Holly and I have been together for eight and a half years. Today, June 7, 2026, we have been married for one year. The Rev. Jessica Stehle, a mutual and long-time friend of us both, and with whom I graduated from both Washington College and seminary, was the officiant at our wedding, which was held on a dock in Chincoteague, Virginia.
During the ceremony, Rev. Jess gave a short homily. As an anniversary gift, she handwrote her sermon out in a bound notebook that says, “Love Heals” on the cover and gave it to us, to continue writing love letters to each other.
Sitting on the porch of a cabin in the same camp ground where we were married, a place we have been staying on the same weekend in June for three years now, Holly and I read Jess’s words aloud and were wonderfully overwhelmed.
I am sharing her homily here, with her permission.
June 7, 2025
Welcome friends, to this blessed day! It is an honor to share God with you here, surrounded by God’s beautiful creation—living water and open sky.
Thank you, Michael and Holly, for inviting me to stand here for you today.
Almost eight years ago in the sanctuary and in the Parish Hall of Christ Church Easton, many people with a spiritual hunger and a longing for a community in which to belong, assembled regularly for a series titled “Alpha,” a word that means beginning.
They gathered in small groups, in faith formation, relationship building, trust, and expressions of Divine Love. They went away on retreat with time for stillness, prayer, and the invitation of the Holy Spirit. And among all of that holy belonging, among the presence of the Holy Spirit, two people were noticing each other.
First photo taken together, January 2018Alpha Retreat, a year after the first, October 2018
A short time later, the two lingered in the narthex of Christ Church, talking about writing, life, and sharing stories.
In church architecture, the narthex is situated inside the entrance of the church and serves as a transitional space between the outside world and the sacred place of worship—the sanctuary. It is a place for reflection and preparation for communion with God in the church. It is also a place of hospitality where newcomers are greeted by welcoming ushers into the shared experience of the love of Christ.
In essence, this architectural space in which Michael and Holly lingered symbolizes the move from ordinary to sacred. This was the beginning of their love story, two ordinary people, whose union is today and forever, sacred.
Their relationship began and has remained grounded in God. And when relationships begin with God at the center, they continue to grow exponentially. God is the source of love, and that love is limitless.
In our Gospel reading, Jesus instructs us to abide in his love and to love one another as he loves us, so that our joy may be complete.
Michael and Holly are living expressions of this commandment.
They told me of their desire to honor one another for who they are, to allow one another to BE.
That is grace-filled love. It is why they are able to, in their words, “feel more free together than they do by themselves.”
Michael and Holly, may you always abide in the completeness of your love for one another, through the freedom that exists in the love of our Savior Jesus Christ.
And now witnesses, in the style of Rev. Michael Valliant, who so often captures and shares images of his bride standing in contemplation of a beautiful landscape, and in which we can imagine him, watching her watch the world, I invite you all into stillness.
To fully enter into stillness is not to empty your thoughts, but rather to allow yourself to be filled. Stillness invites complete awareness of the reality that is happening in this present moment.
So please breathe in this moment. We are surrounded by the constant movement of the Chincoteague Bay, whose ripples run like the boundless breadth of God’s goodness. As they reach the shore, the earth offers them back out into the water.
Feel the wind that moves the Bay. Hear the birds that respond. Focus on the couple and the lives on either side of them that now exist together as a wider family. Call upon memories and images that you have already witnessed in your walk alongside this love story. Allow them to wash over you and receive their gift of sharing their wedding day with you.
Michael and Holly, turn and receive the blessing of your loved ones’ presence. Soak it in.
Abide in this sacramental moment and carry it with you always.
Background: The Gospel for the following sermon is John 14:1-14, where Jesus tells his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” because he is the Way and the Truth and the Life. This is the text of a sermon I gave at Christ Church Easton for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Lectionary Year A.
“Don’t Lose Heart”
This is a gospel reading, the first part of which has become maybe a little too familiar of late. That’s because it’s a reading that is often used for funerals. And we’ve had a number of funerals over the last couple years.
The reason this reading is used at funerals is because it can comfort us. Which makes sense because that is what Jesus was trying to do with his disciples—assure them, comfort them, remind them. Because he is about to leave them.
Let’s look at what has happened leading up to Jesus’s words to the disciples. Jesus has come into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. He has openly talked about his forthcoming death and summarized his teaching. He washed the feet of the 12 and foretold his betrayal and Peter’s denial. And he gave the disciples the new commandment to love one another as he has loved them.
Jesus is preparing them for the time, imminently, when he will no longer be with them in bodily form.
Today’s reading begins with “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Let’s look at this for a minute.
Jesus is not Bobby McFerrin here. He is NOT saying, “Don’t worry, be happy.” He is not saying, don’t let it bother you, no big deal.
A helpful way to think about “Do not let your hearts be troubled” is to say, “Don’t LOSE heart.” That’s a different statement. Don’t lose heart.
Things are going to be difficult. Don’t lose heart.
You are going to lose people you love. Don’t lose heart.
Sometimes it is going to feel like the world is conspiring against you. Don’t lose heart.
Instead, Jesus says, “Believe in God. Believe also in me.”
This isn’t the easiest instruction given the situation. If you go back and read John chapters 12 and 13, Jesus is letting the disciples know that the things they’ve been counting on: Jesus, their teacher, the Messiah, overthrowing Rome, freeing Israel from slavery and restoring them to their place as God’s people… record scratch… that is not what’s going to happen. Instead, he says I need to go, I am going to betrayed, arrested, and killed… the sense of panic and confusion going on with the 12 is real.
As Jesus tries to reassure them that they have everything they need; that he’s been over all this with them; that this is what the last three years have been all about, that they know the way… Thomas and Philip throw up their hands, Jesus what are you talking about?
Here is how they shine light on this scene over at the SALT Project:
“After Thomas asks, “How can we know the way?”, Philip follows up by asking Jesus to “show us the Father” — as if to say, At least give us some coordinates, so we can find our way to “God’s house” once you’re gone (John 14:5,8,2). Jesus’ response amounts to this: You already know the Way! You know the Way we’ve been traveling, the Truth we’ve been learning, the Life we’ve been living — so just keep going, and when you do, I’ll be right there with you, because I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I’m not merely your guide; I am the Way. So keep going and learning and living toward God, and we’ll be together as you go…”
The Way we’ve been traveling.
The Truth we’ve been learning.
The Life we’ve been living.
How should they (and we) remember all this, keep it top of mind? Remember me, Jesus says. Believe in me. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
Last week, Rev. Anne took us through the different “I am” statements that Jesus makes in John’s Gospel. Along with the signs Jesus performed, the miracles that pointed at his true identity, these “I am” statements are part of how Jesus clues his disciples, including us, in on his Divine identity. Which John wasted no time in introducing at the beginning of his story: “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” and then for a period of time, the Word became flesh.
When the Word gives up his flesh and returns to the Father, he is not gone. In returning to his Father, Jesus is going to bring his followers with him, into that intimacy. Jesus is the “logos”, who was, and is, and always will be. When the disciples, when WE are with him and in him, we are with the Father; we are living in conjunction and communion with the logos, the Word.
When we live the life Jesus showed us how to live, when we learn and see and proclaim the Truth that Jesus proclaimed; when we learn to walk in Jesus’s Way; we live in God’s kingdom, here and now.
Don’t lose heart. This is the good news; this is the best news. Jesus’s going away in bodily form, opens the gate and the way for us to follow.
Here is the SALT Project again:
“We often think and speak of the good news of Christ’s advent, his arrival, his coming near — but here we learn of the good news of Christ’s departure, his “going away” (John 14:28). Jesus goes away like a tablet dissolves into water: the tablet is gone, but at the same time its presence pervades the water entirely. His absence, then, also makes way for a new, pervasive presence of the Spirit, all of which gives rise to the community of the church, the movement that will go on to do even “greater works” (John 14:12). In sum, Jesus leaves in order to make possible an even more intimate communion with us, and with creation as a whole: “I am going away, and I am coming to you” (John 14:28).”
