Author: Rosemary Lovelace

7th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 13C – Mark Winword

Then Jesus told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, `What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, `I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, `Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” – Luke 12:13-21

KC, Christian, Matthew, and I are so glad to be finally joining you in ministry here at Holy Family! We moved into our new home in Talking Rock on July 15^th, and thanks to the Holy Family Grounds Crew, we made short work of as much as I could shoehorn into a 10×20 U-Haul van. KC returned to Florida a couple of days later to prepare our home for sale while I stayed behind to unpack. KC, Christian, and Matthew are here for the weekend and will join me permanently around the middle of August.

As a Navy family, we’re old hands at these kinds of transitions – this is our 24th move! That said, moving is still a huge job and never something we look forward to. Part of the problem is that KC and I have been married for almost 38 years, and we’ve accumulated an amazing amount of stuff over that time. Some of it is family treasure, but there’s a lot of junk mixed in. Quite frankly, it’s become more of a burden than a blessing, and we hope to continue divesting ourselves of what we don’t need in the months ahead.

Really, our story isn’t all that unique in America. The way we approach our “stuff” says a lot about us. It’s fair to say that Americans are not only wealthy by global standards, but also historically. And not only are we wealthy – we’ve made wealth building a core American value. If you go by the infomercials, the American Dream isn’t just to “make it,” but to make it big. That’s because wealth gives us the freedom to pursue our interests in the way of our choosing.

Now, freedom is a wonderful gift. But when the focus of “my choosing” becomes less about the choosing and more about the me, it can obscure what’s truly important in life.

That’s the point of today’s parable in Luke. The issue isn’t wealth itself but our attitude toward attaining and using it. Jesus weaves a story of a wealthy landowner blessed with a bumper crop. There’s no evidence that he did anything dishonest to earn it – he’s simply a businessman who had a good year. As a good businessman, he reinvests in expansion, building bigger barns to store his surplus and protect his investment.

So far, so good. But then, surveying his achievements, he kicks back, toasts himself – “Self, you’ve done good!” – and concludes that he can now “eat, drink, and be merry.”

And I think most Americans would say, “So what?” He worked hard, had some good luck, and now deserves to enjoy it. But Jesus points out that when our life’s focus is on self instead of on the blessings God has given, we’re living into the essence of materialism.

See, materialism lacks concern or responsibility for others – it’s about my achievements, my happiness, my way. But while this man is at the pinnacle of success and satisfaction – with his future leisure all planned out – Jesus tells us that God requires his life that very night. And for what? After all his effort to build wealth for himself, what difference does it make to him now?

I was blessed with a great gift that made this very real to me two summers ago. I was hit by a car while riding my bicycle. Yes, getting hit by a car was a blessing – and I ask you to bear with me for a moment.

I’ve been cycling most of my life, regularly riding as much as weather permits, and going on countless long-distance tours. The accident happened one Sunday afternoon near our then-home in Maryland, between Baltimore and Washington. I was making a left-hand turn, signaled, and crossed what appeared to be a road clear of traffic. Apparently, a motorist at the stoplight accelerated quickly, wasn’t paying attention, failed to slow down, and clipped my back wheel. (By the way, please share the road with cyclists – we’re not surrounded by a ton or two of steel like you are!)

I bounced off the hood, went flying, and landed hard in the road. Thankfully, I was wearing a helmet, which hit the pavement just after my hip. I dragged myself out of the road and sat on the curb to catch my breath – seemingly unharmed. The driver, frantic, asked if she should call an ambulance. Drawing on my chaplain experience in emergency rooms, I told her that was probably a good idea – people are often injured worse than they realize.

The ambulance arrived, loaded me onto a stretcher, and rushed me to the nearest ER – where a triage nurse told me to get up and wait in the lobby. We waited for over an hour before I was brought into an exam room for a TBI study they were conducting. Up until that point, I was feeling fine – until I suddenly experienced excruciating pain, and my hip began to swell rapidly. The ER staff now took me very seriously – and I knew why: my mother had died a few years earlier from internal bleeding after fracturing her hip.

As I began to feel faint, I found myself struggling to stay conscious. As I began to fade out, my vision narrowed to blackness, and I saw shooting stars down a dark tunnel with a light at the end. Remembering my mother, for the first time in my life the thought passed my mind, “I wonder if this is what it’s like to die?” And here’s the gift I will remember the rest of my life: In that moment, there was no fear – only three things mattered: my faith, my family, and the lives I had touched.

As it turned out I had massive bleeding in my thigh but – miraculously, at my age – no fracture. But I believe I was blessed with insight into what people may feel in their final moments. Because when it all came down to it – my stuff, my education, my achievements – none of it mattered. What mattered were the intangibles: faith, family, and the lives we touch.

The man in Jesus’ parable wasted his life focusing on achievement, wealth, and influence – rather than on what truly matters. Jesus calls him a fool. In the Old Testament tradition, the “fool” is the opposite of the wise. Proverbs tells us, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” – in other words, wisdom begins with knowing our place relative to God: that God is God, and we are not. The “fool,” on the other hand, ignores or denies God altogether.

The rich man’s pitfall wasn’t his wealth – it was being so self-absorbed that he felt neither gratitude nor responsibility toward others. His self-centeredness became self-destructive.

In the long run, our lives don’t amount to a hill of beans unless they make a difference for others. Still, we hoard our stuff because we’ve bought into the idea that what we accumulate in this life is all that counts – or at least, that’s what our culture tells us. The old biblical aphorism, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” has become a cultural cliché. I’m old enough to remember the Schlitz Beer slogan: “You only go around once in life, so grab all the gusto you can.” The implication is we have no accountability, no eternal values – just live for yourself!

But other than someone saying something trite at your funeral about how you lived life with gusto – when your prized possessions are someone else’s junk – the value of your life won’t be judged by how much stuff you had, but by how much of a difference you made in the lives of others, for good or ill.

And perhaps that’s why I felt called to return to parish ministry, rather than enjoying a quiet military retirement after nearly 40 years of service. So I’m left asking myself: How am I using the blessings I’ve received for God and those around me? One of my favorite patriot songs that reflects this sentiment of service is American Anthem by Norah Jones. Taking a bit of license, the final verse goes like this:

Let them say of me,

I was one who believed‚

In sharing the blessings I’ve received.

Let me know in my heart‚

When my days are through‚I gave my best to you.

7th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 12, Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day

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 Lesson: Hosea 1:2-10

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son…

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this seventh Sunday after Pentecost, and a day on which we have a challenging text from Hosea. I confess that I am often drawn to texts that are simultaneously disturbing and intriguing, and this is certainly among them. Indeed, a quick survey of a few clergy colleagues revealed that not one of them planned to talk about Hosea this morning. One, whose comments I will edit for both brevity and contextual appropriateness said, “Harkins, what are you thinking? Why go there and only make things harder on yourself?” Good question and, well, I may have dug myself a theological hole from which extrication is impossible, but I’ll let you all be the ones to decide. So here goes.

As a former professor of pastoral care and still practicing as a marriage and family therapist, the context of the passage from Hosea is to me a clinical mess. It is not unlike that covenant made between God and his people at Mount Sinai, that “wedding in the wilderness,” where God took Israel by the hand and said, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not bow down to idols or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God (Ex. 20:2-5). Do you understand?” And the people of Israel, like a bride blushing behind her veil, said, “We do.” They made a covenant, and the covenant between God and his people, at its simplest, was this: “If you will be my people I will be your God.” But it was a conditional covenant. It began with the word if. Another way to say it, then, on the other side of the Hegelian dialectic, was “If you will not be my people, then I will not be your God. Understood?” “Understood,” the people said. “We will be your people and you will be our God.” And off they went, God and his people, toward their honeymoon in the Promised Land.

