Category: Sermons

18th Sunday after Pentecost – Bill Harkins

Proper 20, Year B

The Collect of the Day

Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Mark 9:30-37 Jesus and his disciples passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

In the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all…Amen.

Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this 18^th Sunday after Pentecost. We are so very glad you are here, and if you are visiting with us today a heartfelt and warm Holy Family welcome to you! Today, we hear more predictions from Jesus—the second week in a row—and the Disciples’ responses based on fear. Then, Mark 9:31 reminds us that they disciples remain confused and in denial about the paradigm shifts to which he lovingly, transparently tried to alert them; “He was teaching his disciples, telling them again that he will be delivered into human hands and killed. Again they were afraid to ask him more about this, because they were afraid, and we know by now that fear is a common theme in Mark. And so their arguing among themselves about “Who is greatest” gets two responses from Jesus. The first is that “whoever wants to be first must be least of all and the servant of all.” Servant leadership is pathway to ‘greatness,’ but a greatness they could not fully understand based on their contextual understanding of power, and kingdom, both viewed from the perspective of the Roman Empire. The Kingdom of God as Jesus represented it, turns this understanding of Empire upside down. Instead of striving for the top and being in a position of power, one must seek first to serve. Or, as the rock group The Police said so well, “when you find your servant, there’s your master.”

The second answer is that whoever welcomes one of these children in Jesus’ name welcomes him. It is surprising and somewhat ironic, isn’t it, that in a power struggle in the midst of which the disciples are behaving like children, Jesus unmasks their aspiration to power by putting a real child in among them as a lesson. This is not a romantic, idealized version of children, who, as any parent or grandparent or teacher or childcare worker can tell you can be a handful sometimes! Rather, the child in this story is a representation of “the least of these.” The Kingdom of God assesses and assigns value differently than the human realm. God will receive those who receive the child. This will give access to true power, the power of the one who sent Jesus.” The disciples don’t get it…This is a common theme in Mark, repeated now twice. But out of compassion, it is a failure to understand that does not bring about rebuke from Jesus, at least not here, but deeper teaching in rabbinical role. Jesus does not abandon the Twelve in their ignorance. Eventually it all makes sense, but not until after the resurrection. And just one chapter later, the disciples try to shoo children away. Because it was and continues to be so countercultural – Jesus’ ministry is hard to understand. The Disciples’ continually fear what is going to happen, and in the midst of their fear, they are arguing about who would be greatest. Perhaps they believed that if they achieved “greatness,” then they would also have security. Jesus points to another way of seeking certainty amid ambiguity and change.

In her fine book, Daring Greatly, social researcher Brené Brown tells a story about an experience she had in graduate school that surprised her. Called to a meeting with a professor, she expected to be intimidated and rebuked. Instead, her teacher was an ally. The professor pulled up a chair, sat down beside her, and offered Brené Brown adjustments in a thoughtful and compassionate way. This is shaky ground for a lot of us: moments when our work, our ideas, our deeply held convictions, and our actions are open to feedback. We are in the midst of such a season here at Holy Family. Every semester, for some 30 years as a professor, I was evaluated by my students, and it is a process I both welcomed and found anxiety producing. What if my methodology and pedagogy are found lacking? What if my clinical convictions have proven inaccurate and my doctoral students find this misleading in their clinical work? What if my theological positions have not stood the test of time—and of the classroom, and heaven forbid, what if I am unable or unwilling to change and grow?

This is a place of immense vulnerability. But it’s also the place where we are the most open and receptive. And, it is where we may find growth, and resilience, and a flourishing, growing personhood. If we’re nurtured well, this is how ideas evolve, broken systems detach, and innovation emerges. As one who spent most of my career with seminary and doctoral students, and now with patients, and here among you all, I can say that my most meaningful moments are—well—those “teachable moments” when I saw the light of imagination coming into the eyes of my students, and clients, and those whom I serve for a brief time here…and perhaps, in my own eyes as well. So, let me tell you what I see…

This past week as I attended meetings of our pastoral care, finance, and hospitality committees, and last week a gathering of our vestry and nominating committee, and before that, of a vestry retreat, I was so proud of this parish. On Wednesday evening, at our wonderful Wednesday gathering, I paused by the lakeside and shared with Howell and several nearby the lovely autumnal light, illuminating the far shore, the slowly changing leaves, their reflections in the clear water giving us a bountiful double dose of color… the light of hope and imagination that I see in each of you, working so hard in this time of transition, and the enabling of the priesthood of all believers in this beloved parish, are for me the light of Christ in the world and my reason for doing what I do. The focus is not on the professor, or the priest, but on the light she or he helps illumine along the way. Jesus, in his rabbinical role with the disciples, never sought to be the center of attention. He gave himself away on love. So often our flourishing is a result of someone making a choice to sit beside or even to gently challenge us. That person carries a huge responsibility, and it is a sacred one.

Nearly every day, my friends, we are capable of being that person, with that responsibility. Whether we are offering feedback to a colleague, telling a child it’s bedtime, offering our own vulnerability to another, teaching or mentoring, or gently extending a contrary opinion when two perspectives are in conflict. Grace in disagreement — saying this could be different, and how — is an essential part of the human experience. We evolve through disagreement. Ideas subjected to criticism grow stronger than ideas left unchallenged. It’s not disagreement, but graceful disagreement that makes the world go round. And it is rediscovering that grace that Brené Brown articulates so well in her guidelines for engaged feedback, and that Jesus is suggesting in today’s Gospel. Brown believes that we know we are ready to give feedback when we are ready to sit next to another rather than across from them; when we are willing to put the problem in front of us rather than between us; when we are ready to listen, to ask questions, and accept that we may not fully understand the issue; when we acknowledge what another does well, instead of picking apart mistakes; when we recognize another’s strengths and how they can use them to address challenges; when we can hold another accountable without shaming or blaming; when we are willing to own our part and can genuinely thank another for their efforts rather than criticize them for their failings; when we can model the vulnerability and openness that we expect to see from others. When we do not waste our energy arguing about who it is among us that is the greatest…. Of course a great many teachers already do this, especially teachers of young children. Funny, isn’t it, how Jesus uses the image of a childlike sense of wonder, and of welcoming the child, as a guide to gracious hospitality. The art of guiding and adjusting with compassion is common practice in classrooms around the world. When we grow older, we sometimes forget that offering and hearing feedback can be a place of mutuality and growth. Disharmony and discomfort can be grounds for transformation once grace and compassion are in the mix. What we need now more than ever is the capacity to both hear and speak honestly together. We need to seek not the hollow shells of half-ideas but the fullness of two thoughts, even when — especially if — they are in conflict. It is these antitheses, as Hegel wrote, that produce the most vibrant synthesis. It has been, in many ways, a difficult summer, marked by violence, and racial and religious tension, and deepening cultural and religious polarities the likes of which have not been seen in many years. I sometimes wonder if the art of graceful disagreement has disappeared altogether from the public square. The older I get, the more I value the kind of childlike sense of wonder—a curiosity as opposed to judgment—that Jesus talks about in today’s Gospel text. The Gospel calls us to a place of hospitality, and joy, because joy and compassion amidst hospitality are at the heart of table fellowship. Table fellowship reveals the boundaries of human relationships. Even during times of sadness and anger, we are commanded by God to discover the path of forgiveness for those who perpetrate evil against us. And we are called to recognize our own shadow side, which may blind us to the ways we do not and perhaps cannot listen to our sisters and brothers. We are called to transcend the urge to argue about who is the greatest. We are called to remember that it is often more important to be in right relationship, than to be right. We may even need to be willing to embrace our own failures, our own limited vision, and to let go of old agendas and embrace with wonder the new. Wendell Berry, our American treasure of a poet, essayist, and novelist, said this:  

I go by a field where once

I cultivated a few poor crops.

It is now covered with young trees,

for the forest that belongs here

has come back and reclaimed its own.

And I think of all the effort

I have wasted and all the time,

and of how much joy I took

in that failed work and how much

it taught me. For in so failing

I learned something of my place,

something of myself, and now

I welcome back the trees.

Our Baptismal Covenant, dear one’s, calls us to hold onto the vision of a God who is present with us, even in our uncertainty, incredulity, vulnerability, and at times, our anguish at the world around us. This is a God full of mercy and grace, present with those who are lost, abounding in steadfast love, even in the face of uncertainty. Rumi, the Sufi mystic and poet, once said, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” That field, as in the childlike table fellowship to which Jesus invites us, awaits us all when we say “yes” to compassion, and grace—and perhaps especially, grace-full disagreement. And Sometimes we let our fears keep us from trying new things…even if we hear the whispers of the Holy Spirit giving us courage. Now more than ever Holy Family needs risk takers, curiosity seekers, lovers of souls who are among those willing to find the pearl of great price…their own place in the field of dreams that is this beloved parish. Let’s be in this together, shall we?

17th Sunday after Pentecost – Bill Harkins

Proper 19, Year B

The Collect of the Day

O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.Amen.

