Death and Grief are Messy: November 1

 Year A, All Saints Day                               Revelation 7:9-17                                            

             At my first church, I served with a rector who was (and is) your classic southern gentlemen. If you were to write a book about a priest and you needed a picture, it would be his picture you would use. He was always perfectly put together and very specific about how things were done.  There is a part in our funeral liturgy called the committal.  It’s when you lower the casket or ashes into the ground.  Then  the officiant says:  we commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust….There are directions in the prayer book that say:  while earth is cast upon the coffin, the Celebrant says these words.  It’s one of the more poignant and meaningful parts of the service.

The rector at my first church had a silver vial with a screw-on cap.  There was sand inside that he would sprinkle over the casket or urn in the sign of the cross.  When I went on to become a rector I asked the altar guild of my new church where their silver container for sand was.  I have since learned that it’s called an “earth vial.”  They told me they had never heard of such a thing.  I asked my good friend who was also a priest if she used an earth vial and she said, “Why in the world would you want that?  You have to use dirt and get your hands a little dirty.”  So that is what I did and I prefer that method very much. 

When I looked up the name of this thing, the description said, “Almy's Earth Vial provides a dignified way to cast the first measure of earth at burial ceremonies.”   What I have learned over the course of my ministry is that there is very little dignity in death or the illness that leads to death.  Grief doesn’t feel dignified either.

            It’s not just death that is messy…it’s life as well. The Bible is a bit messy and that is one of the things that I appreciate about it.  Like many Episcopalians or people in mainline denominations (that would include Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, etc) I am not really comfortable with the Book of Revelation, unless I can take a few verses here, a few verses there and cut out all the weird stuff. There is a lot of weird stuff in the Book of Revelation.  One of the first funerals I preached was for my grandmother and I really wanted to use this very reading as she had suffered a lot at the end of her life.  I loved this line at the end: “They will hunger no more and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” I talked to my boss about it and he said, “No problem, just take out the lamb parts.”  That is what I did.

            But as I read the text from Revelation this time around, I kept coming back to the lamb.  When you see artistic renderings of this lamb, the lamb looks glorious.  It’s always snow white…maybe even radiantly glowing.  There might be a blood stain somewhere, but it looks like it was just a small little wound, nothing to worry about.  However, if you go back two chapters in the Book of Revelation, the lamb is described as “standing as if it had been slaughtered.”[1]

Now, I didn’t have strength to look up what an actual lamb that was slaughtered would look like, but I am guessing it’s not a pretty sight.  Some of you might be wondering why there is a lamb there at all, which is a good question. The lamb symbolizes Jesus who was sacrificed on the cross.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God and we have memorialized this by buying chocolate lambs at Easter.  Of course we also have chocolate crosses…it’s just what we do—we take disturbing images and we dip them in chocolate.

            We don’t know exactly what this scene from Revelation depicts.  There is a lot of mystery and some think they have found the formula to define exactly what is happening.  But for now, let’s assume that it’s an image of the life to come—a time when people of every nation, from all tribes, and peoples and languages, worship and rejoice together.  It’s a time when all will have what we need and no one person will be deprived.  At the center of all this glory and joy is a lamb that has been slaughtered.  It seems out of place. I would much rather have a shiny, happy Jesus with a few very subtle scars that we can easily ignore.  But no…the lamb that has been slaughtered  is the center of it all.

            Some people have interpreted this as meaning that we need to put all our faith and hope in the blood the lamb; that will make us pure and holy.  But that’s not what I see.  What I see is an afterlife that doesn’t worship the suffering, but acknowledges the suffering and doesn’t shy away from grief or tears.  The last line… “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” That means there are still tears.  But there is also a God who is so close, that God will catch those tears before they drop to the ground.

            We have had a lot of wonderful people from our parish die this year.  And I know many of you are carrying extraordinary grief, a grief that cannot be easily packed away. Later we will read the names of those who have died who are connected to the parish.  And I am sure there are some names we don’t know, names that are missing, names of people we buried years ago.  The grief is still there. It never goes away.  It just changes shape.  And then there are smaller deaths, it could be an estrangement from a family member, someone in our life whose suffering we can’t assuage and it’s a little death every time we imagine them in pain. There is the loss of jobs, of dreams, of health, of a country that doesn’t look the way we had hoped it would look.  So many little deaths…

            Today, on this day, we don’t shy away from the losses and the grief. We worship a crucified God, but we also worship a resurrected God whose life, death and resurrection gives us hope, not just for the next life, but this life as well.  In the Episcopal faith, we don’t just consider saints as the very good people, or even good people who have died.  Paul’s letters referred to all Christians as saints…that’s all of you, even those who are still struggling with what you believe.  You might not be on board with everything that I am saying, and that is ok. But I hope you will believe me in this, the church isn’t meant to be a museum for the holiest of saints, it’s a place of healing, restoration, and transformation…for all of us. 

