Author: Rosemary Lovelace

4th Sunday after Pentecost

Year B Proper 6 – Father’s Day – Bill Harkins

Mark 4:26-34

4:26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,

4:27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.

4:28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.

4:29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

4:30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?

4:31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;

4:32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

4:33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;

4:34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

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. If you are visiting with us this morning, we welcome you and hope you will let us know who you are. Regardless, we are so glad you are here today! And Happy Father’s Day to those for whom this applies in any way—those of you who have mentored, parented, and been paternal in any way, in so doing, caring for others along the way. Thank you to each of you!

Some of you may have heard me tell stories about my paternal grandfather, whose hardware store in middle Georgia was a magical place for me growing up. In my mind’s eye I can see myself as a young boy, following along behind him as he assisted his customers with grace, and humor, and care. On this Father’s Day I remember with deep gratitude his presence in my life, and his quiet, graceful presence. Whatever needed building, or replacing, or repairing, I believed he had the answer, and it could be found somewhere in the mysterious recesses of his store. It was filled from floor to ceiling with anything needed to supply the county seat of an area of Georgia still deeply agricultural in orientation. It smelled like mystery in there, a wonderful combination of leather, cottonseed oil, hot coffee, and fresh apples on an early fall day, or peaches in summertime, which could also be purchased in season near the cash register.  

My favorite spot in the store was atop his roll-top desk, where I could survey the entire store, and go largely unnoticed. From this vantage point, often armed with a small bottled coke from the cooler and a comic book, I could pass away an entire summer afternoon. Motes of dust rose in beams of sunlight as they moved across the store, marking time in a timeless, magical world that exists only in my memory now. I remember the way my grandfather treated his customers with dignity, and respect, many of whom were local farmers—black and white alike—who brought their stories and their business. In the Jim Crow south of those days, he practiced business by casting a wide net of compassion. After we anonymously delivered a bag of groceries on a cold December day near Christmas to what I suspect now was a poor sharecropper’s family, he said “A random act of kindness is always a good thing, and you never know where it might lead.” He never spoke of it again, but the lesson did not fall on barren soil. I suppose this was his way of both doing good business and living out his life in a small town where, one way or another, we were all connected.

One of the items he sold in his store was a disc harrow, a large cylindrical blade designed to dig into and turn over the soil in late winter. To “harrow” the soil is to prepare it for planting, new growth, and eventual harvest. Indeed, the Latin root of our word “harrow” is “harve,” from which we also get our word “harvest.” In this sense, then, our normally culturally pejorative word “harrowing”—meaning to vex or distress—can also mean to prepare the soil for harvest.  I never talked with my grandfather about the parable in the Gospel text for today, in which there is no mention of harrowing the soil. I do know that he appreciated good stories—they were always in the air one breathed at his store, if one took care to listen—and he would have acknowledged that a good story can often reverse our expectations, and reorient our ways of looking at the world. Today’s Gospel mustard seed parable does just that, by, well, harrowing our souls, and Jesus, who takes special care to tell us to listen, wants us to pay attention not only to the story, but to the power it has to transform our lives. He wants to pull us out of our entrenched patterns of relationship and ways of being in the world—to dislocate us in ways that may be harrowing in the more culturally familiar sense of that word. A parable doesn’t inform, so much as transform those who really listen. This can be distressing.

So, what do we make of a sower of seeds who indiscriminately spreads seed everywhere? How do we learn from this and similar agricultural parables, including the parable of the mustard seed? All the best agricultural practices aside, one wonders at the wisdom of throwing seeds on paths where birds eat them, or on rocky ground where they likely will not grow, or among thorns that may well choke them. Whether one is a farmer, or businessperson, or new-church development expert, one may hesitate at the potential waste of precious resources and lack of planning. What happened to harrowing the soil? Where are the demographic studies, branding and marketing strategies, maximizing of available capital, and so on? Why not simply find the best soil, and plant there, and support the local economy by buying a new disc harrow at J.W. Harkins and Son’s, while you’re at it!

Well, as is often the case, Jesus turns these expectations upside down. Mark tells us we do not know how it grows, but it does. No one can anticipate what the harvest might be at the time seeds are sewn and scattered on the ground. Even the sower does not know how it happens. But when the grain is ready, it is harvested. We see that things happen, but we don’t know how, we simply trust that they do. Jesus tells these parables not for explanation but for exploration. Not for answers but so as to engage the imagination. Not for certainties about faith but for discoveries about how faith works. In this regard, Jesus asks us to talk in parables, too. Because something happens in telling parables that cannot occur in just listening to them. Figuring out a parable to tell is a different experience than securing its purpose.

Perhaps in this story, parabolic and paradoxical as it is, the sower throws the seed anywhere, everywhere, to suggest that anywhere and everywhere are ultimately the provinces of God’s compassionate, grace-filled, redemptive activity. Even in the rocky, barren, broken places we may find God. When I was a first-year student at Vanderbilt Divinity School I began visiting an inmate named Phil Workman who was on Unit VI at the Tennessee State Prison, also known as death row. Even back in 1982, I suspected that some form of pastoral counseling focus would engage my life’s work. So, in addition to visiting Phil, I spent part of one summer helping in the Chaplain’s office where, along with other mental health professionals, we worked with prisoners who were approaching parole. We gave them a simple battery of tests such as a vocational inventory, a simple intelligence survey, and a modified form of the Myers-Briggs. Later, we scheduled appointments with those interested—and not all of them were—to go over the results and offer suggestions about next steps. We had no way of knowing what, if any, difference our efforts would make. You might say we were spreading seed on many kinds of soil, and not doing much in the way of harrowing it in preparation. It was a pilot program whose funding ran out, and it was not repeated. That summer eventually got lost in those frantic years of education, parenting our two sons, and vocational formation. I soon forgot about our efforts, but I did not forget about Phil, whom I continued to visit long after we returned to Atlanta.

