Binding the Strong Man and Freeing the Children

Sermon for June 9, 2024
Genesis 3:8-15; Mark 3:20-35

In my family, a story is told about my niece, Emily.  One day, when she was a toddler, Emily was in her room, playing quietly.  Before long, my sister realized she hadn’t heard anything from Emily’s room for a few minutes; and when you have small children, silence is a suspicious thing.  So, my sister poked her head into Emily’s room.  And there she was, with the family’s cat, sitting quietly in the middle of the floor with a Kleenex box … which now was an empty Kleenex box.  And all around Emily were Kleenexes.  She had sat there and thoroughly enjoyed pulling them out, one by one, and tossing them into the air to watch them float down.  My sister said, “Emily!  How did those Kleenexes get all over the floor?”  Emily looked up, froze for a moment, and then pointed at the cat sitting there near her.  “Kitty!” Emily said.  Shifting the blame starts early for us all.

And with that, we’re right there with Adam and Eve in today’s Old Testament reading.  Now, we need a little backstory: God has created the universe, and the earth, and the ecosystem’s peaceable kingdom.  And God caps creation with … us, made in the image and likeness of divinity, to be God’s relationship partners and the stewards of creation.  Of course, bearing the divine image and likeness means the gift of free will; and free will only works if you have things to choose for and choose against.  So, God puts a limit on these beloved children:  You can eat anything from the bounty I’ve given you, except for the fruit of two trees – the Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

And … cue the snake.  Now, the story says the snake is “more crafty” than God’s other creatures (3:1), but Jewish and Christian traditions have long associated the snake with the power of evil.  The story doesn’t dig into the theological question of why evil would exist in paradise; but maybe it’s enough to recognize that if you have free will, and you have a God who’s created humanity for relationship, there has to be something other than God for people to choose.  So, whatever you see the snake representing – Satan, original sin, however you want to name “not-God” – there it is, showing the people that they actually won’t die just for eating the fruit and knowing good and evil.  Instead, they’ll become even more like God.  And so, of course, they eat.

That’s where our story picks up today.  The Lord God takes a stroll through paradise, and it’s too quiet.  God can’t hear the kids; and like a good parent, God gets suspicious.  “Where are you?” God calls out (Genesis 3:9), knowing their answer will be their indictment.  “I was afraid because I was naked,” the man says (3:10) – afraid because, knowing good and evil, the people now know what it is to be exposed and vulnerable and ashamed.  So, God asks the already-answered question: “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (3:11).  And the finger-pointing begins:  The man blames the woman and implicitly blames God, too – “the woman you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit from the tree” (3:12).  And the woman points on down the line:  “The serpent tricked me,” she says – which is true.  The power of not-God bears some of the blame; and God punishes the snake, re-creating it lower in the great chain of being.  But the man and woman, too, each admit their part:  “I ate” (3:12,13). 

It makes no sense, but that doesn’t make it less true:  The humans trust a creature that doesn’t have their best interest at heart over the Creator who gave them life and meets all their needs.  Our desire to be God starts from the very beginning, our sacred stories tell us.  And right alongside it is the snake, the power of not-God, telling us we’ll profit from our own destruction.  Sin and evil walk hand in hand, even in paradise.

We don’t have to look hard to see them walking together here and now, too.  This could be a fill-in-the-blank sermon – insert your favorite social evil here.  But today, our Diocese of West Missouri has chosen an evil for us to examine.  This is Wear Orange Sunday, a time for churches to raise up the evil of gun violence.  Of course, guns aren’t the only instrument of violence among us, but you don’t have to read the news long to identify our weapon of choice.  The observance this Sunday takes its name from a grassroots effort in Chicago 11 years ago, when a young woman was shot and killed on a playground.  To remember her and grieve her death, members of her community wore orange, the color hunters wear to protect themselves from being shot. 

Of course, this kind of remembrance and lament isn’t new at St. Andrew’s.  Every Sunday, for years now, we’ve prayed by name for the members of our community who died in violent acts that week.  I don’t know about you, but it never ceases to grieve me.  I always hope we won’t have to read that line in the prayers this week, but it’s always there.  And it grieves me to hear the names.  These aren’t “those people” who end up shot, “those people” who live in neighborhoods that aren’t like mine.  Instead, it’s William, and Ayesha, and Manuel – real, formerly live people.  So, this morning, for Wear Orange Sunday, in addition to remembering those who died in violent acts in the past week, we also have a prayer station over in the columbarium.  There are candles you can light and plant in sand to remember the almost 90 real, formerly live people in our metro area who’ve died in violent acts so far this year.  You’ll find the names of each of these children of God next to the candles.

The innocent victims, the accidents, the suicides, the people in the wrong place at the wrong time – those tragedies hit us like a gut punch.  But the truth is that many of the almost 90 people we remember today played some role in their own demise.  If our Genesis story says nothing else, it says that Satan or the power of evil isn’t solely to blame for human suffering.  Instead, in many instances of violence, one choice after another conspires with the paucity of opportunity and the availability of weaponry to end these blessed human lives.  The causes of gun violence are indeed multifactorial.  But, as Sister Berta Sailer used to say, the fact that you can buy a gun more easily than you can buy a tomato in much of our city plays its own part in the tragedy.

So, the obvious question is, what can we do about this?

Our Gospel reading this morning might point us to some answers.  First, we rationally minded folks have to remember that Jesus and his world took Satan and demons very seriously.  The struggles playing out on earth reflected a cosmic battle being waged between good and evil, between God and not-God.  So, before today’s reading, Mark’s Gospel has told of several times when Jesus confronted demons.  And in those confrontations, there’s no doubt who has the upper hand.  The demons recognize his divine nature long before his disciples do.  The demons ask Jesus, “Have you come to destroy us? [We] know who you are, the Holy One of God” (1:24). 

Jesus’ opponents share his world view, and in today’s reading they acknowledge his power in casting out demons – but they say he’s working for the other side.  If Jesus can cast out demons, the religious leaders say, he must be a middle manager working with Satan himself.  But Jesus names the logical fallacy:  How could Satan’s power stand if demons cast out demons?

