Daily Archives: June 4, 2025

This Sermon is not about the Good Shepherd: A Sermon for Easter 4C, 2025

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4 Easter

May 11, 2025

There’s a lot going on this weekend. It’s Mother’s Day, of course. Happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrate! It’s also graduation weekend at UW, of course, as well. And as I was coming up the bike path, I noticed that since Friday, the lilacs are in full bloom. It’s also the 4th Sunday of Easter, often called “Good Shepherd Sunday” because each year on this Sunday we hear readings from John 10—the great discourse of Jesus on “I am the Good Shepherd.” While the gospel reading changes from year to year, every year the Psalm is Psalm 23, the most familiar of all of them: “The Lord is my Shepherd.” 

This may be my least favorite Sunday of the liturgical year. After 20 years of preaching, I don’t think I have anything interesting left to say about sheep and shepherds. So I thought we might focus our attention on the reading from the Acts of the Apostles. When I read the story of Tabitha, I’m always reminded of the women I grew up with, my mother, sisters, aunts and grandmothers. That’s probably appropriate for Mother’s Day.

When I was a boy, one Wednesday a month, my mother and my sisters would go to what was called “Sewing.” The women of the church gathered together to work on quilts, comforters, and other sewing projects that would be donated to relief sales or sent to people in need—after natural disasters, for example. I’m not sure when or if the custom ended, if it died out like so many other customs did with our changing culture. But such activities weren’t limited to once a month. My grandmother and aunts crocheted bandages—I remember their hands were always busy if we went to visit on a Friday night. As women, there were few opportunities to express their faith and in addition to preparing meals for potlucks or visiting speakers, sewing quilts or comforters, or crocheting bandages, were one concrete way of sharing Christ’s love with the world. 

Some women, two of my dad’s sisters, for example, became nurses and worked in Mennonite hospitals in the US or overseas. Others became missionaries, some with their husbands but a few went on their own. For most, though, their lives were focused on the traditional roles that had been established and there were limited opportunities to do more. Whether as nurses or as housewives, they followed Jesus in ways permitted by their community and culture. Many of them, whether literally mothers or not, were spiritual mothers to those around them.

Of course, all that was largely true of the Episcopal Church as well. Like many other parishes, much of the volunteer labor at Grace over the decades was done by the women of the church—beginning with the purchase of the lots on which our buildings now stand. Organized into guilds—the altar guild, the rector’s guild, and other groupings; after WWI, a guild was organized that met in the evening to accommodate “working girls”—no, not that kind, but women who were employed outside the home. As the culture changed in the late 20th century, and the Church with more women in the workplace and then the ordination of women after 1976, the church’s reliance on the unpaid work of women slowly waned.

            In this season, the season of Eastertide, our selection of readings changes. Instead of the usual, “Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel, on these seven Sundays of Easter we here readings from the Acts of the Apostles and the Revelation of St. John the Divine. I want to say a few introductory words about the book of Acts. It’s the second part of a two part work that begins with the gospel of Luke. 

I’ve said this often before but it bears repeating. There’s a geographic and temporal structure to the combined Luke-Acts story. The geographic structure is derived in large part from the Gospel of Mark as the story of Luke goes from Bethlehem to Nazareth and Galilee, where Jesus begins his public ministry, then continues with the long journey to Jerusalem where Jesus is crucified and raised from the dead. Here is where Luke diverges from Matthew and Mark, because in those two gospels the angels or men at the empty tomb tell the disciples to go to Galilee where the risen Christ will meet them. In Luke, the disciples remain in Jerusalem, where the Risen Christ appears to them, and from which he ascends to heaven after 40 days. Acts begins with the disciples stilled gathered in Jerusalem and Acts tells the story of their travels into the world taking the gospel with them. Acts ends with Paul in Rome. 

