A sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter, May 4, 2025. The scriptures are Acts 9:1-6, (7-20), Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19, and Psalm 30.

Through the death of Pope Francis and the Conclave that begins this week to choose a new pope, there’s been a lot of discussion around the importance of St. Peter. St. Peter’s Basilica is, of course, is at the center of the Vatican, and tradition says that it’s all built over the tomb of St. Peter. The Catholic Church points to Matthew 16, where Jesus says, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:18-19).

And so, based on this verse and the tradition of the early church, St. Peter is thought to be the first head of the church, the first Bishop of Rome, and from him comes the whole line of bishops in apostolic succession. And so, St. Peter is cast in bronze, and carved out of marble, and portrayed as larger in life.

But that, St. Peter—the one who is full of full of faith, and in important places all over Rome and elsewhere is a Peter I have a hard time relating to. The Peter in the scriptures, however—the Simon Peter who’s faith one minute allows him to walk on water to meet Jesus, but the next minute makes him fall in-this Peter— this is someone I can relate to.

We see in the scriptures, and especially in today’s Gospel, that Peter gets a second chance. And this means that we, too, are given second, third, fourth, and infinitesimal chances in God’s grace.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus appears in the ordinary work of the disciples: first as a wise fisherman with advice for where to put the net in, and secondly, he appears as a grill master, cooking a meal for his friends, sharing God’s bounty. Peter is in the middle of it all.

This is the same Simon Peter we heard about on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Remember that the disciples were gathered in the upper room for the Passover meal. Just before the meal, Jesus poured water into a basin and washed the disciples’ feet. It was Simon Peter who said to Jesus, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” And Jesus says, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” But Jesus answers, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Peter begins to catch on, so says excitedly, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”

Later that night, after Jesus is arrested from the Garden of Gethsemane, Simon Peter is by the fire, getting warm. Someone asks, “Aren’t you one of them? Aren’t you one of the followers of Jesus?” And Peter shakes his head. Again, and another time, Peter denies, rejects, disowns, plays it safe to cover himself, and to pretend there never was this claim of Jesus on his heart.

In any case, immediately after his denial of Jesus, we don’t really know what Simon Peter did. We don’t know where he went, who he was with. Did he go into town, find a pub, settle in and try to forget it all? Did he ask questions of his friends and try to piece things together? Did he pray?

We don’t know, but what we see from the scriptures is that before long, Peter simply went fishing.

In the Gospel, I imagine that Peter has had a long week. There’s a lot on his mind, and so he just needs to get away, to run away. Fishing provides a way and provides the additional cover of appearing like going back to work. Getting back to normal. Let God sort out the things of God, there are bills to pay and mouths to feed.

Except that the fish aren’t biting. It’s as though creation itself refuses to cooperate with Peter’s will. Creation—the water, the fish, the wind—are saying, “No, Peter, you need to sort some things out first.”

A new day begins to break, the sun is just about to come up and the disciples make out a form standing on the beach. “Throw the net in on the other side,” the person says, but speaks with a kind of knowing authority that commands attention. The disciples throw the net in, and suddenly they feel the weight of so many fish they can barely haul in the catch. John says to Peter, “It’s the Lord.” And when Simon Peter hears this, he gets himself together, jumps into the water, and swims to the shore to see for himself what seems too good to be true, too fantastic, too forgiving, too much of God’s grace. And yet, there is Jesus.

It’s like a second baptism for Peter. The old is washed away. The new is come. Buried with Christ in his death, Peter is lifted up to share in the resurrection of Christ. Peter becomes like a little child again, with a light heart, and a ready faith.

“Come and have breakfast,” Jesus says. And the disciples hear echoes of “take, eat, this is my body.” The meal is shared, new life is shared, tasted and savored. The meal provides for the kind of intimacy and honesty in which Jesus can pull Simon Peter aside.

“Simon, son of John, do you love me?” “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” “Feed my lambs,” Jesus says. Then again, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” Peter says. And then a third time Jesus asks, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” And this time, Peter is sad because Jesus keeps asking and seems to doubt and seems to know how shaky and unreliable Peter’s heart really is, so he says, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” And Jesus says, “Feed my sheep. And follow me.”

Three times Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” This fixes, it un-does, and it recapitulates the three denials of Peter. The Church enacts this doing and un-doing of three-ness during Holy Week as on Good Friday, in some places, the Holy Cross is brought into the church from the back and the cross is presented at three places with the words, “Behold the wood of the cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.”

Three times the cross is show and the proclamation made. And then at the Easter Vigil, the cross is replaced with the Paschal Candle, and again in those same three places new life is proclaimed, “The light of Christ, thanks be to God.”

Whether in patterns of three, or four, or a hundred, or once—God provides occasions in our lives, like he did with Simon Peter, so that we might have a second chance. I once saw a sign in a chaplain’s office that said, “O God of second chances and new beginnings, here I am…. again.”

And here we are…. again. Tom Long, an old preaching professor of mine, likes to say that faith is not so much an experience or a feeling or an emotion. It’s not simply some kind of vague awareness of something greater than ourselves. Rather, faith is a skill. It’s a skill to be taught and developed and practiced. Faith is something to be done in the world. And the world awaits our doing.

Jesus says, “Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep.” In other words, “care for one another, show love to one another, especially the stranger and the misfit, search out for the lonely and forgotten, the poor and the sick, and follow me.”

Like Peter, God gives us second chances. For the one who has become so engrossed in work as to forget the gifts of family, God provides a second chance. For the one who walks by the person in need, God provides a second chance. For the one who has to have the final word, never buckling under to another, God provides a second chance. To the ones whose relationship is more mundane than magic, God provides. For the one who is angry, or disappointed, or who is stuck in shame, who’s obsessed with regret, the one who has lost faith in a world of abuse, violence, bombs and bloodshed…. God provides a second chance… and a third… and fourth….and more than we can count.

