Author: Rosemary Lovelace

July 31, 2024

In a lovely poem by William Stafford, we are invited to pay attention to the “threads” in our lives that endure, and in so doing, remind us of what is most deeply important to our faith journey:

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread. ~William Stafford

This week in the Episcopal Church we celebrate the “Philadelphia Eleven”—the first women ordained in the Episcopal Church—and we observe the Feast Day of William Wilberforce, reformer and abolitionist.

The ordination service was held on Monday, July 29, 1974, the Feast of Saints Mary and Martha, at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, where Suzanne Hiatt served as deacon, and whose rector was civil rights advocate Paul Washington. Beginning at 11 o’clock in the morning, the service lasted for three hours.] The eleven women serving as deacons presented themselves to Bishops Corrigan, DeWitt, and Welles, who ordained them as priests. Harvard University professor Charles V. Willie, who was also the vice president of the House of Deputies at the time, preached a sermon entitled, “The Priesthood of All Believers,” which began, “The hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship God in spirit and in truth,” followed by Dr. Willie’s declaration that “as blacks refused to participate in their own oppression by going to the back of the bus in 1955 in Montgomery, women are refusing to cooperate in their own oppression by remaining on the periphery of full participation in the Church.” Those gathered numbered almost two thousand supporters and a few protesters. In the middle of the service when Corrigan said, “If there be any of you who knoweth any impediment or notable crime (in these women), let him come forth in the name of God…” several priests in attendance proceeded to read statements against the ordination. Once these statements had been made, the bishops responded that they were acting in obedience to God, noting that “hearing God’s command, we can heed no other. The time for our obedience is now.” And they proceeded with the ordinations.Here is a lovely photo montage of women clergy in our own Diocese:

William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, and became an independent Member of Parliament (MP) for Yorkshire (1784–1812). In 1785, he underwent a conversion experience and became an Anglican, which resulted in major changes to his lifestyle and a lifelong concern for reform. According to Holy Women, Holy Men, in 1787, Wilberforce came into contact with Thomas Clarkson and a group of activists against the slave trade, including Granville Sharp Hannah More and Charles Middleton. They persuaded Wilberforce to take on the cause of abolition, and he became a leading English abolitionist. He headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for 20 years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. Wilberforce was convinced of the importance of religion, morality and education. He championed causes and campaigns such as the Society for the Suppression of Vice, British missionary work in India, the creation of a free colony in Sierra Leone, the foundation of the Church Mission Society and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In later years, Wilberforce supported the campaign for the complete abolition of slavery and continued his involvement after 1826, when he resigned from Parliament because of his failing health. That campaign led to the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which abolished slavery in most of the British Empire. Wilberforce died just three days after hearing that the passage of the Act through Parliament was assured. He was buried in Westminster Abbey close to his friend William Pitt the Younger.

Wilberforce’s life and work have been commemorated in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In Westminster Abbey, a seated statue of Wilberforce by Samuel Joseph was erected in 1840, bearing an epitaph praising his Christian character and his long labour to abolish the slave trade and slavery. Various churches within the Anglican Communion commemorate Wilberforce in their liturgical calendars, and Wilberforce University in Ohio, United States, founded in 1856, is named after him. The university was the first owned by African-American people, and is an historically black college. In Ontario, Canada, the Wilberforce Colony was founded by black reformers, and inhabited by freed slaves from the United States. With the backing of his friend William Pitt, who became Prime Minister, Wilberforce became leader of The Society for the Abolition of Slavery. The society campaigned for almost 20 years to bring an end to British involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The abolition campaign made them many enemies, especially among those who had made huge profits from the trade in enlsaved African people. Amazing Grace, a film about Wilberforce and the struggle against the slave trade, was released in 2007 to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Parliament’s anti-slave trade legislation.

And so this week we give thanks for the ordination of women, and for the life of William Wilberforce. In two weeks we will observe the life of Jonathon Myrick Daniels, who was killed while working for civil rights in Mississippi.

There’s a thread we follow, dear ones, as our journey in faith unfolds. Nothing can stop time’s unfolding, but we don’t let go of the thread. Among the threads in my own faith journey is our beloved Holy Family. And like those women priests—and a Holy host of lay women who are also among the priesthood of all believers and who have been saints for me—I am so grateful. I give thanks as well for the life of William Wilberforce, whose “amazing grace” has blessed so many. As the poet RS Thomas—a highly educated Welsh priest who spent his life serving small, rural parishes wrote, they are luminaries for us all (More about Thomas and Daniels next week!):

My luminary,

my morning and evening

star. My light at noon

when there is no sun

and the sky lowers. My balance

of joy in a world

that has gone off joy’s

standard. Yours the face

that young I recognized

as though I had known you

of old. Come, my eyes

said, out into the morning

of a world whose dew

waits for your footprint.

Before a green altar

with the thrush for priest

I took those gossamer

vows that neither the Church

could stale nor the Machine

tarnish, that with the years

have grown hard as flint,

lighter than platinum

on our ringless fingers. ~RS Thomas

Blessings to each of you, and thank you for the ways you contribute to the “thread” that is our common life together. You are luminaries for me as well. I’ll catch you later on down the trail, and see you in church!

Bill+

July 28, 2024

10th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 12, Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

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

The Epistle: Ephesians 3:14-21

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

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

The Gospel: John 6:1-21

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

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

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

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

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

Suppose that what you fear

could be trapped,

and held in Paris.

Then you would have

the courage to go

everywhere in the world.

All the directions of the compass

open to you,

except the degrees east or west

of true north

that lead to Paris.

Still, you wouldn’t dare

put your toes

smack dab on the city limit line.

You’re not really willing

to stand on a mountainside

miles away

and watch the Paris lights

come up at night.

Just to be on the safe side

you decide to stay completely

out of France.

But then danger

seems too close

even to those boundaries,

and you feel

the timid part of you

covering the whole globe again.

You need the kind of friend

who learns your secret and says,

“See Paris first.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 24, 2024

River Sojourns-Life Journeys

One of the enduring joys of my youth has been a fondness for rivers, lakes, and streams. I especially enjoy whitewater canoeing and kayaking, and the wild places to which these activities take me. Growing up in North Georgia, I felt at home on the Amicalola and the Chestatee, the Chattahoochee, and the Nantahala. In more recent years, I have discovered sea kayaking, and I have been fortunate to paddle in places as diverse and magical as coastal Maine, Tebenkof Bay Alaska, Lake Jocassee, and the Boundary Waters of Minnesota. Our two sons also developed a love for water, as evidenced by this photo of older son Justin, who was a raft guide for the NOC while in graduate school at Vanderbilt:

It is a delight to view the world from the perspective of the water. One notices the intricacy and beauty of creation in new and remarkable ways. One is for a time both in—and of—the context of the water. The Japanese poet Basho knew this experience well:

The old pond, ah!

A frog jumps in:

The water’s sound!

