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.

YEAR B 2024 easter 5

Easter 5, 2024
Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:24-30
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8

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

As you surely know by now, I used to play in a band for a living.  And in our band we had a saying: If you have to explain your songs before you play them, you should probably just write better songs.  Truly great songs speak for themselves, and explaining them runs the risk of ruining them.

That’s kind of how the lessons are for this Sunday.  If I stand up here and tell you why the story about Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch is a good story, I honestly think it takes away from how great the story is.  Likewise, if I try to explain the reading from First John about love and how God loved us first and that’s what makes us able to love one another and . . . Well, I think it would only be a distraction from the power of that little snippet of this letter.

And then, there’s this gospel reading.  You know, Jesus and the vines and the branches and all that.  Powerful imagery and--to be blunt--kind of obvious, right?  Branches can’t grow unless they’re connected to the vine.  Jesus is the vine.  Sooooo . . . Amen then.

My point is this:  over-explaining any of these three readings is not going to be helpful, and--in my own view--runs the risk of taking something away from them.  And so, this Sunday, I’m just going to offer a few observations about the lessons . . . and then talk about y’all.

In the first reading, from the book of Acts, the Ethiopian Eunuch has gone up to Jerusalem to worship, and is on his way back home.  An Ethiopian Eunuch would not be allowed into the Temple to worship for two reasons:  He’s Ethiopian and he’s a Eunuch.  A double outcast has gone up to worship anyway, even though he will be rejected from the assembly.  And, in the person of Philip--at the prompting of the Spirit--God comes to him anyway.  And in such a powerful way that he asks to be baptized that very day.  From total outcast to Christian disciple during one short chariot ride.  And all because the Spirit led Philip to the right place at the right time.  Philip’s will was aligned with the will of God.  

In the second reading, from First John, it’s all just a riff on this idea:  God is love.  When we abide in God, we abide in love.  And abiding in love leads to all sorts of great things, like serving our neighbors, and finding that fear has been cast out.  The point is not that we love God, but that God loves us.  And the reason we love at all is because God first loved us.  Any good that we do is because of the love of God working in us.  The Spirit leads us, as the Spirit led Philip, and then God does what God does, because God is love.  Any time we make a promise it is always accompanied by the phrase, “With God’s help.”  Apart from God we can do nothing, which leads us to the Gospel reading for today . . .

Jesus is the vine.  You are the branches.  This is a pretty obvious analogy, right?  I mean, if a branch gets cut off from the tree, it dies.  To stay alive it must stay connected to the tree.  But here’s a case where it’s important to look at the actual words as they’re recorded.  We lose something in English because we don’t have a way to make the word “you” into a plural.  Well, unless we’re from the south, in which case you’ve got “y’all” to work with.  And, come to think of it, let’s do that!  What Jesus is saying here is “I am the vine, and y’all are the branches.  Y’all remain in me and y’all bear fruit.”  

And why is that important?  Because it’s not about individuals having a personal relationship and being hooked into Jesus; it is about the community of believers remaining connected to Jesus.  Jesus says, “apart from me, y’all can do nothing.”  Apart from Jesus, our parish can do nothing?  Well that’s not true, right?  If we didn’t have Jesus we could still gather in this space, and we could have festive dinners together, and we could even collect food and donations for our neighbors in need.  We could still do good works without Jesus right?  The Rotary and the Elks and the Jaycees do that same kind of work, right?

Well, maybe what Jesus is saying is that those kinds of good works, that kind of fruit will be gathered up and thrown into the fire to be burned.  For us, those who have been cleansed by his words—as he says—the value of what we do comes from being connected to Jesus together.  We could spend a whole bunch of time being busy and active and doing things, but if we’re not connected to Jesus, those things are pointless . . . They’ll be gathered up and burned.

And then here comes the amazing part . . . The tricky part . . . The part that makes us go, “What?”

Jesus says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”  It’s tempting to take this to mean, If I remain in Jesus, and I ask for a new bicycle, I will get one tomorrow.  If you abide in me, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  Okay, I wish to win the lottery this afternoon so that I can give all the money to St. Timothy’s Church so we can fix up our building and start new programs so that we can continue to abide in you.  In Jesus name, Amen.