But it didn’t last long. And by the time we get to our text for today, some 500 years later, the people of Israel have worshiped every foreign god they can find, as if their lives depended on it, and it’s probably because they thought their lives really did. If the rains didn’t fall, if their crops didn’t grow, they wouldn’t have anything to eat. And if they didn’t have anything to eat, they couldn’t last long in the land that God had given them. When they entered the land of Canaan and learned that there was a local god, Baal, who was responsible for rainfall, they figured it couldn’t hurt to toss a prayer in his direction, the way you might toss a coin into a wishing well. And when they learned that there was a fertility goddess named Anath, they figured it couldn’t hurt to light a candle at her shrine, either. Who knew? It might just help the crops grow. But don’t miss the significance of what was happening. Although it might seem like a harmless flirtation with foreign gods, it was the beginning of the end of the marriage. How often, even in our own culture, are we willing to sacrifice our core values for the sake of short-term gratification? Alasdair MacIntyre, among my former professors at Vanderbilt, suggested that our moral life is kind of like that. We use words like virtue and phrases like the purpose of life, but they are often just random fragments that don’t cohere into a system you can bet your life on. People have been cut off from any vision of their ultimate purpose. This is one of the subtexts in today’s story from Hosea.

How do people make decisions about the right thing to do if they are not embedded in a permanent moral order? They do whatever feels right to them now, and sometimes this takes the form of immediate gratification and confirmation bias and a deeply misguided leader who says, “I know what is best for you, and that’s all you need to know.” This robs us of true dialogue, and discernment, and collaborative community, core values which foster growth. MacIntyre called this “emotivism,” the idea that “all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling.” Emotivism feels natural within capitalist societies, because capitalism is an economic system built around individual consumer preferences and, often, motivated by our fears.

In the passage for this morning, when the people of God began to bend their knees to other gods, they were saying in essence, “You, Yahweh, are not enough god for me. I can’t count on you to provide for me, to fulfill my needs. So, I’m going to worship these other gods as well, just to be on the safe side, just to make sure.” But what may have begun with a casual prayer, or the lighting of a candle soon became forms of idol worship. If one prayer was good, two prayers were better, right? And if one candle seemed to help, why not try a half dozen? And if the rains hadn’t come or the crops were in danger, the people would head for the hills to “worship” other gods. They would spread their blankets beneath the trees and engage in fertility rituals that went on for days, hoping to inspire the gods by their behavior. This broke God’s heart, not so much because of what they were doing, I think, as why they were doing it–because they didn’t trust God to provide for their needs. In the fourth chapter of Hosea, God says: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. My people consult a wooden idol and are answered by a stick of wood. A spirit of prostitution leads them astray; they are unfaithful to their God. They sacrifice on the mountaintops and burn offerings on the hills”

What will God do with this narrative? According to the terms of the covenant, God may have every right to abandon Israel. God said, “If you will be my people, I will be your God.” But they had not been God’s people. They had behaved like prostitutes, as the profoundly disturbing text says, chasing after every foreign god who walked down the street including Baal, hanging on to the false hopes of Anath, offering themselves to any god who would give them a taste of the good life. “If you will not be my people,” God might have said, “then I will not be your God.” God could have thrown them out of the Promised Land. He could have locked the doors and left them weeping on the threshold. But that is not what God did.

Instead God went to Hosea and said, “I want you to do something for me. I want you to go and marry a prostitute, and I want you to have children of prostitution, because my people have prostituted themselves by worshiping other gods” (Hosea 1:2). Unlike his fellow Israelites, Hosea was a faithful follower of Yahweh: what God said, Hosea did. And so, he went down to the red-light district of Samaria to look for a wife, and it was there that he found Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. If I imagine seeing the couple in marital therapy, I find my head spinning at the possibilities for the dialogue:

Hosea: Why do you insist on continuing this behavior after we have been married? What about our marital covenant, and what about our children?

“Doesn’t any of that mean anything to you?”

“Any of What?” Gomer asks.

“Our marriage,” he said. “Doesn’t it mean anything to you?”

“Well of course it does,” she says, looking furtively at me, the therapist who is supposed to be of help to them. “But I’m the primary breadwinner here. Somebody has to feed the bulldog. You knew what my line of work was when you married me. We are not going to get rich in the prophecy and preaching business, and somebody’s got to make some money around here, especially since we’ve got a baby on the way.”

Hosea looks at me plaintively, and says, “I thought things would be different after we married.” Gomer, getting angry, says “What you mean is you thought you could change me. What happened to unconditional love, for better or worse? I never said I would quit my day…um, my night job. Where do you men get off thinking that women have to give up everything for the marriage? Have I insisted that you give up prophesying and preaching? You could make a lot more money in carpentry or even being a shepherd. You knew I came from an abusive home…now you are saying I’m not what you wanted. You made a promise.”

At this point the therapist suggests a brief break. And as the clinician here, I must be mindful of the gender imbalance, and remember that in a patriarchal society, autonomous female sexuality is a threat and Hosea’s patriarchal perspective on marital infidelity and shapes his understanding of God’s response to a sinful community. I wonder, what if the prophet had been a woman? How would that change the views of Israel’s ruptured covenant? What might Gomer have to say?

And then there were the children, who only made things more complicated, as they always do, and they gave them those quite descriptive and instructive names. And if Hosea hadn’t gotten the message before, he got it now; that God has had just about all of Israel’s unfaithfulness God can stand. Do you remember the covenant? “If you will be my people, I will be your God. But if you will not be my people….”

Well, by now I am recalling a patient, many years ago, who worked at night as, well, an “exotic dancer” as I once said to her. “Call it by its proper name, Dr. Harkins,” said to me. “I’m a stripper. I am here to get help to imagine other options.” Born in a repossessed trailer to a meth-addicted mother, and a father who abandoned the family shortly after she was born and abused by more than one of her mother’s boyfriends, she eventually aged out of the foster care system, got her GED, and by the time I met her she was a stellar doctoral student in biochemistry. She made enough money at night to support herself, pay her tuition, and send some money back home to her mentally ill, addicted mother. And she had found religion. Not the “spiritual but not religious” polite, once removed kind of religion, but a deep desire for a God who demanded the best we had to offer. She had come to me for help in finding a home she never had, with a God who would forgive her having done what she had to do to survive sexual abuse, poverty, and parental indifference and still hold her accountable by expecting something better from and for her. And the first step was whether I, whom she sought out as both clinician and priest, could hear the scandal and tragedy of her story and not blink. And she wanted me to forgive her. She wanted to forgive her mother. She wanted to forgive herself.

The relationship between Hosea and Gomer is like the relationship between God and Israel—heated, acrimonious, and fierce, because Yahweh is so deeply committed to Israel that Yahweh takes the infidelity personally. God demands that Hosea marry a prostitute. Seriously? And can we allow this deeply disturbing story to lead us to a fresh understanding of God’s relationship to the church?  The story of Gomer and Hosea demands of us that we read between the lines of our polite, nice, spiritual but not religious ethos to see a deeper and more embodied relationship between God and the church…and that means us, because we, too, share any references to sinful behavior here. We have much in common with both Gomer, who as bell hooks said, speaks from the margins of a sinful, patriarchal culture, and with Hosea’s blind, controlling confirmation bias. Begging the question, in relation to what are we willing to sell our souls, and in relation to what kind of God? Jesus told us stories about a shepherd who relentlessly abides in his search for the one lost sheep until it is found, and a father who waits until the lost son is back home, because that is how God’s relentless love seeks us out too. Yes, today’s text is difficult, even shocking, patriarchal, and scandalous. And difficult as it may be, the clinician part of me appreciates the comparison of our relationship with God to a messed-up marriage in which a promiscuous spouse is repeatedly forgiven, taken back, and loved. Paul says that a God who loves so much that God is willing to be crucified for the unfaithful beloved is, in the Greek, a skandalon to the world. Yet for those among us who are sinners, among whom I count myself, the real scandal is our salvation.