Like the ripples of my paddle as I dip it into the current of the Cartecay, the frog’s presence both disrupts the smooth texture of the world and belongs to it. Yet in some ways we are different, Basho’s frog and I. We humans cannot fully immerse ourselves in the river world around us. We cannot escape our awareness of being “sojourners” in the world, as the theologians Kierkegaard, Tillich, and others have expressed so well. We are wholly in the world, but reflectively so. We are carried along by the current, even as we participate in our passage and watch our ripples spread for better or worse. We are at one and the same time travelers, and part of the terrain. We are sojourners in our own home. And as such, we need companions on our journeys. We ask questions about who and whose we are, where our lives are going, and the meaning of our sojourns here. This is one reason we have created religions, and churches: as contexts which bind us together (Middle English (originally in the sense ‘life under monastic vows’): from Old French, or from Latin religio(n- ) ‘obligation, bond, reverence’, perhaps based on Latin religare ‘to bind’) in our quest for meaning. 

In some ways, my own work as a pastoral counselor/marriage and family therapist is like paddling down the Amicalola River. Those of us who engage this work do so out of our conviction that it is ultimately relationships that heal what is broken. And relationships provide the best context for asking the deepest spiritual questions about our lives. Theologian Ed Farley, one of my graduate school professors, once described courage as “venturing forth into creation with vitality and wonder.”  This is true of both river sojourns and the many journeys—both relational and spiritual—we take over the course of our lives. We often need companions on our journeys, even the most introverted among us. One of my favorite authors, the psychiatrist Donald Winnicott, began his autobiography with these lines: “O God, this is my prayer. My prayer is that I will be fully alive when I die.” Indeed, as the theologian/mystic Irenaeus said so well, “God fully glorified is a human being fully alive.”  Another author whose work has been important to me is Maurice Merleau-Ponty, especially on the topic of “intersubjectivity” or, those spaces between us in relationships:

“True reflection presents me to myself not as idle and inaccessible subjectivity, but as identical with my presence in the world and to others, as I am now realizing it: I am all that I see, I am an intersubjective field, not despite my body and historical situation, but, on the contrary, by being this body and this situation, and through them, all the rest….The world is the natural setting of, and field for, all my thoughts and all my explicit perceptions.”

 ~ Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Philosphers, theologians, psychologists such as Emmanuel Levinas, Donald Winnicott, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty have been frequent conversation partners, though I cannot claim to have mastered any of them. Still, there are times when running on trails, listening to a patient, teaching in the classroom, or immersed in the liturgy are all of a piece, phenomenologically speaking. They are forms of what Merleau-Ponty called “intertwinement“–cultivating and adopting an ‘attentiveness and wonder’ and curiosity towards the world and one another as fellow sojourners. And our “intertwinement” with others extends, equally, to our relationship with the natural world – a theme that Merleau-Ponty was increasingly drawn towards in his later writings. Intersubjectivity is a theme that informs and enriches in so many ways. Or, as Thomas Merton wrote:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . .

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and ‘understood’ by a peculiar gift.”

― Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

Yes, and through our disciplines and practices we can cultivate this embodiment. As Dan Nixon has written:

“Citing the French poet Paul Valéry, Merleau-Ponty even questioned whether there’s a sense in which language is, before all else, ‘the very voice of the trees, the waves and the forest’.”

This is a lovely invitation to pay attention and join in the dance. 

Poets often convey both intersubjectivity and availability in their writing, as in this lovely poem by Robert Frost:

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;

I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too. 

~ Robert Frost

Friends, we are, each of us, called to be ministers of relationship, and in so doing, to facilitate just this process of “aliveness.” I invite us all to pay attention to the world within our reach, and to reach out to those who may be in need of relationship, as so many of our Holy Family ministries are designed to do. Consider, won’t you, ways you might reach out and connect to another. In this epidemic of loneliness we are called to be “available” to one another. The theologian/philosopher Gabriel Marcel called this “disponibilite’” or availability. And should you need a paddling companion for a time on your journey, let us know—the water’s fine.

I’ll catch you later on down the trail, and I’ll hope to see you in church!

Bill+[i]

July 21, 2024

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

The Collect

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 14, 2024

8th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 10, year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Mark 6:14-29 King Herod heard of Jesus and his disciples, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised…”  

Grace to you and peace, and welcome to Holy Family on this Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. We are so glad you are here, and if you are visiting with us today, please introduce yourself to us and thank you so much for joining us this morning. Visitor or regular attendee, we hope you will find Holy Family to be a place of hospitality, compassion, and grace. And, in light of the difficult Gospel text for this morning, we hope we are a place of practicing humility as well, about which, more in a moment.  

First, let me confess that I spent several days trying to find an alternative to preaching on the Gospel text appointed for today. Truth told, it’s an awful story about the misuse of power and about the need for those in power to be aware of the temptation and remain in power at any and all costs. Once I greeted at the door of consciousness my own anxiety and opposition to this story of Herod and John, I became curious as to why I had such a strong reaction to the narrative, other than, of course, the horrific and graphic nature of the story. I realized that what lurked in my own shadow side was a deep fear of the misuse of power, and a profound distaste for narcissism in any form—an emotional reaction of anger, fear, and sadness in relation to narcissists that goes back many years. And to be sure, Herod was a narcissist, and this passage is an example of gas-lighting if ever there was one. I also recalled a time many years ago when I was tempted to let power and status cloud my own judgment…a sure sign of my own capacity for narcissism and control…I had to acknowledge the Herod that lurked in my own soul; but more about that in a moment.  

Let’s remember that Herod was actually drawn to John, had heard him speak and found him compelling, and yet as we heard today, when Herodias’ daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the young woman, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” and she replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her.  

Had Herod been able to find a place of humility and grace in his heart, and some healthy self-differentiation—that is to say, making his own decision in response to this horrible request rather than caving in…and cave he did, essentially saying “I’ll do what my girlfriend’s daughter and guests are requesting”—the outcome might have been different. As Hannah Arendt said so well, “All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is one among many reasons that theocracies are so very dangerous. As Marcus Borg and Jon Dominic Crossan said so well, the kingdom—or “Kin-dom” of God that Jesus announced and embodied is what life would be like on earth, here and now, if God were ultimately in charge, and the rulers of this world were not. This is the challenge in relation to Empires of any kind. The political, economic, and social subversions would be almost endless — peace-making instead of war mongering, liberation not exploitation, sacrifice rather than subjugation, mercy not vengeance, care for the vulnerable instead of privileges for the powerful, generosity instead of greed, humility rather than hubris, embrace rather than exclusion. The ancient Hebrews had a marvelous word for this, shalom, or human well-being. Entrance into this kingdom requires a counter-cultural choice. John the Baptist, Jesus, and his first followers invite each one of us today: repent, confess, and believe that in Jesus God’s kingdom has arrived. That’s the narrow way to the good news. John urged his listeners to prove their spiritual intentions by concrete deeds of compassion rather than by claims of religious or political affiliation. Some among the crowds took John at his word, but neither the political powers in Rome nor the religious establishment in the temple did. To their credit, they understood that his message was not only deceptively simple; it was deeply subversive.  