One Saturday in the mid-nineties, during a visit to Nashville, I went to visit Phil, a visit always punctuated by a thorough search by the guards. While waiting to be searched, a middle-aged man in a coat and tie came into the holding area and sat down across from me. He was looking at me intently, and finally said, “You don’t remember me, do you?” I confessed that I did not. He went on to explain that he had been an inmate at the prison in the early 80’s, and among those whom we interviewed that summer some 15 years earlier. “Do you remember what you said to me?” he asked. Again, I said that I did not. “You encouraged me to finish my GED in the year before I left this place,” he said, “and I’d heard that before. It was what you said next that made me sit up and listen.” Now he really had my attention. “What was that?” I asked. “You told me I scored well on my aptitude test. You said I should finish my GED, and when I got out, I could consider going to college. You told me I was smart. I know it may sound strange to you, sir, he said, but I was a 25-year-old headed nowhere, and not once in my life had the words “smart” and “college” been used in the same sentence referring to me. Nobody ever encouraged me to do anything.” “So, what brings you here today?” I asked. “By the time I left here in 1984 I had my GED. I realized I enjoyed learning. I went to Nashville Tech, then TSU, and I got my degree in accounting. Now, I’m a CPA. I volunteer here one Saturday a month, teaching a literacy course and helping inmates work on their finances.” About this time the guards came to take me back to Unit VI, and we parted ways once again. I have thought about this encounter many times in the years since, and while I know his story is very likely an exceptional one—perhaps our efforts most often fall in rocky places, or among thorns—I remembered it again this week in light of today’s Gospel. Perhaps today’s Gospel is not so much about good soil, but rather about God as the good sower; about, that is to say, what God is really like. It is a parable about the abundance of a God not so much concerned with harrowing the soil as with harvesting—and harvesting abundantly. Like the inmate who became a CPA and a prison volunteer, some of the seed sown in today’s parable brought forth an unexpectedly abundant result, against all odds. God is not concerned so much with cautious agricultural strategy as with spreading seed as if all soil is potentially good soil. Begging the question, dear one’s, is there anywhere, really, God’s abundance might not potentially be found…and others might be blessed, you might say, by bearing witness to this blessing, and so often this is how it happens. It makes a difference—this spreading of Gospel seeds—sometimes in ways we cannot imagine and least expect, in a harvest shocking in abundance. “Practice resurrection,” the poet Wendell Berry says to us all. “Say that your main crop is the forest you did not plant, and that you will not live to harvest.” We are called to spread seeds of hope, and grace, and to trust that our God is a God of abundance. In a way, being up here this morning reminds me of the view from my grandfather’s roll-top desk, with so much abundance, so many stories, and so much hope. From up here, I see so many faithful seed sowers, and so much abundant possibility. Thanks be to God! Amen.

3rd Sunday after Pentecost – Bill Harkins

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen. Grace to you, and peace, and welcome to Holy Family on this Third Sunday after Pentecost. We are so glad you are here this morning. In the reading for today from the Gospel according to Mark, Jesus asks the crowd “Who are my mother and my brothers”? This is among a variation on a theme of texts in which Jesus asks questions such as “Who do you say that I am?” and, “Who are my brothers and sisters?” They are questions that have significance for each of us, too. I love these similar gospel readings for a number of reasons. For one, they often show Jesus in a paradoxical light; he is alone, praying, yet with the disciples around him; he is accused of being “out of his mind,” yet he is clear, non-anxious, and resolute; he is curious about what others are saying, yet he shows an awareness of his journey as part of something much larger than can be encompassed by the events and opinions swirling around him—in short, he is being an effective leader. He wonders what others call him, even as he knows that in terms of his earthly fate, it does not matter. Indeed, this awareness of his fate—that he would undergo great suffering—suggests an awareness of the larger divine narrative and his role in it, and is directly tied to the passion narrative. Paradoxes often contain important truths, however, and this is no exception. 

I’m also drawn to these passages because of the questions themselves. Ever notice how we respond to simple, honest, straightforward questions? They have a certain power because they generally reveal something about both the one asking the question, and the one of whom an answer is expected. One reason Jesus asks these questions is so the disciples can learn something about themselves, and so we can we learn about ourselves, and about our relationship with God. Isn’t this the beauty of questions, whether in the scientific method, or psychotherapy, or a good mystery novel? In fact, this was in part the source of Sigmund Freud’s genius. He discovered that paying attention to the ways in which his patients answered the question “Who do you say that I am” was the most powerful clinical tool at his disposal. They often made him out to be someone he was not; someone from the past, in relation to whom healing was needed, or someone they wished he might be; perhaps someone with whom they were angry, or in relation to whom they had experienced some pain. Sometimes they were actually projecting aspects of themselves onto him. Working through this “transference” as Freud called it, is the heart of the therapeutic journey. And the more clear his patients became about who Freud really was, a caring, wise, somewhat strange Viennese psychiatrist who smoked smelly cigars and was just trying to do the best he could, the more they came to accurately know themselves, and this is where the healing began…for it is ultimately self-knowledge in the context of relationships that heals. We inevitably discover possibilities in relationships, and our lives, where previously we had seen none, and we learn something about who we are, too.  