Whether this is the second chance or the two-thousandth chance, accept the grace that God would grant, receive the forgiveness, embrace the welcome, and throw your life into the life of Christ again.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter, April 27, 2025. The scripture readings are Acts 5:27-32, Revelation 1:4-8, John 20:19-31, and Psalm 150.

Many have been moved by the faith and witness of Pope Francis over the last few months, and especially in the last few weeks, leading up to his death on Easter Monday. We join our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers in praying for the repose of his soul and in continuing to give thanks for his life. May the church continue to live out his love for the poor, the immigrants and refugees, the imprisoned and forgotten.

In 2021, Pope Francis was addressing a conference of young people and he said the sorts of honest, simple things that so often got him into trouble with some of the more rigid, conservative factions of the Church.  Pope Francis encouraged the young people, “Don’t be afraid of doubts.” “Don’t be afraid of doubts . . . [because they’re] not a sign of the lack of faith . . . . [but instead] doubts should be considered ‘vitamins of faith’ because they help to strengthen faith and make it ‘more robust.’”

They enable faith to grow, to become more conscious, free, and mature. They make it more eager to set out, to persevere with humility, day after day. Faith is precisely that: a daily journey with Jesus who takes us by the hand, accompanies us, encourages us, and, when we fall, lifts us up. He is never afraid to do this. Faith is like a love story, where we press forward together, day after day. Like a love story too, there are times when we have to think, to face questions, to look into our hearts. And that is good, because it raises the quality of the relationship!  [Meeting with Young people, Address of His Holiness Pope Francis, Saint Dionysius School of the Ursuline Sisters in Maroussi, Athens, Monday, 6 December 2021, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2021/december/documents/20211206-grecia-giovani.html

On this Second Sunday of Easter, St. Thomas the Apostle (sometimes called, Doubting Thomas) reminds us of just what Pope Francis was pointing to—a way in which doubt can lead to a deepening of faith, a reach for Jesus, and the feeling that he is taking us by the hand to guide us onward.

We can learn from the Apostle Thomas, from Pope Francis, and from all those who have gone before us and have been honest about their doubts.

Way back in Exodus, we can remember that when Moses is called by God, Moses has his doubts. Abraham and Sarah laugh when the angels tell them that they’re going to have a son in old age. Their doubt makes them laugh out loud, and that laughter continues, as they name their son Isaac, a name that means “laughter.”  Jonah doubts.  Jeremiah doubts. The Samaritan woman at the well doubts the living water offered by Jesus. Zaccheus the tax collector doubts God’s love can even include him. Even Mary the Mother of Jesus was part of his family who worried that he had lost his mind and wanted to bring him home (Mark 3).

Perhaps even more surprising, if we look closely, it seems as though even Jesus sometimes doubts.

He doubts his mission: as he first imagines he is sent only to save the Jews, it takes a Samaritan woman to widen his perspective. Jesus doubts his disciples as he predicts that Peter will quickly lose heart will deny having anything to do with Jesus. In the garden, Jesus wonders if God is there, and on the cross, Jesus again wonders if God has forgotten.

I mention all of these people of tremendous faith that we encounter in scripture, and (at the risk of heresy) I mention Jesus, as well, to point out that St. Thomas is not alone in his doubting. And I think we miss a lot of what God would have us see, if we pretend that doubt is an abnormal or subnormal place to be. Sometimes we are filled with faith. Sometimes we doubt. God is still God.

And so, where does that leave us, when we doubt?  When we’re in doubt, I can think of at least three ways in which God might actually use doubt to bring us closer.

First, we can question. Through faith and with faith, we can research, read, study, and question. The theologian Paul Tillich argues that doubt is included in every act of faith. In fact, his book The Dynamics of Faith he writes

In those who rest on their unshakable faith, pharisaism, and fanaticism are the unmistakable symptoms of doubt which has been repressed. Doubt is overcome not by repression but by courage. Courage does not deny that there is doubt, but it takes the doubt into itself as an expression of its own finitude and affirms the content of an ultimate concern. Courage does not need the safety of an unquestionable conviction. … Even if the confession that Jesus is the Christ is expressed in a strong and positive way, the fact that it is a confession implies courage and risk.” (Chp. 6, Sect. 1)

Tillich uses the wonderful word, “courage,” which includes in it the French word for heart, “Coeur.” To have courage is to allow the heart to lead us—through doubt, through fear, and eventually, through faith.

“Love the questions themselves. Live the questions now,” was the advice of Rainer Maria Rilke to a young poet.

Second, we can ask for help. Share doubts with another, we’ll not only find that we’re not as isolated as we think, but chances are that the person has also had doubts and can understand our questions.

And third, we can do what saints and sinners of every age have done: we can give the doubt to God. Teresa of Avila, the 16^th century nun and reformer famously prayed for some 18 years feeling as though her prayers were not really being heard. But she kept on and is one of those very few saints who is said to have found union with God in prayer.

And so, when we’re doubting, we can learn something. We can lean on someone. We can love God.

We are given “doubting Thomas” as a brother in doubt and faith, a fellow disciple who paved a rough way for us to faith. St. Thomas not only stands as the father of Indian and Syrian Christianity, he also stands as a patron for those whose faith does not come easily, with those whose faith includes a measure of doubt, a bit of suspicion, maybe even a little cynicism.

It’s ok to doubt. It’s ok to wonder. It’s ok even to be a little suspicious—especially since for one (if not more) suspicion eventually has led to sainthood.

Especially at this time of year, may we be honest with out doubts and honest with our belief– perhaps even using doubts as “vitamins of our faith.” May we know that wherever we may be, God loves us and wants to come to us.

