Hear a short recap of the Sunday service:

Watch the 11 AM Celebration of the Holy Eucharist

Watch the 6 PM Celebration of the Community Eucharist.

The written version of the sermon is here:

Broadway re-opened last night with its first show since March of last year. Early in the show, Bruce Springsteen said, “I am here tonight to provide proof of life.” Traffic, shops and restaurants, tourists, less restrictions on masks and socializing—it all kind of helps us “provide proof of life,” as Springsteen put it.

As people of faith, affirming life is what we do—and it’s at the heart of our scriptures. I love the first reading today, so much, and am surprised it’s not used more at funerals–

God did not make death,
And does not delight in the death of the living.
For he created all things so that they might exist;
the generative forces of the world are wholesome . . .
God created us for incorruption,
and made us in the image of his own eternity . . .

On this last Sunday in June, celebrated as Pride Sunday, when LGBTQ people celebrate with color and craziness—it’s about life. While we enjoy rights and privileges in most parts of this country, there are still 71 jurisdictions in the world that criminalize sexual activity between persons of the same gender. Eleven countries use the death penalty against homosexuality. I will not be visiting the legendary rock churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia any time soon, lest they learn of my marriage and put me in jail for a year.

And so—for all of its extravagance and pushing the envelope—LGBTQ celebrations are about affirming life. They’re about celebrating the power of life to go on, even in the face of prejudice, in the face of violence, in the face of fear or injustice, in the presence of a pandemic—whether it be of AIDS or SARS…. We affirm life and thank goodness our church is on the side of life and more life.

Today’s first reading sings of the power of life, and in the Gospel, we see people who move towards the life of Christ in search of healing. And they find it. Through Jesus Christ, they find new life.

Jairus, a leader in the local synagogue, sees Jesus approach, and when he does, he falls on his knees. Jairus is a religious big shot, one of the very sort of religious leaders who so often is threatened by Jesus. But here, Jairus is reduced to his knees, like a begger. His daughter is sick, and so nothing else really matters to him at this point—not his position in the synagogue, not his wealth, not the rest of his healthy family, not his own health— instead, here he is begging, hoping, praying for help because his little girl is sick and things are looking bad.

Fast forward a bit to Jesus making his way to the village where Jairus’ daughter lies. Mark the Evangelist loves to begin a story, interrupt himself with another story, and then complete the initial one—and that’s what he’s doing here. Jesus makes his way, but a huge crowd surrounds him. While probably everyone in the crowd had his or her own prayer, hoping Jesus might answer it, one lady in particular reaches through the crowd and places her hand on Jesus’ robe.

It is desperation (which is a kind of faith) that makes her do it. She has tried everything. She has gone to doctors—this one and that one—and there is no help. If she were living in our day, no doubt she would have seen even more doctors—(if her health care plan allowed it) specialists, technicians, geniuses, quacks—anything, anyone, to try to help her. And so, the woman pushes forward, she reaches out. She practically lunges at Jesus in what is her final prayer.

Jesus feels power go out of him. The woman is healed and is made whole again. She is restored to life. But this story is an aside, an insertion into the other story of Jesus going to the house of Jairus.

And so, back to the other story line. Jesus makes it to Jairus’ house. He sees the little girl and is told that she has died. But Jesus touches her, he tells her to get up, and she is healed. She is made whole again. And she, too, is restored to life.

The scriptures leave us with miracle stories, stories more wonderful, so much better than belief, that we are tempted to leave them in the land of storytelling. We are perhaps tempted to leave them with happy endings in the realm of make-believe.

The scriptures today don’t explain everything. They don’t give a recipe for miracles, but they do point us in the direction of God’s healing.

From the stories of Jairus’ daughter and the woman in the crowd we can see that for there to be healing, there are usually at least two conditions present:

The first is that there is an openness to God, a reaching towards God.

And the second is that there is what could be described as a “reaching towards God with others.”

