Monthly Archives: May 2026

The Holy Spirit: God at Play. A sermon for the Feast of Pentecost, 2026

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May 24, 2026

         Today is the Feast of Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on the disciples.  Over the centuries, Christians have come up with all sorts of gimmicks to commemorate the occasion. In the Middle Ages, many churches had mechanical doves that would descend from the ceiling on Pentecost. It’s common among Episcopalians to wear red on Pentecost. There are those who love to say “It’s the birthday of the church!”—No, it’s not. I once participated in a reading of the Acts passage in different foreign languages. If you think Parthians, Cappadocia, and the like are difficult to pronounce in English, imagine what those words sound like in German.

         Our scripture readings today offer rich and varied images to help us think about the Holy Spirit. There’s the reading from Acts, which tells in dramatic fashion the descent of the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire on the disciples gathered in the Upper Room and the miraculous gift of foreign languages that allowed them to preach to the international crowds gathered in Jerusalem for the festival of Shavuot, the feast of weeks. If any of you have ever struggled to learn a foreign language, you’re probably rather envious of the disciples’ sudden fluency.

         There’s the reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, written to a community that valued the gift of tongues above all others. But in this case, the gift was not miraculous fluency in foreign language but ecstatic utterances that were incomprehensible to others. For Paul, such utterances were not necessarily a sign of greater faith, but only one of many possible gifts of the spirit. In a sense, he is democratizing the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It had been a source of controversy in the Corinthian community, with those who expressed these ecstatic utterances asserting their superiority over other members of the community who did not experience them. Paul’s use of the metaphor of the human body is an attempt to stress the importance of unity among the diversity of gifts and to assert the equal importance of all members.

         And then there’s the gospel text for today, which presents a very different understanding of the coming of the Holy Spirit and its importance to the emergent community of Jesus followers. It takes place on the evening of the First Easter, rather than 50 days later as Pentecost. In addition, the mood is much more contemplative, quiet. In place of the miraculous tongues of fire and the gift of languages, or even the ecstatic speech experienced among members of the Corinthian community, here we have Jesus himself imparting the Holy Spirit on his disciples. 

         But in these few sentences are powerful ideas. Drawing on themes we have been seeing the last several weeks, first of all there’s the implication of identity of Father, Son, and disciples: As the Father sent me, so I am sending you. Shared identity, shared mission, propelling the disciples out of the locked room in which they were hiding into the world. 

         The disciples are also given a unique power. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven, if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” In Matthew that power, the power of the keys was given to Peter; here it is bestowed on all of the disciples. It marks them as a community of reconciliation and redemption and I think it is an extension of the emphasis on love that we have already seen expressed in the gospel readings over the last several weeks. 

         Finally, and for me this may be the most inspiring; there’s a verse in the Psalm that I have always found appealing and a key to understanding the exuberance of the Holy Spirit: 

         there is that Leviathan, *
which you have made for the sport of it.

         And later: 

                  You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; *
and so you renew the face of the earth.

There’s a sense that the wondrous diversity and beauty of creation is a product of God’s playfulness, something I don’t think we often appreciate fully. We’re prone to take our religious lives, and God, for that matter, a bit too seriously some times. So to imagine creation as God’s playground, if we’re created in God’s image, we should enjoy it just as God does.

         All of these texts illuminate different aspects of the Holy Spirit. But I think there is one important theme to consider. It has become common to think, since the Pentecostal movements of the twentieth century, that the Holy Spirit is primarily an individual gift, proof of one’s faith. Alternatively, and equally prevalent is the idea that individual religious experience, whether it’s the sort of ecstatic experience alluded to in I Corinthians, or simply an overwhelming sense of awe and majesty in the presence of the divine—what the 20th century Religious Studies pioneer Rudolf Otto talked about in his groundbreaking “The Idea of the Holy” is what the Holy Spirit is all about.

