Bold Worship: May 28, 2023

 Year A, Pentecost                                           Acts 2:1-21                                                                           

            It started as a simple chapel service at Asbury University on Feb 8^th, where the assistant soccer coach preached a sermon on Romans 12.  After he left the worship service he texted his wife and told her that the sermon was a “total stinker.”  He left, but about 20 students stayed to pray.  Some left, but more joined.  This turned into an 11 day non-stop worship service.    Asbury University is a Christian school in the town of Wilmore Kentucky, which has a population of 6,000. This 11 day worship service attracted tens of thousands of people.  At one time, there was a line ½ mile long to get into the university’s chapel.

            One of the things that enabled word to spread about this 11 day worship service was social medial platforms like Tiktok.  People came from across the country to witness what was happening.  It was on virtually every news outlet in print, online and on TV.  Many who learned about it were thrilled.  Given the constant news that we read and hear which tells us that young people, especially Generation Z, is moving away from faith and religion, it was inspiring and heart warming to see so many young people in one place lost in worship.  And if you look at the pictures of where they were worshipping, it’s a traditional church.  There weren’t big screens or flashy effects.  They had a band, but it wasn’t anything outrageous.  All in in all, it was traditional worship with singing, praying, preaching and testimonies.  

            Yet as you can imagine, there was also a fair share of naysayers, people who were skeptical.  This was not just coming from people who were not religious. It was coming from Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians…those of us who are a little more skeptical of worship that seems unstructured and spontaneous.  Many people decided that anything that reeks of a revival must be contrived.  People said it was emotional and spiritual manipulation. 

However, there was no money being made, no flashy celebrity preachers.  Once the administration of the school got organized, they decided not to let big name pastors and musicians come in and take over. They explicitly said, “There are no celebrities here, no superstars, except Jesus.”  Still the criticism came from all sides.  There were countless articles and blogs on how we could determine whether this was a real experience of God.  Could we only know based on what the outcome was---OR---is it about how it transformed the hearts and minds of those who attended?

            This all happened in February of this year.  I read a bit about it when it was happening, but hadn’t really thought about it much since.  However, as I was reading this lesson from Acts, I found some interesting similarities.   First of all, both of these outpourings of the spirit started because people were already gathered in a place, ready and willing to worship God.  The students were at a chapel service.   The disciples were gathered in prayer.  There was also a large group who had collected in Jerusalem, apparently right around where the disciples were.  These people were Jews from many different nations, who had come together for their own holy feast, the Jewish feast of Pentecost (we took their name.) In the Jewish faith, Pentecost marks the end of the spring harvest.  It was when people came together to present the first fruits of the harvest.  It was a time to praise God and show gratitude for all God had given. 

            The other similarity is the reaction that this spontaneous worship received.  In the Acts story of Pentecost, onlookers accused the disciples of being drunk on wine.  Peter had to start his speech by saying, “Indeed, these are not drunk as you suppose, for it’s only 9am in the morning.”   What a way to start a sermon.  No one accused the students at Asbury and those who eventually joined of being drunk.  But they were accused of spiritual and emotional manipulation.  People assumed their worship couldn’t possibly be genuine…that we would only know if it was a real revival if lives and communities were transformed.  I would love to know who gets to make that determination.

            Comparing these two events, 2,000 years apart, it makes me realize that it  doesn’t matter how you worship, someone is going to accuse you of not being genuine.  When Episcopalians go visit a church with screens and bands, they often will call it a performance.  When those who are not accustomed to traditional liturgy observe our worship, they see the liturgy as performative.  They observe us reading words out of our Book of Common Prayer or our service leaflet and conclude that we cannot possibly mean what we are saying because we are reading instead of praying from the heart.

It doesn’t matter what way we worship, someone somewhere will judge us.  It’s been happening for millennia and it will continue to happen.  Sometimes I think that awareness inhibits us from talking to others about our faith.  God forbid someone calls us a hypocrite.  God forbid someone thinks that we don’t know exactly what we are talking about.  Here’s how I think that we can know the Spirit was present at Asbury University 4 months ago and in Jerusalem 2000 years ago— they didn’t let the critics stop them.  They let the spirit dictate how they were worshiping, how long they were worshipping and in the case of Acts, what they sounded like when they worshipped.

We have been hearing about the Holy Spirit for a few weeks in our readings and I spoke about it in a two sermons.  In one I said that I wasn’t sure how I felt about the images that we use on Pentecost—images like fire and wind.  Because when Jesus described the Holy Spirit, it was by saying that it abided with us, it stayed with us, the people of God.  And wind and fire…they don’t usually stick around. 

However, I think there is a place for a Holy Spirit that presents itself with wind and fire. Why? Because, it’s public.  It’s in your face.  It’s unavoidable.  We love our subtle evangelism in the Episcopal Church.  We love to say that we don’t have to talk about faith because we let our actions show how and what we believe.  Actions are important.  But the thing about Pentecost Sunday is that it was all about a very public display of faith that came in words that all who attended could understand.  That is how the Holy Spirit showed up---with wind, fire, words, comprehension and then a sermon that summed it all up. 