The Gospel: Mark 8:27-38 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him…Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.” He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

In the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all….Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this 17^th Sunday after Pentecost. We are glad you are here, and if you are visiting this morning please do let us know so we can get to know you. Today we hear a challenging Gospel text from Mark who reminds us, through Peter, of the ups and downs and vicissitudes of discipleship, and the courage that is required of us all, especially when we are not sure where we are, or where we are going. On this long sojourn into Pentecost, we’ve heard about the emerging ministry of Jesus; the miracles, the healing, the feeding of thousands, the calling of the disciples. Mid-way on the journey is Peter’s remarkable declaration, “You are the Messiah,” the first time anyone has stated exactly who Jesus is. It is a journey of trust, and contains all of the challenges of being steadfast amidst uncertainty. As we heard today, this declaration results in some unexpected consequences, especially for Peter. I find myself identifying with him, however, and this may say more about me than Peter, but I certainly have no trouble thinking of times when I took a journey that ended up quite differently than I had intended. The mantra of my trail running group is “Conditions may vary.” Perhaps you, too, have found yourself lost at times, uncertain which way to go. I can only imagine what the disciples must have felt before Peter’s declaration, “You are the Christ.” There must have been a good deal of uncertainty and speculation about exactly who this man Jesus might be, and of course, following Jesus often took the disciples into new territory. Perhaps there were times when they thought, “This is not exactly what I signed up for on this trip,” and, “What was I thinking?” When Jesus told them that he was to be rejected, abused, and even murdered, Peter, perhaps fearing for his own life, rebuked Jesus. He could not imagine such a thing happening to his Messiah. Maybe Peter envisioned the great and powerful things that Jesus would do when his “Messiah-ship” came to its fruition. Perhaps he even imagined himself standing beside Jesus as a trusted assistant, sharing the glory of the throne. Surely suffering was not a part of Peter’s dream for Jesus, or for himself or the others. And that humanity is, I suspect, one of the reasons we are drawn to Peter throughout the Gospel accounts. We can easily see ourselves acting likewise. We know that taking up one’s cross is no easy task. Some of them went into hiding. Peter denied Jesus… his head denying what his heart knew was true. They were all weary, and afraid, and uncertain. And come to that, none of us can know what lies before us, or what will be asked of us in the days or years ahead. But we can reflect on the nature of our discipleship. We can make choices on our journey by trusting not so much our sense of “reason,” but rather Jesus, who calls us to be in discipleship and promises we will not be alone. 

Incidentally, those English scholars among us will recognize that in the passage from Mark Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” The “deny yourself” in this passage has no direct object. We often believe we need to deny ourselves “something.” Yet, I wonder if this is necessary. This passage does not refer to a denial of anything. Paradoxically, this denial of one thing or another actually has the opposite effect of causing us to focus on too much on ourselves. Perhaps the best way to deny ourselves is by getting ourselves off our hands, doing the work we have to do, so that when we are called to do God’s work, our issues do not get in the way. Maybe this is what Jesus means when he says we must “lose ourselves in order to find ourselves.”

I want to tell you a story about the small mountain parish I served many years ago, as a Postulant. The rector, my boss at the time, gave me an assignment to create a new lay ministry for the parish. Since I was at the time a professor of pastoral care, I developed and taught a course on “Lay Pastoral Care,” designed to equip lay persons with theory and skills in pastoral care, and to empower them to use these skills in the community—both in the church, and beyond. We began carefully with the theological summons of our Baptismal Covenant. In that Covenant we promise “…to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself…to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being.”[1]

Over the course of the next few months the enthusiasm for the class was palpable and inspiring. Together we began to imagine the possibilities for the harvest that might follow our seasons of learning about grief counseling, visitation in hospitals, continuous care facilities and care for the chronically ill, as well as elder care, a “casserole patrol” as a form of crisis ministry, Lay Eucharistic visitation, and other forms of pastoral care. By summer, we proposed to the Vestry the parameters of a new ministry of Lay Pastoral Care. This was subsequently approved. New life in community suddenly existed where none had previously been in the service of “bearing one another’s burdens,” to use Paul’s language. We were delighted.

Soon, however, problems began to emerge. Some became worried about best practices and methodology, others about who among them had the best and most appropriate gifts and graces for particular forms of ministry, and why. This was typically born of fears of inadequacy, not unusual when we are learning new skills of course. Opinions about overlapping forms of care and responsibility threatened to overshadow the reasons the ministry was created in the first place. Even the clergy staff began to disagree about what the laity should, and should not be “allowed” to do. In some instances these debates took on a personal tone, and feelings were hurt. Persons were becoming preoccupied with the letter of the “law” rather than the spirit of compassionate life in community we sought to embody. Our communal efforts at bearing one another’s burdens were becoming a burden to us all.

In his interaction with Peter, Jesus is reminding us that one thing is needed—the focus on the “so what” of our sojourns as Christian. And we recall that in the midst of the crisis of the young church seeking to become established, Paul encourages the giving of oneself in faithful service, gratitude, and humility rather than arrogance, hubris, and emphasis on differences based on one’s particular spiritual gifts and graces. For Paul, life in community should be governed by faithful stewardship of all resources, a stewardship marked by “sowing to the spirit.” 

Well, a while after the formation of the Lay Pastoral Care Ministry, one of the “founding” members was unexpectedly stricken ill. En route to London on a plane high over the Atlantic, this parishioner had a life-threatening heart attack, was resuscitated, and kept alive by CPR until the plane returned to New York. She was stabilized in hospital there and eventually returned to a lengthy convalescence at home in the mountains. Somehow, this crisis in the community provided the occasion for all the hopes and expectations originally envisioned for the Lay Pastoral Care ministry to emerge and coalesce around her care. The various committees sprang into action without rancor or emphasis on whom should do what, or why. The gifts and abilities inherent in the committee seemed to sort themselves out, emerge, and come to life. Tasks were delegated, carried out, and engaged with enthusiasm and faithfulness. A spirit of grace prevailed. Lay ministers devotedly brought her the Eucharist, and all of their ministry skills blossomed.

Our experience with the Lay Pastoral Care ministry—a ministry thriving in that parish to this day—called us back to our Baptismal Covenant. We were reminded that compassion is a practical pastoral virtue that transcends law, and invokes grace in action, joy in the spirit. It respects the dignity of all human beings. Yes, and compassion, born of grace, is the virtue that sustains, no matter what our reception in the towns and villages to which we may be sent. One of my favorite quotes is that Transformation happens at the cellular level.” This is true when we exercise, and when we engage in small acts of compassion—the small, daily acts and expressions of transformation that have the power to change the world, and ourselves in it. As Richard Rohr says, “Sooner or later, if you are on any classic “spiritual schedule,” some event, person, death, idea, or relationship will enter your life with which you simply cannot cope using your present skill set, acquired knowledge, or willpower. Spiritually speaking, you will be led to the edge of your own private resources.” This is in part what Peter faced in today’s Gospel…he was bumping up against his own limitations. And like Peter, one must “lose” at something, and then begin to develop the art of losing.This is the only way that Life/Fate/God/Grace/Mystery can get us to change, let go of our egocentric preoccupations—deny ourselves, to use today’s Gospel language—and go on the further and larger journey. We must stumble and fall. Because, until we are led to the limits of our present game plan and find it to be insufficient, we will not search out or find our real Source. Alcoholics Anonymous calls it the Higher Power. Jesus calls this Ultimate Source the “living water” at the bottom of the well (see John 4:10-14). Oh, and that mountain parish I served so many years ago was our own beloved Holy Family. And already, in this season of transition, new ministries are being born and new forms of stewardship—those gifts of time, talent, and giving in so many ways so important to the life of this parish—are being created. So please give prayerful consideration to how you might contribute. In the next few weeks we will be sharing stories of grace, and hospitality, and opportunities for serving. This is not so much an old school stewardship narrative as it is an imaginative, generative invitation to give of ourselves—and in so doing—being transformed. So many good things are happening here my friends, and perhaps you have gifts for music, or leadership, or hospitality…or even pastoral care, that even you may not have been aware you had! Listen to the words of the poet David Whyte, a poem about thoughtful, incarnational stewardship, about denying oneself, and finding oneself becoming fully alive:

Our great mistake is to act the drama

as if we were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice. You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the

conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

Amen. [1] The Book of Common Prayer, The Episcopal Church, (1979) Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, New York, pp. 304-305. 

16th Sunday after Pentecost – Bill Harkins

Proper 18, Year B

The Collect of the Day Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  

The Gospel: Mark 7:24-37 Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone…    

Dear Sister in Christ:  