            As I mentioned, we have had a lot of deaths this past year and the past few months there have been many burials in our memorial garden…and also lots of rain.  What I have discovered is that while mud may wash out of a white robe, mud and ashes, don’t.  They leave marks and I debated throwing this alb out, but I thought it would be a good thing to wear on this All Saints Day.  It’s a reminder that we are all changed by the deaths we have experienced and maybe this robe isn’t special because it’s clean and white---symbolizing some kind of purity we can never quite achieve, but because it shows all that we can’t quite release…but what also makes us saints of God.

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[1] The focus on the slaughtered lamb came from a Working Preacher Podcast: https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/1110-all-saints-day-november-1-2026

God Given Humanity: October 18, 2026

 Year A, Pentecost 21                                                 Matthew 22: 15-22                                                                When my son started kindergarten, we enrolled him in a Christian school. We knew that our theology didn’t exactly align, but we decided to give it a try.  A few weeks in, Joshua started talking about their pledges they said in the morning. I asked…what do you mean by pledges? I had only heard of one. He informed us that they had a pledge to the American flag, the Christian flag and the Bible. I told him that was impossible as there was no such thing as a Christian flag.  Then I went to “back to school night” and learned that there is indeed a Christian flag and a pledge that goes along with it.

There was nothing wrong with the words of the pledge…although it was poorly written.  My problem was that it was written in a way that mimicked the pledge of allegiance and ended with “life and liberty to all who believe.”  My other issue was why Christians had a flag at all. We’ve got the cross…why do we need a flag?  Then I remembered that the Episcopal Church has a flag…with a shield on it. The only saving grace is that we don’t have a pledge that goes along with it.  I think what bothered me…besides the poor writing, was the idea that the Christian Church…with thousands of years of traditions needed to borrow something from a 250 year old nation.

          “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” That quote is probably familiar to many of you—perhaps one of the more familiar of Jesus’ sayings.   It is a response to a question that the disciples  (meaning students) of the Pharisees and the Herodians ask Jesus.  “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”  We know this is a question meant to trap Jesus.  We know this because that is exactly what the text says, “The Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said.”  This is one of those times when the text isn’t subtle. 

If you read the chapters before this one, you  would know that Jesus has been saying some things that were upsetting to the religious leaders and he went into the temple and turned tables over because he was upset with the way that temple was conducting business.  By now, the Pharisees are extremely frustrated and probably a little scared.  Since the Herodians are also present for this question, it would appear that the the Roman leadership is getting anxious as well.  The Pharisees and supporters of King Herod are very unlikely allies.  They didn’t get along.  If these two groups have teamed up and are trying to entrap Jesus, then they have already made a decision. Jesus needs to die and they need to find a good excuse to do it.

          The question about paying taxes isn’t the interesting part of this text…it’s Jesus’ answer that amazes not just the people who were present at the time, but still fascinates people to this day.  Often when people quote it, they seem to imply that Jesus was somehow priming us for what would become the first amendment, or what is commonly referred to as the separation of church and state. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” That’s the first half of the first amendment of our constitution. 

It’s often referred to as the disestablishment clause.  Many of the founders of our nation were coming from places where there was a religion that was the established religion of the nation. If you were living in England, you were also a member of the Church of England. As you can imagine, that created some tension. People didn’t like being told how and who to worship. Many of the founders of our country were intent that would not happen in the United States of America. 

          When a lot of people talk about the non establishment clause today, they talk about the way that it protects the nation or the state from religion.  That is partially true.  But what people sometimes forget is that it also protects the church from the involvement of the state.  It’s critical that the church can distinguish itself from the government and have their own voice that may occasionally contradict the government.

People think that when Jesus said, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”—he was saying that there are two distinct realms to be observed…One is the realm that belongs to Caesar and one that belongs to God.  People have inferred that these realms might even have equal importance in our lives. But that’s not at all what Jesus is saying.

          He asks to see the coin that would be used to pay the emperor.  They gave him a denarius, which had a picture of the emperor with the inscription: “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus Pontifex Maximus.”  The previous emperor, Augustus, made himself not only political leader, but a religious one as well.  When he died, he was a declared a god, making his son, the son of god.  It was his son’s picture on the coin. Obviously Jesus knew this…but he still asked, “Who’s head is this?”  But that wasn’t exactly what he said.  The literal translation would have been, “Who’s image is this?” That’s an important distinction. 

They answered that it was the image of the emperor. That’s when he said, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  But he actually said, “Give back” (that is the literal translation of the Greek). Give back to the emperor the things that bear the emperor’s image. Give back to God, the things (or more appropriately the people) that bear the image of God.  Who bears the image of God? 

In the creation story, in the Book of Genesis, after God had created the land, the oceans, the sky, the animals, God created humanity. Genesis says, “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them…”  We are the ones who bear the image of God. It’s not just us…it’s every human being.  Jesus was saying, the emperor can have his little coins.  But the hand that is holding the coin, the body that earned that coin and every part of creation…belongs to God. Even Caesar belongs to God.

