Author: Rosemary Lovelace

11th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, Year C – Mark Winward

When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. – Luke 13:12–13 (NRSV)

Last week I said that if a Lectionary selection is confusing, difficult to understand, or hard to believe, that’s exactly what the preacher should be focusing on. This is one of those Sundays. And because today’s Gospel account is particularly difficult for us to swallow as 21^st century Christians, I think it can get in the way of the real message behind the story. This morning, I want to suggest that there are three different levels we can view this Gospel account of Jesus healing the disabled woman.

First, this story addresses the reality of spiritual burdens. Particularly in the West, we tend not to consider the possibility that some conditions are not just physical but also carry a spiritual dimension. We treat sickness as merely sickness, and violence in people as merely violence. Yet I think most of us can recall individuals who are so weighed down spiritually—perhaps because of abuse or poor self-image—that their physical demeanor reflects that heaviness. The daily burdens we carry can snowball over the years into spiritual outcomes that sometimes express themselves physically.

Still, to focus only on spiritual burdens sidesteps most troublesome aspect of this passage. Given the rest of Luke’s Gospel, the “spirit” that crippled the woman struggled with might more plainly be interpreted as a demonic spirit. For many Westerners, the very idea of demons conjures up cheesy movie images of heads spinning around and victims speaking in strange voices. C. S. Lewis addressed this in The Screwtape Letters: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” Christians often fall into this very trap—either an absolute denial of evil, or a paranoid tendency to see a demon under every bush.

For those of you veterans who have experienced combat, I hardly need to remind you of the reality of Evil (with a capital E). Before I went to Iraq, another chaplain warned me that you couldn’t only see but also feel the spiritual oppression in that war-torn land. I didn’t believe him—until I witnessed things I prefer not to describe, sights that I can only describe as demonic. Now, I realize this kind of talk makes people squirm, but it always amazes me how easily American Christians dismiss the demonic. Consider this: most Americans believe in angels, usually influenced by biblical descriptions. Strangely enough, there are even people who deny the existence of God but still believe in angels! So I ask: “If angels exist, do you believe they are at least as intelligent as we are?” Most people would have to respond “yes.” If so, do they have free will—the ability to make independent choices? Again, most would agree. And if angels can make independent choices, is it possible that some might have chosen to turn against God? Hmm…. Scripture tells us that Satan and his demons began as angels who rebelled against God, and for a limited time have sought to corrupt and destroy God’s creation.

Of course, rather than denying the existence of the demonic, we also have to avoid the opposite extreme. Contrary to many pop-preachers, the Bible doesn’t teach demons are lurking behind every misfortune. It speaks of them in terms of “legions” or “thousands,” not billions. Still, a few powerful beings can certainly raise a lot of hell (pardon the pun)! More importantly, the Prince of Darkness is unlikely to make a cameo appearance in your life—unless you are of extreme strategic importance (which most of us are not). Only one being in this universe is capable of being in more than one place at one time, and that is God. The cartoon image of an angel on one shoulder and the Devil on the other is simply not a Christian concept. Sure, the Bible talks about being attacked by the Devil – but in the same way we might say an army is attacked by Hitler or Putin, even though they themselves are not physically present on the battlefield.

The truth is: the darkness of our own souls is more than enough to bring about most of the trials and temptations we face. When we give in to that darkness, we contribute to Satan’s ultimate objective: to corrupt and destroy God’s creation. Yet the end has already been determined. The good news is that Satan can never triumph over God; and, according to today’s story, he need not triumph in your life either. Whether we interpret the woman as weighed down by years of a spiritual burden or as the victim of demonic activity, the point remains the same: Jesus set her free. And the implication is that he can do the same spiritually for you and for me!

But this story isn’t only about spiritual healing; it’s also about physical healing – and that’s equally difficult for us to accept today. Yet most religions—and even modern science—acknowledge there’s more to this world than meets the eye. For Christians, the central affirmation of faith we affirm every Sunday is this: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. If I’ve chosen to believe in a universe where dead men don’t necessarily stay dead, it’s hardly much of a leap of faith to believe a spinal misalignment might be miraculously corrected. If you spend as much time in hospital ministry as I have, it’s difficult to dismiss the possibility that God does heal. Sometimes he uses medicine; other times, the healing has no apparent explanation. Why some are healed and others are not is a mystery we’ll not solve this side of heaven. That’s why I continue to pray for people’s physical healing—not as some magical incantation but as an act of aligning our will with God’s will, placing ourselves and others in the loving hands of God.

That attitude of trust and openness is, I believe, at the very heart of this story. The dramatic exorcism or miraculous healing may be the most spectacular or unbelievable part of this story, but I don’t think it’s Luke’s point. Rather, he uses the woman’s healing as a foil to highlight the attitudes of those around her. The woman came to synagogue with her burden, approached Jesus with her need, and left praising God. The senior rabbi, however, responded not with praise but with criticism—rebuking Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. In modern terms, that’s as petty as someone stopping to save the life of a roadside accident victim, only to be given a ticket for double parking! Anyone making such a charge would be missing the point entirely – and so was this local rabbi.

