The Acts of the Apostles

Easter 4-A, 2020 

St. Michael’s Episcopal Church

Acts 2:42-47; John 10:1-10

Reverend Becki Dean

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”

The Acts of the Apostles’ is our most comprehensive history of the spiritual and political movement that gave birth to the early Christian church. Today’s passage has become the symbol of the early Christian community. It is a peek into how the faith of the early church was built. Today’s reading from Acts gives us a set of guidelines on what we need to do to live our lives as Jesus lived his. These few verses are like a little book of directions. They help us answer the question; as Easter people, how do live?  

In Chapter 6, Stephen, along with six other disciples, were selected by the 12 apostles to be responsible for the early church’s feeding ministry. The apostles were spending all their time preaching, teaching, and praying. The church was growing so rapidly that the Greek widows and orphans were being neglected in the daily food distribution. So, we are told, the apostles laid hands on seven men of good standing and “ordained” them as the church’s first “deacons.” From the Greek, diakonia deacon means literally one who serves and their job was to serv e the widows and orphans.

Stephen is described as a man “full of grace and power.” Eventually the religious authorities became so threatened by Stephen that they took him outside the city and stoned him to death. In Stephen we see that to believe in Jesus requires not just believing certain things about Jesus, but living as Jesus lived.  It was living this life that cost Stephen his life.

In the first verse from today’s reading, we learn that the first Christians had a set of four practices that nurtured their lives and helped them not only to believe certain things about Jesus, but to live as Jesus lived. This is the earliest listing of what came to be known as the “marks” of the church; characteristics that identified the church as the church beyond confessing Jesus as Lord.  It is God’s grace that causes growth, but these were ways of nourishing the early Christians’ spiritual life in Christ.  These marks have not changed in over 2000 years.

First, they “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teachings.”  Maybe something like Bible study.  A mark of authenticity and health in a church is what it does with the writings of those early Christian leaders.  We are all called to explore the texts, to dwell in scripture, a practice that has been passed down to us from our ancient brothers and sisters.

We Episcopalians’ take this very seriously.  In worship we read an Old Testament lesson, a Psalm, a lesson from the New Testament and the Gospel every week.  We spend more time dwelling in the Word than most traditions on Sunday morning.   

But we are also to spend time exploring scripture throughout the week.  That idea can be intimidating for some of us.  Maybe we don’t grasp the many different styles of literature and poetic language much less comprehend the numerous depths of its meaning; we can’t remember what we read much less memorize and quote scripture chapter and verse. What’s important to understand is that it’s not about total scripture recall or even complete comprehension. It’s about putting forth an active effort.  We might be surprised how much we do remember once we decide to devote ourselves the apostles’ teaching on a regular basis.  

The second thing the early Christians did was to “devote themselves to fellowship.” A mark of authenticity and vitality in a congregation is the quality of our relationships and our efforts to include others in those relationships. Devotion to fellowship translates to radical hospitality.  This kind of hospitality takes work.  It’s part of St. Michael’s mission statement: “Celebrating God’s beauty; Loving God’s people; Serving God’s world.” We serve God’s world every time we introduce ourselves to someone, every time we invite someone to coffer hour and adult forum, when we invite our wider community to join us for our annual Fall Fest, when we participate in our outreach feeding programs, when we pray for others, or join together for the spaghetti dinner or the pie auction, and in so many other ways. 

Radical hospitality means paying attention to the newcomers in our midst helping them find their way.  On more than one occasion I have introduced myself to someone thinking they were new only to be told they’ve been a member for 15 years!  However, I console the egg on my face by telling myself it is always better to ask and be wrong than to leave someone feeling unknown and unloved. When we are devoted to fellowship people are made to feel they are part of our community.  They leave feeling encouraged and supported.  Listen to some of the words of inclusivity in the Bible: Love one another, encourage one another, be kind to one another, comfort one another, inform one another, fellowship with one another, confess your faults to one another, forgive one another, pray for one another, minister to one another, bear one another’s burdens, and the list goes on. This is the radical hospitality that Jesus taught the disciples and was carried forward and held on to by the early Christians.  Male or female, Christian or Jew, Black or white, physically limited or athlete.  Everyone is welcome.  Radical hospitality is inclusive.

Third, they devoted themselves to “the breaking of bread.” Is this a reference to a pot-luck dinner or to the Eucharist?  I think the answer is yes. Certainly “breaking of bread” alludes to the Lord’s Supper; as community of faith we are spiritually fed by the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist.  The promise of Jesus through the breaking of the bread transcends words.  The Eucharist avails itself to all of our senses.  But we will miss it if we are not devoted to it.  As we heard from Jeunee last week, Jesus made himself known to the disciples on the Road to Emmaus when he broke bread with them.  In Acts this action recalls the significance of centering these meals on Jesus in some meaningful way, whether it is a formal Eucharistic meal or an informal spaghetti dinner.

Fourth, the early church “devoted themselves to prayers.”  More than a part of worship, prayer is for each one of us.  It gives us the opportunity for personal communion with God.  Notice that it is prayers plural and not prayer singular that the early community is devoted to.  It seems that the earliest Christians may have been learning some form of set prayers – The Lord’s Prayer, The Psalms, and probably others.  We know that there are so many ways to pray and not any wrong way. To be devoted to prayers, individually and as a community we must pursue prayer intentionally.

The early Christians worshiped daily and ate their food together with glad and generous hearts. Their numbers grew, almost exponentially, because people saw in how they lived a way of living that made them say, “This is the way God wants life to be.”  

The manifestation of the early church is found in these four marks of the church; the teaching of the apostles, fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers. These marks were the early church’s response to the voice of the Good Shepherd. They knew his voice and they followed.  

My 12-year-old granddaughter has a sheep.  She named  Mimi.  Mimi is what is known as a bummer lamb.  Her mother rejected her and so she came to live at the farm. She immediately attached herself to Darby and Darby to her.  To this day Mimi will come only to Darby’s voice. I can stand and call her all day long and she won’t even look at me.  But Darby calls Mimi and Mimi knows her voice.

 The early church knew the voice of the Good Shepherd.  And they knew what God was calling them to do.  As a church community 2000 years later it is humbling to know that we are still called by the Good Shepherd to devote ourselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Amen!

Emmaus - Easter 3A

Easter 3A April 26, 2020

The Rev. Dr. Jeunée Godsey

Rector St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Bon Air, VA

Readings (Link http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Easter/AEaster3_RCL.html) 

Good morning Saint Michaels I'm here in front of church because I want to show you something in just a minute. but first let's pray 

Lord take our eyes and see through them take our ears and hear through them take our lips and speak to them take our hearts and fill them with your fire. Amen. 

As many of you know and for the church here I'm trying to show you we have our community garden 3 raised beds on one side of the wall and three raised beds on the other side of the wall and then behind me here we have a spot where some point this summer will have sunflowers and zinnias rising up to the beautiful, beautiful Flowers that will eventually come and be on our altar when we can all gather together again. Hopefully we’ll gather together before the Zinneas and Sun Flowers are in full bloom. 

We just heard a beautiful song and one that I believe relates somewhat to our readings today so I wanted to just remind you at the first verse the first stanza of that song in the bulb there is a flower in the seed an Apple tree in cocoons a hidden promise butterflies will soon be free. In the cold and snow of winter there is a spring that waits to be unrevealed until its season something God alone can see.”

That's certainly true of our garden here we have um we have seeds that Been sewn into the ground but we do not yet know how they will all come out we don't know which ones will grow and which ones won't.  [Insert look at Garden Beds 1:09] 

Right now there's not a lot going on in these beds they've been prepared the soil has been tilled and fed I believe the seeds are planted and the covering is on top to help make them warm up the seeds warm in to germinate over here we have a little bit happening with the peas you can see that peas or or early sprouts and they're starting to come up I think back there in the corner is just a rogue little Clover. Ah but there's not much going on in the other beds as well over here there are also fairly bare it's just the beginning of the season so we're just waiting for these seeds to germinate and to grow i'm not much of a gardener but when I planted some seeds beside my house this week, I know that the seeds I planted look nothing like what the plants will be in the future. It's hard to imagine when you look at a seed what the future will be it's hidden inside of it the future of that plant is hidden inside.

We can see here at the garden that's right in front of church some evidence of bulbs that have produced their Flowers. This winter of course there was nothing that we could see but now the daffodils have for the most part come and gone. There's these few here. The irises are blooming.  They're beautiful! The bulbs of irises have come up and we can see even if you can see way over here in the memorial garden beautiful irises all along the back. 

In the bulb there is a flower. In the seed an Apple tree…

That of course is what will have over here when we have our sunflowers and are zinnias I've been so amazed in the past to see all of the bees and the hummingbirds and Hummingbird moths I'll take their shelter in these Flowers buzzing around taking pollen to feed themselves, make honey and to just perpetuate the growth all around. 

In the snow and cold of winter there is a spring that waits to be unrevealed until season only God alone can see .

--- 

Alright, back inside now! 

Let me see if I can illustrate more fully what I’m trying to say. 

When I planted my own sunflowers and zinneas beside my house this past week, I was again amazed at how little a seed is in comparison to the plant. And how the seek looks nothing like the plant in most cases. If you didn’t have experience to the contrary, there would be no way to know what would come from a sunflower seed, or a daffodil bulb, or a peas planted in the ground. Especially when they are sown, and covered with dirt, it seems as if they are dead and buried. We have to trust in the promise of that seed. 

The proper name of the song “In the bulb there is a flower” is Hymn of Promise. 

I think that’s the theme that our readings most pick up on this morning. 

By the way, you might enjoy looking over the text for the Hymn of Promise even after this morning. For you on our email list, our the text and music to the hymns and songs is attached to the weekly email you get Friday mornings. If you aren’t on our list, just message us and we can send it to you, or get you on our weekly emails. 

In the Song, “In the bulb there is a flower,” the last line of each stanza repeats itself. “Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.” That’s the promise of the Hymn of Promise.

I think that’s the theme that our readings most pick up on this morning. 

We can’t see what is going on, but God can. And God will reveal it to us in the right time. 

In our reading from 1st Peter, it says, “Live in reverent fear during the time of your exile…. Love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable seed --  but of Imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.” 

What Peter is saying here is that The word of God has been planted in our hearts. Like all seeds, it starts small. It doesn’t look like much. It has to germinate. But this seed is imperishable seed, seed that births us into new life, into everlasting life.  

This seed, this word of God, is Christ himself, Through whom, says Peter,  “you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.”

Peter contrasts this imperishable seed of hope with the perishable seed of the world… Those Things we cultivate, but which are ultimately do not bear fruit… things like a focus on money, status, control, the futile ways of the world. 

When Peter says, “live in Reverent fear during the time of your exile,” he’s not encouraging his readers to be afraid. Another translation says, “live your lives as strangers here, in reverent fear.” 

For me, that means that you and I, as followers of Jesus are in many ways, aliens, strangers, foreigners to the ways of this world. We are In the world, but we are not OF the world. Because we can hold to a reverent fear God, because we are in Awe of God and all that God has done by raising Christ from the dead, we don’t have to live in Fear like the rest of the world. 

Yes, this is a time where many people are experiencing fear and confusion. Some are afraid of getting sick. Some are afraid of their financial futures. We don’t know what a new “normal” will look like on the other side of this crisis. But if we trust in the resurrection, if we know the truth that Jesus has been raised, we can look for how God might bring new life out of death.  

We don’t know what flowers will come after this time of being entombed like bulbs under the earth. We don’t know what butterflies may emerge after the time we’ve all spent in our cocoons. We need to trust that they can, and they will. 

The hymn of promise says, 

“There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me, 

From the past will come the future, what it holds a mystery. 

Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see…” 

When we look to that fabulous story of the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, we can see that they too were in a place of confusion and darkness. On the evening of that first Easter, Cleopas and his companion are walking dejectedly from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Maybe they just felt they needed to get out of town. The Risen Jesus joins them, but they cannot see that it is him. God is walking with them, but they fail to recognize him. 

