Ben Keseley — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 00:43:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Pentecost 12, Year B – Track 1

8/11/24

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

I’d like to tell you a story today. It was written in 1897 and the title of the story is The Happy Hypocrite: A Fairy Tale for Tired Men, which I think is a hilarious title. The story goes like this. There was a man named George Hell (which is also very funny) and George was a selfish man of many appetites. He was a gambler, a flirt, and he loved nothing more than a raucous all-night party. Then one day he met an incredible woman named Jenny and became enraptured with her. Now Jenny was everything that George was not. She was selfless and kind, generous and humble, and she loved God far more than any worldly delight. Hopelessly smitten by her goodness, the scoundrel George confessed his love and asked for Jenny’s hand in marriage, but Jenny playfully replied that she would only marry a man with the face of a saint.

Knowing that there was nothing saintlike about himself, George was heartbroken. Yet as he was walking home, he passed a mask shop and a devilish idea popped into his head. He went in and asked the mask maker to make for him the most convincing mask of a saint that he could. Then, while wearing the mask, George would spend the next year acting as saintly as possible in the hope that he could win Jenny’s heart.

While wearing the mask George began to slowly undo all of his selfish habits. He returned money that he had won from trickery, he supported charities and community efforts, and he even moved into a modest cottage in the woods where he lived humbly and prayerfully, treating those whom he encountered with the same kindness and compassion he saw modeled in Jenny.

While George’s project was difficult at first and required exercising moral muscles that had grown weak from years of self-centeredness, he eventually found it easier and easier to be compassionate, sometimes even forgetting that his newfound altruism was part of his trick to win Jenny’s heart. But eventually he did catch Jenny’s eye, and we she saw his saintly face and saintly life, she was overjoyed to take him as her husband. They were married and George signed his name on the wedding registry as “George Heaven.” However, George’s happiness was short lived because as the happy couple was going home, an old friend recognized George and demanded that he take off his mask and reveal his true face. George knew that he was caught and prepared to take off his mask, knowing that it would cost him his true love. Yet as he removed the mask, he was astonished to find that his face had taken on the appearance of the saint whom he pretended to be. And at this sight, Jenny recognized the transformation that had taken place within him and fell all the more in love with George, and the two live happily ever after.

Now this is a fairy tale of course but I think it well-illustrates a spiritual practice and truth that is at heart of the Christian life. Something which St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians today calls the imitation of Christ – something that we are all called to do. One of the most common concerns that I hear from people who are new or returning to Christianity is that they feel that they are unable to do what it takes to live what they perceive as a holy life. They desire to do so, but have this perception that Christians are somehow naturally more pious, more prayerful, or more compassionate than the average person and that perception keeps them away from participating in the life of faith.

However, St. Paul, in his letter to the church in Ephesus, assures us that that is not actually the case. He does not say explicitly that Christians are naturally better or worse people than anyone else, however he does call on the Ephesian Christians to put away falsehood and sin, to work honestly with their own hands, to share with the needy, and to build one another up in Christ (Ephesians 4:25ff). And I’ll let you in on a secret of Biblical interpretation, if St. Paul ever tells a community something specific that they should be doing, you can best believe that the opposite of that thing is likely happening, or else he wouldn’t have had reason to write those words in the first place.

So St. Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesians to live a godly, righteous, and sober life is evidence that us Christians, from the very start, are the same as flawed human beings anywhere. The difference being that we are called to live a new and holy life modeled on the one who loves us and the one whom we have fallen in love with, like George’s Jenny. And if we feel overwhelmed by the burden of holiness, then Paul offers a helpful suggestion: begin by imitating Christ, begin by putting on the mask of Christ. Even if our hearts don’t always feel like they’re in the right place, we always have the choice to act as if they are. And through that repeated action; that repeated moral and spiritual exercise, we can actually become the thing that we were practicing to be.

And of course like any exercise, the exercise of imitating Christ does not yield results overnight. It requires patience, dedication, and feeding ourselves with a steady diet of things that are good for us so that this goodness can do its work within us. In the Gospel, Jesus continues on the theme of feeding, this time making an explicit move from the importance of feeding bodies to the importance of feeding our souls. Jesus offers us the bread of life for our souls through his own body and blood each week, and our practice of receiving it is central to our practice of imitating the one whose life is offered for us. St. Augustine famously wrote that “if we receive the Eucharist worthily, then we become what we receive” (Easter Sermon, 277). Not only do we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we become more like Him through our receiving.

So today we all are given the chance to make a new start in our imitation of Christ. We begin by receiving Christ and continue by making those small changes towards a life that proclaims Christ. And eventually, just like our friend George, we just might find that what started out as imitation has become the true witness of our lives. Amen.

To Be Fed By God

Ben Keseley — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:56:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Ruthanna B. Hooke, Professor of Homiletics, Virginia Theological Seminary

Proper 13: 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a; Psalm 51:1-13; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35

August 4, 2024

I have a dog who is what dog trainers call “food-motivated.” I gather that not all dogs are like this—I have friends who have a dog who, when they put food down for her, will eat a few bites and then walk away. Not our dog—when we put her food down, she eats it in approximately 15 seconds and then looks up at us, expectantly, as if to say: “is there any more?”

Whether or not all dogs are food-motivated, I’d venture to say that all of us humans are, at one level or another, food-motivated. We are hungry beings. We are bodies that need to be fed, and this is why Jesus meets us through giving us food and drink. This is why the only one of Jesus’ miracles to be recounted in all four Gospels (and twice in Mark and Matthew) is the feeding of the multitudes. This is also why the feeding of the 5000 in John’s Gospel unfolds into Jesus’ longest discourse in John, and also, in the church’s lectionary, is spread over five weeks. We began hearing the story last week, and the implications of this miraculous feeding continue to unfold, in our Gospel readings, this week and for the next three weeks after that—because this feeding story speaks to our most basic physical need.

The crowd following Jesus is hungry, and so Jesus meets them in that place of primal need, by feeding them, miraculously and abundantly, giving them “as much as they want.” One commentator points out that most of this crowd would have been very poor peasants, living on the edge of hunger at all times, and so to have “as much as they want” would have been a rare experience for them. No wonder they exclaim over the miracle that has been done, and say that Jesus is a prophet, and they want to make him king. And no wonder that, when he withdraws from them, they follow him across the Sea of Galilee. After all, they are food-motivated, and, on one level, quite rightly so. Jesus names this when they catch up with him, saying: “you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” Jesus accuses them of following him for the wrong reason, but he does not stop with this criticism. Instead, he uses their hunger, their food motivation, to teach them and to lead them deeper. He has fed them with the loaves not only out of compassion for their physical hunger, but to tell them that what they are really hungry for is something beyond food: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.”

What is it that we hunger for? Certainly we hunger for food, for water, for shelter, for clothing. These are our most basic needs. Beyond this, we hunger for love, for friendship, and for purpose, for a sense that our lives have meaning. But our hunger goes deeper than this, for most fundamentally what we long for is God, because that is how God the Creator made us. St. Augustine puts it best: “God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.” We are made for relationship with God, to love God with our whole heart and soul and mind and strength, and in the end, nothing else will satisfy us but God. This is why Jesus meets the crowd’s physical hunger so as to point them toward this deeper hunger, urging them to work for the food that endures for eternal life, the true food that God gives them from heaven. “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Even without fully understanding him, the crowd seems to realize that this bread is what they have been seeking all along, and it was this bread that made them get in boats and go looking for Jesus across the sea, for they say, “Sir, give us this bread always.” They recognize a spiritual longing in themselves that goes deeper even than physical hunger.

Where is our hunger for God to be filled? Jesus’ next words provide the answer: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” It is not only that Jesus is the giver of bread; he IS the bread. He IS the one in whom our deepest hungers are satisfied. He is all of this because he is the divine Word made flesh, he is God incarnate, as we are told right at the beginning of John’s Gospel. What we long for most profoundly is God, and that longing is satisfied by God coming among us, dwelling among us as one of us in Jesus Christ, Immanuel (God with us).

We might think we have to DO Something to find this bread of life. The crowd asks: “What must we do to perform the works of God?” We often think that we have to work so hard to solve our problems, to meet our needs, to fill the emptiness within. We can drive ourselves so hard to do all of this, but Jesus says, the work you need to do is simply to believe in me. When it comes to our deepest need, which is for God, meeting this need is not about our working really hard and proving ourselves worthy of that love. It is more about receiving, allowing ourselves to be fed, letting go into God’s presence, which in Christ is so very near us.

If we find it hard to locate this bread of life, this presence of God in our lives, it can be helpful to look back to see God’s presence in our past. The crowd remembered the manna Moses gave their ancestors in the wilderness, and then Jesus tells them, that wasn’t Moses who gave you the bread, it was God. As we were living through our days we may not have been able to perceive how God was with us and providing for us, but as we look back, through the eyes of faith and with Jesus’ guidance, we can see that God’s provision, God’s nourishment and love, were with us all along, that truly, “twas grace that brought us safe thus far.”

And finally, if we seek the bread from heaven that gives life to us and to the world, we don’t need to look any further than this table, to which we come every Sunday, to this meal that is the center of our lives as Christians. This meal offers us Christ’s very presence and invites us take it into ourselves. In this most intimate act we become one with him, so that he may abide in us and we in him. Just as Jesus did with the crowd by the Sea of Galilee, so with us, he meets us in a meal because we are hungry, we are food-motivated. But it is through this feeding that we come to know our spiritual hunger and have it satisfied. That is why the Eucharist is only a morsel of bread and a sip of wine, to remind us that our physical hunger is only a sign of a deeper need, a need for God, and that only God incarnate among us can meet that need.

It is through the very ordinariness of this meal that Jesus teaches us to seek him in our ordinary lives, in our everyday meals, our relationships, our joys and sufferings, because he is there, in the midst of all of this, longing to feed us with the bread of heaven. Once we allow ourselves to be fed by him, we are able to be his people in the world. We are able to bring nourishment to a desperately hungry world. We are able to love one another because he first loved us, because he has fed us with the bread of life.

“Lord, give us this bread always.”

Who’s Feeding Who?

Ben Keseley — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 00:41:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Pentecost 10, Year B – Track 1,

7/28/24

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Alright, I’m gonna just jump right into the Gospel today. The feeding of the five thousand. This is one of Jesus’s most iconic miracles, so iconic, in fact, that it’s the only one of his miracles to appear in all four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, so it’s clearly important. Now, there are two common interpretations of this miracle and I’d like to lay them both out for you and then we’ll work on figuring out what we should take from this event. The first interpretation is that this is truly a miracle, a miracle of bread being physically multiplied by Jesus. The second is that it’s more of a miracle of people sharing what they already have. I’ll start with the first interpretation, the miracle of multiplication.

After a long day of teaching and healing the sick, Jesus and his disciples gather to a mountaintop. As dinnertime approaches, the disciples sense that stomachs are beginning to rumble and they start to panic about how in the world they are going to feed five thousand people. If you’ve ever planned a barbecue, you have a glimpse of what they must have felt. At our annual parish picnic on September 15th, we’re far fewer than 5000 people and the organizers of that picnic – bless their hearts – have already started planning for it and it’s over a month away! So you can imagine the anxiety of the disciples, so much so that Andrew sees a little boy who has a couple loaves of bread and some fish in his lunchbox and says “hey y’all, let’s start by grabbing that kids lunch, that should be a good start.” I’m kidding, hopefully they asked the young boy and presumably he was grateful to share what he had, which is where the miracle of multiplication begins.

Jesus gratefully receives this young boy’s generous offering and begins by giving thanks to God in heaven for the gifts they are about to receive. Here Jesus essentially says grace before the meal, and the Greek word used to describe his act of giving thanks is eucharistesas. Sounds familiar right? It shares the same root word as Eucharist, which is the Mass, the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion. And the very word Eucharist itself, simply means, thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for the gifts of Jesus offering himself to us in the elements of bread and wine. Thus, many scholars have pointed to this feeding of the multitude as a foreshadowing of the Eucharist itself.

Then after giving thanks, Jesus breaks the bread. And breaks the bread. And breaks the bread. Presumably breaking the bread until there is enough to fill enough baskets to feed five thousand people – and there’s enough to have some leftover! This is where we can read the text in the first and traditional interpretation, as truly a miracle of multiplication. Jesus miraculously makes something out of nothing so that all are fed. And more than that, this miracle also casts Jesus in a particular, prophetic light. For the Gospel says that “when the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” (John 6:14)

Why would they say that? They say that because the miracle of feeding multitudes of people on a mountaintop would have obviously triggered some memories in their mind of a parallel miraculous feeding involving another prophet – the prophet Moses, who called upon God to feed the Israelites with manna, bread from heaven, as they wandered in the desert beneath Mt. Sinai after being liberated from Egypt. So in this way, Jesus is doing something more than just feeding people, he is in a way confirming that some of the suspicions about him are true – he is a prophet like Moses, which was one way of describing the long awaited Messiah who would come to fulfill the promises of the Old Testament.

So in essence, this interpretation, that the passage indeed recounts a miracle of multiplication, also does two other critical things. It foreshadows the sacrament of Holy Eucharist, the way in which we are perpetually fed by the body of the living God, and it casts Jesus as the true Messiah.

Now here’s the other, more modern interpretation that arose sometime in the 19th century, when German Protestant scholars were trying to reconcile scripture with a scientific understanding of the world. This interpretation we can call a ‘miracle of sharing.’ Scholars who are persuaded by this reading posit that at the time, people would set out for the day with provisions of bread and other snacks hidden under their cloaks to nibble on throughout the day. And Jesus, knowing this, used the generous example of the young boy who was willing to share from his provisions, to compel others to take the bread that they had been squirreling away under their tunics, and share it so that all could be fed. Thus, demonstrating that the scarcity that the disciples were fretting about was not really a concern at all if people just radically reoriented their perspective from caring for their individual needs to caring for the needs of the community.

And I do like the moral of this story. It rings true on many levels even today. Many of our needs as a community, and throughout the world, could be met much more easily than we imagine if we all adopted the same spirit of cooperation and mutual aid, this is true.

However, I’m ultimately not convinced that the miracle of sharing is actually what happened. For one, it’s simply not in the text, and as I’ve said before, I think that we owe it to ourselves and to the Gospel writers to take seriously passages of scripture that confound our scientific understanding of the world, and not try to accommodate them to a worldview that makes more sense to us.

Second, if do this, we turn the story into a type of humanist Gospel, where human kindness and generosity is at the center, rather than God’s radical generosity. And then we miss out on the earlier points that this miracle is not just about people feeding people, it’s about Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah, doing for us what we are unable to do for ourselves. And I don’t know about you, but right now I need a messiah who can do for us those things we cannot do for ourselves, because I don’t have a lot of confidence that we’d be able to pull off the miracle of sharing right now. Maybe we in our community could, but throughout our nation? Throughout the whole world? I’m not so certain.

For me, taking seriously the thought that Jesus performed an actual miracle on that mountain by feeding an impossible number of people helps me to take seriously the belief that Jesus also feeds us in ways far deeper than meeting our physical needs. It helps me take seriously that we have a Messiah who comes to us and will ultimately save us from the discord and disunity that we see playing out again and again in our common life. And that is worth giving thanks for, my friends. So as we ourselves prepare to receive the spiritual food of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, let us give thanks – give thanks that we have such a Savior to feed us. Amen.

“Today, do you, ‘Get it?’

Ben Keseley — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 00:54:00 +0000

The Rev. Dr. Linda M. Kapurch

Pntcst 9/Proper 11, RCL/Year B, (MK: 6:30 – 34; 53-56)

I get it.

He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile. (v, 31.) Curious as to just what had so upset Jesus to make Him want to withdraw, I remembered further back in Mark’s Gospel—to where we had left off last Sunday (MK: 6: 14 – 29.) Seeing what that was, well…I can understand it.

Jesus had just received the heart-breaking news that His closest kin, His cousin, John, was dead. The head of John the Baptist had just been brought out on a platter, and given to Herod’s wife at her bidding. And John’s disciples had come and taken the body away and buried it; then (they) gathered around Jesus, and told them all they had done and taught (v. 30.) I get it. All Jesus wanted to do was to slink away…to just fly away…if only the earth could open up and just swallow Him whole. I get it. Maybe you’ve also felt this way, when such a devastating experience has happened to you?

In her Commentary for the July issue of The Christian Century, (July 2024, p.26),

The Mennonite Pastor and author, Joanna Harader, has another take on this desire of ours: ‘for a little bit of a break.’ Only, she turns the focus in on herself: as a Pastor saying, once people find out she is a Pastor, she can never get out of role: ‘as someone who will listen, help, guide, teach, comfort, and heal…’ This is what she wants/needs a break from! Do you ever feel this way: just wishing you could stop being a parent/caregiver/supervisor…even for just a moment or two?

So, which is it for you today: wishing you could escape from it all, because of a devastating experience? Or, because of everything: that generalized, homogenized, vanilla reality of needing to be all things to all people—which never seems to go away?

At times like this—esp. when time or circumstances don’t allow us to retreat to our go-to Bon Secours in MD.), or Shrinemont, or Roslyn—we yearn for some…comfort food: of the kind we find in much of the narrative ‘left out’ of today’s Gospel…the story line that we perhaps know so well, and return to again and again: Jesus’ miraculous feeding and subsequent, equally miraculous walking on water. But no.

Jumping back to v. 34 we read how Jesus was roused back to reality, to the real world—to the stampede of sick and hungry people, clamoring for His attention. As He went ashore, He saw a great crowd; and He had compassion for them… (v.34.) That always seems to be the way of the story: no rest for Jesus, no rest for His weary disciples. Jesus’ invitation to a withdrawal proved to be very short-lived, indeed.

No comfort food for us today. As if to underscore that today’s Gospel Challenge is not meant to be nice and comforting, we’re left in the end with this message: …people at once recognizes Him, and rushed about…to bring the sick on mats to wherever they hear He was. And wherever He went, they laid the sick…(at his feet.) No. No Retreat-ing today…We are to remember something else:

He had compassion for them…

Those disciples—as per usual—didn’t get it. But, as Jesus disciples, we DO…get it. In our life of faith—tried and tested as it has been these past few weeks—we still know that we are the recipients of a far greater compassion. And it is this compassion: Jesus’ abiding Presence with us, which we are to go out and multiply—and bring to this bruised and aching world.

Surrounded as we have been, with all of our own pre-occupations & problems, we may feel exactly as Jesus did: that we just want to withdraw to ourselves. Jesus does get it—about us. He does ‘get’ that we are tired…cranky…lonely…and starved—And He’ll swoop in: as He always does.

But, likewise, He doesn’t leave us there: Instead, we are to go out from this place, and spread that over-flowing, richly abundant, always available

Compassion…that we know we’ll always receive—from Him.

Got it?

Thanks Be to God! Amen!!

Sermon by The Rev. M. Chanta Bhan

Ben Keseley — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 00:08:00 +0000

Homily for Proper 7, Year B, June 23, 2024

Gospel Reading: Mark 4:35-41

The Rev. M. Chanta Bhan

Good Morning! Thank you for allowing me to be with you! I am the Rev. Chanta Bhan and I come to you from fair Richmond where I live and provide sacramental ministry to an historically black church, Calvary Episcopal Church in Hanover, VA, one of the most racially conflicted counties and towns in Virginia, as you may well know. I have found great joy in serving the community there and learning from them. The parishioners started the church during segregation. It was founded in 1919. They hosted church suppers and other fellowship events to help them raise the money to build the sanctuary; and, later, they raised more money to add a parish hall. As I listen to their stories, I am impressed by their love for Jesus, their courage, and their resilience! And, of course, I am delighted that you gave me a reason to come to northern Virginia, a place that feels quite familiar to me after my time at Virginia Theological Seminary during the pandemic.

This summer, I have been learning to swim as a personal goal. Many of you probably already know how to swim. This is, indeed, an important survival skill and I regret that it has taken me so long. And yet, this has been perfect timing! As I am sure that you can relate, I have had to overcome a lot of fear. At first, I felt claustrophobic surrounded by water, then I had to put my head under water and learn how to breath, then I was finally able to make it to the deep end and feel comfortable treading water without touching the ground, then I was in lanes with my other training team members who have all completed races and left me in their wake, then I was able to complete a lap; and now we are being introduced to open water, to currents, and to the mystery of what lies beneath the murky depths of the James River..

As I ponder this journey of learning and growing and overcoming fear, the Gospel passage for today is a rich invitation to discipleship, a deeper relationship with Jesus! We find the disciples in a boat with Jesus in the evening. There were also other boats and, perhaps, the people continued to follow Jesus as the storm arose. After a long day of ministry and teaching parables, Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat when the fierce storm rises and water fills the boat. These images emerge in literature and film. Perhaps, we imagine Titanic, The Life of Pi, Castaway, Robinson Crusoe, and other stories. Surviving storms at sea, becoming a lone survivor or castaway on a desert island for years at a time, succumbing to a storm and being tossed to and fro in the ocean waiting for rescue . . .these are real fears that have become a reality for some!

St. Augustine, in his commentary on this passage, talks about Christ asleep within us during the challenges to our faith. He encourages us to rouse Christ in our hearts, to remember that he is at work within us, and that he might be awake within us when we are facing calamity and when our faith is tested by all that surrounds us:

With the Lord's help I want to speak to you about today's reading from the holy gospel, and to urge you in his name not to let your faith lie dormant in your hearts when you are buffeted by the winds and waves of this world. The Lord Christ's power is by no means dead, nor is it asleep. Do you think the Almighty was overcome by sleep in the boat against his will? If you do, then Christ is asleep in your hearts. If he were indeed keeping watch within you, then your faith too would be vigilant. The Apostle, remember, speaks of Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith.

This sleep of Christ has a symbolic meaning. . .

. . . . When your heart is in this troubled state, do not let the waves overwhelm you. If, since we are only human, the driving wind should stir up in us a tumult of emotions, let us not despair but awaken Christ, so that we may sail in quiet waters, and at last reach our heavenly homeland.

(Sermon 63, 1-3: PL 38, 424-25)

Any one of us might be confronting certain fears: a diagnosis, a child who is about to start college in the fall, a child who is graduating, a job search and transition, a financial situation, Pride month as a reminder of a time when one could not speak about who one loves, uncertainty about the future. There are no easy answers. Fear is a natural response to the unknown or what we can not control.

And yet, the disciples set an example for us though the text does not make this obvious. While Jesus seems to challenge them in their fear, asking them why they lack faith, we see that he is with them and addresses their concerns. In calming the wind and the waves, he is not only addressing their fears, he is revealing himself as the one who has mastery over the elements. He has already shown himself as Lord over illness, death, and spirits; and he is revealing more of himself to them. He has already been explaining the deeper message of parables to this select company so we know that they have had many spiritual conversations.

What we see in this passage is the intimate friendship between Jesus and his disciples. The ones closest to him share the same boat. In their moment of need, they know where to go and they expect that Jesus can do something about the storm. They read Jesus’ sleeping in the back of the boat as a sign that he does not care about them; but, perhaps, he was waiting for them to come to him so that he could reveal himself not just as their friend and teacher but as God himself who came to be present with them. Jesus, God incarnate, the very icon of God on earth cares and is near to them; and, deep within their hearts, they know that he is able to care for them. This same Jesus is here with us, awake within our hearts, present to our fears and concerns, beckoning us to learn more about him as we walk alongside him. Jesus seeks to be our friend and walk alongside us.

I close with wisdom from St. John of the Cross, one of our early church mystics who knew fear, anxiety, distress, and despair:

Live in faith and hope, though it be in darkness, for in the darkness God protects the soul. Cast your care upon God for you are his and He will not forget you. Do not think that He is leaving you alone, [for he is always with you].

Works Consulted:

Adels, Jill Haak. Editor. The Wisdom of the Saints : An Anthology. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Barnecut, Edith. Editor. Journey with the Fathers: Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels, Year B. New Rochelle, New York: New City Press, 1992-1994.

Interpretation. “Feasting on the Gospels--Mark: A Feasting on the Word Commentary”. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications Ltd., 2015.

Reid, Robert Stephen. Preaching Mark. St. Louis, Missouri.: Chalice Press, 1999.

Riley, Harold. The Making of Mark : an Exploration. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1989.

Samuel, Simon. 2007. A Postcolonial Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus. New York, New York: T & T Clark, 2007.

Sermon by the Rev. Ross Kane

Ben Keseley — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 00:09:00 +0000

The Rev. Ross Kane

Proper 5 Year B, June 9, 2024, St. George’s Arlington

2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1

“For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.” -2 Corinthians 4:17

“An eternal weight of glory,” Paul says; quite a phrase. Paul juxtaposes images such that the phrase seems both heavy and light at the same time. An “eternal weight” feels overwhelming. “Glory”, however, Glory feels uplifting, even freeing.

This mixture reminds me of the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being by the Czech novelist Milan Kundera, with its contrast between heaviness and lightness. Kundera portrays human life as caught between a sense of heaviness and importance on the one hand, and fleeting lightness on the other. He poignantly portrays this tension in all his characters, but most especially in his main character Tomas, a talented surgeon working in Prague during the Cold War.

Tomas knows heaviness, the sense that life carries profound importance, yet this heaviness east of the Iron Curtain becomes too much to bear. Amid the brutal state politics, Tomas publishes a letter in the newspaper challenging the Communists, only to then get arrested and ultimately silenced. Amid this turmoil Tomas embrace’s life’s lightness through his perpetual adultery, finding a new--if fleeting--significance from each encounter.

For Kundera, humans sense that we must choose between lightness or heaviness. Heaviness represents a sense that humans seek some larger significance--something eternal--beyond the humdrum of everyday life. Lightness, on the other hand, reflects life’s transitory nature. If life is simply one event after another, lacking any wider meaning, then “everything is pardoned in advance,” Kundera writes, and “therefore everything [is] cynically permitted”. The ultimate irony for Kundera is that whether we choose heaviness or lightness, both prove unbearable. Heaviness is unbearable because eternity is an illusion; lightness is unbearable because life becomes fleeting, robbed of moral responsibility and meaning.