We are all creatures of narrative and naming, and good writers know this too. This is how meaning is found…in our stories of naming, and relationship, just like today’s Gospel. In one of my favorite of Cs Lewis’ books, he has a character say, “When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years…till that can be dug out of us… till we have faces…how can God meet us face to face.” This is what Jesus wants from the disciples and from us: he wants to be in relationship, he wants us to have “faces” and in order to do this, we have to come to terms both with who we are, and who he is. This is an ongoing, daily, life-long task. In response to the first question in today’s Gospel reading….who are my sisters and brother… several possibilities are explored. Our human family, for any of its virtues, is ultimately just too small, too closely circumscribed. As a priest and therapist, I spend much of my time helping people understand their family stories, and how they were shaped by them. When someone steps up and answers Jesus’ call to follow him, the church washes that person in baptismal water, and it is as if the person gets a new name—a new identity that takes precedence over even that person’s family name. The chief act of Christian worship isn’t some mysterious, dark, esoteric rite. It’s a family meal with everyone around the table, the Sunday dinner that we call Holy Communion; family as God intended family to be.

In a world of grandparents without grandchildren close by, and single-parent families, and grandchildren growing up without grandparents, and marriages often under stress, we need a bigger family than the one we were born into. As John the Baptizer said, “God is going to have a family, even if God has to raise a people out of the rocks in this river. To become a Christian, to have your life taken over by Jesus, is to be joined into a family, a people convened by “water and the Spirit,”[ix] a family bigger and better than your biological family, a worldwide, barrier-breaking family that goes by the name, “Body of Christ.”

A sense of curiosity and wonder is essential, too, for learning about ourselves, and one another, in the context of our life’s narrative. One wonders what the answers would be if Jesus asked these question today. For many, the crowds described by the disciples would feel right at home, what with their rather benign view of Jesus. Walter Brueggemann, a colleague of mine at Columbia Seminary, has said that the gospel today is “a truth widely held…but widely reduced. It is a truth that has been flattened, trivialized, and rendered inane.” Moreover, Brueggemann suggests, the gospel is for many an old habit, neither valued nor questioned—not really fully alive. And more than that, our sometimes too technical way of thinking reduces mystery to problem, transforms assurance into certitude, and takes the categories of biblical faith and represents them in manageable shapes and forms. How often do we answer Jesus’ questions and keep the gospel alive in our daily lives? Perhaps these are questions we should seek to answer each day.

One of my roles at Columbia Seminary was as a faculty advisor to students. We had a remarkable diversity of students in those days, including physicians and business/persons, former attorneys, retirees, and students just out of college. One of my advisees was an engineer by training, who after 25 years with an aerospace corporation decided to go to seminary. He was accustomed to going by the book, following the engineering manual, and struggled at times with the fact that there was no extant manual for every act of pastoral care ministry. After his first hospital visit I found him outside my office, visibly shaken Once settled inside, he said “Bill, I want a book that will tell me exactly how to respond to what I saw in the hospital this morning,” “Jim,” I said, “there is no such book, and even if there were, I would burn it. You’ve got to find a way to be present, to show up, and listen to the story as it unfolds, and let your heart, and God, and the other person in the room, guide your actions.” The questions such as, ”Who are my sisters and brothers?” require that we respond in exactly this way, out of our Baptismal Covenant; you remember, the part where we promise to proclaim by word and example the “Good News of God in Christ” and respect the dignity of every human being.

“But who do you say that I am?” and “Who are my sisters and brothers?” Jesus asks, and these are the essential question, aren’t they? Because they require that we get to know ourselves and that we be creative, and have courage in relation to our images of Jesus. Sallie McFague, one of my seminary professors, taught us that the images we use for God, and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, very much inform how we respond to the question of who we say they are. I believe that what Jesus is doing in this passage is calling us to be in relationship. I am reminded of a wonderful story told by Garrison Keillor in which he recalls a game he played with his favorite aunt Lois. Keillor writes: “My favorite game was strangers,” he said…”pretending that we didn’t know each other. I’d get up and walk to the back of the bus and turn around and come back to the seat and say, ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ And she said, “No, I don’t mind,” and I’d sit. And she’d say: “A very pleasant day isn’t it?”

We didn’t really speak this way in our family, but she and I were strangers, and so we could talk as we pleased.

“Are you going all the way to Minneapolis, then?”

“As a matter of fact, ma’am, I’m going to New York City. I’m in a very successful hit play on Broadway, and I came back out here to Minnesota because my sweet old aunt died, and I’m going back to Broadway now on the evening plane. Then next week I go to Paris, France, where I currently reside on the Champs-Elysees. My name is Tom Flambeau, perhaps you’ve read about me?”

“No, I never heard of you in my life, but I’m very sorry to hear about your aunt. She must have been a wonderful person.”

“Oh, she was pretty old. She was all right, I guess.”

“Are you very close to your family, then?”

“No, not really… I’m adopted, you see. My real parents were Broadway actors—they sent me out to the farm thinking I’d get more to eat, but I don’t think that people out here understand people like me.” She looked away from me. She looked out the window a long time. I’d hurt her feelings. Minutes passed. But I didn’t know her. Then I said, “Talk to me. Please.” She said, “Sir, if you bother me anymore I’ll have the driver throw you off this bus.”