Jesus asks them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” 

And They stood still, looking sad.  Can’t you just imagine how dejected they looked? 

 “Are you the only one in town who doesn’t know the things that have happened? 

Jesus is like, “What things?” 

I have to imagine Jesus was enjoying this little ruse. 

Cleopas and his companion are devastated that Jesus is dead, they don’t know what to make of the women’s news earlier that morning. They don’t know what the future will hold, and they don’t really know what they should do next. 

But Jesus opens up the scriptures to them as they walk along, and eventually, they invite him into dinner. 

It’s when Jesus takes the bread and breaks it, that they realize who he is. 

As soon as their eyes are opened to the truth, Jesus disappears. But what’s more, they are now able to see how he was present with them on the road, even though they didn’t recognize it at the time.  They run the 7 miles back to Jerusalem to share the good news with the other disciples, who have also seen Jesus. In fact, the story gets even better. Keep reading in Luke and you’ll see that right after they get back and are sharing the news, Jesus shows up again. 

“Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."  and eats with them again. 

God’s work is going on right now in many ways that are not evident to us. How might you and I be able to look back at this time to find some of the ways God was leading us and teaching us. 

Perhaps your practices of daily prayer have gotten stronger. 

Perhaps you have gotten to know your neighbors better. 

Perhaps you have realized how little your really need and how rich your life can be without all the extras. 

Perhaps you have focused more on the needs of others. 

I’m not trying to deny the real hardships of this time for many people, but the Promise we have from God is that God can bring about new life, transformed life, even where things seem dark. 

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see. Amen. 

Jesus Presence, Power, & Peace

April 19, 2020 - Easter 2A

John 20: 19-31 http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Easter/AEaster2_RCL.html

Can you believe it? Easter was only one week ago! Those of you who joined me last week heard me talk about how time somehow feels different with so many of us isolating at home. It’s hard to keep our days straight. But we are now officially 8 days into the Great 50 days of Easter, which will culminate May 31 on the Day of Pentecost. Does it feel like Easter to you?

As we come to our Gospel story this morning, Mary had seen the Risen Lord, but the others had not. It was only a story so far. Peter and John had seen the empty tomb, but what it all meant was still unclear. To the disciples in the upper room that first Easter evening, or Thomas before Jesus had entered the upper room for the second time a week later, it may not truly felt like Easter yet.

It may not yet feel like Easter to you either. I hope it does. I hope you have already embraced the Good News of the Risen Lord and are experiencing a lightness and joy to your days. But I’m afraid that some of us can relate to a cartoon I saw recently that said, “Easter is the day when Jesus comes out of the tomb, but if he sees his shadow, there will be 6 more weeks of Lent.”

You and I, like the disciples, are largely still isolated in our homes, maybe experiencing some level of fear. Most of us are not afraid, just limiting our public exposure because we want to be obedient and safe. But even if you have kept a more normal routine to your days, does it feel like Easter yet for you? Or does it still feel like Lent? Or if Not Lent, then March 584th or something? It may make you ask the “So what?” question. “Why Easter… so What?”

Thank goodness we here in our part of Virginia are having a beautiful spring… so many trees flowering and flowers popping up. Seeing that beauty makes it easier to proclaim the resurrection.

But the Good News we have from our Gospel today is that it doesn’t really matter how you feel about it, or what else is going on in your life. The Good News of Easter is that Easter comes to you unbidden. The Risen Lord will show up – sometimes when you least expect him to.

Jesus comes to you, comforting you, empowering you, and sending you forth to continue his work.

As we gather together on this 8th day of Easter, let’s dwell on these Easter appearances of Jesus a bit, and see how we might break them open in new ways, so that we too, can experience the Risen Lord.

The first thing to notice is that it says, “Jesus came and stood among them” and then he said, ‘Peace be with you!’”

This very same sequence happens twice. Once in the upper room on Easter Evening, and again with Thomas a week later.

He stood among them. He pronounced his peace.

Jesus came to them in the darkness, behind shuttered doors, amid the fear and the questions, and gave them peace. The peace that passes all understanding.

And Jesus does that for you and me, too. He comes to stand right next to you. The doors or barriers of fear you’ve set up in your life are no match for Jesus… though the doors are locked, Jesus comes to stand with you. He comes to give you Peace. His peace, even in a chaotic world.

Breath in. Breath out. Let yourself experience that Peace.

Next Jesus commissions the disciples, “As the Father has sent me so I am Sending you” and then he breathes on them (kind of weird, huh?) and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus gives them work to do… to Go into the whole world, just as Jesus came to the people of Israel, and to carry on the same work Jesus did. Work of healing, reconciling, of pronouncing God’s forgiveness, of loving each other as Jesus loved us. Even when our ability to “Go into the world” is limited somewhat, we still have that mission. Your world right now may be somewhat confined to your household or your workplace, or those whom you have contact with across the driveway, or who you engage with via social media or telephone. Nevertheless, you are sent to them as well. Your house and your Facebook page may be the world Jesus is sending you to. How are you proclaiming Jesus there? Are you letting Jesus’ peace be known wherever you show up? We can’t do this in our own power. We need the Holy Spirit.

I love how the image of Jesus’ breath and the Spirit takes us back to the very beginning of God’s story in the Bible. The word Spirit, breath, and wind are all the same word, in both Hebrew and Greek – Ruach and Pneuma both have those multiple meanings of Spirit, breath, and wind. In the beginning of Genesis, The Spirit of God hovered over the waters in creation. When God made humankind, he breathed the breath of life into Adam so that he became a living soul. Later, God told the Prophet Ezekiel who was standing in the Valley of the Dry Bones to Prophesy to the breath. “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live."

Now Jesus is breathing the breath of life, his Spirit, into the people of the New Creation, so that through those disciples, and through us, new life can come to the whole world.

You know what that means, don’t you? Jesus is breathing his Spirt into YOU so that you can be enlivened to live fully into the person God created you to be. Jesus breathes his Spirit on all of us showing us that he is always with us, not even a breath away, and God’s creative power works in us and through us in the world.

It’s too bad Thomas missed Jesus’ first appearance to the disciples in the upper room. We don’t know where he was. He certainly wasn’t locked away in fear… maybe he was out doing essential business … getting groceries or wine. Maybe he was serving some of the needy in the community. We don’t know. But when he comes back after Jesus has come and gone that first Sunday, he’s skeptical. Unfortunately, his skepticism of the disciples story has earned him the moniker of “Doubting Thomas.” Thomas said, “ "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." He would believe Jesus. He wasn’t so sure about his crazy friends.

But Thomas isn’t asking for anything more than the other disciples received. Mary Magdeline didn’t know what to make of the empty tomb until she met Jesus in the Garden. The other disciples were still wondering what all this meant until they saw Jesus in the upper room. In the end, it doesn’t seem that Thomas needed to put his hands in the wounds. Merely Jesus’ appearance, and the words spoken from the Word made Flesh allowed him to make the most emphatic profession of Jesus’ identity in the whole Gospel. “My Lord and my God.”

The Gospel of John now comes full circle. John started his Gospel based on Genesis to show how Jesus was the beginning of a new creation. “In the Beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God.” Thomas cries out, “My Lord and My God.” No one else is John’s Gospel explicitly names Jesus “God” until Thomas’ confession. John’s whole Gospel shows us how indeed Jesus is God through his life, signs, death and resurrection.

What sounds like a rebuke to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe,” is probably meant more as an encouragement for us. None of us were there in the upper room that first Easter. None of us were there a week later. We have not seen the Risen Lord with our own eyes, and yet, we have come to believe. Jesus calls us blessed because of it.

It doesn’t mean all our doubts are gone, or that we aren’t skeptical about how God’s plan for this world will turn out.

Earlier this week, I asked a question on my Facebook page: What do you doubt? What do you NOT doubt? One of my friends said, “I doubt I’ll be able to get a haircut for three months!” Another gravely predicted, “I doubt that some businesses will survive, and that there’s no doubt about that.” Sad, but true. But others raised deeper questions. Some expressed uncertainties and fears about their own health or their loved ones’, doubting they’d escape the virus. Others doubted the equity of the situation and our society’s response to it, and how or if God was involved in that. Some expressed doubts that things will ever get back to “normal,” while others expressed doubts that we would take this opportunity to change ourselves and embrace a “new normal.”

Several people lamented the fact that, and I’m paraphrasing, that we are so addicted to chaos, rush, and busyness that we will choose to jump back into old patterns- stuffing our time with stuff- and miss the opportunity to hear God in the quiet and rest, that we’d miss the opportunity to change our society into one that is healthier, more balanced, more in tune with the way God created us to be.

It’s not always comfortable to confront what the Spirit may bring to our minds when we take time to be quiet. As one person said, “I’ve had too much time to think” and it was bringing up a lot of doubts about things going on in their own lives. But it’s only when we allow ourselves the time to get to know God, and see ourselves with God’s eyes that we can experience growth and transformation, and choose to be and act differently.

These are indeed strange times. We all have doubts and uncertainties about what the future will look like. But we are a people of hope.

To the question, “What DON’T you doubt” I received several beautiful answers. “I don’t doubt grace and the undeniable power that grace, love, and God’s power can give. Another said, “I don’t doubt that we will continue to “Pay it Forward.” Another said, “I don't doubt God's unlimited capacity to love and forgive.”

We have a Lord who miraculously comes into a dark, locked room full of fear and pronounces, “Peace Be with you.” We have a Lord who meets us where we are, and gives us what we need to step forward in faith. We have a Risen Lord who breathes in us the breath of life, and empowers us, sending us to the word to share Jesus’ light and love and restoration.

So, whether it feels like Easter already to you, or not quite, receive whatever it is that Jesus is giving you, his Presence, his Power, his Peace. Amen.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday April 12, 2020                                

(Preached online from my front porch)

John 20: 1-18  http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Easter/AEasterPrin_RCL.html

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

Lord, Take our Eyes and See through them

Take our Ears and Hear through them

Take our Lips and speak through them

Take our Hearts and fill them with your fire.

It’s a really strange Easter, isn’t it? It’s a beautiful, albeit cold, Spring day outside and Here we are, most of us sequestered in our homes on Easter Sunday. Unless our work or other necessities demand it, Most of us are staying home trying to keep ourselves from contracting or spreading the COVID 19 virus. We have not yet reached the peak of this pandemic in Virginia, and it’s hard to believe we’ve already been out of church for five Sundays. Thankfully, none of St. Michael’s members that I know of have contracted the virus, but many of you know those who have. This year, Easter is definitely different.  

No Egg Hunt on the front lawn at the church. No chance to hear our beautiful choir, No Easter Brunch out with family and friends. And Sadly, there’s no chance to kneel down next to your brothers and sisters in Christ to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion, and greet each other with hugs and handshakes. It is a very strange Easter indeed.

Of course, most of the traditions of our typical Easter Celebrations have developed over time. If we go back to that first Easter, there was no choir, or egg hunt, or Easter brunch, either. There wouldn’t be cultural-wide Easter celebrations until scores of years in the future.

In fact, the disciples, like us, were sequestered in their homes for the most part, and like us, were confused and uncertain about the future. They were Fearful about what awaited them outside their doors, just as so many people are today.

And even though Jesus had prophesied his death and resurrection, the disciples didn’t understand. They were sad and dejected. Mary went to the tomb early in the morning, not expecting a miracle, but simply to grieve. She went to complete the solemn tasks of the Jewish burial practice that had been hastily begun Friday evening before the sabbath began.

Like Mary and the disciples, many of you can relate to that sense of grief or uncertainty.

Some of you are in a time of real grieving, having lost a loved one or gotten particularly difficult health news, and you’re not able to avail yourself of the comfort you’d get from being with family or friends. Others of you are distraught because you or your children are out of work, not sure how to make ends meet.