As Borg and Crossan remind us, about six months after John emerged from the desert like some locust-eating version of Jerry Garcia and baptized Jesus, he was beheaded at the whim of Herod the tetrarch. At the dinner party that night, Herod capitulated to the sadistic demand of his girlfriend’s daughter. “John was a forerunner of Jesus, but he was also a truth-teller to Herod, having rebuked Herod for sleeping with his brother’s wife (Mark 6:14–29). But as with many perverse politicians, Herod reacted with violence to one who had spoken truth to power, so John was murdered. The prophetic word of God from John the Baptist, then, did not originate with the state powers or the religious establishment, nor did it find a receptive audience with them. The claim of God’s kingdom upon my life, John preached, is ultimate. That means that the claims of the state and religious establishments, of race, gender, culture, and money are, at best, penultimate. The earliest and most radical Christian confession was simple: “Jesus is Lord.” By direct implication, Caesar is not lord or god, and neither are all the other many false gods of religion, money, sex, power, politicians who would be theocrats, and so on.  

With his pronouncement and then martyrdom, John counsels us to turn away from anything and everything that might hinder ultimate allegiance to Jesus. As we hear during Advent, he invites us to make our crooked ways straight, to flatten all hilly terrain, and to prepare space for the birth of the Messiah into our own lives. When we do that, we’ll find ourselves in the truly Good News that subverts and transcends all politics and religion. Dear One’s let’s covenant to remember this week’s Gospel text as we consider the text for next week. This is a terrible story. It’s hard to say “Thanks be to God!” after a story like this one. As I thought about our time together this morning I thought that perhaps we should skip this story and read the next one instead…a much happier story about Jesus feeding 5,000 hungry people. In stark contrast, Herod’s horrible banquet runs right into the story where Jesus makes sure that everyone is fed and he empowers the disciples to do so…he invites compassion. Mark is a very careful writer. He wants us to hear these two stories together. Even though we didn’t hear that other story today, I hope we remember at least something about Jesus feeding the 5,000. It’s a story found in all four gospels. But the greatest contrast of all is between Jesus’ banquet of life and Herod’s banquet of death. Mark has placed these two stories side by side. He wants us to see the stark contrasts between two very different banquets. Hard as it is to listen, let’s go back to Herod’s story. This feast was not in a deserted place, but in a lavish palace. There wasn’t a large crowd, but a select guest list of important officials. Herod’s wife, Herodias, was there, even though she shouldn’t have been. Herod had stolen her from his brother. John the Baptist had condemned this unlawful liaison, and for that John landed in prison.  Though Herod was a Jew, Borg and Crossan remind us that the empire had replaced Torah for him. He tried not to think about it, especially at his own birthday dinner. Why, then, did he give in to this terrible request? Wasn’t it enough that John was in prison? One wonders, was there something inside Herod that remembered God’s word, some spark of God that drew him to John’s teaching? But he had promised Herodias’ daughter that he would give her anything she wanted. And this is precisely where Herod’s narcissism and need for power had tragic consequences.  

And here’s where my own troubling narrative reveals itself… I took AP English with Florence Crooke in the fall of my senior year in high school. Ms. Crooke was a formidable presence and did not suffer fools gladly. She was known to be a difficult grader with high expectations. I walked into the class wearing my football letter jacket. She invited me into the hall and suggested I keep it in my locker. “It won’t help you in here,” she said… “You decide.” Then she left me in the hall and closed the door. And truth told, my first response was to walk to the office and register for another class. Besides, I had not been a particularly good student. I was in over my head in an AP English class before the class even began. I suspect Ms. Crooke knew this. She also knew I loved to write. She saw something in me I did not see in myself. And, being a football player in that school in the early 70’s was a source of power I did not want to compromise. It was a terribly stratified culture where role expectations were codified in myriad ways Its really not too much of a stretch to say that football players in that time and place were demigods for whom the rules that applied to others did not apply. This is, of course, a recipe for narcissism—“I can do whatever I want, and the core values and principles that apply to others do not apply to me…and I will not be held accountable when I break those rules.” Ms. Crooke knew this well. She was presenting me with a choice. She was being John the Baptist to my own personal Herod. To this day I cannot explain why I went down the hall to my locker, turned the combination, and put the letter jacket in my locker. I walked back into that classroom and into what was in some ways the beginning of my own, authentic life.  

After my first paper (on Walt Whitman if memory serves) she suggested that I write for the Sentinel (our school newspaper), and I did so (though this was unusual for football players in the social stratification of those days) including serving as the sports reporter for the SSHS Panther basketball games and, in the spring, I covered the track meets though I was on the team. We set school records that year in the spring medley relay and mile relay. Ms. Crooke asked me where I wanted to go to college, and I told her the family script was for me to attend UGA. She asked me what my heart told me, and I said I would prefer a small, liberal arts college where I could continue to play ball in an academically rigorous context. She gave me the courage to do just that. I applied to a host of small D-III schools. My father was not pleased (to say the least) and told me that if I did not go to UGA I could pay for college myself. He wasn’t joking, and he thought I would back down, but we were both two stubborn Irishmen, and I got up the next morning and went to Atlantic Steel Company to ask for a job, where I worked at Atlantic Steel Company for 4 summers to pay for Rhodes College, a place that changed my life. Every time I taught a class, for many years, I thought of Ms. Crooke with gratitude. Oh, and one more thing; my high school hero was Roberto Clemente—who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates until his untimely death on New Year’s Eve of 1992, while delivering supplies to Nicaragua, a country ravaged by earthquakes and starvation. My football number—the number on that letter jacket hanging in my locker—was #21 in honor of Clemente. He could have rested on his many laurels as a baseball player and he chose instead a life of service—and died accordingly—extending compassion to those whom he did not know. My football teammates, in an area still much informed by Jim Crow, gave me grief about my affection for Clemente, a Black man, still relatively rare in baseball. But, you see, he had humility—a sure antidote to narcissism—and as a result he broke down the barriers Herod could not. He gave his power away to serve others. Theologian Miraslov Wolf has written that the Exclusion of the other, the stranger, happens wherever barriers are set up that prevent an authentic encounter with the other. We are called to respect the dignity of every human being, and sometimes our need for power, and control, can blind us to this truth. It is all too easy to assume that difference is to be avoided at all costs including, heaven help me, those who don’t walk the halls of their high school halls wearing their letter jackets. Humility leads to grace, which can save us, sometimes, from ourselves. Amen.  

July 17, 2024

Loaves and Fishes…Salmon, in particular

It is deep summer, in this long, green season of Pentecost, and as we speak, in rivers and streams all along the Pacific coast, salmon are returning home to their native waters after journeys of up to 6 years—and thousands of miles—at sea. Some time back, I took a sea-kayaking trip to Alaska, just about this time of year. Our group journeyed to Tebenkof Bay, deep into the wilderness of southeast Alaska, for a week-long sojourn based on Buddhist mindfulness practice.

Early one day, we set out in our boats across the bay. A gentle summer rain was falling. Ravens called out as seals and otters followed our flotilla of kayaks, diving playfully beneath our boats. Ducks and loons eyed us curiously framed by snow-capped mountain ranges, their glaciers emptying into the bay.