* * *

Enough on Kundera for now; you came to church to hear good news, right?! Paul, I think, would have no qualm per se with Kundera’s paradox of lightness and heaviness in human life--humans carry “an eternal weight of glory” Paul says, after all. In Christian terms, we could put the tension this way: the fact that our lives carry eternal consequence, that we are made in God's image and made to participate in God's divine life - this gives a weightiness to life. To that body that one day will again become dust, surely eternity is greater and seemingly heavier than anything we can experience. How can mortality carry immortality? How can human beings, in all our frailties and imperfections and weaknesses, carry with us a sense of the divine without being overwhelmed by the glory of God’s beauty and love? The glory of God is weighty because we human beings carry our mortal bodies with us while also somehow carrying the eternal. The mortal and the eternal both dwell within us. Kundera is right, at least in his diagnosis: the idea of eternity feels weighty and even, at times, unbearable.

For Paul the same contrast is there but it plays out differently. It’s not that we choose between lightness and heaviness; it’s rather that they’re already mingled together in this life. Paul does not see us stuck between lightness and heaviness, neither of which gives any meaning. Paul does not see us destined for Kundera’s modern malaise.

Instead, Paul sees human beings traversing through our heaviness in order to achieve glory. And the more we traverse through the heaviness, the more light and glory we can see and experience.

* * *

However burdensome the life of faith may seem, however hard and tedious it might feel to follow the path of doing what’s right over and again every day--loving neighbors and nurturing a spiritual life--it leads somewhere. It leads to what our scriptures call “fullness of joy”, “radiant light”, “the glory of God”. It leads to a life that is more satisfying than living for what is fleeting or what is petty.

We grow as we traverse through the heaviness. Growth is an unappreciated theme in Paul’s letters. Elsewhere he beckons us to “grow into the full stature of Christ.” (What an image, right? It’s like he’s saying “You there--become Jesus”!) Here in 2 Corinthians he asks us to anticipate the weight of glory that is on its way to us. While we are amid heaviness and lightness, we are ever moving toward greater lightness and greater light. And so we can journey forward amid the heaviness of life knowing that the glory of eternal love can slowly and persistently grow in us.

A problem with lots of 20th century European philosophers and novelists, I admit, is that they’re better at diagnosing a problem than giving us a way through. If Kundera is spot on in the diagnosis, Paul is spot on in the response. It is not that lightness is fleeting and the heaviness of eternity is an illusion. Rather, our sense of lightness comes from the limitations of mortality which cannot bear, cannot contain, the fullness of love that is divinity. Our heaviness is only the temporary heaviness of carrying eternal love with us without yet seeing its fullness. And each day, when we strive for it, we can see a bit more of that eternal love. When we live that way - ever growing in love, each day getting closer and God’s vision of love and justice and becoming a little more like Jesus - the lightness of being becomes not unbearable but glorious. AMEN.

Uncertainty

Ben Keseley — Mon, 27 May 2024 00:20:00 +0000

Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington VA

Trinity Sunday, May 26, 2024

Isaiah 6:1-8. Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17

If I said we would talk about uncertainty this morning, you might reasonably wonder “Uncertainty about what?” And with that question a very wide door opens to all sorts of possibilities. This is Trinity Sunday when we think about the nature of God— always a straight path to ambiguity. But this is also an election year, a time that is unpredictable by definition since we do not know the outcomes. Then there are undecided wars in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East; angry divisions in our country; immigrants on the border; oceans on our doorsteps; greenhouse gasses over our heads; and around us there are children growing up, adults juggling careers, and seniors aging. These are all full of unknowns that can make us nervous if we let them. Uncertainty is ubiquitous. It is found everywhere, including in the lessons for this morning. Come with me for a few minutes, bring along the particular form of anxiety that unsettles your mind these days, and let’s see what these lessons say about how living with uncertainty.

In the first lesson, the prophet Isaiah was overwhelmed by mystery. A vision of the great unknowable God that is literally earth-shaking. It is the way we feel when death comes too close to be ignored or when we see our country against the backdrop of history’s list of great nations that have fallen. It is like leaving your child in the care of others for first time, praying when frightened, or realizing an opportunity is gone forever. Mystery always lurks behind the thin veneer of certainty. Isaiah’s response to that kind of experience was despair. “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and live among a people of unclean lips….” Despair is one of things people do in the face of uncertainty.

In the Gospel, Nicodemus faced a different kind of uncertainty. He had heard some new ideas, different ways of thinking that challenged the tried-and-true. We often stumble and mumble over little ideas like cultural norms in dress and behavior. And we are required to ponder bigger ideas like ways of thinking about gender, race, or politics. Then there is technology that mocks our ways and threatens to replicate our minds artificially. And there are theories that question capitalism, or democracy, or religion itself. Strange ideas abound. Nicodemus’s response was to place an unreasonable faith in reason. He wanted to figure the pieces out. He knew that if he got up earlier or stayed up later or went to ask Jesus or Siri or Wikipedia, he could tame the ways of ideas. He could cage them in his head like zoo animals so he could safely visit them at his leisure. That is one of the things people do in the face of uncertainty.

Uncertainty is always at hand. Neither despair nor rationalization changes that fact. But today’s lessons also give us two positive responses to life’s uncertainties. One is an idea. The other is an action.

The idea is in the epistle, Paul’s Letter to the Romans—

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God….”

Children! We are children of God. We are not running the world, God is. God loves us as a parent loves a child. That love is not meant to leave us frightened as Isaiah was. We don’t have to understand it all as Nicodemus wanted to. We do not have to grab the world’s steering wheel. Worry is a waste of time. Instead we can take the place that is rightfully ours, the place of beloved children in the hands of a loving God. That is the idea behind a healthy response to uncertainty.

The action is in the example ultimately set by the depressed prophet and the curious Pharisee. Isaiah was overwhelmed by his vision but finished by saying, “Here am I. Send me.” The mystery he beheld was still well beyond his grasp, but he was ready to take the steps he could. He did not unravel the Trinity or tame the seraphs, but he spoke the truth he knew and took his place in our faith story. And as far as we know, Nicodemus never quite figured out what Jesus was all about, but on Good Friday he knew what he could do in the face of a great wrong. He took the dead body of Jesus off the cross and took it to what would become the focal point of our faith story, the Easter tomb.

Uncertainty in its myriad of forms is always close at hand. That can scare us as it did Isiah or confuse us as it did Nicodemus. But uncertainty in any form can never erase the fact that this is God’s world, not ours. Worry is a waste of time. And while we may never grasp it all, we always know enough to take one more step in faithful living. Amen.

Youth Sunday Sermon

Ben Keseley — Mon, 20 May 2024 00:37:00 +0000

Sam Arny

Pentecost/Youth Sunday

5/19/24

Good morning everyone. My name is Sam Arny, a senior from McLean High School. I normally attend the 8:00am service, so this is a slightly bigger crowd than I’m used to. I started attending St. George’s in 2013 but left for 3 years as I moved to France until 2017.

When we came back, we were welcomed back into the church and have been here ever since, even during COVID when we had those online services. But as a member of St. George’s for all of these years I’ve heard countless sermons, maybe zoned out during a couple of them more times than I’d like to admit, and I didn’t want to add my sermon to that list for you. I had a couple ideas on how to avoid that, such as getting everyone standing up and singing, doing call and response, or even walking through the aisle with Paddy and splashing some Holy Water on everybody. However, after some long talks with Paddy and Shearon about St. George’s customs and rules, and a lot of self-restraint, I’ve decided to stick to the script. So bear with me for a couple minutes.

So I wanted to come up here and discuss what it’s been like growing up in the church and how much of an impact St. George’s and this community has had on my life, and then I wanted to tie in the readings of today so that everyone can try and take something away from the long and lengthy speech I’m about to give.

Although I’ve been attending St. George’s for the past 7 years now, it wasn’t really until the past few when I really opened myself up to God, and this church was the main reason for that. It really started almost 3 years ago, when I joined 7 others and attended the first church service project we did out in Appalachia, led by Crystal Hardin, Reverend at the time. Before then I hadn’t really had much connection to the church in terms of the people. I knew a lot of people but I didn’t really connect to them on a spiritual level. I remember I was very skeptical about the trip before going, and to be honest I wasn’t very excited. I mean I was going into my junior year, thought my high school career was coming to an end, and wanted to spend my summer at the beach and with friends, not on a service trip of all things. But boy was I wrong. That trip really opened my eyes to the magnitude of the Holy Spirit, and how God is everywhere. It made me so much more grateful for the life that I live and I really wanted to embrace it to the fullest and give back more. So that following fall I went through the classes and lessons to confirm my faith. And ever since then my connection to God has only grown and become a much more important part of my life and who I am.

Another big part of St. George’s, if not the biggest, is the community. I would not be so involved and eager to come to church if it wasn’t for the people. First I’d like to acknowledge Reverend Paddy and Reverend Shearon. Shearon, who is currently on sabbatical, has always been really the rock of St. George’s, as she’s been here since day 1 and has been a statue of unwavering faith and discipline with God. And then of course, Reverend Paddy. What is there not to say about Paddy? Over the years as I’ve been a member of the church, we’ve gotten a good amount of seminarians, many of which, if not all of them, move on to their own churches as they look to become deacons. But not Paddy. Ever since Reverend Crystal stepped down a little over a year ago, Paddy has become such an important part of not only the church, but my life, and the lives of everyone here. Paddy, I’d like to thank you for everything you’ve done for me, not only as a mentor but as a friend. Your support and kindness have truly transformed my life and helped me to strengthen my relationship with God. I’m looking forward to this next chapter in my life and I’m heading into it with confidence thanks to the lessons I’ve learned from you and Reverend Shearon, but I know that no reverend will be able to come close to both of you and the impact that you’ve had on me, so thank you both.

Lastly I really wanted to give a big thank you to the youth leaders that I’ve had throughout the years. Ms Liza Lowe, Darren, and Jimmy and Sarah. I never really stopped to say thank you for all that you guys did, not just for me but for all the youth. Taking the time out of your busy schedules and time with your families to come and try and guide the youth like me, it was really remarkable. You have all made such a big impact on me and the EYC program, and I know that it's in great hands with Ariel, Nick and Rebecca. But thank you to all of you, especially for changing coming to church as an obligation to a choice that I was excited and proud to make.

Today’s reading was about Pentecost. Pentecost is described as the celebration when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples after Jeus’s ascension - when Jesus ascended into heaven to join God at his right hand. But why is it celebrated? Because it was much more than an ascension. Jesus is physically leaving the disciples - but he isn’t leaving them spiritually. He will never leave them because he has left them with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus does not forsake them, but gives them a calling. Pentecost is a calling to his disciples. Today’s gospel read; “Jesus said to his disciples, “When the advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You are also to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.” This is Jesus calling upon his disciples to become more than followers, but advocates for him. It’s the same with us. Before I looked into Pentecost, I didn’t really understand its significance, besides the fact that Jesus ascended into heaven. But Pentecost may be one of the most important parts of Jesus’s life, as it was foretold for hundreds of years before. The Old Testament prophesied Pentecost. Numbers 11:29 with Moses states; “Would that all the Lord’s people might be prophets when the Lord would put His Spirit upon them.” That’s the message of Pentecost. Jesus is calling us to become more than followers, but advocates for the Holy Spirit. That doesn’t mean we have to go door-to-door preaching the Gospel, but to spread the Holy Spirit through love and kindness towards others, strangers and friends alike. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as themselves.

Now this calling might seem a little nerve racking, maybe there's a little bit of doubt. When I was younger I would see people like Reverend Shearon or Paddy, and wonder how they had so much faith - especially in something they couldn’t see. But after the years I’ve spent with the church and with all you amazing people, it makes sense now. The Holy Spirit. It lives in all of us - Jesus lives in all of us. He might not be standing physically next to you, but he is always there, always listening. And that alone might bring some doubt itself. Maybe you’ve said a prayer and it wasn’t answered how you thought it would be. Maybe you’re studying for a test, finishing a report for work, maybe there's someone in your life that is really pushing you. “God please, give me patience with this person.” Now, does God give you patience, or does he give you the opportunity to be patient? If God snapped his fingers and made all your test choices correct, finished your report, gave you patience with that person, would you grow? Would you change for the better? Pentecost is the calling to become more than followers. We can never stop being students and servants of God, because God is always teaching us how to grow with the Holy Spirit. And that takes patience. And a whole lot of faith. But in the end, it's all worth it. Because God answers all prayers.

I asked for strength and God gave me difficulties to make me stronger. I asked for wisdom and God gave me problems to solve. I asked for courage and God gave me dangers to overcome. I asked for love and God gave me troubled people to help. My prayers were answered. Amen.

On Christian Joy

Ben Keseley — Mon, 06 May 2024 00:02:00 +0000

Paddy Cavanaugh

St. George’s, Arlington

5th Sunday of Easter, Year B (Shrine Mont)

5/5/24

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Good morning St. George’s, it is so good to be back with you after being away for our Shrine Mont retreat and a few weeks of vacation this past month. Now it is Rev. Shearon’s turn to take some well-deserved time off for her sabbatical which began this week. She will be back with us at the end of the summer on August 20th and I hope you’ll join me in lifting her up in prayer while she’s away resting, traveling, and re-grounding herself in God’s love.

That’s also to say, you’re stuck with me this summer! And what a summer it will be! Friends we have so much to look forward to together in the coming months. From Youth Sunday on May 19th, to our fantastic preaching series, to the start of our outdoor services on Memorial Day weekend, to a parish dance, to our Youth Service Trip to the beach in June. I can tell you we are going to have an absolute ball together this summer. I like to think that during Rev. Shearon’s sabbatical, us here at St. George’s will be able to take a mini-sabbatical in our own way. That’s not to say we won’t continue the important work of worshipping God and carrying out the various ministries we have been called to, but in the midst of this I also want us to have fun and simply be together. In our culture summer is a season of fellowship, rest, and restoration for a reason and I don’t think any of this is frivolous or self-indulgent.

As a matter of fact I take having fun together very seriously. In a culture that is so hyper-focused on deadlines and productivity, it’s easy for us to get caught up in the current of over-working ourselves, even, and especially, when it’s for good causes. It’s easy for us to neglect God’s commandment for us to pause and rest and enjoy the fellowship we share together. In fact, I personally believe that sharing in rest and joy together is an act of worship in itself that glorifies God. Jesus reminds us in the Gospel this Sunday that abiding in the love of God together is a critical part of keeping God’s commandments – God’s guidelines for living in right relationship.

Jesus says that he wills for his joy to be in us so that our joy may be complete (John 15:11). So this summer my hope for us is that we may claim what it means to have and to practice a theology of joy together. Because joy is one of the fruits of any healthy Christian community.

I first learned about joy as a spiritual practice from my time as a social worker with the formerly homeless and working poor in Boston before I entered the priesthood. My job was to go and visit people who had recently transitioned into public housing after living in shelters or on the streets. Unsurprisingly many of them were still struggling to overcome the circumstances, either personal or systemic – often both – which led to them becoming unhoused in the first place. Circumstances such as addiction, mental health struggles, and the general lack of affordable housing in our country. As their caseworker, I was tasked with the job of helping them try to overcome these seemingly insurmountable barriers to living what many of us, who have been dealt a more favorable hand, would consider a joyful and fulfilling life.

It was the kind of work that when you shared with others during customary small talk, would often elicit well-meaning responses of concern or pity, directed either towards my clients for their difficult circumstances, or towards me, for my lack of career savvy.

And I certainly don’t want to sugarcoat the immense difficulty, pain, and sorrow that so many of my clients had courageously endured; but to reduce their lives to their hardships would paint a wholly incomplete picture of their full humanity.

The reality was that I expected to encounter the hardship of their lives, that was no surprise to me. But what did surprise me, was the tremendous and uncommon capacity for joy that many of my clients possessed and understood in ways that were foreign to me.

Let me tell you that I heard far more raucous laughter in the waiting room of the housing office than I ever heard in the break room of my office. Day after day I would meet clients in their humble public housing units or in court or in rehabs and hospitals, bracing myself for yet another difficult conversation. And as often as not, I would leave these visits shaking with laughter from the jokes and stories my clients had shared with me, often times about the same difficult circumstances they found themselves in on that given week. With other clients I’d have to budget extra time in our visits because I knew I’d been in for at least thirty minutes of them sharing stories of their faith journey and their assuredness that God was there for them and that they could rejoice in the goodness of God’s blessings, even when it was difficult to see those blessings in the present moment.

And to be perfectly honest, it took me a long time to understand the reason for this abundance of joy coming from people who had every reason to feel the opposite of joy in this life. For them, joy was no laughing matter, no frivolous thing. In fact, joy was an act of grounding and an act of resistance. Grounding in the hope that the force of goodness, the force of God, was more powerful than the forces which kept them down in this life. And joy was an act of resistance to the forces of sorrow, self-pity, and hopelessness which sought to overcome them.

Whether they were aware if it or not, and believe me many of them were very aware, their habit of joy was an active fulfilment of God’s will that the joy of Christ be within us, so that our joy may be complete. The poor were my teachers in this spiritual lesson.

And I share this story with you because God invites all of us, regardless of our lot in life, to share in this habit of joy. Practicing the joy of Christ as a community is not a naïve joy; it does not mean we are to turn a blind eye to the hardships of this world. How can we? Christ certainly didn’t, for even in the joy of the resurrection he still bore the wounds of the crucifixion in his body.

Rather, practicing the joy of Christ means living together in such a way as to give others contagious hope that the hardship and difficulties of our broken world do not have the final say. God does.

And our God is a God of life-giving liberation and joy.

So friends, my prayer for us this summer is that we can worship together with joy, serve together with joy, eat together with joy, and yes, dance together with joy! So that the joy of Christ may be in us, and our joy may be complete.

Because the joy of Christ is an act of grounding, it’s an act of worship, and an act of resistance. Amen.

Good Shepherd Sunday

Ben Keseley — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 00:56:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams

Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

Fourth Sunday of Easter

April 21st, 2024

The Fourth Sunday of the Easter season is Good Shepherd Sunday. On the first three Sundays of Easter, we hear accounts of Jesus’ post- resurrection appearances to his disciples. And today, instead of hearing about Jesus showing his hands and feet to astonished disciples, Jesus talks about what kind of relationship he wants with his followers going forward. He describes himself as the Good Shepherd who cares for the sheep, who even lays down his life for the sheep. And, as Jesus says this, we hear psalm 23 in the background.

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.”

Psalm 23 is the most beloved psalm of all time. If there is only one that people know or have heard snippets of, it is this one. This image of the shepherd leading, guiding, comforting and protecting us is a core part of Christian liturgy and experience, inherited from thousands of years of Jewish tradition. One theologian tells the story of being in the sauna with a group of much older men many years ago, at the Jewish Community Center where he belonged. He had always wondered whether Psalm 23 was as important to Jewish people as it is to Christians, so he asked these men, and they immediately started reciting psalm 23 in Yiddish and they showed him the numbers tattooed on their arms. They talked about how repeating the 23rd psalm had helped them survive the concentration camps and it was obviously still very important to them in their old age.

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me.”

All of us need a “go to” passages of Scripture. They center us. They ground us in what is real, what is good and true. We don’t tend to talk too much about memorizing Scripture in the Episcopal Church, but it is a really good spiritual practice to commit passages to memory. You just never know when you might need them. Words from the psalms are especially powerful. In the monastic tradition, they pray through the entire psalter, all 150 psalms, every few months. They recite them together during the liturgy of the hours that they pray throughout the day. The psalms are woven into their consciences, written on their hearts, as a result of chanting them together, over and over and over again. The psalms never grow old. Jesus most likely had the entire psalter memorized. That was a well-established part of Hebrew tradition when he walked the earth. The psalms were his prayer book. And the psalms are very much a part of our tradition today, still giving us life, still sustaining us through thick and thin. Through them, we come to know Jesus more deeply.

Singer, composer, ten- time Grammy award winner and overall musical genius Bobby McFerrin is a huge fan of the psalms. He has written his own Book of Psalms and today (at the 10:30 service) the choir will sing his interpretation of Psalm 23. In an interview with Krista Tippet a few years ago, McFerrin talked about the importance of the psalms in his own spirituality. He is a very committed follower of Jesus and talks about it quite openly. He reads Scripture every day and has a lot of passages memorized. His favorite part of the Bible is the psalter. And when McFerrin writes settings for the psalms, they become his own. As he sings them, they become a part of him. He sang in the choir every Sunday in his Episcopal Church growing up and became familiar with the ancient tradition of chanting the psalms and wanted to become a monk until he realized during his mid-twenties that his true vocation was to be a singer. This imminently talented man is also extremely humble. He was heavily influenced by the example of his father and mother, who were good shepherds for him. They were very faithful people themselves. McFerrin said that his mother was the one who most guided him, day in and day out, and taught him the importance of developing his prayer life. And his father taught him humility, not by telling him that he needed to be humble, but by showing him what it looked like and talking about how he thought of his own amazing musical gifts. His father was Robert McFerrin and he was an operatic baritone who was the first Black man to sing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1955. He always told Bobby that his talent was not his own, but that God had given it to him to be a good steward of, so that is what he tried to do.

All of us need good examples in our life. Some of us are blessed to have them in our daily lives. But even if we have excellent mentors, we sometimes lose our way. And all of us need a guide who will never forsake us, who will always lead us back, who is ultimately loving, and will even come looking for us when we are lost, who will not rest until we are found.

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads med in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.”

Peace be with you

Ben Keseley — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 23:41:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams

Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

Third Sunday of Easter

April 14th, 2024

“Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you’. Luke 24:36b-48

This past Monday, people all over our country were caught up in the wonder of the solar eclipse. Many people travelled to the places that experienced totality, including some Saint Georgians. And here in our area, it was wonderful to see people, even for just a day, joined together in a way that had nothing to do with anything going on that divides us. I was out in our front yard from 3 to 3:30 that day with the glasses that Ben Keseley, our Minister of Music, gave us from his stash. And I was amazed to see the eclipse. Even if it was only 89% here, it was still incredible. Parents were walking back from the school across the street from us, after a viewing party, with their children chattering away about how great it was. Two of my older neighbors walked by and wanted to show me the cool crescent-shaped shadows that the eclipse made on the street, as the light was filtered through the leaves of a tree. It was a lovely moment of shared spiritual connection. Moments of wonder are a wonderful thing, they are part of what makes us human, and seasons of wonder are even better.

The Great Fifty Days of Easter is such a time. The resurrection is just too awesome to be contained in one Sunday, so we have this long season of celebration to give us time to experience it more fully. So here we are on the Third Sunday of Easter and we hear the story of one of Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearances to his disciples. But in order to really appreciate it, we need to back up a little. In Luke’s telling of Jesus’ resurrection, several women come to the tomb and two angels tell them that he is risen and to share the good news with the other disciples. After that, two of the disciples are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus and Jesus appears to them, but they do not recognize him until he shares a meal with them. When today’s Gospel begins, those same disciples have run back to Jerusalem to tell the others who are locked away that they have seen Jesus in the flesh. So there is a strange mixture of disbelief, excitement and fear in the room as Jesus suddenly enters and says, “peace be with you.” Just a few days earlier, Jesus’ friends watched as he was tried, beaten, forced to walk through the streets and then die an excruciating and humiliating death on a cross. They had been hiding in fear ever since because who knew what the Roman authorities had in store for them? The women had told them that the tomb was empty, the others had told them about seeing Jesus on the road to Emmaus, but it was all just too much to process after such an exhausting ordeal. And then suddenly Jesus appears in the room. He walks into their fear, into their confusion, into their exhaustion and disbelief and simply says “peace be with you.” “Peace be with you.”

We are living in a dysphoric time right now and we have a lot in common with those first disciples. There is such fear and anxiety in the air about our public life, and understandably so. There is a lot at stake. Institutions are under threat. Societal values that we used to think we all held in common are now in question. There is an incredible level of fear and anxiety about the future of our country, in addition to the rising concerns in the Middle East and around the world.

And on top of that, there is uncertainty about the future of the Church. There are daily articles about the demise of the institutional Church as we know it. But just as Jesus appeared to his disciples in their fear and showed them that he was truly resurrected from the dead, we know from our experience here at Saint George’s, and in many other places, that the Church is very much alive. Just as Jesus showed his friends his hands and feet, we can look around and see that Jesus is still with us. We had a packed house on Easter morning and we are all here today. We are blessed to have even more people connecting with us now than we did before the pandemic. People are still longing to experience the risen Christ and the community gathered around him. And today we are baptizing these two beautiful children, Elizabeth and Andrew, into our faith community. Just as surely as Jesus came and stood in the midst of his disciples, he is in the midst of us this morning. He is not dead and neither is the Church.

“Peace be with you.” Those are powerful, life-giving words. When we share the peace each Sunday, it reminds us that Jesus is here and that we are the instruments of his peace. He offers us his peace each and every day, all we have to do is to stretch out our hands to receive it. And the best gift that we can possibly give ourselves is to take some time each day to visualize Jesus coming into whatever locked down place we may be living in in our hearts and minds, looking each one of us in the eye and saying, “peace be with you.” Jesus is really and truly present to us, every day, 24/7. He brings us peace that transforms our traumatic experiences and gives us hope, Easter hope, hope that comes from God.

It seemed to everyone who witnessed Jesus’ death that the forces of this world had triumphed, but Jesus’ appearance to them told them otherwise. So it is for us. The resurrection changes everything. It completely reorients us and helps us to see that Easter is the axis around which our lives revolve. Without Easter, there would be no Christianity. We wouldn’t be here today if people didn’t see and believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. That was the big news then and its big news today. Everything Jesus did during his earthly ministry was wonder-filled, but the news of his resurrection was a complete game-changer. Jesus told his friends to be witnesses of the empty tomb and they were. Seeing him calmed their anxiety and gave them peace. And that inspired them to share it with others. That is how we claim joy in the midst of sorrow. It is how we claim hope in a despairing world. It is how we navigate uncertain times with courage.