The first is faith. And the second has to do with being in relationship. Faith is present whenever there is healing. But this is not to suggest that healing is somehow proportional to faith. There are some preachers who may suggest that. They will tell you that if you don’t see the healing in your life, then clearly you’re not praying the right way, or you’re not praying hard enough, or something else in your life is out of balance. But (I think) there’s a special place in hell reserved for such preachers.

Though Jesus says to several different people something to the effect of “your faith has made you well,” it does not necessarily follow that if one is not well, one doesn’t have enough faith. Faith is usually present when there’s healing, but it’s the kind of faith that is open to God’s moving. We sometimes limit our expectation of healing because we look for a cure. But sometimes healing brings something different from a cure. Healing can give us new strength. It can give us new confidence. It can bring us Christ himself. In healing, God works like a good doctor, working best when we give God room to work, not limiting God’s work by what we think we want or think we need. With such faith, we can pray for healing, resting in the knowledge that God works and wills nothing but the very best for us.

Faith is a part of healing, but notice also that in scripture, as in experience, healing rarely happens in isolation. It happens when two or three are gathered. It happens when one is brought into community by prayer, or by intention. Sometimes the reaching with others involves touch. In the Gospels, it was often the touch of Jesus himself. Sometimes it was the touch of friends who brought one into relationship with Christ. And after the Resurrection and Ascension, it happens that through the touch of the disciples, God’s healing begins to spread. It’s not so much the apostolic succession of bishops that makes the miracles happen. Instead, it’s apostolic succession as the deposit of faith and hope is passed down person to person, faithful community to faithful community.

And we pass it on, still.

In our day, we may be tempted to think that healing comes only through professional healers with medical degrees, or at least through specially gifted people who are healers, but the truth is that, more often than not, healing happens through ordinary people, when we reach for God together, with the touch of one person to another.

Ann Weems is a poet who writes about our relationship with one another, the relationship that can encourage healing. In one poem, she writes,

I see your pain and want to banish it with the wave of a star,
but have no star.
I see your tears and want to dry them with the hem of an angel’s gown,
but have no angel.
I see your heart fallen to the ground and want to return it,
wrapped in cloths woven of rainbow,
but have no rainbow.
God is the One
who has stars, and angels and rainbows,
And I am the one
God sends to sit beside you
until the stars come out
and the angels dry your tears
and your heart is back in place
rainbow blessed.

Whether we walk in parades and wave flags, or make a call and send a note. Whether we simply pray for ourselves and others—we can’t say exactly when, where, and how God’s healing may come. We don’t even always know what that healing will look like. But what we learn from the scriptures today is that, like Jairus and the woman who touched Jesus, if we reach for God, and if we reach for God with one another, the conditions are good for God’s healing to flow.

Let us pray for healing. Let us look for healing. And may the almighty Lord be now and evermore our defense and make us know and feel that the only name under heaven given for health and salvation is the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In that name, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

He is the Way.
Follow him through the Land of Unlikeness;
you will see rare beasts and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
you will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love him in the World of the Flesh:
and at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.

                     W. H. Auden For the Time Being (a Christmas Oratorio)

Hear a short recap of the Sunday service:

Watch the 11 AM Celebration of the Holy Eucharist

Watch the 6 PM Celebration of the Community Eucharist.

The written version of the sermon is here:

After a long year of being cooped up, a lot of people are beginning to travel, or at least beginning to think about travelling. Many families are getting together for the first time, this Father’s Day weekend, to celebrate Dad, or the memory of Dad, or to combine with Juneteenth, or simply to give thanks for vaccines and the ability to move around and be together.

Maybe for all these reasons, as I listen to the scripture readings for today, I hear in them a kind of travel narrative. In today’s readings there are accounts of people who have been places. They have seen things, and they have been changed. 

