A sermon for All Saints’ Sunday, November 2, 2025. The scriptures are Daniel 7:1-3,15-18, Psalm 149, Ephesians 1:11-23, and Luke 6:20-31.

Every once in a while, someone calls the parish office and needs something done. The caller speaks with Erlinda Brent, our secretary; or the person speaks with me, and at some point, the person will ask, “Could you have one of your people do such and such?” “Your people!”   Erlinda or I will usually put down the phone and then say to one another, “they think we ‘have people!’” And then we laugh.

Our church staff doesn’t really have “people.” We have one priest, one secretary, a half-time time music director, and a one-day-a week bookkeeper.  Most days, we have one sexton working, but on some days, they overlap.

And while we have a tiny staff, we actually do “have people.”  We ALL have people, and that’s a part of what the Church’s celebration of All Saints reminds us: we got people. We’ve (all of us) got people.

Having people, having support, having help makes the words of today’s Gospel possible. Otherwise, the Beatitudes would be hopelessly out of reach. They are lofty ideals, they are high, and for many of us, the blessings they contain are far, far away from our every day experience. How many of us are very often among the poor in spirit, the meek, or those who hunger and thirst after righteousness? When have we been pure in heart, shown mercy, or practiced the art of peacemaking?

To approach the Beatitudes is a little like beginning to climb a mountain. Some in the Orthodox tradition have pictured the Beatitudes as a ladder. In a Ladder of Beatitudes, “Each one leads to the next, and is placed in a particular order. To reach the second step, we need to make the first step.”

Whether we imagine the Beatitudes as a ladder, or a mountain, or simply a series of signs that points us in the way of holiness, the good news is that we are not alone in our journey. There are others who have climbed this ladder, who have ascended this mountain, who have received the blessing upon blessing that Jesus offers. These are the saints. And they offer us holy help.

From time to time I call on holy help. For example, when I am running low on faith and when doubt is about to do a number on me it helps me to know that St. Teresa of Avila once went years wondering whether God was really listening. When the political nature of life begins to get me down and discourage me it helps me to know that Hugh of Lincoln, bishop-saint of the Middle Ages, was able to be prophetic with kings as well as commoners.

Our local saints inspire and help me, as well. Especially those who have died in the last year.  When I’m discouraged about some problem facing our church, I can hear the encouragement of Nancy Fessenden.  When there’s a particularly rich scripture reading on a Sunday, I can still hear Dermott Frengley’s voice, with his musical New Zealand voice. On dreary days, I think of the spark and life of Jack Hadley, whose sportscoats and ties, I could only wear in my wildest dreams (or a few nightmares.) When I’m tempted to react to the problems or leaders of the day with hatred or anger, I’m inspired by Steve Knight’s steady, confident, smart persistence.  

And then, I also have the people I’ve brought with me to this place—a former senior warden, the former music director—both of whom died too young, but who continue to guide and comfort me.

In the New Testament the word “saint” normally just refers to someone who puts her faith in Jesus Christ. In the New Testament sense one does not have to be a martyr or even a particularly holy person to be called a saint. The Apostle Paul addresses his Letter to the Romans, “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints.” In helping the Corinthian church sort out its squabbles, Paul suggests that the aggrieved parties not go to secular courts, but go “before the saints,” the local gathering of Christians.

In Revelation, John shows us various pictures of the saints—some who have died for their faith, others who have died natural deaths—but ordinary believers made extraordinary by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it is a grand and glorious company.

. . . [A] great multitude which no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!”

We have help in heaven and on earth. We’ve got people. We’ve got saints surrounding us. And by the grace of God, with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can be saints for one another—helping, supporting, encouraging, challenging, growing together into the likeness of God. Thanks be to God that we’ve got people.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

A sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 19, 2025. The scriptures are Genesis 32:22-31, Psalm 121, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, and Luke 18:1-8.

On Friday night, a number of us gathered at church to watch the documentary Slumlord Millionaire. When someone asked me later what I thought of the film, a part of me wanted to say that I found it overwhelming and depressing. Like much of the news of our day, the film showed how power and money seem to win the day, while the legal system is either complicit or overworked to offer any help. But then, I thought about some of the stories told in the film and how their stories convey exactly the kind of perseverance talked about in today’s Gospel. The people we met in the film have not given up. They keep going and they keep fighting. The group of people in Chinatown continue to resist the building of yet another glass box of a skyscraper on top of their playgrounds and community centers. The Latino family in Sunset Park kept the pressure on their landlord for ten years, demanding that leaks be fixed and mildew be averted.  And the woman in Brooklyn who was swindled out of her building continues to fight in court.

The Collect of the Day prays that we might “persevere with steadfast faith.”

In the reading from Genesis, we see Jacob as he is just about ready to give up. He’s “greatly afraid and distressed,” according to scripture—but that probably doesn’t even begin to describe it. He is scared because he is about to meet his brother Esau, who he has cheated twice before. In fact, Jacob had even tricked him out of their father’s blessing.

And so, now he’s heard that Esau has 400 men with him, and there is to be a confrontation. Jacob gets ready and tries to prepare for what’s ahead. He divides his family and possessions in case of an attack from his brother. But then, the night before the meeting, he sends everyone away and spends time alone. But Jacob is left alone with his worries, alone with his fears, and alone with his God. In that loneliness, there is a wrestling match. A mysterious figure appears and struggles with Jacob, but Jacob refuses to give in. He persists. He perseveres. In the struggle, Jacob is wounded, but he continues to fight. He presses on and eventually asks the stranger to bless him. The stranger, who is actually an angel of the Lord, changes Jacob’s name. Jacob becomes Israel, a name that includes the power of this struggle, and the stranger then leaves Jacob. He blesses Jacob, but also throws his hip out of joint, to give him something to remember the occasion.

Not only is this a great story, but it’s also an important story for the church. It’s important because it frames our struggles, and urges us on. It suggests that when we are struggling to persevere, says something about our own struggles with faith, even with God. The answer to our questions doesn’t always come easily or in the light. Sometimes we bare the wounds of the struggle for some time afterward. But we can also come to know God through the struggle. It can even feel like God is giving us a new name, a name that perhaps leaves us wounded, but in another sense, we are stronger and more driven and more directed. After all, some of the most dramatic paintings of Jesus show him resurrected in glory, but with wounds still visible.

In the Gospel there’s another kind of struggle. We don’t know the lady’s name—but perhaps we know someone like her. Maybe we know someone who perseveres and refuses to give up, who demands what’s right and refuses to settle. This judge, we’re told, fears neither God nor any man or woman. The judge is filled with himself probably, and looks no further.

And so, this woman brings her complaint to the judge day after day. The judge doesn’t really care about the woman’s case and ignores her for a while. But finally he gives up and says, “because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” The verb that the judge uses in describing the tenacity of the woman is a verb used with boxing. It’s the same word that Paul uses in First Corinthians when he says that all of his preaching and teaching is not just a kind “boxing in the air” or aimless pommeling.”

Likewise, this woman knows her target and she’s ready to hit. Whether the judge is worried about getting a black eye from the woman, or whether he’s just worried about getting a tarnished reputation—he is worried enough that he gives her what she wants. It is by her perseverance that she wins her case.