If I close my eyes, I can almost see Hosea getting up in the night for a glass of water and stopping by the children’s bedroom. He checks on Jezreel, his oldest; pulls the covers up under Lo-ruhamah’s chin and kisses her cheek; strokes Lo-ammi’s head and sings him back to sleep. And then he pulls a chair up to the window to watch and wait. Maybe this will be the night she comes home early and tells him she’s giving up her night job, that she has realized at last that he’s everything she needs and all she ever wants. And maybe he considers that at times, his patriarchal need for control might have driven her away. Maybe things will be different for them from now on. Regardless, he abides. Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” As the Gospel for today says, “Ask, and it shall be given.” In asking, we are called to be clear about what we are asking for, and why, and to what ultimate end. Let’s keep doing that good work, dear friends at Holy Family, and as Julian of Norwich said, “all manner of thing shall be well.” Amid these difficult moments, however, Hosea assures us that God remains active in the search for justice for all people and that that justice will ultimately prevail. Amid pain there is always hope. As the poet Szymborska said,

Joy and sorrow

aren’t two different feelings for it.

It attends us

only when the two are joined.

We can count on it

when we’re sure of nothing

and curious about everything.

Let’s be curious, shall we, and not judgmental, as we seek to move toward lives of inclusive wholeness with all people, all of whom have been created and loved by God…a God who has promised to never, ever leave us. Blessings, and Godspeed. Amen.

6th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 11, Year C – Katharine Armentrout

KEEPING THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING

First: Let me say that when I hear this story I get really irritated – This story has become almost a cliché – You can hear people thinking: “Oh that’s just Martha, fussing away in the kitchen again… and whining to Jesus.”

It has made it easy to hear this story only as a story of a frustrated woman in the kitchen

and to ignore the important teaching of Jesus.

I think Luke could just as easily have made the story about the brothers, James and John – It would go like this: 

James welcomes Jesus to his home but stays outside to finish work on a boat that Jesus will need in the morning. But his brother, John, goes inside, sits at the feet of Jesus as disciples did, and did not help James caulk the keel.

James gets frustrated and irritated that John isn’t helping with this important task for Jesus. He fusses at Jesus: “Make that lazy John help me.” 

And Jesus replies:

“John has chosen the better part.” 

I think when we put James and John in the story it makes it easier to hear the point Jesus is making – that we need to listen to His Word, put it in us, then do our work.

And by the way, was Jesus criticizing Martha for being in the kitchen preparing food for them?

I don’t think so. Think of the story of Peter’s mother-in-law who had been ill. Jesus lifted her up. He cured her and then she began to prepare a meal for the disciples. No criticism there. So it isn’t being in the kitchen that Jesus was focused on.

Instead it was Martha’s state of mind that was the issue– One writer put it this way: .

“Jesus didn’t call Martha out for her hospitality.  It was not her cooking, cleaning, or serving that bothered him. 

Notice the actual problem he named: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.’   

Now the root word for “worry” is “strangle” or “seize by the throat and tear.”  Think about that – when we worry we are strangling ourselves!!

And the root meaning of the word “distraction” is “a separation or a dragging apart of something that should be whole.” 

These are very strong words and tell us what we do to ourselves when we get wrapped up in worry and frustration. When we lose sight of the main thing.

Martha, like many of us I think, had let herself get into a state of frustration and anxiety — 

“[S]he could not enjoy the company of Jesus, savor his presence, find inspiration in her work, receive anything he wished to offer her, or show him genuine love.  

Instead, all she could do was question his love when she said: “Lord, do you not care?,

and fixate on herself when she said: “My sister has left me to do all the work by myself”

and she then does what a therapist would call “triangulate”. She said to Jesus: “Tell her then to help me.”    Debi Thomas, Journey with Jesus. July 2029

How many of us have found ourselves in just such a state???

Getting ready for an important financial meeting, preparing a fundraiser for non-profit or putting on a reception here at church.

And we get focused only on how it will go, worried about lack of support, etc.

We plan, and organize, and get involved, often taking on far too much. Then we get resentful and irritable and angry with others who don’t have the same commitment that we’ve shown.

But, my friends, that is not the discipleship that Jesus is trying to teach us. 

When we let ourselves get wrapped around the axel, when we get in a snit over a project, we are no longer serving the Lord; we’re serving the meeting or the event and, to some extent, our own egos.

We have gotten distracted from serving Christ and we are focused on the event only.

I know I have been guilty of that state of mind many times. So do we do about that?

What did Jesus say in response to Martha’s distraction?

He said: “Mary has chosen the better part.” Mary who was sitting and listening to Jesus.

“Mary has chosen the better part.” Now I don’t know about you, but I would have liked a bit more delineation with that answer.  

Was he saying: I want all my disciples to be quiet contemplatives. You need to sit so that you can be learning, studying and praying all the time.

Was Jesus saying that contemplative discipleship is preferred to an active life of discipleship? 

I don’t think so.

“When we hear Jesus say, ‘Mary has chosen the better part’ we should not assume that Jesus was opposed to industriousness.

Remember that Jesus Himself traveled. He taught. He cured. He fed.

He raised from the dead, and then he sent the seventy to do likewise.” Don Armentrout, Syntheses July 22, 2007

So what was his point? Is Jesus, who has just told the parable of the Good Samaritan, which was full of active discipleship, now saying that sitting at His feet is the better thing to do than serving him and serving others?

The answer is “No”. Instead I think Jesus was saying we need to make the First thing first – Make the Main thing the main thing…

and then out of that will come both contemplative practice and service discipleship. 

And what is the Main thing????

It is our commitment to the Lord and His teaching. 

This story of Martha and Mary comes right after the story of the Good Samaritan. It is a bookend. It is as if Luke, our gospel writer, is showing us in real time how Jesus wants us to live out the Great Commandment. 

The Great Commandment, which many of us know by heart, calls for us to love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all mind….and to love our neighbor as we love our selves. 

So the Great Commandment combines loving God and caring for our neighbor, contemplative practices and acts of service discipleship.

Discipleship is, of course, characterized by service as well as by listening to the Word; and each response is dependent on the other. 

“Doing without listening can become purposeless; while listening without doing makes the words empty.”

I think Jesus was saying to Martha and to us that whether it be a contemplative practice or a work of service we are engaged in,

in everything we do it must begin with our faith, not with ourselves.

Jesus insists there is need of “only one thing.” It must begin with Him.  It must begin at His feet.…

To Jesus, the starting point of any service or of contemplative practice needs to be a focus on what God desires and what God teaches.

“Listen to Me” says Jesus. That needs to be our starting point.

Whether we plan to be in the kitchen, like Martha or working out on a boat like James, whether we plan to work at the church, or at the prison we need to be listening to Jesus.

Whether we plan to be at a retreat, or reading ancient mystics, at a Vestry meeting we need to pay attention to God.

And there is someone who took this teaching of Jesus very seriously – he turned his attention always to God all the while carrying on his very busy work. 

It was Brother Lawrence who was a lay-brother in a monastery in Paris in the early 1600s. He had little education but he was a deeply faithful man.

He worked in the busy monastery kitchen, not in their chapel or their library, which are more contemplative places.

Yet Brother Lawrence was always in touch with God.

He emphasized the importance of maintaining a simple, loving attention to God throughout the day, rather than relying solely on formal prayers. The presence of God is “a simple attentiveness and a general loving awareness of God… or to speak better, a silent and secret, constant communication of the soul with God” (41).

“It consists in taking delight in and becoming accustomed to his divine company, speaking humbly and conversing lovingly with him all the time, at every moment, without rule or measures; especially in times of temptation, suffering and weariness…”

He believed that finding contentment in God’s will, regardless of circumstances, was a key aspect of spiritual growth.

He is quoted as saying: “In the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while serving persons who are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees in prayer.” 

And his focus was always on the Lord, whatever he was doing, and he did it with joy: “We can do little things for GOD; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of Him.”

“I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for the love of Him.” All begun and ended in our Lord.

He does not propose sophisticated ideas or punishing abnegation. Instead he proposes that we tune our hearts to God lovingly and constantly.