I can’t tell you what Jesus would think of the first amendment and the division of church and state.  That obviously wasn’t happening during his time if the emperor made himself into a god.  If Jesus came again, I am pretty sure he wouldn’t spend a lot of time debating politics or the constitution.  Jesus’ concern would not be our currency that bears the image of men—some of whom did some pretty bad stuff.  His concern would be entirely on the people who bear the image of God…and that would be all the people of this world.  That would be the children gunned down in their own school and the child whose life was so desperate that he could take the life of other children. That was just a few days ago. Jesus’ concern would be with the people living in Gaza, Ukraine, the Sudan, Yemen…any place where people are killing one another.  Jesus’ concern would be with those who are starving, living without shelter, addicted to drugs, people who have lost hope. Those were the people who Jesus went to when he was on this earth.  Did he spend some time debating with religious leaders and a few political leaders…absolutely, because they were children of God too.

          I spend a lot of time thinking about religion and politics, how they intersect, how they can work together.  I don’t like it when politicians who behave immorally quote scripture, because they are usually taking it out of context. But the reason they have space to take Jesus out of context is because Christians like us like to keep our faith and beliefs private. And I get it. We are afraid of offending people, ostracizing people.  We need to get over that. We need to get over our insecurities that we don’t know enough or understand enough.  Because we bear the image of God.  God willing, we can also see God’s image in the face of people who have been labeled our enemies or aliens---people who have been denied their God given humanity. 

There are plenty of people out there who can debate taxes. Let’s make sure that every one of us demands that all of God’s people are recognized for who they are—God’s creation and God’s children. No one gets to deny someone their God given humanity…because we all belong to God.

Jesus is the Foundation: October 4, 2026

 Philippians 3:4-14 & Matthew 21:33-46                

          A few days ago, CNN put out a story entitled: “A tsunami of church closings is poised to remake America.” The article went on to predict that 100,000 church buildings would most likely close in the next 10 years. It’s not clear how they are making this prediction. There was a generic reference to “experts”.  But presumably they are basing this on the trends of the 21^st century, the amount of people remaining in most churches and the average age in various churches.  

There is no doubt that Episcopal Churches would be wise to consolidate.  The buildings are expensive…and many were built in a time when there was no modern transportation and people had to be able to walk to places.  But the thing is…people are really attached to their buildings. Obviously Christ Church is different as we are designated as a national shrine…so no one is turning this building into upscale condos or a brewery.  But even the churches that aren’t shrines…they love their building.  They have memories there.  Their family might be buried in the walls. For many people, it’s not just a building.  It’s what the building represents.

          The Gospel of Matthew was written sometime around 70AD.  The reason this date is important is because it was after the Jewish uprising of 66AD. This was a time when the Jewish people rose up against their oppressors and tried to rid themselves of Roman rule.  It didn’t go well and eventually the temple was destroyed, which was a devastating loss for the Jewish people.  This was not just the place where they worshipped, it was the heart of their identity.  When this temple was destroyed by an empire that had been oppressing them for generations, it was heartbreaking. Matthew understood this.  I think it’s why he talked a lot about land and who owned it.

          But he was also a new Christian and Christians (even Jewish Christians) were starting to realize that they were no longer welcome in synagogues and temples.  That seems obvious to us, but Jewish Christians didn’t necessarily identify as Christians.  Many of them still held on to the Jewish traditions and worshipped at the temple.  However, by 70AD, Jewish Christians would have most likely realized that the temple was no longer their spiritual home.  When the temple was destroyed it was a loss, but not a loss on the same level as devout Jews experienced. 

These new Christians were discovering that they could worship anywhere.  They were also struggling to understand what their identity was if it was not with the Jewish people and the temple.  That identity became their relationship with Christ and their relationships within their community.  I’m sure that was a hard transition for them.  It is really hard to shift how you identify yourself or how you perceive yourself.

          In his letter to the Philippians Paul spoke of his confidence in his flesh…or his confidence in his identity. He said, “I was circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church: as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”   His identity was rooted in the traditions of his faith, the family he was born into, his ethnicity, his ability to follow the laws of his faith and his zeal for his faith….a zeal so ardent that is led him to persecute Christians. This was a man who knew exactly who he was, what he believed and what his job was. 

That knowledge must have been a comfort to him.  And I don’t mean that following these laws and keeping these traditions was easy. It was not.  But he had a clear script to follow...a trajectory for his life. It’s something I think many people appreciate.  It’s stability and most of us like stability.  It’s probably what has drawn me to historic churches. I find comfort in their rootedness. 

But Paul gave that all up for an experience on the road to Damascus.  It was a profound experience, that left him blind for days…but also with clear instructions from a heavenly voice.  It still astonishes me when I think of all that he gave up, to commit himself to this new faith, this entire new way of being…a new identity.  While his life had not been easy before…it got exponentially more difficult when he became a follower of Jesus Christ. 