Jesus does not mean to compare the uncaring judge with God. What he’s doing instead is making an argument popular in rabbinic teaching in which he argues from the smaller thing to the greater. If this judge, who is unjust and respects no authority outside himself, hears the plea of this persistent woman, HOW MUCH MORE, Jesus suggests, does a loving, caring God hear those who are persistent in prayer.

Just as Jesus was human and divine, it makes sense that in our own spirituality—in our own prayer life (whether it is full or whether it is underdeveloped), that in our own prayer life we might reflect both the human and, with God’s grace, the divine.
We pray out of our very human hearts when we ask for what we want and need, when we persist, when we argue with God, when we struggle, when we nag, even when we whine. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus, after all, prays, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.”

But there’s also the other part of our spirit that is called to imitate Christ and to struggle with the angel of the Lord as we try to discern what God’s will for us might be, and how to pray that prayer. Jesus concluded that prayer in the garden, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” And one version of Luke’s Gospel continues, “Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength.” Strength sometimes comes in that moment of giving up and over to God’s will, even when that will is veiled.

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells this parable to remind the disciples that they should “pray always and not lose heart.” Both the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel and the story of the woman who perseveres with the judge can make the spiritual life sound lonely, as though it is an individual path. But remember that we hear and reflect on these stories together. The story of Jacob was handed down in community, just like we hear it today. The story of the “woman before the judge” Jesus told to the disciples, and Luke tells it to the early church, and we hear it as a parish family today. All of this is to say that while we may struggle or persevere in particular ways as individuals, we are never left alone. Like Jacob, even on the darkest of nights, the entire family of faith is just over the hill.

May we be strong in our faith, and may God be merciful even as we are strengthened, that we truly may “persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of Jesus Christ our Savior.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, observed as St. Francis Sunday, October 5, 2025. The scriptures are Lamentations 1:1-6,  Psalm 137, 2 Timothy 1:1-14, and Luke 17:5-10.

If someone asked you, “What does it mean to have faith?” what would you say?

Hebrews 11:1 suggests “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” But sometimes faith is more than that, and sometimes faith is less. But what is faith, really?
Is faith a feeling? Is it a habit or a discipline, something that one simply does? Is faith a thing that is handed down from parents and grandparents, like an old chair or a quilt? Or handed down as a tradition, something one does to connect oneself to those who have gone before? If faith the same thing as a fairy tale or a nursery rhyme—a story we tell ourselves when we’re afraid of the dark?
The subject of “faith” comes up in each of the readings we have heard.

In the Book of Lamentations, God’s chosen people are symbolized by a holy city that has broken faith with God. The people have not kept faith with their beloved, and have forgotten God’s faith in them. And so there is lamentation, and heartache. It’s all the sadder because it’s so needless. Faith is not a physical deposit that can be held on to, or lost. Faith is a relationship, one that God continually calls us into.
In Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy, we see how faith is FULL. For Paul, faith has especially to do with knowledge, with having information about Jesus Christ, understanding that this information is sacred and holy, and then protecting this sacred treasure of teaching and knowledge. This is often referred to as the Deposit of Faith, that is, the combined force of written-down Holy Scripture plus the oral and gathered tradition of faithful people who have read and prayed and lived and loved in every age. As Anglicans we believe that this Deposit of Faith was given by Jesus to the Apostles and has been handed down through the line of bishops from the very early church even into the church of our day. And so faith has something to do with God’s using our heads to organize our hearts.

The eleventh century Saint Anselm of Canterbury had as his motto, “faith seeking understanding.” By this he didn’t mean to suggest that understanding might replace faith, as though once a person can memorize a few verses of scripture, say the creed and repeat certain concepts, faith is somehow achieved. Instead, Anselm meant to encourage a kind of active love of God which seeks to know and love God ever deeper.

When we turn to today’s Gospel, it seems like the disciples are pretty clear about what faith “is” and “is not.” They know faith and they just want more of it. “Increase our faith!” they ask Jesus. He replies with the well-known words to the effect that if they had just a little bit of faith, faith even the size of a mustard seed, they could command all kinds of things to happen—in this Gospel, “trees to be uprooted and planted in the sea.” (It’s in Matthew’s Gospel that faith the size of a mustard seed can move entire mountains.) But then Jesus goes on with confusing words, especially confusing in our day because the idea of a slave is so repulsive at every level. Remember that in the first century, slavery was a kind of social norm, a given that simply was not addressed very often. Jesus speaks of slaves not in the context of moral right and wrong, but simply as an example of a role in which one is serving another, a role in which one is acting in a predictable and expected way.

In the beginning of the Gospel, the disciples ask about increasing their faith. They ask with the confidence that they know what they’re asking for. But when Jesus goes on to talk about servants and slaves, about mundane work, about doing the expected, — I think Jesus is still responding to the question about faith. He is saying that before we look for the miraculous, before we ask that our faith be increased in some supernatural way, we should look for faith to grow in the ordinary things we do.

Jesus is suggesting to the disciples and to us that things are increased not by magic, but by predictable means. Gardens grow when plants have nutrients and water. Children grow when they have food and water. And Christians grow through service and sacraments, by participating in the life of God in the world.

St. Francis of Assisi embodied this truth beautifully. Born into privilege, Francis gave up wealth and comfort to serve Christ completely. His faith was not in grand miracles but in quiet trust. He rebuilt broken churches with his hands, cared for lepers with compassion, and praised God with the birds and beasts. Once, when asked if his order would ever accomplish great things, Francis reportedly replied, ‘Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.’

That is mustard seed faith—small steps taken in obedience, which God blesses abundantly.

We don’t have to wait to feel strong before we serve. We don’t have to measure faith by what we can see. Instead, Like Francis, we can go out with open hands and obedient hearts, trusting that God will take our small offerings and turn them into something eternal.

As with St. Francis, as with the disciples, our faith is increased when we are able to live our lives in the grace of God, one day at a time. We serve and work together. We learn and practice our beliefs. We eat and we drink. This is what it is to be the Church. This is what it is to increase in faith.

In the prayer attributed to Francis, we pray that God turn our seeking into action:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen

A sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, September 21, 2025. The scriptures are Jeremiah 8:18-9:1, Psalm 79:1-9, 1 Timothy 2:1-7, and Luke 16:1-13.

“Is there no balm in Gilead?” The prophet Jeremiah asks the question on behalf of the people. He asks it of God, of the Universe. “Is there no balm?” The problems of his day feel overwhelming with the poor continually crying out, the seeming success of foreign gods, opposed to the will of Our God, and a collapse of all that seems good.

And while the problems of Jeremiah’s day are different from ours, with the state of our world and our country, we might add our voices to that prayer, Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no end to the suffering and warfare around the world? Is there no end to the meanness, dishonesty, and perversion of truth in our country? The killing of a political activist has thrown more fuel on the fire, with some suggesting he spoke truth like St. Paul, and others seeing him as the embodiment of bigoted small-mindedness— all the while, distracting everyone from the issue of gun violence, that kills far fewer famous people every day.