I don’t think that’s the case. In Acts, in John, and in I Corinthians, the gift of the Holy Spirit is first and foremost a communal gift, not an individual one. As Paul says, we are all members of one body. It is a communal gift and it is a gift to the church. But there’s a danger there, too. The Holy Spirit has too often been confined to the workings of the institutional church, to support its structures, and there’s no better example of that than our gospel hymn, a version of which is always sung at ordinations in the Episcopal Church. The orderly laying on of hands, the apostolic succession of bishops, are efforts to channel and limit the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit disrupts as well as builds up. It blows where it will and leads us into new territory and new opportunities. As Jesus says to the disciples in John: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And as we see in the reading from Acts, too, above all, the Holy Spirit is about mission, going out into the world beyond the confines of this building and the narrow patterns of our lives. It sends us out to connect with others, to share the good news, to spread God’s love, to enjoy the breadth, diversity, and exuberance of God’s creation, and to imitate that breadth, diversity, and exuberance as we build community together.

On this day, as we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are invited to discern its working in the world and in our lives. We are called to embrace its power and to let it do its work, to expand our horizons, to follow its lead, to share it with others. May it empower us to build our congregation and to imagine new ways in which God is calling us to be God’s people, and to share the good news, spreading Christ’s love in our community and the world.

One with the Father and the Son: A sermon for Easter 7C, 2026

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May 17, 2026

Today, the seventh Sunday of Easter, is one of the oddest of all of the Sundays in the liturgical calendar. We are in something like suspended animation, or stopped motion. On Thursday, the calendar, even if we at Grace Church didn’t, commemorated the feast of the Ascension, when Jesus Christ departed from earth and from his disciples forty days after the resurrection. Next Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of the gift of the Holy Spirit on the assembled disciples, empowering them to spread the good news of Jesus Christ throughout the world. But today, today we’re waiting.

Both the gospel and the reading from Acts are about departures, leave-taking. They are two pieces of Jesus’ departure from his disciples. The reading from John comes from the Last Supper. Now we’re in chapter 17, Jesus’ lengthy and powerful prayer to God on behalf of his disciples. The reading from Acts gives us a glimpse into Luke’s understanding of Jesus’ ascension, and the disciples’ response to it. Together, they invite us to think about relationships—the relationship between the Father and the Son, the relationship between Jesus and his disciples, the relationships within and among the body of Christ.   

Our collect today actually sets the tone for us: “Do not leave us comfortless.” It’s a reminder of one of the themes of Jesus’ farewell discourse in John: the promise that upon Jesus’ departure, he would leave them with the Paraclete, the Comforter and Advocate, to remind the disciples of his presence among them, and to strengthen them, to give them courage and hope in this new era.

It might be worth pointing out that in the gospel of John, the ascension is part of one all-encompassing event: Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. In a very real sense for John, the real ascension is the crucifixion, as Jesus says in chapter 12, “And I when I am lifted, will draw all people to myself.” The language John uses is “glorification”—as we see here, when Jesus says, “The hour has come. Glorify your son so that the son may glorify you.” That language and imagery may be puzzling to us, because we are more familiar with Luke’s understanding of the ascension, as we see in the reading from Acts.

The disciples at the Ascension are looking up at the sky in the wake of Jesus’ departure. No doubt they are shocked and perplexed by what they’ve just seen and wondering what might happen next. 

In these few verses, they begin in puzzlement and end in prayer. On this last occasion when the Risen Christ is with them, they ask a question that has probably been on their minds since the Resurrection: “Is now the time that you will restore Israel?” One might have hoped, or expected that after his death and resurrection, the disciples would have come to understand that Jesus Christ was not a Messiah in that political sense that they and indeed all Jews were awaiting. But no, even now, at this late date, they seem confused as ever. Jesus promises them the Holy Spirit, departs from them and they stay behind, looking up into the sky.