A second important structural element is the Holy Spirit, which comes down on Jesus at his baptism and departs from him at his death. Jesus’ last words in Luke are “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” The Holy Spirit then comes down on the disciples at Pentecost, and it carries them into the world, sometimes quite literally picking them up and moving them. It’s a movement that is full of drama and some conflict as this little band of Jesus followers tries to make sense of growth and change and to welcome Gentiles, non-Jews into their fellowship.

The little story we heard as our reading from Acts is part of that great move of the good news of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. We are introduced to Tabitha, or Dorcas. The fact that Luke names her in both the common Aramaic language of the first-century Palestinian community, and in the Greek of the wider Hellenistic roman world, suggests that Tabitha herself straddles those two communities, that she may be at home in both. So this may be a subtle hint of the gospel’s move into the world.

Luke provides another little detail that is easily overlooked and full of significance. He refers to her as a disciple. In fact, Tabitha is the only named woman in all of the New Testament who is called a disciple. Luke tells us what that meant for her: “she was devoted to good works and charity.” She fell ill and died. Her friends had heard that Peter was in a nearby town, where he had healed a paralytic man, so they sent for him. 

Many of us can imagine their grief. Tabitha was clearly someone who was a pillar of her community, someone whose passing left not just an empty space, but whose gifts and commitment would leave a large gap. Perhaps they were wondering how they would get by without her energy and commitment. In a poignant scene, when he arrives, the widows show him all of the clothes Tabitha had made—some of the good works and charity to which she had devoted herself. Peter raises her back to life, and through this miracle, many in the town come to faith.

In restoring her to life, Peter bears witness to the power of Jesus Christ and the power of resurrection. It is a miracle that brings home to that little group of people that Good News of Jesus Christ, the transforming power of his love, knows no bounds. No doubt Tabitha, raised to new life, would return to her good works and charity but the miracle also led to others in that city seeing and knowing the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. 

We often struggle to see that power for ourselves, in our lives and in our world. The problems that we face, as individuals, as a community, a nation, and the world, seem so complex and difficult. The forces of evil that are at work seem overwhelming—gun violence, greed, apathy, white supremacy, that it is easy to grow discouraged, to despair and lose hope.

But the power of resurrection lives on in the world. Our faith that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead is a faith that proclaims God’s justice and love are more powerful than death; a faith that proclaims that there will be no hunger or thirst, that God will wipe away every tear.

To live in that hope is to practice resurrection. To look for signs of God’s transforming power and love, to devote ourselves to sharing that power and love. When we despair, when we grow faint, when our faith becomes cold embers and lies on a bed, Jesus calls to us and holds out his hand and says, “Get up!” May our faith be renewed and our hope rekindled by the power of Christ’s resurrection.

What must we do to be saved? A Sermon for Easter 7C, 2025

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7 Easter

June 1, 2025

As we have been reading from the Acts of the Apostles this Eastertide, we have encountered the stories of some remarkable women. There was Dorcas or Tabitha in Joppa, who was devoted to good works and charity, and who Peter raised to life after her death. Last week, we met Lydia, a dealer of purple cloth, a God-Fearer who came to believe, with her whole household was baptized, and welcomed Paul and his companions into her home, establishing a house church in the city of Philippi.

In today’s reading, we are still in Philippi, and we encounter Paul and Silas, heading again to the place of prayer where they had first met Lydia. As they make their way, they are followed by a slave girl, who had a spirit of divination, we’re told, and was very profitable for their owners. 

She is a puzzling figure for us, quite out of our ordinary experience. While we know about fortune tellers, astrologers, and the like, they aren’t people most of us encounter regularly; we don’t typically seek them out for help. We’re more accustomed to visit medical or mental health professionals. When we do seek out alternatives, it’s not because we think they are possessed by spirits of divination, we might think they have unique expertise or insight, a product of their innate abilities, or specialized training. That’s not true of other cultures of course in which the shaman plays an important role for individuals and their communities. 