Where will that wind and fire take you? I hope that it will give us all some boldness, not only in action, but in speech, that we need not be ashamed of who we worship, or how we worship—that we need not  be ashamed of how Christian we are or are not—that instead we can hold on to that Holy Spirit that abides with us and gives us strength…but that we can also  let the flames and winds of Pentecost embolden us as they did the first disciples and converts—that the wind might propel us out into our neighborhoods and workplaces so that we can be the Christians (in word and action) that God has called us to be.  Where will the wind and fire take you?  I don’t know?  I hope it takes you somewhere that needs God’s love and passion and then brings you back to be fed by the Holy Spirit once more.

The Holy Spirit is Super Glue: May 14, 2023

 Year A, Easter 6                                              John 14:15-21                                                               

            In one church I served, we had a dayschool and every week we had chapel for the 2-5 year olds.  It was tricky coming up with a way to teach the Bible to 2-5 year olds. I stuck with the Bible stories we often tell children—the parting of the Red Sea, the various miracles, and we sang “This little light of mine” frequently.  I shared this ministry with the rector.  One day I walked in to chapel and saw her with a flip chart and a diagram of the Trinity.  She was focusing on the Holy Spirit, but felt she needed to cover the Trinity in doing so. And while I still can’t help but laugh when I remember this flip chart and her effort to teach the Holy Spirit to this age group, I also have to give her a lot credit for trying to demonstrate it visually.  She knew that kids need visuals even more than adults.  And for all I know, a child’s mind might indeed understand the Holy Spirit more than adult’s mind.  But it also reminded me of how incredibly hard it is to explain the Holy Spirit.  And yet still, I am going to try to do it…

            Our reading today covers a small portion of what we call the farewell discourse.  Last week we heard the very first part, but it goes on for several chapters.  It’s called the farewell discourse because that sounds a lot better than, “the Long Goodbye.”  As I said last week, Jesus was trying to prepare his disciples for his death and resurrection and even their resurrection.  In doing so, he was preparing them for a life without him, or at least the bodily form of him—how they could carry on.  Not just carry on with their lives, but the message of Jesus as well.

            Over the course of this farewell, there are moments when Jesus was profoundly clear and moments when he was profoundly confusing.  What we hear today is a bit of a mix.  I want to focus on the very first part, which also happens to be the simplest part.  “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.  This is the Spirit of truth…You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”

The farewell discourse goes on for 3 chapters in the Gospel of John.  In our Gospel, it is presented as a very long speech…thus called a discourse.   However, it probably  wasn’t a long speech as much as it was a collection of sayings that Jesus provided for his disciples over a longer period of time.  Over the course of chapters 14 and 15, Jesus described the Holy Spirit, by describing the actions of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit will teach, remind, testify about Jesus and abide with the disciples. 

As we hear in this text today, this is the Spirit of truth.  Remember Jesus, just said, “I am the way, the truth and life.”  Having the Spirit of truth with them was another way to be connected to Jesus.  This is the Spirit that will sustain the disciples after Jesus has ascended to heaven.  This is the Spirit that abides with them, stays with them.

We don’t talk about the Holy Spirit much in the Episcopal Church, not unless it’s Pentecost.  And I think one of the reasons we don’t talk much about the Holy Spirit is because the Holy Spirit doesn’t have direct words for us that are laid out in the Bible.  The Holy Spirit is present throughout the Bible, but that presence comes in different forms and is thus more subtle. God the Father and God the Son both speak to us through the words of the Bible, but the Holy Spirit never actually speaks. 

In the Episcopal Church, we love words.  We worship using the Book of Common Prayer that was written over 500 years ago and has been honed over the centuries.  We don’t talk about the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit doesn’t speak to us in words, at least not words that have been recorded.  It speaks to us in action. 

The hardest part of losing someone, whether it is to death or something else, is the feeling of abandonment.  Jesus wanted to remove the sting of death, by removing that sense of abandonment. And he could do that, because he was Jesus.  He could do that because he was and is part of the Holy Trinity.  The Holy Spirit is about action, but to some extent it’s about inaction…it’s about what it doesn’t do.  The Holy Spirit never leaves us.

The primary time we talk about the Holy Spirit is Pentecost and that is a moment of drama.  There is wind and fire.  The Spirit descends in a way that the disciples cannot ignore.  Yet I have never particularly liked that description because it’s so beyond our experience.  It happened once and never happened again. Perhaps (and forgive me for disagreeing with centuries of tradition) it would be better if we talked about the Holy Spirit who doesn’t descend with fire and change the way everyone talks.  Instead, let’s talk about the Holy Spirit who refuses to abandon us…whose primary purpose is to be the very presence of Jesus Christ. 