We found ourselves in the delta of a small river. We paddled upriver protected from the rain by spruce forests. Beneath our boats was a river of salmon, coming home to spawn.

Our guide gave us a streamside lecture on the ecology of salmon nation. Salmon are amazing members of God’s creation, and this is especially true of Pacific salmon. Leaving their fresh-water birthplaces they journey out to sea where they roam the oceans of the world, returning to spawn at the exact spot they were born years—and thousands of miles–earlier.

Most of you have seen scenes of Chinook and Sockeye salmon making their way up waterfalls to their native pools against tremendous odds. As many as 20 vertebrate species, including elk, deer, and bear, feed directly on salmon, re-cycling those ocean borne nutrients into the soil. Salmon born in Idaho will make their way 900 miles inland and climb 7,000 feet as they return to spawn.

More than simply food for bear, ravens, eagles, or humans, salmon are in fact a parable of a complex, and life-giving set of relationships. DNA from Pacific salmon has been found in groves of Aspen at the top of the continental divide. The minerals from their ocean journeys feed salmonberry bushes miles inland. Every level of the food chain will reveal evidence of the gift of salmon.

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

I think of this as evidence of God delighting in God’s creation—a cosmic playfulness at the level of ecological communion. The grace in the story of the salmon is evidence of sacred connections of life-sustaining nourishment. As the poet Mary Oliver reminds us, “Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.”

On this morning in Alaska, we did just that. Cultures as diverse as Pacific Northwest Indians, especially the Tlingit, Norse, and Celtic mythologies have found in the story of the salmon symbolic and religious power. I see God watching all the permutations and combinations of salmon, and I imagine God laughing with joy. The gift of their living, and dying, and rebirth is moving, and powerful. A salmon is not simply a fish—but a metaphor of the deep ecological mystery of God’s creation—a timeless reminder that in the cycle of life and death lies the abiding connections of all living things…of transformation, and renewal.

It is fascinating to me, then, that on another shore, this time near the village of Capernaum, Jesus gives a sea-side homily on the nature of bread, and a metaphorical lesson on what nurtures and sustains our souls. On this day following the feeding of the 5,000, the impromptu picnic was over, and Jesus and the disciples were looking for a quiet place to rest, and recover.

The people, however, had other ideas. They were not inclined to let him fade back into the Capernaum hills without finding out more about what he could do for them. They had been hungry, and they had been fed—more than enough—we are told, and yet they did not know the depth or sources of their hunger. He had given them bread, and they had their fill, but perhaps he could do more in the way of fulfilling basic needs of shelter, clothing, and the ambiguities and uncertainties of daily life. The possibilities were unlimited.

And somewhat disingenuously, when they find him they say, in essence, “What a surprise! Imagine finding you here! When did you come here?” Jesus will have none of it. “You worked hard to find me, and I know why. But I am more than a free lunch, and moreover, that is not what you really need. You ate your fill, and now you want more, but you are missing the point. The bread you seek won’t last. I am the bread that endures, and addresses a deeper hunger. All you have to do is believe.” “Prove it,” they say, invoking Moses and the manna in the wilderness; “Give us a sign.” “You don’t get it,” Jesus says to them…”Remember where the bread Moses gave you came from.”

It is not always easy to see beneath the literal to the metaphorical and symbolic, especially when our basic needs and fears often determine what we see, and how. Jesus knows we are hungry on many levels, and we are often scared, and wilderness can take so many forms.

The psychologist Carl Jung, deeply interested in religion, once said: “I have seen people remain unhappy when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, reputation, outward success, money, and remain unhappy even when they attain what they have been seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon.” Our wise Alaskan guide said to us, “Broaden your horizons. Think creatively. The Salmon is much more than a fish—it is a sign of something mysterious, complex, and life-giving in the ways of the connectedness of God’s creation. They live their lives, and they give themselves away.”

 Jesus says to us, “Broaden your spiritual horizons. I want to be more than a provider of physical bread. I want to fill the hunger of your souls. I want to fill the emptiness you try to fill up with lesser things…to satisfy those Holy longings you often attempt to quiet with substances and material goods; to quiet the anxiety that finally comes to possess you, rather than allowing yourselves to be placed in God’s compassionate, outstretched, open arms. I want you to remember where that bread in the desert really comes from. And then I want you to feed one another, in love.”

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

Blessings friends and I’ll catch you later on down the trail. And I hope to see you in church! Bill+

July 10, 2024

Early on Tuesday morning last week, I enjoyed a lovely trail run in preparation for the Peachtree Road Race, held on Thursday, July 4th. Tuesday morning was deliciously cool and breezy, in contrast to what would be a hilly, humid, and hot Fourth of July in Atlanta. I enjoyed the solitude, and some much needed time to immerse myself in the Southern Appalachian woods. Wildflowers and wildlife were plentiful, and I was reminded of John Muir’s invocation:

Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. ~ John Muir

In contrast, on Thursday morning I ran from Buckhead down to Piedmont Park with 55,000 of my fellow sojourners. Two days, and two very different experiences, yet both involved running, and both provided opportunities to be fully present to the moment at hand; as Mary Oliver has said so well:

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

And so I am doing just that now, with each of you. As I ran past the Shepherd Center on Thursday, a facility devoted to brain and spinal cord injury, I paused to greet the patients lining Peachtree Road. Most were in wheelchairs or on stretchers. Like many, I’ve had family, friends, and patients who were treated there. The patients come out to cheer on the runners—imagine that—and give us “high fives” as we pass by. We should be cheering them on in fact, and I try to connect with some as I walk up the hill.

The British psychiatrist Donald Winnicott once wrote “O God, may I be alive when I die.” As I ran by the incredible Shepherd Center, and the heroes who were lining Peachtree there, a woman in a wheelchair looked at me, smiled, and said, “Be in this moment.”

Exactly, and as Wendell Berry wrote so very well:

The question before me, now that I

am old, is not how to be dead,

which I know from enough practice,

but how to be alive, as these worn

hills still tell, and some paintings

of Paul Cezanne, and this mere

singing wren, who thinks he’s alive

forever, this instant, and may be.

~ Sabbaths, VIII

And the Norwegian explorer Erling Kagge once wrote:

“The best things in life have no lasting forms. When you move on, don’t think too much. Look around you and up, into the sky–towards the sun, the moon, the stars–and listen to the surroundings: the rain falling, your foot rising from the wet moss and the silence. Ask yourself: where am I right now? Thanks. I am here.” 

~ Erling Kagge, Philosophy for Polar Explorers.

 ​ At the Cathedral I greeted my friend and colleague Juan Sandoval, Hispanic missioner for the Diocese with whom I served our Cathedral Hispanic congregation for many years. Like my experience on the trails Tuesday morning, it’s a moment of being fully present, of “I am here.” I have no idea who took the photo, which was posted to the Cathedral website.

One might say these two days—one in the mountains and one on Peachtree—while different, had much in common. I think the most important theme on both days was being in “relationship” to me—my own experience of being “fully alive,” and to others. Likewise, there are many “trails” at Holy Family, both literally and metaphorically. And these trails offer opportunities for learning, growth, and being in relationship to oneself, to others, and to God.