It must seem strange to be getting a letter some 2000 years after your courageous encounter with Jesus of Nazareth. I write to you out of deep admiration for your story. I confess that I am also writing because this is what I tell others to do when they are confused about how they feel, or in need of clarity about a way forward in the midst of a messy, uncomfortable situation. The story of your effort to get help for your daughter that day is still told by many, and it may please you to know that it is written in a book called the Holy Bible—and in a chapter in that book called the Gospel of Mark. I had not read your story in quite a while, and for some reason, this time as I read, it made me sad, and uncomfortable. I should probably mention that I am a teacher, and a priest—though not the kind of priest you would have been familiar with—and a counselor. So part of my discomfort comes from feeling that I should know just the right thing to say, or feel, or think to explain away my discomfort. Yet, I do not. In reading your story again I was struck not only by how uncomfortable it made me, but how much I admired you, and how many questions I had about your encounter with Jesus. In fact, I had so many different feelings and questions that I found myself not wanting to think about your story at all. This made me even more uncomfortable, but it also made me curious. You see this, too, is part of my training—to be willing to ask tough questions in relation to things that make us want to look the other way, things we would rather ignore, or deny, and pretend will go away if we do so. I imagined different ways of understanding and “interpreting” your encounter with Jesus so that this might take away my discomfort. Yet, I could not. And, come to that, I wonder if perhaps we are called by the Gospel to feel uncomfortable at times. So, the only way to proceed seemed to be that of being as transparent as possible, and let your story stand on its own, even if it meant being scared, and angry, and uncertain, and even if it meant that those with whom I share this had some of these feelings as well… so, I decided to write you a letter. I should also confess that I am a person of privilege in my country. Unlike you I do not really know what it is like to be overlooked because of race, or gender, or skin color. I have not known real hunger—and I have never had to wonder where my next meal was coming from. I have not been passed over for a job because of the color of my skin, or because of my gender. I have not been discriminated against or overlooked in spite of the content of my character—and yet I imagine this was a way of life for you. In fact, it occurs to me as I write to you that although I have told you my name, I do not even know yours. You are often referred to as “a Canaanite woman,” or “a certain woman.” In what we call Mark’s Gospel—another version of your story—you are referred to as the “Syro-Phoenician woman.” In my country, if you have to say you are African American or Native American or Latino American, you already know you are often more subject to being overlooked, on the margins, ignored. I suspect you knew this feeling quite well. I don’t ever recall feeling the need to refer to myself as White American, or Euro American. In Matthew’s version of your story, in which you are referred to as “a Canaanite woman,” this meant that you were marginalized in the world of Judaism—both as a Canaanite and as a woman. You would have been considered the property of your husband or your father. And in spite of this—in spite of the fact that race, gender, class, and nationalism were all working against you, you approached a group of men—also taboo, and you kept doing so; and why? Perhaps you were a single mother—why else would you have made the journey on your own—why would your husband or some other male advocate not speak for you as custom demanded? And being a single mother, your position would have been even more tenuous—with virtually no status or material resources. It must have been embarrassing and uncomfortable for everyone concerned, including you, and clearly the disciples in the story are aggravated by your persistence—in Matthews version of your story, they even warned Jesus to ignore you—“Send her away,” they said, “for she keeps shouting after us.” They turned their backs on you, and yet you persisted. We are different in all these and so many more ways, you and I, but I do know what it is like to be a parent—I am the father of two sons. That part of your story got my attention as well. I know what t it is like to sit up all night with a sick child, and to huddle in a hospital emergency room scared, and desperate for the healing of a child. I know what it is like to suffer with and for my children. I also understand why you approached Jesus and why you sought him out in your time of need. You did this for the very same reason that so many over the past 2000 years have done so—for healing, for strength, for sustenance, for release from the powers of darkness, and for wholeness of mind, body, and spirit—for community….for embrace—rather than exclusion. In fact it is for these reasons that we gather this morning, in my community of worship, and it is for this reason I am sharing my letter with those whom I serve. No doubt you heard of Jesus by word of mouth. Again and again he was moved by compassion to take action, do justice, work miracles. Surely this is what you heard, too. You expected compassion, and justice, and kindness. And not for you, but for your daughter who was suffering. So, against all odds and all that was working against you, you persisted. Even as I admire and respect you, I am troubled by Jesus’ behavior. “Have mercy on me O Lord, son of David,” you cried, and he tried to ignore you altogether, and yet you persisted. I wonder how he could ignore you and then dismiss you? There is no way to clean up this story, no way to sanitize it or explain it away. I’ve heard some very learned people try to do so, and it cannot be done, it always has a hollow sound. And your willingness to be vulnerable allows me to see and hear what I too would rather ignore. “I have come only for the lost sheep of Israel,” Jesus finally said—I am here to help only those who are like me. Still you persisted, kneeling before him, and in what is at one and the same time incredible humility and vulnerability, and remarkable courage, you say “Lord, help me.” And then, this unbelievable statement from our Christ—“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” For a brief moment you were turned away, and my heart sinks. Just as those with whom I am sharing this letter feel in coming to church, you expected the experience of the sacred grace of God in coming to Jesus. Just as we feel wounded or hurt if we are dismissed and overlooked by brothers and sisters in Christ, you would have by all rights felt crushed, devastated, defeated. How could Jesus compare anyone to a dog? How could he say, in effect, some don’t belong at the table, or even beneath it—some don’t deserve the bread—some are outside the circle of care and compassion—his love is only for those within the circle? How could he do this when so often he told us that all are welcome at the table? And still you persisted. Kneeling before him, even more vulnerable, you spoke up and said to him in a remarkably witty and articulate response—“Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” You should know if you do not already, that many have followed in your footsteps. Your courage and determination echo down through the halls of history for all women and men whose opportunities were denied by virtue of gender, race, or social status.  A woman named Sojourner Truth, born a slave, once said “That man there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, because Christ wasn’t a woman. Where did Christ come from? From God and a woman…and ain’t I a Woman? I have born 13 children and seen most all sold into slavery, and when I cried out none but Jesus heard me.” Others followed—women such as Rosa Parks, and Ruby Bridges, and so many other “certain women” who took up your cause. And finally, blessedly, Jesus heard you. He came to himself and in so doing extended his ministry beyond the Jews to include us all. He had behaved as he had because he could—because in his culture he had power and status and it pains me to think how often I have unthinkingly done the same. But at last he exclaimed “Woman, great is your faith. Let it be done as you desire.” And your daughter was healed as you must have known she would be. Do you know that I cannot recall another place in the Gospels where someone won a theological argument with Jesus? Do you know that you were the bearer of Good News to the One who gave Good News to us? In that instant his soul was enlarged, his compassion deepened, the love at the center of His message bloomed ever brighter. By his willingness to learn, to change his mind, He taught us that we are here to grow, to learn, and to be open to the grace-filled movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives. You, with humility and confidence, deference and boldness, and a deep abiding belief that God’s love will transcend the obstacles that would keep us in bondage—taught him, and by extension all of us. Well, it is almost time for me to close this letter. In the church I serve, the center of all that we do is called the Eucharist. We gather at the table and celebrate with bread and wine what you helped me see in a new way through your story. We come to that table, each of us, as God’s children, with an advocate in Christ Jesus much as you advocated for your daughter. And we receive the bread from the top of the table, not the crumbs from beneath. In so doing we, like you, receive the gift of grace, of God’s love—an ever present reminder that we are not excluded by God… no, not one of us, by virtue of gender, or race, or sexual orientation, or political affiliation or any other boundary that would alienate, divide, or separate us from the love of God. I give thanks in gratitude that in your story, I now see more clearly that this is a good practice in relation to all that we do: especially all that we do in the service of doing justice, loving kindness, walking humbly with our God—and respecting the dignity of every human being. Thank you.   Your brother in Christ, Bill

15th Sunday adter Pentecost – Bill Harkins

Proper 17, Year B

The Collect of the Day

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.Amen.

The Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

When the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. We are so glad you have chosen to spend part of your Labor Day weekend with us, and if you are visiting today, we hope you have found or will find a home among us! Welcome, grace, and peace to each of you this day!

In the Gospel appointed for today, we have a dialogue that may on the surface seem alien to us, with its surface theme of physical holiness and its connection to our religious practices. In one sense this is like being invited into a family squabble and it can be tempting to excuse oneself and quietly exit. To do so would be to miss the deeper message here, however—a message about choosing and living out what it means to be in right relationship, respecting the dignity of every human being, and treating others with kindness and respect. And this starts with taking a look at oneself, being mindful of our own, sometimes egotistical desires, and keeping the welfare of the common good in focus, and as the ultimate goal of our core values.

Lately, thanks to my dear friend and colleague Martha Sterne, I’ve been re-reading Eudora Welty’s wonderful book “The Optimist’s Daughter.”  Maybe you remember the story. It is the memoir of Laurel McKelva Hand, a woman in her mid-forties, trying to come to terms with the deaths of all those she has most loved in life: her mother, her father, and her husband Phil, who was killed in World War II. At one point in the novel, Laurel remembers a train ride she took with her then fiancé Phil, from Chicago, Illinois to Mount Salus, Mississippi, where they were to be married. Miss Welty writes:

When they were climbing the long approach to a bridge after leaving Cairo, rising slowly higher until they rode above the tops of bare trees, she looked down and saw the pale light widening and the river bottoms opening out, and then the water appearing, reflecting the low, early sun. There were two rivers. Here was where they came together. This was the confluence of the waters, the Ohio and the Mississippi…All they could see was sky, water, birds, light, and confluence. It was the whole morning world….And they themselves were part of the confluence. Their own joint act of faith had brought them here at the very moment and matched its occurrence, and proceeded as it proceeded. Direction itself was made beautiful, momentous. They were riding as one with it, right up front. It’s our turn! she’d thought exultantly. And we’re going to live forever…Left …of a death made of water and fire in a year long gone, Phil could tell her of her life. For her life, any life, she had to believe, was nothing but the continuity of its love.

Oh, my. Such lovely writing, and in the last line I quoted, about how any life is “nothing but the continuity of its love,” there is a deep and abiding connection to the Gospel for today. And I find myself drawn to that one word Miss Welty used repeatedly, “confluence,” a noun meaning “a flowing together of two or more streams; the point of juncture of such streams; the combined stream formed by this juncture; a tributary.” Confluence is not a religious word; you won’t find it anywhere in the Bible. Nevertheless, the stories of our faith are filled with moments of confluence – the place or point in time in which God and human beings come together. In the text for today that confluence was a call to search our hearts, and to mindfully breathe new life in to our practices and disciplines so they sustain and nurture those things that lead to life-giving results.