Some of our sadness around this time is about the milestones we’re missing …. Graduations and proms have been cancelled. Significant birthday parties have to be postponed or celebrated remotely. We don’t really know how our lives will be different in the future. We aren’t sure what our new “normal life” will look like once we get past this crisis. But almost everyone I’ve talked to says that things will surely change.

On the other hand, Others of you, perhaps those who are happy homebodies, and who have a steady income, and are healthy, are finding rest and unexpected gifts in this strange time.

One gift is that many of us have been learning new technology to keep ourselves connected to church, to work, to family, and to other circles we are part of. St. Michael’s Boy Scout Troop even had a back yard camp out last weekend, with a virtual campfire time online. Not only are many people working from home, but we’re having Zoom book club meetings and happy hours and bible studies and birthday parties. Lots of you have commented that you’ve enjoyed our online midweek and Sunday services and gatherings. I imagine we’ll find a way to keep some of that in the future, even after we can gather together  again.

Nevertheless, whether this time is easy for you or challenging, many people I’ve talked too, including myself, have been having a hard time keeping the days straight. In a recent zoom conversation with my YMCA buddies, one of my friends said, “How was your weekend, everybody?” There was a pause. “It’s Wednesday, Wendell.” “Oh Right.” Later, he left the conversation with “Have a great Weekend” to which we replied, “It’s Wednesday, Wendell.”

Time doesn’t seem to have the same rhythm as it had before. Whether you’re less busy, or busier than ever, it’s likely different.

Let me show something to you . [Holding up my Christmas cactus.] Do you see this? It’s my Christmas cactus. It in bloom! Even my Christmas Cactus can’t keep track of time! It’s supposed to be the time for Easter Lilies, and here I’ve got this thing blooming at the same time. It’s a gift!

It’s actually kind of funny that my cactus in joining in a cultural movement where there are many people these days putting back out their Christmas decorations…. People are Putting up lights in the trees and windows. Some even putting out those big blow up Santas and snowmen in the yard. There aren’t too many in my neighborhood… I think it might be against the HOA rules. Maybe my cactus knew that. She knew I wasn’t going to pull back out the Christmas decorations, and that’s why she decided to bloom.

I think I can understand the idea behind this trend of people wanting to put up lights. Christmas comes at the darkest time of the year. The lights and festivity of Christmas push back against the darkness with the joy and Good News of the birth of Jesus. The Light of Christ coming into the world.

People are putting out Christmas lights these days to push back the darkness, fear, and anxiety that this Pandemic is causing.

The thing to remember is that no one would have ever thought to celebrate Christmas unless we had already begun to celebrate Easter. There would be no reason to celebrate Jesus’ birth without the Good News of Jesus’ Resurrection.

Still it’s interesting to see how these two bookends of Jesus’ life are present at this Time – Christmas and Easter. Birth, Death, and Resurrection.

This last week, a St. Michael’s parishioner passed along a poem to me, an Easter Version of Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch who stole Christmas:

Let me share part of it with you.

It’s “How the Virus Stole Easter”

By Kristi Bothur (with a few edits by me)

Twas late in ‘19 when the virus began

Bringing chaos and fear to all people, each land.

People were sick, hospitals full,

Doctors overwhelmed, no one in school.

As winter gave way to the promise of spring, The virus raged on, touching peasant and king.

People hid in their homes from the enemy unseen.

They YouTubed and Zoomed, social-distanced, and cleaned.

April approached and churches were closed.

“There won’t be an Easter,” the world supposed.

“Easter can’t happen this year,” it proclaimed.

“Online and at home, it just won’t be the same.”

Of course, as the poem goes on we hear:

Every saint in every nation, the tall and the small, Was celebrating Jesus in spite of it all!

It hadn’t stopped Easter from coming! It came!

Somehow or other, it came just the same!

“It came without bonnets, it came without bunnies, It came without egg hunts, cantatas, or money.”

Then the world thought of something it hadn’t before.

“Maybe Easter,” it thought, means a little bit more,

Maybe Easter, perhaps, is more than just lore.

Of course, we know that it’s more than just Lore. Jesus met Mary in a garden that first Easter Sunday, and whether the garden contained Easter lilies blooming or blooming Christmas cactuses,  we don’t know. We do know that Jesus’ resurrection means all of life is transformed.

We have hope no matter what we face because we know that illness and death are not the final words. We have hope because we know that God can bring light and life from the darkest of circumstances.

Because we need not fear our eternal home with God, we can share God’s light with others.

You’ve probably seen a lot of ways people are doing just that these days.

·       Musicians are giving free house concerts online.

·       Neighbors are creating “Stuffed animal Safaris” putting out their plush animals in windows or trees, so that families out for exercise have something to look for.

·       Children are decorating their trees with rainbows, God’s sign of promise.

·       People are pulling out sewing machines to make face masks.

·       Foodies are arranging for local restaurants to deliver dinner to neighborhoods to help keep the restaurants in business.

·       People are shopping for shut-ins, making meals, and helping where they can.

These are signs that humanity has hope. These are examples of the Light of Christ shining in the world.

Kristi Bothur’s poem, “How the Virus Stole Easter” ends this way:

And what happened then?

Well....the story’s not done.

What will YOU do?

Will you share with that one

Or two or more people needing hope in this night?

Will you share the source of your life in this fight?

The churches are empty - but so is the tomb, And Jesus is victor over death, doom, and gloom.

So this year at Easter, let this be our prayer, As the virus still rages all around, everywhere.

May the world see hope when it looks at God’s people.

May the world see the church is not a building or steeple.

May the world find Faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection,

May the world find Joy in a time of dejection.

May 2020 be more than a year of survival,  Not only that - Let it start a revival.

This strange era we’re in may have us mixing up our days, but for followers of Jesus, everyday can be Easter.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!  AMEN.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS

STATIONS OF THE CROSS

OPENING DEVOTIONS

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

Our Father who art in heaven,

   hallowed be thy Name,

   thy kingdom come,
   thy will be done,

     on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,

   as we forgive those

     who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

   but deliver us from evil.

V. We will glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ:

R. In whom is our salvation, our life and resurrection.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those might acts, where by you have given us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

First Station - Jesus is condemned to death

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

As soon as it was morning, the chief priests, with the elders and scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation; and they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him to Pilate. And they all condemned him and said, "He deserves to die." When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. Then he handed Jesus over to them to be crucified.

V.   God did not spare his own Son:

R.   But delivered him up for us all.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Second Station - Jesus takes up his cross

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Jesus went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha.

Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. Like a lamb he was led to the slaughter; and like a sheep that before its shearers is mute, so he opened not his mouth. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.

V.   The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all:

R.   For the transgression of my people was he stricken.

Let us pray (Keep a moment of silence)

Almighty God, whose beloved Son willingly endured the agony and shame of the cross for our redemption: Give us courage to take up our cross and follow him; who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Third Station - Jesus falls the first time

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped; but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and was born in human likeness. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name. Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, and kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is the Lord our God.

V.    Surely he has borne our griefs:

R.    And carried our sorrows.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

O God, you know us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright: Grant us such strength and protection as may support us in all dangers, and carry us through all temptations; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Fourth Station - Jesus meets his afflicted mother

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

To what can I liken you, to what can I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What likeness can I use to comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For vast as the sea is your ruin. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. The Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.

V.   A sword will pierce your own soul also:

R.   And fill your heart with bitter pain.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

O God, who willed that in the passion of your Son a sword of grief should pierce the soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary his mother: Mercifully grant that your Church, having shared with her in his passion, may be made worthy to share in the joys of his resurrection; who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Fifth Station - The Cross is laid on Simon of Cyrene

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

As they led Jesus away, they came upon a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus. "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

V.   Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me:

R.   Cannot be my disciple.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

Heavenly Father, whose blessed Son came not to be served but to serve: Bless all who, following in his steps, give themselves to the service of others; that with wisdom, patience, and courage, they may minister in his Name to the suffering, the friendless, and the needy; for the love of him who laid down his life for us, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Sixth Station - A woman wipes the face of Jesus

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

We have seen him without beauty or majesty, with no looks to attract our eyes. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of men. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.

V.   Restore us, O Lord God of hosts:

R.   Show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Seventh Station - Jesus falls a second time

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. For the transgression of my people was he stricken.

V.   But as for me, I am a worm and no man:

R.   Scorned by all and despised by the people.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Eighth Station - Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

There followed after Jesus a great multitude of the people, and among them were women who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children."

V.   Those who sowed with tears:

R.   Will reap with songs of joy.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

Teach your Church, O Lord, to mourn the sins of which it is guilty, and to repent and forsake them; that, by your pardoning grace, the results of our iniquities may not be visited upon our children and our children's children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Ninth Station - Jesus falls a third time

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light. He has besieged me and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. Though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes. "Remember, O Lord, my affliction and bitterness, the wormwood and the gall!"

V.   He was led like a lamb to the slaughter:

R.   And like a sheep that before its shearers is mute, so he opened not his mouth.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Tenth Station - Jesus is stripped of his garments 

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

When they came to a place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull), they offered him wine to drink, mingled with gall; but when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And they divided his garments among them by casting lots. This was to fulfill the scripture which says, "They divided my garments among them; they cast lots for my clothing."

V.   They gave me gall to eat:

R.   And when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Eleventh Station - Jesus is nailed to the cross

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

When they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him; and with him they crucified two criminals, one on the right, the other on the left, and Jesus between them. And the scripture was fulfilled which says, "He was numbered with the transgressors."

V.   They pierce my hands and my feet:

R.   They stare and gloat over me.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Twelfth Station - Jesus dies on the cross

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold your son!" Then he said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!"

And when Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished!" And then, crying with a loud voice, he said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." And he bowed his head, and handed over his spirit.

V.   Christ for us became obedient unto death:

R.   Even death on a cross.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; who lives and reigns now and for ever. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Thirteenth Station - The body of Jesus is placed in his mother's arms

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

All you who pass by, behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. My eyes are spent with weeping; my soul is in tumult; my heart is poured out in grief because of the downfall of my people. "Do not call me Naomi (which means Pleasant), call me Mara (which means Bitter); for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me."

V.   Her tears run down her cheeks:

R.   And she has none to comfort her.

Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)

Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies' sake. Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Fourteenth Station - Jesus is laid in the tomb

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb.

V. You will not abandon me to the grave:R. Nor let your holy One see corruption.
Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence)O God, your blessed Son was laid in a tomb in a garden, and rested on the Sabbath day: Grant that we who have been buried with him in the waters of baptism may find our perfect rest in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
Holy God,Holy and Mighty,Holy Immortal One,Have mercy upon us.
CONCLUDING PRAYERS  Savior of the world, by your cross and precious blood you have redeemed us:Save us, and help us, we humbly beseech you, O Lord. Let us pray. (Keep a moment of silence) We thank you, heavenly Father, that you have delivered us from the dominion of sin and death and brought us into the kingdom of your Son; and we pray that, as by his death he has recalled us to life, so by his love he may raise us to eternal joys; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. To Christ our Lord who loves us, and washed us in his own blood, and made us a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

The Hands of Christ Stations of the Cross art are the work of Dr. David Sarrett.

Dr. Sarrett is a retired obstetrician gynecologist who practiced in Virginia Beach.  Upon his retirement, he was proud to return to Richmond, where two of his children reside.

As an artist, Dr. Sarratt's work has been displayed in the Contemporary Art Center in Virginia Beach, and in public and private exhibits throughout the state. He has studied with Robert Burnell, Barclay Sheaks and Curney Nuffer.

Dr. Sarratt has generously allowed his Hands of Christ art to be displayed in St. Michael's Episcopal Church Commons during Lent for the past several years.  Our members have truly felt blessed to pray the Stations of the Cross with Dr. Sarrett's artwork as the focal point.  In this time of isolation, we hope this email will provide you with some sense of the Holy Week as we walk with Jesus to the cross.