But with a quick parable, he slips in an insight we might miss.  Jesus says, “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then, indeed, the house can be plundered” (3:27).  Hmmm.  So, the power of evil can meet its match – but what is that competing power?  And what would it look like for that power to bind the strong man?

I hear an answer from Jesus at the end of the Gospel reading.  His family members are trying to pull him back from trouble that’s rising, but Jesus doesn’t mind the confrontation – in fact, he invites it. And he’s grateful for the crowd standing with him to confront the strong man and bind his power.  These are the people Jesus is counting as his true family – “whoever does the will of God” (3:34). 

And what is that – the will of God?  Jesus names it a few chapters later, just after Palm Sunday.  Having ridden into Jerusalem in triumph, he condemns the religious leaders who use their power to advance their own interest.  He boils down the reign and rule of God to the core truth our hearts already know.  The first commandment is this:  Love God with everything you’ve got.  And the second is this:  “Love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no other commandment greater than these,” Jesus says (12:31).  Doing that is the will of God.

When we see broken people choosing to follow powers that are not-God, and a broken society willing to write off some lives as less valuable than others, then this is how we bind the strong man:  Love God and love neighbor the way God empowers you to do it.  In the case of gun violence, listen for ways you could work for the well-being of God’s children for whom violence is more common than opportunity. 

How might we do that?  Our first step is to turn to God in prayer – not just for the almost 90 individuals killed in the cycle of violence so far this year but for guidance in how the Holy Spirit specifically impassions and empowers you to do “the will of God” in the world (Mark 3:35).  That won’t look the same for each of us.  Some of us come at it more from the supply side and want fewer guns to be available.  Some of us come at it more from the demand side and want to change the choices people make.  Some of us see truth on both sides – or might see reducing violence through a completely different lens. 

But wherever your passions and your policies lie, act on them.  Maybe it’s voting specifically with the well-being of poorer communities in mind.  Maybe it’s empowering children by reading to them at Gordon Parks or teaching them in the Banneker garden.  Maybe it’s walking alongside a family through Andie’s Pantry.  Maybe it’s advocating to public officials for policies and resources to build opportunity in poorer communities.  Maybe it’s taking a stand in peaceful protest.  Maybe it’s getting involved in a nonprofit or a social enterprise.  Maybe it’s praying, as if lives depended on it, for individuals and leaders to choose the way of Love.  Wherever you see steps toward solutions, take them. 

What happens next in our community is not inevitable.  It’s up to Jesus’ brothers and sisters, which is us.  We can point fingers at others, saying they’re the ones to blame.  We can shrug our shoulders and let the strong man have his way.  Or, we can take a million small steps to empower our neighbors and choose God’s kingdom of peace.  After all, love’s not just a feeling.  Love is a verb.  It’s one action after another that binds the strong man and sets God’s children free.

Listening in Tongues

Sermon for Pentecost, May 19, 2024
Acts 2:1-21
Walking the Way of Love preaching series, week 7

With the wonderful problem of having several baptisms this morning, I want to give you back at least some of our typical sermon time.  So, if I’m a little more focused than usual, you’ll know why.

The reason for the baptisms is that we’re celebrating Pentecost, as we heard in the reading from Acts.  Jesus had promised his friends several times that, once he returned to his heavenly glory, he would send the Holy Spirit to continue his work here – guiding, teaching, inspiring, and empowering his followers in this new moment of salvation history.  Traditionally, we’ve called the time that starts with Pentecost the period of the Church – but that conjures images of institutions and bureaucracies, and who wants to imagine salvation as one committee meeting after another?  Instead, more recently, you’ve heard our presiding bishop call this current time of salvation history “the Jesus Movement,” with The Episcopal Church being one branch of it.  I like that – that our baptismal candidates will step out of the water and into a movement, not a meeting.

So, in our Pentecost story this morning, the Holy Spirit doesn’t just come on the scene but takes it over, and the disciples are blown away, almost literally.  A great wind whirls through the room (in Hebrew and Greek, the same word meant both “wind” and “sprit”).  Flames of fire dance on their heads.  And the disciples receive a gift – maybe the last gift they would have expected.  Pentecost was already a festival for the Jewish people, a time they gave thanks for Israel’s unique and exclusive covenant with the Almighty.¹ Well, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, God opened up that covenant to include everyone on the planet, potentially.  This new covenant of eternal life wasn’t just for the people who already had a special relationship with God; it invited everyone into a special relationship with God.  So, the first gift of the Holy Spirit to this new Jesus Movement was just what his followers needed if they were going to expand the circle of blessing – the gift of languages.  Suddenly, these Galilean fishermen and laborers could communicate with people from across the known world.  If you want to share good news with someone, it’s handy to be able to speak in that person’s tongue.

In fact, this gift of the Holy Spirit is often called “the gift of tongues.”  And in our culture, since the Pentecostal movement began in the early 1900s, that “gift of tongues” has had a more specific meaning – one different from what the apostles were experiencing on Pentecost morning.  In the Pentecostal church tradition, a mark of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit is the ability to speak in a language no one else knows, a language of prayer and praise and maybe prophetic witness, too.  This gift goes back to the early Church, when the apostle Paul set guidelines for how Christians should speak and interpret spiritual tongues in worship.  It may not be our vibe as Episcopalians, but it’s a spiritual gift with a long history.

But – that kind of speaking in tongues is not what the apostles are doing in today’s reading.  What the Holy Spirit gives the apostles is the ability to communicate not in special divine speech but in everyday talk – everybody’s everyday talk.  As the story says, the foreigners there in Jerusalem were “amazed and astonished” to hear about “God’s deeds of power” in the words of their own lands (Acts 2:7,11).

But, if you think about it, this first gift of the Holy Spirit empowered the apostles with something even greater than the ability to speak to people they didn’t know or understand.  It empowered them to listen to people they didn’t know or understand. 

When we think about sharing the good news of the Jesus Movement, we usually picture people speaking, right? – on a street corner, or at your front door, telling you what they think is good for you.  That’s what institutions do: They tell you what they think you need to hear.  But a real movement is different.  A movement connects with real, live people about their real, lived experience.  A movement comes alongside folks, and learns about them, and helps free them from what holds them back so they can build a better life.  First and foremost, a movement listens. 

