Author Archives: djgrieser

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About djgrieser

I have been Rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Madison, WI since 2009. I'm passionate about Jesus Christ and about connecting our faith and tradition with 21st century culture. I'm also very active in advocating for our homeless neighbors.

Let the little children and the animals come to me: A sermon for Proper22B, 2024

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Proper 22B

October 6, 2024

Today is our annual Blessing of the Animals. We usually do it on the first Sunday in October, the closest Sunday to October 4, the Feast of St. Francis. It’s an appropriate time to do it as St. Francis was known in his own day as someone who loved animals—he is said to have preached to the birds and tamed the wolf of Gubbio. He had a deep love of the created world and is regarded as a patron saint of environmentalism—worth remembering in these days of drastic climate change and the forces unleashed on the world by our exploitation and abuse of the natural world. 

It may seem a bit odd that we have these scripture readings before us on this day when we have pets in our midst, distracting us from the texts. But I like to worship with our pets on this day, because for those of us who share our lives with animals, our relationships with them are deep and meaningful and they are often avenues through which we experience and share God’s love.

In fact, I think the readings do point us toward the created world. It’s not just the section of the reading from Genesis which on the surface connects to Jesus’ sayings in the gospel reading concerning marriage and divorce. It’s all of it. We might be distracted as we read or listen this version of the creation story, questions might arise in our minds about its historical veracity or patriarchal assumptions, or whether non-traditional forms of marriage are sanctioned But think about the humor in it—God seems to be rather bumbling, doesn’t he, and it’s a he in this text. God wants to make a partner for the man because it is not good for him to be alone, but he can’t figure out what sort of partner would be appropriate—so he makes all of the animals, each time falling short of his goal. 

But think about that for a moment. One of the text’s assumptions is that we are to be in relationship with animals, not just a relationship of dominion and exploitation but of mutuality.

And when it comes to Jesus’ sayings on divorce, which may hit us hard if we or those we love have been affected by divorce. For we know that sometimes, divorce is necessary; that it’s the only answer, even that it is the only way for one spouse to survive. But still to hear a saying of Jesus like this may fill us with guilt. But think about it another way. What Jesus is contrasting is the reality of human life with what God intended for us in creation, to be with someone in a relationship of mutuality and love—of course human sin and brokenness makes such relationships difficult, as it makes all of human life difficult. We experience the vast chasm between the reality of our lives, and the vision of creation offered in scripture.

In a sense, Torah, the law was an attempt to make allowances for all the ways in which human beings fall short of the created order as established by God. That’s certainly the case with the instructions concerning divorce. There’s one important thing to note here, however. In Jesus’ rewording of the instructions concerning divorce, he gives women agency: “If a man divorces his wife and marries another, he commits adultery; and if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” There is no such provision for women in the Mosaic law—only men can divorce their wives. 

In other words, while continuing to make room for divorce in the fallen world, Jesus is calling his disciples to a different vision of justice, a world in which human beings are invited to enter into relationships with each other and with God that are grounded in equality and mutuality.

We see something of that same vision in the following verses. As Jesus welcomes a child into his arms, rebuking his disciples for seeking to erect a barrier to this new community, he is challenging all of us to embrace a vision of community that is fully inclusive and welcoming of all human beings, and perhaps, all creation.

But Jesus’ proclamation of the reign of God is calling us back to that vision of creation. And it’s not just about marriage and divorce—in creation, there was no property, no exploitation, no hierarchy. So too, in the reign of God. 

We often catch fleeting glimpses of that vision in our lives and world today. In the coming together after natural disasters as strangers help each other; in the radical welcome at God’s table, in the selfless love of a pet for their person. I caught a glimpse of that vision yesterday at our diocesan convention. The fact of reunification itself is a sign of God’s reign—the putting aside of petty differences, the comforts of the past, to embark on something new, building relationships with strangers, discerning together the future of the Episcopal Church in our state. And in the midst of a service that installed Bishop Gunter as the Bishop of a reunited Diocese of Wisconsin, he laid his hands on a bible published in 1820, given by Bishop Onderdonk of New York to the Oneida Episcopalians who were being forced from their homes in New York and traveled across the country to Wisconsin, where they became the first Episcopalians in what would become our state and our diocese. With that history of oppression and violence, loss of homes and culture, those Episcopalians preserved that bible down to the present day, a symbol of their faith, and their hope that they would be embraced fully as Americans and as Christians, and later in that service, as the Te Deum was sung in the Oneida language we embraced that painful history, acknowledging our sins and giving thanks to God for a new beginning and a new opportunity to create a more just church. 

Our gospel reading began with the news that Jesus and his disciples are now in Judea, on that journey to Jerusalem coming ever closer to the cross. The disciples have shown that they don’t know what’s going to happen, they don’t understand what Jesus is talking about when he proclaims the coming of God’s reign—that’s why they sought to exclude children from his presence. But Jesus breaks through those barriers, reaches out to us and to all, embracing us with his love, inspiring us with his vision, calling us to create this new community of love and justice that transforms us, our relationships, and the world.

Welcoming a child, welcoming Jesus: A sermon for Proper 20B, 2024I

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A couple of weeks ago, I saw a news report out of the state of New Hampshire. An Episcopal Church in a town had offered to pay the school lunch debt of students and was apparently turned down by school administrators. Instead, the school planned to take the families to small claims court. Of course the story incited outrage and eventually the school decided to accept the money from the church and to refrain from pursuing court action.

Earlier this week, we heard about the horrific exploding pagers and walkie-talkies that Israel unleashed in Lebanon killing innocent children alongside Hezbollah members. We are all too accustomed to school shootings by now, and the mantras from politicians in their wake: “Thoughts and Prayers” and “There’s nothing we can do.” We claim to honor children, to cherish them, but our actions, our culture puts the lie to those empty words.

Another news story this past week. The remains of three more Lakota children who died at the Carlisle Industrial School were returned to the Pine Ridge Reservation and interred in cemeteries there; 132 years after their deaths. Three of hundreds of children who died in Boarding Schools; of the thousands who were torn from their homes and families, stripped of their culture, language, and identity, over the decades.

