YEAR B 2024 feast of pentecost

Pentecost, 2024
Acts 2:1-21
Romans 8:22-27
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
Psalm 104:25-35, 37

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

As you know by now, I sometimes consult language experts when preparing a sermon.  This usually means checking a particular blog by Mark Davis, a Presbyterian pastor from California.  Most times, there’s nothing that stands out in his word-for-word translation of the readings, but sometimes there’s something that really makes a difference, when compared to the translation we get in the bulletin.

And today is one of those times where I stumbled onto something significant in the reading from Acts.  As we heard, the crowd that gathered around the disciples could understand what they were saying, and they ask, “How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?”  Our own native language.  Now there’s a perfectly good Greek word that means “language,” and that word is glossai.  Glossai means “language.”  But that is not the term Luke uses here.  Instead of language, he uses idia dialecto, which means idiomatic dialect to you and me.  

So the crowd is actually asking, “How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own idiomatic dialect?”  It is specific, personal, tailor-made for each person.

Now dialects are mostly regional, but they can also be class-based, or occupational.  On a regional level, we get things like the “all y’all” of the deep south, and the “gnarly dudes” of southern California.  If we throw in things like accents and vocabulary, Americans living in rural Georgia and rural Vermont could hardly even have a conversation, even though they are technically speaking the same language.  So, for the crowd in Acts to simply hear their native language might still make it hard to understand.  Hearing in their own dialect means they understand what is being said.

And then when we consider idioms, it ramps it all up.  If I say, “It’s raining cats and dogs,” you all know what I mean.  But in other countries they have different phrases for a hefty downpour.  Some make sense to us, like the Hungarian, “It rains as if it had been poured from a basin,” or the Russian, “It is pouring like from a bucket.”  But what would you think if you were in Ireland and heard someone say, “It's raining shoemakers’ knives?” Or, in Spain you heard, “It's almost raining husbands.”  Or, in Wales, “It's raining old ladies and walking sticks.”  I’m not from around here, apparently.

The use of an idiom gathers a community who are all in on the joke.  And that necessarily means you can tell who isn’t from around these parts, right?  If someone says to me, “It is raining young cobblers,” I would say, “You’re from Germany, aren’t you?!?”  So an idiom tells us who’s in and who’s out, while sharing a dialect makes us able to understand what someone is saying.  The crowd asks, “How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own idiomatic dialect?”  How can I not only understand, but also know that these people get our idiosyncrasies?  How could everything that usually separates us from one another suddenly be dissolved?  They get me and I understand.

Now let’s go back to the scoffers.  The ones who sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine.” What they have just witnessed, in sight and sound, is the coming of the Holy Spirit.  What the scoffers have seen is the arrival of this Spirit in a very tangible way.  Something like tongues of fire on people’s heads, rushing and violent wind, people speaking in multiple languages.  Assumedly, they do not understand what is happening, and so they scoff.

But actually they do understand.  Because remember how the disciples started speaking in tongues?  They weren’t speaking in some kind of possessed nonsense way; they were speaking in languages.  Real dialects and idioms.  Languages that people spoke, and understood, and wrote with.  The scoffers did understand.  Everyone understood.  So why the hostility?  Why the accusation of drunkenness?  Why would hearing and understanding make them turn away and refuse to listen?

Well, let’s go back for a minute and imagine that the disciples were not speaking in languages that people understood.  What if the disciples were all speaking in, say, English?  No one in Jerusalem would have any idea what these men were saying, and therefore the disciples could be dismissed as some crazy little cult.  Filled with new wine, no threat to anyone, and certainly of no importance to you and me as we walk by.

But what if, instead, we suddenly understand what they’re saying?  And so does everyone else walking by.  Each in our own idiomatic dialect.  In that case, there’s a sudden realization that this message is for everybody.  Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Cretans, and Pamphylians . . . whoever those people are.  What the disciples are saying applies to every possible person in the world, and all together, and all at once . . . And that is what makes the scoffers scoff: The impossibility of everyone.  Every idiom and dialect.

