March 16, 2025
Second Sunday in Lent -Year C – Bill Harkins
The Collect
O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Gospel: Luke 13:31-35
Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'”
In the Name of the God of Creation, who loves us all, Amen. Welcome to Holy Family on this Second Sunday in Lent, and if you are visiting us this morning, please let us know so we can give you a warm Holy Family greeting…and welcome home! Today’s Gospel reading contains at least two themes…courage, and prophets. I want to wonder together as to how these might inform our Lenten journey. I want to suggest that both courage and being prophetic are intimately related to one another and, indeed, it is only by having the courage to use our imagination that prophetic witness is possible. Donald Winnicott, a British psychiatrist and deeply faithful Anglican, once said that he knew his patients were getting better when thy recover, or discovered for the first time, their ability to be imaginative. I agree, and I have experienced this in my own clinical practice, and even here, at Holy Family. But we may be tempted to say, “I’m no prophet…I just live my life day to day and try to do the best I can.” I believe we as Christians are called to be both prophetic, and courageous. But what might this mean and is it possible that it has everything to do with how we live day by day?
I suspect that there are at least two kinds of courage. One is the immediate and situational courage of the person who, in a moment of extreme need, summons the courage to face an imminent danger. This is the courage of the by-stander who pushes someone out of the way of oncoming traffic or jumps into a raging river to save someone struggling to swim at great risk to him or herself. Of course, such courage is not just a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing but ultimately is a display of character, an accumulation of traits and beliefs, training and patterns of behavior that have been developed and exercised over time, preparing one to act courageously in any given moment.
There is a second kind of courage as well, this one displayed not simply in a single moment or act but in anticipating a significant, daunting, or even frightening challenge and not turning away from it but rather meeting it head on. This is also a matter of character – character that has emerged from a lifetime of facing fears and that is also being cultivated in those moments of accepting challenges and responsibilities that one could, if one chose, easily avoid.
Perhaps both kinds of courage Jesus displays in the Gospel text this week. The Pharisees warn Jesus to consider a kind of witness protection program because Herod is threatening to kill him. We don’t know who these Pharisees are or what motivates them, and it doesn’t really matter. We just know that they tell Jesus to run and save his life…and that Jesus refuses. Instead, he will keep to the road appointed, traveling the arduous path to Jerusalem like so many earlier prophets. This commitment to embrace his destiny for the sake of humanity is the very embodiment of this second kind of courage.
I admire the steadfast courage that Jesus displays in moving forward to Jerusalem, and the cross, on behalf of the world God loves so much. What struck me this time, however, is the critical role that vulnerability plays in this kind of courage. In our healing service this week, and our Wednesday night Lenten class, vulnerability is perhaps the key topic. To anticipate challenge and suffering and not look away is, by definition, to make oneself vulnerable for the sake of others. Sometimes the challenge lies externally, and sometimes it lies within us—and sometimes it is both.
It’s important to name this because, as a culture, we don’t often equate vulnerability with courage and strength. With care, love, and concern, perhaps, but not often with courage and strength. At our worst, we see vulnerability as a sign of weakness, something to be avoided at all costs, especially in an age of hyper-masculinity devoid of empathy. At our best, we recognize the need to be vulnerable to those we care about most deeply. But we don’t often see vulnerability as essential to living a courageous life or as a realistic virtue. Gregory the Great, one of the forefathers and mothers of pastoral care and counseling, understood well the intricacies of the human heart and the ease with which growth in holiness may be compromised by self-deception unless we are willing to be appropriately vulnerable. He wrote: “The pastor must understand that vices commonly masquerade as virtues. The person who is not generous claims to be frugal, while the one who is a prodigal describes himself as generous. Thus, it is necessary that the director of souls discern between vices and virtues with great care.”
Much later, the psychiatrist Carl Jung would write about the “shadow” of self-deception among leaders, especially autocratic leadership. This can include religious leaders as well, and is a cautionary tale for clergy, who can so easily develop autocratic and controlling styles of leadership. Jung’s work emphasizes the need for leaders to understand their own motivations, biases, and unconscious patterns. This self-awareness is crucial for making ethical decisions and fostering trust within an organization, including churches. Jung believed that the process of individuation, or integrating the various aspects of the psyche, is essential for personal growth and wholeness. Authentic leadership fosters trust, collaboration, and innovation. It may be uncomfortable at times for everyone, but the alternative is staying stuck, and an inability to stretch and grow to meet new challenges and rewrite old narratives. Pope Gregory understood this, and he knew that true leadership requires humility, and transparency. It is a huge step towards consciousness when we become responsible for our behaviors and how it impacts others. When we let go of judgments and see each person for the individual they really are; we have a chance to have a more authentic relationship and interactions. Carl Rogers found that “whenever there is an authentic encounter between two individuals – healing and growth take place”. Carl Jung even stated that “the spirit of evil lies in empathy deficits”. Empathy, a byproduct of vulnerability, is indeed the single most important requirement for growth and change. If we do not have empathy for someone, they will often act in ways that make empathy impossible. And thus, the human drama – we view the world through our emotional wounds and wound others (& stay stuck) by acting out of the pain from our wounds.
