Peace be with you

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, TX.
The lectionary readings for the Second Sunday of Easter are here.

Peace be with you.

I would really like for today to be known as Peace Sunday rather than doubting Thomas Sunday. I think Thomas has gotten a bad rap. We tend to only remember him for asking for the same assurance the other disciples received and forget that not long before this when Jesus wanted to go to Bethany because of Lazarus, most of the disciples reminded Jesus that folks there wanted to kill him. Thomas was the one who said, “let us go, too, so that we may die with him.”

And here, in our reading today, Thomas wants nothing more than to see again the one he was willing to die with. We aren’t told why Thomas wasn’t with them as they were gathered in the locked house on the day of the Resurrection. Perhaps it was his turn to go get supper, or he was taking a walk to clear his head, or scouting out the talk of the marketplace to see what everyone was saying about Jesus’ death. His world had been toppled – the one who had promised so much had been murdered by the temple leaders and Roman authorities. Imagine his shock and utter dismay when he returns and the other disciples tell him he’s missed seeing Jesus. Imagine how you would respond.

Thomas’ stubbornness is fueled not by doubt but by the sadness that he’s missed out on something so very important – seeing Jesus risen.

And when Jesus does return, he doesn’t condemn Thomas but reminds him to trust in all that he has taught him. What we translate into English as ‘doubt’ is the negative form of the word we translate as faith, but doubt isn’t the opposite of faith, faithlessness is. Faith is trusting God’s promises, God’s way of life, relying on God’s peace in the chaos of this world even when we can’t see or understand what God is up to. The opposite of faith is denying God’s way and making our own plan to get what God has promised. It is Adam and Eve picking the one thing God said don’t touch; it is Sarah telling Abraham to have a child with her maid; it is James and John asking for the seats right next to God and the disciple attacking the guard who came to arrest Jesus. The opposite of faith isn’t doubt but forgetting or denying God’s faithfulness.

Doubt is a healthy part of our working out our own beliefs. Doubt leads us to ask questions, to consider what we believe and why so that we can be more and more confident and have greater trust in God. Mark tells the story of Jesus healing a boy and his father says to Jesus, “Lord, I have faith. Help my lack of faith.” Each moment we make the choice to trust God our faith is strengthened. It grows like Love: the more we have, the more we have. And it is the peace of God that enables this growth of trust, of faith, of love.

So, instead of zeroing in on the word ‘doubt’ I want us to focus on the word ‘peace.’ Each time Jesus enters the locked house, he begins with “Peace be with you”. This peace isn’t simply the absence of conflict, it isn’t a passivity that ignores conflict and chaos, it is the intentional working toward justice, security, and harmony for all as we, with God’s help, confront chaos and conflict with love.

And when John tells us that Jesus breathed on them and said “receive the Holy Spirit” the disciples would have thought immediately about the story of creation – the Spirit of God breathing across the waters to bring order to the chaos. Jesus is giving them what was promised, new life – life in God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven. Life grounded in our relationship with God so that all of our relationships are made holy. A new life in which we trust in God’s faithfulness to be with us always, to love us unconditionally, to fulfill the promise to restore all things some day.

Just a few nights before this, at their last meal together before his arrest, Jesus said to them, “Peace I leave, my peace I give to you. I give to you not as the world gives. Do no be troubled or afraid.”

The peace that Jesus gives is a never ending resource to protect our hearts and souls as we proclaim the Good News with all that we think, say, and do. It is the very foundation of who and Whose we are and our sustenance as we journey with Jesus in the Way of Love. It is what we bring to the hurting and chaotic world around us, trusting in God’s promise to both be with us and to restore the Kingdom. Peace is like all blessings, God offers it to us so that we can offer it to others.

The world tells us that we must be afraid, that we will only be at peace when we defeat our perceived enemies – or at least really shame or belittle them on social media. Jesus says that true peace comes from loving our enemies so that we see them as our neighbors. The world says our anger can only be satisfied with retaliation and revenge. Jesus says peace comes with reconciliation, seeing the image of God in everyone so that we remember we are all children of God. The world says with enough power or wealth life will be easy or good. Jesus says love is the only path toward true peace. The world says we must look out for ourselves and take what we want without regard to the needs of others because everything is scarce. Jesus reminds us we are created for relationship and community and we are whole and holy when we are other-focused instead of self-centered and that all that we need in in abundance in God’s Kingdom.

Every time we gather in worship, we offer each other God’s peace. It is a bridge from hearing God’s word and praying to receiving the risen Jesus in the bread and wine at the Table. In this simple phrase we both give and receive. We are saying that if there is anything I’ve done to disrupt God’s peace in you, I’m sorry. We are saying that as a community of Jesus’ followers we are at peace in God’s plan and purpose even when we can’t see the next step. We are saying that all that we are and all that we do is because we know God is faithful, always. We are saying that we are in this kingdom journey together with God’s help.

Bishop Desmond Tutu said, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

Nijay Gupta is a New Testament seminary professor who wrote a book titled 15 New Testament Words of Life says this about Peace: “When the boat of life is really rocking, we ought to cling to the God of peace who sent Christ and the Spirit to buoy us…. [and] we must … find out what is rocking the boat. We have a God-given responsibility to make the seas and the boat a safer place for others. That requires us to roll up our sleeves and do something about the problem.”*

Peace is the fulcrum on which our life rests. In peace, we are equipped to live in the world in such a way that others will experience the risen Jesus in and through us. In the presence of Jesus, Thomas no longer needed what he claimed would convince him. We aren’t told he actually touched Jesus’ wounds before he submitted to Jesus. The signs and wonders that John writes about are given to us so that we are reminded of God’s faithfulness, God’s presence with us always, so that we might have new life in the name of Jesus. The peace that Jesus gives us, the peace of God, is what “enables us to face the many difficulties and challenges of life with resilience and fortitude”* as we journey in this new life together with God’s help.

