Category Archives: sermons

The Vanity of Self-Absorption: A Sermon for Proper 13, Year C

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I’ve had occasion this summer to talk with a lot of people about their lives and journeys. Some of those conversations have been over lunch and I look forward to more of them. Others have taken place in more traditional pastoral settings—during pre-marital counseling, at a bedside in a nursing home, or as we discuss funeral arrangements either for themselves or for loved ones. Such conversations can become the heart of pastoral ministry, especially when we allow ourselves to open up and talk about our deepest hopes and fears. Crises like serious illness or death can become the opportunity to reflect on what really matters. Continue reading →

A Flour-Barrel Altar and the Mission of the Church

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A Homily for the

175th Anniversary Celebration of the first Episcopal worship in Madison

July 29, 2013

This afternoon, I immersed myself in Madison’s early history, trying to get some feel for what it was like to live here in the late 1830s. I also hoped to get some sense of the people who organized the first Episcopal worship service that we commemorate this evening. Madison in 1838 was still a very small town. In the winter of 1837 and 1838, there may have been no more than a few dozen people living here. More came in the spring of 1838 as the territorial capitol was being built, land speculation taking place, and people moving here to seek their fortunes. But still the little store that became for a day “First Episcopal Church of Madison”—as eyewitness Simeon Mills later called it—could probably accommodate most of Madison’s population. It was a quite simple affair, with benches made out of planks, and empty flour barrel serving as the base for the altar.

The service was occasioned by the arrival of missionary Bishop Jackson Kemper who was seeking to reach out to whites on the frontier. He was travelling from Prairie du Chien to Green Bay, where congregations, or at least ministries, had already been established.

As I read these accounts, I wondered what those who were at that service imagined for the future of the church in Madison? Did they hope to see a building like Grace on the corner of Capitol Square? Did they imagine that one day there would be not one but four parishes in Madison, in addition to the Campus Ministry?

As I’ve thought about the last 175 years, I suspect that the place we are today as a church and a society would be incomprehensible, unimaginable to past generations of our fellow Episcopalians. All of us worship in buildings that were built by previous generations, with an eye to the possibility of growth and expansion. Those who built our churches were building for institutional stability and permanence. They were building for the future, for us, and we are both heirs and stewards of their efforts.

But what strikes me more than all of that is the image of that first worship service with benches made of planks and a flour-barrel altar and a bunch of reverend gentlemen (as Mills labeled them) unable to pitch a tune. Oh, and the store was still not complete. One side was open to the street. The space and the service were simple and makeshift. None of it would have pleased our theological, liturgical or aesthetic sensibilities.

What unites us with those who gathered 175 years ago? Well the very same things that unite us across the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion—the fact that we have bishops and our common liturgy, the Book of Common Prayer. While there are many differences between tonight’s liturgy and most contemporary Episcopal services, the Eucharistic prayer itself is found almost word for word in Rite One of our BCP. We share one more thing, across the centuries and across the world, our common faith in Jesus Christ.

I like that image of a half-built store with plank benches and a flour-barrel altar. I like it because it reminds us not of who we are or where we have been, but it calls us forward into new ways of being church and religious community.

In the gospel we heard, those familiar words from the Great Commission, we are reminded of who Jesus calls us to be and where Jesus calls us to go.

Our buildings, our institutions, our identity, are all very comfortable things. Even the prayer book and hymnal are like security blankets. The language of the liturgy, the familiar hymns wash over us, reassure us that our worship and our church are stable and permanent things. We know we are called to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, but for most of us, clergy and laity, that means tending to ourselves, our worship, our buildings, our fellow members. We hope that visitors will make their way to our services, and that if they make it through our red doors once, that they will return. We hope they will do that, so that they can become members of the choir, or altar guild, or even vestry, and let us rest.

But Jesus calls us out into the world, to proclaim the gospel in all nations, to make disciples. He has sent us out to share the good news of God’s love on street corners, in cafes, and, yes, in storefronts, and social media. Jesus has not called us to build institutions, or staff committees, however important that may be. He has not called us to tend to our selves and our needs. He calls us to go out into all the nations.

Miranda and Paula have just returned from Tanzania and I’m sure they will have much to share about their time there, the church there, and how we can connect. But mission is not just about distant lands and places. Mission begins on the other side of the doors of our churches. Mission begins when we come to terms with the reality that we are increasingly living in a secular, post-Christian culture. That’s more true here in Madison than in many other places in Wisconsin or across the country.