And what is the message they are proclaiming?  Well we hear it from the non-scoffers.  They say, “in our own idiomatic dialect we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power.”  That’s the content of the message: God’s deeds of power.  Why would someone scoff at that?  Why is it that hearing of God’s deeds of power makes the scoffers scoff?  Well, we can only speculate, but here’s a possibility.  Maybe the reason scoffers gonna scoff is because that’s not how life works.  You don’t suddenly become fluent in another language; it takes commitment, and duolingo.  You don’t give credit to God for your achievements; you give credit to your university, or your co-workers, or your own hard work and effort.  The disciples are not qualified, not authorized.

The disciples didn’t do anything to become these brazen apostles in the street.  In fact, they were still hiding from the world.  Since Easter!  The disciples have not been to rabbinical school.  Which means they have no knowledge of God’s power.  You’re going to listen to a bunch of scared losers who thought Jesus was the Messiah?  What are you, filled with new wine? 

Peter quotes the prophet Joel:  In those days, God’s Spirit will be poured out on all flesh, even upon slaves, both men and women.  And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.  Everyone.  All flesh.  Men and women, slave and free.  Even the Elamites and the Pamphylians—though I still don’t know who those people are—but this Spirit is for all people.  This message is for everybody.  Even the scoffers.  And what message is this?  This message for all people?

The impossibility of everyone.  It is a message of unity in the Spirit.  As Paul says in his letter to the church in Corinth: “All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.”  There are not many spirits giving a whole bunch of different gifts.  There is one Spirit. 

These gifts of the Spirit, poured out on the Church, do not rely on our earning them, or deserving them, or even needing them.  Those disciples huddled in the room that we just heard about in the gospel reading, they were frightened, and grieving, and doubtful, and not expecting Jesus to show up.  But he did.  And he breathed the Spirit onto them, and sent them out to be his witnesses.  And, I don’t know if you remember this from after Easter, but the next week, they were still huddled behind that same locked door with Thomas, when Jesus came back.

My point is, we have no idea if they ever left that room.  This is not exactly the crackerack evangelism team.  Jesus breathes on them, says, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”  And they were like, great.  See you next week Jesus.  Right back here behind the same locked door again.  And . . . take note . . . Jesus does come back.  Even though they did nothing, he comes back to them.  Back to Acts . . .

Notice the setup for this reading today:  “When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place.”  Now I’m guessing here, but I have a hunch they were all together in one place hiding behind a locked door.  And again, they are not out knocking on doors and preaching with bullhorns.  They don’t seem to be doing much of anything.  And still, the Spirit rushes in with all her pyrotechnics, and they are emboldened to proclaim the power of God in languages they have probably never heard, let alone understood.  It is not because of them: it is because of the Spirit.  The Holy Spirit.

And the same Spirit who gives trembling Peter the courage to raise his voice and address that crowd, that same Spirit is in this room today, as we gather in Massillon.  You and I were baptized into that same one body, in the same one Spirit.  This same Spirit who gave courage to those disciples gives courage to you and me.  Gives us the strength to speak a word of love.  Gives us encouragement to minister to those around us.  Gives us wisdom to know when to be silent.

We do not expect tongues of fire to descend on our heads this morning.  We do not expect to start speaking in languages that we don’t understand.  But we do expect God to meet us in this place.  We do expect to be fed with the body and blood of Jesus.  And that same one Spirit is still at work in our lives today, guiding us to do more than we know or expect, to go and proclaim God’s deeds of power.  God is still shaping and guiding the Church, through that same Spirit.

Whether you are frightened or bold, grieving or hopeful, doubting or faith-filled, American or Pamphylian, Jesus meets us here today, and says to us, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Amen.

The Burial of Robert M. Hess, Jr

Robert M. Hess, Jr. 5/13/24
Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 23
Revelation 21:2-7
John 6:37-40

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Unlike most of you, I did not know Bob Hess well.  But the two themes that I see running through his life are continuity and faithfulness.  When you look for those two things, you’ll see them at every turn in Bob’s life.  He graduated from Massillon’s Washington High School, and when he returned to Massillon, he continued to be an avid fan of the Massillon Tigers as well as the swing band.  Continuity and faithfulness.

You can see it in his love and devotion to his family.  And there’s even a hint of it in his name.  His father’s name was Robert Hess, as was his name, as was his son’s name, who passed away at too early an age.  There is faithfulness and continuity in keeping the name Robert M. Hess going.