Peace be with you. Amen.

*Nijay Gupta, 15 New Testament Word of Life, Zondervan, 2022

Impact

A sermon preached for the Great Vigil of Easter at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, TX
The lectionary readings for the Vigil are here.

Every preacher wants their Holy Week sermons to have a big impact on those who hear them. This is high season for us – the week we remember the events that make the foundation of all that we proclaim. How do we talk about all of this in a new way so that lives are changed! It’s a lot of pressure.

And while pondering what my high impact sermon would say, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts and Andy Crouch* was talking about an article he had written about the use of the word “impact” in church circles. He explained that in the mathematical world that Impact is calculated as force over time – the bigger the force and the shorter the time, the greater the impact. He illustrates this by clapping his hands together – when we bring our hands together with a lot of force quickly, we make a loud noise and if we sustain high impact clapping for very long, our hands begin to hurt. High impact – big force in a short time – is jarring and disruptive and can be painful.

The events that we remember as we journey through Holy Week are high impact – the crowds went from praising and honoring Jesus to shouting “crucify him” in just a few days. The religious and political leaders fueled the fervor of the crowds for their own benefit and gain. The disciples shifted from swearing they’d never deny Jesus to running away and hiding. It is all fast paced, aggressive, and violent.

And yet, throughout the history of the Israelite people and with all that Jesus said and did, the message was clear: life in God’s Kingdom is about slow growth. God promised Abraham and Sarah a son and descendants in the thousands and took years and generations to fulfill the promise. God promised Moses and the Israelites the Promised Land and led them on a 40 year journey to get there. God sent the Israelites into exile and told them to build homes, grow gardens, raise families, and help their communities thrive where they were. God promised a Messiah and instead of coming as a Goliath sized grown man chose to be born into this world as an infant who lived 30 years before beginning his public ministry.

God promises to set this world right, to bring about justice and peace, and asks us to live as if this has already taken place without fretting about how long it is taking. Jesus teaches us to pray for our daily needs each day so that we can live on earth as in heaven. When we live on earth as in heaven, we will seek justice and be peacemakers; we will love God and our neighbors the way Jesus loves; we will serve and let others serve so that as a community of Jesus followers, also know as the body of Christ, we participate with God in bringing about God’s Kingdom.

Occasionally, rarely, yes, God chooses high impact moments – the pivotal moments in the history of our faith, the freeing the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, the Resurrection. But these are God acting, not our instructions for us even if we were capable of these miraculous moves.

What Jesus shows us in flesh and blood are the low impact actions of our day to day living on earth as it is heaven. Jesus uses the metaphors of planting seeds and yeast in dough to describe how we are to live in God’s Kingdom. The slow growth that is germinated with foot washing-like care of each other, feeding the hungry, healing the hurting, having compassion on those who suffer, offering kindness to a stranger are gentle forces that take time. Changing our hearts and minds to be like that of Jesus is a life-long journey whatever age we are when we begin it.

Our impact in this world isn’t to come from forceful power but through relationships. Jesus shows us that real power isn’t picking up a weapon to attack our enemies but healing those harmed by the violence of this world – even when the one wounded is our enemy.

As the women encounter Jesus on the morning of his resurrection, he tells them to not be afraid, to go to Galilee and he will meet them there and that others will see him there. What is Galilee for us? In our community, neighborhood, stores, restaurants, offices, hospitals, anywhere and everywhere that God’s children live and work and play, we have the opportunity to both see Jesus in others and allow others to see Jesus in us.

Jesus meets us in the every day moments of our life, in loving, liberating, life-giving relationship. Like seeds grow up through the soil, like yeast grows in the dough, the love of Jesus is a gentle germinating love that offers us the freedom to not be afraid because we know that wherever we are, Jesus is walking ahead of us to lead us in the Way of Love.

Jesus sets us free from the need to always have the answer because when we look for him, he is there to show us how to love well.

Bishop Micheal Curry says that we are called to be “agents and instruments of God’s reconciliation, letting the world know there is a God who loves us and who will not let us go.” But before we can proclaim that, we have to believe it for ourselves. Do you know that God loves you? Do you trust that God will never let you go? This is the very good news of God’s Kingdom. You don’t have to figure out how to earn God’s love or God’s favor. You don’t have to wonder if you are good enough, if you matter to God. You are and you do. Without condition or caveat.

Jesus didn’t end his relationship with the disciples because they hid in fear. He didn’t condemn them or cast them out. He showed up for them, fed them, walked with them, waited for them. And he does the same for you with the same invitation: Follow me.

We don’t have to figure out how to have high impact on the world. We just have to follow Jesus, loving God, our neighbor, and ourselves with the confidence – the faith – that there is enough love, compassion, and kindness for all of God’s children.

Knowing this, trusting this, believing this is the point and purpose of all of God’s impactful acts we celebrate this week. God impacts us and this world so that we can follow Jesus in peace and hope every day. Amen.

*Good Faith podcast, April 1, 2023

Love looks like Foot-washing

A sermon preached on Maundy Thursday at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The lectionary readings are here.

Love. I preach about it a lot. Presiding Bishop Micheal Curry is often heard to say, “If it’s not about Love, it’s not about God.” John writes in his first letter that God is Love. Jesus says that Love is how others will know we are his followers.

But before we get to that part of today’s reading, I want to start with the end at the beginning, or at least what John says about Jesus loving to the end: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

The Greek word translated ‘the end’ is telos and when it is translated as ‘the end’ to our 21st century minds, it could mean the conclusion of something but that would mean that at some point Jesus’ love stops. A better understanding of telos is “fulfillment or purpose or complete”. The Common English Bible translations says “he loved them fully” which I think helps avoid any misconception that love has an end point or that love is the means to some end.

Jesus said he came to fulfill God’s law and then gave us his summary of that law: Matthew, Mark, and Luke all give us Jesus words as “Love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself.” John simplifies Jesus command a bit, saying “love one another just as I have loved you.”