We are again living on a frontier. The institutions, even the way of life that seemed to be so stable and certain a few decades ago are increasingly fragile, often broken. That’s true of our political system. That’s true of our sense of being a civic community, of sharing a set of common values and purpose. It’s true of our economy that is increasingly rigged so the wealthy become wealthier. It’s true of our churches, especially the Episcopal Church, that has lost the central place it held in American culture and society for so many years. It’s true of our churches even though Grace continues to occupy a prominent space on Capitol Square.

We are on a frontier, and the path forward for us is as uncertain as it was for those who set out to make new lives for themselves in the Wisconsin territory 175 years ago. The old certainties are gone. We can’t expect that if we package our worship and ministries in just the right way, that people will join us and our churches will grow. It’s not a matter of worship style, or marketing, or finding the perfect curriculum for Christian formation. In our society, many people have stopped looking for a church home. Many who are seeking meaning in life have no notion that they might find such meaning in Christian community. They don’t know the vocabulary, they don’t know the rules, they can’t imagine themselves embraced by God’s love in the body of Christ.

That’s the frontier on which we live, the future that we face. Jesus calls us forward into that future, to do his work in the world, to reach out and do what Christians have done for nearly two thousand years, to make disciples, to baptize, to teach. What that might look like, is anyone’s guess. What the Episcopal Church might look like in Madison in 50 or 100, or 175 years, is beyond my imagination. But if I had to guess, I would wager that it would look more like that storefront in which we began 175 years ago, than the church in which we worship tonight.

On that frontier, in that uncertain future, Jesus promises to be with us, always, even to the end of the age. Thanks be to God.

 

Entertaining Angels and Strangers: A Sermon for Proper 11, Year C, July 21, 2013

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Proper 11, Year C

July 21, 2013

Take a minute. Look around the pews a minute. If you’re a visitor this morning, never been here before, were you welcomed? Did anyone greet you, ask your name, thank you for coming? If you’ve been coming a few months or even years, do you know the names of the people sitting next to you in the pews? If you’re a long time member, is there someone you’ve seen before, perhaps many times, but don’t know their names or anything about them? Well, here’s your opportunity. Take a few minutes—don’t start chatting with someone you know, start chatting with someone you don’t know. Continue reading →

Seeing with the eyes of Christ: A sermon for Proper 10, Year C

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A few years ago, I was on my way to celebrate at the midweek service at the parish church I was then serving. I was running late, probably because I was coming from another commitment at my other job. St. James is on top of Piney Mountain, which is actually something of a hill, and the road that leads to it, like most roads in hilly territory, was curvy and windy. Continue reading →

Overstay your welcome! A Sermon for Proper 9, Year C

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In the more than thirty-five years since I graduated from high school, I’ve lived in six different states and one foreign country. In that, my experience is probably not all that untypical of those of you sitting in the pews this morning. Sure, there are a number of you who were born and raised here in Madison, a number of you who were baptized and confirmed here, but we live in a mobile society, much more mobile for the most part than previous generations (immigration notwithstanding. We also often think of our spiritual lives in terms of journey, so often in fact that it becomes almost a cliché. Still, I doubt that many of us draw parallels between our spiritual journeys and the circumstances or life choices that have contributed to our moves across the country, the continent, or even oceans. Continue reading →

Crooked furrows, a straight gospel: A Sermon for Proper 8, Year C, 2013

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Proper 8_YrC

Grace Church

June 30, 2013

My dad grew up on a dairy farm. Although he became a carpenter and contractor, his life, our lives like most people in small Midwestern towns, were dominated by the world and ethos of farming in which we lived. His church was surrounded by cornfields. Most of his friends still were farmers. He used to joke in the summers that you could tell how the crops were doing by the prayers that were offered at Sunday morning church services.

As we drove through the countryside, he would often comment not just on how the crops were doing, but also on the skill and work ethic of the farmers. That area of northwestern Ohio is almost perfectly flat, so the grid system that was laid out in the early nineteenth century continues to dominate the landscape. It’s easy to tell if a farmer plowed a straight furrow. And my dad was as likely to comment on a crooked row as he was on a poorly framed house. My dad knew that to plow a straight furrow, whether with a team of horses or a powerful modern tractor, needed keen focus and single-minded attention on the field in front of you.