You can see it in his love for gardening.  Some people get excited about a garden for a year or two and then get distracted by other things.  But attentive gardeners know that weeds need to be removed; some plants need to be thinned or pruned; there is mulch and fertilizer and so many other aspects to gardening.  True gardening keeps one eye on the past and one eye on the future.  You know where plants came from, and you know what is going to come up next spring and into the future.  Gardening also requires faithfulness and continuity.

And then there is this place, St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church.  Bob was a lifelong member here, but I rarely saw him in my first three years as the priest here.  After his beloved Beverly died, Bob started coming to church again, nearly every Sunday until the pandemic hit.  Then I didn’t see much of Bob—or anyone else—for obvious reasons.  Once we started opening the doors again, masks were required by order of the Bishop.  Bob came a couple times, but then finally told me that he just couldn’t breathe in “that damn mask,” and he stopped coming again.  Then, when we removed the mask mandate, Bob came back.  Because Bob Hess was a lifelong member of this parish, whether we saw him on Sunday or not.  He knew he was always welcome here, because St. Timothy’s was also part of the faithfulness and continuity that guided the life of Robert M. Hess, Jr.

In the gospel reading we just heard, Jesus says, "Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”  Do you see the two themes that are also in this section of scripture?  They are continuity and faithfulness.

Anyone who comes to Jesus will never be driven away.  Jesus will lose nothing that is his, and will raise it all up on the last day.  That includes you, and me, Robert M. Hess, Sr., Robert M. Hess, Jr., Robert M. Hess III, and any other Robert M. Hesses out there.  None of us are going anywhere we have not safely been all along.  Which is right in the palm of God’s hand.  We need not fear death, because continuity and faithfulness are also the promises of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Jesus will lose nothing that is his, but will raise it all—and us all—on the last day.  Thanks be to God.

Amen

YEAR B 2024 easter 7

Easter 7, 2024
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
1 John 5:9-13
John 17:6-19
Psalm 1

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Many times, when a preacher wants to use a story to make a point, the preacher starts with, “The story is often told,” and then they tell a story.  It’s probably not really a story often told, and it’s probably not really even a true story, but it hopefully gets the preacher’s point across.

So . . . the story is often told  . . . of a priest who had a cat.  And since the rectory was attached to the church, the priest’s cat often wandered around the sanctuary, sometimes disrupting the service.  So the priest asked the altar guild to tie up the cat during services, so it wouldn’t disrupt things.  This worked well for years.  The priest passed away, and a new priest came to the church.  Since the cat outlived the priest, the altar guild took over caring for the cat, and every Sunday morning they would tie up the cat before services.

Eventually, of course, the cat also died.  Shortly after that, the altar guild told the new priest they needed some money to properly do their work.  Thinking they must need new linens or something, the priest suggested they put the supplies on the account like usual.  The head of the altar guild told him they didn’t have an account with the animal shelter, and they needed to get a new cat to tie up before church.

I was reminded of this story when I was thinking about today’s first reading, from the book of Acts.  Peter stands up and announces that they must pick someone to replace Judas, so that they will once again have 12 Apostles.  And I got to thinking, why twelve?  Why not eleven?  Why not twenty?  There’s no commandment from Jesus to have 12 Apostles.  It’s not like they had three bridge games going, right?  As best I can tell, the Apostles are assuming they need to be 12 in number because they had always been 12 in number.  You know, it’s the way we’ve always done things.  Gotta get a new cat to tie up on Sunday mornings, right?  The classic church approach, from the very beginning!

And then, they use the strangest method of choosing the new member.  Since they can’t decide whom to choose, they cast lots.  Which is essentially like flipping a coin, to you and me.  But before they flip the coin, they ask God to “show us which one of these two you have chosen.”  It’s curious, to say the least, and feels a little bit like some kind of magic spell, to our modern ears.  I mean, this is not how we elect Vestry members, right?  Church governance by a roll of the dice?  

But when you consider it, it is kind of how we elect Vestry members.  We pray that God would direct our decision and voting so that we can choose the right person, and then we cast ballots instead of lots.

