The Reverend Betsy Scott, August 17th 2025

SERMON: St George’s Chapel

August 17, 2025

Rev. Betsy Scott

Good morning: How did you feel when hearing the Gospel reading from Luke 12 this morning with Christ saying that he did not come to bring peace in the world but to bring fire and to split families. I was deeply unsettled. Having spent my life bringing families together, this message seemed at odds with Christ’s message of peace.

I started thinking about when this gospel was written and by whom. Elaine Pagels, the distinguished professor of religion at Princeton University’s new book Miracles and Wonder explains: The Romans were persecuting Jews and Christians who rebelled against Roman rule and Roman religion at the time tis was written. They were cruel and mean. They rode into communities, raped women and killed or enslaved the men and children. It was common for the Romans to crucify men who refused to pay allegiance to the Emperor and the Roman gods. Luke was a doctor from Greece who wrote according to scholars about twenty years after the death of Christ. He described what was happening in his own time: seeing families torn apart when someone in the family became a Christian, seeing Christians being tortured for their faith and for their refusal to bend down and worship the Roman emperor or the Roman gods. I imagine we can all think of similar things still happening today.

When I read this Gospel another time, it was the fire of Christ I heard most clearly: it was Christ saying: “I came to set the earth on fire and how I wish it was already kindled. I have a baptism to receive and how distressed I am until it is over.” The interpreters say he is talking about his coming crucifixion and that he knows he must go through with it because of his obedience to his father and radical love for all of us. The fire is his radical transformative love. This kind of love is divisive when it upsets and conflicts with the established order.

The fire of God’s love is a great mystery and is present even in the face of unimaginable tragedy such as we have all witnessed this summer in the lost lives of those little girls in Texas, the murders in New York City and much more around the world, but in God’s mysterious ways, His radical love enters our lives and transforms them over time. It is this love we are called to recognize. I was very taken with the Rev Holly Antolini’s answer to a question earlier in the summer about the tragedy in Texas when she said there is no explanation that satisfies the heart of the suffering of the innocent, but the answer is love.

To further explain God’s transformative love, I feel called to share with you a recent encounter I had with God’s radical love in answer to a great tragedy that happened to my family with the hope my story gives to us all increased faith and hope. This encounter came upon me in a totally unexpected and mysterious way, something I never could have imagined. I think I had this experience both to increase my faith and so I could share it with all of you.

This last June, I went with Shalem, a pilgrim group based here in the United States, to the Monastery of the Incarnation outside the walls of Avila Spain where Teresa of Avila lived in the 16th century cloistered as a nun for many years in a tiny cell with a fireplace above, a desk below where she wrote about a life of simplicity, poverty, prayer and contemplation. She is known as a great mystic who lived in a very troubled time when there were constant wars between the Moslems and the Christians with awful atrocities.

We were taken to the chapel of the monastery by a young ponytailed guide, a recent graduate of Texas A & M, and shown an elaborate reredos at the front of the chapel ornamented with gold leaf which the guide enthused was typical Spanish as she had seen similar altar pieces in Honduras colonized by the Spanish.

Our guide asked us to look up to the back of the chapel, up on the second level behind screens and bars. She told us that we were standing on the spot where Teresa stood when she peered through the screen to the second floor and saw a vision of the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary appeared to Teresa on that spot. Her story made me think of my devout Catholic mother-in -law who had always felt close to the Virgin Mary and who had died forty-two years ago.

Next, our guide suggested we each stand in the central spot and look up to see the place where the vision had taken place. When it was my turn, I stood in the spot and looked up, squinting to see through the screen and bars to the lights at the back of the second-floor space, perhaps another chapel. As I stood there peering to see, there to my total surprise stood a vision of my first husband Bob looking at me with his mother at his side, her only child whom she absolutely adored. My first husband Bob Jacks and the father of my children was killed tragically in a car crash, dying instantly, when he was in his fifties, leaving behind our two young children, eleven and fourteen bereft of their father and me a frightened and grieving young widow. He missed their entire growing-up, his grandchildren and so much of life, so it was to my total amazement that there they stood. My insides began to transform as I sensed their showering me with approval, acceptance and total love. I understood they were radiating love. I sensed they knew absolutely everything that had happened to me for the past forty years. I realized it was the unconditional knowing of the Holy Spirit. I felt them saying what a great job I had done since Bob had died with the children and that they were waiting to welcome me with joyful hearts, but not yet. They were thrilled with the children and grandchildren. I felt a great unexpected delight and warmth in experiencing their unconditional love, the divine fire of the Holy Spirit. My beloved second husband Al came up in my mind, the man I married seven and half years after Bob died and with whom I was happily married for over thirty years until he died three years ago. I was somewhat nervous what they would think but instead the thought came to me they had sent him to me, delighted I had had those years with him. I was experiencing unconditional, unselfish divine love, all knowing love. Total knowing, total acceptance, total presence with me. I was absolutely in awe of this divine love. How could this be? There is no rational explanation. It is the mystery of God’s healing, transforming and radical love. It was a mystical experience.

This kind of love is so amazing— it brought total joy in me, even in the face of all my years of struggle with my first husband and his mother--for my relationship with the two of them had sometimes been a challenge—but they understood, had compassion. Bob had told me love was eternal, and he was right. I can’t get over this total love and joy. This is radical transformative love.

This is the love that Holly was talking about that is eternal in the face of great tragedy. We don’t know how it will play out with all those stricken families in Texas, in New York and elsewhere, except our faith tells us that God’s radical unimaginable love, the fire that He brought to this earth, in God’s mysterious ways, will be there with them and for them forever. It is extremely painful, terrible, not understandable these tragedies—and yet God’s radical love is what remains.

I shared this story at lunch during the pilgrimage with a group of women Episcopal priests who told me I had blessed them with my sharing.

I wrote this story to my children, and my son Bob wrote back to me: “That’s beautiful, Mom. Thanks for sharing.” He then said he always said that his dad would be so pleased that Al was with us all those years since he could not be.

The Holy Spirit knows us far more than we know ourselves, is so immense that it is hard for us to take-in.

This is the love that is here now for us all, this is the fire that Christ came to bring to the earth and for which he died, and it is radical.

We all fervently pray that all grieving families in Texas, in New York City and elsewhere, and all of us here in this chapel, will experience the amazing healing love of God in God’s own way and time.

As the Gospel of John states: “The light shines in the darkness, and darkness has not overcome it.”

A recent quote from the Bishop in DC: “Some days we’d be made of stone if we didn’t feel discouraged and deeply saddened by what we see around us. But remember that hope isn’t something we need to conjure on our own. It is grace that God gives, allowing us to face evil and death, and still believe that life-affirming Spirit is always at work within us and around us to bring about good. Dare to believe that seeds of new possibilities, invisible to us now, have already been planted in the soil of our lives, and they are slowly taking root. New life will emerge from the ashes of what is lost.”

We are called by God to have faith, to seek and to recognize the love of God at work in our lives.

Amen

The Reverend T. Richard Snyder, July 6th 2025

Dealing With Our Divisions

T. Richard Snyder

July 6, 2025

St. George’s Chapel

Your people shall be my people—beautiful and familiar words. How many weddings have used those words? The story of Ruth has been told over and over to portray the commitment of two people in love.

Naomi implores her two daughters-in law to remain in their home country of Moab with its familiarity and security while she returns to her homeland in Judah. Orpah agrees, but Ruth insists on going to Judah with Naomi. Forsaking all others, she cleaves to Ruth and utters these famous words. Where you go, I will go, where you lodge, I will lodge, your people shall be my people and your God my God.

Without taking away anything from the poetic significance of Ruth’s affirmation as a model for the marriage commitment, let me invite you deeper into the story.

Think about the risk Ruth faced in going to Judah—a country unknown to her. Not only was she a Moabite, she was a widow, living with another widow. Widows in those days were extremely vulnerable. Widows were poor since property reverted to male family members. They were without protection and often subject to abuse by men. Neither Ruth nor Naomi could predict what would happen to them upon going to Judah. Would they be lonely and forsaken? Would they suffer abuse? Would they die from poverty? Or would their choice lead to new, as yet unimagined, possibilities?

The story goes on to tell how Ruth seduces Boaz and he eventually marries her and they have a child named Obed, the grandfather of King David. Imagine, the offspring of a woman from Moab as Israel’s king because she dared to make Your People, My People.

This is what we need so desperately today. If we are to avoid total chaos in our world and nation, we will need to find a way to make “your people” “my people”.

I imagine that most of you are as stunned and upset as I about the incredible divisions in our world today. The recent events in Ukraine and the Middle East have shocked the world. Putin calls the Ukrainian leaders Nazis and terrorizes the citizenry.

Over in Israel and Palestine, the long enduring and seemingly intractable stand-off is ticking away like a time bomb. Despite years of diplomatic efforts and numerous accords and agreements, the situation remains explosive. The terror of Oct 7th has torn apart many Israeli families and the bombs and military of Netanyahu have killed more than 50,000 people, almost 20,00 of them children. Colonial settlements have turned Palestine into a land of fear for the Palestinians. Israelis live with the threat of annihilation.

At home, our two political parties have been locked in a stranglehold--confounding all of us and much of the rest of the world. Our president describes immigrants as killers and rapists and sends them to prisons in other lands so as to make this a white, Christian nation. As if that were not sufficient some religious leaders in each of the three Abrahamic faiths are stirring up hatred among their adherents.

What is going on? And how do we move forward when people are being killed? How do we move forward when civil discourse is scarce, at best?--when religious leaders of differing faiths characterize the others as demonic or infidels? What is the way ahead in a world in which people, nations and religions are at each other’s throats?

Is there any hope?

No surprise, this sermon is very political. But it is not about partisan politics. It’s about politics in the broader sense of a concern for the polis. It is about securing the common good. It is about how we move forward when we find ourselves at each other’s throats.

It is not sufficient to lament our sorry state or to denounce those we consider to be the culprits. We must move beyond recrimination and blame to look deep within our own souls.

I believe the way ahead is fundamentally rooted in our recognition that we are not mortal enemies locked in eternal combat but that we are at our core sisters and brothers. That, of course, is quite a leap from where things now stand. But it is absolutely critical that we move beyond our Manichean division of people into good and evil. Unless we do, there is no hope for our nation, or for our world.

We Christians have both a responsibility and an opportunity. Our very foundation is rooted in the soil of kinship. It is not just the example of Ruth that shows us the way. The creation narrative in Genesis tells us that we are created in the very image of God. It does not suggest that only certain people—only those who believe a certain way or who look a certain way or who come from a certain place or who vote a certain way—are our kin. The lapel button young black children in New York City and elsewhere used to wear, says it all: “God don’t make no junk”.

The words of Maqsood Jafri say the same, “the corner stone in Islam is the unity of God. Allah’s unity teaches us the message that we should not divide humans into sections and sects.” In his book, The Light of Islam, Dr. Mohammad Ali Al-khuli claims that “(Islam) is a religion to all humans regardless of color, race, and language. It is a religion that tolerates other religions and orders its followers to respect and protect all humans. No people or race is superior as all are from Adam and Eve. As a result, there is no room for racial superiority. No one is superior….except in piety and good deeds. “

It is important to lift up this fundamental claim of humankind’s unity made by some contemporary Muslims since Islam has become for many what Communism was during the Cold War. Many in our nation have simply substituted one “enemy”—the communists—for another, “the Muslims”.

There are, of course, some interpreters of the Koran who assert a fundamental division of the world into believers and infidels thereby providing the foundation for extremist acts. But did Christians not treat Native Americans similarly. We find the same claims of essential separation both in Christianity and Judaism with the concomitant extremism that has marked our history to this day.

Actually, it’s all about a choice. A choice as to what we most value, what we most cherish and desire. It is also a choice about the Bible itself--which trajectory of Scripture we give most weight to. It’s true one can find stories and admonitions for separation, division and rejection—even killing-- of others in the Bible. But it also true that throughout the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, the motif of a kinship that crosses all barriers is lifted up again and again. Those who were considered “other”, those who were outcasts or infidels or enemies become one. Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt, became a trusted member of the Pharaoh’s court despite having been “other”. Rahab, who harbored two Hebrews spies in Jericho as they plotted its overthrow was “other” in two important ways. First, she was a Canaanite, the enemy. Second, she was a prostitute. But her solidarity with the Hebrews was rewarded with safety for her and her family. Jesus reached across the forbidden barrier between Jews and Samaritans to speak intimately with the woman at the well. In the book of Acts Phillip engaged with a man from Ethiopia—someone from another culture and race and—most probably--gay. (The word eunuch often was a word for referring to gay men in those times.) And, in the beautiful story of Ruth we are told of the power of love to overcome the boundaries of ethnicity and nation.

Paul said that the dividing walls of hostility are torn down and those once considered “other” are now understood to be kin--that there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free--all one body, with each of the members needing the other. All of the divisions were understood to be false. I choose to live my life in this spirit of kinship

Of course differences remain. Ending the divisions does not mean eliminating differences. There are still male and female, still Jews and Greeks, still slaves and free, still Republicans and Democrats, still Christians and Muslims. The challenge is to refuse to allow the differences to be cause for division--cause for dealing with someone as “other”. It is a matter of choice. Will we treat our differences as a cause for division or a cause for celebration.