Today, we’re wrapping up our preaching series on walking Jesus’ Way of Love.  So far, we’ve looked at six spiritual practices to help us go deeper in our relationship with God – turning, resting, blessing, learning, worshiping, and praying.  And today, on this birthday of the Jesus Movement, we come to the last of these seven practices, which is to go – to cross boundaries, listen deeply, and live like Jesus.  It’s another way to state the last promise in the Baptismal Covenant that we’ll affirm in a few minutes – that pesky promise to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being.  To me, that baptismal promise has always seemed the hardest one to keep.  How am I supposed to bring about justice and peace?  How can I respect the dignity of everyone? 

Of course, the first break we get is that God isn’t expecting us to do the whole job by ourselves.  And the second break we get is that we promise to do this impossible task “with God’s help.”  But what really makes possible this spiritual practice of going toward others and living like Jesus is the fact that striving for justice and peace begins not with an open mouth or even an open hand but with an open ear.  When we come alongside people whose lives we don’t understand and really listen to their stories, we’re respecting their dignity in the most powerful way there is.

We have lots of opportunities to do that – getting to know a family through Andie’s Pantry, or gardening alongside kids at Banneker Elementary, or reading to kids at Gordon Parks Elementary.  The best outreach ministries are the ones that take us beyond our usual circles and move us out into someone else’s experience.

But there’s also an opportunity to go and respect people’s dignity right here, going no farther than the friendly confines of the Jewell Room.  It’s our Listening in Love series, when we gather to look each other in the eye and hear why on earth that person in the next pew believes something so different from what I believe.  Each person who comes gets three minutes to share our hearts about a topic that’s dividing us, while the others in the room practice the spiritual gift of listening to languages they never thought they could understand.  And each person speaking receives the gift of being heard, one of the greatest moments of dignity anyone can know.

On Tuesday the 28^th, at 7 p.m., we’ll put this gift of listening to a tough test as we consider the war between Israel and Hamas and ask, “Where’s my tribe?”  That’s a tall order, listening in love about such a divisive reality.  But it shows us something important about this spiritual practice of going – of crossing boundaries, listening deeply, and living like Jesus.  Even if the “others” don’t live far away or look much different from you, the differences that separate us can seem vast indeed.  But when we choose to go, and listen to those others speaking in “the native language of each” (Acts 2:6), and honor the dignity of their experience, we find ourselves seeing them not as an “other” but as a fellow pilgrim. 

In fact, we might even find ourselves wondering, “Hmmm.  Where else could we go together in this movement to live like Jesus?”

1.       VanderKam, James C. “Festival of Weeks.” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Volume 6. David Noel Freedman, ed. New York: Doubleday, 1992. 895-897.

Praying for Someone to Trust

Sermon for May 12, 2024
Celebrating the Feast of the Ascension, transferred
Walking the Way of Love preaching series, week 6

Jordan and Finn, thank you so much for those reflections.  Yours is a tough act to follow.  But in the spirit of marking Senior Sunday and celebrating our graduates’ next steps on their journeys, I thought I’d frame the sermon this morning as a commencement address.  So it’s really for the nine of you, but the rest of the folks might get something out of it, too.

Doing something a little different with the sermon seems right especially today, given this is one of those preaching moments nobody would sign up for.  Here’s your task, Fr. John: Combine Senior Sunday, Mother’s Day, the Feast of the Ascension, and the spiritual practice of prayer, which is this morning’s installment of our preaching series on Walking the Way of Love.  Making sense of all that sounds like a job for … the Sermonizer – computer-generated sermons with the press of a button!

Wouldn’t that be great?  Well, it turns out, of course, the Sermonizer already exists.  It’s called ChatGPT, our instant access to artificial intelligence.  I’m probably the last person on the planet to try ChatGPT, and certainly our seniors are well aware of both its blessings and its temptations.  Like most innovations, AI is neither good nor bad.  It’s simply a power that’s been set loose; and like any other genie, this one won’t go back in its bottle.  It’s part of the world you seniors are inheriting, and part of the world oldsters like me are beginning to understand.  I can tell you this much: If you ask ChatGPT to write a sermon that includes the feast of the Ascension, Mother's Day, the spiritual practice of prayer, and graduating seniors, ChatGPT will do it. Five hundred sixty words and a few seconds later, you have something that would earn a C-minus for a first-year seminarian.  So, the Sermonizer lives … or, more accurately, the Plagiarizer lives. 

OK, this is not a diatribe against technology.  Instead, this is an old-fashioned, non-Sermonizer sermon encouraging you to ask yourselves a deep question:  Where can I put my trust?

One place I’d encourage you to look is to the other people we’re remembering in our worship today: mothers.  Now, as we’ll pray in a few minutes, that group of our original influencers isn’t limited to our biological moms.  But in whoever plays that role for us, one of the marks of a good mom is that you can trust her with everything you’ve got.  I’ve been blessed to know that reality first-hand, and here’s a quick example – although it’s definitely not a typical warm and fuzzy Mother’s Day memory.  While I was on sabbatical last summer, I wrote a journal article about the 1906 lynching in my hometown, Springfield, Missouri.  The article told the story of three Black men strung up on the public square, and it described how our diocese is remembering the 25 lynchings that took place in western Missouri across the decades.¹  Well, that article begins not with facts and figures about racialized violence but with the memory of my mother and me shopping for school clothes on Springfield’s public square.  As we hunted for jeans and shirts, my mother took the trouble to tell me the story of the lynchings – something I certainly never heard about in school in Springfield.  I could trust my mother to set me on a course that valued respecting the dignity of every human being; and years later, I can still trust the ethical wiring she helped to set.

Guidance you can trust is a precious commodity these days; and, of course, even the best mothers aren’t with us forever.  Soon, you seniors will be heading off to whatever’s next after high school; and eventually, you’ll be like my daughter, turning 30 and buying your own house and making your parents feel really old.  And then, someday, you’ll be the ones making care-planning decisions for your mother, which is what my sisters and I were doing just a couple of days ago.  So, in the journey ahead of you, where else can you look, beyond your mothers, for guidance you can trust as you navigate so many unfamiliar waters?