I believe Jesus is calling us in this text to lives of integrity—the Latin root is “integritas,” and my favorite interpretation of this is “wholeness.” After all, we get similar words such as “integers,” or whole numbers, and “integration,” to bring together into whole cloth, from this same Latin root. In responding as he does to the Pharisees—and in referring as he does to the heart, thought to be the center of one’s capacity for courage and compassion—Jesus is asking us to consider the heart of our own faith and tradition, and the practices and disciplines that sustain it in wholeness.   Begging the question, what activities, ritual and otherwise, help us be in right relationship with our neighbors, practicing hospitality, and grace? What allows us to maintain and deepen what theologian Paul Tillich referred to as “self-integration,” that process of finding our center of spiritual health and moral integrity? For Tillich this corresponded to a therapeutic model familiar to pastoral counselors…that one’s spiritual health is the wholeness of a person’s center, the “ground of one’s being” as Tillich called it. In this sense, Jesus may be asking us to pay attention not so much to what we eat, or to Levitical laws, but rather to ask what may be eating us. This is why Jesus says, “All these evil things come from within.” The Family Therapist and Rabbi Edwin Friedman once said; “grief that is not transformed gets transmitted.” So often, as a clinician, I see the effects of swallowing grief, or anger, or fear, rather than transforming them into life-giving possibilities. When we do this, our anger and grief, pushed down, inevitably come out in ways hurtful to others, and to ourselves. And come to that, how might we understand in a new way that when we celebrate the Eucharist—as we will in just a moment—we do so sharing in time and space that first Eucharist, and this one here and now, and all those to come, as if time is in those moments is standing still, which in fact it is doing. And in that moment, we are invited to leave at the altar those things which might keep us in bondage, and embrace the wholeness of our common humanity in Christ. I hear Jesus’ familiar and comforting words, I have called you friends…yes once again, but I am not the same person who heard them before. As Nobel Laureate and poet Czeslaw Milosz says”

Love means to learn to look at yourself

The way one looks at distant things

For you are only one thing among many.

And whoever sees that way heals his heart,

Without knowing it, from various ills—

A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things

So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.

It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:

Who serves best doesn’t always understand.

Now, I don’t know exactly what Milosz means by “standing the glow of ripeness” but I very much like this phrase. It speaks to a theology of abundance rather than scarcity. It means being patient with one another and erring on the side of grace and curiosity rather than criticism and judgment. This is the journey of the Paschal mystery, and the hope of the strength, courage, and resilience to abide with one another in love. It’s what gives us space to celebrate the Eucharist at this table, and to wish our Jewish brothers and sister a blessed Rosh Hashanah next month, and to endeavor to pray for both our Jewish and Palestinian sisters and brothers, and those in Sudan, because when we heal our heart as Milosz suggests, and we give ourselves away in love, we are not trapped in dualistic, binary ways of being in the world. Rather than either/or, it’s both/and. Rather than a theology of scarcity, we practice abundance, an abundance on full display in the passage from the Song of Solomon we heard read so well just now. Let’s promise not to let our religious practices and convictions become so entrenched and mundane that we have forgotten the deeper, life-giving meaning to which they point. Let’s remember to err on the side of love, and even if we have firm beliefs about what it means to be church, let’s remember in this season of transition to show up, pay attention, speak the truth in love with grace, and let go of attachment to agendas and outcomes we cannot control. Let’s be kind to one another, especially while we are in this liminal time of transition as a parish—as we know that times of change are often rife with criticism and judgment borne of anxiety and old narratives, wounds, and unfinished business. We will be fine as long as we work together with grace, and understanding, and patience. Those things that most irritate us about others are often opportunities to learn more about ourselves, and where we have what Carl Jung called “shadow work” to do. As Jesus says, the things that come out—often when we least expect it—“are the things that defile.” There is a lovely African American spiritual, the words of which go something like this: Deep River, My home is over Jordan. Deep river, Lord. I want to cross over into campground. Campground is that home where we make choices that lead to the confluences of the continuity of love, to use Eudora Welty’s lovely language, and choices give us agency. It is, like the Eucharist, a moveable feast. There, we seek to live lives of integrity, and be faithful to our Baptismal Covenant to respect the dignity of every human being, and in so doing mindfully reflect God’s loving intentions for all of humanity. It is that place from which we extend compassion, and thereby open ourselves to deeper understandings of who we are in relationship to God, self and other.Together, my sisters and brothers, we can do this with courage—with heart—and without building walls that would keep out those who are different from ourselves. After all, any life is nothing but the continuity of its love. And we can love completely without complete understanding. We can place more importance on being in relationship, with love, than on being right. On this Eudora Welty, and Jesus, agree. Amen.

14th Sunday after Pentecost – Ted Hackett

John 6:51-58

It’s nice to be back up here …

As many of you know I have been pretty much out of circulation for a few months…

As we age we become like old cars…

The parts wear out…

Some they can replace…

Some they can fix for a while…

And some just…

have to give out!

I won’t waste your time with details…

Corner me privately if you want and I’ll bore you with my ailments

But to the matter at hand…

the Gospel readings…

The last two Sundays…and today…Our Gospel readings are from the 6th chapter of John…

They are really quite mystifying if you read them closely…

  Now that’s partly because these readings, are from three different sources…

John had at least three different traditions to deal with…

All of them dealing with the Eucharist…

Three different Churches…

Probably all in the region of Ephesus in what is now Turkey…

There were probably several Christian communities around Ephesus…it was a pretty big city…

And each may have had slightly different traditions by the year 95 when this Gospel was written…

John wrote this Gospel in part to unite these communities…to keep them from arguing…

So when you read John’s Gospel…

It often seems disjointed and perhaps even self-contradictory, because it is put together with pieces from each tradition…

Now in today’s readings…it is clear that John is trying to clarify something about what each of these Churches do every Sunday….the Holy Eucharist…but about which they have disagreements..

Disagreements about just what the Eucharist is and how the Eucharist brings Jesus…

The real Jesus…

Brings Jesus to us! 

And how does John believe this happens?

Remember…John is trying to justify several traditions…….

For instance, last week’s Gospel has Jesus saying: “I am the bread of life. Who ever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

It’s very easy to read this metaphorically.

It’s very easy to think that Jesus is just saying that hunger and thirst are metaphors for spiritual things…

Even so, the Pharisees in the audience are offended.

They know Jesus is the son of Mary and Joseph and as far as they are concerned he did not come down from heaven!

This is typical of John’s Gospel…

Jesus says something profound and his listeners…take him to be speaking literally and just don’t get it!

And what Jesus says two weeks ago sounds like a metaphor.

But… a bit later on in the same Chapter 6… the Gospel from last week, we find something quite different…

Jesus’ words are far less rhetorical.

Listen again…

Jesus says:

“I am the living bread that came down from Heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” … “Very truly I tell you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you! Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. … Whoever eats me will live because of me.

Now…that is pretty graphic stuff!

And it sounds very much like primitive, barbarian ideas…

The sort of things cannibals believe…

Eat the body of a dead man and magically gain his power…

It’s no wonder the Pharisees did not “get it”…“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

A very reasonable question!

As a matter of fact…it is precisely one of things the Church has been arguing about for about 2,000 years. ….

“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

We don’t have time to explore the ins and outs of this question of how this could happen….

Just believe me, that for 2,000 years…

Christians have argued with each other…

Have excommunicated each other…

Have executed each other…

Have even fought wars over this question…

Theologians have yelled at each other…

Have written volumes trying to reconcile the issue of Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist with logic…or Science…or for that matter…

             Common Sense!….

Thomas Aquinas gave us an elegant, learned theory…which is almost always misunderstood…

Goes by the name “Transubstantiation”…

But it has a fatal flaw…

If anyone wants to talk about that…again…corner me and we’ll talk about substance and accidents.

The great Reformer…father of most Protestant thinking about the Eucharist, Ulrich Zwingli…

Said it was a matter of what you believed…             

If you believed Christ was present that was as good as his really being there…

Martin Luther insisted that Jesus wasn’t lying when He said: “This is my body…” and we just have to take it on faith…

And Anglicanism…that is our tradition…

Has said: “We strongly profess all theories….but the important thing is to do it….”….and then grow into understanding.

To celebrate it and to be open to what   God would have us believe… 

And that is pretty much what we do…..

And that is worth exploring…..

Let’s look at a sort of “case history”…

Let’s say a young woman “falls in love”                            

Or we could say she is infatuated…

Her perception of him is dazzling!

But….she doesn’t know him very well.

Courtship…to use an old-fashioned word…

Is a process of really knowing a person better And she does find out things about him…

Some she is not fond of…..

He is always late…stuff like that…

But basically…she likes what she discovers…

And infatuation…almost without her noticing …

Deepens…

and turns to love.

Of course…this is ideal…Happily ever after…

But life is life…

And after a while…she finds things are not always peaches and cream…

It isn’t that he is abusive or unfaithful

But….he doesn’t always anticipate her needs…and fulfill them. He forgets their anniversary!

Sometimes he is distracted…

and doesn’t attend to her.

Sometimes…

When she wants something…                 

He says: “No,

We can’t afford it!”

It doesn’t seem like a perfect relationship anymore.

She begins to have fantasies of finding someone else who could fulfill all her wishes…

But then…One day when she is feeling pretty down…

She starts to cry…

And she realizes that he is there…beside her…

And the whole time she has been feeling lonely…

He has been right there…

She just wasn’t open to knowing it…

Maybe she was too self-occupied…

Maybe she was still in the fantasy-land of first love….quite adolescent!

But now…somehow…in her need…

He is there…

And she knows…

He loves her.

And that is how it is for many people I have known…..