Marcus Borg, in his book The Heart of Christianity, suggests a similar spiritual practice: He writes: “Loving God means paying attention to God and to what God loves.” 

That paying attention will mean that whatever it is that we are doing comes from love of God and not from our own sense of how things ought to be done or out of societal expectations.

We are called to recognize that it is God who gives us life and that paying attention to God strengthens us to do the good He would have us do.

We need to focus …just as Mary did that day in Bethany.

It is God that enables our service or a contemplative practice to be life giving.

In both times of service and times of a contemplative practice, when done with a focus on God’s desire, we are like Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus. That is “the one thing he talks of. That is keeping the main thing the main thing!” Amen.

5th Sunday after Pentecost – Byron Tindall

I wanted to make absolutely certain I knew the definition of the word parable, so I went to the Merriam-Webster Website, and here’s what I found. “Parable – noun – a usually short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle – the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines the word exactly the same.

This parable is probably one of the better-known utterances Jesus made when he was wandering around Palestine while preaching the good news about the Kingdom of God. It has been the source for countless sermons throughout the centuries.

This morning, I’m going to try something a little different. I’m going to rewrite the parable into the 21^st Century. I’m not going to touch the early part of St. Luke’s lesson, just the story itself. So here goes.

In the early evening, after normal business hours, a young white, Anglo-Saxon protestant professional man was getting his exercise on the Beltline Trail in downtown Atlanta, Ga. Suddenly, he was attacked by a gang of 4 Hispanic teens. They proceeded to beat him up pretty badly and relieved him of his watch, cell phone, wallet, and the running shoes he was wearing. They left him beside the trail and ran off to examine what they had taken from the man.

An Episcopal priest was also walking on the trail and saw the injured man sitting on the bank trying to get himself back together. “I should probably stop and help him, but I don’t have the time right now. I’ve got to get ready for the vestry meeting in about any hour,” he thought to himself. Consequently, he looked to the other side of the trail and moved over in that direction before heading to his meeting.

A little bit later, a Baptist minister was seen walking toward the scene. He noticed the poor victim but remembered he had a pre-marital counseling session scheduled for a little later. “I must get home and take a shower before I meet with that young couple,” was his excuse for not stopping.

A group of nuns was out for a stroll on the Beltway and happened on the incident. They stopped and discussed the situation among themselves. “If we stay here and call 911, we’ll be tied up for hours when EMS and the cops arrive. Just think of all the questions we’ll have to answer,” one of the nuns said. “I don’t think we should get involved,” said another. “Let’s just move on,” said a third member of the party. And they did just that.

About that time, an old black man was walking home along his usual route. He had just spent 12 hours at his job as a janitor and dishwasher in a fast-food establishment a few blocks away from where the attack took place. He looked and smelled like it had been a rough 12 hours. But he stopped and approached the man anyway.

“What happened? What can I do to help you?” he asked the young professional who was still trying to get his head around what had happened.

The man was still very confused about what had taken place. The old black man knew he had to do something. He stuck is hand into his front pocket and pulled out two crumbled, dirty $20 bills and his cell phone. “I’m going to get you to a safe place where you’ll receive good care,” he told the victim.

Knowing he had $40, the old man called for an Uber driver to pick them up a short distance down the trail where the trail and a street intersected. He had instructed the driver that they wanted to go to the homeless shelter where the old man had lived a few times between jobs. He hoped the manager he knew so well was still there.

When they arrived at the shelter, the old man was relieved to see his friend was still on duty.

“Here’s $20,” he told the manager. “Send someone out to get some dressings and bandages. Don’t forget the antibiotic ointment, either,” he said as they got the young man situated in a room. “I get paid tomorrow so I’ll drop by after work and settle up with you, if you spend more,” he said as he left the shelter.

Jesus’s parable was told to answer the question, “And who is my neighbor?”

There’s no need to comment on which individual in the 21^st Century version best exemplified the State Farm Insurance company advertising slogan.

Our concept of who constitutes our neighbor has most certainly evolved substantially since St. Luke penned his gospel, and I personally don’t think that evolution is complete.

Here’s a good example of this change. When our children were growing up in the small, rural Lewis County, New York, the principal of their elementary school organized an over-night field trip to Ottawa, Canada, for the students. For some of them, that was the first time they had ventured out of Lewis County. Just as in Jesus’s time, people stayed close to where they were born and raised. Incidentally, some of their classmates still live in Lewis County.

My personal thoughts about the answer Jesus gave in response to the question the lawyer asked him have changed drastically with the advent of the communication tools we have today.

With the click on a link on my phone, my iPad or my computer, I can find myself almost anywhere in the world. If I want to view the beauty of the Scottish Highlands, all I have to do is virtually go to the Highlands. If I want to visit the Louvre in Paris, one of my devices places me in the center of that museum, and I never have to leave the comfort of my easy chair.

On the darker side, if I wonder what it’s like in a war-torn area of the world, I can visit most any place where there’s a conflict raging by way of the miracles of modern communication devices.

For me, every inhabitant of “this fragile earth, our island home,” is my neighbor. This includes those living with starvation and death as their constant companions. Those forced to live in hell holes like the “Alligator Alcatraz” or seeing their children forcibly taken away from them; those whose loved ones were swept away from them by rising flood waters – all of these follow human beings are my neighbors.

As the lawyer rightfully answered Jesus at the beginning of the Gospel Lesson today from Luke, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

All of this begs the question, “How do we, as individuals, as a community of believers, as citizens of the State of Georgia, as residents of the United States of America, and finally as inhabitants of this island home of ours, demonstrate this love?”

4th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 9, Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day

O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Lesson: 2 Kings 5:1-14

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.”

He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”

But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, `Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, and on a weekend during which we celebrate and give thanks for the gifts of freedom and, as our collect says, Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace.  Some of these gifts have been won, as Lincoln said, through the “last full measure of devotion” in service. We remember in gratitude all those who have preserved the freedoms we enjoy. And, we give thanks for the movement of the Holy Spirit, our Advocate, who has been promised to us. I especially want to extend warm and heartfelt greetings to each of you in this long green season and as my time among you comes to an end. And, as Lincoln said so well, in his own season of polarization and conflict, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” I found myself thinking of this often while making my way down Peachtree on Friday morning, in the wonderfully diverse sea of humanity that is July 4^th in this, my hometown. And this reminder of the bonds of affection we share comes at a time when public health officials are naming what is being called an epidemic of loneliness and polarization in our anxious and over-wired and technology driven society.

Begging the question, what did Lincoln mean by the “better angels of our nature”? How do we know them when we see them, and, come to that, how might we cultivate their influence upon us? Conversely, what are the lesser angels of our nature, and how do we know, as Lincoln implied, how to acknowledge and manage the influence of those voices? Lincoln was appealing to a nation in deep despair and turmoil to pay attention to the shadow side of democracy, and that we all possess, when we come to see that our dark side is concealed or camouflaged in a painful attempt to protect an image that fits the narrative we decide to espouse. Through social conditioning, we come to construct a façade that can keep the substrate of our constructed identity stable so that we can keep feeling safe in the image of ourselves we work so hard to sustain.

I suspect Naaman learned this well in today’s lesson from 2 Kings. It is a cautionary tale about irony, humility, the shadow, and ultimately about grace, and the true source of healing. Often we forget how many times God does good work for the least and lost in the Old Testament. This is a story characterized by irony, because the people who should be in the know, such as the king of Israel, appear clueless. The marginalized, those relegated to the status of the other, such as the Israelite servant girl, perceive accurately what God is doing.