After Jesus greets his friends in peace, he asks them for some food. Luke wants us to know that Jesus was truly alive in his body, and not just a ghost. One of the things that we need to sustain life is food and sharing food with our friends is the best. Sharing meals is one of the main ways that we come to know each other more deeply and it’s how we know Jesus more intimately. So it says a lot that the first thing Jesus did after his resurrection was to eat with his friends and it was also the last thing Jesus did before his death. The night before he died, Jesus broke bread and said, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.” In a few minutes, we will share communion and when we do we will know that Jesus is with us in a very tangible way. The very act of gathering around the altar platform, side by side, with hands outstretched, is an act of hope in a hopeless world. It’s also an act of defiance, challenging the narrative of despair. And we ask God to continue to draw more and more people to us, expanding our circle of friends to share communion with, our circle of love, just as the Gospel extended to the ends of the earth. That’s how God’s love is – it grows and grows and includes everyone-without exception. We pray that through this meal, God will unlock whatever needs to be freed in us this day, so that we may find peace in order to share that peace with others.

“Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you’.

Easter Sunday

Ben Keseley — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 23:50:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams

Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

The Day of the Resurrection: Easter Day

March 31st, 2024

“I have seen the Lord.” John 20: 1-18

Alleluia. Christ is risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.). What a joy it is to come together today to proclaim these words. We join with Christians around the world and across the ages to rejoice that God has conquered sin and death and that we live forever in the risen life of Christ.

Alleluia. Christ is risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.)

There is always so much to look forward to in the weeks leading up to Easter. A few days ago, I came into the office and gave Father Paddy my usual “good morning” as I came down the hall, to then round the corner to find him sitting in the middle of his office floor, in a sea of Easter baskets, putting plastic grass in them for the Easter egg hunt today. And you thought all we did was write sermons and ponder heavenly things. ☺ Sermons are important, but Easter candy is serious business. And speaking of candy, one of the things I always looks forward to each year is the annual Washington Post Peeps Diorama Contest. If you aren’t familiar with the contest, people create scenes about television shows, movies and various things going on in our culture, all using peeps, those little sugar bunnies that come in packages of pink, purple and yellow. This year’s entries included one entitled “Jeopardy” with studious- looking peep contestants, standing across from a very detailed category board and a caption that reads “I’ll take ‘too much free time for $800, Ken.” And then there was “Taylor Peeps: the Eras Tour”, with Taylor Peeps in a sparkly, sequined outfit and a sea of adoring peep fans spread out at her feet. And, my personal favorite, “Peepenheimer”, with nerdy little scientist peeps, wearing tiny black goggles as they carry out their experiments.

And these things are in addition to the best thing of all, of course, the anticipation of coming to church on Easter morning and having the experience of saying, “Alleluia. Christ is risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.) We come together today to experience joy. And we need joy more than ever right now. There is so much weighing us down, the aftermath of the pandemic, the isolation and mental health struggles of so many, wars raging around the world, bridges falling, the anxiety, despair and cynicism of our public life, all of this in addition to the personal and family challenges that many of us are faced with. So, we come together today to put ourselves in a space where we can experience deep joy , a joy that only God can give us.

And we experience that joy when we see the beautiful flowers adorning the nave that Valerie Troiano and our Flower Guild have arranged. We feel it when we appreciate the lovely altar with fresh linens and the seriously shiny silver that Anna Alt-White and our Altar Guild have prepared. We know it when we hear the glorious music that Dr. Ben Keseley and our choirs have practiced so well. Feasting at the reception that Karla Walter and our Vestry has worked so hard to offer. Watching the Easter egg hunt that Liza Lowe and our Children and Youth committee have arranged. Our Easter celebration takes many hands and hearts and minds to prepare, from lay leaders to staff members to all of you. Each of us is a welcome guest at God’s paschal feast today. We all received personal invitations. Some of us were invited by a friend or family member. Others found us on the web, responding to some spiritual longing that you couldn’t quite name. Still others saw the sign as you walked along Fairfax Drive. You may not be quite sure how you ended up here today, but we are glad you did. God calls us in a variety of ways. And God calls each of us by name.

When most people think of Christianity, they think of a religious institution, the Church. And that is true. The Church as an institution has been in existence for thousands of years. But what preceded the institution was an encounter, a personal encounter with the risen Christ.

Mary Magdalene encounters Jesus in a very personal way in today’s Easter story. The Gospel of John doesn’t say why she came to the tomb, probably to grieve, perhaps to try to come to terms with the horrible ordeal of watching Jesus die an excruciatingly painful and humiliating public death. For whatever reason, she did come and she found an empty tomb. And as she struggles to understand, Jesus comes to her and says, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She is so caught up in her grief and thinking that grave robbers have taken Jesus’ body, she doesn’t realize who is talking to her. The moment of recognition comes when Jesus calls her by name. “Mary!” That moment has captured the imagination of ordinary Christians and artists throughout the ages, that poignant moment of indescribable joy, when Mary hears her name and turns to see Jesus, in his resurrected glory.

All of us want to be called by name, to be seen and known for who we truly are. And we want to know Jesus. The Easter story we hear this morning is not about an institution or a creed. The Easter story we hear this morning is about an intimate moment between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. There is nothing intellectual or theoretical about it . It is about Mary’s visceral response to hearing her name called when she realizes that her beloved teacher and friend has been resurrected from the dead.

And that is why the Church exists. The Church exists to carry on the Easter story and to create a space for people to encounter Jesus. We can meet God anywhere. God comes to us in all kinds of ways, all the time, every day. We can encounter God in the beauty of the mountains, as the sun rises, making us aware of the mystery of the universe. We can be with God during our own private prayer time. But we meet Jesus in very particular ways in church. Like Mary, we don’t always know what we are looking for when we come to church, but when we put ourselves in a space that is specifically created to facilitate the meeting of human beings with the divine, Jesus is more likely to come to us in ways that we can touch and see and feel. We encounter Jesus through the bread and wine of the Eucharist. We hear Jesus’ voice in the words of Scripture. We meet Jesus through the music and the flowers, and the exchange of the peace. We experience Jesus when we sit in prayer before a service begins. We hear Jesus’ voice in the conversations with have with one another in our house church Bible study groups. We recognize Jesus in our unhoused neighbors whom we serve at the food pantry. We see the resurrected Christ in the face of the people we provide hospitality to in our refugee ministry, knowing that they have been through their own Good Fridays. We encounter Jesus in so many ways at church, when we touch and see and feel ordinary things that become extraordinary.

And sometimes we hear Jesus speak most clearly in those moments when we think our life is over, in those moments of personal pain and suffering that seem unsurvivable. When we are sitting with the person we love most in life in a hospital room, knowing that time is very short, those times when we are most aware that the veil between this life and the next is whisper thin. We can feel Jesus’ touch as we hold that person’s hand. We can hear Jesus’ voice bringing us comfort and the peace that passes all understanding. Life is so fragile. Life is precious. And putting life into the larger frame of faith makes all the difference. That is what being in a church community does for us. It helps us to deal with the vicissitudes of life and to know that there is a power both within us and outside of us that will help us to get through the really hard things and not succumb to despair.

There is no doubt that there are a lot of things rocking our world right now. And we all need a center of gravity that will steady us and help us to stay calm in the midst of chaos. Friendships are important. Family is important. Self-care is important, things like exercise and not eating too much Easter candy. And the most important self-care of all, is being part of a church community that will help facilitate our relationship with Jesus and interpret our daily lives through that lens. Faith is what gives our lives meaning and coherence. It is that unshakeable foundation when everything grumbles around us. Faith gives us the joy that we cannot give ourselves, the joy of knowing that we are not alone, even when others forsake us. The joy of knowing that the fear of death does not have to hold us captive because we know that Christ has conquered death and set us free. The joy of serving others in Jesus’ name to help us realize that everything is not all about us. The joy of having our children grow up with people who really love them and want to nurture their faith and help them navigate a complicated world.

The Easter story is the alpha and omega of everything we do at church and it frames everything we experience as individuals. The first Christians became Christians not because Jesus was a wonderful teacher, even though he most certainly was, and not because he was a powerful preacher, although he definitely was, and not even because he was an unsurpassed healer. The first Christians believed because of the resurrection. They believed the witness of Mary Magdalene and the others that Jesus appeared to. They believed that Jesus was risen from the dead, and they looked back, through the lens of the empty tomb to understand everything that Jesus had taught and preached, and all of the healing that he brought during his ministry. The resurrection is what made it all make sense. Jesus had told his followers that he would die and be raised from the dead. He had said that he would be handed over to the forces of darkness in this world and that God would ultimately triumph. But they just couldn’t comprehend how that could be true because they saw the reality of Good Friday all around them every day.

And we, like them, are called to be “Easter people in a Good Friday world” as writer Barbara Johnson put it. Learning to be Easter people is not about blind optimism or just having a “can do” attitude. Being an Easter person is about looking at the reality of Good Friday and seeing that the story doesn’t end there. It is about looking at ourselves and knowing that we can change, with God’s help. It is about doing the hard work of forgiving others, even when they have done horrible things to us. It is about believing that justice is possible, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It is about trusting that this life is the beginning of eternal life and that when we die, we will be with Jesus forever, just as he is with us now. We are resurrection people, walking in the power and love of the Risen Christ. And today we join with Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles, as we say, “I have seen the Lord.”

Alleluia. Christ is risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.)

The Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom

Ben Keseley — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 23:31:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Easter Vigil, Year B

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church there is one sermon preached at the Easter Vigil and that is the paschal homily of St. John Chrysostom, written in 4th century. And as far as I’m concerned, it is the best sermon ever written. So when I sat down this week to write my own paschal homily, I swiftly realized that there is no point in trying to imitate perfection, when perfection is already before us. So I’d like for us to be Orthodox for the next ten minutes and I’ll preach it for you. Chrysostom captures so perfectly the theology of Easter, which is the theology of Christ Jesus himself. And the theology of Easter is that Christ, through his death and glorious resurrection conquered once and for all any power which sin and evil holds over us. Christ conquered death and we are free. Full stop.

Christ liberated life by breaking down the doors of hell and freeing its captives. There’s a magnificent image of this scene, known as the Harrowing of Hell, on the front cover of your bulletin. You’ll notice one the delightful detail in the bottom left corner of a little devil scampering away as Christ the victor breaks down hell’s doors.

You see, in our Western Church, we tend to think of hell as a place of fire and brimstone and eternal torment, but that’s actually a more recent, medieval invention. In the Eastern Churches, hell, or hades as it is called, is more like a temporary abode for the dead. And according to one theological tradition in orthodoxy, hell very much exists, but hell is empty. Christ liberated it.

And Christ, through his death and resurrection continues to liberate us from any and all alienation from God, forever. Whether you were born in church or whether this is the first time you’ve heard the name of Jesus, you can rejoice that Christ is risen, he is risen indeed.

So. Chrysostom. As I preach his sermon I’m going to need your help. Because this sermon is not just to be preached, it’s a dialogue. For the Orthodox there is traditional audience participation that I’ll explain. When I say certain key words, I need you to respond with certain key actions, and I need you to respond as if Christ is truly risen. Because he is. There are three things I’ll call on you to do.

First, whenever I say the word risen, as in Christ is risen, I need you to repeat risen. Let’s give it a try: Christ is Risen (Risen!) Again, like you mean it!

Next, when I say the word ‘embittered,’ as in death was embittered, I need you to repeat embittered. Let’s practice this. Death was Embittered. (Embittered!)

And finally, every time I say death, I need you to stomp your feet just like this (stomp), just like Jesus trampling down the doors in the picture. Let’s give it a go. Ready? Death where is thy sting? Alright I think we’re ready for resurrection. Let’s start from the top.

___________________________________________________________________

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Are there any who are devout lovers of God?

Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!

Are there any who are grateful servants?

Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?

Let them now receive their wages!

If any have toiled from the first hour,

let them receive their due reward;

if any have come after the third hour,

let them with gratitude join in the Feast!

And the one that arrived after the sixth hour,

let them not doubt; for they too shall sustain no loss.

And if any delayed until the ninth hour,

let them not hesitate; but let them come too.

And the one who arrived only at the eleventh hour,

let them not be afraid by reason of their delay.

For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.

He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,

as well as to him that toiled from the first.

To this one he gives, and upon another he bestows.

He accepts the works as he greets the endeavor.

The deed he honors and the intention he commends.

Wherefore, you all, enter into the joy of the Lord!

First and last alike receive your reward;

rich and poor, rejoice together!

Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,

rejoice today for the table is richly laden!

Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one. Let no one go away hungry.

Partake, all, of the cup of faith.

Enjoy all the riches of his goodness!

Let no one bewail their poverty,

for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn if they have fallen again and again;

for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the death of our Savior has set us free.

He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.

By descending into hell, he made hell captive.

He embittered it, even as it tasted of his flesh.

And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:

“You, O Hell, have been embittered by encountering him below.”

Hell was embittered, because it was done away with.

It was embittered, because it is mocked.

It was embittered, for it is destroyed.

It is embittered, for it is annihilated.

It is embittered, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God.

It took earth, and encountered Heaven.

It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, O death, are annihilated!

Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!

Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;

for Christ having triumphed over death, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

Good Friday 2024

Ben Keseley — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 23:54:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams

Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

Good Friday, March 29th, 2024

“They will look on the one whom they have pierced.”

Today is Good Friday, the darkest day of the church year. We gather to remember Jesus’ death, just as Christians throughout the ages have gathered on this day to remember that day, that day of unspeakable cruelty, violence, and injustice. We gather because looking at it alone would just be too painful. And we come together to remember not just the first Good Friday, but to also look at ourselves and our world today.

Jesus lived under the violent and oppressive rule of the Roman Empire. Today violence still plaques the Holy Land. War rages in Gaza and around the globe, there are wars and all manner of human suffering. In our own country, fear, cynicism and despair about our civic life threatens to kill our spirits. The drumbeat of growing danger to our minds, bodies and spirits intensifies as today’s story unfolds and it is still unfolding today.

Every year on this darkest of days, we hear the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John. And as today’s passion was sung so beautifully and hauntingly, we heard the story of two kingdoms clashing, the kingdom of peace and the kingdom of conflict. And at every juncture of the story, Jesus responds to violence with non-violence. When the Roman soldiers and temple police come to arrest Jesus in the garden, Jesus does not resist. When Peter cuts off the ear of one of the soldiers, Jesus tells him to put away his sword. When Jesus is bound and taken for questioning before the temple authorities about the content of his teaching, Jesus responds that he has always spoken openly and transparently. “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” And when things escalate further, he is taken to Pilate who asks Jesus if he is the King of his people, and Jesus responds, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over.” And even though Pilate was afraid that Jesus might indeed be who he said he was and did not want to sentence Jesus to death, he succumbed to the intense pressure to do just that. The cries of “Crucify him! Crucify him! “ were just too much.

Doing the right thing is seldom the easy thing. Doing the right thing is very often the hard thing.

So, Pilate sentenced Jesus to death. Jesus was tortured and then forced to drag a huge wooden cross to the Place of the Skull, and in the words of the prophet Isaiah, was “lifted up…and very high.”

It is so hard to look at Jesus on the cross today, even in our imaginations. His last act from that exalted place was to establish a new kind of human family, not based on flesh and blood but on love and deep abiding with one another. To his mother he says, “Woman, here is your son. And to his closet disciple, “Here is your mother.” Selfless love, God’s love, defined Jesus’ life until the very end.

Words are powerful. They can bring life or they can bring death, and Jesus’ words always brought life, even as he was about to die an unspeakably horrible and unjust death. In fact, Christians proclaim that Jesus is God’s eternal Word, spoken from before time and forever. And at the beginning of the Gospel of John, he tells us, “everything came into being through the Word and not one thing came into being except through him.” The Divine Word then, is what holds everything together. Before Jesus the Word was here in the flesh, while the Word was here in the flesh, and after the Word was here in the flesh. Christ, through all eternity, is the binding agent of the cosmos. He holds us together individually, giving each of our lives meaning and coherence, and he binds us together as the Christian community as we bear witness to the world in his name, and most importantly, most importantly, the powerful, life-giving Word of God binds the human family together. We are fundamentally, foundationally connected to one another on a cellular level, no matter how much we try to deny it or resist it. We BELONG to one another, we belong to each other across creeds and nations, across gender and ethnic identities and all distinctions. We stand beneath the cross today, all of us: a Muslim beside a Jew, who then extends their hand to a Christian; a Russian next to a Ukranian, a transgender person hand-in-hand with someone who struggles to recognize the dignity of every human being, in all our diversity, a billionaire next to a poor, undocumented immigrant.

Today Christ beholds us from the cross and sees the human family, his family, through the eyes of love. As we gaze together on the one whom we have pierced, let us pray, let us plead, let us beg, that we will be guided to do, not what is easy, but what is right. To seek the way of peace. To strive for justice. And to love our siblings with a sacrificial love. The Word spoke the human family into being in the beginning of time and came in the flesh to give his entire life for us so that we might claim life now and forever more. God’s Word has never been silent. God speaks, and perhaps most powerfully from the silence of the cross. “They will look on the one whom they have pierced.”

The Triumph of the Cross

Ben Keseley — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 23:23:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Palm Sunday, Year B, 3/24/24

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Today, Palm Sunday, we are thrust directly into the drama of Holy Week. There is no soft peddling or easing into things. We begin this liturgy in the exact manner we know this story will end – with triumph. Jesus’s triumphal entry to Jerusalem is a foreshadowing of what is to come on Easter Day with Jesus’s triumphal resurrection, and on the last day, with Jesus’s triumphal return.

But triumph is not where this service of Palm Sunday leaves us. Before the fanfare and excitement of Jesus’s kingly arrival has faded, we are launched directly into the account of Jesus’s trial and Passion, because our Lord’s triumph is a peculiar one. It is a triumph won through the way of the cross, which we walk with him during this Holy Week.

But why? Why would the Lord of all Creation, who sent his only son to be the savior of the world choose to submit himself to such a heartbreaking and brutal way of winning this work of salvation we so dearly need? Surely our Lord could have swooped down from on high and cast down the works of darkness forever, like God did to Pharaoh’s army by casting them in the Red Sea. Surely Christ could have installed himself on a throne like Caesar’s and ruled over all creation as a powerful emperor. Why wouldn’t our God of power and might choose one of those options to win the decisive victory over sin and death? An option which unambiguously demonstrated God’s ultimate dominion? An option we could understand?

Well, I think it’s precisely the ease with which we understand that way of victory through domination that Jesus chose instead victory by way of the cross. Humanity is so accustomed to leaders, saviors, and kings who promise to deliver us through demonstrations of strength, bravado, and power. Pick any chapter of any history book and you will find examples of leaders and kings who give assurances that salvation will come to us through conquest of our enemies with military, economic, and political might. These are promises we are well familiar with, promises that are enticing to us insofar as they appeal to our own personal desire for strength, security, and the upper hand ourselves. The promises of these kingly figures often speak to a human desire for personal kingship in our own right.

Christ is our king and we are subject to him, but Christ does not come as yet another human king. Pilate himself recognizes this. He asks Jesus, “are you the King of the Jews?” I think more than simple mockery, there is some earnestness to Pilate’s question. That morning Jesus arrived in Jerusalem with all the pageantry and fanfare expected of a king’s arrival, yet instead of a mighty warhorse and columns of soldiers and generals, he rode in on a draft animal with a ragtag following of tax collectors, women, and fisherman. Pilate, like us, is perplexed and curious as to what kind of king would make such an entrance and it catches him off guard.

Then, Pilate gives Jesus an opportunity to defend or explain himself in a way that is understandable to the logic of power that he and the religious leaders are used to dealing in. Yet Jesus offers no reply. He appears to submit defenselessly to the forces of domination that are about to crash down on him. And scripture says, Pilate is amazed.

The pageantry of Christ’s kingship continues and this time there is no question whether it is mockery. Soldiers clothe Jesus in a purple garment, the color of royalty. They hold a mock coronation by placing a crown of thorns on his head. They pretend to pay homage to him, then strike him and whip him, before leading him out for the finale of this awful travesty. Christ the king is enthroned. His throne is the cross.

Why must his throne be the cross. The awful, brutal, cross?

The cross is the throne of our king because Christ is a king who offers everything he has – even his own life – at our feet. Christ our king pays homage, with his life, to us.

While the powers of sin and darkness were making a mockery of God incarnate, God incarnate was making a mockery of this mockery through love. Christ’s enthronement on the cross for us is a compassionate reversal of every expectation we hold about what it means to be kingly and powerful.

Where the world’s kings send others out to kill and be slain, God is slain for us.

Where the world’s kings condemn and punish, God forgives the punishers.

Where the world’s kings demand tribute and offerings, God offers himself for us.

The Cross is the throne of our Lord Jesus Christ because the cross, the way of perfect humility, servanthood, and reconciliation, is the power of God almighty.

The cross is the throne of Christ because it is the thing we least expect the power of love to look like. And while the forces of sin and evil did everything in their power to dismantle the power of God’s love, Christ through his loving sacrifice was dismantling the power of sin and death. Christ on the cross neutralized it and transformed it so that the cross, the very thing which once represented the power of death and domination most vividly, becomes instead our most powerful symbol of life and God’s love for us.

As we prepare to walk the way of the cross with our peculiar King this Holy Week, let us not for one moment lose sight of that. The triumph of God is the triumph of Christ our king, with arms outstretched in love, upon the hard wood of the cross. Amen.

Ben Keseley — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 23:59:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams

Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

Fifth Sunday in Lent

March 17th, 2024

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day and we might expect to focus on that in church today. But when Patrick’s feast day falls on a Sunday, we don’t observe it because the readings for the Sundays in Lent supersede lesser feast days. Patrick’s life and witness does inform our understanding of today’s Gospel, however. Patrick lived in Britain during the fifth century. He was captured by Irish slave traders when he was 16 and was forced to work as a shepherd. After 5 years, he escaped and returned to Britain. He could have lived out the rest of his life in privilege, being from a wealthy family, but he felt God calling him back to the land of his captors, so he returned to Ireland to share the good news of Jesus with them. It’s amazing to think that Patrick had such love for the people who had once enslaved him. And his love for them was all because of his love for Jesus. In our Gospel today, Jesus says,

“…’Now is the judgment of this world.; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. ‘ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.” John 12: 20-33

Jesus is approaching his death at this point and he is well aware of it. He has raised Lazarus from the dead, a foreshadowing of his own death, and he has allowed Mary to anoint his feet with expensive nard in preparation for his burial. Everything he has done has either drawn people closer to him or driven them further away. Some people are able to see who he is and some are not. Some are able to hear his message and others are not. He is about to be lifted high on a cross so that everyone will come to see and hear clearly.

We often focus on Jesus’ death as the act that atones for our individual sins, and that is most certainly true, but it is also much more than this. As theologian Charles Campbell writes, John’s understanding of what God is doing for humankind through the crucifixion is much larger and more dramatic. When the Gospel of John talks about “the world”, the author is not talking about creation. Creation itself is good. God created the universe and it is not only good, but very good, as the first creation story teaches us. When Jesus talks about “the world” in today’s Gospel, he is referring to the fallen realm that is estranged from God and is organized in opposition to God’s purposes for creation. When Jesus says, ’Now is the judgment of this world.; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.’ he is making a statement about the systems that dominate the thinking and functioning of the world: dominance, violence and oppression, to name a few. The ‘ruler of this world’ is the evil spirit that brings these systems into existence. When Jesus is crucified and dies, it looks as if these systems have triumphed yet again, it looks like evil is victorious, but they are actually judged, shown to be what they are, corrupt and debased. They are judged by the ultimate judge, by God, and they are judged by Jesus who is love himself, the Son of God who through his death, shows just how ugly and cruel the system of domination is, and also, paradoxically, forgives the people who are blind to the evil of it, those are not able to see because they have been programmed that “that is just the way things are.”

When we think about the history of racism in this country, we are reminded of all of the white people who thought that white dominance was the way things were supposed to be. They never questioned the social norms that oppressed Black people. And many Black people, quite understandably, never thought that things could change after all those years of systematic oppression. But Martin Luther King Jr and many others had eyes to see what others could not. They could see a vision of a new heaven and a new earth where God’s kingdom of justice and peace prevailed.

And MLK no doubt had Jesus’s crucifixion and Jesus’ judgment of “ the world” that the cross demonstrated in mind when the white authorities resorted to violence in response to the non-violent protests of the 1960s. He said this. “Let them get their dogs. Let them get the hose, and we will leave them standing before their God…We must ‘bring these issues to the surface, to bring them out into the open where everybody can see them.”

This is what happened as Jesus hung on the cross for all the world to see. Jesus exposed the evil system of oppression, and by exposing it he judged it and cast out its ruler. As theologian Gil Bailie writes, “The crucifixion both accomplishes the decisive demystification of the demonic powers and inaugurates the historical epoch in which these powers – and the social and psychological structures based upon them -will undergo a progressive delegitimization, as the Crucified One gradually draws all humanity to himself.” That is what we are a part of, my friends. We are part of that ongoing work begun by Jesus on the cross, the work continued by God in the resurrection and the work being brought to fullness by the Holy Spirit in us. As Jesus’ disciples, we ask God to help us to have eyes to see when we are blindly participating in systems that oppose God’s will for his creation and to have the courage to lead our lives differently and to work to change “the way things are” to be more like the way God intends for them to be. We will never fully get there, until the last day when Christ returns and finally brings all things to fullness and perfection, but we do the work that God has given us to do, striving for justice and peace and recognizing that things can get better with God’s help, and that we are never, ever to give into cynicism or fatalism. We are called to speak truth to the powers of this world. And we are called to love with a sacrificial love, the love of Jesus.