For many it is the story of coming to know Our Lord is there for us …

Especially in the holy Eucharist…

First… when we go to Communion it seems like a really nice piece of Symbolism…

We may find it comforting…even a bit fascinating….but not life-changing.

But then…if we keep on…maybe…

Maybe things deepen…and we begin to…somehow…know…that he is really, somehow…in that bread and wine….

It can be a strange feeling…

A little scary…

But amazing.

But it doesn’t last…

It can be fleeting…

It cannot be summoned at will…

It can seem like it was an illusion…

But then…maybe in a time of fear or sadness…we find out that our sense of Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist is real…

He is with us…

He is with us…even when we don’t know it…

When we don’t feel it.

And he is with us…

In the Eucharist

It’s O.K. if all this doesn’t happen to you…

God doesn’t judge you for it…you are no less a Christian…

This sort of thing is, after all, a gift from God…

We have to cooperate….but it is a gift.

But it is worth waiting for…

And like any coming of Jesus,

Without seeming to change anything… It changes everything.

13th Sunday after Pentecost – Byron Tindall

Ephesus

The city of Ephesus is located in the western part of what is now Turkey, across the Aegean Sea from Athens, Greece. Back when this letter was penned, Ephesus was a major commercial center and the capital of the Roman province of Asia. It needs to be noted that this is not the same as the present-day continent of Asia.

Ephesus was no small wide spot in the Roman Empire. It boasted an amphitheater that seated nearly 25,000 spectators. It was also home to the magnificent Temple of Artemis mentioned in Acts 19:27. This edifice was also known as the Temple of Diana.

According to the Acts of the Apostles’, Paul visited Ephesus on his second missionary journey as well as on his third journey. During that third journey, he stayed in the city for two to three years.

There is some disagreement between Biblical scholars as to whether or not Paul actually wrote the Letter to the Ephesians. A good case can be made for saying that Paul did write the letter. A just as strong position is available to those who say someone else is the author. I’ll not get into that discussion any further at this time.

Ephesus, prior to the introduction of Christianity, was what we would call a pagan city. The arrival of Christianity caused “no little disturbance” among the residents who made their living with practices deemed demonic or idolatrous by Christians.

This section of the Letter to the Ephesians read this morning. pretty well sums up how a Christian was supposed to live.

It’s generally accepted that the followers of Jesus were called Christians by the time this letter was composed. Prior to being called Christians, the disciples were known as “Followers of the Way.”

We read in Acts 11:26, “and when he (Barnabas) had found him, (Paul), he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they associated with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians.’

Paul first visited Antioch in about 44. His lengthy visit to Ephesus is believed to have taken place some 10-12 years later.

End of history lesson. “So, what’s this got to do with us today?” you may very well be asking yourself at this point in time.

Well, I’m going out on a limb and say the words Christian and Christianity have been hijacked in the world in which we live today. Let me explain what I mean by that.

One can pick a belief, no matter how far off from what Jesus showed us, and find a quote church unquote that supports that belief.

Both the Old and New Testaments tell us how to treat the sojourner in our midst. But yet…

Jesus, by word and deed, showed what He thought about the outcast, the abused, the lonely, the poor, the sinner, the downtrodden, the sick, the hungry, those in prison, the environment, women, and children. He actually showed more than a little disdain for the powerful, the elite and even organized religion.

There was a movement a few years ago, especially among younger Christians, called WWJD (What would Jesus do?). Its followers were supposed to ask themselves what Jesus would do when faced with a similar situation. It worked well if the proponents went back to Jesus’s life to get the answer rather than listen to the tapes instilled by a particular branch of Christianity.

I’m in no way saying that all of Christianity has gone astray. I am saying that certain segments seem to have forgotten what Jesus taught and the road down which He led and leads us if we’re following Him.

I try to be open to the way others believe.

But when members of a certain congregation located in Kansas rejoice at the death of a member of the LBGQT community, I question how they can call themselves Christians. This same group of people protest at funerals for members of the armed forces. Really! Is this how Jesus would react under similar circumstances?

When politicians appeal to fellow Christians who think like them for votes, I become a little more than upset.

I have more than a little problem with anyone who tries to limit God’s loving, saving embrace to those who think like they do. Those who look like they do. Those who speak like they do. Those who live like they do. Those who love like they do.

Who do we think we are when we arrogantly tell our Creator who He can and who He can’t love.

I worship and hopefully follow, the God of Love, not some god of hate. Our Presiding Bishop so rightly reminded us that “if it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”

If St. Paul were to write a letter to the churches in the United States, I can only guess how he would start it. “Grace to you and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ. We have a huge problem…”

There have always been and still are many Followers of the Way.

In my way of thinking, a few of the contemporary or almost contemporaries of our time include: Dietrich Bonhoffer, C.S. Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jonathan M. Daniels and his companions, Desmond Tutu, Richard Rohr, The Most Rev. Michael Curry, The Rt. Rev. Rob Wright. And the list could go on and on and on. There are many members of Holy Family who could be included in this list.

There’s a meme running around on Facebook that I like.

“It’s not the task of the church to ‘make America great again.’ The contemporary task of the church is to make Christianity countercultural again. And once we untether Jesus from the interests of empire, we begin to see just how countercultural and radical Jesus’ ideas actually are. Enemies? Love them. Violence? Renounce it. Money? Share it. Foreigners? Welcome them. Sinners? Forgive them. These are the kind of radical ideas that will always be opposed by the principalities and powers, but which the followers of Jesus are called to embrace, announce, and enact.” We have to ask ourselves whether we are going to be followers of the way or proponents of some watered-down, misinterpreted version of Christianity.

12th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 14, Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 6:35, 41-51:

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning friends, and welcome to Holy Family on this 12^th Sunday after Pentecost. On this Sunday when we hear another in a lovely series of references to the bread of life, invoking a theology of abundance, it is important to think about our responses to this invitation, and about the meaning of discipleship which flows from those compelling images and invitations.

“You are what you eat.” Most of us have heard this in one form or another all of our lives. As a life-long athlete, I get this. I know that when I am eating well—that is, when I am paying attention to what, how much, and when I eat—this is typically reflected in my performance. We try to instill in our children and loved ones wise eating habits, and we endeavor to set good examples for those whom we love. In today’s Gospel, Jesus offers his listeners one of the more perplexing of his sayings, the one about the need for people to eat his flesh and drink his blood, and he talks about the challenges involved for anyone who wanted to follow him. And we know that just a few verses later we find these words: “Many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” I find it intriguing that John uses the term “disciples” in this passage to describe those who turn back. These are not, as John Ortberg has noted in the Christian Century, just casual listeners. Rather, “these are the folk who have been teaching Sunday school and working in the nursery…and when long-time pillars of the church start leaving,” he writes, “we get restless.” So Jesus calls a meeting. And he puts the remarkably poignant question to them with an unsettling directness: Do you also wish to go away? I find myself wondering how Jesus asked the question. Was there sadness in his voice as he asked this of the disciples? Did the question have an edge to it—a hint of anger or disappointment? No doubt it was hard to see people upon whom he had counted as followers decide to leave

I found myself wondering this past week how I would have responded to the question. What does it mean to leave something one has come to believe in? And, how do we make judgments about leadership…the adequacy or inadequacy of it? How do we know when it is time to go away—to break, as it were, a covenant we have made, or how to respond when we feel betrayed by others in that covenant relationship? How do we know when to throw in the towel…to simply give up? These are difficult questions. And one wonders what they may have to do with Jesus’ invitation to drink his blood, and eat his flesh. Was Jesus speaking literally, or metaphorically? Those among his listeners who heard this as a literal command seemed most offended and confused. I think this is because they simply didn’t get the truth of what he was saying to them. This coming week we celebrate the Feast Day of Jonathon Myrick Daniels, who died while taking up the cross of justice in Alabama. He wrote, “The doctrine of the creeds, the enacted faith of the sacraments were the essential preconditions of the experience itself. The faith with which I went to Selma has not changed: it has grown…I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord’s death and resurrection…with them, the black men and white men, with all life, in him whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout…We are indelibly and unspeakably one.”

As a runner, I have a strict code of ethics, if you will, about entering races: If I start one, short of injury or illness, I will finish. But what was at stake in this passage is much more than an athletic endeavor. It is about discipleship, and courage, and commitment, and faith, and it also speaks to the Gospel text for today, because it reveals that while the literal food we eat is important, the Bread of Christ is the most important source of sustenance in our lives.

Recently I read a wonderful book by Laura Hillenbrand, entitled “Unbroken,” about the life of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini. He was the son of Italian immigrants and Louis spoke no English when his family moved to California. A young man with behavior problems, his older brother Pete got him involved in the school track team as a way to divert his energy to something productive. In 1934 Zamperini set a world interscholastic record for the mile, clocking in at 00:04:21.2 at the preliminary meet to the state championships. The following week he won the championships with a 04:27.8, and that record helped Zamperini win a scholarship to the University of Southern California and eventually a place on the 1936 U.S. Olympic team in the 5000 metres, at 19 the youngest U.S. qualifier in that event. Zamperini finished eighth in the 5000 meter distance event at that Olympics. Two years later, in 1938, Zamperini set a national collegiate mile record which held for fifteen years, earning him the nickname “Torrance Tornado”.

Zamperini enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in September 1941 and earned a commission as a second lieutenant the following August. He was deployed to the Pacific island of Funafuti as a bombardier assigned to a B-24 Liberator bomber. On May 27, 1943, he and his crew were assigned to conduct a search for a lost aircraft and its crew. While on the search, mechanical difficulties caused the plane to crash into the ocean 850 miles west of Oahu, killing eight of the eleven men aboard.