Worshiping During Holy Week

Liturgies & Reflections with Music

Helpful Links

St. Michael's Prayer List

Online Guide to Facebook & Zoom and low tech options (UPDATED FROM MAILED PACKET)

The Triduum Home Worship Intro

• Maundy Thursday Liturgy

• Good Friday Liturgy

• The Vigil of Easter

Letter to families of children and youth

Daily Lectionary Readings, The Good Book Club Reading Schedule and the Daily Bible Reading Program

Holy Week, Easter, and Ongoing Worship & Formation Schedule…

Palm Sunday April 5, 9:00 am

Facebook for the Liturgy of the Palms with Music

10:00 am - Tune into Zoom for Coffee Hour 

Monday of Holy Week

You should have received an email with the Stations of the Cross Liturgy with photos of David Sarrett's "Hands" Stations.

Wednesday Evening Prayer with Lectionary Discussion 7:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Via Zoom Here (See Online Guide to Facebook & Zoom) Weekly event

Thursday Bible Study 10:00 am - 11:15 am

Via Zoom Here, Weekly event

The Triduum: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil on Saturday

Triduum at home with materials. During the liturgy or afterwards, you can access the clergy meditation and music on the Facebook page or YouTube at noon each day

Good Friday Noon

Rev. Jeunée will lead the Stations of the Cross with David  Sarrett's "Hands" Stations.

Easter Sunday: 7:00 AM - Sunrise Service 

(Facebook Live) off Rev. Jeunée's front porch. We're keeping it simple! I'll be offering a reading of the Gospel Easter story, a full sermon, and some prayers, while (hopefully) the sun rises behind me. Then you can access several Easter Hymns that our music ministry will have recorded and posted on our Facebook Page and YouTube. The words are in the Triduum worship booklets.

Sundays Following - 9:00 am 

Morning Prayer (Facebook) followed by Virtual Coffee Hour (Zoom).

---

Additional Musical Offerings

Doing Church in an age of Coronovirus

Rev. Jeunee here.

Let me add “Leading church during a world-wide pandemic” to the list of “Things they didn’t teach me in seminary.”

I’ll bet you feel much the same way… Schools and restaurants closed. People are being asked to stay home and wash their hands. We need to pay attention and keep ourselves quarentined so that this disease doesn’t spread and overload the healthcare system. Few of us have been trained for times like these.

At St. Michael’s, our mission to Celebrate, Love, and Serve is nourished by our times together on Sunday… but we can still live out that mission when we are unable to be together. We have a church that knows what it means to Be The Church even more than go to church.

So, stay safe. Stay home as much as possible. Wash your hands. Practice social distancing when you need to be around others. Call your neighbors. To your ability, find ways to financially support the people, businesses, and services that are suffering in this economic upheaval.

But most of all - Pray. Connect with God. Take the change in schedules as a time of sabbath. Find ways to reprioritize and reconnect with things that matter most.

And stay connected to your church. Come worship with us online. Join us for adult forum on Sunday or Bible study during the week. You can volunteer to make phone calls to check in with our parishioners.

Click onto the CALENDAR portion of our page and go to March 22 for links on how to worship tomorrow. Go to our facebook page for our live service at 9 am tomorrow.

And stay in touch. Pray for me. Pray for our congregation. Pray for those who have fallen ill. Pray for those who are combatting this disease as scientists, healthcare workers, and healing prayer ministers. Pray for the leaders of every nation to make wise decisions.

Blessings to you all.

Epiphany 6A 2020

Epiphany 6A 2020

Deuteronomy 30:15-20; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37; Psalm 119:1-8

When my husband, Marcel, and I traveled to the Holy Land this last October with our St. Michael’s pilgrims, we had decided we would purchase a Mezuzah for the entryway of our new home that was being built.  A Mezuzah is a small decorative box or case that holds a scroll of scripture written in Hebrew that contains passages from Deuteronomy 6 and Deuteronomy 11.

In part it reads, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.

Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home

and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.

bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead,

and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

So, faithful Jews, and Christians who like the idea, attach the Mezuzah to the outside of their doorposts to offer a visual reminder that keeping God’s commandments and law close at hand, literally, affixed to the doorframe, brings blessings.  

Marcel and I were successful. We found a lovely, metal mezuzah in an antique shop in the Jewish section of Jerusalem for our front door, and a simple etched wooden one for the entryway in from the garage.

That was how we celebrated Valentine’s day on Friday. After a nice homecooked steak dinner, we attached our Mezezahs to the front and the backdoor frames, saying the Hebrew Prayer that my friend, Rabbi Ahuva shared with me.

If you are coming to our house blessing this afternoon, you’ll get to see them.

The passage from Deuteronomy we read this morning carries some of the same idea as the Mezuzah. God’s Law brings life and blessings. 

“Moses said, “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess…. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him;”

Commandments, decrees and ordinances. I don’t know about you, but those can sound a little oppressive. And not only do we have all the law of the Old Testament to keep, Jesus ups the ante quite a bit.

Jesus, as he stands on the Hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee, begins to launch into the meat of his Sermon on the Mount with the words we heard today.

The beatitudes of “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit… .Blessed are the Peacemakers” introduced the sermon, showing us that God’s expectations of us are often the opposite of the world’s. 

The sermon continued, as we heard last week, with the call to be salt and light, and the assertion that Jesus is fulfilling the law, not abolishing it, and that means much more than simply trying to stick to the letter of the law, it means truly living into the spirit behind that law.

Today, we get to the nitty-gritty of what living into the Spirit of God’s law really means.

It’s not good enough to just refrain from murdering anyone, you’re not allowed to be angry with them either. You’re not supposed to even call them a fool.

It’s not good enough to merely to refrain from cheating on your wife or husband in an affair, you’re not even supposed to let your imagination wander when you see a particularly pretty woman or ruggedly handsome man.

Phrases like “I swear on a stack of bibles,” or “I promise on my mother’s grave,” or “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye,” are all way over the top. You and I are to called as Christians to have such good characters, to be people of such strong integrity, that when we say a simple Yes or No we follow through simply because we have given our word, and others will know us well enough to trust it.  

We are supposed to give up anything that stands in the way of following God’s path – even, Jesus says, as he exaggerates to make the point – if that means poking out your own eye or lopping off your own hand.

For ourselves, we need to be ruthless in weeding out areas of our life that cause us to sin. At the same time, we need to be open and forgiving of others, reconciling to our brothers and sisters, and mending the fences in our marriages, so that we don’t cut ourselves off from each other.

There’s a story of an old Cherokee Indian who was speaking to his grandson:

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.  

One is evil–he is anger, envy, sorrow,  greed.

The other wolf is good — he is joy, peace, hope, love.”

The grandson thought about it for a long time, and then asked his grandfather, “Which one will win?”

The old man said, “The one I feed.”

The question is not, will we have those feelings of anger or lust or greed. – Jesus assumed we would have them – the question is, what do we do with them?

Many of you read the Forward Day by Day, an Episcopal devotional with a short meditation on each day’s readings.

Usually on the inside cover, is A Morning Resolve, which in many ways, sums up the spirit behind Jesus’ teaching.

“I will try this day to live a simple, sincere and serene life, repelling promptly every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity, and self-seeking; cultivating cheerfulness, magnanimity, charity, and the habit of holy silence; exercising economy in expenditure, generosity in giving, carefulness in conversation, diligence in appointed service, fidelity to every trust, and a childlike faith in God.

In particular I will try to be faithful in those habits of prayer, work, study, physical exercise, eating, and sleep which I believe the Holy Spirit has shown me to be right.”

…And right here in the prayer, when I’m feeling both inspired for the possibilities of a new day.., and depressed because – even though it’s still early morning, I’ve already screwed up several areas – we  get to this part of the prayer: 

“And as I cannot in my own strength do this, nor even with a hope of success attempt it, I look to thee, O Lord God my Father, in Jesus my Savior, and ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit.” 

I think I’ve shared with you before one of my favorite prayers,

“Dear God ... I thank you that so far today I've done all right. I haven't gossiped and I haven't lost my temper. I haven't been grumpy, nasty or selfish, haven't had a sinful thought, and I'm really glad of that. But in a few minutes, God, I'm going to be getting out of bed and from then on, I'm probably going to need a lot of help. Amen.”

And we do need help.

If you are like me, I hear Jesus’ words and I realize there is no way I can keep these on my own. 

Our Collect for today, the prayer I said at the beginning of our worship which sums up today’s lessons said this…“Because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed.”

We cannot “do good” in order to win Merit badges from God, to earn a place in heaven, or to earn favor with God. We could not and cannot, under our own power, earn anything from God by our own goodness. Jesus already did that work for us long ago on a cross.

My friend and colleague, John Ohmer said once, “I think that if we read these words and think, ‘I’ve got to try harder,’ we’ve missed the point…I think that when we hear these words, where we’re supposed to end up is, “I don’t have a leg to stand on…I don’t have a chance…I can’t do this on my own…I need help…

…which is just another way of saying ‘I’m a sinner in need of a savior…’

and if that’s where you are, then ‘welcome to the club,’ or rather ‘welcome to the community.’

You’re at the doorway of grace: God doing for you what you cannot do for yourself.”

When we give ourselves to God and allow God’s grace and spirit and forgiveness to move in our lives, we are transformed. Then the action of keeping God’s law is not a means to get to God, rather, it is a natural result of being with God. We become people conformed to Jesus’ way of love, compassion, and reconciliation.

So, while Marcel and I made it part of our Valentine’s celebration to put up the Mezuzahs on our doorways, God is really the one giving us all a valentine. God’s law, when embraced with God’s grace, is the doorway to life and God’s immeasurable love. Amen.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

1 Corinthians 3:1-9

Matthew 5:21-37

Psalm 119:1-8

The Collect

O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The First Reading

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Moses said, “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

Psalm 119:1-8

Beati immaculati

1 Happy are they whose way is blameless, *
who walk in the law of the Lord!

2 Happy are they who observe his decrees *
and seek him with all their hearts!

3 Who never do any wrong, *
but always walk in his ways.

4 You laid down your commandments, *
that we should fully keep them.

5 Oh, that my ways were made so direct *
that I might keep your statutes!

6 Then I should not be put to shame, *
when I regard all your commandments.

7 I will thank you with an unfeigned heart, *
when I have learned your righteous judgments.

8 I will keep your statutes; *
do not utterly forsake me.

The Epistle

1 Corinthians 3:1-9

Brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human?

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

The Gospel

Matthew 5:21-37

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

“Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.”

Epiphany 5A - Boy Scout and Vestry installation

Epiphany 5A - Boy Scout and Vestry installation

Feb. 8, 2020

Epiphany 5A - Boy Scout and Vestry installation

Isaiah 58:1-9a, [9b-12]; 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, [13-16]; Matthew 5:13-20; Psalm 112:1-9, (10)

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”

Jesus spoke these words to his disciples and the crowds during his famous Sermon on the Mount. Just after he finishes the beatitudes, saying such things as “Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers….” Jesus tells those gathered around him that they are the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World.

These are good words for us to consider this morning.

First of all, here we are in February – a season that tends to be darker and less “zesty” than other times of the year.

Today we also celebrate Boy Scout Sunday…. Yesterday was the The 110th birthday of the Boy Scouts.] Today we will also install our new vestry for 2020. And we ask them to lead us, by being Salt and Light.

So what does it mean to be the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the world. Is that an easy job, or a hard one?

I’d say it is both.

Let’s consider what it might mean for us to be Salt and Light.

First – consider salt.

Salt is used both as a preserver or healing agent, as well as a seasoning.

Back in Jesus’ day, there was no refrigeration. If you wanted to preserve something, one way was to rub it with salt. Think about the beef jerky you might take on a camping trip.

So just like salt can preserve food that spoils, People who are the salt of the earth can help preserve God’s creation, this world and our communities from getting spoiled.

If we want to be the salt of the earth, one of our jobs is to guard and preserve the good and healthy things around us, so that they are there for others.

That might include –

Preserving Our environment and taking care of creation.

Preserving the values of a fair and democratic government, and working for justice, truth, and peace, even in challenging times.

Preserving the institutions that do good in society – that includes taking your part in leading and supporting the church (or your community of faith) of supporting your boy scout troop, of supporting the other organizations and communities that serve the greater good.