Seems like a slam-dunk, doesn’t it?  Something we want for all the right reasons, rooted in the continued abiding in Jesus?  But what’s missing here is the plural—our old friend y’all.  Doing things on my own isn’t properly seeking the will of God, because it requires . . . y’all.

If we want to do the will of God, we will inevitably run into this nagging question:  What is the will of God?  Every week together, we say in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.”  Why are we praying for God’s will to be done?  That’s kind of strange, isn’t it?  Praying that the will of God would be done?  This is us, the “y’all,” asking together that God’s will would be done.  And that’s because we find God’s will in community.  With other people.  

Way back before I ever went to seminary, the first step in that process was to go meet with my Rector a few times.  Just the two of us.  Sitting in his office.  And how I hated those meetings!  He asked very hard questions, and he never told me whether I was answering correctly.  But one question came up over and over, because it was the point of our meetings.  And that question was this:  How do I know if becoming a priest is God’s will?  How can I be sure?

The answer—simple, and yet as profound as can be—is this: If my will is aligned with God’s will, then I want what God wants, and God’s will is revealed in other people.  If my will is the same as God’s will, then I want what God wants.  I go where God wants me to go.  I will be who God wants me to be.  And I can only know that in community.  You could say, God’s will is in The Y’all.

If we abide in Jesus, we will want what God wants.  Or, as Jesus says, “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.”  Staying connected to Jesus is the key.  Abiding in Jesus leads us to want what God wants.  And so, you’re asking, how do we abide in Jesus?  The answer is, I will with God’s help.  In the promises we make at Baptism, it is spelled out for us.  

And that is always done together, in community, in the y’all.  We renew our baptismal covenant together.  We gather in worship together.  And the baptismal promises we make are together, with God’s help.

You could look at the Baptismal Covenant in your Prayer Book and see the responses, but the answer is always, “I will, with God’s help.”
With God’s help, you and I promise together to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.  Together we promise to persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.  
Together we promise to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.  Together we promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Together we will strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.

Always together.  And together we abide in Jesus.  With God’s help.  We—together,  all y’all—have done and will keep doing amazing things, with God’s help.

Amen.

YEAR B 2024 easter 3

Easter 3, 2024
Acts 3:12-19
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
Psalm 4

“While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.”
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Okay, first thing we need to do today is look at the epistle reading from First John.  You’ll recall last week I pointed out the challenge of him saying he was writing these words so that you may not sin, while at the same time saying “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves.”

And today we heard, “No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.”  John says we abide in Jesus; John also says no one who sins abides in him; John also says, if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves.  I’m as comfortable as the next priest with holding contradictions when it comes to our faith life.  But this section of First John the past two weeks makes no sense to me.  Point being, if you find it confusing, you are not alone.  I am right there with you.

Moving on.  “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.”  This is a key part of the gospel reading we just heard.  While in their joy, they were disbelieving and still wondering.  Now first we need the context for this reading, because I'm afraid we got dropped off in the middle of a story.  In Luke’s gospel, we go from the empty tomb to the Road to Emmaus.   That’s when Jesus appears to the disciples, but they don’t recognize him as they walk together on the road.  It is only after they sit down to eat together that something changes:  “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight.”

Right after that, those disciples get up and rush back to Jerusalem, where they find the 11 disciples gathered in a room.  “Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”  This Road to Emmaus story is one of my favorite stories in all of scripture because of that very line: He had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.  Ahem.  [points to Altar]  Anyway, while they were recounting this amazing story to the disciples, that’s the moment when Jesus shows up in the room in this morning’s reading.  And “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.”

But let’s back up again, to the empty tomb.  When the women get to the tomb, the stone is rolled away, and two men in dazzling white clothes appear beside them.  And they say, “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to the hands of sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again.”  Remember how he told you.  And then the women remember, and they run to tell the disciples.  

And as Jesus is walking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, he says to them, “how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?”  Remember how he told you?  Remember what the prophets said?  He’s been telling them this would happen.  Over and over he’s been telling them.  They knew it was going to happen, and yet, while in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.