Love is the telos, the fulfillment, the purpose, the point, the aim of our following Jesus. And so just how does Jesus love?

On his last evening with his closest friends, knowing what was to come, Jesus gives us a flesh and blood example of this love by washing their feet. All of their feet, even knowing that Judas would betray him, Peter would deny him, and all of them would run away. The point of the footwashing wasn’t to reward those who were extraordinary but to provide an example of what it looks like to really submit to this Way of Life, this Way of Love.

John focuses in on Peter & Jesus’ exchange as Peter realizes what it is that Jesus is going to do. Peter starts to refuse Jesus this act of service. Why on earth would their leader do such a degrading thing? The example that Jesus is giving is that love looks like washing AND being washed. It goes both ways. When the disciples asked Jesus about feeding the crowds, he told them to feed them. Jesus gave the disciples instructions for how to prepare for the passover and then let them do it. Jesus asked the disciples to pray with him in his most vulnerable moment.

To submit to this Way of Life means both that we serve others but also that we let others serve. If I don’t let others serve me as I serve, I am not allowing them to follow Jesus fully. If I have to be the one that does “it all” I am not making room for others to walk along side me as we journey with Jesus; I am expecting them to follow me as I follow Jesus.

Jesus tells Peter, that unless we allow our selves to be washed, we have no share with him. We have to set our egos aside and say not only do we need Jesus but we need each other. I am of no higher rank that any of you. The first shall be last and the last shall be first takes away any ranking at all in God’s Kingdom. We like to see it as a reversal of the line order but what it actually does is take the line out all together.

In God’s Kingdom, there is always an abundance of love and compassion and kindness. We don’t have to divvy it out like pie. We don’t have to be afraid that others will get it and there won’t be any left for us. We don’t have to survey our place in line to see who is ahead and who is behind us. We are on this journey together.

John doesn’t give us much of Judas’ story, just that he would betray Jesus. If you were here this past Sunday, we read Matthew’s version of what Judas did and you may remember me asking y’all to ponder why we define Judas by the worst thing he did but we don’t do the same with Peter. Both repented, regretting what they had done. Both attempted to make amends.

Peter was able to return to the community of the disciples and step back into loving relationship, setting aside his ego to make room for Holy Spirit to transform his heart and mind. For reasons unknown to us, Judas was not able to do the same. Perhaps he encountered some of the disciples after they scattered and they wouldn’t accept him. Perhaps his internal shame was so great that he couldn’t even face the others and never attempted to return. Either way, their actions were based on a limited supply of love. They stopped for a time relying on God’s love which is always in abundance.

And, I seriously doubt that Peter just slid right back into the groove without grumbling if not outright accusations from the others. Why were the disciples able to reconcile their relationship with Peter but not Judas?

Even 2000+ years later, we struggle to reconcile what Judas did and barely give a thought to what Peter did. Why are we able to offer grace and compassion to Peter and not Judas?

We aren’t given the details of either Peter’s or Judas’ motivation for why they did what they did. But we do have the stories handed down to us so that we can ponder our own motivation. What would we do in their place? How do we respond to Jesus? How would we have treated Peter and Judas?

Do we believe that being in relationship with each other is more important than our own egos? Do we believe that love as Jesus loves, is worth it even when inconvenient or difficult?

Way back on Ash Wednesday some of you asked me about whether or not you should wipe the ashes off your forehead as you left. I offered you the same advice I was once given – that if you want to leave it on, ask yourself why and then wipe it off; and if you want to wipe it off, ask yourself why and then leave it on.

As we move on to the footwashing, I offer the same advice, metaphorically speaking, because I want to be clear, no one is required to come forward for this. It can be traumatic and uncomfortable for some. Jesus offers this act as an example only.

We will end this evening in a cliff hanger – concluding communion with stripping the Altar and leaving in silence without a blessing or dismissal. Over these next days as we wait for the Resurrection, ponder of all the ways you serve and consider your own motivation. Are you doing it out of love or guilt? Are you seeking to bring glory to God or yourself? Are you trying to appear humble or are you living humbly with all who are on this journey with you? Do you want others to see you or to see Jesus in what you do? Are you allowing others to follow Jesus along side you or do you prefer that others follow behind you as you lead the way following Jesus? Ponder your motivation for doing what you do then ponder what love is leading you to do. It is through Love that we see Jesus and enable others to see him, too. Amen.

The Plot

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The lectionary readings for Palm Sunday are here.

Every year on Palm Sunday, come time for the sermon, I always feel like I’ve got whiplash. We’ve gone from praising to persecuting in less than 30 minutes! Time was that the Sunday before Easter was only about the triumphant entry into Jerusalem but somewhere along the way someone decided to offer up a Holy Week reduction alongside the Palms to give us a taste of Holy Week without having to dwell on the ugliness too much before donning the bonnets and baskets of Easter Sunday, but you can’t have resurrection without there first being death.

Now y’all know I’m not a liturgical perfectionist, although I do think we should always give it our best efforts, AND I do confess that I think there’s such a thing as “too much church.” But before you go calling the bishop to tell stories, let me explain. The point and purpose of us gathering together in intentional and formational worship is so that what we do in here shapes all that we think, say, and do, out there and I think we can use what we do in here as a way to avoid out there. If we think following Jesus is only about showing up in here and doing this perfectly, we’ve lost the plot. AND, I also think that skipping from Palm Sunday to Easter with just a polite nod to what happens in between is a disservice to our journey with Jesus. Now you can call the bishop.

When we domesticate the events we journey through this coming week, we miss out on their power to challenge us, to grab hold of us and prepare us to live well in the hope and salvation of God’s Kingdom on earth. These stories are given to us to shape our daily lives, the ups and downs, in and outs of our here-and-now. These stories are the foundation of our identity and community as Followers of Jesus*.