You can look to Jesus.  OK, it’s not really a surprise that I’d say that, but the answer stands.  And it stands especially today, as we celebrate what’s maybe the least understood of the principal feasts on the Church calendar – the feast of the Ascension, which was this past Thursday. 

As we heard in two of the readings this morning, after forty days of hanging out with the disciples after Easter morning, Jesus returned to the heavens from which he’d come, taking his place of power and authority with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Now, if you find it a little hard to wrap your head around that this morning, you’re in good company.  For centuries, Christians have been trying to make sense of a deep paradox about the Ascension.  At the end of our reading from Acts, the story says the disciples looked on as a cloud “took [Jesus] out of their sight” (1:9), and two angels comforted his friends by saying he’ll come back eventually “in the same way as you saw him go” (1:11).  And the Gospel reading today – like Acts, also written by Luke – tells the story similarly, with Jesus being “carried up into heaven” (24:51) after he commissions the disciples to go out to “all nations” as his “witnesses” (24:47,48).  OK.  But if you read the ending of Matthew’s Gospel, you find no Ascension.  Instead, as Jesus commissions his friends to share the good news, he says, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (28:20).

So, which is it?  Did he stay or did he go?  Is Jesus still close by, or is he sitting on a heavenly throne?

You know what’s coming, right?  The answer is, “Yes.”  And how can that be?  Well, like so much of this Way of Love that God asks us to follow, the answer is both deeply mysterious and something our hearts already understand. 

The theologians will tell you the point of the Ascension is not that Jesus has checked out.  Just the opposite.  The point of the Ascension is that Jesus is in charge, the universe’s CEO.  As the first one to rise from the dead, Jesus has received “all authority in heaven and on earth,” as Matthew’s Gospel says.  Because God raised him to new life, Jesus has power that beats any other power you can name, even the power of death itself.  He may not be leading crowds into Jerusalem anymore, but the authority he wields is so much greater even than what the Romans feared he’d do on earth.  Like a CEO in the corner office, Jesus is in charge even if he isn’t micromanaging every moment of every day.

And yet … he’s with you anyway.  How can that be?  How can Jesus have ascended into heaven as the cosmic ruler and still be accessible to you, and to each of us? 

Here’s a simple answer – and it’s the theme of this week’s stop on the Way of Love in our sermon series.  We’ve been preaching since Easter on seven ways you can connect with God in your day-to-day life.  We’ve talked about turning – making the effort to pause, listen, and choose to follow Jesus.  We’ve talked about resting – letting our hearts be restored with God’s love and peace.  We’ve talked about blessing – showing God’s love through our words and actions.  We’ve talked about learning – reading the Bible and letting those words of hope soak in.  Last week, we talked about worshiping – gathering with other pilgrims to thank God for the blessings of our lives.  And today, our stop on the Way of Love is to pray – to dwell with God intentionally; to make time to reach out in the assurance that, believe it or not, reaching out is the one thing God wants most from us.  If we make the effort, God will show up, too.  Sometimes the message we get may be clear and direct; sometimes it may be “just” a greater sense of peace – but I’ll take that any day.  Prayer, in any form, is your direct line to the CEO.  How can that be possible?  I mean, we’d assume Jesus has a lot on his plate, running the universe.  So, how can someone who’s crazy busy make time to come alongside you and listen, no matter what?  Well, ask your mom.  It’s what love does.

So, seniors, you’re about to head out into a world where trust is in pretty short supply.  The research would say that you all don’t trust institutions; you don’t trust the media; you don’t trust the structures of government; you don’t trust authority figures.  Honestly, most of the time, neither do I.  Original sin is a thing, and you don’t have to look hard to find it.  But when you find it, don’t stop looking for something you can trust just because the institutions around us let us down.  Take your spiritual phone, so to speak; and open up the God app; and see what this feed called prayer will bring you.  Like a parent who always picks up when you need to talk, Jesus will be “with you always, to the end of the age.” 

1. Spicer, John. “Bringing Us to Our Knees: The 1906 Springfield, Missouri, Lynching.” Anglican and Episcopal History, vol. 93, no. 1, 2024, pp. 182–94. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27290761. Accessed 8 May 2024.

The Way of Love: Learn

Sermon for Sunday, April 28, 2024
"Walking the Way of Love" preaching series

Here we are at week 4 of our Easter-season preaching series about Walking the Way of Love. Each Sunday from Easter to Pentecost, we’re focusing on one of the fundamental spiritual practices that our Baptismal Covenant gives us.  Every time we have a baptism or confirmation, we all stand up with the candidates and promise that we, too, will take certain steps on our walk with God.  You can see all seven steps in the article about the sermon series, at the beginning of the bulletin this morning.

Along with preaching about these seven steps, we’ve been asking you to take a spiritual inventory called My Way of Love, and that’s mentioned in the article, too.  The results will help you see where you are in your own walk with Jesus, and follow-up emails will suggest next steps you might take in your own spiritual practice.  I know some of us have had trouble finding the replies to the inventory, and we’re reaching out to the provider about that.

Anyway, you might be asking: “OK, then what?  What’s the end game here?”  Well, I’ve mentioned this before, but just to recap:  For your clergy and Vestry, our major project this year is creating something we’re calling the Pilgrim’s Pathway to Heaven on Earth.  I’m imagining this as a guide for your spiritual journey, an answer to the question, “If I want to follow Jesus’ path and grow closer to God, what could I be doing?  And what resources can St. Andrew’s offer to guide me?”  So far, we’ve been describing these seven steps along the path of spiritual growth: turning toward God, resting, blessing, learning, worshiping, praying, and going into the world to live like Jesus lived.  Practicing these seven actions is how we walk the Way of Love to find heaven in our earthly lives.

OK, so what’s the “deliverable” with this effort?  My prayer is that, by the Annual Parish Meeting in January, we’ll have a guide we can put in your hand, or maybe an app we can put on your phone, to help you use the resources of this parish to make your journey toward heaven on earth.