The three survivors, with little food and no water, subsisted on captured rainwater and small fish. On their 47th day adrift, Zamperini and Phillips reached land in the Marshall Islands and were immediately captured by the Japanese Navy. Both Phillips and Zamperini were held in captivity and severely beaten and mistreated until the end of the war in August, 1945. Zamperini was held in the Japanese Prisoner-of-war camp at Ōfuna for captives who were not registered as prisoners of war (POW). He was especially tormented by sadistic prison guard Mutsuhiro Watanabe (nicknamed “The Bird”), who was later included in General Douglas MacArthur’s list of the 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan. Zamperini wrote up Italian recipes keep the prisoners’ minds off the food and conditions. Zamperini had at first been declared missing at sea, and then, a year and a day after his disappearance, killed in action. When he eventually returned home he received a hero’s welcome.

In 1946 he married Cynthia Applewhite. After the war he suffered from what we would now call severe post traumatic stress disorder. Clinically depressed, and drinking too much, Zamperini attended a crusade led by evangelist Billy Graham. Graham later helped Zamperini launch a new career as a Christian inspirational speaker. His wife Cynthia was instrumental in getting him to go to Billy Graham’s meetings. In an Olympic related interview I saw last week, the interviewer asked Zamperini how he had turned his life around, and what kept him from giving up. He said: “forgiveness.” Over the years has visited many of the guards from his POW days to let them know that he has forgiven them. In October 1950, Zamperini went to Japan, gave his testimony and preached. The colonel in charge of the prison encouraged any of the prisoners who recognized Zamperini to come forward and meet him again. Zamperini threw his arms around each of them. Once again he explained the Gospel of forgiveness to them. “You can spend your life swallowing hatred and bitterness, and it will kill you,” he said. “I chose the Bread of Christ. I chose forgiveness, and it has given me life.”

Saying “yes’ to Jesus may not always be easy, or pleasant, or make sense, but it is who we are called to be. Christian discipleship  is embodied in our Baptismal prayer when we ask for an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and persevere, and a sense of joy and wonder in all God’s works . Today’s Gospel reminds us that the Body of Christ is food that will not leave us hungry and unfulfilled. It is nourishment for the long run. It is Bread of life, for Life. If we hear Jesus’ words in the Gospel for today as a life-giving image, it can allow us to be fed in all times and in all places. So, just in case we haven’t “gotten it” after four weeks of bread-themed lessons, Jesus invites us into a way of living and being that is at once both wise and somewhat strange. It is wise by divine standards; in fact, it is not only wise but also “the way” to life abundant and everlasting.

Try to hear the words of Jesus from John’s Gospel without your “church” ears on, and the bare language is more than a bit challenging. “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”? Consuming Jesus doesn’t happen only at the altar rail. Living, breathing, and abiding in Christ’s body each hour of every day is our countercultural calling as Christians. We are to show Christ to the world through our words and actions, every day of our lives both individually and as worshiping communities. Having been fueled by Christ into full communion, we in turn offer the experience of his grace and boundless love to others. We become part of the heavenly food chain and the circle of endless and abundant life. Yes, dear one’s, we are what we eat. Yes, we feast on Christ at the table, but we must make our very lives a banquet of hope, grace, and love. We are stewards of the Good News and consumers of Christ. Together, let’s endeavor to live with a radical gratitude and a holy hunger, always willing to pull more chairs up to the table. If we are what we eat, then we have an opportunity to become that grace, ask for seconds of that abundant love, and pass the promises of God on to others. Amen.

11th Sunday after PentecostProper 13, Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 6:24-35

The next day, when the people who remained after the feeding of the five thousand saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

…Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen.

Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this 11^th Sunday after Pentecost. Thank you, to each of you, for being here this morning as we take another step together on the journey toward finding our next rector. We welcome Canon Sally Ulrey here this morning, and we are so grateful to her for helping to shepherd this process. Sally, we thank you so much for being here today, and for your ministry in the Diocese. We have two Hebrew Bible texts available in the Lectionary for today, one from Samuel, and one from Exodus. Both involve complicated men—David and Moses—who were perhaps paradoxically called to lead. David was a narcissist and misogynist who, against all odds repented, confessed to Nathan, and grew to become a leader, despite his horrific acts in relation to Uriah. In the reading from Exodus this morning we find a people in transition and a leader, in Moses, also in transition or, perhaps in a process of transformation as he faced the wrath of the whole congregation of the Israelites who complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. “Why did you bring us here,” they lamented…saying it would have been better to die as slaves in Egypt rather than starve in the desert. Change is hard indeed. Walter Brueggemann, my erstwhile colleague from Columbia Seminary, teaches about three kinds of journeys: journeys of Orientation, Disorientation, and New or re-Orientation. And, we know this pattern well as Christians and Episcopalians in our journey during Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter… and on into this long, green season of Pentecost. This sequence is part of our liturgical DNA.

This familiar pattern is one about which Richard Rohr and other authors have written as part of—indeed essential to—our spiritual journey. It is also about our “salvation,” understood here as healing, because we are indeed “healed” by knowing and surrendering to this universal journey of reality. Knowing the full pattern allows us to let go of the first order, accept the disorder, and, sometimes hardest of all—to grieve our losses and trust the new reorder. In some ways during this season of our lives together at Holy Family, we are living out our own version of that Exodus journey.

St. Ignatius, one of our spiritual forefathers and mothers, wisely said that we must learn to practice what he called “Holy Indifference.” When we encounter those liminal, transitional seasons where we must let go of our illusion that we can order and control the world through whatever means we seek to do so. Release of control and giving control over to God will show itself as increased attention to compassion and generosity, and less attention to rules and regulations and “the way we’ve always done things.” This will normally be experienced, Rohr says, as a move toward humility and real community. It may also mean that we can find new and previously undiscovered leadership abilities in ourselves, and new ways of being in community; perhaps in ways that are surprising.

“Leadership” is a broad topic, and we may be tempted to think it doesn’t apply to us on a personal level. I want to challenge that notion, and invite us to think together about leadership, and about how we might lead ourselves and others on this Exodus journey during this season. The origin of the word “leader” means, simply, to guide. So let’s think together about how we might guide one another as we move out of disorientation, and on toward reorientation. As some of you have heard me say in other contexts, a growing paradigm in the Episcopal Church places increasing importance on lay leadership. Indeed, the new mission statement mantra in the Diocese of Colorado is “Lay led…clergy supported.” Now, there are many reasons for this change, realities shared by sister denominations in mainline Protestantism. But the basic reality is that we are in a profound paradigm shift in our corner of Christendom. More than half of our congregations cannot afford to pay for a full-time priest. It is simply not sustainable. And this is true in dioceses bigger than ours and smaller dioceses as well. Across the country we have a LOT less full-time jobs. And some of those that are “full-time” are the results of partnerships that mean the priest is serving two positions—two or more congregations, to make one full-time job. This helps to explain why young clergy are frustrated when they hear there is a “clergy shortage” and yet still can’t find a suitable call, and especially when the system we’ve inherited assumes that transitional deacons become curates. I hear people say that this means “we need more bi-vocational clergy.” That may be right. But the system we have inherited isn’t built that way and we still are relying on seminary-trained clergy. I know an associate rector who is a pharmacist and a pastor, and after three years of searching our sister parish in Clarkesville has now hired a part-time priest who is also a Licensed Counselor: it isn’t as simple as it sounds to manage those competing demands, but with lay leadership it may actually be enlivening and even prophetic. Regardless, these changes will take vision and purpose and time to make that shift. In the meantime, what seems clearest to me is that lay leadership is more important than ever. Along with many who study church history and read the tea leaves looking ahead, I think we are in the early stages of a reformation. I may be wrong, but the old model of a full-time seminary-trained priest in every congregation is not coming back. We are learning, growing, changing, adapting, hoping, trusting, and loving our way into a new reality. And always, as our Prayer Book reminds us, with God’s help. 

Now, you may see yourself as a leader, you may not…. But Quaker Educator Parker Palmer says that “Leadership” is a concept we often resist. It seems immodest, even self-aggrandizing, to think of ourselves as leaders. But if it is true that we are made for community, then leadership is everyone’s vocation, and it can be an evasion to insist that it is not. When we live in the close-knit ecosystem called community, everyone follows and everyone leads.” No matter who or where we are, we may be called to lead in this threshold season, and to practice resurrection in ways that may surprise us. Leadership is not an identity; rather, it is a role; leading is not who we are; leading is what we do – at least some of the time. 

And I don’t believe that leaders are born any more than great violinists or runners, or teachers, or surgeons or football players are born. I believe that leadership can be learned – primarily through practice and experience—and that it can take an infinite variety of forms. Indeed, it may be that when we bump up against our own limitations, and those things in relation to which we are afraid, we can discover in ourselves the capacity to lead in ways that may surprise us. And we have both the text from this week and last featuring David, and from Exodus, excellent examples, because both David, a flawed leader if ever there was on, and Moses with his own limitations, were leaders, sometimes in spite of themselves… So I want to invite us to think through some of the key elements of leadership; to do so, I’m going to invoke someone we all know: Moses, was both flawed and called. Moses reminds us we do not have to be heroic or have special charisma; he did not seek the job – there was no ad on Linked In saying “prophet needed to lead exodus – forever reshape relationship with YHWH”; Moses was attuned to the problem (they were slaves) and attuned to the sacred (he saw a burning bush); he was present and awake…he was willing to show up, and pay attention; he responded to the need and the opportunity; he did the job that had to be done, despite being flawed and called…He articulated a vision, and let’s remember that imagination and resilience emerge out of liminal, transitional times and spaces.