In the very short reading from Job, God reminds Job that Job really has not been to as many places as he thinks. But God takes Job back.  But then in words and images God recounts to Job what it was like at the beginning, when God laid the very foundation of the earth. When God says to the very seas themselves, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed.’” No, for all Job’s experience, put in that context, he really hasn’t seen very much at all.

With a word [God] called up the wind–
an ocean storm, towering waves!
You shot high in the sky, then the bottom dropped out;
your hearts were stuck in your throats.
You were spun like a top, you reeled like a drunk,
you didn’t know which way was up.
[But] then you called out to [the Lord] …
[and] he got you out in the nick of time.
He quieted the wind down to a whisper,
[and] put a muzzle on all the big waves.  (The Message, Psalm 107)

This trip across the Sea of Galilee quickly becomes the kind of travel story you hope you never have to tell—“Remember the time.” Remember that time in the storm. Remember that time when we got lost. Or even more tragic, remember that time when it felt like a storm and we lost someone we loved. The disciples are afraid and so they wake up Jesus who looks at them with surprise. He speaks and the storm is stopped. The disciples are stopped. Time is stopped. “Peace. Hush. Be quiet. Be still.”

Faith is movement. If we are in love with God, and or if we have the slightest bit of belief that God is in love with us—that love will change us. It moves us from place to place. I don’t know where this travel narrative of Holy Scripture intersects with your own movement today. It may be you’re in a good place, settled with your faith, confident with your relationship with God, collected in the midst of a sea of calm. Some of you are in that place: give thanks and draw strength from this time. 

All kinds of storms come our way.  Family can sometimes blow through our lives like an unruly storm. Sometimes we feel adrift and in a boat all alone. At work the winds can pick up now and then and we feel under attack. In relationships, the seas are not always calm. Even our church seems sometimes to be moving into deep waters, feeling alone in our particular boat while other churches seem to prefer the safety of the land, or the assurance of charted waters. But our faith allows us to be like those first disciples: to hang on to each other for the ride, to stay close to God our savior, and to look ahead without fear. 

W.H. Auden names well the landscape of our lives. Of Christ our travel guide, he writes

He is the Way.
Follow him through the Land of Unlikeness;
you will see rare beasts and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
you will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love him in the World of the Flesh:
and at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.

                     W. H. Auden For the Time Being (a Christmas Oratorio)

We don’t always pack the way we should.  We’ll forget things here and there.  The weather may change on us. As Anne Lamott has written, “The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.” (Traveling Mercies).

We have the little things that sustain, but even more, we have God our Savior surrounding us, leading us, pushing us, holding us, carrying us, loving us always and forever. 

May we look out for each other along the way. May we enjoy the scenery and be strong and faithful travelers.

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

Hear a short recap of the Sunday service:

 

We’re very sorry, but the audio connection with Facebook failed for our June 13 recordings. We are trying to find answers for this and apologize for the problem. 

The written version of the sermon is here:

On this first of the ordinary Sundays, the Third Sunday after Pentecost, our worship returns to a familiar pattern.  We again have a prayer of confession.  We use green on the altar and in the vestments.  The music and hymns lead us to think about God in all God’s majesty and mystery, in broad and sometimes general ways.  The Church continues to observe feast days here and there, almost like exclamation marks in the narrative of God’s love for us, but most of the Sundays through the summer offer us space to grow and develop, to think and mature in our faith. And especially in today’s scripture readings, there’s a lot that is growing.

Growth runs through our scriptures today. In Ezekiel, God plants a tree as a symbol and reminder that God tends and cares for all his creatures, no matter what may come: storm, drought, or disaster. Both Ezekiel and the Psalm reminds us that those who allow God to do the planting–who let God be the Master Gardener—all those will flourish and bear fruit and live fresh, new lives season after season, even into old age.

Today’s Gospel comes in the form of a parable, or several parables—those stories that allow us to identify with various characters as the wear the story again and again. Because of this, whenever we read or hear a parable, there’s an invitation for us to step inside and try on some of the different characters and attitudes. Which one speaks to us today? Which one fits best? Which one challenges or offers comfort?