We are so very fortunate at Holy Family for opportunities to serve, learn, and grow. One can join the choir, or the parish life committee, or the intrepid grounds crew…or one can make the decision to attend one of the exciting Adult Education opportunities available both now, and upcoming this fall! Here’s more about those options, with more to come:

Adult Education: Join us June 30 at 9:15 AM at the Sunday morning Adult Education group for week 5 of an 8-week study of First Isaiah. We will use materials created by Yale Bible Study (yalebiblestudy.org). Each session will consist of a brief video presented by Dr. John J. Collins (Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School) and Dr. Joel S. Baden (Professor of the Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School and Director of the Center for Continuing Education at Yale) followed by group discussion. This study addresses “the prophet and his prophecies, the text and its time”.  Isaiah “embodies the notion of speaking truth to power”. In Session 1 we will address the “Historical Context”. Later sessions will include Isaiah’s call, Immanuel, Messianic Prophecy, Demand for Justice as well as other topics. All course materials are available at no charge at www.yalebiblestudy.org. You may download the study guide from the website.

If you’ve never attended Adult Education before, now is the time to join us. If you’re a regular, we look forward to seeing you again. Questions? Contact Kathleen Allen-Leonard.

And, from Tammy Kirk, this could be the study for you if you are interested in a long-term Bible study which:

  • encourages personal transformation through biblically-based study
  • is focused on living faithfully within the Christian community
  • develops meaningful relationships through sharing in group discussion

Disciple is a time-tested program (with study manual) which consists of daily Bible readings done at home and weekly meetings (roughly 2 hours for 30-34 weeks). The group meeting includes a short video presentation given by leading Bible scholars, followed by guided discussion and prayer. Days and times will be agreed upon once the group has been established. For more information or to sign up, contact Tammy Kirk at jtmlkirk@aol.com. 

Education for Ministry (EfM):  A total of 12 members of Holy Family participated in the Education for Ministry program for the 2023-2024 academic year, which was just completed. Next year, we can accommodate four new participants in the program, sponsored by The School of Theology at the University of the South. Sessions will begin in early September and run for 36 weeks. The group consists of 6 to 12 participants, plus the mentors. Usually, the participants meet face-to-face for about 2.5 hours a week. The group utilized Zoom for over a year due to the Coronavirus pandemic and still uses it when someone needs to be absent for a session.

Every baptized person is called to ministry. The EfM program provides people from all walks of life with the education “to be” Christians and to carry out their ministries. All Christians need a Christian education which supports their faith and which prepares them to express that faith in day-to-day activities. EfM is a worldwide program developed by the School of Theology at Sewanee. It holds before us that the foundation from bringing Christ to the world lies in a church empowered by an active, theologically articulate laity. Thousands of persons have completed the four-year program. Participants enroll one year at a time, can transfer almost anywhere in the U.S.A. and in many foreign countries, and can obtain 18 Continuing Educations Units per year by participating.

You don’t have to be an Episcopalian to take part in the program, either. As a matter of fact, you don’t have to be a Christian. If you have any interest in EfM, just ask any of the current or former participants or Byron Tindall or Jeannine Krenson, the mentors. The current participants include Connie Moore, Gordon Stefaniuk, Jim Reid, Martha Power, Rosemary Lovelace, Susan Stefaniuk, Loran Davis, and Bill Zercher. You can also check the Sewanee website. The cost is $325 per year, and there is some scholarship help available. Each participant has to furnish her or his own text books.

Contact Byron via email Byron Tindall at bctindall@hotmail.com or 678-493-6609 or Jeannine via email at jeanninekrenson@gmail.com or 706-299-7949. Currently, the sessions are held Monday mornings from 9:30 to 11:30 or noon. Each of these opportunities at Holy Family offers chances to “pay attention,” and to be present…to say “I am here.” And these are invitations to relationships that allow for growth, transformation, and deepening our theological awareness. They are guideposts on the trails of your choosing, available to all, and limited only by our imagination. Join us, won’t you, and find a trail on which you feel more fully alive, as I believe God intended. Just look for the signposts, and tell us about it!

I’ll catch you later on down the trail, and see you in church!

Blessings, Bill+

July 7, 2024

7th Sunday After Pentecost

Proper 9 Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect

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

The Gospel: Mark 6:1-13

Lord, Have Mercy on the Frozen Man

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. We are so glad you are here, and if you are visiting with us today please let us know.

In the Gospel reading for today, we find Jesus on what has been a long journey. It is about to get longer. We recall that during his exile of 40 days in the wilderness, and our own Lenten journey, Jesus was tempted by Satan, forced to face his own demons, by virtue of the very power he, and Satan, knew he possessed. When we encounter him in today’s reading he has journeyed to Nazareth, where he is teaching in the synagogue. 

And not just teaching, but teaching with authority, to the astonishment of the people there, who are suspicious of this hometown boy whom they knew as a carpenter, son, and sibling. They question the authority of one whom they knew before he became the prophet standing before them. So, today we continue our journey in Mark’s Gospel, in the long, green season of Pentecost and Jesus, has returned to his hometown of Nazareth, where his reception is less than enthusiastic. In a social system where status was understood as fixed (i.e., your status at birth defined who you would always be) and honor/shame considerations were important, did they simply regard it as impossible for Jesus to amount to anything? The people of Nazareth indicate this negative perception when they identify Jesus as a “carpenter” (i.e., a low-status manual laborer) and as the “son of Mary” (i.e., hinting at a questionable fatherhood). Because people think they know who Jesus is, they end up asking disdainfully, “Who does he think he is? The identity of Jesus is a consistent issue in Mark. In the gospel, we hear the opinions of rulers, religious authorities, crowds, disciples, and family members. For the author of Mark, the important question keeps coming around to “who do you — the reader — say that Jesus is?” And if you do honor Jesus as a prophet (or more than a prophet), who does that make you? Does it mean new allegiances that supersede traditional country and family values? As we answer those questions, Mark is leading us into a confession of faith.

As a former seminary professor, I can tell you that authority and astonishment are not easily achieved in the classroom. The root of the word authority comes from the same Latin root as our word “author,” and this is instructive, because an authority is, in the best sense of the word, someone who creates; one, that is, in relation to whom one finds a life-giving flourishing…a kind of increase in relation to which one feels enlivened. Or, as Irenaeus put it, “God fully glorified is a human being fully alive.” Jesus has that kind of authority—to help us become fully alive—in contrast to an authority which comes by virtue of an office or some kind of rank, such as a political post, or judgeship, or, Lord help me, that of a priest or rabbi. Indeed, the people were amazed by Jesus in part because he was not a member of the Sanhedrin—he held no formal authority of any kind. His authority came from within, and it was a gift from God—and so is our authority…which shares the etymology with the word “authentic” as well. In a real sense in this passage Jesus comes into his own –he comes home—in terms of his vocation as a teacher and healer. Howard Thurman has said “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs most is people who have come alive.”Perhaps as much as anything this passage is about Jesus coming alive that day, in new ways, and inviting us to do likewise.