In his poem “The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats, written in 1919, was reflecting on feelings of chaos and confusion just after World War I, writing

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.

With violence and fear, the caving of institutions and refuges of free speech, Ukraine, Gaza, and all the hotspots of the world continued spinning out of control, and it can feel like Yeats was right—the center can’t hold, isn’t holding, and isn’t going to hold.

And so, what are we to do? As faithful people how do we respond when there’s no sign of “balm from Gilead” or any other place, and the center is crumbling?

One response for us might be to hide and ignore everything. One could check out with substances, with food, or drugs, or shopping, or whatever eases the anxiety.

Another response might be to join one of the extremes. Arm oneself with weapons of one kind or another, do what it takes to convince yourself of your claim on truth, while ignoring anything that might challenge or question.

But another—and I would argue, a more faithful way—is to pray through the messiness. Cling to the gray area. And keep working and praying for a center where there is the renewal of life, of peace, and of hope.

The Gospel suggests that the way to following Jesus is not to retreat from the world, but to use aspects of the world in ways that allow for us to live out our faith.

Jesus suggests that our living out the Gospel, our working with God to bring about his kingdom, may involve some strange relationships. It means that God calls us to be smart, shrewd and resourceful not in some future realm, but in the here-and-now. The Church becomes a place where we can be recharged with faith, with friendship, with the values that sustain like beauty and mercy and joy—and then we go into the world almost as God’s secret agents, to be love in a frightened and frightening world.

In today’s Gospel, we hear about a rich man who has a dishonest manager. This manager is not only underperforming but also seems to be either skimming off the top or manipulating the funds in some other way. The accounts don’t add up, and the rich man gives the manager notice.

But the manager sees some of this coming. He knows his days are numbered, so he makes plans, and his plans involve building up “credit” with others. Before he leaves, the manager goes around to all of those who owe the rich man. He cuts his losses. He lowers each person’s total, collects what he can and tries to prepare for the future. He is a pragmatist, and his quick thinking seems to get him back into the favor of his boss.

We should make no mistake that in today’s scripture, Jesus is simply telling a story. He doesn’t mean for his disciples or us to identify specifically with one character or another. He is not encouraging us to be cheats. He is not suggesting that the kingdom of God is achieved by dishonesty or duplicity.

But there is the suggestion that the kingdom of God benefits from a shrewd mind and from a willingness to make use of all the resources at one’s disposal.

The Christian faith is not helped by feeble-mindedness or by a kind of pious naïveté. Rather, in Jesus’ words, the “children of light” can learn a few things from the “children of this age.” That is to say that those who seek to follow Jesus can learn even from, and perhaps especially from some who are secular and even nonreligious. In the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus uses the great phrase of our calling to be “as sheep in the midst of wolves, to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)

Today’s readings suggest that we have a role to play in the ongoing life of God and the unfolding of God’s kingdom. It matters what we do with what we have, whether we have just a tiny bit or whether we have a whole lot. Whatever we have can be used for God’s good will. What we have in terms of our energy, our mind, our faith, our compassion, our talent, our money— all of this has a role to play in God’s unfolding kingdom.

Using what we have, for God, is the central message of today’s scripture. It is what Jesus is saying to his disciples—that even though the manager in the story is less-than-honest, perhaps he’s even a little shady and maybe even a little underhanded, the manager does everything he can to prepare for the future—he uses all of his resources in the most creative way he can, and it’s that creativity and resourcefulness that Jesus is lifts up for us.

Very soon, we’ll be talking about “using what we have” for God’s glory in very tangible ways, as our church enters Stewardship Season.  A pledge form is not only for money (though we use pledges so that we can create the operating budget for the next year, and we NEED your pledge—whether it’s a dollar or thousands of dollars).  A pledge form also has various ministries and efforts of the church listed, inviting you to consider where God might be calling you to spend some time, or spend some energy.  Don’t underestimate the things you have, the skills you possess, the relationships and connections you enjoy—God calls and consecrates the WHOLE person, and wants us to be creative and crafty as follow and serve Christ.

Maybe you can volunteer with HTNC (Holy Trinity Neighborhood Center). We also need new Board Members for HTNC. Maybe you can volunteer with the Saturday dinner, or help with the upcoming Thanksgiving dinner preparation and delivery. Or maybe you can volunteer with Trinity Cares our network of people who can help with odds and ends, going with you or picking you up from a doctor’s appointment, or just visiting. Mary Jane Gocher can add you to her list and call on you when there’s a need.

Or maybe you don’t have time, but you have a little extra money. Thing about how you might already support the great music and art of our city, but also consider how you might more fully support the programs here that invite people into God’s love through the “beauty of holiness.”

Moving faith into the world, maybe your energy is around protesting, and writing letters, and getting people registered to vote. You have until October 25 to register to vote in the upcoming NYC elections. Maybe you DO have energy and knowhow for social media and podcasts, well, do it for the glory and good of God.

Whatever our gifts, the Gospel calls us to move out of fear and where we can and we have energy and it’s safe to do so—engage the world.

Our Collect of the Day prays that even as we are surrounded by earthly things, that we would not be anxious about them, but hold on to what lasts, what endures, what helps others, and what furthers the community and love of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we learn to use all that we have and all that we are for God, and never be afraid to be crafty for the kingdom of God.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 14, 2025. The scriptures are Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28, Psalm 14, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, and Luke 15:1-10.

Who doesn’t love a good “lost and found” story?

Just last week, a greyhound dog in Arkansas who had been missing for two years turned up in a Walmart parking lot and now Wade has been reunited with his family. 

A 17^th century painting of the crucifixion by Peter Paul Rubens was found in a Paris mansion, having been lost for years.

And this summer, a Canadian man searched through the trash at the local dump and was able to retrieve his wife’s wedding rings, which had fallen off, and accidentally got mixed into the trash while she was cleaning up.

Whenever we hear these stories of something or someone who has been lost, and then found, there’s a feeling of excitement, of joy, really.

This kind of celebration over finding or being found, is the kind of spirit Jesus is offering in today’s Gospel. Jesus says “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents,” over each of us, when we turn or re-turn to God.

In the first scripture lesson today, Jeremiah preaches to a people who are still lost, still cut off from God, as though they’ve turned their backs on God. “…. The people are foolish, they do no longer know God; they are like little children babbling and not listening, … they have no understanding.” Sometimes we feel lost because of sin. But other times, it seems to just happen as a by-product of life.

People can feel lost for all kinds of reasons. People sometimes get lost in the busyness of a new city.  They leave a smaller town, go to school, or move for work to a new city and quickly fall into a new pattern of work and striving.  Sometimes such a person becomes lost in the work or lost in the attempt to become something for other people. Or, there are layoffs, funding cuts, reorganization. Those who await trials or convictions in our prisons, and those caught in our broken immigration system sometimes seem “lost,” even though a number can sometimes say where they might be kept temporarily.

