Whose

I came across this a few days ago. I originally wrote it sometime in the first months after I was ordained; I’ve polished it a little to reflect my own growth and development over the past nine years. I pray it resonates with you as it did with me when I found it again.

When we find our identity in our romantic relationships, when we lose those relationships we lose who we are.
When we find our identity in our spouse, we are not honoring them by offering our authentic selves to them but rather giving them who we think they want us to be.
When we find our identity in our children, and they grow up and leave home, we are as empty inside as our nest.
When we find our identity in our job, we become human “doers” rather than human beings.
When we find our identity in God, The One who created us in the divine image of love and community, who we are is eternal. We are who we are created to be, able to offer our real selves to those we love and to see them for who they truly are. In God, our identity is lived out through all our relationships as we seek to see God in all people, striving to love them as God loves us.

Who we are at the core of our being is Whose we are: God’s beloved children. Created in God’s image. Designed in love to love. Born to continuously grow and mature, becoming more and more like Jesus on our lifelong journey toward God.

Our creator God is the God of abundant Life, the God with us and for us, the God of beauty and practicality, creativity and precision, learning and love, compassion and forgiveness, freedom and responsibility. God calls us to The Divine Presence with the self awareness of the question “do you want to be well” and then commands us to love our neighbor.

In the Centering Prayer App I use (yes, there’s an app for that), I read this quote from Thomas Keating every morning:

“This Presence is so immense, yet so humble; awe-inspiring yet so gentle; limitless, yet so intimate, tender and personal. I know that I am known. Everything in my life is transparent in this Presence. It knows everything about me – all my weaknesses, brokenness, sinfulness – and still loves me infinitely. This presence is healing, strengthening, refreshing – just by its Presence. It is nonjudgmental, self-giving, seeking no reward, boundless in compassion. It is like coming home to a place I should never have left, to an awareness that was somehow always there, but which I did not recognize.”

Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart

And every morning it still takes my breath away.

In the midst of so much angst and despair in the world today, make time to sit quietly and let God remind you whose you are. Let God take your breath away and breathe Life into you. And then do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next. You are God’s Beloved.

True Religion

A sermon preached at Grace Episcopal Church, San Antonio, Texas.

The lectionary readings for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost are here.

Today, we return to Mark’s telling of the Good News Story after hearing 5 sermons on Jesus’ one “I am the bread of life” sermon. That’s a lot of time spent on the foundation of the Good News of God’s Kingdom: God coming to us and offering his very life for us so we can be in reconciled relationship with our Loving Creator.

How have these past weeks deepened your understanding of God’s presence with us?

When we left off in Mark’s story, Jesus and his disciples had been traveling around the Sea of Galilee and are on the northwest shore in a town known as Gennesaret. The stories of Jesus’ ability to heal had gone viral and everyone began following him, bringing their sick and injured just to be able to touch even the edge of his clothes.

He had so many followers that the other wanna-be influencers of the day, the Pharisees, came looking for him, not to learn from him but to find a way to discredit him because if you can’t gain lot of followers yourself, you can at least try to undo the good the one with all the followers is doing. If you can’t go viral for for what you do perhaps you can be famous for undoing someone else.

And you thought this kind of behavior was invented with the internet! Our human nature hasn’t changed all that much in these past 2000 years, has it.

And so we join up with Jesus and his followers as the Pharisees gathered around him to question him, not about the healing and feeding he’s been doing but about hand washing. In a sense they were questioning the effectiveness and legitimacy of his feeding and caring for others because Jesus wasn’t worried about whether or not anyone’s hands were clean enough.

The Pharisees had taken God’s laws and twisted them to find the loop holes with thoughts like: I can get out of my obligation to love my neighbor if my neighbor isn’t clean enough.

What better way to distract from the real issue of Loving our Neighbor than to divert everyone’s attention to a minor issue.

But Jesus isn’t deterred. He zeros right in on the main issue. For Jesus, the heart of the matter is the heart. Our hearts, open and transformed by God. Being God’s people isn’t about the physical food we eat or the way we eat it. Being God’s people isn’t only about our outward behavior but our inward transformation that brings about the loving behavior of Kingdom People.

Being God’s people is about loving as God loves. And this kind of love doesn’t look for loop holes. This kind of love comes from the inward transformation of being in relationship with our loving God.

Now, partnered with this specific conversation of Jesus and the Pharisees, it almost sounds contradictory to say “what we consume determines our health” as we’ve been talking about. But Jesus’ point is to take our attention away from food and outward rituals and get us to look inwardly, at what we truly believe in our hearts, because our true belief is exposed by our outward behavior and words, even if we try to fake it some of the time.

The Pharisees used God’s laws to find people to exclude when the intent of God’s laws is to teach to us love and make everyone welcome into the Kingdom.

And as we said last week: Jesus words are intended to get us to do serious internal examinations so we understand our true motivations for what we do. We have to work on the inside of the dish, not just polish the outside.

It is important to ask ourselves how we spend our time and what we are consuming:
Who or what do we let shape our motivations?
Is our diet of life God based or world based?
What do we give our time to?
Do we intentionally make time for what we say we consider important or do we just hope to find the time if something else falls through?