What would it mean for us to view the world in these terms--to understand that no dividing walls should be erected or allowed to stand between any people based on ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, abilities, parties, or economic conditions?

What would it mean for Congress—for our relations with Muslims—for our response to immigrants—for our treatment of people’s whose gender identity is different from ours.?

Let’s be realistic. Getting to that point will be extremely difficult, for each of us as individuals, for political parties, for governments and for organized religion.

There are some substantial impediments to overcoming the divisions. Internationally, part of the difficulty lies in the spread of Globalization. It promises to bring an end to our divisions, to bring the world together. But too often it has functioned to cover up the differences. What it offers is conformity and sameness. No matter where you travel in the world today you find a Gap, a McDonald’s, a Starbucks, Coca Cola, and a Walt Disney. For me, Globalization is the spirit of corporate capitalism seeking to create a giant worldwide Mall in which everything seems the same.

Nationally, the current state of affairs in our government could easily lead us to despair. The lack of civility, unwillingness to hear the other, assumption of the worst motivation on the part of those who differ, and refusal to consider compromise have led us to a point of no return. If we cannot even reach across the aisle, how can we reach out to other nations, religions and cultures?

Organized religions too often have been more devoted to securing and maintaining power and privilege than in pursuing justice and unity. Today Christian Nationalism seeks to make this a white nation.

And personally, each of us has been indoctrinated with prejudices born of our childhood and constantly reinforced by the media. As children, how often did we need to see the Indians portrayed as savages and enemies before we started rooting for the cowboys. How often do we hear or see Muslims portrayed as terrorists before we view every Muslim with suspicion? It is difficult not to succumb to the stereotypes, even when we wish not to. I am reminded of Paul’s lament—the good that I would do I do not and that which I would not, I do.

But we dare not go that route. We dare not rest with despair. We dare not succumb to our stereotypes. We have a choice. We have a responsibility personally, nationally, and globally to work to break down the barriers that divide, to reach across the aisles that have become chasms, to take the risk of being vulnerable just as Ruth did when she left Moab and went to Judah with Naomi.

And as we take our halting steps toward overcoming the divisions in our world, we need to acknowledge how difficult it is to make this choice. What if our desire for unity is taken as weakness and we are taken advantage of? What if we are not trusted by those to whom we reach out? What if we are viewed as naïve or even worse, as traitors by those who considered us to be one of them? How do we stand for what we believe while being open to respecting and learning from others whose beliefs are different? How can we overcome our discomfort with those who are different? How do we prevent our life-long prejudices from sneaking up on us unexpectedly? It certainly will not be easy.

So, what are we to do? In closing, let me make two suggestions.

First, let us choose to celebrate our differences. Unfortunately, much of what passes for the search for unity is based on toleration rather than celebration. It is not sufficient to simply tolerate differences—they are to be celebrated as the gifts of creation that enrich our collective lives. Our differences make us a great nation. Our differences make us interesting. We need each other and that is to be celebrated. As Paul said, each member is needed for the sake of the body and each member is to be honored.

Second, let us choose depth rather than shallowness. We must move beyond trivial forays into the ideas, cultures and beliefs of those who are different from us. We will need to try to walk in their shoes. We need to do everything we can to listen respectfully and to understand those who differ from us. In a time when criticism of Israel is equated with anti-Semitism, when being a Christian is equated with being white, when being an immigrant is equated with being illegal, we must stand up for truth. To live in division is to live with lies.

If we stand in solidarity with Muslims or immigrants or blacks or GLBTQ or Trans or any who are considered “other” we may be misunderstood, ostracized, called unpatriotic, or un-Christian. So be it. I believe it is a choice worthy of our faith.

The Reverend Richard Greenleaf, Sunday July 27th 2025

A Sermon

The Reverend Richard E. Greenleaf

St. George’s Chapel

Long Cove Road

Tenant's Harbor, ME 04860

27 July 2025

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost /Proper 12-2

HE IIA

Genesis 18:20-32

Psalm 138

Colossians 2:6-15

Luke 11:1-13

Collect of the Day

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:

Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so

pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our

Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord,

my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord

my soul to take. Amen.

I don’t know how many of you

know that prayer,

but that was the first prayer

I ever learned,

taught to me

by my mother (of blessed memory)

when I was a little boy

and prayed at bedtime

--with both my parents--

for several years.

When you stop and think about it,

it’s a morbid kind of prayer,

especially for a child,

and especially as an introduction to prayer.

But my introduction to prayer this prayer was,

and it came from a noble pedigree,

having first appeared in the New England Primer

in the late 1780s

and passed down through numerous generations

ever since.

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I am sure that my mother

learned it from her mother

and that my father was familiar enough with it

to join in its bedtime recitation.

Of course, it was followed

by more specific prayers

for Mommy and Daddy,

and grandparents,

and aunts and uncles,

and cousins,

and on and on.

I even remember praying for the birth

of a new brother or sister,

who actually arrived

when I was three and a half.

All of which leads me to a question:

How did you learn to pray?

You might have learned, like me,

from one or both of your parents.

Or perhaps from a special grandparent

or family member.

Maybe you learned in Sunday School.

Or from the formal prayers said in church,

or even the formal prayers said in public schools

up through the early 1960s.

Or maybe no one taught you,

prayer being something that one just does because . . .

and this would be supported by religious historians

who tell us that prayer,

in one form or another,

is one of the oldest and most universal

of human activities,

having been with us

from the year dot,

as it were.

There’s an old saying

that there are no atheists

in the foxholes of war,

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just as I know

there are no atheists

in hospital waiting rooms.

Even when we don’t

--or can’t—

believe,

we can and do

hope.

And that hoping is

at its heart

prayer.

I’ve always been struck

by Dylan Thomas’s closing lines

in his book

A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

After walking his readers

through the magic of a Christmas day

from his childhood in Wales,

Thomas writes,

“. . . and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight

and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other

houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I

turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then

I slept.”

“I said some words to the close and holy darkness . . .”

Some words . . .

We all grope for “some words,”

whatever words,

the right words,

as if there ever could be

“right words”

to speak to “the close and holy darkness,”

to speak to God,

in our childhood bedrooms

and in the foxholes and waiting rooms of life.

I think it is with this spirit

that one of Jesus’s disciples,

after coming upon him praying,

asked him,

“Lord, teach us to pray . . . ”

4

Then Jesus says to them,

“When you pray, say . . . “

and he goes on to teach them

what has come to be known

as The Lord’s Prayer,

or at least the shorter version of it,

the longer one appearing

in the gospel of Matthew

and used most frequently

in our prayer book.

And while Jesus does teach his disciples

the “right words,”

he does not do this

as if through recitation and repetition of the “right words”

we could make our prayers come true.

Rather, Jesus does this because

he knows that we are ritual creatures.

That when it comes to the highest and deepest experiences of life

we humans reach for ceremony and symbol,

and the repetition of these

is not mere rote recitation

but an entrance into words and worlds

that an old mentor of mine, the late Tom Howard,

wrote,

furnish us “with the very capacity our own imaginations lack

to say what we would like to say. . . They help us to say what we cannot,

left to our own spontaneous devices.”

So in the recitation and repetition

of these words,

we learn not only a formal prayer

but how to pray.

And in this prayer,

the Lord’s Prayer,

we, first of all, learn who God is

and who we are born

and meant

to be.

5

We learn that we are not addressing a “close and holy darkness,”

an anonymous “It,”

but a person who is more than a person,

a relative,

a Father,

one to whom we are related as if by blood,

if that were possible.

One whom we address not with the formal pronoun “you”

but with the now lost familiar if not intimate pronoun

“thy” and “thou.”

One whose life we share!

We learn in praying “Our Father”

that we are not an “I”

but truly a “we,”

a group of individuals who in the Father

become more than neighbors

but a family.

We cannot pray this prayer

without reconnecting not only with God

but with the world!

We learn that this Father “who art in heaven,”

whose kingdom we pray to come

and whose will we pray to be done

“on earth as it is in heaven,”

is not remote,

not in a heaven at an Olympian remove from us.

As the 4th century bishop Hilary of Poitiers wrote:

“There is no space where God is not. He is in heaven, in hell,

beyond the seas; dwelling in all things and enveloping all. Thus

He embraces, and is embraced by, the universe, confined to no

part of it but pervading all.”

We learn that prayer is to be an act of realism;

that because of God’s unspeakable nearness,

our very real needs and concerns

are not little,

not small,

but essential and continuous;

“daily”

like the Israelites’ need

for the “daily bread”

of the manna in the wilderness.

6

And that our relationships,

as individual and quirky,

and prone to aggression, conflict, and dominance as they can be,

are rather to be ones of loving reciprocity

that need the regular maintenance

of self examination and mutual forgiveness.

Finally, we learn that even though the world

and our very selves are “soaked with God,”

that evil and temptation to it

lie close at hand,

and we need help

spotting them

and resisting them.

Now Luke ends the prayer here,

with “deliver us from evil,”

but Matthew goes on to bookend the prayer

with the more familiar

“for Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and glory

now and forever. Amen”

which functions here as a kind of refrain,

paraphrasing the words at the beginning of the prayer:

“. . . Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven. . . “

creating between the beginning and the end

a kind of horizon of hope,

an assurance

that despite all,

God’s will

will be done

“on earth as it is in heaven,”

and in each

and all

of us!

My father was a member of the family’s church choir

for over 60 years

and was fond of singing the line from the psalms,

“I will lift mine eyes unto the hills,”

and I have become convinced

that it was this horizon of hope

of which he sang.

7

In our gospel reading today,

Luke creates the a similar effect

concluding the prayer

with his parables contrasting

the begrudging response

of the human friend

with that of the heavenly Father.

We too often pray

with the idea of God as the human friend,

--the begrudging and withholding human friend--

rather than that of the heavenly Father,

--the Father whose name is hallowed

because he is

not begrudging and withholding

but bountifully generous,

and this prayer moves us

from the one

to the other.

So, we pray this prayer

but do we take its lesson?

The lesson that takes us beyond recitation and repetition,

from word to spirit;

the lesson that this is not a prayer we “have to” pray

but a prayer we “get to” pray;

the lesson that relocates our lives

on the horizon of hope?

This is the Lord’s prayer,

Jesus’s gift to his disciples,

and today it is Jesus’s gift to us

as well.

Amen.

The Reverend Holly Antolini, Sunday July 13th 2025

©Holly Lyman Antolini

Sermon for Proper 10 Year C, Revised Common Lectionary

Amos 7:7-17; Ps. 25:1-9; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37

Show us your ways, O LORD, and teach us your paths. Lead us in your truth and teach us, for you are the God of our salvation; in you have we trusted all the day long. AMEN.

It is a delight to be invited into this community of faith, to ponder God’s word together with you, and to break and share with you the bread that is Christ’s Body, given to revive, nourish and strengthen us first to KNOW how God would have us serve God’s people, and then, as the Collect says, to “have the grace and power faithfully” to DO SO!

Isn’t it interesting that the Collect separates the “knowing” from the “doing?” Doesn’t that make sense, though? It does in MY experience, uncomfortably so! So often I KNOW what’s needed for the general welfare and yet I fall short of actually DOING it! Maybe I lack the moral energy. Moral activity is a muscular thing, after all, requiring conditioning and practice every bit as much as running or swimming does! Or maybe the risk seems too high: we might provoke others to anger and resistance.

Which brings me to Amos. This is a passage I love at any time, but NOW seems a time when we especially NEED a “plumb line.” You all know what that is, yes? The piece of thread or string or cord with a weight on the end, so that it hangs absolutely straight, and can be used to “true” a wall, measuring the placement of each new brick against it. How wonderful that expression, that one “trues” a wall! If a wall isn’t erected scrupulously straight, it is “untrue,” and will fall!

What in our lives these days needs a plumb line? What risks being “out of true?” Being false, you might say? What is at risk of falling… or falling apart?

Amos’ plumb line led him to place bricks of prophetic warning one atop the other, foreseeing disaster for his people Israel. His heavy and portentous words caused the King, Jeroboam, and the King’s professional prophet Amaziah – there were dozens hired at any royal court - to object that Amos wasn’t being loyal, and even that he was conspiring against the King in speaking out as he did. They demanded that he go into exile.

Amos responded that he was no professional prophet, hired to tell the King what he wanted to hear. He was a mere arborist, a “dresser of sycamore trees,” and his searing truth was a word directly from God, a word he was driven – impelled against his own best interests, one must say – out of the countryside all the way to the royal court to speak, like it or not. Not he, he warned, but the whole nation of Israel stood at risk of being exiled.