People can sometimes feel lost in place. Alzheimer’s or dementia can take a person to some far away place. Disease, drugs or addictions can make a person lost from family but also lost to himself.  And then there’s the euphemism we so often hear for death—“I’ve lost my grandmother.  Or, I’ve lost my spouse.”  But so often it’s not the loved one who is lost.  That person is very much found in the heart and heaven of God.  But it’s US—it’s you and me, the surviving, who feel lost.

However the loss happens, whenever we feel it or know someone who is overtaken by it, the question can arise (in a lot of us, anyway), “Where is God?” Have we lost God, too?  Where is God when someone can’t find their way out of addiction? Where is God when someone’s mind no longer allows her to recognize her family? Where is God when people die senseless deaths?

Our scriptures today tell us exactly where God is. God is there. God is here. God is wherever God needs to be, seeking the lost, doing whatever it takes, changing divine plans, changing the course of history if it takes that, just to save and find one lost person.

The second reading has the Apostle Paul explaining to Timothy how he, himself was lost, until Christ came for him.  Paul had hunted down Christians, he had persecuted them, and he had done all he could to undermine the way of Jesus and the people who followed him.  But in what Paul describes as the “utmost patience” God found Paul, and that helped Paul find himself.

In the Gospel, we see a God who will go to desperate means for us. God will do whatever it takes to find someone, and to bring that person home.

Jesus tells the story about a shepherd who has 99 sheep. One wanders off and can’t be found, so the shepherd leaves the 99 and pursues the one.

There is a lost coin. A coin that has fallen out of reach, or has gotten behind something, or has seemed to disappear altogether. So, the woman stops what she’s doing and basically turns her whole house upside-down to find the lost coin.

The point in all of these stories is that God goes out of his way to find what is lost, to re-claim what is lost, to recover and restore anything and anyone who is lost. God reaches out for us. God looks for us. God does not stop calling our name.

I learned an important lesson about the seemingly when I was first ordained and was leading a simple worship service at a nursing home.  At this little service, my rotation was once a month, and it took a lot of energy to try to be present, to be “with,” and to be engaged, when only about five or six people seemed alert, and another twenty or so seemed— well, they seemed sort of “lost.”  On one particular day, I had led them in singing a hymn, and the five faithful helped me sing it.  Then, I invited them to join me in reading Psalm 23, which was printed in a large printed card for them to use.  The five faithful people joined in. But so did several others.  One woman, in particular, who never spoke and never looked one in the eye, but always seemed far away in another world almost—her lips began to move, as she recalled from some deep, old place, the words of a Good Shepherd who finds us.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” God leads us into green pastures—not that we’re cows or sheep, but the green pastures become a symbol for whatever is for us a place of rest and refuge, a place of nurture and sustenance. God lead us beside still waters, stilling the rapids of our life, slowing us down, and collecting us in one place. God restores our soul. Even when we walk through the “valley of the shadow of death,” we have nothing to fear, because God is there. Even if we don’t see God, even if we don’t particularly feel God in that moment—God is there. Even when (as we recalled this week on the Anniversary of September 11) there are those who die all too suddenly, those whose lives are taken– God nevertheless calls, God loves, and God welcomes by name.

Psalm 23 reminds us that God leads us into a place where there’s an enormous feast, a feast so big that it includes not only everyone we’ve ever loved, but even our enemies, transformed into friends. There in the full presence of God, in the fullness of love, God anoints us and calls us by name.

No one and nothing stays lost from God. God seeks and searches and calls out by our truest name, and calls us into love, into laughter, and into life everlasting. As the church, it’s our job to help one another hear God’s calling. Whether we are the lost who are found, or whether we are among those who fling open the door and welcome those who return—we are, all of us, called to join in the celebration.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 7, 2025. The scriptures are Jeremiah 18:1-11, Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17, Philemon 1-21, and Luke 14:25-33.

My very first parish after ordination was in Havre de Grace, Maryland, about 30 miles north of Baltimore, on the Chesapeake Bay. Every Holy Week, the town had a really wonderful tradition on Good Friday. All of the churches in the town get together to walk the Way of the Cross. A hundred or so people usually attended, and the procession would make a stop for prayers and a short reflection at each of our churches and other significant public spaces. And each year, there was a large cross made of 4X4 lumber. The cross was big and heavy, but the tradition was that throughout the afternoon, people volunteered to share in carrying the cross. One person at a time might carry one section on their shoulder, like Jesus is often pictured, but was also really the case that others helped. No one ever carried the cross alone. There was backup. There were people on either side ready to take over, ready to lend a hand, ready to offer support.

There was always a woman from the Methodist church in her eighties who wanted to carry the cross. I watched as people allowed her to think that she was carrying it all by herself, yet I could see they were carefully supporting most of the weight themselves. A man in a wheelchair would carry it for a stretch, and a few of the children would team up to lend a hand. A retired priest helped, as did a Baptist missionary, and a few of my own parishioners. It was, for me, a powerful reminder of what it means to carry the cross, to share in carrying the cross.

To speak of the Way of the Cross may seem like a very strange thing on this Sunday at the beginning of September. And yet, it seems helpful that the scriptures invite us to reflect on our relationship with the Cross, this ever-present symbol of our faith, the words of Jesus, our own spiritual journey.  

In today’s Gospel, Jesus talks about our “taking up our cross,” but the other scriptures give background for where the cross points us.

In our first reading, God tells the prophet Jeremiah to watch the way a potter works. Just as the potter can make something beautiful, to be enjoyed by all; the potter also, can see flaws and problems, and can just as easily decide to smash the clay vessel and start over. Jeremiah is instructed to warn the people of God and remind them of the need to be vigilant in choosing the way of God, rather than the way of the world.


The Epistle Reading comes from the Letter of Paul to Philemon. Paul is writing to a wealthy Christian leader who has supported the Paul’s ministry and the spreading of the Good News of Jesus. Onesimus, was a runaway slave, and Paul is writing Philemon to ask that Onesimus be received and accepted as what Paul calls “more than a slave,” a beloved brother in the flesh and in the faith. For modern ears, this whole letter is problematic. We think about the history of chattel slavery in the Americas, and imagine that Paul is somehow justifying the enslavement of other people in ways that early American Christians did. To contemporary ears, we would prefer Paul to have been a couple of thousand years before his time and reject slavery altogether, and he doesn’t seem to do that. But for his day, Paul was probably sounding fairly radical to suggest to Philemon that he view Onesimus as a brother, and an equal in the eyes of Christ. Paul is suggesting that we are in this together, that the issues for Christians are never as simple as Philemon and his needs, but that how we treat one another is a part of following Jesus faithfully.

In the Gospel of Luke that we hear today, Jesus uses language drawing on the image of the cross. In talking about discipleship and following in his way, Jesus says, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”  But this is chapter 14, and the Crucifixion doesn’t occur in Luke until Chapter 23. It could be that Luke is using post-Crucifixion and Resurrection language to convey the importance of Jesus’ message, or Jesus could be drawing on what might have already been a cultural image representing service, sacrifice, and difficulty.