In today’s gospel reading, we are introduced to the second of Jesus’ three predictions of his suffering and crucifixion, as well as the disciples’ response to it. There are some interesting differences between these two episodes, the one we heard last week and this week’s. First of all, where they took place. Last week, Jesus and his disciples were in the area of Caesarea Philippi, gentile territory. And it seems to have taken place in a public place—Mark says that Jesus called the crowd with his disciples to him before saying “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross…”  

This week, they’re back in Capernaum, which has served as something of a home base for Jesus, in Jewish territory. And they’re in a home, a private, rather than a public place. We’re told that he called the twelve to him, so this time, his teaching on discipleship is directed only to his closest friends. Intriguingly, there are others in the room, including children. Jesus brings one of them to him and says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me.”

Children—scholars struggle to understand the changing attitudes towards children throughout human history. There are those who have argued that in the pre-modern world, parents didn’t love and care for their children as they do today. The argument being that high infant and childhood mortality rates led parents to be more detached from their children than they might be today. They may have been perceived as property, as non-entities, until they became old enough to contribute to the economic well being of the family. In the Roman world, children had no legal standing. But at the same time, it’s hard for us to imagine how parents might not have loved their children as deeply and intensely as most contemporary parents love their children, and there is ample historical evidence of such love—the grief expressed by parents at the deaths of their children, for example.

We see evidence of that love and concern in the Gospel of Mark itself. Remember the woman who pleaded with Jesus to heal her daughter two weeks ago; or earlier, the ruler of the synagogue who came to Jesus in hopes he would heal his daughter. In fact, the children in Mark’s gospel are doubly vulnerable—they are sick or possessed as well as being of minor age.

So what might Jesus mean when he says that, “whoever welcomes one child in my name welcomes me?” Perhaps it’s not the saccharine sentiment we thought it was but rather something deeper, more radical. Such a move might be anticipated by Jesus’ previous statement: “Whoever wants to be first must be last and servant of all.”

One of the key notions in the reign of God as Jesus is portrayed proclaiming it in the gospels is that of reversal. We see it here: the first will be last and the last will be first. We saw it in last week’s gospel: “Whoever would save their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it.” 

Here, Jesus is advancing an understanding of God’s reign in which the world’s values, the values by which we operate, on which our culture is dependent and constructed, are upended for another set of values. The first will be last and the last first. Here, Jesus goes on to say,” Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” And then comes the bit about children. It might seem something of a non-sequitur to us, but in both Aramaic and Greek, the same word can be used for “servant” and “child” which underscores the overall attitude towards children in those cultures.

A couple of decades, we heard a great deal in the church about “servant leadership” which I always thought was little more than an attempt to obscure power and privilege behind the guise of humility. Fortunately, we don’t hear to much about that any more but it’s still easy to draw similar conclusions from this text. While Jesus is upbraiding his disciples for their concern about their standing in the community (and their standing in God’s realm), the real point of this saying is different—it’s not about the disciples, or about us. Once again, it’s about the community welcoming and embracing the weakest and most vulnerable. 

It’s a message that bears repeating because it is one that is difficult to accept, to embrace, and to enact, because it runs so counter to culture and to ordinary behavior. How many times have you been at a gathering of some sort, talking to someone, and constantly looking over their shoulder to see if there’s someone more important, more interesting with whom you might connect. We do it in business gatherings, at conferences, and certainly we clergy do it at clergy gatherings. Like the disciples, we’re always jockeying for position, trying to figure out how we might climb the ladder of power and prestige.

But Jesus is teaching us something different—not to look for ways of advancing ourselves but to look to those who are marginalized, powerless, to the child and the servant. 

And who are the most vulnerable in our society right now? With healthcare out of reach for so many, with the skyrocketing numbers of elderly people becoming homeless; with the vicious attacks on immigrants, asylum seekers—the list of the vulnerable grows ever longer while the attacks on them become ever more shrill and violent. We may decry such attacks and attitudes but is it enough to speak out? Is it time for us to match our actions with words, to lay aside our assertions of power and prestige, and welcome the child, the stranger with open arms and open hearts.

Is the cross too heavy for us to carry? A sermon for Proper 19B, 2024

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September 15, 2024

Jesus asks his disciples two questions in the first verses of today’s Gospel reading: “Who do people say that I am?” and “Who do you say that I am?” I thought about having you ask each other these two questions but then it occurred to me that answering either, or both, might make us too uncomfortable. Most of us are culturally averse to revealing too much about ourselves in public forums. Moreover, we may not know what to say, what we really think about who Jesus is with enough certainty to be ready with an answer.

Now, I’ll bet none of you would answer the first question the way the disciples did: “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” In fact, you might be puzzled by that answer. After all, John the Baptist had just been executed, why would anyone think Jesus was him? The other two answers point to the apocalyptic speculation that was common in Jesus’ day, that one of the great prophets like Elijah would return to earth.

Before we get to the second question, I want to talk again about geography. We’re told that Jesus is in the region of Caesarea Philippi. It’s an interest setting for Jesus to ask these questions. Once again, he’s outside of his homeland, Galilee, where most of his public ministry had taken place up to this point.

It too was gentile territory, but more importantly perhaps, its name proclaims its significance.

Caesarea Philippi was originally built by Herod the Great, and dedicated to Herod’s patron, Caesar Augustus. Philip, his son and successor in this territory, continued his father’s practice of building Caesarea as a symbol of his connection with Roman power. Both used their spending in this city as a way of currying favor with Rome, demonstrating their commitment to Roman power. Herod the Great had built Roman temples, for example.

So Caesarea stood as a symbol of the Roman Empire, of its power and wealth. That Jesus asked precisely the question of his disciples that we hear him asking seems not to have been coincidental. In the shadow of Roman imperial power, Jesus queried his disciples about his identity.

But there’s one more thing I want to bring up. One of the curious things about the Gospel of Mark is what scholars have called “the Messianic Secret” in the Gospel. Throughout the gospel, especially in the early chapters, after a healing, for example, the gospel writer will add, “and he sternly warned them not to tell anyone. In last week’s gospel, the verse reads: “Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.”

This messianic secret is something of a puzzle. Why would Jesus tell people not to tell anyone, and why would they disobey him and tell anyways? To complicate things, Peter’s response is the first time a human being would proclaim Jesus to be the gospel, and it would be the only time, until the centurion did it at his crucifixion.