Naaman, the central figure of the story, who seeks healing, almost cheats himself out of the very thing he desperately desires because of his arrogance and need for control. And the ironic theme of the text invites us to consider two ideas: both our knowledge of God, and the truth about ourselves…including our shadow sides, and our circumstances, may come from unexpected sources, and God’s providence does not always match our assumptions. Elisha’s response to Naaman may invite us to consider the ways we respond to those who are different, who may present contested narratives to our own, and reminds us of the Biblical instances of those to whom society attributes little intrinsic value nevertheless serving as the heralds of and vessels for God’s work among us. And, if we are willing to do so, we might also ask ourselves why we are so quick to shut down conversations with those who are different from ourselves, and who may challenge our all too easy assumptions based on confirmation bias.

The kings in this passage labor to shore up their lines of defense in facing threats from Syria and Egypt. They build massive armies, form shaky alliances, and pay enormous bribes. But ultimately military might does not win the day. One man alone, Elisha, triumphs over the army of Aram. To read this text today, in our own anxious world, is to recognize the similarities and to recognize that a life that recognizes vulnerability is potentially a life of love and compassion. Well-being, wholeness and healing in relation to the shadow side of arrogance, hubris and the misuse of power are life-long encounters. I don’t know about you, but there is more of Naaman in me than I would prefer, and I need people in my life to remind me of this and hold me accountable. Several years ago, I was scheduled to lead a retreat for a group of 80 Stephen’s ministers in Kansas City, and the website of the host church had a wonderful, if somewhat hyperbolic announcement about my upcoming visit. One of my closest friends said in response to seeing the notice, “Harkins, these people seem to think you are a lot more important than you really are.” And that was exactly what I needed to hear.

Naaman is a great warrior who has had many victories. He has everything in terms of victory and power, but he has leprosy. He is counted unclean and therefore he is in this sense one of the least. One of his servants, who became his wife, is one who knows of the miraculous work of the Sinai prophet Elisha and says to her owner and husband “you should go and see him.” She is an Israelite and considered even lower than he in the eyes of the powerful in Damascus. Naaman’s king writes to the king of Israel for permission. Naaman is a great warrior and so the king is scared! He is worried that the king of Aram and Naaman are plotting to overthrow him. Elisha says, “Calm down and let him come to me.” So Naaman goes with many gifts. He arrives with horses and chariots and in great finery. And here we find one of the great exchanges in biblical history: Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” 

Naaman is outraged. We are told that Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. Again, a servant wife who is accounted nothing comes to Naaman and says, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So, he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young child, and he was clean. Naaman offers Elisha gifts, but Elisha says no.

The story is important, sisters and brothers, because on the one hand it is a narrative of religious truth found in Israel over and against its neighbors. Certainly God’s power is present there in the prophet Elisha, in the Israelite woman, and in the river Jordan. But there is still more here for us. This is a story of how the power of God to deliver and heal for the least and for the other is important. Material advantages are not necessarily spiritual advantages. We are all at risk of turning those who are different from us into an “other,” relegated to the margins, ignored and dismissed. Every one of us in probably someone else’s “other” too.

Naaman is harboring expectations and preconceptions about how his healing should take place. He expects special attention from the prophet, and Elisha’s instructions do not match those expectations. The irony of Naaman’s healing is that Elisha’s God does not always match our preconceptions about how healing should occur, and discourages our tendency to see God’s work only in terms of our own desires and expectations. God is clearly working to restore all people, not simply the people of Israel. God is the God of all nations and all people. This is a story about how God is, through the work of Elisha, working in the lives of those who do not count as members of his flock.

Jesus himself was involved in a ministry not so very foreign to the Sinai prophets who ministered to the least and lost, to the lame and leper, all of whom have very little value in the eyes of the religious powers and principalities. Jesus’ work to expand and pronounce goodness and healing for all the least and lost despite of religious or national orientation is essential and rooted deep in a tradition of a God who has forever sought to work on behalf of the least and lost. In his remarkable novel “The Overstory,” Richard Powers reminds us that we are all connected:

“The Greeks had a word, xenia—guest friendship—a command to take care of traveling strangers, to open your door to whoever is out there, because anyone passing by, far from home, might be God. Ovid tells the story of two immortals who came to Earth in disguise to cleanse the sickened world. No one would let them in but one old couple, Baucis and Philemon. And their reward for opening their door to strangers was to live on after death as trees—an oak and a linden—huge and gracious and intertwined. What we care for, we will grow to resemble. And what we resemble will hold us, when we are us no longer. . . .”

Well, this past Friday, in the sea of humanity running down Peachtree, blessed by colleagues on this very hill, I was reminded that I am not the same runner I once was, even as I have grown to resemble that for which I care. This was brought painfully home to me when I looked at a few of my Peachtree Road Race times from 30 and 40 years ago. I recalled the story about the preacher Billy Graham, whom many of us grew up hearing. When Billy Graham was 92 years-old, he was struggling with Parkinson’s disease. In January, a month before his 93rd birthday, leaders in Charlotte, North Carolina invited their favorite son Billy Graham to a luncheon in his honor. Billy initially hesitated to accept the invitation because of his struggles with Parkinson’s disease. But the Charlotte leaders said, ‘We don’t expect a major address. Just come and let us honor you.’ So, he agreed. After wonderful things were said about him, Dr. Graham stepped to the podium, looked at the crowd, and said:

I’m reminded today of Albert Einstein, the great physicist who this month has been honored by Time magazine as the Man of the Century. Einstein was once traveling from Princeton on a train, when the conductor came down the aisle, punching the tickets of every passenger. When he came to Einstein, Einstein reached in his vest pocket. He couldn’t find his ticket, so he reached in his trouser pockets. It wasn’t there. He looked in his briefcase but couldn’t find it. Then he looked in the seat beside him. He still couldn’t find it. “The conductor said, “Dr. Einstein, I know who you are. We all know who you are. I’m sure you bought a ticket. Don’t worry about it.” Einstein nodded appreciatively. The conductor continued down the aisle punching tickets. As he was ready to move to the next car, he turned around and saw the great physicist down on his hands and knees looking under his seat for his ticket. “The conductor rushed back and said, ‘Dr. Einstein, Dr. Einstein, don’t worry, I know who you are…no problem. You don’t need a ticket. I’m sure you bought one.’ Einstein looked at him and said, “Young man, I too, know who I am. What I don’t know is where I’m going.”

Having said that Billy Graham continued, “See the suit I’m wearing? It’s a brand-new suit. My children, and my grandchildren are telling me I’ve gotten a little slovenly in my old age. I used to be a bit more fastidious. So, I went out and bought a new suit for this luncheon and one more occasion. You know what that occasion is? This is the suit in which I’ll be buried. But when you hear I’m dead, I don’t want you to immediately remember the suit I’m wearing. I want you to remember this: “I not only know who I am. I also know where I’m going.” “Life without God,’ he said, “is like an unsharpened pencil – it has no point.”

I thought about this story as I ran down Peachtree on Friday. I paused at my beloved Cathedral, where I was ordained, and served for many years, and I received the blessing of Holy Spirit water from my colleagues. I gave thanks for the counseling center where I see after my patients, and this complicated, wonderful hometown in which I was born on Boulevard so many years ago. Good Friday had happened. And resurrection and healing, a kind of Jordan River baptism, had happened too in that wonderful sea of humanity. I had already received the life of a 70-year-old runner. The difference was Pentecost, a Holy Spirit renewal. I was not sure where I was going, but then, as Wendell Berry said,

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,

we have come to our real work

and when we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

I think Naaman understood this upon rising, dripping from the waters of his baptism in the Jordan…a baptism that foreshadowed Jesus’ baptizing us with water through the Holy Spirit. I’ve never had leprosy, but like Naaman, I too have been guilty of arrogance, and thoughtless efforts to control things not mine to control, usually born of fear and hubris. What we have in common was the shadow side of our unreflective arrogance, keeping us in bondage and stuck in relation to life-giving changes available to us. We all need healing from something. God often works through that which is foreign and strange, and Jesus, like Elisha, makes it clear that the grace of God is extended to everyone. My sisters and brothers in Christ, may the better angels of our nature prevail, and remind us that the love of Jesus, inviting us to join him in his restorative and healing vulnerability, is available to everyone, and we grow to resemble that which for which we care most deeply, and to which we give our hearts. Amen.