After Jesus told the parable about the violent tenants, he quoted Psalm 118 and said, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes. He goes on to say, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. I think this was Jesus reminding the Jewish leaders who were listening…that nothing was guaranteed to them, even if they thought this faith and this land was their birthright…it wasn’t.  But it was also a reminder to his disciples (both then and now) that Jesus was the cornerstone…the foundation of our faith.

That is where our identity has to reside…not in our church (no matter how magnificent it is)—but in Jesus Christ.  As long as we keep Jesus as our focus and our reason for being, then we don’t need to focus on how many churches are closing any given year.  I am not minimizing the grief that comes with a church closing. I have seen it happen and it’s horribly painful.  But I am so so weary of this narrative that the church is dying.  I remember that came up at one of my first clergy gatherings about 20 years ago.  It was an older priest…probably 5 years from retirement and I finally said, “You need to stop.  This is not helpful.”

Because the church…it’s not the building.  It’s all of the people who follow Jesus or seek to be part of a community of people trying to follow Jesus (I know some of you are still searching and not sure what you believe, but I need you to know, you are part of this community no matter how uncertain you may be.  I assume we are all uncertain about some things). 

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone of our faith.  Someone once rejected became the very foundation of our faith…what an incredible image of who we can be as a Christian community…a place for everyone, even those who feel rejected in most places.  They can find a place here.

Coincidentally, our stewardship theme this year is “Creating Christ Church.”  It’s in honor of the 300^th anniversary of the cornerstone being laid for this very building.  While the building still needs work, I want to remind you all that when we talk about “Creating Christ Church” we aren’t just talking about the building we are sitting in, but how we continue to build this community---our relationships with one another, our relationship with the oppressed and marginalized and our relationship with God.  We should celebrate that first corner stone that was laid 300 years ago.  This building has been a spiritual home to countless people for generations and it will continue to be so.  But let us never forget that the heart of our faith is not what we can build, but who we can be in Christ.

Inclusivity Requires Humility: Sept 27

Year A, Pentecost 18                                               Philippians 2:1-13                                                                                                

                In this reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we see an area where Paul really shines…and that is when he’s talking about how to be a community of faith.  Paul has a variety of advice on how we work for unity within a community. In the reading we have today, he emphasizes that one of the ways we can truly be a healthy community is by sharing in the same Spirit -- doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility. That’s not easy advice, is it?  We have witnessed a serious lack of humility in all kinds of places.  It feels like more so recently, but perhaps I am just more aware now. 

            “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” You know that riddle? Could God create a bolder that even God could not move?  Turns out…the answer is yes.  God emptied Godself when he was born as a human on this earth.  God took on all the human frailty that we share.  God inhabited a body that was capable of sickness and pain.  He needed sleep and rest just like the rest of us.  God didn’t have to make Jesus a real human.  God could have created someone that looked like a human and sounded like a human, but didn’t have any human frailty.

            That was aa big debate in the early church. Was Jesus a normal human or did he just appear that way?  They could not wrap their heads around a God who would accept the limitations of a human body and would even go so far as to die…to be crucified.  Being crucified was a shameful way to die.  The Romans made it into a public spectacle to humiliate the crucified person and all who were connected to that person.  But when Paul talks about the cross and the crucifixion of Jesus (which he does a fair amount), he doesn’t talk about humiliation. He said that Jesus “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death---even death on a cross.” Apparently the Greek word that Paul used to describe Jesus’ humility was very unusual.  They think that his use of it was unique…that perhaps he coined it. Later, after Paul died, that Greek word was transformed into an insult.  It was used to describe someone who was weak.

            I have talked about an illness that I experienced 4 years ago probably too often and I am going to talk about it again as it was a formative experience for me. I had a horrible infection in my leg that required multiple surgeries.  After the first surgery, they wanted me to stay in bed for as much as possible.  Usually after surgeries they get you up right away, but that was not the plan for me.  So after two weeks in the hospital they removed all the wrapping on my leg. It was painful as it pulled off a lot of skin.  I cried a lot.  When I was done crying from the pain, I looked at my leg and burst into tears again because my muscles had totally atrophied. I could no longer pick up my leg on my own. I couldn’t believe that I could lose all my strength in two weeks.  That is how frail the human body is. I have never felt so embarrassed by my own weakness.  No matter how much they explained that I would get my strength back, I couldn’t see past my own weakness.  Obviously, I regained my muscle…eventually.  But I have to remind myself sometimes that wasn’t some innate weakness that was unique to me.  It’s just the human body. It totally baffles me that Jesus took that human body…by choice.

            Jesus took on that weakness so he could truly know us.  I believe the hope was that in worshipping a God who had weaknesses, that would empower us to acknowledge our own frailties and weaknesses and maybe identify with one another a little better.  If that was part of the plan, I don’t think it worked.  We still feel this need to pretend that we are all strong and we each got that strength from a combination of good genes, extra hard work and whatever else you want to fill in.  The problem is that when we have that attitude, we then judge others who don’t display strength in the same way we do.  We criticize them for not having enough grit or resilience.  We love our grit in Philadelphia. Grit is great…but we might overdo it a little. 