When we picture the Holy Spirit, it’s with a dove, fire or wind.  Doves fly away. Fires burn and fade.  Wind sweeps through an area and then moves on.  Yet the word that Jesus uses for Holy Spirit is abide.  The Holy Spirit is like the super glue that we can never get unstuck. Have you ever gotten super glue on your body? That stuff will pull off your skin.  You need heavy chemicals to get that off.  But if you want to fix something, if you want to ensure that something sticks, well that is what you use. You can depend on super glue.

That is what I want and need from God, a God who I can depend on.  A God who will never leave my side, not even when I try my darndest to get rid of God, to ignore God…that God will never leave our side.  And that…that is the God I want and need.  I think that is the God that we all need.   Jesus told his disciples, “I will never leave you orphaned.”  Jesus promised that he would always be with us.  It’s a promise we wish we could require from so many in our lives, but it’s a promise we can only expect from Jesus.  We can expect it because it was a promise and Jesus…always keeps his promises.

 

           

Why are we shooting each other? April 23

 

Year A, Easter 3                                            Luke 24:13-35                                                             

         In the past week, there have been 4 incidents of people being shot for being in the wrong place and being a stranger.  The first was a 16 year old boy who knocked on the wrong door.  He was shot twice. The 2nd was a 6 year old and her father who went to retrieve a basketball that had rolled into someone’s yard.  The third was a young woman who drove into the wrong driveway. She died. The fourth incident involved two high school girls who accidentally got into the wrong car and were immediately shot.  One week.  One young woman killed and 5 injured for making a mistake that everyone of us has probably made.  How many of us have knocked on the door of the wrong house, drove into the wrong driveway, walked into someone’s yard to retrieve a ball or tried to open the door of a car that looked like yours? I have done all of those things.

These were all different areas of the country. The victims were all young, but that was really all they had in common.  The perpetrators all seemed to have little in common as well.  It seems to me that the only common denominator is fear, particularly fear of strangers. None of the victims were known to those who did the shooting. 

What I want to know is how we got to this point, where 4 different people thought the best thing to do was not simply ask a question and take 10 seconds to find out why the person was in the wrong place, but instead, shoot the people.  How did we get to this place? 

            One of the interesting things about the resurrection accounts is that the disciples of Jesus never recognized him, not at first.  He was always a stranger to them.  It is not clear as to why his closest friends and disciples didn’t recognize him.  Some hypothesize that it was a kind of post traumatic stress.  And that makes sense when you think about it.  Listen to what Simon and Cleopas told Jesus, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”  Jesus had been their chance at redemption and freedom and now he has been killed by the very people who he was supposed to free them from, the Romans.  They had hoped.  They had put all their hope in this man, and now he was dead. 

They were coping with two kinds of trauma—the violent death of someone who they loved and a lost hope.   Anytime someone we love dies, we experience a tremendous loss.  Sometimes that comes with losing hope—hope for a future with someone who is no longer living with us.  Yet Jesus had promised more than just a future with him, he had promised salvation and freedom. He had promised redemption and healing to all people.  When he was killed, people were terrified that all those promises were lost.  It was a trauma of epic proportions.  Embedded in trauma is fear, fear of what will happen next, knowledge that while we may have survived this trauma, we may not survive the next.  Fear is what made it so difficult to recognize Jesus—to believe that it could be Jesus.

On Easter, I talked about Mary Magdalene’s relative lack of fear. I hypothesized that she was able to handle her fear because of the afflictions she had coped with in her life. She didn’t recognize Jesus immediately, but it didn’t take her very long. It took longer for the men in our Gospel reading. I think these two men who met Jesus on the road had a little more fear than Mary did.  This is the first time we even hear their names, so they probably didn’t have as close a relationship with Jesus as Mary and the apostles.  And they were heading away from Jerusalem.  They were basically fleeing the scene.  They were scared. 

So it took them longer, longer to recognize Jesus, longer to remember that hope that they once had.  But they eventually did.  They did because they spent time with him, listened to him, got to know this man who they thought was a stranger.  The more time they spent with him, the less fear they had.  The reason they were able to overcome that fear was because hope was still there. They might have lost their hope for a time, but they never forgot it.  It was that foundation of hope that saved them.

To some varying degree, almost every person in our world is dealing with some  kind of trauma, which means that everyone is afraid.  Not only that, we have become isolated.  It was happening before the pandemic and then COVID made it that much worse.  We also have this wonderful 24 hours news cycle that seems to feed off of fear, which really isn’t helping matters. 

So what’s different now? Why are people so quick to shoot the stranger in front of them?  Part of it is because we have become isolated and it’s easy to avoid people who are different than us.  Many people are able to avoid interacting with anyone not like them. It’s also because fewer and fewer people have the foundation of hope that our faith gives us.  It’s one thing to deal with fear and loss when you have a foundation of hope and love.  It’s another thing to deal with that when you have no hope to begin with.  That is much more dangerous.