How we spend our time does reveal the desire of our heart.

In his conversation with the Pharisees over what his followers do and don’t do, Jesus tells them that they’ve lost the plot. They are so concerned by the outward appearance that they’ve forgot the meaning of it all. Their outward behavior became all about excluding those who they didn’t deem worthy rather than inviting everyone into God’s love.

It was the Pharisees job in the synagogues and temple to ensure that those who came to worship God observed the rituals and rules intended to shape and form God’s people. But they had become more concerned about the rules than the people these rules are supposed to teach.

Jesus tells us that he came not to do away with God’s law but to fulfill it. All of the rules that God gave his people are intended to teach us how to live in love with God and each other. When we love God, we don’t have other gods, we don’t worship other things. When we love our neighbor and ourselves, we don’t desire to lie or steal or cheat or try to manipulate situations for our own benefit. We look out for the greater good of everyone involved. This is the way of living that the Ten Commandments teach us. And yet, throughout history, some folks have attempted to use these Love commands as a weapon against others rather than a transformative teaching as we grow in our relationship with God and each other.

True religion isn’t an outward display but a transformation of our hearts and minds in line with God’s will for God’s creation. Coming together in corporate worship is important and necessary to our Life with Jesus, but it definitely isn’t the goal or end game of Following Jesus. It is just one regular serving of a well-balanced and nutritious diet.

In his letter, James says that faith without works is dead. Did you know that the great Reformer and theologian Martin Luther wanted to remove James’ letter from the biblical canon because he thought it suggested we could earn God’s favor by doing good? An interesting tidbit of knowledge but not the point and not at all what James says. James says what Jesus said – that what we let shape our inside – our heart and mind, our soul – has an impact on what we do and more importantly, WHY we do what we do. True faith, a faith lived, will be seen by the good that we do.

Following Jesus in the Way of Love will bear loving fruit: kindness, empathy, respect, dignity, compassion, and justice in all areas of our life: home, work, play, and church.

As we follow Jesus every moment of every day, we are continuously transformed to be more like him. We examine ourselves up against the life of Jesus, our ultimate example of being fully human. We craft our life diet within the framework of God’s word and prayer. Sunday worship is just one spiritual practice and we need a steady diet of spiritual practices throughout the week.

What do you think and feel when you hear the term “Spiritual Practices?” Angst, fear, frustration?

Do you know why we call spiritual practices, practices? Because we are not supposed to be concerned about being perfect at them. That’s not the point of prayer and worship and scripture study. The point is to let God transform us through these activities. My spiritual director in seminary told me that the only way to fail at a spiritual practice is to not try it to begin with.

Jesus invites us on a life-long journey of continuous discovery of God’s Kingdom: discovering who God is and who we are in relationship with God, discovering the abundant life of love that God desires for us. This life takes intentionality and discipline.

Jesus doesn’t want to be our co-pilot. He invites us to follow him in a shared journey. Jesus doesn’t sit in the passenger seat waiting for us to sing “Jesus take the wheel”. He invites us to walk with him, to show us the Way of Love, a life that reflects the image of God to the world.

God is a God of life and he came to us, calls us toward himself so that we can live the life we are created to live.

The presiding Bishop of ECUSA, Michael Curry says, “God came into the world in the person of Jesus to show us The Way, the way of love, the way to change the world from the nightmare it often is to the dream that God intends.”

And when we follow Jesus, honoring God with both our lips and our lives, being doers of God’s Love, we do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Armor

Good morning, Y’all. I don’t know about you but I’m really struggling with maintaining my focus on God’s peace these days: feeling it, offering it, abiding in it. There just seems to be a pervading atmosphere of agitation and aggression. Are you feeling it, too?

Our world is saturated with ‘fight’ talk. When we do something well we say we “killed it.” When we face a challenge we call it a “battle.” We have relabeled ‘success’ as ‘win’ which implies there was also someone who ‘lost’ which means I can only succeed at something if I defeat someone else in the process. I hear Christians say they have to “fight for God, defend the church, defeat the evil forces (which apparently is any group who doesn’t think or act like the self-defined ‘us’).”

The only time Jesus was aggressive toward others was in the temple, calling out the religious leaders for perverting God’s commands for their own benefit and the detriment of God’s children. In the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus’ disciples attempted to physically defend him with violence, Jesus stopped them and healed the one they harmed.

In his letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul intentionally reframes the Roman war-suit with God’s love and grace so that the people listening to his words would lay aside their tendency for violence. Paul is undoing their idea of what armor is so they can redress themselves as people of God’s Kingdom. Paul tells us to stand in God’s strength with the full confidence that Jesus has already defeated the forces of evil. The Armor of God is not about having a bigger weapon than the next person. The armor of God isn’t aggression or anger or ego and it definitely isn’t about our defending God. The armor of God is about letting God’s love be our strength, walking humbly with God, and seeing others with compassion.

Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and his powerful strength. Put on God’s armor so that you can make a stand against the tricks of the devil. We aren’t fighting against human enemies but against rulers, authorities, forces of cosmic darkness, and spiritual powers of evil in the heavens. Therefore, pick up the full armor of God so that you can stand your ground on the evil day and after you have done everything possible to still stand. 
So stand with the belt of truth around your waist, justice as your breastplate, 
and put shoes on your feet so that you are ready to spread the good news of peace. 
Above all, carry the shield of faith so that you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. 
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word.
Offer prayers and petitions in the Spirit all the time. Stay alert by hanging in there and praying for all believers. 
Ephesians 6:10-18, Common English Bible

The biggest trick of the devil is to convince us that we have to be aggressive toward our fellow human beings in the name of God, that somehow it is our job to defend God. In claiming an ability and power to defend God, we are making God dependent on us, smaller and less powerful than us. The devil tricks us into thinking we have to fight each other rather than let God’s love defend us from the devil’s tricks.

C. S. Lewis said, “A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.” We are called by God to Love and to spread the Good News of Peace, to be a part of the revolution of compassion. Instead of using our faith to vanquish other people we disagree with or don’t like, let’s walk with Jesus in the power of love and participate in bringing God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven.

I am feeling strengthened with the armor of Love, and I pray you are as well. Together with God we can stand as God’s beloved children, offering true peace to the world.

A Well Balanced Meal

A sermon preached at Grace Episcopal Church, San Antonio, Texas.

The lectionary readings for the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost are here.

Are you still in shock over Jesus’ words from last week? We’ve spent the previous three weeks through today, talking about John’s telling of Jesus’ interaction with the crowd following the feeding of thousands and a miraculous trip across the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum, a conversation initiated by the crowd’s question, “Rabbi, when did you get here.”

Rarely does Jesus directly answer the question he’s asked. Jesus responds in ways that require us to reshape our thinking and our way of seeing of the world, and if we have the ears to hear, to dive deep into the type of self-examination that enables us to see the true life for which we are created. Jesus doesn’t provide spoon-fed answers but The Way of living the truth that enables us to be whose and who we really are.

By the time Jesus gets to the summary of all that he has just said, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” the people are so disturbed by what he has said that many find it easier to just walk away.

Many of these folks came looking for Jesus simply because they wanted another meal, thinking that hanging out with Jesus would mean they would have an endless supply of fish sandwiches. But Jesus told them that he had so much more to offer – a living banquet beyond anything they’d experienced, that we need more than just physical nourishment, we need the right food to nourish both our bodies and our souls.

How often do you hear people say things like, “eating healthy is so difficult and time consuming?” We like the convenience of the drive-thru meal, the pre-prepared, just put it in the oven meal. After a long day, H‑E‑B’s ‘Meal Simple’ feel like a life saver, for sure. Ease and convenience allows us to fit more into our lives so we can show the world just how busy we are because busy means we are succeeding at life, right?

But somehow we know, deep in the core of our being, that the life we are created for is so much more than than that, more than just keeping our physical bodies sustained so we can keep up an ever increasing pace that still leaves us hungry for more. We cannot be fully alive without the kingdom nourishment Jesus offers.

Our souls are nourished through the sacrament, through the praise and thanksgiving of our worship, through time spent with God’s story so that we know better and better whose and who we are, through prayer, speaking our gratitude to God for everything, bringing our deepest concerns and fears and desires to God, and in the time of stillness and silence when we do nothing else but listen in the awareness of God’s presence.

And just to be clear, when Jesus tells us “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all” he isn’t saying that our physical bodies aren’t good but that we are so much more.

Last week to understand the shocking nature of what Jesus was saying about consuming his flesh and blood we went all the way back to the creation story and we go there again today, to remind ourselves, as Jesus’ words would have reminded those with him that day, in whose image we are created.

We are created in God’s image, in God’s likeness, formed of the dust with the very breath of God breathing life into us. The clay shell was not enough – very necessary and needed and worthy of God’s work but not complete without the spirit of God giving us breath.

We are not a body with a soul or a soul encumbered by a body. We are created fully human, in the image of our creator, inseparably body and soul.

There is a mystery to our amazing life given to us by God that we can’t duplicate. No human has been able to create life from nothing as God does. We cannot take the elemental ingredients of the human body, put them in a mixing bowl and create life.

Do you know the story of the scientist who thought he had discovered how to make life? He was so impressed by his own abilities that he called to God saying “come to my laboratory see what I’ve done. I’m just like you.” So God humors this scientist and comes to the lab. The scientist places a mixing bowl in the center of the table and then reaches into a bag of dirt, At which point God interrupts the scientist and says, “No, no, no. You have to make your own dirt.”

Jesus says ‘let me nourish you, your whole and holy self, let me show you the life you are created to live, on earth as it is in heaven. A life grounded in the love of God for you.”

The good news that Jesus came to proclaim is that God comes to us in love, wherever we are, whatever we’ve done, God comes to us and says “you are good, you are loved, you are worthy to be with me, fully alive as I created you to be. Abide in me as I am in you.”

And still there were those listening who didn’t think the news was all that good.