We don’t reward humility. We reward strength, excellence and confidence.   If that is what we consistently reward, consistently honor in others, then we can’t ever have a truly inclusive community—one where we celebrate having the same mind, the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.  Because the way we put valuations on others and ourselves is by constantly comparing ourselves to others.  Right? We see that so much in social media right now…but it’s not just on social media. It’s always been like that.  That is what Paul is saying we can’t do in a Christian community.   We can’t determine our own value by putting others down.

            Paul encouraged the Philippians and us to let the same mind be of us in that is in Christ Jesus…who emptied himself. What would that look like…to empty ourselves? I don’t know, but I think it’s worth considering and praying for. When I pray for others and myself, I pray for strength.  I rarely pray for humility.  There is a part of me that thinks that humility just comes from failures and I don’t want any more of them. I feel like I have had my fill.  But that’s not what humility is.  It’s not a consolation prize we get for failing.  Humility is what comes when we voluntarily give up some of our own power or authority so someone else can rise up.  In emptying ourselves, we are allowing someone else to be filled. That is what Jesus did for us and continues to do.  It’s also what we can do for one another. 

            One of the things I love about baptism is that it’s a gift that Jesus gave to us in the way he lived his life, his death and his resurrection.  It’s a gift. There are other denominations that only baptize people when they have the maturity to state what they believe.  We don’t require that.  We baptize people because they are a child of God.  Nora and Mae are special and beloved and I am sure they will do all kinds of wonderful things with their lives.  But that is not why we baptize them.  We baptize them because Jesus already provided this gift. They are children of God, and please, make sure to remind them of that…when nothing else seems to be going well….when they feel like a failure.  Remind them that they are children of God and that matters more than anything else.

 

Transform, not Conform: September 13

Year A, Pentecost 16                                       Romans 14:1-12                                                   

I have been a vegetarian since I was 16. No one else in my family was and my parents were particularly devastated when I told them.  It took my Dad about 10 years to stop attributing every ailment (emotional or physical) to the lack of meat in my diet.  Moving to Southern Virginia was tricky for a vegetarian.  My first church had an annual fundraiser that was a pig roast.  I hated it with a passion and spent the whole afternoon avoiding the roasted pig.  At one potluck, a well meaning parishioner shared the vegetarian meat balls she made for me. I was touched she did this as I knew it was out of her comfort zone.  I ate a few and then asked what was in them.  They were turkey.  She had assumed that counted as vegetarian.  When I interviewed at the church I was at before here, they had a dinner for me.  Somehow, they had learned I was a vegetarian and the entire meal was vegetarian. I was so touched that they all ate the vegetarian meal with me.  It was an incredible display of hospitality. I later learned they had it catered because none of them knew how to make an entire vegetarian meal.   

Whenever this reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans comes up, I am reminded of my years as a vegetarian in very meat centric places.  While Paul does seem to say that vegetarians are weak, his point is a larger one about hospitality and welcome.  That welcome does come with a slight insult… but when you consider it light of the other times Paul talks about weakness, it’s not as bad as it seems. 

I would think that if you heard this part of Paul’s letter to the Romans and had not read very much of Paul’s writings, you might find Paul’s description of people who are “weak in faith” a little off-putting.  On the one hand Paul encourages us not to pass judgment on one another.  Yet isn’t describing someone as “weak in faith” passing judgment?  It would seem so.

Butt consider how Paul talks about weakness in other letters that he wrote.  When he wrote to the Corinthians he wrote of something he described as a thorn in his flesh.  We don’t know what that was, but it was something he perceived as a deficiency or a weakness in himself.  He begged God to take it from him and God responded: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”  Paul then resolved to boast more boldly in his weakness. 

For a good portion of Romans and much of his other writings, Paul is preoccupied with how Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians could learn to be a part of one worshipping body.  It’s unlikely that Paul was planning for the long term viability of the Christian church.  He was just trying to find a way to spread the message of Christ as far and wide as he could. 

There were Jews who had started following Christ.  Paul was one of them…as were all of the apostles.  Many of them were still trying to figure out what this looked like.  Did they need to follow all of the rules they had followed as Jews?  Many thought they did.  Some weren’t sure, so they followed them just in case.  That is probably what Paul was talking about when he spoke of those who just ate vegetables.  They abstained from meat because they knew that a lot of the meat that was sold in the market had been sacrificed in pagan rituals.  That meant it was unclean and their Jewish faith told them that they could not eat the meat.

Some of these Jewish Christians felt that those who had never been Jewish should still take on the Jewish customs as well as the new Christian customs.  Paul was of the mind that was not necessary.    What to eat and when to worship were sticking points between these two groups. The “weak in faith” were the ones who could not let go of the old customs and were perhaps…not fully convinced of this new way of being and worshipping.