There tends to be a movement in society away from anything Organized.

For example, I’d rather be spiritual on my own. I don’t need organized religion.

Or – I don’t want to join a good, because I could get tied down. I’d rather be a free agent. The problem is, if you value what that organizations espouse, you need to be part of preserving those values for the future.

God calls us do our part, as a salty preservative, to keep the world from going bad or from spoiling. God’s people are meant to preserve God’s purposes in the world.

Salt is also a healing agent, as any of you know who gargle salt water when you have a sore throat. Part of what it means to be salt of the earth is to be agents of healing and reconciliation in the world. And as we know, when salt hits a wound, it can sting. Meaning, real work in reconciliation and healing is not always easy. Human beings prefer to avoid pain and discomfort, but often times, true healing and change – change and healing of our bodies, our society, or our land, only comes when one is awakened by the painful salt of God’s truth, calling us to purify our intentions and our actions.

Of course, when we think of salt, we mostly think of it as a seasoning. When seasoning food, salt is usually best when dissipated throughout the meal, bringing forth the hidden flavors, not just saturating the food in one place.

Christians are to live and practice the faith in such a way that we are flavorful, and bring spice to life. As Jesus said, Salt that has lost its taste is good for nothing. Christians whose faith is bland don’t make the path of Jesus seem all that appetizing. Christians who pile on the Religious salt too heavy, can make someone who is trying to taste and see, spit the whole thing out because it’s overpowering

There’s another thing about Salt. Salt makes you thirsty.

You know how when you are at a party and eat a lot of potato chips, you get really thirsty and want to drink more? It’s the salt that makes us thirsty and seek a way to quench that thirst.

As Christians, we are called to live such a joy-filled, flavorful, life that it makes other people thirsty for God. We want to live in such a way that others can see how we have meaning and purpose to our lives. That we live beyond our own selfish ambitions, again, so that others become thirsty for what they see exhibited in us.

You and I need to also continue to be thirsty for God – to know God better. We help satisfy that thirst through prayer, study, worship and service.

So as Salt of the earth, we are called to Preserving, Healing, and Seasoning this world, and by our salty presence and actions, making others thirsty to know God. 

So, what does it mean to be the Light of the World?

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:14–16).

When we walk into a dark room, we flick a switch and the room is bathed in light. But that wasn't the case for the people Jesus addressed. They lit their homes at night with small oil lamps.

The picture of someone lighting a lamp and then putting it under a clay pot would have been humorous to this crowd. The only reason to light a lamp was so you could see, and just like Jesus suggested, you would place that lamp in a place where it could give off as much light as possible.

We have an understanding of light that first-century Jews didn't. For instance, we know that it's because of light that we can see the entire spectrum of colors. We know that sunlight provides the energy needed to sustain life on earth and gives us critical vitamin D.

So, part of being the light of the world is to help make evident the beautiful rainbow of colors and diversity in our world – to value the variety of gifts and the unique contributions people are able to give. By being light we can help others grow into what they were created to be.

Light is not only a beacon toward the good, but also can illuminate the dark, dingy corners of the world and call us to take action to make them better.  Light dispels the darkness. Taken metaphorically, that means that we are to help spread God’s light in the dark places of the world. We do that by offering kind words and loving actions to others.

But it goes beyond just our personal interactions. We are also called to bring God’s light to the greater society. It’s about being faithful AND putting that faith into action.

The 16th century theologian John Selden said, “ In my intellect, I may divide [faith and works], [but] just as in the candle I know there is both light and heat; yet put out the candle, and both are gone.

We heard the Prophet’s Isaiah’s speak about what the action of Being Light can look like:

“Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,

to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn.”

Being light means being not only a beacon of God’s love and goodness and hope, but also persistently shining the light of truth that exposes dark corners of injustice, corruption, and oppression in our world, and then working to over come that darkness. By working for justice, helping the oppressed, helping free those who are oppressed, we let our light shine.

Of course, it’s important to remember that we are not the source of that light. Yes. Jesus says we are the light of the world. Be he also said, “I am the light of the world.” Just like a fire cannot burn without fuel, or a lamp cannot shine unless it’s plugged in, you and I are filled with light and can shine God’s light only when we understand that God himself is the source of the light we experience.

Let me close by offering the words of Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela, was a black political leader who worked against Apartheid in South Africa, the unjust system of separating people by race, and offering privilege to whites. He was imprisoned for 27 years for his work, but eventually became the first black man elected president of the country.

In Inaugural Speech as the president of South Africa in 1994, Mandela said:

Our deepest fear is not

that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear

is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness,

that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,

gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you NOT to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn't serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened

about shrinking so that other people

won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to manifest

the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people

permission to do the same.

Christmas Eve 2019

“And Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

Our Christmas story is such a wonderful story. It is so well-known, and shaped by so much tradition handed down through the years. Over the centuries, this beautiful narrative has caught the imagination of painters and poets, song-writers and sculptors. The poetic imagination of our carols and Christmas stories often fill in the details left out by the simple account we find in Scripture. Our Nativity plays and Christmas cards often combine elements from the birth narratives of both Luke, the story we just heard, with the story from Matthew, about Joseph’s dream, and the wise men following the star, and the escape to Egypt. For example, if we look at the scripture accounts more closely, we can see that the wise men probably arrived up to two years later, rather than the actual night Jesus was born.

Nevertheless, all our Christmas imagery, all our poetic imagination, all the details we add to the story do help us ponder to beautiful and wonderful truth God became flesh and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus, a baby born in Bethlehem.

Have you ever had the opportunity to visit a place that you have read about or heard about for years? That happens for many of us when we travel.

Finally getting to see the Grand Canyon, or Hawaii, or Machu Picchu, or the Eiffel Tower after years of seeing postcards can be a thrill. Sometimes your experience can be even better than you imagined. Often times our descriptions, or even photos and videos, fall short of a reality that it better than we could imagine. Sometimes the reality doesn’t quite meet the expectation. In either case, having seen it in person gives you a picture in your mind’s eye for the next time you read or hear about that place.

A group of 22 of us with St. Michael’s had the privilege to be on Pilgrimage to the Holy Land this last October, and we got to see, in person, so many of the places that we read about in the bible. Visiting Bethlehem was early in our trip. Some of you may have had that opportunity as well. Being able not only to see Bethlehem and the surrounding area, but also to learn more of the history and context was very powerful.

As good a good pilgrim, it’s always good to come back and share your experiences, and so let me do some of that tonight, as we contemplate the ancient story of Jesus’ birth and try to put ourselves back into the first century and what it would have been like for Mary and Joseph.

Mary and Joseph would have been travelling from one small town to another. Nazareth was just a small village of about 40 households. Bethlehem, even though it was only 5 miles away from Jerusalem, would have been only about 300 people as well in the first century. Compelled by the Roman census, Joseph and Mary would have taken 8-10 days to walk the 100 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. It is very likely that they travelled in caravan with others going to their ancestral homes for the census. The usually small village would have been crowded to many times its normal size with people there for the census.

In our Christmas imaginations, we often think of Mary and Joseph arriving as Mary is in full labor pains, ready to deliver, and Joseph is desperately going from hotel to motel to B&B trying to find a place for his wife to give birth.

In reality, Luke tells us “While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.” So although we don’t know when exactly in their travels Jesus was born, it was unlikely to have been the very day they arrived. In fact with such a long journey, they would have likely stayed in Bethlehem for a while, and they may have planned the journey to give Mary some cushion around when they expected the baby to be born. Of course, babies don’t always come on schedule, and we don’t really know.

What we can be almost sure of, though, is that there was no innkeeper who turned away the Holy Family.

There were no Motel 6s in Jesus’ day, and a small town like Bethlehem was unlikely to have any kind of inn at all. Bethlehem was the city of David, Joseph’s ancestral home. Even if they weren’t close relatives, there would have been some of Joseph’s family still in the area.

During our pilgrimage, our guide, Imri, often spoke about his “cousins” in the area. To the native Palestinians, Every one is a cousin!

The hospitality code of that culture would have made it unthinkable for Mary and Joseph not to have been welcomed into a relative’s home., even if it was the cousin of a cousin. And it would have been just as unthinkable that Mary and Joseph would have refused an invitation to stay with family even if there had been other options, even if it meant staying in a house crowded with other out of town guests,

The word that has been translated as “inn” in our bible is the word “Katalouma.” Elsewhere in the new testament it is translated as “guest room” or “upper room”.

It helps to know what first century homes were like in that region of Palestine.

The area, especially around Bethlehem, was hilly and rocky, full of caves. Trees were much rarer, so only kings and rich people could afford home made from wood or lined with wood paneling. Certainly stables were not made from precious wood.

The local population built their home from rock, and often took advantage of the natural caves as the back part of their home. Sometimes they even enlarged the cave. The back part of the home, the deepest part of the cave, was an area where the family would bring some of their animals inside at night. They would have brought in the sheep especially. This protected them from predators like wolves or even thieves. It also added a natural source of heat to the home for the family. The sheep and lambs were important especially because they were needed for the sacrifice at the temple, and for the Passover feast.

A feeding trough, or manger, would have been carved into the rock at the back so the animals could eat.

The family space would have been in the room adjacent, just off the front door, in front of the back area of the cave. It was usually one medium size room. The place where they would have gathered to talk and eat, if they couldn’t be outside. Their beds would have been rolled up and stored against the walls during the day. At night, all the beds would be unrolled, and the floor covered with the family.

It would have been a lot like I remember it being at my grandparents house during Thanksgiving… wall to wall relatives taking up the floor and the couches and the spare bedrooms. All twenty of us sharing one and a half baths. (But of course, there were no bathrooms in these homes!)

Some of the households of that time were built as Insulas, where multi-generational families lived. Several family areas adjoined a common courtyard where people gathered for cooking and visiting. Other homes that had just the main living area and place for animals might add on an upper room for guests and visiting relatives, as well as a roof area that would be a great place to rest, bathe, or even sleep in the summer.

“And Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guest room.”

The family Mary and Joseph were staying with had other relatives there as well. The guest room was taken, but they were given the back room where the animals were often kept. It would have given them more privacy. The town Midwives would have been called in to help with the birth. The manger, the feeding trough, would have been a lovely little cradle for baby Jesus.

It’s rather heartwarming to me to think that Jesus was born in this kind of situation. In a bustling household, a forced family reunion because of the census.

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was built by Queen Helena, Constantine’s mother, in 323 AD. She built it over the cave that locals showed her that had been revered as Jesus’ birth place for at least 200 years before that. Her church, and the churches build there since then when the first one was destroyed, don’t make it look much like a simple 1st century home any more. We waited in a jostling crowd inside the church for over an hour and a half before we got to descend to the cave area under the church, now gilded with gold and lanterns. We were only able to spend 15 seconds touching the stone, and seeing the place where the church remembers Jesus was born and laid in a manger. It was disorienting in many ways, although it was also powerful.

I was so glad that earlier in the day we had seen another first century home that had been excavated, at the shepherd’s fields in Bethlehem. Bethlehem, by the way, means “House of bread” Beit Lehem. The first century cave home had been preserved like it was in the first century. There we looked over the hills to Jerusalem, not so far away, and climbed down into the home, since with sandstorms and the build up of normal age, old things are now below the surface. We all gathered in the cave… In the back of the cave was a stone manger, and a small area a few steps below the main level.

Our guide shared the history that I’ve just shared with you, and then, illumed with the lights from a few cell phones, our own Carolyn Lawrence read the Gospel from Luke

Then, with all the lights off, we sang, “Away in a Manger.”

It brought tears to the eyes of most of us gathered. Such a simple dwelling. Such a humble beginning. But a beginning where Jesus was welcomed in, where hospitality was offered and received. Where the humanity of Jesus was so evident. Born to a peasant family which is part of a larger family… a family that, by extension, we can belong to too.