People sometimes describe their “cross to bear” as a cranky boss, an unpleasant relative, or we can speak of our “cross to bear” as justification for all kinds of things that we would better and would be more faithful to Christ by avoiding. The idea of “bearing one’s cross” is even sometimes used to justify behavior in a relationship is abusive or manipulative towards another. In such a situation, that’s not “a cross to bear” for the victim. It’s wrong and sinful and has nothing to do with God’s intention.  That’s just falsehood and nonsense.

To bear one’s cross, or to be ready to bear one’s cross is a way of expressing what it means to follow in the way of Jesus. And “to follow in the way of Jesus” means to follow with others. It has no meaning in isolation. It has to do with our being ready to give up our place for another. To give up our privilege, to give up our rights, even. It has to do with our attempts to put our own needs and desires and passions on hold long enough to look around and notice the needs of others.

To “take up one’s cross” in the sense that Jesus talks about it is a communal act and it has to do with being faithful to Christ, together.

A few minutes ago I described a Good Friday celebration that had to do with a literal carrying of a cross, but there are other ways that we engage in cruciformed community. There are other ways that we share one another’s burdens and can come to see the risen Christ in our midst.

When friends gather around one who is sick or awaiting results from a biopsy or test or is undergoing surgery, there is participation in the cross of Christ. The friends put themselves second, and lift up their friend who is in need.

When someone dies and the whole community is able to gather around the one who lives on, the cross of Christ is shared. In such times the cross can begin to feel like a kind of lifeboat or raft, the community of faith begin the only thing that perhaps keeps us afloat.

Whenever we move out of ourselves in mission, whether that by serving at the HTNC Saturday Supper, volunteering for another organization, helping a community after a disaster, volunteering to tutor a child, or even writing a check [yes, writing a check is a form of mission]—there is the possibility if not the probability of sharing in the cross of Christ. Our lives are re-oriented. Our priorities are realigned. Taking up our Cross has to do with moving towards the way of God, instead of turning away from God.

It turns out these scriptures have quite a lot to say to us at Holy Trinity at the beginning of a new fall? We have choices before us. Some of you perhaps wondering whether this is the church for you. Should you commit? Should you sign on the dotted line? Should you say out loud that this is your church home?

here may be others who are wondering whether it is time to return, to come home again. We’re glad to see you and you’re always welcome. And perhaps there are those whose church home is elsewhere but there’s something about Holy Trinity that tugs on your heart. There’s a place for you, too. And we want you to feel at home, whenever you can worship with us.

And then there are the troops; the loyal, the faithful, the tireless (but tired) who are the backbone of this place; the saints. You have choices as well—how do we best carry the cross into the future? What will carrying the cross together look like? How much will it cost? What will we sing and how will we pray along the way?

The Stations of the Cross at Holy Trinity are only put up in Lent.  And in a way, I really like that practice.  It means that when they are up, we are invited to find ourselves in those stations, and try to relate to the characters portrayed.  Jesus carries the cross, but he is also supported by others.

There is his mother Mary. There is Simon of Cyrene. There is Veronica. There are the strangers who walk along side, ready to support, ready to help, eager to share. And if you look really closely, you’ll begin to see people who look familiar—people from this church family who stand ready to help, to support, and to befriend.

When those Stations of the Cross are taken down, the image of them remains in our mind as an invitation for us to take their place.

Friends in Christ, I invite you to re-commit to the Way of the Cross that begins in this place. May we pray for each other, support each other, grow in faith and walk together in the way of the Cross until we see God face to face.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, August 31, 2025. The scripture readings are Jeremiah 2:4-13, Psalm 81:1, 10-16, Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16, and Luke 14:1, 7-14.

I spent the last couple of days in a quick trip to Florida. I had a cousin die, and his brother asked me to lead the services. His brother, my other cousin, insisted on making travel arrangements, and so I received an email with my flight information.

When I noticed that I didn’t have long between connect flights, coming back last night, I went online and paid a little extra to get a seat near the front, on the aisle, so I could make a run for it, if the first flight was late and I didn’t have much time to get to the other terminal.

In ticking the box online, and making that extra payment, I was thinking about how many little and large privileges we get in our culture, if we just pay a little more. Good housing in our city requires all kinds of tricks, and lists, and deals, and money. If you want tickets to Shakespeare in the park, you camp out the night before, or go very early. An essay in last week’s New York Times talked about how much it costs to go to Disney World these days, and the elaborate ways in which one can get better reservations, better dates for visiting, more fun—providing one pays extra, or gets in an online lottery, or who knows what else.

Our culture, especially in the United States, has become a kind of capitalismo salvaje, or savage capitalism, as some call it. It’s not so much “survival of the fittest,” but “success of the richest, the craftiest, the most aggressive.

In much of our culture, it is said, “the table it open to all,” to all who can afford to be at the table.  

Our Gospel today talks about another way of sharing the bounty, living into the common good, and really– Communion. 

The scene is of a dinner banquet. The places are set, the seats are taken, and people have “found their place,” in more ways than one.  Jesus notices that some of the guests seem to be scrambling (not for bread, but) for the places of honor, and so Jesus speaks to them in what first sounds like common sense. “Don’t always go for the very best seat. 

Someone more important than you might show up and then you’ll be embarrassed when you’re asked to move.  Instead, sit in the worst place.  That way, you’ll be honored when you’re invited to sit in a better seat.”

But Jesus keeps on going.  He says (perhaps to the host, perhaps to anyone who will listen), “When you have a banquet, don’t just invite those from whom you expect a reciprocal invitation.  Instead, be radical.  “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.”  (It doesn’t seem like Jesus is concerned with getting invited back to this particular Pharisee’s house!)

We can easily imagine the look on the Pharisee’s face when he hears these words. Maybe we can even imagine our own reaction if a guest began to lecture us about who should and who should not be invited to the gathering.

But imagine the reaction to those who are not sitting at the table.  Imagine how those words must have sounded to the servants, the cooks, or those who felt like they should sit in the far corners of the room.  Imagine how Jesus’s words of welcome must have sounded as they drifted out the window to the people looking over the hedge, trying to get some leftovers, digging through the trash to see what’s there or what might have been thrown out.  Imagine THEIR reaction.

At this party, at this banquet, Jesus offers both the guests and the uninvited a view of how God sees the world and how God throws a party.

In God’s eyes—at God’s great banquet—(the feast that has already begun, the feast (God willing) that we will one day join)— at that feast, those who exalted themselves in this life are humbled.  “The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart [that has been] withdrawn from its Maker.” (Sirach 10:12) And those who were humble find themselves exalted.

In this teaching of Jesus, we are, each of us, confronted—wherever we may be in life, whatever our position, perceived or real.

Some of us might feel a little like we don’t belong at the table. We sometimes under-estimate the importance of our showing up—that people might be expecting us, needing us, or wanting us.  Sometimes, folks can confuse humility with humiliation.  In this Gospel, Jesus speaks to those who don’t think they’re invited—whether because they don’t feel good enough, or holy enough, or smart enough, or attractive enough, or talented, or rich, or clever, or… fill in the blank.  He’s saying, “There is a place for you at the table.”  You are enough. You are God’s beloved!  Just as you are—just as you are, in God’s eyes, though perhaps you have forgotten.