As they linger, their thoughts and eyes directed heavenward, they are brought back to the earth by two angels who admonish them, telling them basically, you’ve seen enough; it’s over; get back to your business. And so they return to Jerusalem, reconvene in the upper room where they had gathered the night before Jesus’ arrest. Luke takes the time to list the names of the eleven but he also points out that there were other disciples in the group, women as well as men. 

Luke concludes, “They were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.” In that brief description, we can sense something of the odd state in which they found themselves. After all of the spectacular events, the emotional lows and highs, after Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, the disciples still weren’t sure what was going to happen next. They were waiting and they might not have quite known what they were waiting for. 

No doubt part of what they were waiting for was direction, clarity on what to do next. They were probably also waiting to see what Jesus meant with his final words about the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon them and making them witnesses to him throughout the world. In that sense, the disciples were experiencing something we all experience, as individuals and as a community when we wonder, pray, and try to discern the next steps on our journey, when we wait, hoping for clear direction from God on the way forward.

In times like these, Jesus’ words in John 17 are comforting indeed. We have read over the last three weeks Jesus’ words in these chapters from John. They are his final instructions and communication with his disciples at the last Supper. They are words of comfort but also words of commissioning. Jesus is reassuring his disciples even as he gives them commands. In today’s reading, we encounter one of the most significant ideas in John’s gospel. Throughout John, Jesus has stated his identity with God the Father: “I and the Father are one;” “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Now, he takes that identity a step further. Jesus prays, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

These words have often been used to appeal for Christian unity, for ecumenism. I’ve got no problem with that. I have been active in the ecumenical movement throughout my time here in Madison, serving on the Board, and then as President of the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. But to collapse Jesus’ words here to mean only that is misleading. This isn’t about working across denominational lines or coming up with agreements for joint communion.

Jesus is speaking about something much deeper here. When he states repeatedly that He and the Father are one—he is not talking about intellectual agreement or emotional attachment. He is talking about identity, oneness. When he prays, that they may be one, even as I and the Father are one, he is praying for oneness, identity. It’s hard for us to grasp what that might mean given our culture’s centuries-long emphasis on individualism and autonomy. One way to think about it might be to imagine ourselves, individually and as a congregation, to be so imbued with God’s presence, so filled with the Holy Spirit, that when others encounter us, when strangers join us, they experience and know the love of God in Jesus Christ. 

In essence, what Jesus is praying for is that when people see us, they see him. Can we even imagine such a thing? Perhaps not. Like all humans, individually we are deeply flawed. Like all human institutions, Grace Church, the Episcopal church, are deeply flawed. We experience conflict, we fall short of our values and fail to respond to the world’s needs and each other’s needs. But to imagine ourselves, as individuals, as a congregation, to be the presence of Christ in the world, the visible presence of God’s love, to aspire to that is to be faithful to God’s call. May we embrace it, may we embody it.

Love is his meaning: A Sermon for Easter 6A, 2026

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May 10, 2026

         Today is the twentieth anniversary of my ordination as a priest in the Episcopal Church. Remarkably, nearly 17 of those years have occurred here, as Rector of Grace Church. Looking back, I am enormously grateful for all those who have accompanied me on this journey, to Corrie especially, to all of those clergy and laypeople who encouraged me as I was discerning my call and preparing for my ordination, and all those who have supported and prayed for me, and those who have been ministers alongside me, clergy and laity alike.

         It was the culmination of a long process. I had sensed a call to ministry during my college years but it became apparent that ordained ministry in the religious tradition in which I was raised would not be possible. Soon after joining the Episcopal Church in my early 30s I began exploring ordination but the bishops of two different dioceses seemed unwilling to work with my unique situation. So by my 40s, although I had a strong sense of call, it seemed the church wasn’t hearing that call as I did. I joke that I finally found a bishop who didn’t think I needed to go back to seminary in order to become a priest, since I had a doctorate and had even taught for a year at an Episcopal seminary. Even so, the ordination process took five years to complete, which was frustrating and demoralizing. The process, which is meant to ensure that well-qualified candidates are ordained by the church is fallible and can be dehumanizing. 