“Say that you know me. Please”… “And when I couldn’t bear it one more second, she touched me and smiled, and I was able to be myself again.”

Who do you say that I am? Who is my family? Who is my mother, and my sisters and brothers? In asking, Jesus is saying…tell me that you know me. Please, say that you know me. He invites us into relationship, and in answering the question, we encounter the possibility of change, and growth, and transformation. And this requires that we die to our old selves- our “transferences” and projections and illusions– and each day take up this cross. For my former engineer student Jim this meant dying to his old engineer self. Change makes us vulnerable, but it is precisely our vulnerability that can be the occasion for growth in relation to God. Growth and life paradoxically require death; transformation requires vulnerability. Knowing God requires being fully alive, even as we die to our former selves. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sounds like Easter…And so we pray in our ordination and Easter services:

Let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Second Sunday of Pentecost – Bill Harkins

Luke 1:39-57

1:39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country,

1:40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

1:41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit

1:42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

1:43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?

1:44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.

1:45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

1:46 And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,

1:47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

1:48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

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

Grace and peace to each of you on this Second Sunday after Pentecost, and welcome to Holy Family…we are so glad you are here. On Friday of this week we in the Episcopal Church observed the Visitation of Mary to the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth. These Feast Days often occur mid-week, so it isn’t always the case that we observe them on Sunday. Today, I’d like to focus on this beloved story in our heritage because like Mary, we too are waiting, and hoping in this season of transition. And this asks us to be resilient and courageous too.

In the story of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, we are presented with two women living in expectation. Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, and Mary, with Jesus, both of whom embody the hopes and expectations of Israel. Theirs was not a passive waiting, but rather one full of promise. In his essay “A Spirituality of Waiting,” Henri Nouwen writes: “People who have to wait have received a promise that allows them to wait. They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow.” This kind of waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. Rather, it is a movement from something to something more. We, too, are in a season of waiting for something to be born…for something new to grow in this sacred place.

Back in Advent Pete and June Giglio graciously hosted the choir at their lovely home, and we sang what is actually one of my favorite Advent Hymns, “Mary Did You Know?” It’s a lovely hymn, but for the first time it occurred to me that this hymn is an example of “man-splaining” if ever there was one—that is, the assumption that until a man explains something to or about women, nobody else will get it. In any case, if the author of this hymn had read, or remembered the passage from Luke for this past Friday, he would have known that, of course, Mary did know—and she knew in ways no one of my gender could fully understand.

I hope it’s not too irreverent to think of this meeting of Mary and Elizabeth as a first-century baby shower of sorts. It was a gathering like 21^st-century baby showers in some ways; pregnant women and their friends and family, getting together to support one another. Conversation that runs the gamut from the mundane to the monumental aspects of pregnancy and motherhood: cravings, hopes, and fears about a new role in life, which pediatrician to choose, and so on. Having been on the periphery of many such gatherings I can tell you that countries have been founded on less.

In other ways Mary and Elizabeth’s meeting was not like any shower I’ve ever been to—that is, when I was invited. There were only two women present, and the only gifts exchanged were those from God: an awareness of their place in salvation history, and the guiding, inspiring presence of the Holy Spirit in living out their roles. The other key difference is that the impact of this meeting extends many centuries into the future, to the present day, in several significant ways. This scene is part of a larger, overarching story of salvation. The overarching story line with which Luke opens his gospel is the story of John and Jesus, the relationship of the forerunner of the Messiah (John the Baptist) and the Messiah, Israel’s expectation and its arrival. The two stories of John and Jesus intersect in the meeting of their mothers. This meeting draws on prior themes in the traditions of bold women in Israel’s history and it reaches into the present to inspire us, men and women alike, with boldness today.

It’s significant that this is a scene the two women meet and converse without the presence of any male character (other than their unborn babies). Biblical scholar Richard Bauckham points out that the Bible is an “androcentric narrative” or male focused, and as such rarely includes scenes in which women appear together without men (51). There are some exceptions to that rule; several “women only” passages we find in the Hebrew Bible (from Bauckham, 51): this includes the lovely story of Ruth and Naomi in the Book of Ruth—Ruth refuses to leave Naomi in a deeply moving and compelling story, and the two travel from Moab to Judah and amicably work out the details of their future in a new land.

Well, I am so very grateful to have had female role models who were fiercely smart and independent, and to be married to a thoughtful, strong, and compassionate woman who is in many ways my superior. Our two sons have found bright and remarkable wives, and we now have two granddaughters who are such a joy to this father and grandfather—who learns from them all, every day, about seeing the world through their eyes. Here at Holy Family women are so often at the heart of our parish life in so many ways, leading, forming, teaching, serving on our vestry and nominating committee, caring for others and tending to this flock that is our beloved parish. For several weeks now a group of women have been learning together about women in history whose spiritual lives have inspired generations. We have added three

For a long time now, I have wondered what MARY might think about the passage from Luke’s Gospel. During the Evensong service in our tradition, the choir sings the Magnificat or, “the Song of Mary,” also derived from Luke’s Gospel. Once, as our choir sang this in the lovely way they do, I had what might be described as a vision of sorts. The vision, or daydream, was that I was watching the scene we just heard read, in the Gospel for today, from Mary’s perspective. And I heard those words of grace and forgiveness just as you must have heard them. I realized that every time I have imagined this, my thoughts eventually lead to that day on Calvary. I have imagined myself on some distant hill, watching from afar. Why? Would I, like others who loved Jesus, have been afraid, and kept my distance, when Mary and the other women remained steadfast and fully present there beneath the cross? And what’s more, how do I know I would not have been on either Jesus’ left or right. As my ordination brother Thee Smith reminds me, quoting Terence the Playwright, “Because I am human, nothing human is alien to me.” Perhaps I need to be prepared move closer to the cross, one way or the other. I wonder if during that time Mary spent with Sarah you had any idea how your life would unfold. I wonder what it’s like to look back on it now. I wonder.