We give literal, physical movement to our worship, every Sunday but in particular in our worship during Holy Week so that we remember that we are a part of God’s Story, participants, not passive observers. We participate in the dramatic reading of Jesus’ arrest and trial so that we can experience ourselves as each of the original participants.

It’s easy and comfortable to keep our distance, shield our eyes, and say “oh, I’d never do that.” Peter swore he’d never do it either. When we speak the words of betrayal, denial, and condemnation in our readings, we experience what it feels like to realize we have put money before relationship, put our own comfort, our own status before the life of another and said, “I don’t know him, crucify him, let him save himself.”

We deny Jesus every time we do something counter to all that Jesus teaches, when we live transactionally rather than relationally, when we treat other people as less than image bearers of the Creator, when we use religious ritual or doctrine to exclude rather than to invite others into the Kingdom.

We all deny Jesus in various ways each and every day. And here’s the Good News – God knows we do and God loves us. God knows we are not perfect and God doesn’t expect us to be. God knows and offers the gift of forgiveness and restored relationship, every single time we return. It is in our returning that we are transformed.

Jesus knew that Peter would deny him and he still called him the rock of the church. We are no better or worse than Peter. Jesus knew Judas would betray him and he called him to be a disciple, ate with him, washed his feet. We are no better or worse than Judas.

And a quick aside to ponder – why do we define Judas by the worst thing he did but we don’t do the same with Peter. Both repented, regretting what they had done. Both attempted to make amends. Peter changed his way of thinking, he set aside his own ego to make room for Holy Spirit to shape and transform his heart and mind. We aren’t told why Judas wasn’t emotionally able to do the same but I believe that Judas, in his despair, was still loved by God, even if his own community wasn’t able to love him any longer; even if he was no longer able to love himself. We’ll talk more about this on Thursday. So now you have to come back, right?

The culmination of Jesus’ work isn’t the denial or the cross but the resurrection – new life, restored life, reconciled life with the God who loves us. This journey of Holy Week is to enable us to step into the story as the disciples and the crowds and the religious leaders experienced it. We grow not when we set our minds in certainty but when we open our minds to experience the world through other’s eyes.

The liminal space of Holy Week – the time of in-betweenness that disrupts our known descriptions of identity** – allows us to draw from the experiences of those who witnessed it first hand some 2000 years ago, to realize we aren’t much different, to learn more about ourselves and our own motivation as we ponder theirs.

Jesus’ disciples, the religious leaders, and the people of Jerusalem had to figure out where to go, what to do, who they are in light of all that Jesus did. Walk through the journey of Holy Week, experience this liminal space. Be open to the working of Holy Spirit in you, in others, and in the world. Let the journey of this week better enable all of us to embody the love of God in the weeks and months and years to come.

Following Jesus is a ‘together’ thing – we do not do it alone or individually but as the community that Jesus calls his body, bound together in experience and by the love of God for all. We are called to offer to the world an alternative way of life for those who are disheartened and dissatisfied with the way our culture forms us; we are called to reveal life in God’s Kingdom here and now. Don’t observe it from a comfortable distance; step in with intention to be challenged and to grow more deeply into who God desires all of us to be. Amen.

*15 New Testament Words of Life by Nijay Gupta
**Tod Bolsinger

Once Again

This is an updated redo of a post I first wrote back in 2019, still pertinent and much needed.

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts in the past few days about the uselessness of the phrase “my thoughts and prayers are with you”. I know these posts come from a deep place of extreme frustration – we keep having mass shootings and people keep praying and the shootings happen again and again – I feel the anger and the frustration, too. I mean, I originally started blogging in response to two shootings within 24 hours one weekend several years ago. But they still stab me in the heart and cause me pain, especially when they come from someone who professes to be a Christian.

Thoughts & Prayers and Action & Change are not opposites sides of an issue. For Christians, they must be used together. We thoughtfully consider the value of all human life and pray for God’s power and strength to reveal to us where we need to change so that everything we think, say, and do reflects God’s love for all people and a hurting world. We pray that our city, state, and country leaders will thoughtfully consider which policies will best serve the people and the common good and not their own political agendas or power trips.

And then, we need to think hard about how all of this “opposite” thinking is part of the problem when we approach life as a constant competition and debate. This type of thinking puts us all in battle mode, it fosters angry attitudes toward others, and in the end devalues human life. If I am in constant debate with you, you cease to be a person and become an object I must defeat.

One of the most important things I’ve learned in life is that I don’t have to make you wrong to be right. Very little in this world is absolutely ‘right’ or absolutely ‘wrong’ – there is a lot of grey area in our thinking and in our policies. I cannot “fix” you and I definitely can’t fix the whole world but I can do the next good thing in front of me. I can write my mayor, governor, senators, representatives, and president and voice my views in the most diplomatic and intelligent way possible because if I write them or speak to them in anger and hatred, not only will they not listen, I’m just being a part of the problem and perpetuating the dichotomous attitudes that keep us all so angry most of the time. I can use the power of my vote to make my opinions known – and, yes, I do pray about the way I vote, asking God to help guide my intelligent thinking to make the right choice.

I’ve also learned, and I do confess I had to learn the hard way, I cannot change or control another’s behavior or attitude. But, I can model loving and compassionate behavior and pray that with God’s help my behavior can influence others to do the same.

When we remove prayer from the “make the world better” equation, we are letting our egos take the place of God. I will fix this. I will do it. I don’t need – or want – God’s help.

Prayer isn’t some magic incantation we say to get God to do what we want when we want it. Prayer is intentional time in the presence of our Creator, in communication, in communion with the one who shapes our hearts to be more loving and compassionate. In prayer we are transformed so that all that we do reflects the light of God in this very, very dark world.

God never asks us to check our brains, or our abilities, at the door of his Kingdom. God asks us to live now in his kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven, living life grounded in him and his love for everyone whom he has created.