I find myself curious, though, about the relationship between his authority—this excellence as a teacher as exhibited by Jesus—and the journey he had been on. I find myself wondering if there might be some connection between his exile in the wilderness, for example, and the suffering he encountered there, and his ability to teach with authority. Moreover, he is not just a teacher in this Gospel reading, he is one who casts out demons—a theme in much of Mark’s Gospel. He is in this sense a wounded healer who struggled with his own demons. Now, I don’t know about you, but discussions of demons don’t occur much in my line of work as a professor who often taught clinical courses, and as a psychotherapist. And I have no idea what Paul is referring to in the Epistle today about the “7th heaven.” In the circles I run in, we are so thoroughly imbued with Western scientific rationalism that talk of demon possession and mystical references to heaven simply don’t occur in polite company. We talk instead of mental illness, and “diagnostic” categories, and neurological substrates contributing to neuro-plasticity, and so on. Is this a more appropriate way of looking at the encounters Jesus had in the synagogue—rejected as a prophet in his hometown—and in numerous encounters with unclean spirits? Were these souls suffering from what we would call a mental illness? I do not know. But I find myself curious about these encounters nonetheless. And what kind of journey had these possessed souls been on? We don’t hear from them at all. In none of the passages about demon possession do any of them speak in these passages, just as many of our homeless mentally ill persons are marginalized, and have no voice. Were we to talk with any one of these individuals, I imagine they were sojourners too…and clearly suffering. Today’s text describes the disciples, now empowered by Jesus, “casting out many demons and healing many who were sick. How did these souls find themselves there on this day? Were they there in the temple, ignored, day after day? Did they once have a family, a job, and a home? Or, were they rather life-long homeless persons whose life had taken a turn for the worse—like a veteran with PTSD, or those dual diagnosis souls compromised by mental illness and addicted in some way? Did these souls even want the kind of transformation Jesus offered? I see people in my clinical office who are ambivalent about the very changes in relation to which they are seeking help. And I get it. Change is hard, and sometimes scary.

Whatever we might say about these references to demon possession, I think we are safe to say they were a form of evil… that is to say, the spirits in those who are suffering are called “unclean” because, whatever the affliction, and however we understand it, it caused a separation from God, and others, and from the worship that was going on around them. It was a form of deprivation, of loss, of being cut off from the ability to be his true self and from full relationship with others, in community. I don’t mean to suggest that they are themselves evil, but that, for whatever reasons, their spirits had become frozen and hard…and perhaps those who questioned Jesus that day in Nazareth had become hardened too. And aren’t we seeing more of this in our time as well? Are we not somewhat jaded, and suspicious of authority? Perhaps those who are “possessed” have in some sense shut down; something alive in them has “gone away.” And this certainly happens in mental illness, including more serious, chronic mental illnesses such as schizophrenia—for which, by the way, there was no “diagnosis” back then—but also in cases of depression, and anxiety, and alcohol and drug addiction.  Gerald May, a colleague whose work, like mine, lived in the interdisciplinary spaces where listening to stories is essential, has said that “God’s grace through community involves something far greater than other people’s support and perspective. The power of grace is nowhere as mystical or brilliant as in communities of faith. Its power includes not just love that comes from people and through people, but love that pours forth among people, as if through the very spaces between one person and the next. Just to be in such an atmosphere is to be bathed in healing power.” How might the power of stories, and of communities of grace where those stories can be told, teach us about healing, and wholeness in our little corner of God’s creation? And it is precisely Irenaeus’ experience of being fully alive, manifest in each of us, which is threatened by evil. And this evil, however it was described back then, was a particular form of bondage; a binding, choking, life-suffocating bondage. I suspect that– whatever form evil takes– it has its own peculiar manifestation for each of us. The end result, however, is always the same: it threatens to separate us from the Creator, and from relationships with others whom God created to share this journey with us. And so our experience of life, though potentially one full of vitality and wonder, is, instead one of being in bondage. And isn’t this what Satan used to threaten Jesus in the Wilderness? “Use the power you know you have,” Satan told Jesus, “in order to have authority and control over all others, and to have everything you need”? Had Jesus consented to this, I suspect the end result have been the end of his true and fully- alive authority, based on authentic relationship with God, and come to that, with us.

It is Jesus’ own experience of suffering that allows him to act with compassion in the reading for today… compassion, from the Latin com-passio, to “suffer with,” means that one takes action in response to the encounter with suffering. Jesus encountered his own demons, faced them down, and by virtue of that suffering reached out to others, and healed their broken spirit. Most often what threatens to cut us off from God, and self, and other is the experience of our own finitude and vulnerability…those real human limitations our awareness of which put us most at risk for idolatry and bondage, to use these old-fashioned words, when we seek to secure our souls in ways destined to fail. Alternatively, we can experience the possibility of a summons, an invocation, a claim or call to commitment and relationship. It’s as if Jesus is saying to us “Remember me? Something has occurred between us… I know who you are…you are one who comes to take me to church… you are the one who worked at the food pantry… who helped build the Habitat House….you participated in Serve Pickens…you called me when I had not been around and you missed me… you cared for me when I was sick… you saw my face in the face of the stranger…you had compassion.”

Some time back the singer /songwriter James Taylor wrote a clever tune in response to the discovery of the very well-preserved, 5,000-year-old body of a hunter in found it the Tyrolean Alps. I’ve followed this story with interest since this man emerged from a glacier in 1991. The most recent article I saw was in National Geographic, and based on additional research we now have a rollicking good murder mystery to add to this narrative. But I digress… The refrain of Taylor’s song is “Lord, have mercy on the frozen man.” Yes, “Lord have mercy indeed,” because when faced with our demons, each of us—men and women alike—can become frozen in spirit. We face one of the vulnerabilities of being human—namely, that in reality authority and idolatry are intimately related. We must choose carefully, dear ones, when seeking to claim power and authority before gaining humility, and before wresting with the shadow side of who we are.

This is the gift Jesus offers. The Gospels imply that anyone who casts out demons cannot be a stranger to them. In today’s Gospel vignette, C.S. Lewis suggests, we see Jesus clearing out the emptiness and offering instead, a relationship with God. Jesus hears our suffering, and suffers with us, and offers the compassion of relationship and redemptive healing. And this takes place in community. Anything that would rob us of being fully alive, in life-giving ways, limits our ability to fully glorify God. “Wholehearted living is about engaging with our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion and connection to wake up in the morning and think, ‘No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.’ It’s going to bed at night thinking, ‘Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.” And so we recall the Collect for today… Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. As Wendell Berry has written; The question before me, now that I am old, is not how to be dead, which I know from enough practice, but how to be alive, as these worn hills still tell, and some paintings of Paul Cezanne, and this mere singing wren, who thinks he’s alive forever, this instant, and may be. How to be alive, forever, this instant, in Christ…now that’s a casting out of demons I can understand, and for which I pray. Amen. 

July 3, 2024

Greetings everyone, and grace and peace to each of you as we celebrate the Fourth of July this week, and we journey together in this long green season of Pentecost.