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

A sermon for Easter Day, April 20, 2025. The scripture readings are Acts 10:34-43, 1 Corinthians 15:19-26, John 20:1-18, and Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24.

A few years ago, when I worked at a church in midtown, one morning, I was walking down Sixth Avenue. I was dressed as a priest, with my black suit and white collar. I saw a woman heading towards me and began to get that sort of panic of knowing that I knew her, but could not think of her name. Closer, she came, as I searched my mind. Had she been attending church recently? Was she part of the family at a recent wedding? I certainly hope she wasn’t someone I had just met at a funeral, and now had forgotten…. On and on, my mind tried to come up with the name, but nothing came forth.

Finally, as we were about to pass, I simply smiled at her and said, “Hello, how are you?” She responded with the most beautiful British accent, “Good morning, Father.” As she passed, I realized that I did not know her at all—it was Dame Judi Dench, the actress!

Now, I’m not suggesting that my encounter was exactly like Mary Magdalene’s meeting the gardener on Easter Morning, nor am I suggesting that God was disguised as Judi Dench (though she has been rather “godly” in some of her roles…. But I am suggesting that in the same way that we can be surprised by someone right in front of us, not fully recognizing them for who they are, in a similar way, God shows up for us in surprising ways.

And that a part of what is happening with the Resurrection.

Over and over, in scripture, in history, and in our lives, God shows up in what might seem like the least likely person, in the most unlikely of places. God shows up to Abraham and Sarah in the form of three strangers. God shows up to Jacob in a wrestling match of a dream. In the Book of Esther, God shows up in the words and acts of Queen Esther, Mordecai, and even a Persian King. God shows up in Bethlehem, in the carpenter’s shop, and in dusty Palestinian villages. God is in the garden. God is on the cross. And God shows up at a fish fry on the beach that first Easter morning. God shows up as a wanderer on the road to Emmaus.

When has God shown up for you? Was it in someone you knew, or a total stranger? Was it through a book, or a movie, a piece of music, or a sudden insight? Did it happen in church, or at work, or at the beach? Or was it, like with Mary Magdalene, in a garden?

That Easter morning, Jesus shows up as a gardener for at least two reasons, I think. The first is to remind us to be on the lookout for him. God is often disguised in our world, but with eyes of faith, we can see and rejoice and be a part of the continued resurrection of his love.

But there’s a second reason why Jesus appears as a gardener: It’s because sometimes we are called to appear as Jesus, to be his hands and feet and mouth in the world. We’re called to speak up for those who have lost their voice or had their voice taken from them. We’re called to reach out and help heal. We’re called to grow and cook and feed the hungry, to build and provide in order to house the homeless.

Symeon (the New Theologian), a tenth century mystic, puts this beautifully as he writes

We awaken in Christ’s body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ, He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
whole, seamless in His Godhood).

I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous? — Then
open your heart to Him

and let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ’s body

where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly, real,

and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed

and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
he awakens as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.

And so, this Easter and always: Keep your eye out for the gardener. Or the actress, or the taxi driver, the nurse, the waiter, the politician, real estate agent, teacher, or kid playing soccer. It may be Christ shining through.

And live aware, as well, that Christ may just as soon shine through you to bring his light more fully into the world.

Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia.

A homily offered in the Good Friday Liturgy, April 18, 2025. The scripture readings are Isaiah 52:13-53:12, Hebrews 10:16-25, John 18:1-19:42, and Psalm 22.

The strangeness of this day is captured in the way we name it: Good Friday. Some suggest that this may have originally been “God’s Friday,” later shortened simply to Good Friday. Nonetheless, theologians suggest that it is good, in that it is because of this day, that salvation is accomplished for us.

Good Friday reminds us of how Easter is possible. It represents the darkness before the light, the depth of emptiness before God returns with love. It represents time in hell. But especially in John’s Gospel, we also see the triumph of the cross—even on Good Friday.

The cross has often been used as a triumphant image. From the very beginning the cross was used a symbol of strength to keep weak people in their place. The cross on which the Romans nailed a criminal was meant to be a triumph over crime, but also a triumph over disorder, a victory over anyone who might challenge the Roman rule.

One of the most famous crosses is the one that appeared in the sky for Constantine, just before the Battle at the Milvian Bridge in 312. The symbol of the Chi-Rho, forming a cross and representing the first two initials of Christ appeared in a vision. That vision assured Constantine that he would have victory over his opponents. Constantine instructed his soldiers to put the symbol of the cross on their battle standards, and they marched forward. It was victory, and Christianity was soon legalized.

There are many places in the history of our faith where the cross has been used as a symbol of victory over other people, over people I disagree with, or people I dislike, or people who are my enemies, or people who I decide are evil. But to use the cross in such a way, to imagine the cross as a weapon over other people is to misunderstand completely the language of Holy Scripture, the teachings of Jesus and the very power of the cross.

On Palm Sunday, we heard the epistle Reading from Philippians proclaim that God has exalted Christ. Christ is exalted, his is lifted up, but it is an exaltation won through obedience, through humility, through service, through hardship, through sacrifice, through love. God himself, in the form of Jesus, “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”

Jesus is exalted when he heals a blind person. He is exalted when offers food to a hungry person. He is exalted when he kneels to wash the feet of his friends.

Elsewhere in John’s Gospel Jesus assures us that when he is lifted up, he will draw all people to himself. The cross is a victory, but it’s a victory over all that might possibly keep people from Christ. The cross is a victory over death, a victory over disease, a victory over ignorance, a victory over evil.

It is on the cross that God’s heart breaks. But through that heartbreak, the power of love is unleashed in the world in completely new way, a way that wipes away sin, that dries up tears, that raises the dead to immortal life.