This should clue us in that that Mark has some very interesting things to say about what “Messiah” is and means. Most importantly, Jesus is not obviously the Messiah—he doesn’t fit into people’s expectations of what the Messiah is and does. In fact, in many ways, Jesus is just the opposite of people’s expectations: instead of the one who conquers and defeats Rome, his Messiah-ship becomes apparent as he dies on the cross. Mark writes that: “Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son’!”

Even as Messiah-ship in Mark challenges expectations, so too does the meaning of what it means to confess Jesus as the Messiah, to follow him. With this gospel reading we arrive at the heart of what Mark wants his readers to understand about the nature of the commitment they are called to: “f any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

These are hard words. And we have sanitized them, spiritualized them over the centuries, so that taking up one’s cross has become little more than a personal struggle against some difficulty in life—whether it be a personal relationship, a health problem, some other challenge that affects us. But for Jesus and his followers, to take up one’s cross was not just personal or spiritual, it was real.

Remember that crucifixion was the form of capital punishment reserved by Rome for its most notorious criminals and especially for rebels and revolutionaries. It was a brutal form of execution, execution by torture, if you will. And the upright beams on which people were crucified were on permanent display outside of cities, Rome, and Jerusalem, the bodies of the crucified left to rot and to be eaten by scavenger birds, a stark reminder to passers-by of the consequences of resisting Rome.

“Taking up the cross” came to have another meaning, one I’m reminded of every time I drive up Monroe St. and see “Crusaders” emblazoned on Edgewood High School’s athletic field. The crusaders took up the cross, sewed crosses on their clothing as they proceeded through Europe in their effort to rid the Holy Land of its Muslim inhabitants. But the first victims of the crusades were not Muslims in far-off Palestine, but the Jewish communities of the Rhineland cities of Worms, Mainz, and Speyer. We can see echoes of that in events much closer to us in time and space, in Charlottesville a few years ago, in the rise of Christian Nationalism, in the fascism that is running rampant around us today, even in the attacks on Haitians that are taking place, drawing on ancient tropes that were used against Jews and other religious and ethnic minorities across the centuries.

 I wonder what our Jewish and Muslim neighbors think when they see that word emblazoned in the endzone. Do they even bother thinking about? So accustomed they are to micro-aggressions of this sort on a daily basis?

But we should be able to see how such imagery and symbolism is weaponized in our contemporary culture, drawing on deep rivers of hatred and history that have brought us to this point in our national and global life. It’s not just the US of course. Recent victories for the far-right party in the German states of Saxony and Thuringia are all too reminiscent of the events of less than a century ago: of hatred and holocaust.

Coincidentally, yesterday was the Feast of the Holy Crosss—the commemoration of the legend that St. Helena, the Emperor Constantine’s mother, discovered the true cross in Jerusalem. One of the Episcopal Bishops I follow on social media posted a link to his reflection for the day. He had titled it “In this sign, I will conquer”—an allusion to another legend, that of Constantine himself who had a vision before a battle, converted to Christianity, and subsequently won the victory, became emperor, and legalized Christianity. Among his early acts was to outlaw crucifixion as a form of capital punishment.

I wonder sometimes given the history, and its weaponization in contemporary discourse, I wonder whether the cross is salvageable as a symbol of Christianity. Can it be life-giving? Can it be a symbol of Christ’s love for the world when it has been used in so many evil and violent ways?

Can we embrace the cross as a symbol of our identity and self-giving love when others see it differently and have used it, or experienced it, as a symbol of division and hate? Can we take up the cross, now weighing ever more heavily because of that history and carry it to Calvary, with Jesus in love, humility, and service?

Pure and Undefiled Religion: A Sermon for Proper 18B, 2024

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September 1, 2024

I just realized I’m behind on posting sermons….

As you might imagine, I have conflicted feelings about events like the Taste of Madison that occur outside the steps of our church throughout the year. While they bring activity and excitement to the city, they also create challenges. Parking is impossible; the noise of loudspeakers and bands is distracting. At least, since we’ve installed air conditioning in the nave, the smells of food preparation are less intrusive. Still, our presence on the square serves as a reminder to passersby of the presence of God in the world and often we welcome visitors into our worship who might never otherwise have attended.

Later today many of us will gather in Maple Bluff for our parish picnic where different culinary delights will be on offer and opportunities for fellowship and fun as well. It’s appropriate to enjoy oneself on a day like today, with beautiful weather, Labor Day weekend, and the beginning of the NFL season all beckoning for our attention.

In our lectionary cycle, we are finally back in the Gospel of Mark and immediately we are confronted with a challenging reading in which conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees takes center stage. But before turning to the gospel, I would like to direct your attention to the reading from the letter of James, which offers an interesting perspective on the gospel text.

The letter of James was probably written late in the first century. It’s associated with James, the brother of Jesus, who was a leader of the early Christian community according to the book of Acts and an early martyr for the faith. It’s an interesting text because it is probably evidence of what we refer to as Jewish Christian communities—early communities made up largely of Jewish believers who continued to practice aspects of Jewish ritual life and purity laws.

In today’s excerpt, there are several intriguing themes that have fueled theological reflection over the centuries: the notion of the “implanted word,” the emphasis on giving; “being doers of the word, and not hearers only.” That latter notion is part of the reason that Martin Luther dubbed James “a gospel of straw.” 

But for me, one of the most fascinating ideas is this: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

It’s a verse that might surprise you if you’ve never heard it before. And if you have, or even if you are hearing it for the first time, you might find it especially appealing. It seems to say that true religion, “pure and undefiled” if you will, is focused on what we in the twenty-first century would call “outreach:” caring for widows and orphans, the homeless, our food pantry, and that other forms of religion are less important, or even defiled and impure.

But let me complicate that a bit for you. The word translated here as “religion” is literally worship and seen in that light, how is caring for widows and orphans worship? For when we think of worship, we think of what we are doing right now, singing hymns, praying, celebrating the Eucharist, and those other things like caring for widows and orphans are done outside of Sunday morning worship. 

The terms pure and undefiled, even unstained strike us strangely in our contemporary world, even if in the case of their appearance in the Letter of James, we can easily interpret them in ways that make them less, indeed even support our own personal preferences and commitments. When we see the same English word in the verses from the gospel of Mark that we heard this morning, we may have a slightly different reaction. 