But here is what is interesting about what Paul was saying…just because one group had different perceptions of what the practice of faith should look like, didn’t mean that the other group needed to correct them or force their way of doing things on them. Remember, a big part of early Christian worship was sharing a meal together…so what people ate together was directly related to worship. Paul was saying: if having meat at a gathering of the faithful makes those who abstain uncomfortable and could potentially cause a crisis of faith, don’t eat meat around them.  That’s why this reading begins with “welcome.” Being welcoming and hospitable isn’t just about being friendly, it’s about meeting someone exactly where they are, with no expectation that they will change to be more like you. 

          At Christ Church, we say, “whoever you are or wherever you are on your journey of faith, you are welcome here.”  That doesn’t come with any unspoken assumptions.  You are welcome here. Hard stop. We don’t mean, you are welcome and once you get the lay of the land, then you can adapt to our customs and be more like us. I have been at churches like that. They want you to feel welcome, but they also want you to be more like them in time.  They will give you a few months, but eventually, you need to conform to their expectations.      

          Today we are handing out information about a program we are embarking on called, “Invite, Welcome and Connect.”  It’s not about being a friendly church…although that is part of it. It’s about being a community where you can be welcome without having to change. It’s about training our current members on how to meet people where they are.  That might mean that we have to change a little—that can be the hard part.  But change brings growth and new ideas and that is the way a church not just survives, but thrives.

          One of my favorite quotes is, “God loves you just the way you are, but God loves you too much to stay that way.”  Being a Christian means that we seek transformation in our world and ourselves. A faith community should be a place that helps you grow, that supports your relationship with Christ.  But there is a difference between supporting someone in their journey of growth and transformation and demanding that someone conform to a specific type of Christian.  We want people to transform, not conform.  We want the whole community to transform together, to create something beautifully and unique.

          I realize that to some, the idea that we have to change to be truly welcoming and loving seems unfair.  Consider what God did when Jesus was born to a woman and became human.  God changed the way that God related to humans. God came to this earth to meet humans exactly where they are. That is an incredible to display of hospitality.  A chapter later in Romans, Paul continued this theme of welcome when he said, “Welcome one another therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”  Invite, Welcome, Connect is a church program…but it’s also more than that.  It’s not simply about growing a church.  It’s about learning how to welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us.

Embody the Light: September 6

 Year B, Pentecost 15                      Matt 18:15-20 & Romans 13:8-14                          

          I became an Episcopalian in the early 2000s, which was a complicated time in the Episcopal Church. I remember telling someone that I was about to convert to the Episcopal Church from the Roman Catholic Church and they asked, “Why in the world would you choose to jump on sinking ship?” I was young and had the fervor of a new convert.  I thought, “what better time to join a church then when everyone else thinks it’s sinking.”  

Entire churches and dioceses were considering leaving the church at the time and many eventually did.  It was at least partially related to the 2003 consecration of Gene Robinson as a bishop.  He was the first openly gay man to be consecrated as a bishop.  The Episcopal Church had ordained people in the LGBTQ community starting as early as the late 1970s, but it was unusual, rarely public, and never a bishop. 

The reason that it’s a bigger deal when it’s a bishop is because a bishop represents the denomination as a whole rather than one church. That meant that bishops in countries from all over the world could all weigh in on this consecration.  They did.  But the place that it became most contentious was in this country.  At the time there were still entire dioceses that refused to ordain women and leaned more conservative.  They were very displeased with this development and it led to a split in the Episcopal Church.  Most went the way of a new church called: Anglican Church of North America.  Twenty years later, this denomination is going strong and while we Episcopalians are in communion with Lutherans, Methodists and Moravians, we are considered broken from the ACNA group.

          Recently, there was a big article in an Anglican/Episcopal publication that featured a picture of female Episcopal bishop from South Carolina with an ACNA bishop from South Carolina.  Apparently they were both on the board of a school and were asked to participate in a service that dedicated a new school chapel. There was a photo of them hugging behind the altar and the response was apoplectic.  Most of the Episcopalians were measured in their response, delighted that they had found common ground.  But the ACNA response was heated. One priest said,

“When you treat wolves as if they are legitimate shepherds, the sheep looking on get confused and then devoured by the wolf you’re busy ‘loving.’” The ACNA bishop has apologized and agreed to accept whatever consequence the leadership of ACNA deems appropriate.

          I was reading articles about this newest church conflict as I studied the Gospel reading for today.  There are some Christians who read this text as a manual for how to handle church conflict…a short manual, but a manual nonetheless. To really get a good understanding of this reading from Matthew, you need to read the whole chapter, because as is so often case, context is critical.  When we read just these 5 verses, we focus on the accusatory part.  It doesn’t sound much like Jesus.  Aren’t we supposed to forgive 7 times 70 times?  Jesus told the disciples to forgive 70 times 7--- just 2 verses after our reading for today! Yet here it seems like he’s telling the community that they can cast out members who refuse to cooperate. 