God was working right there in their midst, but Jesus’ opponents were so determined to tear him down that they missed the point. God had given this extraordinary individual, Jesus of Nazareth, the power to heal in mind, body, and spirit – and the implications of this were beyond their imaginations. Rather than marveling at God’s power at work, they got hung up on ritual. Now that can be a danger even today – particularly for liturgical traditions like ours. Of course, we should take our worship seriously, offering God our very best. But when form overshadows substance, like the Pharisees we miss the point. This story serves as a warning for us to practice modicum of humility, to remember that the point is to celebrate God’s grace, not our ritual.

And that, I think, is Luke’s point. We can get so easily distracted in the details that we miss what God is really doing. First, like the woman who might not have sought Jesus out, we can become so focused on our problems that we fail to turn to God at all. Second, we can get so caught up in the demonic elements of the story that we miss what God is doing. Finally, we can become so rigid in our rules that we fail to recognize God’s work when it comes in an unexpected form.

Ultimately, this story isn’t about suffering, or evil, or ritual. It’s about God’s work in the world. And when you live your life not by looking for a demon under every bush, but by looking for God’s hand at work in your life, it’s nothing short of transformative! And instead of looking down burdened by despair, you begin to look up in hope—and life takes on a whole new perspective! Amen.

10th Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 15 Year C – Mark Winward

Jesus said, Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division… [families] will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” – Luke 12:51, 53 NRSV

Today’s Gospel presents some of Jesus’ harshest words—verses that might not be most preachers’ first choice. It has always frustrated me that when a reading contains something difficult to hear, hard to believe, or seemingly incomprehensible—and the preacher dodges it. But that’s exactly what the preacher should be addressing. So it is in that place we find ourselves with today’s Gospel reading.

If we were to list ten of the hardest sayings in the Gospels, today’s passage would undoubtedly make the list. Jesus’ declaration that He came to bring fire, a distressing baptism, and division—even within families—are hardly comforting words. Quite frankly, we’d rather imagine Jesus as a peacemaker than as a home breaker. And it hardly helps to dismiss these sayings as “not authentic to Jesus.” They remain in the Bible—Scripture that the Church, through the ages, felt led to include in the canon.

My hermeneutic—that is, my approach to interpreting Scripture—is to ask: What does the text say? What did it mean? And what does it mean to me? It’s been said that “a text without a context is a pretext.” Be wary of any preacher who quotes multiple verses without considering their surrounding context. Try reading an entire book of the New Testament in one sitting—just as the early Church intended—and you’ll discover a very different perspective.

The second step is to ask what the text meant to its first hearers—real communities, in specific cultural contexts, immersed in a world far removed from ours. Only after allowing the text to speak in its own voice are we ready to ask, What does it mean to me? If we start with that last question, we risk shaping faith into our own image rather than letting it shape us.

In America, we often take religious freedom for granted. Many of us rarely think about it. Yet even today—in our world—choosing to follow Jesus can divide families. Ask a Jewish believer in Jesus, and you may hear a painful story. Messianic Jewish ministries report that many new believers are cut off completely, treated as though they never existed. In parts of the Muslim world, Christianity is tolerated… up to a point. But conversion from Islam? In many countries, it remains a capital crime. And in parts of Asia, families may reject converts entirely, treating them as if they were already dead.

I saw this firsthand while deployed with the Marines to Helmand Province in 2011. The Marines had initiated a program called Voices of Religious Tolerance, meant to demonstrate to Afghans we were not there to destroy their faith or culture. We invited mullahs from across the region to the provincial capital—nearly 500 men sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor of a space no larger than our parish hall. While most Americans there had no interpreters, I was one of the few present with my own translator.

Our first speaker, a Muslim U.S. Navy chaplain, spoke in Arabic and closely followed our talking points. Many mullahs—some unable to read Arabic—were astonished to hear an American who could not only read the language of The Book but fluently speak it. Then the senior chaplain of the Jordanian military, a coalition partner, took the podium. Speaking in Arabic, he told the mullahs that the Taliban were “bad guys”—because they kill Muslims. Then, representing Voices of Religious Tolerance, he said: “According to the Holy Koran, there are only three reasons a Muslim can kill another: if a Muslim kills another Muslim, you can kill him; if a Muslim is homosexual, you can kill him; if a Muslim converts to another religion, you can kill him. But those are the only reasons you can kill a fellow Muslim.” At that, he was enthusiastically applauded by the gathering. So much for Religious Tolerance…

Even today, in many Muslim-majority countries, Jews and Christians are tolerated as People of the Book—but conversion from Islam is still punishable by death. As of 2025, the death penalty for apostasy remains on the books in Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. While not all enforce the law, harassment, imprisonment, and civil penalties remain common.