Part of the good news is Jesus going away, his letting go of his bodily form, his flesh. It seems strange to think of Jesus going away as part of the good news, but he does this so that the Holy Spirit can come to us, and dwell with and within us.
Liturgically, that’s where we are moving. In next week’s Gospel reading, Rev. Kelsey gets to talk more about the Advocate, the Spirit. In a couple weeks we’ll celebrate Pentecost, which is the coming of the Holy Spirit to the apostles as it is told in the Book of Acts.
Today’s reading is a snapshot, a reminder, and a telling of what’s to come. All of it points to this intimate relationship with God, established for us by Jesus.
Don’t we need that sometimes. Don’t we need that most of the time. Don’t we need that all the time.
God, I don’t know if I can keep going. This grief is too much. I miss him. I miss her. I don’t know what life looks like anymore.
Don’t lose heart. Believe in me.I am the Way.
Jesus, this news, I can’t. This changes everything. I don’t even know where to start.
Don’t lose heart. Trust me.I am the Truth.
I look around the world, and it’s not even just the war, the poverty and the sickness. It’s like we don’t even care. It’s like we don’t care about each other, we don’t care about Creation, all we care about is the price of gas and showing people who don’t agree with us what idiots they are. Holy Spirit, where are you in this? What are we supposed to do?
Don’t lose heart. Remember me.I am the Life that overcomes those ways of the world.
What does it look like to not lose heart, to believe in God for us right now? When we don’t have Jesus here in front of us to give us a straight answer.
Jesus knew that these are the same questions the disciples were going to wrestle with. Their world as they knew it was coming to an end. Jesus was going to be gone. They were going to be in despair.
So he says, “Trust me. Remember all that we did together. If you want to know what to do, look at me: I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
As I reflected on Jesus’s words and what he is telling his disciples in his farewell address, I was just as struck by how Jesus did all he did and what he modeled for his disciples and for us.
When he gave his signs—from turning water into wine, to healing people, to raising Lazarus from the dead, he did these things in community. He did them with his disciples around him.
As they walked the road to Jerusalem, Jesus had his friends with him.
How many stories do we have of Jesus at the table, eating and drinking with his friends and followers.
When they are getting ready to go through the hardest time of their lives, what does Jesus do? He calls them together to reassure them.
After his death, when Jesus appears to the disciples, John gives us Jesus and the disciples in the Upper Room and together for a fish cookout on the beach.
When the Holy Spirit comes to apostles, it is when they are gathered together.
If we want to know what it looks like to believe in Jesus right now; how to remember the Way he showed us to travel, the Truth we learn from his life and teaching, the abundant Life he wants us to live; how to not lose heart:
We do that together, gathering as he showed us, supporting each other, caring for each other in community, loving one another as he loved us.
This is how we show that we believe. Walking together in Jesus’s love, we welcome the Holy Spirit into our hearts and our lives, through whom Jesus calls us to do greater things than what he showed us in Scripture.
All of this is with us, within us, and ahead of us.
Background: Last weekend was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. The Gospel reading for the lectionary was Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, where Jesus sends 70 followers out ahead of him to towns and place he will go, with specific instructions as to how they are to interact with people. Following is the transcript of my sermon.
“Living the Gospel: vulnerable, dependent, together”
In last week’s reading, we saw Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem and send people ahead to get things ready for him. The disciples were not well received when they got to a village of Samaritans. This made John and James furious and they wanted to send fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans. Not a very neighborly thing to do.
Jesus rebuked them; he told James and John, this is not how we do things and he gave a series of teachings about how the disciples needed to set their priorities if they were going to follow him.
Last week’s reading was a bit of precursor to this reading, as now Jesus gets 70 people together, he’s not just talking to the 12. And now he’s giving specific instructions to this larger group as he sends them out ahead of him to the towns and places he is going.
No more of this raining down fire from heaven, here’s what I want you all to do:
First of all, “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” So we need laborers. What a great place to start. It’s out there, there is abundance—this work you are doing is needed. Given the reception in the last village, that might not be a foregone conclusion to some of Jesus’s disciples, but he sees abundance where others might see scarcity.
“Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.”
Whenever I hear “sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves,” I am waiting for that qualifying line, “so be as wise as serpents, but as innocent as doves.” But that’s from Matthew’s Gospel, we don’t get that spelled out in Luke. The disciples just go out like lambs.
Jesus is sending these 70 followers out into a hostile world that may not receive them well, and instead of arming them for battle, he points out their vulnerability. Not only will we not call down fire from heaven, you all are going out like lambs. No purse, or bag, or sandals.
Sending them out as lambs, he is sending them intentionally vulnerable, vulnerable by design. Why would he do that?
If you Google vulnerability today, it’s a guarantee that you will find a slew of quotes from social worker and storyteller Brene Brown. And here is a quote of hers from a book study we did that speaks to what Jesus may have had in mind:
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.” (Brene Brown, “Daring Greatly”)
Alright, Jesus. We’re getting vulnerable. Now what?
Go to their homes. Offer them peace. If they share in the peace you offer, it will rest on that person, if not it comes back to you. You are going to depend on the people in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you.
Whenever you enter a town and they welcome you, eat what they give you, cure the sick and tell them the kingdom of God has come near to you.
If a town doesn’t welcome you, it’s the same message, the kingdom of God has come near.
One of the things that strikes me about this reading, Jesus isn’t teaching them theology, he isn’t giving them Scripture 101, he is instructing them in how to interact with people. How to go about their work, dependent on those in the towns and places the disciples are sent to.
In thinking about this, Franciscan Richard Rohr writes:
“All of Jesus’ rules of ministry here, his ‘tips for the road,’ are very interpersonal. They are based on putting people in touch with people. Person-to-person is the way the gospel was originally communicated. Person-in-love-with-person, person-respecting-person, person-forgiving-person, person-touching-person, person-crying-with-person, person-hugging-person: that’s where the Spirit is so beautifully present.” (Richard Rohr, “The Good News According to Luke”)
In fact, Rohr goes so far as to say, “The gospel happens between two or more people.”
Fr. Richard Rohr and Brene Brown
Now, this is something to kick around a bit. Say I am sitting at home in the morning, having my coffee and prayer time, reading my Bible or doing a devotional, and I have a Holy Spirit moment. I feel touched by God; my heart is on fire; I see the interconnectedness of all people; I see how God’s love flows back and forth between us all; I am sure in my heart that I am a child of God.
Then I cut the grass. And I go to the grocery store. And I go about my business. And that realization I had in the morning has no apparent impact on my life. It doesn’t translate into how I love, how I treat other people, how I live.
Have I been true to the realization? If all I do is go to church services and read my Bible, and listen to sermons and music: has love, has gracetransformed my life?
Here is one of Rohr’s most impactful thoughts for me. He says:
“The most a preacher does is entice you, attract you, and call you out of yourself to live a new kind of life. But the gospel cannot happen in your head alone. You never think yourself into a new way of living. You invariably “live” yourself into a new way of thinking.”
You don’t THINK yourself into a new way of LIVING. You LIVE yourself into a new way of THINKING.
I wonder if that’s what Jesus has in mind sending his disciples out: that you are going to learn and experience things on the road that I can’t simply teach you here, no matter how brilliant and deep the parable is.
You’ve got to get out there and take this peace, this good news, to others. That’s where the gospel is, that’s where love is, in our interactions with people. That’s where Jesus, that’s where Scripture, and that’s where the Holy Spirit sends us. Out.
When we open ourselves to this interpersonal gospel, this gospel that happens between two or more people, that’s where lasting transformation can happen. I know we are in an era of self-love, and self-love is hugely important—we get ourselves into trouble if we try to love our neighbor as ourselves, but we loathe ourselves, rather than love ourselves. Love yourself for sure.