So, do things to make the world a better and more loving place, do things which will affect the policies of our government and attitudes of our leaders, and pray to God before, during, and after doing it. God is with us always and God’s greatest desire is for us to acknowledge that so that all we do is by God’s love and for God’s glory.

God’s peace be with us all,
Mother Nancy+

All-in

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The lectionary readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent are here.

Whew! That was a long reading. And there’s so much here to talk about – it’s an incredible story of the contrast between God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven and our earthly kingdoms built trying to recreate heaven by our standards. We could talk for hours about all of the various relationship dynamics going on … but don’t worry, I won’t take all day.

So, let’s take a look at the people in the story and their reactions and responses to God’s amazing grace.

Jesus and his disciples are just “walking along” and encounter a man who is blind. The disciples first inclination is to place blame because they’ve bought into the idea that all pain and suffering is punishment from God, a way to determine from their human point of view who God favors and who he doesn’t. But far from seeing things from a Kingdom worldview, they are living in a self made kingdom in which only those who meet their standards are welcome.

The healed man, is all in, willing to risk everything by trusting what Jesus tells him and asks of him. Jesus invites him to participate in his healing, giving him agency and dignity, having him wash the pool which means ‘sent’.

And then there’s the Pharisees. Instead of opening their minds to see God at work, the Pharisees in this interaction force-fit what had happened into their small box of certainty. They don’t even deny the formerly blind man can now see, even as they still refer to him as blind but they hone in on what has gone against their narrow rules: Jesus healed this man on the sabbath and if you break the sabbath rules, you are automatically a sinner and so incapable of doing any good. And yet, this formerly blind man now sees. His news is so inconvenient for them that they just can’t accommodate the truth of what’s in front of them*.

The Pharisees, too, offer the man an invitation – they invite him to participate in their condemnation of what Jesus has done by twisting the act of giving glory to God into a way of elevating one’s status over another. “Admit Jesus is a sinner and God will be glorified” they tell him. But this man’s eyes have truly been opened and he refuses to see through their compassion-less worldview. He even gets a little cheeky in his response, “why do you want to hear the story again, are you wanting to follow Jesus?”

Their inquisition of this man echos ironically Jesus’ own words to Nicodemus that we read a couple of weeks ago. Jesus said, “the wind blows where it chooses but you don’t know where it’s from or where it goes.” The Pharisees tell the man “as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” And the man responds, “You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes!” Jesus tells Nicodemus, “are you a teacher of Isreal and do not understand.” The Pharisees say to the man, “you are born of sin, and you trying to teach us?” They are so certain they are right, and they are so busy trying to prove they are right that they can’t see the glory of God’s love right before their eyes.

The man’s parents break my heart – they are desperately trapped in the fear caused by the Pharisees need to exclude those who disagree with their narrow worldview. Instead of rejoicing that their son can now see, they plead ignorance to save their own skin.

When Jesus says that this man was born blind so that “God’s works might be revealed in him,” Jesus is showing us a Kingdom worldview, life lived in the wisdom that God has given us agency in this life to promote the grace and glory of God’s Kingdom … or to promote ourselves.

When Jesus uses mud as a healing salve he absolutely intends to bring to mind the original creation story in which God creates humans, to reorient our worldview toward God’s Kingdom on earth. Throughout the story of God’s people, God chooses specific people to reveal the Kingdom not because God chooses some and excludes others, but because it is God’s desire to partner with us, be in relationship with us, to be present with us in the working out of the purpose and plan for God’s creation.

The mighty work of God that is revealed in this man isn’t only his physical sight but his all-in trust of God’s way and his faithfulness to God’s way in spite of what others say and do. His own parents threw him under the bus to save their own reputation. He was willing to be expelled from the Temple for his belief that Jesus was doing God’s work.

It has never been part of God’s plan to exclude anyone; it has always been God’s plan to extend the invitation to everyone to come into the Kingdom of heaven on earth. When we begin to view God’s blessing and favor as a way to elevate ourselves above others, we’ve lost the plot. When we point the accusatory finger at those who don’t meet our expectations of who God should deem worthy, we are the ones who are defying God’s law.

The one in this story who according to the religious leaders was the sinner, the man born blind, is the only one who shows true faith in God’s plan and purpose. This man is who Jesus invites to be an apostle – one sent to tell others of God’s grace and goodness.

Yet, we must be careful in our reading of this story. The minute we begin to point at the Pharisees and label them the evil ones, we’ve fallen into the same sin of condemnation that we see as evil in them. Jesus himself says he came not to condemn but to save. He teaches us to let go of the blame game, to seek reconciled relationship rather than revenge and retaliation.

We can’t be blind to the humanness of the Pharisees. Jesus was disrupting all that these Temple leaders had built their identity and purpose on, their interpretation of God’s law. They are blind to the abundance of God’s Kingdom and are frightened of losing their power and prestige. They, too, are reacting from a place of fear.

In these moments when our lives are disrupted, Jesus says, we have a choice – to lash out at those around us, seeking someone to blame, reacting from a place of fear, and wanting others to hurt as we are hurting, or we can choose to trust that God knows our hurt and pain so that we don’t have to inflict on anyone else to feel understood and known. We can choose to remain in the narrowness of our own vision or let God’s Spirit show us how to see the glory of God at work in all people and situations.

Are we willing to risk everything in order to see the world as Jesus sees it, to go all-in and answer God’s invitation into the Kingdom on earth as in heaven? Do we trust that God’s Way of Love is more valuable than anything we fear losing?

Every moment of of every day is an opportunity to participate with God. This is the purpose of our faith in God – to participate with God in building up the Kingdom on earth, all-in in both hardship and happiness.

The hardships we face in this world are absolutely occasions for participating in God’s work of grace and compassion, not with a faked positivity but with the understanding that God knows our pain and suffering and will bear it with us, always present, always loving, always strong, enabling us to live as children of light even in the darkest of times, illuminating the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, so that others may see Jesus, too. Amen.