News is an event that changes the world whether we accept the change or not. But a lot of people just want good advice – pithy words that help us make decisions without necessarily changing our reality because changing is hard. The Good News that Jesus brings is that the reality of the world has changed: God has come to us, to live and die as one of us so that we are reconciled to God. We can chose to acknowledge and accept what God has done and is doing and live the full life we are created for and be filled. Or we can take the easy way of living on the surface, remaining in our comfort zone and continue to long for more.

We may credit Socrates for saying “the unexamined life is not worth living” but this is the underlying truth to all of Jesus’ conversations and sermons. Jesus asks questions like “do you want to be well,” and “why are you looking for me?” He makes statements like “you keep the outside of the cup looking good but never clean the inside.”

Jesus’ words are intended to challenge us and provoke us to rethink all that we think we know. Many people, through the centuries to today, decide it’s easier to walk away because the teaching is too difficult, letting a desire for comfort and ease overrule the innate need to be with God.

When Jesus does take us by surprise, in the face and words of another person, when we see Jesus where we didn’t expect him to be and we ask, “Teacher, when did you get here?” he reminds us that he’s been with us all along, ready and waiting for us to hear the good news that changes everything. And, again, we have the choice to walk away because the Good News is too much for us or we can respond as Peter does: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

The banquet table is set to nourish our bodies and our souls, our whole and holy selves, beloved children of God. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen.

A Trendy Revolution

Hey, Y’all. How’s your coffee on this fine Tuesday? More importantly, how are you?
Can I share with you that I am just completely perplexed at the world right now? Not so much over what is happening – the pandemic, the huge influx of migrants at the southern US border, the collapse of Afghanistan, not to mention the natural disasters that seem to be coming at us daily – but our collective response to human tragedy. I am perplexed that we don’t seem to want to see these situations as human tragedies but as someone else’s agenda that we must fight against for no other reason than to defend a political label.

It makes me heart sick when it seems that all we want to do is create a fight about everything: who’s right, who’s wrong, who’s to blame, who’s responsible, who started it…. We spend so much energy deflecting attention away from the truth that there are human beings suffering and it is our responsibility to work together with God to alleviate it to the best of our ability.

Jesus teaches us to see the world through the eyes of compassion, never losing sight of the human beings in front of and all around us.

How would we all be different if instead of a pandemic we saw the faces of millions of human beings sick and suffering and dying?

How would we be different if instead of labeling the migrants coming across the southern US border as ‘illegals’ we saw human beings fleeing a life we know nothing about to try and get even a bit of what we take for granted every day?

How would we be different if instead of pointing the finger of blame we looked at each other and said, “I see you as a beloved child of God” and used our energy and efforts to help rather than blame and complain?

How would we all be different if we took what Jesus teaches seriously and let Love shape our responses to the human tragedies of this world? I know it is very much out of fashion in our twenty first century, individualistic, consumer driven world to claim the responsibility of each other’s wellbeing, but it is the trendiest trend of all time in the economy of God’s Kingdom to bear one another’s burdens. We just have to decide which economy we promote and in which kingdom we claim our primary citizenship.

I am not be able to solve all the world’s problems but I am able with God’s help to respond from a place of compassion to all that I see going on. Together we can make the world a more compassionate place. Together we can be a part of the revolution of the good news of Jesus Christ. I don’t see blaming and complaining making the world a better place, do you? We know that love brings about heaven on earth so let’s use what we know.

Receiving

A sermon preached at Grace Episcopal Church, San Antonio, TX.
The Lectionary readings for the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost are here.

Like last week, we begin where we ended, repeating the words of Jesus as he says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

This linking together of our readings during these weeks as we focus on Jesus ‘bread of life’ sermon helps us see the wholeness of God’s story and our connectedness to God, each other, and all things.

Hearing Jesus’ “Bread of Life” sermon while sitting in our comfortable chairs, in our air conditioned rooms, in the twenty first century, we have the benefit of hind-sight, two thousand years of reflection on what Jesus is saying, and an overwhelming amount of advertisements for “THE” perfect miracle diet, that all dull our sensibilities to Jesus telling us to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

The Jewish community who first heard him say this would have been absolutely horrified and scandalized, jaws dropped, covering the children’s ears, feeling sick to their stomachs shocked at his words.

Just like if I told you we were going to have a Baptist style Altar Call at the end of this service, singing “Just as I am” over and over and over. Even more shocked than that!

But seriously, let’s step back in time a bit and try to put ourselves in their sandals, to hear this as if for the very first time, as they would have heard it.

I mean WAY back, to the Creation story in which God tells the first humans to eat plants. Did you know that? Humans were originally supposed to be naked vegetarians? Aren’t you so very glad that has changed? Proof that all things do come together for good: the fall of the human race allowed us to wear clothes and eat meat.

Years later, after the Great Flood, when God established a covenant with Noah, God said,
“Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. (Genesis 9)

And a few generations later, after their enslavement in and deliverance from Egypt as God was establishing the rules of worship with the Israelites, God tells them:
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood.” (Leviticus 17)

And then Jesus comes along as says we are to eat his flesh AND his blood! He even goes so far as to say that if we don’t do this thing we have no life in us at all. Shocking.

We’ll talk more about their reaction next week so for now lets focus on Jesus’ words and the life we are created for.