But love ultimately calls us outside ourselves. Love is bigger than us. And if love is the most powerful force in the world… if God is love and we belong to God… it’s living out this love and experiencing what happens when it is shared and multiplied, that then changes our lives, and the world, in meaningful ways.
Jesus gives his 70 disciples his “tips for the road” and sends them out. And they come back filled with joy saying, Jesus! You were right! In your name even the demons submit to us!”
And Jesus says, “Right??” I’ve seen all this happen and I’ve given you this authority and it will keep you safe.
“Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
How do we make sense of that? David Lose, writing in “Feasting on the Word” says:
“Jesus declares there is something even more significant than the triumph of the 70… what matters more than the earthly and spiritual successes of Jesus’ followers is the eternal relationship with God they enjoy through him. This relationship is theirs by grace, for they are simultaneously recipients of, and heralds to, the grace and mercy of God embodied in Jesus.”
Jesus knew they were going to have success in the towns and places he sent them. He wanted them to experience that and that was exactly what they needed. And it’s exactly what we need from time to time.
But not all days are going to be like that and not all our encounters with people are going to be infused with love and leave us feeling love. What’s more important than the success of our ministries or our evangelism, is our relationship with God, which we experience through Jesus.
This relationship is theirs, and ours, by grace. And I love this: we are simultaneously RECIPIENTS OF, and HERALDS TO the grace and mercy of God embodied in Jesus.
Let’s go back to our morning coffee revelation, the one we experience by ourselves. There we have the realization: we are the recipients of God’s grace and love. Let’s think of it as light in a frequently dark world.
If we keep that light to ourselves, it doesn’t do much to spread the light that the world needs to get out of the darkness. So we take that light and we become heralds TO it, this grace and love that we are shown in Jesus.
Jesus sends the 70 disciples, and us, out with this light. He sends us out to others, in humility and vulnerability, asking us to be dependent on him and on those who we encounter.
But don’t lose focus. There will be great days. There will be crappy days. There will be in-between days. And sometimes all three in one day.
We can’t control those things. What we can do is rejoice and be grateful for our relationship with God. That we get to do this work, that we get to experience and share this light, this grace; that God is with us, and that this good news, this gospel of love that we share, is exactly what the world needs right now.
The 2025 Christ Church Easton/Diocese of Easton Mission Team in Wilmington, NC.
Let’s pray: Lord, you give us stories in Scripture for our learning, so that we can find you and find ourselves in them. Help us hear what your story is saying to each of our hearts. Let us locate where you are calling us, and how to amend our lives by your love and grace, so we can get there. And help us receive, experience, and share your gospel, your good news, in the world, with each other.
Context: The first Sunday in June was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. We celebrated and talked about Jesus’s Ascension into heaven, marking the end of the Easter season, moving the church calendar to Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. This is the text of the sermon I gave.
Why Ascend? And then what?
A couple years ago, I saw a comic strip about Jesus’s Ascension that sticks with me.
It’s Jesus and three disciples standing around. Jesus says, “Gotta go guys. Don’t forget what I taught you.” And then it shows Jesus’s feet as he ascends out off the page and the disciples say, “Bye, boss.”
They are standing around together and one asks, “So what have we learned?”
“Pretty much it’s love God and love your neighbor.”
“Well, that seems pretty simple, I don’t see how we can mess this…”
It shows a group is coming over the hill in their vestments and robes, with their hats and staffs, books, and scrolls. And the disciple says, “Uh-oh… Here come the theologians.”
And it sticks with me both because it strikes me as funny and that it’s on to something.
Jesus didn’t come to confuse us or complicate us. He came to set things right, so that we could get off the hamster wheel of sin and that instead we might have life in all its abundance.
We don’t have these stories and teachings in Scripture to vex us, but to help us.
In today’s reading, as he is about to leave the disciples, Jesus says:
“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you– that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled… Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”
Jesus has done what he came to do. The Word became flesh, lived among us, taught us, performed signs, died for us, conquered death, came back and showed us and told us all about it. As he is leaving, he is connecting all the dots and making sure the disciples get it.
He’s not giving them new information or teaching, he’s just recapping, reminding them. This is all part of the plan.
Jesus has to go so that he can send the Holy Spirit to do things that he couldn’t do in his bodily form. He could only be in one place at a time. There is more to do.
Jesus becoming incarnate: good news. Jesus dying for us: tragic and horrible, but still part of the good news. Jesus overcoming death: good news. Jesus ascending and sending the Holy Spirit: all part of the same good news.
We talked a bit last week on Zoom and at the Healing Service about how things are going in the world with the Holy Spirit and the church and whether we might not prefer to have Jesus back in the flesh. Sometimes it might be nice to be able to ask Jesus something directly and have him settle the debate right then and there.
Two things come to mind with that: Jesus has already given us everything we need, to know what he would do, how he would answer questions, what we are supposed to do. Those answers aren’t going to change.
The fact that we, as people, aren’t loving God and loving our neighbor, the fact that we aren’t loving each other as Jesus loved us, isn’t because we don’t understand or we don’t know how.
It’s because we don’t want to.
It’s because it’s hard. It’s because it costs us—we have to sacrifice in order to do it. It’s because while we are living in the ways of the world, it’s not popular—people might think we’re weird or soft or whatever word you want to use.
There are stories that have been written that suppose that Jesus comes back just as he was before, preaching the same love, doing the same good works, and what ends up happening is that either the church or the government kills him because his message is a threat to their power.
Does that sound familiar? We just read that story a month or so ago.
Our world hasn’t changed so much since then. But it’s supposed to. And that’s up to us.
Jesus ascended into heaven because his work was done, and he was giving the ball back to his followers to move things forward.
If we look at the disciples during the two or three years Jesus was with them, Jesus did all the work. He was teaching them and showing them what to do, but they depended on him to do everything.
“The fact that Jesus departs at all is worthy of reflection. Many founders of movements — or companies or political parties — stay around as long as they can (often staying too long!), and according to the Gospels, the risen Jesus is presumably impervious to death, and so could have remained indefinitely. From this angle, the fact that he leaves reveals what sort of movement he has in mind: a community not standing around admiring him (“Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?—as we heard in Acts), but rather active and present in the world, carrying on his work of kindness, justice, humility, and proclaiming the dawn of God’s joyous Jubilee. In the end, the Ascension itself is meant to invite and empower the church to be all the more down-to-earth. Into the world, for the love of the world!
For Jesus, it wasn’t about his ego, his pride, or any accolades. He leaves so that even more amazing things can happen with the Holy Spirit dwelling with and within us.
This is what spiritual maturity asks of us and looks like. Peter and the other apostles do not look and sound the same in the Book of Acts as they sound in the gospels. They carry on. They put in the work. They wait for the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus told them to. And after Pentecost, they are lit on fire with the Spirit and the early church is born.
The apostles accept that they are Jesus’s “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
There are no “thoughts and prayers” in the apostles action plan, their response to Jesus, as ours is in our Baptismal Covenant, was:
“We will, with God’s help.”
As we remember and celebrate Jesus’s Ascension; as we look to Pentecost next week and the coming of the Holy Spirit; and as we move into Ordinary Time, the Season After Pentecost—it’s the same Holy Spirit with and within us now as came to Peter and the apostles. It’s the same Holy Spirit that has inspired and guided the community of saints over the ages. It’s the same Holy Spirit that has used ordinary people and their ordinary lives to do extraordinary things for God’s kingdom.
The church has moved in fits and starts and stalls and sputters over the last couple thousand years. There have been miracles and signs and there have been tragedies and disgrace. When the church falls away from the Holy Spirit and from Jesus, it loses its way.
It’s during those times that we need to regroup, refocus, remember who we are and WHOSE we are and allow the Spirit to move through us to be the body of Christ, the church, Jesus’s hands and feet and love in the world.
This is our time. We can’t look around and expect someone else to do it. WE are why Jesus came. WE are why Jesus died. WE are why Jesus overcame death. And WE are why Jesus ascended and gave the world the gift of the Holy Spirit.