Proper 8 – Katharine Armentrout

No Turning Back

This week’s Gospel reading makes clear that Jesus has not read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” He doesn’t wrap his invitation to discipleship in slick or comfortable words. He doesn’t minimize the costs to attract more followers. “He doesn’t hide the hard stuff in fine print,” as one writer put it. Debi Thomas, “Journey With Jesus”, Proper 8, Year c, 2019.

In fact, it seems as if He almost pushes potential followers away: “I’ll follow you anywhere!” an eager young man says and, in response, Jesus tells him basically, “You have no idea what you will be getting yourself into.” 

This week’s readings are not easy.

They challenge us and make clear that if we want a disciple’s life that is comfortable rather than costly, and stable rather than transformative, then we don’t really understand what Jesus wants from us as His disciples.

As we encounter Jesus this week in the readings, His face is set like stone for Jerusalem. 

His face is set for confrontation with the powers of both church and state – the Rulers of the Synagogue and those of the Roman Empire.

He knows his life is coming to an end and that his ministry on earth will be ending too. So…He is anxious to ensure that His ministry which powerfully demonstrates God’s loving kingdom will be continued by those who come after Him.

Disciples are on his mind – those who have been with him and those that he still has time to call to Him. 

And He doesn’t hesitate to let them know what will be demanded of them.

In other words, Jesus’ interaction with those he encounters on his way to Jerusalem is a “truth-in-advertising” moment about discipleship in the kingdom of God – he does not mince words.

First, we get a lesson in the nature of God’s kingdom and its demands: We get a sense of that in the encounter in Samaria.

The Samaritans, who worshipped differently from those in Jerusalem, saw that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem and would not be staying to minister to them on this journey, so they decided not “receive” him.   

The reaction of James and John who were with him was “hot” – Remember these are the twins that were called the “Sons of Thunder”; they could be quick-tempered and feisty.

James and John were deeply offended by the Samaritan refusal to welcome Jesus,

They knew that failure to offer hospitality was a violation of sacred Jewish tradition. Hospitality was always to be offered.

They were so incensed that they wanted to call down fire on Samaritans. Maybe they thought that since the prophet Elijah had called down fire on those who had been sent to arrest him that it would be appropriate…that it would be appropriate.

So who did Jesus “rebuke” for that denial of hospitality? Not the Samaritans…Why you might ask?

Because violence and retribution are not the way of the Kingdom. The call, Jesus reminds them and us, is to bring life, not death –

Even to those who reject us…the way of Jesus is to practice forgiveness and forbearance, not retribution and revenge. 

Love and forgiveness are the way of Jesus – forgiveness, tolerance, patience in our dealings with those who challenge us – – that is the way of Jesus.

Next we get a lesson from Jesus on the hardships we might expect as we walk the way of His discipleship – 

An eager young man (I am assuming he is young just because of his exuberance)- comes running to Jesus, saying, “I will follow you wherever you may go!”

Jesus, instead of saying “Welcome, brother, sign up here!”, warns him. “ This will not be a day at the beach – no place really to call your home, no guaranteed welcome, not even an assurance of safety.”

As one writer put it, this young man may have been amazed by the miracles and astounded by Jesus’ teaching – the walking on water, the multiplication of the loaves and fish, the Sermon on the mount. And who wouldn’t follow a man who could raise the dead and turn water into wine?

This man appears sincere in his desire to become a disciple but …he has not yet counted the cost.

Jesus wants to be certain that he understands that the life of discipleship may be hard, may be uncertain, without amenities, and often not subject to the kindness of strangers.

It may not be the path to a life of security, stability, and success that is valued so highly in many cultures. 

Next, Jesus actually calls out to another man whom he encounters. He says: “Follow me”.

And that man’s response?  “Yes,…but”.

“Yes, but first let me bury my father”, which in the Jewish culture is a sacred duty and in our culture is absolutely expected. 

And how does Jesus respond to that seemingly reasonable reply? He replies in a curt, almost dismissive way, saying: “Let the dead bury their own dead”! 

I don’t know about you, but that strikes me at first that it was not Christ-like, that it was a harsh, unfeeling response.

But, given what was on the mind and heart of Jesus at that time, I think Jesus wanted the man he called, and he wants us, to understand that when we sign on to follow Him,

there may be times when our discipleship will distress, disrupt or disappoint our families, or times perhaps that it might cause a fracture of a long-time friendship.

But Jesus was a man-on-a-mission who wanted, and still wants, His followers to share His same intensity for God’s world. 

He then encountered a third man who also was willing to join Him, but this man wanted to say “good-by” or “farewell” to his family first. 

But Jesus said, again in what we hear as harsh tones:

“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Now for those of us unfamiliar with old-fashioned farm equipment, apparently in order to plow a straight furrow for seeds, you were required to keep your eyes straight ahead…not turn back to see what you left behind. In other words, you needed to stay focused. 

Jesus seems to be saying in an urgent voice: “Things that make you hesitate or take away your focus on ministry, then those things diminish the ‘sense of urgency’ or sense of mission for the Gospel.”  

And wouldn’t some of us respond: “Sure Lord, I’ll follow you, but first I have a number of really important things I have to get done. Then I can really be your disciple.”

The list of things in our lives that seem important can be endless and that’s precisely Jesus’ point.

“If our ‘to-do’ lists end with Jesus instead of beginning with Jesus, we may never get to Jesus at all.” 

So…what are we to make of all of this?

I can almost hear Jesus asking each of us as individuals and as a church:

“Are you willing to walk with me as Disciples?  Are you willing to go where I lead you and not count the cost?”

I think these readings are calling us to take our own spiritual-discipleship inventory…

Just as those in AA try to take an inventory of their lives, maybe we are called to look at our lives, both individually and as a church, to see how well we are making Jesus’ call a real priority.

To see how are we living out Jesus’ call “to love one another” in thought, word, and deed. How close to His call of “discipleship” we are.

For many of us, I think, we really make an effort to live lives of caring and thoughtfulness. We come to church, we donate to wonderful causes, we volunteer at CARES or the Weekend Snack program, we check in on our neighbors, we vote but…but…

Are we serving sacrificially and loving extravagantly, as Suzy McCall, the founder of the Lamb Institute has said:

that is how Jesus and the Apostles define discipleship.

How wide is our circle of love and inclusion?

Are we attentive to the broken places in this world?

And do we hesitate to speak up – to speak up for justice, to stand up for those that our world rejects?

These are the priorities of God’s kingdom and I wonder how well we are doing?

I know that at times the issues may seem overwhelming and any response we might give as adding little, but Jesus would not think so.

We may worry that we don’t know how to respond, but I can hear Jesus saying, “Just follow me, just try!”

Brain McClaren, a powerful author and pastor, recently wrote about discipleship. He said, “We’ll be tempted, no doubt, to let ourselves be tamed, toned down, shut up, and glossed over .

But Jesus means for us to stand apart from the status quo, to stand up for what matters, and to stand out as part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

He means for our lives to overcome the blandness and darkness of evil … And our good works, instead of drawing attention to ourselves, those good works will point toward our Lord… And many, I hope, will hear the call to become real followers of Jesus’ way….Brian McClaren (June 22, 2025 Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations)

Jesus’ call is not easy, but…it is oh so powerful and so full of God’s Love. So…let us go, let us follow Jesus. No turning back. Amen

Whitsunday – Year C – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day

Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: John 14:8-17, 25-27

Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Good morning, and welcome to Holy Family on this lovely Pentecost Sunday. We are so very glad you are here, and if you are visiting with us today, a warm and heartfelt Holy Family welcome. Please do introduce yourself and let us get to know you a bit.