For example, in today’s story, you may identify with the sower, the one who plants seeds and hopes for the best. Whether seeds or seedlings, the hope is that there will be growth. It may be an idea or a practice or a project that you’re just beginning. You do a little to get it started, but then it’s out of your hands. It may be taken out of your hands, or other things may grow to overshadow your project—maybe there is the equivalent of a storm, or maybe the birds in your world eat up the seeds you’ve sown. But if you’re the sower, you make an initial investment and then over time, you have to manage your relationship to the seeds you’ve planted. How much will you try to control? How much will you let go? When will you ask for help?

On the other hand, you might hear today’s Gospel and identity a little with the seed. Perhaps you feel like you’ve been placed in a certain place—a family, a relationship, a workplace, a social situation. Where you’ve been placed might be fertile ground with lots of resources and room for growth. Or, it might be a rocky place, full of challenges and rough spots.

Or maybe you’re just trying your best to put down roots somewhere, trying to find something that will stay still long enough to enjoy the sun, to absorb the rain, to find the energy and life within yourself to grow, to expand, to become.

For a number of reasons, one can feel like the seed—waiting on outside forces and trusting God. One can feel as tiny and insignificant as a mustard seed. But it’s those times that it’s especially important to remember that built into every seed–deep down–is the capacity to grow into something useful and beautiful.

The birds, too, play a part in the parable. The birds take shade. They find rest and refuge. Someone else has done the major planting and much of the growing, but one day, the birds too, might be called upon to add just the right component to God’s unfolding kingdom.

Jesus tells these parables to help us understand what he calls the Kingdom of God. This “Kingdom of God” is not so much a literal place as it is EVERY PLACE–, every place where God’s intention is allowed to take root and grow. The kingdom is full of mystery—it grows at its own rate. Some parts can be planned, laid out, and organized. But other areas of the kingdom are up to God’s own good grace—we have to let go.

Given where we are moving out of the pandemic, it might be that we feel like any seeds we might be trying to plant are either inconsequential or get blown away in the storm of the day. 

But that’s where faith comes in. With faith, we can also see God’s movement and growth in the hidden places. We see what initially looks only like pain and misery. We see disease and violence and poverty. We see a terribly distorted version of the world God has created. But then, with eyes of faith, we look closer. We can begin to see the seeds for compassion, for sharing, for sacrifice, and for healing.

Today we baptize Dylan, who is just beginning to grow. In that way, she’s like a little seed, full of potential and wonder, beauty and love. In baptism we add water. With Holy Oil we add nourishment. And with our prayers, we lift her into God’s love so that the light of Christ bloom in her life to bear good fruit.

Friends, the kingdom of God grows around us and within us. May God continue to grow us in faith and love.

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

Hear a short recap of the Sunday service:

Watch the 11 AM Celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

Watch the 6 PM Celebration of the Community Eucharist.

The written version of the sermon is here:

This morning, weather permitting, some churches will be taking the Holy Sacrament and leaving church.  They’ll be leaving the church building and walking through the neighborhood.  A few churches did this on Thursday and others do it today in a celebration of Corpus Christi Day, carrying the Blessed Sacrament out into the world, for all to adore and celebrate.

When I was first ordained, I served at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, and the practice there on Corpus Christi is to move through Times Square and then back into the church.  Every year, we would end up with ten, twenty, maybe fifty people following us back into church.  A part of it felt absolutely medieval, but another part felt like exactly the right kind of expression for a church in Times Square.

I still remember the rector of another parish hearing about the outdoor procession and getting very upset about it He was offended, he wrote in a newsletter article.  He felt that this walking through Times Square with the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood was a “dangerous practice,” since the Sacrament might easily be defiled, disparaged, or misunderstood.