Of course, on top of Amos, in the lectionary today we also have the story we’ve named “The Good Samaritan,” the so-well-known story from the Gospel of Luke to help “true” our lives to God’s plumb line in this trying time. The lawyer in this story is part of the scribal community that was famously (infamously) suspicious of Jesus from the start of his ministry to its devastating finish, people with at least a modicum of power who feared they stood to lose it if Jesus, with his message of love and his healing ministry among the poor, “took power.” The lawyer is going after the cracks in Jesus’ “Jewishness,” in hopes of forcing him into a blasphemy. Instead, Jesus adroitly turns the test on the lawyer himself, asking him to answer his own question from the Hebrew Torah, the law. So the lawyer, a sucker for proving himself “right,” quotes “The Shemah,” the heart of the Hebrew Torah, “"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind;” and then adds, “and your neighbor as yourself." Jesus approves. But now the lawyer continues on the trajectory of justifying himself, and asks, “So, Jesus: WHO is my neighbor?”

And Jesus unfolds the story, with the known Jewish authorities – the priest and the Levite - spurning the injured fellow lying by the side of the road because he might render them unclean and unfit for Temple service, whereas the foreigner Samaritan – whose faith didn’t have the same intense purity code the Jewish faith did, and who was therefore outcast by scrupulous Jews as unclean himself – stopped and helped, going out of his way not only to tend to the poor man personally, but making sure he would have care until he had recovered.

Clearly, according to Jesus here, our neighbor is NOT confined to the people nearest and most like us! Our neighbor is anyone in need. And we can hop over any differences to offer mercy to those folk. In fact, by choosing the Samaritan as the one who offers care where the priest and Levite do not, Jesus strongly implies that we’re MORE likely to offer mercy if we KNOW what it feels like to be shunned or dismissed or otherwise treated as a non-person, as the Samaritan did. Being a foreigner or an outcast MIGHT actually, for this reason, find it easier to reach out in love, to risk further condemnation even, than someone comfortable with her or his circumstances.

The story is not ambiguous about this. The plumb line is clear: if someone has need, she/they/he is our neighbor. And Jesus would have us reach out and care for them. Bar no one. Even if it gets us in trouble, as treating the injured man would have gotten those religious authorities in trouble by defiling them.

If we want our lives to stay true, so the tale of the Samaritan demonstrates, our plumb line must be CARE. Care, like that of the two young Mexican counselors, Silvana Garza Valdez and Maria Paula Zarate, 19-year-old young women who succeeded in rescuing 20 young American girls, campers in one of the privileged camps along the Guadalupe River in the Texas hill country where 27 other girls lost their lives in the devastating Fourth-of-July floods. Or the young Coast Guard rookie, petty officer Scott Ruskan, who “plucked mud-covered children to safety after his helicopter crew flew through the appalling weather to reach their campsite in rural Hunt early Friday afternoon.” [Richard Luscombe in The Guardian, “Teen counselors and rookie rescue swimmer save dozens in Texas camp flood.”]

It seems a simple guide to the straight-up life. But golly is it hard to live by it, consistently, these days, and, frankly, every day, ever. No wonder Jesus warned that the wide gate and the easy road leads to destruction, that choosing love meant choosing the narrow gate and the hard road.

The urgent counsel of these Scriptures, laid alongside each other, makes me grateful for Paul’s prayer for the Colossians – and for US – in our third Reading for today, that “we may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” And that we not just KNOW God’s will, but will be filled with the strength & power to LIVE BY IT, “lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as we bear fruit in every good work and as we grow in the knowledge of God.” That we may “be made strong with all the strength that comes from God’s glorious power, and …prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.” May it be so. Amen.

The Reverend Marsha Hoecker, June 30, 2025

Sermon 6-30-25 St. George Chapel

“For freedom Christ has set us free.

Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.”

Freedom is of the Spirit, Paul tells us, and slavery is of the flesh.

Unfortunately the dualism in this assertion can lead to some misunderstanding.

Too often our Christian faith has identified this use of the word flesh with the physical body. The Greek word used can indeed be translated as body, but to jump to the conclusion that the body is bad is going too far

The physical body was created by God and God called it good.

The body is the home of the Spirit while we live in this reality.

We cannot manifest the Spirit except through the body.

We cannot share love, joy, or caring except through our bodies.

Our bodies smile, sing, embrace and talk.

Our bodies feel peace, as our heart rate slows and our muscles relax.

We do the work of peace by using our bodies to strive for reconciliation in many different ways.

We need our bodies to write letters, and to talk on the phone.

We need our bodies even to think of those we love.

We need our bodies to pray and praise.

The Spirit is made real through the body.

Can kindness, generosity, patience, faithfulness or self control be achieved without the body?

When St. Paul speaks of the Flesh, he is really speaking about something that happens first in the mind…lust, envy, selfishness,

anger, strife; these are all emotions that motivate us to use our bodies in destructive ways.

Perhaps it would be better to say that the body without the Spirit's guidance, is a wayward and unpredictable gift.

There are other forces that press upon the body.

These produce what Paul seems to consider works of the flesh.

But just as all good works, they proceed from the mind and heart through the actions of the body.

All that long list, fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, drunkenness, anger, jealousy, greed, etc. etc. come from a desire for power over others, or personal gratification at the expense of our own or another’s well being,

Pretty much everything on this list ultimately damages the body.

God created the body and the Spirit to be a team, working in harmony to do the will of God; to serve love, with care and concern for our bodies and those of others.

What Paul calls the “will of the flesh” is really the impulse of selfishness, self gratification without regard for others.

It is a product of the body, mind and spirit just as much as all the positive impulses are, but without Love.

What Paul names the Spirit I would name Love.

Using the scripture to denigrate the physical body poses yet another danger. If we do not love and respect our own flesh, our own bodies,

It becomes easier for us not to love and respect the bodies of others.

Human bodies have been disrespected throughout history in so many ways; slavery, torture, the mistreatment of children, sweat shops, prostitution, separation of immigrant families, inhumane incarcerations.

In Paul’s dichotomy these ills come from the will of the ‘flesh’.

I think what he really means is that they come from a mind devoid of love; a body functioning without the spiritual oversight of love.

When love is at work in body and spirit,

humanity is what God created it to be.

I welcome your thoughts on the scriptures, or on the ideas I have just shared.

How do you understand Flesh and Spirit?

The Right Rev. Rayford High, Sunday August 25, 2024

The Right Reverend Rayford High, Sunday August 25, 2024

“I AM the bread of life”

Then he said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them”.

Many of Jesus’ followers heard this and said, “This is a hard teaching. In fact, it is tough to swallow”.

Difficult to understand? Actually, it could not have been too awkward for them to comprehend, because they knew what he told them repeatedly.

William Barclay says in his commentary on the Gospel of John, “Time and again it is not the intellectual difficulty of accepting Christ which keeps us from becoming Christians, it is the Moral Demand.

For the past four Sundays and again today, all of the Gospel readings have centered on only one chapter in the Gospel of John: the Sixth Chapter. It is here that the institution of the Eucharist is presented. Unlike the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, where the institution is an event, it is John who explains what the Eucharist does for Christians. John clearly establishes all of Jesus’ life as the Eucharist. This truth is captured in Jesus professing the fact: I “AM” the Bread of Life, the food that gives life, on earth as in heaven, Eternal Life. When Jesus says “I AM” the bread of life, He is saying emphatically I AM everything Christians need, now and forever.

Where we choose to eat Jesus’ flesh and drink His blood, as we do when we take part in the Eucharistic meal, we abide in Christ and He abides in us.

Abide: what does it mean? If we abide in Christ and He abides in us? The Greek word actually means “to make your self at home in relationship” Christ makes Himself at home within us. How does this happen? When we participate in the Eucharist we are drawn into relationship with Jesus.

So the word abide “expresses the interrelationship of Jesus and the one who believes in Jesus. That is the source of every believer’s life. But it is more, much more than that. Hear what I say: the interrelationships of Jesus and each one of us who believes is actually an extension of the interrelationship of God and Jesus!

When we as Christians participate in the Eucharist, we partake of Christ’s Body and Blood. We are empowered, both as individuals and as faith communities to follow in Jesus’ footsteps of ministry: “to do justice, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with our God” (Michah 6:8). We are empowered to continue in Jesus’s work of healing, forgiveness, acceptance of all God’s Children, of showing God’s unconditional love with those we encounter.

A rector of a large parish greeted people as they left the church service one Sunday. He exchanged the usual pleasantries like, “it was such a nice sermon…your words were so comforting…” However, the rector spoke to one of the worshippers as she was leaving, saying “I don’t know if we have met, are you visiting today?”

The lady answered “I’ve been coming here for 20 years! You all have fed me every Saturday at the Saturday Sidewalk Breakfast for those in need of food. I have received meals from this church all of these years. Today, this Sunday, I decided to go inside to worship and see if you are real. I decided to find out if you really meant what you say, that God loves each and every one of us. I discovered that it is true. I recognized God’s love through your love. It is the same love I have experienced for 20 years at the Saturday Sidewalk Service. I experienced this love in the Eucharist this morning.” This parish abides in Christ and in doing so, the people they serve find relationships with God in Christ. The love of God gets passed on and others find life! She responded by saying “this is the first time I have been been treated like a human being. For years, I have been treated like a dog. These tears that you see are tears of joy, because you all treat me like a human. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Conclusion:

The table is set with the gift of God for the people of God, the life giving gifts of bread and wine, “of the flesh and blood of Christ”, as Jesus Himself says “whoever eats of me will abide in Christ and Christ will abide in us”.

At the end of communion, we here today at St. George’s will “take these gifts in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your hearts by faith, with Thanksgiving”. We are sent, we will then do the work God has given us to do to love and serve as faithful witnesses of our Lord.

We go with the life of Christ, with the host in our souls.

Let us go as a host, offered with Christ and for the love of Him to all those with whom we shall meet.

The Blessing of God almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be with you and remain with you always. Amen.

Reverend Betsy Scott, Sunday August 4, 2024

August 4, 2024

John 6:24-35

Today’s Gospel reading in John  6: 24 to 35  is  monumental.   Jesus tells us in these verses Who He is: “ The Son of Man, On Him God the Father has set his seal”. What He can do for us:     the Son of Man will give to you food that endures for eternal life   and what we need to do:   “This is the work of God   that you believe in Him who God has sent”.

  Through the millenniums, so much of the emphasis of the Church has been on eternal life  but today, many theologians are in addition emphasizing life in the here and now such as the  recently deceased  Jurgen Moltmann    who is widely known for his theology of Hope, Hope for an abundant life here on earth.

  It is the quality of the life here and now that these verses most forcefully speak to me and perhaps to you as well. 

    In these verses, the people ask Christ what they must do:   Christ answers:  “This is the work of God.  You must believe in Him whom He has sent”.

   When I heard these verses as a child or young person, I thought  it meant to just say I Believe in Him, but it always  confused me and didn’t make sense. How can saying I believe be all there is to it?

    Since then, I have learned that Belief  in Him is  a  powerful statement meaning  believe there is love in this world and we are meant to seek it. It is a call to action:  to seek, to spend time, to take very seriously, to have faith, to not give up hope to listen.  It is a call to keep going under difficult circumstances believing there are still many blessings in store for you.

  In the spiritual world, there is a huge contrast about belief compared to the secular world and this is one of the major points I want to leave with you.  In the secular world, one first sees and experiences and then believes but in the spiritual world, one is called to first believe, seek and then one will experience. You must believe  in Him first. This is absolutely major.  I had someone arguing with me recently who said he was a scientist and he only believed in  evidence and argued against a belief in God for there was no scientific evidence.  This person’s mind was made-up and nothing I said budged his thinking at all. He had missed the whole point that one must first believe, seek, knock  and then one will experience the love of God, the kind of  love  where you will no longer hunger and thirst—where you will no longer be lost, anxious, unable to concentrate. You will be able  to fulfill all you are created to be on this earth.  This is Christ’s promise in John 6.

   It is very interesting, however,  despite what I just said above, that what Jesus has been telling us for millenniums, now science is pointing in the same direction. Scientific experiments are now  demonstrating the tremendous power of belief.

     One such book of science is  the Biology of Belief which talks about the mind body connection and the power of our own thoughts on our health—not just our DNA as previously thought. So Christ exhorting us to believe is telling us to meditate on his words,  on love which  fills our minds  which in turn  are tremendously powerful—in  fact life giving.  All the cells of your body are affected by your thoughts. Robert H. Lipton PHD. a renowned cell biologist, describes the precise molecular pathways through which this occurs. He goes on to say that thought develops the grey matter in our brains. By our believing in Him, we are affecting our own growth. He further says that those people whose thought are filled with fear instead of love, are prone to disease of all kinds and their brains do not develop in a healthy fashion.e

  Quoting from the Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton:  “We can choose what to believe. You can filter your life with rose colored beliefs that will help your body grow or you can use a dark filter that turns everything black and  makes your  body/ mind more susceptible to disease. You can have a life of fear or a life of love.  You  have the choice, but I can tell you if you choose to see a world full of love, your body will respond by growing in health”. 

   There are studies going on in colleges showing that those students who have a spiritual component in their lives have much better coping skills than those who do not.  Doctor Luisa Miller has written a book entitled The Spiritual Child where she explains the power of the spiritual life  in growing the brain.   As a psychologist she has taken many brain scans and has proved her theory that the college students that have a spiritual component to their lives have a  part of their brain more developed and much better to cope with the stresses of college.   