As I said, we’ve finally returned to the gospel of Mark, where we will remain for the rest of the liturgical year, until the end of November. To recap a bit, so far in Jesus’ public ministry, we have seen him heal a number of people of their diseases and infirmities, cast out demons, walk on water, calm storms, and feed five thousand people. We haven’t been introduced to much of his teaching or preaching, one or two parables and that’s about it. As fast-paced as Mark is, the gospel will pick up in speed and intensity as we move inexorably toward Jesus’ final confrontation with the Roman authorities and their Jewish sycophants in Jerusalem. And in today’s reading, we see another aspect of the conflict between Jesus and other Jewish communities and leaders.

What’s at stake here, as it almost always is when Jesus is in conflict with other Jews in the gospels, is the interpretation and authority of Torah, Jewish law. The Pharisees were a group within Judaism that sought to extend the role of Torah to the daily life of ordinary people. Their interpretation of Torah was intended to offer guidance in what to do so that the central precepts of Torah were maintained. They called this “building a wall around Torah.” Take the 10 commandments: “Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.” Well, that’s great, but what does it mean to keep the Sabbath Day holy? The Pharisees explained that by offering guidance on what constituted work, and how much work one could do on the Sabbath.

In fact, the traditions to which Mark refers here are more than that. The rabbis speak of written Torah—the five books of Moses, and oral Torah, what was handed down orally over the centuries: the interpretation of law for changing society. Eventually in the 3d century after Jesus, that oral Torah would also be compiled and written down, in what is called the Talmud and still used in contemporary Judaism.

In today’s gospel, the issue at hand is hand-washing. The Pharisees understood ritual hand-washing as keeping oneself ritually clean before eating; other Jewish groups saw things differently and Jesus’ disciples, apparently, couldn’t be bothered. It’s worth pointing out that the word translated as “defiled” here is a different word than the one used in James. Here, the word literally means “common” as distinguished from “sacred” or set apart.

Jesus’ answer, as it so often does, changes the terms of the debate. The issue is no longer whether or not to maintain ritual cleanliness, but the deeper meaning of defilement, or being “set apart.” Jesus points out that what matters is what is in the heart, not the particular ritual action, and here he lists all the ways in which we might defile ourselves by our thoughts. 

And that may be where we come back to the letter of James and to our own context. 

The world is watching. As we struggle to make sense of what’s happening in this nation and around the world, as we struggle to find our own way in these difficult times, James offers us some simple advice. He reminds us where our focus should be and what the pitfalls are. It’s easy to look in a mirror, he says, to focus on ourselves, instead of looking to God. We should avoid criticizing others. He says that unbridled speech is worthless religion: good advice in the face of the noise, hate, and anger all around us now, that too often escalates from rhetoric to hateful action. 

And he reminds us of our duty to care for the marginalized: widows and orphans, yes; but also all those who our society despises, rejects, and leaves behind. And finally, he admonishes us to keep ourselves unstained by the world. It may be unfamiliar, troubling language, but it’s worth exploring whether even this might provide us with guidance. Can we, by our actions, our words, our disposition, bear witness to the love, grace, and mercy of Christ, to a world that too often sees Christians and Christianity in very different terms? Can we, by our actions and words, change our homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces for the better? 

And finally, and perhaps this is the most difficult of all, what would are worship look like if we truly cared for widows and orphans in their distress? What would it look like if we welcomed the most vulnerable in our society and community, the ostracized and marginalized? How would our worship and common life change? To unite various aspects of our religious lives—worship and outreach, worship and evangelism, could truly transform who we are as a community and as followers of Christ.

Where do you come from? A sermon for Proper 16B, 2024

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Catching up on posting sermons…

August 25, 2024

Where do you come from?

Proper 16B

August 25, 2024

         Corrie and I lived in the upstate of South Carolina for ten years, five in Spartanburg, five in Greenville. Though it has its charms, it’s a very conservative area both politically and religiously. Greenville is the home of Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian university, the center of a network of people and independent churches that is diffused across the nation and world. We bought our house in Greenville from Bob Jones alumni, and when we took possession of it, the first thing we did was paint over a ed stenciled bible verse prominently displayed in the dining area: “But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

You may think nothing of this verse, you may even be inclined to appreciate it as an expression of pious sentiment, but it is suffused with patriarchy—individuals, wife, children, have no agency in this statement. Joshua is speaking for everyone in his household, declaring that they will serve the Lord, whether they want to or not. And although that was almost twenty years ago now, we can see clearly where such statements and sentiments have morphed into a religion that doubles down on sexism and misogyny, prioritizing procreation and denigrating “childless cat ladies” and the like, not to mention demonizing relationships and families that express themselves in ways other than heteronormativity.

The verse is part of a larger narrative, what is called a covenant ceremony that comes at the very end of the book of Joshua. These past few weeks, we’ve heard a few snippets from the book of Exodus: the story of the Passover, the gift of manna in the wilderness for example. Now, we’re catching up with the narrative after the Israelites have entered the land of Canaan. The book of Joshua consists of stories of the conquest: the defeat and destruction of the residents of the land. And now at the end of the book, as Joshua, who succeeded Moses as the leader of the Israelites, is near the end of his life and wants the Israelites to renew their covenant, their commitment to the God who brought them out of the land of Egypt.

Coincidentally, in the daily office, the book of Joshua was the appointed old testament text earlier this summer. I found it jarring to read alongside the daily reminders in the press of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, the killings of thousands and the destruction of homes, and hospitals. The book of Joshua with its brutal tales of violence and destruction has had a pernicious legacy through the centuries, as Christians have justified colonial conquests in North America, and radical Israelis have seen in it justification for the expulsion and murder of Palestinians.

In fact, I was a bit puzzled why the lectionary editors chose this particular passage to couple with today’s gospel reading. I noticed one troubling connection that I doubt the editors had in mind. At the beginning of the reading, Jesus refers to God as Father, something he does throughout the Gospel of John and in the synoptics as well. It underscores the intimacy of the relationship between Jesus and God and at times, even their identity. At the same time, to twenty-first century ears, it can be as jarring as the words spoken by Joshua. It, too, evokes images of patriarchy and male supremacy, and listeners who may have broken relationships with their fathers, or suffered abuse from them, it may resurface trauma. It’s important for us, even those of us who find thinking of God as Father to be life-giving, that others have different responses to such language.