Everything that has happened over the last week (and the last several years) makes me angry. It makes me want to lash out and blame someone or something.  That is what a lot of people are doing. But that just feeds the fear and hopelessness.  Jon Meacham wrote: “Fear points at others, assigning blame; hope points ahead, working for a common good. Fear pushes away; hope pulls others closer. Fear divides; hope unifies.”

As people of faith, we cannot allow ourselves to fear the stranger and to blame the other.  We can’t isolate ourselves in our safe places of hope and comfort.  We have to share this hope that God has given us.  Because people are starving for hope in our world and that dearth of hope is killing people.  It is literally killing people.  What can we do?  We can stop blaming the other political party.  We can stop blaming “the other.” We can stop letting fear be our guide when we have a much better guide in Jesus Christ. 

Notice that Jesus walked with the disciples and they walked WITH him, even though they thought he was a stranger.  In the same way, we can start walking along others, even the people who may scare us a little.  I am not telling you to start knocking on strangers doors, but there are safe ways that you can get to know people who are different than you.  If you aren’t quite ready for that, try to talk to the people who you know—who you know but might not agree with, and talk about those things. We are so busy avoiding talking about things that upset us, but it means we are no longer able to understand where others might be coming from.  That means that even people we know are becoming strangers. 

One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 139.  Lord you have searched me and known me.  It’s all about the God who knows us so well because he formed our inward parts.  It’s a gift to be known and loved by God.  Being known by an all loving being is what gives Christians the strength to deal with trauma and pain. And guess what, it’s not just us who God knows.  God knows all his children.  So think about that the next time you see someone who makes you a little nervous, a little wary.  Remember they too are created in God’s image. For God, there are no strangers. 

The Wounds that Transform Us: April 9, 2023

 

Easter, Year A                                             John 20:1-18                                                                           

           Mary Magdalene wasn’t afraid.  She wasn’t afraid when she walked alone to the tomb in the dark…not when she realized that the stone had been rolled away, not when the two angels appeared out of nowhere…not even when a mysterious man approached her who she thought might just be the person who stole the body of Jesus.  She wasn’t afraid. Now you might be thinking, but how could you possibly know if she was scared since her emotions aren’t detailed in the text? That’s true.  But if you compare the 4 Gospels, you will see an interesting juxtaposition.  Matthew, Mark and Luke all have multiple women going to the tomb. John is unique in that it mentions only Mary Magdalene.  All 4 Gospels describe either angels or someone robed in white appearing to the women.  Matthew, Mark and Luke all say that the women were afraid or record the angels telling them not to be afraid. 

            This phrase (Do not be afraid) might be familiar to you, not just because of the Easter story, but because of the Christmas story.  When the angels appeared to share good news, they were always telling people not to be afraid.  This is a theme throughout the Bible, the appearance of an angel scares people.  Yet in John, it never says that Mary is afraid and the angels never tell her not to be afraid. Then when she sees the man who she doesn’t recognize, she doesn’t cower in fear, she demands an answer from him.  “Tell me where you have laid him.”  A woman alone with a strange man, even in this day would be intimidating.  But in Jesus’ time, it was downright terrifying for any number of reasons.

            There was a fierce courage to Mary of Magdela.  There have been a lot of misconceptions about Mary over the years.  Dan Brown made it significantly worse with the DaVinci Code.  She was not a prostitute nor was she a woman caught in adultery.  At some point, someone just conflated all the unnamed women in the Gospels to one woman and all of their gifts and sins got attributed to Mary of Magdela.  The only thing we know about her was that she was an early follower of Jesus.  She started following him after he cured her.  She was at the crucifixion, at the tomb and she was the first person to see the risen Christ.  So here is what I want to know, what gave her the courage to sit at the foot of cross and watch him die, then visit the tomb alone and then eventually spread the rather unbelievable news that he had risen?  I want to know because I want that courage.

            In order to find the source of that courage, we need to go back to the first time we hear about her, which was a very brief mention. She started travelling with Jesus and the disciples after Jesus cured her of seven demons.  At the time, people assumed someone who was possessed by demons was evil in some way. But more likely, the individual was tormented, not evil.  It could have any emotional illness that we now have terminology for.  It could have been extraordinary grief. It might have been a physical illness. Anyone who lives with that kind of affliction has to have some courage.

            Think about it— think about the time in your life that was the most difficult, the darkest time. I bet it was hard just to get out of bed.  And maybe you didn’t get out of bed that day, but you eventually did.  That required courage and faith.  This woman had that courage in spades, even before she was healed.  Yet once she was healed, she also had what seem like an unshakable faith, the faith that comes from living through hell and coming out the other side, the faith that comes from a personal encounter with Jesus.