Moses mobilized the people, and persevered to realize/achieve that vision: Moses’ leadership… and ours, has a pastoral quality because leading helps others claim their own leadership. And let’s remember that Jesus always helps grow people up; does not infantilize them. Today’s Gospel is followed by a scene of anxious disciples uncertain what to do about more people coming to be fed…and he says to the disciples, “You give them something to eat!” thus empowering their ministry. Moses acted; he took next steps even with limited info and a willingness to experiment and take risks. He was willing to go through immediate discomfort for a greater good; the “acting” of leadership is hard, sometimes messy, and harrowing. Moses heard the lamentations of the people, and pushed on. And here’s a bit of wisdom based on my own hard-won experience…we must each be aware of our need to be liked and our need to make everyone happy; these will cripple us every time. There is no need to become a quivering mass of availability. My friends, leadership is messy work, spiritual work & creative and imaginatively prayerful work…Being a leader in this or any season asks of us that we be willing to go deep within; it is a spiritual journey on which we face our own shadows and light, our own gifts and graces, as well as our limitations. Leading can be hard, and it can be lonely; we need to take care of ourselves. It asks of us that we let go of control enough to trust God and improvise. The truth is that many of us will be called to lead the church into new territory; in a season of uncertainty and change. We are all priests of the church by virtue of our Baptism. We are all called to lead. And we never know how our efforts to lead, no matter how small, my touch the lives of others. Near the end of Deuteronomy, Moses is telling Joshua: Be strong. Be courageous. Do not be afraid. God is with you. He will not leave you. He will not forsake you. Do not be afraid! Mostly, Moses sees God choose people in ways finally about abundance, an abundance made manifest in today’s Gospel, which also refers to Moses and the Exodus journey. And so here is this heart-grabbing wisdom that Moses offers with open hands: Do not be afraid because we know that the God who guides us is the One who goes before us. Perhaps, in this season of change, even our smallest gestures of compassion and grace, reaching out, choosing to be in relationship, are all forms of leadership each of us can practice. This is leadership that requires only our willingness to take the first step…to reach out in faith.

The wonderful poet Seamus Heaney’s last words in this earthly life were written, not spoken. From his hospital bed he texted to his wife, Marie, two words: Noli timere. Don’t be afraid. These were words of courage for his beloved at a moment when God was about to do a profoundly new thing that she did not yet fully perceive. Noli timere. Fear not. Words of courage for us and for all of God’s beloved, uttered throughout Holy Scripture by prophets, poets, angels, and Jesus, himself, whenever God is about to do something new. We are to be unafraid, even in the face of that new thing we do not yet quite perceive; that new chapter that will inevitably draw us from the security of the familiar, that new thing that will undoubtedly change us in ways ultimately life giving, and flourishing, and hopeful.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans he says:

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

I don’t know about you, but those are core values of leadership with which I can live, and upon which I can act, unafraid to lead. Please join me, won’t you? Leadership is best shared with grace, compassion, and hospitality. And that’s who we are, together.

Amen.

10th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 12, Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 3:14-21

I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 6:1-21

Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” …

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Grace to you and peace, to each of you this morning, on this Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, and welcome to Holy Family. If you are visiting with us we are so very glad you are here. Welcome, and be sure to introduce yourselves to us!

Today we hear a heartfelt and deeply compelling prayer from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and a lovely, well-known story about the feeding of the 5,000. Both are reminders that we can choose between scarcity and abundance, and the Gospel does call us to err on the side of abundance. This is especially true in a culture of scarcity, anxiety, and increasing polarization in which we measure ourselves and others by comparison, fear, and either/or ways of being in the world.

I suppose we each have moments in our lives that seem timeless—moments in relation to which we look back and say “From that time on…” as if we are simultaneously participating in and observing events as they unfold. Often such moments, though simple, contain bits of clarity and wisdom. Occasionally, they are moments of transcendence. We might even say of them that in relation to a particular issue, we see things in a way we had not before. I think this is what Paul is saying to us in his lovely prayer, to which we bear witness this morning. Begging the question, what might it be like to live as if we believe, in wholehearted ways, when Paul tells us that God’s power, working within us, is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can imagine or ask? What if the story of the feeding of the 5,000 is really an invitation to practice abundance, and let go of our fears, as the Gospel text suggests? I am ashamed to say how often I let my own fears be at risk of taking over, and guiding my actions. This is why some version of “be not afraid” is the most frequent phrase in the New Testament. A few years ago I stumbled upon this poem by Truman Cooper, entitled “See Paris First”:

Suppose that what you fear

could be trapped,

and held in Paris.

Then you would have

the courage to go

everywhere in the world.

All the directions of the compass

open to you,

except the degrees east or west

of true north

that lead to Paris.

Still, you wouldn’t dare

put your toes

smack dab on the city limit line.

You’re not really willing

to stand on a mountainside

miles away

and watch the Paris lights

come up at night.

Just to be on the safe side

you decide to stay completely

out of France.

But then danger

seems too close

even to those boundaries,

and you feel

the timid part of you

covering the whole globe again.

You need the kind of friend

who learns your secret and says,

“See Paris first.”

I believe both Paul and John, in the Gospel for today, are like friends calling us to live lives not in bondage to fear, but creatively, imaginatively, and abundantly, trusting God’s faithful and abiding love—calling us to “see Paris first.”

When we are afraid, and living out of a theology of scarcity, we are kept in bondage to the past, to our anxious fears of not being enough, and in so doing we are at risk of repeating old narratives not necessarily our own. I recall just such a moment a number of years ago that seemed to bubble up from my own subconscious this week.

It has to do with baseball, a game, as former President of Yale and Commissioner of Baseball Bart Giamatti said, is “Designed to break our hearts.”[i] When our boys were younger, I coached their teams until they began to play for their high school programs. By the time younger son Andrew went off to college I had 30 plaques of teams I’d coached over the years, hung on the walls of my study. On this particular day, our oldest son Justin was 9 or 10. I was the coach of his team, ensconced in the third-base coaching box. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with baseball, the third-base coach is a key position. From that vantage point one has a view of the entire field, and a perspective on the game which includes sending the runner, when appropriate, to home plate. I love this about baseball; the ultimate goal is to make it safely back home, and baseball has no “clock” as it were. Time is so variable as to almost have no meaning…like the distinction between “chromos”—or clock time—and “Kairos”—or spirit time. Our son was the lead-off batter, a duty he maintained all through high school. He could hit to the opposite field with power, and he was very fast. He jumped on the first pitch and drove it into the gap in right center field. As he neared first base, his first-base coach waved him on to second, while the right and center fielders converged on the ball that had rolled against the fence. As my son neared second, he looked toward the third base coach—in this case his own father—who enthusiastically waved him to third. Meanwhile the outfielder—I cannot recall which one—picked up the ball and threw it to the second baseman, who effectively served as the cut-off man. As my son approached third, the little second baseman wheeled and threw a perfect strike to his teammate at third. It was a beautiful play. My son slid in a cloud summer dust, just as the third baseman laid down the tag. The umpire, positioned perfectly, yelled “you’re out.” And it was the right call. My son looked up at me and said “Dad, you told me to go.” And in an instant I thought of my own at times intensely competitive nature, my own father, who would have told me I had not run fast enough or that I took too wide a turn at second, and I thought of the run we needed, now out at third…all of this at once. And I said “I know, buddy, it’s OK. Go on back to the dugout.”

Well, the drive home was very quiet, and I was afraid, out to sea in stormy weather, fearful of a scarcity in my own soul. But then something in me spoke, out from the depths of my being, and I said, “You know, buddy, I am so very proud of you. You did exactly what we taught you to do… we run the bases aggressively to manufacture runs, we do, and we don’t apologize for it. Coach Alexander  told you to go to second. You did that perfectly. You looked down at the third base coach like we’ve taught you. He just happened to be your own dad, and I made the call. They made a great play, and we have to tip our caps to them. But the most important thing is…this is not the last time I will be wrong. As much as fathers wish we could be right all the time, we can’t. But even when I am wrong, even when I make mistakes, I want you to know how very much I love you and how very proud I am of you.” And suddenly, somehow, things between us seemed OK again. The time had come, if you will, for the image I had—maybe we both had—of me being the all-knowing, wise father who was never wrong—certainly not about baseball—to die. I had to decide what was more important: being right, in control, and winning all the time, or dying to my old image of myself, and the father I wanted to appear to be in my son’s eyes, in the service of a new relationship with my son. I had to lose myself, to find a new way of being a father. It is more important to be in relationship than it is to be right…and we can love ourselves and others completely, without complete understanding. I am still learning this, even today, with all of you.