It is only by following Jesus, doing the things he tells us to do, that we can live as God intends for us to live. God created us to be in communion with God. Our true life comes only from God.

Jesus says that he is the true food and drink and that we abide him. Just what is abiding, anyway? It means to remain or to continue to be, but it’s not staying in one place or being static.

Do you know the movie Phenomenon staring John Travolta?

If you don’t know the movie I’d like to say I’m not to spoil it for you, but I can’t make my point without divulging plot secrets. You should see it anyway. It’s a really good movie. It’s about a man who develops amazing abilities because of the way a tumor is growing in his brain: He develops a photographic memory and genius level problem solving skills as well as telekinetic abilities.

In one particular scene, he’s talking with two young children he’s befriended and trying to help them understand what is happening. He’s going to die and the little boy is angry. John is eating an apple and he says “if we were to put this apple down and leave it, it would spoil. But if we eat it it becomes a part of us and we take it with us forever.”

The food we consume becomes a part of us at the cellular level, it abides within us. Once we eat something and our body absorbs the nutrients from it, there is no longer a distinction between the apple and us. Your grandmother was right – you are what you eat.

But like all of Jesus’ teachings, there’s more than a surface level understanding to this. We can grasp the physical side of food building our physical bodies but do we really believe that what we consume through our ears and eyes and minds also feeds us?

When Jesus institutes communion he says to do this – to consume the bread and the wine as if they were his body and blood in remembrance of him so that he can abide in us and we in him. We both call to mind the grace of God giving of himself so that we could receive the life we are intended to have, and we are re-membered, re-created as the hands and feet, eyes and ears, mind and heart of Jesus in this world, here and now as the body of Christ.

By the power of the Holy Spirit the bread and wine are also the flesh and blood of Jesus that he says we must take into the very cells of our being so that we can become more like him every day. Through this act, we continue to find our being in Christ and he remains in us.

The bread and the wine make us the body of Christ, inseparable from Jesus and from each other. Just as we are created in the image of God, the trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we are inseparably joined together as the body of Christ.

This interconnected life is the life we are created for. Everything we think, do, and say has an impact, whether we see the ripples or not. We are not as individualized as we like to pretend we are. If we haven’t learned this through the COVID19 pandemic, I don’t know what will teach it to us.

We are, each and all, created unique children of God designed to be an integral part of God’s Kingdom, and God’s Kingdom is not complete without each of us connected together. I cannot be fully the person God created me to be without you and you cannot be fully the person God created you to be without me.

When we answer Jesus’ invitation to follow him in God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven, we are acknowledging that the true life we are designed for is lived in communion with God and each other.

In the Service of Holy Baptism in the Book of Common Prayer, the congregation, all present who are witnessing the welcoming in of the newest members of Christ’s body, is asked if we will do all in our power to support the persons being baptized in their life in Christ before we all, together, renew our commitment to the baptismal covenant. No one is baptized to individualistically follow Jesus; we are all baptized into the body of Christ.

We are all, absolutely and indivisibly in this thing called life together, interdependent on each other, made whole and holy by Jesus’ body and blood. We abide.

It’s no coincidence that the words with which we enfold the physical act of consuming the bread and wine are voiced as prayer. Prayer is how we commune with God. Prayer is being aware of God’s presence with us, it is abiding in God’s grace and righteousness. It is in the humble attitude of prayer that we come before God to receive all that God desires for us. The benefits we receive through this act of thanksgiving and remembrance come to us only by God’s gracious will that all of us live in the Kingdom Jesus tells us is at hand.

This power of the sacrament isn’t limited by our own efforts or the technology through which we may witness it. We come to God’s table and we offer to God the best we have but the benefits – the solace and strength, the pardon and renewal – come from God. It is only with God that we can live the true life we are created for: life in God’s Kingdom, the kingdom at hand, the kingdom built of love and compassion.

And as we receive Jesus, we begin where we end: we leave this place having remembered and been renewed as Kingdom people, following Jesus, filled with the Spirit, and giving thanks to God always and for everything. Amen.

How Would Jesus Love?

In the light of the extraordinary picture of God’s Kingdom that we’ve been exploring through Matthew’s telling of the Good News Story of Jesus (See Matthew 5-7), can we take a moment to talk COVID19, vaccines, and masks? I know we are all so weary of this conversation but it is the reality in which we are living as Kingdom people on earth as it is in heaven. If you need to refill your cup before we begin, I’ll wait here …

We cannot deny nor ignore that the number of people getting very ill is on the rise again. There are more and more people in the hospitals and ICUs daily. And the overwhelming majority of the people in the hospitals and ICUs with COVID are those who have not taken the vaccine.

As Kingdom People the one and only guiding question for our behavior/reaction/response to this pandemic, however long it persists, is “how would Jesus love and how do I love my neighbor best in this situation?” Jesus never told anyone to demand their own personal liberties but to love and care for our neighbor and put other’s needs first.