    “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him  whom He has sent”. The promise is that he who seeks finds, he who knocks the door will be opened unto him.  2000 years ago, Christ knew the power of belief in Him.  He told us --You will find the Bread of Life where you hunger and thirst no more.

    What is the Bread of Life?  The Scriptures tell us that God is love so  the Bread of  Life is love. 

“He who dwells in love, dwelleth in God and God in Him.”  John 4:16

  The person who lacks the Bread of Love, has spiritual hunger and thirst which is manifest as  restlessness, nervousness, irritability, behavioral difficulty, impulsivity, anger, aggression, lacking purpose.

We are being given here the fundamental truths of human existence:  without love, we humans cannot grow and with love we will blossom.  We love because He first loved us.

We love because we fist were loved.

  Where is this Christ that we are exhorted to believe, to seek.  I have come to believe that it is within each one of us.

    I have to relate to you a story from my own life of experiencing the kind of spiritual love where I hungered and thirsted no more. I had a spontaneous spiritual happening that is not scientifically explainable and yet changed my life. I talked with two ministers about this and they both told me it was important and right that I share my stories.

   When I was forty-three years old with two young children, eleven and fourteen,  having just moved to a new community, my husband died an instant death in a car accident, totally out of the blue. No warning.  We were all in the midst of daily life.  Then he was gone forever.

   I had no idea how to proceed. Everything I had believed no longer applied.   I went seeking.  I  decided to enroll in  Union Theological Seminary  in New York City  in their three year MDIV program hoping I would find a new path for my life. I was in a dark night of the soul period of my life but still believed that there was something left for me even though I had no idea  what it was or even how to proceed. I felt very alone as my mother had died a decade before and we had recently moved to a new community.  I entered  Seminary and spent my time studying the scriptures, going to worship services, studying psychology and religion, going to a therapist and mourning,  talking and praying with this seminary community. In my second year,  after listening  one noon to a Good Friday sermon about Christ feeling abandoned on the Cross,  “My God, My God, Why have you abandoned me” I had an incredible experience.

       As I stood  outside the chapel talking with fellow seminarians,  the great pastor and preacher whose course I had been taking, James Forbes,  tapped me on the shoulder from the back and said to me:  “You know what they are talking about in there but can no credit for it for it has been too hard on you,  but you  know what others would like to know”.  

      I was stunned, speechless, almost frozen for he had named the unnamable.  He had articulated how I truly felt but had never  dared acknowledge.  Abandoned.  Yes,  I  truly felt abandoned.   I ran through the refectory  unable to speak to anyone who asked me what was happening and down the stairs to a small chapel in the basement, closed the doors and lay on the floor and stayed there alone  in the dark just trying to  deal with this information. All of a sudden, I became aware I was not alone in that chapel for there was a presence there, a spiritual presence  with me.  I knew there was Christ  with me.  I sensed  His  presence  totally knew me, accepted me,  and I knew and accepted  Him.  I  knew for a certainty that I was not alone in this universe.  I was not abandoned.   The Holy Spirit knew me and  loved me. I experienced unconditional love, the kind of love where one hungers and thirsts no more.   The Holy Spirit met me where I had the need. My heart had been torn asunder  and the Holy Spirit  healed my heart. My belief had been replaced by knowledge by the Bread of Life.    I was free. I was filled with smiles and new life so that friends would stop me and ask why I was so radiant? My whole life changed after that  for people seemed drawn to me rather than running away and I entered a new path in my life which included becoming a therapist, an ordained minister, and a wonderful new marriage that was a blessing to my children as well as myself. I did not have to believe because I knew there was a God  who was with me and loved me.

    I spent considerable time at Seminary after that trying to understand what had happened to me.  It is called grace and/or  mystical experience which has been reported down through the ages. I also heard of other examples.  I talked with some nuns who worked on the Aids floor of New York hospitals and they told me those wards were filled with joy.

   These passages in John 6 came true in my life, and they will come true in all of our lives, that is the promise.  Believe in Him  so that you may know the Bread of life where you will no longer hunger and thirst.

   Of course there are many different ways that believers have sought this Bread of Life, this  Holy Spirit.  Traditionally people have experienced the Holy in nature, in the Scriptures, in meditation, on pilgrimages, in art and music, in prayer, in worship services. Believe, seek and you will find.  This is the great promise that has been witnessed over and over in the lives of the seekers.

  To summarize today’s great Scripture reading,  Jesus is putting out a call to all of us to believe in Him, to believe Love is available to you, waiting for you, longing for you, that there is saving love in this world and we are to seek  it  by believing that it exists and  entering the spiritual path. He promises us that this bread he offers will satisfy forever our spiritual hunger and thirst. 

   Oh Heavenly Father, we thank you for the innumerable blessings you bestow upon us.

      Amen

Reverend Richard Greenleaf, Sunday July 28, 2024

A Sermon

The Reverend Richard E. Greenleaf

St. George’s Chapel

Long Cove Rd.

Tenant's Harbor, ME  04860

28 July 2024

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

HE II

Isaiah 53:1-3, 12

Psalm 37:1-12
Philippians 2:1-13

Mark 10:35-45

Collect of the Day

Heavenly Father, whose blessed Son came not to be served but to serve: Bless all who, following in his steps, give themselves to the service of others; that with wisdom, patience, and courage, they may minister in his Name to the suffering, the friendless, and the needy; for the love of him who laid down his life for us, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In the year 1886,

            the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche

                        published a work entitled Beyond Good and Evil,

                                    in which he wrote the following:

                        "I regard Christianity as the most fatal and seductive lie that has ever yet existed--

                        as the greatest and most impious lie . . . I urge people to declare open war with it."

            Nietzsche went on to write that he believed this

                        because he considered Christianity

                                    "the morality of paltry people,"

                                                the morality of "slaves" who,

                                                            only because of their own powerlessness,

                                                                        promoted an ethic of love and compassion,

                                                                                    an ethic of "turning the other cheek."

            Against this so-called "slave morality,”

                        Nietzsche argued for a "morality of the ruling class,”

                                    a "master morality" based on what he called the "Will to Power,"

                                                a morality that honors pride, vanity, power, and "dreadfulness."

                        Of this Nietzsche wrote,

                                    "The noble type of man separates from himself the beings in whom the opposite

                                    of this exalted, proud disposition displays itself: he despises them . . . The noble                                                                      type of man regards himself as a determiner of values . . . .”

Against critics, who argued that he was calling for a new barbarism,

                                    Nietzsche wrote,

                                    "'Exploitation' does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive society;

                                    it belongs to the nature of the living being as a primary organic function; it is a

                                    consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to Life.--

                                    Granting that as a theory this is a novelty--as a reality it is the fundamental fact of

                                    all history: let us be so far honest towards ourselves!"

I know, I know,

            the Nietzsche is

                        a bit extreme,

            but as he said,

                        “Let us be so far honest towards OURselves . . . .”

                        And, you have to admit,

                                    this is

                                                a good exhortation

                                                            at any time.

                        But I think it is an especially good exhortation

                                    for this time,

                                    the middle of a summer

                                                --and what a summer it’s been--

                                                                        that has seen the world marked

                                                                                    by political convulsions;

                                                                                                by violence, war, and unthinkable acts of terror.

                                    And here in the United States

                                                 by conflict and division;

                                                                        by the shaking of our political institutions, attempted assassination,

                                                                                                and the continued coarsening of our civic discourse.

                                    It is also the run up to a fall season

                                                that threatens to bring even more of all this,

                                                            culminating in the national election

                                                                        in just 101 days

                                                                                    on November 5th,

                                                                                                followed by the transition in administrations

                                                                                                            and the seating of a new Congress.

                                    We are also entering a time I have come to think of

                                                as the beginning of the real new year

                                                            in our country:

                                                                        the beginning of the school year.

                        And as someone who

                                    for 31 years

                                                served as a teacher and chaplain

                                                            at St. Paul’s School down in Concord, NH,

                                                            and, though now retired,

                                                                        I have been thinking long and hard

                                                                                    about just what it is

                                                                                                that we are

                                                                                                            and that we do

                                                                                                                        in both church and school

                                                                                                                                    that could possibly make a difference

                                                                                                                                                in such a challenging time.

                                                                        And what I could possibly say

                                                                                    to the students at my old school

                                                                                                who will arrive

                                                                                                            in just a few short weeks.

                                                                                    Again, in the words of Nietzsche,

                                                                                                “Let us be so far honest towards ourselves!”

            Flashback—

                        For a number of years,

                                    I taught a course on the history of ethics

                                                in which I put this exhortation

                                                --and the challenge of Nietzsche's words--

                                                                        to my students

                                                                                    in the following

                                                                                                essay assignment:

                        St. Paul's School enjoys the reputation of being an elite boarding school that

                        prepares exceptional young people for positions of power and leadership in society.

                        It also claims to be a "church school" within the Christian tradition.

                        Questions:

                        To what extent can it be seen to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the love ethic

                        of Christianity?

                        To what extent can St. Paul's School be seen to actually teach "master morality"

                        and Nietzsche's view of nobility in general?

                        Are these compatible?

                        If so, how?

                        If not, why not?

            These essays

                        were usually

                                    "interesting,"

                                                 to say the least.

                        Because the question they had to take on

                                    is the question I believe to be at the heart

                                                of today's reading from the gospel of Mark:

                        Namely,

                                    is it possible to be ambitious, excellent, or successful

                                                and be morally good?

                        This is a question

                                    St. Paul's School

                                                and many places like it

                                                            struggle with

                                                                        all the time.

                                    And that very real concern about it

                                                is reflected in the School’s hard work

                                                            in the areas of its fully residential life,

                                                                        in team building, leadership training,

                                                                                    and community service,

                                                                                                to say nothing of its chapel program.

                                                Indeed, the School’s whole program

                                                            can be seen as an attempt to respond well

                                                                        to Jesus’ warning that to whom much is given

                                                                                    much is expected,

                                                                                                and not just in terms of productivity.

                                    Still, the question remains,

                                                and it is a perennial question

                                                            for people of high achievement.

                        For Nietzsche,

                                    it is a question that is easily discharged.

                                    He simply does away with the traditional understanding of good and evil,

                                                and calls power and conquest good,

                                                            opening the door to the full flowering of the will.

                                    If Nietzsche were to interpret Mark’s story of James and John’s request of Jesus,

                                                it would be James and John and “the way of the Gentiles” that was commended

                                                            and the ten disciples upbraided for not showing more spunk.

                                    It is not too hard to hear Nietzsche saying,

                                                "All who exalt themselves will be exalted,

                                                            and all who humble themselves will be humbled!"

                                                            "Let us be so far honest towards ourselves!"

                                    And to be honest,

                                                Nietzsche was right,

                                                            insofar that the way of the world

                                                                        for countless millennia

                                                                                    was the way of the struggle for survival,

                                                                                                the way of power and conquest.

                                    And success in this

                                                counted for happiness.

                        But there has always been a counter-narrative,

                                    and with the coming of Jesus

                                                the old power narrative was most fully tipped on its head.

                                    Notice that in today's gospel,

                                                Jesus tells his disciples,

                                    “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord                                             it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43But it is not so among                                                                    you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44and                                                           whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45For the Son of Man                                                                     came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

                                    And the reason why

                                                is that Jesus is here

                                                            reaffirming the dignity and inherent divinity

                                                                        of each and every human person

                                                                                    --all persons—

                                                                                                            that God bestowed on them

                                                                                                                        --on US!—

                                                                                                                                                at creation.

                                                            As it is written in Genesis 1:27,

                                      “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them;”

                                                            And when asked what is the greatest commandment,

                                                            “Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is                                                                                                        one; 30you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your                                                                                          soul,    and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31The second is this,                                                                                               ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment                                                                                                     greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)

                                                            But even more, Jesus told his disciples,

                                                “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No                                                                         one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are                                                                                     my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer,                                                            because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you                                          friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my                                                     Father.” (John 15: 12-15)

                                    And in his first letter,

                                                the apostle John adds,

                                                            “Those who say ‘I love God’ and hate their brothers or sisters are liars; for those                                                                who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom                                                      they have not seen.” (John 4:20)

I was trying to think of a way

            to help us see this,

                        a living example,

                                    when I came across an article

                                                about Maria Skobtsova,

                                                            a saint of the Orthodox Church

                                                                        whom the Episcopal Church

                                                                                    also remembers in its liturgical calendar.

            Maria was born into the Russian aristocracy in 1891

                        but became a radical intellectual and poet.

                        She married, became a mother,

                                    and involved herself in the Russian Revolution.

                        Slowly, she became disillusioned with the revolution

                                    found her way back to the church,

                                                and finally fled to Paris.

In the church’s write-up,

            it is written that

                        “She became a nun,

                                    but only on condition that she could live in the world

                                                and directly serve the poor.

            As a twice-married former revolutionary and poet-theologian,

                        she was a unique fixture,

                                    to say the least.

            When she was not giving of herself to those in need,

                        she could be seen smoking cigarettes

                                    and debating theology or philosophy with her friends.