Through the cross,
the soul of Christ sanctifies us,
the body of Christ saves us,
the blood of Christ makes us drunk with life,
the water from the side of Christ washes us. (paraphrase of Anima Christi from St. Ignatius of Loyola)

As we give thanks for the love of the cross, may we know the exaltation of those who offer themselves in the service of others. May we use the cross, and be used by the cross, to draw others to Christ, to his love and to his life everlasting.

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

A sermon for Palm Sunday: The Sunday of the Passion, April 13, 2025. The scriptures are Isaiah 50:4-9a, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 23:1-49, and Psalm 31:9-16.

Every time we pray The Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  The Ecumenical version, that we use at 6PM puts it a little more bluntly by asking, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

There’s an implication that we are forgiving our enemies, or that we are at least trying to forgive those who sin against us. But are we? Do we?

At my most honest, I would confess that I don’t always try to forgive those who might be my enemies, and I sometimes don’t even consider trying to forgive some of those who sin against me. Like St. Augustine who, in the 4^th century, prayed “O Lord, make me chaste—but not yet,” I tend to think, “Help be forgive—but not yet.”

But for me, that’s where Jesus becomes most real for me. Especially when I can’t bring myself to forgive as God asks me to, I just have to pray in honesty, “Jesus, you know I can’t bring myself to fully forgive so-and-so, or such-and-such, but work on me, and work on them.” Basically, what I’m doing is taking Jesus up on his generous, loving offer, when he says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens.”

And so, even when I can’t forgive, especially when I can’t forgive as I should, I know someone who can.

In today’s long Gospel Reading, as we hear St. Luke’s version of the Passion, the events that lead to Jesus being crucified on a cross. We hear that even from the cross, Jesus forgives. As he is nailed to a cross between two thieves, Jesus prays for the soldiers who are committing crimes against him, against the others, against many other innocent or poor, or weak people. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” In our current culture of anger, outrage, whether it’s righteous anger, or justified outrage, and independent of whether another person “deserves” our forgiveness, the unwillingness to forgive, or the refusal to forgive, can take it toll on us. It can wear us down. It can make us bitter. Worse, it can turn us into the people we can’t bring ourselves to forgive.

Pope Francis put it beautifully in one of his sermons:

When we resort to violence, we show that we no longer know anything about God, who is our Father, or even about others, who are our brothers and sisters…. We see this in the folly of war, where Christ is crucified yet another time. Christ is once more nailed to the Cross in mothers who mourn the unjust death of husbands and sons. He is crucified in refugees who flee from bombs with children in their arms. He is crucified in the elderly left alone to die; in young people deprived of a future; in soldiers sent to kill their brothers and sisters. ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’ Many people heard these extraordinary words [as Jesus prayed them from the cross], but only one person responded to them. He was a criminal, crucified next to Jesus. (Pope Francis, April 10, 2022)

This week, we are invited to follow Jesus even more closely.

The Daily Prayers take us with him through Jerusalem.

On Wednesday night, we pray through the Office of Tenebrae, and notice the ways in which some of the Hebrew scripture prophecies play out in the life of Jesus. We practice praying even as candles are extinguished, and light seems to fade. But then, in the deep darkness, we’re reminded again that “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

On Maundy Thursday, we see and imitate again, how Jesus serves, how he lives out a kind of simply humility by being present and serving others.

On Good Friday, from Noon to Three, we reflect more deeply on the Stations of the Cross and at Seven, we pray through the whole Good Friday Liturgy, as we hear again the Passion according to St. John.

Saturday is the day in which things were quiet. Jesus was in the tomb. But Saturday night, we count time with our Jewish brothers and sisters, and observe the Eve of Easter, at 7PM in the Church Garden, we celebrate the first Holy Eucharist of Easter.

On Easter Day, some of us will be up early. We’ll meet at Carl Schurz Park for a 6AM Sunrise service on the Promenade. Then, at Holy Trinity, we’ll celebrate Easter all day—at 8AM, at 11AM and at 6PM.

I invite you to make your way to the Cross this week. Take whatever weighs you down, whatever burdens you, whatever worries you, and put it into the hands of the Wounded One who always forgives, moves us into forgiveness, and leads us in the way of love.

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

A sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, April 6, 2025. The scriptures are Isaiah 43:16-21, Philippians 3:4b-14, John 12:1-8, and Psalm 126.

The Gospel evokes strong images that are easy to imagine: an evening in Bethany, a small dinner party, a jar of perfume, an unexpected act of intimacy and devotion. Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, takes a pound of costly ointment, anoints Jesus’ feet, and wipes them with her hair. John tells us that the fragrance filled the house. It is a deeply personal moment of worship—no grand speeches, no miracles, just an act of pure love. At its heart, what we witness in that moment is an image of friendship with God.

Friendship with God. It may seem like a bold idea, even presumptuous. Who among us feels worthy to be called a friend of the Divine? And yet, again and again, the story of Scripture invites us in. Abraham was called a friend of God. Jesus tells his disciples, ‘I no longer call you servants… I have called you friends.’ And in today’s readings—Mary’s quiet act of devotion and Paul’s passionate pursuit of Christ—we are drawn into the deep, unfolding mystery of what it means to live in friendship with God.

This friendship is not simply about belief or religious practice. It is something deeper, more intimate and relational. It is about knowing Christ and being known by him, about sharing in his life, his suffering, and his joy. It is about love that goes beyond duty, about presence, about surrender.

The passage from Philippians gives us a glimpse into Paul’s heart, and it is a heart that longs fiercely for communion with Christ. Paul, once a Pharisee firm in his religious credentials, now says that all of that—his status, his heritage, his achievements—is loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus. Not just knowing about him. Not merely worshipping his teachings or his example. But knowing him.