So … today’s spiritual practice is to “learn.”  Now, you may hear that and flash back to Sunday school – memorizing books of the Bible or answering questions from the catechism.  That’s not all bad, but it’s not the kind of learning I have in mind.  The learning that leads us toward heaven on earth isn’t about racking up points on a heavenly scorecard; it’s learning that changes your heart and empowers your life.  It’s learning that shows us how God’s story is our story, lighting our path in ways we never expected.  The amazing thing is that for the big questions and challenges we face – like, “Who am I?”; “Where’s the meaning in my life?”; “How can I bear pain that seems fundamentally unfair?” – the answers to those big questions come to us when we learn God’s story and find ourselves in it.

I think that’s what’s happening in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles.  Philip, one of the first deacons of the Church, is in Samaria, telling the story of Jesus and healing people.  It’s part of fleshing out what Jesus had said just before he ascended to heaven – that his followers would proclaim his good news to “Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8)  Well, in the category of proclaiming “to the ends of the earth,” the Holy Spirit sends Philip down through the desert wilderness toward Gaza, though Philip doesn’t know why.  And along they way, Philip meets this surprising character who rides into the story out of nowhere – a powerful official from the court of the queen of Ethiopia.  Now this man is about as different from Philip, and Jesus’ other followers, as anyone could be.  He’s powerful, in charge of the queen’s “entire treasury” (Acts 8:27).  He’s a eunuch, a man who’s been castrated as a sign of submission to his monarch.  He’s from Ethiopia, so he looks different from the people of Judea and the Romans who ruled over them.  Actually, his African darkness was highly admired in Greco-Roman culture, seen as a mark of beauty.¹  And, although this Ethiopian official was returning home from worshiping in Jerusalem and was reading the prophet Isaiah, he wasn’t Jewish – wasn’t allowed to be, actually, because he’d been castrated, which Jewish law didn’t allow (Deuteronomy 23:1).²  The Ethiopian was what they called a “God fearer,” someone inspired by the God of Israel but not fully part of the community.

So, why would this Ethiopian court official have gotten the Holy Spirit’s attention?  Because of God’s promise in Isaiah that outsiders like him would be welcomed into the family of God when the messiah came to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth (56:3-5).  In fact, Isaiah says specifically that foreign eunuchs will be welcomed in, no longer seen as “a dry tree” who can’t raise up children to honor the one true God.  Instead, the messiah will welcome these outsiders to join with the people of Israel and “come to the water” of blessing (Isaiah 55:1).

Well, the Ethiopian is reading the prophet Isaiah when Philip comes alongside his chariot.  Philip hears him reading out loud where Isaiah describes God’s suffering servant who will be exalted as messiah, the one who will be struck down and “cut off from the land of the living” (Isaiah 53:8) – much as the Ethiopian has been cut off from his future because he can’t have children.  Turns out, this messiah has suffered right alongside the people he’s saving, even right alongside this Ethiopian stranger, Philip explains.  And when God exalted this suffering messiah to glory, God welcomed even this stranger to share in that glory.  So, this powerful, castrated, dark-skinned court official says to Philip, “Sign me up.”  “Look,” he says, “here is water!  What is to prevent me from being baptized?” (Acts 8:36).  And the ultimate stranger becomes part of the family of God, a full citizen of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

To me, this story is all about the spiritual practice of learning – learning that changes your life.  It’s not just that the Ethiopian needed some new information.  The significance of spiritual learning goes beyond that in at least two ways.  First, the new information he needs is powerful enough to change his heart and change his life.  Through this new learning, God says to the Ethiopian, “I don’t care who you are.  I don’t care what your background is.  I don’t care what your past has done to you or how much you feel like a stranger in a strange land.  What I care about,” God tells the Ethiopian, “is you.  You are my beloved child,” God says, “and with you, I am well-pleased.”

So, that’s the first significance of what the Ethiopian official learns – that it changes his life.  And here’s the second: This life-changing learning comes to him from another pilgrim walking along the road.  Philip is willing literally to come alongside someone whose life has intersected with his.  In that right place at that right time, Philip simply enters into a conversation with the Ethiopian about how Jesus’ good news had changed his own life.  He begins with an invitation to chat: “Do you understand what you’re reading?” he asks (8:30).  Do you want to talk about it?  And the Ethiopian says, “How can I [understand], unless someone guides me?” (8:31).  In other words, learning happens best in community.  We can read books by ourselves all day long, and that’s great.  We can listen to a hundred podcasts, and that’s great.  But life changes for us when we come alongside other pilgrims and let the Holy Spirit take head knowledge and plant it in our hearts.

That happens here all the time, and not just for kids in Sunday school.  Here’s a case study, a glance at the church calendar from just the past week.  Last Sunday, people here gathered in Café 9:15 to learn about the readings for that morning’s worship, while others gathered as the Christian Journey group to discuss the book The Meaning of Jesus by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright.  On Tuesday, people gathered for Sacred Ground to explore the theological dimensions of race and racism in America.  After that, people gathered to learn how to listen to each other with open, loving hearts.  On Thursday, guys gathered for a Men’s Bible Study; women learned about hospice care at Trinity Guild; and that evening, others gathered to learn about the Sacraments at Trailside.  That’s a typical week, and more is coming.  In May, we’ll offer our All-Parish Read of the book Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life by Harold Kushner, and we’ll discuss that book on Thursday nights at Trailside.  After that, watch for a new offering of Bible study at Trailside Thursdays, led by your clergy.

And, of course, we don’t just learn together through groups or classes.  Sometimes, what opens our eyes to God’s kingdom in our midst is the learning that happens when we’re doing something else.  For example, today, we’re celebrating the centennial of our Altar Guild.  For a hundred years, sacristans have been preparing the elements for Communion, and ironing linens, and tending candles, and cleaning holy hardware.  But the Altar Guild experience doesn’t stop with that service.  I can’t count the number of times over the years that sacristans have said to me, “One of the best things about Altar Guild is what you learn about how and why we worship.”  And right alongside that is this holy truth – that maybe the best thing about Altar Guild is that their blessed service and learning happens among a community of friends.