As many of you know, our denomination held its 81st General Convention in Louisville over the past two weeks. Here’s a summary from the Episcopal News Service:

Episcopal News Service – The official news service of the Episcopal Church.

As you know, our own Bishop +Rob was among 5 candidates on the slate for Presiding Bishop. Bishop +Sean Rowe was elected on the first ballot. Here are his remarks to the Deputies gathered at the convention:

Bishop Rowe’s Remarks to Deputies – The Living Church

And here is a compelling quote from his speech:

“Our ministry together in the next nine years comes at a critical time for the Episcopal Church. It is not too strong to say that we’re facing an existential crisis. Not because the church is dying, or because we have lost our belief in the salvation of God in Jesus Christ. But because as the world around us changes, and continues to change — it changes all the time — and God is calling us more deeply into the unknown…I sometimes think of this moment in the Episcopal Church’s history in terms of the history of my own region of the United States, where I grew up and where I continue to serve. I am from the Rust Belt, and in the economic unraveling that has befallen our communities in the last 50 years, I have been around to see things I love go away.

My grandfathers were steel workers, and nearly my entire family worked in industry. In the space of a few years in the mid-1980s, when I was in elementary school, I watched everything I had known evaporate. The Westinghouse plant closed in my area, and my fourth-grade friends moved to Indiana when their parents were offered a transfer instead of a layoff. In 1987, Sharon Steel, a major local employer, closed when a corporate raider gained control, and thousands of people lost their jobs.

People in our region are resilient, but we spent years resisting the change that was forced on us, wishing things would go back to being the way they had been. In the partnership between the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania and the Diocese of Western New York, we have spent the last five years bucking that trend, that cultural resistance to change in what we call an experiment for the sake of the gospel. It is not always easy, but I believe that the kind of collaboration and experimentation we are up to can help us ensure the strong and effective witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to bring the Episcopal Church into the future to which God is calling us…This imperative to change doesn’t just reside in the Rust Belt. If we are honest with each other and ourselves, we know that we cannot continue to be the Episcopal Church in the same way, no matter where we live.”

Here is more from another ECUSA news source: Home – The Living Church

This editorial excerpt is relevant both to the deliberations in Louisville, and to us at Holy Family during our search process:

“The small boat of the Episcopal Church feels exposed on the windswept sea on the eve of our 81st General Convention. We are in a period of profound unsteadiness. Recent moves to consolidate dioceses are resourceful decisions, but they also make the reality of decline more vivid. Despite many creative projects, our numbers continue to fall sharply. We are closing more churches than we can plant. Zoom church was not the cure-all it may have seemed three years ago, and it’s harder to make our message known in a time of such shrill polarization, within and outside the church.”

Of course, we are not alone in this. Our friends in other mainline Protestant denominations are experiencing similar challenges. I taught at Columbia Seminary (a PCUSA free-standing seminary) for many years, and know first-hand how our PCUSA friends are struggling in ways similar to ours. Our United Methodist cousins in the Anglican tradition (John and Charles Wesley were Anglican priests) have experienced a split over LGBTQ+ issues, losing many congregations, and so on. For those of you who are interested, here’s a deeper dive into some of these trends: Reports – Religious Workforce Project

Trends in the First Two Decades of the 21st Century and Implications for the Future Congregational Trends Impacting the Religious Workforce Declining Church Attendance Fewer New Adherents Aging Church Membership Congregational Trends Become Congregational Challenges Increasing Numbers of Smaller Churches among Protestants Church Finances and Personnel Spending Congregational Challenges Lead to Workforce Changes Churches with religiousworkforce.com

We are called to remain hopeful, resilient, and creative. Let’s commit to staying the course, doing all that we can in our beloved corner of Creation, and work together for the common good. I am so proud of you all, and grateful for your ministries among us. Bishop +Rowe quoted Thomas Merton in his address to the Deputies gathered last week:

“In a time of drastic change one can be too preoccupied with what is ending or too obsessed with what seems to be beginning. In either case one loses touch with the present and with its obscure but dynamic possibilities. What really matters is openness, readiness, attention, courage to face risk. You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope. In such an event, courage is the authentic form taken by love.”

I’ll catch you later on down the trail, and I’ll see you in church!

Blessings, and Happy Fourth of July! Bill+

June 30,2024

6th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 8 – Year B – Bill Harkins

The Collect of the Day 

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel: Mark 5:21-43 

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” He went with him. 

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” 

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat. 

In the name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning…and welcome to Holy Family on this 6th Sunday after Pentecost, the long green season of Ordinary Time. We are so glad you are here, and if you are visiting us this morning, please do let us know so we can get to know you, and give you a proper Holy Family welcome!

Today we hear two stories about healing, the story of Jairus, and the story of the woman who touched Jesus’ robe. They suggest, among other things, that Jesus’ authority was something beyond the established authority of the state or some other institution. Rather, it was an authority that came from God and as such, it was an “aura of love” and an “emanation of the spirit” that drew people to Jesus. In all the stories of healing in scripture, Jesus never sought out people to heal. The initiative lay with those seeking healing and reconciliation. And here is where this story connects with ours. How often do we ask for what we need in the way of healing? How often are we even aware that we need it?  

Jesus’ life grants life-changing healing. It is a healing authority that crosses boundaries, both ethnic and gender. Jesus chooses not to leave people in the conditions in which he finds them. How about us? Can our small community alter the conditions of people’s lives? Can we, too, bring healing into troubled circumstances? Must our efforts not also cross boundaries — whether they are related to ethnicity, gender, race, sexual orientation, politics or any other boundaries that divide our society — and advocate life-giving meaning and change? Ask anyone from Parish Life, Outreach, the DOK, the intrepid Grounds Crew, and on and on, and the answer is yes! May God grant us the courage to continue to do so! 

We wonder what might have happened if Jairus had listened to his self-doubt instead of taking action? What if the influence of the status quo—and we recall here that he was an elder in the local temple—had triumphed in his heart, and he had backed off from asking this unconventional holy man named Jesus into his home? These questions are not, my brothers and sisters, philosophical or rhetorical. One of my seminary professors once told us: “Always remember that many—if not on some days most—of the people you face on Sunday morning almost decided not to come.” We have to show up—we have to “be there,” to get what Jesus has to give. Sometimes it means learning things about ourselves we’d rather not know. The story of Jairus’ daughter is not about some sort of cosmic quid pro quo in which if we have enough faith, then our child will not die, or we will not die, or bad things will not happen to us, or we will acquire riches beyond imagination…and I have heard all of these preached. This story, and others like it, has been used as a way of saying that life is a theological contest, where everything depends on you, on whether you have enough faith, or the right sort of faith, to win the prize of Jesus doing something good for you and yours. The seductive attraction of this is that it appeals to our desire to have all the answers… for the absence of ambiguity… for everything to fit together. Sometimes things happen for no reason whatsoever, and that’s when our faith comes alive. This thinking also appeals to our childlike desire for omnipotence: that everything that happens somehow happens because of me…if I’d only had enough faith this bad thing would not have happened, or because I had so much faith I am blessed with riches…and so on. The question is what kind of a story do we find in today’s Gospel? Is it a miracle? Or a story primarily about the healing power of relationship? Or, is it perhaps both?

