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.