A few steps away from the cave house, set in the middle of the shepherd’s field area, is a small church, entitled appropriately, Church of the Angels. It commemorates the angels coming to the shepherds who were watching their flocks by night in the fields surrounding Bethlehem. We got to the cave house early in the morning, so we were the only ones there. But by the time we got in the church, it was already filled with other pilgrim from all around the world. There was a group from some African priest, speaking French. There were some Italians there as well. think there was also an Asian group there. We were all walking around the small church, that’s maybe a third or a fourth of the size of St. Michael’s, admiring the murals of the angels and the shepherds and the sheepdogs.

Our plan was to gather at the side to read the last part of the Lukan story, the part about the shepherds, and then to sing “Angels we have heard on high.” It must be a popular thing to do, because while we were there, one of the other groups began singing that very hymn in French. But the refrain, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, is in Latin, and we all know it. So without even giving it any thought, our group joined in singing the refrain, as did the rest of those gathered in that space. A few minutes later we did read the story and we began to sing a stanza in English. At the Gloria, all the multitude gathered in that space sang as well. The beautiful harmonies rising to heaven. We had just done the very same thing, but when it happened to us, it was amazingly powerful. Again, tears sprung to my eyes. It reminded me of that beautiful image from Revelation where people of every family, language, people and nation all gather around to worship the lamb who sits upon the throne.

Jesus, the lamb on the throne was born in a place where the sacrificial lambs were kept, laid in a manger where the lambs ate. Jesus became the sacrificial lamb who, through his death and resurrection, took away the sins of the world. Jesus, the baby born in Bethlehem, became the Living Bread, whose words and very life brings us substance and life as well.

We are all pilgrims in this earthly journey, and through Jesus, all children of the same heavenly Father. In a world so divided by culture and politics, let us dare to join in singing Glory to God in the Highest with those of every language and tongue.

Jesus is born in Bethlehem. Rejoice! Amen.

Proper 19C 2019 Lost and Found

Proper 19C – September 15, 2019

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

Lost and Found.

We have a lost and found area here at church. It’s the shelf above the coat rack just across from the office. Currently it holds a couhttps://www.squarespace.com/ple of clear Rubbermaid soup holders, a nice men’s wool cap, a few pair of glasses, and someone’s coffee travel mug (with the coffee still in it, last time I checked.) Actually, I moved the cap and the coffee mug down there from the narthex yesterday just before John Lewis’ funeral just to clear off the space, because our Narthex also seems to be a bit of a lost and found too.

The table in the Narthex gets quite a collection of reading glasses that have been lost here at church. Hopefully mostly found, too. It seems to be a rotating collection. I know the kitchen also seems to collect lost and found items… Actually, probably not really lost… just left. You know, you brought your dish to the reception with that plate that you wouldn’t mind if you forgot, because it doesn’t really go with anything and kinda clutters up your cabinet,… and lo and behold you did forget it.

Well, we’ve cleaned it, and its sitting in the kitchen, and you can take it back home now. But there have been times that I’ve found MY platters or pie plates or baskets in the kitchen, ones I actually want to keep, even weeks after an event. And I’m here everyday. I just didn’t miss it and didn’t bother looking for it until I came across it by accident. So I’m glad we aren’t hasty about getting rid of things that are left.

My favorite lost item was the week that someone left their walking cane leaning again the table in the narthex. I saw it after church and everyone had left and I thought, “Didn’t they notice? or Have they been healed?!?!”

Lost and Found. We all know how exasperating or sad it can be to lose something. Even worse are the things I’ve lost that I don’t know where they got lost at all. Those are the things that I still hold out hope for. Maybe it will show up underneath the seat of the car, or in a back corner when I move. And as I just said, there are plenty of things I lose or leave behind, and forget I left them, or don’t notice when I lose them. It could be years later and I might remember, “Didn’t I used to have a blue platter? What ever happened to that?”

Of course, the things we lose aren’t just things.

In a recent sermon, Professor Alyce McKenzie shared a list of things that can be lost:

“We can lose direction,

We can lose faith,

Lose our faculties,

Lose a friend,

Lose focus,

Lose ground,

Lose hair,

Lose hope,

Lose heart,

Lose health

You can Lose your head,

Lose your keys,

Lose your mind,

Lose mobility,

Lose perspective,

Lose respect,

Lose your spark,

Lose teeth,

Lose your temper,

Lose touch and

Lose your way.”

You can probably add many other things to this list as well.

What from that list have you lost?

Jesus tells a series of parables of Lost and Found in Luke chapter 15.

He tells the story of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son.

We only get the first two stories in today’s reading. The story of the Lost Son, the prodigal son, we heard last Lent. But you might want to go home today, pull out your bibles, and read all of chapter 15 in one sitting. It will take you about 5 minutes. It’s quite powerful to read and contemplate all three Lost and Found Parables together. The Parable of the Lost Coin and the Lost Son are unique to the Gospel of Luke.

Only the parable of the lost sheep is found elsewhere in the bible, in Matthew. Some of you know that the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are very similar, sharing much material between them. In Matthew, the parable in Chapter 18 is very similar :

“What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.” Here he means the children and he child-like in their faith.

In Matthew, Jesus is telling this story to his disciples when they ask, “Who is the greatest” and he calls a little child over and says, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Today, in Luke, Jesus is sharing the parables in the middle of a larger crowd, full of tax collectors and sinners who eagerly want to hear Jesus’ words. The Pharisees and teachers are muttering about the company Jesus keeps, so Jesus responds with these stories. To the Pharisees and other officials, the tax collectors and sinners were like the dishes abandoned after a pot-luck. They don’t really match the rest of the set, and who would miss them anyway.

But the parables Jesus tells show us that to God they are so valuable that he is willing to leave the 99 to find the 1 sheep who has wondered away. God, like a poor peasant woman, is willing to diligently scour the house until the lost coin is pulled from the dust bunnies under the bed.

And in both cases, heaven throws a party simply because the sheep and the coin allowed themselves to be found.

I think it’s always interesting to note that there is a big difference between the lost sheep and the lost coin in terms of agency. A sheep has legs. A coin does not.

When you think of your own spiritual life right now, are you more like a sheep or a coin?

And are you lost or found?

Maybe you feel secure in the flock, grazing with your sheep friends, comfortably protected by the shepherd. Maybe you are enjoying green pastures and still waters. That’s a great place to be. You’re in a wonderful position to rejoice with the shepherd when the lost sheep is returned to the sheepfold.

But as the prophet Isaiah writes, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way.” (Is 53:6) There probably have been, or will be, times that you wander away from the shepherd, either willfully distancing yourself, or simply following your own path. Maybe you have been outright sinful… acting in ways you knew were destructive to yourself or others, going far down the wrong path.

Maybe you were looking for a shortcut to happiness or chasing the rumor of greener pastures. But suddenly you look up and you realize you are far from God and far from the rest of the flock. You may be vulnerable to predators – like fear or anxiety… You might not even be sure how to untangle yourself from the brambles you get trapped in. But you don’t have to. The Good Shepherd will come to you, work to get you off the ledge, put you on his shoulders and carry you home. Now, depending on where you have gotten yourself off to, it might take some time to pick the brambles out of your wool, but, in the meantime, he’ll throw a party rejoicing you are back!

The first letter of Peter says, “For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.(1Pet 2:25) What a gift to have our souls guarded.

Or maybe you feel more like a coin. On the positive side, perhaps you know that you are a treasure. You feel secure in your master’s purse. You know your worth and value. You are contributing your value to the master’s household – using your gifts and talents in the service of God’s Kingdom. Whether you, on your own, are a large coin or not, you know that, along with other coins, in the hand of your master, you are part of marvelous things.

On the other hand, maybe you feel more like a lost coin. Left behind under the couch cushion. You didn’t willfully jump out of the master’s pocket. Somehow you feel like you’ve been dropped, abandoned, and even forgotten.

You didn’t wander from faith, you feel like faith wandered from you. You were dropped, spiritually. Maybe you were never raised in a Christian home, or your family’s cultural adherence to Christianity, say for Christmas and Easter, never impacted your daily life and it seems irrelevant.

Maybe you suffered a great hurt from so-called “Christians” and it felt like it was God himself abandoning you.

You know, sometimes it’s the things we’ve lost in life that make us feel lost too. If you lose your job, or lose a loved one, or lose your health, it can sometimes feel like God has let you drop under the floor board. Sometimes if you’ve lost your direction, or lost perspective, you feel like a sheep whose gotten off the path and stuck in the brambles.

It can feel that way. The promise and the good news that Jesus shares with us through these parables is that God is never, ever, going to give up on you. God won’t stop searching until you are back in his pocket, or snuggled in his arms. And God does that in many ways – by giving us the people who don’t give up on us. By giving us the church as a place to feel safe. By bringing us experiences that help us find ourselves.

What’s more, all the other losses we experience in life, while challenging, can be bearable when we know we are found by God. We are not left to our own devices in the wilderness. We are not forgotten in a dark corner. We are not abandoned on the lost and found shelf. All we need to do is to let God’s love find us, and then, to allow ourselves to enjoy God’s extravagant party. Amen.

God's Unpredictable Power

A sermon given on August 25, 2019 - Jeunée’s First Sunday back after Sabbatical

Readings: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17

 Our opening prayer this morning, the Collect, expresses a prayer that has been on my heart as I’ve prepared for my return to St. Michael’s.

  “Grant O merciful God that your Church being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name;”

 I know that I am certainly happy to once more be gathered with you all in unity as I have just returned from three and a half months of sabbatical time. And my prayer is that, together, as we begin this new program year, the Holy Spirit will enliven this church – even more than God already has – so that we might show God’s power to the world around us – even more so than we already do. 

 The one thing about God showing God’s power, however, it that God is rather unpredictable. God doesn’t always act according to our scripts, or follow our plans. God doesn’t always show up on our schedule or act even according to the rules we think God made up for himself.

 So that’s what we’re going to talk about today, about how God shows up, even, and perhaps especially, in ways we don’t expect. About How we can find God in the places where things aren’t working according to our expectations.

 [Just as an aside - You know… it’s been so long since I’ve prepared a sermon that when I tried to open the app on my phone that lets me to listen to the lectionary podcast I normally use in sermon preparation, it had to re-download the app because it had been so long since I’d last used it! ]

 Let’s look at the Gospel story we just heard. Jesus is once again getting in trouble with the synagogue leaders because he is healing on the Sabbath. The Ten Commandments are clear… no work on the Sabbath, and healing, at least to the Jewish leaders, seems to them to be “work.” Some rabbis whose teaching was later reflected in the Jerusalem Talmud, believed that healing could be allowed on the Sabbath but only if it were a critical case, not for chronic illnesses, and obviously, this woman’s 18 year malady is a chronic case. (see m. Yoma 8.6)  But Jesus reveals synagogue leader’s hypocrisy and heals the woman who has been crippled and bound up in pain all those years.

 Jesus shows God’s power in an unexpected way, on an unexpected day. This shouldn’t surprise us. God is in the business of bringing freedom, healing, and restoration. And why wouldn’t that happen on the Sabbath, a day set aside to honor God and enjoy God’s presence and the blessings he bestows on us? The people came to the synagogue that day expecting to hear teaching from the words of the Torah, but instead, unexpectedly, they received a tangible lesson from the Word made flesh, Jesus.

 I’ve just returned from a time of Sabbath. My “Sabbathical” was not exactly what I expected it would be when I started planning it over a year and a half ago. In April of 2018 I submitted a Sabbatical grant proposal to the Lilly foundation to fund a Sabbatical that would have been full of travel to Sacred Spaces like hiking a different section on the Camino de Santiago in Spain and visiting Rome with my mother. It would have included time with my family, even visiting my sister in Hawaii with all of my siblings and our adult children. It included not only time to work on my doctoral thesis, but some other courses and conferences in spiritual leadership. Also included in the grant proposal where opportunities for St. Michael’s… the DC pilgrimage to the cathedrals and monastery would have been completely paid for. We would have had guest speakers from local universities come offer talks on our yearly theme of “Sacred Space.”  