Jesus told Philip and Andrew in today’s Gospel that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” If we, as a single grain, live only for ourselves and for the purpose of maintaining the status quo, , we die spiritually, but if we work for the good of everyone, sharing what we have and working to build systems that honor the dignity of all, we flourish spiritually and the counter-cultural kingdom that Jesus came to establish grows and grows. Serving others in Jesus’s name looks like relinquishment, like losing what we have, but it actually builds everyone up. Death and scarcity and want are transformed into life and abundance and fulfillment. Following Jesus is the path of life that often looks and feels like death, because many of the things we hold dear, fall away.

Patrick gave up his family’s worldly status, wealth and power to go back to the land in which he was a slave to share the gospel with the people of Ireland. Martin Luther King brought the reality of racism, hatred and oppression in this country into the light for all the world to see, and literally gave his life for it. And both did this because of their love for Jesus and for the people Jesus came to save, all of us.

As we prepare today for the beginning of Holy Week next Sunday, Palm Sunday, we are reminded that in order to see the world as God sees it, we have to ask for eyes to see and interpret the events of our own day. And we have to ask for the courage to respond with the sacrificial love of Christ, the love that we cannot offer on our own. We can only give what God enables us to give.

Lenten Doldrums

Ben Keseley — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 23:33:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Lent 4, Year B, 3/10/24

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

This Sunday we are deep in the season of Lent, equally far from the celebration of Shrove Tuesday and the rejoicing of Easter. The midway points of our journey through the Lenten wilderness often bring the toughest trials as we struggle to maintain our enthusiasm for the discipline and repentance that the season calls for. We might find ourselves grumbling at the thought of several more weeks of sober liturgy, we might find ourselves getting lax in our prayers and our Lenten commitments. We might just be getting tired of the color purple.

This week in scripture we have companions in these Lenten doldrums. The Israelites are in the midst of their own season of Lent. It’s been quite some time since God delivered them from their bondage in Egypt and the initial excitement about their liberation has waned. They now find themselves wandering through the barren desert with no clue as to their destination and are starting to wonder if God is really leading them to Promised Land at all.

But out of all their trials, the thing that’s really getting to them in this moment, is the bland food. If we recall, early in the Israelites’ journey when their provisions were running low, God made a miracle by which manna – mysterious food from heaven – appeared each day to sustain them. Now, months and years later, they’re thoroughly sick of the lack of menu options and they complain to their leader Moses, saying “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food” (Num. 21:5). If you’re a parent you can probably commiserate with God in finding this line particularly irritating. It’s as if God, after a long day’s work, has put the last of his effort into preparing a meal for his children, only to be met with ungrateful pleas to go to Wendy’s.

And in response to the Israelites’ utter lack of gratitude, God does something else that exhausted parents can likely commiserate with – God sends snakes to go bite and torment the stubborn children!

There’s certainly an element of humorous relatability to this story, but it’s also rather troubling. Even though we know that a few lines later, God makes a provision to heal those who have been bitten by the snakes, it’s hard to spin this story so that God comes out as a loving parent when God also is the one responsible for the snakebites in the first place.

So what are we to make of the character of God who is compassionate to suffering, but also appears to be the cause of suffering in this story? Let’s take a moment to review some basic biblical scholarship that can help us make sense of this.

First, the bible is not really one book at all, it’s a library of books comprised of the 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament. And each of these books is comprised of various genres, ranging from the poetry of the psalms, the theology of John, the history of Deuteronomy, and the legal code of Leviticus, etc. And one prominent genre which we encounter in the Old Testament is myth – particularly the origin myths of the Israelites.

Now when we talk about myth as a genre of biblical literature, let me be clear we’re not insinuating that God’s word is untrue or fictional, rather, we’re saying that it’s not necessarily literal history. Scripture is replete with creative literary devices that help us to better understand the timeless truths God is speaking to us, and it does a disservice to us and to scripture to take all of scripture at face value. For instance, just because Jesus is the Lamb of God does not mean Mary had a little Lamb. We all understand that this is a metaphor.

Similarly, the genre of myth we find in the Bible refers to passages which seek to reveal essential truths about God, ourselves, and the divine relationship between God and humanity. So the task for us in reading this account of the snakes and miraculous healing as divine myth is to discern what truth is being revealed to us about our relationship with God, and God’s relationship with us.

And this particular story about the snakes hearkens back to another account of devious snakes in scripture. Namely, the serpent which tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We find many parallels between the account of the temptation of the first humans, and the temptation of the Israelites in the desert. In both instances the presence of ruinous serpents points towards something innate in our own human nature, which is our tendency towards dissatisfaction with what God has given us and our desire to enthrone ourselves the masters of own existence.

In the garden, despite God providing Adam and Eve with everything they would ever need, they still felt compelled to ignore God’s advice to trust in him and they took instead the advice of the serpent who promised them godlike status. And as we know, this did not turn out well for them. Though Adam and Eve did acquire the knowledge of good and evil which they sought, it also brought them pain, misery, and alienation from God’s loving provision.

Then, many generations later, the descendants of Adam and Eve find themselves grappling with the consequences of this misstep as the Israelites themselves wrestle between the same two choices: to trust the God who made them, loves them, and provides for them, or to trust in their own ability to pull themselves out of the mess that they are in.

And God, sensing that the Israelites are starting to slide back into the old, familiar pattern of trusting in their own ability to liberate themselves, does something to remind them early on of where that path will lead them. God says okay, if you want to listen to the snake again, here are snakes. Here are all the snakes you could ever ask for. At no point does God hold the Israelites captive as Pharaoh did, God allows them – and us – to choose between dependence on God or ourselves, and God also allows us to experience the outcomes of that choice. God lets us consort with snakes.

And we know that God of course also never backs away from the Israelites. After they are swiftly reminded that life in loving relationship with God and countercultural dependence on God’s support is far preferable to snakes, God is quick to offer up a remedy for the snake-bitten Israelites. God has Moses make a serpent on a pole so that all who look upon it will be healed and saved from worst consequences of their decision. And this part – the saving staff which God provides that will heal them from their existential wounds – is where the truth of this mythic story lies.

The moral of this story is that God never ceases to lovingly, and faithfully provide exit ramps for us back into relationship with God. God never abandons us to our own devices, no matter how stubborn we are and no matter how much we might take God’s love for granted.

This reality of God’s loving faithfulness to us is at the heart of the cross. St. John draws a direct parallel between Jesus’s saving sacrifice and God’s saving action in the wilderness by saying “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).

Jesus’s saving sacrifice for us on the cross is God’s definitive act of love for us. Christ crucified is God saying “yes there are still snakes in this world, and yes you will still listen to them and be bitten by them, but I have sent my son to take away the sting of their poison and turn it into the balm of salvation.”

God did not send Jesus to condemn us, we’re good enough at doing that on our own. God sent Jesus to so that we might have a permanent way out of our confused wandering in the desert. God sent Jesus so that when we inevitably fall into error and out of the truth of God’s love for us, we might find our way back. Back into the promised land – the land that is our home. A home of perfect, loving wholeness in God’s eternal embrace. Amen.

Fools for Christ

Ben Keseley — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 00:28:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Lent 3, Year B, 3/3/24

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

As we approach the halfway point of Lent, there’s a particular spiritual discipline that I’d like to commend for your consideration: foolishness. And not just the variety you may or may not have partaken of on Mardi Gras.

But before you tell your friends that your priest told you to go out and ‘act a fool,’ as they say where I’m from, hear me out. Foolishness is baked into our theological tradition from the very start. We hear St. Paul gesture towards the notion of holy foolishness. In his letter to the Corinthians as he writes: “God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe… for God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, God’s weakness is greater than human strength” (1 Cor. 1:21ff).

What in the world is Paul on about here? Let’s zoom out a bit to understand how he came to settle on these words and what he means by them. First, in referring to his foolish proclamation, he is of course referring to Jesus, the incarnate Word of God and revelation of God’s will for the world. But what’s so foolish about Jesus? To understand this, we need to review some history. You see, if you take out the part about the resurrection, the story of Jesus is really not very unique, historically speaking.

In first century Roman Palestine, messiah figures like Jesus were a dime a dozen. The people of ancient Israel were suffering under Roman occupation and were thirsting for someone to come and deliver them. And history shows that there were countless prophets, magicians, rebel leaders, and faith healers who were eager to meet the market demand for a messiah.

These lesser known messianic figures had their own disciples who also gave reports of their miraculous teachings and deeds, and many of these so-called messiahs met a violent end. The Roman Empire did not take kindly to rabble rousing Jews of any variety and some of them were even crucified, exactly like Christ.

Now when the leader of one of these Messianic groups was inevitably executed by the state, one of two things usually happened. The first outcome was that the movement ended, either because the leader’s followers concluded that their movement had failed or they were afraid of meeting the same end themselves, so they gave up. The other outcome was that a successor was identified to replace the leader, usually the leader’s son or a close disciple, until the movement either lost momentum or was stamped out entirely.

This pattern plays out again and again throughout Jewish history under Rome, and it’s the predictability of this pattern than makes the story of Jesus unique. The story of Jesus is unique because we know that after Jesus died, no successor was chosen, because who can succeed the Son of God, and his movement did not die out, it exploded.

And, more incredible than that, was that Jesus’s disciples claimed that after Jesus’s death, he had been resurrected from the dead, seen by hundreds, and then ascended into heaven where he will be until his coming again in glory.

I’ve preached before that I believe that the audacity of this claim is one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for believing that the story of Jesus is true and worthy of our belief today. Unless they had actually seen and believed it, I can’t think of any other good reason why so many of Jesus’s disciples would have embraced a death similar to Jesus, and gone to their graves joyfully proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ crucified and risen.

And this is where St. Paul’s notion of foolishness comes in. Because, to any rational observer who had not seen Christ risen or been compelled by the witness of those who did, this must have seemed utter foolishness. Why give up your life for a movement which by all conventional measures of success had failed. Why commit yourself to a movement which appeared to be built on weakness, not crushing strength. And those who felt that way would be absolutely right, if it were not for one thing. If it were not the resurrection.

Paul understood this argument better than anyone. As someone who had not witnessed the resurrection firsthand and was formerly a persecutor of Christians until his miraculous conversion epiphany, Paul knew from both sides how foolish it sounded to believe in a God who died.

Yet instead of arguing against these allegations of foolishness, he did a very clever thing. He embraced them and wore them as a badge of honor. He embraced the audacity of the notion that God became human, died like a human, and was raised into heaven for the salvation of all humans. And he continued to live the rest of his life proclaiming the beautiful foolishness of Jesus’s teachings, which defy the wisdom of the world. The wisdom which tells us to care for others, but only to the extent that it is expedient for us. To forgive others, but keep a record of who you’ve forgiven. To go change the world, but don’t get too carried away with it.

The foolishness of Christ that Paul is talking about is to do all those things but without the conditional statements. To really and truly follow Jesus to the point of foolishness. Because being a fool for Christ is not really about being naïve or overly idealistic. Remember Jesus also tells us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, meaning we shouldn’t abandon strategy or common sense. Foolishness in Paul’s sense is about living your life as a mirror against the harsh realism of worldly wisdom which says that love is practical only to extent. It’s about living and believing in the love of God to its full, foolish extent, and lovingly inviting others to be so foolish with us.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church holy fools who were exemplary in this calling were even given a title, they were called blessed and were revered for their fidelity to following the path of Jesus.

In an address to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 2012, our own Presiding Bishop Michael Curry echoed a similar sentiment by calling for more quote “crazy Christians.” In this address he said:

“We need some Christians who are as crazy as the Lord. Crazy enough to love like Jesus, to give like Jesus, to forgive like Jesus, to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God like Jesus.” He said “it might come as a shock, but [we] are called to craziness.”

And this is not just a bombastic statement from our presiding Bishop, it’s scriptural. We, as followers of Christ, are called to something that seems utterly crazy.

And we know it’s crazy because think about the answers we give – or don’t give – to our secular friends when they ask why we go to church. Raise your hand if you’ve ever said you go to church because you believe in a God who loved so much that he was crucified for it, died for it, and was resurrected so that we would never be estranged from love again? I know that I haven’t! But I long to be that kind of a fool for Christ. And we’re all called to that kind of foolish love, in our words and in our deeds.

I know it’s already mid-Lent and we’ve all hopefully taken on our Lenten practices, but if you’re still looking for one. Or if you have one and you’re looking to breathe some life into it. Consider taking on the practice of holy foolishness. Consider practicing a foolishness that is wiser than human wisdom, consider adopting a spirit of humble weakness that is stronger than human strength. Consider following the path of a Messiah who used brokenness and failure as tools for glory.

For St. Paul reminds us, “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18). Amen.

Lent 2

Ben Keseley — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 00:57:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams

Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

Lent 2/ February 25th, 2024

“For the promise…did not come to Abraham or his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith… “…God…gives life to the dead and calls into existence that things that do not exist….” Romans 4:13-25

Lent is a time for preparing for Easter. And it is a time that many people who haven’t been in church in a while, decide to give church another try. Despite the decline in awareness in our culture overall of Christian practices, most people have heard of Ash Wednesday and most people know that Lent is a season for reevaluating your priorities in life. And it is a long-standing part of Christian tradition to take on specific spiritual practices during Lent OR to give something up. Giving up things and taking on new practices are both good things to do, as long as we do them as a way of increasing our awareness of our dependence upon God. The trouble comes when we use these things as a way of fooling ourselves into thinking how righteous we are, as in, when I resist ordering that vanilla latte that I gave up, that I love so much. OR when I think I am earning heavenly brownie points when I succeed in doing my 15 minutes of prayer time every day for a week straight. The issue with looking at things this way is that the focus is on me and my power to control my own destiny, rather than on God, and my reliance on him. Most of us grow up thinking that if we do all the right things, if we follow all the rules, we will be rewarded, and that if we just work hard enough, we can achieve anything we desire.

But Christian faith teaches us something different. Jesus did not come into this world to establish a meritocracy. He came into this world to show us that everyone is worthy of God’s grace and love, and that we take up our cross and follow him, not as a way of proving ourselves or earning salvation, but in grateful response to the gracious love that he showed us in his willingness to die a gruesome death at the hands of the meritocracy and through his resurrection, triumphing over the forces of evil, sin and domination.

Just like us, the first Christians struggled to understand how to reconcile their faith in Jesus with the forces of the culture around them. Paul wrote his letter to the Romans about 8 years after the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by the Emperor Claudius in 49 C.E. . And while their Jewish siblings were in exile, the gentile Christians in the Church in Rome had gotten used to being in charge of things. They had reverted back to the norm of the outside culture, looking down their noses at their Jewish friends, and thinking of themselves more highly than they ought. Paul is writing to the church as the Jewish Christians are being re-assimilated in the midst of these power dynamics. He reminds the non-Jewish church members that they have been grafted into the covenant that God originally made with Abraham, long ago, even before God gave the gift of the law to Moses. And just as God was gracious in grafting them into that covenant, they should be gracious to the returning Jewish Christians, recognizing that faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection binds all of them together. Faith is the great equalizer. All of them are inheritors of God’s promise, originally made to Abraham and fulfilled in Christ. God is first and foremost the giver of a promise. That promise was given to Abraham who is the “father of many nations”, and all three monotheistic religions regard him as their ancestor to this day, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Faith in God’s promise, argues Paul, is the key to the kingdom. (God’s promise is far more important than adherence to the law given to Moses. )

And God’s promise creates something where there is nothing. The story of God’s promise to make Abraham the father of many nations is about hope, despite any obvious reasons to be hopeful. Abraham and Sara were old and Sara was way beyond child-bearing years, and yet God gave them many descendants.

“…God…gives life to the dead and calls into existence that things that do not exist….”

They responded in faith to God’s graciousness and came to believe in God’s promise to them over time.

But trusting in God’s gracious provision can be a struggle. Sometimes we think we are beyond God’s favor, that we are beyond hope. But even if we feel like our lives are a great, barren void, God really can bring something out of nothing. Sometimes that void is created by our own sinfulness, and other times by suffering that comes from outside of ourselves, that is beyond our control. We lose a job out of the blue, someone we love dies, we are left bereft by our own limitations. But that promise that God made to Abraham, that promise that God would bless him, that is our promise too. And God can come into our perceived voids and create something new, can fill us with hope, and can assure us that we are worthy, not because of our own merit, but because of God’s promise that was brought to fulfillment when Christ was raised from the dead, and bringing all who trust in him into new life.

New things really are possible. That is the greatest blessing of Lent. We look forward to the promise of Easter. Even if we don’t think we have the gift of faith, we can pray for it and trust that just as Abraham had a hard time believing in God’s promise at first, God provided and Abraham came to faith over time. And we are all one in this journey of faith, the people who have walked the path for a long time and the people are just beginning today, whatever our ethnic, cultural or religious backgrounds. God’s promises are made to humankind and the thing that distinguishes us is whether we decide to live in faith and hope or to give into cynicism and despair. May God grant us the grace to pray for the gift of faith, for ourselves and for the life of the world.

The Start of Lent

Ben Keseley — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 01:50:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams

Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

February 18th, 2024

Jesus..was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. And the Spirt immediately drove him into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness 40 days tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came ..saying “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” Mark 1: 9-15

Today is the First Sunday in Lent and things look and feel pretty different around here. Lent is a penitential season and everything in the liturgy and in our sacred space reflects that. The liturgical color is purple and it symbolizes our need for self-reflection and the call to deepen our connection to God. It also reminds us of the color of the robe that was put on Jesus as he was mocked and scorned before he was condemned to death. So purple points us to where the season is headed, to Jesus’ death and to his resurrection. We also have firepots on the altar instead of silver candlesticks. The fire evokes a sense of the wilderness and God’s provision within it. The liturgy is also more somber during Lent.

For those of you who are new to Saint George’s, you may have wondered what was happening when you heard the Great Litany at the beginning of the service and witnessed the procession going round and round the nave. We chant the Great Litany on the First Sunday in Lent every year. It goes on for a while and outlines the many ways that we are tempted, tried and spiritually assaulted in this life. We ask God to deliver us from all these things because we cannot save ourselves. Even though the litany originated in 5th century Rome, and was translated into English by Thomas Cramner in 1544, the nature of the tribulations we experience, really hasn’t changed in the last 16 centuries. Life is still fragile and our spiritual health is often at risk because of the reality of sin and suffering. Lent reminds us that we need God and that we can’t fix ourselves.

Today’s Gospel teaches us that we are not alone in all of our wilderness struggles. It is the same Gospel that we hear every year on the First Sunday in Lent. It reminds us that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, and yet did not succumb, and because of that, he is our friend, advocate and example as we navigate rough terrain. The order of events in Mark’s telling of the story is very significant. First, Jesus is baptized and he hears God’s voice affirming and delighting in him. It is a moment of absolute clarity for Jesus about who he is and what he is called to do, a huge spiritual high. He knows that he is one with God and God has very important work for him to do. And immediately after this beautiful, ecstatic experience, God’s Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness to be tried and threatened by all of the evil forces that we pray to be delivered from in the Great Litany. He doesn’t get to stay in that glorious transcendent state but is immediately subjected to all of the things that we are subjected to in this life. Mark doesn’t tell us the specifics of the temptations, and that leaves room for us to picture all of the things that try to lure us away from God.

When Jesus is led into the desert, his resolve to do what God was calling him to do is tested. And it requires courage and perseverance and reliance on that same voice that spoke to him at his baptism, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.’ Jesus comes out of this time of extreme suffering, absolutely clear about his marching orders to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom.

Lent is a season that began in Christian tradition shortly after the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E. and it is a period of penitence and self-examination, in addition to emulating Jesus’ experience in the wilderness. It sounds really old school because it is, but it is ancient wisdom that has stood the test of time. We all need seasons of preparation and taking stock of our lives. Lent is really about doing a spiritual inventory, reflecting on the ways that God is delighting in us and the ways that we are falling short of God’s glory. It is a time to think about the difference between our true, authentic self, the person God created us to be and the false self, the self that we develop to accommodate to who the world says we need to be. And Lent is a time to embark upon spiritual practices that will help us to listen to God’s voice so that we can distinguish between the things that will help us be our authentic, unpretentious self and those things which tempt us to becoming somebody else. And as I have said many times before, God meets us wherever we are. If you haven’t been coming to church regularly, do that. Come to church every Sunday between now and Easter. If you haven’t come to Holy Week services before, do that. If you don’t pray every day, start thanking God for your blessings and asking God to help you with your struggles. If you haven’t been serving others as Jesus calls us to do, volunteer for our food pantry at lunchtime on Mondays, Wednesdays or Friday. If you want to serve in another way, just email Father Paddy or myself and we can make suggestions. We love to get those emails. If you are estranged from someone in your life, pray about it every day, asking God to guide you, and wait for an answer to your prayer. All of these things are so simple in concept- coming to church, praying and serving, but it takes a lot of daily discipline to actually do them, especially with all of the competing forces in our lives.

Lent is about personal reflection, but not just for our own spiritual benefit. It is about the spiritual benefit to us in community. None of us in meant to operate in our own private Idaho. Salvation is communal. God commissioned Jesus for service to his community and for the life of the world. We ask God to help us to progress in our spiritual lives so that we can serve others. It’s not just about us individually. That’s why we can’t just stay home and pray or meditate by ourselves instead of coming to church. God works on us as a faith community gathered for worship so that we can go back out to be an agent for God’s healing of this broken and hurting world.

Transfiguration and Real Presence

Ben Keseley — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 01:15:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Last Sunday after Epiphany, Year B, 2/5/24

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Today is the last Sunday of the season of Epiphany. Sandwiched between Advent and Lent, Epiphany is sometimes one of those seasons whose purpose can be unclear, so before we enter into Lent next week, I wanted us to take a look back on Epiphany to understand how it fits into our understanding of who Jesus is. First of all, the seasons of Advent, Epiphany, and Lent all go together in that order. They each walk us through three distinct periods in Jesus’s life. Advent of course is about preparing for Jesus’s birth and arrival in the world. Lent is about preparing for Jesus’s death and resurrection. And Epiphany is about everything in Jesus’s life in between. His public ministry, his teaching, his casting out of demons – lest we forget that – and most importantly, the small and large epiphanies his followers discover along the way about who exactly Jesus is, and how he shows up for them.

And just like Christmas is the grand finale of Advent, and Easter is the grand finale of Lent; Epiphany culminates in the incredible event known as the Transfiguration.

Today I thought about telling you about the Transfiguration, but seeing as how I’m a failed art historian, and seeing as how we have a gigantic stained glass window on the subject, I thought it’d much be better if I showed you. So I invite you to turn around in your seat for just a moment and direct your gaze upward.

What we notice first is Jesus, robed in dazzling white with his arms upraised as the disciples Peter, James, and John lay in awe before him. Slightly behind Jesus, to his left and right, are Moses the lawgiver and Elijah the prophet, who reveal that Jesus is the fulfilment of both the law of the Old Testament and the one of whom the prophets foretold.

At the bottom of the window, God the Father gingerly cradles Jesus’s crucified body while Jesus’s much larger, transfigured body towers above, revealing that the transfiguration is in some ways a sneak peak of the resurrection. Finally, at the very top we see the Holy Spirit, represented as a dove, descending upon Jesus as angels sing and the words “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” are written above. (Matt. 3:17)

This concludes the visual analysis portion of the sermon, you may turn around.

Everything in this image we have seen points towards one thing, and that is the words at the very top. The words of God the Father saying “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” That is the epiphany of epiphanies that leaves the disciples and us in awe two millennia later. This is God’s definitive response to the disciples growing suspicion that Jesus is more than the average prophet or teacher. What they see for the first time beneath ordinary flesh and blood is something extraordinary.

I’d like to tell you the story about my own transfiguration moment, when I first came to see the extraordinary reality of God beneath the ordinary. Years ago, when I was working at a nonprofit in Boston, I came across a Franciscan monastery. It was an unassuming building in the heart of the city nestled between an office building and a sandwich shop. I’d walk by it every day on the way to my subway stop, rarely paying it any mind. Then one afternoon, during my early ponderings about the priesthood, curiosity compelled me to wander into the chapel.

It wasn’t a particularly beautiful chapel; it was one of those 1960s experiments in modern architecture that can feel a bit like a government building. A place where holy bureaucrats go about managing the internal affairs of Kingdom of Heaven.

As I looked down the nave, the pews were nearly empty except for a handful of elderly women who were kneeling around the altar, enraptured by a strange metal object on top of it that looked like the sun. I slowly realized what was happening in this unassuming place and it was something I had only read about in my art history books in the chapters on the Middle Ages.

These women were practicing a very old and peculiar devotion found in some Catholic and a few Episcopal churches known as Eucharistic adoration, which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s sitting in adoration of Christ’s true body made present in the consecrated Communion bread which is displayed in this odd, beautiful object called a monstrance.

And let me tell you these women were lost in adoration. The looks on their faces were more captivating to me than the bread in the object before them. They looked as if they were utterly and hopelessly in awe. Really, they looked like they were in love. There was no doubt that they felt that God was truly before them in a way that I had never quite experienced myself.

Now I grew up a good Episcopalian boy and was taught in my confirmation class by a kindly priest about the Real Presence. Our belief that Jesus, in some mysterious way, not really understood by anyone except maybe Mother Theresa, becomes truly and extraordinarily present in the ordinary things of bread and wine during the Eucharist.

For most of my life I held onto this thought lightly, receiving the body and blood of Christ with reverence but not really feeling in my heart what was said to be true about what I was consuming.

But let me tell you, when I saw the looks on these women’s faces, I felt for the first time that what I was taught could actually be true. The way that they looked in utter awe reminds me of how Peter, James, and John look in that window as they see Jesus transfigured as the Son of God for the first time. It was as if light shining from the wafer had been hidden from me and was now reflected from their faces and onto mine. Their belief that Jesus really shows up for us helped my unbelief and I have never approached the Holy Eucharist in the same way since.

Now, like my confirmation priest, I’m not telling you what you should or shouldn’t believe about how Jesus shows up in the Eucharist. Whether you believe in transubstantiation, consubstantiation, transignification, the Pneumatic presence, or if you’re like most of us and you don’t really know what’s happening but you’re still showing up for Jesus anyway… then all you need to know is this: Jesus is also showing up for you. Reliably.