The contrast between these two women couldn’t be more extreme. Lydia, the householder, the independent businesswoman making her way in the world, making decisions, leading a house church. And the slave girl, a commodity, exploited by her owners for their economic gain. But her gift, or possession, gives her unique power.

The contrast between Paul’s response to the two women is equally extreme. He is not annoyed by Lydia—he engages her, answers her questions, preaches to her, baptizes her and her household. The slave girl simply annoys him. I get that. He’s on his way to the “place of prayer” the place he had met Lydia. He’s hoping to meet others with whom he might engage, others with whom he might share the good news. And as he goes, he’s probably thinking about all that, planning his conversation, running over scenarios in his mind, his answers to questions, or responses to critics. But instead, there’s this slave girl, following them shouting: “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”

We’re told that this wasn’t a one-time occurrence. We’re told she kept doing this for many days. We’re also told that Paul was very annoyed. I get that. When I’m distracted while trying to get work done, I get really frustrated. That’s been happening a lot lately. There are the unhoused people who stop me while I’m on my way to an appointment or meeting; or who linger around the church during the day. Most annoying and distracting right now is the construction that’s going on outside my office window. It’s loud, and I worry it’s only going to get louder when they begin erecting the steel for the new museum. I wish I could open my window and shout out at them, “Shut up!” A lot of good that would do.

So I get Paul’s response. And let’s be clear. He doesn’t respond to her because of his concern for her well-being, a desire to help or heal her, from compassion or mercy. No, she has annoyed him and he wants to eliminate the annoyance. He could care less about her; he cares about what she is doing to him. And that’s the last we see of her. We might wonder about the consequences for her of Paul’s actions. She’s lost her value for her owners. Do they take that out on her by punishing her, or by selling her? What’s going to happen to her? Whatever power or standing she had because of her unique gift has vanished with the spirit that possessed her.

Well, Acts isn’t interested in any of those questions. Instead the story goes on to explore the consequences of Paul’s actions for him and his companions. And here we see the full power of the slave girl’s owners, and the full weight of the Roman judicial system arrayed against them. They were publicly stripped, flogged, and thrown in prison. 

I’m interested in the various places these stories play out—the place of prayer outside the city walls; the city streets that lead to that place of prayer; Lydia’s household; the marketplace; the prison; and finally, again, Lydia’s household. Public and private spaces; safe and dangerous spaces. 

And I’m interested in the ways in which the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, as well as Paul and Silas who are proclaiming it, disrupt and occupy those spaces. We might wonder whether Paul’s visits to that place of prayer, whether or not it was a synagogue, proved disruptive to the Jewish community who gathered there. It very likely was, as other stories from the Book of Acts attest. 

We can see how Paul and Silas disrupt the streets of the city, whether it’s because the slave girl is shouting after them as they pass through the city, or because they have cast out that spirit of divination. We see the disruption in the marketplace, with the accusations and the flogging. And finally, we see the disruption in the prison, as the miraculous earthquake brings down the walls and offers liberation to those incarcerated inside.

Such disruption can lead to fear and anxiety as old certainties and structures dissolve, but it can also mean liberation. We see that dynamic at play in the response of the jailor, who worries for his life and livelihood in the wake of the earthquake and the prospect that the incarcerated persons under his care might go free. Instead of personal disaster, the jailor himself and his whole household experience liberation as they respond to the good news of Jesus Christ and are baptized.

And here we begin to see the full power of the new life in Christ. The power of love and reconciliation takes hold as the prisoners’ wounds are tended to, and they take their place at his table, receiving his hospitality. Here we see, in all its simplicity almost in shorthand, the central rituals, the life of the new community of Christ, taking place at night in a home: The Word is preached, wounds are healed, table fellowship, baptism.

Our reading ends here, but the story continues and its final episode is of great significance. In the morning, the magistrates send the police to see what has happened. They want the episode to end; they want the prisoners to leave town quietly, to leave without disrupting things. But Paul refuses to go quietly:

But Paul replied, ‘They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.’ The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens; so they came and apologized to them.”