What will we do with it? What does it look like to have the Spirit in us?
“It looks like Jesus, and at the same time, it looks like us — that is, it looks like us being true to ourselves, the people God made us to be. In a word, it looks like love: incarnate, tangible, down-to-earth love. And from another angle, it looks like peace: not just any peace, but what Jesus calls “my peace,” the shalom of God, a buzzing, blooming, fruitful community, coming and going, alive with the Spirit, healthy and whole.”
We look to the characters in the Bible for our answers, as if their lives were more spiritually significant than ours. Here’s the thing:
When they were living out all these experiences, their stories hadn’t been written down. They were figuring it out, reading the stories they had, just like we are.
We have Scripture for our learning, so that we can continue these stories, live spiritually significant lives, be a part of God’s love story in its unfolding.
We have a chance to write the next chapters—to inspire, connect, and allow God to use us just as he used the first apostles. That’s what “apostolic” is all about—being sent out.
Jesus wants our stories and our time to matter just as much as the apostles in Acts. We have same Holy Spirit and we are proclaiming the same good news.
WE can be that community. That’s who we are called to be. It’s who we were made to be.
Thank you for breakfast with Anna this morning at Rise Up.
Thank you for laughter and conversation taking Ava to work.
Thank you for the slow driver on Oxford Road who reminded me to slow down.
Thank you for the Oxford Conservation Park.
Thank you for the body and energy to skateboard and for the joy I get from it.
Thank you for the Eastern Bluebirds who cut across my path.
Thank you for the tree I sit under to think and pray and listen.
Thank you for the Great Blue Heron who squawked and landed on the dock across the cove.
Thank you for the hammock on the point across the way, which has been there for years and always reminds me to rest.
Thank you for the Bishop’s words on Wednesday that “Every day is a conversion experience.”
Thank you for giving me new eyes to see familiar places afresh.
Thank you for giving me words when I frequently don’t know where they come from.
Thank you for making my path clearer and clearer for me each day, even though I don’t fully know where it leads.
Thank you for companions on the way.
Thank you for the everyone I have crossed paths with, people walking their own paths, walking together for a time; thank you for those who have encouraged me and for those who I have struggled with.
Thank you for forgiveness for the countless times I have screwed up and the countless times I will screw up in the future.
Thank you for your Creation and for making me feel at home and at peace in it.
Thank you for the wisdom and inspiration that comes from your Word and from the words you’ve given to poets, mystics, artists, musicians, and prophets, known and unknown.
Thank you for the conversation this morning, under the tree, through Mary Oliver:
(Note: I was compelled to pick up Mary Oliver’s book “Devotions” when I left home this morning. I always start reading at the bookmark, where I stopped reading last time. I opened to “When I Am Among the Trees” and it picked up steam from there.)
“Oh, feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with the fragrance of the fields and the freshness of the oceans which you have made, and help me to hear and to hold in all dearness those exacting and wonderful words of our Lord Jesus Christ saying: Follow me.”
Thank you for your Son and for his invitation to “Follow me.”
Thank you for your love, which always comes from you, and your love that comes through others.
Lord, help me use my life and myself to serve you, to glorify you, to be your love and to shine your light in the world.
Background: August 15 is the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin on the lectionary calendar. The Gospel reading used for the liturgy is Luke 1:46-55, a song Mary sings while pregnant, now referred to as The Magnificat. The following is the text of a homily I gave at the Christ Church Easton weekly healing service, where we used the St. Mary readings.
“Saying Yes and What Happens Next”
Mary said yes. She said yes to God. Today’s reading gives us Mary’s song of joy in what is happening with her; but the “yes” happened first. If we stick to Luke’s Gospel, the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and says, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid, you have found favor with God.”
Gabriel explains what will happen, that she will bear a son and who he will be and what he will do and mean for the world. When she has questions, he explains that “the Holy Spirit will come upon her and the power of the Most High will overshadow her; therefore the child will be born holy; he will be called Son of God.”
Mary’s response was, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
As far as we know, that is the last conversation Gabriel and Mary had. All it took was Mary’s consent. She said yes, when God called on her.
Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was barren, and became miraculously pregnant with John the Baptist. The two women come together and are overjoyed and anxious and excited, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps at the presence of the pregnant Mary.
Caught up in this excitement, Mary gives us today’s reading, which we call, “The Magnificat,” which is used in Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican/Episcopal Vespers (evening) services and sung or prayed as a canticle.
Mary’s song echoes older songs, including the Song or Prayer of Hannah, in 1 Samuel 2:1-10, which Hannah—who couldn’t conceive and prayed to God and who then had a son Samuel—sang to rejoice.
So this is the kind of joyous song someone is filled with when an incredible, overwhelming, and unexpected thing happens.
It’s the saying yes to God’s call, big or small, that opens us up to being filled with the Holy Spirit. And what that looks like can be big or small as well—it could look or feel like laughter, tears, joy; it can come over us as we do something we love or we feel called to do, it can feel like affirmation, it can feel like connection, it can feel like closeness—it’s a feeling inside us that comes from outside us, or that stirs something up in us that we didn’t know was there.
But here’s the thing: they are moments. They are gifts, but they don’t necessarily last. Here was this moment shared by Mary and Elizabeth, but it isn’t the moment or the Magnificat that we remember Mary for.
We remember her because she said yes to God. She said, “let it be with me according to your word.”
And what did saying yes then entail?
Mary then had to lean into Joseph’s understanding and compassion and bear an unexpected pregnancy in a culture that stoned women for what it seemed she had done.
Image: Giotto, The Arena Chapel Frescoes: The Boy Jesus in the Temple (1305-1306).
We learn later in Luke the story of Jesus going missing from Mary and Joseph and their having to return over days to come back and find their 12-year-old son teaching in the Temple. Imagine that prayer to God—”Hi, God, it’s me, Mary. I kind of lost your son…”
We’ve heard and recently talked about the story where Mary and Jesus’s later siblings come looking for him when they fear he has lost it, or gone too far, and he says, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers and sisters?”
And Mary lives to see Jesus crucified in front of her.
These are bullet points, not going into any kind of detail. But pointing out that Mary’s life got more difficult, more confusing, and more heartbreaking after she said yes to God. We see similar storylines with John the Baptist, the Twelve disciples, and the apostle Paul.
We rightly celebrate and revere St. Mary the Virgin, not because she was unattainable and so far beyond human, but because she was human, scared, unsure at times, and she said yes and stepped up anyway, not even knowing what the cost might be.
Mary’s willingness might help us look at our own lives and see and seize opportunities to say yes, when we are called.
Debie Thomas, in her book “Into the Mess & Other Jesus stories” frames it like this:
“At its heart, Mary’s story is about what happens when a human being encounters the divine and decides of her own volition to lean into that encounter…
“In pondering Mary’s yes, we are invited to consider what our own might look like. What can we anticipate if we give our consent to God. What will happen within and around us if we agree to bear God into the world? Who will we become, and who will God become, in the long aftermath of our consent?”
A question I have for us this morning, can you think of an example, it could be from your life, or a friend or family member’s, or it can be an example that you have read about or know about that inspires you in some way, of a person who has said yes when called upon, and what that looked like?
I want to put it out there that if Mary’s life had been cushy or easy and she rode around in chariots and was carried everywhere she went, we wouldn’t think of her as a saint.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops says that “saints are persons in heaven (officially canonized or not), who lived heroically virtuous lives, offered their life for others, or were martyred for the faith, and who are worthy of imitation.”
That sounds like a tall order. None of us might aspire to be a saint—just living a good and commendable life seems like a plenty high bar to shoot for. But we are all called to be saints. When Paul used the word saints in his letters and when the earliest church talked about saints, it meant everyone, the whole body of the church, the Body of Christ.