Today’s gospel brings together several sayings of Jesus that seem intended to emphasize the importance of such single-minded focus on the reign of God and following Jesus. But it begins with a different sort of reminder of Jesus’ single-mindedness: “Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.”

It’s an ominous and important statement, marking a geographical and thematic shift for Luke. Jesus had been traveling about Galilee, which is north of Jerusalem. As we saw last week, he occasionally made forays into neighboring territory, in that case across the Sea of Galilee to Gentile territory on the other side. But from now on, he will be single-mindedly focused on Jerusalem, and as he nears it, the cross will loom ever larger on the horizon.

This little verse is significant for another reason, however. It marks another shift in Luke’s gospel, as he begins to diverge from the outline and content of the gospel of Mark and introduces much material that is unique to his gospel, including many of Jesus’ most familiar and beloved parables.  I would like to point out one other significant aspect of Luke’s depiction of Jesus. I know I’ve mentioned it before but it’s worth repeating. Luke emphasizes Jesus’ continuity with the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Bible. In particular, he draws several parallels between Jesus and Elijah/Elisha. What’s interesting here is that Luke subtly distinguishes between Jesus and those two ancient prophets.

It’s rather obvious in the story of Elisha’s call that we heard today. In the story from I Kings, Elijah watches as Elisha passes by him while plowing. Elijah covers him with his mantle, denoting Elisha’s call to be a prophet, but Elisha says, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Jesus tells the one who wants to follow him but first say good-bye to his loved ones, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Elisha throws a farewell feast but Jesus turns his back on those who would acknowledge their ties with family and loved ones.

The other allusion to the Elijah/Elisha cycle is in the story about the Samaritan village. It’s quite odd, really. Jesus has set his face to go to Jerusalem, but the first village they come to, a Samaritan town, doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. In response, John and James ask whether they should call down fire from heaven to destroy the village. It’s almost word for word a repeat of a story in I Kings where Elijah calls down fire to destroy his enemies. The point here is that while there are similarities between Jesus and the Hebrew prophets, there are also significant differences. All of this helps to contribute to the sense of urgency, the sense that now we are on the way toward the cross, toward Jesus’ crucifixion. The sayings about discipleship heighten that sense of urgency. These teachings about discipleship confront us in our contemporary lives.

These hard sayings of Jesus, sayings that seem to call into question the things and people we hold most dear, often seem utterly disconnected from our lives in the twenty-first century. While we may know of people who given up everything to follow Jesus either in the present or the past, our own lives and our commitments tend to be much less focused on following Jesus. In fact, it’s likely that all of those other commitments–work, family, hobbies–leave little time or energy for following Jesus. We worry about paying bills, our own and our children’s futures, aging parents and loved ones, and so many other things. Leaving all of that to follow Jesus seems inconceivable.

So what do these words have to say to us today? Are they so alien as to be meaningless, or might they help to provide some perspective on everything else we do? We tend to hear them as directed to us individually, or to those ancient would-be followers of Jesus, but is that the case? The sayings are introduced differently. In the first instance, someone comes up and says, out of the blue, “I will follow you wherever you go.” In the second instance, Jesus says to someone, “Follow me.” In the third, again someone offers to follow Jesus but only if he can say good-bye first. And we don’t know whether the first person followed Jesus–the text is silent what happened after he heard Jesus’ response. For that matter, we don’t know whether the other two followed Jesus, either.

One way to read these sayings is to see them in their ancient cultural context. The obligation to bury family members was one of the most sacred obligations of all, in Jewish law deriving from the commandment to honor one’s father and mother. We see in the third saying another example of the power of family ties. But Jesus is creating a new community made up of people who are following him, committed to his message and to the reign of God. That new community takes precedence over traditional family ties and offers new relationships, based ultimately on one’s shared commitment to God and to Jesus. I think the question for us is not whether we can imagine giving everything up to follow Jesus, but whether in the new community gathered by Jesus, we experience life that is as rich and meaningful, as abundant and grace-filled, as our other relationships and commitments, jobs and hobbies? If not perhaps instead of blaming the institutional church, we should look inward at our own level of commitment to Jesus Christ.