And if we take seriously that possibility that God’s son, Jesus has the power to transfigure ordinary things like bread and wine, then there’s hope that God can transfigure ordinary folks like us to look more like Jesus.

These Franciscans in Boston surely did. You see, they had a reputation in town. Like Jesus, they did things that didn’t sit well with the religious authorities. They were a minor institution in the gay community because they were known as one of the only Catholic churches where folks could show up as God had created them. And they could stay that way, even while been transfigured more and more into the image of Christ.

They ran one of the largest outreach ministries to the unhoused in the neighborhood because they saw the presence of God in the person sleeping in on their doorstep as much as they saw God on the altar.

They embraced the fullness of what it meant to be transfigured by the love of God who turns the ordinary into something extraordinary.

And that’s what the Transfiguration is about. It’s about us showing up for Jesus, and Jesus really and truly showing up for us, and transforming us. And because we are transformed by that experience we don’t just stay in that moment, though Jesus’s disciples were tempted! They were lost in wonder, love, and praise, like those women I saw, and they wanted to set up tents and stick around a while on the mountain where Jesus was transfigured. But Jesus said no. Jesus told them to go down from that mountaintop so that the light which had shined upon them could be reflected in all the world.

The lesson for us in Epiphany is that Jesus shows up in ordinary things so that ordinary people like you and me can get caught up in something extraordinary. That’s transfiguration. That’s real presence. Amen.

On Demons

Ben Keseley — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 01:05:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Year B, 1/28/24

Readings: Deuteronomy 18:15-20, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Mark 1:21-28

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

St. George’s let’s talk about demons. There comes a time in every liturgical year, when the lectionary turns to Jesus’s extraordinary public ministry, that the awkward topic of Jesus casting out demons arises. We all know and love the stories about Jesus the healer, Jesus the teacher, and Jesus the miracle worker, but when it comes to Jesus the exorcist… we’re often left feeling a little itchy and scratchy. The reality is we just don’t have a cultural and theological hook on which to hang this talk about demons anymore. Demons are just not something most of us really think about or know how to deal with when they come up in scripture.

Yet contrary to our modern-day experience, forces of spiritual darkness appear to be a topic of great importance in scripture. The story we hear today of Jesus casting out an unclean spirit from a possessed man is not a quirky, isolated incident. In fact, there are at least seven major accounts of Jesus casting out an untold number of demons in the New Testament, and many more instances of his disciples doing the same.

What in the world are we to make of this in the 21st century, when our primary frame of reference for exorcism comes from Hollywood movies and fantasy novels?

The most common response we have is to rationalize and contextualize these stories. Since the time of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, prevailing wisdom has told us that science and reason can explain any experience inconsistent with our modern understanding of the natural world. Thus, if you were to go to a library and look up books written about the accounts of Jesus’s numerous exorcisms, you’d find many of them making an anthropological argument that demonic possession was simply a primitive misunderstanding of mental illness, or that we can read these stories as ancient allegories about the darkness that exists in the world, but is ultimately human, and not spiritual, in origin.

I think that these attempts to explain these stories in terms of our known experience are admirable and represent a very human desire to make sense of an incredibly confusing world.

I also think that if we truly believe in the spiritual reality of a relational God who makes himself known to us in the material world of creation, as God did in Jesus, then it’s not an unreasonable step to take seriously the possibility that there are spiritual forces that may try to distract us and draw us away from the all-embracing love of God.

C.S. Lewis wrote emphatically on this topic in a hilarious and poignant novel called The Screwtape Letters. In it, a comically inexperienced demon tries to trick a human subject, identified in the book only as “the patient,” into the range of vices, temptations, and missteps that human beings commonly fall victim to, in order to distract him from the reality of God’s power and love. In one humorous instance, the demon tries to coax the patient into attending a church that is more like a nice social club where, quote “the vicar is a man who has been so long engaged in watering down the faith to make it easier for his supposedly incredulous and hard-headed congregation that it is now he who shocks his parishioners with his unbelief, not vice versa.”

To make a personal confession, this line was the impetus for this sermon today. Earlier this week, I too found myself tempted, perhaps by this same little demon, to preach on one of the easier lessons, and leave all this tricky demon business for Rev. Shearon to deal with next week when it comes around again. However, I was compelled by Lewis and a famous line attributed to the French poet Baudelaire, that “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to make humans believe he does not exist.”

So wherever you fall on the spectrum of belief about its origins, I think we can agree that evil is unfortunately a real presence in the world that cannot go ignored. Certainly in recent years there has been a cloud over our civic and political life that has extended into many of our personal lives, pitting us against our friends, family, and neighbors. Certainly in the broader world, geopolitically, right now there is ample evidence of the evil that enslaves us and the evil done on our behalf.

As people of faith who believe in the power of an infinitely loving God who is interested in making right what is wrong in the world. I think it benefits us in our understanding of this evil, and more importantly our faith in God’s power to overcome it, to try to perceive evil from spiritual lens, in addition to our scientific lens.

As Christians, our spiritual understanding of evil in the world begins with its end, at the foot of the cross. The gospel tells us that through the work of salvation accomplished on the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ took on all the works of darkness of every origin, human and otherwise, and not only neutralized them, but transformed them into the glory of God. The residual evil, sin, and death that continues to burden us is only a shell of its former self and in the final tally, it is ultimately powerless over us on account of the redemptive love which God has poured out on us.

Therefore, let me tell you first and finally that we have no need to fear any evil in this world so long as we have the love of God within us. St. Paul reminds us that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities… nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39). However, we do still have to deal with it.

And how? Last Sunday evening we held a prayer vigil right here in this nave, in which we prayed for an end to the conflict in Palestine and Israel and called upon God to help us put an end to all the works of violence and evil in the world. It was a beautiful lofty prayer which from a purely scientific perspective might have seemed overly ambitious and empirically dubious as an effective strategy. However, as Katie Wenger, one of the co-organizers of the vigil wisely reminded us in an early planning meeting, “prayer is a form of action.” We believe in the effectiveness of prayer to change circumstances in our lives and in the world for the better.

First, prayer transforms individuals. Not just spiritually, but also clinically. Studies have indicated that intercessory prayer can have a positive effect on recovery outcomes in persons suffering from chronic and acute health problems.

Second, prayer transforms the social order. As the witness of countless heroic saints like Dorothy Day, Desmond Tutu, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King attest, engaging in corporate and personal prayer strengthens our capacity to take communal action against the forces of darkness in our world. These saints would be the first to tell us that the success of their movements was directly tied to their faith in the power of a crucified God whose love liberates us from the bonds of evil.

And third, and I need y’all to stick with me on this one, prayer transforms the cosmic order. If we did not believe this, there would be no need for us to be here at all. We could join Greenpeace, or the Rotary Club, or any benevolent social organization of our choosing and get the same thing out of belonging to those admirable institutions.

But no, the thing that keeps us coming back, again and again, to experience the love of God made real for us in our prayer and in this Holy Eucharist, is the faith that something actual is happening here. Even if we can’t always put our finger on it, and even if we don’t feel it strongly in our hearts every single time, our direct, physical encounter with God in the Holy Eucharist is a cosmological event. In it, the boundary between space and time, between the material and spiritual world collapses, and we are drawn into a mysterious transformation of reality as we know it as we are made one with God, in body, mind, and spirit.

And if God has the power to draw us into a world-shaking love of this magnitude, then God surely has the power cast out a few trifling demons. They are merely distractions from the reality of this love. You see, in the cosmic scheme of things, we really have no need to fear any of the evil that afflicts us, but we do need to take it seriously. And the way we do that is by taking seriously the far greater power of Jesus who delivers us from evil and empowers us to cast out the demons afflicting us in our own time.

Christ Jesus is our advocate and mediator in this struggle, and by the work of salvation wrought on the cross, recalled in the Mass, and continued in the work of human hands, God’s love is victorious. God’s love transforms evil into glory. Amen.

How to Fish for People

Ben Keseley — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 01:48:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Third Sunday after Epiphany, Year B, 1/21/24

Readings: Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Corinthians 7:29-31, Mark 1:14-20 (Fishers of People)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

“I will make you fish for people,” Jesus said to Simon and Andrew. This is one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite passages in all of scripture. It’s playful, it’s creative, it’s poignant, and for me it’s personal. Whenever I hear the passage of the calling of the fisherman, I cannot help but connect it to my own family history. For generations, since they arrived off the boats from the shores of Ireland at the turn of the century, the men in my family did two things. They were either commercial fishermen and oystermen along the coast of the American South and mid-Atlantic, or, if they were clever and did well in parochial school, they went to seminary and became priests. I was fortunate enough to fall into the latter category, though if I had not become a priest, I like to think, perhaps with a degree of romantic naivete, that the life of a fisherman would have also suited me just fine. After all, the Gospel today reminds us that ministry and fishing are not so different after all. In many ways they draw on a similar set of skills, at least metaphorically.

So to do the metaphor of fishing and ministry justice, let’s think through some of the parallels between these two endeavors. First of all, fishing, carried out at the scale done by Simon and Andrew in the Gospel, and my own predecessors, required a great deal of preparation long before their boats even set out on the water. Nets needed to be mended, bait needed to be prepared, lunch needed to packed, boats needed to repaired, and sails needed to be set. All of this, of course, is a tremendous undertaking before the actual work of catching fish can be done. In fact, the careful work of preparation is so important that it can make or break a fishing expedition and there is no way it can all be done by one person. In order to fish well, you need an entire community of people, each playing their own integral role in concert with one another in order to make the operation successful.

I’m sure you can see where I am going with this. Christ’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church is in many ways like a ship. Many, in fact, I’d say all of you, already know this is true because you each play the important roles, even right now, in making our ministry happen. Take this worship service for example. In the week before we got here bulletins were constructed, the choir rehearsed, the altar was prepared, ushers and liturgical ministers volunteered, this sermon was written, and a quantity of emails known only to God was exchanged. And that’s all before any of us even got here! And even if you were not directly involved in those tasks this week, you too, are still playing an incredibly important role in making this ministry of worship happen simply by being here. All that work would have been for nought had you not walked through the doors this morning to give glory to God.

Yes, the Church is like a ship. There are captains and quartermasters who take the helm to chart a course together in our various ministries. There are cooks, surgeons, and craftspeople who undertake specialized roles in making our work of teaching, praising, and healing possible. And perhaps most importantly of all, there are everyday members of the crew who show up with willing hearts to do whatever is necessary keep God’s ship afloat by living out the Gospel in their lives.

Sure, anyone with a rod and reel could walk out onto a dock, cast their line, and catch a few fish here and there like the solitary street preachers and evangelists we occasionally see on street corners.

But this is not the model of ministry we see being lifted up in the Gospel today. At the start of his public ministry, Jesus, our gentle captain, sets out to find a seaworthy crew. Though none of the disciples, especially Simon and Andrew, felt like they were particularly well-equipped for ministry, Jesus recognized that the gifts and skills that they did bring were more than enough. They likely felt intimidated by the calling at first. Afterall, they were just common fisherman. They probably felt that they didn’t know enough about scripture to be disciples of this peculiar rabbi; they might have felt insufficiently pious or prayerful; they might have felt embarrassed about how they might be perceived by their secular comrades on the high seas. Sailors are a notoriously worldly lot, as we know.

But these worldly folks were exactly who Jesus wanted as his crew; as his disciples. He would give them a new identity and teach and empower them to repurpose their abilities in service of a catch of infinitely greater value than what they were used to hauling in.

And though they don’t verbalize it yet in this passage, we know that these disciples carried this sense of lingering suspicion about whether Jesus had really chosen the right people for the job. Even as they set about following Jesus and taking part in this new ministerial fishing expedition, they were constantly asking him why, how, and who is going to accomplish the miracles that are performed throughout their ministry. Disbelief, doubt, and feelings of inadequacy are in fact hallmarks of almost every successful call narrative throughout scripture. And I think this is actually of great help to us as we learn to balance our own feelings of disbelief at the seemingly impossible mission that God has set us out on.

Our catechism states very clearly that the mission of the Church is to “restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (BCP, 855). That’s the catch that we’re after. Unity with God and Christ together.

It’s a daunting task that causes us to ask ourselves, how can we ever expect to do this on our own? What if our equipment, our nets, sails, and skills aren’t enough to accomplish the job that the Gospel calls us to?

Well, if I’m honest, if it was entirely up to us as individuals to haul in this catch, we wouldn’t be able to do it ourselves. And even as a community, we are dependent on the grace of God to accomplish anything at all. Though when we come together, our various gifts, skills, and strategies become magnified, they are only part of the equation in our ministry expedition. We as individuals, or as a community, are not solely responsible for bringing in the catch. And thank God we’re not!

Our job is to set our sails and cast out our net as best as we can. Beyond that, we cannot bring the fish into the net. This is where faith and trust in God comes in. God is our partner and leader in our ministry who makes everything possible. God guides us into waters that are ripest for ministry and equips us to do the work, even when we doubt ourselves or grow worried that our efforts will not be enough.

God is a gentle and capable captain, who wants us to set down our anxieties, especially when they’re caused by an overdeveloped sense of self-reliance. After all it’s God, not us, who makes anything at all possible. So have faith that God is in control, it’s not all up to us.

God has given us tremendous tools for this work that we can trust in.

Trust in the winsomeness of the Gospel. Trust in the wiliness of the Holy Spirit. And trust in the exuberance of God’s love.

At the end of the day, all we can ever do is set our nets and have faith that if we have done our work well, if we have heeded God’s call, and if we have given our best efforts to the tasks God has set us to, then God will fill our nets abundantly. Amen.

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.

Ben Keseley — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 01:48:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams

Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

Second Sunday after the Epiphany- MLK

January 14th, 2024

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” 1 Samuel 3: 1-10

This weekend our nation commemorates the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And what a life it was. He became the most prominent leader of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. King had an unparalleled gift for oratory and he used his speaking gifts to inspire and galvanize people and call them to righteous, non-violent action for the common good.

It is always very interesting to me to think about how someone becomes who they are. We are all created in God’s image with our own unique gifts and abilities, and the experiences that we have throughout our lives, shape and form those gifts. Martin Luther King Jr. was born a leader, thinker and speaker, but he could have used those gifts in any number of ways. His upbringing had a big influence on who he became, as is true for all of us. And, just like all of us, there were some wonderful things about his early years and some challenging ones. The fact that his father was a Baptist preacher and that he was brought up with church as the center of his life, was of foundational importance. He grew up going to church all the time, memorizing Scripture and listening to a lot of sermons. This teaching took place at church and at home. But as he grew to adolescence, he started questioning the strict literal interpretation of Scripture that was part of his religious tradition, and he had a growing awareness of the injustice that he and other Black people in his community experienced every day. During college, seminary, and graduate school, he discovered the wonderful world of progressive theological education, and realized that one could use reason to interpret and understand Scripture and that there were social implications to the Gospel, that the Good News of Jesus was as much about the salvation of the world around us as it was about personal salvation. He discerned a call to follow in the steps of his father, entering the ministry, and at first understood his role to minister to the needs of his congregation and the local community. It wasn’t until the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 that he was catapulted into national prominence. King had recently been called as the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery and the other Black pastors came and pleaded with him to speak out, one, because he was new in town, and they thought that it would be easier for him to take the heat for it, and two, because he was already well-known in town for his oratorical abilities. King reluctantly agreed, only because no one else would do it, and the rest is literally history. From there, he began to recognize a new manifestation of his vocation to the larger world. He and others founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to organize mass demonstrations against racism, using the non-violent methods that Mahatma Gandhi had used to gain independence for the people of India from British rule.

King’s life and that of his family were constantly at risk for 13 years, from 1955 to 1968 when he was finally martyred. One night In 1957, in the wee hours, he was awakened by the telephone, and received a particularly vicious threat. As he sat at his kitchen table, crying and praying, he heard the Lord speaking to him and saying, Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness, stand up for justice, and I will never leave you alone..”

In our reading from Samuel today, Samuel too is awakened in the middle of the night. He is serving in the temple, under the tutelage of Eli, an elderly priest who is beginning to lose his eyesight. Samuel sleeps next to the ark of the covenant, where God’s presence was believed to dwell. He hears the voice of the Lord, but he doesn’t know who it is at first. Because he is a young boy, he has not yet learned to discern God’s voice. He runs to Eli, thinking that is who is calling him, and after several times, Eli realizes what is happening. He tells Samuel that the next time he hears the voice, say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

We had the option today to end the reading from Samuel right there. We often have additional verses in parentheses that are optional, and it was tempting to end it early, because the rest of the story is a lot more challenging. Without the additional verses, we have a story of call, of learning to hear God’s voice, a sermon perhaps on prayer and service to God in the church. And that would be good and right. It is essential for our spiritual lives to learn to pray, to both talk to God and listen to God. It is important to put ourselves in a place where we are more likely to learn to distinguish God’s voice from other voices. The fact that Samuel was immersed in the life of the temple and sleeping next to the ark, is significant. We need to put ourselves in places where we can cultivate our faith. That is the main reason we are in this space today. So, all of these things are important. AND, there is more. We included the additional verses today because they are the other half of the story. The part where God calls Samuel to do something hard in the service of others and Samuel does it, albeit reluctantly. God calls Samuel to tell his beloved, elderly mentor Eli, that God is going to bring Eli to justice because he has not corrected his sons for their misdeeds. Eli is the head of a priestly family. His sons have abused their office and Eli has turned a blind eye. Eli’s sight has grown dim, both figuratively and literally. And yet, even though he had not had the courage to do what was right, he is still able to be part of God’s redemptive purposes by teaching Samuel to listen for God’s voice. In Samuel’s call, Eli remembers his own.

Samuel is the Old Testament figure who stands at the crossroads of what is old and what is new for the people of Israel. He grows up to become the last of the judges of Israel, a prophet, who prepared the way for Saul as the first king of Israel, who is followed by David, from whom Jesus descended. The call to usher in a new era is a difficult call to respond to. It requires courage, the will to act, even in the face of anger and resistance and rejection. Samuel was afraid. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr was afraid. But they acted anyway, because God called them and God was with them, giving them what they needed for the sake of others.

Samuel’s call was confirmed by Eli. MLK’s call was by the other religious leaders who were reluctant to take a courageous stand, but recognized in him the particular combination of gifts that were needed in the moment. When we step out in faith, we never know where it will take us.

It is essential to hear God’s voice, and to learn to distinguish God’s voice from other voices, with the help of those who are more experienced at listening. it is also important to realize that God calls to us, not just for our own spiritual edification, but for the well-being of others. God’s calls us to both prayer and service. May we hear God’s voice this day and may we have just enough courage to do the hard thing that God calls us to do.

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Baptism of Our Lord

Ben Keseley — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 01:52:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams

Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

The Baptism of Our Lord

January 7th, 2024

“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Mark 1: 4-11

Yesterday something both ancient and new, something wonderful and extraordinary happened. The Reverend Paddy Cavanaugh, along with six others, was ordained a priest in “Christ’s one, holy, and apostolic Church.” We are all so happy for you and very proud of you, Paddy. It has been such a blessing for all of us to be with you, Paddy, first as our seminarian for two years, then as deacon for the last 6 months, and now a priest. We are so grateful for your ministry to and with us and I am very thankful for the ministry that you and I share. You are a wonderful colleague for me and all of us are blessed to have such a faithful, loving and exceptionally capable Associate Rector in you. Thanks Paddy.

Now that Father Paddy is a priest, he can do all of the things he has been doing as a deacon, plus some additional ones. First and foremost, he can celebrate the Eucharist, as he is doing for the first time today. He can administer Holy Baptism and the other sacraments, declare God’s forgiveness, pronounce God’s blessing and “perform other ministrations entrusted” to him. That’s fancy Book of Common Prayer language for “other duties as assigned.” So continued blessings are in store for Father Paddy and for all of us as he deepens his ministry with us and for us from this day forward. Because, you see, Paddy’s ordination is about him, but it is about all of us too, all of us who are baptized into service to Christ, to the Church, and to the world. Each of us has a calling.

At the end of the Prayer of Consecration yesterday, all of the priests present joined Bishop Stevenson in laying hands on Paddy’s head as the bishop said, “Therefore, Father, through Jesus Christ your Son, give your Holy Spirit to Paddy; fill him with your grace and power, and make him a priest in your Church.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River, “and just as he was coming out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Yesterday’s ordination and Jesus’ baptism have a lot in common. They are both about vocation, living out God’s call on our life. Jesus’ baptism was an expression and a confirmation of his identity. It manifested who he already was and it reaffirmed it. Jesus was one with God since the very beginning of time and then as we celebrated just two weeks ago, Jesus came into the world as a human being. We celebrate his baptism today, on this first Sunday of the Epiphany season, because Jesus’ baptism was the first way that his vocation as the Son of God was disclosed to the world. Mark puts Jesus’ baptism at the very beginning of his Gospel to establish right away who Jesus is, God’s Beloved Son, with a mission to unite God’s self so completely with a sinful world, that he was baptized into John’s baptism for the forgiveness of sins even though he was without sin. Jesus was baptized as an expression of humility and solidarity with us. And it affirmed in him what had been true all along, his solidarity with God. His baptism also inaugurated his public ministry.

Today all of us will reaffirm our baptismal covenant and be reminded of God’s call on our lives. And two weeks from today, we will have our Bishop’s Visitation and 14 new Saint Georgians will be confirmed and received. Confirmation is directly linked to baptism. It is an adult profession of faith and affirms the promises that were made at baptism. During confirmation, the bishop lays hands on each person and prays this prayer. “Strengthen, O Lord, your servant,_______, with your Holy Spirit; empower them for service and sustain them all the days of their life. “ Through baptism and confirmation, something both ancient and new, something wonderful and extraordinary happens. The Holy Spirit is given to us. We are given grace upon grace, and the power to continue Jesus’ ministry in this world. We are called to be faithful in worship, to seek forgiveness of our sins, to love and serve others, and to recognize Christ’s image in everyone we meet.

And most importantly, far more importantly than anything else, we are called through our baptism, to remember God’s fathomless, unconditional love for us. God wants us each to hear the same words that Jesus heard as he was coming out of the water. “You are my Child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” You are precious. You are the apple of God’s eye. If each of us could really take that in and experience it, we would be transformed and the world would be a different place. Knowing that we are loved so completely that nothing can separate us from that love. Each of us is the apple of God’s eye and everyone else is too. If we could really get in touch with that, divisions and wars would cease, and there would be no need to work for justice and peace. My prayer for you today, my prayer for each of us, is that we will hear God’s voice singing in our hearts today. “You are my Child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

“And just as (Jesus) was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Where is God?

Ben Keseley — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 01:10:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Christmas I, Year B, 12/31/23

Readings: Isaiah 61:10-62:3 (Clothed with the garments of Salvation), Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7 (Adopted by God), John 1:1-18 (In the beginning was the Word)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Where is God?

When you think of him where does God reside?

Hold onto that first image that comes into your mind.

For me it is the cosmos. In 1977, NASA launched a probe known as Voyager 1 to study the outer reaches of space beyond our solar system. As the probe traveled further and further out into the abyss of space, its camera was turned around to take one final picture of our solar system before it faded into darkness. The image that resulted is a famous photograph known as The Pale Blue Dot. In this image, the sun’s rays can be seen beaming down through the great expanse of interstellar space, and caught shimmering in one of those rays, is us. A pale blue dot barely the size of a single pixel. This miniscule dot is the smallest self-portrait of all humankind in our earthly habitation ever recorded. The scale of the portrait is staggering. It’s truly impossible to wrap our mind around how small our worldly existence is compared to the vastness of the universe, of which this picture itself is only a minute fraction.

Somewhere, perhaps everywhere, in the darkness surrounding this pale blue dot of ours is where I imagine God residing. I, like many, imagine the vast expanse of heavens beyond our planet to be the dwelling place of God for a number of reasons. First, because frankly, it can be hard to imagine that God is truly here with us on earth at times. And second, because of passages from scripture such as today’s Gospel known as the prologue to John. The prologue to the entire Gospel of John begins with these truly cosmic words:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

How John chooses to begin his Gospel is a far cry from the small and cozy nativity stories in Bethlehem that we have heard told in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels throughout the past month. It’s a fascinating literary and theological choice that John made to begin the good news of God’s arrival on earth by zooming way out to set the scene in the context of a world far bigger than the small one we are most familiar with.

And what John reminds us of is true. God is far bigger, larger, and more expansive than even our most sophisticated technology is capable of capturing. God may even exist entirely outside of the material world as we know it.

But the Gospels also tell us that something else is true about where God resides. The God of the cosmos, who created heaven and earth, and who dwells in some otherworldly realm where he is praised eternally by cherubim, seraphim, and the whole company of saints departed – also dwells with us. Not just in a vague and metaphorical sense, but literally, in the flesh. This is the paradox and miracle of the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus, the incarnate Word, dwelt with God at the dawn of creation, even before time itself existed. Long before this pale blue dot of ours existed, another far brighter light shined in the darkness. And this light was, Jesus Christ, who was God, and was with God.

Then, this light, being born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, took on human flesh and dwelt with us, so that we might know that God had not left us alone in a great expanse of mystery.

John’s Gospel of a Christ that is cosmic and Mathew and Luke’s Gospels of a Christ that is earthly are two sides of the same coin. These two understandings of God as being infinitely close and infinitely far are not antithetical, but are a perfect compliment to one another, which is why John’s cosmic prologue prefaces his version of the incarnation.

Because of John’s prologue we can understand with greater clarity what actually took place in the incarnation of God in Jesus. You see, the incarnation is a pivotal point in an unfolding story of humanity’s relationship with God that began long before we were even conscious that God had a relationship with us.