‘I want to know Christ,’ Paul writes. And we might pause there. Because it is so easy—even in our faith—to fall into abstractions. To follow a code, to debate theology, to attend rituals, and yet to remain distant from the One at the center of it all. Paul reminds us that the goal is not the system—it is the person. The friendship.

‘I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings,’ Paul continues. That is a striking juxtaposition—resurrection power and suffering, held in the same breath. True friendship with Christ does not involve walking only in the light of Easter morning. It also means walking the road to the cross. It means identifying with Jesus not only in glory but in grief, not only in triumph but in pain.

That is exactly what we see in Mary’s act in John 12. Her pouring out of perfume, her kneeling at Jesus’ feet, her drying them with her own hair—this is no mere act of hospitality. It is something more profound. It is an act of preparation, a gesture that looks ahead toward the coming sorrow of Holy Week. Mary understands—perhaps better than the Twelve—that Jesus is moving toward death. While others are plotting, arguing, or distracted, she enters into his suffering with love and presence.

It is significant that Mary’s friendship with Jesus is not expressed in words, but in action. The kind of action that costs something. The ointment she uses is worth a year’s wages—a life savings in a jar. Judas, watching from the side, is offended. He does what people often do in the face of deep devotion—he masks discomfort with criticism. He pretends to care for the poor, but in reality, he cannot comprehend this kind of unfiltered, extravagant love.

But Jesus defends her. ‘Leave her alone,’ He says. ‘She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.’ He receives her act as a prophetic witness, an early glimpse of what many will not understand even after the cross.

That is one of the truths about friendship with God—it often invites us into gestures the world cannot understand. It may look foolish or wasteful to others. People might say, ‘Why this devotion?’ ‘Why this commitment?’ ‘Why this sacrifice?’ The world measures in efficiency and profit. But love—real love—does not measure. It pours out. Freely. Recklessly.

As government support and funding are cut from programs that help people and as organizations and institutions are targeted or singled out, we’re called even more to loving acts in the name of Christ—welcoming the poor, the victimized, the ignored. Mary acts even in the face of Judas the bully.

As we approach Holy Week, Mary’s act also asks us how might we offer ourselves in friendship to Christ, not simply as bystanders of the Passion, but as participants? What do you value so much that giving it to Jesus would seem like a waste to onlookers? Is it your time, your leadership, your possessions, your reputation? Can you lay it down at his feet—not for recognition, not for obligation, but for love?

True friendship with God means drawing near even while others pull away. It means sitting with God not only in flesh-and-blood celebration, but in grief and silence. It means walking with him when crowds shout Hosanna and when those same crowds cry Crucify. It means refusing to be only Sunday disciples. It means lingering with him in the Garden, watching with him at Gabbatha, standing with the other Mary’s at the foot of the cross.

And yet, it also means tasting the power of his resurrection. The paradox at the center of Paul’s words in Philippians is the paradox at the heart of Holy Week: suffering and glory, cross and empty tomb. The same Jesus who invites us into the fellowship of his suffering raises us into new life. Friendships tested in trial find deeper joy in the morning.

But how do we cultivate this friendship? How do we, like Mary of Bethany and Paul, draw close?

Paul says, ‘I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.’ Friendship with Christ is not first our doing—it is a response to how he has already claimed us. He has already called us friends. He has already offered covenant, presence, and grace. We pursue him because He first pursued us. He has made us his own. And so, we run this race—not as those who strive to earn a place, but as those who run toward someone who is already running toward us.

In these final days of Lent, in the shadow of the cross, we have a chance to draw close. We have a chance to sit at his feet, to be still and listen, to notice his wounds, to honor his death, and to await his rising. We do not need clever words. We do not need perfect faith. But we do need open hearts.

Let the fragrance of Mary’s devotion linger in your soul this week. Let Paul’s single-minded hunger for Christ challenge you. And let your own friendship with God deepen—not only through acts of prayer and fasting, but in love and presence.

The days are coming when the world will turn away. But we are invited, by mercy and grace, to move closer. To the upper room. To Gethsemane. To the foot of the cross. And to the empty tomb.

Because friendship with God does not end at the grave—it carries through it. And it begins again with a word spoken in a garden: ‘Mary.’ The voice that called a friend still calls to each of us—by name, in love, and forever.

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

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 30, 2025. The scripture readings are Joshua 5:9-12, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32, and Psalm 32.

In August of 2012, my hand and part of my arm appeared in the Washinton Post. It was one of my proudest moments in ordained ministry.

The photo showed me holding a leaflet, so that another person could look on. The photo didn’t show our upper bodies, but it showed the beaming face of a little boy, standing between us, looking up, happily.

The photo celebrated an important day in the life of a couple of my parishioners. This couple had been together for ten years and had served as foster parents for several children.  They had hoped to adopt, but each time the process got close, something happened.  Finally, the couple served as foster parents for two children and began the process of adopting them. The birth mother was supportive and encouraging, but the couple was surprised when the social worker called to announce that the little boy and girl also had a smaller sister, and if the couple would like to adopt her, as well, it might be possible. After a year or two of process, paperwork, meetings, and reviews, on a hot Thursday in July, a bunch of us met in family court in downtown Washington.  As the judge signed the documents and made the adoption official, we all cheered. The little girls Raine and Ravyn, aged 2 and 3, and their big brother, Cardel, age 6, now had a new family and a whole new family support network.  At that point, everyone left the court (including the judge) and we walked to a nearby restaurant, where we were expected.  After a few celebratory drinks and after a few more people arrived, I officiated at the marriage of the couple (they happened to both be men, and marriage had just become legal recently), and then once they were married, we used the Book of Common Prayer’s form for the Thanksgiving of the Adoption of Children.