At the same time, it’s important to ask whether the joy and fulfillment we get from these other pursuits, even our deepest relationships, can ever attain the fullness of life lived fully in the presence of and commitment to Jesus Christ.

There was a piece on the New York Times website yesterday entitled “The gospel according to me.” In it, the authors argued that Americans have replaced the gospel of the New Testament with a gospel of self-realization and authenticity. Looking at new age spirituality and the wild popularity of self-help books, they write, “well-being has become the primary goal of human life. Rather than being the by-product of some collective project, some upbuilding of the New Jerusalem, well-being is an end in itself.”

Following Jesus is not a means of self-actualization. As we shall see in the coming weeks, following Jesus comes at great cost. Jesus asks us to focus on him, looking ahead with our hand on the plow, being willing to experience our relationships with others in light of, and subsidiary to our relationship with him, or to put it another way, to love God with our hearts, souls and minds, and our neighbor as our self.

Are we living among the tombs? A Sermon for Proper 7, Year C

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When we read stories of Jesus casting out demons, we come up against the great chasm that separates western secular culture from the worldview and culture of Hellenistic Palestine. There are some in America who believe in the reality of demons, Christians who seek through prayer and other rituals to cast evil spirits out of people they believe are possessed by demons. There was even something of a media stir a few weeks ago caused by speculation that Pope Francis had performed an exorcism on someone at a service in Rome. Some Vatican officials were quick to deny it. Most of us, however, regard the notion of demons and evil spirits as relics of a pre-modern, pre-scientific worldview and we’re probably pretty quick to interpret the symptoms of someone like the man in our gospel story today as some form of mental illness.

So when we hear a story like this one of the Gerasene demoniac, we probably dismiss it, don’t even pay close attention to it, because it is so alien to our worldview and context. Some of us, if we want to make sense of it, will try to psychologize it—to seek some deeper meaning in the contours and details of the story and interpret it as having to do with our “inner demons” or some such. While there is some merit in such approaches, it is important to recognize that for the gospels, the fact that Jesus cast out demons was an absolutely central aspect of his ministry. It was clear evidence that he had power over the forces of evil. It was also a sign that his ministry was ushering the reign of God.

This story operates on several levels. First of all, geography. While the precise location of the city isn’t clear (Matthew calls it Gadara), Jesus is clearly operating in Gentile territory—for the first time in Luke. The presence of a herd of swine is evidence of that. He and his disciples have crossed over the Sea of Galilee, and at the end of the story, they will return to Galilee. It’s almost as if the point of the journey was this encounter, this healing.

The second level is that of the demoniac. His description, naked, living among the tombs, is the description of someone who has lost his identity. He has no home, no family, no place in society. He might as well be dead, which may be one reason he’s living among the tombs.

The third level is that of the demons, and the herd of swine. When Jesus asks the demon for its name, they reply, “Legion, for we are many.” Fearful that Jesus might return them to the abyss, which in the ancient world was the dwelling place of demons, they ask him to cast them into a nearby herd of pigs, and promptly stampede into the sea to perish. The name Legion brings to mind the Roman army and while it’s likely that we are meant to think that there are as many demons as soldiers in a legion (6000), it’s also possible that the story as a whole is meant to convey a confrontation between Jesus and the Roman Empire. Coincidentally, one of the legions stationed in Palestine had as its figurehead a boar, and more generally, a fertile sow was one of the ancient symbols of Rome. So while Jesus is confronting the powers of the demonic, he is also confronting imperial power in this story.

The story ends in an odd fashion, completely consistent with its overall strangeness. The man is restored to his senses Luke describes him sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind. When the people see him healed, they are fearful and beg Jesus to leave them. He does so, returning by boat with his disciples to Galilee. But before he departs, the healed man begs Jesus to allow him to come along. Jesus tells him no, instead, he should proclaim what God had done for him, so the man returns to his home, “proclaiming throughout the city all that Jesus had done.”

There is a great deal that is intriguing in this story, but what I’m most struck by this week is the fear of the city’s residents. They see the demoniac clothed, in his right mind, and sitting at Jesus’ feet, and they are afraid. Now many commentators will say that their fear was caused by the news of the pigs being drowned in the sea, or by the possibility that their economic livelihood was at stake if Jesus continued to perform such mighty acts among them. I’m not so sure.