Christian history reminds us of conflicts between Christians and often—mixed up in the politics and the power plays—there were differences in belief around the Eucharist (the Greek word for “thanksgiving”) or Holy Communion.  The extreme Protestant view (Baptists, some Presbyterians and others) would hold that the bread and wine (whether fermented or unfermented) are symbols and reminders of the loving meal Jesus shared with his disciples in the Last Supper.  The extreme Catholic view, which many call “Transubstantiation” holds that through the words of the priest, the bread and wine substantially and objectively become the body and blood of Christ.  Each Mass is (what some have called) an “unbloody sacrifice.”

Those of you who know the Anglican tradition or are used to the Episcopal way of viewing things will not be surprised to know that the Anglican view (of which the Episcopal Church is a part) is somewhere in the middle.  Our church’s official belief is in the Real Presence, though we don’t specific or demand that one understand the mystery of the Real Presence in exactly the same way.

Anglicans often recall the words of John Donne(1572–1631): “He was the Word that spake it;  He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it; I do believe and take it”  (Divine Poems. On the Sacrament.)

In addition to historical conflicts and modern-day differences, the Holy Eucharist brings danger also when we take it seriously.  It can be dangerous because it can change our lives.

Jesus says in today’s Gospel puts it, “my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” And that’s where the danger really begins.

We can think about what it means to “abide in Christ,” to take the Body of Christ into our bodies by noting what our Book of Common Prayer says about the Eucharist.  Way in the back of the Prayer Book is a section call simply “The Catechism,” and in the part about the Holy Eucharist, the Catechism outlines what it calls “the benefits of the Eucharist.”

“The benefits we receive are the forgiveness of our sins, the strengthening of our unions with Christ and one another, and the foretaste of the heavenly banquet which is our nourishment in eternal life.”

And hidden within each of these benefits, there are dangers and possibilities.

When we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, we are forgiven. We are forgiven again. Our sins are washed away at Baptism, but the ongoing accumulation of sin in our life meets its match in Holy Communion. Saint Ignatius of Antioch called the Eucharist the “medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, … that we should live for ever in Jesus Christ.” This is dangerous medicine, then, for anything or anyone who might be interested in keeping us in sin. The devil will not look on such medicine as innocuous or harmless, nor will his minions. And so, the Eucharist helps us. Like good medicine, it increases our resistance level. Like vitamins, it strengthens us.

The second benefit according to the Catechism has to do with strengthening our union with Christ and with one another. In a culture that suggests we should live only for ourselves, that we try to obtain all that we can for ourselves with little regard for others; in a culture that in any way lifts up people like the Kardashians as important, relevant or meaningful—- the unifying work of the Blessed Sacrament is dangerous stuff.

In Communion we are reminded that we need each other. The common cup and common bread underline that we are not so different from one another as we are sometimes led to believe. Barriers of race and class and education, differences of national origin, or sexual orientation or marriage status are dissolved in the common chalice. They are diluted by the cleansing water of the Holy Spirit. And the blood of Christ, which is to say the blood of God our Creator, restores us into once again being fully human even as it fills us with what is fully divine.

Finally, the Body and Blood of Christ, this holy Sacrament, gives us a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. Mindful of the present, grateful for the reality of here-and-now, we are made aware in the Eucharist that we are also living toward a great feast that has no ending.

On Memorial Day our country paused to remember those who have died in service for us, for freedom and for the opportunities that this country symbolizes.  Danger and promise are all wrapped up in the idea of service, but we honor those who have died for our country, just as we honor those who have died for Christ by stepping through fear and danger and holding on to faith.

Strengthened by the Body and Blood of Christ, let the danger begin. Let us risk blasphemy, as Jesus did, as we try to show the Body of Christ to the world. Let us risk being misunderstood, as Jesus did, as we go out of our way to feed the hungry, to lift up the poor, to release those held in captivity. And let us risk the danger of faith, as our Savior Jesus did, taking up our cross daily and following him wherever he leads.

Jesus says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day …. the one who eats this bread will live forever.” May we live into these words, both dangerous and delicious.

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