*Nancy French, March 18, 2023 episode of the Good Faith podcast by Curtis Chang.

Curiosity

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The lectionary readings for the Second Sunday in Lent are here.

When was the last time you were curious? Not just “I’ve got to figure such and such out so that I can solve the problem in front of me” but a child-like wonder, a “I just want to discover what ‘this’ is for the sake of it” curiosity. When was the last time you showed real curiosity about someone else, asking questions about how they experience the world, where they find hope or joy?

I’m going to offer up a quote and then ask you who you think said it: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” Do you know who said this? If you had to guess, who would you say?

Does guessing cause you stress? Are you worried about getting ‘it’ – whatever it may be – wrong? Concerned others might judge you badly if you don’t know everything? Our culture values certainty over curiosity. We see curiosity as simply a prompt, an temporary lack of knowledge with an end goal of knowing for certain because being certain must mean we are are right, regardless of what anyone else may think or any contradictory facts that may be presented.

In our need for certainty, we look backwards into the biblical stories with our Western, post-Enlightenment way of thinking and instead of seeking an understanding within the context in which these stories were written, we place our evolved meaning of words such as belief and faith onto them and are certain about what they mean.

We ask ‘what’ others believe and make it about definable doctrine. Yet, faith and belief in the ancient writings we call the Bible are more about trusting and relating than they were about facts. They are life words – referring to a whole way of being, a world-view, and the life and actions that stemmed from WHO they believe and have faith in, not what.

And we don’t often use ‘certain to describe relationships. I can know you well enough to make predictions about your behavior, but this is about trust rather than knowing for certain. Only preprogrammed robots behave the exact same way in every situation. If I attempt to force you into a certain way of behaving or a certain category, I’ve reduced you to a label or an idea and have taken away your human agency. If I am continuously curious about you, even if we’ve known each other a very long time, asking questions like ‘how are you’ and waiting to receive your authentic answer, our relationship will continue to grow. Healthy relationships require continuous curiosity.

Curiosity is a mental capacity we all have; it isn’t a personality trait of only some; it isn’t something we outgrow as adults, even if some of us set it aside as ‘childish’. Monica Guzman, journalist and author of the book “I Never Thought of it That Way” defines curiosity as “The attention you pay to the gap between what you know and what you don’t know.” Curiosity isn’t the gap between not knowing and knowing but the attention we pay to the gap, our ability to notice this ever present gap.

Certainty and judgement divert our attention away from the gap. Certainty is easy. Curiosity is a challenging, ongoing journey. And it is only through curiosity that we move from knowledge to wisdom.

Our friend Nicodemus from today’s gospel reading is paying attention to this gap. Nick was a Pharisee, one who is supposed to have all the answers. His job was to ensure that everyone else followed God’s law to the letter and to point out when they didn’t. But he’d heard this man Jesus talk and witnessed his healing and Nick became aware of this gap between the letter of God’s law and the spirit of it. And, so, not to put his hard earned reputation at risk, he comes to Jesus under cover of darkness and instead of asking what he wants to know, he poses a statement: “We KNOW that you are a teacher from God …” Nick is seeking to confirm his certainty rather than unleash his curiosity.

Jesus responds with what would seem an impossibility and Nick fights to hold onto the certainty. Jesus gently invites him into the gap and distinguishes between physical birth and being renewed by the Spirit of God to be who God created and intends us to be.

When Jesus asks Nick, “Are you a teacher of Isreal and don’t know these things?” He is inviting Nicodemus to let go of the need for certainty and employ holy curiosity; look for God at work in and around us. Let yourself experience the freedom of the Spirit; don’t’ try to stop it or contain it. It’s better to ask questions than to be the one who thinks they have to have all the answers. Curiosity is the wind that keeps us flowing between knowing and wisdom.

Our faith definitely doesn’t give us all the answers; yet it offers us the invitation to trust in God’s love and way. The suffering and pain in this world is because we humans tried to choose another path besides the one God gave us. We chose the way of self-centered personal gain instead of the Way of other-focused Love.

When we hold too tightly to our need to be certain, to be right, we become blinded to the image of God in others. We stop seeking relationship and insist that everyone be just like us and the irony is when we stop seeing the image of God in others, we also stop living from that image within us and create a god of our own making who looks just like us. We craft rules and laws that insist everyone conform or else we exclude them. We shrink our faith and belief to a god who we can define by what makes us comfortable, completely contrary to all that Jesus shows us.

Jesus ends his conversation with Nick with a statement: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Jesus isn’t talking about a measurable degree of God’s love but the pattern and shape of it. God loves the world in this way: God wants everyone to choose to be in relationship with him and to live the life we are created for – to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves with holy curiosity that always leads us into deeper relationships. God invites us and Jesus shows us in flesh and blood the path to being saved from being estranged from God to being in relationship with God.

We have the choice to follow Jesus or not. God doesn’t want us to follow blindly but to use our God-given intellect and reasoning skills to discover that when we live other-focused rather than self-centered, we thrive and flourish as God intends for us. This is being born from above, letting God’s Way shape us, letting God’s image in each of us, guide our way of being. God calls us to believe not in a what but in who.

This journey we are invited to join in on is a balance of knowing who God is and Whose we are and remaining curious, teachable, always ready to grow. In our creed, we confess specific “knowings,” pieces of knowledge that help us stay centered on who God is and Whose we are. But we can never lose sight of the WHO of our faith, the relationship that is the center of our belief; Who it is we trust to show us the way of life we are created for. Who it is we love with all of our heart, mind, and strength. Who it is we follow. Whose kingdom it is we participate in here and now. Who journeys with us in this life.

Oh, and to go back to who actually said “never lose holy curiosity” – do you know who said it? it was Albert Einstein. With his intellectual magnitude he was certain about the continuous need to remain curious. Pay attention to the gap between what you know and what you don’t; feel the Spirit moving and drawing you deeper in relationship with God, your neighbor, and yourself. Amen.