In today’s Gospel, however, Jesus demonstrates that vulnerability is essential to courage, stands at the core of the Christian life, and invites us to discover the strength of being open to the needs of those around us and responding with compassion. Sometimes this means speaking the truth in love. In this passage, Jesus chooses the image of a hen gathering her brood of chicks to her for protection and safety to illustrate his love and concern for God’s people. Beyond the feminine, compassionate imagery that invites re-imagining some of our views is also an image of unparalleled vulnerability. To be a parent, as Vicky and I discovered, is to be deeply vulnerable to the vicissitudes and challenges of parenthood. And now, we know that becoming grandparents makes us vulnerable in new ways. In part, this is because we cannot protect our families from all the challenges of life—nor should we, and that not only leaves parents profoundly vulnerable but promises a level of suffering that we simply would not endure if you had not bound yourself so fully to your child. As a friend of mine once said, a parent is often only as happy as her or his least happy child. Matters of healthy self-differentiation notwithstanding, now that’s vulnerability!
And it is precisely this characteristic that Jesus embodies and by extension invites us to attribute to God – that God becomes vulnerable to all the vicissitudes of human life by becoming one of and one with God’s children through the incarnation. God suffers with and for us. In addition, Jesus’ choice of this image has helped me realize that it is our vulnerability that spurs our courage and nourishes our strength simply because we can and will do things for those we love that you simply would not or could not do for ourself. And so, Jesus continues to Jerusalem not to prove himself fearless or a hero, not to make a sacrifice for sin to a judgmental God, not even to combat death and the devil. Rather, Jesus marches to Jerusalem and embraces the cross that awaits him there out of profound love for the people around him, a mother’s fierce love that will stop at nothing to protect her children. And because he has spoken the truth in relation to Empire, he is even more vulnerable!
Few people have taught me more about vulnerability than Brene Brown. Through her TED Talks and books, Brown the “story-teller/researcher” invites us to recognize that while vulnerability inevitably opens us up to feeling things we might want to avoid, it also spurs us to be more authentically human and more caring, compassionate, and courageous than we could otherwise be. Brown reminds us that courage comes from the Latin cor – “heart” – and defines courage as living from the heart, the willingness to embrace our vulnerability in order to become our authentic selves. The etymology of authentic shares root meaning with words such as “author” and “authority.” Courage, then, might be the kind of whole-hearted living that comes from believing that as God’s children we are enough and that those around us are also God’s beloved children and therefore deserve our love, empathy, and respect. And, that we can grow in empathy and compassion, a worthy goal during our Lenten journey.
In both my clinical work and consultations with small businesses and congregations, I have seen so often that leadership goes off the rails when the leader has lost the capacity for humility, and appropriate vulnerability, and transparency. I told my doctoral students that if I was working with patients, and congregations, and students, I would be in a clinical/pastoral consultation accountability group. We need others to keep us humble, and we need disciplines and practices to remind us that we live in a non-dualistic universe of “both/and” rather than “either/or.” Once we begin to believe that our way of being in the world is the only way, and we think that the rules that apply to others do not apply to us, we risk narcissism, and we lose the capacity for empathy. Among Gregory’s quotes is that “The test of Leadership is what happens when you leave.” I agree. What if in this passage we see Jesus not merely acting courageously but embracing who he was called to be for the sake of those he loved, and thereby inviting us to be who we are called to be for the sake of those around us? What would our community look like if we decided together to live whole-heartedly, making room to name our vulnerabilities in a cross-shaped confidence that God is with us and has given us sufficient resources – including each other! – to not simply endure the challenges before us but to flourish as we discover that God meets us most reliably precisely in our places of vulnerability? As Henri Nowwen has said;
“It is important to understand our suffering. It is often necessary to search for the origins of our mental and emotional struggles and to discover how other people’s actions and our response to their actions have shaped the way we think, feel, and act. Most of all, it is freeing to become aware that we do not have to be victims of our past and can learn new ways of responding. But there is a step beyond the recognition and identification of the facts of life. There is even a step beyond choosing how to live our own life story. It is the greatest step a human being can take. It is the step of forgiveness.”
Perhaps the task before us this week, Dear Ones, is to invite ourselves to name where we are feeling most vulnerable – whether in a relationship, a job, amid pressure from peers, and so on – and to remind ourselves that God is with us in these places of vulnerability and that God’s grace may lead to courage, and wholeness, and compassion. To be vulnerable is a courageous thing, and to learn from the vulnerability of the God we know best, from the manger to the cross is also a courageous thing indeed. We can do this together…
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here. ~Wendell Berry
March 9, 2025
First Sunday in Lent Year 3 – Bill Harkins
The Collect
Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The Gospel: Luke 4:1-13
In the name of the God of creation who loves us all, Amen. Welcome to each of you on this First Sunday of Lent. We are so glad you are here, and if you are visiting this morning, please let us get a chance to know you. and, let me say welcome to you all. Like many of you, I made my way to worship on Ash Wednesday this past week, and just in time for the 6pm service a cold, steady rain and wind began. Although the root word for Lent comes from the Old English Lengten, meaning “the lengthening of days in the spring,” Wednesday seemed anything but spring-like. But let’s remember that our Lenten preparations are not in the service of Good Friday, but rather in preparation for Easter—for Resurrection.
Moreover, historically, Lent provided a time when converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism.
March 2, 2025
Last Sunday after Epiphany – Year C – Bill Harkins
The Gospel: Luke 9:28-36
Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.
In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen. Good morning and welcome to Holy Family as we observe the last Sunday in Epiphany, and hear the story of a mountain top gathering replete with sleep deprived disciples,
February 23, 2025
Seventh Sunday after Epiphany – Year C – Bill Harkins
The Collect
O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The Gospel: Luke 6:27-38
Jesus said, “I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you…
In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all…Amen.
Deep River,
My home is over Jordan.
Deep River, Lord.
I want to cross over into campground.
The words of this powerful spiritual speak so well to us and to the life and ministry of so many,