            It was that faith and that courage that allowed to her to stay and watch her Lord and Savior die.  It was that faith and courage that propelled her to the tomb on that dark and lonely morning. Now I am not saying that her faith was absolute.  I almost started this sermon saying she was fearless.  I don’t think she was.   I believe she was resilient because she had to fight over the course of her life.  During her times of greatest pain and anguish, she was probably alone quite a bit, which meant going to a tomb alone didn’t scare her.  And once you’ve been the home of 7 demons, a couple of angels aren’t going to scare you either.  Facing those immense challenges in her life and then being healed by Jesus equipped her with the courageous faith that she would need to be a disciple and then an evangelist.

            Episcopalians don’t typically talk about demons, so this might be a leap, but I want you to think about your own demons.   Maybe change the word to affliction or burden.  It could be depression, anxiety, chronic pain, a disease, addiction….anything that inhibits you and keeps you from being the person that God has called you to be.  Some of these afflictions are with us a lifetime and some are temporary, but they all leave their mark in some way.  Usually we assume those marks make us less than, not good enough, not strong enough.  But if someone with 7 demons could become a disciple and an evangelist, why not you? 

            You might think, well yeah, but she was cured by Jesus.  She was free.  That’s true.  No doubt getting cured by Jesus gave her a bit of a head start.  Yet…I bet those demons—even exorcized demons— left their mark.  She never forgot them. She could either let that hold her back, or propel her forward.  Remember, even Jesus’ resurrected body still had scars.  We are all wounded in some way.  We are all tormented by something. What matters is how we let those afflictions and wounds change us.  Do we try to hide them?  Are we ashamed of them? Or do we give them over to God’s power and let them transform us into a more complete and beautiful version of ourselves?  Do we let them transform us into a beloved child of God?

            Someone once said that courage is telling the story of who you are with your whole heart.[1]  Being a disciple of Jesus, watching him die, and going to the tomb….all required courage. But I wonder, if the thing that really required courage was Mary telling the other disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” Because her story used to be that she was the woman possessed, that there was something wrong with her.  That she was broken.  But now…now she was the woman who had seen the Lord. 

Our faith gives us this gift.  It provides each one of us with the ability to change our story, transform our afflictions and wounds into something new and beautiful.   That gift is freely given.  Yet it is on us, to accept that gift and allow it to transform us—to live into the Easter message, that God can make all things new, even you and me.

             

---

[1] Brene Brown

Feet Can be Gross: Maundy Thursday

John 13: 1-17, 31b-35                                                             April 6, 2023

            Some people are weird about feet.  I have never been one of those people.  I can’t say that I get excited about foot washing, but it also doesn’t unnerve me as it does some people. However, there have been a few times in my life when the experience of having someone wash my feet was almost painful. Last year when I was in the hospital, I never got a shower. Because of the nature of the wound, they could not risk it.  I couldn’t put on the stupid hospital socks because I could not reach my feet, which meant I was walking barefoot. I was absolutely disgusting.   One night when I was complaining about my feet in particular, my husband offered to wash my feet. I said yes, but found myself overwhelmed and embarrassed by the experience (even though it was my husband of 17 years).  I felt conflicted in that I wanted clean feet, but allowing even my husband to touch my infected and gross feet was almost more than I could bear.  I wept as he washed my feet, and had to assure him that he wasn’t hurting me, these were different kinds of tears. 

              It wasn’t until that moment, that I fully appreciated the way that Peter must have felt when Jesus bent down before him with a basin of water and a towel. I am not saying I had the same emotions, but the intensity was similar.  In those days people wore sandals and the roads were not paved.  That meant that people often had dirty feet.  It was customary to have them washed before a meal or upon entering a home.  Typically the person who did the washing was a servant. If there wasn’t a servant, it was the woman of the house.

            There were all kinds of reasons why this action of Jesus should have confused and disturbed Peter.  His feet were actually dirty, a lot more dirty than his hands and his head (which he suggested Jesus wash).  And even if they were clean, it was still inappropriate for a man, any man to be doing this. Then when you add the fact that that wasn’t just any man, this was the Son of Man, the Messiah—well then things got really weird.  So Peter wasn’t too excited about what was about to be happen. 

            His reluctance is understandable, but the intensity of Peter’s reaction indicated something more than just discomfort.  It was fear.  What was the source of the fear? There are a lot of theories, as there often are.  Some think that Peter didn’t want Jesus to see that dirty, gross part of him. Perhaps it wasn’t just the physical dirt, but also weakness. Only a few verses later Jesus revealed that Peter would deny him.  I don’t think Peter knew that would happen, but perhaps, deep down, he knew he was capable of that.  And should he, a weak man, let an all-powerful God wash his feet? Peter was afraid that Jesus would see this weakness, which of course he did.         

            He didn’t need to be close enough to wash his feet to see the weakness. He had always known.  But he loved him anyways.  His love and his display of that love gave Peter strength---gave him enough strength to allow himself to be washed. Later that strength would fail him, but it would return after the resurrection.  Most of our weaknesses and sins are temporary.  We always have opportunities to redeem ourselves.