I remember talking with the couple for years before they were finally able to adopt.  I remember how deeply they felt called to be parents and how almost every decision they made was done with an eye towards a future family.  I’ve known other people who have had similar hopes, expectations, and dreams of having children—whether biologically or through adoption. In each family, I look at the children and I think of how lucky they are to be so deeply loved.  How blessed they are.  And I wonder if they have any idea of just how much and for how long they’ve been loved?

Do WE have any idea of how much WE are loved and wanted and desired and hoped for and planned for and dreamed about—by God? THIS is what today’s Gospel story is about—it’s about God’s searching, seeking love; love that disregards custom or protocol or cultural expectation—love that disrupts and makes a new world, love that moves towards each one of us.

The story of the prodigal is straightforward enough and whenever we hear it read, we probably hear a bit of ourselves in one of the characters or another.

The story is a welcome one for those who relate to the prodigal—St. Augustine related to him, having spent some of his early years running, living beyond his means, using people to rise socially, fathering a child out of marriage, joining an heretical sect. But Augustine came home, and he came to know the welcome of his mother Helena, who had been praying for him, and he came to know the welcome of his spiritual father, Ambrose. He spent the rest of his life coming to know the heavenly father—who is the combination of all that is maternal and paternal, the one who seeks us out and finds us. Augustine writes, “The prodigal son was sought out and raised up by the One who gives life to all things. And by whom was he found if not by the One who came to save and seek out what was lost?”

One could also pretty easily step into this story and understand something of the older brother. Some of us might relate to the older brother who has stayed at home and done his work—and yet gets no feast from the father. But I wonder if there’s not more than resentment in the older brother—but perhaps also, isn’t there just a little bit of envy? Notice that he assumes the younger brother has spent time with prostitutes, though there’s no other mention of that little detail in the story. Charles Wesley, the great hymn writer, once thanked God that in his youth he had escaped the more “grievous sins” and that he had not been one of the “young corruptors,” as he put it. But, he said, the reason he didn’t sin more was because of a kind of “sacred cowardice.” It was not his goodness that had kept him from sin, but the only the fear of the consequences. (Do we ever stop to wonder what trouble we might get into if there truly were no risk of getting caught?)

Today’s Gospel presents us with characters we can understand. There is the younger child who runs away, who becomes lost, and who loses himself. But then he is found, and in the finding he finds himself. He comes to himself.

There is the older child who watches all of this and doesn’t understand, who simply grows angrier and angrier and angrier, until at last the rage breaks.

But there is also the father who forgives. Jesus tells the story, “While [the younger son] was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” And then it’s party time. “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”

The way Jesus tells the story, we can be tempted to stay within the story itself.  And yet, for us, living in the 21^stcentury, the context is a little different. God in Jesus has given himself for us and in the outpouring of God’s love for humanity that begins on the cross, wave after wave of God’s love comes to us.  We simply have to turn and receive the love God wants to give us.

Perhaps we have never acted out as explicitly and dramatically like the younger child in the Gospel.  Perhaps we have never quite stewed, steamed, or harbored resentments like the elder brother, but we have each surely done our part to cause separation– from God, from one another, and from our deepest and truest selves.  We have each of us sinned in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. But God is always and forever seeking us, loving us from afar, hoping and praying for us to return.

Austin Farrer was a chaplain and theologian in the early 20^thcentury and he writes in one place about the forgiveness of God.

God forgives me with the compassion of his eyes, but my back is turned to him. I have been told that he forgives me, but I will not turn and have the forgiveness, not though I feel the eyes on my back. God forgives me, for he takes my head between his hands and turns my face to his to make me smile at him. And though I struggle and hurt those hands—for they are human, though divine, human and scarred with nails – though I hurt them, they do not  let go until he has smiled me into smiling; and that is the forgiveness of God. (Austin Farrer, in Said or Sung. London, Faith Press. 1960.)

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus mourns over Jerusalem and says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! (Luke 13:34).

God is like the mother, the father, the parent beyond all our imagining. How do we know and feel the depth of God’s love for us? 

Sometimes through the answer to prayer by way of spiritual experience and presence. Sometimes even through a sense of union with God, or with Love, or with whatever we might define as a Higher Power.

But often, we get a glimpse of God’s deep, shocking, unqualified, and unconditional love through the faith and community made possible through the Church, as we listen, we receive, we grow in faith.

May the Holy Spirit continue to show us the depth of God’s love for us, and for all the world.

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

A sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, March 23, 2025. The scriptures are Exodus 3:1-15, 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Luke 13:1-9, and Psalm 63:1-8.

The first church I served had a garden, and it sometimes provoked arguments about how the space should be tended. There were basically two groups with differing approaches. One liked things to be natural and overgrown, wild and lush. The other group liked things neat and tidy and in their place. This group liked to be proactive in pruning, weeding, cutting back, and preparing for the next season. Sometimes I was called in to arbitrate, but when the wild and wooly group realized my natural instincts were to cut back and prune, they stopped asking for my input.

One year, just after a long Saturday of volunteers gardening and several discussions around pruning, we heard today’s Gospel from Luke 13 in church. I could see people glaring at each other across the aisles, as if to say, “See? I told you so. Let it grow and wait.”

In the Gospel, the owner is impatient with the fig tree that’s been taking up space for three years and producing nothing. He orders it to be cut down. But the gardener is smart and suggests that they give it a chance. ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’

These images are meant to show us that God looks at us like a patient gardener. God is not some dark form from forgotten scripture who is out to get us. Sometimes such a god is preached by people who have a lot of self-hatred and anger that gets projected onto God. But God is eager to work with us, to do the spiritual equivalent of fertilize and strengthen, encourage and wait for us to grow into something better, into something useful, into something beautiful.

The idea of repentance runs through the scriptures for today, just as it runs especially deep through the season of Lent.

In the Gospel there’s anxiety about a number of things, but in the face of each instance, surprisingly, Jesus calls for repentance in each case.