And the great thing about both the learning and the people who share it here is this:  No tests – not in any sense, actually.  There’s no required list of Scripture’s greatest hits to memorize.  There’s no background check:  Wherever you’re coming from, you’re part of this band of pilgrims seeking heaven on earth.  And there’s no dotted line to sign:  Whatever questions you bring, whatever doubts you hold, you’re part of this journey we take together. 

Let me share one more snapshot from last week.  I was talking with someone who’s been following this sermon series, someone who’s been involved in our work to serve people in the community, someone who’s been going to church for a long time.  And now, she’s getting a sense there’s more to discover and deeper places to go.  So, she tried reading a scholarly work on the nature of Christ, but it left her dry.  She said, “It would be so much better discussing it with a group.  Basically, I want to have faith,” she said; “I want to believe in all things Christian.  But,” she said, “I wasn’t born with that trusting-God gene.” 

Well, neither was I.  My hunch is that very few of us were.  It sure would be convenient if we could hear the right story, or read the right book, or listen to the right podcast, and just get this faith thing.  But we don’t do that on our own.  It takes the rest of the folks on the journey, too.  We trust God so much more deeply when our hearts are formed together.  As the Ethiopian stranger said to Philip, “How can I [understand], unless someone guides me?”

1.      HarperCollins Study Bible, 2073 (note).

2.      HarperCollins Study Bible, 2073 (note).

Turn: Pause, Listen, and Follow Jesus

Sermon for Sunday, April 7, 2024
"Walking the Way of Love" preaching series

As we begin this sermon series about Walking the Way of Love, I want to share a story from a long time ago now, when Ann and the kids and I were in seminary in Austin. 

It was my senior year, and Ann had been hospitalized for several weeks.  I was doing field education at a parish there – the time when you get a little foretaste of what life is like as a priest.  Another student, who had just begun her time at the seminary, was doing the first-year students’ version of field ed at the same congregation.  This other student was blind, and I got to know her by being her ride to our field-ed parish.  She’d had a strong vocation even before coming to seminary, having made her way through law school and practiced as an attorney for several years.  I can’t imagine the dedication and talent it took for her to overcome all that she’d overcome to be a lawyer … and now she was starting professional training all over again to follow her calling as a priest.  On one of our rides back to the seminary, I said all that to her – how much I admired her strength, and resolve, and commitment as she headed down this new vocational path.  She said, “Well, you know, this isn’t just about professional dedication.  I’ve come to see that following Jesus Christ pretty much means everything to me.  So, this isn’t a career transition.  I stake my life on this.”

So much for the wise senior encouraging the new seminarian. 

I didn’t realize it at the time, with Ann lying in the hospital and our path rather foggy, but this was a turning point for me – not in the sense of changing my direction but in the sense of understanding it.  As I said last week – for me, going to seminary had felt like more like a change in career than a change in identity.  But in that semester when I had no idea what was coming next for Ann and the kids and me, and as I was relying so deeply on our families and the seminary community to get us through, I heard this other student’s witness and thought, “What do you know?  That call to follow Christ in the darkness – that’s my call, too.  It turns out, I am staking my life on this.”  And though I haven’t spoken to this other student since I graduated and now can’t even remember her name, I’m very grateful for how clearly she could see where God was leading her and for how deeply she trusted in that.

In this sermon series about Walking the Way of Love, our first step is “turn.”  Now, in our Baptismal Covenant, those promises we renew at every baptism and confirmation, we frame this step in terms of repentance, turning from sin and evil; and that’s certainly part of our journey.  But turning can be much less dramatic yet even more life-changing.  And, as a spiritual practice, turning happens more often than we might think.  In fact, as we walk Jesus’ Way of Love across our lives, I think we come to one turning point after another.

In the Gospel reading today, we got to hear about a famous turning point involving the much-maligned disciple Thomas.  Now, when you hear that name, what descriptive word always comes before it?  Right – “doubting Thomas.”  Well, that’s just unfair; he wasn’t the only one struggling to believe in resurrection.  All the other disciples were hiding out on Easter night, scared to death about what the religious authorities might do to them, having crucified their leader.  They had the doors locked and the lamps burning low … despite the fact that Mary Magdalene had told them what she’d seen that morning – that Jesus had risen, and was walking around, and was telling her to go share the news.  The disciples had an eyewitness, and two of them – Peter and John – had gone to see the empty tomb for themselves.  But there they all were, with the doors locked, paralyzed in fear.  So, who was doing the doubting?

Anyway, they were then blessed to witness the risen Christ for themselves, as his transformed and transfigured physical body passed through the locked door.  He gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Pentecost moment in the Gospel of John; and he empowered them to bear his peace and his power of forgiveness to the world. 

Unfortunately, Thomas missed it.  And when the rest of the disciples told him what happened, he reacted just like they’d reacted to Mary Magdalene:  “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe,” Thomas said (John 20:25).  Bookmark that last word, “believe,” because we’ll come back to it. 

But for now, the story then jumps ahead seven days to the next Sunday, when Thomas is back; and the risen Jesus again walks through the locked door and stands with them.  It’s not just a courtesy call.  Jesus has come to give Thomas precisely what he needs.  “Put your finger here and see my hands,” Jesus says, letting Thomas “see” the way little kids need to see things, by touching them.  “Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Do not doubt but believe.” (20:27)

Press “pause” there for a minute, and let’s think about that word, “believe.”  We postmodern folks don’t use it like ancient people would’ve used it.  If you ask me, “Do you believe in the resurrection?” you’re probably asking, “Do you think that Jesus really was dead, and that God really raised him from death, and that Jesus really experienced bodily life again?”  In other words, do you think it’s factually true?  For the record, the answer is “yes,” but that’s not the point.  The point is that when the writer of John’s Gospel used the Greek word pistos, which we translate as “believe,” it meant much more than just thinking something’s true.  And when the bishops of the early Church got together in Nicaea and consolidated the faith of the Jesus movement into a creed and began its three sections with a Greek word we translate as “We believe,” it meant much more than just thinking something’s true.  For the ancients, believing something wasn’t just acknowledging its veracity.  Believing something meant trusting in it, setting your heart on it, guiding your life by it.