            When the Nazis took Paris,

                        she did all she could to provide shelter and escape

                                    for the Jews in the city.

            And then,

                        Maria was arrested

                                    and sent to a concentration camp.

            Of her life of service,

                        Maria wrote,

"If someone turns with his spiritual world toward the spiritual world of another person, he encounters an awesome and inspiring mystery …. He comes into contact with the true image of God in man, with the very icon of God incarnate in the world... And he needs to accept this awesome revelation of God unconditionally, to venerate the image of God in his brother."

Maria continues,

"The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. That is all I shall be asked. About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says ‘I': ‘I was hungry and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.’ To think that he puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need. . . . I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe."

            And on Holy Saturday 1945,

                        Maria was martyred in a gas chamber in Ravensbrück, Germany,

                                    taking the spot of another woman.

Once again, Maria:

“To think that he, the Saviour, puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need. . . . I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe."

                                    To be sure,

                                                other religious and philosophical thinkers before Jesus

                                                            made the connection

                                                                        between love and virtue,

                                                                                    between service and success,

                                                                                                between humility and greatness.

                                    But in Jesus

                                                this connection was realized

                                                            with a fullness that

                                                                        turned the world on its head

                                                                                    and gave birth to the Christian faith.

                                                And because it was made real in Jesus

                                                            it became a living possibility,

                                                                        for each generation that followed,

                                                                        a living possibility

                                                                                    for us today.

                        My friends, we are the inheritors of a culture,

                                    --a civilization--

                                                            that was spawned

                                                                        from this core truth,

                                                                                    this form of greatness, this kind of love.

                                    It was such a radically different truth,

                                                historically speaking,

                                                            that we came to date our time

                                                                        from its origin

                                                                                    in the life of Jesus Christ.

                                    In recent years that civilization itself

                                                has once again come under threat,

                                                            and we

                                                                        --and our very way of life--

                                                                                                with it.

                                                The "open war" on the Christian ethic

                                                            that Nietzsche called for

                                                                        has been joined.

                                                But in this war,

                                                            Christians

                                                                        and all those who follow this way of love

                                                                                     are called not

                                                                                                to "triumphal domination or success,"

                                                                                    for that would be to give in

                                                                                                to the very values

                                                                                                            that threaten to undo us.

                                                            Rather, we are called to that love,

                                                                        that sacrificial goodness

                                                                                    upon which true success

                                                                                                --and true happiness--

                                                                                                                        indeed, civilization,

                                                                                                                                    and life itself as we know and love it,

                                                                                                                                                depends.

Although we stand at this critical point in time,

            there is really nothing new in this message,

                        for it is the very thing that this place,

                                    St. George’s Chapel, has been about for 123 years,

                                                and St. Paul’s School has been about for 168 years

                                                --when they remember what  and "whose" they really are --

                                                                        what they are about!

            In the end,

                        when it comes to true greatness

                                    there are really only two choices,

                                                the way of Nietzsche

                                                            or the way of Jesus.

                        But the choice . . .

                                    the choice

                                                is ours!

Let us pray:

God our Father, you see your children growing up in anunsteady and confusing world: Show them that your waysgive more life than the ways of the world, and that followingyou is better than chasing after selfish goals. Help them totake failure, not as a measure of their worth, but as a chancefor a new start. Give them strength to hold their faith in you,and to keep alive their joy in your creation; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen

Reverend Marsha Hoecker Sunday July 21st, 2024

Sermon - July 21, 2024 St. George Chapel

I was encouraged to stay away from politics in today’s comments, and please trust me, I am not intending to refer to any candidates, parties or races, but boy, with an opening like,

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord,” one could be sorely tempted.

I am going to talk about something that has been in the news lately though: the need to maintain our basic unity even with our differences. Our lesson today from Jeremiah is about the scattering of a people and the promise of reunification through righteous leadership and shepherding.

The lesson from Ephesians reminds us of the early disagreement in the church about circumcision. Non-Jews were not as a rule circumcised, but for Jewish men circumcision was a mark of their religious faith. With the appearance of Jesus, a prophet out of the Jewish tradition, it was initially Jews who were drawn to follow him.

As the faith moved beyond Israel, especially through the missionary work of St. Paul, many Gentiles became part of this new community called Christians. Paul himself had been a devout Jew who had seen the Jesus movement as a threat.

Until he was blinded by the light and knocked off his horse, he was intent on stopping this renegade sect. There is no question that he was circumcised.

Paul, who was an apostle to the Gentiles, rather than the Jews, clearly saw the demand for circumcision as an impediment to his mission. He went to the Christian council in Jerusalem to argue for his work among Gentiles, and to convince them that in Christ such divisions as Jew - Gentile, Circumcised - Uncircumcised, had been erased. One’s spiritual transformation in Christ required no outward and visible physical change.

Paul was about breaking down the divisions, not setting up new ones. He said “[Christ]... is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall that is the hostility between us.”

Yet even among Christians today, we see those dividing walls being built. In an election year like this one, in spite of all the talk about unity it is our differences that get the focus. And, of course that is, after all, what it is all about. We want to highlight the differences between party platforms and candidates because we are being asked to make a choice.

But highlighting differences is one thing, name calling and demonizing is something else entirely. We are all the children of one God, and each has the potential to do good as well as evil. It is our job as citizens of a democracy to evaluate our candidates based on factual and reasonable data and to make an informed choice.

We will not all come to the same conclusion. We have different scoring cards, different needs, and different beliefs about what is best for our country. I hope though, that one basic belief we can all share is that we are all children of a loving God; the same loving God. And in the eyes of that God we are all worthy of love.

And I hope we can all agree that our right to choose our leader through a democratic process is a cherished right, and because we will not ever all agree 100%, it is a right we need to protect.

Our God is a God of reconciliation and of love. We are different in so many ways, but love and reconciliation should always be our goal. Our unity as a nation and as a diverse people must be precious to us even as we disagree about the particulars. When all the voting is done let us pray that we will still be one nation under God, “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”.

Conversation questions;

How do we love one another in the midst of contentious discourse?

How do we respect each other’s dignity when we vehemently disagree?

Reverend Bill Blaine-Wallace, Sunday July 14th, 2024

The Rev. Bill Blaine-Wallace

St. George’s Chapel

Tenants Harbor, Maine

Proper 10

July 14, 2024

It was like the prophets in the Bible. They didn’t have any special powers of seeing the future. They saw where the present was at, was all.

from This Other Eden, by Paul Harding

Malaga Island, Maine, about 60 miles south, is an icon through which I prayed this sermon to life.

The martyrdom of John the Baptist mirrors the fate of 52 people on a 42-acre coastal island at the beginning of the 20th century. Malaga Island not as brutal. No heads on a platter. Yet as absolute.

John’s execution and the erasure of Malaga Islanders foretell America’s latest struggle to renew, and possibly save, our fragile democracy.

Malaga Island was last occupied by a mixed-race fishing community established in the 1790’s by Benjamin Darling, a once enslaved Black man, and his white wife, a local resident, Sarah Proverbs. They had 9 children. Others found their way to the island—Irish, Scots, Portuguese. The community became a safer haven for the down and out and ostracized.

The community was mostly left to itself until the first decade of the 20th century. Four factors brought greater attention to the island community. These same factors presently shorten America’s reach for a more perfect union.

First: Reconstruction. The post-Civil War, decades-long blatant and stealth resistance to incorporate freed slaves into American society, and the influx of Roman Catholic French Canadians into Maine, outed previously more latent racial, religious, and immigrant discrimination. In the early years of the 20th century, Maine had the highest per capita Ku Klux Klan membership in the United States.

Studies show that about one third of Americans currently resist uplift for Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. A smaller and noisy percentage disavow non-Judeo-Christian religions and traditions, and stand against those outside the circle of heteronormality.

Second: Nativism. During the early 1900s, a growing number of Americans sought to protect the interests of native-born people. Nativists coalesced around the fear that immigrants threatened both the American way of life and jobs of American workers. The infamous literacy test of the Civil Rights Movement originated in the nativism movement.

Nativism is at the heart of white America’s current quest for greater ascendency and insularity. Note the present crusade to abolish diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at public universities.

Third: The Eugenics Movement of the early 20th century. Eugenics prospered the idea that one’s “blood” mattered. Purer the better. Segregation, involuntary sterilization, and other exclusionary measures were touted and applied in the arenas of medicine, education, and government.

“Purer” blood still matters. Extremists are becoming less subtle and quiet about the matter.

Fourth: tourism. At the beginning of the 20th century, tourism became and remains a major financial focus of Maine. The Malaga community did not help local property values. An eyesore.

As the chasm between rich and poor grows and the middle class shrinks, America’s current, accelerated greed-creep infiltrates and pushes aside communities that stand in the way. More and more cities turn their backs to and try to hide the unhoused. The Supreme Court recently upheld laws that criminalize sleeping in public.

The 4-fold assault against difference sealed the fate of the Malaga community.

In 1912, 47 residents of Malaga Island were evicted from their homes by the State of Maine. The remains of their dead were exhumed. 17 bodies were put into 5 caskets and relocated to lessen the incentive of the islanders to return. 8 residents were taken to the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded. Some were sterilized. The other inhabitants of the island were scattered about.

The dynamics that erased the Malaga community threaten our nation in ways and at a pace that, nine years ago, we could have hardly imagined.

In 2015/2016, seemingly out of nowhere, came a dangerous and determined agenda to steady the aging gait of whiteness. Principles and commitments of about half of the 61% of white Americans seek to divide and conquer the remaining 39% of us. The latest and clearest iteration of this agenda is the Heritage Foundation’s project 2025.

Seemingly out of nowhere. Emphasis on seemingly. Malaga is another reminder that the 2015/2016 outpouring of hate is the latest uprising of a brokenness that has been with us since the beginning of America’s experiment with democracy.

Now is not the time for despair. It is time to breath deep, hunker down, examine, and adjust our lives towards a specific love. For those of the progressive Christian tradition, the shape of love is the Jesus Movement.

Is the Jesus Movement, practically speaking, worthy of our trust and hope as hell abounds all around?

The question is what kind of hope. The goal of hope, in terms of the Jesus Movement, is not the victory of democracy over autocracy. Why not? Isn’t that what we are struggling for. Not exactly.

Last week, I talked with Paul, my long-time friend and co-commiserater. We deconstructed the June 27th debate, its aftermath, and consequences.

Paul asked if I had read David Brooke’s interview with Steve Bannon in the NYT. I said that I had not. I said that I started it. Too much. Couldn’t bare it.

Paul said that I should finish it; said Bannon had a point.

Coming from Paul, that was a lot. Paul grew up in NYC. He attended The Little Red School House. He is an economics correspondent for the PBS News Hour. You’d think as an economics reporter, he’d have moved back from the left edge of progressive politics, closer to the middle. Not so.

Paul believes betting odds are more accurate than polls. His father, Joseph Solman, funded his early years as an artist as a teller at Belmont Park. Paul knows betting.

Paul believes Bannon is right on at least one account. Fascism is a solid bet, a runaway winner. History records far more Victor Orban’s than Joe Biden’s.

Paul’s point. Don’t be surprised that hell abounds all around.

American democracy, history’s longest surviving democracy, is messy, hard fought, and breakable. Shock saps will and purpose.

In other words, stay composed, poised, and aware amid the fray.

Hope for democracy, as an expectation we sweat blood to reach, is not enough. Expectation gets about 3 miles to the gallon. Big time burnout.

Hope, in terms of the Jesus Movement, is a way of life. Regardless of the outcome.

Hope is the stewardship of decency, integrity, respect, attention, curiosity, and vulnerability between self and others. All others. “You mean even…” Don’t go there. Hope is the commitment to be less a self-in-the-making and more a self in relation, a self in and for community.

Jesus’ foundational aim was not to get Rome’s foot off Galilee’s neck or to undo Herod’s alignment with empire.

Jesus is grounded more in the particular moment, less in universal possibility. Jesus attends to what’s near and now. Less concerned about what might be.

Jesus, like the one who baptized him, stands with those presently displaced and erased by the public square and the temple.

Jesus’ strategy is different than John’s. The baptizer focused on repentance, which tends to separate, the sheep and goat thing.

Jesus focuses on a love that unites, a love that finds solidarity with the disinherited, a love that incites solidarity among the disinherited. And who isn’t disinherited in one form or another? Jesus’ reach is long and unqualified.

Solidarity is highly contagious.

Solidarity infects the ballot box. Like the last couple of weeks. Iran, the United Kingdom. France.

And maybe America. We’ll see.

In the meantime, words of Maine native E. B. White, cited last night by Heather Cox Richardson, are worth holding onto: “Hang onto your hat. Hang onto your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.”

Amen.