First, there’s a report that Pilate has murdered some people from Galilee for offering sacrifices. People are wondering if perhaps God allowed the massacre, somehow choosing some religious people over others. Jesus says not to worry so much about trying to figure out why some suffer, and others do not. Somewhat oddly, he says, “We need to repent.”

Another concern has to do with a tragedy in which other people are killed—a tower has fallen, and innocent people died. But again, Jesus says those who died were no worse or better than others. And Jesus adds, “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

This part of the Gospel can perhaps speak to some of us as we’re rightly outraged by so many things in our country and outraged by the behavior of some people. But Jesus’s words are warning for us not get so consumed with feeling about what other people are doing that we fall into losing our own sense of right and wrong.

A little more about the word “repentance.” The church often reminds us that the word “repent” comes loaded with meaning. When Jesus uses the word, it often has to do with changing one’s attitude, and behavior, and mind. Next week’s story of the Prodigal will use describe the Prodigal Son as repenting, as “coming back to himself.”  It has to do with turning and re-turning and carries with it the idea of being sorry for something and the desire to put things right.

“Repent,” Jesus says. As with most of his teaching, Jesus is urging us to stop judging other people, to stop trying to figure where we are in the pecking order of God’s favor, and to stop living for ourselves alone. We are asked to turn and to re-turn. Turn to God and follow in the way that Jesus leads.

In the first Lesson today, Moses has to come back to himself. He has to turn around and make a kind of U-turn. If you know the story, you’ll remember that Moses had killed an Egyptian. His own people see him as a bully and know-it-all, so Moses runs away. When God speaks to him in today’s reading, God is asking Moses not only to turn to God, but to return to his people, to the place where he was rejected, to the place where he had been enslaved. For Moses, there’s tremendous risk in repenting, in turning to face and follow God. Moses is afraid. He is confused. He feels unworthy of leading this people, especially in that the people he is to lead have already rejected him once before. But Moses repents. He faces what he needs to face. 

The season of the Lent and the sprouting energy in our church garden draw me back to the gardening images in today’s Gospel. It’s significant that Luke puts the words of wisdom in the mouth of a gardener. In a few more weeks, we’ll remember how in John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene mistakes Jesus for the gardener on Easter morning. In each of these, Jesus is trying to show us that God is like a patient (but persistent and active) gardener with the way God works with us to fight sin.

To help the fig tree in the Gospel, the gardener suggests manure, fertilizer. Repentance also needs some groundwork. Sometimes we begin by simply being grounded, by remembering who we are, and who we most want to be. Prayer, scripture, spending time with people who contribute positive energy all move us toward turning towards God and God’s intentions for us. Fertilizer helps us be healthier in order to do the right thing. Like the gardener who prunes the fig tree, God sometimes prunes or helps us prune in our lives—to cut out the excess and the baggage. Pruning gets rid of the diseased parts and allows the stronger parts to develop even more strength, and so we’re stronger to fight evil and to withstand the storms of life. In our second reading today, St. Paul counsels the Corinthians, “… [I]f you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

Finally, the gardener in the Gospel will probably work with the fig tree to cut out the longer, gangly limbs that are growing out of pace with the rest. When we repent, we ask God to take away the weight of resentments that slow us down. We ask God to dispel the anger that takes energy away from growth and development. This also allows for more light to get to the heart of things.

As a Choral Postlude, our guest choir, The New Amsterdam Boys and Girls Choir will signa wonderful song in English and Swahili, Amani Utupe (Grand Us Peace, Give Us Courage). It acknowledges that the roads of life are sometimes rocky, tiresome, and dark, and there are lots of decisions to make. But when we ask for it, when we repent, and turn to God, God always gives us the wisdom and courage we need.

This season and always, may we turn and return to God.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent, March 16, 2025. The scriptures are Genesis 15:1-12,17-18, Philippians 3:17-4:1, Luke 13:31-35, and Psalm 27.

John of the Cross is probably best known for his spiritual theology, but what a lot of people miss, and I didn’t notice until several years of trying to figure out his theology—is that John’s theology largely comes from his commentaries, and his commentaries were explaining his poetry.  And so, if you really want to hear the spirit of John of the Cross, it’s his poetry that sings loudest. 

One of my favorite of his poems is sometimes called “The Font, or the Fountain.” 

How well I know that fountain, filling, running,
Although it is the night.

That eternal fountain, hidden away
I know its haven and its secrecy
Although it is the night

But not its source because it does not have one,
Which is all sources’ source and origin?
Although it is the night.

“How well I remember that fountain,” John writes. And water flows through his poem. He conjures up water like that at the beginning of creation, in baptism, like water that gives life to all creation, water flowing from the side of Christ on the cross. Water that combines with flour to make bread, bread that becomes holy, and makes us holy through Communion with Christ’s body. 

The power of the poem, for me, is in the refrain: “aunque es la noche,” “although it is the night.” Although it is the night, even though it feels dark outside and in, even though it might feel like God is not paying much attention…. John’s poem nevertheless finds faith. 

John wrote this poem during the nine months in which he was held as a prisoner in a cold cell in Toledo, Spain. Unsure of whether he would be released, tortured in the name of religion by other Carmelite monks, John nonetheless maintained a faith in God. 

It’s faith “even though” the current situation is bad for John of the Cross. That kind of faith even though, is a faith we can find strength from, and it’s a faith that comes through in today’s scripture readings. 

In the first reading, God speaks to Abram and tries to reassure him. “Do not be afraid,” Abram, God says. “It’s going to be ok.”  Abram has been feeling sorry for himself. In a culture in which one was defined by one’s progeny, Abram and Sarai were barren, and had only a distant relative to point to for an heir. But God promises a future they can’t even image, a future glimpsed in our icon of the Holy Trinity, in which the three mysterious strangers, the angels, suggesting the Trinity of God’s love, are shown hospitality by Abram and Sarai, and everything begins to change for them. 