And then I remembered a song by someone named John Prine, a songwriter and singer whom we lost not too long ago. It may be that thinking about John Prine during the Magnificat, as the incense fills the air, is like going from the sublime to the ridiculous, but bear with me. In one of his lovely songs he imagines what it would be like to be an old woman. He was intrigued by the idea of “a song about a woman who feels even older than she is.” And he had a vivid picture of this woman standing over the sink with soap in her hands…She wanted to get out of her house and her difficult life, filled with pain, and loss. “She just wanted an angel to come to take her away from all this, Prine once said.” The song goes like this:

I am an old woman named after my mother

my old man is another child that’s grown old.

If dreams were lightning, if thunder was desire

   This old house would have burnt down a long time ago.

Make me an angel who flies from Montgomery.

Make me a poster from an old rodeo.

Just give me one thing I can hold on to;

to believe in this living is just a hard way to go.

Somehow, remembering this song helped me to imagine Mary’s life—almost as if I were standing in her shoes….almost, that is, as if viewing the world through her eyes, imagining how she might be feeling. And so I wondered about the view of the cross from the ground up real close, where Mary and the other women were that day.

I recalled these lines, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” Perhaps by staying in Jerusalem, Mary was teaching us, reluctant students that we are, that paradoxically it is through acknowledging and living into our vulnerability that we find courage, and what peace we may find.

I wonder if Mary stayed in Jerusalem because God’s own self remained just enough in the dust of the streets and the resilient mud of the walls to keep her deeply connected to the one to whom she gave birth. And the one whom you saw die here. You must have asked, as we are asking this morning in our season of watching, and waiting, and hoping, “Where am I? Where is my spiritual journey taking me?” I wonder, were Isaiah’s words in Mary’s heart? For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. ¹⁸But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.

I hope Mary was able to find joy in Jerusalem. She had so much perseverance. She must have longed for justice, and for hope, and perhaps that is what sustained her and what sustains us all, come to that, for hope is a good thing. It may be the best of things. Did she remember the words of Jeremiah? The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.” I have so many questions about how Mary and Joseph managed all that they did, in a time when women were stoned for becoming pregnant out of wedlock, and when the father was in question…a time when women were marginalized in so many ways. It is a story available to us all, in our own brokenness and vulnerability and deep fragile beauty, and our miraculous capacity for compassion. And that’s it, really, isn’t it? Compassion means to suffer with another, and to do justice in response to that suffering. It is no surprise that the Hebrew for compassion is Rachamim—which means “womb-ish” or womb-like. And so it was that the one who taught us compassion grew in you, and it is in God’s womb-like embrace that each of us is held, and in that image that we are created. And so it is that we, too, are called to do justice, and seek mercy, and walk humbly, just as Mary did, and as her son taught us. We need mercy, and justice, and forgiveness in this season.

So I imagine Mary in her old age, and I imagine her knowing that her son belongs to everyone. I pray that one day, God made her an angel, and she was able to fly. I pray that we might have even a fraction of her resilience and faith in our journeys in the ministries to which we have been called as the Body of Christ. It’s the inner journey that’s essential as we seek to be Christ-bearers. And I give thanks for the strong, resilient women in my life, and in this parish. Thank you for your steadfast faithfulness among us. As the mystic Meister Eckhart said, “What is the good if Mary gave birth to the son of God two thousand years ago if I do not give birth to the son of God today? We are all meant to be mothers of God. For God is always needing to be born.” And we are called, each in our own way, to prepare the way in our own hearts first. I am grateful for Mary, who taught us something about how to do this faithfully and well. Amen.

Trinity Sunday – Bill Harkins

John 3:1-17

3:1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.

3:2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” 3:3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 3:4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 3:5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 3:6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 3:7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 3:8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 3:9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 3:10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 3:11 “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 3:12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 3:13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 3:14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 3:15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 3:17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Grace to you and peace, and welcome to Holy Family on this Trinity Sunday in this season of Pentecost, and on a morning when we hear a Gospel text providing us with nothing less than a template for transformation. If you are visiting today, please let us know, and regardless, we are so very glad you are here. Today we observe Trinity Sunday, a day set apart in the life of our church to reflect on the nature of God, and on our experience of being in relationship with God, with ourselves, and with others. Although the history of the great doctrinal councils of the fourth and fifth centuries regarding the Trinity is rich and interesting in its own way—as much for contentious debates as for the conclusions reached—it all comes down to this truth: the Trinity reveals that the essence of God is found in relationship, and we are created by God to be in relationship with God, and with one another. And we are called to go forth in love, with the comforting assurance of the Spirit as our advocate and comforter.