If you look at the ending of the Apostle’s Creed, we say:
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
The Communion of Saints is all the faithful followers of Christ, living, dead, past, present, and future.
Rev. Katie Shockley, a Methodist minister, frames it like this:
“When we gather in worship, we praise God with believers we cannot see. When we celebrate Holy Communion, we feast with past, present and future disciples of Christ. We experience the communion of saints, the community of believers –– living and dead. This faith community stretches beyond space and time. We commune with Christians around the world, believers who came before us, and believers who will come after us. We believe that the church is the communion of saints, and as a believer, you belong to the communion of saints.”
We are bound together, lifted and carried by grace, with those who have come before us and those who will come after us. And we look to someone like Mary for inspiration, to remind us that we too can say yes, in our own ways, in our own lives.
When Mary said yes, I don’t think her thought process made her say, “hey, if I agree, maybe people will remember me as a saint someday!” Based on how Luke frames it, it was more along the lines of: God is asking for my help: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
And she was willing to bear whatever came with that saying yes, though she knew not what that was.
Here is Debie Thomas one more time:
“The particularities of our own stories might differ from Mary’s but the weight and cost of ‘bearing’ remain the same—and so does the grace. When we consent to the unbearable, we learn a new kind of hope. A hope set free from expectation and frenzy. A resurrected hope that doesn’t need or want easy answers. A hope that accepts the grayness of things and leaves room for mystery.”
We don’t know what saying yes might mean. We don’t know exactly what comes next when we open and offer ourselves up. But we know that it brings us closer to God; we know that it allows us to be a part of God’s plans for the world; and we know that in God’s love for us, He invites us into richer, fuller lives, being a part of the Communion of Saints, and His holy mystery.
We can look to Mary as an example and for inspiration.
Context: This was a homily shared with the weekly Wednesday morning Healing Service at Christ Church Easton, tying together the two first Gospel readings of the season of Epiphany.
Let’s talk about Epiphany. The word comes from the Greek word “epiphaneia,” which means “appearance” or “manifestation.” This is an event and a season dedicated to the manifestation of Christ to the peoples of the world.
January 6, this past Saturday, was “The Epiphany,” and that’s where the magi, or wise men, come on the scene. It was revealed to them, a group of Gentiles from Persia, who had nothing to do with Judaism, that Jesus was a sign: they observed his star at its rising and came to pay him homage. When they got there, they were overwhelmed with joy. When they saw him, they knelt down and paid him homage. They knew this child to be a manifestation of Christ and they had to act on it.
All definitions of the word “Epiphany” start with that very specific occurrence, the revelation of Jesus to the magi, celebrated on January 6. But just like any word over time, meanings change, they expand. If you look up epiphany in Webster’s dictionary, you find, in the second and third meanings:
1 capitalized :January 6 observed as a church festival in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles or in the Eastern Church in commemoration of the baptism of Christ
2: an appearance or manifestation especially of a divine being
3a(1) : a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (such as an event) usually simple and striking
You’ll sometimes hear people relate having an epiphany to having an “a-ha moment,” where all of a sudden, something makes sense in a way that it hadn’t before. But not in an, “Oooo… I finally remembered where I left my keys!” kind of way. There has to be more at stake. Something bigger has to click into place… you know, “a manifestation or perecption of the essential nature or meaning of something.”
I wonder, as we move through the season of Epiphany, which goes until Ash Wednesday (February 14 this year) when Lent begins, if we keep our hearts and minds open, if we are mindful of the season, what we might find?
It’s a Jesuit practice to keep a “Daily Examen” that looks back at each day for where the presence or touch of God met them that day. What a great idea–I wonder if in doing something similar, we can prime the pump for epiphanies with some awareness and reflection as we go.
If we are open to epiphanies, are they more likely to happen? The Magi looked to the stars for their sign–what if they’d been staring at the ground?
The fact that you are standing in a church at a healing service says that you might already have an awareness of who Jesus was and is. What if during this season, we tune in for moments, for instances, of his presence in our world today?
This is four lines into Mark’s Gospel and we meet John the Baptist, a strange, but charismatic and influential leader who says, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
John has already had his epiphany, his realization of Christ manifesting his presence to the people of the world. Mark communicates John’s epiphany to his readers.
Now listen to Jesus’s actual baptism:
“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
God is making sure Jesus doesn’t miss out on who he is and the writer of Mark is making sure his readers, including us, don’t miss what is going on, or who Jesus is, and what God thinks about him.
“It seems to me historically plausible that as Jesus rose from the water, he saw a dove and interpreted it as a divine message. This approach means being open to the natural world. It means heavenly signs can be as ordinary as a pigeon strutting on the sidewalk. It means that all signs require interpretation.”
Coming up from the water, Jesus looked up and saw a dove. It was a clear sign to him, but he had to connect it. God can send us signs, epiphanies all day long, but some of them may require us to pay attention.
I can remember as kids, especially around Christmas time, we would see TV ads for some of the toys that we really wanted. And the ads would show other kids playing with these cool toys, and one of the last things the narrator said in the commercial—perhaps predicting the reality of some of today’s pharmaceutical fine print—was: “SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED.” You put it together. And sure enough, come Christmas morning, whatever we were lucky enough to get, there was some… assembly… required. To get it to look like the commercials, we had to put it together.
“Some assembly required” was a 1980s phrase. In the 1970s, they just said straight up, “Assembly required,” no punches pulled.
Epiphanies are not quite that far afield. If they require a decoder ring, printed instructions, and an Allen wrench, that’s not in the realm of an epiphany—a sudden realization or perception. For an epiphany, God puts it together, it’s all ready to go, he’s done the assembly and he’s handing it to us. But we still have to look, we still have to see it, and take it. We have to pay attention.
What about the voice? This is what Amy-Jill Levine says:
“For Mark, the voice speaks directly to Jesus: it is personal, even intimate: You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well-pleased. The voice confirms Jesus’s mission. Mark here also unites Jesus with the audience of the Gospel: WE, like Jesus, hear the voice from heaven. WE know what the other people coming to John that day do not.”
God’s voice was a sign for Jesus. Mark’s Gospel and his telling the story, is a sign for us. God’s done the work, he’s put it together, Mark makes sure we don’t miss it.
This season, we are going to read about and talk about epiphanies, manifestations of Christ to the people of the world. Will we also experience epiphanies ourselves?
If we do, they might be “some attention required.”
Colored woodcut by Dr. P. Solomon Raj, a famed artist, author, professor and theologian from India.
Featured art at the top: “The Journey of the Magi” by Ralph Hulett.
Background: this is the text of the sermon I gave on July 29 and 30 in response to the reading in Matthew’s Gospel of the parable of the mustard seed and other parables that are grouped together and more so in response to Fr. Bill Ortt, the rector/priest at Christ Church Easton for the last 24 years announcing that he will be retiring later this year. He then left for an already-scheduled vacation.
“Beware of Mustard Seeds”
Looking at a mustard seed, there is nothing that tells you or hints at the growth it is capable of. The tiniest of seeds, it can grow to a height of eight to ten feet. But you wouldn’t know it at first sight.
I came to Christ Church in August 2016, looking for a church home. I walked in to the 9:15am contemporary service, sat about halfway up the pews (on the left side when entering the church) on the window side. The greeters that day were Matt and Kelsey Spiker, who I’d never met. I came here because I was going through a kind of spiritual awakening, I had been attending Real Life Chapel across town for a year, had started studying and writing about the Bible—I was getting stirred up and I wasn’t sure what to do with it all. I knew A.K. and Susie Leight were members here, and I had always thought highly of them, so I gave it a try.
I could tell from that first service that I had found my home. Then I went over to Rise Up Coffee afterwards and got in line right behind Kelsey and Matt and got talking to them.
I think I can speak for the Spikers when I say that none of us came to Christ Church thinking this was going to be somewhere we were going to work or that both Kelsey and I would discern calls to the priesthood.