Reverend Ralph Moore, Sunday July 7th, 2024

Baptism – July 7, 2024

2 Corinthians 5:17-20, Psalm 23, Mark 10:13-16

O God, you prepared your disciples for the coming of the Spirit through the life and teaching of our savior Christ. Make our hearts and minds always ready to receive the blessing of the Spirit, that we may be filled with strength and compassion as loving servants of your grace. Amen

A few months ago one of our area's writers shared a very intimate experience in his life. (David Grima, the Rockland Courier-Gazette) In church one Sunday as he was taking communion the choir was singing and he was suddenly smitten. “I know that tune! I haven't heard that since I was a boy!” “Just as I am without one plea….O Lamb of God, I come, I come.” Transported back over 50 years ago, an unmeasurable moment, transcendent, his spirit fully accepting in the here and now “the gift of grace.” He goes on to reflect on how our given human spirit continually has the capacity “to sense the more and greater; the me, the us, the all.” To be full of the totally beautiful compassionate Spirit! Joy!

Jesus describes this when he invites the children--”to such as these the realm of God belongs….if you aren't open to this like a little child you'll never enter God's realm.” What are we doing this morning, if not seeking this overwhelming transcendent moment? And what a blessing that we've been invited to lift up and celebrate the wondrous life of Marian Grace Ott. Whenever we celebrate this sacrament it's as though Jesus himself set this up. (“sacrament”-- in the here and now touched by the sacred)

Our writer ponders how among us human beings: “what is it that goes so wrong with this [part of our human condition] that, having once tasted the transcendent, so many people have fallen back so very far as to confuse their religion with hatred, cruelty and violence.” This echoes Paul's simple reminder about us as we seek spiritual maturity. We're in the world and, --but, when we become part of the “beloved community” formed in the name of Jesus, “there is a new creation, everything old has passed away...new things have come into being!” David concludes with his hope that in the harsh, angry world about us more of us “might still hear that 'still, small voice' offering grace.”

This is an invitation to open ourselves to renewal, be as little children. Stop all thoughts! Now feelings, special high moment in our lives. “Breath on me, Breathe of God.” As little children, we “re-member.” “Remember” by Joy Harjo. Ursula LeGuin: “I stand out on the deck of my house, looking at the sky full of God's children and I know that I am one of them.” Psalm 23: “I lie down in green pastures..beside still waters..my soul revives..my head is anointed with oil..goodness and mercy follow me all my days..I shall fear no evil….” Of such is the kingdom of heaven….the realm of the Spirit.

Remember - Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,

know each of the star’s stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled

to give you form and breath. You are evidence of

her life, and her mother’s, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people

are you.

Remember you are this universe and this

universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

“Remember.” Copyright ©1983 by Joy Harjo

August 13, 2023 Rev. Susan Flanders

Walking on Water - Sermon for Aug. 13,  St.George’s, ME

        Walking on water!  How often we hear that phase!  It can signal admiration - she walks on water for me - because she’s so good at what she does, or so inspiring.  He walks on water - goes above and beyond our normal expectations, does what no-one else can do. 

        The phrase can also signal scorn. If we say someone thinks she walks on water, that’s bad! We’re then saying the person is arrogant, thinks he or she is better than the rest of us. We need only a bit of  the daily news chatter to hear about such people. Walking on water has become a way of expressing how extraordinary a person is, or thinks he is, and certainly today’s gospel story - the original walking-on-water text - is one of many expressing how extraordinary Jesus was. The story of Jesus walking on water is one of those stories about impossible things, seeming miracles. We can’t really believe these stories, but they work on us all the same. They appeal to our imaginations and deepest longings; they are metaphors for actual lived experiences.

        And in today’s version from Matthew’s gospel, we have what is to me the more interesting part of the story, Peter’s attempt to walk on water - his amazing, courageous striding out onto the waves to meet Jesus, only to flounder and be caught by Jesus’ saving hand.  Our human instinct to go for it, dare it, risk it all, but then our fear, our loss of confidence, our realization that we need help.  It’s all there in this tiny vignette.

        I want to dig further into the story with the help of a reflection and then a poem.  The reflection is from Macrina Wiederkehr, a RC sister, author of Seasons of the Heart, a collection of reflections and prayers.  Here is a part of the reflection:

Come, walk on the water with me!
I’m in the mood for impossible things!
Take out your heart of courage,
a lamp amid your fears
and walk on the water with me.

Let’s look at everything that could be
believing it will be
if we dare
to walk on water
scared and hopeful.

Come, walk on the water with me!
Let’s wrap our fears in hope.
Across these waters we must go
our lamps of courage high
Scared and hopeful we will go.

Come, walk on the water with me!
Hold high your lamp of courage
Put all your doubts away
Let’s take a chance on staying up.

Come, walk on the water with me!
I’m in the mood for impossible things.
I feel scared
because it is impossible
I feel hopeful
because it is not impossible

So, scared and hopeful
we will walk.

Come!
Walk on the water with me!

      When we face something tough, or perhaps seemingly impossible, it’s fear that gets in our way, right?  This can be helpless fear – like that of the disciples in the storm-tossed boat, feeling there was nothing they could do.  What if you, or your child, or your sister gets very sick – terminal cancer, ALS, Alzheimers – all the terrible fears, of pain, of loss of body function and dignity, loss of mind, fear of death.  All these fears rise like towering waves and raging winds.  Getting out of the boat and walking away isn’t an option – or is it? How can we find hope?  We can’t change the situation, make the storm subside. However, we can make choices about how to live with or live through such a terrible storm. As the reflection says, we can wrap our fears in hope; we can be both scared and hopeful. 

         And lots of times, we are not helpless in our fears, we can do more than hope. Often the storms that beset us are about tough decisions, things that may change our comfortable or familiar lives.  Here’s where courage joins hope in combating fear.  Here is where Peter, seeing Jesus walking on water, and beckoned by him, starts out himself, taking a chance on staying up.  As long as he focuses on Jesus’ outstretched hand, it works, but he gets distracted by the wind, lets his fear take over and begins to sink.  Isn’t that the way with us, when we try to take bold steps in a new direction?  It feels like stepping on a surface that won’t hold our weight. And we also worry about what others will think -“Who does she think she is?  She’s trying to do the impossible.”  How do we respect such voices but not necessarily heed them?  How do we trust that the support we need, the metaphorical hand of Jesus, will be there for us? 

        I turn now to a poem by David Whyte, one of my favorites.  He is a poet who actually works for corporations, bringing the life of the heart and the soul into the business world. But he also writes very personal poems like this one with its allusions to this morning’s gospel.

THE TRUELOVE
by David Whyte

There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.

I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.

Years ago in the Hebrides,
I remember an old man
who walked every morning
on the grey stones
to the shore of baying seals,
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the water,

and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them

and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly
so Biblically
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love

so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years
you simply don’t want to
any more
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness
however fluid and however
dangerous to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.

         The poem can be heard as a poem about love for another person, about the awakening finally to a love that is both eros and agape and that feels so meant to be that it cannot be denied.  I think it bears all these meanings as it certainly did for me when it was read by my sister at Bill’s and my wedding back in 2005. 

         But I also think it’s a poem about God - about how we are called to love God and discover ourselves known and loved by a presence beyond ourselves, like that ghostly figure of Jesus, calling across the water.  It’s a poem about giving ourselves to that presence – trusting in something that seems impossible, saying “yes” after perhaps a long time of doubt and floundering.  It’s about saying “yes” to a voice calling you to your true self and to real life.  It’s a poem about God’s love for us, just as the gospel story is, at its heart.  If you wonder about Jesus in today’s story – think about times when life has beckoned you to do and to be more than you ever thought, and you found you actually could!  Think about times when a tumult has been stilled in your life or your heart because you’ve felt the presence of God with you – like Jesus sitting in the boat with the disciples. 

        A personal note here: Some of you know that I am in a new and demanding role as caregiver for Bill as dementia and its diminishments shadow our life together. This walking on water story just grabs me this year in ways it never has before. And it grabs me here in Tenants Harbor where every single day I look out at the ocean, sometimes flat and calm, other times raging and rough. And I, we, Bill and I, need to stay afloat and not lose ourselves in fear and hopelessness.  I need to trust that I can be and do what is needed.  I’m not a brash, young Peter, thinking I can walk on water like Jesus.  But I can trust in the hand, that there will be love held out for me and that I will not sink in despair. People, not always those I expect, but those I need, are there, reaching out, and life is still rich and beautiful, and we are held up.

        You’ve probably experienced times like this as well, but maybe like me, you never really connected them to Jesus’ walking on water, or more specifically Peter.  Today, in gospel and reflection and poetry, we are offered a vision of the saving help we all long for. 

Come, walk on the water with me.  Amen.

The Rev. Susan M. Flanders,  August 13, 2023

August 6, 2023 Rev. Betsy Scott

Transfiguration Sunday

August 6, 2023

  This is Transfiguration Sunday,   it celebrates one of the most profound  moments that ever took place on this earth.  The scriptures record the moment of great holiness, intimacy and love  between God the father, God the Son and  God the Holy Ghost.   The son prays to the father up on the mountain with  his disciples present,  Elijah and Moses appear, the prophet and the law,  and   the son’s face   shines  with light and his clothes become a  brilliant white.  Light has always symbolized love, goodness, wisdom,  hope, grace and in this case divinity.  This is a mystical event, a direct and personal experience of the divine in a temporal setting.   Mystical events have been recorded and known throughout the ages but this transfiguration is the penultimate mystical event.  William James in his book Varieties of Religious Experience  explains mystical experience:  James said mystical experiences are   ineffable or inexpressible, noetic, or great wisdom, transient, not lasting and passive, it happens to you.  You cannot make it happen. They are always a surprise.

       The Transfiguration is  also one of the five  most important events in Christ’s life and many writers say the transfiguration has language that leads back to the Exodus and language  that is a preview of the glorified body of Christ following His resurrection.  The transfiguration took place 40 days before His passion.

    For me to  plumb the depths of this  extraordinary text, penultimate happening, in just a few minutes is  a herculean task.   

  I decided to explore just one aspect of this great even  given to me in a  couplet  by  a pastoral counselor:

“ Divinity was Revealed to Humanity  in the Transfiguraion

                                                                      and

Humanity was illuminated by Divinity in the Transfiguration.

 Christ said: “ I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness.”

    The Transfiguration text is certainly a declaration of the divinity of Christ and it  has been interpreted thus throughout the ages  but  it is also  interpreted as a declaration  of the way  we can change, the way we can draw nearer to the Knowledge and love  of God  and be transformed into the image of God., to be in touch with the Kingdom of God that is within us. 

     We have been talking about the Kingdom of God within us for a number of Sundays  here at St. George’s Chapel and today we are going to be talking about the process of getting in touch with this Kingdom of God within.   To repeat:   Christ  said in 1 John 1  that :  I  am the Light of the world.  Whoever follows me won’t walk in darkness but will have the light  and fellowship with one another.”  This is  crucial, life changing!  It means we are not stuck in whatever state of heart, mind and spirit that we find ourselves in but that we can change  to become closer to the image of  Christ,  the Kingdom Within.    Notice that it is Christ that changed and in turn others changed in relation to Christ.  In other words,  the only person we can change is ourselves  but if we change,  others will change in relation to us.   

      The transfiguration of Christ shows  the  process by which we can change.  Obviously Christ is divinity but we can change to become closer to the image of Christ.  The process described  is a description of the process of love.  Christ draws close to the father, they are present one to the other.  The Father affirms the Son.  This is my son in Whom I am Well pleased.  They are united in this love.  So what is love and how do we able to learn to love?  Drawing from my seminary years, Love was described  to me  by the great Dr. Russell Davis, as a presence, an affirmation and a union.  I have found this a very helpful definition of love.   It is one way to describe what happened on that Mountain as Christ  was present with the father in prayer, the father affirmed  Christ, this is my son, listen to him, and the light was the divine light of Holy love, the union.

  St. Paul expressed this thought in

 2 Corinthians 3:18 where Paul  wrote:

  “And we all,  who with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord’s Glory, are being transformed into His image  with ever increasing glory which comes from the  Lord who is the  Spirit. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord.”

  In order to come close to the Lord , we must have an unveiled face.  What does that mean?  With a veil, we are hiding  ourselves and we can’t see others clearly.   With an unveiled face, we can see more clearly ourselves and others, we are enabled to contemplate the Glory of God. As we unveil ourselves, we  become more compassionate on ourselves and on others.

  To understand what the Scriptures are talking about, let’s think of figures and stories in literature where the main character has either been unveiled or refused to unveil themselves and what happens to them. The two examples that came to me are Don Juan and Prince Andre.  I’m sure you can think of others.

   Don Juan is the great  libertine in the  Mozart opera Don Giovanni who ruins the life of many women and at the end of the opera, he is asked to repent, he refuses and disappears, going to hell.  

   My favorite transformation in literature is in WAR And Peace when Prince Andre transforms.  The story is that Prince Andre was engaged to Natasha and then went off to war.  While he was gone, Natasha almost ran off with another man, as it turns out a scoundrel.   Subsequently, Prince Andre is wounded in battle, perhaps his unveiling as he comes in touch with his own pain.  He then sees clearly.  He looks up to the heavens and realizes how small he is  compared to the universe and suddenly sees Natasha as the young girl that she is and how he  is the one who left her by going off to war.  Tolstoy has another beautiful scene where Natasha comes to Prince Andre while he is mortally wounded and begs for forgiveness.  Prince Andre answers: “ While there is nothing to forgive.  I love you now more than I have ever loved you before.”  I am quite sure Prince Andre’s face was radiating in love.