Indeed, as advances in neuroscience are now showing us, it’s written in our very DNA that we are creatures of relationship—and maybe even of compassion. But to explain the trinity is not now nor has it ever been easy. Indeed, it strikes fear in the hearts of preachers, and with good reason. St. Augustine once said that anyone who denies the trinity is in danger of losing his salvation, and anyone who tries to explain it is in danger of losing his mind. I don’t agree with the first proposition, but I can relate to the second! A few years ago at the Cathedral, a family with three teen-aged children approached me in the Narthex after one of the services, and said that one of the children, a bright and inquisitive young theologian of 14-15 years, had a question about the Trinity. I desperately looked around for a colleague to whom I might suggest she speak, and seeing none, asked the young lady what her question was. She promptly, confidently asked: “How is it possible for God be God, and at the same time be the Son, and the Spirit? In the Garden of Gethsemane, was Jesus praying to himself?” Then she looked at me imploringly, and with utter earnestness, confident that one of her priests could answer her question. I was momentarily silenced, but then, out of nowhere, I said, “Think of the Trinity as being like water. Water can take on three forms: solid, and liquid, and steam, and yet it is the same element. By analogy, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit also take on three forms, yet are one in the same.” I waited for what seemed an eternity, holding my breath, and she said “OK…now I understand. Thank you.” And she turned away satisfied. I kept waiting for her to come back to tell me that this analogy only goes so far—that it breaks down because temperature produces only one of these at any given time, actually leading to a false doctrine of the Trinity, suggesting that it’s only one person taking on one of three forms at any given time….and, well, you get the idea. This can be really tough.

Often in this season, including the Feast of the Holy Trinity, we are reminded that we are called by our vocation to let the same mind be in us that was in Christ, who emptied and humbled himself on the cross. This emptying, we imagine, might even result in our being born again, like Nicodemus. The Greek word for emptying is kenosis, and means relinquishing our ego control and our ultimate authority. As a psychologist, I can tell you that from a clinical perspective this is not easily done. When we mark ourselves with the symbol of powerless submission I need to be reminded what this really means. I’d rather not give up control, and yet it is precisely the vulnerability that comes with doing so that leads to humility, and grace. And giving up control, as we know from the deep wisdom to be found in any 12-step process, is a form of suffering. After many years of benefitting from Al-Anon support for those with addicted family members, I have reduced the 12 steps to four: show up, pay attention, speak my truth, and let go of attachment to outcomes we cannot control. That fourth step creates an emptiness that can be life-giving, if we allow the Holy Spirit in Her wisdom to be poured into that space. And, this can lead to endurance, and character, and hope. And hope, as we know, is a good thing…indeed it may be the best of things.

And, my friends, we may need to walk for a time in darkness to fully understand what this means. Yet, this is exactly where Jesus would have us be – emptying ourselves, coming out of darkness into light, and promising that he will be with us regardless. Like everything else about him, the way Jesus died—the cross we observe—represents the paradoxical way he asks us to live. Marked as Christ’s own forever, we are marked with the real suffering of a broken world and we are called to heal it from our own vulnerable places, with compassion. Sometimes this can be scary, because vulnerability is the road to compassion, it is often accompanied by the shadow of defensiveness, and this compromises our self awareness.

When I was a freshman at Rhodes College I was befriended by a track teammate who was a year ahead of me. I was scared, and lonely, and I had left far behind my high-school sweetheart and football teammates—most of whom were at local schools back in my home state—for a small liberal arts college 8 hours away. My new friend Mark sensed my isolation, and during our training runs that fall he was a steadfast and reliable companion. He had a lively and delightful sense of humor. We were both there because we wanted to learn in an academically rigorous context, and we loved to run. Both of us had given up the gridiron for track, and he was a wonderful distance runner who would go on to run a 2:38 marathon at Boston in April of 1992. In February of that year a cancerous lymph node was removed, and still he qualified for the Boston marathon. In early summer the cancer returned, and after a clinical trial at NIH, by December he was gone. In typical care-giver fashion, I responded to the loss of my friend by over-functioning in relation to our beloved running community. After giving Mark’s eulogy at Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis, I drove home and went back to work. Over-functioning in this way is one of my golden calves, so cleverly disguised in various professional roles—and often connected to my need for control. In my pain I withdrew, and I would not let anyone in. I needed to allow my grief to do its own good grief work—to begin to let suffering lead to endurance, but I would not acknowledge this to myself, or to anyone else.

One day, late in the fall of the following year, I drove to the mountains, alone, and set out running on a trail near Amicalola Falls, near the beginning—or end—of the Appalachian Trail, and just around the corner from Holy Family as the crow flies. Mark and I had run the same trails together often over the years, and we loved the freedom from urban streets, and the gift of God’s presence, the sheer wildness of the southern Appalachians. Although the day had dawned cool and clear, a fierce low pressure system churned up the east coast while cold air poured in from the west. It began to grow cloudy, and the wind began to blow through the high passes beneath Springer Mountain. As today’s Gospel reminds us, “the wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  Soon, it began to rain. Running on, I reached a spot called Nimblewill Gap where 5 trails intersect, like spokes in a mountainous wheel spinning off in different directions. There, the wind blew through the gap, driving the now steady rain. My map—in those days prior to GPS, now useless, dissolved in my hands, and in my confusion I took the wrong trail. Hypothermia was beginning to set in as the temperature fell and the wind and rain made that declination all the worse. I realized I was completely lost, and that darkness would be upon me in due course. Where am I going? I wondered, and how did I get here?