Truth be told, my hunch is that the choice of the Joshua text has to do with them seeing a connection between the question Joshua asks the assembled Israelites, and the question Jesus asks the twelve after the crowds have dispersed: “Do you also wish to go away?”

The chapter begins with the feeding of the five thousand. Following that miracle, Jesus withdraws from the crowd because he realized they were going to proclaim him king. Then he and the disciples cross the lake. This is when Jesus is seen walking on water. Eventually they make their way to Capernaum, where Jesus engages in a lengthy dialogue and discourse, during which opposition to his words escalates. The discourse culminates with Jesus saying, “I am the bread of life.” He continues, verses we hear last week:

‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.

This is the hard saying that the disciples have trouble hearing. To us, they sound fairly innocuous. Jesus wasn’t speaking literally. He was referring to the Eucharist and whatever he meant, he didn’t meant that we are literally eating his body and blood. 

But there’s more for us to think about here. Jesus is not speaking only of the Eucharist. He is also speaking of himself. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood, abide in me and I in them. Discipleship in the Gospel of John is about relationship with Jesus. Throughout the gospel, from the very first chapter, those who follow Jesus are invited to abide with him, to be with him. 

In today’s gospel, Jesus’ listeners are presented with a choice. They can turn away or reject him, or they can listen to him, hear his words, and follow him. After some of those who had followed him walk away, Jesus asks those who remain, “Do you also wish to go away?” 

Peter’s answer isn’t yes or no. Having walked with Jesus thus far, he can’t imagine life without him. “To whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter has already experienced relationship with Jesus, abiding with him, and the prospect of life without him is incomprehensible. Jesus’ words are eternal life; his words are spirit, all else seems empty in comparison.

Now the Gospel of John has the characteristic that simple ideas, words, concepts can suddenly seem to be remotely abstract, foreign to our experience and lives. Spending time in the gospel of John can be disorienting and alienating. The words wash over us. We have, after all, been spending five weeks hearing this chapter from John’s gospel. If you read it through in one sitting, it comes across as repetitive, to some, even nonsensical. Many of us, including your preacher, will be happy to return to Mark next week, whose language and message is much clearer, though perhaps equally difficult to make one’s own.

What matters above all in John, once we cut through the verbiage, is relationship. What matters is the life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ, offered by Christ. What matters is the experience of abiding with him as he abides with us. John is trying to help us understand, but more importantly to experience, the life that he experienced with Jesus Christ. All of the language, all of the discourses, all of Jesus’ miracles, are directed toward this.

Most of us struggle with our faith. Most of us wonder at times, if God exists, whether Jesus was the Son of God, or whether he truly was raised from the dead. We wonder about heaven and hell. We have lots of questions, doubts, uncertainties. Some of us probably aren’t even sure why we bother coming to church. Does any of it matter? Is any of it true?

But there is something that draws us here, something that speaks to our deepest yearnings and hopes. We might not even be able to articulate or name what it is. We come here and find something. For the Gospel of John, what we find here is relationship, life. We experience in the community gathered, in the bread and wine, in the word read and proclaimed, in all of that, we experience life. Jesus offers us that life. He invites us to stay, to abide with him, to live in him as he lives in us. When we say yes to him, we are not proving an argument or saying yes to a proposition. We are inviting and experiencing relationship. When say yes to him, we say yes to life.

Maybe crumbs are enough: A Sermon for Proper 18B, 2024

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Proper 18B

September 8, 2024

Are you puzzled by today’s gospel reading? Are you struggling to make sense of what’s going on? Are you offended by the exchange between Jesus and the woman who approaches him, begging him to help her daughter who’s possessed by a demon? Do Jesus’ actions and words seem out of line with your image of a loving and compassionate Jesus? If you answered any of those questions with a “yes,” you’re not alone. This gospel text has challenged preachers, scholars, and faithful Christians for centuries, and perhaps most of all in recent decades as we have sought to be more welcoming and inclusive and appealed to Jesus, whom we say “welcomed all to his table.”

Well, not in this case. The dogs, whoever they may be, remained under the table, fighting for the scraps that have fallen to the ground.

Before digging into the text, let me throw out a few interpretations that have gained sway over the years. One theory is that Jesus isn’t using “dog” as a derogatory term but an affectionate one: puppies, let’s say. Another is that this encounter constitutes something of a transformative moment—that Jesus has seen his mission so far as being exclusively for the Jewish community, but that this woman causes him to think more broadly, to include the Gentiles in his mission. There are those who see in the woman a proto-feminist, standing up to Jesus on behalf of her daughter. Whatever.

We might ask another question. Why does Mark tell the story in this way? What is he trying to get across? Remember, the Gospel of Mark is not a biography of Jesus—it’s the good news. He’s writing to share something crucial about his understanding of Jesus—that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that Jesus is ushering a new age: the reign of God. And he’s telling this story in this way because he thinks it says important about the coming reign of God.

The first thing I want to point out is the importance of geography. To this point, Jesus has largely been active in his home territory, Galilee, Capernaum seems to have served as something of a base. Now he has traveled outside of traditionally Jewish territory to the seacoast to Tyre. 

There’s a spatial element to this as well. In Mark, Jesus seems to move back and forth between public areas—synagogues, places where crowds might gather, and intimate areas, private homes. In this case he is in a private home and he has gone there seeking rest and solitude. We don’t even know if the disciples are with him.

A third thing that should help us make sense of these two stories is that there is a striking parallel a couple of chapters earlier. Earlier this summer we heard the story of Jesus healing the woman with an issue of blood and Jairus’ daughter. One important element in those two earlier stories is Jesus’ response to the woman and to Jairus: each time he mentions faith, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” Mark uses the technique of the doubled story to emphasize something new and different. 