So, back to Jesus and Thomas.  “See my hands and my feet,” Jesus says.  “Do not doubt but … trust in this.  Set your heart on this.  Guide your life by this.  Because resurrection happens.”

And Thomas turns.  As he walks the Way of Love, Thomas comes to a crucial moment, a cross in the road, where he sees where he’s heading and sets his face toward it.  “My Lord and my God!” he exclaims (20:28).  Now, the verb there matters.  Thomas “exclaims,” not “explains.”  There is nothing logical about Thomas’ turning point.  His logic was sound right up until Jesus walked through a locked door.  It made all the sense in the world – all the worldly sense – for Thomas to say, “Dead people don’t walk into the room and start talking.  I’d have to see that to believe it.”  Wouldn’t we? 

Jesus knows this – which is why I don’t hear him chiding Thomas at all for not setting his heart on something he hasn’t experienced.  Jesus is simply inviting Thomas to look and see precisely what Thomas said he needed to see … and then set his heart on it.  And Thomas responds with the single clearest ascription of divine authority any character in John’s Gospel ever speaks about Jesus.  He isn’t just the rabbi anymore.  He isn’t just the king of Israel anymore.  He’s “my Lord” – in Greek, kyrios, the same word used for the Roman Emperor – and he’s “my God.”  God has been crucified, and has risen, and is walking through locked doors to find Thomas. 

And the call to us?  As today’s step in Walking the Way of Love puts it:  “Turn – pause, listen, and choose to follow Jesus.”  In other words, notice what God’s up to in your life.  Notice how it might be precisely what you need in order to set your heart on this illogical and transforming reality.  It’s the risen Christ who called a blind attorney to turn in a new direction and trust in a new path.  It’s the risen Christ who called a lost seminarian to trust in friends and family and a parish yet to come, all of whom would show that the Spirit could carry him far better than he could carry himself.  It’s the risen Christ who comes to find us when we pause, and listen, and choose to follow – when we say, “You know, actually, I stake my life on this.”

Walk the Way of Love

Sermon for Easter, March 31, 2024
John 20:1-18

If you were scrolling through Netflix looking for something to stream, and you came upon this chapter of the Easter story, the show’s summary might go something like this: Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb and meets Jesus, risen from the dead. 

Short and sweet – and pretty spectacular, actually, with Jesus vanquishing the power of death and walking out of his own tomb.  But there’s a lot more to the story than that.  In fact, I’d say, this is a complicated story, one with people straining to see in the dark, running away in fear, running forward in faith, and being sent somewhere they don’t really understand.  Sounds like my spiritual journey … maybe yours, too.

Mary Magdalene’s Easter journey starts in ancient darkness.  In our mind’s eye, we see paintings or movie scenes of Jesus stepping out of the tomb with sunlight streaming everywhere; but John’s Gospel sets the scene this way:  “While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb” (20:1).  So, Mary begins where most of us begin, unless we’re lucky enough to have some burning-bush moment of spiritual awakening.  She’s just trying to move forward, trying to find light in her deepest darkness.

So, what’s she doing there at the tomb in that darkest hour before the dawn?  Unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John’s version of the story doesn’t say she was there with other women to attend to the body.  She’s not bringing burial spices or ointments; she’s bringing something far more valuable – herself, in her grief, simply aching for the love in which she’d invested everything.

As Mary offers herself this way, immediately she finds something deeply upsetting, the last thing she’d expect:  She sees that the stone sealing the tomb had been removed.  Life does that, doesn’t it? – springing surprises on us, usually ones we don’t want.  But God also does that, surprising us with blessings we’d have never imagined.  At this point, Mary doesn’t know which kind of surprise this is.

“So, she ran and went to … Peter and the other disciple … and said, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve laid him’” (1:2).  For Mary, this surprise feels like salt in Good Friday’s wound.  Not only have the authorities killed her friend, spiritual leader, and messiah; but someone – the Romans or the religious authorities – someone has stolen the body.  God knows what they’ll do with it – drag it through the streets or dangle it from the city wall as a sign of what happens to people who stand up to entrenched power. 

So, Peter and John come running to the tomb.  They react like we might:  Whether the news is horrific or miraculous, they’ve got to see it for themselves.  John just looks into the tomb, poking in a torch to see if the desecrated body’s crumpled in the corner.  But Peter charges in, setting aside the creepiness (and ritual defilement) of exploring an occupied tomb.  Peter’s got extra skin in this game, given that he holds himself responsible after denying Jesus three times.  His grief tells him to experience this reality for himself. 

Peter and John don’t find answers, but they do find evidence – bloody linens tossed aside.  So, what to make of it?  Peter’s guilt keeps him from seeing anything but the physical evidence.  But John “went in, and he saw and believed” (20:8).  I’ve always envied people like John, folks who can let go of suspicion or trauma or guilt, and just open their hearts to hope.  

But then, the guys “returned to their homes” (John 20:10) – and we hear nothing more about them until later that night, where we’ll pick up the story next Sunday.  Even John, who’s blessed to believe, doesn’t yet know what to do with it.

Meanwhile, as the guys investigated, Mary was “weeping outside the tomb”; and now she looks in, too (20:11).  And she’s blessed with a vision the guys didn’t receive: two angels, sitting on the slab where the body had been.  Well, thank God, she’s thinking; now come the answers, right?  But instead, even the miraculous vision just offers more questions:  “Woman, why are you weeping?” the angels ask (20:13).  “Really?  Why do you think I’m weeping?”  Who knew heavenly messengers could be so obtuse?  Mary’s too upset to ponder deep questions; she just wants to know what happened to the one on whom she’d set her heart.  