         Still, it’s all been worthwhile as well as challenging, intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally. I’ve found myself growing in ways and directions that have been surprising. Just this week, for example, I’ve worked with our new partners in ministry: Catalyst for Change, as they have moved into our basement space and begun to take over the work of Off the Square Club. I’ve met with the team from Historic Window and Door who are about to begin the repair work on the stained glass windows on the Carroll St. side of the nave; and I’ve met with someone from another denomination whose daughter is about to be confirmed in the Episcopal Church and he wanted to learn more about the Anglican tradition and how it differs from his own. 

         Among all that, and everything else, I found myself taking a bit of time to revisit my academic past. Friday was the commemoration of Julian of Norwich in our liturgical calendar and in preparation for the midweek Eucharist I refreshed my memory concerning her life, writings, and theology. I pulled out the volume of her writings that I’ve had since grad school. It’s a paperback, so it’s falling apart now. Its pages are full of notes and underlinings from successive readings for class as a student and as a professor; something of an archaeology of my own history with the text, as a scholar and as a Christian. We’ll come back to that later.

         Today, on this Sixth Sunday of Easter, we heard again from the 14th chapter of John, part of Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples, set at the Last Supper, as he prepares them for his imminent departure them and for his continuing presence among them in different modes. In Jesus’ words, and in the beautiful phrases of the collect for the day, our attention is directed to God’s love and all the ways in which our love of God is grounded in God’s love for us. 

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good
things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such
love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above
all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we
can desire; 

         The collect reminds us that the love we have for God is itself a gift from God, and made possible by God’s love for us. A similar note is struck in Jesus’ words here: 

 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

The same theme is expressed in the words of the gospel hymn we just sang; written by Bianco da Siena in the 14th century: “Come down, O love divine, seek thou this soul of mine.” We love, because God first loved us.

         That love is also made manifest in the Holy Spirit. Here, Jesus uses the word Advocate in our translation. It’s an attempt to render in English the Greek word “Paraclete” which means someone who is called to be alongside another, often as a legal representative; so in that sense, “Advocate” is a perfectly acceptable rendering. But there are other nuances in the term. One of them is “Comforter” which was the word used in the King James version here, and connects the gospel to our gospel hymn again: “O comforter, draw near…” we sang. Jesus assures the disciples that the Paraclete, the Advocate “abides in them” striking that other dominant theme of John’s gospel, of abiding, but now, it is the Advocate abiding with the disciples in the absence of the bodily Jesus. 

         As I reflect on my twenty years of priestly ministry, I am deeply moved by all those among whom and to whom I have ministered—the babies and adults I’ve baptized; the couples I’ve married, the faithful Christians I have buried. I reflect on the outstretched hands of all those to whom I have said “The body of Christ, the bread of heaven” as I have distributed Christ’s body; the people I’ve prayed with and for.

         I think also of all those who have accompanied me along this journey; members of altar guilds, vestries, acolytes, musicians, staff members. I consider all the ways God’s love has been present along the way, even when it seemed profoundly absent.

         Our journeys are curious, surprising things. The encounters we have; the circumstances in which we suddenly find ourselves from time to time; the changes and challenges of a culture that is experiencing rapid and disorienting transformation. Sometimes I wonder whether I bear any resemblance to the person I was forty or fifty years ago; sometimes I wonder whether I’ve changed at all.

         At the outset, I mentioned spending some time with Julian of Norwich this week. Julian was a 14th century anchoress and mystic      who experienced a series of visions when she was around thirty years old and spent the rest of her life reflecting on and trying to make sense of those visions. These reflections culminated in what is one of the greatest and most profound works of Christian mysticism of all time. And as she pondered and reflected on what it all meant, Jesus spoke to her words that encapsulate the good news, for the 14th century and today:

         What, do you wish to know the Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love. Remain in this and you will know more of the same. But you will never know different, without end.