Confronted by the destruction of the system of power in which he was enmeshed, the jailor feared for his life. What might freedom from those bonds have looked like to him? So he asked, “What must I do to be saved?” There’s a certain irony, a double-ness in his question. For one thing, he has already been saved, saved from the system of domination in which he was enmeshed and implicated. He has been saved, in the language of the New Testament, he has been restored to wholeness; to use our language he has regained his dignity and his humanity.

What must we do to be saved? This question and the conventional contemporary answer—accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior have lost the rich dimensions they had in the first century. Salvation was not just personal or spiritual—salvation literally meant wholeness, wellness of body and soul. But it extended far beyond the individual person, to encompass the community, society, all of creation.

What must we do to be saved? Where do we experience brokenness or illness? In our bodies, in our relationships, in society? Where do our systems, our personal addictions or sin, rob us of our humanity and dignity, just as the Roman system robbed the jailer and the slave girls of theirs and tried to rob Paul and Silas of theirs?

What must we do to be saved? In the midst of their suffering, as they dealt with the pain of torture, as they experienced the raw power of the Roman state, Paul and Silas sang hymns and praised God. They refused to submit to that Roman power and God’s power came into that dark prison, freeing them and the jailer from the system that sought to crush them. As they worshiped, as they ate together, they shared the new life of Christ; they experienced the power of God to transform lives and the world. May we do the same. May our worship, our common life, our coming together at the Eucharistic feast, bear witness to the work of God that transforms the world and restores broken hearts and bodies. May our worship and our common life restore our hearts, bodies, and souls, and restore the lives of those we encounter.

A Place of Prayer: A Sermon for Easter 6C, 2025

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6 Easter

May 25, 2025

The next few months are going to be interesting ones at Grace. We already see signs of that, with the fencing erected around the perimeter of the nave. In the coming days, scaffolding will be erected on the courtyard and Carroll St. sides and our lovely stained glass windows will be boarded up. 

It’s the second time in the last decade that we’ve seen major construction here at Grace. The last time, in 2015, we embarked on a major project to renovate our spaces, to open them up and make them more inviting to newcomers and the community. There was a great deal of excitement about what those renovations would lead to. And they did bring increased attendance, vitality, and energy to the place.

This time, we’re doing something we have to do. As stewards of this historic property, it’s our duty to preserve it for future generations, to carry on the legacy with which we have been entrusted. And what we do should ensure Grace’s continued presence well into the future, if all goes as planned, for another century. 

We don’t know what the future holds; what Madison might look like a century from now, but that’s nothing new. I doubt the people who built this church had any idea what life, Madison, the church would like 170 years later. We’ve seen enormous change over that time, beginning with the Civil War, and we’re seeing unprecedented, unimaginable change today. We might even wonder whether spending so much money to preserve an old church is worth it, whether it’s a wise use of our limited resources. 

It’s striking that we are presented with these texts on which to reflect at this time in our common life and the life of our parish.

Our reading from Acts comes at a pivotal moment in the narrative. Paul has been traveling through Asia Minor, what is now Turkey, visiting Hellenistic cities and the Jewish communities that lived in them. He has preached the good news of Jesus Christ, met with success, and faced some challenges. Now, he has a vision and decides to go to Macedonia. Macedonia lies north of Greece. It was the home of Alexander the Great who created the huge empire that stretched from Greece and Egypt to the Indus River and Central Asia. It is on the continent of Europe but the divide between Europe and Asia may seem larger today than it did in the first century. Both were part of the Roman Empire and both were part of the same large cultural constellation of the Hellenistic age. So whether Paul understood himself to be breaking new ground as he passed into Macedonia, whether Luke meant to stress that transition, is not certain.