This past Monday, April 8th we had an eclipse around here.  Perhaps you heard about it.  Hopefully you were able to see it, because it was amazing!  We’d been hearing it was going to happen for months.  For years in fact.  Here comes the eclipse.  Here’s how it happens.  Here’s how big the sun is relative to the moon.  Here’s what will be amazing about it.  Here are some tricks you can do with a colander, or by wearing red and green.  We knew all about it, we knew precisely when it would happen, as it had been foretold by the . . . scientists.  And yet . . .

While in out joy we were disbelieving and still wondering.  Everyone I’ve talked to who experienced the full eclipse has said they knew it would be awesome, but they didn’t know it would be that awesome!  We knew it would happen, we believed it would take place, but while in our joy we were disbelieving and still wondering.  We all understand the science, but it is still somehow an impenetrable mystery.

Jesus told them over and over that he would be handed over to people who would kill him, and then rise from the grave on the third day.  They heard him say it, many times.  And then when he shows up, well . . . While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.  But maybe after Monday’s eclipse I kind of understand them a little more.  

Because the eclipse was awesome and scary, and beautiful and terrifying, and understandable and mysterious, and light and dark, and every other contradiction you can think of.  Joy, disbelief, wonder.  While in their joy the disciples were disbelieving and still wondering.  

And Jesus.  Still.  Shows.  Up.  

You notice that Jesus did not require their understanding to show up?  He didn’t need their belief, or their faith, or their personal commitment, or even their memory of the words he had already told them.  Just like the first step in experiencing the eclipse is for it to happen, so the first step in a life of faith in the risen Lord is for him to show up.

You and I have doubts, in the midst of our joy.  And Jesus still shows up.  You and I have trouble believing that a person can actually rise from the dead and eat a piece of fish.  And Jesus still shows up.  You and I do not fully understand what happens with the bread and wine on that Altar.  And Jesus still shows up.  While we are in our joy, we are disbelieving and still wondering.  And Jesus still shows up.

Listen again to the collect for this day:
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

YEAR B 2024 easter 2

Easter 2, 2024
Acts 4:32-35
1 John 1:1-2:2
John 20:19-31
Psalm 133

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

Taken together, these lessons could be called, “Aspiration vs. Everything Else.”  With the subheading: Shouldn’t we at least try?  But first off, we should talk about the Path of Totality!  There’s going to be a big event tomorrow afternoon with a full solar eclipse over our heads . . . if we can see it.  There are those who say, unless I can see the moon blocking out the sun, and endanger my eyes by staring at the sun for a half hour, then I will not believe.  

If you’re unfortunate enough to have spent any time on Twitter lately, you know that there is already talk of conspiracy theories, and false flag operations, and chem-trails regarding the eclipse.  And there are definitely people saying, if I don’t see it, it didn’t happen.  But other people have traveled across the globe for the chance to experience this event.  Some have the aspiration to experience it, and some have the aspiration to be taken away by the rapture that it supposedly foretells.  But, bottom line, even if it’s a cloudy day tomorrow, shouldn’t we at least try to see it?

Which brings us to the reading from Acts.  You know, the radical leftist Marxist utopia of the early church.  How did that reading make you feel?  Uneasy?  Scared?  Skeptical?  Dismissive?  It sure sounds a lot different from the church we know today, doesn’t it?  But I should tip my hand and tell you that in the very next chapter of Acts, Ananias and his wife Sapphira sell some land and give just some of the money to the apostles.  And you know what happens to Ananias?  He falls down dead, that’s what!  This early Christian utopia falls apart one verse after the reading we heard.  It is aspirational, but not practical.  They kind of overshot the goal of living in community here.  But it also raises that same question, shouldn’t we at least try?

And then the reading from First John.  “If we say that we have fellowship with God while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true.”  And, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”  Fair enough, writer of First John.  But then we also get, “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.”  Huh?  You just said if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, but then you say you’re writing to us so that we may not sin?  What gives?  Well, in this case, living a sinless life is aspirational, but with a safety valve.  Like, John is giving us this information so that there is a possibility that we might not sin, but when we inevitably do, we have an advocate.  The idea that we might not sin is aspirational.  And raises that same question, shouldn’t we at least try?