  What happened to these figures when they transformed?

     In Christian theology transformation is understood as a change of heart.   One is filled with compassion and gratitude , increased awareness, greater sense of purpose and meaning, deeper connection with divine energy expanded consciousness and understanding , enhanced intuition and inner guidance positive change in life relationships and life. This is what happened to Prince Andre and  the Scripture promise it will  happens to you and me  when we draw closer to the Lord.

  Many people have written about this process of transformation, but one of my favorites is Ken Wilber who describes the unveiling very well:   Clean up, grow-up,  wake-up and show up.

  In this process, one learns to love oneself which in turn enables one to love another.

     This is  the life long journey to which we all are called, the journey home to our true selves, the Kingdom of God Within.   It has been written about forever.  Many interpret the Odyssey as the journey home.

     I thought you would be interested to know that in the field of the teaching of parenting, there is now a big movement away from behavior modification of the children and towards what is called parent centric parenting.  What this means is that the parents are taught to  unveil, to tune into their own emotions, the unveiling: to feel their  own emotions, to  understand where their own emotions have  come from,  to finally find their own center of peace and joy.  When the parents are in their own  state of peace and joy, they will have their eyes unveiled  to see their own children more clearly.  The parent will be enabled  to listen to their children, to try to understand what is bothering their children, what  are their current needs etc,  You know that listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give one to another.    To really listen without immediately chiming in to say who we are.  In this way, the children will feel understood and loved and can truly blossom into their own God given natures.  So this process of the amazing transfiguration of Christ is also the path we are called to follow to become more loving in our everyday lives.

   As Irenaeus wrote in the 2nde Century:  “The glory of God is a live human being and a truly human life is the vision of God.”

       Christ went up on the mountain with his disciples to a place of quiet and refuge and strength  and a place where he drew close to the Holy Spirit, and he prayed.    Christ went to the meeting place for the temporal and the eternal.  He  devoted himself to drawing nearer to the Holy Spirit.  It was during that praying that his face shone and his garments became dazzling white.    We are all  exhorted in our unveiled state to  climb our own mountain, find the quiet places,  draw closer and listen to our inner most selves, to meditate, to pray,   to draw closer to the Holy Spirit,  and in the  process  we ourselves become more loving and whole.  

   To close, I want to read to you what Thomas Keating wrote in his book Open Mind and Open Heart about what is was like to be in the presence of the Holy Spirit or in the presence of pure  unconditional love.

   This presence is so immense, yet so humble; awe-inspiring yet so gentle; limitless yet so intimate, tender and personal.  I know that I am known.  Everything in my life is transparent in this Presence.  It knows everything about me—all my weaknesses, brokenness, sinfulness—and still loves me infinitely.  This presence is healing, strengthening. Refreshing, just by its Presence.  It is non-judgmental, self-giving, seeing no reward, boundless in compassion.  It is like coming home to a place I should never have left, to an awareness that was somehow always there, but which I did not recognize. 

  This is the kind of love which we can find with the Holy Spirit and which we in turn can offer to our children, our loved ones, our friends, all the people.  The Transfiguration of Christ shows us the way  the Holy Spirit interacts with us here on earth.    May we all follow this light  and become a light.

   Amen

     This is a very big and important topic so I am happy we will now have a time for the audience’s  reflection, questions and  discussion.

July 16, 2023 - The Rev. Bill Blaine-Wallace

Tenants Harbor, Maine | Proper 9A

Gospel wisdom from Sandra Pankhurst: “When at first you don’t succeed, redefine the meaning of success.”

Sandra Pankhurst was founder and director of Strategic Trauma Cleaning Services in Frankston, Australia. The company cleans up crime scenes and suicide sites. They assist the mentally and physically disabled with home maintenance. They clear out hoarder homes and the likes. Ms. Pankhurst, who died in 2021, described her business as cleaning up messes no one else wants do deal with. 

Ms. Pankhurst was not your typical successful business owner. The Guardian newspaper described her as “a person who has led many lives within a life: adopted as a child, then severely abused by her adoptive parents; emerging from a failed marriage and coming out as a transgender woman in the 1980s; working as a drag queen and sex worker; and eventually starting her own cleaning business in the 1990s.”

Last week, Victoria and I watched the 2022 documentary about Ms. Pankhurst and her cleaning service. The title of the documentary is Clean.

The rotten tomato score shows a wide discrepancy. The tomatometer score, based on critical reviews, gave it 100%. The audience score: 36%.

The discrepancy makes sense. I have seen PG-13 depictions of violent murder scenes, stains of decomposed bodies, homes of hoarders and general squalor. All of which are revealed in R-rated reality in the documentary. Hard to watch. And for Victoria and me, well worth it. 

Ms. Pankhurst died of severe COPD, after decades of struggling to breathe. She was a smoker. And her disease was due in part from exposure to extremely harsh cleaning agents during the first years of work, when she did not wear a mask. 

Ms. Pankhurst lived a Christ-like life. Radical compassion and care for the untouchables, the disenfranchised, the inconsolable, the so-called criminal element, the erased, and ridiculed.

Moreover, she recruited colleagues whose own lives parallel those they serve. Folks who are struggling to get their lives back together. 

The Specialized Trauma Cleaning Services mirrors what one of my heroes, Will Campbell, understood the church to be: “One cat in a ditch and one no count son-of-a-gun trying to pull her out.” 

Church, at its best, celebrates what I call the sacrament of shared sorrow and suffering. From such a sacrament emerges a solidarity that incites a relational joy. Sizzling joy inspires fiery passion for justice. 

The Specialized Trauma Cleaning Services zealously embraces grunt work. Another way of saying it: STCS, as their logo reads, re-defines the definition of success. 

The Parable of the Sower, at first glance, is a morality play. The story stirs in us a desire to scratch our heads. What kind of soil am I? What does good soil look and act like. How can I enrich my soil? 

The more I wrestle with these questions, the further down I go into the be-and-do-better rabbit hole.  

I often follow paths that lead nowhere. I make commitments that are uprooted. I am distracted by thin cares and appealing possibilities for more and better. 

And I keep striving to plant my life in good soil. 

What, exactly, is good soil? 

The Parable of the Sower also is found in the gospels of Mark and Luke, each with its particular nuance. Matthew says good soil understands. Mark says good soil accepts. Luke says those who have good and noble hearts. I guess that’s the go to 10-10-10 fertilizer. Still, weeds grow, plants wilt, dry out and drown, and sometimes fail. Like our lives.

And that leads me back to the parable’s title: The Parable of the Sower. The parable is less about the quality of our faith and actions and more about God’s fiercely devoted heart. 

When it comes to seeding love, God is generous, if not reckless, indiscriminate, if not wasteful, determined, as in possessed. God, in this parable, does not get the less is more thing. The heart of God is profligate. 

Good for God. Great for us. We all need love over-seeded in our lives now and again. And at times we really, really need love over-seeded again and again. And for that, thank you Strategic Trauma Cleaning Services. Thank any and all who show up when we are knee deep in you know what.                                                                                                                                                                                         

Here’s what I imagine Ms. Pankhurst saying to me when I am obsessing about the quality of my dirt: “Get over yourself! It’s not all about you! Get with your neighbor. Pick up a mop, and don’t forget to put on your mask.”

We belong to the post-resurrection Church. Jesus, for us, is less a person and more a way of life. Jesus was back then. Christ is right now. Christ as presence. Christ as action. Christ in and as us.

Christ as us. Those who have finer polish and more means than the majority of the world. Our social location calls for a Christ-like caution. 

In the Specialized Trauma Cleaning Service, the distinction between server and served is transfigured into us, just us. Little noblesse oblige in the body of Christ. 

Generosity of the more privileged toward the less privileged has little to do with the Jesus Movement. Just us, all of us, making our way together through life-the-way-it-really-is. Down and out. Up and out. And those in between. 

A few days ago, at breakfast, while reflecting on having watched Clean the night before, Victoria said, “The fundamental questions are, for all of us, it seems: “Am I enough? Do I have enough?” 

When we ask these questions in a materially saturated culture, the answer is usually no, whether we are on a fixed income or have a big bank account spilling over into investments. 

Always scratching in the dirt to be more and have more. A less anxious me. The latest driver to correct my slice. Or, more concisely and succinctly put, words of Damon, protagonist in Barbara Kingsolver’s latest novel: Demon Copperhead: “The landfill is where I figured out one of my main philosophies, that everybody alive is basically in the process of trading out their old stuff for different stuff, day in and day out.” 

When we ask Victoria’s questions about enough, from the standpoint of a less domesticated Jesus Movement, the answers are more nuanced. 

From such a social location, our faith might whisper: “Maybe I am enough. Possibly we are enough.” 

Gospel identity is simple: We relate, therefore I am. 

Amen.

July 24, 2022 - Rev. Ralph Moore

Rev. Ralph Moore

Hosea lives in Samaria in the northern kingdom after it has split off from the southern kingdom centered in Jerusalem—about mid-8th-century BCE—and in the poetry of his thirty or so years we feel the pain of a personal faith stretched to the limit. The kingdom is shattering by assassinations of kings and other royalty, corruption among the wealthy, and the disappearance of any loyalty to the ancient covenant between the people and God. Hosea's spiritual strength is such that he can interpret the infidelity of his wife as a metaphor for the disintegration of his society--national infidelity. But he doesn't give up; even in the end of today's reading he writes predicts that some day the people can again be called “Children of the living God.” His fears come true: shortly after his death the kingdom is devoured by the forces of Assyria. 

Jump ahead 700 years to Jesus and his people. The tyrants and rulers are different, but the living conditions are the same. Picture the circle around Jesus: male, female, young, old, mostly poor, mostly Jews, immigrants, slaves. What attracts them to Jesus? Their life situations are best described as desperate. They are trying to survive in a society ruled by a puppet king and his religious cronies whose power and authority depend on a vicious Roman occupation force. Daily arrests, disappearances, forced labor, prison, executions, poverty and illness. They've given up on religion. 

Jesus is a new experience of hope for them. “The law and the prophets,” he has said: “they still offer us hope.” The Torah, the teachings the covenant between God and the people, and the prophets who speak truth to the power-mongers that defame the Torah. In these is our capacity for not just survival but for new strength and growth toward justice. Well how should we pray, then? Jesus repeats age-old daily prayer phrases.. “Awe and praise to you, Eternal. Our hearts are humbled. We yearn for your presence among us as we struggle for the essentials of life. We seek release from our wrong doing as we release all who have wronged us. May we not be tested beyond our endurance.”  He stops talking. Silence. They stare at him. “That's it, that's all!” 

I recall a televised interview that Bill Moyers has in 1991 with the Dalai Lama, who  states his view on the essential path to world peace. “The essence of any good religion,” says the Dalai Lama, “is the good heart….There are many philosophies and systems of thought but they mostly can be obstacles for good heart.” He stops talking. Silence. Bill Moyers then says, “Is that all?” The Dalai Lama answers, “Well, what's wrong with that?” “Nothing,” says Bill Moyers, “but when I look around the world…..”

Just before he dies, Jesus sums it all up for those closest to him, as they share the last supper. “Love one another. Exactly as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” The power that frees us to forgive and to be forgiven...the courage to breathe deeply in quietness and humility and kindness...the joy and awe over the goodness and beauty of the gift of life given to us...And: “Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.” A theologian from South Africa once made a statement in a sermon that stays with me constantly. She said, “Jesus' resurrection began well before his death.” This path we are on, before our deaths, is potentially a opening of the risen life in us. There's an outside world of conflict, strife, oppression. The people rise above and beyond that, transformed into what Martin Luther King calls “the beloved community,” or, in Jesus' words, “the kingdom of God has come near.” Luke himself, in the Book of Acts uses the primary word to describe how the disciples live during the years after the crucifixion of Jesus--”koinonia,” the commons, sharing all with each other and caring for others in need.” “Church.” And then change in the world emerges as a result. 

But of course this doesn't happen without effort, without persistence. “If you, who are imperfect, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Holy Spirit be given to those who are open to receive it!” Do you believe that? Do you trust that that is true, that it can happen to you? It means paying attention, spending time, making an effort, going deeply into yourself. It means trusting that there can be new hope, “hope with teeth.” (D Lama: sleep in a room with a mosquito.) The Lord's Prayer: “Eternal, reveal yourself, please. Set the world aright. Keep us alive with the essentials. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe enduring what we face.” Spirit, dwell in me. (Spirit means breath—the name of God.) Jesuit philosopher Teilhard De Chardin:“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." Jesus is not shouting when he says: “Keep knocking on the door until it opens, and it will.” 

That's where all this is going for us as we agonize over this world we live in. persistent care within each of us as relationship in community. In our nation right now  is a distortion a distortion of Christianity itself has become politicized. I've come across the work of a man named David Skeel, a professor of law in the University of Pennsylvania and an active member of a Presbyterian congregation in Philadelphia. He appears in the Wall Street Journal. “When Christians seek to usher in the kingdom of God through law,” he writes, “they are denying Christianity's teachings, not promoting them.” And: “Complexity is not an embarrassment for Christianity; it is Christianity's natural element.” The laws that are the most successful are those “that actually help to create relationships in our communities.” Christians seek “the flourishing” of others. 