The question put before us in today’s Gospel is this: are we willing to be vulnerable enough to be agents of God? Are we strong enough—not powerful enough or “never wrong enough”—strong enough, to be paradoxically vulnerable in love, and abundant in faith, and wholehearted in relation to fears that might keep us in bondage? Are we willing to become like that which we celebrate in the Eucharist, Christ’s Body broken for us? Are we willing to let our hearts be troubled by the harrowing experience of the suffering of others and ourselves, and yet to persevere nonetheless? Are we willing to trust God’s wisdom and grace without trying to control the outcome, even if it means losing who we thought we were in the process? These are the questions that lead us into the mystery of the Resurrection. And as we relive the suffering, death, and Resurrection of Jesus we experience one of the great ironies of our lives together in this community of faith; that it is not our weaknesses that inhibit the power of God’s love in our lives, but rather, it is our fears.  There, as Paul’s heartfelt prayer suggests, we are called “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Well, dear one’s, “From that time on,” my son and I were on a different kind of journey together. That day, we learned that a father can get his son called out at third, and together they can still make it safely home. That home may be a different place than the one they left that morning, but it is where Love lives, just down the third base line on a sunny Georgia baseball field. In the Gospel for today Jesus is reminding us that sometimes when we lose ourselves, our old lives, for his sake…when we are willing to die with and into him, there he is waiting for us, loving us, feeding us abundantly, with compassion for our weaknesses and limitations. And there we find our true selves and “by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” we let go of our fears of not being enough…fears born of scarcity. And there, no matter what, we are safe at home. Amen.

9th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 11, Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Grace to you and peace, good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this Ninth Sunday after Pentecost. If you are visiting with us this morning give us a chance to say howdy, and get to know you. This is a parish filled with grace and hospitality, and we are so glad you are here!

And speaking of hospitality, some of you may find the phrase “Come rest awhile” from today’s Gospel reading to be familiar. It was the name of the ministry offered for many years by Diane and Don Wells, who opened their home for rest, reflection, and recreation. When I was a full-time professor I taught a course called “Men in Ministry” which included a retreat at Chez Wells. Diane was a wonderful cook and together she and Don provided lovely meals for our cohort of seminarians. Their ministry was a perfect embodiment of what I hoped the class would instill in these young men—appropriate self-care, Sabbath time as a component of their ministries, and a willingness to seek out and sustain community in a vocation that often bred loneliness and isolation. Diane and Don hosted us for many years, always with gracious hospitality, good humor, and shared kitchen table wisdom. “Come rest awhile” indeed, like the Gospel of Mark demonstrates; they gave themselves away to those sojourners who arrived…the Body of Christ broken, and shared. In our human finitude and brokenness, we need to take a break, to take Sabbath time to recharge, to eat, to pray, to listen for the quiet voice of God and Spirit. We are invited to do this so that we do not become distracted by our busyness and over functioning, and the exhaustion of a world which is, as the poet Wordsworth said; “…too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—Little we see in Nature that is ours…” The work of compassion, to which each is called, takes a focus and energy that is made possible by times of rest, reflection, and prayer. 

In today’s Gospel, one theme is the need for leisure and solitude. Jesus and the Disciples were increasingly being followed by those in need of healing and, as we shall see next week, they were hungry…both spiritually and literally. And, so are we. Moreover, these are challenging times for us all. As I listen to patients, and to friends, family, and many of you, I am hearing fears, anxiety, lamentations about the future both of our country and of churches in mainline Protestantism, including our own denomination. I get it. These are challenging times and we all need opportunities to rest, restore, and focus on what is most important. Perhaps today’s Gospel provides a template for how this is done. And perhaps this season of Pentecost shepherded by Mark’s Gospel during these weeks can be of help to us. On Wednesday evening at our Wonderful Wednesday gathering hosted by Rosie and Cove Lake, a parishioner suggested that I include the pastoral care trail notes for this week in the homily for today. So I have, and I encourage us to think metaphorically and theologically about a very real lesson from nature.

It is deep summer, in this long, green season of Pentecost, and as we speak, in rivers and streams all along the Pacific coast, salmon are returning home to their native waters after journeys of up to 6 years—and thousands of miles—at sea. Some time back, I took a sea-kayaking trip to Alaska, just about this time of year. Our group journeyed to Tebenkof Bay, deep into the wilderness of southeast Alaska, for a week-long sojourn based on Buddhist mindfulness practice. Early one day, we set out in our boats across the bay. A gentle summer rain was falling. Ravens called out as seals and otters followed our flotilla of kayaks, diving playfully beneath our boats. Ducks and loons eyed us curiously framed by snow-capped mountain ranges, their glaciers emptying into the bay. We found ourselves in the delta of a small river. We paddled upriver protected from the rain by spruce forests. Beneath our boats was a river of salmon, coming home to spawn. Our guide gave us a streamside lecture on the ecology of salmon nation. Salmon are amazing members of God’s creation, and this is especially true of Pacific salmon. Leaving their fresh-water birthplaces they journey out to sea where they roam the oceans of the world, returning to spawn at the exact spot they were born years—and thousands of miles–earlier.

Most of you have seen scenes of Chinook and Sockeye salmon making their way up waterfalls to their native pools against tremendous odds. As many as 20 vertebrate species, including elk, deer, and bear, feed directly on salmon, re-cycling those ocean borne nutrients into the soil. Salmon born in Idaho will make their way 900 miles inland and climb 7,000 feet as they return to spawn. More than simply food for bear, ravens, eagles, or humans, salmon are in fact a parable of a complex, and life-giving set of relationships. DNA from Pacific salmon has been found in groves of Aspen at the top of the continental divide. The minerals from their ocean journeys feed salmonberry bushes miles inland. Every level of the food chain will reveal evidence of the gift of salmon.

Indeed, over 137 species of animals in the Northwest rely on salmon as part of their diet. When salmon die they generate the most biologically diverse forests on earth, honoring future generations with the gift the journey that is at the heart of all they are. “They leave branches of streams no larger than a broomstick,” the author Richard Manning has said, “and make their way to the ocean for years, returning weighing up to 60 pounds of biomass harvested from the sea. They bring this mass of nutrients back to the forest to feed it, and the generations to follow.”

I think of this as evidence of God delighting in God’s creation—a cosmic playfulness at the level of ecological communion. The grace in the story of the salmon is evidence of sacred connections of life-sustaining nourishment. As the poet Mary Oliver reminds us, “Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.” On this morning in Alaska, we did just that. Cultures as diverse as Pacific Northwest Indians, especially the Tlingit, Norse, and Celtic mythologies have found in the story of the salmon symbolic and religious power. I see God watching all the permutations and combinations of salmon, and I imagine God laughing with joy. The gift of their living, and dying, and rebirth is moving, and powerful. A salmon is not simply a fish—but a metaphor of the deep ecological mystery of God’s creation—a timeless reminder that in the cycle of life and death lies the abiding connections of all living things…of transformation, and renewal.

It is fascinating to me, then, that on another shore, this time near the village of Capernaum, Jesus gives a sea-side homily on the nature of bread, and a metaphorical lesson on what nurtures and sustains our souls. On this day following the feeding of the 5,000, the impromptu picnic was over, and Jesus and the disciples were looking for a quiet place to rest, and recover. The people, however, had other ideas. They were not inclined to let him fade back into the Capernaum hills without finding out more about what he could do for them. They had been hungry, and they had been fed—more than enough—we are told, and yet they did not know the depth or sources of their hunger. He had given them bread, and they had their fill, but perhaps he could do more in the way of fulfilling basic needs of shelter, clothing, and the ambiguities and uncertainties of daily life. The possibilities were unlimited. And somewhat disingenuously, when they find him they say, in essence, “What a surprise! Imagine finding you here! When did you come here?” Jesus will have none of it. “You worked hard to find me, and I know why. But I am more than a free lunch, and moreover, that is not what you really need. You ate your fill, and now you want more, but you are missing the point. The bread you seek won’t last. I am the bread that endures, and addresses a deeper hunger. All you have to do is believe.” “Prove it,” they say, invoking Moses and the manna in the wilderness; “Give us a sign.” “You don’t get it,” Jesus says to them…”Remember where the bread Moses gave you came from.”

It is not always easy to see beneath the literal to the metaphorical and symbolic, especially when our basic needs and fears often determine what we see, and how. Jesus knows we are hungry on many levels, and we are often scared, and wilderness can take so many forms. The psychologist Carl Jung, deeply interested in religion, once said: “I have seen people remain unhappy when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, reputation, outward success, money, and remain unhappy even when they attain what they have been seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon.”

Our wise Alaskan guide said to us, “Broaden your horizons. Think creatively. The Salmon is much more than a fish—it is a sign of something mysterious, complex, and life-giving in the ways of the connectedness of God’s creation. They live their lives, and they give themselves away.” Jesus says to us, “Broaden your spiritual horizons. I want to be more than a provider of physical bread. I want to fill the hunger of your souls. I want to fill the emptiness you try to fill up with lesser things…to satisfy those Holy longings you often attempt to quiet with substances and material goods; to quiet the anxiety that finally comes to possess you, rather than allowing yourselves to be placed in God’s compassionate, outstretched, open arms. I want you to remember where that bread in the desert really comes from. And then I want you to feed one another, in love.”

Like the salmon that journey so far to come home to their native streams, Jesus is to be broken, blessed, and shared with the world. He gives himself away, each moment. Like the Eucharist we celebrate, Jesus is more than a provider of physical sustenance. Our river guide said, in essence, “Pay attention; see, and you will believe.” Conversely, Jesus says to us, “Seeing is not always the same as believing; sometimes you have to believe, in order to really see.” Both are correct. And both point to a similar truth: salmon may be a first principal of an ecological paradigm of gratitude and abundance. The only way to have a full life, and keep it, is to give it away. Jesus embodied this in his life, in which we are invited to be creatively, imaginatively compassionate, with gratitude. “Every day,” Wendell Berry says, “you have less reason not to give yourself away.” Jesus said, “I am the Bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.” Come rest awhile, my friends, and let’s find healing, solace, hope, and restoration at the bountiful table prepared for us all. Amen.