Those things came from a combination of Fr. Bill Ortt and the Holy Spirit, both waking up something we had that was latent inside us. Something probably about the size of a mustard seed.
Beware of mustard seeds.
Neither of us felt a call to work at “a” church or for “the” church, we felt called to work for THIS church, and at the chance to work for Fr. Bill. We weren’t the first or the last to feel that. Carol Callaghan became a deacon while working here; Barbara Coleman was ordained a deacon here in 2020 after being a part of our congregation; Susie Leight discerned her call to the priesthood during her 20 years here; along with Kelsey and I—Joanne Fisher and Jessica Stehle are fellow postulants and seminarians working toward the priesthood who have come through Christ Church and Fr. Bill; and Kimberly Cox leaves for Virginia Theological Seminary four days after she gets back from the Peru Mission Trip.
That’s more than a notion. That’s the Holy Spirit coming through this place in waves, and Fr. Bill has been casually handing out surfboards, with a smile.
And that doesn’t even begin to touch on the music ministries or the lay ministries that have sprung up and the people along the way who have blossomed in their callings and become instrumental to the life and community of this church and the broader community. We could be here for a couple hours if we started listing names.
Beware of mustard seeds.
This is not a church for the casual observer. If you open yourself to it, you are likely to get caught up in a call. And for 24 years, Fr. Bill has helped create those opportunities and encouraged people on their paths.
There is a common thread to the parables in today’s reading:
The mustard seed that someone took and sowed in a field
The yeast that a woman took and mixed in
A treasure hidden in a field that someone found and hid and sold everything he owned and went and bought the field
A merchant finds a pearl of great value, sold everything he had and bought it
A net that was thrown into the sea, drawn ashore full of fish and sorted.
Every one of these things involves taking action. It asks the person in the story to do something. God doesn’t just do it for us, He wants us to be active participants in His work. In another well-known Gospel story, when it comes to feeding the 5,000, Jesus doesn’t do it all by himself, he uses the disciples to help.
If you’ve been around Fr. Bill, you know he likes things to be done to a certain high standard. He jokes around that that standard is mediocrity. We all know better. The thing about it though, if you look at the different ministries that have grown during his time here—Stephen Ministry, Food Ministry, Outreach ministries, Youth Ministry, Adult Education, Contemporary Music, the list goes on—none of them have his fingerprints heavily on them. In those ministries you will find the hands, and the sweat, and the tears, and the joy of those who have done the work, with his encouragement.
You’ll hear him say that life, and faith, are about the questions we ask—and that we should try to ask the right questions. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a meeting with Fr. Bill, thinking I have a good idea, and he’ll ask a few questions, that will send me back to the drawing board, to either scrap something, or to help it go from being a good idea, to a great idea.
His questions can serve as both sunshine and rain to seeds looking to grow.
Beware of mustard seeds.
I think about the phrase, “going to church.” Do you go to church?—someone may ask us or we might ask someone else. That sounds very nice. Something you do for an hour a week and it sounds like a fine thing to tell other people. “Yes, I go to church.”
One of the reasons I was drawn further and further into Christ Church is that there are so many opportunities to do so much more than “going to church.” Anyone who wants to can jump in with two feet—Bible studies, small groups, bands, choirs, youth ministry, hospitality. All it takes is the willingness to try. But like in our parables today, it may change everything.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer distinguishes between cheap grace and costly grace. He says:
“Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price for which the merchant will sell all his goods… it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.”
“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a person must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a [person] their life, and it is grace because it gives a [person] the only true life.”
For 24 years, Fr. Bill has talked about and tried to model costly grace for Christ Church. The kind of grace that changes lives. That can change our lives. What a gift that is.
Last week when he told the staff he was retiring, after the stun-gun effect wore off, we all asked how we could walk beside him through these next few months, how we could support him. I think as a congregation, we have an opportunity to make these next few months an incredibly special time in the life of the congregation, and in the life of the Ortt family.
This is part of the gift that Fr. Bill has given us, and it is in character and in keeping with how he has always done things. We are entering into a process that this church hasn’t gone through in a quarter century. The majority of the congregation who are here now have only known Fr. Bill as the rector.
The process of sending him off with our gratitude, of finding an interim clergyperson or people to come in for the next year, of putting together a search committee, and finding the next rector of St. Peter’s Parish is something that can bring us together and connect us in ways we can’t even imagine yet.
We’ve had a number of small groups read Fr. Gregory Boyle’s book, “Tattoos on the Heart.” It’s an incredible story about a Jesuit priest’s calling to help love and rehabilitate Los Angeles gang members and it has changed the world there. And it has grown into a community that will continue after Fr. Greg is gone.
That’s a bit of the gift Fr. Bill is giving us. Now it’s our turn. Now it’s our time.
We are a community who puts our trust in God. I am going to drop a couple of Frederick Buechner quotes on you here. Buechner wrote:
“Wherever people love each other and are true to each other and take risks for each other, God is with them and they are doing God’s will.”
I believe that describes who we are as a community and how God has been and continues to be with us.
We are entering into a time of prayer and of gratitude, which really is an amazing way to spend all our time. In this case, it is gratitude for the gifts, the time, the friendship, and the leadership that we’ve been given. And for what is to come. And the hope is that prayer and gratitude will lead us into discernment for the way forward.
Today, and every day is unique. This time we find ourselves in, “for the time that we have,”—as Fr. Bill likes to quote Tolkien’s Gandalf—is a time we can bring special attention to relationships; to who and what we are grateful for; and who and how we want to be both individually and collectively.
As we walk forward together, I’ll let Buechner touch on how special this is:
“In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another day just like today, and there will never be another just like it again. Today is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious today is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.”
Today is precious. This time–these next few months are precious. And we get to live it and be grateful for it, together.
Lead in: I am in my second year of seminary through the Iona Eastern Shore program, which allows our cohort to continue working while we are going to school.April 15-16, with a last minute switch, was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. This is the text of the sermon I gave.
Churches/denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary have prescribed readings for each day and Gospel readings for each Sunday. So we don’t get to pick what Gospel we preach on.
The Gospel reading for April 16 was John 20:19-31, which most people know for “Doubting Thomas,” the disciple who won’t believe that Jesus has been resurrected until he touches Jesus’s wounds for himself. We are all a bit like Thomas. The reading is where Jesus appears to the disciples for the first time after his death.
“Do Not Doubt, But Believe”
I’m a big fan of John’s Gospel. On the one hand, he’s a bit like the Rodney Dangerfield of the gospels—not enough respect to get his own lectionary year like the synoptic Gospels; on the other hand, every lectionary year is made better because we have John peppered throughout them.
For John, “believing” is a big deal. He uses the word “believe” 98 times in his Gospel, always as a verb, as something active and dynamic. He tells us at the end of today’s reading that these stories are written that we might believe that Jesus is the Messiah and through believing have life in his name.
Today’s reading is John’s version of Jesus giving the Holy Spirit to the disciples. Remember, John didn’t write Acts, that was Luke, so we don’t get the Pentecost telling of the story here.
There are scholars who say that John’s Gospel is the one most likely to have originated with an eyewitness account. We read the author describing himself as being there at the crucifixion and later, on the beach with Peter and the others. There are details in John that we don’t find in the others.
Let’s look at two stories of the giving of the Holy Spirit. At the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, he says that after investigating everything he wants to write an orderly account of all that went on, talking to everyone he can. Each Gospel sets out its witness to the good news of Jesus Christ, and I love Luke (he gives us the prodigal son, the Road to Emmaus, etc). But when I think humorously about the way stories get passed down over time, there is some part of me that thinks about Luke asking everyone for their recollection of Pentecost:
“And there was FIRE! Fire? Yeah, FIRE! It was intense! And then people were speaking in tongues, remember that? And people thought we were drunk, and Peter was like, noooo waaaayy, it’s only 9:00 in the morning…”
In Luke’s telling of the story in Acts, it is a public event, a spectacle.