One of the statements I’ve heard people who are refusing the COVID19 vaccine say is something along the lines of “I can think for myself. I don’t want the government trying to control me by telling me what to do.” What I see them demonstrating by their behaviors and actions is that they are not at all thinking for themselves but of themselves only. Or perhaps they’ve actually decided not to think at all because it’s the easiest, most comfortable path. To think critically and make an informed decision requires that we listen to ideas other than our own and to learn from those who have the education and experience to be rightly titled experts in a particular field of knowledge.

Following Jesus means letting the good news of the power of love and not politics or social media or our own comfort guide the choices we make. Following Jesus is keeping our egos in check not our God-given ability to think and learn and grow.

We are, each and every one of us, beloved children of God. We are unified in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Together with God we can and will make the world better because Love is the most powerful force in the universe. Love as God Loves is the only thing stronger than hate and war and violence and the individualism that is destroying us.

The writers of the Gospel story tell us that Jesus was moved with compassion when he saw people hurting and suffering. He didn’t blame them or shame them or tell them to get over it and he certainly didn’t look the other way. Jesus loved them. Sometimes this love meant literally feeding them. Sometimes this love meant literally healing them. Sometimes this love meant asking the tough questions like “do you want to be well?” Sometimes this love meant saying the things others didn’t want to hear like “let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Together let’s love as Jesus loves and we will live on earth as it is in heaven. If you have not already, get the vaccine. When you are out in public places, wear a mask. In this pandemic, this is what Love looks like.

Real Life

A sermon preached at Grace Episcopal Church, San Antonio, Texas.

The Lectionary readings for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost are here.

Are you a picky eater? Are your kids? What do you or your kids absolutely refuse to eat? When my son was little, he ate most anything and everything, except for the one thing that all children love – French fries. And what’s the one thing all kids meals in every single restaurant has? French fries. 25-30 years ago, fast-food kids meals didn’t have options like apple slices, only French fries. When we’d go to a sit-down restaurant, Ike would ask if he could substitute a salad for the fries – at 3 years old he started doing this. And the waitperson would inevitably look at me and ask “is he serious” and I’d say yes, he is. And they’d walk away, shaking their head, having their reality of how kids should behave slightly disturbed.

As we continue to hear John’s version of how Jesus established our practice of communion, we encounter Jesus disturbing the reality of those around him as well as our own.

We begin this week with where we ended last week: Jesus saying, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

And we’ll return to this theme of the bread of life next week and the week after that. So, if we are willing to spend so much time on this, it must be really important, don’t you think?

So, let’s first take a look at what’s going on in this scene and then we’ll return to God’s table. Don’t worry, I don’t have another pastoral letter from our bishop to read this week, but I do hope your reality is disrupted just a little.

Do you remember way back when on the first Sunday in July we talked about the skepticism of the people in Jesus’ hometown because he was disrupting their norm by not being who they had decided he was supposed to be? We have the same situation here: others trying to discredit Jesus because he wouldn’t cooperate and force fit himself into their prescribed role.

It’s easy to sit in our comfortable seats some 2000 plus years later and criticize the Jews for not seeing Jesus for who he really is but let’s get courageous and ask ourselves: “how do we do the same?”

What is our own prescribed role for Jesus?
Do we expect Jesus to be where we saw him last, like the folks who found him on the opposite side of the lake?
Do we expect Jesus to be available to us only when we decide we want him around?
Are we willing to let Jesus disrupt our reality with who he is and who we are?

Remember – It’s a prophet’s job is to disrupt the norm. The vast majority of Jesus’ time in his three year earthly ministry was spent out and about interacting with people in the ordinary every day moments of their life. His whole purpose was to teach people how to disrupt their own reality and norms by seeing the world through the lens of God’s love.

But Jesus doesn’t just disrupt who they think he should be, he disrupts their view of the historical events in which they plant their identity. He has this debate with them about the bread provided to their ancestors in the wilderness. They want to credit Moses for the manna but Jesus reminds them that it was God who provided it; Moses was just the messenger. And, he reminds them, the purpose of the manna was, yes, to fill their bellies, but also to teach them how to live in a trusting relationship with God.

God told them the manna would be there for them every day, that they needed just gather enough for the day because there would be more tomorrow. This is what living the abundant life of God’s Kingdom is: trusting that God will provide enough of what we need to do what God calls us to do. So often we equate abundance with excess when really it simply means a never ending supply.

God gave them what they needed but they still complained and tried to hoard extra. Jesus telling the people not to complain about him would have immediately reminded those around him of the grumbling of their ancestors in the wilderness. When we let ourselves get distracted by what we don’t have, we often miss out on the real message of God’s loving provision. We use our energy to grumble rather than to give thanks.

Jesus uses the most ordinary form of physical nourishment to explain the most extraordinary life that is ours for the living if we open our ears and eyes to what Jesus says and does. He shows us how to be who and whose we are created to be: God’s beloved children, walking with Jesus to bring heaven to earth in the ordinary every day moments of our lives.

God’s deepest desire for us is to live the abundant life of love.
I can’t store up more of God’s love than you have. I can’t earn or win God’s favor so that there isn’t any left for you. God’s love and Grace and forgiveness is abundant, a never ending supply that sustains us and equips us be God’s beloved children.