One important difference between the characters in the two sets of stories is that in the first, we can assume they are both Jewish. In the case of the synagogue ruler, we know that for sure. He is the consummate insider. In the case of the woman with the issue of blood, we can assume she’s Jewish because of the location and the way the story is told. In the stories we have before us, we know the woman is not Jewish, she’s “Syro-Phoenician.” While his ethnic and religious identity is not mentioned, we can presume that the deaf-mute man is Gentile as well, because of where the story takes place. 

Faith is not mentioned in our two healing stories. In the first, Jesus tells the woman her daughter has been healed because of what she said—her argument, or logic was responsible for the healing. If there is faith involved, it’s implicit in that the woman returns home with faith that her daughter has been restored to health and wholeness. In the other healing, there’s no mention of why he was healed, neither the faith of the man nor that of those who brought him to Jesus is mentioned.

But as I’ve reflected on these stories over the years, my focus has shifted. The questions of how the Jesus depicted in this story may challenge our assumptions about him are important to think about but they may not be the most important. Often we bring our agendas to the texts, like a desire to be inclusive and welcoming, and those agendas may distort or narrow our reading of the stories, leading us to overlook other important themes.

I’m not saying that inclusion isn’t important  But what strikes me is that when the woman accepts Jesus’ categorization of her, she is doing something else. She is admitting her unworthiness to receive his help, and that, I think deserves our closer attention. 

I wonder whether any of you have felt that you don’t deserve God’s grace and mercy. I wonder how many of you have struggled to receive Jesus’ promise to love and forgive you. We are taught in our professional and personal lives to stand up for ourselves, to demand our rights, our fair share, our due. But that face or persona we present to the world can often feel fake or unreal. We may feel like a fraud. That may also be true in our spiritual journeys—our doubts, uncertainties, our sins and shortcomings may make us feel unworthy of God’s grace and mercy.

In our Rite I Eucharist, there’s a prayer called the Prayer of Humble Access, we say it together just before we receive communion: In it are the following words:

We are not worthy so much as to gather
up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord
whose property is always to have mercy. 

Sometimes, we need to admit who we are, in all of our doubts, uncertainties, brokenness and sin, for when we do, we open ourselves to the wonderful expanse of God’s mercy, which is more than we deserve, more than we can imagine. Sometimes, crumbs are more than enough. They can fill our hearts and heal us, body and soul.

Where do you come from? A Sermon for Proper 14B, 2024

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Where do you come from? It’s a question one hears from time to time, often especially when you’re new in a place, or just getting to know someone. If you hear someone with a strange accent, you may want to ask them that question—and if you’re just a bit brash or rude—you will go ahead and blurt it out. It happened to me from time to time when I lived in the south—and it still happens occasionally to Corrie in Madison. The question may be well-meaning, but it can also be off-putting. It can underscore difference, it can remind the recipient that they are outsiders in a place or a community, reinforce their otherness. 

Coincidentally, I was asked this very question after our early service today. We were chatting in Vilas Hall and someone dropped by to say hello and chat. She and I started talking about a venerable New England institution, and as we were talking she asked, “Where are you from?”–thinking I must have been a native of New England. I told her to hang around for our 10:00 service when I would answer that question.

We see all this playing out on the national and international stage. Questions of identity—whether that has to do with issues of gender, nationality, or ethnicity are hot topics right now. And so often it is the group with power and privilege seeking to categorize, marginalize, define others to exclude them from the larger community, to render them powerless and speechless and irrelevant.

I know exactly where I come from. A small town in northwestern Ohio, where Griesers have lived since the 1830s. My first ancestor who came to that area operated a mill in Montbeliard, Alsace before immigrating to the US. On the other side of the family, my roots go back to Lancaster County PA in the 18th century. There’s no mystery on either side of the family, no reason to take one of those DNA tests that have become so popular. When I used to return to my hometown regularly, I would often identify myself by my dad’s name, so people could place me comfortably in that community.  

In today’s gospel reading, as we continued the discussion of the meaning of the feeding of the five thousand, and now, the meaning of Jesus’ statement that we heard last week, “I am the bread of life” we are introduced to questions of identity and origin. 

It all begins with a significant shift in today’s reading. To this point, Jesus has been in conversation with “the crowd.” They had followed him across the Sea of Galilee, to listen to his teaching, and for healing. He had fed them miraculously, and they had wanted to proclaim him king. 

They had followed him again, across the sea to Capernaum, where they addressed him as “Rabbi”—“teacher”. But suddenly the term shifts and the crowd becomes “the Jews.” It’s another opportunity for us to remind ourselves of the Gospel of John’s anti-judaism and its attendant legacy in the antisemitism in Christianity and in larger Western culture. That being said, we should also note that the word translated as “Jew” here would be literally translated as “Judaean” in other words, residents of the Roman province of Judea, not necessarily a reference to the religion. Further, remember that when the Gospel of John distinguishes between Jesus and “the Jews” it is overlooking the reality that Jesus, and all of his disciples, were themselves Jews.

Still, in the literary context before us, “Jews” is an important marker of identity. Earlier the crowd had responded to Jesus “our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness.” They are asserting their identity and their privilege. And now, they are questioning Jesus’ identity and authority. Who does this guy think he is? We know him; we know his parents. What gives him the right to say that he has come down from heaven?

There’s the question of authority and there’s the question of identity. Another way John is drawing on the traditions of the book of Exodus is in Jesus’ self-identification. Here, he says, “I am the bread of life.” It’s the first of his “I am” sayings in the gospel. He also says, “I am the good shepherd”; I am the vine, you are the branches, as well as others. 

 “I am”—it’s the response God gives Moses at the burning bush when he asks God, “Who shall I say sent me?” God answers: “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.” Throughout the Hebrew Bible, God will be identified as I am—usually with a description of what God has done for God’s people—“I am the God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”

Here, however, there’s a different dynamic. The I am sayings are symbolic—I am the bread of life, I am the Good Shepherd, I am the vine… They use ordinary imagery to say something about Christ’s nature but also about the kind of relationship that is being offered. Jesus is not distant, speaking far off from a mountain, but near at hand, and emphasizing the life-giving relationship that is being offered to those who follow him.

That offer is an opportunity to adopt and live into a new identity as a follower of Jesus Christ, welcomed into a community where status and background don’t determine your place, where your previous life and choices don’t limit the possibilities of new life and new experience.