But Jesus also addresses those of us who might be feeling pretty proud of ourselves, who might be feeling as though we enjoy some special blessing from God.  He reminds us, “Don’t assume the best spot has your name on it, just because you’ve worked hard, or shown up early, or put in your dues.  There may be others ahead of you, and you might be surprised.  They may not look like you expect.  They may not speak your language.  They may not dress or act like you.  They may not be “deserving,” in your eyes. But beware: Those who exalt themselves, will be humbled.

Our Gospel, really, is about humility—humility that happens when one lives like Jesus lived.  Humility has to do with being grounded, with being “right sized.”  The word comes from “hummus,” meaning “earthy,” and “earthiness.”  And so, to be humble is to be rooted in the earth, to reflect and recall one’s own humanity.  (From dust we have come, and to dust again we will return.)

C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” This is actually more of a paraphrase of a longer passage in Mere Christianity, but it gets at the heart of what he’s saying.

What if the church were a place where humility could be practiced, could be taught to the young, modeled by the wise, and developed?  What if the church were a place where humility became something everyone worked at—sometimes with success, but often with failure?

The poet Ann Weems such a church in one of her poems as she begins by wondering, “Where is the church?”  She then answers by suggesting

The church of Jesus Christ
is where people go when they skin their knees or their hearts
is where frogs become princes and Cinderella dances beyond midnight
is where judges don’t judge and each child of God is beautiful and precious

The church of Jesus Christ
is where home is
is where heaven is
is where a picnic is communion and people break bread together on their knees.

(excerpted from “The church of Jesus Christ” in Reaching for Rainbows, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1980)

In other words, the church, is where people risk humility.  The French philosopher and social critic Simone Weil read today’s Gospel and thought of the cross of Christ.  The cross, she suggests, can be understood as a balance, as a lever.  “Heaven coming down to earth raises earth to heaven.”  We lower what we want to lift, she points out.  And so, to lower oneself, raises not only the other person, but can raise the whole other side of the equation.  Weil loves physics and she looked at the cross and its way of humility almost as a kind of spiritual physics.  (Gravity and Grace, London: Ark Paperbacks, 1987 (1952), p. 84.)

The “cross as balance or lever” makes me think of the cross as a kind of seesaw.  And that feels less like a law imposed (“Be humble”) than an invitation extended (“Try on humility, and see where it leads you.”)  The invitation to humility is a little like the one to come and feast at the banquet.

Christ invites us to try the seesaw. Just try it and see what happens.  Try lowering the self so that another can be raised and see what happens.  See how it feels.  See if it changes anything.  See if you notice anything about God.

The church of Jesus Christ
is where people go when they skin their knees or their hearts
is where frogs become princes and Cinderella dances beyond midnight
is where judges don’t judge and each child of God is beautiful and precious. . .

May we have the faith occasionally to get on the seesaw, to lower ourselves, and with grace help each other learn true humility, so that all might join in the feast of God.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

A sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, August 17, 2025. The scripture readings are Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18, Hebrews 11:29-12:2, and Luke 12:49-56.

I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church under unusual circumstances. Having been ordained in the Presbyterian Church, been to seminary, and worked in churches, it had not occurred to anyone that I had never been officially confirmed, by a bishop, in the Episcopal Church. And this was one of the requirements to begin discernment for ordination in this church.

And so, my rector arranged that Bishop Don Taylor, the Assistant Bishop of New York, would come to St. Mary’s for a noonday Eucharist and I would be confirmed.

Some of you may be familiar with the old tradition of what might be called, “the holy slap.” The tradition is that after a bishop confirms someone, the bishop adds a slight slap to the confirmand’s cheek or simply touches it.  It’s said to be a ritual from when Roman soldiers were initiated into military service as a reminder that there will be battles out there to be fought, and every day will not be an easy one.  This “slap” in the Christian context is meant to convey the same—that the life of faith will not always be easy.

In advance of my confirmation, it turns out that my rector told Bishop Taylor, “be sure to give John a good slap. He knows his history and he’ll be disappointed if you don’t.” 

Well, you could have heard the slap throughout the church.  Rather than hurt, it made me laugh, so then I had the problem of trying to contain my laughter at one of the holiest moments imaginable.

Some years ago, we were planning for a bishop to visit church and offer confirmations, so I asked the diocesan official helping us plan, “Is he a ‘slapping’ bishop?”  “Certainly not,” was the answer I got, and I was a little disappointed.  In a day like ours when people of faith are called upon to stand up for justice, for goodness, for truth, for kindness, and for love—I sometimes think we could use a few “slapping bishops” leading us forward.

Later today, we will have a baptism, and I promise there will be no “slapping bishops,” and in fact, no slapping, at all.

Today is one of those days with the scripture readings. Given that we have a baptism of a very sweet little baby girl at 11AM, it would have been nice, had the scriptures been about the Good Shepherd who calls us each by name.  Or, maybe we could have had the story about when the disciples are with Jesus, and they’re bothered by the little kids running around, and Jesus tells them to step aside and bring the kids to the middle, so he can talk with them and enjoy their energy and life.

But no, today, the Church gives us these readings and can sound challenging.  And yet, they help us strive for and a maintain a clear-eyed faith, rather than something make believe or artificial.

In the Reading from Isaiah, we hear some of God’s disappointment with the way the world has fallen from God’s original design and idea. It was meant to be a vineyard, a place of life and growth and plenty for everyone. But self-interest has ruled and the crops have been hoarded, wasted, or neglected.

The epistle reading today, the Letter to the Hebrews, was written to a group of Christians who were getting tired. They were tired of being different, tired of the struggle and tired of the demands of the Christian life. They seemed to be on the edge of turning back to their former faith or to no faith. And so, they are urged to toward discipline, toward doing the right thing over and over, even when the end isn’t clear and even when the payoff is far off. These struggling Christians are urged to rise to the occasion, to turn trials into opportunities and to develop a perspective, to develop discipline.

Finally the Letter to the Hebrews names what so many of us, here, have found to be the sustaining, nurturing, and encouraging answer to living in a less-than-perfect world. “We are surrounded by a great a cloud of witnesses.” Our witnesses here include the living and the dead, those who have gone before us, those who loved us and this place who have died.

In today’s Gospel Jesus describes some of the results of living faithfully, with our eyes open. Sometimes our being faithful leads to conflict—with the religious establishment, with the state, conflict with one another. Here, I don’t think Jesus is just talking about people who are simply offensive in the way they share their faith, demanding that others see things as they do.  Instead, what he is talking about, I think, is the kind of conflict that comes up in families, among friends and loved ones, and in churches when we disagree because of our faith.

The Gospel today still speaks of hard truth: that sometimes in following Christ, we will find ourselves in conflict. There will continue to be those times when we experience the Body of Christ as broken and divided.  We may argue and seem to work against one another—but that great cloud of witness is still here, around us inspiring, strengthening, and reminding us of our calling.

The church gathers around Margaret to embody that kind of cloud of witnesses. We, personally, will not be by her side every step of the way—and even Alex and Caitlan will have to step back and give her room to grow—but we represent the community of faithful people who will always be available to Margaret.  We’ll pray for her, cheer her on, offer her encouragement when she’s down, and faith when she’s doubtful, and we’ll do our part to help her stay in touch with that original vision of God’s love for all of creation.