But here’s the thing about that scene.  It really does mirror what we do as the church—not in the specifics, of course, but in the philosophy.  The disciples decided there had to be twelve of them because there had always been twelve of them, and then they trust that God will guide them into doing the right thing.  In a similar way, we often continue to do what we have always done, trusting that God will guide us into doing the right thing.  On a surface level, there is comfort in continuity, yes.  But on a deeper level, God works through continuity.  We don’t have a habit of shaking things up just for the purpose of shaking things up.  At least not in the Episcopal Church.

In the repetition of the words of the liturgy, in the maintaining of our sacred worship space, in the weekly pattern of showing up at 8 o’clock or 10 o’clock each Sunday morning, that continuity and familiarity is fertile ground for God to guide us into the future.  If every week you came to church and found I had moved the Altar to a different place in the room, or wrote up a new liturgy on the fly, or let my cat walk around on the Altar, or—God forbid—brought in a rock band on random Sundays, you would be distracted, I’m sure.  You would feel unsettled, maybe even untethered.  It is hard to hear the voice of God when your world is all askew . . . and when you’re wondering if you might need to send that rector out of town on a rail.  God works in the familiar, is my point.  When we feel stable, and secure, and cared for, that is when we can thrive and grow.

Which naturally leads me to remind us that today is Mother’s Day.  Now I know--whether biological or adopted--every person’s relationship with their mother is different.  Some have great relationships and memories, and some have nothing but pain and anxiety when they think of their mothers.  But I think it is true that—at least in the ideal—mothers provide stability, security, and care.  Stability, security, and care.  The very things that allow us to thrive and grow.  It’s no coincidence that Christians through the centuries have used the term Mother when referring to the Church.  When we feel stable, and secure, and cared for, that is when we can thrive and grow.  

I want to draw our attention to the prayer from Jesus in today’s gospel reading.  Taken as a whole, it is called his “High Priestly Prayer,” because he is praying for his disciples, interceding for them, something like what a priest might do.  Since Jesus is our Great High Priest, this is called the High Priestly Prayer.  This prayer takes up all of Chapter 17 in John’s gospel, and the whole prayer is on behalf of his disciples, which includes you and me.  And having this prayer fall on Mother’s Day is just the most lovely coincidence.

Notice the mothering tone in these statements, and how you could imagine a mother saying these things to God about her own children:  
I have made your name known to those you gave me. They were yours, and you gave them to me.  Protect those you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.  While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me.  I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.  As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 

It is striking, isn’t it?  Jesus prays for us the way a loving mother might.  And that is so very fitting.  Because in the best situation, in the ideal world, this is what a mother wants for her children.  That they would get along with one another.  That they would be protected from evil.    That they would see that everything they have is a gift from God.  That they would know that their parents consider children a gift from God.  Yes, I know, it doesn’t always work out that way, because our mothers are not Jesus.  Mothers are human, and just as broken and struggling as everyone else.  AND, just as redeemed and forgiven as everyone else.

And, I have to add, ever since humans have existed, one of the things mothers do is feed us.  I’m not big on assigning mandatory gender rolls, and I’m not doing that here.  I’m just talking biologically and historically.  Mothers feed us.  And just as Jesus prayed for us, Jesus also feeds us, and sends us out into the world.  

So, come and feast, at the Altar of God.  And, as Jesus prayed, “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”  May we all go into the world, feeling stable and secure, cared for and nourished, as God intends for us, and as Jesus prays for us to be.

Amen.

YEAR B 2024 easter 6

Easter 6, 2024
Acts 10:44-48
1 John 5:1-6
John 15:9-17
Psalm 98

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Today I want us to consider the four “my things” of Jesus in this Gospel reading.  By which I mean, when Jesus says, my love, my joy, my friends, and my choice.  Love, joy, friends, and choice.

Let’s start with the most-familiar one.  The love of Jesus.  We’re all steeped in sermons and bible studies and books about the love of Jesus.  We hear about it and we talk about it all the time.  We have the Sunday school song, Jesus loves me this I know to get us started, and then throughout the rest of our lives we are assured over and over that Jesus loves us.  But we rightly ask, what does it mean for Jesus to love us?  