And then we come to our gospel reading, from John’s gospel.  You’ll recall, the disciples are cowering in fear and doubt in a locked room, and Jesus appears to them and says . . . Peace be with you.  They rejoiced when they saw it was Jesus.  But there is no indication in the text that anything changed for them.  They just . . . rejoiced.  Because the next week, they are cowering in fear and doubt in a locked room, again.  But when they tell Thomas about their experience, he says, “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.”  

I think we automatically hear this as defiance.  Like Thomas is saying, “I am choosing not to believe,” rather than, “I am unable to believe.”  Personally, I take it more as a confessed inability.  That is, Thomas sure would like to believe.  But he knows himself; he knows his weaknesses; and he knows that he needs to have the experience himself because—let’s face it—this story he was just told is hard to believe!  Thomas aspires to believe; but he cannot.  His belief is aspirational, but needs the experience.  What does he need in order to believe?

Jesus.  He needs Jesus.  And the next week?  Jesus shows up, and again says . . . Peace be with you.  And then he gives Thomas exactly what Thomas needs.    “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.”

Does Jesus throw Thomas out for his lack of faith?  Or turn his back to Thomas for not believing the incredible story about his appearance?  Of course not.  And, perhaps more importantly, he does not require anything of Thomas.  He doesn’t say, “I told you so;”  he doesn’t call him Doubting Thomas.  No, Jesus meets Thomas right where he is and says, “Stop doubting and believe.”  But that’s just our bad translation getting in the way.  Because what Jesus says is, “Do not be faithless, but be faith-filled.”

And just like that, Jesus speaks the faithfulness of Thomas into existence, because the next thing we see is his profound confession of faith:  My Lord and my God!  Jesus tells Thomas that he is filled with faith, and he is.  Thomas does not set out to acquire this faith.  He does nothing apart from hear the words of Jesus, and he goes from being faithless to being faith-filled.  Jesus speaks, and it is so.  And not in a half-hearted way, either.  Thomas hears these words, and immediately proclaims Jesus as his Lord and God.  Didn’t see that coming, right?

Which brings us to the overarching lesson for you and me from these texts.  The aspirational side of our life of faith together.  Those first disciples aspired to live in a world where no one was hungry, where no one went without.  And with what happened to Ananias and Sapphira, we can see that world is not possible.  Because some people are going to end up dead!  But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

And in the reading from first John, we heard that if we say we have no sin the truth is not in us, but he’s telling us that so that we may not sin, which we will certainly do, as he just told us.  To be without sin is aspirational, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

And with the story of Thomas, we can hear that he truly wants to believe, but he knows himself well enough to know that he is unable to believe without the physical proof in front of him.  His desire for faith is aspirational, but he needs Jesus to give him that faith.

All of which leads me to the Baptismal Covenant, which we just renewed at the Easter Vigil.  After the part that sort of reworks the Apostles Creed, we come to the outlandish promises that we can never keep, but which we say anyway.  Together we promise to

Continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the Prayers.
To persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.
To proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
To seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.
To strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.

Every time we attend a Baptism, and several other times throughout the year, we make those impossible, beautiful, lofty, aspirational claims . . . and they come with a safety valve: the phrase, with God’s help.  That’s what gives us the gumption to make these promises together.  With.  God’s. Help.  All these promises are indeed possible, with God’s help.

Thomas freely admitted that he could not believe without Jesus, without God’s help.  And Jesus shows up, and Thomas says, "My Lord and my God!”  He’s the only disciple who makes this profession of faith.  The one we often call Doubting Thomas turns out to be the most faith-filled disciple, with God’s help.

Lots of things in this life are aspirational rather than practical, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.  And with God’s help, we might find we actually can do the impossible.  To paraphrase from the Rite of Ordination, May the Lord who has given us the will to do these things give us the grace and power to perform them.  With God’s help.

Amen.