This story of relationships mirrors the trajectory of human life itself and begins in holy darkness before the dawn of creation. In the beginning everything was in perfect harmony and wholeness within God. We can imagine this as a state of being that is similar to being in our mother’s womb, where all of our lives began. In the womb we were perfectly content and utterly surrounded by a love we didn’t even know existed. That love held us, fed us, and nurtured every part of our being.

Then, when we were born, our mothers continued to care for us, guide us, and be with us, just as God cared for and accompanied Adam and Eve in the garden when our world was birthed into existence.

Eventually, however, as we grew and learned and became more conscious of the agency we were given to choose between good and evil, those choices complicated our lives. It’s a paradox that the very free will which allows us to choose to love God and one another is the thing that also allows us to make choices that alienate us from the love that once held us so fully.

This chapter in the human relationship with God is akin to the growing pains of adolescence that follow us into adulthood and cause us great distress and isolation.

As our awareness of the world and its difficult choices grow larger, our awareness of God’s presence with us can grow smaller and smaller, even sometimes to the point of feeling utterly abandoned by God.

This is the point of the story where the incarnation becomes everything. God, like human parents, wanted us to have the freedom to choose the life that was best for us, but also knew that we would fall short of that life through our choosings.

And so what God did to remedy the pain and loneliness that would inevitably come from our choices, was to find the most beautiful way to show us that that primordial love of the mother’s womb still encompassed us.

John reminds us that God did this from before the very dawn of creation, even before we had the opportunity to feel the pain of existence in the first place. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

As we reached a pinnacle of our heartache and despair and alienation from love, God then sent the Word to dwell among us. God sent his Son, who was with Him from the beginning, to “take for himself the garment of our mortal flesh,” as Isaiah poignantly writes, in order that we might know that God was there to rescue us from our isolation. (Is. 51:6)

Just as we, like the Voyager probe, were fading further and further away from our habitation in God, the Son of God was drawing closer and closer to pull us back to safety.

The incarnation is about us being rescued and gradually drawn closer to that state of prenatal belovedness in the womb of a God who is infinitely far and infinitely near. You see, I don’t see that darkness that surrounds our pale blue dot as emptiness at all. I see it as like that womb which holds and protects us as we are reborn into the primordial love that held us from the beginning.

God sent His son to live and die, with and for us, so that we could be reminded that God had adopted us too as beloved children. You see, we were never alone on that pale blue dot, and we never will be. God resides on that dot. God resides outside of that dot. And the love of God’s incarnate Word, Christ Jesus, will be with us on this dot, from the beginning til’ the end of creation.

For in the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Amen.

Christmas Day

Ben Keseley — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 01:45:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia

Christmas Day 2023

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined…For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests on his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9: 2-7

It is such a joy to greet this Christmas morning! We come together to remember that first Christmas and to think about its significance for us today. We bring the experience of 2,000 years of Christmases and we bring the very particular circumstances of Christmas 2023.

In the Holy Land this year, Christmas festivities are being curtailed. In a Washington Post opinion piece written by Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan a few days ago, she talked about how the Holy Land normally has bazaars, tree lightings and parades, but not this year. Christians in her country have chosen to do the same, in light of the war going on in Gaza. The queen’s article included a manger scene from a church in Bethlehem where the Christ child lies in a pile of rubble from a bombed-out building. There is a candle burning next to the infant and beautiful carved figures of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Joseph and the shepherds look on. The suffering, unspeakable grief and loss there are heart-wrenching. And yet that candle is lit beside the baby Jesus.

Jesus was born in an occupied land, and he is reborn today in the midst of extreme violence. God comes to us over and over and over again, to remind us that no matter how dark the darkness is, he is with us. Today we celebrate the fact that God never gives up on humanity. God came into the world in the flesh in first century Palestine to share our life and to call us to new life and he comes to us each year to do the same, until that day when he will return in glory to finally bring all things to the fullness that God intends for us. Until that day, we wait in eager longing. And on this most blessed Christmas morning, we are reminded of the foundation of that hope.

During our beautiful Lessons and Carols service last Sunday afternoon, our choir sang “The Work of Christmas”, written by theologian and civil rights leader Howard Thurman. It speaks of how we are called to hear the nativity story today and take it forward in our lives.

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among others,
To make music from the heart.

Jesus does not come into the world to solve all of our problems or to magically take away all of our sources of pain. But God is with us, as we do the hard work of justice and peace-making that is ours to do.

God is with us today, whatever is going on in our lives. If we are rejoicing, God rejoices with us, and if we are experiencing grief or sorrow, God is most especially with us, bringing us comfort. Christmas comes, whatever the circumstances. Beyond the holiday festivities, as lovely as they are, the real significance of Christmas is knowing that we are not alone in this world and that no matter what is going on, either personally or globally, God is there giving us hope for a new future and the joy of knowing that he shares our life in the deepest way possible. And that is what allows us, as Thurman reminds us, “to make music from the heart.”

Christmas in Our Time

Ben Keseley — Sun, 24 Dec 2023 22:11:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Christmas Eve – Christmas 1, 12/24/23

Readings: Isaiah 62:6-12, Titus 3:4-7, Luke 2:(1-7)8-20,

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Dear friends and newcomers alike, today is finally the Eve of Christmas and we are gathered this evening to hear tell of the story that you have no doubt heard told countless times by now, in your life, and during this season of Advent. It’s the story of the fulfilment of a long-awaited promise. It’s the story of the light of hope breaking into the darkness in the least likely places. It is the story of the incarnation of God through the birth of Jesus Christ in the manger.

At the beginning of Advent I preached a sermon about how the Christmas story expands our sense of time. We tell the story of Jesus’s arrival on earth again and again and again, not just as a nostalgic recollection of an event taking place long ago, but as a story that is real for us now. As a story of Jesus’s light being born in our hearts each new day and shining on us again in his coming on the last day when all earthly sorrow will be turned to joy.

So as we wait with expectant hearts this night for Jesus’s arrival with us now, I wonder what this old, beloved Christmas story is telling us about how Jesus might be born, if he were indeed born again tomorrow. Let’s start with how inconspicuous this whole story is. That sounds like an absurd thing to say right? Considering that the story of Christmas is the least inconspicuous thing in the world for us right now. We can’t leave our neighborhoods or enter a grocery store without being reminded by lights, and advertisements and carols that it’s Christmas! But this was far from the case during that first Christmas. And perhaps the most inconspicuous thing about that first Christmas is Bethlehem.

A few weeks ago my wife and I actually took a day trip to Bethlehem. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, I should clarify… lest you think my life is more exciting than it actually is. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is in many ways like Bethlehem in Israel, which is precisely why it was named so. It’s a small town about an hour away from the big city of Philadelphia, which like Jerusalem, is the capital and the center of politics, finance, and I daresay sports. If you are from Pittsburg, I do apologize and look forward to hearing about the Steelers in the receiving line.

Now Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, Israel were both founded as provincial outposts by shepherds and farmers whose humble lives were far removed from what anyone in the capital cities would have deemed important. With the rise of industrialization at the turn of the century, the community of Bethlehem, PA became home to one of the largest steel mills in the country. And even though the workers at that mill toiled to produce the raw materials that built Manhattan, they and their families remained seen as a members of a working-class outpost, whose existence seemed only important to those in the capital cities insofar as their labor allowed everyone else to continue with their normal lives. The same was true of shepherding communities like Bethlehem in ancient Israel, and it was even true for Jesus’s own family. The Gospels tell us that Jesus’s earthly father, Joseph, was a ‘tekton’ – a Greek word meaning something like craftsman or manufacturer.

As my wife, Winnie, and I strolled beneath the now closed steel mill in Bethlehem, PA, which was transformed into a community arts center that was hosting a Christmas market, I couldn’t help reimagining what the Christmas story would be like if it was told today.

If we tried to recreate the Christmas story in our own times, Jesus very well may have been born to a blue collar family. He may have worked alongside his father in the steel mill or at an Amazon warehouse that produced the materials and products that make Christmas morning possible for other families around the world.

Perhaps he would have been born to a young unwed mother who lived in a boarding house or affordable housing unit while working day shifts and taking night classes to complete her GED. And who, I imagined, might have visited them when her child was born? Maybe his father’s friends; burly union men, like the shepherds, still wearing their work hats and overalls as they clocked out early from their shifts to celebrate this joyous new arrival.

You see, the way we tell and remember and imagine the Christmas story, in its time and in our own, has a powerful way of reminding us what God is trying to tell us in this miraculous, inconspicuous story.

The promise of a new life comes out of the periphery. You see, God could have chosen to become incarnate and dwell with us in any number of ways. Jesus could have been born to a powerful family in Jerusalem, Philadelphia, or Washington, DC. But instead, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings; the long-awaited Holy One of Israel who was to come and establish his eternal kingdom so that all of creation which, through sin and death had fallen away, might be reconciled into the marvelous love of God the Father…

Was born to a poor, lowly, and humble peasant girl, with absolutely no worldly power or estate to speak of.

God’s profound poetry here is that our new life of redemption and resurrection came to all of us through the lowly. God did this in order to show us that he came not to give us more of the life we already knew, but to give new life. Life in which the spiritual and material deficits of worldly life might be filled by wholeness and love of life in heaven.

God loved the shepherds and came to be with them, and they did the same.

But if you are not a shepherd or a steelworker and if you do not live in Bethlehem, then do not distress! The Christmas story of the incarnation of God’s son is just as much for the sake of us, living and working in the Jerusalems of our day.

You see, we ought not forget that the in Matthew’s Gospel, the wise men – the strategy consultants, federal employees, and middle managers of their day – also came to pay homage to the newborn king that day.

A star shining bright in the darkness cast its light onto them, and they saw it and recognized that they needed what it was pointing to, even though they hadn’t the faintest clue of what it was that they needed. Isn’t it funny that that’s so often the case? We’re aware of our need but aren’t sure of where or what will satisfy it? So these wise folks set themselves out in search of an answer.

They sensed that the hope that they, like the shepherds, also so desperately needed, had come to them – and they ran to that hope in the manger! I would have loved to see the looks on their faces when they found it, because we know what they saw. It probably sure wasn’t the kind of king they were expecting. What they found was a child laid in a feeding trough, surrounded by a ragtag crowd of shepherds who were “glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen” (Lk 2:20).

And what did these wise men do at this sight? They gathered around that rickety manger, unburdened themselves from the riches they had brought, and knelt side-by-side, with their unlikely companions, in awe of the gift that God had brought to them.

That gift that they needed as much as the shepherds and steelworkers and unwed mothers. That gift which we all seek so sorely in a world wrought with struggle, dissatisfaction, and confusion was the consolation that God had not abandoned them. In fact, God had done just the opposite.

God knew that the new life they sought came not from the promises of worldly riches in Jerusalem, but from the promise of a poverty that was truly rich. God called them to witness what poverty to sin and alienation looked like. God called them to experience the wholeness that fills all of our own worldly anxieties about not doing, making, or being enough.

God loved the wise men and came to be with them, and they did the same.

On that first Christmas Eve, people from every walk of life set out in search of God and God ran down from heaven to meet them. To be born for them, to die and rise for them so that there might never be any question that we are as beloved to God as his own Son in that trough. His Son who feeds and sustains us with the promise of a new life renewed by immaculate love. A life in which our relationships with God and neighbor can be restored to the harmony which God intended.

God loves us too much to leave us to leave us alone and wondering, and so he sent his Son to share his life with us.

So friends, now it’s our turn to experience the Christmas story in our own time. God loves us and comes to be with us. May do the same. Amen.

Ben Keseley — Sun, 24 Dec 2023 22:06:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Advent IV, Year B, 12/24/23

Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 (God dwelling in a Tent), Romans 16:25-27 (God strengthens us), Canticle 15 (The Magnificat), Luke 1:26-38 (The Annunciation)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

We have been thrown a delightful curveball this liturgical year in that Advent IV and Christmas Eve are coinciding, and so to do justice to these two theologically distinct observances, I invite you to suspend your ordinary sense of time with me during this service. Let’s try as best as we can to set down our thoughts about all of the wrapping that has yet to be done, the meals that need to be prepared, and the cookies that will get set out for Santa this evening. For now, let’s simply take this hour or so of calm before the storm to dwell in peace, in God’s time, which we share this morning with a most special guest. A guest whose humility, courage, and incredible faith are why we are able to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus at all. Today we have the great honor of spending time with God in the presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Gospel lesson takes us back nine months to remember the miraculous event known as the Annunciation. In it, the Archangel Gabriel announces to Mary God’s invitation to bear the child who is to be God’s only son, the Messiah and Redeemer of the world. The astounding and poetic exchange between Mary and Gabriel has long fascinated us and is the subject of countless artistic images, poems, and songs. We even have our own stained glass Annunciation window over here in our nave. Art has a way of communicating profound realities to us in new ways when language falls short, and this past week in preparation for this day I sat down to reflect before several different visual interpretations of the Annunciation. In most of them, we find Mary in the middle of the most crucial moment of the passage.

After the Archangel greets her with the iconic words, “Hail Mary, full of grace,” and proclaims the news that she is to bear the Son of God, Mary responds with her own words of great humility, and I daresay even fear: “How can this be,” she says. “for I am a virgin.” (Lk 1:34). I want us to imagine for a moment, in your mind’s eye, the scene narrated before us.

Imagine you are in the home of a peasant family in first century Palestine. Probably a modest home with mud brick walls. There sits a young teenage girl, betrothed but not yet married to her worker husband, Joseph. Then suddenly, out of nowhere appears an angel. The Gospel does not go into details about the physical appearance of the Archangel Gabriel, but we have some clues about the likeness of angels elsewhere in scripture. The prophet Isaiah describes angels, known as Seraphim, as six-winged creatures covering their feet and eyes from the Glory of God (Is. 6:2). Ezekiel depicts other angels as four-faced beings with eyes looking in all directions (Ez.1:15-17). However the Archangel Gabriel may have appeared to Mary, there’s no indication that he came as the white robed, blonde haired celestial being in human form that we are accustomed to seeing this time of year. Rather, angels, whose name means ‘messenger from God’ were awesome and fearful creatures whose presence spoke of God’s own mighty presence. A presence so powerful that to even look upon the face of God was forbidden in Jewish tradition.

And then, as Mary beheld the sight of a divine creature, that was a stand in for God himself, the angel spoke the impossible news that Mary was to miraculously bear the Son of the Most High, who will take up the throne of David and establish a new kingdom on earth.

This crucial moment between the angel’s shocking invitation and her own acceptance of the special calling is where we often find Mary in artistic renderings of the Annunciation. The outward posture of her body reveals the storm of emotions rising up in her soul. Often she is portrayed as making herself small and bowing forward, with her arms crossed on her breast in a sign of humility before God’s emissary. Sometimes her face appears calm and sometimes it honestly shows her perplexity and distress with a knit brow or troubled eyes.

She knows the stakes are high. If she is found with child out of wedlock, at best, she is risks experiencing the social death of being abandoned by Joseph, and at worst, she risks being put to death physically, as was permitted under religious law at the time.

However, something deep within her persists. Something in Mary’s soul told her that if she were to decline the God’s favor upon her, then something even greater than her own life might be put at risk. Something about how God wished to disclose the savior would not be right. Surely the almighty God of her forbears could accomplish the mighty task of bringing the Messiah into the world through any number of ways. The Son of God could have been born to a great earthly king, to a powerful priestly family, or even to a Roman emperor, whose realm stretched vastly across the world.

But no, God sent his messenger to lowly Mary, an unwed peasant girl sitting in her house with mud-brick walls. There is something unspeakably profound in God’s poetry here. The Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the Son of the Most High and long-awaited Holy One, who was to come and establish his eternal kingdom, so that all of creation which, through sin and death had fallen away, might be reconciled into the marvelous love of God the Father…

Was to be born to a poor and lowly peasant girl, with absolutely no worldly power or estate to speak of.

You see I think somewhere in this exchange with the angel Mary must have realized some of God’s intention in choosing her. Perhaps in a long pregnant pause it dawned on her, in her soul, what God was seeking to accomplish, and how. Lowly Mary, meek and mild, must have recognized, as she later proclaimed in the words of the Magnificat that God had finally come to cast down the mighty from their thrones and to lift up the lowly. God had come to fill the hungry with good things. God had come to the help of his servant Israel for he had remembered his promise of mercy.

And as this dawned upon her, her spirit rejoiced in God her savior and Mary said “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her (Lk 1:46-55).

From the moment that Mary said yes to becoming the Mother of God, the course of history changed forever. The Son of God comes to us through Mary, not for us to have more of the life we already know, but to give us new life. Life in which the spiritual and material deficits of worldly life might be filled by the wholeness and love of life in heaven. So here we are, two thousand years later. Basking in the grace of her Son who died, was risen, and will come again to fulfill this ongoing promise of redemption for the world.

Emmanuel, who is God-with-us, took on human flesh because of Mary’s faithful courage to put her life on the line so that all of our lives might be brought into fullness. Mary’s faith, her humility, and her prophetic bravery to accept God’s call on her life to be the God-bearer are why we gather this day, on the eve of our commemoration of Christ’s birth, and on every day henceforth.

So as we go out after this service back to the bustle of our Christmas preparations, let us give thanks for the prophetic witness of this hero of our faith, Blessed Mary, the favored peasant girl, by saying:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord now comes to us. Amen.

The Tenses of Advent

Ben Keseley — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:44:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Advent I, Year B, 12/3/23

Readings: Isaiah 64:1-9 (Repentance), 1 Cor. 1:3-9 (Thanksgiving for Grace), Mark 13:24-37 (Watchfulness)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Today is the first Sunday in Advent and we mark the beginning of a new liturgical year by entering a season of preparation for the arrival of our Lord, Christ Jesus, into the world. But how, exactly? And why? Didn’t Jesus already come to us through his miraculous birth to the Blessed Virgin Mary in a manger two thousand years ago? Even in our world where the Feast of the Incarnation, also known as Christmas, has become thoroughly commercialized, we still hear carols on the radio proclaiming the wonder of the nativity story in shopping malls, advertisements, and on the radio. As ubiquitous as Christmas is this time of year, it’s easy to take for granted the story of God’s arrival on earth as just that – a cozy story of a possible historic event that is a nice aesthetic embellishment to a season filled with so many other mixed symbols of ambiguous origin.

Let’s take a quick inventory of some of these other stories that make up the American Christmas season. We have a jolly bearded man who benevolently invades our homes to spread goodwill and cheer; a red-nosed flying ungulate with a charming underdog story; and my personal favorite, a magical snowman in Victorian headgear who teaches us about seasons and melting points. At this time of year we parade out a menagerie of colorful folk stories that in several thousand years will make for a fantastic anthropology dissertation, and like everyone else, I love these stories. They introduce a sense of wonder in a world where the miraculous seems increasingly improbable. However, with so many other whimsical fables layered on top of one another also comes the real risk that the story of Jesus’ arrival the world becomes just like any other of them. Another rosy tale that brings nostalgic warmth, like the stuffing in a turkey.

And so, as we enter into the season of Advent – which is not yet Christmas – but looks towards it, I think it’s worthwhile to try to reclaim an understanding and sense of awe about the most peculiar, awesome, and world-changing story of all of them – the story of the incarnation of God himself.

Let’s begin by revisiting the question posed at the start. Didn’t this already happen? Didn’t Jesus already come to us through his miraculous birth to the Blessed Virgin Mary in a manger two thousand years ago? Well, yes, it did. But our sense of time during Advent is more nuanced than that. In fact during Advent we look at time going in three directions: past, present, and future. Looking backward, we will hear in the coming weeks scripture proclaiming the first coming of the child Messiah in the string of astounding events that led to his humble birth in Bethlehem on that first Christmas. Looking forward we will hear passages from scripture, as we do in today’s Gospel, that point to his mystical second coming at the end of time, to reconcile a fallen creation with God’s extravagant love. And looking at the present, we will hear stories that teach us how we, in our own time between these two incredible events, are to prepare ourselves for Jesus’ arrival in our hearts each new day. Advent is a season to encounter the life altering love of Jesus yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

So how does this threefold way of understanding time make the story of God’s incarnation of greater value to us? It does so by reminding us that the story of the incarnation is both story told and untold. You see, the point of Advent is not just to commemorate a far-off historical event that has been passed down through the ages. The point of Advent is to recall how the event of God’s incarnation in the person of Jesus Christ is real for us now and we have a real part to play in an unfolding relationship of redemption.

The prophet Isaiah sensed that this story of humanity’s relationship with a personal God, was unfinished. He knew it was an imperfect relationship, one that God had established with us when he created us, and one we had violated through our repeated transgressions against God and neighbor. Isaiah addresses God with great remorse about this. Speaking in the past and present tense he said “you were angry, and we sinned… you hid yourself [and] we transgressed… we all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away” (Is. 64:5-6). You can sense the anxiety dripping from his words as he recalls our imperfection and pleads forgiveness on behalf of all humanity in the future, saying “do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember our iniquity forever” (Is. 64:9).

Isaiah anticipates God’s future action with fear and trembling, knowing that if the all-powerful God dealt with us the way we dealt with one another, we are in deep trouble. But knowing all that we had done to violate the commandments given to us as a blueprint for love, what does God do instead? God comes to us, as one of us, not in anger, but in love to show us what true love looks like. To demonstrate that no matter how far we tried to run from it, God’s love would find us and embrace us. This is the moral of the Advent story. It’s not just about spreading Christmas cheer, underdog reindeer, or melting points, it’s about what St. Paul calls “the grace of God that has been given [us] in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:4). Grace that calls us into deeper fellowship with the Son of God, who is God, incarnate.

Advent in the past tense is about recalling God’s work of redemption by sending his son to forgive us and invite us into that deeper relationship. Advent in the present tense is about us accepting that love which God extends to us daily and choosing to extend it to others through prayer, repentance, and living in right relationship together. So what about Advent in the future tense?

This is where Advent begins to get spooky. Jesus, in Mark’s Gospel, paints a harrowing picture of what we can expect in his future arrival.

Jesus says that on that day “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven” (Mk 13:24-26). Try writing a cheery carol about this apocalyptic vision!

Jesus does not say he will come like Santa Claus, bringing mirth and presents and laughter. The love of God is far more potent than tidings of comfort and joy. Instead, God’s love shakes the heavens and the earth. It scoops us up and enfolds us, and yes, Jesus is clear, there is an element of judgment. As much as I would like to, it would be misleading to whitewash this part of Advent away.

However, if the Advent of Jesus in the manger in the past tense tells us anything about the Advent of Jesus in the future tense, which I believe it does, then we can be assured of this: God’s judgment will be unjust. You heard that correctly, God’s judgment in the second coming will be unjust, at least by earthly standards. You see, justice by earthly standards is about getting what we deserve according to our actions. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But God’s justice is about getting what we deserve in spite of our actions. That’s grace. God’s justice is about God stooping down, dwelling with us, breaking bread with us, and inviting us into relationship with a love so prodigal that it shakes away everything we knew or thought we knew about how the world works, until there is nothing left to do but sit in awe of that love.

The story of God’s love which comes down to us to restore us to fullness through the one who was fully God and fully human is what we look to in all directions during Advent. Our role in this ongoing story is to remember the ways Christ’s redeeming love has been with us in the past, to be awake and watchful to how that love comes to us in the future, and to prepare a manger in our hearts each new day to receive and share that love as broadly as we are able.

Advent is about preparing for the incarnation of the love of God in all three tenses, past, present, and future. Amen.

The Sacrament of the Present Moment

Ben Keseley — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 00:11:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, 11/12/23

Readings: Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 (Stop worshipping old gods), 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (On the resurrection of the dead), Matthew 25:1-13 (Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids)

Last week I prepared an activity on contemplative prayer for the youth in our EYC group. My idea was to have all of us gather here in the nave on the eve of All Saints week, dim the lights, put on Gregorian chant, to invite our youth into a space of quiet contemplation in the hope that we might carve out time in our chaotic lives to simply be still, listen, and be present to God’s loving presence in our midst. The coup de grace of this contemplative moment was that we were going to light the thurible – our liturgical incense burner – and experience how the smoke, rising up like our prayers, can help prepare us for a bodily encounter with the divine.

I was very excited to share with our youth how, in our tradition, we experience God not just as some transcendent and remote being, but as a God who comes to us in the present moment, through our senses. The Anglican tradition is replete with this theology of embodied encounter. At any given worship service, we are likely to encounter holiness through all five senses. We hear God’s praises sung through organ and song, we see the beauty of God in this space, in stained glass windows, we feel the tenderness of God in a handshake or embrace with our neighbor, we smell God’s sweetness in the candles and incense, and finally we taste God’s love in the broken body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

With fifteen minutes before the youth’s arrival, I excitedly buttoned up my cassock and went to light the thurible. However, when I arrived in the sacristy, I realized that despite several days of planning this exercise, I had overlooked one critical detail: the coals were nowhere to be found. And as we all know, there can be no smoke without fire. So after a brief moment of panic, I remembered the sage liturgical advice of one of my seminary professors who told us that if you ever find yourself in such a bind, the same charcoal brickettes that we use for the thurible can typically be found at your local tobacco shop. With just moments to go, I rushed to my car and hurried over to a tobacconist that I passed every day on my morning commute. As I pulled into the seedy parking lot beneath garish neon lights, I tried to reassure myself by thinking that this was the kind of place that Jesus would hang out, right? So I took a deep breath, and walked through the doors, still wearing, mind you, a full length cassock and collar.

As I walked up to the register, the clerk and a customer who had been engaged in a lighthearted conversation, quickly fell silent and stared, probably wondering which of us should feel more embarrassed. Generously, he broke the silence and said with a grin and said: “Need a pack of smokes, father?” To which I replied, “well, kind of.” He graciously assisted me with my purchase and I scurried back over to the church with my coals and our contemplative exercise that evening was a stunning success. The youth learned how to be more fully present to God’s presence, and I learned that adequate preparation is everything, and that from time to time, even vice can be a means of providence.