Then she turns around and sees someone – not realizing, in the ancient darkness, that it’s Jesus.  She thinks it’s the maintenance man; and when he asks her what’s wrong, she does everything she can to keep from screaming at him.  But then – you know, like God does – the least likely person in the scene turns out to have been Jesus all the time.  And he gives Mary far more than she could’ve hoped – not just assurance that the body hasn’t been stolen; not just proof that God has raised Jesus from the dead; but conviction that the living God, as the risen Christ, knows her by name – and wants her to be his instrument.   

Talk about a spiritual journey.  And all because Mary answered the longing she felt and bravely headed into the darkness, seeking light she knew was out there somewhere.

What about us this morning?  We’ve come to the empty tomb for one reason or another.  Maybe we follow in the footsteps of Mary Magdalene.  Maybe we’re struggling through the dark, not knowing what we’ll find, because something’s calling us, and we can’t stay where we are.  Or, maybe we follow in the footsteps of Peter.  Maybe we’re carrying our own baggage but we want to check out what we’ve heard about this empty tomb.  So we step in, and we see signs of life, and we think, “Well, maybe rising from the dead can happen after all.”  Or, maybe we follow in the footsteps of John.  Maybe we want to check out this empty tomb but we hang back a bit before we take a step inside.  Then we see the signs of life, and something clicks inside; and we say to ourselves, “I can’t explain this, but I know death is not the end of my story.  So, now what?”

There’s no one way to make a journey of faith.  We each come to it with our own blessings and our own baggage.  For some of us here this morning, our path has been pretty straightforward, maybe even boring.  That’s my story.  I was baptized in an Episcopal congregation in Springfield at 1 month old, and I went to that same church all through my childhood.  There was no question what we were doing on Sunday mornings.  So, I went to church – over and over again.  But there was no urgency in my relationship with God; it was more like knowing your grandmother is out there somewhere, loving you from a distance. 

Now, I stepped closer to God discerning a call to be a priest, but honestly it felt more like a potential career change than an existential moment.  But then, in seminary, as many of you know, my wife, Ann, got very sick, and nearly died, and spent two months in the hospital.  And I can see myself standing in the hospital parking lot with our daughter, Kathryn, stumbling to explain why all this was happening.  You haven’t lived until you try to tell your second grader why bad things happen to good people, like her mom.  I wasn’t so happy with God at that moment.  And that was just one dark night; I guarantee you there’ve been others over the past 22 years.  But God and I have kept at it, and the partnership is pretty good now.

For others of us here this morning, the spiritual journey has taken more twists.  Maybe your path has looked more like Mary’s:  You’d found some light that chased away the darkness, but then the darkness closed back in, maybe even took the upper hand.  So, you took the risk to confront it, but that just added insult to injury.  You looked for answers, but the people you turned to just left you with more questions.  Then, when you felt like you just might scream in frustration, somehow you heard God calling your name – maybe in whispers, maybe with a bullhorn.  But you looked a second time, and you saw life made new.

Or maybe your path has been more like Peter’s or John’s.  You’ve heard someone or felt something telling you that you need to give God a look.  Maybe it’s a second look, or maybe it’s for the first time; but somehow, the reality you’ve been living has shifted, and the old answers aren’t working anymore.  So, you go and investigate; you explore; and you see evidence that points toward hope.  So, you give it a shot.  You step into the empty tomb and try on resurrection like a new suit of clothes. 

And after that?  Well, maybe you’re Peter, and you need to go home, and think about it, and gather more evidence.  Or maybe you’re John, and you go home knowing God’s real – but not knowing what to do next.

Well, let me offer a thought about what to do next – whether you’re John or Peter or Mary Magdalene, or whether your path to the empty tomb has been entirely different.  Whether you’re trying on resurrection to see how it fits, or whether you’re wondering what to do with your faith, or whether you’re walking a path with Jesus right beside you, here’s something to try.

Make your life a pilgrimage.  Walk the way of love to find resurrection – nothing less than heaven on earth.

Now, that may sound stupidly obvious.  I mean, what else is the priest going to say, right?  But if “resurrection” feels like religious code language, think of it like this:  Love is God’s weapon and God’s way, and Jesus has used it to conquer everything that is not Love.  This is the deep truth of Easter:  Blessing defeats cursing.  Compassion defeats anger.  Listening defeats shouting.  Service defeats self-interest.  Honesty defeats mendacity.  Integrity defeats corruption.  Respect defeats hate.  In the Easter story, the religious authorities and the imperial rulers had every worldly power working for them.  And yet, the power of Love rises victorious over their curses and anger and shouting and self-interest and mendacity and corruption and hate.  And that power of Love rises victorious still.

For Love to keep winning, what it takes is our choice to walk that path – millions of hearts turning, and millions of feet following Jesus’ way.  How do you do it?  Just like any other journey or any other movement:  It happens one step at a time.

So, over the next seven weeks here, we’re inviting you to walk the way of Love.¹  Your starting point doesn’t matter, and your path will be unique.  But like a dance, this way of Love includes steps we share, even as we make them our own.  You’ll find them on the front of the bulletin, and on the website, and as our preaching series over the next couple of months.  Here’s how to live in resurrection – seven steps you can take to walk in Love: 

1.      Turn.  In other words, pause, listen, and choose to follow Jesus. 

2.      Rest.  In other words, receive the gift of God’s grace, peace, and restoration.

3.      Bless.  In other words, share love by unselfishly giving and serving. 

4.      Learn.  In other words, reflect on Scripture each day, especially on Jesus’ life and teachings. 

5.      Worship.  In other words, gather in community to thank, praise, and dwell with God. 

6.      Pray.  In other words, dwell intentionally with God daily. 

7.      Go.  In other words, cross boundaries, listen deeply, and live like Jesus. 

As a guide, there’s an online assessment you can take, called “My Way of Love.”²  You can access it through the website or the Messenger.  It will help you gauge where you are in your spiritual journey, and you can sign up for weekly emails offering tips related to each step.

Whoever you are – Mary, Peter, John, or someone entirely different – just know this:  Resurrection means Love wins.  The battle’s already been fought, and Jesus came out on top.  And now, he’d be honored to have you walking alongside him.

1.      https://www.episcopalchurch.org/way-of-love/

2.      https://www.episcopalchurch.org/way-of-love/my-way-of-love/