            The other thing that Peter feared was what this meant for Jesus.  This wasn’t merely an act of humility on Jesus’ part, this was an act of humiliation.  Between this action and all the comments Jesus had made about his impending death, Peter was afraid that this Jesus who seemed divine and otherworldly, might just die in one of the most humiliating ways possible.  But despite all those fears and questions that were rolling around in his brain and making it difficult for Peter to let his guard down and receive this gift of love---despite all of that, Peter allowed Jesus to humiliate himself in front of him. He allowed Jesus to see the ugliness of his feet, the weakness of his faith.

            In the Episcopal Church, we emphasize the importance of the last supper and communion.  Every Sunday we say these words that come from our reading in 1^st Corinthians and from Matthew, Mark and Luke: "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me." And "Drink this, all of you: This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."  Yet on the night we focus on the story of the Last Supper, we read from the Gospel of John, which doesn’t include these words.  In John, Jesus never presents bread and wine as his body and blood.  Instead, John tells the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.  Jesus then tells them that he has set an example in the washing of the feet and they should do likewise.  Yet we only do it once a year and many churches never do it.

            I did some research and tried to figure out why this was and I could not find anything except from a few people who said that we really didn’t need to wash feet anymore since we wear shoes and bathe regularly.  But I think what it really comes down to is that it’s too intimate.  It requires too much humility and humiliation.  When I was in the hospital, I actually needed my feet washed, but that made it that much worse. It’s so hard to let someone see a part of you that you are not comfortable with. Yet in the end, it was probably one of the most beautiful moments I’ve had with my husband.  Of all the amazing things people did for me when I was ill, that was when I felt most loved and it actually hurt a little, to receive love when I felt weak and unlovable. 

            Jesus told his disciples that everyone would know they were his disciples by how they loved one another.  I think the part of love we can often overlook is how we receive the love of others and of God.  It can be challenging to receive love because it makes us so incredibly vulnerable and no matter how much we talk about it, we still don’t like to be vulnerable.  The beautiful thing about the practice of washing feet is that it forces us to be vulnerable, which is why I encourage you to try it.  I know that many of you won’t.  That’s ok.  It might be too far out of your comfort zone.  If you don’t, I want you to think about ways you can receive God’s love and the love of others.  Consider what might be stopping you from opening yourself to that love and acceptance. Pray about it and then find some small way you can move out of your comfort zone, because in a way, that is what our faith does.  It’s constantly pushing us beyond what we are comfortable with.  That’s what Jesus did for his disciples and that is what he continues to try to do for us. 

Claim the Spirit: March 26, 2023

Year A, Lent 5                              Ezekiel 37:1-14                                                            

           Some of you may know that our lectionary rotates on a cycle.  That means that our readings repeat every three years.  So the readings we heard today were last heard in March of 2020.  Now this will shock you, but I don’t usually remember what I preached three years ago.  Sometimes I don’t remember what I preached 2 weeks ago.  But when I looked at this reading from Ezekiel, I thought, I definitely preached this three years ago.  I didn’t remember it word for word, but I remembered those dry bones. 

            When I preached the Ezekiel sermon 3 years ago, it was to a mostly empty church and a video camera.  We were about 2 weeks into our national quarantine.  I think it was around the time we realized this was going to last more than 2 weeks, but we had no idea we would be dealing with this for years. I reread the sermon from 3 years ago as I was preparing today’s and I thought, man, that was kind of depressing.  In my defense, it was a depressing time.  It’s amazing how different these words from Ezekiel look three years later.

            Ezekiel was a priest and prophet who lived about 500 years before Jesus was born.  He lived in a critical time--- when the majority of the Hebrew people were forcibly exiled to Babylon.  He was one of the people exiled.  The primary audience for the reading we heard today were the people who were displaced, cut off from their homeland for generations.  They were people who would not live to see their homes.  They would die in a foreign land.  Some of their descendants might return, but many would not. The exile lasted approximately 70 years.   

            When I preached this text 3 years ago, I identified with those displaced people.  At the time, we all knew what it was to be cut off from family, friends and our faith community.  I identified with the bones who spoke near the end of our reading.  They said, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”  But here is the thing about this dramatic and vivid reading.  It’s not about the bones or even about what the bones represent—which is the Hebrew people who were displaced.  It’s not even about the prophet Ezekiel. It’s about what God can do for these bones. 

What God can do for these bones is the impossible, or at least the thing that should be impossible.  God can bring new life to these dried up, displaced, utterly hopeless bones.  God will not only give them new life, God will bring them back to Israel, back to their home.  This reading isn’t just about new life, it’s about homecoming and how closely homecoming and life is connected. 