In contrast, listen to John’s account:
“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’”
Maybe it’s because I tend prefer being understated, but I love the simple, straightforward, intimate and understated way John gives us the Holy Spirit. No crowds, no fire, no speaking in tongues. Jesus breathed on them and gave them a new Spirit. A new life in Him. A life that has overcome death.
Does that sound familiar? This is from Genesis, Chapter 2, Verse 7:
“then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”
I love that John sees what Jesus is doing and connects it back to the beginning (remember he starts his whole Gospel account with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”) John wants to make sure we don’t miss what’s happening. This is new life, that comes through Jesus, which is giving us a direct connection to God.
I get excited about the Holy Spirit.
But let’s backtrack to where the disciples are in the reading and what’s going on.
Jesus has been arrested, crucified, and was buried in a tomb. The disciples scattered, afraid for their lives. Just before today’s reading, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and found the stone rolled away, she ran and got Peter and the one whom Jesus loved (who we think of as John, the author) and they went in and found the tomb empty. And then the men left and went home. All Peter and John saw was the empty tomb.
Mary Magdalene stuck around, talked to angels, then encountered Jesus, who told her to go and tell the disciples, which she did. But none of them have seen Jesus for themselves yet. They might dismiss her story as being unbelievable story, saying she was overly excited at finding the tomb empty—she could have been hallucinating.
Now, they were hiding out together in a locked room, hoping not to be found or found out. As writer and pastor Frederick Buechner describes it:
“They had bolted the door and were listening for the dreaded sound of footsteps on the stair when suddenly Jesus was among them. He stood in their midst—always in their midst, this man, turning up when they least expected him—and told them to breathe his breath, his holy breath and spirit, so that they could go out into the world again and perform his holy work.”
6th century mosaic in the Church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna
Knowing that they are going to be scared out of their wits, Jesus’s first words to them are “Peace be with you.”
He reassures them. He shows them his hands and his side, so that they know it’s him and that this is real. And the disciples rejoiced. Of course they did. If there are scenes out of Scripture that you would want to be there for—this has to be one of them! This is massive. It’s transformative. It’s life changing. It’s death conquering.
Jesus gives the disciples what they need to believe. And then he gives them his Spirit and gives them work to do.
But Thomas isn’t there. The other disciples tell him what happened, but he isn’t having it. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hand and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
On the one hand, we can say, sure, everyone talks a big game when Jesus isn’t standing there, just you wait… But I think this is true to life. How many of us, when hearing friends tell us an unbelievable story, decide, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Even if it comes from people we trust, we still want proof. Thomas wants the same experience the others had.
So what does Jesus do? He comes back. He shows up again, just for Thomas. He gives Thomas what he needs to believe. Jesus doesn’t scold him, he is there for him and tells Thomas, “Do not doubt, but believe.”
Notice, Thomas doesn’t get kicked out of the club for doubting. That is one of the wonderful aspects of this reading—there is room in our faith for doubt. It is okay to want to see for ourselves. It’s okay not to believe just because everyone else tells you to. Jesus works with Thomas.
And Thomas believes; seeing is believing as they say. Jesus then delivers the showstopper of lines, a line so important to faith: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
That’s us. I don’t know about you—I haven’t encountered the bodily resurrected Jesus in the flesh. But I have come to believe. How?
Think of the work Jesus is asking the disciples to take on. To help people believe, when they haven’t seen him for themselves.
Here is Frederick Buechner again:
“The risen Christ is risen in his glory, but he is also Christ risen in the hearts of those, who although they have never touched the mark of the nails, have been themselves so touched by him, that they believe anyway. However faded and threadbare, what they have seen of him is at least enough to get their bearings by.”
Believe. What does that mean here? Is that an intellectual affirmation? Is it convincing ourselves and never doubting? Is this just a box we have to check off? I don’t think so.
For the disciples, their belief was foundational to the mission Jesus gave them. If they didn’t believe, what kind of witnesses would they be? If they don’t believe, why would anyone they meet want to believe?
Jesus’s life and love and good news are dependent on the disciples to continue to spread it out into the world. He was inviting them into an intimate, dynamic relationship with him.
And the same thing is true of us now. If people are going to come to believe in Jesus, it probably won’t be because they have had a bodily encounter with the resurrected Christ; it will be through the Holy Spirit, which is carried and passed on by the NEW body of Christ, the church, US.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in his book, “Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief,” talks about a young Jewish woman named Etty Hillesum. She was in her 20s when the Germans occupied Holland. She watched her world turn into an utter nightmare. She was sent to a concentration camp at Westerbork before being shipped to the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
She wrote in her diary: “There must be someone to live through it all and bear witness to the fact that God lived, even in these times. And why should I not be that witness?”
Williams describes her attitude and commitment like this:
“She decided to occupy a certain place in the world, a place where others could somehow connect with God through her. She took responsibility for making God credible in the world. She took responsibility for God’s believability.”
What if THAT is what believing in God, believing in Jesus, means. That with and through our lives, we take responsibility for God’s believability. How many of us would say that we believe if that were the standard?
That’s what Jesus is asking of his disciples. But he doesn’t leave them on their own to do it, he doesn’t abandon them. He shows up. He brings them peace. He breathes his Holy Spirit into them.
The fact that we are gathered here in a church worshipping and loving Jesus, trying to understand his life and example, and bearing witness to the good news of his Resurrection says that the early disciples, with God’s help and the Holy Spirit, were up for the task.
I wonder: are we?
Let me give a brief witness. Over the past month, my daughter Ava has been in and out of A.I. DuPont Hospital, three times, first for surgery, then with multiple ambulance rides for seizures she couldn’t come out of. She’s home now and we’re hopeful she’ll be back in school this week and going to her senior prom next weekend. But epilepsy is challenging at times, and it’s been a rough, slow, frustrating go of things.
Not once going through it, have we, or I felt alone. Through so many text messages, phone calls, people checking in before or after classes, the school systems offering help, prayers, hugs, you name it–I have felt the Holy Spirit and God’s love at work through friends, through this congregation, through family, sometimes through strangers–volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House or, nurses, doctors, and people working at the Einstein Brother’s Bagels at the hospital, who can tell you are beyond tired this morning.
My experience is not unique. One of the things that touches my heart the most is to hear how people have shown up, how people have been there, how people have been LOVE in the lives of others. The way we love one another, even as Jesus loves us, can help make God believable for others.
We can see the Holy Spirit being God’s love in the world. We can be the Holy Spirit being God’s love in the world.
In the dark and confusing times that we are in the middle of in the world right now, can our belief, can our lives, can our love, be a witness for God’s believability in the world?
Yes, we can be that witness. Yes, God’s love, moving through us, through our belief, and our lives, can be credible in the world. That’s how the Holy Spirit works. No fire required.
Amen.
Our Iona Eastern Shore seminary class with professor, Fr. Dan Dunlap and guest presenter, Dr. Tom Long, one of the United States foremost preachers. That is how we started Saturday.
Sunday morning, I walked up to the church about an hour before the 8:00am service. The evening before, I preached a sermon–still a very new-to-me experience–on Luke’s gospel story of Jesus healing a man possessed by demons.
Christ Church Easton has multiple worship services each weekend and Saturday is the most casual. People in the service, priest included, wear regular clothes. I was myself–talking in jeans and a Hawaiian-ish shirt and Vans. On Sundays, those serving are vested/robed. I was on my way inside to get robed up for three Sunday services.
The sunlight was dancing in the garden next to the church and I almost walked by it, feeling like a needed to be on task. And then I thought about being in the moment, for as many moments as we can, and I stopped and walked over. And perched on a flower was a dragonfly, who stayed, and didn’t fly away.
The dragonfly, the sunlight, and the flowers set the tone. Be in the moment.
A little background.
This past year, I became a first-year seminary student discerning a call to the priesthood. I’ve been a full-time church educator for the past five years. Our rector/pastor is giving a co-worker/fellow seminarian and I opportunities to preach, each of us being scheduled one weekend every other month. We have an incredible congregation/community, who are encouraging us.