In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus tells his disciples a similar story in the parable of the bridesmaids. In this parable, ten bridesmaids, or wedding attendants, are excitedly preparing for the arrival of the bridegroom and the commencement of a joyous wedding celebration. Five of these bridesmaids have come prepared. They brought their lamps and flasks of oil to keep them lighted throughout the nighttime vigil. The other five bridesmaids, much like myself, had brought ample enthusiasm for the momentous encounter that was to come, but had been less scrupulous in their planning. They brought their lamps, but in their excitement had completely forgotten that lamps need oil to fulfil their intended function. And with no late-night convenience store available to remedy their predicament, these bridesmaids found themselves unprepared and so were unable to experience the full poignancy of the occasion that they had been so eager to attend.

In Christian tradition this parable has long been interpreted as a cautionary tale about the importance of cultivating spiritual readiness to encounter our Lord at any given moment. This is a lesson that I believe this community understands well. First of all, because you are here. You set your alarms this morning, set your clocks forward last week, dressed yourselves, and made it from your homes to gather together in the presence of God as we celebrate His real presence with us in this Holy Eucharist. Second of all, many of you, in fact all of you, have had some role in preparation for God’s presence with us, either through altar guild, singing in choir, serving as an usher, lector, or acolyte, or even just being present to God’s presence here with us. Whatever you are doing this morning, even if it is simply showing up with a willing heart, you have played a critical role in our preparation to receive God in this heavenly banquet.

So rather than lecturing to you about the importance of preparation and readiness to encounter God, I would like to draw our attention to the ways that preparation itself can be a spiritual practice and an opportunity to encounter God who is ever with us.

The reality is that the majority of our lives are spent in preparation. Whether in school or at work or at home, we are often busying ourselves for something that feels more significant on the horizon. Perhaps it’s getting into the best college, or getting the best job, or preparing for a trip, wedding, retirement, or the birth of a child. Regardless of what it is that we are preparing for, it can be hard to escape the feeling that what we are doing now is simply a holding pattern until we reach whatever horizon we are working towards. Then, once we reach it, we can finally be fully content.

But friends, as I’m sure you already know, once you do reach whatever goal you are currently working towards, there is bound to be another one waiting for you, and the cycle of preparation repeats itself. If we were to read the parable of the bridesmaids at face value, even the bridesmaids who came prepared for the wedding banquet would have to find something else to do once the wedding was over.

But this parable is not merely about accomplishing an endless and changing sequence of tasks until we can finally rest in the eternal changelessness of God. There is more that we can do until that time to cultivate a sense of God’s presence with us during the seemingly mundane passages of our life’s journey.

An 18th century Jesuit priest named Jean Pierre de Caussade wrote beautifully about what he described as the Sacrament of the Present Moment. He presciently sensed that early modern society was moving towards an unhealthy obsession with busyness and sought to remedy our spiritual restlessness by drawing us back to an awareness that God is the center and ground of our being. And there is no better time or place to return to that center in God than in the midst of our busy lives. Caussade wrote that if we are to successfully counter the forces seek to distract us from the truth of our belovedness by God, we must begin by “embrac[ing] the present moment as an ever-flowing source of holiness.” Rather than looking to some far-off horizon for hope and contentment, we can begin our experience of contentment in God in the here and now, no matter what we are doing.

The very fact that Jesus came to his disciples outside of the synagogue and accompanied them as they worked, prepared, and rested is a testament to God’s desire to make holy the things that are mundane. Caussade wished to remind us that our daily routines can themselves become acts of devotion if we can just manage to cultivate an awareness of God’s presence with us as we undertake them. We can begin to do this through simple things, such as giving thanks to God for the new day that is given to us when we wake. Then, throughout the day, we can take moments to pause and remember that God is present with us no matter what you are doing. You can even set reminders on your phone to do this if you need to!

Each moment given to us is sacramental, it is an opportunity to open ourselves up to the presence of God’s loving presence alongside us. This week I invite you into this practice of becoming more attuned to the Sacrament of the Present moment, even while you set yourselves to tasks that do not feel particularly prayerful. Whether you are preparing a meal, entering numbers on a spreadsheet, or scurrying off to complete some task that you forgot to do earlier, each of these moments is an opportunity to remember that God is with us in all that we do, and in all that we do we are blessed with the Sacrament of God’s abiding love, should we just take the time to recognize and receive it. Amen.

Baptism

Ben Keseley — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 00:26:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, November 5, 2023

Readings; Acts 1:15-26, Psalm 15, Phillipians 3:13b-21, John 15:1,6-16

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

On this Feast of All Saints, something incredible is about to happen. We are going to welcome someone special as the newest member of the Communion of Saints, which is the whole household of faith, past, present, and future. And we are going to do this by baptizing her in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But first, what is baptism, exactly? What is going on when we do it? Let’s start with a simple definition:

Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God. Page 858 of the Catechism, in the Book of Common Prayer. Are y’all with me?

That’s okay, because we’ll get there. But first, you should know that today we are going to baptize Dagny Sofia House, the beautiful new daughter of Lauren DeCorte and Josh House. I suspect that this is not everyone’s first baptismal service. I happen to know that many of you yourselves have been baptized. I also happen to know that many of you have had your children baptized. But having done something is not always a guarantee that we know what we are doing. Anyone who’s ever been married will tell you that. So what exactly are we doing here. What is going to happen in a few minutes when we wash baby Dagny in that water? What about her will be different? What about us will be different? What is baptism? Let’s take a look, because the catechism says three simple, incredible things.

Number one: Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children.

We are adopted as God’s children in baptism because like the parents of a child, God made us and God loves us, and love is a physical act. Love is physically hardwired into our bodies. Anytime a parent shares a physical embrace with their children, the bodies of the parent and child are flooded with what is called the love hormone, oxytocin. This hormone then leads to the creation of a biological, emotional, and spiritual bond that is the absolute strongest that we humans are capable of. It’s possibly the closest we can come to replicating God’s love, and this bond of parental love is first sealed not through any conscious effort or willful decision of our own, but through the body. Baptism – water, oil, words, and hands – is that first, physical embrace we receive from God that cements the bond of love and marks us as Christ’s own forever. Like a parent’s embrace, baptism is a physical act that creates an unbreakable spiritual bond as we become God’s children.

Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children.

Number two: Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church.

Because we are not the first to be baptized, to be adopted as one of God’s children, when we are baptized, we are born into a whole family with whom we now share the same spiritual DNA. A family who shares a common likeness, a family resemblance if you will, with Jesus Christ himself. Just as none of us chose our physical features, our quirks, our natural strengths and weaknesses, but rather received them from our parents and then learned to grow into them as we mature, so too in baptism do we receive a certain character, like a gene or imprint, that we share our brothers and sisters in Christ. This spiritual gene or imprint is given from God in baptism and it’s called grace. Grace given freely to us and grace that we gradually learn, and fail at, and then relearn through a lifetime of practice with one another, with our spiritual family, also known as the Church, or the Communion of Saints.

Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church.

Number three: Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God makes us inheritors of the kingdom of God.

Now this one requires us to answer another question; what is the kingdom of God that Dagny is inheriting? The prophet Daniel describes the kingdom of God (Dan. 7:27) as a heavenly habitation – a house – spanning from heaven to earth in which God’s perfect love and perfect justice reign over all who inhabit it. And all who live in God’s house will strive to glorify God in all that they do. What Dagny will inherit is room in our heavenly Father’s house, where she, along with all of us, her new brothers and sisters in the family of God, will get to build more rooms, and guest rooms, and kitchens, and classrooms, and doors, and windows so that there is even more space to welcome others whom God adopts as His own. Our pledges that we will soon place on this altar are part of our commitment to shoring up this inheritance of grace here on earth. Our love, our prayers, and our resources all play a part in the building of God’s kingdom, to which Dagny will belong.

Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God makes us inheritors of the kingdom of God.

In a few minutes Dagny will be claimed as God’s beloved child, she will be given a new family and we will receive a new sister. And as her family we will promise to help her live into the grace that makes her a beloved inheritor of the kingdom of God.

Because friends, Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children,

Makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church,

And inheritors of the kingdom of God. Page 858, the Catechism, in the Book of Common Prayer.

Are you all with me? Amen.

"Render unto Ceasar"

Ben Keseley — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 23:22:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, October 22, 2023

Readings: Ex. 33:12-23 (Moses wants to see God’s glory), 1 Thess. 1:1-10, Matt. 22:15-22 (Render unto Caesar)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

If you had been contemplating tax evasion – or pledge evasion – this morning, the Gospel lesson may have complicated these plans for you. Today we hear the famous ‘render unto Caesar’ passage in Matthew, as it is translated in the King James Bible. The situation presented to us is this: the Pharisees come to Jesus and pose a question to him in bad faith. The question is whether it is lawful for faithful Jews such as themselves to pay taxes to the Roman emperor. Now, why is paying taxes for them a problem? Their problem is not the obvious financial inconvenience of taxes. Observant Jews at the time had no issue with the notion of taxes in general. Every adult Jewish male was expected to pay a modest tax for the work, worship, and upkeep of the Temple, that functioned much like our pledge to support the ministries of our parish today. Rather, the issue with paying Roman taxes was the moral dilemma of whether or not it was in their interest, as a colonized people, to pay taxes to their colonizers. Because the Roman empire had taken over the region of Palestine in the 1st century by use of military force, which, in a sadly familiar situation, resulted in much religious and political conflict.

So in essence, the Pharisees pose the question to Jesus of whether or not to pay Roman taxes in order to force him into two possible wrong answers. The first wrong answer would be to say yes, we as Roman subjects ought to obey the law of the land and pay our taxes to Caesar. This answer would have rendered him a traitor to his own people. The Jewish tax collectors who levied exorbitant fees from their own people on behalf of Rome were reviled as betrayers of the highest degree.

The second wrong answer would be to say no, we as a colonized people ought not to willfully participate in our own economic exploitation by our colonizers. While this answer would have been popular with many in the Jewish community, it would have rendered him an insurgent in the eyes of the Roman state, which would have landed him, well, where he ended up eventually anyway – crucified on a cross.

But Jesus did not come to die for us to deliver us from taxes. Instead, Jesus gives one of his most clever and profound responses in all of the Gospels. Jesus first asks the Pharisees for a denarius, the standard coin used to pay taxes (Matt. 22:19). Now the Roman denarius was much like our coins today, like this quarter. On its side was the face of the reigning emperor, Tiberius, who was the son of the famous emperor Caesar Augustus, and Caesar Augustus had been officially deified – or declared Godlike – by the Roman empire for his exploits. So to say that the current emperor, Tiberius, was the son of the divine Augustus, as the coins did, was essentially equivalent to saying that Emperor Tiberius was the son of god. And this, of course, is blasphemy – hubris in the highest degree. Ironically it is the same charge of blasphemy that would be leveraged to have Jesus – the true Son of God – to be crucified later on.

So Jesus directs the Pharisees’ attention to the likeness of Tiberius, the supposed son of god, on the coin to make his poignant case that we are to “give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matt. 22:21) In this one simple line Jesus, both avoids incriminating himself, and makes a sophisticated political and theological statement about how we are to order our obligations to the state and to God.

You see, this language of likeness, which he uses in regard to the coin, is the key to understanding what Jesus is saying when he says render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and God what is God’s. When asking the Pharisees whose likeness is on the coin, Jesus uses the Greek word eikon, which means image, or likeness. It is the same word we still use for the holy icons of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints that we see in churches today. Icons, or images, are not the actual thing depicted, but they are likenesses which point us to the essential nature of the thing they represent. But more importantly, Jesus uses this word eikon, or likeness, to draw a parallel between the things created in the image of Caesar, namely his money, used to facilitate the economy of a false God – and things created in the image of the true, living God. The Greek translation of the Old Testament uses the same word eikon, likeness, when describing the creation of humankind. The first chapter of Genesis states that “God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them.” (1:26-27)

We – you and I – are icons of God. We bear God’s likeness and, despite our faults, our very being points to the goodness and love of God in creation. And so in light of this, Jesus is telling us that we are to give back to God that very thing that is given to us, our lives and all that they contain. We give back to God what is given to us because we are made in the image of a God who is giving. A God who gave us our lives and who gave us his only son to die for the sake of our lives. It is our nature to give because giving is inherent to God’s nature, and we are made in the image of God. Our bodies, lives, and livelihoods are the currency by which God’s holy economy of love is made real.

Our lifelong practice of giving our all to God also frees us from the self-serving desire to enthrone ourselves as God, as Caesar did. Because Caesar’s economy is still thriving and mesmerizing us today. It is the economy of unfettered accumulation, self-interest, and the exploitation of labor and natural resources. The currency of Caesar’s economy, the thing that bears his likeness, is… coins. Shiny, pretty objects, that are useful – but are valued only their use, for their ability to get us the things that we want. So give them, Jesus says. Give the things that Caesar, or the IRS, wants, and do not miss them. Some will be used well, for the welfare of the people, and some will be misused, for the hungry wants of empire.

But God’s want, God’s hunger, is for us, not because we are useful objects, but because we bear God’s loving image. This message of God’s unqualified love for us, regardless of accomplishments and merits is a bedrock of our children and youth ministry – from the toddler atrium to EYC – because we know the world will be selling a much different message.

The currency of God’s economy is the mutual giving and sharing of love in whole human lives, modeled most purely in Jesus’s self-emptying act of dying to give us life.

When Jesus says we are to render unto God what is God’s, he means giving up all that we are – and I promise this is not just a sneaky stewardship appeal. Though our material resources are important for supporting mission of God’s church, what God really wants is us. God desires our hearts and minds, our fears and prayers, our pains and joys, and our time, and our love. Why? Because God loves us, and wants us to love him and love one another. Our acceptance of God’s love and our practice of giving it up in imitation of Christ reorients us to the reality that God’s love, engrained in our image, is the currency of the true kingdom. The one where God’s true son reigns in glory.

So as we prepare to receive Him into our hearts this day, may his love prepare us to give up our hearts. For they too, belong to God. Amen.

Ben Keseley — Sun, 08 Oct 2023 23:13:00 +0000

Anna Wiley, Seminarian, October 8, 2023

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”

In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Episcopal Church is not known for having a lot of easy, straightforward answers to difficult questions, so you might be surprised to learn that in the back of the Book of Common Prayer, we actually do have a catechism, a helpful teaching tool with simple questions and answers explaining the basics of our faith. There’s a section explaining the Ten Commandments—it offers useful paraphrases that boil down the central teachings of the commandments: our duties to God, and our duties to our neighbor. But it’s the last question of the commandments that really interests me: “Since we do not fully obey them, are they useful to us at all?”

It’s a good question, and not one that I think has an obvious answer. We live in a culture that’s justifiably suspicious of rules and authority. We know that laws are often unjust, and that religious rules can be used to hurt and manipulate. Our cautious perspective on legalism even shows up in our Prayer Book. One of my favorite collects from the Evening Prayer service has us ask God, in the traditional language, to give us peace so that “that our hearts may be set to obey thy commandments.” But the modern language changes the phrasing, so that we ask God for “our minds may be fixed on the doing of your will.” It’s a significant difference. The new wording suggests that doing God’s will is more of an organic process of discernment, rather than a matter of obedience to fixed rules.

But in my own practice, I’ve actually tried to embrace rules. There’s a reason that Old Testament law governs every aspect of Israel’s life, from how they act to what they wear to what they eat. Structuring life according to rules, even ones that we may not understand, can be a way of remembering God even in the mundane aspects of our lives, of growing in our awareness that God is with us in everything that we do. I do my best to live by a Rule of Life, a set of guidelines structuring how I pray, how I relate to others, how I take care of myself. That kind of Rule is borrowed from monastic communities, who needed common guidelines to shape their life together. At its best, a Rule of Life provides a comforting rhythm to guide me in my relationship with God and other people. But there have also been times, particularly during seasons of grief and hardship, when trying to keep a rule has felt oppressive and anxiety-inducing, less like a helpful tool and more like a list of all the ways I’m failing. Are rules any use to us when we can’t keep them?

Some of the commandments are certainly straightforward enough, self-evidently true. It’s easy to see the wisdom in refraining from lying about our neighbors, or from stealing, and not terribly burdensome to obey those proscriptions. But others are less clear. Should Christians follow Jews in setting aside a full day of Sabbath to rest, pray, be with family, and even refrain from using technology? Or does coming to church on Sunday fulfill our Sabbath obligation? Or is the important thing not really about any particular rule, but about the underlying principle, the idea that rest is holy and we weren’t made to be constantly hustling and producing and achieving?

And then there are the commandments that seem impossible to keep. God tells us not to covet, and surely we can see that purging ourselves of envy is a worthy goal, but our whole society is structured to make us covetous. We live with a near-constant barrage of advertising, with images of people who are better looking, happier, thinner, calmer, and just generally better than we are, and we could be like them if only we had this one product that would make us complete. We can’t open a social media app to see our friend’s baby pictures without scrolling past a seemingly-infinite stream of ads targeted directly at us, sometimes eerily personal, often playing on our very worst impulses and desires. Sin isn’t just something we can deal with in ourselves as individuals—it infects all the systems and structures in our society, making it far too easy to long for things that hurt us and other people.

And it gets worse. If we think, maybe we don’t always honor our parents, but at least we’re off the hook when it comes to murder, Jesus disabuses us of that notion, too. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not kill,” Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, “but I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother or sister shall be liable to judgment.” And perhaps some of you remember Jimmy Carter’s unfortunate Playboy interview, when he confessed to committing adultery in his heart many times.” A strange comment for a president to make, but there’s no denying that what he saying was right on as far as Jesus’ ethical teachings go. No one is without sin.

Which brings us back to the question from our catechism. “Since we do not fully obey them, are the commandments useful to us at all?” I’ve withheld the answer for quite awhile now, and I hope you’ll bear with me just a little longer, because I think to understand why our church still sees values in these commandments, we need to be attentive to the fact that God did not just give us a list of rules; God gave us a story.

When God begins to speak to Moses on the top of Mt. Sinai, the first thing God says is not a commandment at all. “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” We can’t understand anything that follows without first meditating on that statement. The invisible, infinite God, beyond all human understanding, has revealed himself, come down in fire and smoke and the music of trumpets. And that God is not just the high deity who created the heavens and the earth. He is your God, God who chooses to be with us and for us. And that same God is a liberator, a God who rescues his people, topples oppressors, frees them from bondage. God is speaking to this people because he has already saved them, redeemed them, and freed them. They could not save themselves, any more than they will be able to keep God’s commandments by themselves. But God’s voice cuts through all their fear, all their unwillingness, the chains with which the Egyptians bound them and the chains with which they bind themselves. It’s no wonder the people tell Moses that they are afraid to hear God’s voice. They can shut their eyes to the lightnings, the fire and the smoke, but there is something more fearful about the voice of God laying a claim on their lives, telling them that they are to be a new kind of people. But that same claim on their lives means that they are not alone. God redeemed them before they learned a single commandment, not because they were good, or special, or because they deserved it, but because God heard them crying out.

Which brings us back to the catechism. “Since we do not fully obey them, are they useful at all?” And the answer: “Since we do not fully obey them, we see more clearly our sin and our need for redemption.”

And because this is a story, not a list of rules, we know what happens next, that for the Israelites, “not fully obeying” the commandments sounds like a bit of an understatement. We know that before Moses has even come down from the mountain, the people have already rejected the gift of redemption that God has given them, that they’ve made a golden calf to worship and that Moses smashes the tablets in his rage. And we know that God gives them the commandments again, that He is still their God when they turn away from Him and reject Him. We know that the entire Bible is a story of God’s people turning away again and again, of failing to understand and failing to do the right thing even when they do understand. And God turns back to them again and again and again.

That is the free gift of grace that God offers us. It’s the gift that little babies receive when they’re baptised, marked as beloved before they’ve learned anything about who God is or how to serve him. It’s the free gift we receive every time we realize we’ve made a mistake, and God welcomes us back before we’ve even begun to figure out how we can make amends.

The commandments teach us our part in the story. They teach us how we can respond to God’s goodness toward us. They teach us that redemption doesn’t just free us from something, but frees us for something, frees us to follow Jesus, not with fear, but with humility and gratitude and love. And above all, the commandments teach us that God’s grace always precedes and follows us, that we’re called and redeemed long before we’ve done anything to deserve it, and called back no matter how many times we stray.

Amen.

God’s ‘Unjust’ Generosity

Ben Keseley — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 00:56:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 24th, 2023

“Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to this last one the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” Matthew 20: 1-6

Last Sunday we heard the dramatic Exodus story of God delivering the Israelites from captivity in Egypt. Moses raises his arms, staff in hand, a fierce wind blowing, commanding the Red Sea to open, and it opens. The Israelites walk through on dry ground and just as they are on the other side, the water comes crashing down on their Egyptian oppressors. There is rejoicing all around. Moses’ sister Miriam, tambourine in hand, leads her people as they sing and dance, giving thanks to God for everything God has done for them. But almost before the last note is sung, all that exultation and joy turns to frustration and anger. God had wrought an incredible miracle in leading them out of Egypt, but then they enter the wilderness. They start a long journey to a new land of their own that God had promised them, an abundant land, a land “flowing with milk and honey”. But the people quickly discover that getting there is going to be hard work. They want to trust in God, but their anxiety about survival is choking their faith. They have forgotten all that God did for them to get them out of captivity. What they remember is the really good food in Egypt. They forget the part about being were slaves, they forget that they weren’t free. They used to have plenty of food, but here in the wilderness, they are free, but they are worried about where their next meal is coming from. God gives them bread, plenty of bread in fact, it meets their needs, but it is strange and not very tasty. There is more than enough for everyone each day, but they aren’t allowed to save any for the next day, so that they will learn to trust in God’s provision, day by day by day. Even the wilderness is a place of abundance because God is there, but they just can’t see it that way.

The Exodus story is an interesting backdrop for our Gospel today. Both are stories about God’s generosity and our inability to recognize it. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is like a landowner who goes out into the marketplace early in the morning and agrees with workers on the standard daily wage. He goes out twice more, later in the day, and invites others to work in his vineyard. At the end of the day, he has his manager pay all of them the same, the one who worked one hour receiving the same as the ones who worked all day. The laborers who had worked all day start grumbling, just like the Israelites, and understandably so. Shouldn’t people who work longer be paid more? Isn’t that justice? But Jesus seems to be telling us that God’s generosity is much bigger than human notions of justice, as very important as that is. In fact, God’s justice is just one part of the bigger picture of God’s generosity. God’s generosity is beyond our capacity to understand. God’s generosity freed the Israelites. God’s generosity sent Jesus into the world to help us to show us how to live a life of thanksgiving. God’s generosity is at the very heart of the universe. God’s generosity leads us into abundant life and allows us to see plenty where we are tempted to see scarcity. It is all about the lens through which we view things and the posture that we bring to each day. If we bring an attitude of entitlement, it closes us off from God and sets us apart from others. If we bring an attitude of gratitude, it helps to draw us closer to others. It not about “hey look at me and everything I have achieved, now give me what I deserve”. It is about “thank-you Lord for all the blessings of this life, all that you have done for me, and help me be a blessing to others.”

Once when our son was a preschooler, I remember having a conversation with a neighbor who was the mother of two teenagers. She told me that she had just enrolled the younger of her two daughters in an expensive private school because she really needed the one-on-one attention that they could provide. I asked her how her older daughter felt about that, given that she was remaining in a public high school. Wouldn’t that make her jealous of her sister and cause resentment later on? She told me that she and her husband couldn’t really even afford to send the younger daughter and they were only doing it because they believed that she wouldn’t do well continuing in her current school. It was a great school, but it just wasn’t working for her, and she was spiraling downward. The older daughter was doing exceptionally well, both academically and socially, and didn’t need a new school. She said she had explained everything to both of them and they understood.

We moved not long after this and when we came back for a visit many years later, my friend told me that her older daughter had recently admitted that she had been jealous that more family resources were being spent on her younger sister, but now that she was a mother, she realized why her parents had made that decision all those years ago and she recognized that it really had helped her younger sister to get on a much better path. She loved her sister and she was grateful, even though she hadn’t been at the time. And the older daughter recognized that she had gotten an outstanding education staying exactly where she was. She realized that her parents knew that she already had everything she needed to thrive. “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

God’s generosity doesn’t always look like justice to us. God’s generosity is rooted in mercy and mercy always triumphs over justice. And thanks be to God for that. If we always got what we deserved, that would be a terrible thing indeed. Recognizing God’s mercy in our lives, God’s generosity in our lives, is the beginning of gratitude. And having gratitude is everything. It helps to turn our mourning into dancing and our grumbling into thanksgiving.

Next Sunday begins our stewardship emphasis for the month of October. It’s the time of the year when we focus on God’s generosity and how we respond to it. We will be hearing stories about how Saint Georgians are living out their call to operate from a place of gratitude and how our various ministries are helping them to express that, through their gifts of time, talent and treasure.

When we see everything we have as a gift, it makes all the difference. We worship a God who is infinitely generous, and who invites us to be generous in return.

Re-reading the Red Sea

Ben Keseley — Sun, 17 Sep 2023 23:25:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Proper 19A, Track 1, 9/17/23

Readings: Exodus 14:19-31 (Parting of the Red Sea), Romans 14:1-12 (Do not pass judgment), Matthew 18:21-35 (Parable of the Unforgiving Slave)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Today we hear one of the most iconic stories in all of scripture; the story of God delivering his chosen people, the Israelites, from the pursuit of their enslavers, the Egyptians. As we know, the story goes that God miraculously parts the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to cross to safety, while the Egyptian army is left scrambling in the muck until the sea comes crashing down upon them, swallowing them into the depths.

Depending on your generation, this story might conjure up images of Charlton Heston as a handsome Hollywood Moses, rendered in glorious technicolor in Cecil DeMille’s 1956 epic film, The Ten Commandments. Or, perhaps, if you’re a bit younger, your mind’s eye pictures the story from the perspective of the charming 1998 animated musical drama, The Prince of Egypt. Or perhaps you imagine the scene in another way.