It is when we deny this life for ourselves or others that we grieve the Holy Spirit, as Paul tells us in his letter to the church at Ephesus we read today:
“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

This last bit that Paul says is one of the options in our Book of Common Prayer for inviting others to God’s Table. And even though what we do around God’s Table may look differently these days, the reality of it, the purpose of it, remains in God’s hands. We come to this holy table to receive from God all that God has to give, life abundant with love. All that we do in this place: praising and praying and listening to God’s word, leads us to this act of remembering and being re-membered as God’s beloved.

In one of the prayers that can be used for Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer, we prayer, “Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us. Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name. Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the Bread.” (Eucharistic Prayer C)

What takes place when we gather weekly to praise, pray, listen, and receive God’s grace is to disrupt our reality enough that we can see and hear the reality of God’s kingdom in the ordinary, every day moments of our lives.

This past week as Jim and I sat down for a meal at our favorite local diner, and just as we were going to say grace, Jim spotted a sign on the wall above our table that read, “Grace isn’t a little prayer you say before receiving a meal, it is a way to live.”

Let this meal disrupt you. See, hear, and taste the reality of life in it. Be strengthened and renewed. Receive the grace it offers and let the abundance of God’s kingdom flow through you in all that you do this coming week. Amen.

A Well Fed Life

A sermon preached (and letter shared) at Grace Episcopal Church, San Antonio, Texas.

The Lectionary readings for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost are here.

Do you remember where we ended last week? Jesus has just fed thousands and then he and his disciples make their way back across the lake, the disciples in a boat and Jesus on foot.

Sometimes I wish I had a big flannel-graph map to help illustrate the ongoing activities of the life of Jesus around the Sea of Galilee and to help us keep up with this ongoing story. Jesus and the disciples are now on the northern shores of the Sea at Capernaum.

In his travels, Jesus encountered folks who were going through the regular activities of their every day life – fishing and going to the market and synagogue, caring for their families and attending to their work – and he showed them the extraordinary life of God’s Kingdom. He didn’t offer an escape but the way to live fully and authentically in their regular activities of their every day life.

But changing the way we see the world is difficult and takes time. We don’t always learn the first time. Or the second. Or the third. The people, the very same people who had just witnessed Jesus turn 5 loaves of bread and a couple of fish into the best picnic lunch they’ve ever eaten, were perplexed about how Jesus got to the other side of the lake without a boat. Jesus definitely didn’t fit within the realm of their reality.

But instead of explaining that he walked on water, Jesus responds with a statement that gets right to the heart of their motivation: “You’re not following me in order to find God,” Jesus says, “you are following me thinking I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Alright” they say, “what do we do to get whatever it is you are offering?” What must WE do? They are making it about what they want, about human efforts, without Jesus at the center.

Jesus says “look to me and you’ll find so much more than a picnic lunch. Take yourself out of the center, keep your eyes on me and I will show you God. I will show you who you really are as God’s beloved children.”

“Follow me and I will show you how to live the life God intends for you.”
“Follow me and I will show you so much more than what you think you want and need.”
“Follow me and I will show you what authentic life grounded in God’s love is.”

Jesus wraps this message in a metaphor intended to help them bridge what they’ve witnessed Jesus do with the true reason for his doing it: Bread, the universal and timeless symbol for the sustenance of life.

The life Jesus is pointing us toward is more than just physical sustenance. It is complete and total sustenance for our body AND soul – our whole being. When we come to know God as the source of our life, we do not hunger for love or a sense of belonging because we are filled to overflowing, and we do not thirst for power or control because we fed by the compassionate life of Jesus.

This is what we are called to remember each week when we gather around God’s table for both physical and spiritual sustenance. We come together to remember who God is so that we are continuously re-membered, re-connected, re-united with each other as we receive Jesus into the very cellular structure of our being.

What happens in this place shapes and transforms us into the body of Christ at all times and in all places, whatever we are doing. Jesus isn’t an escape from our life but the way to live our life extraordinarily as God’s beloved children.

How we do what we do in this place, like every aspect of our life, has been in flux over the past 18 months and many of us may feel like we are the ones chasing Jesus back and forth across a lake looking for a sense of security and certainty.

We stand in front of Jesus and say ‘how did you get here? You were over there and I need to know where you are so I can find you when I need you.”

And Jesus says to us, “don’t just look for me when you want something. Live with me and you’ll want for nothing.”

In the letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul implores us to “live in a manner worthy of the calling to which we’ve been called.” A life fed by and sustained in God, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Whatever is going on in the world around us, we are called to live grounded in God’s love, even when things aren’t going as we would like them to.

Even in a pandemic. Even when we are weary and tired and running low on patience in a situation that feels like it will never end. Especially when we are weary of the world and need our souls fed and sustained by God’s love.

We want so desperately to be able to say we are in a post-pandemic world. But we are not. And so, we must, with God’s help, continue to walk with Jesus and respond in love and compassion.

This past Wednesday, Bishop David Reed sent out a pastoral letter in response to the new increase of COVID19 infections because of the Delta variant and asked the clergy to read the letter to our parishes today. It is the most amazing example of living with Jesus at the center of all that we say and do. We truly have a godly role-model.