Jesus is a foreigner here, an outsider. He comes for no apparent reason, or perhaps only for this reason, to encounter this man who was possessed by demons. He heals him, restores him to his senses and to his community and in so doing he isn’t threatening a way of life or economic well=-being, he is threatening the very order of the universe. He demonstrates his power over the forces of evil, demonstrates that many of the assumptions the inhabitants of this place held dear, can no longer be taken for granted. If the demons obey him, what else might he be capable of? What other trouble might he stir up?

Now the story begins to challenge us and our assumptions. As hard as it may be for us to believe that Jesus cast out demons, it may be even harder for us to believe that Jesus Christ continues to work in that way in the world today. It’s almost unimaginable to us that the reign of God, proclaimed by Jesus Christ nearly two thousand years ago and demonstrated with his mighty acts, may be in our midst already. It’s hard to believe that our faith, our community can work miracles like Jesus did; that we have power over the forces of evil in the world; that we can restore people to their right minds.

In fact, of the characters in this story we’re more like the Gerasenes than the possessed man. We’re more like those people who saw evidence of Jesus’ power and proclamation, grew fearful, and asked him to leave their country. It’s likely that we’re more comfortable in the place we are, whether as individuals or as a congregation, than we would welcome the frightening, world-changing power of Jesus Christ in our midst.

As a congregation, we are at a crossroads. In a sense, we may even be living among the tombs, if by tombs we mean the monuments previous generations built for themselves. Jesus comes to us, comes among us, and offers us new life, the vision of a way forward into the future. Will we risk following him into the unknown, with no signposts to lead us forward? Will we risk the possibility that as we follow him into the future, we will experience new forms of life, new ways of being, encounters with all sorts and conditions of people? Or will we ask him to leave us alone, so we can continue to live among the tombs?

Do we see this woman? A homily for Proper 6, Year C, 2013

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It’s a familiar story; versions of it in the other gospels. Full of drama, more than a little eroticism. Listening to it, we become spectators to a drama that is playing out. We are almost voyeurs, but also perhaps a little embarrassed by the woman’s actions which seem inappropriate and out of place at a dinner in the home of a respectable leader in the town and probably the synagogue. But its drama and intimacy pull us in as it has enticed Christians for nearly two thousand years. We want to know who this woman was, what sin she committed. We also want to know what happens next. And so in the history of interpretation and the history of Christianity, she becomes Mary Magdalene, the prostitute turned penitent, with the long flowing hair. Over the centuries, this wasn’t invented by Dan Brown, we speculate that there was some sort of special relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Continue reading →

God’s Intrusive Grace: A Homily for Proper 6, Year C

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What is a prophet? It’s often difficult for me to imagine how ordinary churchgoers conceive or understand such central ideas to the biblical story and Christianity as that of prophecy. My guess is that what comes to mind first for many of you is the image of someone who predicts the future, whether that’s a conservative Christian warning us of the imminent return of Jesus Christ, or of a Hebrew prophet proclaiming the coming of the Messiah. Others of you may have in mind a leader or activist for social justice—a Martin Luther King Jr., for example.

Our readings bring us smack up against the idea and reality of prophet, and of its important for the story of the Hebrew Bible and the story of Jesus. At the end of today’s gospel, the people proclaim, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably upon his people.” Even casual attention to the readings this morning should see the obvious connection between the gospel story and the story of Elijah we heard read from I Kings.

We heard last week the great story of the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. Elijah presents us with something of a conundrum because we don’t see him doing a lot of the sort of prophecy that’s preserved in books like Isaiah and Amos. We see him railing against King Ahab of Israel’s worship of Baal and his support of Baal’s cult but for the most part, we see him doing the sort of mighty works he did in last week’s reading, calling down fire from heaven to consume the altar. Earlier in this chapter, he has been visiting this same widow and her son. It’s during a drought and Elijah discovers that they have enough oil and meal to make bread for one day. Miraculously, the provisions last while Elijah stays with them, so they do not die of hunger.

But now, in today’s story, the widow’s son has fallen ill, so ill that he seems not to have breath in him (note that it doesn’t say he died). Elijah brings him back to life, and the widow proclaims Elijah a man of God.

In the portion from the Gospel of Luke we heard, we have what is a perfect bookend to the Elijah story. Both occur in the same geographical area; both involve widows. Elijah’s resuscitation of the widow’s son is undoubtedly behind the way Luke shapes his story so that his readers can see the connection between Jesus and Elijah, indeed between Jesus and all of the Hebrew prophetic tradition.