We are being reminded about the daily need to live into the possibility that the Spirit can come into every human heart (the “good heart”) We do not choose the alternatives to win in politics by any means necessary as promoted by “religious nationalism.” In the nourishing to relationships. In the cost and joy of discipleship. And let's stress that gift of joy. Keep knocking—Rumi says, “sooner or later you become the door itself.”

I give the last word to poet Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate.

Give in to it.

There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be.

We are not wise, and not very often kind.

And much can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left.

Perhaps this is its way fo fighting back,

that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world.

It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins.

Anyway, that's often the case.

Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty.

Joy is not made to be a crumb.

July 11, 2021 - Rev. Ralph Moore

The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (year B proper 10) 

Sam 6.1-5,12b-19; Ps 24; Eph 1.1-14; Mk 6.14-29

When we read certain parts of the Bible we can get agitated. The discord and conflict in the situations described, the agony in human lives, the intensity of the historical period. This morning. David acclaimed king by all the tribes, the result of a lot of violent conflict. Now they are making their way to the holy hill that is known as Jerusalem. The Ark of God, that ancient container of the tablets of the law made by Moses that represents the presence of God is being moved to a new location to a tent that David sets up. Upon its arrival a great ritual celebration erupts, complete with sacrifices and wild noisy music and dancing, led by an exuberant David. Michal, daughter of former king Saul, is displeased by David’s exuberance. That’s the reading. But... 

This lesson by itself is sanitized. The hill city is ruled by Jebusites, a Cannanite tribe that refuses to allow David and his people to settle there. Rather than fight, David establishes a new location in what is called the City of David; (to this day it is being fully examined by archeologists). Over time the Jews finally inhabit Jerusalem through negotiation and inter-marriage. Omitted from our lesson is that strange incident while the Ark is being carried. As it’s about to tilt one of the leaders touches it and is struck dead. (By God?) And, Michal, identified here only as Saul’s daughter, is David’s wife. Her disgust over David’s wild dancing reveals a family feud. When David gets home she yells. What a glorious day for the king, when he exposed his person in the sight of his servants’ slave-girls like an empty headed fool! To which David replies, this was done in God’s presence…he choose me instead of your father and family and I will dance forever for the Lord and cause you and whoever else more disgust!Then, Michal, Saul’s daughter, had no child to her dying day. The back story is that David earlier longed for Michal and Saul demanded a high cost for her down 100 Philistine foreskins; David brought him 200. As Saul began to lose his mind, he tried to have David killed, and he took Michal back and gave her to another man, and David then got her back. The environments of these narratives are conflict, violence, and death. 

Mark’s gospel doesn’t let up. We don’t have to go into all the details of violence in the Roman occupation of Jesus’ day. Here we have a local puppet ruler called  œKing Herod. He’s not a king at all but the son of the late Herod who was king when Jesus was born. He is overseer of the northern region of Galilee. Though he has tolerated the teachings of John the baptizer, he finally can’t stand the prophet’s criticism of his having divorced his first wife and then married Herodias, wife of his late brother. She hates John. So, at Herod’s birthday feast Herodias’ daughter (Salome) dances and he asks what reward she wishes, and goaded by her mother she asks for John’s head. Disciples take John’s body. The location of that and his head are still unknown. Richard Strauss’ opera  œSalome presents the gory tale quite adequately. More conflict, violence, and death.

Well, aren’t we glad that we live in a world where those kinds of things don’t happen anymore? And, of course, we really do. Not exactly the same, but maybe much worse. The genius of the biblical stories ”for Jews, Christians, and Muslims ”is that they are preserved not as idealized portraits of saints, but as reports of real people whose decisions and actions result in suffering and defeat and sometimes blessing. There is some insight, perhaps some humility. Perhaps, some trace of the Creator. Through all of these centuries of narratives and poems is a thread, a reality, of human heart, as our ancestors discover their destructiveness, and their humility, and truth, identified as grace.  Somewhere in all of these stories are prophets. Samuel himself is one ”early on he tried to talk the people out of having a king. Watch out for Nathan, who announces the decisive judgment of David himself. The Ephesians lesson ends in a phrase that translates:  œthere is a pledge in our inheritance as people of God that we will be rescued. Jesus upholds the centrality not of the canonical histories as though they are pure, but of the law and the prophets (including the poetry of the Psalms): Micah’s  seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly; today’s Psalm:  œWho can ascend the hill of the Lord and who can stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and a pure heart, who have not pledged themselves to falsehood, nor sworn by what is a fraud. 

The pandemic and unique crises of hostility and disunity that we’re living right now lands us in the same uncomfortable place as these stories. If we’re smart, we will discern and learn from the new revelations of who we have become and are yet to become, as a country and as neighbors of human beings in the total world. High levels of poverty, homelessness, displaced people, refugees, hate crimes ”what is the normal being mentioned as desirable to recover? Individually, each of us knows unfinished business of our lives. As people of the Beloved Community formed by Jesus, maybe we can commit ourselves to new normals–new support for adequate public health systems; a new sense of our place among sisters and brothers of every other nation; new behaviors in relation to our neighbors of other races and classes. And, most of all, new acceptance of the gift of hope, freedom from despair, faith in the goodness of soul that’s in us. 

Last week frequent references were made to the speech Frederick Douglas delivered to the Republican Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester on July 5, 1852, entitled What to the slave is the 4th of July? He makes all of the truthful points with unerring accuracy, and then, after such a rehearsal of unvarnished reality, he closes with words of hope and optimism and recites a poem by William Lloyd Garrison:

 œGod speed the day when human blood shall cease to flow/In every clime be understood 

The claims of human brotherhood,/And each return for evil, good,/Not blow for blow;That day will come all feuds to end,/And change into a faithful friend/Each foe.

The members of an investment firm recently completed a self-study and came up with a list of values and qualities that they’d like to apply to their work:  œAgility, Consistency, Collaboration, Compassion, Justice, and Compassion. That’s impressive ¦..

Maya Angelou says,  œWhen we look to the past we do so with forgiveness, when look to the future we do so with deep prayer, we look into the present we do so with deep gratitude ”the beautiful actions follow ¦.. 

So may it be with us.

Sunday, July 18, 2021

A Sermon
The Reverend Richard E. Greenleaf St. Georges Chapel

18 July 2021
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 11B
Morning Prayer II

2 Samuel 7:1-14a Psalm 89:20-37 Ephesians 2:11-22 Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

---

God, make thy word a swift word, passing from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the life and conversation: that as the rain returns not empty, so neither may thy word, but accomplish that for which it is given. O Lord, hear, O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken, and do so for thy blessed Sons sake, in whose sweet name we pray. Amen.

George Herbert, 1593-1633

I once was acquainted with a man, an accomplished man, a learned man,

a clergy-man who was elected bishop of a diocese

that included a number of Indian reservations, and the Episcopal Churches therein, which were many.

Once installed, the new bishop set off on a tour of all the churches in his new diocese, churches great, but mostly small, and prepared a paper to deliver on the phenomenology of pastoral care in such places, a subject on which he had done doctoral work and wanted to use as his personal mission statement for his work among reservation parishes. At one of these small parishes, the bishop entered, vested in cope and mitre, carrying his Episcopal crosier, and began the service in the usual way.

When it came to the time for the homily, the bishop introduced his subject on the phenomenology of pastoral care and his intentions for how it applied to reservation parishes in his diocese.

But as he launched into his sermon,

a man in one of the front rows slowly stood up, a man who was an elder in the community, an elder in years,

but more importantly

an elder in church and tribal standing.

The elder stood and slowly but deliberately began to make his way forward

while the new bishop –pretending not to notice–

continued with his learned sermon.

To the bishops surprise,

the elder mounted the few small steps to the pulpit,

circled the bishop, reached over,

lifted the script

of the bishops carefully crafted sermon,

and just as slowly walked down the steps on the other side of the pulpit.

When the elder got back to the floor,

he turned back to the astonished preacher

and simply said,  Speak to us, Bishop. And then he took his seat.

Speak to us.

I have taken the liberty of telling you this story because the bishop in question told it to me, and he told this story in public not a few times.

I also tell you this story because it is a good admonition for every preacher, especially so-called learned preachers of which I, by training and vocation, supposedly am one.

But more importantly, I tell you this story because

I believe it touches something at the heart of todays Gospel,

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and that is the ravenous hunger of people

–of all of us for a word.

A ravenous hunger to be truly,

authentically , and personally

spoken to.

And Scripture tells us that wherever Jesus went that is exactly what he did.

Earlier, in the Gospel of Mark:

Jesus and his disciples went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, Jesus entered the  synagogue and taught, and They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one  having authority, and not as the scribes. (Mark 1:21-22) 

A little later, after Jesus had delivered a man supposedly possessed, 

They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another,  What is this? A new  teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.(Mark 1: 27) 

After Jesus stilled the storm on the Sea of Galilee, his disciples, were filled with great awe and said to one another, Who then is this, that even the wind  and the sea obey him? (Mark 4:41) 

And then, in the Gospel of John, the Samaritan woman meets Jesus at the well and after that left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, Come and see a man  who told me everything I have ever done! (John 4: 28-29) 

Or in the words of another translation,

Come and see a man who told me everything that I am!

And the woman concludes

with the wide-eyed question,

He cannot be the Messiah, can he?

Speak to us!

Speak to us as one with real authority.

Speak to us with words that even the sea and winds obey. Speak to us with words that tell us all that we are.

This past week,

I was hungry for such a word.

Last Saturday, I attended a party for an old friend and colleague that was a combination birthday, house-warming, and retirement party. Family, friends, and colleagues came from near and far to celebrate my friend,

and the toasts and testimonials were many.

What was left mostly unsaid, though, was that my friend had retired early because he had developed not one but two neuro-muscular conditions that left him unable to continue working.

The following day, last Sunday, my wife Jenny and I traveled to Yarmouth, Maine to attend the celebration of the life of my late cousin, Kathy Greenleaf. Four years ago, following the death of her husband, my late cousin Peter Greenleaf, Kathy had been diagnosed with a virulent cancer

for which she was, fortunately, treated in a drug trial that worked quite well for her, at least for a while.

But last fall the cancer returned, and it was angry, and just before Christmas it took Kathy.

And then this past Monday, Jenny and I moved her 90 year old father

from a family members home in Massachusetts to a memory care unit near us in southern Maine, all because of the effects of a stroke he had suffered some eight years ago that left him blind and with mild dementia.

In each of these moments I had a moment

where I thought, What do you say?

What can you possibly say

that would make a bit of difference?

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In todays gospel,

there are a number of such moments.

And what does Jesus do?

He first and foremost speaks to the people and situations as he found them.

He gives them a word.

And only after that does he . . .

feed them,

heal them,

and give them rest.

And because Jesus speaks to them in his Jesus way, everything is changed, transformed, redeemed.

And he is still speaking in this way today .

At last Saturdays party just when the tributes were about to get maudlin, and I was beginning to wonder What should I say? my not-obviously-religious friend quite unexpectedly introduced his new good friend the very young local rector, who proceeded to hug my friend and then, with pine bough and holy water, to bless the new house and all who lived in or visited it with the healing, life, and rest that Jesus came to bring. 

And in this, Jesus spoke.

At last Sundays supposedly non-religious gathering to honor my cousin Kathy, her older brother, a veteran of the foreign service and a cranky Yankee if ever there was one, began his remarks by saying we weren’t there to get all religious or mystic and I started to wonder What should I say?

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But then he went on to remember Kathy in terms that were profoundly religious, if not mystical, and deeply expressive of a Christian love and hope that, I dare say, seemed to be shared by all in attendance.

And in this, Jesus spoke.

And on Monday, when we were settling my father-in-law, Bob, into his new room in the memory unit, there were moments quite good and more than a few when we found ourselves wondering if this was going to work. One of those questionable moments came when the nurse was asking Bob, in front of a team of caregivers, how he wanted to handle going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I again found myself wondering, What should I say? But at the nurses question, Bob suddenly brightened, screwed up his lips, and let go a piercing whistle. And then sat there beaming, proud as a peacock, at which the assembled caregivers laughed and applauded. And in this, Jesus spoke. 

The Christian writer Anne Lamott says that there are really only 3 types of prayer: Help! Thanks! Wow! But to this I would add a fourth type of prayer: Speak to us. Give us a word.

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In answer to which God speaks his word Jesus. And if we would see who God is we need only see who Jesus was and what he did, and what he is and does even now. 

Jesus is Gods word to us.

The Word God spoke long ago and continues to speak to us today in our every situation.

And so let us conclude the way we began with the prayerful words of George Herbert.

O God, make thy word a swift word, passing from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the life and conversation: that as the rain returns not empty, so neither may thy word, but accomplish that for which it is given. O Lord, hear, O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken, and do so for thy blessed Sons sake, in whose sweet name we pray. Amen.

George Herbert, 1593-1633