So there’s that.
In the Episcopal Church, what the readings are each week comes from a common lectionary, which rotates over a three-year cycle. Generally speaking, an Episcopal service on a given weekend anywhere you go, will likely have the same Gospel reading. And if you are preaching, that is the Gospel you want to make sense of for folks in some way.
But as I thought about the reading during the week, an angle presented itself–talking about why a seemingly dated, archaic reading, which to many people might not seem to be at all relevant, actually matters here and now.
So I set out to look at demon possession through a modern lens. And here is what I came up with.
Personally, I retain more by reading than I do from listening. So the text is below. A friend was able to record the sermon portion of our 10:00am traditional music service, which you can watch here. Bear in mind that this is among the earliest sermons of someone not inclined to speak in front of gatherings of people.
An alternative to being demon possessed
Leading up to today’s reading, in Luke’s Gospel story, Jesus has been walking through cities and towns “proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.”
The crowds are everywhere around him, so much so that when his mother and brothers come to see him, they can’t even get to him.
So Jesus does something that plenty of people on the Eastern Shore can relate to: he gets on a boat.
And he says, “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake.” Jesus falls asleep in the boat, and Luke gives us his account of the storm coming up, the disciples waking Jesus and Jesus calming the storm. The disciples are blown away that he can even command the wind and the waves.
So in our reading for today this boat ride takes them to the country of the Gerasenes. Jesus has gone over to the other side of the lake to get away from the crowds. And as soon as he steps on land, a man with demons meets him.
The funny thing, reading about the demon-possessed people in Scripture is that I think we dismiss these stories. Because we don’t talk like that anymore. Most of us aren’t worried about demons when we go into the grocery store or walk across town. So we say, okay, this story doesn’t apply to me. It’s not relevant.
Let’s think for a bit on this man and his demons. Here is a guy who is not in his right mind. His mind has been taken over by so many demons, they identify themselves as “Legion.” Here is a man on the opposite side of the lake from Galilee, meaning he is a gentile, not Jewish, which we further see by the fact that there are pigs around, which anyone Jewish wouldn’t have had. But what this area did have in common with Galilee, Jerusalem, the whole region, is that it had been taken over by Rome. And legions of Roman soldiers. So here is a man whose people had been conquered by foreign powers, and whose lives would have been affected accordingly. We might say that he was dealing with the spirit of the times.
Do we feel like the spirit of the times, of our times, might take over our minds sometimes? As Fr. Bill mentioned last week, do we feel like an unholy trinity of fear, leading to anger, leading to violence might carry us away with it sometimes?
Social media offers us more than a peek inside something like this. I have seen people who I know to be loving, caring, do anything for anyone people, say things on social media that certainly point to something taking over their minds and hearts—things full of blame and hate and anger and fear. Those are things, especially when they take over people who are otherwise loving and giving and caring, that lead us nowhere we want to go. And I get it, I feel those things too, I can be overcome with thoughts and feelings I don’t know where they came from and I wish they weren’t there.
We have dear friends and brothers and sisters at Christ Church who have shared their addiction stories and their journeys in recovery. Addiction is a disease that takes over someone, in a way that someone in Jesus’s time might well have described as demon possessed.
And when we look around the country at a new mass shooting each week, now including St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Alabama—it is not hard to make the case that we have people, here and now, who are not in their right minds; we are struggling and trying to understand and to help people through mental health crises, to help them know that they are loved and valued, at times when they are having trouble finding themselves.
We can see all around us that there are forces at work that have nothing to do with love, grace, forgiveness, or God.
All of this is to say, when we run into the demon possessed in Scripture, don’t be so quick to dismiss these stories—they still happen today, to us, just as much—with things taking over the way we think, feel, and act—which cause us to act in ways we normally wouldn’t.
And so in today’s reading, what do we see immediately with Jesus: these demons know him, and know that he has authority over them. They know he can get rid of them. Which he does and puts this man back into his right mind. And that is a great line, I think, when the people came out to see what happened, “they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”
And then there is one of the most curious, interesting lines. Seeing this guy back in his right mind, how did this make the people feel? “They were afraid.”
Let’s circle back to our times. If we know that love conquers all; if somewhere in our hearts, we know we could live differently, be more loving, but we would have to put down this armor, this way of seeing and being that we’ve become accustomed to… if we were asked to stop blaming people we disagree with, if we were asked to love our neighbor who lives differently or votes differently than we do: would we? If we are asked to love and forgive and do something about the state of the world around us—will we?
If we get so used to looking at the world through certain lenses, taking those lenses off, and trying on a different way of seeing, of living, can be scary. It requires us to change. It asks something of us.
So into this demon-possessed way of being, Jesus comes, and frees this man from the legion of things that cloud his heart and mind. Jesus, with power and authority, gives him, and gives us, an alternative way to be. A different way of seeing things and being in the world.
Jesus restores the man who was possessed by demons. And in the next chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we see Jesus calling the twelve together and giving them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases and sending them out.
We are called to be disciples of Jesus, right? I am going to speak for probably most of us, when I say I don’t know how well equipped I am for casting out demons and healing the sick. But there is some good news for those of us who don’t feel up to those tasks. And this season of Pentecost gives us a clue: He hasn’t left us alone to do this kind of work. He has sent us the Holy Spirit as our advocate, as our comforter, as our helper. We are never alone, especially when we are doing the work that God has given us to do.
A number of us have begun a three-week study of former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams’ book “Being Disciples.” And at the end of the first chapter, Williams has this profound thing to say about discipleship. He says:
“A disciple is, as we have seen, simply a learner; and this, ultimately, is what the disciple learns: how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.”
We are learning how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.
No pressure, right?
Let me tell you a quick story. Over the past month and a half, I have taken 20 minutes each morning for centering prayer. What that is, at base, is breathing, clearing my mind, and being in the presence of God. One of the ways I try to keep that focus is when I breath in, I think about breathing in God’s love. And that makes me smile. And when I breathe out, I think about filtering God’s love through me, and breathing out compassion, empathy, and love for others. And if I sit with that for a minute, and wrap my mind around spending more time breathing love into the world, than I do fear, or hate, or anger, that should certainly change how I act, how I see other people, and how I treat others.
This is maybe the exact opposite of demon possession. Instead of taking in all these things of the world that keep us from God, I try to take in, to dwell on, to feel God’s love and grace.
I’m not saying that centering prayer is the answer to evil in the world. But let’s ask ourselves, what are those things we can do to help us focus on God, on love, on healing and forgiveness, rather than the different forces at work that want to keep us from the power of God’s love.
Rowan Williams has a few suggestions as to things that can help. He says: 1) attending to Scripture, following the Gospels so we can better understand this life we are called to live. 2) He says coming together to worship, to baptize, to celebrate Communion together and to welcome others to do the same. 3) And he says looking to the lives of others around us that help us to have faith. We need each other for that, to help us focus on God.
And so what if all of us who think of ourselves as Christians spent even a little time each day trying to focus on God’s gifts for us; on God’s grace and his love, in whatever ways we find most nourishing.
And then what if, by our breath, by our thoughts, by our actions, we tried to put more love into the world—taking in God’s love for us—and putting that love, in our own special and unique ways, into our community, into our world. Would that make a difference? And if it would, are we willing to put the time in, to put the work in, to do it?
We are called to be those people. We are called to be that community. We are called to further this work.
Today’s story of a demon-possessed man should resonate with us in today’s world, if we use the language of our time. And Jesus having the power to heal, to drive out the demons that tormented this man, and many others, is still as true today as it was then.
The world we live in is a frightening and heart-breaking place too much of the time. Helping to set it right, helping to be places where the acts of God can happen in the world is the work we have been given to do.
But we don’t do it alone. We have each other, and we have the Holy Spirit. And that is enough.