And the language that Jesus uses…he says you should treat them as you do a Gentile or tax collector.  That’s not good.  The people he was talking to didn’t like Gentiles or tax collectors. They wouldn’t eat with them, and they definitely wouldn’t worship with them.  Yet we see Jesus eat with those outcasts.  We see him defend them and even name one (Matthew) a disciple.  Why would Jesus tell people there is a limit to forgiveness and that Gentiles and tax collectors should be maligned?

          Again, it all comes back to context.  The chapter begins with Jesus telling people that they must welcome little children.  Now, in our day and age, this would seem like a no brainer.  Of course Jesus would love the little children.  We have a song about it.  Back then, children weren’t valued as they are today.  Most people treated them as they would treat an outcast but Jesus always welcomed those on the edge of society.  Then right before our reading for today, Jesus tells the story of the shepherd who has 100 sheep and loses one.  What does the shepherd do?  He goes after the straggler…the one who wandered away. Jesus has and will always care for those who are typically left behind.  He also cares for the sinners, which is all of us.  Jesus would not have wanted someone cast out of the church with no opportunity to return.  Jesus would want people to stay in relationship…not just with their God, but with one another. 

          The last line of today’s Gospel reading is very well known.  We used it a lot during COVID, when churches recorded the services when just a few people could be in the sanctuary.  “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am among them.”  We quote that line when we need a reminder that God is in the midst of us…always.  But it’s interesting—that this line would come right after talking about people in a church not listening to one another.  Jesus wants to remind us, sure he’s here for a lovely service like this one.  But God is also present when we are arguing with one another, when we are in conflict, when we are disappointed in the church or the people in the church.  Those are the times when we need God the most, but are also the times when we tend to ignore God the most.

          The split within the Episcopal Church has always pained me.  It’s not the first split.  The Episcopal Church was formed because we had to separate from the Church of England. And there have been more splits between 1789 and 2003…but this is the only split in any of our lifetimes.  I find it astonishing that ACNA would come down so hard on their bishop because he worshipped alongside an Episcopal bishop.  But they really believe that we in the Episcopal Church are a threat to their Christian values.  I imagine they believe they are honoring this passage from Matthew. 

It makes me wonder where Jesus would be in this.  The point that many in ACNA have made is that we (The Episcopal Church) have not repented and it would thus be inauthentic to act like we have any hope of reconciling with one another.  (Obviously, I don’t think we need to repent…but that’s not the point). But then I think of the tax collectors and those other notorious sinners that Jesus dined with.  There are places in the Gospels where Jesus encourages people to “sin no more” but it’s never a requirement for a relationship with him.  Right before Judas betrayed Jesus, they shared a meal together. Jesus washed Judas’ feet and gave him the bread and wine he referred to as the body and blood.  It wasn’t because Judas had asked for forgiveness. It wasn’t because he deserved forgiveness.  Jesus chose to remain in that relationship as long as he possibly could, even knowing what Judas was about to do. 

          What progress can we possibly make in the Christian Church if we demand that we all have to agree with one another before we can worship with one another?  It’s the same in our individual churches.  There will be many times when we are not in agreement, when we are even disappointed with one another.  The strength of our community is dependent on our ability to remain in relationship with one another, continue to share God’s love even when we can’t always agree on what that looks like.  

When Paul writes about putting on the armor of light, it’s not about defending ourselves from an enemy…it’s about embodying the light of Jesus Christ so that others can feel the warmth of that light.  Usually when we think of armor, we think of how it protects people in battle.  However, when Paul uses the analogy, I think it was less about protection and more about embodiment.  Paul wanted us not just to share the light of Christ, he wanted us to wear the light of Christ…to put on Christ.  If we are to actually focus on how we are embodying that light, then we don’t really need to spend as much time on who is right and who is wrong, who is in and who is out.  Because in the end, none of us are right all the time.  Let’s leave that honor to Jesus.

Women's Holy Disobedience: August 23

Year A, Pentecost 13                        Exodus 1:8-2:10                                  

“Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”  Some of you will remember that Joseph was young boy who was sold by his cruel brothers into slavery. He ended up in Egypt and interpreted the Pharoh’s dreams so accurately and advantageously, the Pharoh ended up giving him a great deal of power and authority.  Joseph later forgave his brothers, and his whole family settled in Egypt.  Joseph’s father was named Israel and the descendants of his family were who this new king was referring to as the Israelite people.  It’s the first time this group of people is recognized as Israelites.

Notice, the new king is not named.  Apparently the author of Exodus didn’t think his name was important.  Many have hypothesized on who this king was, but the author of Exodus didn’t name him.  What we know is that not only did he not know Joseph, he didn’t care about the story of Joseph, which is part of the reason that instead of working with the people known as Israelites, he decided to oppress them. He was threatened by a community he didn’t understand.  We see that far too often.