Some of you may have gotten it by email already or seen it posted on social media but I ask you to listen again, with your heart and soul.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
It seems we were almost there. With good reason, we had been thinking and talking more about the future. But now comes a surge in illness caused by the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus, and we are faced once again with uncertainty and anxiety made worse by imperfect, incomplete knowledge. Our churches had begun to plan with hope for the fall, for new beginnings, and for an unfettered return to worship, fellowship and ministry. But now…what? What shall we do?

First, pray. Pray for the sick and for those who care for them. Pray for your clergy and Vestry or Bishop’s Committee members who are continually called upon to make the best possible decisions in the midst of changing situations and partial knowledge. The local protocols they have developed and implemented, along with the diocesan Guidelines, are useful tools that have served us all well, by God’s grace. Pray that your church’s leaders will be given wisdom to continue adapting and responding, for the greatest common good. Pray for yourself, that you might hold fast to the truth that “nevertheless, the Kingdom of God has come near.”

Second, be vigilant, but keep this latest development in perspective. The vaccines are working and greatly reduce risks to those fully vaccinated. While breakthrough cases receive lots of media attention, far fewer than 1/10th of 1% of those fully vaccinated are experiencing symptomatic infection. Since February, 99.5% of COVID-related deaths in Texas have been among unvaccinated people. Pay attention to the CDC and your local health officials. Tuesday, July 27th , the CDC revised its guidance on mask-wearing. In response to the new predominance of the Delta variant, they encourage all people to wear masks indoors and in crowded outdoor places in regions where infections and hospitalizations are high.

Third, if you are eligible and have chosen to remain unvaccinated, please prayerfully reconsider. The Delta variant is highly transmittable, and the unvaccinated are at much higher risk of infection. Additionally, they are much more likely to transmit the virus to other unvaccinated people, including children under the age of 12 for whom there is currently no vaccine. If not for your own sake, I implore you to get vaccinated for the sake of those around you who cannot receive the vaccine and for the well-being of your church and your community. Offer your church as a vaccination site; offer rides to those who want to be vaccinated; do not discourage those who choose to resume wearing masks.

Fourth, continue as you have. The past months of the pandemic have not been wasted on us. We know so much more than we did when we first heard about COVID-19 and I’ve included a few reminders of what we know at the end of this letter. We can lead fairly normal lives individually and in our churches. We do know precautions and health/hygiene practices that make us all less vulnerable to the virus. Every church in the Diocese has adopted protocols to fit their local context. I encourage all congregational leaders to review those protocols and adapt as needed.

Fifth, for the time being, the diocesan Phase 2(d) Guidelines remain in effect, as revised on May 18. Until a couple of weeks ago, I had hoped to be announcing the removal of remaining restrictions. I’m sorry, as we all are, that the situation has changed. From the beginning, we have known that the pandemic might change in ways that cause us to pull back again. Thankfully we are not there yet, and the current Guidelines and your own church’s protocols should allow your church to adapt as needed to the context of your community.

Finally, “above all these, put on love.” As churches and individually, we have put up with so much during this season, from inconvenience to grief. We have put off so many things that matter to us, big and small. We have put away cherished customs and habits. Now it is time for us to rededicate ourselves wholeheartedly to putting on the love of Christ, regarding one another through the eyes of Jesus, and loving one another as he loves us. Because we are his Body, there can be no other way for us than this. It is the only way for us to continue living in and moving through this pandemic together, in the Name of Christ and for the life of the world. May the love of the Father sustain you; may the light of the Son enfold you; may the power of the Holy Spirit make you bold.

Love in Christ,
+David M. Reed
Bishop of West Texas

Treasured

Whew, y’all! I re-read what I wrote last week and I guess Jesus’ directness prompted my own. I should have tried to be more encouraging about the joy of participating in bringing about God’s Kingdom on earth, There is great joy in participating with God in all things because we come to know that we are beloved children. This is what Jesus wants us to discover as we follow him.

As we continue to look at Jesus’ sermon as Matthew recounts it for us, Jesus goes on to talk about the rewards of what we do. If we seek to prove ourselves better at religious activities than everyone else by our outward actions, we will get what we seek: the temporary and fickle recognition of showmanship. If we do what we do to deepen our relationship with God, we will get what we seek: the joy of knowing we are loved and enabled to love as God loves.

In the midst of this talk of earthly and heavenly rewards, Jesus teaches us a prayer through which we ask God to bring about the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. All that Jesus teaches and shows us is about participating with God in answering this prayer. God’s will, what God desires most is to be in loving relationship with us! All of us, each and every one of us, every single human being ever born (yep, even that person). As we continue to follow Jesus, this becomes the focal point of our worldview, so that we, like Jesus, fulfill God’s Law of Love.

Looking into our inner motivations is difficult work. Jesus asks the difficult questions (in the form of stories) not to condemn us and not to have us condemn ourselves or others, but to help us discover who and whose we are: God’s beloved children, God’s greatest treasure. Knowing this and letting God’s love be our guiding light is the greatest reward of all!

I pray you are encouraged!