We see something of that vision in the reading from the letter to the Ephesians. The author urges their readers to give up every manner of sin, anger, evil talk, wrangling and slander—all powerful reminders in these days of the vitriolic discourse on social media and the demonization of one’s opponents. More importantly, though, is this “Live in love as Christ loved us”—it’s another version of one of my favorite offertory sentences: “Walk in love as Christ loved us, and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.”

To bring it back to the gospel. The bread of life that Christ offers us, or as he says at the end of our passage: “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” That bread is offered to us; that flesh is offered to us, and as we participate in eating the bread, we are entering into the life of Christ, the body of Christ. And we ourselves, being bonded to Christ, enfleshed to Christ, become the means by which others enter into that same relationship with Christ. In becoming Christ’s body, we become the bread by which others are nourished. When we walk in Christ’s love, when we receive Christ’s love, we become the means by which others receive that love as well.

The Bread of Angels (Panis Angelicus): A Sermon for Proper 13B

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April 4, 2024

One of the lovely things about growing older is the way in which ordinary things can evoke memories. It might be a smell that can inspire a mental image of a memorable meal. It might be a popular song from decades ago that reminds us of our high school or college days. For me, that’s true of hymns or scripture verses. There are hymns that I associate with my dad or the church I grew up in. And there are scripture verses.

One of those verses is in today’s Psalm portion: 78:25 “So mortals ate the bread of angels; *he provided for them food enough.” Whenever I read that verse, during Morning Prayer or on Sundays, an image of Larry Proli comes to mind.

Corrie and I came into the Episcopal Church back in 1992, at St. Paul’s Newburyport, Mass. Among the unique characters in that parish—every parish has a few, was Larry Proli. Retired, in his 70s probably, Larry was a quintessential New Jersy Italian-American. Straight out of central casting. He could have been an extra in a Scorsese movie. He had the accent, the gestures and mannerisms, the personality of an Italian-American grandfather. There was just one thing that didn’t fit. He was an ordained pastor in the Dutch Reformed (Christian Reformed) Church. As a child, growing up poor in a New Jersey city, somehow, he had begun attending Sunday school in a Christian Reformed Church and went on to get ordained. 

He and his wife Jan—who by the way was straight out of central casting for a Dutch woman in her 70s organized the parish’s monthly meal for single moms and their kids. They helped out in lots of other ways, small and large. Larry, though it was against the canons, distributed communion alongside the Rector, and that’s where my memory of him is fixed.

It was Easter Day and we came up to the altar rail. As he gave me the host, Larry said “Panis angelicus, the bread of angels.” It broke me. We left that parish in 1994 and have never been back; I never saw Larry again, I’ve never seen anyone from that congregation in the decades since. But every time I read that psalm in Morning Prayer or on Sunday, I think of Larry, of the bread of angels, and of the banquet where he and Jan are now feasting with all of the angels and saints.

The bread of angels.

Funny thing, that, because the hosts we use in our Eucharist bear little resemblance to real bread, let alone to whatever the bread of angels might look like.

Bread. Think about all the different types of bread there are—the mundane, for example, the ironically-named “wonder bread.” Or what passes for bread in our celebrations of the eucharist—little discs of hard, tasteless, baked wheat. Think of the best bread you’ve ever had—home-baked right out of the oven, or crusty French baguette, eaten with olive oil and a glass of wine. Bread comes in many shapes and sizes, made with thousands of different ingredients, deriving from vastly different cultures and culinary traditions. Life without bread is unimaginable, even for those who are gluten-intolerant, or have celiac disease. There are breads made for them as well. Like wonder bread or the hosts we use in the Eucharist, bread can be industrialized and standardized. But at its best bread reflects the baker, the ingredients, the oven, and the community in which it is baked and which, when it’s broken, it creates.

In the first lesson, the reading from Exodus, we encounter a very strange kind of bread. The Israelites have fled from Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, and now they are camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai (called Horeb) in this text, where they will receive the 10 commandments and other laws. But they aren’t happy campers. Things are rough, and some of them are looking back with nostalgia on the life they left behind in Egypt. Yes, they may have been slaves, but at least they had food, drink and shelter. Never mind that the God who called them out of Egypt had unleashed a series of deadly plagues, fought on their behalf at the Red Sea drowning the Egyptian army. The present was difficult, the future uncertain, and the people were hungry, thirsty, and tired. No doubt if you’ve ever been camping with your family, you know this dynamic.

In response, God provides them with their daily bread and with quails for sustenance. The bread is called manna, which is derived from the Hebrew words for “What is it?”—the question they asked when they saw it for the first time in the morning. The manna appeared six days a week, with enough on the sixth day to provide food for the Sabbath as well. When the Hebrews experimented by gathering more than they needed for one day, they discovered that it spoiled overnight. Thus, the theme in John 6 about the bread that perishes and the bread that lives forever.

In the ancient world, where what we call food insecurity was the reality, not for 20 or 30% of the population, but probably for 90%, the notion of having enough food to eat, eating and being filled, was a powerful image indeed. The petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us today our daily bread” was not pious platitude; it was necessary. In John 6, the crowd had good reason to follow after Jesus—it wasn’t just their desire to see another miracle, or get a free meal, it was the prospect of once again, eating until they were full—perhaps something they had never experienced before, and might never experience again.

Bread and Circus. In ancient Rome it was said, if emperors provided bread and circus, food and entertainment, the mob wouldn’t revolt. So it’s hardly a surprise that as we read in last week’s gospel, their stomachs filled by the loaves and fish, the crowd wanted to proclaim Jesus king, he gave them bread and entertainment. Food, by feeding them, and entertainment, by the miraculous feeding as well as the many healings he performed. So often we’re like that too. We want the miracle, the spectacle. We want to be awed. We want the earth to move.

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the beginning of our ministry together in this place. Over the years, we’ve been through a great deal: renovations, pandemic, the passing on to the larger life of so many of our friends and loved ones. We’re going through a great deal right now, enough perhaps to shake our faith. And we gather to listen to God’s word, to be nourished by the body and blood of Christ, to taste and see Christ’s presence among us. Over the years, I’ve presided at more than 2000 Eucharists—some of them have been spectacular with a full church, choir musical instruments. More than a few have been tiny, intimate, sometimes with no more than one person besides me. Sometimes, I go through the motions, barely noticing. Sometimes, I am moved to tears.