            One of the things that initially drew me to St. John’s was the history, primality through the lens of one our historians Jim Tormey.  We know that this church was founded in 1610 and some assume that there was a fairly smooth trajectory from then to now. Of course that’s not true. There were some rocky times in the 1600s and 1700s, but I want to talk mostly about the period between 1780 and 1880. 

            After the American Revolution, the church faced significant financial hardship as the British were no longer supporting us financially.  We could not even afford a minister.  By the time the War of 1812 came, the church was in a free fall and the building had deteriorated.  Unfortunately the British then took up residence in the church during the Battle of Hampton and by the time they left, the church was intact, but barely.  It was virtually ruined. Fortunately the people of the church rallied and rebuilt.  By 1830 they were whole again.  By 1840, they had 30 communicants and that doubled by 1860. 

However, it was short reprieve because the Civil War had a huge impact on the church.  The rector reported in 1861, “Congregation broken up, some families are gone, we fear, to return no more.”  That was three months before the whole town was burned.  It would be 10 years before the church was habitable again.  Between 1780 and 1880, there were 3 periods of near hopelessness within and outside these walls, 3 periods of time that people were convinced the church would never survive—after the revolution, after the War of 1812, and after the Civil War.  3 times when the church was a pile of stones, dry bones. Yet each time, the people rallied and rebuilt.   They met in different buildings, often without a priest.  They never gave up.  In 1890, 20 years after they rebuilt the church for the 2^nd time, there were 230 communicants, which is pretty close to what we have now.   

            I could point you to about 100 articles on what COVID has done to our churches.  Many people have hypothesized that churches will never recover from this.  And there are moments, I feel this too.  But then I remember the story of St. John’s Church and the story of the whole Christian Church.  I remember what God told Ezekiel at the end of our reading: “you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act.”

            I bet this story from Ezekiel would have worked just as well if there was just one skeleton rather than a valley of bones.  I mean, just brining one skeleton to life would have made the point that God can do whatever God wants.  So why a valley?  Was it purely for dramatic purposes?  No. There was a valley of bones because this story isn’t about how God breathes new life into individuals, it’s about how an entire community can be resurrected.

            Today the buildings and grounds of St. John’s are in great shape, thanks to volunteers, staff, the generosity of each of you, and our endowments.  However, that doesn’t mean that our community doesn’t need God’s spirit.  It doesn’t mean that we don’t have rebuilding to do.  And it’s not just because of the pandemic, it’s because the church as a whole has become complacent and comfortable.  The pandemic accelerated what was already happening.  The church has been declining since the 1970s. But it’s only become obvious in the last 10-20 years.  We can blame the decline on any number of things, but I think what it comes down to is that people who don’t know the church don’t perceive it as relevant.  To them, it’s just a bag of dead bones.  It’s dead.

It’s up to us, to convince them that it’s not dead—that we are still alive.  And we can’t do that by trying the latest greatest fad. I think it’s quite simple actually.  We need to start believing what we say on Sundays.  We need to believe that if God can resurrect a valley of dry bones, if Jesus Christ can rise from the dead after 3 days, if this church can live through three wars and still thrive…then we too can claim that the spirit of God lives in this place.  Because that spirit of God never left us, not once.  But the spirit of God needs the people of God to rise up and not just reclaim what we had, but claim what we have never had, bring new life into this beautiful old church.

If you are wondering how that happens, it’s all about participation, not just in worship, but it a lot of different parts of the church.  Soon we will be looking for volunteers for an initiative called Invite, Welcome and Connect—which is all about bringing new life into the church. If this church can recover from 3 wars in its church yard, surely we can rise up and claim the spirit once again.

 *All historical information about the church from How Firm a Foundation by Jim Tormey.

Keep Talking: March 12, 2023

Year A, Lent 3                                    John 4:5-42                                                                             

            Three strikes.  The woman in our Gospel reading for today had three strikes against her—three good reasons for Jesus to avoid her.  First, she was a woman.  Men and women who were not related didn’t interact, especially if they were alone. It would have been scandalous for a man, especially a rabbi to have an extended conversation with a woman he had just met.  Second, she was Samaritan.  The Jews and Samaritans didn’t get along—they hadn’t gotten along for centuries.   It was unusual for a Jew even to be in an area populated by Samaritans.  Third, she was not married and had 5 husbands in her past.  Some have described her as a harlot of even a prostitute, but let’s remember that women didn’t have the right to divorce their husbands at this time.  If she had 5 husbands, it was because they died or they divorced her, probably because she was barren.  Regardless of the reason she had gone through 5 husbands, she would still have been judged harshly by the people in her community. 

Any one of these reasons would have been a good enough reason for Jesus to avoid her. Instead, he engaged in a rather lengthy theological dialogue.  In all the Gospels, in all the recorded conversations that Jesus ever had with anyone, this was the longest.  Why? Was he just passing time until the disciples returned?  Of course not, if John felt this was important enough to include in the Gospel, then this conversation had a purpose.  It meant something—not just for the woman and Jesus, but for the people in the new Christian community, for whom the Gospel of John was written.