Even though we may not yet be the people we are called to be— individually or as a church—we’re on our way, and by continuing to be honest, to be disciplined and to be surrounded by such a cloud as this, we’ll grow, like Margaret, in faith and in love.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, August 10, 2025. The scripture readings are Isaiah 1:1, 10-20, Psalm 50:1-8, 23-24, Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16, and Luke 12:32-40.

Someone has said that the powerful little word, FEAR can serve as an acronym:  Forget Everything And Run. 

Forget everything and run. Fear can do that.

We can fear the movement of the financial markets, cut losses and make changes. We can fear the possibility of weather in a particular destination and avoid it altogether, perhaps missing a wonderful adventure. We can fear the pain associated with a new friendship or romantic relationship, and choose just not to protect ourselves at all cost.

Caution is always helpful, but I’m talking about the kind of fear that “forgets everything and runs,” that blinds us to opportunities, and that drives a wedge between us and God and us and other people.

So often, I hear people say that the opposite of fear is faith, and I suppose it feels that way sometimes.  But for me, even at most my fearful, I’ve still had faith, and I want to resist falling into the trap of somehow thinking that if I just have enough faith, there will be no fear.

The opposite of fear is not faith.   It’s LOVE.  I’m grateful to a friend of mine, Father Stuart Hoke, for pointing this out.  He reminded me of the scripture in the First Letter of John: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18. And love always contains within it a kind of faith.

Today’s scriptures invite us to think about our fears a little bit. They invite us to think about what we may fear, with God’s desire that we be brought through and beyond fear, and finally, the scriptures offer us a hint of what a moving through fear with more faith might look like.

The first reading from Isaiah talks about the people of God who SHOULD be fearful, but aren’t. They’ve become consumed with themselves.  They’ve ignored justice, oppressed others, not helped orphans and widows.  God calls them to return and repent. To allow a bit of fear to motivate them to new faith.

The Epistle reading, Hebrews, is a beautiful hymn.  It’s a hymn to faith, really—“faith,” being the other side of fear. By faith, Abraham obeys, and looks, and follows. By faith, Sarah laughs, and follows, and conceives. Meditating on people like Abraham and Sarah, the author of Hebrews gives us a famous definition of faith: that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.”

Fear often has to do with the power of things unseen.  Sometimes that’s a good thing (like being afraid of tics in the woods or sharks in the water).  But often on land, and in our lives, fear can stifle. Fear can keep us stuck.

At a conference a couple of weeks ago, some of us were talking about families and church families that can sometimes get stuck through fear. I told my colleagues about one of my favorite movies. Cold Comfort Farm is based on the old 1932 novel of the same name Stella Gibbons. The movie stars Kate Beckinsale, Joanna Lumley, Ian McKellen, and others.  In the movie, a young woman, Flora Poste, is a smart nineteen-year-old from London.  But she’s orphaned and begins to write various relatives to see where she might live. Eventually, she receives an invitation from the Starkadders, who feel like Flora’s father had been done wrong by their clan at some point, and so they owe it to Flora to take her in.

She arrives at Cold Comfort Farm, the Starkadders’ place that is just about falling apart. And in every direction there are dreary characters. The horse is named Viper, and the poor cows are named Aimless, Graceless, Feckless and Pointless. The whole sad family is ruled by a matriarch who refuses to come out of her room in the attic. Aunt Ada Doom, won’t come out because years ago, as a girl, she “saw something nasty in the woodshed.” We never learn what she saw, and it doesn’t seem as though anyone in the family knows. It’s not even clear if she still remembers what she saw. But the fear that began in the woodshed has completely infected her. That fear has changed her and made her small, and scared, and sad. And Aunt Ada Doom’s fear casts a spell over the whole farm.

I don’t want to spoil the whole story for you, but I will say that the arrival of Flora Poste, and her commonsense way of interacting with each family member eventually helps Aunt Ada to leave the fear in the woodshed where it belongs, and step into life again. And guess what? As soon as the fear is let go, the whole family finds freedom.

Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” “Do not be afraid, because it’s God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The kingdom of God may look different for each one of us, but for most of us, at some level, I think God’s kingdom has a similar effect in our lives as that of the transformation of Cold Comfort Farm. Whatever fears are gnawing at our insides, whatever fears there are that limit us or hold us back or keep us stuck— God wants to pull us through those fears, beyond those fears, into a world of faith, into God’s kingdom.

In today’s Gospel Jesus says, “Get ready.” And he uses several images to convey a sense of anticipation—to try to help us see what it’s like to greet the kingdom with faith, and not fear.
He says, “Be like those who are charged with taking care of a house while the owner is away. Be like those caretakers who are in charge while the head of the house is away at a wedding. Blessed are those who are awake at the return.” He also says, “Get rid of the things that burden you, that weigh you down, that keep you from moving forward. Because where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Let go of fear.”

If you think about the people Jesus meets in the Gospel, so often, they are people who are stuck, in some way. They’re stuck in old habits. They’re stuck by past sins.  They’re stuck in other people’s stories about them.  Or they’re stuck in some warped perspective that creates a world so narrow they can hardly breathe.  Think about some of those people:

There’s a woman who has been caught in adultery. They’re ready to stone her, but even if they let her go, she’s caught in her reputation. They’ve got her stuck in a bad place and she’s afraid. But Jesus forgives her and invites her to leave fear behind, and follow in faith.

There’s Zaccheus the tax collector who is stuck in a tree when Jesus walks by. But Jesus calls him out of the tree, and into and among people. Zaccheus doesn’t need to be afraid of being laughed at, made fun of, hated… Jesus says, “stop being afraid” and calls him into the kingdom.

There’s Mary Magdalene, on that first Easter morning.  She leaves her fear in the empty tomb and she’s able to see the resurrected Jesus. She’s able to move forward into the kingdom of God Jesus promises.

When Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, he’s not talking about a physical place. It is not a location as much as it is a state, a way of being, a type of consciousness, another awareness. The kingdom of God is wherever God’s will is actively done. The kingdom of God is that place where human needs are met, sin is forgiven, and lives are changed—by the truth of God’s love and by the fire of God’s forgiveness. The kingdom of God is that place where people live out the depth of God’s love—where we forgive each other and show love in practical, real ways. The Kingdom is that place where the God of heaven and earth, the God of all time and being, the God of all creation, stoops to wash the feet of a disciple, holds out bread and offers a cup. The kingdom of God breaks into our lives whenever we leave fears behind and do something bravely with faith.

This summer, some of us may be staying right where we are.  In life, some of us might not move very far away from one place.  But no matter who we are or where we are, Jesus calls us to move—to move out of whatever fearful place keeps us from stepping forward in faith.  The First Letter of John reminds us, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear.”

May the Holy Spirit enable us to leave fear behind, to claim the faith of the saints, and to live into God’s good kingdom.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, August 3, 2025. The scriptures are Hosea 11:1-11, Psalm 107:1-9, 43, Colossians 3:1-11, and Luke 12:13-21.