Today we celebrate the Holy Spirit among us, and one metaphor is the Fire of Pentecost. Fire is, of course, a paradox. The “paradox of Pentecost fire” refers to the seemingly contradictory nature of the Holy Spirit’s power at Pentecost, which is described as both a consuming fire and a transforming, loving presence. This fire is described in Acts 2:2-3 as a “sound like the rush of a mighty wind” and “tongues as of fire” that rested upon the apostles. While the fire appears to be a force of destruction, it is also used to empower the disciples to share the Gospel message, which is a symbol of God’s love and grace. Fire, in this case, is not meant to burn and destroy, but to transform and empower. The apostles were empowered by the Holy Spirit to speak in different languages, a gift that enabled them to share the message of Jesus to people from all over the world. Moreover, in this case, fire represents the Holy Spirit’s love, which is a powerful force of grace and compassion. It is a force that draws people to God and encourages them to live in accordance with God’s will. The fire of the Holy Spirit is also not just a force of divine power, but also a force that calls for self-giving and sacrifice. Just as the disciples were willing to leave their lives and jobs to follow Jesus, the fire of the Holy Spirit requires a willingness to be used by God, even at the cost of personal comfort. 

Pentecost highlights the connection between God, the disciples, and the people they encountered. The fire represents the unity of the Church and the shared experience of encountering God’s power. It also highlights the connection between individuals and the broader community of believers despite many, many differences across that broader community, just as there are many differences among us, different gifts, graces, and expressions of the Spirit. 

Let me tell you about another experience of fire, one I recalled on our recent trip to visit family in Montana. On this day, we paused on the trail—tired, hot, and momentarily liberated from the weight of our heavy packs—and I sat down on a scorched, fallen log, grateful for the respite, in what only three years earlier had been a verdant, old growth Montana forest. Now, the charred remains of spruce, lodge-pole pine, and fir were all that I could see. Burned sentinels of formerly majestic trees rose ahead and above us, and those no longer standing seemed to litter the forest floor as if some great force had arbitrarily tossed them and let them lay where they fell. Chaos and destruction seemed all around. I found myself feeling sad, and lamenting the loss of what I knew had once been a fecund, flourishing forest ecosystem.

I was in the Scapegoat Wilderness area of Montana with dear friends from graduate school, an annual, much anticipated sojourn, and this was not what I had in mind when I flew into Great Falls a few days before. I’d had visions of escaping my native southern heat by hiking in cool, pristine sub-alpine forests, and I now found myself in a forest radically changed by fire; ravaged, and permanently damaged. Or was it? Was I seeing the whole picture?

Several days prior to our Montana hike, we converged on Great Falls, Montana, where Scott, the younger brother of one of our cohort, lives and owns a small cabin in the Bob Marshall Wilderness area, about 40 miles east of Augusta, Montana. We planned to spend 5-6 days backpacking in what is affectionately called “the Bob,” some of the most magnificent wilderness in the country. When the plane landed in Great Falls I became immediately aware of dense smoke in the air, caused by wildfires in the wilderness area 80 miles away, where we were headed. Once assembled, we loaded up the truck and drove west toward the “Ahorn” fire (fires out west are typically named for a local, distinctive feature). Smoke filled the horizon, and I wondered what lay ahead. Would the USFS fight the fire, or would they let it burn? Fire management is a complex issue, as I learned during my Montana stay. The Native Americans understood that fire, though dangerous and potentially destructive, could also be life-giving. They often intentionally set fires for agricultural and hunting purposes. Following suit, the USFS understands that fire is nature’s way of restoring and replenishing the forest. Indeed, they often let fires burn themselves out, unless they threaten homes, businesses, or other human-related areas.[i] After a day at the cabin, monitoring the fire—now grown from 8,000 to 15,000 acres, we consulted the USFS and changed our backcountry route to a more southerly course, out of the Lewis and Clark Wilderness and into the Scapegoat Wilderness area.

Our hiking trip thus re-routed to the south began at a trail head in an area burned by a large and ferocious fire several years earlier. The hot sun, unimpeded by green branches, shone full-force on our single-file procession of backpackers, and served as a compelling and present reminder of the effects of the fire. It was by most outward appearances a scene of utter desolation, and a mordant reminder of the damage being wrought by the Ahorn fire to the north. It was hard to reconcile the forest, wildflowers, lovely meadows and waterfalls we left behind in a smoky haze with the pyrrhic terrain through which we now walked. And, although I knew that the sub-alpine lake where we planned to camp for the night was not in the burn area, and I consoled myself with images of a clear mountain lake, cool breezes, and a deep forest of many, many shades of green, this was a dramatically different world. Truth told it seemed to reflect aspects of my own inner state. Only a few months after the death of my mother, and the leaving for college of our younger son, I realized that I, too, was adjusting to significant changes in the emotional ecology of my own life. In some ways, the landscape around me—an ecological system amid radical change—seemed to mirror some of the changes in my world as well. I too, was in uncertain, suspect terrain.

After several miles of hiking on this hot day, we stopped for water and rest still solidly ensconced in the burn. As we sat, quietly, I began to look around. Amidst desolation, I began to see that life was everywhere, pushing upward in infinite detail, where my vision had been limited only to what was most obvious to the eye. I caught a glimpse of a mule-deer, drawn to the open terrain by the lush, waist-high vegetation now growing in the sunlight. Light, life-giving and fierce, seemed to have given birth to life lying in the trees, and in the soil, all along. Fireweed, a lovely plant, with lavender and pink flowers, that grows in just such burned-over land, was everywhere round us. How had I missed it?

As I listened, and watched, and finally began to pay attention, I heard a low, buzzing hum, and then began to see that the fireweed had attracted hundreds of hummingbirds, dodging and darting, feeding on the fireweed nectar, along with bees and other insects. Birds, marmots, chipmunks, wildlife of all kinds seemed suddenly visible, where before I had seen only blackened trees and desolation. Life seemed to be flourishing where once there I had seen only death, and destruction. And I had not seen it, in part because I had not paid attention to the moment—and to the larger, more complex picture it contained. Focusing only on the blackened trees straight ahead and above me, and on my fear of the fires to the north, fears stirred by the landscape all around me, I failed to see the profusion of life flourishing right beneath my feet. Seeds of lodgepole pines, needing only the intense heat of the fire to release their inner Chi—the deepest, essential life breath and energy, and I had both literally and metaphorically not seen the emerging new forest for the desolate, burned trees. To contend with high-impact fire, lodge-pole pine produce cones that open following exposure to extreme heat (termed ‘serotiny’). This serotinous strategy is one piece of evidence that fire was historically a prevalent disturbance across the lodgepole pine ecosystems of the Rocky Mountains. And, though trees are the big players in forests, understory species (like grasses, shrubs, and fungal networks) also have a strong evolutionary relationship with fire. Following fire, areas dominated by sprouting species (aspen, cottonwood, Gambel oak, grasses, and many shrubs) tend to rapidly return to pre-fire conditions. These species, many of which were previously rare or absent, flourish under the new conditions. Indeed, flourishing was everywhere, in stark contrast to the all too evident reminders of what had been, on the surface, a very challenging time for this forest ecosystem. The forest was exhibiting profound resilience amidst what appeared on the surface profound destruction. One needed only to quiet oneself, sit, and pay attention to see it.

When we held our first healing service, almost a year ago, I shared a brief version of this story with the 15 faithful souls gathered in our Holy Family chapel. I reminded us all—me included, that “wholeness” and healing may not always take the forms with which we are most familiar. The emphasis in these services is “care” as opposed to “cure.” By gathering—the very act of showing up—we are co-participants in healing, solace, nurture, and compassion. Even as our church, like so many churches, is in a season of transition, we are flourishing in so many ways. At the heart of this flourishing is imagination, creativity, and our intentional cultivation of relationships, and hospitality. After the service we gathered for lunch, as we will do today for our second annual Pentecost lunch and singalong, and the laughter and conversation around the table were also healing for us all. In so doing we reminded ourselves that providing opportunities for connection can heal us all, including mind, body, and spirit. We are doing more of that here, and I am so very proud of you all.