As a result he decided that instead of working with them, he would simply oppress them more and more until they lost their will to live.  However, that didn’t work.  The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.  Since oppressing the people he feared was not effective, this nameless Pharaoh came up with an even more evil plan.  He asked the midwives of the Hebrew women to kill all the male babies.  The men were more of a threat because they could join Egypt’s enemies and fight.

            It would seem that the Pharaoh should have feared the women more as they were the ones who thwarted his plan. It was the midwives who saved the day--two women named Shiphrah and Puah.  Those might not be names most of you recognize but their names are obviously important. They are named, even when the most powerful man isn’t. 

They defied the Pharaoh. Why? Because they feared God.   We don’t talk a lot about fear of God. It meant something different in this context then how we perceive it now.  It wasn’t necessarily about being afraid of what God might do.  It was about awe, reverence and respect.  We all connect with God in different ways.  When I pray, I think of Jesus, the more human and vulnerable aspect of God. But God is more than that. The God of the Old Testament had some vulnerable moments, but was mostly associated with awe, majesty and power. 

The midwives had a deep reverence for the God who created the heavens and the earth, the creator God. Because they respected this God of creation, they refused to help a corrupt king destroy God’s greatest act of creation—humans.   So when Pharoh called them before him, they simply explained that the Hebrew women just gave birth too quickly. By the time the midwife was called, it was too late.  The baby was already born and whisked away. The hilarious part of this explanation is the Pharoh obviously felt like he couldn’t argue with these women.  I mean…what did he know about childbirth? 

Later, church fathers like Augustine and Gregory the Great debated whether these women were lying.  If they were lying, then they were sinning and they were wrong to do so.   These church fathers went as far as to say that while these women were rewarded by God in this life, they would not be rewarded in the next life. About 1000 years later, Martin Luther (the man who had the courage to take on church corruption) wrote that these midwives were the model for living under the pressure of persecution because they disobeyed unjust orders.  Their lies were justified because they were meant to aid rather than injure.  Martin Luther (the great church reformer) understood more than most the courage it took to defy unjust rulers and why sometimes, it was necessary.

It wasn’t just the midwives that defied the unjust ruler’s orders.  There was also Moses’s mother.  She was rather crafty in how she defied the orders.  After the Pharoh was thwarted by the midwives, he told everyone to throw every Hebrew boy into the river. Moses’ mother carefully placed him in the river in a waterproof basket…in a place where he would likely be found.  

Another woman, the Pharaoh’s own daughter, chose compassion over cruelty when she found the baby boy in the basket.  She knew this was one of the babies who her father demanded be killed.  She defied him and drew him out of the river and raised him as her own.  At some point the Pharoh must have realized that this baby was one that he commanded be killed, but it would appear that even he could not tell his own daughter to kill a baby. It’s so much harder to oppress and kill when we don’t know the people who we are oppressing. 

What is interesting is that we hear no more of the Pharoh’s plan to kill the Hebrew boys.  For all we know, he gave up the plan because of the courage of the midwives, the sacrifice of a mother and the compassion of a daughter.  They all defied power in a different way and it changed history.  This is not to say that the Pharaoh was defeated in that moment.  He wasn’t. He continued to enslave the Hebrew people.  But he didn’t’ succeed in killing a whole generation of Hebrew boys.  Moses lived and went on to defy Pharaoh in a public and dramatic way.  He freed the Hebrew people. That would only be decades later.  As we know, change takes time.  Civil disobedience can be a very effective tool, but it’s not always the most efficient tool.

What we see from this reading is that practice of civil disobedience has Biblical precedence that goes back thousands of years, long before Jesus was killed by the Roman government, long before the Civil Rights movement.  There are political leaders today who eagerly quote Romans 13 which says, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed...”  Current political leaders like to use this line to show that loyalty to the government is our Christian duty. 

The thing we have to remember is that Paul was writing to a community in Rome…people living in one of the most powerful empires of all time.  He was mindful of what could happen when a faith community appeared to oppose the government itself and he discouraged that kind of wholesale opposition.  Yet we can see from our reading in Romans today, which is the chapter right before Paul encourages people to be subject to the governing authorities, he tells people, “not to be conformed to this world.”  That is the tricky position we are in as Christians.  We have to exist in this world and be responsible citizens, but we also can’t be conformed to the world. That means that like the midwives and the Pharaoh’s daughter we must try to discern not just what we think is best, but discern the will of a loving and compassionate God.

You might note that in this entire reading from Exodus, the only time that God directly intervenes is to reward the midwives who refused to follow Pharaoh’s orders.  That would appear to be very limited involvement.  Sometimes we are tempted to look around and observe whatever injustice might be currently plaguing our nation or world and wonder, where is God in this? When is God going to step in and fix this mess? In those moments, we would be wise to remember, that God works through us, the people of God.  God will inspire us, support us, maybe even reward us, but it’s up to us to do the work that requires compassion, love and sometimes a degree of disobedience.