Favored

An Ash Wednesday Reflection.
The lectionary readings for Ash Wednesday are here.

Being the youngest of 3 children, if I had a penny for every time my brother and sister called me the favored one, I’d be independently wealthy. It wasn’t that my parents raised me with a different set of rules than my siblings, it’s just that I watched what they got in trouble for and chose not to do those things.

But, I must admit, I liked being through of a the favored one, thinking I was extra special even though I really knew that my parents loved all of us equally.

God loves each and every human being who ever was, who is, and who will be equally, beyond our human measuring, unconditionally, and always, giving us life and inviting us into relationship without coercion.

Ash Wednesday is about acknowledging our humanness, not so that we look down on ourselves but so we deepen our understanding of who God is, who and whose we are, and our relationship with God.

And so this is one of those times I’d like to adjust the wording of the Book of Common Prayer. How would it be if instead of saying “God, you hate nothing you have made” we said, “God you love all whom you have made.” I guess I’m just a glass-half-full person; or perhaps it’s because I was raised in a church that tried to convince us that the God of Love was always looking for us to mess up so he could punish us. And if you have been taught by anyone about this same angry god, please know that you have been lied to and accept my apology on behalf of those who teach it.

If you were here on Sunday, you heard me say that when we focus on the so-called depravity of humans, that we are denying the image of God in which God created us all, that we are good and we are not perfect. AND, God loves us. AND, God gave us the free will to choose to love God back or to choose a different way of life because God knows that love requires choosing.

But please don’t hear me saying that we don’t ever need to repent, to redirect our hearts and minds toward God’s goodness. In order to be able to choose God, to accept the gift of forgiveness, we have to admit we need to change. We have to acknowledge when we choose to direct our attention and affection away from God. We have to admit that we spend a good amount of time trying to build our own kingdoms rather than participating with God in building up the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.

We need to cultivate an awareness of what we let shape our hearts and minds. We need to pay as close attention to what feeds our soul as we do what feeds our body. We are being shaped not just when we are in worship together but by all that we watch, listen to, and read the rest of the days of our week. We are discipled by what we give our attention to the majority of our time.

And in our gospel reading for today, Jesus reminds us that, yes, our motivations do matter. If we perform rituals simply to get recognition for how holy we appear to be, we are getting our reward we want. And if we think being holy means being miserable, we’ve completely lost the plot. The message of Jesus is Good News, an invitation into reconciled relationship with our Loving God that frees us from the prison of fear, anger, and hate so we can live in the abundance and compassion of God’s Kingdom on earth.

When you hear “remember you are dust and to dust you shall return” do not hear, “you are nothing”. Hear the amazing love of the God who chose to create us from love and for love. We have this amazing gift of life in this world, part of God’s creation, THE part that tipped the scales from “good” to “very good”, partnering with God in the care of creation.

Being reminded we are dust is about God’s love and desire to be in relationship with us and putting our relationship with God in the proper order. God is God and we are not; we are the wondrous, amazing, very good, beloved of God’s creation.

Each and every one of us God’s favored one. Amen.

Listen!

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The lectionary readings for the last Sunday after Epiphany are here.

Did you find an alleluia in your pew? What was your reaction when you saw it? In a moment, we will gather up all of our alleluias and put them away for the season of Lent which begins this Wednesday with Ash Wednesday. For most of the church’s calendar year we sing and say it often. Do you know what it means? However you spell it, with or without the ‘h’s, with the ‘j’ or the ‘i’ it means Praise the Lord.

We don’t put it away during Lent because we aren’t allowed to praise God during this season. Praising God is never out of season. We put it away as a lesson in intentionality, so that we pay attention to when we say it and why. It’s a bit of an ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ thing. When we temporarily set aside our standard word of praise, it frees us up to ponder all the reasons we offer our praise to the God who created us and calls us beloved.

In our Old Testament lesson today we read of when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and said they are for our instruction. These commands teach us how to love well, how to be God’s people in all of our everyday, ordinary activities. And then Jesus comes along and says that he is the fulfillment of the law, as we heard a couple of Sundays ago, showing us in flesh and blood what it looks like to love as God loves so that we too can live God’s law. Jesus shows us how to live in the spirit of the law rather than to use the letter of the law to condemn and oppress others, or ourselves.

God gave Moses the commandments on a stone tablet not to weigh us down but to give us life. And life is growth. Every living thing grows and changes continuously. On the mountain, hundreds of years after the commands were given to Moses, the disciples hear God say “this is my son, listen to him,” and Peter wants to preserve the moment. Understandably so, but to do so would be to stop living and instead become like an engraved stone. Life isn’t static, life is a journey.

Jesus calls us all with the invitation ‘follow me’ and after the transfiguration, that moment when the disciples see Jesus for who he is and hear God’s voice, Jesus says, let’s keep moving, keep living on earth as in heaven, walking the journey of life as God intends in the ordinary, every day moments of our lives.

When Jesus sums up all of God’s law by telling us we are to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor as ourself, he means that we are to love in all three directions. It isn’t a pick and choose buffet but a three course meal. The way we love one is both influenced by and influences the other two.

If we only focus on loving God, our faith becomes a set of religious practices, not a way of life. This is what Peter wanted to do on the mountain. It is the mindset that leads the Pharisees to use religious practices to control and oppress others, making religious practices more important than the relationships they are to cultivate. Our relationship, our love for God, disconnected from our relationship with others has no real purpose or meaning. Jesus teaches us that our love for God is shown best through the way we love others.

If we focus only on loving our neighbor, we can stay so busy that we avoid loving ourselves; or worse yet, we can begin to see our neighbors as an object through which we earn God’s favor, seeking salvation through our helping rather than in listening to and following Jesus.

If we only love ourselves we become our own savior, with no need of God or others. But this one goes the other way around, too. If we don’t love ourselves, if we focus on how horrible we think we are, this spills over into how we love our neighbor and God and what we think of them. Showing disdain or even hatred for others isn’t about them but about ourselves.