From the outset of Jesus’ ministry, Luke has stressed Jesus’ ties to the prophetic traditions. At his first public sermon, Jesus reads from Isaiah,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

After reading these words, Jesus says, “today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. The statement at the end of the story, that God has looked favorably on God’s people, is a clear reminder of what Jesus

Jesus is not just a prophet, either for Luke or for us; and while Luke amplifies the resonances between Jesus and the prophets, he also distinguishes clearly between them. It is here, for the first time in the gospel, that Luke refers to Jesus as Lord. For his readers, that title would have hearkened back to the Hebrew Bible’s use of Lord to refer to God, but it would also have reminded them of the emperor’s title.

Both of those echoes suggest power and might, but Luke rejects implication. After referring to Jesus as Lord, Luke continues, “and he had compassion on her, literally “he was moved in his guts.” Luke is telling us that Jesus’ Lord-ship is recognized not with the trappings of power, wealth, and grandeur, but in his ministry among the lowly and downtrodden. Jesus is recognized as Lord by his compassion and mercy.

Jesus came to the village of Nain, walking with his disciples. As they arrived, they encountered another procession, a burial procession, as a widow led her friends and neighbors out to bury her son. In fact, think about it a moment. You’re in the midst of deep grief. It’s not just that a loved one has died, though that is an immeasurable loss. Luke mentions that this is the woman’s only son, which means that without either husband or son, this woman is probably left destitute, with no support system. In the midst of this burial procession, a stranger bursts in, interrupting, stopping the inevitable walk toward the cemetery.

Luke makes clear that Jesus’ attention is on the widow, not on the dead son. Three times in a single verse he uses the feminine pronoun:

“When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” And after Jesus brings the man back to life, Luke says that “he gave him to his mother.” So the focus in this story is less on the raising of the dead son, than on  Jesus’ compassion for the man’s mother.

The extraordinary had come into her life, visiting death upon her and confronting her with an uncertain and challenging future. But Jesus intervened in that procession and in that future, bringing something completely new and unexpected, restoring life and hope to her son and to her.

I’m struck by all of the ways in which we are in places similar to that in which the widow of Nain found herself. Many of us face such uncertainty in our personal lives. For some of us, like the widow, our grief and pain is quite real. Many others of us look ahead into challenging and uncertain futures. We worry about what the next stage of our life will bring. Some of us are focused on larger questions facing this congregation—questions related to the proposed master plan and our future ministry and mission. Some of us are struggling with the Bishop’s letter on same sex blessings, on what that might mean for ourselves or for our loved ones. Some of us are thinking about the widow of Nain, and of widows and orphans in our society, and the collapsing safety net that threatens their futures and their well-being.

We may be so focused on some or all of these questions and concerns, so focused on the mourning processions, real or figurative, in which we are walking, that we fail to see the prophet walking towards us. We don’t notice him stopping the procession, putting his hand on our griefs and worries; we don’t notice the compassion as he reaches out to us. We may not welcome that interruption. It may only be an annoyance.

But here he comes, stopping the procession, stopping us. And here he is stopping us short wherever we are, with the promise of new life and grace. God’s grace intrudes, breaking into our worries and concerns, our grief and our pain, restoring us to life, bringing us new hope and grace. Wherever we are this morning, in our struggles, in our journeys, in our pain and fear, may God’s grace come to us, enliven and restore us, that we too might be able to say “God has looked favorably on God’s people.”

Where is the Spirit leading? A sermon for the Feast of Pentecost, 2013

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Today marks the Feast of Pentecost, the day when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples in Jerusalem, to the church, and to us. It also is the end of the Easter Season, the 50 days during which we celebrate Christ’s resurrection. Today, the liturgical color is red, the color of the flames of fire that rested above the disciples head in our reading. We are marking a turning point in the liturgical year, the end of the long cycle that begin last December with Advent. We begin the liturgical year looking forward to the birth of Christ. In the intervening months we acknowledged several moments in his life, and then we commemorated his death and resurrection. Next Sunday, or the Sunday after, depending on which liturgical scholar you read, begins the long season of Ordinary Time that will continue right through November and the very end of the church’s year. Continue reading →