Last summer, I gathered in Northern Colorado with friends from graduate school, a trip almost canceled due to fires in the area. A week of heavy rain extinguished the fires and we were able to proceed with this annual trip. The valley where we spend the week is at 9’000’of elevation, at the confluence of Rocky Mountain National Park and the Comanche Wilderness, and was the site of significant fires in 1994 and 2022. On a trail run through the former burn area, I delighted in the young Aspen, spruce, and pines are flourishing in outward and visible signs of resilience, coming back to life in myriad ways. Dear Ones, we remain in a season of transition here at Holy Family and like the Holy Fires of Pentecost, this too can be a paradox. Atul Gawande, in his lovely book “Being Mortal,” says “For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A happy life may be empty. A difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.” Yes, we are our stories. Let’s make our story here one of grace, and compassion, excellence, and radical hospitality. And let’s promise to do this together, shall we. Let our hearts not be troubled and be not afraid. Let’s be Pentecost people, not bound by old fears and patterns but open to what the Spirit in Her mischief may be doing here, and now. Amen.

Seventh Sunday of Easter – Year C – Katharine Armentrout

Revealing God and Our Lord Jesus Christ

One of the gifts of working on a sermon is an “aha” moment that can come…not always but sometimes.

And this past week, as I have been reading, studying, thinking and praying about the scripture we have, I had such an “aha” moment. 

Like many of you, for years I have studied Jesus, his parables, his miracles, his intellectual skirmishes with the Pharisees, His prayer times. 

And it has been about “Jesus” and what He was doing, and is doing for us. It was clear to me that Jesus was faithful to what He believed God was calling Him to do and to be.

But this week, it became clear to me that all this time in Jesus’ ministry it was much more: He was revealing to those he was with, and to us, the very nature of our God!! Who our God is, what our God desires, what our God wants.

Now… for many of you that might not be a revelation but it was to me.

Jesus, when he fed the 5,000, when He healed the paralytic, confronted the authorities, comforted the widow, raised the daughter of Jairius, He was not only being Jesus, Son of God, not only showing us the priorities of our God

but He was revealing the very nature of our God…

the very nature of our God.

Jesus, by His actions, showed us a loving, compassionate and, at times, righteous, God who was always, always desirous of a relationship with the disciples and with us.

The God Jesus reveals is not a remote, austere, ready-to-punish God…as some grew hearing about.

But our God is desirous of being in relationship, desirous of health, wholeness for all God’s people. Think of the Parable of the Prodigal Son  

And it is clear that Jesus’ relationship with God and God’s relationship with us is a priority. We see that clearly when we examine the prayer Jesus prayed at the time of the Last Supper, which is our gospel reading today from John.

First, Jesus prayed about His relationship with God, saying: “I glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do, so now Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in Your presence before the world existed.” 

Then he prayed that God would protect His disciples:

“ And now I am no longer in the world but they are in the world. And I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in Your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

And then, in the final portion of the prayer which is our Gospel text this morning, Jesus prays to God for us- for those who will come to believe through the word and example of the Disciples.

“I ask not only on behalf of these, (the disciples) but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word…that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us…”

And so, as we know from the stories of the disciples after Pentecost, and those faithful who came after them and from our own personal stories, we are in a continuing, loving relationship

a continuing, loving, intertwined community of God, Jesus, and the faithful down the generations.

All are very much part of the plan of the ongoing witness to God and God’s love and the saving power of life in Jesus Christ.

And that was what Paul was driven, driven, to tell the world – that in our God and in Jesus Christ is life, life abundantly.

We heard about his ministry last week with Lydia, the dealer in purple cloth. His words of teaching and prayer opened her heart to our Lord and to God’s kingdom. And she, with, all her family were baptized.

Paul and Silas remained in Phillipi, teaching and preaching and praying after his conversion of Lydia and her family. Unfortunately his presence caught the attention of a slave girl, a fortune teller with “a spirit of divination.”  She was an important source of money and profit for her owners.

The slave girl would follow Paul and Silas, and because she could see the nature of their ministry, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”

Eventually Paul became so irritated by her stalking of them that he called the spirit out from her. Thus she could no longer prophesy and that angered her owners, who saw their profits evaporate!

Then, as one writer put it, things got ugly! The owners wanted Paul and Silas punished. So, not mentioning their anger at the loss of revenue… instead cleverly accused Paul and Silas of disturbing the peace and of being Jews – a bit of Roman anti-Semitism, something we recognize today, something sure to rouse the people.

The crowd rioted and the Magistrates then ordered beaten with rods.

After a severe beating, they were thrown in prison and the magistrates ordered the jailer to keep them securely. So the jailer, following the orders put them into the very deepest cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Paul and Silas are a reminder, I think, that the way of discipleship is not always easy.

So about midnight, the very darkest hour both literally and figuratively, we might think that that Paul and Silas would be anxious about what would come next for them,

but no, what are they doing? They are singing hymns so that the other prisoners can hear. I can almost hear them singing “Let’s go down to the river to pray!

And scripture tells us “Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.”

Note that Paul and Silas are in Phillipi, which is in northern Greece, and that is an earthquake zone. Now I don’t know whether God called down that earthquake or whether the earthquake was one of those, random “odd of God” moments.

Regardless of its origin, Paul and Silas remain on their benches singing hymns after the earthquake, despite being freed of their shackles. They don’t take off like some sensible folks might.

The jailer came running out with his sword, terrified and about to kill himself because he was sure they had escaped and he would be held responsible for the jail break. That could mean death for him at the hands of the authorities. But Paul yelled out, “It’s OK, we’re all still here.”

The jailer, I think overcome, called for lights and saw that they were still there, and he took them outside and asked, “What must I do to be saved.”

Now to us, this sounds like a religious question. It is a faith question, but he may have merely been asking “how do I get out of this mess?”

But Paul and Silas heard it as we do, as a religious question and answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And that is what happened.

The jailer, overcome by their faith in our God and in the saving power of Jesus…overcome by their faithfulness,

brought them up into his house and set food before them; Paul and Silas spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in the house. And he and his entire family were baptized, rejoicing that the jailer had become a believer in God.

How contagious is faith like that of Paul and Silas. Certainly that is what the jailer saw and felt. That is what Lydia saw and felt. Phillipi grew into a powerful Christian community, thanks to their witness.

Too soon, though, the original disciples who had followed the living Jesus, and those who were instrumental in drawing others to believe in the saving power of Jesus, died out.

And thus the witnessing to the our loving God and to the risen Christ, became the special privilege and responsibility of the community of believers they had taught.

The early Christians, who believed without actually witnessing our Lord, showed their love and commitment to our faith by their mutual caring, sharing, and by their willingness to forgive. They helped build the church of believers as we now know it.  

But these early witnesses should not be seen as “the good old days or a bygone era”. Instead, as one writer put it,  

“Their witness should challenge us. Their idealism begs to be reflected in us. Their courage urges us not allow our tentative efforts to falter…or to hold us back.” Patricia Sanchez, The National Catholic Reporter (April 3, 2009)

We are all very much part of the plan of the ongoing witness to God and God’s love which was made clear in the life and ministry of Jesus.

We are in a direct line with the Disciples and the earliest followers; and we need to proclaim our faith as loudly as they did…   

continuing to reveal the loving nature of our God and the saving power of life in Jesus Christ.

That is our call and our commitment.

In fact, the Vision Statement for Holy Family makes clear that this is our mission. It says our mission is:

“Revealing Jesus through our actions by extending His love for us through our service to others.” 

I might suggest that we could amend that vision statement to say “Revealing our God and our Lord Jesus Christ by extending their love through our service to others”…

My prayer is that we, you and I, can see ourselves as part of God’s life and the saving ministry of Jesus Christ. Don’t forget that we are who Jesus was praying for on the night before he was crucified.  And his prayer reminds us that our unity, our “oneness”, with God and with Him is to be a sign to the world of God’s love for all people in Jesus Christ. Amen