When we trust what God says and listen to Jesus, when we take Jesus seriously and follow him, we learn to balance the three. We see God as the source of all love and goodness and we see the image of God in our neighbors and ourselves.

God created us good and when we say we are depraved we are denying the image of God in us. The image of God within us, however, does not make us perfect. We are good AND we make choices with the free will God gave us that don’t always line up with God’s plan for Creation. We are good AND we are not perfect. But we are not depraved.

When we answer God’s call to repentance, it isn’t so that we can submit ourselves to punishment, but so that we can receive God’s grace. Do you remember a few weeks ago we talked about the meaning of repentance? It means to change our hearts and minds for the good. The season of Lent as a penitential season is about letting our hearts and minds be shaped by God’s love so that we can love God, our neighbor, and ourselves better.

I’m not a fan of giving up random things like chocolate, wine, or bacon for six-weeks just to take them on again after Easter. This only proves what we can do for our own glory.

Lent is NOT about proving ourselves worthy of God’s love, it is about being grateful for the love God has for us and learning to live into that love by following Jesus. Lent is an intentional time of letting go of our behaviors and practices that get in the way of or cause harm to our relationships with God, our neighbors, and ourselves. Letting go of those daily activities that cultivate fear, apathy, anger, or hate and instead spend the time practicing our awareness of God with and within us.

Lent isn’t about beating ourselves up, but the the assurance that God’s forgiveness is guaranteed, just not automatic. God has already offered us the gift of forgiveness but like any type of medicine it does us no good if we don’t take it. God’s forgiveness and our repentance sets our relationship with God, each other, and ourselves is proper order. When we continue to berate ourselves or see ourselves as depraved, we are denying the goodness of our creation and distrusting God’s power and promise of forgiveness.

Lent is a season of cultivating our gratitude for who God is and what God does, a time of gratitude for who and Whose we are.

During the next six weeks, when we start to say Alleluia out of habit, because we all will, be gentle with yourself and each other. Don’t let our self imposed religious rules cause you to forget the image of God in another or yourself. Be grateful that we have a loving God to praise. Give thanks to God for loving us and being willing to forgive us. Seek new ways to praise God for creating us from love, in love, and to love.

So, listen to Jesus. Get up and do not be afraid. Be attentive to the light of God’s love in the darkness. Let this coming season be a time of intentionality and gratitude so that we continue to become more and more like Jesus every day, every season of the year. Alleluia! Amen.

Choices

Pondering on the readings for the sixth Sunday after Epiphany.
The lectionary readings are here.

“I am now giving you the choice between life and death, between God’s blessing and God’s curse, and I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Choose life.”
Deuteronomy 30:19 GNBDC

I did a thing this week that I don’t usually do – I chimed in with my thoughts on a Facebook post, carefully crafted to express my thoughts and my reason for thinking them, trying my best to not invalidate the words or experience of the original poster, just offering my point of view. It took courage because I live in the self-assumption that my words have no impact on the world so why bother voicing them. Yes, I write a lot but it’s different when my words are in response to someone else’s. And here’s what happened. Other people responded to my words making all sorts of assumptions about what I knew (and didn’t) and without even referencing my experiences that informed my words. They didn’t seek to clarify or ask me to engage in a conversation wanting to know me better, they just invalidated my experience, trumping my words with theirs. And the most troubling part is these are colleagues whom I know and I really do doubt they even knew the impact their words would have. I don’t believe they intended to invalidate my voice. They were filling some inner need to be right, or the smartest, or the most powerful, or to feel worthy. I can’t know their inner motivation, I can only give them the benefit of the doubt and see them with compassionate rather than competitive eyes.

I am also in the middle of another situation in which two individuals are standing firm with ‘I’m right’ and refusing to budge. Instead of my typical mediating to try and bring the two people to a mutual agreement, I’ve taken a stand with one of them because this person is sincerely working for the benefit of the greater number of folks. The other person is only working to control the situation and be right and is either completely unaware of the relational harm they are causing or if they are aware, it appears that being right is more important to them than being relational.

It takes a lot of work and time and energy to become aware of our inner motivations, to ask ourselves “why do I do what I do?” What need am I trying to get fulfilled? What am I avoiding? What am I afraid of? How does my behavior impact those around me? And this is the work that choosing life & blessing requires.

Moses tells the people following him through the wilderness that they have a choice between blessing and curses, life and death. Whether we are aware of it or not, we each make this choice daily, with every interaction we have with another. Moses’ words aren’t about individual benefit, am I getting a blessing, but about living in relationship with others. Moses is helping them learn to ask of themselves, am I offering a blessing or am I cursing, am I being life-giving or life-taking, am I helping keep their candle burning or blowing it out? Am I competing or trying to walk alongside?

The life God desires for all of us is one of companionship, grounded in God’s love for all and our love for God, our neighbors, and ourselves. Jesus says to make our yes, yes, and our no, no, to be honest and authentic, not seeking to manipulate others for our own gain but to seek the greater good. So often we don’t even realize we are being self-serving because we have used these behaviors our whole lives and we’ve convinced ourselves it’s working. And yet we don’t feel fulfilled. And so we have to be brave enough to ask ourselves why. This emotional awareness, relationship building work is our life’s work in God’s Kingdom.

In the first situation I described above, I chose not to engage further in the posts; I needed my energy for other things, face-to-face encounters with others whom I hope and pray I helped shine brighter. In the second situation, I choose to love them each as well as I can and with God’s help. I can’t force this work on anyone or do it for them, I can only work at being the best I can with God’s help.

The life God offers us is a life of relationship, journeying together, building each other up, authentically living from the image of God within us, and seeing the image of God in each other, prospering in the Kingdom on earth as in heaven. This life God offers us is a shared life, in community, in communion with others, witnessing to and living in the consequences of the choices we make. Choose life.