There are hundreds of musical, artistic, and cinematic retellings of the Crossing of the Red Sea and the fact that it remains such an iconic Biblical story, even in the mainstream, is a testament to the power that the story holds over our popular imagination. I think that part of our enduring fascination with this story is because of how excitingly dramatic and also straightforward it appears to be, which we know is not always the case in Biblical narratives. Scripture is so often narratively confusing and theologically muddy. Not so in this event. There are clear protagonists, the underdog Israelites, who are led by the charismatic prophet Moses; and there is a clear villain – Pharaoh, the perfect Hollywood bad guy. There is rising action as Pharaoh’s army hunts down the Israelites in a high speed chariot chase and there is a tremendous climax as God delivers the good guys while the bad guys are left thwarted and utterly defeated in a definitive triumph for God. A happy and tidy ending, if we would like to leave it that way.

The way that we often retell this iconic story leaves little room for ambiguity, which makes for excellent storytelling, however, as I’m sure you’ve found, stories that reduce reality to neat categories of absolute good and evil, while entertaining, are typically limited in their usefulness to us in the real world, where good individuals often find themselves enmeshed in structures that create evil; and real world evil often looks much more mundane than sinister, as Hollywood archetypes would lead us to believe. Now I believe that this story actually allows for more a more nuanced interpretation than popular retellings give it credit for, so please humor me as we look at the story of the parting of the Red Sea from various perspectives to see what we can glean.

Let’s begin by revisiting the bad guys, the Egyptians. As a child in Sunday school, I often pitied the evil Egyptians, which I think was less of a reflection of my compassionate character and more of a subconscious admission of my own guilt as a fellow tormenter. As a tyrannical little Pharaoh, I often treated my poor younger sister as an Israelite. Nonetheless, it’s worth considering whether all the Egyptians deserved the severe punishment of drowning fearfully in the Red Sea. Surely there were some bad actors, such as Pharaoh himself, who God gave multiple opportunities to turn from his wickedness, and yet he would not relent. But what about all of the contractors, foot soldiers, bureaucrats, and non-military personnel whose livelihood was enmeshed in the will of a government that they had little say over? Surely they were as much victims of Pharaoh’s authoritarianism as they were perpetrators of what theologians and ethicists call structural evil.

You see, this idea of structural evil suggests that evil is so often manifest most potently in largescale social systems rather than in individuals, and then the pervasiveness of these systems and structures allows individuals to easily rationalize their participation in them by asking the questions: What other options do I really have? If not me, won’t someone else just do it? And, I have to earn a living to take care of my family don’t I? It’s a brutal cycle. And so, I believe that a nuanced understanding of the story allows for us to imagine God’s compassion for those who are mired deeply in these systems of evil that trap us like thick, constricting mud on the ocean floor. In Rabbinic tradition, Jewish scholars imagined that God stopped the angels from rejoicing at the demise of the Egyptians, whom He regarded as “the works of his hands” whom he pitied to see, drowning in the sea (B. Sanhedrin 39b).

And it’s also helpful to remind ourselves at this point that scripture is not merely about retelling God’s actions as literal historical events. Scripture is about helping us to see God’s consistent character of steadfast faithfulness and love. If we leave the story to a strict literal interpretation, this would be a story about God killing thousands of people in order to save others whom He was more partial towards. But this isn’t what the story is about. At a spiritual level, the story is about God’s conquest, not over individual humans behaving badly, but it is about God’s victory over the very forces of evil themselves, which Pharaoh and his army came to embody. Frankly I’m not as interested in the historical plausibility of this event, as I am about what it teaches us about the nature of God and God’s will for us. While I’m not saying that the parting of the Red Sea is just an outdated myth, I am suggesting that stories don’t need to have literally happened for them to be true. And the truth of this story is that God loves us too much to let evil overtake us.

So what about our valiant heroes, the Israelites? It’s their upstanding moral fortitude and unwavering faith in God that saves them isn’t it? Let’s take a closer look. In the verses just preceding where we find them cornered between Pharaoh’s army and the Red Sea, the Israelites cry out cynically to God, saying “was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?” (Ex. 14:11), which is a pretty clever retort if you ask me. Then, in the next verse, they tell God that “it would have been better to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness” (14:12). And who can blame them? They believed in this moment, as most of us have at some point, that God had abandoned them. We find them not as heroic beacons of faith, but as fragile human beings who act as humans do when we are scared and cornered.

You see, there’s a curious thing that can easily go overlooked in this story. The way that God led the Israelites out of Egypt in the first place was by appearing as a giant pillar of clouds and fire that they could see with their eyes as a clear sign of God’s presence leading them to safety. Then, the text tells us that when they reached the Red Sea – the pinnacle of their crisis – the cloud of the Lord then moved “from in front of them and took its place behind them,” where they could presumably no longer see or feel God’s presence with them (14:19). Moments of deep crisis in our lives have a tendency to obscure our sense of God being truly with us.

But little did the Israelites know, the cloud representing God protecting them had moved between them and Pharaoh’s army – the threat of evil and destruction that loomed behind them. God never ceased to remain with them and to protect them, even though God’s presence was obscured from their eyes. So too with each of you. If you believe, as I do, that this story is not actually about the Israelites, or about the Egyptians, or about us, but it is about God’s unrelenting faithfulness to us to protect and deliver us from the powers of darkness, then we too can and should find assurance that God is with us in every trial that befalls us.

God is with us most strongly when we ourselves are not strong enough to sense His presence. The story of God’s deliverance of the Israelites from the Egyptians hearkens to God’s deliverance of the whole world from the grip of evil, which was overcome once and for all by the cross of Christ and the empty tomb. Christ Jesus took the consequences of sin and evil for the oppressed, for the oppressor, and for all of us who stand somewhere in between. God is faithful to us even when our faith is greatly shaken, and as we pass through darkness to move into light, God is behind us, and in front of us, and within us.

So as we gather to celebrate God’s faithfulness to us in the Eucharist and at our joyful parish picnic today, let us sing to the Lord as Moses did, for God is with us and “God has greatly triumphed” (15:1). Amen.

Let Love Be Genuine

Ben Keseley — Sun, 03 Sep 2023 23:34:00 +0000

The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, , September 3rd, 2023, Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Last Saturday, thousands of people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. They came together to pay tribute to the landmark civil rights event in 1963 where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. They also came to stand against all of the current threats to the racial progress that we have made in this country over the last 60 years. Just as last Saturday’s March on Washington was ending, a young white man walked into a Dollar General store in a predominately Black neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida and killed 3 African Americans, 19 year old "AJ" Laguerre Jr., 29 year old Jerrald Gallion, and 52 year old Angela Carr. How utterly heartbreaking. The chasm between God’s dream for us and how things really are is so very great.

Our reading from Romans today could not be more timely.

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection….Do not repay evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all…Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. “ Romans 12:9-21

These are the words we so need to hear right now as we condemn all of the racially motivated violence in our country, while at the same time not allowing hatred to take root and infect our hearts. It is so hard to do, but it is vitally important, both as citizens of the Kingdom of God and citizens of this country. As followers of Jesus, we are called to speak up for justice AND to love our neighbors as ourselves, to speak up for justice for our Black neighbors, and to love our racist neighbors. That is what taking up our cross and following Jesus looks like. When we follow Jesus, we live between two worlds, God’s perfect kingdom that we strive for, that Beloved Community where everyone is honored as a child of God, and the imperfect kingdom of this world, where racism and hatred in all of its forms are very real. We live in the land of “already” and the “not yet”, the already of Jesus entering the world as a human being to show us what is possible and the “not yet” of knowing that he calls us to continue what he started, with God’s help, growing weary, yes, but going forward, putting one foot in front of the other and trusting God to lead us and sustain us. And these are our marching orders:

“…hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection….Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. “

When Paul wrote these words over two millennia ago, he was telling the Christians in Rome what life should look like both inside the church and out. First century Rome was filled with people from all over the Roman Empire, people from diverse cultures, varying skin tones and all levels of economic prosperity. When people walked into church, none of that was supposed to matter. One of the reasons that Paul wrote the Letter to the Romans was the anti-Semitism that was starting to manifest in the Christian house churches in Rome. The emperor Claudius had expelled the Jews from Rome in 49 C.E. and a few years later, his successor, the emperor Nero, reversed that order and allowed the Jews to return. Prior to the exile of the Jews, there were both Jews and Gentiles in the Christian house churches, but non-Jews had obviously become predominant during the exile and now that their Jewish siblings were returning, tensions were rising within the Christian community between the two groups. Being baptized into Christ meant that they were called to be a Beloved Community, honoring one another in Jesus’ name, and then going into the world to honor the image of God in everyone they met. When Paul wrote the Letter to the Romans, he was in part responding to the mass killing of Jews in Alexandria a few years earlier and the more recent riots in Puteoli, a town near Naples. He wanted to discourage the same thing happening in Rome. So Paul was trying to preempt civic unrest on the one hand and corrosive behavior in the house churches on the other. Creating and nurturing the Beloved Community requires intention and focus so that people who may seem “other” become friends.

The concept of “othering” has been with us since the beginning of time, but the specific term was coined by philosophers in the 1800s. It refers to the fact that human beings identify differences between themselves and others and rather than celebrating that diversity, decide that other people are “less than” themselves based on those differences, whether those differences are ones of race, religion, culture, gender, sexual identity or orientation or anything else. “Othering” creates a system where there are dominators and those who are dominated or to put it differently, those who are mainstream and those who are marginalized. Whether it is Jews in first century Rome or Black Americans in 2023, the basic dynamic is the same. And we are called as Christians to celebrate our diversity and see that it is mark of being created in God’s image. We worship a God who is one in three and three in one, meaning God is a diverse community of equal and distinct “persons”, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and yet God is one unified, Divine Community. We are called to mirror God’s life. That is what the Beloved Community is all about. That is what we are to strive for as Christians, both inside the Church and without. When we see a chasm between ourselves and others, we are called to build bridges. When we encounter hatred, we are called to love in return. When we observe a lack of justice, we are called to stand up for what is right. When we see the news and are tempted to despair, we hold onto hope. When we encounter evil, we do not return evil with evil, but overcome evil with good. And we ask God to help us to recognize our own propensity for evil and work to resist it.

In four weeks, a new Sacred Ground group will begin here at Saint George’s. This will be the third time that our race and reconciliation ministry has offered it and those who have been through it have found it to be a transformative experience. Sacred Ground creates an intentional space for study and respectful conversation about race and racism. Using readings and film, group members walk back through history in order to peel away the layers that brought us to today, reflecting on family histories and stories, as well as our shared American story. Sacred Ground holds out the dream of the beloved community and helps us to make it a reality. I invite you to consider it as you discern what spiritual formation opportunity you will commit to this fall. The change we want to see in the world begins with an enlightened mind and transformed heart.

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection.” Romans 12:9-21

Sacred Ground is a film- and readings-based dialogue series on race, grounded in faith. Small groups are invited to walk through chapters of America’s history of race and racism, while weaving in threads of family story, economic class, and political and regional identity.

The 11-part series is built around a powerful online curriculum of documentary films and readings that focus on Indigenous, Black, Latino, and Asian/Pacific American histories as they intersect with European American histories.

Sacred Ground is part of Becoming Beloved Community, The Episcopal Church’s long-term commitment to racial healing, reconciliation, and justice in our personal lives, our ministries, and our society. This series is open to all, and especially designed to help white people talk with other white people. Participants are invited to peel away the layers that have contributed to the challenges and divides of the present day – all while grounded in our call to faith, hope and love.

Ben Keseley — Sun, 27 Aug 2023 23:31:00 +0000

Joshua House, August 27, 2023, 13th Sunday after Pentecost

Good morning. For those who don’t know me, my name is Josh House, and I’ve been at Saint George’s for about 8 years. I’m also honored to say that I’m the most recent member of Saint George’s to be sponsored for ordination as a priest and to be sent to seminary.

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We use that terminology quite intentionally. I’m not leaving Saint George’s. Saint George’s is sponsoring me, is sending me out. It is part of Saint George’s mission. Discerning my call to the priesthood has taken years, and it has taken much time, talent, and treasure from this congregation to help me discern and respond to that sense of call. I am incredibly grateful to this entire congregation for years of support in this process. Thank you.

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But on a more bitter note: It’s customary for seminarians to leave their sending parish when attending seminary. I’ll have to visit other parishes and, eventually, spend years as a seminarian at another church. That means—as we were starkly told in our first week of seminary—I will no longer will have a home parish. So this is a goodbye of sorts. And I’m thankful that Shearon and Paddy invited me to preach today. Not only as the culmination of Saint George’s efforts in preparing me for postulancy and for seminary, but also as a goodbye to a church family that my family and I love so much.

I was hoping that today’s lessons would give us something about a sending off, or a response to a call, or something that would make my first sermon both very timely and—perhaps more importantly—easy for me to prepare.

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And, in a sense, we did get a couple of those: First we have Moses’ origin story, where we are told of how Moses was saved by his mother and sister and is adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter. This story shows Moses destined for great things: He “was a fine baby,” and was brought up in Egypt’s royal household. The lesson even tells us that both his mother and his father were Levites, which is Israel’s special priestly caste. Only Levites were allowed to carry the ark of the covenant, and they would later provide music for services, administer the law, and run the temple. The point is: Moses had the pedigree to lead the nation. And of course, Moses goes on to receive a call directly from God and leads the Israelites out of Egypt.

We also have in our gospel reading Peter’s commissioning, where, after he declares that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus gives him his new name. “You are Peter,” Jesus says—which means “Rock” in the Aramaic spoken back then. “And on this rock I will build my church.” And then by tradition Peter goes on to be a leader of this new Christian community and a founder of the church in Rome.

You’d understand why I’d be reticent to compare my own call to “destined for great things” Moses and “Rock of the Church” Peter. Giving it even a second’s thought is enough to send one into a whirlpool of status anxiety, performance anxiety, and imposter syndrome. Could any of us compare ourselves to a Moses or a Peter?

Well, it just so happens that our Epistle today, from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, has something to say about those sorts of comparisons.

But first, a story: Many of you here know our daughter Teagan, who will be turning three in just a couple months. She’s at this great age where she’s starting to play make-believe about all sorts of things. One of her favorite games is “restaurant,” where she pretends to be both the server and cook. She waits on Lauren and I, bringing pretend menus, taking our orders, the whole thing. When Teagan sets up the game, she’ll usually say something like this: “Let’s play restaurant. I’ll be the lady,” by which she means the server, “and you’ll be the persons.” If I were to ask if I can be something else, maybe a cook, bartender, or anything more exciting, she’ll respond with, “no you’re just a person.” She does the same thing when she pretends she’s a Disney princess: “I’ll be Elsa, Mommy is Anna, and you… you’re just a person,” by which I have to assume I’m one of the nameless extras trying to get in on the castle’s chocolate fondue.

What this shows is that, from a very early age, we adopt a sort of “great person” theory of history, which is: The events that matter are done by singularly great people, and unless you happen to be one of those people, you are “just a person,” a nameless extra on the movie reel of life. If this view of history is true, then of course you would have some amount of anxiety—some sense that if you did not try harder, compete better, win more often, then your life might not amount to much. And if that anxiety permeates your thoughts, notice how tempting it would be to measure your progress and your status against other people, against other Christians, against your fellow parishioners here at Saint George’s, or even against your family and friends.

Paul’s response to that sort of thinking is straightforward: Cut it out. That may be how the world organizes itself, how it categorizes us, but it’s not how the Kingdom of Heaven works. “Do not be conformed to this world.” Or as one commentary puts it, do not let the cultural “zeitgeist . . . set [your] agenda.”

Paul commands “not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think,” and why? Because “we have gifts that differ.” To be a whole body, he says, all the members are required. There are no nameless extras in the Kingdom of Heaven. To use a video game reference: There are no non-playable-characters in God’s kingdom. Everyone is real; everyone really matters.

Paul really cares about this issue. He makes an identical argument to the Corinthians, who also appear to have been struggling with status anxiety. And in 1 Corinthians 12 he expands on it: Not only do we have different gifts and play different but essential parts in God’s Kingdom, but he says in verses 24 and 25 that God has given greater honor to the inferior members of the body. And Ephesians 4 makes a similar point. Paul really wants us to get this: Worldly status has no purchase in God’s Kingdom.

During the COVID-19 pandemic we all became familiar with terms “frontline worker” or “essential worker.” These are people who need to be physically present to do their work, who cannot retreat to the safety of an air-conditioned and -filtered home during the outbreak of a novel respiratory virus. And they’re often people who perform roles critical to keeping us healthy, safe, or fed.

The term “frontline worker” immediately conjures images of hospital workers or first responders. But for many of us, the pandemic was a wake-up call to just how dependent we all are on even the most unassuming professions: waste collectors, bus drivers, meatpackers.

Throughout the pandemic I was inspired to see people taking notice of these workers and thanking them for the roles they play in our complex economy. How many times do we pass through a grocery store without looking at a single employee in the eyes—getting in, getting our items, using the self-checkout, and getting out—to say nothing of online shopping! But during the pandemic we celebrated those workers and others who had to turn up in person for society as we know it to continue functioning. New York City is even planning to build a memorial for its essential workers.

God’s Kingdom goes one step further: There is no division between essential and inessential workers; all workers are essential workers. In the church we need all sorts of spiritual gifts, and we should recognize and appreciate every gift used to serve God, each other, and the world. Again, in God’s kingdom, everyone and every gift is essential.

This is exactly the theology proclaimed by our prayer book. The Catechism says that all Christians are the ministers of the Church; not just bishops and priests and deacons, but lay persons too. Lay persons are mentioned first! “The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world.”

I know there are some here today who sense a calling. Maybe it’s to a career, but maybe not. Maybe it’s to a certain role at church, or to a particular role in your family life, to play a role in our community.

But when you think about all the steps required to equip yourself for that role, you feel deflated. You start comparing yourselves to other people already serving in that capacity and you think, “I could never do what they are doing.” Maybe you’re already serving in a way that you originally felt called to, but you just can’t seem to enjoy it, because you’re not as good at it as someone else is or it doesn’t come as naturally to you. Or maybe you know what you are called to do, and you are confident you could do it well, but you’re embarrassed by it. It doesn’t pay well, it lacks prestige. You’re afraid that you would lose status if you pursued that calling.

To all of you Paul says, all workers are essential workers. Whatever your vocation is, we—all of us—need you to fulfill it. And if you don’t? Well, we get a clue about that in our Gospel reading. Jesus calls Peter “Son of Jonah,” and the book of Jonah is a prime example of someone running from their call. Spoiler: It doesn’t go well, not for those stuck with Jonah on the ship and not for Jonah himself.

Like Peter’s affirmation of Jesus as the Messiah, we must both discern and affirm our calls. And our membership in the body of Christ frees us to do so. It frees us from status anxiety, from worrying about prestige or honor in the eyes of the world.

Why? Because, Paul says, Christ’s death and resurrection, by inaugurating God’s Kingdom, has changed things. In God’s Kingdom, which is breaking into the world through the work of the Holy Spirit, your work is just as essential as me standing here preaching this morning, or as Shearon or Paddy in their work as clergy, or as the work of the President of the United States. You don’t have to be a Moses or a Peter. The world needs you simply to discern and fulfill your own vocation, whatever that may be.

When we feel tempted to compare our gifts or our callings to our neighbors, our colleagues, or strangers on the Internet, we must remember that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” and his Kingdom plays by different rules. Paul says: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God.”

Amen.

Mercy is for the Dogs

Ben Keseley — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 00:18:00 +0000

The Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, 12th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15, 8/20/23

Readings: Gen. 45:1-15 (Reconciliation of Joseph and Benjamin), Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 (God is merciful to all), Matt. 15:(10-20)-21-28 (Jesus and the Canaanite Woman)

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

This week I have been busy preparing so that everything is in order once I return from my wedding in two weeks. As I sat down to begin working on my sermon for this Sunday, I was hoping that the lectionary would throw me a soft ball that would help me in this task. Something nice and pleasant that I could maybe tie into love or nuptials, or going back to school, or these lovely days of late summer.

However, as we have just heard from the lips of our Lord, this optimistic wish of mine was not granted. Instead we receive today one of the most difficult and baffling passages in all of the Gospels. Let’s quickly revisit what was just proclaimed.

In the first section of the Gospel, St. Matthew recounts an episode in which Jesus rebukes certain Pharisees who are overly scrupulous about maintaining dietary laws with the pithy response “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles” (Matt. 15:11). This part is simple enough. Jesus is saying that the way we treat others around us is a more accurate reflection of the state of our soul than how pious we act.

But then, in the episode that immediately follows, Jesus is hounded by a Canaanite woman who wants him to heal her possessed daughter and he responds by first, ignoring her, second, by telling her that God’s blessings are not for mangy mutts such as herself, and then finally healing her, only after she doubles down on her desperate pleas.

In summary, the Gospel today tells us that Jesus, after having just lectured the Pharisees on watching the words that come out of their mouths, turns around and calls this poor woman a dog! This woman whose daughter is possessed and who knows that Jesus, the Son of God and physician of souls, is her only hope for deliverance.

Now I have heard a number of interpretations and apologies for Jesus’s behavior this passage. The defense I find most amusing is that Jesus, in calling the Canaanite woman a dog, really means something diminutive and endearing; that he is referring to her as a little puppy dog, like a beloved family pet. As sweet as this would be if it were true, I’m not inclined to believe it. There are certainly some technical grammatical challenges in translating this passage, but I don’t think one needs an advanced degree in Biblical Greek to understand that calling someone a dog has maintained an impressively consistent meaning across time and culture. In fact, I’m willing to bet that anyone who has survived high school could understand its meaning very clearly. That’s all to say, it’s not a very nice thing for anyone, let alone the Son of God, to call someone a dog.

So why? Why would Jesus, who at this point in his ministry had healed countless others before her, suddenly change course and respond to this desperate woman with such apparent hostility?

I’ll tell you what I think. Let’s first refresh ourselves on some of the social and religious nuances of the time. In 1st Century Roman Palestine, the Jewish community, of which Jesus and his disciples belonged, were living under the occupation of the Roman empire, where they routinely experienced the cultural degradation that always comes with being colonized, particularly by a military state such as Rome, which brought with it a national mythos of Roman social and cultural supremacy. Under this regime of Roman supremacy, the Jews were deliberately made to feel like an underclass within their own land.

Now, the Jews of 1st Century Palestine, of course carried their own prejudices, just like every ethnic group has since the dawn of creation, including, of course, ourselves. And for the 1st Century Jewish community, the primary group which they treated as an inferior class of people, were the Canaanites. The Canaanites, as you may know, were a Semitic ethnic and religious group who shared a common genetic and spiritual lineage with the Jewish people themselves.

These Canaanites were loathed by the Jewish people in a way that often happens when one oppressed class encounters another group even more vulnerable than themselves. It was as if the Jews, after having been picked on by a schoolyard bully, went home and kicked their poor dog because it was the only thing they could exert any power over. And speaking of dogs, it was commonplace for Jews to refer disparagingly to Gentiles, such as Canaanites, as dogs with the Greek word kúōn or kunarion, which is the exact word which Jesus applied to the Canaanite woman.

This is a curious use of this word in light of the preceding passage in which Jesus dressed down the Pharisees for being overly concerned with excluding people for failing to maintain extremely rigorous standards of ritual purity. Some Pharisees at the time kept extensive lists of dietary and religious prohibitions which, if violated, could cause you to be banished to the outskirts of town, cut off entirely from the community, and presumably cut off from the mercy of God. So you see, to call someone a dog was insulting because it carried the particular bite – pardon the pun – of meaning something that was ritually unclean. An outcast scavenger not welcome in civilized society.

And for this reason, I believe Jesus using this word, dog, was a stroke of brilliant wit, on his part and on that of the Canaanite woman, because of the exchange that followed. You see, Jesus would have known that his disciples were hanging on to every word exchanged between him and the Canaanite woman. The fact that they were even talking – a ritually unclean Canaanite woman and a male Jewish rabbi-figure, was remarkable. And Jesus at first plays into how the disciples would have expected this conversation to go. When she pleads for mercy from him, he utters the infamous words that “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” the children here of course being God’s chosen people, the pure and clean Israelites. (Matt. 15:26)

Then the woman, in an act of defiant wit, counters Jesus’s canine characterization of her, and says “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” (Matt. 15:27). To which he responds “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish. And her daughter was healed instantly.” (Matt. 15:28).

This is incredible. The clever back-and-forth volley between them is not only an impressive piece of verbal sparring, it actually reveals to the attentively listening disciples, and to us, a stunning reversal of what they expected to be true about who God’s mercy. Because mercy is what the woman was asking Jesus for in the first place, the mercy to spare her daughter from undue suffering.

And to this heartfelt request that any parent can sympathize with, Jesus responds first by presenting the status quo of exclusion that the disciples expected. The woman is a dog and unclean dogs do not deserve God’s mercy. Only then to promptly and publically overturn it. Jesus overturns the law of exclusion with the law of love, thus affirming the words of the prophet Hosea that God “desires mercy, not sacrifice” (Hos. 6:6, Matt. 9:13).

The important part of the story is that Jesus intentionally does just the opposite of what was socially and religious expected, and thereby redraws, or perhaps, erases entirely, the arbitrary boundaries we place on the extent of God’s love for us. I believe that Jesus, knowing the heart of this poor, downtrodden woman even before he engaged her, allowed her steadfast love and advocacy for her daughter to be a lesson to his disciples and to us about who exactly is worthy of God’s love and mercy.

In this way I count the Canaanite woman among the saints of God whose persistent faith is worthy of our admiration and imitation. The words and deeds of our Lord attest that those who are treated as dogs are those whose faith we often have the most to benefit from. The persistent widow who pleads for justice, the man begging in the heat for hours at a crowded intersection, the children pestering our governments for relief from climate inaction. Jesus points them out as our teachers and is willing to risk his own perceived cleanliness to consort with them. May we too be so bold as to be called dogged for Christ. Dogged for mercy, and for love. Amen.