 It was a great plan. I had every day’s itinerary lined up. I had spent about sixty hours or more working on the proposal.  But – after waiting four months, I found out that I did not get the $50,000 grant.  

Bummer.

I felt God tell me at that time. “Don’t worry about it. Don’t plan so much. I’ve got a better plan for you.”

 It turned out to be quite an unexpected plan. A lot different than my original proposal! As most of you know, I got married! Meet Marcel, my new husband!

 Marcel and I had been dating for over two years, and we’d started talking about marriage, but I’m in the middle of my doctoral work, and figuring out a wedding seemed way too complicated. We just wanted something simple. We met in our hiking group, so maybe getting our hiking priest friend Dale Custer, our administrator Doris Custer’s husband,  to take us and our kids up on a mountain for a simple ceremony would work… but even that seemed too complicated. What if it rained? At the same time, since my sabbatical grant program was denied, my summer had opened up. Marcel and his boys had come to Shrine Mont with us last year, and they all enjoyed it. So we decided early last spring that we would come to Shrine Mont again just to enjoy the parish retreat together. Since I’d still be on sabbatical and not in charge, it would be sort of a surprise to the parish.  Only a couple of organizers knew we were coming.

 It was something like Palm Sunday that God whispered in our ears, “You could get married at Shrine Mont!” What a perfect plan, God! Except for our families, and a few folk who needed to be in the know for planning, we surprised everyone. And it was a lot of fun sharing that surprise with those of you who were on our Shrine Mont retreat three weeks ago.

 So, God showed up in my plans much differently than I originally expected, but at least I knew going into my sabbatical that we were going to get married. (Which was very exciting!) What we were not clear on was where we were going to live. We thought I’d just keep my apartment as a writing studio for my doctoral thesis while I slowly moved into Marcel’s house. But we soon figured out that his house is too small for my stuff and his stuff and his kids… and so we’d need to find a new home, and sell the house he was living in. Selling and buying a house took on a life of its own. My summer “Sabbath” has not been in rest and spiritual reflection as much as it has been in purging, packing, staging, fixing, cleaning and selling a house. In looking for a new home, We ended up deciding to have a new house built and so have also gone through the process of choosing flooring and cabinets and all those things that go into a new house.

 The only house sold in five days, and it closes this coming Thursday. The new house will be finished, they say, by the end of November. Meanwhile, movers came last Thursday and packed up Marcel’s house into Pods, and he’s moved into my small one-bedroom apartment.

 As some of you have probably already guessed, there’s still quite a lot of work to be done on my doctoral thesis… But I still plan to knock it out to graduate next spring.

 Marcel and I have felt God’s power show up in ways we didn’t expect, bringing us wholeness and joy, even in the midst of turning our lives upside down… or rightside up!

 Let me share another story of how God’s power showed up in unexpected ways this summer, when our plans didn’t work out.

 Some of you know that Marcel and I travelled across country with his boys in July, to visit his parents who live near Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, and take in some of the wonderful sites along the way.  We stopped to see my mom in West Virginia, then hit Chicago and stayed at my son’s apartment there. We drove and camped just outside the Badlands in South Dakota. The next day we visited the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, and then drove on to Billings, MT to a campground there.

 The next day we crossed into Canada and headed to Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. From the research Marcel had done, the websites said you couldn’t reserve a campground site. It was first come first serve. As we approached Banff and checked the first two campsites on our list we discovered two things. One – the rules had changed, and people could indeed reserve a campsite. And Two – we were arriving about 8 pm, and so all the “first come, first serve” spots had already been served up, even on a Tuesday night.

 We had just travelled 12 hours in a truck with three teenage boys in the backseat. We were trying to figure out what to do. Do we drop a bundle of money on a resort-priced hotel rooms in the area, if we could find one available? Or do we drive an hour and a half back toward Calgary to find less expensive accommodations… or do we skip seeing Banff National Park and just drive four more hours to Marcel’s parents. This was not going according to plan. 

 But then I thought, - or rather, God inspired the thought – “I wonder if there are any Anglican churches nearby?” Sure enough, just 10 miles away, there was a St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Canmore, Alberta. Just outside the border to the park. It’s now 8:30 at night on a Tuesday. My plan was for us to show up, camp in their yard, and invoke Anglican Communion hospitality, and forgiveness if needed. Marcel thought we should call first. So I did. Lo and behold, someone answered the phone.

 I explained the situation. “Hi, my name is Jeunée Godsey and I’m the priest of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Richmond Virginia. I’m travelling with my family camping and somehow we’ve screwed up and can’t find a camp site. I’m hoping for St. Michael’s sister-church hospitality and hoping you’d let us camp in your church yard tonight.

The woman said, “Have you seen our church yard?” “No” “We don’t really have a yard you can camp in.” I responded, “well, do you have any ideas for us? We’re kind of stuck.” She said, “Would you like to camp IN the church?” “Boys, do you want to camp IN the church?” “Yes!”

 So the secretary waited for us – they had just finished their parish council meeting – and gave us keys to the church. Showed us the bathrooms and the carpeted classrooms, and we set up our sleeping backs in various rooms in the parish house. What a gift! What a display of God’s power.

 The fact that it was a “St. Michael’s” was God just showing off a bit, in case we were to think it was just “good luck.”

 Now, I’ve taken some personal privilege for my first Sunday back to share some stories of how Marcel and I have seen God’s power at work in some fun ways in our lives over the past few months.

 But we know that life isn’t always fun, and that there is much pain in the world and in our personal lives. Nevertheless, God’s power is present - often in unexpected ways - in these difficult times as well.

 This last week we lost two dear saints of St. Michael’s family.  Charlie Wayland died Tuesday, August 20th, after months of slow decline and time in hospice. John Lewis died just this last Friday, after a week in the hospital revealed he had not just heart issues, as his doctor thought, but cancer that had spread throughout his body.

 We know Jesus is a healer, and just as he did with the woman crippled for 18 years, he frees those who are held in bondage by their illness.  In both Charlie’s and John’s case, that freedom came as Jesus released them from the pain in their physical bodies, and brought their spirits and souls to be with God in heaven.

 God’s power was present with Charlie as he prepared for death. Charlie kept his sweet spirit and sense of humor until the very end. He had planned for his funeral. He knew he was loved. He expressed his love to Sandra and his family. He was at peace. God’s power is still with Sandra and the rest of Charlie’s family and friends as they let Charlie go and grieve.

 God’s power was present with John as he quickly declined toward death. Becki was called to do last rites Friday, and John was unresponsive at first. But in the middle of the time of prayer, he opened his eyes and gazed at Inge, who he had just married less than a year ago. He just held his eyes lovingly on her during the prayers. As Becki finished last rites, he simply closed his eyes and died.  Inge told me yesterday that a blanket of peace has enveloped her. A supernatural peace. The Peace that passes all understanding. That’s the power of God.

 We all have in our heads pictures of how life should be… plans we like to make, and expectations of how our lives will go. Sometimes those plans and expectations work out, but often times the world doesn’t operate according to our plans. They key for you and me is to look for how God’s power is present in any given situation.

 How is God leading?

How is God directing your decisions?

How is God bringing you freedom?

Where is God bringing healing and wholeness?

 The key for all of us is to not only begin to recognize God’s power working in our lives, but to share those experiences with others. That is how the prayer we prayed at the beginning of the service can be fulfilled:

“Grant O merciful God that your Church being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name.”

Amen.

"Feed My Sheep"

by The Rev. Jeunee Godsey

John 21:1-19 May 5, 2019, 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year C

 Jesus said, Feed my Sheep.

 A year ago in May, several of us from St. Michael’s joined others in our diocese for a pilgrimage on the Way of St. Cuthbert in Scotland. We hiked 100 kilometers from Melrose to Lindisfarne, remembering Cuthbert, a monk who become the Prior of both Melrose Abbey and Lindisfarne Abbey, and later a bishop. He is known for his holiness and humility, and the way he peacefully brought together Christians from the Celtic tradition and Christians from the Roman tradition once the Synod of Whitby declared that the Roman rites should prevail back in 664.[i]

 Cuthbert started off, however, as a shepherd. In fact, when he was a young man, probably about 16 years old, he had a vision while he was shepherding his master’s sheep. On the night of August 31, 651, looking out into the sky towards the sea, he saw a vision of angels carrying off a soul into heaven. He later learned that St. Aiden, the bishop of Lindisfarne, had died at that very hour. That vision is presumed to be Cuthbert’s call into Christian Ministry. Certainly, Cuthbert wasn’t the first shepherd follow God’s call.

All over scripture, we see the image of the Shepherd as one doing God’s will and leading God’s people. King David started off as a shepherd, and he wrote the 23rd psalm – “The Lord is My Shepherd,” which we will hear next week.  Throughout the Old Testament, we see God desiring that the kings of Judah and Israel should be like Shepherds to their people. At Jesus’ birth, it was the lowly Shepherds in the fields who became the first evangelists telling of Jesus’ birth. And of course, Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd.

Often times, pastors of churches are equated with Shepherds. In fact, that’s exactly what the word Pastor means… Shepherd. The Pastor, the shepherd, cares for her flock, and leads them to pastures where they might be nourished.

So, I thought I’d take advantage of these last two Sundays before my sabbatical to talk to you, pastor to flock, and to unfold what the Scripture is telling us these two Sundays, where “Sheep” are a prevalent theme.

As most of you regular worshippers know by now, next Sunday will be the last Sunday I am with you before I take a 14 week sabbatical. Those 14 weeks come from the two weeks each year that the church has given to me, so that, now that I’m in my seventh year, I can take a special “Sabbath” time. And as much as I’ll miss you, I look forward to the rest and refocusing, and the chance to immerse myself in my doctoral thesis writing.  I hope you’ll come to the potluck brunch after the (10:30) service today for us to celebrate being one flock together. There, I’ll also share briefly about my sabbatical plans, and the plans for St. Michael’s. Also, I’ll highlight where we are on some of the major aspects of our strategic plan, and let you ask any questions. So come on… even if you didn’t bring a dish to share. There’s always plenty. If you can’t come, be sure to pick up the little flyer that says, “While the Pastor’s away, her flock will play!” which has some of the highlights as well.

Although I must admit, when we came up with that title, I couldn’t help but remember the words of my own priest, Sara Chandler, at my home church of Margaret’s in Woodbridge, Virginia. Sara famously said, “Best I can tell from the bible, there is only one Shepherd, and that’s Jesus. So, I’m not really the shepherd. I think my role is more like the Sheepdog that barks at the wolves that might attack, and then bites at the heels of the sheep to keep them moving in the right direction!”

Be that as it may, let’s turn back to our scripture for this morning.

Jesus says to Peter, “Feed my lambs, Tend my Sheep, Feed my sheep.”

Even so, our Gospel passage today seems to be a lot more about fishing than it does about shepherding.

This resurrection appearance of Jesus on the beach cooking breakfast is a beautiful story, chock full of meaning on many different levels, with allusions all over the place to earlier passages of scripture. But at its core, it is a call narrative, recalling the Call of the disciples at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

You may remember the story from the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus was teaching by the Sea of Galilee. Jesus asked Simon Peter, who was cleaning his nets by the shore, to take him out into the water so that he could teach, and the hillside around the lake would become a natural amphitheater. After Jesus finished teaching the crowds, he told Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon replied, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

And of course, lo and behold, when Simon and his fishing buddings let down their nets, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. Simon Peter then kneels at Jesus’ feet, in awe, and out of fear of being unworthy to be in such a holy presence says, “Go away from me Lord, For I am a sinful man.”

Jesus in effect says to Simon, “Don’t be afraid, from now on, you won’t just be fishermen, you will be fishers of men.” So Simon Peter leaves his nets, and he and his companions become Jesus’ disciples, indeed, gathering people into the nets of the Good News of God.