Last week, Jeanne Blazina and I attended a 6-day training course on “congregational development.” We learned about ways to strengthen our church, the local congregation, the Body of Christ right here, cooperating with God to gather people, to deepen their engagement with faith (a kind of spiritual transformation), and then to send people into the world refreshed and renewed.

On one of the first days, I met a nice woman from a church in the Hudson Valley who asked about Holy Trinity. “Where, exactly, are you in Manhattan?” “We’re in Yorkville, on the Upper East Side,” I explained, “right near Gracie Mansion, where the mayor lives.” “Oh,” this person said, “that’s a nice neighborhood. It must be a wealthy church.” 

I have to say, I was a little taken aback by the person’s directness. But thinking about this morning’s Gospel—a Gospel that encourages us to be rich toward God—I looked the person right in the eye and said, “Oh yes, we’re an extremely wealthy church. But I don’t think we’re wealthy in the way you mean.”

There are times—in our church life, as in family life—when we don’t have all the money we’d like. There are some things we cannot do, some things we cannot fix right away, some causes we cannot give as much to as we might like. But like some very poor families, we are extravagantly wealthy in other ways. We are rich in our worship. We are rich in our affection for one another. We are rich in our welcome and our invitation for all. We are rich in our care for those who need something—whether that “something” is a material need, a physical need, or a spiritual need. We are rich towards God, even though God calls us to be richer, still.

Today’s Gospel encourages us to be rich- but RICH TOWARD GOD. This may or may not involve money.  It’s much larger. When I look closely at how Jesus deals with money and wealth in the scriptures, and I notice that he wines and dines with rich and poor alike, I get the idea that God is almost indifferent as to whether we are wealthy (or not). 

God always sides with the poor, with those who lack, but it’s because God wants us to have enough, to have plenty, to rejoice in bounty, to have everything we need, and God might even want those with special skills and abilities to have lots of extra– but’s that’s so that we can share the wealth, extend the blessing, and help out other people.

God wants us to be full, complete and lacking nothing. But God doesn’t care if we have one house or three. God isn’t bothered by what one drives, or what one wears, or whether one summers in the South Bronx or the south of France. But as Jesus says, we should be “rich toward God” (Luke 12:21).

In today’s Gospel from Luke, Jesus has been talking with a group of people, warning them about hypocrisy and trying to help them understand what it means to live a life completely dedicated to God. In this context, a man asks Jesus to take his side in a question over an inheritance. We don’t know the exact nature of this man’s question, but biblical scholars would point out that the reality of Jewish inheritance laws at that time held that the eldest son inherited twice the amount that might have gone to a younger sibling. Perhaps the speaker in the Gospel is one of the younger brothers.

Now, if I were one of the younger brothers (not to mention a sister who is left out completely), the part of me that wants a fair and just world wishes Jesus would just take the man’s side. But as with so many issues, Jesus looks beyond the surface issue to explore what’s deeper. Jesus evades the political, cultural, or legal question and instead, goes right to the spiritual question.

Jesus focuses on the heart.  Where’s your heart?  What’s your heart’s desire?  What makes your heart grow and expand and feel alive?  THAT’s what God is interested in.  It’s not about who has more money, or more stuff, or more power, or more prestige. It’s about how we use it. It’s not about how big the wedding is—it’s about whether you invite God or not.

By way of answering the man in today’s story, Jesus tells a parable.  He tells about a man who keeps building up storehouses for all of his grain. But the man builds in vain, trying to build bigger and higher—because he is disconnected from God. The real issue has to do with our relationship with what we have. Does it lead us closer to God and God’s people? Or does it drive a wedge between ourselves and all that is holy?

Being “rich toward God” has to do with “currency” but not just in the monetary sense of that word.  Jesus moves with a kind of currency of life, through which the Holy Spirit operates and animates.

In economics, we speak of a “currency” because a currency allows things to move around, to go from one person to another, to have a life and rhythm that allows for free movement. Things in currency are not meant to be kept in one’s hands, but they get their life out of being passed around and shared. Wealth is like that. It grows only through a certain amount of risk.

While it’s surely that way with the currency of money, it’s also true with the currency of our relationships and the currency of time. All of these are ways that we can be rich toward God.

Of course “being rich toward God” will involve money, at some point, and through faith, it will involve the risk of letting go. I grew up in a church in which members tried to outdo one another in giving—anonymously. Over and over, again, there would be some major gift to the parish, some program, some extra music, some new mission begun—each time, with a grant from an anonymous donor. That’s living richly toward God.

Being rich toward God also means being rich toward God’s people, how we spend ourselves through the currency of our relationships—both with the people inside the church and those outside. What would it be like if we lived more richly toward one another, giving one another the benefit of the doubt, offering first mercy instead of judgment, extending first a welcome rather than wondering if the stranger might fit in or not?

And finally, how do we spend our time? Do we give any of it to God—for God’s use, as well as simply time to be with God, to allow God to draw us closer through prayer, through reading of the Bible, through worship? All of this has to do with being rich toward God.

When I think of richness, and some of the richest people I’ve known, a lot of faces come to mind.  But among them are a handful of women from my home church who prayed for me while I was in seminary. They met regularly to pray and study the Bible, and every so often I would receive a card from them.  Sometimes, in the card would be seven one-dollar bills, sometimes nine one-dollar bills, and one time (perhaps their attendance rose for that meeting), I receive a small fortune: thirteen dollars! Each time, the ladies would scribble a message, something to the effect of, “We know this isn’t very much, but we hope you can do something special with it. Spend it on yourself, don’t do anything too responsible!” That last phrase made it challenging, because I knew they didn’t want me to spend the money on books or tuition.  And so, each time, I would do something slightly out of the ordinary— get a really expensive ice cream cone and write them about it. Or when a new coffee shop opened, I would get a rare, exotic, and expensive kind of coffee.  I thought of it like the woman who used expensive perfume as a gift to Jesus—my job was not to quibble, but to be gracious and say “thank you.”

What made the dollar bills in the occasional care such a wonderful gift was not only their random sweetness. But even more— I knew these ladies, and I knew that they didn’t have a lot of one-dollar bills to share (and even fewer 5’s, 10’s, or 20’s.)  They were not wealthy women. They were counting every penny, trying to cover medications, transportation, rent, contributions to church, support of family and friends…. and out of this, they also chose to give to me. They were not wealthy, but they were sure “rich” toward me, and taught me something about being “rich toward God.”

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has always been especially good news to those who are poor—those poor in spirit, poor in health, and those who are just, plain poor.  The Gospel is Good News not because it says that if we say our prayers, we’ll get rich, or that if we follow Jesus all our problems are solved.  Instead, the Gospel promises us a relationship with the living Lord Jesus Christ, who moves through us like a currency of love, showing us how to be rich toward God and one another.  THAT kind of richness lifts up everyone, improves everybody, and blesses all.

The scriptures today work together.  St. Paul urges the Colossians not to worry so much about clothes, but instead, try to put on “compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience.”

Following Christ in abundant life, may the Holy Spirit show us what it is to be filthy rich—rich toward God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.