I do enjoy these stories because they, too, invite us into relationship with Jesus. I confess that the science-loving part of me does not know what, exactly, happened here. But the most significant part for me is where Jesus takes the girl’s hand and says, “Talitha cum”—”Little girl, get up”—and suddenly we ourselves are the little girl. Little girl; old girl; old boy; old boys and girls with high blood pressure and arthritis, and lower back pain, who are themselves at times caring for aging parents…who have recently lost someone they loved… who are having challenges at work, or with their children…and on and on; all the ways we human beings are vulnerable to those places life may take us. Those who believe; and those who sometimes believe and sometimes don’t believe much of anything; and those who would give almost anything to believe if only they could; you happy ones, and you who can hardly remember what it was like once to be happy; You who know where you’re going and how to get there and you who much of the time aren’t sure you’re getting anywhere. “Get up,” he says, all of you—all of you!—and the power that is in this invitation is the power to give life not just to those who may or may not be dead, like the child in today’s text, but to those who are only partly alive, which is to say to people like you and me who much of the time live with our lives closed to the wild beauty and miracle of things, including the miracle of what Mary Oliver called “your one wild and precious life.” Can we ask Jesus to act in the name of love by healing and reconciling all that is ostensibly un-loveable in each one of us? Jesus made wholeness his priority and as such, sought to bring together those who were divided, separated, or left out of the whole. He gathered together what was divided and confronted systems that diminished, marginalized, or excluded human persons. He challenged others not by argument, but out of a deep center of love. It is a life-giving power at the heart of this story about Jairus and the daughter he loved, and the woman who reached out to him, that I believe is at the heart of all our stories—the power of new life, new hope, new being; that whether we know it or not keeps us coming to places like this sacred space, year after year in search of it. It’s about how faith itself has the capacity to make the woman whole; faith itself is healing. And this is certainly not about what here in America we know by the name of the Prosperity Gospel. That’s a heresy that makes God into a used-car salesman, selling health and wealth and a ticket into heaven in return for the payment of our belief. What I mean is something more mysterious, harder to quantify. The theologian James Alison—who spoke at the Cathedral some years ago–says that we often misunderstand faith. That we make faith about frantically following rules, about creating borders, about calling out people who are doing the wrong things, who are believing the wrong things, about feeling guilty. But faith, Allison says, is actually about relaxing. Faith is about being with God, being with someone whom we trust, with someone who knows us absolutely and, as Mr. Rogers used to say, likes us just the way that we are. That sounds like healing to me. Your faith has made you well. In this Gospel text we see a man of power and wealth who is made to wait for an impoverished woman. A woman, what’s more, whose medical condition makes her ritually unclean by virtue of the cultural standards of her time. What is being interrupted here – by Jesus, by the woman to whom he gives his full attention – is not just Jesus’ journey to Jairus’ house. What is being interrupted is patriarchy; it is economic privilege; it is a societal system that values some human beings more than others. In this moment, Jesus and the woman embody what Jesus will say elsewhere: The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. And, Jesus says to Jairus, Be not afraid. Believe. So, this is a short story interrupted no fewer than six times. Each interruption takes us further into possibility, into faith, into compassion, into love. Each interruption takes us into resurrection, and this is where science may help us…it happens every day.

Some of you may have seen the Disney film “Encanto,” a favorite of our grandchildren. When Disney decided to nominate a song from the movie for the Oscars, it submitted “Dos Oruguitas.” It is the first Oscar-nominated song written entirely in Spanish. Dos Oruguitas translates into “Two (Little) Caterpillars.” The song is performed beautifully by the Colombian singer Sebastian Yatra. The song describes two caterpillars in love. They rejoice in their togetherness, holding each other, staying together constantly through good and bad weather. But somehow they know that, very soon, they will need to let go. It will be time to turn into larvae and re-emerge some time later, each as a butterfly. There is nothing the caterpillars can do to stop the inevitable. The song is gorgeous, and the images it evokes are emotional beyond words. Scientists have long been astonished by the transformation of caterpillars into butterflies. Milton Packer, MD, is currently distinguished scholar in cardiovascular science at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas and visiting professor at Imperial College in London. Packer is an internationally recognized clinical investigator who has made seminal contributions to the field of heart failure. After the loss of his wife, he wrote a lovely essay about Encanto, and the science behind the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly—a resurrection narrative. The caterpillar eats voraciously during its entire lifespan, presumably to accumulate sufficient nutrients for the coming transition. When the time is right, the caterpillar spins itself into a silk coverlet (a cocoon) and digests itself. During the larval phase, the release of enzymes kills the caterpillar and destroys all its organs, turning it into a mushy soup, with nothing left of its former self. If one opens a larva, there is no sign of the original caterpillar; it is gone — except for a few cells (known poetically as “imaginal cells”) that survive.

Then, by some miraculous sequence of events, a new set of instructions takes hold, and the amino acids in the larval soup are rearranged, carefully and meticulously, into an entirely new organism. The imaginal cells emerge, armed with the genetic instructions for the transformation. Initially, the caterpillar’s immune system rejects the imaginal cells, but they continue to multiply with abundance. Finally, the cells begin to clump together, forming the organs of an entirely new organism with completely different anatomical features, with long legs and wings. The fact that the caterpillar’s immune system attacks the new cells of the butterfly demonstrates that — biologically — the two insect forms are entirely distinct life forms. So essentially, the caterpillar dies and is resurrected. Dr. Packer writes that when he cares for patients who have died, “Perhaps grounded by religion or some personal philosophical perspective, some relatives or friends would say, “We will see her/him again soon.” They proposed there would be some future meeting between those who loved each other deeply during this lifetime, perhaps in a spiritual sense or even in some alternate physical world. When these predictions were made, I always agreed with them. But I did not believe them. I was trained to believe that death had absolute finality. There was no scientific basis for resurrection. There was no way a living form could die, dissolve away, and be reassembled into another creature… Yet, it happens every day. Caterpillars die and are resurrected as butterflies, using the same juices as the original life form.”

Well, make of this what you will, but consider this truth from today’s Gospel: Jesus is ready, willing and able to heal the body, mind, and spirit of anybody – regardless of their station in life, their religious affiliation, their economic status, their popularity, their perceived flaws – doesn’t matter. The common ingredient in both these stories is faith! Jesus says “Don’t be afraid; just believe…your faith has healed you.” As a priest and pastoral counselor I can say this…some of the “whole-iest” people I have known have been terminally ill, or facing what seemed insurmountable challenges. So let us follow in the footsteps of Jairus. Let us go forth with courage—with vitality and wonder—into the unknown new creation made possible by our saying “no” to a narrative of scarcity and anxiety, and “yes’ to the world to which this Gospel text points. It is a Resurrection world, in which there is meaning and hope in each of our lives and, yes, in each of our deaths, both small and large. God promises that God’s word of love will be the last, best, and strongest word. God promises that God will make all of creation new, and that we will be a part of that new creation. Amen.