And sometimes it’s just not enough. The meager host, the sip of wine seem little more than a trace of the sustenance we need, the presence we crave. Our disappointment lingers, we yearn for more. And yet it may be that the stranger next to us, unbeknownst to us is receiving what she desires: a taste of heaven, the bread of angels.

Among the mysteries of our faith is that Christ can come to us in many ways, in the spectacular, the miraculous, and in the mundane, the every day. For us to be open to Christ’s presence can mean being open to the grace of the ordinary. It can also mean feeding on the bread of angels. May our hearts be open to that presence, may our eyes see that presence, may our mouths taste that presence, in bread and wine, in the conviviality of a meal or the gathering of God’s people. May we be nourished by the bread of angels, panis angelicus.  

Come away to a deserted place and rest awhile: A Sermon for Proper 11B

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Proper 11B

July 21, 2024

Two images in today’s readings jump out at me. The first is from the gospel reading. Jesus bids his disciples, “Come away to a deserted place and rest awhile.” The second is from the epistle reading. Referring to Jesus, the text reads, “For he is our peace… he came to preach peace to those who were far off and those who were near.”

Words of comfort and consolation, comfortable words to use the traditional language of our liturgy. Words that we need to hear, and to embrace, and to share.

First, from the epistle, the letter to the Ephesians. Here, the author—it may or may not be St. Paul, scholars debate these sorts of things, is talking about one of the central problems of the nascent Christian community: the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, and the role of the Mosaic law in constructing and maintaining that community. In fact, one of the reasons Paul’s authorship of Ephesians is questioned is because of what is said here about the law—that Christ abolished the law. It’s a contradiction of Jesus’ own words from the Sermon on the Mount: “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.” It’s also a direct contradiction of what Paul says elsewhere, especially in the letter to the Romans, where he goes on at great length, somewhat confusingly, about the continued validity of the Mosaic law for the Jewish community.

Be that as it may, the language here of Christ being our peace, of Christ proclaiming peace to those who are near and those who are far off, resonates as deeply in the twenty-first century as it did in the first. We are accustomed, in our current environment, to Christianity being used by some of its most strident and vocal adherents as a weapon that divides families, communities, and nations. But Christ is our peace, breaking down the walls that divide us.

Christ is our peace. In another sense, on a personal individual level, Christ is our peace, a well of tranquility and comfort in turbulent times, and in turbulent lives. To open ourselves to that peace, to wait in silence, to pray, to feel Christ’s presence in our lives, our hearts, our world, is something we should cultivate and welcome.

To touch the divine, to experience Christ, is one reason we come to worship. Many of us also come because we seek spiritual sustenance and refreshment. In today’s Gospel, the twelve have returned from their missionary journey. Not surprisingly, they are exhausted from their travels and from their work. Jesus gathers them together and offers them an invitation, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.”

We know the feeling. Although it’s summer and life is supposed to be somewhat less hectic, more relaxing, many of us struggle with the stress of work or family issues. Some of us have been spending a lot of time, on other activities related to the church. Our lives are busy, even in the summer when things are supposed to slow down. We need a rest. Even now, some of us may be distracted by all of the things we have to do, the many tasks that make up our lives, the problems that we’ll have to deal with at work tomorrow. Jesus’ offer, “Come away and rest awhile” appeals to us. We might love to get away from it all, if only for a few days.

But even as Jesus invited the twelve to go away to a deserted place and rest awhile, the burdens of the world came with them. When they arrived at their destination, they discovered that the needy, desperate crowd had preceded them and were waiting for them. Can you imagine how the disciples might have felt right then? Exhausted themselves, physically and emotionally drained, they were looking forward to that escape from it all, and instead, they were confronted by the world’s misery in all of its magnitude.

Whatever the disciples might have thought when they saw the crowds, we know what Jesus thought. He had compassion on them—it’s an earthy word, suggesting he felt it in his guts. But when he saw them, it wasn’t their physical needs he noticed, it was their spiritual needs. They were like sheep without a shepherd, lacking protection, guidance, purpose. They came to Jesus, looking for all of that, and more, in search of healing and hope. Jesus and his disciples, having sought respite, were back in the middle of it. 

Where do you see yourself in this story? Are you among the disciples and Jesus, exhausted by it all, hoping to come away and rest awhile? Or are you among the crowds, coming to Jesus to hear his words of life, to receive his healing touch? Or perhaps, is it a little bit of both?

We carry all of our worries and needs with us to this place each Sunday. We come with hopes and concerns. Sometimes what we need is at the forefront of our minds; quite concrete—like an illness, or conflict in our family or at our place of work. Sometimes, we can’t even express what it is we need, there’s a gaping hole in our hearts or in our lives that we can’t name.

But even then, we come, and we might encounter the world’s needs in all of their magnitude, in the suffering of a friend, or of a homeless person on the street who asks us for help. We come in search of something, or someone, and when we arrive in this place, we meet people who are seeking as well. Sometimes, they come in search of us.

On Wednesdays at noon, a small group of us gather for worship. There’s a core of three or four who come almost every week, and several others who join us from time to time. Over the years, I’ve become aware of all of the others who come here at the same time, the people who are waiting for the food pantry to open and the folks who gather at noon every weekday for AA. There’s the Off the Square Club, with its ministry to unhoused people with mental illness. 12 noon on Wednesday is a snapshot of our church, of people gathering for worship, people coming in search of food, companionship, and support for their recovery. And while we are praying and celebrating the Eucharist being nourished by the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, across the courtyard, volunteers are preparing for the pantry shift, getting ready to provide nourishment for the guests who come to the pantry for food.

There are many needs in the world, many needs in our community. Grace Church, our facilities and congregation offer compassion and help to those in need. We do it in many ways. At the core of it all is our faith in God and our worship. In the midst of the noise, in the midst of all that is happening in the world and in our lives, let us not lose sight of the God who has called us to this place, of the Jesus whom we follow. Just as we are refreshed and renewed by word and sacrament, just as we are refreshed and renewed by our encounter and experience of Jesus’ compassionate mercy, may we also always share that compassionate mercy with those we encounter, here and in our daily lives.