It starts with a simple request on the part of Jesus.  He’s sitting by a well in the heat of the day and he is thirsty.  So he asks the woman with the bucket if he could have some of her water. Seems like a perfectly natural and reasonable request.  She is shocked by this request because Jews and Samaritans didn’t share things and why in the world is this man sitting by a well without a bucket. (It’s not like there was a hose attached.)

And then, because this is the Gospel of John and John likes to use symbols as much as possible, Jesus starts talking to the woman about living water.  Now you might remember that just last week, in the chapter before this one, Jesus tried to have a similar conversation with a learned Pharisee named Nicodemus.  That conversation was much shorter because Nicodemus either didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand what Jesus was saying.  However this woman, who would not have had the education of Nicodemus or the confidence that would be required to converse with a man like Jesus— this woman engages with Jesus.  When Jesus starts talking about living water she asks how she can get this water instead of dismissing the idea.  When she thinks she understands what it means, she asks him for the water.  This is an extraordinarily brave dialogue for a woman with little social standing and probably considerable shame to have with a man like Jesus.

Then Jesus asks something rather peculiar, at least to my ears.  He asks her to get her husband and then come back.  Now, if I was in her situation, I think I would have just said, “Sure, I will do just that.” Then I would have just not come back.  I mean really, what does she owe this stranger? He doesn’t need to know anything about her personal life.  Either she wasn’t as ashamed as most women in this period would have been or she could tell Jesus was special and she wanted to continue the conversation.  She responds with a statement of her own, one that spoke to the difference between the Samaritans and the Jews. She points out that they worshipped at different places.  Some people think that she was just trying to change the subject, that he had gotten a little too personal and it was better to delve into theological differences instead of her marital history.

But I think that when Jesus reveals what he knew of her she could tell that he wasn’t just any man…not only because he knew something he had no reason to know, but because it doesn’t seem to bother him.  It doesn’t end the conversation.  He doesn’t judge her the way others might have.. because perhaps he sees her for what she is, not a cast off wife of 5 husbands, but a child of God who wants to know more about God.  She does the thing that Nicodemus (a supposed man of God) could not do.  She continues the conversation.  She allows herself to be known by this holy man she didn’t quite understand.  And in return, Jesus revealed himself as the God he is.

He speaks the word that eventually gets him killed.  “I am he.”  Literally translated, “I am.”  This is how God refers to Godself in the Old Testament.  When Moses asks God to tell him his name, God responds with, “I am.”  This became the name of God, the name that cannot be pronounced.  At this time, to say the name of God would be blasphemy.  Thus Jesus reveals to this woman the greatest and most dangerous truth of all.  He bears his own soul, which is what allows her to open herself to him and to start believing in him.

How do we know she now believes? Remember this is the Gospel of John and symbols matter.  She leaves the well, but also leaves her water jar. Most people only had one water jar.  It was the only way to collect water. Without it, she would die of thirst.  So either she was coming back or she understood more about this living water thing than most give her credit for.  Or maybe it was both.

She returned to the town, to the people who probably had all judged her for going through 5 husbands and told them, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”  She still isn’t sure.  You can tell by the way she asks the question.  She is expecting a negative response.  Yet she also knows that there is something there, something worth sharing. 

She is the first person in the Gospel of John to spread the news about Jesus.  She is the first evangelist. And guess what, many came to believe because of her message.  It wasn’t just her message.  Her message led them to Jesus and he ended up being the one who convinced them.  That’s how evangelism works. 

We introduce people to Jesus and Jesus does the rest of the work. Sometimes I think people assume that they have to be secure in their faith and be outstanding Christians before they can possibly pass on the good news of Jesus Christ.   Yet this woman, this very first evangelist, still had questions when she passed on the news.  She also had passion and excitement.  Maybe that is what we are missing more than assurance.  We have forgotten what it is to be excited about what Jesus has to tell us and teach us.  It’s possible we never had that excitement.

 I think it’s harder to get excited about your faith when you been in it most of your life. We also don’t have the benefit of a face to face conversation with Jesus. That doesn’t mean all hope is lost for those of us who can’t meet Jesus at a well. It just means that we have to try a little harder.  We have to keep having the conversations with God and also having the conversations with others about God.  This Samaritan woman came to know Jesus through questions and conversation.  It wasn’t a miracle or a revelation. 

Perhaps that is the exciting part—we don’t need to wait for miracles or revelations in our faith journey.  No, we just get in there and talk to God.  We talk to God, we worship God, we serve God’s people and we talk to God some more. It’s not always fun or exciting.  Sometimes it can even feel a little dull.  That’s ok.  They key is that you never stop talking to God, never stop asking the hard questions and never be afraid to show your true self to God.    The more of ourselves we can share with God, the more God will share with us.