I think it helps to remind ourselves that ancient Greek has three words for love: 1.  Philia, which is like the love we have for our siblings and friends.  2.  Eros, which is romantic love.  and 3.  Agape, which is unconditional love.  Agape love is the love Jesus has for us, the kind of love we hear about in John 3:16.  For God so loved the world (with agape love) that God sent God’s only son so that we might be saved.  That’s unconditional love.  Agape love expects nothing and offers everything.  As we heard Jesus say this morning, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  When Jesus says, “my love,” that’s the kind of love he is talking about.  Sacrificial love.  Laying down his life for us.  That’s the “my love” of our four sayings of Jesus.

Now, trickier, “my joy.”  We don’t often think about or talk about the joy of Jesus.  Most of the stories about Jesus in the gospels are passionate, and compassionate, and agonizing.  If you’re anything like me, you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the joy of Jesus.  A friend of mine has a tattoo on his arm of a painting called “Laughing Jesus.”  Every time I see it, it makes me go, “Oh yeah.  Jesus definitely laughed!”  Fully human means Jesus laughed, along with everything else humans do.  But we don’t often think about that.

A joyful Jesus takes some effort to imagine I think.  And that’s because we don’t talk about the joy of Jesus.  In today’s gospel Jesus says, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”  Our joy may be complete because the joy of Jesus is inside us.  The first step in that process is for us to remember that Jesus has joy to give us right?  Think about your own joy at the beauty of a sunset, or seeing someone you love do something amazing, or sharing a delicious meal with your friends.  Jesus surely had joys like that too—except, like—on steroids.  Because he was in on designing those things to inspire joy in us.  And—as Jesus just said—when the joy of Jesus is in us, our joy is complete.  Our joy is fulfilled.  So that’s two of Jesus’ sayings:  My love, and my joy.

And then the third in our list is “my friends.”  We are used to calling Jesus  our Lord, and our Savior, and our God.  But . . . our friend?  Sure, we have hymns like “What a friend we have in Jesus.”  But how often do you actually think of Jesus as your friend?  It might seem like a stretch, but it’s really not.  Because your friends are the people in your life you choose to spend time with.  And—in case it’s not obvious—you have chosen to spend time with Jesus this very morning.  Right now.

Jesus says, “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”  It seems that for Jesus, being his friend means that he has revealed something to us.  Has shown us what he has heard from the Father.  And there’s a crucial thing to notice here.  Jesus does not say, “I call you friends because you hear what I have told you.”  He doesn’t say he calls us friends because we understand what he says to us.  

No, Jesus calls us friends because of what he has done.  We are not used to friendship working this way, are we?  We think of friendship as a mutual thing:  I’m your friend, and you’re my friend.  I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family, in the words of Barney the purple dinosaur.  But Jesus doesn’t say that we are friends.  He says, “I have called you friends.”  The implication is, though you might not consider Jesus a friend, Jesus calls you his friend.  It is different; and it is hard to wrap our heads around, I know.  But we are friends of Jesus because he says we are.  For those keeping score, we now have three sayings of Jesus:  My love, my joy, and my friends.

Which leads us to the final saying—which Jesus doesn’t literally say, but which is more implied—“my choice.”  As we heard, Jesus says, “You did not choose me but I chose you.”  This flies in the face of hymns like, “I have decided to follow Jesus.”  It completely contradicts those who tell you that you must make a decision to let God save you.  And when you combine it with the nature of friendship with Jesus that we just heard, it also negates the idea that you are saved because you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  What makes you a friend of Jesus is that he calls you his friend.  What makes you a disciple of Jesus is that he chooses you to be his disciple.  “You did not choose me but I chose you.”

Now, I know that conjunctions are slippery things in Greek, but I love that the word “but” is in there.  I like to imagine a dramatic pause before it.  Like Jesus says, You did not choose me . . . BUT . . . I chose you!  Because that gets to the heart of the matter.  This is all God’s doing.  All from the initiative of Jesus because it is what Jesus wants for us.  As Psalm 118 says,
This is the Lord’s doing, and it is wonderful in our sight.

My love, my joy, my friends, my choice.  These four things that belong to Jesus are the best news we will ever get.  Because the love of Jesus is unconditional.  And the joy of Jesus makes our joy complete.  And we are friends of Jesus because he calls us his friends.  And the choice of Jesus is that he chose us.  Each of us.  All of us.  The love, joy, friendship, and choice of Jesus.  All these things make us able to love one another, because God has first loved us.

May God remind us every day that we are the love, the joy, the friends, and the choice of Jesus.

Amen.