But here we are, after the three years of Jesus’ earthly ministry, his death and resurrection, and the disciples seem to be reverting a bit. As we heard last week, Jesus appeared Easter Evening to all the disciples and then the very next week when Thomas was with them. He had breathed the Holy Spirit on them, and commissioned them, saying, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. Receive the Holy Spirit.” But they haven’t really gone anywhere yet. Maybe without Jesus giving them day to day instruction, they had settled into a sense of inertia. Or fear of the future. Easier to get back to what they know.

Peter says to his friends, “I’m going fishing.” And they all reply, “We’ll come too.”

But they spend the night on the boat, and catch nothing. Then, a stranger on the beach says, “Put your nets down on the other side of the boat” and when they did, the catch was so great, they could scarcely pull it in.

They know immediately that it was the Lord, and even though they aren’t that far from shore, Peter jumps in the water to get to Jesus as soon as he can.

Jesus is there, on the beach, cooking them breakfast, the Fish and Bread reminding them of the feeding of the 5000.

Then Jesus both reinstates and recommissions Peter. There by the charcoal fire, like the charcoal fire in the high priest’s courtyard where Peter had denied Jesus three times, Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. And Peter affirms three times, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love you.”

So here we finally get to the sheep.

Feed my lambs. Tend my Sheep. Feed my Sheep. These are the words of mission Jesus gives Peter every time he says he loves him.

You say you love me, then feed my sheep.

Jesus’ call to Peter is Jesus’ call to us as well.

We are all part of Jesus’ flock, and we are called to care for one another. To tend to the flock, and to feed the sheep. This commissioning by Jesus can be taken both metaphorically, and literally. There are many ways that we are called to tend to and feed members of the flock spiritually – by engaging together in scripture study, for example, and spending time together in fellowship. 

But Jesus is also asking us to literally feed those among us who need feeding. Many of you know that St. Michael’s has long been involved in several feeding ministries. They are anchors of our outreach ministry. But we need more people to be involved in Feeding Jesus’ lambs. We have had a food panty on the lower level of the Parish House for decades, and although we no longer open hours to serve the hungry, we use that food pantry for people in crisis situations and to supply food for our other feeding programs.

Some of you volunteer to be part of a rotating team to make and serve food for Friends of the Homeless, and others of you have help us provide our twice monthly grocery support  to low-income elderly residents at Monarch Woods. Each month. St. Michael’s provides hundreds of meals to people who otherwise would be hungry, or have to make the decision between buying needed medication and buying groceries. St. Michael’s makes a huge difference in the lives of so many.

But while we do have some help, the majority of the leadership and responsibility for planning, the ongoing weekly food bank shopping, hauling and shelving groceries, government reporting, coordinating volunteers, and acquiring food and supplies not available at Feedmore fall to just a two people, who are struggling to keep up.

We’ve just adjusted our Friends of the Homeless commitment from one Wednesday a month to a Tuesday every other month.  But we need a several volunteers, and I imagine those people are here at church today, who can commit to helping Feed Jesus’ Sheep on a regular basis.  We need two or three people who take on significant responsibility for oversight for portions of our various feeding programs. We need a few people who can consistently volunteer to make the twice monthly trip to the food bank and handle transporting the cases of can goods and frozen items back to our pantry. If you work during the day, you could volunteer to make a large casserole every other month - recipe and cooking tray provided - so that one of our teams could  consistent volunteers to make the casseroles for Friends of the Homeless and bring them to church for the teams to heat and serve. Or You could be responsible for the record keeping and online reporting. Or you could figure out what other items we will need that we couldn’t get at the food bank and do or coordinate the Sam’s Club shopping when it works in your schedule. I’ve put a volunteer interest form out in the Narthex, and you can contact Shirley Wiley, our vestry person in charge of outreach, if you are interested.

I’ve just highlighted our actual feeding ministries this morning, but Jesus’ call to Peter to “Feed my Sheep” goes way beyond literally feeding the hungry.

Jesus calls each of us, over and over, each new day, to cast our nets into the waters of the world. It’s easy to fall into a rut of our regular routine and day jobs and forget that we have each been commissioned by Jesus to go into the world, and share the Good news, in word and deed. We are called to fish for people, to look around and let down our nets on the other side of our boats. We are called to make our love of Jesus tangible by tending his sheep and feeding his lambs, spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

 You don’t need me to be around to make that happen. You just need to listen to the Good Shepherd’s voice. Amen.

[i] https://www.britainexpress.com/History/saxon/cuthbert.htm

Youth Group Update

By Christian Hansen

As mentioned at the beginning of the year, we have been meeting approximately twice a month. Over the winter months, we have begun to meet more frequently with St. Matthias and plan to meet with St. David’s soon as well in effort to build up youth ministry within our convocation.

Coming up this summer, we will be attending the IMPACT Richmond Mission Trip for our third straight year from July 14-20. If you are not familiar with this mission, it is a wonderful local mission that gathers ~100-125 youth and adults from Virginia and the surrounding states (WV & TN in past years) to make repairs and updates on local homes. Local residents can apply to be considered for this mission work each year. “Gurus” (people with construction/home repair experience) help guide each group’s work and give them what they need to complete the job(s).

Over the past two years, we have built a ramp, fixed a roof overhang, painted interior and exterior walls, and cleared out lawn debris amongst other things. We hope you will join us for this great trip - your friends are invited! If you are interested in being our female chaperone or know someone that we should ask, please contact me at chansen@stmschool.net.

Archangels Update

By Christian Hansen

Sunday School has continued its momentum under the fearless leadership of Jill Hunter, Carla Ewing and Marion Price. One special highlight was when our kids learned about Jesus’ healing ministry. The “Threads” take home sheet for this lesson did a good job once again of relating these stories to our identity as Episcopalians for our kids...

“Episcopalians take a holistic approach to healing. We ask for healing, not curing, knowing that God’s way of healing may not be our way. When confused about what to ask for, we often say, “We entrust all who are dear to us to your never-failing care and love…knowing that you are doing for them better things than we can desire or pray for…” (BCP, p. 831).”

We continue this healing ministry through healing prayer during Communion by lay members of our congregation and visits by our clergy to parishioners at home or in the hospital. Our Archangels made cards during class as seen in the pictures above for our church's healing mnistry. These cards will be distributed by the clergy when they visit parishioners and is our small way of continuing Jesus’ work.

Sunday Morning Worship Takes a Villag … er … Whole Congregation

By Katy McGrann

You walk into church on an ordinary Sunday morning, get a bulletin from a smiling usher or greeter, find your pew, and let the organ prelude wash over you, as you prepare for the worship experience ahead. Seems straight forward, almost effortless, right?

Au contraire, my friend. Your worship experience began days earlier, at a meeting between our Rector, Jeunee Godsey, and our Director of Liturgical Music and Organist, Crystal Jonkman, with Deacon Becki Dean adding her wisdom as needed. Together, they craft the service and hand off the details to Doris Custer, Director of Parish Operations, who prepares the service bulletin; office volunteers then copy the bulletin and “stuff” the announcement sheet into it, so you’ll have it in your hands come Sunday morning. That’s at least five people, plus more than a dozen choir members, who’ve thought about your worship experience so far, and it’s not close to Sunday yet.

Now add another 40 folks who will help to make your Sunday morning a genuine, moving and meaningful experience. Eleven coordinators under the umbrella of the Liturgical Commission have finessed the schedules of over 100 volunteers to make sure that all areas of a normal Sunday service have been attended to. The Altar, Flower and Visual Arts Guilds have made the sanctuary beautiful. The Choir has rehearsed processional, psalm, anthem, and recessional music. Someone has lovingly baked communion bread. Acolytes, lectors, lay readers, healing ministers, eucharistic ministers and eucharistic visitors have been assigned.

And that’s just the group that makes Sunday morning worship happen. It doesn’t include other commisions, like the wonderful instructors of Christian Education for adults, youth and children before the service or the welcoming hospitality of Parish Life after.

Chances are if you sit in the pew on Sunday morning, either you or your pew neighbor are involved with one of these commissions. Two adages come to mind: “many hands make light work” and “it takes a village.” Here at St. Michael’s, while we have the hands of many parishioners already at work, there is always room for more, because in our case, it takes a village – our entire congregation – to keep this church running.

If you volunteer in any capacity, thank you for making Sunday morning happen. If you would like to volunteer, pick an area of interest, then ask Jeunee, Becki, or any Vestry Member to direct you to the appropriate coordinator. We’re happy to help you make a connection at St. Michael’s that runs deeper than an hour on Sunday morning.

The next time you walk into church, thank that smiling usher, greet your pew neighbor with kindness and curiosity, let the organ prelude wash over you, and say a little prayer of thanksgiving for the extraordinary 45 plus people who have made this ordinary Sunday morning seem so straight forward, almost effortless, all

Letter from the Rector: Exploring Sacred Space

Dear Friends,

There are several topics I’d like to address in my letter this quarter: 1) Our yearly theme of Exploring Holy Space 2) What we are doing with our “Holy Space” here on the Bon Air Campus and 3) The Holy Space and Time I will soon be experiencing on Sabbatical.

1) Exploring Sacred Space: This year has already been powerful for me as we’ve begun to explore Sacred Space. I truly enjoyed exploring the concepts of “home” during Advent and Christmas, and “Rome” during Epiphany. Our Rome theme focused mainly on reading through the book of Romans with the Good Book Club, and many of you, like me, were simultaneously challenged and fulfilled by engaging in this robust letter from Paul. Our guest speakers, both Hanan Kharabsha from Palestine, and our own Gordon Jackson fleshed out the idea of sacred space “elsewhere.”

I hope you look forward to engaging the Sacred Space of Wilderness during Lent, as we walk the Way of Love. Then, in the Easter Season, we will explore Sanctuary and Tabernacle…. Culminating in a one day parish pilgrimage to Washington DC to see the Washington National Cathedral, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land. After a summer of resting into the Sacred Space of Creation, we prepare for our parish pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I hope you are able to embrace these opportunities as a way to explore and expand your own sense of Sacred Space in your own life.

2) “Space” has been an issue here at St. Michael’s ever since before I became your priest almost seven years ago. For over 10 years, there has been a constant, at least low-grade, anxiety about how St. Michael’s would care for and use our space once the school moved entirely to its new campus. This anxiety has been based in the fear that we’d be “stuck” with exorbitant costs of upkeep that could “sink” the church financially. Granted, this issue [dealing with the now vacant school space] is extremely important. Future generations will look back at this time in our history and evaluate how the decisions we make today affected our future. We are clear that we don’t want our buildings and land to be an albatross around the neck of our ministry. So, please know that the leadership (Vestry, key lay leaders, and me) take this responsibility seriously. Also know that we have already seen miracles! Our discernment processes, the charrette, and our research have been enlightening. We have a great asset in our land and buildings, and we are confident that we will soon be able to sell the portion of the property we don’t need to a party whose mission compatible with our own. Keep up the prayers, and feel free to ask Tom Ager, vestry member in charge of property transition, or Doug Schepker, former Junior Warden who is chair of our Facility Work Group, if you have more questions as we “right-size” our space for our future.

3) I will be on sabbatical May 15-Aug. 21, 2019. A Sabbatical is space and time for reflection and renewal granted to priests (and some other professions) in order to prepare oneself for renewed engagement in ministry. I look forward to this time of sabbatical, my first ever in 19 years of ministry, (even though clergy normally earn sabbaticals every 4-7 years.) To answer questions I have heard pop up, and to relieve any anxiety over my upcoming time away, I have put together a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) sheet that will be available in the narthex at church, and online. I’ll be using my sabbatical mostly to write my doctoral thesis as well as being able to spend some extended time with my mother, my adult children, and other family. Please know that “sabbatical” is NOT code for “job search.” While I know better than to tell God to ratify my plans, I love St. Michael’s and I foresee much wonderful ministry together in our future. I look forward to returning having accomplished my thesis, having had time to rest, hike, and spend time with family, and having God inspire me with expansive visions of St. Michael’s future ministry. So, read the FAQ sheet, and let me know if you have any questions.

Blessings,