“Although it is night,” God might have said to Abram, do not fear. I am with you. 

Paul says something similar to the Philippians, “For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; … Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.”  But although it seems like the night, Paul says, “our citizenship is in heaven.”  “He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory.”

In the Gospel, the Pharisees warn Jesus, that things are looking dark. Herod is out to kill Jesus, so he’d better just get out of town. Jesus refuses to listen. Jesus is not afraid of the dark, but instead, knows that God fills the dark just as well as the light. God holds us close in the dark, like a mother hen protects her young. Whether it’s the dark of night, or the dark of Gethsemane, or the dark of Calvary, Jesus knows that God will be there. 

In John of the Cross’s poem, the water moves towards a climax.  After mentioning the water that runs through even the darkest of nights, of times, of places, and in one verse he writes, 

This eternal fountain hides and splashes
Within this living bread that is life to us
Although it is the night.

Hear it calling out to every creature.
And they drink these waters,
although it is dark here
Because it is the night.

“Although,” or “even though” it is the night, has become, BECAUSE it is the night. It suggests that John of the Cross has made peace with the darkness, with the uncertainty. Faith has helped him develop a kind of “night vision.” In other words, he’s not scared, like Abram. He’s no longer worried so much about all the evil he sees around him, like the Philippians, but John of the Cross is developing the kind of faith, like Jesus, that can maintain a love for God and for other people, even when it is night, even in the face of difficulty or war or a crazy economy, or failing health… or (fill in the blank.). 

The season of Lent does not invite us to run from the dark places of the world, but instead, for us to grow in faith so that we can see even in the dark.  May God increase our “night vision,” give us hope, and fill us with faith.

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

A sermon for the First Sunday in Lent, March 9, 2025. The scriptures are Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Romans 10:8b-13, Luke 4:1-13, and Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16.

On this First Sunday in Lent, we began our worship praying the Great Litany, the ancient prayers of the Church used at least since the 5^th century. Our progression around the church symbolizes the 40-day season of Lent, a journey, a pilgrimage, a movement with Jesus towards Jerusalem. Though Lent is a particular season, it serves as a kind of “faith intensive” to practice how we make the journey of faith our whole lives.  What are the joys along the way and what are the challenges?

Today’s scriptures start us off with the challenges, the warnings, the possible temptations. The first lesson from Deuteronomy can sound like a gift or a promise of God, until we think of countries who too much believe themselves to be the chosen of God, and believe they can therefore drive out other people, take other lands, or bully others in their way of thinking—whether those be other countries or our own. That reading from Deuteronomy ends by saying when a people remember their past, and when they live in gratitude, THEN there is peace within and peace with those the scripture calls “aliens” and foreigners.  The temptation is forget and get full of oneself.

Both the Psalm and the Reading from Romans speak of God’s closeness and care. Stay close to God, and his angels will protect you.

In the Gospel, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, and there Jesus is tempted. His temptations can, at first, seem strange and distant, but if we look at them closer, they can feel very familiar.

Whether we picture the devil as a little red man with a tail and pitchfork, or whether the devil is more that little voice inside each of us that second-guesses and accuses, the temptations Jesus faces are ones that we might be confronted with from time to time.

The first temptation that confronts Jesus, of turning stones into bread, is really the temptation of gluttony. It’s that temptation to satisfy ourselves with food and drink and stuff, to find happiness in these things. A part of the temptation is the devil (or the advertisers) convincing us that these are things we need (when we don’t). Or, they’re things we deserve (even though we don’t).

The second temptation of pursuing glory and authority of the world is not so different for us. There are the countless choices we make between doing the thing that will better our paycheck or professional standing or status, as opposed to doing the just, honest, true and decent thing. 

And finally, the third temptation for Jesus to jump off the temple top and be rescued by angels. Perhaps it relates to us when we’re so uncomfortable in our own skin or our own situation, that we’re tempted to jump in any direction, to do something tragic or dramatic simply to change the situation.

To each of the temptations offered by the devil, Jesus quotes scripture. In other words, Jesus takes a deep breath, touches his spiritual base, and does whatever he needs to do to center himself and remind himself of who he is and of whose he is. Jesus can withstand the devil’s voice because Jesus has trained for this—through prayer, through showing and sharing compassion, and by spending time alone, learning from his room, from his garden, and from the sometimes-painful silence that comes in the face of Truth.

This Season of Lent invites us to practice being alone with God, being present with God not only so that we might know the power of God’s love in us, but also that we might be strengthened to withstand temptations, when they come.  Prayer, spiritual disciplines, self-reflection, growth in faith—all of this is training for spiritual battle. It’s training whether the spiritual battle is one of pride, Christian Nationalism, prejudice, avarice, greed, deceit, or any of the other temptations that seem to rule our day.

On Ash Wednesday and throughout this season we’re reminded of classic spiritual disciplines such as spiritual reading or meditating on scripture, praying in a new way, saving money for a particular project or cause and giving it, fasting (whether that means giving up a particular food or drink, or fasting in a more creative way—avoiding waste, or limiting the use of water or plastic or gasoline.)

Maybe this year, you’re feeling called to a more active fast—organizing, protesting, writing letters, contacting politicians, boycotting, connecting with others…

Other things might easily become spiritual disciplines to clarify and steady: a daily walk, a time of reading or sitting still or writing in a journal. All of these, almost anything, really, if given over to God, if done with intention and mindfulness and a willingness to be used by God, can become spiritual disciplines to sharpen us and help us know when we’re being tempted. They help us focus. They bring clarity.

May we have the courage to meet God and the strength, with Jesus, to stare down the devil.