In our churches, we often downplay the cost of discipleship. Yet in much of the world, Christianity is still scandalous. It always has been. In the early Church, Christians weren’t executed simply for worshiping Jesus—they were condemned because they worshiped only Him, rejecting Rome’s gods. Rome could have added Jesus to its pantheon of foreign deities. But the Gospel’s central claim—that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him—was offensive then and remains so now.

Our culture often reshapes Jesus into a figure easier to accept: the ultimate peacemaker, avoiding confrontation, never speaking of judgment, only preaching love and tolerance. We hear of “Jesus the sage,” “Jesus the religious genius,” “Jesus the social revolutionary.” Indeed, He was wise, deeply spiritual, and in many ways revolutionary. But none of those portraits explain why He was crucified, why He drew such opposition, or why His movement still transforms the world.

A witty teacher would not have been executed during Passover. A gentle spiritual genius would not have been nailed to a cross. And a purely political revolutionary might have been killed, but would not have birthed a global Church centered on Himself rather than politics. These “safe” portraits fail to match the Jesus of the Gospels.

Luke’s passage challenges us to see the real Jesus—the one who brings division, who forces choices not just about how we live but about who He is and what He means in God’s plan. He is the way into relationship with the Father. That truth unsettled people then, and it unsettles people now. Jesus’ call is not “peace at any price.” It is a summons that cuts to the heart, dividing those who will follow from those who will turn away. It is not about merely knowing about God—it is about knowing Him personally, walking in His ways, and letting His truth redefine every part of our lives. That truth is not always welcome. In our culture, it may cost you relationships, status, or comfort. But the call remains: build your life on the unshakable reality that ultimate truth is found not in shifting political trends or cultural fashions, but in Christ alone. He is our Redeemer, our hope, and our foundation. And when we stand on Him, we may not find the world’s applause—but we will find life that cannot be taken away.

9th Sunday after Pentecost – Mark Winward

Audacious Faith

At first glance, today’s readings may seem unrelated. But look closer, and a thread begins to emerge—one that ties Isaiah, Hebrews, and Luke together. Woven through each passage is an audacious faith: a bold, risk-taking trust in God we are called to live out.

In Isaiah (1:1, 10–20), the young prophet is blunt with God’s people. Their outward good works, he says, are meaningless without an inner change of heart. Offerings without repentance are empty. Prayers without transformation go unheard. Instead, Isaiah calls them to something deeper: “Learn to do good; seek justice; rescue the oppressed” (v.17). True worship is not just ritual—it’s the transformation of both heart and action.

Hebrews (11:1–3, 8–16) picks up this theme, focusing on Abraham’s faithfulness. This chapter is sometimes called the “roll call of the heroes of the faith.” But as my old professor Reggie Fuller would say, “The Bible knows no heroes… heroes are witnesses to their own achievements; whereas in Hebrews 11 the great figures of salvation history are brought forth, not for their heroism, but for their faith.” He defined faith as “taking a risk to trust God at God’s word when God makes promises about the future.”

The challenge is that Hebrews 11:1 is often misunderstood. The NRSV says, “Faith is the assurance (hypostasis) of things hoped for, the conviction (elegchos) of things not seen.” Yet those Greek words are never used that way anywhere else in the New Testament. A better rendering—one that matches their usual meaning—might be: “Faith is the reality (hypostasis) of things hoped for, the proof (elegchos) of things not seen.”

That small shift changes everything. Faith is not just an inner feeling. It is hope made real in action. It is lived, embodied, risk-taking trust. Hope is something we feel. Faith is something we do—and the risks we take for God become the shape of our lives.

Luke 12:32–40 brings this into sharp focus. Jesus calls his disciples to live with that kind of readiness and courage. A good sermon, it’s said, “comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.” These words of Jesus do both—they reassure the fearful and unsettle the complacent.

Jesus warns us to be ready for his coming. Now many churches dwell on the Second Coming “like a thief in the night.” But truth be told, it makes little difference whether Jesus comes in clouds of glory or comes for me because of a wrong move on GA-515 this afternoon. Either way, he’s coming—and I need to be ready. In the meantime, Jesus calls us to choose: trust over fear, anticipation over dread, the Kingdom of God over the distractions of this world.

This choice is grounded in our baptismal covenant (BCP 302):

• Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?
• Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?
• Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
• Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?

(So if anyone ever asks you—as an Episcopalian—whether you know Jesus as your Savior and Lord, the answer should be a confident “Yes”!)

Then we promise to live that faith (BCP 304): to continue in the apostles’ teaching, to resist evil, to proclaim the Gospel in word and deed, to serve Christ in all persons, and to strive for justice, peace, and the dignity of every human being.

This covenant is not a checklist of good works. Without inner transformation, the list means little. But when we turn from sin, trust in Christ’s grace, and vow to live for him, our outward actions naturally flow from an inward faith.

Christian discipleship is not for the faint-hearted. It calls for an audacious faith—a faith that risks, a faith that acts, a faith that shapes how we live today because we trust God’s promises for all our tomorrows.

Faithfully yours,

8th 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.