Philippi was actually named for Alexander the Great’s father, Philip. It was a Roman colony, settled by retired Roman soldiers whose service was rewarded with grants of property. Its citizens were accorded the full rights of citizenship, and it was a sort of model of Roman culture, political, and religious life in the region. Lydia the seller of purple, is not a native of Philippi but of a city in Asia Minor. Whether she traveled as part of her business or settled in Philippi is unknowable. But she trades in expensive items, purple is a color reserved for the aristocracy, so it’s likely she herself is a woman of means.

Luke tells us that on the Sabbath, Paul and his companions go outside the city to a place of prayer by the river. What’s meant is a gathering place for Philippi’s Jews, perhaps even a synagogue. Lydia is there because she, like Cornelius before her, is a God-Fearer, someone who is attracted to Judaism but hasn’t converted. It’s worth pointing out that we know—fro Acts as well as non-biblical sources, that Judaism appealed to many in th Roman Empire because of its monotheism and its high ethical and moral standards. 

Paul and his companions sit down with the women who are gathered there and speak with them. Lydia is moved by God; Paul baptizes her and her household, and stays with her several days. From later references, it’s likely that Lydia’s home became a gathering place for followers of Jesus, and a house church.

I’m fascinated by the contrast between this briefstory in Acts and the vision of the New Jerusalem we heard from Revelation: The New Jerusalem comes down from heaven: “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” 

Presumably, there were many temples in Philippi—the usual array of temples to the Roman deities but likely also temples to various local deities and some for cults imported from Asia Minor or Egypt, like Isis. We don’t know whether the place of prayer mentioned in Acts was a formal synagogue. Whether it was or not, it was outside the city walls. Paul met faithful Jews there as well as God-Fearers like Lydia. That encounter led to the beginning of a Christian community in Philippi, one to which Paul would later write a letter in which he expressed his deep affection for it.

Paul preached, but it was God who opened Lydia’s heart, and Lydia who opened her home to this new community. She offered Paul and his companions hospitality now and a few days later as well. It took all of that, Paul’s courage and preaching, God’s work, and Lydia’s leadership to create this new community in Philippi.

All of the geographical allusions are suggestive of larger significance. As I said, I don’t think we should make too much of the shift from Asia Minor to Europe. Lydia may be Paul’s first convert on the continent of Europe, but she’s a native of a town in Asia Minor, so she’s a foreigner of sorts in Philippi, a marginal figure. She’s a marginal figure in the Jewish community as well, as a God-Fearer and not a full member. Her conversion itself takes place on the margins, outside the city gates. How welcome was she in any of those spaces—in Philippi, at the place of prayer, in the Jewish community?

But when God opened her heart, she also welcomed the Good News of Jesus Christ and would welcome Paul into her home—both now and later when he left prison. And through her hospitality her household became the household of God in Philippi, welcoming all those who heard the Good News and embraced the gospel.

The New Jerusalem, the heavenly city that comes down in John the Divine’s vision. Like Philippi, it was surrounded by walls. Unlike Philippi, its gates were never shut. It is a holy city, the whole of it God’s dwelling place.

That vision seems far from reality in our world today. A city in which all are safe and thrive, a city where the worship of God is at its very heart, a city that doesn’t fear those who come to it, a city where all are welcome. None of that seems possible today, or even plausible. Even though Grace stands at the very center of Madison, what we do hear is quite peripheral to the lives of most of Madison’s residents. There’s no clearer symbol of that disconnect than the contrast between the numbers present at our services today, and the thousands who were on the square earlier this morning for the start of the half-marathon.

But think of that little group of people who gathered in Lydia’s home in Philippi—filled with the Holy Spirit, energized to share the good news, to be the community that God had called them to be through Jesus Christ, welcoming strangers, offering hospitality. In their small way, they were bringing into being the vision John saw. In their small way, the food and drink they offered was for the healing of the nations.

May that vision of the New Jerusalem, may the vision of Lydia’s little house-church become our vision, and our reality. May we, through our common life, our hospitality, our sharing of the good news, may we offer healing to the nations, and healing to this city.