Suddenly, around the bend on the rutted forest service road an old, battered pick-up truck appeared. I waved it down, and inside sat a farmer and Deacon at lovely High Shoals Baptist Church, which I had passed miles, and what by now had been hours, before. He was as worn and weathered as his truck, looked as old as Abraham, and extended his hand…”Name of J.R. Chester,” he said. I told him I was lost. “Climb in, son” he instructed, opening the passenger side door. Inside, the truck smelled of leather, and wool, and oil, and it was blessedly warm and brought back dear memories of my paternal grandfather’s hardware store. He asked me, “Son, what are you doing so far from home on such a miserable day.” And my story came pouring out: the death of my friend, the unremitting grief, and the isolation that led me to run alone on mountain trails. I was sad, and I was angry with God, and I missed my friend. The old man just listened. And, somehow, there in the warmth of that old truck and in the care of a compassionate stranger, I began to feel something shift in my soul—it was almost like…I would say it was exactly like an emptying out—a kenosis. As we made our way over the muddy roads, in the growing darkness, and the wind, and the pouring rain, down the mountain and back to my car many miles away, I began to come back to life, and to feel some sense of healing and restoration, and with it, some sense of courage, and resilience, and hope. This chance encounter with a fellow sojourner—a shepherd of sorts, offered me hospitality. In so doing, he allowed me to name my lament out loud, to become reconciled to myself, and to those whom I had cut off, including God, and return to relationship, to express and experience gratitude.

In so doing I began to embark on a journey into a new country, a journey less Odyssean than Abrahamic, the outcome of which was uncertain, but was, to be sure, no longer one of despair. We finally arrived at my car, and as he let me out of the truck, the old man said “Well, son, it looks like we’ve gotten you back home.” “Yes sir,” I said, “In more ways than you know. Thank you.” And, it was a home to which I arrived, as TS Eliot said so well, only to know it for the first time.

There is a lovely African American spiritual, the words of which go something like this: Deep River, My home is over Jordan. Deep river, Lord. I want to cross over into campground. As I drove back to Atlanta, to my wife and sons, to that precious linen on the altar in the world woven of the grace-filled threads of relationships I had almost lost, I remembered a last conversation with Mark, weeks before he died. I told him how much I would miss him. “Keep running the Peachtree Road Race for us both, “he said. And I promised I would. And so I have. God willing this July will be my 48^th consecutive PRR. And then he said something I will never forget. “God put us here to learn, and to love, and to be thankful. I have had so much love,” he said. “Yes, there are so many who love you,” I replied, “and I am among them my brother.” “What I mean,” he said, “is that I have had so much love to give, to so many. And that is how we are fully alive. And I am so grateful. “Gratitude, that’s the word. And that is what my friend Mark knew and tried to teach me as he emptied himself, and came into the light. Now, I run primarily for relationships. Campground is that home to which we come, and know for the first time, and where we are willing to risk the vulnerability that comes with being reconciled, with not cutting ourselves off from God’s Creation when our hearts are broken. It is that broken place from which we extend compassion…for others, and for ourselves. Rabbi and family therapist Ed Friedman once said that grief that is not transformed is transmitted. I had been transmitting my grief, and I am so grateful for the gift of relationships with Mark, and Mr. JR Chester, a stranger, and shepherd, who taught me something about how to transform my grief. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit, who guides our journey as we allow the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus, even if we have to walk for a time in darkness to become children of light. On that journey we may find some measure of suffering, endurance, character, and hope. Thanks, be to God. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs– in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

`In the last days it will be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

and your old men shall dream dreams.

Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.

And I will show portents in the heaven above

and signs on the earth below,

blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

The sun shall be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood,

before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.

Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ “

In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen…Good morning, and welcome to our beloved Holy Family on this Pentecost Sunday. Today brings to a close the Easter season, and the Feast of the Pentecost is the liturgical marker of Christ’s promise to send the Holy Spirit among us. It was, after all, the occasion of his Baptism on which he received the Holy Spirit, a Spirit that henceforth informed every action of his earthly ministry. On the Day of Pentecost, the power of the Spirit was given to the community of faith—the disciples, wherever they might be gathered—to remain with them for all time.

As we heard read so well in today’s passage from Acts, the disciples were gathered together in Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, as it was known among Greek-speaking Jews. This festival occurred fifty days after Passover, and was originally an agricultural festival in which the first harvests of the season were offered. Over time it became an opportunity to commemorate the giving of the Laws to Moses at Sinai as well, so this festival day was significant indeed. On this particular day, ten days after the Ascension of Christ, the disciples were no doubt scared, and sad—grieving the loss of their risen Lord. I imagine that they were still uncertain as to the true nature of the events swirling around them. I wasn’t there of course, but in my imagination I hear them saying one to another, “Where do we go from here?” On some level, they must have felt abandoned, and wondered, “What do we do now?” Like most of us, I know what it is like to be in search of meaning, and purpose, and to be afraid. I suspect we all know how this feels. And we sometimes ask ourselves, “What do I do now…where do I go from here?” This is not necessarily a bad thing, of course, as Eliot reminds us in this brief poem:

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

In a real sense, the Day of Pentecost is the final, answering verse in the tone poem that is the Paschal Mystery—that process of transformation by which we are given new life, new spirit, and a new way of looking at the lives we lead. And it is fitting that Pentecost brings us full circle in the liturgical cycle of Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide. In this sense, following Eliot’s musings, we come back home to arrive where we started, and know what it means to be at home with God for the first time. But what does this mean, really? I want to suggest that it involves our grieving what is past and what has died or needs to die, followed by a period of waiting and hoping, then claiming and living into our new births, and finally accepting the spirit of the life that we are in fact already living. We see this process writ large in our liturgical year, especially in the cycle of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter, and Pentecost. The disciples went through each of these stages, and on the day of Pentecost so long ago, we are told that “a sound like the rush of a violent wind…filled the entire house where they were sitting….All of them filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Now, we know that one interpretation of the Holy Spirit is that this is the one who comforts us. I find it fascinating that the root of the word “orphan” in its Latin form means “one without comfort.” So, in precisely this sense, the Holy Spirit is one who comes to comfort us, and serves as an Advocate for God, who has adopted all of us in the Spirit of Baptism. As Augustine said, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. In other words, until our restless hearts are finally at home in and with God, we are orphans, among those without true comfort, without a home. That house where the disciples were gathered on the Feast Day of Pentecost was in this sense an orphanage, into which the wind of the Spirit blew, and they were filled with the Spirit and adopted by that Spirit and in this way, they, and we and the whole church, were transformed. I invite you to picture a time and place in which you felt at home, and safe, and where you experienced, perhaps even despite loss and grief, a sense of the peace of God. And, I invite you to consider with me the implications for our lives of relationships like this, those sacred moments in which the gift of love, breathed upon us by the Holy Spirit in Her wisdom, can transform our lives.

When I was growing up my maternal grandparents had a small farm in north Fulton County in what was then very much the country. It had a pond, and a small lake, and acres of fields and woods with streams, wildlife, and a large garden to which they lovingly tended. The land was in many ways a sanctuary for me, in no small part because of my grandmother. I would spend hours fishing, or walking with the dogs in the woods, or lying in the hammock, or sitting by the fire reading. My grandmother was always glad to see me. She was never preoccupied with my academics, or how many touchdowns I had scored, or the other daily concerns of my—at times—too-busy adolescence. I spent as much time there as I could. Often I would whistle up the dogs and be gone for hours in the woods. And always, upon my return, there would be on the dining room table a piece of her homemade pound cake and a cold glass of milk. It was almost like—I would say exactly like this gift was an outward and visible sign of her love and care. Through her pound cake she seemed to say, “I am glad you are here, and you are home, and here you are loved.” From time to time she would ask me to help her make the pound cake—she knew I liked to cook, in part because she had taught me how—and she often said that someday I would need to write the recipe down, because she knew it by heart and did not have it in written form. As the years went by, I married and had children of my own who also loved to visit there. And one year, while we were living in Tennessee and visiting the farm, she called me into the kitchen. She wanted me to watch her as she made pound cake, and write down exactly what she did, just the way she did it, and take the recipe back to Tennessee. She was insistent, and persistent, and I did as I was told. It was to be the last time I ever saw her. Months later, sitting out on the front porch after her funeral, I tried to imagine my life without her in it. It seemed a much-diminished world. And then suddenly I made the connection with our last visit. There was no pound cake on the table this time, but she had, through her persistence and out of her love for me, provided me with a gift of grace–the means to create it myself and the desire to do so. Yes, and to share it with those whom I love and others as well, in times perhaps of sorrow or joy. Today’s Gospel is just like this, and our lives can be like this too.

This is wonderful, I found myself thinking, and it perfectly describes how the work of the Holy Spirit, our comforter and advocate, gently guides us in the direction of God’s sustaining, nourishing, and healing presence, piecing our lives back together no matter the damage.

Diane Ackerman, writing in a New York Times editorial, suggests that what we are learning is that the brain is constantly rewiring itself based on daily life, just as the windows at Westminster were lovingly replaced. When we participate in loving relationships, for example, just holding your partner’s hand is enough to subdue blood pressure, ease stress, improve mental health, and even lessen pain. “In the end,” Ackerman writes, “what we pay the most attention to defines us. How you choose to spend the irreplaceable hours of your life literally transforms you.” A baby’s first attachments imprint its brain, but this is not the end of it by any means. This neural alchemy continues throughout our lives. Supportive relationships, neuroscience is teaching us, across the life-cycle, are the most robust predictors of medical and mental health, happiness, and even forms of wisdom. In short, loving relationships can alter our brains. This includes our loving relationship with God, and our worship in spaces just like this one. We now know that spiritual practices such as mindfulness meditation and centering prayer can change our neural pathways and neurochemistry, and that acts of compassion inform who, and whose, we become. The brain changes with experience throughout our lives, and it’s in the context of loving relationships of all kinds—partners, spouses, children, parents, close friends, parishioners, and yes, dear one’s, the Holy Spirit leading us, turning us, to God—that brain and body really thrive.

So, there it is. We can respond to the Disciples’ questions, which are after all ours too—“Where do we go…what do we do now?” by turning to one another in love. If you’re in a committed, loving relationship to another—including a relationship with God—this can change your life. What we bear witness to in Baptism, and in the Eucharist, is a commitment to this community and to that love, God’s love, which binds us together. We can turn, like sunflowers in a Kansas field, and face the source of love, and compassion, and our best selves. “Practice Resurrection,” the poet Wendell Berry wrote, and that may begin with reaching out in hospitality and love, to others. And that’s how the “better angels of our nature” come to us, become part of us, sustain and transform us, with the help of the Holy Spirit, throughout the long green season of Pentecost, and beyond. Amen.